Page 6

CHAPTER FIVE

September 14, 1996

Saturday, the wee hours

T here were only two choices: get a hotel room and catch some sleep or go back to the airport and wait for a departing flight. It was nearly one o’clock. By the time we picked out a hotel and got a room it would be two. There’d be flights in just a few hours. I wanted to go home and send this kid on his way as soon as possible.

“Airport.”

Spencer turned us around and drove for about a block before he said, “You haven’t been here long. You sure you don’t wanna stick around take in the sights? It’s a great place. Lots to do and not just gambling. There’s shows and great places to eat. Lots of buffets. There’s, like, hiking and stuff. Nature, you know?”

“Yeah, we came on business,” I said. “And we just concluded that business so I think we’d like to go. No offense to Reno.”

“Hey, I’m just letting you know… It’s a great place.”

I didn’t buy it. I looked over at Cass again. He was in shock. Part of me wanted to fix that, but it also seemed a good idea to let him stew in his juices.

The drive to the airport wasn’t even ten minutes. It was late enough that Spencer was able to speed through the city, zipping through a couple of yellow lights that I would definitely have stopped at. We pulled up in front of the terminal about forty feet from where we’d found Spencer to begin with. As promised, I gave him a hundred-dollar bill.

“Thanks, man.” As we climbed out of the van he added, “Enjoy the rest of your stay and your trip back to… you know, wherever.”

Once we were inside the terminal, I realized I’d been so intent on getting to a pay phone when we landed that I’d barely looked around. The ticket area was under construction and half of it was covered by dingy tarps and scaffolding. The remaining ticket counters were squeezed together and their signage had been compressed into a much smaller space. None of the counters were open at that time of the morning.

Opposite the counters hung an electrified board that listed the flights. I went and stood in front of it. The first flight out to Detroit was United Airlines at 5:15. Reno Air had a flight back to Long Beach leaving at 6:10. My plan was that we’d be on separate flights.

“I think you should forget about this and just go home now,” I said to Cass.

“No. I’m not going to forget about it.”

“Look, Gavin told me your dad got in trouble with the mob and ended up in Lake Erie. He had to have been given that information by your mom.”

“She never told me that.”

“Well, she wouldn’t, would she?”

“You don’t know her.”

“It makes sense, though. Your dad might not have been part of The Partnership, but he crossed someone who was. Your mom knows that, but what could she do? She wouldn’t have gone to the police. That would have been dangerous. She’d be better off pretending your dad ran off, so she got rid of his stuff and sold his identity. It’s best to leave this alone.”

“You’re wrong.”

“Okay. What’s your explanation?” There was a long pause while he tried to think of one. I waited. And waited. And I finally said, “You know, I think I’d like to find a men’s room.”

It had been a really long time since I’d taken a piss. I left the kid standing there. There was a wide hallway leading out to the gates. I could see the metal detector partway down. A bored looking security guard sat next to it. There were restrooms just before you had to go through security. I went in and took my time. Yeah, I needed to do my business, but I also had to think.

I’d just challenged the kid to come up with another explanation. Was he going to be able to? What would it be? And did he even care? Joanne Di Stefano knew her husband was dead. She’d told Gavin so.

Of course, she might have lied to make his papers more valuable. I’d paid five thousand because it was a life I could just step into. Okay, that hadn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped. But still…

And maybe the real Dom Reilly was out there somewhere living a life he’d bought somewhere and just stepped into. It was possible. But the more I thought about it the more unlikely it seemed.

I washed my hands, threw some cold water on my face, and walked back out to the ticketing area. Outside on the sidewalk there were a couple of janitors smoking. Opposite the ticket area was baggage claim. A guy in a rumpled suit slept on one of the benches over there. A luggage carousel was turning though it held no luggage and wouldn’t for hours.

Cass was standing under the arrivals and departures sign looking like he hadn’t moved at all. I stood next to him and waited. After a bit, I said, “I’d like to go home and forget this whole thing. I think you should do the same.”

“I have to know if she killed him.”

“No, you don’t. Has she been a good mother to you?”

“She a great mom.”

The picture he’d painted of a flamboyant gambler wasn’t of a classic great mom, but I didn’t want to lose the advantage. “Then nothing else matters.”

“Even if she killed him?”

“Maybe she was a great mom because she killed him. Maybe she’s making it up to you.”

It was a stretch, I know. Killer mom makes good. But he was just a kid and it might not be hard to put one over?—

“That’s bullshit.”

“Okay, if she’s a great mom then she couldn’t have killed him. That’s your answer.”

“You’re right. She didn’t do it.”

I felt a surge of relief. I’d be home by lunch. Ronnie would have clients in the afternoon. I’d be able to take a long nap and figure out how to fix things with him by the time he got home.

“I still need to know who killed him.”

Ah, shit. I felt my afternoon nap slipping away.

“Do you have any idea how dangerous it might be trying to find out? Not only to you and me, but to your mom?”

“It’s only going to be dangerous if you fuck up. Are you going to fuck up?”

“Not on purpose. But the way these things go… We don’t know a lot about what happened to your dad. That means we don’t know if we’re fucking up or not.”

“We’re not going to talk to anyone in the mob. You feel better?”

“No. Sometimes just talking about the wrong people is enough to get you killed.”

“You’re smart enough to figure this out.”

“That’s flattering. But it’s not true.”

“I think it is. And it’s up to me.”

I walked away. I pulled the tin of Bayer aspirin out of my back pocket and returned to the men’s room. My shoulder was screaming again, so I ran some water into my scooped hand and swallowed four aspirin. It was more pleasant than chewing them. I walked back out and just stood there for a while.

I should go back and tell the kid to fuck off. What could he really do to me anyway? Lots. He could do lots. He could call Ronnie and tell him I wasn’t really Dom Reilly. Well, I think my boyfriend already had at least some idea that was true. Ronnie would help me. We’d have to get Dom Reilly’s name off our co-op. That meant a quit claim and a refinanced mortgage—awkward since I think we’d just made the first payment. We probably couldn’t get that done before Cass called the DMV and told them my license was a fraud. That would be bad. Definitely illegal and likely to have consequences. Who else could he call? The IRS. Social Security. Those would be even stickier.

I’d probably have to leave as soon as I signed a quit claim for Ronnie. Hell, I could tell him to sign it himself and not even go back. And then what? The kid could get Ronnie in trouble. The fact that I’d gotten a mortgage as someone I’m not was kind of a federal crime, and if they thought Ronnie knew about he’d be in a lot of trouble even if I were nowhere to be found. For a real estate agent to be accused of mortgage fraud or even suspected—well, that was definitely a career killer. Which meant he’d lose his boyfriend and his career in short order. I couldn’t do it. I loved him too much for that. I was running out of options.

When I got back to the ticketing area there were still no agents. I picked the time off the arrivals and departures sign. It was almost two. We had about two more hours to wait before we could buy tickets to anywhere.

Cass had found a bench next to the start of the construction. He was sitting there just staring. I stood a bit away just watching him. I wished I was the kind of guy who could drag the kid into the men’s room and drown him in a toilet. Then I could come out, leave the terminal, find a taxi, and go to the bus station to catch a Greyhound to Long Beach. Problem solved.

Who was I kidding? I couldn’t kill a teenager. Not with my shoulder. Also… I didn’t actually like killing people. Even when they deserved it.

I went over and sat down next to the kid. I said, “You know, killing people isn’t as much fun as it sounds.”

“I never said it sounded fun.”

“No. But you did make it sound like a rational response and it’s not that either.”

He shrugged. “That’s your opinion.”

“I’ve killed three men. In self-defense. Drowned one, stabbed one, shot one. I feel guilty. People think I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. I think about those deaths and try to image scenarios where I didn’t have to kill them, where I talked my way out of things, where it didn’t come down to my life or theirs. They weren’t good guys, they did bad things and they’d have kept doing bad things if I hadn’t killed them. But the thing is, it’s not up to me. I don’t get to be judge and jury and executioner all rolled into one. And neither do you.”

“You think you’re a better person than I am.”

“That’s what you took from that?”

“You feel bad because you killed bad people. I think I’m going to feel bad if I don’t.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that. I kept trying to come up with an argument that would convince him to go home and forget all this, but that didn’t happen. After a while, the kid fell asleep.

I was going to have to figure out who killed Dom Reilly. I had no other choice. Now I really hoped The Partnership didn’t kill him. I had experience with The Outfit in Chicago. A lot of experience. And I knew it was best if you kept those people as far away from you as possible.

We were going to have to talk to people who knew Dom and Joanne around the time of his disappearance. Maybe we shouldn’t come right out and ask if there were any connections to The Partnership. Let people volunteer that information and then pretend to ignore it. What else? I was looking for motive. If I knew who might want him dead, then I had the possible murderer. Was he having an affair? Did he owe anyone money? Did he have enemies? Standard stuff, but it didn’t hurt to remind myself.

The kid was still asleep when the United ticket counter opened at four-forty-five. A woman in her late twenties opened it up. She was pretty but not stewardess pretty. She wore a white, long-sleeved shirt with a burgundy tie. Over that was a navy sweater vest that had a United Airlines logo embroidered into it.

“Good morning, how can I help you?” she asked when I reached the counter.

“I’d like two tickets on your first flight to Detroit.”

She clicked her CRT terminal a few times. Then a few more times. She looked up and smiled at me before she said, “It’s a little slow first thing.” A couple moments later she said, “Oh, there we go. Let’s see… Yes, I have two tickets. Do you have a seat preference?”

“Aisle please.”

The kid might want to sit by the window, but I was paying for these so screw him.

“All right then. I have a flight leaving at 5:15 with boarding beginning momentarily. That gets in to Denver at 8:37 mountain time. You’ll have an hour and twenty-seven-minute layover. You’ll leave at 10:04 and arrive in Detroit at 2:48 eastern time. You’re lucky, you’ll be getting breakfast and lunch.”

Then she told me the price for two tickets, just over a thousand dollars, and I didn’t feel so lucky. I handed her a credit card. She read my name off the card as she put it into the CRT. “Dominick Reilly. And your fellow passenger?”

“Cassidy Reilly.”

She looked by me to Cass sleeping on the bench. “Son?”

“Nephew,” I replied. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to try and explain our actual relationship.

She ran my card through a credit card reader and made me sign the slip. As I did, she said, “I have you in seats 27D and 27E Reno to Denver and then seats 34B and 34C Denver to Detroit. The first flight isn’t full so you should be able to spread out. The second flight is a little busier.”

Then she printed out the tickets, took them out of the printer, folded everything up, and put it all into a custom folder about the size of an envelope.

“Your tickets are in here, your tickets serve as your boarding passes, no need to stop at the desk, you can get right on the plane. Your carbon is in there as well. Just go to gate C5. Any questions?”

“No, I think we’re fine. Thanks.”

I walked back to Cass and tapped his foot with mine. When he stirred, I said, “Come on, it’s time to go.” He followed me over to the security check like a zombie. I’d forgotten how deeply teenagers slept.

He put his backpack onto the conveyor belt and it went through the box. One after the other, we went through the walk-through scanner. I was second. Not surprisingly it went off just as it had at LAX.

“Stand over there on the X,” he said.

As I did that, Cass went to pick up his backpack.

The guard said, “Hold on.” Then went over and opened the backpack and rifled through it. I had no idea what was in there. I had a few nervous moments, but then I remembered the kid had gotten through LAX security just fine and he’d barely been out of my sight.

The security guy zipped the bag up. He was frowning, he’d probably have been happier if he’d found something. He reached under the conveyer and took out the metal-detecting wand. He came over to me and began waving it around me.

“I have screws and a plate in my shoulder blade.”

He looked at me skeptically, found the spot with his wand, the reached out and poked around the spot with two fingers. That hurt like hell, but I kept quiet. I tried to blame all this on his being an old white guy trying to wield his tiny bit of power, but then I remembered we’d been there for hours, had a couple of intense conversations that might have looked like arguments, not to mention we barely had any luggage and weren’t dressed for the weather—or at least I wasn’t. We were probably lucky he wasn’t strip-searching us. He finally let us pass and we went up an escalator to the gates.

When we reached the top, I said to Cass, “And that is why you don’t buy a gun in Reno and try to bring it back to Detroit.”