Billy Povich: Loot The Moon Part 12

Sobbing into the sand, struggling for air, Billy told them in fractured sentences of the judges mistress in New York, and of Martins meeting with her. He told them of the theory that Rackers was paid to kill the judge, and he confessed that he knew Rhubarb Glanz had made a threat.

He sold out Martin, the mistress, and the clerk.

The sand fell no more. Billy never heard the three goons walk away. Just the pop of three doors and the crunch of the tires fading to nothingness in the night.

fifteen.

Billy lay still as the silence swept up after the sound of the car. Glanzs goons had just left him in the pit, under what felt like several hundred pounds of sand. Did they leave him to escape? Or leave him to die? They probably didnt give a d.a.m.n. They had not been ordered to kill Billy, or he would be dead. They had been ordered to get information in whatever manner proved effective. Turned out, a kidnapping, a beating, and a premature burial proved highly effective. Mission accomplished, so they went home.

They didnt care enough about Billy to free him or even to finish him off.

He was pinned on his back, twisted slightly toward his left side, under a cone of damp sand several feet high, the point of which looked to be about at his thighs. The sand sloped steeply toward his head and had begun to fill the bottom of the trench, where Billy had frantically cleared s.p.a.ce to breathe. The other side of the pile sloped less sharply toward his feet. Billy realized they had intentionally spared his head the worst of the sand to allow him to talk. Had he been fresh, untenderized by a shovel, and not bound hand and foot, he might have wormed his way out of the pile. But for the moment, he was trapped. His hands were near his mouth, and he used an index finger to brush sand from his eyes and to swab inside his nostrils.

Screaming for help would probably just waste energy, which his injured body would need to survive a cold night. The work crew building this project would arrive in a few hours. Then he could scream, a.s.suming they didnt have a day off or a union strike.

The part of his brain that enjoyed torturing the rest of him created an image of Bo and the old man struggling in gray smoke. In this fantasy, Billy could smell charcoal and hear smoke alarms screech. He could see Bo tug at the old mans arm, but the boy could not move him and the smoke got thicker and their movements ... slowed ... down ... .

Jesus Christ ! Enough!

He shook the image away. This scenario was one in a million. Maybe one in ten million. Why couldnt he stop thinking about it? He sighed. He obsessed, he figured, because the stakes were infinitely high. My boys life. He would talk to Bo. Later today after he was rescued from the trench. Make the kid promise to save himself. Billy thrashed angrily against the prison of sand, and relished the pain that a.s.sured him he was alive and awake. He knew talking to Bo was no good-the boy would promise anything, but hed never leave his grandpa.

Not while the old man was alive.

"Youre a f.u.c.king burden!" he heard himself scream aloud. "You cheating son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

He screamed in his mind: Die if you want.

Billy stopped his struggle and lay very still. He cursed the dark notion in his head. Die if you want. He denied it. Not my thought. Not my thought. The tears he could not deny, burning lightly like diluted acid in his eyes. He realized he was losing consciousness, blending dream and reality. He saw his son and his father in the apartment again. There was no smoke. They were eating breakfast in the middle of the night and watching an infomercial on television about that mechanical bed that rose up and down at the touch of a b.u.t.ton. Operators are standing by ... . Side by side they sat. His father and his son. Two old pals with the same blue eyes. The true source of Billys anger suddenly revealed itself. He was not afraid of losing his son in a fire, not really. He was enraged by the knowledge that the boy would never abandon the old man who had abandoned Billy.

He bit hard and crunched sand between his molars, and thought about the three decades after the old man had left the family. And then he seethed at the irony, which seemed at the moment the product of a G.o.d with a sick sense of humor-after the old mans bad health had finally broken him and brought him to Billys door to claim the unearned love that was his by blood, he wanted to stop his treatments, and leave Billy again.

Billy imagined footsteps, dashing lightly in the sand.

He pictured Bo running toward him, but the footsteps were too quick and rhythmic to be those of a little boy, and the fantasy dissolved.

He withdrew from his dreamworld and felt the snap of reality in the stabbing pain in his rib.

He listened.

The footsteps grew louder, too loud not to be real. Nearly on top of him, they stopped. He held his breath and stared out from the hole.

The dark outline of a human figure eclipsed the stars.

Billy did not flinch. He breathed silent, shallow breaths. Should he call out, or stay invisible, buried under shadows? Trapped and beaten, barely conscious, he had never been so vulnerable. Fear throttled him and he said nothing.

The figure wavered over the hole for what seemed a long time. Its feet sent tiny avalanches of pebbles down the side of the trench.

Then a womans voice softly and urgently called, "Povich?"

Billy gasped. A familiar voice he could not place. But the voice was real; he was sure of it. Tears flooded his eyes again; he had never heard such beauty in his own name.

"Im-Im here. Im in the sand."

"Are they gone? All of them?"

Billy did not know for sure, but he could not take the chance she might become afraid and leave him. "Yes," he ventured. "Were alone." He wondered who she was, and she read his mind- "Its Kit Ba.s.s," she said. "I was Judge Harmonys clerk. I saw you the day they opened his will, though we were not formally introduced."

After a half beat of silence, Billy offered, "Well, how do you do?"

She chuckled softly. Billy recalled her face: narrow and a little mousy; two dozen freckles, heavier on one side than the other; small upturned nose; eyes that looked sleepy when she smiled, as if she had just woken to something-or someone-who made her very happy.

"Those three men work for Rhubarb Glanz," she said. "The little one is Robbie-hes Glanzs son. Aint he a son of a b.i.t.c.h? The day will come when I kick his a.s.s. According to my research, the other two used to be cellmates, if that tells you anything. Ive been following them since my own run-in at Glanzs nightclub. Tonight, I saw them drive behind your office."

"They sent me a fax. Maybe from a laptop, I dont know. Got me to run out the back door, into a trap."

"I ducked down in my car when they drove away. They pa.s.sed under a streetlight and I recognized you riding with them." She paused. "Forgive me, Mr. Povich-"

"Its Billy, please."

"-but I didnt know if you were mixed up with them. So I followed you. Robbie Glanz always drives at exactly the speed limit so its easy to keep a safe distance without losing them." She paused. "Youre not really Martin Smotherss law clerk, are you?"

"His clerk makes a lot more money than I do."

"Youre his investigator." She didnt bother to wait for confirmation. Dropping to her knees at the edge of the hole, she said, "How bad are you hurt?"

"Im trapped in here, buried." He thought about the question and realized he had not answered it. "Im fading out."

"Its so dark ... . I have a flare in my trunk."

Billy shuddered; she was asking permission to leave his side.

"My car is hidden up the road about a mile, as close as I dared to leave it."

A mile? "Thats gonna take nearly an hour to hike up and back," Billy said. "I dont know if I can stay awake."

She stood and dusted off, chuckling as if she had just heard something cute and naive, like from the mouth of a child. "See you in twelve minutes, Billy," she promised. "Five and a half minutes to the car, five and a halfback. Sixty seconds to open the trunk."

With that, she dashed off.

The flares fluttering red glow turned a small circle of the moonscape into Mars. Like an enormous firecracker, the flare hissed dangerously and reminded Billy of what Garafino, the shark, had told him about messing with Rhubarb Glanz. Do you puff dynamite like a big red cigar?

Kit had found a long-handled shovel at the construction site. She wore loose-fitting shorts and a tight half tank. Her skin glistened in the red light. Her thighs were braids of muscle. Her thin arms, hanging from squared-off swimmers shoulders, were deceptively strong, and she filled the shovel with big helpings of sand. She worked to free him as rhythmically as the goons had to bury him.

Twelve minutes, she had said. Billy doubted she had been gone even that long. This woman was built for speed, he marveled. He watched her dig for a few minutes. He thought about Gil Harmony. How did the judge inspire so much loyalty from one law clerk?

Billy said, "The day they opened the will, I left before the judge came to you on the video. Im curious. What did he leave you?"

She smiled sadly and kept digging, though a little more slowly. "His Bible, thats all. No money, which he knew I wouldnt have taken. Just his mothers old family Bible, which stayed in his desk when he served in the state senate, to remind him that Somebody was looking down on him. When he was appointed to the bench, he used that Bible to swear his oath of office."

"I didnt know he was a religious man."

"Not outwardly pious. Congregationalist. Liked the social aspect of church. But I know that he prayed."

"Why do you think he left you the Bible?"

She stopped for a moment, leaned on the shovel. "Because he wanted me to know that hed be looking down on me." She smiled sadly at Billy, and then went back to work. "We should call the cops when I get you out of here. What they did violates chapter eleven of the criminal code, sections five and twenty-six dash one, felonious a.s.sault and kidnapping. With their criminal records, they could each get up to forty years."

"They wont."

"Well, even if they pleaded down to get concurrent sentences, theyre looking at hard time."

"Were not calling the cops."

"What-? Thats ridiculous. They nearly killed you."

"My word against theirs. They have better lawyers than the state. Theyll never do any time."

"The grand jury can make their lives miserable. Maybe an indictment would put a scare into them?"

Billy sighed. Kit knew the General Laws of Rhode Island by heart. But she never studied under a professor like Rhubarb Glanz. He told her, "One hour after Robbie Glanz gets a subpoena on a p.i.s.sy little charge like this, I will accidentally fall down a flight of stairs to my death. Maybe more than once."

"They cant-Im a witness."

"Theyll kill you, too."

She heaved a shovel of dirt with a grunt and said, "So what are we supposed to do? Cower in fear of these a.s.sholes? Let them do whatever they want to us? What about the law?"

"If youre going to take down the king, you better aim for the heart. We have to nail Rhubarb Glanz."

"Rhubarb Glanz wasnt here tonight," she said. "We cant prove he told those men to leave you buried, where you would have died of exposure."

"The sand is now quite warm, thank you, like a five-hundred-pound blanket."

"Billy!"

Sharply, he informed her, "Were going to take down Rhubarb Glanz for hiring a street punk to shoot Judge Harmony in cold blood."

He had stunned her. Kits hand covered her throat. "I was there," she whispered, "when Glanz made the threat."

"I know. Tell me what happened."

She explained softly, "Glanz came in with those two big goons and demanded Gil reduce the sentence he had imposed on David Glanz Jr., the son." She closed her eyes. Sweat droplets raked her cheek. "Ill never forget it. Gil and I were at lunch, talking about some decision he was writing. I remember clearly that after Glanz made his demand, Gil took his napkin from his lap and dabbed the corners of his mouth, staring through Glanz the whole time, before he slowly stood and told that old mobster where he could get off-not in those terms, of course-"

"Of course."

"-because Gil, the judge, I mean, was a gentleman. Glanz didnt even blink. He had to know a man of Gil Harmonys moral stature would never bend to a threat like that."

She looked at Billy and seemed to be waiting for him to agree. "Naturally," Billy said, absentmindedly. Her face distracted him; he noted how her dark eyes and her hard jawline softened when she spoke of the judge.

She shoveled in silence for a minute, sending tiny shock waves through the sand and into Billys body.

Then suddenly, as if the thought just struck her, she blurted, "You just said you knew? You knew about the threat? How could you? I wanted to report it to the cops afterward, but Gil persuaded me not to. He said it wasnt a serious threat, and that Glanz was just protecting his standing with his crooked employees. 'All for show, Gil said to me, before we both swore an oath of secrecy. n.o.body knows about the threat, not even ... his wife."

Oh, Jesus Christ, Billy thought in horror. She loved the judge. Kits face screamed it. She could barely force herself to acknowledge out loud that Gil Harmony had a wife. Billy felt the creep of the death smile on his face and turned his head to the sand.

"How could you know this, Billy?"

Billy concentrated on the pain in his ribs and obliterated the smile.

She waited for the answer, one hand on her hip like an impatient traveler at a bus stop. Her posture sent a subliminal message that the shovel would do no work until Billy admitted how he knew of the threat. She drilled him with her eyes.

Give it to her straight. She was tough and had wanted Billy to know it. He would not embarra.s.s her with mercy.

"I heard it from Mr. Smothers," Billy said, "who heard it in New York from the judges mistress, who had heard it from the judge."

Kit stepped backward. Her lips silently formed the word mistress. She looked away a moment, perhaps reconciling old memories and nagging questions with this new information. Then suddenly she returned to digging, faster and more violently than before.

Billy watched the flex of her muscles. She had not protested or probed for more information about this mistress.

Kit had not been the judges lover, Billy decided. The revelation about Gil Harmony had obviously surprised her, and no mistress would be surprised by a second mistress. Though the cynic inside Billy warned him to be careful. Maybe she was playing him with that subtle twitch of rage at the corner of her mouth. As Martin liked to say, there were a lot of great actors in the world.

The flare sputtered. Kit cleared the sand from Billy without another word and then cast the shovel aside. She helped him crawl free.

Pain provoked ironic laughter from Billy that trailed off into a groan and a cough. He flexed his arms and legs in a quick self-diagnostic. Nothing broken, he confirmed. The bone bruises on both elbows and his shins would be with him for a few weeks. A dark red paste of congealed blood and sand smeared his raw wrists. He had not taken any blows to the head, probably because unconscious men keep their secrets, and the goons had needed Billy to talk.

Ive taken worse beatings, Billy thought with a trickle of pride.

He leaned against the side of the trench, grimaced at the deep pokes of pain in his rib cage. The duct tape around his wrists had lost its tackiness in the sand, and Billy slipped his hands from the cuff. Kit untied the binding from around his ankles.

"So how do we do it?" she asked, a hard starch in her voice. "How do we f.u.c.king take down Rhubarb Glanz?" She looked him up and down. "Can you walk?"

Billy waved off the last question. "In a minute." He spat grit from his mouth. "We tried confronting Glanz to find a connection to the judges death, but Glanz is too well protected."

"Following Robbie never led me to the father," she agreed.

"Until we find a weak spot in his defense, we should work on the shooter, Adam Rackers. We trace him backward to Glanz. There must have been some meeting, or a connection through a bagman. There was a payoff somewhere-n.o.body kills a judge for money without insisting first on a deposit."

"What can we learn about Rackers that the police couldnt?"

Billy wiped a finger inside his armpit, then cleared the sand from under his lips. "The police get their information from good citizens," Billy said. "Were not under those kinds of limitations."

She shot him a sideways look as the flare sputtered out and abandoned them in a moonlit crater of sand. Without the hiss of the flare, the silence was more unsettling than the darkness.