Markov sat down, pulled his chair close to Crane, and kept the gun pointed at his head.
“You keep making that number bigger. I see anything happen I don’t like, you die.”
“Great. Do whatever the fuck you want.”
Crane felt the tremor in Markov’s hand moving the gun barrel pressed against his head.
Crane shut his eyes closed, squeezing them tight, exhaling once, hard, determined to focus.
Fuck! This is going to be close, thought Crane.
76
Manny and Beck had ended up at the same small wooden table in Manny’s downstairs kitchen where their first discussion about Olivia had taken place. It seemed like weeks ago, but it had only been four days.
“How bad you banged up, James?”
“It’s adding up. How about you?”
Manny pulled his left arm out of the sling the doctor had given him. He tried to lift his elbow above his shoulder. He winced and said, “It’s all right. I got a couple of hours sleep. Ate. You’re the one who’s been doin’ all the running around.” Manny raised his chin toward Beck. “What’d the doc say?”
“The doc said the cut on my back isn’t that deep. Sliced a few of the surface muscles. Says it’s going to hurt every time I pick something up for a while.”
“Knives.”
“I fucking hate knife wounds. Shitty, sneaky, dirty. You hardly feel ’em when they hit you, but they can cause a lot of damage.” Beck rotated his shoulder.
Manny nodded. “And the rest?”
“It’s not important now, Manny. We have other hurts to deal with.”
The old gangster shifted in his chair. He wasn’t done talking. If he knew what was coming, he didn’t give any hint. He wanted to recite for himself his discontents and perhaps delay Beck.
“You know what really got to me?”
“What?” asked Beck.
“The fact that I couldn’t kill those guys out there. You know. Few hours back.”
Beck waited, saying nothing.
“No, no…” Manny struggled for a word. “No finalidad to it, you know. Hoping the fire took ’em out. Or the cops. I don’t like the idea of them surviving so they can come back at me.”
“If killing them sent you back to prison, what good is it?”
Manny pointed to his head. “I get that here.” He pointed to his stomach. “But not here.”
Beck said, “I understand.”
Manny nodded. “Okay. Tell me again. You got Kolenka?”
“Devious, double-crossing old bastard, yeah, we got him. We were lucky. He was heading out of town. He won’t be sending any more of his people after us.”
Manny nodded. “You figure it was Kolenka’s guys out front here with the gasoline?”
Beck nodded. “And Markov’s Bosnians out back to shoot us down when we tried to escape the fire.”
Beck looked at his watch.
Manny asked, “What?”
“A couple of things. You know that guy in the cellar?”
“Yeah.”
“He told me the truth about how it was going to go down last night.”
“Good.”
“So before the attack, I let him go.”
Manny nodded. “If we didn’t make it, you didn’t want him to die down there.”
“That. And I wanted him to do something for us. We agreed on a price.”
“What’d you have him do?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Manny nodded, accepting that Beck didn’t have time to tell him the whole plan.
“And you got the head guy in Markov’s crew?”
“Right. Stepanovich. Although it might come back at us.”
“How bad?”
“Not bad enough to nail any of us. Maybe bad enough to cause trouble. If we’re lucky and the Medical Examiner doesn’t look too close, they might believe he cut his neck open on the fence.”
Reciting it all seemed to satisfy Manny Guzman in some inexplicable way. For the moment at least. Beck knew Manny would be sorting it out for a long time.
“You have to be patient for a bit longer, Manny.”
“Okay.”
And now it was time for the final nail. Beck leaned forward and placed his arms on the table. “So. Manny. Here’s the hard part.”
Manny looked at him with his baleful eyes. “You gonna tell me we can’t get Markov?”
“No. I’m gonna tell you forget about Markov for now. That will play out.”
“When?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning, it’s got to play out so that we’re not fighting off these motherfuckers for the rest of our lives.” Beck paused. “And so that something else is resolved. Resolved in a way that eliminates any doubts.”
“What doubts are you talking about?”
Beck paused, and then laid it out.
“Olivia has been setting us up from the very beginning.” Beck watched Manny carefully, meeting him eye to eye, not flinching from the truth, making sure Manny heard him.
Beck thought he saw a slight narrowing of Manny’s eyes, but nothing more. Beck wondered if maybe he had suspected something all along. Or maybe he was screaming with rage inside his head. Or maybe he was just too stunned to react.
Beck went on. “I can give you all the proof I’ve got. But you still might have doubts. You might spin it another way because you love her.”
Manny cleared his throat. Swallowed. Finally, Manny said, “I can’t believe it.”
“I understand.”
Manny shook his head, struggling. “I can’t, I can’t…”
“Let me explain. She was planning on stealing Markov’s money from the very beginning. Markov was right. He was right to pull everything away from Milstein’s outfit. Crane and Olivia were after his money all along.”
“Crane?”
“Yes.”
“What about her busted fingers? What about all that shit that he fucked her up at the job and all?”
“It wasn’t like she said.”
“How do you know?”
“The medical records.”
“You got her medical records?”
“With Brandon’s help. They didn’t support the way she said it happened. When I pressed her on it, she admitted she lied. She blamed Crane for it, but she was lying all along.”
For a moment, Manny was trapped between believing Beck and believing Olivia. But he could never believe Beck would lie to him about something like this.
“She was working with Crane?”
“Still is.”