Wiseguys: Blast From the Past (9 page)

Carter stoppered the sink, and after it filled with hot water, shut off the taps. The sound of running water gone, the sounds of mid-day in the height of tourist season filtered in through the open bathroom window. Bess' place was on the main drag a block down from the deli and right next to a Tex-Mex restaurant. >From the sounds of things, the restaurant wasn't hopping busy yet, but the staff was making enough noise banging pots and pans around and yelling back and forth to each other than it almost drowned out the South of the Border canned music blaring out of the restaurant's speakers.

Even with all the racket from next door, Tony liked life here. He liked the deli and the customers, even the ones who couldn't make up their minds what to buy. He liked Julie, and he couldn't have asked for better friends than Norman and Bess. He liked the house he and Carter lived in, and the way they both fit in the tub like it was made for them. He even liked the way the bed springs squeaked and the mattress thumped against the wall when Carter made love to him with all the tenderness and power in that hard-muscled body of his.

"I don't want to leave," Tony said, like he was answering a question that hadn't been asked.

Carter lifted his head from where he'd been gently washing the skin around Tony's bandages. His eyes were soft now with an emotion that he mostly kept under wraps. "Then don't," he said.

"Sheriff knows who we are. Not our real names, but who we are." They both used names that weren't exactly the same ones on their birth certificates. Carter had kept his old last name for his first. Tony had taken a generic last name. But it wouldn't take much for the sheriff to put it together, not now that he had a dead body in the morgue that could be traced back to Jersey. "He's motivated. He'll figure it out."

"He let you go last night."

"He wants us to leave. He's giving us the opportunity."

Carter sat back on his heels. "And you're gonna take it." It wasn't a question.

Tony reached out for Carter's hand and held it. So much strength in Carter's thick fingers. He didn't want to leave, either. Tony had to make him see it was the smart thing to do.

"I'd rather spend my life on the road in that fucking van of yours just to make sure you're with me than risk seeing either one of us in jail. I'm not about to live my life without you. I think we said something about that, in a room not that much different than this one."

They'd actually said vows to each other, spoken their love out loud, the same night the Munroe brothers had thrown a rock through the deli's front window. Then Carter had taken Tony to bed and fucked him nearly senseless, and it had seemed like life couldn't get any better.

Carter's lips thinned, and for a moment Tony thought he'd have an argument on his hands. Then Carter said, "My fucking van? The same van that brought your sorry ass cross country?" He smiled. "The same van where I first fucked you?"

Tony smiled back. "Off the side of the road in the middle of fucking nowhere? Where you popped my cherry? Yeah, that van, and I bet I wasn't the first cherry you popped in that thing."

Carter leaned forward and kissed him. "The only one that counted,
paisan
," he said. "The only one that counted."

∗ ∗ ∗

They kept the deli closed for two more days while they worked out the details of what they were going to do and Tony's wounds healed.

On the second day, the sheriff released the house, and Tony and Carter moved out of the bed and breakfast. By then, Tony was sick and tired of sponge baths, even with Carter giving him a hand job and finishing him off with his mouth.

The next day, they opened the deli back up like nothing had happened. Their first customers were Bess and Norman, who each ordered more than they'd eat in a week and brushed off Tony's attempt not to charge them. Carter came out from the back, and the four of them sat around one of the deli's small tables.

"You sure about this?" Norman asked.

"Never meant this to be permanent," Tony lied.

They'd called Bess and Norman the night they'd made the decision to leave. There'd been gentle hugs and near tears, but Tony had a hunch their friends already knew he and Carter would be leaving.

"Besides," Tony said. "I've been through winter here already, and once was enough."

"He don't like to shovel snow," Carter said. "Fucking lightweight." He looked at Bess. "Pardon my French."

She waved a hand at him. "Nothing I haven't heard before, and probably said myself."

Norman smiled at her. "And I should know."

"Yes, you should, you old coot." Bess' answering smile made Tony's heart ache. They were the only people he would truly miss.

"I want to thank you both for everything you've done for us," Tony said. "Everything you're going to do."

"We're happy to do it," Norman said. "Does she know yet?"

"Not yet." Carter said. He looked at the clock on the back wall. "We asked her to come in a little early."

"We'll let you know how it goes," Tony said.

"Do you have a backup plan?" Norman asked.

"Hoping we don't need one."

"Well, then, good luck." Bess reached across the table, and with a surprisingly strong grip, pulled Tony forward by his apron just enough to give him a kiss on his cheek. "Let us know how things go for you, and not just with this."

She looked at him hard, and Tony got the message. He didn't know how to tell her that she'd never hear from him again.

The deli was busy all morning, like the word had spread around town that they were open. The customers were a mix of locals and tourists. The locals wanted bagels and coffee and even some of the ziti that filled the deli with the aroma of Italian cheese and garlic. The tourists wanted sandwiches and antipasto salad and loaves of sourdough bread and sour pickles from the plastic barrel. Tony figured they did more business in the two hours before Julie and her mom came in the front door than they did most days even during their busiest weeks.

Julie looked nervous, like she was afraid they were going to fire her. Tony had called her the night before to let her know that the deli would be open and to ask her to come in a half hour early because they had something important to talk to her about. She'd apparently brought her mother along for moral support. Tony was surprised -- Julie had always struck him as a self-sufficient kid -- but in a way, it made what they were about to do a little easier.

"Hey, guys," Julie said. She handled the introductions like an adult, but all the while her fingers worried the edges of her apron.

Tony smiled at the both of them. "Relax. No firing squad today, okay?"

Julie smiled back, only a small smile, but her fingers stopped twisting the white cotton apron.

"C'mon back," Tony said, holding open the pass-through from the restaurant proper to behind the counter. "We got something we want to talk to you about." He looked at Julie's mom, Eleanor. "Both of you, since you're here."

Eleanor was a small woman in her late forties. Life had not been kind to her, and it showed on her face and in the way she carried herself. Her hair was shot through with gray, her shoulders slumped, the skin underneath her chin baggy, and her eyes tired. Still, Tony could see traces of the good-looking girl she'd once been, like her daughter. He hoped they would accept what he and Carter planned to do.

There really wasn't anywhere to sit in the back, so Tony and Carter leaned against the big steel refrigerator, Julie stood near the door between the deli and the kitchen, and Eleanor leaned against the sink. Julie's hands had started to twist the edges of her apron again.

"We have an offer we want to make to you," Tony said to Julie. "We want to sell you the deli."

Julie froze, her eyes widening. "What?"

"We're leaving town. We want to sell you this business."

Julie shot a startled glance at her mother. "We don't have that kind of money," Eleanor said.

"We'd set it up so you could make payments."

Eleanor's eyes narrowed. "What kind of payments? What kind of interest?"

So Eleanor had a good idea what they'd been, too. Did she always know? Or was it something she'd figured out in the last few days? The business at Tony and Carter's house hadn't exactly been front page news, but this was a small town, and small towns thrived on gossip. Tony figured pretty much all the locals knew he'd killed someone who'd broken into their house and that other gunmen had gotten away. Put that together with their obvious roots, and everyone probably thought he was the real life equivalent of Tony Soprano.

If nothing else, Eleanor's reaction let Tony know they'd made the right decision about leaving.

"Look," Tony said. "What we want to do here is sell you a business you can keep running. We like this place, and we like this town, and most of all," he said, staring at Julie, "we like you. We're not going to squeeze you. This deal is on the up and up."

"Or so you say," Eleanor said. "What's to say you won't want it back?"

"Once we're gone, we're gone," Tony said. "You won't hear from us again. You make payments to Norman, reasonable payments. Something you can afford."

Norman and Bess had agreed to be the go-between when Tony approached them with the idea of selling the business to Julie. Norman said he'd have no problem depositing the money in an account Tony would set up just for that purpose. Tony intended to have the sale handled by a local escrow company, everything above board and legit.

"Business isn't great here during the winter," Julie said.

"Then we lower the payments so you can keep the place going. Or you can close up shop during the winter and live off the summer profits." Half the businesses on Main Street operated that way. "Up to you."

Julie looked at Carter. "So you're really leaving?"

Carter nodded, just the slightest movement of his head. "Time to hit the road again. See what else is out there that we haven't seen yet."

"You know, not everybody feels like those jerks," Julie said. "Like you shouldn't be here, or shouldn't be together. Isn't that why you're leaving?"

"Julie," Eleanor said, her voice low and intense, like her daughter had asked someone dangerous something inappropriate and might be handed her head for her trouble.

Carter looked at Tony. This was Tony's question to answer, since it had been his decision to leave.

"Those jerks are going to keep being jerks until someone we care about gets hurt," Tony said.

"Like Bess," Julie said.

"Yeah," Tony said. "Like Bess. Or Norman." He looked at her, let her see a little of the worry that made the hard decision a little easier. "Like you. We don't want that to happen because of us."

Julie swallowed hard, and her eyes swam, but the moisture didn't spill over.

"We can take care of ourselves," Tony said. "We've been doing it for a long time. But we can't take care of everyone we know and still run this business. You understand that?"

Julie nodded, the movement as slight as Carter's had been. At that moment she looked very small. "I think so," she said.

"Will you think about it?" Tony said. "Just don't take too long." They planned to be gone within a week, whether the business sale went through or not. If Julie didn't buy the deli, they'd walk away and leave everything behind.

Eleanor stepped away from the sink, walked over to Tony and looked him in the eye. "Swear to me that you're being truthful," she said. "That you won't hurt my baby girl."

Tony could have taken offense, but he didn't. He might have made the same demand if someone had offered a seemingly unbelievable deal to Carter. "I love your daughter like she was my kid sister," Tony said, returning Eleanor's frank stare. "Anybody hurt her, I'd rip his heart out. I'm not about to be the one who does the hurting."

Eleanor stared at him hard. Tony didn't look away.

In the end, she must have been satisfied with what she saw. "Julie?" she asked her daughter.

Julie looked down at her hands. They were shaking. "Oh, shit. That's not good." She looked up at her mom. "Do you think I can do this? I still have a half-year left of high school."

"I think you can do anything you want," Eleanor said. "But I think we should sit on this for a day, then talk about it some more." Eleanor looked at Tony, then at Carter. "If she gives you an answer tomorrow, is that soon enough?"

"Definitely."

"What about Jason?" Julie looked guilty, like she'd just thought of something she shouldn't have forgotten.

Jason worked in the deli sometimes, but that was more of an excuse for him to spend time working on strength training with Carter. The kid was in denial about being gay. Tony didn't blame him. The kid had been beaten by some other kids -- probably relatives of the Munroes -- just because they thought he was gay. Carter had offered to teach the kid how to take care of himself. The ruse of working at the deli was to mollify the kid's religious mom.

The strength training had paid off, and not just in added muscles. Jason wasn't working at the deli now because he was at a football camp sponsored by the church his mom attended. Julie had told Tony that it was the first organized sport Jason had ever tried out for.

"Hire him if you want," Tony said. "You'll be the one calling the shots."

She looked startled at that. Tony doubted she'd ever called the shots about any part of her life. "What about..." she gestured at Carter, the rest of the sentence unsaid.

"He'll be fine," Carter said. "You tell him I said he's a good kid."

Tony held out his hand. Julie took it, and they shook hands like the deal was done. "Take today off, with pay." He could feel her still trembling. "The customers will be glad you did, considering I don't think you're up to handling food right now."

She laughed, a nervous, relieved, embarrassed sound.

"When you come in tomorrow, you let us know what you've decided. If you want to do this, we'll sit down with the books and come up with numbers that work for everybody. Okay?"

"Yeah," Julie said. She finally smiled, and Tony thought he knew what her answer would be. "Yeah," she said again. "Okay."