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“He was one of the guys back in the day,” Joey said. “How’s Agnes doing?”
Not subtle, Shane thought “She was with Evie Keyes and Brenda when I left.”
Joey shook his head. “Poor little thing.”
Shane thought of Agnes, round in those thin sweats, attacking that pepper on the chopping block, smacking him with the frying pan. Agnes was a lot of things, but poor and little weren’t two of them. “Why’d you ask Agnes about Rhett last night, Joey?”
Joey looked out the window. “I always ask about Rhett. I worry about them both out there all alone.” He turned back to Shane. “I’ve known her since she was a kid. She used to spend summers down here with Lisa Livia when they was in boarding school. They’d come into the diner and ask questions. Lisa Livia wanted to know how to run the place, she was all about the money.” He laughed. “That Lisa Livia, she’s no dummy. But Agnes, she wanted to know how to cook. All the time, wanting to know how to make this, why’d you put that in there, Joey?”
Shane kept his eyes on the road. He couldn’t get two words about the Thibaults, but about Agnes he was getting a book. Nice try, Joey.
“Then they grew up and didn’t come back anymore,” Joey went on, seeming almost wistful. “I get a Christmas card every year from Agnes, sometimes she’d send me stuff in the mail, stuff she finds she thinks I like, diner stuff. But then about three, four years ago, here Agnes comes again, asking questions ‘cause now she has a newspaper column, and she remembered me, she’s gonna write about me.”
Shane looked over at the old man. He was grinning like it was a joke, but he was proud.
“About me,” Joey repeated, shaking his head. “And then this editor in New York read the columns about me and said she wanted a book, and Agnes wrote one. The editor called it Mob Food. It came out last month, been selling real good, too, they say. That’s where Agnes got some of the money for her half of the down payment on the house.” He looked away, out the window. “My picture’s on the cover. Leaning on the diner counter.” He looked back at Shane. “I told her to forget about it, but Agnes said I had to be on the cover. And you know Agnes.”
Shane nodded. “I’m starting to.”
“She uses a lot of my stuff in her column, some other people’s, too. She got a lot of stuff from Brenda, too, see Brenda’s the one who taught her to cook?—”
Enough. “So why did you ask Agnes about Rhett right before the kid broke in to take him?”
Joey looked out the window again. “Coincidence.”
Shane swerved to the side of the road and slammed on the brakes, putting a hand out to keep Rhett from sliding off the seat. Rhett looked up at Shane, then at Joey, then sighed and put his head back down.
Shane stared at his uncle. “That gun at Agnes’s was an old mobster’s gun. That kid was the grandson of an old mob guy. There weren’t that many old mob guys who retired down here, Joey. Just two, you and Frankie Fortunato, and now I hear about this Thibault guy. And I have to say that you retired down here pretty fucking young. You couldn’t have been forty, either one of you. So I’m thinking there’s a lot going on here that I need to know. Are you going to tell me this story? Or we gonna sit here all day?”
The seconds ticked away as Joey met his eyes; then he turned and looked out the window at the dark green woods of the swamp. Shane waited. The seconds turned into a minute, then two, and Rhett sighed once more. Then Joey sighed, deeper than Rhett, and looked back at Shane. He had a wan smile and he did look old. “You grown up, haven’t you?”
“I grew up a long time ago, Joey. You saw to that.”
Joey nodded. “Yeah. That was the idea.” He looked out the window, still nodding, and Shane waited. When he turned back, the man Shane remembered was there. Solid. The shark smile. “Okay, Frankie and me was driving down to Miami to do a job for the old Don, Frankie’s father. Our engine blew up right outside of Keyes. We got stuck here for a couple of days and we liked it. So we kept coming back every summer and then when we decided to retire,
Frankie and I figured we’d come here, do some work for the Don on the side.
“Then Frankie and I got a tip, this would be about twenty-five years ago now, that there was a freight car full of cigs on the rail line, ready to load to go overseas. We made most our money boosting freight cars when the port was still active. We kick up half the take to the Don in Jersey, split the rest twenty/twenty/ten with Charlie ‘Four Wheels’ Thibault getting the ten percent ‘cause all he does is drive. Took Frankie’s Caddy ‘cause it had the big trunk. Went down to the rail siding, bust in, but no cigs, just a safe, and it has this box on top, got a necklace in it, made of big hearts, junky-looking thing.”
Joey shook his head. “I had a weird feeling about it. But the tip come from the Don, so we lift the safe out, and Frankie, he takes the necklace for Brenda because she’s on his case all the time, he says, ‘cause she thinks he’s cheating on her, which he is, but that’s Frankie for you. We throw the safe in the trunk of Frankie’s Caddy. Beat feet to Frankie’s place, where Agnes lives now. Park just over that damn bridge; it was in better shape then. Take the safe down to Frankie’s basement, open it up. Inside, no cigs. Five million dollars in nonsequential bills.”
Shane raised his eyebrows.
Joey nodded. “Yeah, too much money. Four Wheels, he’s scared shitless, he goes home. I go home. Frankie goes upstairs to Brenda. We figure we’ll lay low, work something out. Except the next day, Frankie’s gone, the safe’s gone, the necklace is gone, the five mil is gone. Nobody knows nothin’. Four Wheels moves out to the swamp and shoots anybody who comes close.”
“Where’d Frankie go?”
Joey shrugged. “Tahiti. Meet his maker. I dunno. Never seen or heard from again.”
“Anybody come after you?”
Joey rubbed the scar over his eye. “A couple of times.” He looked away.
There’s more, Shane thought. “What’s this got to do with Agnes?”
“This weekend, Agnes’s column is on cooking for dogs, so her picture is a special one with Rhett.” Joey held up the newspaper and gave it to Shane.
Shane spread it open. Inside was a column with a headline that said, cranky agnes and a picture of Agnes, smiling, big glasses and curly dark hair, with her arm around Rhett. Cute as all hell, Shane thought. “So?”
