The Low Between

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 1Under normal circumstances, Carlo Baresi liked rain. It washed away the worst smells of Manhattan. It encouraged green sprouts to poke their way through cracks in the sidewalk. It gave him a good reason to hide in the back of a movie theater and stare at Burt Lancaster and Howard Keel for hours on end.

Tonight was anything but normal.

Icy droplets battered the taxi’s windshield. When he tried to peer through the window, his breath fogged the cold glass. Streetlights might’ve helped, but he’d parked on a little-used side street without illumination for a reason. Nobody could see him here. Nobody could find out.

Tell that to his sweaty palms.

For the third time since climbing behind the steering wheel, Carlo scrubbed his hands along his wool pants to dry them off. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so antsy. His butterflies were never this bad for auditions. But he kept picking up the flashlight he’d brought to shine it on his wristwatch, counting down the minutes until it was time to go. Last time he’d looked, he still had five minutes to go. Three hundred seconds of picturing every little thing that could possibly go wrong.

Considering his imagination was his second best asset, it was no wonder his stomach felt like it was taking a nosedive off the top of the Chrysler Building.

He was overreacting. He knew that. The job was an easy one, the payoff more than worth it. But Carlo had managed to escape trouble for most of his twenty-two years by first being heavily involved at school, then finding both of his jobs well beyond the boundaries of Little Italy. He didn’t have firsthand experience at bending the rules. Not that driving a taxi and making a phone call were illegal, but he wasn’t so green not to realize the man who’d offered him the deal operated under his own code of ethics.

If his parents ever found out this was how he got his big break, they’d drag him to St. Patrick’s and lock him in a confessional until he needed a walker to make his way out again.

Nervous laughter bubbled up. He was damned already. His soul had been a lost cause since he’d discovered how much nicer it was to sneak off with one of the other altar boys than any of the available girls in the choir. Nothing he did tonight could blemish it more than it already was.

Time to check the watch again.

Three minutes.

The taxi reeked of cigarettes. Carlo hated the habit, but right now, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe it might calm him down. It seemed to work for other guys. His dad sure was in a better mood after having a smoke when he got home from a long day at work.

Stretching across the front seat, he checked the glove compartment. No dice. All it held was a crumpled pack of Wrigley’s gum, a couple of stained Belmont racing forms, and an empty flask. Geez, was there a bad habit the taxi’s usual driver didn’t have?

Carlo sat back with a huff. So much for that idea. The distraction did work in one way, though. It killed enough time that when he checked his watch again, only one minute remained.

Close enough.

Fog still covered the windshield after he started the engine. Pulling his cuff over his hand, he swiped away the worst of it, only to discover the pouring rain didn’t want him to see, either. He turned on the wipers as fast as they would go and edged away from the curb.

The pick-up point was around the corner. Though Vestry had streetlights, the weather washed away the world, forcing Carlo to creep along so he could see the road. He’d scouted the area on foot as soon as he’d accepted the job, memorizing landmarks so he didn’t look like a knucklehead tonight. But those were practically invisible, everything beyond the sidewalk a black blur. Panic began to replace his nerves. He took a deep breath in hopes of calming his pounding heart.

Then, a shadow stepped into one of the pools of light spilling onto the street. It was a man, broad and bulky in a trenchcoat with the collar turned up and his hands shoved in the pockets. Nobody else was in sight. The man turned his head toward Carlo and nodded.

Carlo exhaled. This was it.

He pulled up and flipped the vacant sign off when the back door opened. The hollow sound of the rain hitting the roof grew tinny with the rush of cold air, muffling again once the man had slid inside. Droplets flew off the man’s coat as he settled back, but when he met Carlo’s gaze in the rearview mirror, Carlo’s knuckles tightened around the wheel.

This wasn’t the guy he was supposed to pick up.

In his instructions, Mr. Stout had never described the passenger. “But how can I be sure it’s him?” Carlo had pressed.

“You think Vestry’s crawling with suits at two o’clock in the morning?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Did I hire you to ask questions?”

“You said you were hiring me because nobody knew who I was.”

“Including Mr. Ascher. Don’t worry. You’ll have his number.”

Carlo had his passenger’s number, all right. But unless Joseph Donnelly had a secret life posing as someone named Ascher, something had just gone seriously wrong.

When Carlo didn’t speak, Joe frowned. “Aren’t you my ride?”

There was the proof he’d been waiting specifically for Carlo to show up. Carlo swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. “All I need is the address for the meeting.” He got the line out just as he’d been told, though his intentions to try a new accent were squashed by his returning anxiety.

Joe stared at him for a hard minute, long enough for the hair on the back of Carlo’s neck to stand on end. This was where things went south. Joe was going to finger him, so the meeting would never happen, and Carlo would have one very angry Mr. Stout to deal with when it all fell apart.

“East 67th.” He sat back, his face falling into shadow. “Just keep on heading for the river. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Though he’d been expecting a full address, Carlo edged into the street without complaint. His pulse pounded through his palms, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Maybe this could be salvaged. After all, he was nobody. He’d never even spoken to Joe directly. Recognizing Joe didn’t have to be the end of the world. All he had to do was fulfill his end of the deal, and Mr. Stout would be happy.

“This rain’s going to slow us down,” Joe commented.

“No worries,” Carlo said. “Nobody’s nuts enough to be out at this time of night to get in our way.”

“Nobody but us, anyway.”

Carlo laughed, mostly because he was meant to. “You warm enough back there?”

“I don’t think I’ll be warm again ’til June.”

He’d always liked the sound of Joe’s voice. The first time he’d heard it, Joe was coming out of the backroom of the bookstore he owned with a comforting arm around an elderly woman whose face had been swollen from tears. Carlo had been on his knees, thumbing through some play collections on the bottom shelf in search of a monologue to memorize for an audition. At the unfamiliar deep rumble, he’d glanced up, then stared at the man for the several seconds he was in view before he and the woman disappeared into the stacks.

Eavesdropping told him the guy was the owner, not a regular employee. Returning a couple of times a month when he got matinee shifts at the theater filled in a few more details, but Carlo never forgot the swift heat that had consumed him that first time he’d heard and seen Joe Donnelly.

Joe wore his auburn hair short, like he’d been in the military, which, considering he had to be in his thirties, was probably a given, but his dark blue eyes couldn’t hide whatever painful history he was trying to forget. The melancholy was etched at the corners of his mouth, and though he had a smile to rival Van Johnson’s, Carlo had only ever seen it once. From what he could tell, Joe buried himself in the store. He always worked in the same white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to expose his powerful forearms, the cotton straining across his wide shoulders.

Carlo couldn’t resist sneaking a peek into the rearview mirror. Now that he was out of the rain, Joe had opened the top button of his trenchcoat and pushed its collar out of the way. The shirt beneath was black.

“Eyes on the road,” Joe said.

The wheel jerked in Carlo’s startled hands, his foot automatically tapping the brake, but he obeyed without question. A sigh came from the backseat.

“How long you been driving, kid?”

His face flamed, and his petulant chin tilted up. He hated being called a kid. “I have my license.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

He couldn’t make trouble or draw attention to himself, no matter what Joe provoked in him. His shoulders slumped. “Six years.”

“Bullshit.”

His gaze snapped back to the mirror, but Joe hadn’t even moved. “What?”

“You heard me. I call bullshit. You’re twenty, tops.”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“Which is still bullshit. You haven’t been behind that wheel since you were sixteen.”

“Oh. No. That’s when I got my driver’s license.”

“I wasn’t talking about that.”

“I kind of figured that out,” Carlo grumbled. A light was turning yellow ahead. He started slowing before Joe tried giving him driving lessons again.

“So? How long?”

“Two years.”

“You like it?”

What was with the twenty questions? “It’s all right.”

“Not as good as acting, though.”

The car leapt forward as his foot slipped off the brake, but by the time he’d regained control and come to a stop at the now-red light, the cold muzzle of a gun was pressed to the back of his head.

* * *

On tonight of all nights, this was the last thing Joe needed.

Something about the driver had seemed familiar when he’d slid into the car, but he’d been so relieved to be out of the icy rain, he hadn’t given it a second thought until the driver uttered the passcode about the address. The accent was straight out of Little Italy. The girl’s family worked out of Hoboken. Rudyard Kipling might not have been referring to Joe’s home turf, but he’d had it right with his, “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”

That was the reason he’d held back on the exact address. He’d watched the young man splash through puddles, then struggle to control the wheel. When Joe caught the glance in the rearview mirror, though, the sense of knowing he’d seen this kid before had clawed its way deeper into his gut.

A real taxi driver wouldn’t fight his car this much. The young man fumbled over what should’ve been easy answers, too. But Joe got his light bulb moment when he caught the reflection of the kid’s mouth as he groused about the interrogation.

If it’d been daytime, if he hadn’t been distracted by the chill and wet, he would’ve made the connection the second he saw him. He didn’t know the young man’s name, but a face like his was unforgettable. Sure, Joe had seen some good-looking Italians in his time, but frankly, the potential for power, the wrong kind, burned away any appeal they might’ve had by the time they turned legal. The Families sucked them in, made promises on the backs of history, then bathed their children in blood and violence until that was all they knew. Most of them never stood a chance.

This one was different. For starters, he worked at the Golden on 45th. Joe didn’t know of anyone from Little Italy who’d venture out of the neighborhood for a job, let alone one in a theater. But this one regularly came into the store and sat in the corner, devouring every play he could get his hands on. He never bought anything. Once or twice, Joe had debated saying he ran a bookstore, not a library, but that had been early on, before he’d overheard the young man whispering Petruchio’s passing gentle monologue from The Taming of the Shrew over and over in a clear attempt to memorize it.

How could he stomp on someone’s dreams, even to tell him he was too pretty and too innocent to ever be cast as Petruchio? The world was a bleak and dismal place at the best of times. Joe refused to contribute to it.

Now, however, he might not have a choice.

The red from the stoplight refracted through the wet windshield, seeping down the backs of the kid’s hands to stain them scarlet. His knuckles strained against the stretched skin from how tightly he held onto the wheel, and he’d caught his breath, frozen in place now that the car had come to a stop.

“There’s an alley halfway down the block,” Joe said. “Just past the bakery. Pull into it and kill the engine.”

“What about your meeting?”

“Change of plans.”

The light changed. A second passed, then another. Joe was ready to nudge the muzzle harder against the young man’s skull when the taxi began to creep forward.

Neither spoke until they were parked out of view from the street. The alley was used for deliveries to and from the bakery, allowing plenty of room for the car to fit, but it lacked artificial illumination, the buildings on either side blocking out the ambient light from the streets. Joe didn’t like not being able to see the the young man’s hands anymore, but he figured a gun to the back of the head was enough motivation not to do something dumb.

“Where’s the real driver?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am the real driver.”

“You’re an actor.”

“So’s a lot of people in this town. A guy’s still gotta make a living.”

He had to give the kid credit. He had a lot of nerve lying so blatantly with his brains this close to getting scattered.

“So who sent you?”

Silence. Joe wasn’t surprised.

He gave the gun another nudge. “I asked you a question.”

“I’m not a rat.”

“How can you be a rat if we’re working on the same side?”

“We’re not.”

“You sure about that?”

“As sure as I am your last name isn’t Ascher.”

Joe paused. The kid had known to expect Copper then. But how did an actor from Little Italy figure into a Hoboken wedding gone wrong?

“So you know who I am,” he said, stalling.

“The same way you know me.”

“How do you know I didn’t give ’em a fake name?”

The pause was telling, all Joe needed to know he’d pegged this one right.

“Whatever you think you’re doing,” Joe said, when no answer came, “you’re in over your head.”

“I’m just the driver.”

“But you weren’t supposed to be, now were you, kid?”

“Don’t call me that.”

The words came out through gritted teeth, unexpected force adding conviction to what should’ve been a request considering his position. He’d been ruffled when Joe had questioned his age, too. “What do you want me to call you?” Joe asked.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“What do you want me to call you?”

A bold inquiry, especially considering he already knew about Ascher. The answer to this would pick sides.

“Joe Donnelly.” He was following his gut, which wanted to believe the Families hadn’t been able to touch the hopeful young man who read Shakespeare in the corner of his shop.

“My name’s Carlo.” His shoulders slumped, some of the tension dying with his soft exhalation. “Baresi.”

The name didn’t ring any bells. A good sign. “Was that so hard?”

“You going to put the gun down now?”

“I can’t.” And he sincerely regretted it. But he couldn’t be completely positive Carlo didn’t have a weapon of his own stashed beneath the seat.

“Of course not,” Carlo muttered.

For a few seconds, the only sound that filled the car was the drumming rain on the roof, each droplet chipping away at Joe’s nerves. He hated the rain. It reminded him too much of walking the beat, memories he did everything he could during his waking hours to avoid. Nighttime was another matter. He’d never been able to escape the past then. He should’ve guessed the switch would go wrong when the storm continued to rage long after the sun went down.

“Why are you doing this?” Carlo asked.

“I could ask the same of you.”

“It’s a job.”

He’d ask who was paying him, but it was too soon after Carlo’s earlier denial to bother. He decided to opt for more honesty and see where that got him. “Mine’s a favor.”

“For who?”

“Something tells me that’s one question you won’t go tit for tat on.”

Carlo snorted, but quickly checked the almost amused sound when the gun bumped along the back of his head. “I can still take you there. Nothing has to change.”

Oh, to be twenty-two again. But if he’d required any more proof of Carlo’s naivete, that was it. “It already has.”

He felt old and tired, even more than he had when Copper had shown up at his back door, blood still seeping from the slice someone had taken out of his shoulder, and Joe’s first thought had been, You couldn’t have gone to the hospital? He understood why, of course. He couldn’t even fault Copper for coming to him for help. It wasn’t like Joe didn’t have a history of bailing out people who needed him.

The more Carlo said, the more Joe’s gut suggested this particular young man was another of those people.

“Tell me one thing and I’ll put the gun down.”

“Sure.”

He clenched his jaw at how excited Carlo sounded. More and more, this was the optimistic actor Joe secretly wished would get the attention he was striving for. Someone with that kind of passion, those kind of dreams, deserved to have them recognized at least once before it all came crashing down. If not a young man with the soulful eyes of a Madonna and the sinful mouth of the Devil incarnate, then who?

“Where’s the real driver?”

His first attempt to get an answer had failed. His second brought a pause as Carlo thought it over. There was hope for both of them yet.

“I don’t know,” Carlo whispered. “He told me where and when to pick up the taxi, and said not to worry about the driver, that he’d never miss it tonight.” His breath hitched. “You don’t think he killed him, do you?”

That would require knowing who’d hired Carlo to replace him, but Joe suspected it was probably a done deal. Reluctantly, he lowered his gun, resting it in his lap in case he’d just made the biggest—and last—mistake of his life.