When he finally took the exit to Nickelback, he felt a flutter of nerves. He checked his watch. It was just after one. He’d be out at the warehouse before three. Ron got off at four. That would mean an hour or more of waiting around, thinking it through, getting ready for it.
Would he be able to do it?
Eli gripped the gun again. This time his palm was sweating and it felt loose in his hand no matter how hard he squeezed. Jesus. Take some deep breaths. He set the gun on the seat next to the sack of cash. With the money Eddie would get they’d be sixteen thousand short. They’d probably have to kill Ron to keep him from killing them.
XXIX
Hank was careful not to disturb anything, but that didn’t mean he didn’t comb the house completely. He put on his skintight spandex gloves and went to town. He wasn’t looking for anything particular and it wasn’t something he normally did. Hank had always believed that the less you knew about your target’s personal life, the easier the job was. The last thing he wanted was to spend an afternoon surrounded by pictures of some poor schmuck’s wife and kids. He’d done that before, and it wasn’t fun.
But there was no risk of that with Lugano. Hank already knew him. And at any rate, the house was strangely vacant of personal touches. Certainly no wife or kids. But no family of any kind. No parents, siblings, nothing. The walls were mostly bare, other than a few framed prints. Hank studied one, a large black and white photograph of the Manhattan skyline, probably from the 30s or 40s. It was a somber reminder of home. Hank wondered if Lugano ever went back. Snuck into town for a long weekend, soaking up the vibe, the energy of the city, and staying away from the old haunts where someone might see him.
Hank went from room to room. A hallway on one end of the small house with a bathroom and four cramped bedrooms. Everything was furnished in a spare, expensive style. Hank guessed Lugano had arrived in town with nothing, bought the place, slept on the floor until the phone was turned on, and then spent twenty minutes with a catalogue filling the place up. Either that, or he walked through a show room in Vegas for a half hour pointing to things as a flabbergasted clerk tried to write it all down—two of these, three of those, this couch, that chair—and paid cash for everything.
In the back bedroom, the one Lugano used, there was a slightly more lived-in look. Jeans draped over the corner of the bed. The blankets thrown back, exposing sheets that probably never got washed. Half a dozen bottles of cologne sat across the top of the dresser. Apparently Lugano liked to smell good. Hank imagined him being the kind of guy who wore too much and drove people crazy with it in confined spaces. He studied the bottles and grinned. You definitely didn’t want to ride on an elevator with a guy like Lugano.
The top dresser drawer held the usual: socks, underwear, and a few odds and ends crammed in along one side. Hank pulled out a small box and flipped it open. A thick gold money clip. His grin grew wider. That was the kind of guy Lugano was. Vain. Heavy cologne and a gold money clip, all the way.
The second drawer down was T-shirts. Nothing interesting. The third was more of the same. The guy had a ton of shirts. Hank flipped through a few of them. They were old. They bore the names of bars in New York, most of which probably weren’t even there anymore. At the bottom of the stack was faded shirt from The Cellar. Hank laughed out loud and pulled it from the drawer, holding it up.
The Cellar. Hank hadn’t thought of that place for twenty years. Probably not since the week it closed and he had to find a new bar to hang out in. A lot of Fazioli’s guys used to be in there. Hank didn’t really remember seeing Lugano in there, but obviously he’d been there.
It was on the lower east side, somewhere between Delancey and Canal—maybe on Orchard?—he couldn’t remember now. It was a real dive, but not an attention grabber, which made it perfect for the clientele. It was a place all the young tough guys would go to drink beer, shoot pool, and