Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

hardening clothes would allow. He moved without once looking back.
    I lay in silence for a while. I started to count the sound of the waves and then lost count. I was freezing, but it was all so familiar now. After a while Frank was standing over me, aiming a gun at me, another gun, a .380 Llama, his back-up. I was more tired than I thought I should be. The man with the limp had gotten up and fled, so why was I still sprawled out and panting? I looked up at Frank. His nose was bleeding and his eyes were inflamed from where I had raked them. It must have taken him a while to get to his feet. He was breathing hard. I didn’t need to look close at his face to know how pissed he was.
    “You more than anybody should know better than to cross me,” he said. You could tell by the way he spoke that he had taken one in the groin. There was a grunt after every word, as if he ran suddenly short of breath. That knowledge brought me a degree of comfort. Not many people slap Frank Gannon in the balls, one way or the other, and live to tell about it.
    “What’s going on, Frank?” I said between gasps. Nothing of what I had seen tonight had made sense. Nothing I had seen since the accident had made sense.
    “You let our only lead go,” MacManus. “You’ve washed Augie’s chances right down the gutter. You’re his friend, at least he thinks you are. I’ll let you have the pleasure of telling him.”
    “He wouldn’t have let that man drown. He wouldn’t want it like that, either.”
    “An innocent girl drowning in a pond is one thing. Your enemy is another. That man was your enemy. And now that he knows we’re after him, there’s no way he’s going to let us find him again. Right down the fucking gutter.”
    Frank holstered the .380, then picked up his sand-encrusted .45. He put that in the pocket of his leather coat, then started to walk away.
    “I’d offer you a ride, but my seats are leather.”
    “Call Eddie,” I said. “Please.”
    “You’ll find your way home. You always do.”
    “I’ll die out here, Frank.”
    Frank stopped. “Call the cops.”
    “Don’t be a prick, Frank.”
    “Maybe your friend will come back.”
    “I’ll do a job for you. Whatever you want. Just get me someplace warm.”
    “You’re a fuck up, MacManus. I used to think you were just unlucky. Now I see just how hard you work at failure.” He reached into his pocket and tossed a coin into the sand.
    “There’s a pay phone in the lot. You can call whomever you want from there. If it works, that is. If not, maybe some of your former neighbors’ll take pity on you and take you in.” He looked me over. “You might want to get a haircut first.”
    He was gone then. I knew I didn’t have time. I felt through the sand with aching fingers and found the coin, then pulled myself up and started toward the dune. I made it by sheer will between the two dunes onto Road D. Both the LTD and the Seville were long gone. I was alone in a stretch of nowhere. The pay phone was by the road. It felt as if my ear shattered when I put it to the earpiece. I didn’t want to risk Eddie being out on a fare, and I didn’t want to have to explain to Augie or Tina what had happened. There was only one other person I could think to call. I dialed the number with reluctance.
    He answered on the fourth ring, his voice groggy.
    “George, it’s Mac,” I said. “I need your help.”
    I got three hours’ sleep and woke with a headache. My clothes lying on the floor just inside my door had thawed and were still wet and covered with sand. I placed them on the radiator to dry. The snow had long since stopped and there was little accumulation to speak of along Elm Street. As I slowly awoke it became clear to me that the abuse and sleeplessness were beginning to take their toll on me. I rose slowly, like a mountain. Before breakfast I called Eddie and had him take me to my car in Sag Harbor. We didn’t talk much the entire trip out, except for when he wished me a Happy Thanksgiving. I had no idea up till then what day it was. When I got my bearings I wished him one, too, and said nothing more. I thought about dinner at Augie’s around one. I had no clue what I would say to him about the man with the limp.
    On my way home in my LeMans I stopped and got the East Hampton paper. East Hampton was a half hour drive from Southampton, but for good money, I’d take that risk. Back in my apartment I took my Spyderco knife out of my pocket and tossed it into the