WEDNESDAY
1
Still frazzled from last night's dream and his fragmented sleep, Jack struggled out of bed late and checked his voice mail while he nuked a pint of water for coffee. He found two messages waiting: the first was from his father. He groaned when he heard it:
"Jack? Jack? Are you there? You're never home. This is Dad. Please give me a call back. I want to discuss some travel plans."
Travel plans…he knew what that was about. Last fall Jack had promised to visit his father in Florida. Here it was spring and he still hadn't made the trip. Not that he had anything against seeing Dad, it was just that he knew his father's ultimate goal was to set up Jack in business down there, "something more stable" than the appliance repair trade he thought his younger son was involved in now.
The second message was also from his father.
"Jack, this is Dad. I don't know if you got my last message—I mean, you never called back—so let me tell you about the trip I'm planning."
Jack listened with a steadily sinking feeling as Dad described his itinerary: He had his reservations all set to leave his retirement development in Florida to visit Jack's sister and her two kids in Philadelphia next week, then hop over and visit Jack's brother in Trenton. Then he dropped the bomb, the dreaded words that struck pure terror into Jack's heart.
"…and since I'll be back in the Northeast, I thought I'd swing by New York and spend a couple of days with you."
Stay here! He's got to be kidding.
Jack saved the message as a reminder. He'd call back later. Much later. Right now he had to get himself together in time to meet Gia and Vicky for lunch.
He shaved, showered, and left early, figuring a good brisk walk would clear the fuzzies from his head.
Rakoshi-mares…he hoped this wasn't the start of a trend.
On the way out he grabbed the book he'd picked up for Vicky. In the downstairs foyer he checked his mailbox and found the annual circular from the local Little League, asking for donations. That time already? He always gave them a generous anonymous donation. Which meant he'd have to start his Little League collection drive soon—the Annual Repairman Jack Park-a-thon.
Jack cut through Central Park, heading for Midtown. He ambled past a pond where two mallards and a drake were nuzzling around a floating "I ♥ NY" bag and a latex surgical glove in search of a snack.
Cooler today; not too many people parking it. A guy sitting on one of the pond bridges breaking up a hot dog roll and splitting it between the ducks on the water below and the sparrows and pigeons on the pavement; a woman walking four tiny Italian greyhounds with fleece-lined collars; a couple of hand-holding Rollerbladers flashing by. The path wound between a procession of giant granite domes, weeds sprouting anew from their cracked surfaces; a young woman sat on her raincoat atop one of them, eyes closed, feet tucked into the lotus position, meditating.
In a few weeks the park would be fully awake and people would be sunning themselves on those rocks. The willows, oaks, and maples, along with the ubiquitous tree-sized urban weed, the ailanthus, would be in full leaf. Lovers would be walking hand in hand, guys would be tossing Frisbees, parents would be pushing baby carriages; there'd be jugglers and ice cream parts along the paths, couples making out on the benches next to old folks enjoying the shade.
Jack spotted a knot of people near the Shakespeare statue. At first he thought it might be one of the hawkers who specialized in thirty-five-dollar Louis Vuitton bags and twenty-buck Rolexes; they'd been pretty much chased off Fifth Avenue in the past few years, but they hadn't gone away. Then he spotted the two sliders on the cub, grimly eyeing the paths.
Jack smiled. A monte game. He loved to watch these.
He was still fifty feet away but one of the sliders had locked onto him as a possible incoming "d." The guy and his partner a dozen feet further down looked barely eighteen and sported the big-puffy-jacket, losing-my-pants, and I-forgot-how-to-tie-my-sneakers look. The nearer slide's hair was faded and his Yankee cap was facing the wrong way; his black face gave away nothing, but Jack knew his quick dark eyes were doing a laser-sharp read of his clothes, gait, his entire demeanor.
I'll be highly insulted if you think I'm a plainclothes dick, Jack thought.
He slowed his pace and put on a curious expression. If this was a typical monte set up, there'd be five guys in the team. Two "slides," or lookouts; a pair of "sticks" acting as shills, and a "shaker" working the caps and ball at the cardboard table.
If the slide thought Jack was trouble, that was the word he'd shout: "Slide!" And then the team would fold up its boxes and melt away.
But Jack must have passed muster because no alarm was raised as he approached. He slowed to a crawl as he passed, craning his neck for a peek at the action. Then he stopped but hung back as if uncertain about whether he'd be welcome.
A tall thin black guy in a dark blue knit cap glanced at him, then started yelling at the shaker.
"Hey, I wanna turn. You lettin' this guy have all the fun. Gimme my turn now. You got forty dollah mine. Lemme get it back." He turned to Jack. "Hey, bro. C'mere and watch this. Gonna break the bank, yo."
Jack glanced around with a he-isn't-talking-to-me-is-he? expression, then turned back to Knitcap. He pointed his finger at his own chest.
"Yeah, you," Knitcap said. A large gold bulldog hung on a heavy braided gold chain around his neck. "I want you to watch and make sure this guy ain't cheatin' me."
Jack took a hesitant step forward, then stopped.
Another tall black, bareheaded and grinning, moved aside to make room for Jack. "Right here, man."
Okay. Jack knew the sticks now. And from the size and number of the gold rings on their hands, business must be good lately.
"Winnin' ain't sinnin'," said the shaker at the center of the semicircle, a black ferret in a dark blue hoodie, hunched behind the makeshift cardboard table. In his mid-twenties, he was the old man of the crew, and its leader. "I repeat, I never cheat, I'm just the one you gotta beat."
Jack shrugged. Might as well join the crowd. This would be a good dose of reality to help banish the rakoshi remnants from last night.
He moved into the opening, bringing the number of marks up to three. To his right stood a Hispanic couple looking about thirty; the guy had a mullet haircut and wore a diamond earring; the woman had a round face and shiny black hair pulled back into a tight bun.
"Awright!" said Knitcap with a welcoming grin. "Keep your eyes open now, yo."
Jack smiled, accepting the welcome. Sure, they were glad to see him: fresh meat. Knitcap didn't want him as an extra pair of eyes watching the shaker; he wanted another sucker at the table. Jack slipped Vicky's book inside his shirt and watched the action.
He figured monte had to be five thousand years old, much older than its more common cousin, three-card monte. Somebody using three walnut shells and a dried pea probably had ripped off the pharaoh's workers during breaks between hauling stone blocks to the pyramids. The modern day version substituted white plastic Evian caps and a little handmade ball of rouge, but the object was the same: find a sucker and fleece him.
The shaker leaned over a piece of cardboard supported on two cardboard boxes. He clutched a thin stack of tens and twenties in his left hand, secured by his middle, ring and little fingers, leaving his thumb and index finger free to manipulate the caps and ball. His hands flew back and forth, crisscrossing over and under as his nimble fingers lifted and dropped the caps, skedaddling the little ball back and forth, a flash of red appearing and vanishing, but not so quickly you couldn't see where it came to rest.
That was the whole point, of course. Let the marks think they had a lock on the ball's location.
Jack ignored the ball and listened to the shaker's patter. That was where the real action was. That was how he communicated with his sticks.
"Watch till you're blind, no tricks will you find. I pay forty if you put down twenny. Forty down earns a hunnert, and believe me that's plenty. The ball goes around, it hides and it shows. It goes in, it goes out, till nobody knows. Forty's come to play, now cop me the money. You cry when I win, I laugh 'cause it's funny."
Hidden in the chatter was a set of precise instructions to Knitcap.
Jack never played monte, but out of curiosity he'd made a practice of eavesdropping on shaker patter whenever he had the chance. They all used a similar code, and by careful watching and listening he'd managed to break it.
"Cop" told the stick to win, "blow" to lose. "Money" signaled the cap near his left hand where the shaker held his money, although Jack had heard other shakers call it "rich."
"See" was the middle cap, "switch" was the one on the other end from the money hand.
By loading his riff with "forty's come to play, now cop me the money," the shaker was telling Knitcap to bet forty bucks and win by picking the cap near the shaker's left hand.
Sure enough, Knitcap bet forty bucks, found the rouge ball under the cap next to the money hand, and collected a hundred dollars.
"I'm no sinner," the shaker announced. "We have a winner!"
Knitcap was all smiles. "I'm up!" He pointed his money at Jack. "You my good luck, yo. You wanna play, I'll watch for you."
Before Jack could decline, the Hispanic guy jumped in. "Hey, no. It's me this time. I'm down."
"Santo, you've lost enough," said his wife. At least Jack assumed it was his wife. Both wore wedding rings.
"Hey, how about me?" said Nocap, close on Jack's left.
"Let's not fight, I'll make things right," said the shaker as he started the skedaddle again. "Everybody gets a turn, I'm a man with time to burn."
Santo dropped two twenties onto the cardboard. The shaker kept up his chatter but no instructions now since neither stick was in the game. He shuffled the caps, skittering the ball between them, demonstrating absolute control. But just before he stopped he let the rouge ball slow so that everyone could see it come to rest under the middle cap.
"Didja see it?" whispered Nocap.
"Yep," Jack said.
Doing your damnedest to lure me in, aren't you.
Jack watched closely as the shaker slid the three caps forward and arranged them along the front of the cardboard. Jack knew that was when the ball would be moved from under the cap to the web between the shaker's thumb and forefinger. He was expecting the transfer, looking for it, but still didn't spot it. This guy was slick.
The shaker said, "There they are, lined up tight. Forty pay a hunnert if you pick it right."
Santo didn't hesitate. He pointed to the center cap.
The shaker lifted it—nothing. He lifted the other two and…out rolled the little red ball from under the one in his right hand.
Santo pounded his fist against his thigh and cursed in Spanish.
"Okay," said his wife, tugging on his arm. "That's it. That's a hundred twenty dollars you lost now."
Knitcap stepped around, blocking their retreat, and started yelling at the shaker. "Hey, yo, you gotta give this guy another chance!"
Nocap chimed in. "Yeah, man. Give him a double or nothing so he can get even at least!"
Knitcap added. "What he said. Help this guy out or I'm walking!"
Let the sucker go, Jack thought. You've soaked him enough.
Apparently they didn't think so.
The shaker shrugged. "Awright, awright. He puts down fifty he can win back his one-twenty."
What, no rhymes? Jack thought.
"No, Santo," said the wife.
But Santo had the fever. He popped his diamond earring into his hand and held it out.
"I got no more cash. How 'bout this?"
"No!" his wife gasped. "I bought you that!"
The shaker took the earring, held the tiny diamond up, twisting it this way and that in the light.
Say no, Jack thought, sending the shaker a mental message. Let him go.
The shaker shrugged. "Awright," he said with almost believable reluctance. "I'll make an exception this once."
"Mah man!" Knitcap said, slapping Santo on the back. "You gonna win! I can smell winnin' in the air!"
Jack ground his teeth. Sons of bitches.
The woman wailed. "Santo!"
"Don't worry," Santo told her. "I won't lose it."
Oh, yes you will, Jack thought, but could say nothing.
He fumed as he watched the shaker put the earring on the cardboard and begin the skedaddle. One thing to fleece a sucker. Rules of the street were, someone stupid enough to bet on a game like this deserved to lose, and Jack had no quarrel with that. Sort of a tax on the street impaired. But there were limits. You collected the tax and moved the guy along. It was stone cold to suck him dry, especially in front of his woman.
Jack usually ran his Annual Park-a-thon for the Little League at night, but he was incensed enough now to make an exception for this monte crew.
He studied the sticks, then turned and checked out the slides. Most likely they were all carrying knives; none of them looked to be packing heat, but damn near impossible to tell under those bulky coats.
He made a decision as he turned back to the game: He would accept a donation from these generous fellows, allowing them the honor of being the first contributors to this year's Little League fund.
He felt his pulse quicken a little. He hadn't come prepared for this. Usually he avoided spur-of-the-moment gigs, but the opportunity was here, so why not grab it?
Jack watched the shaker and his flying hands. Same routine as before, then the caps were pushed forward.
"Didja see it?" Nocap whispered again.
"Sure did," Jack said, nodding and smiling, looking like a guy taking the bait and waiting to be reeled in.
Santo picked the money cap, but the ball rolled out from under the center cap.
"Shit!"
His wife wailed again as the earring disappeared into the shaker's pocket.
"Hang on a sec," Jack said, grabbing the stricken Santo's arm as he turned to go.
"No!" the wife shouted, her voice rising in pitch. "No more!"
"Please," Jack said. "I think I've got this figured and I want witnesses. I'll make it worth your while when I win."
Jack was telling the truth. He didn't want to be alone at the table when he played.
The possibility of salvaging something from their disaster changed their minds, and Santo and his wife nodded. He looked sullen, chastened; she stood teary eyed with her arms folded across her chest.
"Great," Jack said. He turned to Nocap and said, "You were next, I believe."
"Hey, no, that's okay," Nocap said, grinning. "Be my guest. Wanna see if you really do got this thing scoped, yo. 'Cause then you can tell me."
"Thanks." Jack pulled two fifties from his wallet. "What does this get me?"
"Two-fifty," the shaker said.
"Come on," Jack said. "A hundred bucks on one play—that should get me at least three hundred."
"Sorry, man. Two-fifty's the limit."
"Hey, yo, c'mon," said Knitcap, playing his advocate's role to the hilt. "Pay the guy three!"
Jack said, "How about two-fifty and the earring?"
"Yeah!" said Nocap. "That's fair!"
"Awright," said the shaker with another of his put-upon shrugs, making a show of reluctantly bowing to pressure.
Truth was, Jack could have been asking for five hundred and it wouldn't have mattered—no way, no how was the sucker going to win—but he didn't want to push it too far.
"But I need to know if you've got two-fifty," Jack said.
"I got it," the shaker said, holding up the stack in his left hand.
Jack shook his head. "If my money's on the table, so's yours. And the earring with it."
Another shrug, but wary this time. "Awright. If that's the way you wants to play, what else is there for me to say?"
Jack laid his money down. The shaker counted out two-fifty in tens and twenties next to Jack's bills, then dropped the earring on top.
"If everything's okay with you, now I got my work to do."
"Just one more thing," Jack said. He turned to Santo and his wife. "I want you two on either side of me, watching, okay?"
He centered himself on the makeshift table, then positioned Santo on his right and the wife on his left.
"All right," he told the couple. "Don't let that ball out of your sight."
"Now are we ready?" the shaker said.
Jack nodded. "Okay. Do it."
Jack felt his muscles coil as the shaker started his yammer and went into the skedaddle. Finally he stopped, pushed the caps forward.
"The ball is hidden in its groove. Time for you to make your move."
Jack took a deep, tension-easing breath, then squared himself in front of the table. He pointed at the caps with both index fingers, moving them in circles as if they were fleshy divining rods.
"I choose…I choose…"
He moved his hands closer to the caps.
"…I choose…"
Closer…quick glances at the positions of the sticks…
Then he struck.
"…the middle!"
With one lightning move he overturned the two end caps, shouted, "I win!" when no ball showed, then snatched up the two piles of bills and the earring.
"What the fuck?" said Nocap.
Jack was already moving as he shoved the earring into Santo's hand.
"Bye."
"Hey!" yelled the shaker.
"That's okay," Jack said, backpedaling away down the path. "I don't need to see the ball. I trust you."
He turned and broke into a jog. Behind him he heard Santo laugh. He glanced back and saw his wife hugging him. He also saw Knitcap and one of the slides starting after him.
He quickened his pace. He knew he wasn't going to lose them. Fifth Avenue was less than a hundred yards away, but even if he got there ahead of them, that wouldn't stop them. They'd jump him on the sidewalk and take back the money. Or try to. Jack didn't want to deal with them in public; witnesses could describe him, a camera-toting tourist might even snap a photo. Or worst case—a cop might come to his rescue.
No, he'd have to deal with both of them here. He needed a spot where they'd think they had him all to themselves. And up ahead he saw just the place.
He hopped over a low fence onto the grass and half ran, half slid down a steep slope to a lower walkway that ran into a short tunnel beneath the path he'd been on. He stopped midway in the brick-lined underpass and ducked into one of the shallow arched recesses that lined the walls. He pulled his Semmerling LM-4 from its ankle holster and stuck it in the side pocket of his jeans for easier access.
He was hoping he wouldn't have to use it—that simply showing it would be enough. Trouble with the world's smallest .45 automatic was its size. People saw it and thought it was a toy. But it packed a wallop, especially loaded as it was the MagSafe Defenders.
The frangible loads gave Jack the option of inflicting a disabling wound—say, to the thigh—or an almost guaranteed kill with a shot anywhere into the chest. And he didn't have to worry about the bullet coming out the other side and hitting an innocent passerby—frangibles did devastating damage to their target, but stayed put.
He was making a show of counting his money when they found him.
"Awright, mothahfuckah," Knitcap said. He held a six-inch blade point down by his right thigh.
Jack slid his hand toward the Semmerling pocket but stopped it halfway there. He'd been expecting knives; he hadn't expected the pearl-handled .38 revolver in the young slide's hand.
"Yeah," said the slide, pointing the pistol at Jack's head. "Yeah!"
For one frozen, heart-stopping, bladder-squeezing second as the barrel lined up with his face, Jack thought he was going to die. He saw murder in the slide's face. The kid was all of seventeen, but his cold dark eyes said he hadn't been a real kid for a long time.
But Jack calmed somewhat when he saw how the kid was holding it. Maybe he'd been watching too many gangsta videos, or bad shoot-'em-up flicks. Whatever the reason, the slide was holding his pistol sideways…beyond sideways—he'd rotated it a good 150 degrees so that the heel of the grip was higher than the barrel. And he had his ring and pinky fingers sticking up in the air like he was having afternoon tea.
When he was ready to pull the trigger he'd need to get a firmer grip or risk having the pistol jump out of his hand.
So Jack figured he was safe for the moment—the kid was stylin' now, showing off for the older stick—but as soon as those waving fingers wrapped themselves around the grip…
What now? Look scared, then attack? The one thing he could not afford to do was the expected.
"You lunched?" the kid said. "That what wrong with you? That what make you think you get away with this shit?"
Jack's mind raced as his eyes fixed on the snub-nose revolver—looked like a custom job, nickel plated with curlicue engravings all over it. A pretty piece, despite the fact that its muzzle was pointed at Jack's face.
"Hey-hey-hey," Jack said in a frantic voice that wasn't completely put on. He thrust his hands out in front of him, money and all, as if to hold them off. "No need for violence!"
"Yeah?" said Knitcap through his teeth. He stepped closer and Jack raised his hands over his head. "You think I like chasin' you 'bama ass around?"
"I won fair and square!"
"That ain't the way we play." He stuck the point of his knife against Jack's throat. "Maybe we just cut your thumbs off so this never be a problem again."
"Or maybe I just one-eighty-seven you," the slide said, pushing the pistol closer to Jack's face. "Bust one in you face so you don't even think about trying this shit again!"
The revolver was so close now that Jack could see the tips of the bullets in its cylinder. His stomach gave a twist when he recognized the little posts in the center of the jacketed hollow points: Hydra-Shoks. He had a nightmare flash of what would happen if he took one of those in the face as threatened—he watched the rim of the hollow nose peel back from that central post into a wide-winged lead butterfly, saw it flutter though his brain, bouncing off the inner walls of his skull, pureeing the contents.
Think-think-think! Where's the hammer? Down. Good. If and when the kid fired, the trigger would need a double-action pull…just a teeny bit more pressure to get off the shot. Wasn't much, but every little bit helped.
A little closer…Jack had to bring that pistol just a little closer…
Very aware of the blade point just to the left of his voice box, he nodded carefully at the sideways pistol. "Uh, I assume you know that's not the recommended way to hold a pistol."
"What?" the slide said, his eyes widening. "What?"
"I said—"
"I know what you said. And now I know you fuckin' lunched! I hold a gun in you face and you tell me I'm holding it wrong?" He glanced at Knitcap. "Ay yo trip—he miss his medication today or somethin'?"
"No," Jack said. "It's just that it's not a secure grip."
The slide stepped closer, rage lighting in his eyes as he yanked back the hammer. But he didn't change his grip—he wasn't going to let anyone tell him how to hold his gun. Stylin' to the end.
"Don't you be tellin' me—"
"Here!" Jack cried in a high, terrified voice, releasing the bills he held over his head and scattering them into the air. "Take the money!"
In the instant their attention shifted to the money, Jack batted Knitcap's knife away with his left hand while whipping his right hand down at the slide's pistol. He caught the stubby barrel and the trigger guard, ramming the pistol back and down as he twisted. The weapon tore free and Jack switched it to his left hand.
And pointed it—right side up—at Knitcap just in time to abort a backhand slash at Jack's face with the knife.
"Uh-uh."
Knitcap froze. The slide looked down at his empty hand, then back at his pistol in Jack's, his expression a study in shock and confusion.
"Oh, fuck!" said Knitcap and turned to run.
"Don't want to shoot you in the back," Jack said, flipping the pistol to his right hand, "but I will." He touched a wet, stinging spot on his throat.. His fingers came away bloody. "Especially after you cut me. Dammit!"
Knitcap mustered a sick sounding, "Shit!" as he dropped his knife. He looked at Jack's throat. "It's only a scratch, man."
Jack stepped out of the recess to where he could better cover both men.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a jogger approach the underpass, realize what was going down, make a quick U-turn, and sprint away.
Knitcap glanced angrily at the slide. "How the fuck you let that happen?"
The slide said nothing.
"You fuckin' b-g!" Knitcap went on. "You had the gun in his face and let it go?"
"As I was saying," Jack told the former gun owner, "that's a stupid way to hold a pistol. Not secure at all." He gestured to the ground. "Okay, guys. Have a seat."
The slide finally spoke. "Fuck you!"
Jack lowered the pistol and shot him in the foot. The report echoed like a cannon blast in the tunnel as the slide cried out and fell to the ground, moaning, rolling, and clutching his abruptly four-toed foot.
Knitcap was down in a sitting position before the sound of the shot had completely faded away. He held his hands in the air.
"I'm down! I'm sittin'!"
Jack knew the appearance of the jogger had set a timer in motion, and the sound of the shot would only accelerate that. The underpass would funnel the report right toward Fifth Avenue. He had to figure someone in that direction had heard it, and was probably dialing 911 right now. Times like this, Jack hated cell phones.
Had to move fast.
"All right. Both of you—empty your pockets. I want to see everything you've got, even the lint. Put it all in Mr. Smith and Wesson's Yankee hat."
Slowly, grudgingly, Knitcap complied, but the slide wouldn't let go of his bloody foot.
"I can't, man!" he moaned. "My foot!"
"Weren't you the tough guy gonna bust one in my face a minute ago?" Jack said. "You can get along fine with nine toes, but let's see how far you'll get with one knee, because that's where I bust the next one if you don't start emptying pockets now!"
The slide got to it. Another knife appeared, extra rounds for the pistol, some change, and about a hundred in small bills between them.
"Don't forget the rings and necklaces," Jack said.
"Aw, not my dog, man," said Knitcap.
"You're obviously a betting man," Jack said, pointing the pistol at his neck. "How much you wanna bet I can shoot that big fat chain holding the dog without hitting your neck?"
With a sullen look he tugged off the rings and tossed them into the cap. Then with a look of utter misery, he grabbed the gold bulldog, broke the chain, and dropped it into the cap with the rest. He punched the back of the slide's shoulder—hard.
"Told you to let me handle it, but no, you gotta bring out the fuckin' chrome."
The slide just clutched his bloody sneaker and said nothing.
Jack bent, retrieved the cash he'd dropped, then picked up the hat.
"Nice doing business with you guys," he said, then trotted off, leaving them sitting in the shadows.
He didn't expect them to come after him again. After all, they were unarmed now and one of them wasn't walking too well. And at the moment they were probably lots more interested in getting out of the park before the cops came, then coming up with a good story for the shaker as to why they were returning bloody footed and empty handed.
Jack shoved the take into his pockets, then pressed the cap against his bleeding throat as he slowed to an energetic walk. Not a lot of blood there, but enough to attract attention.
He felt a little shaky from the adrenaline aftereffects. Too close back there. He'd been lucky. It could have come out a lot worse—the slide could have simply shot him on sight and Jack would have been done.
Why had he given in to a spur-of-the-moment gig? It went against all his rules. These things had to be planned. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
He passed the statue of Balto the sled dog, then angled past the zoo. By the time he'd climbed the steps to Fifth at Sixty-fourth Street, he'd calculated that his little haul probably would add up to over a thousand after he hocked the gun, knives, and jewelry. The Little Leaguers ought to be able to buy lots of uniforms and equipment with that.
He doubted they'd want the bloodstained Yankee cap, though.
2
"A couple of days and then he'll be on his way back to Florida," Gia said. "You survived this food…you can survive your father."
She glanced up at him with her azure eyes, then returned to flipping through the Little Orphan Annie book. Jack had picked up the Fantagraphics collection of all the strips from 1935 along with the Daddy Warbucks lamp. He'd bought it for Vicky but Gia immediately had taken possession of it.
Blond and beautiful, she sat across from him at a tiny table far from the big street-front windows. The remains of three lunches lay scattered and mostly eaten before them. Vicky, Gia's daughter, had had a hamburger; Gia, complaining that all the salads had meat, had finally settled for some vegetarian chili. Jack had ordered the Harley Hog Special—a mass of pulled pork stuffed into a roll.
"What is pulled pork, anyway?" Gia said, looking askance at the scraps left on his plate.
"It's the other white meat."
"Cooking a pig sounds nasty enough, but why pull it?"
"I think they cook it on the bone, then grab handfuls and—"
"Stop right there. Please. Oh, and look," she said, folding her paper napkin and reaching across the table, "your Band-Aid is oozing a little."
He let her dab at his throat.
"That must have been some shaving cut. What were you using—a machete?"
"Just careless."
Jack was still unsettled and annoyed at himself for getting hurt. He'd picked up some Band-Aids at a drugstore on Seventh Avenue, and cleaned the wound in the bathroom of a McDonald's. It wasn't deep, but it had needed two Band-Aids to cover it.
He hadn't actually said it was a shaving cut—he hated lying to Gia—but he hadn't corrected her when she arrived at that conclusion. She tended to overreact when he got hurt, going on about how easily it could have been so much worse, how he could have been killed. Sometimes that led to an argument.
A shaving cut was good.
"There!" she said, balling up the napkin. "All cleaned up."
"I had a rakoshi dream last night," he told her.
They usually avoided talking about the horrific episode last summer that had ended in the deaths of Vicky's two aunts and damn near Vicky herself. But he needed to share this, and Gia was one of the four other people who knew about the creatures.
She looked up at him. "Did you? I'm sorry. I think I've finally stopped having them. But every once in a while Vicky wakes up with the horrors. Was I in it?"
"No."
"Good." She shuddered. "I don't ever want to see one of those things again, not even in someone else's dream."
"Don't worry. You won't. That I can promise you."
Gia smiled and went back to flipping through the Annie book; Jack looked around for Vicky. The pig-tailed eight-year-old reason they were in this particular place was over by the window, gyrating on a coin-fueled motorcycle ride. A delicate warmth suffused Jack as he watched her pretend she was racing it down some imaginary road. Vicky was the closest he might ever come to having a daughter, and he loved her like his own. Eight years old and no secrets to keep from her mom, just the moment and learning something new every day. That was the life.
"Think she'll grow up to be a biker chick?"
"That's always been my dream for her," Gia said without looking up from the book.
Jack had promised Vicky a lunch out during her grammar school's spring vacation week, and she'd chosen the Harley Davidson Cafe. Vicky liked all the wheels and chrome; Jack loved the fact that only tourists came here, reducing to near zip his chances of running into someone he knew. Gia had come along as chaperone, to make sure the two of them didn't get into trouble. None of them was here for the food, which was mostly suitable for staving off hunger until the next meal. But as far as Jack was concerned, having the two ladies in his life along transformed any place into Cirque 2000.
"These are really good," Gia said, spending about two seconds per page on the Little Orphan Annie book.
"You can't be reading that fast," Jack said.
"No, I mean the art."
"The art? They're drawings."
"Yes, but what he does with just black ink in those little white boxes." She was nodding admiringly. "His composition is superb." She closed the book and looked at its cover. "Who is this guy?"
"Name's Harold Gray. He created her."
"Really? I know Annie from the play and the movie, but why haven't I ever heard of him, or seen his strips before?"
"Because your Iowa paper probably didn't carry Annie when you were growing up. She'd become passe by the late sixties, and hardly worth reading after Gray died."
"How many strips are there?"
"Well, let's see…Annie started in the twenties…"
"Wow. He kept this up for forty years?"
"The thirties and forties contain his best stuff. Punjab gets introduced in that book you've got there."
"Punjab?"
"Yeah. The big Indian guy. Geoffrey Holder played him in the film. I've always loved Little Orphan Annie, mostly for characters like Punjab and the Asp—you didn't mess with the Asp. This guy Gray is the American Dickens."
"I didn't know you were into Dickens."
"Well…I liked him in high school."
"But I can see what you mean," Gia said, flipping again. "He seems to deal with all classes."
"Never thought much of his art, though."
"Think again. This guy is good."
Jack would take her word for it. Gia was an artist, doing commercial stuff like paperback covers and magazine illustrations to pay the bills, but she kept working on paintings on the side, always trying to interest a gallery in showing them.
"I can see Thomas Nast in him," she said. "And I know I've seen some of him in Crumb."
"The underground guy?"
"Definitely."
"You know underground comics?" Jack said.
Gia looked up at him. "If it involves any kind of drawing, I want to know about it. And as for you, I've got to start dragging you to some art shows again."
Jack groaned. She was always after him to go to openings and museums. He gave in now and then, but usually hated most of what he saw.
"If you think it'll help," he said. "But no urinals stuck to the wall or piles of bricks on the floor, okay?"
She smiled. "Okay."
Jack gazed into the wild blue yonder of Gia's eyes. The very sight of her gave him a buzz. She shone like a jewel here. A couple of guys seated near the windows kept looking at her. Jack didn't blame them. He could stare at her all day. She wore little make-up—didn't need any, really—so what he was seeing was really her. Humidity tended to make her blond hair wavy. Because she wore it short, the waves created feathery little wings along the sides around her ears. Gia hated those wings. Jack loved them, and she had a whole bunch of them today. He reached out and stroked a few of the feathers.
"Why did you do that?" she said.
"Just wanted to touch you. Have to keep reassuring myself that you're real."
She smiled that smile, took his hand, and gently bit his index finger.
"Convinced?"
"For now." He held up his tooth-marked finger and wiggled it at her. "Meat, you know. And you a brand-new vegetarian."
He snatched his finger back before she could bite it again.
"I am not a vegetarian," she said. "I'm just off meat."
"Not some sort of religious thing? Or a plot against plants?"
"No…it's just that lately I've found myself with less of an appetite for things that were walking around under their own power not too long before they landed on my plate. Especially if they resemble what they looked like alive."
"Like a turkey?"
She made a face. "Stop."
"Or better yet, a squab."
"Must you? And by the way, anybody who eats squab in this city should know that they're eating Manhattan pigeon."
"Come on."
"Oh, yes." She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "You order squab, they send some guy up to the roof with a net. A few minutes later…'squab.'"
Jack laughed. "Is this sort of like the fur coat thing?"
"Please—let's not discuss fur coats today. Spring is here at last and their vacuous owners will be stuffing them into vaults for the rest of the year."
"Jeez. Can't talk about fur, squab, pulled pork—none of the fun subjects."
"I can think of a fun subject," she said. "How about your father?"
"My turn to say 'Stop.'"
"Come on, now. I've never met him, but he can't be as bad as you make him out."
"He's not bad, he's just relentless. And he cannot stay with me. You know what my place is like."
Gia nodded. "Like the 168th Street Armory."
"Right. I can't move all that stuff out. No place to stash it. And if he finds any of it—"
"You mean like I did?"
Jack nodded. "Yeah. And you know what happened."
Gia and Jack hadn't been together that long then. He'd told her he was a security consultant. She'd been doing him a favor, a little spring cleaning, when she stumbled onto one of his caches—the one in the false rear of the antique secretary. It almost had broken them up. Even though they were back together now, tighter than ever, Jack still shuddered at how close he had come to losing Gia and Vicky. They were his anchors, his reality checks, the two most important people in the world.
"He's an uptight middle class guy who already thinks his younger son is something of a loser; don't want him thinking he's a gun nut too. Or worse yet, figure out he's been lying to him all these years about being in the appliance repair business."
Gia shook her head and smiled. "You're unbelievable, Jack. Here you've spent your whole adult life cutting yourself free from just about every string society attaches, and yet you still crave your father's approval."
"I don't crave it," he said, perhaps, a tad too defensively, he realized. "It's just that he's a good man, a genuinely concerned parent, and it bugs me that he thinks I'm some sort of loser. Anybody else—present company excepted, of course—I wouldn't care. But dammit, he's my father. And I can't have him crashing with me."
"Then you should simply say your place is too small and offer to put him up in a hotel for his stay."
"I don't know if that's going to fly." Frustrated, he groaned and stared at the ceiling. "I'll think of something. I've got to."
"Speaking of thinking," Gia said softly, "you might want to think about making some time in your busy schedule to stop by sometime late Friday morning."
"I don't know, Gi. No telling what's going to be happening. What's up?"
A tiny shrug. "Nothing much. It's just that Vicky's got a play date and she's being picked up at eleven—"
"And we'll have the place to ourselves?"
Those blue eyes locked onto his. "Completely."
Jack grinned. Ooh, yes. "Something just opened up. See you one minute after eleven."
He glanced over to the motorcycle and realized with a start that Vicky was no longer on it. He stiffened and scanned the dining area.
"Relax," Gia said. "She's over there talking to those kids."
Jack looked to where she was pointing and saw Vicky talking to a crowd of children about her age. They all had backpacks and were under the wings of a couple of matronly chaperones. As Jack watched, Vicky led one of the boys over.
"Hey, Jack," she said, grinning. "His name's Jack too!"
"Jacques," the boy said.
"That's what I said. He's from France." She gestured to the group behind her. "They're all from France. They're visiting."
"And where else would they come for fine American cuisine," Jack said. He extended his hand to the little boy and repeated his entire French vocabulary. "Bon-jour, Jacques."
The kid beamed. "Bonjour, Monsieur!" and then went into overdrive Francais, incomprehensible to Jack.
Gia answered him in kind and the two of them babbled back and forth for a couple of minutes until his chaperone called him back.
Jack was amazed. "I didn't know you spoke French."
"President of the French club in college."
"It's so…sexy. Will you speak French to me on Friday?"
She smiled and patted his hand. "Easy, Gomez."
"I had no idea."
"Well, it's not like I have much chance to use it. French isn't a very useful language in Manhattan."
"Jack;" Vicky said, "will you teach me to play baseball?"
"Sure," Jack said. "But I've got to tell you, I wasn't a great player."
"I just want to hit a home run."
"That I can probably help you with."
"Swell!" she said and kissed him on the cheek. Then she ran back to the motorcycle.
"Why the sudden interest in baseball?" Jack said to Gia.
"Not exactly baseball—T-ball. Some of her friends are going out for the local team and she wants to be part of it." She looked at him. "Not a great player? I'd have guessed you for an ace player."
"Nah. Too boring. I could hit it a mile, and that's the only reason I ever made a team. I was a disaster on defense. Coaches moved me all over, infield and outfield, didn't matter—a minute out there and my eyes would glaze over and I'd be daydreaming, asleep on my feet. Or watching the bees and wasps in the clover—I was terrified of being stung."
He smiled at the memory of being literally and figuratively out in left field and hearing the crack of a bat against the ball, waking up to see everybody staring at him, the pure terror of realizing the ball was coming his way and not having the faintest clue as to where it was. Stomach-clenching panic as he looked up, searching the bright summer sky for a dark round speck, praying he'd see it, praying even harder he'd catch it, praying hardest it wouldn't land on his head and leave him in a coma.
Ah, the joy of being one of the boys of summer.
"Which reminds me," Gia said, "I hope you're not going out collecting for the West Side Little League again this year."
Uh-oh. "Well…it's for a good cause."
She made a face. "Do they know how you collect for them?"
"Of course not. They just know I'm their top fundraiser."
"Can't you just go door to door like most people? You could get hurt your way."
He loved the concern in her eyes. "Tell you what. I'll give them whatever I already have put aside for them, and that'll be it for this year. How's that sound?"
"Great," she said. "And what other kind of trouble have you got planned for yourself?"
"Well, there's that guy I told you about."
"With the missing wife?"
"Right. Shouldn't be any rough stuff with that. More like a Sherlock Holmes thing."
"But you're not a detective. Why did she specify you rather than a private eye?"
"She thinks I'm the only one who will 'understand.'"
Gia raised her shoulders. "Don't ask me why, but that gives me the creeps."
Jack reached across and squeezed her hand. "Hey, don't worry. This has all the makings of a Gandhi job—strictly non-violent."
"I've heard that before—and you almost wound up dead."
"Not this time. This one's going to be smooth as glass."
He didn't mention the other customer he'd be meeting with late tonight, however. That might be a different story.
3
"A beauty," Abe said, examining the gleaming Smith and Wesson 649. "Checkered rosewood stocks, even. Very nice. But as you know, my clientele tends to prefer functional over flashy."
Jack had brought the pistol he'd confiscated from the slide to Abe for an appraisal.
"Get the most you can for it," Jack said. "It's for the Little League."
"Will do, but no promises. You should keep it, maybe."
"And what?" Jack slapped a hand over his heart in shock. "Replace my Semmerling?"
"I should suggest you abandon your favorite little baby gun? Never. But maybe consider replacing that Glock 19 you're using lately. After all, the Smitty's a revolver."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Not this again."
"It's a thought."
Abe never had trusted automatics. And he never stopped trying to convert Jack, who leaned toward them.
Jack said, "That thing's heavy and holds only six rounds—five if you keep it down on empty like I tend to do with revolvers. My glock's small, about as light as they come, and gives me a helluva lot more shots."
"With the kind of close situations you get yourself into, even a lousy shot like you shouldn't need more than three or four rounds. And a revolver will never jam."
"Call it a security blanket. And I've never had a cycling problem. Mainly because you sell me only the best ammo."
"Well, yes," Abe said, thrown off by the compliment. "Quality makes a difference. Speaking of which, how are you fixed for ammo?"
"Pretty good. Why?"
"Just got in some new stock." He pulled a box from under the counter. "Look. Those Magsafe Defenders you're using."
"Great. I'm running low on the .45s."
Jack had been using frangibles like Glaser Silvers and MagSafe Defenders for a while now—hollow point rounds packed with birdshot that released after impact.
"Forty-fives and nines, ready to go."
Jack shook his head, remembering how naive he'd been when he'd first started in the fix-it business. He'd thought all you had to do was buy a gun and some bullets and that was it.
Not by a long shot. Accuracy, chambering, weight, concealability, number of rounds in the magazine or cylinder, the safety mechanism, the weight of the single-action pull, the weight of the double-action pull, ease of maintenance—all had to be weighed and considered. Then came the ammunition: different situations required different loads. Did he want full metal jackets, jacketed hollowpoints, or frangibles? What size load? Choose from ninety-five to 230 grains. Medium compression or high compression? And don't forget, recoil is directly proportional to the compression of the load and inversely proportional to the weight of the pistol. A lightweight model with +P+ loads will want to fly out of your hand every time you fire.
Jack was still feeling his way.
"Frangibles are nice," Abe said. "But you should be carrying something with more penetration maybe?"
Jack shook his head. He felt safer with the frangibles. "Penetration doesn't equal stopping power in my book."
"Stopping power," Abe said, holding up one of the Defender rounds. "That they've got."
"I'll pick some up tomorrow. I don't want to be carrying them around with me the rest of the day."
"Big wounds," Abe said, speaking to the gleaming bullet in his hand. "Deep as a well and wide as a church door."
"They're good," Jack said, "but I think that's overstating it a little, don't you?"
"That was Shakespeare, sort of."
"Shakespeare? No kidding. I didn't know he used frangibles."
Jack backed toward the door as Abe cocked his arm to throw the bullet at him. "Got to go. By the way—Ernie's still in business, isn't he?"
"Sure. You need new ID?"
"I'm feeling the need for a new SSN."
"Another Social Security number?" Abe said. "You're trying to corner the market, maybe?"
"Just being careful."
"Always with the careful. I've used the same phony number forever. Do you see me getting a new one every couple of years?"
"I need a wider comfort zone than you," Jack said. "Besides, you've got a real one you can use. I don't."
"You're crazy, you know. What's it for?"
"A new credit card."
"Another card!" He slapped his hands to the sides of his face and rocked dramatically. "Oy! I never should have got you started. You've become an addict!"
Jack laughed. "And can I borrow the truck again? I've got to meet a customer in Elmhurst tonight."
"No one's going to be shooting at you, I hope. I don't want holes in my lady."
"No. This is just a reconnoiter. I'll rent something for the rest of the gig."
He wouldn't want Abe's plate reported near the scene of a felony.
4
"That him?" Jack said.
He crouched in the bushes behind a two-story, center-hall colonial in a middle-class neighborhood in Elmhurst. A guy named Oscar Schaffer hunkered next to him. This was their second meeting. They'd agreed to preliminary terms earlier in the week; now they were ironing out details.
"Yeah," said Schaffer, glaring through the French doors into the house's family room. The man of the house was a big guy, easily six-four, two-fifty; crew-cut red hair, round face, and narrow blue eyes. A bulging gut rode side-saddle on his belt buckle. "That's Gus Castleman, the no-good slimy rotten bastard who's beating up on my sister."
"Seems like there's a lot of that going around."
This wouldn't be the first wife-beater Jack had been asked to handle. He thought of Julio's sister. Her husband had been pounding on her. That was how Jack had met Julio. They'd been friends ever since.
"Yeah? Well it never went around in my family. At least until now."
A thin, mousy, brittle-looking woman whose hair was a few shades too blonde to be a natural human color entered the family room.
"And that, I take it, is your sister."
"That's Ceil, poor kid."
"Okay," Jack said. "Now that I know what they look like, let's get out of here."
They crept along the six-foot stockade cedar fence that separated the Castlemans' yard from their neighbors—one of the good things about this set-up. Also on the plus side: they had no kids, no dog, and their yard was rimmed with trees and high shrubs. Perfect for surveillance.
After checking to make sure the street was empty, Jack and Schaffer stepped back onto the sidewalk and walked the two blocks to the darkened gas station lot where they'd left their respective rides. They chose the front seat of Schaffer's dark green Jaguar XJS convertible.
"Not a great venue for a meeting, but it'll do."
The Jag smelled new inside. The leather upholstery was buttery soft. Bright, bleaching light from a nearby mercury vapor street lamp poured through the windshield and illuminated their laps.
Oscar Schaffer was some sort of big-time developer, but he didn't look like Donald Trump. He was older, for one thing—late fifties, at least—and fat. A round face with dark thinning hair above, and a second chin under construction below. One of the biggest land developers on Long Island, as he was overly fond of saying. Rich, but not Trump-rich.
And he was sweating. Jack wondered if Donald Trump sweated. The Donald might perspire, but Jack couldn't imagine him sweating.
Jack watched Schaffer pull a white handkerchief from his pocket and blot the moisture. Supposedly he'd started out as a construction worker who'd got into contracting and then had gone on to make a mint in custom homes. His speech still carried echoes of the streets, despite occasional words like "venue." And he carried a handkerchief. Jack couldn't think of anyone he knew who carried a handkerchief—who owned a handkerchief.
"I never thought it would happen to Ceilia. She's so…"
His voice trailed off.
Jack said nothing. This was the time to keep quiet and listen. This was when he tended to learn the real deal about the customer. He still didn't have a handle on Schaffer. He did know he didn't particularly care for the guy. Maybe it was the Mr. Bigtime Success Story attitude.
"I just don't understand it. Gus seemed like such a good guy when they were dating and engaged. I liked him. An accountant, white collar, good job, clean hands, everything I wanted for Ceil. I helped him get his job. He's done well. But he beats her." Schaffer's lips thinned as they stew back over his teeth. "Dammit, he beats the shit out of her. And you know what's worse? She takes it! She's put up with it for ten years! I'm to the point where I'm thinking the best thing that could happen to Ceil was Gus meeting with some sort of fatal accident."
Jack knew all this. They'd covered this ground during their first meeting.
"You're probably right," he said before Schaffer could go on.
Schaffer stared at him. "You mean you'll…?"
"Kill him?" Jack shook his head. "Forget it."
"But I thought—"
"Forget it. Sometimes I make a mistake. If that happens, I like to be able to go back and fix it."
Schaffer's expression flickered between disappointment and relief, finally settling on relief.
"You know," he said with a small smile, "as much as I'd like Gus dead, I'm glad you said that. I mean, if you'd said okay, I think I'd have set you to it." He shook his head and looked away. "Kind of scary what you can come to."
"She's your sister. Someone's hurting her. You want him stopped but you can't do it yourself. Not hard to understand how you feel. Anyway, why do you need me? Lots of laws against this stuff, you know."
"Right. Sure there are. But you've got to sign a complaint. Ceil won't do that."
"She's probably afraid."
"Afraid, hell! She defends him, says he's under a lot of pressure and sometimes he just loses control. She says most of the time it's her fault because she gets him mad, and she shouldn't get him mad. Can you believe that shit? She came over to my place one night, two black eyes, a swollen jaw, red marks around her throat from where he was choking her. I lost it. I charged over to their place ready to kill him with my bare hands. He's a big guy, but I'm tough. And I'm sure he's never been in a fight with someone who punches back. When I arrived screaming like a madman, he was ready for me. He had a couple of neighbors there and he was standing inside his front door with a baseball bat. Told me if I tried anything he'd defend himself, then call the cops and press charges for assault and battery. I told him if he came anywhere near my sister again, he wouldn't have an unbroken bone left in his body to dial the phone with!"
"Sounds like he knew you were coming."
"He did! That's the really crazy part! He knew because Ceil had called from my place to warn him! And the next day he sends her roses, says how much he loves her, swears it'll never happen again, and she rushes back to him like he's done her a big favor. Can you beat that?"
Jack had felt himself going through a slow burn as Schaffer was speaking. Now he turned in his seat to face him.
"Now you decide to tell me this?" He wasn't quite shouting, but Schaffer could have no doubt he was pissed.
"What? What's wrong?"
"Don't give me that! You knew nobody'd get involved in this once they learned your sister's some sort of masochist!"
"She's not! She—"
"Tell you what," Jack said, reaching for the door handle, "you go get a bat of your own and wait for this guy in an alley or a parking lot. Take care of it yourself."
"Wait! Please! Don't think I haven't thought of it. But I've already threatened him—in front of witnesses. Anything happens to him, I'll be number one suspect. And I can't get involved in anything like that, in a felony. I mean I've got my own family to consider, my business. I want to leave something for my kids. I do Gus, I'll end up in jail, Gus'll sue me for everything I'm worth, my wife and kids will wind up in a shelter somewhere while Gus moves into my house. Some legal system!"
Jack waited through a long pause. Here was the familiar Catch-22 that kept him in business.
Schaffer finally said, "I guess I figured if I got you out here and you saw how big he is and how small and frail Ceil is, you'd…"
"I'd what? Go all mushy? Forget it. Busting up this slug isn't going to change things. Sounds like your sister's got as big a problem as he does."
"She does. I've talked to a couple of doctors about it. It's called co-dependency or something like that. I don't pretend to understand it." He looked at Jack. "Can you help?"
"I don't see how. Domestic stuff is complicated to begin with, and this situation sounds like it's gone way past complicated. Not the sort of thing my kind of services can help."
"I know what you're saying. I know they need shrinks—at least Ceil does. Gus…I don't know. I think he's beyond therapy. I got the feeling Gus likes beating up on Ceil. Likes it too much to quit, no matter what. But I want to give it a try."
"If that's true, I can't see him getting chummy with a shrink just because you or anyone else says he should."
"Yeah. But if he was hospitalized…" Schaffer raised his eyebrows, inviting Jack to finish the thought.
"You really think if your brother-in-law was laid up in a hospital bed for a while, a victim of violence himself, he'd have some kind of burst of insight and ask for help?"
"It's worth a try."
"No, it isn't. Save your money."
"Well, then, if he doesn't see the light, I could clue his doctor in and maybe arrange to have one of the hospital shrinks see him while he's in traction."
"You really think that'll change anything?"
"I don't know. I've got to try something short of killing him."
"And what if those somethings don't work?"
His eyes took on a bleak look. "Then I'll have find a way to take him out of the picture. Permanently. Even if I have to do it myself."
"I thought you were worried about your family and your business."
"She's my sister, dammit!"
Jack thought about his own sister, the pediatrician. He couldn't imagine anyone beating up on her. At least not more than once. She'd had a brown belt in karate at seventeen and had never taken guff from anyone. She'd either kick the crap out of you herself or call big brother, the judge, and submerge you to your lower lip in an endless stream of legal hot water. Or both.
But if she were a different sort, and somebody was beating up on her, repeatedly…
"All right," Jack said. "I'll look into it. I'm not promising anything, but I'll see if there's anything I can do."
"Hey, thanks. Thanks a—"
"That's half down just for looking into it—no refund. Even if I decide not to do anything. The rest is due when I' ve done the job."
Schaffer's eyes narrowed. "Wait a sec. Lemme get this straight. You get five large with no commitment?"
"Might take me weeks to learn what I need to know just to make that decision."
"What do you need to know? How about—?"
"We're not practicing 'the Art of the Deal' here. You've already held out on me about this co-dependency thing; how do I know you're not hiding something else?"
"I'm not. I swear!"
"Those are the terms. Take it or leave it."
For a moment it looked as if Schaffer might leave it. Then he shook his head.
"You're asking me to bet on a crap shoot—blindfolded. You hold all the aces."
"You're mixing metaphors, but you've got the picture."
"Aw, what the hell." Schaffer sighed and reached into his breast pocket. He handed an envelope across to Jack. "It's only money. Here. Take it."
Without hiding his reluctance, Jack tucked the envelope inside his shirt.
"When do you start?" Schaffer said.
Jack opened the door and stepped out of the Jag.
"Tomorrow night."
5
Jack started back to Manhattan, then remembered he was due to pick up his mail. And since he was already in Queens, why not?
He rented boxes in five mail drops—two in Manhattan, one in Hoboken, one in Brooklyn, and a large box in Astoria on Steinway Street. But he used that drop as a collection point only. Every two weeks his other drops bundled up his mail and sent it to Astoria. Every two weeks Jack hopped the R train and collected all his mail. An easy trip—the drop was only a couple of blocks from the subway stop.
He double-parked in front of the big, brightly-lit window of Carsman's Mail and Packaging Services and trotted inside. He'd chosen Carsman's because it was open twenty-four hours a day. The clerk behind the barred window at the rear barely looked up as he entered, but Jack kept his head turned anyway. He unlocked the box, scooped out the four manila envelopes inside, and was out the door and tooling down Steinway Street in Abe's truck in less than a minute.
In and out, showing up at all odd hours of the night, seeing no one, speaking to no one—the only way to fly.
As he drove he emptied the envelopes onto the seat beside him. At successive stop lights he sifted through the letters. Most were bills for the credit cards he carried under various identities. But one envelope addressed to John L. Tyleski caught his eye. Tyleski was one of his more recent noms de guerre. Jack didn't remember any mail for him before. He tore open the envelope.
Jack smiled. Because of John L. Tyleski's excellent credit record, a Maryland bank had preapproved him for a Visa card.
Damn nice of you people.
Credit cards…Jack hated them. Plastic money left a trail of electronic footprints, a detailed record of every purchase—books, theater tickets, clothing, plane tickets—a diagram of your lifestyle, a map of your existence. The very things he wanted most to avoid.
He'd held out as long as he could, but with each passing year it had become increasingly difficult to get by without them. A man with no credit cards raised eyebrows, and the last thing Jack wanted to attract was a second look. He'd found himself in an odd position: in order to remain invisible, he'd have to become a part of the national credit databases.
So he jumped into Plastic Moneyland with both feet. He now kept four credit card accounts running at once, each under a different name, each attached to a different mail drop. He paid his monthly bills promptly with USPS money orders. He could have used another money order service with equal anonymity, but the idea of using a wing of the very government he was hiding from appealed to him.
Early last year he'd added John L. Tyleski as an additional cardholder to the Amex account of John J. O'Mara.
Tyleski's record of payment since then had been so sterling that a competitor was offering him his own account.
"On behalf of Mr. Tyleski," Jack said, "I wish to thank you very much. We will sign him up first thing tomorrow."
Something deeply satisfying in the predictability of large financial organizations.
And in a few months, John J. O'Mara would request that John L. Tyleski's name be removed from his Amex account, leaving Tyleski as a free and independent entity in the Visa databank.
The timing was perfect. He'd been planning to visit Ernie tomorrow and start legitimizing a new identity anyway. He'd eventually attach that to the Tyleski Visa account.
He smiled as he paid the toll at the Midtown Tunnel. This was shaping up to be a busy week.
Salvatore Roma stood at the window of his suite on the top floor of the Clinton Regent Hotel and gazed at the blazing skyline.
6
He had been staying at the hotel since Monday, preparing for the SESOUP conference. A few of the attendees had arrived today to get in some sightseeing before the conference began. Tomorrow the rest would arrive, filling the hotel. Every room was booked by an attendee, just as he'd planned.
Anticipation bubbled through him, making him almost giddy. All the pieces were falling together perfectly. By this time tomorrow night, the building would be packed with those special, chosen people.
And then it would begin.
After endless waiting, after repeated reverses at the hands of lesser beings, his time had come at last. He'd earned his reward, paid for it with blood and lives—his own—and now he was due to collect. Past due.
All he needed were the proper tools. The people packing this building over the next few days would help provide those. After that, nothing could stop him. And he would grind to pulp anyone who got in his way.
Mine, he thought, gazing at the city and beyond. Mine at last.