“ ’Cause they’re assholes, exactly, is why. Every one of ’em. They lie, they cheat, they steal, and you can’t trust one of ’em as far as you can spit. Is that exact enough for you?”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing; didn’t want to believe it. Then, I remembered—again—who Carmine really was. I kept forgetting, because I liked the guy, considered him a friend. But he was—had been most if not all of his life—a small-minded, petty tyrant where issues of culture and race were concerned. His dislike of Russians was race-based: They weren’t Italian, ergo they were assholes. My thoughts must have been reflected in my face because Carmine was getting mad, and that really did make me nervous. He slapped the table with the palm of his hand, making the silverware dance.
“I know what you’re thinkin’ and you’re wrong, Rodriquez.”
“What am I thinking, Carmine? And why is it wrong?”
“You’re thinkin’ I gotta lotta nerve, what with the Russians bein’ just like us, but you’re wrong. They’re nothin’ like us. They got no rules, they got no organization, and they got no morals.”
“You’re right: I was wrong. I was thinking you were on a racist rant, just hating the Russians because they’re Russian, when all along you were comparing the relative merits of the Italian versus the Russian—”
“Don’t you say that word, Rodriquez,” Carmine growled at me.
I raised my hands, palms out, in surrender. I certainly wasn’t going to voice a preference of one group of mafia mobsters over another, whether I said the word or not. “So, where’s Epstein?”
“I do hate Russians because they’re Russian. And all the rest of that Eastern European flotsam and jetsam. You oughta see what they’ve done to Italy, swarming all over the country like . . . like a, like I don’t know what.”
He was giving me the same kind of headache Sam Epstein did. “I gotta go, Carmine. I need to collect Sam Epstein and get to work.”
Carmine leaned across the table and whispered, “We never bought and sold women for sex, Rodriquez. That’s what the fuckin’ Russians do.”
It took me a second to catch on, but when I did, I got pissed. I leaned across the table and whispered back, “You guys made billions off prostitution, Carmine!”
“Prostitution ain’t slavery, Rodriquez.”
I didn’t have a response for that, so I changed the subject. “Epstein?”
He reached under his plate and slid a piece of paper across the table toward me. I let it sit there. “Nobody there but him, only he don’t know that. He’s tied up, gagged and blindfolded. The door’s unlocked. Get him and go, and the sooner the better.”
I stood up and put some money on the table for breakfast, including a gigantic tip for the waitress. Carmine nodded his thanks. I picked up the piece of paper, nodded mine, and headed for the front door and my coat. I had it on and was halfway out the door when I turned back toward the table. The waitress had the money in her hand and a big smile on her face. She waved me good-bye. I had realized that I didn’t have a receipt but I sure as hell wasn’t going back to ask for one. Yolanda would have to create one. Or two, since nobody spent or tipped that much for a cup of milk and coffee.
I crossed the street and ducked into the deli on the corner, went all the way to the back of the place, and called Yo on my cell phone. I filled her in and told her I needed Mike and Eddie to meet me right away to grab Sam. I gave her the address and she said that was a shitty block. I said considering that it was Casey, McQueen, and Mottola, Epstein was lucky the place had running water and a toilet. Then I thought, this being New York City, maybe it didn’t. Then I remembered that he was supposed to be tied to a chair, and thought, it didn’t matter one way or the other. I closed the phone and kept walking, through the storeroom, looking for the back door and hoping it wasn’t chained or bolted shut. This time of the morning—ten o’clock—Carmine’s people would be on the street and I didn’t want them to see me. More importantly, however, Carmine didn’t want them to see me. He kept our relationship more secret than I did. And given the conversation we’d just had, I supposed I should be honored that he talked to me at all, and be grateful that I wasn’t Russian. The whole thing pissed me off again: Here I was, ducking out the back door of a shitty store, into a stinking alley, dodging filth and mean dogs until I could safely travel the sidewalks again, all to avoid being connected to Carmine Aiello.
I switched my mind away from my stupidity and was trying to picture the block Yolanda thought was so shitty and not coming up with much. I knew the area around Times Square had cleaned up a lot, to the dismay of those who preferred it, I believe “gritty” was the term they used. I didn’t like that particular part of town at all—never had—gritty or otherwise. I’d take my grit down here in the narrow part of town. I emerged from the alley on Allen Street and couldn’t figure out where I was for a moment. I walked the wrong way for a block, got my bearings, turned and ran to Second Avenue and the F train. I took it to West Fourth, transferred to the A train, sat down, and spent a few long seconds just breathing. In and out, in and out. I learned that from Sandra. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, then exhaled slowly and completely. Then I opened my eyes and checked my watch. It had been almost fifteen minutes since Yolanda had called Mike and Eddie. They no doubt already were headed uptown and probably would get to the location before I did, and if so, I hoped they’d go in and get Sammy Epstein and get him outside in the cold air. Let him breathe in and out for a few moments and collect himself. Before I kicked his ass.
When I turned the corner onto 44th Street, my first thought was that Yolanda was right, this was a shitty block. My second thought was that I didn’t see Eddie or Mike and that worried me because I knew they should have gotten here before I did. Then I saw them, coming down the dirty stone steps of the dirty brick building, Sam Epstein between them, obviously needing the support they provided. I ran toward them just as a livery car pulled up to the curb, the car between me and them, and I had a moment of pure panic. It died when I saw Mike beckon to me over the top of the car. Sammy already was inside, in the back seat, and Mike squeezed in next to him. I got in on the other side and Eddie rode shotgun. Yolanda had sent a car. If there were three things to choose to do—good, better, best—Yolanda always managed to choose best, usually without having to give thought to the matter.
“Thanks, guys,” I said to Mike and Eddie when I got into the car. I spoke to the driver, whom I knew from seeing him around but whose name I didn’t remember. I knew he was somehow related to the owner of the car company, which was a client of ours. Then I turned my attention to Sam Epstein. He was a little bruised and battered and he was a lot dirty. In fact, he stank. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing the last time I saw him. He looked as if he hadn’t slept or eaten since the last time I saw him, either. He also looked completely and totally defeated.
Both Mike and I were hugging our doors, trying not to get too close to Sam, and we both lowered our windows despite the cold. Sam seemed oblivious. He kept his hands tightly clasped in his lap and he rocked back and forth a little. The driver started the car and his eyes met mine in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows raised in a question. “I don’t know yet where we’re going. That all depends on Mr. Epstein. Just drive.”
Sam jumped when I said his name, then he turned his head to look at me and seemed to really see me, to recognize me. “You made them let me go,” he said. “They said they were going to kill me. They beat me up and said they were going to kill me.”
“You’re going to tell me everything, Sam. The whole story, from the beginning, leaving out nothing. I want dates, times, places, everything. You tell it all and you get to go home to Sasha and your dad instead of to a jail cell.”
“My dad! What’s he got to do with this?”
“How about he hired me to find you?”
“He knows?” The man clearly was in shock. I told the driver to go to my office, then I called Yo and told her we were en route, told h
er that Sam needed to shower and some clean clothes to wear, told her that we all needed to eat, and thanked her for being her usual incredibly wonderful self. She liked that but I didn’t have time to congratulate myself for turning my good thoughts about a person into good words to that person because Sam Epstein was coming back to life. “You said my father hired you, that he knows that I was . . . where does he think I was and how does he know?” He sounded like a teenager busted for taking his father’s car without permission.
“He’s here, Sam. Ellie called him.”
Anger was now taking the place of shock and Sammy was becoming his usual excitable self. “What the hell did she do something so goddamn stupid like that for?”
“Because Sasha refused to go home with her and she couldn’t leave a fourteen-year-old child alone in the Stuy Town apartment. Because she couldn’t run the business by herself. Because she didn’t know where you were and she was afraid. That’s why Ellie called your father, Sam. Now, let’s talk about why you did something so goddamn stupid like siccing Homeland Security on decent, law-abiding citizens, or, even more goddamn stupid, why you destroyed peoples’ businesses and livelihoods. Suppose somebody torched the Epstein Dry Cleaners and Laundry. What about all those people who work for you, Sam, who’ve worked for your family for twenty, thirty years? Alfred Miller and Vivian Henderson. What about Ellie? You want to talk about goddamn stupid, you piece of shit! You’ve got a lot of nerve!”
“I’m sorry. Oh, God, I’m so sorry! It all just got out of hand.”
“Yeah, that happens with something like hatred. It’s hard to make it stay curled up, nice and neat, in its box. It likes to get out and roam around, misbehave, break the rules.” I was red-hot mad and it wasn’t all at Sam Epstein—I still had the conversation with Carmine Aiello reverberating in my brain—Sammy just happened to be a handy target. He was by no means, though, the only deserving target so I decided to shut up until I could spread the mad around a bit more evenly, making the ride downtown to the office a quiet, if freezing cold journey, because now both the driver and Eddie in the front had their windows open, too, against Sam’s stench. You couldn’t be mad at a guy, though, for things that weren’t his fault, and it wasn’t his fault that nobody had let him bathe or change his clothes. Add to that three or four days of terror-induced sweat and even a GQ model would stink. None of us wanted to curse Sam so we cursed that traffic that had come to a stand-still on Seventh Avenue. Nothing moving and no way for the driver to change lanes. It took almost fifteen minutes to crawl four blocks and clear the congestion caused by delivery trucks double-parked on both sides of the one-way avenue, but it was smooth—and quick—sailing after that.
The car pulled up in front of the office and into a space just vacated by a green panel van that looked vaguely familiar but I couldn’t focus on that; we all bailed out of the car as quickly as possible, and the driver left the windows down to air it out. As soon we walked inside, though, we forgot the immediate past and its discomforts. Our olfactory senses were bombarded with good food smells. Yo hadn’t merely ordered food—sandwiches or burgers. She’d gone all out. Six bags from El Caribe were piled on the front tables. That was the green panel van! Bradley Edwards, son of El Caribe owner Arlene Edwards, no doubt delivering the rush order Yolanda had phoned in.
She exchanged warm greetings with Mike and Eddie, whom she hadn’t seen in a few weeks. Her relationship with them—and theirs with her—was changing, warming. She initially hadn’t liked them, she said, because she found what she called their super macho, ex-cop, testosterone-overload energy taxing and tiring, not to mention very often offensive. They hadn’t liked her, they said, because she was too prudish, too prissy, but I suspected their testosterone-loaded macho energy didn’t relate well to the fact that Yo’s a lesbian, and I suspected that she knew that. But because they worked for us more and more, they were thrown together more and more, and mutual respect grew. “Sam, you come with me,” she said to Epstein, leading him back to the bathroom.
The rest of us hauled the bags of food back to the kitchen and got busy unloading them and fixing plates. Mike and Eddie knew there were sodas and juice in the fridge and they so informed the driver, whose name, it turned out, also was Eddie. I heard Yo come out of the bathroom and close the door. I told Eddie the driver to have a seat out front; I needed a word with Yolanda, Mike, and Eddie. “I’m feeling that I’ve got to go find this Jackie guy today,” I said, and told Mike and Eddie, before they could ask, that Yo would fill them in. “You all will have to deal with Sam. He tells it all or he goes to jail. Period.”
“Tells what, hermano?” Eddie asked.
“Yolanda will fill you in, bro. I’ve gotta eat and run. I can only catch this Jackie guy on his lunch break, from twelve to one, and I’ve gotta go back uptown. Dammit!” Then I remembered the car and driver and Yolanda saw me remember. I took a plate of food out front and told the driver we were back out the door as soon as we finished eating. He jumped to his feet and I waved him back down. “Eat,” I said. “We’re not in that big a rush. Besides, this food is too good to waste.”
“It’s the best Island food I’ve ever eaten,” Eddie the driver said.
“It’s the best Island food in Manhattan,” I said. “Right, Mr. Smith?” I said to Mike who was chewing as he joined us. And because he’s such a well-bred gentleman, he didn’t try to talk with his mouth full. He waited until he’d finished chewing and washed it down with a big swallow of ginger beer, and then he agreed with me, and kept on talking.
“We think it’s a good idea if I go with you to meet this Jackie.” I heard what he said, the way he said it, and also what he didn’t say. It was three against one. No way I was going to meet some dude named Jackie that none of us knew without Mike Smith’s back-up company and assistance. Truth be told, I was glad to have him and instantly was more relaxed than I’d been so far that day. Now I could give some time and attention to all the stuff moving about inside my head. Sam Epstein appeared contrite enough that he’d tell everything he knew about the fire at Taste of India and he’d own up to any other fires he and his buddies had set—at Jawal Nehru’s import and export business maybe—and about anonymous calls to DHS. I could now think seriously about who Jackie was and how he tied into this thing. If he tied into it. He knows something about the fires, Raul had said. Something only those spilling the gasoline would know. I didn’t doubt Raul’s information or his motives. He’d have no reason to drop a false tip on me. So either Raul had received bad information, or whatever it was that Jackie knew, it had nothing to do with Sam Epstein and whatever it was that he knew. Which meant that I might have solved one problem only to stumble headfirst into another one.
Chapter Seven
The Furniture Depot occupied an entire block. A huge parking lot ran along the front of the building and it was almost full. Glass-fronted showrooms displayed living room, dining room, and bedroom furniture in half a dozen styles and wood finishes. There also were plasma-screen televisions and the furniture for speakers, CDs, and assorted other high-tech gadgetry. We drove through the parking lot, from one end of the building to the other, then out and around the corner. The side of the building was a solid brick wall, no doors or windows. The back of the building wasn’t accessible from that side, so we drove around the block. There were windows at the top of the building and some kind of duct or venting system. When we turned the corner to come back to the front, we stopped hard and the car lurched as Eddie the driver slammed on the brakes. Four semis blocked the narrow street.
“Loading dock,” Mike said, opening his door. “Meet me in the front parking lot,” he said as he got out of the car. “I’m dressed for it, you aren’t,” he said to me before I could object, and closed the car door and jogged away. He followed the line of trucks up to the loading dock entrance and disappeared behind the cab of a semi bearing the name of a North Carolina furniture factory. Mike had at least ten years on me but he moved like a man ten years younger than me, which
shouldn’t be possible considering that he’d walked a beat as a New York City cop in Harlem for more than twenty years. He was a muscular guy, though, not a tank like, say, Mike Kallen, and he was quiet and intense and he had a great sense of humor, though it was quiet and intense, too. And he was usually right about things, like being better suited than me to recon a loading dock at lunchtime. He was wearing gray cargo pants, a black turtleneck, black high-top hiking boots, and a three-quarter length wool overcoat that was flapping in the breeze. He also had on this goofy-looking knit cap that he wore in the winter that he would pull down over his ears when it was really cold but which would stand up in a floppy point when it wasn’t, like it was doing now.
Eddie drove slowly so that I could get a good look at the loading dock. Nothing to see because, like Raul said, it was lunchtime. I had wondered about eating lunch on an exposed loading dock in March but I had in mind an exposed concrete platform; this was more of a huge room with the door left open a little. I could see a couple dozen guys sitting on palettes and crates eating lunch. In the cabs of the semis drivers were eating, reading, napping. Mike was right: The way I was dressed, I’d have been as out of place as an olive in rice pudding. Eddie took the car back around to the front of the building and found a place in the parking lot where we could watch the corner of the building and the showroom entrance. Smart move on his part. I’d keep him in mind if I needed a car and a driver in the future. He lowered the windows a bit and turned off the car. We waited. And I turned this puzzle cube around and around in my mind, realized that wasn’t helping at all, decided to call Yo. She wasn’t ready to talk to me.
“I’ll call you back, Phil. We’re at a crucial point with Sam. He doesn’t want to talk—he’s terrified that he’ll be killed if he does. We’re trying to get him to see that he’d already be dead if you hadn’t made a deal to keep him alive. He almost believes us. But Phil, I don’t think whatever Sam was into has anything to do with anybody named Jackie. What he was doing started and ended with Mottola, Casey, and McQueen.”
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