Deep Dive

by Chris Knopf

  I thanked him, but didn’t say I owe you one, hoping it would stay off the ledger books.

  It was getting dark and I wanted to make my first pass in the daylight, so I sat out on the balcony that overlooked the East River and gazed at the mighty wall of the Manhattan skyline, a star-filled galaxy of its own, exceeding defiance, the pulsing heart of the universe.

  To me, always living close, but never within, it wasn’t a city exactly, more a transcendent state of collective psychoses. A madness of anxiety and striving, a type of perilous mountain range of glass towers over thousands of compact, weathered joints that made you feel as embraced and secure as a fire-lit hearth.

  It wasn’t the Little Peconic Bay, but that night it served a similar role for me, gigantic and fearsome in lieu of serene, but a good way to settle the nerves before heading back into the breach.

  MY TABLET GPS took me directly to The Krakus 24-Hour Bar & Grill, on the corner at the end of a row of stalwart brick buildings. It was far enough away from the river and deep enough in the old Polish neighborhood to have thus far avoided the tide of gentrification, and many of the other storefronts carried Polish names, with delis promising the best perogies and galumpkis in town.

  I knew what a lot of that food tasted like, since my father would journey from the Bronx to stock up. Or send me on the bus with a big cloth bag to lug home, checking the receipt against the change to make sure I wasn’t skimming the house. His father-in-law, my grandfather, was from Poland, and successfully inculcated the household in a lust for his native cuisine. I’d drifted away from the habit in adulthood, but just seeing the signs in the storefronts for kiszka and stuffed veal on sale ignited my taste buds and olfactory memories.

  Though an unreconstructed Frenchman, despite his Italian name, my father wasn’t much of a gourmand, though one could argue those deli meats would rival anything you might find at the Boucherie Moderne in Paris.

  It was about eight in the morning, and true to its name, I saw a pair of men duck into The Krakus, the windows of which were opaque, reflecting back the passing cars and pedestrians. I found a place to park on the street and walked over there.

  My Italian friend had called it a club, but there was no sign that someone off the street couldn’t just walk in, so I did. The street exposure on the corner failed to signal the scale within. The bar ran about a mile down the right side of the room with a lot of standing room, though booths lined the other wall, interrupted by a staircase that led to a second story cantilevered over the main room, with windows covered in curtains. The ambience was also cavernous, and barely lit by isolated lanterns on the wall and feeble ceiling fixtures. There were a few wide-screen TVs showing a soccer game, with the sound blessedly turned down.

  There were maybe a half-dozen people dispersed along the bar eating breakfast. When I sat down, a large woman in blue jeans shorts and T-shirt set a cup of coffee and glass of ice water in front of me. And a menu, that looked about an inch thick. If you favored cuisine of the home country, you were all set, but if not, you could be served any breakfast dish you could imagine. Or lunch, or dinner. Or between-meal snacks.

  I ordered a breakfast plate with a side of house-made kielbasa and mustard.

  “How do you keep track of all this food?” I asked the bartender.

  “By doin’ it a million years. We feed a lot of people with funny hours. I know bartenders that only catch a few hours of daylight. Them and the musicians. And the cleaning crews. Live like bats.”

  “Sleep upside down?”

  She laughed.

  “I like that. I’m gonna start calling those dudes vampires.”

  “Just don’t tell them it was my joke.”

  Her T-shirt was apparently purchased at a showing of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. It was a big logo, but she had plenty of chest to handle the display.

  The coffee, in a chunky ceramic mug, was delicious. I told her so.

  “Them ten-ton percolators in the back have been cranking it out for forty years. Better be good by now.”

  She left for a bit, and when she came back I told her I’d heard the place was a club.

  “That’s upstairs. Invitation only. You thinkin’ about joinin’?”

  I made it clear that was not my intent.

  “I’m from the Bronx,” I said, truthfully enough. “We got plenty of clubs over there.”

  “Good, because that’s a fucking exclusive club. Whole different clientele. Which is why I come on at four A.M. Want no part of the late-night festivities.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Too old for that shit.”

  “That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Bad enough with these knees.”

  She didn’t look much past forty, but I commiserated anyway.

  When the food came, she left me alone to wolf it down. Before I was done, she brought me an excellent coffee refill.

  “I used to live in the Bronx,” she said. “Just north of Broadway.”

  “What brought you over here?”

  “Married a Polack, what else? You’re not working here if you aren’t at least married into the nationality. I’m actually Italian, in case you couldn’t tell.”

  I couldn’t, but said I could. I wondered if she came from people who hauled boulders for the stone masons.

  “I know you’re not around, but what time does the club start revving up?” I asked.

  “Still interested in that? I’d say about eleven, maybe midnight. I know some of the girls who work straight through for the extra shift. Running on coke and nicotine. Skinny little things, mostly. Don’t know how they do it. Youth, I guess.”

  “I feel sorry for kids like that. How young do you think?”

  “Legal, but not by much,” she said. “I hope. Most of them barely speak English. I don’t know where they come from.”

  I shook my head in legitimate sympathy.

  “We grew up in better times,” I said.

  “At least we thought so. You want more of that coffee? You drink a lot.”

  “Some have said.”

  I finished up there and left a big tip before going back outside to look around The Krakus exterior, working my way around to the back of the building to assess rear entry. There was a steel door on a loading dock and a dumpster. Standard stuff.

  With not much else to do but drive around the neighborhood some more, I headed back to my fancy hotel, where I surprised myself by lying down and taking a nap, something I rarely did. But I was glad for it, since I had an interesting night ahead of me.

  IN CONTRAST to the sparsely attended breakfast hour, The Krakus was now crammed to the rafters with revelers. Mostly young mating-age people from the working class and weather-beaten bar flies who’d contentedly dispensed with meaningful work. The sound system was loud, but not deafening, which I appreciated. It was standing room only, including the audience around the pool table in the back.

  The bartenders were a diverse mix of men and women, all looking perfectly capable of handling bouncer duties. As suggested by the woman at breakfast, the waitresses snaking their way through the crowd with loaded trays were young and exhausted-looking.

  I found a place to lean against the wall and asked one of them to bring me a beer. I had a good view of the staircase up to the door of the upstairs club, and saw a few men make their way up there. They knocked, likely stated their bona fides, and were let in by a bald man of impressive stature.

  I finished my beer and walked up the steps. I knocked on the door, when the bald guy asked who I was, I said, “I’m here to see Janko.”

  He opened the door and said, “You’re joking, right?”

  “Orfio Pagliero said I could find him here.”

  Which was technically true, though it had the feel of an introduction.

  “Wait here,” he said, and shut the door.

  A few minutes later he let me in.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” he said, before patting me down.

  The club had a lot nicer
bar and loads of comfy furniture, well made, not unlike you’d find in a gentlemen’s club in the West End of London. I guessed about twenty men and an equal number of women were scattered about, though there was room for plenty more. A giant Polish coat of arms, a white eagle on a field of red, was hung over the bar. The decor followed that aesthetic, with maroon plush felt, mahogany, and brass. The male bartender wore a black suit, and his waitresses were in white shirts and black slacks. The other women were plenty dolled up, paired off with the men, and attentive.

  They’d taken advantage of New York City’s smoking waiver for private clubs, and the air was thick with it, mingling in a familiar way with a hard liquor aroma.

  Second only in size to the eagle was a portrait of Carl Yastrzemski, a Southampton home town hero. Other Polish heroes were also honored, including Zbigniew Brzezinski, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, and Jerzy Kosinski, though I doubted anyone in the room had read The Painted Bird.

  The doorman nodded at someone in the room, who stood up and came over.

  Janko carried a sizable portion of his weight below the breastbone in a pot belly covered by a grey, long-sleeved cashmere polo shirt, but was otherwise slim. Thin clumps of dyed hair stuck out from his head and his face resembled the color and consistency of wet cement. I guessed his age around mid-seventies.

  He kept his distance and didn’t bother to shake hands.

  “You got a name?”

  “Sam Acquillo.”

  “You in Pagliero’s crew?”

  “No, but my father used to do some work for his father.”

  “What sort of work?”

  “Wheelman. Andre Acquillo. Had a repair shop in the Bronx.”

  “I heard of him,” said Janko. “Good with fast engines.”

  “That’s him.”

  “We don’t need that kind of work around here.”

  “Not looking for it,” I said. “I just want to arrange a meet with somebody you probably know.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Mikolaj Galecki.”

  Janko moved his mouth around as if he’d just taken a bite of something. The doorman had been watching me, but at the sound of Galecki’s name, flashed an uneasy look at his boss.

  “He wouldn’t be here, would he?” I asked, praying to every god ever conceived by man that he wasn’t.

  Janko shook his head, but still didn’t react for a painfully long time before asking, “Why do you want to meet with him?”

  “I don’t. He wants to meet me. I took some stuff he’s keenly interested in getting back. We need to set up a meet.”

  He considered that for another hunk of uncomfortable time. I tried to speed the process.

  “Galecki would look well on anyone helping solve this problem he’s got,” I said. “If you know what he’s about, you know what that means.”

  Self-interest works as well on Polish criminals as it does on every other mortal on the planet. I kept at it.

  “What have you got to lose?” I asked. “Just pass along the request and if he doesn’t want to do it, not your problem.”

  “Maybe we could stick you in the kitchen freezer and have him come over and get you,” said the doorman, showing some spirited initiative.

  “That would trigger something very bad for Galecki, and consequently, even worse for you,” I said to Janko.

  The doorman stood back and clasped his hands over his midriff, docilely returning to his lane. Janko didn’t bother to look at him.

  “Do you want a drink, or a girl or something?” Janko asked me, apparently making up his mind.

  “No thanks. Just want to give you this,” I said, handing him a folded piece of paper taken from my back pocket. “It’s my instructions for the meet. Tell him no changes, just yes or no. He’s got my number.”

  Janko slipped the note into his pants pocket.

  “I met your father, you know,” he said. “One fucking hard-headed son of a bitch. Always pissed off about something.”

  “That’s about all you needed to know about him,” I said, and turned to leave, after glancing at the doorman to make sure it was okay. He looked over at Janko, who nodded, and I walked down the stairs and into the boisterous and oblivious throng below.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I’d given myself twenty-four hours to settle my mind before meeting Galecki, and decided they were best spent in Brooklyn in the nice hotel overlooking the East River. My time at a similar spot in Puerto Rico had reinforced my appreciation for beds both soft and firm, daily replacement of shampoo and towels, and minibars bursting with top-label little bottles.

  They had a world-class gym as well, but I never liked all those machines. I assumed a boxing ring with stinking locker rooms and angry ethnic malcontents wasn’t within their demographic parameters. But I did take a dip in the pool, where I just sat in a swimsuit bought at the hotel store for more than I’d usually pay for a load of lumber and felt the perfectly heated water caress my stiff and contrary body.

  While in the pool, I called my half-sister, Rozele Mikutaviciene, just to say hello, not telling her I was in Brooklyn, an easy trip to her apartment on the Upper West Side.

  “Sam, you’re a stitch,” she said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You never call, but send me funny things in the mail. And then you call.”

  “I like to be unpredictable.”

  “I think you’re lazy, but it’s okay. I know you’re thinking of me.”

  “I am,” I said. “How are things?”

  “Things are fine. I’m doing well. I hear from your daughter all the time, who is not as lazy.”

  “She’s in France, though you probably know that. She never writes to me, though what would I write back?” I said. “My life’s too boring.”

  “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “Everything’s fine. I’m just checking in.”

  “No, you’re not. You know I know.”

  We talked for another hour about nothing important except that we wanted to talk about it, till I finally let her get back to her life.

  “Call me when you really are fine, okay?” she said. “Don’t make me worry.”

  I agreed and hung up with the sense that I’d underestimated my sister’s intuitive powers. The urge to call others lingered, but I wondered who else might attach greater significance to the call than intended. I tried Joe Sullivan.

  “Just checking in,” I said, when he answered.

  “We’re good here.”

  “How’s Danny Izard?”

  “On the mend. Bullet seemed to make it through without taking out much of the kidney. Lucky.”

  “I know you’re always on high alert, but the next day will be critical,” I said. “You might bring somebody else in to cover you when you’re sleeping.”

  “That bad.”

  “Just a little touchy.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Sitting in a swimming pool,” I said. “It’s nice.”

  “Got a little drink with an umbrella?”

  “This is Brooklyn. Drinks only come with a straw, if you’re lucky.”

  “Just don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Why do people keep telling me that?”

  “Maybe there’s a history there?”

  I thanked him and hung up, convinced any more calls would be counter to my purposes. Whatever they were.

  I GOT to the meeting place two hours early. There was no one there to tell me I couldn’t walk the grounds of the Nassau County cemetery where the remains of Elton Darby were interred, so I did.

  The gravestone-free cemetery looked as I ‘d remembered, like the manicured landscape it was. The day helped things along, with clear skies and persistently low humidity, even this far up island. I went deep into the section called English Glade, which looked just like that. A few old oak trees, with boughs hugging the ground, cushioned by mounds of tall grass and little ponds set there to reflect the wildflowers circling the water.

  I
wore my backpack, T-shirt, and blue jeans, and running shoes on my feet. Even with the automatic slipped into my front pants pocket, I was comfortable as I walked around taking in the pastoral tranquility.

  That day, using the verdant landscape as a repository for the dead didn’t seem like such a bad idea. In marked contrast to the grandiose statues crammed into Westminster Abbey, a horde of forgotten Ozmandiases cluttering up a perfectly nice old building. I thought maybe I should ask Amanda if she really did pick out a pair of spots for us. I could use my vast carpentry earnings to put down a deposit.

  I knew where my parents were, in the big cemetery in Southampton. Though not the exact location, since I hadn’t been back since burying my mother. No animus toward visiting, I just didn’t see the point. If I wanted to honor her memory, I just had to look out on the Little Peconic Bay, a body of water she’d spent most of her life gazing at, I hoped as a source of solace from her unfortunate marital circumstances.

  I’d specified the cemetery as the meeting place, but not the exact coordinates. Even in the English Glade, I had good sight lines, assuring Galecki couldn’t get to me without me knowing it. Or bring along reinforcements, contrary to the arrangement. I’d arrived two hours ahead of time assuming he’d be there early for the same purpose, and he didn’t disappoint me.

  He was standing on the edge of a more sparsely treed, viny area. Probably called Poison Ivy Pasture. Even at some distance, he projected mass, a well-proportioned man, just big all over. He had on a white dress shirt, untucked, and a pair of striped synthetic pants. Black leather shoes, I hoped with slippery leather soles.

  I walked over and stopped about twenty feet away.

  “You’re an amusing little man,” he said to me, not that insulting, since to him, we were all little. I pointed that out.

  “I’ve got the files and hard drives in the backpack,” I said. “I want to toss it to you and leave.”

  “How do I know it’s everything you’ve stolen?”

  “You won’t until your bosses go through it. But why would I put us back at square one?”

  “Because foolishness seems to be your specialty.”

  I moved closer, slipping off the backpack and holding it by the soft handle sewn into the top.