Joey grabbed him under the arm and pulled him out of the chair. "Yeah. You are."
Jack came out of the chair quickly and knocked Joe's arm away.
"Hands off, man!"
He decided that the only way to get out of this scene on his terms was to pull a psycho number. He looked at Joey's beefy frame and heavy overcoat and knew attacking his body would be a waste of time. That left his face.
"Just stay away!" Jack shouted. "I don't like people touching me. Makes me mad! Real mad!"
Joey dropped the brown paper bundle onto a chair. "All right. Enough of this shit." He stepped in close, gripped Jack's shoulders, and tried to turn him around.
Jack reached up between Joey's arms, grabbed his ears, and yanked the bodyguard's head forward. As he lowered his head and butted, he had a fleeting glimpse of the sick look on Joey's startled face. He hadn't been expecting anything like this, but he knew what was coming.
When Jack heard Joey's nose crunch against the top of his skull, he pushed him away and kicked him hard in the balls. Joey dropped to his knees and groaned. His bloody face was slack with pain and nausea.
Jack next leapt on Aldo who was gaping at him with a stunned expression.
"You want some of me, too?" he shouted.
Aldo's overcoat was unbuttoned and he was leaner than Joey. Jack went for the breadbasket: right left combination jabs to the solar plexus, then a knee to the face when he doubled over. Aldo went down in a heap.
But it wasn't over. Joey was reaching a hand into his overcoat pocket. Jack jumped on him and wrestled a short barreled Cobra .357 revolver away from him.
"A gun? You pulled a fucking gun on me, man?" He slammed the barrel and trigger guard across the side of Joey's head. "Shit that makes me mad!"
Then he spun and pointed the pistol at the tip of Aldo's swelling nose.
"You!" he screamed. "You started this! You didn't want me to get my shirts! Well, you can have them! They're old anyway! I'll take yours! All of them!"
He grabbed the bundle of dirty shirts from the counter and then went for the brown paper package on the chair.
"Jesus, no!" Aldo said. "No! You don't know what–"
Jack leapt on him and began pistol whipping him, screaming, "Don't tell me what I don't know!"
As Aldo covered his head with his arms, Jack glanced at Tram motioned him over. Tram got the idea. He came out from behind the counter and shoved Jack away, but not before Jack had managed to open Aldo's scalp in a couple of places.
"You get out!" Tram cried. "Get out or I call police!"
"Yeah, I'll get out, but not before I put a couple of holes in this rich pig here!"
Tram stood between him and Aldo. "No! You go! You cause enough trouble!"
Jack made a disgusted noise and ran out with both bundles. Outside he found an empty Mercedes 350 SEL idling at the curb by a fire hydrant. Why not?
As he gunned the heavy car toward Canal Street, he wondered at his screaming psycho performance. Pretty convincing. And easy, too. He'd hardly stretched at all to get into the part.
That bothered him a little.
*
"Fifty thousand in small bills," Abe said after he'd finished counting the money that had been wrapped inside the dirty laundry. He had it spread out in neat piles on a crate in the basement of his store. "If I were you, I shouldn't complain. Not so bad for an afternoon's work."
"Yeah. But it's the ten keys of cocaine and the thirty of Cambodian brown." The wrapped package had housed some of the heroin. The cocaine and the rest of the heroin had been in a duffel bag in the trunk. "What am I going to do with that?"
"There's a storm drain outside. Next time it rains..."
Jack thought about that. The heroin would definitely go down the drain. Any alligators or crocs living down in the sewers would be stoned for life. But the cocaine... that might come in handy in the future, just like the bogus twenties had come in handy against Cirlot.
Cirlot. Something about him was perking in the back of Jack's mind.
"I've always wanted a Mercedes," Abe said.
"What for? You haven't been further east than Queens and further west than Columbus Avenue in a quarter century."
"Someday I might like maybe to travel. See New Jersey."
"Yeah. Well, that's not a bad idea. No doubt about it, the best way to see New Jersey is from the inside of a Mercedes. But it's too late. I gave the car to Julio to dispose of."
Abe sagged. "Chop shop?"
Jack nodded. "He's going to shop it around for quick cash. Figures another ten grand, minimum, maybe twenty."
A take of sixty seventy K so far from one visit to Tram's laundry. Which meant that Jack would be returning Tram's down payment and giving him a free ride on this job. Which was fine for Tram's bank account, but Jack didn't know what his next step was. He'd shaken things up down there. Now maybe it would be best to sit back and watch what fell out of the trees.
He headed for Gia's. He kept to the windy shadows as he walked along, kept looking over his shoulder. Cirlot had seemed to know where he was going, and when he'd be there. Was he watching him now?
Jack didn't like being on this end of the game.
But how did Cirlot know? That was what ate at him. Jack knew his apartment wasn't bugged – the place was like a fortress. Besides, Cirlot didn't know where he lived. And even if he did, he couldn't get inside to place a bug. Yet he seemed to know Jack's moves. How, dammit?
Jack made a full circuit of Gia's block and cut through an alley before he felt it was safe to enter her apartment house.
Two fish eye peepholes nippled Gia's door. Jack had installed them himself. One was the usual height, and one was Vicky height. He knocked and stood there, pressing his thumb over the lower peephole as he waited.
"Jack, is that you?" said a child's voice from the other side.
He pulled his thumb away and grinned into the convex glass.
"Ta daaa!"
The deadbolt slid back, the door swung inward, and suddenly he was holding a skinny little girl in his arms. She had long dark hair, blue eyes, and a blinding smile.
"Jack! Whatcha bring me?"
He pointed to the breast pocket of his fatigue jacket. Vicky reached inside and pulled out a packet of bubblegum cards.
"Football cards! Neat! You think there's any Jets in this one?"
"Only one way to find out."
He carried her inside and put her down. He locked the door behind them as she fumbled with the wrapper.
"Jack!" she said, her voiced hushed with wonder. "They're all Jets! All Jets! Oh, this is so neat!"
Gia stepped into the living room. "The only eight-year old in New York who says 'neat.' Wonder where she got that from?"
She kissed him lightly and he slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. She shared her daughter's blue eyes and bright smile, but her hair was blonde. She brightened up the whole room for Jack.
"I don't know about you," he said, "but I think it's pretty neat to get five – five – members of your favorite team in a single pack of bubblegum. I don't know anybody else who's got that kind of luck."
Jack had gone through a dozen packs of cards before coming up with those five Jets, then he had slipped them into a single wrapper and glued the flaps back in place. Vicky had developed a thing for the Jets, simply because she liked their green and white jerseys – which was as good a reason as any to be a Jets fan.
"Start dinner yet?" he asked.
Gia shook her head. "Just getting ready to. Why?"
"Have to take a raincheck. I've got a few things I've got to do tonight."
She frowned. "Nothing dangerous, I hope."
"Nah."
"That's what you always say."
"Well, sure. I mean, after surviving the blue meanies on that ship, everything else is a piece of cake."
"Don't mention those things!" Gia shuddered and hugged him. "Promise you'll call me when you're back home?"
"Yes, mother."
"I'm serious. I worry about you."
"You just made my day."
She broke away and picked up a slim cardboard box from the couch. "Land's End" was written across one end.
"Your order arrived today."
"Neat." He pulled out a bright red jacket with navy blue lining. He pulled off the fatigue jacket and tried it on. "Perfect. How do I look?"
"Like every third person in Manhattan," Gia said.
"Great!"
"All you need is a Hard Rock Cafe sweat shirt and the picture will be complete."
Jack worked at being ordinary, at being indistinguishable from everybody else, just another face in the crowd. To do that, he had to keep up with what the crowd was wearing. Since he didn't have a charge card, Gia had ordered the jacket for him on hers.
"I'd better turn off the oven," Gia said.
"I'll treat tomorrow night. Chinese. For sure."
"Sure," she said. "I'll believe it when I smell it."
Jack stood there in the tiny living room, watching Vicky spread out her football cards, listening to Gia move about the kitchen over the drone of Eyewitness News, drinking in the rustle and bustle and noises and silences of a home. The domestic feel of this tiny apartment – he wanted it. But it seemed so out of reach. He could come and visit and warm himself by the fire, but he couldn't stay. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't gather it up and take it with him.
His work was the problem. He had never asked Gia to marry him because he knew the answer would be no. Because of what he did for a living. And he wouldn't ask her for the same reason: Because of what he did for a living. Marriage would make him vulnerable. He couldn't expose Gia and Vicky to risk like that. He'd have to retire first. But he wasn't even forty. Besides go crazy, what would he do for the next thirty or forty years?
Become a citizen? Get a day job? How would he do that? How would he explain why there was no record of his existence up till now? No job history, no Social Security hours, no file of 1040's. The IRS would want to know if he was an illegal alien or a Gulag refugee or something. And if he wasn't, they'd ask a lot of questions he wouldn't want to answer.
He wondered if he had started something he couldn't stop.
And then he was looking out through the picture window in Gia's dining room at the roof of the apartment house across the street and remembering the bullets tearing through the hotel room less than twenty four hours ago. His skin tingled with alarm. He felt vulnerable here. And worse, he was exposing Gia and Vicky to his own danger. Quickly he made his apologies and good byes, kissed them both, and hurried back to the street.
He stood outside the apartment house, slowly walking back and forth before the front door.
Come on, you son of a bitch! Do you know I'm here? Take a shot! Let me know!
No shot. Nothing fell from the roof.
Jack stretched his cramped fingers out from the tight fists he had made. He imagined some vicious bastard like Cirlot finding out about Gia and Vicky, threatening them, maybe hurting them... it almost put him over the edge.
He began walking back toward his own apartment. He moved quickly along the pavement, then broke into a run, trying to work off the anger, the mounting frustration.
This had to stop. And it was going to stop. Tonight, if he had anything to say about it.
*
Jack stopped at a pay phone and called Tram. The Vietnamese told him that Aldo and his bodyguard had limped out and found a cab, swearing vengeance on the punk who had busted them up. Tram was worried that Aldo might take his wrath out on him if he couldn't find Jack. That worried Jack, too. He called his answering machine but found nothing of interest on it
As he hung up he remembered something: Cirlot and phones. Yes. That was how the blackmailer had got his hooks into his victims. The guy was an ace wiretapper.
Jack trotted back to his brownstone. But instead of going up to his apartment, he slipped down to the utility closet. He pulled open the phone box and spotted the tap immediately: jumper wires attached to a tiny high frequency transmitter. Cirlot probably had a voice activated recorder stashed not too far from here.
Now things were starting to make sense. Cirlot had learned from Levinson that Jack met customers at Julio's. He'd hung around outside until he spotted Jack, then tailed him home.
Jack clucked to himself. He was getting careless in his old age.
Soon after that, Cirlot had shown up, probably as a phone man, inserted the tap, and sat back and listened. Jack had used his apartment phone to reserve the room at the Lucky Hotel... and he had called Julio this morning to tell him he'd be over by ten thirty. It all fit.
Jack closed the phone box, leaving the tap in place.
Two could play this game.
*
Jack sprawled amid the clutter of Victorian oak and bric a brac that filled the front room of his apartment and called George at the diner. This was his second such call in half an hour, except that the first had been made from a public phone. He had told George to expect this call, and had told him what to say.
"Hello, George," he said when the Greek picked up the other end. "You got the next payment together from your merchants association?"
"Yeah. We got it. In cash like usual."
"Good deal. I'll be by around midnight to pick it up."
"I'll be here," George said.
Jack hung up and sat there, thinking. The bait was out. If Cirlot was listening, chances were good he'd set up another ambush somewhere in the neighborhood of the Highwater Diner at around midnight. But Jack planned to be there first to see if he could catch Cirlot setting up. And then they would settle things. For good. Jack wasn't going to have anybody dogging his steps back to Gia and Vicky, especially someone who had chopped a couple of toes off a former customer.
On his way downtown an hour later, Jack called his answering machine again. He heard a message from George asking him to call right away. When he did, he heard a strange story.
"I asked you to what?" Jack said.
"Meet you in the old Borden building next door. You said there'd been a change of plans and it was probably safer if you didn't show up at the diner. So I was to meet you next door at ten thirty and hand over the money."
Jack had to smile. This Cirlot was slicker than he'd thought.
"Did it sound like me?"
"Hard to say. The connection was bad."
"What did you say?"
"I agreed, but I thought it was fishy because it wasn't the way we had set it up before. And because you said you'd be wearing a ski mask like last night. That sounded fishy, too."
"Good man. I appreciate the call. Call me again if you hear from anyone who says he's me."
"Will do."
Jack hung up. Instead of hailing a cab to go downtown, he ducked into a nearby tavern and ordered a draft of Amsterdam.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Cirlot seemed more interested in ripping him off than knocking him off – at least tonight. Tom Levinson's words came back: Gonna make you look like shit, then he's gonna ice you.
So that was it. Another piece fell into place. The bag of cement had missed him. Okay – no one could expect much accuracy against a moving target with a heavy, cumbersome object like that. But the shooter outside the Lucky Hotel had had a telescopic sight. Jack had been a sitting duck. The guy shouldn't have missed.
Unless he'd wanted to. That had to be it. Cirlot was playing head games with him, getting him off balance until he had a chance to humiliate him, expose him, make him look like a jerk. He wanted to payback in kind before he killed Jack.
Ripping off one of his fees would be a good start.
Jack's anger was tinged with amusement.
He's playing my own game against me.
But not for long. Jack was the old hand here. It was his game. He'd invented it, and he'd be damned if he'd let Cirlot outplay him. The simplest thing to do was to confront Cirlot in that old wreck of a building and have a showdown.
&nb
sp; Simple, direct, effective, but lacking in style. He needed to come up with something very neat here. A masterstroke, even.
And then, as he lifted his glass to drain the final ounces of his draft, he had it.
*
Reilly was waiting his turn at the pool table. He didn't feel like shooting much. With Reece and Jerry dead, everybody was down and pissed. All they'd talked about since last night was finding that jack o lantern guy. The only laugh they'd had all day was when they learned that Reece's real name was Maurice.
Just then Gus called over from the bar. He was holding the phone receiver in the air.
"Yo! Reilly! You're wanted!"
"Yeah? Who?"
"Said to tell you it's Pumpkinhead."
Reilly nearly tripped over his stick getting to the phone. Cheeks and the others were right behind him.
"Gonna find you, fucker!" he said as soon as he got the receiver to his head.
"I know you are," said the voice on the other end. "Because I'm gonna tell you where I am. We need a meet. Tonight. You lost two men and I almost got killed last time we tangled. What do you say to a truce? We can find some way to divide things up so we both come out ahead."
Reilly was silent while he controlled himself. Was this fucker crazy? A truce? After what he did last night?
"Sure," he managed to say. "We can talk."
"Good. Just you and me."
"Okay." Riiiiight. "Where?"
"The old place we were in last night – next to the Highwater. Ten thirty okay?"
Reilly looked at his watch. That gave him an hour and a half. Plenty of time.
"Sure."
"Good. And remember, Reilly: Come alone or the truce is off."
"Yeah."
He hung up and turned to his battered boys. They didn't look like much, what with Rafe, Tony, and Cheeks all bandaged up, and Cheeks's hand in a cast. Hard to believe only one guy had done all this. But that one guy was a mean dude, full of tricks. So they weren't going to take any chances this time. No talk. No deals. No hesitation. No reprieve. They were going to throw everything they had at him tonight.
"That really him?" Cheeks asked.
"Yeah," said Reilly, smiling. "And tonight we're gonna have us some punkin pie!"
*
"Aldo, this man insists on speaking to you!"
The Barrens & Others Page 14