“Frank,” Charlie said when we were finally situated, “I have something to tell you.”
The idea that Gayle had taken on a new online persona in attempt to solve Bob’s murder was scary and exciting at the same time. If the avatar names Bob and Gayle had chosen were references to the story of Robin Hood, then it was possible Bob and Gayle had attempted to right a wrong. I wondered if, like the GroundSweep organization, they were reporting toxic sites or recycling infringements to government officials. Given Kelly’s description of his daughter, a little girl who wrote a letter to the Pope to stop what she thought was an injustice, it was entirely plausible. As for Bob, he had spent his whole life advocating for a better environment, hence the theme of hope in his dioramas. Frank would be thrilled with what Charlie had found.
“Tell him,” I said to Charlie.
“I tried to kiss CeCe,” Charlie said.
Thank God I was seated in the back, because my face felt like I had swallowed of bag of Red Hots. What was Charlie doing?
“It was stupid,” Charlie continued. “I thought a parked couple wouldn’t arouse suspicion.” Then he help up his hand, still red from my slaps from fighting over the phone, as evidence of my virtue. “The girl’s got balls,” he said, and he then turned to wink at me.
“You’re an asshole,” I moaned. “Frank, he’s exaggerating,” I said, “but he does have something on his phone that requires your attention.” Of course by now, I realized what Charlie had done. He recognized my feelings for Frank were genuine and by taking the grenade up-front, neither of us would have to worry if Charlie slipped up about our make-out session at a later date. I guessed that Charlie, too, had felt the old energy between us lighting up again, and he wanted to shut it down quickly. It was a risky move on his part, considering Frank’s job entailed cutting liars down to size. I hoped, as I’m sure Charlie did, that the minute he revealed what he had found about Gayle, Frank would be too distracted to delve deeper.
“I haven’t been slapped yet, but I’m sure it will be my turn soon,” Frank replied. “What do you need to show me?” And with that, the three of us hovered over Charlie’s phone.
“I opened an account and created my own avatar. I went back to the virtual world where Bob’s avatar still stands. At first, because Bob’s avatar wasn’t active, he hadn’t attracted many visitors. Earlier tonight, however, I noticed a female avatar by the name of Marian standing next to Bob. When I looked at Marian’s profile, I could see the avatar had been created only a few days ago.”
“Is she communicating with anyone?” Frank asked.
“When someone approaches Bob, she repeats the same thing. Hold on, short delay. As if she’s speaking for him.” We fell silent.
“She’s trying to fill in for Bob,” I said.
Unfortunately, we still had no idea what filling in for Bob meant.
forty-six
On a good day, the Queens–Midtown Tunnel, a snaking underground passage connecting Long Island to Manhattan, is a death-trap. A claustrophobic’s nightmare, the width of the seventy-year-old tunnel had been measured and marked well before SUVs hit the road. With no shoulder on either side and no breathing room between cars, the only saving grace of the tunnel was its relatively short length.
I counted to two hundred in my head and exhaled deeply when the bottom of a billboard appeared on the horizon. Frank pulled out of the tunnel and made two left turns toward the southbound ramp for FDR Drive. We took the exit for Houston Street, a major east/west thoroughfare, and then turned south again. From there, we were within striking distance of Canal Street, the entrance to Chinatown. Although quiet at 4 a.m., early signs of life seeped into the streets. I watched as a hunched-over man with a threadbare broom swept the entrance to a storefront while a fresh seafood truck rumbled past.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Cheski and Lamendola are on their way. They’re tailing one of the minivans,” Frank said. “This central part of the neighborhood is only a few square streets, and I’m betting that the e-waste is being carted to a block with less tourism than Canal or Mott Streets. There’s got to be a loading dock somewhere. I think we need to find a building or a warehouse with its own parking lot.”
Charlie pounded away at his phone. “Head back to Bowery,” he said, looking at a map. “The street isn’t as dense, and I can see open space between some of the buildings.”
Frank steered the Gremlin back toward Bowery, and as Charlie had indicated, the through street was more industrial than downtown Chinatown. Gone were the colorful lanterns and Chinese-styled architecture, replaced with dingy gray buildings.
“Bingo,” Frank said as he pointed to a convoy of cars pulling into a parking lot between two commercial buildings. An unmarked car rolled by, and I waved to Cheski and Lamendola. Frank found street parking, a surprisingly manageable task in downtown New York at the crack of dawn.
“Time for you guys to get out,” Frank said to Charlie and me.
“What’s your plan?” I asked.
“I’m going to follow these cars and pretend I’m selling the contents of the trunk to whoever is buying.”
“The boxes are almost empty,” Charlie said. “It’s just leftovers.”
Frank pointed to the glove compartment. Charlie opened it up and pulled out a mass of heavy copper wire.
“There’s about fifty dollars of wire here,” Charlie said as he passed it to Frank.
“I know,” Frank said, and then he pointed to me. “Stay on the sidewalk away from the entrance.”
I nodded and got out of the car with Charlie, his blond curls catching the first rays of sunrise. “Like we don’t stick out, standing on a corner in Chinatown at five in the morning,” I moaned to Charlie as Frank drove away.
“We could make out,” he offered.
“Shut up,” I said as I grabbed Charlie’s arm and drew him closer to the side of the building. We watched as Frank drove slowly into a parking lot wedged between what looked like two factories left over from the era of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. An Asian man directed Frank to an empty spot, and I watched as the minivan drivers parked their cars and released their trunks. A set of garage doors opened and an exceptionally tall Chinese man in a suit walked into the parking lot. He shook some hands, and I noticed his limbs were so long, the arms of his suit jacket appeared to have shrunk. His bare wrists revealed a seriously sparkly watch, and I wondered if we were dealing with the Chinese mafia. I mentioned it to Charlie.
“I don’t even know if there’s such a thing as the Chinese mafia,” Charlie whispered back.
He had a point. We were out of our league.
Charlie’s phone buzzed. “Boogers,” he sighed as he answered the phone. “Katrina’s contractions are starting.”
“I knew this was going to happen. Have her call Norma,” I instructed. “I’m sure Norma can come over and wait with Katrina until Vicky arrives to midwife.”
I glanced back at the suited Chinese man. He worked the parking lot, stopping by each car to make small talk with the scavengers. As he made his rounds, two men rolled a metal table out of the garage. They locked the table’s wheels in place and then ducked back into the warehouse, reappearing with a series of electronic scales.
“This looks like the real thing,” I said to Charlie. “I think they’re actually going to weigh this garbage and sell it.”
Cheski and Lamendola, wearing street clothes, came walking around the corner. “Is Frank in the lot?” Cheski asked. I motioned to the Gremlin, and we watched as Frank mimicked the routine of the other scavengers. The suited Chinese man approached Frank. My heart ticked up a notch, and I could see Cheski and Lamendola instinctively spread their legs, right hands resting on their hips.
Frank nodded to the Chinese man, exchanged what looked to be pleasant words, shook his hand, and then turned his attention to the contents of the Gremlin. He preten
ded to rummage through the half-empty boxes and then lifted out a string of Christmas lights. Then he made a big show of placing the copper wires he had brought on top of his stash.
He walked casually over to the men monitoring the scales as if he were a professional scavenger with a big night’s score. Frank was about ten yards from the trunk when a young man shot out from an alley way, and made a mad dash for the Gremlin.
A scream, originating in my gut, gained the power of a locomotive as it hit my vocal cords. As the shriek ripped from my mouth, a cacophony of high-pitched Chinese voices, equally as frantic, flooded the parking lot. Frank spun around as the young man made a grab for the copper wire. Despite the thief’s head start, Frank ran full steam ahead in hopes of catching up. Cheski and Lamendola bolted forward, guns drawn.
The owner of the deli that Charlie and I were standing in front of rushed outside and started to hit Charlie with an unidentified vegetable the size of a small baseball bat. I stared helplessly as Frank was kicked to the ground. All this for some copper wire, I thought.
A pop, sounding something like a pneumatic nail gun, rang out. I squeezed my eyes shut and crumbled to the sidewalk.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the tall Chinese man with the fancy watch. He stood in the middle of the parking lot, arms extended to the sky, his suit sleeves sunk back to his bony elbows. A line of smoke trailed up from his gun. Cheski and Lamendola had taken cover behind a minivan, and Frank was sprawled out on the pavement, his legs shoved under the bumper of the Gremlin. The copper wire thief whizzed past Charlie and I. Within seconds, the thief had disappeared into the streets of New York.
I uncovered my ringing ears and allowed the sounds of the streets to filter in. Rising above the din of the waking city, I could hear Cheski speaking to the suited man: “Drop the gun.”
A string of police sirens followed as I struggled free of Charlie’s grasp and ran toward Frank’s prone body. Cheski muttered a string of curses as I dashed past him.
I slid my hands up and down Frank’s body, praying I wouldn’t find an open wound. His torn shirt revealed a hairy but bullet-free chest. With his head gently resting in my hand, I felt a moist spot below the crown of Frank’s skull.
“Frank,” I whispered, “can you hear me?”
His eyes blinked open and then rolled back in his head.
forty-seven
Frank refused to get into the ambulance. He was embarrassed, I’m sure, that he had been distracted by a low-life garbage thief. Moreover, the theft revealed Frank’s ignorance about the garbage trade. Apparently, hundreds of dollars in wire is two zeroes more than the average scavenger’s haul.
“I’m fine,” he yelled as the EMT wrapped a gauze bandage around his head. A second EMT shone a pen light in Frank’s eyes. “It was just a bad fall. I don’t have a concussion,” he said as he swallowed two aspirin. “Get Mr. Lu over here,” he said to Cheski.
Cheski escorted Mr. Lu to the ambulance. Lu continued to bow and shake hands along the way. “What’s with the hand shaking?” I mumbled. “Is he a local politician?”
“Businessman,” Frank said as Lu approached.
Lu bowed to me and shook my hand. “Very sorry, I shoot the gun to stop the thief,” he said, introducing himself. “Luen Lu, businessman, scrap metal.”
I looked at Frank, and he nodded as if to confirm Mr. Lu’s profession. “That’s it?” I asked Mr. Lu. “You’re just a scrap metal dealer?”
“Big business,” he said. He spread his arms wide and pointed to a shiny new Lexus as proof of his success. “In US, just a scrap dealer, but in China, important man.”
“You ship all of this stuff to China?”
Lu bowed again.
“He sends the e-waste to China to have it stripped by hand,” Frank said. “Probably costs him pennies a day in China.”
Lu nodded eagerly. “Good prices, great margin. No good in US.”
I leaned into Frank and tucked a loose strand of his hair under his bandage. “Who was the guy that jumped you?”
“Punk,” Lu said, smiling. “Jealous of Mr. Lu’s success.”
Frank pointed to my bag. “Show him your sketches.”
I opened to the faceless picture of Gayle with her black, bobbed hair. Mr. Lu burst out laughing, and I realized that the entire female population of Chinatown met this description. I leafed through the pages to the sketch of the doughy man. Lu leaned into the picture. He didn’t seem to recognize the man we suspected had pushed Bob to his death. Instead, Frank asked Lu about Harry Goldberg and HG storage.
“Very good deal,” Lu said. “Two warehouses, big haul, make lots of money in China.”
At least now we knew where the e-waste from the warehouses had gone. I thought about the hundreds of workers in China toiling away at mounds of toxic computer equipment that the EPA wouldn’t touch without face masks. As much as I loved garbage, it hurt me to know that underpaid people were being overexposed to harmful materials, all for a few centimeters of copper wire. Lu didn’t care, and I was sure as hell Harry Goldberg didn’t give a crap who combed through the contents of his warehouse. His cousin David may have thought twice had he known, and Bob, my recycling champion, had probably been frantic that he couldn’t stop the illegal transfer of toxic e-waste. Frank interrupted my thoughts and asked Lu about Bob.
Lu filled his cheeks with air and lifted his arms to his side. Bob’s weight, it appeared, had made him instantly memorable. Lu started to laugh again and then circled his finger by his ear, indicating he thought Bob was crazy.
“He want those warehouses, but I promise HG to empty in twenty-four hours, and I win. Instead, the big man tell me he just want the computer hard drive. Useless,” Lu roared. “Not worth me removing.”
Frank tried to nod as he held his bandaged head with his hand. He was in pain. I reached out to him before he could speak. “You don’t have to explain. I get it.” And I did. Bob and Gayle were collecting hard drives and although their motive was still unclear, Harry Goldberg’s warehouse would have been a big score for them.
forty-eight
Charlie volunteered to drive home. We forced Frank into the back seat in case he wanted to stretch out. “But don’t lie down,” I instructed. “You can’t lie down with a concussion.”
“I’m aware of basic first aid,” Frank said. “What’s bugging me is that we still can’t figure out the purpose of the hard drives. From what I can gather, hard drives can’t be repurposed. Am I right, Charlie?”
“I’m with you,” Charlie said. “Now that users can save to the Cloud or an inexpensive external drive, hard drives are becoming obsolete. There’s so many storage options now, I’d be very surprised if used hard drives had a secondary market.”
“What about donations in foreign countries?” I asked, thinking about the Robin Hood reference. “Maybe Bob and Gayle were donating the hard drives to third-world countries?”
“No,” Charlie said flatly. “If that were the case, it would only make sense to send the whole computer.”
“Then why are Bob and Gayle posing as Robin Hood and Maid Marian?” I said. “It seems like they’re collecting hard drives and re-distributing them to needy people.”
“Who needs a hard drive within two weeks?” Charlie countered. “Technology isn’t a life-or-death situation.”
It certainly wasn’t for me. I’d be perfectly happy if I never had another awkward email exchange or a poorly connected cell phone conversation again. That wouldn’t be the case today, since Charlie’s phone continued to buzz.
“I forgot about the baby,” I whispered to Charlie as he handed me the phone. I was a terrible friend. We had nine months to prepare for this birth, and we chose Katrina’s due date to leave the house. I’d have to fire myself from my BFF position.
“Hey,” she moaned. “Norma’s not answering. Are you sure she stays overnight at yo
ur parent’s house? Maybe she’s at her own house?”
“You called my mother’s house number?” I asked.
“I called Norma’s cell too,” Katrina huffed and puffed. “Nothing. Vicky said the contractions are too far apart for her to come over now, but I’m scared. I don’t want to be alone.”
“I’m so sorry, Trina. Keep breathing. We’re on our way,” I said and then turned to Frank. “We forgot to tell you Katrina’s in labor.”
Frank groaned, and Charlie tossed him what was left of the candies. I dialed my parent’s house. After five rings, the call went to the answering machine. The recording, taped by my mother during a bender, instructed the caller to leave a methage. I made a mental note to have my mother update the recording, and then I left an urgent message telling Norma to call me. I frowned at Charlie’s phone.
“Are the pigs winning?” Charlie asked.
“I’m not playing Angry Birds,” I answered.
“Katrina will be fine,” he said. “People have babies all the time.”
“Women have babies all the time,” I said, “and that’s not the issue. Norma’s not home. Where would she be at this time of the morning?”
Frank leaned forward from the back seat. “You can’t locate Norma?”
I shook my head. Frank punched the roof of the car with one hand and held his head with the other.
forty-nine
“Vicky said I could go on like this for a day,” Katrina said. She was bent at the waist, using our kitchen table for support as she breathed through a contraction. Each time she exhaled loudly in rhythm, her weight caused the table to skid a fraction of an inch across the floor. I eyeballed the hanging lamp over the table—it was a few inches off center.
“What’s better? Sitting or standing?” I cringed as I rubbed her back. I hated to admit it, but maybe Carolyn Corey had done me a favor carrying my child for nine months. In her ratty bathrobe and bare feet, Katrina looked as though she’d been thrown off a covered wagon and left to die on the open prairie.
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