by Tim Green
Behind the big round corner table, Murat laughed with his men through the smoke. His hands hid behind a tall silver coffeepot. From his slumped narrow shoulders hung a russet Versace sweatsuit with sleeves plowed halfway up his forearms, revealing bangle bracelets that gave him the air of a gypsy.
Murat’s moon-shaped face rose nearly a foot above the rest. His short hair was light brown, thinning, and whisked to the side. His mirth exposed a small mouth with large crooked teeth, and eyes so pale they could hardly be called blue. The black in the ring around the irises and the holes of the pupils seemed to reveal not simple darkness, but a negative universe within. A small white scar cut through the brow over one of those eyes, but Niko had picked up enough through the years to know that Murat gave most of the scars.
Murat could look at the serial number on a hundred-dollar bill and remember it three months later. He could also pull the trigger on one of his own men if he felt it was in his own best interest. He was a natural leader. Attention to detail and the loyalty of his men kept him from most trouble. He was the only client Niko had ever known to keep his own books.
In the background their strange music groaned, an accordion and their saz, a two-string guitar, yielding a sound that could only make Niko think of a harem. He twisted his lips.
“Niko, you don’t like Sevdah?” Murat said, calling to him from the middle of it all and referring to the music as he stabbed out his cigarette. “I tell you, it’s about love, Niko.”
Murat turned to his men, and smoke leaked out his nose as he said something in Albanian that made them laugh. The social club was the one place where Murat would grow sloppy with his English and let his accent run thick. Niko’s eyes lingered on the coffeepot until Murat raised a long bone-thin arm up off the table and snapped his fingers, jangling his gold bangle bracelets and calling for a cup. Another beautiful young woman appeared in a tight black shirt that revealed a muscular bronze stomach. She set the cup and saucer in front of Murat and stayed long enough for him to run his hand up her leg before disappearing into the back. Murat poured the coffee.
Niko sat down.
Murat’s eyes lost their smile and he directed the rest of his men out of the room with a word and the twitch of his head.
Niko took a sip of the thick black brew and said, “I got a very disturbing phone call.”
Murat waited.
“A man named Jake Carlson,” Niko said, watching Murat’s eyes for any sign of life. “We gave him a boy, thirteen years ago. He says he got my name from Cakebread’s files.”
Niko thought he saw a twitch at the word “files” but it was too slight to be sure.
“I already know this man,” Murat said, reaching for the pack on the table and tapping out a cigarette so that the cellophane complained. “He’s a reporter, on TV.”
Niko furrowed his brow.
“The show American Outrage. Now he’s doing a story,” Murat said, lighting up and creating a plume of smoke that forced one eye to close. “How did he find the files?”
“I can only presume through Cakebread’s wife,” Niko said gently. “You know, Murat, I always told you he had files somewhere.”
“Shaban!”
Murat’s shout, abrupt and unexpected, made Niko jump. Shaban, Murat’s tall cousin with long blond hair, shot in from the bar, stroking his Fu Manchu. Murat motioned with his head, and Shaban bent his ear to Murat’s lips. Niko looked away. He knew Murat had been a young officer in his country’s secret police before he came to America and that whispering was only a habit, not an insult. After a moment, Shaban nodded and left.
“He said he wanted to find his boy’s mother,” Niko said. “You think it could be more than that?”
“Does this matter?” Murat said, placing the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, where it dangled as he spoke. “This is America. TV is everything. The FBI? The police? If things are quiet, they will always go away. TV is like a bleating goat.”
“I think,” Niko said, raising the cup to his lips, “that his boy was one of the ones.”
33
IT WAS JUST PAST NOON when Murat raised the door to the storage unit and Niko walked inside. It was cool, musty, and quiet. His fingers still bore the mustard stain from the hot dog he’d been eating on the tenth tee when he got the call. The metal spikes on his shoes clacked against the concrete as he approached the files. In the dust, he could see footprints he knew belonged to the father.
Murat stayed in the doorway, lighting a cigarette.
“How did he find it so fast?” Niko asked.
“Cakebread’s wife,” Murat said, peering at him through the smoke. “She has a sick granddaughter.”
Niko motioned his head slowly, as if he understood.
“Tubes and wires to make her breathe,” Murat said.
“So?”
“Shaban let her know,” Murat said. “Those machines, they’re delicate, just like her husband’s mental health used to be.”
Murat tilted his head and said, “I know we paid Cakebread when he found these other babies. Did you ever know where he got them?”
“They were white,” Niko said, turning and running his eyes over the file cabinets, “and we got our money. We never asked.”
Niko began opening drawers, pulling random files until he had a feel for Cakebread’s method of organization.
Murat stood just outside, smoking and gazing at the sky with a look of infinite patience.
One cabinet was filled with business receipts and bills. One was filled with files that were stuffed with the documents given to parents. It was the third cabinet that made Niko grunt. The files in that cabinet had the dirt. Some contained nothing more than Cakebread’s handwritten notes. But some had more. Documents. Letters. Photos. Sometimes newspaper clippings. Enough to create serious problems for Niko and certainly Murat.
There was a vague chronological order to the files and within twenty minutes he found what he was looking for. There were copies of the driver’s licenses of Jacob and Karen Carlson, their financial information and medical records. But that wasn’t what interested Niko. What interested him was the file next to that. It had to do with the boy the Carlsons evidently got. The family he came from was a name people would recognize. There were newspaper articles and a birth certificate.
One sheet had Cakebread’s handwritten notes, explaining exactly what had happened and why.
“Find something?” Murat said, stepping in from the sunshine and casting his cigarette to the floor.
“An opportunity,” Niko said, showing the newspaper articles to Murat.
Murat nodded and took the folder from Niko.
“What about all this?” Murat asked, nodding toward the file cabinets.
“Very dangerous,” Niko said.
Murat shook his head. “If I knew he was so smart, I might not have gotten rid of him.”
“I thought that’s why you did get rid of him,” Niko said.
“Stealing from me is not smart.”
Murat rapped his knuckles against the wooden cabinets and looked around. He spied the tire and rolled it over to the cabinets. Opening a drawer, he removed some files and began pulling papers out of it, crumpling them up and stuffing them into the tire. When it was half full, he tipped it against the cabinets and lit the paper.
The paper crackled and before Murat had the door closed, the smell of burning rubber filled Niko’s nose. They climbed into Murat’s BMW and left a cloud of dust as they sped out through the chain-link gates and onto the boulevard.
34
THE OFFICE BUILDING TURNED UP NOTHING. Jake went in through the back alley, but saw no one and no sign of anything new. At his new hotel, no one had asked for him and no one was waiting around. Jake grabbed a gyro at a Mediterranean place up the street called King David, then decided to drive out to the storage unit and go through the papers again. Maybe he’d missed something.
He was on Erie Boulevard, a mile away, when a yellow fire truck screamed past him. His
eyes were drawn to the black plume of smoke in the distance. He shook his head and said “No way” aloud as he sped after the truck. He knew before he got there what had happened, but he pulled up alongside the storage facility and got out anyway. The air was putrid with rubber and black flecks floated down from the blue sky. Another fire truck arrived and roared into the fenced-in area. Orange flames licked at the roof of the unit where Cakebread kept his files.
Within minutes, the firemen were blasting the roof with a stream of water that turned the black smoke into a haze of steam that was soon big enough to leave its beads on Jake’s forehead and upper lip. He looked around, remembering a story he’d done once on firebugs and knowing they liked to watch their work. But then, this wasn’t the work of a firebug.
Jake was on his way back to the hotel when his phone rang. It was Karwalkowszc.
“I have some time tonight,” the lawyer said. “I can meet you at my office, but not until nine.”
He gave Jake the address. Jake recognized it as being very close to the shopping center where Cakebread was found dead in his car. His hand strayed to the gun in his pocket and he almost said something about the storage unit, but he held his tongue and agreed to the time and place. Jake didn’t want to wait around by himself, so he dialed Muldoon and offered to look at the bunker-man scripts.
“Thought you were heading home,” Muldoon said.
“I got Sam up at my mother-in-law’s place in the mountains, so I’m back early.”
“Yeah,” Muldoon said. “I’d love to have you take a look. I’ve been holed up in this place all day, and I could use a fresh set of eyes.”
When Jake got to the street outside Muldoon’s hotel, he fished his hand into the coat and gripped the gun, then studied the area before getting out and going in. He checked the bar and watched behind him while he waited for the elevator.
Muldoon came to the door of his room in boxers and a Raiders T-shirt. His legs showed white and hairy above a pair of blue dress socks. Jake had to step over a tray of half-eaten food, a plate of greasy fries swathed in ketchup and the last two bites of a double cheeseburger.
“Want a French fry?” Muldoon said, nodding at the tray. “I could order you a Coke. Beer if you want.”
Jake looked at the cold fries.
“I’m good.”
There were papers everywhere and the curtains were drawn. Muldoon pulled a few sheets of paper off the bed and swept some others aside so Jake could sit down.
“I appreciate this,” Muldoon said, handing Jake the script.
“Okay if I open a curtain?” Jake asked.
“Sure.”
Jake let in the late-day glow, sat down, and started going through the script.
“Good stuff,” he said after a while.
“You think?”
“They’re going to love the blonde.”
“They always love the blonde.”
There were other scripts, one for every day of the week. Jake was going through them when he got the call from Don Wall, his friend at the FBI.
“On a Sunday?” Jake said.
“We gotta talk.”
“You sound serious.”
“I am serious. You gotta stop what you’re doing.”
“What?” Jake said, eyeing Muldoon. The producer’s fingers were moving across his keyboard, but Jake could tell by the angle of his head that he was listening. He got up and gave Muldoon a sign that he’d be back in a minute, then let himself out into the hall.
“It doesn’t matter what,” Don Wall said. “Just stop. Don’t follow these people. Don’t ask any more questions. Just stop.”
“You sound like the guy who called after they drugged me. They friends of yours or something?”
The line was silent.
“Don?”
“I can’t say anything, but you have to trust me on this, Jake. You’re not going to find what you’re looking for. It doesn’t exist. That much I found out.”
“Maybe you couldn’t find out, but maybe I can,” Jake said.
Don huffed and said, “They took these kids from people back in Albania and paid off their stooges in the government to make up phony paperwork for the adoptions. There’s no real paper trail to your boy or any of them, so just leave it alone.”
“Someone has to know. Someone had to get these kids from somewhere.”
“Jake, there was a guy down in the Bronx who crossed these people on a massage parlor deal. He went missing for a while and then the wife comes home and there’s one of those bags they carry bowling balls around in on her front porch.”
“Let me guess,” Jake said. “It was a head.”
“I’m not kidding,” he said. “That’s all they ever found. No witnesses, no evidence, no body. Just the guy’s fucking head.”
“I don’t bowl,” Jake said.
“If it ain’t your head, it’ll be your ass.”
“The Taliban used to cut people’s balls off and dig out their eyes.”
“You’re supposed to stop because the answer isn’t there,” Don said, “and I’m asking you. As a favor.”
“What about my favor? You were going to get me some stuff on this guy.”
“This is your favor. Stop.”
“Okay,” Jake said. “I gotta go. Thanks.”
35
JAKE WALKED BACK into Muldoon’s room and said he had to go.
“That other thing, huh?” the producer asked, swinging around in his desk chair, planting his stocking feet on the floor, and leaning over his gut. “You wanna bring me in on that? I know you’re still pissed about the FBI agent’s wife. I know I get hot sometimes, but my ex-wife says it’s because I care. You know. And you like this script I got cooking for the bunker man, right?”
Jake looked at him for a moment before he said, “If it pans out, I’ll bring you in. Just try to work with me on the scheduling over the next couple days. I should know by then.”
“Because they’ll fly me out of here come Wednesday if we aren’t working on something else, and I know they got that Jessica Simpson bodyguard thing in the hopper. I’d hate to get out there to LA on a piece of shit like that and have this thing break on you.”
“By Wednesday I should know.”
“And you’ll bring me in? If it’s there?”
“Okay.”
Muldoon leapt up, crossed the room, and pumped Jake’s hand.
“I’m right here,” Muldoon said. “Whatever you need.”
Jake looked in his eyes for a moment, feeling the coldness of his hand, but thanked him and soon found his car on the street.
The sun had dropped, leaving the sky a deep enough purple to trigger the streetlights. Jake drove onto the highway heading toward the west side of town, then got off in an area where the train trestles were coated in graffiti and the weeds were thick on the roadside and in the cracked parking lots of the abandoned commercial buildings. Human shapes lurked in the shadows of sagging porches and behind the smoked glass of pimped-out cars with their glinting rims. He caressed the shape of the gun through the outside of his coat pocket.
The lawyer’s office was just off the corner of Charles Street and West Genesee. On one side was an empty muffler shop, painted bright yellow and frowning with broken windows. On the other side was a small brick building that housed a cookie shop and a florist. Jake sat eyeing the place while he waited for the light to turn green. Behind him, he heard the sudden shriek of tires. In the rearview mirror a pair of headlights rocketed around the corner and headed right for him without slowing down.
Jake braced his hand on the dash just as the brakes squealed and the car bumped his fender. The airbag didn’t go off. Jake froze for a moment, then spun around to see someone moving toward him. He gripped the wheel and took his foot off the brake, allowing the car to ease forward.
As the light turned green, two palms struck his window, and he jumped. His foot went to the gas, then he saw the face and slammed on the brake.
It was Zamira.
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Jake rolled down his window, stuck the other hand in his coat pocket, gripping the Colt, and said, “What the hell are you doing?”
“They’ll kill you,” she said, reaching through the window and grabbing a handful of his shirt.
“Karwalkowszc?”
“He told them. Follow me,” she said, glancing at the buildings across the street. “Please.”
“Who, Lukaj?”
“They’ll see us. Please.”
“You just show up here,” Jake said, swatting her hand away. “After what you did.”
Across the intersection, two men in long jackets came out of the building, pointed at Jake, and started to walk quickly toward him.
“Oh God,” Zamira said. She crouched low and ran back to her car.
As the two men moved into the glow of the streetlight, Jake saw one of them draw a gun. He let go of his own gun, spun the wheel, and punched the gas. Zamira’s car, a yellow Mustang, turned in front of him. He bumped the side of her door and threw his car into reverse. She backed up too, then shot forward in a cloud of burning rubber, away down the street. Jake followed, glancing in his rearview mirror. The men were sprinting across the intersection. One dropped to a knee in a shooting position and Jake ducked.
He heard the gunshots. Two of them, but nothing struck his car. He fought to stay on the road as he careened around the corner at the bottom of the hill, swerving to avoid a telephone pole, then accelerating to try to keep up with Zamira. When she came to a red light, she never even slowed but blasted through the top of the intersection, scattering a little wake of orange sparks. Jake kept after her as she wove through the decrepit streets of tenements, empty warehouses, and broken-down factories.
Finally, she turned onto an on-ramp and went north on the interstate, slicing through the thin traffic at ninety miles an hour. When they hit a straight section of open road, the wheel of Jake’s Taurus started to wobble. Zamira had pumped it up over one hundred.
When her brake lights went on, the car slowed down fast. Jake hit his brakes, too, and nearly lost control as he swerved to make the exit. At the bottom of the ramp she ran another red light, hanging a left and shooting under the bridge, then up a hill before spinning around and coming to a stop in the parking lot of a Motel 6. Jake turned into the lot and pulled up alongside of her, putting his window down.