by Yari Stern
“The system isn’t all bad,” Sam retorted. “I was working my way through that maze, developing a base of support so I could make real changes. My reputation, integrity, and connections were placing me in a position to do something vital and lasting. Now you’ve taken all that away, two decades of dedication. You think that what you do affects only you, that you live in some sort of vacuum?”
“What good has supporting the system done you or Philadelphia? This city’s going down the tubes, and Rizzo’s trying to get rid of you because you’re the only one who still cares.”
“The solution is to encourage people to work together,” Sam persisted. “That’s what I was doing.”
“What’s the sense in trying? It’s like we’re from two different worlds,” Yari said. “I’ve got to go.”
“Don’t go too far,” Sam replied, with a hint of retaliation in his voice. “I heard what happened in court today. You either testify against the people you sold the guns to or you go in the can.”
“Do you know anyone who can help?” Yari frantically asked.
“I--” Sam stuttered. Then, after a moment’s reflection and in diminished voice, he went on. “If I had only been a better cop or a less caring father, I would have done the right thing, for both of us.”
“I never meant to let you down. I can still square things. I’ve always been able to--”
Sam lifted his paper and held it stiffly in front of his face.
Yari realized that dinner was over and, possibly, so was a father’s distinguished career and his own freedom.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Drexel University. Risk Analysis Class. Phila. Pa
Professor Jacobson paced in front of the black board at the front of the lecture hall.
“Who would like to begin the discussion by answering the question, ‘What is risk’?”
A young female student raised her hand and was recognized by he professor.
“Yes, Judy?”
“There are four general classifications of risk. First, physical…the probability or threat of damage, injury, liability, loss caused by external or internal vulnerabilities that may be avoided through preemptive action. Second, financial…the probability that an actual return on an investment will be lower than the expected return. Third, insurance …a situation where the probability of say a building, is known, but the actual value of the occurrence is not. Four, stock trading; divided into two general categories. Systemic risk that affects all securities in the same class and is linked to the overall capital-market system and therefore cannot be eliminated by diversification. and nonsystematic risk is any risk that isn't market-related. Five, workplace…the product of the consequence and probability of a hazardous event.”
“Very good, Judy. Succinct and covering all the bases,” the professor approved.
Yari sniggered.
“You do not approve, Mr. Stern?”
“Property damaged, money lost, is not a permanent loss. The greatest risk is in not taking any risk. Goethe said, ‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.’”
“Boldness and criminality do not equate, Mr. Stern,” the professor said.
“It’s not criminal to go against the system if the system is wrong or illegal or immoral. “Niccolò Machiavelli said, ‘Never was anything great achieved without danger’.”
“Machiavelli book, The Prince, gained notoriety because most readers believed the author was teaching and endorsing evil and immoral behavior.”
“He dared to say and do things that opposed the hierarchy of his day,’ Yari argued. “Theodore Roosevelt did the same thing five hundred years later when he said, ‘Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
“Roosevelt failed numerous times in the first world war. It would seem he rose in rank due to his errors, not his successes,” the professor rejoined.
“Michelangelo said, ‘The greatest risk to man is not that he aims too high and misses, but that he aims too low and hits’,” Yari quoted.
The professor stopped pacing and quoted, “’Frederick II said, ‘I venture now to take up the defense of humanity against this monster who wants to destroy it; with reason and justice I dare to oppose sophistry and crime; and I put forth these reflections on The Prince of Machiavelli, chapter by chapter, so that the antidote may be found immediately following the poison."
“Tacitus said, ‘The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise’,” Yari countered.
“When we walk to the edge of all the light we have and take a step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe that one of two things will happen. There will be something solid for us to stand on or we will be taught to fly. Not everyone is prepared to die for a cause…even if it is just,” the professor argued.
“I think the opposite is true. Plutarch said, ‘It is part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risk everything’.”
“Sometimes you just have to know when the battle you’re fighting is one best walked away from, than fought to the cold, bitter end,” the professor responded.
“Hunter S. Thompson said, ‘So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?’”
“Not everyone is a daredevil like you, Mr. Stern.”
“Would you consider Helen Keller a daredevil?” Yari asked.
“No, I don’t--.”
“Helen Keller said, ‘Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.’”
“Helen Keller was a woman from whom almost everything was taken. She had little to lose,” the professor argued.
“That’s exactly the point. She was wiling to risk the little she had.”
“Those who fly too close to the sun, like Icazrus, are doomed, Mr. Stern. Would you recommend such a risky journey to your fellow classmates?”
“There are many things that can be risked. What is everything for one person, may be trivial for another. Pablo Picasso changed his style of painting at the height of his popularity. He said, ‘I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
“Taken to the extreme can lead one to the gates of hell…or in your caser, Mr. Stern, the gates of prison.”
“Mark Twain said, ‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.’”
“Twenty years,” the professor mused. “That has a certain familiar ring about it.”
“There’s an old Zen saying, ‘Leap and the net will appear’,” Yari conuntered.
“Such risks are not for appropriate for those of us that have dependents,” the professor argued.
“Virgil said, ‘Fortune sides with him who dares.’
“But not at the expense of others or to the detriment of society. For that there are laws and the price one pays for such transgressions can be great…can it not, Mr. Stern?”
“Yes. I don’t think jail is a good career move for most people. As for myself, that’s where a lot of my friends are.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Tribeca, NYC
Soho Jewelers was located on Broadway in the heart of Tribeca. The man who owned the business was into the shylocks for fifty grand.
When Yari entered the store, the guy smiled and asked, “How can I help you, young man?”
“You can’t help me. I’m in way too deep.”
“I don’t understand?”
“You’re helping Carlo.”
“I don’t think I know any Carlo.”
“He says you know him. There the matter of fifty grand.”
The guy who exuded confidence and offered a gracious smile, turned into a runnin
g river of fear.
“What is it you want? I don’t have the money.” His hands shook as he pushed them out in front of him.
“I’m not here for money. I’m here for access to the roof.”
“They told me to expect someone. I didn’t think it would be a young man who looks like he comes from a nice family.”
“I got sucked in just like you got sucked in. Now there’s only one way out. And that door is opened and closed by Carlo.”
“If I grant you access to the roof, they’ll know I was part of the crime.”
“It’s too late for that. You don’t let me use your store, they burn your store down…probably with you in it.”
A man walked out of the back room with a newspaper tucked under his arm.
“Who’s this?” Yari asked the owner.
“He said he was waiting for you,” the owner replied.
“Who are you?” Yari asked the man.
“I’m Alphonse, the guy who’s gonna make sure you do the job and don’t get cold feet and walk out.”
“I work alone,” Yari insisted.
“Not tonight you don’t. Besides, I worked for an alarm company. I know how to bypass the alarms.”
“So do I.”
“Good, then tonight we’ll put our heads together and make quick work of the place.”
The owner took a step forward. “I was just closing.” He handed Yari a card on which he quickly scribbled some numbers. This is the alarm code for my store. Set it before you leave or they’ll know I was part of this.”
Yari took it, nodded his head in a compassionate manner and said, “Sure.”
* * *
Yari and Alphonse waited till dark, then set up a ladder, got up on the roof and made their way down to the jewelry store. They, or really Yari, worked for three hours, using only a crow bar, to expose wood planks laid crosswise over beams. Vince was content to sit and whistle a few tunes.
Yari pulled out pieces of tarpaper, then wood, then insulation. The interior space was filled with air ducts and phone lines.
Yari laid down on the roof, half his body in the hole. He put a small flashlight in his mouth, and took a voltmeter out of his shirt pocket.
Alphonse took a Bearcat police scanner out of his coat and turned it on.
Yari opened up a bundle of wires like a surgeon in a thorax, dipped further into the hole, and clipped a bypass into the first blue and yellow set. The voltmeter went from two hundred twenty to twenty volts. That was not the alarm wires. He exposed the second set of hot wires and pinched alligator clips from the voltmeter into the pair, testing for lower voltage in the lines that carried the alarms. He bypassed those lines and did the same thing with two more hot leads. As he bypassed the fourth pair the voltage fell to sixteen.
“I’ve got a drop!” Yari whispered. “Did we draw any heat?” he asked.
Vince was listening on his scanner. “No,” he replied. “We are good. Air is clean!” He then knelt down to speak to Yari. “You caught it!”
In less than an hour, the hole was widened to accommodate the two. Yari dropped into the store first. He walked quickly over to the entrance where the alarm was beeping. A red light started blinking; the beeping got louder and faster. He punched in the code given to him by Carlo.
A long second passed; the alarm stopped ticking and the light changed from red to green. There was a click. The potentiometer needle attached to the alarm system went flat. Yari took off his earpiece and threw it and the voltmeter in a case.
Yari called up to Alphonse, “Clear.”
Alphonse lowered the acetylene torch, air lines and gas into the store below.
It took only five minutes for Yari to set up in front of the safe. While he set up, Alphonse taped black tarps over the windows.
Yari slipped on a welder’s mask, then picked up a hand-held torch and placed the flame at the end of the two-foot rod.
An enormous white light exploded out of the end. The heat was intense. The solid blue flame smashed into the vault section. Layers of steel and concrete glowed back red, then the steel melted like it was hit by a phosphorous bomb.
The store was filled with smoke, smoldering metal, and slag on the floor. Yari moved the white heat to the center of the vault. There was a vague outline of silver in the whiteness. Molten steel poured away like liquid violet pebbles. The silver turned iridescent blue. Yari pushed the bar through the vault. The colors shifted to hotter silver. The cascade of white flames sheared through the vault like a swimmer through still water.
Curtains smoldered. The rug was on fire. Alphonse went around the room with a fire extinguisher. Show-cases were charred, tarps smoked, plastic lamps melted into science fiction shapes.
Yari took off his helmet and stared at the vault. Satisfied, he picked up a sledge-hammer in his hand and whacked the wall of the charred, corrupted vault. The bottom half crashed out.
Alphonse shone his light inside, peering into the dimness like the first person to enter Tutankhamen's tomb. He scrambled around inside the vault, scooping up the gems.
While Aphonse did that, Yari removed the black-out curtains from the windows and turned his attention to the world outside that had slept through a master piece of work; something to be as proud of as Mozart’s composition of his Requiem. The night was overcast, clouds blotted out the moon: omen of dark things yet to come.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ridge Ave. Phila., Pa,
Yari sat at the cash register, staring blankly into space.
Toby came over and said, “Well?”
“Well, what?” Yari asked, distracted.
“Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
“You know?”
“Bad news travels fast in this city,” Toby replied.
“Yeah, I’d agree with that.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I was sent a message: meet with Zee and the Sons of Insurrection…or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Use your imagination.”
“All you have to do is cooperate.”
“All I have to do is sign my own death warrant.”
“You dance with the devil…”
“Thanks. That makes me feel better.”
“Good luck,” Toby said as she walked away.
“I’m taking off.”
“Where are you going? We’ve got a big load of pampers coming in,” Toby insisted.
“To Dude’s Bar in Upper Darby.”
“You drinking during the day now?”
“I’m going for information, not for liquor.”
* * *
Yari made the trip to Dude’s bar in a half hour through light afternoon traffic. He was not surprised to see most of the seats a t the bar full. The neighborhood men who made the bar their second home were serious drinkers. They did not differentiate between weekday, weekends or holidays. They were there to commiserate with their “Buds.”
A few heads nodded when Yari entered. The men were saving their energy for lifting their bottles of Rolling Rock Beer.
“What’s shaking, Dude?” Yari asked, hoping he could stir up some action.
“You know you made the five o’clock news,” the Dude said matter-of-factly.
“Not exactly how I wanted to be remembered…prisoner number 415, or the decease John Doe.”
“It can’t be that bad?” the Dude asked, absentmindedly wiping a glass as he spoke.
“Between hell and high water…an assistant DA who’s looking at higher office on one side and a bad ass motorcycle gang on the other side.”
“We can waste ‘em.”
“You can’t kill a public servant and we can’t kill thirty bikers.”
“Maybe I can’t, but we can,” Dude replied, nodded at the other men at the bar.
“I’d rather go down by alone, the captain of my ship.”
“You forget about your friends?”
“I wouldn’t ask anyone I know to get involved in
something this dangerous.”
“It’s not more dangerous than war.”
“Huh?”
“The men who come in here could never afford the appliances and clothes you sell to them at half or retail. Their lives are better, their children dress nicely, their wives are happier. They’re not embarrassed to have people over because they’ve got quality furniture now, a new TV, nice dishes and glasses.”
“I’m still making money,” Yari confided.
“Yeah, but you could make more if you unloaded thee stuff at the synagogues and churches. So we figure we owe you.”
“Who’s we?”
“The 101st Airborne.”
“Rangers?”
“Yeah. Hard core, eat their young for breakfast.”
“And they want a piece of this?”
“Things been a little slow since we returned state-side. We’ve been lookin’ for a little action.”
“And they know the score? A couple dozen very nasty bikers.”
“That’s nothing compared to the Nazis in WWII and the Commies in Korea.”
Yari stared at The Dude; looked at and through him.
“I’m supposed to meet with the Sons of Insurrection tomorrow night. Face the music.”
“We can make them dance to another tune.”
“You got a plan? Cause I don’t.”
“My boys and I get to the meeting place first. Set up sniper rifles, far enough away to not be seen and be shot at. Close enough to see the beads of sweat on their faces.”
“Damn, Dude. I didn’t know you thought like that.”
“I was a sergeant on D-Day. Seen some nasty shit. Did a lot of killing, ordered a lot more. Matched wits with a very smart enemy. Came out on top every time.”
“And your people are willing to help me?”
All the men at the bar, that Yari thought were watching the Phillies game on TV lifted their bottles and “saluted” him.
“You’re a stand up guy, Yari. You treated us with respect, gave us first choice of the merchandise. Now, where is the meet?”