by Mike Knowles
“I’d like to speak with Jake.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the woman on the other end said in a voice so enthusiastic that it had to be an act. “He isn’t here right now. Could I connect you with his voicemail?”
“Perfect,” I said.
The line went quiet and then I heard Jake’s deep baritone. “You’ve reached Jake McKean, owner of Tommy’s Super Fantastic Funporium. I am away from my desk at the moment, but if you leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, I will return your call at my earliest convenience. Have a super fantastic day.”
When the machine beeped, I left a short message; ten words to be exact. I hung up the phone and changed lanes to avoid getting trapped behind a tractor-trailer.
Jake returned my message a half hour later. I picked up on the first ring. I wasn’t anxious; there was just nothing else to do while I was trapped in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“I’m returning a call on my voicemail,” Jake said.
“Is this a clean line?”
“I’m on my cell if that’s what you mean.” It was.
“The job is off,” I said.
“I’m sorry. You’re going to have to be more specific.”
“David and Alvin are dead.”
Jake sighed. “That is specific. Was it a difference in opinion?”
He wanted to know if I had killed them. “Car accident.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t know if the car had an opinion,” I said.
“What do you need from me?”
“Nothing. This was a courtesy call.”
“You leaving town?”
I let the question hang for a second before I said, “Yes.”
“I’ll let you know if anything else pops up.”
“You might want to reach out to the others and give them the news.”
“I can do that.”
I ended the call and kept driving. Jake was a fitter. He connected management and labour. If you had a job you wanted to pull, Jake had connections to a network of pros who could do it. I had first connected with Jake after I pulled a score in Vegas and moved the profits to Glen, a moneyman in Oklahoma. Glen worked off of a Native reserve and washed money through the local casino. He was funnelling the clean money into investments that generated income and were as legal as a McDonald’s.
I had called Glen after I hit the interstate. Vegas was in my rear-view, but the money was still in the trunk. He answered the phone right away. “I thought you were dead.”
Glen had written me off because I had been off the grid — some bad business in Buffalo had taken me out of the game for a little while. “Not yet.”
“You get pinched?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re still as chatty as ever.”
“I have business.”
“You don’t need to be chatty when you’ve got money. How much we talking about.”
“Twenty-five.”
“That it? I wish you had gotten pinched. There’s more money in prison.”
“I’ve been moving around.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem if you know the right people,” Glen had said.
“Too many people know the people I know.”
“They don’t know the people I know.”
It was true. Glen was good at what he did and that meant he dealt with a lot of people who were also good at what they did. He got in touch with Jake, and a week later I had a job lined up. Jake was a professional; his jobs paid well and there was no shortage of work. Knowing better than to shit where I ate, I set up shop outside of New York and flew in whenever I had business.
I had told Jake that I was leaving, and I planned to; I just had a stop to make first.
CHAPTER NINE
It was cold outside and the sun had set early. I was in a heavy peacoat and a knit hat, watching Saul defy a conception I held about the elderly. Every old person I had ever met was always cold. It didn’t matter what month it was; if you were in the final season of your life, it was cold. Standing on the street corner with a view of the jewellery store, I watched Saul Mendelson walk on the opposite side of the street with his jacket open. I let him pass me and get a long lead before I followed after him. Saul strode down the street with purpose and a vulture’s posture. His pace was interrupted twice by the outstretched hands belonging to bundled men nesting on the pavement. Both times, he slowed and reached into his coat before he arced around the vagrant. The dip of the old man’s hand into his coat gave the men a moment of hope, but the hand never came back with money; it lingered inside the jacket until the jeweller was twenty feet away. There was no doubt the old jeweller was carrying.
Saul walked to a parking structure and left in a glossy BMW. I watched the car glide down the street and out of sight before I turned back and walked the way I had come. I found a window seat in the same overpriced café and watched the jewellery store while I let the coffee warm me from the inside out. The security company’s car made its first pass a half hour later. The next lap came fifteen minutes after that. I sat for two more laps that came within minutes of duplicating the previous circuit and then walked back to my car. Overall, David had been accurate about the details; it made me think he had been accurate about the money, too.
I had told Jake that the job was off, and I wasn’t lying. The job, as it stood, was off. David and Alvin had set up a score and they were gone; their score went with them. More accurately, their score went with them, not the score.
The next day, I was back for the store’s open and close. I had coffee again, but I wasn’t outside this time. I had picked up a white panel van from a dealership the day before. The van had clearly been a lot of people’s white panel van before it was mine, but I didn’t care; I only needed it to stay in place and blend in. I didn’t haggle for the van. I bought it for more cash than the dealer asked for, but he had to throw in no questions about it. I had bought a Thermos after I drove the van off the lot, and I filled it at four a.m., just before I went trolling for a parking spot. I had managed to park on a side street in a spot that offered a distant view of the wide front door of Mendelson’s Jewellery. With the binoculars I picked up when I bought the Thermos, I could sit out of sight and just barely make out the numbers above the door. On schedule, Saul approached the store from the direction of the parking garage; both security guards were already on the steps waiting to be let inside. When Saul met them, he had words for the younger guard, who had been late the day before. The guard nodded emphatically and then he and his partner stepped down so that Saul could key in the entry code. The three men entered, and minutes later, the other employees began to arrive. The end of the night followed the same methodical rhythm of the morning routine. Employees left the store until Saul, flanked by the two security guards, walked out the door.
Saul’s entry and exit on day three and four were carbon copies of day number two. On day five, there was a change; no one showed up on day five. Day five was David’s funeral, and Saul had given everyone the day off to attend. I watched the funeral from a distance and waited for something to stand out. Nothing gave me pause. Everyone came, everyone cried, everyone went home. I was back on day six waiting for a re-run of the first three days, but I didn’t get it.
Saul was on time. Every one of his arrivals that I had witnessed occurred within five minutes of each other, and day six was no exception. He walked down the street with purpose, ignoring any smile pointed his way. His momentum evaporated when he got close enough to see the front door. Unlike the other days, there was no one waiting. On day one, only one of the guards had been there, and that was enough for Saul to blow a gasket. On the days that followed, there were two men waiting for the jeweller and, judging from the face of the younger guard when Saul had dressed him down, that was the way it was supposed to be.
The old man
slowed and then stopped. His body became an obstacle that people scrambled to pass to avoid colliding with his static frame. The old man was oblivious to the dirty looks that were being hurled at him; he was focused on something else. His long vulture neck swung his head in every conceivable direction. Nowhere he looked had what he was searching for. Saul worked his way through three hundred sixty degrees and then crossed the street towards the coffee shop. He cut through a gap in the morning traffic, expecting the drivers to avoid him rather than the opposite. Before he touched the other side of the street, he had a phone to his ear.
When the Sudanese security guard arrived a few minutes later, he was out of breath. He jogged up the steps and breathed a heavy sigh that plumed in the cold morning air. Behind him, the Latino guard strolled up the sidewalk. When the two men met on the steps, they began to argue. There was a lot of pointing from the younger man. The older guard spoke with animated facial expressions and gestures that seemed to enrage his co-worker. The fight ended when the Sudanese man turned his back on the other man. He threw up a hand when the Latino spoke again — he was done talking. The younger man rested his elbows on the railing and leaned over to breathe deeply and catch the breath that didn’t have the chance to come back during the argument. After a few long exhalations, he stood and I saw his face. He looked relieved. That all changed when Saul, who had been watching from the same window I had used a few days before, crossed the street and began to scream.
Saul berated the two men on the sidewalk and kept it up as he stomped up the stairs. The younger guard said something and pointed at his partner. Whatever words he had used had been good enough to immediately shift Saul’s focus to the older man. Saul gesticulated wildly as he dressed the retiree down. There was no backtalk this time; the guard just nodded and spoke short responses with his eyes on his shoes. Saul sent the two men down the stairs and then let himself in. The younger guard barely got to the door before it shut in his face.
That evening, Saul walked out with the two guards at his heels. The Sudanese guard held an envelope that he turned over to Saul at the bottom of the stairs. The two men exchanged a few words with each other and then set off in different directions, leaving the second guard to trail his partner.
The next morning, Saul walked up the steps to find his two guards waiting for him. Both men had been early. The Sudanese guard had arrived first; the Latino guard never showed. Instead, a paunchy Asian man in his forties had joined the cameraman. The new triumvirate carried on where the old grouping had left off. I, the silent fourth wheel, kept watching.
The next day, I ate dinner at Tommy’s Super Fantastic Funporium.
CHAPTER TEN
Tommy’s Super Fantastic Funporium is the answer to the question: how many lights are too many? The building glows — actually glows. The light cast into the sky above Williamsburg can be seen for miles. There was an apartment complex four blocks away that once tried to sue the Funporium because one side of the building thought it diminished the value of their west-facing units. I parked the car and walked through a crowd of smokers fumigating the pavement outside the bar. The interior of the building responded to the light outside as though it were some kind of challenge. The wattage inside Tommy’s Super Fantastic Funporium dwarfed the outside. The employees all wore sunglasses during their shifts and it had nothing to do with looking cool.
A young girl in a tie-dye shirt and short-shorts asked me if I was meeting a group or if my friends had already arrived.
“I just want to have a drink at the bar,” I said.
The girl gave me a strange look. No one came to the Funporium to drink alone at the bar. She must have decided that she didn’t care enough to ask me about it because she shrugged a response and peeled off a long string of tickets for me. “Make sure to stop by the arcade. We have twenty kinds of pinball, tons of arcade games, and the state’s biggest skee-ball machine.”
I thanked her and found a spot at the bar. I ordered a beer and kept my hand on the ten that I placed on the counter. When the bartender came to collect, I held on to the bill.
“Jake around?”
“Sorry?” The music was blaring something that was current enough to spur moments of spontaneous dancing from various people in the bar.
“Jake,” I yelled.
“He’s in his office.”
“Where is his office?”
The bartender looked at my hand and the bill underneath.
I walked away from the beer and the bill and headed towards Jake’s office next to the kitchen. The door, marked private, was exactly where the bartender said it would be. I turned the knob without knocking and walked in to find Jake getting a backrub from one of the tie-dyed waitresses. The bartender hadn’t said anything about this. The girl was older than the other waitresses I had seen but still young enough to be called a girl. She was pretty, but I saw some wear and tear. I guessed the increased mileage meant she had to pay a few tolls to keep working.
“Can’t you read? The door was marked —” Jake stopped talking when he saw my face. He sat up a little straighter in his chair, and the girl rubbing his neck noticed a change in the flesh she was working. Her hands slowed down as she tried to get her head around what was happening.
I took a seat in one of the chairs opposite Jake’s desk and waited.
“Alison, could you give us a few minutes?”
The waitress bit her lower lip and reluctantly said, “Sure, Jake.”
Jake watched her leave and shut the door. When he looked back at me, he said, “It’s not what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“That I’m some lech who makes the girls sit on my lap for a job.”
“She wasn’t on your lap,” I said.
“No, she was rubbing my back, but not because I made her. I pulled a muscle the other day playing skee-ball and Alison was rubbing my back because she’s in school to be a masseuse, or whatever they call that shit these days.”
“So she was practicing.”
“Yeah.”
“Sure.”
“You don’t believe me? I’m not lying. I really pulled a muscle.”
“Okay.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m not here to apply for a job, Jake. I don’t care what you do with the girls in your office.”
“I don’t do anything.”
I sighed. “I don’t care who touches you. I care about who you can touch.”
“How many times do I gotta say it? I don’t touch the girls.”
“Not the girls,” I said. “I’m talking about the people you can get in touch with.”
“This a work thing?”
“I’m not here to play skee-ball.”
Jake rubbed his shoulder. “You shouldn’t be. It’s dangerous.” He leaned back in his chair. “I thought the job was done.”
“That job was.”
“But you want to resuscitate it.”
“You got a nurse rubbing your legs?”
“What?”
“Resuscitate.”
“Fuck you, I know what resuscitate means. So you’re bringing the job back from the dead?”
“Not that job.”
“So this is a new thing.”
I nodded. “With some of the old parts.”
“Like the score.”
“And a few of the players.”
“Just a few?” he wanted to know.
“There was a lot of dead weight on the last job.”
“You being funny?”
“No.”
“’Cause I was friends with Vin.”
I stared at Jake and waited to see if the threat would bloom into something with thorns. It didn’t.
“Some of those other guys might not like the idea of you cutting them out.”
“You going to tell them?”
&
nbsp; Jake’s eyes widened and he showed me two palms. “Me? You know that’s not how I operate. I’m a fitter.”
“Then stop trying to give me advice.”
“Fine, fine. Jesus, you are a bastard. What do you need?”
“I need you to get word out to two of the original crew.”
“Vin asked for eight bodies.”
“That’s right.”
“But you want two.”
“Yes.”
Jake stared at me like he wanted to ask more questions. I didn’t wait for them. “I need a fence. Someone who can move diamonds.”
“No problem.”
“Someone who can move millions in diamonds.”
Jake stopped leaning in his chair. “Problem.”
“Can you solve it?”
Jake thought about it. “Yeah, but I need a few days.”
“Fine. I’m going to need a backer, too. Someone who will front the whole job.”
“I know some people.”
“I’ll need at least a hundred.”
“Problem.”
“Can you solve it?”
“It will take more than a few days.”
“Fine.”
“Wilson, that kind of money can come from only a few places, and the people who are willing to put that money out don’t believe in collection agencies.”
“Make it happen.”
“Alright.”
“And —”
“And?”
“I need someone who can sell me some diamonds.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Miles was local, but I didn’t catch him at home. I had to meet him at work. He smiled when he saw me and opened his hands in a wide arc as though he were Moses parting the sea instead of a crowded convention centre. “How many of these people do you think want to have sex with My Little Pony?”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard what you said, but I don’t follow.” I looked at the posters and booths lined with children’s toys and images of cartoon horses. Then I looked more closely at the people. There weren’t any kids. There were hardly any women. “You can’t mean.”