Yeah, wait till Jack was passing a subway entrance, then run up behind and hit him real hard, maybe slam his head on the sidewalk for good measure, then duck down the subway stairs and out of sight. Catch the first train to come through and bing-bang-boom—gone.
The boss would have his Bagaq and Albert would have a very grateful boss, plus the bonus. Win-win, baby.
Except for the Jack guy. Lose-lose for him. He’d be hurtin’ bad—hurtin’ in his head and hurtin’ in his soul. Yeah, he’d—
Jack veered and entered a TD bank.
No-no-no! Please say you’re just gonna make a deposit or withdrawal.
Albert tried to watch through one of the windows but couldn’t see much. He did see some manager type take Jack out of sight into the rear section. Not too long after, they both returned, but Jack didn’t have the bag no more.
Albert screamed and started kicking the concrete wall. But not for long. He hurt his foot and had all sorts of people looking as they passed.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he said, waving off their stares.
Shit! He’s got a safety deposit box. Now what?
Albert knew what he wanted to do: Grab the fucker and beat the shit out of him. But that wouldn’t get him the Bagaq. Only get him arrested.
He backed off to a spot across the street as Jack exited the bank. A plan was forming. He’d follow the guy back to his apartment and brace him there. He was wiry, medium build, but Albert outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. Easy peasy. He’d overpower him and make him cough up the deposit box key and then…
And then what?
Too soon to go back to the bank and open the box. What if the same guy took care of all the box customers? Jack had just been in there. The guy’d know Albert wasn’t Jack. He’d—
Hey! Jack was flagging a cab. Shit-shit-shit!
He hailed his own and followed to Eleventh Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen where he got out at a BP station. Albert made his own driver wait till he could figure out what was going down.
After like twenty minutes, a guy from the station led Jack to a white Econoline van. They did a walk-around, then Jack hopped in and drove off.
Albert told his driver, “Follow that van.”
Jack headed toward the East Side and the driver did a good tail job for about three blocks, then Jack pushed a yellow light and got across Sixth just ahead of the uptown traffic.
Albert wanted to wring the driver’s neck but that would only complicate the situation. He had him drive over to Jack’s place and circle the block, looking for the white van on the chance he’d brought it home, but no luck.
At least he had the plate number, whatever good that was gonna do.
He’d have to go back and tell the boss. The boss would come up with a solution.
6
Oh, damn. Cilla was doing it again.
“Cilla, stop, honey. You’ll make yourself sick.”
She kept spinning. Either she didn’t hear or was ignoring her.
“Cilla, please!”
Still the three-year old spun—arms out, going around and around, whirling like a dervish. It might have been different if she was giggling or the like, but her expression was blank, just like her eyes.
If Jelena didn’t do something, breakfast would be all over the floor. So, she put on a happy face and forced a laugh as she picked up her daughter and swung her around.
“Wheeeee!”
But Cilla only fought to get free and back on the floor, grunting and whining, “Down!”
Jelena held on while bending to grab her spinner top. She pumped the handle to start it spinning then sat Cilla down before it.
“There! Look, it’s your top!”
Cilla sat and stared. Spinning fascinated her, spinning herself as well as watching things spin. The good news was that Cilla had learned how to work the handle to spin the top. The bad news was that she could sit there endlessly watching it go.
The clock on the microwave read 9:35. Where was Tihana? Her sister was late again, even on Jelena’s late-start morning at work. Sometimes she wanted to scream at her, really let her have it, but that might result in another walk-out, leaving Jelena for days with no one to watch Cilla. So, time after time she swallowed her frustrations.
Two years younger and still living with their mother, Tihana had grown into a flabby, slovenly pot head who’d dropped out of school, had no regular job, and no desire to find one. The only income she had was what she could cadge out of Mom and what Jelena could scrape together to pay her for babysitting.
Tihana knew Jelena had to be at the office by ten on Mondays—her day to work late—yet more often than not she arrived late enough to force Jelena into a mad rush up to Woodhaven.
She went to the window—no sign of her.
Damn!
She leaned her head against the glass. David, David, David… if only you hadn’t screwed up so bad, so often. If only you could have found a way to stop. Maybe we could have…
What was the use? He was gone and he’d left her with a terrible mess.
And not as if Mom would ever let her forget choosing an Irishman over a nice Croat guy.
Movement outside caught her eye: Tihana’s car pulling to the curb. Jelena gritted her teeth. Finally. Damn, she was annoying.
Okay. Keep it cool. The last time they’d fought she’d had to eat crow to get Tihana back, and had almost lost her job in the meantime.
Straining to keep her voice down and her expression neutral, she opened the door as her sister came up the steps.
“Morning. Have a good weekend?”
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” she said as she entered. “Traffic’s a bitch this morning.”
Oh, right, especially now, after rush hour’s over, leaped to her lips but she bit it back.
Jelena quickly pulled on her coat. “Gotta run or I’ll be late.”
Tihana was staring at Cilla on the floor. “I see she’s got the top going again.”
“Yeah, she loves it.” She hurried over and got no reaction as she kissed Cilla on the cheek. “Bye, hon.”
Cilla kept staring at the top.
“Jelena…” Tihana cleared her throat. “You do know she’s not right, don’t you?”
“I can’t get into that now. I’m late as it is. Just keep an eye on her and try not to get too stoned, okay?”
With that she rushed out the door and down the steps. She had a sense of Tihana making some sort of gesture behind her back but wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of turning to see.
Once in her Celica she jammed the key into the ignition and sent up a prayer as she turned it.
“God, please make it start. Pleeeeease!”
Her old car had grown increasingly temperamental in the cold weather and this morning was cold as hell. For a few seconds it seemed her prayer might not be answered, but then the engine caught and stuttered to life.
As she sat and shivered and gave it half a minute to warm up, she thought about what her sister had said.
Yes, Tihana, I know Cilla’s not right. You don’t have to remind me. And I know I have to do something about it, but I don’t know what.
She’d had what she thought was decent health insurance until Obamacare came along and said it wasn’t good enough. Bam. They canceled it. Her new policy cost more and had a sky-high deductible. Living paycheck to paycheck like she had to, that was like having no insurance at all.
Cilla needed a neurological evaluation to confirm whether she was autistic or something else was going on. But that consultation fee would have to come out of Jelena’s pocket—her empty pocket. She was sure the city or the state health departments had programs and services, she simply had to hunt them down. But between work and school and cooking and cleaning and trying to be a good mother, where was the time?
Had to make it a priority.
She admitted she’d been in denial for a while now, but she couldn’t talk herself out of it any longer. Cilla wasn’t right. Jelena had been distracting h
erself with the accounting course she was taking at the community college—she wasn’t going to be an insurance agent’s file clerk forever—but now she had to start searching out children’s services. She paid taxes. She deserved to get a little back.
My husband’s dead, the bank’s taking my house, I’m in a low-paying dead-end job, and my precious little girl who hit all her early developmental milestones now seems to be slipping into autism.
What else you got in store for me, God? Is today the day I get fired for being late again?
What a nice Christmas gift that would make.
7
Jack sat in his Econoline van in Howard Beach and watched the house at the 156th Avenue address Monaco had given him—supposedly the home of DIA Agent Quinnell’s ex. Most likely was, but he wasn’t taking anything from the Plum Island duo as the real deal until he’d checked it out himself.
He’d decided to leave the Crown Vic home this time. Vinny Donuts or no, that local cop wasn’t going to cut him much slack if he spotted the Vic lurking around again.
The Econoline was a beast but had been the only van the station had available. He could have gone to Hertz or Avis but the BP station asked fewer questions and wasn’t linked to any of the major car-rental databases. His John Tyleski license worked just fine, no questions asked.
The amateur who’d been following him earlier had been almost too easy to lose. But first Jack had led him to a bank where he’d rented a safety deposit box. He’d put nothing in the box, but his tail didn’t know that. Afterward, even with this clunky van, giving him the slip had been a breeze.
He pulled out the receipt and the box key. As soon as Madame de Medici retrieved her Bagaq, Jack would cancel the rental. He folded the key in the receipt and shoved it into his wallet.
He shifted in the van seat. Felt like the springs were broken. But the van might come in handy. No side windows, heavily tinted rear windows, and an empty rear section. If he bagged H3 he could tie him down and transport him in the back.
He’d made one pass past the Quinnell address before parking and idling in front of a deserted-looking house. From what Jack had seen of Howard Beach yesterday, 156th Avenue was not in the most desirable part of the town—about as far as you could get from the water and still be in Howard Beach. As for the house itself, the property backed up to the Belt Parkway. Practically on top of it. He figured you either got used to the noise or went nuts.
But that might work to his advantage. A woodsy buffer zone had been left between the last row of houses and the Belt, offering possibilities if he needed an observation perch.
Sometime after 9:30 a battered Nissan Sentra pulled up and parked in front of the house. The driver—a heavy young woman with unevenly bleached hair—got out and sauntered up the walk. A slimmer, dark-haired version opened the front door before she reached it. She looked annoyed.
The two disappeared inside for a moment, then the brunette reappeared and hustled down the walk to an equally battered Celica. The blonde flipped her the bird and went inside…
Time to make a few assumptions. They could be wrong but, if so, he’d revise them on the fly. Assume, as Monaco claimed, that the brunette was Jelena, Quinnell’s ex. Assume that the rather slovenly woman was Jelena’s sister—the facial resemblance backed that—and had the job of looking after Cilla while her mother worked.
Speaking of work…might not be a bad idea to know where Jelena spent her days. Before popping the van into gear, he checked the tracker: blank.
He followed Jelena back to the Cross Bay where she headed north. He tracked her up to Queens Boulevard in Forest Hills where she pulled into the lot of an insurance agency called Tibbett & Son. Maybe she was an agent, maybe a secretary. Typical single mother story, he bet. She’d probably got by okay with alimony and child support from her ex, but now he was gone and the money cut off. Even with help from her sloppy sister she was no doubt living paycheck to paycheck.
He made a mental note of that, then headed back south. He’d stay in the area but avoid the Quinnell house for now—didn’t want anyone to call in a suspicious van roaming the neighborhood.
8
Tier’s hairless, skeletal client received them in his wheelchair in the living room. He’d arrived at the mansion expecting to face Roland alone, but apparently Poncia had arrived just ahead of him.
Roland’s voice rasped more than ever. “I must conclude that, since you both arrive empty-handed while the day is yet young, the news is not good.”
“I got some good to report,” Poncia said eagerly. “Well, kinda good.”
“I await on tenter hooks.”
“I know where the Bagaq is—or at least I’ve got a pretty good idea.”
“Where, pray tell?”
“In a bank safety deposit box on Broadway.”
Tier refrained from telling him that the proper term was a safe deposit box.
Roland frowned. “If true, that is not good at all. What leads you to this conclusion?”
Poncia launched into an overly detailed discourse on following the surnameless Jack from his place to a deli-type store to a sporting good shop to the bank.
“He left his place with a bag containing something the exact size and shape of the Bagaq and had it with him all the way till he came out of the bank emptyhanded.”
Tier had detected an odor coming off Poncia. He leaned closer and sniffed.
Poncia stepped back. “The fuck you think you’re doing?”
“Why do you smell like ketchup?”
“Up yours.”
“Mister Hill?” Roland did one of his ugly throat-clears as he looked at Tier. “What is your tale of woe?”
“Madame de Medici has skipped from the Allard.”
Roland didn’t look surprised. “And you know this how?”
“I delivered a dummy package to her today and they told me she’s gone and they’re holding her mail. The doorman didn’t have a return date.”
Roland’s smile made his head look more like a skull than ever. “She’s waiting for me to die.” This seemed to amuse him. But the smile faded as he added, “But you didn’t see her leave?”
“On the contrary. That’s when this gets interesting…”
Leaving out mention of the signal and Burbank—and also about how she’d ditched him yesterday morning—he related how Madame de Medici invited him up to search her apartment.
Roland reacted with a shocked look and said, “And you found nothing?”
“I found plenty of things—her apartment makes yours look Spartan—but no Bagaq. I doubt she’d have let me search the place had it been there. As I left, she told me she was heading for Egypt today.”
“Like I been telling you,” Poncia said, “it’s in that safety deposit box. We gotta get into it. But how?”
“We don’t know for sure the Bagaq is there,” Tier said. “She and Jack might be playing us.”
“But I saw—”
“You probably saw exactly what you were supposed to see: a guy entering a bank with something in a bag and leaving emptyhanded.”
“But it was the same shape and size as—”
“Could have been balled-up newspaper. How would you know the difference? And he could have just chatted up one of the managers and dropped the bag in a wastebasket.”
Poncia reddened. “Fuck you, Hill! You—”
“Albert, Albert,” Roland said. “A little decorum. I insist.”
“Sorry.”
“I fear Mister Hill here has a point. We don’t know that Madame gave it to this Jack in the first place, but I believe we must operate on that assumption.”
Tier didn’t agree that they “must,” but it seemed the logical way to go.
“Why wouldn’t she have a secret compartment in her apartment where she could hide it?” Tier remembered how that wall slid open. “It would be safe there. The Allard looks pretty secure, after all.”
“My sense of her is that she would want someone watching over it. Remembe
r: She has an affinity for Infernals, and they are more than inert objects. They…”
His voice trailed off.
“They what?” Tier said.
“They have purposes—uses and misuses.”
Whatever that meant.
“Okay, then,” Tier said, “why wouldn’t she just take it along wherever she went?”
“Because if she’s left the Allard, you can be sure she’s not hiding around the corner. She’d want to be where she can move freely without worrying about being stalked. She told you she’s leaving for Egypt, and that makes sense. She has a large house in Luxor, which puts her out of reach.”
And how, Tier thought. No way was he traveling to Egypt. But…
“All the more reason to take it with her.”
“I’m sure she would have loved to. However, Infernals are sensitive to atmospheric pressure. Tradition has it that they cause bizarre effects at high altitudes. Which was why I shipped it here via sea.”
Tradition…in Tier’s experience, tradition had a spotty record of accuracy.
He didn’t like operating on assumptions, and Roland was not only assuming that the Bagaq wasn’t in the Allard, but that the Medici gal had given it to Jack instead of taking it to Egypt or wherever she really went.
She could be playing them. In fact, he was pretty damn sure she was. It had occurred to him post facto that he’d had no problem following her to Jack’s but she’d shaken him within half a block after she’d left his place. Almost as if she’d led him to Jack. And that worried him.
What’s her game?
He couldn’t come up with a viable alternative to Roland’s plan off the top of his head. And after all, Roland was paying his per diem. That meant Tier would play the good soldier, pay lip service to all the assumptions, and give the man his best shot.
“That leaves us with this Jack fellow.”
Roland nodded. “Find out all you can about him.”
The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel Page 16