Angel Face

by Stephen Solomita

  A Selection of Recent Titles by Stephen Solomita

  DAMAGED GOODS

  A GOOD DAY TO DIE

  NO CONTROL

  A PIECE OF THE ACTION

  POSTER BOY

  TRICK ME TWICE

  MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE *

  CRACKER BLING *

  MERCY KILLING *

  * available from Severn House

  ANGEL FACE

  Stephen Solomita

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published 2011

  in Great Britain and in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9–15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  Copyright © 2011 by Stephen Solomita.

  All rights reserved.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Solomita, Stephen

  Angel face

  1. Prostitutes – New York (State) – New York – Fiction.

  2. Gangsters – Crimes against – Fiction. 3. Organized

  Crime – New York (State) – New York – Fiction. 4. Suspense fiction.

  I. Title

  813.5′4-dc22

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-142-2 (ePub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8076-5 (cased)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  ONE

  Carter exits the M14A bus at Fourteenth Street and Ninth Avenue, stepping into a light, but steady, May rain. He stops for a moment on the sidewalk to adjust his leather hat’s six-inch brim, turning it down at the back to deflect the rainwater on to the sidewalk. Beneath his arm, he carries a small cardboard box wrapped in a plastic shopping bag. He wants to protect the box from the rain, even knowing that its contents, the ashes of his sister, Janie, will soon be consigned to the waters of the Hudson River.

  Death is nothing new to Leonard Carter. Carter’s been to war in Afghanistan, a Delta Force spook operating far from the main force, and far from any concept as irrelevant as rules of engagement. From Afghanistan, he’d moved to Iraq, working as a mercenary for Coldstream Military Options, a private contractor with a penchant for summary executions. The west coast of Africa followed, where he spilled enough blood to color the waters of the mighty Hudson. Searching for diamonds soaked with that same blood.

  Carter walks two blocks to the West Side Highway, his eyes sweeping the ground for enemies, a reflex cultivated in war and never surrendered, though he doesn’t think himself pursued. He waits several minutes for the light to change in his favor, watching the cars zoom along, the whine of their tires and the growl of their engines rising and falling as they cross his path. He finds little release from the din when he finally reaches Hudson River Park, a narrow pathway running north and south along the banks of the river. The traffic sounds continue to dominate, as they dominate all of Manhattan, as much a part of the city’s character as the trash on the sidewalks.

  Carter turns south, toward Wall Street and the financial district. Normally, the bike and pedestrian pathways are crowded, even on a Wednesday afternoon, but today, what with the mist and the rain, he has the park pretty much to himself.

  As he walks along a wrought-iron fence separating him from the river, Carter’s thinking – and not for the first time – that he’s supposed to reflect, to measure out the ways Janie anchored his life, the protections she offered, the justifications. But he can’t permit himself to grant death any great importance, death being only a bit less common than birth. Which is not to say that Carter isn’t affected by his sister’s passing, only that her death was not just expected, it was a blessing as well. And truth be told, Lou Gehrig’s disease had taken her life months before a doctor placed a stethoscope against her chest and failed to detect a heartbeat.

  Janie had begun the long descent into paralysis six years before that day, the progress of the disease as unrelenting as it was slow. Her feet first, then her hands, then her legs, her arms, her mouth, her lungs, until she was unable even to blink her eyes.

  When her heart finally stopped, everyone at the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation – the aides, the nurses, the administrative staff, the doctors, the nuns – used the same word.

  Blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing.

  Carter had nodded agreement. Stirring controversy wasn’t his game. But he couldn’t help wondering what the fucker assigned to bestow blessings was doing when Janie originally contracted the disease.

  Carter turns a corner to find himself confronted by a series of rose beds fronting a Department of Sanitation garage that extends out into the Hudson. These are shrub roses, rising waist high and growing tight enough to form a hedge. Their intricate petals drift between a soft pink and the red of a baby’s blush, the blossoms clustered together at the end of narrow, fragile stems. Taken off-guard, Carter stops to stare. Drops of water on the leaves and the blossoms sparkle despite a mist that blends form and color into a seamless whole. Behind him, the traffic rolls by.

  Carter’s impressed, but he moves on after a moment, wondering, as he goes, if the roses were planted here to soften the featureless brick façade of the Sanitation garage, this being, after all, a city park. If so, the landscapers weren’t entirely successful. The fragrance of the roses and the fertile odor of the Hudson are overlaid by the smell of garbage emanating from a dozen trucks parked in a fenced yard.

  The park widens a bit as Carter passes an elaborate wrought-iron gateway set before a concrete pier. Faded letters reveal the pier’s original function: CUNARD LINES. Back in the day, between the two World Wars, Cunard’s many ocean liners ferried passengers between Europe and New York in luxury. No more. Though cruise ships still dock at piers to the north, the liners disappeared, the luxury too, with the advent of the airplane. Carter equates coach with steerage.

  Further on, Carter approaches a freshly mowed lawn. On clear days, when he’d happened to pass by, he’d found sun worshippers, their blankets spread across the lawn, the better to encourage future melanomas. As many of these were young, attractive women, Carter’s attention was naturally drawn to them. He’d failed to notice a low granite wall that curved around the back of the lawn, but now he reads the legend inscribed on the polished gray stone in bold white letters:

  I can sail without wind, I can row without oars, but I cannot part from my friend without tears.

  How long has it been since Carter cried? In fact, Carter can’t recall ever crying, though he assumes he must have.

  The rain picks up now, spattering on the pathway hard enough to mute the traffic sounds. Carter barely notices. Ahead, Pier 45, the Christopher Street Pier, extends into the Hudson, its far end obscured by the closing weather. This is Carter’s destination, and, as before, where there would ordinarily be dozens of strollers, Carter sees only a pair of fishermen packing their gear about halfway down. He walks by them without speaking, to a railing at the very end of the pier.

  Carter’s been to the Christopher Street Pier many times before. He knows
that a skyline of high-rise apartment buildings crowds the waterfront on the Jersey side of the river just a bit to the south. But he can’t see them. Nor can he see the Statue of Liberty a mile away in the harbor. Water and rain and mist recede into a blank curtain that might be vertical or horizontal or any combination thereof.

  Now that he’s made it this far, Carter hesitates. He’s remembering the day Janie came to him after the years in foster care. That was back home in Indiana. She’d rescued him, no doubt about it, from a family that treated him as they would a crop on their farm. Carter’s presence was intended to produce a return on investment, the less invested, of course, the greater the return.

  Carter first reaction to his sister’s appearance – he’d been told nothing beforehand – was fear, pure and simple. He’d adjusted to life without, to a paucity of food and clothing, to a world without even the pretense of affection. The Abernathys didn’t beat him, as long as he did his chores, and they didn’t try to guide his thoughts. Nor did they ask him to attend the Assemblies of God church they visited on Sundays for the service, and on Wednesdays for the prayer meeting. They didn’t take the pigs or the chickens, either.

  Safety first. The Abernathy’s were safe, their demands simple and clear. They protected him and they wanted him, if only for the cash payments sent to them every month by the State of Indiana. When his mother died, when his sister was taken away, after months in a group foster home, the youngest of the young, Carter had wanted refuge. Not love, not kindness, not concern, not even food. Carter’s dreams were of safety.

  Carter leans out over the railing to look down at a ledge running over the outer pilings supporting the pier. About ten inches wide, the ledge is three feet down and wet with rainwater. But Carter doesn’t hesitate. He vaults the rail one-handed and drops into a crouch before sitting down. The soles of his feet are within a foot of the gray waters now, and he can see individual raindrops pock the surface, unleashing small eruptions that hang in the air.

  For a time, Carter loses himself in the heaving river, but then the waters suddenly part and a large black bird emerges from the depths, a cormorant. The cormorant throws its head back and swallows the fish caught in its sharp bill, then bobs on the swells for a few seconds, its head turning and tilting. Is the bird looking up, scanning the sky for predators? Or down into the depths, scanning the waters for prey? By way of answer, the cormorant slides beneath the surface, graceful as an eel, and vanishes. Back to work.

  Janie had provided refuge, along with love, kindness and concern. She’d saved her brother, though she couldn’t make him whole. But at least he knew that children didn’t have to be treated like machines, that it wasn’t some kind of rule. That has to count for something, although Carter can’t say exactly what.

  Carter unwraps the cardboard box and shoves the plastic wrapping into the pocket of his microsuede jacket. He opens the cover of a white box and discovers another box, this one black. Inside the black box, a clear plastic bag filled with gray powder is held closed at the end by a simple green twist-tie. Carter finds himself wishing for some more elaborate device, but it’s too late. He might have buried Janie in a polished coffin and erected a marble headstone – he has the money – but he couldn’t deal with the thought of his sister lying in a grave that nobody visited. Too much guilt. When Janie first contracted Lou Gehrig’s disease, he was rampaging through West Africa, killing when he might have consoled. By the time he returned to the United States, Janie was bedridden, her movements limited, the end written plain.

  So, now what? Carter has no religious beliefs. Beyond the occasional blasphemous epithet, religion plays no part in his life. Though his sister was religious, though he read to her from the Bible whenever he visited, even after Janie was unable to respond, he can’t bring himself to pray, or even to recite the few verses he’s memorized.

  ‘I guess it’s just goodbye,’ Carter says, the words lost in the mist before he closes his mouth. He removes the twist-tie and leans forward until he’s looking down at the water. As he tilts the bag, as the powdery gray ashes slide into the Hudson, Carter thinks, as he often does, of the boy soldiers, of their drug-fueled courage, their unthinking cruelty, of how easily they were killed. He remembers their scattered bodies in the ruins of an African village, remembers the smell of their blood and an unrelenting sun that beat down on the living and the dead alike. He and his companions, thieves all, had briefly considered burying the children. But there was no time and they’d left the bodies to the vultures circling overhead.

  ‘Goodbye, sister,’ he whispers.

  Carter shakes the bag to release the last flakes of ash. He places the bag inside the black box and the black box inside the white box. Then he sits for a time, until the dark gray water is again marked only by the falling rain, until there’s nothing more to see, until what remains of his sister is gone. Only then does he rise to his feet and vault over the rail to drop on to the pier. A short distance away, a man wearing a yellow raincoat stands with his mouth agape. And not without reason. Carter is thoroughly drenched. His chino pants cling to him like a second skin. Did he emerge from the depths only a moment before, a monster come to feed? Judging from the expression on the man’s face, he’s not sure.

  Despite the soaking, Carter’s not uncomfortable. After years of special forces training, after a winter in the mountains of Afghanistan where the cold burrowed into you like an invading virus, May afternoons in New York don’t intimidate him, rain or shine. He turns on his heel and marches off toward the beckoning skyline of Manhattan.

  Back to work.

  TWO

  On one level, Angela Tamanaka, called ‘Angel’ by friend and client alike, is pleased by the steady rain. At least she’s not being hit on by every jerk who passes by. She’s still pissed, though, because the client’s late and she’s been walking up and down Broadway between 108th and 109th Streets for twenty minutes. Huddled under a baby-blue umbrella speckled with pink rosebuds.

  Stay positive, she tells herself. Use the time, don’t let the time use you. Angel has culled her rules of success from a dozen websites, and she might have perused thousands more. A Google search for ‘rules of success’ had turned up ninety-seven million hits in 0.22 seconds. On the first three pages, she discovered success rules for the mail order business, the music business, the trucking business and the business of politics. Nothing specific about the business of whoring, though. No good advice for sex workers.

  Focus on the outcome, Angel tells herself. Success breeds success. The happier the client, the more jobs Pierre will send your way. At this stage of her working life, Angel’s about the business of accumulating capital. And that’s another maxim: Poverty leads to dependence, which leads to more poverty.

  An articulated city bus pulls to the stop at the corner of 108th Street, its accordion pleat flexing and folding as the driver works in close to the curb. The bus rocks on its springs when it finally comes to halt and the front door opens to reveal an elderly woman in a lavender pants suit. The woman comes down the steps slowly, leading with her right leg. Her left hand grips the railing, her right the curved handle of a long black umbrella. Safe on the sidewalk, she presses the umbrella’s release button and it pops open, spraying the man poised on the step behind her with rainwater. He closes his eyes for a moment, too exhausted, apparently, even to become annoyed.

  Angel watches the drama unfold, thinking this is what I don’t want, this is my big motivator. Not to come home every single night of my life, utterly spent, with nothing to show for it at the end of the week. But, no, not nothing. Enough to provide the bare necessities, enough to get me out the door on the next day, and the day after that and the day after that. Until I’m used up and nobody wants to employ me and I get to retire on Social Security and food stamps.

  Call her a communist, but this is the way Angel sees it. This is a fate she’s determined to avoid. Better to lose everything.

  As she rehearses the scenario she’s worked out over the p
ast couple of days, Angel paces up and down, accompanied by the spatter of rain on her umbrella. If the client doesn’t show by the time she finishes, she decides, she’ll call it a night and head back to her apartment. She’ll call her agent, too. She’ll call Pierre to demand payment for time she might otherwise have spent profitably. She knows the client has paid in advance, and with a credit card.

  There’s a simple rule of thumb operating here. The client specifies the fantasy, but the provider brings the fantasy to life. In this case, the client, a mob guy named Enrico Benedetti, a real jerk, was predictably vague. A demure young woman, a drudge, visits the office of her therapist, as she has many times before. Only this time she finally divulges the terrible secret she’s been hiding all these years: she was molested by her stepfather. Her therapist listens sympathetically for a while, then informs her that she can escape her pain by reliving the original experience. She’s reluctant at first, but finally agrees, only to discover that her therapist was right. Before morning, she finds herself transformed, from a sexless drudge to a sex-crazed nymphomaniac.

  Three other girls turned the job down. Angel said yes. Not because she wasn’t repulsed. Angel was disgusted, too, but she wasn’t about to be distracted by her feelings.

  Be the one who’s there for the team when everybody else quits. Be the last woman standing. Be the go-to girl. Tomorrow morning, her agent will direct-deposit $800 into her account at Citibank. She’ll put aside four hundred of those dollars to pay for general living expenses and her taxes. The rest will go into a second account at Chase, her capital accumulation account. Angel has forty grand in that account and she’s proud of every damned penny. Most of her schoolmates at Brooklyn College, even the ones who work part-time, have already accumulated enough debt to keep them broke for the next decade.

  Be Prepared – you don’t have to be a boy or a scout to accept that piece of advice. She’s supposed to remain in character from the minute she slides into the car until she’s dropped off tomorrow morning at seven o’clock, three hours before the client’s wife and kids return from a visit with the grandparents. That’s why she’s wearing a brown corduroy dress a size too big, a dress that hangs all the way to mid-calf. That’s why she didn’t put on make-up, why she’s wearing a plain white bra and cotton panties thick enough to pass for a diaper.