‘OK, I’ll do it.’
ELEVEN
Carter’s time with Paulie has taught him that most gangsters, no matter how tough, are poorly trained and unpracticed. Maybe they’ll fight at the drop of a hat, maybe they’ll kill you and go to lunch afterward, but they lack the skills to effectively defend themselves. He follows Angel down the block, she beneath a blue umbrella, he on the opposite side of the street and slightly behind, moving in the shadows. The rain is falling hard, the entire block deserted. There’s not a surveillance camera in sight.
The gangster produces a double take worthy of a silent movie comedian when Angel walks by, his hand already groping for the door’s handle. He opens the door, slides out into the rain and takes a step, the possibility that he’s the hunted, not the hunter, never entering his mind.
Carter makes contact before his target reaches the end of the BMW’s hood, his left hand grabbing the man’s shoulder while his thumb probes for the space between two ribs. Then he punches the dagger’s blade directly into Ruby Amaroso’s heart, the impact so hard and sudden the man barely manages a grunt before his eyes close and his knees give out.
Carter guides the body, as it falls, between the BMW and the car in front. Then he walks off without looking to the right or the left, or even removing the knife, mission accomplished, Carter just another pedestrian going about his business. Thirty seconds later, he’s in the van, buckling his seat belt as he starts the engine. He glances in the rear-view mirror as he pulls away, at Angel Tamanaka, at Angel Face, huddled against the side of the van.
Welcome to the Hell World, kid.
Though aware of serial killers and their predilections, Carter never before associated the act of murder with any variety of sexual charge, not until he and Angel come through the door and begin to yank at each other’s clothes. Only then, as she lies beneath him, her heels on his shoulders, he thrusting into her, two animals in rut on the carpet in his sister’s living room, does he acknowledge the relationship. This is not a marathon, this encounter, it’s a sprint; the both of them going all-out. Angel’s lips are pressed together, her eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. She seems angry to Carter, and not without reason. But Carter doesn’t care. He just knows that he wants her today and he’ll want her tomorrow, and that’s the end of his life plan.
They feast afterwards, on tapas from a Spanish restaurant on Woodhaven Boulevard. Avocado toast, chickpeas with garlic and parsley oil, farmhouse toast and figs with ham. They stuff themselves, then shower together before Angel’s adrenals finally shut down and she flops naked on to their bed. Carter drops down beside her. He’s feeling a kind of buyer’s remorse, like an animal who’s wandered into a dark space and now smells a trap.
‘You want to hear the answer?’ Angel says.
‘To what question?’
‘The one about why I don’t choose plan B – hard work and education.’
Carter rolls up on to an elbow. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I was only kidding.’
‘No, I want to. I want you to know where I’m coming from.’ Angel strokes the side of Carter’s face. ‘My grandfather, Yoshi Tamanaka, was born in Seattle in 1928. Like every West Coast Japanese citizen, he spent World War Two in an internment camp – you’ll notice that American historians never say concentration camp – along with the rest of the family. Grampa was seventeen at the end of the war and he went to school for a couple of years before opening a lumber yard near Green Lake, north of Seattle. You might say he got lucky, because the Interstate Highway System came right past the town and linked him to builders in neighboring counties. His business was still growing when he passed it on to my dad in 1988. That would be Hideki Tamanaka. Dad devoted his life to nurturing his inheritance. Ten hours a day, twelve, fourteen – he didn’t run his business, or his life, by the clock. Shoulder to the wheel, nose to grindstone. Dad was a grab-your-bootstraps man. He loved Richard Nixon’s favorite saying, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” In his mind, hard work equated to success, one to one. Every failure in life was a failure of will.’
Angel rolls up to sit at the edge of the bed, her feet dangling, her back to Carter. She takes a moment before resuming her tale. ‘So, what happens is that Home Depot opens a giant lumber yard twenty miles west of dad’s. That’s in 2001. Then in 2003, Lowe’s opens a store fifteen miles to the north. Dad can’t buy lumber at the prices they pay, but he doesn’t need their margins to make a profit because he runs his operation more efficiently. So he stumbles along for a few years, holding on to whatever clients he can, until Lowe’s and Home Depot decide to increase market share by cutting wholesale prices to the bone. Short-term, they don’t care if they lose money at one particular store. They’ve got a hundred other stores backing them up.
‘My father was a jerk, Carter. He couldn’t admit that he was wrong, that you could work your ass off and still be crushed. When the business went into the red, he borrowed from the banks. When the banks cut him off, he refinanced his house. When that money ran out, he sold off his stocks and emptied the bank accounts. And when there was nothing left, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. My mother was already a hopeless drunk by that time and I don’t remember her crying at dad’s funeral, though she nearly fell into his grave. What I do remember is spending the next two years, until I graduated high school, with an aunt, then getting my little butt on the first plane out of town.’
Carter sits up and lays a hand on Angel’s shoulder. It’s not the best story he’s ever heard, but it’s good enough for a rainy night in New York. ‘There’s a moral here, a bottom line. I can smell it.’
‘Yeah, there’s a moral. Forget the bullshit about hard work and personal responsibility. That’s just propaganda to keep the peasants on the farm. God blesses the child who’s got her own and I intend to get mine.’
TWELVE
Bobby Ditto’s thinking that it doesn’t just pour when it rains. It shits all over your head. Ruby Amaroso was the most responsible of the young kids Bobby recruited two years ago. When you gave him a job, he got it done, plus he kept the rest of the jerks in place. Now he’s in the morgue with a tag on his toe, and yours truly, meaning Roberto Benedetti, is the chief suspect. The cops have been to visit twice, even though Bobby referred them to his mouthpiece when they first showed up.
And now this, the final insult, he has to turn for help to the goddamned Russians and they send him a slanty-eyed chink who doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and fifty pounds. A little pussy-boy with a flat-nosed face carved from stone. They’re in the bunker and he’s offering the chink coffee, but the chink’s not showing the slightest respect, for Bobby or for the Blade, who’s standing with his back against the wall. No, the jerk’s actually refusing Bobby’s hospitality.
‘See,’ Bobby explains, ‘I need to know what you can do for me, if anything. This card?’ He holds up Louis Chin’s business card: XAO INVESTIGATIONS. ‘It wouldn’t mean a thing to me, even if I could pronounce it.’
‘“Zow.” It’s pronounced “Zow.” But I understand that we’ve been recommended by people you trust.’ Chin’s thoroughly enjoying the gangster’s obvious discomfort. He’s worked with the guineas before. As self-centered as drag queens, they have a hard time coping with people who aren’t afraid of them.
‘Yeah, that’s all well and good,’ Bobby says, ‘but I gotta know what you can do for me before I tell you my business. And I don’t think I need to explain why.’
Chin steeples his fingers. ‘Two basic facts. First, there are nineteen hundred private companies under contract to one or another of the federal government’s intelligence arms. Second, more than two hundred and sixty-five thousand individuals working for these companies have a Top Secret clearance, which allows them access to sensitive data. Most of these individuals are honest and hard-working, but not all. For a fee, some are willing to pass along information. A smaller number will actually conduct investigations.’
‘So, these guys, they
’re like traitors? They sell information to terrorists?’
‘If that’s going on, which I very much doubt, it’s news to me. What my contacts do is more like what happens at the Motor Vehicle Bureau or the IRS or the various credit agencies. For a fee, they pass data to private investigators.’
Lou Chin recites the pitch more or less from memory. He’s a year out of the Marine Corps where he led a company operating in southern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Chin had loved his job and fully expected to make the Marine Corps his permanent home. But then, one cold, moonless night, a mortar round landed two yards from where he crouched on a roof in Kandahar. His three comrades were killed instantly, while he, himself (except for a minor flesh wound tended by a company medic) was uninjured. Four months later, he accepted an honorable discharge and came home, figuring that some higher power had sent him a strongly worded message.
‘Why don’t you describe your needs,’ he concludes, ‘and I’ll tell you whether or not we can meet them.’
‘And you’ll guarantee confidentiality, right?’
‘Absolutely. We never compromise a client.’
‘No, you just sell government secrets.’
Chin spreads his hands and shrugs. Someone’s got his fingers wrapped around Bobby Ditto’s balls and the gangster lacks the capacity to unwrap those fingers on his own. That’s why he’s called on Xao Investigations.
‘What about money? What about your … your fee?’
‘One thousand dollars for this consultation, which you’ve already paid. The rest depends on what you need.’ Chin smiles for the first time, a thin smile that’s gone in an instant. ‘Which, I suppose, brings us back to square one. I can’t very well price our services without knowing what they’ll be.’
Louis Chin’s wearing tan slacks, an off-white linen jacket and a copper-colored golf shirt. To Bobby Ditto, the clothing looks expensive and sophisticated, which annoys him all the more. He’s thinking Chin (whose forebears in America reach back to the California gold rush) should be serving him wonton soup and egg rolls.
‘I need a minute to talk it over.’ Bobby stands up and motions for the Blade to follow as he walks out of the bunker and closes the door behind him. They’re now standing in the warehouse’s storage area, surrounded by rolls of substandard carpet that Bobby expects to unload on the New York Housing Authority. ‘Whatta ya think, Marco? Is the asshole legit?’
The Blade rubs his nose, an annoying habit that he simply can’t break, no matter how much it pisses off his boss. ‘What I’m thinkin’, Bobby, is that we gotta do somethin’. We can’t afford to have this Carter gunnin’ for us, not right now.’
The Blade’s referring to an upcoming deal, the biggest in the short history of Bobby Ditto’s crew, seven kilos of pure heroin at $71,000 per kilo. Bobby’s in the process of putting the $497,000 together and he’s still got time – the dope won’t reach the US for another week or so – but the last thing he needs is some crazed mercenary out to kill him. And for what? To protect a whore?
‘I feel like I stepped into a world where nothing makes sense,’ he tells the Blade. ‘Like I’m on fuckin’ Mars.’
‘Ditto that,’ the Blade responds. ‘But here’s somethin’ to dream about when you go to sleep tonight. You pay this slant-eyes a few grand, which is chump change, and he tells us where to find this Carter guy. Then we snatch Carter, along with his fuckin’ whore, and spend a week givin’ ’em exactly what they got comin’.’
‘A week?’
‘A week.’
Bobby Ditto smiles for the first time in days. ‘Ya know why I pay you the big bucks?’ he asks as he opens the door to the bunker. ‘Because you’re worth every penny.’
Chin nods when Bobby Ditto resumes his seat. He’s come to sell his services and he knows he’s succeeded before his client says a word. A good thing, too, because Xao Investigations’ entire workforce is limited to a single man with a good front and better connections, a man named Louis Chin who’s pretty much surviving day to day.
‘All right,’ Bobby Ditto says, ‘here’s what I know. The asshole’s an American named Carter. And don’t ask me if Carter’s a first or a last name, it could be either. What’s definite is that he was a mercenary – or still is – and that he hung out with a former British officer, also turned mercenary, by the name of Montgomery Thorpe.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’
‘Well, mercenary’s a big category. It covers everything from private contractors like Halliburton to rogue units buying opium from the Taliban.’ Chin clears his throat. ‘Still, from what you’ve told me about Carter’s skills, he has to be ex-military. That means he also has to be in a DOD database.’
‘What’s DOD?’
‘The Department of Defense.’
‘And you can get into their computers?’
‘Much more than that. The people I use can access parts of the CIA’s many databases, and the National Security Agency’s, and others besides.’
‘And these people, they don’t work for the government?’
‘They work for private companies under contract to the government. But the important thing, for you, is that if Carter left the military to become a merc, some agency most likely tracked him. That would also hold true for Montgomery Thorpe.’ Chin shuts down abruptly, the message plain. No more freebies. The ball’s in Bobby Ditto’s court.
‘OK,’ Bobby says, ‘how much?’
‘Fifteen thousand to do an investigation. No guarantee on the results.’
‘Fifteen grand’s a lot of money.’ Bobby’s voice carries a little edge, not quite threatening, but close enough to make a point which the chink apparently doesn’t get.
‘First thing, Mr Benedetti, I could go to jail for what I’m doing. Second thing, I have to spread the money around. I don’t have access to any of this data. I have to rely on other people. But why don’t we do this: Give me ten up front and the other five when I find something useful.’
‘And if you don’t?’
‘Then we’ll call it even.’
Bobby nods to the Blade who crosses the room to open a small metal box. He removes two packets of hundred dollar bills and passes them to his boss.
‘One more thing before I fork this over,’ Bobby says. ‘I can’t be waitin’ around for an answer. You gotta work fast.’
‘Monday morning fast enough?’
Bobby hands over the bundles. ‘Monday morning, same time, same place. And one more thing. Abe Abramov personally vouched for you, which means I’ll go right back to him if you jerk me off. And if I go to Abe, he’s gonna come to you.’
Point made, Bobby leads Chin to the foot of the stairs and watches him until he disappears into the showroom. Then he returns to the office and the Blade, who’s sitting in the chair formally occupied by Louis Chin.
Bobby drops into his own chair and says, ‘So, where do we stand?’
‘We’ve got the product eighty percent sold, that’s the good news. But we’re still negotiating a location for the buy.’
‘What about the money?’
The Blade flashes that little frown he displays whenever he has to pass on bad news. ‘We can’t make it on our own. We’re gonna have to take front money.’
The front money will come from buyers eager to trade payment in advance for a steep discount. Which, Bobby supposes, makes them investors.
‘So, where do we put the money this time?’ Bobby’s got money stashed in five locations scattered about the city, an elementary precaution, but now he has to concentrate his capital. He’s has to be ready.
‘We did Bensonhurst last time.’
‘And the time before?’
‘Little Neck.’
‘With the lawyer, right?’
‘Yeah, the one who got busted for bribing a juror.’
Bobby runs a finger through his thinning hair. They’d gotten the money out three hours before the cops showed up with a warrant.
‘OK, let’s
do the Bronx this time. Move the money into the Kingsbridge apartment. Handle it yourself, Marco. I don’t want any slip-ups. If we’re not ready, the deal’s gonna walk away from us.’
THIRTEEN
Angel’s glad. Glad to be out by herself, glad to be wearing her own clothes, glad for the soft Saturday night. Carter’s off on some mission that doesn’t include her, this following an afternoon they spent at her apartment where she packed every suitcase she owns with her ‘achiever’ wardrobe. Not boutique (that will come later), or even all-designer, her outfits nevertheless mark her as upwardly mobile. Tonight she’s wearing skinny jeans, a red blouse that reveals a fashionable line of cleavage, a midnight-blue leather jacket, and Cynthia Vincent wedges that add two inches to the length of her already long legs. The True Religion jeans came from Saks, but the top was bought a year ago at Macy’s, while the jacket came from a discount leather shop on Orchard Street. Still, she looks good and she knows it.
Along with dozens of unattached twenty-somethings, Angel’s walking along Avenue A on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The clubs in this part of town cater to every taste, from ratty punk bars to slick, neon-lighted pubs designed for bottom-rung Wall Street wannabes. Naturally, on a Saturday night, the hormones are flying, male and female, and Angel, who doesn’t fear the competition, is in her element.
The compliments, not to mention the outright propositions, polite and vulgar, come from all sides. Although she occasionally plays the hook-up game, Angel ignores the intrusions. Carter’s enough to satisfy her bad-boy appetites. Only the night before, he’d briefly taken her into his world, revealing an entirely unsuspected dimension. He’d stripped down to a pair of gym shorts an hour after dinner, then produced an ebony box with African animals carved into the wood, dozens of them. The box was impressive enough, but then he lifted the cover to reveal a pair of ceremonial jade daggers in the shape of fire-breathing dragons.
Angel Face Page 8