by David Gordon
She frowned in annoyance. “I thought maybe you were going to rescue me like the helpless damsel I am?”
Joe grinned at her. “Hardly. Though I admit I was a little concerned that you might kill him and I’d get stuck helping dump the body. He looks heavy.” She smiled at that and he crossed the hall. “Good night,” he said, and opened Juno’s door.
“Good night,” she said, and shut hers.
24
It was Saturday, so technically she was on her own time, personal business, but if anyone ever asked, Donna could say she was following a lead that turned up in the nightclub sweep. Or playing a hunch. Or maybe just scratching an itch. Which was closest to the truth? She wasn’t sure, but after Mike picked up Larissa for their day together—soccer practice, then pizza and a movie—Donna drove to Queens, to Jackson Heights, the home of Gladys Brody, Joe’s grandmother and only living relative. Actually, the only person who really knew Joe, as far as she could tell. Except Gio.
At the front steps of the old brick apartment building, she negotiated a dizzying crowd of kids on scooters, on bikes, kicking a soccer ball, playing hopscotch on a chalked outline. Then, in the courtyard, she walked a gauntlet of old biddies who sat in folding chairs, clucking away. Finally, beside the front door, a fat man in a wifebeater sitting on a milk crate and smoking a cigar watched her find 4A and buzz. No answer.
“Who you looking for?” he asked, exhaling cigar stink through his mustache, with a little BO mixed in, too. He had tufts of hair sticking out from his ears and from the sides of his armpits, as though there was just too much hair inside him to contain.
Donna smiled. “Gladys Brody. Do you know when she’ll be back?”
He shrugged. “Who wants to know?”
She gritted her teeth but kept smiling. “I do. It’s personal.”
He stared back at her, thinking it over, and it seemed like a standoff till one of the biddies called out. “It’s okay, Louie. I’ll talk to the young lady.”
Louie smiled, showing some real gold teeth and some smoke yellow, and pointed his cigar. Gladys was the littlest of the old ladies, like a dried shrimp with a carefully set white hairdo, electric-blue slacks, blue shoes, and a red-yellow-and-green blouse with parrots on it. She was smoking a Slim 100 and waving Donna over, asking, “What are you, hon?” At first Donna thought she meant racially until she followed up with: “Social worker or cop?” But then, before Donna could answer, she changed her mind, peering closer through her huge, round shades: “Nah, your suit’s too good. You’re either a lawyer or a Fed.”
“Fed,” she replied with a smile. “I’m Agent Donna Zamora, FBI.” She showed her badge and then held out a hand.
Gladys shook it. “Good for you. I bet your mom is proud.”
“She is, thanks.”
“Don’t let those guys push you around neither.”
“I’ll try.”
“So what’s the story? You here to arrest me?”
All the other ladies—all sizes, some in housedresses, some in casual wear like Gladys, one, good God, in a bikini, off by herself in a sunny spot with a foil reflector, roasting her already jerky-cured skin—turned and listened curiously.
“No, no, nothing like that.” Donna chuckled awkwardly. “Just some questions. Maybe we should talk privately inside?”
Gladys shrugged, lighting a fresh cig from the butt of her last. “Here’s good. I like to get some fresh air. But only in the shade. I burn easy. Not like you with that nice Spanish skin.”
“Um, thanks …” Donna said, as Louie gallantly set his crate down behind her. She smiled again at the listening ladies and sat. “It’s about your grandson, Joseph.” She launched into her bullshit story about checking on last known whereabouts for all persons questioned in national security matters, but Gladys waved it off blithely.
“Who knows whereabouts with Joe? He’s somewheres. I know that. Nowadays, he checks up on me, I don’t check on him.”
“You used to, though. When he was younger.”
“Sure,” she said, making it two syllables: shoo-wah. “I raised him from the time he was born.”
“What about his parents?”
“Please. Parents? They were children, too. His mother was never any good. Just like her mother before her.”
“You knew her, too?”
“Sure. The whole family. For years. Margie!” she yelled to an obese woman in a housedress and slippers, curlers in her hair. “You remember the Fabiolis?”
Margie nodded sagely. Gladys went on. “Italian. Not that I minded that. I love everybody.” She waved her cigarette, taking in the whole scene. “All together. Italian, Jewish, white, Spanish …” She held there. “But what’s true is true. Joe’s mom, Regina Fabioli? She was a beauty, I’ll give her that. But she drank. She ran around. And it caught up to her. She got sick and died when Joe was two.”
“That’s awful, to lose your mother so young. What about your son, Joe’s father?”
“Him?” She brushed him off, flicking ash over Donna’s trousers. “Useless.”
“I know he had a lot of problems with the law,” Donna said, trying to sound sympathetic. “He had a record as a thief and a grifter.”
Gladys smiled. “Yeah, he was one of the best,” she said, sort of wistful. “But money ran through him like water. Gambling. And the curse.”
“The curse?” To the old ladies Donna knew, this meant your period.
“The Irish curse, hon. The bottle.”
“Right.”
“So he died, too, when Joe was six. After that it was just him and me.” She shrugged. “I did my best. He had it rough. But he was sharp as a tack. Got into Harvard over all those rich kids. Took them all, too. That’s why they kicked him out. They were embarrassed, ’cause he outsmarted them all. And then he went in the service.”
“You must have been proud when he signed up.”
“I was pissed. What kind of moron signs his freedom away? To fight in a war? It’s like prison with people shooting at you. Voluntarily! But he did good there. He was a hero.” She paused, smoking fiercely. “Not that they gave a shit.” Then stomped her butt out. “Anything else you want to know?”
Donna blinked. “Just what he’s up to lately? Who he spends his time with?”
Gladys grinned. “You mean girlfriends? You know, if I was still working as a fortune-teller, doing the crystal ball routine in the Village, I’d say you were the one who had a thing for him.”
Donna laughed, but she could feel herself blushing. “Now, Gladys, you know that’s crazy.”
“Sure is, hon. That’s why they call it love. Anyway, you want your cards read, you come back anytime.”
After Larissa was asleep, Donna and her mom stayed up talking, drinking herbal tea, and eating cookies.
“Can I ask you something?” Donna got the milk from the fridge: better for dunking. “How come you never remarried?”
Donna’s mom shrugged. “Why would I? I had you and I had a good job, with good benefits. What did I need a husband for?”
Her mom had worked in a booth for the MTA, underground for twenty-five years, first selling tokens, then Metro-Cards; giving tourists directions; and listening to riders’ rage, their hot breath steaming the plastic, when the turnstile or card machines didn’t work. It always amazed Donna how she could think that was a great job. But to her it was, and she had pressed Donna to work there, too. She’d wanted her to be a conductor, something she thought she couldn’t do because of her accent. But Donna, she felt, had a lovely clear voice and a pure American accent. Donna thought she sounded like a girl from around the way, up in Washington Heights.
“And the same goes for you,” her mom was saying. “With your job, you can take care of yourself and your daughter, thank God. Why would you want a husband to take care of, too?”
“But weren’t you ever lonely without a man in your life?”
“Who said I was lonely? I said I didn’t need a husband. I still needed a man.”
“And so do you.”
“Mom!”
Her mom shrugged and dunked a cookie in Donna’s milk.
“So when I was staying with Grandma …” Donna ventured.
“Of course. And you need a friend to visit you when Larissa is with me. Or with that crazy ex-husband of yours. Isn’t there anybody interesting at work?”
“Not … really …” Donna said, though as she said it, an image popped unbidden into her brain.
“Come on, Donna, you can’t fool me. I can tell from the way you said it. There is someone, isn’t there?”
“No. Not really. I mean, it’s impossible.”
“Donna! A married man?”
“No, no, of course not. God, Mom, what do you think of me?”
Her mom shrugged, noncommittal.
“It’s just … Well, he’s definitely not the husband type, that’s for sure.”
“Is he exciting? Fun? Is he kind?”
Sorry. Donna thought about the apology before the shotgun went off. About him smiling as she put on the cuffs. She smiled. “I don’t really know him at all, but you know, I kind of think he is.”
“And he must be handsome if you’re blushing. Does he like you?”
“How would I know? Like I said, he’s a stranger really. Just … someone I’ve crossed paths with on the job once or twice … maybe three times tops.”
“Come on. You can tell. How does he look at you? How does he smile? It’s in his eyes.”
Donna dunked a cookie thoughtfully, let it dissolve on her tongue. “You know, the other day I was coming back from lunch with Andy and I thought I saw him.”
“So? What happened?”
“Nothing. I’m not even totally sure it was him. But I was waiting to get a coffee and, for a second, I don’t know, I kind of caught a glimpse of him right there in line behind me, like he was getting ready to talk to me and then didn’t. Then when I looked he was gone. Just another figure in the crowd.”
“That sounds like a bunch of nonsense. Just call him and say hi. See if he asks you out.”
Donna laughed. “Actually, he did already. He asked me to his friend’s wedding.” She took another cookie.
“See? That’s major. He likes you. Why didn’t you go?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because of work. It was impossible. The whole idea is impossible. Just forget it.”
“Okay, I will. But you won’t. And you can say I’m crazy, but remember your mother knows things. I have a feeling about this one. It’s not over between you two. There’s more to come.”
“Oh yeah? Does your psychic power tell you if it’s going to be good or bad?”
“Nope. Not yet. Could be really good or really bad.”
“Great. Thanks a lot.” Her cookie, oversoaked, collapsed and sank into the milk. “Now look what happened.” She took the spoon from her teacup, fished the cookie out, and ate it like soup.
25
The perfume job went off beautifully. Until it didn’t.
They set Juno up in the back of the van on a small hill near the perfume company’s headquarters. It was a quiet residential street that dead-ended into the rear of the company property, with big houses, big trees, and few streetlights, so a new, clean black van in the shadows would go unnoticed at least for a while. In the front was the entrance gate, the parking lot, the main doorway, guarded even now. The building itself was five stories, each but the first and fifth with a terrace around it, shaded by a French-style awning and filled with abundant plants. No doubt this was where employees took breaks or smoked, but Clarence told them they also grew the kind of scented flowers and plants that went into designing perfumes.
Clarence drove the Volvo around to the side of the property. This was the shortest distance between the ivy-covered fence and the building, where a side door opened near the dumpsters and A/C units. Don, Yelena, and Joe got out, all dressed in black with ski masks and gloves on, carrying AK-47s over their shoulders and light packs on their backs. Clarence would wait, ready to drive them away.
Don clipped the fencing and rolled it back. Then he spoke into the little mic attached to his earwig. “Okay, the fence is ready.”
Juno opened the rear door of the van and let his drone fly out. It looked cool, buzzing over the houses and trees and then toward the office building, but he soon shut the door and turned to his monitor, as the drone quickly disappeared into the cloudy night. He had three screens lined up. One showed him what his drone saw, from the camera in its nose. The second showed him what the security cameras saw and sent to the guard at the front desk. He had already hacked into that system and could shut it down at will. And the third showed him the radar screen that the security company saw in its headquarters: a grid laid over a map of the property on which anything moving would register as a bright green shape. A tiny shape, like a squirrel or a bird, would be ignored. If a human-sized shape appeared off-hours, they would send the cops. That one was hardwired and he couldn’t block it without finding and physically cutting the cables, but he didn’t want to. His way, the folks at security HQ would think everything was chill. Juno smiled, watching his drone cam hover over the property while the radar screen didn’t show shit. He pressed a few buttons, controlling the hardware installed in the drone.
“Okay,” he answered into his own mic. “Radar jammed. You’re good to go.”
Don waved them in, keeping watch as first Yelena, then Joe ran through the hole in the fence and sprinted, heads down, for the side door. They stopped on either side of it, backs against the wall, and kept watch while Don ran up and ducked behind a dumpster.
“Door,” Yelena said into her mic.
There was a click. “Door open,” Juno answered, and she turned the knob. She nodded at Joe.
“Cameras now,” he told Juno through the mic, and Juno shut off the security cameras.
“Cameras out.”
At Joe’s nod, Yelena swung the door open. Joe stepped in quickly, rifle ready. He was staring down an empty hall, with only a now-blind camera looking back at him. He waved at Yelena and she signaled Don, who sprinted inside. Yelena entered and shut the door. They were in. Phase one was complete.
Tom didn’t mind working the midnight shift, even on weekends. First, he was prepping for the exams to get into the police academy and wear a real badge, so these quiet hours gave him time to study. Second, there was no boss around, not really; just his senior guards: Lou, who was taking a turn patrolling the outside grounds so that he could also sneak a smoke; and Barry, who was in the can and, considering that he had the new Hustler with him, would be in there a while.
So he wasn’t really sure when the screens, which were supposed to show him the feed from the security cameras, first went dead. He had his head in a book and wasn’t watching. But at some point he glanced up and saw the row of screens all full of static. Confused, he reached for his radio, but that was when he felt something cold and hard like a dead finger against the back of his neck.
“Don’t do it,” a man’s voice said. “Don’t do anything or you’re dead. Understand?”
Tom froze. He couldn’t believe what was happening.
The gun poked him harder. “Understand?”
“Yes, yes, I understand.”
“Now put your hands flat on the desk and tell me where the other guards are now.”
Tom told him.
“Good. Now with your right hand only, pick up your radio. The one in the men’s room, that’s Barry? Tell Barry to come take a look, that you have something weird to show him with the system, but don’t make it sound serious. Understand?”
Tom nodded.
“Okay,” the gunman said. “Go ahead.”
“Hey, Barry, it’s Tom. Over.”
There was a long pause. “Yeah?”
“Could you come take a look at something? Nothing serious. My screen’s being weird.”
“Jeeze, can’t it wai
t?”
“I don’t know. Lou’s out on patrol.”
“Smoke patrol you mean. Funny, he ain’t so eager in the winter. Okay. Be right out.”
They heard a toilet flush. The gunman chuckled and Tom smiled, too, then remembered he was scared to death.
“Tom, that was great,” the gunman said. “You’re going to be fine. Now just stand up with your hands over your head.”
He did so, and the guy quickly removed his gun and holster, his whole belt, then tied his hands behind him. He guided him gently to the floor, facedown.
“Now I’m going to tie you up, but it’s just for a short time. Just stay down here for a little while till it’s over. All right?”
Tom nodded, and the man quickly taped his legs together and pulled a cloth sack over his head, which freaked him out at first, but it was very thin and easy to breathe through. Really, Tom thought, for a guy committing armed robbery, he was pretty nice. He lay there quietly, behind his desk, trying to remember the penal code number for the crime of which he was now a victim.
After Joe got the young guard, Tom, bound and hooded, he nodded to the others. Yelena pressed herself to the wall by the corner leading to the hallway. Don took up a position behind the desk, watching out the front doors. As Barry, an older, heavyset man with a rolled-up magazine under his arm, came around the corner, still buckling his pants, Yelena tripped him easily and dropped him facedown on the ground.
He grunted and started cursing, but Joe pressed his rifle to the side of his head. “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t do anything or you’re dead.”
Once again, Joe and Yelena disarmed him and bound him, and Joe held the radio to his head and made him call Lou, the third guard, again for some minor reason. Then they hooded Barry, and together Joe and Don dragged him over next to Tom. They all ducked down behind the desk.
A few minutes later, Lou appeared at the front door. He entered his code, disabling the front door alarm, and came in. Don sprang up, rifle pointed at his chest. “Hold it,” he barked. “Don’t move a fucking finger or you’re dead.”
Once they had all three laid out together, they took their masks off and Don sat down behind the desk to keep watch, while Joe and Yelena went around the corner and into the hall.