by Norman Green
“What time?”
“Ten after four.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I did just what you told me to.” She turned and glanced at Stoney. “Where did everybody go?” Where is Eddie, that’s what she really wanted to know, and why are you taking me home instead of him?
“Tommy went home. He took Georgie with him. Tuco and Jack have something to do tonight.”
I knew it, she thought. “Like what?”
He looked at her, and she tried to read his expression. Was he laughing at her, maybe just a little? “If you’re worried about Tuco,” he said, “you’re wasting your time.”
“I never said I was worried about anyone. And if I was, why would it be a waste?”
“You need to worry about yourself,” he told her. “You ever hear what they tell you on airline flights? In case the oxygen masks come down, you gotta put your own on first. You can’t help anyone else if you’re passed out yourself.”
“I’ll try to remember that,” she said. “So you don’t think something could go wrong? You don’t wonder if you or Tommy or Georgie or Eddie or even Jack might get hurt?”
He shrugged. “There’s a chance. We work hard to make sure it’s a small chance.”
“So there is a possibility that something could happen.”
“Of course. Hey, there’s a chance the two of us will get killed before we get back to the house. I could hit a deer, or the car could blow up, or we could get hit by a meteorite. You can’t stay in the house for the rest of your life just because you think something might happen to you.” He glanced at her again, and that look was back on his face. “Although in your case, it might not be a bad idea, at least for the next year or so.”
“Great,” she said. “Very funny. Who’s going to pick me up in the morning?”
“Nobody,” he told her. “Tuco will be there in the morning before your mother leaves for work. You can hang out with him for the day. I would prefer it if you stayed home, out of sight.”
“All right,” she said. Anything was better than sitting in that empty house all day long.
“Matter of fact,” he said, “you could do something for me. You ever hear of Hemmings Motor News?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s a fat book of ads for antique cars. Comes out every month, I think. I’m looking for a particular issue, March, four years ago. Go on eBay, or used-book sites, and get me one. Can you do that?”
“Sure.”
“Good. Get ’em to ship it overnight.”
EIGHTEEN
Harman slouched in his chair in the front corner of the waiting room, his feet up on a coffee table. He paged through a two-year-old copy of Sports Illustrated, pretending to look at the pictures as he watched the street outside the window. It was early morning, downtown Haworth, New Jersey. As a downtown, it was hardly worth the name, it was one block-long street occupied by a convenience store, a drugstore, a couple of real estate joints, and a small office building. There was a police station at one end and a post office at the other. The sign in the window where Harman sat read EMIL BARTON, FINANCIAL SERVICES. Outside on the street, it was very quiet.
Harman saw a limousine turn the corner at the end of the block. “All right, he’s coming,” he called, without moving out of his chair. “Fire it up!” A few seconds later, he heard indistinct sounds of loud and heated conversation from an inner office as the limo slid to a stop at the curb in front of the office building. Prior got out of the backseat on the street side and walked around to the sidewalk. He was a tall guy with gray hair, and he moved with the grace of an athlete. He’s had this routine for a while, Harman thought, because he’s not looking around, he’s coming straight in. But Prior seemed to spot him then, because he stopped, stood there on the sidewalk looking at Jack through the front window. Prior then took two steps back to his car and rapped on the roof with his knuckles. A second later, a large bald guy emerged from the driver’s seat and hurried around to join Prior. The two of them walked up to the door of the building, out of Harman’s line of sight. A moment later the bald guy opened the door to Emil Barton’s office, filling the doorway, and stood there, looking at Harman. Harman glanced at him, then went back to his magazine.
Prior must have decided that Harman was not a threat, because he shouldered his way past the bald guy and stepped into the waiting room. He looked around, cocking an ear to the sounds of arguing that came from the back. Without looking, he waved a hand at the bald guy, who turned on his heel and left without saying a word. Prior stood there looking at Harman. “Good morning,” he said.
“Hey,” Harman said, and he put a touch of Brooklyn into his voice. “Wassup?”
“Either I’m early,” Prior said, looking at his watch, “or you’re late, assuming you are with whoever that is making all that racket back there.”
“I’m just the driver,” Harman said. “Don’t worry, they won’t be long.”
Prior’s jaw muscles bunched in the sides of his face. “The reason I come here at this hour,” he said through gritted teeth, “is so that I don’t have to wait. But I suppose that’s not your problem.”
“Nope.” Harman dropped his feet to the floor and sat up a little straighter. “But I’m telling ya, couple minutes more. You ain’t gonna be waiting long.”
Prior grimaced, then took a seat next to the door. “I have a standing appointment with Barton at this hour,” he said, “and my prerogatives are important to me. Who the hell is in there with him?”
“Mr. Gregory Ahn.”
“Who might he be?”
Harman sighed. “My boss. Wall Street whiz kid. He’s in there with his lawyer and Barton. They’re tag-teaming some poor schmuck that runs a big chemical company.” Harman could hear Fat Tommy’s voice then, angry and strident. A moment later he was shouted down by Georgie, who yelled loud enough for his words to be discernible out in the waiting room.
“The party’s over!” Georgie screamed. “Get it through your fat fucking skull! You work for me now!” Fat Tommy yelled back, but not as loud, and whatever he said got swallowed up by the voices of the other men.
“So, this Gregory Ahn,” Prior said. “What does he do?”
“He runs a hedge fund,” Harman said. “It’s kind of like a mutual fund, except it’s private, which means he don’t have to answer to nobody. The guy’s a fucking pirate, you wanna know the truth.”
“How big is his fund?”
Harman’s attention still seemed to be centered mostly on his magazine. “I dunno,” he said. “Couple billion, give or take. Something like that.”
“He any good?”
Harman finally looked up. “You kidding? He’s a legend. He’s averaged forty-three percent return for the past four years. The little shit shorted Enron back when everyone else couldn’t get enough of it. He’s so good he’s fucking scary.”
“So who’s this guy they’re working over in there?”
Harman finally tossed his magazine aside and sat up straight. “Hey, listen,” he said. “I’m just the Neanderthal. I’m not supposed to understand how any of this works, you know what I’m saying? My job is just to drive the little cocksucker around and keep the people he insults on a daily basis from kicking his fucking ass. Everybody I know hates the son of a bitch. But you know what? I ain’t as dumb as he thinks I am. I hear things.” He tapped his temple with a forefinger. “This guy they got in there, his name is Anthony Bonanno. His company is something called XRC Technologies. Ahn has been buying his paper for a couple months now. The stock is what they call a ‘teenager,’ because it used to trade in the eighties and nineties, and now it’s busted all the way down to thirteen, fourteen bucks a share. It was down to eight, but it came back up a little. Bonanno thinks it’s because he has things turned around, but Ahn says the rise in price ain’t nothing but a dead cat bounce.”
“Just a recoil,” Prior said.
“Yeah,” Harman said. “Don’t mean shit. Gonna head right back d
own in a week or so.”
“So why is Ahn buying into it?”
Harman shrugged. “I dunno. I mean, I got this much just from eavesdropping. XRC must have something Ahn wants. If this goes the way these things usually do, Gregory will keep on buying on the dips until he can force his way onto the board. Once he gets control, he’ll break the company up, sell off the pieces, and keep the parts he wants.”
“Putting Bonanno and all his people out of work,” Prior said.
“Well, yeah,” Harman said. “The whole point is to grab all the money and keep it for himself. And for the people in his fund. That’s what he does.”
“Interesting. You buying a little of XRC on your own?”
“Piggyback on Ahn’s play, you mean? Hell, no. I buy into XRC, I become what Gregory calls a ‘stuckholder.’ There’s no way you can ride this guy’s coattails, he’s got more moves than an epileptic prostitute. Ahn takes care of me, anyhow. You know what I mean? He pays me more than I’m worth, and we both know it. That way, I chauffeur him around, I eat his shit every day, and I keep him out of trouble. It’s better than I would get anywhere else. If I can stand the little bastard for another year or so, I can prolly retire.”
An inner door opened, then banged shut again. Fat Tommy stormed out into the waiting room. He stopped when he saw the two men sitting there. He shook a handkerchief out of a coat pocket and wiped his face. He stowed it when he was done, glanced at Prior, then pointed a thick finger at Harman. “That fucka piece a shit,” he hissed. “You tella that lilla prick, him and his fucking lawyer, I wasa no build uppa this business just to hand it to a asshole like him! He don’ watcha his fucka mouth, he gonna wind up down in the bottom of the Hackensack River. You tell him! You hear me?”
Harman nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Tommy jerked the door open and exited. Prior turned and watched him go. “Bonanno, you said his name was. He related? You think he could put a hit out on your boss?”
“Related to the crime family Bonannos?” Harman asked. “Nah, I don’t think so. He was, they’da raped his business a long time ago.”
“I suppose. So you aren’t taking his threats seriously, then.”
Harman shrugged. “You think it would make any difference if he was connected? You think Gregory is any less ruthless than those guys? He wanted to take Bonanno out the old-fashioned way, believe me, they’d be digging the hole right now.”
“How about that,” Prior said.
The inner door opened again, and Stoney’s voice, pitched low, floated down the hallway. “I think you might have been a little rough on him.”
“Look,” Georgie’s voice said. “The day I start paying attention to what you think is the day I have Martin out there shoot me in the fucking head.”
“Fellas,” a third voice chimed in. “C’mon, fellas….”
Prior quickly relocated himself to the chair next to Harman. “Martin,” he said softly. “That you?”
“Yep.”
“Big dog’s coming, Martin. You got a business card?”
“Sure.” Harman took a thin silver case out of an inner pocket, broke it open, fished out a card, and handed it to Prior. “He won’t even take your phone call for less than five million.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Prior said, pocketing the card. Georgie Cho, Stoney, and Emil Barton, the broker, entered the room. Harman watched Prior stiffen when he saw Georgie, who glared back at him. If they were dogs, Harman thought, they’d be growling and trying to sniff each other’s butts already.
“Up off your ass, Slick,” Georgie said, still staring at Prior. “You ain’t making me a fucking cent sitting there.”
Harman sighed, nodded to Prior, then got up and followed Georgie and Stoney out of the room.
“You must have been tired,” Marisa said.
“Sorry,” Tuco told her. “Guess I ain’t been much company. I worked late last night. Is that coffee?”
“Yes,” she said, and she walked across the kitchen to get him a cup. “I’ll have to nuke it for you. Did you work late with my father or are you still doing your regular stuff in Brooklyn?” She remembered that he had been reluctant to lie to her father, and she was curious to see how he would answer her now.
“I got a guy to cover the building for me,” he told her. She waited for more but she did not get it. He was looking out through the window, across the green lawn of the backyard to the trees at the rear of the property. “Very pretty out here,” he said. “Quiet.”
“I suppose.” She glanced out at the yard. She couldn’t remember the last occasion she’d spent any time out there. “You’re a strange guy, Eddie.”
“Maybe.” His voice was quiet. He was still looking out the window. “Maybe I just look that way. ’Cause, like, from my neighborhood, where I grew up at, I think I’m a pretty average dude.”
“I don’t think so, Eddie.” The microwave dinged, she got his coffee out and handed it to him. “Cream’s in the fridge. I don’t think you’re average, not in any way.”
“Not like the other baboons?” He actually smiled.
“Oh, who told you about that?”
“Georgie told me.”
“I was just trying to help him out. It doesn’t mean that I think all men are baboons.”
“Georgie’s a nice guy,” he said.
“Yes, he is.”
“Way smart. He’s got some kinda engineering degree. Taller than me, too.”
“We’re not talking about George, Eddie.”
“No? What are we talking about?”
“You,” she said.
“Oh.”
“What’s going to happen to you? Do you ever wonder?”
He opened the fridge, busied himself pouring cream into his coffee, then took it to the far side of the room and sat over by the window. Marisa leaned on the counter. “When I first got the job from Fat Tommy,” he said, not looking at her, “back in that junkyard him and your father used to have, it was like I hit the lottery. You know what I’m saying? Even if I had problems, and whatnot…I was very happy. They had this old guy working there, his name was Pete. Pete taught me things, you know, like welding, and how to use a torch, that kind of stuff. I was always pretty good with a wrench, but Pete taught me the way to understand how things are supposed to work. If I could have stayed in that junkyard for the rest of my life, I think I would have done that.” He glanced over at her. “I never thought there could be anything more for somebody like me. I don’t know, maybe it’s wrong, but when you finally find a comfortable place, you just want to stay there.”
“I don’t know either,” she said.
“Maybe I’m just not, what did Georgie call them? One of the big baboons.”
“Dominant males,” she said. “There was more to that story, Eddie. More than I told George.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes,” she said. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“All right,” she said. “These baboons live in a sort of tribe, and they have their own customs and all of that, and since these particular baboons are close to civilization, they’re easy to watch, so scientists have been studying them for a long time. Okay? Now, it so happens, there’s a garbage dump in their territory. The dominant males eat the garbage, and they won’t let any of the other baboons near the place, not even the ones from their own tribe. You know what I mean?”
“Pigs,” he said.
She shook her head. “Dominant males.”
“Okay.”
“All right. Now what happened, just by accident somebody threw something into the dump that was very poisonous. Since the dominant males were the only ones who ate there, they died. All of them.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. Now, what I thought, I figured the next echelon, you know, the next rank of males, would just move up a notch, right, and everything would go along just the way it always had.” She stopped, looked at him expectantly.
“And it didn’t?”
“No. And the thing is, the scientists had been watching this tribe forever, and they had been keeping track of everything that happened. You know, ‘Today we had six confrontations, four that just involved screaming, two with physical contact, and one that involved biting,’ and so on. So they were able to measure exactly what happened after the big males all died. And what happened was that the whole tribe became less violent, more peaceful, more nurturing. Infant mortality went down, life span increased, the baboons shared food with one another, everything got better. And it stayed that way, you know what I mean? Even after enough time had passed for three or four generations of baboons to come and go, even after new males had grown up, the ones who would have been fighting for dominance before, they were all still quieter, still less violent, they were still better off.”
“How about that. So you want to change the world, all you got to do is kill the dominant males, is that what you’re saying? And then everybody would be happier.”
“With the baboons,” she said, “it happened by accident.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But you could still do it, right? The politics of assassination. Somebody starts getting too pushy, you just whack him. I wonder if it would work.”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Human males are much more devious than baboon males.”
“Yeah,” he said. “The females, too.”
She colored slightly. “Maybe. But what I’m saying is, maybe you can pick out what you want for yourself. Not everybody has to be like Prior, or like Fat Tommy and my father.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. To get by, you know what I’m saying? To live another day. Your father came up the hard way, he didn’t come from a place like this.”
“I’m not attacking him, Eddie. You don’t need to defend him, not to me. I’m just saying, you don’t live down by Mario and those guys anymore. You made it out.”
“I still miss it sometimes,” he said.
“Do you really? Why?”
He didn’t answer her question. “Maybe you and me are not so different,” he said. “Maybe we a little bit alike, after all.”