Afterburn

by Colin Harrison

  "No way," answered Tony. "I don't trust it."

  Charlie returned to the phone, starting to worry. "Ted, I want to do something else. Will you wire one third of those new funds back to Jane in London?"

  "That I can do. One third?"

  "More or less. Say, five million even."

  "Things okay, Charlie?"

  "Fine. Everything's fine."

  Ted chuckled. "You're up to your old tricks?"

  "Yes," said Charlie anxiously. "We should have lunch before the end of the year, Ted."

  "Great."

  "How soon will the money go back to Jane?"

  "Two minutes it'll be on her screens, I'd say."

  "Good, good. I'll call you tomorrow."

  He hung up.

  "Where's the money?" asked Tony.

  "I'm working on it." Keep your voice even, he told himself.

  "You sent it to London?"

  "That loosens it up," he said. "It's not a bank, it's a brokerage."

  "You fucking sent it to London?"

  "I sent it to another computer," Charlie muttered.

  He thought: Five million in an account in London. How do you turn it into cash? You can't buy stocks or bonds and just be given the certificates. Everything was electronic these days. He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty here, one-thirty there. The thing could drag out for a while. He'd run into time-zone problems. He called Jane.

  "Charlie?" she asked.

  "Jane, would you check my account?"

  "Sure. Just a moment." He watched Morris pull a work light closer. "Your bank just sent us five million dollars," she exclaimed. "Want to buy euros?"

  "No thanks. I don't want to make any trades."

  "What can I do for you?"

  "Does your New York office disburse cash?" he asked.

  "I doubt it."

  "You buy gold contracts?"

  "Sometimes."

  "What happens when they're settled?"

  "Oh, the gold never changes hands, really," she explained. "It's just paperwork. I don't even know where the actual gold is. Some bank somewhere."

  "Right. I need someone in your New York office to help me."

  "I can switch you over now. Same screen, a broker there."

  "You're around a few more hours, though?"

  "Two. But we're very busy today." He heard a beep. "Timothy, this is Charlie Ravich. I told you about that trade on GT a few weeks ago? This is the guy. He needs some help. Charlie's one of our favorite customers, so please dance the fandango if he asks. I would, I know that."

  "Thanks, Jane," he said miserably, watching Tony find a pencil in his pocket.

  "What can I do for you today, sir?"

  "You got my account there on your screen?"

  "I do."

  "How much cash is in it?"

  "Five million-plus."

  "Good. You guys don't disburse real cash, I suspect."

  "No, sir. We bounce money around, we never see it."

  "You guys ever deal with what we used to call bearer's bonds? Those things that are practically cash?"

  "Those are more or less obsolete, sir. I don't think they're used in this country anymore."

  "I'm an old man."

  "Yes, sir."

  "You're there all day?"

  "All day, sir."

  "I'll call you back."

  "What you got?" asked Tony, his voice echoing against the far broken windows. "Nothing?"

  "I'm working on it."

  "He's not getting anywhere," Morris noted.

  "I can call back my banker, but then he's going to know there's a problem," Charlie said.

  "Then don't do that," snapped Tony.

  Morris handed Tony something. "You saw this?"

  "Where's it come from?" The photo of the boyfriend.

  "It was in Charles's coat pocket."

  "You guys piss me off," said Tony. "She was right there in the hotel with Mr. Ravich here. How could you miss her?"

  Tommy opened his hands. "You told us not to go inside in front of the cameras."

  "There were cameras on the outside of the building, too," added Morris. "We were careful, Tony."

  Tony nodded. "Keep going, Charles."

  He put the phone down on the table, trying not only to figure out a way to make some money appear but also to appraise Ellie's vulnerability. He remembered that she was having trees delivered that morning, which was good. Workmen around.

  The phone rang. Tony picked it up. "Yeah, he's here," said Tony, "but you're going to listen now." He nodded at Morris. "Help her see it my way."

  Morris pulled an electric saw out of the large box.

  "Oh, for God's sake," said Charlie. "You don't have to do this."

  The men pulled off his shoe. "I'm going to clamp it," said Morris. "Just to be sure."

  "Hey, hey!" yelled Charlie as his sock was pulled off. "You don't need to do—"

  "He's already missing some toes," noted Morris. "Someone has been here first." He dropped Charlie's foot and examined his hand. "What was this—let me see . . . It moved slightly off perpendicular to the plane of the palm . . . very high speed . . ."

  "It was an M-16 round."

  "You took a machine gun bullet through your hand?" Morris rubbed his nose in thought. "Something's different here."

  "What do you mean?" asked Tony, keeping the phone held out.

  "I don't know." Morris looked at Charlie. "Lift your arms."

  He complied, stiffly. Just do what they say, he told himself. Don't give them a reason to get angry.

  "Stand up."

  He stood.

  "What the fuck is this?" Tony asked. "Aerobics?"

  "Bend over," ordered Morris. "Just drop your hands down."

  He went as far as he could.

  "What's wrong with your back?" asked Morris.

  "Nothing."

  "Can't you go farther?"

  "No."

  "You're fucking wasting my time!" yelled Tony. "Call back in five minutes," he said into the phone.

  Morris lifted up Charlie's shirt. "I knew it. Major spinal damage."

  "What are you doing?" cried Tony.

  "Just give me a few minutes, Tony." They pushed Charlie flat onto the table and Morris brought over a work lamp. "Your lumbar aponeurosis is all torn up . . . You definitely damaged—what? The fourth and fifth lumbar? Maybe the sacrum as well." He pinched one of the vertebrae. "That might be a tiny chip on the articular process here, or some very hard scar tissue . . ." His fingers probed the ridges of Charlie's lower spine, hurting him. "This was my specialty. I—it's a fusion!" he exclaimed. "Right?"

  "Yes." Charlie watched Tony unwrap a stick of gum.

  "This is my first fusion patient." Morris rummaged in his toolbox again. He pulled out one small item after another, discarding each. "Somewhere I have . . ." he muttered. "Cabinetmakers use them."

  "Tony!" yelled Charlie from his stomach. "You want me to try to get you your money or you want me to have a medical exam?"

  Morris returned to the table. "Did they use screws or plates?"

  "What?" Charlie cried.

  "Screws, plates? Also rods. Sometimes even little titanium cages, too." Morris pushed Charlie's spine with his thumbs. "They did that for one of the football players, I think."

  "Who the fuck cares?" asked Tony.

  "What year?" inquired Morris. "When did they do it?"

  "Twenty-five years ago!" shouted Charlie at the floor. "Tony, let me have that phone, I'll work on it, all right?"

  "That's a shame," said Morris, ignoring his outburst. "There's a technique now called the autogenous iliac crest bone graft. They take the bone cells out of the hip and—"

  "What the hell you talking about?" Charlie spat at him.

  Morris considered Charlie coldly. "Just hit him once," he told Tommy.

  Tommy came over and punched Charlie in the side of the head.

  "Oh, God," he moaned, blinking, eyesight black for a moment, rubbing his temple.

>   "Conventional spinal fusion used to involve a thoracotomy," Morris continued. "That's what you had, I bet. This spinal scar is almost a foot long. They took out a rib and used the bone to fuse the vertebrae." He took off his green jacket and laid it carefully on one of the chairs. "These days they have the spinal endoscopy, which results in smaller incisions, and pull the bone out of the hip. They stick it between the vertebrae to stabilize them and maintain disk spacing. They're starting to test this new stuff, recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein—stuff stimulates bone growth." He turned to Tony. "Boss, I want to open him up and see how they did this."

  "Will he be able to use a phone?" said Tony.

  "Sure, sure. I have an epidural needle here." Morris returned to his toolbox. "I've been keeping this around." He pulled out a needle wrapped in plastic and a long tube that attached to a drip bottle. "Okay," he told Charlie, "this is what you give a woman in labor. Or someone getting a spinal tap. Once I get the needle in, you won't feel anything."

  "Where are you putting that?" he demanded.

  "It goes directly into the spinal nerve. I saw a guy do this once in medical school. The patient must lie absolutely still."

  "Hey, Tony, this is not the way to get money out of me!" yelled Charlie. "This is crazy, Tony, this doesn't—" He tried to struggle but the two big men held him down, one with a hand on his neck.

  "Go ahead," called Tony.

  "Don't move a hair," Morris instructed Charlie. "Not a . . . In the hospital you have to sign a special release for this procedure because of the risk of paralysis . . . Hold that up, Tommy . . . okay . . ."

  Charlie felt a sharp puncture in his back, then nothing.

  "That's it." Morris pulled over one of the work lamps and taped the drip bottle to it. "Works almost right away. Don't move or roll around, Charles, you might dislodge the needle. If it breaks off, I don't have another one. This kind of anesthetic wears off immediately."

  "Oh, Jesus."

  But his back felt—felt like nothing, better even than with the Chinese tea. "I can't feel anything," he said.

  "Your spinal nerve is drugged," said Morris. "You shouldn't feel anything much, assuming the dosage is correct."

  "What are you looking for, anyway?" asked Tony.

  "I want to see how they did this. Was it a cage or plates, where they put them."

  "For God's sake," cried Charlie, sweating now. "Stop! Let me get the money."

  "You'll be able to do that while I work," Morris said. "If you work fast, we'll take you to the hospital with the drip still in."

  The phone trilled again. He lay on his stomach panting, feeling like a dog forced to the ground. They handed him the phone.

  "Charlie?"

  It was Christina. "Yeah," he breathed. "Is there any way you can help me?"

  "If I could."

  "I've got cash in a brokerage account here, but they don't disburse it. They'll do all kinds of other things. I can't buy stocks and bonds. What the fuck am I going to do here, Christina?"

  "Can you buy something with it and give it to Tony?"

  Morris lifted a small scalpel from the box and tore off the sterile wrapper.

  "Like what?" he said anxiously, watching Morris.

  "Gold, diamonds, I don't know."

  He squeezed his eyes, head pounding. Morris was pressing something into his back. "Gold is well under three hundred an ounce these days."

  "So five million is at least . . . sixteen thousand ounces, which is exactly a thousand pounds. That's not so heavy," she noted. "You could put that in ten suitcases."

  "Gold?" Charlie hollered at Tony. "Gold?"

  "Gold is a commodity," he answered. "I want cash."

  "I can't get cash!"

  Tony shrugged. "That's your problem."

  "He won't take gold," Charlie said to Christina.

  "Why don't you buy some cigarettes?" she suggested.

  He wanted to see what Morris was doing to him. "I don't understand."

  "They come into the docks in Newark in containers. Middlemen sell them. It's a spot market," she said. "You buy them before they even hit the shore, and you get a bill of lading and present it at the dock, and they bring it out and stick the container on the truck. It's a very liquid situation. Five million is probably a huge quantity of cartons. But you can sell that easily. It's cigarettes."

  "I don't know how the hell to do that." He turned his head.

  "Don't move!" Morris screamed. "I'm close!"

  "Call your broker or whoever and see if he'll issue a letter of credit," came Christina's voice. "I'm going to call around."

  "Don't leave me!"

  "I'm not, I'm not."

  He called back Timothy at the brokerage. "You guys issue a letter of credit?"

  "No."

  He called Ted Fullman, feeling tingling against his spine. He wiggled his foot, wasn't sure if it moved or not. "Ted, will you issue a letter of credit for me?"

  "Sure."

  "How long does that take?"

  "Hell, twenty minutes."

  "Can you messenger it?"

  "Yes. Or fax it." Ted listened for a moment. "Are you in trouble, Charlie?"

  "No, no, I'm just helping a friend." He tried to even out his breathing. Tommy, he noticed, was interested in whatever Morris was doing.

  "I looked into the cash question," Ted Fullman went on. "We could provide it as soon as the day after tomorrow if we get the signatures. If that would be soon enough—"

  "Please prepare a letter of credit for five million."

  "I can't."

  "You just said you could!" Charlie cried in despair.

  "You don't have five million in the account anymore," replied Ted smoothly. "You bought the house and had me send the other eight million to your accountant's escrow account, remember?"

  "Jesus." He looked at the wooden floor, noticed old paint or blood. "I'll have the brokerage send the money back."

  He called Timothy at the brokerage. His line was busy.

  "How're we doing?" asked Tony. "Tommy, call Peck, tell him to get over here."

  The phone rang in Charlie's hand. It was Christina. "I got the name of a wholesale distributor of cigarettes. He explained a lot of this."

  "Let me have his number," said Charlie, writing it down.

  "This guy sells cigarettes by the containerload."

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm way downtown. I went back to the restaurant where I used to work."

  He felt a cool scraping sensation in his back. "You'll stay there?"

  "Yes."

  I can't feel my feet, Charlie realized. Like they're gone. He called back Timothy at the brokerage. "Wire the money back into my bank account."

  "I don't understand."

  Now a trickle of pain came up his back. "Wire it all, right away."

  "Well, the authorization—"

  "Just send it back, what's the fucking problem?"

  "Sir, Mr. Ravich, the authorization for a sum that large has to come—"

  "Listen, you little fuck," Charlie croaked. "I'm in a hell of a jam, all right? That's my money! I've had a business relationship with your brokerage for twenty"—Morris was pulling something—"years, you understand? Send that money now or I'm all over you. All the numbers are there, just send it right back to my account care of Ted Fullman at Citibank."

  "Yes, sir."

  Tony stood up from his chair, walked four feet away, bent slightly at the waist, farted loudly, straightened up, and sat down again. He pointed at Morris. "You're like a kid with a toy train set."

  "I'm feeling something," said Charlie.

  "I'm feeling something, too," added Tony. "I'm feeling an emptiness. In my pocket."

  "I'm gonna get this," Morris muttered to himself.

  The money is going back to Citibank, thought Charlie. I've made exactly no progress. He called the cigarette wholesaler. "You guys sell large lots of cigarettes?"

  "Yes," came a voice.

  "How can I buy five mil
lion worth?"

  "First, sir, you need to talk to our salesmen and see what they have available. Then—"

  "No, no. I mean now, right now."

  "He's buying cigarettes?" asked Tony. "I've seen everything."

  "We don't do that," came the voice. "Goodbye."

  "You have a plate." Morris looked up. "It's good work."

  He got Christina's number from Tony and called her.

  "Yes? Charlie?"

  "No on the cigarettes."

  "I know, I just figured that out," she said. "I've got another guy who buys spot loads."

  "What's that mean?"

  "This guy's got all kinds of stuff moving around. He buys distressed situations from speculators, dock overage, canceled orders, things like that. His office is here and the docks are in Newark. He takes the money by wire, then endorses the bill of lading. You want me to call?"

  "I will." He took the number.

  "Bob here," said a voice, phones trilling in the background.

  Charlie asked about wholesale cigarettes.

  "I don't have any cigarettes right now," Bob barked. "Who're you?"

  Charlie wondered if his foot was quivering. "What else?"

  "I got . . . I got old gasoline that might have oil in it, I got lumber and some fucking frozen fish—you don't want that—I got caviar, I got . . . Japanese car tires, Nikon cameras, I got all kinds of stuff."

  "How's it work?" Charlie breathed, trying to concentrate.

  "You got a binding letter of credit, right?"

  "Yes. I mean I can get one."

  "Have the bank deliver that here," answered Bob. "Hard copy only. We run it through our infrared scanner to check for inking alterations. Make sure all the particulars are on it—the account number, the officer at the bank and his number. Without that, you don't even get a kiss from your mother. We only deal with banks that are members of the New York clearinghouse—Chase Manhattan, Citibank, Crédit Suisse, the big ones. We want same-day electronic settlement, to our account. I don't negotiate on that point, ever. Then we call to be sure the money is in your account. Assuming it is, then you just tell me what you want. We can write over the bill of lading to you here, which we advise against, or we'll take you down to the pier and, on a very quiet basis, you understand, for an extra fee, you can pay the dock cooper to open up the container to be sure it's got what you want. He removes the lead seal and—"

  "What do you have right now," asked Charlie desperately, "ready to go?"