Law Addison, Michael Cassidy, heroin, Craig Wales, Ethan Ore, and Owl. I was trying to wrap my mind around it, wondering what it all meant, wondering if it meant anything at all. It didn’t have to. Nothing had to mean anything. After all, this was New York City and there was the random element to take into account, the six-degrees effect; always layer upon layer of non sequiturs to wade through. I should’ve known that by now, but I persisted in seeking out connections.
I was still turning all of it over in my head, like a wire cage of bingo numbers, when my downstairs doorbuzzer buzzed.
I got up, went over to the intercom, pushed the SPEAK button, and asked who it was. But I got no answer. I shrugged and went back to my desk.
I was just clicking on a browser link to the West Side Film Festival when I heard a key turning in my lock.
I looked up as my office door swung open.
“What the hell? Come right in, why don’t you?”
No point in my saying it, he was already inside.
My old boss, Matt Chadinsky, had lost weight, but he was still built like a concrete traffic divider, with a hard expression on his face I wanted to veer away from.
“I called,” he said. “Your fucking phone’s been busy.”
“I was on the Internet.”
“What, you still using dial-up? Shit, Payton, churn your own fucking butter, too?”
I ignored it. I logged off the Internet and folded down the lid of my laptop without turning it off. I said, “You’ve lost weight, Matt. And shaved off your mustache.”
Matt touched his bare upper lip like someone checking his wallet on a crowded subway.
“Yeh, over a year ago.”
He sat on my couchbed, planting his ass down on my pillow. Where I put my head at night. Not the stuff dreams are made of.
I asked, “How’d you get in?”
He held up his hand, my other spare set of keys dangling from his forefinger. He tossed them overhand to me. I fumbled catching them and had to stoop to pick them up off the floor.
Matt said, “Time you got ’em back. What’s with your fucking place anyway? Moving out or did Goodwill repo you?”
“I’m keeping to the essentials these days.”
“Sure, whatever. How come you didn’t return my calls?”
“I was out.”
“Where the fuck’ve you been? I told you to stay put. What the hell’s going on, Payton? I talked to my guy over at the Ninth, and he said the responding unit didn’t have your name. Who’d you talk to on scene?”
“No one. I didn’t stick around. I had a job to do.”
“Yeh, right. I can see how busy you are.”
“The job Owl hired me for.”
“Job? What job?”
“Doesn’t matter now, it’s been taken care of.”
“No. No-no-no, that’s not how this is goin’ to work. I ask questions, you answer. Now what job?”
“Tail job. So I—”
“You go off, leave him lying dead in the street? What kind of fucking head case are you? You call me an hour after—”
“How do you know when—”
“I told you, I called my precinct guy. He finally helped me track down where they took Owl’s body. No fucking help from you there. As usual.”
Heat seeped up my neck into my face. So much for the happy reunion. Nothing had changed in five years between us; it might as well have been the last time we spoke, after my final assignment for Metro.
It was a simple job, all I had to do was watch a door, a door without a handle that never opened, an outside utility door set flush in a blank two-story-high brick wall at the rear of the Baruch Houses apartment complex below Houston, from midnight to 5 a.m., Tuesday thru Saturday, in late March of 2003.
And still I managed to screw it up…
I was seated behind the wheel of an agency car, a blue Honda Accord, parked south of the access ramp to the FDR Drive.
It was temp work Matt had fielded to me to help me get by, never telling me what I was there for, except to verify that the door always remained closed.
It wasn’t much of a door, especially after hours and hours of looking at it. If not for the outer hinges, it might’ve just been an immovable steel plate. The hardest part of the job was not falling asleep while listening to the sough of traffic on the FDR. But looking back, I’d’ve been better off if I had fallen asleep. That at least would have been understandable in the eyes of Matt, more than what actually happened.
It was about 4:30 a.m. when I caught sight of the girl rushing down the road, first in my rear view mirror and then as she passed by at an awkward half-run, a willowy white girl in her late teens casting quick looks over her shoulder. In the mirror, a car came into view approaching at a slow roll, a green late-model Impala with a rusted undercarriage and its headlights switched off. It passed by, closing in on the girl until a bend in the road ahead cut them off from view.
None of my business, literally. My business was to stay in the car, my job was to keep watching that door. But I didn’t.
“There a problem here?” I called out.
Rhetorical question, because as I came jogging round the bend, the passenger door of the idling Impala stood open and a tall guy with straggly hair and a Pharaoh’s beard was in the road trying to push the girl inside. She’d lost one shoe.
The guy favored me with a scowl and some choice words about my mother. The girl uttered nothing but a low, pleading Nooo as she shook her head from side to side.
Just as a goof really, I said to the guy, “Unhand her.” Never expecting he would, but he did and the girl who’d been leaning back trying to pry herself away fell flat on her ass.
The guy took three quick strides to me. He looked like he meant business, so I cut out the comedy and raised my right hand fast. The telescopic steel baton sprang open to its full length with a satisfying snick and the tip sank deep into his crotch. He went down and over and did his lima bean impression.
I stood over him. My right shoulder was hit by something soft but heavy. Green and brown, it fell to my feet.
A clump of grass and soil. The next hit me in the neck, not so soft.
I turned my head and the girl was digging her hands into the grass bordering the sidewalk to my right.
I said, “Hey, quit—”
She flung another clump at me. She had good aim. This one hit me in the chin, some of the dirt went down my shirt. I backed away, putting up my arms to block the next one.
But she’d found an empty quart bottle of Colt 45 malt liquor on the verge. Before she threw it I took off running. The bottle shattered at my heels.
My last look back, she was kneeling beside him in the road, cradling his head in her dirt-blackened hands. I had to admit they made a perfect couple.
When I got back to the agency car, my relief was waiting. Except he was anything but, a relief that is. He’d come early and found the car empty. For a beefy guy he had a surprisingly high-pitched voice as he laid into me.
I looked over at the closed door in the brick wall. It was still closed. I doubted it had opened while I was gone, doubted it would ever open. But that wasn’t the point, I understood that—whatever this surveillance had been meant to prove, I’d invalidated it and all the man-hours put into it. But I didn’t need this guy screeching at me like a macaw parrot on crack.
I snicked open the baton again and held it up in front of his face. I wasn’t going to hit him or anything, I just wanted him to shut the fuck up, and he did. I gave him the car keys. I closed the baton and handed it to him (I’d gotten it from the car’s glove compartment), and then I walked away as he started shrieking at me again in his whiny falsetto.
Matt didn’t shout when I called and told him all about it later that morning. He didn’t even swear, which was the worst sign of all; Matt Chadinsky couldn’t whistle without cursing.
I got my last check from Metro the very next day. It was messengered to me, probably costing more than what I got paid, but
the messenger was the message. I was out for good and no mistake about it. The end.
Chapter Nine: YOU CAN’T PLAY IF YOU DON’T WIN
Matt yanked my noggin back to the present.
“So you going to fucking tell me what this is all about?”
“I already did.”
“No, all you did was hand me a load of bullshit, nothing that justifies you leaving Owl lying in the street. He deserved more respect than you showed him, you shitstain. George Rowell had friends in this city. Important friends. You better pray Moe Fedel doesn’t catch wind of it, if he hasn’t already.”
“I’m not afraid of Fedel.”
“Yeh, well you never were that bright, kid.”
“Does…did Owl have any family? Who’ll claim his body?”
“No. No family. He was an orphan, never married.”
I took out my wallet, showed him the photograph of Owl and the girl. “So this isn’t him and a granddaughter then? How ’bout a niece? Does the name Elena mean anything to you?”
“What have you gone, deaf? I told you, no family. The guys in the business, that’s all he had, and that’s who’s gonna have to send him off. Owl lived for the job, always did.”
“And died for it.”
Matt stared at the picture of Owl, maybe lost in his own memories of the last time they saw each other, but my words finally sank in. He looked up.
“What’s that fucking supposed to mean?”
“What did your guy at the precinct say about Owl’s death? Everything kosher?”
“Kosher? Shit. Yeh, no meat and dairy mixed. Kosher!”
“Nothing off about it then?”
“I didn’t ask. You told me it was a fucking accident.”
“It was, but…”
“But what?”
“Owl was here working on something. A case for an ‘old friend,’ he said. He got a room at the Bowery Plaza two days ago. What’s he been up to since? You’re one of his oldest friends, didn’t he contact you?” Matt had trained under Owl much the way I’d trained under Matt.
He shook his head. “I had no idea he was in the city. Haven’t seen Owl in years, not since he retired. You still haven’t told me what he came to you for—”
“He asked if I worked on the Law Addison job.”
“What about it?”
“Just did I work on it, because he knew Metro had. I told him no, you hadn’t called me.”
“Damn straight, I didn’t. I wanted that case closed, not fucked up.”
“But it isn’t closed, is it?” I said. “I was just reading up on it, and there was nothing about Addison’s capture. He’s still a fugitive.”
“Yeh, so?”
I didn’t push the point. “How did Metro get in on it?”
“Addison was arrested in May. The fucking judge set his bail at two million.”
“How come so high?”
“You think that’s high? For a guy like that? Made millions every year and probably had bank accounts in ten different countries? He was the biggest goddamn flight risk since Charles Fucking Lindbergh.”
“Evidently. So how come he was granted bail at all?”
“Because judges are fucking morons. This one said Addison’s passport had been seized, his assets had been frozen, so if he wanted to flee, he’d have to do it on a fucking bus. What a bonehead. You know how much money Addison was playing with at his peak? Two billion. With a B. Of which $66 million is still unaccounted for. You can bet he had a nice chunk of that stored away in cash for just such a rainy day.”
“Sixty-six million dollars,” I repeated. “Shit, that’s like eleven bionic men.”
Matt didn’t even crack a smile.
“After he pulled his breeze, the cops broke into his Soho loft and found open-ended tickets purchased on eight different airlines for flights to Vegas, L.A., Hawaii, Tokyo, and Thailand, as well as two false passports under an alias. And that’s just the shit he left behind. Who the fuck knows what he took with him.”
“And what was Metro’s role in it?”
“The bailsbond agency was nervous, they hired us to keep tabs on him. Turns out with good cause. Addison put up some property in the Hamptons as collateral for the bond, but it wasn’t until he got away that the paperwork finally went through. All the titles were faked, none of it was his. So the bailsbond agency is going to have to eat that loss.”
“Unless he’s found.”
Matt narrowed his eyes. “What did Owl say to you about it? I mean, exactly, what did he say?”
“Said that Addison had some East Village connection. He took it for granted you’d called me in on it.”
Matt made a fart noise. With his mouth, praise be; he was still sitting on my pillow.
“We’ll manage without you,” Matt said. “He’ll pop up. Hell, it’s only been four months. Guy like that, he won’t stay hidden long, he can’t. Likes living large. Only a matter of time before he’s spotted.”
“I kinda got the impression from Owl…” But I stopped myself, because that’s all I really had, an impression.
“What?”
“Nothing. Only…he mentioned it in passing, that he’d stumbled on something.”
Matt stared me straight in the eye for three beats, then slapped his knee hard.
“Damn! It would just be like that old bastard to pull one last rabbit outta his hat. He found Addison.”
“Wait a second, I didn’t say he—”
Matt stood up, headed for the door.
“I gotta get back to the office and check into this. Holy fuck, if—”
“Wait, I didn’t say—”
“Yeh, I heard you. You didn’t fucking say much at all. As usual. But Owl, he wouldn’t have brought it up if it didn’t mean something. He had a nose on him, I’ll—”
Matt stopped short of the door, looked down at his feet, at Owl’s briefcase where I’d left it when I came in.
He said, “I gave him that. For his seventieth birthday.”
He reached down and picked it up. “I’m damned if you’ll have it.”
I couldn’t really object. He opened the door and I said to his back, “I’m sorry, Matt. I know what he meant to you.”
He didn’t turn round, but nodded his head couple times.
“Owl had a good run,” he said. “Did it his way all the way down the line. No one lives forever.”
I grunted. “Control yourself. You’ll do yourself a mischief carrying on that way.”
This time he turned around, and said evenly, “Fuck off, you fuckin’ fuck-off.”
Matt was never one to be at a loss for words. It felt like old times.
Only after he’d left and my office door shut did I realize I’d forgotten to congratulate him on becoming a father. And I still didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl.
I switched the phone cord back to my receiver. As soon as I did, the phone started ringing. I picked up.
“Yellow.”
“Mr. Sherwood?”
It was my client, Paul Windmann.
“Yep.”
He said, “She called.”
“Who?” I was still thinking of Michael Cassidy and whatever she’d had to do with Owl.
“The woman who ripped me off. She wants to sell my stuff back to me.”
“That isn’t selling, it’s ransoming. Don’t pay.”
“I have already.”
“What, you saw her? When?”
“I haven’t seen her. I sent her a payment through PayPal.”
“Oh brave new world. How much?”
“That’s not your concern. What I’d like is for you to make the pick-up for me.”
“Sure thing,” I said, trying to sound cheerful about it. “You’re the boss. What’s the address?”
“Number 27, Avenue C,” he said. “Apartment three. Do you know where that is?”
“I think I can find it,” I said.
I hung up the phone. I sat and thought a bit. Then I stood up and went to the kitch
en area where my floor safe was located. I spun the combination, opened the door, and took out my gun.
A 9mm Luger, a black automatic with a dull sheen, which looked like it was made of plastic until you picked it up and felt the heft and knew it was serious. In twelve years, I’d only carried it three times in the course of work, never fired it except on a firing range downtown, and only once had to show it to some asshole who didn’t believe I had it, hiking up to end a confrontation that was about to get ugly. But having a license to carry is a necessity of the job. Some clients expect it, others demand it.
In this case, I had no idea what to expect, so I was going armed. I had a stiff leather side holster for the gun, but I’d misplaced it a few years back, so now I had to stick the gun down the back of my pants, just like in the movies. It meant that I had to wear a light jacket over it, even though the day was way too hot. I would have to take a cab. If I walked to 27 Avenue C with my jacket on, I’d be a sopping mess of perspiration by the time I got there.
So I caught a cab. Back to Alphabet City, back to the apartment building on Avenue C, back to Mr. Andrew’s apartment, where Jeff and the diabla were now living.
The gun dug into my lower back like someone was shoving it into me, prodding me forward against my will.
I got out a block away and walked the rest. The street door was swung wide, propped open by a stack of telephone directories. The inner vestibule door was held open by another stack, so I didn’t have to ring a buzzer to gain entrance.
I walked down the first floor corridor, a breeze against my face and bright daylight spilling out from beneath the stairwell.
The light was from an open rear door into a back courtyard. I heard the sound of water spraying from a hose. I looked out and saw Luis, the forest-green-clad super, standing with his broad back to me, hose in his hand, the nozzle shooting a jet of water. He was rinsing out a plastic trash barrel lying on its side in an area of patchy grass and weeds, disjointed brick masonry, two or three torn window screens bent into parabolas, and scraps of yellowed newspaper. I didn’t try to get his attention.
I continued down the narrow hall. It seemed to get narrower as I got to the end. I knocked on the door of apartment three.
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