by David Gordon
“I think you need an outside audit of all your people’s electronic communication since before the Uder deal.”
“How outside?”
“Someone who can’t be involved or compromised because they’re not associated with your business. And who can’t betray you because they don’t know what they’re looking for. Just preparing a report. Who talked to who, when and what about.”
“You have someone in mind?”
“Maybe. Let me get back to you tomorrow.”
“Good. Thanks,” Gio said. “And I have another thought,” he added as they crossed the street. “Since it looks like this is federal, we could at least put a feeler out to someone in the FBI.”
“You know someone?”
“We both do. Agent Donna.”
“Nah,” Joe shook his head. “No way is she bent.”
“Agreed. She’s as straight as they come. But she is in the information business herself. She might want to help keep us free and useful to her, in the name of homeland security.”
Joe considered it. “I don’t know, Gio. I just don’t see her going out of her way to keep you out of jail.”
Gio smiled. “Not me, no. But you, maybe.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Come on, she’s got a thing for you. Anyone can see that.”
“Fuck off.”
“And it’s mutual.” They were across the street from Penn Station and the round façade of Madison Square Garden. Yelena was waiting in front of the station entrance as arranged. She saw them and waved. “But you better watch out,” Gio went on, waving back. “If Yelena finds out, she might kill her.”
Joe laughed. “Somehow I don’t make her as the jealous type.”
Gio looked at his watch, back where it belonged. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting Carol at the Garden.”
“Oh yeah?” Joe tried to remember what team was in town. “Who’s playing tonight?”
“Billy Joel!” Gio shouted as he dashed across to make the light. “Alonzo got me great seats!”
Joe laughed. “Have fun,” he shouted, then crossed to meet Yelena. Despite what Gio thought, all Joe had in mind was a quick dinner while they discussed Joe’s plan for the diamonds. Tomorrow was a big day, after all.
18
Billy Joel was fantastic. “So what if he is like … a hundred years old,” Carol thought. He is still amazing, and being older, if not quite a hundred herself, she admitted she liked being able to sit and listen to the music and understand the words, without a bunch of people standing and blocking her view or howling drunkenly. And the concert brought back happy memories, too, about her and Gio before they were even married. Not that they were unhappy now. Family, home, health—they were incredibly lucky, so lucky that sometimes it scared her, thinking of them versus the clients she saw as a therapist. She worked with kids, but of course their problems were themselves a symptom of the family’s dysfunction. It was amazing how well theirs functioned. But things were complicated in any marriage, and with a man like Gio it was a bit more complicated than most. When her friends talked about their families or spouses having skeletons in the closet or knowing where the bodies were buried at work, they didn’t mean actual dead people. Their husbands had dark sides, but Gio’s was literally blacked out, completely opaque to her. It was, she sometimes thought, what being married to a spy must be like, having a husband who disappeared on secret missions he could never reveal. Except, where their men went off overseas for a week or a month, Gio crossed over into his other world every morning in a suit and tie, then came back into the light at night for family dinner.
No doubt it was that duality that led her to become insecure and suspicious. To follow him to a cheap hotel only to find that he was just meeting his accountant, that handsome young guy Paul. And that it was Paul who was actually having an affair with a much older, married, and rather homely blond woman. She felt silly now thinking about it and grateful Gio never knew. But it was part of the reason she had instituted this date-night policy. And when Gio whispered to her between songs and told her that he had secretly booked them a suite at the Pierre, she felt herself melt not just into love and desire for her husband but also peace and security, that feeling of protection, of being completely joined with one other person in the world. She snuggled into him as he put his arm around her and tucked her face against his chest, even closing her eyes as the next song began. That was when she felt something tickling her nose, so that she had to pull away and sneeze, kind of ruining the romantic mood.
“Allergies?” Gio asked her. “Did you bring Zyrtec?”
“Just some dust or something.” She shook her head. “I’m fine.” Rubbing the itch, she found it, a long hair that had been on his jacket. And as she flicked it away, in the glare of the stage lights, she saw: it was long and blond and definitely not hers.
*
Joe couldn’t sleep. Naked, he crept out of bed and left Yelena snoring softly, then went to the window where he could see the river glinting blackly below. He had not had a nightmare since he’d begun drinking Dr. Z’s tea, but he’d forgotten to have some tonight, and the new job had his mind racing. Back in the service, they’d trained him to sleep whenever and wherever he could, even on the eve of battle. Then again they also handed out Ambien like it was Chiclets. He got his book out and dug in his wallet for the tea bag he had stashed there. He came across the card that Frank, that painter from the bench outside the VA had given him and stuck it in his book like a bookmark. Then he brewed the tea with the little electric kettle the hotel had provided and settled down in a corner armchair to read under a standing lamp.
But he couldn’t focus. So he got up, carrying his tea and book, and went to the desk where a laptop sat open. Yelena had brought it to track down items they needed for the job. He opened Google and typed in Frank’s full name from the card: Frank Jones. A million hits. The name was too common. He tried to narrow it: “Frank Jones painter” and then, a little reluctantly: “African American.” His screen burst into color.
Apparently Frank Jones was a well-known contemporary artist, represented by a big gallery in Chelsea with lots of work in museums and rich people’s collections as well. Not that Joe would know. He liked visiting museums, but he always went alone and never discussed what he saw with anyone; it wouldn’t even occur to him to talk about it. What was there to say? As for contemporary art and the gallery scene, that was a different world, though it was centered just a short walk from where he sat now. That was New York, many cities superimposed on each other and yet just as far apart, just as alien, as if they were in another country, speaking another language. He could hardly imagine traveling to theirs, knowing what to do or say. But then how many of those people could survive in his?
He scrolled through images of Frank’s paintings: Big brushy close-ups of body parts, male or female or both entangled but like just an ass crack that must have covered a wall. Then there were outside scenes, he hesitated to call them “landscapes,” that looked like a vacant lot with just a few bums in the corner around a fire but also every brick and broken bottle scrupulously rendered, or a busy street scene full of moving people and cars but all from odd perspectives, like high up or very low and angled so that things bent off and didn’t look real, though Joe could easily tell that this was Harlem. Then there were the war ones. Joe assumed they were Vietnam, with the black chopper and the palm tree lit up like an orange fireball, the stacked skulls and yellow-tinged limbs. But there was one in particular that sucked him in. It looked like a long tunnel with wooden supports, but the painting was nearly black, with just muddy browns and grays to give a sense of things, all of it dim, except for a lighter haze coming at you from deep in the vanishing point, a flashlight, blurred and yellow, and behind, holding the flashlight, silhouetted black on black stood a black man with a black gun, a Colt .45 it looked like, a service piece in his hand, aiming at you. Joe blinked hard, opening and closing his eyes as if trying to reset or focus. He knew this scene, thi
s picture. It was from his nightmare.
Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and he jumped, twisting hard as if to punch whoever it was right in the kidney, but another part of him knew it was Yelena, and he didn’t raise his fist.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked.
“Jesus, you startled me,” he said.
“Sorry.” She ran her hand down his back. “You’re sweating.”
“Yeah. I was hot under the blankets,” Joe said. He stood and shut the laptop as he turned to face her.
“Come back to bed,” she said, taking his hand. “I promise to tire you out.”
He smiled. “Good idea.” As he followed her he grabbed the cup and gulped down the rest of Dr. Z’s anti-nightmare tea.
19
They met at the club. Some of the crew bitched mildly about the trip out to Queens, but it was a safe, secure spot to speak freely, and few places were more low profile than a strip club at ten in the morning. The janitor let Joe and Yelena in and started the coffee brewing before he split, happy to get off early. The others showed up on time, Cash in the white BMW, Juno with Rebbe’s guy, who was named Joshua, carpooling together from Brooklyn, and Liam, Pat White’s man, from Woodside, where he roomed with his two brothers, Sean and Tim Madigan, in a heavily Irish neighborhood. They helped themselves to coffee, Joe fetched Juno a soda from behind the bar, and then they all gathered in the manager’s office. Liam and Joshua pulled chairs up to the low coffee table in the center. Juno sat with Cash and Yelena on the couch. Joe wheeled the manager’s desk chair around and spread out a map showing the diamond market and surrounding Midtown blocks. The map was very detailed, with the names of stores noted as well as parking signs and the directions of one-way streets.
“The armored car pickup is for four thirty p.m. tomorrow,” Joe said. “But we all know what Midtown traffic is like, so we will have to set up in a way that lets us wait without looking suspicious. Yelena and I will move along slowly this way, east to west, pretending to window-shop and you two”—he gestured to Cash and Joshua—“can come up out of the subway. Liam, you and Juno can park around the corner. Get there early and hold your spot. You’ll have a good head start when it’s time to move, so you can park anywhere close by, but make sure it’s legal till five at least. We don’t want any cops chasing you away.”
Liam ran his finger along the map. “Aye, so along these streets here is good or around that corner.”
Hearing the faint brogue, Joe asked him: “That is if you think you know the city well enough to drive? Or Josh can take that job.”
“I’ve been here three feckin’ years,” Liam said. “I just sound like a leprechaun to you. And besides, this fella just got out of the Israeli army six months ago. I’ll bet he’s still getting lost on the subway.”
Everyone laughed. Joshua grinned. “I’ll ride with Cash. I am used to armored combat.”
“Yeah, give me Josh,” Cash said, high-fiving him. “Be cool having an Israeli commando ride shotgun.”
Josh shook his head. “Shotgun is too big for this job. I will bring something easier to hide.”
“No man, it’s just a phrase, like,” Cash explained.
Juno laughed. “Okay, Cash you take him. At least the Irishman sort of speaks English.”
Joe laughed and tapped his finger on the map, focusing their attention. “The armored car will pull in here by this pump, right in front of the building. Two guards up front, one driving. And one in back. When they park, the driver will stay put, watching his mirrors. The second guard will get out and check the sidewalk. When he radios that it’s clear, the guard inside the car will open the doors and lower the ramp. Meanwhile, a guard inside the building will open the service door, here, and another will wheel out the strongbox.
“Up it goes onto the truck. The inside man locks the doors while the others keep watch. Then the second guard gets back in next to the driver and the guard who wheeled the box out holds traffic, so they can pull out.”
“Nice and simple,” Liam said. “Except for us, ruining their day.”
“How long does it take them to do this?” Josh asked. “Two minutes? Maybe less?”
“About that, yeah,” Joe said.
“So then what about this strongbox?”
“That’s Yelena’s department.” Joe turned to her.
She nodded. “Yes, I have talked to the Rebbe and he showed me the specs. No problem.”
Liam frowned. “No offense, I’ve heard you’re dead brilliant,” he said to Yelena. “But even Houdini couldn’t crack this thing in a minute.”
“She won’t have to,” Joe said. “We’re going to buy her all the time she needs.”
*
After the meeting, everyone scattered to complete their tasks: Liam, Josh, and Cash to get weapons and vehicles; Yelena to the shops she’d researched online the night before for the more obscure items on the list. Juno had to go home with the extra blueprints Joe had given him and get to work preparing the electronics, but as the others walked out to the parking lot, Joe pulled him aside and asked him to wait.
“But my ride’s leaving,” he complained as Josh left. “Getting from Queens to Bed-Stuy on public transportation is a bummer, dude.”
“I’ve got it covered,” Joe said.
“Oh yeah? You finally get Uber, Joe?”
“I’ve got another job for you,” he told him. “If you’re interested.”
“Sure. Why not? You know me. I’m entrepreneurial as fuck.”
“It’s like a digital security thing. Checking out a company’s employees, all their email accounts, phones, whatever, then reporting back to the boss, like who calls who, who talks to who on text or email. Can you do that?”
“Hell, yeah. No biggie. It’s like a corporate security gig. Hackers get hired for that shit all the time, invading their company system first to stop anyone else from trying. Just set me up with the boss and let me work my magic. Who’s the CEO?”
“Gio Caprisi,” Joe said, as he opened the door to the daylight. “He’s waiting outside to give you a ride home.”
“Gio? Gio Caprisi? El Chapo?”
“I think you mean Capo. El Chapo was Mexican.”
“Whatever. The dude of dudes. I knew you were in with him but … Fuck. I’ve never even seen the man.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll introduce you. He’s very nice. And he pays well.” Joe put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him out. “But I wouldn’t keep him waiting.”
20
Joe went to visit Donna. He didn’t think there was any chance she would go along with Gio’s plan; he didn’t even think he’d mention it, but she had been on his mind ever since that strange sighting in New Jersey. He’d half expected her to track him down after that, with or without cuffs. But in fact she had let him slide by as if she hadn’t seen him, though they had made eye contact for sure. It was as if he had been to her what she was to him: a waking dream, a visitation of sorts, a sign. And so here he was, obeying the sign, using Gio’s bad idea as an excuse to follow his own, maybe much worse, impulse.
But if his own motives were suspect, what about hers? He’d been a criminal fleeing a crime scene. He wasn’t going to stop and chat with the law no matter how cute she was. And he’d been out of his mind, dope sick. What was her excuse for just watching him drift by like a cloud?
Joe planted himself on a bench outside the Federal Building downtown and waited for the lunch crowd to pour out. He figured if she didn’t show or if she was with people, then that was that. Noon came and went, and the suits started to appear but no Donna. Then 12:30. Finally by 1:00 he decided to just wait fifteen more minutes before he cut out. He’d leave it to chance. Though some people, like every professional he knew, would say that hanging with a Fed just before a job was already pushing your luck.
Then she appeared. Looking distracted, hustling along, face in her phone, clearly in a rush but also looking good in the black drapey suit that somehow fit her better than the other federal workers in
their suits, and with her hair down and sort of riding in the slight breeze, which was probably just exhaust pouring from the buses and out of the grates. And she was walking right toward him.
Joe stood up and smiled, ready for her to cruise right by again, like he was invisible. But she stopped, abruptly, and then when she saw him, she smiled, too.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi Joe.”
“In a rush?”
“Yes,” she said. “To get pizza.”
“Mind if I walk with you?”
“Join me. I know a good place.”
He fell in beside her. “You know,” he said. “I could have sworn I saw you in a car the other day. I can’t remember where. Or it could have been a beautiful dream.”
“I think I had the same dream,” she said, glancing at him as they turned a corner. “Except in my dream you looked like crap. You look much better now.”
“Thanks. I’ve been trying to get healthy. I even did acupuncture.”
“Really? I always wanted to try that.”
“Why don’t you? I can recommend a great doctor.”
“I’m waiting for something to go wrong so I have a reason.”
“Ah. Well, I’m fortunate. Lots going wrong with me all the time.”
She laughed. “Lucky you. Oh, there’s the place. Come on. Let’s catch the light.” She took his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and they jogged across the street to beat the traffic. As soon as they hit the sidewalk, she dropped it, suddenly feeling awkward, and then didn’t look at him again until they had bought their slices and drinks at the counter.
“Here,” he said, when they came out, pointing to a nearby stoop, and they sat on the top step, balancing their paper plates on their knees, drinks on the step between them. He took a bite.
“This is good.”
“Told you. Argh, but I burnt my mouth.” She sipped her drink. “Now I have that little flap of skin hanging down, you know? That bugs me like crazy.”