The Hard Stuff

by David Gordon

  This took some doing. Cash had to run an obstacle course, negotiating stopped buses, slow traffic, backing trucks, and clueless drivers, dodging errant bikers and jaywalking pedestrians, catching lights and navigating one-way streets and construction zones, all while avoiding any behavior that might get them pulled over. He did it cool, too, nonchalantly, one hand on the wheel, head and shoulders loose, but eyes in constant motion, checking the mirrors and scanning the road ahead, reacting to what was about to happen a beat before it happened, not a beat after. That was the key.

  Juno’s blinking dot took them to Queens and stopped, finally, in Astoria, on a block off Steinway Street. This was one of the city’s main Arabic communities, once dubbed Little Egypt, but now packed with Middle Eastern and North African shops, cafés, and restaurants run by Lebanese, Moroccans, and Syrians among others.

  Moving slow and careful now, Cash and Juno closed in on the signal, which seemed to be emanating from a large building on a corner. They circled the block, passing the black BMW they’d been tracking all this time, now empty and parked by a hydrant. The front side of the building was revealed to be a big Middle Eastern restaurant and nightclub with a constant flow of customers bustling in and out, cars and taxis dropping people out front. A neon sign read CLUB LAYALI. Cash pulled over in a spot with a view of the entrance. They waited. Cash smoked a cigarette and stretched his tight shoulder muscles out after the long, tense ride. Juno turned the music up and watched his dot. Fifteen minutes went by.

  “I think they’re settled in for now,” he said finally.

  “Maybe they’re getting dinner,” Cash suggested. He was starving himself. He never ate before a job and now the idea of chicken roasting on skewers was making his stomach growl. “Maybe we should go in and check?”

  “Joe said just sit on them and call. I ain’t moving in with just us.”

  “Not move in. Just get closer. He said cover the place, too. But without Liam and Josh how can we? They could go out the back right now and we’d lose them. Or head back to their car.”

  Juno nodded. “Okay. Let’s park and go inside, just to try and pin down where they are in the building. Meanwhile I’ll text Joe the address.”

  “Great,” Cash said as he pulled around the corner and parked illegally behind a construction dumpster. “I’m fucking starving.”

  “And I’ve got to piss so bad I can taste it,” Juno added.

  So they went in and while Cash waited for a table, Juno went to the men’s room. The place was huge, even bigger than it seemed from outside. A converted warehouse, there was a long bar, a central floor full of tables, draped booths along the walls made to look like private harem chambers with people sitting on pillows and smoking hookahs, tile and arched doorways everywhere. On a stage in back, a band played traditional instruments and women were belly dancing for a louder, drunker crowd at bigger tables. The ceiling was high, with fabric hanging down to look like a tent, and there was a balcony running around the mezzanine with more tables, quieter and more romantic, mostly couples eating by candlelight and gazing down at the action.

  The men’s room was down a flight of stairs, and for a while Juno lost his tracking signal, but coming back down the hallway after using the bathroom, the iPad in his backpack buzzed and he checked: the diamonds were close, very close, seemingly right under his feet. Curious, he paced the hall: restrooms, a janitor’s closet, and at the rear, a door that when pushed, opened to reveal a dim storeroom, filled with cartons and packed shelves eight feet high. He stepped in slowly, shutting the door quietly behind him, face down in his tablet. The signal was still beneath him. In fact he had already passed over it somewhere in the hall. Clearly there was some sort of subbasement, but Juno couldn’t see any stairway or other entrance. Then the lights came on, and a voice behind him said: “You’re standing on it.”

  “Sorry?” He turned. It was a middle-aged Mediterranean-looking man with a closely trimmed dark beard in a gray suit and blue shirt.

  “The trapdoor to the basement,” he said. “You’re standing on it.”

  Juno smiled, flashing his innocent fool look. “I don’t know what you mean. I was looking for the men’s room. They said downstairs …”

  The man raised his arm. He was casually holding a gun, not really aiming it at Juno, just showing that he had it. “Now, now. Let’s not get off on the wrong foot. The party is just starting.” Juno raised his hands and the man gestured at his sneakers with the gun. “Lift that mat and I will show you how to get to the VIP lounge. It’s invitation only.”

  Upstairs at the table, Cash was waiting eagerly for the appetizers he’d gone ahead and ordered, unable to wait for Juno to finish taking a leak. So when his phone buzzed and it was a text from Juno telling him to come downstairs right away, he cursed under his breath and stood reluctantly, still looking around for his food. He needn’t have bothered. Vlad, who was watching him from across the room, had already canceled the order.

  38

  Donna was making the best of it. After not getting invited to the big bust, her first impulse to was to brood like a high schooler dissed by the cool kids, but instead she regressed even further and took her daughter to an animated movie with gummy bears and licorice, a rare treat, smuggled in her purse. As a result, her phone was on silent when Andrew’s texts and calls came in—another rare treat, since for once she was definitely not on call. By the time she checked, in the lobby, there was a whole series of messages describing the drama that had been unfolding while she watched cartoon animals on the screen. So she let Larissa play a driving video game—another special treat!—while she called Andrew back. He was half-alarmed and half-gleeful. The op had gone completely sideways and they had ended up capturing nobody, nor did they recover any diamonds or seize any dope. Instead they triggered a shoot-out and a high-speed chase through the streets of Brooklyn, resulting in a couple of busted-up police cars and a giant black eye for everyone present except, for once, the FBI. They were just observing.

  The NYPD were catching most of the hell from the city, and in turn they were blaming the CIA for crappy intel. And the bureau, which now claimed they should have been handling it all along, were mounting up to assist with the building-to-building search. “If I were you I’d get down here,” Andrew said. “Not that there’s anything much left to investigate. Still it’s fun watching them whine. You might even get to see your ex-husband eating shit.”

  Donna knew he was right. If nothing else, she should show her face, offer to help with the crisis, even if it was all a big waste of time. But it was too late to get a sitter and her mom, much to Donna’s unease, was hanging out with her new best friend, Gladys Brody. Poker lessons. Donna sighed. She’d known about her mother’s little secret vice for months, and if she could go from losing to winning without breaking the law any more than she was already, Donna supposed that was an improvement. And she couldn’t deny she liked Gladys. She was fun. A lot more fun than her mom’s usual sidekicks, who mainly talked about their ailments. So she understood the attraction. It was her own attraction to the Brody family that she found hard to figure.

  It all added up to a big bowl of mixed feelings when she called her mom and said she was heading to Brooklyn for a work emergency and could she drop Larissa by? Her mom said absolutely. They were going to bake some cookies and change the game to hearts.

  39

  Their hostage was named Ami, spelled like that. Her mom was a Francophile, and she was pretty cool once she got over being completely terrified. She even gave Joe one of her boyfriend’s shirts—a garish Hawaiian number she was eager to let him think got lost in the laundry—so that he could take off the bloody one and wash off with paper towels at the sink. She noticed he had a good body, lean and muscled. Her boyfriend was an ex-athlete who still played football on the weekends, but he was both bulkier and somehow softer. On the other hand, this guy had a lot more scars. He also found a coin, a quarter, in the front pocket of the aloha shirt, and laid it on the kitchen co
unter, which just felt odd to her somehow, like he’d kidnap her at gunpoint to hide from the cops but he wouldn’t take her change.

  Her boyfriend, she explained when asked, was a digital marketing consultant out of town for work. No, they didn’t live together yet. She designed websites, freelance right now, though she was thinking about going full time somewhere, maybe a start-up. She almost asked them, out of habit, if they needed their websites redesigned but stopped herself. Or did criminals have them, too, on the dark web, with code names and masks, like Anonymous? Even if they did, it wouldn’t be these two, who clearly had no idea what a digital marketing consultant even was.

  “Like tweets?” the man had asked.

  “Among other things,” she’d said and let it go. He had a flip phone for God’s sake, on which he laboriously texted with one finger.

  And the woman, Ami didn’t know what to make of her. She was foreign, Russian or Eastern European, and seemed never to have heard of Game of Thrones, which is what Ami was watching and what she was told to continue watching once it was clear they’d all be stuck there awhile. The woman sat on the couch with Ami and watched TV with the volume low. The guy moved a chair over by the door, where he could hear footsteps and peek out the peephole. He couldn’t see the TV from there so he reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded-up copy of the Times crossword puzzle, then asked the woman for a pencil. She reluctantly handed him a mechanical one.

  “Don’t forget to give it back,” she said. “It’s my favorite.”

  “I gave it back last time, didn’t I?” he said and then frowned at the clues. They went back to TV.

  “This is a show for children?” the woman asked finally. “With knights and dragons?”

  “No. I mean, it’s fantasy,” Ami told her. “But for adults.”

  This idea seemed to confuse her, until a few scenes later some incest action started to unfold. “Now this is fantasy for adults,” she said. “But then why not just watch porn?”

  Finally Ami searched the listings and found an old episode of Project Runway. This she liked, immediately joining Ami in critiquing the clothes, which led them to a general discussion of fashion. In fact they were kind of bonding, talking about what a genius Rei from Comme was, when suddenly the guy shushed them and turned out the lights. The woman grabbed the remote and turned the TV off, then held Ami’s hand in the dark. Instinctively, Ami squeezed back, as though they were friends hiding together after smoking pot in the dorm or something. Then she realized—or remembered—these were criminals on the run and the woman was keeping her under control and would silence her with violence if need be.

  Then a knock came, hard and with authority. “Hello!” a gruff male voice called. “This is the police. Anybody home?” He knocked again. Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, Ami could now see that both the Russian woman and the guy, who stood still as a statue by the door, were holding guns. Finally, she heard knocking on the neighbor’s doors, followed by some distant murmuring. Then silence. The man turned on the light.

  “All done,” he said and smiled reassuringly. He put the gun away in his belt, and she noticed that he’d clipped the woman’s pencil to his (or her boyfriend’s) shirt pocket, and she was about to say something, like teasing him about it, but then decided to just shut up. Then his phone must have vibrated, because he checked it and nodded at the woman.

  She got up and checked the window, peeking through the curtain first, then opening the gate to look out, while Ami held the cat. You couldn’t see much. She was in a rear apartment. Next she took Ami’s keys and went up to the roof while the guy watched her, smiling the whole time and telling her they’d be leaving soon and she’d done great so far, in the same tone her dentist used before drilling.

  The woman came back and smiled, too. “All clear,” she said, and they put their backpacks on. Relief was flooding through Ami at this point. She felt this whole thing turning from the scariest night of her life to an amazing dinner party anecdote. But then the guy reached into her purse and got out her license. He gave it to the woman, who snapped a photo with her phone—an iPhone, much better than his—then gave it back to her. He spoke in the same even, friendly tone.

  “Now we know who you are, where you live, everything. Enough to find you, no matter where you go. You know enough about us to cause some trouble but not that much. So I’m going to strongly advise you, Ami Hendricks, not to mention tonight to anybody, not ever, not even to your boyfriend. Because if you do, either we or our friends will be back, and that won’t be a pleasant visit like tonight. Understand?”

  She nodded. Instantly, she was in stark terror again, realizing how close she had been to danger all along. These people looked and talked like they were friendly, normal people, but they were something else. She saw her cat, yawning wide, fangs showing, then rubbing against the woman’s legs, and she remembered something she’d read somewhere: you think your cat loves you because it cuddles with you, it’s cute, and it purrs, but it would kill and eat you if it could.

  “Good,” the man said and he smiled. “Now you can go back to your show.”

  He opened the door.

  “Thanks and have a good evening,” the woman said, walking out.

  “You, too,” Ami answered, reflexively, and they were gone.

  40

  When Pat walked into Old Shenanigan’s, only the manager nodded at him, respectfully but discreetly. That was how he liked it. Although he controlled this place, he was strictly a silent partner, and he liked being able to come and go without being noticed, as opposed to other spots, like the private social club or the diner where he held court. But here, if anyone did say anything about the old guy in the cap and raincoat who just walked through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door, they’d be told to forget it. He was checking on the construction or taking inventory of the booze, someone unimportant doing something boring. In this way he had a safe, secure place to meet where he knew no one he didn’t want to could see or hear.

  So he was completely thrown when he entered the torn-out men’s room he used for private one-on-one talks expecting to meet Liam and flipped on the light to find Gio Caprisi standing there, holding a gun.

  “What the fuck?” Pat barked, his sense of ownership and generalship overpowering the immediate rush of confusion and fear. “What are you doing here?” He took a step forward, but Gio pointed the gun at him.

  “Hold it,” he said, and Pat realized there was another guy there, hiding behind the doorway. Nero, Gio’s sidekick, stepped up behind him and frisked him, removing the revolver from his ankle holster.

  “No wire, boss,” Nero said, stepping around front to point his own gun at Pat, too.

  “Wire? Fuck you, Gio, coming to my place and making implications—”

  “Drop it, Pat,” Gio said. “Don’t waste your last few breaths on bullshit. We know you’ve been selling us out to the CIA.”

  Pat slumped. Suddenly, he felt like what he was, an old, tired, bent man facing the end. It was almost a relief, yet every nerve in his body still jumped and twitched, demanding he run or fight or bargain or beg for his life. “Look Gio, I can deal you in. This CIA thing works like a charm. Protect us. Sink your enemies. Just put the guns down and we’ll talk.”

  Gio smiled. “Sure, let’s talk. In your nice private soundproof room. Too bad you have to die in a toilet though. But that’s what we do to lying, snitching pieces of shit. We flush them.”

  In a flash, the rage that had fueled Pat’s whole life came back and he stepped toward Gio, fists up. “Fuck you, you guinea faggot cocksucker. You think no one knows—”

  Gio fired. The first shot went through his lung and stopped him. The second pierced his heart. Then Nero started pulling the trigger, too, and by the time he fell—a crumpled, lifeless heap with a cap on top—his body held a dozen bullets. Liam stepped into the room from the dark corner down the hall where he’d been waiting. He regarded the corpse.

  “Much obliged, Gio,” he said, quietly. “It had t
o be done, but I don’t know if I’d have had the stomach. He used to bounce me on his knee. Then again, he also taught me to shoot people.”

  Gio switched his gun to his left, then held out his hand. “Consider it a symbol of our new friendship.”

  Liam shook his hand. “I’m happy to hear you say that, Gio. And honored. And I know I speak for my brothers, too.”

  “Please send them my regards. And my sympathies.” He turned to Nero. “Stay here and help him clean up. And get rid of this, too.” He handed him the gun.

  “But, Boss, where are you going?” Nero asked. “Don’t you want me to come?”

  “I’ve got another meeting tonight,” Gio said, walking out. “A personal one.”

  Nero watched him go, holding guns in each hand, while Liam started dragging a construction tarp in from the hall. He shrugged and shoved the guns in his pockets and went to help. They still had a lot of work to do tonight.

  41

  Joe and Yelena drove to Astoria.

  When they left Ami’s building, after moving stealthily down the stairs and peeking carefully out at the now-empty streets, they immediately began to walk normally, like a tourist couple holding hands and sauntering down the block with their packs on. It was silent. Life had returned to normal. They crossed the street, turned a corner, and found the Toyota Corolla where Joe had stashed it. It had a ticket from street cleaning, which he peeled off the windshield and threw in a dumpster along with the Lexus keys. Then he grabbed the Corolla keys from where he’d hidden them under the bumper. He opened the door for Yelena and dropped the backpack full of dope on the rear seat, then got in and they drove. Joe rolled his window down as she lit up a smoke.