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I’d earned my Friday cocktail. I’d earned my Friday porterhouse.

My phone buzzed. It was Max.

“Max.” I started walking toward Traviata.

“What do you have?”

“A stomachache.”

“What do you have?”

“I’m working it.”

“This weekend?”

“Yes, I’m still working on it.”

“Where are you now.”

“In Brooklyn. I was just about to meet one last time with one of the goofballs who jacked the pips, to get him to tip the others, but it’s a low percentage play.”

“Who?”

“You know I never tell you who.”

“We can do seventy-five.” Max actually sounded a little anxious. Another twenty-five grand was more in the ballpark. Too bad the paintings were probably gone already.

“I’ll see if that helps.”

“It better.”

“I’ll keep working it, see what I can do. Max?”

“Tommy?”

“Any Mondrians missing out there?”

“Why?”

“I stumbled into two of them. Possible forgeries, I don’t know.”

“You look at the canvas tacks?”

“They’re cloven.”

“Where?” I heard him clack away at his laptop.

“Max, I never tell you who or where, so stop asking. Are you looking it up in the database?”

“Which paintings?”

“How do I know?”

Mondrians look a lot the same, and they all have similar names like
Composition in Red, White, and Black
or
Composition in White, Red, and Black
. Kind of annoying. Then again, what are you going to call a painting that is a black grid on white with some of the squares colored in?
Coney Island in Bloom
?

“How big?”

“Eighty by seventy, I guess.” Typically, paintings are measured by centimeters. Not a fan of the metric system, but there’s a European influence on how we do business.

“Don’t see it.”

“Nothing?”

“None listed as missing. Not since the Antwerp theft.”

So Atkins stole the Mondrians, and McCracken never reported them stolen to her insurer, United Southern Assurance, and to Max. Not to the police, either, or we would have heard about that. Lee J. Rosenburg would have hit the roof if his paintings were stolen. McCracken covered it up to dodge Rosenburg’s getting extra crisp with her. She went to Dunwoody for forgeries to replace them. Of course, maybe Atkins was storing A-1 forgeries in his closet. Somehow I didn’t think so.

The cat was sitting right by my chair.

“I’ll let you know about the seventy-five.”

“Call when you know, no matter when.”

“Later.”

I was standing in front of Traviata. I went in and had a seltzer at the bar. Then another. Then a vodka on the rocks. The owner was pissed off—Frank Buckley hadn’t shown up for his shift.

I left Traviata and found a working pay phone. I called a 911 on Frank’s apartment, told them there was smoke coming from under the door at the fourth floor. I went back to the bar for another vodka. Then another. I walked back to Frank Buckley’s place.

There were ambulances. There were cop cars. There were fire engines.

I asked one of the EMS guys what was up.

She told me they found Frank Buckley. He was lying on the bed in front of the open window.

His wrists were duct-taped. His head was wrapped in Saran Wrap. Flat, dead eyes in Frank’s purple face watched the traffic creep by on the Gowanus Expressway.

FRANK BUCKLEY GETTING TWEAKED WAS
good news, though maybe only for me. Unless his death was unrelated to the Whitbread rip-off, it meant the money or the paintings were probably still around. My intuition told me that Gustav’s murder of Jo-Ball and Huey had caused panic in Molly Lee aka Ms. French’s string, and now the goofballs needed to be silenced. You didn’t have to be Einstein with a chalkboard to figure out that this probably meant Kootie was next. Either way, no time to waste deciding if I wanted to press Kootie about Sunday night, and maybe save his skin.

I know that sounds kind of cold. About Frank. Well, it sucks what happened to him, but more than likely he had it coming somehow. It’s what happens to guys who get cute. I didn’t cause what happened to him, and I couldn’t change what happened to him. He worked in a dangerous profession, with sometimes dangerous people. His chi was compromised.

Wrapping a guy’s face in plastic wrap like that is what’s commonly known as leftovers. When I say commonly, I mean on the street, and in the mob. Like concrete overshoes, sleeping with the fishes, dirt naps, like that. Gustav hadn’t made Frank into leftovers. It was the work of Robay’s crew or Coney Island Russians. Or possibly someone who wanted it to look like one of those two.

Friday had already been a very long day, and a couple drinks had stretched it to the limit. I was about out of gas, but there was no time for a nap. I had to find Kootie before it was too late. If it wasn’t already too late.

I hailed a town car, and fifteen minutes later I was at Nevins Street and Atlantic Avenue—sort of halfway from my neighborhood to Billy Bank. On the corner there was a dive bar called Hank’s. It was kind of like Canal Bar, except more so. I still remembered when it was called Doray Tavern, before hipsters started going there to see low-rent indie bands, three a night. Doray Tavern was lower than a dive, and I’m not sure what you’d call that. Only the most bugged-out aging alcoholics went there, the ones who laced their drinks with lighter fluid.

I didn’t have long to enjoy the atmosphere at Hank’s. Too early for music, which meant that there were only a few kids in porkpie hats drinking Pabsts. Hipsters. There was a woman behind the bar. A red ponytail sat straight up on top of her head like Pebbles on
The Flintstones
.

I says, “Sweetheart, is Kootie working tonight?”

So she shakes her head and blows a bubble with her gum.

I says, “I thought he worked Friday nights.”

So she shrugs.

I says, “Any idea why he’s not working tonight?”

So she finally says, “Called sick.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

He lived nearby in a basement apartment on State Street, a narrow brick four-story next to a parking lot. It was a shadowy block, the streetlight flickering orange across from the building.

For the second time that day I had a little luck. First piece of luck was the two Mondrians in Atkins’s Staten Island closet. This one was catching Kootie leaving his building with a bag over his shoulder.

Like Pop used to say,
Luck is the fruit from the tree of persistence
.

Even in that dim orange light I knew it was Kootie. How? Who else went out at night in October in just a T-shirt? Kootie was making tracks for the subway.

Unless I was mistaken, it looked like our pal Kootie was getting out of town.

There was some movement in an old baby blue Lincoln across the street from Kootie’s building.

I followed Kootie, hanging back, but ahead of the Lincoln, which scrunched into the curb behind me as I trotted down the subway steps.

This was going to be tight.

I swiped my MetroCard.

Empty.

In the old days I would have jumped the turnstile. Now the turnstiles have roofs. For a guy my size, jumping the turnstile would have been like getting a moose through a tennis racket.

I went to the fare machine and quickly started pushing buttons.

Footsteps came quickly down the stairs. Two men. Goons?

One says to the other, “You got a token?”

The other says, “They don’t take tokens no more.”

“No tokens?”

I fed twenty dollars into the machine.

“They take cards.”

“Oo. We don’t got no cards. I’m going over the turnstile.”

“That ain’t easy. Look, you better cover the other exit, take the car. I’ll get a card from the machine. I’ll call if I got him. Or if you should come with the car.”

I pushed another button on the vending machine, and a new card hummed from the slot into my hand.

One goon went up the steps; the other was behind me.

He says, “—Scuze me.”

I turned. He was almost as tall as me, older by ten years, and not nearly as muscular or heavy as me. His eyes carried big bags, and his hair was orange, gray on the side. One of Robay’s crew, for sure. I hadn’t seen him at the funeral, so I didn’t figure he knew me.

So I says, “What’s what?”

“I dunno how this card machine works, and I’m kind of in a hurry. Could you swipe me in? I’ll give you five bucks.” He held out a five.

I either needed a lot more drinks or a lot fewer for what was ahead. At the time I was thinking more, now I’m thinking less.

So I says, “Sounds fair.”

We went to the turnstile. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I had to stop this goon from making leftovers out of Kootie. If I let Kootie get tweaked, I’d miss out on the valuable information in his head, and to some extent his blood would be on my hands.

So I swiped my card and waved Eye Bags ahead. I swiped again for me and followed through the turnstile.

Eye Bags was ahead, moving up the platform, blocking Kootie’s view of me. Like I said, he was about as tall as I was, and Kootie was shorter.

Eye Bags put his hand in his pocket and slowed. I stepped to one side and caught a glimpse of Kootie.

Kootie caught a glimpse of me. His eyes bugged.

There were other people around, too: a few hipsters, an old black lady in a fancy hat, two day laborers with spackle on their shoes. They were standing at the platform edge or leaning on the steel columns.

I says, “Kootie! Hey, it’s good to see you. How’s the police academy treating you?”

I took two long strides, fast.

Eye Bags stopped and turned.

I was right behind him and twisted my torso. Elbow up. Fast.

I elbowed Eye Bags under the chin. His head snapped back, and his eyes wobbled.

You ever want to knock someone’s lights out, you don’t punch them in the face. That will only make their nose break, make them bleed, and make them mad. You want someone to konk out, you need to snap their head back, compress their neck nerves or whatever. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t try to explain it beyond that. I’m just saying: I clobbered Eye Bags under the chin, his head snapped back, and his knees went. I caught him in my arms. He was too heavy to keep from going all the way to the floor, but not so heavy I couldn’t direct his fall away from the tracks and keep his head from smashing the concrete platform.

The hipster couple, the day workers, and the old lady took a step back.

I says, “My God! Kootie, help me. This poor guy almost fell on the tracks.”

Kootie at that point was ready to bolt, but the onlookers were now looking at him, expecting him to help. He looked at the nice old hat lady.

She says, “For God’s sake, man! Help him!”

It’s possible the bystanders actually saw me hit Eye Bags, but you can revise what people see by the way you act. Con men will back me up on that.

Kootie and I dragged Eye Bags to the back of the platform. The two day laborers came over. I motioned for them to hold Eye Bags sitting upright leaning against the wall, and they did, which gave me the opportunity to swipe the knife from the victim’s pocket.

I grabbed Kootie by the shoulder. “Let’s go get this man some help. Ma’am?”

I looked at the nice old hat lady. Looked like she’d just come from church. “Can you help look after this man?”

So she says, “I most certainly will!”

The hipster couple stood there with their mouths hanging open.

We headed back down the platform, toward where we’d come in.

Kootie says, “What is this?”

“The goon with the headache was about to tweak you, Kootie.” I showed him the knife and tossed it in a trash can. “I just saved your bacon.”

Now the eyes were extra bugged, almost out of his head.

A rush of air punched out of the subway tunnel, and a train rumbled into the station, brakes hissing.

“Let’s jump on.” I glanced back up the platform. Eye Bags was leaning forward, the onlookers crowded around him. Looked like he was coming to.

The train squeaked to a stop, and we hopped on the last car.

Kootie says, “He was going to tweak me?”

So I says, “You knew someone was coming.” I nodded at the bag over his shoulder. “That’s why you called in sick at Hank’s and were winking out of town.”

The train doors seemed to be taking a long time to close.

There were only four other people in the car, a group of Latino lads talking fast and laughing, probably from the projects, looked like they were dressed to party. They weren’t paying any attention to us.

The doors weren’t closing, so one of the Latino lads stuck his head out the door. He came back to his amigos and told them something. I heard the word
enfermo
, which means sick.

The loudspeaker said, “Watch the closing doors.”

Ding-dong
’doors slid shut. The train jolted and began to move.

I pulled Kootie around the corner of the conductor’s booth, out of view of the platform passing by the window.

Kootie says, “I heard Frank got tweaked.”

So I says, “Why do you think I’m here?”

“You’re not the killer?”

“I think it’s pretty obvious I’m not, Kootie. Hold on.” I looked around the corner, toward the platform sliding by out the window. The train slid into the dark tunnel. “That sucks.”

“What?”

I looked Kootie in the eye. “Nobody on the platform.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That means all the people who were on the platform are now on the train.”

The Latino boys were looking at where we were huddled, and seemed to be making smart remarks about our sexual orientation.

“Tommy, you mean that guy you knocked out, he’s on the train?”

“I don’t know where else he could be.”

“But he hasn’t got his knife.”

“Since when do wiseguys carry just one weapon?”

“What’ll we do?”

“This is your mess. I don’t have to do anything. I can walk out of here at the next station. That guy may want to follow me for what I just did to him, but he has orders to follow and tweak you.”