Dirty Deeds (10 page)

She’d changed the subject to let me relax and focus on stuff I could control, which I appreciated. Sometimes you needed to pull back and worry about money and baseball cards and nothing important.

“See if he’ll bite on sixty percent high book price. Come down no lower than forty, though. All three sets are in great condition but nothing graded.” Any graded card was never put into a set and sold individually, except my 1969 Topps cards, which I would never part with.

The car stopped and the driver got out.

“I’m going to get some food in my belly. If anything important happens call me. Otherwise I’ll go swing by the jazz club and waste an hour or two,” I said.

“You got it, boss.”

The driver opened the door and I stood outside a diner that looked like it was last cleaned in the 1950’s. I loved the style.

“I’ll be right across the street,” the driver said.

I nodded and entered and was assaulted with so many delicious smells my stomach roiled again. I couldn’t get to an empty table quick enough. Inside was surprisingly clean and bright.

The menu was too much for me since I was so hungry.

By the time the waitress, a pretty young blonde with a plastered smile on her face, came over to take my order I was ready.

“Cheeseburger. Hold the pickle. Add mayo. Order of fries. Order of onion rings. Coke,” I said.

“You want cheese on those fries?” she asked.

“If you’re going to twist my arm about it. . . yes,” I said, returning her fake smile.

As she walked away I wondered how many old men like me hit on her on a daily basis, and whether she finally smiled at night when she was counting the generous tip money these poor saps gave her. I was going to give her a big tip now out of embarrassment.

The diner was packed. I imagined mostly the working lunch crowd from the area or a few tourist families from Nebraska checking out the sights of the Big Apple.

A television over the counter was set on a cable news channel but I couldn’t hear what the talking head was saying. I wondered how big and far this cheerleader killing would get and if the police had already leaked about the white van.

I make it a habit, right after a job, not to worry about reading a newspaper or turning on the TV. If anything major had happened and I was in trouble I figured Marisa would let me know. Back when I’d first started I would spend the next two days changing channels to find an announcement, watching the news for some sliver of information. It was usually a waste of time.

I didn’t know off the top of my head how many jobs I’d done and I was too tired to count them right now. I could guess it was close to thirty, though. It might not seem like much but it took a lot out of me each time, before, during and after. Mentally it drains you. The thought of someone wanting a child dead always unnerved me. My mentor taught me a great lesson about this job: the day you felt like you were too old or you didn’t care or couldn’t cry about what you’d supposedly done was the day you turned it over to someone who cared.

I couldn’t argue with his logic.

A glass of Coke, the sides wet with condensation, was placed on the table before me. I thanked the waitress and stared out the window. My driver was in his car and staring across the street at me. I turned away. I was glad for the protection but not being watched so closely. I guess he was just doing his job.

The news anchor was still talking and there was no closed captioning. Even if there was my eyes were getting bad and there was no way I’d be able to read from this distance. I wondered if I was sitting at the counter could I follow along.

A family of four exited, camera around dad’s neck even though most people used their phones to take better pictures these days. It was amazing to see some of the prints for sports memorabilia and find out the original shot was with a phone.

My food arrived and I closed my eyes and folded my hands in my lap. I needed to say a quick prayer for the dead girl. I always did. I’m not a religious man but I do believe there’s someone upstairs looking over us and I like to give credit where credit is due. It never hurts to cover that base, either.

When I opened my eyes the two thugs were staring at me. They’d just walked into the diner and were doing the casual wander around the room, but I knew they were going to land in the booth with me soon enough.

I just wanted to eat.

A handful of fries were shoved into my mouth and I picked up my burger just as they arrived. They both slid into the booth across from me.

“Can I help you boys? Are you lost?” I asked, taking a bite of my burger and casually looking out the window.

I was not surprised to see my driver had left. Marisa needed to find a new service for me and put the word out this one couldn’t be trusted. In this business and most others, reputation was key. Without it you were nothing, and now the dead guy in the trunk had me questioning a few things.

But one crisis at a time.

“Our mutual friend wants to speak with you,” the bigger goon said. Don’t get me wrong. . . they were both really big and I had no doubt they could rip me apart without breaking a sweat. They looked like former football players, with no necks and never a smile. They looked like they’d been beaten like a junkyard dog as kids and now a guy like me was going to get the brunt of their bad childhoods and the fact their mama never hugged them.

“Which mutual friend would that be?” I asked around another handful of cheese fries, smiling inside when I saw my hand was shaking. I needed to bust some chops and be as snarky as possible or I’d lose it. I also needed to stall because I knew exactly who they were talking about.

Marisa’s
I told you so
was running through my head. Once again she was right. If you never had a face to face meeting with these horrible people they’d never know who you were and try to do horrible things to you.

The other goon leaned forward and scooped up half of my cheese fries remaining. I didn’t bother to tell him how rude it was.

I grabbed my burger before his buddy could take it. I was hungry.

“You know who wants to have a word with you,” the goon said around my fries in his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open, which I find disgusting.

“I guess it won’t matter if I tell you I’m busy today but I can fit a meeting in tomorrow or maybe next Tuesday?”

“Hurry up and finish your burger. Our car is waiting outside,” Goon #2 said.

“What about my car?” I asked.

They both smiled. “It drove away for some reason.”

“I don’t suppose I could hail a cab and follow you?”

“Quit stalling,” Goon #1 said. He eyed my burger.

I took a generous bite.

If today was going to be the day I died I wasn’t going out hungry.

They made me pay for my lunch and when I said I had to detour to the restroom they were having none of it. It was worth a try. Neither of them seemed too intelligent, but I guess they were smart enough.

I stepped out onto the sidewalk with the goons flanking me. I felt like a Mob boss and the people walking on the sidewalk gave wide berth to our trio.

“This way,” Goon #1 said, pointing down the street. There were several nondescript cars parked and I wondered how many were occupied right now with fellow goons with large guns.

I wasn’t going to be able to bluff my way out of this one right now. I really didn’t think a sit-down conversation with Chenzo was going to be anything but an end to my life.

I looked both ways down the street, toying with the insane idea of simply running away. Would their size slow them down? Would my age and bad knees even it out? If I bolted there was no turning back. I was a dead man. The innocent don’t run away, and I already knew why Chenzo wanted this chat. It wasn’t because he was curious about what I knew. It was because, all those many long years ago, he’d entrusted me with killing his kid and I’d failed him. He paid me a huge chunk of money to do this simple task. It was most of the seed money for the sports cards business, too.

Chenzo was going to kill me and bury me somewhere in New Jersey where they’d never find my body. I had no doubt he was going to make this meeting short and simple.

It’s crazy when you get older and start to see the end of the line coming closer. Even if I didn’t end up in a shallow grave with my face blown off, I was still getting close to the end of the line. It was times like this I was glad I felt so much older and had taken care of a few things.

Marisa gets everything. Plain and simple. She earned it, anyway. If it wasn’t for her automating my sports card business online and figuring out everything I needed to do to stay technologically advanced and relevant I’d be lost. Marisa had done it as a whiny teen, too.

As a fourteen year old she’d built the website from scratch and did all the data entry, since I do the two-finger peck typing and I’m not too fast.

In case you’re wondering, I was stalling in my own mind. I didn’t want to think about what the next move was because I already knew what was about to happen.

The goons hooked my arms and started walking me down the street. I guess they knew there was a very small chance I’d try to run.

I still didn’t know which of the black cars we were headed to, not that it mattered.

Was Chenzo actually here or would this be one of those long, painfully quiet rides across the river to the swamps of Jersey? I assumed he wanted this more dramatic so he’d be waiting for me at an abandoned warehouse or dilapidated factory somewhere on the Jersey shore with seagulls cawing in the background, finally startled by the gunshot that ended my life.

I’d like to think I had a great run but I still wanted to do stuff. I had a 1969 Topps baseball card collection to complete. Restaurants I hadn’t eaten at. Women I hadn’t stared at and never talked to.

“If I were you I’d let the boss do all of the talking,” Goon #1 said to me.

“I would have no problem switching places with either of you fine gentlemen,” I said. I wasn’t lying, either.

“Shut up,” Goon #2 said.

I wondered why they were even bothering to talk to me. Maybe they knew exactly what was coming. I glanced at both men as we walked. Which of them would be my killer? I knew Chenzo wasn’t going to get his hands dirty. When he made the decision to wipe me out it wouldn’t be like in bad Mob movies. He wouldn’t be tossing the first shovelful of dirt over my rotting corpse.

He’d be sitting poolside sipping a strong adult beverage and one of his cinderblock goons standing across the pool would tap his headset and then nod at Chenzo. It would be done. He could go on with his fabulously illegal life.

A car door down at the end of the line of cars opened and three men stepped out.

It figured they were all the way at the end. More walking for me. They were drawing this out quite dramatically. I’ll give Chenzo his props. The kids still say props, right?

The two goons did something odd. They stopped and tightened their grip on my arms.

My eyes aren’t what they used to be, so it took me a second to see who was walking towards us and why these goons were now in panic mode.

They both let go of my arms at once and I shrugged like I’d tossed them off. I needed to act like I was in charge of the situation even though it was probably obvious to everyone on the sidewalk with me I wasn’t.

Agent Reggie Keane, flanked by two of his own thugs, these wearing the FBI chic black suits and sunglasses, walked up with a grin and a flashing badge.

“Hey, James Gaffney, right? Funny running into you here. Mind if we have a word?” Reggie asked, looking at the two goons on either side of me instead of asking me. I thought it was rude but I wasn’t going to tell him right now.

I looked at the two next to me with a smile, slowly moving my head from one to the other. “Actually, I was just going to hang out with these two gentlemen. I’m not sure if we could reschedule?”

The two goons slowly backed away, looking at Keane. Again. . . no one cared I was standing here, too. They took a wide turn and headed down the sidewalk without looking back or offering a subtle threat in my direction.

They really didn’t have to. When Chenzo found out I was intercepted by the Feds en route to see him I was going to really be a dead man. For some reason a guy like Chenzo always looked at things from the worst-case scenario. I was obviously working with the FBI. Keane had painted a target on my back.

“You realize this isn’t a good time for me,” I said and tried to walk around Keane. His two boys weren’t letting me get very far, blocking my path.

“James Gaffney, I am placing you under arrest,” Keane said rather loudly.

“On what charges?”

“I don’t know. I’ll make them up as we go along,” he said quietly and spun me around. As he locked the handcuffs on my wrists he casually leaned close to my ear. “Chenzo and his men are a few cars back. They’re going to kill you. They know about his son, recently deceased. You’ve added a complication for Chenzo. He wants to simplify it with a burial. I’d shut up and keep your head down. He might even have the balls to shoot you in broad daylight in my custody.”

Great. Out of the frying pan and into the fire for me.

I let the FBI lead me down the sidewalk but I kept my head up. Not out of pride but because if I was shot I wanted to see it coming and know who it was so I could hopefully haunt them as a ghost. Now I hoped ghosts were real.

The goons got into a sedan in the backseat and the car pulled away from the curb, followed by the one behind and in front.

As the last car drove off slowly the back window came down and there sat Chenzo, and he didn’t look happy to see me for some reason.

I winked at the Family boss.

The car drove away and I started to shake.

“He’s going to kill me. Kill me dead,” I said to Keane. “You signed my death notice.”

“I saved your life,” Keane said.

We got to the last car on the block they’d gotten out of and it looked familiar.

My driver, the old guy who’d abandoned me when trouble showed up, was holding the door open for us. How thoughtful.

“You’re fired,” I said to the driver.