Fear City (9 page)

“Hurry! She's probably waiting for a cab out front. Don't let her get away.”

Nasser rushed through the lobby and emerged onto the sidewalk just as a bellman closed a taxi door behind Danaë. Nasser ran to the line of waiting cabs and jumped into the rear of the first.

“You have to wait your turn, mister.”

“A hundred dollars if you follow that cab to wherever it's going!”

The taxi lurched into motion and caught up to Danaë's in no time.

 

THURSDAY

 

1

“Okay, you two guys listen and listen good,” Tony said. “Because here's how it's gonna go.”

Vinny had better things to do but Tony the Cannon had called the meeting for eleven this morning and wasn't taking no for an answer. Since Tony, sick though he was, hadn't stepped down as crew boss, Vinny obeyed. He showed up at Tony's appliance store on Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park a couple minutes early. He was surprised to find Tommy already there. Tommy glared. Vinny stared.

“Now I know things ain't good between you two,” Tony went on, looking small and frail behind his desk, “but that ain't gonna interfere with business. And speaking of business,” he said, focusing his hard dark eyes on Tommy, “you've been fucking off.”

Tommy spread his hands. “The business just ain't out there, Tony.”

“Bull
shit
! Don't try to gimme that. You just ain't been lookin'. Just this morning I got a call from an old customer about someone who wants a loan. So you know what? You're gonna go meet him at the taxi depot, and you're gonna check him out.”

“Sure, Tony.”

“Name's Mahmoud or something like that.”

“Mahmoud?” Tommy made a face. “We're loaning to ragheads?”

“We're loaning to guys who can pay back. If this guy can pay back, you make the fucking loan.”

“Awright. Gotcha.”

“And Vinny's going with you.”

Shit.

“Ay, Tony—” Vinny began but Tony karate chopped the air.

“You're both gonna spend some time together and iron out this beef you got with each other. But I'm setting some ground rules. First off, Vinny's junkyard stays his and his alone.”

“But—”

Another karate chop. “Vinny bought it. He let you in by the goodness of his heart as a favor to me. You left the business on your own. You don't go back unless he wants to take you back.” He looked at Vinny. “You want him back?”

“No way.”

“Then that's settled. But here's what you will do: You'll help Tommy get the loan business healthy again.
Capisce?
”

Vinny nodded. “
Capisco
.”

So there it was, all settled, all done. Their crew capo had spoken: Tommy was out of Preston Salvage and not coming back. That was the good news. The bad news was he'd be sharing a car with the jerk for the next few weeks.

“Which taxi depot we talking about?” Tommy said through clenched teeth. “Long Island City?”

“Nah. West Fifty-third—
way
west. Guy'll be there noonish.”

Tommy said, “What're we charging?”

“Twelve. But if that looks like a deal breaker, Vinny here will mention a special this week: ten.”

“And if he pulls some rug-merchant shit and tries to Jew us down?”

Tony stared at him. “Did you just say what I think you just said?”

Tommy looked around. “What?”

Tony sighed. “Never mind. If he don't like ten percent you bust his face for wasting your time.”

“You got it,” Vinny said. “I'll drive.”

No way was he going to try to squeeze into Tommy's Z.

“Damn right you will,” Tommy said.

 

2

If Tony thought putting them together in a car would ease things, he was dead wrong. Usually Vinny hated when Tommy sat in the back, making it look like Vinny was his chauffeur, but this trip he was glad for it. And usually Tommy talked nonstop, but he said maybe six words on the way across town.

The taxi depot turned out to be a long, one-story brick building with a rolling steel door. A few yellow cabs sat in the long lot next to it, the rest presumably out on the street hunting fares. Eleventh Avenue rumbled half a block away.

Turned out they were dealing with two Arabs—a tall one with weird red hair and a short one—who were looking for one loan of ten Gs. As the four of them stood in the cold on the sidewalk in front of the depot, Vinny took an instant dislike to both of them. Something not right about these bozos. They didn't even blink when Tommy said the vig was twelve percent per week. If it was up to Vinny he wouldn't lend them a friggin' dime.

But Tommy had had a couple of snorts on the way over from Ozone Park, so maybe his judgment wasn't the best. And since nothing else was happening for him, he was looking to do business.

“You got jobs?” Tommy said.

Both nodded.

The tall one said, “I drive a cab from here.”

“Yeah?” Tommy said. “Let's go in and check that out with the dispatcher.”

As they went inside, Vinny looked at the little guy.

“What's your name?”

“Kadir.”

“Kadir, eh. What kinda name is that?”

“I am from Palestine.”

The other guy had better English. This one's accent was so thick he shouldn't even have bothered trying English.

“What're you gonna do with this money, Kadir?”

His gaze slid away. “We are starting a business.”

“Yeah? What kind?”

“Delivery.”

Start a delivery business with ten grand? Good luck. Bad lie.

“You got a job, Kadir?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do?”

Again the sliding gaze. “I … I run a machine. I put labels on things.”

This was starting to make sense now. These guys weren't getting into a legit business they could talk about. Nothing wrong with less than legit.

“Where's this job?”

“In Jersey City.”

Tommy and the tall redhead returned.

“Okay. He's for real. What about this guy?”

“Does piece work over in Jersey City.”

“Yeah? Let's go see your boss.”

The little guy suddenly became hyper. “No-no! I cannot! He will not like that!”

Tommy grabbed him by the collar of his coat and dragged him toward Vinny's idling car.

“I said we're going to see your boss.”

As Tommy tossed him into the backseat, Vinny looked at the tall one, Mahmoud.

“You too.”

For an instant he looked like he might run for it, then shrugged and followed Kadir.

Looks like we're headed for Jersey City, Vinny thought.

 

3

Jack arrived promptly at noon, just ahead of the lunch rush, and got a table for two near the rear of Le Pistou. Still hated the name, but it seemed like a friendly enough place. He asked about French beers and Kronenbourg 1664 was suggested. It sounded more German than French, and the Germans knew beer, so he ordered.

He checked his watch: ten after. Well, she'd said noon
ish
.

He peeked at the menu and spotted a prix fixe lunch for $19.93. Weird number. Did they price it by the year? Could he have saved a penny by coming here back in December? He checked out the possibilities. It started with choice of garlic sausage in brioche or duck liver paté, followed by a hangar steak with French fries, or a navarin of lamb, or a duck, pork, and sausage cassoulet.

Helluva lunch for under twenty bucks. He could get to like this place.

He finished the beer and still no Cristin. The waiter was acting antsy. Jack spotted a phone in the corner near the restrooms and called her apartment. He left a message on her answering machine. He remembered she had a mobile phone and kicked himself for not getting her number.

He gave the waiter ten bucks for the beer and for blocking his table from paying customers, then went outside to wait. He wandered down to the corner of Lexington and Sixty-first, then back. Still no sign of her.

Had she forgotten? Not like her to forget. She lived a dozen blocks uptown and a little east of here. Easy walk. Why the hell not?

 

4

“All right,” Tommy was saying as he pointed to one raghead and then the other. “I know where you work and I know where you work.”

The four of them stood next to the Crown Vic outside the short one's workplace. Vinny now understood why he hadn't wanted them to check it out. Tommy had barged into the office, pushing Kadir ahead of him, and had got confirmation from the older fat raghead inside that Kadir did have a job there. Tommy had then bulled into the garage area and Vinny had followed. They'd both seen the labeling machines and the crates of cigarettes stacked against the wall.

“So how this loan is gonna work,” Tommy continued, “is you're both responsible. If one of you dies, the other is still on the hook. I'll show up at the depot back in the city at noon every Thursday and one of you had better be there with an envelope. If you ain't, and I gotta come looking for you, you'll wish you'd never been born.”

“Yes, we understand,” the short one said. “When can we get our money?”

Damn, he seemed anxious to lay his hands on cash. All the more reason not to give it to him.

“Tommy, you sure?”

That earned Vinny a glare. “You stay outta this. Just unlock the trunk.”

Clenching his teeth, Vinny keyed the trunk open and stepped back. He watched Tommy open the briefcase inside and put two rubber-banded stacks of fifty C-notes each into a manila envelope. He handed the envelope to Kadir.

“There you go. Ten Gs.” When Kadir started reaching into the envelope, Tommy slapped his hand. “It's all there. You can count it later.”

Kadir nodded and folded the envelope over.

Tommy said, “Just so's there's no confusion: You're gonna have one thousand two hundred bucks waiting for me at the taxi depot at noon one week from today. We clear on that?”

Kadir nodded. “Yes. Very clear. We will be there.”

“Good.” He glanced at Vinny. “Let's go.”

With Tommy in back again, Vinny got the Vic moving. He wasn't familiar with Jersey City—the ragheads had guided him in—but he remembered the route.

“‘You sure?'” Tommy said from behind. “What the fuck kinda thing is that to say?”

“I don't trust them.”

“Neither do I.”

“But you hand them ten large of Tony's money?”

“Yeah. 'Cause I know where they work. They try to stiff us, we squeeze the guys they work with till we find them. But yeah, I was on the fence till I saw the operation in that garage.”

“The cigarettes.”

“Right. The cigarettes. Like a way to print money. I want an excuse to come back here, because if I ain't getting a big piece of that action before spring arrives, I'll be getting it all.”

“You're moving in?”

“Damn right. I'll leave the main raghead in charge to keep his lines of distribution, but I'll be calling the shots.” He clapped his hands. “This is gonna be sweet.”

Sweet indeed, Vinny thought.

The only downside he could see—at least from where he stood—was the Jersey City location. The wrong side of the river. But he wasn't going to say nothing to discourage Tommy. The farther away, the better.

 

5

For the second time in half an hour, Jack punched the combination into the keypad at the entrance to Cristin's apartment building. He'd seen her enter it enough times to know it by heart. On his first trip he'd buzzed her unit but got no answer, so he'd let himself in and climbed the stairs to the third floor. Knocking on her door got the same response as the buzzer:
nada
.

Worst-case scenario? She'd suffered a heart attack or stroke during the night and was lying unconscious on the floor. No, even worse, she'd found a new boyfriend who'd strangled her when she wouldn't let him stay over—
no one
slept over at Cristin's.

All possible, none likely.

He didn't have a key so he'd cabbed home and back with his lock-picking tools. Back on the third floor, he knocked again on her door, but still no reply.

The hallway was empty and he had the Schlage open in thirty seconds. Calling out her name, he did a quick walk-through. No body on the floor, nothing out of place, the bed made, an empty coffee cup in the sink. All as normal as normal could be.

So why this gnawing unease?

Because Cristin was as efficient and organized as anyone he'd ever met. She had a calendar and a Rolodex embedded in her brain. She made her living planning events and that meant keeping appointments. If something had come up, she would have called Le Pistou. But she hadn't.

So where the hell was she?

He decided he'd be here to ask her when she came home.

He saw copies of
Vogue
and
Cosmopolitan
stacked on an end table. He sat on her sofa and picked one at random. This issue's cover blared
Cosmo's Annual Bedside Astrologer Tells What's in Store for You in 1993
.

Well, how could he resist that?

 

6

Kadir came out of the Space Station on Mallory Avenue waving the keys at the waiting car. He'd taken some of the freshly borrowed cash and rented a ten-by-ten-foot storage locker here while Mahmoud hurried off to round up Yousef and Salameh.

Salameh's battered green Nova was idling at the curb with him behind the wheel and Mahmoud beside him.

“We have a space,” Kadir said. “Now we have to fill it.” He slipped into the backseat beside Yousef. “Where to next?”

“We're meeting someone at City Chemical,” Yousef said.

“Someone? Who?”

“His name is Nidal Ayyad. I told you about him. He is the engineer who inspected the North Tower for us. But he works for a company called Allied Signal. We will need his contacts there.”