West 47th (2 page)

Whenever his ex-wife, Carmella, had found him at it, she'd call him a
spuce
(crazy) and slam the refrigerator door shut. He'd just grin his most intolerant grin, say fuck with a long f and claim he was only trying to decide what not to eat.

Ralph was constantly unfaithful to his diet as well as to Carmella. She was gone but that thirty pounds too many were still with him.

He got a stub of a pepperoni stick from the meat bin, closed the refrigerator and went up the back stairs.

Ralph's house was a nine-room, two-and-a-half-story Tudor situated in a residential area off upper North Avenue. Like most of the homes around there the twenties and thirties had been its better days. Ralph had lived in it nine years. During that time the side lawns had been mowed five times and the hedges trimmed twice. Upkeep, according to Ralph, was declogging a toilet with a plunger and throwing de-icer granules on the driveway a few times each winter.

It wasn't a house one could move about freely in, cluttered as it was with so much swag. A nine years' accumulation of things Ralph's crew of swifts had come in with. Jewelry was always their objective; however when a home didn't yield any jewelry, rather than waste the risk, they stole something. More often than not, even when they did score jewelry on their way out they'd throw something else into a pillowcase, some object they'd spotted and thought might possibly be of value.

“Why you bringing me this shit,” Ralph would complain. “You go out for goods, you come back with shit.”

He would indulge them, peel off an additional fifty or two for the lamp or vase or little bronze statue that he had neither use nor room for. It didn't matter that among these
extras
, as he called them, shoved beneath a sofa along with some swag scuba gear and a couple of swag VCRs, were two pair of Empire ormolu four-light
bras de lumière
worth at least twenty thousand. Or that the glass figurine of a girl gathering dust along with a crowd of bric-a-brac on the top surface of a stack of swag television sets was signed by Argy-Rousseau and worth twenty-five thousand. Or that those two blue vases in the legion of vases and lamps on the steps of the stairway were exceptional blue ground Meissen circa 1740 worth thirty thousand each.

It didn't matter because such things were beyond Ralph's appreciation and knowledge. All he knew and cared about was they weren't jewelry. Even if he had known that the Chinese-looking thing lost and lonely in a corner of the upstairs hallway was a gilt-bronze figure of an extremely rare eleven-headed Kuan-Yin, where would he sell it?

For some reason the swifts stole a lot of clocks. They were all around the house, upstairs and down. About fifty of them, at least fifty. On the fireplace mantel in Ralph's bedroom were six. An English brass carriage clock that had run out of time and four Seth Thomases with misleading antique faces. The other was truly old. It was mounted in Sevres porcelain and Louis XV ormolu. Ralph had seen a clock exactly like it, or perhaps this very clock, in a 1990 Sotheby auction sales catalogue. Its estimated auction price was twenty-five thousand.

No one Ralph could think of, not even one of his wealthy swagaddicted private clients, would give him twenty-five for it. Or even five.

“Shit Ralph, it's only a clock.”

“Worth twenty-five large. Look.” He'd show the auction catalogue
.

“Probably isn't even running.”

“It's been running for me. Besides I can have it fixed.”

“Pass.”

And he couldn't risk taking it to Sotheby's or Christie's hoping to have it auctioned. Their experts would most likely recognize it right off and never believe one of his highly original or ordinary lies.

So, there it sat in all its inconvertible spite, taunting him. Fucking clock, Ralph often said aloud at it. Someday it would get him so pissed he'd take it out somewhere and throw it in some dumpster.

Now he got dressed. No underwear. Sixty percent polyester slacks, the day-before-yesterday's shirt, Reeboks without socks and his Rolex Presidential. After patting his sparse hair into place he put to pocket a thousand in hundreds along with the slip of notepaper bearing the three plate numbers he'd gotten from Charlie.

Went out.

An unimpressive gray guy in a four-year-old Pontiac, that was Ralph.

He took North Avenue to where it offered exit 18 of the Hutchinson River Parkway. Two miles north on the Hutch he caught sight of the New York State Police patrol car. It was parked on the wide, inclined grassy shoulder with its lights off.

Ralph pulled off and stopped about twenty feet in front of the patrol car. He took a good look at it. The rain on its windshield prevented him from making out who was in it, whether or not it was Stempke. If it wasn't Stempke he'd simply ask some directions.

The rack on the patrol car came on, began rotating and strobing. Ralph walked back towards it. The grass of the shoulder had been recently mowed. Its slant was slippery beneath Ralph's Reeboks. He nearly went to a knee. The fresh-cut grass was fragrant in the damp, night air. Ralph took no notice of it. He had no side that appreciated such things.

The wet window of the patrol car descended into the door to reveal Officer Stempke. He was close to forty, had a round face with a nearly lipless slash of mouth and not enough space between his eyes. He held Ralph with his look for a long moment before doing a slight smile. “What say?” he greeted.

“I got three,” Ralph told him. He read them off so Stempke could jot them down. Ralph thought Stempke would read them back to check that he had them right, but he didn't, he went right at entering them in the patrol car's computer.

Ralph turned away. He wasn't interested in how it was being done, just wanted it done. Headlights of passing cars caught him and let him go. Tires made ripping sounds on the parkway's wet surface. Ralph started thinking about elsewhere. The midtown bust-out bar he spent a lot of his late-night time at. Not tonight. Tonight was business. Tonight would have a big score in it.

He pictured the swag that would be piled up on his kitchen table. Imagined his first sight of it. Spectacular goods. The guys on West 47 would beg just to get a look. It would take him the better part of a morning to count the thousands they would pay. (He didn't trust their counting machines. Besides, those machines took some of the pleasure out of it.)

Stempke was done. “Got a pen?” he asked.

“No.”

“You never have a pen. Get yourself some pens.” Stempke handed his pen to Ralph. An ordinary sixty-cent ballpoint. He was wearing gloves, was always careful that his touch never shared anything with Ralph's. Except for the money. “Keep it,” he told Ralph and in practically the same breath rapidly read aloud from his notes the names and addresses of the registered owners he'd gotten from accessing the Department of Motor Vehicles information terminal.

Ralph got only most of them. He asked Stempke to repeat them so he could fill in, and not until he was sure he had them right did he go into his pocket for Stempke's juice. He counted off six hundreds. “By now I ought to be eligible for a complimentary,” Ralph remarked lightheartedly but with a degree of serious suggestion.

“Against my principles,” Stempke told him.

Ralph drove home. He sat in his usual kitchen chair and phoned the Brooklyn number. He knew it so well that his finger almost performed it involuntarily.

A female voice answered, not one he recognized.

“Who's this?” he asked.

“Who's this wants to know who's this?”

She didn't sound black, Ralph thought. He disliked the idea of the swifts in his crew fucking around with white women. Not even street whites or pros. He didn't like the way he'd overheard the swifts talking about doing white women. He'd never said anything to them about it but that was how he felt.

“Floyd there?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

“Put Floyd on.”

“You haven't told me who's this.”

“Fuck you, put Floyd on.”

Next thing Ralph heard was dial tone. He redialed. This time Floyd picked up.

“Who's the cunt?” Ralph asked, irked.

“Nobody,” Floyd told him.

“She hung up on me.”

“Man, what do you give a shit?”

“You let a nobody cunt answer your phone on a Saturday night.”

“She was just closest to it.”

“Dumb thing,” Ralph grumbled. He took a couple of deep, calming breaths. “Who you got there?”

“Tracy and me and her.”

“Where's Ronnie?”

“He cut out.”

“When'll he be back?”

“I don't know, man. From the way the brother went he's gone.”

“It's Saturday night. His head must be up his ass. Did he take the car?”

“We don't want to work tonight,” Floyd said, as though that was all he had to say.

“Oh?” It wasn't an unusual problem. “What you got to do that's more important?” Ralph asked patiently.

“Nothing. Just hang out.”

Ralph handled it by going right through it. “Who can you get to drive?” The absent Ronnie was usually the driver.

Floyd didn't reply.

Ralph let the silence continue. It was now a matter of whichever spoke the next word. Finally, Floyd said: “I suppose I could get Dexter. He may be around.”

“I know Dexter?”

“He worked a couple of times.”

“When was that?”

“Two years ago.”

“I don't remember any Dexter. What's he been doing since?”

“Time.”

“Who else can you get?”

Floyd took a moment. “Corky maybe. He'll want a guarantee.”

“How much?”

“Five.”

“Corky's a fucking cowboy. Anyway, last time he worked he held out.”

“What did he hold out?”

“Two nice blues, a four carat and a six. The next afternoon the cocksucker was moving around Forty-seventh with them. He ended up taking shit.”

“How you know that?”

“I know Forty-seventh, Forty-seventh knows me.” Something Ralph said to influence certain situations. He enjoyed the cryptic quality of it. He believed the pause in their conversation was those words sinking in.

“We don't want to work tonight,” Floyd said.

Back to that. Ralph told him: “Just don't work Corky.”

“Not unless I have to, okay?”

“Yeah.”

“If I have to you'll come up with his guarantee?”

“Fuck no.”

“I ain't taking it out of my end.”

“Floyd, your end will be so big you won't even feel it.”

Chapter 2

Later that same night the white stretch Lincoln was headed for home on Interstate 78. Doing an easy eighty-five and sometimes ninety. The driver kept to the left lane, bullied any car that got in the way by coming up too close behind and blinking the brights.

Sherman, which was what the people in the back had chosen to call him, enjoyed driving. It was one of the things he'd missed when he was inside. He'd done seven of a five to ten and it wasn't until he was out and behind a steering wheel that he realized what a longing he'd had for it. Now, after two years of doing plenty of it, he still didn't feel he'd gotten even.

These people in the back. He glanced in the rearview mirror. As usual the glass partition was up. The man always insisted that it be up. As though that permitted him to be breathing a better kind of air. Also, as usual, the man was way over on the right, the woman way over on the left. A lot of seat between them and no talk. Sherman wondered why they hadn't wanted to call him by his real name. What was wrong with Donnell? It sounded as good as Sherman. It couldn't have been that they knew when he'd been born in San Juan his mother had intended that his birth certificate read Donald but she hadn't known how to spell it.

These people knew practically nothing about him. During long waits at the airport or anywhere, with one or the other waiting with him, it seemed there should have been some personal exchange. But nothing, not even once. To pass that kind of time he usually read some magazine, while they, if they looked his way at all, were satisfied with the back of his size twenty-two neck.

Didn't matter. The same disinterest right back at them. About all he knew about them was what he'd surmised from overhearing. They had money, they were Iranian, they'd been in this country since the early eighties. Their last name was Kalali. Mr. Abbas and Mrs. Roudabeth. Kal and Rhoda to some.

They paid him seven-fifty a week off the books. No benefits, no medical coverage or Social Security credit or anything like that. It was made clear that he wasn't to expect any meals; however, the housekeeper slipped him a sandwich now and then.

For the seven-fifty he was to drive wherever they wanted whenever they wanted. And to get between them and any trouble. Up to now, he'd had to use only his heft a couple of times to discourage overly aggressive panhandlers.

Sherman had given thought to what he might do if someone made a serious move on them, tried to kidnap or hold them up. There was no question in his mind about how he'd react. Not for a second would he put himself on the line.

Not for these assholes.

The white stretch passed a sign that said Millburn. It told Sherman he had eighteen miles to go to his third-hand Honda Civic and the beginning of his day off. He had a place reserved on one of the fishing boats out of Elizabeth Port, scheduled to leave the pier at five-thirty. By the time he got to his apartment in Irvington and got his gear together it would be three. He'd stay up.

“Sherman.”

Mr. Kalali on the intercom.

What you want dickhead? Sherman thought. What came out was “Yes, sir?”

“Lower the air conditioning. Mrs. Kalali is cold.”

Actually Mrs. Kalali hadn't said a word since the restaurant. It was Mr. Kalali who'd been uncomfortable with the temperature. To admit that, he believed, would be to disclose a weakness in his endurance. No matter how minor and commonplace such admissions might be, they were like demerits. They added up to the man.