Crisscross

“Yes, and I’d like to talk to you about it sometime.”

  “Forget it,” she said, her voice harsh now. “You think I’m an idiot?”

  A loud clatter broke the connection. Jack stared at his phone.

  What did I say?

  5

  Jack was late and Maggie was already waiting at Julio’s when he arrived.

  During his uptown ride on the 9 train he’d got to thinking about how he’d go about earning the money Maria had given him. Since he didn’t know a single Dormentalist—at least no one who admitted it—he’d have to be his own mole. Infiltrating the lower echelons would probably be easy, but wouldn’t get him access to membership records. He needed an advance placement course, or maybe become someone they’d usher into the inner circle.

  And that had given him an idea.

  So he’d made an unscheduled stop at Ernie’s ID and described what he needed. Ernie wasn’t so sure he could deliver.

  “I dunno, man. This ain’t my usual thing. Gonna hafta do a lotta research on this. Gonna take time. Gonna cost me.”

  Jack had said he’d cover all his expenses and make the extra effort more than worth his while. Ernie had liked that.

  As Jack entered the bar, Julio pointed out Maggie—no last name, which was fine with Jack—sitting at a rear table, talking to Patsy. Well, more like listening. Patsy was a semi-regular at Julio’s and a Patsy conversation usually consisted of him talking and the other party trying fruitlessly to get a word in. Jack could see Maggie nodding and looking uncomfortable in the rear dimness.

  Jack ambled over and laid a hand on Patsy’s shoulder.

  “This guy bothering you, lady?”

  Patsy jumped, then smiled when he saw Jack. “Hey, Jacko, how’s it goin’? I been keepin’ her company while she’s waitin’ for you.”

  He had a round face and a comb-over that started behind his ear. He wore double-knit slacks and watched the world through aviator glasses day and night, indoors and out. Wouldn’t surprise Jack if he wore them to bed.

  “That’s great, Patsy. What a guy. But now we’ve got some private talk, so if you don’t mind…”

  “Sure, sure.” As he began backing away he pointed to Maggie. “I’ll be at the bar. Think on what I said about dinner.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Really, I can’t. I have to be—”

  “Just think about it, that’s all I’m askin’.”

  Oh, and somehow along the way Patsy had got the idea that he was quite the ladies’ man.

  “I wish we didn’t have to meet in a bar,” Maggie said as Patsy sauntered away and Jack pulled up a chair.

  With a minimum of effort she could have looked okay. Fortyish with a pale face, so pale that if she told Jack she’d never been out in the sun, he’d believe her. Not a speck of makeup, thin lips, a nice nose, hazel eyes. She’d tucked her gray-streaked blond hair under a light blue knit hat that looked like flapperwear from the Roaring Twenties. As for her body, she appeared slim, but a bulky sweater and shapeless blue slacks smothered whatever moved beneath. Beat-up Reeboks completed the picture. She sat stiff and straight, as if her vertebrae had been switched for a steel rod. Her whole look seemed calculated to deflect male attention.

  If that was the case, it hadn’t worked with Patsy. But then, Patsy was game for anyone without a Y chromosome.

  “You don’t like Julio’s?” Jack said.

  “I don’t like bars—I don’t go to them and I don’t think they’re a good thing. Too many wives and children go hungry because of paychecks wasted in places like this, too many are beaten when the drinker comes home drunk.”

  Jack nodded. “Can’t argue with you on that, but I don’t think it happens much with these folk.”

  “What makes them so special?”

  “Most of them are single or divorced. They work hard but don’t have too many people to spend on but themselves. When they go home there’s no one to beat. Or love.”

  “What’s wrong with giving their drink money to charity?”

  Jack shook his head. This lady was no fun with a capital NO.

  “Because they’d rather spend it hanging out with friends.”

  “I can think of lots of ways to be with friends besides drinking.”

  Jack looked around at the bright afternoon sun angling through the front windows past the bare branches of the dead ficus and the desiccated hanging plants, so long deceased they’d become mummified. “Another Brick in the Wall” wafted from the jukebox, its metronomic beat augmented by Lou’s hammering at the GopherBash in the corner.

  What’s not to like?

  She’d been just as uptight yesterday at their first meeting. He found it hard to believe that this priss was being blackmailed. What had she ever done that would let someone get a hook into her?

  Her hands were clasped together on the table before her in an interlocking deathgrip. Jack reached over and gave them a gentle pat.

  “I’m not the enemy here, Maggie.”

  Her shoulders slumped as she closed her eyes and leaned back. Tears rimmed her lids when she looked at him again.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s just that I’m not a bad person. I’ve been good, I’ve lived a clean life, I’ve sacrificed for others, done good works, given to charity. Criminals, mobsters, drug dealers, they commit crimes every day and go about their lives unscathed. Me, I make one little mistake, just one, and my whole world is threatened.”

  If she was telling the truth, and Jack believed she was, he was sorry for her. He couldn’t help responding to the hurt, fright, and vulnerability seeping through her facade.

  “That’s because you’ve got something to protect—a job, a family, a reputation, your dignity. They don’t.”

  Maggie had been under a blackmailer’s thumb since August. All she would say about the hook was that someone had photos of her that she’d rather not be made public. He’d been squeezing her and she was just about tapped out. She wouldn’t say what was in the photos. She admitted that she was in them, but that was it. Fine with Jack. If he found the blackmailer and the photos, he’d know. If not, none of his business.

  “And another difference between you and the sleazeballs is they’ll hunt down a blackmailer and rip his lungs out. You won’t, and this oxygen waster knows it. That’s where I come in.”

  Her eyes widened. “I don’t want anyone’s lungs ripped out!”

  Jack laughed. “Figure of speech. Probably better than this guy deserves, and it would be way too messy.”

  She stared at him a moment, an uneasy light in her eyes, then glanced around. Though no one was in earshot, she lowered her voice.

  “The person who gave me your name warned that you played ‘rough.’ I’m against violence. I just want those pictures back.”

  “I’m not a hitman,” he told her, “but this guy’s not going to just hand over those pictures, even if I say pretty please. I’ll try to get it done without him knowing who I’m working for, but a little rough and tumble may be unavoidable.”

  She grimaced. “Just as long as no lungs are ripped out.”

  Jack laughed. “Forget lungs, I want to know who told you I played rough. What’s his name?”

  A hint of a smile curved her thin lips. “Who said it was a he?”

  She wasn’t going to come across. All right, he’d wait. And watch. Customers without references earned extra scrutiny.

  “Okay. First things first: Did you bring the first half of my fee?”

  She looked away. “I don’t have it all. I had very little money in the first place, and so much of that is gone, used up paying this…beast.” It seemed to take an effort to call her blackmailer a name. Who was this lady? “I was wondering…could I pay you in installments?”

  Jack leaned back and stared at her. His impulse was to say, Forget it. He didn’t do this for fun. Too often a fix-it involved putting his skin on the line; might be different if he had a replacement, but this skin was his one and only. So he liked a good portion of his
fee up front. Installments meant a continuing relationship, excuses for being late, and on and on. He didn’t want to be a bank, and he didn’t want a long-term customer relationship. He wanted to get in, get out, and say good-bye.

  And besides, dealing with a blackmailer could get ugly.

  But the twenty-five large nesting in his pocket brought back the previous owner’s words…

  Use whatever is left over to offset the fee for someone who can’t afford you…

  Maybe a lady who said she did good works and gave to charity deserved a little herself.

  Still, he couldn’t bring himself to agree right away.

  “Well, like I told you yesterday, this could be a tough job, with no guarantees. Getting your photos isn’t enough. I have to get the negatives as well. But if he used a digital camera, there won’t be any. Digital photos will exist on a hard drive somewhere, and most likely on a backup disk somewhere else. Finding all that will take time. But that’s Stage Two. Stage One is finding out who is blackmailing you.”

  She shook her head. “I just can’t imagine…”

  “Got to be someone who knows you. Once we identify him, we’ll need to steal all copies of whatever it is he’s holding over you without him knowing you were behind it.”

  “How can you do that?”

  “The ideal scenario is to make it look like an accident—say, a fire. But that’s not always feasible. If you’re not his only victim—I know of one guy who’s made a career out of blackmail—it makes things a little easier.”

  “How?”

  “I can liberate more than just your stuff.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If he’s got multiple victims and just your stuff winds up missing, he’ll know it was you. If I wipe out everything I find, he’ll have a number of suspects. But even with your stuff gone, he’ll keep trying to squeeze you.”

  “But how—?”

  “He’ll assume you’ll think he still has the photos. That’s why we have to pave a way out for you.”

  “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

  He nodded. The blackmail industry kept his phone ringing. Most victims couldn’t go to the cops because that meant revealing the very thing they were paying the leech to keep under wraps. They imagined a trial, their secret trumpeted in the papers, or at the very least making the public record. A certain percentage, pushed to the point where they couldn’t or wouldn’t take it anymore, decided to seek a solution outside the system. That was where Jack came in.

  “Many times. Maybe even for your unnamed source.”

  “Oh, no. He’d never—” Her hand flew to her mouth.

  Gotcha, Jack thought, but didn’t make an issue of it. He’d narrowed down her source to a little less than half the population. At least it was a start.

  “As for the installments…we’ll work something out.”

  She smiled, this time revealing even white teeth. “Thank you. I’ll see you get your money, every penny of it.” She dug into her black no-name pocketbook. “I was able to bring the hundred dollars you asked for.”

  She handed him a hundred-dollar bill and two folded sheets of paper.

  Jack slipped the bill under his sweater and into the breast pocket of his shirt. The blackmailer had demanded a thousand as his next payment. He was going to get only a fraction of that. And Jack was going to send it.

  He had a reason for doing it himself. But more important, the payment would allow him to track down the blackmailer. He’d done this before: Send the money in a padded envelope with a dime-size transponder hidden in the lining, then follow the transponder.

  He unfolded the first sheet of paper—Maggie’s perfect Palmer-method handwritten note saying she didn’t have any more to send at the moment. Good. Just what he’d told her to write. The second was the address. The money was supposed to go to “Occupant.” A street address and a number followed—plainly a mail drop. Jack did a double take at the street—Tremont Avenue in the Bronx…Box 224.

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I know that address and I know who’s blackmailing you.”

  “Who?”

  “A walking, talking virus.”

  “But what’s his name?”

  Jack could see his round, sweaty-jowled face with eyes and mouth crowded close to the center of his face, held there by the gravitational field of his big, pushed-up nose. Richie Cordova, a fat, no good, rotten, useless glob of protoplasm. Not two months ago Jack had ruined most of Cordova’s stash of blackmail goodies. Obviously he’d missed Maggie’s photos.

  “Nobody you’d know. He’s the guy I mentioned before, who’s made a career out of blackmail.”

  Maggie looked frightened. “But how did he get those pictures of me and…?”

  And who? Jack wondered. Male or female?

  He had a pretty good idea of how it had gone down. Cordova’s legit grind was private investigations. Someone hired him for a job that had put him in Maggie’s orbit. The shitbum spotted something hinky, took a few pictures, and now was using them to supplement his income.

  “Bad luck. The wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  She leaned forward. “I want his name.”

  “Better you don’t know. It can’t do you any good. Might even buy you some trouble.” He looked at her. “I mean it.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “You believe in the soul, I assume?”

  “Of course.”

  “This guy’s is a petri dish.”

  She slumped again. “This is terrible.”

  “Not really. Granted you’ve got a better chance of goof-ups if you’re on the string to an amateur than a pro, but I’ve already dealt with this particular pro. I know where he lives and where he works. I’ll get your photos back.”

  She brightened. “You will?”

  “Well, maybe I shouldn’t guarantee anything, but we’ve gone from Stage One to Stage Two in a matter of minutes. That’s a record. We still have to send him that money though.”

  “Why? I thought that was to trace him. If you already know who he is—”

  “There’s a reason we’re shorting him. I want to rattle his cage, make him get in touch with you. When he calls, you’ve got to cry poverty—”

  She barked a bitter little laugh. “It won’t be an act, I can tell you that.”

  “Be convincing. What that does is set the stage for your sending him no more money when and if I retrieve your photos. You simply haven’t got it. Remember, he’s got a lot invested in his blackmail assets. We don’t want him connecting you to losing them. No telling what he’ll do.”

  Instead of looking concerned, Maggie smiled as if a terrible burden had been lifted.

  “This is going to work, isn’t it,” she said.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “No, it is. I can feel it. God turned away from me for a while—not without good reason—but now I see His hand again in my life. He led me to you, to someone who has already dealt with my tormentor. That can’t be just a coincidence.”

  Coincidence…

  Jack felt his shoulders tighten. He hated coincidences.

  6

  Jack watched Maggie leave, nimbly sliding past Patsy as she gave him the brush.

  Months ago a lady—a Russian lady with a big white dog—had told him there’d be no more coincidences in his life. He’d seen no hard evidence yet that she’d been right, but certain incidents that he might otherwise consider happenstance seemed to form a pattern when he looked for one. True, you could always find connections if you looked hard enough and stretched the imagination. That was how conspiracy theories were born.

  But Maggie had it right: Her picking him to help her with Cordova seemed like a hell of a coincidence. On the other hand, Cordova did a lot of blackmailing. It wasn’t impossible that two of his victims—Emil Jankowski in September and Maggie here at the tail end of October—would call on Jack. Not too
much competition in the fix-it field.

  Still…

  He popped out of his seat and headed for the door, waving to Julio as he passed the bar.

  Out on the street he peered up and down the sidewalk until he spotted Maggie’s blue knit hat bouncing away to his right. He took off after her, keeping his distance. He hoped she’d snag a cab but no, she bounded down the steps of a subway entrance.

  Damn. Following her on a Sunday wouldn’t be easy. No crowds to hide in. With a mental shrug he headed down. The worst that could happen was she’d spot him and he’d have to ad lib an explanation.

  He hung back on the stairs till he saw her head for the downtown side. When she hopped on an A train he slipped into the following car and positioned himself where he could watch her through the glass. She pulled a book from her bag but didn’t open it. She stared at the floor, looking lost, as if the worries of the world were all hers.

  She rode that way down to West Fourth where she switched to the F. Along the way she didn’t look around much, too lost in her thoughts to notice anyone following.

  She stepped off at Delancey and Jack followed her up to the streets of the Lower East Side. The buildings here were former tenements that maxed out at five stories. Canopied oriental and kosher food stores sat cheek by jowl along the stained gray sidewalk.

  He gave her a block lead but grew a little uneasy as he started to recognize his surroundings. He’d come down here just last August to confront a priest who had hired him but managed to pull one over on him. What was his name? Father Ed. Right. Father Edward Halloran. His church had been around here somewhere, St. Somebody-or—

  He stopped dead as he followed Maggie around a corner. There, across the street, looming over the surrounding tenements, sat the hulking, Gothic, granite-block mass of the Church of St. Joseph. The old building wasn’t in any better shape than the last time he’d seen it. The large rose window centered over the double doors was caked with grime, as were its twin crocketed spires, but the latter boasted the added decoration of white stripes à la city squab.

  The doors stood open and people, mostly older with an immigrant look, were wandering inside.