Cold City

  What–?

  And then he recognized her: Bonita. She was adjusting the blanket over him.

  He rubbed his eyes and sat up, mumbling, “Buenos dias, Bonita.”

  She grinned. “Es de noche.”

  She’d had a shower and been given clean clothes. Her slightly frizzy hair was pulled back into a short ponytail. She looked like a different person.

  He looked around. How could she tell? No windows here. How long had he been out? He’d had the damnedest time falling asleep on the cot, but when he’d finally dropped off, he must have crashed like a stone.

  She stepped back and ran her hands over her brand new pink sweatsuit.

  “Le gusta?”

  Did he like it? Most of the girls her age in the city would probably think the look was a total disaster, but to her this sweatsuit was obviously a fashion coup, and just might be the newest thing she had ever worn. Plus it was warm and practical.

  “Yes. I mean, Si. Me gusta mucho.” He smiled. “Muy bonita, Bonita.”

  She averted her gaze, and he wondered if anyone had ever told her she was pretty. She was. She had a dark beauty that would have fetched top dollar at the auction the Arabs had been planning.

  His stomach turned at the thought of what would have followed.

  Black strolled up.

  “Sleeping beauty awakens at last. Time to roll, Archie. Our work here is done. The girls are out of our hands now.”

  Jack looked at Bonita and fought a powerful protective urge. But he had to go. He told her he had to leave. He pointed to the bustling nurses who seemed tireless and told her they’d take good care of her.

  “No!” she wailed, tears springing into her eyes. “Yo necesito que me proteje!”

  He assured her that she didn’t need his protection, that the people here would keep her safe and see her home.

  With a sob she turned and ran off.

  “Let’s go, Archie,” Black said. “She’ll be fine.”

  Jack felt a little uneasy about leaving her. What if this was all a sham and the girls would be shunted to an auction as soon as he left?

  He shook it off. He had to get over that. Black and Blue had proven they had no compunction about pulling their triggers. No reason to spare Jack unless they were on the up and up.

  Jack followed him toward the truck. “Hope so.”

  “Having a little trouble letting go?”

  He shrugged. “That’s usually not a problem for me.”

  He’d let go of everything else in his life. Why the reluctance to let go of her?

  Black climbed in behind the wheel. “Maybe because you saved her life by preventing her from being drowned like a rat. Some say that makes you responsible for her.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  He wasn’t too comfortable with that. Being responsible for himself was turning into pretty much a full-time job.

  “And when you think about it, you didn’t just save her life, down on that beach in NC, you killed somebody to protect her. Yeah, no question about it: You two are bonded for eternity.”

  Swell, he thought as he dropped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  “Well, it’s going to be a really tenuous bond with me here in New York and her back in – where’s she from, anyway?”

  Black shrugged. “Don’t know. Could be Puerto Rico, could be the DR, could be as far away as Guatemala. Someplace where they speak Spanish. Our job is cutting them loose from whoever’s holding them, no matter where they come from. Getting them back there is her job.”

  “Does ‘her’ have a name?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t really expect me to tell you, do you?”

  No. Not really.

  “She here tonight?”

  Black didn’t bother answering, so Jack glanced through the windshield and saw Bonita staring at him. He waved, but she turned away.

  “The female of the species,” Black said. “Can’t make sense of them.”

  Jack shook his head. “I think she was counting on me safeguarding her all the way back home.”

  “You just might be the first hero she’s ever had.”

  Jack heard the garage doors rising behind them.

  “And I walked out on her.”

  “But you didn’t. You left her safe and in good hands.”

  “That’s not how she sees it.”

  As the truck started to back up, Jack tried to put Bonita out of his mind. She was better off right where she was, and staying there now was the best thing for her.

  “What’s the plan?”

  Black said, “My brother’s wiped down the other truck. He’s going to park it by a midtown fire hydrant and walk away. I’m going to drive you around for a bit, then get out and let you do whatever it is you do with your truck when you return from a run.”

  “And what’ll you do then?”

  “Train home.”

  “To the wife and kids and a blazing fireplace.”

  A prolonged silence followed, then, in a soft voice, “That’d be nice.” Black shook it off and tossed him the mask. “Time for hide and seek.”

  “Again?”

  “You seem okay, but the less you know, the better for all concerned, including you.”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “I shoot you in the eyes.”

  Not a blink, not a hint of hesitation or smile. Jack had posed the question for the hell of it, but he couldn’t tell if Black was kidding or not.

  “Then I guess I’ll put on the mask.”

  14

  Reggie was sure he was dying.

  His head hurt, maybe the worst headache of his life, but that paled against the agony blazing from his knees. He’d never felt anything like that. At first he thought he’d been kneecapped, but when his vision had finally cleared and he’d looked, he’d seen no blood. He’d felt them through his jeans, gingerly touching where they were swollen up like watermelons. Just broken…

  Just broken? Nothing just about it. He’d never hurt so much in his life. How? He had no memory of breaking them. And he’d probably never get a chance to remember because he wasn’t going to survive the night.

  He’d barely survived the day. He was cold, wet, exhausted, hungry and thirsty as all hell, and now the sun was down. That meant he was going to get colder and wetter, and with no food or water, weaker and weaker.

  When his vision had cleared, he’d spotted the roof of some sort of warehouse above the grass and reeds. After screaming his voice raw, he’d tried to stand, but that wasn’t possible by any stretch. Getting on his hands and knees was even more out of the question. So he'd tried to crawl on his belly but his broken knees howled as they were dragged over the rough ground. Finally he’d rolled over onto his back and managed to crawl that way through the grass.

  Took him fucking forever, but he made it to what he’d thought would be a road, but turned out to be little more than a rutted path. He tried again to scream for help, but could manage little more than a croak. His voice was shot.

  Reggie lowered his head and sobbed. If anyone used this road, it was once in a blue moon. Had to face it: He was a goner.

  He lay quiet, trying to remember how he’d come to this. Asshole Moose, disappearing, Reggie forced to take his place behind the wheel, arriving in Staten Island, meeting the –

  Holy shit! The shooters! And that guy… Archie… he’d slammed Reggie’s head against the door. Had he busted his knees? Reggie seemed to have a vague memory of –

  Yeah! Shit, yeah!

  Archie… standing over him… swinging a tire iron.

  Archie broke his knees.

  Reggie remembered someone else there, talking to him, but he never saw his face, and the words were a blur. But no mistake about Archie, that son of a bitch. He –

  Lights! Headlights coming down the road.

  Reggie dragged himself half onto the road and waved an arm. The car slowed, then stopped. A door opened and he heard voices babbling in a foreign tongue. He was lifted un
der the arms and dragged into the backseat of a car. His knees screamed at being bent and he would have screamed too if he had a voice.

  And then he saw who was dragging him and almost wished he’d stayed hidden in the grass.

  Arabs.

  15

  They’d been riding in silence for a while, with Jack safe inside his mask, wondering at the story behind these brothers. Where’d they get such a vendetta against pedophiles? Jack agreed the world would be a better place without them, but he wasn’t about to make a career out of hunting them down and administering street justice. Had they been abused as kids? That was the only reason he could imagine two brothers winding up on the same path.

  Then again, were they brothers? They sure as hell didn’t look alike. Then again–

  “Hey, Archie,” said Black. “You can take off the mask and sit up now.”

  “You’re not going to shoot me in the eyes if I catch a glimpse of the street?”

  He laughed. “Nah. In fact, I want you to see something.”

  Jack straightened from the floor and pulled the backward mask off his head. He looked around at five-story tenements with fire escapes clinging like spiders to their brick faces. At street level, a parade of XXX and PEEP SHOW and MASSAGE signs. The doorways sported shills and hustlers; the sidewalks were full of girls in hot pants.

  He spotted a passing street sign: 46 Street and Eighth Avenue.

  “Welcome to Hell’s Kitchen,” Black said. “Specifically, the Minnesota strip.”

  Jack had strolled here many times. Lots of offers of coke, weed, speed, rock, whatever, and come-ons from teen girls in hot pants – teen boys in hot pants too – though none as young as the kids in the trucks.

  “Never knew why it’s called that.”

  “Because back in the mid-seventies, Minnesota passed hard-assed anti-prostitution laws that drove all their hookers here. They do tons of business when conventions are in town.” He slowed and nodded toward Jack’s side window. “Check out the kid at two o’clock.”

  Jack peered at the bustling sidewalk and saw a young boy in tight leggings, a skintight shirt, androgynous blond hair, and heavy eye makeup, shivering on the curb.

  “Got him.”

  “Can’t be over fourteen, you think?”

  Jack gave him a closer look. The eyes looked old, but the rest of him… “Not a day.”

  “A chicken, waiting for a hawk.”

  Jack had heard the term – chicken hawks were older gays who went for young stuff. But this kid was definitely underage. He gave them a hopeful look. Jack shook his head.

  Black said, “He look like he wants to be out there?”

  “Looks like he’s freezing his butt off.”

  “Right. That means somebody’s running him. Wonder who?” He scanned the sidewalk as they moved on. “He won’t be far away.”

  Jack sighed. “Man, this is sad.”

  “Yeah. Ten blocks of the dregs of society. They’re on their way down, but haven’t quite hit bottom yet.”

  He stayed on Eighth up to 53, cut over to Ninth, then headed back downtown. Different here. Still some peep and massage places, but mostly dingy storefronts, the darker doorways offering temporary shelter to shapeless homeless folks with their plastic bags and shopping carts, their gender uncertain beneath myriad layers of grime and old clothes.

  A red light halted their downtown cruise at 44. Up ahead Jack could see the bus overpass arching above the street into the Port Authority’s upper levels. Suddenly his view was blocked by a splash of soapy water.

  “That window’s dirty as all get-out!” a voice shouted. “Needs a good cleanin’!”

  One of the dreaded squeegee men. A lot of them worked by intimidation. They’d clean your windshield without asking, then demand payment. Some of them got real nasty if you refused. This one was bearded and could have been forty or seventy. Jack pulled a single out of his wallet and rolled down the window.

  “Thanks,” he said, holding out the bill. “It really needed that.”

  “Pleased to be of service,” the guy said with a toothless grin.

  “You gotta be kidding,” Black said as the light changed and they rolled on. “These guys are a fucking plague. You don’t encourage them!”

  “The last thing I wanted was to draw attention to the truck. Well worth a buck to make him go away.”

  “Well, in that case, okay.” Black pointed ahead and to the right as they crossed the Deuce. “There’s rock bottom.”

  Skinny women, mostly various shades of brown, with a few whites sprinkled among them, stood along the curb under the overpass and hailed the passing cars headed for the Lincoln Tunnel or farther downtown. Their eyes were glazed and they looked unsteady on their feet.

  “Under the overpass – a favorite site for the crack whores. Doesn’t matter if it’s raining or snowing, they stay dry.”

  As Black slowed to give Jack a better look, one of them waved and pulled up her top to reveal saggy breasts. The one next to her did the same.

  “Know why they’re doing that?”

  Jack shook his head. “Well, if they think it’s enticing, they need to think again.”

  “It’s to show they’re female.” He barked a laugh. “Because some of those gals on the curb there ain’t gals at all.”

  “What’s to keep the ones who aren’t from getting implants?”

  “Can’t afford it. In their world, all your income either goes into your arm or up your nose.”

  They speeded up, continuing downtown.

  “That’s where your little girls – the ones who somehow survived years of sex slavery and enforced drug addiction – would eventually wind up. We prevented that. And that’s a good day’s work, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Jack thought of little Bonita out there. It made him ill. Yeah, it had been a good day’s work.

  Black turned east on 34, then headed back uptown on Eighth Avenue. He pulled into a loading zone near the Port Authority bus terminal.

  “We split here. You’re on your own.” He thrust out his hand. “You’re good people, Archie. You’ve got a lot to learn, but you’re gutsy and your head’s in the right place. Keep that compass pointing north.”

  They shook.

  Jack still hadn’t got a grip on Black and his brother. What was going on in their heads? Was this anti-pedophile “operation” as they called it a sideline or their life’s work?

  “Well,” Jack said, for lack of anything better, “it’s been interesting. Hardly a dull moment.”

  Black opened the driver door and slid out.

  “You hear or see anything you think might interest us, tell Abe to give us a holler. He knows how to reach us.”

  Abe seemed to know everybody, and everybody seemed to know – and trust – Abe.

  “And listen,” Black added, “my brother and I were talking. We like the way you handle yourself. Sometimes we need an extra hand along. You up for that?”

  What to say? These guys seemed on the up-and-up, but they had a lot of cowboy in them.

  Jack shrugged. “Depends on what’s involved. I’m not much of a shooter.”

  He smiled. “You can leave that to us. That’s our favorite part.”

  “I’m low on ammo anyway.”

  He laughed. “Abe vouches for you and you’re low on ammo? That’s rich.”

  Whatever that meant. Figuring turnaround was fair play, he said, “Call Abe if you need me.” He glanced over at the Port Authority. “Taking a bus somewhere?”

  Hard to believe he lived in Jersey.

  “Nah. Gonna walk up the Strip, see if that chicken’s still there.”

  “And if he is?”

  “I’ll see if I can scope out who’s running him.”

  “And if you do?”

  “Watch him, find out where he hangs, where he lives, who he associates with, how many kids he’s running, who else is in with him.”

  “And then what?”

  He shrugged. “People go missing al
l the time in this city.”

  The casualness of the remark sent a chill through Jack.

  “You two ever take a day off?”

  “My brother and me, we’re like rust.”

  Jack caught the reference. “A Neil Young fan?”

  Black winked. “We never sleep.”

  He slammed the door and walked around the front of the truck as Jack slid into the driver seat. He put it in gear and headed uptown, tooting as he passed. Black waved. In the side-view mirror, Jack watched him start walking up Eighth Avenue with his hands thrust into his jeans pockets, looking like just another New Yorker ambling along the West Side.

  No hint that he was a predator hunting other predators.

  16

  On the upside, the car was warm inside and the head Arab spoke English pretty well. When he heard Reggie’s voice, he had his driver run into a 7-Eleven and get some water. It wasn’t kindness. It enabled Reggie to talk.

  On the downside, he wanted answers and he wanted them now.

  “Our young friend here says he’s seen you before,” said the trim, well-dressed bearded guy who was obviously in charge. “I think you know where.”

  They’d positioned him on the backseat with his legs straight out on the cushions. His knees wouldn’t bend so they didn’t have much choice. A beefy guy was hunched behind the wheel, and a young, skinny, and scared looking Arab sat at the end of the rear seat by Reggie’s feet. The leader guy was twisted around in the front passenger seat to face him.

  No use in playing games.

  “I don’t remember him, but I know whereof you speak.”

  “Good. Then you know that our money is missing. We want it back.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “I will ask the questions. The money?”

  Reggie sipped the Poland Spring. “Wish I knew. A couple of guys mowed down your people and–”

  “Not my people, I assure you. Describe these… guys.”

  The scene was etched on Reggie’s brain. “Two guys in ski masks with submachine guns came out of nowhere and started shooting. I was in Archie’s truck at the moment–”

  “Archie?”

  “The new guy – that’s what we called him. They started shooting at us so we took off.”