Where was Julio’s cologne when you needed it? Even his worst was better than this.
Julio pushed the seat back and checked under the steering column. He found what he wanted and put the Phillips to work. In less than a minute he’d popped the plastic cowl. He tossed that in the backseat and tugged some wires loose.
“See the two reds? One’s always hot, the other’s not until the key turns and connects them. Since we don’t have a key, we connect them by hand.”
Jack played naïve as Julio put on the pink rubber gloves.
“That color is so you,” Jack said.
“Hot pink to help a hot guy do a hot wire.”
Snip-snip, strip-strip, twist-twist, and the wires were joined. Jack jumped as Richard Neer’s voice came through the radio.
Julio grinned. “Easy, man. It’s only the FAN.”
Jack turned it off. He’d noticed a change in Julio’s diction since he’d entered the car.
“What happened to ‘meng’?”
Julio looked flustered for a second. “Oh, yeah, well, that’s just my Rican thing. Gotta project a certain amount of street, y’know?”
“You a native?”
“Full blood Nuyorican – born in Harlem Hospital, grew up on East 102.”
“You sound like you grew up speaking English.”
“Yeah. My mother insisted. My grandmother never learned so we had to speak Spanish to her, but the rest of the time it was English all the way. I could sound pure gringo if I wanted to, but I don’t. ’Cause I ain’t pure gringo. I’m no kinda gringo.”
“I hear you, meng.”
Julio dropped his head and groaned, then looked at Jack. “I say this as a friend: You don’t ever wanna do that.”
For kicks, Jack pushed it. “Really? I don’t sound ‘street’?”
“No, you sound beat – as in lame, not -nik.”
“I get the feeling you’re saying I’m too white bread to be street.”
“In a nicer way, but yeah, that’s what I was getting at. You saying ‘meng’ is wrong in so many ways, too many to count. It’s wrong like… like turkey-flavored ice cream is wrong.”
Jack’s gorge rose at the thought. “That wrong?”
“Yeah, that wrong. Anyway, the red wire’s now hot–”
“Thus the term ‘hot wire.’”
Julio gave him a sour look.
Jack shrugged. “Can’t help it. When I was a kid I ruled at Master of the Obvious.”
“We don’t play that in Harlem, but I believe it. Okay. Here’s your ignition wire.”
He snipped that and stripped a half inch of insulation from the tip.
“Now watch,” he said.
As he put his foot on the gas, he touched the ignition wire to the exposed area of the hot wire. The engine roared to life.
“You da meng!” Jack said.
Julio’s face showed real pain. “Jack… please?”
“Okay, okay.”
Julio put it into gear and pulled out onto the street.
“We head for the Bronx.”
Jack couldn’t resist: “No thonx.”
4
Julio drove him to a mixed commercial-residential area along Crosby Street in the Pelham Bay section. It reminded Jack a little of his own current neighborhood.
Julio pointed to some apartments over an Italian bakery. “The hijo de puta lives on the third floor there.”
“Think he’s home?”
Julio shrugged. “Who knows?”
“You know his number?”
“By heart. I call him alla time, tellin’ him to stay away from Rosa.”
Jack pointed to a phone booth a block up. “Pull in up there and tell me the number.”
Jack hopped out, dropped a coin, and punched in the number. He hung up when a man answered.
Yep. Home.
They parked the car and wandered into a used bookstore across the street. The delicious smell of old paper engulfed him as he stepped inside the door. Two small tables, each flanked by a pair of ladderback chairs sat in the sunlight streaming through the window. He found a bin full of paperback books with their covers missing. Fifty cents apiece. Such a deal, as Abe might say. Keeping an eye on Zalesky’s door through the front window, he poked through them until he found an author he’d heard of. Robert Ludlum: The Icarus Agenda. Hadn’t read that one. For half a buck, how could he say no? He found a Stephen King novel for Julio.
A carafe of coffee sat beside the cash register. Jack paid for the books and two paper cups. They each poured themselves a cup and settled at one of the sun-soaked tables.
Julio looked askance at the coverless book. “This is all messed up, meng.”
“The whole box was like that.”
“We gonna sit here and read?”
“No, we’re gonna pretend to read while we keep an eye on the hijo de puta’s doorway.”
“Hey, you say that pretty good.”
Well, why not? He’d heard Julio say it enough times.
Jack flipped the title page and the first thing that caught his eye was a warning:
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
Swell.
So far this week he’d smuggled illegal alien minors across numerous state lines, killed one man, broke another’s knees, and now this.
A life of crime, that’s what I’m living.
He started reading. He was participating in robbing an author of a royalty. Not quite on a par with the rest of the week, but still it bothered him. However, he’d already bought it and needed it for a prop. Could be a long while before a hijo de puta sighting.
Not so long, it turned out. Less than two hours later, a trim, darkly handsome guy in his early thirties stepped out of the door next to the bakery.
“That him?”
Julio looked up. His lips twisted into a snarl as his fists crushed the book. He opened his mouth to speak–
“Never mind,” Jack said, rising. “I’m going to follow him.” Julio began to push back his chair but Jack waved him down. “Stay put.”
“But–”
“He knows you. Never seen me.”
Jack stepped out into the cold fall air. He’d been getting a little drowsy inside and found it bracing.
Zalesky was wearing a dark suit with a white shirt and conservative striped tie. A long way from the Saturday morning dress code of his neighbors. As he walked south he adjusted a dark fedora over his slicked-back hair. Looked like he was on his way to a Mormon prayer meeting. Or a con.
Jack followed him around the corner onto Roberts Avenue to a plain black Dodge Dynasty sedan parked on the street. As Zalesky got in and started the engine, Jack realized he was pointed away from Crosby. If he headed up that way, they’d lose him. He looked around for a taxi. He could follow and call Julio later. His pulse picked up a little as he realized the street showed not a trace of yellow. To Jack’s relief, Zalesky pulled out of his space, did a three-point turn, then cruised back Jack’s way.
Jack turned and beat him back to Crosby. Zalesky passed him on the corner and turned south. Jack ran to the bookstore and signaled Julio through the window.
“Come on! Gotta move!”
He and Julio raced for their car and got it rolling. Fortunately, lots of other cars were traveling south on Crosby as well and Zalesky hadn’t gone far.
Even better when Zalesky turned into a car wash. Julio pulled over and they waited.
“Car don’t even look dirty,” Julio said.
“I’ll bet he’s got a good reason for wanting it spotless.”
“Meeting a mark?”
“Why else?”
They waited. About five minutes later the Dodge, all shiny and glittering with a few remaining drops of water, emerged from the car wash and turned their way.
Julio trailed
Zalesky to the Bruckner, and then all the way south to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. They exited the BQE into Brooklyn Heights. Jack admired the panoramic view of the lower half of Manhattan Island. Beautiful, even if marred by the jutting towers of the World Trade Center. Jack called them the Twix Towers. They weren’t simply too damn big, they were obnoxiously unimaginative, unbalancing the skyline. He might have forgiven them all that, but then they’d gone and provided a location for that awful remake of King Kong. Unforgivable.
“Looks like we’re in Moonstruck territory,” he said aloud.
“What’s Moonstruck?” Julio said.
“A movie. With Cher.”
Julio grinned. “You a Cher fan?”
“She’s okay. Got dragged to it. It was set right around here.”
Karina had wanted to see it when she was home that first Christmas break after starting college. Nicolas Cage must have turned her on because the sex was hotter than usual that night.
These local streets were slow and narrow, and Jack started to worry that Julio was staying too close behind Zalesky.
“Let a car or two get between us.”
“I might lose him.”
“Better than him realizing he’s being tailed. Worse yet, recognizing you through the windshield.”
“Got it.”
True to his word, at the next opportunity he let a car pull out of a parking space and get between him and Zalesky.
Jack figured losing Zalesky would be bad luck, but it left the option of following him another day. If they were made, however, Zalesky would be on guard from then on and another chance would be unlikely.
They followed the Dodge on a winding path until it double-parked before a three-story row house. Jack turned his head as Julio glided past.
“What now?”
Jack thought about that. He’d been playing this by ear. He still wasn’t sure he was going to see anything happen today, although the suit, the tie, and getting the car washed were pretty good indications.
“Drive around the block and park where we can watch.”
Julio did just that and idled in a no-parking zone by a fire hydrant with a view of the row house and the Dodge. A few minutes later Zalesky emerged with a dowdy woman who appeared to be in her seventies. He held the door for her as she lowered herself into the rear of the Dodge, then he walked around to the driver side.
“That looks like one of the marks he used to brag about to Rosa.”
“Always old ladies?”
“Sometimes old guys, but mostly the ladies. Mostly because he’s a charmer. You know, good looking, big smile, talks the talk. People like him. Even I liked him. Didn’t like him sniffing after Rosa but she was loco for him and I was her younger brother, so what did I know about love?”
“Why old? No jealous boyfriends to get in the way?”
“You’d think, but he told her he needed his marks from a certain generation because he had to be able to ‘appeal to their sense of civic duty.’”
“He said that? Their ‘civic duty’? What the hell did that mean?”
“Yeah. I asked Rosa but she didn’t know. He wouldn’t say. Wouldn’t say a lot about his scams. Said it was ‘proprietary information.’” Julio shook his head. “Told her not to marry a gringo.”
“Hey, we’re not all bad.”
“Ain’t sayin’ that. But if she stayed in the community, well, we got ways of handling certain situations.”
Jack understood. “But Zalesky’s out of reach. Nobody can take him aside and straighten him out.”
“Some guys don’t straighten out so easy. Some never do. That hijo de puta is one of those. But he ain’t outa reach. He may think so, but he ain’t.”
Jack wanted to keep him out of reach of Julio’s bat – for Julio’s sake.
“How does this work again?” Jack said.
Julio shrugged. “Don’t ’xactly know. Like the man say, ‘proprietary information’ and all that. He told her he convinces the marks to take money out of their bank accounts and give it to him. How he do that, I dunno.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
“Okay. First thing the hijo de puta do is he find himself a lonely old person. Some guy who lose his wife, some lady who lose her husband. Like I said, he prefer the ladies ’cause he so fucking charming. That how my Rosa fall for him. But he swing both ways as long as they got enough money.”
Jack couldn’t help making a face. “This doesn’t involve sex, does it?”
Julio laughed. “Doubt it, meng, but nothin’ too low for that–”
“–hijo de puta, right. But where’s this ‘civic duty’ come in?”
“Don’t know. He showed Rosa some kinda badge once, said he pretends to fight fraud. Ain’t that somethin’? The hijo de puta con man pretends he’s fighting fraud.”
“Well, if I wanted to rob somebody who had a burglar alarm, I’d pretend to be a burglar-alarm repairman.”
When Julio didn’t respond, he looked over and found him staring.
“What?”
“You been planning to rob a place with a burglar alarm? Or that just pop off the top of your head? ’Cause either way it’s kinda scary.”
Jack didn’t think so. Just seemed logical.
“So somehow he gets them to help him fight fraud by giving him money? Doesn’t make sense. He makes a living out of this?”
Julio nodded. “Six figures.”
“Yow. Doesn’t anyone report him?”
“Who knows? All I know is he don’t get caught. At least not yet. He did tell Rosa he make a point of not cleaning them out. He sting them and move on. They poorer and he’s richer.”
Jack thought about someone doing that to his grandmother when she was alive. Or old Mrs. Clevenger from town. He frowned. Why had he thought of her? She hadn’t seemed like the type to fall for a scam. He shrugged it off. Didn’t matter.
Either way, it would have pissed him off.
The next leg of the trip was short. They followed the Dodge a few blocks to the local Chemical Bank branch. Again Zalesky did the chauffeur thing by opening the rear door for the mark. She stepped out carrying a small black briefcase and went inside.
“What’s this?” Jack said.
“Only thing I can see happening in there is she’s gonna fill that thing with cash.”
Jack shook his head. “Does not compute. If I’m a bank teller and I see a little old lady coming in to withdraw a large amount of cash, I’m suspicious. I’m wondering if maybe this lady is being coerced – you know, someone’s holding a gun to the head of her grandson or her cat until she comes up with the money.”
“I dunno, meng.”
Less than ten minutes later she emerged and reentered the car.
“That was quick,” Jack said. “Gotta be something else going down.”
They followed the Dodge a short distance until it parked. Julio found a space for their car where they could sit and watch it idle.
“What the hell?” Jack said.
This was weird. If Jack hadn’t been told this was a con, he might have expected Zalesky – sorry, the hijo de puta – to clock her, kick her out of the car, and run off with the money. But that would change it from a con to a mugging. He would have paid a princely sum to know what was being said in that car.
Suddenly the driver door opened and Zalesky stepped out with what looked like the same briefcase. Only this one had two pieces of bright yellow tape stretched across the top, one over each lock. He placed it in the trunk and returned to the driver seat.
Jack was baffled. He glanced at Julio. “Does any of this make any sense to you? Ring any bells from what Rosa told you?”
Julio shook his head. “No. Nothing.”
After a twenty-minute wait, Zalesky retrieved a taped briefcase from the trunk and returned to the car.
“Okay,” Jack said. “He had two identical briefcases in the trunk. He puts in the one with the cash and takes out the duplicate filled with – what? Newspapers? But no m
ark is that stupid. Anyone with half a brain is going to open that briefcase to make sure the money’s still there.”
The Dodge started moving again, straight back to the row house where Zalesky opened the rear door for the lady who emerged with the briefcase – sans tape. He walked her to her door and, after a brief hug, hurried back to the car and sped off.
“A hug?” Jack said, totally bewildered. “He gets a hug? What’s going down here?”
“Told you the culo was smooth.”
Yeah, but this was beyond smooth. This was supernatural.
As Jack watched him drive off, he wondered if there was anything here he could turn against Zalesky. He didn’t see it. He didn’t know enough. At least not now.
But letting him drive away with that old lady’s money didn’t sit well either.
“Keep on him,” Jack said.
5
Zalesky drove straight back to Pelham Bay, found a parking spot on the same street as before, and reentered his front door carrying the briefcase.
“Gotta go,” Julio said. “Gotta open up. Gotta keep the place open as many hours as possible.”
“Keeping that baseball bat behind the bar wouldn’t hurt either.”
Julio smiled. “I hear you, meng.”
“Go ahead,” Jack said. “Take the car. I’ll train home.” During their cruising around he’d noticed elevated tracks a couple of blocks away. The subway wasn’t sub this far up in the Bronx.
Jack let Julio roar off and returned to the bookstore where he pretended to browse but kept his eye on Zalesky's door.
He didn't have to browse long. Zalesky popped back out a few minutes later – in casual clothes and with no briefcase – and headed in the opposite direction with the stride of a man who knew where he was going.
Jack followed, but not before passing close enough to Zalesky's door to see what kind of lock it had. A Schlage. Good. He knew Schlages inside and out.
Jack closed in on Zalesky and checked him out. He’d changed into jeans and a sweatshirt. Did he have the old lady’s cash on him? Probably not. Didn’t make sense to carry heavy cash. Which meant he’d left it in his apartment. Did he stash all his dough there as Jack did, or did he have a safe deposit box somewhere? He was a real citizen with a real-person identity, and a box would make better sense than a cash cache or a bank account. An account would track deposits and withdrawals; if he ever was investigated for anything, the IRS might want to know the source of those deposits and why taxes hadn’t been paid on them.