Cold City

  “Hurting that bad?”

  “Hemorrhaging. Place’ll be in the morgue with a toe tag soon. Then where will Lou and me and Julio go?”

  “Down by the schoolyard?”

  The guy gave him a stare, then shifted to Bertel. “The kid all right in the head?”

  Bertel stared at his beer. “Yet to be determined.”

  Back to Jack with an offended look. “You sayin’ we go out lookin’ for kids?”

  Jack couldn’t help an eye roll. “I don’t believe this. You guys telling me you’ve never listened to Paul Simon?”

  “Paul Simon?” said a guy of about the same indeterminate age wearing a faded blue T-shirt and dusty work pants. He slipped into the empty chair next to the first smoker. “That doofus senator with the bow tie?”

  “Lou, would you believe this kid just said me and Julio was pee-do-files.”

  Lou’s face darkened. “Barney, I believe those are fighting words. If he thinks he can call my best friend–”

  Jack raised his hands. “Stop-stop-stop.” This was escalating like mad. He pointed to the guy called Barney. “Let me buy you one and we’ll forget I said anything.”

  Barney didn’t hesitate a nanosecond. “Sold.” He waved to the bartender. “Julio. Got me a contrite and generous soul here.”

  Julio returned and slipped back behind the bar. “Which one of you buyin’?”

  Jack lifted his hand.

  Julio grinned. “How’d he play you?”

  “All my own doing, I’m afraid.” He looked at the guy. “Your name’s Barney, right?”

  “You got it. And this here’s my longtime pal, Louis.”

  “But ‘Lou’ will do,” the other drinker said.

  “I’m…” He hesitated, then wondered why. His was hardly a rare name. “Jack.” He didn’t introduce Bertel, deciding to leave that up to him. With an amused expression, Bertel sipped his beer in silence.

  “A pleasure to drink your whiskey, Jack.” Barney grinned at Julio and waved at the top shelf of the mirrored bottle display against the wall. “Some of that Glenlivet, if you please, Julio.”

  Jack pointed to the nearly empty eight-ounce bar draft sitting before Barney. “I meant one of those.”

  Barney looked offended. “You offered to buy me ‘one.’ I assumed it would be drinker’s choice.”

  “That’s right,” Lou said. “Only fair.”

  Julio looked at Jack. “Your call.”

  Well, he’d just had the biggest payday of his life.

  “What the hell. Go for it. And buy Lou one too.”

  Barney and Lou high-fived.

  After Julio poured the single malts, he pulled another pint of Rock and slid it in front of Jack.

  “On the house, amigo.”

  “Yeah?”

  The little man shrugged. “You’re a good sport.” He held out his hand. “Jack, right?”

  Jack nodded as they shook. “And you’re Julio.”

  “That’s me. Welcome to The Spot, meng.” His smile turned sad. “For as long as it lasts.”

  Julio’s cologne and the ferns notwithstanding, Jack kind of liked this place. Might come back here. No, he’d definitely come back.

  7

  The four were suspicious, but Nasser al-Thani had expected that.

  He’d come over the Manhattan Bridge and found the mosque and Al-Kifah refugee center on Atlantic Avenue, just off Flatbush. Kadir had been waiting outside in the dark. The young Palestinian had ushered him through the entrance, framed by storefronts, and upstairs into the mosque where Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman was haranguing the crowd in Arabic to pursue worldwide jihad until every man, woman, and child on Earth embraced Islam. This was Allah’s wish. Infidels were hated enemies, and he backed it up with quotes from the Koran.

  “ ‘We disassociate ourselves from you and from that you worship other than Allah: We have rejected you, and there has appeared between us enmity and hatred forever until you believe in Allah alone!’”

  Clearly, no quarter with nonbelievers.

  Nasser counted himself among the infidel horde. Worse, he was a murtad fitri – a man born into Islam who later rejected it. As a youth Nasser had been recruited by the Order and had substituted it for Islam. That was where his loyalties lay now. In the old days, such apostasy was punishable by death.

  Nasser could not understand how anyone took this man seriously. With his red cap, white beard, dumpy body, and oversized sunglasses, he looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Ray Charles, though he was so insulated and narrow in his views, he’d probably never heard of either.

  But looks were deceiving in this case. He was fanatical about establishing an Islamic theocracy in his homeland. Back in the day he’d been jailed for calling President Nasser a pharaoh, and rumor had it that he was one of the plotters and instigators behind the Sadat assassination. That Mubarak had succeeded Sadat instead of a Khomeini-type leader seemed to have driven Abdel-Rahman to madness.

  Nasser suffered through the tiresome tirade, and then Kadir led him to a small room below in the refugee center where he introduced his three Egyptian associates by first names only.

  “My uncle said I should listen to you,” said Tachus – Nasser knew his last name was Diab, same as his uncle. “He said you could help us raise a large sum for the cause of jihad.”

  The round-faced one named El Sayyid slashed the air with his hand. “They keep sending our funds to Egypt and Afghanistan. Jihad should be here, in America, where there are more Jews than in Israel!”

  Nasser knew American Muslims contributed more than a hundred thousand a month to the Al-Kifah fund, which funneled it to radical Islamist groups. The more radical, the better, as far as the Order was concerned,

  He shrugged. “I do not care where you send the profits you make through me, as long as they go to jihad.”

  Sayyid was unfolding a sheet of paper he had pulled from a pocket. He held it up for Nasser.

  “This is what we should be doing!”

  Nasser saw the face of a bearded rabbi, his image peppered with bullet holes.

  “Is this personal?” Nasser asked.

  Sayyid shook the sheet. “He hates our people as much as we hate him.”

  The man looked familiar. Nasser was almost sure he’d seen that face before, but the damage made identification difficult. It would come to him.

  “How much ‘profit’ are we talking about?” said the tall, redheaded Mahmoud.

  Nasser paused for effect, then said, “Three million American. After I take my commission, there will be two million left for you.”

  He watched their eyes bulge, saw Kadir’s jaw drop.

  After their initial shock, Tachus’s eyes narrowed. “Why would you do this for us? We have never heard of you. Why not keep all three million for yourself?”

  “Because I can’t do it by myself.”

  “He’s CIA,” Sayyid said, producing a revolver with a short, thick barrel. He pointed it at Nasser. “He’s setting a trap for us.”

  Nasser backed up a step and looked at Tachus. “Your uncle knows me, he can vouch for me.”

  Tachus put a hand on Sayyid’s gun and pushed it down so it pointed toward the floor.

  “It’s true, Sayyid. My uncle says we can trust him.”

  “And your uncle is never wrong?”

  “Not when it comes to money.”

  Nasser backed farther away, edging toward the door. Time for a little gamesmanship.

  “Your uncle told me his nephew and his associates were dedicated to jihad and that I could deal frankly with you, but I am beginning to think he was wrong. I will leave you now and we will never speak of this again.”

  “Wait,” said Tachus. “Put that away, Sayyid. The least we can do is listen to him.”

  Sayyid grudgingly complied, but glared at Nasser, saying, “His uncle may vouch for you, but that doesn’t fit with what we know of the man. He cares for profit far more than jihad. Why would he pass up millions for himself and sen
d you to us? Something is not right here.”

  Nasser sensed he had turned a corner with this crew.

  He shrugged again. “Because one does not make that kind of profit without risk. The risk was too great for his uncle. Perhaps it will be too great for you as well.”

  “No risk is too great for jihad,” Sayyid said. “Tell us what this involves.”

  Nasser began to lay out his plan. He knew he had them. He could lead them anywhere now.

  8

  The drinkers, what few had shown up, were gone. Julio had the chairs upended on the tables and was mopping The Spot’s floor when he heard the door open behind him. He was sure he’d locked it.

  “Sorry, we’re closed,” he said, turning, but then saw Nita stepping through. She had a key. “Kinda late to be out.”

  Fortyish and frumpy, she wore the same warm-up as this afternoon. It was too tight on her expanding thighs. She looked stressed, shaken even. Maybe she’d cared for Harry more than she’d realized.

  She smiled. “With Harry’s funeral tomorrow and Darren home for a few days, I thought I should give the plants another watering.” She pointed to his mop. “A partner shouldn’t be doing that.”

  “He does when there’s no money left over to hire anyone else.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry. It will turn around. It’s the economy.”

  Si, he thought. The economy – and those condenado ferns.

  But he kept it to himself. Now wasn’t the time.

  “What time’s the service?”

  “Two. At Becker’s in Ridgewood.”

  That meant he’d have to close the place after lunch and head over to Queens.

  “Darren lands at ten,” she added. “I’ll pick him up, then maybe bring him here. He’s your new partner, you know.”

  Julio went back to mopping. “I figured.”

  She bit her lip. “Something strange is going on, Julio.”

  “Like?”

  “I went to Harry’s apartment today. It’s been torn apart.”

  He stopped mopping again. “Human buitres. They read someone dies, they go steal whatever they can.”

  “I suppose. It’s just not right. But anyway, I saw the will there and Darren gets everything.”

  “Nothing for you?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t expect anything. We’ve been over for a long, long time.”

  “He still carried a torch for you.”

  A small, sad smile. “My torch sank in the East River a dozen years ago. I’m glad Darren’s getting it all. I would hate to have Harry will it to one of his floozies.”

  She went about watering the ferns, then said good-bye and left.

  Julio was thinking that maybe he could sit down with Darren and agree to get rid of these ferns. If Darren stayed overseas for a while, he might turn out to be the perfect majority partner. Julio had enough to deal with, what with the falling receipts and his sister’s ex giving her a hard time.

  He heard the door open again and, figuring it was Nita, didn’t look up.

  “Forget something?”

  “We thought she’d never leave,” said a male voice.

  Julio spun and saw two guys, one heavy, one slim, standing in the doorway.

  “We’re closed.”

  The heavy one pulled a donut from a bag and bit into it. The thinner one closed the door and locked it.

  “You are now.”

  “My name’s Vinny,” the heavy guy said around a bite of donut. “This here’s Aldo. We know you’re Julio. We need to talk.”

  “About your partner,” Aldo added.

  “Harry? What about him?”

  Julio had a pretty good idea now who had gone through Harry’s apartment.

  “He owes some people money,” Vinny said.

  Uh-oh.

  Julio leaned his mop against a table and headed for the bar.

  “What people?” he said as he moved.

  Vinny took another bite. “People who don’t like to get stiffed, even by a stiff.”

  Aldo laughed like it was the first time he’d heard that. Maybe it was.

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “He owns part of this business – a real big part, we’ve heard – so we figure the business needs to settle up.”

  Behind the bar now, Julio removed the sawed-off twelve-gauge from its clips under the bar, but didn’t show it.

  “The business didn’t borrow the money. You got loan papers?”

  Aldo laughed again. “I love this guy!”

  Vinny said, “He borrowed three G’s at ten points a week and–”

  “Ten a week? Mierda!”

  “You didn’t let me finish. He’s three weeks behind, which means he owes four grand now. The vig is four hundred a week.”

  Aldo said, “We need at least that tonight to keep you from getting further behind.”

  That did it. Julio raised the sawed-off and rested it on the bar, pointing toward the two men. Aldo stepped back, but Vinny only paused briefly in his chewing.

  “You seen Scarface?” Julio said. “This is my ‘li’l fren’.”

  Vinny said, “You pull that trigger, the next cocktail you serve will be a Molotov.”

  “Chingate!”

  “Whatever,” Aldo said. “Look, you ain’t dealin’ with just a coupla clowns off the street. There’s an organization involved. You hearda Tony Cannon? Well–”

  Vinny nudged Aldo. “I ain’t so sure Tony wants his name thrown around.”

  Tony the Cannon Campisi? That meant the Gambino family. Mierda!

  Aldo said, “Who’s throwin’? Just mentioning.” He turned back to Julio. “Your ex-partner is in to him for four large and Tony ain’t the forgive-and-forget type, so we need to walk outa here with four C-notes minimum, or we go collect it somewheres else – like from Harry’s wife.”

  “Or maybe from his kid,” Vinny said. “We know he’s comin’ in tomorrow.”

  These two cabrons must have been listening at the door.

  Julio was ready to let loose with both barrels but held back. His older sister Rosa was always on him about she what called his “macho thing” and how he had to control it – maybe because he was always wanting to mess up her ex husband. What if he didn’t want to control it? Two goons come in and demand money. Was it a “macho thing” to refuse to bend over and take it up the ass?

  No fucking way.

  But he had other people to consider. Nita… who knew what they’d do to her? Darren could probably mop the floor with these two, but not the whole Gambino family. Harry had been a jerk, but Julio couldn’t let his pride get Harry’s family hurt.

  As if things weren’t bad enough.

  It damn near killed him to do it, but he leaned over to the cash register, keyed it open, and removed four hundred-dollar bills from under the tray. He placed them on the bar and stepped back, raising the shotgun toward the ceiling.

  Aldo stepped forward. “You’re smarter than you look,” he said as he snapped them up

  Julio clenched his jaw and resisted the insane urge to blow his head off and tell Vinny to take that back to Tony the Cannon.

  As they went out the door, Vinny turned to him. “See you next week. Oh, I know you didn’t ask, but get rid of the ferns. They really suck.”

  Julio screamed, “Metetelo en el culo!”

  MONDAY

  1

  In the week or so since Nasser al-Thani had last seen him, Roman had moved again. He’d called his hotel and learned that he had checked out, leaving no forwarding address. No matter. Nasser had his mobile number. He called that and Roman answered immediately.

  “I’m glad you called. The funding arrived.”

  Wonderful. Although the amount had been approved weeks ago, putting that much cash together without raising eyebrows or leaving a trail was a delicate matter. Despite its contacts in the world of international banking, even the Order had to tread softly in these matters.

  “Is that why you m
oved?”

  “One of the reasons. Time for a change, anyway. Call me tomorrow and I’ll arrange for you to take possession. We’ll finalize the details of the project then.”

  The project… that was how they referred to the plan. They practiced circumlocution at an art-form level during landline phone calls, and Nasser knew to be extra cautious when speaking over a cellular network. The calls were easily monitored, but worse: conversations occasionally leaked onto a third phone for no apparent reason.

  “I will do that. I have another matter I’d like to discuss. Do you remember my mentioning the piercing passion of one of our new Brooklyn associates?”

  “For a certain vocal rabbi?”

  “That’s the one. The rabbi in question is speaking in town tonight. I was wondering if I should inform our associate. He might want to hear what he has to say.”

  “He might indeed. But you seem hesitant.”

  “There’s always the possibility that it could interfere with our larger plan.”

  “The larger plan has a long-term payoff. If our associate takes decisive action, it could have an immediate effect. Retaliatory reaction will serve only to speed our larger plan. Tell him. This will be interesting to watch.”

  “I agree. Most interesting.”

  2

  Another meeting with the man from Qatar.

  Kadir joined his three Egyptian friends in a back room of the Al-Kifah Center to see what he had to say. It turned out he didn’t have much new except that he would deliver the money tomorrow night and finalize all plans then.

  “That is all you have to say?” Sayyid said. “You brought us here just for that? Why do you waste our time like this?”

  Kadir had to agree. He’d finished up his work labeling the cigarette packs at Tachus’s uncle’s place, and hurried here all the way from New Jersey just to hear this?

  “My friend,” said Nasser al-Thani, staring at Sayyid, “you may change your mind about wasted time when you hear what else I have to say.”

  “I am not your friend,” Sayyid said. “You say all the right things, but still I do not trust you.”