Smoked

  "Hey Scarface," the kid said.? "How ya doing?"

  He stuck his hand out.? Cruz ignored it.

  "The girls over there?? They think you're cute.? They want you to come out with us."

  Cruz glanced over at the gaggle of college kids across the street.? The group looked over at him.? A couple of the girls laughed.? He turned back to the kid.

  "I'm busy."

  The kid poked Cruz's shoulder.

  "Didn't you hear me?? They think you're cute.? The way you got your hair all greased up.? It's cute."? He poked Cruz again.? It was more of a push the second time.

  "I want you to do something," Cruz said.? He hadn't moved from the post.?

  "Yeah?? What's that?"? The kid smirked.?

  "I want you to look right here, into my eyes, and listen to what I tell you.? Okay?? Look right here."

  The kid did so, and already the wild light was dying from his own eyes.? In an instant, he saw something there, something Cruz well knew.? It was the reason Cruz rarely looked directly into the eyes of the straight world.? It did him no good to go around scaring grocery cashiers and rent-a-car clerks.

  "You're a good kid, right?? Grew up in a nice house?? Gonna have a nice life, sell stocks or some shit.? Right?"

  The kid nodded.? He looked down at his sneakers.

  "No, don't look away.? I want you to look right here."

  With some effort, the kid lifted his gaze again.? Cruz spoke quietly, his voice raising just above a whisper - but loud enough for the kid to hear.?

  "Good.? That's good.? Now I'm only gonna tell you this once, but I think once will be enough.? I said I was busy, and I meant it.? You stay here any longer and I'm gonna cut you up and feed you to my dogs.? You understand, right?"

  The kid looked down again, nodded.

  "Okay.? Now get lost."

  An hour passed.?

  It was after midnight.? The streets were still jammed.? Cruz had hardly moved since the kid had left.? No one had spoken to him since then.? He watched the door of the hotel across the street, trying not to grow annoyed.

  He had called upstairs a few minutes ago.? Carmine was still up there in his room.? When Carmine had answered, Cruz had affected an accent, looking for Pablo, and Carmine told him to go fuck himself, he had the wrong number.? Rather, he had slurred it.? Carmine was drunk again.

  Carmine Giobbi.? Carmine the Nose.

  Carmine had money problems.? He had borrowed so much that he had no way to pay it back.? It was okay when he owed it somewhere else.? But once you started burning your own people for money, the game was over.? Carmine couldn't even pay the juice anymore.? Half a mil, the dossier said he owed.?

  Half a mil?? Cruz suspected it was more than that.

  Carmine had already been gone a month with no contact.? That was way too long.?

  Now it looked like he had no plans of coming back.? It looked like he was going to stay down here and drink.? Cruz had watched him two full nights so far, and by the end of them, Carmine had been so drunk the whores he picked up could hardly keep him standing.? Carmine was a big heavy man.? He had a goddamn big nose, too.

  They couldn't have Carmine down here, drinking every night with strangers.? The time had come to send him home.?

  Here came the big lug now.? He stepped out onto the street from the hotel and started down the block.? No surprise, he looked just like an enforcer on vacation.? White silk shirt, top three buttons open, showing his hairy chest and his gold crucifix, hanging loose at the bottom as if to cover a piece in his waistband.? There was no piece, at least, not the night before..? Cruz had crept close enough to Carmine the night before to thoroughly examine the area at the bottom of his shirt.? Carmine might be loaded with weapons in his hotel room, but he went out at night unarmed.? Khaki pants and alligator shoes rounded out Carmine's clothing ensemble.?

  His gold watch sparkled.? Of course it was a Rolex.? Cruz had gotten an up close look at it in a bar the night before.? It was a wonder nobody had rolled Carmine for it yet, for the watch and that fat billfold he kept whipping out.

  What was wrong with this guy?

  He was drunk already.? Sure.? He had probably been knocking them back in his room since whatever time he woke up.? Sitting on the balcony, drinking, watching the day pass into evening, watching the evening pass into night, the crowds gathering, the streets glowing with excitement.?

  Cruz pushed himself away from the light post and started walking.?

  Up ahead, Carmine weaved through the crowded streets.? His big shoulders bumped a couple of people out of his way.? Carmine was a handful, all right.

  Cruz kept a safe distance.? He watched as the Nose entered an open air bar, grabbed a woman's ass, then got in a shoving match with the woman's boyfriend.? He nearly shoved the guy through the wall.? The bouncers, three of them, walked him out of there, consoling him with pats on the back.? Big guys were all the same, and they liked to see those pushy, big guy traits in each other.? A guy Cruz's size pulled that kind of shit in that bar?? Those bouncers would take him outside and tap dance on his skull.

  Carmine stumbled on.? He went into another bar and grabbed another woman's ass.? This ass grabbing, this was something new.

  After an hour, Cruz had had enough.

  The streets were still crowded, but the tone had changed.? People were very drunk now.? Women screamed for no reason at all.? A man leaned over and puked into the gutter.? A small crowd gathered around a young man who had fallen down and lay sprawled on the concrete, unable to stand.? Carmine staggered along through it all like the monster from Frankenstein.? Then he stopped, looked around and turned down an alley.

  Shrewd Carmine, making sure the coast was clear.?

  Cruz surveyed the scene from across the street.? No cops anywhere.? Lots of people milling about, going this way and that.? A darkened alley between buildings.? And Carmine down there, probably taking a piss.

  Cruz crossed the street and walked toward the mouth of the alley.? As he did so, he took two thin leather gloves out, one from each of his front pockets, and slid them onto his hands, like a doctor preparing for surgery.??

  Down the alley, just twenty yards down, big Carmine leaned up against the wall, bracing himself with a hairy arm.? The other hand had worked his whanger out of his pants.? A steady stream emanated from it, soaking the wall and splashing back on Carmine's pants and shoes.?

  Jesus, the guy was a mess.

  "Carmine."

  "Yeah, just a minute here.? Gotta water the flowers."? Carmine's lower lip hung down.?

  Cruz worked the stunted black Glock pocket pistol - the .40 caliber M-27 - from the back of his pants.? Cruz always demanded the M-27.? It was smaller than the standard Glock, it was light, it was concealable even with a longer, threaded barrel attached so it could take a silencer.? Nine rounds was more than enough for Cruz, .40 cal was excellent stopping power, and the gun itself always worked - rain, heat, cold, snow, it didn't matter.? The Glock worked.

  He quickly attached the silencer, a Gemtech SOS-40, a nice one.? They always gave him nice toys on these jobs, anything he wanted.? And he was a creature of habit - what had worked in the past would work in the future.? He held the gun so his back was blocking it from the sight of any pedestrians on the street.? He glanced out there.? Nobody was looking.? He stepped closer to his quarry.

  "You know me, Carmine?"

  Carmine looked up, his eyes half-closed and bloodshot.? He squinted at Cruz.

  "No."

  Cruz approached and put an arm around Carmine's massive shoulders.? Cruz felt nothing out of the ordinary.? His heart wasn't beating hard.? He wasn't sweating more than the humid southern night warranted.? If anything, he felt a pang of mild embarrassment, what with Carmine's Italian sausage hanging there.

  "No, you're right.? You don't know me.? We've never met before.? But I know you."

  Carmine peered down at his fancy alligator shoes, wet now with urine.

  "I think I'm gonna puke."

&nb
sp; "Carmine.? I know you, you understand?? It's important you understand this."

  Carmine looked at Cruz again.? Something like a dull light ignited behind his eyes.? "They sent you?? From New York?"

  "That's right."

  The big man nodded.? "Okay."

  "You get it?" Cruz said.

  "Yeah.? I get it."

  Cruz clapped him on the back.? "Good man.? You got anything you wanna say?"

  "Yeah.? Tell 'em to go fuck themself."

  Cruz brought the Glock around with his left hand and placed the silenced muzzle against Carmine's meaty chest.? Carmine looked down at the gun.? Cruz looked at it.? All it took was a few ounces of pressure and he would send Carmine off to the next world.?

  The seconds passed.

  And for some reason, the finger didn't pull the trigger.

  Shit, it was happening again.

  Then the gravity of the situation penetrated Carmine's pickled brain.? His eyes opened wide and he came awake.? "Hey, get that fucking thing away from me."

  His reflexes, now activated, were fast.? He grabbed the gun with both hands.? He forced Cruz to point it heavenward, pushed Cruz back against the brickwork, then came up with a savage knee to Cruz's gut.

  Cruz felt his wind go out of him in a long hiss.? He felt the gun yanked out of his hand.? He sank, knees to the hard pavement, trying to catch his breath.? He ripped the buttons of his shirt away and reached inside.

  Carmine tottered over him, huge, towering.? Gun in one giant hand.

  He brought it down to point at Cruz.? Cruz stared down the black maw, death just seconds away.? He felt nothing, thought nothing.?

  "Hey dickhead," the Nose said.

  Cruz pulled the surgical tape away from his chest.? He grabbed the four inch Buck Woodsman knife he kept strapped there.

  "Tell 'em I ain't that easy, see?"

  Cruz lunged, just as Carmine fired.? He stabbed, fast and crazy, in and out, four times, five times.

  The gun made a near silent, "phut, phut, phut."

  A breeze went past Cruz's head.? Bullets whined off the brick wall and ricocheted down the alley.

  Cruz looked up at Carmine, who stared down with something like surprise.? Cruz had plunged the knife up to its handle.? It was buried in Carmine's lower abdomen.? Cruz renewed his grip.? Then he ripped upward, all the way to Carmine's rib cage.? Carmine's face went slack again.? Blood flowed from his mouth.?

  Gently, Cruz took the gun from Carmine's hand.?

  He stood and put the gun to the big man's heart.? Again.? Again he hesitated.? Carmine was weaving.? His eyes had gone blank.? Blood flowed from him.? Either it was the booze or his own brute strength and stupidity that kept him standing.?

  Well, he was going to die anyway.

  Cruz pulled the trigger.? He fired three times into Carmine's heart, then lowered him to the ground.?

  Back out on the street, gloves off.? The crowds were still there.? People staggered to and fro.? A woman with a big floppy sun hat fell down, laughing. Cruz began to stagger just a little, as if he himself were drunk.? His flowery shirt was splashed with some of Carmine's blood.? Worse, Carmine's smell was on him.? The sharp scent of booze mingled with the coppery stench of blood.?

  It made him sick.? It made him shake.

  Cruz walked around the block.? Knots of people laughed, stumbled, screamed.? More beads flew through the air.? Cruz turned a street corner, quickly wiped the knife handle for any possible prints and dropped the knife down a sewer hole.? He would break down the gun and get rid of it later - a piece here, a piece there, the farther apart the better.?

  He came past the alley again.? From the street, there seemed to be nothing down there.? Just a big drunk sleeping off a bender.

  ?

  * * *

  ?

  A beam of cold moonlight stabbed into the room.

  Smoke sat up in bed, sipping his last glass of wine.? It had been a lovely evening, sitting on the deck with two lovely ladies, eating a fine meal, watching the ships pass as the sun set behind the building.? They had chatted and laughed with Pamela until it was full dark and too cold to sit outside anymore.? Then they had made an assembly line and washed all the dishes.

  Some coffee, a little more wine and laughter in the living room, then Lola and he had come in here for a long, slow bout of lovemaking.? They began, but the spark wasn't there.? His hands had felt like lead.?

  It started, it stopped.? It fizzled out.?

  "You seem distant," he said after they gave it up for good.

  "Not distant," she said.? "Just thoughtful."

  "Okay.? Thoughtful."??

  Now, Lola's warm and sleeping form pushed up against his.? Her arm was around his waist.? Across the room, the digital clock read 2:35.? There was no sound anywhere.? That was the thing about this city - when night came, the sidewalks rolled up and it was almost as if no one lived there.?

  Her voice came, quiet and thick with sleep.? "Smoke?"

  "Yeah, babe."

  "Do you love me?"

  "You know I do."

  "That's good, Smoke.? Real good."

  A few moments passed, and her breathing deepened and became rhythmic.? She was gone again and he was here, awake and on the case.? Her protector.?

  He was going to have to tell her something soon.? He just didn't know what that something would be.???

  ?

  CHAPTER THREE

  ?

  Cruz slumped in the back of the black Mercedes S-500, sunk deep into the plush leather, his eyes closed behind reflector sunglasses.? The earphones of his Sony Discman hung slightly askew, just enough that he could hear everything being said up front, but not so much as to arouse suspicion.? At the same time, he could listen to his music.? The compact disc was DANCE PARTY HITS OF THE 70'S, the soundtrack of his youth.?

  The song was Le Freak, by something called Chic.

  He remembered it.? He saw himself at a Manhattan dance club, brooding, holding up the bar, watching the young girls flaunt themselves out on the dance floor as the lights strobed crazily, streaks of technicolor electricity flying through the air.? Again, he felt the rage, the yearning and the frustration.? Nearly 30 years had passed since those days, and in all that time he had only managed to slap a few thin coats of whitewash over the real Cruz.? His personality was like a slice of linoleum pasted over a dark abyss - if you dropped through, there was no bottom.

  He had done this kind of work since the age of eighteen.? That year, he had been cut loose from the youth home with two hundred dollars, plus cab fare to his aunt's house in Corona, Queens, and an appointment to see a job counselor out there a week later.? They had let him go with a kiss on the cheek and a kick in the ass.?

  He never made it to Queens.?

  His aunt didn't want him, and why should she?? He had lived with her at the age of ten, then again at fourteen.? He was bad news, the product of her sister the drug addict's wasted life.? His face carried a deep knife scar from one of her sister's many boyfriends, a maniac who one night decided to cut the little boy's eyes out.? Luckily, the maniac had been too drunk to see what he was doing or hold onto the boy for long - Cruz - who ran screaming out of the squalid apartment.? But the scar on his face was only an emblem of the deeper scars he carried.? Cruz was trouble, and he knew it.? No, his aunt would not have him, and on some level, he didn't blame her.? She wasn't yet thirty years old herself, struggling with three young kids of her own.? Cruz was enough to sink them all.??

  She had called him the day before he was set to leave the home.? He stood at the pay phone in the concrete stairwell.? A couple of younger kids were talking and laughing down at the other end of the narrow hall.?

  He looked at them.? Gradually, they sensed his stare.? Then they left.?

  "Chuco, do me a favor, ah?" his aunt said.?

  "Yeah," he said, already knowing what was coming.

  "Don't come over here.? I got enough to worry about with the kids and the rent and all the rest
.? You know?? I like you, Chuco.? You was good when you was a kid.? But now... you know?? It'll be bad having you here.? I don't got the room.? I don't want the cops coming here.? You understand, right?"

  "Yeah.? I do."

  "You'll do good, Chuco.? You'll figure it out."

  "Yeah."

  "Just don't come here.? You come here, I can't let you in.? I'll call the cops myself, okay?? I'll tell 'em you stole my money."

  Cruz hung up.

  He rode the cab into Manhattan, stopped at a check-cashing place, cashed the two hundred, stuffed most of it in his sock, and checked into a twenty dollar a week room at a Single Room Occupancy hotel on the west side, not far from the river.? He paid for a week up front.? Then he sat upstairs and cried for an hour.? Cried for everything.? He gave himself one hour to get the cry in, no more.? He even timed it on the Timex watch one of the teachers at the youth home had given him.? At the end of an hour, he stopped and looked around.? The room was about twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide.? There was a narrow bed and a sink.? There was a cheap wooden dresser with a sticky blotter pasted on top of it.? There was a closet with a couple of coat hangers.? The old white paint was peeling crazily, showing a nasty green behind it - the walls, the ceiling, everywhere.? A window looked out onto the fire escape.? The street was three stories below.? The bathroom was down the hall.

  He'd never been here before, but instinctively he knew the game.? There would be predators in the bathroom.? They'd be looking for an easy mark on the shitter, an easy mark in the shower.? People would break into his room while he wasn't home, looking for money.? Junkies would drop dead from ODs.? He'd be lucky if some junkie didn't burn the place down in the middle of the night with a cigarette or a hot plate left on.? The management wouldn't do shit about any of it.?

  Anyway, it was a start.???

  He went out.? If there was an answer to his problems, he wasn't going to find it staring at the four walls of his room.? The answer was out there, on the streets.? He resolved that he would find that answer, whether that meant he had to go to prison, or whether he died with his blood running in the gutter.? The thought appealed to him.? He would live, and thrive, and make it big, or he would die.? No compromise.

  He went to Times Square.?

  1976.? The Bicentennial.? 200 years of flag waving and good times.? Rocky.? Jaws.? And in a lighter vein, 18 & Horny and Guess Who's Coming.? Just outside the Theatre District, the Broadway of A Chorus Line and The Wiz, Times Square lay spread like the blighted whore she was.? The lights dazzled Cruz.? The pimps and hookers and drug dealers hanging out with beer cans in paper bags, the streams of runaway kids, the junkies, the scumbags, the pickpockets, the johns, the freaks who wanted to fuck children - a circle of lost souls.? The blood banks, the liquor stores, the X-rated movie houses, the massage parlors, the greasy spoon diners with deals going down in every booth - there was barely a legitimate business in the whole neighborhood.? Times Square was an open sewer.? In 1976, for someone with the right kind of eyes, it was also a glittering promise.???