Fear City

  “Are you crazy?” Vinny said as they slammed their respective doors. “Are you outta your fucking mind?”

  Tommy began unlocking the cuff from around his own wrist but he was so pissed he couldn’t get the key into its hole. This was the last straw—the last fucking straw. This fat fuck messes up his business, then he embarrasses him in front of a bunch of ragheads.

  “You’re asking me if I’m crazy? You’re really asking me that when you just made me look bad in there.”

  “I what?” Vinny said as he shoved the car in gear and roared down the street. “I made you look bad? As I recall you were down on your knees getting the shit kicked outta you when I arrived.”

  “I coulda handled it—I woulda handled it if you hadn’t barged in.”

  “Really? Who was calling my name? The Egyptian guy you were cuffed to? Funny, it sounded like you.”

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen. No way I woulda heard you from outside.”

  What was he saying?

  “Then how—?”

  “I’m sitting in the car and I hear something that sounds like a shot but I can’t be sure. I look around and see a couple of people on the street looking toward the garage. So I roll my window down and listen. Then I hear something I know is a shot, and it’s coming from inside. So I head for the garage, and as I step into the office I hear you calling my name. You know the rest.”

  Tommy looked ahead and behind. No sign of flashing lights.

  “What was that bullshit about cops coming?”

  “If I heard the shots, and the people on the street heard the shots, then so did the people living around the garage. You don’t think one of them’s gonna call nine-one-one? If I hadn’t come in you’d be out cold by now. Maybe dead.”

  Yeah. They’d had him. He’d been on his knees and going down. Next stop for his face: the floor. Tough little fuckers. But no way was Tommy gonna admit that. Not to this son of a bitch.

  “Never woulda happened back in the city.”

  “That’s because back in the city people know you’re a Gambino and a shitload of hurt’s gonna come down on them if they mess with you. These ragheads don’t know a Gambino from a bambino.”

  “I need to find those two fucks.”

  Vinny seemed to be thinking about something. Finally he said, “Look, I wasn’t gonna say this but now I gotta: I told you those two mooks was bad news but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “You never said—”

  “I ain’t gonna argue with you, Tommy. I said what I said and I said it because these ragheads got their own family. They’re like us: Someone comes asking about one of us, what do we say? We don’t know nothin’, right? They’re the same way, plus they got this funky Ali Baba religion that keeps them even tighter. Plus one of the guys you loaned lives here in Jersey—fuckin’ Jersey, for Christ sake. What were you thinking?”

  Good question, Tommy thought. The same question Tony C would be asking before the day was over. Shit.

  “The tall one drives a cab—”

  “Did drive a cab. He may have decided it’s cheaper to find another line of work since he sure as shit ain’t pullin’ down twelve hundred a week in tips. I think you better face it—you ain’t gonna find these guys unless it’s by accident or they decide they want to be found.”

  Tommy knew he was right, and if Vinny said anything like that to Tony C, Tommy was up shit’s creek.

  Maybe tonight would be the night he put Tony and Vinny away.

  The idea had hit him in Tony’s office last night, and it came with a plan on how to get away with it. He’d actually been reaching for his gun when he realized there was still people on the sales floor of the appliance store. They’d ruin everything. So he’d put it off.

  “I’ll find ’em,” he said, sounding all sorts of confident. “Don’t you worry your empty head, Vinny. Leave it to me. I’ll find ’em. Now let’s get back to the city. We got more vig to collect.”

  But no matter how much he collected, he was still gonna catch shit from Tony about the ragheads.

  That meant tonight had to be the night: Vinny and Tony, dead. He just had to make sure he put off the meeting until after the store was closed, so only the three of them was there.

  So simple, really. And he knew just what he’d tell everybody after it went down.

  Yeah. Tonight sounded good.

  12

  It started to snow just as the last of the mourners left. Jack couldn’t help but think of Rico and how he’d been praying for snow. Life totally sucked at times.

  He hopped the fence and wove among the flakes and the headstones toward the flower-decked coffin. The grounds men would be along soon to lower it into the grave, so he needed to make this quick. But he was determined to have a last moment alone with her.

  “Hey, Cristin,” he said when he reached her grave, the words rushing through his tightening throat before it shut completely. “Just stopped by to let you know that it’s okay that you didn’t tell me. No, really. Let’s face it, I probably wouldn’t have handled it very well and it would have come between us because no matter how often I said I didn’t want strings and wanted them even less than you did that wasn’t quite true because I was so damn attached to you and I spent every freaking week looking forward to Sunday with you and you know it was more than the sex for me, it was you, you-you-you-you-you. I never met anyone like you and I know for sure I’ll never meet anyone like you again and I swear I can hear you laughing in there and saying ‘Damn straight!’ and aw jeez, aw jeez…”

  His voice gave out then and his words drowned in a choking sob as he dropped to his knees beside the coffin. He pounded his fist on the lid.

  Why-why-why?

  He’d found the answer but it was so devoid of sense and logic and meaning that it had become a non-answer. And so the why remained.

  “You should have this back.”

  He pulled her ama-gi from his pocket and kissed it. Then he tried to slip it through the seam along the bottom of the coffin lid but it had been screwed down tight. He worked his hand between the coffin and the edge of the dirt and dropped it into the grave. If it couldn’t be buried with her, at least she could rest atop it.

  And no one would see that obscenity again.

  He pushed himself back to his feet and found his voice again.

  “Also wanted to let you know we got them. All of them. I had help … someone you knew. One of your … guys. Edward Burkes. Seems other people had strings to you too. The scales are evened in a way. Well, not really. Nothing makes up for losing you. You wouldn’t let me say it to your face, but I’m saying it now. I loved you. I didn’t know that until I realized I’d never see you again. But I did. I loved you. I love you still. I—”

  He heard a door slam and saw a groundskeeper walking his way from the front gate.

  He touched the coffin. “As long as you’re alive in somebody’s head, you’ll never be truly dead. And I’m never gonna forget you. Count on that.”

  As he walked away he wiped at the tears that were threatening to freeze. He didn’t look up until he was hopping back over the fence. A young woman stood by Ralph. She looked different but he knew her immediately.

  “Karina?”

  Jack’s high school girlfriend and Cristin’s best friend from those days.

  She smiled. “It is you. I saw you over here from the grave and thought, I know him.” Her smile crumbled as her words broke into a sob. “Oh, Jack, isn’t it the worst thing. Isn’t it the worst thing ever?”

  He couldn’t answer. Instead he found himself in her arms, and her in his, clinging to each other like sailors to flotsam as they cried together.

  13

  Heart pounding, Ernst Drexler snapped off the television and snatched up the phone. He had Trejador’s mobile number preprogrammed to the 3 button. It rang but no answer.

  Odd. Very odd. The only constants in Trejador’s life were the Order and his mobile phone. Everything else changed at whim. Ernst
tried again. Still no answer.

  That, coupled with what he had just heard on TV, gave the air an ominous tinge.

  CNN had reported that another “brutally mutilated” man had been found on another park bench. This man had been discovered in Manhattan but his mutilations appeared identical to the victim found last night in Forest Hills. The only difference was that this man appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent.

  That had been enough to set off alarm bells in Ernst. He wanted Trejador’s take on the matter.

  A third try and still no answer. Maybe he was moving again. One way to find out …

  He looked up the Lexington Hotel and was connected to the front desk.

  “Mister Trejador’s suite, please.”

  “I’m sorry,” said a woman’s voice. “Can you give me that name again, please?”

  “Roman Trejador. He’s on the twenty-sixth floor.”

  “Oh. Oh, just a minute.” It sounded then like she put her hand over the mouthpiece but her voice still came through. “Someone’s calling about the man in twenty-six-twelve. What do I tell him?” A male voice said, “Ask the police.”

  That was all Ernst had to hear. He hung up and stood statue still as a crawling sensation worked its slow way across his stomach.

  … the man in twenty-six-twelve … Ask the police …

  Ernst could see only one way to interpret that. Something had happened to Trejador, something serious enough to get the police involved. Had he become the third “brutally mutilated” victim?

  Who could be doing this? It was sheer madness to think this young nobody named Lonnie could have eliminated Reggie, Klarić, al-Thani, and now Trejador. Unthinkable that anyone could work that sort of violent magic.

  And yet …

  He should call the High Council. Of course he had no proof that al-Thani was the mutilated Middle Easterner, nor that anything of real consequence had befallen Trejador, but he should at least convey his suspicions.

  The repercussions would be severe. They would not care about Reggie—they barely knew of his existence—but Klarić and al-Thani missing … and some as yet undetermined disaster befalling Roman Trejador … that was catastrophic. And it all would be laid at his doorstep. He’d ordered al-Thani to send Reggie and Klarić after that damnable Lonnie, and now …

  Wait. If Trejador was out of the picture—and Ernst was becoming increasingly sure of that with every passing moment—all the blame could fall on the Spaniard. Against Ernst’s advice, Trejador had ordered al-Thani to bring in Lonnie. All Roman’s idea, all Roman’s fault.

  Yes, this would all work out … if Ernst could survive whoever was scything through the actuator ranks.

  He called information for Lufthansa’s reservations number. He’d book the next flight out to Vienna. Austria was his home and he was long overdue for a vacation.

  He would call the High Council from overseas.

  14

  “I wasn’t sure it’d still be open,” Karina said as they slid into a booth.

  The snow wasn’t sticking much, so they’d decided, for old times’ sake, to go to Olga’s Diner in Marlton. Since Jack would be heading straight to the city from there and Karina back to Tabernacle, they’d driven the fifteen miles separately.

  The place hadn’t changed much. The red neon sign on the roof was still almost as big as the diner itself. Though somewhat worse for wear, the Naugahyde or vinyl or whatever-they-were seats on the booths looked pretty much the same as when they’d frequented the place in the eighties. So did the red Formica tables. Back when they were dating they’d sit side by side, joined at the hip; today the table divided them.

  “There’s a law somewhere: Olga’s can’t close. It’s an institution.”

  She opened the menu. “Everything changes,” she said, “but not this place. Look. They still serve turkey croquettes with mashed potatoes and gravy. Ugh.”

  “How can you say ‘ugh’? You never tried them. Ever.”

  She’d been South Burlington County Regional High School’s only vegetarian—at least the only one as far as he knew. He could still hear her saying, If it had a face or a mother, I don’t want it on my plate.

  “Well, they just sound awful. But not as awful as creamed chipped beef—which they also still have.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. “Remember how you used to order that just to gross me out?”

  “On toast. Mmmm.”

  One time she refused to kiss him after he’d eaten it.

  “And remember how you tried to convince me that chipped beef never had a face or a mother?”

  “Since the scientific community has yet to present convincing evidence to the contrary, I persist in my contention.”

  She shook her head. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you.” She put her menu down and stared at him. “Then again, I think you have. We’ve both changed, haven’t we.”

  He leaned back and looked at her. Karina Haddon hadn’t changed much, at least on the outside. Same sparkling brown eyes, same dark blond hair, but wearing it shorter now than when they were dating. Maybe she’d added a few pounds, but they were good pounds.

  She used to wear a striped engineer’s cap and listen to early Bob Dylan when everyone else was listening to Thriller and Def Leppard. She’d been out of step with her peers, just like Jack, but in a different way. Their self-marginalization had brought them together. His first love. Hers too. They’d lost their respective virginities to each other.

  College split them—she went off to Berkeley, he to Rutgers. They got together over Christmas break freshman year but after that he never saw her again. He’d been crushed. But now wasn’t the time to get into that. He’d carried a torch for her for a while, but it sputtered out years ago.

  “Pardon the cliché, but that’s part of growing up. Or so I’m told.”

  “Cristin changed the most, I guess—if what I read in the papers is true.”

  He saw no reason to deny it. “It’s true.”

  “Cristin … a call girl.” She shook her head and frowned. “She wrote me she’d run into you in the city. Did you know?”

  “About her profession? Not until after she was gone.”

  “Cristin.” She shook her head again. “I knew she was into sex back in high school. I mean, you don’t earn the name ‘Hot-to-Trot Ott’ by being a shrinking violet. But who would have thought she’d hire out as a plaything for horny old men.”

  Jack felt a flash of anger. “Spare her your feminist ire.”

  “Feminist?”

  “Aren’t you the one who sent Cristin a card for Emma Goldman’s birthday?”

  Her lips twisted … not quite a smile. “Oh, that. I got radicalized in freshman year. But I’m kind of shocked you’d defend sexual exploita—”

  “Trust me. Cristin was anything but a sexually exploited woman. She knew exactly what she was doing. Had a five-year plan and all.”

  “You learned all this since she was killed?”

  “No. She told me she was a party planner. I never guessed the party was her. But she was still going to FIT with plans to open her own shop once she built up some capital.”

  “If she was saving. Most prostitutes have a drug problem.”

  He remembered Cristin’s bankbook and the surprising balance.

  “She’d socked away a considerable amount. Her biggest drug was Cuervo Gold, and only a couple of shooters now and then.”

  “Still…”

  “There’s no ‘still,’ Karina—not from you, not from me. It was her life, her body. We don’t get to say what she does with either.”

  Karina leaned back. “Listen to you. You sound like some of my more radical friends out in Berkeley. Is that why you disappeared?”

  Uh-oh.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “A few years ago my folks mentioned that people were buzzing about my old boyfriend dropping out of college and disappearing. Was it what happened to your mother?”

  No, he wanted to say, it was what I did after
. But he didn’t want to get into that either.

  “It was a lot of things. And please keep it to yourself that you saw me.”

  “You’re not in any legal trouble, are you?”

  “Not that I know of. I simply dropped off the map and would like to stay that way.” He wanted to get off the subject of Jack. “Back to Cristin…”

  Karina’s lower lip trembled. “Yeah, Cristin. Say what you want about her ‘profession,’ it’s what killed her, isn’t it.”

  “No, a person or persons unknown killed her.”

  “Who met her through her ‘profession,’ right?”

  “I suppose so.”

  A tortuous path, but when he boiled it all down to its essence, if Roman Trejador hadn’t been one of her regulars, she wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  He felt he had to add, “But you could say the same about a stewardess who dies in a plane crash.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Were you two…?”

  “Close? Yeah. A little.”

  “How close?”

  None of your business, he decided.

  “We talked. We had the high school connection.”

  She folded her arms. “I’m not even going to ask if you had sex. I knew Cristin.”

  Jack let that slide. “How about you? Seeing anyone?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “Male or female?”

  He hadn’t meant to say that. But he remembered Cristin mentioning a brief affair between the two of them and it slipped out.

  She reddened. “What?”

  “Never mind.”

  “No, really. Why would you—?”

  “Cristin told me about you two that first summer—the summer you said you were staying out west.”

  Her blush deepened. “My God, you two must have been more than just a ‘little’ close. Is there anything she didn’t tell you?”

  He shrugged, wishing he hadn’t mentioned it. “She said you weren’t really into it.”

  She let out a long, shaky sigh. “We were just trying it out. You know, experimenting. Cristin was more into it—but she just liked sex, plain and simple. If she could get off on it, she was cool with it. I learned that it wasn’t for me.” Her features bunched up and she sobbed. “I really loved her, Jack. Not that way, it turned out, but every other way. She was a good person, not a mean or hateful bone in her body. Why’d it have to be her?”