Afterburn (62 page)

Rick remembered now. They'd pulled off the interstate west of Philadelphia and eaten an early lunch with Christina's parents. Never told Tony, since he'd have forbidden it. But Christina had said, We're so close, ten miles. I miss them, I miss my father. Her father hadn't looked too good. Thin, coughing in the summer heat. But big on moving to Florida soon. Christina clearly worried about them. Rick had taken a nap in the back bedroom, tired from the drive. Maybe an hour, not much more. Then they had pulled back on the road to New York and driven right into the fucked-up situation. The cops came out of nowhere. Just a load of air conditioners, and all this.

They reached the Manhattan Bridge, which would take them into Chinatown. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Paul cleared his throat. "She took the two boxes, Rick."

"I don't believe it."

"She took the boxes off the truck, hid them, figured out a way to flag the cops, and went to prison. You never knew. That's what we found out with your arm. You never knew. She was smart enough not to tell you."

"That's bullshit," said Rick, feeling cold and alone.

"Hey, we cut off your arm to see if you knew! I told Tony that you didn't know, but he didn't believe me! I tried to give you a way out!" cried Paul. "I gave you the card and the money. I had the card set up so I'd be informed of all your charges within ten minutes. You can set it up that way, say it's a minor's account. I thought I could track you like that, if I had to."

"That was how they got me at the fucking whorehouse?"

"Yeah, yeah. Tony insisted." Paul eased up behind a cab. "I figured sooner or later we'd find her, but you had to stay in it."

"You
knew
I would."

"I figured, yeah." Paul sounded tired now. He didn't like problems and messes. He liked money. You traded one for the other, round and round.

"They were really supposed to put the arm in the cooler?" Rick asked, shifting the shotgun.

"Yes."

The exhaust from the traffic was coming in the broken rear window. "They didn't."

"That was Tony fucking with me personally." Paul rubbed his eyes. "We've been having some problems. He's getting erratic."

"Maybe he's the guy I need to shoot."

"
No
." Paul was emphatic. "We're going to talk this out and then go home, Rick." Paul glanced in the mirror. "At the end of the day everybody gets more or less something and then we go home. I go home, you go home. You gotta understand that you're out of it now. You paid for what you did do and what you didn't do. You got to step out of it now. Tony will come up with some kind of payment, some kind of job."

"He'll
kill
her, Paul. I don't care what he says to you."

There was no answer from Paul.

"Do you know where she is?" Rick asked.

"Not
exactly
."

Rick picked up the car phone. "Find out."

"Wait, wait."

"You've been talking to them, right?"

"They don't have her," Paul said. "Not yet. But they're waiting for her to show up with a bill of lading that pays off the money."

"Why is she going to show up with that?"

"Because right now they have her boyfriend on the same table you were on. He put up the money."

"She cares about him that much?" It didn't sound right.

"No, they also have her mother down in Florida."

"What did they do to him?" Rick asked.

"I don't know except that he's a tough fucker. An old guy, too. He was still alive half an hour ago. I told Tony to fucking take him to the hospital." Paul shook his head in disgust. "These people have no judgment." He looked at his watch. "She was supposed to get back to them like four hours ago."

"Why's it taking so long?"

"Because Tony is unrealistic about how paperwork in the
real
world works," Paul said bitterly.

They were off the bridge, onto Canal Street heading west. Chinese people everywhere. "Take me there now," said Rick.

"Why?
You
can get out of this," Paul argued. "I can say to Tony, We fucked up, his arm is gone, we have to give him some money so he can go away."

Rick lifted the gun and blew out the rear passenger window on his side. The sound hurt his ears; the car filled with smoke that was soon sucked out through the broken glass. He reached in his pocket for two more shells.

"What?" Paul screamed. "What?"

Rick breathed heavily, as if to set himself toward the next task, then touched the warm barrel to his brother's neck. "I already went away, Paul. I didn't
like
it."

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M&R Bar-Dining Room
264 Elizabeth Street, Manhattan
September 28, 1999

A SIMPLE DOCUMENT
, and finally, hours and hours too late, she was holding it in her damp little hand. Didn't look anything like five million dollars. Merely a triplicated form, containing its own serial number, sequentially date-stamped and signed by the shipping agent, the captain of the container ship itself, a vessel of South Korean registry, then the spot-buyer, and now one Sally Rahul. Transferable by endorsement. Various customs stamps were affixed. It stated that container NZ783A1490RF, manufactured in Beaumont, Texas, packed in Seoul, contained two thousand three hundred Nikon camera bodies and sixteen hundred 200-millimeter telephoto lenses. The shipment had been paid for and, upon presentation of the bill, could be picked up at a certain loading dock in Newark within ten days. Like picking any item up at a warehouse, just that the numbers were bigger. The paper didn't have Tony's name, it didn't have Charlie's name, it didn't have Christina's name. Of course, you could trace the bill number back to the spot-buyer's office on lower Broadway, and then you'd have Charlie's name and the record of the letter of credit. But if you could sell the cameras immediately, then, well—you were rich. How could she do that? She didn't know. She needed a truck. Given a day or two, she could find a guy with a truck, she was sure of it. The city was full of guys with trucks.

She'd been hiding in the restaurant's shady patio in the back, which this late in the afternoon was almost deserted. Now it was time to move. The latest arrangement—the day had been a series of pleadings and bitter arguments with Tony about the impossibility of getting the papers as fast as he wanted—was to check in with him at 3:30 p.m., at which time he'd tell her where to bring the bill of lading. She hadn't spoken to Charlie in hours. But the electronic transfer of his funds from Citibank had come through without a hitch, so perhaps—well, she didn't know how much faith she had that he was still alive.

She paid for her meal, correcting the incorrectly figured tax on the check, slipped through the dining room, which featured oil paintings of naked women, and exited out the front. She turned north toward Houston Street, drifted west, then remembered two pay phones she used to pass on the walk home when she worked at the Jim-Jack. Tony had given her a local seven-digit number, not his cell phone, and insisted she had to use that one now. This meant that the call went through all the regular wires. He's going to trace me, she thought, even though
I'm
using a cell phone. He wants to trace me because he thinks I'm going to run. He thinks I'm going to run and he might be right. He's thinking that I was a little too obvious about his name being on the bill of lading, and he was right about that, too. So he's thinking that I'm thinking what I'm thinking. The pawn is not Charlie anymore. We both know that. Charlie forgot the phone number, and so Tony couldn't find the location of the spot-buyer's office. I'm very sorry about that. I didn't want Charlie to get caught up in it, I didn't
expect
it. If he hadn't called her mother . . . the one pawn left, her mother. Whom she was not going to sell out. Christina had tried calling her mother all day, but gotten no answer. Which was
good
. Tony wouldn't be thinking that I could run with the bill of lading if he really had her, Christina thought. That means he figures that I can find out that he
doesn't
have her. By indicating his fear, he's indicating his vulnerability.

She dialed her mother one more time, using Rahul the Freak's phone. The low-battery light came on. Nothing. Then the answering machine. That's it, Christina told herself. Maybe Mom talked to Charlie this morning, then left on a trip with one of her old, rusted-tomato-can men. I think I'm free.

But she was still due to call Tony in four minutes on his funky number. The two pay phones stood at that same corner. She checked the dial tone of each phone, bought a role of tape from the hardware store on the corner, and taped the two pay phones together, mouthpiece to earpiece. I have to keep this straight, she told herself. If I screw up one step, I'll have to start all over. She hoped the cell-phone battery would last. She took the change out of her purse and slipped in two or three dollars' worth into each phone. More than enough for her purposes. She looked at the phones one last time. The cell phone she called A. The pay phone on the left she called B, and the one on the right C. The phone she was going to dial was D.

"Yo, baby, you doing something illegal?"

Two black guys from the newsstand half a block away sauntered up. They walked slowly, in order to scare her.

"You guys are exactly who I need to see," she said.

"Why?"

She beckoned them closer. "You want to make a little money and learn a trick you can use in your business activities?"

"What you mean, our business activities?"

She smiled.

"Well, all right."

She pointed to the phones. "You watch, okay? See, I have a little problem. Some people want me to call them and they gave me a number. Problem is, soon as I call them, they're going to know where I am."

The two guys liked this. "Police."

"Right. Some kind of police number. They can get the trace in five or ten seconds. Maybe faster, for all I know. So, with this phone"—she pointed to pay phone C—"I'm going to call the bad number. With the other pay phone, I'm going to call my cell phone." She checked to see that they got it. "I call my cell phone first so that is the existing connection."

"I get it,
smoke
them fuckers."

"Listen, guys," said Christina, "I want you to stand here for five minutes and look like big bad black guys, okay? Because, if you do, then you're going to see something very funny."

"What?"

"You're going to see some guys scream up in some kind of car and be looking for—"

"You."

"Right."

He nodded solemnly. "It's cool."

Now she dialed her cell phone using pay phone B. The low-battery light blinked steadily. The phone rang, and she punched the talk button. She could hear her own voice coming out of the earpiece of the other phone. "Okay, this connection is made. Now I dial the other one." Which she did. "You guys stand here." She positioned them in front of the phone booths. As long as they stood there, no one would mess with the phones taped together.

"Yeah?" came a voice in her ear.

"Okay, I'm calling in," she said. The connection worked, but there was a lot of garbage in the sound. She patted one guy on the cheek, winked at the other. "I'm calling, like I said."

"Where are you?"

"I'm in midtown, Forty-second and Broadway."

"Okay."

She started walking.

"You said Forty-second and Broadway?"

"Yeah, what do you want me to do?"

"I got to check, hang on."

Stalling. They already knew she was lying, of course. She turned the corner onto Bowery, wondering how long the cell-phone battery would last.

"Yeah, okay. What we'd like you to do," came the voice, "is set up a way so that we can get this piece of paper."

"All right," she said.

"What?"

"I said all right."

"Connection's terrible."

"I'm at a pay phone." They probably had a car on the way. She had to stay on the phone long enough so that they thought she was there.

"We want you to suggest a way of meeting, a place," came the voice.

"How about at the top of the Empire State Building?" she said.

"Well, no . . . maybe. I got to check. What about somewhere near where you are?"

"That's a good idea," she said.

Suddenly the phone filled with ripping static.

"Hey!" a voice called.

"Hello? Hello?" came another.

"She fucked us!"

Christina turned off her phone and kept walking, the bill of lading securely in her bag. I'm free, she told herself. I'm just going to go back to the Pioneer Hotel and think of a way to survive a few more days. But then there was the question of her mother. If her mother answered the phone and was fine, then she wouldn't have to worry. She could figure out what to do next. I'll try one more time, Christina decided. She turned on the phone. The battery light blinked constantly. She punched in the number.

"Hello?" came her mother's voice, full of fear.

"Mom?"

"Please do whatever they say, Tina," her mother cried. "There are three of them here in the living room. They turned this place upside down."

Christina sagged in dismay. A man came on the phone. "Tony says he's starting to chop up your boyfriend. Go to the corner of Tenth Avenue and Thirteenth Street. Bring the piece of paper." He hung up.

She collapsed against the wall. I'm so bad, she thought, so bad.

A FEW MINUTES LATER
she stood at the corner of Tenth and Thirteenth. The meatpacking district, the buildings boarded up, gutters filled with glass and garbage. A cab sat at the corner with a flat tire, the driver staring at it in disgust. A door opened on the other side of the street. She walked across.

"All right, I'm here," she said hatefully. "You have to let my mother go."

She recognized Peck. He pulled her inside and marched her up the steps into a huge room. The floor was rough, the high windows broken and streaked. She could see Tony in a chair, speaking into a phone, food cartons around his feet. He hung up. "Paul's coming," he announced, looking up. He saw Christina. "You got it?"