Rivers of Gold (19 page)

More made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. Santiago wanted to put a choke hold on him.

“You were sent to Mumbai and Delhi to do CT stuff, is that it?” Santiago growled. In the wake of 9/11, sending NYPD “specialists” abroad for counter-terrorism cross-training had become all the rage. Until, of course, it got too expensive.

“Jammu and Kashmir, actually,” More replied, and this confused Santiago, mostly because he thought he detected a trace of wistfulness in More's voice, buried beneath the phlegm.

“So what's a
hijra
?”

“Intersexual. In India they're called ‘the Third Sex.' ”

“Wait. You. She. Not. A
man
?”

“Could be a transvestite, a pre- or post-op transsexual, or even a hermaphrodite. There's a long history of them in South Asia,” More said distractedly, apparently working through a bolus in his throat.

For a moment Santiago considered shooting More, a thought that seemed to come to him more frequently of late. He just as easily dismissed the thought: If they were going to be working their way through the entire yellow-cab labor pool, he might need a translator.

Intersexual
?

Fucking More.

Javaid Talwinder was a well-contented man. His eldest son, Tariq, had submitted fitness reports on the two new hires, both good Punjabi boys only two months in-country. The new Moneymap GPS meters Tariq had insisted upon for each cab were paying off. Even after Javaid's own week-long instruction course, it would be unreasonable to expect any immigrant to assimilate and memorize the entire road network of the five boroughs in less than one month. The in-dash Moneymaps used real-time navigational software, updated hourly, so no driver had called in lost. News reports on construction, accidents, and road closings also arrived on each driver's screen in real time, along with TLC alerts on conventions, hotel checkouts, and airport volume, so the drivers could always follow the money and avoid being tied up in traffic. Thanks to the regenerative brake option (expensive, but worth the cost once put into practice, he reflected), the Moneymaps never went dead, which meant the meters never cut out, which meant the cabs stayed on the street, and the drivers stayed out of the TLC's kangaroo courts.
A moving cab is a river of gold, an idle cab is a money drain
, Javaid thought, echoing the mantra of the old Irish supervisor who'd broken him in years earlier.

Manesh, Javaid's foreman in charge of keeping the cabs running, appeared off Javaid's left shoulder as though by magic. “Need your signature,
bhai
,” Manesh said in a rumbling voice. He held out a clipboard in one huge, oil-stained paw. To his delight, Javaid read a list of familiar words and numbers comprising the final shipment for the bolt-on turbo/intercooler upgrades for the cabs, which would enable the Hondas to keep up with any five-, six-, or eight-cylinder cabs on the road, but which were also completely reversible (a necessity, come inspection time). The inventory was now complete; Manesh had a full set of replacement parts in-house for each and every cab in the fleet, just as they'd planned. Barring true catastrophe, no cab would spend more than one shift off-road on a lift with Manesh tearing at its guts. Javaid happily scrawled his name on the freight bill and beamed at Manesh, whose dull amphibian gaze never changed, and sent him on his way.
Allahu akhbar
, he thought, turning to face the front lot through the three open garage doors. God truly is great.

Then he spotted the beat-up Crown Vic stretch taxicab drifting creakily to a stop not twenty yards away as the delivery van quickly backed out, and thought:
bhenchod
.

For a moment he figured this was just another driver leaving his garage for greener pastures. He mentally called up the speech he'd rehearsed for turning away new job seekers; Javaid's team was hand-picked, and his garage was already fully staffed. Interlopers were not welcome. He'd chased quite a few off already.

Something about the taxi appeared wrong to Javaid. The paint scheme was right, the medallion was right where it should be at eleven o'clock on the hood, there was grime on the front valance and inside the wheel arches that no car wash would ever touch. As his eyes drifted over the cab's hood, he caught it on the edge of his vision: This cab's license plate was not the standard TLC sequence. This cab's plate had six consecutive numbers bookended by matched capitals. This cab was not a cab.

The driver was big and brown, and even at a distance Javaid could make out the same sort of hands Manesh possessed—mechanic's mitts. As the driver closed the gap (long strides, a slight swagger), Javaid's hopes for connecting along familiar South Asian ground faded in the face of Hispanic hostility. Puerto Rican, Javaid guessed. Maybe Cuban, or even Mexican. Javaid had a cousin who owned a greengrocery on the Upper West Side full of such men, who broke down cardboard boxes and stacked cans of condensed milk and cupped Newports in their tattooed hands when Javaid's cousin wasn't around.

The man who got out of the passenger side was
mamuli
, nondescript. Caucasian, smaller than his companion, his form lost in a black army jacket and hooded sweatshirt, he moved on silent trainers and seemed to fade into the tarmac of the parking lot.

The big Latino was already in his face, all frog eyes and bull neck. “Police Department, Detectives Santiago and More, Citywide Anticrime,” he said in a voice that oddly echoed Manesh's in timbre.

Javaid was well versed in dealing with hostile authority figures and put on his best expression of courteous compliance. “Yes?”

“We're pursuing an investigation into the deaths of two yellow cabdrivers during the past two weeks,” said the big dark one. “We're treating these as homicides. Our intelligence suggests that the victims may at some point within the last year have tried to gain employment with your corporation. We'd like to review your employee application records.”

Khun
? Murder?

“Of course,” he managed, finding a small outcropping of stability in his professorial mannerisms of long ago in Lahore.

The garage was nothing like those along Vernon Boulevard. It was too new, too clean, too spacious. The outer lot, Santiago guessed, ran to maybe two or three acres, with new blacktop, split into more or less three areas. The first was the front lot they'd pulled into (fenced, with concertina wire running along the top and floodlights mounted on each corner post, along with what appeared to Santiago to be CCTV cameras behind all-weather plastic housings, much like those deployed above traffic signals citywide to catch tags on light-jumpers, speeders, and hit-and-runs). The floods and cameras were arranged so that the entire front lot would be covered day or night.

The front lot consisted of a compact, inverted-U-frame car wash (complete with soap guns and vacuum hoses, like those he remembered from his childhood back in the DR) and—More had caught this when they first rolled up to the garage doors—two brand-new diesel pumps (B-100 blend). Every garage Santiago had ever seen boasted lifts and grease monkeys trying to wring a few more miles out of each battered cab, but not every one had its own pump, let alone two, let alone
diesel
. The garages he drove by along Tenth Avenue in Manhattan were usually located along side streets next to gas stations, and the cabbies would drive right off the lifts to tank up. Santiago wrote himself a reminder in his phone to check with Traffic, DEP, and the TLC about new pump applications and permits. This place had been thoughtfully planned out by someone familiar with the industry, someone who would know all the bureaucratic requirements set down by the TLC for garage and fleet operations. Santiago bet himself there would be a large filing cabinet somewhere in this man's office that contained every receipt for every payment for every permit this outfit required.

“You're an ex-driver,” Santiago said, no question in his tone.

Javaid smiled for the first time since the foreign cab had first rolled onto his lot. His teeth were yellow and bore all the marks of hard wear. “No, detective, I am a
current
driver. TLC regulations specify that owners of mini-fleets, which are defined as corporations containing two or more medallion taxicabs, must themselves drive a minimum of twenty hours per week. I do, as does my son.”

The son had been standing just behind his father's right shoulder, a look of open hostility etched into his features. There was no question of family resemblance, the kid had his father's high cheekbones, coriander coloring, and a good deal more hair, cut the same way as his father's. He wore jeans and a teal-colored T-shirt with a VW logo and the words
EAST LONDON ALL STAR DUBS CLUB
on the front. Behind him, three lifts (brand-new, their rails painted a brilliant red to contrast with the undercarriages of the cabs they would support) ran the length of the main service area. The far wall contained a series of heavy-duty metal racks and shelves, reaching almost all the way up to the ceiling, each containing a row of what Santiago realized were all the components of the driveline, arranged by weight and size. The rack closest to the floor held new tires, with laser-printed signs designating front and rear neatly taped to the wall above each group. Above were gleaming new alloy wheels, arranged the same way. Above those, stainless-steel brake rotors, their machined surfaces catching a dull shine from the overheads, were neatly arranged alongside large black calipers with the word
ALCON
in silver dropped-out type. The next rack up contained odd-looking pinions and springs, which Santiago guessed were suspension components. The place seemed purpose-built to service taxicabs and put them back on the road in the smallest amount of time possible.

“My compliments to the chef,” Santiago said wryly, with a sidelong glance at Javaid, who was positively beaming now.

“Thank you, detective. My foreman Manesh and I spent many nights planning the layout for the service area. Our objective was simple: No taxi should spend more than one shift in the shop. A taxi on a lift earns no money. Manesh was the fastest taxi mechanic on McGinnis Boulevard. I knew when I had a fleet of my own I wanted him to be the one who would maintain it.” Javaid punctuated this compliment by nodding toward the gorilla in overalls who was looking toward the floor—not averting his eyes, Santiago realized, but keeping watch on something on the floor. What the hell was he doing? And where the hell was More?

As if in answer, More emerged duck-like from behind the cab he had first approached upon their arrival, walking on his haunches, his eyes roughly level with the cab's headlights. He showed no concern for having a man Santiago's size, within arm's reach of a wide array of heavy metal tools, plodding a few feet behind him. Tariq also took notice of More's reappearance, and he seemed annoyed at having to divide his spiteful glare in two directions. Santiago knew he had to maintain control of the situation—More did not seem to give a shit—and keep these jittery cabbies cool. That brought him back to the cabs themselves.

Which were hardly TLC standard issue. The cab on the nearest lift was a brand-new Honda Fit, painted an outrageous mix of the usual yellow and black laced with a red-white-and-blue-striped pattern that Santiago knew he'd seen somewhere before, but could not readily identify. The wheels were obviously brand-new alloys, but their style was also vaguely familiar and seemed foreign, in an old-fashioned way. The dome light was a smooth wide fairing, like an eyebrow ridge over the windscreen, with a second fairing running perpendicular from the middle rear of the eyebrow partway down the center of the roof—a long dorsal fin that Santiago guessed housed an integral satellite antenna. “And an LCD display for advertising,” Javaid said with a clairvoyance that rattled Santiago.

All the while, More kept peering over his nose at the car from about four inches away, so Santiago was grateful when Javaid stepped into the breach. “This is our model taxi of the future, detective. The Honda Fit TDI. My son calls it the ‘Fat.' ” (This elicited a sound halfway between a snort and a chuckle from More, and even Santiago couldn't resist half a grin despite himself.) “It has a two-point-two-liter i-DTEC turbo diesel engine with a combined fuel economy of forty-five miles per gallon, with a fifteen-gallon fuel tank, and a new catalytic converter system that breaks down NOX pollutants
without
urea injection, as well as diesel particulate filters fitted on the exhaust and good for the lifetime of the car.” Javaid paused to let the detective catch up. “Honda does not ordinarily supply taxi fleets, although some individual owner-operators have successfully introduced them into service. Manesh came up with an aftermarket titanium suspension upgrade that met with TLC fleet standards.” Santiago nodded, his mouth tightly closed. He had not understood a thing Javaid had just said but hoped he looked like he had.

More's voice, brittle from lack of use, sounded distant and alien as it rattled off the concrete floor. “There hasn't been a diesel medallion issued since 1984,” he muttered. “How'd you get one?”

How the fuck did More know
that
?! Santiago asked himself yet again.

Javaid smiled even more broadly and benignly, a proud patriarch with teeth like the Burgess Shale. “By giving the TLC what it asked for, detective. While it's true that the TLC, as well as the Mayor's Office, would like to see a fully hybrid fleet by the end of the century's second decade, it acknowledges that there is no way to meet all the demands placed by various political lobbies around the city.