Silence wrapped their table while waiters cleared after the soup. Felicity examined other patrons in the dim, intimate dining room but her eyes wandered back to Davis. The single candle on their table made her date’s skin glow golden and helped him hide his eyes. Davis laid the ghosts to rest before returning to the present. His smooth, professional smile was back in place when the steamed lobsters arrived.
Again, Felicity was pleasantly surprised. She thought anyone could create greatness steaming a fresh lobster. The trick was in giving that crustacean proper supporting acts. In this case, the lobster was perfectly complemented by julienned, deep fried zucchini and corn fritters as big as pancakes.
“This place is wonderful, Ross,” Felicity said. “You must know somebody to get reservations here in the tourist season.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Davis said, teasing the tender flesh out of a lobster claw. “This place doesn’t take reservations.”
“I am impressed,” Felicity said, dabbing butter from a corner of her mouth. “Guess that’s what comes from a college education. Never had the chance, myself. Your parents must have been prouder than peacocks at your graduation.”
“Nope,” Davis said, in a matter of fact tone. “Died the month before.”
“Oh my Lord, I’m so sorry.” Felicity placed her hand over Davis’. He flinched, but then slowly wrapped his thumb around hers.
“It’s almost funny, Nicole.” Davis looked at her, but never quite made eye contact. “A fight started between the blacks and Italians in the neighborhood. It was a family thing, and from what I heard it got ugly quick. My folks tried to avoid the trouble, but of course being black, they were in it. Got run over with a bunch of the fighters. Don’t know who was driving. Just got a phone call from the police.” His voice trailed off. Felicity squeezed his hand hard.
“Hey. I didn’t mean to drag up all those memories. Really. I just kind of wanted to know how a class act guy like you got mixed up in this business.”
“I could ask you the same thing, Nicole,” Davis said. “Is it really Nicole?”
“Felicity,” she said, and regretted it as soon as the name left her mouth. Oh well, they couldn’t trace her with just a first name. “If you must know, I’m an orphan too. Parents killed toward the end of The Troubles in Ulster. Saw it happen, right there on the street. Started stealing to survive, I did. Soon found out it was an easy way to get rich. Easy, at least, for me. And there’s a certain rush in pulling off a really tough one.”
“It’s the same for a confidence man,” Davis said. “Before I found a decent job I found out how easy it is to talk people out of things. Maybe a black man can get to be president of the United States, but we still can’t get to be president of General Motors. But that’s okay. I can sure live like them and I learned how to do it on their money. Now, what else did you want to ask me?”
Felicity wanted to ask where all the stolen paintings went, but felt this wasn’t the time. “I don’t think I’ve got any more questions right now. Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”
Davis took Felicity’s hand in both of his. His skin felt warm and smooth. He moved forward just enough for their knees to touch.
“I wanted to tell you how beautiful you are by candlelight, how the golden highlights deepen the beautiful red of your hair, and how I long to explore the secrets hidden behind the deep green pools of your eyes, but I figured you’d think I was just conning you. Would you?”
“Yeah,” Felicity sighed, slowly nodding her head. “Yeah, I would. But I’d fall for it anyway.”
-13-
“You really think this’ll work?” Daddy Boom asked when Morgan stepped from the limousine.
“It better,” Morgan said, searching out his face in the darkness. “It’s my plan. And it will, if everybody’s where they need to be when they need to be there. And if Crazy Ray really is the best shooter around. Now let’s move. We’ve got about forty-five minutes.”
The others drove off leaving Morgan almost invisible in black leather. The fire escape ladder made a grating, squeaking sound as Morgan pulled it down. Once he reached the first landing he could travel upward almost in silence. The car was three blocks away by the time Morgan reached the top of the fire escape. He slid over the roof’s edge into the night. While he listened for surprises, he checked his mental map and went over the simple plan in his mind.
Pena lived in a six story walk up, east of The Grand Concourse in The Bronx. Morgan was now on a roof at the other side of the same city square. Houses ringed the square, their backyards converging in the center.
New Yorkers usually think of their “block” as the street they live on and the houses across the street. Morgan’s plan of attack depended on this confusion.
Moving in a low crouch, Morgan headed across the roof he was on, following the avenue. When he ran out of roofs, he would be on one corner of Pena’s “block”. Then he could turn left, cross four or five more roofs and land on top of Pena’s house. His enemy was a victim of his own limited tactical thinking. Guards should have been posted on those roofs, forward deployed, securing Pena’s rear area.
Morgan had run roofs like these, not far from there, as a boy. Growing up in the South Bronx he knew nothing there would ever change. He was so anxious to get out, he lied about his age to join the Army. In subsequent years, as a mercenary soldier and then in the security business he now co-owned, he wondered if he had been overly negative. Could such an island of depression really continue to exist in the midst of the world’s greatest society?
It did. Nothing had really changed, except perhaps the vicious human animals bred there had evolved into an even deadlier species.
Morgan dropped to his chest, his nostrils filled with tar still hot from the summer sun. An empty roof stretched before him. On the next one sat a man on a folding chair, watching a tiny portable television set up on a TV tray. He faced forward, looking down on Pena’s block, perhaps scanning cars driving in and out, watching for walkers in groups of three or more.
As teenagers, Morgan and his friends would take their boom boxes up on the roof in the summer to escape the heat and dance and drink whatever was cheap. This time he was there to supervise a death.
Low crawling, breathing through his mouth, Morgan slowly crossed the last roof. He held a throwing knife between his teeth but he hoped he would not need it. Grenades covered his belt in back, but they were for later.
Easing over the edge of the corner building’s roof, Morgan could hear Jay Leno’s audience laughing or groaning in turns from the portable TV. Its screen was a beacon, making the guard a perfect target for anyone so inclined. Fifteen feet away, Morgan curled his legs beneath him. He felt his stomach tense, tasted the sandblasted steel clenched between his teeth.
Breath hissed around the knife as Morgan dived. The guard barely turned toward the noise before Morgan’s right arm locked around his neck, pulling him over backward. Morgan’s left hand slipped under the guard’s left arm, clamping on the back of his neck. Morgan’s right hand locked onto his own left forearm.
Before the guard knew he was under attack, Morgan was applying crushing pressure on his throat and a nerve point in the side of his neck. He was young, Morgan noted, a teenage Puerto Rican with short black hair who smelled like sweat and jalapenos. Morgan maintained the choke hold and nerve press for three minutes, making sure the boy was unconscious. Then he used a zip tie to secure the boy’s hands behind his back and lay still another five full minutes, waiting for company. The television was undisturbed. Morgan hoped the watchers on the roof across the street would assume all was normal as long as they saw it.
Convinced he was undetected, Morgan left the unconscious guard, rolling to the back of the building. Pena’s building was only three roofs away. Morgan started low crawling again, thinking this particular pair of black denims and this black pullover would go into the trash after that night’s fun.
A single guard stood at the front of Pena’
s roof. Morgan assumed another man patrolled at the other end of the block. It would be a cakewalk if not for an alley separating Morgan from Pena’s building. Looking over the edge, Morgan saw a lone guard at the back door. He would not see anything happening above him. This far back, no one on the street in front of the house or even on a roof across the street, would see him. Still, he checked his watch’s luminous dial and waited for his distraction.
One street over, at the other end of this city square, Daddy Boom walked into the corner house. He smiled big as he pulled two wedges from a small bag and kicked them into place under the door to the back yard. It was so easy, it might even work. He would use wedges to keep every door from this block into the back area shut. All but one, anyway.
When Ghost strolled around the corner, no one gave him a second look. He was dressed casually, not in the stiff suit Slash insisted he wear during the day. He moved in a relaxed way, with a bouncing gait, like he lived here. He was light enough for Pena’s watchers to mistake him for an Hispanic. He moved neither hurriedly, nor at a loiterer’s slow pace. He was inconspicuous and, after all, what damage could one man do.
Exactly halfway between two street lights, Ghost pulled a baseball sized sphere out of his pocket. A pin popped out of the sphere, and he tossed it in a high loop in the general direction of Pena’s front porch. Guns were drawn, but Ghost kept walking slowly and for three seconds, no one knew quite what to do. Then he pressed his hands over his ears.
J.J. Slash had roared with laughter when Morgan explained the principle behind these concussion grenades, which the British SAS called flash-bangs. Explosive power was almost nil, nearly all blast energy being spent in a burst of light and sound. For a precious instant the power of three magnesium flares illuminated the street, and a sonic boom shattered half the windows on the block. Every man doing his job, watching and listening, was suddenly shocked into helplessness.
Morgan pulled his hands down from covering his earplugs and made the six foot jump to Pena’s roof. One quick right cross ruled out any interference from the final roof guard. After zip-tying that man’s hand behind him, Morgan knelt, scanning the street below him.
A big car pulled around the corner and skidded to a halt. Six men jumped out. Two carried guns, two had knives, one swung a long chain and the final man had what looked like a police baton. The six fighters were on a collision course with Ghost.
To Morgan’s surprise, Ghost leaped just before reaching the group. With a spinning back kick Ghost put a heel into the first gunman’s temple. He landed in front of the other gunman, grabbing the gun wrist. With amazing speed he bent, thrust his other arm between the man’s legs and stood up. His opponent flew over his back, landing hard on his neck. The club swung for his head, but Ghost blocked it with a knife hand and put a reverse punch into the man’s face. A knife arced toward Ghost in an outward stab, but a side thrusting kick put its holder on the concrete.
The second knife man tried to stab down into Ghost’s neck, but he stepped back too quickly. The thrust blew past and Ghost went in, securely gripped the arm and yanked up. Up on the roof Morgan heard the crack and knew that elbow must be broken. Finally, the man swinging a chain committed. The weapon whistled over Ghost’s head. He was bent to one side, his hands on the ground. One foot shot out in a violent stamp. The chain holder crumpled to the ground.
Ghost continued his run as if there had been no distraction. Six men fell, with not one getting up. Morgan decided he wanted to stay on this young man’s good side.
Then he quickly pulled the grenades from his back, all attached to strings of varying lengths. Lying at the roof’s front edge, he pulled the pin for the grenade with the longest string and swung it out into space. It arced under him and crashed into a first floor window. At this distance he couldn’t hear the smoke canister pop, but he imagined its billowing cloud gushing forth.
“Fire!” Morgan yelled, tossing another grenade. Its string held it higher, bringing it into a second floor window. Three grenades later, the front of the building was fully involved in an imaginary blaze.
His job done, Morgan turned and ran full tilt, retracing his path to the other side of the city square. Below him, he imagined the total chaos inside the building. Pena’s people would imagine a full scale frontal assault. From inside, they could only think something exploded out front, and the whole front of the house was ablaze. They would rouse the building and hustle their principal downstairs, coughing and gagging all the way. Barring complete stupidity, Pena would realize the danger in running out the front door, and head for the back.
Halfway to his start point, Morgan heard gunfire. They were taking sound shots, blasting at shadows and noises, maybe even each other. An undisciplined rabble, he thought. Only trained people should be allowed to hold guns.
Morgan reached his destination before Pena’s team got to the street. Fifteen frightened, armed men had charged across the back yard, crossed into the other yards, and smashed up against the back doors of the houses at the other side. No amount of pounding would open those doors. Besides, they would expect some doors to be locked and just move to the next one after little effort. When one did yield, Pena’s group poured through it.
Morgan lay at the roof’s edge to watch the finish. He had laid it out pretty simply. Crazy Ray stood in the doorway of the house across the street from the only door Pena could come out. They selected a house with no car parked in front of it to obscure Ray’s view. He would watch the outpouring crowd until he saw Pena come out. He had seen pictures and would spot him easily. He would shoot him and, in the confusion, go back in the door he came out, slip out the back door and disappear. Morgan could lay down suppressive fire if any of Pena’s men had the brains and inclination to follow.
Morgan had a bird’s eye view of Pena’s group rushing out of the building below. All were Hispanic, all dressed in gang gear, almost all carrying guns. From this angle he couldn’t identify Pena, but that hardly mattered. Ray would.
Then he saw Crazy Ray 9 step slowly down the steps of the stoop opposite the fleeing gang. His big hands hung empty at his sides. All movement slowed and he became the center of attention.
“Hey, Spics!” Crazy Ray shouted. “It’s pay day.” Guns moved to center on him.
“What the hell?” Morgan asked himself, taking aim at gang member at the front of the pack.
Morgan was fast, but Ray moved even faster. His hands blurred as he snatched twin automatics from their shoulder holsters. He stood, feet apart, firing those two guns from the hip with machine gun speed. Men flew everywhere, blood exploding from their bodies. Stone bits from the sidewalk and landing steps filled the air. Morgan heard glass breaking, the cartoon whine of ricocheting bullets and the screams of men being torn apart by them.
Morgan had never seen anything like it. In Crazy Ray 9’s hands, two pistols were as devastating as a pair of Uzi’s. His face glowed with the light of madness, and in three seconds Ray emptied his magazines. He gave a chilling laugh before he disappeared into the building behind him.
-14-
Morgan felt eyes on him from every darkened corner as he stepped briskly toward J.J. Slash’s brownstone. His new boss gave himself every edge. He didn’t fear taking chances, but he covered his bet every way he could. His sentries were a good deal more alert and more disciplined than the men guarding his competition.
The night doorman recognized Morgan and let him in. He trotted up to the third floor, which was dedicated to Slash’s “Convincers.” Morgan would find a room with a warm bed there. After an hour on a dark roof and an interminable ride in an empty subway car, plus the walk to Slash’s house, Morgan was ready to crash. He had stopped on the way to make telephone contact with Paul at Felicity’s place, and he had some thinking to do.
Morgan expected nothing but snores when he pushed open the door to the third floor’s main room. Instead he found Crazy Ray 9 on the sofa, nodding. His head popped up when Morgan walked in.
“What’s up, R
ay? You waiting up for me? Afraid I wouldn’t come back?” Morgan asked, only half joking.
“I knew you’d show up. Had a message, that’s all. J.J. wants to see you.”
“Now?”
“That’s right,” Ray said. “Now that you know, I can get some shut-eye.” He stood and stretched.
“Before you go, can I ask you something?”
“Sure man.” Ray rubbed his neck, making a show of trying to stay awake.
“What you carrying in that double shoulder rig?”
Ray smiled, and pulled the gun from his left holster. “Here, take a look. It’s a Glock 19. Ever seen one?”
“Once or twice,” Morgan said, clearing the gun and looking inside the breech. “Seventeen shot magazine, plus one in the chamber if you want.”
“Yeah, and I always want. What do you think, man?”
“I think you’re the fastest gun I ever saw,” Morgan said. “I like the safe action these things have, but they don’t jam up on you?”
“Naw, Jack,” Ray said. “Took them to a gunsmith out on the Island, had him slick up the action some. I like to shoot fast.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Morgan said, returning Crazy Ray’s gun. “Thirty-six bullets. You emptied them up in The Bronx, didn’t you?”
“Uh-huh. Awesome, ain’t it.”
Morgan made a noncommittal noise. “One more question if it’s okay. You’re one dangerous son of a bitch, and your two partners are too. How come J.J.’s the boss around here?”
“Cause he’s the smartest nigger I ever saw,” Ray said, poking a finger at Morgan’s chest. “Smartest I ever saw.”
“And he’s waiting for me now, eh? Is he staying up just to talk to me?”
“No man.” Crazy Ray’s eyes held genuine sadness. “He’s always up. The boy never sleeps. His brain, it won’t stop, you know?”
Morgan answered only with a nod and headed downstairs. In the front room he found another young black man playing solitaire on the coffee table. He motioned Morgan forward. Slash certainly wasn’t cheap with the payroll.
Lost Art Assignment Page 7
