by Frank Zafiro
After a while, she asked, “You still there?”
“I’m here.”
“Okay. Good.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Look, I called because I need to talk to you.”
“Okay. Let’s talk.”
“No,” she said. “In person.”
I swallowed. I remembered that smoldering gaze she sent my way at Gar’s funeral. Talking to her at the bar afterward.
“Sure,” I said.
“I’ll call you tonight, after I get off work? Say around ten? Or earlier, if I can arrange it.”
“All right.”
“We’ll figure out where then.”
“That’s fine.”
“Thanks.” Her tone rang sincere. For whatever reason, this was important to her.
“It’s no problem.”
She laughed a little. “Don’t say that yet. You might think different when we talk.”
I doubted it. She could ask me to strap on a filet mignon vest and jump into the lion exhibit at the zoo, and I think I’d still be happy to have that conversation in person.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” was all I said.
“Well, we’ll see,” she replied. “See you a little after ten.”
“See you then.”
She hung up. I stood there like a fool for a couple of seconds before closing the phone. It chirped immediately. A little bit of a thrill shot through my stomach when I thought it might be her calling me back, like some junior high boy getting a note from the pretty girl in class.
CONNIE, the screen read.
I pushed cancel.
I spent the better part of an hour just walking and thinking. What could Ania want with me? It couldn’t just be me, because a woman like that could have any man she wanted. And clearly, she preferred thugs like my brother, for whatever fucked up reason. Probably the same reason women like Connie pick losers like Steve.
Only that wasn’t entirely true, was it? Steve and Jerzy were different. Steve was a bit of a poser. Jerzy was the real deal. A stone cold bastard. And that was the kind of guy Ania dug, apparently.
So what did she want with me?
I walked and I thought, but for the most part I realized I didn’t care. Most of the time, all I could think about was how those pale blue eyes saw straight into me.
I grabbed a dog from a vendor and leaned against a nearby building, munching it. Halfway through, my phone chirped again. I figured it was probably Connie calling a second time, but I was wrong.
It was Al.
“Yeah?”
“You anywhere near Union Station?”
“I can be.”
“Fifteen minutes. Canal Street entrance.”
“Make it a half hour,” I said. “I gotta hop on the train.”
Forty minutes later, I stood next to a newsstand, down a half block from the station entrance. I spotted Al waddling toward me long before he saw me. I wondered how in the hell he survived on the job if he was that oblivious to his surroundings.
“Hey,” he wheezed at me when he got close enough. He used his jacket sleeve to wipe away the sweat on his forehead.
I motioned toward the door up ahead of a small café named The Bastille. “You wanna go in?”
He shook his head. “Too quiet in there. Let’s walk.”
I thought about cracking wise that I didn’t figure he was up for much in the way of exercise, but decided not to. I wasn’t interested in any bullshit banter with this guy anymore. I just wanted to get my information and be quits with him.
We walked a block or so without a word. Then, as we passed the doors to a diner, Al stopped. “This’ll work. They’re busy.”
We went inside and found one of the last empty booths. A harried waitress appeared to take our order. I asked for coffee. So did Al, but he ordered a cheeseburger and fries to go with his.
When she walked away, he admired her ass. Then he looked at me. “Funny how the busiest places have the best service. You go into some half-empty place that’s slow and it never fails that the service sucks. Even though they can’t be that busy, right? But you come in here where they’re slammed and you get a waitress at your table before your ass has even warmed the seat. Why is that?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“Huh. I figured you’d be the expert on waitresses and diners and all that.”
A tickle of anger flickered in my gut. “I just worked the grill,” I said evenly. “I didn’t do a master’s thesis on diner service.”
“No?”
“No.”
“I see. What happened to your face, Mick?” he asked, pointing at my cheek.
“A leprechaun threw his shillelagh at me.”
Al’s expression remained tight and hard to read. We sat in silence until the waitress poured our coffee. Then Al made a big production out of putting his cream and sugar into his cup. I left mine sitting there. Only when he’d finally sipped his coffee and nodded his satisfaction did he turn his attention back to me.
“I looked into your situation, Mick.”
“I figured.”
“Yeah, well, it ain’t as easy as it used to be. Fucking computers with their logins and passwords and tracking and all that shit?” He shook his head. “Bigger job than I thought. I couldn’t get everything, so I had to piece shit together from what I could get.”
I didn’t reply. The how of it all was his problem.
“That don’t matter, though, ‘cuz I got the job done.” He raised his coffee cup to his lips and took another sip. Then he said, “I found Jimmy Kerrigan.”
I resisted the urge to smile. “Yeah? Where?”
“Fucker never left Chi-town. He works the parking lot at Comiskey during the baseball season.” Al shook his head in mild amazement. “Talk about hiding in plain sight. Off season, though, he’s like a hermit, never goes out. Lives just south of the ballpark in a shitty little apartment on the corner of West Pershing Road and Wells Street. He’s in Four B.”
“All right,” I said. “That’s it, then. We’re square.” I started to get up.
Al raised his hands. “Whoa, not so fast, Mickey.”
“What?”
“Jimmy ain’t got the necklace.”
I sat back down. “How do you know that?”
“Because we seized it when him and Speedo got picked up about three days after the theft.”
“The police have the necklace?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“Shut up and listen,” Al said.
I didn’t like his tone. I thought about drilling him one right in his fat face, but decided it could wait. I settled for clenching my jaw.
Al smiled. There was a hint of cruel satisfaction in that smile and I wondered what he was up to. “Good. You know, that was always the best thing about you, Mickey. You knew when to keep your mouth shut.”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed. “Or maybe not. It doesn’t matter. Just listen.” He took another sip of coffee, then continued. “Jimmy and Speedo both got grabbed up a couple of days before your old man got popped for that stick-up in Wisconsin. He musta figured out the jig was up and decided to bolt.”
I nodded. That made perfect sense.
“The necklace went back to the Hungarian government about three months after that. Jimmy did a little bit of time on some outstanding warrants, but it was less than two years. Speedo did about eight months at county. No charges filed for this theft, though, on either one of them.”
I thought about that. Either the Hungarian government didn’t want to push the charges forward or someone cut a deal that eventually fell through. If Jimmy ratted out Speedo and the old man, why didn’t they charge either one of them?
“You work it out yet?” Al asked.
I shook my head. “It doesn’t make sense. Jimmy and Speedo get arrested together—”
“No. They were arrested the same day. Not together.”
I paused. Then I asked, “Who got arrested
first?”
“Jimmy Kerrigan.”
“So he ratted out Speedo and the old man.”
“Looks that way.”
I turned my coffee cup in a slow circle, working out the likelihoods. “The cops get Speedo but the old man catches wind of it and lams it.”
“And stupid fuck that he is,” Al said, “he takes off a robbery on the way. Which lands him over at Columbia.”
I kept turning the full cup of coffee in a circle. “You know, Al, my old man was a bona fide career criminal who wasn’t hardly around for me at all. I’ve got no real love for the guy.”
“Who would?”
“The thing is, though, he was still my old man.” I smiled without any humor. “So watch how you talk about him, huh?”
Al sat and stared back at me. We watched each other across the table. The tickle of anger in my stomach had brewed into a crackling fire. I’d love nothing more than to bash Al one right in the beak. I’d like it if that were the way the new Michael Patrick Sawyer dealt with every problem. But I guess I was still smarter than that, because I settled for staring back at Al’s fat face.
Finally the waitress broke the tension by sliding a burger and fries in front of Al. He glanced down at the food, grunted, and reached for the ketchup.
“No matter how you cut it,” he said, pouring a small river of the red stuff across his fries, “the necklace is out of play. Too bad, too. It was worth over three million.”
I blinked. Three million dollars?
Al didn’t look up. He globbed some ketchup onto his burger. Then he mashed the bun on top and took a huge bite. Only once he was chewing did he bother to look up at me. His eyes were hard and flat.
“’Course, the earrings are still out there. And those diamonds were huge, too. Best I could figure, that little trinket is worth one point two large.”
There was a time when large meant thousand. Probably back when the old man was out of prison and still working. Inflation is a bitch, though. When Al said large now, he meant million.
One point two million dollars. That much money was a new life, just like I’d hoped.
Al tore off another bite and talked while he chewed. “Now, some of that is historical value, cultural value, that kind of shit. But just the diamonds themselves are probably worth eight hundred. Even a fuckin’ amateur like you could find a fence who’ll pay two. So I’ll settle for a hundred.”
I blinked. “What?”
Al kept chewing. “You heard me.”
“You’re crazy. I’m not paying you a hundred anything.”
“Yeah, you will. Or you’ll get nothing. I’ll put the word out on this little caper and it’ll dry up like your nuts when you jump in a cold swimming pool.”
I stared at him. “You seem to forget our deal.”
“Fuck our deal. Say hello to the new deal.”
“Okay, “I said. “How’s this for a new deal? How about I call Internal Affairs and have the chat I never did before with those cheeseaters?”
Al didn’t miss a beat. He put his burger down, wiping his hands methodically on a napkin. Then he reached under the table. A moment later, I heard the unmistakable metallic click of a revolver hammer being drawn back.
“How about I blow your fucking balls off right here in this diner?”
“Not very pretty,” I said, not believing him.
“It’ll do the job.”
“And you’ll go to prison for murder.”
Al shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe the derringer in my pocket ends up next to you. Maybe the official story is that you tried to smoke me and I was just faster.”
“Fat fuck like you? People would find that hard to believe.”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?” Al smiled, hamburger meat and bun stuck in his teeth. “At least not to you. Because you’ll be deader than forty bastards.”
We stared at each other across the table again. This was getting to be our shtick. Stare and threaten. I was getting sick of it. I thought about saying so, but something in his eyes told me he wasn’t fucking around.
“Why should I give you a hundred kay?” I asked.
Al smiled, this time with sincerity, because he knew he’d won. I heard the clicking sound again and knew he’d lowered the hammer. He moved in his seat, replacing the pistol in his holster.
“Nice, Mick. Glad you’re willing to play nice.”
“Answer my question,” I said.
Al picked up his burger again. “You’ll pay me for the information.”
“Pretty steep price.”
He took a bite and shrugged. “And for my cooperation,” he said around a mouthful.
“I don’t even know where these earrings are,” I said.
Al swallowed. “You’ll find them. At least, you fucking better.”
I wanted to jam the rest of that burger down his throat and watch the fucker choke to death. Instead, I slid out of the booth without a word. I left him and my own untouched coffee behind and walked out of the diner.
Two blocks away, I pulled out my phone again. I stared down at it, getting my thoughts in order. I could avoid paying Al, as long as I left town as soon as I made the score. It would be more difficult to find a fence in another city, but it couldn’t be too hard. Al would be easy to slip.
Jerzy was another matter.
I flipped open the phone and dialed.
“Yeah?” His voice on the other end of the line sounded tight. Not quite nervous, but maybe a little rattled.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You called. So you tell me.”
Same subtle tightness there. Did he know that Ania called me?
“I know where Jimmy is,” I told him, forging ahead.
Jerzy was quiet for a second. Then he said, “Tell me.”
“No,” I said.
“No?” His tone was full of surprise.
“Meet me at Union Station, I’ll be waiting on a bench in the big hall. See you in an hour. I’ll fill you in on the train ride.”
“I’d rather drive,” he said.
“I’m sure you would. But this is how we play it.”
Jerzy was quiet again. Finally, he said, “Okay, Hero. See you there.”
He broke the connection.
I closed my phone and slipped it into my jacket pocket. I rubbed my cheek where Steve’s punch had glanced off of my face. I put him out of my mind, along with Connie, Eddie and the diner, Al, everything.
Right now, there was just Jerzy to worry about. And maybe Ania. And that was more than enough.
NINETEEN
Jerzy
Andros and Dobry drop me off and I tell them to not even come back up to the room. I go to the elevator but then I do a u-turn and head back out of the hotel.
I walk a short block over to some cheesy liquor store with bars on the windows and doors. I buy smokes, a bottle of Belvedere and some tonic water.
Five minutes later and I’m back in the room. After checking on the safe and the money, I make myself a drink and change clothes. Another drink goes down and I pull my cell out to call Patrik, just to let him know what’s up.
“Hey, Boss. Me.”
“Yes, my friend.”
“It’s done. Done deal. All of them.”
“Yes, I have gotten a quick report from your staff.” He sounded upbeat but cautious. “However, this connection is not very good, perhaps we should just talk in person.”
“Yeah, understood. Listen, just want you to know, the staff was good. Crew cut is a real keeper.”
“They have reported the same. You will stay there for a while, then?”
“Probably. Look, something has come up, though, and it’s big stuff. I won’t be back to the office for awhile. I’ve got some new, big business going on and it will keep me very busy. Can’t come back now.”
“Of course. In a week, I’m sure you’ll have a more open calendar.”
“No. No, I mean for a long time, Boss.”
“Is there something?”<
br />
“Yes, part of this business is that our competition knows about the New Jersey office now. So they’ll be looking at Jersey hard, maybe relocating.”
There’s a long pause.
“I see…I will call you tomorrow and we will make arrangements for a meeting so we that can discuss our marketing strategy.”
“Okay, but not here and not there, I’ll come up with a place. I’ll call you.”
“We are forever in your debt for sealing this deal, my friend. Drive careful, the traffic will be very bad. Be safe.”
“Always.”
“Do widzenia.” The line went dead.
I walk over and put two cubes in the cup and splashed in some vodka, think about it and then pour some more in. I don’t even consider the tonic this time.
I’m staring out the window into the dark, but I’m not looking at anything. My head is everywhere right now. It just figures, I’m sitting here in an average little chain hotel but I got a cool two hundred grand in the room…and I’m drinking vodka out of a plastic cup.
Hey, I could deal with holing up here until they whacked the fall guy from the west coast. No problem. Drink vodka out of the bottle for that matter, if that’s all there was to it. But I’m a trapped rat now. When the sun comes up, or however long it takes Kos to grow the balls to sell some very valuable information, I will be hunted. Hunted hard. Every fucking Russian that works for the Skansi crew and anyone they can pull in from the outside will be looking for my ass.
As always, no matter what the hell is going on I’m hungry. So, I order a pizza to be delivered to the hotel. I go down to the desk and leave the money there, tell them to call my room when it comes. I don’t want some fucking Russian weightlifter delivering a pizza at my door. Know what I’m sayin’?
Would they be onto where I’m at that fast? No fucking way, but my car is down there. They know my car and they’ll be looking for that soon. Am I going overboard on the caution here? Fucking right I am.
I swear I’m not scared, though. It ain’t that. I don’t scare. I just never like to be soft, never like to put my guard down, even though I could for tonight. Bad habit to get into, right?
When I finally go down and get the pizza, I eat a couple of slices in like four bites and start drinking again. I’m carving into this bottle pretty good now and settle back into a chair, propping my feet up on the bed. The Bulls are on. Playoffs. Like I give a fuck. I flip the channel and it’s hockey instead. I guess that’s better, at least not so sissy, but it doesn’t matter. I’m staring at the screen; smoking and thinking.
