“Because it will be very helpful if we can find out when he’s scheduled to return the van. And learning that will require tact.”
…and intelligence, he wanted to add, both of which you lack. But again, he held his tongue. He had the high ground and wanted to keep it.
“Well, if I’m making a circuit, I’m doing it from a limo. Cold as a witch’s tit out there.”
“I’m sure you can expense that to Mister Apfel.”
“Yeah. I’ll get me a driver. Do it right.”
Tier’s phone buzzed. Ah, his Word for the Day email: EXIGENT. New one for him.
EXIGENT
adjective: EK-suh-junt
Definition
a: requiring immediate aid or action
b: requiring or calling for much: demanding
He didn’t see that one causing a problem. He was sure that being linked with Poncia all day would eventually involve some situation requiring immediate aid or action.
4
Jack awoke shortly before noon, refreshed after a solid five-plus hours of shuteye. For the past few months he’d been sleeping later and waking less refreshed. Having a reason to get up and moving seemed to make a big difference.
He washed up but didn’t shower because he didn’t have a fresh change of clothes. Next task: coffee and sustenance.
He was glad he’d backed the van into its parking slot last night. The motel lot had been plowed sometime during the night, but the snow was still falling and had added another couple of inches. Even so, the van had a tough time getting over the small mound the plow had left in front of it.
He skipped the Burger King and the Cross Bay Diner and pulled into the McDonald’s. He had a weakness for sausage Egg McMuffins. Plus their coffee, formerly the worst in the world, was now pretty decent.
The short drive up slushy Cross Bay Boulevard to Mickey-D’s was all it took to convince him that he had to dump the Econoline. The rear-wheel drive had him swerving all over the road every time he accelerated. He’d never find the north end of H3’s tunnel in this mess if he had to depend on the van. Needed four-wheel drive.
Settled at a corner table with his coffee and McMuffins, he began making his calls. The first was to Gia because he always called her. The second was to Abe to give him Wexler’s name.
And last to the BP station.
Yeah, they had a Jeep Laredo they’d hold for him. Laredos weren’t built for frigid weather, but he’d take it. See them in an hour or so.
5
Tier stuck his head inside the BP station’s office door.
“Me again. Hate to be a pest but…”
He’d stopped in here first thing after breakfast this morning to inquire as to the availability of the Econoline van he said he’d been seeing parked on the lot when he’d pass by. Cole—or so the patch on his coverall said—had told him it was out on a rental. The renter hadn’t known how long he’d need it so Cole didn’t know when to expect it back. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. He’d suggested Tier try Hertz or Avis but, no, Tier told him he liked to deal with local businesses.
Between alternating watches with Poncia on Jack’s apartment, the sports shop, and the bank, Tier kept making sporadic visits to the BP station. On his mid-morning visit he’d heard the same story, so now he was trying lunchtime.
“Hey,” Cole said around a mouthful of meatball sub, “I was hoping you’d come back. The van’s coming in.”
Ohhhh, yes.
“Really? Today?”
Cole swallowed. “Not just today—now. On its way.”
Perfect.
He’d call Poncia and the two of them would wait for an opportunity to grab Jack when he was on foot again. An unfeasible plan in clear weather, but the snow hadn’t let up. With visibility down, the sidewalks largely unshoveled, and few pedestrians out in the storm, it became eminently feasible.
He pulled out his phone. “Do you have an ETA?”
“‘Soon’ is the best I can do.” Cole waved a hand at the weather beyond the big glass windows. “You may want to think twice about renting it in this mess. Those vans suck in snow.”
“Yeah?” Here was a way to get out of the rental.
“That’s why he’s bringing it in.” Cole waved a handful of forms. “He’s swapping it for the Jeep.”
Tier’s elation took a dive. That was going to complicate plans. But those forms…
Tier sidled toward the desk. “A pain in the ass to make a swap like that?”
“Two cars means two rental agreements which means twice the paperwork.”
“Complicated?” He leaned over the desk and spotted John Tyleski on the renter line.
John…Jack…yeah, it fit. At last he could get a line on this guy.
He’d spent too much time last night in a fruitless search for info on him. He had his address but no last name. Usually the address was enough for the investigative sites he subscribed to, but they’d yielded nothing when it came to identifying the renter—owner, maybe?—of that third-floor apartment. He wasn’t listed anywhere.
Cole shrugged. “No biggie once you’ve got the hang of it.”
Tier put on a worried look and stepped to the window.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Maybe I should take a raincheck on the van.”
Cole laughed. “You mean a snow check, dontcha?”
Turning, Tier winked and pointed at him. “Good one. Catch you later.”
Not.
As soon as the door closed behind him, he called Poncia.
“Get down to the BP station. He’s bringing the van in any minute.”
He ended the call without waiting for Poncia to make some inane comment.
The only Jeep on the lot was a copper-colored Laredo. He dug into his messenger bag as he headed for it and pulled out one of his GPS transmitters. Not the model he’d attached to the de Medici Maybach. This had a one-kilometer range which would prove adequate for today’s purposes.
He turned on the module and slipped it into its magnetized case, then stuck it inside the rear bumper. As he was walking away, a white Econoline van pulled into the lot.
He’s here. But where’s Poncia? Where the fuck is Poncia?
Tier walked up to the unshoveled corner and scanned Eleventh Avenue for the limo. He couldn’t see all that far through the falling snow, but he should have been here by now. Probably stopped off for some burgers or maybe a few beers. Just what he needed now: Dealing with a half-lit, obnoxious—
Oh, wait. There he is.
Tier waved the Lincoln Continental around the corner and got in the front passenger seat, leaving Poncia alone in the back. Sharing a car with two other people…the proximity put his teeth on edge. Could have been worse—could have been four people. Might as well make the best of it.
He extended his hand to the dark-skinned, black-suited driver without acknowledging Poncia.
“Tier. And you are…?”
“Marley,” he said with a Jamaican accent. His cheeks were sunken and he was cadaverously thin.
“Like the reggae singer?”
He smiled, showing yellowed teeth. “Yes, but it is my first name. My mother was a fan.”
Tier sniffed. “Is that ketchup?”
“What of it?” Poncia said from the backseat.
Tier twisted and saw him sucking on a foil sleeve of ketchup. Two more, flattened and empty, littered the seat beside him.
“You’re eating straight ketchup?”
“Great snack.”
Tier turned back to Marley and patted the dashboard. “How’s this beast handling in the snow?”
Marely shrugged. “Not bad, considering the conditions. The tires be pretty new and she got front-wheel drive.”
Tier pointed to the BP lot. “We’re going to be tailing that Jeep, so be ready to move when it moves.”
“Not a problem.”
Tier wasn’t so sanguine. Following a four-wheel-drive in this lumbering limo, front-wheel drive or not, might prove a very real problem. Ti
er’s Honda bike was out of the question in the snow, so they’d have to make do with the equipment at hand.
The GPS transmitter would level the playing field. He hoped.
Tier pulled his tablet from the messenger bag. Might as well put this time to good use by nailing down John Tyleski’s identity. So far, they’d been hunting a ghost. Tier intended to resurrect him as flesh and blood.
6
Jack had spotted the limo idling by the gas station; made a mental note of it but hadn’t attached much importance to it. He’d been anxious to get back to Queens and on the prowl for H3. Yeah, the creature was nocturnal, but it might use the cover of the falling snow to forage before sunset.
After all the papers had been signed and they’d done the obligatory walk-arounds on both vehicles, Cole had finally handed him the keys to the Jeep. He kept an eye on the black Continental as he pulled out onto Eleventh Avenue and headed uptown, and noticed it move in behind him. Following?
He made a right onto Fiftieth Street and headed west. The limo stayed behind.
Well, well, well…first time he’d ever been tailed by a limousine. He could make out two in the front and maybe a third in the rear. One of them had been smart enough to keep an eye on the PB station. Not likely the guy who’d followed him here yesterday. Somebody else, somebody with better bird-dogging chops was involved.
For the most part, Fiftieth Street had been plowed but the sparse traffic was crawling. Damn near impossible to work any evasive maneuvers under these conditions. No matter. He was headed for Queens and, if the city’s sanitation department stayed true to form, the side streets over there would rank near the bottom of the plows’ lists. Which meant they’d be in bad shape. He’d strand them there.
He drove all the way east and took the Midtown Tunnel into Queens where, as expected, the storm was staying ahead of the plows. The limo hung back quite a ways, but was still on his tail. Time to get serious.
Jack took a very slushy Twenty-first Street up to Jackson Avenue, and then hung a left onto Forty-sixth Avenue which hadn’t been plowed at all. Even the Jeep’s four-wheel drive found the eight inches of snow a challenge. He slowed and waited to see if the limo followed. It did.
Thar she blows.
As he accelerated, he bounced over a foot-high mound where someone had plowed his driveway snow into the street. The limo followed. Looked like it was trying to stay in the Jeep’s tracks—an impossibility with its wider wheel base and lower clearance. It made it halfway over the mound before its undercarriage got hung up, killing its momentum and robbing all its traction.
Jack didn’t slow, but lowered his window and gave them a friendly wave without looking back. He’d leave them spinning their wheels, unsure as to whether or not he’d led them into a snowy trap, and be far away before they dug themselves free.
He circled back to the Long Island Expressway where he was tempted to stomp on the gas and put as much distance as he could as quickly as possible between the Jeep and the Lincoln. But the blacktop wasn’t in great shape, and though four-wheel drive meant better traction, it didn’t help you stop any faster than two-wheel drive. He settled on forty miles an hour. That would allow him plenty of time to set up in H3’s stomping ground.
He was determined to end this before tomorrow morning.
7
While Poncia loosed a stream of invective at Marley, Tier watched Jack drive away. He’d led them onto a side street, aware it wouldn’t be plowed, knowing that sooner or later—if not on this street, then the next or the next—they’d encounter conditions the Jeep could handle but the Lincoln couldn’t. He’d been right, of course. But instead of taunting them by flipping them the bird, he’d given an insouciant wave, and simply driven off. Hadn’t even looked back.
As if to say, I know your job is to follow me, but my job is to lose you. Just another day’s work.
Tier could almost like this guy.
But Jack had no idea he’d been tagged.
Time to shut up the noisemaker in the backseat before he got out of hand.
“Can it, Poncia!”
“Fuck you, Tonto! This guy’s supposed to know how to drive!”
That makes three Tontos, Tier thought.
“And he’s been doing just that. But tell me: Did he choose this Lincoln?”
“No, I—”
“Well, you chose the wrong car. Did you happen to miss the fact that it’s been snowing like a bitch since last night? If you had half a brain you would have hired a four-wheeler. But no. Mister Bigshot wanted to be seen in the backseat of a limo. So here we are, spinning our wheels, literally and figuratively, while our guy drives off into the sunset.”
“Hey, you can’t—”
Tier opened his door. “Get out and let’s see if we can push our way out of this.”
Poncia nodded toward Marley. “Let this jerk push and I’ll drive.”
“He’s not heavy enough. We need extra pounds and you’ve got ’em.”
Poncia hesitated, then complied. Tier had him sit on the hood to put extra weight over the drive wheels. After a combination of rocking and reversing, they finally moved the Lincoln off the snow hump and had her ready to roll again.
“Well, we’re pretty well fucked,” Poncia said, huffing in the back seat as the Lincoln started moving again, “but at least we won’t have to walk home. Sure as hell ain’t gonna catch up to that asshole now.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Tier said. “I attached a GPS transmitter to his bumper.”
“No shit?”
“None at all.”
Poncia grunted. “Maybe we’re not so fucked after all.”
Using the app that came with the transmitter, Tier had been monitoring their course on his iPhone—all across Midtown and into Queens. He saw now that Jack was on the LIE headed west. He put Marley on a course to the expressway—not far as the crow flies, but the snow-clogged side streets kept them moving at a crawl.
“Push it,” he told Marley. His frustration was growing as he watched the blip they were chasing inch toward the limit of the transmitter’s range. “We’re going to lose him.”
Poncia said, “How we gonna lose him if you got him tagged?”
“The transmitter’s range is a kilometer, so—”
“What’s that in American? Like how many miles?”
“Six tenths or so.”
“So, you’re telling me if he gets much more than half a mile lead, we lose him?”
“That’s right. And he’s almost there.”
“Ain’t that just great. Here I was almost thinking you might know what you’re doing. Joke’s on me.”
Tier had never needed more than a kilometer range because he’d never let his quarry get that far ahead. He might have offered this to Poncia as explanation, but Poncia didn’t deserve an explanation.
Marley reached the entrance ramp to the LIE and accelerated. The front-wheel drive pulled the car along with no fishtailing. The snow was falling as hard as ever, the pavement slick and slushy, and visibility sucked, but at least traffic was light. Jack’s blip was still on the screen but just barely.
“Fast as you can without killing us,” Tier said.
Marley nodded, his expression grim. “I hear you.”
Tier admired his stoicism. Not a single complaint out of him. He deserved a hefty tip when this was over.
“How we doin’?” Poncia said from the rear.
“Still got him. And we’re closing.”
They were passing through Cemetery Land now—First Calvary Cemetery on the right, then Calvary on the left, followed by Mount Zion. Acres and acres of priceless real estate devoted to the unappreciative dead.
Tier told Marley, “Slow down a little. He’s about a quarter mile ahead. That’s a good distance.”
With the snowfall limiting visibility, Jack was out of sight ahead, which meant they were out of sight behind. No matter how many times he checked his rearview mirror, he’d never see them. They were as good as invisible.
On they went, through Maspeth and Elmhurst.
“Where the fuck’s he going?” Poncia said. “Could be headed all the way to the Hamptons or Montauk for all we know.”
Yep. He could. Tier couldn’t know the answer so he didn’t bother offering one.
“Hey, detective,” Poncia added. “Who is this guy? You figured that out yet?”
“He’s nobody.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
Tier had explored all the usual proprietary sites he frequented when he was on a hunt and didn’t like the picture he’d pieced together.
“Just what I said. The name on the rental agreement said John Tyleski.”
“There you go. That ain’t nobody. That’s somebody.”
“Is it? The name John Tyleski is on two credit cards and he has an excellent credit history with both of them. But no bank accounts—not checking, not savings—and no loans.”
“Then how does he pay off the cards?”
“Money orders, I imagine. The bills for his credit cards go to an address that doesn’t match his Upper West Side apartment. I checked and it’s a mail drop.”
“So what?”
“I’m totally convinced that our guy is not John Tyleski. That the real Tyleski is probably long dead or, if alive, has no idea his identity’s been stolen. This Tyleski has no employment history. He’s a ghost.”
A ghost in the machine…
Hard to do these days, but not so hard to maintain once you achieve it—if you stay careful. The real Tyleski might have died as a child and this Jack appropriated his Social Security number. If he never borrows and if he pays off every bill as it comes in, no one’s going to give him a second thought. MasterCard or Visa see him as the perfect customer—well, he’d be more perfect if he made minimum installment payments instead paying off the balance every month, but they had to prefer his type to all the deadbeats they dealt with day in and day out.
Only two kinds of people stay under the radar like that: a spy or a criminal. And spies usually had intricate legends behind them.
Which meant Jack was a criminal.
The Last Christmas: A Repairman Jack Novel Page 19
