The Deal

by Adam Gittlin

  We were now facing each other. The stuffed bags were between us on the floor, crisscrossed like three clumsily piled body bags.

  “Here’s your fucking money.”

  I knocked on the divider three times for Mattheau. We started moving. I kept silent. I was doing everything to keep my demeanor in check. On the surface I was poised, cool. Underneath my thick skin I was trembling.

  “Those things are heavy,” he went on. “Don’t you want to check them out?”

  As I looked down at the bags, my peripheral vision caught Pangaea-Man reaching into his pants’ pocket. The next moment was one I have trouble describing. It’s almost as if my brain instantly vacated all thought. Everything went blank. I could no longer even hear aside from faraway sounds. It was as if I was under water.

  I lunged at Pangaea-Man, startling both of us. By the time I reached him my gun was out in my extended nervous right hand. Using my left, I pushed him back into the seat by his throat, placing the point of the gun against the skin between his eyes. They crossed as he tried, in disbelief, to look at the revolver. He held his hands out to his sides, defenseless, as if subconsciously trying to show me there was nothing in them.

  “What the fuck are you doing, man?”

  “Whatcha got in your pocket?”

  “I was reaching for a pack of smokes.”

  I reached inside his right, front pants’ pocket with my left hand and pulled out a pack of Camels. I tossed them on the floor. It felt like something else was also in the same pocket, only deeper. I fished my left hand in one more time. This time, to my horror, I pulled out a NYPD police shield.

  The hole that was becoming my life, slowly swallowing me, had opened its jaws even wider. I was free falling. There was no net. No escape.

  “You’re a cop?” I asked.

  No response.

  I pushed the thin, one-centimeter-wide steel circle farther into his skin. I could see his molars clenching through his skin as he winced.

  “Fuck!” I blurted out, stone-faced, to no one in particular. “Fuck!”

  I had no idea what was going on. My mind broke into a mad dash. Questions about conspiracy, mortality, and murder—mine or someone else’s, I’m not sure — began buzzing around my now darkened mind like fireflies.

  I took a deep breath in an attempt to harness my composure.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Just relax, Jonah.”

  “Don’t tell me to relax. Right now. All of it. Tell me everything.”

  “It’s not going to work like that.”

  “Oh is that so?” I asked, alluding to the gun by simply applying a little more pressure.

  “It is, Jonah,” he responded. “It’s not going to go down like this.”

  Suddenly, like I had reached into a hot oven forgetting a mitt, I felt scorched. Something about Pangaea-Man’s voice and demeanor were freaking me out. In the blink of an eye, he no longer sounded or seemed in any way like the hyper, unsure thief looking to shake me down. Now he was cool, trying to methodically garner control of the situation. The reason was an odd one, yet one I could easily identify and relate to. Exposing Pangaea-Man transformed him from hyper thief to a cop releasing a formidable concoction of instinct and training. Now I was in his boardroom.

  I knew I needed to be wary. I also knew that if I had any chance of coming out of this situation unscathed, both literally and figuratively, I needed to immediately demonstrate my control.

  “Tell you what, I’ll decide how it goes down. Now I’m not going to say it again. Tell me what —”

  “I need you to put the gun down. I need you to relax.”

  What I needed was to establish that I wasn’t going to be rolled over. I had a gun to the fucking guy’s head and he still wasn’t buying me. Therefore it didn’t take me long to understand that if nothing changed and that gun came down, I was in some unbelievable shit.

  NYPD cop I reminded myself. Someone trained, when in danger, to pounce on the first sign of weakness. I wasn’t ready to kill anyone. But I knew I had to act like I was.

  “Hold up your hand,” I said.

  Nothing.

  I couldn’t back down. I cracked the bridge of his nose with the butt of the gun. Before his head could even buckle to the side I caught it with my left hand, propped it back up against the seat and repositioned the gun between his eyes. Blood came streaming from a gash the gun left as well as Pangaea-Man’s right nostril.

  “I said hold up your fucking hand! Now!”

  I was losing it. I had found my way into some profound state of conscious lunacy, a place where I had become so committed to protecting myself I was ready to lay it all down. I could actually see the anger growing inside of him, but it was obvious his better sense was holding it back. It was also obvious he had been around the block enough times to understand you’d better listen to someone when they have a gun to your head, no matter how seasoned you are.

  He reluctantly held up his right hand. Without moving my eyes from his I grabbed his right pinkie with my left hand.

  “Last chance, cop. You ready to speak?”

  Pangaea-Man said nothing. By doing so, by challenging the sincerity of my words, all he did was harden my mettle. He was probing for weakness where there simply couldn’t be any. I snapped his finger to the left like a twig. He couldn’t help but to scream as it stuck out perpendicular to his hand. I swallowed hard and dug the gun in even farther.

  “I think it’s time to talk,” I seethed, starting to scare even myself. “You agree?”

  “Fuck!!! Fuck—okay, okay. I’ll talk. I’ll fucking talk. Ah—”

  I backed off. I took my original seat across the way, gun still pointed in his direction. He gingerly probed his broken hand with his free one. He looked at the finger, then back again at me.

  “You’re either crazy or just rock fucking stupid assaulting a police officer like this,” he pushed out between gasps.

  “Please. Listen to you. A bit delusional, aren’t we? You’re no cop, you’re a common fucking criminal running around and holding people up in public bathrooms.”

  “You won’t be able—”

  No weakness.

  “Shut up and explain. I mean it. Enough bullshit. Start from the beginning. And do so understanding that you’ll be wishing for only another snapped finger if I feel like you’re trying to fuck with me.”

  Pangaea-Man took a deep breath and thought for a quick moment. I had snapped his digit without a second’s hesitation and I now had a gun pointed straight at his face. He had no idea where he was going. He knew that he was all alone. He didn’t have the antique. He had just placed two million dollars in cash in my car. He didn’t have any of the power. I had Danish Jubilee Egg.

  I had finally begun to demonstrate my control. I wasn’t surprised when he started to speak.

  “Aren’t you concerned about the guys tailing us? Ah—”

  He was having trouble sucking up the pinkie situation.

  “I might have been if you hadn’t held me up, threatened my life and produced two million dollars in cash. New York’s finest my ass. You ever seen the movie Bad Lieutenant?”

  The guy knew I had him. He left it alone.

  “Who the fuck are you?” I continued.

  The beach behind Archmont’s house popped into my head again. Mentally I was zoning in on the cops. There was nothing clear. They had been too far away and I didn’t have a very long look at them.

  “Were you there that night?”

  “Where?”

  I stiffened my outstretched arm, which had started to relax.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man. I’m serious�—”

  “The Hamptons.”

  He paused.

  “What? Look, I’m telling you, I have no idea where you’re coming from with this. I’m telling you!”

  He tended to his hand once again.

  “Fuck,” he m
umbled to himself.

  His response seemed genuine.

  “If you’re just some cop, where’d you come up with this kind of cash? Is it cop money?”

  “Every drug dealer in Upper Manhattan and Queens are in business simply because we allow them to be. When I say jump they jump. They may cry foul, but believe me they’re happy to oblige when they think about the alternative.”

  “What makes you so sure I have the egg anyway?”

  “I know you have it.”

  “How?” I pressed him.

  Nothing.

  “I said how?”

  Still nothing. Gun in his face and he still wouldn’t answer. I moved toward him again. He just looked at me, with forced strength, in disbelief.

  “I’ll ask you one more time, cop. What the fuck makes you so sure I have it?”

  Nothing.

  With every second that went by the situation’s seriousness elevated tenfold. I couldn’t help feeling nervous, but at the same time I couldn’t ignore the fact that my blood felt like it was beginning to boil.

  It was crazy. Something started to take over. I want to say adrenaline, but it was something even stronger.

  It was my father.

  It was everything he had ever taught me about absolute power. Which now had me on the cusp of being terrified at the thought of not having it.

  An incomprehensible reality washed over me. Only I couldn’t figure out at the time what that reality was. It had me paranoid. It also had me wide-eyed, resolute. It had me at the highest peak of focus I had ever been in my life.

  I dropped the pistol’s aim to his groin. I had already crunched the guy’s nose and busted his finger. He may have been a cop, but he was smart enough to understand that cooperation was now his greatest ally. He squinted, then lost control of his eyeballs, which bounced between my face and what was going on down south. Almost immediately he relocked his vision with mine, his last defiant moment before officially realizing he had surrendered, before fully accepting he was overwhelmed.

  Which made two of us.

  The tension was so thick that for those few seconds the only thing I could hear was the limo’s air-conditioning system. His heart rate was accelerated and his nerves jangled uncontrollably. I could see it in his temples.

  “Hold up your right hand,” I went on.

  He raised his damaged hand and I went for it. He said nothing until my hand tightly wrapped around his fourth finger. I didn’t want to break another one, and I didn’t think I’d need to.

  “All right! All right!” he blurted out.

  My left hand stopped, but remained in position to continue if needed.

  “All right!” he barked. “Fuck!”

  “What makes you so sure—”

  “All right already, man. Fuck. You’re completely crazy!”

  “Explain. Now.”

  His wall was coming down. I could see right through his eyes into the pulsating blood vessels swimming around his brain. He had clicked into damage-control mode. He was ready to talk, salvage what was left of his interest in all of it.

  I slowly retook my seat.

  “Ah—someone told me,” he said as I let go of his tortured hand.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do we really have to go through this again?”

  “I fucking swear,” he pushed out evenly. “I’m being straight with you. I got the tip anonymously.”

  He gently rested his injured arm in his lap, accepting what had happened.

  “How? Where? Was it a man or a woman?”

  “Again, I don’t know. I’m guessing a guy.”

  “You’re guessing?”

  “It was a note. It was dropped off at the precinct.”

  “What? It was—what kind of note?”

  “What kind do you fucking think? It said you stole the antique egg that was all over the news. And that I had no connection to the person who sent the information.”

  I sighed.

  “You expect me to believe that shit? You just think I’m going to sit—”

  “I’m telling you, man. I swear!” he pleaded, “Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “All right, then where is the note?”

  Ever so slightly he paused.

  “The office. In my desk.”

  I didn’t buy it. Precincts are busy, overcrowded. Cops are nosy. I pointed the gun at his balls again.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  “Five—four—”

  “I’m telling you!”

  “Three—two—”

  “My pants! The note’s in my pants!” he pushed out unable to take his eyes from the gun. “My other front pocket!”

  He couldn’t take his eyes from the gun. He was freaked by how low it was pointed.

  “Slowly—and I mean fucking slowly—take it out and throw it to me.”

  He obliged in what must have been about one-quarter speed, fluidly like a slo-mo instant replay of Randy Moss making a fingertip grab in the end zone. The piece of cream stationery, folded once in half, landed between us on top of one of the duffel bags. Gun still aimed, I leaned forward, grabbed it, and sat back again in my seat. Eyes still on Pangaea-Man, I held up the piece of paper using my left hand and put it in front of my face. The paper’s stock was thick, expensive. Once it was opened I shifted my eyes and scanned the words as quickly as I could. It read:

  I have no connection to you. I have randomly chosen you to receive the following information. Danish Jubilee Egg was stolen by Jonah Gray of Park Avenue. He works at PCBL.

  I threw my eyes back to Pangaea-Man. The confirmation that I had been set up, part of this theft from the beginning, caused a fright so hard to explain that I simply won’t even begin to try. The words continued to stab at me. I was even more confused. Something else was beating up my heart, like my ribs were using it as a punching bag. Something else had me on the brink of unraveling.

  It was the note’s handwriting. I felt like I had seen it before.

  “I told you, man. Straight to the fucking point.”

  I moved my eyes back to the paper. I took another look at the writing, not the words but the penmanship. The subtleties, the spacing, I had seen it before. I knew I needed to shift my sight back to the cop, but I couldn’t. Then, in a crushing instant like a baseball bat to the back of the head, everything, not just on this day but every day preceding, felt wrong. Everything seemed like a twilight-zone kind of scam.

  The handwriting on the paper was my father’s.

  I forced my eyes back to Pangaea-Man.

  “What the—”

  My voice sounded nervous. I took a breath.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “I just told you.”

  “How do you...when did you get this?”

  “The day before you spotted me in that bar downtown.”

  Control.

  I thought, what fucking control? Can there really be a way this is even feasible? My father? A man I’d trusted my entire life?

  Could it?

  I strained to keep it together even though I felt like a delicate tea cup dropped to a marble floor. Shattered.

  Control.

  What fucking control? I was dumbfounded.

  “You know who sent it or something?”

  Trained NYPD cop. He most likely had a gun on him and was just waiting for his chance, I reminded myself. I needed to regroup, but my mind started playing games. If it was my father, could he be conspiring with someone else? After all, he’s the one who made reference to Archmont. But what if it was a set-up? What if it was easy to use Sam as the scapegoat simply because he was an easy target? Or, I thought, how about Andreu? After all, Prevkos’ subsidiaries are all—or Angie? Or some combination of—How about my partners? They were the only ones I had told I was at the wedding. God damn, I thought, fuck Perry for all of her devil’s
advocate shit all the time!

  I didn’t want to believe my father could act like this toward me. What if his hunch about Archmont was nothing more than his usual good instincts? What if my father was the one being fucked with? What if we both were? I mean, who handwrites a note anonymously like this anyway? Aside from a—

  I actually gulped in the middle of the thought.

  — aside from a sixty-something-year-old real estate magnate with as little fear as he has computer skills?

  Control.

  Now more than ever.

  Because this wasn’t forgetting to leave out dog food or arriving forty minutes late for a closing because of traffic. This was a fucking crisis.

  I blew off his question and forged ahead.

  “Let me make sure I understand something. You got this anonymous information and instead of telling your precinct or supervisor or whatever you decided to hijack the egg and turn it into some cash.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Who else are you working with?”

  Silence. No response.

  “Sam? Angie?”

  Still nothing. Not just nothing, an empty nothing, a submissive nothing. Because the realization of what this all meant to both of us was, mildly put, sobering. We both knew too much. We both knew too little. Above all, we both understood the complications of the two of us exiting the limo alive. I had the gun pulled and a keen grasp on the fact that had we both gone our separate ways, me with the egg and no explanation for its theft, I’d eventually, most certainly, be screwed.

  I had no idea what my next move was. Right arm still extended, pistol poised, I began to slide the small, sturdy slice of vellum paper into my rear pants’ pocket using my left hand. I kept my eyes on the cop, but I barely saw him. His face was nothing more than a bleary backdrop for the crisp image of the note that was still hovering in my mind.

  As the sheet began to make its way through the thin slit in the suit’s fabric, it got stuck. I dropped my eyes for the most split of seconds, but just as I did I was thrown back into the moment through an array of loud car horns. The limo swerved left then jutted right hard, tires screeching. As my free hand fought for balance, every muscle I have clenched up when we nicked the curb.