Old Flame

by Ira Berkowitz

  “I don’t need someone to do my taxes.”

  Dave smiled. “I said, ‘by training.’ Actually, Kenny works for me.”

  “Doing what?”

  His smile faded. “Anything that needs to be done,” he said. “He is a little quirky, though.”

  “Quirky.”

  “Yeah. Kenny’s an Orthodox Jew. Doesn’t work on the Sabbath.”

  “And he works for you? Are you shitting me?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  “Orthodox Jew and a lapsed Catholic. You can’t make it up.”

  “Sounds to me like a marriage made in heaven,” Dave said.

  “Why him?”

  “Danny has a problem with Zev Barak, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Who better to grease the skids? Set a Jew to catch a Jew.

  We were back to that inverted logic thing again.

  “You want to meet him?” Dave said.

  “Why not?”

  He motioned to Kenny.

  Kenny exchanged a few more words with Nick, slid off his barstool, walked over, and sat next to Dave.

  “Kenny,” Dave said, “this is my brother, Jake.”

  We shook hands.

  “Do you know what this is about?” I said.

  “Dave hit the high points.”

  “How do you think you can help?”

  “I know Barak. Tough guy.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Russian by birth. Name then was Visnetzski. Came to Israel as a teenager. Went into the army. Golani Brigade. IDF shock troops. When Barak left the army, he got involved in the arms trade and eventually branched off into other, uh, businesses.”

  “Do you think you can help my friend?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, but we can try,” he said. “Maybe he’ll listen to me.”

  “And if not?”

  He shrugged again. “I feel sorry for your friend,” he said. “Do you know what they call Barak?”

  “No.”

  “The Golem. Do you know what that is?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “There is an old legend about a rabbi who lived in Prague. A pogrom raged in the city. Thousands of Jews were slaughtered. The rabbi, a famous mystic, went down to the riverbank and formed a man out of the clay. A giant. He inscribed a magical sign on his forehead, and the golem came to life. Now it was the rioters’ turn to die.”

  “So, you’re telling me Barak protects Jews?”

  “Religion has nothing to do with it. Barak protects only what is his.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  I called Torricelli to see if Lisa Hernandez, Ferris’s assistant, was in. She wasn’t. Still had the flu. I asked for her address. Turned out to be Alphabet City, a neighborhood in transition on the southeastern edge of Manhattan.

  When I had worked the area, the neighborhood was a slagheap, a rickety place filled with rickety people. Dealers, hookers, outlaw bikers, and brain-burned junkies who boosted wiring, pipes, and whatever else wasn’t nailed down. Sometimes from abandoned houses, more often not. And caught in the middle was a largely immigrant, working-class population hanging on by its fingernails.

  Now change was in the air.

  Heeding the siren song of cheap rents, creative types and urban pioneers had moved in and recalibrated the landscape. Alphabet City had become a very tony “in” spot, and the Prada and Armani crowd willingly coughed up a couple of thousand a month for apartments that were going for a fraction of that just a few years before. Lisa’s four-story walk-up didn’t fall into that category, so getting in wasn’t a problem.

  Her apartment was on the third floor, one of three on the landing. The marble tile floor hadn’t seen a mop in years.

  I rang the bell.

  No answer.

  I knocked.

  The door to the apartment on my left opened. A short, round woman wearing a floral-printed housedress stood there.

  “You a cop?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh, then you’re another one.”

  I heard some shuffling footsteps coming from Lisa’s apartment. A dark eye appeared at the peephole.

  “Who is it?” she said.

  I held my card up a few inches from the peephole and kept my voice low and friendly.

  “Lisa, my name is Steeg. I need to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “Tony Ferris.”

  I heard the quick snap of three locks being unlatched. Lisa Hernandez was a very careful woman.

  At the last snap the door swung open, and Lisa appeared. She stared at the short, round woman.

  “What the hell do you want?” Lisa said. “This ain’t your business.”

  The short, round woman’s face creased into a sneer. “Puta,” she said.

  “Bruja,” Lisa lashed back.

  This had all the makings of an entertainment.

  The short, round woman retreated into her apartment and slammed the door.

  “What was that all about?”

  “My day is complete. The bitch knows everybody’s business. It’s annoying.”

  Even in a white floppy robe and wearing no makeup, Lisa was a definite looker. Early thirties. Long, glossy black hair. A complexion that no tanning salon could hope to duplicate. Her eyes appeared clear, nothing leaking from her nose. Fluless. Maybe this was a mental health day.

  Lisa stared at me as if I were a hair floating in a bowl of soup.

  “Come on in,” she said.

  I did.

  She led me down a short foyer and into the living room. Her slippers made soft scuffing sounds on the hardwood floor. We passed a small kitchen, then a bathroom. The bedroom was off the living room.

  The apartment was neat and furnished a hell of a lot better than mine. A very stylish cream-colored sofa, a couple of expensive-looking end tables, an Oriental area rug on the floor, and a flat-screen on the wall.

  Not bad for someone who made thirty-five grand a year, tops.

  She settled in on the sofa without offering me a seat. I sat down next to her anyway.

  “What about Tony?”

  Why beat around the bush? “He’s dead.”

  She wrapped her arms around her thin frame and stared off into the distance. “I heard,” she said. Her voice was flat. Resigned. After what seemed a very long time, she looked back at me. “How?”

  I filled her in on the general circumstances, leaving out the more gruesome details.

  “All I want is some information and I’ll be on my way,” I said.

  “I’ve worked for him for over a year,” she said. “He was always nice to me. Treated me well. I can’t believe this!”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “We had a normal business relationship. He’s the boss. I’m the peon. I do what he tells me. But unlike most of the schmucks I worked for, Tony was a good guy. Really cared about what he did. I mean, the job isn’t like saving the world, but Tony was like, y’know, into it.”

  “Into it?”

  “Yeah, into it. Like it mattered.”

  “I would imagine that in the course of his business he stepped on some toes from time to time. I mean, when you’re, you know, into it, hurt feelings are hard to avoid.”

  “It happens,” she said. “I mean, getting a city contract is a big deal, even though you got to wade through a mountain of paper to even get your chance at bat. A lot of these contractors are just scraping by doing whatever comes along. So when they miss out on a job, a lot of them go under, and the losing bidder has to trade in his suit and tie for a pickax or a hod. Again. Are they pissed off? Sure.”

  “Would they be pissed off enough to retaliate?”

  “Wouldn’t you? I mean, most of these guys have everything they own locked up in the business. Their houses, cars, credit, it all goes up in smoke. Then their wives get up their ass ’cause they got to give up Bloomingdale’s for Wal-Mart. It ain’t pretty.”

  Fair point.

&nbs
p; “Anything out of the ordinary happen lately?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Something on the order of making the hair on the back of your neck stand up. That kind of out of the ordinary.”

  Her voice tightened.

  “Tony never mentioned anything,” she said.

  “It’s funny you say that. Torricelli said that he had received some strange calls that bordered on threatening. Did Tony ever get calls like that?”

  She twirled a hank of hair in her fingers. “Not that I recall,” she said. “Look, I’m a glorified clerk. Too far down on the totem pole for stuff like that. The higher-ups like Torricelli, or even Tony, don’t, like, confide in me.”

  “I see.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Did Tony ever talk about his wife?”

  She smiled. “The bitch?” she said.

  “That’s awfully harsh.”

  “I guess you didn’t know her.”

  “Actually, I did. We were married once.”

  “Poor you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Were you asleep most of the time?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  She shook her head. “Guys are really stupid.”

  “No argument there.”

  “You all think you know everything, but you know jack.”

  Apparently.

  “What am I missing?”

  “Character is destiny.”

  “Could you elaborate?”

  “What’s the point?”

  When I reached the street a gray van was pulling away.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Kenny Apple wanted to meet Danny.

  I called him. He was holed up in a friend’s apartment on Surf Avenue in Coney Island. Kenny and I hopped the N train at Times Square and took it to the end of the line.

  During the train ride, it occurred to me that Kenny might be useful in other ways.

  “Dave tells me you’re an accountant,” I said.

  “CPA, actually.”

  “How does an accountant, and an Orthodox Jewish one to boot, wind up working for my brother in, uh, a non-accounting capacity?”

  “Let’s say it’s the result of a life not well lived.”

  “Care to be more specific?”

  He looked up as the train entered the 14th Street station.

  “Why not,” he said. “We’ve got another hour ahead of us.I was a gambler, a very bad gambler, it turns out. Bet on anything. And lost on everything. I had my moments here and there, but overall I took a bath. When I ran through my money, I used my clients’ money. You know how it goes.”

  As a Master of Addiction, I did indeed.

  “How did you meet Dave?”

  “Through Nick, who held my markers. I was betting with one of his bookies. The guy insisted on payment. I couldn’t come up with the money, so one day he brought along a shylock who offered me terms at the point of a gun. So, I agreed.”

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “Then,” he said, “I hit a particularly bad streak and couldn’t come up with the vig. By this time, the interest and principal approximated the debt of a Third World country.”

  “And Nick was unhappy.”

  “Very. Nick sends the shylock and two very bad guys to see me. Figuring something like this might happen, I bought a gun. The shylock sets up a meeting in some deserted area right off the Belt Parkway, in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn.”

  “How appropriate.”

  “I thought so too. I got there early to scope the place out. I knew what was up. The shylock pulls up and the two goons get out with guns in their hands. I popped them before they had taken two steps. The shylock hits the gas, and he’s gone.”

  “Very impressive. Where did you learn to shoot?”

  “I didn’t. Apparently it’s a gift. The next one I hear from is Nick. This time the meeting is at Rockefeller Center, at noon. Plenty of people. We talk, and he offers me a job.”

  “To work off the debt.”

  He nodded. “And a little bit extra for me,” he said.

  “How do you square this with your religion?”

  He smiled a wry smile. “Ultimately we all have to pay for our sins, don’t we?”

  “How would you like to do a little forensic accounting for me?”

  “It would be a pleasant change.”

  I told him what I knew about the Minority Opportunities Bureau and the files that Torricelli had conveniently left on his desk for me to take.

  “Would you take a look?” I asked.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “That’s what I need you to figure out.”

  The train crossed the Coney Island Creek and, a few minutes later, pulled into the station.

  When we were kids, Coney Island was the Steeg family’s preferred summer vacation spot. Now, with about three months to go before the season started, Coney was like an aging courtesan who knows that no amount of makeup will ever hide the fact that her days were numbered.

  Kenny and I picked up a bagful of hot dogs at Nathan’s and met Danny on the boardwalk. To our right was the Parachute Jump, to our left the Wonder Wheel, and out in front, the Atlantic Ocean. We sat on a bench facing the Atlantic. It was low tide, and seabirds were busy pecking at the tidal sand in search of a meal. Out on the ocean, a stiff breeze kicked the whitecaps into high gear. On the beach, a guy in a Navy watch cap and a green windbreaker waved a metal detector, combing the sand for buried treasure. Every so often he stooped to pick something up, examine it, and toss it away.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Kenny said.

  Danny threw his half-eaten hot dog into a trash basket.

  “I don’t seem to have the stomach for food lately,” he said. “Can’t hold anything down.”

  “I understand, Danny,” I said, “but you’ve got to concentrate here.”

  He turned to Kenny. “Steeg wasn’t very big on the details. You’re here, why?”

  “Personally, I don’t give a shit. But some people are interested in saving your ass,” Kenny said. “Now, like I said, let’s start at the beginning.”

  Danny repeated what he told me. He met some techies, joined the company as marketing director, and then everything went to shit.

  “Nice story,” Kenny said. “Boy from humble beginnings meets two techie whizzes working out of their garage and they start a company that goes on to rock Wall Street. The American Dream. Is that about right?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Do me a favor,” Kenny said. “Stop pulling my pud.”

  “Whataya mean?”

  “I mean, it’s horseshit. Them I can understand. Why you? What qualified you to be the marketing director?”

  Danny sprang from the bench and turned to me. “I don’t need this shit, Steeg.”

  “Actually, I was thinking the same thing,” I said.

  Danny sat down, albeit reluctantly. “It was marketing and sales, and I had contacts,” he said.

  Kenny pressed him. “With who?”

  “The odd-lot guys. You know, companies who handle distressed merchandise.”

  “More bullshit,” Kenny said. “They already have plenty of outlets to move their goods. They don’t need you.” He turned to me. “We’re wasting our time here, Steeg.”

  Apparently we were, and it was on me for letting friendship blind me to Danny’s line of patter. “Here’s the deal, Danny,” I said. “Either you stop the bullshit, or you’re on your own. Your choice.”

  Danny dug his hands deep into his jacket pockets.

  “OK,” he said, “here’s what went down. The techies. The guys who founded the company. I met them at a Texas Hold ’Em game Frank Geraghty was running in a loft in the West Village.”

  “The last I heard, Geraghty was doing a three-year bit in Dannemora,” I said.

  “You’ve been out of touch. He’s been out almost two years.”

  “And appare
ntly back at it. Some people never learn.”

  “Story of my life,” Danny said. “The techies fancied themselves high rollers. I mean, back then the company was kicking off three, four hundred grand a month. Expenses were low, so there was plenty of money to indulge their Doyle Brunson fantasy.”

  “Why were you at the game?”

  “I was the shill. Lost early and came back strong when the pot was right. Geraghty paid me a couple a hundred a night. When the techies showed up, we played them like fish.”

  “They had it coming,” Kenny said.

  “You got it. The first couple of times we let them walk off with maybe ten large. Made it look easy. Then we put the hammer to them.”

  “How much are we talking?”

  “Quarter million. A lot of money even for them. Geraghty figured it was enough.”

  “But you saw potential,” I said.

  “Yeah. You know how it is when you’re gambling. People talk. Like to brag. Even when they’re going down the tubes. Well, these guys couldn’t shut up. Went on about how the two fifty was a drop in the bucket. Not even a month’s worth of sales.”

  “And it got you thinking,” Kenny said, “that there may be a way out for them.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Is this where China comes in?” I said.

  “That’s a piece of the bullshit I laid on them, but it never happened. I told them I could get them high-end electronics at a fraction of the cost, and if they pop it on their website it would move like a son of a bitch.”

  “So instead of candles that retailed for maybe ten bucks, they could be moving sound systems and flat screens.”

  “Exactly. And instead of three, four hundred a month, they would be doing ten times that.”

  “And they bought it.”

  “They did, the greedy bastards.”

  “Where did you get the merch from, Danny?”

  “I knew some guys who heisted the stuff. I paid them ten percent and sold it back to the company at twenty percent.”

  “And you were on the company’s payroll?” Kenny asked.

  Danny smiled. “A guy’s gotta make a living,” he said. “We put it up on the site and the stuff flew out of the warehouse.”

  “But,” I asked, “didn’t the slippage go down?”

  “Dropped like a rock. Those schmuck engineers had their heads so far up their asses that they forgot their business model.”