Angel Face

by Stephen Solomita

  Behind Paulie, a truck rattles up the block, its gears grinding when the driver shifts. ‘Hey, Carter, you wanna hear somethin’ funny?’

  ‘Anything.’

  Paulie chuckles. ‘My hearing, it’s gotten better somehow. At night, I can’t sleep for the traffic on Ditmars Boulevard and that’s three blocks away. The planes at LaGuardia? They hit my ears like a toothache.’

  ‘You should try earplugs, or one of those machines that make white noise.’

  ‘I thought about that, but these days I’m not too crazy about sleepin’.’

  Again, Carter doesn’t know what to say and they observe a second silence, this one prolonged. The afternoon warmth is seductive, in any event, a perfect spring evening. Carter’s eyes move to the bed of late-blooming daffodils, the tips of their feathered petals a smoky orange, and to a trellis covered by a climbing rose, its buds as green as peas this early in the year.

  Carter’s always been comfortable with silence, a quality that served him well as a sniper. There’s an art to remaining both immobile and alert that begins with resisting the allure of your own thoughts. But this time Carter’s quiet because he’s remembering a Nepalese merc named Lo Phet. Lo Phet practiced Tibetan Buddhism and his belief in reincarnation approached the absolute.

  ‘Can go up or down,’ he’d explained. They were on their way from Kirkuk to Baghdad, their mission to ferry a suitcase filled with American dollars from one warlord to another. ‘Can have rebirth as bug. How you like that? To come back as flea on elephant’s ass? Or can go to world of Gods, or go down to world of hungry ghosts. Hungry ghost have big fat belly and tiny mouth. Can never get enough food.’

  ‘Is that the bottom?’ Carter had asked as they slowed to a stop at the end of a line of vehicles awaiting inspection at a checkpoint. ‘The world of hungry ghosts?’

  ‘No, bottom is Hell World. We in Hell World now.’

  Carter had thought it over for a moment, then said, ‘You’re claiming that we died somewhere along the way and were reborn.’

  ‘Yes, die and go to Hell World.’

  Lo Phet had moved on three weeks later when an improvised explosive device cut him in two. At the time, Carter had wondered if he’d be reborn into the Hell World, if he’d have to do it all over again. Carter now wonders the same thing about Paulie Margarine.

  ‘Paulie,’ Carter finally says, ‘any chance you’d be willing to give up your computer? Or the hard drive at least?’

  ‘Is that what you came for?’

  ‘I came for two reasons. To have a look around and to visit my partner, who told me that he was sick. I have to tell you, though, I wasn’t too happy when your boy recognized my name.’

  ‘So whatta ya gonna do, shoot me? He’s my kid. We got no secrets between us.’

  In fact, Carter’s not carrying a gun. But he does have a combat knife strapped to the inside of his left calf. ‘You can’t blame me for tying up loose ends. Freddy can talk his head off and it won’t matter. With you gone, there’s no proof, except for the emails in that computer.’

  ‘I thought you said everything in the computer was encrypted?’

  ‘And you just told me your son’s going into the computer business.’ Carter’s voice drops. ‘Do you really want me sitting around worried that my back isn’t covered?’

  Paulie sighs. When it really mattered, Carter had out-maneuvered him at every turn. What chance would Freddy have? Better they – meaning the Marginella family and Mr Carter – be quits forever.

  ‘All right, take it. But I should charge you. Now I gotta replace the computer.’

  ‘Tell you what, Paulie. I’ll get a new computer delivered to the house by the middle of next week. Something faster, with a hi-def screen.’

  ‘Don’t bother. The porno I watch ain’t gonna be improved by high definition.’

  A robin drops on to the lawn, catching Paul Margarine’s attention. He watches its head swivel, watches the bird turn its eyes this way and that. There are lots of creatures that eat robins, creatures that slither and stalk and drop down out of the sky.

  ‘Hey, Carter, you wanna hear a funny story?’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘This one’s better. The guy you whacked, Ricky Ditto? He’s got a brother named Bobby. What I heard, Bobby Ditto’s talkin’ revenge and he’s talkin’ it loud, which means he has to do something or look like an asshole. Anyhow, Bobby found out that Ricky had a date with a whore that afternoon and now he’s goin’ after the whore. Me, I wouldn’t wanna be in the whore’s shoes when Bobby Ditto comes callin’. The guy’s a complete jerk. But it’s good for you, right? There’s no way to get from the whore to you. The whore’s a dead end.’

  SEVEN

  Carter knows damn well that he’s supposed to let Angel Tamanaka swing. Whatever ethical debt he owed the universe at large was amply paid when he let her go in the first place. Paulie was right. Angel can’t lead Ricky Ditto’s brother to him. She doesn’t even know his name.

  Carter’s van is in the CASH lane at the toll plaza on the Triborough Bridge connecting Queens to Manhattan and the Bronx. He’s in the CASH lane, despite the heavy back-up, because the E-ZPASS system links every use of an E-ZPASS device to a specific time, place and vehicle. Carter routinely leaves as few traces of his movements as possible.

  But Carter’s not in a hurry. When he gets home, he’ll nap until eight or nine o’clock, have dinner at a local coffee shop and then set out to find the woman, if not of his dreams, at least of his weekend. That was, and still is, Carter’s only plan. Or so he tells himself as he watches a gigantic SUV, a Mercedes, try to cut into the CASH lane. A chorus of horns blends with the steady thump, thump, thump of the speakers in the SUV, a challenge to a challenge.

  Carter doesn’t lean on his own horn. As far as he’s concerned, the man driving the Mercedes is just another knucklehead. Now he’s forcing the SUV between two cars, his message clear enough. I’m going ahead of you because I’m bigger and more powerful than you are, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. He’s right, too. Aside from a few face-saving curses, and the horns, of course, nobody attempts to prevent this affront to common civility.

  Carter’s big on civility, as he’s big on dignity and honor. He associates civility with cooperation, and cooperation with the ultimate survival of the species. This was a lesson repeated in the course of every firefight, a lesson held so close that many soldiers confuse mutual dependency with love.

  When his turn comes, Carter hands the toll collector a ten dollar bill, pockets the change and heads south to the apartment he’s subletting on the Lower East Side. The idea is to put Angel in his rear-view mirror, but it’s not working. Paulie’s words rise up, rise again, despite Carter’s best efforts: I wouldn’t wanna be in the whore’s shoes when Bobby Ditto comes callin’.

  So what? Carter’s viewed the innocent dead stacked like firewood, and more than once. Sierra Leone, Congo, the Ivory Coast. Piles of arms and legs hacked off by the boy soldiers, women raped until they bled to death. The victims were always the most vulnerable, farmers without the means to fight back, small tribes hunting monkeys with primitive bows.

  What entitles Angel Tamanaka to special consideration? Besides her beauty? Why should he take the slightest risk to protect her? Much less the very substantial risk of going to her apartment? For all he knows, Angel went to the cops first thing. For all he knows, the cops are with her right now, working on an artist’s likeness. What he should do is get out of New York, maybe take a trip to Panama so he can be near his money. What he should have done, when he had the chance, was memorize her phone number. As it is, if he wants to warn her, he’ll have to knock on her door.

  Carter’s thoughts turn to Janie as he backs the van into a parking space on Tenth Street off First Avenue. Janie’s religious convictions were as unshakeable as Lo Phet’s and she’d done her absolute best to guide him along the path of righteousness. Yet, somehow, and for the longest time, he’d confused virtue with obed
ience. He did whatever Janie asked him to do, with no complaints. If she’d told him to jump out the window, he probably would have done that, too.

  If Janie were still alive, she’d tell him to warn Angel Tamanaka, the opportunity to save a life somehow becoming an obligation to save a life. Maybe that’s why he’d taken to the army. In the army, the only obligations were to your comrades and the mission.

  Inside his apartment, he kicks off his shoes, lowers himself on to a sectional couch and settles in to watch a Military Channel documentary on Roman battle tactics. Though he rarely has a chance to use them in his line of work, Carter’s skilled with knives. Close-up killing of the kind practiced by all armies until the invention of the gun normally commands his attention. Not this time, though. This time Angel Tamanaka tumbles through his thoughts, invasive as an Iraqi dust storm.

  Carter finally gives up at seven thirty, a few minutes before sunset. He decides to visit Angel’s neighborhood and take a look around. But there’s no way he’s going to knock on Angel’s door – not without knowing who’s behind it. And there’s no way he’s going up there unprepared. He crosses the apartment, to a walk-in closet in the larger of the two bedrooms. At the darkest end of the closet, he removes a section of floorboard to reveal a metal box nestled between the joists. He takes a .38 caliber revolver, a Colt, from the box, along with a holster, and a Rhode Island license plate stolen from an auto graveyard. Carter likes revolvers for street work because the cartridge casings aren’t expelled, as they would be if he used a semi-automatic.

  When Carter leaves the apartment, the holstered revolver is positioned just inside his left hip with the handle facing to the right. An unlined denim jacket covers both, though it’s not really cool enough for a jacket. The license plate is for the van and Carter attaches it in a few seconds with a handful of magnets. Then he’s off, acutely aware of the risks he’s taking. New York City’s gun laws are draconian. The minimum penalty for carrying an illegal handgun is three years in prison.

  Carter takes Fourteenth Street to Tenth Avenue and heads uptown. He runs into heavy traffic near the Lincoln Tunnel, even at eight o’clock, but once past Forty-Second Street, the traffic moves along and he parks the van facing Angel’s apartment at eight fifteen.

  Carter settles into the back of the van and carefully checks his surroundings, using the windshield and the side mirrors. He’s on a block in the very early stages of gentrification. A few doors in from the far corner, a drug crew services cars and pedestrians. In the middle of the block, four Hispanic teenagers, three boys and a girl, lean against a car parked in front of the low-income project on the south side of the street. They’re sharing a forty-ounce malt wrapped in a brown paper bag, clowning around, the girl shrieking from time to time. Across the road, Angel’s building is one of the block’s few bright spots, three tenements renovated to form a single building, its central entrance protected by a wrought-iron gate heavy enough to fend off the Mongol hordes.

  Carter’s prepared to wait for hours if necessary. He’s looking as much for Bobby Ditto as for Angel. He’s thinking Bobby, or whoever he sends, will initially do what Carter’s done, which is put the apartment under surveillance. But Carter’s overestimated the patience of New York mobsters. Not ten minutes after he settles down, the wrought-iron gate swings open to reveal Angel Tamanaka accompanied by two men. The younger of the two walks on Angel’s left. He’s got a jacket, a woman’s jacket, folded over his left arm, which is pointed at Angel’s ribcage. His right hand grips the back of her neck.

  Fish or cut bait, engage or withdraw. Carter has no more than a few seconds to decide. Then the second man, much the older of the two, reaches out to squeeze Angel’s ass, his thin lips parting in a grin as cruel as it is narcissistic. He’s got the power, the juice. He can do anything he wants to this disposable human being. Can and will.

  Carter exits through the side door of the van. Angel and her escorts, still fifty feet away, are walking right toward him. He ambles in their direction, moving to the outside of the man presumably holding a gun. When he comes within striking distance, he steps in front of the man and pulls the left side of his jacket away from his body, revealing his own weapon. Instinctively, the man brings his gun to bear on the threat.

  Carter waits until the gangster’s hand moves a few inches before driving his foot into the man’s crotch with all the considerable force at his command, a snap kick against which the man has no defense. Almost in the same motion, he draws his Colt and slams it into the side of the man’s head.

  One down and one to go. Carter levels the gun at the second man, who stands frozen in place, immobile as a department store manikin.

  ‘You move, you’re dead,’ Carter explains. Then he asks, ‘What did I just say?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not packing.’

  Carter repeats the question. ‘What did I just say?’

  ‘If I move, you’ll kill me.’

  Carter squats and strips the gun, a semi-automatic Glock, from the hand of the first man, who rolls on to his back and groans. Carter ignores the blood running along the man’s face and neck. He rummages through the man’s jacket and discovers a cellphone. The cellphone goes into his pocket, the gun beneath his waistband.

  ‘Are you the brother?’ he asks the older man as he rises to his feet.

  ‘Whose brother?’

  The man has a narrow face, a hatchet face, dominated by a sharp hollow nose that reminds Carter of a triangular sail on a racing yacht. He stares at Carter through contemptuous eyes, having apparently concluded that Carter’s not going to kill him. But not killing and not hurting are two different things. Carter slaps the man across the face with his free hand, the crack loud enough to arouse the kids across the street. They erupt in a chorus of encouraging whoops.

  ‘Are you the brother?’ Carter asks again.

  The man’s eyes now project rage, impotent rage, helpless rage. But he has no choice. He has to answer. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I’m not.’

  Carter doesn’t dispute the claim. The man looks nothing like Ricky Ditto. He steps close to him, jamming the revolver into his gut, and pats him down. No gun. Carter gestures to the man on the ground, who’s managed to rise to his knees and is now vomiting on to the sidewalk.

  ‘I want you to pick up your buddy and walk to the end of the block. If you turn around before I’m gone, I’ll kill you, witnesses or not. And you tell the brother he should heat up the cappuccino. I’ll be comin’ to visit.’

  EIGHT

  Angel can’t stop shaking. She’s shaking when Carter takes her hand, when he leads her to the van and puts her inside, when he drives north to 125th Street, then cross-town and over the Triborough Bridge into Queens. She’s shaking when he parks at the Pilgrim Diner on Astoria Boulevard, when he takes her inside, when he orders coffee and apple turnovers for both of them. There’s a little voice in her head that keeps saying, ‘It’s not fair.’ There’s another little voice that keeps saying, ‘So what?’ When she tries to lift her coffee cup, she spills hot coffee on her hand.

  ‘Are you going to say anything?’ she finally demands.

  That brings a smile to Carter’s face, a somewhat lopsided smile that reveals a chipped incisor on the left side of his mouth. ‘This is what I get for saving your life? Not to mention your honor?’

  Angel doesn’t rise to the bait. ‘They said they were cops. The older one had a badge.’ She shakes her head. ‘I never should have opened the door.’

  ‘They probably would’ve kicked it down. Subtlety’s not their thing. Patience either.’

  Angel cuts through the apple turnover with the edge of her fork, spears a piece and shovels it into her mouth. ‘Damn, this is really good.’

  ‘They do their own baking.’ Carter picks up his turnover with his fingers and takes a bite. The crust flakes off beneath his teeth. ‘The Pilgrim’s been feeding the cab drivers who work LaGuardia Airport for fifty years. Sometimes I come here at three o’clock in the morning just for the
smell.’

  The only thing Angel can smell is her own fear. ‘I don’t get it, how you can be so calm? Do you do this every day?’

  ‘No, not every day. But I’ve done similar things often enough to use the adrenal rush to my advantage.’

  ‘Does that mean you weren’t afraid?’

  ‘I was afraid that I’d have to shoot them, which I didn’t want to do.’

  Angel feels a sudden rush of pure rage. The one with the hatchet face had the cruelest smile she’d ever seen, not to mention the fact that his eyes were filled with lust and he’d threatened to rip her flesh off with a pair of pliers.

  ‘I wish you had,’ she says. ‘I wish you’d killed both of them.’

  ‘Too many witnesses.’ He gestures to her cup. ‘Finish your coffee and I’ll drop you off wherever you want. By the way, did they tell you who they were?’

  ‘They said something about a man named Bobby. Like I was supposed to recognize the name.’

  ‘That would be a mobster named Bobby Ditto. His brother, the one who’s dead, was named Ricky Ditto. Their actual last name is Benedetti. Somehow, Bobby discovered that you and Ricky had a date that afternoon.’

  ‘How did he find out my name and address? The old guy, the one with the hatchet face, called me Angel.’

  ‘Most likely from your pimp …’

  ‘My agent.’ Angel sighs. She’s finally slowing down and she wonders how far she’ll fall. Last time, after Carter shot Dr Rick, she slept for twelve hours straight. She glances around the diner, at all the Pilgrim kitsch. There’s a plaster turkey in every corner. ‘I have nowhere to go,’ she finally says.