by Brad Smith
“At work.”
“Where is work?”
“Right now at a new subdivision over in Rensselaer,” she said. “I’m a carpenter. Framing mostly.”
Virgil nodded and tried one more french fry before giving up.
“What I can’t figure is why Hoffman and his little posse are looking for me,” Dusty said. “It’s like he’s running scared.”
“Scared of who?”
“I don’t know. Parson maybe.”
“I’ll need a scorecard pretty soon,” Virgil said. “Who is Parson?”
“The guy who owns the cylinder.”
“Is he somebody to be scared of?”
“If you’re Hoffman, he is.”
“What about you—you scared?”
“Nah,” she said. She started the truck and they pulled out of the lot and headed back toward the hospital. Virgil watched her as she drove but she never looked over at him.
“So what’s your connection to Parson?” he asked.
“True confessions is over,” she said. “I just figured I should tell you what you’re up against. I was you, I’d forget about the boat.”
“Well, I’m not going to forget about it,” Virgil said. “Tell you the truth, I’m beginning to take this personally.”
Now she did look at him, her eyes going from the cast on his arm to the arc of stitches in his scalp. “I could see how that might be.”
She pulled into the hospital lot and parked beside his truck. She waited a moment before putting it in park, something clearly on her mind. “I really need to find that cylinder.”
“To sell?”
“No,” she said adamantly. “I’d toss it off the Dunn Bridge. In a heartbeat.” She exhaled before glancing over. “You wouldn’t have a piece, would you?”
“A handgun?”
“Yeah,” she said casually. Too casually, Virgil thought. “Might come in handy with Hoffman and his boys looking for me. I could score one in my old neighborhood, but it’s kind of tricky.”
Virgil shook his head.
She waved the notion aside. “Just a thought.”
“Right,” he said. “But you’re not scared?”
She smiled at him. “You gonna finish those fries?”
SEVENTEEN
After leaving the station, Hoffman drove over to the poolroom. Soup was already there, sitting on the overstuffed couch in the Russian’s office, drinking coffee. Yuri was wearing the clothes he’d worn the day before. Hoffman could see flecks of blood on the white shirt, blood from the hick they had kicked around the kitchen of the farmhouse the night before. Why couldn’t the man change his shirt? When Hoffman walked into the office, the Russian took his cowboy hat from the chair and put it on. He was ready to go.
They drove north on 787 out of the city, then swung around to an industrial complex, wedged between the railyards and the thruway. Yuri provided the directions. On a side street the Russian pointed to a Quonset hut with a hand-painted sign above the front door, which read D& R Collision. Hoffman parked in a fenced-off compound beside the building, the yard scattered with wrecked vehicles, some missing front ends, bumpers, windshields. Hoffman opened the trunk and he and the Russian grabbed the duffel bag containing the heavy cylinder and lugged it over to the side door of the building with Soup trailing after them.
Inside the building a man of about thirty-five was kneeling down beside a van, MIG-welding a new quarter panel into place. Off to the side a young guy, no more than a teenager, was water-sanding the hood on a Pontiac Sunfire. They waited for the welder to flip his shield up to examine his work. Only then did he notice them.
“Yuri,” he said. “When you get here?”
“Dante, my friend. Is good to see you.”
The man named Dante stood up, looking for a brief moment past Yuri to Hoffman and Soup. He didn’t appear to expect or particularly want an introduction, and either way, Yuri didn’t provide one. That was fine with Hoffman. Dante looked at the cylinder in the open duffel, on the concrete floor at Yuri’s feet.
“I have little job for you,” Yuri said.
“Yeah?”
“Have steel cylinder here full of goodies. I need for you to cut open.”
Dante walked over and knelt down for a look. He didn’t ask after the nature of the goodies. Hoffman figured that he probably had a pretty good idea what was inside, or didn’t want to know, one or the other.
“Stainless,” he said. “But I can cut it. I’ll just cut a square out of the side. You know, to protect the goodies.”
“Good,” Yuri said.
“I’ll get at it this afternoon.”
Hoffman shot Yuri a look, and the Russian removed his cowboy hat and pushed his thick hair back. “Is good, but I have slight problem. Is somewhere I have to be. I was thinking maybe I would give you two hundred dollars to cut open cylinder. However, if you could expedite the job, I could double that.”
Dante stood up and shrugged. “Sure.”
Yuri smiled and put his hat back on. He clapped Dante on the back. “How long does it take, this job?”
“I’ll have to change my tanks,” Dante said. “I don’t know, twenty minutes.”
“Good. My friend and I here, we have other business in the area. We will come back in thirty minutes. Mr. Soup, you will stay here and keep Dante company?”
“Like I got a choice,” Soup said.
“Is promotion for you, Mr. Soup. I am putting you in charge.”
“Right,” Soup said unhappily.
“We will be back,” Yuri said.
Walking back to the car, the Russian gave Hoffman a sideward glance. “You will pay the four hundred, Mr. Hoffman.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Well, we have thirty minutes,” Yuri said as they got into the car. “We can find ATM, or whatever you need.”
Hoffman started the engine. “I can’t get my hands on it. Not right away.” He paused. “My money’s tied up.”
Yuri was quiet for maybe thirty seconds, then nodded his head slowly. “I think I see now how it is with you, Mr. Hoffman. I think I see now why cop suddenly decides to get into this business.”
“You don’t know fuck-all about me.”
“I know enough. I also know that I will pay to Dante the four hundred, and you will pay me back. If cylinder is as advertised, is not a problem. If not, then this money you have, this money that is tied up, you will find way to untie it. Pronto.”
Hoffman jerked the car into gear and they drove out onto the street. “Where we going?” he asked.
Yuri pointed to a McDonald’s a few blocks away, the arches rising above the houses. “Go there first. I need to buy Big Mac breakfast. Then we come back and find place to park, to watch building. I trust Dante, but you can never trust a man completely. Temptation is powerful thing. Do you agree?”
“Whatever.”
“You sound like surly teenager,” Yuri said, smiling. “You are mad because I make comment about the untying of your money.” He watched Hoffman, waiting for a reply, but Hoffman wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Like I said, we come back and park,” Yuri said after a moment. “Close but not too close, you understand?”
Yuri got his breakfast and they drove back and parked along the street a couple hundred yards away from D&R Collision, at a spot where they could watch both doors of the building. Hoffman sipped his McDonald’s coffee and listened as Yuri downed the eggs and pancakes and sausage and hash browns like a man who hadn’t eaten in a week. When the carnage was complete, he tossed the wrappers in the backseat and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then pulled out an antique pocket watch to check the time.
“Eighteen minutes,” he said. “And no boom-boom. So far, is so good.”
Hoffman watched as the Russian began to wind the watch, turning the stem without looking at it, like a character in an old movie. The man was a walking cliché. Hoffman was looking forward to being clear of him, his stupid jokes, and his superior attitude. A couple more h
ours and that would be it. He turned his attention to the Quonset hut. He wished he could see inside.
“He better be fucking doing it right now,” he said. “I don’t want to walk in there in the middle of things.”
“Is good boy, Dante,” Yuri said. “I knew his father. We did business together in Europe when I was a young man.” Yuri thought for a moment. “Of course I am still a young man. Especially compared to you. I am forty-one years. How many are you—sixty maybe?”
“Fuck off,” Hoffman said.
“You are younger?”
“I’m fifty-two,” Hoffman snapped.
Yuri laughed. “You must have had rough life.”
Hoffman heard the rumble of a diesel engine and looked in the rearview to see a garbage truck come motoring around the corner a block behind them. There were no residences on the street and most of the businesses, like the body shop, had Dumpsters, so there wasn’t much to pick up, just a few bags here and there. Hoffman was in a no-parking zone but they could go around him. He still had his badge if he needed to show it.
“Maybe it’s time we discussed money,” he said to Yuri.
“And why would I discuss price when I have yet to see what it is I am buying?” Yuri asked. “If I say to you, Mr. Hoffman, would you like to buy a car? You would not say, Why yes, Yuri, I give you ten thousand dollars for this car. No, you would say, What kind of car, what year, how many kilometers does it have? You follow?”
“Miles.”
“What?”
“Miles, not kilometers,” Hoffman said. “You’re in America now. You should speak American.”
“Okay, wave the flag if you wish. Hooray for red, white, and blue. My point is—first I see what you are selling, then I taste what you are selling. And then maybe we talk price. Who knows—maybe I walk away.”
“You won’t walk away.” Hoffman took a cigarette from the pack on the dash. As he was lighting it, there was a sudden—
BOOM!
The noise reverberated through the car and caused Hoffman to break the cigarette in half. Panicked, he looked anxiously at D&R Collision, then heard Yuri laughing, and the sound of the diesel engine accelerating again. Hoffman realized that the garbage truck had backfired.
“What is wrong, copper?” Yuri said, trying to catch his breath. “Did you poop in your pants?”
“Sonofabitch,” Hoffman said. He glared at the departing truck. “Fucking asshole.”
“Maybe you should arrest him,” Yuri said. “For making backfire. Hurry before he is too many kilometers away.”
“Fuck you,” Hoffman said. His pulse was racing. He took another cigarette from the pack and lit it. He inhaled deeply, glancing again at the body shop across the street. “What the fuck are we going to do if that place suddenly blows sky-high?”
“I cannot speak for you but it is the highway for me,” the Russian said. He began to sing. “Happy trails to you. Until we meet again …”
Hoffman sat smoking the cigarette while Yuri sang. Apparently he knew the words to the entire song. He sang them all, and when he was finished he continued to hum the tune. He was driving Hoffman crazy. Finally the Russian pulled the pocket watch out again.
“Is time.”
Hoffman started the car and they drove into the compound once more. As they were walking toward the building, the side door burst open and Soup came flying out at a run. Hoffman had to grab him by the arm and throw him to the ground.
“You motherfucker!” Soup screamed.
“Settle down,” Hoffman said.
“Fuck you!” Soup shouted. “That fucking thing is booby-trapped and you knew it!”
“Relax,” Hoffman said. He looked toward the building, wondering how much time had passed. Parson had said sixty seconds. “It didn’t blow.”
“You didn’t know,” Soup said, squirming to get free of Hoffman. “Get your fucking hand off me. You didn’t know. Me and the dude in there coulda been blown to pieces. You a evil motherfucker, Hoffman.”
Hoffman lifted Soup roughly to his feet. “Nothing happened, right? Just relax, you little shit.”
“My life you fucking with, Hoffman.”
“Enough of this,” Yuri said and started for the door of the building.
“Come on,” Hoffman growled, dragging Soup by his shirt.
They walked inside. The cylinder was on a steel table and a neat rectangle, maybe a foot long, had been cut out of the side of it. Several plastic packages, tightly packed and secured with duct tape, were on the table beside the cylinder. Still inside, nestled among more packages, was a mass of gray putty from which a tangle of wires ran. Beside the putty was a standard keypad used for alarm systems. Dante was standing beside the table. He did not look happy.
Hoffman hesitated when he saw the putty and the keypad but Yuri reached in, pulled the putty out of the cylinder, and lifted it to his nose for a sniff. Smiled.
“Is Plasticine,” he said. “Like children use to play. Plasticine! Hey, copper, someone is having fun with you. Is joke.”
“What’s going on here?” Dante said, his voice flat.
“Is nothing,” Yuri said, tossing the putty on the table. “Someone is having a joke on my friend here and I was playing along. Is just Plasticine and keypad.”
“You thought it was going to blow?” Dante asked.
“Of course not, Dante,” the Russian said. “I would not put you in position of danger.”
“Fucking bullshit, man,” Soup said. He was hanging back, eyeing the cylinder like it was still about to detonate.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Hoffman told him. “You people do nothing but whine.”
Dante let it go, but his eyes were guarded. Hoffman was pretty sure that he wouldn’t be doing any favors for the Russian in the near future, if ever. Yuri pulled a black trucker’s wallet from his pocket and counted out the four hundred and handed it to Dante, who put it in his coveralls without a word and walked away, clearly pissed off. Yuri and Hoffman packed the dope into the duffel bag and the three of them headed for the side door, leaving the cylinder behind. Yuri told Dante that he could sell it for scrap but Dante never replied.
Outside, they put the bag in the trunk and got into the car.
“Pool hall, copper,” Yuri said, like a wealthy man instructing his chauffeur. He smiled at Soup in the back seat. “Now we are getting close to nitty-gritty, Mr. Soup.”
Soup remained quiet. He was still fuming, twitching in the backseat. Hoffman wondered how bad he was jonesing; they had been together for the better part of two days, and if he had been getting high over that time, he was awfully good at hiding it. Well, his reward was coming soon. Maybe Yuri would give him an ounce, or even two. Of course, if the shit was as pure as it was reputed to be, Soup would probably kill himself with it. But that wasn’t Hoffman’s problem. He just didn’t want to stiff the little bastard; if he did that, there was always the chance Soup would shoot his mouth off to a cop. Half the cops in the city knew him by name. He wouldn’t have any trouble getting one of them to listen, and with Hoffman’s luck, it would be a cop who didn’t much care for him. So Hoffman needed to keep Soup happy until he could get out of town. After that, Soup could tell anybody anything he wanted.
They drove to the alley behind the pool hall and Hoffman parked again beside the big pickup truck, the one he assumed was Yuri’s. Who else in the city would have a pair of horns on the hood of their vehicle? For somebody in the drug trade, he wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. They got out and Hoffman opened the trunk and as he did he heard police sirens, approaching fast.
“What the hell?” Yuri said, staring at Hoffman.
“It’s nothing,” Hoffman said. But he was wondering. It seemed a little too coincidental.
Yuri took a few steps toward the street. The sirens grew louder; the cruisers were apparently heading toward them, coming down South Pearl to Third Avenue, which ran out front of the pool hall. Yuri looked down the side street toward South Pearl, listening, then he turned back
on Hoffman.
“Nothing?” he asked. “Is cops and coming this way. What is this?”
“Got fuck-all to do with us,” Hoffman assured him.
Yuri was not convinced. He pointed a large forefinger at Hoffman. “You will wait here.”
He disappeared into the rear of the building. Hoffman turned to Soup, who had been edging along the alley, seconds away from flight. The sirens were now almost on top of them.
“Get back here,” Hoffman told him. “It’s nothing, I tell you.” He took a cigarette from his pack and lit up. “You want a smoke, Soup?”
“You want a smoke, Soup?” Soup mimicked. “Fuck you, Hoffman. One minute I’m a whiny nigger and the next I’m your homey. Fuck you, man. I rue the day I met you, motherfucker.”
“Take it easy,” Hoffman said, but he was distracted, his mind beginning to work, even though he tried to fight it. How could anybody know? Dante at the body shop was pissed, but Hoffman doubted he would make a call on Yuri. Besides, how would he know where they were heading? Hoffman took a long look at Soup, who had moments ago been on the verge of running. Soup, who they had left alone for half an hour while the cutting was done.
“You didn’t make a phone call, Soup?”
“What? Who the fuck would I call?”
Hoffman thought about it. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But if you did, you’re one dead crackhead.”
“I didn’t make no call.”
Hoffman decided to walk out to South Pearl and have a look. As he did, he saw two cruisers come down the street, slowing down as they passed to turn onto Third Avenue. Hoffman stood on the sidewalk and watched as they stopped after making the turn; he could still see the rear fenders of both cars, and he heard the doors open and close. They were practically right in front of the pool hall. Hoffman turned and walked back to the car. Soup was leaning against the rear fender, his head down, his expression dark and devoid of hope at this point.
Hoffman paced the alley, smoking. What if the police were raiding the pool hall for some other reason? The place was obviously a front for something. Numbers, drugs, guns; the Russian could be into anything. Hoffman knew nothing about the man. He could have checked him out, but it wasn’t as if Hoffman had been looking for a Boy Scout. However, if the police were in the pool hall right now, Hoffman sure as hell didn’t want them wandering out here in the alley. No matter what they were looking for, they’d be real interested in the duffel bag in Hoffman’s trunk.
