Urban Renewal

by Andrew Vachss

The brunette stood up. “I … I’m ready to work,” she said to Cross.

  “Get your shifts straight with Arabella. Then phone the pretty boy and tell him where you’re working, what time you’ll be getting off.”

  “He might come earlier. He does that, sometimes.”

  “Won’t change anything.”

  “Oh.”

  “Uh …” the man behind her muttered, the thinnest thread of impatience surfacing in his voice.

  The brunette got up and walked off, not looking back.

  “WHAT’D HE do this time, Buddha?”

  “This’s got nothing to do with Princess, boss.” The speaker was a short, pudgy man with pitch-dark eyes that were slightly corner-slanted. “It’s So Long. She came up with a real moneymaker of an idea—”

  “She ever come up with any other kind of idea?”

  “You got any more potshots you want to take, or can I just get on with this?”

  Cross scrubbed out his cigarette.

  “Thing is,” Buddha said, “she wants to meet with you about it.”

  “You inviting me over for dinner?”

  “Come on, boss, you don’t have to keep lobbing those frags my way. She’ll come to the spot, how’s that?”

  “Sure. Couldn’t bring her here, right? She’d want to look at the books.”

  “Damn! Lighten up, okay? You think I don’t know what the deal is with my own wife?”

  “No, brother—I think you do. So I’m puzzled—why would you want her in our business all of a sudden? Everything we own on paper, it’s in your name and Ace’s, joint owners. And it’s a total tontine, so she’s in for half no matter what. That makes her fifty-fifty to take it all.”

  “I don’t get—”

  “You go first, Ace’s woman, she takes everything. You know Sharyn—she’d cut it right down the middle, give So Long her rightful piece. But if Ace goes first, it all goes to So Long. You saying she’d cut Sharyn in?”

  “That’s what she promised when we all made the deal.”

  “Yeah. And she’s gonna keep that promise, because nobody’s selling nothing off until we’re all gone. So, if I’m still around—or Rhino, or maybe even Tracker and Tiger, depending—she’s going to do the right thing.”

  “Or Sharyn ends up with it all, you’re saying?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you do, boss. Spell it out for me,” the pudgy man said, comfortable in the seat vacated by the brunette. Nothing in his posture vibed “danger,” but he wasn’t a member of the Cross crew for his looks.

  “Okay, brother,” Cross said, not raising his voice. “There’s a few of us. Damn few of us. None of us young, and none of us expecting to die of old age, either. Ace and Sharyn have been together a long time. Five kids.”

  “Two of them are old enough—”

  “Five kids,” Cross went on, as if Buddha hadn’t spoken. “Sharyn may not know exactly what Ace does, but she knows he doesn’t bring home a paycheck. Or any other kind of check.

  “And he takes care of her. Of her and those kids. Good care. What So Long knows … well, let’s just say that’s one very curious woman. And a real smart one, too.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I can’t do that, brother. You just want me to say it out loud, yeah? All right, then: If Ace goes before you do, you’d be the only one who owns anything that we all put together. So Sharyn keeps right on getting whatever money she needs. We take care of our own.

  “But So Long, she’s got both smart and greedy in her. If the greedy part wins out, then Sharyn is gonna end up with it all.”

  “Because she’d be the sole survivor.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s my wife, Cross.”

  “Right. Your wife. Ace and me, we partnered up when we were little kids. Had no choice. Rhino, me and Ace found him inside that joint. They had him down as a monster retard, a drooling idiot they had to keep chained up—they were afraid of what would happen if he ever got loose.

  “Well, we got him out of those chains. And he got me over the wall. He got hurt doing that, but we came back for him, just like I promised. That was the core. The OGs. You were the first we brought in with us. And it was me who certified you—the skills and the mind, you had it all.

  “Then it was just the four of us, for a long time. So you know what happened when we went down south … and came back with Princess. You know how we added Tracker, but he only works with us when he wants to. Same as Tiger.”

  “Boss, you got any idea why Rhino pulled Princess out of that job we did down south?”

  “Ideas? Sure. But I don’t know. Not for certain. And I’m not going to ask. Princess, he’s one of us. Who knows that better than you?”

  “You’re saying what with that? I was in before he was.”

  “I already said that,” Cross said, his voice unchanged. “I don’t know what you were doing in that jungle, but I know you were working. I was, too. When both of us decided we’d be better off working for ourselves, that brought you in. Before Princess.”

  “Then … Ah, hell. I only wish I knew why—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Nothing we put behind us matters. That’s part of our deal.”

  “I know.”

  “I know you do. But you wanted to hear it spelled out, so here it is: Me, Rhino, and Princess, we’ve got nobody but ourselves. You’ve got So Long. Ace, he’s got Sharyn and their kids. On paper, everything we own belongs to you two. Ace goes first, it’s all yours. I know you’d do the right thing. We all know that.

  “But, no matter how careful you are, things can happen. Say you and Ace get taken out together. So Long would end up with a lot of cash. Property, too. But they’d have to get us all, understand? If any one of us was still alive—just alive, even if we’re locked up—Sharyn would get paid. Not some fifty-fifty thing—nobody’s a damn CPA here—but anything she needs, Buddha. Anything.”

  “And if So Long doesn’t t.c.b.—”

  “It’d be on you to fix that.”

  “What if I’m not around, myself?”

  “Like I said, Inside or Out, dead or alive, wouldn’t matter. Sharyn’s got a number to call. It’s not going to change, that number. She only uses it if she asks So Long for some money and that money doesn’t show up.”

  “That’s cold, boss. Even for you.”

  “Cold? How much money could Sharyn ever need that So Long wouldn’t have lying around in petty cash? Like I said, if ‘smart’ trumps ‘greedy,’ So Long’s got nothing to worry about.”

  “Sharyn’s not the brightest—”

  “You don’t even believe that, brother. But pretend you’re right—how smart would she have to be? She knows all she has to do is call So Long when she needs money. And call another number if she doesn’t get that money.”

  Cross lit another smoke.

  Buddha waited the three drags before he spoke. “So Long, she can get crazy.”

  “Crazy enough to spend some of the money having Sharyn put down?”

  The pudgy man hesitated a second. Then said, “Yeah.”

  “No surprise. That’s why there’s an insurance policy.”

  “Huh?”

  “If Sharyn dies, So Long goes right behind her.”

  “But if we’re all—”

  “The policy’s been bought and paid for already.”

  “Who did you—?”

  “No,” Cross cut him short.

  “I can’t know?”

  “No. All you need to know is the target, not the shooters.”

  “And I’m supposed to tell So Long … what?”

  “Nothing. You don’t need to. She already knows.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Dead sure,” Cross said, softly. “I told her myself.”

  THE SHARK CAR—a three-ton monster, further encumbered by all-wheel drive and air-bagged suspension—slipped through the Chicago back streets. Its city-camo splotches of black and gray left
anyone who spotted it wondering exactly what they’d just seen.

  Buddha was behind the wheel, playing the controls with his fingertips as deftly as a concert pianist. The back seat was three-quarters full. With one passenger.

  “I still can’t figure out how you get so much speed out of this thing,” Rhino squeaked. “With the armor plating, it’s got to weigh—”

  “Six thousand, six hundred, and change. With a full load of fluids. That’s without a driver, never mind weight like yours,” Buddha said, without inflection.

  “So you’d need at least—”

  “An eight-hundred-plus Elephant, blueprinted, rail-injected, three staggered shots of nitrous—when they’re all playing, add another few hundred horses at the wheels—and some other little tricks. This thing has to go in snow, and deal with these Third World excuses for streets around here, too.

  “With all-wheel drive, eighteen-by-eights were as big as we could go. They’re run-flats—but not to save weight, although they do. They’re so we can keep moving even if someone manages to put a round in one. The fuel cell holds fifty of av-gas—there’s no way to get to that, either.”

  “Redundant all around?”

  “Yeah. Just followed the computer model you made. Even with all the carbon fiber, just keeping this sucker’s weight under seven grand wasn’t easy.”

  “You’re not going to—?”

  “My house? Come on, bro. We’re only about five minutes away from the pickup.”

  “Eight, then?”

  “Eight-fifteen. And the bitch will still tell me I’m late.”

  AS THE SHARK CAR slid to the curb, a woman with long, straight midnight hair stepped out of a doorway. She was wearing a red beret and an ankle-length black alligator coat over three-inch spike heels in the same shade as her beret.

  The back door to the car hissed as it slowly opened. The woman stepped in as confidently as a movie star into a waiting limousine. If sitting next to a behemoth bothered her, she gave no sign.

  “Cross” was all she said.

  “So Long.”

  “My husband told you I had this plan?”

  “That’s all he said.”

  “There is money to invest, yes? From the … different properties.”

  “No, there isn’t. I’m not paper-hanging those deeds.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Liens, mortgages, equity loans, cash-out re-fi deals … You know exactly what I mean, So Long. Nothing gets put against any property we own.”

  “Okay. But, still, there is investment money someplace, yes?”

  “Some,” Cross said cautiously. “Depends on how things are going, any given week.”

  “Okay, then,” the woman said, as if an agreement had already been reached. “Plenty of houses for sale now. Foreclosures all over the city. Most of the time, trashed. People giving up home, angry at the bank, they take everything. Then the others move in. Squatters, gangs, crack dealers.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cross half-grunted as he lit a cigarette.

  “I don’t have smoking in my house.”

  “This isn’t your house, So Long.”

  “You do not like me still, yes, Cross?”

  “You’re not my business.”

  “My husband, he is your business.”

  “I’m not a marriage counselor,” Cross answered, taking another drag of his cigarette.

  “Not about marriage, about money.”

  “What else would you want to talk to me about?”

  “Sure. I see. I know this. About you. Not from what my husband says—he says nothing. But you not change. Not ever, right?”

  “Right.” Cross took the third hit off his cigarette and snapped it out through the lowered front-seat window, just behind Buddha’s left shoulder.

  “I have this,” So Long said, taking a thin sheaf of papers from inside her coat. “Five properties. Same block. Same side of street. Vacant lot between, so three one side, two the other. All like I say before.”

  “But …?”

  “The rest of the block, people staying. They own their houses. Take a long time to do that. Own them, no mortgage. So they are not moving. But always frightened. Things happen, but police never come.”

  “And …?”

  “Total price, all five houses, four hundred and seventy-five thousand. Asking price. On market for long time. Price keep dropping. All MLS.”

  “What’s this ‘MLS’?”

  “Multiple Listing Service. So any broker that is licensed, if he finds a buyer, he splits the commission with the one who has the first listing. See, we don’t want any one broker to have what they call ‘exclusive’ on the properties. That looks bad. So we want different brokers for each place, but they’ll all be ones we … know, okay?”

  “That’s your big investment?”

  “All houses very solid. Gray stone, brick; no wood.”

  “No wood out front, but plenty behind, right? No windows, no electricity, no plumbing … probably no roof on some of them.”

  “Not true. Thieves take copper, you think, yes? No. Gangs not let them.”

  “Stash houses?”

  “No! Gangs on both sides of the block, but different ones, and they already have all the empty houses they need. Maybe three, four blocks away. One side doesn’t come any closer, the other side doesn’t do anything, see?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay? Cross, every house on that block worth four, five hundred thousand, easy.”

  “Sure.”

  “You think, market bad, right? No mortgages like before. But yuppies can always get mortgages. How you say, ‘urban pioneers,’ yes?”

  “Yeah, that’s how you say it. And so what?”

  “That block, clean out the five houses, move gangs even further off, easy million dollars waiting.”

  “We buy the five houses for, what, maybe three-fifty total, sell them for five hundred each; that’s the plan?”

  “Sure. Probably more.”

  “Banks, lawyers, brokers, titles—that’s all money going out. And it’s a paper trail Ray Charles could follow in a coal mine.”

  “I have all that. No trail, no problem.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I am licensed real-estate broker. I have lawyer. Lao lawyer. He has friend in bank. Cambodian. Title is no problem. All LLC.”

  “And you’re the LLC.”

  “Sure. When sell, pay taxes, but not income tax, only on capital gain. Pay only on the gain.”

  “And you’re the LLC,” Cross repeated, lighting another smoke.

  “Who else you want in it?”

  “Buddha’s got civilian papers.”

  “Sure, but … connected to you, yes?”

  “Just like the Double-X. And Red 71. So?”

  “Those not same. Double-X, that is regular business. Pay taxes, license fees, all that. Red 71, only property taxes—no business there. And no capital gains to show, either one.”

  “Because we’re not selling them, ever. That’s true enough. You’re an accountant now?”

  “No degree, but—”

  “Yeah, I know. When it comes to money management, you’re a genius, So Long. But what you’re saying is just another chorus of ‘trust me,’ right?”

  “My husband trust me. You trust my husband—he is your brother, yes?”

  “That doesn’t make you my sister. And trust you with our money? Move in, clean up the place, take all the risks, and you do … what, exactly?”

  “My idea. My contacts.”

  “Yeah. And your five LLCs, right? You’d only be paying a gain on each resale. You really believe that’s worth a half-share?”

  “More.”

  “No,” Cross said, hitting another cigarette.

  “You not even look?”

  “Not for that split.”

  “You want what, then?”

  “A million off the top, split the rest.”

  “Crazy.”

  Cross took a last drag, snapped th
e burning smoke out the window again. Even in the dim light, the bull’s-eye tattoo on the back of his hand was clearly visible to So Long. She had never seen Cross without it. “What’s crazy, So Long? The split, or just me?”

  “Maybe both.”

  “Been nice talking to you, So Long. Always a pleasure.”

  “We negotiate, yes?”

  “No.”

  “Without me, you cannot do this, Cross. You don’t even know where the block is.”

  “There’s all kinds of blocks like that. ’Specially on the South Side.”

  “Maybe. But all the paperwork—”

  “Lawyers are whores. Some cost more than others, that’s all.”

  “You would not cheat my husband.”

  “Is that a question?”

  “No. But …”

  “Save it, So Long. Buddha gets his piece of our piece. And you get a big piece of that, too.”

  “More like all of it,” Buddha muttered, but not so quietly that it was inaudible in the back seat.

  “Ha! Very nice. I take care of—”

  “Enough, okay?” Cross interrupted. “Look, the only reason I’m even here is because Buddha asked me. We wouldn’t net five extra-large apiece, even if your numbers are right.”

  “Maybe more.”

  “You start a sentence with ‘maybe,’ anything you say after that is true.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “ ‘Maybe more’ is the same as ‘maybe less.’ ”

  “You don’t like to gamble, Cross.”

  “Buddha’s the gambler in our crew.”

  “Huh!” Seeing that her pose of being grievously insulted wasn’t going to play, So Long went back to being herself. “Okay, here, then. You take a look. You decide we go ahead, you get a million off the top, I take half of what’s left.”

  “That’s what I said. Which means you’re putting up the money to buy the properties. On this sure thing of yours.”

  “Me? No. I thought—”

  “Come on, So Long. Telling me you don’t like to gamble?”

  The car was quiet for a long minute.

  “Sure,” she finally surrendered.

  No words were exchanged on the drive out to the suburb where Buddha and So Long shared an unmortgaged house. The deed was in So Long’s name.

  “CAN’T HURT to take a look, boss,” Buddha said on the drive back.