Afterburn

by Colin Harrison

  In a quieter voice: "So our guy is generally in and out." Louder: "Give us a couple of minutes here, Horace."

  "Right."

  "I mean walk away, Horace. Just get your ass fifty steps back."

  "Right on that."

  The basketball shoes walked away.

  "Fucking jig."

  "Looks like he has AIDS. Half the fucking spooks got AIDS, you know."

  The money, Rick thought, don't let them find the money.

  "Thing I don't understand is why white guys aren't getting it."

  "You mean straight white guys?"

  "Right."

  That voice, thought Rick, I might know that voice. Hard to tell lying on the cement floor. Detective Peck. If he doesn't look at the engine, he won't find the money.

  "I heard you can't really get it from fucking a woman. Guys just aren't getting it from having sex with women."

  "Whores or regular women?"

  "I mean your totally regular girl—she has a regular job, apartment, and so on. Doesn't shoot drugs. Look at the numbers and you see that the guys she's sleeping with are not getting it."

  Rick heard the sound of the hood opening. The money was hidden in a large plastic Baggie that he'd twisted a wire around and slipped through the wide mouth of the antifreeze reservoir. To get at it you had to put your fingers into the bluish antifreeze and find the wire. "The doctors don't want anyone to know."

  "'Course not."

  "You'd have guys fucking around all over the place, if they knew they weren't going to get AIDS."

  Had they found his money? He risked a peek around the tire of the Lexus, but the angle wasn't right.

  "You ever go gooming on the missus?"

  The hood went down. "That's classified information."

  "You're a weasel."

  "Nah. I see this girl every couple of weeks. Nice, you know, very respectable. Has some kinda job at Macy's, in the personnel department. Apartment's way over by First Avenue. Last time I see her, we get in bed and fuck, you know, then she likes to make me lunch afterward, see, and I eat that and then she brings out this blueberry pie stuff, sort of sweet custard, and it's really good. Better than anything my wife ever made me. Not even close. My wife gives me the same fucking macaroni she gives the kids. Dog food. So I'm eating that custard blueberry pie and really enjoying it, it's better than anything I ever got in a restaurant, and then while I'm still eating it, she slides down and undoes my pants. Starts sucking on me."

  "No."

  "Yeah, I'm not bullshitting you. I don't even think I can get hard again, we just had sex maybe an hour ago. I'm a fucking old man, right? But here she is, she's gotten turned on by the fact I'm eating her pie. She's doing it to me and I stop eating the pie, just to concentrate, you know, and she says, No, keep eating the pie, don't stop. So I do. It is fucking great pie. I got the pie in my mouth and sitting there looking down watching my wet dick go in and out. Fucking sexiest thing I ever saw. I've seen everything, too, but this is something new. It had to do with the pie."

  "I get it."

  The basketball shoes were coming back.

  "I know it sounds—"

  "No, I get it, I—Yo, Horace! Hey, fuckhead! Hey, Horace."

  "What?" came a voice.

  "This is a po-lice investigation. You don't come back until I tell you."

  The basketball shoes walked away.

  "Stuff like that happens, it ruins you," said the other man.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I can hardly screw my wife anymore. I have to go into a trance."

  A male exhalation. "Hey, my wife actually fell asleep on me."

  "No. C'mon."

  "Swear. I knew she was tired, but she got up and put in the thing and said, Okay, honey, and then I get on her—I mean, it's not like I didn't work the whole day, either—and I'm doing it and then I see she's asleep."

  "Sort of killed it for you."

  "I pulled out, she didn't even know."

  The truck door slammed.

  "How much you paying Horace these days?"

  "He gets thirty a week, twenty extra anytime his stuff is decent."

  "He knew this guy was no good?"

  "The guy wanted to hide the truck—that's interesting enough. Horace'll try to sell anything he's got."

  "Bocca coming in and out once a day, maybe."

  "He doesn't know what he's doing," Peck said disgustedly. The other truck door slammed. "He's fucking around, he's getting close to finding that girl. He's making contact with Verducci's people, making them mad. That's all I care about. He'll get mixed up in it. He'll call me again, say he doesn't know where she is. But he's going to find her. It's just a matter of time."

  "You think they know where she is?"

  "Don't know exactly what they know. I'm not on the exact inside here. My job is to keep an eye on this guy."

  "They want to get them together first."

  "They want something, yeah."

  HE LAY MOTIONLESS on the oily floor for ten minutes after they left. He'd have to call Paul now. He hadn't wanted to do it, but now there was no choice; Paul would figure it out. He rose and moved through the shadows to his truck, the doors of which Peck had left unlocked. Nothing seemed to be missing, including the money in the antifreeze reservoir, and the truck started right up. What did Peck want from him? Get out of the city, Rick. He summoned the elevator, opened the gate, and backed in the truck. Horace had sold him out for thirty bucks when Rick was paying him seventy-five a week. Unwise, my brother. He felt his breathing quicken, his hands getting nervous, just like in grade school before something bad happened.

  A minute later, he had the truck idling in front of the cement-block booth. Seeing him through the booth window, Horace turned off the television.

  "Good afternoon, my brother. I didn't see you come in."

  Rick put the truck in park and got out with the baseball bat.

  "Wait, I said, 'Good afternoon, my brother.'"

  Red, the world was red. "Hey, fuck you, my brother."

  It was no use pretending anything. "They know where I live, man, they—"

  Rick swung the bat and shattered the booth window. With the next swing he destroyed the door. Horace leapt under the desk, holding the phone. The phone wire came right out of the cement block, and Rick swung the bat down on that, snapping it loose, yanking the phone set off the wall.

  "Yo, man!" cried Horace, his breath raspy. "Don't fucking do it."

  Rick hit the door again. It broke in two. He took a step inside the booth. Almost no room to swing. The cash register was full, but if he touched it, the police would care what happened. Up to now, it was a personal incident, of no official interest.

  "Don't hit the television."

  He hit the television, shutting his eyes as the bat met the screen. Wrecked. But he was not satisfied, not nearly. With one swing he could break Horace's knee, then drag him out from under the desk.

  "You fucking sold me out!"

  "I had no choice!"

  "Get up."

  "You going kill me," Horace croaked.

  "Get up!"

  "I said you going kill me."

  Think, he told himself. Don't do the stupid thing. You already did one stupid thing. He saw the key box on the wall and pushed it open. Row upon row of keys, each on a hook, corresponding with spaces in the garage. The lowest three rows of ten were marked basemint and included many sets with Lexus and Mercedes emblems.

  "Where's my key?"

  Horace was gulping breath. "Bottom left."

  He retrieved his spare set, then unhooked a handful of other keys, seven or eight sets.

  "You can't do that!"

  "The fuck I can't. I'll be taking these keys. You can explain to the owners."

  "Oh, man, my brother, that puts me in a world of shit. That gets me fired. They hear their keys are gone, they going get me fired, at the least."

  "You should have thought of that."

  Horace's eyes were full of te
rror. "I can't move no cars around without them keys!"

  "You should have thought of that, too." He noticed a framed photo of a Little League baseball team in blue-and-white uniforms. "What's this?"

  "What? What?" Horace looked around, glass in his hair.

  "This."

  "That? That's my two boys, their team!" wheezed Horace despairingly, keeping his head covered.

  Rick picked up the photo: twenty little black boys in neat baseball uniforms kneeling on a scuffed infield; in the background, smiling, stood Horace, an assistant coach of sorts. The guy was just trying to make a living—you could see it that way, too; the man had a shitty job eating exhaust and was working whatever extra angles he could to make a little money for his sons. Contributing to civilization. Rick put down the photo, threw the other keys to the floor, and left.

  IT WAS PAST 3:00 P.M. when he stepped into the Jim-Jack, and he could see that the lunch crowd had ebbed, only one waitress working the tables, the Mexican busboys idle. Behind the bar stood the bartender, an older blond woman with too many rings garbaging up her ears. The pay phone hung on the wall next to the first stool of the bar, placed rather cleverly so that you could sit at the bar and talk on the phone. This, he figured, was where Christina had called her mother. He sat down next to the window and the busboy came over. He nodded. "I'm looking for a friend of mine, name's Christina."

  The busboy did not commit to an expression. A lot of Indian in his face, the eyes almond-shaped. Mexicans hated whites, the conquistadors. Were into butt-fucking white girls as revenge, he'd heard. But that wasn't his problem. "I think she's been around here, man. Pretty tall, dark hair. On the slim side."

  The busboy wiped the table, looked over his shoulder. "Let me check." He retreated to the back of the restaurant, whispered something to the bartender, who lifted the bridge of the bar and walked forward.

  "You ready to order?" she asked.

  Rick nodded. "Let me have the bean burrito plate. A tomato juice, orange juice—and Coke-no-ice."

  "Thirsty guy."

  He nodded.

  "Right." But she wasn't quite done with him. "You were asking about somebody?"

  "Yeah—a friend. A woman, long dark hair. Kind of tough-looking. Maybe she used this phone a few times. I heard she was around, so I thought I'd just stop in."

  "Pretty?"

  "Yes."

  "A friend?"

  "Old friend, yeah."

  "How old could she be?"

  "Not as old as me."

  She looked at him. "You don't look that old."

  "I'm old, believe me. Very old."

  The woman smiled. "I think I've seen a girl using the phone. You want to leave a message?"

  "No. But maybe you can tell me when she comes in, her usual time."

  She shook her head softly. "I can't."

  "No?"

  She smiled again. "It's a policy. We make policy here in this restaurant."

  "Then just tell her a friend came by."

  She pretended to write on her order pad. "I'll just put down 'Nameless Old Guy.' Something like that?"

  "Sounds good."

  While he was waiting for his food, he called Paul. After the secretary put him through, he could hear his half brother switch from speakerphone to the regular line. "Been a long time, Rick." A weight of sadness passed through him; he missed his brother terribly, felt ashamed for falling out of contact. He'd never told Paul exactly where he lived out on Long Island. "I know," Rick said. "It's my fault." He'd always admired Paul. He was the successful one. Trained as an accountant, he owned the family heating-oil-delivery business, two policemen's bars that didn't make much money but kept him sewn in with the cops, a boatyard out on Long Island. He knew everybody, and everybody knew him, asked his advice. Nobody had a hook into him. Paul owed exactly no dollars and no cents to the world. His specialty was setting up legitimate operations that actually made money. If you wanted to wash some money through them, that was your business. The old men trusted him because he made his rules clear and had never been in trouble. The younger men trusted him because the older men did. If you asked him what stocks to buy, he didn't tell you; he gave you the name of a legitimate brokerage. If you wanted to buy a gasoline station on Long Island, he told you whom to call and ran the numbers for you. Of course, then you placed the accounting with his firm.

  "Where are you?" Paul asked.

  "Back in the city. I need to talk, get some thoughts on something."

  In the past, this had always meant that Rick was in trouble. Paul's reaction depended on the load of headaches he already carried, what his wife would say, what the actual trouble was, and, finally, whether Rick was asking for money.

  "Lay it on me."

  Rick briefly explained the situation with Christina and Peck, including the conversation out on the dock in Greenport.

  "Some of what he told you is probably horseshit," Paul said. "Some."

  "You know Peck?" asked Rick.

  "I know people who know him. The usual setup."

  Rick watched the waitress bring his food to his table. She noticed that he was at the pay phone. "This thing is moving pretty fast on me, Paulie."

  "Come over for dinner. I'm out of the office later in the afternoon, but I can pick you up."

  THE FERRY to Staten Island thrilled him, still. Once, as a boy, he rode it holding his father's hand. In the windy darkness the lighted castles of Manhattan receded rapidly, the water behind the tremoring deck oiled with shavings of light. He found a damp bench on the Jersey side. A containership with only three running lights glided past, then a buoy blinking green, then the Statue of Liberty, then another ship. He noticed a young woman with bobbed hair and beautiful eyes. She sat a few benches away, legs crossed, bouncing her black boot. She smiled mysteriously and he nodded. Every girl has a story, he thought, but you can ride only one at a time. Inside the ferry exhausted office workers sat traveling home, jackets over their shoulders, hunched sweating beneath the fluorescent lights, reading newspapers, eating hot dogs. Dependable people, bills paid, law-abiding. He would never be one.

  The ferry bumped to a stop. Outside the terminal Paul stood waiting in a good sports coat and talking into a cell phone—never wasting a minute, always the man with unfinished business, rushing toward the next conversation, the next deal. Getting quite a bit of gray hair now, Rick could see. Paul looked up and gunned his finger at Rick in recognition. A classy guy, his brother. They both had their height from their father, but Paul had never gotten big, weight always steady. Refined in appearance and habit and temperament. Bought a new Town Car every three years and gave money to charities. Read The Wall Street Journal and played golf. Ten handicap, just right. He kept a finger in a lot of different pies, Paul did. Advised the Archdiocese. Jews liked him because he was as smart as they were. He had a lot of money and nobody but Paul knew how much. Wife happy. Kids doing fine in school. The big house in Todt Hill. Christmas lights on the bushes each December. Everything done the right way.

  Paul grasped Rick's arm. "You look good. What's your weight now?"

  "Maybe two-thirty."

  "You look solid."

  "All that work on the boat."

  In the car, Paul flicked on the air conditioning. "So you're really back in the city?"

  "Just got in."

  Paul nodded. A certain tone in his silence. "You staying long?" he said.

  "I can't tell."

  "You have time to see Dad?"

  "I don't know."

  "I can drive you out there."

  "It's not the right time, this week. Maybe in a little while." Not a good start, Rick knew. "How's he doing, anyway?"

  Paul lifted his hands off the steering wheel in a gesture of resignation. "The problem, at this stage, is bedsores. They keep moving him around in the bed. There are certain places—the heels, the buttocks. Places where the weight of the body rubs against the bed."

  "Okay." He didn't want to hear it. It distracted him. Paul, eleven y
ears older, had grown up in a different house, their father a happy man then—so Rick had been told. Paul's mother had been killed in a traffic accident, the middle of the day, a station wagon full of groceries. Another Staten Island housewife had been driving a car full of noisy kids. One of them had died. A tragedy, and nobody's fault, really—mothers just doing their jobs. Somehow Paul had been okay, but his father, later Rick's father, had been staved in by the death of his wife. In his grief, he quickly remarried. And maybe things had been all right for a few years. Rick remembered loving his mother like the sky itself, clung to her against his father's lack of interest. She'd taught him to catch and throw a baseball. Maybe things would have been different if she had not died. You could never say what would have happened. Paul was in his last year of high school when Rick's mother got sick. The breast cancer raced through her with no resistance. Also, she was late getting treatment, had hidden her condition from his father; why, Rick never did learn. Some problem in the marriage, something he would never understand, except that he blamed his father for not saving his mother. Perhaps she had feared he would withdraw further if he knew she was sick. That could be it. But there was no one to ask and never had been. After Rick's mother died, his father worked on the family business, never home much. Paul was away at college, in business school, in a big accounting firm in Manhattan. Everyone gone. By the time Rick was seventeen, he was running around pretty hard. By nineteen he was fucking four women on a regular basis, two of them local girls who didn't know which way the wind was blowing, the third the angry wife of a cop, and the last a woman who sold real estate in Manhattan. At thirty-three, she had already been divorced twice; her big trick was that she could touch the soles of her feet to the headboard while he was pounding her.

  "Mary made a big dinner," Paul said. "I'll run you back afterward."

  "Great. So let's talk now, you mean?"

  "Once we get inside, the boys are going to be all over me."

  He told Paul, this time in detail, about the visit from Peck out on Orient Point, Christina's release from prison. Paul nodded as he listened, a man accustomed to tortured narratives. The pinlights from the dash illuminated the surface of his glasses, the underside of his chin and nose. He seemed to recall the story even as Rick explained it—which was not so farfetched. People knew they were brothers. Tony Verducci was well acquainted with Paul. They knew the same people, they'd done business together.