New York Minute

by Bob Mayer

  Toni tapped her fingernails on the leather covering her desktop, not as annoying as the Formica at Vic’s. “We still don’t know who broke into your apartment and took the photos and sent them as if they were sent by me.”

  “Quinn,” Kane once more accused. “Cibosky getting dumped across from Vic’s sounds like him.”

  “Why?”

  “To fuck with us,” Kane said. “I’m not that concerned with the ‘why’ right now. The first priority is to get into my footlocker and see if the gun is there. That’s a lot more leverage than the pictures and it’s against me.”

  “Motive is always important,” Toni said. “It’s the key to everything.”

  “No,” Kane said. “Politics and power are. You know that. As you said, Quinn is bad news. I’ve learned more about him and he’s worse than you think.”

  “How so?”

  “He was military,” Kane said. “In a New Zealand unit that’s the equivalent of Special Forces.”

  “Fuck,” Toni said.

  “Exactly. We need to bring your father in. I noticed that Strong blinked when I mentioned your firm. He recognized it. We need all the help we can get.”

  Toni stopped the fingernail drum roll. “My father doesn’t know I’m representing Mrs. Delgado.”

  “You said she got referred to you since that’s what you do here,” Kane said.

  Toni stood up. “You want some more coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  She walked out of the office and to the machine in the lobby. Kane didn’t follow. He was trying to mentally unravel this Gordian knot otherwise known as a clusterfuck.

  Toni came back. “I’ll make some calls. See what I can find out. Maybe I can get this squashed before Strong moves any further. You’re right. The firm has a lot of connections. I am a partner here. We’ve made bigger problems disappear.”

  “What are you doing here?” Kane asked.

  Toni was confused. “What do you mean? You called me.”

  Kane waved a hand. “This office? The firm? You were working for the public defender’s office when I lef the country.”

  “I’m Ted’s replacement,” Toni said.

  “What?”

  “Father revised his plan for Ted once he made the decision to go to the Academy. Looked good on paper: West Point, Army, combat vet war hero and then law school. Come here, hang his shingle. Eventually take over. It was all planned.”

  “Plans go to shit once you make contact,” Kane said.

  “That’s what happened, wasn’t it?” Toni said, voice dripping with bitterness.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to take Ted’s place,” Kane said.

  “Don’t worry about me, Will,” Toni said. “I’ve got my own plan and I’m pretty far along on it. Right now, you’ve got an immediate problem.”

  Kane stood. “I’m going to get into the footlocker.”

  “We’ll fix this,” Toni promised.

  Kane shook his head. “It’s going to get worse.”

  “You didn’t kill Cibosky,” Toni said. “It can’t get worse.”

  “You don’t understand,” Kane said. “I’ve been here before. I think you need to bring your father in. I got a bad feeling about it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “’No one expects the Spanish Inquisition’,” Kane said without any attempt to imitate the accent of original Monty Python phrase.

  “That’s not funny. This isn’t funny.”

  “No, it’s not. But there’s truth in humor. We should always expect the Spanish Inquisition.By the way, the waitress at Vic’s, Morticia, has a friend who needs some legal advice. Told her to give you a call.” Kane walked out.

  IMPOUND LOT, LOWER MANHATTAN

  Conner had given the location of the impound lot for the southern half of Manhattan with no questions asked. Much like he’d given up breakfast at Vic’s, Kane thought as he surveilled the lot.

  He felt naked without a gun on his hip even though he’d never fired any firearm outside of a range since coming back to the States. He didn’t like the feeling, because it meant he was less than because of a piece of hardware.

  Other than the chain link fence, topped with razor wire, all around it, the impound lot resembled many vacant lots in the city. Some vehicles inside were abandoned cars that had been picked up before they were completely stripped and most lacked tires. There were some intact newer ones, obviously moneymakers for the city’s coffers when the owners came to claim them. Most likely picked up on alternate side of the street parking violations early in the morning. Some of the cars were evidence in various investigations. His Jeep was closer to the wrecks than the high-end cars.

  There was one attendant in the lot, an old white guy in stained gray coveralls. He sat on a folding chair in the shade of a large umbrella near the open front gate. He supervised a clipboard hanging on a hook made from a coat hanger on the fence.

  Kane watched a city wrecker bring in a red Volkswagen camper covered in poorly hand-painted rainbows. The attendant got up, talked to the wrecker driver, took down some information from him, then pointed. The tow truck pulled the camper next to the Jeep. The driver unhooked it, stored his chains, then drove out of the lot. The attendant resumed his seat in the shade. He had a small cooler next to him and he would reach in, pull a can out, take a slug, and return it to the safety of the cooler.

  Kane looked up. It was late afternoon, but wouldn’t be dark for several hours. He couldn’t wait that long. Toni had no way to get a hold of him if a warrant was being processed. And there was more to do this evening.

  There were a number of possible tactical options to get inside. Kane withdrew his money clip and peeled off a twenty. Kane had learned the art of the tight fold into the palm for the quick slip from another one of Toni’s investigators, Dutch, a cop before he worked for Marcelle, who’d retired the previous year to Florida to play the pony’s. He’d been appalled at Kane’s lack of fixer skills and done his best to pass on decades of tricks and contacts during their overlap time.

  Kane walked to the gate. The attendant looked up and waited.

  “I need to get something from my Jeep.”

  “That old piece of junk yours, is it?”

  “Yep.”

  Kane stuck his hand out as if to shake.

  The attendant didn’t reciprocate. He checked the clipboard. “Says it was illegally parked. Normally, for that, I could let you drive outta here for fifty. But it got a flag on it from a detective named Strong. No release unless he authorizes it.”

  “I need to check something in it.”

  “Check or take?”

  “If it’s there, take. If it’s not there, it’s just a check.”

  The attendant smiled, revealing a fine set of dentures. He shook Kane’s hand, taking the bill. He unfolded it, negating Kane’s suave and practiced effort. “Jackson. I need his twin.”

  Kane pulled another $20 off the clip and handed it over, unfolded. The attendant tucked both bills into the chest pocket of the coverall. “Five minutes. I don’t wanna know what you do.”

  The Jeep’s back gate was well-oiled and opened smoothly. The lock appeared intact. A chain was looped through two eyehole bolts Kane had drilled into the back of the locker and reinforced with a steel plate on the inside.

  Kane slipped the key into the padlock on the battered, black footlocker. His name and serial number had once been stenciled on it but long ago spray-painted over. He’d signed for the locker on 2 July 1962. R-Day; Reception Day for Beast Barracks at West Point. He’d hauled this footlocker through four years of West Point. It had sat in its appointed place at the foot of his bunk in the barracks. Opened every Saturday morning for SAMI (Saturday AM Inspection), top tray pushed back and tipped up so that the lower half was partly exposed. It had been shipped to Fort Hood for his first assignment, then to Benning for Ranger School in 1966, then to his other duty assignments over the years. Then finally to New York City in the cargo hold of a c
ivilian airliner.

  Kane swung up the lid. Lifted the tray out. A towel was unwrapped in the left side of the bottom.

  The High Standard was gone.

  GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN

  Kane called the bad news to Toni via a payphone on his way home. She was still in the office and sounded distracted. She cursed a few times, informed him no warrants had been submitted, and that she’d meet him at Vic’s tomorrow morning for breakfast and to plan.

  Kane’s hand instinctually went to his naked holster upon seeing the door to his apartment wide open. He paused at the top of the stairs. The intruder was whistling the Colonel Bogey March.

  Kane sighed and walked down the stairs and in the open door. The sitting room was cloudy and reeked of cigarette smoke. Trent was inspecting the books, his sports jacket tossed on the couch. He was in his late fifties, portly, thinning black hair, flushed red face, and thick, slightly tinted glasses with black frames. He had a cigarette in his left hand, the ash precariously long.

  He stopped whistling and turned. “Captain Kane.”

  “Been whistling long, Trent?”

  Trent tapped his right ear, indicating the thin wire leading to an earpiece. “Ever since my security radioed you were approaching. Thought I’d make some noise and give a heads up rather than have you charging in.” The ash fell off the cigarette onto the pockmarked wood floor.

  “You need security?”

  “History and recent developments suggest you’re a dangerous man.”

  Kane turned a chair by the street level window to face the visitor, then sat down. He waited.

  “No ‘how you doing’? ‘Long time no see’? ‘Missed you’?” Trent spoke with a slight New England accent which Kane didn’t recall from their previous meeting.

  “No. More along the lines I hoped you were dead. Of something particularly nasty. Prostate or rectal cancer comes to mind as being appropriate but lung cancer is more likely.”

  “You never were funny.” Trent sat down on the couch.

  “I keep hearing that.”

  “You’re well read,” Trent said. “If you’ve read these books. They might have come with the place.”

  Kane didn’t reply.

  “What’s with all the maps?”

  “I like to know where I am.”

  “We’d like to know where you were,” Trent said. “You were off the reservation for a few years.”

  Several seconds passed.

  “How come you don’t have that Life magazine cover framed?” Trent asked. “You guys were famous. Or should I say infamous. The Green Beret Affair. Do you keep up with the fellows?”

  Kane remained silent.

  “Phil King says hi.” Trent was watching Kane. “He’s doing well, if you’re interested. Director of Covert Ops. Right under the Director of the Agency. Technically he reports, but Bush is a politician, not a career man. He couldn’t hold a candle to Wild Bill. Of course, Truman screwed Donovan by not making him the first director. Fucking politicians. We keep Bush out of the loop on the things he doesn’t need or want to know.” He chuckled. “Which is pretty much everything.”

  “We trace our lineage in Special Forces to the OSS and Donovan,” Kane said. “We uphold his tradition better.”

  Trent snorted. “Right. Fucking boy scouts. Or should I say girl scouts with your pretty green berets.”

  Kane didn’t rise to the bait.

  “So King is DCO,” Trent repeated. The cigarette was short, barely enough to hold. He took another inhale. “It’s actually the most powerful position at the Agency. Odds are, once we get a more aggressive President, he’ll be the next Director.”

  Kane interlaced his fingers in his lap, pressing them tight.

  Trent went on. “I’m doing pretty good myself, thanks for asking. A little of this, a little of that. I happen to be doing some work in New York City, which is why Phil called me earlier. Asked me to send his greetings.”

  “We never met.”

  Trent gave what might be a smile, but appeared to be a grimace, revealing yellowish, stained teeth. “That’s why they call Phil the Gray Ghost. He seems to be everywhere, but nowhere. How many times did you guys show up, asking us to take that gook off your hands? What to do? Geez, fucking amateurs. You were right outside his door several times, but never saw him.”

  “I was never outside his door,” Kane said.

  “Oh yeah, that’s right, you weren’t part of Gamma.”

  “He didn’t show at the trial, either,” Kane said.

  “Yeah. Like he’s ever going to set foot in a courtroom.”

  “That was your job,” Kane said. “And you lied your ass off.”

  “Truth is relative,” Trent said.

  “In your world.”

  “My world is the real world,” Trent said. “I’d have thought you learned that in LBJ.” He lit another cigarette from the stub and it joined the others in the ashtray. He held the pack out.

  “No,” Kane said.

  “Scared?” Trent said. “Shit, Kane, you’ve got nine lives. You haven’t used all of them, have you?”

  “Why are you here?” Kane knew he’d yielded by asking the question that Trent wanted him to, but he was tired of sparring and it was going to come out sooner or later.

  Trent wagged a thick finger at Kane. “You know, of the eight, I ended up having the most respect for you. You kept your mouth shut. Never said a thing. Not to me. Not to your lawyers, not in court. Nothing. But it cost you, didn’t it? You’re the only one with the dishonorable discharge. That’s fucking irony since you were being honorable. Sticking to a code of honor got you shafted. Bet you didn’t know at the time how much that would screw you over in the civilian world, did you? You were Army since you were seventeen and went into the Academy. Your West Point classmates, they’re what now, majors? Lieutenant colonels?”

  “Thirty are KIA.”

  “And to double down on the irony,” Trent continued, “that pussy Carter pardoned the draft dodgers in January. Can you fucking believe that? Those cowards broke the law, ran away like chickenshits and now they’re coming back and are citizens with all their rights just like you. Well, not like you, because you have a dishonorable discharge. They’re actually better off than you.”

  “They had courage.”

  Trent evinced surprise. “You believe that?”

  “They made a choice. Choices are hard, especially when they aren’t popular. And that’s the third time you’ve mentioned my discharge.”

  “I wasn’t counting. You’re not being very hospitable. You haven’t offered me anything to drink, not that you have anything worth drinking. I checked. Seriously, Kane, you’re not a drunk? Seems like you’d be a prime candidate for it.”

  “I have other outlets.”

  “I am sorry about your personal loss, though.” Trent watched Kane carefully as he said that. “A real tragedy. Where did you go to grieve?”

  “Not here.”

  “And the wife?”

  “Not any more.”

  “Too bad.” Trent shifted back. “Green Berets. You guys like to think you’re strategists. Big picture guys. But you don’t see it. You never saw it in Vietnam. You went into the mountains and became buddy-buddy with the Yards. Lived like you was one of ‘em. Rolling around in the mud. Loved them little fuckers, didn’t you? Except you have to remember that the Vietnamese were the ones in the cities driving scooters and cars and had TV’s and the choice real estate and the best rice paddies and your guys were wearing loincloths and living in fucking huts on the sides of hills, chewing on roots. Think you made the right choice?”

  “They’re honest people.”

  Trent chuckled. “Fair enough. And where did that get them? Massacred. Re-education camps. The ones who survived are still living in huts.”

  “The South Vietnamese didn’t do so good either with their scooters and cars and TV’s and our weapons and your help.”

  “Another valid point,” Trent allowed. “Fu
ckers deserved what happened to them.”

  “You forget it was your people who started funneling aid to the Montagnard and got them involved in a war they didn’t have a side in,” Kane said. “The South Vietnamese government hated them even more than the VC. We got stuck with what the CIA initiated.”

  Trent waved it away. “Everyone has their place. The Yards had theirs. Your Green Beret buddies have theirs. But what is yours now, Kane?”

  “What are you doing here, Trent?”

  “Your name came up today,” Trent said.

  “Came up where?”

  He waved the cigarette. “Did you see that movie, Three Days of the Condor? With Robert Redford playing the Agency analyst? I mean Robert Redford as an analyst? Who believes that?”

  “I read the book,” Kane said. “It was six days. It’s on the shelf there.”

  “What’s it they say? The book is always better or is it the movie is always shorter?” Trent shook his head. He inhaled, blew smoke. “But someone talked out of school to the author. Because we actually have places like that. Where bookish people get paid to sit and read and read and read. Everything. Communications between various agencies at all levels. Newspapers, magazines, books, all sorts of documents. They summarize key words and feed that to big computers. But none of them are Robert Redford.”

  More smoke.

  “Personally, I don’t like computers,” Trent said. “You know why?”

  Kane didn’t respond.

  “You’re not a very good conversationalist,” Trent said.

  “I’ve got a long list of faults.”

  “I don’t like computers for a very simple reason. They can’t lie. Humans can lie. We can even believe our lies. That makes us superior.”

  “Computers will lie if you feed them false data,” Kane said.

  “Yeah, but that comes from a lying human, doesn’t it?”

  “Or one who has been deceived by someone else’s lies and believes they’re telling the truth.”