Infernal rj-9

by F. Paul Wilson

  3

  Tom wanted to hear about this Joey character. He didn't look like he belonged on The Sopranos exactly, but Tom had seen enough louche types to spot one a light year away.

  "Don't worry about that. I'm not a judge up here. Not even licensed to practice. Just another plebeian. And let me tell you, I've already guessed your pal isn't a neurosurgeon. What's he do—sell stolen hubcaps or something?"

  Jack hesitated, then, "He's a bidonista."

  "What's that mean?"

  "Joey says it's Italian for grifter."

  "He's a scam artist?"

  Jack nodded. "Family tradition."

  Tom treated himself to a pat on the back. But this raised a number of troubling questions. The big one: Jack had told this scam artist he'd be "the first to know." Know what?

  Maybe things were starting to add up, disconnected pieces beginning to form a picture. Jack's leaving the family and hiding out in New York for fifteen years… everyone had wondered where he was and what he was doing. The word had come that he was an appliance repairman. Yeah, sure.

  Tom had a growing conviction that his little brother was living, as they say, on the wrong side of the law.

  It explained everything.

  Jack pointed to the traffic lights on First Avenue. They'd turned red.

  "Let's cross."

  Tom held back. "We're walking?"

  "I'd rather not talk about this in a cab."

  Now this was interesting. Tom weighed which he wanted more: a warm cab or a peek into his brother's secret life.

  No contest. He hunched his shoulders against the chill and stepped off the curb.

  "Okay. Let's go. Start talking."

  "Well, Joey's last name isn't Castles."

  As if I didn't know, he thought.

  "Let me guess: It's Castellano or something like that."

  "Castellano—right. Very good. His older brother Frankie was killed along with Dad."

  It shouldn't have come as something of a shock that other people had lost family members too, but Tom had been focused on Dad.

  Not that that should surprise anyone, he thought.

  He was always taking heat for being self-centered. Privately he agreed—nolo contendere—but made a point of blustering about the unfairness of the charge whenever one of his wives brought it up.

  "Shit. Too bad. They were close, I bet. Not like us."

  Jack gave him a long look. Was that regret in his eyes?

  "No. Not like us."

  Tom didn't want to get onto that subject.

  "So what were these brothers into?"

  "Their father, Frank Senior, used to run one of the original telephone booth scams out of Florida."

  Florida…

  Tom shivered as they started up 29th Street. A lessening of the wind here between the avenues made the air seem warmer, but not a whole hell of a lot. He could use a little Florida himself right now.

  "Connected?"

  "Yes and no. He wasn't in the outfit, but he paid them a piece of the action to, you know, avoid trouble."

  "Telephone booths… I've had a lot of scams come through my court, but that's a new one."

  "No, it's an old one. It's passe now. But back in the day Big Frank would take out ads in small town papers all over the South and in the Midwest offering to sell people phone booths."

  "Phone booths? What would anyone want—?"

  "Just hear me out and you'll know. The pitch was you could buy as many as you wanted; you could install them yourself or, for a small percentage, Big Frank's company would handle installation, maintenance, and collect all those coins. Once you were set up you'd have a steady stream of cash without lifting a finger. All you'd have to do was sit back and start counting your money. Everybody's dream, right?"

  "And people fell for that?"

  "Enough to make Frank Castellano rich."

  "You mean people would see this ad, write out a check, and just send it to him?"

  "Not with the price Frank was asking. No, the really interested ones would call the toll-free number, and if they sounded like live ones, Frank would buy them a plane ticket, fly them down, and show them around his telephone booth plant."

  Tom was nodding. "I'm getting the picture. A Big Store."

  He'd always found scams fascinating—the more elaborate, the better.

  "Right." Jack gave him an appraising look. "So you know a Big Store when you hear it. Interesting."

  "Everybody who's ever seen The Sting knows that."

  "But they don't know it's called a Big Store. Anyway, Big Frank's first Big Store was a rented warehouse outside Fort Myers. He'd tour the people through, pass them by lab-coated technicians working on circuit boards, show them a sample booth and dozens of big wooden crates ready to be shipped, tell them how he's swamped with orders and having trouble keeping up with demand. He'd set the hook by telling them how the first people to place booths get the best locations; the johnny-come-latelys would have to take the leftovers."

  "And so they started writing checks."

  "Big ones. Thousands and thousands."

  Tom had the picture now: "But the booths never showed up."

  "Never. When folks started to complain, Frank put them off as long as he could. When they finally came looking for him, Frank was gone. He'd moved his operation to the other side of the state."

  Tom shook his head. "Never ceases to amaze me how people never learn: If it sounds too good to be true, it almost certainly is."

  "Yeah, well, so Joey and Frank Junior are—were carrying on the family tradition with an Internet booth variation. And they're cleaning up, though not as much as they did with cell phone licenses."

  "There's another new one."

  "Worked with the same come-on as the phone booth: Get a cell phone license for a given area and you can collect roaming fees from anyone making calls from your turf. Frankie and Joey charged folks eight, nine, ten thousand bucks for a mobile phone license."

  "Which were worthless, right?"

  "Nope. They delivered the real deal."

  "The real thing?" Then Tom smiled. "Oh, I see. The victims could have got them on their own from the government for something like a hundred bucks, right?"

  "Seven hundred, actually. All the marks would have had to do was fill out a form. They never needed Joey and Frankie."

  Tom smiled. "Who says you can't cheat an honest man?" Then he shrugged. "At least those folks got something for their money. Better than a phone booth that never arrives."

  "But not much. Seems the guys neglected to tell the marks that they'd have to spend well into six figures to build the cell tower that would allow them to collect. But how'd you guess about the government selling them for so much less?"

  Tom shrugged again. "Not a guess really. A fair number of attorneys are doing very well with a variation on that."

  Back when he was in private practice he used to work that sort of thing. Those were the days…

  Tom sighed. Sometimes—many times, lately—he regretted leaving private practice. He'd wheeled and dealed and wheedled and angled for a judgeship. He'd heeded the siren song of the prestige, the opportunities it would afford him. But he'd have been better off now—lots better—if he'd stayed in the lawsuit game. Torts, wrongful deaths, and personal injuries had turned into such a gravy train. Guys he knew were making fortunes off plane crashes and even the 9/11 thing. Those kinds of claims almost never went to trial except maybe over the amount of money owed. Guys were collecting a third of the recovery for doing next to nothing.

  "Why am I not surprised?" Jack said in a flat tone.

  Tom waved his hands. "All perfectly legal."

  "I can't wait to hear this."

  "Here's how it works. All you need is a mass tort or a disaster that results in the creation of a fund. The breast implant settlement, for example. Or the Ramsey IUD settlement. Guys made tons by putting out ads indicating their 'expertise' in the Ramsey IUD case, then getting claimants to sign on to percen
tage agreements—some got pushed to as high as forty percent. But all the attorney had to do to earn it was show the claimants how to document their use of the product and their injuries, and then fill out the forms. All of which they could have done themselves in a written application to the fund."

  "So instead of getting a hundred percent of the settlement, they wind up with sixty because forty goes into some shyster's pocket."

  "Like I said: perfectly legal. Lex scripta is all that matters. But you have to take into account that a lot of those people wouldn't have wound up with a dime if the ads hadn't spurred them to action."

  "Swell system. You sleep okay at night?"

  Tom felt his jaw clench. "You're not going to do your Mr. Sanctimonious impersonation again, are you? What about your pal Joey?"

  "Not my pal."

  "You ever inculpate him about his cell phone scam?"

  "That's different."

  "Really? How? He bilks thousands. I want to play around with a bogus twenty and you get on your high horse. How come he gets a pass but not me?"

  "I don't like what Joey does but, because of the way he was raised, he doesn't know any better. He thinks that's how life is. But that's only a side issue. Joey's not my brother. You are. And you and I were raised with the crazy notion that doing the right thing mattered—mattered more than just about anything else. And the right thing is the right thing, even if the law says otherwise. Remember?"

  Tom tried to remember. But his boyhood days growing up in the tiny town of Johnson, New Jersey, were a blur. Echoes of Dad's voice flitted through his head, but he couldn't hear what he was saying. Probably because he hadn't been paying attention at the time.

  All he'd wanted was out. He'd seen Philadelphia and Manhattan and Baltimore and D.C. on class trips and had known immediately that Johnson was not the place for him.

  And then he remembered the night he'd almost been killed, and Dad shouting at him. First, because he was scared that Tom had almost killed himself, and then because of how he'd almost done it.

  He'd come across this Trans Am with the keys in the ignition. Sixteen, no license, but he knew how to drive. So he'd taken it for a spin. Everything was going fine until he went into a curve a little too fast and wound up wrapping the car around a tree.

  Just one of those teenage things.

  "Oh, yeah. I forgot. Saint Jack. Daddy's boy. He never had to worry about you going for a joyride."

  "No, he didn't."

  Tom had been out of the house by then, but it irked him to think that his kid brother had spent his high school years as some kind of namby-pamby geek. A teenager, especially a boy, was supposed to shake things up, give his parents a few gray hairs. All part of the rite of passage.

  "Didn't think so."

  Jack grinned. "Even though I went for at least a dozen."

  "Bullshit."

  He raised his hand, palm out. "Truth."

  "Dad never mentioned—"

  "That's because he never knew. Nobody knew. After I learned to hotwire a car—a lot easier in those days than now—I set a challenge for myself. The game was to borrow the ride, take it for a spin, then return it to the exact same spot with no one the wiser."

  "And no one ever spotted you, no one ever looked out their window and noticed their car missing?"

  Jack shrugged. "I did my homework."

  Tom had to admit he was impressed. Maybe Jack hadn't been such a sissy boy after all.

  4

  As much as Jack liked to walk and enjoyed cooler weather, it felt good to step into the hotel lobby.

  "When's check-out?"

  Tom hesitated, a look of uncertainty flitting over his face.

  "Wait here while I find out."

  Jack didn't see why he shouldn't accompany him to the registration desk, but didn't argue. As he stood alone in the virtually deserted lobby, a wave of sadness swept over him.

  Had things gone as planned, had the fucking Wrath of Allah stayed home, he and Dad would have been roaming the town, knee-deep in Jack's cool-building tour. They'd have seen the old Pythian Club and the Masons-built Level Club on West 70th by now, and would be heading toward 57th where he could show him the Hearst Magazine Building. Jack had a whole list of Manhattan buildings he loved. He'd looked forward to sharing them with his father. Now…

  He felt his throat constrict.

  Shit. Shit-shit-shit!

  Tom's voice drew him back to the here and now.

  "I'm going to stay another night."

  "What?"

  "I just checked to see if I could extend my stay and they said no problem. Seems the hotel's practically deserted. New York, it appears, has suddenly lost its cachet as a destination city."

  "But why are you staying?"

  Tom shrugged. "I don't know. Just feel I should. Then I can drive down to Johnson with you tomorrow."

  Oh, hell.

  "Why do you assume I have a car?"

  Tom looked surprised. "The Phantom Joyrider doesn't own a set of wheels? I don't believe it."

  "Lots of New Yorkers are wheelless. A car is more of a hassle—an expensive one—than a convenience in a city like this."

  "But that doesn't answer the question: Do you own a car?"

  "Yes."

  Abe was going to drive him out to La Guardia this afternoon. They'd switch tickets and then drive out. As a recent arrival—he'd say he'd just dropped someone off—he'd be under less scrutiny.

  "Are you driving down to make arrangements for the wake tomorrow?"

  "Yes."

  "Can I hitch a ride?"

  How could he say no?

  "Of course you can."

  Tom gave him a tight smile. "There. Wasn't that easy?"

  "But what about your wife—wives—and kids? Aren't they coming?"

  "Sure. I'll hook up with them at the wake."

  Jack couldn't see any way out of this. Even if Tom was his only living relative, an hour and a half cooped up with him in a car…

  And then he had an awful thought. Gia and Vicky were planning on going—Gia was adamant about this—and that meant they'd be exposed to Tom.

  "You should know that I'll have a couple of other people along."

  Tom's eyebrows rose. "Is that so? Who, pray tell?"

  "A woman I know and her daughter."

  He grinned. "So, there's a woman in Jack's life. I can't wait to meet her." He snapped his fingers. "Hey! I've got an idea. Why don't I buy you two dinner tonight?"

  "We've already got plans."

  "Well, if they include dinner, I'm buying." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the hotel restaurant. "Right here."

  He'd planned on it being just Gia and Jack tonight, but couldn't see a way out of this.

  "Okay. But not here."

  "Why not? It's excellent. I ate there last night and—"

  "Sorry. We've got reservations at Lucille's tonight."

  "So? Break them."

  "Can't."

  Jack didn't understand Tom's wistful look as he glanced toward the entrance of Joe O's.

  "It'll be so easy. I'll just charge it to my room and—"

  "Yeah, but the problem is I know the guy who's playing Lucille's tonight. He asked me to come down and listen, fill a couple of seats for him."

  Actually the singer, Jesse Roy Bighead DuBois, had told Jack he'd have a surprise for him if he showed. Wouldn't say what, but he'd piqued Jack's curiosity.

  But with all that had happened, Jack had forgotten about Jesse and his gig. When Gia had reminded him this morning, telling him she'd call and cancel their reservation if he wanted, his first impulse had been to say yes. But when he considered his other options, sitting with Gia and listening to some blues while having dinner didn't seem like a bad thing. After all, it was the blues.

  Tom frowned. "Playing what?"

  "He fronts a blues band. Of course if you don't like blues—"

  Hope-hope-hope.

  "I'm a blues aficionado. Count me in."

  Jack
repressed a sigh.

  But then, maybe it wasn't right to leave his only sib alone two nights in a row.

  Or was it?

  5

  Jack sat at his computer in his apartment's cluttered front room. The blank eyes of his Daddy Warbucks lamp watched as he scanned through the newyorktimes.com story about the call from Wrath of Allah. It included an audio file of the call. He clicked it and heard an accented voice.

  "We are the Wrath of Allah, fedayeen in the war against the Crusader-Jewish alliance. We have struck and we will strike again, until all the enemies of God and helpers of Satan are cleansed from the face of Allah's earth. This is but the beginning."

  He slumped in the chair. The gloating, cold-blooded, matter-of-fact threats, the hatred in the tone stayed with him after the clip. How do people get to that point? Didn't they listen to themselves? If their god was so offended by western culture he could cleanse it from the face of the earth with a thought. Any self-respecting god would take offense at the notion that he needed a bunch of bearded crazies to defend him.

  Jack listened twice more, then downloaded the file. He burned it onto a CD. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he simply needed to listen to it now and then to confirm that it was real. Maybe he'd need it as fuel should the fire of his simmering rage ever burn too low.

  6

  Gia leaned against him. "I can't believe I'm finally going to meet a member of your family."

  "He's the only one left. And for all I know, he might not show."

  Jack and Gia comprised two of half a dozen people at the bar in Lucille's Bar and Grill. Jack sipped a pint of Bass, Gia a club soda with a wedge of lime. He scanned the room. Beyond the barrier separating the bar from the rest of the space sat the stage and the front dining area. Beyond that lay a larger dining area two steps down toward the rear. Ceiling high and black, walls paneled in some sort of rich brown wood, carpet a half-abstract, half-surreal pattern of guitar shapes that had melted like Dali clocks.

  The place looked deserted. It was early, of course, but Jack couldn't help thinking that the La Guardia massacre had something to do with the low population density.

  Lucille's was a casual place and they were dressed accordingly: Gia in black slacks and a loose, sapphire blue velour turtleneck that picked up her eyes and hid what little tummy she had; Jack in khakis, a plaid shirt, and a dark brown leather flight jacket. A nondescript couple out for a drink and a meal.