Dark City

by F. Paul Wilson

  Jack understood that perfectly. Been there, done that.

  After a long pause, “How long before…?” Julio didn’t seem to be able to bring himself to say it.

  “The sale?” Darren said. “I spoke to Zalesky last night. I’ve been out of contact with him too. He says he’s got the down payment ready and waiting, and can have the mortgage commitment in a couple of weeks. Sorry, man.”

  Julio said nothing but Jack could sense what he was feeling. Really, what could he say to this kid who’d been so senselessly, wastefully maimed for life, who wanted to cash out and start all over?

  6

  Jack waited till Darren and Nita were well gone before stepping through the curtain.

  “My offer still stands.”

  Julio looked at him and shook his head. “We been over this too many times, meng.”

  Jack ignored him. “Look, I’ve got the down payment cash sitting in my apartment getting moldy. It’s yours, interest free, and you pay me back when you can.”

  “No.”

  They both knew Julio had no credit history and no bank was going to give him a mortgage based on his declared income. Harry had been paying him under the table with whatever he hadn’t lost on the ponies.

  “How about trying to get a mortgage by putting the business up for collateral?”

  Julio slipped behind the bar and hefted the baseball bat he kept there. “How about the hijo de puta get, oh, I dunno, brain damaged? Like so bad he can’t add two and two? Nobody give him a mortgage then.”

  They’d been over this a million times too.

  “Yeah, and who do you think will be suspect numero uno, eh?”

  Before Julio could answer, the door opened again. Jack expected to see Darren or Nita reappear, but Julio yelled, “We closed!” without looking.

  “Not for me.”

  Jack recognized the big guy in the dark blue suit: Vincent Donato. Known in various circles as Vinny Donuts or Vinny the Donut. He was empty-handed tonight, but sometimes he showed up on his weekly visits munching on one of his trademark pastries. Probably already had dessert. Jack wondered what his mother called him. Vincenzo, maybe?

  Vinny did collections for a Gambino crew. Harry Detrick had been into them for big losses on the ponies before his sudden death from stepping in front of a bus. Since Darren had been out of reach in Saudi Arabia at the time, the shylocks came to Harry’s partner, Julio. If Julio didn’t keep up Harry’s payments, they threatened to go after Nita.

  All this happened just around the time Jack had liberated about fifteen grand from Zalesky. So they’d been using that to pay Harry’s vigorish to the Gambinos. Julio had had no qualms about taking that money.

  “You’re late this week,” Julio said. “I thought you forgot about me.”

  “In your dreams. You got the money? And don’t give me no shit about ‘later.’ Later is now.”

  Julio put down the bat and placed the envelope on the bar. “Lemme ask you something. If your guy Gotti goes down for the count, you gonna stop comin’ around?”

  Vinny’s piggy face twisted in a sneer as he snatched up the envelope and pocketed it. “In your dreams, spic.”

  As the mobster turned and walked out, Julio’s face darkened. He was reaching for the bat again when Jack gripped his arm. Julio snatched his arm away but left the bat where it was.

  “We gonna have to do something about that guy,” Julio said when the door closed behind him. “And soon. Zalesky’s cash won’t last forever.”

  No lie there.

  He added, “I still don’t know why we didn’t just pay him off totally with the puta’s money. I mean, right away. We’d have had plenty left over. Now…”

  “Because I need to keep tabs on him. This keeps him coming around.”

  He wasn’t ready yet to let Julio in on his plans.

  Julio shrugged. “Okay. You call the shots on that one.”

  “You know,” Jack said, “with Gotti still in jail, you’d think these animals would be at each other’s throats, but it’s all business as usual.”

  The Gambino family seemed to have taken Gotti’s arrest in stride. Multiple murder and racketeering charges, yet the ones who came here to collect acted like nothing had happened.

  “That’s ’cause he’s the ‘Teflon Don.’ The feds can’t make nothin’ stick to that guy.”

  “So they say. We’ll worry about the Donut later. First priority is keeping this place out of Zalesky’s grubby hands.”

  Julio tapped the bat. “I told you—”

  “I’ve got a better way.”

  “Oh, yeah? Right off the top of your head you got a plan?”

  “Not exactly. I’ve had months to work on it, because I was afraid this day would come.”

  In truth, when they couldn’t get in touch with Darren and hadn’t heard any more about the sale, Jack had begun to hope that either the kid had changed his mind about selling the place, or Zalesky had backed out of the buy. No such luck. From what Darren had just said, Zalesky was still intent on owning The Spot. Yeah, Julio held a ten percent stake, but that meant he had a right to only ten percent of the profits. Easy enough for Zalesky to kick him out on the street and see to it the books never showed a profit.

  But Jack had a compiled a load of research and was ready to make his move against the guy. He agreed with Julio that Zalesky had to go, but not Julio’s way.

  Jack’s way.

  SUNDAY

  1

  Well, I learned something today, Jack thought as he emptied his revolver at the target. Gloves and handguns don’t go together. At least not these gloves.

  A wasted night, and now a wasted morning. He’d spent much of last night in the Pelham section of the Bronx at a sports bar called The Main Event, nursing beers and waiting for Zalesky to show. He hadn’t.

  That had surprised him. From Jack’s previous reconnoiters, The Main Event appeared to be his hang, and on a Saturday night, even in the post-Super Bowl doldrums, the sports world still had basketball—NBA games and pre–March Madness college ball.

  Maybe Zalesky wasn’t a b-ball fan. Or maybe, like Jack, he was a fan of an out-of-town team. Because apparently “sports” here meant New York teams only. Last night he’d suffered through a Knicks win over the Washington Bullets that even Patrick Ewing couldn’t make interesting.

  His disinterest left him able to whine at every opportunity to the bartender—whose name was Joe, of all things—about how his cheap-ass grandmother wouldn’t come across with the money he needed for a sure-fire investment opportunity. The old bitch was loaded but wouldn’t invest a goddamn dime in her own grandson.

  He’d been hoping Zalesky would overhear, but you can’t overhear if you’re not there.

  Today, as they said, was another day.

  And today involved some shooting.

  This morning he’d put a fresh bandage and some Bacitracin ointment on his shoulder wound. It looked angry and he was glad he was on an antibiotic. He’d popped a couple of Advil for the pain. Doc Hargus had refused to give him anything stronger—“Don’t keep any of that shit around,” he’d said—and the Advil did just fine.

  He’d donned the hoodie disguise and made his way without incident to where he garaged his Harley; then he’d driven to Doc Hargus’s place to pay him the five hundred fifty he owed him for the patch job. The doc told him to come back in a week for suture removal.

  After that it was straight out to the Calverton range near the eastern end of the Long Island Expressway. He didn’t like helmets but had worn one today to keep his face from freezing and flaking off like old paint. He tried to come out here twice a month to improve his aim and familiarity with the Ruger—chambered for the .357 Magnum, but he shot the cheaper .38 specials for practice.

  He’d tried a half dozen rounds today while wearing his driving gloves. A big no-go. Not only did they ruin his feel for the trigger, and thus his aim, but made it damn near impossible to reload. Today he’d adopted a one-handed stance to
disturb his left shoulder as little as possible. But the soreness in his right deltoid from the tetanus shot wasn’t helping either.

  Christ, he felt like a whiny old man.

  He was pulling off his gloves when he noted a bearded guy—a young Arab—approaching from his right.

  “I have seen you,” he said in a thick accent.

  “Yeah, well, I guess so, ’cause I don’t see how you could miss since you’re looking right at me.”

  Jack checked him out. Thin, bearded, one of those bigger skullcaps holding down unruly black hair. He was wearing a red leather jacket and jeans instead of robes, but all in all a cookie-cutter Arab. The beards did it—worn pretty much the same length and always black. Made them all look the same.

  “Yes. You drive truck to Diab.”

  Did he mean the Mummy?—that was what Bertel had called his Egyptian customer. Jack had made cigarette runs to the Mummy’s Jersey City drop, but if he’d ever heard the guy’s real name, he’d long forgotten it.

  Whatever, he didn’t see any good reason to admit he’d been there, especially to a guy he didn’t recognize.

  “Never heard of Diab and never saw you before in my life.”

  The Arab bared his teeth. “You lie!”

  Jack didn’t see much point in answering.

  The guy added, “You spy!”

  “‘You lie!’ ‘You spy!’ So you’re what, the Arab Doctor Seuss? Hey, I got one for you: You nuts! No buts!” Not a good morning for this kind of crap. He could feel his frayed temper looking for a target. “Get lost, asshole.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To play tiddlywinks, what else?” Jack said as he continued reloading the Ruger.

  The guy looked confused. “You FBI? You CIA?”

  Jack spat. “Not hardly.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Tell me yours first.”

  “No!”

  Jack shrugged. “I guess we have nothing to say to each other.”

  The Arab clenched his teeth. “Very well. I am Kadir Allawi. Who are you?”

  “I am no one.”

  “You owe me your name!”

  “Get. Lost.”

  The guy raised his hands as if to grab Jack’s hoodie but held back.

  “You tell me!”

  Looking into the guy’s eyes, Jack flipped the cylinder closed and hefted the Ruger. He cocked the hammer—not at all necessary, but it made such a nice ratchety sound.

  “You really want to start something with a guy holding a loaded gun?”

  Kadir—if that was his real name—hesitated, then screeched through his clenched teeth and stomped away. He joined a crew of similar bearded types—Saudis, Palestinians, Egyptians, who knew?

  Probably time to go. Jack emptied the Ruger at the target, then packed it away. He’d be riding back to the city on an unregistered motorcycle with a bogus license carrying an unregistered firearm. If he got stopped and searched, having that firearm loaded would only complicate matters.

  He looked over at the Arab and his three friends staring his way.

  He almost wished they’d start something, give him human targets. He’d had to run from trouble yesterday. He was in the mood to take it to someone today.

  Yeah, definitely time to go.

  2

  Kadir Allawi seethed as he watched the American stow his pistol in a pouch at the rear of his motorcycle.

  “Do you really think he followed us out here?” said Mahmoud in Arabic. He stood over six feet and kept his red hair hidden under a knit cap.

  Kadir had no doubt. Why else would he be here?

  “He used to deliver cigarettes to Tachus’s uncle across the river. I saw him there many times, I am sure of it.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s spying,” said Ghali.

  Kadir shook his head. “I saw him right here, at this very range, last year. He was shooting with the one who supplies the cigarettes.” He paused as he made a connection. “Not long before Sayyid’s arrest.”

  He didn’t know why he’d said that. Sayyid had been captured after shooting that Arab-hating Rabbi Kahane. An unforeseeable set of circumstances had foiled his escape.

  “Still…” said Ghali.

  “I saw him many times, I tell you, and he saw me. Yet he denied it to my face. He’s spying on us.”

  “Why?” said Ramiz. “He can’t know what’s coming.”

  “We know that the FBI has been watching the refugee center, trying to trace contributions. They know we are followers of Sheikh Omar. Anyone who has been paying attention knows what is coming.” He held up the 9mm semiautomatic they’d been taking turns shooting. “Especially now that he’s seen us practicing with this.”

  Ghali and Ramiz still looked dubious, but Mahmoud seemed convinced, and he was the only one of their number who had true combat experience—with the mujahideen in Afghanistan. Usually when they came out here they’d fire Mahmoud’s AK-47, but this time was different. They needed to become comfortable with the pistol.

  “Maybe we should turn the tables and follow him,” Mahmoud said.

  Kadir turned as the motorcycle revved. “No. I have a better idea. Let’s go. I’ll drive.”

  He didn’t have a license, but he very much wanted to be behind the wheel right now.

  As Kadir led the way to their beat-up van, he wondered at the change that had come over him in the past few months. But then again, a lot had happened to him. He’d been a part of the plot to kill the Jew Kahane, for which his friend El Sayyid Nosair now awaited trial; he’d been the sole survivor of what could only be described as a massacre of Tachus and others who had been his only friends in this cursed land. But without a doubt what accounted most for his changes were the teachings of Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric whose visions of worldwide jihad had infused Kadir with holy purpose.

  Sheikh Omar’s fury flared in many righteous directions. He wanted to topple the secularist Mubarak from his pedestal in Egypt and install an imam in his place. Was that a mad dream? No. Not for Sheikh Omar. Just as his fatwa had led to the death of the traitor Anwar Sadat, so too could his holy influence topple Mubarak. Sheikh Omar also raged against the Saudi monarchy for allowing U.S. troops to trod the holy land where Mecca lay, and for allowing them to start launching missiles into Kuwait last month.

  American bootprints might not mar the soil of Kadir’s homeland of Palestine, but they supplied Israel with arms and money, helping it suppress his people.

  He needed to strike back at America, and why not right now—at this American who was spying on them? A small gesture, but he could consider it a starting point.

  They piled into the van and took off after the liar.

  “I’ll shoot him,” Mahmoud said from the passenger seat.

  Kadir didn’t care for that idea. “I don’t think we want it to look like an assassination, do you?”

  Mahmoud shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

  “And we want to save that pistol for something more important.”

  If they used the pistol now, Kadir worried about the FBI matching this shooting to the one they had planned for later.

  “What else?”

  Kadir smiled. “A traffic accident.”

  This section of the road between the shooting range and the expressway was deserted at the moment. Perfect. He gunned the engine and picked up speed. The rider was holding to the limit so Kadir gained on him quickly.

  When he caught up, he simply rammed his rear wheel.

  The motorcycle swerved onto the shoulder, out of control. It tipped and sent the rider tumbling into the ditch along the side of the road.

  “He might still be alive,” Mahmoud said. “Should we finish him?”

  “Yes.”

  But as Kadir braked, Ghali pounded on the rear of the front seat.

  “Someone’s coming!”

  Kadir looked in the mirror and saw a dark pickup truck heading their way.

  “Get us away from here!” Mahmoud
cried.

  Kadir understood and hit the gas. Mahmoud had been questioned numerous times by the police and the FBI about a connection to the Kahane killing. He could not afford any further involvement in the American legal system.

  As they sped away, he watched the pickup slow by the overturned cycle. Kadir routinely splattered mud on the van’s license plate to make reading it difficult. He prayed to Allah that the truck driver didn’t get a good look.

  “That’s what he gets for lying to me,” Kadir said.

  Mahmoud was looking at him. “I just had a thought. Maybe he didn’t lie.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Kadir shrugged. “Around the time Sayyid was arrested.”

  Mahmoud smiled. “You didn’t have your beard then.”

  True. Kadir had not been a righteous follower of the prophet then. Now he was, and to cut the beard was haraam.

  “Do you think he’s dead?” Ramiz said, staring out the rear window.

  Mahmoud grunted. “If not, he’s had a bad scare. And if he is—one less infidel to deal with when we bring jihad to these shores.”

  Kadir smiled and nodded along with his faithful companions.

  3

  “Well, look who it is,” said a familiar voice.

  Jack realized his helmet must have come off because his face was buried in dead grass. Slowly, carefully, and with no little pain from his low back and pelvis, Jack rolled over to find Dane Bertel looking down at him. Bertel … same as ever with his weathered face and the gray hair sticking out in all directions.

  Bertel shook his head. “I oughta leave you here.”

  “What happened?”

  He remembered cruising along, his Discman playing The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3, and all of a sudden flying through the air.

  “Vanload of Mohammedans whacked you off the road from behind.”

  Mohammedans … Bertel’s archaic term for Muslims and Arabs. He’d also called them oil-mongering, hummus-slurping, camel-humping bastards. And Jack had a pretty good idea which Mohammedans might have done it. He raised his right arm for a hand up.