The Hard Stuff

by David Gordon

He laughed. “If you want I can get that for you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “So …” she said. “Changing the subject … let’s see. Commit any interesting crimes recently?”

  He shrugged. “I just jaywalked. With you.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry. That’s not federal. We at the FBI couldn’t care less.”

  “Okay then,” Joe said. “How about you? Solved any good ones lately?”

  “Well, let’s see. I did locate the remains of one Jonesy Grables, white-supremacist gun nut and all-around shit bag. Remains being the polite term for the mess that was left after he was shot to death, burned to a crisp, and then drowned just for good measure.”

  “He was shot to death?” Joe asked, then shrugged to hide his relief. “I guess that can happen to gun nuts. Any leads on who remaindered him?”

  “Nope. And I don’t think anyone cares too much. Except for one local deputy who is in serious shit with his chief and keeps claiming some bounty hunter named Jack Me Off was masterminding the whole thing.”

  He laughed. “Well, I wouldn’t give that much credence. Seems a bit far-fetched. And it sounds like justice was served.”

  “Was it?” she asked.

  There was a silence between them. He shrugged. “What do I know? I’m just a bouncer. We live by a simple code. If you bother the customers or put your hands on the employees, out you go.”

  “I wish my code was that simple,” Donna said. She glanced down at her watch, then up into his eyes. “I should get back soon. Were you just stopping by to say hi? Or did you have something else you wanted to tell me?”

  He held her look for a few long seconds, then finally said, “No. Not right at this moment.” But still he hesitated, staring at her. “Did you?” he asked, realizing as he said it that he was moving, almost imperceptibly and against his own will, closer to her, close enough to kiss.

  “Did I what?” she asked, not moving away, not moving closer, not moving at all.

  “Have anything you wanted to tell me?”

  “About what?” she asked.

  “About anything?”

  She stared back at him a beat and he could almost feel her breath on his lips. And for a second he really felt like, Shit, this is going to happen. And is it the best thing possible or the worst? And then she smiled, and the moment passed.

  “Not right at this moment,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said smiling, too, now, both in disappointment and relief. “I’ll let you go then.”

  She stood and put her shades on, then said: “If you do think of anything, you know where to find me.”

  “Right. And if you think of anything to tell me …”

  “I won’t know where to find you!” she said, laughing as she turned away. He laughed as he watched her go.

  *

  Donna was preoccupied. The whole walk back to work she was in dreamland, barely saying hi when she stopped at the coffee cart outside the office where Sameer, a young Yemeni man, expertly made her postlunch extrapowered latte, then almost forgetting to display her ID until she got to the front of the security line. But when she got back to her basement room, where she sorted, picked, and mostly discarded the endless stream of tips that flowed in, reality woke her up with a firm slap.

  Harry Harrigan, one of the bureau’s most useful informants, had been MIA for several days. Harry was a small-timer with a bank robbery beef hanging over his head, but as a lifer in the Irish mob and a fixture on the scene for decades, he provided a constant flow of useful information. And then just like that he was gone, in a puff of smoke. Finally, after failing to raise him by phone or finding him at any of his usual haunts, agents disguised as Con Ed workers had gained access to his apartment: they found rotten food in the fridge, dust on the uncollected mail, and most ominous of all, Harry’s wire, which he should have been wearing, in a night table drawer. It was possible he’d fled, but Donna knew in her gut that wasn’t it. Harry was lost outside Hell’s Kitchen, totally broke, and barely able to get down the stairs to the subway on his prison-issue knees. Where was he going to run away to? No, Heavy Harry had been shown across to the other homeland, the one no one ever came back from. Which was enough to put a damper on Donna’s whole afternoon.

  *

  Agent Mike Powell was having a good day. They didn’t come often, but when they did he tried to savor them. He wasn’t even sure when the last one was. He’d been on a losing streak for a while, maybe since his wife had left him, and she had ended up with primary custody of their daughter, in part because Powell had been accused of emotional cruelty and harassment, even borderline stalking behavior, spying on his ex-wife. The fact that he actually was a spy, a CIA operative, and his ex was FBI, Agent Donna Zamora, didn’t help his career either. He was privately rebuked and stuck stateside while his peers got to stir shit up overseas. The only thing that saved him from demotion or worse was that the CIA could not, in any form, be seen as operating on US soil. So it all got buried.

  Then, when terrorists stole a lethal virus from a secret CIA lab, he ended up cooperating with Donna, though in fact he strongly suspected her of cooperating with one of the thieves: Joe Brody, who seemed to be nothing but a part-time bouncer and small-time crook, except for a record of military ops so black they had been erased from the system altogether. Once again it ended up with Donna looking like a winner and Powell having to eat shit.

  But this time it was Powell who had the inside track. CIA officers stationed in Europe overseas had an asset, code-named Early Bird, who for years had been feeding them information about the international black market in arms and technology, terror, drugs, money laundering, even the group who’d been after the virus, in exchange for certain favors—a blind eye to his own activities and even a heads-up now and then when another law enforcement agency sniffed around—a devil’s bargain that spooks were known to make. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Early Bird tipped his handlers off to a shipment of high-end surveillance technology, stolen in the United States, moving through southern Europe and bound, they suspected, for China. They gave the bust to Interpol but used their leverage—and Early Bird’s information—to pressure more players. The trail led back to New York, and so it was passed to the company’s local office and fell right into the lap of Agent Powell.

  Imagine his delight when, as he began interrogating his new asset and unraveling the various entangled enterprises, he seemed to find some threads—thin at first but tight nonetheless—connecting the informer to the Caprisi crime family, among whose known associates was one Joe Brady, aka Joe the Bouncer.

  That was a week ago, but ever since he’d been showing up early for work in the morning whistling a tune and picking up coffee for his coworkers. They operated out of an office on Wall Street that fronted as a boutique firm of financial quants, so the huge electric bill and broadband usage wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. Nor would the young receptionist who sat out front behind a polished cherrywood counter in a waiting room where no one ever waited, routing the routine phone calls and visits that came through like food deliveries or copy-paper salesmen and buzzing in the staff who passed through the door behind her. However, unlike the girls and boys minding the other offices in the building, this cute young receptionist would also shoot you dead with the 9 mm she kept under her desk, most likely with the first shot, if you tried to get by her.

  Her name was Karen and today Powell brought her a chai latte when he showed up in his spotless white shirt, straight red tie, and perfectly creased navy suit.

  “Thanks, Mike,” she said, buzzing him through. “There’s a message for you from Nightcrawler. Came in over the secure line late last night.”

  “Great.” Nightcrawler was his snitch, the worm Early Bird had caught for him, one he hoped would eventually give him a way to hook the Caprisi family and along with it Joe. And if that gave him some power over his ex-wife or even won her back, great. If not, he would just use it to ruin her career like she nearly ruined his and take back full custody of
his daughter.

  He got to his office with its view of the new World Trade Center looming above his already-high floor—no one but tourists ever called it Freedom Tower—and shut the soundproof door. Then, sipping his own black coffee, he got on a secure line and called.

  “Hello?”

  “Good morning. Got any good news for me?”

  “Maybe.” He always sounded terrified. At first Powell thought that meant he was lying or in danger, but now he took it in stride. It was merely the voice of a man who knew Agent Powell had him by the balls. “I heard there is a big heroin shipment coming in.”

  “To the Caprisis?”

  “No. They’re not really in that market.”

  “So what then? You understand who I am right? The CIA. We don’t do local drug busts.” He almost said to call the FBI, but of course there was a good chance that if he did, Donna would get the tip.

  “Yeah, I know, but this is different. They’re saying the product comes directly from Afghanistan, with no middlemen. And that it’s being sold by some kind of terrorists.”

  “Oh yeah? That’s interesting. Tell me more.”

  “I don’t know much more,” Nightcrawler said, but he sounded hopeful, like maybe he’d found something to actually trade for his own freedom. “Just that it’s not going through normal channels. I mean the payment would usually just be transferred overseas from one numbered account to another. But, maybe because of who it is, they want to make a direct trade, here in New York. For diamonds.”

  21

  Driving the armored vehicle wasn’t a bad job overall. Mark had driven a bread truck before, and this paid way better and had better hours, though sometimes the hauls were longer. Yes he had a gun strapped to his hip and he wore a bulletproof vest, but once you got over the weirdness of it, you stopped thinking about what was in the truck and just drove. Jon, his partner, had been in security first, guarding banks and stores, and he was better with guns or at least liked talking about them a lot more, but he could also drive. Another John, with an h, so they called him H as a joke since he was the new guy, was sitting in the back of the truck, locked in with an automatic rifle and the day’s pickups: several crates of documents, two canvas bags of cash, and some kind of patented corkscrew that couldn’t be FedExed because it was a unique prototype and they wouldn’t insure it.

  The diamond dealer was the last pickup of the day. As they turned west onto Forty-Seventh, Mark’s mind was on the traffic they would fight getting out of here and on beating the rush hour out to the airport, where they would sign this shipment over to be placed on various flights. Jon radioed ahead, letting the client know that they were approaching, and as they crossed Fifth Avenue and headed down the block, swarming as always with dealers, shoppers, tourists, messengers, and business folks, the uniformed security guard from Shatzenberg and Sons appeared on the sidewalk outside the building’s service entrance. Spotting the truck, he stepped out in front of the hydrant and waved them in, stepping back onto the sidewalk as Mark pulled up, same as he did every single other time. As soon as Mark came to a full stop, Jon radioed to H in back, letting him know they’d arrived, and H unlocked the rear doors from inside, then got down and lowered the ramp for the strongbox.

  That’s when all hell broke loose.

  *

  Stan was senior security officer for Shatzenberg and Sons. He’d been an MP ages ago, but his military and law enforcement background got him hired and his ten years with the firm got him promoted and now he was at the top of this admittedly pretty short totem pole. Basically he made the schedule, gave the junior guys their orders, and dealt with the bosses, the Shatzenberg brothers, Hyman and Morty, who were real brothers, as well as Shlomo and Saul, a brother-in-law and a cousin who also worked at the firm but who were in other cities at other branches most of the time. Tonight, a big shipment was going over to Antwerp, where Saul would meet it, and the office had been busy weighing, recording, packing, and securing the load, which was locked in a strongbox. But all Stan had to worry about was getting the box on the truck when it arrived downstairs. The damn thing weighed a ton, far more than the incredibly valuable stones inside it, so valuable they were weighed in carats, of which there were almost 142 in one ounce. The strongbox was basically a transportable safe made of special steel alloys that it would take forever to cut through, locked with a combination that only Morty upstairs and Saul, who was flying separately, would know.

  The box was state-of-the-art, but the loading procedure was old-school and simple, and Stan believed simple was best. When word came that the truck was approaching, he had Jimmy, his strongest guy, push the box onto a dolly, and they rode down together in the service elevator. Jimmy lifted, his biceps bulging the sleeves of his uniform to the bursting point.

  Then Jimmy waited behind the locked street door while Stan went out. He checked the sidewalk—just the usual chaos—and then stood in the street in front of the hydrant. Because the fire hydrant was in front of their building, the space was almost always clear. If anyone else was there, Stan would have the truck wait, but usually it was nothing but a cab dropping off or a town car picking up.

  Today it was clear, and he waved when he saw the truck coming. They pulled in, and he nodded hello at the guard on the passenger side, then went back to the service door. The truck’s rear doors opened and the guy in there hopped out and lowered the ramp. Then Stan used his key to open the service door and told Jimmy okay, holding the door open while he rolled the strongbox across the sidewalk to where the other guard would help him push it onto the truck. It all went nice and simple, the way Stan liked it.

  *

  Liam and Juno were parked on Fifth in the ambulance. It was a real ambulance that Liam had borrowed from a garage that serviced emergency vehicles; the manager was cooperative and owed Liam’s friends money. They’d changed the emblem on the side, but it was legit enough to pass muster as they idled, eating gyros and pretending to be EMTs on a break eating gyros, a traffic cop even nodding hey in passing. This freaked Juno out a bit, but any interactions with any kind of law freaked him out a bit and Liam was having a ball. Juno did like the uniforms—the crisp white shirt and navy pants with a crease. The stethoscope he wore around his neck was a nice touch, and the little radios on their shoulder were convenient: they were connected to the others’ earpieces and mics.

  Juno had to admit the setup was perfect for him. He’d been able to rig all his gear in the back, including the satellite antenna, without worrying about concealment, since ambulances were full of tech shit anyway, and he had his laptop mounted on the console up front. Then, just a few minutes after four, Joe’s voice came over the box:

  “Okay guys, time to roll.”

  Liam shoved the last of his gyro in his mouth and Juno frowned as he wiped his fingers on his freshly pressed pants before putting the ambo in drive. Juno brought his screen to life. They were rolling.

  *

  As Jimmy and the guard from the truck pushed the strongbox up the ramp, Stan stood in front of the building and watched the crowd. He focused on the people who flowed along the sidewalk from his left, knowing the guard from the truck was covering the other side. That was when the two Hasids came by—one older, one younger and shorter, both heavily bearded and in the usual black clothes and hats. An everyday sight on this block. At first Stan paid them no mind. Then the old one came right up and started talking in one of those thick accents: “Excuse me, sir, are you Jewish?”

  “Me?” Stan asked, taken aback. “No.”

  “You’re not Jewish?” the man pressed him. “You look Jewish.”

  “I do?”

  The Hasid turned to his young sidekick. “Doesn’t he look Jewish?”

  The little one joined in. He sounded Russian, with a higher teenage voice. “You do! Your mother, maybe she is Jewish?” They were up close now, Stan realized, blocking his view of Jimmy and the strongbox. Then the ambulance that had pulled up flipped on its siren, no doubt getting a call.


  “Step aside,” he told the Hasids. “I’m working here.” Stan was thinking about how they’d let the ambo go first before the truck pulled out.

  “And so are we,” the Hasid said, refusing to budge. “Doing God’s work.”

  Annoyed, Stan tried to push through, when a jolt of lightning shot up his side. The absurd thought, “Did that little Hasid just taser me?” ran through his mind, right before he blacked out.

  *

  When Stan opened the service door, Jimmy had pushed the strongbox out like always, the dolly’s rubber tires jittering over the sidewalk. The guard from inside the truck, who had hopped out to lower the ramp, helped him hump it over the curb, then climbed back up into the truck and pulled while Jimmy pushed it up the ramp. Neither of them looked at the ambulance that pulled up alongside them blocking them from view.

  Meanwhile, Jon had stepped down from the passenger side of the truck and was keeping an eye on the sidewalk, watching his left while Stan kept watch on the right. Normal foot traffic passed by, a random assortment of the human circus that filled Midtown Manhattan on a weekday afternoon, and barely anyone paid much attention to the armored truck or the guards. Nor did anyone, including Jon, take any notice when the ambulance suddenly flipped on its sirens. This was New York after all. Every day was an emergency. But then something unusual did happen. All of a sudden, Stan, who was the old-fashioned drill sergeant type, seemed to be in an argument. With a couple of Hasids! Jon had to smile at that. And then, the next second, Stan was on the ground and the Hasids were yelling for help.

  “Help, somebody! He’s having a heart attack!” the bigger one yelled. The little one rushed up to Jon.

  “Officer, hurry. This man—he just collapsed!”

  Jon couldn’t believe it. Stan was having some kind of heart attack or something and this Hasid thought he was a cop. He took a couple of steps forward, hesitating, trying to think what to do as other people, concerned or just curious, gathered around Stan. Maybe those ambulance guys could help?