Clean Hands

by Patrick Hoffman

Billy looked over his shoulder just in time to see the man come out of the store. “Gotta go, call you back,” he whispered.

  Avi Lessing was carrying a plastic bag and seemed to be walking faster now. Billy let him disappear around the corner and then sat there looking down Metropolitan like he was deciding on whether to take the bus or walk. In his mind he counted back—five, four, three, two, one, zero—then stood up and followed him.

  The guy raking the lawn was gone this time. Up ahead, Billy could see the brown of Avi’s sweater swinging back and forth with his walk, like the backside of a horse. Billy crossed to the other side of 122nd Street, so he wouldn’t be directly behind him if he turned. He stayed about fifty yards back, and in an effort to look less suspicious, pretended to be texting on his phone.

  After watching Avi enter his house, Billy got back in his van. He went to the large toolbox at the front of the hold, spun the combo lock, and opened it. He pulled out a black duffle bag and started filling it with tools. He put in some heavy-duty bolt cutters, a Maglite, a fifty-thousand-volt stun gun, duct tape, a spool of Kevlar wire, a pack of plastic double flex restraints, a ski mask, a pair of plastic gloves, a cinching hood, a Leatherman, and a crowbar.

  Next, he pulled out a pair of black polyester pants, shook them out, and changed into them. He took the belt off his jeans and put it on the new pants and cinched them tight. He pulled his shoes back on, and then put on a shoulder holster and tightened the strap at his underarm. He checked the clip on his handgun and put it in the holster. He then pulled out a black jacket and put that on over everything.

  To keep his face off any cameras, he put on a black baseball cap. Finally, just in case, he hooked his fake FBI badge onto his belt and covered it with his shirt.

  When he was done with all that, he sat back down on his folding chair and watched out the back window, taking deep breaths to try to calm down. He was so amped up, he noticed he was sweating around his hairline and on his back. Shit-ma, he said in his mind—shit-ma.

  Fifteen minutes later Valencia called back and said they were five minutes away. “Did you check the yard?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. House to the south—to the left if you’re facing the front door from the street—has four windows that face our dude’s house. The windows have blinds drawn, Danny said that house is occupied by a Mexican family. The house to the north doesn’t have any windows facing the lawn. There’s a large apartment building directly behind the target, but the trees block that pretty good.”

  “And you can get in?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Get set up. We’ll text you when we’re moving. It will be a thirty-second count from text to knock.”

  “Got it,” said Billy.

  The call ended. Billy stood up near the back window and watched for a minute. The butterflies in his stomach felt like small birds. All was quiet. He then hopped out the back doors, pulled the duffle bag out, and got in the front of the van. He started it up, checked his side mirror, pulled away from the curb, and then made a quick U-turn. He cursed Avi’s house when he passed it, and drove toward Hillside Avenue.

  At the red light, he stopped and put on his right turn signal and watched three separate people walking in different directions. When the light changed, he made his turn and drove one block down to 121st Street, and then turned right. He parked just past the apartment complex.

  After hopping out, he turned and pulled his bag out, set the strap on his shoulder, and walked toward the side of the apartment building. An older man standing and smoking near the door of the apartment didn’t pay any attention to him.

  Billy kept to the side of the apartment, down below the windows, and moved toward the back. There was trash on the ground and the trees were thick with green leaves, putting everything into shadow. He came out on a little alley that cut between the streets and found the fenced-in backyard of the Lessing house. He turned his back to the fence—which was chain-linked and ribboned with privacy tape—and stood there for a minute looking and listening to the area around him. Down the block, some reggaeton played on a sound system, but otherwise it was quiet.

  Earlier that morning, he’d hopped the fence and scouted the location, but now he took out his bolt cutters, clipped the padlock on the gate, and then put the cutters back into the bag. He stayed there for a minute, making sure nobody had seen what he’d done. Then he took the cut lock, set it on the ground, and slowly pushed the gate open against some tall weeds on the other side.

  The center of the yard was concrete with two little paths of overgrown grass running down its middle. There was a rusted-out barbecue grill, a few flat-tired bicycles, a barrel filled with trash, and two sagging clotheslines with nothing on them except clothes pins. Empty buckets, tangled hoses, and stacks of bricks filled the rest of the yard.

  Watching the windows of the house, Billy walked next to the fence on his left. When he got about ten feet away from the nearest wall, he set his bag down and pulled out the spool of Kevlar wire. Then he crossed the yard, walking tall, like a man who had every right to be there.

  On the other side, he bent down and tied a quick clove hitch, attaching the wire to the fence. When he was done, he walked back to the north side, clipped the wire, and, leaning into it, pulled it tight. He then hitched it to that fence about twelve inches off the ground. When he was done he plucked it like a guitar string.

  Billy picked up the bag, walked right up next to the Lessing house, set the bag on the ground and pulled out his stun gun. Then he leaned with his back against the wall of the house and tried to listen for noise coming from inside.

  All he could hear was his heart racing and the reggaeton playing down the block and a plane coming in to land at LaGuardia. Billy kept telling himself that nobody was going to come out that back door. They aren’t coming out. His phone vibrated and he looked at it and saw a text from Valencia: Set. He texted back: Set.

  Then he closed his eyes and began counting back from thirty to zero. When he was at twelve, the back door of the house flew open and Avi Lessing came barreling out and hit the wire and went crashing down hard like he’d been shot. The impact knocked the air from the man’s chest.

  Billy picked up his bag, walked over to the fallen man, looked all around for spying eyes, but didn’t see any. Avi was just starting to push himself up when Billy touched his shoulder with the stun gun and delivered fifty thousand volts, sending his body shaking like a hooked fish. When Billy was done, he looked back at the house and didn’t see any people or movement.

  He looked at both houses around him and didn’t see anyone watching. Billy took out the flex-cuff and tied the unconscious man’s hands behind his back. Then he took the black hood and pulled it over the bald man’s head, cinching it tight. He grabbed Avi Lessing—hooded now—by the sweater and pulled him back toward his house and out of sight of the neighbors.

  Billy kneeled down, put a hand on the man’s shoulder, watched the backyard and the surrounding area, and listened. Everything was quiet.

  A sailboat somewhere on Long Island Sound.

  The water was as still as a lake, not a single ripple, and Avi Lessing, squinting at the water, was trying to make sense of that. Why wasn’t it moving? How could it possibly be this still? There was a saying that addressed that kind of question, but he couldn’t remember it.

  Anyway, it was a bright sunny day, and he turned and looked toward the bow of the ship and saw his mother and father standing there with paper plates in their hands. A small circle of strangers, also holding paper plates and talking quietly, stood around them. Avi was just starting to step toward the group when everything in his vicinity—the boat, the water, his parents, the strangers, the blue sky—got sucked up like a napkin and pulled through a tiny hole below his feet until all that remained was blackness.

  When Avi opened his eyes, he found himself looking at the parquet floor in his living room. His ears were ringing. He could see dust motes and individual hairs on the floor. His mind was
fogged, and his chin and knees hurt. There was a mineral taste in his mouth—blood; he moved his tongue around to check his teeth. He tried to raise his hand to his mouth, but it was stuck. He realized his hands were bound behind him.

  What the hell was he doing on the floor? He turned on his side, looked up and saw a woman seated about five feet away. She had dark hair and she was dressed like a businesswoman, wearing a black pantsuit with a white shirt. She wore bright red lipstick. She was staring down at him with a flat expression on her face, and Avi, for a moment, had the distinct impression that she was a doctor.

  A car honked outside, and everything clicked into place. He recognized her as the woman who’d come by the phone shop. Oh shit, he thought. He rocked back and forth and tried to pull his hands free, but they were strapped tight. “I gave you the phone!” he finally said.

  The woman’s legs were crossed; she had on high heels. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her head moved about an inch and her eyes narrowed. She leaned toward him like she hadn’t heard what he’d said.

  “I gave you the phone,” he repeated. In his mind, he ran through a list of people to blame, landing eventually on Yuri Rabinowitz.

  He was just beginning to shift the blame to the Africans when a fresh wave of pain in his chin distracted him. “I didn’t do anything,” he said. “They brought it to me. What? I’ll tell you who it was. The guys that sold me the phone, I’ll show you them. I’ll take you to them.”

  Right then two things occurred to Avi Lessing: First, he noticed that he was missing his glasses. The second thought came on the heels of the first—Mommy is going to fucking kill me for this one.

  He looked around the room. “Where is my mother?” he asked. He rocked on the ground, struggled against the binds until his wrists hurt. “Where is my mother?”

  Then he yelled out “Mommy!”

  The woman sitting across from him raised a finger to her mouth and shushed him.

  “What did you fucking do with her?” he asked. “Where are my nieces? This is not—you can’t—you can’t just come into someone’s home. For what? For a phone? What is this? Where is she?”

  “She’s downstairs with my men,” said the woman.

  Avi’s eyes began blinking uncontrollably. Downstairs? Downstairs is an unfinished basement, he thought. It’s filled with cobwebs, it’s dirty—even I don’t go down there. He felt himself begin to sob. He couldn’t stop.

  “What do you want? What the fuck do you want?” he asked. He craned his head up at her, aware that his face was now covered with snot. “What do you want?”

  The woman leaned forward, squinted again, and scratched her neck. The house itself was silent. Beyond the house, Avi could hear the Dominicans down the block blasting their music. He pulled on his wrists again, but they pinched like they were being cut with a knife.

  “Did you take something from that phone?” the woman asked.

  “No!”

  She stared at him in silence. “Did you take anything from that phone?”

  “No!” he said, again. “Mommy?” he called out to the quiet house. Another shorter wave of crying passed through him.

  “Those men who are with me, the ones who tied you up,” said the woman, standing up and walking to look out the window, “are downstairs with your mother and nieces.”

  Avi watched her take out her cell phone and look at it.

  “I’ve convinced them to give me five minutes. I wanted to see if talking worked. It seemed like the best way. I want you to think carefully about the next question I ask you,” she said. “Did you take anything off of that phone?”

  “I copy all of the phones that pass through my business,” said Avi. “I back them all up, it’s normal, everyone does it. It’s called being careful. What the fuck?” He banged the side of his head against the floor in frustration.

  “And after you copied it. Let me ask you this: did you give someone a copy of anything from that phone?” The woman sat down on the chair again.

  “You’ll let us go?”

  “I’ll let you all go.”

  “My mother’s okay?”

  “I think so,” said the woman.

  “I sold it to an associate, a guy I know named Yuri.”

  “Yuri what?”

  “Yuri Rabinowitz,” he said. “It’s fucking Yuri Rabinowitz.”

  The next morning, Yuri Rabinowitz stood at his living room window, holding the curtain back, staring out at the block outside his house. He took special interest in a white van parked forty yards to the north. “What’s with that van?” he asked his brother.

  Slumped down with both hands in his underwear, Isaac turned from the MMA men fighting on the television, looked blankly at his brother, and asked him what he was talking about.

  “Come here, asshole,” said Yuri.

  The television blared: “Martinez going for the rear naked, he just needs to get that leg hooked around.”

  “What?” asked Isaac.

  “Turn that shit off—come here.”

  Isaac cursed under his breath, muted the television, and pushed himself up off the couch. He looked even more hungover than Yuri felt.

  “That one,” Yuri said, pointing when his brother joined him at the window.

  “That’s Narek’s,” said Isaac, nodding at the house across the street from them. “Narek’s son, you know dude—what’s his name—Lil Dap, the weight lifter.”

  Yuri was confused, because he’d understood that Lil Dap had moved to Florida.

  “He’s a plumber,” Isaac continued.

  “You’re sure it’s the same?” asked Yuri.

  “It’s always there.”

  Yuri watched his younger brother’s eyes go from Narek’s house to the van; there was something in his face that suggested he wasn’t sure.

  “Do you know, or don’t you?” Yuri asked.

  “What the fuck’s your problem?” said Isaac.

  Yuri put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, but Isaac shrugged it off. For a moment it felt like they were screaming at each other without speaking. It felt like they might get into a physical fight, but Isaac turned and walked away.

  On the television a man lifted a naked underarm and sprayed it with deodorant. Yuri’s gaze went back out the window and his mind sped through two memories. The first occurred over twenty years ago: he’d shot his brother in the face with a rubber band. His father was still alive then, and Isaac ran to him and tattled. As punishment his father tried to make Yuri sit still while Isaac shot him in the face with a rubber band, but both brothers had cried hysterically and the whole episode fell apart with spankings for both of them.

  The second memory, from just a few weeks ago, involved an episode in an Uber. Isaac was drinking 7Up with cough syrup, and he’d spilled it in the back of the car. Something had snapped in Yuri, and he’d pummeled his brother in the head and neck and shoulders until their African driver screamed at them to get out.

  Yuri turned toward the kitchen. “Do you know, or don’t you?” he yelled out, again.

  The only answer was the sound of the refrigerator slamming shut.

  At the front door, raging, Yuri stepped into his running shoes, opened the closet, pushed aside some coats, found his golf bag, and pulled out a five iron. He cleaned dirt from the head of the club with his sweatshirt. Motherfucker, he thought to himself. Motherfucker. He stepped outside into the morning sun, holding the club in his hand and keeping his eyes on the van.

  He approached the van holding the club in both hands, loosening his wrists with little half circles like a batter. The van was a Chevy, over ten years old, rusted on the top near the windshield. Yuri felt sure he’d never seen it before.

  His pulse thumped in his right temple and an angry feeling throbbed in his chest. When he got to the van, he peered in through the passenger window. A crumpled McDonald’s bag lay on the floor, along with two paper soda cups and a free magazine. The passenger seatbelt, oddly, was buckled.

  Because of a partitio
n behind the seat, Yuri couldn’t see into the back cargo area. He walked around the van, but there were no windows, not even in the back. No writing, no phone numbers. He put his ear to the back door and tried to listen. Then he tapped on the back door with his club, three times, politely, like he was afraid of waking a possible resident. The rear bumper had been dented at some point and cobwebs ran along its near edge.

  Yuri’s stomach filled with dread. He felt like he wanted to cry. When he looked back at his house, he saw Isaac’s head disappear behind a curtain in the living room window.

  Yuri turned and crossed the street to Narek’s house. When he pressed the doorbell it buzzed sharply, and a moment later the door swung open. Narek, an Armenian, stood there in sweatpants and a Knicks jersey, a gold chain hanging from his neck. Gray chest and back hair curled out from the shirt. Yuri watched the expression on the man’s face morph from concern to a kind of fake friendliness.

  “Hey, wassup Mr. Yuri?” said Narek, drying his hands on his jersey. “Come in, come in.”

  “It’s okay,” said Yuri. “I’m just wondering: is that your son’s van?” He pointed at the van with the handle of his golf club.

  “Yeah, why? You don’t want it there?”

  “No, it’s fine, I saw someone looking into it.”

  “Oh shit”—Narek turned toward the interior of his house and yelled—“Yo Dap!”

  “The guy left—just to make sure, you know.”

  “Dap!” yelled Narek. “I told him not to park on the street,” he said to Yuri.

  A moment later Lil Dap came down the stairs dressed like he’d just rolled out of bed. He was a large man, over two hundred and thirty pounds. He looked tired and slightly confused to see Yuri standing there. “What’s good, homey?” he asked, walking to the door and bumping fists with Yuri.

  “Mr. Yuri saw a man looking in your van,” said Narek.

  “A black dude?” asked Dap.

  “I didn’t see his face,” said Yuri.

  “You know, what’s-his-name?” asked Dap. “What’s-his-face, over there on Beaumont, your homey the fat dude?”