Cold City (Repairman Jack - the Early Years Trilogy) (6 page)

“Fingerprints on file anywhere?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So you’re not on anyone’s radar?”

“Well, I had to register when I went to school.”

“Oh?”  He sipped, all idle curiosity and nonchalance.  “And where might that be?”

Jack gave him a look.  “Hard Knocks U.”

Bertel smiled.  “Good.  Don’t tell me.  Don’t tell anyone.”

“Why’s this so important?”

“You said you needed work.  I have an interstate moving business.” 

Jack knew he was being “smart” but couldn’t resist.  “Oh, like Allied Van Lines?”

Bertel’s mouth twisted.  “Perhaps I should have said ‘shipping.’  Interested in doing some driving?”

“No license, remember?  So I tend to stay off the road unless that’s the only way I can get someplace.”

“What if…?”  Bertel paused. 

Jack heard laughter and glanced at the couple.  They looked Hispanic and seemed to be enjoying themselves. 

Bertel went on. “This is just spitballing, you understand.”

“Of course.”

Yeah, right.

“But what if, just for the sake of conjecture, someone gave you a license?  Not in your name, and from someplace like, oh, say, Jersey, and good enough to withstand a routine check.  Would you be willing to do some interstate driving a few times a week?”

“Are we conjecturing a big van?”

Jack didn’t see himself backing up a semi.

“No.  You’d need a CDL for that.  I’m talking about keeping it simple, like a rental – Ryder, U-Haul, that sort of thing.”

Uh-oh.

“Hauling what?”

Bertel hesitated again and Jack tensed, expecting to hear “weed” or “H” or something equally illegal.  He noticed the couple’s voices raised.  They seemed to be arguing now.  He wondered what had messed up their good mood.

Finally Bertel said, “I’m going to be frank with you, Jack.  Abe sent you, and that gives you an excellent pedigree, plus you drove out here without a license while carrying an unregistered handgun.  That takes either a lack of smarts or big cojones, and I think you’re pretty smart.”

Despite your telling me not to be, Jack thought.

“Either way,” Bertel went on, “it means you’re not afraid to break rules.  So I’ll tell you: You’d be hauling cigarettes for me.”

After the build up, Jack had to laugh.  “Really?  Cigarettes?”

“Might sound funny, but the money’s not.”

“Where from?”

“North Carolina to Jersey City.”

“Where’s the money in that?”

“NC doesn’t stamp their cigarettes and, because tobacco’s a big state crop, barely taxes them.  They’re dirt cheap down there.  New York, on the other hand – that’s New York the state and New York the city – taxes the
hell
out of cigarettes.  They’re inching toward four bucks a pack now.”

Jack shrugged.  He didn’t smoke so he had no idea.  But he saw where this was going.

“So you make money on the margin.”

“I make a piece of the margin.  I don’t do retail.  I wholesale.  I supply a guy in Jersey City who has a bogus New York tax machine.  He stamps the packs, marks them up, and sells them throughout the five boroughs.”

The couple was getting really loud.  Jack tried to ignore them.

“There’s enough money in black market ciggies to make it worthwhile?”

“You wouldn’t believe.  I ship to Boston and Detroit too.  But this Arab keeps wanting more.  I need another driver and you’re perfect.”

“Perfect…first time anyone’s ever called me that.”

“Put you in the cab of a U-Haul and you’ll look like a college kid moving his stuff to school.  You won’t fit the profile.”

“Profile?”

“Sure.  The state cops and the ATF have certain types–”

“Wait-wait-wait.  You said ATF.”

“Well, Tobacco
is
their middle name.”

“So we could be talking federal trouble here?”

“Well, yeah.  They don’t take too kindly to that sort of thing.”

Jack didn’t take too kindly to the idea of messing with an agency of the federal government.  So far he’d managed to stay off its radar.  This did not seem a good way to maintain anonymity.

“And let’s be fair,” Bertel added, “I won’t be paying you a thousand bucks a trip for nothing.”

Did he just say a
thousand
per trip?  Yes, he did.

“Really?”

Almost as much as Giovanni had been paying him per month working sixty, seventy hours per week.  By quick estimation he’d be jumping from four bucks an hour to about fifty.

Jack heard a slap and a cry.  He turned and saw the woman bent over, clutching the side of her face.  He tensed.

“Domestic dispute,” Bertel said. “Leave them be.”

Jack had never seen a man hit a woman – well, on the screen, yeah, but never in real life. 

“Guy shouldn’t hit a woman.”

“Real men don’t. 
Guys
do it all the time.  Leave them to their business and let’s get back to ours.  I’ll expect you to do three runs a week until we catch up.”

That snapped Jack’s head around.  Three thousand a week?  Just for hauling cigarettes?

Bertel smiled.  “I see you doing the math.  The paper had an article the other day on the median weekly pay in this country last year. Any idea what it was?”

Jack shook his head.  “Not exactly the kind of statistic that catches my eye.”  Especially since he’d been so far below it.

“Well, check this out: The median American worker earned five hundred fifty-seven dollars a week in 1989.  Which comes to about twenty-nine grand a year.  This here is my busy time of year.  If we start you next week, and run you three times a week, you’ll make pretty much that amount by New Year’s Eve.  Sound good?”

The amount was almost inconceivable to Jack.  Yeah, it sounded good – but the risks…

“Hell, it sounds fantastic.  I just…”

Another slap, another yelp of pain.  The woman was sobbing now as she clutched her face.  Jack rose from the bench and stepped toward them but Bertel grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Jack had to admit he hadn’t a clue.  But he couldn’t just sit here and watch that happen.

“I–”

“You’re going to what – brace that guy?  Look at those arms.”

Jack had already noticed.  His chest and shoulders and biceps bulged under the yellow T-shirt, stretching the fabric. Tats snaked down to his elbows.

“So what?  Those guys are always slow.”

“He’ll tear your head off, Jack.”

“Gotta catch me first.”

“And he will.  You know how?  She’ll help him.  You do
not
meddle in domestic disputes.”

Domestic dispute…the second time he’d used the term.  Had he been a cop?

“But–”

“Trust me, nobody wins.  And the guy who tries to help usually turns out to be the biggest loser.”

Fucking old chickenshit coward!
rose to Jack’s lips but Bertel tightened his grip.

“Hey.  Eyes on me: I need you to make up your mind.”

“Right now?”

“No.  I can give you a day.  But I’ve got the Mummy hollering for more butts and–”

“The Mummy?”

“My Arab.  He’s an Egyptian.  He’s square, but he’s a tough customer.  If I can’t get the cartons to him, he’ll find someone who can.  I need another driver pronto.”

Jack nodded.  “Tomorrow then. I have your number. I’ll let you know by the afternoon.”

“Good.”

“By the way, I need some ammo.”  He’d pretty much ran through the box that had arrived with the Ruger.  “Can you get me some?”

“You don’t need me.”

“No ID, remember?”

“You’re kidding me, right?  You’ve got Abe.”

What was he talking about?

“Abe?  Abe sells–” 

A choking sound.  Now the guy had his wife, girlfriend, whatever bent back over the picnic table.  He’d forced her mouth open and was pouring wine down her throat.  He was giggling as she gagged and struggled. 

Bertel’s expression darkened.  “But first…”  He started forward.  “Wait here.”

Jack started to follow but Bertel snapped around and jabbed a finger at him.  “Wait and watch and see how it’s done.”

He stalked toward the couple.  Along the way he picked up a fallen tree branch, a couple of inches thick.  As he reached the table he took a two-handed grip and raised it like a baseball bat.

“Hey!”

Bertel was already halfway into a go-for-the-bleachers swing when the guy raised his head and looked.  The branch caught him square across the middle of his face.  His feet left the ground as he flew back.  He landed in a spread-eagle sprawl on the sand and did not move. 

Jack pumped a fist.  Way to go.

Bertel said nothing, simply turned and walked back the way he’d come.  Behind him the woman straightened and coughed up the wine she’d inhaled.  She wiped her eyes and gave a cry when she saw her guy stretched out on the ground.  Wailing, she dropped to his side and cradled his head in her lap.

Jack shook his head in wonder – at both Bertel and the woman.  A moment ago he’d been water-torturing her with wine.

He gave Bertel a thumbs up.  “I see you’ve watched
Katie Elder
.”

He frowned.  “Who?”

“It’s a movie with – never mind.”

The woman looked around and spotted Bertel, who still carried the branch.  Shrieking something in Spanish – he picked up “
chancho negro
” in the machine-gun burst – she picked up a rock and hurled it at his back.  It landed to his left and rolled past him.  She continued shrieking but he didn’t look back.

“What did I say about nobody winning?”  He looked more annoyed than angry.  “Do
not
get involved in a domestic dispute.”

“But you just did.”

He dropped the branch and brushed his hands.  “There are certain things I will not abide in my sight.  Let’s go.”

As they walked side by side back to the truck, Jack decided he liked this old fart.

5

Vinny and Aldo and Tommy stood before Tony “the Cannon” Campisi’s desk.  It dominated a cramped little office at the rear of his discount appliance store on Liberty Avenue in Ozone Park.  Like the sign in the front window said, his store really did sell appliances at low-low prices.  He could afford the deep discounts because they were all stolen.  When the opportunity presented itself, Vinny and Aldo would be sent out to divert a shipment of refrigerators or dishwashers or TVs to the loading dock at the rear of the store.

Tony sat and chain-smoked, saying nothing, while the three of them fidgeted.  Aldo had his hat off, clutched in the hands folded in front of him.  Vinny had skipped his usual bakery stop because Tommy had said Tony was royally pissed and to get over here ASAP.

Tony Campisi got the name “the Cannon” back in the seventies.  Rumor had it that after seeing
Dirty Harry
he’d gone out and bought a Colt .44 Magnum.  He’d carried it everywhere.  But those days were gone because he didn’t get out much now.  Despite his barrel chest, he couldn’t walk too far without starting to wheeze.  These days the .44 Mag’s home was the top drawer of Tony’s desk.

Tony coughed out his last drag, hacked, and spit into the  wastebasket in the kneehole of his desk.  He stubbed out the butt in an overflowing ashtray and looked up at them.

“How many times I told you, Tommy, dead guys don’t pay no vig.”

Tommy spread his hands.  “I know, I know.  But he just keeled over dead.  Must’ve been his heart.  Can’t blame us a guy’s got a bad heart.”

Us
? Vinny thought.  Wasn’t our idea to work him over.  

“Wasn’t his heart,” Tony said.  “I got a guy down the coroner’s office.  Says he died of a…a…”  He shuffled through the papers on his desk, found what he was looking for, and read: “A ‘ruptured aorta,’ which, I am told, is the big pipe that comes out of your heart.  His was pretty much rusted through.”

“There y’go.  Not our fault.”

Vinny‘s jaw tightened at the
our
.

“Yeah, it is.  You busted it.  The good news is, they got him down as dead from natural causes.”

Vinny and Aldo had tossed Harry’s body in front of a bus rolling up Eighth Avenue.  The impact would account for his lifeless state and whatever bruises Aldo had inflicted.

“The bad news is, he’s dead and dead guys don’t pay no vig.  What’s he into us for?”

Tommy pulled out his black book.  “Got it right here.  He was up to date until three weeks ago.”

“What’s the principal?”

“Three.”

“And the rate?”

“Ten.”

“Ten?  What happened to twelve?”

“You said give him ten because–”

Tony waved a hand.  “Yeah-yeah.  I remember.  See what happens when you give someone a break?  The guy goes and dies on you.”

“He’s been only paying vig.”

“Which is okay,” Tony said.  “How long?”

Tommy consulted his book.  “July twenty-second.”

Tony did a quick finger count, then smiled.  “See?  That’s why vig-only is good.  He’s already more than paid back the principal without reducing it a cent.   What’s the latest total?”

“Thirty nine ninety-three.”

“So his next vig payment would have been–”

“Three hundred ninety-nine dollars and thirty cents.”

“You won’t mind if we round that off to four hundred?”

“Not at all,” Tommy said.

“Good.”  Tony tapped his desktop.  “Right here.  Four hundred.  Now.”

Tommy looked like he’d been slapped, then he laughed.  “You had me goin’ there for a minute.”

Tony frowned.  “What?  Did I slip into some foreign language, like Swahili or something?”  He tapped the desk again.  “Four C-notes.  Right here.  Right now.”

“You serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?  Did I forget to take off my clown makeup?  Four hundred here and now or you can find another line of work.”

Dripping reluctance, Tommy reached into a pocket, pulled out his roll, and peeled off four Franklins.  He slapped them on the desk.

“This ain’t fair, Tony.”

“I made an investment.  You were supposed to watch over that investment.  Now that investment’s gone. Somebody’s gotta pay Harry’s vig, and that someone turns out to be you.”

“But–”