Among Thieves (3 page)

For Manny there were three categories of people: those who were with him, against him, and undetermined, which corresponded to alive, dead, and irrelevant.

But now, in the with-him category, was a family member Beck didn't know anything about.

“There's only one,” said Manny.

“Uh, huh,” said Beck.

Again, he waited for more information, watching Manny, feeling his mood. Waiting for the thick-bodied, dark-skinned man with dense graying hair and mustache to say more.

In the quiet kitchen, just the two of them, Beck didn't press. He folded his arms, sat back in the chair, and took notice of the wear and tear and isolation of Manny's OG life. The scar embedded in his right eyebrow, deep crow's feet around his dark eyes, the blue ink of prison tattoos peeking out from his white shirt at neck and wrists. But mostly Beck looked at Manny's eyes for the presence of this new person. He couldn't see a thing.

Beck sniffed. Cleared his throat. Twisted around on the hard wooden chair. Then just came out with it. “Okay, Manny, who is it? What's going on?”

Instead of answering Beck, Manny asked, “You okay? That guy hurt you?”

“Little bit here and there.” Beck flexed his fingers. “I was lucky. My hands are going to hurt. Guy's head is like concrete. His skull must be five-inches thick.”

“You gotta hit a guy like that with a bat, not your hands.”

“I'll remember next time.”

Manny nodded and finally answered Beck's question.

“I got a cousin. She's a lot younger than me. My grandparents had a lot of kids. This is on my mother's side. Don't know shit about my father's side. So Olivia, that's her name, she's the daughter of my mother's youngest sister. My aunt Ruth. Her name is Olivia Sanchez.”

“Okay. A cousin.”

“She's a civilian. Good lady.” Manny waived a hand dismissively. “All the rest, long gone. I don't blame them. But this Olivia kid, she didn't go that way. She stuck by me. More like a little sister than a cousin. And believe me, I didn't give her any reason to. Back in the day, I didn't give a fuck about anybody. Family, friends, nobody. You know how that works.”

Beck nodded.

“But this Olivia, I don't know, no matter what anybody told her, she didn't give up the connection.”

Manny paused. Beck watched him thinking about it, remembering this part of his past.

“Olivia, you know, in the midst of all the shit around my family, she kept herself together. Stayed in school. Got regular jobs. As soon as she was like, seventeen, eighteen, she'd come to see me. And she wrote me. The whole time I was in that last bit, she wrote me. Visited me twice a year. Christmas and my birthday. Even during those three years I was in Dannemora.”

“That's a long trip.”

“Over three hundred miles she'd come. Christmastime and my birthday.”

“From the city?”

“Yeah. I don't even know how many hours it took. She borrowed a car or something. I don't know. December and August.”

Manny leaned forward and sipped his rum and coffee, grimacing. “Truth? I didn't like it. I didn't want to see her. You know, getting those connections to the outside, that's not so good for you.”

Beck nodded.

Manny cocked his head, “But what was I gonna do? She was a kid. She even made sure to send me ten bucks every once in a while for canteen. Can you imagine that? A kid like that giving me money.”

Beck smiled at the notion that Manny Guzman, who ran more drugs and gambling in Dannemora than almost anybody, would need an occasional ten bucks from a seventeen-year-old-girl.

“You must love her.”

Manny blinked. “I do.”

Beck nodded, feeling Manny's emotion. He could see where this was going. This was going someplace that wouldn't fit. Someplace that might not be easy to deal with.

“She worked in a financial place. A brokerage or something. I don't know what she did there, you know. But with the executives. In charge of something important. Helping run things. Like that. She worked hard. Smart. Good-looking woman.”

“Okay.”

“So, some asshole up there, he likes throwing his weight around. He and Olivia, they don't get along.”

“Who? What do you know about him?”

“I don't know much but a name. Alan Crane. I don't know what Wall Street fucks do. I don't know what this guy does. But he's high up in the company. From Olivia, I get that he was in charge of a bunch of money, and he was cutting corners or doing some risky shit.”

“And?”

“James, this isn't a little grab-ass or something. This guy had a beef with Olivia.”

“Yeah. Okay. I understand. So what happened?”

Manny held up his left hand, his shirt cuff pulled back enough to reveal a bit of the rough prison tattoos on his forearm. He looked Beck in the eye and folded his first two fingers down to his thumb, leaving his little finger and ring finger extended. Beck watched as the lethal anger rose in him.

“So this fucking coward comes in yelling shit at her, and pounds his fist down on her hand.” Manny pointed to the little finger and ring finger of his left hand. “He breaks two of her fingers.”

Beck squinted, feeling the waves of anger coming off Manny.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“He breaks her fingers?”

“Yeah. And threatens her, tells her she's fired.”

“Threatens her how?”

“She won't say exactly.”

“Where'd this happen?”

“In her office. Late. She works late. Around seven.”

“And what's she do, this guy breaks her hand?”

“She gets the fuck out. Goes to a hospital. Calls the cops while she's sitting in the emergency room. Of course, by the time she gets her fingers fixed, they still don't show, so the next day she goes to the precinct near where she works. Files a complaint. Big fucking deal. Then, she goes to … what do you call it, the personnel people in her office?”

“Human Resources.”

“Yeah. Tells those fucks what happened. Tells her boss what happened.”

Beck saw it now. He started filling in the rest so Manny wouldn't have to go through a recitation that would rile him up even more.

“Okay, let me guess. The guy denies he did anything. Says she's crazy. Says she's lying. Out to get him. Says he has no idea how she broke her fingers. Cops say they have no evidence. He says, she says. No witnesses. She left the premises where it happened, blah, blah, blah.”

“Pretty much. But worse.”

“How?”

“The guy says she's … what do you call it? Slandered him? Defamed him? He sues her for a bunch of shit. Everybody at the company goes on his side. They fire her. Now she's got no job. No health insurance. No references. And she can't get a new job. She's got nothing but her two broken fingers and a little bit of savings that ain't going to last long.”

Beck nodded. “So she comes to you.”

Manny sneered. “You think the cops and the higher-ups are going to help her?”

“When did she finally talk to you?”

“Two days ago.”

Beck noted how long Manny had sat with it.

“How long since this happened?”

“Couple of weeks.”

“Okay,” said Beck. “What should we do?”

“James, I appreciate the
we
, but ain't no
we
here. This is my thing. I just wanted to let you know about it.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to break every bone in the motherfucker's hand. And then I'm going to break every bone in his other hand, and his arms and his face until I get tired of breaking bones. And then I'm going to kill him.”

Beck nodded. “Then what?”

“Then I send word to her boss that he better turn the fucking clock back.”

Beck pursed his lips like he was considering Manny's plan.

“Don't worry, James. This thing won't be anywhere near us. Not a hundred miles anywhere near us.”

Beck nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know. But you think that plan's going to work for Olivia?”

Manny didn't respond.

Beck leaned across the table. “Let's step back a second. This situation with your cousin, I get it. She's family. But there's another family.” Beck tapped the kitchen table with his index finger. “This one. You, me, Demarco, Ciro. It's all connected.”

Beck raised a hand before Manny could protest.

“Hear me out. I'm not saying you can't do something about this. I'm saying you can't do it without me. Without us.”

“No, you guys can't be involved. I have to take care of this on my own.”

Beck shook his head. “Doesn't work that way. You're involved, we're involved.”

Manny didn't want to agree. Wouldn't agree. But he couldn't disagree. Beck had trapped him. He couldn't answer, so he didn't.

“Just think it through with me for a second, Manny. What does your cousin want? Say we break all this guy's fingers, and his toes and face and arms and legs. You cut off his head and drop it on the boss's desk. But you can't put any of that shit in your cousin's life. You said it yourself, she's a civilian.” Beck continued. “This guy disappears after she makes all these complaints? She's going to be the first one they look at.”

Manny started to speak, but Beck kept talking.

“All right, so she stands up. Takes the heat, doubtful, but say she does. How long before they connect her to you? Then it all falls apart. They'll arrest you. You'll beat it. But they'll never grant you bail. You'll sit in jail for maybe two years waiting for trial. Her reputation is dead. She'll never work in that industry.”

Manny finished his shot of rum. Glared. Asked quietly, “So what the fuck should I do?”

“What does she want?”

“She doesn't say. She's scared. She lost her job. She wants this asshole out of her life. She wants everything back the way it was, man. But she don't know what that means. Or she don't want to think about what that means.”

“I understand.”

“Yeah, so do I. But what do you want to do? What should we do?” For the first time in the conversation, Manny's voice rose. “These fucking assholes don't get a pass just because they work in a big office and have some fucking money.”

Beck's voice hardened. “Nobody gets a pass. Not for what they did. But not now. Not until we figure this out.”

“So what do we do now?”

“Take care of your cousin.”

“How?”

“I can't tell you until I talk to her,” said Beck. “Let me hear from her what happened. Let me understand more about all this. Let me hear what she wants. Then we'll take it from there.”

Manny shook his head. “I don't know. I don't like this.”

“I know you don't. But this has got to be done right. First, we help put her life back together.”

“How?”

“I don't know. I've got to figure it out.”

Manny took in what Beck said.

“Let me talk to her.”

Manny squinted, struggled with it, nodding his head imperceptibly over and over. Finally, he said, “Okay.”

That was it. He had deferred to Beck. At some level, they both knew that was going to happen. But now it was agreed.

Beck sat back. The wood chair creaked under his weight.

He changed the subject. “So, thanks for this morning. You got out there and around those guys fast.”

“Bullshit. Not nearly as fast as I used to be. I got downstairs and through the basement, but that fucking hatch door to the street had so much ice and shit on it I could hardly get it open. And the fucking snow and mess between the buildings, shit. Next time I just go out the front door.”

“Nah. You did the right thing. You never want them to see you coming, Manny. Even if it takes a little longer.”

Manny looked at Beck. The corner of his mouth lifted, conceding Beck's point.

“Yeah,” he said. “I suppose.”

 

3

A tall, lanky man named Brandon Wright had just finished gently prying open Willie Reese's nearly swollen-shut eye and examining it with a pen flashlight.

Wright looked more like a cowboy than a doctor. He wore blue jeans, a flannel shirt, tan leather ankle boots. He had thick brown hair flecked with gray he didn't bother combing. And he had big, sturdy hands.

Wright worked with the calm, focused attention of a highly trained doctor who had spent seventeen years as an emergency room physician.

Wright was a man of many interests: Eastern religions, quantum physics, French cuisine, art history. Right now, Willie Reese and his injuries interested him, and he took his time tending to them.

James Beck sat at the bar, watching the doctor work on the large, muscular man who clearly had a very high tolerance for pain. Wright had already completed the excruciating maneuver required to position Reese's broken septum. Watching it made Beck cringe. Reese barely uttered a sound.

The doctor stepped back and just looked at Reese for a moment, his lips pursed, running through a silent analysis. Once he confirmed to himself he had done everything he could, he turned to Beck and started checking out his complaints, which were mostly about his collar bone and sore hands.

Wright manipulated Beck's left arm with a hand resting on his collarbone. He briefly looked at Beck's hand and scuffed knuckles.

Beck started to speak, but Brandon cut him off. “I don't need the details.”

He turned back to Willie Reese.

“You, sir, need to understand your injuries. Forgetting the contusions and all, I'm figuring probably two cracked ribs. That large elastic bandage I wrapped you with might help. I suspect you'll take it off so you can breathe better, but…” Wright waggled a hand…” it's probably not so bad if you do. Might mean less chance you end up with pneumonia.”

Reese looked at the doctor with an expression that said he might be either thinking about punching him, or simply didn't understand him.