Cold City (Repairman Jack - the Early Years Trilogy) (2 page)

Dinkins had been mayor for close to a year now and was threatening to clean up the Times Square area.  Jack didn’t know how he felt about that.  Sure, it would be great for tourists who wanted to bring their kids here, but… West 42
was the Deuce, and it wouldn’t –
couldn’t
be the Deuce without the sleaze factor.

But so far, no cleanup, no change.

The Deuceland
uber alles
.

He crossed Seventh and entered Grindhouse Row – the stretch of the Deuce between Seventh and Eighth, a cheek-by-jowl parade of glittering movie marquees, each trying to outblaze the next along the length of the block. 

A back alley of heaven.

Some of the theaters showed first-run hits from the majors –
Goodfellas
had come out last month and was still going strong here, as was
Arachnophobia
– but most offered either reruns or low-budget exploitation films.  Choices ranged from
Zapped Again
and
10 Violent Women
to ancient oldies like
The Immoral Mr. Teas
and
The Orgy at Lil’s Place
.  None of those appealed.  But then he came to a Sonny Chiba triple feature:
The Streetfighter
,
Return of the Streetfighter
, and
The Streetfighter's Last Revenge
. He’d seen these on videotape but never on the big screen.

Yes!

He checked the twenty-four-hour timetable on the box office glass and saw he had about twenty minutes before the next feature began.  So he walked back up to Times Square and hit the Roy Rogers there for some roast beef – or was that Trigger? – on a bun with extra horse – see? – radish sauce. 

He wandered as he ate.  The newspaper that gave the square its name was published half a block down 43
.  The
Light
had offices here too.  An Armed Forces recruiting station sat on the downtown end of the triangle formed by Broadway’s angled path across Seventh.  Not much activity there.  With all the saber-rattling since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait a few months ago, enlistment was essentially a nonstop ticket to the desert.

Speaking of tickets – a big crowd was gathered around the TKTS booth on the same triangle.  With the recession in full swing, discount Broadway tickets seemed in greater demand than ever. 
Cats
and
Les Mis
were still going strong, and
The Phantom
was somewhere down one of these side streets.  Jack hadn’t seen any of them, and had no desire to.  Well,
The Phantom
might be okay if it weren’t a musical.

A pang stole through his chest as he remembered how his mother would buy all the Broadway soundtracks as soon as they’d come out.  Broadway was the Muzak of his childhood.  That had been one thing he hadn’t missed when he’d moved out to live at school. 

He shook his head.  Still couldn’t believe she was gone.

He tucked the memories away and covered the still-open wound.  Yeah, he really needed an afternoon of chop-socky.

Might even stay and see the trilogy a second time.

3

Vinny Donato stood back and let Tommy do the talking.  Tommy Totaro loved to talk.  He was known as “Tommy Ten-thumbs” because he had the goddamnedest thickest, shortest fingers anyone had ever seen.  Like little Genoa salamis… like, well, like eight extra thumbs.  But these days he should have been known as “Tommy the Snorter,” on account of how he liked the powder.  And once he had a snootful, he became “Tommy the Talker” and never shut up.

Vinny preferred eating to talking.  And the only white powder he liked was the sugar on his zeppoles.  He pulled one from a grease-stained sack from his favorite bakery in Bensonhurst and popped it into his mouth.  He offered the sack to Aldo D’Amico standing next to him, but Aldo shook his head and took a drag on his Camel instead.  That was why he was so skinny – he preferred smoking to eating.  Anyways, he only had eyes for Tommy and the guy seated beside him.

Vinny almost felt sorry for Harry Detrick.  Almost.  Some guys never learn.

“So Harry,” Tommy was saying, waving and wiggling those salamis in the air.  His left nostril was rimmed with white.  “You and me we got this… this connection, y’know.  It’s a very complex thing.  It’s cosmic, it’s karmic, it’s… money.  It binds us.  It flows between us like… like love.  I love people and you love the ponies but you can’t love the ponies the way you’d like to love them without money, and so money has flowed between us to facilitate that love.  But lately, Harry, the love has been flowing only one way, and that hurts me.”  He placed a hand over his heart, or at least where it was supposed to be.  “It hurts me in here, and it hurts me deeply.”

Harry Detrick squirmed in his wrinkled suit.  Vinny guessed he was about forty, maybe five years older than Tommy; no guessing about him being overweight – his gut was as big as Vinny’s.  His comb-over had got messed up when Vinny and Aldo dragged him into this West Side garage; its sweat-soaked strands were plastered down every which way, exposing his pink scalp.

His lower lip trembled.  “Look, Tommy, I can–”

Tommy grabbed his wrist, almost gently.  “Shh, my brother.  The love not only connects us, it binds.  But that’s not all that binds us.  Our karmas are intertwined, and binding us as well.  And yet, with all that, there’s still
more
that binds us.”

The
click
of the handcuff closing around Harry’s right wrist echoed off the bare concrete walls.

Harry jumped.  “What–?”

Here we go with the cuffs again, Vinny thought. 

The cuffs were part of Tommy’s act.  The coke he used before he braced losers brought out not only his inner blabbermouth but his inner drama queen as well.  Pretty soon the little black book would appear.

“Hush now,” Tommy said softly as he clicked the other half of the pair around his own left wrist.  “We now have a more tangible bond, one that will remain in place until I feel a little of that love reversing its course and flowing toward me.”

Harry got this panicky look and started twisting in his chair, pushing at the cuff as if he was going to slip out of it.  Whimpering, he jumped up from the chair and began shaking his arm which, of course, shook Tommy’s arm. 

Vinny knew what was coming next.  Because Tommy didn’t like the customers shaking his arm.

Tommy gave him the look.  “Vinny?”

Vinny swallowed his zeppole and reached into his jacket pocket.  The taser was all charged and ready to go.  He whipped it out, jammed it against Harry’s upper arm, and hit the button.  Harry stiffened, then dropped to the floor where he did a little twitching.  Vinny had hit him with a short zap.  By the time he’d pocketed the taser and put down his donuts, Harry was quiet and limp, breathing hard, eyes staring. 

Vinny and Aldo hauled him up and draped him back into the chair where he dangled like overcooked linguine.  In a little bit he got control of his muscles again and straightened.

“Tommy…” His voice sounded strangled.  “Tommy, please…”

Tommy motioned to the donut bag and removed a zeppole when Vinny held it out to him.

“Harry, Harry, Harry.”  He bit into the zeppole.  “I need love, Harry.  You gonna give me love?”

“Tommy, please.  After all these years, ain’t I always been good for it?”

“You know the expression, Harry: Yeah, but what have you done for me lately?”

“I been sick, and business has been slow.  Maybe you don’t feel it in your business, but there’s a recession going on out there.”

“Yeah, I’m hearing that a lot lately, Harry, and I sympathize, I really do, but it’s not like I’m in this alone, you know.  If it was just me, I’d give you a break. But I got Vinny and Ali-D here to worry about.”

He noticed Aldo shift on his feet.  He hated that name.  Only Tommy Ten-thumbs called him Ali-D.  No one else dared.  To everyone else he was Aldo. 
Al-doe
.  The whole name.  Forget Paul Simon – you did not call this guy “Al.”  Aldo.  Nothing else.

“Yeah, they don’t look it, but my guys need love too.  But even then, considering our karmic connection, I might even be able to let them go without love.  But let me ask you, Harry.  You ever hear that expression, ‘The buck stops here’?  Hmmm, Harry?”

Harry nodded.  “Tommy…”

“Just listen.  The problem is that the buck don’t stop here, it don’t stop with me.  It’s gotta go beyond me.  And you know who that buck goes to, don’t you, Harry.”

Harry shuddered and nodded again.  “Tony Cannon.”

“Righto.  Tony ‘the Cannon’ Campisi.  And Tony ain’t got no love connection with you, Harry.  Tony’s all about the money.  Now, the money I loaned you comes from him.  He wants it back – with his interest.  And if he can’t get the principal, he wants the vig, he wants his juice.”

Tommy finished the zeppole and reached into his back pocket with his free hand.  Out it came: the little black book.

“Let’s see, Harry.  I got you bookmarked here and it says… it says you’re late – way late – with principal and vig.”

“Ten percent a week.” Harry groaned.  “I can’t keep doing it.  Can he give me a break on the rate?”

“He already did, Harry.  It’s been twelve for a while now.  He let you have the old rate because you were a return customer.  Now you’ve made him regret that.  I mean, you’re backed up three weeks, Harry, and that’s not good because now not only are you paying ten percent on the principal, you’re paying ten percent on the vig as well.”

“You couldn’t ask him?  Please?”

“And get my balls cut off with a butter knife?  We’re bonded, Harry, but not that close.  Tony wanted me to deliver a message.”

Which was bullshit.  Tony Cannon had said, “See that he catches up.”  Nothing more.  All this drama was Tommy’s idea.  At times like this Vinny felt like he was in the cast of some sort of traveling troupe.  The Ten-Thumbs Theater.

Harry sobbed and blubbered as Aldo began to pull on black leather gloves.

“I don’t want you to take this personal, Harry, because it’s not.  I like you, I really do, but I ain’t got a choice.  Really, I feel so bonded to you that I’m going to let Ali-D deliver Tony’s message.  You know why I call him Ali-D, don’t you?  Because he’s got a punch like Muhammad Ali.  And what’s more, he
likes
to punch.  Me, I’ve got no taste for it.  Especially when a karmic pal like you is involved.”  He motioned Aldo forward.  “Harry, meet Ali-D.”

…he’s got a punch like Muhammad Ali…

That was what pissed off Aldo so much about the name.  He didn’t want to be connected to no
moulinyan
, even if he’d been world champ.

Aldo landed a right jab into the center of Harry’s face, rocking his head back.  He groaned as blood began to trickle from his nose. 

“Body shots, Ali!” Tommy cried, holding up his cuffed wrist and dragging Harry’s with it.  “Body shots!  We’re connected here, and I don’t want no splatter!”

So Aldo worked Harry’s ribs and gut, which wasn’t so easy on a guy in a chair.  Harry pleaded at first, tried to protect himself with his free hand, but Aldo was quick and strong and landed one solid shot after another.  Vinny offered Tommy another zeppole but he passed.  He was too involved in watching Harry receive his “message.” 

Vinny popped another into his mouth and wandered away.  He didn’t approve of beat-downs like this – not on someone who owed you money.  Someone who’d ratted you out,
that
was a different story.  You wanted to do major damage then.  You wanted to inflict major hurt before you put them down.  Because you wanted their body found and its condition to send a message loud and clear.

But someone who owed you money, someone you were doing business with, like Harry, you didn’t need this shit.  When Vinny was sent out to encourage a loanee in arrears to catch up, all he took along was a pair of pliers, or maybe a ball-peen hammer.  A dislocated or broken finger was ninety-five percent effective.  For the other five percent, you brought out the artillery and asked Aldo along.

Harry stopped begging.  Vinny turned back toward the others in time to see him slump forward and slide to the floor.

“Hey, what gives?” Tommy said.  “You give him another head shot?”

Aldo shook his head.  “Not even close.”

Vinny stepped up for a closer look.  He watched Harry’s chest, waiting to see him take a breath.  His gut clenched when he didn’t.

“Hey, he ain’t breathin’!”

“Oh, shit!” Aldo knelt and lifted Harry’s head.  Unblinking baby blues stared ceilingward. 

“He’s gone!” Vinny said.

“Whatta y’mean, ‘gone’?”

“Gone as in
dead
.”

“Christ!” Tommy cried, pawing at his pockets.   “I’m cuffed to a fuckin’ dead man!  Get him offa me!”

“Where’s the key?” Aldo said.

As Tommy continued to search his pockets, Vinny thought about what deep shit they were in.  Tony Cannon always warned about getting too rough with a loanee.  If the guy was completely tapped out, a through-and-through deadbeat who was never gonna pay, then yeah, mess him up and make him disappear.  But you did not want to lose a guy with assets of any kind, because that was a guy with paying potential. 

“Dead guys don’t pay no vig.”
  How many times had he heard the Cannon say that?

Looked like he’d be hearing it again.  Real soon.  That would be the least of it.  Because the Cannon – who more correctly should have been called Tony “Penny-pincher” Campisi – would be pissed to beat all hell.

Tommy finally produced the key but his shaky fat fingers couldn’t work it into the keyhole.  After a half dozen tries, he threw it at Aldo.

“Unlock it!”  His voice was rising toward girly levels.  “Get this dead fucker offa me!”

Vinny turned away.  Pathetic.

4

Jack found a note slipped under his door when he got back to his apartment.

Your boss called

The movies had siphoned off some of his anger, leaving him strangely relaxed.  But he felt himself tensing up again as he plunked coins in the hallway pay phone. He recognized Giovanni’s voice when he answered.