Rivers of Gold (6 page)

There were no cell phone calls, no horn honks, the corrugated aluminum door slid up and the Ninja Van slid in. A short, stocky Dominican in stained coveralls appeared in the doorway of a makeshift office and pointed them toward a kind of monkey-bar lattice of I-beam girders, which formed a giant set of shelves on which sat hundreds of shrink-wrapped pallets of cargo. About midway down the length of the mass sat an old orange three-wheeled propane crane, and in front of that sat a reinforced pallet made of pressure-treated wood. An electric pallet jack stood nearby, a wallflower at the dance.

Victor wheeled them around, backed the van up to the midpoint of the mass, and popped the slow-motion tailgate release. Santiago climbed out, stretched, and wished for the hundredth time that this would go quietly, which he knew would never happen. Victor and his friend, a fellow
platano
named Luis whom Victor knew from God knew where, were Dominicans of a common age and generation, wherein polite conversation meant shouting into each other's faces at the tops of their lungs. Santiago cursed under his breath and walked around to the back, pulling the old moving blanket off their own cargo they'd hauled up from the shop in Inwood. It was a Perkins Sabre M215C, an inline six marine turbo diesel that Victor had spent a full month rehabbing. Luis, who ran a fishing trawler when he wasn't working the loading docks, would now have more than 200 horses on tap in any weather, enough for him to reach the striper and porgy grounds well south of Morris Cove. Luis's family would eat well in the weeks to come.

As would Santiago's. This pleased him to no end, for reasons more avaricious than familial. Santiago was under no illusions as to the congenital vulnerabilities of his tribe. Diabetes. Tachycardia. Atherosclerosis. Not so for him. Santiago lived largely on fish and vegetable dishes he prepared himself, and performed a demanding series of abdominal exercises each morning without fail. Not into yoga was he.

Luis worked the crane, Santiago helped maneuver the motor out of the van, and eventually they all swung it over onto the reinforced pallet. Victor pulled a handwritten list out of his pocket, and father and son walked to the wall of pallets. For the next thirty minutes, with Santiago sweating and constantly checking his watch, they cherry-picked their way through a cubic acre of dry bulk food. Bagged bunches of garlic. Flats of canned beans. Plastic sleeves of tortillas in three flavors. Huge cans of condiments and plastic jugs full of spices. Screw-topped boxes of premixed soup stock. Pints of pickled peppers, mixed dried mushrooms. High-fiber cereals, low-fat granola bars. Chips and crackers and cookies galore. And (Santiago, sweating, grunting, cursing in three languages) one fifty-pound sack of rice for each household in the family, arranged on the floor of the Odyssey's cargo bed like flagstones.

Grasped right hands and
abrazos
between Victor and Luis signified the end of the exchange. Having covered their haul with the moving blanket, Santiago slid wearily into the passenger seat, grateful for the adjustable lumbar support. He had an eight-hour shift at his second job waiting for him back in Manhattan. Victor waited until Luis had checked outside and waved them on before wheeling back out to Long Wharf; then he headed for the interstate.

Half an hour later, coasting through Milford, Victor asked his son whether he trusted this new guy More.
“¿Usted confía en este tipo?”

Santiago pursed his lips in thought. “
No sé. Demasiado pronto para decir
.”

Too soon to tell.

Still, he had to admit that More had been pretty fucking fast out the door when Santiago had called the code word
stigmata
(More's idea, the weird fuck), and that big
atacante
with the blade, who could have easily filleted Santiago while he'd been rolling around with the
mayate
on the pavement, had stopped dead in his tracks when More had stuck that nasty little laser gun in his face. It reminded Santiago of that futuristic piece Harrison Ford carried in
Blade Runner
. No tremor in his hands at all.

No hesitation.

Quick.

Focused.

Santiago figured that had to count for something.

I N  T H E  S H A D O W
O F  T H E  T I T T Y   B A R

M
arty is a photographer's dream: does everything for you but take the pictures. Handles the shoot setups, books the location, rents the equipment, finagles all transport and logistics, and keeps himself invisible yet always within reach while on the shoot. All I have to do is show up. It's a good way to make trade connections and surreptitiously build my
other
client list, for Specials. Not to mention the endless supply of models for hire, all of them willing to do anything (or anyone) for their chance to one day fill the lens. Thy Name is Humanity, Vanity.

The
Roundup
shoot's a week from tomorrow, at the Eyrie from eleven to four. Additional models: two. Lighting: floor, floods, and an oscillating icosahedron (I
hate
the soccer-ball light—as fragile as a dandelion—but you can't beat its effects). The best/worst news is that Tony Quinones will be back from Cannes in time to be our stylist. Tony Q did the costumes for
The Snake
, a drama about a love triangle of gay sewage workers in Manila that's this year's odds-on favorite for the Palme d'Or. Tony is the kind of gay caricature who gives other gays a bad name (but he's always good for a few Specials for himself and his so-called
Queue'terie
). As long as Johnette stays out of my face, this should be my easiest (and biggest) paycheck yet, courtesy of the rising young Retch and the delectable Miyuki.

Work. I sigh.

This is the sort of day I used to spend with X, going out with nothing but a camera and a Metrocard and drinking in the city through my lens. We were a natural fit: X was a model who didn't like modeling, I was a photographer doing rag work to get by. She shared my fixation with
city glances askance
, the concept of capturing motion in an otherwise stillborn frame. She wasn't just about Newton and McMullan like the rest of her tribe; she knew Pellegrini and Gottfried's work and had a grasp of photography beyond the jargon. We would get into all sorts of places to get shots, crawling around under the anchorages of the Brooklyn, Manhattan, or Verrazano bridges, into the gatehouse of the reservoir or inside City Tunnel Number Three, even in the abandoned shafts for the Second Avenue subway. We'd put them all through my editing software and post them on my site in miniature book formats. The city was different then, a place of possibility and opportunity without menace, all warmed by the presence of X. That was when I shot my Mall Series, which I consider to be my best work. After the crash, after she was gone, the only other thing left of those times were the taxiscapes.

I'm feeling a touch melancholy remembering all this when I get the message from Prince William. The message is a photo of an old city subway token, the kind you either see in the Transit Museum or on T-shirts and coffee mugs in some cheesy tourist curio shop in Times Square. (My mother, deep in her personal twilight zone, still hoards them.) This is code to check in with him from a street phone for the location of the drop, and then I have to run the Subway Labyrinth.

Reza insists on it, and what Reza wants, Reza gets. I understand the logic. The best way to shake a tail is in the subway, and Reza doesn't even want me using a pay phone in the same borough as the speak I'm about to supply. This may seem strange and inefficient to you, but it's the best way we've worked out for supplying the speaks, and no one's been busted yet, ever. The cops can't tap a pay phone unless they've staked it out first. Maybe that's why they were watching the Broome Street Bar last night? I should pass by the bar again soon and check the location of the nearest phones … nah. Just nerves.

Knowing I'll be riding the rails to some less-than-stellar spot in the outer boroughs (Reza again, the farther out from Manhattan you go, the better), I dress down in jeans and army surplus for the occasion and I'm set. The speaks should be humming tonight. There's one in Williamsburg, where the partially employed crowd will be slumming it, then another on the Lower East Side, then the mother lode—Le Yef, which tonight is in the old Toy Building on Madison Square, vacant lo these many moons since the big toy manufacturers all went broke last year. I might be able to move the whole shipment in one night. Even Reza won't be able to bitch about that.

I wish I were in better shape physically, though. I definitely did
not
need that shaker full of nightcaps after L left. Maybe if she stayed the whole night through just once, it might keep my mind off of X. There's a certain moodiness that sets in after episodic sex. It's not a vacuum, not exactly, but you do tend to notice the sudden emptiness that much more.

Crossing Amsterdam at 103rd I see the Irish Bull on his cell in front of his truck, parked outside his pub, which I call the Drunk Factory. The Irish Bull is a contractor (did all the renovations himself ) who opened here last year in the space occupied by an old Italian restaurant that closed up abruptly at the end of December (a whole slew of restaurants around here did when their leases came due and no one could make the rent—Same Old Song). Cheap, noxious pubs are always in demand, though—if anything, people drink more when the economy's in the shitter—and this one always pulls in the jocks with their beer guts and soccer jerseys, and the sort of females who go for them, the Spandex Brigade, all tube tops and lip gloss and Ultra Lights and whinnying laughter. You can always hear when it's closing time from the shouts and fights, and you can gauge the previous night's volume by the number of vomit sites in the morning.

Even from half a block's worth of boarded-up storefronts away I cannot escape the inevitable reek of shit wafting from the subway entrance. When the budget cuts began, the MTA was already in the hole. The unions were arguing for pay hikes despite a big budget deficit and the mayor wasn't having any of it. It made headlines for a while, but money—or lack of it—always wins in the end. The MTA didn't budge, the state wouldn't kick in any cash, and the transit budget was slashed right along with Sanitation and the cops. The subways and stations were actually pretty clean before the crash; now, I wonder if they're more like what John Conn captured in his lenses.

—SUSAN!

I haven't even cleared the turnstile yet and some crazy homeless guy is screaming right in my ear. Perfect.

—SUSAN LOWINGER!

The derelict has not been homeless long enough for his hairstyle to fully grow formless, although the streets have left their mark and scent on his clothing. He must have had a reasonably well-paying job until recently; his hands and face are not yet weathered by a full cycle of seasons without shelter. His wheeling eyes and slack jaw, however, betray the extent of his mental deterioration, the vast gulf separating his former self from where it is now. He's also picked up The Scent, the indelible pong of the unsheltered, a combination of urine and ashes that every New Yorker equates with The Bottom. There is nothing distinctive about him, nor is he the only one of his species wandering aimlessly about the station, engaged in spirited dialogues with invisible interlocutors. Once again I am caught without my trusty Marathon Cyber SEX. Two frames: On the Way Down. Whoever Susan Lowinger is, she's somewhere high above this fetid wet tunnel, well protected from its lost, damaged denizens.

One good thing, the train's just arriving at the platform as I swipe my Metrocard and get pole position behind one of the support girders (the rule is, stay out of the slipstream and out of the line of sight; minimize your friction and you minimize your chances of confrontation). I keep to myself behind my titanium polarized wraparound Bedroom Eyes. I'm itching to check my messages, but you don't pull out your iPhone below ground if you want to keep it (and keep your blood inside your body). It's only one stop south to Ninety-sixth, not quite long enough for anything to happen. I've taken subways all my life, I don't intend to stop because the city's in a tough spot; but if I can, I'll take a cab. However, duty—Reza—commands.

Changing up at Ninety-sixth for the northbound Number 2 train I feel the tingling onset of the anxiety of Borough Crossing. Manhattan is the innermost of The Five, it's the most modern, the most built-up, the richest, the most stylish. Anyone moving to NYC does so with the idea of at least spending time in Manhattan; most could not possibly afford to
live
there. It's the city's gravitational center, recent difficulties notwithstanding. It's also the best-protected borough. During the riots, the police simply cordoned off Harlem. Nothing happened to the rest of Manhattan—not the important parts, anyway. Nothing. Brooklyn and the Bronx and fucking Queens, you could see them smoldering from miles away. I was on a photo shoot in Ireland at the time, but I remember seeing the residual smoke as we came in to land three days later, and how many police cars there were on the tarmac. My building on 104th was inside the police cordon, close to Columbia and Morningside Heights. Don't get me wrong, I would never live on Park Avenue or the Upper East Side or some other sterilized honeycomb; if you're going to live in New York City you've got to be where you can
feel
it. The trick is not to be where the human waves can wash you and your home away.

So to the Bronx. One good thing about the subway system is that as long as you're on it you don't usually notice the areas you're passing through. I mean, who really wants to go hoofing around East 149th Street in the Grand Concourse? Here, riders are subdued, they know where they are, they're keeping as low a profile as possible. Of course, once I switch to the southbound Number 5, I have to steel myself for what comes next.

East 138th Street, Point of No Return. Abandoned gas stations—unless it's a big oil company, there are no independent stations anymore, and even the franchises are fewer and farther between. I can't remember the last time I saw a Shell or Hess logo around. What happened to them? Bodegas. Hybrid maintenance shops. Claptrap storefronts selling repackaged nickel hydride and lithium ion batteries and cheap Chinese-made solar laptops. It's really not that much different from Canal Street back in Chinatown, only here it's so much more spread out, wider roads, less hope, more decay. What I really hate about this is that it's so fucking
familiar
. I might as well be back in Jackson Heights, but without even the South Asian flavor. I
hate
the Bronx. Why would anyone live here?

So here I am at the corner of East 138th and Alexander Avenue in the South Bronx waiting for Reza's man, standing in the shadow of some disgusting strip joint near the Third Avenue Bridge called Felicity. I feel like I'm in a Lou Reed song. No, actually I feel like I'm standing in somebody's crosshairs. I fire up a Davidoff and pull on it furiously.

Which reminds me to check my messages. I'd turned my iPhone off for the underground journey, but if anyone's going to try for it out here, at least I can see them coming from far enough away to call the cops. I've already got an emergency phone app called Red Flag I can use to instantly notify Reza to abort the drop if that happens, probably invented by the same enterprising soul that wrote iHook. When I've got service I'm stunned to find a string of calls with no messages left from Prince William. But before I can call him back, a battered Nissan Hereford pulls up before me and I see Arun gesturing frantically from the driver's seat.

About Arun. Basically the black sheep of a respectable Indian merchant family, Arun felt himself not cut out for the family business. He'll spin you some yarn about driving a cab while attending a Jain religious school to prepare himself to take his vows, renounce the world, and become a mendicant monk in search of Enlightenment. This is pure bullshit. Whether he dropped out or was kicked out of school, Arun is obviously a fuckup whose family has cut him off. It's not really surprising that he came to drive a cab (although he's usually flying on premium smoke—how does Arun beat the Taxi and Limo Control drug checks?). No such cannabinoid calmness for the Jain wonder boy today, though. He's all amped up about something. I climb in the back and he pulls away, careful to signal and not squeal his tires. (This is a bad sign. He's not usually this cautious.)

—Renny, mahn, Eyad's dead.

—What the fuck are you talking about?

—I just goht the text message from central, mahn, eet says police found a body the other night and just got DNA identeefeecation. They gave Eyad's name and license numbah. They say eet looks like there was torture involved, Arun says, rolling his
r
's Hindi-style.

Oh shit.

—Renny,
yaar
, what you theenkeeing? Arun asks, his wide eyes on me in the rearview. He's nervous, his hands are strangling the wheel, he'll need to self-medicate soon or he'll start jumping curbs.

Think, Renny,
think
. You've planned for contingencies. Get what you came for, then get out of sight.

—Drive me to Queens, I say in my steadiest voice (Christ, I could almost believe myself).

—Where you want to go, mahn?

—Jackson Heights. Thirty-seventh Avenue by the G line stop.

He nods, still scared but relieved to be moving toward familiar turf. I don't know if he lives there, but if you're Indian and you drive a cab, Jackson Heights is one neighborhood you know.