The Undertaker (45 page)

“Hey. That's me you're crushing.”

“I know.” I held her like that for a good five minutes.

“When I get crazy mood swings, I can always blame it on PMS,” she muttered into my chest. “What's your excuse?”

Fortunately, a northbound local finally arrived and I didn't have to answer. We rode it up to Forty-Second Street and got off for keeps this time. If Manhattan was a zoo, then Times Square between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM, when the nearby theaters had their curtain calls, was the monkey cage. That's where Broadway, Forty-fifth Street, and Seventh Avenue cross, opening up a wide, exciting space full of speeding cabs, ten-story neon billboards, buses, theater marquees, flashing lights, movie houses, discount electronic stores, hustlers, street preachers, pimps, hookers, the early theater crowd, vendors, bums, and every nut case the city has to offer. And a lovely, big crowd to get lost in.

We walked north on Broadway. When we passed the first brightly lit electronics store, Sandy pulled me over to the window. It offered everything from radios and camcorders to boom boxes, watches, pens, X-rated videos, and cameras. “You owe me something, remember?” She tapped her finger on the glass by the display of electronic thirty-five millimeter cameras. “Something you broke when you tossed me behind those garbage cans in Boston?”

“A new camera, huh?”

“Not just
a
new camera, Sandy wants one of those!” She pointed again. “A Pentax with a Vivitar 20 x 200 zoom lens. And it's going to run you about five hundred bucks before I'm done.”

“If it makes you happy, five hundred is no problem.”

“It'll take a lot more than that, but I'll start with the camera.” She looked in through the store windows and checked out the smug, hard-eyed, male Arab clerks standing behind the counters. “When we get inside, Talbott, you just stand there, look pretty, and keep your mouth shut. Got that?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said, thinking any price would be worth it if it got this crazy woman off my back over the camera.

“'Cause Sandy's gonna give those turkeys a serious butt-whippin’.”

Twenty minutes later we came walking back out with the Pentax, the telephoto lens, a camera bag, three filters, and three high-capacity memory chips, all of which she had gotten for three hundred and ninety-five dollars, including tax, leaving the shattered wreckage of a half-dozen formerly cocky sales clerks in her wake.

“The Big Apple?” Sandy crowed. “Those clowns wouldn't last five minutes on Maxwell Street in Chicago, the old one or the new one.”

“Okay, you have your new camera, and a masterful performance it was,” I congratulated her. “Should I find you a Polish wedding?”

We walked to the corner and started looking for a cab. It was already 6:15. The streets were choked with traffic, but I finally got one to pull over to the curb next to us. The driver was a small man with dark skin and straight black hair who looked back at us with a toothy, white grin.

“How long to drive to the Newark Airport from here?” I asked.

“Oh, forty-five minutes, I should think,” he answered in a thick accent.

“Then Newark it is,” I told him as I eased up on my grip.

“The airport?” Sandy whispered, confused. “I thought you said we couldn't fly.”

“I did.”

The cabbie had his CB radio turned on and we heard the incessant chatter of a dozen or more voices speaking in a language I was certain I never heard before. Every now and then, the talk would be punctuated by shrill laughter and our driver would pick up his microphone and chatter along with them.

“What language is that?” I finally leaned forward and asked.

“Oh, that is Bengali. A dialect from the north of India, near Calcutta. All the Bengali taxi drivers, we talk to each other on it. You know, we talk about the traffic, the weather, what's happening on the bridges, the best routes to take...”

“And tell a lot of dirty jokes? Sandy asked, as she kicked off her shoes and curled up on my lap.

“Oh, no, no. No dirty jokes,” he laughed. He picked up the microphone and chattered some more, looking at her in the mirror and laughing as we heard voices laughing on the radio even louder. “They say, maybe some dirty jokes,” he giggled.

The driver turned west on Forty-Sixth and the cab slowed to a snail's pace in the narrow two-lane street. The rain came down harder now, banging on the cab's roof like a tin drum. Jockeying inch-by-inch with the other cabs, we eventually made it over to Eighth Avenue where everything completely ground to a halt.

“With the rain, the traffic is more bad tonight,” the driver shook his head.

I looked around the interior of the cab. It was clean, not a speck of dirt or dust on the leather seats or floor. Even the windows had been recently washed, inside and out. Up on his visor and saw a city license with his photograph and the name Goutam Ray.

“Maybe he cleans apartments,” I said as I put my finger on Sandy's lips and leaned forward again. “Goutam, how long would it take for you to drive us to Philadelphia?”

“Philly? Oh, my. Maybe two hours, maybe a little more, once we get out of this.”

“What would the fare be?”

“That is a tariff fare, not metered, plus tolls, and I have to come back…” he looked at me in the rear view mirror. “And all that gasoline, Ayii! And…”

“How much!” Sandy cut him off.

“For you, lovely lady, three-hundred dollars.”

I looked down at Sandy and shrugged. “Even with your Swiss Army key chain-toolbox, changing license plates and hot-wiring a car in this rain will ruin those new clothes of yours,” I said as I ran my fingers through her hair. “And the lovely new do.”

“All because of me, eh, Talbott?”

I looked at my watch. “It's 6:30. When we get to Philly, we can catch a train to DC, or we can wait until morning.”

“No,” she shook her head. “As much as I'd love to shack up with you for another night of unbridled passion, let's get this thing done, tonight. That business in Washington Square scared the Hell out of me. I'm not brave anymore; I want this thing over.”

I leaned forward, “Okay, Goutam. We're going to miss our flight out of Newark anyway, so you can drive the lovely lady and me to Philly. But take your time. If you get us there by 9:00 with no problems and without the cops stopping you for any tickets, it's four hundred cash, okay?” I saw his face light up in a grin in the rear view mirror.

Goutam turned the cab west toward the Lincoln tunnel. “Let's call Hardin,” Sandy said. “I don't want to make it to Washington only to find an empty office at midnight.”

“Goutam, find a deli or coffee shop for a quick pit stop. I want to grab a couple of sandwiches and we need to make a phone call.”

Ten minutes later, the cab pulled over to the curb along 42
^nd
street at the door to a deli that had a big carryout sign. “This is my cousin's establishment,” Goutam said. “He has a pay phone and an excellent tongue if I may be bold enough to suggest, sir.”

“Tongue?” I looked down at her. “That would almost be cannibalism, wouldn't it.”

“How's the corned beef? Or, don't Hindus eat cow?” Sandy asked.

“Oh, pretty lady, to not eat kosher corned beef in New York City? With a fresh dill pickle and some potato latkes and a knish?
That
would truly be a sin.”

She went for the sandwiches while I went to the phones and dialed Hardin's office. He was not in, but his aide knew to immediately patch me through to his cell phone at the posh Georgetown hotel where he said Hardin was speaking at the annual dinner of the U. S, Association of Chiefs of Police.
Totally appropriate
, I thought.

“Senator, this is Pete Talbott,” I began. “Good swill at the Willard tonight?”

“One of the very few places in the District that still serves a decent foie gras,” he said softly. “You must excuse me for not using your name, but I'm sure you understand. Where have you been?” he pressed. “I thought you were going to get back in touch yesterday and I was getting very nervous. This business in Boston…”

“Boys will be boys, Senator, but you're right. It's time for us to come in. We'll be in your office tonight, I hope before midnight.”

“And, you're bringing everything with you? The data files and all?”

“Relax Senator, I have them.”

“They're important, you know,
very
important.”

“By the way, you almost lost another witness today.” There was silence at the other end. “Two hours ago I was standing in a park in lower Manhattan…”

“Manhattan! I thought you said you were in Tennessee?”

“I lied. I do a lot of that. It helps me stay alive. Anyway, I was swapping stories with your baldheaded friend, Charles Billingham, when someone tried to take him out with a sniper rifle.” I let that sink in for a second. “Don't worry, he's still very much alive, but he's going to have quite a bruise. The shooter was probably one of Rico Patillo's soldiers.”

“Rico Patillo!” Hardin almost came through the phone.

“Yeah. That was his people who tried to kill us in Boston yesterday. Charley thinks Tinkerton is working for him, so it all fits. You watch your back, Senator, you could be on their list too.”

“Me? I'm a United States Senator, have you lost your mind…”

“Nope, I'm just beginning to find it. I'll see you at Midnight, in your office in the Russell Building.”

“It's right next to the Capitol, you can't miss it.”

“Great, and Sandy says she'll have that fetching blue dress on.”

“What? Just bring those files, damn it!”

“Ciao, Senator.” I hung up and stared at the phone for a minute.

“Tim? The blue dress?” Sandy laughed. “You're getting as bad as me, you know.”

“It must be catching.”

“Like I told you, Hardin's cute, but if he stands around too long in the hot sun, he's gonna leave a grease stain big enough to cook McDonalds French fries.”

We ran back out to the cab. Goutam had been looking at maps and immediately drove away, heading for the tunnel and New Jersey. I reflected back to the phone call with Hardin and remembered what Billingham had told me. There were way too many people way too eager to get their hands on Louie Panozzo's files.

There was a roll-down shade between the front seat and the back. I winked at Goutam in the rear view mirror. “See you in Philly, Goutam,” I said as I pulled it down.

Washington, DC: the shining city on the hill…

I
rolled up the shade as the cab pulled over to the 30
^th
Street Station in Philadelphia at 8:50, giving Goutam a leisurely ten minutes to spare. It was another of those big, neoclassical edifices from the 1930s that Sandy and I were becoming so expert at negotiating.

“Thanks, Goutam” I said as I handed him four of the crisp new one-hundred dollar bills I had taken off “Tony Grigs”, the hit man in Boston. Goutam smiled, and I handed him another one. “That's a little extra so that your memory won't be too clear about the people you had in the back seat and what they were doing on the way down here from New York. You see, her husband can get very jealous.” I winked at him.

“Oh, yes, sir!” he grinned. “And I can see he has ample reason to be.”

“Where's an INS agent when you really need one,” Sandy muttered as she got out of the cab. “Like, he knew what we were doing back there.”

“Like, you care if he did?”

“But this time, we didn't even do anything!” she complained as she jiggled and twisted her skirt and top, trying to get everything back into place. “But how did my clothes get all turned around like this, Talbott?” she asked innocently enough.

As the cab drove away, she took my arm and we strolled into the terminal. The evening commuter crowd had largely dissipated by then, but there were express trains to both New York and DC every forty-five minutes to an hour, so the station was never empty. One of the trains to DC was leaving in ten minutes and would arrive at Union Station in Washington at 11:00. We bought two seats in the upper deck of the observation car. At night and in the rain, we assumed it would be empty and give us some privacy.

The ticker agent found that mildly amusing. “Just so you know, we turn the lights out about two minutes after the train clears the station,” he warned without looking up at us.

“And...? Sandy asked, puzzled.

“And you'll want to be in your seats by then, lady,” he looked up, straight-faced. “The late run back to DC is popular for all those tired, Washington staffers returning home from a hard day “bureaucrating” in the Philly field office. So if I were you, I'd find an empty seat, I wouldn't go gawking or stumbling around up there in the dark.”

We looked at each other, puzzled by his comments. By the time we got on board and climbed the stairs to the upper deck, there were already a dozen couples huddled together on both sides of the aisle, especially toward the back of the car. From the looks and the blankets, it was obvious they were waiting for the lights to go out too.

“Why did I bother to straighten my skirt?” Sandy whispered as we took two seats in the second row. She snuggled up against me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “But what a great place to hide.”