But as the “¡Córtalo!” chant rose in volume, his expression hardened.
Oh, shit!
Jack was about to shout, Don’t, Rico! when a high-pitched scream pierced the air.
“Rico, no! No-no-no-no-no!”
For a second, a little girl stood silhouetted in the doorway, then she was running forward.
“No, Rico, no!”
Rico turned, lowering the machete. Then Jack recognized her.
“Bonita?”
Rico spun back toward him, his expression questioning how Jack knew her name. Then he turned back to the little girl racing toward him. She leaped against him, wrapping her arms around him in a desperate hug. Tears ran down her cheeks as she pointed to Jack and began speaking Spanish at blistering speed, way too fast for Jack to follow.
Rico was staring at him, his jaw gaping.
“You?” he said at last. “It was you?”
Bonita released him and rushed to Jack, throwing her arms around his neck. She sobbed against him.
After numerous ¿Qué pasas? from Carlos, Juan, Ramon, and the DDP guys, Rico began explaining in Spanish. Jack followed some of it. Knowing the story ahead of time helped.
When he’d been held at the Outer Banks house last year, he’d seen the young girls offloaded from the boat offshore, and then he’d spotted an animal called Moose dragging one of them out to the dunes. Jack had followed with a tire iron and dented his skull—perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, because Moose died there in the sand. Only Jack and the girl returned. Along the way he learned that her name was Bonita.
Bonita and the rest of the girls had wound up with the Mikulskis, and now she was with Rico. The word hermana kept popping up in Rico’s story. Sister?
Finally he turned back to Jack. “You saved my sister? You’re the one?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah. She’s your sister? I had no idea.”
Rico was staring at Bonita. “How does this happen?”
Jack was asking himself the same question, although in the long run he figured he could do without knowing how. He was too relieved that it had.
Bonita began pulling at the bungee encircling his right leg. Rico dropped the machete and began to help.
12
It took a while for the circulation to return to Jack’s hands, and even longer for the sick fury at what had almost happened to abate. He helped it along by telling himself that if he hadn’t done such a number on Rico’s knee, this never would have happened. Of course, another part of him had to put out a reminder that nothing would have happened in the first place if Rico hadn’t sucker-punched him.
But it took the longest to put today’s story together, since Bonita spoke virtually no English and Rico’s command was as limited as Jack’s Spanish. The three of them sat in a corner apart from the others—Rico with his leg straight out—and managed to put the story together.
Rico and Bonita’s mother had died years ago. Their father had married again, and that was when Rico had left for the States. Unknown to him, his father had died within months of his departure, and their stepmother had sold Bonita to the traffickers.
Not so terribly unusual, unfortunately. Probably happened every day all over the world.
She couldn’t go back to the DR, so whoever repatriated the kids for the Mikulskis learned from Bonita that she had a brother in New York City who sent them money when he could. She tracked down Rico and left Bonita with him, along with a nice chunk of change.
Okay … big coincidence. Huge coincidence. But the story of how Bonita had managed to travel from the heart of Brooklyn and end up in this empty West Side garage just in time to save Jack’s foot moved way beyond coincidence into the bizarre.
Bonita had been sitting in the cramped apartment she and Rico moved into using the Mikulski money she’d been given. They hadn’t figured out a way to get her into a school, so she spent most of the day watching TV and picking up what little English she could from Scooby-Doo reruns. Sometime before noon she’d been interrupted by a woman who rushed into the apartment and grabbed her by the arm, saying her brother was in terrible trouble and only Bonita could help him.
The woman said she came from Puerta Plata, just like Rico and Bonita, and that she’d known their mother. She even spoke with their local accent. Bonita couldn’t help but believe her and they ran downstairs to her car. Along the way the lady explained that Rico was going to do a terrible thing to the very man who had saved her that night on the beach. Bonita hadn’t believed it, but when the woman had dropped her off and she’d opened the door and seen her brother raising a machete over Jack, she’d realized it was all true and she’d screamed.
Jack listened in a daze. How could the woman have known? Not just about what was going to happen, but what had happened? Bonita had known the face of the man who had saved her, but never knew his name. And it was obvious Rico had had no idea it was Jack.
Who was this woman?
According to Bonita, she was slim, about the age their mother would have been—probably early forties—with dark hair and what she described as “cinnamon” skin. Apparently that meant something in the DR. She’d driven an old black Lincoln; Bonita had sat in the front while the woman’s little brown dog jumped around the backseat. The last thing she’d said to Bonita as she pushed her out the car door was “¡Prisa!”
Hurry!
Despite pointed questioning, Bonita swore she’d never seen her before.
The three of them sat in silence for a while, then Rico said, “Jack, I do not know what to say. I would not hurt the man who saved Bonita.”
That was good to hear.
“Your English is much better since I last saw you.”
His expression darkened as he patted his bum knee. “I been seeing much TV.”
Ouch.
“Hey, I’m sorry about your knee. I lost it when you punched me. I didn’t mean to do permanent damage.”
Not quite true. Jack remembered wanting to kill him at the time.
“I can’t work,” he said. “I am living on my little sister’s money. It makes me loco.”
“I hear you.”
He felt bad. The guy had been a hard worker and he’d just let jealousy of Jack get the better of him. He had a lot of pride—maybe an excess. And that reminded Jack of Julio.
Julio … who wouldn’t let Jack help him. But maybe Rico …
“Maybe I could pay for you to see a doctor.”
He waved his hands back and forth. “I do not want your money.”
“I’m just trying to fix what I did. All you might need is a simple operation and—”
“¿Cirugia? No-no-no!”
Like dealing with another Julio. Jack tried a different tack.
“Okay, so you can’t work. Can you be boss?”
“Boss? Me? Who I boss?”
“Carlos, Juan, and Ramon, for starters.”
“You loco.”
“No, I’m not. You know landscaping, you know gardening, you know how to run the machines. What’s Giovanni got that you don’t?”
He laughed again. “Carlos, Juan, and Ramon!”
“Okay, true. But what else?”
“I got no machines.”
“I can fix that.”
His eyebrows rose. “Yeah? How you fix that?”
Jack considered that. He had a feeling Rico would never hear of borrowing money from him, but a third party … who just happened to be Latino …
“I know this guy named Julio who’ll lend you the money to buy what you need to get started.”
“How I pay back?”
“A little at a time, whenever you can. He’ll be in no hurry. He has the soul of a saint. He lives to help people.” Don’t laugh here, he told himself—do not laugh. “You start with one helper. You’ve got Carlos, Juan, and Ramon—one of them can leave Giovanni and come with you. And you don’t need much: an old truck, a used riding mower for you, a push mower, some rakes and shovels, and you’re in business.”
Rico
wanted to work. Jack had no doubt that once he got moving, he’d keep rolling.
Rico said, “How—?”
A gunshot, near deafening within the garage’s concrete walls, made the three of them jump. One of the DDPers had piled up a couple of empty wooden crates and fired the Semmerling into them. He was pulling the trigger, trying to fire a second shot, to no avail. He pulled back on the slide but it wouldn’t budge—because it slid forward on the Semmerling.
Jack jumped up. The sudden movement gave him a sick, dizzy feeling, intensifying the throbbing in his head.
“Ten cuidado,” he heard Rico say in a low voice.
Be careful … yeah, Jack would be careful. But he needed his Semmerling back.
He shuffled over to the group. “¿Qué pasa?”
The shooter sneered and tossed the pistol to Jack. “¡El juguete está roto!”
El juguete? He wasn’t sure about that word. Toy? Your toy is broken.
That fit. The Semmerling was small enough to be a toy—certainly not macho enough for these studs. And because it looked like a semiauto, the guy expected it to self-load like one. Jack didn’t get into explaining its manual repeating double action.
He put on a sad expression. “Sí, está roto.”
The DDPers laughed as he walked back toward Rico and Bonita. He spotted his ankle holster on the floor and picked it up along the way.
“How’d you get involved with these clowns?” he said when he rejoined Rico.
He shrugged. “We’re all from the same country. Their attitude is, you hurt one Dominican, you hurt all Dominicans. They said they’d help me find you. They spotted you today and remembered you from last week, so when you sit in the park, they grab you.” He looked at the Semmerling. “They broke it?”
Jack shook his head. “Nah. They just don’t know how to use it.”
Rico smiled. “You sneaky man, Jack. I think you dangerous.”
Jack rubbed his aching jaw. Not dangerous enough, it seemed. Not by a long shot.
13
Vinny smiled as he spotted the dozen high rollers waiting at the usual spot under the street light on Mott Street. Then frowned at what he saw behind them: yet another bright yellow awning with red Chinese lettering hanging over the sidewalk where an Italian bakery used to be. Damn chinks. If this kept up, no one would be able to call the place Little Italy anymore.
He pulled his van into the curb and Aldo followed directly behind.
The gamblers split their number between the two vehicles. As soon as the side door slid shut, Vinny got rolling.
“Where we going tonight?” one of the familiar faces said as Vinny made a left on Canal Street.
“Brooklyn.” In response to a couple of groans, he added, “Settle back and relax. Traffic’s light. This won’t take long.”
His passengers were a special breed of craps player. They could ride down to Atlantic City for legal action, but they liked to stay local and play the Gambino tables. The New York families had different rules for craps that these guys preferred.
Tonight the games were set up in Tony the Cannon’s old social club on Avenue J. The locations were chosen randomly, never the same one twice in a row—hence the “floating crap game” moniker—and none of the players was given advance notice. The cops loved to break up the games when they could, and they took “break up” to the limit: They rounded everybody up then reduced the roulette and craps tables to splinters before they left. So secrecy was a primo concern.
Tommy, as senior soldier, helped Tony run the games when they were at his club. The rule from the bosses: keep the games honest when the regulars were involved. These regulars were valuable customers who generated a lot of action. The family made good, steady money off the games and the ponies without rigging anything, and so they wanted these high rollers back again and again.
Vinny didn’t mind playing chauffeur. The family bosses bankrolled the games and thirty percent of the take went to the operator—in this case, Tony. Some of that would go to Vinny. Easy money with no risk.
But it still didn’t get Tommy Ten Thumbs out of his hair.
14
“Ooh, Jack,” Lou said as Jack took a seat at the bar. “What happened to your face?”
Jack looked at himself in the bar mirror and winced. Nose swollen, a blue-black ring under his left eye. No wonder people had been staring at him on his trip here.
Julio looked up from drying a glass and smiled. “How the other guy look?”
“Perfectly fine, unfortunately.”
Julio poured a Rolling Rock and set it before him. Jack stared at it, considered his persistently throbbing head, and decided to drink anyway. Beer cured just about everything.
“What the hell happened to you?” Barney said, returning from one of his frequent trips to the men’s room.
“Long story. Hey, Julio. Can you do me a favor?”
“Like?”
“Help this guy I know get set up in a landscaping business.”
He laughed. “You kidding, right? I don’t know shit about that stuff.” He pointed to the dead plants in the window. “Ain’t that proof?”
Yeah, proof of willful neglect.
“That’s not the point. You know how to talk business. His English isn’t too good and you can help him get a good price.”
“Me?”
“I hear you talking to suppliers. You know how to pinch a penny.”
“Till it screams for mercy,” Lou said with a grin.
“He’s got the money?”
“No, I do. But he’ll think you’re lending it to him, interest free. Can’t know it’s me.”
Julio stared at him. “What is it with you? You don’t like money?”
“I love money. If I had enough I’d fill a ten-story bin with cash, install a diving board, and swim around in it.”
“Then why you always trying to give it away?”
“Hey, Jack,” said Barney. “If you’re giving out cash—”
Julio waved him to silence. “Seriously, Jack. You got some kinda Mother Teresa thing goin’ on in your head?”
“Naw. This is for me. This guy … we’ve got an unbalanced scale between us. I’ll feel better if it’s leveled out. You’ll help?”
“He’s a Rican?”
“No. From the DR.”
Julio made a face. “Not one of those DDPers you were talking about.”
“No. This guy’s straight. Just needs a break is all.”
“All right. I help. But I still don’t get it.”
Jack did. A guy who had wanted to put a major hurt on him would now owe him. The turnaround meant he could stop looking over his shoulder. Not only that, having a guy like Rico owing him a favor was better than money in the bank.
He changed the subject.
“You gonna be ready Saturday morning for Zalesky watching?”
Julio made a fist. “Hey, I hope we gonna do more that just watch.”
“Only time will tell, my friend. Only time will tell.”
THURSDAY
1
Kadir dropped into the passenger seat and left the car door open. He took slow, deep breaths to calm his quaking stomach. The car was parked behind the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office in Hauppauge. He’d just returned from the morgue within and had feared he might vomit as he crossed the parking lot.
Sheikh Omar had sent him and Mahmoud here to identify the fallen so they might have proper Muslim burials. Mahmoud had known most of them, having trained many in the use of the AK-47, but not all. Ghali and Ramiz had been among them—both Kadir and Mahmoud knew those two—but Mahmoud had never met Rashad and Tariq. Kadir knew them from the mosque, and so he had been sent along to identify them.
His stomach quailed at the memory of their remains—torn by the explosion, charred by the fire from the exploding gas tank, barely recognizable. All he could think of as he’d gazed at the looks of agony frozen on their scorched faces was that could have been me.
After identify
ing the four bodies he knew, he’d signed the papers and fled to the car, leaving Mahmoud behind. Mahmoud would take longer since he had more to identify. Eventually the bodies would have to be claimed. By tradition, relatives would wash the body, wrap it in a white cloth, say the funeral prayer, then bury it. But some of the fallen had no family here. What would happen to their remains? Sharia forbade cremation.
Kadir jumped as the driver door opened and Mahmoud slipped behind the wheel.
“You look terrible,” he said in Arabic. “Don’t get sick. You are already in enough trouble.”
He needed no reminder that this was the car that ferried Sheikh Omar around. Nor that he was in trouble.
But it wasn’t fair.
Yesterday he had had to suffer the wrath of Sheikh Omar alone. Reggie wasn’t a Muslim and hadn’t been available anyway. The man from Qatar was not a member of the congregation. And Mahmoud … Mahmoud had simply driven the man from Qatar to the ambush site.
Sheikh Omar had no one else upon whom to vent his rage, and so Kadir had borne the brunt of it. Kadir had had nothing to do with the renting of the truck, and had not driven it at all, yet somehow he was at fault because a bomb had been attached to it.
That same attitude seemed to prevail at the mosque and the refugee center. His fellow Muslims looked at him strangely, as if he somehow could have prevented the deaths of their friends, or at the very least have had the decency to be martyred along with them.
“Didn’t that turn your stomach?”
Mahmoud shrugged. “I saw much worse in Afghanistan.”
Mahmoud had been combat trained in Peshawar and served among the mujahideen against the Russians during the war. He never let anyone forget it.
“Besides,” he added, “they’re with their eternally virginal houris.”
Sheikh Omar had declared all of those killed yesterday as martyrs to jihad, thus assuring them of a heavenly reward. The blind cleric loved to quote the Tafsir of Al-Suyuti. Kadir had heard it so many times he knew it by heart.