Cold City (Repairman Jack - the Early Years Trilogy) (27 page)

Jack nodded to Lou and said, “To be continued,” then grabbed his beer and joined Bertel.

“Why the fuck didn’t you call before tonight?” Bertel said as they seated themselves.

Jack bit back a fuck-off retort and said, “I’m glad you’re okay too.  You had me worried there for a while.”

Bertel stared at him a moment, then leaned back.  “Sorry.  Been a shitty day.  And knowing you – which hasn’t been very long, but long enough – you probably had a good reason for staying incommunicado.”

Jack nodded. “Twenty-eight of them.”

Julio swung by then, dropped off a pint of Rock for Bertel, and sailed away without a word.

“Maybe I don’t want a beer,” Bertel said to his retreating back.

Without looking around, Julio raised a single-digit salute over his shoulder.

“You don’t want it,” Jack said, “I’ll see it doesn’t go to waste.”

“Nah, that’s okay.  Just felt like something stronger is all.”

“He’ll be back.  Where do you want me to start?”

“When you reached the Lonely Pine is as good a place as any.”

“All right.  I got there and no Tony, so I–”

“ ‘No Tony,’” Bertel said, closing his eyes.  He took a shuddering breath.  “Ain’t that the truth.”

Jack went cold.  He’d suspected, but he’d kept hoping…

“Aw, no.  What?”

“They killed him.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s involved.  He called me Wednesday morning to tell me about the raid.  Said he was going to pick you up and get you away from the motel in case it had been compromised.  Called later and said he had you stashed at a place on the Outer Banks and was sending you home empty in the morning.  Last I ever heard from him.  I knew the place he meant – smugglers use it a lot–”

“Smuggling what?”

“Everything from drugs and guns to handbags and hooch.  You name it.  Why?”

Did Bertel know about the girls?  If he did, so help him –

He forced calm.  He’d get to that.  “What about Tony?”

“Early this morning I headed down there.  Found it crawling with cops.”

“Cops?”  So, Deacon Blue had made the call as promised. 

“Yeah.  So I drove on and contacted a guy I’ve got on the tab in the NC State Police.”

“You own a state cop?”

“I don’t
own
him – I just contribute to his retirement fund to keep him looking the other way.”

“And he didn’t warn you about the raid?”

“The tip went to ATF.  He was off duty when the feds informed the staties that they were raiding.  But here’s what he told me: They found a body inside they identified as Tony Zahler.”

“Zahler?”

“That’s our Tony.  That was his real name.  He’d given me a phony last name when he joined up but I traced him.  He’d been double-tapped in the head.  Brains all over the wall.”

Jack felt his jaw muscles bunch.  Tim… that bastard.

“Shit.”

“Found another guy half buried in a dune nearby, skull stove in.  Know anything about that?”

Jack shook his head.  None of Bertel’s business.

Bertel leaned forward, face tight, expression tense.  “But what I want to know is why Tony’s dead down there and you’re alive and well up here?”

Jack gave him a quick rundown, involving only minor details about Blue and Black – he implied that they never took off their masks – and leaving out the thirty thousand they’d left him.  Bertel might get the idea he deserved a piece of that.  He didn’t.

Bertel gave his head a baffled shake.  “No idea who these two crazies were?”

“Never saw them before, hope never to see them again.”

“Well, I’m glad for the little girls.  I just hope those crazies were dealing straight with you.”

“I don’t think I’d be sitting here if they weren’t.”

“Yeah, good point.  What gets me is none of this would have happened if some lousy snitch hadn’t dropped a dime on my operation.  You been talking to anyone you shouldn’t?”

Jack gave him a look.  “Think about what you just said.  How can I talk when I don’t know what
town
your warehouse was in, let alone the street address?”

Bertel was reaching into the pocket of his jacket.  “Yeah, well, be that as it may, I want you to listen to the bitch who called in the tip.”

“Where’d you get–?  Oh, right.  Your guy inside.”

“He managed to get a copy from ATF.”

He pulled out a battered Walkman cassette player and hit a button.  A woman’s voice with a heavy Southern drawl talked about a warehouse she knew of that was being used for all sorts of smuggling – drugs and guns, for sure – and how they’d better get on it and shut it down or she was going straight to the
News and Observer
.  She was hard to hear at times over the dog barking in the background.  She hung up without giving her name.

Jack almost laughed.  “Trust me, I don’t know anyone who sounds even remotely like that.  Tony mentioned someone named Billy as a possible leak.”

Bertel nodded.  “Yeah.  Billie’s a good possibility.”  He pounded the table once with his fist.  “Damn!  Tony’d still be alive if he’d just kept his mouth shut.”

Well, that was true.  Tony also would still be alive if he hadn’t gotten fancy and simply let Jack drive back north with an empty truck.  And he’d be alive if they’d gotten up Thursday morning, eaten lunch, and just kept on driving.

Jack hesitated, then decided what the hell.  “How well did you know Tony?”

“How well do you know anyone in this business?”

“He gave you a phony name.”

Bertel shrugged.  “So what?  Just a layer of protection. You should talk, Jack
Moore
.”

Uh-oh.  Had he found Jack’s real name?

“But I don’t care about your real name.  You came with a good recommendation.”

“Me?”

“Abe said you could be trusted.  Good enough for me.”

Abe’s word seemed to carry a lot of weight with people.  The brothers, and now Bertel.

“You trust Abe?”

Bertel stared at him.  “Abe is not a frivolous man.  Anyone who has dealt with him knows that.  His word is gold.”

Dealt with him how?  He sold sporting goods.  Or was he something more?  Was he a banker to shady enterprises?

“Did Abe vouch for Tony?”

“Naw.  Never heard of Tony, I’m sure.  No, Tony bought his way in, so–”

“Wait-wait. 
Bought?
”

“He came to me about six months ago and connected me to a guy in Detroit.  He wanted a piece of that business in return.  He wasn’t asking anything unreasonable, so I brought him in.  He worked the Detroit shipments, made sure they went out on time.  Did a good job so I put him on running the Mummy’s flow as well.”  He shook his head.  “Good man.  Why all these questions about Tony?”

Jack told him the Hasid story.

Bertel’s expression could have been carved from stone, but his eyes carried a strange mixture of disbelief tinged with alarm.  Yet when Jack finished he brayed a laugh and pointed to Jack’s empty pint glass. 

“How many of those did you have Monday night?”

“Not that many.”

Bertel hadn’t touched his so Jack hoisted it and sipped. 

“How many Orthodox guys would have the same scraggly beard–”

“Plenty.”

“–which, by the next time I saw him, he’d shaved off, as if he didn’t need it anymore.  Add to that his big bright smile and you’ve got Tony playing dress-up.”

Bertel shook his head.  “It just doesn’t make sense, Jack.”

“Well, not to me.  And he denied it when I asked him–”

“Well, there you go.”

“But he wasn’t completely convincing.  I was hoping you could shed some light.”

“Well, I can’t.  If it’s true, it’s disturbing – more than a little.  But I can’t see him getting involved in Arab-Israeli politics, especially an assassination.  He wasn’t the type.”

Jack had to agree.  Tony seemed to be a career criminal, but not violent.  But you never knew.  Whatever the facts, Tony was dead and gone, so Jack would most likely never know.  He didn’t like not knowing, but Bertel’s remark triggered another question.

“Speaking of Arabs, is your Mummy still alive?”

Bertel made a face.  “Is he ever.  Spent too long on the phone with him today listening to him complain about missed shipments.  Why?”

“When we met up with the slavers, they were all Arabs.  I’m sure I saw a couple of them in the Mummy’s warehouse.”

The Mummy’s Warehouse
… sounded like a movie he didn’t want to see: Kharis as a tanna leaf wholesaler.

Bertel shrugged.  “I’m not surprised.  Some of them are raising cash any way they can and they’re not squeamish about how.”

“What for?  Using sex slave money to build mosques?”

“I think some money is going back home to less savory groups.”

“The kind who like to blow up civilian shoppers in Tel Aviv?”

“Very likely.”

Well, Jack knew of three million of their cash that was going to be put to a different, better use.

“And you don’t mind being a part of that?”

Bertel bristled.  “Who says I’m a part of anything?  You saw –
think
you saw – some of my Arab’s minions.  That doesn’t mean they were working for him then.  Could all have been extracurricular.”

He had a point.

“Could be.”

Bertel looked away.  “Listen, I provide a service – at least I did until someone put the FUBAR on it.  I supplied a
number
of people and I will supply them again.  But I can’t help what one of them
might
do with his earnings.  If you take the money I pay you and go buy crack, am I responsible for increasing drug cartel profits?”

“Not quite the same as blowing up innocent people.”

“Don’t be so sure.  And why are you asking me about the Mummy anyway?”

The sudden switch to another subject wasn’t lost on Jack, but he let it go.  Bertel was on the defensive and pushing him would get nowhere.

“Because there was somebody in the limo before the brothers arrived and started shooting up the place.  Whoever he was, that was his last ride.”

“Well, it wasn’t my guy.  The Mummy’s alive and complaining.  I should be up and running again next week – on a reduced scale, of course – so be ready for a call.”

Jack shook his head.  “I don’t know…”

“What?  You’re not going to leave me high and dry, are you?  Kick me when I’m down?”

Sheesh.  “Nobody’s kicking you.  I’ve just… lost my taste for it.”

Bertel leaned forward.  “You’re putting me in a real bind, Jack.  Tony’s gone, and now you’re quitting – without giving notice?  Without time for me to find a replacement?  You think that’s fair?”

No, it probably wasn’t.  And Abe had vouched for him, so he owed him to play square with Bertel.  He didn’t really know what this Mummy guy was doing with the money.  Could be building mosques.

“All right,” Jack said.  “Consider this my notice: I’ll give you three more runs and then I’m out.”

Bertel nodded.  “Fair enough, I guess.  But if I can’t find a replacement by then–”

“Three and out.” 

Jack hoped his tone carried the finality he felt.  He wanted to put a period on this very brief chapter of his life.  He wasn’t going to do this anymore.

19

After Bertel left, Jack wandered back to the bar with the remnant of the second beer.  Lou and Barney were exactly where he’d left them.

“You didn’t make your friend happy while he was here,” Barney said.

“Maybe because I took his beer.”

Lou exhaled a cloud of smoke.  “He looked as unhappy going out as he did coming in.”

“Yeah, but for different reasons.”  Julio was back out on the floor, so Jack said, “You were saying about our friend?  Like, what’s eating him?”

“Well, first off,” Lou said, “he got word that Harry’s kid is putting his share of The Spot up for sale.”

Barney nodded.  “Between the recession and his late, great, fern-brained ay-hole father screwing around with dee-cor and serving shar-doe-nay, the place is runnin’ in the red.”

“But he’s gone.  Julio can change the place and–”

Lou was shaking his head. “The kid’s in Saudi Arabia and he put his mother in charge, and she’s worse than Harry.”

Saudi Arabia… Arabs seemed to keep popping up one way or another.

Barney added, “He don’t want the business.  He says if he don’t find a buyer by the end of the year, he’s closin’ the place down.”

“Can he do that?”

“Owning ninety percent, yeah, he can.”

“Well, that’s a great opportunity for Julio to buy that ninety percent.”

“Julio ain’t got no, whatyacallit, discretionary income.”

Jack wasn’t surprised and tossed his suspicions up for grabs. “Because of the protection he’s paying?”

Barney and Lou stared at him for a long moment. 

“Where’d you get that idea?” Barney said.

“I saw him pass an envelope to that mob type – I mean he was right out of central casting.”

They did their married couple thing.  Lou started.

“That’s Vinny Donuts–”

“–works for Tony Cannon–”

“–with the Gambinos–”

“–and it ain’t protection–”

“–it’s for a loan Harry had before he died–”

“–and if Julio don’t pay–”

“–the Cannon’s gonna sic Vinny on Harry’s wife–”

“–so Julio’s fronting the vigorish.”

Julio soared a bunch of notches in Jack’s estimation.

“So Julio’s got nothing to buy with,” Barney said.  “And if sonny boy do find a buyer, there’s gonna be lotsa changes made.  And it’s a damn good bet–”

“–I’d say it’s a
sure
bet, wouldn’t you?” Lou added.

“I won’t disagree, my friend.  It’s a
sure
bet the new owner’s gonna do a clean sweep.”

“Which means, anyhow you look at it, Julio’s out of a job by New Year’s Day.”

“Maybe sooner.” 

“But he’s part owner,” Jack said.

Barney shrugged.  “Yeah.  Which means he gets ten percent of the profits – ten percent of zilch.”

“But that’s just the background noise,” Lou said.

“The Muzak, you might say.”

“What’s really chewin’ on his ass–”

A phone began to ring behind the bar.  Barney waved to Julio but he’d heard it and was already on his way.  He ducked under the service counter and snatched a receiver from somewhere out of sight.