Quick Fixes: Tales of Repairman Jack (6 page)

*

Jack had arrived at Tram’s with a couple of dirty shirts at about 3:30. Dressed in jeans, an Army fatigue jacket, and a baseball cap pulled low on his forehead, he now sat in one of the three chairs and read the
Post
while Tram ran the shirts through the machine. It was a tiny hole in the wall shop that probably cost the little man most of his good leg in rent. A one man operation except for some after school counter help which Tram always sent on an errand when a pick up or delivery was due.

Jack watched the customers, a motley group of mostly lower middle class downtowners, flow in and out. Aldo D’Amico and his bodyguard were instantly identifiable by their expensive top coats when they arrived at 4:00 on the button. Aldo’s was dark gray with a black felt collar, a style Jack hadn’t seen since the Beatles’ heyday. He was mid forties with a winter tan and wavy blow dried hair receding on both sides. Jack knew he had to be Aldo because the other guy was a side of beef and was carrying a wad of dirty laundry.

Jack noticed the second guy giving him a close inspection. He might as well have had
BODYGUARD
stenciled on his back. Jack glanced up, gave the two of them a disinterested up and down, then went back to the sports page.

“
Got something for me, gook?” Aldo said, grinning like a shark as he slapped the knuckles of his right fist into his left palm.

Jack sighed. He knew the type. Most tough guys he knew wouldn’t hesitate to hurt somebody, even ice them if necessary, but to them it was like driving a car through downtown traffic in the rain: You didn’t particularly like it but you did it because you had to get someplace; and if you had the means, you preferred to have somebody else do it for you.

Not this Aldo. Jack could tell that mixing it up was some kind of fix for him.

Maybe that could be turned around. Jack didn’t have a real plan here. His car was parked outside. He intended to pick up Aldo and follow him around, follow him home if he could. He’d do that for a couple of days. Eventually, he’d get an idea of how to stick him. Then he’d have to find a way to work that idea to Tram’s benefit. This was going to be long, drawn out, and touchy.

At the counter, Tram sullenly placed a brown paper wrapped bundle on the counter. The bodyguard picked it up and plopped the dirty laundry down in its place. Tram ignored it.

“
Please, Mr. Aldo,” he said. “Will not do this any more.”

“
Boy, you’re one stupid gook, y’know that?” He turned to his bodyguard. “Joey, take the customer for a walk while I discuss business with our Vietnamese friend here.”

Jack felt a tap on his shoulder and looked up from his paper into Joey’s surprisingly mild eyes.

“
C’mon. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“
I got shirts coming,” Jack said.

“
They’ll wait. My friend wants a little private talk with the owner.”

Jack wasn’t sure how to play this. He wasn’t prepared for any rough and tumble here, but he didn’t want to leave Tram to Aldo’s tender mercies again.

“
Then let him talk in the back. I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Joey grabbed him under the arm and pulled him out of the chair. “Yeah. You are.”

Jack came out of the chair quickly and knocked Joe’s arm away.

“
Hands off, man!”

He decided that the only way to get out of this scene on his terms was to pull a psycho number. He looked at Joey’s beefy frame and heavy overcoat and knew attacking his body would be a waste of time. That left his face.

“
Just stay away!” Jack shouted. “I don’t like people touching me. Makes me mad!
Real
mad!”

Joey dropped the brown paper bundle onto a chair. “All right. Enough of this shit.” He stepped in close, gripped Jack’s shoulders, and tried to turn him around.

Jack reached up between Joey’s arms, grabbed his ears, and yanked the bodyguard’s head forward. As he lowered his head and butted, he had a fleeting glimpse of the sick look on Joey’s startled face. He hadn’t been expecting anything like this, but he knew what was coming.

When Jack heard Joey’s nose crunch against the top of his skull, he pushed him away and kicked him hard in the balls. Joey dropped to his knees and groaned. His bloody face was slack with pain and nausea.

Jack next leapt on Aldo who was gaping at him with a stunned expression.

“
You want some of me, too?” he shouted.

Aldo’s overcoat was unbuttoned and he was leaner than Joe. Jack went for the breadbasket: right left combination jabs to the solar plexus, then a knee to the face when he doubled over. Aldo went down in a heap.

But it wasn’t over. Joey was reaching a hand into his overcoat pocket. Jack jumped on him and wrestled a short barreled Cobra .357 revolver away from him.

“
A gun? You pulled a fucking
gun
on me, man?” He slammed the barrel and trigger guard across the side of Joey’s head. “
Shit
that makes me mad!”

Then he spun and pointed the pistol at the tip of Aldo’s swelling nose.

“
You!” he screamed. “You started this! You didn’t want me to get my shirts! Well, you can have them! They’re old anyway! I’ll take
yours!
All of them!”

He grabbed the bundle of dirty shirts from the counter and then went for the brown paper package on the chair.

“
Jesus, no!” Aldo said. “No! You don’t know what–”

Jack leapt on him and began pistol whipping him, screaming, “Don’t tell me what I don’t know!”

As Aldo covered his head with his arms, Jack glanced at Tram motioned him over. Tram got the idea. He came out from behind the counter and shoved Jack away, but not before Jack had managed to open Aldo’s scalp in a couple of places.

“
You get out!” Tram cried. “Get out or I call police!”

“
Yeah, I’ll get out, but not before I put a couple of holes in this rich pig here!”

Tram stood between him and Aldo. “No! You go! You cause enough trouble!”

Jack made a disgusted noise and ran out with both bundles. Outside he found an empty Mercedes 350 SEL idling at the curb by a fire hydrant.
Why not?

As he gunned the heavy car toward Canal Street, he wondered at his screaming psycho performance. Pretty convincing. And easy, too. He’d hardly stretched at all to take the part and really get into in.

That bothered him a little.

*

“
Fifty thousand in small bills,” Abe said after he’d finished counting the money that had been wrapped inside the dirty laundry. He had it spread out in neat piles on a crate in the basement of his store. “If I were you, I shouldn’t complain. Not so bad for an afternoon’s work.”

“
Yeah. But it’s the ten keys of cocaine and the thirty of Cambodian brown.” The wrapped package had housed some of the heroin. The cocaine and the rest of the heroin had been in a duffel bag in the trunk. “What am I going to do with
that?
”

“
There’s a storm drain outside. Next time it rains...”

Jack thought about that. The heroin would definitely go down the drain. Any alligators or crocs living down in the sewers would be stoned for life. But the cocaine...that might come in handy in the future, just like the bogus twenties had come in handy against Cirlot.

Cirlot.
Something about him was perking in the back of Jack’s mind.

“
I’ve always wanted a Mercedes,” Abe said.

“
What for? You haven’t been further east than Queens and further west than Columbus Avenue in a quarter century.”

“
Someday I might like maybe to travel. See New Jersey.”

“
Yeah. Well, that’s not a bad idea. No doubt about it, the best way to see New Jersey is from the inside of a Mercedes. But it’s too late. I gave the car to Julio to dispose of.”

Abe sagged. “Chop shop?”

Jack nodded. “He’s going to shop it around for quick cash. Figures another ten grand, minimum, maybe twenty.”

A take of sixty seventy K so far from one visit to Tram’s laundry. Which meant that Jack would be returning Tram’s down payment and giving him a free ride on this job. Which was fine for Tram’s bank account, but Jack didn’t know what his next step was. He’d shaken things up down there. Now maybe it would be best to sit back and watch what fell out of the trees.

He headed for Gia’s. He kept to the windy shadows as he walked along, kept looking over his shoulder. Cirlot had seemed to know where he was going, and when he’d be there. Was he watching him now?

Jack didn’t like being on this end of the game.

But how did Cirlot know? That was what ate at him. Jack knew his apartment wasn’t bugged – the place was like a fortress. Besides, Cirlot didn’t know where he lived. And even if he did, he couldn’t get inside to place a bug. Yet he seemed to know Jack’s moves. How, dammit?

Jack made a full circuit of Gia’s block and cut through an alley before he felt it was safe to enter her apartment house.

Two fish eye peepholes nippled Gia’s door. Jack had installed them himself. One was the usual height, and one was Vicky height. He knocked and stood there, pressing his thumb over the lower peephole as he waited.

“
Jack, is that you?” said a child’s voice from the other side.

He pulled his thumb away and grinned into the convex glass.

“
Ta daaa!”

The deadbolt slid back, the door swung inward, and suddenly he was holding a bony seven-year-old girl in his arms. She had long dark hair, blue eyes, and a blinding smile.

“
Jack! Whatcha bring me?”

He pointed to the breast pocket of his fatigue jacket. Vicky reached inside and pulled out a packet of bubblegum cards.

“
Football cards! Neat! You think there’s any Jets in this one?”

“
Only one way to find out.”

He carried her inside and put her down. He locked the door behind them as she fumbled with the wrapper.

“
Jack!” she said, her voiced hushed with wonder. “They’re all Jets!
All
Jets! Oh, this is
so
neat!”

Gia stepped into the living room. “The only eight-year old in New York who says ‘neat.’ Wonder where she got that from?”

She kissed him lightly and he slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close to him. She shared her daughter’s blue eyes and bright smile, but her hair was blonde. She brightened up the whole room for Jack.

“
I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I think it’s pretty neat to get five –
five
– members of your favorite team in a single pack of bubblegum. I don’t know anybody else who’s got that kind of luck.”

Jack had gone through a dozen packs of cards before coming up with those five Jets, then he had slipped them into a single wrapper and glued the flaps back in place. Vicky had developed a thing for the Jets, simply because she liked their green and white jerseys – which was as good a reason as any to be a Jets fan.

“
Start dinner yet?” he asked.

Gia shook her head. “Just getting ready to. Why?”

“
Have to take a raincheck. I’ve got a few things I’ve got to do tonight.”

She frowned. “Nothing dangerous, I hope.”

“
Nah.”

“
That’s what you always say.”

“
Well, sure. I mean, after surviving the blue meanies last year, everything else is a piece of cake.”

“
Don’t mention those things!” Gia shuddered and hugged him. “Promise you’ll call me when you’re back home?”

“
Yes, mother.”

“
I’m serious. I worry about you.”

“
You just made my day.”

She broke away and picked up a slim cardboard box from the couch. “Land’s End” was written across one end.

“
Your order arrived today.”

“
Neat.” He pulled out a bright red jacket with navy blue lining. He pulled off the fatigue jacket and tried it on. “Perfect. How do I look?”

“
Like every third person in Manhattan,” Gia said.

“
Great!”

“
All you need is a Hard Rock Cafe sweat shirt and the picture will be complete.”

Jack worked at being ordinary, at being indistinguishable from everybody else, just another face in the crowd. To do that, he had to keep up with what the crowd was wearing. Since he didn’t have a charge card, Gia had ordered the jacket for him on hers.

“
I’d better turn off the oven,” Gia said.

“
I’ll treat tomorrow night. Chinese. For sure.”

“
Sure,” she said. “I’ll believe it when I smell it.”

Jack stood there in the tiny living room, watching Vicky spread out her football cards, listening to Gia move about the kitchen over the drone of
Eyewitness News
, drinking in the rustle and bustle and noises and silences of a
home
. The domestic feel of this tiny apartment – he wanted it. But it seemed so out of reach. He could come and visit and warm himself by the fire, but he couldn’t stay. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t gather it up and take it with him.