The Equalizer (8 page)

McCall liked the aroma of the place. It reminded him of a bazaar he'd visited once in Tangier. All that was missing was the scent of the fruit. Of course, someone had been trying to kill him in that bazaar, which left the sense memory somewhat lacking in warmth. He walked over to one glass case in which there were twenty handguns, most of them Remingtons, some Colts, all of them pre-1900. There was one particular Colt Revolver that interested him. It was a Model P Peacemaker, Single-Action Cavalry Standard with a 7
½
-inch barrel, also known as the Frontier Six-Shooter. It had a revolving cylinder holding six bullets. It was the 1873 model, but it had been adapted in 1877 to take 44-40 Winchester caliber cartridges instead of Colt 45 bullets so as to be cross-compatible with the Winchester Model 73 rifle. Acid-etched on the barrel on the left side was
Colt Frontier Six-Shooter
. Moses had assured him it was in mint condition. It was also a tad over $2000, a little out of McCall's price range for a decorative item. But he came to visit the gun in its glass case on occasion.

Old Moses shuffled over to him. He moved with obvious pain. He had tarnished baseball trophies on his cluttered desk at the back of the store, but it was hard to think of him as a young man hustling for fly balls in the outfield and sliding into second with a stolen base. It was arthritis, he had told McCall, which had traveled down the sciatic nerve in both legs. But he never complained about it. His fingers had been spared the disease, which was a good thing, because he did very delicate work with them. Old Moses was more than just an antiques dealer. Your family heirloom clock stopped? He'd fix it. Your cuckoo clock would not make a peep? It cuckooed heartily once Moses had finished with it. Your watch stopped and it
wasn't
the battery and you didn't want to take it to Goldberg's Jewellers on the corner because it cost you the price of a new watch to have it fixed? Moses would fix it for five bucks. He always looked the same, because McCall had never seen him dressed any differently. He wore dark jeans, penny loafers with no socks, a white shirt with a brown cardigan over it that had seen better days. It was hard to tell how old he was. Probably north of seventy, but he could have been older. McCall always found his voice somehow soothing.

“You look, Mr. McCall, but you never ask me to take the Peacemaker out of the case and show it to you.”

“When the time is right,” McCall said.

“You have handled many guns in your career.”

It was a statement, although McCall had never talked to the old man about his former profession.

“This is a beauty to have and admire, but never to fire,” Moses said. “Although I can supply you with a box of ammunition for it.” He wasn't giving up. “You want me to take it out of the display case? Feel the weight of it in your hand?”

“Not today, Moses.”

A bell tinkled from within the bowels of the store. McCall knew it was a back entrance to the place. It was not normally open to the public.

“Excuse me,” Moses said, and shuffled back to where the store was gloomier, most of the lights on the various lamps there extinguished, except for the modern black enamel lamp on Moses's desk. There was an alcove behind the desk, which led to the back door and a storage room. Moses disappeared.

McCall walked over to one of the shelves of clocks-of-the-world, still relaxed, but his awareness of tension had kicked in. There had been nothing in Moses's two words—“Excuse me”—to indicate anything out of the ordinary. No hint of concern or apprehension. But it had been the shift of focus in the old man's eyes. A weariness that had come over them, however momentary. He was an old Jewish man who lived surrounded by other people's pasts, and the Jews had suffered a lot over a couple of thousand years, and he knew this was not going to change. It was the way of the world.

McCall could hear soft voices in the alcove, but he could not see anyone from the shelves of clocks. He strolled over to an old-fashioned rolltop desk, the kind you see Santa Claus sitting behind in his North Pole workshop on Christmas cards. McCall looked at the price tag. Santa would have to be
selling
toys to afford it.

From this vantage point, McCall could look into a large, ornate mirror with gilt trim that had angels playing harps on the top of it. In reflection, he saw Moses talking to two young men. They had been at Luigi's the night before, in that alcove, drinking Pinot Grigio, laughing with their pals and having a grand old time. They were dressed in sharp business suits, red ties, black shoes that gleamed with polish. One of them sported an ostentatious gold watch chain. Their voices were never raised above a low murmur, although Moses appeared to be getting a little agitated with them.

McCall took one step to the left. Now, in the gilt mirror, he could see the man who'd caught his attention in the alcove at the Italian restaurant the night before. He could see he was of medium height, slim, with the coiled tightness of an athlete. He was dressed in a gray pinstriped suit with a red-and-gold tie and a red kerchief neatly folded in his breast pocket. He was looking through the alcove into the main part of the antiques store.

He was looking at McCall.

McCall did not give a flicker of interest or awareness. He moved again, to a Colonial rocking chair, checking the price, giving the chair a gentle rock. He glanced sideways at the mirror. In it, he could see that the man had lost interest in him. Old Moses shuffled over to his desk, opened the top drawer, took out a white envelope, and handed it to one of the young turks. They looked Russian to McCall, but not quite—Chechen, perhaps. More volatile, more deadly. The young Chechen put the envelope into the inside pocket of his coat and shook Moses's hand deferentially. Then he and his young partner walked to the back door. As they opened it the bell tinkled politely again. The older man hesitated a moment, looking into the antiques store, then nodded at Moses and walked out, closing the door behind him.

When Moses came back, McCall was sitting in the rocking chair, gently rocking back and forth.

“You're paying them protection,” he said.

“Of course. They protect me from bad men. They are bad men themselves. But no young punks off the street will try to rob me. No homeless man or woman sleeps in my doorway. Not that I would really mind. I walk home at night and back to the store in the morning without fear of being attacked.” He shrugged. “It is the price you pay for doing business in this neighborhood.”

“You're not the only store owner they visit?”

“Oh, no. They are very thorough.”

“Do they extort money from Luigi's?”

“No, they like Luigi. They leave him alone. But the other restaurants, they pay for a good night's sleep.”

“How much do you pay them?”

“Nothing that will send me into bankruptcy. I need the protection.”

“I could offer you that.”

“Why should you? I am an old man you chat with, perhaps wonder about, who is he, where did he come from, what's the story of his life? But you don't ask. Because it does not matter. You have your own business to conduct, whatever that is. I have mine.”

“Have you called the police?”

Moses shrugged. “I call the police, perhaps they go and find these men and say something to them. Perhaps these men leave me alone. Then I pay the police.”

“Most cops don't take graft.”

“It does not matter who is my protector. I pay one group, or the other. It gives me peace of mind. It is the way it is.”

“It shouldn't be.”

Moses smiled. “I shouldn't be ending my days in a musty antiques store, watching people look and touch, but not buy. I should be able to run home and back to the store. I once batted .368 in the Appalachian League, the Greeneville Astros, in Tennessee.
Tennessee
of all places! Can you believe that? With seventeen triples that season. Even Mickey Mantle never had seventeen triples in a season! Now I take a walk around the block once in the morning, once in the afternoon, so I don't end up in a wheelchair. I kiss my wife when I get home and she cooks the greatest kasha for me. You know what kasha is?”

“Buckwheat grouts cooked in water, like rice, mixed with oil, fried onions, and mushrooms. Kasha varnishtas is good, too.”

“Yes, my wife makes the farfalle with a touch of ginger. Luigi should eat his heart out. Do not worry about me, Mr. McCall. Life is good.”

“It could be better.”

He shrugged. “Always.” The old man put a gentle hand on McCall's arm. “Be at peace with yourself.”

Easier said than done,
McCall thought.

He glanced at his watch.

“I've got to get to work.”

He walked to the front door, opened it, turned back.

“If I wanted to find those men, where would I go?”

Moses shrugged. “I do not leave the store. I wouldn't know.”

“You know.”

The old man shrugged again.

“Always so good to see you, Mr. McCall.”

McCall nodded and closed out the past behind him.

*   *   *

It was a good lunchtime crowd. McCall was behind the bar, mixing drinks with deft hands as fast as the servers put down their chits. But then, Bentleys Bar & Grill was
always
packed. It had long windows looking out on West Broadway with the name
BENTLEYS
inscribed on them in flowing gold script. The booths were dark red leather with black trim, lots of tables, Tiffany lamps on counters, the whole place oozing warmth and camaraderie. Most of the crowd was young, from the financial district, lots of stockbrokers, paralegals, attorneys, bankers, and a good smattering of tourists. McCall knew Bentleys paid no protection. The owner, Harvey, was a close friend of the mayor of New York. Not worth the trouble to extort money from. Small business owners were the neighborhood ticket.

The long mahogany bar went along the back wall, glasses hanging from the racks above, bottles in niches and in wells beside the sinks. Two bartenders worked it, one of them serving the patrons who sat at the bar or who couldn't wait for one of the servers to find their table, the other just mixing the server's orders. Right now, that was McCall. But he made an exception for the blond, curvaceous young woman who now eased her way between two occupied stools and gave him a big smile. The two men sitting at the stools didn't seem to mind. In fact, they'd died and gone to Heaven.

McCall knew her name was Karen Armstrong because he'd asked for her ID when she'd first come in months before, right after Thanksgiving, with her friends. She looked borderline twenty-one, but the license had assured him she had been twenty-two on February 19 that prior year. She was wearing a blue blouse, unbuttoned to show enough cleavage just short of arrest, a gray miniskirt, black shoes with one-inch heels. He hadn't been able to place her perfume, but it was something from Dior.

Elena Petrov had worn the same perfume.

“I can't find my server, Bobby,” she said, apologetically.

All his life he had been called Robert, never Bob and certainly never
Bobby
. But he was living a different life here, in a new identity. As far as anyone at the restaurant knew, his name was Robert Maclain. He let the people he liked in the neighborhood—Luigi, Moses, the Asian grocery store owners—know his real name was McCall. But his credit cards, the passport he was currently carrying, his Shell card, his New York library card, said
Robert Maclain,
and everyone in Bentleys, from Harvey, to the other bartenders, to the servers, to the patrons, all called him Bobby.

It was a small sacrifice.

“What'll it be, Karen?”

“Screwdriver, Rusty Nail, two Greyhounds, and a Sex-on-the-Beach. I wonder why we all order in
code
?”

And she laughed. It was a throaty, sexy laugh that had all of the connotations of
real
sex on the beach.

“Keeps the bartenders on their toes,” he said, and started mixing the various drinks.

“Where did you work before Bentleys?” she asked.

“Midtown. Before that, I was in Boston.” The first part was a lie, the second part was true. “Spent some time at a Home Depot there.”

“Get out! Stacking shelves and selling paint?”

“Sure.”

He already had her two Greyhounds and a Screwdriver on a tray. He grabbed the various bottles, using a measure, filling up the shot glasses, going to work on the Rusty Nail and the Sex-on-the-Beach.

“There's something about you,” she said. “You haven't been a bartender or a Home Depot guy all your life. What did you do before?”

“I was a spy. For a shadowy, covert organization. The kind who sent out unauthorized black ops missions that the Justice Department denied all knowledge of.”

Her raucous laugh again. He
loved
that laugh!

“Right, and if you decided not to take the job, the little tape self-destructed on the tape recorder in the package you'd picked up in a desolate phone booth. I see you more as a pool hustler. Like Paul Newman in that movie. Hustling marks in small towns in the Midwest, getting into fights, riding the rails, breaking women's hearts.”

“That sounds about right. Here you go.”

He put the last two drinks onto a tray and handed it to her.

“Running a card?”

“Yes, please.”

He took her credit card, put it into a slot with others beside the cash register. She took the tray from the bar, guiding it carefully through the tables toward a booth at one of the windows. She had four coworkers, all young women, waiting for her. McCall had seen all of them before. The “Karen Mafia” he liked to call them. They were passionate and full of life. He envied them.

And, once again, he missed something he would not have missed nine months before.

 

CHAPTER 7

A customer at the bar McCall had never seen before was grinning at him. He was sipping a Corona and working his way through a hamburger with mushrooms, fried onions, and actual garlic (a house speciality) and fries. He was probably in his late twenties, a little heavy, like an athlete who'd stopped running or going to the gym as often as he should. He had a round face, hazel eyes, and a whiff of Cerruti Image cologne strong enough to knock out a lavatory attendant. He looked like the guy in the cell phone commercials whose phone never worked fast enough or in the right places.