Rackets, p.24
Rackets, page 24
Jimmy crowded onto the cage. As the crew rattled down the side of the building, he stared out toward the World Trade Center. His father had been working on that project when he was born. He looked down and saw his father waiting for him outside the Teamster trailer. He thought about the time his father took them down to the observation deck and pointed out with pride the work he had helped on. Jimmy noticed a figure in dark clothes moving along the building behind his father. He took a second to recognize that the man was wearing a ski mask, and, by the time the oddity of this on a decent spring day registered, he saw the man raise his hand as if to point at his father. Jimmy started to scream, to call out his father’s name over the racket of the cage. His father seemed to sense something beyond hearing. He looked up and Jimmy saw the man’s hand jump and spark. He saw his father’s head move and his knees buckle and then he was on the ground and the man in the ski mask was standing over him and shooting lead into his body. Jimmy banged the cage with his fists as the other men started to realize what was happening, and all around him the men yelled, the cage still going down, as if it might make some difference.
Liam bounded down the last deck of stairs and turned to make his way to the street. He spotted Mike Dolan watching the cage on its way down, his face turned up to the face of the building. He saw a man come up behind Mike and raise his arm. He could not hear the shots, but he saw Mike go down. It took Liam a moment to realize what was happening. Then he started running toward Mike, and the man stopped firing, looked quickly side to side, then twisted around, pointing the gun at anyone who might make a move. Liam skidded to a stop and dropped to his knees. The man pointed the gun at him and Liam just held up his hands, as if to say, I’m not going to do anything. Then the shooter turned and started moving away, not running, but walking quickly. Liam stood and pulled the zipper on his gym bag open. He fumbled around the clothes, a half sandwich, a newspaper, and grabbed his pistol. He took off, running in the direction of the shooter, holding the gun by the side of his leg. When he turned the corner he saw the man getting into the back seat of a dark blue sedan. Liam yelled, “Hey,” and the man turned, raised his arm, and fired once.
Liam flinched as the bullet snapped and cracked the air above his head. He raised the pistol and paused. The driver, thin-faced and deathly pale, turned to look at him. The car was pulling away, but he thought the hell with it, and squeezed off three quick shots, shattering the back window of the sedan. The car accelerated and moved out of sight. Liam stood, holding the gun, the adrenaline thick in his blood. He looked at the gun in his hand and then at the people in the street, some ducking, some sprinting, others stuck, jaws agape, frozen and fearful in the moment.
He shoved the gun in his waistband, turned, and ran back for Jimmy.
When the cage landed, Jimmy pushed men aside and sprinted to his father’s prone body. Mike lay twisted like a kid in a midair leap. His eyes stared straight up without light in them. A pool of blood was widening around him. Jimmy dropped to his knees and lifted up his father’s head. He felt the softness of the shattered skull, and when he pulled his hand away there were bits of brain and thick, viscous blood on it. He rocked back and forth beyond all caring, the shock coming over him like paralysis. Hard hats stood and shook their heads in disbelief, trying not to stare.
Keefe flipped his secretary over and took her doggie style. He watched himself in the mirror as his stomach and chest muscles rippled. His triceps were looking good too. All that set work at the gym was certainly paying off. He made a note to get more creatine. He worked into a steady and vigorous rhythm, slapping his pelvis off her tight ass, enjoyed the sound of flesh against flesh, the little yelping noise she made when she was working up a good head of steam. Sweat started to trickle down his chest, he leaned back slightly so the light caught him differently, a slick sheen defining him even more. Lorene grabbed the sheets and moved back to meet him. He picked up his pace. It was like another workout, his third of the day, decent cardio. He felt a swelling, a ripple starting to roil through him up from his toes, and he pressed his hands against her ass, flexing his chest and arms, his lats. He thought he might like to videotape this. Then, with a shudder and a grunt, he was done.
He rolled off to the side and lay on his back. Lorene stayed face down. He listened to her breathing, rapid and hoarse. “Oh, God,” she muttered, and he took this to be high compliment. He held his fingers to his neck and felt his pulse come down to normal in less than a minute. Amazing. He slapped her on the ass. “That was fantastic, sweetie pie. Terr-if-ic.”
She was silent for a minute, her breathing coming down slowly. “Frankie, I want to get some business cards made up. You said I was getting a promotion.”
He chuckled. “That’s great. What are they gonna say? Lorene—fuck buddy of Frankie Keefe?”
“Very funny.” A note of hurt crept into her voice.
“I’m just teasing, honey, you oughta know that.”
“I want to have a kid.”
He yawned. Yeah, right. “That’s nice to hear.”
“Frankie, I’m thirty-two.”
He thought about that. She could barely keep up already. She had a nice figure but was lazy and would eventually go to seed. It might be time to put her on waivers, bring someone up from the farm system, fresh blood. But, nah, he was actually fond of her. She never complained to his face about anything and she still had some decent miles on her. He pulled the soiled, juice-laden prophylactic off his wilted cock and flipped it on the floor. She’d get it later.
“Listen, we’ll talk more about that another time. I gotta get the divorce first, all right?” he cooed. Like he might ever walk away from Magic’s sister. “I’m thinking of heading down to the islands for a week soon. Whaddya say? We’ll head to the Caymans, charter a sailboat. Watch the sunsets. Drink champagne, eat fish they catch right off of the boat. It’ll be beautiful, baby, just the two of us. Real class.”
“I get seasick.”
“Nah, you’ll love it. We’ll hire a masseuse, a top-notch chef, the whole nine.”
“What if I puke?”
“They got pills for that crap.”
“Maybe that would be nice.” She rolled on her back. Her tits stood straight, like traffic cones.
“Maybe? What are you, crazy? Jesus, I spoil you too much.” He held his arms above his head and stole glimpses at his biceps.
“Keep dreaming, Frankie. I’m spoil-proof.”
“I got to get going.”
“Running home to the warthog?”
Keefe looked down at her. Her unruly hair fell all about the pillow, her lips curled in a pout. He wished he had time for another go. “Nah. She’s out to some doo-wop show. I got a business meeting. I need a shower.”
Keefe walked into the shower, turned it on hot, and quickly scrubbed himself. He used an excessive amount of soap and worked it to a thick lather, spending extra time on his genitals. He hated to wait even a minute before cleaning himself after a shtupping. He did not like the idea of other people’s germs festering on his body. Little colonies of filthy microscopic creatures wreaking havoc. He imagined epic battles of the little fuckers cavorting up and down his body like it was some Civil War battlefield.
He toweled and then stood in front of the mirror and blew his hair dry. He opened his gym bag and took out a small jar of hair gel and worked it in meticulously, massaging his scalp, moving it back and forth, and finally slicking the hair down. He rinsed his hands. He replaced the hair gel and took out a jar of Oil of Olay from which he had removed the label. He did not want anyone at the gym to think he was some kind of fag. He squirted the pink stuff into his palm, rubbed his hands together, and worked it over his face, paying close attention to the skin around his eyes. He was fighting a running battle with crow’s-feet. He leaned for a closer look. Surgery? Nah, not yet. It was something he might consider. On the QT. He trimmed his nose hairs. Turned side to side to make sure there were no errant hairs popping out of his ears, like some freaking immigrant plumber. He poured talc on his chest. He buffed his nails, put his gold crucifix on.
“Turn on the TV. New York One. I want to hear the traffic.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” she called from the other room.
Your Highness, some kind of wiseass she was. Keep it up.
He dressed and went into the bathroom. He peed and was shaking his cock when he heard the squawk of a breaking news story. A murder downtown. Who cares, some mook probably deserved to die. No need for a special story. Then he heard the words Teamster and Dolan, and recognition hit him like a three iron between the eyes. He yanked up his zipper and caught the flesh of his penis in the metal teeth. “Yeeow!” Clammy, cold sweat, a wave of nausea. “God, oh God.” He forced himself to be calm. He leaned on the sink with one hand and clung to his zipper with the other. His hands trembled. “All right, all right,” he hissed. He tried to listen to the story, tried to take his mind off his cock, the pain. He gritted his teeth and yanked down on his zipper. A patch of skin came off. He yelped again and looked down at the rivulet of blood. His penis shriveled to a fraction of its normal size as if it were trying to crawl back into his body away from further assault. He muttered. “Oh mother of God, mamma mia, fucking eggs and bacon, oh shit shit shit, you dumb ass, oww oww oww. Fiddle fucking sticks.” He sat on the bowl. “Turn that up,” he barked. He patted his abused manhood with a bit of toilet paper, sopped up the blood. He heard a story of a shooter and a dead Mike Dolan. “Turn it all the way up!”
He stood and pulled open the medicine cabinet. He grabbed a bottle of alcohol and poured it on the wound. He screamed again. Grabbed the edge of the sink and stared at his face. It was bleached of all color, chalky and lifeless. Aged. Dead. Like he was laid out in a box in some mick funeral home. O’Connor’s or McManus’s. He wrapped a wad of tissue around his wound and hoisted his trousers, then staggered into the living room. “Try the other channels. Four, Two, Seven! All of them!” Nothing. Soaps, Jenny Jones, a spunky brunette hawking a douche, Muppets.
But he knew the significance. He knew how it looked. He stood by the end of the bed, his hair spiked up and crazed, his prick bloodied, and his world flipped on its ass. He whispered, “What the hell did I do to deserve this?”
“Oh, Frankie, you don’t look so hot.”
He shook his head. His cell phone chirped. His beeper started a rhumba across the dresser. This was all bad. He picked up the offending gadgets and slammed them both off the wall. Lorene jumped, pulled the blankets over her head. Frankie Keefe watched her cower. He beat his fist off his chest. “What? You think you got problems?”
Cronin made the stop at his safe-deposit box just before the bank closed. The assistant manager, a meticulous gay man of sixty, led him to the room that held his nest egg, his escape hatch, his copper parachute. Cronin bowed his head slightly, and the bank man receded graciously, a prim nod in return. Cronin flipped the lid and surveyed stacks of hundred-dollar bills. He took an envelope from his pocket and added it to the stack. He thumbed through it, reveled in the touch, fanned the bills, and breathed in the aroma of dirty money. He wanted enough to buy a nice little cantina, somewhere in the islands or overseas, some place it never dropped below fifty degrees Fahrenheit. A golf course nearby. He’d grill up fish for turistas, serve it with iced-down beer, tropical drinks. He knew the lay of the land well from his Marine days. After his tour in Nam he’d finished his time in Gitmo Bay, Puerto Rico, and Panama. There were plenty of places in the tropics where they were relaxed about a man’s past.
He closed the box, hefted it, and slid it back into its berth. The bank was an old granite-and-marble monument to financial rectitude. It was opened in 1886, and although the ownership had changed twice, it had always been a bank. He’d wager that some of the accounts here had been opened before he was born. This comforted him somehow. He might be safer in an offshore account, but something about the electronic age made him nervous. He needed to be able to heft his loot, to feel that it was real. He passed through the main room, where widows were lined up to sock away more savings for rainy days they’d never see. A retired cop sat watchful, a huge revolver on his belt. The bank man nodded as Cronin passed under the chandelier. The place was a sedate oasis, sealed off from the outside world—marble, bronze, heavy hardwoods, plush carpet. There weren’t many banks like this anymore.
His magic number was 250 large, the number he felt would buy his freedom. He was more than halfway there. He knew it was time to pick it up a bit, get a little reckless. He was putting the squeeze on dangerous turf. Word might get around. He was skimming here and there. His timetable was changed because of Marie. He checked his watch. It was time to pick her up.
He made good time to Westchester, and Marie was down the steps and at him as soon as he stepped from the car. He moved around the front of the Buick and opened the passenger door for her. She wore a leather jacket over a short red dress, strapped heels. Her hair was newly fashioned and he commented favorably on it. She looked, in the setting sun, to be younger than her fifty years. Her face was smooth and her eyes bright with anticipation. She was a knockout. He had purchased a new sport jacket for the evening, splashed on an expensive cologne named after a Norse god that she had said she liked.
This, ironically arranged by Keefe, was their first date of sorts. A night on the town. Most of the time it was furtive coupling that always left him depressed, with a kind of hangover from the excitement. He fought the urge to embrace her right there, lest a neighbor might spy them. He held the door for her.
“What a gentleman. Frankie hasn’t held a door for me since the honeymoon.”
He made his way around the car. When he sat he said, “Let’s make a deal. Just for tonight, he doesn’t exist, okay? He’s not your husband and he’s not my boss. We’ll have a nice time without him.”
She leaned over and rubbed the inside of his thigh. “Deal.”
She groped him as they drove. They stopped in a shorefront lobster house and dined on two-pounders fresh from the icy waters of the Labrador Current. He liked the way she tucked into a meal, did not pull that dainty eater crap so many women did. They shared a piece of Key lime pie and washed it all down with a bottle of crisp Chardonnay and a couple of cognacs.
He took an exit ramp off the LIE and presently came upon the Holiday Inn. The marquee declared it DOO-WOP & FIFTIES NIGHT. Cronin slipped a breath mint into his mouth and took Marie’s jacket as they came upon a coat-check girl who was anxious for the show to start so she might get back to the fright paperback splayed on the counter. The lobby swarmed with aging boppers. They tried to carry the extra pounds of middle age with aplomb, but for the most part failed. Flesh strained too tight skirts and bellies tested the limits of sport coat buttons. DAs and bouffants ruled the night.
Cronin placed his hand on the tight top of Marie’s ass and steered her to a prime table. He leaned over an Ecuadoran waiter and while slipping him a twenty said, “More where that came from, amigo.” He settled down over a scotch on the rocks. Marie sipped Campari and soda.
He felt stupid. Did he look like one of these fools? But the music put him back on the corners of his youth, the summer nights when all was possible and life would stretch forever. And this woman made him feel more alive than he could remember. Marie insisted they dance. He moved self-consciously at first, but she placed her head on his chest and pulled him close until she was his only focus, all else faded to background. There was just the music and the two of them. After a series of turns on the dance floor, they repaired to a table. She scooted her chair around till it was next to his. She draped her arms over his shoulders. Cronin, as was his habit, surveyed the room.
“I want to leave, Pete.”
“Now?” He looked around, surprised.
“No. I want to leave Frankie. I want the two of us to go far away. Anywhere you want, just the two of us. I can’t spend any more of my life in that house.”
“Yeah, baby, me too.” He leaned over and buried his face in Marie’s hair and let himself relax for the first time in months. He wanted to run away with her, to have a partner for his adventure.
It was on the way home that Cronin heard about Dolan. He had dropped off Marie and was heading south in a trance, excited. They had coupled with incredible heat in the car, right in Keefe’s driveway, like kids high on the promise of escape. Near Yonkers he turned on 1010 WINS to hear the traffic report and was crossing into the upper reaches of the Bronx when the announcer related Dolan’s killing. Teamster Shot Union Square No Suspects. Nothing between the lines. Cronin wondered what it might announce. What the hell could have happened? Did Keefe do it? He could not believe that he would defy Magic on such an audacious scale. The guy talked a big game but rarely had he taken any action that was not ordained by his brother-in-law.
Traffic on the FDR brought him to a standstill. He had an impulse to turn the car around and pick her up now, grab his kitty, and head south pronto. But no, it was too soon. An hour later he pulled into the parking garage on Nineteenth Street. He drove to his spot and saw that someone was parked there. Damnit. He had complained to the attendant a couple of days before. This was the third time in two weeks the same car, a sparkling new Lexus, was in his place. He parked next to it in someone else’s spot. He was tempted to punch out a window or pop a tire on the offending vehicle. He heard footsteps, a couple passed. The man wore a dark, tailored topcoat, the woman was blond, furred, and drunk to the point of collapse. He half carried her head on his shoulder, half supported her with an arm around the waist. Cronin waited for them to pass, wondering how they had driven in such condition.
