Jerzy’s shrugged, smile fading, and he sipped his coffee. It was the closest he ever came to apology. The foot traffic going past the café was pretty light for the garment district, but it was still early in the afternoon. Come five o’clock, the overflow from Times Square would fill things up a little more. Joey wanted to be out before then.
“You got the coroner’s reports?”
“Nah,” Jerzy said. “I don’t make copies. What you want to know, I’ll tell you. I got a photographic memory.”
Joey looked around. The whole place was the size of a school bus-the short kind for the dumb kids. The guy behind the counter looked archly back it him. An old lady in a puffy blue ski jacket was sitting right up against the window and muttering to herself. Other than that they were alone.
Joey leaned forward.
“Okay,” he said. “So I’m hearing there’s something about the way they got offed? Something about aces?”
“Everybody’s buying up aces. Mafia, Shadow Fist. Everyone,” Jerzy said. He wasn’t so stupid, thank God, that he didn’t know to keep his voice down.
“Okay, but it’s not like the ones the Mafia hired are gonna queer a Mafia deal, right?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Jerzy said, waggling a bushy eyebrow. “Thing is, a couple of the guys that died? They shouldn’t have. It’s like they were hurt, but not so bad they woulda died. You see what I’m getting at?”
Joey scowled and shook his head. Talking to Jerzy was about as much fun as talking to Lapierre.
“People hiring aces?” Jerzy said, his hand moving in a little circular come-along motion. “Guys dead for no reason?”
“Hey Jerzy. How about you fucking tell me?”
The woman in the ski jacket glanced at them, scowling.
“Shouldn’t yell,” Jerzy said. “We’re in public.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s the wrists thing. Pain makes me jumpy.”
“Demise,” Jerzy said and sighed. “Find whoever hired Demise, you’ll find the shit.”
“Demise,” Joey said, nodding. “Great. And, ah, what about the percidan?”
“I can hook you up next week. You got enough darvon to hold you ’til then?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What? What is this with the long face?”
“It’s just the darvon pills are all pink,” Joey confided. “They make me look like a faggot, you know?”
Randy McHaley lived in a basement apartment with six other jokers. Two of them were there with him when Demise and Phan Lo got there. They were happy, though, to give the three of them a little privacy.
The place looked like the worst of the 1960s left to rot for a couple decades. Beaded strands substituted for doors, old psychedelic posters of the Lizard King yellowed and cracked on the grimy wall. Sandalwood incense mixed with something close to wet dog. And Randy slumped on the low couch with his hands between his knees.
The wildcard hadn’t been kind to Randy. His greasy brown fedora rested on a forest of spikes like a hedgehog. His pale, fishy skin wept a thin mucous, soaking his clothes. Tiny blind eyes opened and closed along his neck and down behind his shirt, some staring, some rolling wildly. Demise could see the distaste in corners of Phan Lo ’s mouth and it made him want to draw the conversation out.
“I don’t know anything about it,” the sad joker said again, wagging his head.
“Okay,” Demise said. “Let me clear this up, fuckhead. A piece of shit like you can’t-cannot-set up a hundred thousand dollar horse deal in this town without us finding out. Okay? Where’s the meet?”
“I swear guys, you’ve got the wrong fuckup. I mean look at me,” the joker smiled desperately. “Look at the place I live. I’m not dealing with that kind of money.”
“You’re a junkie,” Demise said. “You and your buddies could blow that kind of money up your arms in a couple weeks.”
“I swear to Christ, you guys got it wrong. I’m really sorry. I wish I could help, but…”
“Could we just do this?” Phan asked.
Demise sighed and nodded. It had been fun while it lasted, but business being business…
Phan Lo stepped forward, drawing a pistol. The little joker squealed and pulled back, but Phan leaned in, pressing the barrel under Randy’s chin, forcing his head up. Demise stood, shot his cuffs, and leaned in close. When their eyes met, Randy was caught like a fish. Demise let the pain of his own death, the sick feeling of spiraling down into darkness, the visceral knowledge of dying flow into the joker for a second, two, three… and looked away.
Randy drew a long, grating breath like a diver who’s been under too long, then bent over and retched. Phan Lo danced back, disgusted. Demise sat down.
“The meet,” Demise said.
“Bryant Park. Noon tomorrow. She’s supposed to bring a sample. Please don’t kill me.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. She calls me.”
“You believe him?” Demise asked.
Phan Lo shrugged.
“The buyer’s a Brit. Looking to export. He’s gonna be wearing an Aerosmith t-shirt and reading the Wall Street Journal.”
“Probably won’t be two of those,” Phan said.
“Please,” the joker whined. “That’s all I know. I swear to God that’s all I know.”
“You know, Phan. I think that’s all he knows.”
Phan nodded and crossed his arms.
“You want to kill him, or you want me to?” Demise asked. Randy looked from one to the other, his jaw working silently, then curled up in a ball on the couch and started crying. Phan curled his lip and shook his head. Demise frowned and nodded toward the weeping joker. Phan shook his head again.
“If she’s not there tomorrow, we’ll be back,” Phan said, holstering his pistol. “You understand?”
Randy wailed wordlessly, his shoulders shaking. Demise stood and followed Phan out through the kicked-in front door and up the steps to the midnight-dark street.
“What the fuck was that?” Demise asked.
“It’s better for the mystique if some of them are alive and scared shitless,” Phan said.
“That’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.”
Phan shrugged and walked to the car.
“You felt sorry for him, didn’t you?” Demise accused.
“Fuck you.”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“No. Get in the car.”
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1987
The morning was warm for February, and the where the city didn’t stink of car fumes and urine, it smelled like the threat of snow.
He’d called Mazzuccheli with his information about the killer ace, and Mazzuchelli had come up with an address that fit with it. It was teamwork. For the first time since it all got fucked up, he was really working with the team.