"A cowboy?"
"A cowboy," Rusty sighed. Dante wasn't an idiot. He could sometimes be slow, or dull or…ah hell, who was he fooling? Dante was an idiot. But he was an idiot that could open safes faster than the people who knew the combinations. He was like Rain Man, if Rain Man had criminal intentions.
"Like Cowboys and Indians?" Dante asked.
"No, like Cowboys and Spaghetti-O's," Rusty yelled into the phone.
"Cowboys and Spaghetti-O's? I don't get you, Rusty."
Rusty shook the phone violently in his fingers, imagining Dante's thick idiot neck between said fingers. "Just listen to me, will you, dipshit? Has anyone been into the shop lately? Maybe wearing a cowboy hat? Walking his pet gorilla? Carrying a six-shooter and a lot of questions?"
"A gorilla?"
Rusty slammed the phone down. Dante was obviously off of Cowboy's radar. Dante had accompanied him on his last five jobs, going back three years. One morning, Rusty walked into an office and found Dante under the desk, looting a floor safe. He was dressed in a jumpsuit and looked as scared as Rusty felt. They stared at each other for a few seconds before Dante offered Rusty the glittering contents in his left hand.
"Halfsies?" he offered hopefully.
From that point on, they worked as a team. Rusty would scout the offices, determine which ones were worth hitting and bring in Dante for the safes. Dante brought his skills and Rusty brought his brains and helpful advice. Such as the suggestion that the retard didn't wear his A-1 Computer Service jumpsuit when he was going to rob a fricking office-the one with his goddamn name embroidered on the chest.
So Dante was out. Stupid, maybe, but Rusty doubted that he would just forget encountering the cowboy.
Next step; information.
Information meant Jameel and the Candy Boys. The Candy Boys were a scam that ran its fingers through most of the city. A small army of kids roamed the streets, selling candy bars for their sports team at a buck a pop.
There was no sports team.
Jameel was the local sergeant for the Brooklyn troops. The kids got five dollars for each box they sold. Each box had forty candy bars in it. Buying gross, the boxes cost five dollars each. Thirty dollars profit on every box sold. There were more than a hundred kids selling box after box, 365 days a year. Nobody knew who was at the top of the heap, but whoever he was, he was one rich bastard.
Now the underbosses, like Jameel, ran a little side business. That business was information. Hundreds of eyes and ears across the city was an amazing resource. For the price.
"Two hundred."
"One hundred, just for the name." Rusty was uncomfortable standing on the open corner. Even though Jameel probably had a couple thousand on his person at the time, Rusty wasn't worried about getting caught in the middle of a robbery. A while back, one of their sergeants got rolled. Less than twenty-four hours later, three teenagers were found under the bridge, throats cut, cheeks stuffed with M &M's. No, Rusty just worried what his neighbors might think.
"Don't have a name. Got something else. A hundred fifty for it." Jameel scratched at his belly. The front of his basketball jersey lifted, showing the hilt of a gravity knife in his waistband.
Rusty took the money and palmed it into Jameel's hand. Christ, he hoped nobody was watching.
Without even looking, Jameel rolled his fingers around the paper. "The top bill's fake."
"What?"
Lifting up the hundred to the sunlight, Jameel said, "See? No watermark. It's counterfeit, yo. You trying to play me Rusty?"
Rusty held it up, looked at it.
Shit.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills and handed them to Jameel.
"Only eighty-three here, Rusty. Falls a little short."
Rusty gritted his teeth. "That's all I have."
Jameel thought about it, then stuffed the money away. "Okay. The man's a Bleecker Street player. Don't know what his business is, but my boys see him at that blues club all the time."
"The Queen of Diamonds?"
"It's on the second floor, right? Above that Thai place with the big ugly ass orange awning?"
"Yeah."
"That's the one."
Rusty knew the club, but for the life of him still couldn't figure any connection. "How did he get pointed in my direction?"
Jameel chuckled. "Shit, man. How does anybody get information in this town?"
Rusty swallowed the hard lump that formed in his throat. "You told him."
Jameel grinned wide. "Damn right." Jameel could see the tension in Rusty as he clenched his fists. "What?" Jameel opened his arms wide, challenging. "You got a problem with that? The man had the cash and he paid. Not the bullshit scratch that you got, either."
Following his best survival instincts, Rusty turned and walked away fast, before he did something stupid.
"Nice doing business with you, Rusty," Jameel catcalled down the street.
Rusty wanted nothing more than to turn back and beat the snot out of the punk. He knew however, besides being suicidal, it just wouldn't look right, a grown man roughing up a twelve-year old like that.
"Ah! My friend!" came the deeply accented bellow from the back of Abboud's Pawn. Rusty never liked the way Ali called him "friend". First off, he called everybody friend. Secondly, there was a slight undertone, as though he could replace it with "sucker" without missing a beat. "What do you bring for Ali today?"
"Just got a couple of questions, pal-o-mine." Rusty walked over to the plexiglass and chicken-wire cage that Ali cocooned himself in. For such good friends, Ali never even unlocked it so much as to shake Rusty's hand in twenty years.
"This no good information booth Rusty. Maybe you try Times Square." Ali hooted at his own joke. Rusty felt blood rush to his ears. "Maybe you go see Rent." Ali cackled harder. The only thing that ever emerged from Ali's box was his breath. The laughter pushed a wave over Rusty that smelled of yogurt and chickpeas.
"I'm serious Ali."
"So am I. Rent very good show. My children love it."
"I'm more interested in cowboys."
"Then see Annie Get Your Gun. Why do you bother Ali with no business? I'm busy man."
In those same twenty years, Rusty had rarely seen another human in the shop. More often than not, it was Ali's wife, who was usually screeching Arabic at him in a voice that reminded Rusty of a cat with Strep.
"I don't want to see a fucking musical, Ali. I got guys asking questions."
Ali's eyes made a quick flash from their usual greedy glow into fear. "What? What questions? What did you tell them? I run honest business."
"No you don't"
"Doesn't matter."
"Yes it does. They think I took something from them."
"What did you take?" Ali scratched his stubble, intrigued.
"I don't know."
"They no tell you?"
"They seem to think I should know."
"Ah! Is like movie Marathon Man. Great movie. 'Is it safe?' Did they ask you that? Did they ask you if it was safe?"
"Goddamn it!"
"Never mind. Okay, okay. What do you want to know from Ali?"
"Have I ever brought you anything…? Was there anything that you ever got from me that might have wound up worth more or wasn't what I thought it was?"
"No, Rusty. Ali would never cheat you like that."
Truth was, Ali would cheat anybody like that. But the reason that Rusty did business with Ali, apart from his moral ambiguity regarding purchase and resale of stolen goods, was that despite it all, he was a terrible liar. He was too greedy. Whenever he tried to pull a fast one or short-change, he would break out in a sweat faster than a pig in a sauna.
Ali wasn't sweating.
Rusty fingered the hundred dollar bill in his pocket. "I need a gun then."
Ali brightened back up. "Ah! Ali have many guns. Give old friend deep discount. How much?"