Jack checked his watch. Getting near three. Abe would be ready for a mid-afternoon snack just about now. He stopped in at Nick's Nook, a mom-and-pop grocery—a vanishing breed in these parts—and picked up a little treat.
Next stop was the Isher Sports Shop. The iron grate was pulled back, exposing the blurry windows. Beyond them, an array of faded cardboard placards, dusty footballs, tennis balls, racquets, basketball hoops, backboards, Rollerblades, and other good-time sundries basked in the sunny display space.
Inside was not much better organized. Bikes hanging from the ceiling, weight benches over here, SCUBA gear over there, narrow aisles winding past sagging shelves. ESPN meets Twister.
As Jack entered, Abe Grossman was just finishing with a customer—or rather, a customer was finishing with him.
Abe's age was on the far side of fifty and his weight was in calling distance of an eighth of a ton, which wouldn't have been bad if he were on the right side of five-eight. He was dressed in his uniform—black pants and a white half-sleeved shirt. A frown marred his usually jovial round face, a face made all the rounder by the relentless retreat of his gray hair toward the top of his head.
"Hooks?" Abe was saying. "Why should you want hooks? Can you imagine how that must hurt a fish when it bites into it? And those barbs. Oy! You've got to rip them out! Such damage to the tender mouth tissues. Stick a fish hook in your own tongue sometime and see how you like it."
The customer, a sandy-haired thirtysomething in a faded Izod stared at Abe in wonder. He made one false start at a reply, then tried again.
"You're kidding, right?"
Abe leaned over the counter—at least as far as his considerable gut would allow—and spoke in a fatherly fashion.
"It's an ethical position. Baiting a hook, or using those flashing little spinners to catch fish, it's deceitful. Think about it. You're dressing up a nasty little hook to look like food, like sustenance. A fish comes along, thinks it's found lunch and wham! It's hooked and pulled out of the water. Is that fair? You're proud of such a thing?" He straightened and fixed the guy with his dark brown eyes. "I should be a party to such a so-called sport based on treachery and deceit? No. I cannot."
"You're serious!" the guy said, backing away. "You're really serious!"
"I should be a comedian?" Abe said. "This place looks look like the Improv to you maybe? No. I sell sporting goods. Sporting. That means something to me. A net is sporting. You wait for the fish to come along and then scoop it up with a net. The fastest one wins. That's a sport. A net, I'll sell you. But hooks? Uh-Uh. You'll get no hooks from me."
The guy turned away and headed for the door. "Get out while you can," he said as he hurried past Jack. "This fucker is nuts!"
"Really?" Jack said. "What makes you think so?"
As the door slammed, Jack stepped up to the counter. Abe had positioned himself, sitting like a toad on the high stool that was his perch for most of his workday. He sat with his hands on his spread thighs, a middle-aged Humpty-Dumpty.
Jack placed his offering on the counter.
"Entenmann's brownies?" Abe said, hopping off the stool. "Jack, you shouldn't have."
"I figured your stomach would be rumbling about now."
"No, but really you shouldn't have. My diet, you know."
"Yeah, but they're fat free."
Abe touched the yellow sticker that said just that. "So they are." He grinned. "Well, in that case, maybe just a smidge."
His short chubby fingers were surprisingly nimble as they zipped open the box. A knife appeared and carved out a huge section which went directly into Abe's mouth.
"Mmmm," he said, closing his eyes and swallowing. "Who could believe this is fat free? Too bad it's not calorie free." He pointed the knife at Jack. "You're having?"
"Nah. Had a late lunch."
"You should try. All this food you bring me and I never see you eat."
"That is because I bring it for you. Enjoy."
Abe promptly did just that with another piece.
"Where's Parabellum?" Jack asked.
Abe spoke around a mouthful. "Sleeping."
For some reason Jack could not fathom, Abe had bought a little blue parakeet and become paternally attached to it.
"He doesn't like chocolate anyway," he said, wiping his hands on his shirt. Brown smears joined similar yellow smudges that looked like mustard. "Hey. You want to see willpower? Watch."
He closed the top and pushed the box to the side.
"I'm impressed," Jack said. "First time I ever saw you do that."
"I'll be thin as you before you know it." He found a crumb on the counter and popped it into his mouth, then looked longingly at the brownie box. "Yessir. Before you know it."
In what Jack knew was an prodigious act of will, Abe pushed away from the counter and shrugged. "Nu?"
"Need a few things."
"Let's go."
Abe locked the front door, turned a closed for lunch sign toward the street and, navigating aisles just wide enough to allow his bulk to pass, led the way toward the back. He followed Abe into the rear closet and down to the cellar. The neon sign that overhung the stone steps flickered but never quite came to life.
"Got a sick sign there, Abe."
"I know, but it's too much trouble to get fixed."
He hit the switch that illuminated the cellar's miniature armory. Abe moved among his stock, adjusting the pistols and rifles in their racks, straightening the boxes of ammo on their shelves. Everything neatly arranged down here, in sharp contrast to the floor just above them.
"Restocking or something new?"
"New," Jack said. "Need a pair of weighted gloves."
"You lost the last pair you bought?"
"No, but I need a white pair."
Abe's eyebrows lifted. "White? I never heard of such a thing. Black, of course. Brown, maybe. But white?"
"See if you can find me any."
"I should go asking for white leather gloves with half a pound of fine steel shot packed into the knuckles? You want this in a lady's size perhaps?"
"No, it's for me. To go with formal wear."
Abe sighed. "And I should have it for you when?"
"Tonight if you can, but by early tomorrow at the latest. And listen for any noise about someone with a whole bunch of kids' Christmas gifts to sell… cheap… already wrapped, most likely. I told Julio to put his ears on too. You hear about someone like that, get word to the guy that you know a buyer. Someone who'll take his whole stock."
Abe's curiosity got the best of him. "Just what is it you're getting into this time, Jack?"
"Something I probably shouldn't be involved with. But to do it right, it looks like I'm going to have to do something stupid."
Abe stared and Jack knew he wanted to know just how stupid. But Abe wouldn't ask, knowing Jack would tell him about it afterward.
Jack looked around and spotted something hanging on a rack in the corner. And that gave him an idea.
"You know what? Maybe I could use one more thing…"
5.
Jack took the A train downtown and emerged into the bustling Third World bazaar that was Fourteenth Street. He threaded his way among dreadlocked Dominicans, turbaned Sikhs, sailed Indians, suited Koreans, Pakistanis, Puerto Ricans, Jamaicans, and an occasional European mixing in the chill air on sidewalks flanked with signs in half a dozen languages.
He arrived early at the Seventh Avenue address Gia had given him. A little placard on the door was the only indication that this nondescript storefront had anything to do with AIDS.
He probably could have started hunting the stolen Christmas gifts without coming down here, but he figured a quick look at the scene wouldn't hurt. Might even give him a handle on the thieves.