“You wound me, Steve.” Lenny used his fork to slice off a wedge of the blueberry cheesecake he was having for dessert. “The pass is yours free and easy, just because we’re friends.” He grinned. “Of course, now that you mention it, there is something you…”
“I didn’t know I’d done that.”
“Done what?”
“Mentioned it.” Bailey stared ruminatively at the envelope, seeming to weigh it in his open palm. A few seconds later he grunted and stuffed it into his pocket. “But now that you’ve gone and raised the subject of how I can reciprocate, please feel free to give your suggestions. Bearing in mind I try to be a law-abiding fellow. Whenever possible, that is.”
Lenny nodded, ate the slice of cheesecake, and wiped his lips with his napkin. Then he leaned forward and told Bailey what he wanted.
“I’ll take anything you can get me,” he concluded in a hushed voice. “Cargo manifests, bills of lading, authorization documents — you name it. The more, the better.”
Bailey looked at him. “This Zavtra outfit in Russia… is it an air or sea carrier?”
“Could be both for all I know. Does it matter?”
“Only insofar as it’d make my life easier. I mean, ninety percent of import and export transactions are filed electronically these days, which makes the info I pull out of my computer practically up-to-the-minute. But there are different systems depending on the method of transport.”
“Don’t they interface?”
“Sure they do. Like I said, it’s no big problem to run a global search. I’m just trying to cut down on the time involved.” Bailey scratched behind his ear. “How soon you need this stuff, by the way?”
“Five minutes ago,” Lenny said. “And that was pushing things to the wire.”
Bailey ballooned his cheeks, slowly let the air whistle out.
“Do you always lay this kind of fucking bullshit on your wife and kids when you give them presents?”
Lenny shook his head.
“The love I’ve got for my family is unconditional,” he said. “I only associate with foul-mouthed sports fans like you out of necessity.”
Bailey grinned.
“Hurry up and ask for the check, asshole,” he said.
“Michael Caine!”
“No, it’s Tom Jones.”
“Tom Jones is a singer. The question was what British actor worked in a coal mine before he was famous.”
“I seen him act in that movie about the Martians attacking, Boch—”
“That was what they call a cameo, which ain’t the same thing. And besides, Tom Jones was a fucking grave digger—”
“No, no, I’m telling you Rod Stewart was a grave digger, Tom Jones…”
“Look, stunade, I don’t wanna hear no more about Tom Jones, okay? If it wasn’t Michael Caine it’s gotta be Richard Harris…”
“Who the hell’s Richard Harris?”
“Jesus Christ, what planet you from, anyway? He’s the guy who—”
“Hey, Boch, how you doing?” Lenny Reisenberg interrupted from the entrance to the Quonset.
He had been freezing his rear end off for the past five minutes, listening to Tommy Boccigualupo, the dockyard foreman, argue with his pal about a question that had been posed on the quiz show they were watching on Tommy’s small color TV. Behind him on the Twelfth Avenue wharf, hydraulic winches hissed and forklifts clanked as cargo was shuttled between ship holds and wide-load semis. There were a couple of pigeons squabbling with a dirty seagull over a pizza crust near the piles to Lenny’s right. Beyond them, the sky and the river merged in a smear of gray.
Lenny heard a jubilant commotion of bells, whistles, and contestant screeches from the television. They seemed to jangle off the corrugated walls of the hut. Somebody on the program had apparently won something.
“Aw crap, Len,” Boch said. “You made us miss the answer.”
“Sorry.” Lenny gave the coil heater beside Tommy’s chair a longing glance. “It all right if I come in?”
“Sure, mi shithole es su shithole,” Boch said. He motioned to a sofa with sunken Herculon cushions. Lenny remembered having dumped one just like it around 1974.
He sat. Springs creaked, groaned, and poked into his bottom. The armrest felt as if it had absorbed a large quantity of used motor oil at some point in its long life. Still, the warmth from the heater had quickly taken the chill out of his bones, and he couldn’t help but be appreciative.
“How’s the son?” Boch said, rotating his swivel chair toward Lenny.
“He took the purple streaks out of his hair last week, started wearing what they call dreadlocks instead. Like those guys in Jamaica.” Lenny spread his hands haplessly. “Gets straight As in school, though, so what can I say?”
Boch grunted his commiseration, smoothed his palm over his brilliantined hair. “My oldest daughter, Theresa, she’s pregnant with her second. Husband’s a slacker, capisce? I don’t know whether to congratulate him or break his fucking kneecaps.”
Lenny leaned down and wriggled his fingers in front of the heater.
“Kids,” he said, shaking his head.
“Kids,” Boch repeated. He sighed. “What can I do for you, Len? ’Cause if this is about another rush job for UpLink, you’re outta luck. The Port Authority’s been wrapping the red tape around my balls since the bombing…”
“Nothing like that.” Lenny gave him a significant glance and tipped his head toward the other man in the Quonset, who was still watching the game show.
Boch nodded. “Joe,” he said.
The guy wrenched his eyes from the tube. “Yeah?”
“Get out there and check on that shipment from Korea,” Boch said, pointing out his window at the dock. “Remind the boys I want it at the warehouse before they knock off for the day.”
“Sure,” Joe said.
“And Joe?”
“Yeah?”
“Then go get us some coffees.”
“Sure.”
Joe buttoned his mackinaw and left.
Boch waited until he was out of earshot and turned back to Lenny.
“So,” he said. “Talk.”
“Friend of mine in Customs tells me an outfit called Mercury Distribution has a lot of merchandise come in at this yard. Received a shipment from Russia maybe a month, month and half back.”
He paused. Boch made an indeterminate sound, gestured for him to continue.
“I need the skinny on Mercury,” Lenny said. “It legit, or what?”
Boch looked at him. “Why you asking?”
“Because my boss asked me to ask,” Lenny said.
A moment passed.
Boch kept looking at him.
“They been saying on the news it might be Russkies did that number in Times Square,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“And now you come in with your questions about Mercury.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Boch said.
“Me neither, but I swear I don’t know any more than I’m telling you,” Lenny said. “I’m doing this on faith, Boch.”
There was another silence. Boch meshed his knuckles on his lap, glanced down at them, cracked them.
“Mercury’s run by a hood name of Nick Roma,” he said, finally. “Don’t let the handle fool you, he’s no goombah. Can call himself anything he wants, still stinks like fucking borscht to me.”
Lenny nodded. “What kind of stuff he import?”
“Ain’t my lookout,” Boch said. “I got to stay healthy for the wife’s sake, you know?”
Lenny nodded again, rose from the couch, moved toward the entryway, turned to face Boccigualupo. Though he was still inside, he could feel the cold seeping back into him as he moved farther from the emission of the heater.