“What’ll it be?
“I lost my forty five, so I’ll need a replacement for that.”
“Swishy leather jackets and losing guns. A change of life, maybe? How about a nine millimeter parabellum instead? I can give you something nice in a Tokarev M213, or a TT9, or a Beretta 92F. How about a Glock 17, or a Llama Commander?”
“Nah.”
“‘Nah.’ You never want to change.”
“I’m loyal.”
“To a person you can be loyal. To a country maybe you’re loyal. But loyal to a caliber? Feh!”
“Just give me another Colt like the last.”
“I’m out of the Mark IV. How about a Combat Stallion. Cost you five fifty.”
“Deal. And maybe I should look into one of those Kevlar vests,” Jack said, glancing at a rack of them at the far end of the basement.
“For years I’ve been telling you that. What makes a change of mind now?”
“Somebody tried to kill me tonight.”
“So? This is new?”
“I mean a sniper. Right through the hotel room window. Where nobody but me knew I was staying. I didn’t even use Jack in the name when I called in the reservation.”
“So maybe it wasn’t you they were after. Maybe it was meant for anybody who happened to walk by a window.”
“Maybe,” Jack said, but he couldn’t quite buy it. “Lousy shot, too. I spotted a telescopic sight on it and still he managed to miss me.”
Abe made a disgusted noise. “They sell guns to anybody these days.”
“Maybe I’ll take a raincheck on the vest,” Jack said, then quickly added, “Oh, and I need another dozen shuriken.”
Abe whirled on him. “Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! You’ve been spiking cockroaches with my shuriken again, haven’t you? Jack, you promised!”
Jack cringed away. “Not exactly spiking them. Hey, Abe, I get bored.”
Abe reached into a square crate and pulled out one of the six pointed models, wrapped in oiled paper. He held it up and spoke to heaven.
“Oy! Precision weapons made of the finest steel! Honed to a razor’s edge! But does Mr. macher Repairman Jack appreciate? Does he show respect? Reverence? Of course not! For pest control he uses them!”
“Uh, I’ll need about a dozen.”
Muttering Yiddish curses under his breath, Abe began pulling the shuriken out of the crate and slamming them down on the table one by one.
“Better make that a dozen and a half,” Jack said.
*
First thing the next morning, Jack called George at the diner and told him to meet him at Julio’s at ten. Then he went for his morning run. From a booth on the rim of Central Park, he called the answering machine that sat alone in the fourth floor office he rented on Tenth Avenue. He fast forwarded through a couple of requests for appliance repairs, then came a tentative Oriental voice, Chinese maybe:
“Mistah Jack, this is Tram. Please call. Have bad problem. People say you can help.” He gave a phone number, a downtown exchange.
Tram. Jack had never heard of him. He was the last on the tape. Jack reset it, then called this Tram guy. He was hard to understand, but Jack decided to see him. He told him where Julio’s was and to be there at 10:30.
After a shave and a shower, he headed to Julio’s for some breakfast. He was on the sidewalk, maybe half a block away, when he heard someone shout a warning. He glanced left, saw a man halfway across the street, pointing above him. Something in his expression made Jack dive for the nearest doorway. He was half way there when something brushed his ankle and thudded against the pavement in an explosion of white.
When the dust finally cleared, Jack was staring at what was left of a fifty pound bag of cement. The man who had shouted the warning was standing on the other side of the mess.
“That maniac could’ve killed you!”
“Maniac?” Jack said, brushing the white powder off his coat and jeans.
“Yeah. That didn’t fall. Somebody dropped it. Looked like he was aiming for your head!”
Jack spun and raced around the corner to the other side of the building. This was the second time since midnight someone had tried to off him. Or maim him. The cement bag probably wouldn’t have killed him, but it easily could have broken his neck or his back.
Maybe he had a chance to catch this guy.
He found the stairs to the upper floors and pounded up a dozen flights, but by the time he reached the roof it was empty. Another bag of cement sat on the black tar surface next to a pile of bricks. Someone was planning to repair a chimney.
Warily, he hurried the rest of the way to Julio’s. He didn’t like this at all. Because of the nature of his business, he had carefully structured it for anonymity. He did things to people that they didn’t like, so it was best that they not know who was doing it to them. He did a cash business and worked hard at being an average looking Joe. No trails. Most of the time he worked behind the scenes. His customers knew his face, but their only contact with him was over the phone or in brief meetings in places like Julio’s. And he never called his answering machine from home.
But somebody seemed to know his every move. How?
“Yo, Jack!” said Julio, the muscular little man who ran the tavern. “Long time no see.” He began slapping at Jack’s jacket, sending white clouds into the air. “What’s all this white stuff?”
He told Julio about the two near misses.
Y’know,” Julio said, “I seem to remember hearing about some guy asking aroun’ for you a coupla weeks ago. I’ll fine out who he was.”
“Yeah. Give it a shot.”
Probably wouldn’t pan out to anything, but it was worth a try.
Jack scanned the tavern. It was dustier than usual. The hanging plants in the window were withered and brown.
“Your cleaning man die, Julio?”
“Nah. It’s the yuppies. They keep comin’ here. So I let the place get run down and dirty, an’ they still come.”
“Déclassé must be in.”
“They make me crazy, Jack.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve all got our crosses to bear, Julio.”
Jack had finished his roll and was on his second coffee when George Kuropolis came in. He handed George a wad of cash.
“Here’s what Reilly’s boys took from you last night – minus your portion of the next installment on my fee. Tell the rest of your merchants association to ante in their shares.”
George avoided his eyes.
“Some of them are saying you cost as much as Reilly.”
Jack felt the beginnings of a surge of anger but it flattened out quickly. He was used to this. It always had happened with a number of his customers, but more often since The Neutralizer hit the air. Before that, people who called him never expected him to work for free. Now because of some damn stupid goody two-shoes TV vigilante, more and more of his customers had the idea it was Jack’s civic duty to get them out of jams. He’d been expecting some bitching from the group.
This particular merchants association had had it rough lately. They ran a cluster of shops on the lower west side. With the Westies out of the picture, they’d thought they’d have some peace. Then Reilly’s gang came along and began bleeding them dry. Finally one of them, Wolansky, went to the police. Not too long after, a Molotov cocktail came through the front door of his greengrocer, blackening most of his store; and shortly after that his son was crippled in a hit and run accident outside their apartment building. As a result, Wolansky developed acute Alzheimer’s when the police asked him to identify Reilly.