“You could do that. But I don’t think you will.”
In the console compartment, a cell phone began to buzz.
“They’re looking for me already,” he said. “Soon they’re gonna know what happened.”
He was right. It would only be a matter of time before someone found them.
“Put it in park,” she said.
He did, turned to her. “What do you say?”
“Get out.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Out.”
He opened the door, stepped down. With the Glock still on him, she climbed over the console and into the driver’s seat.
“They’ll never stop looking for you,” he said. “And when they find you... You’ll be begging them to kill you. But first you’ll give up the money. And then you’ll have nothing, puta. Not even your life.”
She thought about Adler and Martinez and Lopez. The cabdriver. Everything she’d been through tonight.
“It’ll be bad for you,” he said. “And it’ll go on for a long time.”
“I believe you,” she said, and shot him.
She left the Tahoe on a dark street in Bay Ridge, two blocks from the Verrazano, keys still in the ignition. She walked down to the bayfront, squeezed through a hole in a chain-link fence, reached the cracked seawall. She tossed the two guns out into the water. The sky to the east had lightened to a pale blue.
She walked until she found a subway station, took the R train into Manhattan. Three hours later she was home.
“Slow down up here,” she said. “But don’t stop.”
She powered the Town Car’s rear window halfway down. The tire shop was ahead on the right. More people around now, more traffic, but a lot of the storefronts were still dark, riot gates in place, businesses that were gone for good.
Luis, the driver, looked at her in the rearview. “This isn’t a good area. Even in the daytime. I know. I used to live here.”
“Go around the block again.”
She looked at the shop’s recessed entrance as they passed. No one inside she could see, the door still closed.
She’d waited two days to come back, taken the train up from home. At Penn Station in Manhattan, she’d called a car service from a burner cell, used a fake name.
They circled the block, came back around.
“Pull up here,” she said.
He steered the Town Car to the curb. She looked at the shop door, the darkness beyond it, wondered what waited for her there.
Three possibilities. The money was still here, hadn’t been found. Or the Dominicans had searched the building and roof, taken it. Or they were there in the tire shop now, or somewhere close by, watching, waiting for someone to come back.
The Town Car stuck out here. It would look wrong to have it standing outside the shop too long.
“Wait five minutes,” she said. “Then come back to get me.” She opened her door.
“Maybe you should tell me what this is all about.”
“Five minutes,” she said. “That’s all it will take. One way or the other.”
She shut the door behind her. Her gloved right hand went to the .32 Beretta Tomcat in the pocket of her leather car coat. She limped into the doorway of the tire shop. Behind her the Town Car pulled back into traffic.
She tried the knob. It was still unlocked. Inside, she eased the door shut behind her, drew the Tomcat.
The office was as she’d left it. In the bay, a shaft of light came through the roof hatch, lit dust motes. She went to the ladder, listened. No voices, no footsteps.
Up the ladder to the roof. It was empty. To the west, an airliner traced a white line across the sky.
She made her way to the air-conditioning unit, pulled back the flashing, and there was the gear bag. She knelt, unzipped it. The money was inside, along with Martinez’s gun and the empty magazine. Her mask. Everything there.
She zipped the bag back up, slung it over her shoulder, stuck the Tomcat in her belt, climbed down the ladder.
Back in the office, she stood just inside the door, watched the street, the cars going by, feeling exposed. She glanced at her watch. Five minutes since Luis had dropped her off.
A dark SUV with smoked windows pulled up outside. She backed farther into the office shadows, took out the Tomcat. The SUV stayed there. She waited for someone to get out, come inside. She raised the gun.
Horns blew. The SUV drove on. Two minutes later the Town Car slid to the curb.
Deep breath. She put the gun away, opened the door. The front passenger window came down. Luis leaned over. “Sorry. Traffic. Everything okay?”
She went out quickly, ignoring the pain in her ankle. There was no sign of the SUV. She opened the rear door of the Town Car, tossed in the gear bag, climbed in after it, and pulled the door shut.
She met his eyes in the rearview.
“Just something that belonged to me,” she said. “Something I had to leave behind.”
“And now?”
“Let’s go back to Penn.”
He waited for a break in traffic, then made a U-turn across both lanes, headed back the way they’d come. She looked out the rear window. No SUV, no one following them.
They passed the all-night restaurant, crowded now, a line at the counter. She’d ask Rathka, her lawyer, to find out the cabdriver’s name, if he had family. If so, she’d figure out a way to get part of the money to them. It was all she could do, but it wasn’t enough. No amount would ever be enough.
“Luis, do me a favor?”
“Sure. What?”
She took four hundreds from her pocket, leaned over the seat, and held them out. “Tell your dispatcher when you got the call to pick me up, there was no one there.”
He looked at the bills.
“You never brought me out here. You never saw me at all,” she said. “Can you deal with that?”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“Can you?”
He hesitated. “I think so.”
“Then that’s good for both of us. Take it.”
He did.
She sat back, looked out the window at the streets passing by, kept one hand on the gear bag.
“Glad you didn’t hang around too long back there,” he said. “That’s a rough neighborhood.”
“I know,” she said.
Robin Yocum
The Last Hit
from The Strand Magazine
The thing this younger bunch doesn’t understand is this: it’s just not as easy to clip someone as it used to be.
I’m not making excuses. It’s a fact. Nowadays there are cameras on the freeways, inside of buildings, outside of buildings — everywhere. You’re always on camera. And if you’re carrying a cell phone, the cops can track you by the pings off cell towers. It’s crazy. That’s how they nailed Joey Labitto for the Carsoni hit.
In the old days I could walk down an alley, through a back door, and boom, the job was done. Thirty minutes later Carlo and I would be at Undo’s, eating bucatini with clam sauce, a bottle of Chianti between us. Maybe a cannoli for dessert. Carlo loved cannoli. We would laugh and talk, never about business but about women, baseball, or politics. We would treat ourselves to a nice dinner because we knew the next day the old man would slap our backs, hand us each a wad of cash, and say, “Thanks for your service, gentlemen.” He was a man of few words.
Carlo and I worked together for more than four decades. Every cop and FBI agent in the tri-state knew who we were and what we did, but they could never put a finger on us. That’s how good we were. Half the time I don’t think the cops even tried to solve the cases. If they were honest, they’d tell you they were secretly grateful, because we were not exactly taking out Sunday school teachers.
I was a respected member of the family back then. I got invited to baptisms, weddings, and Sunday dinners, and if I went down to one of the whorehouses the old man ran, I never paid. Never. Of course, I’d tip for exceptional service, but that was it. Do you want to know why I never had to pay? Because I was trusted and respected. Now the old man is gone and the young guns look at me like I’m a dinosaur. There’s no respect for me or the old ways. But let me tell you this: I’m seventy-two, and I’m still taking in oxygen. Most guys in my line of work don’t make it that long, including Carlo.