civilization-clean laundry, a desk calendar, the Daily News, a new toothbrush, and a two-pound powder mix of creatine monohydrate, glutamine peptides, and whey protein isolate that he sprinkled on his food. He was going to get beefed and buffed, he was going to get a routine together, not just take showers at the gym with the homos staring at him, not just eat in cheap restaurants, including the Jim-Jack three times already looking for Christina- with no luck yet. Yes, he was going to open a bank account, he was going to set himself up right, maybe find a decent place to sleep. Church, Rick said to himself as he returned to the parking garage, at this rate I might even go to church.
He stepped out of the midday sun into the cool incline of the garage's shadow and noticed that breathless Horace was not in his booth and that the big elevator was in use, which meant Horace was parking a vehicle in the basement, where the truck sat. Rick now always used the fire stairs, because the rumbling elevator, which ran on hydraulics, not counterweights, took too long. He headed toward the stairs with his packages, pulling out his keys, but he noticed that Horace had left a car, a white Crown Victoria, parked in no-man's-land just around the corner from the booth. Horace, though a wheezing deadbeat, was dependably obsessive about where his cars rested at all times, and a Crown Victoria sitting there askew not only violated Horace's system but meant that Horace was not parking a car in the garage, and yes, Ricky-with-the-dickey, a white Crown Victoria was, often as not, an unmarked police car.
He wanted to know what they were doing down there. Maybe fucking with the truck. Could he beat the elevator to the basement? He skipped down the stairs, peeked around the corner, and saw the floor of the elevator sinking past the ceiling, three pairs of legs appearing, and he huffed stiffly along the basement's dark back wall, sliding to a stop beneath a new Lexus twenty cars away from the truck. Unless they searched the entire garage, they wouldn't find him.
Now the open elevator stopped, and the men stepped out. With his ear pressed to the oily cement floor, he could just see their feet.
'I'm looking, just let me remember,' came Horace's ruined voice. They walked toward the truck. Six shoes. A pair of ratty basketball shoes, followed by two pairs of men's brogans.
'That's it, my man. That truck.'
'Give me the key. You stand over there and wait for us.'
The four leather shoes continued toward the truck. Police? Somebody who worked for Tony Verducci?
'He's out eating lunch or something.'
One of the truck doors opened. Then the next. 'Look at this.'
'Living like an animal.'
'Definitely sleeping in there.'
'Got a baseball bat.'
'Not against the law.'
'No. Horace?'
'Yes, my brother?' came the reply.
'When was the last time you saw him?'
'Yesterday.'
'The night guy?'
'He don't remember.'
'You're sure?'
'Sure.'
'You weren't watching the ball game and didn't see him?'
'Maybe. I ain't making any promises about where he be.'
'The night guy sleep at night?'
'That's what I do, I sleep at night.'
In a quieter voice: 'So our guy is generally in and out.' Louder: 'Give us a couple of minutes here, Horace.'
'Right.'
'I mean walk away, Horace. Just get your ass fifty steps back.'
'Right on that.'
The basketball shoes walked away.
'Fucking jig.'
'Looks like he has AIDS. Half the fucking spooks got AIDS, you know.'
The money, Rick thought, don't let them find the money.
'Thing I don't understand is why white guys aren't getting it.'
'You mean straight white guys?'
'Right.'
That voice, thought Rick, I might know that voice. Hard to tell lying on the cement floor. Detective Peck. If he doesn't look at the engine, he won't find the money.
'I heard you can't really get it from fucking a woman. Guys just aren't getting it from having sex with women.'
'Whores or regular women?'
'I mean your totally regular girl-she has a regular job, apartment, and so on. Doesn't shoot drugs. Look at the numbers and you see that the guys she's sleeping with are not getting it.'
Rick heard the sound of the hood opening. The money was hidden in a large plastic Baggie that he'd twisted a wire around and slipped through the wide mouth of the antifreeze reservoir. To get at it you had to put your fingers into the bluish antifreeze and find the wire. 'The doctors don't want anyone to know.'
''Course not.'
'You'd have guys fucking around all over the place, if they knew they weren't going to get AIDS.'
Had they found his money? He risked a peek around the tire of the Lexus, but the angle wasn't right.
'You ever go gooming on the missus?'
The hood went down. 'That's classified information.'
'You're a weasel.'
'Nah. I see this girl every couple of weeks. Nice, you know, very respectable. Has some kinda job at Macy's, in the personnel department. Apartment's way over by First Avenue. Last time I see her, we get in bed and fuck, you know, then she likes to make me lunch afterward, see, and I eat that and then she brings out this blueberry pie stuff, sort of sweet custard, and it's really good. Better than anything my wife ever made me. Not even close. My wife gives me the same fucking macaroni she gives the kids. Dog food. So I'm eating that custard blueberry pie and really enjoying it, it's better than anything I ever got in a restaurant, and then while I'm still eating it, she slides down and undoes my pants. Starts sucking on me.'
'No.'
'Yeah, I'm not bullshitting you. I don't even think I can get hard again, we just had sex maybe an hour ago. I'm a fucking old man, right? But here she is, she's gotten turned on by the fact I'm eating her pie. She's doing it to me and I stop eating the pie, just to concentrate, you know, and she says, No, keep eating the pie, don't stop. So I do. It is fucking great pie. I got the pie in my mouth and sitting there looking down watching my wet dick go in and out. Fucking sexiest thing I ever saw. I've seen everything, too, but this is something new. It had to do with the pie.'
'I get it.'
The basketball shoes were coming back.
'I know it sounds-'
'No, I get it, I-Yo, Horace! Hey, fuckhead! Hey, Horace.'
'What?' came a voice.
'This is a po-lice investigation. You don't come back until I tell you.'
The basketball shoes walked away.
'Stuff like that happens, it ruins you,' said the other man.
'What do you mean?'
'I can hardly screw my wife anymore. I have to go into a trance.'
A male exhalation. 'Hey, my wife actually fell asleep on me.'
