Carter makes contact before his target reaches the end of the BMW’s hood, his left hand grabbing the man’s shoulder while his thumb probes for the space between two ribs. Then he punches the dagger’s blade directly into Ruby Amaroso’s heart, the impact so hard and sudden the man barely manages a grunt before his eyes close and his knees give out.
Carter guides the body, as it falls, between the BMW and the car in front. Then he walks off without looking to the right or the left, or even removing the knife, mission accomplished, Carter just another pedestrian going about his business. Thirty seconds later, he’s in the van, buckling his seat belt as he starts the engine. He glances in the rear-view mirror as he pulls away, at Angel Tamanaka, at Angel Face, huddled against the side of the van.
Welcome to the Hell World, kid.
Though aware of serial killers and their predilections, Carter never before associated the act of murder with any variety of sexual charge, not until he and Angel come through the door and begin to yank at each other’s clothes. Only then, as she lies beneath him, her heels on his shoulders, he thrusting into her, two animals in rut on the carpet in his sister’s living room, does he acknowledge the relationship. This is not a marathon, this encounter, it’s a sprint; the both of them going all-out. Angel’s lips are pressed together, her eyes narrowed, brow furrowed. She seems angry to Carter, and not without reason. But Carter doesn’t care. He just knows that he wants her today and he’ll want her tomorrow, and that’s the end of his life plan.
They feast afterwards, on tapas from a Spanish restaurant on Woodhaven Boulevard. Avocado toast, chickpeas with garlic and parsley oil, farmhouse toast and figs with ham. They stuff themselves, then shower together before Angel’s adrenals finally shut down and she flops naked on to their bed. Carter drops down beside her. He’s feeling a kind of buyer’s remorse, like an animal who’s wandered into a dark space and now smells a trap.
‘You want to hear the answer?’ Angel says.
‘To what question?’
‘The one about why I don’t choose plan B – hard work and education.’
Carter rolls up on to an elbow. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I was only kidding.’
‘No, I want to. I want you to know where I’m coming from.’ Angel strokes the side of Carter’s face. ‘My grandfather, Yoshi Tamanaka, was born in Seattle in 1928. Like every West Coast Japanese citizen, he spent World War Two in an internment camp – you’ll notice that American historians never say
Angel rolls up to sit at the edge of the bed, her feet dangling, her back to Carter. She takes a moment before resuming her tale. ‘So, what happens is that Home Depot opens a giant lumber yard twenty miles west of dad’s. That’s in 2001. Then in 2003, Lowe’s opens a store fifteen miles to the north. Dad can’t buy lumber at the prices they pay, but he doesn’t need their margins to make a profit because he runs his operation more efficiently. So he stumbles along for a few years, holding on to whatever clients he can, until Lowe’s and Home Depot decide to increase market share by cutting wholesale prices to the bone. Short-term, they don’t care if they lose money at one particular store. They’ve got a hundred other stores backing them up.
‘My father was a jerk, Carter. He couldn’t admit that he was wrong, that you could work your ass off and still be crushed. When the business went into the red, he borrowed from the banks. When the banks cut him off, he refinanced his house. When that money ran out, he sold off his stocks and emptied the bank accounts. And when there was nothing left, he put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. My mother was already a hopeless drunk by that time and I don’t remember her crying at dad’s funeral, though she nearly fell into his grave. What I do remember is spending the next two years, until I graduated high school, with an aunt, then getting my little butt on the first plane out of town.’
Carter sits up and lays a hand on Angel’s shoulder. It’s not the best story he’s ever heard, but it’s good enough for a rainy night in New York. ‘There’s a moral here, a bottom line. I can smell it.’
‘Yeah, there’s a moral. Forget the bullshit about hard work and personal responsibility. That’s just propaganda to keep the peasants on the farm. God blesses the child who’s got her own and I intend to get mine.’
TWELVE
Bobby Ditto’s thinking that it doesn’t just pour when it rains. It shits all over your head. Ruby Amaroso was the most responsible of the young kids Bobby recruited two years ago. When you gave him a job, he got it done, plus he kept the rest of the jerks in place. Now he’s in the morgue with a tag on his toe, and yours truly, meaning Roberto Benedetti, is the chief suspect. The cops have been to visit twice, even though Bobby referred them to his mouthpiece when they first showed up.
And now this, the final insult, he has to turn for help to the goddamned Russians and they send him a slanty-eyed chink who doesn’t weigh more than a hundred and fifty pounds. A little pussy-boy with a flat-nosed face carved from stone. They’re in the bunker and he’s offering the chink coffee, but the chink’s not showing the slightest respect, for Bobby or for the Blade, who’s standing with his back against the wall. No, the jerk’s actually refusing Bobby’s hospitality.
‘See,’ Bobby explains, ‘I need to know what you can do for me, if anything. This card?’ He holds up Louis Chin’s business card: XAO INVESTIGATIONS. ‘It wouldn’t mean a thing to me, even if I could pronounce it.’
‘“Zow.” It’s pronounced “Zow.” But I understand that we’ve been recommended by people you trust.’ Chin’s thoroughly enjoying the gangster’s obvious discomfort. He’s worked with the guineas before. As self-centered as drag queens, they have a hard time coping with people who aren’t afraid of them.
‘Yeah, that’s all well and good,’ Bobby says, ‘but I gotta know what you can do for me before I tell you my business. And I don’t think I need to explain why.’
Chin steeples his fingers. ‘Two basic facts. First, there are nineteen hundred private companies under contract to one or another of the federal government’s intelligence arms. Second, more than two hundred and sixty-five thousand individuals working for these companies have a Top Secret clearance, which allows them access to sensitive data. Most of these individuals are honest and hard-working, but not all. For a fee, some are willing to pass along information. A smaller number will actually conduct investigations.’
‘So, these guys, they’re like traitors? They sell information to terrorists?’
‘If that’s going on, which I very much doubt, it’s news to me. What my contacts do is more like what happens at the Motor Vehicle Bureau or the IRS or the various credit agencies. For a fee, they pass data to private investigators.’
Lou Chin recites the pitch more or less from memory. He’s a year out of the Marine Corps where he led a company operating in southern Afghanistan and Pakistan. Chin had loved his job and fully expected to make the Marine Corps his permanent home. But then, one cold, moonless night, a mortar round landed two yards from where he crouched on a roof in Kandahar. His three comrades were killed instantly, while he, himself (except for a minor flesh wound tended by a company medic) was uninjured. Four months later, he accepted an honorable discharge and came home, figuring that some higher power had sent him a strongly worded message.
‘Why don’t you describe your needs,’ he concludes, ‘and I’ll tell you whether or not we can meet them.’
‘And you’ll guarantee confidentiality, right?’
‘Absolutely. We never compromise a client.’
‘No, you just sell government secrets.’
Chin spreads his hands and shrugs. Someone’s got his fingers wrapped around Bobby Ditto’s balls and the gangster lacks the capacity to unwrap those fingers on his own. That’s why he’s called on Xao Investigations.
