FIFTEEN
Bobby Ditto feels a bit sorry for the two men, his bodyguards, exiled to the parking lot of the Cross Bay Diner. They’ve got what in the Caddy? Containers of lukewarm coffee and a few doughnuts? Meanwhile, he’s staring at a three-egg omelet stuffed with lox, peppers and onions, sides of dollar pancakes and bacon, and a fruit salad, heavy on the cantaloupe. Altogether, a nice breakfast.
Bobby doesn’t use the drugs he sells, or allow his subordinates to use them. The standard penalty for transgressors, rigidly enforced, is a broken kneecap and lifelong exile from the crew. Bobby doesn’t drink, either, except for the occasional beer or glass of wine over dinner with family or colleagues. He eats, though, and only his steroid-fueled workouts save him from the morbid obesity he richly deserves.
The Cross Bay Diner rests on a small plot of land facing the cargo warehouses at the ass end of Kennedy Airport. The decorative scheme is retro-aviation. Strung on cables attached to the ceiling, models of a twin-prop Douglas DC-8 and a Boeing 707 sway in a gentle breeze created by the diner’s ventilation system. The waiters, male and female, wear brown, two-pocket shirts with epaulets on the shoulders and gleaming silver wings at the breast. Posters advertise the services of long-vanished carriers: TWA, Pan Am, Eastern.
Bobby cuts a slice of bacon in half and puts it into his mouth. The Cross Bay isn’t far from his Howard Beach home, and he knows the waiters and the owner, who’s sitting behind a cash register. They know him, too, know him well enough to show respect.
Bobby eats slowly and methodically, cutting his food into smallish bites, the longer to spend with his meal. He’s thinking about the hard drive taken from Pigalle Studios’ computer when the Blade whacked the pimp. Finally accessed by Levi Kupperman, Bobby’s computer geek, the drive includes the first names of Pigalle’s clients, along with the numbers of the credit cards they used. Bobby’s pretty sure he can work backwards from the card numbers to the clients’ full names. That makes blackmail a definite possibility, Pigalle being a high-end operation. Unfortunately, the hard drive was taken from the computer of a murdered pimp, which presents complications.
Blackmail was not a consideration when the Blade took the hard drive. Bobby was after the whore, Angel Face, and that turned out to be worse than a dead end. Bobby shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about the stupid moves he made, especially the decision to hit his brother, the one that started it all, and he’s relieved when Louis Chin pushes through the door.
Chin’s wearing dark glasses and a yellow golf-shirt that might be made of silk. Bobby watches him cross the room, his stride athletic, his body language casual, unafraid.
‘Hey,’ Bobby says, a standard greeting that could easily be mistaken for a grunt.
‘Good morning.’ Chin slides into the far side of the booth. ‘That smells good.’
‘Order whatever you want. It’s on me.’
‘I think I’ll settle for coffee.’
Bobby Ditto raises his hand and a harried waitress approaches. In the borough of Queens, Sunday morning is diner-breakfast day and the restaurant’s packed.
‘Coffee for my friend.’ He watches her leave, then turns to Chin. Bobby wants to bring him down a peg or two, to soften him up before they come to the bargaining phase. Chin has some limited information to sell, for which Bobby intends to pay as little as possible. ‘You’re some kind of special forces guy, right? Like a SEAL in the Navy?’
Chin stares at Bobby for a moment, his eyes curiously blank. ‘I don’t remember speaking about my past,’ he finally says. ‘Which is irrelevant to our business together.’
‘I know, but that’s what I heard from the party that recommended you.’ Bobby cuts through his omelet and shovels a forkful into his mouth. He chews for a moment, then adds salt to his eggs. ‘But what I’m sayin’ is this. You don’t look anything like what I thought a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret is supposed to look like. I always thought they were big guys.’ Bobby illustrates his point by flexing a massive bicep, a gesture that’s met with a sneer.
‘Actually, it’s more about skill and endurance, and a high pain threshold, than physical strength,’ Chin responds. ‘Say you’re six-six and you can pick up the side of a building. Does that mean you can run forty miles in a day? Or hit a moving target six hundred yards out? I don’t think so.’ Chin pauses long enough to let the message sink in. ‘But as I said, my past is irrelevant to our present business.’
Bobby doesn’t react to the veiled threat, any more than Chin reacted to Bobby’s little taunt. ‘So, whatta ya got for me?’
‘A history, a name, a photo.’
‘But no address?’
‘I have an address, the address Carter used prior to entering the military.’
‘What if Carter’s not there? What if he’s living somewhere else?’
‘He is there.’ Chin leans back when the waitress arrives with his coffee. Like Bobby, he waits for her to drift off before he speaks. ‘I’ve already checked it out. Carter’s been living in an apartment in Queens for the past several years.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I spoke to the super, a man named Miguel Romero.’ Chin leans forward. ‘The information you gave me regarding Carter’s background. Carter doesn’t know you have it, right?’
Bobby thinks it over for a moment. Paulie Margarine isn’t all that trustworthy, not in Bobby’s opinion, but he’ll keep his mouth shut this time. You don’t tell a man like Carter that you betrayed him.
‘Yeah, OK. Carter doesn’t know I have the information. So what?’
‘So he thinks he’s safe and there’s no good reason for him to move.’ Chin leans forward. ‘We’ve got the element of surprise.’
‘Ya mean
Chin sips at his coffee. ‘C’mon, Bobby. Money talks, as they say, and so far you haven’t said a word.’
‘Here.’ Bobby takes an envelope from the inner pocket of his jacket and passes it across the table. He’s got no choice. Chin’s delivering big time. ‘Now, let’s hear the story.’
‘Leonard Carter enlisted in the army on his eighteenth birthday, a raw recruit with an obvious talent. His evaluations were uniformly superlative and he went from basic training to special forces training without skipping a beat. He became a Ranger, first, then was chosen for Delta Force, which is the ultimate. After 9/11, he took his training to Afghanistan, which is where it becomes a little murky. Are you familiar with the kill or capture list?’
Bobby shakes his head. ‘Uh-uh.’
‘The spooks compiled a list of top Taliban and Al-Qaeda commanders, a kill or capture list, early in the war. As it turned out, the capture part was more like wishful thinking because most of the targets were hiding out in Pakistan or Somalia or Sudan or Yemen. So the task force assembled by the spooks – Task Force 373 – was closer to an assassination squad than anything else.’
‘And Carter was on that task force?’
‘Yes, along with other Delta Force personnel, Navy SEALs, CIA and NSA agents, and private contractors. But my connections couldn’t access where Carter went or what he did. All we know is that Task Force 373 was operating in a number of countries by the time Carter left the military. That would be six years ago.’
Bobby pours maple syrup on his dollar pancakes, cuts the stack in quarters and fills his mouth. ‘Secret or not, I got a pretty good guess about what he did. That’s because he’s still doin’ it.’
‘I won’t argue the point.’ Chin shrugs. ‘Anyway, the CIA kept track of Carter after he left the army, but the material on him is sketchy. Carter worked for Coldstream Military Options, a private contractor in Iraq, until they went broke. From there, he drifted along the west coast of Africa for sixteen months, teaming up with Montgomery Thorpe along the way. What they did together isn’t exactly clear, but it’s certain that Carter returned to the United States three years ago. And that’s it. Upon setting foot on American soil, Carter disappeared from our radar screen.’
‘Until now.’
‘Until now.’
‘Gimme the address.’
Chin passes over a folded piece of paper containing an address in Woodhaven, Queens, not twenty minutes from where they sit, along with a single photograph. The photo was taken shortly after Carter entered the military. It depicts him in full uniform, his expression earnest, his mouth tight, his chin outthrust, more boy than man.
‘You think he looks like that now?’
