make me ask you twice. Do it now.’
Al Zeffri’s a simple man. Certainty appeals to him and he’s happiest when he only has to think about one thing at a time. Right now he believes, with all his heart and soul, and quite correctly, that his life is hanging by a thread. If he does anything at all to antagonize the man with the gun, his parents will be forced to bear the costs of a funeral they can’t afford. He obeys Carter, retreating to the foot of the stairs, assuming the position.
Carter lets the Glock fall to his side as he moves from one fallen enemy to another, checking for a pulse, pronouncing each man dead. That task complete, he approaches Al.
‘You’re in over your head,’ he explains. ‘I’m better than you, better trained and better prepared. Do you understand that?’
Zeffri glances at his buddies as he performs a simple calculation. Four men assigned to guard the basement, three of them dead, one attacker who’s calm as a fuckin’ robot. ‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I get it.’
Carter touches the Glock’s barrel to the top of Al’s head as he skirts the man to climb the stairs. He retrieves his tool bag and half-drags it back down, finally dropping it into Al’s lap.
‘You’re going to break into Bobby’s office.’
‘The Bunker?’
‘Yeah, the Bunker.’ Carter’s ribs are on fire, but his tone conveys certainty. ‘If you do a good job, if you work real hard, I’m going to let you live. You want to live, right?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘Good. Now carry the bag to the office door, put it down, then kneel down beside it. Understand? Carry the bag, drop the bag, kneel. Do it now.’
Carter follows Al across the basement. The kid’s shoulders are slumped and his head’s slightly bowed. He’s apparently surrendered. Carter finds himself annoyed. Keeping his promise will entail logistical problems – there’s no convenient place to confine the gangster and there are guns everywhere – problems he doesn’t have time to resolve. Carter glances at his watch: eighteen minutes.
When Al drops to his knees, Carter issues a series of commands, pausing between each until the task is completed.
Al obeys each command. He doesn’t protest, doesn’t ask any questions, doesn’t say anything until Carter instructs him to close the bag. Then he manages a wistful, ‘OK?’
‘Yeah, so far, so good. But it gets a little tricky now. Have you ever used a torch?’
‘Yeah, I used to work demolition.’
Carter tosses him a cigarette lighter. ‘See, what we’re gonna do is burn away the wood around the lock so the door will open with the lock still in place. But what I want you to do right now is run your finger around the lock. Do it.’
Al’s right forefinger traces the edge of the lock. Then he looks up, his dark eyes reminding Carter of a puppy’s.
‘Good, Al, very good. That’s the part you’re going to burn. Only there’s a problem. Can you guess what it is?’
‘You’re afraid I’ll try to burn you?’
‘No, that’s not it. If you move on me, I’ll kill you without hesitation. I think you know that. The problem is that the door might catch on fire. See, there are no windows in the basement and the dinky ventilation system won’t handle the smoke, so we can’t have a fire. You with me so far?’
‘No fire.’
‘Exactly. Use the propane torch to char the wood ...’
‘Char?’
‘Blacken. Use the propane torch until the wood turns black, then use the hammer and the chisel to gouge the black part away. After you gouge out as much as possible, use the torch to blacken some more.’
Carter positions himself fifteen feet to Al’s left and slightly behind him. Now he can watch the kid and the stairway at the same time. If there’s to be an intrusion, it will have to come down those steps.
‘Start now, Al. Light the torch.’
The process is slow, as Carter expected even before he came down the stairs. Perhaps three inches thick, the door is made of seasoned oak. It shows little tendency to char, much less burn, and Al’s forced to wield the hammer and chisel again and again. Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen, with Carter urging his captive to work harder. The pain in Carter’s ribcage has eased off, but he’s not all that confident about his ability to re-climb the rope and haul up two heavy bags afterward.
‘OK, Al, you’ve done good work. You’re almost through. Now, stand up and kick the door in.’
Al’s as slow and uncoordinated as he is big and strong. The remaining wood around the lock splinters, but doesn’t break on his first, second or third kick. Carter decides to motivate him.
‘If you don’t break through that door, and I mean right the fuck now,’ he declares, his tone matter-of-fact, ‘I’ll kill you and do it myself.’
Al launches himself at the door, slamming his shoulder and his head into the wood. Somehow, he misses the lock, which remains attached to the frame when the door crashes open, offering next to no resistance. That leaves Al to land in a stunned heap on the brown carpet in Bobby’s office.
Carter glances at his watch: forty-two minutes. He follows Al into the office, flips the light switch and looks around. There’s nothing – no suitcase, no box – large enough to hold the sort of money he’s hoping to find. That leaves the room’s two closets.
‘Get up, Al.’
‘I think I hurt my head.’
‘Get up, Al.’
Al presses a hand to the right side of his head and staggers to his feet. ‘I did what you asked me. I did it.’
‘True enough, but you’re not quite finished.’
Carter’s reminded of the game show,
Carter points to the closet door furthest away, the smaller of the two, and says, ‘Open that door.’
Al complies, a half-assed smile on his face. His usefulness has pretty much come to an end and he knows it. Shelves dominate the closet’s interior, from top to bottom. There’s a mop, a bucket and a vacuum cleaner jammed between the shelves and the door, but no suitcase.
‘The other one now.’
Despite his outward calm, Carter releases a held breath when Al pulls the door open to reveal a suitcase next to a bag of golf clubs. That it should be unprotected seems impossible at first glance, at least to Carter, but there’s a simple explanation. Bobby never kept money in his office because his office would be the first place searched by the cops if he became the target of an investigation. Carter’s emergence forced him to bring the money where he could protect it with muscle, a perfectly rational decision. If he’d left the money in the Bronx, it would already be gone.
‘Take out the suitcase, lay it on the desk and open it.’
Carter half-expects the suitcase to be locked, but it’s not. Opened, it reveals stacks of banded hundreds and fifties. Carter looks down at his watch: forty-six minutes.
‘I need you to move a little faster, Al. First, close the suitcase. Then put the tools back in the bag and carry the suitcase and the bag to the stairs. Do it now.’
‘Please ...’
‘Do it now, Al.’
Al’s expression is glum, but he doesn’t protest. He repacks the tool bag, picks up the bag and the suitcase and walks toward the stairwell. Carter’s now thinking that his night’s work is almost over, but it’s not to be. As Al lays his burdens down, the radio strapped to Carter’s belt clicks twice. Bobby Ditto’s come to play. He’s come to play and he’s brought a friend along, hopefully the Blade.
