The reclaimed swampland out around JFK had too many other operations going, besides the quick-trick motels and the topless joints. Too many warehouses without signs on them, too many rotting big rigs parked together like an elephants’ graveyard.
South Ozone Park was good once, but it’s chop-shop heaven all along Atlantic Avenue, and too many neighborly citizens in the little houses just beyond.
Most of Queens is lousy, in fact. The DA out there is so lame he can’t even make an organized-crime case at the airports. Pitiful. The feds have to do all of that stuff.
And you’re always reading about rapists and murderers who capture their victims in another county and truck them into Queens because it’s a softer spot if you get caught.
Everybody knows. And, sooner or later, dead meat brings flies.
I finally found a place. Not far from the Eastern District High School in Bushwick, right in the middle of the badlands. Just over the Brooklyn line, past a foul little river that ran under a rusting drawbridge beside a concrete plant. It was an old factory that the sweatshops hadn’t taken over because it needed way too much work—the life- support systems were all gone; even the copper tubing had been stripped for cash. No danger of pedestrian traffic in daylight. The area was deserted except for the buses that ran along Metropolitan Avenue, like spot-labor vans that cruised the corners picking up whoever wanted a day’s work. Only the bus cargo was all regulars—born-unlucky refugees who couldn’t even say “green card” in English.
And after dark, the only signs of life were the strip bars and the fast-food joints. Once you left the main drag, you could see more action in a graveyard.
I got Pansy used to our new home by camping there with her for a few nights. The Mole welded some steel stairs to the roof, and Pansy was accustomed to depositing her loads up there at the last place, so there wasn’t really any learning curve. One thing was different—a two-pump gas station on the Avenue had a little fenced-off area with dogs walking patrol, so the night was never quiet. But Pansy didn’t seem to care.
I put the place together slow. Real careful. Worked at night, coming and going. When I was finished, it still looked abandoned, but if you checked the city property records, you’d find out it was owned by a corporation. If you traced that corporation, you’d eventually dead-end. But it was mine, and I wasn’t worried about a surprise condemnation proceeding from the city, because Davidson was listed as the corporation’s agent, and he’d get notice in plenty of time.
The first floor was empty, and I left it that way. For a while, the occasional wino would try and catch some sleep there, but it was too full of rats big enough to hunt cats. . . and dogs hungry enough to go after
The rust-covered steel door on the side of the building got brand-new locks, multiple spikes driven deeply into the four-inch frame. The best pick man in the world might have beaten it without a key, but even if you could convince thieves of that class there was anything worth stealing in this neighborhood, even if they put together a watch-your-back team while one worked on the door, even if they got inside, they’d just see a blinking red light and a keypad. And a digital counter, working its way down from 30. At that point, they could start punching numbers or start running.
Past all that was another staircase, with a motion-sensor-and-trip-wire combo that would stop a counter- terrorist sweep team.
On the top floor was Pansy, roaming loose. That’s where I lived. Different from the last place. Lots more room, lots less light—a trade-off for the one-way glass. I used a generator for electricity, so nothing registered with Con Ed. No phone, but I had a steady supply of cloned cellulars from the Mole. And a bunch of fresh extra-sweet pineapples for deodorizers that I replaced every couple of days.
I parked indoors, using a million-candlepower hand-held spot to clear the area every time I pulled in. It always drove whatever was there back far enough for me to make it to the stairs. Nobody could get into the Plymouth, even with a crowbar, so I didn’t worry about that much either.
None of the rats made it upstairs, but occasionally a mouse would flit past in the corner of my vision. Mice and rats don’t coexist, so I guess the rats preferred the lower bunk.
Mice aren’t the real problem in city apartments anyway. I remember one day in the joint, we were all out in the yard, swapping stories. Throwdown was telling us about a place he once had. I never knew his citizen name. We all called him Throwdown because he was the sweetest guy in the world, big black dude with a lot of miles on him. But if you challenged him, he’d just go off. He was one of those anesthetics, didn’t feel pain. The hacks discovered that when they tried to club him out once. And mace only made him mad. After that, one of the Goon Squad always carried a hypo full of Thorazine when they came for him.
“Rather have mice than roaches any day,” Throwdown said. “Mice at least got the good taste to stay away when you got company over, you understand what I’m saying? Motherfucking roaches, they see people, they think it’s a business meeting, and they all invited. Now, I had ’em
“Damn! What’d you do?” one of the guys asked.
“Booked,” he said, grinning.
The Mole could have hooked me up with air conditioning too, but window units would have given away the game. And I wasn’t looking forward to winter, even with the space heaters we had lining the walls. But, right then, the asphalt was boiling and getting out was the best way to deal with the weather, so I saddled up the Plymouth and took Pansy to the park.
We got settled in and watched. One guy was going through a complex ritual with himself—stretching, flexing, getting ready for. . . whatever. One of those boys who thinks his body is a temple, I guessed. I lit another cigarette, scratched Pansy behind the ears, both of us grateful for the shade.
A gorgeous redhead with legs longer than a bust-out gambler’s last hope swiveled by. She took a glance at the temple and decided she was an atheist. Watching her walk away was almost enough to make me do some jogging of my own.
The day went on. Close to that special twilight where everything is outlined in black against the sky. Wolfe said she might meet me there, but not to count on it. I’d give her another hour and roll down to Mama’s, hang out there until the commuter traffic vanished.
I wanted a woman. Not the hard-eyed ones I’d been playing with ever since Crystal Beth was taken. Yeah, those were the ones I thought I wanted—as far away from love as I could get, now that mine was gone. But. . . I can’t explain it. Women can fake orgasms, but they can’t fake that wonderful big-eyed look they give you when you’d done something fine.
I wanted to do something fine. See that look.
I don’t buy what citizens mean by “faithful.” Sex isn’t love. But I had to be faithful to Crystal Beth my way. So, before I could search for that look in a woman’s eyes again, I needed to see some dead bodies.
Pansy spotted a squirrel hauling a hunk of discarded pizza back to its nest. An hors d’oeuvre in motion, but even Pansy’s brick brain knew she’d never score, so she contented herself with just watching.
Like I was.
Wolfe never showed.
The heat got worse, visible waves hovering just above the ground. TV cranked it up more. CNN especially. Not the weather reports—the footage of Hutu and Tutsi slaughtering each other on both sides of the Rwanda border again. The mass-homicide images flashed me back. Headaches. Fevers. Night sweats. And that terrifying visitor they call ague: cold, bone-marrow-deep, so bad you can’t close your jaw or your teeth will crack like dry twigs from the chattering, an electric shaking that has to work its way through your body before there’s any peace. It never announces its coming—it’s just
I took some of the quinine they’d given me years ago, but it just made my ears ring. I went to a doctor who specialized in tropical diseases. She said the ringing was tinnitus. Common thing for malaria victims—the tiny cilia in the ear become brittle and snap. Nothing can be done about it. The ringing would just come and go for the rest of
