“I do not,” Clarence said, his West Indian accent even more pronounced through the formal style he always adopted when he felt the need for distance.
“One sure fact in every jack,” the Prof said softly. “There’s always the chance some people ain’t coming home from the dance.”
“I know,” Clarence said, waiting.
“Only there’s no ‘chance’ in this one,” I finished it up. “Even if we
“Max could...”
“Max could ninja one or two, sure. But the Mole’s no stealth-meister, Clarence. He’d need time and access to set up his stuff. And what if there’s more guards posted inside? Or if they have dogs? This whole thing, it’s nothing but a damn jailbreak. And if the wheels come off, there isn’t a single hostage worth taking.”
The young man went quiet. We joined him, waiting.
Finally, he said, “So the only way is to...?”
“Leave them there,” I told him. “All of them. Not gassed, not tied up. Permanent.”
“That is insane, mahn.”
“It is,” I agreed. “And Mama’s not. So I say we take a look.”
First thing, we needed a local base. A place where any of us could come and go without attracting the spotlight. You can buy some privacy just by living in certain areas. But that also buys you regular police patrols, maybe even some private security force thrown in. And, worse, the kind of neighbors who act neighborly.
Gated communities and trailer parks share the same secrets. Humans hurt their babies everywhere. Beat their wives, violate their daughters, sell their sons. But we wanted an area where people worried about the DEA, not the IRS.
Michelle rented us a house in a little village nestled between two other towns, one white and one black. I didn’t know much about Long Island, but I’d done enough business with assorted racist groups from out there so that I wasn’t surprised by the clear division.
Max and I made the drive out in my new ride. I’d taken the Honda back to the Mole. Told him it just wouldn’t work for what I needed it for. And that was true. What I didn’t tell him was that a few weeks of driving that mobile appliance was squeezing the sap out of my tree.
I got the new car for eleven hundred bucks. One grand was the finger’s fee for the sweet spot he’d scoped out—an underground parking garage in a small apartment building on the East Side. Room for only about three dozen cars, most of those belonging to tenants. The open rental slots were always full by nine. By ten, ten-thirty every day, the NO VACANCY sign would be out. And the lone attendant would be having his coffee and a buttered roll, faithfully delivered by the Korean kid from the nearby deli. The extra hundred was for the kid’s college fund.
By noon, the attendant would come around, probably figuring he’d just dozed off for an hour or so, big deal. I’m sure the cops hadn’t arrived until the owner of the brand-new Porsche 911 Turbo came to pick up his car that evening. And started screaming.
By then, the Porsche was all pieced out. And I was driving my barter, a l969 Plymouth two-door post that had gone through half a dozen life changes since it rolled off the assembly line as a Roadrunner. Its last owner obviously had been in the long-haul contraband business. The beast’s undercarriage was a combination of an independent- rear-suspension unit pirated from a Viper, and subframe connectors with heavy gussets to stiffen the unibody...and let it survive a pretty good hit, too. Huge disks with four-piston calipers all around, steel-braided lines. The cavernous trunk had plenty of room, despite housing a fuel cell and the battery, but I didn’t find the nitrous bottle I’d expected.
Maybe that was because a 440 wedge, hogged out to 528 cubes, sat under the flat, no-info hood. I’d balked when Lymon first told me it was a crate motor, but he’d jumped all over my objections, taking it personally. Lymon’s a car guy first; thieving’s just his hobby.
“That motor ain’t from the Mopar factory, man,” he said, contempt cutting through his Appalachian twang. “Al deKay himself built this one.” I knew who he meant—a legendary Brooklyn street-racer, rumored to have switched coasts. “You got yourself an MSD ignition and a brand-new EFI under there,” he preached. “Nascar radiator
It was tall-geared, running a 3.07 rear end—which Lymon proudly gushed was “full cryo” while I pretended I knew what he was talking about—and a reworked Torqueflite off a column shifter. Oil-pressure and water-temp gauges had been installed in the dash slot that formerly housed the pitiful little factory tach. The replacement tach, one of those old black-faced jobs, was screw-clamped to the steering column, with a slash of bright-orange nail polish at the 6000 shift point.
The bucket seats had an armrest between them that you could pull up to sit three across in a pinch. What you couldn’t see was the chromemoly tubing that ran from the rocker sills through the B-pillars right up under the headliner to form a rollover hoop.
The windows had a tint that looked like Windex hadn’t touched the glass for years. The outside lamps of the quad headlights had been converted to xenon high-lows, like switching a cigarette lighter for a blowtorch. The inside units were actually aircraft landing lights, but you’d have to be close enough to notice the nonserrated clear glass with the telltale dot in the center to tell.
No power windows, no air conditioning. The radio was the original AM/FM. If I wanted tape or CD, I’d have to bring a portable with me when I rode.
From the outside, it looked like different things to different people. To a rodder, it would look like a restoration project—the
It looked right at home on the patch of dirt that would have been the front lawn if the house we’d rented had been in a better neighborhood.
Michelle hung around long enough to fully express her utter and total unhappiness with the dump. Nobody was dumb enough to point out that she’d been the one who rented it. She worked her cell phone, harassing the Mole unmercifully until he agreed to drive out and pick her up. I love my sister, but it wasn’t the first time I’d been glad to see her wave goodbye.
Max and I went back to our life-sentence card game as if we’d never been interrupted by my disappearance. He was into me for a good six figures, but that didn’t faze him—he’d been down more than a quarter-million years ago, when he caught one of those mythical lucky streaks even the most degenerate gambler never dares to dream of. Once he felt it lock in, the Mongol kept me in my seat for hour after hour, afraid of offending the gods by changing anything. When the run finally had played itself out, he was damn near even. But it didn’t take him long to get back under the gun, especially after I’d taught him casino as a break from gin. Max with gambling is like me with women—love’s not the same as skill.
He even dragged out the score sheets he always carries around like a religious medal. We had long since agreed to settle up when we met on the other side, and Max figures a running tab guarantees, no matter how long I’m gone, we’ll be together again someday.
Today’s game was part of the proof.
