The Tomb (Repairman Jack)

He wore dark glasses, a dark blue Izod buttoned up to the neck, an 'I ? NY' button pinned to his breast pocket, light blue Bermudas, knee-high black socks and sandals. He’d slung a Kodak disposable camera and a pair of binoculars around his neck. Figured his best bet was to look like a tourist.

The tombstonelike Secretariat Building was off limits to the public. An iron fence surrounded it and guards checked IDs at all the gates. In the General Assembly Building there were airport-style metal detectors. Jack had reluctantly resigned himself to being an unarmed tourist for the day.

The tour began. As they moved through the halls the guide gave them a brief history and a glowing description of the accomplishments and the future goals of the United Nations. Jack only half listened. He kept remembering a remark he’d once heard that if all the diplomats were kicked out, the UN could be turned into the finest bordello in the world and do just as much, if not more, for international harmony.

The tour served to give him an idea of how the building was laid out, the locations of the public areas and restricted areas. Jack decided his best bet was to sit in the public gallery of the General Assembly, in session all day due to some new international crisis somewhere. Soon after seating himself, Jack learned that the Indians were directly involved in the matter under discussion: escalating hostile incidents along the Sino-Indian border. India was charging China with aggression.

He suffered through endless discussions that he was sure he’d heard a thousand times. Every dinky little country, most unknown to him, had to have its say and usually it said the same thing as the dinky little country before it. Jack finally turned off his headphones. But he kept his binoculars trained on the area around the Indian delegation's table. So far he’d seen no sign of Kusum.

He was just about to nod off when Kusum finally appeared. He walked in with a dignified, businesslike stride and handed a sheaf of papers to the chief delegate, then seated himself in one of the chairs to the rear.

Jack watched through the glasses as Kusum exchanged a few words with the other diplomat seated near him, but for the most part kept to himself. He seemed aloof, preoccupied, almost as if he were under some sort of strain, fidgeting in his seat, crossing and uncrossing his legs, tapping his toes, glancing repeatedly at the clock; the picture of a man with something on his mind, a man who wanted to be somewhere else.

Jack sensed he’d be leaving soon.

He left Kusum sitting in the General Assembly and went out to the UN Plaza. A brief reconnaissance revealed the location of the diplomats' private parking lot in front of the Secretariat. Jack fixed the image of the Indian flag in his mind, then found a shady spot across the street that afforded a clear view of the exit ramp.

3

It took most of the afternoon. Jack's eyes burned after hours of being trained on the diplomat lot. If he hadn't happened to glance across the Plaza toward the General Assembly Building at a quarter to four, he might have spent half the night waiting for Kusum. For there he was, looking like a mirage as he walked through the shimmering heat rising from the sun-baked concrete. For some reason, perhaps because he was leaving before the session was through, Kusum had bypassed an official car and was walking to the curb. He hailed a cab and got in.

Fearful he might lose him, Jack ran to the street and flagged down a cab of his own.

'I hate to say this,' he said to the driver as he jumped into the rear seat, 'but follow that cab.'

The driver didn't even look back. 'Which one?'

'It's just pulling away over there—the one with the Times ad on the back.'

'Got it.'

As they moved into the uptown flow of traffic on First Avenue, Jack leaned back and studied the driver's ID photo, taped to the other side of the plastic partition that separated him from the passenger area. It showed a beefy black face sitting on a bull neck. Arnold Green was the name under it. A hand-lettered sign saying “Green’s Machine” was taped to the dashboard.

'You get many 'Follow-that-cab' fares?' Jack asked.

'Almost never.'

'You didn't act surprised.'

'As long as you're paying, I'll follow. Drive you around and around the block till the gas runs out if you want. Just as long as the meter's running.'

Kusum's cab turned west on Sixty-sixth, one of the few streets that broke the 'evens-run-east' rule of Manhattan. Green's Machine followed. Together they crawled west to Fifth Avenue. Kusum's apartment was in the upper Sixties on Fifth. Probably going home.

But the cab ahead turned downtown on Fifth. Kusum emerged at the corner of Sixty-fourth and began to walk east. Jack followed in his cab. He saw Kusum enter a doorway next to a brass plaque that read: New India House. He checked the address of the Indian Consulate he’d jotted down that morning. It matched. He’d expected something looking like a Hindu temple. Instead, he saw an ordinary building of white stone and iron-barred windows with a large Indian flag—orange, white, and green stripes with a wheel-like mandala in the center—hanging over double oak doors.

'Pull over,' he told the cabby. 'We're going to wait awhile.”

Arnold pulled his machine into a loading zone across the street from the building. 'How long?'

'As long as it takes.'

'Could run into money.'

'That's okay. I'll pay you every fifteen minutes so the meter doesn't get too far ahead. How's that sound?'

Arnold stuck a huge brown hand through the slot in the plastic partition. 'How about the first installment?'

Jack gave him a twenty.

He turned off the engine and slouched down in the seat. 'You from around here?' he asked without turning around.