needed the job, so . . .
She had just walked back out into the hall about to lock her door when the loudest noise she’d ever heard in her life, the clang of two huge chunks of metal banging together and smashing into pieces, split the air.
She started, and dropped her key.
The glass in the little window at the end of the hall, the window that looked out into the dimly lit garage, rattled. The plaster in the ceiling above her shook, and a chunk a foot square fell, just missing her head before shattering to pieces on the floor.
A cloud of white dust rose into the air. Joan broke out into a coughing fit.
That does it, she thought, bending to pick up her key. That fucking does it.
Time to give Mr. Badass a little piece of her mind.
As she started down the hall, doors opened behind her. She turned and saw Stanley and Dave stepping out of their apartments.
“Damn,” Dave said. “What the hell is he doing?”
“Very inconsiderate,” Stanley said. “Don’t you think so, Joan?”
“Very. I plan to tell him just that.” She jerked a thumb toward the stairway. “Let’s all tell him.”
The two men turned toward each other and frowned.
“Ah,” Stanley said. “I, uh—”
“Maybe that was it,” Dave suggested. “Maybe he’s finished now, with whatever.”
Joan rolled her eyes. Dave and Stanley, she loved them like brothers, but they were both big wusses.
“You guys,” she sighed. “You’re not going to make me do the dirty work again, are you?”
A sound like an engine revving came from the garage below then. Dave’s eyes widened, and, without saying a word, he strode quickly past her down the hall.
She saw he’d gotten another piercing and shook her head. That had to make like two dozen or so on his face alone, not to mention the navel ring and the thing on the back of his neck, whatever the hell that was. She wondered if he was trying to win a contest or something—most body piercings on the block—when he reached the end of the hall, peered out the little window that overlooked the garage, and let out a long, slow whistle of admiration.
Joan and Stanley joined him.
“Look at that,” he pointed. “You do not see one of those every day.”
Before Joan could see what he was talking about, Stanley squeezed past her, pushing Joan away from the window with his bulk.
“What?” he asked. “What is it?”
“A car, Bumpo. The car. A ram air four, sixty-nine GTO with dual Holly carbs, year-one headers, and a rock crusher tranny four-speed.”
Joan stood up on tiptoes and looked for herself.
She didn’t see what all the fuss was. Their new neighbor was working on a car. A beat-up old car, as far as she could tell, probably got about two miles to the gallon, spewing black smoke every foot of the way. Men and their toys.
Stanley stepped back from the window and shook his head.
“It’s really loud. Does it have to be so loud?”
“It’s beautiful, Bumpo,” Dave replied, rooted in place.
“But when is he going to stop?”
“Maybe never,” Joan said. “He hasn’t slept all week.”
“How do you know?” Bumpo asked.
“ ’Cause I haven’t slept all week.”
“What do you think he does?” Dave asked.
Joan frowned. She had no idea. As far as she could tell he didn’t do anything, just welded and hammered and played with big pieces of metal all day and night. He usually went up to his apartment (he had to walk right past her door to get there, being that the loft wasn’t directly accessible from the garage, which was how come Joan was so familiar with his schedule) at about three, maybe four in the morning. Reminded her of Earl, in that way.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe he’s an artist.”
“Wow.” Bumpo’s eyes were wide. “Our neighbor is an artist.”
“Maybe.”
“And you’re the expert on artists?” Dave asked.
“I’ve known a few.” All of whom had one thing in common with Mr. Badass down there, an ability to work obsessively on things that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. Like those bars there in the corner; it looked as if he was making a cage or something. For what?
“So what do you think he’s doing?” Stanley asked Dave.
Dave shrugged. “Got me, Bumpo.”
“Go ask him,” Joan said to Dave. “And tell him to stop making so much damn noise while you’re at it.”
“Oh, yeah. Right.”
Joan shook her head. Pussy. She was about to head off and ask him herself when she saw that Mr. Badass had laid down his tools and was taking measurements of the car’s interior. A lot of measurements.
Maybe Dave was right. Maybe he was done making noise—for the moment at least. And speaking of the moment . . .
“I’m late for work, guys. Gotta run.”
“Night, Joan,” Dave said, eyes still glued to the car.
“Night, Joan.”
As she headed down the hall, she heard Stanley and Dave making plans for later that night. Spaghetti and
A thought occurred to her then. Maybe they should invite Mr. Badass up one of those times. That would be the neighborly thing to do—after all, the guy had lived in the building a week already, and not one of them even knew his name to say hello. Yeah. It was a good idea, she decided. Get to know the guy. Find out what he really did for a living. Who knew? Maybe she was right.
Maybe he really was an artist.
NINETEEN
Say what you will about the Jamaican, Micky Duka thought (and people did say plenty about him, not when he was around, of course; nobody had that big a death wish), but the guy had without a doubt the best herb around.
Micky took a last hit off the spliff and passed it back to Loopy.
“That’s good stuff, Loop,” he said. “God, I needed that.”
“Yeah.” Loopy smiled back. “I can see. You don’t look happy, Mick. That’s for sure.”
“Who could be happy in a monkey suit like this? Can’t even get comfortable.” Duka tugged on the valet captain’s uniform as if he could stretch it to fit, as if it was part of his skin. Which he sometimes felt it was—these days, it seemed like no sooner had he gotten home from the job than he was back on it, wavin’ cars forward, trying to move cars that were double-parked out of the way, trying not to piss off the wrong person at the wrong time . . .
“One thing I don’t get, Mick. Why’d you take this job, anyway? I never figured you for somebody who wanted to work a job like this.”
Duka shook his head. “Listen, Loop—when Howard Saint suggests you do something, you do it. Am I right?”
“Yeah. I guess.” Loopy’s face clouded over for a second as he considered the question. Big galoot. Guy was dumber than a pile of rocks, but Micky liked him just the same. Not just because of the joint, but because of what he’d done for his mom after the old man’s funeral. Loopy had really stepped up then, helped them through some hard times. For a while there Micky had even stopped calling him Loopy, called him Lou (Lou Palisano, his given name) ’cause he thought the guy was probably tired of being reminded that he was a little slow. But that didn’t work out; his friend just got confused (“Lou? C’mon, Mick, use my name, all right?”), so Loopy it was. Sometimes
