Wheelman, The

“Which pipe?” Andy asked. There were three of them, sticking out of a long block of cement, under a blue tarp raised like a tent. They were on a construction site on the Delaware River, on the Camden, New Jersey waterfront side, right in the shadow of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. Cool March air picked up some extra chill from the water and blew hard and fast across the riverfront. Andy wanted to go back and put on his windbreaker.

“The biggest one—the one on the left.”

Andy saw it. It was roughly the diameter of a manhole cover. The other two pipes looked much smaller.

“C’mon. Grab one end of this.”

Andy walked over to the back of the Ford and grasped the end of one of the bags. Fury reached in and grabbed the other end, then nodded. Together, they lifted, and damned if it wasn’t heavy. The bag felt like it contained one big, thick piece of garbage, like a side of beef. Again, the words popped into Andy’s mind: dead body.

The two of them took baby steps across the concrete until they reached the big pipe. Fury tipped his end down first, resting it on the lip of the pipe. “Ready?” he asked Andy. Andy nodded, and they heaved. The bag disappeared from view. Andy heard black vinyl rubbing against cold steel, then a muted thud, like a sandbag hitting a mound of soft dirt.

“One down, two to go,” Fury said.

“This looks like a construction site. Aren’t they going to find this stuff in the morning?”

Fury smiled and paused to rub imaginary pieces of lint from his black Z. Cavaricci pants. Cavariccis had been out of style for at least ten years, but Fury kept wearing them anyway. Andy thought Fury must have purchased them in bulk back in 1991.

“Next week,” Fury said, “there’s going to be another forty feet of concrete poured over this slab. That children’s museum is going here—that ‘Please Touch Me’ joint? There’s got to be a thick enough foundation to lift the museum up over river level. So whatever’s buried here stays here for at least sixty years. My dad said that’s how long the museum’s new lease runs. The city made the developer agree to it—pretty much float the bill forever.”

“Must be some garbage.”

Fury picked up the sarcasm. “It’s just garbage, Andy. Two more bags, and you can forget all about it.”

They walked back to the Ford and again grabbed another black bag. Only this time, Andy’s hands flew away, as if he had been burned.

“Hey, Fury?”

“What’s wrong?”

“This garbage is, uh, breathing.”

Fury stared at the bag, then looked up. “Go in the front of the truck, in the glove compartment, and bring me that small leather case in there. Okay?”

“Didn’t you hear me? Look at this thing.”

“I heard you, man. Just go get me that case, then grab a Rolling Rock and go for a little walk. Finish up and come back, and we’ll get the fuck out of here and go play some music.”

Andy’s blood turned to ice water. He looked at the bag again—he couldn’t help it, after all, it was fucking breathing—and then back at Fury.

“Jesus, man. Just level with me. Is that a fucking body in there? Did we just dump a human bod—”

“Shut up, Andy. Just shut up. They’re deer. My dad went hunting, and I guess he didn’t kill this one all the way. Now please, get me the bag and take a walk.”

Andy turned away. The night sky, painted behind the tops of the Society Hill Towers across the river, looked blacker than usual. What should he do now? There was not much he could do now. Andy went to the front of the truck, opened the door, popped the glove compartment, and grabbed the small leather case. It was heavy, as if there was a dense stone tucked inside. A stone. Or garbage. Or a deer, still breathing.

He took the gun—yes, he could call it that now, what the fuck, he’d walked through that door already—and then snapped up the glove compartment lid.

Behind him, Fury yelped.

Andy clutched the case to his chest and ran around the truck. A bare human arm, somewhat streaked with blood, had reached out of an opening in the black bag and was in the process of trying to strangle Fury to death.

Some deer.

For a second, Andy wondered if he should open the case and take the gun. But then he realized he wouldn’t know what to do with it—he was raised by two former hippies who didn’t allow toy water pistols in the house, let alone real firearms. He carefully put the case on the ground and looked for the nearest available weapon that didn’t require bullets.

There. A five-foot section of two-by-four.

Andy grabbed the two-by-four and ran over to Fury, who was wrestling with the bag on the ground. Hoisting the two-by-four above his head, Andy swung it down as hard as he could. The bag jolted, then jolted again as Fury managed to swing his knee up in the middle of the bag.

“Hit ’im again,” said Fury, breathless.

Andy complied, and heard the distinct sound of something cracking. He didn’t know if it was the wood or the thing inside the bag. Regardless, the bag started jolting again, almost spasmodically. Fury scrambled backward a bit, out of reach of the arm sticking out of the bag, then started launching punches into the top of the bag, spitting and cursing with each blow. Eventually, the bag stopped moving.

“Help me get this into the pipe,” Fury said, rising to his feet.

Andy just nodded.

Together, they lifted the bag and shuffled over to the open pipe. The arm hung out of the bag, pointing to the ground like a dog’s tail.

“Jesus Christ,” Andy said.

“Don’t say anything,” Fury said. “We’ll get this straightened out, go play our job, and drink beers after that until we can laugh about this.”

“I don’t think I’m going to laugh about this.”

“Yeah, well.”

Andy looked down at the bag and wondered about the guy inside. Andy was no fool. He knew that Fury’s dad was a vor in the Philadelphia branch of the Russian mafiya, with a legit front as a club owner and a gasoline distributor in the Northeast Philly area. So this dead dude in the bag must have pissed off the Russian mobsters for something. He couldn’t tell much from the arm hanging out. A white dude, thin but muscled. No needle marks. Maybe he welshed on a bet or something, or got greedy. Or maybe he was a lawyer they didn’t need anymore. Andy looked for a watch or rings, but didn’t see any. The Russian had probably stripped him of jewelry, anyway, either to hide identifying marks or pawn it. Then again, there were three bags. Unless the Russians saved up their bodies for mass disposal, these three guys were into something together. Andy hoped to God they weren’t cops. His uncle was a cop, up in the Fifteenth District. Andy had made an uneasy moral peace with playing in a band with the son of a Russian mobster, but there was no way he could stomach the thought of—

The fingers on the arm twitched.

“Shit.”

A fist was formed.

“What?”

The body in the bag jackhammered his fist into Fury’s nuts.

That end of the bag dropped, which yanked the black plastic right out of Andy’s hands. He took a few confused steps back, watching the hand reach around and grab the zipper. Andy could imagine the zipper being lowered, and seeing his cop uncle inside, bruised and bloodied. The blood in his veins chilled.

But when the zipper came down, it revealed a naked white guy Andy didn’t recognize. The guy was bruised and bloodied all to hell, but he looked both pissed and calm at the same time. He stood up out of the bag, and Andy saw that he was really naked. Not even wearing skivvies.

Fury was writhing on the cement floor. This guy had really nailed him.

“Stop,” Andy said, holding his hands out in front of him.