Backflash. Part 9

Parker left the Subaru in the loading zone in front of the store and went from the sunny outside to the dim interior, where the store was long and narrow and dark. Dusty toilets were lined up in one row, porcelain sinks in another, and bins full of pipe joints and faucets lined one wall.

A short balding man in a rumpled gray suit and bent eyegla.s.ses came down the aisle between the rows of toilets and sinks. "Yes? Oh, Mr. Flynn, I didn't recognize you, it's been a while."

"I phoned you."

"Yes, sure, of course. You don't go through Mr. Lawson anymore." James Lawson was a private detective in Jersey City who fronted for people like Fox, on the bend.

Parker said, "Why should I? We already know each other."

With a sad smile, Fox said, "Cut out the middleman, that's what everybody does. In my business, most of the time, I'm the middleman, why should I love this philosophy? I think I got what you want, come look."

There was a way to talk to this man on the telephone about plumbing equipment and wind up with guns, but when you have to be so careful about listening ears, sometimes it's hard to get the exact details right. But, as Fox turned away to lead Parker deeper into the store, he said, "What I heard, you want two revolvers, concealment weapons such as plainclothes police might carry, and the shoulder holsters to go with them."

"That's right."

At the back of the shop, Fox led them through a doorway, which he shut behind them, and down a flight of stairs with just steps and no risers to a plaster-walled bas.e.m.e.nt. At the bottom, Fox clicked a light switch on a beam, and to the left a bare bulb came on.

Now he led the way across the concrete floor, mounds of supplies in the darkness around them, to a wooden part.i.tion with a heavy wooden door. He took a ring full of keys from his pocket, chose one, and unlocked the door. They went inside, and Fox hit another light switch that turned on another bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. He closed this door, too, when they were inside.

The room was small and made smaller by the cases lining it on all four sides. The floor was wooden slats over concrete, except for one two-foot square in the middle, where there was no wood over the drain. Along the back wall the crates were crowded together onto wooden shelves, and Fox went directly over to them and took out a white cardboard box. The label pasted on the end claimed, with an ill.u.s.tration, that the box contained a bathroom sink faucet set.

A square dark table, paint-stained, stood in one corner. Fox carried the cardboard box to it, opened it, and inside, nestled in white tissue paper, was a nickel-plated.357 Magnum revolver, the S&W Model 27. This was the kind of gun developed for the police back in the thirties, when the mobsters first took to wearing body armor and driving around in cars with bulletproof gla.s.s, making the normal.38 almost useless. The.357 Magnum had so much more power it could go through a car from the rear and still have enough strength to kill the driver. One.357 slug could put out a car engine.

While Parker looked it over, Fox went away to his shelves and came back this time with a box claiming to contain a toilet floatball; inside was another S&W 27. "And holsters, one minute," he said, and went away again.

When he came back, with two cartons of "icemaker tubing," Parker held up the second of the revolvers and said, "The serial number's off this one. Acid, looks like."

Fox looked faintly surprised. "Isn't that better?"

"It's got to be shown like a lawman would show it, hand it over and take it back. Maybe they're sharp-eyed, maybe they're not."

"Ah. A problem." Fox brooded at his wall of boxes. "For the same reason," he said, "you'd probably like them both the same."

"That would be good."

"I got an almost," Fox decided. "The Colt Python. Looks the same, same size, same caliber. Could you use that?"

"Let me see it."

Another bathroom sink set. The Python was as Fox had described, and looked a close relative of the 27. "I'll take it," Parker decided.

"You'll want to check them?"

Parker knew how that worked with Fox. Under the drain plate in the middle of the room was loose dirt. To test-fire Fox's merchandise, you stood above the drain and shot a bullet into the dirt. It made a h.e.l.l of a racket here in this enclosed room, but Fox claimed the boxes absorbed all that noise and none of it was heard outside.

There were times when you expected to use a gun, and then you'd try it first, but this time, with what they planned on the ship, if they had to use one of these guns, the situation would already be a mess. The revolvers were both clean and well oiled, with crisp-feeling mechanisms; let it go at that. "No need," Parker said. "I'll take them as they are. Let me see the holsters."

They were identical, stiff leather holsters without a strap across the chest. They fit the 27 and the Python, and they were comfortable to wear. "Fine," Parker said.

"The whole thing is three hundred," Fox said, "and when you're done with them, if they haven't been used, you know, you understand what I mean-"

"Yes."

"Well, we done business before," Fox said. "So, if you just use them for show, afterwards I'll be happy to buy them back at half price."

Afterwards, no matter what happened, these guns would be at the bottom of the Hudson. "I'll think about it," Parker said.

9.

CONTINENTAL PATRIOT PRINTING said the old-fashioned shield-shaped sign hanging over the entry door. The shop was one of several in a long one-story fake-Colonial commercial building in a faded suburb of Pittsburgh, built not long after the Second World War and long since overwhelmed by the more modern malls. A few of the shops were vacant and for rent, and several of the remainder continued the Colonial theme: Paul Revere Video Rental down at the corner, Valley Forge Pizza next to the print shop. The plate-gla.s.s display window of the print shop was crammed with multicolored posters describing the services available within: "Wedding Invitations Business Cards Yearbooks Letterheads Newsletters Announcements." The one thing not mentioned was the service that had brought Parker here.

There was angled parking in front of the shops. Parker left the Subaru in front of Valley Forge Pizza and went into Continental Patriot Printing, where a bell rang when he opened the door, and rang again when he shut it.

The interior of this shop had been truncated, cut to a stub of a room by a hastily constructed cheap panel wall with an unpainted hollow-core door in it. The remaining s.p.a.ce was divided by a chest-high counter facing the front door, again quickly made, and with cheap materials. The paneling across the front of the counter and the paneling of the part.i.tion itself were heavy with more posters promoting the services available here, with examples of the work that could be done. The general air was of a competent craftsman with too few customers.

The inner door opened, in response to that double bell, and an Asian man came out, in work shirt and jeans and black ap.r.o.n. He was around forty years of age, short and narrow-shouldered, with a heavy forward-thrusting head, and eyes that squinted with deep suspicion and skepticism through round gla.s.ses. His name; Parker knew, was Kim Toe Kwai, and he was Korean.

He and Parker met at the counter, where Kim said, "Yes? May I help you?" But beneath that professional courtesy was an undisguisable skepticism, the belief that this new person could not possibly help because n.o.body could.

"A fellow named Pete Rudd told me I should get in touch with you," Parker said.

The suspicious eyes grew narrower, the mouth became a slit. "I do not know such a man," he said.

"That's okay," Parker told him. "I'll tell you what I need, and after I leave you can look in your address book or wherever and see do you know a Pete Rudd and call him and ask him if you should do business with Mr. Lynch. You see what I mean?"

Kim took an order form out from under the counter and picked up a pen held there with a piece of cord tied around it and thumbtacked to the counter. He wrote "Lynch" on the order form. He said, "You have brochures you want made?"

"That's right," Parker said, and while Kim wrote "brochures" on the order form Parker took a laminated card out of his pocket, plus two small headshot photos, one of himself and the other of Wycza. The laminated card was a legitimate identification card for a New York State trooper. Putting it on the counter for Kim to see, but holding one finger on it, Parker said, "At the end, I need the original back. Undamaged."

Kim squinted at the ID, then frowned at Parker. "This is actual," he said.

"That's right. That's why I got to get it back."

This was what Cathman had come up with, out of the state files; a solidly legitimate ID taken from a trooper currently on suspension for charges involving faked evidence against defendants. Whether the trooper was exonerated or not, Cathman needed to be able to put that ID back in the files, and soon.

Kim pointed at the photo of Parker and then at the ID. "You want this," he said, and then pointed at the photo of Wycza and again" at the ID, "and this."

"Right."

Kim wrote some scribbles on the order form, and then, in the right-hand charge column, he wrote, "$500 each."

Parker put his hand palm down on the form. When Kim looked at him, waiting, Parker took the pen from him, and with the form upside down, he crossed out "each." Putting the pen down, reaching for his wallet, he said, "Pete told me your price structure, and said you were fair in your charges."

Kim gave a sour look, and a shrug. "No doubt," he said, as Parker slid five one-hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and put them on the counter, "he also told you I do very fast work."

"You're right, he did."

"This is complex, this brochure." Kim thought about it. "Three days."

"Thursday. I'll be here Thursday afternoon."

"I close at five."

"I'll be here," Parker said.

Kim peeled off one copy of the order form and pushed it across the counter toward Parker, but Parker shook his head, not taking it. "We'll remember each other," he said.

10.

On a.s.semblyman Morton Kotkind's letterhead stationery, Lou Sternberg addressed Andrew Hamilton, New York State Gaming Commissioner, and wrote as follows: As you know, I have been opposed to the further legalization of gambling in New York State, beyond the lottery and the bingo for tax-exempts already existing. I have been in particular opposition to the installation of a gambling ship on the Hudson River, worldwide symbol of the Empire State, site of the first inland European exploration, by famed Henry Hudson in his ship the Half Moon, of what was to become the United States of America. The will of the people's representatives, at this time, has seen fit to look the other way at the potential for abuse in this introduction of casino gambling into the very heart of our state, where our children can actually stand on the riverbank and see this floating casino, and judge thereby that such activity has the blessing of their elders. Other esteemed members of the a.s.sembly have a.s.sured me that the operation of this floating casino is utterly reputable, that the potential for corruption has been minimized, and that the antic.i.p.ated tax revenues and economic benefits to the depressed areas of the Hudson River Valley far outweigh any potential for mischief or malfeasance. I am far from changing my att.i.tude in this matter, but even my most severest critics have always had to acknowledge my open-mindedness. I am prepared to listen and to observe. In this regard, I have decided to undertake a factfinding tour of inspection of the floating casino on Friday, May 23, this year, on the eight P.M. sailing from Albany. I wish this mission to be as low-key as possible, with no excess attention paid to me and my two aides who will accompany me. I would ask merely for one escort from the ship's complement to conduct me on my tour. I will expect, of course, to see every part of the ship. At this point, I would take strong exception to this tour of inspection being used for publicity purposes to suggest that my opposition to casino gambling in New York State has altered or diminished in any way. I shall myself make no contact with the press, and I would ask that your office and the operators of the floating casino do not alert the press to this tour of inspection. After the event, if you wish, we may make a joint public announcement. My a.s.sistant, Dianne Weatherwax, will telephone your office from my const.i.tuent office in my district in Brooklyn on Wednesday, May 21, to finalize the details. Any questions you may have should be raised through her, at that office. May I say that, although I do not expect to have my opinions on this issue changed, I would welcome convincing evidence that casino gambling is not the scourge I have long believed it to be. Yours sincerely, Morton Kotkind Sternberg was proud of this letter. "It sounds like him," he said. "Some of it is even from his speeches, like the children on the riverbank. And besides that, it's the way he talks."

It had been part of Sternberg's job to meet Kotkind, study him, get to know him, befriend him. There was a bar near Kotkind's Brooklyn law offices on Court Street where lawyers went to unwind after their hard days, and it had not been difficult for Sternberg, short and stout and sour-looking, to blend in among them, cull Kotkind from the herd, and share a scotch and soda with the man from time to time.

And now Sternberg was upstate, at Tooler's cottages, with the letter. Parker and Wycza and Noelle and Carlow all read it, and all agreed it sounded like a politician/lawyer starting to reposition himself from off that limb he'd climbed out on.

Giving the letter back, Parker said to Sternberg, "So you'll meet up with him on Tuesday-"

"We already got an appointment," Sternberg said. "We're both gonna be in court that day, him in state civil, me in housing, and we're gonna meet at the bar at five o'clock, have a drink before we go home to the trouble and strife, share our woes with the judges. That's when I slip him the mickey."

"What I want is him sick," Parker said. "Through Sat.u.r.day. Sick enough so he doesn't go to any office, make any phone calls, put in any appearances anywhere. But not so sick he gets into the newspapers. a.s.semblyman down with Legionnaires' disease; I don't need that."

"I'll put him down," Sternberg said, grinning, "as gentle as a soft-boiled egg."

The letter was dated Monday, May 12th, but wouldn't actually be mailed, in Brooklyn, until Friday the 16th, so it wouldn't get to Commissioner Hamilton's office until Monday the 19th at the earliest, four days before the tour of inspection. The Post Office would be blamed for the delay, and no one would think any more about it.

Kotkind's Brooklyn const.i.tuent office was a storefront open only on Mondays and Thursdays. Carlow and Sternberg had already invaded it twice without leaving traces, and knew how the office worked. Noelle would go to Brooklyn with them on Wednesday, and from the const.i.tuent office she'd phone Commissioner Hamilton to work out the details of a.s.semblyman Kotkind's visit, and she'd be happy to stick around a while so they could call her back, if for any reason they had to.

Parker said to Noelle, "That's his administrative a.s.sistant, for real, Dianne Weatherwax, from Brooklyn, graduated from Columbia University in New York. Can you do her?"

"Shoe-uh," said Noelle.

11.

Throughout America, the states were settled by farmers, who mistrusted cities. State after state, when it came time to choose a spot for the capital, it was put somewhere, anywhere, other than that state's largest city. From sea to shining sea, with the occasional rare exception like Boston in Ma.s.sachusetts, the same impulse held good. In California, the capital is in Sacramento. In Pennsylvania, the capital is Harrisburg; in Illinois it's Springfield; in Texas it's Austin. And in New York State, the capital is Albany. State capitals breed buildings, office buildings, bars, hotels and restaurants, but they also breed parking lots. State-owned automobiles, somber gray and black, usually American-made, utterly characterless except for the round gold state seal on their doors, wait in obedient rows on blacktop rectangles all over Albany, each enclosed in a chain-link fence with a locked gate.

At seven-fifteen on an evening in May, in daylight, under partly cloudy skies with a slight chill in the air, Parker and Wycza stepped up to the chain-link gate in the chain-link fence surrounding the State Labor Department motor pool parking lot on Washington Street. Both wore dark suits, white shirts, narrow black ties. Wycza stood casually watching while Parker quickly tried the keys he held in the palm of his right hand. The third one snapped open the padlock and released the hasp.

While Wycza stood beside the open gate, Parker walked down the row of Chevrolets, his right hand dropping that first set of keys into his trouser pocket while his left hand brought out another little cl.u.s.ter of keys from his outside suitcoat pocket. Switching these to his right hand, he stopped next to one of the cars, tried the keys, and again it was the third one that did it.

The same key started the ignition. Parker drove the black car out of the lot and paused at the curb while Wycza locked the gate and got into the pa.s.senger seat, where he scrunched around and pulled his door shut and said, "Couldn't you find anything bigger?"

"They're all the same," Parker told him, and drove off, headed downtown.

As they drove, Wycza took the small bomb from his suitcoat pocket, set it for one forty-five a.m., and put it in the glove compartment. There'd be no way to remove all the fingerprints from this car, so the only thing to do was remove the car.

On State Street, they pulled over to stop in front of a bar with a wood shingle facade. Almost immediately, Lou Sternberg, in a pinstripe dark blue suit and pale blue shirt and red figured tie, came out of the place, briskly crossed the sidewalk and got into the back seat. "I was hoping for a limo," he said.

Wycza said, "You're only an a.s.semblyman."

Parker steered back into traffic, heading downtown and downhill, toward the river.

The Spirit of the Hudson had its own parking area, on the landward side of an old converted warehouse, which until the gambling ship arrived had been empty for several years. Now a part of its ground floor had been tricked up with bright paint and plastic part.i.tions and flying streamers and pretty girls in straw hats, and this is where the customers were processed, where they paid for their tickets and signed their waivers to absolve the operators of the ship from any kind of liability for any imaginable eventuality, and received their small shopping bag of giveaways: a pamphlet describing the rules of the games of chance offered aboard, a map of the segment of the Hudson they'd be traveling, pins and baseball caps with the ship's logo, and a slip of paper warning that chips for the games could only be bought with United States currency; no credit cards.

Parker and Wycza and Sternberg ignored that normal way in. At the far end of the warehouse, a blacktop road led around toward the pier, where supplies would come aboard. Parker steered around that way, and when he got to the guard's kiosk he opened his window and said, "a.s.semblyman Kotkind."

"Oh, yes, sir!" The word had gone out, treat this politico well, we may have a convert. Stooping low to smile in at Sternberg in the back seat, the guard said, "Evening, Mister a.s.semblyman." Then, to Parker, he said, "Just go on down there and around to the right. There's a place for you to park right down there where the people get aboard."

"Thank you," Parker said, and drove on.

A pretty girl with a straw hat and a clipboard saw them coming, and trotted briskly over to meet them, smiling hard. Looking in at Parker, she said, "Is this the a.s.semblyman?"

"In the back," Parker told her. "Do I leave the car here?"

"Oh, yes, fine. No one will disturb it."

Well, that wasn't exactly true. Parker and Wycza got out on their own, but the girl opened the rear door for Sternberg, who came out scowling and said, "Are you my escort?"

"Oh, no, sir," she said. "Someone on the ship will see to you. If you'll just-"

"I'd rather," Sternberg said, because it seemed like a good idea to be difficult from the very beginning, "meet the person here, be escorted aboard."

"Oh, well, yes, fine," she said, her smile as strong as ever. Pulling a walkie-talkie from a holster on her right hip, she said, "Just let me phone up to the ship."

While she murmured into the walkie-talkie, Parker and Wycza and Sternberg looked over at the stream of pa.s.sengers coming out of the warehouse and pa.s.sing along the aisle flanked by red-white-and-blue sawhorses to the short ramp to the ship, that ramp being covered by red-white-and-blue canvas tarp walls and roof. The people seemed happy, cheerful, expectant. It was twenty to eight, and there were already a lot of customers visible moving around on the ship. Friday night; the Spirit of the Hudson was going to be full.

"Look at that poor child in the wheelchair," Sternberg said. "And gambling."

"Oh, yes, sir," the girl said, determinedly sunny. "She comes every night. It seems to cheer her up. Ms. Cahill will be down in a moment. Oh, I see her coming."

They all did, emerging from the tarp-covered ramp, a tall slim woman, attractive but more substantial than the girls in the straw hats, she in low-heeled pumps, dark blue skirt and jacket, white ruffled blouse. When she approached their group, her smile looked metallic, something stamped out of sheet tin. The hand she extended, with its long coral-colored nails, seemed made of plastic, not flesh. "Mister a.s.semblyman," she said, as though delighted to meet him. "I'm Susan Cahill, I talked with your Dianne Weatherwax on Wednesday."