Black Water Transit (3 page)

Glazer’s voice is like a busy signal, like a very stupid bee bumping into a window over and over again, and in a little while Jack begins to drift. He looks out the leaded-glass window at the big willows on the river’s edge, they’re swaying in a summer wind off the river, the long narrow leaves showing silvery undersides, and he gets this image in his head, the way he used to see big schools of amberjack on those gunship sweeps down from Soc Trang. From a thousand feet up they looked
like silver ribbons in the blue water. This is in the South China Sea, maybe a mile off the Ca Mau Point, southern tip of Vietnam. Anyway, Glazer’s into an aria now. Jack’s eyes begin to close.

“So what do you think?” somebody asks him.

He’s thinking about the Corps, Parris Island, Camp Lejeune, the sand ticks they had there, a month at Quantico, and then the 121st Helicopter Assault Team. RVN. Thirty-five years ago? Couldn’t be. Otts. Gorman, the door gunner … who the hell was—

“Mr. Vermillion?”

Jack came back, blinked at them all.

Damn, he thinks. This won’t do.

He shakes his head, sits up straight, puts his glass down hard.

“Sorry … the heat.”

“It is warm,” said Glazer, his eyes flat as little pebbles. There was something in there, and Jack considered it. Glazer was a touchy guy, had a mean streak. A guy to watch.

Creek looked at Jack and grinned at Glazer.

“Jackson here, he’s old. He needs his nap,” said Creek.

“I like it, Mr. Glazer,” said Jack.

“
We
like it,” said Creek, smiling the smile he had for people he didn’t like very much but had to be nice to anyway.

“We do,” said Jack. “I think we should do this thing.”

“So do I,” said Creek.

“Mr. Vermillion, I can’t tell you how delighted we all are. This is going to be a very productive enterprise. I can assure you and your employees that no matter what your questions, we—all of us at Galitzine Sheng and Munro—are ready to help at any stage of the process. You won’t regret this decision. It was the smart thing to
do. In the current job market, keeping good employees happy and prosperous is a smart business move. You’ll never regret it. We can make this pension fund a powerful instrument for Black Water Transit, for your people, even for you and your partner.”

Jack smiled. Creek stood up. Glazer looked at his veeps.

“Gentlemen?”

The three of them rose together. The leather couch sighed. Big smiles and meaningful eye contact all around. Firm manly handshakes from the veeps.

“You take all the time you need, Mr. Vermillion.”

“Call me Jack.”

“Jack.”

“Call me Creek,” said Creek.

Glazer bobbed his seal head. Highlights moved across his polished cheeks. His wire frames glittered with gold light.

“Please call me Martin.”

“I will, Martin,” said Creek.

He turned to Jack, winked elaborately, did his trademark W. C. Fields finger twizzle.

“Walk with me, Jackson.”

They left the Wall Street boys packing up their papers and poking at their Palm Pilots, the three of them chirping at each other, birds on a wire. The teak-lined hallway of the Frontenac was paved with flat granite blocks and the sunlight was so strong outside that the trees and the cars in the parking lot were bleached, colorless. The cicadas were droning and the air filled with drifting seed pods from a stand of cottonwoods. The Hudson was wide and mud-brown, but the sun on the water sparkled in a broad golden arc.

When they got outside, the heat was flat and strong on their faces. Creek was silent until they got to the valet stand and he handed the muscle-bound kid his ticket.

“The racing-green Corvette, sir. I hear screaming rubber, I will snap your collarbone like the celery stick in a Bloody Mary.”

The kid grinned at him, jogged off. Creek scanned the parking lot, turned to Jack, shading his eyes in the hard white light.

“Where’s your little torpedo of screaming doom?”

“In my pants. Where it belongs. But thanks for asking.”

“Very amusing. Where is it?”

He was talking about Jack’s 1967 Shelby Cobra, a jet-black roadster with a 427 mill capable of speeds in excess of all reason. The Cobra was one of Jack’s three major vices, along with too much wine and too much work.

“Being detailed. At Frank’s. I’ll go pick it up today.”

“How?”

“Cab. What’s this? A sudden attack of courtesy?”

“Let me get it for you. I’m going that way anyway.”

“Don’t be considerate. It throws me off balance.”

“I am always considerate. It’s part of whom I am.”

“Who.”

“Who?”

“Not ‘whom.’ Who.”

“As in ‘whom’s on first’? Okay, get your own damn car. Now, tell Uncle Raleigh. What did you think of them?”

“Glazer? There’s a man who likes to talk.”

“Whom likes to talk.”

“Don’t start. Did you notice they all looked like seals?”

Creek grinned. “Yeah. Now that you mention it. But the deal?”

“I like it. I told everybody we’d be reworking the fund. Now we are. It’ll keep the Teamsters out at any rate.”

“What about Dave at the bank? He’s not going to be happy, you taking the pension fund away from Chase.”

“Chase will still have the payroll operations. All Glazer’s people are going to do is channel the investment strategy. That won’t hurt Dave Fontenot. The market’s going bats. Galitzine Sheng and Munro are right in the middle of it. They’ve been around for years.”

“They’re not going to be much fun to work with.”

“That’s not likely to bother you much, Creek. You haven’t pulled a good day’s duty since the Reagan administration.”

“Once Ronnie was in, I figured my work here was done. Answer me one question?”

“I’ll try.”

“You don’t really like letting go of it, do you?”

“I’m not. I never ran the fund. That was the problem.”

“I mean the company itself. I watched you in there. You don’t like anybody helping you out. Not even me. Black Water Transit is the only thing you’ve ever done. It’s all you have. No offense, but your personal life sucks canal water. Streak’s all you had, and look—”

“My son’s name is Danny. Not Streak. Let’s stay off that topic, okay? We’re never gonna agree. We needed to work the pension fund better. Change is good, Creek. Change is good.”

“Leave my underwear out of this. You were drifting back there. Where’d you go?”

Jack looked out to the parking lot.

“Soc Trang.”

“Oh, jeez. Here we go. Down Memory Lane in my Cobra gunship. What did you do in Vietnam, Grandpop? Well, my boy, we lit up a boxcar full of dinks and we danced the Watusi on a mountain of blackened skulls. Care for a dried gook’s ear, little fellow? They’re just like Pringles, only crunchier.”

“You’re a sick bastard, Creek. Sometimes I miss the war.”

“Mainly because you and me, we didn’t get all shot to shit.”

“Maybe. But it was something to remember. It held your attention. I almost fell asleep in there. Most of the time, I feel like I’m on Thorazine. I was wide awake and inside every minute of that war. A man needs to feel his life.”

“Some men, Jackson. Shallow little men, mutts with no inner resources. It takes your man of character to do sweet dick every day and still have a rich inner life. That’s why you have to work. Jeez, you’re a wop. What’s the phrase?
Il duce far niente
?”

“You mean
qui dolce far niente
. How sweet to do nothing.”

“What did I say?”

“Basically you said, ‘The leader does dick.’ ”

“Exactly my point!”

“I’ll find something to do. Maybe I’ll breed horses.”

“Personally? This I got to watch.”

“I like horses.”

“Way too much. I can see that from here. Why not golf?”

“I’d rather stick hot needles in my eyes. Golf is a cult, like the Shriners, only the hats are sillier.”

Creek’s attention was elsewhere, out in the parking lot.

“Okay, now who’s this mook in a suit coming up on us here?”

A mid-fifties-looking man had just gotten out of a dark-blue Mercedes 600 and was walking toward them, looking right at them, a big man shaped like a wheat barn, with wide sloping shoulders and a battered, rocky-looking face, his white hair shaved close to his skull. He was very well turned out in a lightweight navy suit, a
pale-blue shirt open at the neck. When he got closer he nodded and smiled.

“Mr. Vermillion? Mr. Johnson?”

“Yes?” said Jack. Creek said nothing.

He reached them, nodded at Creek, and looked back at Jack.

“My name is Pike, Mr. Vermillion. Earl Pike. Have you got a minute?”

Jack assessed him. The guy looked … military, somehow. His skin was seamed and darkly tanned, as if he’d spent a lot of time in the Southwest. Age maybe fifty-five, maybe older. His carriage was very stiff. Jack could see him in full dress blues. Or maybe he just had a back problem. He could feel Creek peeling off.

“Jackson, my lad, I’ll leave you with this gentleman. Mr. Pike, you have a good one.”

Jack smiled at Creek, nodded. Creek stepped out into the parking lot just as his dark-green Corvette appeared. He overtipped the valet and climbed in, inclining his head to them both as he accelerated away. The Corvette throbbed and burbled and then they could hear the music playing, zydeco, Creek’s favorite.

Earl Pike waited in silence until Creek reached the highway.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time to talk a little business?”

He was smiling and looking as friendly as he could manage, but it didn’t fit him. His eyes were off the power grid, a pair of dead sockets, and if he smiled much, it hadn’t left any marks on his face. There was a jagged burn scar above the man’s right eye. Jack figured he’d had a lot of surgery to cover it. He needed some more.

Pike offered Jack a hand and gave him a grip like getting your fingers caught in a car door. As he shook it, Jack saw that Pike’s knuckles were bandaged. Pike looked down at his hand, smiled.

“Flat tire. On the Taconic. Had to change it myself, and the wrench slipped. Ripped up my knuckles pretty good. Sorry.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Pike?”

“You want to go in, get a drink?”

“No, I’m in a rush, actually. Sorry …”

“I’ll take just a minute. I’m sorry to come in unexpectedly, but I’ve got to drive back down to New York this evening and this was the only chance I had to talk to you. I hate to impose. It’s kind of urgent. Dave Fontenot suggested I meet you here. He said your meeting should be about over. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Dave Fontenot? At Chase?”

“Yes. We had a foursome at Meadow Mills last week and I mentioned I needed to talk to someone in freight. I need some advice, actually. About a shipment. It’s unusual. He said you were the best.”

Dave Fontenot was the Chase Bank VP who handled all of Black Water Transit Systems’ accounts. This wasn’t the first time he’d sent business Jack’s way. Personal connections made up most of the business world in Albany. Okay, Jack figured. I can see this.

“What can we do for you today, Mr. Pike?”

A thin smile from Earl.

“You ship, right?”

“That’s what it says on the door.”

“Containers? Sealed?”

“Yep, if you want. We have a bonded warehouse, we’ll ship anywhere. Ground. Air. Down the Hudson. Up the Erie. The Saint Lawrence. I can have a rate card faxed—”

Earl Pike was nodding through this, something else showing in his face. Jack saw a caution light there and his silent alarm went off. Pike was looking over his shoulder. Glazer and Bern and Kuhlman came out into the parking lot, nodded at Jack, and moved away
toward a large gray Fugazy limo. When they were far enough away Pike turned back to Jack and spoke softly.

“Dave says you were a marine. That right?”

“I was.”

“See the show?”

“Some. Flew a Cobra gunship out of Soc Trang. You?”

“A little. I Corps. Up and down Thunder Road.”

“That would count.”

“Mind my asking, you own firearms?”

“A few. Nothing nuclear.”

Earl Pike nodded and moved a little closer into Jack’s space. Jack could smell the man’s aftershave, something with lime in it. His voice was deep and he spoke in a hoarse whisper, which forced you to listen harder. It was an old DI trick Jack knew from Parris Island. But he had Jack’s attention.

“You follow the firearms issues?”

“Not much.”

“You’ve heard of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994?”

“No. Gun politics aren’t really my thing.”

“It’s a ban on all sorts of weapons, semiauto assault weapons, big magazines, that kind of thing.”

“Well, sounds good to me. We got punk-ass kids in high school airing out the student body all over the country. We need more guns like we need more skin diseases. What’s the problem?”

“We can disagree about that later. I have a … collection. Very unique. Irreplaceable pieces. Pieces of immense historical value. I can give you a complete description. You’d see what I mean. These are museum-quality weapons, weapons that helped make this country. This omnibus bill, it negated the grandfather clause and collector status. My collection was always intended for my children, had they lived, or perhaps for a museum. Now my
children are gone, and this law makes it very difficult to manage the collection. So I’m thinking perhaps it’s time to let it go.”

“Your children are dead? I’m sorry. I really am.”

Pike’s face went through an alteration, and Jack saw a flash of grief, then something else. Ferocity. Rage. A murderous rage. Just beneath the man’s skin. A death mask. Then it was gone.

“It was a long time ago. A fire. About the collection …”

“Why not donate it to a museum?”

Pike shook his head and gave Jack a thin smile.

“I’m a little short on altruism right now.”

“You want to sell it, then?”

“Yes. There are good markets. And, to be frank, I resent the interference. I’m a good citizen, solid. I should have the freedom that I … that we fought for. But we have these … urban liberals. If I’m not careful, the ATF will just seize the collection.”

“They’d compensate you.”