Chasers (15 page)

“Maybe so, but we’re not the only ones who are like that and who put in the hours we do,” Andy said. “These investment bankers never seem to go home, either. Might as well put a pullout in their office and grab a few that way. Same as us. So what makes them a better grab for someone on the prowl? And don’t say the money, because it’s never just that alone.”

“You better start drinking something a lot stronger than beer if you don’t think money comes into play,” Jimmy Mac said. “Sure, they put a pullout in their office—except theirs is a leather number imported from some factory in Northern Italy and costs more than we make in two months. Ours we buy from a brother-in-law who can make a grab at a Macy’s. And the only reason they won’t make it back home alive at the end of a long shift is because they pulled a suicide squeeze off an eight-digit merger deal gone sour. And not because they took two to the head and chest in a hallway stare-down with a cracked-out predicate felon. We talk and live in two different worlds, young Andy. They live in one and we live in the other, and there’s no point in sneaking across their border even if we could swing it. They could pick us out of any six-pack with their eyes sealed.”

Jackie pushed her chair back and tossed her empty cup into a wastes-basket to her left. “I need to get back to my case,” she said, standing and looking down at Andy. “And you need to get back to yours.”

“Thanks for taking the time,” Andy said. “Not just out in the hall there, but in here as well. It felt good to talk about it, even if it was just for a few minutes.”

“It’s what a friend does, Andy,” Jackie said. “You shouldn’t have to go through this all alone. You might think you can, and you may even be strong enough to get past the dark days by yourself. But it’s not just about that. It’s about having a hand you can reach for when you feel the need. Nothing is going to help make this fight you’re in go down any easier, but it just might make the day-to-day of it not as hard.”

“You have your own life,” Andy said. “You don’t need this. This is an ugly disease that’s only going to get uglier. Some of the people we work with think you can catch it just by standing close to me. And I don’t know enough about it to tell them they’re wrong. I’ll be shunned, as will any friends I have left. And I care too much to put you in that place.”

Jackie stared at Andy for several seconds and then walked past the desk and over to his chair. She rested her right hand on his and leaned down and kissed him gently on the cheek. “You’re a good man, Andy,” she whispered. “And a good man should never die alone.”

She moved her hand away, turned, and walked quietly out of his office. Andy Victorino sat and watched her go, listening to the slow hiss of the door as it closed behind her. He then pushed his chair back, picked up a thick case folder, and took a slow walk to the morgue room.

19

Boomer sat at a corner table in the back of Nunzio’s Restaurant, across from Dead-Eye, two open folders spread across the starched white cloth. Both men were sharing a large bottle of flat mineral water and gazing down at the information laid out before them. The owner of the restaurant, Nunzio Goldman, walked their way, a bottle of red wine in one hand, three glasses in the other. “You should always have a glass of good wine when you’re planning a job,” he said. “No matter what kind of work it is we’re talking about. Even a suicide mission.”

“The last job we just got a glass,” Dead-Eye said, moving aside a handful of papers in order to make room for Nunzio and the wine. “This time, we’re getting the whole bottle. That can’t be a good sign.”

“So long as it’s a good wine,” Boomer said, nodding at Nunzio and watching as his old friend sat and poured out three glasses and passed two across the table.

“I would drink to your health,” Nunzio said, raising his glass, “but I learned long ago what a waste of time that is when it comes to you two. So how about we just drink to mine?”

“How about we just drink?” Dead-Eye said, clinking glasses with Nunzio and smiling at the older man. “I hate to get into any situation where there are conditions put to it.” Nunzio sipped his wine and glanced down at the pages that were nestled on the table. He looked at Boomer and Dead-Eye and shook his head. “I never took you two for the going-on-a-vacation type,” he said. “And even if I was wrong on that score, I would figure it to be someplace in Europe and not down South America way.”

“You’d have a hard time finding a more beautiful spot in this world than the triborder region,” Boomer said, pointing to a black dot on a small folded map by his elbow. “It’s where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina meet and greet. Rain-forest country.”

“At a sweet little wet spot called Ciudad del Este,” Dead-Eye said, setting his glass off to the side. “And for my money it’s the most dangerous city in the world sitting in the very middle of the most corrupt region known to cop or crook. The rain is just added in for a little dash of color.”

“And this is where you both pick to grab some sun and fun?” Nunzio asked. “What? All the gulags were booked?”

“Every new drug crew to dance into this city has either had its start there or does a large chunk of business out of its port,” Boomer said. “It’s what Marseilles used to be in the 1970s, and Palermo in the years before that. If the cocaine business had a heart, it would beat in Ciudad del Este.”

“It’s where crime begins and where it goes on holiday,” Dead-Eye said. “You name it, this city has it. From a tax dodge to a terrorist hookup, you’ll find it on their shore. You can’t buy anything or anyone that’s not contraband, elected, or appointed. Shit, me and Boomer were out looking to be pirates, this is where we’d dock our boat.”

“These new guys seem cut from different cloth than the ones that did business out of France and Italy,” Nunzio said. “At least that’s what I get from reading the papers.”

“Hoods are all cut the same, Nunzio,” Dead-Eye said, his hands resting flat on the tabletop. “Africa to Amsterdam, they’re all one. They earn their money off somebody else’s hard sweat and they snap out a life easy as blowing out a candle—some for pleasure, some for profit, most for both.”

“Are you passing these nuggets along just to educate?” Nunzio asked with a hard look. “Or has your madness latched itself on to a new method?”

“You know what else they all have in common?” Boomer asked, leaning forward in his chair. “The mob guy, the Crip and the Blood, the Russian, the SA dealer, the shooter sets up shop in a French art gallery? The one thread they all share?”

“You got my attention,” Nunzio said.

“They believe there’s nobody going up against them with a badge that’s as crazy and as desperate and as deadly as they are,” Boomer said. “That’s why they all think that if they’re going to go down it will be at the hands and guns of another crew set up just like them. They never think they’ll take the fall because of a cop or even a team of same. In their minds, there are no cops out there to be feared.”

“But you guys are different?” Nunzio asked, looking from Boomer to Dead-Eye. “Is that your bullet point?”

“Yes,” Boomer said. “We
are
different, and we’ve always been. That and a handful of luck are the only reasons guys like me and Dead-Eye are still on our feet.”

“Be a good idea to toss the word
barely
to that thinking,” Nunzio said. “Look, I’ll give you that you were balls-to-the-wall cops, and if I was a hood on the run you’d be the last sons of bitches I’d want after my ass. But that was about a dozen bullet holes ago. You made all the right moves the last time out and you just managed to eke it to the finish line. How much closer do you want to cut it?”

Dead-Eye drained the wine out of his glass and rested it back on the table. He looked at Nunzio and smiled. “My son always wonders why it is I miss being a cop but would cringe at the idea of him strapping on a gun and shield. He thinks it’s because I’m afraid he might get hurt, or even worse. Or that maybe I don’t believe he would be up to it, be able to go near the same levels I once touched. I let him think either one is on the money, because he’s still a little too young to know the real truth.”

“Which is what?” Nunzio asked, leaning with his back against his chair, eyes focused only on Dead-Eye.

“That he’s too much of a good kid to be a great cop,” Dead-Eye said. “He looks for the goodness when all I see is pure evil waiting to pounce and make its play against a boy like my son. There’s always going to be more criminals out on those streets than we deserve to have for the simple reason that there aren’t as many guys like me and Boomer waiting for them on the other side. Taking them out is what we’re about. No matter how many bullet holes we got in us or how much it hurts to walk up a flight of stairs, guys like me and Boomer have no say in how we play. We have made it our business to mess with theirs, till death.”

“Well, if it’s death you want, you’re about to mix it up with the ones most eager to give it to you,” Nunzio said. “Other than maybe the Russians, there’s no one crew nastier right now than the SAs. And they won’t care if you’re in a wheelchair or breathing from an oxygen tube. You make a move on them and they will bury you. They don’t think of it as just business. To them, it’s a way of life.”

“Does that mean you’re going to help us?” Boomer asked. “Or are you just going to sit by and watch two of your best customers go down the drain?”

“Customers I got more than my share,” Nunzio said, pushing back his chair and standing, looking from Boomer to Dead-Eye. “But friends I don’t have too many of, and I like to keep the ones I have. Whatever you need, if I can get it done it will get done. Once you get all the pieces to your plan in place, I’ll try and fill in as many holes as I can.”

“We’re about a week away, even less,” Boomer said. “The plan’s there—we just need to put together the team to make it work.”

“How hard you figure that’s going to be?” Nunzio asked. “Finding a few more demented bastards like yourselves just itching to fight till they drop?”

“Desperate’s always easy to find,” Boomer said. “But they have to be good, too. And that part’s never a walk.”

“We’ll get them,” Dead-Eye said. “I have no doubt.”

“In that case, I’ll go in and check on the specials,” Nunzio said. “A good meal is in order. Nobody should stare down death on an empty stomach.”

Boomer and Dead-Eye watched as Nunzio made his way past the bar and through the double doors leading into the kitchen. “You think he’s right?” Dead-Eye asked.

“About what?” Boomer said.

“The part about this being a suicide mission,” Dead-Eye said. “That’s the one that caught my ear.”

“Have we ever been out on one that wasn’t?” Boomer asked.

“We always did make it a habit to kick down the do-not-enter doors,” Dead-Eye said with a smile. “Never wanted any part of nice and easy.”

“And we’re too old to ask for a fresh deck of cards now,” Boomer said. “Besides, it’s not death we’re afraid of; it’s living at half speed that gives us the night sweats. Truth is, I don’t know if we can do this, Dead-Eye. These crews are primed and running on full tanks. They’re more than not the best we’ve ever gone up against. It could be over for us in one round. Shit, it can end before we even get a chance to climb through the ring ropes.”

“But?” Dead-Eye said.

“I just know this is something we have to do,” Boomer said. “Because not doing it will kill us faster than any one of their bullets.”

2

“What do you want, Steve?” “To enter my house justified.”

—FROM SAM PECKINPAH’S
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY