The Trade (27 page)

The three assassins looked at each other and
the floor. Angus was fuming. They were suddenly concerned for their
own mortality.

"Sir? The city cops will be here soon. What
are we going to tell 'em?"

"The plan idiot. We're going to tell them the
plan. It was an attempt on my life. And that's all we'll tell them.
We're going to let the FBI look after this. Remember?"

"Oh yeah,” the men agreed.

Warren Fishky burst into the remnants of the
conference room.

"Mr. MacKenzie. Mr. MacKenzie!" the men said
urgently as they found Angus covered with blood and dirt. "Are you
alright?" they asked.

"I'm fine,” Angus barked. "What the hell are
you doing here?"

"Sir. Jay Calloway. He knew. He got a call
from his mother about five minutes before the accident,” Agent
Warren Fishky reported. "He must have known.”

"It was him,” Angus MacKenzie announced to
the collection of agents surrounding him. "It's him that tried to
kill me!”

"What are we going to do?" Fishky asked.

“
We’re going to put the
NYPD and the FBI to work for us. Either they find him and convict
him of one count of attempted murder and fourteen counts of murder,
or we find him. And if we find him…”

Chapter

Screaming fire truck sirens snapped Jay out
of his coma-like sleep on the edge of the sidewalk. His head felt
like it was going to explode. He realized it was after dark.

"Damn,” Jay said. "How long was I asleep?" he
asked the old bag lady. She was gone.

"Damn,” Jay repeated. He looked at his wrist
and his watch was gone. He felt in his pocket with increasing
dread, his wallet was gone too. Jay scrambled to his feet and
realized the final insult the street vultures had visited upon him.
His shoes were gone.

Damn. Now what am I gonna do
? Jay
thought about finding a cop and telling him he'd been mugged. "No,”
he told himself. "They'll take me in and who would I call to get me
out. Ted? Rick? Jay tried to think. His eight hours of sleep on the
sidewalk had helped his mind considerably. He felt more able to
hold his thoughts together.

Maybe Tonia can help
? Jay thought.
She did try to warn me
.

"She'll love you to death,” he heard Rick say
from long ago.

"She loves me. I know she does,” Jay answered
the voice. "They must have threatened her or something,” Jay told
himself. "She'll have to help me, or at least tell me what
happened,” he whispered. Passers-by had begun to look oddly at him
when he spoke out loud.

She'll help me
.

Jay scoured his pockets and found six cents.
"Those animals,” he cursed under his breath. "Where am I going to
get a quarter for the phone and some shoes? Think man think.” Jay
stood huddled against the building, braced against the early spring
night air. A bus advertising discount golf equipment and apparel
churned by in a cloud of diesel fumes.

My locker at the Golf Club
! Jay
snapped his fingers in the cold night air.
I've got my golf
clubs and clothes there. I can get a shower and change and get
inside out of the cold night and think
. Jay started shuffling
in his socked feet along the dark lonely concrete towards Wall
Street.

"Yes?" the attendant asked through the
intercom at the club.

"Let me in,” Jay said impatiently.

"Your code?"

"Come on. You know me. Let me in.”

"Your code?"

"072261Jay Calloway49,” Jay answered.

"Okay,” the attendant said. Jay pulled open
the buzzing security door.

"Sorry to bust your balls like that sir. But
they put up a camera. I gotta follow the rules. What happened to
you?" the night attendant asked.

"Mugged,” Jay half-lied.

"You want I should call the cops?"

"No,” Jay answered.

"You sure?"

"Yeah,” Jay said. "All they got was my shoes,
watch and uh… my stash, if you know what I mean?” Jay made a toking
charade with his hand and mouth.

"Riiight,” the attendant smiled, happy to be
let in on the illicit details of the supposed crime. "No need for
the cops.”

"Riiight,” Jay echoed. He went down the
hallway to his locker. The combination lock opened easily and soon
he was in a hot, soapy, decadent shower.

"So what's my next move?" he asked the
showerhead.

"Call Tonia,” his heart said.

"Call Rick,” his head said.

"Cry,” his soul and the little scared child
inside him said. The frightened child won. He stood in the shower
crying for twenty minutes until he could cry no more. He finally
snapped off the water and toweled off. He gave his nose an enormous
blow to clear the accumulated runoff of his weeping.

Now I'll call Tonia
, he resolved.

"Lookin' good Mr. C. the Wall St. Golf Club
desk attendant said. "You want I'm calling a radio cab take you
home?"

"No thanks. I'll walk.”

"You sure? You already been mugged once.”

"No. I'm sure,” Jay said as he walked out the
security door into the cold spring night. The outfit he'd taken
from his golf locker was a classic. Blue golf pants, white t-shirt
under a white golf sweater with a navy V neck, a red MIAMI wind
breaker and the same high top Nike basketball shoes that a month
before had been loaded with Agent Warren Fishky's radio
transmitter.

"Okay,” I've got one credit card, twenty
bucks and a pack of subway tokens. Now what do I do?" he asked
himself. "My apartment is out of the question. I better get out of
town and call Rick. He'll know what to do.” Jay started down the
subway. At the bottom of the steps he made eye contact with the
street person.

That guy must live down here 24/7.

"What if they're looking for me down here?"
he thought. "And what about Tonia? I have to call Tonia. I have to
know.” His obsession overcame his reason. He turned and headed back
up the steps. The street person watcher radioed the contact.

Jay Calloway walked quickly to Broadway. Even
at this late hour there were still a good number of people out and
about. "And cops,” Jay noticed. "They don't seem to be looking for
anyone,” Jay noticed, "but I better keep to myself to be safe.”

Jay kept walking uptown. He was looking for
an out of the way pay phone from where he could call Tonia. Block
after neon block passed him by and soon he was in the dregs of
SOHO. Several bars were open and doing a good business.
College
crowd
, Jay thought.

He wandered into Paddy McDuff's on Broadway
just south of Houston Street. The smell of stale beer, cigarettes,
sweat, and unbridled co-ed sexuality hit him all-at-once. On the
few occasions that he'd tried the college bars at Miami they'd been
just like this. Beer, sweat, and sex all wrapped in one. Jay
instinctively went to the bar and got a beer. He moved towards the
back of the bar where it seemed a little less crowded. His eyes
were scanning the bar for anything unusual, looking for anyone he
might know from work. As he scanned, Jay saw one of his favorite
video games from years gone by against a back wall and saddled up
to it. A pretty red head was working the controls furiously.

"Nice move,” he observed, his troubles
momentarily forgotten.

"Get lost,” she answered.

Jay shrugged his shoulders and put his
quarter on the edge of the machine so that he'd have dibs on the
next game. Amidst the greatest of crises, the true videoholic can
and will escape into an electronic world of video surrealism.

"Could be a while,” the pale skinned girl
said.

"I can wait,” Jay answered. “I’ve got all
night.”
I got nowhere else to go
.

Minutes passed. Jay watched her score rise.
As she went from level to level Jay congratulated her. She remained
aloof and maintained her tight focus on the game.

Finally the aliens boxed her in and she used
up all her ammunition trying to fight her way out. There were
simply too many aliens. Her video demise was painful and
graphic.

"Not bad,” Jay said. "Not exactly the way I'd
play it but an interesting strategy never the less.”

"Yeah like you can do any better old man,”
she said, turning on him, red hair flying out to the side. She
pulled her beer from the side table and took a big gulp.

"Watch and learn child,” Jay said cockily. He
fed his quarter to the machine. It came electronically back to
life. Jay started deftly handling the controls of the alien
killer.

"It's been a while since I played this one,”
Jay commentated while he played. “But back in the day I used to
have a clue…” He moved his outlander through the intricate paths on
the screen, dispatching non-beings at a much slower rate than the
girl had.

"It doesn’t pay to be too aggressive at these
lower levels,” Jay explained to the red head. "The goal is to
advance, not to annihilate,” Jay lectured. "You have to save your
ammo for the higher levels and the nasties up there,” he said.
"These guys you just avoid,” he explained as he jumped a slow
moving robot.

"Uh huhn,” the girl said, not buying it. The
defiance in her voice was clear.

"I see it'll take some convincing,” Jay said
as he advanced to the next level.

"Damn right,” she said draining her beer and
slamming a quarter onto the ledge of the game. She went to the bar
for another beer. Jay was still playing when she returned. His
electron-dragon slayer dodged wave after wave of beasts intent on
his extinction. As he advanced, he stored prodigious amounts of
ammunition. When he easily passed her high score she issued a tiny
harrumph and drained half her beer in one gulp.

"Not bad,” she said. A large beer belch came
flying from her mouth. As the machine readied itself for the next
highest level, Jay looked away from the screen at her momentarily.
She was downing the rest of her beer. He looked her up and
down.

"Where are you putting all that beer?" Jay
asked. "You're just skin and bones,” he said.

"Fuck you,” she said. Jay turned back to the
game. Ten minutes later he'd freed the last intergalactic prisoner
and set a new high score on the machine. The bartender delivered a
pitcher of beer as his prize.

"Nice,” the red head said, filling her glass
with Jay's beer. Jay could see the glow of the brews in her face.
"Want to play doubles?" she asked him.

"Sure,” Jay said. He could never resist a
video game. He never put any games on his computers at work or home
because he knew if he did he'd start playing and never stop. He'd
lose his job, his house everything. Whereas his father had
succumbed to the bottle, Jay Calloway had managed his addiction by
only playing in arcades. He studiously avoided electronic warfare
on his own systems. He fished two quarters from his pocket but she
beat him to it, feeding the machine before he could.

"For the beers,” she said.

"Thanks,” Jay answered.

For the next hour they stood side-by-side in
the hot smoky bar dodging and slaying aliens while the red head
downed Jay's entire pitcher of beer. Her bony hip rubbed against
his. As she leaned in or over for a shot she would brush a shoulder
against him. Jay picked up the rhythm and also the smell of the
beer on her breath and the sweat from her gaunt body. He found
neither attractive. But the proximity was still proximity between a
boy and a girl. A drunk girl. And an emotional boy. Between the two
of them they easily dispatched all the aliens and freed the
electronic prisoners.

"Good game,” Jay congratulated her when they
were done. "I'm Jay,” he said holding out his hand.

"I'm horny,” she said grabbing his hand and
dragging him out of the bar. Jay started to protest, but then went
easily.

What the hell
?
It's not like Tonia
and Angus didn't just try to kill me or anything? I guess I don't
owe her any loyalty. And I do need somewhere to get in out of the
cold.

She led him two blocks to an NYU dorm. Her
sex was fast, athletic, and unprotected. She fell into a beer and
sex induced sleep right after she came.
Talk about being
aggressive!
He hadn’t even learned her name.

Chapter

Jay Calloway awoke to an empty bed. The red
head was gone. Jay shuffled to the small bathroom in her dorm room.
His eyes were still half shut as he lifted the toilet lid and
relieved his complaining kidneys. Turning to the sink he splashed
some water on his face. Looking up into the mirror he saw a mask
that he barely recognized.

Jay's healthy spring training tan had turned
to pale programmer skin in just one short week. Deep dark fleshy
sacks had taken up residence under his eyes. Worry lines had
returned to his mouth and had also appeared on his previously
smooth forehead and around his now sunken blue eyes. As Jay stared
at his own countenance, the awful memories of yesterday came back
to him.

"I can't believe that after all that shit I
ended up here with some skinny college kid,” he spoke to the
mirror. "Now what am I going to do?"

As he pondered the question he realized there
was a note stuck to the side of the mirror nearest the commode. Jay
read it.

Gone to class. Back around noon.
212-555-2729. Call me. Morag.

"Nice,” Jay said. "At least I know her name
now.” Pulling the note off the mirror, Jay walked back into her
tiny dorm room and sat back down on the bed. He clicked on the
radio that stood on the desk beside her berth. Jay leaned back
against the painted cinderblock wall. In classic avoidance denial
behavior he started to drift back towards fitful sleep. He no
sooner had his eyes all the way shut than the news on the radio
jolted him back awake.

"In this morning's top story. Local, state,
and federal police are still searching for Jay Calloway, the prime
suspect in the bombing murder attempt on Angus MacKenzie of
MacKenzie Lazarus yesterday at the World Financial Center. Police
believe Calloway acted with dual motives. Calloway allegedly was
having an affair with MacKenzie's estranged wife and wanted to see
Angus MacKenzie out of the picture. Second, again allegedly,
Calloway may have been behind a flurry of illegal activity
surrounding the Panamanian currency crisis. In a startling
development, Calloway may also be implicated in a nearly year old
missing person’s case turned murder involving Maria Fernandez.”