"What'd they do then?"
"Figg broke a headlight, and I think they were worried that a cop would pull 'em over, even if they got away from us. There was people stoppin' to look by then. They let her go and took off. That's when I memorized their license-plate number… at, at least long enough to write it down."
"What did Miss Lear say?"
"She thanked us. We asked what did they want and she told us that she didn't know but that they were probably workin' for some guy that'd been hasslin' her. We asked her who the guy was but she didn't say."
"Did she say what it was they wanted with her?"
"She said that she wasn't even sure what it was about."
"Anything else?"
"Uh-uh. She just thanked us and went up to her place."
"How long ago was this?"
"Two weeks today. I remember 'cause we had a party that night. We invited Angelique, and she said she'd come by, but she didn't."
"You call the cops?" I asked.
"We don't talk to cops, man," Pete said. "Not never."
"Then why take down the plate number?"
"I gave it to her," Lonnie said. "I thought she might call the police herself."
"Can I have it?"
Lonnie looked at Pete and the elder nodded. The kid had a green wallet made from desiccated plastic that was cracking. From this cheap billfold he produced a grayish- white scrap with a number written on it.
"It was a New York plate," the kid said.
I reached into my right-front pocket and came out with a roll of cash that I had prepared before getting to the house.
"Who do I give this to?" I asked the men.
Pete reached for the wad and Lonnie didn't complain. I let go the money and watched it disappear into Pete's overalls.
"Anything else?" I asked, just to say something.
"Yeah," Lonnie said. "She said that her luck had run out."
"What did she mean by that?"
"She told Figg that she'd had a run of real good luck for seven years, just about. Now she figured she had to pay for it."
I digested that little piece of secondhand editorializing and then stood up.
"You not gonna finish your beer?" Pete asked me.
"Strike while the iron's hot," I replied. "I'll leave fifty with China. You guys have a good time."
34
I walked westward toward the Village proper, thinking about luck. Wanda Soa was unlucky-definitely. The man who probably shot her shared the same ill fortune. Ron Sharkey and a few dozen others that I'd focused my attention on were luckless bastards who were blindsided by disasters while they planned vacations, retirement, and weekends with their grandkids.
In this way Angie and I had something in common: we were descendants of Typhoid Mary, passing over earth that would one day soon inter the bodies of our luckless victims.
My cell phone sounded, proving to me, for at least that moment, that providence favors the arbiters of evil.
"Hey, Breland," I said into the phone. "What's up?"
"They arrested Ron Sharkey. Have him in that special federal facility down south of Houston on the West Side."
"What's the charge?"
"They don't have one yet, but I was told by the agents who arrested him that they were considering terrorism."
"You're kidding."
"That's what the man said."
"Can I get in to see him?"
"I'll work on it. You in the city?"
"Call me when you got something."
TAKAHASHI'S IS A JAPANESE coffee house on the third floor of a nondescript building between University and Fifth. Twill had found the place when he was only twelve and truancy was his pastime. He liked the people who owned and ran the odd establishment, even learned a few phrases in Japanese. They served good coffee and great tea, had a small menu, free bowls of rice crackers, and various performances in the evening, from workshop poetry to Asian string music.
During the day not many people came around.
It was the perfect place for surreptitious afternoon meetings.
I arrived at 3:53. Twill was already there, seated by the window that looked down on the street.
I waved to the owners, who were at the opposite end of the long, unpopulated room. Angel and Kenji smiled and waved back.
"Hey, Pops," Twill said as I took the seat across from him. "S'happenin'?"
I gazed into my son's dark, handsome face and shook my head. I wanted to be angry with him, but that would be an uphill task. He might not have been honest, but he was a good boy-no, a good man in a boy's body.
"Been down so long," I said, "looks like up to me."
"That's a book, right?"
"Yeah. How did you know?"
"Mardi got me readin'," he said. "One day I told her that I didn't read much because there's millions of books and I never know which ones I should be studying. I mean, teachers talkin' 'bout Mark Twain and Charles Dickens and shit. But I don't understand what they got to say got to do with me. But then Mardi says that it's not what's in the book but just the fact that somebody reads that builds up the mind, like. That sounded good, 'cause then I could read whatever I want and still be ahead of the game."
One of the pitfalls presented by my son was how engaging he was in conversation. He knew how much I loved to play with ideas, especially when those ideas had to do with thinking that ran contrary to everyday beliefs. He knew how much I liked to read.
"Talk to me, Twill."
That brought a broad grin to the young man's face.
"Her name is Tatyana Baranovich," he said. "Baranovich. She comes from a place called Minsk and has won every award that CCNY has to give to an undergraduate. She's a senior, about to graduate. D been talkin' about her for almost a year now. You know how shy he is. Every now and then they got coffee together, and that'd keep him smilin' for two weeks."
"So she didn't feel the same?" I asked.
"I don't know what she felt. I tried to get Bulldog to ask her on a date. I told him we could get your car and I'd take somebody, too. But he said that he just liked talkin' to her. But you should see this girl, Pops. I mean, she got it workin' every which way. Damn."
I felt like a dirty old man cackling at Twill's leering sexual expression.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"One day he sees that Tatyana is all upset. She tells him that she can't go back to her apartment because the man who paid her rent wanted her to do something that would mean she couldn't go to graduate school."
"Gustav."
"Yeah, right." Twill was a little discomfited that I was ahead of him in the story. "Gustav's a pimp. Tatyana is in the country illegally. And she's a hot number with some of his clients out west. He tells her that she can go to graduation but after that she has to work full-time for a few years."
"Did she make good on the million?"
"Damn, Pops, you are a private detective, huh?"
"Did she make her nut?"
"She says so," Twill allowed. "And I believe it, too. She doesn't have real fancy clothes or no habit. City College don't cost that much.
"D came to me and I talked to the girl. She told me about Gustav but not how connected he was. It was only later on that I found out he had people all over the place lookin' for her. D been thinkin' that maybe they could go down to New Orleans and start over, like."
"And you were going to help him?"
Twill admitted his involvement with a slight motion of his left shoulder.
"If Gustav is so connected like you say, then you know New Orleans would probably only be a temporary fix."
"Yeah, I know. But when they were gone I knew I could tell you, and then it would only be a matter of time before it was all smoothed out again."
It was the first time I had seen the boy in Twill for at least three years. He showed an unshakable faith in my ability to save him and his brother. I was so surprised that it might have shown.