That was when George and the others got together and called Repairman Jack.
“You going to tell me you don’t see the difference?”
“No, of course not,” George said hurriedly.
“Well, let me refresh your memory,” Jack said. “You came to me, not the other way round. This isn’t television and I’m not The Neutralizer. Don’t get reality and make believe confused here. This is my work. I get paid for what I do. I was around before that do gooder came on the air and I’ll be around after he’s off. Those knives Reilly and his bunch carry aren’t props. Their guns aren’t loaded with blanks. This is the real thing. I don’t risk my neck for kicks.”
“All right, all right,” George said. “I’m sorry–”
“And another thing. I may be costing you, but I’m just temporary, George. Like purgatory. Reilly is hell, and hell is forever. He’ll bleed you until he’s stopped.”
“I know. I just wish it was over. I don’t know if I can take another night like last night.” George began rubbing his right hand. “They were gonna–”
“But they didn’t. And as long as they see me as a competitor, they’ll save their worst for me.”
George shuddered and looked at his fingers. “I sure hope so.”
Shortly after George left, an Oriental who looked to be on the far side of fifty showed up at the door. His face was bruised and scraped, his left eye was swollen half shut. Julio intercepted him, shook his hand, welcomed him to his place, clapped him on the back, and led him toward the rear of the tavern. Jack noticed that he walked with a limp. A bum right leg. By the time he reached Jack’s table, he had been thoroughly frisked. If Julio found anything, he would lead him right past Jack and out the back door.
“Tram,” Julio said, stopping at Jack’s table, “this is the man you’re looking for. Jack, this is Tram.”
They had coffee and made small talk while Tram smoked unfiltered Pall Malls back to back. Jack led the conversation around to Tram’s background. His fractured English was hard to follow but Jack managed to piece together the story.
Tram was from Vietnam, from Quang Ngai, he said. He had fought in a string of wars for most of his life, from battling the French with the Viet Minh at Dien Bien Phu through the final civil war that had ravaged what was left of his country. It was during the last one that a Cong finger charge finished his right leg. Along with so many others who had fought on the losing side, Tram became a refugee after the war. But things improved after he made it to the States. Now an American made prosthesis of metal and plastic took up where his own flesh left off below the knee. And he now ran a tiny laundry just off Canal Street, on the interface between Little Italy and Chinatown.
Finally he got around to the reason he had called Jack.
His laundry had been used for years as a drop between the local mob and some drug runners from Phnom Penh. The set up was simple. The “importers” left a package of Cambodian brown on a given morning; that afternoon it was picked up by one of the local Italian guys who would leave a package of cash in its place. No one watching would see anything unusual. The laundry’s customers ran the ethnic gamut of the area – white, black, yellow, and all the shades between; the bad guys walked in with bundles of dirty clothes and walked out with packages wrapped in brown paper, just like everyone else.
“How’d you get involved in this?” Jack asked.
“Mr. Tony,” Tram said, lighting still another cigarette.
Sounded like a hairdresser. “Mr. Tony who?”
“Campisi.”
“Tony Campisi?” That was no hairdresser.
Tram nodded. “Yes, yes. Knew very good Mister Tony nephew Patsy in Quang Ngai. We call him ‘Fatman’ there. Was with Patsy when he die. Call medic for him but too late.”
Jack had heard of Tony “the Cannon” Campisi. Who hadn’t? A big shot in the dope end of the Gambino family. Tram went on to say that “Fatman” Pasquale had been one of Tony’s favorite nephews. Tony learned of Tram’s friendship with Patsy and helped Tram get into the States after the U.S. bailed out of Nam. Tony even set him up in the laundry business.
But there was a price to pay. Natch.
“So he put you in business and used your place as a drop.”
“Yes. Make promise to do for him.”
“Seems like small time for a guy like Campisi.”
“Mr. Tony have many place to drop. No put all egg in one basket, he say.”
Smart. If the narcs raided a drop, they never got much, and didn’t effect the flow through all the other drops around the city. Campisi had a slick rep. Which was probably why he had rarely seen the inside of a Federal courtroom.
“So why the change of heart?”
Tram shrugged. “Mr. Tony dead.”
Right. The Gambino family had pretty much fallen apart after old Carlo’s death and a deluge of Federal indictments. And Tony “the Cannon” Campisi had succumbed to the Big Casino of the lung last summer.
“You don’t like the new man?”
“No like dope. Bad.”
“Then why’d you act as middle man for Campisi?”
“Make promise.”
Jack’s gaze locked with Tram’s for an instant. The brown eyes stared back placidly. Not much more needed t in the way of explanation.
“Right. So what’s the present situation?”
The present situation was that the hard guy who had made the drops and pick ups for Campisi over the years was now running that corner of the operation himself. Tram had tried to tell him that the deal was off – “Mr. Tony dead...promise dead,” as Tram put it. But Aldo D’Amico wasn’t listening. He’d paid Tram a personal visit the other day. The result was Tram’s battered face.
“He belted you around himself?”
A nod. “He like that.”
Jack knew the type – you could take the guy off the street, but you couldn’t take the street out of the guy.
Obviously, Tram couldn’t go to the police or the DEA about Aldo. He’d had to find some unofficial help.
“So you want me to get him off your back.”
Another nod. “Have heard you can do.”
“Maybe. Don’t you have any Vietnamese friends who can help you?”
“Mr. Aldo will know is me. Will break my store, hurt my family.”
And Jack could imagine how. The Reillys and the D’Amicos... bully boys, pure and simple. The only difference between them was the size of their bank accounts. And the size of their organizations.
That last part bothered Jack. He did not want to get into any rough and tumble with the mob. But he didn’t like to turn down a customer just because the bad guys were too tough.
Maybe he could find a way.
Central to the Repairman Jack method was shielding himself and the customer by making the target’s sudden run of bad luck appear unrelated to the customer. The hardest part was coming up with a way to do that.
“You know my price?”
“Have been saving.”
“Good.” Jack had a feeling he was going to earn every penny of this one.
The brown eyes lit with hope. “You will help?”
“I’ll see. When’s the next pick up?”
“This day. At four.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
“It will not be good to shoot him dead. He has many friends.”
Jack had to smile at Tram’s matter of fact manner.
“I know. Besides, that’s only a last resort. I’ll just be there to do research.”
“Good. Want peace. Very tired of fight. Too much fight in my life.”
Jack looked at Tram’s battered face, thought of his missing leg below the knee, of the succession of wars he had fought in since age fifteen. The man deserved a little peace.