Manhattan Noir - Lawrence Block [18]
Don’t say a word.
Off West Street the rain falls on the deserted pit of the ghostly towers, and moves on, cascading down the skeletal girders of the new construction, then further north, to Duane Street, thudding against the roof of an old green van.
So, when you get here, Sammy?
Don’t worry. I’ll be there.
Eddie squeezes the cell phone, glances back toward the rear of the van, speakers, four DVD players, two car radios, a cashmere overcoat, a shoebox of CDs, some jewelry that might be real, the bleak fruit of the hustle.
I need you here now, man.
You that hyped?
Now, man.
In the gutters, the rushing rain washes cigarette butts and candy wrappers, a note with the number 484 in watery ink, a hat shop receipt, a prescription label for Demerol. It washes down grimy windshields and as it washes, sees the pop-eyed and the drowsy, the hazy and the alert, Eddie scratching his skinny arms, Detective Boyle in the unmarked car a block away, playing back the tape, grinning at his partner as he listens to the voices on the ferry.
We got McBride dead to rights, Frank.
A laugh.
That fucking Jamaican. Jeez, does he know how to work a wire.
At Police Plaza, the wind shifts, driving eastward, battering the building’s small square windows, a thudding rumble that briefly draws Max Feldman from the photographs on his desk, Lynn Abercrombie sprawled across the floor of her Tribeca apartment, shot once with a snub-nosed .38, no real clues, save the fact that she lay on her back, with a strand of long blond hair over the right eye, maybe by a fan of Veronica Lake, some sick aficionado of the noir.
The rain falls upon the tangle of steel and concrete, predator and prey. It slaps the baseball cap of Jerry Brice, as he waits for Hattie Jones, knowing it was payday at the all- night laundry, her purse full of cash. It mars Sammy Kaminsky’s view of Dolly Baron’s bedroom window, and foils the late-night entertainment of a thousand midnight peepers.
On Houston Street, it falls on people drawn together by the midnight storm, huddled beneath shelters, Herman Devane crowded into a bus refuge, drunk college girls all around him, that little brunette in the red beret, her body naked beneath her clothes, so naked and so close, the touch so quick, so easy, to brush against her then step back, blame it on the rain.
Lightning, then thunder rolling northward, over Bleecker Street, past clubs and taverns, faces bathed in neon light, nodding to the beat of piano, bass, drums, the late-night riff of jazz trios.
Ernie Gorsh taps his foot lightly beneath the table.
Not a bad piano.
Jack Plato, fidgeting, toying with the napkin beneath his drink, a lot on his mind, time like a blade swinging over his head.
Fuck the piano. You hear me, Ern? 484 Duane. A little jewelry store. Easy. I cased it this afternoon.
Ernie Gosch listens to the piano.
Jack Plato, slick black hair, sipping whiskey, cocksure about the plans, the schedule, where the cameras are.
Paulie Cerrello’s backing the operation. A safe man is all we need. Christ, it’s a sure thing, Ern.
Ernie Gorsh, gray hair peeping from beneath his gray felt hat, just out of the slammer, not ready to go back.
Nothing’s ever sure, Jack.
It is if you got the balls.
It is if you don’t got the brains.
Plato, offended, squirming, a deal going south, Paulie will be pissed. No choice now but play the bluff.
Take it or leave it, old man.
Ernie, thinking of his garden, the seeds he’s already bought for spring, seeds in packets, nestled in his jacket pocket, thinking of the slammer, too, how weird it is now, gangs, Aryans, Muslims, fag cons raping kids in the shower, deciding not to go back.
Sorry, Jack. Rising. I got a bus to catch.
The eyes of the rain see the value of experience, the final stop of crooked roads. It falls on weariness and dread,