Gate 76 Page 8

  “You find anything?”

  “Just a tangent. A personal interest, I guess.”

  “The victims won’t mind you taking a night off. They’re all dead, you know.” Then she sees my reaction. “Ooh, that got your shoulders up! You feeling a little defensive?”

  “My mind’s on the case, OK?”

  “Why don’t you join us for a drink? We’re two blocks away.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Teresa’s there. The one you said was cute.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She asked if you’d be coming.”

  “I won’t be. I’m working.”

  She sits on the edge of my desk. “I really think you’d like her. You only talked for five minutes last time, but you made an impression. She’s asked about you twice.”

  I keep my eyes on the monitor. “Maybe I’ll catch up with her some other time.”

  “No you won’t. Whenever you say that, it means you’ll never get to it.”

  “Well then maybe I won’t.”

  She stands and runs her hands down her legs, smoothing out her jeans. “You can be really frustrating, you know that? You know what you look like right now? You’re a silent, lonely face, lit by the glow of a screen in a sea of darkness. Outside those windows is a world of life that you keep choosing not to be a part of. There’s more to life than work, Freddy.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but you take care of your life, and I’ll take care of mine.”

  “OK, Freddy,” she says as she walks toward the door. “Should I tell Teresa not to waste her time?”

  “Tell her whatever you want.”

  She leaves, and the office is quiet again.

  When I get through the Chicago list, it’s close to midnight. There are four passengers I want to know more about—and two of them are also on the list of one-way travelers the airline sent me. Anna Brook could have traveled as any one of these people. Mostly, I want to know where she wound up. These are my four possibilities:

  Melissa Edwards, age 33. No social profile, so I don’t know what she looked like. No frequent flyer number either. She connected to Buffalo, but she lives in LA. How she got to San Francisco, I don’t know. Maybe she drove.

  Tanya DuPree, 29, connected to Philadelphia. No frequent flyer number. Never flew this airline before. No info about her anywhere, but the airline has her listed as a resident of Oakland. No return ticket.

  Katie Green, 27, Dallas, Texas. There are 114 Katherine Greens in Dallas, four of them aged 27. She connected to Austin. Why would she go to Austin if she lives in Dallas? And who goes through Chicago to get to Austin from San Francisco? She does have a frequent flier number, but her address is a couple years out of date. No return ticket.

  Betsy Renfro, 31, from Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Connected to Raleigh. Nothing on her. Just nothing.

  Tomorrow I go to Staunton for Anna Brook’s memorial service.

  8

  October 2

  This morning, I got up at five. It’s a three-hour drive to Staunton without traffic, but the morning rush in DC is usually bad, so I figured I’d give myself time to review any new material that came in overnight before I head out. And it’s a good thing I did, because one of Ed’s buddies passed along some info about Ramón Ramírez—the tall, angular guy who was escorting my blonde friend through the security line.

  He’s got several arrests to go with his convictions for possession and disorderly conduct. The funny thing is, that misdemeanor possession conviction should have been possession with intent to distribute, which is a felony. The arrest report says he was carrying $3,000 worth of cocaine.

  And he has a few other arrests that didn’t lead to charges. One of the reports refers to a prior arrest for which there’s no report. Two other reports are redacted. All of which makes me wonder if this guy is an informant.

  Whatever he is, he’s small time. Definitely not the kind you trust with a tough job, unless you’re stuck and have no one else to turn to. He reminds me of a skinny Chuck DiLeo. The bottom of the barrel. A real loser.

  I hit the road a little before seven a.m. Give myself an extra hour to get to Staunton, which turns out to be a good idea because traffic is heavy. It takes almost two hours just to get to 81, the southbound highway that runs through the Shenandoah Valley. I put the radio on and let my mind wander.

  * * *

  After that loss to Alvin Perkins, I spent a couple of weeks stewing about how it all went down. Then I went to see my old trainer, Rizzardi, to ask him to take me back.

  Walking into Rizzardi’s gym, I had the feeling I was home. I never had that feeling with Slim’s trainer. Here, everyone said hello to me. There, they looked at me from the corners of their eyes, the way you might look at a stranger passing through, or a man on his way to the gallows.

  Rizzardi was in his sweats, holding the heavy bag while this big, muscular kid was swinging hooks against it. The kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Left, right. Left, right. Rizzardi had to hold the bag to keep it from swaying out of range.

  “Keep your right up when you throw the left. Right hand up, goddammit! You’re leaving your chin wide open!”

  “Hey Rizzo,” I said.

  He said, “Hit this kid, will you? Show him what he’s doing wrong.”

  The kid glanced up at me for a second, and kept swinging.

  “I don’t want to hit him,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” Rizzardi said.

  The kid swung a left hook, and I gave him a quick, light, brushing slap on the cheek, just to show how easy it was to connect when he had his guard down. He jerked his head back in surprise, a little too late.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Rizzardi said.

  The kid smiled, feinted a left hook toward the bag, then popped a sharp jab at my face. I ducked it, and he smiled.

  “You see that?” Rizzardi said to him. “A good puncher will drop you as soon as you throw that hook.”

  I said, “Hey, Rizzo, we gotta talk.”

  He said to the kid, “Take a break. I’ll be back in five.”

  “We might need more than five minutes,” I said.

  He said, “No we won’t.”

  We walked over to one of the benches by the empty ring in the rear of the gym and I said, “I need you to take me back. Slim isn’t looking out for me, and that trainer is worthless. Did you see what happened to me?”

  “I saw it,” he said. “I saw it coming before it happened. But I can’t take you back, Freddy. Did you read that contract you signed with Slim? He owns you. You’ll win when he wants you to win. You’ll lose when he wants you to lose. You want my advice? Get out of the sport. There’s no future in it for you.”

  “You can’t help me out?”

  “I can’t even talk to you no more. I don’t like it, but that’s how it is. We’re not friends anymore, you understand?”

  That I got. I understood the kinds of things Slim did to people when he didn’t want them to be friends with someone.

  Then Chuck DiLeo walked in, all 330 pounds of him, wearing his trademark dark-blue tracksuit and untied Air Jordans, sucking on a milkshake. Looked like a giant goddamn baby. How the hell did he know I was here? Was he following me?

  He said, “Come on, Freddy. We got a job to do.”

  I told him to fuck off.

  He said, “Come on, man.” Like he didn’t even hear me.

  I don’t know why I walked out of there with him. But what was the point of hanging around if Rizzardi wasn’t going to take me back?

  Me and DiLeo went out to his Camaro. The whole damn car rocked sideways when he got in, like a hippo stepping into a rowboat. We drove to the Bronx.

  “Where we going?” I said.

  “Collect on a loan.”

  We parked in front of Burger King, and DiLeo went in and got another shake. Didn’t ask me if I wanted anything. Then we walked up the street, past the
liquor store, past this wig place, and we stopped in front of a shoe repair shop. Looked like it had been there for a hundred years and no one had dusted the place since it opened.

  He stood there looking in through the door. The sign said Open, but he was checking for customers. He didn’t want to beat anyone up in front of witnesses. He kept sucking on his milkshake with a loud slurping sound. He pulled the straw out to lick it off, and some of the shake dripped onto his tracksuit. He started cursing, like he’d just ruined a damn tuxedo.

  I wanted to hit the guy right then. Big fucking overgrown baby. Why the hell’s he always wearing a tracksuit? Like he might break into a run at any minute. His fucking shoes aren’t even tied. Fat bastard.

  He slid the straw back into the cup and opened the door. We got inside, and there were no customers, just an old woman at the counter in back: skinny, with little librarian glasses and fake red old-lady hair. She couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. As soon as she saw us, she called out, “Mort!” Her voice was high with fear.

  The place had racks of shoes and boots that looked like the kind of crap people give to Goodwill. There was a register behind the counter next to the old lady, and behind her was a workbench with tools. A couple of boots that didn’t match were mounted upside-down for re-soling.

  DiLeo turned the deadbolt on the door, and flipped the Open sign to Closed. “Where’s Morty?” he said.

  Again, the old woman, scared, yelled out, “Mort!”

  An old man came shuffling out of the back room. He was wearing a green plaid shirt, grey sweater vest, and little half-glasses perched on his nose with a string that looped around his neck. When he saw us, he let out a sigh. He didn’t seem scared. Just kind of resigned. He opened the register, pulled out the drawer, and nodded for us to follow him into the back room. We went in, with the old lady trailing after us.

  The guy sat down at a desk and put the cash drawer on top. DiLeo went and stood behind him, with his fat tree-trunk thighs framing the old guy’s head. Mort unlocked a desk drawer and pulled out an envelope.

  “Fifteen hundred,” he said. “I think I have it all.”

  “Sixteen hundred,” DiLeo said.

  The old woman, who was standing right next to me, quietly wringing her hands, blurted out, “Fifteen hundred! It’s fifteen!”

  “It’s sixteen now,” DiLeo said, and he took a big slurp of his shake.

  The old man slid a stack of bills out of the envelope and offered them up. “That’s thirteen-forty,” he said. “Count it.”

  DiLeo swatted him in the back of the head and said, “You count it, you little fuck.” Big fat arm like DiLeo’s probably weighs forty pounds. The blow knocked the old guy’s glasses off, and the woman let out a little yelp and started toward her husband like she wanted to comfort him. But then she pulled back and looked at me with this plea in her eyes, like she was searching for something human in me, begging me to use whatever ounce of decency I might have left to protect her husband.

  The old man put his glasses back on and started counting the money. He licked his fingers and peeled off the bills one at a time and laid them down on the desk. Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty. A wisp of his thin grey hair was sticking up, out of place from when DiLeo swatted him. DiLeo stood there slurping the milkshake real loud, like he was trying to annoy everyone. He leaned in on the old man, rubbing his crotch on the back of the guy’s head, just to add an extra touch of humiliation.

  “Two-hundred sixty, two-hundred eighty, three hundred.” It was like me counting off sit-ups in the gym. The guy was so diligent in peeling off those bills, pinching every one, like he didn’t want to let it go. Because how much work did he put into earning it in the first place? He was probably in his shop at seven every morning, the same time I was out running. And he laid those bills down just a little out of line, so the corners would show, so that fat slob DiLeo could see each one and know he wasn’t getting cheated.

  Four years as an amateur, and six as a pro. God knows how many hours I put in and how many blows I had to take. And in the end, I’m just a pawn in some lowlife’s scheme to build up another fighter. This old man and me, this old lady, we do all the work in the world, we put everything we’ve got into every day, just so this fat, milk-sucking baby and his tribe of bullies can walk in at the last minute and take it all away.

  “Pick up the pace,” DiLeo said.

  It took a while, but the old man counted out $1340. Then he started pulling bills from the cash drawer. He had $181 in there. That bought the total up to $1521.

  He turned to DiLeo, handed him fifteen hundred, and kept the other twenty-one in his right hand. DiLeo threw his empty milkshake into the corner, took the fifteen hundred, and the twenty-one too, and said, “I said sixteen hundred.”

  “It was fifteen,” the old man said, and DiLeo gave him another backhand to the side of the head. The old woman started again like she wanted to help him, but she held back.

  “That’s all I have,” the old man said.

  “Bullshit,” said DiLeo.

  I said, “Come on, Chuck. Let’s get out of here.”

  He said, “Gimme the rest of the money. I know you fucking Jews got some cash hidden around here.” He stuffed the bills into his pocket, lifted the old man up by the back of his collar, dug a hard right hook into his kidney, and then dropped him on the floor.

  I could have told you this was coming. I could have told you the night of the fight, when I was lying in that hospital bed up in Connecticut, still awake at four a.m., wondering what the hell had just happened to ten years of hard work.

  I knew I was gonna snap. It was just a question of when.

  I said real calm and kind of cold, “You know that’s not a nice thing to do, Chuck, hitting someone in the kidney like that.”

  He didn’t get it. He pulled the money back out of his pocket and started counting. He had no idea what was coming. But the old lady did. There was this electricity running through my veins, and she felt it. She had the instinct. She started backing away from me, nervous and scared.

  DiLeo just stood there, counting the bills.

  In a calm, even tone, I said, “You ever been hit like that, Chuck?”

  His lips moved as he counted.

  “I asked you a question, Chuck.”

  He didn’t even look at me. Just snorted a big rumbling wad of snot up his nose and kept right on counting. “Three-forty, three-sixty, they got more cash here somewhere,” he said. “Start looking through the drawers.”

  I took a couple steps toward him, and BAM! I dug a left hook right into his liver. The money went flying, and he doubled over hard, right into my right knee, which was on its way up to break his jaw. He slumped onto the desk and I pounded the side of his head with four straight rights. I felt his eye socket crack on the last one.

  He tried to straighten up but those blows to the head short-circuited his legs. He flopped right back onto the desk, and I started raining punches into his face and ribs. I don’t know how many. You know that expression “blind rage?” Well, it’s pretty accurate, because when you’re that mad you don’t really see what you’re doing. When he hit the floor, I gave him a good hard kick in the nuts, just to punish his children if he ever had any.

  For a minute I stood there with my hands on my hips, just kinda catching my breath. When you come back to your corner from a round where you’ve been throwing bombs, the first thing your trainer does is try to get your breathing under control. “Deep breaths,” they say. “Deep breaths.”

  DiLeo wasn’t moving, but he was breathing. And Christ, he was ugly. I didn’t think the guy could get any uglier, but you turn someone’s face inside out and he gets real hard to look at.

  I started feeling nice and calm, like when the adrenaline wears off after you knock a guy out. It’s just this calm, floaty feeling.

  Then I saw the old man and the old lady. I had forgotten they were there. The man was propped up in a corne
r. His lip was quivering, and his eyes were leaky. I don’t know how he got over there. Did he drag himself, or did his wife drag him? The old lady was standing beside him, wide-eyed and shaking.

  I said, “Sorry for the mess, ma’am. You mind opening that door?”

  I pointed to the door at the back of the room. She opened it quietly, and I dragged DiLeo across the blood-spattered, cash-strewn floor, through the door, and into the alley. I propped him up between a couple of dumpsters. He was still unconscious. Then I took the 1 train all the way down to Canal Street and had the first drink of my life.

  A couple days later, Slim’s worthless trainer picked me up off Kings Highway in Flatbush. He had two other guys with him I’d never seen before. They told me to get into the car. It was not a request. We drove a mile or so, turned into an alley, and stopped halfway down. The guy sitting next to me said it was time to get out. We went into the back of a restaurant, into a room filled with cleaning supplies. There was one high dirty window with grey light coming in.

  And there was Slim Mancuso in a light grey suit, with a cream-colored shirt and blue tie. The outfit must have cost a couple thousand bucks. He wore wire-framed glasses and had short grey hair. He was trim and tan and manicured, like an old playboy who spends his mornings in the spa. The trainer was standing behind me with the other two guys.

  Slim had this real calm demeanor. He was looking at me like he didn’t quite know what to make of me. Not hostile or anything. Just curious. Then he said, “What the hell’d you do to Chuck?”

  “Is he dead?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Then I didn’t do enough.”

  Slim said, “There will be no psychopaths in my organization.” Before I could figure out what that meant, I felt a sharp blow from behind, right in the ribs. It shook my whole body and sent a blinding white light into my eyes. The next couple of blows, I only kind of felt. And then I was out.

  I don’t know what they did to me, but I woke up in an empty room and staggered out the door into an alley full of oily puddles. I remember thinking that it must have rained while I was out. I made it to the street before I passed out again.