Just Deserts

Contents

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-One

Twenty-Two

Twenty-Three

Twenty-Four

Twenty-Five

Twenty-Six

Twenty-Seven

Twenty-Eight

Twenty-Nine

Thirty

Thirty-One

Thirty-Two

Thirty-Three

Thirty-Four

Thirty-Five

Thirty-Six

Thirty-Seven

Thirty-Eight

Thirty-Nine

Forty

Forty-One

Forty-Two

Forty-Three

Forty-Four

Forty-Five

Forty-Six

Forty-Seven

Forty-Eight

One

Wang, the hot dog man, had called Sergeant Sam Morgan that Lieutenant Rogers was sitting in a car on Mulberry Street. Morgan took the BMT downtown to Canal Street reading the paper on the way. He found what he had been looking for since yesterday. A man named Valdez-Gomez had committed suicide in Miami. He was found sitting in his car in the garage adjoining his home with a bullet in his chest and a gun on the seat beside him. Morgan had been informed that something would happen in Miami. Johnson, a mysterious hitman, had just visited that city and where Johnson went, something happened. It wasn’t coincidence. Two months ago, the death of an Israeli in Paris was first reported as a suicide, but subsequently there were doubts expressed by his friends that he had actually killed himself. After the initial flurry of questions, total silence descended on the affair. Suicide, however, was the final official position.

Johnson had gone to Paris that weekend also. A busy guy thought Morgan. It could still be coincidence, reasoned police officer Jensen.

Yeah, countered Morgan, like your youth and lack of smarts. Like the way I got transferred to work under Lieutenant Rogers.

Wang sold his hot dogs from a cart with a casually patched umbrella. Everything’s good in them but the meat. He hustled a few sodas, put a little extra sauerkraut on to quash the competition and took numbers. Wang squinted fiercely as Morgan grabbed a small Coke to go with the egg roll he’d bought across the street. Business looks bad, smiled the sergeant.

You got an egg roll in your mouth and you say that? Shit, the least you could do is get ptomaine from a friend. Wang busied himself with what might have been his first customers of the day. I don’t know why I start so early. No one eats hot dogs in the morning except maybe cops and whores. He took Morgan’s egg roll and threw it in the garbage under his cart. Egg rolls make me look bad. Sergeant. He shoved a hot dog at him.

This one’s on the house, right? Morgan nibbled at it delicately. Next time I’ll buy one so you don’t starve to death.

I’m dying here. Dying, mother.

Come on, Wang, don’t bullshit me. You got other ways to make a few.

Sauerkraut or relish? Wang spoke in Chinese to a customer, then without looking at Morgan, but speaking in English, he recited a litany. This is all I do. I’m Wang the hot dog freak. My parole officer says this is all I do. My girlfriend swears this is all I do. My mother who sews up a storm in a sweatshop down the block swears in Chinese this is all I do. Everything’s kosher. So don’t bite the hand that feeds you, baby.

Where’s Rogers at, Wang?

Wang popped a couple of cold drinks for his customers and gave a nod of his head toward the corner. Morgan lifted his eyes and observed the blue Chevy. Rogers was sitting in the driver’s seat.

Still running that poker game on Canal Street?

Wang cursed and checked the light under his pot of boiling dogs. A guy like me does a bull a favor and he busts balls. Who can figure it? That’s why no one loves you, Morgan. That’s why you got bleeding ulcers and piles.

A man wearing sneakers, short pants, an Irish walking hat and a T-shirt with a photo of a tiger and a golf club on it. biked through the busy traffic that clogged the narrow streets of Chinatown day and night. He stopped at Rogers’ car and they chatted.

Wang got some more customers and cheered up. He didn’t bother to look in the direction of the car. These guys can meet anywhere they like and they pick this pissy street. That’s what’s wrong with bulls. Absolutely no sense of elegance. He shook his head with a disdain that indicated the social difference between himself, Wang—the hot dog man, as long as he was on parole, but a sport at heart—and these cops. Wang bunched the fingers of both hands and raised them close to his face in an Italian gesture that indicated frustration in the face of stupidity.

You guys are robbing the public blind and you still can’t get a suit that fits. ‘Un cazz’ un cul’. Look, all I want is a taste.

What are you, Wang, a Chink or a Wop?

Morgan threw the cold remains of his hot dog in Wang’s garbage can and smiled a farewell. Wang was right, Morgan thought, about my suit. He looked down and saw that his cuffs were about two inches above his shoe tops. So, I’m a slob. So?

The conversation between Rogers and the biker was brief. The lieutenant was pulling out of his parking spot into the slow-moving traffic. The biker walked his bike to the corner and then mounted it. Morgan saw him cut across the traffic and head north on Mulberry. Morgan speeded up until he was almost trotting. He caught a cab at the corner, but the traffic slowed the car down to the pace of a slow walker. Morgan could still see the bike rider. He cursed to himself and yelled in frustration at the driver who was bored by passenger’s complaints. What are you, a nut?

I gotta be sitting here with a shithead, stuck in traffic, to catch a clown on a bike.

Just don’t bust chops, okay?

The cab came to a full stop in the middle of the block just south of Houston St. There was some construction work going on. Morgan paid the fare and jumped out. He didn’t notice the finger the driver gave him in farewell.

Morgan ran to the corner hoping to catch a glimpse of the biker. At Houston St. he had vanished. That was the second time he’d gotten away. Maybe next time I should bring a bike. The thought of exercise sickened Morgan…

The man on the bike entered Soho. He stopped at an art gallery and chained his bicycle to a fire hydrant near the entrance. He surveyed the passing gallery visitors who seemed to be enjoying this unusually warm spring day. The bars and restaurants that dotted the area were busy for an afternoon.

The biker had worked up a sweat on his ride from Chinatown. He entered the gallery where a luncheon dance concert and poetry reading were taking place. A jaundiced gnome of a man spat out his bastard translation of Baudelaire, while a nubile woman moved sinuously to the words of the French poet.

It was not the biker’s cup of tea at all, but the dancer was stunning, yet limber in spite of a wiry hardness that gave her limbs the tensile strength of steel. A fairly interested group had flattened themselves along the walls of the gallery to watch the performance. To the left of the entrance, was the woman the biker had come to see. He made his way through the crowd, his attire perfectly in accord with the eclectic costumes—dashikis, togas, saris, kimonos, culottes, women in mannish vested suits, lots of phony Louis Vuitton handbags, men in tattered Levis with their asses hanging out, and a sprinkling of skirts down to the crotch.

You’re late and I had to watch this crap. Christ!. Judy Greene was not in the mood for either the gallery or the dancing. The gnome reading Baudelaire was now transformed from a spitter to a drooler. His straggly, straw-colored hair had been carefully coifed to hide its thinness and to disguise the spreading baldness that had reduced his widow’s peak to a wispy puff in front. I ran into traffic. Lawson had difficulty removing his attention from the dancer.

God, look at you. You are almost as delicious as the rest of them here. What an imperialist image you create.

We are flexible. He straightened himself and tried to pull in as much of his prominent belly as he could. Now. let’s get down to it, Mrs. Greene."

I don’t like the idea, but I don’t have a choice. I don’t have a sugar daddy and I got big bills. My father’s very sick. Working for you guys didn’t make me rich.

We know the whole story. That’s why we knew you’d be receptive.

You never let up.

We like to keep in touch. There’s no telling what old friends are up to and when we can help each other.

I’m a psychiatric social worker now, not a spy. And I like it. It’s nicer than hanging out with guys like you. It’s just that the money’s not there and l need it to pay some medical bills. You’re not getting me cheap.

We don’t want cheap We want good. You’ll get paid to take different trips. I’ll be frank, in this arrangement you may be transporting some drugs. They’ll think you’re in on it and they’ll pay very well. It’s a side dividend from dealing with the criminal element. Our operators, we feel, deserve it and it gives them a bit more incentive when the perks are there. Anyway it’s part of your cover.

I work with people drugs screwed up and now I’m helping peddle the stuff.

It’s for a good cause.

Don’t give me that shit.

At any rate it’s too complicated to explain. And you have no right to an explanation. You wanted money. You’ll do very well in this operation if you follow instructions.

I said I only wanted in for a specific time.

A year was mentioned.

At the most. God, I can’t believe I’m in this again. Even when I worked as a phony document examiner and profiler, it was misery. I never thought I’d ever go back.

I’m familiar with your life story.

The dancer was doing a number with what looked like slabs of chopped meat on her hands. The biker stared, still more intrigued, momentarily distracted from the serious business at hand. Is that chopped meat she’s got on her hands? Ugh.

It’s some wilted flowers.

It looks like chopped meat. God, how do people live in this filthy city?

What brought that on? You figure you have a nice little house in Scarsdale, a nice little wife and kiddies who think daddy is making the world safe for democracy.

The biker let it go by. He was immune to punsters and feeble wits who tried to evoke snickers at the expense of the national interest. We are all technicians. You too. You’ll be spending the same money I am and getting it more or less the same way. Any more complaints?

I’ve already gone through a few thousand bucks without paying off a bill.

Okay, then let’s cut out the shitty jokes and sob stories.

I’m flattered you thought they were jokes.

You’ll pose as Johnson’s girlfriend. You got a dossier. You’ll be contacted by phone sometimes, sometimes by letter, e-mail or messenger.

You’re inventive.

Flexibility, that’s the key. He wriggled uncomfortably in his tight shorts. The damn things are strangling me. They must have shrunk. The bitch put them in hot water when I told her cold.

I never get to see my lover man?

No. Never. You know why we got you.

Sure, I’m a sepia-toned beauty and he’s your house nigger.

You know, I don’t like you too much. But that’s not important either. You fit the bill. Characterize it whatever way you like.

Why couldn’t he be balling a white chick? You heard of equal opportunity?

No jokes. We prefer it this way. It’s believable, we feel. Anyway, don’t ask any more questions, okay? You know the rules.

What else do I need to know?

Nothing for now.

Judy Greene pointed at the gnome. Look at that will you? The little bastard’s wearing Mary Janes.

Lawson looked and shivered. I thank god every day that my kids aren’t growing up in this cesspool. I don’t even believe in the joker, he glanced guiltily heavenward, but I’m thanking him.

On your knees every night. I bet. They both looked down at the lumpy knobs he had for knees.

They are very esthetic. Say, what do I call you? Got a title?

Just Lawson.

Not a colonel?

No. Nothing. He turned and went out.

Judy moved through the crowd just far enough to see Lawson standing at the hydrant looking vulnerable. Someone had clipped the chain on his bike and stolen it. New York, New York. it’s a wonderful town, whistled Judy Greene as she left while the dance was in progress and passed Lawson on the street. The asshole thinks I don’t know his full name and title, James Lawson, retired Lieutenant Colonel, Assistant Director.

*     *     *

Two

It was late at night and Eighth Avenue outside the restaurant seemed relatively quiet. Sergeant Morgan left his friend El Chinito to close up his place for the night.

You dreenk mas espresso que yo. El Chinito got the room. He rubbed his massive stomach and laughed. But you no eat notheen. Nunca tiene hambre, pobrecito. The cafe no for the ulcer, chico.

El Chinito, the little Chinese, was part Chinese and part Cuban. He had done a classic flip-flop. In the beginning as a teenager he was with Castro, then years later he turned anti-Castro and smuggled himself and his whole family out in a boat. When the subject of Cuba was brought up, he just shrugged. Now El Chinito’s crusade was against holdup men. He’d already killed three with his trusty shotgun. Morgan had been eating at El Chinito’s for years. El Chinito had known Morgan’s wife and had liked her, but they argued all the time about the relative merits of Italian vs. Sino-Cubano cuisine. No one could win that argument.

Morgan left El Chinito’s place intending to walk uptown and get a little exercise. He’d grab the subway at 23rd St. Some men were playing dominos outside, using the light from the restaurant. A couple of kibitzers drinking beer watched the passionate slam of pieces on the shaky table and the shouts of victory from slightly tipsy players. A street lady of indeterminate age and no particular residence dumped the contents of one of her four shopping bags on the street and began to examine her rags, looking for something. She mumbled and shouted, occasionally cheering herself. A mangy fur was fastened around her neck with a large safety pin.

Need help, Ma? Morgan asked, without expecting her to reply.

She looked him over suspiciously. He turned to watch the domino players for a minute and then started uptown. Before he got to the corner, a car pulled up and two men jumped out. Morgan paused thinking they were about to ask him directions. The one in the front seat next to the driver was tall and thin with a lumpy face that looked like someone chewed on it. The man that got out of the back seat was thick with a neck wider than his head. The thin man walked up to Morgan and grinning, hit him hard in the stomach, doubling him up. Morgan tried to reach for his service revolver, but fumbled too much and blew his chance. By now, the husky guy had pinned his arms to his side with a powerful bear hug. Morgan smelled anise-scented asthmatic gasps on his neck. No one said anything. The guy in front slipped something on one hand and hit Morgan flush on the nose. It felt like a pretzel crunching; he knew the sound well. There wasn’t much of it left to smash.

Blood spurted into the back of his throat and he began swallowing it. His eyes were flooded with pain and tears. He gagged and couldn’t breathe. The big guy had pulled Morgan’s elbows so far back they almost touched. A little more and he’d have ripped them out of his armpits the way El Chinito tore apart a chicken. Another blow to the stomach drove the blood he was swallowing up the other way. Morgan was spitting it out now. Next he’d be spitting teeth.

They straightened him up and the thin guy said, Mind your business, Morgan. Put in your time and retire all in one piece. This is a friendly warning. The next time we flush you down the toilet. He hit Morgan on the nose again and began putting cellophane packets of white powder in Morgan’s pockets.

The street lady had a couple of her shopping bags knocked over in the chaos and was screaming. The domino players had already begun to scatter, wisely acknowledging the value of discretion. It wasn’t their fight. Morgan saw the driver of the car sitting calmly at the wheel picking his nose. Morgan could see everything, but his strange alertness was of no value. He felt detached like he did at his wife’s wake. When he tried to kick his skinny assailant, his leg went numb. He wasn’t certain if it even moved. And all the while the swallowed blood backed up, mixed with spit and bile. He was almost unconscious when he heard El Chinito’s angry voice.

The big man threw Morgan down and the sergeant hit the pavement face first and rolled into a pile of urine-stained clothes. The old street lady fell on top on him, scratching and biting. I am, he thought giddily, invading her boudoir. El Chinito had heard the commotion and rushed out with his double-barrel shotgun. The thinner of the two assailants had started firing at the restaurant owner backing toward his car as he did. His shots were off; he aimed from hip level and was moving as he fired.

El Chinito held his shotgun up, steadied it a second, and blasted the thin man with one barrel. He fell into the front seat of the car as blood squirted from 20 small pellet holes in his brocaded vest. The fat man had run around the other side of the car and was firing from there with the car as protection. Bullets bounced along the sidewalk and off the brick walls behind El Chinito. Another blast from the shot gun burned and scraped its way across the roof of the car and tore half the fat man’s face off.

The driver of the car had swerved out of the parking spot with the doors still open, the dead body of the thin man still in the front seat, his left leg dragging on the street. The driver had also run over the fat man’s arms. El Chinito observed all this, but was very businesslike, perturbed only by his wife. He yelled at her to stay in the restaurant, but knew he would be disobeyed. Mujeres, he muttered as he quickly reloaded and emptied one barrel at the rear tires and watched the car sink back, riding on its rims. Another barrel of shot went through the rear window, the glass became deadly shrapnel, splattering across the street and glittering in pools of blood like rubies.

The car jerked forward as if a foot was pressing spasmodically on the accelerator. It traversed the avenue narrowly missing two northbound cars, ran up on the sidewalk and into the plate glass window of a bank across the street. The