Dead Street

She smiled. “Like calling me ‘doll.’”

I ran my fingers through her hair and she nestled against me the way teenagers do and that feeling came back that made me think that a young kid’s body had suddenly been transmitted to an old man’s frame.

“What are you thinking, Jack?”

“Sure you want to know?”

But she already did. She wasn’t all that blind.

My cell phone let out its low signal, killing the moment, and I pulled it out and thumbed the talk button.

“Stang here,” I said quietly.

“Paul Burke, Jack.”

“Hi, Paul. What’s up?”

“Some follow-up on that stolen atomic shipment. You all clear down there?”

“Roger. Go ahead.”

“Right after the theft, the Feds got a pair of the conspirators and squeezed out some information. It was pretty complicated, so I won’t go into it now. But they arranged for the switch right under the noses of the inspecting group and got the container into a waiting truck, drove it to a transfer point where Benny Orbach was waiting to get it to the final point.”

I asked, “Paul... you mean that’s all the security they had?”

“It was a new twist, Jack. The time before when there was an attempted hijack, eight people got shot, a large transfer truck burned and the cargo was nearly lost. They went the other way this time. Less is more.”

“Less is less, Paul.”

“Yeah, well. Anyway, it was supposed to be secret.”

“Supposed?”

“Big money can buy big secrets, Jack. This old world is coming apart. 9-11 should have told us that. So should the mess in Iraq.”

“What the heck could anybody use it for? Who else had a delivery system anyway?”

“Jack,” he said, “some countries make no bones about atomic materials and use them as a bargaining point. Others are openly trying to develop nuclear weapons.”

“Paul, they couldn’t have gotten that stuff out of the country, could they?”

“No, not with our inspection devices. But...”

“Say it.”

“Suppose they want to use it right here?”

I wanted to explode but held it back.

“What kind of a team is on the prowl for it?” I asked him.

Paul told me, “From what I understand, the Feds have a small army of experts with their noses to the ground.”

“All chasing down Benny Orbach’s background and current associations?”

“Probably.”

“And getting nowhere?”

“I can’t find out anything. The big squeeze is on this.”

“Have newspapers or TV sources got a bite on the story?”

“No way. The Feds have got long arms with big sticks.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “You remember those TV shots of the public running like hell when the World Trade buildings came tumbling down?”

“It hasn’t slipped my mind.”

“Imagine what would happen if someone popped off one giant atomic blast in the middle of Manhattan.”

“Damn!”

“Maybe there wouldn’t be anybody left to run away,” Paul said hoarsely.

“So we find the load of bad news.”

“Who’s ‘we,’ Jack?”

“Guess it’s up to the NYPD.”

“Jack — stay retired....”

“Oh absolutely,” I said derisively.

Chapter Eight

Darris Kinder drove me to a friend of his who operated a towing service and had several pieces of equipment on hand that could handle five tons with no difficulty. Tony Marks, the owner said, “How much weight you talking about?”

“At the minimum, a couple of tons.”

“What size?”

“Let’s say a four-foot cube.”

“No problem. Is it on the ground?”

“In a truck.”

“So you slide the skids under it and lift it out.” He thought about it, figuring out the next step. “Then,” he said, “you spin the load around on the same skids and drop it into the other truck.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” he repeated. “What are you figuring to steal, Mr. Stang?”

“A lady’s heart,” I laughed.

“Brother, that is a heavy load,” he laughed back.

On the way back to Sunset Lodge, Darris said, “Jack, I’m not going to get into your business, but if something is going to happen around here, I’d sure like a little warning.”

“It’s cool, Darris. If this were a trouble spot, I’d sure tell you.”

“Big time, right?” he said.

“Big time,” I agreed, “and out of the area.”

There are moments when you have to sit back and think things out. Other moments, time that seemed to drag on listlessly suddenly explodes into such action that you can hardly remember one second from another. Sometimes — like now — it was a bit of both. I went from being a listless retiree who was turned upside down by things of the past into a hairy old bull with a feather up his tail.

And unlike the immobilized past, the screaming present was unwinding like a high-speed spool of tape on an old-fashioned computer.

So I sat down in my own living room and let the facts roll by me. There weren’t many. What could Bettie have uncovered that would lay organized crime open for conviction? It was another generation of mob power now. Did they face the same dangers? What was the stolen atomic pile to be used for? Where was it hidden? It would have to be in a very protected place that could contain possible radiation.