Gun Work

Barney kept watch on Malcolm. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” There was a possibility that Malcolm might ram the limo into a parked car, dump himself free, and run for his life while his former boss ate a lot of bullets. Barney would have to bail and walk, blending into the pedestrians, losing the gun en route. Malcolm might have tried that; he certainly had the iron for it. But he had just been gracelessly sacked.

At Central Park West and 71st, Barney said, “Stop the car, Malcolm.” He moved to disembark, attaché case first. “Felix? Listen to me: If you ever see me again, it’ll be because you tried to call out the dogs or track me down, or tried to phone up some kind of retribution. You’re not hurt, just scared. Don’t let that make you do something rash.”

“Why don’t you tell me what the hell I’m supposed to do?”

“Go back to your life. Enjoy your dinner. Enjoy all the rest of your days, because they’re a gift I’m giving you right now. Do not squander this gift. Try not to hold it against Malcolm. He’s a good guy.”

Barney stepped out. Rainer had more to say. “Hey!” Barney expected some parting threat, some you-can’t-get-away-with-this horseshit. But Rainer said, “If you see Carl, do us all a favor and kill the sonofabitch, and I’ll forget you ever existed.”

Ever the dealmaker, that Felix.

As soon as he was clear of Felix Rainer, no harm no foul, Barney called Carl’s cell again, this time with specific instructions. The danger of Felix Rainer burning up his own phone as he vented anger and tried to vector on Carl was too great. Carl would have to be run around town a bit, from Barney’s secure cellphone.

Barney told Carl to go to Penn Station, buy a ticket for Elizabeth, New Jersey, board the train, and commute. Then Barney cabbed back to where his anonymous car was stashed, and caught up with a rattled-looking Carl while he was still in the ticket line. Carl proved too shaken to arm himself or attempt to set up a sting. Carl generally had other guys do that sort of work. Ex-friends, for example.

“Walk with me,” said Barney. “Twitch funny and I’ll blow your heart right out onto the pavement.”

For a moment Carl feigned surprise at seeing his old friend, then thought better of it. Like Rainer, he avoided Barney’s gaze, submissive, willing to be led, or at least impelled. His dislodged tooth had been replaced — badly, the substitute being slightly yellower than the rest of his dentition. Cheap cap. Overall, Carl appeared badly used by his most recent fiscal year.

“What do you want?” said Carl sullenly. He was in the bag and he knew it.

“Let’s start with your wallet.”

Carl started to say you’re kidding, but no comedy waited in Barney’s gaze. He mutely relinquished the same wallet Barney had seen in Mexico, containing the same picture of Erica, which was the only thing Barney appropriated. He handed the wallet back as though it was roadkill. Carl had exactly twenty-two bucks in cash.

“Yeah, take her,” said Carl, still moping. “Keep her. I wish I’d never met that creature. You deal with her. You’re welcome to her. I hope you’re up to it.”

Barney ignored the obvious bait.

Carl tried another tack: “How did you get to Felix?”

“Irrelevant. Tell me about Mexico.”

“Oh, god, there was nothing I could do! I tried, but there was no way out—”

“You left me for dead. I didn’t die.”

“— and I’m so goddamned sorry, man, you know how it went, I couldn’t help it—”

“Stop; I’m getting all misty over how much of a damn you gave for me. The money. Your little friends in the kidnapping business. Stay on track.”

“That bastard Tannenhauser promised that —” Carl saw Barney’s expression and clammed up. He clarified: “The guy in charge of the hostage hotel.”

“Tannenhauser,” said Barney. El Chingon had a name at last.

“Erica was banging him the whole time. But she outfoxed him and managed to scoot with most of the money — over a million-five.”

“Wasn’t Felix irritated about that?”

“Felix? Man, Felix didn’t give a crap. All he did was ice me out.”

There was no shortage in the world of greedy people looking for short cuts to financial success, as far as Felix Rainer was concerned. There was always fresh meat, or in Felix’s parlance, “fungible commodities.” If one deal went rancid, you divorced yourself from the particulars and concentrated on the next deal in the hopper.

Barney resisted the urge to grill Carl about the pipeline, about how Felix Rainer could see some sort of obscure profit from this labyrinthine process, or how Carl and Erica were supposed to make out using other people’s money. It didn’t matter. It was like most scores: There was a prize, and everybody was screwing everybody else to get it. It did not need to be made legitimate or sensible via reverse-logic, it was a classic black-box scenario. Doesn’t really matter what’s in the box. What matters is whether you might get killed for it, and how you could better your odds.

“One last thing: the blond fellow you sent to kill me. He didn’t make it.”