The Hard Stuff, Page 2

  First, Flex swiftly took out the bartender, who was strong and fast but not a trained fighter, and had him on the ground, groaning. The bar back had guts and swung hard, but he was outmatched: Flex easily dodged his punch and knocked him dizzy with a forearm across the bridge of his nose. Then he went for Joe and took him low, lifting his legs from under him and flipping him, so he went over Flex’s back. Caught off guard, Joe went right over headfirst, but as he came down, he tucked into a roll and grabbed Flex’s ankle along the way, taking him down, too. Both men sprang up to face each other. Flex eyeballed Joe with the madman glare he used in the ring and pointed at the tattoos on his pectorals: YOLO on the right, FLEX on the left. “You know what this means, right?” he asked, popping them.

  Joe thought about it. “You really like yogurt?”

  Flex scowled. “That’s froyo, motherfucker. This means I’m crazy as shit and don’t give a fuck. You just made the worst mistake of your life.”

  Joe smiled. “I’m afraid this isn’t even my worst of the day.”

  Enraged, Flex jumped him, and Joe began to parry his fists and feet. Yelena was fighting both bodyguards herself, kicking one in the nuts so hard he curled up into a ball but catching a fist from the other, right to her jaw. She staggered back, stumbling woozily, but came right back at him, grinning and licking blood from her lips. Then, before things really got out of hand, the authorities arrived, the authorities in this case being a large Range Rover filled with large black guys and a big, boxy Denali filled with big, boxy white guys.

  In a world where no one calls the cops ever, people in crisis tend to call someone further up the chain of command. Whitey’s pot dealer and sidekick, once he was safely outside, had called Ernest “Cold Daddy” Collins, who owned not only Li’l Whitey’s record label but also the MMA fighters’ gym where Flex trained and a show-biz management company. The manager of Club Rendezvous called Gio, who dispatched Nero and some guys before jumping in his own car and running over.

  When Cold rolled up and saw Joe trading blows with Flex, who was bleeding profusely from his nose, and his boy Whitey on the floor groaning, he flew into a rage and, storming past his own muscle, grabbed Joe by the back of the neck. Joe, acting on instinct, swung around and punched Cold in the gut, folding him right in half. Both of Cold’s men pulled guns and pointed them at Joe. Seeing this as they spilled from the Denali, Nero and his guys pulled their guns, too, and pointed them at Cold’s guys. Yelena, looking up from the bodyguard she was pummeling, immediately drew the small revolver she had strapped to her ankle and pressed it to Whitey’s head. He began whimpering, not a sound heard on any of his tracks.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Nero yelled. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I?” Cold yelled back. “Who are you to ask me that, motherfucker?”

  “Put the guns down and let’s talk,” Nero said.

  “You put your fucking guns down and let’s talk.”

  It was an impasse. Everyone looked at each other, and no one moved. Then Gio pulled up. He got out of his Audi and, unarmed, walked right into the center of the party.

  “Nero. Joe.” He nodded at the others. “Fellas. What are you guys up to? I know none of you is stupid enough to kill anybody at my club.”

  *

  After Cold Daddy Collins left with his people, including Whitey and Flex, Nero took off, too, stationing one of his guys by the door as a substitute bouncer. The bartender and bar back recovered quickly with some ice for their wounds and some cash for their troubles and went back to work. Gio sat down in a back booth that always had a RESERVED sign, across from Joe and Yelena. Joe held a glass of ice against his swelling eye. Yelena pressed a cold beer to her bruised cheek and cut lip, between sips.

  “Sorry Gio,” Joe said. “It’s my fault. I had an off night.”

  Gio shrugged. “You’re lucky I was already on my way here to see you. But you know that Collins is going to come back at you. He pretty much has to. You smacked him in front of his people and made his tough-guy rapper cry.”

  “It was Yelena who did that actually. And he deserved it.”

  “Sorry, Gio,” she said. “Next time I will take him out of the club.”

  “That’s all right, kid. But maybe you’ve had enough fun for tonight? I need to talk to your playmate here.”

  Joe turned to her. “If you want, Eddie at the door there can call you a cab.”

  “It’s okay.” She kissed his cheek. “Crystal already offered me a ride home.”

  Joe smiled. “Tell her I said to take good care of you.” She waved goodbye to Gio and went to where Crystal was waiting, changed into her street clothes, by the door. The two men watched them leave, arm in arm.

  “Never mind the rest of those assholes,” Gio observed. “That girl’s the one who’s going to get you into some serious trouble.”

  “She’s gotten me out of some, too.”

  Gio sighed. “If you say so. Meantime, you better go wash up in the men’s room and get your wits about you. Uncle Chen called. One of his gun suppliers got a location on that goddamn redneck who shot his nephew that he’s been busting our balls about. He’s holed up at some kind of white power sleepaway camp, way the fuck out in Jersey somewhere. He’s sending his guys by now to pick you up.”

  “I don’t know, Gio. I liked Derek. But revenge is not my thing.”

  “I know. I said you’d just go along to help ID the guy, in like an advisory capacity. He was their friend, so they pull the trigger. That will clear you with Chen. Then we can figure out what to do about your new enemies.”

  4

  That’s how, several hours later, Joe found himself, beaten up and hungover with three kids from Flushing in a diner parking lot in South Jersey, squinting at the rising sun. Blackie and Feather lit cigarettes, and Cash unwrapped a fresh piece of gum, offering one to Joe, who shook his head.

  “You know,” Cash said, regarding Joe thoughtfully from behind his mirrored shades, “Derek was my oldest friend. We grew up together. Started boosting together. He taught me to hotwire a ride. He was just about to get married.”

  “I know he was,” Joe told him. “I’m sorry for your loss. I liked Derek.”

  “He liked you, too. Said you were a real pro. Old school.”

  Joe nodded. “He was a good kid.”

  “Then how come you didn’t want to come along and settle things with his killer?” Cash asked, voice rising. He took his glasses off. “If he was your friend?”

  Blackie and Feather stood still, waiting for Joe’s reply. Joe’s tone didn’t change.

  “I didn’t say he was my friend. I said he was a good kid. We worked a job together. He got shot. That’s how it goes. He knew that as well as anybody.” He looked Cash calmly in the eye. “I don’t commit murder every time a good kid gets shot.”

  Blackie snorted at that. Feather shook his head.

  “When do you commit it, Mr. Old School?” Cash asked him.

  Joe shrugged. “When it’s to my advantage.”

  Lip curled scornfully, Cash slid his shades back on. He blew a bubble, then turned his back on Joe to watch a truck pull into the lot. An oversized Ford Expedition rolled up beside them, its modified V8 rumbling. A sunburned white guy in a ball cap leaned out, peering at them carefully.

  “You Chen’s guys?” he asked, with a lot of Southern syrup in his voice.

  Cash nodded. “Be a hell of a coincidence if we weren’t, wouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” he said, unsmiling, and climbed down. “I’m Clevon. Dermott sent me.”

  Dermott was one of Chen’s suppliers. Headquartered in Florida, he had people acquiring guns all over the South where laws were loose and access was easy and then sending them north to Chen, for his own people or for resale on the black market. As a favor to his best client, Dermott had located Jonesy Grables, gone to ground at a survivalist training camp, and sent Clevon, one of his transporters, to point them in his direction. The camp was a way station for illegal weapo
ns as well as meth and Oxy moving through the area. Now, while the others huddled with Clevon, Joe leaned back against the side of the truck, waiting. He found a broken pair of sunglasses in his pocket, bent them back into shape, and then slipped them on. Clevon had a map he’d printed off the internet.

  “I wrote the GPS coordinates there,” he was saying. “But I wanted to point out a couple things. See here, the camp is a couple miles out of town, up in these pine woods. The only way in is across this creek here. It’s a wooden plank bridge just one vehicle wide. Then you take that road over the ridge there, and it leads you straight into camp.”

  “So when we get over the bridge,” Cash said to the others, “I’ll drop you two off to cut through the woods, then take the road in fast and distract them.”

  “That’s how I figure it,” Clevon agreed. “Any questions?”

  “Sounds good,” Blackie said.

  “No problem,” Feather said.

  Cash shook his head and blew a bubble.

  Joe sighed. “I have one,” he said.

  They all looked over.

  “How do I get home from here after you all get yourselves killed?”

  The three kids stared at him. Cash popped his bubble. Clevon frowned. “Sorry,” he said. “But who are you? Some kind of mercenary?”

  “No,” Joe said. “I’m a bouncer.”

  “Bouncer?”

  “In a strip club.”

  “Well, no offense but from the look of your face, I’d say you got your hands full just protecting the titties. Leave this to us.” He spread his map back out and started to trace the road with a fingernail when Joe interrupted again.

  “Look, these guys are survivalists, right? Gun freaks playing at war camp, sitting on a pile of guns and drugs?”

  Clevon shrugged. “I suppose.”

  “Then there’s no way those woods aren’t booby-trapped. You’ll blow your legs off getting through. If the bridge isn’t wired, then they’ve got a man watching it or some kind of alarm rigged. You’re walking right into a trap.”

  They all frowned at him now. Cash blew another bubble. “Good point,” he said.

  “You just gonna sit there and criticize?” Clevon asked. “Or you got a constructive suggestion?”

  “I might,” Joe said. “But we’re going to need to borrow your truck.”

  “Like hell you are,” he said. “This here is specially modified.”

  “I noticed,” Joe said. “We’re going to need whatever goodies you’ve got stashed in there, too.”

  “So I’m just supposed to trade this for your car?”

  “No,” Joe said. “We want the car, too.”

  “And then how do I get home?”

  Joe shrugged. “Bus?”

  “I don’t know what your problem is, bouncer. But I think you’d better step down, unless you want that black eye to be part of a matching set.”

  Joe smiled. “Why don’t you just call your boss?”

  “And who should I say is asking?”

  “Joe.”

  “Joe?” He laughed. “Joe who? The bouncer? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Joe sighed. A little embarrassed, he lifted his shirt and showed him a star-shaped scar branded on his chest, on the left side over his ribs, under his heart. The other guys checked it discreetly as well. “Tell him this Joe.”

  Clevon shook his head. “If you say so. Y’all are too weird for me. But I’m gonna go make the call.”

  “Great. Thank you,” Joe said. “We’ll be inside.” He turned to the others. “I think I’m going to need some eggs and coffee after all,” he told them as they headed into the diner. “And then let’s go talk to the local law.”

  “Law?” Blackie asked. “What the fuck is he talking about?” Feather shook his head.

  “Why you so worried about us all of a sudden?” Cash asked. “Thought you were a conscientious objector here?”

  “Yeah,” Feather chimed in. “What do you care if some more good kids get shot?”

  “Things changed. Now keeping you three alive is to my advantage.” He smiled at Feather. “And I didn’t say you were good kids.”

  5

  Agent Donna Zamora walked across the bridge to New Jersey. When she got the tip about the location of one Jonesy Grables, the gun dealer and general dirtbag who jumped bail after being arrested in connection with the killing of Derek Chen, she contacted the US Marshal’s office in Trenton and arranged this meeting. She had a personal interest in the matter. The shooting had occurred during an FBI/ATF operation in which she’d been involved, though she hadn’t actually apprehended Mr. Grables. She’d been flat on her ass at the time, knocked down by a beanbag round fired by a masked man she came to believe was one Joseph Brody, aka Joe the Bouncer. It was their first date or maybe second if you counted her arresting him in a strip-club sweep as the first. Ordered by his accomplice to kill her, shooting her with the nonlethal load had been, all in all, a nice gesture—he’d even said sorry as he did it—and she’d found herself, to her annoyance, fascinated with Joe.

  The marshal’s service had put her in touch with a field agent, Deputy Marshal Blaze Logan, and they’d agreed to meet on the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge. Donna lived in Washington Heights, had grown up in the shadow of the bridge, and had planned to hop in one of the two-dollar shuttles piloted by Spanish-speaking drivers that ran commuters back and forth all day. But when she woke up, it was such a clear and glorious day she decided to walk instead. It was early, still cool, and the rising sun was behind her, cresting the ridge of the skyline while she hiked toward the green-covered rock face of the Palisades. The Hudson dazzled beneath her. Less famous, less pretty, and less Gothically ornate than the Brooklyn Bridge, the GW still surprised her: that bare steel skeleton exposed, the soaring cables, that single leap over the river, 3,500 feet across and 604 breathtaking feet above the glittering, swirling depths. It was a beauty and it caught her off guard every time.

  Deputy Logan was parked and waiting, her government-issued Impala in the line of cabs, the one woman, broad and blond, in a crowd of dark-complexioned men. She spotted Donna and nodded, leaning on her hood, the jacket of her pantsuit bulging slightly at the hip where she kept her gun. Donna had worn jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair up in a ponytail under a cap. She felt a bit underdressed, then laughed at herself for thinking of it like a date, then felt weird wondering if she had thought that because Logan was gay.

  At least according to Andrew she was, and he would know. As an openly gay, married FBI agent, he considered himself an expert on all LBGTQIAPK law enforcement related matters (including updating her on what that constantly expanding acronym stood for). When she mentioned who she was liaising with on this case, he laughed.

  “You mean lezzing with,” he said. “Deputy Logan is the butchest marshal since Wyatt Earp’s mustache turned gray.”

  “Andy!” She looked around the office to be sure no one had heard. “How come the only black, gay agent married to a Jew in the room is also the one saying the most offensive shit?”

  He shrugged. “We’re funnier.”

  “Which we? Blacks? Jews? Gays?”

  “All three. That’s why we dominate showbiz.”

  “But not the FBI, so watch it. These white people can’t take a joke. Not even the liberals.”

  “Fine,” he said, leaning in to whisper in her ear: “Let me know how the date goes.”

  *

  “Agent Zamora?” Logan called now, standing as Donna approached. She held out her hand.

  “Good morning,” Donna said. “Thanks for meeting me like this.” They shook.

  “No problem,” Logan said. “You need anything? Coffee? Bathroom break?”

  “No. I’m good.”

  “All right then.” She stepped around to the driver’s side. “Hop in. It’s a beautiful day for a manhunt.”

  6

  Joe drove the truck up to the small municipal building, which housed the town hall as well as
the police station. The fire station was next door. He parked, glanced back at the two rows of empty seats behind him, and locked the truck before heading in the door marked POLICE. There was a small, fluorescent-lit waiting area with plastic chairs soldered together in a row and, on the other side of a waist-high divider, a big blond man behind a desk. His blue uniform shirt and pants strained over his bulk and his hair was flattened down from sweat and the hat that sat on the other chair beside him. He was doing a jumble in pencil.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” Joe said. “Is the chief around?”

  “He’s busy. I’m Deputy Cook. Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”

  “Happy to,” Joe said. “You want me to yell it from here?”

  The deputy pointed to the swinging door in the divider and reluctantly took his hat from the chair. Joe sat down and glanced at the jumble. “Saddens,” he said.

  “What?” Cook asked.

  Joe pointed. “The word is ‘saddens.’ Not sad. You missed four points.”

  Cook frowned at it, then carefully erased his circle and corrected it. “So what can I do for you?” he asked, annoyed.

  Joe put out his hand, and the deputy shook it reluctantly. “My name is John Mayoff. But people call me Jack.”

  “Okay, Jack.”

  “I’m here in pursuit of a fugitive from justice. A fellow by the name of Jonesy Grables who skipped out on bail. I have it on good authority that he is hiding out up in some hills nearby.”

  “That so?” Cook asked. “You a bounty hunter?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Got some credentials?”

  “Well deputy, that’s the thing of it.” Joe leaned in and smiled. “I’m kind of doing this unofficially. But I was hoping, if you could see your way to lending some unofficial assistance, I could give you, say, twenty-five percent of my finder’s fee. That’s a thousand bucks to you.”