Hardbingers

10

Jack sat in the back of an idling cab upstream from Julio's. He'd flagged it after using Julio's stun baton on the buck-toothed guy.

Good plan to watch the alley. Not good if the guy you were watching for had already slipped out of said alley.

Jack simply could have walked away then, but figured they'd keep looking for him. He wanted to send them packing, so he'd zapped Zeklos. It had been almost too easy. The guy had been so focused on the alley that he hadn't heard Jack come up behind him.

Now he watched as they helped their staggering third member to the Suburban.

Time to go home, guys.

As the Suburban lurched away from the curb, Jack tapped on the plastic screen between him and the cabby.

"Go."

He sat back and wondered again about these guys. They'd worked like a well-oiled team downtown, but up here they looked more like the Three Stooges.

The cabby's license said his name was Ibrahim Something-or-other, and he was good at tailing. He kept two or three cars behind, changed lanes back and forth, letting other cabs slip behind the Suburban. Anyone watching for a tail wouldn't have a chance of making them. Jack wondered if in his pre-immigration life Ibrahim might have been an operative of some sort in Kabul or the like.

The Suburban reached the West Side Highway and took it all the way down to the tip of Manhattan, then entered the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd taken the Battery, but he had memories of it being shabbier. Looked like they'd spruced it up—the tiled walls seemed pretty clean and the ceiling looked new. A long tunnel, curving this way and that under lower New York Harbor.

The toll was on the Brooklyn side. The Suburban didn't have E-ZPass but the cab did, which meant Jack was through the toll first.

"Go slow, Ib. Let them pass you."

They did, and led them straight into Red Hook.

Jack had never been to Red Hook; looking around he could see why. Lots of dock but little else. Poor, dirty, unkempt, but old too. So old and ill-maintained that a few streets still had their original cobblestones; Jack's head hit the taxi's ceiling a couple of times as they bounced and jounced along.

Red Hook had a slapped-together look, without a hint of a plan or continuity. As if buildings from all over the city, from all eras of its history, had been teleported here and plopped down willy-nilly.

But the worst part: almost no traffic.

"Be careful here, Ib," he told the driver. "We're going to stick out. Put on your off-duty light and give them a couple-three blocks lead. Try paralleling them."

That proved difficult. Most of the streets were one-way, but a lot T-boned into others, necessitating a quick right or left. But Ibrahim was good. Parallel-ing the Suburban placed Jack two blocks away, which was not a bad thing. He figured he could give them a longer leash here. Red Hook was small and bounded by water on three sides. On their present course they couldn't get too far too fast without landing in the East River.

The Suburban stopped in front of a small, three-story brick warehouse across the street from Red Hook Park. WHOLESALE FURNITURE was printed in faded white letters across its front.

Jack dropped to his knees on the floor.

"Keep moving."

Peeking out the lower edge of the window he saw the three of them—the little guy under his own power now—walking toward the warehouse door. Miller stopped and stared.

Jack ducked lower as they passed. And as he did the skin on the front of his chest began to itch and burn. But the sensation faded almost as quickly as it had come.

He had Ibrahim stop out of sight around the corner.

Decision time: Cab home and check this place out tomorrow, or watch now?

He decided to give it an hour.

He handed Ibrahim a hundred-dollar bill and had him drive around until he found an unlit stretch on the edge of the park with a view of the building. Jack noticed that all the windows—at least all he could see—had been bricked over.

Strange.

"Okay, Ib. Get comfortable."

The headlights went out, the engine and heater stayed on. The Ib-man snored. Jack watched.