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CHECKMATE

BY

Al Lamanda

Copyright by Al Lamanda

PROLOGUE

This is what I was told.

Artie Wong made the best of the hand that his life had dealt him. Born a short, Korean-American, forty-nine years ago, he displayed the discipline and dignity of his ancient ancestors in everything he did and with everyone he came into contact with.

A product of Queens, a borough of New York City, Artie was a fair to good student in high school, but put off college to enlist in the air force. His service to his country took him to Japan and then to the home of his parents in South Korea. It was on the base in South Korea that Artie met his wife Lynne, an Irish-American girl a year younger than he and also serving in the air force. They met on a blind date at the USO, fell in love and made plans to be married upon their discharge from the Air Force.

Two years later, Artie and Lynne were married in a civil ceremony in Queens. He went to work for the post office, while Lynne took a reservations job at Kennedy Airport. Together, along with loans from their parents, the Wong’s became proud homeowners of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom, three-car garage, Tudor style home in the Rego Park section of Queens. Artie was twenty-four at the time, Lynne just twenty-three.

After three miscarriages in two years, Lynne presented Artie with a beautiful baby girl they named Amy Lynne. From the day she was brought home, Amy was doted on by Artie.

Smitten from the beginning with his baby girl, Artie worked long and hard at his job in the post office. He finished college with a degree in business management and slowly, but steadily worked his way up the postal ranks. By the time Amy was ten, Artie was a supervisor in the main branch of The Bronx Post office on 149^th Street off the Grand Concourse. Saving since her birth, Artie socked away her college tuition at a staggering rate, using investment brokers and insurance policies to supplement his pension plan.

Amy did her part as well, by studying hard and achieving straight A’s in most of her grades. Graduating middle school at the age of thirteen, she entered high school a year younger than most of her classmates.

The dark cloud came when Amy turned fifteen. Diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer, Lynne Wong wasted away to nothing within a year. By her sixteenth birthday, Amy and Artie were living alone, adjusting to life without Lynne in it. It was hard for both of them.

To ease his pain and loneliness, Artie threw himself into his work, often putting in twelve to fourteen hours days. Amy did much the same thing, devoting all her time to her studies at Forest Hills High, where she graduated with honors at the age of seventeen.

Spirited on by her grades, the memory of her mother and the devotion from her father, Amy  applied and was accepted to Harvard University where she studied Business at the Soldiers Field campus in Boston. She minored in Law.

For two years, Amy devoted herself to her education and made few friends except for her roommate Kelly Tanner, who shared her tiny, dorm apartment complex on campus. One year older than Amy, that year made all the difference in their relationship. Not a party girl by any stretch, Kelly was far more active than Amy was in the dating and socializing circuit and she helped bring Amy out of her shell.

A socialite by birth, her wealthy, old Boston money parents invested heavily in Kelly’s upbringing almost as soon as she could walk. A stockbroker with a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, Kelly’s father was rarely home and left the rearing of his young daughter to his wife. The result was a private tutor by age two, special schools by age five, finishing school, private middle school and high school, and finally admission to Harvard, arranged mostly by large, private donations, for despite all her early training, Kelly was not a good student.

As roommates, Kelly and Amy were good for each other. Kelly taught Amy about makeup, clothes and fashion and Amy reciprocated by tutoring Kelly in most of her classes. They became close friends and confidants, even double dating on occasion when Kelly could convince Amy to take a weekend off from studying. Even during the summer months, they kept in contact and visited each other often. By the end of Amy’s second year at Harvard, she began to emerge from the shell she encased herself in after the death of her mother. She even allowed herself to be talked into visiting a Harvard bar where Kelly introduced Amy to Scott Proctor, a twenty one year old law student from a wealthy, New York family. They didn’t hit it off, but at least Amy was out mixing with the world and learning to socialize a bit with the opposite sex.

During the summer of her second year at Harvard, Amy agreed to spend an entire month with Kelly at her parent’s summer home in Maine. Situated on Moosehead Lake in a small, northern town, the Tanner summer home was in reality a million dollar complex, the likes of which Amy had never before seen. Not far from the Tanner estate, Scott Proctor’s parents also owned a summer home, one even larger and more lavish. Scott and Kelly had known each other for ten or more years although they didn’t run in the same circles. They would often spend an entire summer at the lake and not be aware the other was in town.

Scott Proctor was the youngest son of four-term senator from New York, William Randolph Proctor and heir to a seven hundred and fifty million dollar fortune made from nineteenth century steel mining. Scott was not a good student and often paid others to write his papers, conduct research and in some instances to take his exams. That left him more time to party, drink beer and chase the upper class women on the Boston circuit.

Scott Proctor shared a duplex apartment in Cambridge with Michael Swift, a senior at Harvard School of Law and Richard Frey, a third year student in Business Administration.

Like Scott, Michael Swift was a privileged son. The first son of a southern congressman, born into old, southern money and destined to inherit the family business and fortune. Richard Frey, also wealthy, also an heir, was the son of Charles Frey, owner of Frey Communications, a global radio and satellite conglomerate.

On a warm, sunny day in August, the five students came together in a chance encounter that would eventually find its way to my doorstep.

After a week at Kelly’s home on Moosehead Lake in Greenville, Maine, Amy  began to relax and unwind, maybe for the first time since her mother passed away. Kelly’s parents, although wealthy and privileged, were kind and caring people who didn’t put on airs about their wealth or status.

After lunch on a particularly sunny day in August, Kelly suggested they take a boat ride on the lake for some serious sun tanning. Amy agreed and they took the smallest of the Tanner boats, a twenty foot, FourWinns to the center of the lake. After floating and tanning for an hour, Kelly started the boat and steered to a small island in the center of the lake. Kelly wanted to tan topless to avoid tan lines and the small, third of an acre island allowed for the necessary privacy.

Amy was inhibited about removing her top while outdoors. Kelly pointed out that she had seen Amy naked a thousand times around their shared apartment and that it was no big deal. Kelly demonstrated by removing her top and lying on a towel in the sun. Amy loosened up a bit and followed suit. After an hour of baking, Kelly realized they hadn’t brought anything to drink and she suggested she take a quick ride home for water and soda. There was no reason for both of them to go, Kelly said. She’d be gone only twenty minutes.

When Kelly reached her home, there was a short delay before returning to Amy on the island. Her father took a trip to town and her mother needed help moving three, forty-pound bags of mulch from the shed to the gardens. By the time Kelly returned to Amy, fifty minutes had elapsed.

Laughing, Kelly came off the boat with a cooler full of soda and water, a bag full of chips, a radio and extra suntan lotion. She found Amy face down against a rock in a pool of her own blood. Her bottom had been removed and she had been raped and then left for dead.

She didn’t remember doing it, Kelly later told police, but she somehow managed to lift Amy’s one hundred and twenty pounds of dead weight and carry her to the boat. She then screamed at the top of her lungs as she raced across the lake to her home.

This is what I know. Given the right opportunity to expose itself, a monster lives inside each and every one of us.

This is what I don’t know.

Everything.

1

Johnny Sanchez called me during the bottom of the fifth inning of a Yankees/Red Sox game as the Yankees rallied back from a four to nothing deficit to take the lead by one run. Derek Jeter hit the go-ahead double and the crowd erupted with cheers of Der…ek Je…ter. Jeter, a fifteen-year veteran of the Bronx Bombers, acknowledged the cheers with a tip of his cap from the dugout.

Mrs. Parker, a seventy-one-year-old widow knocked on my door and told me I had a call. She said it sounded important. To Mrs. Parker, an old woman with nothing to do except chain smoke Camels, watch soap operas and drink Black Velvet Whiskey all day, everything sounded important. Every once in a while, however, she was right, so I answered the door.

I followed Mrs. Parker across the hall to her fourth floor apartment where she handed me the phone in the hallway. It was an older cordless, the kind with the two-inch antenna on the top. She waited for me to say hello into the mouthpiece before closing the door to give me privacy.

Johnny Sanchez said, “Is my man interested in some money?”

“My interest level is only as much as the amount,” I said.

“The amount is less than a lot, but more than nothing.” Sanchez said. Was there an argument to that kind of logic? “Come around about nine.”

The phone went dead in my hand and I looked at my watch. It was just after three in the afternoon. I knocked on the door, waited for Mrs. Parker to open it and she took the phone without saying a word.

When I returned to my apartment, the Yankees were up nine to four in the top of the sixth inning.

A check of the fridge produced a turkey on white sandwich and bottled water. Back in front of the television, the Sox rallied to within two runs, then the Yankees put them away in the eighth with five more runs. Rivera came in for the ninth, threw eleven pitches and the Yankees retired for the night. September in the baseball world should prove to be an interesting month.

I switched channels and found an old John Wayne film from the forties. He was young and slim, the heartthrob of the era and a far cry from the one-eyed, fat man we all remember for his one and only Oscar winning performance in True Grit.

The cigarettes on the coffee table beckoned and it was time to un-quit the habit I quit every day for thirty years and light one up. My cats came up for air from their usual napping spot under the bed covers. They wanted attention, food and more attention and I gave it to them while I thought about Johnny Sanchez.

As a young man, Sanchez possessed the hot temper of his Cuban ancestors. His family had migrated from Cuba before the revolution and brought him to New York when he was eleven years old. They settled in a five-room apartment on Tenth Avenue in the neighborhood known as Hell’s Kitchen. His parents, though hard working and respectful of the law, could not keep Johnny away from the temptations of the Manhattan streets. By his thirteenth birthday, Sanchez joined a Latino gang that ruled the Kitchen in the area now known as Lincoln Center for the Arts. Back then, the area was known as a Latino slum. Today, it is a place for the wealthy to gather and appreciate their culture of choice, such as opera and dance.

Sanchez made his bones at fourteen, killing a rival gang member with a stiletto switchblade in the park, which is now an amphitheatre that provides tourists and the silly rich a place to listen to cello concerts. From there he moved onto numbers running, hijacking, chauffeur for a mob boss who took a liking to him and finally into drug smuggling. As the story is told on the street, his parents had been killed by a mugger for the nine dollars in his father’s wallet and seven dollars in his mother’s purse. Respected and feared by this time, Sanchez enlisted the aid of gang members and even asked the mob boss if he could have some people ask around on the street. Shortly after that, two junkies were found with their throats cut and their tongues pulled out like ties in a back alley on West 54^th Street.

Later, as he grew in stature, Sanchez was blessed by the same mob boss to distribute drugs for them in Hell’s Kitchen. He used his money wisely, buying old buildings and real estate around the neighborhood. One of his investments was a neighborhood bar and grill from which he operated the mainstay of his street business. He learned early that nothing beat hiding like doing it in the open.

Sanchez is now sixty-one years old, still tough as nails and still operating his business from the neighborhood bar. He will probably die behind the redwood counter where he polishes his glasses with a bar towel and takes pride in running a clean place where a working man can get an honest drink with some decent food on the side at a fair price.

The cats, twin Siamese, decided they had enough of my attention and settled in on the grated window ledge for an afternoon nap in the sun. From my seat on the sofa, I could hear them purring.

When I bought the building I now live in eleven years ago from the city at an auction for eighty four thousand dollars, Johnny Sanchez paid me a visit the first night I moved into the apartment I still occupy. He was younger, had more flesh on his bones and less grey in his hair and trademark moustache, but his attitude is the same today as then. Tough, direct, honest.

“I own the bar across the street,” Sanchez said. “I make it a policy to become acquainted with all new landlords when they first move in.” He had an unopened bottle of Wild Turkey from his bar and offered it to me as a gesture.

I took the bottle and looked at him. “Why?”

He shrugged. “A greeting. A welcome to the neighborhood. Call it whatever.”

I set the bottle on the coffee table. “I don’t mean the bourbon.”

“You mean why do I want to know who moves in?”

“Yes.”

“Find out if they can hurt me,” He gestured at the bottle. “Or help me. Open it. Let’s have a drink.”

“Ice?”

“Heaven forbid.”

I went to the kitchen for two glasses, opened the bottle and poured an ounce into each glass. We sipped. I said, “What if I can hurt you?”

“Then I would eliminate you,” Sanchez said as he took a delicate sip of bourbon. It wasn’t said as a threat, just a simple statement. He allowed the liquor to linger on his tongue before swallowing, the idea being to enhance the flavor through saturation. “As competition.”

“For what?”

“Money,” he shrugged. “What else matters?”

I took a tiny sip of bourbon and the liquor burned its way down to my stomach. I asked the question. “Why does the owner of a bar care what other people do in the neighborhood?”

“Owning the bar is something I do,” Sanchez said. “Not who I am. Ask anybody in the neighborhood.”

“I’d rather not know anybody in the neighborhood, if it’s all the same with you,” I said. “And even if it’s not.”

Johnny Sanchez showed me his wide, Latin smile. “We’re going to get along fine, my new neighbor.”

“I never doubted it,” I said. “Does your place serve food?”

“Pretty good meatloaf, roast beef, the hardcore, working man stuff. Some Cuban dishes mixed in for ambiance.”

“Good. I’ll be a regular.”

“You like Cuban food?”

“Not particularly, but I like cooking even less.”

Sanchez finished his drink. “You have the look of ex-military.”

“Marine Corps. I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“Stop by for dinner tonight,” Sanchez said. “The first meal is always on me. You can tell me about the Marines.”

I’ve been stopping by for the past eleven years. After time, once mutual respect and trust became common between us, the bar became a contact point for certain business ventures. Sanchez screened my calls and eliminated the nut cases from the real. I paid him for the service and it has been a solid partnership for a decade.

I watched the cats purr for a bit more, grew bored and went to brew a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen. Above the sink in a cabinet where I store the coffee was the bottle of Wild Turkey Sanchez gave me eleven years ago. The only liquor missing from the bottle is the original two ounces from our first encounter. I’m saving it for company, or a special occasion, whichever comes first.

I nibbled on some cookies while I sipped a sixteen-ounce mug of coffee and switched channels again to watch highlights of the Yankees/Sox game that just ended. Rodriguez hit a towering shot that took me back to the majestic home runs Mantle crushed on a regular basis. Before his abused body betrayed him. Before the booze robbed him of his final four years and finally took his life all too soon.

I switched gears and thought some more about Johnny Sanchez. He knew not to call with a proposition unless his cut was large enough to substantiate the effort and he knew the work would hold my interest. His usual finder’s fee was ten percent and ten percent of a lot is a lot. That was his reasoning. I couldn’t find fault with it. Over the years, we made a great deal of money on that simple premise. Whenever he called, I never asked and he never volunteered information. That was reserved for my usual stool at the bar over a plate of his lean roast beef.

Cookies eaten, coffee consumed, I smoked another butt, spread myself out on the sofa and clicked off the television by remote. Eleven years ago, when I bought the building situated on West 54^th Street off Tenth Avenue, it was up for auction due to owed back taxes. I put in a bid of eighty four thousand, a good twenty thousand more than the next competitor. The building had eight apartments, two to a floor and a super’s apartment in the basement. I moved into the vacant apartment on the top floor opposite Mrs. Parker. The remaining occupants of the building didn’t know what to expect and called a landlord/tenants meeting the first week.

They had issues. A lot of them. Toilets backed up, showers had little water pressure, and electrical wiring was faulty, sinks leaked and so on. I told the tenants I wasn’t interested in their problems, but they were under no obligation to pay me rent. They could fix, paint, repair whatever they wanted when they wanted and pay for it themselves. I didn’t buy the building to start collecting rent money from old women on social security. It wasn’t worth my time or effort. All I asked is they paid the yearly taxes on the building, a sum that came to about sixty dollars an apartment per month. Fix their own crap, pay seven hundred and twenty dollars a year each in taxes and leave me alone and we’ll all be happy.

Mrs. Parker became the building general and watchdog. She organized a tax committee that collected the funds on a monthly basis and deposited it into a building account. She hired a first rate super and he did wonders with the place, painting, repairing and upgrading. He was paid out of another fund Mrs. Parker organized and he got free housing for him and his family of four. All the way around, everybody was happy. Rent was free, expenses were low, the building looked great and I was left alone most of the time.

When I woke up from the nap I didn’t remember taking, I checked my watch and decided there was enough time for a shave and a shower before I ventured out to keep my appointment with Sanchez.

As I scraped stubble from my chin, Mrs. Parker knocked on my door again. With half my face covered in shaving cream, I went to see what she wanted.

“The same man said to wake you up and don’t be late,” Mrs. Parker said. She knew the caller was Sanchez, but she also knew never to mention him by name.

As water dripped off my razor, I looked at Mrs. Parker. “Obviously, I’m awake, but thank you.”

“When are you…?”Mrs. Parker said.

“Never,” I said in answer to her unfinished question. “Phones annoy me.”

“But what if I’m not at…?”

“Then I miss the call.”

“And what if I die?”

“I’ll assign another tenant to take my calls.”

“You have all the answers, don’t you?”

“Mrs. Parker, I don’t even have the questions. Thanks for the message.”

The shaving cream had dried, so I washed it off and reapplied a fresh coat and scraped off what was left of my stubble. The heat of the shower worked its magic, and by the time I was dressed, I was famished and ready to listen to Sanchez.

The cats paid me no mind as I closed the apartment door. They had full stomachs, a comfortable place to sleep and no reason at the moment to acknowledge my existence.

2

The bar and grill was moderately busy when I walked in. A dozen or so patrons occupied tables where they ate plates of food while they watched ESPN on the overhead, cable television. A dozen or so more sat around the bar and ignored the second television on the wall. These were the mainstay of Sanchez’s business. The two-fisted drinkers, who downed shots and beers all night, ate manly food and watched ball games while the world around them went unnoticed.

As I slid onto a stool at the bar, a waitress named Dolly went to the kitchen for my plate. Sanchez set up a tall Coke on ice and gently placed it over a coaster. Dolly returned with a plate teaming over with roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. She set the plate in front of me with a loaf of garlic bread to the side.

“Got apple pie with sweet cream ice cream for dessert,” Dolly said.

“Fresh coffee?”

“I’ll make some.”

I nodded and Dolly walked off to answer the call from a table. I dug into the roast beef and looked at Sanchez. He looked back. There was no rushing the man. He did things according to his own schedule, which meant when he felt like it. But, tonight was different. I could see it in his eyes. He was holding just a little something in reserve.

“What happens at nine?” I said.

“We play,” Sanchez said. “And we wait.”

That was all Sanchez said as I ate, sopping up the last of the gravy with crusty garlic bread.

Dolly took my empty plate away and replaced it with a huge slab of apple pie covered with a double scoop of ice cream topped off with a squirt of whipped cream and a mug of coffee.

While I dug into the pie, Sanchez brought up the magnetic chessboard from under the bar. The games began nearly ten years ago when I came in one night and watched him play a regular customer for double or nothing of the customer’s bar tab. I learned the game from some fellow Marines while overseas. It helped pass the long, lonely, desert nights. Through the years, we’ve played matches as short as one half hour and as long as three months. Overall, we’re pretty much even in wins and losses, though we’ve never kept track.

The game on the board tonight was into its third week with neither of us at an advantage over the other. We didn’t play every night and this particular game was into its sixty-seventh move. I had his queen; he had my rook and knight. We both lost four pawns and a bishop.

“I believe the move is to you,” Sanchez said. “And try to keep it under an hour,” he added.

I studied the board while I downed pie and ice cream and settled on shuffling my remaining knight into position to the left of his bishop.

“Interesting,” Sanchez said. He stroked his chin with the fingers of his left hand, a habit he reserved just for our games.

“What are we waiting for?” I said after Sanchez moved a pawn into attack position on my knight’s flank.

We went through sixteen additional moves on the board covering sixty-eight minutes before Sanchez answered my question. As I snatched another of his pawns with my queen, Sanchez casually looked up and said, “Him. We’re waiting for him.”

That was the first time I set eyes upon Artie Wong.

3

Artie Wong was a short man, with round, plump features and dark, sad eyes that reflected an inner sorrow that cut deep into his soul. Even from across the dimly lit bar, I could see the pain that was etched into the lines and creases around those sad eyes.

Artie Wong was dressed casually in tan chinos with a pale blue shirt and comfortable, Reebok walking shoes on his feet. His right shoulder hung lower than his left from an old injury he incurred from carrying thirty-five pound mail sacks his first decade as a mail carrier.

Wong didn’t speak as he came to the bar and looked at Sanchez.

“It’s okay,” Sanchez said, reading the question on Artie’s face. “This is Kellerman. He’s the one you came to see.”

Artie Wong turned to me and extended his right hand. “I’m Arthur Wong.”

His hand all but disappeared inside mine, but the grip was firm and his skin was dry. “Kellerman,” I said.

“You can call me Artie.”

I turned to Sanchez. “Are you sitting in on this?”

Sanchez shook his head and handed me the key to his office.

“Artie, in about a minute, follow me to the back office,” I said and stood up from my stool. “Bring a drink if you’d like.” I gathered up my coffee mug, went to the hallway to the left of the bar where the bathrooms were located and continued on to the locked door at the end of the hall and used the key to let myself in.

Sanchez’s office reflects his personality. Neat, orderly, but with a lot of I don’t care thrown into the mix. The desk is old, but clean, the sofa is outdated, but comfortable, the guest chairs are used, but expensive. There isn’t a spec of dust anywhere, not even on the lamps or coffee table in front of the sofa.

From behind the desk, I ticked off sixty seconds before Wong knocked on the door and slowly opened it. He came in with a scotch over ice in his left hand, closed the door and looked at me.

“Artie, can you do me a favor before we get started?” I said.

“If I can.”

“Put down the drink and remove your shirt,” I said. “Tee shirt, too.”

Artie stared at me with a question in his eyes until his lips formed a tiny smile. “You want to see if I’m wearing a wire,” he said. “I assure you I’m not.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said. “Do it or walk.”

Artie nodded, removed his shirt and tee shirt and stood before me bare-chested. Like most Asians, Wong had very little, if any, chest or body hair. While not exactly fat, his flesh was loose and soft, with the beginnings of middle-aged man tits forming. I motioned for him to turn around and he accommodated me with a slow spin.

“Satisfied?”

“Yes. Put your shirt on and have a seat.”

Artie slipped his tee shirt on, but left the blue shirt unbuttoned as he reached for his drink and took one of the two chairs facing the desk.

“Mr. Kellerman, I…” he began.

A wave of my hand silenced him. “No Mister. It’s just Kellerman,” I said.

“Very well, Kellerman,” Wong said. “I won’t ask if that’s your real name. If I may…”

“No,” I said. “This doesn’t work that way. There’s no prize behind door number two. It works the way I say it does.”

“I don’t understand. Mr. Sanchez said…”

“This is how it works, Artie,” I said. “Mr. Sanchez has more street smarts than any man I’ve ever met. That’s why at his age he has no arrest record. That’s why I trust his judgment above all else. That’s why if there are no Yankee tickets in the middle drawer of his desk, I say goodnight and have a nice life.”

“Yankee tickets?” He was genuinely perplexed. “You mean to a baseball game?”

I slid open the drawer and removed the plain white envelope on top, pulled it out and removed two box seats to tomorrow night’s Yankees/Sox game. “Ever been?”

“I can’t say as I have. I don’t find baseball very exciting.”

“Like hotdogs?”

“Sure.”

“Good. At least it won’t be a total loss.” I slid one ticket across the desk. “See you tomorrow night, Artie.”

“I don’t understand any of this.”

“Do you own a car, Artie?”

“Yes, but what does…”

“Leave it home,” I said. “Ride the subway. See you tomorrow.”

If Artie Wong was confused on the way in, he was completely befuddled on the way out. He would have overnight to think about it, and if he was in the seat next to me at tomorrow night’s game, I knew he was at least partially serious.

Through the years, I learned that most potential clients speak in haste from the emotion of the moment. Most, after a night’s sleep see things without the emotion and usually change their mind. Sanchez and I devised the Yankee games as a cooling off period. During the winter, it was Knicks or Rangers games at the garden.

The cigarette I had lit was being crushed out in a crystal ashtray on the corner of the desk when Sanchez came in. He didn’t ask me to move from behind his desk and took one of the chairs.

We both lit fresh cigarettes. Sanchez was one of those casual smokers who sometimes went weeks without one, then all of a sudden would light one up. There was no telling where or when he would feel the urge. I sipped coffee from the mug. We looked at each other. “Tell me about Artie Wong,” I said.

Sanchez stood up and went to the small closet on the right of the desk for the private stash of bourbon he kept just for himself. A hundred and fifty dollar a bottle, aged to perfection treat he consumed one ounce at a time. He poured a generous finger into a glass, sat and spent the next hour giving me background bio on Artie Wong.

I let Sanchez talk, paused him just once to allow Dolly to get me a refill on the coffee. As Wong’s tale unfolded, I could understand a little bit better the sadness behind his soft, brown eyes. Some men dealt with loss better than others. Artie Wong fell into the category of others.

Finally, Sanchez concluded Artie Wong’s tale of woe. A minute of silence passed between us.

I broke the silence with, “He works for the post office.”

“A supervisor,” Sanchez pointed out.

“So he rakes in fifty, fifty five thousand a year tops.”

“Maybe sixty with some overtime.”

“Where’s the money coming from?”

“He says he has it,” Sanchez said. “Ask him.”

“I plan to.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I don’t do charity work,” I said. “And neither do you. Besides, you did a thorough on him, right?”

“Model citizen, no bad habits, clean background,” Sanchez said. “It’s possible he could have saved that much.”

“We’ll see.”

“Want to finish the game?”

“Why not?”

4

I slept for nine hours and woke with the cats curled up on the bed, which was their usual morning position. Even though the temperature hit the eighty-degree mark by nine o’clock, they crawled under the sheet, twisted themselves around each other and cradled in for their morning nap. Cats as a rule are lazy, but these two took the prize.

I made coffee, ate two English muffins with peanut butter and headed out to the gym. The cats would have to wait for their breakfast until my return. Toting my gear bag, I walked the ten blocks to 44^th Street off Ninth Avenue where a monthly fee bought a membership in Roth’s Gymnasium and Boxing Emporium.

Located on the second floor of an old warehouse type building, Sam Roth first opened his gym fifty years ago when an eye injury forced him to retire from the ring at a time when he was ranked the number three lightweight boxer in the world. He never got his shot at the title, but as the legend goes, Roth challenged the lightweight champion to a private match in his gym a year after he retired. There were no reporters or spectators, just a cut man for each fighter and a referee. Years later, the referee told reporters that Roth beat the snot out of the champion for fifteen rounds, knocking him out in the seventh and reviving him to continue the beating. Roth busted him up so badly the champion retired a year later claiming a shoulder injury prevented him from training.

I climbed the steps two at a time to the second floor and entered the gym through the glass, front door. The combination smell of stale sweat and dirty gym socks hit me like a sharp slap in the face. Roth didn’t believe in air conditioning. He believed it weakened a man’s endurance and he may have been right. Many a good fighter trained in an air-conditioned environment lost in the ring when the heat and humidity sapped his strength and stamina.

A dozen or so fighters occupied various stations around the gym. Two men were in the ring, sparring. Middleweights, from the looks of them. Roth stood outside the ring with a trainer, timing the rounds with a stopwatch. He always clocked the rounds at three and a half minutes, thirty seconds over the legal limit for a round. Another of his techniques to build up a fighter’s endurance.

I watched the middleweights go at it for a few minutes. Each man cautious of the other, jabbing and stepping away. Finally, Roth screamed at them to mix it up and they began to attack and throw body shots.

When Roth yelled time, I grabbed a leather jump rope off a rack on the wall and began to loosen up. Ten sets of a hundred reps until I cracked a sweat, then I jumped for five minutes in rapid succession. Perspiration ran off me like water and I toweled off before moving to the speed bag.

I started slow to allow my hands to get the rhythm and feel of the bag, then slowly increased the speed until the bag was a blur as it rebounded against the circular platform.

Once I was into it, I worked the bag on autopilot and let my mind wander where it willed. It took me to Artie Wong and his tale of woe. Where would a postal worker get the kind of money it required to hire the kind of services he was shopping for? Even at sixty grand a year, that was pushing the old pension plan to the breaking point. Maybe there was something about Artie Wong I should know. Maybe I should find out.

“Ya want I should find you a sparring partner?” Sam Roth said in his graveled voice from my left flank.

I glanced at him without breaking stride on the bag. He was seventy-seven now and not more than five pounds over his prime fighting weight of one thirty five. His snow colored hair was cut short which made his cauliflower ears stick out all the more. The bulbous nose sat between blue, pixie eyes that were as sharp and clear as a bell.

“I’m going ten on the heavy bag first,” I said.

“Leave something in the tank,” Roth said. “I got a new kid I want you to lean on, see what he’s got for a ticker.”

“What’s he fighting?”

“Four rounders, but I’d like to move him up to six.”

“Fight anybody good?”

            “He wouldn’t be going four rounders if he was in with somebody good,” Roth said. “Don’t take too long, he’s warming up now.”

Roth walked away to yell at a young, black middleweight who was prancing around as if he were Ali in his prime. I finished off the speed bag, fished out my heavy bag gloves and went to work on the hundred and twenty pound, suspended bag. Roth kept bags from forty pounds and up, but I’ve yet to use anything but the heaviest one.

I worked the bag with jabs and hooks and straight body shots for ten, three-minute rounds. When I was done, my hands were swollen, my back ached and my shoulders were on fire.

Roth was giving instruction in the ring to his new fighter when I sought him out. “You want to wrap me?” I said.

As nimble as a kid, Roth jumped down from the ring to wrap my hands. “That your kid?” I said, motioning to the heavyweight in the ring. He was shadow boxing, tossing upper cuts and left hooks. “He looks soft around the middle.”

“He don’t eat right,” Roth said. “The fucking McDonald’s. I tell him to lay off that crap, but he don’t listen.”

“He got anything?”

“You tell me,” Roth said.

My left hand wrapped, Roth went to work on my right. “Headgear?” I said.

“Nobody gets into my ring without it.”

I held my wrapped fists in front of me for Roth to slip on the gloves and lace them up. Once laced, he took surgical tape and wrapped a piece over the laces to seal off the ends. “Take him to six and let him hit you a few times,” Roth said. “See what he’s got?”

“Should I hit him back?”

“Absolutely,” Roth said. “But don’t crack open his face. He’s fighting in two weeks and if I have to cancel I lose the put up money.”

I nodded and stepped into the ring. The young fighter was a good-sized heavyweight, with wide shoulders and thick arms and legs, but he was soft around the belly. Too many cheeseburgers with fries will slow a man down like an anvil on your back.

We touched gloves and the kid smiled at me. “You kinda old for sparring, ain’t cha pops,” he said.

Cocky, sure of himself. Probably used his size and strength to push some pug around the canvas and worked it in his mind he was the next Dempsey.

“Ever go six?” I said.

“Naw,” the kid said and showed me his right hand. “No need. I got this.”

“Time,” Roth yelled.

The kid grinned at me, circled to my left and tossed a few, lackluster jabs that I picked off. We pushed each other around for three minutes and I let the kid sneak in a few left hooks and a straight right hand. He had some power, but not nearly enough to back up his cockiness.

Between rounds, Roth said, “Can the kid hurt you?”

“No.”

“Let him pound you for a while, see what happens.”

What happened was the kid ran out of steam by the middle of the fourth round and I spent the last thirty seconds holding him up. The cheeseburgers were like a sack of rocks on his back, sapping his strength, slowing him down.

We rested on stools between round four and five and when I glanced at Roth, I noticed every fighter in the gym had gathered around the ring to watch the young kid and the old man go at it.

A black fighter I knew yelled up at me. “Hey, Kellerman, what the hell you doing, man? Take this punk out.”

Roth looked at the black fighter. “Shut up,” he snarled. “Mind your own bees wax.” Roth turned his attention to the ring. “Time,” he yelled.

The kid came off his stool as if he wanted to take my head off. He probably wasn’t aware that we were fighting three and a half minutes rounds. Slow, clumsy roundhouse rights and lefts whizzed by my ear, stealing what little strength the kid had left. With ninety seconds remaining, the kid was sucking wind like an exhaust fan. I shoved him off me and looked at Roth and he gave me the okay by way of a slight nod.

I backed the kid up with a hard, straight jab that gave him pause. Before he could recover, I went to work on his soft middle, hitting him with six unanswered body shots. Pain and confusion showed in his eyes. Desperation set in. He hugged me around the shoulders, and rabbit punched me behind the head, a Cardinal sin to all fighters.

It’s something you just do not do.

I heard Roth yell “No” as I shoved the kid off me and knocked him flat with a right hook to his exposed jaw.

Roth jumped into the ring and got in my face. “The hell you doing? I told you the kid was fighting in two weeks.”

“You told me to hit him,” I said.

“Hit him, not kill him,” Roth snarled. He turned to the kid, who was trying to sit up. “Aw, shit. Come on, kid, get up.”

I left the ring and the black fighter removed my gloves. “Old man still got it,” he said, smiling at me.

“What about you?” I said. “Getting any fights?”

“Couple of six rounders in Jersey, one in Brooklyn.”

“Win them?”

“Won two.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Lost in Brooklyn. Big slow, white boy stepped on my foot and caught me under the chin with an uppercut. I woke up in the locker-room.”

“Let me know when your next fight is,” I said. “I’ll come out.”

The black fighter nodded. “Next month. Maybe you can help me get ready, do a little sparring.”

“What do you weigh?”

“One sixty eight.”

I knew what he wanted. Spar with a heavyweight and when you get in there with a middleweight, it feels like you’re fighting a lightweight. “Ask Roth,” I said. “He gives you the okay, I’ll come around a bit.”

“Thanks, Kellerman.”

5

I showered, dressed and left the gym and walked south to the public library. My tax dollars gave me an office and I took advantage of it as often as possible. A librarian who knew me walked me to a computer terminal and signed on, knowing I would ignore the thirty-minute time limit.

I googled Artie Wong and found a dozen newspaper stories with a couple of dozen links to Amy Wong, his daughter. I read about her attack on a small island located on Moosehead Lake in central Maine. How her college roommate found her unconscious on the island after returning from a short trip by boat to her home for soda and tanning lotion. Amy, raped multiple times, didn’t go down easy. She fought and fought hard and somehow managed to break away from her attackers, flee to the other side of the island where she tripped, fell and struck her head on a rock. She’d been in a coma ever since that fateful moment.

Three Harvard students were arrested and charged with rape and assault and battery. According to Amy’s roommate, Kelly Tanner, she spotted a boat belonging to Scott Proctor racing across the lake at about the time she returned to the island with supplies.

Arrested were Scott Proctor, Richard Frey and Michael Swift, all twenty-one and students at Harvard. I Googled links to their families. Big money and power fueled the family names.

Scott Proctor, son of a New York Senator and heir to hundreds of millions, Richard Frey, part of Frey Global Communications and Michael Swift, part of the good ole boy, southern money network and son of a Congressman were all found not guilty of all charges at their trial.

Not that they were innocent of their accused crimes. There was just too much money and power to find them guilty. Evidence was shoddy at best. There was no DNA on scene and when million dollar lawyers fly into Maine, tap dancing to a jury becomes an art form small town prosecutors are ill equipped to deal with.

I searched for updates on Amy’s whereabouts. She was in stable condition in a special care facility in upstate New York where doctor’s feared she would never recover from her coma. She wasn’t on life support because, except for her brain shutting itself down, her body functioned as normal.

Nourishment came in the way of a feeding tube.

From what I could find out about Artie Wong, he was an honest, hard working slob who had been dealt some hard cards from the master deck. His wife died young and now this. In between had been some very good years. A great deal of love for wife and daughter, some promotions and responsibility at work, good friends and a comfortable house in Rego Park, Queens.

The good years, I decided, didn’t make up for the grief Artie Wong carried around inside him now. The proof of that was in contacting me.

I left the library, walked north, entered the Bar and Grill, and ate a plate of meatloaf while I studied the chessboard and waited for Sanchez to make his next move. Neither of us spoke about Artie Wong.

My mind fluttered back and forth between the game and Artie Wong. Sanchez took advantage of my lack of concentration and won the game in thirty one moves.

Afterward, I returned to the apartment to feed the cats and change. I ate a light snack of some fruit, and then went out again to catch the subway to Yankee Stadium in The Bronx.

I usually read the newspapers while riding the subway. Tonight I played bookmaker and tried to handicap the odds on Artie Wong showing up for our meeting.

I settled on even money.

6

The allure of a big game brings out the crowds and there was nothing bigger in all of baseball than a Yankees/Sox night game when the pennant race was on the line. At present, the Yankees had a one-game lead on the Sox, which meant tonight’s game had a two-game swing. Extra police and security was on hand to break up the fights that were sure to break out between fans of the Bomber’s and those stupid enough to wear a Sox jersey. The subway was standing room only, with extra trains on the INT and IND line to accommodate the massive amount of traffic traveling to The Bronx for the seven-fifteen start of the game.

Since before I went into the service, talk of moving Yankee Stadium out of The Bronx to a possible Manhattan location circulated around the city. The stadium was old and falling apart, some said. The South Bronx is a hopeless slum and unworthy of the greatest team in modern sports history, others said. Still others, mostly real estate investors, claimed the move would be good for the tourist industry, citing how many tourists were afraid to venture to such a dangerous part of the city as the South Bronx.

Truth be told, there was nothing to be gained by relocating the team to Manhattan except for making millionaire investors richer off the backs of the already overburdened taxpayer, which would cost them several hundred million dollars. In the end, they tore down the old stadium to build anew.

A crowd of ten thousand ushered from the subway at the Grand Concourse to the stadium just a few blocks away from The Bronx superior courthouse. A buzz of excitement was in the air at the prospect of tonight’s event. A two game swing was on the line and to the world series, Yankees fan junkie that was a life and death situation.

Scalpers hawked thirty-six dollar tickets for a hundred bucks each under the watchful noses of New York’s finest unfettered. Better to sell tickets than drugs at a ball game, it was reasoned. Stadium employees sold programs and souvenirs and fathers forked over big bucks for tee shirts and caps for their kids to wear that would shrink after one cycle in washing machine.

Entering through the box seat gates, I located my seat along the third-base line behind the bag, stood for the national anthem and cheered when the first pitch was thrown.

Artie Wong showed at the start of the third inning when the score was nothing to zero in favor of nobody. He meekly sat down next to me, cleared his throat and said, “I debated all night if I should come or not.”

“I don’t have to guess your decision,” I said. My calculation on the subway of Artie showing at even money was like a kiss on the cheek from your sister.

“My daughter is…”

“Not during the game, Artie,” I said.

“I don’t understand,” Artie said, confused. “I thought you said…”

“I did and we will,” I said. “Right after the last out.”

Artie Wong sighed to himself and endured six innings of what must have been sheer boredom for him. Final score: Yankees one, Sox zero, another one in the record books for Rivera. We waited thirty minutes for the crowd to thin out and then we went with the flow and exited the stadium on the River Street side of the stadium.

“Are you hungry, Artie?” I said, lighting a much-needed cigarette.

“No.”

“Could you use a drink?”

“Yes.”

I steered us to the Stadium Bar and Grill a block from the main gates and we settled into a booth near the window. The place was packed with thirsty, happy, Yankee fans who wanted to gloat over pitchers of beer and shots of Irish whiskey.

Artie Wong ordered a shot of bourbon and a glass of tap beer. I went with a Coke over ice. He took a small sip of bourbon and chased it down with a sip of beer, which knotted his face for several seconds.

“I’ve never been a drinking man,” Artie confessed. “But lately.”

Since nearly everyone in the place was ignoring the citywide smoking ban, I joined the crowd and lit one up.

“What happened to your kid, Artie?” I said and blew smoke at the same time.

The bluntness of my question seemed to hit Artie Wong like a four in the morning wakeup call and achieved the desired results. Artie was soft mentally, even after what happened to his wife and daughter. Some guys just are.

Artie took another sip of bourbon and closed his eyes for a second before he answered. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me. “She was raped by three students at Harvard. Somehow, she managed to escape. She ran and she fell and hit her head on a rock. She’s been in a coma since and the doctors…” Artie paused to gather himself. “They say she will probably never recover.”

I drank some Coke and took a hit off my cigarette. “Tell me about the guys that raped your little girl.”

Artie sucked in some air to compose himself. He was fighting hard not to break down. He sipped beer and said, “Rich, privileged boys from powerful families. They think they can do anything and get away with it.”

“They did get away with it, Artie,” I said. “Didn’t they?”

Artie picked up the bourbon shot glass and downed the remaining contents in one gulp. He made a face as the liquor burned a path to his stomach. He cooled it with some beer, and then said, “Yes, they did.”

“How come?”

“You mean why did the jury find them innocent?”

“I read about it, Artie. They found them not guilty, which is not the same thing as innocent. You were at the trial, what happened?”

“The lawyers…they convinced the jury the evidence was tainted. They said the crime scene had been compromised. First by Kelly Tanner, then by the local sheriff’s department who walked all over the island. They said…” Artie paused to gather himself. “They said my daughter may have been entertaining the boys… they used that word, entertaining and… she may have slipped on her own. They said a lot of things.”

“All of it not true,” I said.

“No, of course not,” Artie said. His voice was stronger with a touch of defiance in the tone. Say something bad about his little girl and it set him off.

“But, how do you know that, Artie?” I said. “Little girls grow up to become big girls. They drink, mess around with drugs and like boys. She was at college two years and that’s long enough for a girl to grow into a sexually active woman.”

“What are you saying, Mr. Kellerman?” Artie said. “That my daughter asked to be raped by three…”

“Relax, Artie,” I said. “I’m not saying anything. You want me to work for you, and I never work for anybody without knowing the truth about the situation I’m getting involved in.”

“I understand,” Artie said.

“Good.” I took a sip of Coke and looked at him. “So we understand each other,” I said. “What we don’t understand is what took place on that island because we weren’t there. Only your daughter and her attackers were and your daughter can’t speak for herself. I read about the trial, the testimony of the Tanner girl and if I sat on that jury, I would have voted not guilty along with the rest of them. The evidence just wasn’t good enough and rich people don’t go to prison unless there’s a smoking gun, blood and a body and sometimes not even then. Remember the Blake trial? In your daughter’s case, there just wasn’t enough to convict.”

“Smoking… you mean caught in the act?”

“Yeah, I mean caught in the act.”

Artie nodded and sipped beer. “The police never found any other suspects.”

“Neither did OJ or Blake,” I said. “That doesn’t mean a thing.”

“That man who murdered his pregnant wife, he was found guilty.”

“He wasn’t part of the rich and powerful club,” I said. “We made him a celebrity, but that’s not the same thing.”

“So what are you saying, Mr. Kellerman?”

I stubbed out my cigarette in a tin ashtray and looked at Artie. “I’m saying if you want me to kill these three for you, I need to know without any doubt they are guilty of what they’re accused of.”

Artie sucked down the last of his beer and waved a waitress over for another shot and a refill. He waited for the waitress to return, then downed the bourbon and chased it with half the glass of beer. His courage mounted, he said, “I never said I wanted you to kill those three boys. If Mr. Sanchez assumed that, he assumed wrong and I apologize.”

There was a thin film forming over Artie’s eyes as the liquor started to take the desired effect. I came right to the point, knowing the answer, but wanted to hear it spoken. “What do you want then, Artie?”

“What I want is my daughter whole again,” Artie said. “But that is not going to happen. At least that is what all the doctors say. So what I want is the next best thing. I want you to arrange for the three of them to be in one place at the same time so I can kill them all myself.”

Artie never took his eyes off me as I set fire to a fresh cigarette. He wasn’t drunk, but the liquor loosened his tongue enough for him to say what needed to be said. “Ever kill anybody in the Air Force, Artie?”

“No. I never was in the position where I had to.”

“What makes you think you can kill three young men in cold blood?” I said. “You seem to me the type who never saw a violent day in his life.”

“My daughter spending the rest of her days as a vegetable with tubes in her body is a great motivator,” Artie said.

“What about the aftermath?” I said.

“You mean consequences?”

I shook my head. “I mean guilt.”

Artie sipped beer as he thought for a moment. “I’m Korean, but was raised Christian. There will be guilt, but also a sense of justice being served.”

“Your daughter is alive,” I said. “That isn’t justice, that’s revenge.”

“My daughter is alive in the sense that she is breathing,” Artie said. “Supposedly, a plant breathes, Mr. Kellerman. Would you like to live the rest of your life as a plant?”

I sipped Coke and puffed on my cigarette. Artie Wong didn’t seem the type to get physical. Probably couldn’t whip a twelve-year-old cheerleader in a fair fight. That left the trigger. It seems easy to pull it. They do it all the time on TV and the movies, but in real life in the real world, it’s not. A certain personality is required to do it and lack compunction. Soldiers and police are forced into counseling after combat or a street killing. Some never recover from the stress of taking human life.

To others, killing is a tool to a goal. Terrorists seem to be able to kill at will to achieve their desired goal and celebrate the fact that another infidel had been removed.

Artie Wong was neither, and like the cop or soldier, he would receive no counseling to ease the ache in his heart referred to by some as a conscience.

“Time for some truth, Artie,” I said. “I don’t think you can do it, even to avenge what happened to your daughter. But, say that you could. I think you’re the type with a conscience that would eat away at you for years. One day, you would wake up and just have to share that guilt with someone to ease the burden. A priest? A cop? That would ease your pain, but expose me. If that were to happen, I would have to remove you and believe me, Artie, I would feel no such guilt. Understand what I’m saying?”

“Yes.”

“Can you live with that?”

“Yes.”

“That brings us to the money,” I said “One hundred and fifty thousand, plus expenses. Do you have that kind of ready cash?”

“I’ve done nothing but save for twenty five years,” Artie said. “Bonds, CD accounts, college tuition funds, my pension and so on. I have it, Mr. Kellerman.”

“Here’s the deal, Artie and it’s not negotiable,” I said. “I want fifty thousand in expense money up front. Old bills, nothing larger than a twenty. I will use that money to do some digging and make sure these three college assholes are guilty because you don’t want to kill the wrong men and neither do I. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Once I’ve established their guilt without any doubt, I will arrange for you to kill them in a fashion of your choice. Agreed?”

Arties’s eyes were stone, cold sober now. The booze had worked its way through his system and his voice was clear and concise. “When do you want the fifty thousand?”

“One week. Contact Sanchez and he’ll get a hold of me.”

“I can have it sooner.”

No. I want you to have some time to think it over. If after a week, you call Sanchez, I’ll know you’re for real.”

“You mean serious?”

“That’s what I mean.”

Artie Wong relaxed and eased back onto his chair. He got what he came for and was happy with the terms. He said, “Can you do me a favor, Mr. Kellerman?”

“What?”

“Explain that game we saw tonight,” Artie Wong said. “What was the big deal about who won?”

“A one run game, three hits for both teams. It doesn’t happen often.”

“No, I mean the animosity,” Artie said. “I understand the game of baseball, but not the anger I witnessed tonight. There was a fistfight because a man was wearing a Red Sox shirt.”

“You’ve heard of Babe Ruth?” I said.

“Sure, of course.”

“In 1919, Babe Ruth was baseball,” I said. “The Red Sox were…”

7

I rode the subway back to Manhattan and arrived home shortly before two in the morning. My cats were glad to see me, but only because they were starving. They rubbed and purred against my leg until I set the food down, then I was immediately dismissed and forgotten as they ran to their bowls.

I foraged through the fridge for a last can of Coke and sipped it on the sofa in the dark. The ember of my cigarette was the only light in the room, but that was all my cats needed to hone in on my lap where they conducted after dinner grooming.

As the cats licked themselves and each other, I thought about Artie Wong and his daughter. The newspaper photos showed a teenage girl, pretty and full of life, but they probably didn’t do her justice. Newspaper photos rarely ever do.

The photos of Scott Proctor, Richard Frey and Michael Swift weren’t much better. Young, cocky men with money and the world by the balls was how they appeared in print and probably in reality. Even rarer than a decent newspaper photo was the son of a rich man who grew up learning the meaning of humility or had the desire to learn it.

It was obvious from birth that Scott Proctor was groomed to have brass between his legs and stone for a heart. He stood to inherit the gross national product equivalent to the country of Mexico and it was expected he would make his footprints in the family name. Follow in daddy’s own footprints as Senator Proctor the second wasn’t far removed from the game plan. Maybe even the White House. Who knew how these arrogant bastards thought or what they planned when the general public wasn’t looking?

The same could be said of Michael Swift. Old, southern money tied into the political, good ole boy network, I could almost see the campaign posters now. Vote for Michael Swift, and the south shall rise again.

It was Richard Frey I wasn’t sure about. Politics didn’t appear to run in his family circle, but you never knew what was below the surface until you scratched it. As heir to Frey Global Communications, his family could be the richest of the three and money carried with it a great deal of political sway and power. On the other hand, young Richard’s only aspiration in life appeared to be to go from being rich to richer.

The cats now occupied a leg apiece and dug their claws into my kneecaps where they purred contently. I lit another cigarette and alternated stroking them. Their purrs grew louder as they arched their backs with each stroke of my hand.

Artie Wong was the biggest slice of mystery in the pie. Nearly every man I have met in my life thinks of himself as a hunter-gatherer, capable of defending what’s his against all intruders. Even the accountant type who never lifts anything heavier than a pencil sees himself differently than the reflection looking back at him in the mirror when he shaves.

The truth is Murder is messy. Murder is for real. Most of all murder is forever. The Artie Wong’s of the world never seem to understand that murder is something you leave alone unless you are a professional. Otherwise, your ass winds up in the jackpot. Only then do they seem to learn, when it’s too late.

The problem with this particular Artie Wong was that if his ass found its way into the jackpot, mine could go with him.

If that happened, who would take care of my cats?

8

In the morning, I didn’t crawl out of bed until eleven, but technically that was still morning. I satisfied the cats need for food and desire for stroking, then wandered to the library for more extensive research. Armed with a sixteen-ounce coffee that the librarian allowed me to bring in, I followed her to a vacant, computer terminal.

I sipped and went right to work, Googling the Frey family first. Charles Frey, Richard’s father was in the news constantly and he brought up several hundred hits. Everything from charity work and massive donations to education to ground breaking communications systems for NASA, Charles Frey appeared to have the Midas touch and I’m not talking mufflers.

Richard Frey, other than being accused and cleared of rape charges, had little ink considering his heir status. Maybe he wasn’t the good student Charles hoped for and he was kept in the background? Since being cleared of the charges, Richard hadn’t received one drop of ink in the media. Had daddy paid for the silence? Apparently, he paid for everything else. Headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, Frey had several homes on the west coast, one in Aspen, Houston, Miami Beach, Hawaii and France. Pinning down young Richard away from Harvard would prove to be a task.

I took a break and went outside to smoke a cigarette, taping a paper sign over my terminal that read In Use. When I returned, all was as I left it. A Google of Scott Proctor proved he was a much higher profile, due mostly to his father’s superstar status in the U.S. Senate. His whole life, it seemed was spent in front of a camera. Baby Scott at the governor’s dinner, young Scott shaking hands with the President, teenage Scott on a date, his acceptance to Harvard, the trial for rape and a huge celebration upon his acquittal. Like with Richard Frey, it all seemed to end after the trial. I was sure advisors to the senator had been adamant about future publicity concerning his son. There was some mention of the vacation home in Maine, another in Florida, but nothing that added up to much in the way of information of any use.

Congressman Michael Swift of Georgia, father of accused Michael Swift Jr., had been in power so long, it was a given his son would inherit his thrown. Except for that messy rape trial, Michael Jr. was an ideal student and a model son. Straight A’s, little league, church deacon, charity work with the seniors, it was all too staged to be real. Kids growing up, even rich kids, don’t come flawless unless they’re packaged that way. In the case of Michael Jr., he was packaged as the perfect son and future of Georgia politics, whether he liked it or not. Maybe he didn’t like it. Maybe he would rather be playing with girls up in Maine.

So what was the connecting dot between the accused three and Wong’s daughter, other than wrong place, wrong time? I began a list. It started with they all attended Harvard. It ended with Kelly Tanner’s family owned a house on the same lake in Maine as the Proctor family. There wasn’t much in the way of in-betweens to tie them all together, the conclusion the jury reached during the trial.

I took another break, smoked a cigarette on the sidewalk in front of the library, and watched the afternoon crowd scramble along Ninth Avenue in a mad dash for lunch. Watching secretaries tote sandwich bags back to their offices reminded me of the empty stomach I carted around all day.

Another half-hour in the library and I called it quits for the day. I did my own mad dash to the Bar and Grill where Dolly served me up a plate of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. For once, Sanchez wasn’t behind the bar. I ate at the counter and watched an old man named Orlando serve beers to the afternoon regulars. Orlando, a Cuban migrant from the late fifties when Castro came to power, deserted the Cuban Army and arrived in America off the shores of Miami. He migrated north, worked hard for forty-five years, retired and filled in for Sanchez whenever Sanchez had the need to step away.

I moved over to a table for coffee and pie and Dolly joined me. “I just have to get off these feet,” Dolly said as she slid into the table opposite me, careful not to spill a drop of the coffee she held in her left hand.

Somewhere around fifty-five, Dolly is an attractive blonde with just the right amount of plumpness to her figure. She never wears makeup, or if she does, I can’t detect it. Maybe that’s the secret to women’s makeup, wearing it without anybody knowing you have it on. Dolly has worked for Sanchez for twenty years and as far as I know, she is the only woman he sleeps with. They don’t live together, not officially, but Dolly rarely goes home to her upper east side apartment.

“Where is he?” I said.

Dolly shrugged and sipped coffee. “Said he had to go out. I know better than to ask.”

I ignored the smoking laws along with everyone else and lit one up. “Say when he’d be back?”

Dolly glanced at her wristwatch. “Should be soon. He was asking for you.”

Pie and coffee exhausted, I crushed out the cigarette butt in the pie plate. “Have him call Mrs. Parker.”

9

As always, the cats rejoiced at my entrance, but their enthusiasm for my presence quickly faded after I filled their food and water bowls. I brewed some coffee, took a cup to the sofa, sat, smoked and thought some more about Amy Wong. I was searching for in betweens when Mrs. Parked knocked on the apartment door.

“Mr. Kellerman, you have a message,” she said through the door.

“Thank you,” I yelled, without asking what the message might be. I already knew.

I met Sanchez in front of his bar. He was dressed in a charcoal grey suit, red tie and shiny, black shoes.

“Somebody expire?” I said.

“Not yet, but the night is young,” Sanchez said. “Care to take a ride with me?”

It wasn’t a request. I looked up and down the street for his cream colored, 1984, Lincoln Town Car. “Window dressing?” Meaning me.

“Perhaps,” Sanchez said. “I need to collect a debt.”

The Lincoln arrived and the parking attendant stepped out and handed Sanchez the key. “Washed and waxed, Mr. Sanchez. Just like you asked.”

“Interior?” Sanchez said.

“Of course.”

Sanchez took the keys and handed the attendant a crisp twenty. I climbed into the passenger seat as Sanchez went around and got behind the wheel. Feathering the gas, Sanchez gently rolled away from the curb and eased into northbound traffic. The cream colored, leather interior glistened from a fresh coat of Turtle Wax. The floor of the front and back had the new car smell, probably from a layer of Fabreeze sprayed on by the attendant. The only modification I could detect in the original walnut grained dashboard was the installation of a CD player.

“How many miles you got on her now?” I asked Sanchez.

“Thirty-six.”

“Thousand or just thirty-six?”

“Don’t be a wise ass. It’s unbecoming.”

I wanted to, but I didn’t dare light a cigarette. I was afraid it might give Sanchez a heart attack. As he turned right onto 72^nd Street and headed toward the east side, I said, “So who we going to see uptown?”

“Willie Brown.” Sanchez reached into a dashboard, CD holder, removed one and inserted it into the player. Soft, classical tones resonated from rear speakers.

Willie “Three Finger” Brown was a Harlem gangster in partnership with Italian mafia to distribute drugs from above 110^th Street to the George Washington Bridge, a square territory about the size of Central Park.

“I thought you didn’t like Willie Brown,” I said.

“I don’t,” Sanchez said. “I dislike debt even more.”

I looked at the massive structure of the Dakota apartment building as we rode by it and waited for Sanchez to continue. Patience was the main ingredient in a conversation with Sanchez. He didn’t speak again until we were on east 86^th Street. “His nephew was picked up dealing small time on Ninth Avenue two weeks ago.”

“Way south of Harlem, isn’t it?”

“The little shit skimmed off his uncle and went into business for himself on the side,” Sanchez said. “Was busted by an undercover cop posing as a hooker. Brown called me and asked if I would post his bail of fifteen thousand.” Sanchez turned his head to look at me. “Brown didn’t want to expose himself and make a connection for the police to follow.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “The nephew skipped his court appearance.”

“Didn’t even wait for that. Blew out the next day. Brown thinks the little asshole is somewhere in Miami.”

“Fifteen grand,” I said. “Brown shouldn’t even blink at that amount.”

Sanchez looked at me again. “He won’t.”

Brown headquartered inside a Pentecostal Church on 144^th Street off Broadway. It was a nice looking church, refurbished brown brick with a bell housed inside a tower. It took up a third of the block between its building and gardens.

Sanchez parked on the street directly in front of the church. Dozens of neighborhood residents occupied steps of their buildings, while others sat at card tables and played Dominos. Nobody appeared to be paying us the slightest attention, but of course, every eye on the street was upon us. A gardener, an old, knurled, black man was tending flowers out front when Sanchez and I left the Lincoln and approached the church.

“I have an appointment with Mr. Brown,” Sanchez said to the gardener.

The gardener stood up, or at least tried to and looked us over. “Deacon Brown should be in his office. Inside the church, first stairs on the left.”

“Thank you,” Sanchez said.

I followed Sanchez inside the church where we took the stairs to the second floor that emptied to a dark hallway. Two doors occupied the floor. One marked rest room, the other marked office.

Sanchez knocked on the door marked office and opened it without waiting for a response. The office was fairly large and modestly furnished with a wood desk, chairs, sofa, some plants and a few paintings of Jesus in various settings. A black man in a size 60 suit stood in front of the desk. He wasn’t armed that I could detect, but did he need to be? He looked at Sanchez, then at me. “Who’s this?” he said in a surprisingly timid voice for a man so large and imposing.

“Kellerman,” Sanchez said. “A business associate.”

“Or bodyguard?” the black man said.

“Could you move?” Sanchez said. “You’re blocking out the sun.”

The black man stepped aside to reveal Willie “Three Finger” Brown at his desk. Brown was somewhere between sixty and seventy years old, one of those men who was skinny all their life and developed an enormous potbelly later on. Except for snow-colored cotton above his ears, his head was completely bald. His smile was store bought and perfect. Rimless glasses perched on his nose and he removed them to look at Sanchez. His hands, folded on the desk in front of him revealed two missing fingers on the left hand. I’d heard the various stories on how Brown came to lose those fingers, but I had no idea which one was true.

“No trouble getting in?” Brown said.

“With the hundred pairs of eyes you have on the street and the elaborate surveillance system beginning with the gardener and ending with the hidden camera behind the rest room sign, you would know if we had any trouble getting in,” Sanchez said. “Or out,” he added.

Brown sat back in his chair and laughed and his stomach shook like jelly under his crisp, white shirt. He turned to the wall in a suit. “Marvin, fetch these gentlemen some coffee. No cream, no sugar, black like us.”

Marvin went away and Sanchez lowered himself onto a chair. I knew my place and stood behind and to the right of Sanchez. “Deacon?” Sanchez said.

“Well, you know, appearances and all that,” Brown said with a wave of his five fingered right hand.

Marvin returned with the coffee, three cups on a tin tray. If the feds or DEA looked for money around here, they would find it in short supply.

Sanchez took a delicate sip from his cup. “Any information on your nephew?”

“I sent some people to Miami to hunt his down his dumb ass,” Brown said. “But they haven’t had much luck so far.” Brown eyed me, then said, “Kellerman, is it?”

I nodded.

“Well, Kellerman, what is it you do for my man here?” Brown said.

“What I’m told,” I said, playing the game.

Brown laughed, settled down and sipped coffee. “Would you be interested in doing a little job for me, Kellerman?”

“You mean go to Miami and look for your nephew?”

“Something of that order.”

“Ask Mr. Sanchez.”

Brown looked at Sanchez. “How about it? No one would suspect Mr. White Irish here of looking for Mr. dumb ass, black nephew.”

Sanchez said, “About our debt.”

Brown nodded. “You want cash or trade?”

Trade meant payment in drugs. “Neither,” Sanchez said.

Brown stared at Sanchez.

“You’ll owe me a favor,” Sanchez said.

“What kind of favor?”

“I don’t know,” Sanchez said. “I’m not in need of one at the moment.”

“What if you never need one?”

“Then I’m out fifteen grand.”

“You always had a sense of style, Johnny Sanchez,” Brown said. He looked at Marvin. “Walk Mr. Sanchez and his associate to their car. Make sure they aren’t bothered.”

Marvin went down ahead of us and escorted us to the Lincoln. We wouldn’t have been bothered or even approached, but Brown wanted to send a message to his eyes on the street that the cream-colored Lincoln had a welcome sign on it.

“Quick visit,” the gardener commented as we walked past him.

“The deacon had to work on his sermon,” Sanchez told him.

I wasn’t needed, of course. My services were strictly as company. Fifteen grand to men like Sanchez and Brown was little more than pocket change. The whole idea behind the trip was to establish mutual ground rules and ensure that overlap of street turf didn’t happen again unless by reciprocated agreement. The favor asked for and granted.

Sanchez waited until we crossed 110^th Street to bring up the subject of Artie Wong. I wondered when he would get around to it and I took him all the way to my research at the library. He said nothing for twenty minutes and when he handed off the Lincoln to the parking lot attendant around the block from the Bar and Grill, he answered my unasked question.

“It seems to me,” Sanchez said, giving the attendant another twenty. Since Sanchez owned the lot, I didn’t understand all the money passing, but that was his business. “The in between link is that the Wong girl doesn’t come from a wealthy family.”

“Not having money is a reason for rape?” I said.

“There is no reason for rape,” Sanchez said. “That’s why it’s a crime.”

We entered the bar and Sanchez removed his suit jacket, put on an apron and went behind the bar. He pulled a C note from the register and gave it to Orlando.

“I’m on the books,” Orlando said.

“This isn’t,” Sanchez said.

Orlando nodded, folded the hundred and tucked it away in a pocket before he left. Sanchez poured bourbon for himself, a glass of Coke with ice for me. I lit the cigarette I was hungering for and watched Sanchez down the bourbon in one, quick gulp. He immediately refilled the shot glass, but this time took a small, delicate sip.

“When Wong came to me, I spent a week checking him out before I agreed to see him,” Sanchez said. “We talked at length about his situation and at no time did he mention wanting to do the job himself.”

“It could be a problem,” I said.

“No shit, it could be a problem,” Sanchez said. “What are you going to do about it if the potential becomes the reality?”

“I’m not sure.”

Sanchez took another small sip from the shot glass. “Not sure is the surest way to a prison sentence.”

“I know that.”

“It would be a shame to have to eliminate Mr. Wong,” Sanchez said. “Who would care for his poor, disabled daughter?”

I drank some Coke. “Not having anyone to care for his daughter might be enough to keep him on an even keel.”

“It might. When do you see him again?”

“Next week. He’ll contact you.”

“I can hardly wait,” Sanchez said as he brought up the chessboard.