4

Joey Castles sat in a rear-corner window booth of the Empire Diner. He watched the traffic on Tenth Avenue and marveled at the power of a phone call from the right people.

Joey used to love diners. Mainly because he used to love breakfast. Used to be he could eat bacon and eggs or a ham-and-cheese omelet—American, never Swiss—three times a day. And the only place you could do that was a diner.

Trouble was, he hadn’t been feeling very hungry since Frankie bought it. He ate maybe once a day, if that. He was losing weight. He had to pull in his belt an extra notch yesterday morning, and the way things were going, it’d be two notches soon. He’d never been fat or even chubby, but Christ, he’d be a scarecrow soon.

He and Frankie had been more than brothers. They’d been like one person. Half of him was gone. Had to get a grip or this would eat him alive.

The man across from him snapped his phone closed and smiled apologetically.

“Business. Always business.”

Joey nodded. “I hear you.”

This was their second meeting. The first had been in a Coney Island merdaio that served them tea and some mix of black bread, sour cream, and onions that had made his breath stink into the next day. That meeting had been precall, and a waste of time.

This guy was Valentin Vorobev but everyone called him Valya. He had no license to sell guns but that hadn’t stopped him from supplying factions of the Russian mob in Brighton Beach for years. He’d agreed to meet with Joey, but only on his home turf. But as soon as Joey mentioned the Tavor-2, Valya had developed a sudden case of amnesia.

Joey had wanted to put a few into the cacchio right then and there. He didn’t care who sold the guns to the Arabs—

All right, he did care. After 9/11, anybody who sold anything lethal to a fucking Arab ought to be redesigned so he could join a castrati choir. But Joey was willing to overlook that.

You made a sale. Fine. Okay. That’s just doing business. I’m all for doing business. Just tell me who did the buying.

What he wanted more than life itself was the names of the shits who pulled the trigger on his brother.

He’d contacted three runners before his meet with Jack. Same old story: Nobody was talking. Nobody knew nothin’.

Then he’d called Pop. Soon as he got on the phone the old man went off on a ten-minute half-English, half-Italian rant. His folks had come over on the boat from Palermo, so he’d grown up speaking Italian at home and English on the street. Sometimes when he got upset he spoke both at once. Joey and Frankie had heard a lot of Italian growing up. Frankie had picked it up pretty good. The only thing Joey could do in Italian was curse and swear.

But he knew enough to hurt when Pop dismissed his efforts as minchia del mare. No fucking fair.

But Pop’s attitude did a one-eighty when Joey told him Jack’s idea—except he’d said it was his own. The old man got right down to making calls to people who started making calls to other people, and finally one of those calls had reached out and touched good old Valya. Which had led to this second meeting—not, it was worth noting, at a place of Valya’s choosing, but Joey’s.

Others had called back as well. He’d be doing a round of new meetings during the coming days. Maybe one of them…

“Again, I am sorry for your brother,” the Russian said in a thickly accented voice. “Terrible thing to lose brother.”

He had a broad face, small dark eyes, and a jarhead haircut.

“You got that right.”

Joey wanted a cigarette. Bad. But you couldn’t light up indoors anywhere in this fucking city no more. Normally he might just fire one up and flip the old vaffanculo at anyone who hassled him. But the last thing he needed now was to draw attention to this booth.

So he tried to satisfy himself with coffee.

“I thought long and hard about your sorrow and decided that I, Valya, should share with you what little I know.”

Yeah, right. You got a call telling you to cooperate.

“That’s very kind of you.” Joey leaned forward. “What can you tell me?”

“Only that items you are interested in, they are easy to get, but not easy to sell.”

“What’s that mean?”

A big shrug. “No one wants. Or better to say, no one cares. Not well known. Everyone want other Israeli item. You know what I mean?”

Joey nodded. He knew: Uzis. Every gangbanger and cugine lusted for a Mac-10 or an Uzi.

“Before this happened, who has heard of this item you seek? No one, I think. I have two of them for three years now and no one even ask. Not once.” Another elaborate shrug. “If I have business where I could send back, I would send these back today.”

Joey felt his voice rising with his temperature. “That’s it? You meet with me and that’s it?”

“I do this out of respect for your sorrow. And to save you from waste time.”

Joey found himself talking through his teeth.

“Ay, puttana! Frankie was my brother! This ain’t wasted time!”

Valya held up his hands. “You do not understand. What I say is these items most probably bought not in States. If this Wrath of Allah connects to al-Qaeda, then guns most likely smuggle in.”

That was what Joey had been afraid of all along. He didn’t want to hear it. It meant he’d never track down the bastards.

Joey stood, threw a five on the table to cover the coffee, and walked out. No good-bye. The mamaluke didn’t deserve one. Not like Joey was ever going to see him again.

He lit up as he hit the sidewalk. Then his cell rang.

“Joey?” said a voice. “It’s Jack. What’s up?”

“Ay, goombah. Not a lot, man. Not a whole fucking lot.”

“My idea work?”

“Like a charm as far as getting people to talk. But so far I got oogatz.”

“Afraid of that.”

“Hey, it ain’t over. I’m still on it. Something’s bound to come through sooner or later. And when it does, you gotta number I can reach you?”

“No. Just my voice mail. But I’ll be checking that and I’ll keep checking in with you.”

“Good enough. We’ll have something soon.” I hope.