Paul Wilson - Cold City (Repairman Jack - Early Years Trilogy)

“Enough! He’s down! He’s finished! Stop it, for fuck’s sake!”

The darkness receded, Jack’s vision cleared, and he saw Rico on the ground, his face bloodied, wailing as one arm clutched his ribs and another his knee.

“All right,” Jack said, relaxing as he stared in wonder at Rico. “All right.”

What just happened?

Maybe five seconds had passed. So little time, so much damage.

Carlos, Juan, and Ramon stood in a semicircle behind Rico, their gazes shifting from Jack to their fallen roommate, their expressions alternating between fear and anger.

Giovanni released him from behind and spun him around. He looked frightened, upset.

“What were you gonna do? Kill him?”

“I don’t know. I mean, no. I guess I lost it.”

“Lost it! Damn right, you lost it!” He looked over Jack’s shoulder at where Rico lay. “Christ, I never seen anything like it.” His expression darkened. “You better get outa here.”

“What?”

“You can catch an E or an F back into the city over on Seventy-first Avenue.”

Jack felt a new surge of anger, but nothing like before. “Hey, aren’t we forgetting something here? I was the guy who was minding his own business when he–”

“I know all about it, but you’re still upright and moving. He ain’t walking anywhere after the way you fucked up his knee.”

“So–”

“So nothing. I know these guys. They’re thick like brothers. You stick around you’re gonna find some hedge trimmers chewing up your face. Or a shovel flattening the back of your head. Git. They’ll cool down if you’re not around.”

The heat surged again. He was ready to take on the remaining three right now.

“ They’ll cool down? What about me?”

“Don’t be a jerk. You’re outnumbered. Move. I’ll call you later.”

“Yeah?” Jack said, resisting the urge to take a swing at Giovanni. “Don’t bother.”

Railing silently at the unfairness of it all, he picked up his Discman and started walking.

2

He got off the F at the 42 Street stop with his cheek throbbing, his right hand swollen and tender, the knuckles scraped and purpling.

He’d cooled off but was still angry at Giovanni for sending him home. Yeah, well, what else was new? He’d spent most of the year angry at something.

He’d got off a good ways from what he called home these days – a tiny apartment he’d found over a flower shop down in the West Twenties. But he didn’t want to go there. He didn’t hate the place, but didn’t much like it either. Two rooms, good for sleeping and reading and little else. Except maybe watching TV – if he’d had a TV.

He was feeling pretty low, and sitting in that drafty, empty box would only push him lower.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. Free time? What was that? Here it was October and he hadn’t had a day off since hiring on with Two Paisanos back in July.

He came up to street level in front of Bryant Park, which wasn’t much of a park at the moment. The city had rimmed it with boards and a high chainlink fence, closing it for “renovation,” whatever that meant. A black guy in a crisp blue windbreaker and jeans saw him looking and stopped.

“Yeah, used to be a great place to get high.”

“So I hear,” Jack said.

As he’d heard someone put it: “Home to the three H’s – hookers, heroin, and homeless.”

“Speakin’ of gettin’ high, you lookin’?”

Jack glanced at him. Didn’t look like a dealer. Had to admit, a little oblivion might ease the pain, but he’d never got into that. Tried weed in Rutgers but found beer more to his liking. Sure as hell tasted better.

“Nah.”

A preferred form of oblivion waited farther down the Deuce.

“You have a nice day, then,” the guy said and strolled on.

Jack looked around. He saw the back of the New York Public Library. He could walk up to Fifth Avenue, pass between the stone lions guarding the entrance, find a book, and read.

But the siren call of the grindhouses beckoned.

He crossed Sixth and started walking west on 42. Halfway along the block the porn shops began to appear. Not exclusively. The XXX peep shows competed with delis and a pizza place and an electronics shop, and of course the ever-present souvenir stores offering the tacky cast-metal Empire State Buildings, World Trade Center towers, and sickly green Statues of Liberty. All made in China.

Dinkins had been mayor for close to a year now and was threatening to clean up the Times Square area. Jack didn’t know how he felt about that. Sure, it would be great for tourists who wanted to bring their kids here, but… West 42 was the Deuce, and it wouldn’t – couldn’t be the Deuce without the sleaze factor.

But so far, no cleanup, no change.

The Deuceland uber alles .

He crossed Seventh and entered Grindhouse Row – the stretch of the Deuce between Seventh and Eighth, a cheek-by-jowl parade of glittering movie marquees, each trying to outblaze the next along the length of the block.

A back alley of heaven.

Some of the theaters showed first-run hits from the majors – Goodfellas had come out last month and was still going strong here, as was Arachnophobia – but most offered either reruns or low-budget exploitation films. Choices ranged from Zapped Again and 10 Violent Women to ancient oldies like The Immoral Mr. Teas and The Orgy at Lil’s Place . None of those appealed. But then he came to a Sonny Chiba triple feature: The Streetfighter , Return of the Streetfighter , and The Streetfighter's Last Revenge . He’d seen these on videotape but never on the big screen.

Yes!

He checked the twenty-four-hour timetable on the box office glass and saw he had about twenty minutes before the next feature began. So he walked back up to Times Square and hit the Roy Rogers there for some roast beef – or was that Trigger? – on a bun with extra horse – see? – radish sauce.

He wandered as he ate. The newspaper that gave the square its name was published half a block down 43. The Light had offices here too. An Armed Forces recruiting station sat on the downtown end of the triangle formed by Broadway’s angled path across Seventh. Not much activity there. With all the saber-rattling since Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait a few months ago, enlistment was essentially a nonstop ticket to the desert.

Speaking of tickets – a big crowd was gathered around the TKTS booth on the same triangle. With the recession in full swing, discount Broadway tickets seemed in greater demand than ever. Cats and Les Mis were still going strong, and The Phantom was somewhere down one of these side streets. Jack hadn’t seen any of them, and had no desire to. Well, The Phantom might be okay if it weren’t a musical.

A pang stole through his chest as he remembered how his mother would buy all the Broadway soundtracks as soon as they’d come out. Broadway was the Muzak of his childhood. That had been one thing he hadn’t missed when he’d moved out to live at school.

He shook his head. Still couldn’t believe she was gone.

He tucked the memories away and covered the still-open wound. Yeah, he really needed an afternoon of chop-socky.

Might even stay and see the trilogy a second time.

3

Vinny Donato stood back and let Tommy do the talking. Tommy Totaro loved to talk. He was known as “Tommy Ten-thumbs” because he had the goddamnedest thickest, shortest fingers anyone had ever seen. Like little Genoa salamis… like, well, like eight extra thumbs. But these days he should have been known as “Tommy the Snorter,” on account of how he liked the powder. And once he had a snootful, he became “Tommy the Talker” and never shut up.