Christopher Buckley - Wet Work

"No problem."

"Go."

Ramon started walking west, toward Avenue B. Felix got in the car and pulled out into the street. "I think my man Ramon made a ca-ca in his pants."

He looked in the rearview for the van. It hadn't pulled out yet. Felix stopped. "What's going on?" They couldn't see.

Ramon had reached the corner by the church when the bullet hit him, a good shot at that distance with a pistol. He fell forward onto his face, blood spurting out of the tiny hole in the center of the back of his skull.

The van pulled out into the street and caught up. They had the light and got on the FDR northbound at Twenty-third Street.

It was going on midnight. He was at the corner of University Place and Thirteenth, about to cross, when he heard his name being called. He turned and saw the limousine at the curb. At first he thought it was Bernie's, then he saw Felix in the driver's seat.

"Charley?" He peered into the open window, saw the glow of a cigar.

"Well, don't just stand there," said Charley in a friendly way. "Get in."

"Actually, I'm on my way to a meeting."

"A meeting? At this hour?"

"Yeah."

"Well, get in anyway. I'm cheaper than any cab."

"I don't want to take you out of your way."

"Out of my way?" Charley laughed. "I got no meeting to go to. Come on, it's cold."

"You sure?" Tim got in. The glass partition was down. He said, "How are you, Felix." Felix did not return the greeting, which struck Tim as a little rude, frankly. Tim never liked Felix, the way he looked at him.

"Been trying to reach you," said Charley.

"I know. I'm sorry. It's been crazy. You heard about the show?"

"I did. I think it's great."

"I should have called."

"Don't apologize for being a success. I'm just happy I ran into you like this. What a coincidence, huh? In a city this size."

"Yeah. So, you… doing all right?"

"Fine. You?"

Tim sighed. "I'm doing all right. Industry is the enemy of melancholy."

"I like that. Is that Shakespeare?"

"Just a saying. It means-"

"I think I grasp it. I like it. I think I'll put that in our little newspaper. My company has a little in-house newspaper. Sayings of Chairman Charley sort of thing. I like to put inspirational things in it. I'll put that in. Don't you like that, Felix?"

Felix didn't answer. Charley whispered to Tim, "Don't mind him. Cuban, you know. Moody. I think it's all that sugar in the blood."

The streets were going by the wrong way. "Actually, I'm going uptown," said Tim.

"No problem," said Charley. "What time's your meeting?"

"Well, now. I mean, it's my meeting. It starts when I get there."

Charley chuckled. "It's good when they become your meetings. I remember when it got to the point they were my meetings. You know how I made my first serious money? Landing craft. I was coming home from the war-I'd been in the infantry-I was coming home from the war, getting on a ship, and I saw all these landing craft, miles of landing craft, sitting there with nothing left to invade, and I said to myself: I bet those could be had for a song . All I had to do was come up with the song. Now, Margaret's daddy, he was a terrible drunk, that's the only reason he would have let her marry someone like myself, first mate on a charter fishing boat. I never told you about how I married Margaret, did I?"

They were going into the tunnel. "Brooklyn?" said Tim.

"You know, when I first saw Brooklyn, there was ships fighting with each other trying to get space at the piers. Now look at it. Unions. Look back there," he said, toward Manhattan. "That's where Herman Melville first sailed from. You know what he wrote? He wrote something beautiful and true: 'Our souls are like those orphans whose mothers die in bearing them; the secret to our paternity lies in their graves, and we must there to learn it.' I didn't know it until someone explained it to me, but did you know Moby Dick isn't about whales."

"No."

"It's about orphans. I'm an orphan. That's why my family was so important to me."

"Charley, where are we going?" They were driving through an abandoned area of waterfront, into a warehouse on a pier. Tim saw an RV parked in a far corner. They pulled up alongside of it.

Felix opened the door for Charley. Charley got out. Tim stayed inside. "Come on," said Charley, "got someone I want you to meet."

"That's okay."

"Well, I can't introduce you if you stay inside the car."

"I can't."

"You can't? What do you mean?"

"I have agoraphobia."

"What?"

"Fear of spaces."

"Felix," said Charley, "we got anything in the first aid for agoraphobia?" Felix stuck his head in the door; Tim got out. What he saw inside the van gave him a bad start. Ramirez was sitting scrunched on a settee between two large men. One of the men was reading Architectural Digest , the other House amp; Garden . He saw another, similar-looking man by the kitchen area taking apart a coffee-making machine. He looked up at Tim in a way that was frightening for its apparent lack of interest.

Charley said, "I believe you know Mr. Ramirez there. That's Mr. McNamara on his left and Mr. Bundy on his right. And over there is Mr. Rostow. You making coffee, Mr. Rostow?"

"I'm trying to make cappuccino, but these instructions are in Italian."

"Plain coffee would be fine. Sit down, son," he said to Tim. "Mr. Ramirez has made certain allegations. He's said you called him around four-thirty on the day my granddaughter was killed in a state of some excitement and threatened to give his name to the police as the supplier of a certain gram of cocaine unless he met with you immediately."

"That's completely-"

"Hold on, hold on, I want to hear your side of it, but hear me out. He says you told him to meet you at this bar on Spring Street and made him stay with you until seven-thirty, when you both went to this place, Gulag, until after two."

"That's absurd. That wasn't it at all."

"Okay. The floor's all yours."

"I think I know why he's saying this, though. Yeah, it makes sense. He's probably the one who gave Tasha the coke."

Ramirez exploded. "You lying piece of shit. He's lying."

"I don't like that language, Emiliano."

Tim whispered, "Charley, what's going on here? This guy's a coke dealer."

"I know. We been watching him."

"Well?"

"That's why I'm curious why you'd be spending time with him. Successful person like yourself."

Tim sighed with relief. "Jesus, is that it? It was research."

"Research?" said Charley.

"You know the character in the play, Jose? The dealer? We want to change his part a little. One of the stage people told me about this guy here, works as an usher sometimes at the theater, only so he can sell coke. That interested me, so I decided to interview him and see what I could find out about the dope business. That's why we went to that place, Gulag."

"I see."

"He's fucking lying!" Ramirez shouted. Bundy swatted him on the head with Architectural Digest .

But Ramirez went on. "He called me on my beeper and told me she's dead, man, she fucking died and I'm gonna tell the cops it was you if you don't do like I say."

"Charley, please-"

"It's all right, son. I know it couldn't have been you anyhow. The medical examiner said she died between eight and midnight, and you were in that club with him then."

"Right."

"And you left her place at four-thirty."

"Right."

Charley grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pushed him against the wall. The Winnebago shook. "You son of a bitch."

"Charley, you've got me confused. I wasn't at her place." Charley reached under his arm and drew his old Army Colt.45 and put it to Tim's forehead. He said, "Talk."