Chapter Three
Silas circled the block in the Bowery, looking for a place to park. If he could help it, he always positioned Betty facing outward, so she was ready to go without him having to look over his shoulder. He circled three times before he finally lucked out with a good spot; he only had to cross a busy street and walk half a block to get in. What did the bookie like to say about making your own luck? Of course, he had also said this was going to be an easy job. Silas put his aviator-style sunglasses in his jacket pocket just as he reached the street opposite the punk club. To the west, the sun was beginning to sink over New Jersey.
The building was a modified brownstone fallen on hard times. Graffiti littered the side to within a few feet of the front door. There was a sign above blinking like a Christmas tree, wonky letters spelling out NWPROFT in hot pink, and a little farther down there was a neon sign with smaller white and green letters spelling out the longer New Wave Punk Rock and Other Fine Tuneage. Silas knew what punk rock was. He thought “new wave” meant punk rock played by kids in Izod shirts. He had no idea what the other fine tuneage might be.
If he was lucky, the club might offer some small change from what he heard on the radio.
There was a line going around the block, and Silas had no interest in standing for it when all he was doing was picking up the package. Hopefully, the handoff would already be inside and not stuck in the line himself, but if you’re gonna pick a dive like this to exchange the goods, you ought to have a way inside early, right? Maybe the handoff was an owner or partner, or some kind of hanger-on.
The bouncer was a big bald black man with a tight red T-shirt with you first printed on it in a puffy, hippy-looking font. The seams strained to bursting from the size of the arm muscles the short sleeves were wrapped around. The riffraff around the door was minimal, the head of the line a neat string of kids in leather jackets they shouldn’t be able to afford.
As Silas walked up, the bouncer growled at some middle-aged putz in a ridiculous baby blue suit, “Keep walking.” The man flashed a twenty-dollar bill and the bouncer sneered, baring his teeth and arching a thumb toward the street.
Silas fished a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet and held it clenched in his fist. He came up to the side of the bouncer, making sure to be seen in his peripheral vision first, and said, “Jackson’s always been a bit weak for my taste. How about a Franklin to let me in now? I just need to talk to somebody and I’m out of your…hair.”
The bouncer eyed him up and down, saying, “Stay mean, Steve McQueen.” He held his hand out but on the downlow, and Silas slipped him the hundred. The bouncer glanced at it, then held the door open. “You’ve already missed most of the Quidlickers’ set.”
“British invasion?” Silas slipped inside. “I’ll live.”
Just as the barrage of shouting came from the waiting line he had cut in front of, he was assaulted by savage drums and guitar from inside. It took Silas a moment to get his bearings between the smoke-filled darkness and the flashing strobe lights. People brushed past him, terribly close in the dark, and he felt a soft hand run across his backside. He grabbed for his wallet, finding it secure in his jeans. Then he spun about to see who had touched him, but the person had already been swallowed by the throbbing dark.
Silas’s eyes began to adjust, and he found himself in a triangle-shaped lobby. Old band posters peeled off the walls, advertising acts he’d never heard of: the Lemon Slices, the Sex Appeal, Cattle Stomp Annie and the Disturbers of the Peace. There was a momentary drop in the avalanche of sound, but it was only the pause between songs, and a new hammering tune began, this one with a singer screeching about suicide. At least that’s what Silas thought he was hearing. He came out of the foyer into the main ballroom and saw a sea of people swaying before the stage like idol worshippers. The band consisted of a drummer, three guitarists, and a singer with a toothpick physique, clothed all in black.
Silas shook his head.
Behind the crowd of dancers stood an array of tables, most still empty with chairs splayed chaotically about. Half of the tables had guttering candles as centerpieces, but none held a newspaper or a little black box. Against the walls ran the booths, every other one with people in them.
If Silas was lucky, his contact might already be seated.
He started on the left-hand side of the row and made his way around, looking for the handoff with a black wooden box on a folded newspaper. Above the booths, more posters for obscure bands battled spray-painted graffiti for attention. The walls looked like the flanks of a zebra, if zebras had been created by an angel who was both psychotic and out of his mind on LSD.
The first occupied booth held a couple in matching his and hers blouses, who were oblivious to the music and making out. The next booth held a pair of hippies who sat staring open-mouthed at each other, too strung out to take any further hits off the joint that smoldered in the ashtray between them. There was an empty booth, then another occupied one, but the man seated there fiddled with a disposable razor blade as if he was really contemplating the band’s message of “Just Kill Yourself!”
Another empty booth, then another couple groping each other.
The band reached a fever pitch with a relentless drumbeat, then a crash. Then the song was over, and the houselights came up. Silas felt his eardrums relax, even with the continual loud drone of all the people chattering in the club at the same time, like a swarm of bees in a hive. The dancers filtered toward the tables, and reinforcements poured in from the front door.
“Hey, hey you,” said a swarthy man in a long corduroy jacket seated by himself. “You looking for something? Something to get your groove on?” He winked and nodded, mouth wide open.
If this was the courier, he was a little obvious. But then the man held open his coat, revealing an array of small tins, each lashed to the inner lining with an elastic strap. He moved his hand up and down the open jacket as if he were a fruit-seller on Lafayette, urging Silas to try the tomatoes.
“What are you?” Silas demanded. “A cop? A fed? This entrapment?”
The man snapped his jacket shut and looked down. “I’m not a cop.”
“You act like one.” Silas walked on. He heard scuffling as the man got up and left.
At the next booth, a man with a huge Afro sat with a woman under each arm, leaning forward conspiratorially over a thick candle. He wore an orange-and-white-striped tunic, its colors creeping around the fabric in circular blotches and stripes. The women wore matching yellow blouses with sleeves flared like the cuffs of bellbottom jeans. Whatever their drinks were, they were high-test; Silas could smell the alcohol from ten feet away. “Thanks for getting rid of the narc, Daddy-O.”
Silas grunted and raised his chin. He had no use for drugs or the drug culture and was no fan of the dealers, but he spent his share of time avoiding contact with the police. And he hated the idea of entrapment.
People were filtering closer to the booths from the dance floor. There weren’t many booths left. If he didn’t find the courier in the next three booths, he would have to race to claim one of the last empty ones for himself, to have a place to sit and wait.
Silas hated waiting.
And he really didn’t want to hear what the next band was going to play.
In the next booth, a thick, hunched man stared at Silas. He had a moon-shaped face and dark, beady eyes that seemed to lick Silas’s skin, and he wore a pin-striped suit with uncomfortably narrow lapels and a waistcoat underneath. No newspaper, no box. Silas walked on by.
The last booth held a beautiful woman sitting by herself. She had long, dirty-dishwater blond hair with a wave to it, like a lion’s mane. She had big green eyes that met Silas’s boldly and without any hint of scandal. Nice smile, too. She wore a shiny silver-and-gold blouse with a long V-neck that was open just enough to tease, and just enough to force Silas’s gaze. He pulled his eyes away, noting her long legs beneath the table. She wore matching gold high heels.
All in all, she was a sight he’d expect on the silver screen, and not sitting in a scrappy punk club in the Bowery.
Feeling slightly dazed, Silas reached up to tip his hat. Touching his own forehead instead, he felt the blood rush to his fool cheeks. He walked on, but then stopped. No more booths, and no boxes sitting on the tables. He would have to find a place to sit and wait, and that meant walking past the blond woman. The thought embarrassed him, but he didn’t see that he had a choice.
He turned on his heel to move quickly past her. She coughed. “I understand you’re looking for a new life.”
He glanced at her, cheeks burning again. Shouldn’t the lights be coming down for the next band? She had a newspaper on the table in front of her, and a little black box on the paper. He’d missed them in his distraction. He looked left and right, as if making certain no one had watched him screw up.
He sighed. At least she was just a courier, likely the arm candy of someone more important, and he would never have to face her again.
“Yeah, uh, I hear you’re looking for a new life, too,” he said.
“That wasn’t quite the password.” She frowned. “You’re Silas, right?”
“Uh-huh,” he murmured. Silas hesitated a moment, glancing back at the man in the pin-striped suit to see if he was watching. The moon-faced fellow was gone.
“For someone I heard was a professional, you seem awful jumpy.”
Silas sat down opposite her. “You distracted me.”
“I have that effect on a lot of men.” She smiled, and her obvious self-satisfaction instantly dissipated her charm.
Silas yawned. “Which I expect is why they sent a pretty face in the first place. Pretty face, empty head.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What did you say?”
Silas raised his eyebrow at her. “You heard me. Let’s end this dog and pony show. Give me the package so I can hit the road.”
“I don’t think so.” She shook her head. The flowing locks that feathered each side waved like blossoms in the wind. If Silas had had the luxury of time, he would have admired her spunk and her beautiful hair. But the demon was never far behind, and the clock was ticking.
“Come on, sister. Just hand over the package so I can get it to your boss by Sunday. You don’t want to screw this up.”
“You don’t seem to understand.” She tucked the black box into her purse, an oversized shoulder bag woven of leather strips dyed dark red and green. The purse looked like she might be carrying all her worldly possessions in it, it bulged so severely. “I am the package. You’re supposed to take me to California. Discreetly, I might add.”
Silas made himself keep smiling. “I was told the package was the box. I never take passengers.” Silas caught peripheral movement out of the corner of his eye, but as he looked, he saw only dancers moving toward the dance floor.
“First time for everything,” she said.
“No, there isn’t. There’s never been a first time of Silas Danger getting eaten by a shark, for instance, and I don’t plan on it happening now. There are a whole lot of things in this life I plan on never doing.”
She said, “Circumstances change. You have to be able to go with the flow. You dig?”
Silas shook his head. “I don’t dig. I transport packages, not people.”
“What’s the difference?” she asked. “Look at me, I’m not much bigger than the box.”
“Passengers complain about my driving,” Silas said.
She continued, “I won’t complain and I’m not a passenger. Call me the package if you want. But the deck doesn’t go anywhere without me.”
“Deck?” Silas asked.
“Cards. A tarot deck, if you must know. But the job isn’t just to carry the cards, it’s to deliver me.” She smiled tightly. “You won’t get paid without me. I’m Stacy Kane.” She held out a hand to shake, but Silas left it empty in midair.
“Fine,” Silas said as he stood. “I can get other jobs.”
Stacy’s smug look fell. “Wait, we can talk about this. I need help. They told me you were the only one who could do this on time. And safely.”
“Get a taxi, get a plane. Those are safe.” He shrugged. “Just get someone else.” He reached into his jacket pocket for his sunglasses. He wasn’t quite sure what the bookie would say to the client, but that was the bookie’s problem.
“You’re gonna get bad karma from this!”
Silas snorted. “You have no idea, sister.” He had already wasted an afternoon and a hundred dollars. It was time to call the bookie, complain about getting bad information about the job, and demand some other run. He was only a few steps away and her pleading whine was still in his ears, squeezing out some hippie aphorism, when he heard a guttural voice overpower hers.
“Gimme the deck,” growled the new voice, deep and low.
Silas turned and looked.
He saw the large, moon-faced man in the pin-striped suit, grasping Stacy’s purse. She had the strap around her neck and shoulder and was resisting. The big fellow hoisted the purse and her with it, up off the floor with one hand. Two more burly men who looked as if they could have been his twin brothers, and who wore matching suits and waistcoats, were swaggering down from the vicinity of the stage.
Stacy’s desperate eyes met Silas’s.
The big man pulled her closer. She grasped the table for leverage and tried to push away, but to no avail. Strong dude, almost certainly not human.
Big, strong dude, picking on a woman.
Silas picked up a chair and slammed it against the back of the moon-faced man.
Wood splintered and broke. Stacy dropped, landing on her feet, but the creep didn’t let go of the purse. He craned his neck to look at Silas, one eye twitching. “You’re gonna pay for that, worm!” He let go of the purse straps and Stacy snapped back into the booth.
“It’s just a chair,” Silas said. “What do I owe you, ten bucks?”
“Ten bucks, ha!” the moon-faced man said. “How about a beating?”
The big man held his hands out, ready to grapple. The chair hadn’t even fazed him. Was Moon Face human, or some denizen of Other America? Silas had a bad feeling in his gut. And any thought of pulling his punches was gone.
Dodging to one side and then the other, Silas sent a hard left to the man’s solar plexus and then a right to his button on the chin. Silas had boxed enough to know that these punches should have made any normal man rethink his position, but the creep shrugged them off like love taps. Silas narrowly escaped his grasping, outstretched hands.
The only reason the identical twins weren’t already there to assist him was that the crowded dance floor was barring their way. Silas had a moment’s grace.
“Move!” bellowed one of the pin-striped men, as they both shoved dancers out of their way.
Silas snatched a drink from the man with the Afro, and the candle from the tabletop. “Sorry, Daddy-O.”
Spinning, he splashed the moon-faced man’s suit, and then hit him with the candle. The pinstripes went up in flames, devouring the liquor. But the hunched man didn’t flinch. He charged toward Silas with burning hands.