“Number one, don’t be memorable,” Sal said. “When you’re in a restaurant, order food or else you look like a fucking cop. Number two, shit like this always leaves me starved. Plus, this side of town, I can eat whatever I want without fear of keeping kosher.”
A cop car came screaming along Sahara, sirens blaring.
Then another.
Then another.
Then another turned off Maryland Parkway at a high rate of speed, nearly getting loose trying to make the turn onto Sahara.
“Shit,” Jerry said under his breath.
“Watch,” Sal said. “One, two, three . . .”
Before he reached four, trucks began to pour out of the Commercial Center and directly onto Sahara, only pausing at a red light before pushing through the intersection. “Here we go,” Sal said. He stopped counting at fifteen trucks. By the time their meals arrived a few minutes later, the street was quiet again, all the off-duty cops at The Ponderosa capable of driving taking off for Rainbow and Charleston.
“Give me the other phone,” Sal said between bites of his steak. Jerry did. Sal called 411 for the number of The Ponderosa, then dialed the bar. “Yeah, this is Mark Ulin from the gas company? We’ve got a leak reported in the Commercial Center, and we’re advising all tenants to get out within the next ten minutes. Just taking as much precaution as possible. Thanks so much.”
Butter knife.
SIM card.
Ketchup bottle.
Back to his pancakes.
“What are you?” Jerry said.
“Pardon me?”
“If you’re not . . .” He stopped, recalibrated. “Are you like Bennie?” he said.
“No,” Sal said. “I’m not a businessman.”
“Hmm,” Jerry said. “I think you undersell yourself.”
“Put it this way,” Sal said. “I’ve never made a dollar that I paid tax on.” He speared two sausages. “You said your mother was from Chicago?”
“Yeah, grew up out there. Moved east when she was eighteen for college. Met my father. Married and knocked up by twenty-one.”
“Still have family out there?”
“Probably,” he said. “Once my parents died, that part of my life disappeared. They left me enough money to start this business. I found some investors. But family to me now is Stephanie’s family. You know how that is? You find a nicer family sometimes through marriage. They love you for who you are now versus hating you for the fuckup you were.” He looked out the window. “How much longer?”
Sal looked at his watch. “Maybe fifteen minutes.” They’d encircled the lab with canisters of oxygen and nitrous oxide, poured gallons of formaldehyde on every surface, and filled the autoclave with enough volatile chemicals to leave a hole in the earth. Sal didn’t want to kill anyone needlessly, so he was hopeful The Ponderosa was empty now, hoped the bartender smoking out back was a good hundred yards away, that the janitor catching a nap in his car before his shift had the windows up, that the working girls had gone home for the night.
“Do you have a name?” Jerry asked.
Sal shook his head. “Not for you.” He pointed at Jerry’s food. “Eat. It’s getting cold.”
“Is this my last meal?”
“Probably not.”
Jerry took a few bites of his ham and eggs. Watched the other people in the restaurant, like he was in a zoo. “You know,” he said, working on his short stack now, “I’ve lived in this town for thirty years and have never even stepped foot in this place. What else haven’t I seen?” He took a sip of water. Rearranged the salt and pepper shakers. “I’ve got a lot of money, Rabbi. It will take me a few days to get it all together, but whatever it is you need, I could help you.”
“Jerry,” Sal said, “take care of your family. That’s what matters.”
“What I’m saying is,” Jerry said, “does it need to be all or nothing here?”
“Let me tell you the future,” Sal said. “First thing, cops are going to round up every Muslim in the city. It’s going to be a fucking nightmare. I feel terrible about that. Second thing, maybe two days from now, after they realize Bin Laden isn’t inside Circus Circus, the cops are going to arrest the dentist, if your pal Boris doesn’t get him off the continent first. Then they’re going to start working backward, which is going to lead them to you. By the end of the week, they’ll have you in an interrogation room. Now, if Boris is any good, he’ll have you out of there quickly, but who knows? What you’re going to tell these cops is that you just rent the place to the dentist, you have no idea what he’s using the storage facility for, he’s a great tenant, pays on time, never expected anything strange, and of course, you’re here to help. They’ll let you go. You have no reason to bomb your own building, after all, but isn’t it odd that a guy who runs a tissue bank has a building he owns inexplicably filled with black market corpses? I mean, what are the odds? By then, Bennie will know all about this, will know that if you owned that warehouse and it was filled with cadavers, well, that’s coming back to the Temple at some point, and so now he’s gotta worry about that. And Bennie, he doesn’t like to worry, so he’s going to figure out a way for you to die in such a way that looks like an accident. Probably in your swimming pool. I mean, that’s what I’d do. Show up in the middle of the night, knock you out by pressing on your carotid for a few seconds, put you in a bathing suit, carry you outside, hold you by your feet underwater in the deep end, you’ll fight a bit but not much, which is good, you need to inhale as much water as possible, and then you’re dead. Tragedy. Or, I get to your house and Boris already had his boys gut you like a fucking fish, because Russians don’t care about subtlety. You’ve ruined their business and brought the light of the FBI on them. No sense treating you with dignity. End result, either way, you’re dead. Like I said, probably two weeks, beginning to end, which would give you time to make sure your wife is taken care of, at least, but like I said earlier, you’re gonna be a mensch and pay all your staff, too.”
Jerry was covered in sweat.
Sal took a bite of his ham and eggs. They were getting a little cold. But the ham was surprisingly good.
“Or,” Sal said and took another bite.
“Or?” Jerry said.
“If for some reason an explosion doesn’t happen in, let’s see, seven minutes, there’s another path. Five hours from now, janitor shows up to work at the swingers club, finds the walls bleeding, calls 911, cops kick down the door, walk through just like we did, start collecting human heads, and everything happens just like I said, but in addition, every family that’s had their graves robbed sues your estate, your name becomes synonymous with some of the darkest shit in human history, and your wife dies poor and alone. If Bennie or Boris don’t kill her first. My sense is the Russians would probably ace her out in this situation. Because you didn’t have the good conscience to burn the fucking place down, destroying any salient evidence that might be left behind.”
“Is there another or?”
Sal waved over the waitress. “A chocolate shake, please,” he said. “You want one, too, Doctor?”
“I’m lactose intolerant,” Jerry said.
“Live a little,” Sal said.
