Angel Face

SEVEN

Carter knows damn well that he’s supposed to let Angel Tamanaka swing. Whatever ethical debt he owed the universe at large was amply paid when he let her go in the first place. Paulie was right. Angel can’t lead Ricky Ditto’s brother to him. She doesn’t even know his name.

Carter’s van is in the CASH lane at the toll plaza on the Triborough Bridge connecting Queens to Manhattan and the Bronx. He’s in the CASH lane, despite the heavy back-up, because the E-ZPASS system links every use of an E-ZPASS device to a specific time, place and vehicle. Carter routinely leaves as few traces of his movements as possible.

But Carter’s not in a hurry. When he gets home, he’ll nap until eight or nine o’clock, have dinner at a local coffee shop and then set out to find the woman, if not of his dreams, at least of his weekend. That was, and still is, Carter’s only plan. Or so he tells himself as he watches a gigantic SUV, a Mercedes, try to cut into the CASH lane. A chorus of horns blends with the steady thump, thump, thump of the speakers in the SUV, a challenge to a challenge.

Carter doesn’t lean on his own horn. As far as he’s concerned, the man driving the Mercedes is just another knucklehead. Now he’s forcing the SUV between two cars, his message clear enough. I’m going ahead of you because I’m bigger and more powerful than you are, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. He’s right, too. Aside from a few face-saving curses, and the horns, of course, nobody attempts to prevent this affront to common civility.

Carter’s big on civility, as he’s big on dignity and honor. He associates civility with cooperation, and cooperation with the ultimate survival of the species. This was a lesson repeated in the course of every firefight, a lesson held so close that many soldiers confuse mutual dependency with love.

When his turn comes, Carter hands the toll collector a ten dollar bill, pockets the change and heads south to the apartment he’s subletting on the Lower East Side. The idea is to put Angel in his rear-view mirror, but it’s not working. Paulie’s words rise up, rise again, despite Carter’s best efforts: I wouldn’t wanna be in the whore’s shoes when Bobby Ditto comes callin’.

So what? Carter’s viewed the innocent dead stacked like firewood, and more than once. Sierra Leone, Congo, the Ivory Coast. Piles of arms and legs hacked off by the boy soldiers, women raped until they bled to death. The victims were always the most vulnerable, farmers without the means to fight back, small tribes hunting monkeys with primitive bows.

What entitles Angel Tamanaka to special consideration? Besides her beauty? Why should he take the slightest risk to protect her? Much less the very substantial risk of going to her apartment? For all he knows, Angel went to the cops first thing. For all he knows, the cops are with her right now, working on an artist’s likeness. What he should do is get out of New York, maybe take a trip to Panama so he can be near his money. What he should have done, when he had the chance, was memorize her phone number. As it is, if he wants to warn her, he’ll have to knock on her door.

Carter’s thoughts turn to Janie as he backs the van into a parking space on Tenth Street off First Avenue. Janie’s religious convictions were as unshakeable as Lo Phet’s and she’d done her absolute best to guide him along the path of righteousness. Yet, somehow, and for the longest time, he’d confused virtue with obedience. He did whatever Janie asked him to do, with no complaints. If she’d told him to jump out the window, he probably would have done that, too.

If Janie were still alive, she’d tell him to warn Angel Tamanaka, the opportunity to save a life somehow becoming an obligation to save a life. Maybe that’s why he’d taken to the army. In the army, the only obligations were to your comrades and the mission.

Inside his apartment, he kicks off his shoes, lowers himself on to a sectional couch and settles in to watch a Military Channel documentary on Roman battle tactics. Though he rarely has a chance to use them in his line of work, Carter’s skilled with knives. Close-up killing of the kind practiced by all armies until the invention of the gun normally commands his attention. Not this time, though. This time Angel Tamanaka tumbles through his thoughts, invasive as an Iraqi dust storm.

Carter finally gives up at seven thirty, a few minutes before sunset. He decides to visit Angel’s neighborhood and take a look around. But there’s no way he’s going to knock on Angel’s door – not without knowing who’s behind it. And there’s no way he’s going up there unprepared. He crosses the apartment, to a walk-in closet in the larger of the two bedrooms. At the darkest end of the closet, he removes a section of floorboard to reveal a metal box nestled between the joists. He takes a .38 caliber revolver, a Colt, from the box, along with a holster, and a Rhode Island license plate stolen from an auto graveyard. Carter likes revolvers for street work because the cartridge casings aren’t expelled, as they would be if he used a semi-automatic.

When Carter leaves the apartment, the holstered revolver is positioned just inside his left hip with the handle facing to the right. An unlined denim jacket covers both, though it’s not really cool enough for a jacket. The license plate is for the van and Carter attaches it in a few seconds with a handful of magnets. Then he’s off, acutely aware of the risks he’s taking. New York City’s gun laws are draconian. The minimum penalty for carrying an illegal handgun is three years in prison.

Carter takes Fourteenth Street to Tenth Avenue and heads uptown. He runs into heavy traffic near the Lincoln Tunnel, even at eight o’clock, but once past Forty-Second Street, the traffic moves along and he parks the van facing Angel’s apartment at eight fifteen.

Carter settles into the back of the van and carefully checks his surroundings, using the windshield and the side mirrors. He’s on a block in the very early stages of gentrification. A few doors in from the far corner, a drug crew services cars and pedestrians. In the middle of the block, four Hispanic teenagers, three boys and a girl, lean against a car parked in front of the low-income project on the south side of the street. They’re sharing a forty-ounce malt wrapped in a brown paper bag, clowning around, the girl shrieking from time to time. Across the road, Angel’s building is one of the block’s few bright spots, three tenements renovated to form a single building, its central entrance protected by a wrought-iron gate heavy enough to fend off the Mongol hordes.

Carter’s prepared to wait for hours if necessary. He’s looking as much for Bobby Ditto as for Angel. He’s thinking Bobby, or whoever he sends, will initially do what Carter’s done, which is put the apartment under surveillance. But Carter’s overestimated the patience of New York mobsters. Not ten minutes after he settles down, the wrought-iron gate swings open to reveal Angel Tamanaka accompanied by two men. The younger of the two walks on Angel’s left. He’s got a jacket, a woman’s jacket, folded over his left arm, which is pointed at Angel’s ribcage. His right hand grips the back of her neck.

Fish or cut bait, engage or withdraw. Carter has no more than a few seconds to decide. Then the second man, much the older of the two, reaches out to squeeze Angel’s ass, his thin lips parting in a grin as cruel as it is narcissistic. He’s got the power, the juice. He can do anything he wants to this disposable human being. Can and will.

Carter exits through the side door of the van. Angel and her escorts, still fifty feet away, are walking right toward him. He ambles in their direction, moving to the outside of the man presumably holding a gun. When he comes within striking distance, he steps in front of the man and pulls the left side of his jacket away from his body, revealing his own weapon. Instinctively, the man brings his gun to bear on the threat.

Carter waits until the gangster’s hand moves a few inches before driving his foot into the man’s crotch with all the considerable force at his command, a snap kick against which the man has no defense. Almost in the same motion, he draws his Colt and slams it into the side of the man’s head.

One down and one to go. Carter levels the gun at the second man, who stands frozen in place, immobile as a department store manikin.

‘You move, you’re dead,’ Carter explains. Then he asks, ‘What did I just say?’

‘Don’t worry. I’m not packing.’

Carter repeats the question. ‘What did I just say?’

‘If I move, you’ll kill me.’

Carter squats and strips the gun, a semi-automatic Glock, from the hand of the first man, who rolls on to his back and groans. Carter ignores the blood running along the man’s face and neck. He rummages through the man’s jacket and discovers a cellphone. The cellphone goes into his pocket, the gun beneath his waistband.

‘Are you the brother?’ he asks the older man as he rises to his feet.

‘Whose brother?’

The man has a narrow face, a hatchet face, dominated by a sharp hollow nose that reminds Carter of a triangular sail on a racing yacht. He stares at Carter through contemptuous eyes, having apparently concluded that Carter’s not going to kill him. But not killing and not hurting are two different things. Carter slaps the man across the face with his free hand, the crack loud enough to arouse the kids across the street. They erupt in a chorus of encouraging whoops.

‘Are you the brother?’ Carter asks again.

The man’s eyes now project rage, impotent rage, helpless rage. But he has no choice. He has to answer. ‘No,’ he says, ‘I’m not.’

Carter doesn’t dispute the claim. The man looks nothing like Ricky Ditto. He steps close to him, jamming the revolver into his gut, and pats him down. No gun. Carter gestures to the man on the ground, who’s managed to rise to his knees and is now vomiting on to the sidewalk.

‘I want you to pick up your buddy and walk to the end of the block. If you turn around before I’m gone, I’ll kill you, witnesses or not. And you tell the brother he should heat up the cappuccino. I’ll be comin’ to visit.’