Deadly Assets

[TWO]

Torresdale Avenue and Kinsey Street

Frankford, Philadelphia

Saturday, December 15, 3:12 P.M.

The silver late-model Volkswagen Jetta slowed as it passed an automobile salvage yard, then braked hard and turned off the street. It nosed up to the faded orange overhead steel door of a freestanding two-story masonry building. Stenciled on the door in three-foot-high black letters was DO NOT BLOCK DOOR!!! TOW AWAY ZONE!!! To the right of the overhead door there was a steel man door, in the same faded orange, and stenciled in smaller black lettering was MARIANO’S COLLISION CENTER. FREE ESTIMATES.

The driver of the VW, a chunky five-foot-four twenty-year-old Puerto Rican with a black stocking cap pulled low on his head, anxiously hit the horn three times as his dark eyes scanned down the street. He took a long draw on his cigarette, then exhaled audibly.

Torresdale was lined with small businesses, most of which were involved in some fashion with the automotive trade. On one side of Mariano’s was a three-dollar drive-through car wash, now closed due to the snow, and on the other side was Worldwide Quality Imports.

The larger of two used-car lots on the block, Worldwide had an eight-foot-tall chain-link fence topped with coils of razor wire. Strung from light poles above that were ribbons of faded multicolored plastic banners imprinted with SALE. The painted wooden sign on the fence read WE FINANCE. EVERYONE IS APPROVED. GOOD CREDIT. BAD CREDIT. BANKRUPTCY. REPOS. NO PROBLEM! YOUR JOB IS YOUR CREDIT! 215-555-2020. The lot itself was packed with about thirty late-model vehicles. Another half-dozen older models, with neon stickers on their windshields announcing LOW MILES! CLEAN! LIKE NEW! were parked on the sidewalk and in public parking spaces at the curb. Two of them-a Nissan Ultima sedan and a compact Toyota SUV-the driver recognized as ones he had delivered a couple of weeks earlier.

The driver saw the steel man door crack open about six inches, then immediately swing shut. A moment later he could hear the sound of the overhead door clunking as it began opening.

Then the driver, remembering what he had meant to do minutes earlier, quickly glanced around the dashboard area. He reached for the glove box, yanked it open, and began rifling through it. He pulled out a handful of paper napkins and drinking straws wrapped in plastic sleeves from a fast-food chain, tossed them on the floorboard, then found a black vinyl folder that contained the owner’s manual for the vehicle. He threw that back in, slammed the glove box shut, then opened the ashtray.

Here we go! he thought, glancing up to check on the opening door.

The ashtray held a mix of papers-gas pump and other store receipts crammed in with a wad of one- and five-dollar bills-and a small pile of coins. He stuck his fingers in, clawed at the mass, then managed to grab all but a few coins and stuff it in his pants pocket.

He looked again at the opening door. It was now about a third of the way up, and the snow was beginning to blow inside the garage. A brown hand then poked out and began motioning in a rapid fashion for the Volkswagen to pull inside.

The driver eased the car forward, stopped as the top of the VW’s windshield neared the bottom lip of the steel door, then when clear pulled completely inside. The overhead steel door then began to close.

The interior was harshly lit in a gray-white of industrial mercury vapor lamps. There were seven or eight wrecked cars on either side of the workshop, all in various states of repair. At the back of the garage was a nearly new white Volkswagen Passat that had been badly rear-ended and, next to it, a red Honda Accord with no wheels sitting up on blocks, its damaged front end cut free from the rest of the vehicle.

The driver of the Jetta could now see the rest of the hand that had waved him inside-a Hispanic male who looked to be in his twenties, of average height but very thin, his faded blue overalls hanging loosely on him. It clearly was cold inside the shop; the driver could see moisture when the Hispanic male exhaled. His hand now motioned for the driver to stop.

After putting the Volkswagen in park and killing the motor, the driver stepped out just as an older man, wiping his hands with a dirty red shop towel, stepped out from a doorway by the big roll-up door. Above the doorway was painted OFFICE.

The older man, olive-skinned and rotund and balding, wore faded blue overalls that had paint splatters. The patch over his shirt’s left breast pocket read MARIANO’S COLLISION CENTER; the one over his right read GABBY.

He approached the Volkwagen, not saying anything to the driver as he circled the car, inspecting it. When he had made a full circle, he took a long moment studying the stickers on the inside of the front windshield on the driver’s side. One was a red parking pass with six numbers under the letters “UMA HS.”

“What’s the story, Ruben?” Gabriel Mariano said to the driver.

“I need to get a thousand for it,” Ruben Mora said, glancing at the silver Volkswagen while trying not to appear nervous. He dropped his cigarette butt to the grimy concrete floor and ground it with his toe. “You’ll get five times that from it.”

“What’s the story?” Mariano repeated. “Where’d you get it? Any papers?”

Mora turned to him, and in a jerky motion pulled out a disposable butane lighter and lit another cigarette.

“That matter?” Mora said. “It’s gonna be parted out anyway.”

He leaned back against a steel worktable that held paint-splattered gallon cans-one was marked TOLUENE; the other, with a few dirty shop towels on top, had a paper label reading ACETONE-and exhaled a cloud of smoke through his nostrils.

“You told me what you needed,” Mora said, “and I put the word out.”

Mariano looked past him, to the back of the shop, then at him.

“I said Volkswagen Passat, Ruben, not Jetta. And do me a favor and don’t be smoking around those cans.”

Mora glanced at the worktable, shrugged, and took two steps away from it.

“This one’s a cherry, not an hour old,” Mora said, then, almost as an afterthought, nodded toward the bumper and added, “I stuck new plates on it just to be safe.”

Mariano looked at the license plate, and immediately saw a problem-the New Jersey plate was screwed on top of another license plate.

Damned lazy kid. He didn’t ditch the old ones. Just left them on it.

If I picked up on that, a cop sure would.

He glanced up at the rear window. The bumper sticker on it read MARION VIKINGS FOOTBALL.

And what’s a Jersey plate doing on a car with a high school sticker from a Philly suburb? Another thing that’d scream to the cops, “Pull me over!”

Stupid bastard.

Couldn’t steal a local plate? Not like they’re not everywhere. .

Mariano sighed and shook his head. He walked to the driver’s door and, using the shop towel, opened it and leaned inside.

“Got low miles,” Mora said. “Under fifty thou.”

“I’ve told you, low miles don’t mean shit for parts. A fender’s a fender.”

Mariano looked over his shoulder. “I’m thinking five hundred.”

“Come on, man. I need the grand.”

“That’s too rich for me. I’ll go six, maybe six-five.”

Mora frowned, then glanced across the garage as he considered the counteroffer. He took a pull on his cigarette, then said, “Okay. Seven.”

Mariano ignored that as he reached down and pulled the release handle for the hood and pushed the button for the trunk. They each opened with a Click! He then went to the front of the car and, again using the red shop towel, raised the hood. He made a cursory inspection of the engine bay, grunted, slammed the hood, then went to the rear of the vehicle.

“It got a full-sized spare or one of those small donut ones?” Mariano said as he reached for the trunk lid.

“I dunno. I didn’t-”

“What the hell!” Mariano suddenly exclaimed from behind the partially raised trunk lid.

He quickly slammed it shut and stared at Mora.

“What?” Mora said, looking at the now furious face of Mariano. “I can get you a tire-”

“You stupid fucking shit,” Mariano said, failing to keep his composure while rapidly wiping his hands with the shop towel. He then nervously wiped where he had lifted the trunk lid. “Someone pay you to bring this here to dump on me?”

“Dump what?”

Mariano walked up to Mora and poked him in the chest.

“Get the hell outta here!” Mariano yelled, his face flushed bright red. “And you listen to me real good, don’t you ever come back! Ever!”

Mariano started walking quickly back toward the office. He pointed at the Hispanic worker, then at the overhead steel door.

“You! Get that damn door opened back up now!” he shouted, then looked at Mora and added, “You were never here, you got it?” then went into the office, slamming the door behind him.

Mora quickly went to the driver’s door and hit the trunk lid release that was on the door panel. He heard the latch click open again, then went and threw up the trunk lid.

“Holy shit!” he said softly, then slammed the trunk shut. “That bastard!”

He felt his heart start racing. He looked around. No one was nearby. The Hispanic male, his back to him, was standing by the overhead door and pressing the control button as the door clunked upward.

Mora started for the driver’s door, passing the worktable with the metal cans and small pile of dirty shop towels. He quickly grabbed them and then tossed them on the floorboard of the front passenger seat, then hopped in and began backing out of the garage.

–

In his shop office, Gabriel Mariano stood with his hands on his hips while looking at the closed door to the garage.

I could kill that little shit for pulling that stunt, he thought.

You know what? Screw him!

Mariano pulled open a desk drawer, reached in, and produced one of the three old cellular telephones that he had inside. He held down the phone’s on button, and when the screen blinked to life, he angrily stabbed at the keypad with his index finger, punching in 911.

The voice of an adult woman, calm and professional, answered, “Philadelphia Police Nine-One-One. What is your emergency?”

“Yeah, some Puerto Rican punk with a gun just carjacked a VW Jetta in Frankford, on Torresdale near the Harding Middle School. Silver four-door with Jersey plates.”

The female voice repeated the information back to him.

“That’s right,” Mariano said.

“Was anyone hurt?” she said.

“Looked like it. But they sped off. You’d better hurry.”

“I need your name and-”

Mariano did not listen to the rest of her reply.

He turned over the cell phone, pulled off its back cover, removed the battery, and tossed all the pieces back in the desk drawer.

–

Ruben Mora’s mind spun as he drove down Torresdale Street. His first thought was that he had to get rid of the car and its contents. And rid of it now. But then he got mad, and thought he should drive to Kensington and get his two hundred dollars back.

That jacked-up bastard! he thought as he slowed for a traffic light that was changing to green. I shoulda known Reggie sold this cheap for a reason!

He hit the turn signal. But just before he made the turn to go back to Somerset, he realized that his first thought was best. He really had to get rid of the car. He had known that right away at the garage without really thinking about it, because that explained why he had automatically grabbed the dirty shop rags and paint thinner.

He made a hard right, then drove slowly, trying not to draw attention while he looked for the right place.

Two blocks later, after turning onto Hayworth Street and rolling past a yellow NO OUTLET sign, he came to the dead end of the street. Twenty yards ahead was the tall chain-link fence that ran along the Amtrak rails. He pulled to the broken curb in front of an abandoned row house and turned off the car.

He looked in the rearview mirror and then out the windshield. There was no one around. He leaned over and picked up the cans off the floorboard. He opened the one labeled TOLUENE. It felt a little more than half-full. He emptied it on the fabric of the backseat, then tossed the can to the floor.

The harsh odor of the chemical quickly filled the car, and he started to get a headache.

He opened the door and stepped out. He deeply inhaled the fresh air, then reached back inside the car for the acetone. The can was almost full, and he poured about half of that can onto the front seats and floorboard. Then he took two of the shop towels and soaked them with the acetone. He put the now half-full can on the driver’s seat and threaded all but a third of one of the shop towels in its mouth. He moved the can to the floorboard of the backseat, then reached for the second chemical-soaked shop towel.

Again, the fumes started to overwhelm him, and he quickly stood and took another deep breath of fresh air.

He glanced around the immediate area as he did. He thought he saw movement, and froze just as a stray dog, a short-legged brown mutt with a drooping spine, ran across Hayworth. Far beyond it, on Torresdale, a taxicab flashed past the intersection.

He quickly turned back to the car and pulled from his pants pocket the disposable butane lighter, then grabbed the shop towel he’d wetted with acetone. When he thumbed the lighter, its flame immediately found the fumes-a soft Poof! sound coming from the rag as it was set ablaze. The heat instantly became intense, and he reacted by slinging the lighter and the rag inside the automobile.

They landed on the driver’s seat, which immediately flashed up in flames.

He smelled burned hair, and suddenly saw that when the flames had flared they burned his left hand. The cuff of his sweatshirt had also caught on fire and he immediately realized that acetone must have somehow splashed on it.

Frantically, he waved his hand faster and faster, trying to extinguish the fire. But that served only to make the flames worse.

Then, in the back of his mind came a faint chant-and he remembered the firemen who visited his class at Harding Middle School a decade ago and taught the students Stop! Drop! Roll! to starve a clothing fire of oxygen.

He stuffed the burning cuff under his right armpit.

The pain to the raw skin of his burned hand was intense. But the flames finally died.

A minute later, Ruben Mora, feeling light-headed, glanced at the blackened sleeve and hand. Then he looked at the fire growing inside the car.

Mesmerized, it took him a moment before he decided that he had to get away before he burned his whole body.

He kicked the door shut and, pulling his stocking cap tight on his head with his uninjured hand, ran down Hayworth Street.

When he reached the corner, at Hayworth Street, he glanced back. The windows of the Volkswagen were filled with a roiling dark black smoke and bright red flames. He heard a small Boom! and saw a flash of bright white flame, and guessed that that had been the acetone can exploding.

He snugged at his black stocking cap, winced as he stuffed his hands in his sweatshirt pocket, and then jaywalked across Hayworth Street.

Two blocks up, at Torresdale, he saw a police cruiser speed past, then a couple minutes later another one quickly followed it.

Then, behind him, he heard and felt the concussion of an explosion, and when he looked back he saw a huge plume of black smoke soaring above the roofline of the row houses.

Then he heard the wail of police sirens.

He glanced around the neighborhood, trying to figure out the easiest way to get back down to the corner in Kensington without walking what he guessed had to be three or four miles. He remembered the money he had taken from the VW’s ashtray, and decided SEPTA was it.

He pulled out his injured hand and looked at it. It felt as if it was still on fire, even exposed to the frigid air.

And it had begun to throb.

Dammit that hurts! he thought as he went to cut across the middle school playground, headed for the El station that was six blocks away.