Melody tosses me a pair of black boots. “How about those?”
“They’ll work,” I say. “Thanks again.”
I turn to leave but come to an abrupt stop, damn near running into Lorenzo lurking in the hallway. He scans me, making a face. “You’re not dressed yet? Why do you women take so long to get ready?”
I roll my eyes, pushing past him. “Why are you men such assholes?”
I hear his laughter as I go into his room, followed by his answer: “Probably because you’re so fucking slow.”
An old warehouse in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, just across the border from the borough of Queens. It looks like the kind of abandoned building that you’d see as the setting of some low-budget horror movie, broken glass and crumbling bricks, a faded sign barely clinging to the structure, covered in graffiti. People probably cross the street to avoid even walking near it, whereas it looks a lot like the places I slept in after running away so many years ago.
Hell, I might’ve slept here. Who knows?
Trucks idle in the alley beside the place. Three of them, to be exact, identical white box trucks, each backed right up to rusted metal dock doors along the side.
I walk slightly behind Lorenzo and Seven, letting them take the lead since I have no idea what any of this is. The closer we get, the more peculiar it all appears. Metal bars cover the shattered windows, heavy chains and locks on all the entrances, making it damn hard to get inside. It’s eerie. A few guys are already here, gathered in the alley, looking haggard, one of the men even propping himself up against the building, dry-heaving.
“Long night, fellas?” Lorenzo asks. “You look like shit.”
They try to perk up, reacting to his presence, like soldiers being called to attention, but they do a crap job of it. Instead, they end up just grumbling in response, grunting and groaning, as if that’s answer enough. Longest night ever.
Lorenzo shakes his head, walking through the group, his expression hard as he says, “Somebody’s missing.”
“Yeah, uh, De—, uh, Three,” one of the guys says. Four. “Must’ve slept in.”
“Or he hasn’t even gone to bed yet,” Seven says, skirting past everyone as he pulls a set of keys from his pocket and starts unlocking the warehouse.
Three. The blond. Declan.
“Have you tried to get ahold of him?” Lorenzo asks.
“Yeah, got his voicemail,” Four says. “Didn’t even ring. Phone must be dead.”
Four. Jimmy? Johnny? Joey? I don’t know.
“Well, then, he better be dead along with it,” Lorenzo says, “because no longer breathing is the only justification for blowing me off this morning. I don’t care how long your night was, don’t care how drunk you got, don’t care how much pussy you fucked... I say be here, you show up.”
He doesn’t even raise his voice, but there’s a subtle rage there, in the quiet evenness of his tone, that makes everyone stiffen with alarm.
“Why are the rest of you just standing here?” Lorenzo asks. “Think because Three is off, doing God knows what, that it gives you all a pass to just hang around with your thumbs up your asses? Get to work. Now.”
They scatter, not needing anymore incentive, heading into the warehouse and shoving the dock doors up. The churning screech of metal makes me cringe. Lorenzo approaches the back of the trucks one-by-one, greeting each driver before handing over envelopes he pulls from inside his coat in exchange for paperwork. His men start to unload the trucks. Seven takes on more of a supervising role, while I linger in the alley, pretty damn confused.
I feel like my teacher just announced a pop quiz when I don’t know the material. Shit.
Totally bombing this.
They’re halfway through the first truck, pulling out big wooden crates and hauling them into the warehouse, when I approach Lorenzo, who is flipping through paperwork, squinting, like he’s struggling to read it.
“Forgot your glasses?” I guess.
His gaze flickers to meet mine. “I only wear them when I need them.”
I’m almost inclined to point out that he’s looking like he might need them now, but his expression keeps me from verbalizing that. I touched a nerve.
“So, what should I do?” I ask.
“Do whatever you want, Scarlet.”
“I need to make money,” I say, because what I want is sort of irrelevant. “So am I getting paid for this?”
“Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On if you do any work,” he says, scanning me slowly. “You’re not really built for manual labor.”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
“I know,” he says, looking back away. “Didn’t say you couldn’t do it, just that you weren’t built for it.”
Before I can tell him how full of shit he sounds, he shoves his paperwork at me, forcing it in my hands, letting go so fast half of it clatters to the ground.
“Inventory,” he says. “Three usually does it, but he’s not here, so congratulations... the job is now yours. Go through the crates and make sure it’s all accounted for. Seven can help you.”
“I, uh, okay.”
That wasn’t what I expected.
“When you’re finished, you get paid. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Yes, sir,” I mumble, mock saluting him, before gathering the papers I dropped and heading for the crates. The paperwork is sort of a mess, just a jumble of words that make little sense. The crates, though, have random letters stamped into them, like the wood has been branded, corresponding with letters on the top of the papers, followed simply by numbers.
GCD: 1205
HMX: 78
QPY: 9
Two dozen crates total. No mention of what’s inside.
I look around for Lorenzo, hoping for some clarification, but he’s nowhere to be found.
After the trucks are emptied, they drive away, the dock doors again lowered before the men disappear, leaving only Seven.
“Is this some kind of code?” I ask him, waving the papers. “Like some made up language or something? Ullshitbay.”
Seven laughs. “Afraidyay otnay.”
Afraid not.
“You know Pig Latin?” I ask, surprised. What are the odds?
He shrugs a shoulder. “I’ve got kids who used to think they were sneaky.”
Kids.
The man has kids?
“You’re kidding,” I say. “You’re a dad?”
“Twice over,” he says. “Two boys.”
Huh. “How old?”
“About your age,” he says, grinning. “One’s eighteen, just started at NYU... the other’s twenty-one, finishing up at Columbia.”
I gape at him. The man not only has a wife that packs him healthy snacks, but he has kids that attend prestigious universities. “Wow, that’s…” Wow. “Can I ask you something? Without offending you?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Why the hell do you work for Lorenzo?”
His eyes widen.
“Nothing against Lorenzo, of course,” I say. “You just don’t seem like the kind of guy who would ever even cross paths with him.”
“Ah, well, you see, I made a career out of crossing paths with men like him when I worked for the department.”
“You were a police officer?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Money happened,” he says. “You don’t make much with the force, and the mob offered me one hell of a deal that came with quite a few zeros attached to it. All I had to do was look the other way a few times and slip them a bit of information, you know, so they could stay one step ahead. I had a family to take care of, a mortgage, private school to pay for, and I thought, hell, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to afford a vacation? So I did it. And then I did it again. And the next thing I knew, I was so deep in their payroll there was no separating me from them.”
“So you quit the force?”
“More like they fired me.” He laughs dryly. “Got locked up six years for bribery. Came out, had nowhere to go, but I needed money, so I had to do something. My wife was working herself half to death trying to stay afloat, and with college tuition, well... there never seems to be enough money. Life is expensive.”