Easy Money
by Robb White
Stevie Malone and I grew up across the Hudson from New York City. We used to drive out dates down to De la Torma Park by the river, watch the New York skyline glittering like millions of fireflies in the dark and brag about the things we’d do after high school. His bedroom walls had foldouts of porn stars from Juggs and Score. My walls were decorated with sports cars— Lamborghinis everywhere: the Miura, the Murcielago, the Diablo, and my all-time favorite, the Countach Periscopo. Another wall of Ferraris: the 250 GTO, the F40 with its elegant Bizzarrini-designed bodywork, the 365 GT4 BB, the “Berlinetta Boxer.”
I went to work for a meat-packing plant that made deliveries into Manhattan. He forgot the things we said back then. I never did. The straight-and-narrow had no appeal to me. I helped myself to cargo which led to a felony conviction that sent me to Torture Island, better known as Rikers.
Thanks to the Coronavirus, overcrowding, and my non-violent offense, I was given an early release. I took my experiences, including a 5-inch scar around my neck from some guy’s sharpened toothbrush, and a determination never to return, no matter if they did vote to close the place.
Petey Catano called me the day after I got out and asked me to meet him in Soho.
“This your place, Spider?”
“This my place? Naw, a guy lets me borrow it when he’s out of town. I feed his cats. Nobody’s called me that in a long time.”
He got the nickname because he seemed to have 8 eyes in his head, always looking around, nervous, never focusing on one thing at a time. I met Spider at an Irish wake in the Bowery years ago. He never did crime, but he knew beaucoup criminals in and out of slammers all over the five boroughs.
I didn’t ask if the drinks were provided by the friend. That first whiskey and beer chaser after years of no booze and starchy food tasted like an angel pissing on my tongue. A Dixie cup of pruno might cost two weeks’ worth of snacks back on the island. The first swallow scorched a path down my esophagus.
Catano began talking. An old story. He knew someone who knew someone—that old story. The long and short was that a Latin Kings shotcaller was doing a bid for manslaughter and looking at serious time. He had contacts all over the city doing scores. “Dude’s a regular clearinghouse for crimeys like you,” Catano said. “He’s looking for ex-cons willing to put in work for the LK.”
“Steve said you were doing OK, babe.”
Catano called everyone “babe.”
“You know the saying, ‘Do the time, don’t let the time do you.’”
“’Don’t let the time...’ Good old convict wisdom, huh, Sonny? I meant, you know, this.”
Catano repeated everything you said, a human parrot. He mimed taking a drink.
“So, why are we here, Petey?”
“Catching up on old times, maybe do business.”
“What kind of business?” As if I couldn’t guess.
“What kind? The kind that puts money in your pocket, laddie.”
“What’s your cut?”
“No wasting time, huh? I like that.”
He collected a “finder’s fee” for recruiting; a percentage of the take was parceled out to addresses around Brooklyn. These “associates” of gang members would funnel money where they ordered and dribbled a few bucks into the shot-caller’s commissary account.
Fine by me, I told him. When my time got short, word got out in the yard to give me space. The shot-caller was grooming me, I figured, because cons will try to screw up your release date when you’re doing “the short and shitty”—what it’s called because you get jumpy during those last days, nerves get frayed, and diarrhea is one of the symptoms. Getting chalked up for dumb infractions prolongs your time. A con’s idea of a joke, in other words.
“No strongarm,” I told Petey; “I don’t do gun-pointing; no banks, no cowboy stuff.”
He looked at me as if I’d asked if his grandmother was into cannibalism.
“No way, babe! A child could do it,” he said. “Easy-peasy.”
I thought of all the guys back in Rikers, packed in like sardines, telling lies in the chow hall about how “easy” their crime should have been if it weren’t for some rat, some unexpected glitch they didn’t plan for. Nobody stays up after lights out in Rikers worrying about quark entanglement.
“You used to drive for Nolan Meats, the Bronx.”
“Queens,” I said.
That was before I sold frozen turkeys to an undercover cop.
“But you know how to drive big rigs, right?”
“A delivery truck.”
“Whatever, same thing.”
I’d always dreamed of gearing down a Porsche Carrera at my age.
He outlined it while he poured me a double shot of single malt.
“A truck heist,” I repeated.
“Easy-peasy.”
“I’ll get you details. Meet me here Wednesday.”
“Should I ask what’s in it?”
“Fifty-five-gallon drums of ammonia nitrate pellets,” Petey replied. “A fertilizer bomb.”
“You asshole.”
Petey’s idea of humor.
“You don’t gotta know. Don’t worry about it, neither. The driver’s in on it. He’s gonna leave it idling. You just climb in, shift the gears”—adding in a noise like worn-out brake pads for effect.
Then he mimicked hand washing. “Done, like that. Five thou. Easy money, babe.”
Everything’s easy to guys who never do it. Besides “fuck you,” easy money are the two most common words you’ll hear at Rikers.
They say you lose ten-thousand brain cells with every sip of alcohol. Dwelling in that mystical cloud of booze fog where everything is alright with the world, I felt invincible.
“I’m in.”
“Good,” Petey said. He gave me a reassuring clap on the back. “You won’t regret it.”
That might be the other most common expression heard around Rikers.
I went to work for a meat-packing plant that made deliveries into Manhattan. He forgot the things we said back then. I never did. The straight-and-narrow had no appeal to me. I helped myself to cargo which led to a felony conviction that sent me to Torture Island, better known as Rikers.
Thanks to the Coronavirus, overcrowding, and my non-violent offense, I was given an early release. I took my experiences, including a 5-inch scar around my neck from some guy’s sharpened toothbrush, and a determination never to return, no matter if they did vote to close the place.
Petey Catano called me the day after I got out and asked me to meet him in Soho.
“This your place, Spider?”
“This my place? Naw, a guy lets me borrow it when he’s out of town. I feed his cats. Nobody’s called me that in a long time.”
He got the nickname because he seemed to have 8 eyes in his head, always looking around, nervous, never focusing on one thing at a time. I met Spider at an Irish wake in the Bowery years ago. He never did crime, but he knew beaucoup criminals in and out of slammers all over the five boroughs.
I didn’t ask if the drinks were provided by the friend. That first whiskey and beer chaser after years of no booze and starchy food tasted like an angel pissing on my tongue. A Dixie cup of pruno might cost two weeks’ worth of snacks back on the island. The first swallow scorched a path down my esophagus.
Catano began talking. An old story. He knew someone who knew someone—that old story. The long and short was that a Latin Kings shotcaller was doing a bid for manslaughter and looking at serious time. He had contacts all over the city doing scores. “Dude’s a regular clearinghouse for crimeys like you,” Catano said. “He’s looking for ex-cons willing to put in work for the LK.”
“Steve said you were doing OK, babe.”
Catano called everyone “babe.”
“You know the saying, ‘Do the time, don’t let the time do you.’”
“’Don’t let the time...’ Good old convict wisdom, huh, Sonny? I meant, you know, this.”
Catano repeated everything you said, a human parrot. He mimed taking a drink.
“So, why are we here, Petey?”
“Catching up on old times, maybe do business.”
“What kind of business?” As if I couldn’t guess.
“What kind? The kind that puts money in your pocket, laddie.”
“What’s your cut?”
“No wasting time, huh? I like that.”
He collected a “finder’s fee” for recruiting; a percentage of the take was parceled out to addresses around Brooklyn. These “associates” of gang members would funnel money where they ordered and dribbled a few bucks into the shot-caller’s commissary account.
Fine by me, I told him. When my time got short, word got out in the yard to give me space. The shot-caller was grooming me, I figured, because cons will try to screw up your release date when you’re doing “the short and shitty”—what it’s called because you get jumpy during those last days, nerves get frayed, and diarrhea is one of the symptoms. Getting chalked up for dumb infractions prolongs your time. A con’s idea of a joke, in other words.
“No strongarm,” I told Petey; “I don’t do gun-pointing; no banks, no cowboy stuff.”
He looked at me as if I’d asked if his grandmother was into cannibalism.
“No way, babe! A child could do it,” he said. “Easy-peasy.”
I thought of all the guys back in Rikers, packed in like sardines, telling lies in the chow hall about how “easy” their crime should have been if it weren’t for some rat, some unexpected glitch they didn’t plan for. Nobody stays up after lights out in Rikers worrying about quark entanglement.
“You used to drive for Nolan Meats, the Bronx.”
“Queens,” I said.
That was before I sold frozen turkeys to an undercover cop.
“But you know how to drive big rigs, right?”
“A delivery truck.”
“Whatever, same thing.”
I’d always dreamed of gearing down a Porsche Carrera at my age.
He outlined it while he poured me a double shot of single malt.
“A truck heist,” I repeated.
“Easy-peasy.”
“I’ll get you details. Meet me here Wednesday.”
“Should I ask what’s in it?”
“Fifty-five-gallon drums of ammonia nitrate pellets,” Petey replied. “A fertilizer bomb.”
“You asshole.”
Petey’s idea of humor.
“You don’t gotta know. Don’t worry about it, neither. The driver’s in on it. He’s gonna leave it idling. You just climb in, shift the gears”—adding in a noise like worn-out brake pads for effect.
Then he mimicked hand washing. “Done, like that. Five thou. Easy money, babe.”
Everything’s easy to guys who never do it. Besides “fuck you,” easy money are the two most common words you’ll hear at Rikers.
They say you lose ten-thousand brain cells with every sip of alcohol. Dwelling in that mystical cloud of booze fog where everything is alright with the world, I felt invincible.
“I’m in.”
“Good,” Petey said. He gave me a reassuring clap on the back. “You won’t regret it.”
That might be the other most common expression heard around Rikers.
Learning to shift an 18-speed transmission is like building an airplane while you’re flying it. All standard shifting follows an H-pattern. If I could get it out of low without grinding the transmission, I’d be OK. New York streets were deserted. Tumbleweeds blew down Times Square.
No matter what the cargo, it was a guaranteed trip back to the island. Skip MCC—a bad enough hellhole with mold on the walls, bugs in the cells, and feces in the shower stalls—go straight to Rikers.
No matter what the cargo, it was a guaranteed trip back to the island. Skip MCC—a bad enough hellhole with mold on the walls, bugs in the cells, and feces in the shower stalls—go straight to Rikers.
Five people on the bus to Soho wearing homemade face masks. Petey had the shot glass for me when I knocked. I demanded a couple hundred front money. He told me the pick-up and drop-off spots.
“Why a shit hole like Hunt’s Point?”
“Who cares, Sonny?”
I was familiar with that section of the Bronx; it’s all abandoned warehouses, a place full of street hookers and meth addicts before the virus, now as deserted as Manhattan.
“They got the precinct patrols timed out in that section,” Petey told me, “so be on time. One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Go easy on the booze, huh?”
I smiled with convict sincerity. “One day at a time, Petey, like they say.”
Another cliché that never panned out when you were up against it.
The driver met me in front of my old house in Corona—the name a cruel reminder of some of the virus’ worst damage since the lockdown. Kids, parents, and grandparents packed together in one house just like when I was a kid. Migrants who used to have low-paying jobs in the city moped around with panicky looks in their eyes. Food lines stretched around the block. I told the cabbie to take the Roosevelt Expressway and get off at the Broadway exit.
New York’s streets deserted at rush hour—surreal.
I walked past the place and found an alleyway off 82nd Street where I could keep an eye on the back lot from the opposite end. A pint of Jim Beam kept me company. Some homeless people living under cardboard midway down the alley made snorting noises every now and then.
Catano could kiss my ass. I carried a go-bag with tools, including a pair of bolt cutters, and a map with my escape route highlighted. I wasn’t going where he expected.
From my vantage, I could see the back lot where the semi was sitting behind a fenced-off parking lot surrounded by apartment high-rises and a yellow-brick three-story with a loading dock.
I passed the time drinking, enjoying my buzz. Ten o’clock, a full moon—if you could see it—and I was half-blitzed. I hadn’t eaten. Every time I popped my head out, I saw the same man on the loading dock. He could be an employee, or he could be security.
I was close enough to hear the big diesel running. I’d made it to the cyclone fencing and snipped through the links to crawl under it.
Hours passed. When I didn’t show at the drop-off spot in the Bronx, calls would be made.
I was warm from the booze, but my limbs were cramping up in the night air. I couldn’t see worth a tinker’s damn. I watched the glow of a cigarette at the top of the arc as he inhaled. More minutes passed. Then the butt traced a crimson zigzag as he flicked the butt off the dock.
The go-bag slung over my shoulder, I broke from cover to the fencing and worked my way along it to the section I’d cut. I jammed my bag under and belly-crawled after it.
The lot’s overhead lights made me visible to anyone standing on the dock. I ran to the cab, opened the door, and flung my bag in. My legs gave out just as I hoisted myself up, lost my footing trying to get all the way in, and went down hard ass over teacup to the concrete. The air was knocked from my lungs. I wheezed, struggled to my feet. Red spots appeared in my vision. Too late to regret the whiskey, and too terrified to go back, I reached for the handle, adrenalin pumping.
A shout from behind: “Hey!”
I vaulted inside this time. My hand reached for the gear knob and I slammed it into what I hoped was first. A hellish noise, the truck lunged—and stalled out. All tunnel vision now, I turned the key, the semi bucked again, stalled out again. Sweating, I started the motor again, slammed the clutch to the floorboard and worked the shift until I felt it slip sideways in neutral.
Voices, more shouting. The side mirror showed people running toward me.
I slammed the gear shift into what was either going to be a low gear or the end of me when the gears meshed, and the semi moved forward. I eased off the clutch and gave it gas. The noise and the shouting directed at me was pure pandemonium. I risked another gear and there was more speed. I almost took out an unmanned gatehouse and nearly sideswiped a row of parked cars.
Getting the feel of it, I gained speed with less grinding of gears. My heart hammered in my chest. Having room on the empty streets helped my confidence—that and the hour spent checking out online big-rig driving lessons. I held it to a steady speed, my knuckles white on the steering wheel and my eyes darting to the side mirrors for cops.
I knew from the second Catano gave me the Hunt’s Point location, I was being set up. Toll booths have cameras. No way off an island without hitting one. The goods, whatever was in the back, would be my fuck-you money.
My route took me to the southeast of Queens down Lafayette to an abandoned textile factory where I planned to unload the cargo, a place I’d used before my Manhattan pinch. I’d done a recon before I met Catano Wednesday; it was exactly as I remembered it years ago. I’d unload, wipe down the cab, leave the semi close to the Bed-Stuy projects, and move the goods at leisure. Furs and hi-def TVs were easy. If what was behind me wasn’t packed with cartons of pizza shells, I could start dreaming of owning a Lamborghini again.
The high-beams showed me the old cinder path beyond a cement-block foundation half-obscured in dock weed. I drove around to the back out of sight and reversed into the sloped loading bay. I cut the lights and engine and sat back against the seat. My head pounded with tension and the onset of a hangover. My breathing slowed and the circulation in my aching hands returned to normal. I remembered Norwegian rats the size of house cats scampering about, their red eyes glowing at me in my flashlight beam.
Grabbing the flashlight and bolt cutters from my bag, I hopped out and went around to the back.
It took more time with the bolt cutters than I expected, and I was almost sobbing when I cut through the padlock. The door handle didn’t open; it had a separate locking mechanism.
What the hell? I swung my beam over the floor of the factory and spotted broken chunks of concrete block with rebar sticking out. I smashed a couple blocks together and jerked the rebar free. I used it to pry the entire handle off.
Flinging the single panel door wide, a wave of chilled air hit me in the face. Please be high-end furs, not sides of beef or crates of lettuce...
My flashlight swept over racks of elongated objects crammed floor to ceiling all the way back. Maybe it was the headache, the dullness after so much anxiety, the booze fog still lingering. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I couldn’t see well enough to determine what the cargo was.
I worked my way down the center aisle between the stacks. Leather was also shipped in cold storage vans. Not like furs but less risk and much easier to unload to a fence.
Halfway down the truck, I stooped over one pile of these tarp bags and rubbed my hands along its surface trying to feel what was contained inside. My mind raced with possibilities—all but the obvious one.
My fingers touched metal—a zipper. Instinctively, still not registering, I tugged the zipper.
A white human face stared back up at me. Lower jaw wide open in rigor, milky eyes unseeing, yet staring into my flashlight.
The odor walloped me like a fist, blasting up my nostrils into my brain. I doubled over, spewing the contents of my stomach, mostly undigested liquor, all of it adding to the reek.
Body bags—a morgue truck. I stole a hospital morgue truck full of corpses--
The shock made me reel backwards in horror. I dropped my flashlight and stumbled against a metal framework attached to one side and collapsed it, body bags tumbled off the rack, one hitting me in the shoulder and propelling me forward into the opened body bag.
In the blackness, I flung my hand out and did the very thing I tried to avoid: my hand slammed into the dead face, raking my fingers over the teeth, slicing a long gash along the palm, accompanied by the sound of a twig snapping—my wrist.
I grabbed my wounded hand tight against my chest, blood flowing down my shirt, and picked myself up. Dizzy, nauseated, I made my way toward the door like a drunk stumbling into traffic. My mind was shutting down, terror oozed from every pore.
Coronavirus . . . dead bodies . . . infection--
I groped toward the door feeling my way like a blind man at the bottom of a mine shaft. My foot banged into the door. I felt around for an inside handle—nothing. I got down on all fours and felt for the hold-back designed to keep flush swinging doors from closing shut. I found the door’s hold-back and its protection plate lying on the floor, snapped off at the welding joint.
Sick with panic, I slapped at the door, screaming with all my might: “Out! Let me out!”
Exhausted, I fell back. It was as if a switch had been thrown in my brain. I remembered nothing, seeing only blackness in front of my own dead eyes.
“Why a shit hole like Hunt’s Point?”
“Who cares, Sonny?”
I was familiar with that section of the Bronx; it’s all abandoned warehouses, a place full of street hookers and meth addicts before the virus, now as deserted as Manhattan.
“They got the precinct patrols timed out in that section,” Petey told me, “so be on time. One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“Go easy on the booze, huh?”
I smiled with convict sincerity. “One day at a time, Petey, like they say.”
Another cliché that never panned out when you were up against it.
The driver met me in front of my old house in Corona—the name a cruel reminder of some of the virus’ worst damage since the lockdown. Kids, parents, and grandparents packed together in one house just like when I was a kid. Migrants who used to have low-paying jobs in the city moped around with panicky looks in their eyes. Food lines stretched around the block. I told the cabbie to take the Roosevelt Expressway and get off at the Broadway exit.
New York’s streets deserted at rush hour—surreal.
I walked past the place and found an alleyway off 82nd Street where I could keep an eye on the back lot from the opposite end. A pint of Jim Beam kept me company. Some homeless people living under cardboard midway down the alley made snorting noises every now and then.
Catano could kiss my ass. I carried a go-bag with tools, including a pair of bolt cutters, and a map with my escape route highlighted. I wasn’t going where he expected.
From my vantage, I could see the back lot where the semi was sitting behind a fenced-off parking lot surrounded by apartment high-rises and a yellow-brick three-story with a loading dock.
I passed the time drinking, enjoying my buzz. Ten o’clock, a full moon—if you could see it—and I was half-blitzed. I hadn’t eaten. Every time I popped my head out, I saw the same man on the loading dock. He could be an employee, or he could be security.
I was close enough to hear the big diesel running. I’d made it to the cyclone fencing and snipped through the links to crawl under it.
Hours passed. When I didn’t show at the drop-off spot in the Bronx, calls would be made.
I was warm from the booze, but my limbs were cramping up in the night air. I couldn’t see worth a tinker’s damn. I watched the glow of a cigarette at the top of the arc as he inhaled. More minutes passed. Then the butt traced a crimson zigzag as he flicked the butt off the dock.
The go-bag slung over my shoulder, I broke from cover to the fencing and worked my way along it to the section I’d cut. I jammed my bag under and belly-crawled after it.
The lot’s overhead lights made me visible to anyone standing on the dock. I ran to the cab, opened the door, and flung my bag in. My legs gave out just as I hoisted myself up, lost my footing trying to get all the way in, and went down hard ass over teacup to the concrete. The air was knocked from my lungs. I wheezed, struggled to my feet. Red spots appeared in my vision. Too late to regret the whiskey, and too terrified to go back, I reached for the handle, adrenalin pumping.
A shout from behind: “Hey!”
I vaulted inside this time. My hand reached for the gear knob and I slammed it into what I hoped was first. A hellish noise, the truck lunged—and stalled out. All tunnel vision now, I turned the key, the semi bucked again, stalled out again. Sweating, I started the motor again, slammed the clutch to the floorboard and worked the shift until I felt it slip sideways in neutral.
Voices, more shouting. The side mirror showed people running toward me.
I slammed the gear shift into what was either going to be a low gear or the end of me when the gears meshed, and the semi moved forward. I eased off the clutch and gave it gas. The noise and the shouting directed at me was pure pandemonium. I risked another gear and there was more speed. I almost took out an unmanned gatehouse and nearly sideswiped a row of parked cars.
Getting the feel of it, I gained speed with less grinding of gears. My heart hammered in my chest. Having room on the empty streets helped my confidence—that and the hour spent checking out online big-rig driving lessons. I held it to a steady speed, my knuckles white on the steering wheel and my eyes darting to the side mirrors for cops.
I knew from the second Catano gave me the Hunt’s Point location, I was being set up. Toll booths have cameras. No way off an island without hitting one. The goods, whatever was in the back, would be my fuck-you money.
My route took me to the southeast of Queens down Lafayette to an abandoned textile factory where I planned to unload the cargo, a place I’d used before my Manhattan pinch. I’d done a recon before I met Catano Wednesday; it was exactly as I remembered it years ago. I’d unload, wipe down the cab, leave the semi close to the Bed-Stuy projects, and move the goods at leisure. Furs and hi-def TVs were easy. If what was behind me wasn’t packed with cartons of pizza shells, I could start dreaming of owning a Lamborghini again.
The high-beams showed me the old cinder path beyond a cement-block foundation half-obscured in dock weed. I drove around to the back out of sight and reversed into the sloped loading bay. I cut the lights and engine and sat back against the seat. My head pounded with tension and the onset of a hangover. My breathing slowed and the circulation in my aching hands returned to normal. I remembered Norwegian rats the size of house cats scampering about, their red eyes glowing at me in my flashlight beam.
Grabbing the flashlight and bolt cutters from my bag, I hopped out and went around to the back.
It took more time with the bolt cutters than I expected, and I was almost sobbing when I cut through the padlock. The door handle didn’t open; it had a separate locking mechanism.
What the hell? I swung my beam over the floor of the factory and spotted broken chunks of concrete block with rebar sticking out. I smashed a couple blocks together and jerked the rebar free. I used it to pry the entire handle off.
Flinging the single panel door wide, a wave of chilled air hit me in the face. Please be high-end furs, not sides of beef or crates of lettuce...
My flashlight swept over racks of elongated objects crammed floor to ceiling all the way back. Maybe it was the headache, the dullness after so much anxiety, the booze fog still lingering. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I couldn’t see well enough to determine what the cargo was.
I worked my way down the center aisle between the stacks. Leather was also shipped in cold storage vans. Not like furs but less risk and much easier to unload to a fence.
Halfway down the truck, I stooped over one pile of these tarp bags and rubbed my hands along its surface trying to feel what was contained inside. My mind raced with possibilities—all but the obvious one.
My fingers touched metal—a zipper. Instinctively, still not registering, I tugged the zipper.
A white human face stared back up at me. Lower jaw wide open in rigor, milky eyes unseeing, yet staring into my flashlight.
The odor walloped me like a fist, blasting up my nostrils into my brain. I doubled over, spewing the contents of my stomach, mostly undigested liquor, all of it adding to the reek.
Body bags—a morgue truck. I stole a hospital morgue truck full of corpses--
The shock made me reel backwards in horror. I dropped my flashlight and stumbled against a metal framework attached to one side and collapsed it, body bags tumbled off the rack, one hitting me in the shoulder and propelling me forward into the opened body bag.
In the blackness, I flung my hand out and did the very thing I tried to avoid: my hand slammed into the dead face, raking my fingers over the teeth, slicing a long gash along the palm, accompanied by the sound of a twig snapping—my wrist.
I grabbed my wounded hand tight against my chest, blood flowing down my shirt, and picked myself up. Dizzy, nauseated, I made my way toward the door like a drunk stumbling into traffic. My mind was shutting down, terror oozed from every pore.
Coronavirus . . . dead bodies . . . infection--
I groped toward the door feeling my way like a blind man at the bottom of a mine shaft. My foot banged into the door. I felt around for an inside handle—nothing. I got down on all fours and felt for the hold-back designed to keep flush swinging doors from closing shut. I found the door’s hold-back and its protection plate lying on the floor, snapped off at the welding joint.
Sick with panic, I slapped at the door, screaming with all my might: “Out! Let me out!”
Exhausted, I fell back. It was as if a switch had been thrown in my brain. I remembered nothing, seeing only blackness in front of my own dead eyes.
They told me later I was trapped in there with 38 Covid-19 victims for twenty-six hours. Some taggers with spray cans heard moaning inside.
They said I was slumped against it, gibbering through cracked lips like a lunatic.
Six fingers and four toes had to be amputated. I woke up from surgery long enough to see I was bandaged and restrained to the bed rails. An exhausted surgeon in protective garb and face shield stopped by to tell me I was positive for Covid-19 and would remain in quarantine until I recovered--or not, he said, disgust in his voice, and went on with his rounds.
When I woke up again, a chubby detective in full-body PPE sat beside my bed. He looked gleeful behind the plastic shield.
“You’re a big joke at the Two-Five,” he said, the smile widening. “Doc out there says them little Coronaviruses can infect either lobe of your brain, some mumbo-jumbo about a half-life of decay. Depends, he says, where the viruses landed while youse in that truck wrestling around with dead bodies for two days—not that you have much of a brain to lose," I told him. "My, my, Sonny. What the hell were you thinking?”
He laughed. A puff of condensation misted over the plastic hole where his mouth was.
“How much does a corpse go for nowadays, I wonder.”
Too groggy from the anesthetic to tell him where to put his jokes.
“Youse s’posed to grab the semi in the next parking lot over, dummy. Some hedge-fund manager on the Eastside bought himself a couple pricey sports cars. A McLaren FL—never heard of it, did you? Thing tops out at 240, they say. The other’s a Testarossa F50. Candy-apple red, got these nostrils and wings, a real Italian beauty ...”
His Bronx honk is a fingernail swiped down a blackboard. My lungs are filling with more fluid by the hour, slowly suffocating me. That TV image of the Coronavirus with its spiky red tendrils is burned into my brain where I see them roaming, replicating. I imagine them clamped onto my lung and brain cells like climbers wearing crampons. The cop drones on, adding to my torture, relishing my suffering. I’d give anything right now to be back in my cell on Rikers...
I close my eyes, seeing swollen body bags bursting in the darkness, covering me with slime. One bag looks out with my own face, stares with my own dead eyes.
A nurse beckons him from the window and points at her wrist: time to go. The cop stares down at me, thrusts home the coup de grâce: “Yeah, real classics, those babies in that other semi, worth about five million each...”
They said I was slumped against it, gibbering through cracked lips like a lunatic.
Six fingers and four toes had to be amputated. I woke up from surgery long enough to see I was bandaged and restrained to the bed rails. An exhausted surgeon in protective garb and face shield stopped by to tell me I was positive for Covid-19 and would remain in quarantine until I recovered--or not, he said, disgust in his voice, and went on with his rounds.
When I woke up again, a chubby detective in full-body PPE sat beside my bed. He looked gleeful behind the plastic shield.
“You’re a big joke at the Two-Five,” he said, the smile widening. “Doc out there says them little Coronaviruses can infect either lobe of your brain, some mumbo-jumbo about a half-life of decay. Depends, he says, where the viruses landed while youse in that truck wrestling around with dead bodies for two days—not that you have much of a brain to lose," I told him. "My, my, Sonny. What the hell were you thinking?”
He laughed. A puff of condensation misted over the plastic hole where his mouth was.
“How much does a corpse go for nowadays, I wonder.”
Too groggy from the anesthetic to tell him where to put his jokes.
“Youse s’posed to grab the semi in the next parking lot over, dummy. Some hedge-fund manager on the Eastside bought himself a couple pricey sports cars. A McLaren FL—never heard of it, did you? Thing tops out at 240, they say. The other’s a Testarossa F50. Candy-apple red, got these nostrils and wings, a real Italian beauty ...”
His Bronx honk is a fingernail swiped down a blackboard. My lungs are filling with more fluid by the hour, slowly suffocating me. That TV image of the Coronavirus with its spiky red tendrils is burned into my brain where I see them roaming, replicating. I imagine them clamped onto my lung and brain cells like climbers wearing crampons. The cop drones on, adding to my torture, relishing my suffering. I’d give anything right now to be back in my cell on Rikers...
I close my eyes, seeing swollen body bags bursting in the darkness, covering me with slime. One bag looks out with my own face, stares with my own dead eyes.
A nurse beckons him from the window and points at her wrist: time to go. The cop stares down at me, thrusts home the coup de grâce: “Yeah, real classics, those babies in that other semi, worth about five million each...”
Robb White lives in Northeastern Ohio, where he was born, raised, and where he will no doubt take the long dirt nap. Many of his stories and novels feature private investigator Thomas Haftmann or Raimo Jarvi. Thomas Haftmann, Private Eye (2017) is a collection of 15 stories. In 2019, White was nominated for a Derringer. His crime novel, The Russian Heist, won Thriller Magazine’s Best Novel of 2019 award, and a short story, “Inside Man,” was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2019. New Pulp Press is bringing out a second collection of Haftmann stories, including the novella of the title: The Dearborn Terrorist Plot & 4 Stories.