The Cold Spot Read Free Page A

around closing because they were off getting blowjobs in the little security booth. The locked glove box held an envelope with twenty-four hundred bucks cash, a fifth of Cuervo, and a few tabs of acid. Owner was probably a rich dude turned small-time hustler, who brought drunk Jersey City high-hair chicks out to the truck and banged them in the backseat.
    Chase had pocketed the money and tequila and tossed the LSD out the window. It was now 3:00 A.M ., the slowest time for the shop. He parked in a stall and shut his eyes, swaying and tapping the shift knob while the song finished.
    It was rare but, on occasion, usually in the dark of predawn with a suggestion of rain in the air, he could manage to drift from himself just far enough to start thinking about what his next step should be.
    Tugging the wires in the cracked steering column apart, he listened to the echoes of the engine stalling across the bay. The place was empty except for a couple of Puerto Rican guys arguing in Spanish and trying to wrestle loose the transmission from a Jaguar. They’d never worked on one before and were perplexed by the layout. Chase didn’t know much about Jags either. He’d just decided to help out and learn whatever he could when the Deuce stepped over, opened his pocketknife, and started cleaning his fingernails.
    Deuce said, “Heard about your gramps.”
    Now what. Now what the fuck what.
    Already sensing he was going to have to cut and run tonight, Chase prepared to make a move. He hoped to Christ this had nothing to do with the mob finding out about the fish-market boost. You never knew when something was going to roll back onto you. He had almost twenty-two grand stashed in a bank deposit box he’d rented with some fake ID and wondered if he’d be able to hold out until morning and go back for it.
    “Heard what?” Chase asked.
    “Him and Rook and Buzzard Allen were holed up in a museum down in Philly last night. They were going after some Renaissance paintings and rare coins, who the hell knows what fence they got. Only one I know who can move that kind of product is Joe Timpo, and he’s doing ten in Attica. Maybe nine. Nine or ten. Renaissance paintings, the hell is that? Who’s gonna hang any of that in their living rooms, even the private collectors they got today? Rare coins, sixteenth-century, Spanish I think. Spanish or Italian. Or Portuguese.”
    “Back to Jonah,” Chase said, checking the door, the guys working the Jag. If this was a setup, it was a slow one.
    Deuce put the knife away, pulled a half-smoked cigar out of his shirt pocket, and began chewing the end of it, a sure sign his tumblers were turning, trying to slip into place. “One of them blew away a cop and then started in on the hostages. Killed a security guard so they’d get a chopper. A fuckin’ chopper. Where’d they think they were going? How do you escape in a helicopter, the thing zipping around in the air, buzzing Ben Franklin’s grave, spooking everybody looking at the Liberty Bell? There’s room for what, two or three people in that. Where they gonna fit the paintings? You use a chopper to get out of Hanoi, not fuckin’ Philly.”
    “Must’ve been Buzzard.”
    “I don’t know him.”
    “Me neither,” Chase said, “but the other two aren’t stupid.”
    “Well, they left Buzzard there with his brains leaking out his eye sockets, so I guess they didn’t want him around their necks.” Deucie grinned a little and paused, thinking he was clever with that line, a sterling wit making the stretch between buzzards and albatrosses. When he saw he wasn’t going to get any acknowledgment, his smile collapsed and he went on. “Popped him and managed to punch a hole before too many police barricades and roadblocks were laid out and made a run in a getaway car. That’s all I know.”
    “Philly’s a tight city,” Chase said. It was like trying to pull a heist in midtown Manhattan. Crammed streets, a red light at every corner, only a couple