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The bodega was on the corner, the first floor of a three-story apartment building. The awning was yellow, and the name of the store, Convenience, was written in both English and Spanish. They advertised coffee, newspapers, lottery tickets, and cigarettes.
Donne didn’t follow Martin. Instead, he glanced up the street and saw two men in suits walking their way. They stuck out like chocolate chips on a pizza.
“Bill,” Donne said. “We have visitors.”
“Oh. Nice.”
Martin stepped up next to Donne and watched the guys walk. They looked like linebackers, and the seams of their suit were struggling to hold on.
When they were two feet away, they stopped. One guy went for folded arms, the other went for hands in pockets. Other than skin color, the guys looked alike. Close cropped hair, sunglasses, and muscles. Military, Donne guessed.
“Jackson Donne?” the black guy asked.
“Uh-huh.” Donne’s witty banter had gone the way of the rest of his investigative skills.
“Mind coming with us?
“Yeah. Kinda.”
“I’m afraid we insist.” He nodded down the block. “Now, if you’ll follow us.”
“Boy,” Martin said. “You two are flat-out Shakespearean in your conversational skills.”
The two pro wrestlers glanced at each other, as if Martin was an alien.
“Sir?” the white guy said. “Can you get back in your car, please?”
“Yeah …” Martin flashed his badge. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. Do you men have some identification we can see?”
The black guy leaned in close to the badge. “We’re in Perth Amboy. You don’t have jurisdiction here.”
Martin sighed. “You think I can’t make a quick phone call and get ten Perth Amboy comes here tout suite?”
As the man stood back up, Donne could hear the fabric of his suit stretch. The white guy cracked his knuckles.
The bodega must have put on a fresh pot of coffee, because the odor suddenly permeated the air. Behind the two men, a bird landed and pecked at the ground. Donne felt his heart ticking off the milliseconds in his chest.
“So what do we want to do here, boys? Mr. Donne goes, I go with him. We’re … pals.”
The two men looked at each other and seemed to make a wordless decision. He watched the black guy’s muscles relax, and the air seemed between them seemed to change. The two men smiled like customer service employees at a Walmart.
“We will be in touch, Mr. Donne. There’s some business we’d like to deal with. But it’s best handle it between us.”
Donne wanted to ask about Jeanne. He wanted to go with them. But the sweat in his palms and the pounding of his heart stopped him.
The men left, heading back the way they came. Once they were out of earshot, Bill Martin clapped.
“This is the most fun I’ve had in years,” he said. His voice was flat.
Donne checked his phone and didn’t see any texts from Kate. His stomach fluttered and twisted and he thought about texting her. Just to say he was okay. But he didn’t want her to worry. A text would more than likely cause more problems and not ease his nerves.
“They’re in a car about a block and a half down,” Martin said. “They’re not going to go anywhere until we do.”
“Jeanne could be dead by now,” Donne said. “Maybe I should have gone with them.”
“Yeah, then you’d be dead too.” Martin paused. “You know, you’re right. Why don’t you head down the block and take a ride.”
Donne said, “You called me your pal.”
“I didn’t have a better word, and calling you ‘asshole’ would have given them a better sense of who I was.” He looked at his watch. “Or at least given them more information than they had before.”
Martin turned and walked into the bodega.
BILL MARTIN just bought me a coffee.
It was burnt and overly sweetened, but it was bought by Martin and given to Donne without asking. Donne expected tectonic plates to shift beneath his feet and the entire block to get swallowed up into the earth. Martin downed his coffee in one long gulp, as if the heat didn’t exist.
He drank it so fast, Donne almost didn’t notice the tremor in his hand, the way the cup swayed just a hair just before the lip hit his mouth.
Martin tossed the cup into the trash next to the counter and pulled out his badge. The cashier leaned in to take a better look, but it disappeared into Martin’s jacket.
“I need to take a look around,” Martin said the words like it was a fait accompli.
“I haven’t been robbed. That was two blocks over.” The clerk, a short, round man with a thick Spanish accent laughed. “Cops don’t know nothing.”
Martin exhaled what must have been the sarin gas equivalent of burnt coffee right into the cashier’s face. He recoiled.
“Not about a robbery.”
The cashier wiped his mouth. “You want to buy something?”
“How about health inspection?”
Donne picked up a package of Tastykake coffee cakes and looked at the expiration date. A year old.
“My stuff is fresh!” the cashier shouted. “I run a good business.”
“Then we’ll be out of your way in ten minutes,” Martin said. He nodded at Donne, and they walked around to the back of the store.
Martin made a show of looking at the coolers. He opened one and pulled out a bottle of Gatorade. He twisted off the cap, smelled it, and gagged. The old routine started to come back to Donne. How many times had they done this when looking for drug runners hiding out in the back?
“You have to pay for that!” the cashier yelled.
Martin took a gulp, then spat it onto the floor. Donne turned away from him. This time they weren’t claiming drugs as evidence and snorting or selling half the coke themselves after their shift was over.
“I’m not going to pay for my own poison,” Martin said. Donne could have said the words, right down to the cadence, along with him.
“Fuck you!” the cashier spat.
“You’re not my type.” It was as if Abbott and Costello were doing “Who’s on First?” at a funeral.
Martin tilted his head toward the door that lead to the backroom. Donne’s gut lurched. He wasn’t armed, and he had no idea what was back there. Martin dropped his hand to his waist. His fingers grazed the gun at his hip.
Donne went first. Martin always told him the point man never got shot at in Vietnam. No, the Viet Cong were smart. They didn’t shoot at the first guy that came through; they waited for the rest of the platoon.
Donne was pretty sure Martin never served.
Pushing the door open, he stepped over the threshold. No one shot at him. The only sound was the whir of the engine running the central air-conditioner. To his right were metal shelves, filled with old boxes, waiting to be tossed in the bailer. To his left were pallets filled with potato chips and K-cup coffee packs. And a desk with a computer on it.
Martin noticed the desk first and went to it. Now the tremor showed in both hands.