CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CRITICAL MASS
The man from Miami arrived wearing a white suit in the rain.
Danny decided that was either confidence or stupidity.
The man stood just inside the door of the Downtown Athletic & Bridge Club, dripping onto the floor and looking unhappy about it. His suit was expensive. His shoes were better than Danny’s. He carried no umbrella.
Nicky Bellomo looked up from a plate of sausage and peppers. “Miami,” he said.
The man looked at him. “What?”
“You look like Miami.”
“I am from Miami.”
Nicky nodded with satisfaction.
“I knew it.”
Tony Spada came out of the back room.
“Mr. Costa.”
“Spada.”
They didn’t shake hands.
Danny was sitting near the wall with a newspaper open in front of him. He had learned that a newspaper was useful even when you weren’t reading it.
Tony glanced at him. “Danny. Coffee.”
Danny stood.
Costa said, “Let him stay.”
Tony stopped.
“Why?”
“Because if he’s the kid I think he is, he’s already in it.”
Tony looked at Danny.
Danny folded the newspaper.
“I could still get the coffee.”
Nobody laughed.
Costa removed his wet jacket and hung it over the back of a chair.
“We got a problem.”
Tony said, “We’ve had a problem for two weeks.”
“No. You had a problem. Now we got a problem.”
Nicky pushed the plate toward Costa. “Sausage?”
Costa stared at him. “No.”
Nicky pulled the plate back. “More for me.”
Tony sat down. “What happened?”
Costa looked around the room. “Where’s Charlie?”
“Working.”
“Doing what?”
“He’s an undertaker. Take a guess.”
Costa didn’t smile.
Danny liked him already.
Costa reached into his inside pocket.
Tony’s hand disappeared beneath the table.
Costa noticed.
“Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
Costa slowly removed an envelope and put it on the table.
Tony opened it.
There was a photograph inside.
Danny couldn’t see it.
Tony looked at it for a long time.
Then he passed it to Danny.
It showed an attaché case.
Nothing else.
Danny turned it over.
The back was blank.
“That’s it?”
Costa said, “That’s another one.”
Danny looked again.
“They all look alike.”
“They’re supposed to.”
Tony said, “Where is it?”
“Coming north.”
“From where?”
“Don’t know.”
“When?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who’s carrying it?”
“Don’t know.”
Tony put both hands flat on the table.
“So you came two thousand miles to tell me you don’t know anything.”
“I came to tell you the case you lost doesn’t matter.”
The room went quiet.
Even Nicky stopped chewing.
Tony said, “Explain.”
Costa pulled out a chair and sat.
“There are replacements.”
Tony stared at him.
“How many?”
“Don’t know.”
“Who has them?”
“Don’t know.”
Tony leaned back.
“You’re starting to annoy me.”
“Get in line.”
Danny looked at the photograph.
“What happens if they get all four parts?”
Costa turned toward him.
“They fit together. Each case carries one section of the same device. Separate, none of them has enough to sustain the reaction.”
“And all four?”
“All four complete the assembly. That’s when there’s enough, arranged the way it was designed, to reach critical mass.”
Danny looked at the photograph.
“So three cases don’t make a bomb.”
“No.”
“Two?”
“No.”
“One?”
Costa shrugged.
“A very expensive suitcase.”
Danny studied the photograph.
“For all we know it’s full of pajamas.”
Nicky pointed at him.
“That’s what I said.”
“You never said that.”
“I was thinking it.”
Tony ignored them.
“So the case we lost bought us what?”
“Time.”
“How much?”
“Don’t know.”
Tony closed his eyes.
Costa said, “Maybe a week. Maybe a day. Maybe the replacement is already here.”
Danny put the photograph on the table.
“Who wants to blow up New York?”
Nobody answered.
Danny looked from Costa to Tony.
“You don’t know that either.”
Costa said, “No.”
“That seems important.”
“It has come up.”
Tony picked up the photograph.
“What do they want?”
“Money.”
“How much?”
Costa looked at him.
“That’s the funny part.”
Tony wasn’t amused.
“They haven’t said.”
Tony stared at him.
“They threaten New York and don’t tell anybody how much money they want?”
“Not yet.”
Danny said, “Then maybe they don’t want money.”
That brought the room to a stop.
Costa looked at him.
Tony looked at him.
Nicky looked at him with a fork halfway to his mouth.
Danny wished he hadn’t said it.
Finally Tony said, “Go on.”
“I don’t know. If I wanted money, I’d tell you how much.”
Costa leaned back.
“And if for some crazy reason, you wanted New York blown up?”
“I’d make everybody think I just wanted money.”
Nobody spoke. Outside, a truck rolled down Second Avenue.
Tony said, “Who knows about this?”
Costa counted silently.
“Us. Some people in Miami. Your people. Maybe Chicago.”
“Government?”
“Somebody in the government knows something.”
“FBI?”
“Maybe.”
“Army?”
“Maybe.”
“President?”
Costa spread his hands.
“Maybe.”
Nicky said, “Newspapers?”
“No.”
“Radio?”
“No.”
“Television?”
“No.”
Nicky resumed eating.
“So nobody knows.”
Costa looked at him.
“Twenty million people don’t know.”
Nicky chewed thoughtfully.
“That’s a lot of people not knowing something.”
Tony turned to Costa.
“Why is Miami mixed up in this?”
Costa gave him a tired look.
“Because somebody paid somebody to move some luggage.”
“Who?”
“If we knew that, I wouldn’t be sitting here.”
Costa stood and walked toward the window.
“Miami moves everything. Money. People. Guns. Jewelry. Dope. Cigarettes. Anything somebody wants someplace else. You pay, somebody moves it.”
He looked out at the rain.
“We thought these were merchandise.”
“And now?”
Costa turned around.
“Now people are getting killed over luggage nobody is supposed to open.”
Danny said, “Did anybody open one?”
Costa looked at him.
“Not anybody who’s talking.”
Nicky said, “Maybe pajamas.”
Costa pointed at him.
“Maybe pajamas.”
Nicky seemed pleased.
Tony wasn’t.
“So why help us?”
Costa stared at him as though the answer should have been obvious.
“Because I got family in Brooklyn.”
That ended the question.
Tony looked down at the photograph.
Costa returned to the table.
“There are guys down there who say we were hired to move the cases, so we move the cases. That’s the job.”
“And you?”
“I say there’s a difference between moving contraband and helping somebody erase New York.”
Nicky swallowed.
“You can’t collect from a city that ain’t there.”
Costa looked at him.
For once, Nicky had said something intelligent.
“Exactly.”
Nicky thought about it.
“What about Jersey?”
Everybody looked at him.
Nicky shrugged.
“I’m just asking.”
Tony pushed the photograph back across the table.
“Where’s the replacement coming in?”
“We’re working on it.”
“Work faster.”
Costa put the photograph into the envelope.
“There’s something else.”
Tony waited.
“One of our guys got a telephone call yesterday.”
“From who?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“What did they say?”
Costa looked at Danny, then Tony.
“They told him to stop looking for the missing case.”
“Why?”
“They said it didn’t matter anymore.”
Tony’s face changed.
Danny saw it.
Not fear exactly.
Something close.
Costa continued.
“They said the replacement was already on the way.”
The telephone rang.
Nobody moved.
It rang again.
Tony picked it up.
“Yeah.”
He listened.
Danny watched his face.
Tony said nothing for almost thirty seconds.
Then:
“Where?”
Another pause.
“You sure?”
Tony slowly put the receiver down.
Costa said, “What?”
Tony looked at Danny.
“They found a case.”
“Where?”
“South of Brooklyn Heights.”
Costa took a breath.
“Which case?”
Tony shook his head.
“They don’t know.”
Danny stood.
Tony said, “Where are you going?”
Danny reached for his coat.
“To find out if it’s full of pajamas.”
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN BREAKDOWN
CRITICAL MASS
Chapter Fifteen changes the nature of the problem.
Up to this point, everybody has been chasing attache cases. If a case can be captured, stolen, hidden or sent somewhere else, perhaps the danger can be controlled.
Now we learn that isn’t enough.
THE MAN FROM MIAMI
Costa’s entrance immediately brings Miami into the room.
He isn’t presented as a supervillain. He’s another professional criminal who has discovered that an ordinary smuggling job has turned into something completely different.
That distinction is important.
The Miami people didn’t necessarily sign up to destroy New York. Somebody paid somebody to move luggage. Only later did some of them begin to understand what the luggage might represent.
Now the Miami organization itself is divided.
Some say: We were paid to move it. Move it.
Others say: Not if moving it helps destroy New York.
Costa belongs to the second group.
His explanation is wonderfully simple:
“Because I got family in Brooklyn.”
The stakes have become personal.
THE FOUR-CASE RULE
The nuclear threat is explained only as far as the story requires.
There are four sections of one device.
Separately, they cannot sustain the reaction. When all four are brought together in the intended configuration, the complete assembly can reach critical mass.
That’s all Danny needs to know.
And it’s all the reader needs to know.
The story is about the people chasing the cases, not nuclear engineering.
THE MISSING CASE DOESN’T SAVE NEW YORK
This is the chapter’s major revelation.
There are replacements.
Capturing one case therefore doesn’t eliminate the threat. It merely interrupts the plan.
It buys time.
Nobody knows how much.
A week?
A day?
An hour?
The replacement might already be in New York.
That changes the objective of the story. Eventually the characters will have to stop chasing individual cases and discover where the cases are coming from.
THE PAJAMAS
Danny introduces another important uncertainty.
Nobody in the room has actually opened one of these cases.
Everybody is risking his life because of what somebody says is inside.
Danny’s line—
“For all we know it’s full of pajamas.”
—is funny, but it also states one of the central problems of the mystery.
How much of the threat is real?
How much is rumor?
Who actually knows?
DOES THE PUBLIC KNOW?
No.
Millions of New Yorkers are going about their ordinary lives without knowing that a handful of criminals, government people and unknown outsiders may be fighting over a nuclear threat.
Keeping the secret contained allows the story to remain a Danny Marino mystery rather than becoming a national disaster story.
The city continues normally.
That makes the danger more effective.
WHY DOES THE MOB CARE?
Nicky accidentally provides the answer:
“You can’t collect from a city that ain’t there.”
The line is funny, but underneath it is the larger answer.
New York is their territory.
Their businesses are there.
Their families are there.
Their neighborhoods are there.
Even criminals have something they don’t want destroyed.
The nuclear threat therefore creates the possibility of strange alliances and unexpected acts of courage without requiring anybody to suddenly become a saint.
THE REAL QUESTION
Danny notices something everybody else has overlooked.
The supposed bombers want money.
But they haven’t said how much.
That doesn’t make sense.
If the objective is extortion, eventually there must be a demand.
Danny therefore asks the dangerous question:
What if they don’t want money?
What if the extortion story is camouflage?
What if somebody actually wants New York destroyed?
We don’t answer that question.
Not yet.
THE STORY CHANGES DIRECTION
The chapter ends with two pieces of information arriving almost simultaneously.
A replacement case is already on its way.
And another case has been found south of Brooklyn Heights.
Nobody knows which case it is.
Nobody knows what’s inside it.
Danny puts on his coat.
“To find out if it’s full of pajamas.”
The joke carries us directly into the next chapter.
But the investigation has changed.
Danny is no longer merely looking for a missing attaché case.
He is beginning to ask the much more dangerous question:
Who started all this, anyway?
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Here’s the Bardo bus now!!!
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See You At The Top!!!
gorby