Chapter Thirty-Three

Furyk couldn’t place the kid exactly, but he looked a little familiar. Maybe he’d busted his brother back when Furyk was a cop, or he got screwed out of his money on a coke deal when Furyk had run off a dealer who’d taken up residence behind the strip mall where the sandwich shop was. Hell, maybe Furyk had put too much mayo on the guy’s BLT last Tuesday.

“Okay, Carlito, you want to tell me why you’re being such a tough guy?

“How the hell you know my name, man?” The blood had stopped but the swelling was just starting and his eyes were going to get puffy. He’d have to make up some macho story to tell his buddies down at the local gang bangers’ hangout. Furyk looked at the thin line of blood that traced itself down from the nose, around the mouth, and under the jaw and finally dribbled out at the top of a string of curlicue letters just above the collar bone on his neck spelling out Carlito. Most tattoo places won’t do necks unless you’re old enough or crazy enough to insist.

It took the kid a while but he figured it out after Furyk stared at his neck for a few more seconds. “Yeah, okay, so you can fuckin’ read.” He still sounded a little out of breath, which made him not quite so tough. He finished wiping off the blood, including the line that pointed at his name and tossed the sodden paper towels Furyk had given him from the dispenser near the pumps. Hamid caught Furyk’s eye when he’d gone to get the towels, not able to see the brief flare-up around the corner, and Furyk just gave him a thumbs-up and smile.

The kid was actually pretty tough and in a straight-up fight could probably handle himself. But he wasn’t hard at the core and Furyk could see it. A few misdemeanors, maybe a couple of assaults but only as part of the usual melees that happened on the streets, nothing heavy. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t get shot for looking too long at a guy from a different street corner. And those huge biceps made him a target for anyone wanting to prove how tough they were themselves. But Furyk still didn’t know why the hell the guy was trying to rough him up.

“Yeah, I got my Ph.D. in Modern Tat.” It was lost on his audience. “So what lesson did you want to teach me – and why?” Carlito – “little Carl,” which was clearly meant as a joke unless a disappointed girlfriend had etched it on his neck permanently while he slept – tried to shake off his pain and evoke a swagger. It didn’t come off very impressively, since when he moved his head and shrugged his shoulders to show off their mass, his nose shifted and brought a roaring hurricane of mind-numbing pain. To the kid’s credit, he worked through it and pointed a finger at Furyk.

“You stop messin’ with my cousin. Or…” he paused a second, vaguely aware that he didn’t have much leverage at this moment, “or my boys is gonna fuck you up.” Under other circumstances it might have put Furyk on edge, the thought of half a dozen gangbangers grabbing him as he walked in a dark alley one night. But the kid was reaching. The more interesting issue was what had he done to mess with the cousin?

Asking questions didn’t seem to be getting him very far so Furyk just stood quietly, thinking it over. The kid looked a little familiar, he thought again. Still couldn’t put a name to the face, or even some context for someone he’d busted or busted up who had a cousin who’d look familiar. Sometimes when you were putting a case together or looking for someone, you’d flip through photos of known associates. But nothing. He looked at the kid who seemed to be waiting for something to happen, either a better threat to level against Furyk or his buddies to suddenly show up and scare the white guy into submission.

And then Furyk got it. He’d seen a picture of Carlito, but there’d been no tattoo. It had been when the kid was a few years younger, maybe eighteen or nineteen. On the dresser next to Tina’s bed. Tina, who worked in the salon two doors down from Furyk’s sandwich shop and cut his hair once in a while. About the same frequency with which he took her out for a drink and they ended up either at her place or his for a few hours, and occasionally in the back of her station wagon. Even once in a while in the storage room of the salon. This was Tina’s cousin, Carl, who Tina’d mentioned with worry in her voice once or twice in the last couple of years. Carl who was a good kid, not too bright but enough to get by, and got caught up with the wrong guys.

Tina, who wore low, low cut jeans with wide belts that seemed to scream to everyone to look at those hips, and the midriff-baring t-shirts that groaned under the weight of breasts that could have been all-natural models of what every plastic surgeon could point to as the perfect “after” picture. She was smart like a girl who’d gotten out of the neighborhood and made a few right choices, but she would always be the kind of girl who was the cousin of a Carlito. They were casual but courteous and the infrequency of their trysts didn’t imply disrespect or anything but mutual need and convenience. Furyk hadn’t seen Tina for a while but couldn’t imagine he’d done anything to instigate an attempted “lesson” from her cousin.

“You’re Tina’s cousin. She’s very sweet. What happened to you?”

“I saw you comin’ outta her place a few months ago, like the fuckin’ white prince banging his Latina slave. I was gonna beat your ass then but you took off in your little shit beater.” Carlito was getting riled again and Furyk didn’t want to have to pop him into submission again. The nose would never set. “Then I saw you yesterday parking here when I was comin’ outta Tina’s shop.”

“Let’s get something straight. What Tina does is none of your business. And what I do is definitely none of your goddamn business. But if it were, then you wouldn’t have any reason to get in my face. We’re adults and treat each other with respect. Something you should learn to do.” A little bit of the fire went out of Carlito’s eyes and he looked mildly confused. Now was a good time to back off and let him regain some dignity. “You want a sandwich some time, you come on by.” Furyk thumbed in the direction of the sandwich shop and followed Carlito’s gaze as he looked first at the Hoagie Haven, then back to Tina’s salon a couple doors away, then back at the sandwich shop. A glimmer of understanding poked its way through.

Furyk started off across the gas station, leaving the kid to put it all together and decide how he wanted to deal with it. Waiting for the light, Furyk looked at the salon and thought about how it was Wednesday, the first day of the week for Tina since she didn’t work Sunday through Tuesday. And he thought about how he could really use a haircut. The light turned green and he angled toward the salon instead of the sandwich shop to make an appointment – two appointments, actually.