5.

Jack sat in the front window on the second floor of Pinky's Drive-in and watched Seventh Avenue directly below. "Jingle Bell Rock" wafted from the speakers set among the hubcaps on the wall as he sipped a Snapple peach iced tea from the bottle and scanned the mob below.

And a mob it was. Christmas shoppers, school trips, parents with their bundled-up kids waddling behind them like chubby ducklings, all streaming onto the already congested streets from Penn Station, heading for Macy's, FAO Schwartz, the Warner and Disney stores, the Christmas show at Radio City Music Hall. And this was only a Monday. Wait till Wednesday—matinee day.

The crowds brought out the flyer guys in force, standing like starter jacket-wrapped stones in the flow, handing out party-colored sheets offering everything from a dollar off a fried chicken special, to a Special Overstock Sale, to Live Girls—Nude! Nude! Nude!

Catty-corner across the intersection Jack could see workmen inflating a huge snowman above the Madison Square Garden marquee.

Christmastime in the Big Apple…

And then he spotted a guy with a pink carnation sticking out of his jacket. He watched closely to see if anyone appeared to be with him.

Nope. Looked like Jorge had arrived alone, as instructed.

Jack went over to the stairs and scanned the first floor. The lunch crowd hadn't hit yet. Jack didn't see anyone who looked like he might be with Jorge—no rules against your backup preceding you to a meet—so he leaned over the stair rail and signaled to him.

"Jorge!" he called. "With the carnation. Buy something and then—" He jerked his thumb back up the stairs.

Jorge nodded.

A few minutes later he came up the stairs, spotted Jack, came over. He extended his hand.

"Mr. Jack?" he said in thickly accented English. He wore a heavy shirt that mixed black, yellow, and orange in an odd pattern; a chrome chain stretched fore and aft from a loop of his black denims to his wallet and heavy key ring. His nose and lips were thick, his cheeks deeply and extensively pocked. He looked like an overweight Noriega, but without the sinister smugness. "Thank you for meeting me."

"Welcome to my office," Jack said, shaking hands.

Used to be, Jack met all his potential customers at Julio's. It was still his favorite place for a first meet. Julio was an excellent screener—had a sixth sense about people, and he could pat someone down without their having an inkling they'd been searched. But then Jack began to worry that he was getting too closely connected with the place—and that could be bad for him and Julio.

So he'd started varying the location of his "office." Pinky's Drive-in was a new one. He kind of liked the idea of a place with no parking and no drive-through that had the guts to call itself a drive-in. He liked the tacky retro ambiance of the turquoise-and-white tile and pink neon in the service area below, and the hubcaps—not shiny new hubcaps, but old banged-up veterans of the road—nailed to the wall up here in the second-floor seating area. Liked this high perch over the street, liked the emergency exit door at his back that opened onto a stairway to the first floor.

Plus it was easy enough to find: Go to Seventh and Thirty-third and look for a place with a big neon Cadillac above the door.

Jorge deposited a quarter-pound Pinky Burger and a Budweiser on the table as he seated himself.

"So let's talk," Jack said. "I know the basics, but I want to get more details to see if this is workable."

According to Jorge, he was an Ecuadorean who ran a small office-maintenance business. Nothing big, just a couple of crews of three—he worked on one of the crews himself—who cleaned offices by night. Hard work, long hours, but it was a living. He was able to pay his bills and his workers. But he had a problem: a deadbeat client named Ramirez.

"And what really pisses me off," Jorge said, "is he's a brother."

"Your brother?"

"No way, man. I mean a brother of Ecuador. He tol' me he was giving me the work because we come from the same country. He say he is a peasant who come here and make good, and he want to help me, a brother peasant, become rich like him." He swigged his Bud and slammed it on the table. "All bullshit! The real reason he hire me and my guys is he know he can rip us off."

"You said he owes you six thousand."

"Right. And I never would have let the bastard get so far behind. But he keep telling me that business is slow, that his own customers are not paying him, but a big contract is due at the end of the year and he will settle up everything then with interest. And because he is a fellow Ecuadorian, a brother peasant"—he spat the word—"I believe him and keep coming back with my crew, night after night, week after week." Another sip, another slam on the table. "More bullshit! He never intend to pay me. Never!"

"Here's where I start to lose you," Jack said. "You must have some sort of contract with him."

Jorge nodded. "Of course. I always get one."

"But you tell me you've tried every legal means of getting the money back. Seems to me if you have a contract—"

"Can't," Jorge said, shaking his head.

"Why not?"

"My crew. Two of them are cousins of my wife." His gaze shifted away. "They are not, um, legal."

"And this Ramirez guy knows that?"

"He know it from the start."

"Ah-ha." Jack leaned back and took a sip from his Snapple. "The plot sickens."

"Eh?"

"Nothing. So how do things stand between you two now?"

"I finally tol' him I can't go on working for him without some payment. He give me that same dance about the contract coming in, and when I tol' him it was supposed to be in by now, he get mad. We go roun' and roun' about the same old stuff, but I do not back down this time. I was not going away empty-handed as I had every time before."

"So what did he do?"

"He fire me."

Jack had to smile. "He fired you! That took balls."

Jorge bared his teeth. "It is worse. He tell me I do inferior work. Me! Let me tell you, Mr. Jack, my work is de pri-mera!"

Jack believed him. He could see the fierce pride in his eyes. This was a man trying to build something; more than a business—a reputation… a life. Jack sensed his anger, and something else: hurt. He'd been betrayed by someone he'd trusted.

"Jorge," he said. "I think you're right. I think our friend Ramirez was planning to rip you off from the start. And I'll bet that even as we speak, he's hunting up a new office cleaning service."

"Yes. I will not be surprised. He would steal from a dying man. But what do I do now?"

"Well," Jack said, "you and your cousins can go break his legs."

Jorge smiled. "Yes. I have thought of that. We have even talked of killing him, but we are not that sort of people."

"The other thing is to do about $6,000 worth of damage to his property."

"Yes, but I would rather have the money. The sweet taste of revenge will not pay my bills. And I am trying to avoid trouble with the police. The truth is, Mr. Jack, I need money more than I need revenge. I just want what is mine. Will you help me?"

Jack leaned back, thinking. Jorge was the type of customer that kept Jack in the business. A guy with a genuine beef and nowhere else to turn. But right now, Jack had no idea what he could do for him.

"I will if I can. But I need to know more about Ramirez. Tell me all you know about him. Everything you've learned during all these months of working for him."

Slowly, as Jorge spoke, a plan took shape…