I’m not sure, but I reply, “I would, yes.”
“We could sell this stuff to, like, a TV station.”
“A TV station?”
“You know, like one of those magazine shows or cable news shows. 60 Minutes or 48 Hours. It could be a huge story. But I’m thinking Geraldo too.”
“Geraldo?”
“Geraldo Rivera? You know who he is?”
I let him know that I do.
Steve looks wistful. “I always liked Geraldo. Tells it like it is. And I think he got a bum rap on that whole Al Capone vault thing, do you remember that?”
I let him know that I do.
“So I’m picturing a bidding war for this information, or maybe, I don’t know, like I said, I really admire Geraldo, so maybe we just make the deal with him. I bet I could meet him too. Geraldo seems like a regular guy. Tells it like it is.”
“And you two have the mustache in common,” I say, because I can’t help myself.
“Right?” He’s animated now. “See? And maybe, who knows, but maybe I can even get my picture taken with Geraldo or something. I mean, look what I’m bringing him. Geraldo, he’s a regular guy. He’d be grateful. And talk about redemption. If he’s the one who finds Ry Strauss, I mean, wow, people forget that stupid Capone vault was empty, am I right?”
I look at Fred. Fred shrugs.
“But Randy, he slaps me in the head. Not hard. Gentle like. Randy and me, we’re close. It’s why you have to keep his name out of it. Anyway, Randy says we can’t sell it to a TV show because it’ll be a huge story and draw a lot of attention. The cops will be all over the place, and they’ll pressure the TV network or whatever and then it’ll be over for us. I argue that Geraldo would never sell us out. He wouldn’t. He’s not the type. But Randy, he says that even if he doesn’t sell us out, there’ll be so much heat on us, something will crack. I’m disappointed—I mean, I really figured Geraldo could use this—so I start defending Geraldo, but then Randy says it’s too dangerous for another reason.”
“That reason being?”
“Look, it’s pretty well known in certain circles that the Staunch family has been after this Ry Strauss for a long time. That’s what Randy tells me. The whole group of them. Rumor is, they found one of the guys years back and the old man, well, Nero skinned him alive. Literally. Like, it took weeks for the guy to die. Scary stuff. That’s why. That’s why you can’t talk, okay?”
Steve is stroking the mustache like a long-lost lover.
“Okay,” I say. “I won’t talk.”
“Now my crew, we don’t work for the Staunches. We steer clear, you know what I’m saying? We don’t want no trouble. But Randy, he sees a chance to do them a favor and maybe make a few dollars too.”
“So Randy sold it to the Staunches?”
“That was the plan, yeah.”
“The plan?”
“I mean, I assume it all went okay, but I got picked up a month ago. It’s not like I’m going to ask Randy about it.”
CHAPTER 29
The Staunch Craft Brewery was packed with—I shouldn’t stereotype—annoying hipsters. Located in a tony warehouse in Williamsburg, the epicenter of the hipster, the bar drew a crowd in their twenties, maybe early thirties, who were trying so hard not to appear mainstream that they simply redefined the mainstream. The men had hipster glasses (you know what they are); asymmetrical facial hair; flimsy scarfs draped loosely around their necks; suspenders on strategically ripped jeans; retro concert tees that struggled to be ironic; man buns or a potpourri of awful hats, such as the cable-knit slouchy beanie, the Newsie flat cap, and of course, the carefully tilted fedora (unwritten hipster rule: Only one guy per table can wear the fedora at a time); and of course, boots that could be high or low or any hue but somehow you’d still label them hipster boots. The female of the species offered up a wider range—secondhand vintage pickups, flannels, cardigans, unmatching layers, acid wash, fishnets—the rule being nothing mainstream, which again makes them just mainstream with a desperation stench.
I’m being too harsh.
The many, many beers on tap—IPAs, stout, lager, pilsner, porter, autumnal, winter, summer (beers now have seasons), orange, pumpkin, watermelon, chocolate (I almost looked for a Cap’n Crunch artisanal)—are being served in mason jars rather than glasses or mugs. One entrance has a sign saying BREWERY TOUR. The other reads TASTING ROOM, the crowd of which had spilled outside to the sticky picnic tables. As I pass through them, I hear a swirl of the following terminology: bro, bae, edible, gluten, FOMO, kale, sesh, self-care, fleek, screenplay, kombucha, I can’t even, the struggle is real.
Clarification: I do not literally hear all those terms, but I think I do.
In the old days, gangsters hung out in bars or restaurants or strip joints. Times, they do a-change. As I duck inside, a pretty young barmaid with pigtails in cutoff shorts approaches me.
“Oh man, you have to be Win,” she says. “Follow me.”
The floors are concrete, the lighting low. In the right-hand corner, someone spins vinyl records. Eco-friendly yoga mats that appear to be as comfortable as tweed undergarments are laid out to the left; a flexible man with a beard the approximate dimensions of a lobster bib leads the mildly inebriated through a sun salutation. The barmaid takes me down a corridor lined with beer kegs and for-sale merchandise until we reach a big metal door. The barmaid knocks and says to me, “Stay here.”
She saunters away before I can offer a tip. The door opens. It is, I think, the big man who accompanied Leo Staunch to my hospital room, but it is hard to say. I can only tell you that he is north of six six with wide shoulders and a hairline so thick and low that it seems to start at his eyebrows. He, too, sports the prerequisite facial hair and a fedora that looks too small on his head, like one of those baseball-shape-headed mascots with a tiny cap.
“Come in,” he says.
I do. He closes the door behind me. There are four other hipsters in the room, all offering up tough hipster glares behind hipster glasses.
“I’ll need your weapons,” says the big hipster who opened the door.
“I left them in the car.”
“All of them?”
“All of them.”
“How about that razor you got tucked up your sleeve?”
Big Hipster grins at me. I grin back.
“All of them,” I repeat.
The big hipster asks for my phone. I make sure the passcode is locked and hand it over. He then nods toward another hipster. This second hipster produces a handheld metal detector and starts to run it over my body until a voice says, “Let it go. If he does something stupid, all of you shoot him, okay?”
I recognize Leo Staunch from his hospital visit. He waves for me to join him, and I enter an office that if I read up more about the subjects, I would probably describe as “Zen” or “feng shui.” It’s white with orbs and a huge window with a view of a fountain in a courtyard. There are also, I note, handicap railings and a wheelchair ramp.
When the door closes, I can no longer hear the sounds from the brewery. It is as though we’ve entered another realm. He asks me to sit. I do. He goes around a see-through Plexiglas desk and takes the chair across from me. His chair is a few inches higher than mine, and I want to roll my eyes at the weak attempt at intimidation, except for one thing: