Hell of a Town

Saturday Morning,9 December 1978

MEATPACKING DISTRICT., MANHATTAN

Kane put the fiver on the edge of the table and leaned back in the booth. His Army-issue green canvas map case was to his left, on the table, against the wall, next to the ash tray, sugar container, and napkin dispenser.

Before coming to the diner, a few blocks away in his basement apartment on Jane Street in Greenwich Village, he'd indulged in a two-minute lukewarm, but felt hot he was so cold, shower. A 'Navy shower' as his father had enforced while he was growing up. Enough to get the cold out of his feet and toes. He'd hung the soaked sweat pants and shirt on hangars to drip dry in the same cubicle.

Then he'd changed into his usual attire of jungle fatigue pants dyed black, a grey t-shirt, blue denim shirt and a well-worn brown leather jacket. He wore jungle boots, black leather and green canvas. A forty-five-caliber pistol in an open top leather holster was on his left hip, covered by the open shirt and jacket. A Fairbairn commando knife was secreted in the middle of his back. His legs still tingled from the long run from Astoria Park to the Brooklyn Bridge, skipping the gym workout, and across lower Manhattan to the apartment.

He'd made one phone call before heading out. Then in the gathering gray light of an overcast day, he'd walked the two blocks to Vic's Diner on the southeast corner of the intersection of Gansevoort and Washington on the lower west side of Manhattan..

He was seated in the corner booth across from the swinging door to the kitchen and through there an exterior kitchen door. To the rear were the bathrooms, with no exit or windows, but there was a pull-down trap in the hallway ceiling that led to the roof. With his back to the wall, Kane faced the rest of the diner with good fields of fire, and two escapes routes. The booths were red with white stripes, still holding a sheen of newness. The tables and black and white checked tile floor were spotless. The crowd was moderate. There were fewer meat truck drivers in here after finishing their shift delivering to the outer boroughs than there had been a year ago. A sign of the times as the meatpacking district was slowly losing the authenticity of the name. There were a scattering of hookers ending their night shift. That number seemed the same. Here and there were a few others preparing to face their jobs in the southwest corner of Manhattan Island. There were no Wall Streeters, as this would be out of their way and comfort level.

The waitress put a cup of coffee and a glass of water with two ice cubes in front of him, without a word. Kane nodded his appreciation and she nodded back, moving off with the pot. She was in her late thirties and walked with a hitch in her left leg as if it were a fraction of a second behind the rest of her body. Her nametag read ALMA. She had a lopsided grin that was and wasn't a grin, etched on her broad face.

Kane wrapped his hands around the mug, savoring the heat, because the short shower hadn't completely dismissed the cold. The jukebox, installed over his objections a year ago, around the same time as the booth covers, was thankfully silent. The Washington Street door opened and the Kid came in, bearing the New York Times. He was late teens, maybe breaking twenty. The Kid wore nice jeans, work boots that were broken in but not scuffed, and a black Navy Pea Coat buttoned tight around his skinny frame. He tossed the paper onto Kane's table and scooped the bill, disappearing it into his pocket, then rubbing his hands together. "Morning."

"Going to be a sunny day?" Kane asked.

The Kid shook his head, not his usual ebullient self. "Nah. Cloudy and crappy." He had long brown hair poking out from under the watch cap. His face was etched from acne badly cleared up. He turned around and left without another word, done after a night of doing what he did on the streets and lofts and hotel rooms of Tribeca and the Village.