For Jazz, the idea of having money in the bank meant power. Even if she didn't do anything particular with it, she knew she could. Money gave her options. She had never had money in the bank, any money that came into her hands went right out for whatever she wanted at the moment, in a vain attempt to obscure the reality of her life. In middle school and high school, that meant drugs.
As a child, Jazz had grown up in near-poverty conditions in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. Her father, Geza Rakoczi, the only son of a Hungarian freedom fighter who'd immigrated to the USA in 1957, had sired her at age fifteen. Her mother, Mariana, was the same age and from a large Puerto Rican family. For religious reasons, the youths were forced by their respective families to drop out of school and marry. Jasmine was born in 1972.
Life for Jasmine was a struggle from the very beginning. Both parents shunned the Church, which they blamed for their plight.
Both became alcoholics as well as drug abusers, and fought almost continually when they were sober enough. Her father worked intermittently at various manual occupations, disappeared on occasion for weeks at a time, and spent time in jail for various felonies and misdemeanors, including domestic violence. Her mother worked at a series of odd jobs but was constantly fired for absenteeism or poor performance secondary to drunkenness. Ultimately, she became remarkably obese, which limited what she could do.
Jasmine's life outside the home was no better than within. The neighborhood and the schools were caught in a web of gang-related violence and drugs that reached down into the grammar school. Even kindergarten teachers spent more time dealing with behavior problems than teaching.
Forced into a precarious and dangerous world where the only consistency was constant change, Jasmine learned to cope by trial and error. Every time she came home from school she had no idea what to expect. A sibling boy born when she was eight and whom she thought would be her soul mate died of SIDS at age four months. It was the last time she cried.
As Jazz gazed at her nearly forty-thousand-dollar offshore account balance, she remembered the only other time she had thought she had a lot of money. It was the year after baby Janos died, and it had snowed enough to actually accumulate. With an old coal shovel Jazz had found in the basement of their tenement, she'd walked around the neighborhood and shoveled walks. By five o'clock, she had amassed a fortune: thirteen dollars.
Feeling proud, she'd returned home with the roll of singles clutched in her hand. In retrospect, she should have known better, but at the time, she couldn't help but flaunt her newly acquired wealth as evidence of her worth. The result was predictable, as Jazz now knew. Geza had snatched the money away, saying it was about time she contributed to the family larder. Actually, he used the money to buy cigarettes.
A slight smile played across Jazz's face as she remembered her revenge. The only thing her father loved at the time was a yappy mutt the size of a rat, with long hair, which someone had given him where he was temporarily employed at the time. While Geza was drinking beer and watching the fights on TV, she'd taken the dog into the bathroom where the window was always open to help with the smell from the broken toilet. She could remember as if it were yesterday the expression on the dog's face as she held it out the window by the scruff of its neck while it tried furiously to regain the sill. When she let go, it let out a little yelp before plunging four stories down to the concrete below.
Later, Geza had rudely awakened her to demand if she knew anything about the dog's demise. Jazz had denied it vehemently, but she still got knocked around, as did Mariana, who more truthfully denied knowing how the dog fell from the bathroom window. But Jazz had felt the beating was worth it, even though at the time she was terrified. Of course, she was always terrified when her father hit her, which was entirely too often until Jazz got big enough to hit back.
Jazz closed her offshore account window and checked the time. It was too early to go to work, but there was not enough time to go to the gym. As far as starting another session with Call of Duty, she was too antsy to sit still. Instead, she decided to head down to the local Korean twenty-four-hour sundry store to get a few basics. She was out of milk, and she knew she'd want some the following morning when she got back from the hospital.
Pulling on her coat, her hand instinctively went into her right pocket to fondle the Glock. She pulled it out with ease, despite its lengthy suppressor, and aimed at herself in the small mirror she had on the wall next to the door. The hole in the end of the barrel looked like a pupil of a one-eyed maniac. Jazz chuckled as she lowered the gun and compulsively checked the clip. It was full, as it always was. She rammed it home with a reassuring click. Then she got her canvas bag that she used for shopping and slung it over her shoulder.
Outside, it was fairly mild. March was like that in New York. One day, it could feel like spring, but the next could be like the depths of winter. Jazz walked with her hands thrust into her pockets, clutching the Glock on one side and her Blackberry on the other. Holding on to her possessions gave her a sense of comfort.
Since it was just after eight-thirty in the evening, there was a fair number of pedestrians on the sidewalk as well as vehicular traffic on the side street as Jazz headed down toward Columbus Avenue. Passing her beloved Hummer, she stopped for a moment to admire its shimmering surface. She'd used the balmy weather that afternoon as an excuse to wash it. Continuing on, she marveled, as she often did, how lucky she had been to run into Mr. Bob.
Columbus Avenue was even busier, with tons of people and lots of buses, taxis, and cars vying for space. The sounds of the diesel engines, the beeping horns, and the screeching tires could have been overwhelming if Jazz had stopped to listen, but she was accustomed to the general din. The canopy of sky seen between the buildings was a dull gray from the reflected city lights. Only a few of the brightest stars were visible.
The store was open to the street with shelving filled with fruits, vegetables, cut flowers, and a wide assortment of other products. Like the avenue itself, the interior was crowded with a line of customers waiting at the only cash register. Jazz walked around and made her selections, which included bread, eggs, a few PowerBars, and bottled water in addition to the milk. Once she had what she wanted, and with a touch of exhilarating tenseness, she wandered out onto the sidewalk and pretended to examine the fruit. When she thought it was the most opportune time, with the owner engrossed at the register and his wife in the back getting something, Jazz merely turned and started for home. When she was far enough away to know that she wasn't going to be accosted and forced to come up with some lame excuse for walking away, she laughed to herself what fools the proprietors were. With multiple entrances into the store, it was so easy to leave without paying. She wondered why anyone bothered. As for herself, she couldn't remember the last time she had.
Back in her apartment, Jazz put away her groceries in the refrigerator and checked the time. It was still too early to go to work. It was at that moment that she caught sight of her computer screen. There, against her screen's wallpaper, was that same pesky blinking window announcing that she had e-mail.
Fearing that the Stephen Lewiss mission may have been canceled, even though such a situation had never happened in the past, Jazz quickly sat down and clicked on the window. Her concern ratcheted up a notch when she saw that it was a second message from Mr. Bob. With some trepidation, she opened the e-mail. To her astonishment and delight, it was a second name: Rowena Sobczyk.