Heaven's a Lie

by Wallace Stroby

  Travis pulls on a pair of leather gloves. He should be feeling the rush, getting ready. Instead he’s tired. Pissed that he’s back dealing with people like these.

  “What’s the backyard like?”

  “Full of junk and trash. You can hear the rats.”

  A car comes down the street from the other direction, stops outside the house. The passenger gets out, a skinny black man in an army coat.

  “See?” Truman says. “Like I told you. Busy all night.”

  The man knocks at the side door. The light goes on, and he talks to someone through the single pane of glass. The door opens, and he goes in.

  “When did they get the package?” Travis says.

  “This afternoon. They put the word out, so everyone knows it’s there.”

  “What do they do with the cash?”

  “I didn’t stay to see. I just wanted to cop and get out fast.”

  Travis opens the center console, takes out the glassine bag with the single capsule inside, white powder in a clear gelcap. “Try a white man’s drug for a change. Toss that other shit.”

  He hands Truman the bag. “It’s been stepped on, but it started pure, so it’s hotter than what you’re used to. Cut it a couple more times and you’re good for days. Hit it as is, and it’ll kill you quick.”

  The skinny man comes out the side door again, gets back in the car. It U-turns, drives off. The light goes out.

  “If you don’t need me for anything else, I’m gonna book,” Truman says.

  “Go on.”

  When he doesn’t move, Travis says, “What?”

  “None of this is gonna come back on me, is it?”

  “You tell anyone you were meeting me?”

  “No.”

  “Then keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine.”

  Travis watches him in the side mirror as he limps away, trying to move fast, put distance between himself and whatever’s going to happen. Just wants to get home and get high, Travis thinks. All he’s been looking forward to. He’ll ignore the warning, or forget it, and be dead by dawn.

  He takes the Ruger from his jacket pocket, checks there’s a round in the chamber.

  Stop putting it off, he thinks. Do what you came for.

  The dome light is off, so the cab stays dark when he gets out. The Ruger goes into his belt at the small of his back, the metal cold against his skin.

  He knocks at the side door, waits, then knocks again, louder. The light goes on. A face at the glass. Black kid, late teens, early twenties. “What you want?”

  “Here to see Jimmy. You T.C.?”

  “Who are you?”

  “Friend of Truman’s.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  Travis takes out a hundred-dollar bill, presses it to the glass. “Don’t hang me up, brother. I’m hurting.”

  “Put that shit away.”

  Travis pockets the bill, flexes his right hand at his side to loosen it.

  “What you looking for?” T.C. says.

  “Same thing everybody is. I got the word.”

  T.C. works locks. The door opens a few inches. “How you know Truman?”

  “From around the way. We go back.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Benjamin. Don’t leave me standing out here, bro. Make up your mind.”

  T.C. opens the door wider. Travis sees the butt of the gun in his belt. T.C. looks past Travis to the street. “Where’s your car?”

  “Down the block. I didn’t think it was smart, pull up out front.”

  “Come inside. Wait right here. I mean right the fuck here.”

  He closes and locks the door behind him. “How much you want?”

  “Much as that hundred will buy me.”

  On the right is a kitchen, lit by a shadeless table lamp on the floor. Down the hallway to the left is the doorway to the living room. Stairs to the right.

  “This way,” T.C. says.

  When he turns, Travis takes out the Ruger, fires into the back of the head. Blood hits the wall. Travis steps over him as he falls, moves quickly into the living room. Jimmy Mac is coming up from the couch, fumbling with a chrome-plated automatic. Travis points the Ruger at him. “Set it down, Jimmy.”

  He’s wearing black silk pants, a red shirt open to show gold chains against dark skin. His cornrows end in long beaded braids. He’s heavier than the last time Travis saw him, his face rounder.

  “Travis, what the fuck, man?”

  “Put it on the floor and step away.”

  The woman on the couch has purple lipstick and eye shadow, long hair dyed black. There’s a plastic bong on the low table in front of her, an open baggie of pot and a cheap lighter. The room smells of mildew and burning weed.

  Jimmy holds up the .45 to show his finger’s off the trigger. The gun has silver grips, an inlaid grinning skull on each side. He sets it on the hardwood floor. Travis kicks it across the room. “Sloppy setup, Jimmy. You used to know better.”

  “Who are you?” the woman says. “Do I know you?” Her eyes are bloodshot. She’s too stoned to be scared.

  Jimmy raises his hands. “Just chill, T. Let’s talk this out.”

  The woman starts to stand, totters. “Who are you?” she says again.

  “Sit down,” Travis says.

  “Sharon…,” Jimmy says. But she’s up, has her balance now, coming toward him. Travis switches the Ruger to his other hand, steps in and hits her in the cheekbone with his right fist, putting his shoulder into it. The impact twists her around. She’s unconscious when she hits the floor.

  “Shit, man,” Jimmy says. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Travis takes zip ties from his jacket pocket, tosses them on the couch. “Do her hands in back. Feet, too. I don’t want her coming at me again.”

  Jimmy takes the zip ties, kneels heavily beside her. He binds her wrists and ankles, then stands slowly, out of breath.

  “Rock and green,” Travis says. “All you got.”

  “Whatever you want, man. Just be cool.”

  “I am. Kitchen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go.”

  Jimmy stops when he sees T.C., the pool of blood beneath his head. “That was cold.”

  “Go.”

  A rat runs along the kitchen baseboard, vanishes behind a toppled refrigerator. The single window is boarded over. As they move by the lamp, their shadows pass on the wall.

  “Up there,” Jimmy says.

  “Get it.”

  Jimmy opens a cabinet, takes down a child’s pale blue backpack.

  “On the counter,” Travis says.

  Jimmy unzips it, dumps out the contents, tightly wound cylinders of money, each bound with a thick rubber band. Some of them show tens and fives. Dirty money. Street money.

  “How much?” Travis says.

  “Ten, last time we counted.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Rock doesn’t move way it used to. People into other things.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Underneath.”

  Travis gestures with the Ruger. Jimmy bends, takes out a small black trash bag from a cabinet beneath the sink. It’s knotted at the top. He sets it on the counter, unties it and pulls the neck open so Travis can see the yellow-capped vials inside.

  “All we got,” Jimmy says.

  Travis takes a folded nylon laundry bag from his back pocket, tosses it to him. “Put everything in there.”

  Jimmy fills the laundry bag with the vials, then the money, pulls the drawstring tight.

  “Living room,” Travis says. There might be more cash in the house, more rock. But he just wants to be gone from here, out of the smell, out of the memories.

  On the floor, the woman moans. Her eyes are half closed, spittle on her lips.

  “Why you do me like this?” Jimmy says. “We used to be tight.”

  Travis takes the bag from him. “I’m finished here, but I need you to get down there with her so I can do your h
ands too.”

  “No call for that. You walk out of here, I forget this ever happened, write this shit off. I’m just a middleman.”

  “I’m gonna need you to do it anyway. You’ll work your way loose before long. Or someone will find you.”

  Jimmy kneels beside the woman, then lies down, crosses his wrists behind him. “For real, man. I won’t say shit. Far as I’m concerned, I never even saw you.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Like I said, I’m just a—”

  “Middleman,” Travis says, and fires twice.

  * * *

  An hour later, he’s parked at a McDonald’s off the highway a half hour east of Camden. The Ruger is pushed down between the seat and console.

  A dark Navigator pulls in, does a circuit of the lot, then parks two spots away. Darnell Jackson gets out on the passenger side, walks over to the truck, gets in.

  “Haven’t heard from you in a minute,” he says. “Surprised to get your call, middle of the night.”

  “Something came my way.” Travis reaches behind the passenger seat, pulls out the old canvas knapsack he put the vials in, sets it at Darnell’s feet.

  “What’s this?” Darnell says.

  “Look and see.”

  Darnell opens the knapsack. “How much you got here?”

  “Half a key, I’m guessing,” Travis says. “Vialed and capped. Ready to move.”

  “Guessing?”

  “Make an offer.”

  “You test it?”

  “Wasn’t time. But it’s from a good source.”

  Darnell takes out a vial, holds it at an angle to catch the light from the pole lamp. “Looks rough.”

  “It’s rock. It always looks rough.”

  He examines two more vials in the light. “Why you messing with this street shit?”

  “You want it or not?”

  Darnell puts the vials back in the bag. “Fifteen.”

  “Worth more than that. You know it.”

  “I’m betting you don’t know your own self what you got here. And I’m wondering where it came from.”

  “Came from me. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Might be it belonged to someone holds a grudge about how you acquired it.”

  “Would you care?”

  “Depend who it was. What I do care about is quality control.”

  “You take it, test it. You’re not happy, we’ll renegotiate. We’re all businessmen.”

  Darnell zips up the bag, sets it on the floor. “Go twenty. On account of our history.”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “That’s high. Let me talk to my boy.”

  He walks back to the Navigator. Travis waits, his hand near the Ruger.

  Darnell comes back with a white paper bag under his arm, the top rolled tight. He gets in, shuts the door. “Told him what you had. He say twenty tops.”

  “Let’s see.”

  Darnell hands him the bag. Travis opens it, looks at the strapped bills inside, two packs of hundreds.

  “Count it,” Darnell says.

  “No need.”

  Darnell hefts the knapsack. “When you gonna have some more of that good stuff, the pure?”

  “Soon. Getting it together. I’ll let you know.”

  “I heard you had some problems up in the Bricks, with the Ds. A dispute over product.”

  “You heard wrong.”

  “True or not, that’s the word going around. Heard some people got dropped, too.”

  “Nothing to do with me.”

  “Best watch your back anyway,” Darnell says. “And let me know on that other thing.”

  He goes back to the Navigator. Travis looks at the money again. Twenty K, to add to the ten from Jimmy Mac. Good for two hours’ work. But not enough.

  FOURTEEN

  Noah sets a folded piece of paper down on the picnic table. “Not a word to anybody where you got this from.”

  They’re sitting in bright sunlight on the concrete patio, the day warm enough that she doesn’t need a jacket. He’s off duty, in street clothes.

  She opens the paper. On it is written Travis Clay, with an address in Keansburg and a date of birth that makes him thirty-eight.

  “He lied,” she says.

  “About what?”

  “He told me he was commuting all the way from Paterson, not Keansburg. That’s only twenty minutes away. Why pay for a motel?”

  “That’s who the truck’s registered to,” he says. “Not necessarily the man you met.”

  “It’s him. He came around again yesterday. Told me his name.”

  “‘Came around’? Like stalking you?”

  “I don’t know if I’d call it that.”

  “I ran that name. Your instincts were right. He’s got a sheet, pulled some time.”

  “For what?”

  “Agg assault. Robbed a dealer, shot him in the leg. Did five years in Rahway. That kind of thing’s never a one-off, though. I’m sure he did it before, more than once, just didn’t get caught. He’s a bad guy. How many times has he come by?”

  “Yesterday was the second.”

  “And he doesn’t ask for a room?”

  “He says he might, that he’s still looking. Said the same the first time.”

  “He told you that face-to-face?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s not exactly stalker behavior, being that up-front about it. Usually they’re just watchers at first. He ask you out?”

  “He did.”

  “That might be your motivation right there.”

  She folds the paper, puts it away. “He knew my name. Not sure how. Brianna might have told him, or Baxter.”

  “You want, I’ll go up to Keansburg, see what his deal is.”

  “That’s what I don’t want you to do.”

  “If he’s got you worried…”

  “Just something about him. And he wanted to pay cash, in advance.”

  “Not unusual these days. Lot of people ditching their credit cards. Identity theft, data harvesting, all that. Maybe I’ll go see him anyway. Rattle his cage a little.”

  “Don’t do that.”

  “I can convince him to pick another motel, at least. Or take a job in a different county.”

  “I don’t think we’re at that point. Chances are he won’t be back. I’m just a little jumpy these days.”

  “You spend too much time alone,” he says. “That’s part of the problem.”

  “You could be right.”

  “Troy wouldn’t want that.”

  She looks at him, unsure how to respond.

  He gets up from the table. “This guy shows up again, call me.”

  “I will. You’re a good friend, Noah.”

  The disappointment on his face fades to a sad smile.

  “That’s me,” he says.

  * * *

  She’s restless all day, tries to stay busy. Cara and Brianna are out, so she gets the master key card from the hook in the supply room, lets herself into their unit. She vacuums and dusts, makes the twin beds and leaves fresh towels. At the other rooms, she props open doors to let in fresh air.

  With dusk, the temperature drops, the day’s warmth only a tease. Driving home, she feels the pull of the Victory, realizes she wants a drink to take the edge off. She wonders if Doreen’s working. A shot of Cuervo and a beer might calm her, help her sleep.

  Careful with that. If there was ever a time in your life you needed your head on straight, this is it.

  The bar’s crowded and close, the jukebox loud. Nick, the relief bartender, gives her a wave. She takes the last open stool, can feel men’s eyes on her. None of the faces are familiar. She feels out of place, alone. A mistake to come here.

  She downs the shot, only finishes half the pint. She leaves a twenty on the bar.

  It’s a relief to be outside in the cold air again, away from the heat and noise. She’s buzzed now, sleepy.

  At the trailer, she parks in the carport, steps out into the light.
She drops her keys on the steps, feels dizzy as she bends to pick them up. She lets herself in, locks the door behind her. When she turns, Travis Clay is sitting on her couch, half lit by the single lamp.

  “I was starting to get worried,” he says. “I thought you weren’t coming home.”

  FIFTEEN

  She freezes, seeing him there in the dimness. Conscious of the locked door behind her. It would take too long to open. He’d be on her before she could get out.

  He tosses an envelope on the coffee table, flap undone. The pack of hundreds slides out.

  “Sugar jar,” he says. “Not that original. All I found, though, so if there’s more hidden around here, you did a better job of it.”

  She backs up, bumps the door. Breathe.

  “What are you doing here?” Aware how foolish it sounds.

  “Go ahead and sit. Let me get a better look at you.”

  With his foot, he pushes the single chair toward her. She moves to it slowly, the table between them. He’s wearing gloves.

  “Didn’t know how long I’d have to wait,” he says. “Or if you’d come home alone.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “Nice trailer, but your storm windows are for shit.” He cocks his head toward the open bedroom door. “Took me four minutes, tops. Haven’t done that in a while, but some things you don’t forget. Not very dignified, though, having to crawl through someone’s window.”

  He picks up the photo from the end table. “Who’s this? Boyfriend?”

  “My husband.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s dead.”

  He puts the photo back. “How?”

  “Cancer.”

  “How old was he?”

  “He was thirty-five.”

  “Tough break,” he says. “But life’s full of them, isn’t it? I’ve seen a lot of good men die in bad ways they didn’t deserve.”

  He brushes sugar crystals from the envelope, takes out the cash. “There was ten grand in this pack. There’s eight now. You’ve been spending my money.”

  Outside, the carport light clicks off. Everything around her is dark except his face. She can’t look away.

  “It’s like a movie, isn’t it?” he says. “Solid citizen gets a wild hair, ends up doing something they shouldn’t, thinks they can get away with it. Tommy tell you about the money, or did you find it yourself?”