Sweeney on the Rocks

by Allen Morris Jones

  “See, now, I figure she’s dead already. Even if I give you the stones, what reason you got to let her live? So what I’m saying is, fuck you. I’m keeping the rocks.”

  “So you have kill your woman. Her girl whore too.”

  “Give me a reason not to.”

  “I’m giving you an address. My fence. You give the stones to him. He calls me, I release your woman.”

  One thing: This guy’s not Russian. The jumbled syntax comes and goes. “Who’s your fence?”

  The voice gives it to him. A name: Abdul Zakayev. And an address: Upper East Side, fifteenth floor, which is a problem. Surveillance cameras, doormen, guest lists. Would be a problem. “Yeah,” Sweeney says, “it’s still fuck you.”

  “They are dead, your woman. Dead in big way. In big pain. Maybe I fuck them first, yes? Up the ass.”

  “Fuck you, and you know what? Tell Tina I said fuck you too. How’s about that? Do that for me yeah? Tell that lying bitch I said fuck you, too.” Sweeney shuts his clamshell with a quaver, a tremor, an internal quail.

  Aggie, oh no, oh Aggie.

  It’s the only play. The only play. Sweeney repeats it until he believes it. As long as Sweeney’s got the rocks, Aggie’s more use to this guy alive than dead. But if the guy ever gets his hands on these stones, there’s no reason to keep her alive. Perforce, the only play.

  On Sweeney’s passenger seat, Tina’s smart phone. Not quite the latest in technology. 4G this and that. E-mail and internet, a quick and easy conduit to the world. A Cadillac to his Pontiac. A flat gray screen opaque, unreadable. Waiting for a friend a family member, a “favorite,” to dial her ten unique numbers.

  Sweeney counts down. One Mississippi, two Mississippi…

  Eight Mississippi, and it rings.

  The theme from Rawhide. Rolling, rolling, rolling.

  And on the flat face of the phone, alive now with lights and digital detritus, another ten digit number. Area code 917. New York.

  Tina and Breetvah. They have a thing.

  Eddie and Breetvah worked together. Tina bumps into Breetvah. They hit it off. Eddie comes home with diamonds, Tina seizes an opportunity and lets Breetvah cut Eddie’s throat. Or does it herself. But then…lack of foresight, maybe they have a problem moving the diamonds.

  But why would Breetvah have a problem moving rocks? He’s Breetvah.

  In any case, Tina remembers Eddie mentioning Sweeney in Rockjaw. Her and her squeeze, they drive across America. On the way, talking it over…how do we make sure Sweeney helps us? We shove him out of his nest. Put him in a place where he’ll have to go for the money.

  And now Breetvah’s cutting Tina out of the loop.

  But if he’s already got a fence in New York, why the hell did they drive to Montana?

  Sweeney has a ballpoint from his shirt pocket. Before the phone dies, he jots the number down on his palm.

  Abdul Zakayev. The name rings a bell. Somewhere, Zakayev, Zakayev, Zakayev….

  He picks up his own phone. Dials a number. “Cal? Hey man. I got a hypothetical, my friend. Biggest hypothetical of my life.”

  Cal Merchant’s posture says ex-military. The heavy, lightning-bolt ring on his right hand says Army Rangers. And despite the tangled threads of his more recent work (bodyguard, surveillance, computer tech) he’s still a Ranger. Routine and regiment, they’re in his blood.

  He needs six hours of sleep a night. Five, he can function, but six lets him hit on all cylinders. Eleven-thirty, lights out. Five-thirty the next morning, he rolls off onto the floor and gives up forty pushups. Hard on his sex life—one of the reasons why he’s still single (one of them)—but you can’t think without blood flowing to the head. Breakfast is oats and brown sugar, raisins. Then his run. And unless it’s a blizzard, he takes it outside. Much the poorer option, he’ll hit the treadmill in the basement.

  He runs up Windmill Road. Headphones and an iPod, funk and soul, ZZ Top and Bon Scott AC/DC. Merchant needs this private hour. Granite cliffs to the north, tumbling stream to the south. After eight years of these early-morning runs, he’s seen some things. Bull elk, black bears in raspberry patches. Three grizzlies, a few dozen coyotes. And last year, wolves. Two quicksilver ribbons slipping through roadside brush, matching his pace. His balls sucked right up into his chest.

  Given how he makes his living, the smart money would put him in Denver, Seattle, close to a decent airport. Better yet, he’d be offshore, a friendly coast with no extradition. The Maldives or Madagascar. But no. He needs this run, man.

  How does he make his living? Short answer: Information tech. What he tells people, anyway, which is usually enough. Closer answer: Information retrieval. Closer answer still: I get you answers. Any answers. Leveraging a messianic skill with his satellite broadband and Rolodex of contacts (it is, in fact, a Rolodex; he wouldn’t trust a digital file), and his informal post-doc, private contractor work in various sandboxes and third world shitholes, dictatorships built on foundations of coke, Russian repeaters, slave-based resource extraction. Merchant’s a rare talent in today’s world.

  Top of his resume? He’s got a ready-made hack into not one but two private surveillance satellites. He also built his own piggyback on Facebook’s facial recognition software and can readily troll through the 1.2 trillion photos on the web, looking for a given alignment of eyes, a certain twist of the lips. He has cell phones for three black-listed FBI agents with grudges and two corrupt, active agents on the dole. More than once he’s Fed-Exed thick envelopes of Euros to bureaucrats in Beijing. Give him a question and a contract, within a few days, he’ll get you some kind of answer. He’s a bureau chief without the bureau, he’s research librarian for government-sanctioned psychotics, he’s Jeeves and James Bond and Encyclopedia Brown. Has five or six steady clients with the scratch to pay his hourly (don’t even ask), but Homeland’s his steady date. They got the budget, and not much oversight, no accountability. They’re liquid, and paranoid.

  If he took these skills to Malé, hung out his shingle for reals? He’d clear a couple million a year, easy.

  Instead, he stays in Montana. Blame it on his morning run and Ted Sweeney. Alias Cosimo Aniello. Alias, Shakespeare. Alias, Mobbed-up-Maniac-Making-Good. Ask anybody: You only get so many decent friendships in a given life. When a good one comes along, you take care of it, water it like a houseplant, feed it like a goldfish. And in any case, tortured penance is always compelling. Merchant wants to see how this all plays out.

  Seven years ago, the second time Merchant ran into Sweeney, he’d invited him up for some trap shooting. A couple conversations over the pool table made him curious, and the anomalies in Sweeney’s story swiveled his ears forward. Sweeney, a guy who clearly didn’t give a shit about the things that drew people to Montana, was drinking hard in the manner of adjusting to a shattered heart. But a guy could drink hard anywhere. Why Rockjaw? The accent was Brooklyn, but the athleticism, the easy way with a pool cue, the flat-gazed confidence…there was more here than city kid gone country.

  Shooting trap, Sweeney dusted 78 out of 100, though it was clear he’d never been around a clay pigeon before. He knew shotguns, but had to be told when to say pull.

  They had a beer. Afterwards, Merchant pulled a perfectly acceptable thumbprint off Sweeney’s glass. And ten minutes after that, after a quick tap dance around inside the IAFIS database, it was just…holy shit. Aniello, Cosimo. See also: Badass trigger. Baaaadass, man.

  Merchant’s been reluctant to parse through his own admiration. I mean, what kind of guy admires a murderer? But at the root of it? Curiosity, plus a search for the company of men, a peer. Gradually, over the last seven years, a few thousand bottles of beer, couple hundred days fly fishing the Yellowstone, curiosity has segued to comfort. They’re an old married couple. And while Sweeney, like all those old school Italians, is an unashamed racist cracker, he’s aware of it, which makes him a new animal entirely. It’s a joke between them. Sweeney’s racist non-racism.

  Long and short o
f it, all these years later? Cal would happily lay down on the tracks for the guy.

  Which is all just a way of providing context for Cal’s behavior, when, eight o’clock in the morning, he gets Sweeney’s phone call.

  ~

  On his deck in running shorts, stretching his calves, cooling off after a run. Eighty-five degrees already. On his hip, his cell phone buzzes.

  Cal’s is the kind of business, you always look at the number. It’s also the kind of business, he rarely picks up.

  This is Sweeney, though. “My brother.”

  The familiar voice, harried, exhausted. Traffic noise in the background. Someplace not Montana. Which is, yeah, interesting. Merchant just saw Sweeney two days ago. Sweeney says, “A theoretical, man.”

  “Go for it.”

  “So I got a theoretical idea that I haven’t been the only one keeping some major-ass secrets. Is that a fair statement?”

  “Fair enough.”

  “I got an idea you’re in with law enforcement, yeah.”

  Cautious: “I know some people.”

  “The kind of people, maybe, that can track a cell phone from its number?”

  Deep hesitation: “Maybe yeah, maybe no. I don’t know.”

  “Can you help me, man?”

  There’s a tone in Sweeney’s voice that Merchant never thought he’d hear. Pleading.

  Merchant takes a long moment, considering implications. “Maybe you could tell me why you need it?”

  Merchant hears him out. Takes about five minutes of Sweeney talking, uninterrupted. Finally, Merchant says, “You got the number?” Merchant repeats it back to him. Then, “You talked to Marilyn yet? Okay, yeah. I might know somebody that knows somebody. Let me find some people, see what they say.”

  “Cal, man. I just…thank you.”

  “Meantime, what else can I do?”

  Sweeney laughs. And it’s one of those nervous half snorts that manages to compress, between its pages, dried flowers of relief, debt, gratitude. Merchant’s considered it before, how hard it must be for Sweeney to keep his secrets to himself. Jesus, it must feel good, letting them finally squirm loose. “You’re saving my life, Cal. Thank you.”

  Out on the concrete, Mr. Crown Vic is up on hands and knees, spitting out ropey strands of blood. Sweeney rolls down the window. “Need a hand?”

  The kid wipes a finger across his lips. Flings blood. “Gone fuck yourself.”

  “That’s the spirit.” Sweeney puts it into gear.

  What’s this thing that Sweeney’s feeling now? Buoyancy? Cal Merchant, man. Guys that’ll stick by you? Worth their weight.

  He parks up close to Jimmy Rug’s Grand Marquis. Knocks a knuckle on the window, leaving a smear. Jimmy rolls down his window. Checks out Sweeney’s bloody knuckles. “Five minutes it’s been, Cosmo,” he says with some admiration. “Five minutes.”

  “I need to talk to Moretti. Can you set that up?”

  Jimmy’s head quavers. He might be thinking. “Yeah, I can set that up.”

  “Maybe soon? Maybe like this afternoon?”

  “What, am I his secretary?”

  “Yeah, well. Anyway. Here’s my number.” Sweeney hands him a corner torn off his rental car agreement, number scribbled along the margin. “And Tina. I need some friends of hers. You got any names?”

  “Nah, man. I never knew that woman. She was some kind of mystery to me.”

  “You got to know somebody.”

  “There was that one guy, what was that guy’s name. Hey Lucho, that guy said he was Russian? Anyway, he was into online porn. Greasy, slimy sort of turd. Kid with the chains?”

  Lucho plays it cool, studies a hangnail. Not his business.

  “Jasha,” Sweeney says.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Jasha.” Rugg gives Sweeney his admiration.

  And seeing that look, it’s like hearing Auld Lang Syne, how it puts a fishhook under Sweeney’s sternum. That painful little tug. “Where’s my man Jasha hanging his hat these days?”

  “Wherever porn guys hang out. I don’t know. Corner of slimeball and jerkoff. But then yeah, he’s also got this little warehouse over in Red Hook. Commerce, and what, Van Brunt maybe? Single story, white brick, Got a couple garage door bays. No windows. Can’t miss it.” Jimmy Rugg briefly assesses Sweeney. White shirt spotted with blood. Slick hair gone tousled. “Careful, though. That guy ain’t all there.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Seriously. The man is whaacko.”

  “I knew him before.”

  “Don’t get killed again, is all I’m saying.”

  ~

  Sweeney has a history with Red Hook. He’s always appreciated the…what’s that word. Gumption, maybe. Old-fashioned word for an old-fashioned place. If Manhattan’s a martini in crystal, Red Hook’s domestic beer in a can. If Park Slope’s a Weimaraner on the couch, Red Hook’s a grizzled mutt, slobbering at chain link. It’s getting gentrified, like everything else New York, but still. When the wind is right you can still smell fish guts from previous centuries, the rotting nets, the pleasant tar-and-oak smell of barrels rolling off docks. In Montana, when Sweeney lifts one of his own t-shirts off the floor and holds it to his nose, he thinks of Red Hook.

  So despite the fact that, at the end of this drive, he’s going to have to brace a guy who no doubt wants to see him swinging from a rope, eviscerated on an autopsy slab, Sweeney’s not necessarily dreading the trip.

  Coming from Bay Ridge, he takes 4th Ave to 9th Street, then across Gowanus, following a blue and yellow Ikea shuttlebus belching exhaust. Broken concrete and crumbling brick, glass on the street and graffiti on the walls. By the time he’s somewhere around Jasha’s warehouse, smelling the hot asphalt and the burnt garbage, it’s like coming home.

  Take that guy there, doing a sidewalk strut to a private beat, one heavy arm over the shoulders of his emaciated girlfriend. The kind of fat man that collects all his flab around his waist. Skinny legs shaded by a shelf of blubber. A ribbed tank top to show off his ink. At a glance: Guy gives a shit what anybody thinks. Screw anybody who don’t think I’m pretty.

  And his girlfriend? A prostitute, sure, but who’s Sweeney to judge. Mid-twenties by her legs and ass. Pleather skirt and heels. Fishnets and Juice Newton hair. Sweeney’s already past, and can’t help glancing back. By her face? Late forties. The cheeks already deep as divots. Heroin, maybe, or meth.

  Three or four paces behind them (and break Sweeney’s heart a little) the prostitute’s daughter, ten or twelve years old, hopscotching around with a Justin Bieber backpack, bowing to it like a dance partner, bringing it close to her lips, swinging it away again.

  Okay, Sweeney. Task at hand. Rugg said the warehouse was Van Brunt and…

  Sweeney eases his foot off the pedal. The fat man.

  Gold chain, and the letter J coated in glass bling. A pencil-line sketch of a beard around the bottom of his jaw. Hair buzzed down close.

  Take away fifty pounds… sonofabitch looks like… Yeah. That’s him. Force-feed a starving weasel nothing but cheeseburgers and beer for ten years? You could come up with a creature not unlike this. Thin and lethal Jasha gone fat.

  Sweeney coasts to the end of the block, takes a right and parks. Twists his rearview to watch Jasha pull out a ring of keys, step up to the last warehouse on the corner. One of three identical buildings set in a row. Single story, yeah, but otherwise Rugg’s description was bunko. It’s got piss yellow bricks, with one garage bay, not two. And a pair of small barred windows on either side of the door.

  Catching Jasha out on the street like this? Maybe Sweeney’s luck’s starting to change.

  His phone rings. A New York cell number. Tina with her burner. He lets it go to voicemail. A second later, Tina’s phone rings from the same number.

  Okay, Sweeney. Where were we?

  You got to get into the warehouse. Bars on the windows. Padlocked garage bay. A heavy metal door protected by a second, swinging set of jailhouse bars.

  Thi
nk, man.

  Another half block up the corner, there’s one of those small, neighborhood bistros. The kind of joint that sells umbrellas and Funyuns, sliced meat from a cold case and organic milk. Maybe baseball caps. Maybe, if he’s lucky, hoodies.

  Just under the Continental Divide, the city of Butte, Montana, is a ghost town of abandoned mine shafts and sagging tenements, beneficiary of the kind of fierce, defensive pride that arises mostly from fear. On the ridge immediately above town, a statue of Mary smiles benignly down over an open pit copper mine, a superfund site gradually filling with rainbow-skinned groundwater the acidity of vinegar.

  A century ago, Butte was a melting pot of Irishmen and Slavs, Poles and Russians. Any given day, you’d see women and children outside in the sun—hanging laundry, cooking cabbage, playing stickball in alleys—while their men worked in funereal darkness below, swinging picks, pushing carts, coughing under carbide headlamps hissing hot. These days, though, the ten thousand miles of underground tunnels are filled with black water and the only steady work goes to bartenders and cops.

  Cal Merchant finds Johnny Counts Enemies asleep on the sidewalk outside the M&M bar. Budweiser forty in a brown bag by his left hand, cheek propped up on his right fist. Long black braids pooled around his head and his t-shirt hiked up to show a slice of hairless stomach. Open mouthed, snoring lightly. Another drunk Indian, immediately dismissed by every Butte eye passing over him.

  Merchant unfolds a state road map. Squats and punches a forefinger into Counts Enemies’s chest. “Hey buddy, hey pal.”

  Counts Enemies smacks his lips. Opens one skeptical eye. Closes it again. “Piss off.”

  Merchant lowers his voice. “How do you get to the alley behind the bar, I’m wondering?”

  “Piss off, I said.”

  “Ten spot in it for you.”

  “Sleeping, here.” Counts Enemies stretches his heels out on the sidewalk, rolls over to face the wall, showing Merchant his back.

  Merchant folds up his road map and takes it back to his pickup. Drives around behind the M&M. Sits and listens to AM country radio, checks e-mail on his phone.