Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  Steve Estep, the club’s pro, bumped into J.T. in the parking lot, and the two exchanged banalities for a couple of minutes before J.T. climbed into his Mercedes. As he dropped the car into gear and began backing out of the parking space, one of his cell phones reserved for Al rang. He pulled the car back into the space and picked up the phone.

  “Hey, Al. What’s up?”

  “What?”

  It wasn’t Al. What the fuck was going on?

  “This ain’t Al, it’s Frankie. Who’s this?”

  J.T. looked into the rearview mirror and saw Frankie plodding through the door and into the parking lot and holding a tiny black cell phone against his ear with his fat, fleshy hand.

  J.T. didn’t even breathe. He clicked off the phone. What had that fucking idiot done now? J.T. could no longer hear Frankie, but he could see him talking into the phone, looking at it as if that would somehow make it work. J.T. slipped the SIM card from the phone and bent it back and forth like an expired credit card. Frankie had nearly reached the still-running Navigator. J.T. backed the Mercedes out of the parking lot and headed up Gilman Springs Road.

  When he got to the 60, the Pomona Freeway, he lowered his window and flicked the mangled SIM card onto the road. He drove for a few minutes, vacillating between pissed off and terrified. Even after the beer and lunch, he felt wired, like he’d just had a half-dozen espressos. He pulled off the 60 and into the big outdoor mall in Moreno Valley. He drove to Staples and bought a couple more phones, paying cash. Then he went back to the car and called Al. The banging sounds of the fumbled phone on the other end confirmed J.T.’s hunch that Al was at his desk.

  “Hello?”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  Al sputtered on the other end. “What? What? What are you talking about?”

  “I just got a call on one of the dedicated phones. There’s one person in the entire world who has that number, Al. You. What I want to know is, why did that fat fucking Frankie Fresh call me on that number?”

  “What?”

  “You say that a lot, you know it?”

  “Wait a minute. Frankie called you on one of those phones? Are you sure?”

  “I was at the club. My phone rang. He was on the other end. I fucking saw him while he was talking.”

  “I gotta go. I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  Al felt like pliers were gripping his aorta. He stuffed the phone in his pocket and stalked out to the GSAC parking lot and into his Camry, where he called J.T.

  “J.T.?”

  “What’s the deal, Al?”

  “Did you get my note?”

  “What note?”

  “The note I left in your locker.”

  A Nissan 4x4 pulled up behind Al. Al’s heart jumped, but the pickup backed into an empty spot in the next row of cars.

  “There was no note in my locker. I was just there fifteen minutes ago.”

  “I put a note in there. Van Slaters, Moreno Valley.”

  “There was no note.”

  “I wrote it on the back of the number you gave me.”

  “You’re not hearing me. There was no note. Why is Frankie Fresh calling me?”

  The truck door slammed. The driver locked the door with the key fob and Al jumped again at the beeping sound.

  “Al…what number locker did you put the note in?”

  “Fifty, like you said.”

  J.T. didn’t know whether to laugh, scream, or have a contract put out on Al. He took a deep breath and counted to five. “Al?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I said fifteen. Locker number fifteen, Al—one-five.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m out. I can’t be dragged into a clusterfuck like this.”

  “Wait. Don’t do anything, okay? Let me call you back tonight.”

  “Again, you’re not hearing me. This is a fucking goat-rope.”

  “Listen, please. Just wait until I get off. I’ll call you after work.” Al’s voice cracked. “Please. I’ll call you later.”

  J.T. hung up.

  Al was sweating through his shirt. He’d been in such a hurry, he hadn’t started the car or turned on the air conditioning. It was stifling inside the Camry. There was no air. He couldn’t breathe. He opened the door and swung his legs out. He put his head between his hands and bent over. He thought he might throw up. He sat up and took deep breaths. He couldn’t keep his attention on anything for more than a second. He looked around the parking lot. Was anyone watching? He thought about the company. Seventeen years and he was pissing it away. He ought to be grateful they wanted him. Weed wasn’t Kazakhstan or Angola. Angola. Prison. Jesus, he’d be going to prison if this got fucked up. Maybe J.T. was right. Maybe they needed to pull the plug before this took them all down.

  Al got out of the car and took another deep breath. He started walking—soaked—back to the office. Hold on. What was really the big deal? So Frankie called a number. So what? It wasn’t like he knew who he was calling. J.T. would’ve thrown the phone away immediately anyway. It was a wakeup call, that’s all. No harm, no foul. He’d have to be more careful, though. God, he hated J.T. being right. He could be a smug fuck. He was no dummy, though.

  Al thought about the serendipity of meeting J.T. in the first place. Al had seen J.T. around the course before—the big black Mercedes parked across two spots in the club’s lot; the bag tags from Congressional and Whistling Straits and Pinehurst No. 2 dangling from a tawny ostrich-skin bag left conspicuously in front of the pro shop.

  Al was almost all the way back into the building when his cell phone rang. His personal cell phone. He looked at the number, and once again his pulse shot to the redline.

  “Hello?”

  “Hiya, Al,” said Frankie Fresh. “We need to talk.”

  “Yeah, it’s actually not a great time.”

  “Maybe you’d rather we met at the Van Slaters in Moreno Valley?”

  Shit. “Listen, Frankie, I’m at the office now. I can’t talk.”

  “And yet I’ve got a feeling you know what a huge fucking mistake it would be not to show up at the 19th Hole tonight. Seven?”

  Al buried his eyes in his left hand and wiped his sweating face.

  “Yeah.”

  SEVEN

  Al stopped by a 7-Eleven after work and bought another phone and a six-pack of Coors Light, then drove back to Moreno Valley to check out the Van Slaters parking lot.

  Traffic passed along the 60 like a kidney stone. Al made sure to check the rearview every time he took a sip of his beer. He usually wasn’t one for drinking behind the wheel, but goddamn if he wasn’t wrung out from this afternoon. He needed to get his head right before he talked to J.T. He didn’t even want to think about Frankie.

  When Al pulled into the parking lot at Van Slaters, he remembered that he’d been there before. It was in a little rundown strip mall off Perris Boulevard. The sun had bleached the asphalt wasp-nest gray. Al cruised the lot in a slow lap around and parked off by himself in the middle. He finished his beer and opened another. There were more shopping carts in the parking lot than cars.

  The lot sloped on a very gentle grade southward from Sunnymead. Al looked around at the other storefronts in the strip mall. A pawnshop. A martial arts studio. A craft store. A brake shop at the west end of the lot next to a Valley Lube oil change station. A black kid in a maroon vest came out of the store pushing a cart for an old white lady. He loaded three bags into the trunk of her Impala, then pushed the empty cart to a pod of other carts thirty feet away. The kid bunched the carts together, pointed them toward the grocery store, and gave them a shove. Just as Al had imagined, the carts picked up momentum from the slope. The kid trotted a few steps to catch up to them, then jumped up on the axle of the last cart and rode them across the pavement. The lot flattened and then rose slightly, blunting the momentum of the carts, and the kid hopped off and pushed them the rest of the way to the sidewalk in front of the store.

  Al loo
ked at the spot where the carts had been moving fastest. A big crack in the asphalt crossed two parking spaces directly parallel to the sidewalk where it ended on the west side. He wanted J.T. to have Mack park in the best place to sell the runaway cart story. The guy was such a dumbass, Al wondered if maybe he should get out and paint a big fucking X on the spot.

  He took a swig of his beer and called J.T. from his new phone.

  “Hey, it’s Al.”

  “What a refreshing change.”

  Fucking smartass. “Listen, I’m sorry about the confusion on the lockers. In my defense, it could’ve happened to anyone.”

  “I’m just not sure you appreciate the gravity of what fucking this thing up will mean.”

  “I hear you, but let’s hold on a second. First of all, you didn’t tell Frankie it was you on the phone, did you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You shit-canned the phone too, didn’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Okay, so before we throw away what I still think is a viable score, let’s assess what the real damage is. Frankie called a number that no longer exists. He doesn’t know who answered. No one told him anything. We’re out one phone. That’s it.”

  “The problem is that I’m walking around barefoot, and every time I turn around, you’re breaking glasses on the floor.”

  Al thought about that for a minute and tried to understand what it meant.

  “What I mean is, I can’t afford to get wrapped up in a clusterfuck that’s going to send us to prison. Not for forty grand, not for forty million.”

  “Hey, this is a learning curve for me. I hear what you’re saying, I really do. Things are going to be smoother now, I guarantee it. I bought a new phone to add to the rotation. I’m actually at the Van Slaters parking lot now.”

  “You are?”

  “It’s perfect. There’s a grade on the parking lot that slopes down toward the store. Three or four carts together breaking away can build up enough speed to knock even a guy like Mack down.”

  J.T. was silent on the other end.

  “J.T.?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  Al gulped his beer. His eyes zipped around the parking lot, desperate for some inspiration for how he was going to deal with that goof Frankie Fresh.

  “There cannot be any more fuckups or surprises,” said J.T.

  “Hey, I’m on top of it. You just need to make sure your end is good. You talked to the doc?”

  “He’ll play ball.”

  “What about Mack?”

  “He’s got dollar signs in his eyes. I thought about this from every angle, though. We need to bring in Buddy to set the wheels in motion. Literally.”

  “Jesus, really? Are you sure? I don’t know, J.T. How comfortable are you with another person being in on this?”

  “Without somebody to push the carts, it’s going to be an inexplicable flop in the parking lot. Buddy goes in, buys some groceries, and parks near a cluster of carts at the top of the slope. He puts his cart with a couple of others, gives it a push toward Mack fifty feet away, and drives off. Mack’s got his back turned, cart bumps him from behind and knocks him over the trunk or the hood or whatever. Big mess. He yells and writhes on the ground for a while. Night manager comes out—”

  “You’re thinking do it at night?”

  “Harder to make Buddy in case someone’s in the lot. Harder to tell it’s not an accident. Night manager’s less experienced than a day manager, so that’s a break. Might even be a woman, which could help us.”

  “Okay.”

  “So Mack causes a big scene, but leaves under his own power. We get EMTs involved, we lose control.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Next day, he meets with the doc, and our demand letter goes out the day after.”

  “And the doctor’s solid? No fraud shit in his background?”

  “I represented him a year and a half ago on an employment matter. He’s a perv, but nothing out there to raise suspicion.”

  Al watched another bag boy ride a shopping cart down the slope toward the store. “So when are you looking to go?”

  “Tomorrow night. Going to go over the script with Mack and then we’re good.” J.T. sniffed. “Assuming, that is, no more fuckups.”

  “Hey, enough already. I got it.” Prick.

  “All right, then. I’ll be in touch when it’s done,” J.T. said, and hung up.

  Al finished his second beer, started the engine, and got back up on the 60. It was time to go deal with Frankie.

  EIGHT

  Al walked into the 19th Hole and scanned the room for signs of Frankie Fresh. The guy was the size of a Cape buffalo, so it wasn’t like he could be missed in an eight-hundred-square-foot room.

  Wanda brought a Coors Light and a cheeseburger to Al’s table in the corner opposite the TV. Seven o’clock and not a dopey bookmaker in the room. Just as he was thinking he might have caught a break, the door opened and the entrance filled with the flabby mass of Frankie Fresh, who gave Al a big wave and lumbered toward his table.

  Jimmy Flynn, a retired Air Force colonel watching the game from the bar, intercepted Frankie as he walked by and clapped the porcine bookmaker on the back.

  “Hey, Frankie, you on TV now?”

  “TV?”

  “Yeah. I saw an ad for a show. Thirty Stone.”

  Frankie threw his head back and laughed, his pelican gullet bobbing up and down. Jimmy clapped him on the back again and Frankie shook his head as he resumed his waddle toward Al’s table.

  “That looks good,” Frankie said to Wanda as he pointed to Al’s cheeseburger. “How ’bout you bring me one of those too, hon? Basket of onion rings on the side? Mug of Heineken?”

  Wanda nodded and walked back to the kitchen.

  Al cleared his throat as Frankie pulled out his chair. “Frankie.”

  “Hiya, Al, whaddaya say?” Dark symmetrical crescents of perspiration formed on Frankie’s golf shirt beneath his man boobs.

  “You called me, remember?”

  “I did, didn’t I?” Frankie leaned in and picked a french fry from Al’s plate. “You mind?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Frankie pulled out a chair, the wood creaking as he filled the seat. “Found a note in my locker this afternoon.”

  “Is that right?” Al lifted his chin and cracked the joints in his neck as Frankie started picking fries two at a time from Al’s plate.

  “So on one side of this note, it says ‘Van Slaters’ and ‘Moreno Valley,’ and on the back there’s a phone number.”

  “How about that?”

  “Yeah, so I call the number, and a guy says, ‘Hi, Al.’ Just that. ‘Hi, Al.’”

  “That’s quite a story.”

  Wanda set a foaming mug of beer in front of Frankie. “Food’ll be right up, Frankie.”

  “Thanks, hon.” A few locks of strawberry-blond hair stuck to sweat still beading on Frankie’s forehead. He sipped his beer as he watched Wanda return to the kitchen. “So here’s what I’m thinking, Al: I’m in for a taste.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I know everybody sees the spare tire and thinks I’m some kind of glutton, but I’m really only looking for a taste.”

  “A taste of what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Frankie sipped his beer again. He wiped a few bubbles of foam from his lip with the underside of his thumb. “I know you’re not a degenerate gambler like a lot of bums I take action from. You’re a straight shooter. No crying about being short this week, none of that. So even though I don’t know you well, I always had a kind of respect for you as a stand-up guy, a guy who settles up, you know what I mean?”

  “Thanks.”

  Wanda set the food in front of Frankie, who had by this point consumed nearly half of Al’s fries. She disappeared behind the bar without a word.

  “But here’s the thing. The world is divided up into zones, territories—call ’em whatever y
ou like. Riverside County’s a zone inside California. California’s a territory inside the U.S. The U.S. is part of North America, you get me?”

  “Not really. Where’s this heading?”

  “You got something going in my zone.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I seen you the other night with that shyster, what’s his name…Edwards, and those two mutts from the greenskeeper’s shed.” Frankie unscrewed the cap on the ketchup. “I get an anonymous note. Probably a mistake, but whatever.” Frankie pounded the bottle until fat splats of ketchup coated his steaming onion rings. “I got a strange phone number; I call it and somebody’s expecting you. On the phone with you, I drop the line about Van Slaters, Moreno Valley, and you don’t even flinch.”

  Frankie popped a slimy red onion ring into his mouth. “Now look at me. Look past the weight. Look past the fat and tell me: Do you see a fucking dumbass?”

  Al had never liked Frankie. He loathed Frankie’s love of hopeless puns and hated how he giggled at his own lame jokes and banal observations. He was four or five clicks past morbidly obese and laughed about it. Before Frankie sat down at the table, had anyone asked whether Al thought he was a dumbass, Al would’ve said sure, no question. But there was no Celtic twinkle in Frankie’s blue eyes. There was no mirth in his taut grin. All at once Al realized the bluff hail-fellow-well-met act was bullshit. Under the now-dimming lights, Al had a sickening revelation: Frankie McElfresh was a dangerous guy.

  “Frankie, I don’t—”

  “Before you insult my intelligence and tell me again you don’t know what I’m talking about, I want you to think about something.” Frankie sipped his beer and smacked his lips as he put the mug back on the coaster. “I’m a small-time bookie, okay? I take bets in a semipublic golf course in broad daylight. We got law enforcement and retired law enforcement in here all the time.” Frankie picked up a pair of onion rings and took a bite. “It ever occur to you that nobody seems to fuck with me?”

  Al thought about that.