Hardboiled Crime Four-Pack

by Jack Bunker

  From the corner of his eye, Mack saw the carts coming his way. He had his flop all worked out. He’d let the lead cart clip him on the ass, then he’d jump against the Firebird and roll over the hood like a fucking stuntman or some shit.

  Mack could hear the tin carts rattling. They were getting closer. He took a deep, slow breath and looked straight ahead as he walked in tiny steps toward the store. He’d only get one shot at this. He felt himself tensing for impact. Just when the carts seemed to be ready to nick his left butt cheek, Mack left his feet and dove toward the car.

  What he hadn’t counted on was that a crack in the pavement ten feet behind him had slightly altered the course of the speeding carts. Instead of a glancing blow off Mack’s left leg, the carts, weighing fifty-five pounds each and rattling downhill at eight miles an hour, struck Mack square in the back, his feet already off the ground at impact.

  Mack didn’t make it over the hood. His head banged off the front bumper of the Firebird and he laid out flat on the asphalt. The carts jerked right and smashed into the car’s driver’s side headlight. The momentum of the sudden turn, coupled with the wheels blocked by Mack’s torso, caused the 165 pounds of carts to flip over on Mack’s prostrate body.

  Mack was pinned beneath the carts. They came to rest on his right shoulder, with his arm extended. He couldn’t get any leverage to push them off because they were wedged against the Firebird’s bumper. It hurt a lot more than it was supposed to.

  A Mexican kid wearing a maroon vest came trotting out of the store, and a tall, lanky redneck twenty yards away walked over with long, hurried strides. The redneck got there first and pulled the carts off Mack. The little Mexican kid, maybe five-three, helped Mack to his feet.

  “You okay, man?” the Mexican kid said.

  “Fuck no, I ain’t okay, man,” Mack said. “You see what them fuckin’ carts did? Jesus Christ, they damn near killed me.”

  “I seen the whole thing, brother,” said the redneck. “Another six inches, those fuckers mighta run right over your neck. You’re lucky to be alive, boy.”

  Mack’s face felt scratched from the asphalt. He felt around for blood. Something was wet. Bingo. He walked around to look in the side-view mirror. His face was a mess. He had a lump the size of a golf ball on his forehead from where he’d hit the bumper. Mack turned his head. Fucking thing looked like something from The Flintstones. He picked the gravel out of his cheek. He must’ve landed on his elbow. He looked. It was bleeding. Hurt like hell, but not as much as his shoulder.

  By now a couple more shoppers had wandered over to the spectacle. Mack leaned against the quarter panel on the driver’s side. He bent down to look at his broken headlight. Goddamn. He ought to send J.T. the bill for that shit.

  The night manager, a thirty-five-year-old woman with rolls of motherhood stuffed into a too-small blouse beneath a maroon vest, hustled as fast as she could toward the commotion. Her name tag said “Jenny.”

  “Are you okay, sir?” Jenny asked.

  “No, as a matter of fact. No, I’m not.” Mack frowned at the woman. “My head’s cracked open, my elbow’s busted, my shoulder’s hurtin’ like a son of a bitch, and I th’owed out my back.” He groaned as tried to stand upright. “So, no. I ain’t okay.”

  “I’m really sorry. I already called 911. They’re sending an ambulance right away.”

  Mack’s eyes widened. “I ain’t gettin’ in no ambulance.” He remembered J.T. saying that under no circumstances should he let EMTs examine him. Of course, that was when he was supposed to be fake-hurt. He really was fucked up now. Still, he didn’t want J.T. yelling at him. “Listen here, what’s your name? Jenny? Jenny, I got somewhere I gotta be. I’ll be takin’ this gentleman’s contact information, and my lawyer will be in touch. You can count on that.”

  He turned to the redneck. “You got a bidness card on you, hoss?” To Mack’s surprise, the guy, a glazier, did have a card. “’Preciate it.”

  The pain was getting more acute by the minute. Mack climbed slowly into the Firebird and drove out of the lot. Once he got up to the 60, he called Buddy.

  “Holy shit, man, you fucked me up!”

  “Sorry ’bout that, man. They wasn’t but three carts, so I had to make sure they’d make it to where you was at.”

  “Those motherfuckers liked to killed me, man,” Mack said, laughing. “Hey, let’s go get some wings.”

  “You serious?”

  “Fuck yeah. I need to get some beers in me. Shit, feels like I got dropped outta the Goodyear blimp.”

  “I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be callin’ J.T.?”

  “I’ll call that motherfucker, don’t worry. Nobody said we couldn’t get something to eat, though, did they?”

  “All right.”

  “Meet me at Hooters. We’ll get us a coupla pitchers.”

  The driver’s side headlight out, Mack’s Firebird roared down Canyon Springs Parkway. Just as he turned left onto Campus, a Riverside County sheriff, lying in wait in front of LA Fitness across the road, hit his lights and followed Mack into the Hooters lot.

  Looking up through the windshield, Mack saw Buddy, who had already arrived and was looking back at the Firebird and shaking his head.

  He lowered the window as the cop approached. “Evenin’, deputy.”

  The deputy didn’t react other than to say, “License and registration.”

  He took Mack’s documents and went back to the cruiser, returning a minute later holding his aluminum citation pad.

  “D’you know why I pulled you over, sir?” the deputy said, handing Mack back his license and registration.

  “No, sir.”

  “Your front headlight’s out.”

  “That just happened five minutes ago. Swear to God. I got run over by a bunch of shopping carts over at the Van Slaters back there.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s dark and you’re driving with one headlight.”

  “But I got a whole bunch of witnesses’ll tell you this just happened five minutes ago! Look here at my face. Them things fu—messed me up, man.”

  The deputy shone his flashlight on Mack’s face. “Looks like you got your ass kicked.”

  “That’s what I’m saying. Buncha damn shopping carts run me down. They’s gonna be a lawsuit, I promise you.”

  “Well, make sure you put in for the cost of a new headlight. Maybe even this citation if you can get it.”

  “How am I supposed to get it fixed at night if I can’t drive to get it fixed?” Mack was satisfied he’d out-logicked the deputy.

  “Yeah, they’re fixing headlights at Hooters now, are they?” The deputy tore the ticket off and handed it to Mack. “You drive this thing away from here tonight, don’t let me be the one to see you.” The deputy started walking back to his cruiser. “You have a good night now,” he said over his shoulder, and climbed back into the cruiser and drove away.

  Mack walked up next to where Buddy was standing.

  “If that ain’t a motherfucker,” Mack said.

  ELEVEN

  Buddy followed Mack into the bar. Lee-Anne, a Hawaiian-looking chick with what Buddy thought were pretty small tits for Hooters, brought them a pitcher of Foster’s.

  “What happened to you?” the girl asked Mack as she set the pitcher on the table. “You been in a fight?”

  Mack winced. Tiny bits of gravel were still embedded in his scalp. “What if I told you I was training in MMA? That means mixed martial-arts.”

  “Yeah, I know,” the waitress said. “My boyfriend is an MMA fighter.”

  Mack slunk down in his chair.

  The girl’s eyes widened, her mouth forming into a soft O. “I mean ex-boyfriend. It’s only been a few days. Just a habit, I guess.”

  Mack straightened up. Buddy shook his head and poured himself a beer.

  “Can I get you guys some wings or anything?”

  “You sure can, darlin’,” Mack said. “Make ’em hot as hell, and bring us some a them curly fries too, would you?”
>
  Lee-Anne touched Mack on the arm. “You got it, tough guy.” She winked at him before she pivoted and walked away in orange shorts sized for a nine-year-old.

  “You see that?” said Mack. “That little hottie’s into me, man.”

  Buddy sipped his beer and squinted at the hockey game on TV. He was waiting for an appropriate window to broach the subject of Mack’s prospective investment in the golf ball salvage business. “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m serious, man. She ain’t much in the way of titties, but she’s got some beautiful eyes. Like she’s from fuckin’ Samoa or some shit.”

  “Uh-huh.” Buddy wondered how much he should press for. He knew from his Internet research that prosecuting the patents alone would cost thousands. He’d need to file papers to get his LLC established. That shit wasn’t free. The prototype was functional, but if he was going to try to market this thing to golf course management companies, it would have to be more camera ready.

  “I tell you I got the McMahon 3000 just about ready for its maiden voyage?”

  “Naw.” Should he seek out an incubator? It’d mean giving up equity, but then again, with the right connections, it could be worth it if he didn’t have to give up too much.

  “Yup, that sumbitch is gonna be a fuckin’ monster out in the desert. I mean indestructible.”

  “All right.” How could he open up a line of credit? He didn’t know the ins and outs of that, but he did see a lot of those motherfuckers on Shark Tank talking about it like it was important.

  “Gonna see if they’ll let me keep it in the shed when I ship out to Cape May.”

  “How’s that?” Buddy looked up from the TV showing a picture of some white boy with a fucked-up haircut and some crazy name Buddy couldn’t even read, much less pronounce. Manufacturing? Should he outsource that shit or keep it here where he could keep an eye on it?

  “Cape May, New Jersey, numbnuts. Where Coast Guard training is? I only told you about that shit about five thousand times.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Mack continued to swamp Buddy under waves of information establishing unequivocally that the future was the Coast Guard. It was of little moment that at twenty-seven, he was years older than the typical Coast Guard recruit. Through the magenta lens of Mack McMahon, this was not a setback, but a triumph.

  “It’s like I fuckin’ red-shirted already,” he told Buddy. “They want guys like me. Mature. Not like some fuckin’ bedwetter never been away from his momma’s tit. Plus I got experience. Life experience. That’s what they want. See, everybody wants to be a fuckin’ SEAL. That’s the beauty of it. Not only am I older and more experienced, I’m competin’ with a bunch of wannabes, man.”

  He explained how getting his pilot’s license would open the gate to yet another Coast Guard bonanza. “Shit, you got your pilot’s license, you got no worries. You know how many pilots there are in the Coast Guard?”

  “Nope.” Buddy gnawed the meat from a chicken bone.

  “Shit, tons of ’em. These guys fly all the fuckin’ time, man. You get a day off, you go up with these guys, build up your hours easy. Get trained on all kinda different aircraft, not just fixed wing.”

  “What’s fixed wing?” said Buddy.

  “Fuckin’ plane, man. Your fixed wing is a plain ol’ airplane. Then you got your helo. That means helicopter. See, on a plane, the wing is just fixed right onto the plane. Don’t move or nothin’. A helo’s got all kinds a rotors and blades and shit.”

  “So listen, shouldn’t you be calling J.T.?”

  “Yeah, you can’t put a price on that kind of experience, man,” Mack continued, ignoring Buddy. “You know what else is the beauty of it? Fuckin’ Coast Guard is domestic, man. None a this out to sea for six months and winding up in fuckin’ Somalia. I’m talking about getting a place…Huntington Beach or Cape Hatteras or something, and just picking the honeys up off the sand.”

  “What if you get stuck somewhere shitty?”

  Mack leaned back on his stool as if he’d already considered this possibility. “The chances are remote.” He winced when his shoulder bumped a wooden beam. “I mean sure, in theory you could get shafted with Maine or some Great Lakes bullshit. But do the math. Everywhere there’s water, there’s beach. The whole coast is just one big fuckin’ fiesta, man.”

  “What about Alaska?”

  Mack rocked back to the table. “Oh, I’ll grant you there’s a lot of water up there. But there’s no fuckin’ people, man. Who is there to rescue? You think there’s a big Eskimo interdiction program? Motherfuckers trafficking in seal pelts or some shit? Fuck, man. Give me Pacific Beach. Give me Caladesi Island. They don’t need fuckin’ Coast Guarders to rescue fuckin’ salmon, man.”

  Buddy hadn’t gone a day past high school, but he knew there had to be ten thousand miles of coastline in the United States, and this motherfucker was sure he was going to be stationed in Southern California. Serve his ass right to get stuck up on Lake Huron or something.

  “Those guys are all gonna be replaced by drones, man. Show me a drone that can do a sea rescue, though, or interdict a boat full of refugees without blastin’ ’em all to shit. If that’s what they think is gonna win ’em friends in the UN, then by all means, fire away. Sheeeiit.”

  Buddy turned his head to the TV and rolled his eyes.

  Mack winced again as he leaned forward onto his good elbow on the table. “Anyway, I’ll probably get stationed at Long Beach or San Diego, so it makes sense just to keep it out here close to the desert anyway.”

  “Shouldn’t you be calling J.T.?” Buddy asked again.

  “I told you, I’ll call that motherfucker in a little while. What’s the rush?”

  Lee-Anne resurfaced with another platter of wings and a bowl overflowing with curly fries. She leaned on Mack as she set the wings down on the table, mashing her small left breast against his triceps. When she’d set everything down, she leaned on the table on her elbows, her cutoff T-shirt opened up at the neck.

  “You sure you’re okay? That bump looks painful.” With a long pink nail, she traced around what was now a purplish lump the size of a golf ball.

  Mack winced. “Yeah, I’ll live. Probably just a concussion or a contusion or something.” He looked sideways down her shirt. “Speaking of living, you live in Moreno Valley?”

  “No, I actually live in Loma Linda. I go to UCR.” A bell dinged on the back counter. Lee-Anne popped up off her elbows. “Oops! That’s me, gotta go!” She winked at Mack. “You guys need anything, you just holler, okay?”

  Even though Buddy had switched to Diet Coke, Mack ordered another pitcher of beer, then another. Lee-Anne popped by every fifteen minutes to flirt with Mack. At one point Buddy thought she was going to hop in his lap. Finally, just before eleven, she said she was going off shift and would they mind settling up. She winked at Mack, who swiped the check off the table.

  “You bet, honey.” Mack handed Lee-Anne his Visa card. “What are you doing after you get off?”

  “Oh, I got a Pilates class first thing in the morning. I’m just going to go home and take a long shower.” She winked at Mack again and took his credit card with the check.

  “Hey, look here,” Mack said to Buddy. “You remember when ol’ J.T. tipped Wanda fifty? Watch this shit.” He put a fifty-dollar tip on a seventy-dollar tab, going over the fifty three times with the pen in case there was any chance she wouldn’t see it.

  Lee-Anne put her hand on Mack’s shoulder. “Ohmigod, thank you!” she said when she picked up the check.

  “So I was thinking I could use a shower myself, darlin’,” Mack said, leaning toward her.

  “You’re cute,” she said, and turned and disappeared back toward the kitchen.

  “You hear that?” Mack said. “This shit is on, brother.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m serious. I’m gonna hook up with this chick.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You didn’t see that? All the touching my arm? All the rubbing h
er titties up against me? The winking? That chick is into me, man, I’m not kidding.”

  “We’ll see.”

  A minute later a blond waitress with a pock-marked face and blue eye shadow came up to the table and asked if they needed another pitcher. Her name tag said “Sara.”

  “No thanks, darlin’. Lee-Anne was taking care of us.”

  “Yeah, she just finished her shift, though,” Sara said.

  The unmistakable roar of an accelerating Harley Davidson rumbled outside as it sped past the restaurant.

  “That’s all right, I think she was going to come out with us for a drink.”

  “Um, I don’t think so,” said Sara. “I just saw her leave with her boyfriend on his motorcycle.”

  Buddy looked at Mack and shook his head.

  Sara tapped her pad on the table. “So you guys are all set?”

  Mack finally gave in and called J.T.

  “Where have you been? Why didn’t you call? Did everything go all right?”

  “Well, I got good and fucked up by those shopping carts, if that’s what you mean by all right.”

  “What do you mean? You didn’t let the EMTs examine you, did you?”

  “No, sir, but them carts knocked me into my car. I cracked my head open on the bumper, fucked up my elbow and my shoulder. Back hurts like hell too.”

  “That’s great!” J.T. caught himself. “I mean, sorry you got roughed up, but in the long run, this is much better, you’ll see.”

  “Yeah, well, on top of that, got a fuckin’ ticket for driving with a busted headlight.”

  “Wait. You got pulled over by the cops?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here in the Hooters parking lot in Moreno Valley.”

  Of all the fucking morons. “You were in an accident that we’re going to claim is worth…thousands of dollars, and you went to fucking Hooters afterward?”

  “Shit, I got a knot the size of a fucking baseball on my head, I reckoned I was due a couple of cold ones.”