The International Businessman

by Daniel Lawlis

  Chapter 14

  Chalky was walking down the street towards his agreed-upon meeting location with Slim Face. He had Crabs and three others with him for backup, but he wasn’t expecting anything too dicey. Slim had been a straight shooter so far.

  Chalky walked ahead of the fivesome with the cool confidence of a man who had been elected leader long ago and had never so much as brooked a dissatisfied look from a subordinate. He took a sudden right turn, leading the group down a dark alleyway. The location for each meeting had been changing regularly lately, suggesting Slim was worried about too many people knowing his location on any given night.

  Once they got near the end of the alley, Chalky performed a series of knocks that seemed anything but random: rap rap RAP rap rap rap RAP.

  A window shade raised just enough to allow a pair of dark eyes, like those of an alligator peering slyly above the water, to gaze distrustfully at them. Then, the window shade fell.

  The door opened about a minute later, and Slim appeared, surrounded by about a dozen bodyguards.

  “Product,” Slim said tersely.

  “My man, Slim!” Chalky said good-naturedly, reaching for Slim’s hand, but this gesture was met only by a fierce stare from the tall, wiry Slim, who looked like this meeting couldn’t draw to a close soon enough for him.

  “All right, all business as usual . . . I can dig that!” Chalky said, somewhat obsequiously.

  But then his gaze became as hard as Slim’s, and he said, “Money!” with a challenging look in his eye.

  Slim didn’t flinch, nor did he seem offended. He kept his eyes glued on Chalky unblinkingly, but one of Slim’s associates revealed a thick wad of thousand-falon bills.

  There seemed to be a bit more tension in the air tonight, though no one seemed to know why. Crabs felt that perhaps Chalky was getting a little too big for his britches lately, Slim was perhaps sensing it, and the result was two street dogs sizing each other up.

  “Well, let’s do half at a time then,” Chalky said, tossing ten pounds of Green towards Slim.

  Slim caught it without shifting his gaze an inch from Chalky’s.

  One of Slim’s men looked at him anxiously and interpreted his silence as acquiescence to the proposal. He then handed $130,000 falons to Chalky.

  Chalky then tossed the other ten pounds to Slim. His lackey looked up again at Slim, like a man looking towards the top of a tree, and once again he interpreted his silence as a go-ahead signal. He handed the rest of the wad to Chalky, who immediately began counting the money greedily.

  “You know the only reason I’m buying from you, don’t you, Chalky?”

  Chalky’s greedy expression turned sour. He suspected an unpleasant answer was imminent, and he didn’t intend to help coax it out of his tormentor.

  “It’s because Mr. Brass sells the highest-quality product in this city. People are realizing that rather quickly. The Trio think they’ve got it made going to Sam’s old connection while greedily hiding that source from their former equals, but the way I see it they’re going down the wrong trail. I know of a connection in Selgen who will sell to me a hell of a lot cheaper than you, but Mr. Brass sells top quality. I could cut it many times over and still keep my customers happy, but why do that when I can charge extra and make them ecstatic?”

  Silence.

  “I sure wish I could do business with Mr. Brass directly.”

  The mood was far more sour than it had been even just a minute ago. Crabs wondered why Slim was being so gratuitously rude to Chalky. Perhaps they had beef he didn’t know about, but he suspected the reason was he was hoping his words made it back to Mr. Brass so that he could impress him with his flattery and start dealing with him directly.

  “Right now, I’m the number two guy!” Chalky said vehemently. “And don’t go putting Brass on a pedestal. He’s a better boxer than gang leader. What I sold you just now was all he could come up with tonight. He told me he’s hit a snag or something, and that twenty pounds is all he can do.” Chalky was silent for around five seconds before letting out a loud “Hah!!!!” and began laughing.

  “That’s some man you’re so impressed with, Slim. I’m gonna have to go buy from Razors tonight just to take care of my retailers, and because I hooked you up with the good stuff, they’re gettin’ the normal stuff. Which means they ain’t gonna be too happy. In fact, they’re gonna be pissed. But nonetheless, Brass says I’m gonna owe him a ten percent tax on anything I sell, even if I buy it with my own money. Tell me, Slim—where’s Mr. Brass right now? At home, maybe with his wife and kids? Going to bed early?

  “I’m telling you, Slim, you admire the guy too much. This is the street, not a boxing ring. So, he whipped Sam. I’m impressed. I really am. But this is business, and he can’t deliver, yet you practically worship this guy you’ve never even met. Let me tell you something, Slim, what I buy and sell with my own money ain’t getting’ hit with no tax, much less ten percent!”

  He looked at Crabs and the others laughing, hoping to see them joining in his derision of Brass’s orders earlier that night. Instead, they look pale-faced.

  “These cowards . . . I tell you, Slim—they must think Mr. Brass is a ghost or somethin’ and can spy on us anytime.” He then turned a vicious eye towards Crabs and the others. “What—are you gonna rat me out if I make a few falons without Brass picking my pocket? Why let this SOB push us around?”

  Crabs and the others were looking down, to the side, and in any direction other than that of Chalky. He seemed to have lost his mind, but they didn’t want to cross Chalky either. This was all happening too fast.

  “Tell Mr. Brass I’m honored he permitted you to sell me these twenty pounds, even though that means his retailers are going to suffer. Tell him I’ll make it up to him by selling his product to his retailers until his snag is over. I’ll swallow my pride and buy from The Trio in order to take care of my own retailers, and that way I’ll prevent you from doing anything stupid like buying and selling without paying Brass’s tax. I’m saving your life, Chalky. You should say thanks.”

  “You arrogant . . . stupid . . . son of a bitch!” Chalky fumed. “First of all, Brass doesn’t even know his product is better, and yet you’re falling all over yourself trying to kiss up to this so-called businessman just because he beat Sam in a fight. Look, they don’t call him Brass for nothin’. He hit Sam with brass knuckles, which means he won by cheatin’, and that ain’t exactly winnin’.”

  “I was there, you inflated, no-account egomaniac, and Brass didn’t use any weapons until after Sam was already dead. And you’re not second-in-command. Tats is second in command, and I hear he’s gone on business. No one ever elevated you to anything, but these guys here apparently don’t have the spine to oppose your self-election. I just hope they tell Brass about this conversation we had tonight. I’ve been saying everything I’ve said for their benefit. On your account, I wouldn’t even waste my breath.”

  Boom. The door slammed shut.

  An icy chill descended upon the sixsome as if a pound of snow had just been stuffed down the back of their shirts. No one dared breathe a word.

  After about half a minute of awkward foot shuffling and people looking at Chalky until he looked back at them—at which point they quickly looked away—Chalky decided to break the ice.

  “That guy’s got some nerve thinking he can cozy up to Brass like that! Brass works with whomever he pleases.”

  Awkward silence.

  “Can you believe the nerve of that guy—saying he’s gonna go sell to Brass’s retailers without his permission? That guy’s lookin’ for trouble. That’s what he’s looking for.”

  To their relief, Chalky began walking towards the end of the alley. The treasonous words they had heard come from Chalky’s mouth weighed about their necks like invisible chains attached to large cement blocks. To tell Brass was to kill Chalky. To not tell Brass was to commit treason against a man they a
dmired as much as Slim claimed to and thereby put their own lives at risk.

  As they gloomily walked towards the street, their melancholic introspection was interrupted by a loud SMAACK!!

  In front of their eyes, Chalky’s head exploded into a cloud of blood, and a large rock went smashing into the ground. He never even made so much as a peep. Four of the five survivors went sprinting off like antelope that have smelled a lion, but Crabs somehow had the presence of mind to reach into his deceased associate’s left jacket pocket and extract the $260,000 falons he had just acquired.

  Then, he ran as swiftly as his fellows, but after a block he began to walk slowly and casually, sensing that a sprinting man was likely to attract unwanted attention from the police, after which he would likely lose the companionship of the money currently lining his pockets.