Grit & Shadows Boxed Set

by J. D. Brink

  “I don’t know anything about Chinese dragons,” I mumble to the checkerboard tile.

  It takes me another second to realize that I’m not part of the conversation.

  “Depends on the size,” Skunk says, “color, stuff like that. Why don’t you come in sometime? You can look through my books and I’ll give you an estimate.”

  Skunk is sewing ink into my back with one hand and talking on the phone with the other. The cord wobbles in a tight spiral past my head to the black rotary on the wall. And now that I’m aware of the situation, I don’t really care for it. I try to tell him that he needs to call whoever it is back, that I need two hands and all his attention on that needle, but my mind-body connections are clouded by alcohol vapor. The words get lost in the ether.

  “Hey, I can do dragons,” Skunk tells his phone, “but any magical aspect is up to you, man.”

  What is it with magic lately?

  You want magic? I vanish all the time. My whole damned life disappears and reappears somewhere else. Poof, I’m somebody new. I don’t even bother pitching people a last name anymore. Unnecessary detail.

  Of course, these words don’t actually come out of my mouth, and Skunk just keeps talking: “Sure, I believe in magic. Yeah, ancient wisdom, all that, but do you believe? That’s the question. You have to have faith, man.”

  I have faith in nothing, I tell myself. I try to push these words out, too, but my tongue just shoves slobber instead. A fine, wet string stretches floorward.

  What have I done? I’m drunk out of my mind and cast over Skunk’s padded table, the buzz of the needle singing a duet with the ring in my ears. Does the ending of a life preclude the alcoholism, or is it the other way around? Which is prophecy, which the coming? Is it only boredom that drives me to drink my way out of a life, or a need to run, to move on before some past I left behind catches up to me? Does my persona poison itself so a new one can crop up somewhere else?

  I’ve spent a year building this Jack of Spades, but I still feel empty. The nomad in me has become impatient yet again. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for, but when too much time goes by without my having found it, my liver starts to get awfully thirsty. It’s a sign that this life may not be good enough. That it might be time to move on and start a new one.

  I ponder my pathetic cycle until the hornet backs off, falling silent.

  “All done, man,” Skunk says, talking to me now.

  I lie numb for several seconds, body slowed and mind busy. Finally I push myself up and slide to my feet.

  Skunk’s a lanky a kid painted with tattoos. Down his arms, up his neck: spider webs, mermaids, anchors and daggers, skulls and moons. Every time I come in, he’s dressed the same way: wife-beater T-shirt and black jeans. His face is peppered with metal and there’s a white stripe bleached down the middle of his spiky black hair. Despite what anyone’s parents might think to look at him, he’s a good kid. An idealist, too. Even sober, I try to avoid deep conversations with him—rather than risk inadvertently showing my hand and revealing too much about myself—but Skunk always draws me in.

  Not tonight, though. I’m in no condition for that.

  Light glimmers against the curve of his thick nose ring and I focus on it. Finding a relative center to the universe helps me also find my bearings.

  The mouth below that ring is moving. I realize that I’m actually ashamed to be so shitfaced in front of him. There’s got to be a way to figuratively end a life without literally drinking myself to death.

  Skunk’s pointing to my left, at the mirror on the wall.

  “How’s it look?” He hands me a barber’s mirror so I can bounce around the reflections and see what he’s done.

  I nod, pretending to know what progress is in this state.

  “Give it a week or so,” he says, “and I’ll add the blue. If you still want it. I kind of like it the way it is. Or maybe add some white.”

  “What’d we do tonight?” I want to know.

  “Uh, the red?”

  Squinting helps me assess his work. A playing card image covers the pale canvas, two simply rendered characters so similar and yet so different, juxtaposed yet tied together, opposing each other while being one and the same.

  At least, that’s how I see it tonight. “Looks good,” I tell him.

  Skunk spins me around by the shoulders, pats the offended area with a Kleenex, and shows me the red spots he’s collected. “Next time take it easy on the booze, okay? Makes you bleed more. I can’t carry your ass out of here, either, you know.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, brother.”

  “Brother? Don’t go getting sappy on me now, Jack.” He hands me a squeeze bottle of lotion. “You’re going to go and change my whole image of you.”

  I retrieve my shirt from a hook on the wall and carefully slide it on.

  “Hey, I’m not done yet, man. Let me put this dressing on.”

  “It’s alright, it’s alright,” I slur, buttoning up. I just want to get out of here now.

  “You’re still bleeding, dude. That white shirt ain’t going to stay white…”

  My head shakes, not caring, even as the shirt sticks to me. Next, I pull on my lucky jacket and feel its weight against the tender areas. In my pocket is a fat roll of cash. I count off what’s due, plus a little extra, and stumble out into the street.

  Three

  The next night, I’m working.

  Street lamps cast yellow spotlights along a dark urban landscape.

  Under a yellow glow comes a bus stop bench, paint flaked off to expose its rusted, true skin beneath. A woman is piled on top of it—I think it’s a woman—hidden under a wild tangle of hair and layers of old coats. She opens her eyes as we roll slowly past. I think she even smiles at me.

  Fifty yards down the block. Another lamp highlights two kids doing some late night window shopping, though the store front is as dark as the sky. Face press to hands press to glass.

  Rummy beeps the horn at them and chuckles like hell when they scatter.

  A third light comes along: nothing but bare, cracked sidewalk and a gutter choked with trash.

  The same towering streetlamps scroll yellow lines over us, dipping inside the black Lexus as we quietly cruise the night. I’ve never really thought about it before, but I suppose I’m a night shifter. On the job, five or six nights a week. Not that it’s all work.

  Sometimes Felix just likes to ride around. Or maybe it’s Rummy who does, and Felix goes to give him an excuse. Sometimes I even go along, just for the company. But not tonight. Tonight we’re making a delivery, selling something that’s so much like me: a counterfeit work of art.

  Felix is a stout silhouette in the back seat, straddling the middle with his legs set wide, soaking up the luxury of it all. As usual, his suit is impeccable. Both hands rest on the lacquered red cane set across his lap. It’s more accessory than necessity.

  I’m in the front, next to Rummy, dressed for the occasion: nice black slacks, white button-down, and even a tie, skinny and black. In place of a sport coat, though, I’ve got my lucky suede jacket, brown. I’m rarely without it, even in warm weather, though it’s quite comfortable with spring being so late this year. I’m also wearing my game face: dark eyes cold and indifferent, stubble freshly shaven, blond locks combed to the side. Been needing a haircut for a while, but I need a lot of things. Besides, longer hair is in right now.

  This is who I am most of the time.

  Felix clears his throat with a wet cough; a frog must have gotten comfortable there, he’s been quiet so long. “I’m hearing some gruff about the Speakeasy.”

  “What kind of gruff?” I ask. “About Marvin?”

  “Yup.”

  I half-turn and lean a bent arm over the seat. “Like what? What’s to complain about?”

  Felix rolls his eyes to one side. “Complaints, about you and Laughing Boy.”

  “Laughing Boy...” Rummy finds that funny, giving off more deep chuckles from the lump of nec
k wedged under his chin.

  “It happened just like we said, boss.” Calling him boss, I figure, helps remind him that we’re mere errand boys, not responsible enough to do anything outside of our marching orders. “We were polite, as always. It was that big barkeep that got himself worked up. And then worked over. Edgar didn’t jump till Jerry did.”

  “I know. And O’Keefe knows that, too.”

  James O’Keefe, the great grandson of Rails End itself: Miles O’Keefe, the town founder. There’s a statue of him in Founder’s Park with a bullwhip over his shoulder, spurs on his boots, and bird shit on his head. Miles was scary. His great grandson is, too, but to a lesser degree. James holds no official office, but he’s the closest thing to a consolidated criminal power base in town. He’s got so many legit businesses, though, that he rarely flexes his illegitimate muscles. O’Keefe owns half the city, including the Speakeasy.

  Chinatown is different. David Li runs the show there.

  And Felix the Cat has his own small-time operation on the side.

  All three have history backing them and all three generally get along. For the most part.

  “I explained it to him,” Felix says, “and he had no qualms. But it sounds like that barkeep might. Just watch your back, Jack, okay?”

  I ease into my seat, relieved. Edgar and I sure as hell don’t want to be the reason that people stop getting along. Or I don’t, at least.

  “Take Front Street,” Felix barks, subject forgotten. “I like to see the river at night.”

  “Right.” Rummy slows at the next signal, rolls through the red and hangs a right.

  “Is that what it looks like?” Rummy asks me, thumbing backward. “The painting? Like that traffic light?” There’s a bit of light visible in those dark eyes, despite the tarantula eyebrows hanging over them.

  “Yeah,” I say, “give or take.”

  “Excellent job,” Felix says, leaning forward to pat me on the shoulder. “We got a fucking artist here. Should have had you doing fakes a long time ago.”

  I was almost an art major in college. Of course, I was almost a lot of things, including a college grad.

  Where we’re going in the middle of the night is to a little meeting at the Regency Hotel on the pleasant side of town, Rails End, California. Felix Caterina—Felix the Cat, they call him, no relation to the cartoon feline, though they were born around the same time—is a particular kind of businessman. He dabbles a bit, here and there. Has a diversified portfolio, you might say. One of his more successful side ventures is getting artistic status symbols to the who’s who in Hollywood. How does one movie star make another one jealous? By having hard to find and harder to afford works of art on their mansion mantle. Quite a bright idea, actually. I didn’t know the vicious old pussycat was so criminally creative. But Felix has built a whispered reputation among the pampered underground down south. And he makes a tidy profit from it.

  Under the next streetlight stand a man and woman, talking. She’s got her tits hanging out of a fuzzy pink top. He’s leaning over a grocery cart full of belongings to inspect the merchandise. I doubt he can afford her.

  Felix clears his throat. “I’m working on something else, Jack. Might have to send you and Eddie out of town for a few days next week.”

  “Where to?” I ask.

  “Still figuring that out,” Felix says, his dry voice cast out the window more than to me in the front seat. “My friend is in Hong Kong, but we’re working on a middle ground. Maybe Saipan.”

  “Out by Guam?” Rummy asks. “I grew up there. Guam, I mean—for a few years, anyway. My pop was in the Air Force. I remember poking at a dead seagull on the beach. It was dead but alive with like…” He lets go of the wheel and makes little pinchy motions with both hands. “Little sand crabs.”

  “Yeah, nice fucking beaches,” Felix says hurriedly, unsympathetic to Rummy’s nostalgia. “Might be a little Pacific vacation for you, Jack. What do you think of that?”

  I nod, staring out the window myself. I’m actually going to miss this town, and I don’t mean while I’m on some tropical island business trip. The man I am, here in Rails End, he’s expiring.

  Maybe not, I tell myself. Maybe a little getaway is just what I need to revitalize this life. But that is the way it’s happened before: wake from a three-day bender and realize I need a change. It’s the worst in me trying to send a message I can read in vomit and lost jobs and pissed off girlfriends. The message reads: This shit ain’t working. Time to try something new.

  Sucks, to tell the truth, because I’ve enjoyed being me here. It’s been a good life.

  We drive by a phone booth. A man outside is trying to force his way inside. The skinny kid in the glass box has one leg crammed up to brace the door shut, his knee crushed into his own face with the effort.

  “Yeah, I could use a little vacation,” I admit. “Clear my head a bit. Though, I don’t know how relaxing it’d be with Edgar along.”

  They both laugh.

  “You got that right,” Rummy chuckles. “You got that right.”

  The laughter fades to flat silence. Then Felix gets uncharacteristically nosy. “I figure you could use a vacation, Jack. You ain’t seemed your cheerful self lately.”

  I half-turn over the seat between us. “That mean you’re worried about me, boss?”

  “Maybe, asshole!” Felix grunts. “What of it?”

  The car goes left onto Front Street. I see legs dangling over the bank wall and the tiny red glow of two cigarettes perched on top. The dark shine of the river is beyond them, the lights of the south side beyond that.

  “Alright,” Felix orders, “no more talking till we get to the other side of the bridge. I want to enjoy the scenery.”

  We roll to a stop at the next light. Between us and the river is a knot of young punks in an aura of cigarette smoke, standing in a ring and joking around. One punches another in the arm.

  “What the fuck?” Felix grumbles. “Somebody chase those kids home. They’re fucking up my view.”

  The light blinks from ruby to emerald and the car gets rolling again. Beyond the punks, a hundred tiny lights blur like watercolors on darkness.

  The Lexus eases over a speed bump and down a ramp into the caverns of the Regency parking garage. This is Rails End’s only five-star hotel, the crown jewel of the south side, the burrow we call “Face.” It’s the shiny, polite side of town that Rails End points toward the big cities down south. There’s only a few cars here, most of them expensive luxury models or sports cars.

  Rummy parks over a blue wheelchair painted on the ground, getting us up close to the main doors. He pops the trunk, turns up his favorite easy-listening station, and slouches in his seat. Felix and I get out and meet behind the car.

  He starts picking at me, looking me over for show time, so I do the same for him. Not that he’s got a hair out of place.

  Felix shakes his head, plucking a twist of lint off me. “That fucking jacket…”

  I just smile. Fashion isn’t my forte. And I still look better than Rummy, who more often than not sports the stereotypical gangster jogging suit, though I don’t think he’s ever run in his life. Except maybe from the cops.

  Lying in the trunk is a twenty by twenty-four inch rectangle of white butcher paper. I take it out, slam the hatch, and follow Felix in.

  It’s a nice lobby with marble floors and columns, a carpeted corner with chairs, a couch, and a coffee table, all situated in front of the gas fire place. The girl at the desk is a cutie with dark hair and a red smile. I can see her rehearsed greeting on hold just behind that smile, but we don’t get close enough for her to pitch it, just head straight to the elevator.

  Twelfth floor. Executive suite.

  A black woman with blond braids answers the door. She smiles, gives us an overly friendly, “Come in, please!” and calls for Robert in the other room. Of course he’s in the other room. No doubt he planned it this way to look busy, important. Our customer is Robert Waters, the latest a
ction star to break through the picket line of waiters and waitresses waiting to make it big. Last summer’s blockbuster The Fireman scored millions and made him an instant celebrity. And so, like most of the new inductees into entertainment’s exclusive country club, Waters needs to quickly assume the life of royalty. He needs to upgrade his tastes to the unobtainable. Thus, his agent called Felix, probably having heard his name at a party. Waters probably heard the name Carter Stanley at the same party, and how rare it is to find a Stanley piece.

  I learned in my own research that Stanley was an elitist, an arrogant bastard who didn’t believe his paintings should be in museums where just anyone might enjoy them. They should only hang on the walls of the fortunate, and so very few people have ever seen his work outside of magazines or art books. Thus Robert Waters’s sudden desire to become the envy of his more successful contemporaries.

  And, therefore, the ease of faking a rarely-seen Stanley piece and selling it to a newly minted millionaire for top dollar.

  Forgery, it turns out, is one of my many latent talents.

  Felix struts into the hotel room, barely leaning on his lacquered cherry wood cane, and gives the girl a nod and a smile. I come in a step behind him with the Holy Grail in hand, wrapped like a Christmas ham.

  This one room of the suite is bigger than my entire apartment.

  Waters comes through a set of tall doors. He’s in his mid-thirties, brown hair oiled back, dressed in a purple silk shirt and black slacks. His arms are spread as wide as his smile, a glass of white wine in-hand. “Mr. Caterina! I’m so glad you could make it.”

  There’s something familiar about him. I’ve seen him before, heard that voice, and not in a movie theater. Did I know him in a former life? I’ve had so many.

  Felix makes with the pleasantries but Waters can’t wait. Maybe it’s his nerves. He points at the item in my hands with gun-like fingers, just like in all the glamour mags—his trademark gesture. “Is that it?”