by Seth Harwood
“Here’s your friend,” Tony says to Jack and Niki. “Make a trade with him now.”
Jack snuffs his cigarette out on the tabletop. “This how you treat all your guests?”
Tony laughs. “No. You didn’t get the full hospitality because you had your mommy there to beg for us to let you go.” He looks around. “But I don’t see her now, so maybe we can accommodate you.”
“That’s okay.” Jack stands up next to Niki and takes a step toward Tony. Niki drops his cigarette, grinds it out against the floor. “Where your guys? The ones that whacked Ralph?”
“Fuck!” Tony says. “What the fuck is it with you and that dirt-bag?” He takes one step closer to Jack and then lunges, punches Niki in the stomach. Niki groans and doubles over, looks up at Tony like he’s ready to rip his muscles from his bones, but Jack holds his hand out to restrain him, watching the three bouncers move closer. These are some of the guys from the inside, the perimeter players, not the muscle guys from outside. Now that Jack sees them close-up, he can tell these aren’t the normal goons you’d find on the streets of San Francisco. These are pros: Each has on a tight black long-sleeved shirt and a wired mic on his head. They have black pants on and tight belts with what looks like Mace and a Taser mounted within reach. They’re white, but don’t look like California boys: They’re too clean-cut. Jack hopes they’re not more ex-KGB. He looks to see that Freeman is still standing in the same position.
Junius gets up slowly, adjusting his suit. “Jack here has been telling me about how you wanted to cut me out of the city, trade up my ground, and get me in the clink for popping Ralph.”
Tony shakes his head. “How about we beat the fuck out of both these bastards, all them for going around us to this piece of shit.” He points at Castroneves. “I could right now—” Then he goes to kick him and stops, pulls back at the last second.
Jack helps Castroneves stand up. He’s wearing just a shirt and pants now, no tie or jacket, and through these clothes Jack can see that he’s in bad shape: His shirt’s torn, he has cuts across his back, and blood on the side of his mouth; his nose looks broken. Jack helps him to stand, but Castroneves can’t stay up on his own. He slumps against Jack’s shoulder.
Jack looks at the big Samoan. “Freeman, you want to help me with this guy?”
Freeman shakes his head, his arms still folded in front of him.
Castroneves falls to the couch. “You are cocksuckers who will pay,” he says, glaring at Tony.
“Oh?” Tony says. “We’ll pay? And you bring that fucking Colombian army in here to make it happen, okay?” He waves at one of his guys, who moves over to Castroneves and points for him to get up. When he puts his hand on the Taser, Castroneves stands.
Junius shakes his head and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I mean, I know this guy’s competition, but you treating him hard.”
“Fuck,” Tony yells. “Somebody get rid of the fucking conscience on this guy.”
Junius points to Jack and says, “This guy’s saying you wanted to cut Ralph out and deal at the clubs yourself, T What’s up with that?”
Tony shrugs. “So? You give a fuck about that bastard? What if I do want to deal this whole city? What then?” He looks hard at Junius, maybe more brash than he wants to come off, but with his guys to back him up, he’s feeling strong.
Jack wonders what’s happening with the other Czechs, wishes they were in the room, but they probably can’t even find the door. “When are the police showing up tonight?” he asks.
Both Tony and Junius stop and look at him. “Police?” Tony says. “There’s no police coming here tonight. Why would you think that?” He steps away from Junius, closer to Jack. Both of his bouncers have their arms folded, but they can get at their belts. They’re not big like Freeman, but they’re ready.
“This motherfucker’s undercover,” Tony says, pointing at Jack.
Jack holds up both hands. “Now, let’s just wait a second. If anyone’s working for the cops, it’s the one who called in our meet here last night, the one who brought the cops down on this place.”
Tony laughs. “I called the cops on my own club? Why’d I do that?” But then he looks serious. “Matter of fact, who told you I did that?”
Jack says, “The only cop I know is the one who busted my house and made sure my picture got all over the tabloids, the asshole who helped destroy my career.”
Tony shakes his head. “Junius, you going to believe what this nutjob tells you?” He waves his hand at Jack. “If you do, you’re as fucked as he is. Get rid of this guy.”
Junius looks at Freeman and tilts his head in Jack’s direction. Freeman starts toward Jack and Niki, his arms unfolded. “Let me show you boys the door,” he says.
“You take me out of this, he’ll cut you out next, Junius,” Jack says. “Listen to me. You know what I’m saying is right.”
Freeman gets close enough to Niki that he could hit him if he wanted, but he brushes past to the door. He opens it and the sound of the club comes in strong. Niki starts in that direction.
“Junius,” Jack says.
“This fucking guy is not leaving this club in one piece tonight,” Tony says, turning to his guys.
Jack holds up his hands. “Okay.” He starts heading toward the door. With his hand on his head, Junius looks like he’s thinking; his brow wrinkled, he paces away from Tony and then back toward him. “You know I’m right,” Jack says, backing toward the door. “Ask yourself what happened to Ralph.”
“That’s it,” Tony says, waving at his guys to move. “No more mentions of Anderino. Kick his ass.”
One of the guys says something to another in a language that’s not English and sounds different from the Czech Jack’s been hearing. Niki gives Jack a quick look, then the three bouncers start forward, but Freeman puts his arm out to stop them, holds them back. “No,” Freeman says. “Give him one for his movie. That shit was decent.”
Jack heads toward the open door again, following Niki. Outside, the music in full blast, he turns back and sees Tony say something to Junius, something he can’t hear. Then Tony takes his walkie-talkie off his belt and speaks into it. The door closes in Jack’s face and he’s cut out, he and Niki in the club with the other Czechs already coming over, asking Niki where they were. Jack goes to the rail and looks down at the guys around the perimeter: they’re listening in on their headsets and then they look up, almost in unison, to the balcony.
They start to move.
“Shit,” Jack says. He starts toward the Czechs, standing in a group holding drinks and talking to Niki. Here we go again, he’s thinking, but this situation’s worse than last night, with more of these bouncers coming after them, not to take anything away from the hit men with guns and what a joy that was to deal with. “Come on,” Jack yells, breaking into a run. The only advantage this time is that now he knows the way out.
The Czechs take their time to pause and find out what’s happening, so Jack pushes Vlade toward the exit behind the men’s room. “We have to get out of here before every bouncer in this place comes down on us.”
Al stands firm. “We don’t run.”
Jack stops pushing Vlade and stands next to him, looks at Al, and yells in his face, “You want to end up Tasered and maced, then found by the cops when they get here in five minutes?”
Al starts to move, following Vlade and the others. Despite their suits and the fact that they’ve been taking blow for a few hours—maybe because they’ve been taking the blow—they actually move pretty well, heading not in the direction Jack had expected, but to a new exit that he just now notices, probably the one Maxine used to take them out last night. Niki hits the door first, and Jack looks back to see three of the bouncers at the top of the ramp, one of them waving the others back down and talking into his headpiece. “Fuck,” Jack says, hitting the door and entering the dark stairwell. Small lights are set in a string along the base of the stairs on the outside wall, and in this light Jack can just
make out the handrail and the flight of stairs, see the Czechs start down. He looks for a way to block the door and doesn’t see one, but then he makes out a fire extinguisher on the wall and grabs it, bangs at the door’s handle a few times, and finally knocks it off. Then he pushes the rest of it back in through the hole, hoping this will slow the black shirts down.
Now, with his eyes starting to adjust, Jack can see the stairs and starts down them, jumping over the first half flight and making the turn around the rail. On the second flight, he hears Tony’s guys hit the door above and for a second it holds. He keeps running, one flight up from the Czechs, who are already going out into the alley behind the club. Jack hears Niki say something loud, but it’s not until he comes into the alley himself that he sees why: A few of the guys, four of them, are waiting with their Tasers out.
“Hold it,” one says, and lunges at Niki, who grabs his arms and runs the Taser into the wall. He starts kneeing the guy in his midsection. Al gives a howl and rushes at another of the bouncers, followed by David. This leaves Jack and Vlade with two of the guys to themselves.
Jack shrugs as one guy comes at him with his Taser, waits until he’s close enough, and dives at the guy’s legs, basically tackles him full out onto the asphalt of the alley. It feels good to move again, to have a moment of action without being outnumbered or sore, and Jack takes the guy down fast, turns him onto his chest, and takes the Taser out of his hand. The guy’s struggling underneath him, but with one of his arms locked behind his back, there’s not too much he can do. The Taser is too much for Jack to resist. He hits him with the full stun of the voltage. The guy goes limp.
Jack looks for a way to restrain him and sees a set of flex-tie plastic handcuffs conveniently strapped to the back of the guy’s belt. He puts them on the black shirt’s wrists and gets up just as Al and David lift their guy up to chest level and deposit him into a nearby dumpster. Vlade’s got his guy pushed up against a wall, his face against the bricks and his arm pinned behind his back.
That’s when Jack first hears the sirens. At the end of the alley, toward the front of the club, he sees the flashing lights of the police. Niki stands over his guy and kicks him once in the side.
“Let’s go,” Jack yells, waving and then moving the other way down the alley, away from the lights. The Czechs start after him, moving slowly, as the stairway door opens right behind them and three more of the bouncers come out. Standing with them is the odd Russian Jack noticed when they first came in, the bald guy with the beard and the sweater. The one whom Vlade recognized. The Czechs start to move faster, breaking into a run behind Jack.
At the top of the alley, on a broad, brightly lit downtown street, Jack turns and sees the bouncers by the exit, helping up their boys and taking off the handcuffs.
“Well, we fucked that up,” Vlade says, back in the SUV. Niki’s got them headed toward the hotel, Jack in the back with David and Al. Al’s hand is bleeding, mostly around his knuckles, where he missed hitting the bouncer and punched the side of the dumpster instead. He’s got a thin handkerchief wrapped around it, but the blood’s already starting to come through.
“No,” Niki says in the front. “Nothing we could do.”
“I think Junius was cracking,” Jack says. “I was guessing about most of what I told him, but I think he was starting to believe me.”
“You think Junius Ponds is responsible for killing Ralph?” Vlade asks.
“No, it was Tony, I believe,” Niki offers.
Vlade turns around in his seat to face Jack. “You think Tony Vitelli killed Ralph?”
“The guy’s fucked,” Jack says. “I’d say it’s more than a theory.”
Vlade nods, turns back toward the front of the car. Ahead of them, downtown glows in the late-night action, the bars crowded full and people walking the streets.
“Time to leave town,” Vlade says. “It is too bad here. Messy. We have to go.”
Al says something in Czech, and David rips off part of his shirt and wraps it around Al’s hand. “Did you see the cops coming again back there?” David says. “They are everywhere we go. Vlade is right.”
“Too many police,” Vlade says.
David nods. “We must leave.”
“Fuck this you are saying,” Al tells them. “Let us go back to there and kill them now.”
“Shhh,” Vlade says to Al, holding one finger over his lips.
Jack just pats Al’s knee. “It’s all right, big guy,” he says.
They come out onto Market and everything turns brighter, the shops glowing now inside and out. Soon they’ll turn onto Stockton and head toward the hotel. Jack resigns himself to looking out the window, wondering what he’ll do about Hopkins now that he’s got nothing on Tony or Junius Ponds: Anything he’d say about Tony would slide off in court, leaving the little man mad enough to send the bald Russian or a couple of the other guys after Jack; Hopkins probably has more on Junius than Jack can offer. Not wanting to piss off Freeman either doesn’t leave many options. On a whim, he takes the cell phone out of his inside pocket and checks to see if he’s gotten any calls or messages. It merely states the time: 1:45 A.M., meaning no one has called, and it’s too damn early in the morning.
At the hotel, Jack goes up to the suite with the Czechs. Al’s yelling about the police, and that he wants more blow, but David leads him to one of the bathrooms to soak his hand in a sink. The others start packing. Jack drops himself into one of the couches, feeling like he’s really ready for a drink. If he’s going to be on the inside for a while, he won’t get drugs or alcohol there, and he can go into a whole new detox.
Niki walks out of the room with a heavy leather bag and brings it over to Jack. He offers his hand; Jack gets up, shakes it. “We want to thank you for being our guide in this city,” Niki says. “We are very sorry about Ralph.”
“I’m sorry about Michal,” Jack says.
Niki bows his head.
“Yo!” Vlade comes out of the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. He comes over to Jack and hugs him. “You have helped us here very much,” he says. “Thank you for showing us your hospitality and to your friend with the blow.”
Niki says something to Vlade in Czech. Vlade clicks his tongue, shakes his head. “I am sorry to hear that the Colombian is not doing well. Perhaps he tried to settle a score he could not pay?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says. “As far as I’m concerned now, those three, all of them—Tony, Junius, and Castroneves—they can all go to hell.” He reaches out for the bag, tired and ready to go home.
But Vlade takes it from Niki first, looks inside, and nods approvingly. He closes the bag and hands it to Jack. “This is the fifteen that we negotiate. There is more here also, to cover the damage to your car.” He nods, hugs Jack again, and starts into one of the rooms to pack his things. Jack shakes Niki’s hand again and calls out to the others to have fun across the states. Niki walks with him to the elevator and pushes the button.
Jack judges the weight of the bag: It seems pretty good, heavy enough, he hopes, to pay off all the bills and keep him relaxed in Sausalito for a while, or on the road if he needs to be on the move to get away from whomever Tony V will send, or to skip town on Sergeant Hopkins. By Monday morning he could be in Brazil, he realizes, choosing a country at random.
“You have done well for us here, Jack,” Niki says. “What you will do with the police?”
Jack shakes his head. “That’s one thing I don’t have figured.”
The elevator door opens and Niki pats Jack on the back. “It will go. Those people in downtown will go away when the police look up their records. You do not need to worry. Go home. Get some sleep.”
Jack steps into the elevator. David comes out of the bathroom, stands at the couches with Vlade, watching Jack go. He holds up his hand. Jack watches them standing quiet, seeing him off, as the shiny metal doors close and his own reflection replaces the view of their suite.
As the elevator starts to descend, Jack begins
to assess the damage, the lines around his eyes and the creases in his forehead. His hair’s dirty and he has a fresh cut on the other side of his face to match the one under the bandage. He runs his fingers over his head, telling himself it’s been a long day. Though he looks more tired and beat-up than he’s known, worse than he has in as long as he can remember, tonight’s exhaustion feels better than any he’s had from working out. Something inside him feels good, alive. He steps closer to look at the side of his face, realizes the cut under the gauze will probably need stitches when he can get to a doctor. He closes his eyes; he’s seen enough.
Outside, on the cold streets, Jack remembers that the Mustang is parked at Maxine’s, so he lets the bellman hail him a cab. In the warm backseat, he opens the bag and looks inside, sees the clean stacks of twenties and fifties, and runs his finger along the edge of one, feeling the soft tickle of the individual bills brushing his thumb. When he brings his face down to the opening, the small bag smells like new leather and fresh money: a musty smell, pungent and maybe just a little bit wet. It’s not a smell he’s especially used to, but it’s one he’ll remember, one he’ll want to smell again.
As the taxi makes its way west toward the Sunset, getting onto Fell, one of the fast four-lane roadways that pass through the city like highways, Jack sits back and closes his eyes. He knows there’s no smoking in the taxi, but soon he’ll have a cigarette, maybe even get some sleep and wake up with Maxine next to him sometime tomorrow afternoon. Then he’ll start to put some of the pieces back together.
Jack leans forward toward the driver and asks, “Excuse me. Do you mind if I smoke?”
The driver shakes his head and says he doesn’t mind. The window next to Jack is already starting to lower as he feels around for his pack. He’s at the end of his options, he’s afraid, and has pissed off too many people. The thought of Freeman showing up at his house, tattoo and all, or a couple of Tony’s guys from the clubs, even the bald Russian, all of these fears come to Jack, and he worries his life will never be the same, that he’ll never be able to relax. Then there’s Sergeant Hopkins too, his concern about the shootout downtown and what he’s already said about getting Jack into a small cell. Even if he hides out at Maxine’s, that can only last him a little while. Maybe Brazil’s not such a bad option after all. He’s definitely got the money to hop tomorrow morning’s first plane to South America.