by Larry Brown
It was not quite dark when he walked down to the wharf where Smilin’ Jack’s restaurant was perched on the hillside above him. He’d slipped on a pair of red jogging pants from the back of the truck and the .380 was tucked snugly into the waistband of them, the green polo shirt pulled down over the butt of it. He was ready.
He saw her, Bonita, riding at her mooring and a dark man perched on the wide white deck, making like he was polishing the chrome. The money was in a green USMC gym bag in Aaron’s right hand. He stopped on the planks and looked back up at the restaurant. He could see people sitting in there and bartenders mixing drinks. Folks about to have supper. Well, they had their deal and he had his.
The dark man stood up and stopped his makeshift polishing when Aaron stopped in front of the boat.
“Where’s Frank?” Aaron said.
The man motioned with his head. “Inside.”
Aaron stepped closer. “Can I come aboard?”
“Come aboard.”
He wasn’t happy that he had his sandals on. Deck shoes would have been better. It was easy to fall off one of these slick son of a bitches and bust your ass. He made an awkward large step up to the bow. He’d take Fay out to dinner. Make some sweet love with her later on. Maybe go back to Pass Christian later on.
“I’ll have to frisk you,” the dark man said.
“Fuck that shit,” Aaron said, and pulled out his piece and showed it. He didn’t point it, but the man put his hands halfway up and took a step back.
“Frank,” he called.
“Put your hands down!” Aaron said. “Tell him to get his ass out here.”
When the man saw that he wasn’t about to get shot, he gave Aaron a murderous look and took two more steps back and put his hands down and went down the steps into the cabin. Aaron waited, holding the pistol alongside his thigh. He held it covered with his hand and he didn’t think that any of the people who were wandering back up to the restaurant could see it. He looked at the boats. Some ran to sixty feet and they were fine and high, some with tall towers that lay sleek and gleaming in the last light that was rapidly fading from the sky.
He waited for about a minute. The dark man stepped back up to the top of the ladder and paused there.
“You got to come inside,” he said. “Frank don’t want to conduct business out here.”
He didn’t much want to. But he could set Fay up, get her to the doctor, make her comfortable. Buy some clothes for her, whatever she wanted.
“But you got to put that pistol away. We’re all friends here.”
Yeah, right. He raised the pistol.
“Let’s do this shit instead. You go back down nice and easy and I’ll follow you.”
The man stood there, didn’t even raise his hands this time. He spat. Aaron thought he looked like a man who needed a little lesson.
“Any shit starts,” he said, “you’ll be the first one that gets it.”
“This the way you treat our hospitality?” the dark man said.
“Fuck your hospitality. Let’s just do the deal and then we can all live happily ever after.”
The man turned. He went back down the steps. Aaron followed him down. He could see the lights of the cabin ahead and he could see two people standing by a table. When he stepped into the cabin he saw they were holding guns in their hands. And Frank was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest, a cold cigar in his mouth, the dope on the table before him. Moths batted around the single light bulb hanging from the teakwood ceiling.
“We don’t want no trouble, Aaron,” he said.
“Neither do I. I got the money. Here it is.”
He pitched the gym bag, and it landed on the table next to some of the bricks of dope. He watched the other two.
“Ain’t no need for you to come in like this, Aaron. I thought I’d fix you a drink.”
“I got somebody waiting on me.” He scanned the room, trying to see everything at once. The big boy on the left who looked like a skin-head held a Colt revolver. The Vietnamese next to him held a .45 auto and had a bad scar down the whole side of his face. “Let’s just get it over with and I’ll be on my way.”
He waited, on a hair trigger now. It wasn’t up to him. It was up to them. “They better not point those guns at me,” he said.
“Yet you come in with yours,” Frank said.
“I don’t trust none of you motherfuckers.”
Frank didn’t take his eyes off him. But he tried to put a different look on his face. “Sure you don’t want a drink, Aaron?”
“I’m fine.”
“I got some Wild Turkey over here. I’ve been wanting to see you. Find out where those red snappers are biting.”
“Ask somebody who knows,” Aaron said.
Frank smiled and pulled out some of the money and riffled the bills slowly with his fingers. He stepped over to the bar and picked up the bottle of whiskey and held it up.
“You don’t care if I have one, do you?”
“All I want’s my dope,” Aaron said. “Where’s the rest of it?”
Frank had ice and a glass. He poured slowly.
“That’s all we’ve got for you today.”
“Why?”
Frank stopped pouring and looked up. He capped the bottle and set it down.
“We had a little trouble down in Boca Raton last week. DEA boys. The big load slipped by them.” He smiled and picked up the glass and sipped from it. “Unfortunately about half of yours was on the one they caught. Look at it this way. Even a blind hog finds an acorn once in a while.”
“Shit,” Aaron said. He relaxed, and then they did.
“How about taking half that money out of the bag for us, Bao?”
The Vietnamese put away his gun and moved to the table and started taking out money and counting it. What he kept he put in an ordinary grocery store sack. What he left he put back in the bag and then zipped it shut. The skinhead turned around and sat down.
“How come I get cut out?” Aaron said. “My money’s just as green as anybody else’s.”
Frank swirled the whiskey around in the ice and smelled of it.
“Priorities, Aaron. Things bigger than you. Best not to ask too many questions. Now unless you want a drink you’d better be going. It’s almost time for our other company to get here.”
The Vietnamese picked up the bag and held it out to him. He took it and looked down at the gun in his hand.
“One more thing, Aaron.”
“Yeah? What?”
Frank was holding the glass up to his lips and he sipped from it. Bao handed him his dope.
“Don’t spend all that money in one place.”
“Fuck you,” he said, and he went on out.
She’d gone down to the beach to sit there on her towel and watch the waves come crashing in. They didn’t seem to slow down any after dark. He was late but she’d known when he’d told her that he’d be back in an hour and a half that he wouldn’t be. He was up to something, she didn’t even want to know what. People were walking along the beach, couples holding hands, small girls and boys with buckets, their mothers trailing along after them, laughter and talking against the sound of the constantly crashing waves and all she could think about was that plane going down. But he was probably already dead by then. She thought about this: A person who had been inside her was now dead.
When he came up she didn’t hear him at first. His feet made no noise in the sand. But she felt his hand on her shoulder like that little bird lighting again and turned her face to see him looking down on her.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.” She was glad to see him, still.
“You get some rest?”
“I slept some. I took a nap. I come down here right before dark. It’s different then. It’s nice.”
“I’m gonna slip in and swim just a little bit.”
She watched him take off the red jogging pants and walk down to the water. Just before he went in he took off the green shirt and tossed it
back. She could see the form of him moving out there and she didn’t have any idea what she was doing with him. She watched him play in the water for a while and then he came out.
“Let’s go up to the room,” he said.
“Okay.”
She picked up her towel and shook the sand from it and looked over her shoulder at him and saw him picking up his clothes. They went back across the beach, up the steps to the hotel deck where they washed their feet from a sprayer and hung the nozzle back up. There was a big hot tub and a swimming pool with a waterfall where kids were splashing and yelling. They went across the boards to the stairs and up them. There were some people in the hall once they got to the landing, a knot of them, and when they got past them she took out the key and opened the door, then went to the glass door that opened on to the balcony and stepped out there to see the people still walking and wading. She felt like she could stay in this place forever, this place of sand and wind so close to the rolling water.
“How about going down to the truck for me?” he said. He pulled his keys from his pocket and held out a small shiny one to her. “This one opens the hatch. There’s two bags in there. Bring em back up here while I use the bathroom. Please.”
“Let me put some clothes on.”
“All right.”
She picked up a pair of shorts from the floor and slipped them on, and grabbed a T-shirt of Aaron’s and pulled it on. She slipped her feet into her sandals and took the key from him. He let her out and she went back down the hall.
The lights were on in the parking lot. She found the truck close to the street, facing out, and she fingered the little key in her hand as she went up to it. For just a moment before she opened it she thought about what she was doing and wondered what was in the bags. Then she went ahead and put the key into the lock and turned it and turned the handle to open it. The bags were close to her hand. The blue bag was kind of heavy. She pulled it out and set it at her feet and grabbed the small bag and set it down, too. Then she closed the hatch and relocked it and checked it, pocketed the keys.
It was hard carrying the big bag on one side and the small one on the other. She was walking kind of lopsided. But she made it back through the parking lot and past the luggage carts where he had let her out earlier and went back up the stairs. Once she had to move aside and let some people pass. The big bag was bumping her knee with each riser. Once she got into the hall on their floor it was easier. The door to their room was open. She stepped inside and put the bags down and shut the door.
“Lock that door,” she heard him say from the bathroom. She turned and twisted the bolt. Put the chain on too.
She could hear the water running. She looked at the bathroom door. It was open but it sounded like he was in the shower. Quickly she bent over and unzipped the small bag. What she saw made her suck in her breath. It was more money than she had ever seen, bundles and bundles of it, too much to count. She zipped it shut and kept looking at it. But she was almost bursting to know what was in the other one. She looked at the door again. The water was still running. And what would he do even if he caught her? She bent over and unzipped the other bag. She didn’t know what it was even after she looked at it. She reached in. Among blocks of some strange brown weed that were wrapped in clear plastic lay other ones, smaller, covered with shiny foil. She picked one up and sniffed at it. It had no odor. And about the size of the little blocks of chewing tobacco she could remember seeing her daddy buy in years past.
“It’s hash,” he said, and she looked up to see him standing at the door of the bathroom with a towel around him. She sat on the bed.
“Hash? Is that what you said?”
He reached for his cigarettes and lighter lying on the dresser. He lit a smoke and dropped the pack and the lighter back on the dresser. He leaned against the wall.
“I don’t mean the corn beef kind. I got a pipe in my suitcase if you want to get stoned.”
She sat there holding it on her lap. It seemed hard-packed, dense. She creased it with her thumbnail. Then looked up.
“I’m afraid to mess with it. The baby.”
“Oh. Well I’ll mess with it then.”
She put the foil package aside as he walked over to her. He knelt beside her legs. She put her hands on his arm and rubbed at the thick veins outlined against the freckled skin on his forearm. He kissed her.
“Listen,” he said, and he got up and sat on the bed next to her. “Did you see that store next door?”
“That little gas station?”
“Yeah. Walk over there why don’t you and get me some more cigarettes.”
“All right.”
“How about making me a drink first? Have we got any ice left?”
She got up and looked into the plastic bucket that sat next to the television set. Some melted cubes still floated in the water.
“There’s a little. You want some whiskey?”
“Yeah, it’s right there on the—”
“I see it.”
She got a clean glass from the bathroom and with her fingers scooped chunks of ice into it. She picked up the bottle of bourbon and poured the glass half full and took it to him. He took a drink and got an ashtray and sat back down. She went to the bathroom and brushed her hair, and when she came out he was still sitting there.
“There’s some money in the pocket of my shorts over there,” he said. “Or take one of them hundred-dollar bills out of that bag, I don’t care. Get that pipe out of my suitcase first though. Please.”
She went over to it where it lay open on a wood rack with a navy cloth top. His underwear and razor were in there, aftershave lotion, a toothbrush and paste.
“It’s in that little pocket.”
She unzipped it and reached in and her fingers found it. She brought out a small pipe carved from dark wood. He was tearing at one of the packages with his teeth. He ripped off one corner of the foil and spat it on the floor.
“Might as well see if it’s any good or not. How about handing me my lighter?”
She watched him load the pipe with chunks of something dense and near black. When he had it filled and lit, the bowl glowed and she saw him take in a big breath of smoke. After he held it in for a while he blew it out. He offered her the pipe.
“Tastes like some good stuff,” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t want any.”
He nodded reflectively. “All right.” He drew on the pipe again. She reached for his shorts on the floor and went into one of the pockets and found his money clip with some bills folded into it.
“I’ll be back in a little bit.”
He didn’t look up from the pipe. “Pull that door shut behind you.”
“I will.”
She went out and he heard the door latch shut behind her. He sat there pulling on the pipe and it was starting to take hold. He took another hit and then laid it aside and reached into the money bag for the .380. He checked to see that it was loaded, easing back on the slide until he could see the cartridge case dully shining in the chamber. Then he let it snap shut and checked the safety to see that it was on and put the pistol down beside him on the bed.
His clean underwear was in a drawer right across from him and he leaned up and opened it and found a pair of boxer shorts and slipped them on. Then he reached for his drink and sat holding it and sipping it. It wouldn’t take her ten minutes to walk over there and get the cigarettes and come back. But waiting made him nervous, always had. It might not be a good idea to spend the night here now. He knew getting high was making him paranoid but he reasoned that even if he’d been straight there would still be things to worry about. Somebody could have seen his pickup near there at that time well enough to call in a description of it to the cops. He could imagine what it had looked like out there at the beach: cruisers all over the place, ambulances maybe, lights flashing, asshole people standing around gawking. It would be on the ten o’ clock news from Mobile, reporters talking into microphones, some detective being intervi
ewed, maybe even people from the beach still in their swimsuits who might have heard the shots. Or seen it go down. Fuck. Plenty of people saw it go down. It might be best to just go.
So he got up and pulled on some jeans and got his feet into a pair of tennis shoes and tied them and sat back down on the bed to wait for her knock on the door. He had made up his mind that they needed to go and soon. Get back to Pass Christian. Get back safe.
He picked up his drink and sipped it. Then he reached for the pipe beside him. He had enough dope to last him now for months and plenty to sell, too. He kind of wished now he’d just gone ahead and slapped the shit out of Frank. Fay would be back in a little bit, and she was kind of like a dog. He thought he had her figured out. All you had to do was just pet her a little bit once in a while and she’d be all right.
She came back in and then she kissed him all over his face and checked the locked doors and got them both naked on the bed and crawled on top of him. She rode him and could control him and his gasps that way and learned that and her heart softened for him again and she wondered with him going in and out of her was it just the pleasure that he brought to her, or would any other man do just as well? She knew by then that every man was not made the same, inside or out. Black dark came and lifted the moon and she rode him in the light it made in the room.
And then there was the long drive back home, up past and through the pine forests and the million tiny stores and the places that sold shells or fishing gear or fixed boats and motorcycles and the endless bars and package stores and grocery stores, places to get your palm read, your arm or your chest tattooed, places that sold four-wheelers and all the signs that lined the highway advertising something else for you to buy until she nodded and then slipped down in the seat next to him and put her head on his thigh. She felt his hand, a warm caress at her face, trailing through her hair, into the roots of it, touching her scalp, the tip of one of her nipples, then finally resting on her shoulder.