Shakedown on Hate St

by Matthew Copes

  “OK. Gotta do what you gotta do,” he said. “Just be careful.”

  24

  BEFORE LEAVING FOR work at seven-thirty Gino placed a folded note on the pillow next to Veronica.

  When she awoke at nine she read it.

  Be careful. I love you.

  At ten o’clock she made the bed and placed a pink envelope on the side of the bed where Gino always slept.

  When she saw the Cadillac two hours later a pang of indecision constricted her chest. It wasn't what she'd expected. It was shit. The quarter panels were faded and wide bands of porous rust ran along the rocker panels from front to back. She lit a cigarette with an unsteady hand.

  “I don't know BB,” she said. “This thing looks like it belongs in a fucking junkyard.”

  “Are you kidding? It's a Cadillac. American quality. I checked the oil and everything.”

  BB had been up since four. He'd had a line of coke and a vodka-cranberry for breakfast, a few bong hits mid-morning, and magic mushrooms in lieu of lunch. As he looked at Veronica her pretty face expanded and contracted in a kaleidoscope of trippy colors like he was viewing her through a lava lamp.

  He reluctantly gave her the $500 he’d promised, miffed at himself for caving to her no-bullshit demand, but realizing it was a small price to pay for freedom. He gave her the phone number of a guy in Galveston who'd been dead for years and a map she'd never use. He'd even written directions on a paper towel. Overkill, but better safe than sorry. He opened the trunk and showed her the goods. Packed full, just like he said it'd be, but he didn't tell her that under the first tier of compressed marijuana bricks were empty boxes. Lots of them. Bruno and his chromosome deprived partner had taken the rest of the product with them after the incident at the warehouse. They'd left just enough for the impending bust.

  Veronica made it out of the city OK. The sloppy handling took some getting used to, but on the highway the old Cadillac practically floated. The road noise and Air Supply's Sweet Dreams lulled her into a ghastly daydream. The hideous faces of all the disgusting bums she'd ever fucked for money paraded through her consciousness like a police lineup in hell.

  She'd been at it an hour when a distant siren disrupted her dream state. Nobody had ever taught her to use the rearview mirrors, and even if they had it wouldn't have mattered. She was too short. She waited for an ambulance or police cruiser to blow past her but none did. The wailing got progressively louder until it nearly burst her eardrums. She conscientiously maintained 55, and a blurry mass hovered alongside matching her speed.

  25

  GINO BOUNDED UP THE stairs with uncharacteristic agility and waltzed straight to the bathroom. The pink envelope on the bed caught his eye as he went by. He unleashed a torrent of urine so forceful it splashed onto his pant legs. Then grinning, he zipped up, strolled out, and snatched the note before plopping onto the bed.

  I love you.

  I'm pregnant.

  Gino wasn’t superstitious. He didn’t believe in coincidence, karma, or fate. Shit just happened and you had to deal with it. End of story. But Jesus. The last line rocked him. Déjà fucking vu. His body went limp. With the only spark of energy he could summon he swiveled on the bed and let gravity pull his feet to the floor. He rested his elbows on his knees and let his head drop.

  The undreamt part of dream #1 from the night he met Veronica now loomed large.

  December 24, 1964. The café on the corner across from the Brinks Hotel in Saigon. It was unseasonably cool. Overcast and windy too. There were no Christmas carols, trees, or decorations, but he couldn’t have cared less. He already had everything he needed. He thought about his mother though. Hoped she was happy, safe, and not dwelling on his absence, or the danger he lived with every day.

  He rose to greet Hoa Dep, careful not to touch her in a way that could be construed as inappropriate. He’d touched her before, many times. Intimately. But this was public, and Vietnam was a traditional country. Not so much the city, but the provinces certainly. And Hoa Dep was a country girl, from a good family. Not wealthy or influential, but respected. Subsistence rice farmers who didn’t drink or gamble.

  The times they had been intimate were on the outskirts of the city and always at night. Those were her conditions. That way even if someone thought they recognized her sneaking into a seedy guesthouse with an American serviceman, it’d be too dark to be sure.

  Gino pulled her chair out, grinned and lowered his head slightly. He was still unable to comprehend that this sweet and stunning young woman who wasn’t yet 18 would someday be his wife. She dropped her hand and let her fingers brush his arm. It was the first time she’d touched him in public. Her eyes lingered too.

  He sat and popped the top on her orange drink and poured it into the glass, then slid it across the table to her.

  “There are three of us now,” she said. “When will we marry?”

  Hoa Dep’s name meant beautiful flower, and she only ever spoke after contemplation. As if words like everything else in the country except military hardware designed to shred, burn, maim and obliterate, were rationed and in short supply.

  Registering the meaning of the first sentence was slow.

  “Tomorrow. Today. Now.” he said, still unsure of what had just transpired.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Not long, look.” She ran her left over her flat tummy to show Gino that there wasn’t yet a bump.

  He wondered how it would all play out. When they’d get married? Where she’d live until his tour was over? Where she’d have the baby? Then what? He couldn’t imagine an exotic girl from the tropics who subsisted on fish, vegetables, and rice wearing a winter coat and boots and eating meatloaf and mashed potatoes on a dreary January night in Baltimore. It all sounded horribly unnatural.

  “I have something,” he said, reaching into his shirt pocket. “It’s for you. For Christmas. For us.”

  She’d seen the bulge and known it was a wedding ring in a velvet box from the jewelers.

  “Not here,” she said. “When we’re alone.”

  Gino understood, letting the box drop back into his pocket. As he turned toward her he felt the concrete under his feet shudder and grind, sending vibrations up his legs and causing the beer bottle to walk toward Hoa Dep. They watched in disbelief.

  Then a vacuum formed and sucked him toward the Brinks Hotel for a fraction of a second, but quickly it reversed and sent him over into the café’s solid wall. As he went he saw Hoa Dep mimicking his motion, as if they were the same person, and he was viewing himself in a mirror. Then he was on the ground stunned. The hotel’s façade twisted and buckled, then succumbed to gravity with amazing speed and crumbled to the ground puffing billows of pulverized concrete into the roiling air.

  Gino rolled to his left, flinging the still standing table with a strike from his forearm. She lay on her side with her back to him, her black hair and brown skin covered with powder. He clutched her right shoulder and pulled her toward him. He couldn’t see any damage to her body, but a thick pool of black blood rolled over the ground, pushing pieces of debris out of its path as it did.

  Hoa Dep’s eyes were open as if frozen in a moment of shock. Her mouth and lips were parted, though no breath flowed in or out. The end of a jagged shard of glass no bigger than a quarter protruded from the left-center of her neck, and he knew immediately that his world had been created and destroyed on the same day, within the space of a few minutes.

  And now, in the present, 20 years later he was there again. Only it wasn’t Saigon it was Baltimore.

  He rose and walked into the kitchen removing the small parcel that'd been in his pocket all afternoon. He must've looked at its contents 50 times. Each time it was more beautiful than the last. When the phone rang he picked it up instinctively, but his mind and body were numb.

  Her voice was distant and hollow and she was hyperventilating.

  “Busted. Drugs. Trunk. Puerto Rico. Setup. Prison. Life. Baby.” He pieced the words together. J
agged fragments that cut to his core.

  Then a genderless recording informed him that their Department of Corrections telephone time allotment had expired. When the connection went dead he hung up. The tiny, black velvet box in his hand fell to the floor. The hinged lid popped open and a lustrous diamond engagement ring sprung from its cradle, bounced twice, then disappeared under the refrigerator. He collapsed into a kitchen chair, but rose again quickly. He picked up the chair by its backrest and slammed it into the wall-mounted telephone with the force of a pile driver. A violent explosion of wood splinters and plastic phone shards rained down.

  The remaining remnants hung limply from a thin red wire.

  26

  GINO PRESSED THE KOOL's glowing tip into the last chunk of cantaloupe on his breakfast plate. The melon's juicy flesh hissed sending a puff of fruity vapor into his nose. It’d been a week since he’d seen Veronica, and her uncanny knack for picking perfectly ripe melons was lost on him. She'd known how to cut them too, so that none of the hard rind ended up on the edible part. Without her breakfast was a chore. What he really wanted were a slice of pizza and a Dr. Pepper.

  He'd just placed the plate in the sink when the phone in his bedroom rang. The one that'd been in the kitchen no longer existed. He figured it was a telemarketer or someone equally annoying and unimportant, but he heaved himself up and went to answer it anyway. Maybe it was Veronica. Maybe she had good news. Maybe she was coming home where she belonged.

  A masculine female voice introduced herself as Judy O'Brien, or maybe it was O'Reilly, he couldn't tell which. When she told him her position her words became clearer. Corrections administrator. City jail. She asked if he was Gino Bilotti, and when he confirmed that he was, she informed him that Veronica Rivera had listed him as her fiancé, and that she was deceased.

  27

  THE BAR WAS UPSCALE and fashionable. The kind of place the city's movers-and-shakers went to drink and boast after a long day of conquering the universe. Not exactly my cup of tea, but it had a classy and comfortable feel. I didn't see Gino, so I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a Jack and Coke, but regretted it immediately. The older I got the less I enjoyed a drink. Back in the day I'd been an infrequent but hard drinker, but the older I got the less alcohol agreed with me. Just looking at the drink brought back bad memories. Booze had a way of showing up in my life uninvited, and when it did it brought chaos.

  “Your drink OK?” asked the gorgeous, 20-something brunette behind the bar. Her white button-down, tan skin, and gold hoop earrings got the blood pumping. Bars had a way of making women look prettier than they really were. Alcohol and poor lighting work wonders. She didn't need any help.

  “It’s fine thanks, but I'd rather just have a club soda. Don't worry, I know I have to pay for this one too,” I told her.

  “Wise choice,” she said. “I don't drink either.”

  “Doesn't working in a bar tempt you?” I asked.

  “Actually the opposite,” she said. “I see what fools people make of themselves and it gives me a sense of inner peace knowing I'm not one of them anymore.”

  I told her I knew how she felt.

  “I'm Jasmine if you need anything. Anything at all.” Her eyes lingered. I knew the look. My phone number’s yours if you want it.

  I was about to thank her when a meaty hand clutched my shoulder, and I saw Gino's reflection in the mirror behind the bar. He'd rescued me from an awkward moment.

  “Dutch. How ya been?” he asked.

  “I've been OK. Damn, look at you,” I said. He looked like a different person. It'd been a while since I'd seen him. A month. Maybe more.

  “I've lost 30 pounds,” he said.

  “Good for you. How'd you do it?” I asked enthusiastically. His answer hit me like a 500 pound cluster-bomb.

  “When I lost Veronica I couldn't eat,” he said.

  It was a strange choice of words.

  “Didn’t work out?” I asked.

  “Veronica's dead.”

  “What?”

  “Dead. Killed in jail.”

  Gino motioned toward a table in the corner, and when we were seated he jumped into a tale so sordid that I actually considered re-ordering the Jack and Coke from earlier.

  He told me about Veronica getting busted with a carful of drugs, and how a week later she’d been murdered in prison. He’d been told by prison authorities that it had been a senseless act of prison violence. Maybe over nothing more than a bottle of shampoo or a pack of cigarettes. After her death he'd been inconsolable. He barely functioned at work and had seriously considered killing himself to escape the pain. The only reason he hadn't was because he couldn't bring himself to put his elderly widow mother through the suicide of her only son. Eventually he pulled himself together, started working out and eating better too. He lost a lot of fat and packed on some serious muscle.

  The first time we met was at my brother's birthday party. He'd just met his dream-girl. The sky was the limit. Seventh heaven and cloud nine all rolled into one. Now Veronica was gone, and though he’d crashed and burned after her death he looked like a million bucks, but something was definitely off.

  He told me he was still working security for the mayor's office and had even been promoted. To say he'd turned things around would be an understatement. We talked for an hour and probably put away a gallon of club soda between us. I was thankful he wasn't on the sauce, because under the circumstances if he'd have been in the mood to drink away his pain, it would have been impossible for me to let him do it alone.

  “Before Veronica was killed I sent word up the ranks to see if my contacts in the mayor’s office could help out. Maybe get her sentence reduced. Know what they told me?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Pound sand.”

  The next question I asked was stupid and inappropriate. I asked anyway.

  “Ever thought about getting even?”

  “Italians are like elephants,” he said. “We never forget. Did you know that vendettas in Italy can last for generations? Long after anyone remembers what the hell it was all about in the first place, they go on killing each other.”

  It was a telling analogy. I thought that was it, but he stood, shook my hand and hung his dead eyes on me.

  “Veronica was pregnant.”

  “Jesus.”

  “See you soon,” he said.

  I went to the bathroom to take a leak before settling the tab and heading home. Gino had rocked me. Twice. When I got back to the bar Jasmine handed me the tab. Five club sodas, but no Jack and Coke.

  “You forgot the drink I ordered when I first got here.”

  “No, I didn't,” she said. “It doesn't seem right charging a guy for deciding not to drink.”

  “That's very nice of you,” I said. I slid a $10 tip across the bar. She slid me a slip of paper with her name and phone number on it.

  “See you again?” she asked.

  “I'd like that,” I said.

  Outside I walked about a block and stopped under a street light. I pulled a cigarette from the pack in my coat pocket. As I fished for the lighter I found the paper with Jasmine's phone number. After I lit the cigarette and took a pull, I crumbled it and dropped it down the storm drain.

  Then I signaled a passing cab and headed home.

  28

  THE ESSENCE OF MY EXISTENCE had been distilled down to three key components. First, La Lena and Soul. They'd come out of nowhere and changed everything. Second, Arnold. The ever-present cloud that cast a dirty shadow over our lives. And last, the demons that raged inside me. Somehow I had to get a grip.

  Despite our predicament La Lena and I had fallen into a routine like most dating couples. We ate together, slept together, and hid our character flaws from one another. Perfectly healthy.

  The constant stress and uncertainty that hammered away at me daily were taking their toll, and more often than not I felt like a raving lunatic with a nasty case of cabin fever. I figured if things kept up the way th
ey were I’d be dead in a year, maybe two.

  On a whim I gathered a few dirty shirts and headed to the shop where La Lena worked to have a little fun.

  She was behind the register with another young woman when I strutted in grinning like a crocodile.

  “Is there a dry cleaner around here?” I said.

  “This is a dry cleaner,” she said doing her best to stifle a cheesy smile.

  I slid the shirts across the counter and told her the white one needed special attention, because I'd clumsily spilled a spoonful of sweet potatoes on it a few months back. I wasn't sure if she'd get the reference to the dinner we'd had at her place, but her eyes told me she did. I finished the act by asking if she thought they'd be able to get the stain out.

  “We'll manage,” she said, regaining her composure, “but you shouldn't wait so long next time. Stains have a nasty habit of setting if you ignore them.”

  “Great advice,” I said. “Will you deliver them when they're ready?”

  “Do you live around here?” she asked.

  “Not exactly.” I described where I lived in excruciating detail while she pretended to listen.

  “Sorry sir, that's out of our delivery area,” she said. “You'll have to come pick them up. But if you leave your number I'll call you when they're ready.” She flashed me the sexiest grin I'd ever seen.

  “THAT WAS SOME STUNT you pulled this afternoon,” she said.

  I’d just gotten out of the shower, and hearing her voice undressed aroused me.

  “Glad you liked it. I’ve been thinking about your ornery smile all day.”

  She growled.

  “How about the three of us go out for pizza and ice cream tonight? I said. It was totally spontaneous.