Cash Out

by Greg Bardsley

  “I’ll explain more once I get through this. I promise.”

  “Dan, I can get his name in a very casual way. You know, like I’ll refer to him in conversation or something, say I forgot his name. Keep you out of it.”

  “Thanks, Oscar.” I slip the Afro Cuban into my briefcase. “And if you get a name, don’t call my cell or office line.”

  He smiles at me, like I’m nuts.

  “Just call my buddy Rod.”

  “The cage fighter?”

  “Exactly.” I scribble Rod’s cell on a scrap of paper, hand it to him. “Call him here. Just avoid my numbers entirely.”

  “What are we, in a movie here, dude?”

  I chuckle. “I promise I’ll explain when I can.”

  “No worries.”

  I back out of his office. “I better jet.”

  “You headed for the airport?” Then he throws a hand into the air. “Not that you have to tell me.”

  “Nah, I have to go home, find Crazy Larry.”

  Now he’s really studying me. “Crazy Larry?” He laughs, pauses. “You need to go find someone named Crazy Larry?”

  “Long story, but basically I think Crazy Larry has Little Red.”

  He laughs again. “Crazy Larry has Little Red?”

  I nod. “So now, if I disappear, you’ll know who to mention to the cops.”

  “Yeah, Crazy Larry, Little Red, and High Rider.”

  He laughs and I laugh with him. Till the tears are rolling down our cheeks.

  Finally, Oscar takes a deep breath, sighs hard. “Seriously, dude. You go home, you may wanna take a nap.”

  I stand in front of Larry’s house. No station wagon. The street is empty.

  Where is everyone?

  I look back at my house. By now, Kate and the kids are in the city, safe with Rod, but just about anybody could be in that house waiting for me. Baldy? Shovel Man? Crazy Larry? Crazy Larry with Little Red? Someone new?

  I feel myself swaying.

  Oscar is right, I do need a nap.

  And, fuck, do my balls ache. My whole midsection aches.

  Something’s screwed up down there. For sure.

  I reach into my pocket, pull out the bottle, pop another Vicodin, stare at Larry’s garage door, squint at the knife marks. Crazy Larry. If he goes wacko on me today, in my current state, there’s no way I can handle him.

  All of a sudden, I hear an electronic buzzing and snapping coming from Larry’s garage.

  Fuck, is that him in there? With Little Red?

  I pull my hair back, look around the neighborhood, try to think. I need a plan. I walk across the street, hear the tap of a hammer, metal rustling, heavy panting. Then that buzz-snap sound again.

  Faint trace of someone growling.

  Something rushes up behind me, gives me a hell of a jolt. I yelp and turn, realize it’s little Luke Burns, the nine-year-old from down the street, zipping up on his Razor scooter, big head of blond hair shooting in all directions.

  “I wouldn’t stand there.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “Why’s that?”

  Luke steps off his Razor, leans in, whispers. “Larry.”

  “Yeah?”

  Luke looks around, adds, “Extra cuckoo today.”

  “Yeah? Tell me.”

  “I was playing out front when Larry pulled up in his station wagon.”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “But it was weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “The back windows were covered with cardboard.”

  “Yeah, that’s odd.” Did he have Little Red back there?

  “And then he backed it into his garage.” Luke stops, looks at me with some serious eyes. “Larry never backs his car into the garage.”

  He’s right.

  “Did Larry see you?”

  Luke nods. “He saw me, but I kept watching, and he lowered his head like this and glared at me. So I say, ‘Bye,’ and he says, ‘Yes, that’s right, bye-bye.’ ”

  “Did you go tell your mom?”

  Nods. “She said Larry’s just being Larry, and to leave him alone.”

  “Wise advice, Luke. Listen to your mom.”

  “But I was riding around later, and he came out, so I rode by and he was just squinting into space with this weird smile, like his mouth was just pretending to be happy.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  Luke nods. “He asked me about the ‘scent of bacon frying in the wild.’ ”

  “Bacon?”

  “He said, ‘Does that affect you, Luke?’ And I said no. And he said. ‘Bacon scent in the woods drives me nuts.’ Then his arms and legs got all tight, like this.” Ben shoots his arms out, crosses his eyes. “I didn’t know what to say, so I just said, ‘I like bacon.’ ”

  “Good for you, Luke.”

  “And Crazy Larry says, ‘Well, I think I smell bacon.’ ”

  “So then you left?”

  Big nod, serious eyes. Whispers, “If Crazy Larry smells bacon, I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

  “You’re probably right, Luke.”

  “But after a while I came back.”

  “You should keep clear of him, kiddo.”

  He shrugs. “He didn’t even notice me. It was like he was in his own world.”

  “Did you see anything else?”

  “He opened the garage door, pulled his station wagon out, and went to the store.”

  “The store? How do you know he went to the store?”

  Luke huffs and throws his hands into the air. “All the stuff he came back with. Duh.”

  “Stuff? What kind of stuff?”

  “All kinds of stuff. Big metal bars, chicken wire, a whole bunch of twine, propane canisters—the kind my dad uses for the barbecue.”

  I mumble, “Wow.”

  “Those big cement square things.”

  “Foundation blocks?”

  “I think so. Oh, and then a big bag of cotton balls, a bunch of that silver tape, and a bunch of buckets with some kind of dark wet stuff inside.”

  “Wow.”

  We stand in silence a second as Luke squints into the air. “Oh, yeah, he had car batteries and those thick wires for when your car is dead.”

  “Jumper cables?”

  He nods. “And then a roll of fabric, an ironing board, a power drill, I think, and a bunch of beer.”

  I laugh.

  Still squinting into air, thinking about it. “Oh, and on the sidewalk he left a can of shaving cream, a thing of Vaseline, and some cans of WD40. That stuff’s awesome.”

  “Don’t play with WD40, Luke.”

  “I know.” Then he brightens. “But Larry does.”

  “But you don’t want to be like Larry, do you?”

  He concedes the point, his eyes serious.

  “Did you see anyone else with him? Maybe a little man with really red hair?”

  Thinks about it, shakes his head no. “But he did say something else weird.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The last time he came out, I asked what he was doing, and all he kept saying was, ‘Larry needs some time to himself.’ ”

  “Hmmm.” We stand there awhile. “Last question, Luke.”

  He peers up at me.

  “Do you swear you’re telling me the truth?”

  “Totally.” His blue eyes pop. “It’s totally true.”

  “Okay, I believe you.”

  He nods to Larry’s house, smiles with hope. “Are you gonna sneak in there?”

  A loud buzz-snap from Larry’s garage.

  “Um, don’t think so. If I need something from Larry, I’ll just knock on his door.”

  Luke fails to suppress a grin. This astute little guy knows I’m full of shit.
<
br />   I open my garage door, grab Harry’s aluminum baseball bat, and enter the house through the kitchen, ready to take anyone’s head off.

  And what do you know?

  No one.

  Windows locked. Everything secure. Peaceful silence. In my house.

  At this moment in my life, how rare.

  I return to the kitchen, lean against the counter. I’m so tired my eyelids hurt. My mind is swimming. I need a beer. That’ll settle me down, add a little juice to the Vicodin, put me on course for a much-needed nap, a sweet block of blackout thirty minutes from now.

  Assuming that’s enough time to figure out the Crazy Larry situation.

  I limp to the fridge, finger a bottle of Sierra Nevada, pop the cap, and pour it into a pint glass. Call me a fancy boy, but that beer is so much better in a glass—tastes better, looks better, sounds so lovely going into the glass. I stand in the kitchen, look out to the backyard as I take a sip.

  Ah, man. Just perfect.

  Say to no one, “Damn, that’s good.” Take another sip, feel it settle in my stomach.

  Go sit on the front porch and keep an eye on Larry. That’s what I’ll do.

  I bring the bat with me, use it for leverage as I lower myself onto the front step of my porch, put the pint down beside me. The beer and Vicodin start mixing nicely, and I find myself gazing skyward as I listen to the odd noises coming from Larry’s garage—the hammering, the buzz of a saw or drill, those periodic buzz-snaps.

  And I realize that I probably look pretty crazy myself about now.

  From Larry’s garage, a wet slap against the pavement.

  My cell rings.

  “Yo.”

  It’s High Rider. “Do you have an update?”

  “I do.” Am I slurring? “I talked to Kate. She hasn’t seen your buddy, I’m afraid. And Rod’s with them, so . . .”

  “Anything else?”

  “How about you? Why don’t you admit it was you who sent Shovel Man into my garage this morning, tried to plant something under my wife’s minivan?”

  Long silence.

  “C’mon. Fess up.” Oh yeah, I’m buzzed.

  Finally, he says, “It was you who removed the tracking device.”

  I imagine High Rider in a dimly lit basement, placing a trembling finger over the Enter button of his keyboard, ready to destroy my life.

  “Now, wait,” I say. “We thought it was someone more powerful, someone connected to the guy who attacked me in the Safeway.”

  Silence.

  “Hell, if you wanted to track Kate, you should’ve just asked. We’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Long silence. And then, “We found the tracking device, Dan.”

  Oh shit. Larry’s car.

  “On a station wagon,” I say.

  “No.” Long, irritated sigh. “It wasn’t on any station wagon.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do any shopping today, Mr. Jordan?”

  “Me? . . . What? . . . No. Why?”

  “Well, it seems our tracking device made a trip to the grocery store.”

  “Okay.”

  “Lunardi’s, to be precise.”

  “Inside Lunardi’s?”

  “Under a neat stack of cucumbers.”

  I get a vision of Crazy Larry fucking with a pile of cucumbers in the produce section, everyone keeping clear.

  “Before there, it was up in the hills.”

  “Hills?”

  Silence, and then, “Which is where we lost contact with my associate?”

  “Little Red?”

  Annoyed. “My associate.”

  “Okay, well—”

  “We know you were at work at the time. Irrefutable. Your IT activity bears it out.”

  “Good. See, I was—”

  “And from what we now can tell, your wife and the cage fighter had nothing to do with this.”

  “Beyond a doubt.”

  “And yet you knew about the tracking device.”

  “True.”

  “And it clearly wasn’t on the minivan.”

  “Yeah, we removed it.”

  “And you placed it on a vehicle, judging by the fact the signal had us zigzagging up and down the peninsula.”

  I think of Crazy Larry. “Really?”

  “Whose car, Dan?”

  “What?”

  “I’m getting ready to release your information, Dan. This isn’t funny.”

  “Okay, okay.” I blink, and my vision blurs. “We put it under my neighbor’s station wagon. Thought it would be harmless.”

  “Your neighbor across the street?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wait for a reaction, trying to think of what to say next, when Larry’s front door opens. It’s Larry, in his skin-colored Speedo and shiny black army boots, with a faded orange tank top. Nursing a pipe, glancing at me as he takes a seat on his porch.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Is he home?”

  I squint back at Larry. “He is.”

  Silence. Fuck, he’s deciding what to do. I know it.

  “Like I said, we thought that device came from some serious dudes, not you guys. We just wanted them off our tails.”

  “Who are those guys, Dan?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

  Not gonna tell him about Stanislau. Not yet, at least.

  “So, does he have my associate or not?”

  Larry takes a puff, watches me. A buzz-snap echoes from his garage.

  “Probably, but it’s a matter of where.”

  “You have an hour to retrieve my associate, or this thing is over.”

  Larry watching, puffing, stroking his beard.

  “Okay,” I say, “but you need to tell me where his car went this morning. That might help.”

  High Rider huffs, ruffles papers. “The signal was everywhere. First the library, then to the wetlands, then up and down 101, back and forth, over and over, between Redwood City and Belmont, for ninety minutes.”

  I imagine Crazy Larry driving up and down the freeway with that look on his face, the radio turned off as he thinks about God knows what. Creeps me out.

  “So when did your buddy attempt to follow the car?”

  “Well . . .” His anger is palpable. “He began the pursuit on 101, but couldn’t find the car, because he was looking for a minivan. He followed the signal up and down 101 for twenty minutes, at which point the vehicle got off the freeway and headed for the hills.”

  And I’m wondering, Daily routine for Larry?

  “My associate followed the signal all the way to the top of the hills, proceeded south on Skyline Boulevard, Highway 35, which is where we lost contact.”

  “In the woods,” I whisper, gazing back at Larry. “He obviously realized he was being tailed and lured your guy into the woods, snagged him there.”

  A pause. “The signal returned to your neighborhood. Remained there for a while, then proceeded to dart around town, to stores, we think, and then settled, apparently, in the produce section.”

  “Okay.” Gazing back at Larry. “So, I think your buddy is over here at Larry’s house.”

  “You will need to provide a welfare status.”

  “Well . . .” I watch Larry as he puffs and stares. Another buzz-snap from inside. “He might be a little rattled.”

  High Rider yelps, “Get him.”

  “But that might be—”

  “You have one hour to get him, or your life is ruined.”

  Dial tone.

  Fuck, I’m buzzed.

  That Sierra Nevada had sounded like such a good idea. But now I want balance, a clear head.

  I wobble toward Larry. He
sits there assessing me, his mouth frozen in an odd smile—and I realize he actually has a nice face, a face the ladies probably liked at one point, when he was saner. Hell, maybe they still do.

  “Hey, Larry.”

  He stares at my feet like they baffle him, looks away, exhales a puff.

  Buzz-snap.

  “You’ve been busy over here today.”

  He turns and stares at me. He nearly whispers, “I made a friend.”

  “Oh yeah?” I play it straight, like he’s just won five hundred dollars in the Lotto. “That’s great, Larry.”

  “You could say . . .” He’s gazing into the air, then turns to me, forcing that weird smile. “. . . we’re having what you yuppies call a playdate.”

  I offer an awkward laugh. “Yeah?”

  He brings the pipe to his mouth, produces a cloud of smoke, studies the swirls, follows their ascent until they dissolve into nothing.

  “You think the playdate is over?”

  More smoking.

  “Maybe your new friend wants to go home now?”

  Crazy Larry gives me this look like I’ve morphed into a porcupine.

  Another buzz-snap, and a faint growl.

  Human growl.

  Larry cocks his head, like he’s he listening to Bach.

  And I realize: I’m hosed.

  A funky beat thumps out of Calhoun’s granny unit.

  I recognize the beat, those lyrics.

  “My Humps.”

  Black Eyed Peas. They love the humps.

  Hell, these days, the whole world loves them.

  Including Calhoun.

  The windows are fogged a little as I inch closer, the beat getting stronger, Fergie belting it out high and breathless.

  I drive these brothers crazy,

  I do it on the Daily . . .

  I peek in, see Calhoun in his open robe—arms snapping, pelvis thrusting, belly shaking, feet working hard, head cocking and snapping.

  Whoa.

  Calhoun.

  Serious moves.

  Calhoun sings along, “She’s got me spending.”

  Spendin’ all your money on me and spending time on me.

  Calhoun wails, “What you gon’ do with all that junk? All that junk inside that trunk?”

  I stumble to his door. Fuck, I’m light-headed. But, hell, I need help. I need to get Little Red out of that garage within the hour or I’m hosed, and Calhoun is the only way I can think of to gain entry to his landlord’s house and spring the little guy loose. Or at least talk Larry into cooperating.