Ride the Lightning

by Dietrich Kalteis

  “After the kind of day I had,” he said, pointing to the welts on his own face. “You know what, fuck you, Sunny.” He tried to get up.

  She grabbed for his arm, but he pulled away.

  “Not till you pay me.”

  “In your dreams.” He stood.

  “Think I’d learn to get it up front.” She balled the tinfoil and threw it at him.

  Wally lit the last of Miro’s Newports, crumpling the pack, dropping the match in the wine bottle. The two of them had split up after jumping the FedEx guy at the Park’N Go, Wally running along Hastings, sure the cops were chasing him. Flagging a cab to Chickie’s, he took it over the Second Narrows to the North Shore, catching Sunny at the end of her shift. He wanted her, said it didn’t matter that she was sweaty from being in that greasy hell all day. They had the cabbie stop for a bottle of Asti, then rode to her place, got in the shower together and got a good buzz going. Wally passing out.

  And here he was, dropping the cigarette in the bottle, the menthol taste twisting his stomach. He reached for the strap of her bag.

  “Hey,” she said, grabbing for it, raking his arm with her nails, thinking the jerk was ripping her off.

  He slapped her mouth, hard, saying all he wanted was a decent smoke, fishing out her Rothmans pack with one left. “This it?”

  “Yeah, I was saving it.” She grabbed her bag and hugged it to her, putting a hand to where he hit her, giving him the hurt puppy look.

  He lit the cigarette, looking at the hand print on her cheek, saying he was sorry, then, “I’ll share it with you.”

  “Great,” she said. “I get stiffed, slapped and fucked over—second time this week.”

  “Somebody else hit you?”

  “The Small Potatoes guy—told me to put it on the tab.”

  “You want me to go see him?”

  She took the cigarette from him and dragged on it. “I’m a big girl, take care of myself.”

  “Told you what I did to the construction guy, right?” On her exhale, he came in for a kiss, caught her on the cheek as she turned her head away. That was it; he got up and went through the door without another word, letting the screen slam behind him. The rain coming down at an angle.

  The screened-in porch ran across the front of the two-story. Standing on the stoop, he looked around, every house on the street the same. Like the street he grew up on in Riverdale, back when that part of Toronto was a slum, except the houses there were brick. These were all wood. Inside, he heard her phone ring, heard the floorboards creak as she went to pick up and say hello. Probably another john.

  He was done with her. What he needed right now was to get his head around jacking the van for the Burnaby job. The street was Sunday-morning quiet, a dead zone of cars lining both sides. Looked like the top of a green Chevy Express parked on the next block.

  The screen door squeaked open, and Sunny stepped out beside him, arms folded around him. “Sorry, guess I’m a bitch sometimes.” She dropped her head on his shoulder.

  The smell of her hair, the warmth of her body disarmed him. Hearing the rain patter, he turned and slung an arm around her. “Coke mellowed you out.”

  She slipped a hand under his jacket, touching the Smith tucked in his belt, playing with him now. “That a gun or are you glad to see me?”

  “Funny.”

  “It’s kind of . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know . . . a turn on.” She was giving him that look.

  “Yeah?”

  “You any good with it?”

  “The gun?”

  “Yeah, the gun.”

  “Not into the quick-draw shit like my man Merle’s into, but . . .”

  “This the guy you work for?”

  “Working with, not for. Yeah, the jerk with the three egg omelet—that day in the cafe.”

  “Right, the tipper.”

  “Guy likes to twirl his cowboy gun around his finger, thinks he’s Roy Rogers or somebody—likely blow his dick off one day—no great loss. But yeah, I’m good with it. Why you asking me that?”

  “Told you, it’s a turn on.” She drew closer, pressing against it, put her lips on his, worked her tongue into his mouth, pressing her thigh against him, knowing what he liked, making like she did, too.

  The van could wait. Wally got into it, ran his hands under her top, feeling her, not hearing the rain, not hearing the car pull up to the curb, the door open. Steering her hand down the front of his pants, he was rocking his hips to the rhythm, reaching for the screen door behind her.

  “You like surprises, baby?” Her voice was a whisper. She pulled back from him, taking her hand away, looking into his eyes.

  Wally saying, “Yeah, love a good—”

  The big hand clapped his shoulder and spun him around. The swipe from the open hand felt like a punch, knocking the do-rag from his head.

  But Wally was quick; he had the Smith pressed against the big man’s gut, Stax in his T-shirt and leather jacket. Snorting snot back up his nose, Stax grinned at him, took hold of him by pinching thumb and fingers around his collar bone. Shaking his hair back, Stax didn’t bother about the .38 against his gut.

  “Wally, you the fuck who shot my dog?”

  “Let the fuck go of me, man.” Wally clicked the safety off, looking at Sunny, saying, “Better tell him I ain’t . . . ahhhhh . . .”

  Stax pinched harder, like he was disjointing a chicken.

  “You crazy fuck.” Wally’s words came through clenched teeth; his knees buckled. It felt like he was being ripped apart.

  Sunny retreated behind the screen door, couldn’t take her eyes off what was going on.

  “Bowen Island. One of you assholes shot Ike.” His fingers dug in like a vice grip, the fingernails all white. “And I’m thinking it was you.”

  The pull on the trigger brought a dry click.

  “You or your fucking buddy, Mitch—which one?”

  Click. Click.

  “Who’s Ike?

  “Which one?”

  Click.

  Stax ground his teeth, growling and digging in harder.

  “Miro. Fuck! It was Miro.” Wally was crying out, realizing Ike was the dog, almost on his knees, his collar bone feeling broken.

  Click.

  “Miro, huh?” Stax straightened Wally up, taking hold of his arm.

  “Yeah, that gun-crazy fuck.”

  Click.

  “You see him do it?”

  “Mitch told me about it after.”

  “And you were where?”

  “In the van.”

  “So how you know it wasn’t your buddy Mitch?” Stax pinched the flesh at the back of Wally’s arm, making it hurt.

  “Mitch doesn’t shoot anything but his mouth, plus Miro’s been dying to kill something since I met him.”

  Stax eased the grip, but held onto Wally, knowing the truth of it, saying, “I promised your girlfriend here I wouldn’t make a mess, blast your guts all over her walls.”

  “I appreciate it,” she said through the screen. The call came when Wally was out cold, Stax saying he got her number from Chickie, asked if she was interested in a reward, telling her what she had to do to collect.

  Wally looked back at her, then said again it wasn’t him, that he loved dogs.

  “Okay, so, let’s go for a ride, find your buddy Mitch, see what he says,” then to Sunny, “You got something for me, doll?”

  She reached in a pocket, opened the screen and handed Stax the shells she took from the Smith, Wally looking at her.

  “When you were passed out,” she said to him, shrugging. “Sorry.”

  Aiming at her, Wally pulled the trigger one more time.

  Click.

  “Gonna fuck up the firing pin you keep doing that.” Stax jerked the Smith
from his hand, dropping it in his own pocket with the shells.

  “I didn’t shoot your dog, man. I swear. Talk to Miro.”

  Stax nodded like he believed him, snorted again. “Right now Miro’s gone to square things with the asshole who dragged his ass to jail.”

  Wally nodded. “Miro and me got something going. Come with, you can talk to him about the dog.”

  “Grow-op in Burnaby? Said that to set you up.” Stax turned Wally for the steps. “Right now, you and me are going to see what your buddy Mitch says. Where do we find him?”

  “Try his double-wide.”

  “His what?”

  “Place like a trailer where he lives.”

  “This double-wide got an address?”

  “Don’t know off the top of my head, but it’s in that RV park by the Capilano, under the Lion’s Gate.”

  Stax nodded, “Indian reserve, ain’t it?”

  “All I know, there’s an old shitbox Camry out front—used to be red.”

  “He got a cell?” Stax told Sunny to get a pen and paper.

  Sunny turned from the door, and Wally said, “Look, give me five minutes, and I’m on the first thing smoking.”

  She was back with a stub of a pencil and a pad.

  “Write,” Stax said.

  Wally jotted the number down, and Stax reached in Wally’s pocket, took his cell and punched in the number. No answer. He said, “Let’s take a ride.” Fishing out his keys, he asked Sunny, “You go through this guy’s pockets like I asked, doll?”

  She shook her head, and he nodded for her to do it now. Coming back out onto the stoop, she dug around in Wally’s pants, pulling out a few crumpled bills, the all-in-one and the fresh pack of Newports he lifted from Miro’s jacket. “Took my last one. You cheap prick.” She handed the stuff to Stax.

  “I don’t get you,” Wally said to her.

  “Did it on account of the G-note on your head,” Stax told him.

  “Every time I looked at you, my hand was in my pocket,” Wally said to her.

  “Earned every cent, so spare me your bullshit.” Then she did look sorry. “Look, this guy was going to catch up with you one way or the other.”

  Stax ripped off the cellophane and tapped out three smokes. He flicked a lighter and got a flame like a blowtorch, lighting all three, handing her one and one to Wally. He said to her, “You keep the bills, doll.”

  She counted them, saying, “You’re short like nine hundred and forty.”

  “You’re looking at the wrong guy. See, the guy paying the reward got fried on Wreck Beach.”

  “He’s dead?” Wally asked.

  “Very.”

  “By the FedEx guy?”

  Stax said yeah, Sunny bitching about getting fucked over again, tucking the money away.

  “Shit happens, doll.” Stax reached for his wallet, pulled out some bills and handed her what he had. “Understand, this comes out of my own pocket.” Then he said to Wally, as she counted, “You, in the car.”

  As Stax turned, Wally jumped the railing, falling into her rose bushes. Going and lifting him out of the bushes, grabbing the do-rag, Stax marched him to the curb, opening the door and shoving him in, catching Wally’s head on the frame.

  Standing on the stoop, Sunny went on about the two hundred and twenty bucks and her broken rose bush, Stax looking at her through the slanting rain, going around to the driver’s side, saying, “You keep running your mouth, doll, you’re gonna be standing there with nothing.”

  “What about the rest?”

  “Just had a pretty shitty week myself, but try me again in a couple of days. Meantime, we weren’t here, right?”

  “Where do I find you?” she called, not liking the look on his face when he said not to worry about it; he’d come see her.

  the rush

  Halfway across Sixteenth, Karl cut up to Broadway hoping the traffic would thin. Raining like a bitch. He was heading toward the Causeway, zipping from lane to lane.

  His cell rang again; it was PJ saying Dara wasn’t answering, worry in her voice.

  “Probably sees it’s you on the call display and won’t pick up.”

  “God, that kid.”

  “Cam’s with her,” he said.

  “That supposed to make me feel better?”

  Karl was thinking there was a good chance Miro would head to PJ’s house first. Shit. Karl checked his rearview, pulling a Steve McQueen move, drifting the Porsche around, vehicles honking at him from all four lanes, Karl telling her he’d swing by, check on Dara, then come get her. “Get downstairs and wait for me.”

  She said she was going out the door now.

  hair of the dog

  Pulling a couple of Buds from the pack on the backseat, one he picked up while chauffeuring the old man around, Stax tossed one in Wally’s lap. Wally popped it open, watching Sunny disappear into her house. Pulling a rose thorn from his palm, he knew it was the last time he’d see her.

  “Hair of the dog,” Stax said, pulling from the curb, hitting the wipers, taking a sip and pulling out the CD hanging from the player, looking at it, saying Beyoncé like he had shit in his mouth. Pressing the window down, he sailed it out like a Frisbee. He couldn’t believe Artie listened to shit like that.

  Wally said the chick had a nice ass, trying to make conversation. “This the DTS?”

  “The what?”

  “Cadillac DTS.”

  “A couch on wheels, you ask me.”

  “You jack it?”

  “Old man left it to me,” Stax said, asking if Wally was high, Wally saying yeah, a little.

  They passed Attic Treasures and a bead shop, Wally asking what anybody would want with beads. He looked into the back seat, hoping for a tire iron or something heavy, nothing but the beer and a beach blanket with sand sticking to it.

  “Popeye said you got a knack for jacking cars, that right?” Stax asked.

  “Who’s Popeye?”

  “What we called Miro back in the day. You want to piss him off, call him that.”

  Wally filed it away. “Said I had a knack, huh?”

  “That and you were dumb as shit.” Stax turned east on Venables, waiting on a white-haired couple to cross to the Baptist church, the two of them arm in arm under a giant umbrella. The sign outside read “Get high Sunday, my place—God.”

  “So, tell me about jacking cars,” Stax said.

  Wally shrugged. “Snatched my first one at sixteen back in Toronto, fired up this Aerostar with nothing but a roach clip, right by the Eaton Centre. I’m pulling out of the Express Park and got cut off by some asshole in a Suburban. Guy gives me the finger. Followed him home, waited till he went inside, broke in his tuna boat, touched a screwdriver to his solenoid, left the fucker against a pole down by the racetrack. Fucking airbag nearly knocked me out. Surprised the hell out of me. First time I ever seen one.”

  “Popped your cherry, huh?”

  “Yeah. Two in one day. How about you, ever jack a ride?”

  Stax pulled out a key ring, holding one up, asking if Wally knew what it was.

  “Think I don’t know a master key when I see one?”

  “Opens any Ford truck made before ’03.”

  “Broke into a tow truck one time, not long after I hit town.” Wally swallowed some warm beer. “Got a bunch of them. Ford, Chev, Dodge, you name it. Those tow-truck fuckers got master keys to everything.”

  “Still got them?” Stax pinned his beer between his thighs.

  “Lost them going over the fence at the old police impound.”

  “Stealing from the cops?”

  “Candy red Vette caught my eye.” Wally rested his hand on the door handle, betting he could roll out without breaking his legs, thinking his chance was coming at the next light. Then thinking they were getting on, him and the big man
, the two of them telling each other who they were. Besides, he didn’t shoot the dog. Mitch would back that up.

  Stax looked at him. “You bozos find the key to Artie’s safe when you broke in?”

  “Found shit on account of the dog Popeye didn’t know about.”

  “You the one shot at it?”

  “Fucking right.” Wally realized his mistake as he said it.

  Offering Wally one of his own smokes, he took one and pushed in the cigarette lighter. Stax pulled around the bus, chirping rubber, stopping for a red, listening to Wally saying how it was just a warning shot, meant to scare it. Wally mouthed the word help, the bus driver looking down at him as friendly as malaria. Stax looked over at a Japanese family at the opposite bus stop, each wearing an umbrella hat, looked like aliens with dangling Nikons. The husband called to Stax, unable to make sense of a map.

  “No capisce,” Stax called out the window. The light changed and Stax stepped on it, regarded the Newport in his hand, tossing it out the window, the pack along with it. “You lift those off Popeye?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stax looked at Wally’s do-rag. “Worked with this Jamaican guy back when I was jacking rigs, wore one like that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Till the night he got up on the step of a Peterbilt in Vernon, showed the trucker his sawed-off pump. Trucker pulled a .45 from under the seat and blew it off his head.”

  Wally touched a hand to it. He should have jumped back there.

  “That real or a street model?” Stax said, checking out the Rolex.

  good to go

  Cinnamon and pastry. The smell brought on the juices, Mitch passing the patisserie’s window. The sign under the Visa and MasterCard stickers said a ten-dollar minimum credit card purchase was required. Mitch bet if he flashed the Walther, the woman behind the counter would oblige him with any cruller he wanted. But he still had the thousand bucks he’d lifted from Artie’s nightstand on him. A bell tingled over the door, Mitch going in, telling the shopkeeper to fill a box, asked if she could break a hundred.

  Wally had called in the morning wanting to meet at Miro’s, talk about hitting the next place. Fucking Camry wouldn’t start, the engine always iffy when it rained. Mitch thinking he should have taken that as a sign. No way he was hitting another place with Wally and Miro, wondering why he hauled his ass down here at all, guessing he needed to tell Wally face to face he was through. That was before running into the FedEx guy coming off Miro’s elevator, telling him Wally and Miro split.