The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

  Their money. There wasn’t anything new about the feds setting up drug deals, but I still clenched my jaws thinking about it. I looked around for an ashtray, found none, flicked a gray cylinder from the end of the Pall Mall, and watched it break up on the concrete floor. “I’d think you’d know better, Jack. On second thought, probably you wouldn’t. Full-time dealers, guys that’ve been around, know what’s going on and don’t take the bait. Part-time guys are easy meat for them. So. Who’d they set you up with?”

  “Skeezix, is all I know. Look, buddy, I didn’t just run and jump into anything. Skeezix came with references. Some guys I know said he was solid as a rock. I arranged four different meeting with the guy and had him checked from A to Z.” Jack’s forearms rested on the counter, and he was cracking his knuckles by pressing the fingers of one hand against the receiver as he held it against his ear.

  My little cubicle was getting hazy with smoke, so I dropped my cigarette on the floor and ground it under my heel. “So it turned out this Skeezix had money and a plane but no connect to make a buy,” I said.

  “How’d you know that?” Jack said. “You know Skeezix?”

  “No, but Breaux will. Or he’ll find out. Breaux’s a friend, a guy I know from El Reno. Hey, I don’t have to know the particular guy. It’s always like that. Skeezix will turn out to be a junior-grade dealer they’ve busted. As long as he’ll keep setting guys up, they’ll leave him on the street. Keep right on dealing dope if he wants to, the feds don’t give a shit. But the first time he doesn’t come through for them it’s bye-bye Skeezix, off to the joint. How much coke was it that Skeezix was going to buy?”

  “Two hundred kilos is what he said. He was really flashing some money around. That’s entrapment, isn’t it? I mean, the guy came to me, not vice versa.”

  “Sure, it’s entrapment, but that’s not going to save you. Not too many people understand the entrapment laws. The feds are going to say you were in the business all along, that this Skeezix didn’t get you to make any dope deal that you wouldn’t have made anyway, with somebody else. The only way an entrapment defense will fly is if you were standing around doing nothing and the guy talks you into committing a crime that you wouldn’t have committed anyway. It’s the shits, Jack, but that’s the way it works.”

  He closed his eyes and just sat there for a moment. Across the bullpen one prisoner, a black guy with an Afro, was shaking his fist through the window at a young, pretty, light-skinned black girl. Dear John visit.

  Finally Jack said, “So what do we do, buddy?

  “The first step is to get you out on bond if we can. This Skeezix. He your only contact up until the feds arrested you?”

  “That’s it. Hell, I wasn’t even there when the plane landed. Did Donna tell you? They walked right into Chateaubriand while we were having dinner. Cuffed me right at the table. Jesus, it was—” He halted, his shoulders heaving. I couldn’t stand to watch Jack cry, so I studied my knuckles.

  I said, “Well, then, Skeezix is the key. He’s going to be the feds’ witness at your bond hearing.”

  He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. The eyes were bleary, as though he wasn’t getting enough sleep. In his surroundings I doubted that he was. He said, “Look, buddy, I don’t know how far Cassel’s gone into this with you. Your money’s there, I got that. In fact . . . look, Ricky, I’m going to tell you something Donna doesn’t even know. There’s a key. Bookcase in my den, there’s a key taped inside the front cover of Moby Dick. I picked one nobody’s likely to read. The key opens a mini-warehouse locker in Mid-Cities. In Hurst, on Bedford-Euless Road just south of the Airport Freeway. It’s the only mini-warehouse out there, you can’t miss it. The locker’s rented under the name of Jack Landry. Sort of a name you and I would both recognize, huh? Anyway, worse comes to worse . . . well, there’s enough money in there to pay you if anything happens. A helluva lot more than enough. There’s—and to hell with what you might think about this—but there’s two kilos of almost pure Bolivian in there, too. If anything happens, I’m looking to you to see that Donna gets what’s left after you get yours, okay?”

  I shrugged. It would be okay and Jack knew it.

  “Anyway,” Jack said, “I don’t want you to take any of this the wrong way. But as for what Cassel’s told you about you taking all the heat if anything goes wrong . . . well, it has to be that way. I can’t afford any more trouble than I’ve already got, Ricky.”

  “A deal’s a deal,” I said. “Look, as long as we’re spilling our guts to each other, you’re talking to a guy that doesn’t have much to lose. Jesus, I don’t have a pot to piss in. I’m driving a Corvette that’s two payments behind, and that Sweaty Mathis—you don’t know him, he’s a bail bondsman. Sweaty says he’s going to tip off the finance company where I keep the ‘Vette parked if I don’t start locating some people for him. Hell, I’m lucky to locate myself most of the time. About the only thing I got going for me in a deal like this is that jail doesn’t scare me like it does most people. Hell, I’ve been there. So whatever I do, you won’t get any kickback from it. It stays right here with me.”

  Jack scratched his nose. He tugged at his ear. He smoothed his thick graying hair. Just as I was about to decide he was imitating a third-base coach, he grinned and said, “Well, sic ‘em, then.”

  I pulled the envelope from my inside pocket, the one Donna had given me. I held it against my forehead and winked at him. “I already have,” I said. “I’m just making sure you’re not going to yank on the leash before I can sink my teeth in.”

  4

  Bodie Breaux once had hauled eighteen thousand pounds of marijuana north along the eastern shore of Mexico, hidden under the deck of a Honduran lobster boat. Somewhere north of the Yucatan Peninsula, Bodie ran afoul of the U.S. Coast Guard. They dispatched one cutter to keep pace with Bodie astern, sent a second, speedier vessel along to stare him down over his bow, and hovered a whirlybird over his mast for good measure. Thus backed by firepower, the captain of the Coast Guard mini-fleet politely requested permission via radio to board. Bodie thought it over, spat a stream of Beechnut tobacco juice over the side, and said into his mike, “That’s your fuckin’ ass, Captain. This ain’t no American tub you’re talkin’ to.”

  During the two hours required for the Coast Guard to get permission from the Honduran government to board and search, Bodie pointed the lobster boat’s nose toward the open sea. As more Coast Guard ships joined in the chase, Bodie found himself leading quite a parade. He damn near made it, too; when the helicopter’s crew finally leveled machine guns at Bodie’s people—a grinning black giant with a shaved head and a skinny Puerto Rican with a patch over one eye—while one of the cutters clamped onto the lobster boat, the distance to the point where the ocean floor dropped off to bottomless depths was less than half a mile. Halted, Bodie tried to sink his boat anyhow, right there in the shallows. A seaman first class wearing a bulletproof vest, his gaze darting furtively about, burst into the engine room and pointed a shotgun at Bodie. His voice cracking like an adolescent’s, the young sailor said, “Hold it right there!” At the time Bodie had all valves open and gushing and was himself waist-deep in salt water. He grinned, raised his hand, and shot the swabbie the finger.

  Two weeks later in a Miami grand jury room, Bodie stood at attention in front of a court reporter. The steno took time out from running his shorthand machine and had the prisoner raise his right hand. Then he asked whether Bodie solemnly swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help Bodie God. The two U. S. marshals who’d escorted Breaux over from the Metropolitan Center stood at ease and waited for the prisoner to answer.

  Bodie glanced first at the ceiling, then at his feet, shifted his weight, and finally told the grand jurors loudly, “Fuck no.” The stunt cost Breaux eighteen months for contempt plus a five-year beef in the federal joint for trying to smuggle the dope. But it gained him a lot of respect in some circles, too.

  I found Bodie loungi
ng in a dark corner at Cafe Dallas. His hand was resting on a leggy redhead’s thigh, and I told him that we had some work to do. He said, “That’s your fuckin’ ass, Bannion.”

  I sat down in a cushioned chair. A small round table between us was clear plastic with old Dallas Morning News clippings molded in. I looked down at a photo of Melvin Belli, glasses askew, gray hair wild, shaking his fist at the camera on the day of Ruby’s conviction. Bodie’s Jack Daniels, neat, was on the table in a rock glass, his water back in a tumbler beside it. The redhead’s drink was a green, frothy something-or-other in a stemmed champagne glass. Heard on the club’s muted sound system, the Bee Gees rocked through “Stayin’ Alive.”

  “Look, Bodie, I hate to interrupt, okay?” I said. “But I don’t have much time on this.”

  The redhead leaned close to Breaux and whispered something. Bodie’s eyes widened. He had a square, jut-jawed face and a day’s growth of dark beard. Funny thing about Breaux. If you see a guy and he’s got a day’s growth, and then you see him again the next day, by then he should either be clean-shaven or have two days’ growth. Not Breaux. Each and every day, one day’s growth of dark beard. When the redhead had finished whispering, Bodie said to me, “You want Gloria to call her roommate?”

  The redhead was in tight blue slacks and showed a lot of hip curve, and the roommate would be quite a number or Breaux wouldn’t have given the okay. I sighed and said, “No time. You know a guy they call Skeezix?” I paused and glanced at the redhead. Bodie nodded and winked; it would be all right to talk in front of her. I went on. “Real name’s Herman Moore, but I doubt you’d know him by that.”

  Breaux slightly rotated his thick shoulders. He was wearing a red T-shirt with a cartoon of a giant crab on the front along with a red-billed cap advertising Inland Marine Co., Metarie, La. Thick black chest hair was visible over the shirt collar. He said, “I hope I didn’t hear you right. Do I know a guy named who?”

  “Skeezix.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. Yeah, I know him, and so do the feds. Look, the only reason Skeezix ain’t dead is because his spirit might rise up and stool somebody off. I’m serious. The fucking guy is dealing coke with one hand while the other hand is on the hotline to the U.S. attorney’s office.”

  “That’s the guy,” I said. “He set up Jack Brendy.”

  A cocktail waitress appeared at my elbow wearing a farmer’s daughter outfit, complete with floor-length pleated skirt. I ordered plain soda and lime. The drink I’d had earlier with Donna had made me a little dizzy, and I didn’t want to get started again. The waitress showed a disappointed pout, then jiggled off toward the island bar in the center of the club. The bar stools were elbow to elbow, guys in suits and guys in jeans and women in everything from shorts and halters to shoulderless dinner dresses. Most were stag, in twos and threes, and the guys and the women shot glances at one another over the rims of their glasses. A few had gotten up the nerve to start conversations.

  Breaux said, “That Brendy guy must be pretty dumb, whoever he is, fooling with that Skeezix.”

  The redhead spoke up. “Bodie, he’s been in the paper every day. He used to play for the Cowboys.” She spoke in a high nasal twang, and I’d just as soon that she go back to whispering her messages through Breaux. The way a lot of Dallas folks put reverent emphasis on the name of their silly football team just knocked me over. As though whether the Cowboys won or lost was right up there in importance with the world economic crisis. I’d had a decade-long relationship with the town that I loved as a member of the football team that I hated, and I didn’t want any more of it.

  “Oh,” Breaux said. “That guy. Brendy. I saw him in the Super Bowl down in New Awlins in what, seventy-eight? Against the Broncos. You’d already shot your wad in football by then, hadn’t you, Bannion?”

  I’d always assumed that tact was something they didn’t teach in the cajun home. I nodded.

  The redhead brightened, sat up straighter, and leaned closer to me. She had a cute button nose and a spray of freckles. She gave me a pretty porcelain smile. “You played for the Cowboys?”

  I thought, Jesus Christ, I’ve got to get out of here. I forced my lips into a smile that probably looked more like a grimace, then turned once again to Breaux. “I got reasons I got to find this Skeezix before Thursday morning. You got any idea where to look?”

  “I damn sure know where not to look,” Bodie said. “That’s anyplace where Muhammed Double-X might find him. A few months back Skeezix set up Muhammed’s baby brother, or that’s what they say. I always say I ain’t afraid of anybody, but that don’t include that double-scary cat. Muhammed Double-X, Jesus.”

  I had a fleeting mental image of Muhammed’s kinky hair, sharp ebony features always hidden behind mirrored shades. He’d once cut off a man’s hand for shorting six grams out of a kilo. I said, “So I don’t look in South Dallas. Where do I look? It’s nighttime, and whatever bad habits Skeezix has, he’s probably into them. You know his bad habits? He just a dealer, or a user, too?”

  “I don’t know the guy that good. I’ve seen him around, and hell, it’s my business to know about him. But, yeah, he’ll be a user, you get to where you can spot ‘em. Dancy little fat guy, always talking a mile a minute. Thinks he’s a real cool dresser, but if you ask me he looks more like a circus clown. Neon sport coats, two-tone shoes, that kind of shit. Tell you something else, this Skeezix is a gambler. I know one guy—hell, Bannion, you know him, too. Ace the Book.”

  I nodded. I’d had a passing acquaintance with Ace the Book back during my playing days, at a time when I wasn’t supposed to know any gamblers. Breaux went on, “Ace says this Skeezix shoots craps with one hand while he’s got the phone in the other, getting his bets down.”

  The waitress had brought my drink, and now I sipped it. It was tart and bubbly. “That should narrow it down, Bodie. We’ll start with the gamblers. Chances are one of ‘em has seen him.”

  “What you mean, ‘we,’ white man?” Breaux said.

  “I told you, I got something to do.” He squeezed the redhead around the shoulders. She giggled and scootched closer to him.

  I intertwined my fingers on the tabletop. The Bee Gees’ song had ended and Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” was now jumping over the sound system. I said, “I need you. Tell you what, two hours. Two hours max, and if we can’t find the guy I’ll take it from there.”

  “You ain’t getting through to me,” Breaux said.

  I figured to have a twenty-five percent chance of finding Skeezix alone. With Bodie as a guide I was a lead-pipe cinch. He knew every nook and cranny and then some. I said, “It’s important to me, Bodie. Just this once, huh? It’ll be plenty worth your while.”

  I guess he caught something in my tone of voice. He studied me for an instant, then untangled himself from the redhead. Without looking at her, he said, “I guess I got some business, Gloria. Be around later, doll.”

  Ace the Book had an Adam’s apple the size of an eight ball. He was tall and skinny with a hawk nose. His hair was graying at the temples and he had slim, delicate hands. At the moment he was popping hundred-dollar bills from a roll the size of a softball and stacking them in a neat pile in front of him. In a foghorn voice he said, “Shoot eight hundred. Take any or all of it.” He picked up clear red dice, rattled them, and peered around through the hanging smoke at the circle of faces.

  Breaux and I stood beside the sliding accordion gate at the head of a staircase that descended to a door set into an old brick building on Lower Greenville Avenue, a couple of blocks north of Ross. A few moments ago we’d told the doorman that Ace the Book would okay us and, eyeing us suspiciously, he’d let us in and followed us up the stairs. I read the sign above the entrance: “VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS—MEMBERS ONLY.” The only war of which Ace the Book was a veteran had taken place somewhere on Akard Street.

  The doorman, a stocky, balding guy wearing a white shirt whose collar was grimy, said from the side of his mouth, “You bett
er hope Ace knows you. He don’t, you seen too much already.” He had stained yellow teeth and was chewing a cigar butt. He wore baggy gray slacks. The bulge in his hip pocket was probably a sap, but might have been a gun.

  We’d stopped by my place for me to change into Levis, pullover knit short-sleeve shirt, and white Nike sneakers—Breaux’s idea. The people in the places where we were going didn’t talk to men in coats and ties. I leaned against the folded gate and jammed my hands into my back pockets. My right fingertips brushed the handle of my Smith & Wesson .380, a cheaper imitation of a Walther PPK. “There’s Ace over there,” I said. “Ask him.”

  Breaux folded his arms and showed an insolent leer.

  The doorman was built like a barrel with arms and had too much of a roll around his middle. “Ace is shooting dice, pal. You don’t want to interrupt a man’s shooting.” He sounded as though we’d just asked to break into Ace’s confessional booth.

  There were eight or nine men hunched over the edges of a pool table. Ace stood at one end rattling the dominoes. A black, beefy-necked citizen peeled off four fifties and dropped them beside Ace’s eight hundred. A sleepy-eyed young guy with diamond pinky rings on both hands covered the remaining six hundred, then laid two hundreds and a fifty off to one side. “Laying five to one, Acie,” he said. “Two-fifty to fifty, no seven.”

  Ace hesitated. “You giving me a short price, Herkie. Make it six to one, you got a bet.”

  The young guy had a black handlebar mustache. He fingered his bankroll, shrugged, and added another fifty to the stack. Ace faded the bet, grinned, and rolled a natural seven, six-one. The young guy blinked and scratched his head.

  As Ace grabbed the money and stacked it, I turned to Fireplug the doorman. “How about asking him now,” I said. “Or is interrupting a man collecting the same as interrupting a man shooting?”