“Now you’re just arguing with me to argue with me.”
“I’m not.”
She rose from her knees. “See? I don’t need this shit. Okay?”
Bob said, “Wait. What happened here?”
“You think you can just push me around, think you found a speed bag to tap-tap-tap with your big fist?”
“What?” Bob said. “Jesus. No.”
She went to walk past him. Bob started to reach for her and then thought better of it, but it was too late.
“Don’t you fucking touch me.”
He took a step back from her. She pointed her finger in his face and then walked down the stairs, double-time.
On the sidewalk, she looked up at him. “Asshole,” she said, her eyes brimming.
She walked away.
Bob stood there with zero idea how he managed to fuck up this big.
ONCE HE GOT BACK to the bar, Bob stayed in the back for an hour with a hair dryer and the wet money. When he came out, the bar was still mostly empty, just a few old-timers drinking bottom-shelf rye down the end closest to the door. Cousin Marv and Bob stood down the other end.
Bob said, “I just asked a question and everything went, like, sideways.”
Cousin Marv said, “You could hand them the Hope Diamond, they’d complain about the weight.” He turned a page of the paper. “You’re sure he didn’t see anything?”
“Torres?” Bob said, “Positive.” Though he wasn’t.
The front door opened and Chovka entered followed by Anwar. They passed the three old guys and came down the bar and took stools by Cousin Marv and Bob. They sat. They put their elbows on the bar. They waited.
The three old guys—Pokaski, Limone, and Imbruglia—didn’t even have a conversation about it before they all left their stools at the same time and wandered off by the pool table.
Cousin Marv wiped down the bar by Chovka even though he’d wiped it down a minute before they came through the door. “Hi.”
Chovka ignored him. He looked at Anwar. They both looked back at Bob and Cousin Marv. Chovka dug in his pocket. Anwar dug in his. Their hands came back out of their coats. They placed cigarette packs and lighters on the bar.
Bob rummaged under the bar and returned with the ashtray he kept there for Millie. He placed it between them. They lit their cigarettes.
Bob said, “Get you a drink, Chovka?”
Chovka smoked. Anwar smoked.
Bob said, “Marv.”
Cousin Marv asked, “What?”
Bob said, “Anwar drinks Stella.”
Cousin Marv went to the beer cooler. Bob pulled a bottle of Midleton Irish whiskey off the top shelf. He poured a healthy glass and placed it in front of Chovka. Cousin Marv returned with a Stella Artois and placed it by Anwar. Bob grabbed a coaster and lifted the beer, placed the coaster under it. Then he pulled a manila envelope out from under the register and placed it on the bar.
Bob said, “The bills are still a little damp, so I wrapped them in a Ziploc. But it’s all there.”
Chovka said, “A Ziploc.”
Bob nodded. “I was going to, you know, toss it in a dryer, but we don’t have one here, but I did the best I could with a hair dryer. But if you spread it all out on a table? They should all be crisp come morning.”
“How’d it get wet in the first place?”
“We had to clean it,” Bob said.
“Something on it?” Chovka’s eyes were very still.
“Yes,” Bob said.
Chovka considered the drink Bob had placed in front of him. “This isn’t what you gave me last time.”
Bob said, “That was the Bowmore 18. You thought it tasted like cognac. I think you’ll like this more.”
Chovka held the glass up to the light. He sniffed it. Looked at Bob. He put the glass to his lips and took a sip. He placed the glass on the bar. “We die.”
“’Scuse me?” Bob said.
“All of us,” Chovka said. “We die. So many different ways this happens. Anwar, did you know your grandfather?”
Anwar drank half his Stella in one gulp. “No. He’s dead long time.”
“Bob,” Chovka said, “is your grandfather still alive? Either of them?”
“No, sir.”
“But they lived full lives?”
“One died in his late thirties,” Bob said, “the other made it into his sixties.”
“But they lived on this earth. They fucked and fought and made babies. They thought their day was the day, the last word. And then they died. Because we die.” He took another sip of his drink and repeated, “We die,” in a soft whisper. “But before you do?” He turned on his stool and handed Anwar the glass. “You gotta try this fucking whiskey, man.”
He slapped Anwar on the back. He laughed.
Anwar took a sip. He handed the glass back. “It’s good.”
“‘It’s good.’” Chovka snorted. “You don’t understand the finer things, Anwar. That is your problem. Drink your beer.” Chovka drained the rest of the glass, eyes locked on Cousin Marv. Then on Bob. “You understand the finer things, Bob.”
“Thank you.”
“I think you understand many more things than you let on.”
Bob said nothing.
Chovka said, “You’ll handle the drop.”
Cousin Marv asked, “Tonight?”
Chovka shook his head.
They waited.
Chovka said, “Super Bowl.”
And he and Anwar pushed off the bar. They scooped up their cigarettes and lighters. They walked down the bar and out the door.
Bob and Cousin Marv stood there, Bob again feeling so light-headed he wouldn’t have been surprised to wake up on the floor ten minutes from now with no recollection of how he got there. The room didn’t spin exactly, but it keep dimming and brightening, dimming and brightening.
Marv said, “You notice he never once referred to me, directed a question or comment my way? Only time he ever looked at me it was like I was a bit of toilet paper still stuck in his ass, he had to do another reach around.”
“I didn’t get that at all.”
“You didn’t get it at all because you were all fucking chummy with him. ‘Here’s your mint julep, massah, and forgive me if it doesn’t taste like the eighteen-fucking-year-old cognac I gave you last time you checked up on us field slaves.’ You fucking kidding me? He’s going to fucking kill me.”
“No, he’s not. You’re not making sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense. He thinks me and dead fucking Rardy—”
“Rardy’s not dead.”
“Really? You seen him around lately?” He pointed at the door, whisper-hissing. “That fucking Chechen thinks me and Rardy hatched this thing with the One-Armed Corpse. You, he thinks you’re too stupid or too fucking, I dunno, nice to rob him. But me, he gives the death stare.”
“If he thought you had his five thousand, where’d he get the five grand in the bag from?”
“What?”
“The guys who stuck us up stole five grand. There was five grand in the bag with the”—he looked over by the pool table, made sure the three old guys were still there—“hand. So he found his money with the kid and he sent it back to us.”
“Yeah?”
“Which means he can’t think you have it if he sent it to us and we just gave it back to him.”
“He can think I put the stickup guys up to it and they were holding the cash while I waited for things to cool down. And even if he doesn’t think that, it’s in his head, now that I’m a piece of shit. I’m not to be trusted. And guys like that don’t ask if their opinions are rational. They just decide one day you’re a flea and tomorrow’s Flea Killing Day.”
“Are you listening to yourself?”
Marv’s face was beaded with sweat. “They’re gonna use this place for a Super Sunday drop. Then they’re gonna knock it over and either shoot us or leave us to live long enough for all the other crazy Chechneyans and fucking Georgians wh
o put their money in our safe that night to decide we orchestrated it. And then they’re going to work on us in some basement for three or four days until we don’t have eyes or ears or fucking balls and all our teeth are smashed in. And then? Two in the hat, Bob. Two in the hat.”
He came out from behind the bar.
“Marv.”
Cousin Marv waved it off, started walking toward the door.
Bob said, “I can’t work a Thursday night alone.”
“Call BarTemps.”
“Marv!”
Marv raised his arms in a “Whatta ya gonna do?” gesture and pushed the door open on the day. The door closed behind him and Bob stood behind the bar, the old-timers looking at him from over by the pool table before they went back to their drinks.
AT THE END OF a long night, Bob came up the street to find Nadia standing on his front porch, smoking. Bob could feel his own face light up like the Fourth of July.
Bob said, “You’ll freeze out here.”
She shook her head. “I just came out to smoke. I’ve been in with Rocco.”
Bob said, “I don’t care if you knew him. I don’t care. He told me to say hi to you, like it meant something.”
Nadia said, “What else he say?”
Bob said, “He said Rocco is his.”
She flicked her cigarette into the street. Bob held the door open for her and she entered the house.
In the kitchen, he let Rocco out of his crate and plopped him on his lap at the table. Nadia took two beers out of the fridge, slid one to Bob.
They drank for a while in silence.
Nadia said, “So, Eric’s cute, right? One night that was enough. I mean, I knew all the stories about him being fucked in the head, but then he left town for a while and when he came back he seemed calmer, like he’d pocketed his demons, you know? Boxed them up. For a while it seemed like he was different. Then when the crazy bus came to town, I was already in for a penny.”
Bob said, “That’s why your barrel.”
Nadia looked at Rocco and shook her head. “No. We haven’t been . . . together in, like, a year.” She shook her head some more, trying to convince herself. Then: “So he beat Rocco, thinks he’s dead, and he throws him into my trash, so I’ll what?”
Bob said, “Think about him? I dunno.”
Nadia processed that. “That does sound like Eric. Christ, I’m sorry.”
Bob said, “You didn’t know.”
Nadia knelt in front of Bob and Rocco. She took the dog’s head in her hand.
Nadia said, “Rocco. I’m not up on my saints. What’s Rocco the saint of?”
Bob said, “Dogs. Patron saint of dogs.”
Nadia said, “Well, yeah.”
Bob said, “And pharmacists, bachelors, and the falsely accused.”
Nadia said, “Dude has a full plate.” She raised her beer in toast. “Well, shit, here’s to Saint Rocco.”
They toasted.
She took her seat again and ran the edge of her thumb along her scar. “You ever think some things you do are beyond, I dunno, forgiveness?”
Bob said, “From who?”
Nadia pointed up. “You know.”
Bob said, “I get days, yeah, I think some sins you can’t come back from. No matter how much good you do after, the devil’s just waiting for your body to quit ’cause he already owns your soul. Or maybe there’s no devil but you die and God says, ‘Sorry, you can’t come in. You did an unforgivable; you gotta be alone now. Forever.’”
Nadia said, “I’d take the devil.”
“Right?” Bob said, “Other times? I don’t think God’s the problem. It’s us, you know?”
She shook her head.
Bob said, “We don’t let ourselves out of our own cages.”
He wagged Rocco’s paw at her. She smiled, drank her beer.
“I heard Cousin Marv doesn’t own the bar. But some hard guys do. But you’re not a hard guy. So why do you work there?”
Bob said, “Me and Cousin Marv go way back. He’s actually my cousin. Him and his sister, Dottie. My mother and their father were sisters.”
Nadia laughed. “Did they share makeup?”
“What’d I say? No, I meant, you know what I meant.” He laughed. It was a real laugh and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one of those. “Why you giving me shit?”
Nadia said, “It’s fun.”
The silence was beautiful.
Bob broke it eventually. “Marv thought he was a hard guy once. He had a crew for a while and we made some money, you know.”
Nadia said, “But you don’t have a crew anymore?”
Bob said, “You gotta be mean. Tough ain’t enough. These mean crews started coming around. And we blinked.”
Nadia said, “But you’re still in the life.”
Bob shook his head. “I just tend bar.”
She looked at him carefully over her beer and let him see that she didn’t really believe him but she wouldn’t press.
Nadia said, “You think he’ll just go away?”
“Eric?” he said. “Doesn’t strike me as the type.”
“He’s not. He killed a kid named Glory Days. Well, that wasn’t his—”
Bob said, “Richie Whelan, yeah.”
Nadia nodded. “Eric killed him.”
Bob said, “Why?”
“I dunno. He’s not a big fan of why, Eric.” She stood. “Another beer?”
Bob hesitated.
“Come on, Bob, let your hair down.”
Bob beamed. “Why not?”
Nadia put another beer in front of him. She ruffled Rocco’s head. She sat and they drank.
BOB WALKED NADIA TO her front stoop. “’Night.”
“’Night, Bob. Thanks.”
“For what?”
She shrugged. She put her hand on his shoulder and gave his cheek a quick peck. Then she was gone.
BOB WALKED HOME. THE streets were silent. He came upon a long patch of ice on the sidewalk. Instead of walking around it, he slid on it, arms out for balance. Like a little kid. When he reached the end of the patch, he smiled up at the stars.
BACK AT HOME, HE cleared the beer cans from the table. He rinsed them and placed them in a plastic bag hanging from a drawer handle. He smiled at Rocco, who was curled up and sleeping in the corner of his crate. He shut off the kitchen light.
He turned the kitchen light back on. He opened the crate. Rocco opened his eyes, stared at him. Bob considered the new addition to Rocco’s crate:
The umbrella Eric Deeds took from the house.
Bob removed it from the crate and sat with it for a long time.
CHAPTER 12
Like No Time at All
ERIC DEEDS SAT IN the back of Hi-Fi Pizza with a couple slices late on Friday morning. Eric always sat near the back of anyplace he ate or drank. He liked to always be no more than ten feet from an exit. In case, he’d told a girl once.
“In case what?”
“In case they come for me.”
“Who’s they?”
“There’s always a they,” Eric had said, looking in her eyes—this was Jeannie Madden he was dating at the time—and he thought he saw real understanding looking back at him. Finally—fucking finally—someone who got him.
She caressed his hand. “There is always a ‘they,’ isn’t there?”
“Yes,” Eric said. “Yes.”
She dumped him three hours later. Left a message on the clunky old answering machine Eric’s father kept in the front hall of their house on Parker Hill. On the message, she started out nice, talking about it being her, not him, and how people just drifted apart, they did, and someday she hoped they’d be friends but if he tried any of his crazy shit with her, if he fucking so much as thought of doing it, her four brothers would pile out of a car while he was walking Bucky Ave., and they would beat the motherfucking shit out of his crazy fucking ass. Get some help, Eric. Get some serious fucking help. But leave me alone.
He left her al
one. She married Paul Giraldi, the electrician, just six months later. Had three kids now.
And Eric was still watching the exit in the back of the same pizza place. Alone.
He thought of using it that morning when the fat guy, Cousin Marv, came over to his table, but he didn’t want to make a scene, lose his privileges here again. He’d once been banned for six months in 2005 after the incident with the Sprite and the green peppers and they’d been six of the longest months of his life because Hi-Fi made the best fucking pizza in the history of pizza.
So he stayed where he was as Cousin Marv removed his coat and took the seat across from him.
Cousin Marv said, “I still don’t have any Zima.”
Eric continued to eat, not sure what the play could be.
Cousin Marv moved the salt and the Parmesan cheese shaker out of their way, stared across the table. “Why don’t you like my cousin?”
“He took my dog.” Eric slid the Parm shaker back his way.
Cousin Marv said, “I heard you beat it.”
“Felt bad about it after.” Eric took a small sip of Coke. “That count?”
Cousin Marv looked at him the way a lot of people did—like they could see his thoughts and they found them pitiable.
I’ll make you pity yourself someday, Eric thought. Make you cry and bleed and beg.
Cousin Marv said, “You even want the dog back?”
Eric said, “I don’t know. I don’t want your cousin there walking around thinking he’s the shit, though. He needs to learn.”
Cousin Marv said, “Learn what?”
Eric said, “That he shouldn’t have fucked with me. And now you’re fucking with me. Think I’m going to put up with that?”
“Relax. I come in peace.”
Eric chewed some pizza.
Cousin Marv said, “You ever do time?”
“Time?”
“Yeah,” Marv said. “In a prison.”
Eric finished his first slice, slapped some crumbs off his hands. “I did time.”
“Yeah?” Marv raised his eyebrows. “Where?”
“Broad River.”
Marv shook his head. “I don’t know it.”
“It’s in South Carolina.”
“Shit,” Marv said, “how’d you end up down there?”
Eric shrugged.
“So you did your bid—what, a couple years—and you came back?”
The Drop Page 10