He laughs and nods. “That’s a good point.” Another hit of the joint. Dry cough. “Got another question for you while we’re gabbing.”
“What’s that?”
“You seem uncomfortable. Why?”
“You mean right now?”
“In general. Seem to have a head on your shoulders, but sure, you’re ready to jump straight from your skin.”
I avert my eyes from gaze. “Well, this isn’t the ideal Saturday night. To be honest, you’re throwing me off a little too.”
“How so?”
“Can’t size you up. Doesn’t make much sense that you come wandering into this bullshit for shits and giggles.”
“Is it supposed to be fucking serious?” He comes off more amused than mad.
“I guess not.”
“It’s a good time is all. You need to lighten up. See, your problem…” Blacky launches into a crouch like a nightmare Peter Pan, the joint bobbing in rhythm to his words. “…your problem is the fucking junk.” He fishes into his front pocket and pulls a wad of bills out. “This here? The shit you put into your veins? The fucking feeling I get when bone cracks under knuckle? It’s fucking fleeting.” The money’s tossed onto my lap. A few hundred dollar bills—crisp and clean.
“So I should kick the habit? Go back to what, exactly?”
He’s back on his ass as fast as he was up. Gives me a shrug. “Whatever the fuck yah want. Ain’t got time to piddle about killing yourself if you’re already fucking dying.” Blacky cracks the knuckles of his left hand. “You know what you need? A proper ass-kicking.” He jabs a thin, tattooed finger my way. “You and me, me and you—next week.”
I laugh. He doesn’t. “That a serious suggestion?”
“Very.”
“I’m not sure what kind of match that would be. You’re faster than me by fucking leaps and bounds. Stronger too.”
“Bullshit. You’re a wrestler; I can see that clear as day. Striking is good too. You have a shot.”
“I’m not sure. Can’t afford any new lasting injuries.”
“Get off it, yah pansy bollocks. We meet next week. Bring your best god damn dress if you’re gonna cry about it.” He stands. “One condition.” Blacky reaches down and fetches the money I’d ignored on my lap. He leaves two hundred dollar bills behind. “Buy a few ounces a’weed. No horse. You fight me at less than a hundred percent, I’ll fuckin’ kill yah. Understood?” He flicks the roach of his joint towards the corner of the room. Then he’s up and out. No goodbye, no chance for my rebuttal.
I wait a little while for Aleksei to show up, but all I get is Leroy shoving my ass out into the night.
“Bring it up next week,” he says and gives me one last push out the back door of the Ghost Hole.
I light a cigarette and have a long, hard think about what kind of shit I’m in.
• • •
I show up the next week feeling like I’ve been sleeping under the tire of an SUV. Three hours—it took me three fucking hours just to get out of bed. It’s amazing how man can ignore his withdrawal symptoms when a psychotic greaser mick’s holding the proverbial gun to his head. The money Blacky gave me is still in my wallet—untouched. Didn’t bother to smoke up or drink. Too worried I’d backslide.
Aleksei’s fronting the Ghost Hole. “Where’s Leroy?” I ask, trying to ignore the daggers in my eyes and guts.
He shrugs. “Your fight starts in half an hour. Get ready.”
I head to the common area and gear up. The crowd’s thick tonight, but I’m the only fighter here. My head may not be clear, but I ain’t dumb enough to ignore something’s not quite right. I find a pair of decent gloves and I get a cold chill straight down my spine that’s got nothing to do with the lack of dope.
Blacky walks into the room on cue. “Look at the state of you.” He slaps my back—hard. “Ready?”
He’s wearing a pair of black trunks with a shamrock on the ass. Without a shirt, I catch an eyeful of varied tattoos—some professional, others that faded prison grey. There’s an angel and a devil perched on opposite ends of his collarbone. Between them is a sacred heart of Jesus in the death grip of a brunette bombshell spread across his torso.
Blacky reaches a hand out and knocks on my forehead. “You on the fucking planet?”
I back up. “Oh, yeah, sorry…rough week.”
“You’ll be fine.” He goes to his jacket hung on the wall and fishes out a hand rolled smoke. It’s lit in no time and he’s flashing that Cheshire grin. “We’re the only fight tonight, so make it special.”
“Why’s that?”
“Cuz I said so.”
“Didn’t realize you were in with Aleksei like that.”
He laughs and smoke sputters out of him. “That pinko piece of shit? No communist ever tell me what to do.”
“Yet I’m about to throw punches with you.”
“Well, Kenny, my lad—at least you admit to your faults.” Back into his jacket pocket. “Want a smoke?”
“Sure.” I take a cigarette and a light. My first all week. My head goes for a long swim on the first pull. “So, if let’s say this all gets weird—no hard feelings, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“If I actually win—it’s not going to be a problem, is it?”
Blacky walks in close and leans his head forward. “You go in there and you fight me like an enemy, like yah just saw me with your own mum bent over a barrel—that understood?”
I nod.
He slaps my chest with a smile. “After all’s said and done—Bushmills and a few lagers—on me.”
“If I’m conscious, absolutely.”
“Atta boy.” He saunters out of the room. Blows smoke straight up. “You’re gonna do fantastic.” I can hear him whistle a tune down the hall.
That cigarette gets smoked down to a pinprick cherry nub that burns the fingertips of my thumb and index finger. The pain doesn’t register, I’m so worried. Out in the “ring”, Aleksei is saying something about Blacky. I hear my name; swallow the rock that was sitting on my tongue and head on out for my beating.
• • •
None of my other fights were like this. My head can’t seem to collect any information around me. The smells, the lights, the screams from the crowd—nothing comes through. Blacky’s egging everyone on, lifting his arms up and down with a cigarette still clenched between his lips. For the first time I notice how god damned smug he is. I bob there like a kid’s tub toy—my hands up, but unwilling to do anything.
Blacky walks over and stretches both arms out. “First shot’s free.”
I take the offer, a hard right hook to the sweet spot on his jaw. His head snaps to my left and the cigarette goes flying into the crowd. I spot it hitting one of the old timers and smile. For the first time all week, my thinking gets clear.
The punch only gets Blacky’s attention. He smiles and lifts his hands up. “Fucking knew you were a good match.”
Then he starts playing for real. He’s fast—fucking crazy fast. Dances around me like a ferret and peppers jabs to my head. He mixes it up with a few shots to the body—taking the wind out of me. I’m able to take a few of the hits on my forearms, but blocking punches still hurts like hell. Before long my arms feel like they’re on fire and filled with concrete. My hand speed gets sluggish and a few of those shots really start chipping away at me. I decide to pull back a little—try to get space—but it’s a wasted effort. There’s a mad gleam in Blacky’s eyes. He loves this shit.
“Come on.” He closes the gap between us and starts alternating punches to my ribs.
I’m in agony by the time I push him away and there’s a part of me wishes that I stayed in bed—dealt with the stomach cramps and the inevitable bullet to the head. My lungs burn, sounds are garbled as if my head’s in a fish tank. Still, I keep on my feet and when I see a small pause—that little window—I start punching back. Blacky’s response is an increase in enthusiasm—like playing with a pit bull.
He side steps right and steps forward on his left foot—looking to throw a haymaker. I spot it at the last moment and crouch, lean in, catch the punch with the top of my left arm as I lift it up, and put my all into a hard, right hook.
I strike gold.
Blacky’s eyes lose their spark and wobble in a way that reminds me of one of those puppets you saw on children’s TV. He drops like a wet sack of rocks. I go cold, but the room’s probably a thousand degrees between the rush of bodies that press in. There’s no way to make out what’s being said, but plenty of people sound upset. Guess I wasn’t the odds on favorite. A big, black hand grabs me by the arm—it’s Leroy—and I’m dragged to the back. I see Aleksei collect Blacky and follow us.
We get to the cramped back room and Leroy sits me on a folding chair while Blacky gets the comfort of the couch. That last punch got the side of his swelling like a balloon.
“Time to collect.” Aleksei’s voice is monotone. His eyes are dark.
“You good, champ?” Leroy smirks in my direction. “Hell of a punch.”
I nod. “Got a smoke?”
“Yeah.” He hands me a Newport.
I hate menthol, but whatever. Leroy lights the cigarette and I puff away. “He okay?”
“He’ll live.” Leroy gets three beers from a tiny fridge in the corner of the room. He tosses one my way. “Just chill out, drink up—we got this.”
“I don’t understand.”
I can hear Aleksei arguing back in the fighting pit. There are a few barks back and forth and it goes quiet. I hear the door open and shut—a sequence of locks being latched—then Aleksei walks back into the common room with his doctor’s bag.
He throws the bag at Leroy’s feet and follows up with a thick, yellow wad of phlegm. “There you go—zhri govno i zdohni!”
Leroy smiles like a god damn jack-o-lantern. “That all of it?”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic.” He shoves one of his bear paw hands into his jacket and out comes a Beretta. He pegs Aleksei twice in the chest and once in the head. His ponytail whips in the air and hits the ground after his body.
I nearly dive for cover. Stupid call—nowhere to go.
Leroy turns to me and slips the gun back where it came. “Easy, ain’t got no beef with you.”
“Beef?” Blacky interrupts. The click of a beer can tab follows. “Fuck’s sake. We owe the man our everlasting gratitude, yah daft black bear. He just won us a very, very nice pot.” The swelling makes it looks like he’s winking. He tries to flash that grin, but only half of it shows up.
• • •
“So this was all a scam?” I can’t decide if I should be pissed or grateful. We’re standing outside, chain smoking more of Leroy’s smokes and finishing off a six pack of Molsen. Leroy’s busy dousing the outside walls of the Ghost Hole with gasoline.
“That’s the sum of it.” Blacky exhales and teeters back and forth on the ball of his feet. “You did a right job scrambling my fucking head—though.” He cackles.
“That’s only because you let me.”
He shrugs. “Po-tay-toe, po-tah-toe.”
“That’s not how that works…listen, what kind of shit are we in? What happens if Aleksei’s people find out?”
“Fuck his people.” Blacky tosses a butt towards the building. Frowns when a fire doesn’t start. “Leroy—all of the fucking building.” He mimes a movement that supposed to be interpreted as ‘dousing the whole place’ but it’s more of a dance. “Kenny, listen. I got me places to duck out in the Bronx and Yonkers.”
“What about me?”
“You’ll be in Hartsdale.”
“What the fuck is up there?”
Blacky places a hand on my shoulder and pulls a white card out of his jeans pocket. “Drug rehab center. Decent place—have a few friends that swear by it.” He slips the card into my hand. On the back are three phone numbers scrawled in green ink. “Those are the places to reach me.”
“What the fuck makes you think I’d call you after this shit?”
“Three reasons.” Black lights another smoke. “One: I got yer money—twenty five large. Two: I got work opportunities for a man can fight and keep his fucking mouth shut. Three…” He grabs me by the back of the head and kisses me hard and angry. The way a teenager that’s seen too many movies would. He pulls back with a snarl. “Seen the way you look at me.”
I back up. “I don’t climb that tree, Blacky.” I notice the air around us has started to glow orange.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” He exhales a stream of smoke. “Leroy will get you to your apartment and over to the center.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
“What about you?”
He shrugs and turns. “Man’s business is never done.” I watch him walk away, my eyes locked on the ridiculous black cat on his jacket. It fades into the ink ahead of me.
Leroy bumps into me with a smile. “Ready to go?” I can smell the gasoline on his hands. Stings my nose.
I look down at the card. “Yeah…I’m ready.”
Traps
Owen Laukkanen
You find a lot of funny things in your traps when you’re trying to catch prawns. Slippery cod and slime eels, ratfish with their oilslick eyes and barbed tails, spiky rockfish with their swim bladders hanging out of their mouths, ruined by the two-hundred foot rise from the ocean floor.
Octopus, too—big, angry thirty pounders, grappling with their tentacles for any way to escape. They eat the prawns in the traps and leave nothing but skeletons, twist the caps off the bait jars and eat the bait, too. They’re smart buggers; they’ll run through a whole string of traps, clean you out. The deckhands have a running contest, who can kill and clean the biggest octo with his bare hands the fastest.
You get starfish, too, orange and yellow and purple, big floppy sun stars and spindly, wiry things, attracted by the scent of the bait in the water. You find them wrapped around the bait jar, sucking out the fish oil, ten or fifteen sometimes to a trap.
They’re mostly after the bait, those starfish. They move too slow to catch any live prey. But once in a while, the odd prawn will get caught in the mesh of the trap, halfway in and halfway out, wedged in there tight and unable to escape. And once in a while, a starfish will take notice.
The way Grady Welsh figures, it must be a hell of a slow death for the prawn, watching that starfish inching across the ocean floor, climbing the wall of the trap, unable to do anything but sit and wait and pray for a miracle. Maybe pray for that starfish to hurry up, for death to come quick, for the waiting to end.
You find a lot of funny things in your traps, Grady’s come to learn. Sometimes, you’ll even find a body, but not often.
Mostly it’s just starfish and stupid, doomed prawns.
• • •
Grady Welsh has been plotting his revenge on Kevin Autran since the day Shawna left him, five years ago, jumped off the Tarnation, Grady’s forty-two footer, and crossed the dock to Kevin on the Jackson 5. Packed up her sea bag, said she’d finally had enough losing, said she was throwing her lot in with a winner. As if Kevin Autran was any kind of a prize.
It’s hard enough losing a woman without having to see her on the water every day of the fishing season. Without running into her on the docks, packing Kevin’s brand-new Dodge dually with groceries and gear, bumping into her and Kevin coming out of Spinnaker’s, the fisherman’s bar in Tofino, when you’re trying to kick off a decent drunk. It’s hard enough to lose a woman without having to see her every day, arms wrapped around some asshole, without having to ignore his big, stupid grin every time you come into harbor, without running into the Jackson 5 on the grounds and knowing Shawna’s aboard, cooking her trademark chili, humming to herself as she works in the galley. Knowing she’s warming Kevin’s bunk when they anchor up for the night.
Grady likes to think Shawna’s leaving was the tipping point in the long losing streak that his life’s become, but in truth, he and the
Tarnation were on the slide well before the separation. The salmon stopped running, that was the first thing, back twenty or thirty years ago, ended the gold rush and turned the fishermen from lottery winners to personas non grata up and down the coast. Grady sold his license, got into prawns, made it stick for a while. Figured as long as he had Shawna, he was doing all right.
But things kept going wrong. Shawna wanted a baby; Grady figured, why not? Try as they might, though—and they tried—no kid appeared. The doctors blamed it on Grady, said he wasn’t packing enough heat. Shawna got distant a little bit, withdrawn, and Grady couldn’t fix it. Knew Shawna had her heart set on a family someday, a little girl. Knew she had to blame him a little for dashing her dreams.
The prawns stopped running, too, about the same time. Not a fleet-wide problem, mind you, just Grady. Just the Tarnation. Grady figured he was just distracted by the problems with Shawna, figured he needed to readjust his focus, maybe swap out to a new type of bait. But the bait wouldn’t cut it, and the prawns just wouldn’t show. The Tarnation couldn’t make pay.
It was around that time that Shawna stopped coming out for the fishing season. Started staying home over the spring and summer months, taking classes at the local community college. Painting. Grady would come home at the end of the season, find the baby’s bedroom entirely redecorated, elaborate murals painted on the walls—oceanscapes, whales and dolphins and mermaids and octopus. Starfish.
Try as he might, there was no bringing her back. “It’s so stressful,” she’d tell Grady. “The pace and the pressure, trying to cram a year’s paycheck into a few months of work. It’s exhausting, Grady. I can’t do it.”
So Grady hired a couple deckhands, called home every night. Ate canned ravioli and slept alone in his bunk. And still couldn’t catch any prawns.
• • •
The Jackson 5 is tied up at the little government wharf in Hot Springs Cove when Grady makes the turn around the point in the Tarnation. No other boats in the bay, no floatplanes, nobody on the beach, not this late in the day. The tourists all motor back to Tofino in their speedboats by five or six; only the fishermen and the natives come around after that. Today, it looks like Kevin and Shawna have the springs to themselves.
Shotgun Honey Presents: Locked and Loaded (Both Barrels Book 3) Page 14