Bermuda Schwartz

by Bob Morris

  “Might help if you wrote down what it is you’re trying to tell me,” I say.

  Trimmingham scribbles something on the pad and shoves it at me.

  I LOSE $200,000!!!, it says.

  “Sorry, but I’m afraid that’s the cost of doing business, Brew. Consider that two hundred thousand dollars your payment for my services. The way I look at it, you’re getting off pretty cheap.”

  Trimmingham rips the sheet off the notepad. He wads it up and throws it at me. He writes something else.

  not fair!!!!

  “Not fair? Come on, Brew. You took two million dollars of mine and it’s sitting out there. You want not fair? That’s not fair. So I am assuming my role as majority partner in this little enterprise you’ve gotten us into. And I’m calling in the chits.”

  Trimmingham starts in on another rant. I grab a pillow from the bed and shove it down on his face. Trimmingham shuts up. I remove the pillow.

  Trimmingham glares at me. But at least he has the good sense to be quiet.

  “Look at it this way,” I say. “Sign these papers and you’re home free. No overhead to worry about. No bad guys on your tail. Everything is on my shoulders. All you have to do is take it easy and get well.”

  “Goosh-gotumpph,” Trimmingham says. “Izznot-tokus …”

  I move in with the pillow. Trimmingham shuts up.

  “Of course,” I continue, “if you refuse to sign then that means your ass is in a sling. You still owe all that money. To the bad guys. And to me. And I’m a whole lot badder than they are. You might as well take up permanent residence in this hospital. That’s if you’re lucky.”

  Trimmingham seethes. He starts to say something, thinks better of it. He scribbles on the notepad and holds it up so I can see.

  I WANT ALL MY MONEY!!!!

  “Sure, no problem.” I take out my wallet, pull six dollar bills from it. I put them on the bed. “There you go. Now sign the papers.”

  I pick up the pen and hold it out to Trimmingham.

  “Gafuk yusef,” he says.

  I fluff the pillow, move in with it again.

  He reaches for the pen.

  38

  Despite my success in getting Brewster Trimmingham to sign the papers, I have no luck on another front: Getting him to tell me who beat him up.

  He stonewalls. And keeps stonewalling. And when his blood pressure spikes so much that a buzzer goes off, a nurse comes in and asks Boggy and me to leave.

  “These people, the ones Trimmingham owes money to, don’t you think they will soon reveal themselves?” asks Boggy as we leave the hospital.

  “Yeah, I do. But I prefer they reveal themselves on my terms. And I prefer they do it sooner rather than later.”

  I drive to downtown Hamilton and park in the alley behind Benny’s Lounge. We step inside. Not much of a crowd. A few people occupying booths. No one sitting at the bar.

  The same bartender from a couple of days earlier is wiping down the bar, talking on his cell phone. Boggy and I take stools near him. If he recognizes me, he doesn’t show it. He flips shut his phone.

  “What can I get you?” he asks.

  “A name.”

  Blank stare from the bartender. He’s a big, pig-faced guy, clearly not hired for his looks.

  “What name is that?”

  “Whoever it was you called the other afternoon when Brewster Trimmingham got his butt kicked in the alley.”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” says the bartender.

  He gives me his bad-ass look. It’s a good one, as looks like that go. I’d rate it about number 713 out of the 10,000 or so I’ve been given in my life. I hope he doesn’t see me quivering in my sandals.

  “Gee,” I say. “I must have made a mistake.”

  “Yeah,” says the bartender. “You must have.”

  I smile.

  “In that case,” I say, “my friend and I will each take a pint of Guinness and review our options.”

  The bartender isn’t sure he likes the sound of that, but he draws our pints anyway. He sets them down in front of us.

  I pick up my mug and study it. There’s at least three inches of brown foam sitting on top of the black stout.

  “You know, you really rushed this one,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah?” says the bartender. “How’s that?”

  “Well, the right way to draw a Guinness, it takes time. You pour a little, let it sit. Then pour a little more, and let it sit. Maybe scrape off the head with a knife. I don’t like it when my Guinness is rushed,” I say. “I can’t possibly drink this.”

  I toss the Guinness in the bartender’s face.

  As he sputters, I grab Boggy’s mug.

  “You mind?” I ask Boggy.

  “I hate Guinness,” he says. “Gives me gas.”

  “Then ‘tis a far, far better thing I do.”

  I give the bartender another faceful of stout.

  He reaches across the bar to grab me and I slam the mug against the side of his head. He drops like a bag of bricks.

  The people in the booths eye me with no small degree of alarm. Can’t say that I blame them.

  “Big guy like him,” I say, “you’d think he could hold his liquor.”

  I vault over the bar. The bartender lies groaning on a plastic mat. I roll him onto his back. I sit down on his chest.

  There’s a red welt near his temple. He’ll be all right.

  I give his right cheek a slap.

  “A name,” I say.

  “No way, I can’t.”

  “Oh, but you can.”

  A backhand slap to his left cheek. Then another to his right.

  “I’m just getting into my rhythm,” I say. “Maybe you’d like to hum along.”

  Left, right, left…

  “OK, OK,” the bartender says.

  I stop slapping.

  “They’re Papi’s guys. That’s all I know. Swear to God.”

  “Who’s Papi?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never met him. Just heard about him. Everyone’s heard about Papi Ferreira. He’s, like, the local Godfather or something.”

  “What’s he got to do with Brewster Trimmingham?”

  The bartender shakes his head.

  “All I know, these guys they come in the other day and they tell me that I’m supposed to call them whenever Trimmingham gets here and whenever he leaves.”

  “You ask them why?”

  The bartender snorts.

  “Not the kind of guys you ask why,” he says.

  “So all you’ve got is a phone number?”

  “Yeah, and that’s all I know. Swear to God.”

  “What’s the number?”

  “I don’t have it in my head. I’ve got to look it up.”

  I slide off his chest. We both stand.

  “You can’t tell them where you got it,” the bartender says. “You’ve got to promise, OK?”

  “Sure, cross my heart, hope to die. What’s the number?”

  The bartender pulls out his cell phone, punches some buttons.

  “OK, here it is. Six-oh-three …”

  He stops.

  “You want to write this down?”

  “No, don’t think so.”

  I grab the cell phone. The number is displayed on the screen. I hit the green button, hear it dialing.

  “No, man, you can’t …”

  The bartender moves toward me. I push him back. “Quiet,” I say. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” “But they’ll know you got the number from me. They’ll see the caller ID.”

  “Technology,” I say. “Ain’t it a beautiful thing?”

  39

  “What makes you think they will come, Zachary?”

  “They’ll come,” I say. “They want to see who they are up against.”

  “You and me.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “You and me.”

  “And we will strike fear into their hearts.”

  I look at Boggy.

&n
bsp; “Did you smile when you said that?”

  He shakes his head, no.

  “Well, you should have,” I say.

  We’re sitting in Brewster Trimmingham’s office. We’ve been sitting there for almost three hours.

  I am in the swivel chair, my feet up on the desk. Boggy leans in a corner, near the door. We’ve traded positions a couple of times, just to break the monotony.

  The ceiling fan spins round and round. Its long metal chain rattles against the fan’s frame.

  Irritating.

  I get up, turn off the fan, sit back down with my feet on the desk.

  Now it’s hot.

  I get up, turn the fan on again.

  The guy who answered the phone when I called from Benny’s Lounge, I told him we would be here until 7:00 P.M. It’s almost that time.

  “You didn’t happen to bring that big-ass knife of yours, did you, the one that can slice through a watermelon in midair?”

  “No,” Boggy says. “I did not think it would get past airport security.”

  “You could have at least tried.”

  Boggy shrugs.

  “That would have been foolish,” he says.

  “Unlike calling the bad guys on the phone, inviting them to come see us, then actually hanging around for three hours to see if they show up. And not taking into consideration that there might be a whole bunch of them and they might just decide to wipe the floor with us.”

  “I think it will not be that easy for them.”

  “Not if you had that big-ass knife.”

  As it turns out there’s three of them. They actually knock at the door. How very polite.

  I nod Boggy to stay put in the corner. I leave my feet on the desk. All the better for impressing them with my laid-back demeanor and convincing myself that I’m not even a teeny bit scared.

  “Entrez-vous” I say.

  Maybe I can impress them with my international flair, too.

  The door swings open. They step inside.

  It’s the same two guys who worked over Trimmingham—one big, one small. The third guy, I’m thinking, must have been the driver. He’s the biggest of them all.

  They notice Boggy behind them and back away, fanning out so that they can keep their eyes on both of us. Ah, already we have them running scared.

  “So glad you could join us,” I say. “I wish I could offer refreshments, but…”

  “Cut the shit,” the small one says. “What is it you want?”

  “All business, huh? OK, if you want to play that way,” I say. “I’m putting you on notice that you are not to lay another hand on Brewster Trimmingham.”

  The small guy looks at the other two. All three of them snicker.

  “Oh really,” says the small guy. “Why is that?”

  “Because he no longer owes you any money.”

  “He doesn’t?”

  “No. I have assumed all of Mr. Trimmingham’s debts.” I point to the stack of papers on the desk. “The details are in there if you care to read them.”

  “You can wipe your ass with those papers,” the small guy says.

  “I prefer Charmin. Citrus scented, double ply.”

  “Listen, Jay Leno, just give us the money.”

  “No, no, no,” I say. “It doesn’t work like that. First, I need to know who ‘us’ is. You guys work for Papi Ferreira, right?”

  The three of them exchange looks.

  “It is none of your business who we work for,” the small guy says. “You need to pay us the money and get out of Bermuda.”

  “And what if I were to tell you to go straight to hell?”

  The small guy shrugs.

  “Then you would get the same thing that Trimmingham got. Only worse.”

  “Go straight to hell,” I say.

  The two big ones move first, toward me. And as they do, Boggy leaps from the corner, clipping the small guy with a shoulder, taking him down.

  I lean back in the chair, put my feet on the side of the desk, and push. The desk catches the two big guys at their knees, stopping them. I scramble out of the chair, set a shoulder against the desk—just like football practice, working against the blocking sled—driving the desk back until the two guys are pinned against the wall.

  One of them, the driver, starts to squirm loose. I hit him a couple of times, then slam his face against the table. He stops squirming.

  The small guy breaks free of Boggy. He reaches behind to his back, pulls a pistol, aims at me.

  In an instant, Boggy grabs the chain on the ceiling fan, breaks it loose. He loops it over the small guy’s head, around his neck, squeezes.

  The small guy jerks back, fires wildly, the shot striking the ceiling. Paint and plaster shower the room.

  Boggy squeezes harder. The small guy drops the pistol. Boggy grabs it.

  And that’s pretty much that.

  We take their wallets and make them sit on the floor. I pat them down while Boggy keeps the pistol on them. There’re no other weapons.

  I sit on the side of the desk and check out their IDs. The short guy is Paul Andrade. The driver is Luiz Barros. The third one—Hector Moraes.

  I find a notepad in a desk drawer, write down their names on it.

  “Let’s see, I’ve already got your phone number, so that should do it. It’s been fun. Let’s stay in touch, OK?”

  “You have fucked up big-time,” says the short one, Andrade.

  “I’d say the jury’s still out on that. But right now? You’re leading in the fuck-up department.” I toss them their wallets. “Now get out of here. And tell Papi we need to talk.”

  They get up. They go out the door.

  Not even a good-bye.

  40

  Trimmingham’s office is trashed. So, nice guys that we are, Boggy and I spend the next several minutes straightening it up.

  Who knows? Things have gone so well that maybe I’ll redecorate the place and conduct more business here. Get some nautical charts for the walls. Install a wet bar. Febreze the hell out of the carpet.

  We’ve just about got everything put back together again when there’s a knock at the door.

  A voice from the hall says, “Police.”

  I open the door. There’s two of them, hands resting on their holsters.

  “We got a call,” says the cop who’s standing closest to the door. “Someone reported hearing a gunshot.”

  Across the hall, the guy from the other office has his door cracked open and is peering out. The Neighborhood Watch Committee.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I thought I heard something, too. You figured out where it might have come from?”

  The cops look at each other.

  The one who’s doing the talking says, “We detained three men who were leaving the building when we arrived. They claim they were here to visit you.”

  “They claim correctly.”

  “And you are?”

  I give him my name. He writes it down on a notepad.

  “Those three guys,” the cop says. “They work for Papi Ferreira.”

  “Cute name, Papi. Don’t you think? Perky.”

  “What was their business here?”

  “Training seminar.” I nod at Boggy. “My associate and I were teaching them some new sales techniques, helping them sharpen their people skills.”

  The cop cocks his head.

  “I need to look around,” he says.

  I step back from the door and let him in. His partner stays in the hall.

  The cop walks around the office, his eyes eventually finding the hole in the ceiling.

  “What happened there?”

  “Termites,” I say. “I’ve complained to the landlord, but …”

  “The truth,” he says.

  “Well, actually, we’re in the middle of a remodeling project and that’s where we’ll be hanging the new chandelier. We’re thinking brass, but I’m not averse to something a little more sparkly. Crystal, maybe. Any thoughts?”

  The cop gives me
a long, hard look. I manage not to wither.

  “Those three guys,” the cop says. “They looked like they’d been roughed up.”

  “My associate and I are serious about our work,” I say. “We take a very hands-on approach.”

  The cop looks around the office some more, but it’s only for show. He writes some more stuff down in his notepad. But that’s mostly for show, too.

  He rejoins his colleague in the hall. They spend a few minutes interviewing the guy in the other office.

  I hang out in the doorway just in case they need me to offer any further illumination to the situation. But, no, I get the snub treatment.

  When they’re gone, I turn to Boggy.

  “That gun you grabbed from the short guy. Where is it?”

  Boggy pats a pocket in his pants.

  “You want it, Zachary?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “Just hold on to it.”

  We lock the office, take the steps to the garage, and get in the Morris Minor. On the drive out of Hamilton, I take a detour down a dirt road to Baxter Bay.

  Boggy gives me the gun and I get out of the car.

  I’ve got a pretty good arm. I imagine the gun lofting in a tight spiral as it sails out above the water, the sound of its splash lost against the wind.

  41

  It’s double-overtime against the Patriots. In Boston. In the snow. Tony Eason drops back to pass for the Pats and launches a long one. Irving Fryar fakes to the outside, but I don’t fall for it. I’m in the perfect position between him and the ball. I plant my right leg. I pivot. And even above the roar of the crowd I can hear …

  The creak of a door.

  I cock an eye to see Barbara slipping into my bedroom. The clock says 1:17 A.M.

  There’s the rustle of clothes as they drop to the floor, and then she is crawling into bed beside me.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Barbara says.

  “No you’re not.”

  “You’re right, I’m not.” She draws herself close, arches her back as I rub my hand down her spine. “And I intend to make sure that you aren’t sorry either.”

  “I never am. Besides, I was about to blow out my knee and help us lose the AFC championship.”