Cashed Out

by Michael Rubin

  The abrupt movement threw me onto my back, and I sank into the contents of the container. Old papers. Filthy wrappers. Leaking bags. Decaying scraps of foul-smelling food. Soured milk in oozing containers. Smelly, greasy, putrid things. The detritus of homes and businesses. The useless cast-offs of society.

  I lay there in the damp mass, my nostrils assaulted by the stench, and thought, with a curious detachment, that a few hours earlier I had been listening to Micelli weave metaphors. Now I had become one. A cast-off of the legal profession among society’s cast-offs. A person Taylor had treated as trash for years was now lying in it. My life, in downward spiral, literally ending in garbage.

  The truck rumbled through the dark night. Ribeye was silhouetted, positioned on the ladder outside the mouth of the canister, gun in hand.

  I somehow managed to separate myself from the physical torment of my arm. As long as I had the power of speech, I had the chance to persuade. To challenge. To instill doubt.

  I yelled, above the truck’s din. “What will Micelli say, Ribeye?”

  He flashed his light in my face. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “If I don’t show up again, Micelli will know something happened. And then where will you be?”

  “Asshole. Think you’re so damn clever? You’re nothing. You’re not fit to lick the shit off this truck. Frankie’s got it all figured out.”

  “Micelli will know it had to be the two of you. If I’m not around, what will Frankie do? Pretend it was your idea?

  Ribeye leaned in and kicked a pile of debris at my head. It splattered over me. “You put your faith in Dickface Tony? What does Dickface really think you’re going to do? Take part of the money? Not tell anyone? It doesn’t matter. Dickface is convinced that the money isn’t a problem for him, unless he keeps it. Stupid prick. So, the fact that the money disappears won’t matter to Dickface. And you? If you’re never heard from again, what’ll he think? Frankie’s got that down too. You’re a fucking failure, and what do fucking failures do when they get their hands on money – real money, more money than they could earn the rest of their lives? They go live their life far from prying eyes. So, you could be somewhere in South America, in the Venezuelan interior, or in a mountain village in Mexico, paying safe money to some drug lord. You could be in

  Indonesia or in Cam-fucking-bodia for all anyone knows.”

  I shifted my weight and tried to pull my legs under me so that I could get into a crouching position.

  “Don’t you try to get up. And don’t make me shoot you in this truck. The bullets will go right through you and punch a hole in the steel. Shouldn’t have that. No holes in the truck, no blood here. But, I’ll fucking blow you away right now if I have to.”

  I knew I didn’t have much time. I couldn’t grapple with Ribeye. I didn’t have the physical strength with my arm all sliced up, and I doubt I could have overpowered him even before that. I didn’t have a weapon, and there was nothing in the trash I could use, although I had been trying to feel around with my legs and good hand for something as I tried to steady myself.

  I didn’t know how much longer we had to travel. Or where we were going. But I knew this time that there was not going to be any Tony Micelli offering me a chance to leave.

  The truck shifted gears, and the road surface changed. It was now a harsher, bumpier ride. The truck slowed somewhat as it went around a curve and then gathered speed again.

  Another abrupt slow down. The trash shifted as the truck made a sharp turn to the left.

  Ribeye leaned out, holding on to the rungs, and peered around the side to see where we had turned.

  This was my chance. I raised up out of my crouched position, took as much of a firm starting stance as I could amidst the garbage, and jumped head-first out of the back of the truck, into the night.

  Chapter 49

  I twisted as I leaped, trying to rotate and fall on my right side to avoid landing on my sliced and savaged left arm.

  My right shoulder, ribs, and hips hit the ground at the same moment. The momentum kept me rolling from pain to pain as each part of my aching body came in contact with the rough asphalt. I heard the rending of fabric as the coarse surface ripped at my shirt and pants. The jagged pricks of the gravelly asphalt tore at my exposed skin, agonizingly grating it.

  Dark sky. Flat marsh. The road inches from my eyes. Then sky. Then marsh. Then road. Over and over, I rolled helplessly until my momentum finally slowed.

  I could hear the popping sounds from Ribeye’s gun fading and the harsh bellow of the truck diminishing. But, while these noises were decreasing, others were gaining in intensity. The screeching of tires. Above the stench from my clothes, I could smell burning rubber.

  I had come to rest face down on the road.

  I lifted my head.

  Something ominously wide and dark was looming over me, perched on all fours. Huge glistening teeth, the color of silver.

  I blinked my eyes and focused.

  The chrome bumper of a car had halted inches away from my head, close enough to comb my hair.

  The vehicle’s headlights, dark until this moment, came on, lighting up the rear of the retreating truck, illuminating Ribeye hanging on, gun still firing.

  The truck turned a corner and sped off into the night.

  I lay on the asphalt. Through the headlight’s glare I saw feet. Old tennis shoes under jeans. First two, then four. Then a pair of hiking boots.

  A figure attached to the boots bent down.

  “Schex?”

  It was Weegie.

  Chapter 50

  SUNDAY

  “We almost ran over you,” Weegie said worriedly, wiping the grime and garbage from my forehead and cheeks. She sat next to me in the back seat of Rad Doucet’s large SUV, continuing to gently brush bits of food and trash out of my hair.

  “Make a habit of traveling in garbage trucks?” asked Rad from the front seat, as he steered down the road. “Strange way to get around at night.”

  “Enough, Rad.” Weegie was in control. “Get him to a hospital. Did you see his arm?”

  It was an effort to speak, but I forced myself. “No hospital.” My voice was barely a whisper. “Just get me cleaned up. But no hospital. Please, no hospital.”

  * * * *

  I felt a sharp pain in my left arm. I opened my eyes. It was morning.

  I was in a small living room, lying on a couch. My shirt was off and a man was attaching butterfly bandages to every few inches of my sliced arm. He was gently squeezing the skin together and closing up the lengthy cut.

  Weegie was standing, handing the man the bandages. “You’re awake I see. Joleese was an Army paramedic in Iraq and Afghanistan. He can fix you up for the time being.”

  “You need a tetanus shot,” said Joleese. “Can’t help you there. Best I can do is to close you up and douse you with antiseptic, but you’re gonna scar pretty bad unless you get stitches in this arm soon.”

  I smelled something warm and delicious. Rad entered the room with a steaming bowl. “Gumbo. Chicken and okra.”

  Weegie handed me a spoon and held the bowl while Joleese continued to work on my left arm.

  Rad pulled up a chair to the foot of the couch and flicked a piece of dried crud off of my ripped and bloodied slacks. “Leaping out of midnight haulers? Damn if it isn’t true that I can now legitimately call you white trash.”

  Weegie ignored him. “We almost hit you, Schex. Rad had wanted to show me a tracking mission on the midnight dumpers. Can’t use headlights when he does that. He’s had that yard under watch for some time.”

  “Industrial Disposal Company Inc., one of our fine local establishments,” proclaimed Rad. “InDispoCo’s got a great symbol – a wreath of greenery – for a company that hauls garbage during the day and then makes late night, unscheduled secret trips. Chemicals. Toxic industrial waste. That wreath of greenery should be a noose.” “Could have kicked myself for not having the camera turned on the whole time rather than waiting for the loc
ation shot,” muttered Joleese, as he finished up the bandaging.

  If they had video evidence of illegal dumping at Camellia Industries, there was no hope for Taylor or Camellia Industries. Not that I cared at this point.

  Rad proudly explained. “Always carry high-def gear on tracking nights. When a truck gets to where it shouldn’t be, we turn the camera on and film the unpermitted dumping. Put the date and the time right on the video. Got it also in infrared. Late night, low-light poses no problem. Got several hard disks of stuff. More than a couple of terabytes. All encrypted and loaded into the cloud for backup protection. After Weegie and I saw you the other night at Poirrier’s, I told her that even if you were going to represent Camellia Industries in the injunction hearing that’s coming up, I’d whip your ass. Now, I don’t have to worry about that, do I?”

  I knew what he meant. Why bother to respond? There was no point.

  “You see,” Rad said, turning to Weegie, “Schex can’t represent Camellia Industries because he’s now a witness. I’m going to subpoena him for this upcoming hearing to testify why he was on an InDispoCo hauler, why he jumped out, and what he saw. He can’t be both a lawyer and a witness in the same case.”

  Rad sat back with smug satisfaction. “The hearing, Schex, is in four days. This coming Thursday. By the way, we amended the suit late last Friday afternoon. Named four more companies and sought injunctions against them, along with Camellia Industries, for environmental racism, for putting their plants where they do nothing but harm the black community. Gonna be a busy week. March on Monday. Gonna shut ‘em all down by Thursday.”

  A march? A shut down? I didn’t inquire and didn’t care. And it was because I was worse off than where I had been before G.G. knocked on my door. No clients. No money.

  And now Frankie and Ribeye were out to get me.

  I was screwed.

  Chapter 51

  Rad had told Joleese to drive me anywhere I wanted to go.

  I could think of only one place.

  I couldn’t go home. Ribeye and Frankie would be looking for me.

  I couldn’t go to my neighbor, Washington Eby. I wouldn’t endanger the old man and his wife, no matter how much I had imposed upon them in the past.

  There was only one place to head where Frankie and Ribeye would be unlikely to look, one place they wouldn’t dare approach because the cops could have it under surveillance.

  That made the decision disgusting but obvious.

  I had to go back to Taylor.

  * * * *

  “He kept all the money that was mine, and then gave you back only $513,113 in a plastic bag, and you lost that too?” Taylor was livid.

  I had taken a shower at Taylor’s and was now dressed in some of G.G.’s clothes. His oversized T-shirt fell loosely around my body and his maroon sweatpants were too short on the bottom and so wide at the waist that I had to use one of Taylor’s scarves as a belt.

  I told her the whole story about Frankie, Ribeye, and Micelli. There was no reason not to at this point. About the entire $4,452,737 in cash G.G. had left with me. About the more than half a million that Micelli had given me and that Frankie and Ribeye had taken. About being kidnapped and sliced up and found by Rad and Weegie.

  Did she show any sympathy for my injuries? Not in the slightest.

  We were sitting in her kitchen drinking coffee. She was dressed in a thin chiffon robe that caressed her curves.

  “Well, we’re all fucked now, aren’t we? And you did it, Schex! Blew millions away. My millions!”

  “You hadn’t told me about anything over the $1.6 million, Taylor, and you didn’t tell me about the loan Micelli had made to the company, so don’t act as if you weren’t trying to pull one over on me.”

  “You were going to use part of the money to pay Lolly to defend me. What am I to do now?”

  “Give Lolly a mortgage on this home,” I said, calmly. “It’s worth a couple of mil.”

  “Oh sure,” Taylor snapped. “That’ll fix my problems. Now, I’ll have nowhere to live and no money to live on. If you had given me the money when I first came to you, it would be safe. But no, you had to keep it and act like ‘Mr. Lawyer’ and look for legal crap. Now you can’t save me and you can’t save Camellia Industries and it’s all going to hell. Are you satisfied that you’ve destroyed me? You want all the fucking cards on the table? OK. What about I call Sheriff Brown and tell him that you had G.G.’s money all along? That makes you, not me, the perfect suspect for G.G.’s murder. Not to mention Spider’s murder. Don’t you think someone might say that Spider knew of the money and was just trying to get it to me, the rightful owner? Wouldn’t everyone think that was a sufficient motive for murder?”

  I had known she could be mean and vindictive, but I had never thought she would go this far. “And if you said that, Taylor, who would believe you? Particularly when I told them that you met Spider at Trey’s plant that night?”

  “But Schex,” said Taylor calmly, “no one saw me there with Spider. And the only ones who have been told are my lawyers. You of all people should know that the attorney-client privilege can’t be waived without the client’s consent. So you see, Schex, it’s a standoff. You can’t do anything.”

  She paused for effect. “But I can do something for you.”

  Chapter 52

  “Tony Micelli is the key, you know.” Her chiffon robe swirled as she went to the refrigerator and brought out a bowl of grapes. She took several and offered some to me.

  I refused them. “Don’t change the subject, Taylor. What is it you plan to do ‘for’ me, as if you haven’t already done enough to me?”

  “How do you think Carmine, Tony’s father, remained in control of everything from his Angola cell?

  “Now you’re asking questions rather than answering them?”

  “Just listen, Schex. How do you think Carmine stayed in this country? Avoided deportation? It was Catch.”

  “Catch?”

  “Catch did it. Carmine hired him big time, a few years after he was sent to prison. That’s why Catch moved to New Orleans. That’s what set Catch up in the big money. Suit after suit, appeal after appeal. Catch kept Carmine here. Catch set up the trusts that assured Tony the money he used to start his business.

  “So, you’re the one who put G.G. in touch with Tony Micelli?”

  “Sure. G.G. had struck out with the banks and all the other commercial lenders. I knew Tony was in the ‘special’ lending business, and G.G. at that point was in the borrowing business. Which is why, when I found out that G.G. was siphoning money from the bank, I came directly to you. After I found out the bank account had been cleaned out, and after I had it out with G.G. at the Cotillion, I realized he must have put it somewhere and given the money or the information about it to you. And . . .” Taylor smiled ruefully, “I was right!”

  She continued on, triumphantly blaming everyone but herself. “Goddammit,

  Schex. Men are so stupid. G.G was stupid, thinking with his prick when he met that Millie Sue girl. Thinking he could outsmart Tony. And you’ve lost all the money. I had to get some payments to Tony if G.G. wouldn’t. And G.G. had started thinking he could outsmart me. The bastard!”

  “Taylor, if you feel that way about G.G. now, how could you ever have taken up with him?” I regretted asking the question the moment it was uttered. I was giving her an opportunity to open old wounds, and she took it.

  “You think beauty is found on the surface, Schex? It is found in character. You had it originally, but Catch had more character. And more money. And was a better lover.”

  She went on and on, rubbing it in gleefully. How happy she had been with Catch. How Catch had thought he was indestructible until he dropped dead of a heart attack on the tennis court. How Catch had time for everything except for planning for her if something happened to him. How G.G. had comforted her after Catch’s death. How G.G. always put her first.

  “Like the minute he formed Camellia Industries, I got half. Half. Jus
t like that. Process stuff no one wanted. Stuff that people would pay him to take off their hands. Make it into something that could be sold. A great idea. He got paid to take in the raw materials. He got paid for the finished product. He got paid on both ends of the deal. Nothing could be sweeter. All he needed was the start-up money. But no bank would lend it to him. And that’s where I came up with Tony.”

  “Taylor, it doesn’t make any sense. G.G. was some sweet guy who put you first and also the same bastard that you told me and half of the town you wanted dead?”

  “Schex, don’t tell me you don’t understand how you can love and hate someone at the same time. I know better.”

  She walked around the counter and stood in front of me. “You, of all people, know that it can happen. You want evidence of how it works?”

  She dropped her chiffon robe to the floor and stood there, naked.

  Her breasts were firm, her nipples erect. Her stomach was still smooth, her waist still thin. The soft brown of her pubic hair stood in contrast to the whiteness of the skin of her crotch and thighs. She posed in front of me, legs spread apart, daring me to desire her.

  I remembered those breasts in my hands. I remembered those nipples in my mouth. I remembered licking that stomach. I wanted it all again, and I hated myself for wanting it.

  Chapter 53

  I turned away from Taylor and walked out of the room.

  When she caught up with me in the living room, she had her robe back on. “Love and hate can exist at the same time, Schex. Damn confusing, isn’t it?”

  She sat down on the sofa and casually sipped coffee as if nothing had happened. “Now just listen to me. I suspected that G.G. had money in addition to the funds in the bank accounts, but I didn’t know how much until today. More than four mil. There’s only one way G.G. could get all that money.”

  “How?”

  “Doesn’t matter really now, does it? I think I know where it came from, but the important thing is, I need as much as I can get my hands on, and Tony has got to help you get back the half million those guys took from you.”