Young Americans

by Josh Stallings

  “Yes, my dear?” Candy fell into the couch, leaning her head on Sam’s shoulder.

  “Are you planning on balling my little bro?”

  Candy put her hand on her chin and made a damn fine pantomime of someone thinking. “’Cause if you ain’t, you gotta stop giving him those eyes. Kid looked like he was going to bust a nut on the dance floor.”

  “Fuck I was. We were just having . . . I don’t, um . . .”

  “Little bro, you don’t want us to know who you’re planning on boning, don’t wear such tight jeans.” She arched an eyebrow and looked down. “Hell, the whole room can see you want her, and that you’re Jewish.”

  “Fuck you. No really, fuck you.” They were all laughing at Jacob. “Come on, Terry, I need a drink.”

  “Come back, Jake, we’re kidding,” Candy said between giggles.

  When Jacob was clear, Sam told Candy and Valentina all of the ugly truth. Told them about Breeze and his inside man, why she had chosen Taxi Dancer tonight—she was casing the club. As they talked, danced and drank, Sam watched the money. Every twenty minutes a big guy in a leather jumpsuit and dog collar went around the different bars and the door collecting cash in canvas envelopes. He then would disappear into the back.

  “So are we crewing up?” Candy asked. “One big score to get clear of this Humboldt bastard?”

  “Yes. Something like that.”

  “Girl, I’m in. If you two white bitches going on a job, so am I. We’re the three musketeers. I’m Darktanya. Ha, that’s funny. Smile, Sam.”

  “I will once I figure this gig out.”

  • • •

  At the bar, a drag queen in a Marilyn wig and massive gold platforms poured Jacob and Terry rum and Cokes. Over the speakers, Sylvester and the Hot Band were kicking out their version of “Southern Man.” Terry sparked his Bic and fired up a Marlboro. “Jake, A, you’re cute when you blush.”

  “You too?”

  “And B, Candy wants to fuck you. So, um, fuck you.”

  “No, what Candy wants is to drive me crazy and then laugh about it with Sam.”

  “What you need, what you really need, what you really, really need is . . .”

  “Yes, oh wise Terry?”

  “What you really, really, really need is some trim.”

  “Yes I do. What are the odds of finding a willing and cute and dickless girl in here, who isn’t my sister or Candy?”

  “Zero to, um, zero. Vitamin Q time?” Terry held a lude between his finger and thumb.

  “Oh, hell yes.”

  • • •

  Sam sashayed around the room, swinging her full hips to Gloria Gaynor’s “Never Can Say Goodbye.” She was memorizing the room. Upstairs was the dance floor. The room was thirty-two feet by forty feet. Downstairs was the front door and the cabaret where the live acts played.

  At three a.m., while the friends scarfed down Chinese food in the Golden Pot, Sam worked on a sketchpad, drawing Taxi Dancer’s floor plan. She took notes. She didn’t look up or notice Jacob standing behind her.

  “You planning to take down Taxi Dancer?”

  “No, just an old habit. It calms me down.”

  “Bullshit. I’m in.”

  “No. You graduate high school. You go to college. Then, you support my tired ass. That is the plan.”

  “Plan? Your plan? Mom’s plan? My plan is I go with you. I cover your ass for a change. You let grungy hillbillies maul you so Mom and me could eat. My turn is now.”

  “Me, too,” Terry said. He was shitfaced, and very serious. “Jake is in, I’m in.”

  “No, and no,” Sam said. “I mean it Jake, no shit.”

  “So do I.”

  “Ooh la la, look who just grew a set,” Valentina said.

  “Stay out of this Val, really. Subject is lock-boxed.” Sam stood, closed her sketchbook and walked out.

  Jacob watched his sister through the front window as she walked down the neon-lit sidewalk of Chinatown. “This is bogus. I’m in. Whatever the hell it is, I’m in.”

  “Jake,” Candy said, “Sam’s full of shit sometimes, but she’s right this time.”

  “Valentina?”

  “Yes, Jacob, sweetheart, love of my dreams, Sam is correct.”

  “Why? I’m not man enough, not tough enough? Think I’ll crumble when it gets hot?”

  Valentine shook her head, running out of steam. “No, precious. No. You’re too good.”

  “Jake, let it rest and trust Sam. Please.” Candy flashed her hottest smile.

  Jacob melted. “OK, for now.”

  • • •

  On the sidewalk, Sam smoked and thought. She had no operating capital, no plan, no chance in hell of pulling it off. Yet, she had happy butterflies. Back up on the reef and ready to rip and scam. She was feeling more alive than she had in two years.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  “I’m always prone to do things very quickly, which has distinct advantages—you leave all the mistakes in, and the mistakes always become interesting.” —Brian Eno

  It was early afternoon and the fog draped over the city when Sam parked in the alley behind Taxi Dancer. Bruce, the inside man, met Sam at the service entrance. He was five feet nothing and skinny. He was in his mid-twenties, cute in a Lucky Charms kinda way. In the daylight his ruffle-fronted tux shirt and black velvet sport coat seemed a bit extravagant, but this was San Francisco, The City.

  “I can get fired just for opening this door.”

  “Is there an alarm?” Sam asked.

  “Off. Cleaning crew is in there.”

  “Then what’s the sweat?”

  “Jo Jo or Maurizio. If either one of them are here I’ll lose my job. I love Breeze, much as anyone, but I need the work.”

  “First, nobody loves Breeze, you owe him. Second, slow it down. I know Jo Jo. Big guy, likes to wear a leather jumpsuit, he’s the manager, right?”

  Bruce nodded, then looked around nervously.

  “Who is Maurizio?”

  “He took over a year ago. One day Freddy Quinn is running the club, next he’s gone and Maurizio is in charge. He’s the GM, or maybe the owner. They say he’s . . .” Bruce tapped his finger to his nose.

  “A coke hound?”

  “That too, but no.” He tapped his finger to his nose again. Sam shook her head. Bruce let out an overly theatrical sigh. “Mob.”

  “Bullshit. Mob owning a gay disco? Bullshit.”

  “It’s a rumor.”

  “So is Elvis being dead, don’t make it true.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Maurizio?”

  “No, Elvis. Might as well be dead. I had a mad crush on skinny Elvis.”

  “OK. Wanna open this door?”

  “Yes, no.”

  “Let’s go with yes, OK? Standing out here we look like two mooks casing the joint.” After a painful fumbling of keys, two drops, Sam wanted to bitch slap Bruce, but little as he was it might break his neck, and then who would be her tour guide? Finally, on the third try, he got the door open.

  The first room was filled floor to ceiling with cases of booze and kegs of beer. Next was a hall that led to a freight elevator. Past that was the band dressing room and a room for their sound equipment. A hall led to backstage of the cabaret. The front door and main staircase were beyond that.

  “Let’s take the elevator,” Sam said.

  “It’s noisy. Can’t hear it at night, but it really is . . .”

  “Noisy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So let’s live a little.” Sam pushed him into the elevator, pulling the accordion gate closed behind them. Flipping the lever up was, in fact, noisy. Gears gnashed and metal on metal screeched. The elevator was just a platform; they could watch the brick walls moving past them. Nearing the second floor, Sam saw a pair of tasseled Italian loafers facing the lift. Moving up it revealed expensive-looking wool slacks. A Pierre Cardin belt buckle. White linen shirt coving a tight gut and chest, top two buttons undon
e exposing a rug of black chest hair and a thick gold chain. Then the face—aquiline nose, thin lips pursed unpleasantly, black hair swept back and lacquered in place. He was handsome in an Al Pacino/Michael Corleone sort of way.

  It took Bruce three tries before he could line up the elevator’s platform with the floor. Throughout, the man stared at Sam, and she stared right back at him. Nothing to hide here.

  “Hey, Maurizio,” Bruce said as he pulled open the door.

  “You’re sweating.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes. We working you too hard?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So, here’s a question: what is my head bartender doing here—” he checked his gold Omega “—six hours before his shift?”

  “I was just, see, um—”

  “He was showing me the club,” Sam said, flashing Maurizio her best innocent but I might fuck you smile. “It’s impressive.” She let her eyes wander down Maurizio, checking him out.

  “Who the fuck is the skirt?”

  “She’s, um—”

  “Bruce’s sister from Phoenix, nice to meet you.” She extended a hand. Maurizio looked at it and then at Bruce.

  “You don’t look like his sister. Not one tiny bit.”

  “Different fathers. Mom was a bit of a whore.”

  “Whoa, that’s no way to talk about your mother.”

  “Sporting lady? Lady of pleasure? Those sound better?”

  “You mean she really was a . . . ?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “That’s rough.”

  “Wasn’t easy. Nice club you got here. Bro was just giving me the dime tour.”

  “We like it, the fags seem to have fun, no offense, Bruce.”

  “None taken, sir.”

  “I got to get back to work. Have a fun tour, Miss.”

  “Cassidy. Call me Cassidy.” She leaned even harder on him with her smile, this one with slightly parted full lips, saying you can have me if you ask. He didn’t ask. He turned and walked down a short hall and into an office. As the door swung closed, she caught a glimpse of a safe. Wells Fargo M7721. It was a beauty, with gold inlaid letters and a large elegant dial. She couldn’t wait to stroke it.

  The M7721 could be broke, but it had three false tumblers to feel for. She would need to take her time. Sam’s grandfather had a notebook with the specs on every safe he could find out about. Sam stayed up late nights memorizing the details. The M7721 was a lady; she needed a tender hand, but she would give up the goods. A Safeco 6620 was a slut, opened its box at the merest of touches. The Diamond 2301 was an ice queen; take her to dinner, stroke her soft and long, and she still might not open.

  After Bruce’s pulse stabilized, Sam convinced him to continue their sweep of the joint. Most of it Sam knew well, but she had never been in the DJ’s booth. “That switch is for fog, that for glitter,” Bruce pointed at the switch labeled FOG and one labeled GLITTER. “The lights are controlled on this console.” Sam took snaps of it all with her Polaroid.

  He showed her where the bouncers’ stations were—four per room, two on the door and two floaters. She had never noticed them because they just looked like more leather boys cruising. They could be a real problem. Trick would be to get them as far away from the back of the club and keep them there. After walking down the stairs and checking the cabaret, pacing the hallway and sizing up the three dressing rooms, she finally let Bruce lead her out the back door.

  “You tell Breeze we’re even now, OK? Tell him that.”

  “I guess your love for him was a bit coerced.”

  “Just pass the message. You get caught, don’t look at me for anything.”

  “Understood.”

  • • •

  Candy and Valentina were waiting in Chinatown at the Golden Pot. “Val, what have you heard about Maurizio?”

  “Mobster Maurizio? They say he’s related to James ‘Jimmy the Hat’ Binasco. Love that name.”

  “Binasco is a no shit, real deal, put a horse head in your bed gangster,” Sam said. “What is the macho mob doing in a gay disco?”

  “Got me, little sister. Lord knows there are plenty of straight joints out there.”

  “I think Maurizio is gay,” Sam said.

  “Nope, way off.”

  “I think so.”

  “Based on?”

  “He didn’t make a move on me. I left the door wide open, he walked on by.”

  “Maybe he likes his girls skinny and tight like Miss Candy.”

  “Leave me out of this,” Candy said, without looking up from the latest issue of CREEM Magazine. It had Mott The Hoople on the cover.

  “Men are dogs, correct?” Sam said.

  “Yes, baby, I give you that.”

  “You offer a dog a free bone, even if it ain’t his favorite flavor, he’s still gonna chew it.”

  “So if he don’t rush after your big ass, he’s gay? Vanity, sister, goeth before that fall.”

  “OK, so maybe he’s straight,” Sam said. “And speaking of straight, Jacob isn’t backing off.”

  “Princess, I’ve been thinking . . . Jacob and Terry, they’re full-grown men. Time we recognize what’s standing in front of us and start treating them like adults.”

  Candy looked over her heart-shaped glasses and shook her head slowly.

  “We are gonna need some eye candy,” Valentina said, “and in Taxi Dancer our Candy is the wrong flavor.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Sam said. “Any way you turn it we are going to need help turning heads.”

  “You’re going to pimp your brother?” Candy asked.

  “No, but I might use him to bait a trap or two,” Sam said.

  “Your moral compass is bent, you know that don’t you?”

  “No, I promise I’ll set it so he’s safe.”

  “Sam, there is no safe place on a heist. You, me, Val we all know that.”

  “Glitter girl’s right,” Valentina said. “Don’t mean they don’t have the right to step up, danger or no. It’s on them.”

  “Candy, leave it to me. I’ll keep them clean.” Sam made it clear the discussion was over. Jacob was her brother, her responsibility.

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  “Watch yourself, sister! Everything in these woods’ll either bite ya, stab ya or stick ya!” —Rooster Cogburn

  “All right, princess, if we gonna do this, we gonna do it right.” Valentina passed Sam a handwritten note:

  10 smoke grenades, 2 M16s with folding stocks, 1 cut-down pump twelve-gauge, 3 revolvers, clean plates for a 1967 Firebird, 5 sets of handcuffs, 5 large bandanas.

  “A lot of firepower, Val. You know how to use an M16? Cause I sure as hell don’t.”

  “I know a lot of things you don’t know. A mountain in fact.”

  • • •

  Wexler’s sporting goods shop in San Jose sold rods, reels, camping equipment, and legal firearms. Caleb Wexler paid his taxes, filed a DROS on all gun sales, and kept open ledgers clean enough to please any audit. Next door to the sporting goods shop was what appeared to be a long-abandoned textbook company. Behind a Winchester sales poster in Cable’s office was a hidden door, connecting the two buildings. He never sold to strangers and always spoke code. It was a sweet arrangement, kept Caleb out of the jug for the last thirty years. Sam stood in the office, set the list in front of Caleb, then stepped back beside Valentina and waited.

  Caleb Wexler was a deeply overweight man in an oilskin Aussie hat and safari jacket. Sweat popped on his brow. He was panting from the exertion of living. “Let’s say four apiece for the two water buffalo guns, a buck fifty for the goose. I have some older pocket warmers, sixty a pop. The cigars, twenty-five per. The rest you get at army surplus or a junk yard.”

  “Twelve forty-five? That’s a lot of cabbage,” Sam said. “What about I cut you in two to one after the gig. This is solid, swear on my pops.”

  “I’d love to Sammy, we got history. Can’t. You get lost in the jungle or run over by
a stampeding elephant, I’m sitting with my thumb up my ass.”

  “What if I can come up with some cash and some auxiliary collateral?”

  “What kind of collateral?”

  “Family heirlooms, some jewelry and such.”

  “Not my business. Hiram, you remember him? He is still handling estate sales. He does a fair deal. See him, then come back.”

  “You sure you don’t—”

  “Can’t, Sammy, can’t.”

  • • •

  Sam and Valentina kept their mouths closed and eyes open until they were back on the 101 headed north. “Princess, that was one cryptic mumbo jumbo fab confabulation you had going there.”

  “Need me to translate?”

  “Oh no, I got the gist. We are boned, and not in a good way, unless we find an investor.”

  “The silenter, the better.”

  “One big, rich, mute sugar daddy coming up.”

  • • •

  One night later, Sam sat alone in the Firebird watching a massive fake French chateau just off of University Avenue in the heart of Palo Alto’s richest neighborhood. Jacob had given her the address. The man who owned it was a brain surgeon or some shit at Stanford. When his wife and kids were out of town he liked to throw parties. All the high school rockers knew the doc had good drugs and plenty of free-flowing whiskey, even tanks of nitrous oxide. He was forty-five. He liked to fuck teenage girls, younger the better. If in fact it was their first time, or they convinced him it was, he always gave them a treat—jewelry, money, coke. Something to make them feel special.

  Tonight the good doctor was taking a limo-load of teens to Half Moon Bay, where he owned a sweet beach house.

  “I gave you the house. Terry told us about the beach party. I say we go in with you,” Jacob had reasoned earlier in the night.

  “No. Any other questions?” Sam said.

  “All my life I’ve been excluded. At school? Terry is my only friend. I’m not like other people because of my family. At home, you make it clear I’m different. I didn’t choose to be smart. All I wanted was to be like you.”