by Jeff Johnson
“Bitches,” she spat.
“What happened to the other one?” I asked. Monique’s nostrils flared in fury.
“That motherfucker got eight bitches in one room out on Interstate, so they’s fightin’ like cats in a fuckin’ microwave oven. Some little white Alabama cunt took my boot! ’Scuze me, Darby, I know you’ze white. But I’mma slash that bitch’s face.”
“Right on,” I said. It was getting even colder. Monique would be out until four a.m. She pranced and puffed on her cigarette, looking away. “What the hell are you going to do? About your feet.”
“Right under the nose is where I’m gonna slash that ’Bama bitch. Never fuckin’ smile at no one again. Bitch need a moustache I’m done.”
“About your feet, Monique. The cold.”
She fixed me with a hostile glare. “How the fuck I know?”
“C’mon.” I said. I started walking.
“I ain’t supposed to be off my run, white boy,” Monique bitched, but she came alongside me and strutted.
“This will just take a second,” I told her. “While we’re walking I want to tell you something.”
“What, you all in love? Got the warts? Turn faggot?”
“Nah. Got some bad heat on the Lucky. I’ve run up against some sort of shithead with a bank account.”
“I fuck ’em up,” she declared. “Mofucka fuckin’ wif my bafroom what dat is.”
“Just telling you. Put the word out. First come, first serve. They have deep pockets. But you be careful, okay? No crazy shit. You see anything, you call me.”
We went around the corner and up two blocks to the Payless Shoe Store. They were having a going out of business sale, a spectacular event glaringly advertised by huge yellow and blue posters in every window. Soon they’d be replaced by some upscale Nordstrom’s outlet or a bistro of some kind. When we walked in, Monique looked at me with a mixture of hope and sadness.
“Twenty bucks,” I said. “Another five for socks.”
She squished off down the six-and-a-half aisle as the lone attendant approached. I ignored him and watched as Monique picked out the first of the cheap boots for inspection. When the attendant started in her direction with his thin lips set in a scowl, I reached out and wrapped my hand around his flabby arm and jerked him to a halt.
“Can I help you?” I asked before he could ask me.
He gave me a sharp once-over and pulled his arm away. I cut him off once again, this time pointing at Monique.
“That woman is getting some boots. I’m buying them. Problem?” That kind of thing was part of the reason why I had so much trouble with the police. Some random little clerk, the sheriff of his tiny county, was a mouthful away from making me mad. Over cheap boots, for a broken down hooker wearing flip-flops in a rain so cold you could see your breath in it.
He huffed and walked back to the register. I watched Monique try on a pair of black plastic high-heeled boots that cost thirteen dollars and then pick out a three-pack of thick pink socks with cats on them. When I flicked a twenty on to the counter, the clerk didn’t say anything or meet my eye as he made change. No lip whatsoever.
“Fuck you,” I growled anyway. I couldn’t help myself. He stared down at the register and stayed that way as we walked out.
“Thanks, white boy,” Monique said when we were outside. She sat the bag down, tore the sock tags apart, and put on two pairs while standing on the pavement, using my shoulder to steady herself. The last pair went into her purse. She opened the shoebox and slipped the boots on one by one, standing on the box lid to keep her new socks dry. We left the flip-flops and the box and the bag on the pavement in front of the store.
“You hungry?” I asked. She looked up at me, then reached out and lightly touched my cheek. Her hand was cold and wrinkled and filthy, but I didn’t flinch. A few weeks later that probably saved my life. A tiny bit of real human contact was more important to her than the boots. She looked a million miles away when she smiled.
“Naw, baby, naw. I gotta work and so do you. Maybe I stop by the Lucky later and put my grease down your commode. I know you was gonna get me dem boots cause you a sweet man in that crazy fuckin’ head, but I watch my side of the street and I spread the word. Niggaz point they nappy heads at the white boy an’ watch fo shit. Specially shit with money to get lost.” She patted my cheek this time and sashayed off into the rain, tottering a little on her new heels. I lit up a cigarette and watched her walk, standing by an empty box and a pair of abandoned flip-flops. A block down, a car picked her up.
Big Mike had returned from his self-cleaning cycle and Delia and Alex were both working when I got back to the Lucky, half an hour late. We settled into an easy routine, Delia ribbing us, Alex smiling politely but more quiet than ever, almost certainly plotting a permanent exit solution, and me fielding phone calls and expertly steering Delia’s rhapsodizing away from the X-rated or tabloid Bigfoot sightings. By the time six o’clock and the shift change came around, I was in an okay mood, ready for a drink.
Nigel arrived and started setting up after a quick round of greetings. Alex did his totals and went home without a word. Delia was on her cell phone planning an evening of unbridled debauchery with her two best friends, Cordy and Biji, two trashy cock-chasing lunatics we all adored. Both of them were computer nerds by day, so part of what Delia was planning was pure trickery. I was in the back at my desk looking over some indecipherable letter from the phone company when Big Mike peeked into the room.
“Customer,” he said. “Wants to talk to you about a consultation. Iffy on the scumbagometer.”
I got up and followed him out front. Standing at the tip wall was a power lifter with cropped black hair and a convict’s handlebar moustache. His weathered black leather jacket hung open, revealing a massive chest in a tight wife beater tee. Some spidery, pencil-colored prison tattoos were drifting up out of his neckline.
“Howdy,” I said. He nodded, and when he did his glaring, beady eyes stayed fixed on mine. A bad smile waited in his face.
“Hey, little buddy,” he replied in a way-too-measured purr. “Wanted to talk to you about a tattoo.”
“Sure,” I replied. “What kind of thing you looking for?”
He shrugged and that smile spread open, a slash that was all wolf and rape. “Don’t even care. Just know I want you to do it.” The rictus held.
“Not much of a starting point,” I said slowly. Out of the corner of my eye I could see both Nigel and Big Mike pause. Their heads swiveled in my direction.
“Yeah, I probably got enough ink. I wanted to get one last one from you, though. Heard they were gonna be a collector’s item.” He kept his long, yard-bully stare pointed straight into my face. “You know all about collector’s items, right?”
“What the motherfucking hell are you talking about?” I asked, harsh. “Is that some kind of wussy talk?” I laughed. “Don’t tell me. Some skank gave you a lap dance and some coke, then sent you in here to shoot your mouth off.”
He shrugged his big shoulders. “Just heard you were the guy to talk to, little brother. Maybe you have a few things some people might want. Heard about a price tag. Heard you were gonna disappear.” He made a poof noise and flicked his hands like an amateur magician. He reminded me of a TV wrestler working a kid’s party
“Look, dudes,” I said to Nigel and Mikey. “Test meat. The first assessment of our defenses.” I turned back to him and gave him my sad face.
“Fuck you,” I said evenly. “Pussy.” He laughed and made a “bring it on” gesture with his hands.
I plowed through the gate in the tip wall. The guy reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a seven-inch angel blade, one of those Italian jobs. He flicked it and the gleaming double-sided sticker glinted in his hand. He dropped into a fighting crouch with a wide grin and had an instant to glance to the side as the chair Delia had thrown crashed into his big head.
I kicked him viciously in the small ribs as he went down. Big Mike vaulted the t
ip wall and stomped on his knife hand with his size thirteen boot, breaking it horribly, then kicked the loose blade away. Nigel winged in behind me an instant later and kicked him square in the forehead, envisioning a field goal. He stayed down, moaning. A wet McFart bubbled up out of the back of his leather pants.
“Get this piece of shit out of here,” I spat. I almost kicked him again, but Nigel stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. Big Mike pulled his wide leather belt off and started whipping the guy on his ass and legs with long, powerful strokes. The whipping continued as the guy half crawled and half dragged himself out the door and a few feet down the sidewalk, clutching his broken hand to his chest, pushing his face along the pavement at points. Eventually he climbed to his feet using the side of the building and staggered off, holding his side. A few cars had slowed and then sped away while Big Mike kept whaling away, breathing like a bellows. Across the street a small cluster of homies cheered and toasted with their paper-bagged forties, but other than that the sidewalk was ominously clear of pedestrians.
Big Mike came back in thirty seconds after they’d rounded the corner and put his belt back on, panting. I could hear sirens in the distance. I took the ball bearing out of my pocket and gave it to Nigel, who dropped it into a jar in Delia’s station.
“Guess I’ll be talking to the cops after all,” I said. “I goddamned knew this fucking day was going to end this way.”
“I’ll handle this,” I said firmly as the first police car swept up, lights flashing.
“Jesus.” Delia groaned loudly, throwing up her arms in disgust and spinning around. She stormed into the back of the shop and slammed the door behind her. Big Mike and Nigel looked at each other and exchanged mute shrugs. A second police car pulled up behind the first, and then another one across the street. In less than a minute there were two more. Must be a slow night, I reasoned. All the cars were carrying single officers. The five of them had a brief conversation out front while looking up and down the street, then they came in.
“What’s the story,” the lead officer said, totally flat. He was a tall older guy with a chiseled face and close-cropped gray hair. They were all big, in fact, the new breed of Old Town monster cops, with code-bursting chest walkie-talkies and guns, tasers, mace, beating flashlights, batons, and multiple cuffs, plus a ton of other crap velcroed and buckled all over them. “Who’s in charge.” Neither were questions.
“That would be me,” I said. “Darby Holland. I own this place. Some big convict jackass just pulled a knife on me a few minutes ago. The knife is right over there.” I pointed to where it lay in the corner. “I hit him with that broken chair and got in a lucky shot. I’ll never get that chair glued back together. Then I took my belt off and beat his ass out of here. It seemed like the responsible thing to do.” I shrugged and smiled. “He was pretty big. Like you guys.”
The lead officer glanced at the knife and then gestured offhandedly, practically stoned with who-cares. Another officer bagged it without any clinical TV enthusiasm.
“These witnesses?” the lead officer asked, motioning with his head at Nigel and Big Mike. Delia had walked back out and was surveying the entire ensemble before her with open disgust.
“They were hiding in back, the worthless pussies,” I replied. I turned to them. “So no one gets a Christmas card this year.” Big Mike shrugged and made a face. Nigel rolled his eyes. Delia scowled and crossed her skinny arms, one hundred percent negative sassy.
The lead officer pursed his lips. The rest of them stared at me with ten-mile eyes. Not one of them believed even for a second that I was capable of telling the truth, but judging from their tired expressions, it didn’t matter.
“Let’s step outside,” the lead officer said. He was a foot taller than me.
I held my hands up, biting back a remark about Batman or Dick Tracy.
“So what’d this guy look like?” the lead officer asked, once we were all out in the rain. I looked at his badge. Sergeant James Yeary.
“Big. Dyed black hair, cheesy moustache, black leather jacket, leather pants. Prison tattoos.”
He nodded at one of the other officers, who got back in his car and rolled out to make a halfhearted attempt at rounding the guy up. He was gone and they knew it.
“Any idea why he pulled a knife on you?” He squinted at me, prepared for a lie. I sighed.
“Better get your notepad out,” I replied. He didn’t. Instead he just stared at me.
“A few years ago someone stole some art from the shop. Old stuff we’d had for decades. A few days ago I found out some douche in San Francisco had it. The stuff is valuable and I want it back, so I went down to talk to him. His people strong-armed me, so I left. But now he’s evidently pissed. He probably sent the fuck-up with the knife.”
“Did you file a police report?” the officer asked. He looked sorry to be standing there at that point, but he did take his pad out and click a ballpoint pen.
“I was just getting around to it.”
“So you think this guy who pulled the knife on you works for …”
“Nicholas Dong-ju.” I gave him everything I had, even dug the napkin address for Dong-ju Trust out of my wallet and handed it over. He scribbled his notes, occasionally looking up and shaking his head, as if he wanted me to just stop talking so he could get on with the rest of his night. He didn’t want to be taking down notes about some out-of-town mutant any more than I wanted to be telling him about one. But when another one of Dong-ju’s goons showed up, I’d have it on file that I felt threatened. I never placed much faith in the law, but they did keep records.
When I was finished, Sergeant Yeary went back to his car and typed on his computer. The other cop cars pulled out one by one until I was left standing on the sidewalk alone. I looked over at Flaco, who waved, enjoying the show. He gave me the double thumbs-up, ostensibly to indicate that I should keep going with his evening entertainment, maybe even make it more festive. One remaining officer was still inside the Lucky taking statements from the crew.
It was beginning to look like I might not get arrested after all. None of the other cars came howling back and no higher-ups came screaming in. No fire department showed. I watched as the police sergeant typed, and then unfortunately he sat up straight and looked at me, giving me a long, appraising stare. Then his cell phone rang. He talked on it for less than a minute. Halfway through he looked me over again and gave a description. His eyes went from my feet to my face, slow and wordy. Then to the neon Lucky Supreme sign, and finally to the beaming, jovial Flaco, who waved again.
Shit.
The officer got out of his car and cinched up his belt. He walked back to me slowly, with the deliberation of a superior but modest gunfighter.
“You’re not under arrest,” he began, “but you better come with me. Some people want to talk to you right now, and if you don’t they’ll whip up a warrant in less than half an hour.” He’d seen my record and he knew I understood him.
“God damn it,” I complained.
“You can ride up front.” He said it in a conciliatory way.
We walked together back across the street to the car and got in. I looked back at the shop. Big Mike watched me through the window, stone-faced, the equally blank Nigel beside him. Delia was animatedly describing something to the remaining cop, gesturing forcefully with her arms. Probably lecturing him on the Constitution, a document every punk kid beat the police with at every opportunity.
We rode in silence to the downtown cop station, a place I unfortunately knew all too well, and then … past it. When we came to a stop in front of the Federal Building, Sergeant Yeary looked over at me and his overall demeanor was almost apologetic.
“What the fuck are we doing here?” I asked.
“Watch the mouth from here on out, Holland. Free advice. These boys don’t fuck around.”
I could feel my face turning red and the sweat taps in my armpits opened to maximum flow. When I got out of the car, my knees felt weak. I was experien
cing the prelude to a high-powered, pig-induced panic attack.
“Fuck this,” I announced, too loud. I turned on Yeary and my hands folded into slippery fists. “If I’m not under arrest, I’m walking.”
“Don’t,” Yeary said. It wasn’t a command. More of a suggestion. “Just don’t.” He sighed. “Listen. Your story popped some big red flags. These boys are just looking for intel, avenues of association, that kind of thing. Talk to them. If you walk or lawyer up, it’ll look suspicious, and that’s not what you need right now. Just get it over with. Considering the nature of the flags, you might actually want to make friends with these guys. It looks like you stumbled into a bee hive, Holland. It says something that they wanted to talk to you right away.”
“I fucking hate this kind of thing,” I said. Feds were way out of my comfort zone. Entering the Federal Building was like desecrating a coffin. It would contaminate me on a spiritual level. My hands and feet felt like they were covered in frost and ant poison.
“Can’t blame you. You ready?”
The ROCN offices were on the second floor. Sergeant Yeary escorted me through the ground floor metal detectors, after which my photograph was taken by a uniformed fat woman with long fingernails and an attitude. Then I was issued a security pass I had to hang around my neck on a red leash. Yeary got the same routine, and he seemed equally impressed. We rode the elevator up in silence.
The doors opened on a short, wide, silent hallway that ended in a single door. It looked like something out of a horror movie shot in an insane asylum. I could just picture a pale gibbering eater of doll heads beyond the door, buffing the old linoleum municipal floors all night while he thought about silent cartoons and puppy meat.