by Lynn Kostoff
Yes, she did.
A crime for its own sake, no overriding reason behind it, a wrongful act not tainted by motive, Evelyn breaking the law simply because there was a law that could be broken. She stepped across a line that everything in her upbringing and personality had told her she couldn’t and shouldn’t do. She’d wanted to inhabit the absolute clarity of transgression just once and get away with it.
And she had.
Of what happened later at the Mesa View Inn, that she doesn’t want to think about. At least not right now.
“Evelyn,” Richard says softly, pausing, Evelyn expecting him to go on, but that’s it, her name, and then Richard takes a bite of his sandwich.
She can’t picture it, or rather she can picture it all too easily, three days in Atlanta at the American Dry Cleaners Association’s annual convention; three days of brochures and displays of the latest equipment; of demonstrations for improved solvents; of Internet workshops for small businesses; of name tags and handshakes and corny, slightly off-color jokes and watered-down drinks and hotel food; of Evelyn standing by Richard’s side and smiling, smiling, smiling; and Evelyn suddenly wants to cry, because eighteen-plus years of marriage have turned into those two tickets to Atlanta, have become something she can’t picture anymore or can picture all too easily.
She reaches across the table and takes Richard’s hand.
“We could cash the tickets in,” she says. “Forget Atlanta altogether. Take some time off like you said, just you and me. We’ll rent a car and drive, not worry about where.”
For a moment, she sees something move across his features.
Yes, she thinks.
But then Richard squeezes her hand and says, “I can’t no-show on this one, Evelyn. Jack Thomas is retiring, stepping down as president of the association. I’m supposed to give the keynote address at the dinner honoring him.”
“Can’t someone else do it?”
“Bad form. Especially in light of the talk that I’m in the running to be named as his successor.” Richard frowns and takes a sip of ice water. “We’ve been over this before. None of it should be news to you, Evelyn.”
“I suppose not,” she says.
SEVENTEEN
Jimmy’s not sure if you’re supposed to sort on the basis of color or fabric or both, figures in the larger scheme of things the distinction doesn’t matter—clean’s clean—and lifts the lids on four consecutive top-loaders and crams them with the sum total of his wardrobe, dumps in some detergent, and goes with the Big H times three—Hot, High, Heavy—slotting in the coins, and then cutting across the room to a row of orange plastic chairs lining the front windows of the Laundromat and dropping into one, the afternoon sun warming the glass and the back of his neck.
The Laundromat’s two long blocks from his room at the Mesa View Inn, its interior bathed in the nervous, overly bright light from banks of naked fluorescents set in the ceiling, the walls a faded two-tone, industrial green against pink, the linoleum floor checker-boarded with missing tiles and sticky from spilled soft drinks and detergent, everything overlaid with the clank and hiss and hum of the washers and dryers and the resolute smell of bleach.
Besides Jimmy, there are four women in the mat. Once the clothes are going, Jimmy picks up the manila envelope lying on the table next to the wrinkled pile of plastic bags he’d carted his laundry in, and walks out the door.
On the corner, a block and a half to the west, is a squat blue mailbox. He still has time to make the afternoon pickup.
He switches the manila envelope to his right hand and starts walking toward the corner.
He should be feeling better than he is. He’s found a perfect payback for his brother maneuvering him out of his inheritance.
Hell, if Jimmy wants to push it, a perfect payback for his brother’s attitude all the way through childhood—Richard, the Alex Trebek of siblings, the same swarmy Mr. Nice Guy arrogance and sugar-coated contempt masquerading as humility, the guy who smugly controlled the board and knew both the questions and answers.
Before last night, Evelyn was the one pulling all the strings. She could turn him in to the police at any time for the robberies at Frontier Cleaners.
But Evelyn had wanted a crime. One of her own. Jimmy delivered it up. The strings changed hands. Evelyn had rented the truck in her name. And when she crossed the loading bay with the first armload of shoeboxes, she moved from innocent bystander to accomplice to felon.
Evelyn got the thrills she wanted plus a little of the unbar-gained for. She couldn’t finger Jimmy for the dry-cleaning robberies without him in turn implicating her in the Vic Stamp Shoe City job. A Scottsdale matron hitting a discount shoe mart. After teaming up with her brother-in-law, who’d hit four out of seven of his brother’s dry-cleaning stores in one afternoon. The press and Evelyn and Richard’s neighbors would love it. It was almost worth a return trip to Perryville Correctional.
Almost.
The sex had been an unexpected perk, one that again Jimmy had not seen clearly at the time because he was having too much fun engaging in it.
His brother was about to take the long fall.
There was no need to bring the neighbors or press or anybody else into it. A guy like Richard, his temperament, just knowing how close his personal life and professional reputation had been to public scandal, that was torment enough. The potential for disgrace would stay with him, move right into his life, and Richard, being Richard, would feed it, keep it alive.
All Jimmy has to do is drop Evelyn’s panties in the mail.
He’s got the manila envelope addressed to Richard, the correct postage tucked in the upper right-hand corner, no return address, and no accompanying note, just a pack of matches from the Mesa View Inn and Evelyn’s silky blue panties, on whose crotch he’d taken a pen and inked the date she’d stayed with him at the Mesa View.
Jimmy figures he’ll let Richard puzzle over them for a day before he picks up the phone and enlightens him as to their ownership.
And while he’s at it, fill Richard in on who robbed the four Frontier Cleaners stores. As well as who let Jimmy walk on the last one. Coda the whole thing with a step-by-step of last night’s activities at Shoe City and room 110 of the Mesa View.
Payback. Sweet and to the point.
Jimmy’s played his closing lines a hundred times over in his head during the course of the morning. Right where you live, Richard. That’s where I set up camp. I walked into Frontier Cleaners and took your money. Then I fucked your wife. And you can’t do anything about either.
Jimmy’s got his index finger crooked on the handle of the mailbox. All he has to do is pull it back and drop the envelope in.
Except he doesn’t.
He can’t.
He’s this close, but he can’t.
A dog noses up to the corner, circles Jimmy a couple of times, sniffs at his shoes. Its coat looks like a scorched piece of Astro-turf. There’s nothing warm or doglike about the eyes. They’re just eyes. Part of one of its ears is missing.
Jimmy looks back down the block toward the Laundromat, then across the street toward the Southern Pacific rail lines, then farther south, through the haze all the way to the dark rumpled silhouette of the South Mountains.
If only she’d acted guilty, Jimmy thinks, then he could drop the envelope in the mouth of the mailbox and whistle his way back to the spin cycle at the mat. If only before she left his bed for home she had panicked, started crying, done the hysterics, begged him not to tell Richard, had a grand attack of hypocrisy that she’d tried to pass off as conscience; if only she had gone melodramatic on him, sobs and wails and tear-choked pleas, or even tried to shell-game him with a few brazen threats, done the Scottsdale Shuffle, parading the power of social position, the escape hatches of privilege, making sure he understood what the Haves have always had at their disposal; if only she had done any of that, Jimmy could have gone after Richard both barrels and no prisoners.
But the thing is, she hadn’t.
She stood naked by the bed, her clothes in a heap, and asked Jimmy if he’d seen her panties. He’d said no. Evelyn had looked around, then shrugged and laughed.
It’s that laugh he keeps hearing, deep and throaty, no false bottoms to it.
A laugh like that, it’s the equivalent of an endangered species.
Jimmy drops his hand from the handle of the mail slot.
He starts back to the mat. The majority of the storefronts are boarded up or covered with a tic-tac-toe board of iron grillwork, but Jimmy catches enough glimpses of himself in passing windows to disqualify himself as anything approaching dapper. He’d forgotten to shave this morning, and despite some hairbrush action, his scalp’s sporting the sea-urchin look, but the most unfortunate side effect of his decision to wash everything he owned was his choice of interim wardrobe—in this case, the baggy shorts he’d fashioned from an old pair of jeans, Jimmy a little off with the scissor work so that the left leg ended up three inches shorter than the right, a pair of Force One athletic shoes he’d set aside from the Shoe City job, their seams already splitting and most of the color leached away, and a white T-shirt with the Batman logo emblazoned across the chest, the shirt passed down from Don Ruger’s oldest son when his enthusiasm for the Caped Crusader waned, the shirt itself a victim of too many launderings,
having shrunk to the fit of a tourniquet, the sleeves pulling up and riding the top of his shoulders and bisecting his armpits.
His clothes have just kicked into final spin when Jimmy gets back to the Laundromat. The load in one of the machines has shifted, throwing the washer off balance, and it bounces and strains against the brackets holding it in place, sounding like an engine about to throw a rod.
Jimmy tosses the manila envelope on the seat of the first chair inside the door and then crosses to the washer, hopping up and perching on the lip of its lid, his teeth and bones rattling as he rides out the cycle.
Jimmy’s thinking maybe it’s time to pick up a case of thirty-weight and a half dozen pints of tranny fluid and point the Beast northwest and head for Montana. Leon Glade, the tender at the Chute, has a vet buddy who owns a bar in Helena, and Jimmy’s pretty sure he could land some straight-time work there.
He’s crossed the bridge to thirty-five, and lately every one of the ideas that have hatched a plan seem more and more like one of those plug-in air fresheners, sweet-smelling when you first take it out of the box but that always turns out to have the life span of a fruit fly, and before you know it, you’re left with a small, empty plastic cage stuck in a light socket and you’re breathing the same old air.
Jimmy’s had four dryers cranked for twenty minutes when Aaron Limbe and Newt Deems show up.
Jimmy looks around the mat. There’s one other person in the place, an older woman with long black hair shotgunned with gray streaks sitting along the east wall. Aaron Limbe stands just inside the door wearing what looks like a defrocked Boy Scout’s uniform, a plain tan work shirt and matching tan pants. His shoes are shined, and the part in his short black hair looks razored.
Newt Deems walks over to the older woman sitting along the east wall. He takes a buck from the pocket of his jeans and holds it out to her. Newt mentions the diner a couple doors down, tells her it might be a good idea to get herself a cup of coffee.
“We’ll make sure nobody bothers your clothes,” he adds.
Jimmy watches Aaron Limbe unwrap a breath mint and slip it in his mouth.
The older woman slowly gets up and walks out without a word. Newt shrugs, takes the buck over to the soft drink machine, and punches out a Mountain Dew. The tarantula tattoo covering the back of his hand flexes when the can disappears into his palm. Newt finishes the drink off in two swallows. When he turns toward Jimmy, Newt blocks out most of the light coming through the east window.
“We’re tuned to the same station today, right?” Newt crumples the can and tosses it in the corner.
Jimmy nods.
“Good.” Newt walks over to where Jimmy’s leaning against the folding tables. “I collect, we’re gone.”
“I told Ray I’d drop the money off at six,” Jimmy says.
“Something came up,” Newt says. “The Mexican thing again. Limon Perez keeps riling up the other gangs. Ray’s set up a powwow.”
From across the room, Aaron Limbe laughs. It’s as flat and empty as a slow clap. “Perez understands one thing,” he says, “and it’s not talk. He’s like you that way, Coates.”
Newt waves him off. “I want the money. We gotta book.”
“I’m busy right now,” Jimmy says.
Newt looks down at the floor for a moment and begins balling his fists. “You got what you owe or not, Jimmy?”
“I do, but not here. Ray said six o’clock.”
“We’ll go get it then. Come on.” Newt turns toward the door.
“I told you I’m busy.” Jimmy points at the wall of dryers, the tumble of clothes behind their glass faces.
Newt grabs Jimmy by the back of the neck and pins his head sideways on the folding table, Jimmy getting a close-up of the contact paper’s yellow-and-white-checkered print, scorch marks from mislaid cigarettes, stained ovals from the bottom of soft drink cans, and a line of black ants, all of them swimming in and out of focus as Newt applies more pressure. It feels like there’s a car resting on his neck.
Jimmy’s left arm’s free, flailing around, and it hits Newt’s belt and the buck knife he carries around with him. Jimmy fumbles with the clasp on the sheath and gets his hand on the knife, but when it’s out, he can’t do anything with it, the angle of his arm all wrong, and Jimmy ends up just waving the knife in the air by his own leg.
Newt takes the knife from him and then leans over and edges the bottom of Jimmy’s earlobe, slicing the skin off its tip. He drops a thin peel of flesh on the table. It looks like the rind on a piece of bologna.
Newt steps back, and Jimmy’s up, hyperventilating and coughing at the same time. His chest feels like it’s packed with sand. He touches the side of his neck, and his fingertips come away red.
The dryers buzz and then cut off.
Jimmy stumbles over and starts unloading them, gathering great draping armfuls that he then drops on the folding table.
“I’m not believing this,” Newt says.
Aaron Limbe walks over and takes out his gun.
He points the .38 at Jimmy’s chest. There’s nothing recognizable in Limbe’s eyes.
Jimmy wipes his hand on the back of his cut-offs and begins sorting and folding.
“What in hell’s wrong with you?” Newt asks. “I don’t get it. You want to die over four loads of laundry?”
There’s a point where there isn’t one anymore, Jimmy thinks. You just have had enough. You’re tired of people jamming you up. You torch common sense, leave reason in the dust. You’re beyond appeal. You’re suddenly willing to die for God, country, or four loads of laundry. It’s not something you think about. You’re there, that’s all, simply there, right in the middle of it.
And for no reason that makes any sense, you feel damn good.
“You want the money,” Jimmy says, pointing at the table, “you help me fold these first.”
Newt takes a step back and tells Aaron Limbe, “Fuck this. Shoot him.”
Ray Harp pounds on the door and then steps inside. As usual, he’s wearing a blue three-piece suit, cowboy boots, and no shirt. He asks what’s taking so long.
Newt explains the situation. Ray looks over at Limbe and Jimmy. Limbe still has the .38 pointed at Jimmy’s chest.
“Let me get this straight,” Ray says. “Newt’s just cut off part of your ear and told Aaron to shoot you because before I get what you owe me, you want them to help you fold your laundry?”
Jimmy nods. “Those are my terms.”
“Oh man,” Ray says, shaking his head. “You are one piece of work.” Ray then dredges up a laugh from his biker days, one with an arbitrary and unexpected reprieve built into it.
&
nbsp; Ray waves Newt Deems and Aaron Limbe over to the table and tells them to get started.
“You serious?” Newt asks. “We’re going along with this bullshit?”
“Start folding,” Ray says. He wanders over to the chairs lining the front window and sits down.
Limbe is slow in lowering the pistol. “I’m not going to forget this.”
Jimmy whistles “La Cucaracha” as he divides the sprawling pile of clothes into thirds. The left shoulder of the Batman T-shirt is spackled in red, but the bleeding from his ear has almost stopped.
There’s a hiss like Scotch tape being pulled up each time one of them grabs a piece of laundry. “Static cling,” Jimmy says, “ain’t it a bitch?”
Aaron Limbe works as methodically on the pile before him as a buzzard over a piece of carrion. Newt’s handling his like a short-order cook with a faulty memory.
Jimmy treats them to another round of “La Cucaracha.”
As they finish up and put the folded clothes in the black plastic trash bags, Ray Harp calls out from across the room, “You know, Jimmy, if the money’s not there I’m handing you over to Aaron and Newt here, and before they kill you, you’ll wish your grandfather had never been born. That’s how bad they’re going to hurt you. We’re talking major DNA violation.”
They load the laundry in the backseat of Harp’s white Continental and drive to the Mesa View, Newt following in his orange El Camino. Ray’s got some early Aerosmith cranked up on the CD player.
“Real nice digs,” he says when Jimmy opens the door to 110.
Jimmy walks across the room and kneels before the mini-refrigerator, dragging out a twelve-pack of Milwaukee’s Best. He takes out a couple of cans, then slides his hand inside and pulls free the white envelope he’s taped to the underside of the top of the box.
Jimmy counts out this week’s meet, then hesitates. The envelope’s crammed with cash from the dry-cleaning robberies and the thousand from the Shoe City job. He pulls out a wad of bills and counts out what he owes Ray. The whole enchilada. He gathers the cash from the floor and then stands up.
“We’re a hundred percent clear now,” he says, “so why don’t you and those two assholes get out of my room?”