Hot Wire

by Carson, Gary

  "Full Spectrum what?" Deacon looked puzzled.

  "They are lying about Iran," Heberto said. "Just as they lied about 9/11 and Iraq and Serbia and Vietnam and death squads in El Salvador. Weapons of mass destruction. Bullshit. All you have to do is listen to their voices to know they are lying cocksuckers."

  "What are you?" Deacon asked. "Some kind of Berkeley faggot?" He blew smoke at the ceiling. "I say waste the ragheads so they can't pull that crap again – just bomb the whole place and grab the oil. What the hell."

  Heberto smiled at him.

  "I'm not arguin', Herb." Jacobo looked pained. "Maybe it's bullshit and maybe it's not, but that's kind of beside the point right now. Maybe the feds are just trying to scare everybody so they can take over. The point is they're all over the Port and we're kind of exposed to random acts of Fate, if you know what I mean."

  "Just cover your end," Deacon said. "We'll worry about Port security."

  "Yeah, well, you don't act too worried to me."

  "Listen." Deacon puffed his cigar. "You know damn well they can't check all that cargo. They're doin' good to check five percent of the containers that go in and out of there, so all this talk about extra security is just a lot of crap for the dumb-ass voters. We got all the stamps. As far as they know, we're a legitimate operation."

  Heberto lit another cigarette.

  "We are not renegotiating your fee," he told Jacobo. "We ship in two weeks and the costs are well established."

  "That's not what I'm talking about."

  Deacon propped his elbows on the desk, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked like he had a migraine. When he opened his eyes again, he saw me and waved at the door.

  "I've got to go," I said. I could take a hint. It didn't sound like Jacobo had heard anything about Arn or the Lexus, and Deacon didn't want me to witness the payoff. That was fine with me. I didn't want to witness anything anymore.

  "You leaving already?" The scumbag was disappointed. "I'll be done in a second. Maybe we can catch a drink or something. It's on me tonight."

  "Sorry, Mr. Jacobo. Maybe later, OK?"

  "You're a hard case, Emma." He snickered. "A real hard case."

  #

  Thank God.

  I was relieved to get out of there, but relief was just the flip side of fear. I felt spaced and wired and my imagination was starting to run amok. Closing the office door, I walked down the hall into the convenience store, checking the overhead mirror to see if anybody was hanging around in the aisles. The station was quiet – a dead zone on the night shift. Janice sat behind the counter, chin propped on her hand, leafing through a National Enquirer. She didn't look up when I walked by. Didn't see me at all.

  The ice machine rattled. A phone rang in back and I wondered who was calling that time of night. Maybe Heberto had talked Deacon into getting rid of me. Maybe they were making arrangements to compact the Lexus and dump my twitching corpse. I ran all these grisly movies: gang bangs and knives, arteries spurting across the floor in the warehouse, locos bagging my head and hands, wrapping my torso in a plastic sheet. I made the front door, but I didn't want to go outside. Too dark. Too quiet. Leaves scattered through a circle of streetlight on the corner and a trash bag rolled by the pumps in the empty lot. I checked the shadows by the propane tanks in case somebody was hiding in the alley.

  I was gripped. Losing it big time. I had to get my keys from Vincent and figure out what to do, and I needed a drink or something. A Valium. A lobotomy. Nobody had decided jack, I told myself. Nobody knew anything yet and nothing was going to happen for days, maybe weeks – if anything was going to happen at all. Like Deacon had said, this could all be a lot of nothing. Except it wasn't. One way or another, I couldn't do anything but wait.

  A pickup clattered by on Hollis, dragging its muffler along the blacktop in a shower of sparks. I waited until the street was empty, then walked over to the Hot Box, checking my back, scanning the alleys and sidewalks. I kept expecting to see Baldy turn a corner in the Lexus or a couple of Oakland cops pull up and nail me with their spotlight. I could hear a voice – Deacon's voice – and I didn't like what he was saying:

  "I know, Herb, I know. You're right. I like her, but why take a chance? Get Castel to dump her in the Bay – Arn, too, when he gets out on bail – and I'll figure out what to do with the Lexus. I don't think she suspects anything. We played it real good."

  Lovely.

  They say everybody has millions of these tiny bugs that look like hairy monsters with tusks and horns and dozens of eyes crawling all over their skin.

  I could feel them.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The Hot Box was dead. A longhair in a stained T-shirt banged on the pinball machine by the door and a couple janitors were shooting pool at the table in back. The longhair checked me out when I walked in, but he was just a neighborhood druggie; I'd seen him around before. The janitors looked like janitors in grubby overalls. One of them leaned back to chalk his cue and I could feel his eyes trailing me across the room, or maybe it was just my imagination. When I glanced in his direction, he had turned back to the game, just another fat old man.

  Everything looked normal. Too normal. Vincent, the owner, stood behind the bar, polishing glasses and talking to a drunk hunched over a draw and a bowl of pretzels. I recognized the drunk. He was this sleaze-bag reporter named Brown who chased dirt for a Berkeley scandal rag when he wasn't busy drinking himself to death. A TV flashed scenes of chaos over their heads: Muslims waving rifles, a truck exploding in a market. The grill was shut down and pans clattered in the kitchen.

  Then I saw her.

  Steffy was sitting at a table back in the shadows, staring at her bottle like a zombie. "Great," I muttered. Just what I needed. I'd forgotten about the message Vincent had left with Deacon earlier that night or I would've avoided the place like the clap. My bimbo cousin was hanging around because she needed money or a place to crash – it was always the same old story – but I needed time to figure out where I was going to stay, what I was going to do myself. I had to pick up my keys. I couldn't leave just yet. She didn't see me come in, so I sat down at the bar and Vincent came over, walking kind of slow with his arthritis.

  "Well, well," he said. "Little Miss Strange."

  "Hi, Vincent." I propped my elbows on the bar, took off my glasses and rubbed my eyes. I was getting this gnarly headache. "I guess I know why you called."

  "Sorry to bug you at work," he said. "I figured you'd want to come by."

  "Yeah, well, she could've picked a better night."

  "She ain't your look-out, you know."

  Vincent was a nice old guy – bald, skinny as a stick – and he wore these bifocals that made him look like a mad scientist. A friend of my father's before my parents croaked, he helped me out when he could, loaned me money, introduced me to Deacon when I got out of Juvie three years ago. Vincent used to be a long-haul trucker, but he got into a jam over light loads and ended up doing nine months for trafficking and some other crap. I missed him bad while he was gone. They wouldn't let me visit. When he got out, he spent a year mixing drinks at some dive in West Oakland before he bought the Hot Box with his cut from a warehouse robbery. He did OK with the place, more or less. The joint cleared forty or fifty grand during a good year, more than enough to keep him in Marlboros and Johnny Walker. Deacon helped him out now and then. Vincent told me they were buddies from the old days before the city got overrun by faggots and dirty hippies.

  "You cut it pretty close," he said, nodding at Steffy. "She's been hanging around all night, caging drinks and getting more squirrelly by the minute. Coked up or something. Nothing different there, except she got kicked out again by her latest manager or whatever the hell he is and I got to close in thirty minutes." He glanced at the clock. "Don't want to toss her out this time of night. Something might eat her."

  "Wonderful." Backfire on the street made me flinch. I sat up, put my glasses on, then slouched over again, checking the door, run
ning a hand through my hair. "Can I get a beer?"

  He shook his head, watching me fidget.

  "Not out here you can't. Goddamn Liquor Control."

  "Oh, yeah." I wasn't tracking too hot. "You got any coffee left?"

  "That's just what you need," he said. "Everything OK? You look like you swallowed a bug."

  "I'm OK," I said. "Tired."

  "Where's Arn?"

  I hesitated. "He called in sick tonight."

  "Sick? What's the matter?"

  "Cold or something." I watched Steffy nursing her bottle in the corner and wished I could push a button that would make her disappear. She looked stoned and depressed; maybe she was feeling sorry for all the poor little butterflies trapped inside her head. "Thanks for calling, Vincent. I guess I'll deal with it somehow."

  "Anybody else, I'd of dumped her junky butt in the trash." He glanced over at Brown sitting at the other end of the bar, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. "You interested in a piece? I got a couple Glocks from that dealer thing in Richmond. The one last month."

  "I heard about that."

  "No, you didn't."

  "I don't know, Vincent." I couldn't concentrate. "Let me think about it."

  "Well, don't gnaw on it forever." He nodded in Brown's direction, then started to polish the counter with a rag. "Looks like somebody wants to show you some dirty pictures."

  "What?"

  "Don't get your shorts in a wad." He gave me a wink. "Brownie's workin' a big story."

  Brown staggered over and sat down on the stool next to me, propping his elbows on the bar and dragging a hand through his tangled hair. A tall, skinny geek with wire-rim glasses and bloodshot eyes, he was wearing a baggy trench coat with scuff marks and stains on the sleeves. I'd seen him around before and he always reminded me of a college professor who'd just spent the last week curled up in a dumpster. He was a fleabag reporter, broke all the time, a bottom-feeder sniffing at keyholes with a fifth of vodka in his pocket. Vincent had met him a couple years ago, but I never got the details. The old man said he was harmless, but Brown hung out with bail bondsmen, seedy cops and courthouse reporters, so I always kept my distance.

  "Emma. How's it going?" His breath smelled like an ash tray full of stale beer. "Haven't seen you in a while." Turning back to Vincent, he slouched over the bar, digging around in his pockets. "Time for another one, Vince? On the tab?"

  "Make it fast." Vincent frowned at his watch. "You gonna settle this year or what?"

  "I've got a check coming Friday." Brown gave me a sloppy grin, his left eye twitching. "That's what they tell me, anyway, the little fucks. Check's in the mail. It's always in the mail." He coughed, then leaned closer, slurring his words. "My big-shot editors wouldn't know a real story if it bit them on the ass. Bunch of red-diaper doper babies. They're going to overthrow the Capitalist Oppressors as long as it doesn't cost them any ad revenue." He laughed. "I gave them five-thousand words on meter-maid rackets and ticket quotas. Fight The Power, baby." He patted his coat pockets, then pulled out a photograph the size of a Polaroid snapshot and dropped it on the bar in front of me. "You ever see this guy before?"

  "Get away from me."

  I thought I was going crazy. None of this was real. I had to leave, deal with Steffy, find a place to stay, figure out what to do. I couldn't sleep at home. If I did, I might wake up in a cell. Deacon had told me to vanish, so I had to vanish. Instead, I was talking to this seedy lush with my head rammed so far up my ass that I could wash my face with my own tongue.

  "Just take a look." Brown stared at me, his eye twitching, then he picked up the draw Vincent gave him and slurped at the foam. "The kid's a male hustler – some jail-bait amateur. He's supposed to work at a gas station on Telegraph when he isn't blowing city officials for fifty bucks a swallow." He turned to Vincent. "You got a cigarette, Vince? I'm tapped out."

  "What else you want? A goddamn liver transplant?" Vincent passed him a smoke and Brown lit up, coughing and gulping at his beer. I took a look at the photo and got this flash of revulsion. It was a grainy close-up of a teenaged boy – some junky-looking surfer dude with long blonde hair. He was busy sucking off a fat banker type sprawled across a bed with his gray-flannel trousers pulled down to his knees. The background looked like a hotel suite. I could see the lights of Knob Hill in the windows.

  "Jesus Christ." I tossed the photo on the bar and got to my feet. "Get out of here, you pervert. What's the matter with you?"

  "I'll take that for a no." Brown shook his head sadly, picked up his dirty picture, tucked it away and turned back to his beer. "Shaking down chicken-hawks," he mumbled to himself. "That's what I've been reduced to."

  He left ten minutes later, stumbling out the door, and I almost felt sorry for the grubby bum.

  #

  Steffy was fried like usual.

  I sat down at her table, but it took a minute before I registered on her spongy brain. She stared at me, her eyes bloodshot and dilated, then she sat up and gave me this twisted smile, reaching across the table to touch my arm. My loving cousin. She almost spilled her beer down her cleavage.

  "Hi, Emma," she slurred. "I broke up with Larry."

  "What happened?" I kept an eye on the door. "Did he catch you going through his wallet again?"

  "That's not true." Her eyes brimmed. High theatrics. "He just said that because he lost his whole paycheck on that deal with those biker slimeballs or whatever he was doing and he tried to blame it on me..."

  She trailed off, stroking my arm.

  "You're so tiny," she cooed. "Just like a little doll."

  "Great, Stef." First Brown, now this. "What're you doing here?"

  "I just wanted to see you. That's all."

  I took a deep breath. Steffy was a brunette tonight and she was wearing zombie mascara and bright red lipstick that made her look like a vampire with tits. Twenty-two going on twelve, she was a junky stripper who bounced around between the clubs and escort services when she wasn't comatose or getting kicked out by her latest scumbag pimp. I couldn't stand her, but she was my cousin on my father's side – the only family I had left. My parents got killed in a head-on collision with a drunk mortgage broker while I was still crawling around in nappies. A couple years after that, Steffy's mother ran off and her father got busted for shooting a gas station attendant in Sacramento – he got religion and wrote her letters about the Rapture from San Quentin, but she could hardly read them. Steffy was a dizzy leech with stretch marks around her mouth, but I felt kind of responsible for the brainless slut. Don't ask me why. We were both Central Valley mongrels chewed up by foster homes and Juvie, then spit out on the street to die.

  "Look, Steffy," I said. "I've got to get out of here."

  "Can I stay with you tonight? Larry kicked me out."

  "Tonight's bad, OK?" I sat up, tapping the floor with my shoe, clasping my hands together and looking around. The longhair had vanished. The janitors were heading for the door. "I've got some problems. It's a bad idea."

  "What kind of problems?" She got all bug-eyed. "Is it that fat guy you work for? He tried to feel me up once. He's got these big hairy hands."

  "I can't talk about it," I said. "And you can't stay with me."

  "Please? It's just for tonight. I'm getting paid Friday and Arn said there's a vacancy in the building next to him and I think I can make the deposit."

  "Friday's five days away," I said. "When did you talk to Arn?"

  "A couple days ago. Please? I don't have any place to go."

  "Jesus Christ." Vincent was getting ready to close. The place had cleared out and he was giving me the evil eye while he locked the front door and started to turn out the lights. The pinball machine flashed and chimed in the shadows, playing a little tune. "All right, come on." I got to my feet and started for the bar. "I've got to get my keys, then I'll drive you over there, OK? I'm not going to be around. I'm just going to pick up some stuff."

  "You're not going to be there?" She grabbed her purse, one
of those monster jobs covered with sequins and plastic flowers, then stumbled after me on her spiked heels. "Why not? What's going on?"

  "I told you," I said. "I can't talk about it."

  "It's that fat guy, isn't it? What a creep."

  #

  I always left my keys with Vincent while I was working. He could tell something was wrong when I picked them up early, but he didn't ask any questions and just told me to be careful. After I got the keys, I used the pay phone to call the Radisson at the Berkeley Marina and got a room for two days – a lucky break since they were usually full on the weekends. The reservations maxed out my Visa, but I couldn't face hiding in a Motel 6 while Deacon tried to find out what was going on. His guy at the DMV could trace the Lexus and his bondsman could find out if Arn had been arrested, so it might only take a couple days for everything to settle down. If it took longer than that, I'd have to move someplace cheaper: I could only hole up for a week or two before I ran out of money.

  Finally, I was ready to go. I said goodbye to Vincent, bundled Steffy into my Dodge, then I headed over to Berkeley to drop her off and do some packing. She was fading fast, giggling and whining about her manager and his slimeball friends, or something like that. Her jabber made perfect sense if I didn't actually listen to it. Slouched behind the wheel, I watched the rearview, the headlights drifting through the streets. It was almost two in the morning.

  I lived in a one-bedroom apartment on the top floor of this dump on San Pablo – right across the city line from Emeryville. My neighborhood was a mixed zone of stucco houses, apartment blocks, gas stations and liquor stores with neon signs poking through a canopy of oaks and billboards. I parked on the street behind my building, back in the shadows, then we walked down an alley lined with trash cans, went in through the side door and took the elevator up to seven. Steffy had finally shut up; she didn't know what was going on, but she must've picked up on my mood. I listened for strange noises, watching the shadows on the stairwell landing as we walked down the hall to my apartment. The dump smelled like weed and moldy wallpaper. A streetlight glowed behind a tree in the window at the end of the hall.