Caught Stealing ht-1

by Charlie Huston

  – Edwin, man, I need a favor.

  He looks at me and nods and smiles.

  – Sure, sure, man, anything.

  – No big deal, but that little envelope I gave you to put in the safe the other night, I need it now.

  – What?

  – The envelope, man, I need it.

  – Here, drink. Drink!

  He shoves a shot glass into my hand and pushes it toward my face.

  – Edwin, man, I can’t really drink anymore.

  – “Can’t really drink.”Hear that?Motherhumper was in here falling off his stool other night. Now he can’t drink.

  – Seriously, Edwin, I need to get into the safe, man.

  – Fucker quits on me without, I might fucking add, the traditional two weeks’ notice and he won’t have a drink with me.

  The group is into it, egging him on and yelling for me to drink.

  – Edwin, man! This is important and I’m kind of in a hurry.

  Edwin looks to his audience.

  – The man is in a hurry.A hurry! Well, you better hurry up and drink that drink, man.

  Another cheer.Everyone is holding their shots aloft, chanting.

  – DRINK! DRINK! DRINK! DRINK!

  – Edwin, please.

  – Drink first, then business.

  I toss down the shot. Everyone hollers and knockstheir own back. It hits my stomach and I almost choke it back up. It stays down. And I wish for another. Edwin hugs me again, puts an arm around my shoulder and moves me a few feet down the bar away from the group.

  – OK, man, OK. Now, what’s up, what do you need from the safe? Hope you don’t thinkya got any moneycomin ’ toya ’cause I’mdockin ’ all your pay tillyacome back.

  – No, man.

  – Seriously, though, you need cash? You need it, you can have it.

  – No, Edwin, man, I need that envelope, that envelope I gave you the other night.

  He looks at me.

  – Envelope?

  – The envelope I gave you to put in the safe. It has a key init, I need it right now, man, the envelope with the key, fast.

  He puts a hand on my shoulder.

  – Hank, man, I’m sorry, but you didn’t give me no envelope the other night, no envelope and no key.

  The music segues into “Love Lies Bleeding.” How long have I been in here? Five minutes?Ten? Not ten, between five and ten. How long will Roman sit out there? How much time will be too much?

  – Edwin, don’t fuck around, I know I gave you that key.

  – And I know you didn’t give me shit that night except a pain in my ass from being so fucking drunk, which is why you can’t remember what you gave me or didn’t fucking give me. Your key is not in the safe.Period.

  The bar hounds are all singing along to the jukebox, Lisa behind the bar leading them. Edwin and I are at the very back of the bar, where there are four doors. The two doors on the left are bathrooms, the one straight back is for the little box of an office where the safe is and the one on the right opens on a little courtyard. The yard is shared with most of the buildings around the block; it’s clogged with garbage and the only way in or out is through one of the other buildings’ back doors or up the collection of rickety fire escapes.

  – Edwin, I’m in trouble.

  – Yeah, Ikinda figured that.

  – Big trouble, Edwin.

  – What is it?

  – Guys are looking for me, Edwin, coming for me.

  – Those fucks that beat you up?

  – Yeah, but worse. Edwin, they’re here, they’re coming here. Oh, God! Oh, fuck! Edwin, I’m sorry, man.Big trouble, Edwin. It’s big trouble.

  – No problem.

  His little coked-out eyes are shining. Edwin likes to fight. Back in the late sixties, early seventies, he rode with a gang in St. Louis called the Sable Slaves; picture a cross between theHell’s Angels and the Black Panthers. When he takes his shirt off, Edwin’s black skin is covered in a mixture of tattoos and scars. Tattoos of naked women, spiders, daggers, skeletons, dragons, and a big one on his back of a Klansman strapped to a burning cross. Scars from motorcycle timing chains, knives, baseball bats with nails driven into them, broken beer bottles, and at least one from a bullet. Edwin is the toughest fucker I’ve ever seen, and he likes to fight. He smells a good fight right now.

  – Trouble’s no problem, Hank. Bring it on. Bring.It. On.

  – Edwin, no, no. No!We, we, we. Listen, man, we need to go now, we need to take everyone out the back door and get the fuck out of here.

  – The fuck you say. The fuck I’m gonnachase my friends out, get run out of my own bar.

  I’ve started opening the locks on the back door. Edwin is trying to stop me, grabbing at my hands, but not wanting to hurt me.

  – EDWIN! HEY, EDWIN!

  Sunday is at the front door, looking out the little window. She yells over the music again, still looking out the window.

  – EDWIN, THERE’S A BIG GUY OUT HERE WANTS IN. SHOULD I LET ’IM?

  We stop wrestling with the locks and look at Sunday. There is only the sound of breaking glass as the window in the front door shatters. Sunday’s head snaps back and she drops to the floor with a little black hole drilled in her nose. Bolo’s huge brown hand smashes through what’s left of the window and starts groping around for the dead bolt. Edwin has started running in that direction as I flip the last lock and open the back door. Blackie and Whitey are standing there, their tracksuits dirty from coming over the rooftops. They’re holding the kind of pistol-size machine guns that look like toys but aren’t. Bolo gets the front door open and steps in and Edwin barrels into him sending the gun he used to kill Sunday spinning to the floor. Bolo does the easiest thing: he lets himself fall forward, pinning Edwin between his own enormous mass and Sunday’s corpse. Edwin can’t get a limb free to strike at him but keeps trying until Roman steps in, closes and locks the door, picks up the fallen pistol and sticks it in Edwin’s ear. “Love Lies Bleeding” ends. No more music plays on the jukebox.

  – You have to jiggle it a little.

  Roman is trying to open the safe. Edwin has repeated the combination to him several times backward and forward and from the middle, but Roman can’t get the safe open.

  – I told you, you have to jiggle when you spin right. It’s fussy.

  Roman tries again.

  – No, don’t jiggle on the number, just between and not when you go back to nine.

  Roman tries again.

  – Jiggle, not shake. Jiggle.

  Roman tries.

  – Just, fuck, will you just let me fucking do it?

  The safe is set in the floor under the desk that is against the wall opposite the door. A little panel in the floorboards flips up and you have to cram yourself half under the desk to reach over the trapdoor and spin the tumbler. Roman is squatting down there, sweating. Edwin and I are pressed against the wall next to the door and Bolo stands just outside, unable to squeeze into the room. The Russians have everybody else packed on the floor behind the bar, keeping them covered with their nasty little guns.

  The sound of crying carries clearly into the office. I can hear Wayne saying Sunday’s name over and over and Lisa trying to shush him.

  Roman tries again.

  – Just. Let. Me. Do.It.

  Roman looks at Edwin and wipes the sweat from his forehead. They came in about six minutes ago and it’s clearly five more than he intended to be here.

  – You gave me the right combination?

  – It’s fussy, I told you that. So just let me open it.

  Roman unfolds from the tiny space.

  – You will work the combination. You will open the safe. You will step away. You will not reach into the safe or I will kill you. Am I clear?

  – Fuck, yeah. Now let me open the fucking thing.

  Roman and Edwin swap places in the tiny room. Edwin fits much better under the desk. He reaches into the space hidden by the trapdoor and starts to spin the dial. Bolo lea
ns in the open door, his gun in relaxed fingers at his side. Roman is between us, his own gun still holstered. He takes out the handkerchief he used to wipe the blood from my face and blots the sweat from his own. I don’t tell Roman the key isn’t in the safe. I don’t tell because I know what is in the safe and I want Edwin to have it.

  – See, just jiggle and it opens right up.

  There’s a little clank as Edwin turns the bolt and opens the safe. He moves to climb out from under the desk, bumps his head and ducks down from the impact.

  – Fuck!

  He grabs his head with his left hand, but his right is still hidden behind the trap. Roman starts to reach into his coat and Bolo shifts in the doorway.

  – Yourhand, let me see your hand.

  – Yeah, yeah.

  The safe is a deep cylinder set in a concrete block. Edwin told me once that it took him a while to find one deep enough to fit the Remington 12-gauge, even with the sawed-off barrel and the pistol grip. He drops his left shoulder, rolling onto his back as his right hand arcs out of the safe with the shotgun. I jump as far to my left as I can and fall to the floor. Roman is trying to step back out of the room and stumbles against Bolo, who is trying to step forward for a clear shot. Edwin sprawls on his back with the stubby barrel of the.12 pointed up at them and pulls the trigger. It’s loaded with birdshot, but from a few feet away the load has little room to spread. Roman takes it in his upper chest and it shoves him back into Bolo and they both fall into the hall. From out in the bar I hear the sudden rattle of the Russians’ tiny guns. Bullets rake the office. Edwin twists on the floor, kicks the door shut and from his knees shoots the twin bolts, locking us in. The door is wrapped in steel, with a mail slot cut into it so you can make cash drops on late nights. Bullets ping against the door but don’t penetrate. Edwin stands up, crams the barrel of his gun through the mail slot and unloads several rounds.

  The office is clogged with smoke and tears flood down my cheeks. Edwin grabs a box of shells from the desk and reloads.

  – Cocksuckersmust die. Allcocksuckers must die. Gonna kill all thosecocksuckers.

  The mail slot flips up and the barrel of one of the machine guns pops through. It waves around and makes a sound like aminibike and everything in the office explodes. We press against the door while wood splinters and shattered glass pepper us. A bullet ricochets and embeds itself in the wall next to Edwin’s head.

  – Fuck!Cocksuckers die!

  Edwin shoves the Remington through the slot and opens fire again. He empties the gun and starts once more to reload. We huddle against the door and wait, but the machine gun doesn’t come back.

  – Fuck! OK, fuck! OK, we go. Fucking Butch and Sundance in Bolivia, OK, Hank? Let’s do it, let’s go.

  He’s filling his pockets with extra shells.

  – Edwin, man, the cops,wait for the fucking cops.

  – Fuck that, man. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that’s us, man, that’s us. We’regoin ’. Go, let’s go!

  There is no way I’m gonna go, no way I’m gonna run out there screaming to die. There is the rip of a machine gun again, but no bullets bang against the door. Instead we hear muffled screams from behind the bar.

  – That’s our song, Hank. Open the door! Open the fucking door!

  I do it.

  I stand next to the door and we both scream at the top of our lungs as I pull the bolts and jerk the door open and Edwin’s body collapses in on itself as dozens of bullets seem to strike him at once.

  I shove the door closed, shoot the bolts and huddle against it, trying not to sit in too much of Edwin’s blood. Outside the door, Roman starts talking.

  – That didn’t go well at all, did it?

  Not far away, there are sirens.

  I wait as long as I can before I go out. The sirens are getting very close and I need to get out of here. Roman, Bolo and Whitey are gone. Blackie is just outside the door to the office, his head dangling from his torso, unprotected by the body armor I can now see beneath his shredded tracksuit. They must all be wearing it.

  Everybody is behind the bar.All of them.In a big pile.

  Amtrak John used to let me ride the train for free when I went upstate to see friends. Wayne helped to move that big table into Yvonne’s place, and Sunday would make me little herbal remedies whenever I was sick. Dan would bring his pirate cable box into the bar on big fight nights and we’d watch them for free,then spend the rest of the night watching porn.

  Lisa.

  Edwin.

  The sirens are just up the street. I go out the back door and up one of the fire escapes. I cross over the rooftops to Avenue A, my street, just a block from the bar. I climb down and cross the street. Jason is up and digging through the pile of garbage on the sidewalk in front of my building. I walk past him and take out my keys to open the front door. I stop and look back at Jason. He’s carefully untying the bags, picking out the aluminum cans and retying the bags. I walk over to him and start looking through the piles. Jason looks at me resentfully but goes about his task undaunted. I toss aside several bags until I find the one that smells more like crap than the others. I open it up and pull out the jeans I shit in.It’s right there where I forgot it, stuffed in the back pocket, waiting for me to give it to Edwin to put in the safe, except I got drunk and forgot about it and all those people are dead because I couldn’t remember where it was. I take the key out of the envelope, put it in my pocket and let myself into my building, leaving Jason to his work.

  My door has police tape sealed over the jamb, just like Russ’s. The cops must have been through here after they picked me up at Yvonne’s. I don’t want to cut the tape, so I go up to the roof. My laundry bag is still up there, so I take it with me down the fire escape. I have to climb over the rail again to get in the window. Once inside, I reach out and pull in the laundry.

  The cops did a pretty good job on the place, but I don’t really care at this point. The light is blinking on my answering machine. Mom is there three times, but I don’t listen to any of her messages. I can’t. I sit on the couch and look at the key. It’s notched along both edges and the base is a big square of blue plastic with the number 413d cut into it. It’s for a storage locker. This is a key to a rented storage locker. I know because I keep stuff stored at one of the big warehouses on the West Side and have a pink key similar to this one right on my key ring. I sit there and stare straight ahead and suddenly realize what I’m staring at.It’s Bud’s carrying case. Bud is still in Roman’s car. Outside my door someone tears the police tape and starts picking the lock.

  I get the aluminum bat from my closet and stand to the side of the door and wait. The lock snaps open, the knob turns and someone comes in.

  It’s a man. I plant the bat in his gut and as he folds over I whip it up and clip him across the back of the head and he drops flat. I ram the door shut with my shoulder and lock it before anyone else can get in. No one tries. I look at the guy on the floor, shove my toe under him and flip him over. It’s Russ.

  I tuck the bat under my arm and walk over to the sink. I take a big plastic cup from the dish rack. It’s an old souvenir cup from Candlestick Park. Willie Mays is on the side. I fill it with cold water, walk over to Russ and pour it out on his face. Some of it goes in his mouth and up his nose, making him choke, and that brings him around. He rolls onto his stomach and coughs and catches his breath. He reaches up and feels at the lump on his scalp where blood is slowly trickling out. He looks up and sees me for the first time.

  – Hank! Oh, man, Hank! Good, good. Look, man, I need my cat.

  I hit him with the bat until he’s unconscious again, but I stop before I kill him.

  Part Three

  September 29, 2000

  Two Regular Season Games Remaining

  They’re talking about me on TV. A block away, NY1 and all the other local stations are live on the scene of the worst massacre in recent New York history and, from time to time, they replay the official police statement.


  A cop in a fancy uniform with a lot of medals on his chest for catching criminals stands in front of Paul’s and reads from a piece of paper.

  – This is. Excuse me, please, I have a statement and I will read it just once. This is a very preliminary statement. As of now, we know, we believe, that a short while ago a gun battle took place between the owner of Paul’s Bar and an unknown number of assailants who appear to have been attempting to rob the establishment. We have… we have seven confirmed dead, including one of the assailants. We are asking that anyone in this area who may have seen or heard anything suspicious in the early morning here to please contact us. We are… we are also seeking a former employee of Paul’s for questioning in connection to this tragic crime. That is all.

  The cops are not stupid. They arrived at my apartment a little over an hour ago, saw the broken seal, burst in with guns drawn and found it empty. Russ and I stayed very quiet in his place across the hall while they searched mine high and low and eventually taped it back up and split.

  Russ sits on the couch with an ice bag on his head and watches the TV at very low volume while I shave my hair down to fuzz with his clippers. I’ve already shaved my face clean to get rid of the stubble I had when the police took my booking photo last night.

  Sooner or later, the cops will have to bite the bullet. Some clever reporter will sniff around and the cops will have to explain how a man already in their custody in connection with one murder escaped and got involved in mass murder. Then my picture will be everywhere. I’m hoping for at least twenty-four hours’ grace.

  Over on the couch, Russ is a little dopey from the shots he’s taken to the noggin, but I don’t think he’ll make any more trouble now that I have his gun.

  When he came round the second time he was a bit confused.

  – Fuck, Hank. What the fuck?

  – Roman’s looking for you, Russ.

  – Roman?

  – Roman’s looking for you, Russ.

  He touched the wound on his head and flinched.

  – Fuck, Hank, I don’t know any fucking Roman. What the fuck, man, like, why’dya hit me, man?