Poughkeepsie Shuffle

by Dietrich Kalteis

  Maybe a bath would melt her mood. I pulled out a sack of frozen fries, glancing at the ingredients. Not even real potatoes, worse than the slop in the Don.

  The knock at the front door had me jumping. Tossing the fries in the freezer, I got set for the Jehovahs, same two guys had been working the block with the latest Watchtower. Go ahead, try and shove a shoe in my door and see what happens. Eye to the peephole, I was looking at a fisheye Tibor Kovach, the guy from next door. Guy who moved into the next semi the same day Ann moved in here. Started arguing about my car blocking the spot where he wanted to park his moving van and pull down the ramp in back. I told him I’d been living here two years, parked it in the same spot every day. Seeing how he was new, he could turn his moving truck around, pull the ramp down facing the other way. I shut the door on him, and we didn’t say much to each other before I got sent up. Ann living here alone, keeping up the rent. First day I got out, Tibor’s back over here accusing me of selling grass to his kid, Dmitri. Caught the kid rolling a joint, sitting in his Firebird on my boulevard, taking my spot. Confiscating the weed, he came over, showed me the joint, figured since I was an ex-con, the kid got it from me. Tibor asking what I had to say about it. Told him the thing looked like the kid was wearing mittens when he rolled it, pot falling out both ends, a stem sticking through the Zig-Zag. Then he went on about my unruly hedge, called me an idiot, and walked away before I could slam the door.

  “Hedge still blocking view,” Tibor said now, pointing to the tangle of blackberry-lashed cedar down by the street.

  “Told you last time, I’d run it by the landlord,” I said, looking past him, a grey van rolling by, pretty sure it was the same one from out front of the Quickie Wash, recognized the cross on the mirror. The same two guys looking this way. Maybe they were cops, keeping an eye, ex-cons always on their radar, guilty of some shit or other.

  “You live here, not landlord,” Tibor said.

  “Yeah, how about this, I cut it the day little Dmitri stops parking his clunker in my spot? How’d that be?” I pointed to the ruts on my boulevard.

  “Grass is dead and boulevard belong to city.”

  “Yeah, and hedge belongs to the landlord.”

  Tibor pressed his nose against the screen, huffing, looking like he was coming through the mesh, telling me to keep away from Dmitri.

  “Your kid, how about you tell him?”

  He said if only we were in Minsk, pointing a fat finger and throwing in, “Wife say is no reasoning with you.”

  “Yeah, the little woman finally get a green card, huh?” I said, Tibor living next door on his own, just him and his kid and a mangy dog.

  “Not my wife, your wife,” Tibor said.

  The van rolled past the opposite way now, both guys still looking over.

  “Hey, my man, since we’re talking, how about you keep your mutt out of my trash? Tired of cleaning it up.”

  “Don’t blame Sasha, govnó.” Tibor pulled back his nose, left a dent in the mesh, the man’s hands balled at his sides, saying, “You put trash out in morning,” Pointing around to the neighbors, he said, “then raccoon don’t knock down at night.” Turning away before he did something that would get his resident status revoked, he headed for his yard, calling over his shoulder, “Back in Minsk, I choke shit from you, drag you in the Svisloch.”

  “Svisloch, what’s that, a dish?” Looking at the street past the brambles, I shut the door and threw on the bolt. Taking the burgundy from the pantry, I held it up and shook the last of the wine into my mouth. Then I filled the kettle, put it on a burner.

  . . . The Magnifying Side

  Careful not to spill, I opened the bathroom door and set Ann’s tea on the vanity. Banging her fists in the bubbles, she slid down into them, saying, “Lord, take me now.” I remembered her telling me head librarian Pritchard once claimed it was impossible to drown oneself. Looked like Ann was considering the challenge.

  Going back to the kitchen, I sat at the table, thinking I should go get some more wine, picking at the Formica and staring at the clock until I heard her step out. Ann taking her jeans off the door hook, saying, “Please, legs, fit.” Sucking in air, she pulled the jeans up, cursed and forced them over her hips. Coming out with her hair wet, she walked past, her makeup mirror in her hand.

  I watched her set it on the window sill in the dining room, aiming the magnifying side at Tibor’s place. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “A little Feng Shui trick, watch and learn. Reflecting that jerk’s piss-poor attitude right back at him. Magnified, ten effing fold.”

  “Poor bastard won’t know what hit him, huh?” I said, water gurgling in the Feng Shui fountain on the dining hutch, a twin of the one she’d been saving in case I got a job with a desk. The thing supposed to harness good chi, the fountain apparently bubbling with it.

  Coming into the kitchen, she stood behind me, her hands working the back of my neck, her way of letting me know we were okay again.

  . . . On the Chin

  Past the bramble hedge, Bundy Olich and Egg Araz sat watching the hopped-up Firebird pull up with its tailpipes grumbling, parking in front of Nichols’s house, tight behind the shitbox Valiant. Bundy catching a glint of light reflecting from the dining room window. Saying he didn’t like it.

  Egg turned and looked at him.

  “There.” Bundy pointing at the flash of light, seeing the kid get out of the muscle car and walk to the house next door.

  Egg gave Bundy the look, bottom lip hanging open.

  “Could be coming off a rifle scope or something, for all we know,” Bundy said. Mal Rocca had told them this loser, Jeff Nichols, had done a stretch in the Don, just released and working for Ted Bracey. “The kind of guy who could get a street gun.” Looking at Egg, his dumb, open mouth.

  “Got a feeling, that’s all. Could be trouble’s all I’m saying,” Bundy said, “maybe not a pushover like the other guy, Robbie what’s-his-name.”

  Egg shrugged, flicked a finger at the dangling cross, thinking nothing they couldn’t handle. His own piece in a shoulder rig. Mal Rocca was paying them to do a job, Egg intended to get it done. Ted Bracey had one more week. He didn’t pay up, the two of them would come for this ex-con and send him back in parts.

  Bundy saying, “And what’s with going for the little guy. I mean, first this Robbie guy, just a working stiff. This deadbeat Bracey’s making excuses, not paying up. You ask me, why not go after him, the guy who owes. Take one of his fingers.”

  That got the lower lip closing, Egg pursing it over his top lip.

  “Guess Mal figures ’cause this Bracey’s the one who owes,” Bundy said, “maybe needs the fingers, you know, for counting off the dough. Cut one of his guys instead, maybe you send a bigger message.” He gave a shrug, saying, “Guess, who gives a fuck.” Seeing the glint from the window again, Bundy said, “How about we back the fuck up? Like a fucking sitting duck out here.”

  Turning the key, Egg took the shift in his fist, sticking it in R, turning to look out the back, backing along the shoulder.

  . . . Hot Steppin’

  Tapping his pen on the desk blotter, Vick DuMont sat there bored out of his skull. Eyes out the showroom window. Hated making follow-up calls and waiting for walk-ins, the tire kickers balking over sticker prices, not believing a word he said. One guy came in yesterday, betting they rolled the odometers back, then bitched about the price, busting Vick’s balls.

  Looking at the Chuvalo poster up over Bonnie’s desk, the guy looking fierce with the leather gloves up, Vick grinned, remembering Ali calling him the washerwoman. Then old George showing up at some press conference dressed up like one. After just losing one to Terrell, and having only seventeen days to prep for the fight, Chuvalo made one hell of an underdog. Vick getting a good feeling and taking some bookie’s seven-to-one action on Chuvalo just making the distance. Slapping down five hundred. Vick comi
ng away, counting the three and a half Gs in his hand.

  Feeling a bit like the underdog himself after Ted gave Jeff Nichols the spare office after his first week. Ted saying it was on account of Jeff’s experience with cars, nothing personal. Didn’t make sense to Vick. Jeff doing time for jacking them, nothing to do with selling them. Made Vick feel a little better since leaking the info about the car shipment to Randy Hooper.

  “So, this stuff really works?” Bonnie asked, sitting at the reception desk, looking at the sample box of Maxx, then at the sales flyer, the before-and-after shots, asking how he knew for sure which was before and which was after. Bonnie not believing everything she read.

  “Think I’d waste my time if it didn’t?” he said, looking over from his sales desk, adding, “Tell you what, take a box home to Allen, see for yourself.”

  Taking the bottle from the box, she uncapped it and sniffed, reeling back, the smell like a slap. “Oh, my God.”

  “Powerful, huh? Means it works.”

  A smell like it came from the glands of a skunk. Bonnie closing the box. “No way Allen’s going around like that.” No amount of Brut would mask it.

  “Shower cap in the box, locks in the smell. But still, long after the smell, Alan’s got all his hair back. Maxx is the real deal, Bonnie. My hand to God.”

  Hawking Maxx on the side for Jackie Delano since his release, Vick had been hoping to get back into Jackie’s pants. The woman not much to look at, but made up for it in other ways. It was Jackie who met the inventor of the stuff down in Santiago. Some vacation she went on. Jackie thinking she could make some real money back home, maybe sell the formula to Revlon or an outfit like that down the road. Vick getting onboard early, committing himself before finding out she’d been hooking up with Randy Hooper the whole time he was serving his stretch in the Don.

  Saying she’d have to think about it, Bonnie shoved the box away from her and took an incoming call.

  Tapping his pen on the desk blotter, Vick outlined the year on top of the calendar, inking in the holes of 1986. Vick was thinking about getting some sun, still had that prison pallor, skin looking like an old potato. Ought to grab a bag of takeout and head to the Beaches, check out the chicks along the boardwalk.

  Bonnie called over, “Line one, Jimmy from Uxbridge.”

  Pressing the blinking button, Vick picked up and said yeah, told Jimmy from Uxbridge the Granada was still on the lot, Jimmy saying stick shift wasn’t his first choice, not fussy on the color either, asking if there was wiggle room on the price. Vick told him there was always wiggle room, saying, “You drop down before five, I’ll throw in floor mats and a free car wash for a year.” Getting bored with Jimmy’s umming and awwing, Vick looked out the window.

  A rusty bucket slowed on St. Clair, a Maverick, the kind of crate his nanna used to go to church in. The passenger window rolled down and a gun barrel stuck out. Tossing the phone, Vick yelled “Down” and was diving for the floor, the showroom glass bursting, bullets punching into the cars and desks and walls. Pennants outside were shredded and dropping like confetti. Bonnie was jumping around and screaming, hands to her head. Crawling, then springing at her, Vick tackled her behind the reception desk.

  When it stopped and he was sitting up, looking at the shards of glass sticking from his bloody palms, he asked, “You okay?”

  Her mouth trembled and she was crying, but she was okay. Aftermath dust hung in the air. Holes pocked everything and busted glass lay everywhere. The Coke machine bled, a couple tires were hissing air. Vick could smell the Maxx, the bottle shattered on the desk, the smell mingling with what was wafting in from the meatpackers a block away.

  Bonnie stayed hunched and hung onto him. The howl of a siren sounded along St. Clair.

  . . . Dance the Kipples

  “Okay, maybe I got a bit carried away at the car wash,” Ann said, leaning on the door frame of the spare bedroom/office.

  “A bit?” I said, looking up from the Black Book, boning up on aftermarket car values. It had been a week, and we hadn’t talked about the fight.

  “Understand what I been through, with you being locked up. Barely making the rent, lonely all the time,” she said. “Anyway, guess it’s good, them giving you an office.” Her leg showed from behind her pink housecoat.

  “Told you it would work out.”

  Then she grinned. “You believe that woman, honking at us like that?”

  “You gave her the finger.”

  She shrugged.

  “How about the couple with the stroller?” I was shaking my head, thinking of her hanging out the window, yelling at the old woman.

  “How about you never mind, and come to bed,” Ann said, saying it was past midnight.

  Slapping the Black Book closed, a long night of getting familiar with car values, learning the ropes. I tossed it on the copy of the Kelley Blue Book. Read a couple chapters of some book I had Ann get from the library: The Science of Getting Rich. Showing Ted I had the stuff to run the AutoPark.

  The phone/fax machine on the floor gave that short ring, the fax clicking, bleating and printing.

  “Who calls this late?” Looking at the electrostatic paper curling from the machine, she asked, “What’s this?” watching the before-and-after shots for Maxx drop into the tray.

  “Vick again,” I said. “Guy’s hawking this stuff on the side, supposed to grow hair, calls it a miracle cure.”

  Ann taking the fax from the tray and reading, looking at the before-and-after likeness of Archie the Elvis.

  Scrawled in pen at the top: Where were you when hell broke loose? Taking it from her, I frowned, saying, “Guy’s a drama queen.” No idea what he was talking about, I said, “Guess I should call.”

  “Can’t wait till morning, huh?” she said, showing more leg, flapping the housecoat closed, then turning for the door.

  Balling the fax, I tossed it at the trash and switched off the lamp, guessing she was ovulating and we were finishing what we started at the Quickie Wash. Vick could wait.

  . . . The Polyester Shuffle

  Bullet hole through the hollow-core office door, another one just missed Chuvalo hanging over my desk. An emergency crew had boarded up the front windows, just the overhead fluorescents lighting the showroom. The desk computer had been spared. I set the Zen desk fountain next to it. Ann had bought two for the price of one at Honest Ed’s, giving me one for the new office, saying it was for luck.

  A half hour of talking to the detectives, and I sat back, closed my eyes and swiveled in the leather chair, trying to make sense of the place getting shot up. Both cops sure that me and Vick being ex-cons had something to do with it. Asked if I pissed anybody off in the joint.

  The tap at the door had me thinking the cops had more questions. Robbie Boyd stood in the doorway with his hand still wrapped up, the guy who’d been yelling at Ted the day I landed the job.

  “You didn’t run, huh?” he said, stepping in and looking around, eyes stopping on the fountain next to the IBM computer. “Hell is that?”

  “A Zen thing.”

  Taking the envelope Ted had left with me, the one with Robbie Boyd’s name on it, I said, “Figured I’d stick around, see what happens.”

  Robbie took it and looked the check over, tucking it away, saying, “Guy puts on a show, tells you what you want to hear. By the time you figure it out . . .” Robbie lifted the hand, showing it to me.

  I heard the plywood door open out front, and Ted and Vick walked across the showroom. Vick juggling a coffee tray, raising the brows when he saw Robbie.

  Robbie saying to Ted, “Still owe people money, huh?”

  “Got yours, right, Robbie, what you came for?” Ted said, sounding cold.

  Robbie nodded at me. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Giving Vick a high five with the good hand, telling him not to be a stranger, he went down the steps, going past Bonnie
’s shot-up reception desk and out the door.

  “Good people, ones that stick by you, damned hard to find,” Ted said, parking his butt on the corner of my desk.

  “Yeah, ’specially when the bullets start flying.” Vick set the coffee tray next to Ted, taking a cup. Looking at me, saying, “What’s your story? Didn’t get my memo?”

  “Got to bed early, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “You get any kind of a look?” Ted said to Vick.

  “Was busy diving for the floor.”

  Ted took a coffee, peeled the lid and looked into it a long moment, then said, “Don’t mind you boys knowing . . . had to borrow heavy to get this place running.”

  “No shit,” Vick sat in the spare chair, peeling back his lid, saying, “Borrowed from the wrong loan shark, huh? Maybe missed paying the vig?”

  “Didn’t exactly walk into the Commerce Bank,” Ted said.

  Shaking a packet of Sweet’N Low, Vick ripped into it and said, “Wasn’t no loan shark shot up the place.”

  “Had to see something, desk right at the window,” Ted said.

  “What I told the cops, Ford pulls up, window rolls down, some clown starts shooting.”

  “Make the plate?” Ted said.

  “Gun barrel comes out a window, I’m diving for floor. Every fucking time, brother.”

  “Way the cops tell it, you likely saved Bonnie’s life, some kind of hero.”

  “Yeah well, woman was slow reading the situation.”

  “Should mention,” I said, “got a couple guys dogging me last couple days.”

  “Rocca’s guys. I’ll get him some money, take care of it,” Ted said.

  “Maybe you need to sweeten things up here, too, uh?” Vick said.

  Ted looked at him, then at me. “Just gave you an office, right?”

  “Old lady takes a swipe every time I walk through the door,” I said, “points at the stack of bills.”