Poughkeepsie Shuffle

by Dietrich Kalteis

  “Promise you boys’ll be taken care of. Got my word.”

  “Yeah, how about you lay it out, all of it,” Vick said. “Always good to know who’s shooting at you.”

  Ted thought a moment, then said, “Like I said, I owe this guy, Mal Rocca. Got a bit behind, and guess he’s getting antsy.”

  “So he sends the guys did Robbie?” Vick said.

  “Same guys tailing me,” I said.

  “Said I’ll take care of it.” Ted explaining he was buying more cars, had them coming north. Be another shipment next week. “You boys hang in, you can take your pick, company cars fresh off the carrier. Chevy or Ford, whatever you want. How’s that?”

  “Fuck Ford and fuck Chevy,” Vick said, “how about you toss in a couple of Smith & Wessons?” He pulled his smokes, found a match and lit up, tossed the spent match in my fountain, saying, “Doesn’t answer who shot up the place.”

  Finishing his coffee, Ted got off the desk, looking at his TAG Heuer, saying he had a guy from the insurance stopping by soon.

  “Yeah, you covered for drive-bys?” Vick said.

  “Gonna find out,” Ted said. “Meantime, there’s some twelve-year-old in my drawer. Bottle didn’t take a bullet, you boys are welcome to a snort.” Then he was gone.

  Vick looked at me, popping his brows, saying he could use one.

  . . . In-Law Outlaw

  After the phone call to NOR-AM for new windows, Ted flipped through the Grand & Toy catalog, picked out a new reception desk. The College Pro crew were set to come in and patch, prime and paint next week. The insurance adjuster acting like Father Christmas. Then Ted placed an ad in the Star for a new receptionist, Bonnie telling him she quit. He left us the scotch bottle, said he was going home, calling it a hell of a day.

  “He squares up with this Mal Rocca guy, and maybe we get somewhere,” I said.

  “Doesn’t tell us who shot holes in the place.” Knocking his drink back, Vick slapped down the glass and said he had a strategy meeting over Maxx with Jackie. Left me sitting behind my desk. Ann’s Feng Shui desk fountain gurgling water. I reached the box of Cohibas. Ted calling them Esplendidos, the kind Churchill smoked, giving us each a box and a cutter, calling it a bonus. Vick calling it danger pay.

  Taking one, I ran it under my nose. Smelled like earth. Rolling it between my fingers, I peeled the wrapper, sticking it in my mouth, trying to convince myself my train had come into the station. Soon my ass would be sitting in a German car, socks with no holes and Gucci shoes on my feet, watching a Japanese console TV. Long way from the eight-by-ten cell, the smell of the guy in the next bunk, a toilet with no lid. Yeah, this was working out, if I didn’t get shot first. I sat there drinking Ted’s scotch. With an inch in the bottom of the bottle, I must have nodded off for a while. I woke with a kink in my neck. No idea how long I slept.

  Snipping the cigar’s end with the cutters, I poured the last of it and lit up, thinking I should call Ann, tell her I was running late.

  Putting it off, I puffed, blowing smoke rings, my mind on the sex of last night, reliving it when the plywood door rattled. I looked up as two guys shouldered their way in, clomping into the showroom — the two guys from the grey van. Rough-looking, with size. The one in front had a square jaw, the other one held a boom box under one arm. Looking up at the light coming from my office, they walked to the steps.

  “We’re closed, fellas.” No point saying it, but I got up, looking around for something to swing. Laying the cigar on the edge of my desk.

  Looking around the shot-up place, making sure we were alone, they came past the cars and up the steps. The one holding the boom box closed my door, setting the stereo on my desk.

  “Whatever you boys are selling . . .”

  “Not selling, delivering,” the guy with the dirty-blond hair said he was Bundy, calling the other one Egg, looking at the Chuvalo, then the desk fountain, saying, “Fuck’s that?”

  “Supposed to bring me luck.” I picked up the cigar-cutter, playing with it.

  “Taking over for Robbie Boyd, huh?” He reached the garden pruners from his pocket, grinning at my cigar-cutter, saying, “Guess mine’s bigger, uh?”

  “Makes you feel better,” I said.

  “Thing is, guy you work for owes the guy we work for.”

  “Ought to talk to him then.”

  “How about you give him a message?” Taking a step, he flipped off the safety catch. Taking the cigar from the edge of the desk, he hacked it with the parrot jaws and tossed the bits away, coming around the desk.

  I threw the scotch bottle, glass bursting against the wall. Both of them ducking, I grabbed the landline and swung the base at him.

  Blocking with a forearm, the blond guy got his arm tangled in the cord and snipped it, batting the phone across the floor, shoving me into the wall.

  Sucking wind, I spidered my palm at his crotch, squeezing his boys, raking my instep down his shin. I threw a left, then hooked a right. But the guy had size on me, wading through it, catching me with a head butt. Grabbing a fistful of hair, he twisted me around, and I saw the desk rushing up. My head slammed into it. I fought to stay conscious.

  Finding a wall plug, the other guy connected the boom box, thumbing the play button. Giving some volume, he started clomping some dance moves in construction boots, his laces untied. Nena singing about red balloons.

  Bending me backwards across the desk, the one called Bundy pressed an elbow into my windpipe and swung a leg, pinning my shoulders. Trying to pull a finger from my fist.

  Throwing a pretty good elbow, I felt his cartilage snap, blood gushing from his nose. Cupping it, he looked at the blood dripping through his fingers. Pissed off now, he stabbed the pruners, and I jerked right, the guy gouging a trench into the oak. I caught him with a shovel hook, knocking him to the floor. Kicking, I caught some chin as he rose up. I jumped for the door. He caught an ankle from behind, got up and swung me into the wall, smashing his fist into my kidneys, bulldogging me back across the desk, flipping me and pinning me. Pressing down, he was yanking at my pants. Blood dripped from his face, angry eyes letting me know I was going to lose more than a finger.

  Flat on the desk with the shit music blaring, I tried to twist free. A voice calling over the music.

  The one with the boom box stopped dancing, pressed pause, the two of them looking at each other.

  “You okay, Jeff?” Vick’s voice from outside the door.

  Easing his grip, Bundy guy got up, called back, “We’re closed.”

  Egg cracked the door, enough to look out.

  Vick stood with a cockeyed woman at the bottom of the steps, Vick with the lug-nut kit from the trunk of a Chevy. The woman with a heaped updo that made her about his height. She held a Duo-Tang stuffed with pages. Taking the wheel wrench, Vick handed her the extension.

  Unplugging the boom box, Egg scooped it under an arm, like they were done here.

  “Your lucky day, asshole.” Wagging a finger at me, looking at the Chuvalo, Bundy swiped at the blood on his face, said, “To be continued.” Looking at Vick and the woman, he followed his buddy out of the showroom, the splintered door slapping shut behind them.

  Hands shaking, I straightened myself up, smiling at Vick, saying, “Sure glad you came back, brother.”

  “Man, I leave for an hour . . .”

  “All in the timing,” I said, holding out my hand, glad I still had fingers to shake his hand.

  . . . Brainstorming

  “The fuck was that?” Vick said.

  “Bracey’s past catching up, the one he’s not talking about.” My hands shook as I sank into my chair.

  The cockeyed woman went back through the showroom and secured the plywood door, hit some light switch, the fluorescents letting her look around at the shot-up cars. Stepped over the drying puddle of Coke, she came back up the steps.

  Runn
ing a finger across the gouge in the desk, Vick looked at the chopped cigar, the cut phone cord, saying, “Ought to try the soft sell next time.”

  “Fuck next time,” I said. “But I got to say again, I sure like your timing, my man.”

  “Swung back to show Jackie some bullet holes, point to where I took a dive, saved Bonnie’s ass, how it went down. That and use the Xerox. Hoping it didn’t take a bullet.”

  Telling him the copier was fine, I looked at the woman coming back into the office, cockeyed with the B52s hairdo. Not sure which eye to look at.

  “Two of us used to be a thing,” Vick threw in.

  “Ex-thing,” Jackie said, giving a nicotine smile and offering her man-hand across the desk, saying her name.

  “Yeah, nice to meet you, Jackie.” The woman had a construction grip, but still, I was never happier to see anybody in my life.

  Straightening the chair on the far side, she wedged her hips between its arms.

  Setting the tire iron against the jamb, Vick perched on the desk, pulling a bent smoke from behind an ear, frisking himself for a match.

  From out in the showroom, the phone rang. Jackie reaching for my phone on the floor, seeing the cut cord, putting it on the desk. Straightening the shade, she set the lamp back on the bureau.

  I went down to the reception desk, thinking it could be Ted, wanting to tell him what the fuck was going on. Picking up the receiver and pressing line one.

  “Hey ya, sweetie.” Ann’s voice, saying she could keep dinner warm, started telling me what she didn’t have on under the pink housecoat.

  “Yeah, alright, how about you hold that thought, huh?” Thinking she was still ovulating, looking at my shaking hand, my heart still racing.

  “Got somebody there?”

  “Yeah, sorry about dinner, burning the midnight oil, kinda in the middle of things.” Saying I’d call back, I hung up and went back to the office.

  Striking a match on his thumbnail, Vick lit up, the Feng Shui water fountain making a suitable ashtray.

  Pulling one from a pack of Pall Malls, Jackie told him to light her up. Leaning close, he touched his to hers, the woman puffing it to life.

  Vick flicked ash in the fountain and slid it over, sloshing water, so she could get to it. Jackie puffing and flicking ashes.

  “So, these the guys did Robbie, coming for us one at a time?” Vick said.

  “Said something about Ted paying what he owed.”

  “Till he does, you ought to pack more than that,” Vick said, nodding at the cigar-cutter, lifting his shirt to show the butt of a pistol. Vick saying he brought Jackie along to introduce us, hoped to talk about Maxx and get me on board. “Pay’s good, plus it’s a hell of a lot safer.”

  “The hair thing again, huh?”

  “Yeah, the hair thing. See, we been brainstorming,” Vick said, “rethinking our approach. Got some new ideas. Thought we’d run it by you, get your two cents.”

  “Well, sure glad you showed up when you did.”

  “Maybe it’s a sign. Anyway, this thing’s solid gold, plus Jackie here’s a whiz with the whole marketing bit.”

  “That right?” I looked at her, the Ronald McDonald updo, the woman reaching a box of Maxx from her bag and setting it on the desk. Picking it up like I was interested, I turned the box and read the label.

  “Worked the hair trade back in the day,” she said. “Fluke luck that I met this guy on a trip to Santiago, guy mixing the stuff in his sink and selling it to the locals.”

  Taking the bottle from the box, uncapping it, I reeled back from the smell. “Holy smokes.”

  “Strong, uh? I know, but you ought to see the hair on the locals,” she said.

  “Thought I faxed you a memo,” Vick said. “Product info, before-and-afters and all that.”

  “Must’ve missed it,” I said, looking back to her. “So, the hair trade, huh? You like with Revlon, Clairol, a place like that?”

  “Worked the Do or Dye, crazy busy place in Cabbagetown.”

  “Cabbagetown, huh?” Practically across the river from the Don Jail.

  “Should’ve seen it on weekends,” she said. “Gone now, but man, back in the day . . . four chairs going strong nine to five. Worked another place after by the Ports of Call. Called the Chop Shop. Heard of it?”

  “Can’t say so.” Had a place we called that up in Malton, place I used to drop off hot cars.

  She took her folder of papers, went back down the steps, behind Bonnie’s desk, making photocopies, Vick said something about the two guys with the shit music coming back, maybe bringing more guys and bigger clippers. “Maybe we ought to split.”

  “Not a bad idea.” Fishing in the drawer for my keys, I thought I’d call Ted when I got home, ask him about those Smith & Wessons.

  Jackie finished with the machine, turned it off, and kept on talking about marketing Maxx on the way out, going on about the shotgun method.

  “Shotgun, huh?”

  “Yeah, we go off in all directions, but keep a focus on the hair trade. Stuff’s got to speak to people.”

  “Yeah, and what’s it got to say?”

  Touching her hive, she said, “Thick, sexy hair.”

  Switching off the lights, I pulled the plywood door as tight as I could, no way to lock up.

  She told me Vick was hoping I’d weigh in, join the team. The look in her eye(s) said she had some doubts.

  Looking from her to him, I said, “Just came this close to getting my . . . how about you give me a day or so.”

  She told me to take my time, meantime they’d be working on a slogan. “Something like, ‘Maxx, it’s got X appeal.’” Looking at me for my reaction, she gave a head shake, her do looking like it might topple.

  “Yeah, that could work.” I looked around for where I parked my wreck.

  Vick saying this deal might top his cardboard furniture deal, how he was negotiating with a good Elvis, guy we knew from the Don.

  “Elvis in the Don?”

  “You remember Archie Roehall.”

  “Sure, I remember Arch, but . . .”

  “Man’s gone Elvis now.” Vick said he was hoping to get him onboard for the Health & Wellness Trade Show down at the Ex. “Just picture the King endorsing something like this, hair shining and all combed back, the sideburns.”

  “Archie, huh?” Elvis from the Don Jail.

  “Okay, maybe we’re not talking the best Elvis,” he said, “just one we can afford, for now anyway.”

  Jackie saying, “I mean, who’s got better hair than Elvis, right?” Shaking her head again.

  “Hard to argue.”

  “Anyway, Maxx takes off, we’re gonna put an Elvis in every major trade show, right across the board,” he said.

  “Like shopping-mall Santas,” I said, the only one smiling. Fishing for my keys, I took the round one and unlocked the Valiant’s door, thanking them again for showing up, promising I’d think it over, the least I could do. Sticking in the ignition key, I shut the door. In need of another drink, I considered where I could pick up a box of wine at this hour.

  The lights were off at Deli-cious, the sign out front promising meatloaf for tomorrow’s special. Came with a Coke and a side of dills. Only four bucks. Reminded me I hadn’t had dinner yet.

  No grey van as I turned at Annette. I switched the radio on. The commentator was talking about another gang shooting in Rexdale, saying it was getting worse than Scarborough, which he called Scarlem. No mention of the AutoPark car lot getting shot up. Guessing you needed a body count these days to make the local news.

  . . . Hitey Titey

  Leaning the fireplace poker against the wall, I closed the door and made the call from the bedroom office, giving Ted the short strokes. The creaking floorboard meant Ann was listening from the hall. Ted making it easy, inviting me out on his boat, seeing
tomorrow was my day off.

  Hanging up, I pulled the door open, Ann smiling at the threshold, wrapped in her pink housecoat, the classifieds tucked under her arm. “Have enough to eat?”

  “Yeah, pork chops were fine. Do them just right.”

  Ann asking about my day.

  “Sold a Buick Electra, fully loaded.”

  She asked how much, and I told her what I made on it, then told her we were set to ship more cars up from Poughkeepsie, the reason for the call to Ted.

  “Uh huh.” Flapping the Globe to the classifieds, she pointed to a job ad circled in red. “Place called PlanIt, looking for a management exec. Says salary plus benefits.”

  “I got a job, Ann.”

  “Can’t hurt to call, right?”

  I gave her the look, feeling tired.

  “We got bills, Jeff, you know, going from overdue to yellow.”

  “Ad say they hire ex-cons?”

  She put her hand to her hip, saying, “There’re places give second chances.”

  “Look, I’ll talk to Ted, ask about a draw, how’s that?”

  “Talk when?”

  “Tomorrow soon enough?” Told her we were having a strategy meeting out on his boat.

  She snugged up the housecoat, her eyes flashed, her lips tightening.

  “Look, told you how this works, Ann. Need some time to make it work.”

  Tapping a finger on the ad, she said, “PlanIt offers a company car.”

  “Matter of fact, Ted told me to pick one off the lot.”

  “Yeah, when’s that?”

  “All in time, plus we already got a car.”

  “One you’re running in the ground. Way you’re heading, your job’s going to cost us money, money we don’t have.”

  “Okay, said I’ll talk to Ted.”

  Turning, she said she was going to bed, had an early shift.

  “Doing my best here, Ann.”

  Stopping, she gave me another kind of look and told me to catch a shower, wash the day off.