by Steve Lowe
“Why didn’t you just have it direct deposited into a bank account or something? Why the hell would this guy come out here with a sack of cash?”
Sully hesitated for just a second before saying, “Only way I’d accept the money. I don’t have a bank account.”
That was the point Jimmy finally knew the story was a total fabrication. Maybe not the existence of the money, though even that was dubious. Little Andrew Sullivan, his best bud from grade school, his one-time manager, a kid he’d known almost his whole life, was lying through his fucking teeth. Again. Like he always did. Jimmy squeezed the steering wheel, seethed and cursed up in his head at his stupidity.
“Turn off your dome light.”
Jimmy would let him get out, wait for him to go inside the body shop, and just drive away. And if Sully showed his face on his doorstep again, then he would beat him to death and hide the body in a place no one would find it.
“Dude, I said turn off your dome light. I don’t want it go on when I open the door.”
Jimmy thumbed the button on the dash and Sully quietly popped the door open. He stepped out and scanned the street again, watching and listening. Held the handle up when he shut the door so it wouldn’t make a noise. Looked up and down the street one more time and shuffled toward the body shop. He stopped and listened at the door, a metal job with vertical bars facing out and a piece of solid sheet metal on the inside in place of a screen. He pulled it open without a sound and stuck his head in. Jimmy heard him say something, just above a whisper, then he went inside and shut the door behind him.
Nothing moved on Charlton Avenue. Distant noise, echoes from the busier thoroughfares, drifted in through the truck’s open driver-side window, but Charlton felt abandoned. Like anyone with sense knew to stay the hell away from this hood once the sun went down. Jimmy sat there and wished he had some sense.
Forces went to war inside him, battled to take control of his nervous system, work his arms and legs to put the truck in gear and drive away from there. The other faction locked him down and said, Just wait for a minute. Just to see. He had to know for certain there wasn’t twenty thousand dollars about to walk out that door and drop into his lap. Despite already being convinced that would never happen, he still sat there. Watched the body shop and waited. Eyes flicked from the door to the digital clock in the truck’s dash. One minute passed, then a second. He couldn’t move. Could only sit there and try to rationalize what he was doing. He failed. Couldn’t come up with a single angle that would convince him that he was making the smart move here. Not one.
And still he sat there, watched and waited, and finally the door opened and someone came out. Jimmy nearly reached over and popped the door open for Sully when he realized the form that stood under the awning was much taller and broader than his dying friend. Jimmy dropped down as low as he could without losing sight of the person across the street. The person stood and watched, head turning in the shadows one way, then the other. Scanned the street like Sully. Looking for whoever dropped him off, whoever was out here waiting for him to come back. Looking for Jimmy.
The figure moved out from under the awning, headed toward the truck, still on the opposite side of the street. Leaned over and looked in the cars parked there, crossed and started his way back up the other side. Jimmy thought about dropping down into the well beneath the steering column then quickly realized that he would only compound his stupidity. It was dark enough that you couldn’t see into the cars until you were right on them, so he reached out and grabbed the door handle. When the guy was close enough, push the door open and catch the guy, maybe knock him off balance, slide across the bench seat, commence to beating his ass right there in the street.
But the guy stopped and just looked at the burned car. Looked at the boarded-up house in front of him, the vinyl siding on the front of the porch sagging and half-melted, probably from the blaze. The guy reached into his jacket, pulled something out, held his hands to his face. A weak orange light appeared in his cupped hands as he lit his cigarette and Jimmy saw who it was. Ricky’s was a hard face to forget.
Ricky stood there and smoked a minute before turning back to the body shop. He opened the front door, looked around one last time, and headed back inside.
A thrumming ache started in Jimmy’s clenched right hand, a tight, lumpy fist. If Ricky was here, that meant Sonny was, too. Sully was in there with both of them, and God knows who else. Jimmy had no idea what he would be walking into.
But he already had his mind made up what he would do. A few people inside that building owed him. They took his whole life. Jimmy decided he would go take some of it back.
He got out of the truck, careful not to slam the door. Quivering with rage that he had to hold back by biting his cheek until he tasted blood. He had no plan, probably would wind up getting himself killed right here. Didn’t care. Something had always told him this was coming. Eventually, this had to happen. Nothing got solved with that sledgehammer. When he left Chicago, he couldn’t get very far, and there was still a mess to fix. Now was the time.
Jimmy crouched next to the door and listened. Put his ear against the cool corrugated metal exterior wall. Low voices, not shouting or carrying on. The front of the building lacked windows of any kind. He thought about that, about going in completely blind, unarmed. He’d try the door first. Take a peek inside, see what he could see. If it looked bad, he was gone.
Jimmy pulled down on the door handle, painfully slow, afraid of a rusty screech from the battered metal. It moved fluidly, without a sound. He cracked it open just enough to allow a thin sliver of weak light through. He saw up the left side of the shop, a long tool bench made of cobbled together metal, crudely welded, covered with a smorgasbord of car parts and tools, piled into small mountains on top of the bench and underneath. Saw a squat, round Weber grill on the floor, tendrils of heat bending the air around it. Smelled the charcoal cooking inside.
He cracked the door wider, slow as he could manage, until the light grew stronger and he could make out the frame of an open doorway and glimpse the cheap wood paneling that covered the near wall of what looked like an office. The voices were louder, but still at normal speaking levels. Muted conversation that Jimmy still couldn’t make out. He risked a look inside the shop, stuck his head through and glanced around the corner to the right. Nothing there but a pile of beat-up office furniture, stacks of pipes and sundry lengths of metal. Angle iron and the like. A pile accumulating for the scrap yard, probably. Jimmy slipped inside and pulled the door shut without a sound.
He crept toward the office, nearly stepped in a dark puddle of something, probably oil. He looked around on the bench top nearest to him for any kind of weapon. He picked up a pipe wrench that glistened in the low light from the office, the hook jaw slick with more oil. Jimmy sniffed it and realized it wasn’t oil at all, probably not on the floor either. He held it in front and slipped along the wall until he was next to the office doorway. The closer he got, the stronger the smell of not only charcoal, but of something like burned hair, mixed with shit and piss. He tried not to gag.
From inside the office, Sully said, “He dropped me here and left.”
Followed by Sonny Porter: “Is that right. I’m amazed he took you this far. Jimmy was always a loyal kid, to a fault when it came to your sorry ass.”
Sully didn’t respond. Jimmy heard a ripping sound but couldn’t place it.
Sonny said, “You had to know there was no way you’d collect this money. Didn’t you?”
More ripping. Sounded like a roll of tape unfurling.
“You couldn’t go to any of the sports books because they’ve got your picture up on their walls. They all know you after the last time you pulled this. So you tried to use the lawyer. Sent him to Sims to place your bet and pick it up. What you didn’t realize is that I knew all of this before the fight. I could have taken care of the lawyer whenever I wanted. That wasn’t the best move, going with that guy. Know what he was doing when Ricky visit
ed him? Packing a bag. He was on his way out the door with your money, which is now my money. Wanna see it?”
Sound of a zipper, a rustling noise. Sonny showing Sully the cash. Probably stuffed in a bag, bundled together. The money was real after all. Jimmy wondered if it was the twenty-six thousand dollars. Would Sonny go to all this trouble for just twenty-six thousand? Jimmy didn’t think so. Sully’s story about his dead mom and an inheritance might have been real. He just didn’t tell Jimmy the rest of the story. If Sully was placing bets on fights again, that would explain where he got the money to do it. And from the sound of it, he must have picked a winner, or groomed one. Jimmy wondered where Sully’s boy was. His right hand pulsed.
“There’s just one thing about this that I haven’t pegged yet,” Sonny said, his voice changing pitch. Must be walking around the room. Jimmy tried to imagine where Sully was in there, where Ricky and Sonny were, what good a bloody wrench would be against them, both packing for certain.
“I don’t know how you found out about my fix. I suppose Buster could have come to you with it after I got him lined up, but that doesn’t quite fit. Buster’s a hell of a fighter, but a little vacant upstairs, you know?”
Jimmy shook his head. Buster Grant, had to be him. Jimmy sparred with him once, but not again. Kid had a right hand like a cement mixer. When Jimmy knew him, the kid was on his way to being something. Sounded like he didn’t get there, though. Goddamn.
“Buster didn’t set this up, someone had to come to him with it, and for the same reason I came to him. Whacked out on that shit he shoots, career flushing down the toilet because of it. Guy like that is pliable. Easily bent to a strong personality. Highly suggestible sort, as you found out. But how’d you get to him? Before Ricky puts a bullet through your head, I want you to tell me.”
A silent beat passed. Jimmy edged closer to the doorway, dying to look in. Needed to know what was happening in there. If they shoot Sully, they wouldn’t hang around, and here he stood with a wrench in his hands, in the open with nowhere to hide. He almost didn’t realize what Ricky said at first. Not until he heard the surprise in Sonny’s voice.
“What the hell is this shit?”
Jimmy peeked around the corner until he could see inside the office. He saw Sully in a chair with his back to the door, silver bands of duct tape wrapped around his body, wrists, ankles, strapped down. Sonny standing on the opposite side of a metal desk with an axe stuck in the middle of its battered top. And Ricky with a stainless steel Smith & Wesson 686 leveled at Sonny’s head.
“This shit is what it is.”
Sonny spluttered, kept his hands at his sides. Sweat drenched his pink dress shirt in dark circles at the armpits and around the neck.
“You sorry son of a bitch.” Sonny shook his head. “I’d like to say I should have known, but damn, Ricky. I thought you were loyal.”
Ricky said, “Loyalty goes only so far, Sonny. I ain’t spending the rest of my life following you around. Playing this small-time bullshit for you. Pick up the bag and toss it on the floor at my feet.”
Sully strained against his bonds. “Cut this shit off me and I’ll get it myself,” he said.
Ricky ignored him, locked in on Sonny, who looked from Sully to Ricky, said, “So you’re going to fall in with a loser like him?”
“I’m not in with anyone but me. Toss the bag over. Not gonna tell you again.”
Sonny reached down behind the desk, lifted a leather travel bag from the floor. Zipped it shut and tossed it over Sully’s head. It landed at Ricky’s feet. He bent over and picked it up, never taking his eyes or his gun off Sonny. Jimmy couldn’t tell if Sonny was armed, but assumed he was. Had a gun on him somewhere and Ricky would know that.
“There you go, you’re a rich fucking man,” Sonny said. “Now what are you going to do? Head down to South Beach and party?”
Sully strained harder against the tape. “Ricky, come on, what is this shit? Cut me loose, man.”
Ricky, still backing for the door, almost to the threshold, said, “What I do now will be none of your concern.” Added with a smile in his voice, “Trust me.”
Jimmy realized Ricky was going to shoot them both. A room full of crooks double-crossing each other. It would have been poetic if he wasn’t stuck in the fucking middle of it. He had to do something. He decided that he wasn’t going to let this ape shoot his friend, no matter how much the prick deserved it. He wanted Sully for himself.
Jimmy crouched in the doorway, Ricky two strides away and inching closer. Sonny’s eyes fell on Jimmy, shock on his face for a second before he quickly looked back up at Ricky, who noticed it. The big man turned, his gun coming with him. By the time he saw Jimmy coming at him, Jimmy was already bringing the wrench down on his face. Jimmy swung with his left hand, used the right to block Ricky’s gun aside, away from his body. Ricky fired a round that punched through the office wall. So loud Jimmy thought his head would explode. So loud he couldn’t hear the wrench connect with Ricky’s face. The bloody clench jaw smashed into Ricky’s nose, mashed it flat against his face, showered Jimmy with a spray of blood.
Ricky pitched forward, going down hard. Behind the desk, Sonny already had his gun out of his waist at the small of his back. Brought it up fast, a flash of flat black in the shape of a Walther P99, same gun Sonny shoved in Jimmy’s face two years ago before, telling Jimmy he wasn’t going to kill him.
Jimmy got low and spun away from Ricky’s crumpling form, rammed his shoulder into the doorframe as he dove out of the office. Sonny’s rounds were a much duller noise, like hearing underwater. Jimmy felt the air sizzle as one skipped off the metal workbench and past his face and then he was behind the workbench. Couldn’t see to the back of the office anymore, just a sliver through the junk under the bench. Ricky in the doorway on one knee, his Smith and Wesson pressed barrel-down on the floor, holding him up, his left hand holding his face. Blood squirted between his fingers, splashed on the bare concrete floor in front of him. He squinted at Jimmy, tears streaming down his cheeks. He brought the S&W up but Jimmy heard another pop from the Walther and Ricky’s forehead erupted. A jagged flap of skin and skull flew away, a geyser of blood spraying out as Ricky fell dead. The 686, stainless steel finish with a hard, black Hogue rubber grip, skittered forward.
Jimmy didn’t think, just reacted. Reached out with the wrench and hooked the jaw inside the gun’s trigger guard and pulled it toward him. Another round from the Walther struck the wrench, yanked it from his hand. He reached with his gnarled right hand and snagged the Smith & Wesson, pulled it to him the rest of the way as another round skipped off the floor, peppered Jimmy with tiny, hot pieces of concrete shrapnel. He wiped at his face and his hand came away bloody, but didn’t know if it was his own or from Ricky’s crushed nose.
Jimmy peered through the tangle of discarded and mismatched engine parts and tools piled up below the workbench. He saw inside the office, the far wall that had been out of sight when he had been crouched on the other side of the doorway. A body lay against that wall. A black man, with chunks of duct tape hanging from him like flayed skin, a pair of filthy blue satin boxing trunks, blue patent leather boots. His face was obscured by his left arm, but Jimmy knew it was Buster Grant, and his right hand screamed at him. He wondered if Buster got it as bad, but decided that he must have gotten much worse. Jimmy didn’t realize at first that Sonny was talking to him and he strained to hear over the high-pitched whine inside his head.
“What’s that Sonny? You said you’re gonna throw your gun out here and beg for my mercy?”
Jimmy heard him this time, laughing like he was truly amused. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Jimmy. I would ask you to do the same, but you’re not that stupid. I mean, just the fact that you’re here with this fuck up you call a friend proves that you’re stupid, but I know you’re not that stupid.”
Jimmy looked through the junk under the bench, hoped to find a thick chunk of iron he could use for a shield. He found nothing that h
e was confident would stop a .357 round from that Walther.
Sonny shouted from the office, “I would say we’re evenly matched here, you with Ricky’s Smith and Wesson and all, but I’m wondering something.”
“You’re wondering if I’ll just put one in your head so you can go fast, rather than pumping one into your gut so you die nice and slow and painful.”
More laughter. “No, not quite. I’m wondering, what with your right hand not what it once was, if you can shoot that great big gun with your left. It’s a hard thing to squeeze off an accurate shot, under duress, using your non-dominant hand, and with such a heavy weapon.”
“You’re about to find out. You ready?”
“Jimmy, you don’t sound very confident. You’re talking tough but I can hear the worry in your voice. You’ll only get one shot at this. And you don’t want to hit your buddy here. Right in the middle.”
Sully shouted, “He’s behind the desk, Jimmy. Just shoot him through the fucking desk!”
Jimmy heard a smack, metal against skin. Sully croaked in pain. Sonny must have reached across the desk and pistol-whipped him. Sully didn’t say another word.
Sonny said, “Yeah, come on Jimmy. You can do it. Just jump out here and light me up.”
Jimmy didn’t do it. Sonny was right. He had cover and the more manageable gun. Even with a good right hand, Jimmy knew he couldn’t take Sonny in this position. He needed something else. A distraction. He looked through the mess under the bench again, found a coffee can filled with nails and screws. That might work. Get Sonny ducking a hail of metal and punch a bunch of holes through that desk. And try not to hit Sully in the process, but still get lucky and catch Sonny with one of them.
That plan sucked.
Jimmy peeked around the bench, tried to catch a glimpse of Sonny. A round banged off the leg of the bench, just missed Jimmy’s nose. He scrambled back, heart slamming against his ribs.
“You OK, Jimmy? Did I get you?”
Jimmy grabbed the can of screws and got his feet under him. The plan sucked but he didn’t have a better one. He took a deep breath, then took a second one. Thought about Annie and their baby and wondered what would happen to them. If he could get to the front door, he would, just get the fuck out of there and don’t stop until he was holding Annie, but that wasn’t happening. He had to cross in front of the office to get out the front door. If he wanted to see them again, he had to kill Sonny.