The Deadly Kiss-Off

by Paul Di Filippo

  He greeted Chantal first, with a charming smile that nonetheless seemed to convey no more true happiness than the smile of a guy sitting in the husband chair outside a women’s dressing room while the Super Bowl is in progress.

  “Señorita Danssaert, it is a pleasure to meet again after you did us that good turn at the SCTX in London.”

  “And I hope to do you another here, Derian. Please greet Mr. Glen McClinton.”

  Crespo shook my hand with a grip that said, You are receiving the exact measure of pounds per square inch sufficient to impress you with my superiority without doing actual damage.

  “Mucho gusto, señor. I am sure we will be of much benefit to each other.”

  We claimed Crespo’s bag from the carousel and trekked out to the car.

  There was not a lot of chitchat on the drive back, since both Crespo and Chantal were preoccupied with their phones.

  As we pulled up in front of the hotel, Crespo said, “I must ask a favor of you. I have associates here in the city—they are one reason why I was eager to voyage here—and they have just prevailed upon me to help them with a certain small matter. So I would ask if we might put off the demonstration of your product for a day or two?”

  “Oh, sure, no problem,” I said.

  “I am immensely in your debt, señor Glen.”

  * * *

  I watched the pair enter the expensive lodgings and mentally totted up the extra charges the delay would occasion.

  Back in the Stan-less condo, I had a long shower that failed to make me feel completely clean, then went to sleep. My dreams that night were filled with images of Sandralene and Nellie running through a tropical rain forest while being pursued by a pack of wild boars, while I feverishly tried to make edible a steak that had been marinated in perfume. Off in the shadows, I somehow knew that Stan was canoodling with Rosa, while Luckman aimed the pistol sensor of his detector at them, disintegrating them with a crackling Buck Rogers plasma ray.

  I woke up around 6:00 a.m., unrested but unable to get back to sleep. Stan’s bedroom door, open last night, was shut, so, deducing that he was home, I kept the volume of the television low when I turned on the news.

  At the top of the hour, the lead story breathlessly informed me of an “underworld slaughter overnight among several Latino gangs!” Apparently, quite a few of the more reprehensible local thugs had met an untimely end. The authorities felt that intertribal rivalry explained it all.

  35

  The last time I could recall feeling this way was when I was ten years old and standing in front of the principal’s desk at William Chaloner Elementary, getting reamed for having disassembled part of the chain-link fence around the school’s property to fashion a shortcut home for myself. Back then, I writhed under simultaneous and conflicting sensations: acknowledgment of guilt, and irritation at not being able to take pride in a harmless bit of hacking that had made my life easier.

  Now, with Vin Santo playing the principal’s part, I was experiencing a similar mix of emotions. There he sat behind his big, barren desk, looking as miffed as a horny Apollo when Daphne changed into a tree, while he kept me standing before him. His two “security personnel” shifted uneasily from foot to foot, just waiting to administer whatever punishment he might decree.

  Yes, I was in part culpable for what had happened, though my intentions had been straightforward and laudable. Sure, Derian Crespo was now resident in town, bumping off members of the Mara Salvatrucha gang left and right, only because I hadn’t vetted Chantal Danssaert’s prospective client more stringently. But Crespo was also a likely purchaser of our gadget, able to make us all stinking rich with money from his oligarchic backers. So shouldn’t the balance have swung more evenly between the two extremes of praise and condemnation? Yet Santo preferred to emphasize the negative. It seemed woefully unfair.

  This time, at least, I had an accomplice by my side to share the burden of Santo’s wrath. Although Stan had not yet even met Crespo on this late morning after the man’s arrival, he displayed admirable solidarity, for which I was grateful. He had said only a couple of words in response to Santo, as had I. But just his presence was reassuring.

  Having elaborated in considerable detail on the repercussions of letting Crespo loose in our city’s underworld to upset the delicate dynamics of mobster collegiality, Santo seemed to have entered his summing-up phase, so I tuned back in to his words.

  “Don’t misunderstand. It ain’t that I am particularly fond o’ these fucking beaners, see. Uncivilized, that’s what they are. So I got no brief for them. They ain’t like me and the guys who work for me. There’s nothing old-school about them, no sense of tradition. They are like the fucking Ebola virus, killing the very thing they hope to live on, in the bloodiest way possible. They got no principles, no strategy, no skills. All they know how to do is chop and slice and choke and grab. No long-term plans, no sense of building relationships and cutting a guy a break, knowing he’ll owe you one down the line. So it don’t crush my heart to see any number of them end up feeding the turtles in the marshes outside town.”

  I was about to unwisely point out that Santo should therefore be very happy with the janitorial service Stan and I had accomplished by bringing Crespo here. But seeing me open my mouth, he raised a fat paw to silence me, and it proved just as well.

  “But, on the other hand, these Mara Salvadouchebags got their uses. They keep all the other spics from horning in on our operations. So long as you supply ’em with enough cash and women, they stay satisfied and will not look to muscle in where they’re not wanted. Not that they’re even capable of handling the more sophisticated stuff, but they coulda stepped on our toes in several profitable areas, such as making short-term loans. But they didn’t. And why? Because of a carefully maintained equilibrium.”

  Santo paused to peer at Stan, who was digging the nail of his pinkie finger into the space between two incisors. “Hasso, do you even know what equilibrium is?”

  “Sure. That’s when you and your old lady are doing sixty-nine and she’s on top and you are both giving as good as you get.”

  Santo let out a huge guffaw. “Hasso, you’re okay. Sure, I guess that’s equilibrium—although I prefer not to imagine doing sixty-nine with these fuckers. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah—so there was an equilibrium between me and the spics that is feeling some ripples from these killings, and the outcome is unpredictable. I am trying my best to smooth things over. But if there are any more executions, some truly ass-biting repercussions are bound to come.”

  I ventured a response. “So it’s our job to rein in Crespo. I think we can do that, Vin. After all, we have the demo with Luckman scheduled for tomorrow. Crespo and Smalley will make their bids at the close of that process, and then they’ll both be gone. How much trouble can he get into in the next twenty-four hours?”

  “Maybe a lot, which is why I am counting on you to keep him busy. His whack-first-ask-questions-later style might work okay back in his dirt-alley homeland—where, you know, before Columbus straightened them out, the natives useta just cut a guy’s beating heart right outta his wide-awake chest without a blink—but it don’t fly here.”

  Santo paused for a refreshing sugary jolt from his Big Gulp, then said, “So, I can count on you two to maintain order and quiet? I’d hate to see all this investment of mine get pissed away, especially because things are humming along nicely so as to earn us all some decent money. But if it all goes fubar, somebody will have to make good on everything, and it won’t be Vin Santo.”

  “Totally clear, Vin,” said Stan. “No worries.”

  I just nodded.

  Outside Santo’s establishment, which was shuttered at this early hour, I shivered in the cold that the third week in November had ushered in. It dawned on me that Thanksgiving—late this year—was just about a week away. I tried to imagine being free of all cares and responsibilities, sitting down
to some big old--fashioned celebratory dinner with all my loved ones. Nellie, Stan, and Sandy. Uncle Ralph and Suzy and Lura. Caleb and the Luckmans. Even Chantal and Les. Maybe Vin Santo would show up at the door like Scrooge, bearing the biggest goose from the market.

  Such a vision seemed infinitely unlikely. On Thanksgiving day, Stan and I would probably be sharing the marshes with Crespo’s victims or else driving as fast as we could toward the Canadian border. But meanwhile, until everything fell apart, we had to try our best to keep Santo’s precious equilibrium intact.

  Stan and I got in my Lexus and headed toward the Luckman Enterprises factory.

  “I deeply look forward to meeting this Crespo,” said Stan. “He seems like a righteous dude. Takes a lotta balls to chase after your enemies in a foreign country, where you don’t know the ropes so good.”

  “I’m sure you and he will have a lot in common to discuss,” I replied. “Maybe your arsonist skills will somehow impress him. But meanwhile, we have to make sure everything’s set for tomorrow. Then I’ll call Chantal and stress to her that she and Les have to help us moderate Crespo’s behavior.”

  “If anyone can do it, that tough little broad can. She’s got ice water in her veins—that’s why her hand always feels cool to the touch.”

  “Come on, Stan, she’s not inhuman.”

  “Oh, and what’s this I hear? Do I detect a glimmer of kindly sentiment towards the lady? Maybe you had a hand down her pants while Nellie’s been gone and I was too busy running everything to notice.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I just calls ’em like I sees ’em. Oh, by the way, we got another little chore today.”

  “What might that be?”

  “We gotta pick up Sandy at the airport. Just her, no Nellie. And her flight gets in around four.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Why would I do that? Especially about such a special lovers’ reunion.”

  “Why can’t you go get her by yourself?”

  “I need you around just in case she ain’t totally jake with my fooling around. Maybe she brooded over it a little too much. Like I said, she’s sounded a little weird lately on the phone. I don’t wanna take any chances. You’ll be kinda like a referee, to make sure she don’t scratch my eyes out, like.”

  “Okay, I can see that. But you were supposed to give me time to talk to Rosa, to get her to end the affair.”

  “Oh, I took that into account. I made a date to see her for lunch. But she doesn’t know that you’re gonna be the one to keep it.”

  “So you’re done with her, just like that?”

  “Yeah, pretty much. She was getting a little too clingy. And besides, it’s Sandy I love, not her. I don’t wanna hurt either one of ’em. But if somebody has to get hurt, better Rosa than Sandy. Sandy’s my future; Rosa’s my past. It was fun while it lasted, and I think I made her life a little more exciting for a while. That Luckman ain’t exactly one for living la vida loca. Good provider, loves the hell outta Rosa, and all. But about as exciting as my old aunt Myrtle. Anyway, Rosa shoulda known from the start it was never gonna be no long-term thing, her and me. She’s tough; she’ll get over it fast.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “She could make trouble otherwise.”

  “Don’t worry, that’s not her nature. You just gentle her along. Maybe even tell her she’s better off without me, that I’m just a no-good heel anyhow.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “It will feel refreshing to tell the truth rather than lie, for a change.”

  36

  It was amazing what copious infusions of cash and the invoking of Vin Santo’s name could do to motivate construction contractors who might otherwise tend toward duplicity and sloth. Luckman Enterprises now boasted a not-too-shabby conference room, attached to Caleb’s office. Nice furniture, tasteful carpeting, elegant LED lighting fixtures, a wet bar, and a sixty-inch monitor on one wall. Here was where we would conduct tomorrow’s demo after giving Derian Crespo and Pete Smalley a tour of the factory.

  Arrayed on the table were several samples of different explosives, some in open glass dishes, others in sealed metal containers. I recognized the familiar pinkish granules of ANFO, the ammonium nitrate–fuel oil explosive, which seemed to be the only substance that Luckman’s gadget could reliably pick up. A couple of the snazzy-looking LBAS units brooded impressively between the containers and a stack of glossy prospectuses.

  When Stan and I entered, Caleb and Luckman were standing side by side at the table, intently studying the setup. Luckman had one hand resting intimately on Caleb’s shoulder, like a football coach with a player, or a father advising his son. Hearing us come in, they straightened up to greet us.

  “Glen, Stan,” said Luckman. “Take a look and tell me what you think. Caleb’s laid it out beautifully.”

  All the samples were neatly labeled with their names and descriptions, and one of the detectors was split open to show its complex innards. The other would presumably be used to respond to the samples.

  “You sure this gizmo of yours is gonna work okay?” Stan said. “We gotta impress these guys if we hope to sell stuff. And the last thing we need is to fall down and get mud on our faces.”

  “Of course, of course, I understand,” replied Luckman. But you needn’t worry about anything. With proper handling, the LBAS is infallible.”

  Again I wondered about Luckman’s state of mind when he uttered such counterfactual pronouncements. Was he willfully deluding himself, or just whistling past the graveyard? Did his pride, sense of self-worth, and perhaps even sanity depend on the efficacy of his gadget? Especially now that he had quit his teaching job and staked his whole future on it?

  Whatever the reality of his situation, his cool, assertive attitude was enough to reassure me—and, we hoped, our potential clients as well. I just prayed the machine would perform up to snuff, or at least appear to.

  “Would you like to see the video?” Caleb said. “The firm we outsourced it to did a bang-up job, especially given the short window they had.”

  When I hadn’t been otherwise engaged with placating gangsters, covering for a philandering friend, keeping the funds flowing to my lover’s import business, and getting schooled on the arms market from a sexy Belgian, I had whipped up a rough outline of all the LBAS’ selling points. I discovered that the process wasn’t really so different from coming up with a convincing trial brief. At one point, I even imagined for a moment an alternate career and life for myself, in which I had worked for some ad agency or PR firm and never been tempted into jurisprudential criminality. But any such fancies were fleeting, since I couldn’t change the past and must deal with the inglorious mess I had created for myself.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m eager to see if they used anything of mine. Let ’er roll.”

  Caleb already had a laptop cabled into the big monitor, and set the video playing.

  The presentation was slick and colorful, fast-paced, and thoroughly professional. The actors employed to embody our workforce and potential customers looked like the cast of some hip new HBO series. The portrayal of the lifesaving scenarios that the LBAS could enable would have brought tears to the eyes of a battle-hardened general. I heard some of my hastily scribbled talking points translated into dialogue. The short passages on-screen of Luckman speaking made him seem less like Professor Irwin Corey and more like Neil deGrasse Tyson. Anyone looking at this clip would have been convinced that Luckman Enterprises was a Fortune 500 company with global reach, and that the LBAS was the biggest contribution to civilization since the microwave oven.

  “Beautiful, beautiful. Good job, Caleb. Along with all the pampering and the face-to-face glad-handing tomorrow, this should really seal the deal. One or the other of these guys is going to offer us beaucoup bucks.”

  Looking a little concerned, Luckman said, “That brings up an important point
, Glen. What can you tell me about this second potential buyer? I know he arrived only yesterday, but surely you have his background information already. I was able to do some extensive online research on Pete Smalley and Steel Marquee, and I approve of their corporate stance and track record. They have received good ratings from various ethical watchdogs. They’re not perfect, of course—there was that incident with Myanmar—but they seem like good people. And that’s of paramount concern. We can’t let the LBAS be used by unsavory types. But this Derian Crespo—I couldn’t find anything just using his name. What’s his firm all about? I understand they’re based in El Salvador.”

  To my great credit, I managed to think fast enough to come up with an answer that would align Luckman’s moral compass, playing off something I had said the day before to Chantal. “They want to use your detector for clearing away land mines, Ron. You know how bad the situation is down there in that poor abused country.”

  Luckman’s face relaxed. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I couldn’t imagine a better use for my brainchild.”

  On that note, after checking with Caleb that everything was under control and that there was nothing else Stan or I could help with until the next day, I decided to conclude the meeting. The big, buff Southerner gave his thumbs-up to the whole operation. So far as he knew, our product and intentions were utterly legit.

  “The thousandth unit just rolled off the line and onto the shelves,” he said.

  “Super! If we can get one of these guys to pay for the finished thousand and take delivery as a guarantee for the rest of the output, that will breathe new life into our cash flow.”

  And keep Vin Santo happy.

  Out on the chilly sidewalk, Stan said, “You’re meeting Rosa at the Seacook Shanty in half an hour. It’s a nice little outta-the-way fish-and-chips joint down by the harbor, where nobody will know you or her.”