Tales of River City

by Frank Zafiro

  “Professional admiration,” I told him. “I’m impressed, that’s all.”

  Val studied my face closely. After a bit, he nodded his head and just like that I was out of the woods. Guys like Val and guys like me, we use logic but a lot of the time we just follow our gut.

  “Smoke?” he asked me. I accepted one of his French cigarettes. They were about half as big as American ones and I hated the damn things, but this was business. We lit up and puffed for a moment or two. Katya brought us our coffee. Val scowled at her for taking so long.

  I took several sips of the harsh Russian blend and let the French cigarette burn down slowly in my hand.

  Finally, Val leaned in close to me. “Was beautiful, Dom,” he said. “We use a second car. After Yuriy run away, second car pull up and surprise your friend.” He waved his hand at me. “Bye-bye,” he said and pointed at his eye.

  “He shot him in the eye? Jesus!”

  “One shot,” Val whispered. “Then first car and second car drive away. I have third car pick up Yuriy one mile away.”

  “And the cars?”

  “All bad plates,” he said. “And now all cars are in pieces.”

  I nodded my head in admiration. “I just can’t get over the fact that there were no witnesses. You’d think the red and blue lights alone up in Hillyard would—”

  “It all happen very fast,” Val said. “No chance for witnesses. Besides, what time this happen? Two o’clock in morning? Everyone asleep.”

  I took another drink of coffee and forced myself to puff on the French cigarette. “You are one smart motherfucker, Val,” I told him.

  He patted the envelope inside his jacket. “I know.”

  It was another four days before I saw Pete again. I expected him to come by the restaurant as soon as he saw the news. When he didn’t show, I figured he was just being cautious. Or maybe he was back to banging his cheating wife. Who knows?

  When four days had passed, I started getting a little nervous. Not only had he failed to come see me, he hadn’t phoned in his bets for the weekend. I wondered again if Pete was somehow in with the feds or local cops and had been whisked away into some kind of witness relocation program. But I knew that couldn’t be true. If it had been, they would have busted me as soon as I took money from him. They would never have put some cop in danger of being whacked just to get a better case against me.

  I tried to shake off the paranoia. I was too small-time to warrant any interest from the feds, even in this backwater town. My measly 100k a year and the forty I paid Isaac and Joe wasn’t enough to register on their radar screens.

  I thought about going by Pete’s house, but didn’t figure that would be a good idea. I settled for the Safeway where he worked. I made my way down the grocery aisle and to the meat department. I saw him back in the meat-cutters’ work area, his back to the cases. He stood stock-still, except for his right shoulder, which moved smoothly as he worked.

  As I pushed through the hanging plastic strips and into the cool, refrigerated air of the butcher’s area, the smell of raw meat hit my nostrils. “Pete?” I asked.

  Pete turned toward me. The knife in his hand was covered in blood. So was his smock. He held the knife easily in his hand, pointed directly at me.

  Recognition seeped into his eyes. “Dom,” he said, his voice dull.

  I pointed at the knife. “You wanna put that thing down before you put someone’s eye out?”

  He stared dumbly at me, then glanced down at the knife. Slowly, he set it on the white tabletop.

  “You okay, Pete?”

  He nodded, distracted.

  “You don’t seem okay,” I said.

  He met my eyes for a moment, then looked away.

  “You see the news?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So why didn’t you come see me?”

  “I was busy,” Pete said, staring at the concrete floor between us.

  “Busy with what?”

  “The funeral.”

  “You went to his fucking funeral?” I whispered, surprised. Now that took balls.

  He shook his head. “Not his. Hers.”

  “Come again? Whose funeral?”

  “Ellen’s.”

  “Your wife? She died?”

  Pete nodded. Tears streamed down his face.

  “When?”

  He made no effort to wipe the tears away. “Eight days ago.”

  I did some quick calculation and realized that was the day after I hired Val.

  “Jesus, Pete,” I said. “I’m…I’m sorry. How did it happen?”

  “Drunk driver,” he told me, his voice thick with tears. “Crossed the center line on Highway 395 and hit her head-on.”

  I couldn’t believe it. There were so many goddamn wrecks on that highway I just quit paying attention when they were reported.

  “Pete…I…”

  “I really gotta get back to work,” he said and turned around. He picked up the knife and resumed slicing.

  I left. What else was I supposed to say to the guy?

  For the rest of the day, every time I thought of Pete I caught a phantom whiff of raw meat. I thought about how the poor bastard leveraged his retirement in order to get that cop clipped. How he did it for his wife, because he loved her. Then she turns around and dies on him before the hit even goes through. Now the poor son of a bitch is without a wife and he has a crippled pension. Life can be a cold, hard ride sometimes.

  I wondered if I should tell Val about it. I knew the Russians loved sad stories. It seemed like that was all they ever told.

  Anyway, it was too bad that Pete was miserable, it really was. But, in the end, I had twenty thousand reasons not to give a shit.

  Pride Goeth

  The bell rang. I staggered to my corner. Reggie put the stool down and stepped through the ropes.

  I sat down and B.J. went to work on my eye.

  Reggie squeezed some water into my mouth.

  “How is it, Beege?”

  I spit.

  “Not good,” B.J. answered. “Another round. If he dances.”

  Reggie grabbed my chin. “You hear that?”

  I grunted. My chest burned. The muscles in my arms and legs felt like melting rubber.

  Reggie eyed me carefully. “Four down, six to go.”

  Wrong. One to go.

  “You’ve gotta move, Paul,” he said. “Stick and move.”

  I glanced over my shoulder into the crowd. Dominic Bracco sat in the front row. He met my eye with a hard stare. Still mad I turned down his offer, I guessed.

  “You go down in the fourth,” he’d said, and offered me five grand.

  I said no can do.

  He swore this would be my last fight. “You’re a wash-up, anyway,” he said.

  Maybe he was right. I’d been a regional champion until I lost to a kid last March. My stock fell, but I still had some regional name recognition. That got this fight with another up-and-comer. But all along, Bracco was behind the scenes, setting it up for a long-odds payoff. Pick the round the old man goes down. Win a stuffed bear.

  Reggie pulled my chin again. “Forget about that crooked sonofabitch,” he said, pointing across the ring. “Worry about that young sonofabitch over there!”

  Long odds. Washed up old man. Didn’t train this time around. Sucking wind. Roll of fat around the middle.

  B.J. finished working on my eye. “Coupla shots, that’ll open up again,” he whispered.

  “Circle away from his jab,” Reggie said.

  Long odds. Five-to-one against me. Twenty-seven-to-one payoff for a win by knockout in the fifth. I put two thousand on that. Two thousand to make fifty-four. I figured I was still good enough to pick the round.

  The buzzer sounded. I rose wearily.

  “Away from the jab,” Reggie said on his way through the ropes and down the stairs.

  Fifth round. I thought I was skilled enough to drop this kid at will.

  Pride goeth before a fall, my mom used to say.r />
  I don’t think she ever meant it to be quite so literal.

  The bell rang.

  The kid came at me like a tank, snapping out his stiff jab. I slipped it and circled away.

  The crowd yelled encouragement to him, eager for my blood.

  I slipped another left, then absorbed a right hook to the body, turning away from the worst of it.

  I circled some more.

  The kid flicked his jab out toward my face. I twitched my head away, but he doubled up. The second caught me on the brow. He followed with a straight right. First the thud, and then I felt the trickle.

  The sight of my blood got him excited and he waded in, throwing bombs. I took most of them off the arms. Then, just as he reared back for a left hook, I stepped in tight and blasted a right uppercut into his jaw.

  The kid stutter-stepped backward two steps. His eyelids fluttered. I’d seen that before. He was out on his feet.

  I looked out into the crowd. I stared at Bracco. A surprised murmur rippled through the crowd, then burst into a cheer. A moment later, the kid hit the canvass in a dead fall. Bracco stood and stalked out, his flunkies in tow.

  I didn’t bother to raise my arms in the air. I stumbled back to my corner. B.J. pressed a compress against my cut, grinning hugely.

  Reggie shook his head in wonder.

  Long odds.

  Pride goeth before a fall.

  Some sins you don’t pay for. At least not right away.

  And a Fall Cometh

  Getting out of town would’ve been best, but that took money. And the fucking Russian had my money.

  I parked up the street, almost two blocks away from his house. A layer of old snow covered the city, most of it tinged with brown. River City was a dirty town. The politicians can call it the All-American City all they want. That doesn’t change anything that goes on just barely below the surface.

  The heater in Beth’s old Honda barely worked. It didn’t matter, anyway. I was sweating as I watched Oleg’s house. My hands were clammy. I ran them through my hair to dry them off. The ache in my knuckles flared and I rubbed at them absently.

  Would he pay off?

  Of course he would. A bookie who doesn’t pay is like a loan shark who doesn’t collect—dead in the water.

  Still, he owed me a lot of bank. Fifty-four large.

  I took a shallow breath and winced in pain. My ribs ached from the beating I took in the ring. Goddamn kid I fought almost kept me from pulling off the win by knockout. If he hadn’t been so cocky, I’d be two thousand bucks poorer instead of fifty-four thousand ahead.

  Shifting in the driver’s seat, my knee bumped Beth’s keychain. Bart Simpson swung upside down from the ignition. I thought of her for a moment, stashed away at the Celtic Spirit Motel, waiting for me. Her fiery hair. The little moan she made when I kissed her hard. I thought about the tiny patch of beach we were going to find in California somewhere, or maybe Mexico.

  Focus!

  I looked up into the rearview mirror. My own old, battered face stared back at me. The puffy left cheek bore ugly, blue-green bruising that was punctuated by the bend in my nose. A small scar separated my left eyebrow into two. The perfect picture of a broken-down fighter less than a week after his latest beating.

  “What’re you looking at?” I said, DeNiro style.

  I didn’t have an answer, so I turned back to stare up the street at Oleg’s house. He had to pay, I figured. His reputation counted on it. Besides, even though he knew I turned down Bracco on the fix, he must’ve opened up the floodgates and took a lot of action on the kid. He probably cleared a hundred. My fifty-four was the price of doing business, that’s all.

  He’d pay. I didn’t have to worry about the Russians. Just Bracco and his goons.

  I glanced over my shoulder and scanned the street. I knew they could be out there, just waiting for me to get out of the car. Lurking around the corner, waiting to put a .45 behind my ear or blast my balls off with a shotgun. Refusing to take a dive and then actually winning the fight? That was a hearty fuck you. Bracco wouldn’t let that stand. He couldn’t let some two-bit fighter show him up.

  I hadn’t even gone home after the fight. That’d be the first place they’d check. And keep checking, too. They’d ask the neighbors every time and threaten them and work on them until if I ever did show up, those neighbors would never know for sure if they gave me up out of fear or just because they were tired of being messed with.

  Screw the neighbors. All I cared about was my take. I’d get my money and get out of town. I didn’t need to go home. What little I had was junk.

  I took a slow, deep breath around the pain in my ribs and let it out.

  Time to see the Russian. If the others come, they come.

  I put the car into gear and cruised past Oleg’s house, eyeballing the front. He had an open shade. The TV flickered inside. No one visible, though. I drove around the corner and parked.

  Outside on the sidewalk, the world around me sounded askew, like something from a Stanley Kubrick movie. A dog barked a few blocks away, his throaty yelp monotonous and in time with my heart as it pounded in my chest. My shoes crunched in the snow of the sidewalk that no one had bothered to clear. I glanced over my shoulder, then forward.

  A car pulled around the corner, rolling toward me. A stab of fear cut through my stomach. I froze in place, staring at the windshield. For the hundredth time, I wished that I had a gun. The car glided past, though, a little old man in a hat staring intently at the snowy street in front of him.

  I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it out in a sigh.

  Jesus. Get a grip.

  I strode around the corner. No other cars passed me. No shots rang out. My gaze flicked back and forth, searching, but there was nothing to find.

  Maybe I gave him too much credit. Maybe I’ve watched The Godfather too many times.

  A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. I pressed my lips together into a scowl, forcing the smile away.

  Maybe I did overestimate Bracco’s network. Maybe he didn’t know about the bet I laid with the Russian. But I’d wait until Beth and I were far away from River City before laughing about it.

  The walkway up to Oleg’s door had been shoveled. I climbed the concrete steps and peered through the window next to the front door. On the TV, a woman with a microphone somehow managed to speak with a perma-smile pasted across her face. No Oleg, though.

  I looked up and down the street. Nothing. That did little to put me at ease.

  I knocked on the door. The rap of my knuckles against the screen door rang up and down the block. I cringed inwardly.

  A few long moments passed without an answer. I wiped the sweat from my lip and forehead with my sleeve.

  He had to be home. I couldn’t risk staying in town any longer. I needed the money.

  Come on, Oleg, you prick. Be home.

  After what seemed like an hour, I raised my hand to knock again. Then I heard a metallic click.

  My heart jumped in my chest. Without thinking, I stepped back from the door, my pulse pounding in my temples. There was another moment of silence. Then the door swung open from the inside.

  I realized what the sound had been. The deadbolt.

  A slender, mousy man eyed me through the crack in the doorway. “What you vant?” he asked, his voice thick with accent.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m here to see Oleg.”

  The man appraised me for another moment. “Who vants to see him? Olek busy.”

  “He has something for me.”

  Another long appraisal from Mouse. Then he said, “I ask him,” and closed the door, snapping the deadbolt into place.

  I zipped up my sweatshirt and rubbed my arms. My breath fogged in front of me. I noticed it came in short bursts, like I was in the third round or something. The cold air bit into my lungs while I waited. I wished I still smoked.

  A couple of minutes later, I heard the metallic click again and the door opened. Mouse was
back.

  “Come in,” he grunted at me.

  “Thanks.” I pulled open the screen door and stepped past him into the living room.

  Mouse shut the door behind me. He pointed at a staircase. “Olek downstair.”

  “Downstairs?” I glanced at the open door and the stairs that lead downward.

  “Da.”

  I watched Mouse for any sign of danger, but the small Russian reflected nothing back in his gaze. If anything, he looked bored.

  “Okay,” I said and headed for the stairs.

  The wooden steps creaked under my feet as I went down them. The smell of earth and concrete filled the air. When I reached the bottom, the room opened up into a single large space. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting pale, yellow light. Oleg sat at a card table in the far corner. Beside another smaller lamp, which was much brighter than the one in the ceiling, a cash box and notepad lay on the table. He tapped away at a calculator. The small buzz of the receipt printing filled the room.

  I glanced around the room. Only one door. It was opened a crack and I saw the silhouette of a sink inside. Bathroom.

  The tapping and buzzing stopped. Oleg looked up at me. He grinned wolfishly, exposing crooked, yellow teeth. “You are one lucky bastard,” he said, his English much smoother than Mouse’s but still thick with the tones of Mother Russia. “Bet on yourself and then pick the fucking round. Unbelievable.”

  “Sometimes you get lucky,” I agreed.

  Oleg shook his head. “No, this is more than luck. This is amazing. That other kid, he very strong and good fighter, too. How did you know what round?”

  I shrugged. “It just seemed like the right choice.”

  “Three to one against you. Twenty-seven to one for that round you get knockout.” Oleg sighed. “Amazing.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and rubbed my palms on my jeans. “Yeah, I guess it was pretty amazing.”

  “Many people bet against you,” Oleg observed. “Some very angry now.”