Gutshot Straight

by Lou Berney

  At the airport Shake told Gina to wait in the car again, short-term parking, while he went inside to buy tickets. They needed to keep her public exposure in Vegas to a minimum.

  “How do I know you won’t just get on the plane by yourself and ditch me here?”

  “The thought’s occurred to me,” he admitted. As it continued to. “But I’m not going to ditch you.”

  “You mind I ask why?”

  “I’d tell you if I knew.”

  He went inside and bought tickets. Half an hour before their flight was scheduled to depart, they blew through security, no waiting, hit the gate just as the plane was about to board.

  “Hey!” Gina said when she saw her boarding pass. “This is coach!”

  “We’re on a budget this trip,” Shake said.

  She scowled at him, but before she could respond, they were joined in line by a big group of middle-aged men in suits. A dozen of them, faces flushed and ties loosened, laughing too loudly, slapping one another on the back, glancing around the gate area to gauge the effect of their contagious (they assumed) bonhomie. Each one wore a small purple name tag stuck to his lapel.

  Shake stole a glance at a couple of their boarding passes. Checked the row numbers against his boarding pass. Winced.

  “How long is this flight?” Shake asked Gina.

  “You’re right,” she said, a serious, responsible look on her face. “First class is an extravagance we can scant afford.”

  “I don’t sound like that.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  The purple-tagged businessman in line right behind them shoved a big, beefy hand at Shake.

  “Hey, there,” he said. “George Pirtle.”

  Another purple-tagged businessman peered over his buddy’s shoulder and grinned at Shake. “Like ‘turtle,’ but with a p instead of a t.”

  This triggered, among the purple-tagged businessmen in the vicinity, a fresh round of booming hilarity and backslapping. A couple of them started chanting, “Turtle, Turtle,” but that died out when a female flight attendant walked past. She triggered a round of snickering and rib-nudging.

  Shake winced again.

  “I’m sure first class is just as bad,” Gina said, and gave him a snickering rib-nudge.

  FIRST THING: FUCKING FLIGHT IS CANCELED. After the plane sits on the tarmac for four hours at LAX. Four hours! Almost the time it takes to drive to fucking Las Vegas! To drive and stop for a hamburger along the way!

  Second thing: No more flights to Las Vegas tonight. To Las Vegas? The fucking tourism capital of the entire world?

  “There are no more available seats on any other flights tonight,” the airline person at the counter clarified.

  “Then you should clarify that first time,” Dikran told him.

  So he could drive and get there in four, five hours. Or he could wait till the first flight in the morning and get there in ten. Dikran called and checked with her. She sighed and said, “Just take the first flight in the morning, Dikran, I don’t care. Just find him, yes? Et cetera?”

  Oh, yes. Dikran would find him. And the et cetera to follow would be pleasurable beyond imagination. That ass-lick. Dikran didn’t want to wait. So he went downstairs to the rental-car counters, because he’d left his car at home and taken a blue van to the airport.

  Third thing: No rental cars available. At LAX? Biggest fucking airport on the West Coast?

  “Sorry.”

  Sorry.

  Fourth thing: First flight in the morning is delayed. Two hours on the tarmac.

  Fifth thing: First flight in the morning is carrying a girls’ college softball team to a tournament in Las Vegas. Occidental College girls’ softball team. Twenty girls, all around him, tan buttery skin and glittery blond fur on their cheeks. A smell like fruit and candy and buttery tan skin. The smell drives the Little Soldier in Dikran’s lap mad.

  All this bad luck: Dikran felt furious, like poison was steaming from his pores. God wanted to punish him. Well, Dikran wanted to punish God back.

  The plane stopped. The bell dinged at last. Dikran snapped off his belt. The college softball player next to him reached into the overhead bin for her bag. Her shirt rode up when she reached, and now suddenly he stared at a slice of buttery tan stomach skin. A gold ring in the belly button. The Little Soldier—fucking testosterone patch!—begged Dikran to touch that belly button. Just a touch—she would never notice. With your tongue, Dikran, quick.

  He looked quickly away. Counted backward from ten like she had advised him to do when such issues arose.

  Belly Button Girl moved up the aisle, and Dikran followed. He trudged with all the other passengers out of the airplane and into the plastic tube, then out of the plastic tube and into the airport. Trudging, trudging, slowly, even now, because at the head of the line like a parade marshal was an old person in a wheelchair.

  Belly Button Girl in front of him, the skin on her back between pants and shirt, it was buttery tan skin, too, like her stomach, with a little tattoo there, right where—

  Dikran looked quickly away. Counted backward from ten again.

  Ten, nine, eight, seven—

  Dikran stopped counting.

  He squinted to sharpen the focus of his eyes.

  The gate next to this gate. These people trudging from the airport into a different plastic tube, onto a different airplane.

  The girl.

  And. Dikran shivered with joy. Next to her in the line: Shake. That ass-lick! Right there in the airport next to him!

  Moving into the plastic tube. Nowhere to hide.

  “LET ME GUESS,” GEORGE PIRTLE SAID.

  He was seated on the aisle, with Gina at the window and Shake squeezed between. Three of his purple-tagged buddies occupied the row directly in front of them, another three the row directly behind.

  “You two are newlyweds.”

  “In a manner of speaking,” Gina said.

  “Thought so. In my line of work, you gotta be able to read a person like that.” He snapped his fingers, grinned, and waited for them to bite. When they didn’t, he said, “Friendmaking! People who don’t know better call it sales, but it’s not about product. I’ve got great product, sure, do not get me wrong. Want to guess?”

  “Buttercup,” Gina asked Shake, “do we have any of that Dramamine left? I don’t want to blow chunks again like last time.”

  Shake squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, sweetpea. Just try not to miss the bag this time.”

  “Feline nutritional systems,” George Pirtle continued, unfazed. He let that sink in.

  “Cat food?” Gina said.

  “Cat food? Oh, no. No, no, no. Exactly not cat food. Much, much more than cat food. I have an analogy I like to use—”

  “Turtle!” One of the guys in the row behind stuck his head over. “Introduce us to this lovely young lady.”

  George Pirtle shot him cold daggers for the interruption but went ahead and ticked off the names of all six purple-tags, fore and aft. The last guy, the one seated directly in front of Gina, was named Ted Boxman.

  “Like ‘cocksman,’ ” Pirtle said, “but with a b instead of a c.”

  This triggered, among the purple-tags, both laughter and snickering, both shoulder-slapping and rib-nudging. Only the Cocksman himself did not join in. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the seat in front of him.

  “You guys headed to what? A sales conference?” Shake couldn’t figure out the purple tags on their lapels. Printed in small letters above George Pirtle’s name was: BUILDING BRIDGES INTERNATIONAL.

  George Pirtle gave Shake a sly look. “You might say that,” he said. He waited again for Shake or Gina to bite. They didn’t.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” The captain’s voice crackled over the public-address system. “The tower informs me traffic’s stacked up a little out there on the runway, so looks like we’re gonna have a short delay.”

  “Back to that analogy,” George Pirtle said. “What cat food is to our enhan
ced feline nutritional system—”

  Shake unbuckled his seat belt.

  “We can get a drink in the terminal?” Gina asked.

  Shake stood up. “Please.”

  DIKRAN NUDGED BELLY BUTTON GIRL to the side. She sat down on the floor of the airport and looked up at him with wide eyes.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey,” he agreed. He pushed through the people toward the other gate. Nudging.

  “Sir!” a flight attendant yelled to him. “Sir! Please wait your turn!”

  Okay, Mr. Fancy-Pants Flight Attendant, Dikran thought, if you can make me wait my turn, I will.

  But then—he was almost to the front of line, almost to the parade marshal in the wheelchair—Dikran noticed a man turn to see what the commotion was.

  The man was calm. He wore a nice suit but had a big, heavy wristwatch on his wrist. A thick wrist. Too thick. Too calm.

  Dikran stopped nudging. He was no genius, he knew, but when it came to some things—certain important survival things—his senses were finely tuned. He would be dead a hundred times over by now, one of those rotting bodies in the cargo container back in Armenia (summer of 1983, remember?), if this had not been so.

  The calm man in the suit was a federal air marshal, armed.

  “Sir! Please return to your place in line!”

  Dikran would like to pop the frantic little fancy-pants flight attendant’s melon. Instead …

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” he said politely. “Of course. Please pardon my eagerness for our arrival.”

  The flight attendant puffed up with triumph. After a second, like he was a pasha, he deemed Dikran worthy of conditional forgiveness and nodded curtly.

  Dikran returned to his place in line. Shake was on the plane now. Dikran waited. Waited. Fuck fuck fuck! Finally the old person with the wheelchair was wheeled away and the line moved fast.

  The federal marshal was standing by a trash can. Watching Dikran.

  Dikran gave him a quick, shy smile as he passed. Fuck you, he thought. You think I’m an idiot?

  He walked fast to the other gate. He went to the counter. Shake’s plane still sat at the gate. The sign said DELAYED.

  Dikran told God all was forgiven, and more.

  SHAKE HAD JUST SQUEEZED PAST George Pirtle and into the aisle when the PA crackled again.

  “Good news, folks,” the captain said, and bells started dinging all over the plane.

  Chapter 26

  I like to go on that plane now,” Dikran said to the agent. He pointed.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” this one said, a black one. “We’ve already closed the gate for that flight.”

  “It’s okay,” Dikran assured him. “I have money.”

  “Federal regulations.” He shook his head as if saddened by federal regulations. “It’s departing now.”

  Dikran saw, through the window, Shake’s plane start to roll away from the gate.

  Fuck fuck fucking!

  Dikran roared and swept stacks of airline schedule pamphlets and offers for airline credit cards off the counter.

  A man in a beard, sitting nearby, tucked his beard down and looked at Dikran over the top of his glasses.

  “What you looking at?” Dikran asked him. “You want me to put fist so far up your ass that—”

  One of the buttery softball girls walked past, trailing candy and fruit. Dikran watched the backs of her legs moving.

  The black agent had his hand on his telephone. Dikran gathered up the airline schedule pamphlets and airline credit-card offers and returned them to the counter, neater than before.

  “I apologize, sir,” he told the black man. “I am no trouble, I promise.”

  Eye to eye for a moment. Then the black man took his hand off the telephone.

  “You need to chill out, brother,” he said.

  If only this man knew how Dikran wished he could. He rubbed his temples and shook his head. He pointed to the patch on his arm. “This fucking medicine,” he explained.

  The black man nodded wisely. “Get you some chewing gum. A lollipop or such. That’ll help you kick the cravings.”

  Really? Dikran felt dubious. He watched Shake’s plane pivot, straighten, roll forward out of sight.

  “You with that group headed to Panama?” the black man said.

  Dikran went to a quiet spot and called her on his cell phone.

  “He’s on a plane,” he said. “Panama?”

  He heard her laugh to herself. “Of course,” she said.

  Dikran went back to the counter and bought a ticket for the next flight. It left in six hours and flew through the night.

  The fancy-pants flight attendant from his airplane emerged from the men’s room. He rolled his suitcase up the smooth concourse.

  Ah.

  Dikran smiled. He followed the fancy-pants flight attendant to the parking garage, to his car. The flight attendant was on his cell phone. Laughing into it. Dikran crept like the soft flow of water up from behind and cupped the flight attendant’s head in his hand and smacked the head against the door window. The glass cracked a bit, but glass in cars these days was much stronger than it used to be, for safety reasons, and did not shatter as it might have years ago.

  The flight attendant fell to the oily, smooth cement floor. Dikran kicked him until he stopped bubbling and pleading. Then he piled the broken pieces of the fancy-pants flight attendant into the backseat and arranged clothes from the suitcase on top to hide what was beneath.

  He would fly through the night and be in Panama right behind that ass-lick.

  Dikran felt much better.

  Chapter 27

  Jasper was tired. It was coming up on the second midnight since the morning this all started. That meant he hadn’t slept in … He was too tired to calculate. That meant he hadn’t slept in a long-ass time.

  He’d been all over town. Most places twice. He’d tapped every source, called in every marker, made threats, promised favors, answered probably a hundred calls on his cell phone from people who thought they’d seen Gina or the guy but turned out they really hadn’t.

  Jasper, you asked him what he thought, he thought Gina and the guy had most probably left town already. The guy, Shake, had struck Jasper as intelligent. Gina certainly was.

  The way to catch intelligent people was to slow down, think it through, find a shortcut through the canyon—Jasper, growing up, had loved those old westerns—and get to one of their ideas before they did.

  You asked Jasper what he thought, he thought it was a waste of crucial hours, humping all over town, back and forth, asking bellhops and busboys had they seen this girl in the picture?

  But that’s the way Mr. Moby wanted it done, and you know he wasn’t going to ask Jasper what Jasper thought, not until there was a mountain of ice and hell under it.

  Jasper took a minute outside Mr. Moby’s office and checked again; were there any options he might have left in his life that didn’t involve what he was about to do? There weren’t. This was where he was, nowhere else. He knocked on the door, and Mr. Moby said come the fuck in.

  Mr. Moby glanced up at Jasper, saw his face, didn’t need to ask.

  “You want me to go to L.A.? Try there?” Jasper said.

  “Why would I want you to try L.A.?” Mr. Moby said. Not, though, with his usual poison. Jasper saw he was distracted, watching the TV on top of the cabinet. “Look at this.”

  Jasper looked. On TV was a tape of the security feed from the camera in the lobby. A high-angle shot looking down on the heads of customers coming and going, girls coming and going. One head stayed where it was. The lobby bouncer on the tape was Rock Star, the longhaired one Jasper couldn’t abide, the one reminded him of an evil baby Whale.

  “Last night?” Jasper said.

  “Yeah. Just watch.” Mr. Moby hit a button on the remote, and the picture stopped moving. “What do you see?”

  Jasper saw a couple of customers and Rock Star and—just coming in the door—a girl in a black wig with brai
ds.

  Son of a bitch. Gina.

  “Uh-huh,” Mr. Moby said.

  “She was here last night? What was she doing here last night?”

  In his surprise, Jasper asked what Mr. Moby would generally consider dumb-fuck questions. Mr. Moby, though, was too locked in on the TV screen to notice or care.

  “I’m going to find out,” he said. “But that’s not the thing right now.” He pushed a different button, and the picture jumped ahead a few frames, then stopped again. The girl in the black wig was definitely Gina. “What do you see now?”

  The girl behind Gina, with Gina, her hand on Gina’s hip, pushing her forward past the bouncer.

  Lucy.

  “The accomplice,” Mr. Moby answered for Jasper. His face was grim.

  Jasper felt his chest tighten. Easy, easy, he told himself. Lucy was Mr. Moby’s favorite, after all. She could irritate him and get away with it like no other girl Jasper had ever seen. They’d been together almost two years. Mr. Moby had genuine human feelings for her.

  “We should talk to her, I guess,” Jasper said. He hoped his voice didn’t sound to Mr. Moby the way it sounded to himself.

  “Nothing to talk about,” Mr. Moby said. “She won’t know shit, guaranteed.” He watched the tape again. From the corner of his eye, Jasper searched Mr. Moby’s face for some flicker of genuine human feeling. There wasn’t any.

  “You just saw this?” Jasper asked.

  “About an hour ago. You weren’t here, so I sent that longhair on ahead to her place. He’s probably wrapped the show up, but get your ass over there and make sure he didn’t fuck it up.”

  Jasper’s heart tightened some more, too much. It felt as though the threads of a screw were being stripped.

  An hour ago.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  JASPER DROVE FAST. Shake had taken his .45 after he’d hit him with the door, but Jasper still had his backup piece. He put it on the seat next to him. Jesus help the cop who pulled him over right now. Jasper was glad for the cop’s sake that no cop pulled him over.

  Jasper flew across the parking lot outside Lucy’s apartment house. He’d decided what he would do. If Rock Star hadn’t finished yet, if it wasn’t over yet, Jasper would tell Lucy he suspected he loved her and did she, in light of that, want to go away with him somewhere far away?