by Tony D'Souza
He hit the bong, exhaled the smoke into the room. "We got ourselves out of it, didn't we, my man? And I know I'm going to keep myself out of it. And even if I could do something else, and even if I could be something else, I wouldn't. Not anymore. Not until I have enough. Not until I know nothing can ever fucking touch me. Is that how you feel? Tell me the truth, James. Because I need you. Are you still in this with me?"
He'd never said so much to me. What I said to him was "Yeah, I'm still in it."
"Superstar," he said and grinned. "I knew you had it in you from the start. Remember how bad you wanted that money? Hard to control, isn't it? No more excuses, my man. As soon as that kid is born, you're going to New York. Dump your phones, by the way. Heat's been off since that dead CI, but that's no reason for us to get lazy. Get the fuck out of here. You owe me a steak."
Deveny was talking about Rachel Hoffman, the girl who was killed back in the spring. The Tallahassee PD had busted her for a few ounces, scared her into working a sting with them, sent her in alone on a drug and gun buy with $13,000 in cash. Somehow they'd lost their surveillance; the hoods drove away with her in their car, executed her. She was twenty-three, not any kind of real drug dealer. The papers had been hammering away at the police ever since. At the time Eric had said, "A civilian like her? That's the best they could do?"
When I pulled away from Eric's, I called Kate. Was she still pregnant? I asked. Yes, she was still pregnant. Any contractions? No, she sighed, nothing at all. Then I threw away my phones in a garbage can in a McDonald's parking lot, like Eric had told me to. During the long, quiet drive down to Sarasota, I thought about the things Deveny had said. Did my wife love me? Of course my wife fucking loved me. Why was he trying to get in my head?
Nick was pacing in a fury when I got to the 8th Street house, yelled at me when I walked in: "Why haven't you answered your phone? The deal is right now. We have to grab Micah and get up there."
"I can't go up there. Kate could have the baby."
Nick put up his hands to end the discussion. He said, "You're coming or you're not. The money's already in the motel room."
Money, money, money.
We didn't take two cars, we took one: no matter how much I did or didn't like Micah, I didn't want him to know the plates on my car, have something on me. Now we were too rushed to get a rental. We tossed the two pounds in the trunk of Nick's Escort, hurried up to Bradenton. As we watched Micah jog down the steps of his complex in a satin Yankees jacket with his cap cocked to the side, Nick turned to me from the driver's seat and said, "Check it out." When he lifted his shirt, I saw the handle of a gun tucked in his waistband. Nick whispered, "Told you I had it all covered."
"Is it real?"
"Hell yeah."
Panic tore through me. Right away, I said, "No no no no no!"
"What?"
"'Ten–twenty–life.' Ever fucking heard of it?" Micah was almost to the car. I said, "Ten years mandatory on top of anything else."
He said, "What do I do with it now?"
"Throw it out the window."
"Dude, it's my stepdad's."
Micah was in the backseat. "You Capones ready?"
I said, "Keep your head down."
"Because I'm black?"
"Come on, Micah. Like you don't know?"
Nick took us up on the 75, then across on the 4. There was a lot of high-speed weekend traffic, and we were past Disney and in Orlando in just over two hours. Micah bitched the whole way about having to keep his head down. When we got to Pine Hills, he said that if we really wanted to keep a low profile, he should be the one behind the wheel. "How many lightbulbs you see driving around up here? Pull over and get in back."
Nick turned into a Burger King parking lot. "Toss it in the garbage can," I hissed to Nick when we switched seats. But Nick looked at me like he was helpless. He said, "I gotta get it back before he sees."
Then Nick and I were hunched on the floorboards in back while Micah drove us along West Colonial. Every time I looked up, I saw liquor stores and PD cars. Nick pulled out his lit-up cell phone, showed it to me. The message on it read, "where the f is james??? why wont he anser his fon???" Of course it was from Kate. An instant later, another message came in from her: "everything ok??" Then we were idling somewhere. Micah powered down the window. "Got that key?" he whispered to someone. Someone with a deep voice out there in the night whispered, "Where your boys at?"
"They coming."
"They better be straight."
"Money in there?"
"Money's in there."
Micah powered up the window, pulled us away. He passed me back a keycard. When we were in traffic again, Micah said, "Who's going in?"
I said, "I'm going in."
"Room 151."
He wheeled us in somewhere, parked, turned off the car. When I looked up, we were at the Top Hat Motel; across the lot was the room. The lot was poorly lit, the few cars around us dark and empty. Why was I so fucking nervous? Micah slouched in the driver's seat, pulled down his hat. "It's your move," he said.
I opened the door, stepped out of the car, and walked across the lot to the room. No one was around. I slid the card in the slot, the lock clicked, I turned the handle, the door creaked open. I turned on the lights. The room looked like all those rooms did: shitty. There was no one in it but me. Where was the money? Nothing on the table, nothing on the bed. Should I leave? The bathroom. Why would they put it in the bathroom? God, would I have to check the fucking bathroom now?
Halfway through the room, on my way to check the bathroom, I saw that the adjoining door beside me had begun to open as I passed it. It was opening so slowly it looked like the nightmare was coming out of the closet. What should I do? I ran to it, even put my hands on it. It smacked the wall as they burst through. Four or five of them. All in hoods, two with guns. Their eyes were red. Were they high? Why would they be high? I put up my hands, let it all go.
"Face the wall, motherfucker!"
I faced the wall. "I'm cool. I'm cool," I heard myself saying.
"Shut the fuck up! You ain't cool," the one with the gun to my head shouted in my ear.
Another one was shouting in my other ear, "Want to get wasted? Want to get wasted? My boy will do that. My boy will do that."
The gun was pressed hard to the back of my head. They put a cell phone in my hand. "Tell your boy to bring the shit in here!"
The phone was ringing. Someone picked up. "Yo," Micah said.
"Get me Nick."
"Hang on."
Then it was Nick. Nick said, "What the fuck's going on?"
"Bring it in here."
"What the fuck?"
"Don't think. Just bring it in here as fast as you can."
"Open the door," I said to the room.
"Shut the fuck up!" Then they got quiet. Come on, Nick. Come on, Nick. Come on, Nick. I heard the door creaking, then the scuffle. Light splashed across the room when the lamp went over. Then I got hit in the back of the head, and I fell to the floor and stayed there.
"What you gonna do with this?" one of them shouted.
"No, no!" Nick said.
Then there were shots.
They banged out of the room, car doors slammed, cars peeled away.
Nick was lying face-down when I got to him. "Nick! Nick!" I turned him over. He wasn't shot.
I pulled at his shirt. "Get up! We have to get out of here!"
We ran outside. The Escort was sitting there. When I jumped in it, the keys were in the ignition. I drove us out onto the road, kept driving, realized my headlights were off, turned them on. Then we were up on a highway, then off of it. Then we sat in a 7-Eleven parking lot.
"Fuck! Fuck!"
"Jesus! Jesus!"
"Fuck! Fuck!"
"Jesus! Jesus!"
Then: "You all right, man?"
"Yeah, I guess so. What about you?"
I rubbed the back of my head where the gun had been. I said softly, "He left the keys."
&nbs
p; Nick opened the door, started to get out. I said, "Where you going?"
"I'm done!"
"Get back in. Where you gonna go?"
Halfway home, near Tampa, Nick said, "I can't believe it!" A few seconds later he said, "He knew the whole time. He knows I'm going to have to see him again."
I told him, "Text Kate. Tell her I'm on my way. Text Micah. Text him, 'Fuck you.' Then tell him you want that gun back."
Nick did that. The text that came back from Micah said, "y u bring it? cost u a g."
Nick said, "What are we gonna do?"
I shook my head. I shouted at him, "You think we can do something?"
Nick looked out the window beside him in silence the rest of the way home.
When we got to the 8th Street house, he said, "I fucking quit!"
I said, "You can't quit. You owe me money."
I drove home. No one was at the house when I walked in. A handwritten note on the counter read, "If you can work it into your busy schedule, we are at the birthing center having your son."
I arrived at the birthing center, beside a Japanese pond. Kate's and my mother's cars were there. I ran through the doors. My mother was sitting in the lobby reading a magazine; I ran past her. When I entered the candlelit birthing room, Cristina and my wife were in the tub in the corner. I stripped down to my boxers. Cristina stepped out of the tub and I stepped in. Kate took my hands. She said between contractions, "I was worried. I was worried." Three hours later, our son Evan was born underwater, and I lifted him to the darkness to take his first breath.
My mother was always over. Kate's parents flew in from California wearing Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts, began drinking Coors right away. They were so glad we'd sent them the tickets, so happy to be with us and the babies. Cristina, too, what a nice surprise to see her. She'd always been like a daughter to them. Florida was so warm and sunny, our house was so nice, they were thinking of staying forever. What did we think about it if they did?
I ran away with Romana to the park every day. Then Emma wanted me to go to Austin and help her with her college-kid deal, which I'd forgotten I'd said I would do. Fly out in the morning, fly home late at night—did Kate mind if I went? As long as it'd only be a day, she said; if she could get away from everything right now, she would, too.
I shaved off my beard patches, put on my work clothes, flew out early, and landed in Austin in the middle of the afternoon. Emma picked me up; Bayleigh was in her car seat in back. "Say hi to your Uncle James," Emma said to Bayleigh. Bayleigh said, "Hi, Unca James."
As she drove us into town, Emma asked, "How is everybody?"
"Everybody's fine."
"The baby?"
"Yeah, the baby, too."
"A lot more work for you guys now."
What could I say? I said, "What's two when you got one, right?"
We went to Trudy's on the north side, ate fish tacos. I drank a margarita to pass the time. Should I tell Emma about the gun to my head in Orlando? The margarita made me want to, but I knew I never should.
Emma explained the deal while Bayleigh colored on her placemat. She said, "I've got the pound in the trunk in a backpack. We pick up my cousin Sam. You go with him, tell him what to do. If everything works out, I'll run my stuff for this guy through him, let Sam make some money. They were all relocated here after the hurricane, just like we were. They haven't had shit since."
"Sounds good."
"Sam doesn't know I'm doing any driving. I told him you're the guy who brought it."
"That's fine."
"He's going to be nervous. He hasn't done anything like this before."
"It'll all work out."
We got stuck in traffic, the usual Austin snarl, and the cousin started calling: What were we doing, what were we doing? The dealer was expecting the shit at six. What if we pissed off the dealer? Emma said, "We'll be there in fifteen minutes, Sam. Just tell the guy to chill out."
The cousin was standing on the corner of 24th and Guadalupe, rooted in place like a telephone pole, a skinny, clean-faced kid in a Longhorns cap, his hands crammed deep in the pockets of his jeans. His face was white as he eyeballed the street. I could tell he was terrified. He jumped in the back of the car beside Bayleigh. He said, "You guys are late. You guys are late. He says he doesn't want to do it anymore."
I looked at Emma; Emma rolled her eyes at me. She glanced at Sam in the rearview, made a face. She said, "Fifteen minutes? What's wrong with this guy? Like he's never had to wait? Give me a fucking break." She wheeled us into the alley behind the Urban Outfitters. When she popped the trunk, the cousin looked around. He said, "Right here? Right here? What if somebody sees?" Emma rolled her eyes at me again.
Out in the alley, I grabbed the backpack, shut the trunk. Emma drove away. Then the cousin and I went around the corner and crossed Guadalupe over onto the UT campus. The weather was breezy, an early September day, laughing students were wearing backpacks around us everywhere. The cousin said to me under his breath, "Everyone's watching us, aren't they?"
"Nobody's watching us. Just get your chin off your chest, okay?"
Up in his dorm room, Sam called the dealer. The dealer didn't want to do it anymore. We were late. He'd scored a pound off somebody else in the meantime.
Scored a pound just like that? I shook my head. "Call this guy," I said. "Tell him he ordered it. It came across the country for him."
"You call him," Sam said, offering me the phone.
I put up my hand. "Emma's paying you, right?"
"Two hundred dollars."
"This is how you earn it."
He called the dealer while I looked around his room. It was so plain, textbooks and pencils, not much else, no posters on the walls, nothing colorful. Why was this frightened kid messing around with this? For two hundred dollars?
Sam hung up. Okay, okay, he said, the dealer said he'd look at a sample. Where did the dealer live? I asked him. He said, Upstairs, on a different floor.
I opened the backpack, pulled out the pound, popped it with my finger, fished out a pinecone bud. Sam stared at all the weed in the bag, got scared, went and put his ear against the door. Was he expecting anybody? I asked. No, his roommate had a night class, he said. So what was the deal with all this nervous shit? I said. He said, How could we be sure nobody knew?
I sighed. "Run this up there. Tell him I'm down here getting pissed off."
Sam put the bud in his pocket and left. Ten minutes went by. Then he was back, locking the door behind him. "He doesn't want it. He says it isn't good enough."
"Not good enough?"
"He says he isn't paying five and a half grand for something he can get for three."
I let that sink in, turned it over. Then I said, "He's lying. He can't get this for three."
"Well, he says he can."
"Call him. Tell him if he can get it for three, I'll buy it from him. This is what I do, Sam. And I know he can't get it for that."
Sam took out his phone, called him. He said quietly into the phone, "The guy says you can't get it for that price." He was listening. Then he said, "The guy says he'll buy it from you."
Sam hung up. "He doesn't want to do it."
I shoved the pound in the backpack, zipped the backpack shut, slung it over my shoulder. Take me up there, I said. Why, what were we going to do? Sam asked. We'd done a lot of work to get this here, I told him, we were going to go up there and talk to this guy.
We went up in the elevator. Sam shook his head. "I knew I wouldn't make that two hundred dollars."
"What are you talking about, Sam?"
"He's always bragging to everybody about what a big drug dealer he is. I'm not even sure he really is one."
On the floor the elevator opened at, there were guys in towels coming out of the showers, guys in soccer jerseys and cleats heading for the stairs. When Sam knocked, the drug dealer who could score kush for three opened the door of his dorm room. He had glasses, acne, slicked-back blond hair. He was wearing a pu
ka-shell necklace with a wooden marijuana leaf hanging off of it. When he saw me, he turned pale.
"Where do you score kush for three?" I asked.
His eyes widened at how loud I'd said it. "Dude," he said to hush me, and looked up and down the hall, "not out here." He let us in. He had Bob Marley posters on the wall, a digital scale out in the open on his desk, bongs, pipes, baggies, all the paraphernalia. But I'd already figured everything out. He went and sat in his leather recliner, recovered himself, put on what I guessed he thought was a business face. Should I give him credit for being able to do that, at least? I said to him, "You just copped a pound from someone else?"
He cocked his chin at me. He said, "Sorry, man. You were late. The shit's already on its way over."
"Why'd you order it if you never really wanted it?"
"How was I supposed to know it would get here? From Sam? A guy like Sam? Man, I had to have my backup plan. I got a business to run, you know?"
I picked up a heavy textbook off his desk, looked at it. It was Fundamentals of Cost Accounting.
I said, "This your book?"
He said, "Yeah."
I stepped across the room, swung the book as hard as I could and hit him in the face with it. I dropped the book, punched him over and over. Then he was on the floor, and I was stomping on his head. I knocked all the shit off his shelves, yanked out his drawers, tore down his posters. Was he crying? Good. Could I even piss on him? There was a roll of money on the floor; I grabbed it. The nickel bags of seedy Mexican yard weed of course I left behind. When I shut the door behind me, I saw Sam bolting away, already far down the hall. When he glanced back over his shoulder, I understood he was running away from me.
I took the elevator down, walked out. In the car, I noticed my knuckles were scuffed and bleeding. Emma didn't want the guy's money. She yelled at me, "What's the matter with you? That's my cousin! Don't you care about anything? Are you fucking crazy?"
At the airport, she threw the money after me onto the curb, pulled away. People were watching as I gathered up the money. I went through security, walked to my gate. Then I got on my plane. When I counted the money, it was $167. I stared out the window at nothing all the way home.