by Tom Kakonis
“Not my dentist.”
“Why not? Company pay for it, your health plan there.”
“Yeah, I know that. But I ain’t goin’ back to that chops bender.”
“You gonna say why?” Jimmie said irritably. “Or keep it a secret.”
“Well, last time I was there—be couple years now—fucker could barely talk. You think I’m bad, you shoulda heard him. Got a voice like a mouse squeak.”
“So? Maybe he’s out whoopin’ and hollerin’ night before, lost it. Dentists gotta go bouncin’ too.”
“Nah, it’s more’n that. See, he’s apologizin’ all over the place for soundin’ how he does. Says he’s been to the quacks himself, an’ they can’t find out what it is.”
“So what? Talkin’ got nothin’ to do with fixin’ teeth.”
“Yeah, but suppose he got the package.”
“Package?”
“Y’know, that AIDS shit they get.”
“You’re sayin’ cuz he can’t talk he got AIDS?”
“Ain’t sayin’ he’s for sure got it. Sayin’ he could.”
Jimmie shook his head slowly. “Y’know somethin’, Lester. You oughta see somebody, an’ I ain’t talkin’ dentists here. Quacks either. Talkin’ shrink. You need some a that professional help.”
“Listen, you think it can’t happen, dentist give ya AIDS? It can happen. Read it in the paper once. ‘Ask the Doctor,’ think it was.”
Jimmie was sorry he ever brought it up, whole fuckin’ topic. He ordered another round, and two bottles were unceremoniously plunked down in front of them. “Well, you do what you gotta do, dentist-wise,” he said. “Was me, I’d go see one.”
“ ’Course, could be another reason he goin’ dummy like that,” Lester said, a trace of a smile working into his lips.
“Yeah? What’d that be?”
“Could be he went down on some lady. Everybody know how dentists always headin’ south on their lady patients, goin’ after Miss Fuzzy down there. Y’know, after they put ’em under with that antiseptic.”
“It ain’t antiseptic, knob drip. Antiseptic’s what y’put on cuts. Word you lookin’ for’s somethin’ else.”
“Whatever. You know what I mean, though. That giggle gas they use.”
“So what’s your point?”
“Point is, he’s maybe down in some parsley patch there, chompin’ away, an’ he gets a wire hair caught in his teeth.”
“You find that out on Shineequa?”
“Not yet,” Lester grinned. “But I’m hopin’ to.”
“Your luck, it’ll come true.”
“You wanta hear the rest of it, this theory I got?”
“You settin’ me up here, this pussy hair talk?”
“Hey, I’m just givin’ you my thought on the matter, is all.”
Jimmie glanced at the fake Rolie on his wrist. Wasn’t even five yet. No tellin’ when Dingo’d show. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”
“So he got this twat hair in his teeth, right?” Lester went on, his grin gradually widening. “Shoulda stopped right there, snip it out. Fuck, he got all the tools, his office there. Don’t even have to go to the barbershop, which’d be a switch for ya, dentist goin’ to a barber for a haircut ’stead of givin’ ’em himself, all your muff divers.”
Lester snickered softly and Jimmie, against his will, joined in, saying, “So you was settin’ me up, huh.”
“No, that part just come to me. Rest is serious.”
“Better be. I ain’t in a comedy mood here.”
“See, I’m thinkin’ he’s all stoked, this dentist, got the lady out, figured he’d keep on lappin’ while he still could. Only his mistake is he swallows, gets it—this hair I’m talkin’ about—stuck in his windpipe. Too small for one a them X rays catch it, so the quacks got no idea what’s wrong, his voice. But that’s what’s makin’ it go out on him, that hair.”
Lester laid his hands on the bar, signaling theory’s end. Jimmie looked at him sourly. “That’s your thought, is it?”
“That’s it.”
“Know what I think?”
“What?”
“Think it sucks.”
At about the same time this somewhat disjointed dialogue was winding down, Dingo was pulling his Lincoln into the alley behind the Norseman Lounge and Supper Club. He wore a poplin blazer, cranberry colored, pale gray silk sports shirt, pleated chinos, leather Docksiders: the very picture of casual elegance. All things considered, he was feeling good, alert and expectant, but generally good. A quiet weekend had cooled his temper after Friday night’s little upset, and he was genuinely hopeful his brainless partner had settled that matter satisfactorily, as per his instructions. Loose ends always annoyed him. Even less did he care for petty disruptions in the routine conduct of business. Sadly, another such would necessarily be the result if the delinquent account in question wasn’t cleared. Lightbulbs and other inventive paraphernalia were, in his experience, the equivalent of collection agency notices, sometimes effective, often not. Accordingly, he came strapped with snub-nosed Ruger .38 and butterfly knife. Neither, to his thinking, had any connection with intemperate emotions or passion. They were simply a reliable means of ensuring sound business procedures.
He stepped out of the car’s chill air and into a blast of lingering late afternoon heat. The Norseman’s back door opened onto a supremely disagreeable expanse of a room clogged with sweaty bodies, clamorous with racket, suffused with a fog of smoke and reeking of noxious grill odors issuing from the kitchen portal to his immediate right. What a place to do business! Nevertheless, it was Dingo’s philosophy, acquired at no inconsiderable cost to himself at the Facility and in the years following his release, you played the hand dealt you, striving always to improve yourself, elevate your status in this shifty world. Some of the great fortunes in this country sprang, after all, from beginnings even more mean, and he aspired to nothing less.
Ignoring the surly glances of the pool players, he stood in the doorway long enough to command the attention of a slutty-looking waitress and to pass along a directive to her loutish boss. Then he returned to the car, switched on the engine and the air, and occupied himself with thoughts of better days ahead. In a moment the door swung open, and Jimmie, his mouth fitted out in squirmy smile, came hurrying over and climbed into the passenger seat, saying, just a shade too quickly, “Got a shitload a buzz for ya, Dingo. Kind you gonna like to hear.”
His persistently toxic breath filled the small space between them, and Dingo had to restrain an impulse to avert his head. “I’ll be the judge of that,” he said coolly.
Jimmie extracted a banded wad of bills from his shirt pocket, handed them over. “How’s Lester comin’ through grab ya?”
Dingo counted the money carefully and, satisfied with the total, gave him back his half. Relieved now of the unpleasant burden of enforcement, he allowed, “This is indeed welcome news, Jimmie.” He liked that word, indeed, the genteel rhythm it brought to one’s speech. But he also added, “If long overdue.” You never want to give away too much.
“Yeah, well, least that one’s off the books.”
“True. Spares us another ugly scene. In the future, though, there’ll be no more credit for that oaf. You understand that, Jimmie?”
“Absolutely,” Jimmie said, the resolution in his voice underscored by a sharp dicing motion with the blade of a hand. “Everything strictly cash basis with him, here on out.”
“What else?”
Jimmie looked startled. “Huh?”
“I understood you to say there was more good news.”
“Oh. Yeah. Gets better.”
He produced a sheet of paper which Dingo inspected impassively: a list of routine orders—booze, cigarettes, a few small appliances and the like, supplied through their usual channels. Nothing extraordinary here. “And the Rolex project,” Dingo said, “how does that go?”
Now Jimmie’s lips opened in a prideful smirk. “Savin’ the best for last.”
“Which is?”
“How’s two-ten sound?”
“Two-ten?” Dingo repeated, most agreeably surprised.
“That’s where the figure’s at right now. Oughta be even more after I catch the second shift tonight, third in the morning.”
“That would be a handsome score indeed,” Dingo said, truly impressed. Yet there was something about the breathy delivery (offensive of itself) and calculated escalation of all this sunshine news that set him on guard. He knew Jimmie.
“Hope to shit, handsome,” Jimmie echoed, jabbing a finger spiritedly at nothing in particular, air.
Also the jittery gestures and darting eyes and the accelerated speech, a little too bubbly for Dingo’s tastes. Not your happiest signals. So what he did was take a small tube of Binaca from a blazer pocket and shoot a spray of it into his mouth in the wan hope his partner might someday pick up on the broad hint, and, that done, he said very deliberately, “Is there something else you have to tell me, Jimmie?”
Jimmie shrugged in confusion. “Whaddya mean?”
“My impression—correct me if I’m wrong—is that you have more news to report. Not necessarily good.”
“Well, matter a fact, was another thing I was meanin’ to mention.”
“And that is?”
“Could be we got us a little pro’lum.”
“Really. What would that be?”
“You remember that deal we worked out with the kid? Couple months back?”
Dingo tilted his head quizzically. “Kid?”
“Yeah, grunt wanted me to see could we fix up his buddy with a regular white kid, adopt? Paid us twenty long for it? Remember?”
“Oh, yes, that one. Side action. We didn’t realize much profit on it. Cute little boy, though. Actually, it was a break for him. There’s a lot worse places he could have ended up.”
“Sorta like we done him a favor, huh.”
“Favor indeed. So what’s the problem?”
“Pro’lum is, grunt who’s the go-between, that deal, dumb polack name a—”
Dingo put up a silencing hand. “No names, Jimmie.”
“Yeah, right, okay. Anyways, he comes by today, this polack, says his old lady seen one a them missin’-kid posters. Thinks it’s the same kid.”
“Nothing unusual in that. You’d expect the parents of a lost child to be looking for him.”
“Yeah but see, she’s friends with the people who got him, this kid. Which is why the grunt, polack, why he’s talkin’ to me.”
“That’s no great problem, Jimmie. All you have to do is tell this polack to tell his wife to keep her mouth shut. A wife has to obey her husband. You’ll find that in your Bible.”
“That’s pretty much what I done. More or less. Tol’ him ain’t nothin’ to sweat, everything legit, 20K was just juice, bought ’em a little special treatment. Poot like that. Said his old lady musta got a wild hair up her ass, that poster she seen.”
“There you are. End of problem.”
Jimmie lowered his eyes to the floor mat, studied it as though he had found something intensely interesting there. “Except that ain’t all of it,” he mumbled.
“What’s the rest?”
“Well, see, I’m comin’ off shift today, an’ there’s this citizen in the lot handin’ out flyers, got a kid’s picture on it, name, age, all that shit.”
“And you think it’s the same child?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me none.”
“What do you suppose is his agenda, this citizen?”
“Way I see it, he gotta be onto somethin’, showin’ up at the plant like that. I’m thinkin’ we’re maybe sailin’ close to the rocks, this one.”
Dingo was silent awhile. He stroked his chin thoughtfully. Gazed through the windshield. When finally he spoke, his voice was even, calm, but icy as an Arctic wind. “No,” he said, “that’s where you’re mistaken, Jimmie. Not we. You. You’re the one with the problem. What goes on inside that plant, that’s your business.” And when he was finished, there was on his pursed lips the faintest expression of scorn, like a seal of malice affixed to the message.
“Sure, Dingo, I know that. Sure. But y’got this citizen sniffin’ around, he maybe run into the polack or the one got the kid. That happen…well, fuck, I dunno. Could happen.”
“We don’t seem to be communicating,” Dingo said, still addressing the windshield. “You and I, we’re independents, run our own program. The people who supplied the child, they’re wops. Maybe connected, maybe not. Doesn’t matter. All wops are tight. And they don’t favor bungling. Neither do I. You see what I’m saying, Jimmie?”
“Hey, I hear ya. Thing of it is, though, these fellas I gotta deal with, they’re straight-arrow. Ain’t the kind y’can crowd.”
Now Dingo faced him. A dangerous glint invaded his eyes, but his mouth was set in a smile, wizard smile, full of secrets and the gift of foreknowledge and the pathology that accompanies that dreadful gift. “You’re hearing, but you’re not listening. Anybody can be crowded, if it comes to that. Who should know better than yourself? You saw it right here, Friday night. Remember?”
“Yeah, I seen it, all right.”
“Put your mind to it, this problem of yours. You’ll find there’s always a solution.”
“Do what I can,” Jimmie said dismally.
“Meantime, we have more urgent business to attend to. Let’s plan to meet here, say, Wednesday night. You should have the final figure on those Rolex orders by then. And progress to report on this other matter, I trust.”
Jimmie nodded, slid toward the door.
“I’ve got confidence in you, Jimmie,” Dingo said in parting. “You’re an orderly man.”
But driving away he felt not so much confidence as vexation at another of those loose ends dangling, and a peevish irritation at this blundering hemorrhoid of a partner he was obliged to work with. Also a mounting impatience for the time to arrive when he could shuck him like a bad habit, move on to the next plateau in his ascending career. Which time the Rolex transaction would certainly hasten, given those numbers he’d heard, exceeded by far his wildest expectations. So till then he’d simply have to tolerate the alliance. Endure. Maybe bring along an air freshener next time they conferred.
They were seated across from each other in living room chairs. The central air he’d gone into hock for last year supplied a steady hum, backdrop to the heavy silences that fell between them. Also a counterfeit nip in the air, welcome relief from the blistering day he’d endured but chill enough for him to keep the suit coat on, though his tie was loosened and collar button undone. She wore only shorts and sheer mauve blouse with a faint floral pattern in it, looking almost like the summertime Lori he remembered. Except for the color—or want of it—of her exposed thighs, pale, blueish hue of a cadaver, this wife of his who had once so effortlessly turned nut brown under the first wash of sunlight. Slim, elegant legs they were yet, and Marshall wondered idly how long it had been since he’d entertained a sexual thought, never mind an urge. Long. “Are you comfortable in here?” he asked her, to fill one of the silences.
“I’m fine. If it’s too warm for you, I can turn the air up.”
“I was thinking just the other way around.”
“I’ll turn it down, then,” she offered, starting to rise.
He motioned her back. “No. Leave it. I’m good if you are.”
The climate-control issue resolved, another gap opened. Finally she breached it with a murmured “I’m sorry you were disappointed today, Marsh.”
“Don’t be,” he said with bitter flippancy. “Wasn’t your fault.”
“I know how much you’d hoped to turn up something out at that…place.”
“Yes, well, man proposes and Norse Aluminum disposes.”
“Tell me again how it went.”
“You’ve already heard it.”
Which was true. He’d been through it with her earlier, arrived home and slumped dejectedly in this very chair, a fu
ll account of his latest failure, exercise in self-flagellation, rich in humiliating particulars. All but the mention of the bars yet to search, a detail he was less than eager to share. He could predict her reaction to that one.
“Tell me anyway,” she said.
There was a quiet insistence in her voice, a kind of engagement he’d not detected for some time. Not an altogether bad sign. Therapeutic, maybe, the simple act of speech itself a slender link with reality. Unless it was only a labored effort after a display of concern, the way one will try to draw out a chronic depressive or soothe a fretful child. If the latter, it was a role reversal strange to him, and so he said summarily, “It’s like I told you. They refused to let me into their sacred factory. Rules, you know. As if that word explained everything. Justified all.”
“But they let you hand out the leaflets?”
“Grudgingly.”
“What did you do between?”
“You mean between morning rejection and afternoon futile gesture?”
“Yes.”
“Killed time,” he said vaguely.
“How, all those hours?”
“Oh, had some lunch. Found a bookstore to wander through.” A lie, of course, but a small one, and in this case kinder than the truth. Lying came easier to him these days, and anyway, nothing served by revealing a waning need for the bleakness of these rooms and the desolation of her company.
“You should have come back here. Rested. You’d feel better now if you had. Not so tired.”
Trust a woman to focus on the inconsequential. The sure feminine instinct for irrelevancy. “I’m not tired,” he said irritably. “Frustrated, but not tired.”
“Please don’t be angry, Marsh.”
“I’m not that either. Not with you. It’s just that it wears you down after a while. All those slammed doors. Borderline spite. The Germans have a word for it, can’t recall what it is.”
“Schadenfreude,” she volunteered.
“That’s the one. Pleased at someone else’s misfortune. Spite for its own sake.”
“I wish there were something I could do to help you.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I do, though. I want to help. Believe it or not, I don’t enjoy being this burden I’ve become. I’m trying to get…better. Stronger.”