Snow Job

by Charles Benoit

  “Yeah. I’ll go with you.”

  THE WAITRESS REFILLED our cups, putting the check face-down on the table. The morning rush was over, so we could take our time. I covered the last pancake with blueberry syrup. “Pancakes are why they invented mornings.”

  Dawn reached behind and grabbed the small basket of creamers and sugar packets from the next booth. She stacked four sugar packets together, tapping them on the table like a deck of cards before ripping off the tops and pouring it all into her cup. “I’m warning you now, I make a wicked omelet. Ham, cheese, tomatoes, onions, a little crumbled bacon. I’ll make you forget all about your pancakes.”

  I didn’t doubt it. She’d already made me forget about a lot of things.

  “When we get to Florida, I’ll get a job as a short-order cook at some breakfast place like this. I’d probably have to start as a waitress, but once they see me behind the grill, they’ll promote me. That’s what I’d do. I mean, not forever—I want my own restaurant someday—but just to start. What about you? What’s your dream job?”

  She wasn’t the first person to ask me that question.

  It seemed to come up at least once a year, starting back in kindergarten. Back then, me and every other kid in America were going to be astronauts. I could do a really good drawing of me in a silver spacesuit, floating around a Mercury space capsule, a sure sign that I had the right stuff for the job. By sixth grade it began to feel like school was never going to end, so I didn’t think much about what I’d do if it did. Then eighth grade came and that summer I saw Zod stab a guy. That led to me spending time on the job with some adults who didn’t treat me like a dumb kid, who told me I was brave and honest and tough for testifying in court. It was only a few weeks of my life, but it stuck with me, gave me something bigger to think about. So I told her.

  “I’d be a cop.”

  She sipped her coffee and looked at me over the top of her mug. “I can see it.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It could be. Some of the cops I know are cool. They’ll bust you if you’re breaking the law—well, most laws—but they’re not like assholes or anything. You can trust them, know what I mean? They’re not on some power trip. They take care of people. You’d be like that.”

  I shrugged, afraid to admit that I liked the way it sounded.

  Dawn flipped over the check. “Damn. I should’ve stuck with toast.” She pulled her wallet from her purse and put a ten on the table. “We won’t be able to eat like this when we’re on the road.”

  “What do you think we’ll need, cash-wise?”

  “The Beetle’s too small for three people—”

  “Three?”

  “Terri,” Dawn said, like it was obvious. “My sister. That’s why we’d have to take your car. Is that okay?”

  “It should be,” I said, not sure if it would be.

  “Pintos are good on gas, but it’s a long way and we’re assuming we won’t have any car troubles. And once we get there, we can’t be sponging off your friend.”

  “Karla won’t mind.”

  “But I will,” Dawn said. “I don’t want to be owing someone right off the bat. That’s how I screwed up last time.”

  There was a story behind that line, I was sure of it, but I didn’t want to hear it. The less I knew about her time with Reg, the better.

  “We don’t need much,” Dawn said. “I think with two thousand, we’ll be okay.”

  “Two thousand?”

  “I know, it sounds like a lot—”

  “Because it is.”

  “Not when you consider we’re moving all the way to Florida.”

  “We’ll get jobs when we get there. That’ll give us some cash.”

  “Right, but even if we get hired the first day, it’s going to be a couple weeks before we’d get paid. And Terri’s going to need stuff right away.” She opened her wallet again and ran a thumb over the bills, counting as she went. “I’ve got eighty-five dollars to my name.”

  I didn’t need to check my wallet. “I got thirty-two bucks on me. Friday I’ll get a check for sixty-three fifty-two. My regular pay plus holiday pay. Then next Friday another one for the same amount.”

  “Okay,” Dawn said, writing the numbers on a napkin. “That works out to . . .”

  “Two hundred forty-four dollars and four cents.”

  Dawn smiled. “So that means we’re still—”

  “One thousand seven hundred fifty-five dollars and ninety-six cents short.”

  “Now you’re just showing off.”

  “No. If I was showing off, I’d tell you that at two sixty-five an hour and my current work schedule, it’s going to take me . . .” I closed my eyes, rounded up and did the math. “Fifty-six weeks to earn the rest. Not counting taxes or spending money. At that rate, we’re still here this time next year.”

  Dawn slumped against the back of the booth. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

  “We can still go,” I said. “We’ll figure something out along the way.”

  “Come on, Nick. Be realistic.”

  “Well, we gotta do something. It’s a new year. It’s the best time to make a change. Plus it’s warm in Florida.”

  “I can look for a job again,” Dawn said. “Reg went ballistic last time I tried. He thinks it’s insulting if his girlfriend has to work.”

  “But it’s okay to hit her.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll see if I can get more hours at the Stop-N-Go. Not that it’ll help much.”

  Dawn’s eyes went wide and she leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper. “There’s tons of cash at Reg’s place. I could just, you know, slip a few bucks off the pile now and then, miscount the money . . .”

  I laughed. “Are you insane? You want to end up like Freddie?”

  “Geez, hold it down.” She glanced around the restaurant, the closest customers five booths away and the waitresses all huddled by the register. “Reg is coked-out all the time. The guys all know he’s losing it. He’s so paranoid about them, he wouldn’t suspect it was me. And, besides, Freddie was sloppy. I’m not.”

  “I bet that’s what he thought, too. So don’t even think about it.”

  She smiled.

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m serious. You gotta promise me you won’t do anything like that.”

  “Fine,” she said, crossing her heart. “I promise.”

  I sipped my coffee. I had already run down a dozen moneymaking ideas in my head. The ones that made sense—getting a second job, selling my stereo and records—made little money or took too long, and the ones that were crazy—faking a holdup at the Stop-N-Go, buying a whole roll of scratch-off lottery tickets—were just really stupid.

  That left one idea.

  It made sense, sort of, and it wasn’t too crazy.

  There was some risk, sure, almost enough to take it off the list.

  Almost.

  I thought it through again, and it was starting to sound all right.

  “Reg’s guys,” I said. “How’s he keep them around?”

  “What do you think? He pays them.”

  “A lot?”

  She looked up. “You want to work for him?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s dangerous.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I’ll be careful.”

  “He’s dangerous. He’s got a short fuse. You piss him off . . .”

  I remembered how Reg clocked Freddie for daring to speak, and I remembered the dark look in Reg’s eyes when he thought Dawn was being sarcastic. But I also remembered that I had weathered Reg’s stare, that I stood there, nose to coke-dusted nose, and didn’t blink, all but challenging Reg to try to steal from the Stop-N-Go.

  It was true, Reg was dangerous.

  But he was also a businessman.

  A businessman who needed someone he could trust, someone who wouldn’t just tell him what he wanted to hear, someone who gave his word and stuck by it.

  Someone li
ke me.

  I looked down at my hands and caught my reflection in the coffee, staring back up at me. I flicked my wrist and the image swirled away.

  “Tell me about Freddie’s job,” I said.

  I KNOCKED TWICE on the door and waited.

  I could hear the TV but no voices. Dawn had told me that there was always someone there, but that didn’t mean that they would open the door, especially if they didn’t recognize the vehicle. I’d been there twice before, once parking right out front in my own car, but who could say what they would or would not remember. Reg might have already forgotten the offer.

  Dawn had spent fifteen minutes trying to talk me out of taking the job, then another twenty telling me how to play it. “Don’t act all cool,” she had said. “You’ll only look nervous. Just be yourself. And if you change your mind—”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “If you do, do it before the run starts. Because once it starts, there’s no stopping it.”

  I rapped the door again, harder this time, but the laugh track on The Brady Bunch still sounded louder. Zod’s red Camaro was in the driveway, and there was a Toyota pickup parked on the side lawn. There were tire tracks in the snow that led to a garage out back. I assumed that was where Reg parked whatever it was he drove. Probably a T-bird. Reg looked the type.

  I knocked a third time—loud and long enough not to be ignored.

  It was funny, I knew I should be scared, but I wasn’t. There was no question that Reg was crazy dangerous, maybe a killer, and working for him—even for a day—could get me in shit so deep I’d never see daylight. The smart thing would have been to forget the whole idea—the job, Florida, a new life. Everything. My old life was survivable. Boring, but survivable. It would be stupid to throw it away now just for the chance to play warlord and come to the rescue of some black-haired princess. But as the deadbolts clicked back, it didn’t feel stupid at all.

  “Well, well, well,” Cory said, letting me in, then locking the door behind me. “Look who came to visit.”

  I stomped the snow off my boots and unzipped my jacket. The TV played to an empty room, and there was no one at the table. And instead of pot or beer, the room smelled of pasta sauce.

  “Fun day at school?”

  I hadn’t gone, but I didn’t want any questions, so I said, “It was school.”

  “You reconsidering Reg’s offer?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Don’t play games. Either you want in or not. Don’t waste our time.”

  “Yeah, I want in,” I said, the words sounding strange as I said them. “Just a job, that’s all. Nothing more than that.”

  Cory laughed. “No shit, dude. Sit down. I’ll get the man.”

  I sat on the couch and had a look around.

  There was an end table next to the couch and, on it, a lamp, an ashtray, and a chewed-off pizza crust. On the floor was a dirty carpet, a beer can, a Penthouse magazine, and a lot of cigarette burns. On the TV, Marcia Brady was about to get her nose broken by a football. At the other end of the room were the table and chairs where Reg held court, his dumpy castle in a dumpy part of town. Crime paid, but apparently not enough for decorating.

  Down the hall I could hear mumbled voices, then a door opening, and then there was Reg, strutting into the room. He took a seat at the table and fished a cigarette out of the pack in his shirt pocket. There was a lighter on the table, and he used it, sucking in a long drag, letting it out slow. The gray-white smoke hung in the air between us. “What do you want?”

  I swallowed. “You said I could do some jobs for you.”

  Reg slung a skinny arm over the back of his chair and took another drag. “You said no.”

  “I uh . . . I changed my mind.”

  More smoke. “Maybe I did too.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I sat there and waited. Half a cigarette later, Reg said, “Steve tells me I can trust you. But I don’t trust anybody. Not even him. What makes you so damn special?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “He banging your sister or something?”

  It wasn’t meant as a joke, but I had to laugh.

  Reg almost smiled. “You never know with that bastard.” He ground out his cigarette on a paper plate. “Why do you want to work for me?”

  “I need the money.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  “I have a job at the Stop-N-Go, but it doesn’t pay much.”

  “You told me all about it last time. Or did you forget?”

  “No, I didn’t think you’d, um, that . . .”

  “You didn’t think I’d remember,” Reg said. “Let me tell you something, Nick, I don’t forget anything.”

  I felt my stomach dip.

  “You know why I can trust you, Nick?”

  “Because Steve said . . .”

  “I don’t need Steve’s help, you got that?” He lit another cigarette and threw the lighter down on the table. It bounced once, then fell to the floor. “I know I can trust you, Nick, because you’re not stupid. Stupid people do stupid things. Like talk to cops. Now, smart people—people like you—they know better. They know the business they’re in and know that it comes with risks. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. You follow me, Nick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good to know. ’Cause if you’re not . . .” Reg shook his head.

  “No, I got it.”

  Reg took a drag on his cigarette, held it in as he thought. “Stupid people. You’d be surprised how many there are. They rip me off—I come for them and get what’s mine. And when I find them, that’s when things get ugly. Baseball bat to the jaw, hammer on some knuckles. Steve likes that shit. He stuck a knife clean through a guy’s arm once, if you can believe it.”

  I could believe it. I saw it happen.

  “Nothing personal. Just business,” Reg said. “Stupid people, they don’t get that. Smart people understand. That’s why I like doing business with smart people. People like you.”

  My chest was pounding and my throat was too dry to swallow, yet I kept my eyes up, kept my legs from shaking. A voice in the back of my head was yelling something, but the words Dawn had whispered that New Year’s Eve morning drowned it all out.

  Reg twirled his cigarette between his long, bony fingers. “So, Nick, let’s do business.”

  IT WAS CLOSE to ten p.m., and I was driving down a road I’d never been on when I saw the flashing red lights in the rearview mirror.

  Technically, I shouldn’t be driving after nine, but once the cops found the cocaine on the floor of the back seat, they probably wouldn’t even mention the time.

  The plan had sounded smooth when Reg had explained it.

  “You know the McDonald’s on Lyell Ave.? Be there eight thirty on the dot. Park in the back, driver’s side close to the chainlink fence, but not too close. Leave the door unlocked. Go in and buy some something. I don’t care, buy anything. When you come out, your car will be locked and there’ll be a gym bag on the floor. Leave it there. Then head west on Ridge Road. This is the address. It’s way the hell in Lockport, so you better have enough gas. No shit you don’t know where it is. There’s a map on the back. It starts at the Exxon station right when you get into town. When you get there, go to the side door and knock. They’ll do the rest.”

  So at eight thirty—after a quick stop at an office supply store—I parked at the McDonald’s, went in, bought some fries, came out to find the car locked and a gym bag on the floor of the back seat. I left it there and headed west, stopping ninety minutes later at the Exxon station to check the map, then holding the map in one hand as I drove, trying to match pencil lines and misspelled street names to the real thing. I rolled up to a dark intersection, looked both ways, and went straight.

  That’s when I saw the flashing lights.

  Instinctively, I checked the speedometer—thirty in a thirty-five. Not speeding.

  No. They knew.

  I co
uld hit the gas and take off like in the movies, maybe get a whole mile down the road before the cops had me.

  I could wait till the cop came to the window, and then punch it, but that would just piss off the cop and probably get me shot.

  I flipped up the directional and pulled to the side of the road, my heart ripping apart, my nuts crawling into my gut.

  I’d have to play it cool.

  Is there a problem, officer? Oh, I thought I came to a complete stop. No, it won’t happen again. My license? Of course. I know it’s after my driving curfew, but it’s just that I’m kinda lost. What gym bag?

  I could feel the sweat on my lip beading up, my left leg bouncing, my hands wet and shaking. Play it cool? Wasn’t happening. The lights inched closer as time dragged the terror out.

  Please.

  It wasn’t my idea.

  I just wanted to help her.

  The siren wailed, growing louder, the lights brighter now, blinding in the rearview mirror.

  Gimme a break.

  Just this time.

  I promise . . .

  I swear to god . . .

  Please.

  The ear-splitting siren rattled the windows, and I felt my stomach heave as red light filled the inside of the car before flying past, disappearing down the long, empty road, leaving the dark and quiet night behind.

  TWO MINUTES LATER, I was still sitting there, not moving, barely breathing, my hands still on the wheel, the right directional still clicking.

  That’s when the laughing started. A grunted chuckle at first, then a stupid giggle, then an all-out bust-up, the tears rolling down my cheeks as I held my sides. It went on for longer than it was worth, but it felt good, and it helped uncramp my stomach and slow the leg shakes. I wiped the sweat from my hands, took a dozen deep breaths, then flicked the directional the other way, and pulled back onto the road. As for that voice in my head, the one making all the promises? I cranked up the Ramones and made it go away.

  THE GUY WITH the beard and glasses said, “What are you, like, fifteen?”

  I sat up, which was hard to do on the beanbag chair. “I’m twenty,” I lied.

  “Like hell. You ain’t even seventeen yet.”

  I was, but I’d said twenty, so I had to stick to it.