Down To Sleep

by Greg F. Gifune

  “Look,” Delbert said, trying to steady his voice, “you know as well as I do I’ll probably end up having to help him out, so you might as well tell me. What the hell’s he gotten himself mixed up in now?”

  “He told me he needed to buy some guns,” Petey sighed. “He was dealing with Melody somebody, can’t remember her last name, don’t matter anyway. You know Tommy Spizone, right?”

  “Yeah,” Delbert said through a hard gulp. Everyone knew Tommy Spizone was a fast-rising soldier in one of the largest crime families in New England.

  “Well, Tommy’s doing some side deals that don’t involve the family, you follow?” Pete rolled his eyes and scratched his crotch. “He had these guns he wanted to turn over real fast, guns he could sell and pocket the profit on without having to send the usual tribute along to the don. Slack offered to take them off his hands, then he went to Jimmy the Wedge and Jimmy told him he’d give him an even grand. Slack figured he’d borrow five from me, buy the guns, sell them to Jimmy and turn a quick five hundred minus the vig for himself. It’s only because I know Tommy and Jimmy are serious players that I lent him the money in the first place, but I just wanna make sure Slack don’t fuck up.”

  Delbert frantically signaled the bartender for another drink as Pete’s words began to gel in his mind. “Wait a minute. You said Tommy had these guns?”

  “Yeah but he had his girlfriend doing the deal, Melody something,” Pete grinned. “Nice piece of ass, that one.”

  The pains shooting across Delbert’s chest were so severe he thought for a moment that he might be having a heart attack. “O-Okay, I gotcha.” He forced a smile, tossed some money on the bar and snatched his new drink from the bartender. “Well, if I see him, Petey, I’ll make sure he does the right thing, okay?”

  Petey slapped a beefy hand on Delbert’s shoulder. “Thanks, man. I knew I could count on you. I’m done for the day, heading home. You need a lift?”

  “No thanks, I’m gonna have a few more drinks before they throw me out.”

  “All right,” Pete said, sliding down off the stool. “See ya soon.”

  Delbert smiled and sipped his drink, not allowing the tears to come until Pete had waddled away.

  * * *

  Slack sat at the foot of the stripped bed, face in his hands and sobbing uncontrollably. The suitcase was zipped shut and leaned against the bureau, and in two plastic garbage bags was Melody somebody, the stained sheets, and the towels he’d used to clean the room. “How the hell was I supposed to know she was in with Tommy?” he gasped.

  “You think some broad just appears out of nowhere with guns to sell, Slack? What’s wrong with you?” Delbert continued pacing near the door, trying his best not to look at the now clean machete resting atop the bureau.

  “Well she never said shit to me about Tommy,” he cried. “How the hell’d Petey know?”

  “Because Petey’s connected up to his eyeballs himself. He checked it out.” Delbert glared at him before resuming his pacing. “Christ on the cross, Tommy Spizone. He’s a fucking psychopath. He finds out you killed his girlfriend—”

  “Boyfriend.”

  “Whatever.” He bit his lip; afraid he might cry again too. “We’re both dead.”

  Slack rose slowly to his feet, his bottom lip quivering. “Not you, Del. Just me.”

  In that moment Delbert saw his entire past with the only person he’d ever known as a friend. The years growing up in the old neighborhood, playing stickball and chasing girls. Hanging out on the roof of their building when his old man had had too much to drink and was knocking his mother around, or when Slack’s mother had brought home one of her new boyfriends. Their first dates; their first arrests; holidays; the good times, and the bad. And he remembered the day he was released from the joint after serving four years for breaking and entering and possession of stolen goods. Only one person had been waiting for him that day, smiling widely and welcoming him home. And that person was Martin Slack.

  “Okay,” Delbert said, “here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna take her and the guns and the cash and get out of here. We’ll dump her off someplace, then you’re gonna take the cash and the guns and go home, pack a bag, and get the hell out of this city. I’ll go home and pretend none of this ever happened. I never saw you tonight—we clear? I’ll try to buy you as much time as I can, I’ll claim I saw you around and that should give you a head start. Get yourself a bus ticket and go to New York. Bring the guns, move them once you get there and then take off again. Get as far away as the money’ll take you. You hear me, Slack?”

  He nodded, eyes spilling tears. “You ain’t coming with me, Del?”

  “I can’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, wondering if one of Tommy’s guys are waiting for me every time I turn around. I can’t live like that, man. I’m sorry.”

  “When am I gonna see you again?”

  “Not for a long time, Slack,” he said softly. “Maybe never.”

  “I really fucked things up good this time, didn’t I?” Slack pawed the tears from his eyes, bent over and grabbed the garbage bags. “I’m sorry, Del.”

  “I know, man. I know.”

  * * *

  By four o’clock Delbert was back at his apartment. Sitting on his bed chain-smoking, he couldn’t rid himself of the look on Slack’s face when they’d said goodbye. They’d managed to slip from the hotel unnoticed, and Melody had ended up in a trash bin in an alley behind a Chinese restaurant. Then they’d gone their separate ways, Slack with a suitcase full of guns and five hundred bucks in cash, Delbert with a machete, memories, and not a hell of a lot more.

  Somewhere deep inside he realized Slack would never make it on his own. Poor bastard couldn’t cross the street without help, how the hell was he going to outrun guys like Tommy Spizone and Pete Mancuso? He’d be dead within a day, but Tommy wouldn’t do it quickly, he’d do it slow and painful. He’d make Slack suffer; he’d make an example out of him. Put his head in a vise; cut his balls off with a hedge clipper; probably skin him alive. And there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do to stop it.

  Delbert stared at the phone on the nightstand, devouring cigarettes one after another until the sun had broken through the darkness and begun its slow ascension. He’d walked through a lot of shit storms in his life, but never anything this totally fucking hopeless. With a lengthy sigh he reached for the phone.

  * * *

  Slack answered the door to his apartment even before Delbert had a chance to knock; smiling just like he had when they were kids and he’d convinced his best friend to go along with one of his destined-to-lose schemes. “Hey, man,” Slack grinned. “I’m so happy you called. Come on in.”

  Delbert joined him inside, closing the door quietly behind him. “You all packed?”

  Slack nodded like an excited child. “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s get the hell outta here.”

  “You don’t have to do this, you know.” Slack was still smiling but Delbert knew that just like him, he was trying not to cry.

  “You’re my best friend,” Delbert said softly. “I can’t let you do this alone.”

  “I’ll get us outta this somehow, Del. I swear to God I’ll make this right.”

  “I know you will.”

  Slack gave a firm nod. “I don’t mean to sound gay or nothing…but…I love you, man.”

  Delbert watched as his friend’s face blurred through the tears. “Let’s go.”

  Slack bent to pick up his suitcases, unaware that Delbert had reached into his jacket and removed the machete. He turned around in time to see it coming, but too late to prevent it from doing its job.

  Even before his headless body had collapsed to the floor, Delbert dropped the machete and vomited at the site of Slack’s head flying through the air. It landed with a dull thud several feet away, and he vomited again.

  The door opened, and Pete Mancuso sauntered in, put his hands on the mounds of fat where his waist should have been and looked aro
und. “Jesus, you cut his fucking head off?”

  Delbert braced himself against the wall and choked back more bile. “The suitcase with the flowers has the guns,” he said. “The cash is in there too.”

  “Fuck, his body’s twitching and shit. Nasty.”

  “Are we set?”

  Pete nodded and grabbed the suitcase. “We’re set.”

  “You make this right, okay?” Delbert faced him, tears streaming across his face.

  “I’ll take care of it.” Pete watched him a while. “You done the right thing, Del.”

  “I don’t never do the right thing.”

  “Far as I’m concerned,” the fat man said, moving toward the door with suitcase in hand, “you never had nothing to do with any of this. I found out what Slack done, and I whacked him out and got Tommy’s guns and our money back. Your name won’t even come up, Del. I give you my word.”

  Delbert nodded. “What about Slack?”

  “Just walk away.”

  And on that particularly dreary early morning, Delbert did just that. He walked to the curb, hailed a cab and decided it was time to leave the city. With what little money he had he’d buy a ticket to anywhere and start over, and on those rare occasions when he’d allow himself to think of his best friend, he would remember the good days, not this one.

  As a taxi separated from the morning traffic and pulled up alongside the curb, a light drizzling rain began to fall. Never a good sign, especially when you have travel plans.

  And especially when your name is Delbert McCree.

  HOAX

  I watched him beat her to death. Much as I wanted to stop it—to do something, anything—I couldn’t. Wasn’t in the cards. Hell, they didn’t even know I was there. Neither killer nor victim knew me, but now, I knew them. I knew them both. Whether I wanted to or not.

  It was getting late, but I’d started drinking around noon, so what the hell did I care? Through the grimy bar windows I noticed with indifference dusk had begun its slow creep across the city. I wrestled the last cigarette from my second pack of the day and crushed the empty in my hand with a delightful crinkling sound that reminded me of the way my chest sounds while I’m hacking up half a lung. My eyes searched the bar. Empty glasses; damp napkins, and peanut shells. I shook my jacket, listened for the rattling sound and traced it to my side pocket. I blinked the boredom from my eyes, focusing on the small box of wooden matches advertising some restaurant I didn’t remember having ever gone to, and with as dramatic a sigh as I could muster, rolled the butt between my lips. As the match flared and I watched paper and tobacco glow fire-red, I saw—Maxie, she’d said her name was—standing there, arms folded, head cocked, back leaned against the mirrored bar. Christ, I’d almost forgotten she was there. Just beyond the trails of smoke climbing toward the ceiling, as if even they too couldn’t escape my company fast enough, she offered a playful smile I assumed was meant to be compassionate despite her theatrical approach. Apparently she was that type. Always trying too goddamn hard.

  Ignoring the ache in my back I looked over my shoulder and searched for a cigarette machine. The far wall next to the entrance housed the only vending machine, some charity offering gumballs. “Don’t you sell cigarettes in here?”

  Maxie shrugged, grabbed a rag from somewhere behind the bar and wiped down the counter area between us. “We got rid of it,” she said in a husky voice, odd in such a petite, girlish-looking woman. “Some of the customers who come in for Happy Hour were complaining about all the smoking.”

  “We’re in a fucking bar, aren’t we?”

  Maxie gave me an obligatory laugh, tossed the rag over her shoulder and leaned forward against the bar, drumming long, acrylic, hot-pink fingernails along the high-gloss surface. “I thought you said you were meeting somebody?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “So where is he…or she?”

  I held my watch up in front of my face and squinted through the blurry haze, but never did give her an answer. My arm felt like it weighed a ton so I dropped it back down to the bar and slumped over my drink, cupping the glass with both hands and leaving the cigarette dangling between my lips. “Tell me something,” I finally said, noticing as if for the first time the way her little Wonder Bra-encased breasts were nearly spilling out over her clingy blouse. “You ever hook up with any of your customers?”

  She smiled, revealing a nearly perfect set of chalk-white teeth while feigning flattery. “You trying to tell me you didn’t see the wedding band on my finger? I don’t cheat on my husband.”

  “Yeah, ‘cause marriage stops everybody else.”

  “But then, I’m not everybody else, now am I?”

  “Naw,” I said through a humorless laugh. “You’re special.”

  Maxie grinned at me, combed a renegade strand of dark hair from her face with a finger and hooked it behind her ear. “Maybe I’m happy.”

  I took another pull on my cigarette, already wondering what the hell I was going to do once it was spent. “Christ, that can’t be it.” I threw back the last of my drink, slid the glass at her and motioned for a refill.

  “How come I’ve never seen you in here before?” she asked, scooping up my glass.

  “Wanna know something?” While Maxie mixed me another whiskey and water I studied her ass crammed into a pair of Levis at least two sizes too small and decided her silence meant yes. “I come to the city all the time. Never been in this particular bar before, I don’t think, but can’t say for sure. I’m easy to miss, I guess.”

  She spun around, pushed a fresh napkin in front of me and placed the drink on top. “I don’t know if I’d say that.”

  “Trust me. Once I’m gone you won’t even remember me,” I told her. “Like I was never here at all.”

  Maxie returned to her position leaned against the bar, oblivious as to what her cleavage was doing to me. “And why is that?”

  I raised my drink in mock salute and felt something similar to a smile twitch across my face. “My existence is like a hit play, and I’ve got the act down, you know? Same show every day, over and over and over, plus weekends. No matter how bad it gets the curtain keeps opening and people keep showing up.”

  “Come on,” Maxie said, nearly whispering even though we were the only two in the place, “it’s not all that bad, is it?”

  “Who knows?” I wet my lips and sucked the last drag off the cigarette I could without getting all filter. “It’s all an illusion—like everything else. We just shuffle around and pretend we know the score, pretend to be what and who we’ve convinced ourselves we are. It’s really not anymore complicated than that.” I crushed my cigarette in a green glass ashtray and searched my pockets for another pack even though I knew I didn’t have one. “Can I bum one of your smokes?”

  “You just put one out.”

  “Your point?”

  Maxie shook her head and wandered over to her purse next to the cash register. This time she caught me in the mirror checking out her behind but didn’t seem to mind. She came back with a pack of some sort of menthol things and dropped them in front of me. “So if you’re so unhappy why not change your life, or at least try?”

  It was a good question, but one I didn’t have an answer for. I stared down into my drink as if hoping to find the answer there but came up empty. There’s nothing quite so frightening as honesty. “I’m not unhappy, exactly. I’m just stuck being me, and being me isn’t what I’d classify as bliss, if you know what I mean. I guess I didn’t turn out the way I was hoping, but then, I never do. That’s only one of my talents.”

  “That, and feeling sorry for yourself from the sounds.”

  I laughed and it was genuine for the first time in recent memory. “Come on, I wallow in the shit for a living.” I raised the drink to my lips and smiled at her through the glass. “Don’t take that away from me too.”

  “Well, one day you’ll be dead and gone,” she warned, “and it could all end in the beat of a heart.”

  “So true
.”

  “It’s the here and now that counts.”

  “God, I hope not.” I tore open her menthols. “But like I said, none of it matters anyway. I don’t have any choice. Things are the way they are and I can’t do a damn thing about it.”

  Maxie reached for the cigarettes and took one for herself. “Is that supposed to be deep or something?”

  “No, just the truth.”

  She lit a cigarette and did a French-inhale, breathing the smoke up and in through her nose as it escaped her mouth. Hadn’t seen that since the last high school girl I’d run into. “Well, it sounds like bullshit to me.”

  “But that’s the whole point, my dear.” I threw back another gulp. “I’m just saying it’s all crap, Max. It’s all one big fucking illusion, a slight-of-hand trick. Hey, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

  Maxie propped an elbow on the bar and rested her chin in her palm, dark eyes staring right through me. “So you’re saying nobody’s really happy? Nobody’s life is what it actually appears to be? It’s all like some sort of carefully rehearsed hoax?”

  “From where I’m sitting that’s how it seems,” I said. “But hey, I don’t claim to have all the answers either. All I know for sure is, I don’t even know what happiness feels like. I could probably be knee-deep in joy and never realize it.”

  “Then I feel sorry for you.”

  I leaned closer. “Enough to sleep with me?”

  She refused to smile but her eyes gave her away. “Sorry, I don’t screw for sympathy. If I slept with you—or anyone else for that matter—it’d be because I felt something. A connection, something genuine.”