At Their Own Game

by Frank Zafiro

  “I don’t plan on making a habit of it.”

  She was quiet for another moment. Then she asked, “Jake, what kind of business are you in?”

  “Show business,” I said.

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. I play three nights a week down at Gibliano Brothers piano bar. It’s a great gig.”

  “You’re not funny. And I’m serious.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on my boots. “Helen, the less you know about my business, the safer you are.”

  She was quiet while I laced and tied my boots. When I stood up, she whispered, “I knew it was something like that.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” I said. “Nobody gets hurt. I’m not a bad guy.”

  “No,” she said. “I know you’re not.”

  I left her in the bedroom.

  On my way out of the house, I thought about bringing my gun. I even paused in the kitchen next to the drawer where I kept it. But this was to be a scouting expedition, not a fight. With Falkner crawling up my ass, every trip ran the risk of getting stopped by the cops. I could own a pistol since my convictions were for misdemeanors and not felonies. But I didn’t have a concealed weapons permit so carrying a gun in the car or somewhere on me was illegal. I wasn’t about to give Falkner a slam dunk.

  During the few moments I spent considering this, Helen appeared in the bedroom doorway. Her body was draped in a sheet.

  “I’m not just here, Jake,” she said. “I’m here for you.”

  I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” I said. “Okay.”

  FIFTEEN

  I knew that Ozzy worked out of a convenience store on East Mission Avenue. I didn’t know if he owned the place or not but he spent time there in the tiny office in the back. As I drove to the store, I found myself appreciating the wisdom of his choice. No one questions the traffic in and out of a convenience store. He could do whatever kind of business he wanted with little fear of attracting attention. And if he happened to own a piece of the store, too, that was just gravy.

  The nice part about it was that it was equally as easy to sit off a convenience store unnoticed. I found an open spot in front of a residence almost a block away. I parked and turned off the engine. Then I leaned back and watched the Circle K.

  I spotted Randall’s truck parked at the side of the building. That didn’t necessarily mean Ozzy was there but I figured the odds were good.

  Vehicle and foot traffic was heavy, but everyone looked like a customer. Several looked seedy enough to have business with Ozzy but I saw no evidence that they were there for anything other than beer and cigarettes.

  I touched the bridge of my nose where it was still tender. My mind worked through the problem in front of me. I tried to think of a way to force Ozzy to return our money. There didn’t seem to be many options. Like I told Matt and Brent, it wasn’t like we could go to the police. Negotiating hadn’t worked. The obvious answer was violence.

  I didn’t want that, which was exactly why I’d stayed small-time and in the property crimes arena. With dopers, the risk of violence and informers were too high.

  Ozzy had been involved in the dope scene for at least a couple of years. Violence might not be a daily event for him and Randall but I knew they were no strangers to it. The people they dealt with didn’t understand subtlety. They understood a smack to the head. Or worse.

  Besides, I think he liked the violence.

  I wondered how many guys he had on his payroll. I wasn’t terribly worried about people who muled for him but what about the dealers? He was more of a wholesale guy, so how loyal were the guys he sold to? My guess was not very. But if he needed muscle, would they throw in? And how much muscle did he employ directly?

  Ozzy knew who I was. He knew all of us. If we stole our money back from him, whether by stealth or force, he’d know it. And he would come after us for daring to do that.

  That didn’t leave many options.

  I smiled a little, remembering what Helen said about whether an option was acceptable or not. True, she said choice but the concept is the same.

  Time passed. Cars came and went. Beer, gas, and cigarettes flowed from the Circle K. Randall’s truck didn’t move.

  The longer I sat, the more my mind drifted toward Helen. Her explanation for leaving made more sense to me every minute. I imagined her escaping a house full of sexual abuse and sliding right into a house with the ultra-controlling exactitude of Kyle Falkner to contend with. It couldn’t have been easy.

  So did she use me to break free of that situation?

  Yeah, I decided. She did. No question. I was a tool. A means to an end.

  But was that all?

  For a long time after she left, I thought so. Of course, back then I just thought she used me as a sexual plaything until she got bored, or maybe until my hungry looks drifted from lust to something else, and she got scared. I never considered that she used me to steel herself to leave Kyle. Hell, Kyle and her father both, from the sounds of it.

  I sighed. It was all a whole lot of guesswork. She was convincing, but the reality was I wanted to believe her. And there’s no end to how far we will go to talk ourselves into a truth that we crave.

  Still, the passion had been undeniable, the connection was electric. It still was.

  And then there’s the fact that she came back.

  Why would she come back, if not for me? If not because it was something real to her, too?

  “Christ,” I muttered. Why did all of this have to happen at once? Ozzy, Falkner, and Helen? Any one of them would take some serious concentration to navigate through, but all three at the same time? A perfect storm.

  I sighed again, and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands.

  There was a clunking sound to my left. It took a moment to recognize it as my door handle opening. My eyes snapped open. The driver’s door was flung wide, causing the car to rock. A pair of small, iron hands grabbed onto my shoulder and chest and jerked me out of the driver’s seat.

  “Wait,” I started to say, but was cut off when the owner of those hands smashed my body into the side of the car.

  I grunted in pain.

  He hauled me around to the back of the car and hurled me toward the sidewalk. I tried to stay on my feet, but stumbled and fell, skittering across the asphalt and into the curb.

  “Grab him, Mikey.”

  I raised my arms defensively. A sharp pain exploded in my kidneys. I curled up reflexively.

  “Did I fucking say kick him?” growled the same voice.

  “No, but Day—”

  “But what?”

  “He was just laying there. It was too good to pass up.”

  I looked up at the man standing at the rear of my car. He was no taller than five-eight or five-nine, but he was almost as broad.

  “Just pick him up,” he said to Mikey.

  I scrambled backward, pushing with my feet. At the same time, I tried to get my hands underneath me and push myself up into a standing position.

  “Ah, hell,” Mikey whined. “You shoulda let me kick him a few times.”

  I made it upright and got a good look at both of them. The big guy’s face and neck had a chiseled look to them. His arms hung at his sides like a pair of clubs. I knew that look. It’s the kind you get in prison.

  “You might be thinking of running,” he said, pointing at me. “Don’t. Mikey here will run you down. And while he might not be able to kick your ass, he’ll latch on until I get there. And then you’re looking at a world of hurt.”

  I glanced at Mikey. He was a skinny tweaker who stood grinning at me with black teeth. If he had been a crackhead, I might have run. Th
at breed of doper loses steam fast. But meth heads? They’re the triathletes of the drug world.

  “What do you want?” I asked the big guy.

  “I don’t want anything. My boss wants to talk to you, though.”

  “Who’s your boss?”

  He cocked his head at me slightly. “Come on. Really? Are we gonna play the ‘I don’t know’ game?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “No? Good, then.” He gave me a wave of his hand. “Let’s go.”

  I weighed my options. Run. Fight. Or go talk to Ozzy.

  More than anything, I found myself wishing I’d brought my goddamn gun.

  “I won’t ask nicely again, chief. Let’s go.”

  I decided to go with him. I was reasonably certain that Ozzy wasn’t going to kill me at the convenience store where he did most of his business. That would bring too much heat. But if this juicehead and his tweaker partner tried to get me into a car, the fight was going to be on.

  “All right,” I said.

  He gestured with his hand for me to go first. “And be careful crossing the street. People drive like assholes here on Mission.”

  We jaywalked onto the north side of the street and took the sidewalk toward the store. I resisted the urge to rub my kidney where Mikey had kicked me. Instead, I walked as slowly as I could, thinking.

  Maybe I could get Ozzy to reconsider. Or maybe I should try to talk him into letting us sell the dope. Like Brent said, it was just one time. That might be the reasonable solution to this messed up situation.

  Of course, moving the dope with Falkner all over me would be tricky. But I could find a way. I was smarter than him, and I knew his playbook. I could beat him at his own game.

  As we neared the store, Mikey trotted ahead of us, going past Randall’s truck and around to the rear of the store.

  “Follow him,” the big guy said. “We’ll use the back door. No cameras there.”

  I walked around the big-tired truck along the side of the store. When I rounded the corner, Mikey stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the wall.

  There was no back door.

  I turned as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. A sledgehammer blow caught me behind my left ear, sending me sprawling toward the dirt. Black and white dots danced before my eyes. When I landed on the ground, my lungs seemed to stop working.

  “Nice one, Damon!” Mikey yelled.

  I tried to get to my hands and knees, but my body wouldn’t listen to my brain’s commands. The ground heaved and pitched radically left and right as if I was on the deck of a ship. My chest ached for air.

  A distant thud landed on my back. A second later, pain flashed through me.

  Another blow, this one just behind my shoulder.

  And another.

  The last one seemed to glance off of my upper arm. I didn’t feel anything other than some light pressure when it struck me.

  “That’s enough, Mikey.”

  “Aw, come on, Day. Randall said this dude used to be a cop.”

  I groaned. The blackness in my vision disappeared. The white dots were fading, too. The horizon stopped its wild bouncing, settling into more of a gentle rocking motion. I forced myself up to my hands and knees.

  “All right,“ Damon conceded. “One more.”

  I tensed for the blow. Mikey giggled, and shuffled his feet. A moment later, my world exploded in agony as his foot caught me square in the balls.

  “Oh, yeah!” Mikey sang out. “Bulls-eye!”

  I dropped heavily to the ground. My stomach heaved but nothing came out. I reached involuntarily toward the injury, cupping my groin.

  “More like balls -eye!” Mikey crooned. “I got that fucker good. Did you see that, Day?”

  “I saw it,” Damon said softly.

  “Kicked that cop right in the jigglies. He won’t walk for an hour and he won’t fuck for a week.”

  Damon didn’t reply.

  Another surge of throbbing pain rose from my balls into my gut. I heaved again. This time, my stomach let loose. I retched out onto the dirt.

  “See that?” Mikey was jubilant. “I kicked him so hard he puked!”

  I moaned and retched again.

  “Oh, man,” Mikey said, quieter. “That’s disgusting.”

  “Judas Priest,” Damon muttered behind me. “You’d think you never kicked anyone’s ass before.”

  Every fiber in my body screamed at me to get up. Fight, run, do something. But the deep pain in my groin was almost paralyzing. And the horizon continued to tilt slowly back and forth.

  Damon’s steel grip pulled me to my knees. My arms hung limply at my sides. The tightness in my chest loosened slightly. I took a wheezing, partial breath, and stared up at him.

  “Here’s what you need to know,” Damon said. “You’ve got no business with my boss. You got that? None. Stay away from here. In fact, stay away from anywhere he might ever be. Understand?”

  I nodded weakly.

  “Yeah? Well, for your sake, I hope so.” He snapped another punch down at me, catching me flush on the cheek. Stars on blackness exploded anew.

  There was a pause. I could almost feel Damon hesitating, trying to decide if I’d had enough or not.

  I forced my hand in the air, and beckoned at him with a clumsy wave. His eyes narrowed but he leaned down closer to me.

  “Fuck you,” I rasped, and spit at him. The bloody spittle flew weakly from my lips. Most of it globbed down my chin onto my shirt and not on him, but I didn’t care.

  Damon shook his head at me, wiping the blood and spit from his sleeve with his free hand. “Mistake,” was all he said. Then he clenched his fist and clocked me on the jaw.

  SIXTEEN

  I woke up seated awkwardly in the front seat of my car. Bloody spittle covered my chin and the front of my shirt. My head and my groin both pounded in painful rhythm with my heartbeat. The vision from my left eye was blurred.

  Despite all of this, I took note of it in a detached fashion, as if I were outside myself. I was watching a movie of Jake Stankovic waking up from a dreadful ass beating, and while it wasn’t pretty, it was his problem, not mine.

  I shook my head slightly.

  Big mistake.

  Church bells went off between my ears. Nausea swept over me. I leaned back and took a deep breath through my nose, exhaling long and steady through my mouth.

  Another breath.

  The nausea didn’t go away, but it slackened. The throbbing remained the same.

  Carefully, I reached for my keys, still in the ignition. I started the car, and pulled away.

  After I was out of Ozzy’s immediate neighborhood, I pulled into a parking lot and set the emergency brake. I tried to breathe my way through the pounding pain, but it felt like every step forward was followed by two steps back. If it weren’t for the eerie dissociative feeling that kept me mildly detached from everything, I think I would have thrown up again. Or passed out.

  I forced my mind to work. It took a few moments to gain any traction.

  I’d just had my ass kicked. I should go home, recover, and figure things out.

  I blinked. That made sense.

  Then I got hit by a one-two punch in the form of my head gonging and my balls throbbing. I was also aware of the pain near my kidneys.

  Maybe I should go to the hospital, I decided. I’d lost consciousness. I probably had a concussion. And what if Mikey’s kicks did some serious damage to my kidneys or something?

  I dropped the emergency brake and put the car into gear, but hesitated.

  Hospitals ask questions.

  I thought abo
ut that, then decided not to worry about it. Short of a gunshot wound, they weren’t required to report anything to the police. And I didn’t have to tell the hospital any of the details.

  The drive to Deaconess Hospital took me another fifteen minutes. I parked in the emergency room lot and shut off the car. I reached for the door, then had a thought. I checked the console. My phone was still there.

  I dialed Helen’s number. The fact that I already had it memorized amused the separate part of me that sat in the passenger seat and watched this drama unfold.

  She answered on the second ring. “Jake?” Her voice was laced with concern.

  I swallowed. “Helen. Listen.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I mean, it’s all right. Just listen.”

  “Jake, are you okay? Are you on your way home?”

  “No. Listen, I’m up at Deaconess. At the ER.”

  “Oh my God,” she breathed.

  “It’s all right. Or it’s going to be, anyway.”

  “What happened?” she asked, her concern making her voice a pitch or two higher.

  “I’ll explain when I see you,” I said. “But will you come up here? I…I need you.”

  “Of course. I’ll…just a second.” She held the phone away and told someone, “He’s at the emergency room. Can you give me a ride?”

  In spite of everything, a coldness washed over me. “Who’s that?” I asked.

  Helen didn’t answer. A moment later, the phone rattled, and her voice came back on. “Jake? Your friends are here. Matthew and Brent? They were worried about you and came by the house. One of them will give me a ride. I’ll be there soon.”

  Relief swept through me. “Okay,” I said. “Great. See you soon.”

  “See you soon,” she repeated back to me, and hung up.

  I ended the call. Then I slid the phone into my pants pocket

  Opening the door, I was fine. Standing up, not so much. I grabbed onto the roof of the car to steady myself. The constant sway back and forth continued. I shuffled out of the doorway, still holding the car, then closed the door. After a moment, I let go of the car carefully, and staggered toward the ER entrance.