by Rob Pierce
“You got anyone else collects this fast?” Not for what Tenny pays, I thought.
“You slow down enough I do.”
“They collect this much?” I knew I had him there. That’s why I had this job. I was crazy enough to scare them out of their money, not crazy enough to make cops care. Not crazy enough to cross Tenny. Until now.
Rico glared at me, like maybe he could hear my thoughts. “Get me some of it tomorrow,” he said. “Make the boss happy.”
“I don’t make people happy,” I said. “Not even me. But I’ll get all the money. I’ll call you when I got it.”
“Call me tomorrow.”
I was tired. I’d started early, worked late, collected from ten guys in fourteen hours. “I’ll try,” I said, and stood. “I better start early.”
But I already had all the money. The trick would be keeping it.
***
Forty large for Tenny left two hundred sixty for me. Everything I stole was straight profit, gambling debts, Tenny didn’t really lose anything if he didn’t collect—he’d want to kill but he might be willing to deal.
Rico’s car was his little bit of flash, a Lincoln Continental. Easy to see, but he drove safely. His guns were probably all registered, but he’d waste a day if the cops pulled him over and checked them all.
I stayed a couple cars behind him, kept close enough so I didn’t lose him at any lights.
He pulled over at a deli. I drove past where he parked, stopped a second for a peek inside, kept going. No imposing black guys in sight. I circled the block, parked a block away. I gave it a few minutes, drove past again. The windows were wide, Rico sat alone at a small table with a huge sandwich. It was probably a good spot for lunch, but I’d never eat there, or anywhere else in this town after today.
I parked a couple spaces from where I’d parked before, waited for Rico to come out. He had a lot of money on him, it figured he’d meet Tenny soon.
Rico came out smiling, a styrofoam coffee cup in his hand. He strolled to his car, got in.
I followed from a couple cars back, same as before. He didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he was luring me in. If he was, I was in too deep to stop now. This would be the meet where I won or I died.
***
I had nowhere to turn if my plan didn’t work. Every woman I cared about thought I’d screwed them. My side of the stories didn’t matter, they weren’t letting me back. So when I went, it would just be away. To a new life, with no friends. Away from this old life with no friends.
Rico drove out of the little suburban restaurant district and into a seedier part of town, where my car stood out because it was small and I stood out because I was white. I kept my distance and Rico kept going. This wasn’t a neighborhood where you’d get out of your car with a lot of cash on you, not even if you looked like Rico. He kept going toward the hills and after a couple miles everything looked nicer. I sighed with relief but if he kept going up my relief would die—up in those hills was nothing but rich man’s houses, and I did not want to confront Tenny on his own turf. Somewhere he knew, sure, but not the place he lived.
There was a stretch of businesses at the bottom of the hill: a grocery store that looked nicer than the usual chains, restaurants that I’d heard of but would never walk into, and the usual dueling coffee shop chains on opposite sides of the street.
Rico drove past all of these and pulled into a parking lot. “Ensley’s,” the sign said, “BBQ,” and the bottom line, “The best damn ribs in town.” In this neighborhood it probably cost too much, but Ensley’s had a couple other locations, and it was true about the ribs. I hoped Rico was meeting Tenny here and not just having lunch; Rico could eat ribs all day.
I parked on the street until Rico went inside, then I moved the Accord into the Ensley’s lot. I needed to make a deal and get out alive, and whatever Tenny thought of my deal, he wouldn’t want me killed in a place he liked to eat.
***
I opened the door a crack and peeked in. They were in the back. A sharp looking black dude in a shiny black suit faced me, a huge goon in a heavy coat on either side of him. Rico sat facing them. It was way too hot for heavy coats, and Rico wouldn’t sit with his back to the door unless he was covered.
Heavy hardware. I took a deep breath, let it go and walked through the door. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but Tenny didn’t know I’d taken his money yet, and when he found out he’d want his cash before he killed me. I wore a thick coat too, and I kept one hand inside where it couldn’t be seen. The other hand held a small travel bag. I carried it across the room.
Rico was the only guy at the table I’d met, and he was the one who couldn’t see me. I stepped close enough that he could hear. “Hey, Rico.”
Rico turned his head. “What’re you doin here?”
The guy who had to be Tenny smiled. The giants on either side of him kept their arms in their coats.
I held up the bag, dropped it in Rico’s lap. It made a little thwap as it landed.
I grabbed a chair from the next table. “The rest of it’s in there,” I said. “Rico, move over.” I nodded to his right.
Rico looked at Tenny, Tenny nodded okay, and Rico moved.
“A little more,” I said, and Rico nudged closer to the thug on his right. I sat. “Tenny?” I asked, to the man who had to be.
Another nod. “And you must be Dust,” he said. “Like in, ashes to ashes.”
“It ain’t goin that far,” I said.
“Then why are you here?”
I spoke softly. “I made your collections.” I tried to look comfortable in the chair, but I had to watch all four of them for crazy moves. “Two sixty this batch, three hundred total.”
Tenny shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talkin about.”
I looked at Rico. His eyes were wide like I was out of my mind. I looked at Tenny again. “I ain’t a rat,” I said. “I know you gotta answer like I’m on a wire. That ain’t what this is.” Both Tenny’s thugs looked like they were just waiting for the order to kill. “You got your boys in line?” I whispered, “Because my gun’s aimed at you.” I leaned back, glanced back. Ensley’s was known for its ribs, not its service. It was mid-afternoon, no other customers, and not a waiter in sight. I looked back at Tenny, didn’t whisper this time. “Your end of the deal is in the bag. Only, I got more expenses than expected.”
“Whaddaya mean, my end?”
“You get fifty percent. I put myself on the line out there or you get nothin.”
“Fifty percent? Of two sixty? Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I shook my head. “Of three hundred. I keep one fifty.”
He leaned forward, his voice soft. “Who the fuck you think you’re dealin with?”
I gave my own low growl. “I’m dealin with a man who’d rather have a hundred fifty large than nothin.”
Tenny grabbed his water bottle from the table and moved it a foot to his right. He sat up straight, looked at the bag in Rico’s lap, looked at me again. “You’re a good soldier, Dust.” He leaned back in his chair, but he didn’t look comfortable. “Even good soldiers fuck up sometimes.”
“This ain’t a fuck up. You pay me to collect. We renegotiated. That’s all.”
Tenny glowered. “That ain’t how I do business.”
“Me neither. I’m a bank robber. This one time, we both have partners. This one time, we both make one fifty large.”
“And why don’t I take the other one fifty from you?”
He knew I had an answer or he wouldn’t have asked. “Business. Who else gonna collect this much this fast?” My right hand kept my pistol aimed at him from under my coat. “I don’t work for you no more, not regular. But this time next year, you give me the special list you can’t collect, we split it again. I’m your Super Bowl man.”
Tenny looked up at me. “Every year?”
I nodded.
Tenny gripped his water bottle. “Fucking sweet. You take half what’s mine once, you wanna
do it forever.”
“How much muscle you gonna pay to collect all this? Gambling money. Straight profit, and with me you get it all fast.”
Tenny let go of the water. I watched everyone’s hands. “I get half fast.”
“You ain’t gettin that half without me.”
Tenny leaned back, nodded. This time his hands came back from the table. I held my pistol tight. One wrong move and this restaurant was a mess. I’d have to kill them all and take my travel bag back.
Tenny’s hands went high, landed on his hair. “I love the Super Bowl.” He held out his left hand and we shook, both our grips strong and dry. “But I don’t want to see you before then.”
“February friends,” I said and backed to the door, my gun beneath my coat steady on my dangerous new partner, my eyes flicking from him to his enforcers and back. We had a deal, and maybe he’d keep it. But he hadn’t argued, so most likely I was fucked. I shut the restaurant door behind me and ran.
***
I watched behind me as I drove, made sure I wasn’t followed. I ditched the Accord in a parking garage anyway, bought a bottle of scotch and took a cab a couple miles to the nearest motel. I nursed the bottle with the TV on, watched the door more than the show. No one knew where I was, but all the money was in my coat, pressed against my chest. It was a heavy coat, and all that money made it heavier. One fifty large, it felt like a heart attack. It didn’t matter how safe I thought I was, someone was coming for it. But I had to wait until night to run.
The TV was one of those deep, hundred-pound monoliths from 1990 something. Ideally I’d block the door with it, but it was bolted into the table it sat on and the table was bolted to the floor. The thing that wasn’t bolted down was the bed.
I maneuvered the mattress sideways and pulled it onto the floor. The bed itself wasn’t heavy, just bulky and rickety. I dragged it, inch by inch, until one end was against the door. Then I dragged the mattress over and flipped it back on top, so there was something solid to slow down anyone who got past the lock and two bolts. I pulled a chair over to where the bed had been and watched a little of some awful movie. I couldn’t tell if it was a comedy or not—none of it made sense, but none of it made me laugh either. Thank God for scotch.
***
I was tired enough to sleep forever, worried enough to barely sleep at all. I was up for good at seven p.m., the sun barely down. In the little time I’d slept I’d managed to sweat a lot, but however good a shower would feel I wasn’t standing in there with my gun and I wasn’t standing anywhere without it.
The place was so cheap there wasn’t even coffee in the room, just a machine down the hall. I got the mattress off the bed, dragged the bed across the room so I could reach the door, and dragged myself down the hall. If the water was dark and hot and contained caffeine it would do. I put a buck in the machine and watched the cup drop. Black liquid sloshed down into it. I took a sip, burned my tongue. Good. Now if there was some caffeine in there, adrenaline would wake me the rest of the way.
The cup was too thin. I switched it back and forth between my hands so neither burned as I walked back to my room. I set the cup on the rug to put the key in the door, pushed the door open and stood back in case someone broke in. No one in sight. I got my gun out and kicked the door open farther, dropped to a squat, looked around the room, grabbed the coffee cup and stood. I stepped in and shut the door behind me.
I walked to the sink with my coffee. I took a slug of it. Weak, basically hot dark water. I drank more of it, splashed cold water on my face. The muck in the cup wasn’t worth the stress of the walk down the hall.
***
I didn’t know if I could go to Theresa, didn’t know if I could face her sober. Well, it didn’t need to come to that. There was a big difference between getting drunk and leveling off. A couple of shots and I’d go there. I should call, but it wouldn’t work that way, that’s not a thing I do. A call was a request for permission. I’d take back what was mine, give back what was theirs. I’d never gone back to a woman before. It had never been what I needed.
I had one set of license plates left over from the PG&E shakedowns. I walked a couple blocks from the motel, found a Nissan I thought I could get into. I got the door open and the engine started and I swapped out the plates.
I still had a key to Theresa’s building. I walked upstairs. I still had a key to her door. I knocked. It was night, around nine o’clock, I wouldn’t be expected but no one else would either.
“It’s me!” I hollered, in case she was in back or in case she was scared it was some criminal breaking in. A criminal, yeah, but I was asking in. Asking. Fuck.
She didn’t answer right away, but when she did she was close to the door. “I don’t wanna talk to you.”
“We have to talk. And it shouldn’t be through a door.” My voice was loud. I didn’t care who heard.
The door stayed shut. Her voice was soft. “You’re worse than I thought you could be.”
I didn’t know what she meant. “I can’t treat you worse than I already did.”
“You fuck.” She sounded almost in tears. “I ain’t talkin about me.”
My voice went quiet. “Open the door.”
“Why? So you—” her whisper cracked—“can kill me too?”
Oh Jesus. “I never—” and I knew I couldn’t change her mind with a door between us. I got out my key and opened the goddamn thing, felt her fight the turning of the knob and pushed it open, locked it behind me.
She stood just inside, fierce but weaponless. She backed up, her usually calm eyes wide.
“I don’t know what the fuck you heard,” I said.
She hunched forward, her hands below her hips like a demented gunfighter in some old western. “You killed Dave.” She took another step back.
Like I’d ever hit her, which was crazy, but I would never hit a woman and I hit Olive with a glass. “You heard wrong.”
“You always hated Dave. You thought Jeremy liked him more than you, you thought I did. But…we weren’t even together, Dust. What the fuck?”
“I didn’t do it, I swear. It was horrible. Can we have a drink?”
She didn’t say no. She stood with her legs against the back of the couch. She wore jeans but I saw her legs tighten. She straightened up, grew half an inch. She waved me to the couch with one hand but I pulled the good scotch from my coat and walked into the kitchen, poured two tall glasses.
She stood right beside me. It felt weird. “No,” I said. “Sit on the couch.”
She took her glass and made her way to a seat on one end. She perched like she might fly away at the slightest prompt. I sat at the opposite end, as casually as I could. The last thing I wanted to do was prompt her.
“I heard shit about Davis,” I said. “About him and boys. I thought about him and Jeremy and I wanted to kill him.”
“You heard what? From who?”
I shook my head. “It was what I saw. But I didn’t see enough to know.”
“What did you see?” Her eyebrows pinched together, neck jutted forward.
“I followed Jeremy to that game store. It was dark, middle-aged men played games with boys. I found out Davis and the dwarf owned the place.”
“Dave and a dwarf?”
“I threatened them. One called the cops. The other had to be guilty.”
“And you thought it was Dave.” She pulled back, but I knew she wouldn’t run and leave Jeremy alone in the apartment.
I leaned forward, kept my voice low. “I figured Davis would talk to me. Figured the dwarf wouldn’t.”
Theresa shook her head fast, tears dripped. “Then why? How?” Her mouth moved again, but no more words came out.
“He must’ve thought what you did. That I went there to kill him. And he panicked, he ran. He fell.” I shivered, grabbed my glass with both hands so the scotch didn’t spill. I looked at her. “I watched him... land.”
Theresa pulled her head back. “You went to him because you had to.” Her v
oice was flat.
I had reasons. They were no better than what she said. I nodded.
“You still wanted him dead.”
I shook my head. “I wanted to talk.”
She stood. “You were going to find a reason.”
“No. He was only an asshole. I leave them alive all the time.”
She took a couple steps back from the couch, toward the kitchen. “You leave strangers alive.” Her lips barely moved, her voice was all throat. I moved to the middle of the couch to hear her better. “Dave was a threat.”
I stood. “You and me were through.” Stepped toward her. “But if Davis touched Jeremy, I’d take care of that.”
Theresa backed into the kitchen until her back was against the counter. Her right hand hovered near a drawer handle. There were long knives in there.
She stared at me and spoke. “But he didn’t touch Jeremy. He was a threat to you. Because you still think I like him.” She blinked suddenly, a couple of times. “Liked him. And you want me back. That’s why you’re here now, right?”
She said it like an accusation. I wanted to take her but I didn’t like her hand near that drawer. My hands were at my sides, ready to grab her, but she wanted words.
“Right?” she said again.
Saying I wanted her should have been easy, should have been what she wanted to hear. Instead it was my motive to kill Davis. I’d left my drink in the living room and I wanted it back. “I didn’t kill him.”
“I can’t be with someone where we even have this conversation.”
“It never happened. We don’t need to talk about it.”
“And you never killed anyone.”
I took a breath, looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” I looked at her again, “how a man kills a man and lives with himself. But people do it all the time.”
“But you—”
“No.” I shook my head.
Peach didn’t count, that fat fuck wasn’t human, and besides I never laid a finger on him. Whatever killing him had done to me, it was done a long time ago.
“But you’ll never tell me about your job.”
“I swear it ain’t killing. Fuck, no one does that five days a week.”