The Carrier

by Preston Lang

  “What do I tell her?”

  “Nothing until the job is done. And then you lie about where the money came from.”

  “What’s my share?”

  “You get fifteen percent. I think it’s close to a million in the bag.”

  Marcus couldn’t do all the math in his head, but he knew this was serious money.

  “Half we give to Inez—that’s for Luis—and thirty-five percent goes to me.” Danny rattled off the figures quickly like he was giving an annual interest rate. “What Inez is going to do is put a tracker on the car. All we have to do is follow the car. And we don’t have to ride right up on it; we just stay within a few miles. Then we wait for him to make the pickup, and we find the right time to jump him. That might be the tricky part, because he’s not going to make too many stops, but he’s got to stop somewhere to sleep. That’s going to be when we take him.”

  “And we don’t know where the driver is going to pick up the money?”

  “I told you, out in the corn somewhere. We just have to stay close enough, so we can jump him when he stops at some motel on the way back.”

  “When you say jump him, what does that mean?”

  “We might have to hit him pretty hard, but we are not killing anyone. No one wants that.”

  “Why do you want me for this?” Marcus asked.

  “Come on, dog. Do I have to get sentimental? I like you and everything, and you may dig that I have a limited circle of friends. I know you need the money, and you look like the kind of guy I want in case there’s fisticuffs.”

  It made sense: Marcus as muscle for a rough job. Hell, even Saida treated him that way. She wouldn’t go for this, though. Maybe he could say there was a weeklong construction job down in Virginia that his cousin got him on. Could he get away with a lie to Saida?

  “Fifteen percent of a million dollars is fifteen thousand?” he asked.

  “No, fifteen percent of a million is one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That’s what a bone surgeon makes in one year. You’re going to make that in one road trip.”

  That was more than all the money he’d made in his entire life. It would mean he could pay off all of Saida’s tuition and debt, and then they could live pretty highball for as long as he could see into the future. He was going, and she would come around when he had money in hand, wouldn’t she?

  CHAPTER 6

  Willow had two choices: either she could get rough with Cyril, or she could put a few cards on the table. But she didn’t know how to get rough other than by shooting him in the leg, and that couldn’t be done quietly. She decided to march him back to the motel room and open up a bit.

  “A little while ago, I started dating Tony Braxton,” she said.

  “Okay, well that’s really your business. I mean, the age difference and—”

  “See, here’s how I know you’re lying: you don’t think I’m crazy. You pretend you don’t know anything about money or Tony Braxton, but here you are, treating me like a rational player. If you really didn’t know what was going on you’d be freaking out—this sexy girl pulled a gun on me and said she was dating some old R&B singer.”

  “You don’t think I’m freaking out?”

  “No. And I will shoot you if I have to—probably in the leg.”

  Willow lifted the gun and aimed at his left knee—so much for conversation.

  “I’m going to count down from ten, but I might shoot at any moment. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven—”

  Cyril was not quite brave enough to call her bluff.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Just calm down.”

  There was a subtle shift in tone; he’d put aside playing the innocent.

  “So where’s the money?”

  “There is no money. I don’t carry money. Who told you I did?”

  “Tony.”

  “You’re dating him?”

  “Whatever you want to call it. I can’t say I’m fucking him, because I’m not. He’s not into that.”

  “What is he into?”

  “He’s got these army men, little plastic toys. What he does is first he gets naked, then—”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “You get it, really? So tell me what happens next?”

  “I mean that I don’t need to know the details.”

  “So you were on board with the army men? It’s only when he gets naked that you can’t take it?”

  “Pretty much. What did he tell you?”

  “He said you were carrying money out west.”

  “Okay. Willow. I don’t have any money.”

  “He said you did. He also said you were the best courier by far.”

  Cyril looked annoyed at the compliment.

  “Why is he talking about me to anyone?”

  “So you are carrying?”

  “No. I have nothing with me. If I did I wouldn’t be stopping for drinks and making new friends.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “I have to make a pickup—product.”

  “Then you must have money. Whichever way things are moving—drugs go one way, money goes the other.”

  “They’ve got special bank transfers or something, better ways of moving money than putting it out on the highway.”

  “So why does Tony say you’re carrying cash?”

  “Because he’s an idiot.”

  “You think?”

  “You’ve met him.”

  Her stomach was starting to turn on her—this was supposed to be easy.

  “Tomorrow I’m going to pick up dope. Okay? I’m out here to do that. Right now I have nothing. Would I have been so lax about letting someone follow me, or go to a bar and leave the money unattended, or pick up a girl with a gun? Would I have done any of those things if I had anything with me?”

  “Maybe. Maybe you’re sloppy.”

  “Tony Braxton said I was the best, right?”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “Okay. There you go. Thank you. Do you see how this is all a misunderstanding based on the fact that Tony is an idiot?”

  Had she come all this way on Tony’s useless story? Was it possible that a deviant addict who called himself Tony Braxton was capable of passing on bad information?

  ***

  Cyril had been such a good courier for three years. He even worked a real job—part-time web design—just to make it all look good on paper. But the driving was changing him, and tonight was the worst kind of proof. It had been coming on for a while. He’d cursed out his noisy neighbors, and he’d almost attacked a guy at work. A few weeks back a programmer named Larry had gotten in his face about some bad code. Cyril stared at the guy—Do you understand that I just dropped off thirty kilos of heroin, and you’re a 108-pound desk jockey with an M.C. Escher poster on your wall?

  “Why don’t you just worry about yourself?” Cyril had said.

  “Because—you—affect—me. I have to work harder for same money when there is you on job,” Larry said, breaking it down like a really smarmy kindergarten teacher.

  “Talk to me like that again and I’ll break your stapler.”

  “I would never talk to you at all if you could actually get your work done in any kind of reasonable timeframe. I don’t talk to you for fun.”

  Cyril broke Larry’s stapler. He snapped it back against its natural direction and then slammed it on the desk. Larry retreated behind the black mesh of his Aeron chair, and Cyril came very close to lifting the chair and crushing the little programmer with it. The fact that he hadn’t made him feel like he’d failed, like he had unfinished business. So now to compensate he was acting tough in bars and picking up dangerous women? Sloppy, so sloppy, because this dangerous woman had his wallet, his passport, his car keys, and his cell phone. And he really needed that phone. Maybe he should just make a break for it, abort the mission. That wouldn’t make anyone happy, but it wouldn’t get him killed. Or would it? Maybe couriers were like resumes: one mistake and you tossed them?

  “Are you even listen
ing to me, honey?” Willow asked.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Here’s the thing you have to realize: even if I hadn’t showed up, you were already in a whole lot of trouble.”

  “We’ve all got problems.”

  “No, but you really have some serious crisis. In fact, meeting me may have been the luckiest thing that ever happened to you.”

  It sounded unlikely, but Cyril was willing to hear her out.

  CHAPTER 7

  Saida was lying on the couch, frowning over a textbook when Marcus walked in the room and hovered. She lost her place.

  “What?”

  “I got to tell you something,” he said.

  “Hmmm,” she mumbled, looking back at her book.

  Saida was always mad with Marcus these days. She blamed him for bringing her out to this wasteland and then losing his job. He hadn’t found anything permanent in almost a year. The best he could do for right now was some part-time landscaping, which was embarrassing for her to have to tell people. Yeah, sometimes Marcus mows a lawn. So she didn’t. She told her sister Margaret that Marcus drove a forklift now. Saida even researched the kinds of licenses forklift operators needed to get. Marcus needs me to help him study for the OSHA test, she’d say to her sister and then get off the phone.

  “I have a job,” Marcus said. “Saida, can you listen to me?”

  “Okay, what?”

  “It’s going to take me out of town for a few days, maybe a week.”

  “What kind of job?”

  Saida put down her book. What was the big deal, an odd job out of town? Why was he acting so bizarre? He was going to Pittsfield to clip a hedge? Why the big announcement?

  “It’s just a job,” he said.

  “Is this a landscaping thing?”

  “No, it’s a—it’s a little bit different.”

  “How?”

  “I can’t tell you too much about it, but it’s—it’s not completely . . . with the law.”

  Marcus made circular gestures with his hand.

  “Are you doing a magic trick?”

  “No, I’m just trying to tell you—so you know—there’s risk in it.”

  “What are you doing? What stupid shit are you about to start?”

  “The less you know, the better. Right? I can’t tell you any of the when and where and who, but I should tell you the basic truth of it. Because you have a right to know that I’m putting myself on the line—for us.”

  “Who got you into this?”

  “Never mind that.”

  “It’s the—that pervert, that little guy? You’re working with him?”

  “No comment. Okay. No comment at all.”

  “What kind of work does he want you to do? There’s no money in groping ladies on the bus—none at all.”

  “It’s just some work. Okay? So what do you think?”

  “I think . . .”

  Saida let her sentence die. The concern that she should have felt for Marcus heading out to do something dumb just wasn’t there. He was about to rob a liquor store or ship meth to Alabama or something even more stupid. If he was lucky he would end up in jail. But Saida surprised herself by how little she cared.

  “How much do you figure to make?” she asked.

  “A lot.”

  “What’s a lot?”

  “I should come back with 200,000 dollars. Around there.”

  He had to be making that up—just picked a really big number out of the sky. She wished he’d said something smaller, more believable.

  “You think you’ll be safe doing this?”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, all right, then.”

  “You’re okay with this?”

  “Am I okay with this? No, but you’re going to make up your own mind, right?”

  Did she think Marcus was going to succeed with his little caper? No, probably not. But Saida had known crack dealers riding in fifty thousand dollar SUVs who were at least as dumb as Marcus. Maybe he’d pull it off: a one-time thing could happen to anyone. Maybe the sex criminal was smart. You had to be at least a little smart to get away with being a pervert, right? And that’s where it started to fall apart. Danny Chin hadn’t gotten away with anything, had he?

  “I’m doing it for us,” Marcus said. “Because I haven’t taken care of you like I should. I was supposed to be bringing in more while you were going to school. But now finally I think that can happen.”

  So Marcus was going gangsta? If that’s what she’d wanted, there were plenty of Ricks in Brooklyn she could have had. No, she was done with Marcus one way or the other. If he succeeded and brought back a few dollars, great. She’d help him spend until it ran out. If not, she was gone even sooner. There was a girl at school who’d take her in short term. This was the smart way to play it, even if it made her feel like a callus bitch.

  Marcus was still standing above her, looking sincere and committed.

  “Really, baby, it’s going to be fine,” he said.

  “How long are you going to be away?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a few days, maybe a week.”

  “When are you leaving?”

  “I don’t know, soon. Really, I’ll tell you when I know, but I just don’t know right now.”

  “All right, then. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

  When he lifted her, she didn’t tell him to put her down. They went to the bedroom and made love like it was necessary, the two of them surprisingly present to the act.

  ***

  Marcus’s phone rang just after three the next morning. He shut off the ring and hopped out of bed before Saida had a chance to complain. He kissed her sleeping head, and she hummed ambiguously.

  He met Danny out in the parking lot, many hours earlier than either underemployed man was used to. It was pitch black on a cold Monday in November, and Danny had to scrape a little frost from the windshield of his car. It was the first time they’d been together outside of the apartment complex. Danny took the receiver out of the glove compartment and turned it on. He showed Marcus the blip that represented their target. It was sitting there on a map of a residential street in Dutchess County, New York.

  “He hasn’t left yet, but we want to get out in front of him,” Danny said, starting the car.

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know his name or anything, but he’s just one man and he’s definitely unarmed.”

  The device was small, and more than anything else, it looked like an old hand-held electronic game.

  “Inez just slapped it on his car. He must be leaving soon.”

  Danny drove west through the darkness. When the sun came up they stopped for breakfast near Wilkes Barre. The car on the tracker still hadn’t moved.

  “At this point we should just sort of chill out. You want to gamble?”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “There’s a casino in Bethlehem.”

  “I don’t know about gambling. I mean, we want to have cash to spare, right? In case we need it?” Marcus asked, but he also felt like gambling, or skydiving, or running with the bulls. He felt ready for any task all of a sudden.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Danny nodded across the room. “Some elegant ladies at the far table.”

  Marcus glanced over.

  “Don’t look, man,” Danny said.

  “Is that a good idea?”

  “How else are we going to meet ladies? I have always found that the best way to meet a lady is to walk over and say hello to her.”

  Just then a beeping, like a no-nonsense ringtone, came from Danny’s pocket. He took out the receiver and smiled.

  “Our man is moving.”

  CHAPTER 8

  When Duane walked into the bar and saw the girl, he knew trouble was coming sooner rather than later. Who was she, and why was Tony Braxton sitting with one arm around her, drinking liquor when he’d called specifically to have a serious conversation with Duane?

  The girl was slim, about average hei
ght, very pretty, probably Dominican or Puerto Rican. Tony was looking horrible: his hair was thin and greasy and he’d lost weight since the last time Duane had seen him. It was pretty clear that the girl let his arm stay where it was for something other than personal pleasure.

  Yeah, Tony was a mess. Duane had told Top that once, and Top had shut Duane down—not a topic of conversation. If Duane could leave these clowns, he would, but he still had too much invested with them at the moment. Top was moving money through bank transfers in a way that was supposed to make it all clean and scrubbed, but it was taking a long time for any of it to get back to Duane. So he had to sit through this nonsense; he had to meet Tony in this ridiculous sports bar.

  “Duane,” Tony yelled across the room. Loud, stupid Tony, looking like a strung out panda bear.

  Tony stood up and gave Duane a punch on the arm—playful and malicious. In a different time and place Duane would have hit back hard, right in the mouth. He’d try not to do anything like that, but he wasn’t going to act as if this was a fun game.

  “Okay. Now we’ve got Duane in the house,” Tony said and glanced at the girl as if he’d said something really clever. She nodded and smiled.

  “This is Inez.”

  There was a very faint scent of candy coming from her. Then again there were a lot of competing smells in this busy room.

  “I’ve got to take care of something later tonight, so let me know what’s going on,” Duane said, not sitting down.

  “Say again?”

  It wasn’t particularly loud in the bar, but Tony was losing his hearing. It was another reason to hate him.

  “Maybe we can have a minute alone, and you can let me know what you have to tell me.”

  “Let you know? What do you think this is about?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we can take a walk outside and you can tell me why I’m here.”

  “Duane, are you going to be prickly? Is that it?”

  Duane could certainly be prickly, and he could also break a man’s jaw for calling him less offensive things than prickly, but, of course, this would not be one of those times. He simply said nothing.