Safe

by Ryan Gattis

  He’s got two hands on the table. A cup of coffee’s steaming in front of him. Even when he’s sitting down I can tell he’s six foot and a solid 180, 185. Tight fade on the hair. T-shirt fitted. Nose crooked like it got broke a few times. If he was a Hollywood actor, people would say his face had character. But where I come from, it just means he didn’t have enough money or sense to see a doctor.

  From over that nose, he’s staring all kinds of evil at Blanco too.

  I don’t blame him either. I just met Elvia and I understand how somebody could kill for her and not think twice. And I definitely get how she’s so valuable that her man would do anything, including going vendido on his boss to keep her safe.

  Blanco’s got one gat in his back waistband and one in his hand. He’s not pointing it, just holding it. And he’s dipping down, looking like he’s taking a knee, or trying to tie his shoe, but all’s he’s trying to do is see under the table to make sure dude doesn’t have a piece hidden there.

  I don’t look, but he must not, because Blanco’s up and planting his gaze back on the dude sitting in the chair.

  Blanco nods up at him and says, “What’s shaking, Terco?”

  It means a lot in three words.

  It means I got you, huh? With a little gloat on top. It means Where’s everybody else? It means They better not be hiding up in here or you’re first and Elvia’s next.

  Stubborn. That’s what terco means.

  And I’m sure he’s that, but he’s definitely not stupid either. He gets it.

  “I sent them all out,” Terco says. He’s staring at his coffee cup like he’s about to pick it up and break it in his hands. Like, he really wants to and maybe he won’t be able to help himself. “I’d say you maybe got ten minutes.”

  Blanco plops the mag bag on the kitchen table and says, “Phone in the bag.”

  “I don’t got a cell.” Terco nods behind him to a landline phone sitting on its cradle on the counter. “Only that one.”

  I ask him where the safe is right then.

  He looks at me, like, Find it yourself. Which is fair enough.

  So I turn into the living room to get looking.

  47

  All the walls are drywall and all of them are empty. There’s no safe in the main bedroom. There isn’t one in the front closet either, just shelfing and household things like Ziplocs and trash bags. It’s organized. Like, eerie organized.

  Nada again in the laundry closet. There’s some nice-ass new machines in there though. Stacked one on top of the other. Some sort of steam-cleaning kind. And the more I’m going through here, the more I’m thinking, This is new. Making a business house all clean and undercover is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

  Room to room, it looks like a family house, just a little emptier. Less personal. Not as many pictures up. No dings around its edges and little things piling up like you’d get if people were living here full-time. But, then, it must be so easy to bring stuff in and out when it’s like this. Grocery bags full of stuff. Backpacks too, maybe. Nothing strange.

  It’s genius, in a way. Invisible, almost.

  The kind of thing you could run just about anywhere with nobody noticing.

  And it’s close, but it’s not completely safe. I mean, it’s obviously not perfect or it’d never be identified on the DEA list and getting warrants put out for it. So what that’s saying to me is that somebody’s a rat. Somebody snitched on this house because there’s just no other way it gets made. It’s too good.

  I’m standing in the back hallway, with its too-white walls looking like someone actually scrubs them, when a cat walks by me, arches its back, and rubs itself on my shins. Little dude walks a few more steps, does a U-turn, comes back, and rolls up on my shins again. He’s got two different-colored eyes, one green, one blue, and a crick in his tail. He’s a little bit scruffy for this place, with bits of dirt showing in his orange-and-white fur.

  And I’m thinking, What the hell kind of drugs house bothers keeping a cat? Cats are too much damn work with their boxes and all that. A dog, I can get with. It can look out for intruders and keep the spot safe. Dogs are no-brainers, but a cat?

  No. It’s confusing is what it is. I don’t see the point. All work, no payoff. That doesn’t make sense when you’re running this type of game.

  Down at my feet, little dude meows at me and flops over on my shoes, showing me his big white belly. Like he wants me to pet it or something. The whole thing reminds me of a guy I used to know. A real stone-cold kind of homeboy, he would have sat right down and been petting this cat for hours. Apache, his name was. He used to love cats way more than people. Would do anything for them. Rest in peace to him.

  Right then I’m noticing there’s a stack of what look like clean towels sitting on the carpet not far from little dude’s fuzzy head, and I know that’s strange, so I head straight for that linen closet and open it up.

  Inside, at the bottom, falling over onto my foot as soon as I pull the door all the way out, is what looks like half a fake shelf. It was there to sit in front of a safe and disguise it with stacks of towels.

  But in this case, there’s no towels, and no shelf, and no disguising that I can quickly and easily see the safe on the floor.

  It’s an electronic keypad Pentagon, and not a bad one either. It’s a 2007 consumer-magazine best buy, almost brand-new and definitely badass, sitting there looking shiny in this burnished metal glaze that looks like silver but isn’t. I can see somebody’s been reading up on the trade magazines because it’s the kind of thing that’d take time to punch.

  There’s a problem with this one, though. I can see it straight off.

  The kind of problem that makes me sick to my stomach, the kind that brings my concrete right back up, because, see, it won’t take me any time at all to figure out what’s in this particular safe.

  None.

  Because the door’s already cocked a bit.

  Because it’s already open.

  48

  I know there’s nothing inside it, but I got to be stupid and pull it anyways. So I do. The moment just as I’m putting a hand on the handle and pulling still has some hope in it, like maybe there’s still something in there, but I know that’s just my heart being stupid. It wants there to be something there, but my brain knows there isn’t.

  There’s no squeak on the hinges when I swing it wide enough to see my brain is right. I knew it was coming, but still it feels like I got punched right out of the atmosphere. Just lifted up and out.

  Like I’m the coyote and a roadrunning bird just found a way to hit me with a boxing glove bigger than my body and smack me right off a cliff.

  Just, bam. And then I’m feeling like I’m falling even though I’m standing still.

  I’m floaty from it. Sick and hot and heavy at the same time.

  And I got too many thoughts playing bumper cars in my head: the towels, I’m thinking, They were out, and with everything so damn ordered in this house, that’s definitely not right, so that must have been done recently, real recently. I look back toward the kitchen and I’m still not hearing anything, so I got no idea what’s going on there besides Terco and Blanco just staring at each other and playing it tough. But Terco knows, I’m thinking. He knows I’m going to find this safe open and empty and he must have some plan for a move when I come back and say so. I just wish I had some damn idea what that move is before I walk back in. I look to little dude. He’s now sitting on his furry ass at my feet, using his teeth to work on something he’s got stuck between his toes. He’s a little chubby, but I’m seeing he’s got a tag now, hiding in his neck fur. I’m reaching down nice and easy so I can tilt the little round metal tag up and read it. I got to lean down a little to see.

  LIL GARFIELD, it says.

  Ha. Of course it does. But what’s underneath isn’t so funny.

  It’s an address that isn’t this one. Isn’t even this fucking street.

  And that’s when that concrete in my stomach tries to
break off chunks of itself and cut its way out of me.

  Because this’s bad.

  As bad as it gets.

  This ain’t their cat.

  He’s an outdoor cat, a neighborhood cat, just rolling through.

  And then I’m wondering how Lil G got in here, how it must’ve been a window or a door or something, and as I’m looking down the hall to the bathroom at the end of it, a little breeze hits me.

  And I get it.

  Glasses

  Monday, September 15, 2008

  Late Evening

  49

  When me and Lonely pull up to Terco’s spot, we stop two houses down on Clark and I get out quick. Lonely’s right behind me with a empty gym bag over his shoulder.

  I make a line for Rooster’s Chrysler. It’s parked sideways in front of the little alley so the Jeep with black plates that’s parked halfway in the garage can’t get out without ramming it.

  As I’m getting closer, I seen how the far side of the alley is blocked off with a truck too. Big Danny gets out of the driver’s side of the 300 with his own empty gym bag, closes the door real quiet, and then him and Lonely head to the back to grab what they need to grab.

  Some homies are setting up a reflective ROAD CLOSED sign and some cones at the end of Clark so no one can just accidentally roll in off Atlantic. I get in the backseat on the shotgun side. Rooster’s already there, looking ready for answers.

  “I know I’m not the only one thinking he hit other spots, maybe even your other spots,” I say. “We need to shut it down tonight. Everything. Got to be safe.”

  Rooster nods. He knows I’m right. “If it goes shoot-out in there, we do what we have to.” Rooster nods back at Lonely’s car for me to go get my cuete since he never allows any types of guns in his car. “But I want him alive. I’m serious. I got plans for him.”

  “All right,” I say.

  I want to ask what those plans are, but it’s one of those things where I’ll find out if it ends up being an option. If the main reason he wants this Ghost alive ends up being that Rooster wants to know how the safecracker knows these addresses and somehow that leads back to me, then that’s it, and then at least I got my kisses in.

  Make the calls, Rooster signs before he gets out and walks towards the front door of the house.

  I’m right behind him, walking to Lonely’s car and going in the backseat for what I need to grab. I make calls as I go.

  First one is to send somebody to look out for Elvia. Next ones are going house by house, telling all of them to shut it down tonight with no questions asked.

  If Collins don’t get my message and kicks doors at any of those addresses, he’ll see there’s nothing left. They’re all cleaned out. No drugs, no cash, no nothing.

  He’ll be red and raging and I’ll be first on his list of people to seriously mess with, but that’s a problem for later. Right now I’m putting a gun in the back of my pants and crossing the front lawn of Terco’s house to stand right behind Rooster.

  Ghost

  Monday, September 15, 2008

  Late Evening

  50

  I’ve got to think, and think quick about how long it actually took us to get here from Elvia’s on Wright. Under three minutes with stop signs. But there was also a minute or so after Elvia hung up that phone with Snapper coming in and Blanco wanting to see the fear on her face so she wouldn’t do anything stupid.

  And she didn’t.

  But her man sure did.

  After he hung up that phone with her, he must’ve put another call in, because there was enough time for Terco to call the boss—this Rooster dude—get told what to do, and, most likely, get the product out of the house as quick as possible. And after he did that, the motherfucker still had time to make coffee. Like, some kind of last little fuck-you to us that’s just sitting there, steaming.

  I’m already moving down the hall, moving towards the bathroom, and every step towards it, I know, more and more, that that’s how everything in the safe got tossed out into the backyard, into the grass or something.

  I’m pushing open the bathroom door, not even bothering with turning on the light. The smell of bleach punches me in the face before I’m even all the way inside, and my first thought is Were they cleaning in here? Because if so, that’s some thorough shit, but not out of character from what I can see about this whole setup.

  I’m pulling the shower curtain back and looking inside. There’s a little ledge in there for shampoos and soap, but above that?

  A little rectangular window just above where I can see out, and it’s all the way open. There’s no screen on it either.

  Definitely it’s big enough for a cat to jump through if he could get up there from the other side.

  And I don’t even want to hoist myself up on my tiptoes to look out of it, but I know I have to. Just to be sure.

  And when I do, my heart forgets to be a heart for a second.

  I swear to God it stops inside me.

  And I’m trying to breathe but that’s not coming either.

  It’s just me. Frozen.

  Watching two guys with little flashlights, projecting them onto the ground so they can comb through the grass and pick up packages.

  Ziploc packages.

  With little silver things hitting the light and shining.

  Fuck.

  Those are exactly the same kind of tinfoil wraps that the black tar was in from the last place.

  I finally get a breath in as I’m taking a big step back without even looking where I’m going, and I’m putting my foot down, and damn if I don’t step on Lil G’s tail so hard that he lets out this screaming kind of meow and takes off running back down the hallway, back into the house.

  I’m right behind him, grabbing my gear, knocking into walls, going as fast as I can back towards the kitchen with my cases in my hands, and I’m thinking, Maybe we got just enough time to jump in the Jeep and bust the fuck out, hit Atlantic, and be gone like we were never even here in the first place, but right as I’m turning the corner, the doorbell rings out of this little plastic speaker box right near my head.

  Like, bing-bong.

  Real crisp. Real clean.

  And the sound, I swear, it goes straight through me, breaking every hope I got inside. This is us caught, I think. Done.

  I know right away that if there are guys at the back, there are guys out front, and on the sides, surrounding the whole place.

  And whatever’s coming now, there’s no escaping it.

  51

  I’m in the living room when I set my gear down where I’m standing. As I’m letting it go and saying goodbye to it, it feels like something’s ripping inside me, like I’m cutting ties I shouldn’t be cutting. All this gear I inherited. Gear Frank gave me as presents over the years. As hand-me-downs. That’s worth more to me than the almost fifty grand inside.

  My heart’s going nuts inside my chest. Banging on ribs. Acting all trapped and crazy. And maybe that’s jacking with my lungs because I’m not really breathing too good either. It’s too heavy.

  And I’ve only gone a few steps.

  The doorbell goes again.

  But all’s I’m hearing in the sound is Ohhh, shit.

  Blanco’s out in the living room with me now, looking at me, like, Explain.

  “Safe was open,” I say, trying to get it out quick. In the fewest words. “Chiva got tossed. Back window. Guys were out there snagging it.”

  Blanco’s face is different now. He’s taking it in. And he’s nodding. Like, Okay. Like, That’s how it’s going down. Behind him, I see Terco, standing up from the table. Walking forward. Coming into the living room.

  Blanco’s eyeing him. Hard. “How’s it feel killing your girl?”

  “This can be easy,” Terco says, but the way he’s saying it, he’s wishing it won’t be.

  He doesn’t have a gun or nothing, not that I can see. It’s just he knows we’re got, and that it can be crazy or clean. The choice is ours.
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  I know it. And Blanco knows it.

  And more than that, we know there’s somebody big behind that front door.

  And we know they’re not going anywhere till we open it.

  Because the doorbell goes again.

  Terco tells it like it is. “You fucked up, Blanco. You fucked up bad.”

  Blanco smirks at that. He gives Terco a complicated look right then, one that’s kind of saying how Terco just got his girl popped, and how that’s on Terco for doing something stupid and not protecting his own, how all he had to do was be smart and keep his mouth shut, and everything would’ve been fine, but now Terco’s worse than a bitch and Blanco would shoot him right here in the stomach if he wasn’t about to work some magic with his mouth and dance right out the door in about five minutes because he was Blanco, and he was protected on high, and to punk motherfuckers like Terco he was completely untouchable, but he’d remember what Terco did. Hell yes, he would. He’d remember everything. And he’d get him back. That was a promise.

  All that in a look.

  On the receiving end of it, Terco’s not having it. He’s throwing his own right back, and it just says, Yeah, we’ll see about all that.

  Right now, it’s about odds. And we don’t even need to see how many they got outside. They’ve got more bodies and guns than us. Shooting everything up is no kind of option for anyone. If it was, they would’ve come in when we weren’t ready. But putting on a show like this, ringing that doorbell, it’s not for me.

  It’s for Blanco.

  It’s respeto. Even if they don’t like giving it, they are.

  But it’s also a way of saying, don’t even think about doing something stupid.

  Blanco knows this. He’s got the guns out. He’s ejecting their chamber rounds, pulling their clips, and putting them in the middle of the living room floor next to the mag bag. It’s all a peace offering. A way of saying, you won, and we acknowledge that shit. Now, let’s talk. Let’s handle it professional.