by David Levien
Hector felt himself fly into the wall, and then he felt the pain behind his ear. Somehow he knew this must’ve been backward and that the flashlight hit was first, the throw second. Before Hector could fall to the ground, the man had him by the neck, had twisted his head sideways and encircled it with an arm. It wasn’t exactly a headlock, nor was it a chokehold. He’d have to call it a neck-break half applied. The top of his head was wedged into the man’s trunk, his spine arching. He stood up on his toes and tried desperately to keep his balance. He felt the man’s forearm crushing into his jaw. His rear teeth crumbled against one another as he was dragged into the front room.
“Shake’s over, motherfuckers,” Kenny Schlegel screamed, dinging the person nearest him, a middle-aged black woman smoking a menthol, on her upper back with his length of pipe.
“Oh, lord,” she said, going down; as it was a glancing blow, she then managed to scramble away on all fours.
Knute followed Kenny into the room and used his aluminum bat to obliterate a flat-screen showing a harness race. Then he rang the bat off shins and elbows until a half-dozen would-be pea-shake players were hopping and squirming.
“What the fuck?” said a skinny blonde, in a miniskirt and heavy makeup-the “shake hostess”-as she emerged from the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee.
“Shut up, skank,” Charlie said, pointing to the wall where most of the patrons huddled. “Get over there with them.”
“Why should I? Who the fuck are you?” she screeched. Kenny approached her, pointing the end of his pipe in her face.
“Shut up and get over there before I kick you in the cunt,” he bellowed.
“Fuck off, tough guy-,” she started. Kenny swung his rear leg forward in a vicious up-kick that caught her where her legs met under her brief miniskirt. “Oof,” she said, going down, rolling and writhing, coffee spilling all over her.
“What the fuck did I tell you?” Kenny loomed over her.
“Oahhh, oahhhh,” she went on and on, curled into a ball.
Knute and Charlie exchanged a look, wondering if the kid, his blood up, was going to cave in her skull with the pipe.
“Take… the… money,” Hector grunted, barely able to move his mouth. He held up a thick, dirty wad of bills from his pants pocket.
“Shut up,” Charlie said, taking it, stuffing it in his own pocket, and racking him in the head with the flashlight. Then he turned to the assembled players, perhaps thirty people, frozen in front of him.
“Who said you could pea shake here?” Charlie asked them. He punctuated his words with raps to the face and head of the smallish man he held. “Who said you could shake with this little dirt-bag spic?” Charlie strutted around feeling like a WWE wrestler, and he considered whether he should bash the man’s head into something, or if that was too flashy. “Well?” he asked. There was a bulky, tough-looking Latino with ink creeping up out of his shirt collar standing near the door who wasn’t cowering properly. Knute caught it at the same time.
“Door,” Knute said.
“Got it. What the fuck are you thinking, bro?” Charlie screamed, advancing toward the bulky Latino, whacking his captive again and lifting his shirt to reveal the butt of his pistol. “See that door, motherfucker? Use it. And none of you ever use it again once you’re gone. This place is not authorized. You fucking get it?”
There was a moment’s pause as the gamblers wondered if their release was the truth or some horrible joke.
Kenny flicked open a Zippo with a metallic clink and waved the flame at them. “It’s that or we lock it and burn this shit hole to the ground.”
The bulky Latino acted first, hurtling out through the door and into the night. The rest followed, keeping wary eyes on their attackers but receiving boots in the asses and backs and shots across the shoulders all the same. Even the pea-shake girl, dragging herself along like a car-hit dog, made it out. Soon the room was empty and quiet save for the sound of engines starting and tires screeching.
Charlie straightened Hector up by the head and spoke directly into his face. “I don’t want to fucking see you here again, comprende?” Instead of waiting for an answer, Charlie nodded to Kenny, who swung the pipe across Hector’s stomach like he was lashing a double into the gap. Charlie let the man collapse.
Charlie, Kenny, and Knute sauntered down the hall the way they had come. They stepped over the body of the wiry old man, who hadn’t moved an inch. They went out to the car. Charlie hit the auto-lock button on his extra key and they got in.
“Let’s go to the bar,” Charlie said.
Inside, on the floor, Hector heard the car drive away. After a while he rolled over onto his back and felt around his ribs and organs. Nothing seemed broken. Eventually he got up on all fours, spat out blood and a gritty dust that was his molars, then made it to his feet. One advantage of being his size and growing up in the streets was that he’d gotten used to taking a lot of punishment over the years. He went down the hall and shook his head at the sight of his father lying there in a pool of blood. He couldn’t call 911. They’d all be arrested and deported if he did.
“Vamonos, Chaco,” he called out, opening the door to the den. “?Rapido!” Chaco emerged from a low cabinet along the floor where he’d been hiding. The boy’s eyes were huge, but he didn’t say a word, and he followed as Hector lifted his father and carried him out to the car.
Mierda, Hector thought, now I have to get a gun.
SEVENTEEN
Dean Schlegel was in his room crying in the dark when he got their call. It was the vodka and Percocet he was using for his mouth that must’ve made him this way, because he couldn’t remember crying since he was a kid. Then again, things had gotten plenty fucked up over the last little while.
“Yo, D., where you at? We’re down at the bar.” It was Kenny. He could hear the sounds of glasses and music and voices in the background.
“I’m home, man,” Dean answered.
“We’re down at the bar,” Kenny said again. “Me and Charlie, and Knute, and Dad, too. You gotta come out.” But Dean just didn’t feel up for the Tip-Over tonight.
“I don’t know, Ken-”
“Don’t be a puss, brah. Marcus is spinning down here and you know the hos flow where he go.”
Lately, it seemed every time that Dean left the house, something happened that he either didn’t like right away or after some time had passed, he liked even less. He felt guilty for all of it, especially that old man he’d busted up. Still, locking himself away in a dark room wasn’t an option that was paying off.
“Come on, meet some new, get that scurvy bitch off your mind-”
“Don’t go there, dick,” Dean said.
“All right. I’m just saying. Get your ass down here, drink your face off, you’ll feel better.” Kenny hung up. Dean sat there for a moment deciding, and then he reached for his pants.
Behr arrived at Flavia Inez’s new address and saw that her old building manager had been right: she’d found a much nicer place. It was a ten-story brick job with casement windows and a new awning. She lived in 9-F, according to the Post-it. Behr went to the building’s outer door and saw the apartments were marked “F” and “R,” front and rear, only two per floor. It was a real way of life she’d found for herself compared to where she’d been. What Behr didn’t find, however, was her name on the list. Instead, the resident of 9-F was listed as “Blanca White.”
Bullshit, he thought. White White? He checked his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. Too late for a proper, polite first interview. He hesitated for a moment before he pressed the buzzer. He waited but there was no answer. He tried again several more times. Then he took out his cell phone and dialed the number. Once again he got the pop song, but no voice on the outgoing message. At least it hadn’t been disconnected. “Hello, this is Frank Behr calling about Aurelio Santos again…” He left his numbers and asked her to call. He tried the lobby door, which was locked with a solid-looking brass Baldwin. It wasn’t going to happen, he reali
zed, not tonight.
• • •
The Tip-Over Tap Room’s got one hell of an identity crisis, Marcus Daudre, better known as DJ M.D. or simply “the Doc,” thought to himself. It had the bones of a low-end outskirts Indy pub that should’ve been full of fifty-year-old rummies and blue-collar factory shit-kickers. But thanks to the Schlegel boys, the fact that Kenny loved hip-hop and every damn one of ’em loved fresh white females, they’d been hiring him to spin tunes. Now there were no rummies in sight, and the place was pulling more white shorties than Nicky Blaine’s. The little dance floor was currently filled with blondes in belly shirts who were freaking to his mash-up of T.I. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was chemical, M.D. figured, two parts black music, with a base of redneck, and the white folks just couldn’t help themselves. He wound it down and hit an extended mix playlist on his Mac and headed to the bar to take a break.
The Schlegels were generous owners and let him have the run of the place, with no tab, on the nights he worked. It was about the safest place he’d ever DJ’d, too. He looked at them there, lying up along the corner curve of the bar: Kenny, Charlie, Papa Terry, and Papa Terry’s partner. If you thought about throwing a punch in this place, you might as well step in front of a bus-it’d be faster and the results would be prettier. M.D. slid under the counter and moved in next to Pam, who was pouring Jameson into shot glasses. Half a dozen pints of Guinness were already drawn and settling when Dean Schlegel walked in the door. Now the gang was all here.
“Deanie!” rang out from the Schlegel section in the corner. Dean walked over to his crew, sporting a puffy left jaw and dark circles under his eyes.
M.D. slid behind Pam and took the opportunity to appreciate her fine ass as he helped himself to a Michelob Ultra. She started topping off the Jameson with Baileys Irish Cream, and M.D. caught some low banter that he did his best not to listen to. What he did hear led him to believe the Schlegels had robbed or otherwise taken off a place, and it even sounded like Kenny had kicked a girl’s ass.
“You want one of these?” Pam offered as she doled out the Jameson with Baileys floaters and Guinness to the Schlegels.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said.
“Come on, bro,” Kenny said, dropping his shot glass into his Guinness, “do an Irish Car Bomb with us.”
“You don’t gotta be Irish,” Papa Terry said, smiling. “We’re not.” He dropped his shot into the Guinness as well, and then picked up the pint. He crooked a finger at a young blonde Kenny ran with a little. “Kathy, get over here.” She broke off from a pack of other white high-school-age chicks.
“What’s up, Mr. Schlegel?” she said.
He made a big show of looking around behind him, under his bar stool. “Who you talking to with the ‘Mr. Schlegel’? I don’t see my father here. Terry,” he said. “How old are you? You got ID?” She reached for her pocket, causing them all to laugh. Terry stopped her. “Here, try this.” He handed her the pint glass.
“Okay, Terry,” she said. The others drank theirs quickly, their gullets moving like wolves’ taking down meat. Kathy struggled with hers, but got it about halfway before breaking off.
“Tastes like dessert,” she said. Papa Terry reached out and wiped off her Guinness mustache with his finger, then stuck the finger in her mouth. She sucked the foam off it, and then he put it in his own mouth.
“You’re right, it does,” he said. Kenny, his brothers, the partner, they all cracked up. Papa Terry waved Kathy away back to her friends. He turned back to the bar.
“I don’t drink that shit either, Doc,” he said to M.D., “unless you’re doing one with me, Pammy.”
“Oh, no, Terry,” she said, “you remember what happened last time? Clean up, aisle six!” They all laughed.
“Give me one of them Michelobs like my man Doc is having,” Terry said. “He’s a man of taste.” M.D. raised his bottle in return, real friendly. But he didn’t kid himself. They weren’t his friends, and he wasn’t planning on ever getting comfortable around here. He remembered a pair of big, tall, tough-looking white guys who’d recently become something like regulars over the course of a few weeks. The guys were real snazzy-blazers, white dress shirts, and shiny wingtips. It looked to M.D. like they were in the process of getting into some business with Papa Terry and his partner. Then one day M.D. had heard Papa Terry and partner talking between songs about a meeting they were gonna have that night after the bar closed-one that wasn’t gonna go the way those slick boys planned. He hadn’t caught the details, but he got the gist, and it was nothing he wanted to know. M.D. cleared out before closing that night. The snazzy white dudes hadn’t, and he had not seen those snazzy white dudes again.
The Schlegels fell silent as Kathy showed up next to them. She held up the pint glass, which was now empty.
“Good girl,” Papa Terry said. “You want another?”
“Sure, Terry,” she said. He looked at her.
“You like cars?” Papa Terry asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“My shop’s right next door. You should come see some of what we got in there,” he offered.
“Okay,” she said. Papa Terry got off his bar stool and started walking for the door. She followed. The rest of the Schlegel crew acted like they hadn’t seen or heard a thing, and that’s just the way M.D. acted as well. He moved down the bar to go back to his faders. He’d be leaving before closing tonight, too.
Behr returned home, entered, and left the lights off. He dreaded the nights, black and endless, when the work was done and all that was left was time to think. He was fine while there was work. That was when he was at his best. But it never lasted long enough-or he didn’t. He needed to shut it down and rest so he could function properly the next day, but that’s when things went slippery in his head. He had gotten a chance to forget how bad it could be this last year and change, spending most of his evening time with Susan. Maybe he’d let himself believe that things had changed for good. Now he sat for a while with the phone in his hand, considering whether or not to call her. He looked around his place at the evidence of her presence-her organic cereal on the kitchen table, her hairbrush thrown on the couch, a stack of CDs on the coffee table on top of the tabloid magazines she loved. She was probably going through hell, and doing it alone right about now.
He went to dial, but even that simple act felt traitorous. He couldn’t do it-any of it. Not to himself, to his past with his son Tim, to his ex-wife Linda, even though there was nothing between them now but dead memories. He stood and dropped the phone onto the cushion from which he’d just risen. He walked down the hall, flicking on a single light as he went. He stopped when he reached the linen closet, which he used as storage since he didn’t have much linen, and opened it. There was his one extra set of sheets and a blanket and pillow inside. There was also several years’ worth of phone books, hunting boots and insulated bib overalls, camping gear, road salt, coffee cans full of change, and extra lightbulbs among other household detritus. He pushed some of it aside and found a cardboard box, which he pulled to the front of the shelf. He opened the flap. It had been a long time since he’d done this-a lifetime it seemed. He peered down into the box and saw them. Tim’s old things. A policeman figurine, Thomas the Tank Engine, Matchbox cars, a squishy vinyl football, some lifelike rubber dinosaurs. Behr felt a grim smile burning on his lips. They were Tim’s favorites. Nothing would replace either his boy or that time, Behr knew. Nothing. He handled the items for a few moments, feeling for the past, numb and distant between his fingers. Then he closed the flaps. He walked back down the hall with the box in his hands and continued right out the door. He went around back to where the building’s trash area was and lifted the lid on the small Dumpster. He heard the toys rattle around as he threw the box in. He slammed the lid down with a hollow metallic clang and marched back inside, his heart empty. When he reentered his place, the phone was ringing, but he didn’t answer it. He just let it ring.
EIGHTEEN
Behr was on
his way out first thing in the morning when he saw them. Two men, sitting in a silver Crown Vic that had his car boxed in. He stopped in his tracks when he made out who was behind the wheel. It was Police Captain Pomeroy, his former boss. Last time they had spoken it had not been a pleasant conversation. Now the pair saw him and got out of their car. The second man was a few years older than Pomeroy and was beefier by thirty-five pounds. He was florid faced already, with the heat of the day still a long way off.
“Behr. Looking quite the winner today,” Pomeroy said. “Didn’t have you for a churcher.”
Behr was dressed in his blue blazer and tie again. “Memorial service, Captain,” he answered, looking at his old boss. Time didn’t seem to change the man. His nose bone was still sharp as a hawk’s beak and his black eyes as pitiless.
“The department could use a favor,” Pomeroy said.
“Really?” Behr asked, mainly to check the rough thrill that ran through him at the words. He’d heard of ex-cops doing outside work for the force, at times when it was something so mundane it wasn’t worth the department’s time, and others when it was a situation so sensitive the cops couldn’t afford to be around it. Either way, Behr had never been on the ask list. “Near Northside stuff?” he guessed, thinking of the amount of drugs and drug violence that existed there.
“Not exactly-,” the other man said, speaking for the first time.
“Jerry…,” Pomeroy interrupted, silencing him.
“Who’s this?” Behr wondered of “Jerry.”
“City attorney,” Pomeroy answered, and didn’t add any last name.
“So is this official?” Behr asked.
“Officially unofficial,” Pomeroy said.
“What does that mean?”
“He’s having this conversation on behalf of the department,” Pomeroy said.
More confidentiality, Behr realized. He wondered if lawyers were the new must-have accessory around town.