The Smack

by RICHARD LANGE

  Sam ignored this. “Yeah, so my scholarship covers tuition and books, but I’ve got to scrape together the money for everything else,” she said. “Grandma sends a little now and then, and I waitress four nights a week.”

  “That must be tough, working and going to school at the same time.”

  “It’s pure hell, but I’m used to it.”

  “I don’t know,” Petty said. “You look a little run-down.”

  Sam raised a warning hand. “No daddying.”

  Petty sat back and sipped his coffee. Talking to her was like trying to pet a porcupine.

  “Want to hear something crazy I was thinking about earlier?” he said. “When I was your age, your mom and I had already been married two years, and you were already walking and talking.”

  Sam ignored him. She concentrated on pushing back her cuticles.

  “We were living in New Jersey,” Petty continued. “Remember that?”

  “What the fuck were you doing?” Sam said.

  “In Jersey?” Petty said. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Having a kid so young,” Sam said.

  “Oh,” Petty said. “That. Truthfully? Not a whole lot of thought went into it. We sort of took life as it came.”

  “So I was a mistake.”

  “A surprise, maybe, but not a mistake.”

  Sam went back to staring at her fingernails.

  “Is that how you think of yourself?” Petty said. “As a mistake?”

  “I used to,” Sam said. “But I got over it.”

  “Good,” Petty said.

  “I got over everything you guys did to me.”

  She was laying it on a little thick. He’d done the best he could. For a year after Carrie ran off with Hug McCarthy, he’d tried to raise her on his own, like Joanne had raised him. They were living in Denver when Carrie left, but he moved them back to Vegas, where he had more connections. He got a job selling cars, dropped Sam at school every morning, and sat down to dinner with her every night. The whole time, though, he felt like a scientist being forced to run one of his rat’s mazes for slivers of cheese. Frustration, humiliation, every shitty thing at once, ate away at his good intentions.

  And Vegas. What was he thinking trying to go straight there, with easy money at every turn and suckers galore? He started gambling again after six months, then ran a deposit scam on a condo he found on Craigslist and made more in two weeks than he’d earned the whole time he’d been shilling for the local Ford dealer. Next he and a partner set up a pump-and-dump boiler room for a failing telecom start-up. It was the kind of thing where the feds might have come knocking any day, so that’s when he decided to send Sam to live with his mom. Better that than her seeing him dragged off in cuffs. And he still believed it had been the right decision, no matter how Sam felt about it then or now. Of course he wasn’t about to try to convince her of that.

  “You ever hear from your mom?” he asked her.

  “She showed up at Grandma’s when I turned sixteen,” Sam said. “She’d bought me a car and, man, did it piss her off that I wouldn’t take it.”

  “You should’ve taken it,” Petty said. “She owed you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Sam said. “It was probably stolen anyway. And the whole time she was there, Hug or Bug or whatever her husband’s name is was staring at me like he wanted to kill me.”

  “He’s that kind of guy,” Petty said.

  “And yet he was able to convince your wife to leave you,” Sam said.

  Petty couldn’t tell if she was trying to be hurtful or funny, so he kept his mouth shut.

  A kid with a stupid mustache mumbled “Hey” as he walked past.

  “Hey,” Sam mumbled back. She balled her napkin and spread it out again on the table. “So why are you in L.A.?” she said to Petty.

  “Playing tourist,” Petty said.

  “Robbing tourists is more like it,” Sam said. “What are you really up to?”

  Her smugness finally got to Petty. He couldn’t hold back any longer. “What are you really up to?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You look like shit.”

  “Wow. Thanks.”

  “I’m not stupid,” Petty said. “I’ve been around dope and dopers longer than you’ve been alive.”

  “Dopers?” Sam said, mocking him.

  “Cut the crap,” Petty said. “You’ve obviously got a problem.”

  Sam’s tight, angry smile quivered. She was suddenly struggling not to cry.

  “Well, this has been great,” she said. She stood and brushed cookie crumbs off her skirt.

  “How about you sit down?” Petty said.

  “How about no?” Sam said. “How about fuck you?”

  She turned to leave.

  “Let me help you,” Petty said.

  She whirled, ready to cut loose on him, but whatever she was about to say got tangled in a sob. She hurried out the door, pulling her scarf up to cover her mouth.

  Petty lay down on the bed when he got back to the room and dozed off while Tinafey was telling him about her movie-star tour. He slept for two hours, the past few days finally catching up to him. He’d have been out even longer if Tinafey hadn’t started making noise and bumping the bed every so often.

  “I’m awake,” he finally said.

  “The parade’s at five,” she said.

  The Hollywood Christmas Parade. Someone by the pool had told her about it. Floats and marching bands and movie stars, Santa Claus bringing up the rear. You’d have thought she’d had enough of the tourist grind after a day of taking pictures of Tom Cruise’s mailbox and Madonna’s driveway, but the girl was buzzing as she rattled off the list of celebrities scheduled to appear. She rushed Petty out of the shower and dragged him to the elevator, eager to stake out a prime viewing spot.

  Spectators stood shoulder to shoulder on both sides of Hollywood Boulevard. Petty and Tinafey ended up with a foot of curb in front of Hooters, in between a Mexican family and a pack of drunk college students from UCSB. The stars smiled and waved from the backseats of shiny classic convertibles. Petty recognized Sulu from Star Trek and some of the kids from The Brady Bunch—old men and women now.

  A marching band stomped to a halt in front of them and honked out a brassy version of “Frosty the Snowman” while a troupe of girls in skimpy elf outfits twirled batons. Tinafey bounced in place and hummed along under her breath. Petty’s gaze wandered over the crowd on the other side of the street and stopped on one particular face. It was the bearded cowboy in the trucker cap who’d been playing peekaboo with him yesterday morning, staring at him again. He saw Petty notice him and turned away.

  A scuffle broke out among the college students. Someone called someone an asshole, someone pushed someone, and a girl screamed. The Mexicans got into it, shouting, “Hey, there’s kids around! Be cool!” and doing some shoving of their own. A couple of cops stepped in and told everybody to take it easy. By the time things calmed down, the cowboy had disappeared, and Petty chalked up seeing him again to coincidence.

  11

  RAINDROPS BOUNCING OFF THE WINDSHIELD LIKE A HANDFUL of gravel startled Petty out of a one-eyed catnap. He’d been parked in front of Tony’s building all morning. After checking the garage and seeing no sign of the kid’s truck, he’d spent the next couple of hours watching a strange woman across the street pace back and forth while dark clouds filled the sky.

  The woman’s well-worn track was a strip of bare dirt lying between the sidewalk and the curb. She was sixty or so, retarded in some way, a hunched figure with a jutting lower jaw and heavy-lidded eyes. Wearing baggy jeans and a Nightmare Before Christmas sweatshirt, she wobbled back and forth from driveway to driveway, back and forth, ignored by kids on their bikes, ignored by Jehovah’s Witnesses going door-to-door, ignored by jumpy stray dogs. Petty had grown drowsy watching her and dozed off.

  When the rain woke him, she was still there, still pacing, undisturbed by the downpour. Another woman ran out of the ap
artment complex the strip of dirt fronted. She grabbed the pacing woman’s arm and tried to steer her toward the building, but the pacing woman refused to change course. The second woman gave her an umbrella, forced her stubborn fingers to grasp the handle, then ran back inside. The pacing woman returned to her circuit, twenty steps one way, turn, twenty steps the other. The dust beneath her feet darkened and thickened into mud.

  Just after noon the black F-150 turned into the apartment building driveway and descended into the garage. Petty stretched and thumbed a bit of crud from the corner of his eye. The storm had let up. Only a few fat drops pelted him when he went to the trunk for the yellow vest and clipboard. The objective for today was to enter Tony’s apartment and look for a safe. If it turned out to be more than the fantasy of some junkie talking out of the side of his neck, Petty would move on to figuring how to lay his hands on the cash inside it.

  He walked toward the building. Wind chimes tinkled somewhere, somehow louder than everything else. The runoff sluicing down the gutter slowed and pooled around a sluggish storm drain, the puddle spreading into the street so that cars plowing through it sent up sheets of spray that rose and fell in the gloom like great black wings flapping. A bloated earthworm writhed on the sidewalk. Petty wondered where it had come from. There was no grass for several blocks in either direction. Just concrete and chain link and stucco.

  The rain picked up. Petty jogged the last fifty feet to the gate, which was again propped open. He stopped in the passage leading into the complex and glanced at the mailboxes, memorizing names. The water pouring off the second-floor walkway formed a beaded curtain that veiled the courtyard planters, and the sound of splashing echoed everywhere.

  Petty moved around the complex, gradually working his way toward Tony’s unit. In case anyone was watching, he paused often to examine faucets, bang pipes, and scribble notes on the form stuck to his clipboard. It was a heater repair estimate sheet. A contractor he used to play poker with had given him a stack of them. Even with all that, he still got to Tony’s quicker than he meant to, was all of a sudden there, standing at the door with nothing left to do but knock.

  “Qué?” a voice called out.

  “Reliable Plumbing,” Petty said.

  Tony opened the door a few seconds later. He’d have been a nice-looking kid if not for the scar that snagged the outside corner of his left eye, causing it to droop, then continued down the side of his face to geek his mouth, too. Petty hadn’t noticed the scar before or that the kid was missing a couple of fingers on his left hand.

  “How’s it going?” Petty said.

  “Okay,” Tony replied.

  “Your neighbors”—Petty glanced at his clipboard—“the Salazars and Perezes. Their sinks are stopped up. Any problems here?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tony said. “Let me check.”

  He limped into the tiny kitchen, which Petty could see into over the top of the breakfast bar that separated it from the living room. The kid turned on the faucet, verified that the water swirled down the drain, then disappeared into the bathroom. Petty inventoried the place: couch, chair, coffee table, TV, Xbox. No safe.

  “They’re all working fine,” Tony said, walking out of the hallway.

  “You mind if I come in and look around?” Petty said. “The main leach line for the building runs behind your unit, and rain can overload it. That might be what’s causing your neighbors’ problems. It’ll only take me a minute to check.”

  “You’re not gonna fuck anything up, are you?” the kid said.

  “I’m gonna look for soft spots on the walls,” Petty said. “Dampness. You don’t want the pipe to bust and flood you out.”

  Petty played it cool when Tony waved him into the apartment. He’d long ago learned to hide the buzz that juiced him whenever he got over on a mark. He started in the kitchen, pressed on the drywall above the sink. No dirty dishes, and the counters wiped clean. The kid kept a tidy house.

  Tony followed him to the bathroom and stood in the doorway while Petty continued his mock inspection. There was nowhere to stash a safe in there, but Petty looked around anyway. He opened the medicine cabinet and glanced inside long enough to note there was no makeup or tampons and only one toothbrush. One bottle of shampoo in the shower, too, so the kid likely lived alone.

  Petty walked back out into the hall and turned toward the bedroom. Tony stopped him as he was about to open the door.

  “Do you have to go in there?” he said.

  “The pipe runs this way,” Petty replied with a vague gesture.

  “It’s just…”

  Aha! Petty thought. The kid was hiding something.

  “It’s kind of a mess,” Tony continued. “I just did my laundry.”

  “I’ve seen laundry before,” Petty said.

  Tony entered the bedroom first and bent awkwardly on his prosthesis to snatch a stack of underwear off the queen-size bed that filled most of the room. The bed was covered with freshly washed and folded jeans and T-shirts and bath towels. The only other furniture was a three-drawer dresser from Ikea, where the kid now stashed his skivvies, and a small bedside table with a lamp on it. No safe.

  Petty opened the closet. A set of Marine Corps dress blues hung there, stored in a plastic dry-cleaner bag, and five pairs of sneakers were lined up neatly on the floor. Again, no safe. Petty shut the door without even pretending to check for a leak and walked back into the living room. There was nowhere else to look. Don’s junkie had been full of shit, and this whole stopover in L.A. had turned out to be a waste of time and money.

  “You’re all good,” he said to Tony. “No problems here.”

  “Nah, there’s plenty of problems,” Tony said as he followed Petty to the front door, his fake leg creaking. “Stuff breaks down, and the owner doesn’t even give a shit.”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Petty thought. All he wanted right now was a double Scotch and a little TLC from Tinafey to help ease his disappointment.

  “You like being a plumber?” the kid said.

  “It’s okay,” Petty said.

  The kid grinned, but the scar on his face messed it up. “See, I knew you’d say that,” he said.

  “Yeah? How?” Petty said.

  “There’s this money I can get for school, and I’m trying to figure out what I should study, so I ask everybody about their jobs. And you know what everybody says?”

  “It’s okay?”

  “It’s okay.”

  “You’re asking them about work,” Petty said. “What do you expect?”

  “Yeah, man, I get that, but it’s still sad,” the kid said. “People should love what they do for a living.”

  “What do you love doing?” Petty said.

  Tony grinned again. “Ah, man, I’m bad,” he said. “I like drinking beer, playing video games, watching porn—”

  “Try getting paid for that,” Petty said.

  “I feel you, I feel you,” the kid said. “But seriously, my dad? He painted houses for twenty years before he died. Hated it. My mom? She owns a store? Hates it.”

  He scratched his scar with his disfigured hand but stopped when he realized Petty was watching. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “This dude can’t be too choosy. And you’re right. I’m all fucked up. I got one leg, one good hand, headaches. But I’m still not gonna take the first job someone’ll give me. That’s how I ended up in the Marines. That’s how I ended up like this.”

  “What happened?” Petty asked.

  “Afghanistan,” Tony said. “Motherfuckin’ Afghanistan.”

  “Well, good luck to you,” Petty said. “With school and everything.”

  He opened the front door to leave but pulled up short. There on the threshold stood the cowboy he’d been seeing around Hollywood, the one with the beard and the trucker cap. Now the guy had a pistol in each hand, matching Smith & Wesson revolvers. He pressed the muzzle of one of the guns to Petty’s forehead and forced him backwards into the apartment. The other gun he trained
on Tony.

  “Hands up, up, up,” he said.

  Petty’s were already in the air, an instinctive response to having a gun shoved in his face. Tony lifted his. The cowboy patted Petty down, then did the same to Tony. When he finished, he said, “Both of you sit on the sofa.”

  Petty complied immediately, but Tony remained standing.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” he said.

  “Come on now,” the cowboy said. “It’s the guy with the gun who asks the questions.” He gestured at Tony’s prosthesis. “You need help or can you manage?”

  Tony lowered himself onto the couch.

  “Let’s get right to it,” the cowboy said. “Where’s the money?”

  “I got forty bucks,” Tony said. “Take it and get out of here.”

  “Forty bucks?” the cowboy said. “A blow job and a Snapple? Buddy, I’m after that big army money.”

  “Army money?” Tony said.

  “Tell him, Rowan,” the cowboy said.

  Petty was shocked to hear his name. That meant this clown must be in cahoots with Don, the two of them working together to fuck him over. He didn’t give the cowboy the pleasure of a reaction, though. All he said was, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The cowboy cocked the pistols. “Yeah, you do,” he said. “Tell this boy why you’re here.”

  Maybe the guy was crazy enough to shoot him, maybe not. Petty decided not to test him. He decided to do everything he could to increase his odds of getting out of the apartment alive.

  “People are saying some soldiers smuggled a couple million dollars out of Afghanistan and that you’re the guy holding it for them,” he said to Tony.

  “For real?” Tony said.

  “For real,” the cowboy said.

  “I heard about it and decided to check the story out,” Petty continued. “I followed you here from your mom’s store on Saturday and came back today to look for the money.”

  “So tell this dude, then,” Tony said. “Tell him there’s no money.”

  “It’s true,” Petty said to the cowboy. “I didn’t find anything.”