“Where the hell are you going?” asked Pam.
“Gotta get to the site!”
“Except for the bathroom, you’re not supposed—”
“Can’t talk about it!”
“Get back in—”
“Get outta my way!”
“Make me, you big prick!”
And in that tiny moment, Stew wanted to strike her. A thought that rarely ever dawned on him. At least, not while they weren’t screwing.
Pam knew as much. She had seen the look before in other men who had kept her. The thought even crossed her mind of how funny Stew would look after trying to swing at her. He would surely lose his balance and come crashing down the steps, maybe bloodied with a mouthful of fresh green sod.
But if he ever connected... thought Pam. If he ever hit me... I would kill him then leave him.
“You know what that house is costing us?” moaned Stew. “Fuckin’ vig on the loan, the crews not workin’, and now they say I gotta re-pour the fuckin’ pilings!”
“Call Henry.”
“Who do you think I just talked to?”
“It doesn’t have to be today!”
Stew inched in as close as he could without tumbling head over ass.
“You like your little house?” asked Stew. “You like antiques and Baldwin doorknobs and arty paint finishes? You like that stuff?”
Pamela stood with her arms crossed and her lower lip tucked under her front teeth.
“If I don’t finish the fuckin’ spec house and flip it by the new year,” pressed Stew, “all your precious shit’s going on the front lawn for a yard sale. You got that?”
Pam got it, alright. Right down her spine. There would be no holding Stew back. No reasoning whatsoever. She saw it all in his eyes, clear and drug-free. In that short space of time, everything became so very simple. So what would be her best move? All she needed to do was step aside. But then he would continue to steamroll her, right or wrong, for the rest of their marriage.
“I’ll drive you,” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me, dipshit. I’ll drive.”
Pam held out a hand.
Agreeing to let Pam drive was easy enough for Stew. He figured once inside the truck he could wrestle the keys back from his wife, climb behind the wheel, and motor unobstructed to the site. If only getting into the truck hadn’t been such an ordeal. Stew swore out loud at the asshole salesman who had sold him the off-road lift kit that raised his spanking new F-250 an extra eight inches. Between that and the oversized tires, the climb into the truck was a full foot higher than normal.
It may as well have been Everest.
After tossing the crutches into the truck bed, Stew had to balance on one leg, turn his back to the passenger seat, and using only the strength from his upper body, pull himself up onto the seat.
Pam offered to help, climbing in from the driver’s side, insisting he take her hand. Stew ignored her and the pain surging from his leg into his groin, finding a purchase in the air conditioning vent. He was able to wrap his right arm around the headrest, at last gaining enough leverage to hoist his body into the seat. He swiveled his legs into the truck and slammed the door.
All thoughts Stew had of driving were vanquished in a single exhale. He could only think of those Everest climbers he had watched on the Discovery Channel and how they craved oxygen.
The ten-minute drive to the site passed silently. When the truck pulled up to the curb, Henry Lopez trotted down to greet them, twice pleased to find beautiful Pam behind the wheel.
“Here,” said Stew. “Take pictures of the pilings.”
Stew withdrew a disposable camera from the glove box and handed it to Pam.
“All the pilings,” said Stew. “Henry will show you.”
Glad to be part of the construction team, Pam hopped from the truck, momentarily leaving Henry staring glumly at his boss.
“Jefe. You don’t look so good,” worried Henry.
“Just make sure she gets the pictures,” said Stew. “If the pilings are bad, fuckin’ Morales Brothers are paying my costs.”
The Morales Brothers were Stew’s choice du jour in concrete subcontractors. They were a small team with five cement trucks, all painted the colors of the Mexican flag with giant sombreros stenciled on the agitating cylinders.
“Maybe you should take a look at the footings, Jefe—”
“Get with Pam and show her!” spat Stew.
Oh, he wanted to look at the footings. But the thought of crawling out of the truck only to suffer the climb back in was too much to imagine. Stew was already thinking of cashing in his prescriptions for Kadian and OxyContin, both morphine derivatives and a former addict’s wet dream. The treated side of his brain wisely figured he could survive the drive home and the painful transfer from the truck back to the couch. Any more aggravation and he might as well take his ten-year Alcoholics Anonymous’ chip and spin it into the gutter.
Stew twisted his view to make sure Henry was making as much of an effort on instructing Pam about how to photograph the footings as he was admiring her infamous ass.
Next, Stew achingly searched his pants pocket for his cell phone, checked his watch for the time of day, then dialed an old number from memory. The connection sounded clean, but the phone at the other end seemed to ring forever. Ten rings. Eleven rings. Just like the old days. Before cell phones and voicemail. Sure, there were answering machines. But those devices were for legitimate people living legitimate lives.
Fourteen rings. Fifteen rings.
“Yeah,” answered a voice, foggy from a lifetime of breathing in secondhand smoke.
“Lookin’ for The Sax Man,” said Stew.
“Don’t know no Sax Man,” said the voice.
“Just an old friend checkin’ on a pal,” said Stew.
“So what’s that to me?” said the voice. “I don’t know no—”
“Tell him Stew’s got somethin’ he needs. I’m sure Jerome’ll take care of you after he gets his. Now take down this number.”
“Wait,” said the voice. “Need to find something to write...”
The pain in Stew had stopped at his pelvis, but seemed to be pooling between his hips with no place to run. As if it were a reservoir that might very well overflow or burst. Nothing a handful of OxyContin couldn’t snuff out. Crush that shit and snort it? The pain would die even faster. Stew squeezed his eyes shut and kept his voice even.
“Who you say you was?” asked the voice.
“Stew.”
“Like I said. Don’t know no Sax Man but if a fellah comes in with that kind of fool name, I’ll pass it on.”
“You do that,” said Stew. “Now here’s the number.”
Stew reeled off his mobile number. His silence was rewarded when the voice read back the digits in the correct sequence. Then Stew hung up without saying goodbye. There was no rudeness in it at all. If anything, it was a basic criminal signature. Anyone polite enough to engage in the banal niceties of the average civilian’s telephone conversations might tip his hand that he was playing for the other side.
In other words, cops said “goodbye.”
When Stew thought cop, he pictured that tall brownie-of-a-woman towering over his post-op bed. What the fuck was her name?
Stew’s phone buzzed in his hand. The incoming call had an Echo Park prefix. Close to downtown, not far from Chavez Ravine and Dodger Stadium. It had to be the Sax Man. Jerome. In some ways, the underworld still moved faster than broadband. Otherwise, the cops might catch up one day.
“This is Stew.”
“It’s Jerome,” said the happy voice. “Man, what you been doin’?”
“Been awhile,” answered Stew, relieved and irritated all at once. When visited by the lady detective, she had asked him about a crime in Culver City. A family thing. Home invasion. Triple murder. The first person Stew imagined was Jerome. The Sax Man. If the old smack-head hadn’t overdosed yet, Stew would have bet Jerome was the rat. But
if such were the case, Jerome wouldn’t have called back. At least not so efficiently.
“How’s it hangin’?”
“Swings with the breeze,” said Stew. “Listen. You know how I feel about phones. I got somethin’ for you.”
“Man, my motor’s not so good no more. Can’t walk two blocks without sittin’ down awhile.”
“Middleman shit,” assured Stew. “Got some bizness you might know how to move.”
“Still know me some guys. Hey. Got a gig tomorrow night. Maybe you can—”
“Still playin’, huh?”
“My horn’ll quit me before I quit her. You know that.”
“Some shit doesn’t change. But I’m a daytimer now. Gotta be a nooner.”
“Shit. I don’t see noon for less than a C-note.”
“Hook me up and you’ll make ten times,” said Stew.
“Daytimer. You got a real job or somethin’?”
“Or somethin’,” said Stew. He was terse, biting his lip due to the pain under his belly. “You got an address?”
“Place you called,” said Jerome. “You still know it?”
“Stink Hole. See you tomorrow.”
Stew clicked off then jackhammered his head back into the leather headrest, as if the soft impact could ease his suffering. Tears squeezed out from his slammed eyelids. His mouth formed an O from which he exhaled slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Stew did this over and over until—
“Got your pictures. Wanna go to a one-hour photo?”
Stew opened his eyes to find Pam had already climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition.
“Take me home,” exhaled Stew. “Then you go out and do the pictures, okay?”
“Bad?”
“Worse than fuckin’ detox!”
“How about childbirth?”
“Women got nothin’ on my shit.”
“Advil. Here’s five.”
Pam shook five gels caps from the bottle into Stew’s open hand. He brought up some spit and dry swallowed the little green balls of ibuprofen.
“Baby lawyer called today.”
“It’s not the time, Pam.”
“Good as any. Might take your mind off the pain.”
Pam was driving now, clearly relishing both the wheel of the big pickup and having her husband hostage.
“Russian couple,” continued Pam. “She’s due in November. They’re both cleared with Canadian visas and could meet us in Vancouver. All we gotta do is buy their plane tickets.”
“Hurts too much to hear.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Pam, winding herself into an excited tizzy. “You don’t even have to go. I’ll take care of—”
“If I gotta re-pour those footings—”
“Fine. If you have to re-pour and rebuild, then no deal. Otherwise...”
Stew opened his left eye, catching the briefest glimpse of Pam’s wide grin. Deep down, he supposed adopting would be an okay move. “Think of the upside,” she had once tried to sell him. “An actual baby without all the fuss of pregnancy. No unattractive weight gain, mood swings, or depression.” Stew’s wife would remain Queen of the Neighborhood Hot Bodies while satisfying her undying yen to be an SUV-driving soccer mom.
“Whatever,” was all Stew could muster.
“Alright!” squealed Pam, bouncing on the seat.
“Just get me back into bed.”
The Stink Hole was exactly as Stew remembered it. Formally called Ronny’s Pub on Sunset, it was an Echo Park haunt the cops could never kill. Opened shortly after the Los Angeles Dodgers moved into nearby Chavez Ravine, Ronny’s had survived floods, fires, robberies, gunfights, murder, DEA and ATF raids, health code shut-downs, name changes, and more owners than title searches could possibly unearth. But just about anybody who ever sat on a bar stool at Ronny’s knew it by its easy-to-remember nickname, The Stink Hole. The source of the moniker was pure mystery turned into local mythology. The most popular legend was that the pub was built on a fault line that released a sulfurous plume through cracks in the foundation when the earth shook, as it so often did in Los Angeles.
The fistful of change Stew slid into the meter bought him sixty minutes of Sunset Boulevard street parking. Ought to be enough, he estimated, for the anticipated small talk and, he hoped, quick round trip to and from Bad Memory Lane. As Stew swung the crutches around and stepped himself up onto the sidewalk, he did a pain inventory. The excruciating agony of Tuesday had subsided to a dullness that, if Stew focused on better thoughts, was close to numb. This was, praise be, from a cocktail of over-the-counter analgesics, Advil and Aleve, alternated every three hours with a double-dose of Tylenol. Pain aside, the hard part was keeping his belly full with food to keep the meds from etching a hole in his stomach lining.
Also, the crutches were getting easier to maneuver. With that a sense of equilibrium had returned. Stew found he could move swiftly, swivel, and even lean on them. With his armpits stuck in the saddles and the sticks supporting him like ramparts, he looked something like an ape perched on a pair of rubber-tipped knuckles.
Stew squinted at his watch. It was straight up noon. This less-than-famous end of Sunset Boulevard snaked along the bottom of the southern slope of the Silverlake hills until it ran smack into downtown Los Angeles. On either side of the strip stood a mix of old, sun-baked apartments and modest, pre-World War II bungalows, most from the Arts and Crafts era. And as much as the area had been slowly reborn from inevitable urban gentrification, some remnants of its barrio roots remained untouched by anything but colorful spray paint.
Stew swung open the door to Ronny’s and stood at the threshold, waiting for his eyes to adjust. Nothing had changed. The bar, the wooden stools, the red vinyl upholstery of the booths held together with layers of silver duct tape, and the dolphins, of course. The ancient Sea World posters were everywhere, rippled and faded in ten-dollar aluminum frames.
The dolphins. How could I forget those silly-assed, frolicking dolphins?
The bar was cast in red lights and shafts of sunlight streaking through dirty windows protected by metal bars and the joint had an orangey glow. Then Stew sniffed the air. It was, after all, the famed Stink Hole. But the only aroma he recognized was that of the rancid oil used for frying Mojo Potatoes.
“Hey Stewy,” croaked Jerome. “Over here.”
Stew swung his view deep into a corner of the room, and for the thinnest moment, failed to recognize his old partner in crime. As long as Stew had known Jerome, he had been a junkie. A robust sort of addict. A man of multiple appetites, including the good and greasy food found in late night jazz joints. But the Jerome that sat in the far booth was a man who resembled an AIDS patient clinging to life. The fat in Jerome’s face was nearly gone along with the muscles on his bones.
“Damn, brother! What happened to you?” asked Jerome, speaking exactly what Stew was thinking.
His eyes adjusted to the light, Stew put his head down and deftly made his way through the obstacle course of rickety tables and empty chairs. The bar was empty but for Stew and Jerome. Whoever was running the joint, thought Stew, must be the man in the back working the chicken fryer.
“Lost an argument with a speeding Toyota,” quipped Stew, slinging himself into the booth and resting his crutches on the back of a chair. “One of those electric jobs. Didn’t even hear it comin’.”
“You hurtin’ any?” asked Jerome. His eyes appeared large and genuinely concerned, magnified by his emaciated face.
“Know what?” Stew began. “I’m grateful I’m not in a fuckin’ wheelchair.”
Truly grateful. Grateful he was no longer an addict like Jerome. Grateful he didn’t have to steal quarters from cigarette machines just to buy a fix.
Gratitude.
The feeling swelled inside Stew like a birthday surprise. It was a rejuvenating, pain-relieving moment brought on by the face of the poor and dying Jerome the Sax Man. Stew had come so very far. Far from dingy, dirty joints like Ronn
y’s Pub. Far from scraping out scores, only to settle for fifteen percent of the take from the merchandise he had stolen, and then having to divide the dough with mooks half as smart as himself just to keep someone from sticking a shiv in his back.
“So you’re daytiming it, huh?” asked Jerome. “Like a real deal job?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” said Stew.
“You look clean, too.”
“Sober, married. Own a house, got a business. All on the straight up.”
“Fuck all.”
“Fuck all is right. You should meet my wife. So hot she’d burn your dick off.”
“Double damn, man.” Jerome sat back as if to take an even wider look at Stew.
“Everybody we know’d is either dead or in the joint. You’re like a wonder of modern man.”
“Listen, man,” turned Stew. “Why I called—”
“How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Go over the wall. Get all worldly good and shit.”
“That part’s wrong. I’m not that good.”
“Yeah, right. Nobody is. But why you?”
“Why’d I get shit right?”
“How’d you get so lucky?”
“No luck,” said Stew. “Epiphany. Know what that is?”
“Fuck yeah.”
With that Jerome swiveled his shoulders and stuck out what little chest he had left. He looked like a life-sized marionette on strings.
Stew stole a look at his watch, momentarily concerned about the parking meter.
“Same old shit,” said Stew, tingling with the momentary satisfaction of knowing he had escaped his previous life in crime. “I was workin’ scores in the Valley. Construction sites. Fridays ’n’ paydays. Crews ’n’ bosses.”
“And bosses go to banks,” said Jerome, thinking himself ahead of Stew.
Stew explained that after general contractors pay their crews and do their banking, they often make trips to suppliers. Home Depot was Stew’s favorite. He would camp out at one of the Valley’s many do-it-yourself stores on Friday afternoon and wait for some flush-with-Friday-cash construction jockey to appear with a stupid smile on his face.
The Safety Expert Page 11