Rough Trade

by Todd Robinson

  “Why are you telling me this now? You’re the kind of prick who takes a girl to the fancy restaurant to break up with her!”

  “Because we’re probably going to fucking die here, Junior. I didn’t want to take that to my grave.”

  Junior shook it off, retracted the antenna, then gave it a kiss before he put it in the pocket of his coat.

  That kiss was one of the saddest things I’d ever seen.

  “We good?” I asked.

  “No. No, we are not good. You killed my car. But we will discuss this at another time.”

  At least he was still operating under the notion that there would be another time. Unless he planned on hounding me with the issue into the afterlife—which wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

  I pressed the doorbell by the club’s entrance. I couldn’t hear the ring, but a buzzing sounded along with a click. As I opened the door, the flood of warm air melted the snowflakes on my face and coat.

  We got two steps in before the gun was placed against the back of my neck.

  “Surprise,” said Marcus. “Junior?”

  “Yeah.” Junior’s face immediately shifted into war mode.

  “Kindly walk in front of Boo, here.” I could hear the smile on his face.

  “This isn’t a great way to start a negotiation,” I said. Although I couldn’t look at him, I could hear by his high nasal tone that his schnozz was still taped good and tight after I’d given it a horsey ride on my kneecap.

  “Unh-unh,” Marcus said. “See, that’s where you’ve been wrong about what’s about to go down here. Ain’t shit about to be negotiated.”

  Junior went, “Wanh wanh, wanh wanh wanh wanh.” A pretty good impersonation of both Marcus and Charlie Brown’s teacher. Junior snickered through his nose at his own impression.

  I giggled, then got mad that I did. That fucker—couldn’t we do anything seriously?

  Marcus cleared his throat, hard. “This isn’t a negotiation. It never—”

  “Wanh.”

  Another giggle.

  I snorted.

  Marcus said, “It never was. You’re going to give us what we want.”

  “Wanh wanh.”

  Then we both lost it, making it worse by trying really hard not to lose it.

  “Hey,” Marcus yelled. “I am holding a fucking gun at your head here!”

  “Yeah, meant to mention that,” I said. “You working guns now? Wasn’t this a part of the whole ‘who’s a pussy’ debate we just went through a couple days ago?”

  “Because this makes you a pussy, you know,” Junior said.

  “I’m moving up in the world, Malone. Doing some critical work for Mr. Summerfield now. Need some serious hardware to back that up. Start walking.”

  “I’m not walking with a gun to the back of my head.” I dusted the snow from the front of my jacket all over the expensive carpeting at Raja. Maybe gave it a water stain. That’d learn ’em. Fight the power.

  “You messing with me?” Marcus said, his voice rising a notch. Poor Marcus. I bet he had a really cool scenario in his imagination that was supposed to go down. And there I was, fucking it all up again being a dick about things.

  “You know where the money is?” I asked him over my shoulder. It was then that I noticed he was wearing one of those NBA-style hard plastic nose guards. Guess I really broke his face up good.

  “You didn’t bring it?” Marcus said incredulously.

  “I’m not as stupid as you and your boss think I am.”

  Junior looked me up and down. “Yeah. I didn’t know that either. Feel like I should have noticed you weren’t carrying a goddamn trumpet case. You think you could have mentioned that part of your plan?”

  “We didn’t discuss any plan. You weren’t part of this plan. You insisted on tagging along.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” said Marcus. “Again, I am holding a gun here.”

  “And you’re going to either put it down or shoot me, “I said. “Then you can explain to Summerfield why you put a bullet into the only man who knows where his money is.”

  Marcus just stood there, the gun pressing harder under my ear.

  “And you don’t even know how to properly use that thing,” I said. “I’d rather not have you catch your foot on one of these fancy-ass curtains and accidentally blow the top of my head off.”

  “The fuck you talking about?”

  “First off, you never stand this close to someone and press a gun against their head unless you intend on shooting them.”

  Marcus sighed. “I promise I will not accidentally shoot you.”

  “Not that at all. Bullets move fast. That’s the point. You stand this close, you’re giving up the advantage that distance and speed would give…” I took one step back, the gun slipping past my ear, then harmlessly parallel to my face.

  Before he could react, I grabbed his arm by the wrist and bent at the waist, throwing all my upper body weight into it. His shoulder popped and he shrieked, squeezing off two shots before he was airborne and upside down.

  When he landed, I knelt on his wrist and drove my elbow down straight into his noseguard. The molded plastic shattered and his eyes rolled up.

  I drew back for another shot, but Junior soccer-kicked him to the temple with his Docs.

  The gun clattered when it hit the floor. I grabbed it and pointed it at Marcus’s chest.

  From a distance.

  “Holy fuck, Bruce Lee! That was awesome!” Junior said, fist-bumping me. “The hell you learn to do that?”

  “YMCA class, bitch,” I said to Marcus, and spat on his face.

  Marcus groaned and rolled to his side, clutching his head.

  “Now stand up and lead the way,” I said.

  Legs still wobbly, Marcus stumbled as he tried to stand. He caught himself on the armrest of a velvet couch, and snarled at me. “You are a fucking dead man, Malone. You’re not walking out of here. No way.”

  “Guy talks a lot of smack for somebody who just lost a tooth,” Junior said.

  Marcus reached into his mouth, his finger finding the gap where his lower incisor used to be. His eyes flared with rage, but it was quickly extinguished by the barrel I was holding on him.

  “Drop it!” came a voice I wasn’t expecting or happy to hear. Alex parted the curtains that led to the main bar. With him were my old buddies, Cornrows and Lineman.

  They all had guns pointed at me.

  “See, Marcus?” I said. “These guys know how to hold a gun.” I opened my grip and let the gun dangle by the trigger guard.

  Marcus grabbed a heavy iron lamp off the table and got ready to swing it into my temple.

  “Quit it, Marcus. You’ve already fucked this up enough,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, Marcus,” Junior said, waggling his finger.

  Marcus bellowed and threw the lamp to the floor with a sound thump.

  “Don’t worry. They keep this up, and you’ll get your opportunity,” Alex said.

  “Don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Junior said. “He’s had chances already, and look how that’s turned out.”

  “Where’s Summerfield?” I said.

  “He’ll be with us in a moment.”

  “Where’s the girl? Where’s Kelly?”

  Alex’s eyebrow went up. “All of your questions will be answered in a minute. Please walk with us. Boys, put the guns down.”

  Cornrows and Lineman looked at each other warily, but lowered their guns as told. They were even more bandaged up than Marcus was. Cornrows had his non-gun-bearing arm in a sling and Lineman had a lump on the side of his jaw that looked like he’d taken a hook from Tyson in his prime.

  “Whoa. What happened to those guys?” Junior asked me.

  “That was me.”

  “Nice! You did some damage while I was away.”

  “Didn’t feel like it at the time, but I guess I did.”

  We fist-bumped again.

  Alex and the goon trio led us up a wide carpeted sta
irwell to a glass door. Curtained, of course. What was with all the curtains? Every time a goddamn curtain opened in this bar, I didn’t like what was on the other side. Affixed to the wall was a small brass plaque that read VIP in elegant cursive.

  Lineman opened the door to a long room with a wide oak table in the middle. On the far end was a bar filled with top-shelf liquor. Six bar stools in slipcovers lined the short bar. Even the damn chairs in the place were curtained. “I’ll take a Pappy Van Winkle, neat,” I said to Marcus.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  “Well, there goes his tip,” Junior said.

  “We should speak to the manager,” I said.

  We were almost hit with another fit of giggles when, from under one of the barstool slipcovers, a whimper. The chair was turned toward the bar, so I didn’t notice that the cover was also draped over what appeared to be a person sitting on the barstool.

  The room burned red. Acid pumped into my heart and every muscle went into nitro mode.

  Junior grabbed my forearm. “Don’t,” was all he said. “Not yet.”

  I slowly walked toward her.

  “Sit down,” Cornrows said.

  I kept walking. “Shoot me,” I said.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw all three of the goons give each other looks, but none of them moved to stop me, and none of them shot me.

  I crouched in front of the chair and turned it toward me. Another frightened whimper. Gently, I lifted the thin plastic off Ginny, her eyes terrified and red-rimmed.

  What?

  I didn’t know which one of us wore the bigger look of surprise, but hers quickly turned to fury as she started to kick her legs at me, her curses at my general existence barely muffled by the duct tape over her mouth.

  I rolled back, her foot missing my chin by an inch.

  From the other end of the room, Junior said, “All right. Now I’m confused.”

  I jumped up, trying to maintain composure. “What is she doing here?”

  Marcus looked at me, now also puzzled. “Who the hell did you think was here?”

  “Where’s Kelly?” I asked.

  “This Kelly?” asked a BBC-accented voice. Ian Summerfield walked into the room from a door that was flush with the wall on the far end of the short bar. I didn’t even know the door was there. I guess VIP’s needed to be sneaky.

  “You know fucking well and good—” I stopped short as my heart leapt out of my chest, ran behind me, and gave me an emotional wedgie.

  Summerfield led a visibly concerned and confused Kelly into the room, his hand roughly gripping her upper arm.

  Plainly not a hostage of any goddamn kind.

  Or at least she wasn’t until I opened my goddamn mouth.

  There were a couple of weighted seconds of silence…

  …before Junior absolutely lost his shit laughing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Junior was never going to let me live this one down. It was a small blessing that our life expectancy was topping out at only another fifteen to twenty minutes.

  Junior was now screaming with laughter, his face as red as his hair, fist pounding on the table.

  Everyone looked at each other and Junior uncomfortably.

  Summerfield pointed at Junior. “Can he stop that please?”

  “I can’t!” Junior squealed, then fell into huge whooping coughs. “Water,” he wheezed.

  Summerfield let go of Kelly’s bicep and gave her a little shove towards the bar. “Will someone please get him some fucking water,” he said, staring at his goons.

  Alex went behind the bar and filled a pint glass from the soda gun.

  “Thank you,” Junior said, chugging the water before wiping his wet mouth and eyes on his sleeve. “Oh God.” Junior looked at me through laughter-teared eyes. “You really screwed the pooch on this one.”

  That I had. This was nothing new.

  I couldn’t read Kelly’s face. She maintained a certain amount of stoniness, but her eyes darted around the room, as confused as I was. Before I could catch the words coming out of my mouth, I said to her, “What are you doing?”

  Her eyebrows pulled down angrily at me. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought I was coming here to rescue you.”

  “From what? My job?”

  “Your what?” My confusion was getting worse.

  “I work here. I’m the event coordinator for Ian’s bars.”

  Summerfield held up a finger. “So. You two know each other how?”

  Junior, mouth full of water, made a fist and a finger. Then he vigorously and repeatedly jammed said finger into his fist, but instead of Twitch’s reference, the fist represented...

  …why the fuck am I explaining this?

  “Ew,” said Summerfield.

  “Who is that?” Kelly said, pointing behind me to Ginny.

  “That’s Ginny. She works at The Cellar,” Junior said.

  “So it’s her you’re here to rescue,” Kelly said, lowering her gaze at me.

  “I didn’t know she was here. I thought she was you.”

  Then it was Ginny’s turn to give me a death stare.

  Well, none of this was coming out right. Not one bit right. All I could do was look back at Ginny and grimace at her apologetically. “Sorry,” I said.

  “Why would she be here? Why would you think I was her?” Kelly asked.

  “They ‘had relations’ the other day,” Junior said, air quoting himself.

  Ginny yelled and snarled something angry from behind the tape.

  Kelly’s face went redder. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t give me some satisfaction to see.

  “Please shut up, Junior,” I said.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Can we discuss this later?” I said.

  “Like we’re going to discuss Miss Kitty later?” Junior said, hurt in his voice.

  “Miss Kitty?” Summerfield asked, his own confusion deepening. “Who is she?”

  “Nobody,” I said.

  “Don’t say that,” Junior said through clenched teeth. “She wasn’t nobody to me.”

  I looked around the room for some help, but had no idea who could offer assistance in this utterly ridiculous development. The whole situation had gone fuckadoodle.

  “Let’s just settle all this first,” I said, waving my hand at the guns, the duct-taped, Ginny, the frightened and miffed Kelly and the rest of the room in general.

  “No,” he said, starting to exhibit more than a little pissed off intent behind his words. “You’ve been bitching and moaning about this broad for months now, ” he said, pointing his mitten at Kelly. “Get this out and over with so we can all move on with our fucking lives.”

  Kelly was boring holes in me with her eyes as she flicked her gaze back and forth from Ginny to me. Really? Was she judging me here? I cut her off as she opened her mouth to say something.

  “You,” I said to Kelly, “do not get to form an opinion here. At least I’m not fucking a goddamn Euro-trash drug dealer, am I?”

  The mouth that had started opening to speak, simply fell the rest of the way down in shock. “Oh my God. You’re serious?” Kelly said.

  Frankly, I was a little stunned at myself for saying it. It had just come out.

  “Really?” Summerfield said. “Are you? Oh my god. He’s completely serious right now, isn’t he?”

  Despite the voice in my head telling me that it was time to stop embarrassing myself, I felt the need to go on. “Goddamn right,” I said. “Sorry if my terms offend you, but if the Euro-trash drug dealer shoe fits, wear it.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Kelly said, closing her eyes.

  “I’m gay, you twat,” Summerfield yelled at me. “Are you fucking thick?”

  Aw, shit…

  I guess I was.

  The uncomfortable silence was broken by Junior’s explosion of laughter. “Oh my GAAAAHD!” he shrieked. “I’m gonna puke! WAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Then he had himself a good couple of wheezing cough
s before he was able to squeak out, “Everybody is fucking gay!”

  “Excuse me,” yelled Summerfield. “What the bloody hell is happening? Did you all suddenly forget what we’re doing here? That there are several men here with guns to shoot you with?”

  Oh yeah. That. “Well,” I said, “clearly we’ve lost the narrative thread within this situation.”

  “Clearly,” Summerfield said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Let’s start with you letting Ginny go. She’s a lot less involved here than you think.”

  Summerfield shook his head in disbelief. “Give me my goddamn drugs you stole, then, and only then, can we discuss letting any of you go.”

  “I don’t have any drugs. I have a whole lot of your money, though.”

  Summerfield rolled his eyes, his exasperation growing with every word that came out of my mouth. “So Byron never even got the pills. That cunt was planning on taking my money from the get-go.”

  “Look, I have no idea what, if any, plan he had. We were—”

  Summerfield cut me off by pulling a chrome-plated .32 from inside of his coat. “You pricks were thinking you’d kill my courier and run with my product and/or money. Why?”

  “That’s not—”

  “Was it because of her?” Summerfield pointed the gun at Kelly’s face. Kelly gasped and stepped back until she was against the bar.

  My heart cramped excruciatingly.

  Summerfield’s face was getting redder with each word. I couldn’t tell if it was his blood pressure or mine that was making it change colors.

  He went on. “You were going to try to take me down a fucking peg because of your…whatever she was to you?” Summerfield took a step closer to Kelly. “Or were you involved with this from the start?”

  Kelly backed to the wall, blinking rapidly. “Ian, I swear—”

  “You better swear, you deceitful bitch. Because I’m not the kind of man who believes in coincidences.”

  “Hey, hey!” I yelled, hands held up. I was too far away to jump in front of the gun if need be. “Listen, you got this whole situation ass-backward. We didn’t rob your fucking courier.” My hands were up, pleading. My heart pounded in my chest, blood rushing in my ears.

  I was fucking terrified. I could hear it in my own voice.

  It was all happening again.