Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

by David Levien

  The waitress had come by to see if he needed anything and he’d asked for hot sauce. When she brought it to him, he’d made a little show of how hot it was, saying “caliente” and waving a hand in front of his mouth. It amused her and bought him some goodwill and an extra half hour of sitting there watching. Even so, he was at the limit of how long he could reasonably stay and hadn’t yet spotted his angle, besides possibly the busboy, when two stout men in their early forties entered. In tight T-shirts that stretched over their arms and hard, round bellies, they might have been brothers or cousins. The larger of the two moved behind the counter and hugged the waitress warmly. It was clear from the indulgent nature of the embrace that she was not his daughter. The other man sat on a stool at the counter and waited. The waitress made him a café con leche, while the larger bloke popped the till drawer, removed a stack of bills, counted and split it, and handed over half to the coffee drinker.

  Dwyer saw them notice him in the corner, size him up, and disregard him. He sized them up as well, and while they didn’t seem like they’d provide much of a problem, they probably wouldn’t volunteer whether or not they knew a José Campos just because he’d asked. He didn’t see much point in getting into it in the middle of their restaurant during business hours though, so Dwyer stood.

  “La cuenta, por favor,” he said, amusing the counter girl once again with his poor Spanish. He was just a novel fucking fellow. He paid his check, mildly overtipped, and exited. He got back in his car and took up a position where he could watch the men and follow them when they left. It was almost fiesta time.

  25

  Behr didn’t sleep much that night. He’d driven by Potempa’s house, and seen him through a bay window in his kitchen having dinner with his wife. He’d watched him go back and forth to the freezer for ice and refill his drink many times. He’d considered walking up to the door and knocking and telling Potempa what he knew. But he didn’t. He just sat there thinking, wondering what Potempa, and his daughter, were caught up in, rolling the permutations around in his mind like a Rubik’s Cube.

  In the end, he didn’t approach. He sat there until the house went dark, and he imagined Potempa sleeping, or at least in bed, lying there sleepless despite the alcohol. Behr’s mind wouldn’t feed him any answers, so he drove himself home to find Susan already down for the night. He slid into bed, envying her slumber. It was the body—the tiny one she was growing inside her—that demanded the rest, because he knew that by day her mind was filled with the anxiety of the coming child. The responsibility of it weighed heavy on her, as it did on him. She worried with a new mother’s determined optimism. He envied her that, too.

  For his part, he put up a futile struggle not to hope for everything to turn out well, as if his daring to wish for it would cause the universe to deny him that simple relief. He knew too well the blind corners and murky alleyways that came along with being a father. It seemed to be his sole area of expertise. He spent the rest of the night on his back in bed, between the worlds of the dormant and the waking, pricked by the knowledge that whoever he was hoping to track down probably wasn’t at rest. He would rise early and be out the door before Susan stirred.

  26

  Waddy Dwyer couldn’t believe how easy it had been.

  It was as if the Americans built with bloody kindling materials.

  The night had already been a hell of a busy one, and sleep wasn’t going to be a part of it for him. The first piece had gone well, he thought, sniffing the intoxicating odors of gasoline and lacquer thinner coming off his shirt and skin.

  As a matter of fact it was a thing of roaring orange beauty.

  He pulled over behind a small grocery store and slathered his hands and lower arms in hand sanitizer. Then he stripped off his shirt, put on a fresh one, and stuffed the rank one in a Dumpster. No one of consequence knew he was in town or fuckall about what he was doing, but that was no reason to let the attention to detail drop. He got in his car for the drive through dark farmlands back to the city.

  The second part of the evening promised to be more of a challenge. After all, the caballeros he needed to talk to could be pros or ex-pros, or could generally turn out to be a handful, so he’d need to be creative to get what he wanted from them.

  Ah, just be a bit friendly, he thought, putting the car in gear and nosing it onto the main road, and generous of course.

  27

  The morning rose up in a hazy mass of purple sky bellied by thick rain clouds and smoke. The call from the police had come in half an hour earlier for Gantcher to get his ass out of bed and redline it down to the job site. Or what was left of it.

  Three hundred and forty-two units, the town house villas in varying stages of completion, were now reduced to pockets of licking flame, glowing cinders, and smoke puffs. The beginning of the hotel tower was still standing but was now charred to a blackened cement spire.

  Like my life, Lowell Gantcher almost said aloud. But it was a good thing he didn’t, considering he hadn’t noticed that a police lieutenant and a fire captain had walked up and were standing next to him.

  “Heard you’re having some trouble with your contractors,” the policeman said.

  “What do you mean?” Gantcher said, turning toward him. “I’m fine with those guys.”

  “They say they haven’t been paid in three weeks.” Hot pockets hissed around them as a slow, insistent rain began to fall.

  “Bookkeeping changeover, nothing more. Their checks are cut, probably went out yesterday before close of business,” Gantcher said, hoping it was the truth.

  “Okay,” said the cop.

  “Are you saying that a disgruntled worker set this off?” Gantcher said.

  “We’re not saying that,” the fire captain said. “It’s too soon to say anything. Could’ve been bad luck or a colossal fuckup just as easy.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Best we can tell for starters is the fire originated in those units,” the fire captain said, pointing with a stubby finger. “They were in the process of being wired for electricity. Maybe they weren’t grounded yet. A power surge could’ve taken out a panel. Then those units, which hadn’t been fully framed and insulated and fireproofed, went next. Your workers thought it’d be a good place to store the welders’ oxy fuel bottles in there. By the time the flames reached the more finished units with all the paint and lacquer cans—well, the only thing that was missing was Mrs. O’Leary’s cow …”

  “Goddammit,” Gantcher said, “if these guys were negligent, I’ll sue the frigging contractor down to his last hammer and nail.” Gantcher hoped it sounded convincing, the young developer distraught over his project going up in flames. The cop and fireman had no reason to know that he hadn’t had a prayer of coming up with the funds to complete the job in the first place.

  “Take it easy, Mr. Gantcher,” the fire captain said. “Just like we don’t know if it was intentionally set, we don’t know if it was negligence either. Yet. All in time.”

  “Besides,” the policeman spoke up, “you were insured, right?”

  Gantcher felt the man’s eyes bore holes right through him. He turned back to the smoldering flames and rubbed his eyes as if it were the smoke that was causing his tears.

  28

  Behr wanted to be the first one into the Caro Group that morning, to have a conversation with Potempa, for whatever it would yield, but he had something else he needed to do first. It was why he’d driven out to the southeast side in a gray, dripping rain and nosed his car up the dirt entry road to South County Landfill. This was a place he found himself from time to time, when he needed an answer or at least a thread to pull. Whatever was going on in town, Terry Cottrell seemed to know something about how it happened or who was involved. If he couldn’t point Behr in the right direction, Terry would break things down into a likely strategy at the very least. The only question was: Would he? There had been bad blood between them the last time they’d met, and it was Behr’s fault. He had pushed too
hard on something and crossed invisible boundaries of friendship and trust. Behr had broken the unspoken code between them and had kept his distance accordingly, in order to let the wrong of it subside. But now it was time to lay it down. Which was why Behr had a large, expensive coffee table book called French New Wave resting on his passenger seat. A glamorous blonde graced the cover of the book chronicling the existential foreign films of which Terry was such a fan. It was a peace offering, just a token, but enough, hopefully, to bring about a thaw.

  Behr parked by the double-wide trailer that was both office and home to Cottrell. When the weather was clear, he’d often find Terry outside, overseeing the dumping and spreading of waste at the landfill, or shooting rats with an air gun, or listening to music in the morning sun. It was usually later in the day, when the sun was ready to go down, that the Old Grand-Dad with a splash of coffee or cola would come out.

  Behr rapped on the trailer door, surprised not to hear the sounds of jazz or a film bleeding through. After a moment the door opened and revealed a large gentleman fifty pounds heavier and twenty years older than Cottrell.

  “Scale’s closed for a half hour yet,” the man said.

  “Not here to dump,” Behr said. “I’m looking for Terry Cottrell.”

  “You a friend of his?” the new man asked. Behr nodded. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone? Where?” Behr wondered. But the man just shrugged.

  “After the county hired me, he ran me through the workings of the place six months back. Then he packed out and left. Haven’t heard from him since.”

  “He leave a number or an address?” Behr wondered. He had a cell phone number for Cottrell, but it was only good for leaving voice mails as it was rarely answered.

  “Sure didn’t,” the man said. There wasn’t much left to say. “Well, we’re here if you need to do any dumping.”

  Behr tucked the plastic-wrapped book under his arm and walked back to his car, feeling empty.

  29

  “Can I get some coffee here!” Shug Saunders said, hearing the bark in his voice but completely unable to check it.

  The fried eggs and hash browns were swimming on the plate in front of him, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t due to the drinking he’d done the night before, but rather what Lowell Gantcher, the mewling son of a bitch, was telling him. Either way he had a growing suspicion he was going to retch.

  Heads turned toward him at his demand. The Skillet was a small place—eight or ten seats and a counter—and the regulars there weren’t used to strangers showing up in the first place, much less snarling at their waitress.

  “Thank you, dear,” Shug said, trying to put some sweetness into his voice when she finally arrived with the pot, and attempting to make it loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “Uh-huh,” the waitress said, and heads turned back to newspapers and plates and Shug and Gantcher were able to resume their conversation.

  “Can you talk to the guy in the middle? See if he can, I don’t know, make Dwyer back off or stand down?” Gantcher asked in a hoarse whisper, his coffee cup hovering in the air between them.

  “The middle guy is running shit scared right now from this whole thing, man. I don’t think I can call him for anything or make any kind of contact right now.”

  “Come on. Now’s not the time for him to go MIA on us—”

  “And as for the Welshman, from what I hear, once he’s turned on, he doesn’t have an off switch,” Shug said. “Which is why you hired him in the first place, isn’t it?”

  “Oh god,” Gantcher said. When he noticed his cup starting to quake in his hand he put it down on the table. “What are we going to do?”

  “What did he tell you he wants?” Shug said, trying to think clearly.

  “Money.”

  “Money?”

  “That’s right. To sanitize it, I think is what it’s called.”

  “How much?”

  “He said a million. So I suppose he’d settle for seven fifty, eight hundred grand.”

  “What the fuck? That’s complete extortion.”

  “I’m not in a position to point that out.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose you have it to give to him? Because that would certainly be the cleanest—”

  “I don’t have a piss to pot in, Shug,” Gantcher said, scrambling it up and not even noticing. “I was wondering if you could, you know, go to Kolodnik on my behalf—”

  “Oh come on,” Shug cut him off, “I can’t bring up the bill again. He’s already landed on that—he’s not doing it.”

  “No, I was going to say: to see if he’d extend me a loan based on my ownership piece,” Gantcher said, his voice small.

  “Oh, get real—”

  “Now that I’m facing these rebuilding delays—”

  “Are you a complete fucking idiot?”

  The irony of the request was bringing on a migraine and Shug pinched the bridge of his nose. Three and a half years ago, this deal seemed so clear and simple. Back then Bernie Kolodnik’s political ambitions were only a distant dream, the hundred K per year advisory fee Shug collected practically free money. It was cocktail parties and introductions for Bernie, which couldn’t have been easier to make since he was a man of great success and integrity that everyone wanted to meet in the first place, and for Shug it meant access—incredible access. Hell, he was probably the second person in the world to know about the Indy Flats racino project when it was born.

  “Crapsake, Lowell,” Shug hissed, “how could you mismanage things this badly?”

  Gantcher had the good sense not to answer.

  “It was supposed to be a simple build. A simple win,” Shug went on.

  “I know it,” Gantcher said, shaking his head.

  “You know how many frigging developers I could have steered this to? McLanahan, Aegis, Cyril Land. Who could’ve fucked it up like you?”

  Some remnant of Gantcher’s competitive spirit flared. “Come on, Shug, no one saw this slump coming. Aegis is balls-deep in overdue construction loans as we speak.”

  It was true. No one in the field was exactly unscathed at the moment. And none of the companies he named would’ve been willing to secretly kick back a piece of their end of the development in exchange for the introduction to Bernie, like Gantcher had been—which is why Shug had brought it to him in the first place.

  It was to have been a straightforward build, launch, and sell. Long before Kolodnik’s political career had even started. And when the deal was done and the sale complete, tens and hundreds of millions for everyone else and a quick thirteen-million-dollar pop for Shug.

  But then profits dipped. The partnership had been forced to hold and manage the damned place. Gantcher and his team weren’t equipped for that. Even in a robust economy they wouldn’t have been any good at it. Gantcher had asked Kolodnik to go to the state legislature to ask for a special assembly where they would petition for a rebate on the licensing fee, which would have seen them through the tough time to recovery, and Kolodnik had. The man had asked. But the legislature had denied the request. Then, well, then the rest had started in motion, when whispers about the sitting senator’s cancer broke, Kolodnik’s name began being mentioned, and Shug saw the sock fill with the changing winds …

  “A racino, for god’s sake,” Shug muttered, “getting a damned Gutenberg press and printing it yourself is supposed to be the only easier way to make money.”

  “I know, man,” Gantcher said, his head moving slowly from side to side like a steer looking to graze. “But the question now is, What can we do?”

  Shug’s throat locked up. At the moment he didn’t have any answers.

  30

  Ah, you’ll be better after a bit of a kip, Dwyer told himself, standing over the sink, scrubbing the soles of his shoes with enzyme cleanser and a toothbrush. Only right now he couldn’t afford to take one. That was one of the downsides of working alone. He’d used teams for the past eighteen years. He’d started out solo when he left the
service, of course, until he could afford to start hiring on.

  The ice-cold water pouring out of the faucet froze his hands stiff, but when dealing with protein stains cold water was required. Hot or even warm cooked the material right onto the surface that was to be cleaned.

  It had been a hell of a night. After the burn job, he’d come back to the city and sat on the small house for a few hours, watching as the two stout men he’d seen at La Pasión arrived, then moved about, drinking beers, eating something at a table in the front room, and generally whiling away the late hours of the night. He’d wanted to make sure they were the only ones in the house, and eventually he had come to believe they were. Then he wanted to make sure they were good and tired before he got to them. Finally, the lights started going out, and he believed the time was right.

  That’s when he crossed to their door and knocked loud and hard. He didn’t want them waking up confused as to what they were hearing.

  He saw a light flick on, the front door opened, and an angry face appeared behind the screen door.

  “Que haces, motherfucker?” the man, the one who had sat and drank café con leche said, tired anger in his dark eyes.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, buddy,” Dwyer said in his broadest Southern twang. “I was hoping you could do me a favor, and I could do you one in return.”

  “Que quieres? Hablas español?” the man said.

  “What?” Dwyer responded.

  “What the fuck do you want?” the man said, raising an aluminum baseball bat for Dwyer to see.

  “I want to buy a piece of info, brother,” Dwyer said, and fanned a handful of hundred-dollar bills. The man lowered the bat, opened the door, and let him in.

  He needed to find Juan Alfaro, Dwyer told them when the other fellow, who’d cleared the till, had joined them. He didn’t bother with a story about being friends, as he had with the old building manager. The two burly men sitting on either side of him, boxing him in in their living room, wouldn’t have believed it and wouldn’t have cared anyway.