Way Past Legal

by Norman Green

  And it’s funny, too, because Rosey was one of those guys that have horrible problems with guilt. He came up Catholic, and when he got drunk or fucked up he would cry, and all of his pains and regrets would come flooding out of him. Me, I grew up in the machine, and I didn’t have any illusions about some cosmic system of retribution that would somehow make everything come out even.

  It got gradually darker as the sun sank lower in the sky, and when it hit the horizon it seemed to pick up speed, it was almost as though you could see it move, getting smaller and smaller as it dropped past the far edge of the world. Burglars do a lot of their work after the sun goes down, but the woods look a lot different in the dark. I stopped every little while to look at the compass again, and I had to slog straight through some of the obstacles that Mrs. Johnson had led me around earlier in the day. I started to worry about the flashlight, too. It was possible, if you thought about it, that my life depended on the thing. Say the batteries crap out, or the element in the bulb goes, I’m out here in the dark, and I’m fucked, with a capital fuck. That thought made me a lot more careful not to drop the light, and I only turned it on when I had to, when I needed it to see my way around something or to look at the compass. And then, you know, the woods have animals and shit, not just birds, either. Presumably the bears that made the marks Mrs. Johnson showed me were still around someplace, and they could probably hear me stomping around out there. I know that black bears are not as big as horses, okay, but I sure as hell did not want to make the acquaintance of one. I guess I hadn’t needed the coffee to rev me up, after all.

  I got to the ridge a lot quicker than I thought I would. I went up and halfway down the other side and turned left, the way Mrs. Johnson told me to, and it worked—after a couple hundred yards I saw the lights from the cabin windows. I felt flooded with relief, since I wasn’t lost after all, not yet, anyhow.

  I made my way down there as quietly as I could. There was an outhouse behind the place, just a tiny little shack knocked together out of old planks, looked rustic as all hell. Smelled pretty rustic, too. I hadn’t noticed it before because it was on the far side of the U-Haul truck, about ten yards from the tree line. I stopped when I saw it, waited for a few minutes. If someone was in there, I wanted to give him time to come out. No one did, though, so I eased over to the cabin.

  The light inside the place wasn’t an electric light, it was one of those gas things that campers use, looks like an old hurricane lantern with the glass chimney, little green tank on the bottom with a tiny pump attached that you use to pressurize whatever it is the thing burns. The three of them were inside. The one that looked like Boris Yeltsin was asleep in a chair, his head back and his mouth open. The other guy, the one with the scar on his face, was sitting at the table drinking beer and playing cards, and he did not look like he was enjoying his game very much. Rosey was tied to a chair, head down, his chin on his chest. He didn’t look like he was having a great time, either. He had a piece of duct tape over his mouth. The cabin was really crude. I made my way carefully around the outside, looked through each window. There was just the one big room, and it held everything. Two beds, a sink with an old-fashioned pump handle, an icebox, the table Scarface was at, and that was it. Just those two assholes and Rosey. I went back to the edge of the woods to think it over.

  I sat down on a rock and fumed. Part of me wanted blood, maybe a lot of me, you know, the hell with it, just go kill those two pigs. Stupid, though. Blind rage is an unguided missile, and you never know if it’s going to circle around and get you instead of the people you’re after. After a while I cooled off and started to think.

  Scarface was the real problem. I was willing to bet that Yeltsin was shit-faced, that I could walk in there with a brass band without waking the guy up. A guy who slept like that, snoring openmouthed, he was down for the count, at least until his body’s thirst for alcohol woke him up in four or five hours. I had to think of a way to get Scarface out of there, though, because it seemed like tempting fate to walk in there with the two of them both present, asleep, drunk or not. This wasn’t going to be like burglarizing some yuppie’s house. I went back over and watched Scarface through the window.

  He got up once, moved out of my line of vision, came back opening another beer. This guy seemed to be pouring a lot of liquid into himself, and it struck me that sooner or later he was going to have to pour some of it out. I could wait by the door with a rock, knock the guy in the head when he came out. . . .

  I would do that if I had to, but maybe I didn’t have to. Scarface looked, to me, like a guy who was too much of a control freak to piss indiscriminately in the grass. I went back behind the cabin, over to the outhouse. It smelled seriously bad over there, and the ground was a little marshy. I put it out of my mind, both the odor and the thought of what I might be tromping through, and as quietly as I could, I pushed the thing over backward. It turned out to be easy enough, it wasn’t heavy at all. I dragged it straight back about six feet and stood it upright again. Then I went over by the U-Haul truck, where the ground was drier, and I felt around until I found a half dozen rocks that were about the right size, maybe half as big as a baseball. I took out the M-80s and the electrical tape, and I taped one M-80 to each rock. I stuck two of them in my vest pocket and lined up the other four on the truck tailgate. I cursed myself for thinking I didn’t need a gun, and then I knew that I had been right not to bring one. I didn’t want to get into a firefight with these two assholes, and odds were, one or both of them had to be a better shot than I was. I found another rock, a little bigger than the others, just in case I needed to whack Scarface in the head after all, and I went back over by the cabin door to wait.

  Motherfucker must have had a bladder like an elephant’s. I wasn’t wearing a watch, so I had no way to judge the passing of time, but the guy drank four more beers before he finally got up to piss, and it seemed to take hours. I watched him come through the cabin door. I had been wondering, while I waited, if he would just walk four or five paces away from the door and piss in the grass after all, and I got ready with my rock, but he didn’t, he headed for the outhouse, walking down the path in the dark, secure in the knowledge that he’d been there before, and had nothing to worry about.

  I didn’t see him fall into that stinking pit, it was too dark, but I heard it happen. An incoherent yell from a guy who speaks English sounds different from an incoherent yell from a guy who speaks some other language, but the meaning was clear enough, and another time it would have been funny. I went through the cabin door, watching Yeltsin while I listened to Scarface. I had the knife out, Rosey looked up and saw me coming with it, you could see from the look on his face that he knew he was going to die. Bastard thought I was going to stick him. Maybe once I would have done it, I don’t know, but I held a finger to my lips. He nodded, and I hacked the ropes that bound him to the chair. Yeltsin never moved, not even when Rosey stumbled on the way to the cabin door, and we were out.

  Rosey’s legs weren’t working real well, and I could feel him shaking, I could sense his fear as I dragged him around the far side of the cabin. Scarface had gotten himself out of the shit by then and he was bellowing as he ran for the cabin, probably swearing but it still sounded like incoherent rage. Rosey and I kept moving, circling around behind the place. We stopped when we got to the U-Haul truck. Rosey’s hands were still tied together, but I didn’t think I had time to cut him loose. I could hear Scarface over in the cabin, screaming at Yeltsin. I stuck my head close to his ear. “Don’t move,” I whispered to him. “Stay right here.” I went over by the tailgate where I had lined up the four M-80s, took a deep breath, and then I lit all four fuses at once. I threw them quickly, as hard as I could, high over the cabin. An M-80 makes a hell of a bang, especially in the relative quiet of a Maine night. Three of them went off close together, out on the far side of the cabin, pow-pow-pow, and then the fourth maybe a second later, pow. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so freaked out, I could hear the sounds of
breaking glass, and the staccato cracking of two semiautomatics firing away blindly in the darkness. I got behind Rosey, feeling for the ropes that bound his hands together. I could hear the Russians crashing around in the dark, but I couldn’t tell where they were, and I had to be careful with the knife or I’d wind up cutting off one of Rosey’s thumbs. I finally got him loose. I leaned up and whispered in his ear again.

  “Can you walk?”

  He wrapped his arms around his chest, but he nodded.

  “Okay. This way.”

  I could still hear one of the Russians floundering around on the other side of the cabin, but I didn’t know where the other one had gone. I found him, though, or he found us, because when Rosey and I got back to the edge of the woods, Yeltsin was there waiting for us, and he was pointing a pistol at my chest.

  “I knew you’d come,” he said harshly in thickly accented English. “Put that knife down or I shoot you now.”

  Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. It’s like when the cops put the manacles on you, you have to recognize when it’s over, and that fighting them only makes it worse. They got you, sucka, so you may as well relax, the ride’s gonna be the same whether you’re kicking and screaming or not. Why make it harder on yourself than it has to be? My head told me that for about a half a second, even though I knew that these two assholes were going to work me over the way they had done Rosey, until they got what they came for. I could almost accept that much, but what really pissed me off was the realization that they would put Rosey and me in shallow graves when it was all over, leaving Nicky well and truly alone, with absolutely no one on his side. Maybe that gave me the extra little bit of desperation I needed, I don’t know, maybe it gave me the courage I needed to face the fact that this was the best chance I would get, that I had to go up against this guy and his gun right then because once he got me inside that cabin and tied to a chair I would never get odds as good as this again, no matter how bad they looked. You’re better than he is, anyway, I told myself, drunk, stupid, ignorant pig-fucker. . . .

  I half turned in his direction, and the anger I had been feeling up till then was nothing compared to what came surging through me, I could feel my face twisting up with it, but Yeltsin didn’t notice, maybe he was too drunk, maybe it was too dark. I had one hand in my vest pocket, wrapped around one of the two rocks that had an M-80 taped to them. I tossed the knife in his direction, I saw his head turn, following the glittering trajectory of the knife, and in the same motion I spun the rest of the way around, brought the rock out of my pocket and fired it in his direction.

  I probably would have made a good infielder. That rock sizzled through the distance between the two of us and it hit Yeltsin right in the forehead. He went over backward, but he must have fired out of reflex, and I felt some invisible giant hand swat me down. Stupid, going up against the gun, but sometimes stupid is the best you’ve got. I didn’t feel any pain, but as I struggled to get up I discovered that my left arm didn’t work anymore. I didn’t want to look at it, it was too dark to see much, anyhow. I went looking for the knife, nagged, I guess, by that same doubt that had made Rosey sure I was going to kill him. Rosey came over behind me, he was staring down at Yeltsin lying on the ground, he wanted to kick the Russian in the face, I could feel it in him, but he was too far gone, he didn’t have the energy to spare for it. I found the knife, scooped up the pistol that lay in the mud where Yeltsin had dropped it, stuck them in one of my vest pockets, and we headed up the ridge behind the cabin. I didn’t worry about the karma attached to the gun. Seeing how I’d already been shot once, I didn’t figure taking it would do me any harm.

  The hill we had to climb seemed a hell of a lot steeper than it had before. I heard a few more shots then, Scarface banging away in the darkness, but this time he was firing in our direction. I could shoot back at him, but I knew I wouldn’t hit anything, not at that range. Meantime, Rosey had been working at the duct tape on his face, and he finally got it off. “Mohammed,” he said. “Mohammed, you fucked me.”

  “Shut up, you asshole.” I bumped up against his rib cage and he cried out in pain. Below us, I heard another flood of frustrated and angry Russian invective, and I figured that Scarface had found his friend at the edge of the trees. Rosey and I kept climbing, trying to get some distance between us and the Russians, but we had to stop and sit down before we got to the top of the ridge. Both of us needed a rest. Rosey’s breathing sounded hoarse and convulsive, and my left arm and shoulder were starting to hurt like hell. Rosey had his arm wrapped around me, and he must have gotten some blood on his hand.

  “Mo, you’re hit.”

  “I know. Not so loud.”

  “Sorry. Let me look at it. You got a light?”

  “Yeah.” I fished out my flashlight and handed it to him. “Get around downhill from me, we don’t want that asshole down there seeing us.”

  “Okay.” He moved around in front of me, clicked the light on and then quickly off. “Upper arm, gash jus’ below your shoulder,” he said. “Lucky, I thin’ the bullet jus’ crease you, half inch deep, maybe.” He clicked the light on and off again. “Bleeding like a mofucker, though. You still got that knife?”

  I was not giving Rosario my hunting knife. “No.”

  “Shit. I gonna tear off your shir’ sleeve, wrap it aroun’ you for a bandage. We got to stop the bleeding.”

  “Wait, wait.” I could see the light flickering below us. My guess was that Scarface was looking at Yeltsin. The light started moving after a minute, going raggedly back toward the cabin. Scarface was probably dragging his friend back inside. “Okay, do it now. Try not to make much noise.” Rosey was inordinately strong, but it seemed to take him forever to get my sleeve torn off and tied around my upper arm. When he flicked the light back on to check his work, I could see the sweat pouring off his face.

  “Slowed it down, I thin’. Sorry, Mo, tha’s the bes’ I can do.”

  “All right,” I said. “What kind of shape you in?”

  It was a minute before he would answer me. I sat listening to the ragged sound of him breathing. Below us, the light came back out of the cabin and started moving slowly in our direction. “They fuck me up good, Mo. I got bussed-up ribs on both sides, an’ my abs hurt so much, man, I can harly stan’ up.” He got a wounded tone in his voice, then. “Why you fuck me, Mo?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You took my money, man, you wen’ away, don’t say nothing. . . .”

  “I seen what you did to those three guys. You think you fooled me with that bullshit routine at the Omni? With that claim ticket? Besides, I haven’t fucked you yet. The money is still safe.”

  “Oh, man.” You’d have thought I’d saved his mother’s life. “Oh, man. Where is my money, Mo?”

  “I got it someplace safe, and it’s gonna stay there until this bullshit is all over with. Don’t worry, I’m gonna take care of you. I’ll make sure you get yours.” I should have phrased that in a different way—that was almost what he had told those three guys that wound up in the Dumpster. “What did you tell those two Russian assholes?”

  “What could I do, Mo? I tol’ them you had it.”

  “You prick. Why the hell you do that?”

  “Mo, you don’ know what they do to me. They fuck me up good, Mo. I thought I was gonna die. What was I suppose to do?”

  “All right, forget it.”

  Below us, the Russian’s light started up the hill, slowly weaving back and forth as it came. “You might live to spend your money yet. That guy is following the blood trail. We should be able to stay ahead of him, though, as long as neither one of us passes out. You ready?”

  “No, man, I’m not. Less go.”

  I can’t tell you a hell of a lot about that trip back through the woods. What I remember is that it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. Rosey did pass out a couple of times, and I had to get him up on my back and across my good shoulder to keep going. I kept seeing the Rus
sian’s light now and then, but it got weaker and weaker, finally I didn’t see it anymore. My guess was that his batteries went dead. I also remember thinking about giving up, I’m not proud of it but it did cross my mind, you know, find a nice, comfortable place to lie down, rip that bandage off and let it all go. I didn’t do it, though. What kept me going was Nicky, just the idea of him, you know, and that I wanted to see him again, I wanted to watch him brush his teeth in the morning, I wanted to feel him put his arms around me, and like that. I’m pretty sure I cried about it, but it was dark out, and Rosey and I were both covered with blood and dirt and shit, so it didn’t matter.

  Brother, it was forever before we hit that fucking dirt road. I laid Rosey down in the weeds and sat down beside him. I was starting to get light-headed, and it took me a while to figure out if I had to go left or right to find the Subaru. I thought about laying down next to Rosey for a nap, but something told me I better not, if I did that it might be the whole ball game, so I got up and trudged off in search of the car. And it was a bitch of a long way off, too, I guess I’d gotten careless with the compass, and there are some days when you just can’t catch a break. I had begun to doubt myself, wondering if I’d fucked up and picked the wrong direction. In fact, I was seriously considering whether or not I should turn back, go looking in the other direction, when I finally saw those oak trees in the early predawn gloom, the Subaru parked underneath them.