by Chuck Dixon
Johnny got busy with closing. He counted out the register and put the cash and receipts in a zip bag that he dropped into the slot atop the stout safe set under the bar counter. It was someone else’s money. Someone would come and check his count tomorrow. There’d be a crew in tomorrow morning to clean the place. His job was drinks. That’s all.
He checked the locks on the front door then shut down all but a few lights until the place dropped into a gloom tinged orange by the neon Heineken sign in the window. Johnny entered the security code at the back door and stepped into the fenced back court behind Skip’s. He worked a row of deadbolts closed in the heavy steel door and turned to his Audi parked alone in one of three spaces.
The guy in the work boots stood by his car. Johnny should have been surprised. He wasn’t.
“I had a question,” the guy said.
Johnny had a question, too. How the fuck did this mutt make it over the ten-foot fence topped with razor wire that surrounded the back court? The gates were still in place with loops of chromed chain and a big brass lock holding them tight.
“What about, chief?” Johnny’s fingers opened and closed. The five-shot snubbie in the waistband at his back grew warm with a heat all its own.
“Three weeks ago a girl was in here. This is the last place she was seen.”
Flat and even. The guy stood easy with his hands at his side. His eyes never left Johnny’s. Even when Johnny hit the remote on his key ring making the Audi chirp. The guy never looked away.
“I talked to the police,” Johnny said and feinted as if to make for his Audi.
“Now you’ll talk to me.”
Johnny stepped to drive a shoulder into the guy’s gut while reaching for the snubbie with the same move. Johnny was big with a low center of mass. He’d played hockey in a Canadian minor league. In his time he’d knocked more guys on their ass than a rodeo bull. The old speed was still there in short spurts. His legs drove him toward the guy’s unprotected ribs to drive the guy off his work boots.
Only the guy wasn’t there.
With nothing to spend his force against except empty air Johnny stumbled. A hand crushed the wrist at his back. His hand never reached the gun. He swung his free hand around to strike but his fist swept through nothing. An arm snaked around his neck with a rustle of cloth and drew tight.
That’s the last thing he could remember.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“They tell you everyone has a breaking point. Bullshit. There are some men who will die before they break. Those men have something inside. Call it Jesus, bullheaded or what have you. But most men have nothing to cling to. You show that man the empty place in his soul and you’ve broken him. Fill that empty space with your will and you own him.”
10
He could hear surf close by. It was cold but he was out of the wind. The floor was steady. He wasn’t on a boat.
And, oh yeah, he was buck naked.
Johnny’s eyes were covered and he was restrained in a sitting position by what felt like tape. He was seated low on something smooth and cold. His legs were numb. It hurt to flex them. He scraped his toes on the floor, sand on tile. He pressed his foot to the floor and pushed. His seat rocked slightly. He felt ice cold water touch his balls.
The son of a bitch had him taped down on a toilet.
"Anyone hear me?" he called out. His voice echoed back to him from a large empty space. It wasn't a bathroom in a home. It was bigger — a public restroom.
“Hey! Anyone hear me? Is anyone there? I need help!” he called louder.
“I’m the only one here.”
The guy. The guy from Skip’s. Work boots.
The voice startled Johnny. The bowl under him rocked sending a splash of chilled water up over his scrotum. The asshole had been there the whole time watching Johnny sitting stripped naked on the crapper.
“What the fuck, man?” Johnny barked.
“Like I said. I have questions.”
“I told you I talked to the cops. I signed a statement. The county sent sheriffs and I talked to them. They sent staties and I talked to them.”
“You lied to them, John.”
“You know my name. Big fucking deal.”
“You lied to them, John.”
“What do you want from me? I’m just a working guy making an honest living.”
“You’re not honest.”
The fuck?
“You steal from the owners of that bar.”
Johnny said nothing. Was this what it was all about? About his skimming?
“You take home a hundred a night out of the till. Maybe more.”
“How do you know, asshole? You see me take from the till? You know you didn’t.”
“No. You’re smarter than that. You keep a new matchbook handy but you don’t smoke. You tear out a match for every five bucks you don’t enter on the register. End of the night you have your own count. That goes into your pocket. You went through a whole book tonight.”
Johnny broke a sweat. His face was slick with it. It chilled his scalp as the cold air touched it.
“I don’t care about that, John. I’m here and you’re here about the girl.”
“I can tell you what I told the cops,” Johnny said after clearing his throat. He fought back the shivers that wracked him.
“You told them lies. I want the truth. You can tell me the truth.”
“Fuck you.”
“You can tell me the truth, John. You want to tell me the truth.”
“Why do I want to do that, asshole?”
“Because whoever told you what lies to tell isn’t here. I’m here. You deal with me now. I’m the guy who owns your future.”
"You gonna kill me? Is that your big plan, chief?" Johnny tried to gin up some defiance. He was a tough guy. Everybody knew he was a tough guy. Because of that rep, nobody fucked with him. This guy was fucking with him. This guy was all about fucking with people. Johnny's rep was built on the minor league ice. This guy was a major league goon.
“You know why you’re strapped to a toilet, John?”
Johnny held his breath.
“Because I don’t like cleaning up after.”
Johnny’s vision swam even though he was blinded by the tape over his eyes. A gusher of piss exploded from him, creating a fountain sound that bounced off the tiles all around.
“So, you tell me who the girl was with that night. Tell me their names. What car they drove. Anything you know. Anything you can remember. Tell me everything I need to know. And everything you think doesn’t matter. Everything. And tell me who told you to lie. Names. Where they’re from.”
“Then what?” Johnny said with a croak.
“Tell me something good first. Then we see what happens next.”
11
What happened next after Johnny told all he knew was the guy cut the tape holding him down to the bowl. Not even a ripping sound as the blade sliced through the tape holding his wrists behind the pipe that went into the wall. The man leaned close to cut the bands over his legs and gut — no fear of Johnny moving on him. Johnny's arms were locked up with cold and his hands were dead numb.
A sharp snick told him the guy had retracted the blade of a carpet knife back into the handle. Johnny was free to move except for the strip over his eyes. He heard the work boots crunch away over the gritty tile floor. A squeal of rusting hinges. A gust of cold air.
He was alone. The guy was gone. He could hear a car start and pull away, crushing gravel.
Jonny tried to rise off the bowl. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else. They gave under him and he fell against a steel partition wall before crashing to the floor. He lay on the icy tiles and howled as the circulation returned to his hands and legs and ass like liquid fire.
It was a long time before he could make his fingers work to tear the tape off his face. It was gray duct tape. It took off one whole eyebrow. He blinked blood from that eye.
Just as he thought, he was in a public restr
oom — a long row of stalls with a bank of sinks across from them. The place was familiar. Johnny braced himself on a sink stand and stood up with an effort to look around for his shoes and clothes. The shoes were okay but the clothes were slashed in strips where the guy had cut them off.
Naked and shivering he stepped outside into cold dawn light. He was facing a broad parking lot with trees beyond. Walking further out on the wooden deck he could see the waters of the Gulf. Gentle rollers crept up on a stony beach.
Johnny had been here once before. It was Honeymoon Island, a state park north of Tampa. People would surf cast off the rocks and there was a beach where you could bring your dog. It was closed at night. The guy at the bar knew that. Maybe he was a local. It didn’t matter now.
What did matter was for Johnny to get his naked self back to his car and then his apartment in Temple Terrace, grab his stash, pack the car and get as far as fuck away from Florida as he could before whatever shit the stranger had planned started raining down. This bully knew when to get off the ice.
Those plans struck a hitch when the park rangers found Johnny tramping for the exit wearing only his loafers and a plastic trash bag cinched around his waist to cover his ass.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“Always be moving. When you’re not moving stay hidden. When you’re hiding, will yourself to be invisible.”
12
The roof of the derelict Winn-Dixie gave Levon a clear vantage point.
He could see the front and rear of Skip’s. Johnny’s Audi was still parked in the fenced courtyard from the night before. A van was parked by it now. The van had Eezy Breezy Cleaning printed on a magnetic sign on the side. A fat guy sat sipping convenience store coffee and chain smoking at the wheel.
Around nine a new BMW purred to the spot next to the Audi. Two men exited. The driver was a stocky guy who wore the last Member’s Only jacket on Earth. The passenger was taller and younger and moved with a gym rat swagger. He wore a Bolts jersey with the tail out. The men could have been brothers or father and son. Both had dark wavy hair worn long on top. The older held a leather bag under his arm. It had a clasp atop it like an old-school doctor’s bag.
They walked past the smoker in the van without a word or gesture. A flash of gold bracelet when the younger one held the door open for the older. A momentary bulge along the right hip under the jersey. Armed. Both entered and locked the door behind them.
Levon took down the license plate number of the Beemer. He crouched and waited.
Around ten thirty, two middle-aged Latinas exited the back door. Levon could hear the row of deadbolts locking behind them. The pair of women wore matching smocks, jeans and sneakers. One carried two plastic carry-alls with spray bottles and rags in each hand. The other hauled out a pair of loaded trash bags which she tossed into the rusting dumpster that stood against the back wall. They climbed into the van and it backed out through the fence, piloted by the smoker.
A Rainbow Cab with a sun-faded finish arrived as the van was leaving. It pulled to a stop in the service way behind the strip. A man exited the rear of the taxi. He waved to the driver of the departing cleaning van and entered the courtyard for the rear door of Skip’s. The van pulled away with the taxi following.
The newcomer wore a wrinkled polo shirt, baggy jeans and flip-flops.
Johnny.
Levon picked up his canvas bag and left the hide on the supermarket roof.
13
The bar looked like a different place with the lights on and muted sunlight coming through the tinted front windows. Cracks in the linoleum and places where the upholstery was patched with tape. Stains in the ceiling tiles and the over-all used, sad appearance of the place swept away the boozy luster that darkness, music and drinks provided. A sharp stink of cleaning chemicals overrode the smell of stale beer. The bar top was clean. The glasses gleamed in racks. The floor had a dull luster that shrank away as the sheen of mop water dried.
Two men sat in their own Marlboro haze counting and re-counting cash at a booth. They looked up at a rapping sound from the steel door. The younger set down his sheaf of bills and went to the door.
“Who is?” he shouted.
A muffled voice came through the steel and the younger man turned the keys to open the locks and pushed the door open. Johnny entered.
“You on days today?”
“No, Freddy. I lost my keys somewhere. Came to get my spare ring,” Johnny said.
“You have rough night?” Fedir said.
“Picked up a blonde. Least she said she was a blonde. I found out different,” Johnny said, making his way behind the bar.
"She screw you good?" Fedir grinned showing a gold incisor.
"Then she screwed me over good. Woke up with my keys and wallet gone down at the Doubletree." Johnny retrieved a ring of keys from a drawer under the bar.
“She rob you, Johnny? For real?” the older man spoke from the booth, hands riffling bills, never losing count.
“Bitch moved like a fucking ninja. Took my cell too. I never heard a thing, Pat.”
Pavlo laughed and waved Johnny over to the booth.
“She quiet in bed too?” Pavlo said.
“Screamed the fucking ceiling down.” Johnny shrugged.
Pavlo laughed around the butt in his lips, spraying streams of blue smoke. Fedir took his place in the booth and picked up the count where he left it.
“Now I gotta cancel my cards. Get a new driver’s license. It’s a pisser. I’ll never fucking learn.”
“You think with your dick, Johnny. Is okay. Makes you a man,” Pavlo said and stripped a few fifties out of the stack he was counting. He held them out to Johnny who took them with a shaking hand.
“Thanks, Pat. You’re doing me a solid,” Johnny said.
Pavlo pursed his lips and tilted his head like a dog.
“A good thing. A solid is like a favor. Thanks for the favor, Pat,” Johnny said. He was talking too fast. Sweat was standing on his forehead and upper lip despite the ice cold air pumping down from the ceiling vents.
Pavlo’s head tilted at a more acute angle. His eyes grew darker and he studied Johnny’s face.
“Nobody move.”
None of them heard the guy enter. It was like he appeared in the aisle between the stools and booths like a ghost. A slender guy in a button-down shirt, jeans and battered work boots. Plastic gloves holding a twelve-gauge with a cut-down barrel. The lethal black tunnel was unmoving and trained on the booth’s occupants.
Pavlo turned from the newcomer to Johnny. Johnny raised his hands and shook his head. His eyes said I don't know this guy. I'm as surprised as you are. As a performance it was unconvincing.
“You rob? You trick us?” Pavlo said to the shotgun man standing in the aisle behind his cousin. His eyes flicked to his cousin Fedir who was moving his left hand like a slow-motion spider for the automatic snug in the pancake holster on his right hip.
“Johnny. Sweep the cash into the bag,” the shotgun man said.
Johnny’s head swiveled from Levon to Pavlo to the money and back around.
“I don’t want to get blood on it,” Levon said.
Pavlo bit through his Marlboro. Fedir’s spider-hand freeze-framed on its way to the butt of the nine. Johnny jumped to and used an arm to rake the cash into the open bag sitting on the floor. A rubber-banded bundle of twenties missed the opening and slid over the tiles. Johnny stepped away from the booth to reach. Fedir jerked the automatic.
Levon fired through the bench back taking Fedir through the pleather upholstery with a load of buck. He lightning pumped two more loads that punched Pavlo’s ribs to splinters and removed his head at the shoulders.
Johnny stumbled, falling back into the stools. Levon chambered a rifled slug and let it fly into Fedir’s chest. He plucked the shiny nine millimeter from the younger man’s lifeless fingers. He tossed the empty shotgun to the tabletop. He stepped away and kicked the cash bag clear of the pool of blood spreading from under the boot
h table.
“You’re fucked, asshole. You know who they are?” Johnny said.
“They’re who you told me they are.” Levon moved the slide back on the nine to see the gleam of brass in the chamber.
“This isn’t over. They’re gonna send more people,” Johnny said.
“That’s what I’m counting on,” Levon said.
He raised the nine and fired a three-round volley into Johnny center mass. He dropped the pistol to the floor, picked up the bag of cash, and walked out the way he'd come in.
Gunny Leffertz said:
“You don’t get to say it’s over until there’s no one left but you to say it.”
14
Just before noon cars started pulling up to park in front of Skip's. A few got out of their cars and tried the door. They leaned on the window, shading their eyes with their hands. The tinted glass hid the mysteries inside. Some drove away when they found the place still closed. Others lit up smokes and waited. Noon turned to one and only two diehards were left waiting. They sat on the curb sharing a six-pack of Icehouse one of them picked up at the Shell station at the corner. This was where they drank, damn it.
Creatures of habit. Like barnacles.
Around one thirty a four-door Mercedes pulled up to the curb. Two guys got out of the front and shooed the pair of beer drunks away. One held the door and an older guy levered himself out of the backseat. They looked like the two he'd left dead in the booth inside. Except the two young guys had bleached blond hair worn long. They could be twins. They even dressed alike in cotton camp shirts that showed off gym muscles. The man in the rear was older by thirty years or more; his hair shot through with gray.