Romeo's Rules

by James Scott Bell

“I’ll give you eight hundred if you throw in a driver’s license.”

  “You kidding? You absolutely kidding? You are insulting me—”

  “Nine hundred.”

  “Deal.”

  It was the number I’d had in mind all along. “You drive a hard bargain,” I said.

  “I’ll need a photo.”

  “Just get one that sort of looks like me, as a younger and more handsome man.

  He smiled at that.

  “The name is Phillip A. Rizzoli,” I said. “Write it down.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to Lyle Thebes here!”

  “Write it down.”

  He scowled and wrote it down. I looked at it. “Two Ls in Phillip,” I said.

  “Fine!” He made the correction.

  “When can I pick it up?” I said.

  “I need some green,” Lyle said.

  I took four folded benjis from my back pocket and gave them to Lyle. “The rest when you make it happen. And you better make it happen.”

  “Like I said, you’re talking to Lyle Thebes.”

  “I’m so filled with confidence,” I said.

  “You just be here tomorrow at five. Tomorrow is Bible Study. You into the Bible?”

  “I’ve read it.”

  “All the way through?”

  “From Genesis to Maps.”

  “Wow! That’s awesome.”

  I said, “Aren’t you worried the Bible might say something about being a forger?”

  “That ain’t in the commandments,” he said.

  I shrugged. No time for theological niceties.

  He said, “You want to come back in and sing?”

  “Not me.”

  “You got a good voice, I can tell. You could do show tunes.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Something from Oklahoma.”

  “How do you know Oklahoma?”

  “I was in theater once. Before I got stomped by horse.”

  “You’re staying clean?”

  “Eight months, eleven days.”

  “Good on you.”

  “Tomorrow, around five.”

  “Five exactly,” I said.

  He gave me a quick nod then went back inside.

  The guy with the eyebrows was sneaking up on me.

  “All right,” I said. “What do you want?”

  “Michael?” he said. “Michael Chamberlain!”

  And my nerves went ballistic.

  HE WAS NOW a few feet from me in the dimness of encroaching night.

  And then I knew him. The close-set eyes and sharp, hooked nose. The mouth that used to curl in a sadistic smile.

  “My name’s Phil,” I said.

  Jason Pratt said, “Un-freaking believable!”

  He was two years older than me. We’d been in prep school together.

  He put his hands on my shoulders. At prep, behind his back, we called him Dobie, short for Doberman, which he resembled.

  He was also the first person to give me a swirlie. He and two of his friends had initiated me into their class (it was advanced chemistry and I was the newest smallest kid, behind in years to all of them) by taking me into a bathroom at the Academy and putting my head in the toilet and flushing it. They were so pleased with the results they did it every week or so for the rest of the term.

  “Man, it’s good to see you!” Jason said.

  “Small world,” I said.

  “What happened to you? After the thing with your folks you dropped off the face of the earth.”

  A familiar black fog started rolling into my head. I tried to push it back.

  “I moved on,” I said.

  “Moved on! Look at yourself. You’re a freaking monster. How’d you get so big? You on the juice?”

  “It’s been good to see you, Jason—”

  “Whoa, wait a second. This is major, finding you. Everybody was looking for you.”

  “That was all a long time ago,” I said. I turned but he grabbed my arm and spun me back. I almost gave him a chop to the windpipe.

  “No, hold it,” he said. “There was something else. Something about the police. What ever happened with that?”

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re in trouble, aren’t you?” His bullet eyes widened and his mouth twisted in that half smile that once signaled a swirlie.

  “Forget you ever saw me,” I said.

  “I don’t think I can do that, Michael. No sir, I don’t think I can.”

  We stood there like frozen daiquiris for a couple of seconds.

  “I want to help,” Jason said. “And maybe I could have a little money for helping.”

  “No help needed.”

  He said, “There’s people who’d want to know you’re here. My mom, you know, still lives in New Haven. She knows where the police station is.”

  “I don’t know what you think,” I said, “but you better stop thinking it.” I pointed at him with my good hand.

  “You think you’re gonna do something to me?”

  “I’m not into violence,” I said. “I just want to be left alone.”

  “Maybe there’s some people’d like to know you’re here. Alive. On the street.”

  “Jason, you are now threatening me.”

  The smile came back to his face. “You going to kill me, too?”

  I grabbed his shirt with my right hand and pushed him up against the wall. “Let’s reason together, Jason. Let’s think this through.”

  “You can’t do anything to me. I got nothin’ already.”

  “Just want to talk.”

  A couple of guys, one big and one not so big, came over. “Hey, none of that,” the big guy said.

  I smoothed Jason’s shirt. “We’re old friends,” I said. “Right Jason?”

  Jason paused, nodded.

  “You sure, bro?” the big guy said.

  “I got this,” Jason said, as if he really did have it.

  The guys turned around.

  “Saw you talkin’ to that skinny guy,” Jason said “I know all about him. You want something from him.”

  “Question here is what do you want, Jason?”

  “Things haven’t exactly worked out for me,” he said. “My ex-wife ripped me off big time. I don’t get to see my kids. Can’t get work. Can’t get nothin’. I come here to maybe hear from God, but I don’t, see? God hasn’t been exactly talking my ear off.”

  I said nothing.

  “But then along comes you,” he said. “And I’m thinkin’ maybe this is a sign. I mean, what are the chances? We’re a long way from home, aren’t we?”

  “Long way.”

  “Way I see it, God’s saying you and me were supposed to transact some business together.”

  “I didn’t get that memo.”

  “Money changing hands sort of thing.”

  “Jesus said you cannot serve both God and Mammon.”

  “What?”

  “No sale.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m serious. Don’t think I’m not.”

  “If you’re serious, then go back inside and learn how to love your neighbor as yourself.”

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “You should be.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Because I haven’t learned that yet.”

  “Learned what?”

  “To love my neighbor. Remember the swirlies?”

  He said nothing.

  “Things like that stay with you,” I said. “You were the classic bully. Without wit or charm, picking on smaller kids. Now look at you. It’s cosmic justice, the way you turned out.”

  “Hey, shut—”

  “And it’s not God that brought us together. It’s Fate, and Fate is a lot less forgiving. So this is the last time you and I see each other, or else I will give a swirlie to your neck.”

  He said nothing. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.

  I walked past him, off into the night.

  But it
shook me. I was as far from New Haven and my past as I could get without getting wet. But here it was, in the dark, in L.A., coming back at me.

  Maybe I was right about Fate. It wasn’t going to forgive me.

  I WAS BACK the next day, just before five. A sign said Bible Study – 6:00. It was written in crayon on a square of white cardboard and was fastened to the door with a nail.

  I looked around, not wanting to see Jason Pratt. If I did, I was going to do something crazy, and I didn’t need that.

  Lyle Thebes was fifteen minutes late.

  “You’re late,” I said.

  “You want quality, you got to wait for quality. You got the rest of the money?”

  I gave it to him.

  He handed me a manila envelope. Inside were the tickets to Staples and a competent driver’s license for one Phillip Rizzoli.

  “You like?” Lyle said.

  “The picture isn’t as handsome as I am.”

  “Come on, dude!”

  “I kid because I love. Thanks. And when you go in for your Bible study, say a prayer for me.”

  “What should I say?”

  “That I don’t kill anyone tonight.”

  THE BOX WAS a mini-suite, with an upper lounge area that had a mini-bar, sofa, glass table with eats on it, and a flat-screen monitor. You could watch the game on TV as it was going on live down below.

  The front of the box had three rows of arena-style seats. Five or six people sat in them, eating popcorn, drinking mixed drinks or champagne.

  The gold-clad Lakers chased around the blue-clad Mavericks on the floor.

  A security guy went down to a man on the aisle and whispered to him. The man looked back and me, stood, and walked to the upper lounge. His security guy stayed at his side.

  “I’m Mark,” the man said, extending his hand. I shook it. He was about six feet with a full head of jet-black hair, perfectly coiffed. His face was slightly tanned, not booth style but from the sun. He wore a suit, without the coat which he’d left draped across the seat. His powder-blue shirt and gold tie, perfectly knotted, looked like they’d been manufactured only for him. He was in shape, too. His eyes, green as money, held a confidence that was palpable.

  It was easy to believe everything people said about Mark David Mayne.

  “Your name wouldn’t be Romeo, would it?” Mayne said.

  “Not bad,” I said.

  “You’ve been looking for me.”

  I nodded.

  “You have something to do with my wife.”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “You want a beer?” Mayne said.

  “I’m not drinking tonight.”

  “How about some fajitas?”

  “Now fajitas sounds good. But later. After we talk.”

  Mayne’s face remained calm, like a perfectly secure ninja. Whatever else he might be, he wasn’t afraid. He would be no match for me, but he was not fretting about it.

  “So,” Mayne said, “talk.”

  “How about with Security out of the room?”

  Little ripples danced in Security’s cheeks, where the jaw hinges lived.

  “You might try to hurt me,” Mayne said matter-of-factly, as if talking about the weather or Kobe’s jump shot.

  “I won’t try to hurt you,” I said.

  “You give me your word?”

  That surprised me. Who asked for a guy’s word anymore? Who had a self-imposed morality they openly shared with people they’d never met?

  I reminded myself that this was a guy who beat his wife and was stealing her kids.

  “All right,” I said. “I give you my word.”

  Mayne did not smile, but there was something approving in his eyes. He looked at Security and nodded.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea, Mr. Mayne,” Security said.

  “It’s all right, Devon,” Mayne said. “Stand right outside the door. Nobody comes in without my say.” Mayne shot me a glance. “Or out.”

  Devon the security guy hesitated a beat, let his face tell me what he thought of my presence, then strutted to the door of the luxury suite. He opened it, closed it behind him.

  “You don’t mind if I have drink, do you?” Mayne said.

  “Help yourself.”

  Mayne went to the mini bar. He got a stippled lowball glass and poured in some Johnny Walker Black. He took some silver tongs and grabbed a rock from a silver ice bucket. He dropped the ice into the drink. Clink.

  He came back to me. “Now,” he said, “what can I do for you?”

  “You’ve been very mean to me,” I said.

  He took a sip and did not betray any emotion. “I’m very mean to a lot of people,” he said. “At least, they think I am. What I am is a businessman, and a successful one. That makes people think I’m mean. So how have I been mean to you?”

  “You threw some people at me,” I said.

  “I don’t recall doing that.”

  “Your man LaFleur did.”

  Mayne made like he was thinking. He took another sip of Scotch. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

  “All right,” I said, “we can play it like that. You and I both know what’s going on. I came here to tell you that you’re a tragic hero.”

  “A what?”

  “Greek drama.”

  “I dropped out of high school.”

  “They usually end up dying in the end,” I said.

  “Are you saying you’re going to kill me?”

  “No I’m talking about theatrical patterns of the ancient world.”

  “You’re putting on an act,” he said.

  “But those plays have much to teach us, and we need to heed them.”

  “Do you know where I grew up?” he said.

  “Brooklyn,” I said.

  “You even did homework.”

  “I was a good student.”

  “I wasn’t,” Mayne said. “I had to fight my way out of my neighborhood. Irish Catholic and Italian mixed with black and brown. It was not a place to play. I didn’t like to fight, but once in one I made sure I won. That was the best training for becoming a builder.”

  “And a wife beater.”

  He stopped with his drink almost to his lips. His face hardened as put the glass on the table. “Who are you? You come in here with all this attitude, and all you’ve got is a couple of lies? I’ve been mean to you? I beat my wife? You here to get in my head or something?”

  “Just get in your head,” I said.

  “I don’t rattle, sweetie,” he said. “You know what impresses me? Facts. You got nothing. You been sold by Natalia’s lawyers or …” His face got a knowing look on it, mixed with a tinge of amusement. “Or Natalia herself.”

  He was insightful, I had to give him that. What I felt about Natalia was lurking somewhere in my basement and he’d sniffed it out from the top of the stairs.

  “You poor sap,” Mayne said.

  Insightful.

  “So what do we do?” Mayne said. “Guns? Knives? Right here?”

  He had no sign of fear in him.

  “I think it’s time for you to go,” Mayne said. “I have guests and you’re not one of them.”

  I thought about giving him an exit line, but he’d thrown me off my game, just a little. Whatever I said would have been lame.

  So I said nothing.

  And then the cops came in.

  DAVIS, THE DETECTIVE from the bomb scene, led a detail of four uniforms and another detective, a woman.

  He smiled at me, like I was a pleasant surprise. “A twofer,” he said.

  The woman ordered a uniform to cuff Mayne.

  Whose face flamed. “What is all this?”

  The female detective said, “You are under arrest for the murder of Juan Gomez.”

  Mayne yelled at Devon, who was standing helplessly at the door, mouth agape. “Get Heller on the phone.”

  I assumed that was his lawyer.

  As he was escorted out, Mayne gave me the eye. “You did this.” He d
idn’t have to add I’ll get you. It was shooting out of his eyes.

  Davis said to me, “I’m bringing you in, too.”

  “For what?”

  “I just like your company,” he said.

  For some odd reason I didn’t believe him.

  HE DIDN’T MIRANDIZE me in the interview room downtown. I knew that part of the game. He was going to use easy questions to try to get me to open up and give him some tells.

  His big problem was that I was innocent and didn’t need to bluff. I also knew they were recording this whole thing from the little camera attached to an upper corner. Davis didn’t sit on the other side of the interview-room table. He pulled up a chair directly in front of me so he could watch my lower body language.

  “In your own words,” Davis said, “can you tell me why I’m talking with you now?”

  “Damnum absque iniuria,” I said.

  “What?”

  “It’s Latin. You said to use my own words.”

  “You want to tell me what it means?”

  “It means, No basis for a lawsuit. Another translation is, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  Davis, in shirtsleeves, had removed his detective shield. He wanted it to seem like a couple of buds just having a chat.

  “So how do you feel about talking with me?” Davis said.

  “Really? Do we have to do this?” I said. “Why don’t you just ask me what I was doing in Mayne’s box at Staples?”

  “That’s a really good question,” Davis said. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “No,” I said.

  For a second Davis looked like he really wanted to go old school on me. Rubber hose days. Then he fought for calm.

  “You know, you don’t have to do this,” Davis said. “I’m just doing my job.”

  “I have an authority problem,” I said. “And a taken-in-for-questioning problem.”

  Davis smoothed his dark-blue tie with his right hand. “All right, I’ll tell you what I think, and then you can tell me what you think about what I think, how’s that?”

  “I love to think about what other people think about,” I said.

  He nodded and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “I think you’re on Mayne’s payroll. I think you break legs for him. Maybe even kill for him.”

  “And you want to know what I think of that?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Very bad policing,” I said. “Am I free to go now?”

  Davis leaned back in his chair. He looked at me for a long, full moment.