Sweeney on the Rocks

by Allen Morris Jones

  “Eh …?”

  “You keep staring at that brownstone.”

  First lie that comes to mind? “I used to live over there.”

  “Yeah? Which one?”

  “Place with the awning. I was what, twelve years old?”

  “I never knew you were in this neighborhood. Park Slope? Fancy.”

  “Not back then.”

  Sweeney convinces her to linger. “What’s waiting for us back at the hotel?” They order a couple more beers. And just before dusk, just before the street lights come on, he sees her.

  His sister’s still in the same apartment. He knows this from the web. Rent stabilized, two bedrooms, you don’t give that up. When Berenice and her husband first moved here, it was all they could afford. A Brooklyn dive in a bad neighborhood. But the affluence grew up around them, as it is wont to do. Her husband, Louis? Little weasel of a guy. More nose and less chin. He’d scorned his legacy, his father’s hardware store up on Flatbush—“What, you think I’m gonna be selling house paint my whole life?”—until the world bit him in the ass a few times. Now, check out his website photo. Jowly and gray above a red hardware apron. Santa without the beard. Grinning like he’s three beers into the night. Just another Brooklyn blowhard.

  But Bernie? A high school chemistry teacher. Classy and too smart for her husband, she’d squirmed against the apparent dead end of her aspirations. “I walk through metal detectors going to work, Cosmo. But after I go back to school, get a master’s. I could be vice principal inside a year.” They were in the playground off Third Street, Bernie’s little girl, Clara, giggling in the toddler swing. Uncle Cosmo coming close, then going away again. She reached for his mustache. Over by the tire swings, Bernie’s four-year-old, Marco (Cosmo’s godson), was climbing the chain, reaching toward the cedar crossbar. “Kid’s gonna hurt himself.”

  “Long as he doesn’t break his neck, he’ll be better for it.” His sister the world-weary cynic.

  During Montana’s longest winters, snow blowing under the door and the windows gathering feathers of ice, when recently-divorced Sweeney was exploring the philosophical depths of cheap vodka and a spinning cylinder, it was the thought of Bernie and Clara and Marco that kept him out of the ground. Three good lives still being lived back home.

  Later, after everybody got online, he kept track long distance. By Marco’s blog, he’s a basketball player, and mad about the Lakers. And even little Clara—she’d be in what, sixth grade now?—has a Facebook page maintained by her mother. Photos of Clara at soccer practice, at the petting zoo, in school plays. Sweeney keeps wanting to drop his sister an anonymous e-mail. “Change your privacy settings, woman.”

  And now here she is, his own flesh and blood, trudging up the street, pulling a rolling cart filled with orange juice, milk; one arm hung over with co-op grocery bags. She’s always had a good strong stride. A woman who might have played college basketball. And she’s aged gracefully. He’d have picked her out of a crowd. It’s like looking in a funhouse mirror. Sweeney with longer hair, breasts, wider hips.

  His heart squeezes out a few dusty, self-pitying notes. His sister. There’s someone in this world who would still love him. If only.

  Approaching the stoop, she produces a phone. Even across the street, he hears her imperious tone, calling up for help.

  Sweeney’s famished for detail, knowing how he’ll spend the next few years picking through the bones of this moment.

  The door opens while she’s still digging for keys. A teenage Marco—he’d be fifteen by now (fifteen, Jesus)—holds the door open with one heel while leaning forward for the bags. In the glimpse Sweeney snatches, he’s a lanky, clean-faced kid. Strong cheekbones. The curly crop of mouse-colored Einstein hair he’d had as a toddler has straightened out and gone black, draped down over his eyes. How they’re wearing it these days. A Lakers jersey and jeans down on his ass. Flip flops. Grabbing for the groceries, he’s already going through one of the bags, digging for cookies, donuts, chips. He grins at his mother and just like that Sweeney can see the charmer he’ll become. Yeah, Sweeney thinks fondly, kid’s gonna be a cad. A good kid. Sweeney can tell. His godson.

  And in a second story window, Sweeney catches a glimpse of pigtails, a pink dress. Clara. Little Clara.

  His sister herself, upon closer inspection, looks tired, unkempt. Jeans loose in the seat and her blouse untucked in the back. Maybe like the rest of us, she’s been having a hard time of it. There’s no doubt a story back there somewhere. But he’s no part of it. Not now, not ever.

  Sweeney rises from the table, hitting a knee, tipping water glasses. He tosses a handful of crumpled twenties on the table. Dead man’s cash. He’s got to get out of here. Now. Now. Now. “You good? I’m good. Let’s go.”

  ~

  “You liked the Rolexes, yes? What I have next, the Rolexes is nothing we compare them to it. Nothing.”

  Turn on a couple more floor lamps, and if it weren’t for the smells of gunpowder and formaldehyde, Bytchkov’s office looked less like a mausoleum and more like a down-on-its-heels men’s club.

  Sweeney and Eddie got comfortable in armchairs while Bytchkov’s little snake of a brother tottered on a stool off his left elbow. Jasha, they said his name was. An emaciated lizard of a guy. Long torso and short legs. A flyweight in the ring, but put that .44 in his belt, he’s a heavyweight to the ears. A shaved head and a pimp’s tattoos. Pierced lower lip, silver rings in one nostril. The kind of kid, if he listened to music, it was loud techno; if he read anything apart from cereal boxes, it was Penthouse. Bytchkov introduced him as a brother, but the accent was all Long Island.

  This afternoon was already giving Sweeney a headache.

  Bytchkov leaned forward and whispered, “Kidnaps.” Then sat back, satisfied.

  “Eh now?”

  “Kidnaps!” Bytchkov slapped his hands flat on his desk. “Sons and daughters of rich men.”

  Sweeney’s first thought? Get me the fuck out of here. And as soon as possible.

  Second thought? This was going to be touchy.

  It wasn’t the, you know, moral delicacies of kidnapping. This point in his life, halfway down the slippery slope of a lifetime’s worth of compromise, equivocation, and rationalization, it would have been almost impossible to take any kind of a stand, moral-outrage wise. I mean, sure, Italianos did not mess with a guy’s family. What’re we, Irish? Running those Westy snatch rackets? Fuck that. We’re Italian, we got standards.

  But even more? Getting away with it. That was the problem.

  Eddie read his mind. “I don’t know, man. There’s problems with kidnapping.”

  “What problems.”

  “Getting hold of the money, making the drop, cleaning the money. Then the Feds. Feds always get involved. You say, don’t call the cops. What do they do? They always call the cops.

  “My cousin,” Jasha twisted a little on his stool. Kicked his heels like a toddler. “Genius by the way. He’s been collecting names, social security numbers.”

  Cousin? Ten seconds ago it was brother. Sweeney said, “Identity theft kind of thing?”

  “Identity theft?” Jasha was scornful. “What do we look like?”

  Shakespeare leveled a look, thinking. One of these days, kid.

  “Jasha, Jasha, Jasha,” Bytchkov made a calming motion with his fingers. “These men are not amateurs. These men, we could learn something from them.”

  Turns out, Bytchkov had been sitting on this gig for months, years. “One of my girlfriends, sweetness that she is, yes, she is expert at, at…” Bytchkov mimed typing, “at this hospital. She works the…computer, and sometimes women arrive to have babies and she writes their names and numbers. And when a baby dies, she gives me those names and numbers. I wait, and then I apply for documents, yes? I create bank accounts. You see?”

  An old scam, it wasn’t rocket science. Sweeney had read articles. Newsweek had a thing.

  “These babies, poor little dead children, each of them now have
bank accounts in Cooks Islands, in Liechtenstein, Niue. You see?”

  “What’d I tell you. Fucking genius.” Jasha stared back at Sweeney, at Eddie.

  “We need four of us to do the kidnaps safely. We do the kidnaps, then they put money in the accounts of the dead babies. And then my dear one my Jasha, he’s good with, with… computers, too, he transfers money here and there and then there again, and poof. It’s gone. In our pockets, only better.”

  Eddie had another toothpick, and was slowly, meticulously unwrapping it. Giving it all his attention.

  Sweeney cleared his throat. “Who’re we kidnapping?”

  “This is pretty part.” Bytchkov found a sheet of yellow legal paper. Blue writing in a language of reversed letters and accented swirls. “Pavel Asimov, shipping. Coffee, also heroine. Abdul Zakayev, professor, lawyer. Drives different Mercedes every day of the week. Mirali Tuycheiv. Big football player, good, but now too old to play. Famous ten years ago. Owns Park Avenue apartments. Also, prostitutes. Many, many womens. These three men, they all have children, yes. Children they love.”

  Sweeney kept hoping Eddie would chime in. Make the point that yeah, this wasn’t Columbia, Equador, Nigeria. This was America, bub. Land of the free and home of the we-don’t-fucking-kidnap-people.

  But Sweeney had the silence to himself. After a while, he said, “What makes that part pretty?”

  “Uzbek. Chechin. Tajik. These who have betrayed mother Russia. These with questionable…ped-uh-grees? Is that the word, yes. As with dogs, eh? Peddygrees. They do not deserve America. They do not deserve…”

  “Yeah, right, so here’s the deal,” Jasha interrupted, cutting short the familiar diatribe. “We grab their kids, right? Bam.” He clapped. “On their way to school, whatever. We drop a note to the dads, half a mill in each of those bank accounts or we start sending you fingers. Bam. Each one of these guys, they’ve got twice that much in cash sitting around. Three times, who the fuck knows. It won’t be hard for them. It’s done. I make the wire transfers. Bam. It’s perfect.”

  Sweeney shifted. The smart money would say agree to everything, nod and say yes. Then get the fuck out of here. Split. Change your name. Get a job waiting tables in California. But Sweeney could never hold his tongue. Never, not once. “Yeah, no. It’s not. It’s a long way from perfect.”

  “What do you mean by this?” Bytchkov’s tone was tepid as tapwater.

  “All these babies, they died at the same hospital, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you think they’re not going to put that together? Trace it back? Who could have had access to all that information? That’s going to be a short list. Maybe one name long.”

  Bytchkov could have been watching sprinklers go around for all his expression.

  “So yeah, they’re going to put it together. They’ll collar your girlfriend, make her sing. The first kidnapping? You might get away with it. Second one, by the end of the day they’ll be coming through your door with battering rams.”

  Jasha was on his stool, puffing up like microwave popcorn. “Who the fuck …”

  “Jasha.” Bytchkov patted the air. He stared at Sweeney. Then pushed slowly back from his desk. When he stood, the angle of the lamps—was it intentional?—cut hard, foreboding angles into his cheeks.

  He came around the desk. Agile for an otherwise awkward man.

  Sweeney braced a heel. He should have been packing. You’re an idiot for not packing. His first move would be toward Jasha. Quick punch to the throat while Sweeney grabbed for the gun. Sixty seconds from now, even odds, him and Eddie would be lunging out the front door like Butch and Sundance.

  Instead, Bytchkov reached for Sweeney’s head (and Sweeney was this close to knocking those ugly hands away) and kissed him hard on both cheeks. Mwah! Mwah! Odd sensation, the unshaven, sweaty chin of a middle-aged man scrubbing up against Sweeney’s baby-smoothness.

  “You were right, Eddie. Yes, you were right. Shakespeare! One smart motherfuck. Jasha, see, yes this is what I mean, this is how we could learn from these two.”

  Everybody took a breath.

  “Okay,” Bytchkov said, sitting back down. “Okay, yes. Of course. You are right. So she is my girlfriend. She is too close to me. You must do it.’

  “Sorry. Do what now?”

  “You kill her, yes? But quick. For me? Painless. Yes?”

  This was how Russians did business. Killed their own girlfriends.

  Ergo, ipso-facto, if things didn’t work out with Sweeney and Eddie…what’s a couple more stiffs?

  Sweeney glanced discretely at his knockoff Rolex. Forty-eight minutes after shaking Bytchkov’s hand, Sweeney had two choices. He could paste on a smile and go along with the program, or, or, or … kill these two soulless Russian psychopaths where they stood. No third option.

  Shit, Eddie. Shit. Sweeney glanced at his cousin, tearing him apart with his eyes. Eddie studied a hangnail.

  Stalling, Sweeney said, sweet as sugar, “How much we talking about here?”

  ~

  Sweeney’s position on kidnapping? Worse than murder, really. Murder is bad juju, sure. But it’s over in a wink. Bang, somebody’s gone. Negated. But kidnapping, the extended and ongoing preemption of a human being, is to his tastes much worse. You own them, man. And not only them, but everybody that loves them. Here’s your puppet strings, let me grab them for a while. Twist them all up in knots.

  Sleepless at two in the morning, Sweeney’s gone melancholy, staring out over Union Street. Scratching around in his boxers. Three stories above a muggy Brooklyn night, he’s got a half pint of Jim Beam and a head full of memories. Water towers on the horizon and sea-salt smells from Gowanus.

  The window’s cracked, and it’s like performance art, listening to the sidewalk conversations. A black kid, fourteen or fifteen years old, says into his phone, “…so I tol’ her I said, that’s my money!” Then he’s gone again. Out of Sweeney’s life forever. To be replaced by a gaggle of Hispanic chicas, walking along in a pack, huddled close. “You is so much better than him, so much better, and he don’t even know what he’s missing…” They fade away. Then a set of expensive, angry heels, a metronome of Manhattan ire. “Troy listen, listen, listen to me, will you just listen? I don’t mind it that you had to leave early. Okay, well yeah, clearly I do mind. But what I mind most is you didn’t….” And she fades out again.

  The room has a thirty-eight inch flat screen with HBO, but he hasn’t even turned it on; the real show’s down there, man.

  His cell phone buzzes, dances around on the dresser.

  He’s been meaning to upgrade, maybe get an iPhone; And yeah, if he spent more than a day or two in Brooklyn, he’d have to take the plunge. Everybody’s got those smart phones. Used to be, people avoided eye contact out of fear or arrogance or courtesy. Now they’re just checking e-mail.

  He flips his old clamshell open, figuring it’s Aggie. “Yeah, Sweeney.”

  “Ted Sweeney.” A voice disguised through a cheap digital distorter. You can pick one up at Radio Shack. Basso as Darth Vader, twisted on the higher notes like guitar feedback.

  “Yeaaah?”

  “Also, Cosimo Aniello.” The distorter blurs the verbs. CosmAnllo.

  “Never heard of him.”

  Digital silence.

  Sweeney: “Who’s this?”

  “Breetvah. My name is Breetvah. You’ve heard of me, yes?”

  Sweeney waits long enough to make sure the question isn’t rhetorical. “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Good. That is good. Things will go easier. So, yes. I’m sending you a photo.” Ahm sendng y’a pht.

  Then nothing. Dead air.

  Sweeney sits on the edge of his bed, phone in his hands. Finishes off the little half pint in two hard swallows. This guy. This motherfucker. He’s the one. The guy. The one who arranged the body in his favorite chair. Who sent out those envelopes. Not incidentally? The guy who likely killed Eddie. Breetvah.

  Even clouded by booze, the a
nger arouses something in Sweeney. The things he’d like to do to this guy.

  His phones gives off a short buzz.

  He flips it open.

  To see a photo of Aggie, blurry on the saltine-sized screen. Curled fetal on cheap carpet, wrists duct-taped to her ankles. Duct tape over her mouth and eyes. Half a roll’s worth of tape spent trussing her up.

  Aggie. Who tends horses. Who works at the library.

  His phone buzzes again. Another photo arrives. This one of Elizabeth, in almost precisely the same posture. Aggie’s nose on the left of screen has them facing each other.

  Elizabeth. Who loves her stuffed animals but hides it. Who goes through boyfriends the way the rest of us fold shirts.

  Sweeney’s eyes go disjointed. They roll off each into separate orbits. The hemispheres of his brain spit grease, flare into flames. Anger tightens into a coil under his sternum, rears a swaying head.

  His phone buzzes again. This time it’s a text. “Get the diamonds. Lose your whore. I call you. No cops.”

  No need to mention, “Else they die.” You send a photo of two women duct taped fetal, “else they die,” is a given.

  Aggie and Elizabeth, else they die.

  ~

  Seventy-eight organs in the human body. Maybe six-and-a-half quarts of blood in Sweeney’s larger-than-average corpus. Twenty-five square feet of skin were it stretched out flat. Toenails growing slow, fingernails fast. The hypothalamus, the pituitary, the thyroid. A head full of hair pushing out nine inches a year. This complicated engine called Ted Sweeney. And now every inch of it, every pulsing, restless ounce…it all wants to cut out this cocksucker’s liver and feel the hot blood around his fingers. From hell’s heart, I’m stabbing at you, fucker.

  The last time he felt like this—and memory skips around a bit here—it was Philadelphia. A leather daypack spilling out five pounds of China, the slick black fabric stained with the blood of some Muje in a Mets cap. More bodies in a back room. Silk drapes hanging heavy with rain. And Sweeney with a 9 mm Beretta not his own, unsure how it came to be in his hand.

  The salient points? Rage, memory loss, blood.