by Sam Jones
He didn’t want to talk about it.
Billy asked, “How’s the family?”
“Good,” Yurek said. “Living their lives. I see them when I can. Doesn’t look like it’s gonna be for a while with the amount of heat out there.”
“Uh-oh. Sounds like ‘skippin’ town’ talk.”
“It is. Old buddy of mine’s gonna fly me out.”
“When are you leaving?”
Yurek motioned to the glass of whiskey, the aroma of the deep copper liquid slowly wafting upward and teasing his taste buds. “After I decide whether to drink this or not.”
Billy swigged his beer. He could feel the tension radiating off of Yurek. The paranoia. The fear. It wasn’t a look that Billy was accustomed to seeing the big old southerner toting around. “What’s up, bud?” he asked him. “Talk to me.”
Yurek glanced at him. “Don’t suppose your federal connections can help me get out of something.”
Billy gave him a look. “Depends on what’s going on.”
Yurek looked away. Looked back. “You know a guy named Kruger?”
Billy snickered. “Yeah. I do. He almost killed me a couple of days ago.”
Yurek’s lowered his voice and gave the bartender the cue to move out of earshot.
“What happened?” he asked Billy. “Are you involved in this too?”
Billy shrugged. “I don’t suppose you know a guy by the name of Anthony Rudolpho, do you?”
Yurek shook his head. He didn’t.
“Well,” Billy said, “I think you gave him a ride recently. And a Pepsi.”
Yurek’s eyes turned to slits. “What are you talking about?”
“Two guys popped a couple of shots off at me a few days ago. One of them was a guy named Rudolpho. Did a little backtracking on his movements and found security cam footage of him strolling into a car rental place. He was dropped off by a beat-up red truck and sucking on a Pepsi Free…”
Yurek closed his eyes. “Son of a bitch.”
“So you know him.”
“I do. He came over to finalize some details with me about a shipment I was gonna be making. For Kruger. Guy snagged a Pepsi from my fridge and then I dropped him and his buddy off at that rental place. They even kicked me a grand for gas.” He shook his head. “Pair of assholes, if you ask me.”
“Big time.”
“So you’re involved in this too? What’s Kruger’s beef with you?”
“Long story,” Billy said. “But let’s just say the guy’s eager to punch my ticket.”
“Well, sounds like we’re kind of in the same boat then.”
“How so?”
“I was supposed to do a job for him soon. Well, Nicky and I, to be accurate. That’s why that Rudolpho guy and his buddy were talking to me before I dropped them off at that rental place. Anyway, I—”
“Hold on. Double back. Who’s Nicky?”
Yurek weighed giving the guy up.
Screw it—his family mattered more.
Breathing mattered more.
“Nicky Hendrix,” he said. “People call him ‘Nicky the Nickel Nurser.’ We’ve been working together for almost a year. I run the pilots and the planes, he handles the money.”
“You never told me you had a partner.”
Yurek shrugged. “You didn’t need to know.”
Billy gave him a look.
That was really uncool…
Yurek could practically smell Billy’s chagrin, but he kept on telling the story without a shred of guilt. “Anyway,” he continued, “Nicky gets word last night that Kruger’s cancelling all the contracts and tying up the loose ends on this job that was about to go down. I think I can safely categorize myself as a loose end.”
“What was the job gonna be?”
Yurek held up a finger. “I’ve never had qualms about throwin’ you a bone after that thing in El Paso, Billy. But I can’t tell you the bigger stuff unless I got guarantees.”
Billy leaned back.
Business it is.
“Such as?” he asked.
“Protection, immunity, the usual,” Yurek said. “You know I got plenty to give, and I know you can grant me those stipulations. That’s the only reason I’m not on a beach somewhere with no extradition right now.”
“You don’t want to risk running out the clock with Kruger. That guy is on a warpath right now. And he’s got this asshole in tow with him who makes Ed Gein look like a choir boy.”
Yurek almost shuddered. “The guy with the eyes,” he said. “Yeah. I met him.”
“Well,” Billy said, “unless you want him cutting off vital parts of your anatomy and feeding them to you, you gotta start helping me out.”
Yurek removed his hands from the countertop and began flexing his fingers.
Tense.
Edgy.
“How the hell did this happen?” he said. “I was careful every day for the past four years.”
“Nothing lasts forever in this business. It’s just a fact of life.”
“Yeah…” Yurek said, eyes and mind wandering. “‘Smuggler’s Blues’, right?”
Billy raised his bottle in a toast and took another swig.
Yurek turned and faced him. “I’m through here, Billy. At least for now. I can’t stay in the states. Kruger’s got people everywhere. Long as he’s around, he’ll have eyes looking out for me. Remember Teddy Kelso?”
“Runs dope in cigarette boats. Yeah.”
Yurek wagged his finger. “Ran dope. Past tense. He was gonna work on the same job Kruger hired me for. Kelso was gonna use a few of his planes for the job. Guess what happened to him…”
“Pretty sure it’s a morbid ending, but tell me anyway.”
“He got blasted to hell by a couple of guys with Uzis in Hialeah last night outside a bowling alley. Another guy working the deal named Smith and a few of his buddies got knocked off, too. Pretty sure the same guys who did them in are probably looking for me as we speak. And Nicky, too.”
“Where is Nicky? Maybe he wants to cut the same kind of deal you’re trying to make with me. Two heads are better than one, after all. Unless he’s already gone.”
“He’s actually holed up at a Motel 6 off of 36th under the name ‘Sam Malone.’”
Nice…
“Dumb bastard,” Yurek chortled.
“What the hell did he stick around for?” Billy asked.
“He’s trying to get his hands on the last of his cash before he blows town. He’s greedy, man. He should’ve just left. Shit. Maybe I should have just left.”
He looked at his whiskey, tempted now more than ever to leave his sterling track record of sobriety behind. “Loose ends, man,” he said. “Loose ends…”
A little less than a minute passed. Billy picked at the label on his bottle. Yurek just stared on at his whiskey.
“You’re a good guy, Yurek,” Billy said.
Yurek laughed. “Man, fuck you. Don’t act like you’re my friend.”
“I am.”
“You’re not. Both of us are playing a game. That’s the part you never really take into account, Billy. This business we partake in is nothing more than a game made for adrenaline junkies. Violence? Guns? Mayhem? How does that work out for anybody? How does that contribute to the greater good? But we all make our peace with it. We all tell lies to ourselves to keep doing what we do. I made my peace through excuses I crafted to justify doing what I do. You just use a badge to justify yours.”
Billy was slack jawed. He had nothing.
Yurek had him pegged.
For a moment, he thought he might have an anxiety attack.
No.
Calculate…
“To hell with that shit,” Billy said, pushing his half-empty beer aside and leaning in toward Yurek, “I mean what I said. You’re one of the few people I’ve come across in this entire enterprise with scruples, even if you are operating on the wrong side of the border.”
“I don’t think Kruger gives a shit about my moral compas
s.”
“Probably not. But I do. And I know that a part of you is happy at the thought of leaving this bullshit cowboy career behind.”
Yurek didn’t reply.
But Billy was absolutely right.
“I’m gonna help you out,” Billy said. “I swear. I just need you to play ball with me. I’m gonna find Kruger and his pale little pool boy and end this. I know the guy. This is a tracker-in-the-wild situation, and I’m the only guy who can sniff him out.”
“That’s wishful thinking.”
Billy leaned in. “Look, you called me. You need my help.”
Yurek looked him in the eye. “And you need mine.”
“I do. I need you to help me figure out which direction I need to go in, Yurek. Time’s running out, and I need all the help I can get.”
Yurek took a beat, his eyes fixated on the whiskey—the time had arrived to either throw it back or dump it down the drain.
“We can’t waste any more time, bud,” Billy said, his eyes unblinking. “So what’s it gonna be?”
Yurek stared at the glass for several more seconds.
And then he pushed it aside.
“Kruger hired me,” he said, “to fly some stuff for him. A lot. I had three other guys lined up to do it with me. They skipped town last night once I told them Kruger painted a target on my back.”
“Where were you flying this ‘stuff’?”
Yurek looked around, paranoia getting the better of him.
“Bogotá,” he said quietly.
“Colombia,” Billy added.
Yurek winked. “You got it.”
“What were you flying for him?”
Yurek’s eyes caught the whiskey glass again, the aroma once again tempting him to dive back in headfirst. “Pay the tab first, yeah?” he said to Billy as he stood up and pushed his barstool aside. “This place isn’t my style anymore.”
Billy reached for his wallet.
“I’m gonna use the head,” Yurek said, moving toward the bathroom. “After that, you can start telling me how much money I can make as a government snitch.”
“Fair enough,” Billy said as he slapped a fifty-dollar bill down on the counter.
“The can’s busted,” the bartender called out, stopping Yurek midstride. “The guy in the minimart next door has one, though.”
Yurek turned around, slapped Billy on the back, and headed toward the door. “Looks like you’re buying me a Pepsi.”
Billy thanked the bartender and followed Yurek outside. For a good chunk of the time they had been talking, the guy with the ZZ Top beard had gone into the back to use the pay phone.
The overall problem with ZZ Top beard was that he never got over the fact that he lost that girl so many years back, so he let himself stew about it to the point that he lost all motivation, savvy, and drive to do anything legitimate with his life. So, instead, he began to hang out with all the wrong people. After being with the wrong people long enough, ZZ Top beard made ends meet by stealing, lying, and snitching to all those wrong people, including the guys he had just called who had been looking to kill Larry Yurek on behalf of Simon Kruger.
By the time Yurek and Billy left the bar, the men looking to kill Larry Yurek were waiting in a car about a half block away with locked and loaded Uzis, ready to tear up the joint for a quick pay day.
A half block away, two street punks who called everyone “bud” were camped out in a stolen car and jacked on crank, banging their heads to “Rock the Casbah” as Billy and Yurek left the bar. Their names were Chaz and Pete, a pair of former prep-school buddies turned crack addicts who moonlighted as hit men to fund a four-year drug habit that was still going strong. At one point they dressed like every occasion was a tennis match. Now they both looked like Sid Vicious. For the past several hours, they had been looking for Larry Yurek, putting word out to all their seedy buddies on the street to drop a dime on him if they happened to spot him around town.
And then Charles, the guy with the ZZ Top beard, called them up and said Yurek was holed up over at a bar near Layton.
Twenty minutes from the flophouse in the keys they were smoking up in.
Their lucky fucking day.
“Check it! Check it! Check it!” Chaz, the greasy, longhaired driver said in his nasally voice as he punched his friend repeatedly on the shoulder.
“What the fuck, man?” rat-faced Pete protested as he shoved his buddy off.
Chaz pointed down the street. “Look. That’s the bud. Yurek. The big one.”
Pete squinted and leaned forward to get a better look and saw Billy and Yurek making their way to a convenience store. “Oh, shit,” he said. “Yeah. Yeah. I see him. But who the fuck is the other bud with him?”
Chaz shrugged. “I don’t know. That bud with the ZZ beard said the big bud we gotta kill would be at the bar. But he never said anything about another bud with him.” He perched over the steering wheel and squinted. “Fuck. Looks like the bud with him is packing.”
Pete hit the back of his head against the headrest. “Shiiiit. What do we do, bud? Should we bail?”
Chaz got jittery at the thought of blowing off the gig. The red-eyed guy promised him and his pal another five grand to shoot the big bud, the bud they killed at that apartment, and the bud they eighty-sixed night before last at the bowling alley.
Five grand total.
And five grand could buy a lot of crank.
A king-sized amount of crank.
“They’re going into that convenience store, bud,” Pete said as he witnessed Billy and Yurek slip inside.
Chaz thought about their next move.
This wasn’t the plan. They were going to do the big guy when he went for his car. One guy. Not two.
Chaz’s fingers were twitching, his high starting to wear off.
And only five grand worth of crank could cure it.
He reached in the backseat and produced the Uzi that was asleep on the leather. “Fuck this,” he said as he stuffed the gun inside his denim jacket. “We’ll do ’em both.”
Pete pounded his fist on the roof of the car and scooped up the Uzi lying by his feet on the floor mat, his finger too close to the trigger and a hair off from accidentally pulling it.
“Yeah, bud,” he said gleefully. “Let’s make some money. Money-money-money-money-money…”
Chaz was bouncing up in his seat like a hopped-up adolescent on a sugar high, his eyes open and red and a toothy grin stretching to the point that the corners of his mouth were ready to rip.
Jacked-up and red-faced, Chaz and Pete proceeded to take out the targets.
37
BILLY AND YUREK moved inside the store and were immediately greeted by the familiar ping-pong chime of the doorbell, notifying the disinterested clerk four feet away that a pair of new customers had just walked in.
To their left, behind the counter, in front of the top-shelf booze and the cigarettes, was the clerk. He was almost as big as Yurek, his husky face and glazed-over eyes homed in on the television set next to the register as Billy and Yurek began strolling past the five aisles of supplies and sustenance on their right.
“Get me a Pepsi Free,” Yurek said as he moved toward the bathroom on the left, the audience from The Price Is Right on the clerk’s TV clapping and cheering for the episode’s contestants.
Billy turned right and down the third aisle toward the L-shaped refrigerator section against the wall—soft drinks on the left and the over-twenty-one beverages on the right.
“Okay,” he said, searching. “Where is that disgusting excuse for soda?”
Outside the store, Chaz and Pete were approaching the entrance—anxious, jittery, and ready to start blasting. They were ten yards from the door, their hands inside their jackets and clutching onto their Uzis with white-knuckled grips.
Yurek entered the restroom, the door slowly closing with a creak behind him as he unzipped his fly and thought about his future.
Billy was in front of the second-to-last aisle toward t
he back, facing the fridges to his right, a collection of Pepsi Frees resting on the bottom shelf of the fridge in front of him.
“Boom.”
Bob Barker was charming the audience on the television, the clerk’s attention completely fixated on the action.
Chaz and Pete were now five yards out from the door, jumpy and unpredictable.
Billy opened the door to the fridge, unaware and unassuming.
The clerk reached out for a bag of chips to his left.
Chaz reached out toward the door.
Pete took out his Uzi.
Billy crouched down to grab a can of Pepsi Free.
And then the entire place was engulfed in madness as sixty collective rounds of ammo from the Uzis rang out like jackhammers, the air thick and acrid with cordite and overwhelmed by the deafening sound of relentless gunfire.
Pete shot his gun off into the air as Chaz took aim at the clerk, the clerk immediately shaken out of his trance and ducking down behind the counter just as Chaz ripped apart the cigarettes and booze behind him with a flurry of rounds.
Glass flew. Booze drenched the clerk. Tobacco leaves exploded out like confetti poppers.
Billy had moved away from the fridge and toward the aisle to his right the moments the shots went off. He took out his Colt, disengaged the safety, and crouched behind the paper towels stacked on the chest-high shelf in front of him.
Click!
Pete and Chaz were dry.
“Hot shit!” Chaz said, jumping up and down. “That was sweet!”
They began the process of reloading.
Billy heard the clink of their empty magazines hitting the floor.
He moved up the aisle, hugging the shelving as he moved in the direction of the checkout counter as Pete and Chaz reloaded their Uzis.
“Where are you, you fat fuck?!” Chaz screamed out to the clerk as he slapped in a fresh magazine.
Billy came to the end of the second-to-last aisle toward the back, still in his crouch. He cautiously peeked left around the corner of the shelving and saw Pete’s profile—Pete’s eyes on the register about twenty feet away. His Uzi was trained on the lower part of the countertop, the clerk hiding behind on the other side and right within the gun’s range, the wood of the checkout counter no match for the thirty 9 mm Parabellum rounds that Pete was now antsy to unload.
