by Seth Harwood
Gauging the look on the Czechs’ faces—like he might have a point, that or he’s now the craziest one in the room—Jack goes on. “What we need to do is find out who did this. Hunt them down, kill them, and find out what happened.”
Vlade nods to the guards and they lower their weapons.
“Thank you.” Jack watches the guns go back inside the jackets. He takes a few deep breaths and then says what he has to say with his eyes closed.
“Vlade, guys. Don’t ever point your guns at me again. Please. Because I’m telling all of you right now: If I have a gun pointed in my face again, I go home. End of story. I am the one on your side. I want to know what happened to Ralph.” He looks around at the others. “Let me say it again: I did not shoot Ralph. No matter what we don’t know, that we know.”
Vlade frowns his acceptance and nods. He shows Jack his hands. Al walks over to the couches, puts his drink down, and comes over to Jack, gives him a big, wide-armed hug. He holds Jack’s head and kisses him hard on both cheeks. “We are sorry to you,” he says. “You are the one is right. We are very sorry.”
“Jesus,” Jack says, pushing past Al and going over to the couches.
“How can we find out who did this?” Vlade asks.
Jack sits down, lets himself fall into one of the big, white leather couches. About a minute’s worth of air seeps out of it as the cushions settle around Jack. “First we have to look at all the information.”
After explaining to the Czechs about everything he found in Ralph’s house, the same basic story he gave Sergeant Hopkins, Jack waits for the three of them to suggest a next move. They’re all sitting on the couches, speaking Czech, with the other two back on either side of the elevator doors. Jack’s not happy that they’re speaking a language he doesn’t understand—especially since they’re talking about him—but what can he do?
After his discussion with Sergeant Hopkins, Jack’s not sure about his confidence in the Czechs anymore. Someone pulls a gun on you: That happens. But whether he’d drop a dime about where they are and what they’re doing is something he hasn’t decided. That much depends on what they do next. That and where he thinks he stands in relation to the people who killed Ralph.
Vlade looks away from the others, says to Jack, “You say you have the phone of the man who called Ralph to meet about the deal?”
Jack nods.
“What will it cost you to call him?”
“What?” Jack says. “Cost? I’m talking about going after the guys who shot Ralph.”
“I know.” Vlade closes his eyes, nods. “We will pay you double what we would have paid Ralph now. I understand that the stakes have become higher. There is death.”
Jack’s already shaking his head. “I can give you the phone number and you guys”—Vlade shakes his head—“You don’t need me. What we need is to—”
“Ten thousand dollars,” Vlade says. “To make for us these deals. To help us. What do you say?”
“Ten?” That means they were going to give Ralph five at the start, at least, meaning he was cutting Jack in for less than half. Jack can’t hold it against him, though: For one, he did all the leg-work; two, the guy’s dead.
“Okay,” Vlade says. “Fifteen. Three times.”
“Fifteen?” Jack asks, nodding, not even sure what he’s agreeing to, but sure about the number and sure about what that many reasons can set him up for. “Fifteen sounds good.”
“Okay.” Vlade rubs his hands together like it’s just gotten to be a cold winter’s night in the penthouse. Jack starts thinking about what he can do with the fifteen grand, how long he’ll be able to stay in his house, what legitimate ways of making money he can start up in that time. Vlade starts to talk, saying things that Jack doesn’t hear. Jack comes back in at “Set the meet for tomorrow.”
“What?” Jack says.
“With this dealer. The man on the phone. Call him and set the meet.”
“I’ll call him, but we have to see what he says. He wanted Ralph.”
“He will come,” Vlade says, nodding. “For the kind of buy we are talking, he will meet.”
“Okay, but what about finding Ralph’s killer?”
Vlade looks to the others before he speaks. Al nods and David gives a shrug. “We will track him down with you. We should. If this person doesn’t want our meet to happen, we must neutralize him before it does.”
Neutralize. Jack likes how that sounds. He nods and stands up. “Okay. I’ll make the call.”
Jack steps away to the outside of the room, to the windows that look down on the rest of San Francisco. He can feel the Czechs watching him as he takes out his cell, finds the number from Ralph’s caller ID on the folded-up paper. Before he knows what he’ll say, he’s put in the numbers. The phone is ringing. Then the same voice from the message at Ralph’s picks up. “Hola? Quién es?”
Jack hesitates. The voice comes again. “Hola?”
Above all else, Jack knows that fucking this up is not what he wants to do. “You called Ralph this morning,” he says. “Wanted to set up a meet.”
“Who is this?”
“I’m a friend calling to let you know I’ll be there. I can meet you today.”
“At the wharfs. Pier Thirty-nine.” Jack hears the guy say something to someone on his side, a muffled sound that doesn’t sound like English. “Where is Ralph?”
Jack doesn’t know how to play this, but figures it’s better to keep Ralph’s death on a need-to-know basis, unless everyone saw it on TV. “Ralph is indisposed at this point in time,” he says.
“In-dis-po-sed?” the voice says slowly, breaking the word into its parts. “Ralph not coming to this meeting does not look so good for you, Mr. Friend. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“I’m bringing—” Jack starts to say. He wants to tell this guy he’s bringing the money, something to prove himself, but doesn’t want to commit to anything he can’t deliver. “I’m bringing Ralph’s total confidence and permission to negotiate.”
There is a short laugh at the other end of the line. “Ralph now has the confidence and he gives permissions? Ralph has grown in stature since we last spoke. Now he gets in-dis-po-sed and cannot meet; he send his friend, the Negotiator. Well, I say okay to you, Mr. Negotiator. We will meet today. Three o’clock. The Musée Mécanique.” And then he hangs up.
“Okay,” Jack says into the dead phone for effect, not sure if the Czechs are listening to his end of the conversation. “Okay. I’ll meet you there.” Jack looks around: He’s come into a quiet corner of the penthouse, with window views on both sides. He puts his forehead up against the cold glass and looks down. He sees the huge billboard of Tom Brady that stands on top of Niketown: Tom Brady looking confident as ever, able to stand in the pocket all day and deliver every time in the fourth quarter, when the game’s on the line. Jack can’t even see the street below. He tucks the phone into his jacket, turns back to the room.
The two guards have gone back to their posts by the elevator, the quiet one smoking. David and Al cut lines from what blow they have left—exactly what Jack thinks they don’t need—and Vlade leans back, his scotch on his lap and the remote control in one hand, watching the news on TV. He turns to look at Jack and shuts it off.
Jack comes back across the room to the white leather couches. He sits down next to Al. “The meet is on,” he says. “I’m going to see the man this afternoon.”
“You are good to do this for us,” Vlade says. “You will be rewarded.”
Jack wonders how he’ll play it with the Colombian, his first acting job in a while, not counting last night and today. He decides to act like he belongs in all of this, keep with that as long as it works. Act like he’s not just going one moment to the next, trying to figure it all out, even if he is.
“It’ll be okay,” Jack says, nodding to the others, hoping he hasn’t just signed his own death warrant.
Driving up to Fisherman’s Wharf, a short ride, the traffic is slow and it takes Jack e
ven longer than driving to the hotel. It takes him ten minutes just to get around Union Square. It doesn’t make sense, as he thinks about it, that the Colombian would be the one who had Ralph killed. If you’re going to kill someone, you don’t call them to make an appointment after.
There’s the possible idea of the message being an alibi, but why would he bother? No one knew enough about this deal, even Jack, to ever make a strong connection to this guy if he did it, and if he wanted to, he could just vanish like Jack could have this morning. Now they’re both in it, and the question is: Why? For the Colombian, it’s got to be the deal. Whether he knows about Ralph’s death or not, he wouldn’t try to make the deal happen if he wanted Ralph dead. At least not how Jack sees it.
As for Jack, maybe he’s safer just going along with this, working with the Czechs instead of going home or running. If Ralph’s killer is out there, why not stay one step ahead?
Stuck in Chinatown traffic, he flips open his cell phone. All around him people crowd the outdoor markets, sifting through bins of fruits, vegetables, every dried food, cured food, live food—anything one could imagine. It’s his habit to talk on the phone in situations like this, places people might start talking to him or come up to the car. He looks at the phone, sees the slip of paper with last night’s bartender’s—Maxine’s—phone number on it. She answers on the third ring, sounds groggy.
“You still sleeping?” Jack asks. “It’s past two o’clock.”
She makes a noise that is not quite a moan and may very well be the sound of her rolling over, sitting up, or getting out of bed. Jack likes hearing it, lets himself think about her bed; he imagines it high and soft, with a couple of big pillows. “Late night,” she says.
“Aren’t they all?”
“A few of us went out for drinks and then breakfast after we closed the club. I didn’t get in until ten.”
Jack gets through a light and starts moving again. He checks his watch. Up ahead he can see the Stockton tunnel and hopes it’ll be a smooth ride from there.
“I didn’t know there were bars that stayed open that late.”
“There’re places.” She makes a soft sound again, like she’s breathing her first waking breaths of the day. Jack imagines her walking across the bedroom floor in bare feet, just a T-shirt on, heading into the kitchen to start coffee.
“What’d you have?” He stops at a red light, has come almost ten yards. More people cross the narrow street in front of him.
“What?”
“For breakfast. What’d you have?”
“Steak and eggs,” she says. “Juice.”
“Nice.” Jack likes a girl who’s not afraid to eat steak and eggs after a night of drinking, but hell, this girl bartends topless at a strip club. What could be better than that?
“Who is this, by the way?” she asks, as if she’s just started to make herself coffee and it’s another normal part of the conversation.
Jack laughs. The light turns to green, and he inches the Fast-back forward, heading farther up the hill, then starts to open it up. “Jack Palms,” he says. “From last night.”
“Oh.” She sounds surprised, then she laughs. “Sorry. That’s good. That’s good you’re calling.”
“Why?” He shifts up from first gear to second to third for the first time since the hotel, hears the welcome purr of the engine.
“Well, I had wanted to talk to you. I mean, I want to talk to you, but also we’ve got some things that we should talk about, you know?”
“I’d be up for some talking.”
“No. I mean serious.”
“Like what?”
“Things,” she says. “Seeing you with Ralph last night and those suits made me wonder what’s going on. Like maybe there are some things I can tell you. Big actor like you wouldn’t want to get into anything stupid, you know.” She laughs.
“Thanks. I appreciate the compliment.” On the other side of the short tunnel, he’s in Fisherman’s Wharf territory: more tourist foot traffic, even worse than Chinatown. And streets that wind through barricades, turn one way without warning.
“No, for real,” she says. “Seeing you in that movie, I know you’ve got to be the tough guy, but also kind of smart, right? I mean relatively.”
Another compliment. Jack laughs. “That’s actually my acting. I’m really only tough.”
“No,” she says. “Really. I can tell you’re smart.”
“Okay,” Jack says, “I’m listening.”
He cruises into the parking lot across from Pier 39 and the Musée Mécanique, sees a space on the outside, facing the museum, and pulls into what is the perfect place to leave the car: Here he can watch the museum while he waits, then watch the Fastback while he meets.
“I should tell you in person,” Maxine says. “Come by The Coast. I’ll buy you a liquid dinner.”
“Okay,” Jack says. “Drinks for dinner.”
A well-tanned guy in a designer suit walks up to the museum and stands in front, looking around. He wears large, stylish glasses and has his hair combed straight back. It’s just before three o’clock. This has to be his guy.
“Come before Tony gets there,” Maxine says. She starts to say something else, but Jack cuts her off.
“I’ll be there,” he says, and hangs up.
Jack gets out of his car and looks around, checking for the Colombian’s backup. He doesn’t see any scouts, any rooftop snipers, but the Wharf is filled with enough crowds that anyone could be watching. And if the Colombian has someone with him, he’s likely not to be wearing a designer suit that screams drug dealer.
There’s a crowd of people standing around an ice cream booth not too far off, just one of the places down here that draws a crowd. Some wait in line and some eat their ice cream, looking at all the people and the fish shacks, the pigeons and the street performers. A sea lion barks somewhere. Just on the other side of the parking lot, a group of kids wearing helmets and funny hats try head-spins on a linoleum mat. They’ve got a big, old-school boom box playing loud music.
Jack locks the car, heads across the street to the museum.
He wishes he had some kind of briefcase to make himself look official, wishes he weren’t wearing a sweat suit, that he had on nicer clothes, but there’s nothing to be done about it now. In his trunk he has a clean change of clothes in his gym bag, but he’s not changing now, not here. In his movie, he could imagine one of the guys wearing a sweat suit like his. So Jack just shakes it off, rolls his shoulders, and heads inside.
The first sound he hears from the museum is a loud laughing as he approaches, an ominous sound, as if he’s entering a fun house. But when he gets inside he sees a large glass booth with a huge mechanical woman in it, a wooden puppet, and she’s laughing: leaning forward and falling back, producing a howling cackle like she’s just heard the funniest thing in the world. The interior of the museum isn’t dark or scary: It features a row of big windows across the far wall, looking out on the water. The room is full of light and old-time arcade machines from way back before Pac Man was even an idea: big boxes made of wood, with real moving parts.
A sign in front of the laughing woman says that she’s been here since the 1920s, and has been delighting and terrifying young children ever since. Hearing the laugh now, Jack’s not surprised that kids get scared. He half expects the Colombian to jump out from behind a wall—or have one of his boys do it—and stab him with a long knife.
He goes farther into the museum, past machines that for twenty-five cents will show you pictures of the great earthquake of 1906 or of a woman from those times undressing, machines that let you sit in a vibrating chair, funny games where you try to get a ball to follow the path you want without falling into any of the holes, and machines that play music while little wooden characters dance around in circles on rotating disks. Coming around a turn, he sees a large machine with a wrestler’s upper body coming out of it. The wrestler wears a tight blue mask, like the WWF characters of Jack’s childhood who al
ways hailed from “parts unknown” and never revealed their real names. The wrestler has his arm extended for arm wrestling, TEST YOUR STRENGTH, the sign reads.
The Colombian, or the man with the nice suit and the slicked-back hair that Jack thinks is the Colombian, stands in front of this, looking as if he’s deciding whether or not to try it. He looks at Jack and smiles. “Test your strength?” he says.
“You’re supposed to arm-wrestle it.”
The Colombian nods. “I would like to test it. But maybe you will go first?” He produces a quarter from a front pants pocket. “I will buy two tries.”
A sign above the machine reads: WARNING: THIS MACHINE EXHIBITS SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH. BE CAREFUL.
“Okay,” Jack says, taking off his jacket and setting it on a nearby picture booth. The Colombian puts his quarter in the machine. It starts to hum, its tall back and sides vibrating. Jack turns the setting to “Tough Guy” and puts his elbow on the pad. Then he grips the plastic wrestler’s hand. The whirring gets louder, and Jack realizes he’s in a kind of awkward position: With his knees bent slightly and his body bent at the waist, he’s not set up to be his strongest, but the machine wasn’t built for people his height; it’s low to the ground, its “table” not more than three feet up. When the arm starts to move, the hand pushing against Jack’s, there’s no time to think about it or do anything but push with all he can against the wrestler’s white plastic arm. The Colombian stands behind and off to one side, where Jack can still see him. That part’s good, less to worry about, but as Jack resists letting the hand push his back onto the mat, its pressure gets stronger and stronger. He shifts his weight lower to give himself more leverage, but finally can’t hold the hand up anymore, and he lets it take his wrist back to the mat.
