Dirty Words

by Todd Robinson

  Cecilia sat on an ottoman, holding a cup of hot tea. She stared into the swirling tendrils of steam as she spoke, like they were the rising ghosts of her past. "In Canton, my husband beat me daily. I saw Matilda coming in with her bruises and I had to ask."

  "Is that why you're in the States?"

  "That…and other things."

  "Like what?" Junior asked suspiciously as he held a bloody rag to his thigh. The wound wasn't terribly deep, but he'd probably need stitches too.

  "You don't want to know," she said with a wink.

  Junior glared at her nervously.

  "Why the fake accent?"

  She shrugged. "Fewer people screw with you if they think you don't know the language."

  I couldn't argue with that. "Where did you learn English?"

  "Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns"

  Nicky had been a regular customer at the laundromat for years. A few months back, he'd asked Cecilia about Matilda. Cecilia could see his attraction and did her best to facilitate their romance. Their problem was two-fold (no pun intended). Nathan rarely let Matilda out of his sight for more than the amount of time it took to run errands.

  "I couldn't get away from him," Matilda said softly. "He's crazy jealous. We couldn't go anywhere. I couldn't go anywhere with him. He'd always get into fights. He'd accuse me of one thing or another, then…" She bit her lower lip. "I knew he'd find me—that he'd send people to find me."

  My ears went red. Junior and I had allowed ourselves to become Nathan Underwood's 'people'. The thought made me nauseous.

  Their second problem was money.

  "We couldn't run without any." Nicky's color was sickly pale as he hung on the arm that Nathan had broken with the bat. He'd have to visit the hospital too. Maybe we could carpool. "So we came up with the kidnapping. We figured Nathan wouldn't miss ten grand."

  He wouldn't, but he did miss his house slave. Enough to try and kill us all. Luckily, he was as much a failure as a murderer as he was as a human being. "Where were you going to go?"

  Matilda answered. "I have a brother in Detroit. We needed the money to get there." Water started welling in her eyes. The tear glistened on her shiner. "We were…I was desperate.

  "Did you bring him here?" Cecilia pointed at the unconscious Nathan.

  "No. He must have followed us."

  "And you didn't notice?"

  "Hey," said Junior. "You didn't notice us following you."

  She narrowed her eyes at him. "I can find my knife, you know."

  "Try it."

  "I have others."

  "Cut it out," I said.

  "Muuuhhhhhh…" interjected Nathan. He tied to stand, but found it more than difficult, him being all tied up on the floor and all.

  With clothesline rope, of course.

  Then somebody knocked at the door.

  Casually, Cecilia stuffed a sock (dirty, I hoped) into Nathan's mouth and slapped a strip of duct tape over his lips. He groaned a muffled protest.

  "Who is it?" she screamed towards the door, the Dragon Lady back in the driver's seat.

  "It's the Police, ma'am." We all froze and looked at one another. How the hell were going to explain this scene? "We've received a noise complaint." Cecilia was still cool as she walked down the hall. We all lay low and shut the fuck up.

  I heard her swing the door violently open. "I watcha movie," she yelled in a tone that could shatter brick. "Why donchoo leave me alone?"

  "I'm sorry, we--" The cop's authoritative tones immediately shifted into the defensive. Cecilia was goooooood at this shit.

  "Why don't you go catch burglar?"

  "I…"

  "If I get rape, you gonna show up this fast?"

  "No, ma'am…I mean yes, ma'am. Just please turn the volume--"

  Then I heard the door slam shut. Cecilia walked back in the room and dusted off her hands. "See?"

  "What are we going to do with him?" asked Nicky.

  "Let's find out." I pulled the tape off roughly. I was happy to see a few hairs from his hipster scruff stuck on the glue. "Morning, Nathan," I said sunnily. "I wanted to thank you for popping me on the head with your bat. Now tell me why I shouldn't just dump you in the Charles River?"

  Nathan gave a defiant one-eyed glare to the room. "I paid you, Malone. You were going to fuck me."

  "I actually wasn't at that point, but I sure am now."

  "I want my money back."

  "You said we could keep it if we found Matilda. There she is." I gestured at the timid girl, making her flinch with just the hand motion. Christ, the poor thing was damaged.

  Nathan sneered at her. She shrunk into herself under his glower. "You're part of this. I'm calling the police. Then we're going home. You're all going to jail," he said to the room at large.

  Junior laughed.

  Cecilia laughed.

  I laughed.

  Even Nicky laughed.

  Matilda just sat there, staring down at her feet.

  Cecilia placed a hand on her shoulder. "Say it to him."

  She mumbled something.

  "What? You got something to say?" Nathan's arrogance was remarkable, considering his position at the moment.

  She held her head up sharply, a strength pulled across her features that I wasn't sure she was capable of. "I am not going home with you. Ever. Again."

  This time, Nathan shrunk under her words.

  She lifted her chin high, even as her jaw trembled. "I'm breaking up with you."

  "Atta girl," said Cecilia, sounding more than a little like Sarah Michelle Gellar.

  "Boo? Junior? Fifty thousand. Right now if you untie me and take care of these assholes."

  Junior and I didn't move. If anything, Junior looked insulted, which impressed me. We had a price (and frankly, we came cheap), but only under the right circumstances. This was way beyond our circumstances. I knelt in front of Nathan. "Y'know, buddy? My mother got abused by a couple of her boyfriends. It's taking every fiber of my being not to stomp your head into tartar right now."

  He started sweating when he saw in my eyes that I wasn't kidding.

  I wasn't.

  "Fine," he said and swallowed hard. "Jail it is, then." His voice was clear, but his eye was rapidly losing its bravado. "You're all going to jail."

  "Ho-kay," said Cecilia, exasperated. "It's time we finished this, Canton-style." She walked into her kitchen. I heard silverware rattling.

  The muscles in Nathan's face jiggled in fear. "Wh--what's Canton style?"

  Cecilia re-entered with a mean looking butcher's knife in her fist. "You want to know why I had to leave China?"

  Nathan started inhaling for what I could only assume was a great scream when I stuffed the sock back in.

  "My husband used to beat me a lot, buddy. He broke my ribs twice." Cecilia undid Nathan's belt.

  She couldn't be serious.

  Could she?

  She opened the button on his jeans. Nathan's eye bulged. "He knocked out all my front teeth. See?" She removed her upper and lower plates and wiggled them in front of Nathan's face. She put them back in her mouth and unzipped his pants. "I wanted kids. I really did. He beat me so hard I had three miscarriages." She roughly pulled his pants and underwear down. "I can't have kids now."

  Then she grabbed his junk and squeezed hard. For a second, I thought Nathan's last remaining eyeball was going to come popping out.

  Cecilia pressed her nose right up against Nathan's, fury ablaze on her face. "So I made sure he couldn't have any either."

  She raised the knife.

  Nathan made a lot of noise under the sock. I yanked it out. "Take the money! Take the money!"

  "And Matilda?" I asked.

  "Go! Go! God in heaven, please. I never want to see any of you again. Please just let me go." He was sobbing uncontrollably, snot and tears running down his cheeks.

  "Too late." Cecilia drove the blade down with enough force to drive it into the floor two inches.

  But about a half-inch from the
ol' cock n' balls.

  Nathan fainted dead away. His head made a pleasant thump as it hit the floor.

  Cecilia stood and shook out a deep breath. With a wicked smile, she said, "Well, that was more fun than it deserved to be."

  We split the money. Five grand each way was hopefully enough to cover our medical expenses and should have been enough for Nicky and Matilda to get to Michigan.

  Junior and I dropped the unconscious Nathan by Fenway Park's C Gate minutes before the Sox game ended. We kept his eye. And his pants

  Junior and I waited side by side into the emergency room. It wasn't the first time.

  "You think he'll leave them be?" Junior asked as he flipped through an Us Weekly.

  "I'll be shocked if he stays in Boston."

  "Yeah. Wouldn't want Cecilia coming after me."

  "Me either." Cecilia declined any money. Making Nathan cry was payment enough.

  I looked at the lump on the back of Junior's head. "Doesn't look like he got you too hard."

  "Nah. The puss swings a bat like a Yankee."

  "Hard enough to knock you out a few minutes, though, didn't it?"

  He didn't look at me. "I wonder if twenty-five hundred would be enough to hire the Dragon Lady for a freelance gig."

  I shut it.

  Last Call

  I wait.

  The bar is too clean, all pristine oak tables and shiny brass fixtures. The people are also too clean. The dudes all wear blue denim shirts with tan slacks. The chicks are decked-out uniformly in trendy black dresses and bottle-blonde hairdos like the girl on T.V. Hair By Stepford.

  It's not easy being the pecan in the peanut gallery, surrounded by a hundred Brians. I miss the bars with the air so choked with cigarette smoke that the air hung in front of your face. They're all like this now. I've become less a man without a country than a drunk without a bar. This is not my New York. My New York is almost gone

  The bartender checks my glass. I nod for another. She smiles, more for the tips than my charm. So far I've ordered four bourbons, but drank none. Despite self-awareness regarding my too-often consumption, not drinking is easier than you'd think. Without getting too Descartes-ian about it, I'm working. It's a personal job, but I'm still working. You fuck up in my vocation, the boss doesn't humiliate you in front of the cute secretary you're trying to bang. Nope. I fuck up and I spend a few decades in a concrete cage. Or in a box for eternity.

  The barmaid leans over when she pours to give me a better view of her already ridiculously public boobs. It's her game, and it's not a bad one. I'm just not in a boob mood. Never thought I'd say that

  "Love your shirt," she says.

  She'll remember the shirt more than my face.

  Friend of mine lives in the Upper West. Tells me he regularly sees this huge dude in the neighborhood—guy is like six-four, six-five—wearing a bright pink baseball cap. It's kinda weird, seeing this big guy in that hat. Fourth time my buddy sees the guy, he realizes that the guy is Liam Neeson.

  Isn't that something? All that time, and all he saw was that pink fucking hat.

  Liam Neeson is a man who knows how not to be seen.

  The devil is in the details.

  I smile my best harmless, bland grin at the bartender. "Can't go wrong with hula girls on a shirt."

  She giggles, takes the money and mouths a "thank you" at me with a sexy pout that probably made the frat boys drool in their Jager Bombs. I pour the liquor into the glass next to mine and sip my Coke. The night drags like church on Super Bowl Sunday. I wait some more.

  I'd heard about Brian before I met him. Nothing good.

  My day had already started out badly. My favorite watering hole, The Lady Luck Saloon, still had its metal shutters down when I arrived for my first libation of the day. I stood outside like a moron for fifteen minutes before I remembered that Andy, the owner, had "some bidness" to take care of in Jersey the night before.

  Andy's known me since I was a kid, used to do gigs with my old man back in the days before the Alzheimer's took hold of my Pop. Most of the time, I do the freelance gigs today, family business and all, but sometimes Andy picks up a job or two here or there for some extra scratch.

  I had to go with my Plan B bar and walked up to Dino's on 11th street. Dino's was a throwback bar, back to a time when keeping nodding junkies off the floor was considered hoity-toity on Avenue A. Most East Village bars nowadays seemed content working a faux blue-collar poser bullshit line. It isn't my scene; I hate Pabst Blue Ribbon and fedoras on wormy trust-fund babies.

  Jeez, you'd think I didn't like pretty much anybody in the town any more.

  I pretty much don't…

  Josh, the bartender, jumped when the door banged shut behind me. He was chewing furiously on an unlit cigarette, looking like somebody had his nuts in a George Foreman grill. I glanced around. There was one couple sitting by the jukebox and a drunk old-timer swaying to the music over his beer. Unless Janelle, Josh's rumored pit-bull excuse for a wife was in the can, there was nothing that I could see that should have had the man so riled. Besides, Josh was six-two, sleeved in tattoos, and had been behind the sticks for twenty years. In almost any bar crisis, Josh was still the scariest man in the room.

  Although I have heard that Janelle is scarier.

  "What's got your panties twisted?" I asked, sitting in my regular seat in the far corner, facing the door.

  "Hey, T.C. You seen Brian?"

  "Brian who?" I helped myself to a bar napkin and daubed the sober-sweats off my brow.

  "I don't know his last name. Black hair, always in a suit?"

  "Not ringing a bell."

  "Always makin' quick trips to the bathroom?" Josh raised his eyebrows and rubbed a finger under his nose in an unmistakable gesture.

  "So what you're saying is, I don't want to know the guy."

  "Probably don't." He took a deep breath.

  "You know I don't."

  Josh held his hands up, palms out. "Hey, I don't judge."

  "Yes you do. That's precisely what you do."

  "Whatever." Josh waved away my offense as he lit the cigarette and walked out the door for his tobacco constitutional.

  Except the schmuck hadn't even poured me a goddamn drink yet.

  I waited impatiently. In the meantime, I took another bar napkin and smoothed it out on the bar in front of me, hoping that when he returned he'd notice the conspicuous void on the mahogany.

  Josh finally got back to his job, slightly more relaxed for the nicotine, and immediately tore back into the story. "So, this fucker, he was here all last night drinking heavy. Keeps making those trips to the bathroom and coming out fresh as a daisy." Josh popped another cigarette between his lips. If he stepped out for another smoke, I was going to knock him out and pour the whiskey myself.

  "And?" I smoothed the napkin over with my fingers. Josh didn't notice. Not that I didn't want to hear his story, but c'mon. Priorities here.

  "At closing time, either the blow was bad, or he'd hit the wall, but I gotta peel him off the bar." The wet filter between Josh's teeth split from his nervous gnawing. Josh made a face, pulling the white filaments off his tongue. "He comes back a couple hours ago in the same clothes as yesterday, coked off his nut again, just yelling and knocking over glasses. You believe that shit? On a fucking Sunday?"

  I didn't know what it being Sunday had to do with anything in particular, but I said, "Go on..."

  "I don't need this horseshit on a Sunday," he said, less to me than to the Vengeful Gods of All Things Bartending.

  "What'd you do?"

  "I go to grab him. You know what the sonofabitch does?"

  I sighed, crumpled up my poor lonely bar napkin. Looked like my bad day had every intention of teetotalling my sad and dry spirit. "I do not."

  "He pulls a knife. Says he's cutting anybody who touches him."

  That made my ears prick up. In the years since New York went the way of the 1%, you don't hear so many stories take that kind of turn like they d
id daily in the bad old days.

  For the record, to old-school cats like Josh and me, those were the good old days.

  That said, I had an idea where the story was going. Josh keeps a Bernie Williams-Edition Louisville Slugger behind the bar for just such emergencies. "Will he live?"

  Josh threw his hands up. "I didn't do nothing. He's an accountant for the fuckin' mob."

  …uhhhhhh…

  Okay, now.

  And I'd thought I'd heard them all.

  Every Bridge and Tunnel half-wit with a lick of Italian in his blood pulled that card at some point or another. Half the time, they weren't even Italian anymore. There's what's left of the Irish mob, the Chinatown Tongs and the Russians in Queens who were giving the Westies a run for the title of most psychotic crew in New York history. Hell, I'd even come across a few Japanese cats missing their pinkie fingers hovering around the karaoke bars in Little Korea.

  Regardless, anybody who couldn't earn their own, said they're connected.

  Or work for the mob.

  Or grew up with yadda, yadda, blah-fucking-blah.

  I knew the mob had better things to do than execute people over bar brawls.

  First thing you learn out about mob and mob associates when you encounter a real one: Nobody claims to be mob or a mob associate.

  Josh knew that too. He must have seen disappointment in my face. "I know, I know," he said, "but an accountant? Who the hell would say they're a mob accountant?"

  He had me there. I'd have to wait for Andy to get back into town. He's better acquainted with those guys. I just freelance

  Since it didn't look like I was going to get that drink, I decided to move on. Josh's nerves were interfering with my mojo. Besides, if Janelle walked in, the added stress might make his head explode, and I didn't need the dry cleaning bills.

  I switched atmospheres and went over to Zen to see Vic and Bertie. Zen ran on the trendy rail, but the jukebox was decent and nobody bothered you with unwanted conversation. Bertie was five-feet-nothing of blue-haired smartass who drank too much while she bartended, but she reserved the only padded chair for me–in the far corner of course, facing the door. Vic was a soft-spoken monster of a man who watched over Bertie until the bouncer arrived.