The Shaft

by David J. Schow

  Male bonding was critical to Bash's diagnosis of the world. Give him a screening of The Man Who Would Be King or Heartbreakers, with Nick Mancuso and Peter Coyote, and he gladly slid into Nirvana. Bash's life was not hampered by marriage or kids or health insurance or devolving into a Butt Person. Such worries never seemed to be on his plate.

  'So blow town, Fed Ex your rosy red asshole up here, and help me steal some of Capra's capital, m'boy.' He pronounced it boah. He always talked like that. 'I'm snug in a position at Rapid O'Graphics, snug enough to swing my considerable personal influence and even more awesome charm. Hell, you're a shoo-in as soon as I say so. Think of it as your first step on the Big Ladder of Life, from Ronald McDonald to Dom Perignon.'

  Bash had even sprung for bus fare.

  Jonathan was no computer salesman; at least he and Amanda had agreed on that. He warmed to the idea of breaking Rapid O'Graphics under the wing of someone as big and loud'and life-embracing as Bash. For now, he'd had his fill of bleakness and ashes.

  That, at least, was his rationalization. There was no way to express it that did not make him seem petty, self-serving and brutal. It was the ancient pep talk: We need to separate for our own good. A venerable old standard that had already failed to work for millions of dissatisfied customers.

  There was, as it turned out, a single event in Jonathan's memory. The event he could point to and say this is what split and splintered them, a nasty and mordant thing like a caustic chemical sloshing around in his mind and burning the emotions there.

  Northward rolled the Greyhound bus, ignoring one small town after another, preparing to hurdle the line into a new state.

  The cluster headache still sheeted Jonathan's vision with wetness. He closed his eyes, ringing down his own personal nightfall. A tear streaked freely along his cheekbone. He thought once more of the most horrible thing he had done to Amanda, the woman he still loved.

  THREE

  Cruz made it to the rail just in time to see Chiquita destroy an umbrella table, face-first, five stories below. She missed the pool by a good ten feet. Until he saw her brains splatter all over the sun deck, he hadn't realized the bimbo had had any.

  Cruz would see her fall thousands of times more before his life was over. His ears were cracking constantly and he had a headache. Over the cabin com, Captain Falstaff of Eastern Airlines announced to the passenger complement of the 737 that there was turbulence coming; they should belt up. Cruz sat gripping the armrests. One was loose. He stared out over the starboard wing and wondered how these double plastic windows could possibly get marked up on the outside. Was the wind shear that nasty thirty thousand feet up? He thought of fat gremlins riding the wingtips and working their alien vandalism.

  He got a pillow, he gulped aspirin, he marveled at the fact that less than six hours ago, his life had been pretty goddamn smooth. He tried not to worry about dying, but that was stupidly optimistic. As of six hours ago, and Rosie's party…

  Cruz was still watching Chiquita fall. Down and over, one lull turn, then splat into the apron of the hotel pool.

  Rosie humped across the suite on his burn leg while the party's zombies were still puzzling out what had gone down. Besides Chiquita. Cruz was hanging so far over the rail he almost got sucked over. His mouth was agape and a snow-white droplet of saliva unmoored from his lip and tumbled. Same trajectory.

  The party had definitely cratered.

  'Back off the rail, Cruz, c'mon now.' A textbook of cool in a shitstorm, that Rosie. He was Emilio's big fixer. He caught a fistful of Cruz's flapping aloha shirt and hustled him off the balcony and into the only empty bedroom of the presidential suite. A lot of coke was smeared across Cruz's upper lip and most of his right cheek; he looked like a punk in a cheap Santa Claus getup to whom some attacker had dealt a hard lefthanded slap. He had been drinking and snorting all day. Now his eyes had filled with something a bit more potent and permanent, and he was drunk on it. He clomped fumble-footedly along, letting Rosie lead him.

  'Yee-HAH,' somebody said. 'Rawwww-hide?'

  The suite's other two bedrooms were noisily taken; five in one, a trio in the other, all sweaty, higher than helium and fucking like minks. Seven other mouth breathers were still gawping at the eleventh replay of the Star Wars videotape on the big Proton monitor. Most of them had lent applause to Chiquita's brain-dead strip act. The kicker to the act was her jump. Most of the droids laughed. By now half of them had managed to forget she had ever existed at all.

  So much glossy black hair, Cruz thought. Her feather earrings. Emilio had paid for the diamond in her front tooth. Her dark Brazilian eyes. All of it had impacted with concrete at about seventy miles an hour. Stone defeats flesh.

  'Rosie, she…' Cruz hadn't collected his wits. He squeezed his eyes shut, blinking out white grit, then sniffed mightily as tears freed and rolled. 'Fuckin' jumped.'

  'Shut up a minute.' Rosie lent the idiots in the next room a quarter-second of disgusted checkup. No one would pull any shit for at least five minutes. On the video the special effects fireworks had revved up. He slammed the door and in three crooked strides got right in Cruz's face. Cruz was still staring at the shut door, wondering where Rosie had got to.

  Rosie was notorious for his efficiency. Efficiently, he yanked Cruz nose-to-nose and backhanded him twice, bouncing him off the wall with a split lip. His footing went away. A tiny cloud of cocaine dust hung between them as Rosie hauled him back up.

  'Stupid,' he muttered. 'Why didn't you keep your jaws wired? What the fuck is wrong with you?' He stomped his good foot, then rushed his hand through his thinning bronze hair. His businessman's tan was perfect. He needed to blow off his mad, and had only moments in which to stitch this rancid mess into order.

  'Asswipe needledick birdshit! Goddamnit!' One more slap, more a cuffing, an admonishment. 'Why for fuck's sake did you tell Chiqui to jump when you knew she was stupid enough to do it?'

  'Didn't tell her.' Cruz's slur betrayed his brain's impaired ability to track. 'Dared her.'

  'Wonderful. I'm sure Emilio will appreciate that.' He backed off and rubbed his face, winding up with his hands in a prayerlike attitude as he doped out a plan. Cruz could see Rosie prioritizing.

  Any second now would come the sound of sirens.

  'Olcay. Five minutes for them to come unglued about the meat pie all over the terrace. Ten minutes for them to guess which balcony, unless somebody up here has already bitched about the party noise.' He assumed yes. He rummaged inside his Verri Uomo double breasted jacket - two large, retail, easy - and emptied his leather billfold. Into Cruz's trouser pocket he wedged a fat wad of Franklin notes, bent double. Then he fished up a cloth-covered ampule, holding it beneath Cruz's nose and crushing it with thumb and forefinger.

  'Oh… fuck!' Cruz convulsed sharply and held his nose as if his sinuses had just snapped aflame. His skull was on the verge of explosive decompression.

  Rosie stepped back. Vomit on his Guccis would be too uncool.

  While Cruz fell to his knees to hock and gag, Rosie continued. 'Cops will turn over the whole building. It's not them you have to fret. It's Emilio. Know what will happen if Emilio rolls in and you're still here?'

  Bap on the side of the head. Cruz looked up. He was hurting but his senses were home. He nodded, sickly, his black brush cut bobbing. Lucidity had met him like a hit and run wreck. 'One of those dial-tone dickheads in the next room will tell Emilio I told Chiqui - dared Chiqui to jump. And then I'll go off the balcony.'

  'And, my boy, if you are stupid enough to still be here when Emilio shows, I will fucking help him toss you. You know how things are. How they have to be.'

  Cruz knew, and nodded. Affirmative.

  When he found his Numero Uno squiff spread all over the deck on Cruz's dare, Emilio would be torqued. He hated interruptions in his sex life. Cruz could envision Emilio storming in. Catching him with a warm tit in one hand and a cold Chivas in the other, sucking up the complimentary blow and watching Star Wars. Playing nonch
alant. Yeah, Emilio would have his bones broken in alphabetical order for appetizers. The party would crank. Cruz would bounce out the window and join Chiquita the way peanut butter joins jelly when you squish the bread together.

  'You've gotta tear ass outta here, pronto.' Rosie was not making a funny. 'Wipe off your face. Hail a cab downstairs. Get the fuck to Miami International. Call me.' He fast-drew one of his cards. Cruz knew it read Ross M. Westervelt - Business Investments Counselor. He scribbled a number on the obverse. Cruz felt absurdly honored. At last he was privy to one of Rosie's top-secret emergency numbers.

  Rosie spot-checked his Rolex Presidential. 'Call at exactly five o'clock. You're catching a plane.'

  Time seemed to be accelerating now, and Cruz had no mouth for this new taste. 'Rosie - listen to me, man. She was on the rail before I could get ahold of her… and… I didn't mean she should jump, seriously, but she was on god knows how many mikes of that shit Telstar brought in from -'

  'Cruz.'

  '- that shit was not stepped on, Rosie… and she was way over her ceiling for chemical input, if you know what I mean, and -'

  'Cruz.'

  'I wasn't fucking serious, Rosie!'

  Rosie hit him again, not so hard. Cruz copied and understood.

  'Cruz. We have no time for this. And I don't have time for a speech. I like you. You're a primo runner and I don't want to see you become hotpatch for the Don Schula Expressway. I know a fellow in Chi. You can hole up there.'

  Rosie was the only person Cruz had ever known who could call it Chi and not sound like an imbecile. It sounded natural, coming from Rosie, who Cruz saw as old fashioned, yet someone to look up to, to emulate. Rosie had this pet expression: When the shit starts flying, be careful you don't inhale any. Cruz caught himself using it one day, and it sounded natural for him, too.

  'I'll grease Emilio out. Couple of months, no heat, I'll bring you back in. Emilio will chill down when he gets a new bitch. But right now you've got to get out of here, before the shit starts flying.'

  Cruz returned a sad grin. 'Don't wanna inhale none.'

  'Don't go to your apartment. Hear me, now.'

  'But Rosie, what about all my stuff, and-'

  Rosie overrode. 'No and no. Don't even stop at a 7-11 for a bubble water. Phone no one. Go straight to the airport and don't do anything except stay low till five o'clock. Then call me. By then I'll have tickets straightened out. After that, you were never here this afternoon, despite what the dummies outside will say. They're wasted and I'm not. You were never here. I need half an hour to cook up a plausible excuse as to your absence, but don't worry about that.' He glanced at his watch again. 'Our first five minutes are gone. You're outta here, kiddo. Now.'

  Cruz's hand sought his pocket, where the thickness of cash bills bulged.

  'No buts,' said Rosie. 'Git.'

  No tears, no strain. Cruz shut the door quietly behind. He was a pro, too.

  ***

  By the stroke of midnight Cruz was freezing his cojones off at O'Hare Airport, already thinking this alien turf truly gobbled the canary.

  He tried to sip turbid automat coffee. It seared his tongue. The PA announcements were absurd. Nondenominational Sunday morning services will be held at 6:30 in the chapel, basement level. Baggage claim was in the next area code from where the Eastern flight had debarked. He had no bags to claim, and no idea of where to wander. He'd never been a fugitive before.

  This airport had a chapel, for fuck's sake.

  He thought of his cab ride to Miami International, a nervous trip that let him savor the tang of one hundred proof paranoia - utter, bug-eyed, a distillate of all the fear he had known in twenty-one years walking the surface of the planet. He saw the cabbie notice his frequent glances out the back window, and sat rubbing his palms against his pantlegs.

  He imagined the telephone at his duplex ringing, ringing with one of Emilio's bad boys on the calling end, sniffing. He built a fantasy picture of Emilio's iron-pumping goon brigade turning his home inside-out. There went the Audio Technics turntable, the one with the twelve-pound professional deejay platter and the solid carbon Black Widow tonearm. Crunch. There went the CDs. Crack, crack, crack. The belly of his Aqua III waterbed would be gutted by Buck knives. Splooch. He saw his wardrobe systematically shredded asunder. His collection of gas station and bowling shirts, with names embroidered in red on the pocket ovals, none of which had ever seen a day of working class labor… all gone now. Emilio's apes loved destruction almost as much as straight rape and no-frills murder.

  It would all come to pass if Rosie's story sprang a leak. If Emilio tipped.

  Cruz had locked eyes with Emilio's lady through a freebased cloud of blur. His line: 'You're probably wasted and stupid enough to jump off, Chiqui. Go on. I dare ya.' Snappy patter that had changed his life in an instant.

  He had tried to estimate five stories of height when the 737 had lifted from the runway. Terminal velocity was thirty-two feet per second. Had Chiquita achieved it before her dazzling smile and boner-bait body had flattened into a meatbag of pulverized bones?

  Five o'clock. His hands had been shaking when he dialed Rosie's secret number. Relays dealt with the call; the timbre of the ring abruptly changed and answered within one buzz.

  'Cruz. Okay, listen. Number's routed through to my earphone. Emilio probably has the stationary phones bugged, and I don't have time to sweep and fry the exterior taps just for one call.'

  Cruz had watched Emilio's debugger do just such a trick once. His equipment kicked a megavolt surge through the phone lines. Phone company equipment handled six volts, which is why you could never kill anyone by dumping a phone into their bathtub. The surge did to the line taps what a blowtorch does to a strand of hair.

  'A first class ticket is waiting for you at Eastern. It's prepaid. Had to messenger it to the desk. Used a two-stage, filtered credit card so it can't be traced back to me.'

  'First class? Whoa, Rosie, I -'

  'Don't kiss my butt. It was a last-minute booking. No coach seats were open. How much money did I give you?'

  Cruz never lied to Rosie, not about anything crucial. 'Seventeen hundred. I had another two-forty in my back pocket when -'

  'Right.'

  Right. Bash Chiquita hit the pool apron and broke. Blood reddened the pool runoff gutter near what used to be her scalp. Her hair spread out like crimson seaweed in a shock corona around the disintegrated crockery of her skull. Cruz kept seeing the picture. It never got boring.

  'Buy what you need. Don't buy anything ostentatious. Let my man in Chi do that for you. I'll call him once I know you're in the air.'

  'What name is the ticket under?'

  'Ramon Aguilar.' Rosie spelled it out. Cruz had been typecast as a greaser again. 'Copy?'

  Cruz recited the spelling.

  'Now get your ass over to the gift shop and buy a shoulder bag. Toothbrush, toilet kit, you know. Buy a razor. When you're in the air, lose the moustache. Buy some magazines and junk. Maybe a camera, so you don't board the plane naked. We don't want anybody to remember you had no baggage.'

  'Rosie. I -' There seemed to be a big script Cruz needed to work his way through, for the benefit of his mentor. A lot needed saying.

  'Shut up. Check your pockets. Any blow or pills, flush it down the john in the men's room. Don't be holding when you board. Hear me, now.'

  'Yeah, right.' There was a gram vial on a gold dogtag chain around his neck. His hand sought its shape beneath his shirt. He actually managed a tiny smile. Rosie's sheer competence was loosening him up.

  'You don't need to think about what happened to Chiqui until a lot later. Just remember you weren't even here.'

  'What about the other dudes at the party?'

  The hissing whine of cellular interference made them both wince. Perhaps Rosie had driven his Porsche beneath an underpass.

  'Simple to keep them loaded,' Rosie said. 'Asked if any of them recalled seeing you lately. Most of 'em wondered why you weren't at the pa
rty.'

  Cruz nodded. Fucking droids.

  'So far so good, kiddo. Try not to fuck up, hm?'

  The last thing Cruz wanted was to rack the receiver, to break that vital connection with Rosie. Already he felt bleakly isolated, cut off and scared… and he was not even clear of Florida yet.

  'Hey, wait! What's the name of the guy I'm supposed to meet in Chi? Chicago, I mean.'

  'Not your problem. He'll find you.' The hardball mien of Ross Westervelt shucked away. 'Only one brand of dingdong would wear an aloha shirt into a blizzard. Chuck it. Spill something on it. Lose it. Buy a shirt; buy a jacket - a heavy coat, if you can find one. Go to the white zone outside the Eastern baggage claim and loiter until you're picked up.'

  Cruz wanted to interject, to give back something significant. 'Thanks.' That was all he got out. He felt like crying.

  'Let's just hope nobody loses dick skin over this, kiddo. You go now. I'm already gone.'

  'Hey, wait.'

  Rosie held on the other end for one beat, two…

  'Shit's flying, old man. Don't inhale none.'

  There was a quick, breathy snort that might have been laughter under better circumstances. Then the connection was severed.

  Cruz had toddled forth to play secret agent. He tasted the differences between purgatory and paradise, the tiger and the Lady… steerage and first class. There was no way he was going to trash his coke vial. It had been a gift from Rosie, along with the novelty dog tags in solid 24K. He was not about to throw it away… or empty it. Certain miniscule disobediences could validate your own control over your life. Cruz maintained this sort of rigid self discipline by deciding not to toot anything until after he was on the plane.