The Shaft

by David J. Schow

  Jonathan was prepared for this one. Better than three thousand in Franklin notes padded the inside pocket of his parka. He feigned surprise. Jamaica had prepped him. 'How many grand?'

  'Coke's two thousand an ounce, give or take. I'm sure it ain't that much to your… buddies. Twenty-five hundred.'

  Jonathan felt an invisible dragnet constrict his epiglottis. Jamaica had warned him not to respond to baiting or taunts. Stay polite and neutral. Don't insult back or speak when not spoken to. Winning in a police encounter, she said, quoting Doc Stanley again, meant that at its conclusion you were left alone.

  'Excuse me, officer, but it's been nearly a whole day. I suppose Cruz has been booked, and I'd like to bail him out now, please.'

  That seemed to tighten the Doggie Cop's knob. He nodded, tongue still probing, scribbled on a form, then lifted a receiver and buzzed the jailer, dismissing Jonathan from his notice.

  The door behind him opened and Sergeant Barnett, the Robot Cop, lumbered through, recognizing Jonathan with open distaste.

  'Ahh, Christ.' He was tired; his voice was burry. 'See, Mallory? Told you this scumbag was a buddy of the pusher and the whore. Jesus H. fucking Christ.'

  Apparently he was unaware the Doggie Cop had not been in attendance at the Kenilworth bust. Or it just did not matter. Or all Oakwood cops shared knowledge through instantaneous telepathy. Cop logic.

  But harrowing was not enough for this guy. He was a veteran. 'Wantcha to do me a favor, sport.' He hoisted the hinged portion of the desk and squeezed through, his medals and equipment clanking. 'You want to lean up this counter here, and you want to put your feet back and spread 'em. Time for a little pat-me-down.'

  The Doggie Cop's eyebrows arched. He did not approve. Jonathan's mouth unhinged. 'Do I look stupid enough to waltz into a police station holding?' It was academic. He wished Jamaica had been inside to hear him say it.

  The Robot Cop snorted and kicked Jonathan's legs further askew. The search was thorough, professional, degrading.

  They made Jonathan wait another forty-five minutes. The clock in the police anteroom was exactly like the clocks he remembered from high school. The sweep second hand moved slower on the 6 to 12 crawl, faster on the 12 to 6 fall. Cruz was released to await arraignment, set about a month from the arrest date. He came out through the companion door to the one the Robot Cop had used.

  He looked as though he had been backed over by a bulldozer. He had trouble with the door. He held a heat-sealed plastic property bag in one hand, and did not recognize Jonathan at first.

  'Hey, neighbor,' Jonathan began, hurting already.

  The nod of acknowledgement obviously hurt Cruz. His left eye was welded into a puffy squint, hued like titanium jewelry. His lips were fat. He worked his mouth like a senile man chewing bland food; Jonathan realized he was keeping a running inventory of tongue and teeth. His stride was constrained and cautious. He held his left arm curled against his stomach as though supported by an imaginary sling. 'Thanks.' It came out thankf. 'For coming.'

  'Looks like I'm too late. You need help-?'

  'No. Just get me… out of here.' His eyes sought the EXIT door, his grail now within his grasp.

  Jonathan lowered his voice as they approached the push-bar. 'I've got the truck. Jamaica 's with me. Bauhaus arranged for the bail, but she picked up the money.' Okay, he thought: Favor performed, humiliation endured, sleep lost. Now came the chaser. 'Listen, Cruz. We've got to talk about some stuff-'

  Cruz snorted - oh so carefully - and smiled as much as his battered face would permit. It was more a graveyard grimace.

  'She fuck you?'

  'No, it's not that.'

  Cruz overrode, waving his uninjured hand. The baggie swung. 'Let it… hang fire a bit. Now let's… just go.' Jonathan heard lezjest gho.

  In the back, no clocks. In the front, clocks. Have a nice day!

  Twenty minutes into his enforced wait, Jonathan had given Jamaica the Toyota keys so she could keep the heater and radio going. She wouldn't really steal Bash's truck… he hoped. When he and Cruz came out, the truck cab was thankfully toasty. When Jamaica saw Cruz Jonathan saw her mouth go omigod.

  'I've got Percodans in my bag,' she told him, and that was all Cruz needed to hear. He dry swallowed two and washed them down with a minty swig of her Scope.

  'First we gotta. Bauhaus…'

  Jonathan felt an evanescent dislike toward not being thanked, and now being expected to play chauffeur. But for him to pussy out on his surge of samaritanism now would be an act as cowardly and illogical as the rest of his life. Besides - hearing about what had transpired in the room above his apartment was entertaining in an unexpected way, sort of like seeing alien TV for the first time.

  Jamaica rode the transmission hump, one long leg on either side of the stick. Of course. Jonathan's shifting hand got to brush her knee; that dispelled his momentary pique. So far Cruz had been the night's biggest victim. Relax and ride this thing out.

  'You still think Uncle Bauhaus set up that little entertainment last night?'

  Cruz shook his head at Jamaica. 'They came to see about that kid that disappeared. Not us.'

  About the time Cruz and Jamaica had been grinding and gyrating, and Jonathan had been loitering at Bash's with truckload number three, at Kenilworth several police shutterbugs, two detectives and a sleepy man representing the Cook County coroner had come and gone. Eleventh-hour bigotry had prompted Sgt Barnett to turn the rest of Kenilworth 's constituency inside-out, to see what sort of incriminating goodies might shake loose and hit the floor.

  'If Bauhaus didn't… set it up…' Blood outlined Cruz's teeth. He was trying to speak without causing himself any more damage. The bear-fucker in the cell had kicked the synapses right out of his skull. He could still see the jism-stained floor rushing at his face. He'd hit and skidded. That brought surging back the image of Chiquita, still falling. 'If… then don't mention the dope to him. Not word one.'

  'I don't get it.' Jonathan always tried honesty when clarity failed him. He braked for a red light on Lake Street, westbound. The Toyota surfed the final few feet wetly, and he got to touch Jamaica 's leg again.

  Good godamighty.

  'Cruz had to ditch the two keys Bauhaus stuck him with,' Jamaica explained.

  'Keys.' Jonathan thought of door keys, like the copies of the keys to 207 he'd cut for Bash, just in case things got 'domestic' with Camela. When the police said 'domestic' they were usually referring to a boxing match between cohabitants.

  'He put them in a plastic bag and dumped it down the airshaft. If the bust last night wasn't staged by Bauhaus, to acid-test Cruz, then Cruz can say he legitimately had to flush the whole stash. We can get that shit back, sell it, or just sit on it.' She computed. 'It's better than ninety large Bauhaus will just have to kiss bye-bye as part of the hazards of doing business.'

  ' Split. Three ways.' Cruz tried to grin again as he looked toward Jonathan. 'Less small change, that's 29 or 30 grand. For each of us.' He was already thinking of Fed Exing the stash to Rosie for some out-of-state laundering.

  'Not counting what Bauhaus had goddamn well better pay Jonathan here, for playing stalking horse.' Jamaica smiled.

  Cruz had no idea what a stalking horse might be, but nodded in agreement, so far as his sprung neck would allow.

  'Uhh… listen, guys.' Jonathan kept his eyes on the bob and weave of the snow-encrusted road unreeling before them. 'I don't know if I'm cut out for the wonderful world of drug sales. Honest. If it's all the same to you, I'll take whatever this guy Bauhaus cares to spend out of the goodness of his heart. You guys are welcome to the rest.'

  'I told Bauhaus it'd better be a thousand, at least,' Jamaica told Cruz. 'Jonathan's alright. Too scared of the cops, but alright. Don't push him. He did you a favor.'

  'Offer's still open.' One of the things Rosie had always taught Cruz was the value of engendering good faith. That translated as making as many people as possible beholden to your disposable gestures and court
esies. The concept was nothing new to anybody who had seen or read The Godfather. No strain. The flash of cash usually brought around the holdouts by the time you needed them.

  She almost poked Cruz with an elbow, then realized there probably was not a place on his body that did not hurt. 'Don't push him. He's nervous enough about this shit.' Her tone suggested she found Jonathan's discomfort kind of cute.

  Cruz made a pain noise. 'Think that guy may have dislocated my fucking shoulder.' After Bauhaus, then maybe a hospital. He briefly outlined the fight in the bullpen. It didn't sound very exciting in the retelling. 'I'm afraid to actually look at it…'

  'Yeah, nobody's gonna want to shit on your face for a while, babe.' They sparred visually. 'Just kidding, Cruz. Christ on a skateboard.'

  Jonathan's imagination did a riff on the advantages of collecting thirty thousand dollars, tax free, in hand. It was a swift and intoxicating fantasy, he could buy his own car, drive straight out of this hellpit, pull a real Houdini on everyone. Escape. Run to a town where no one knew him… and start fucking up his life all over again. Dirty up that nice clean slate. Or he could stick with the scenario he'd bought into the moment he picked up the payphone and contacted MR HAPPY. He could wipe the slate he had until it was pristine, then chalk up something that made sense. That seemed more like real honor.

  'Turn up this drive, right here, before the street sign,' said Jamaica.

  'We clear?' said Cruz.

  She checked. 'Nobody's sniffing our butts. They probably don't know about this truck.'

  It had not even occurred to Jonathan to worry about whether they had been tailed. They were, after all, suspects and worse.

  The notion that his prosaic life had speed-shifted from sordid soapery to sleek spy thriller shot a thrill of excitement though his parts. Except for his stomach, which pestered him endlessly about the throw-up option. All voted in favor of the singing lunch. He might get shot. He could get arrested. That meant he could get beaten up by the cops or the thug brigade that had manhandled Cruz… or both. He might wind up in Lake Michigan wearing cinderblock loafers. Bash would never believe it.

  He could also just shut up and make the dark turn to the House of Bauhaus, which he did almost without thinking.

  SIXTEEN

  Bauhaus was enrobed pasha-style. He struck Jonathan more as a plump warlock delightedly overseeing his coven of nymphet witchlings. Theme night at the freak tent. Patchouli incense hung cloying and impenetrable; the smell of migraines.

  Jonathan gawked too much: At the lavish waste of the blood-tinted Chinese draperies, at the retina-numbing milage of neon, at the wall of mirrors and the wall of windows, at the amphetamine-injected security measures.

  Spy thriller, definitely.

  'What's the matter, young knight?' Bauhaus was addressing Cruz. 'Forget our tae kwondo? Fell asleep during the lecture? Looks like King Kong used you to scrape out his bong screen.'

  That elicited titters from the faithful. Chari was pedestaled like a Tijuana buddha atop one of the barstools, warming her fanny by the fireplace. She was barely draped in some ephemeral little nothing, her sparsely furred auburn muff visible for the world's appraisal. There were spoons and straws and dope galore on the onyx bartop, and she had obviously wasted no time cramming - just in case there was a pop quiz.

  Past Chari, Cruz half expected to see Krystal still passed out on the kitchen floor. She was down in the sofa pit, packing away sour cream and onion Ruffles one after another and staring at the big video screen. Her mouth champed like a shredder but her eyes did not blink. She was watching the Friday the 13th movies in sequence, on fast-forward. She made mewling noises as assorted fornicating teens got divvied. Cruz realized she was providing her own fast-mo soundtrack: Whee screech yahh chop…

  Cruz had to sit down; the room kept moving. 'Listen,' he said to Bauhaus. 'I'm fucking exhausted. I want a doctor to look at my arm. I need a bath and some real food. I want some Percodans, some Talwins and enough blow to level my head.'

  'First fill me in on the party the police invited themselves to,' said Bauhaus. 'You can clean up here.' Using one of the candles burning at the bar, he fired up a coca paste cigarette in a holder of drilled ebony and gave it a few languid puffs. It smelled like smoldering bathtub mold.

  'Five cop cars showed up. You stuck me with two keys. I had to flush it. All of it. Even the wrappers.'

  Bauhaus frowned. It was the look of someone who has just pitched a paperball toward a wastebasket and missed. No points. 'Damn it. All gone?'

  'Sorry. But they're dying to tie me to you. They found the beeper.'

  'Did they find the gun?'

  'It was in the apartment when I left; I haven't been back yet. I came straight here.' Cruz knew that if he claimed to have hidden the gun, Bauhaus would want to know where, and why didn't he just hide the dope there, too? Better to let him think the gun had been quietly confiscated and had gone into some cop's private arsenal as a fringe perk of not writing up an unregistered handgun report.

  'And I wouldn't've made it here if it hadn't been for this guy.' Cruz indicated Jonathan.

  Krystal had worked her way up to Part Five. On the screen the FBI warning raced past, polluted with scanning blur.

  'This is Jonathan,' Jamaica said. 'The one who called.' Bauhaus sniffed and laid a finger aside his nose, studying. 'Good of you.'

  Jonathan felt himself being visually sized up. He thought of his embarrassment in stores where nothing seemed to fit him. If he sang a long and tedious opera about why he had decided to help Cruz it would bore everybody and make less sense than the bloody misadventures of Jason. His smile was not returned.

  Cruz reclined his head, trying to hold his face on. Even rising from the chair would be a chore.

  Jonathan wondered whether Bauhaus was stoked on some kind of drag right now. All eyes in the room - except Krystal's - turned to record the entrance of the young boy Cruz had seen his first night here. He crept down the spiral staircase and sat on the bottom step, bracing his bare feet against the center column. He was built slender, and the drop of the monkish brown pullover robe he wore revealed a girlishly round bottom. His hair was colorless and anemic, and fell in the direction of least resistance. His skin was very fine to mint, china-thin, revealing delicate traceries of blue veins. The pink hands and feet were innocent of physical labor. He seemed pleased to sit and stare at some nondescript spatial junction, with lemur-pupilled eyes as blue as the neon in the room… and as empty as a beer can at a toga party. Jonathan thought of Puff the cat, on his invisible monster watch. Bauhaus sidled over and fed the boy a white tablet from a dish on the bar. When the boy swallowed, Bauhaus petted his head.

  'Never mind Lord Alfred, here,' Bauhaus said. 'He's gone back to his home planet for the nonce.'

  'Uranus,' Jamaica whispered to Jonathan, grinning.

  'Jonathan, is it?' The cigarette holder moved from one downtured corner of Bauhaus' mouth to the other. 'I wonder if you could help our friend Cruz crutch his way to the bathroom from here, so he can begin cleaning up. I'll have the drugs he needs and anything else sent on in, hmm? Use the blue bedroom.' He pointed. A simple gesture done imperiously. 'Oh- and Cruz? Your pal Rosie wants to talk with you. I have the secret numbers and all that folderol. Take care of it after you hit the showers. You smell, kiddo.'

  'Stop calling me kiddo.'

  Jonathan played candy-striper. Not facing Bauhaus' cherry cordial gaze felt better.

  'Man, my body feels like a bag full of broken sticks,' Cruz said. At least he was articulating better. 'You know when you rake leaves and sweep everything into a hefty bag and the twigs and branches poke holes in the plastic? That's what my body feels like.'

  Cruz had not done yardwork since he was eight, and Jonathan had not lived in a place with a lawn to tend since age twelve. Past a bedroom of hedonistic overstatement, he helped Cruz get the massage spray started. The shower was as big as his entire bathroom back at Kenilworth.

  'Watch your ass with Bauha
us,' was the only caveat Jonathan received. 'Be careful.'

  ***

  Jamaica had squared off with Bauhaus during Jonathan's brief absence.

  'He's okay, and I think it's time to pay him. At least a grand. He spared you a lot of grief.' She stood arms akimbo, legs apart, a referee stance. Bauhaus was in slippers, and shorter. His eyes shone the transparent slate-black of apache tear, glittering in the opium-den lighting, assaying her, then him, then her.

  'Absolutely,' he said. It did not sound from the heart. 'Why not. A little recompense for our good friend, Jonathan' Better watch your ass, girl. He might turn out to be a better bargain than you.' He turned to Jonathan and brightened artificially. 'Well! Why don't you kiddies help yourself to some goodies while Uncle Bauhaus makes a few nasty ole phone calls. Sounds like you did real good, there, Jonathan. Maybe I'll rent you this highbox cooze for the night? Did you know you can do just any old thing you want to her? She'll eat the peanuts and com kernels out of your shit for money.' He smiled venomously.

  The words hit her like a slap, and were just as preferred. 'I'd say fuck you, Bauhaus… but then, we know human fucking isn't to your taste anyway.' She was off toward the bar with a haughty swishing of hips.

  Everyone's scoring points, Jonathan thought. Bauhaus was probably angry at the loss of his drugs, and venting this via general abuse. He began to think the insults he heard carried no real clout.

  Now he faced Bauhaus by himself. He felt himself being sniffed and litmus-tested. Outside, frozen rain pelted the floor-to-ceiling glass and made Chicago decompose into a Symbolist blur of twinkling lights. It all looked so clean and organized from a distance - the view of a hated former hometown as seen from the seat of a jetliner used to escape it forever.

  The phony bonhomie was back. Bauhaus swept his arms wide to embrace the room and all that was his - bought and paid for, indentured till death or arrest did them part.