by Eric Beetner
Joe stifled a laugh, and said, “True fucking story, right there.”
“First sign of trouble,” I said, “I’m digging in.”
“Assholes.” Paul leaned over the seats and turned up the radio.
The idea of digging the Maverick, or any other car, out of the frozen ground wasn’t thrilling me. Still, by the time we’d spent more than an hour on the expressway, and then another forty-five minutes or so getting ourselves deep into the goddamn suburbs, I was more than ready to be out of Joe’s car. The smell of tacos, bad breath, body odor, and who the fuck knows how many years of cigar smoke lurking in the upholstery, had me craving fresh air, no matter how cold.
Paul read the directions to Joe from a piece of crumpled up notebook paper, and when he finally announced the last turn was coming up, I almost said a silent prayer of thanks to a God I don’t even believe in.
We came to a stop in front of an old barn leaning so far to one side it looked like a mild breeze could flatten it. I looked around, didn’t see any other buildings, and said, “Doesn’t seem to be particularly inhabited around here.”
“My brother told me Doug’s family owns the land.”
Joe and I looked at each other, and maybe he suddenly turned into a mind reader, because he shook his head, his frown got a little deeper, and he said, “Let’s get out of the goddamn car before I have to kill someone.”
The trunk opened to reveal the lantern, a trio of shovels, and a few pairs of good leather work gloves. The money for this stuff, and probably for gas, too, would have to come off the top. A small price to pay, and I was fine with it. I kinda hope Paul would make some noise, mostly so I could give the leeching little shit a piece of my mind. Like Joe said, we needed him to get to the location, and I had to concede the point even more after the route we took looked like we were going to end up chasing our tails for a while. I wasn’t any less suspicious, but I was resigned to the facts of the situation.
We each pulled on gloves, grabbed a shovel, and filed around to the dark side of the barn where not even the light from the moon could reach. Joe stuck his shovel into the ground, and got the lantern going. The light wasn’t great, though it would let us see well enough to get the job done.
Joe rammed his shovel blade into the frozen ground. A small chunk of earth broke loose, and we all looked at each other.
“Long night ahead of us,” I said.
No one bothered to disagree.
It had been nearly seventeen years since we pulled the job together. Except for Joe, we’d all been young back then, and dumb enough to think the money could really be a way out. I couldn’t even remember exactly what I thought I was going to do with myself, though if anyone had told me I’d still be freezing my balls off every winter in Chicago, I’d have told them they were fucking crazy.
“What if it’s not here?”
Joe and I stopped digging, and turned to look at Paul who all of a sudden had a worried look on his face. We’d managed to dig down a foot over a decent size area over what I imagined to be a very long period of time.
“Keep digging,” I said. “It’s all we can do.”
“Yeah, but what if it’s not there?” Paul looked from me to Joe. “What if we get to the car and there’s no money?”
“Jesus.” Joe rammed his shovel into the earth and leaned on it. “If there’s no money?” He smiled, his teeth glowing yellow in the lantern’s light. “I’ll bury you with the goddamn Maverick, Paul.”
Paul swallowed hard, and Joe let out a big laugh.
“Come on,” I said. “We have to keep digging.”
Joe pulled his shovel loose, gave Paul one more look, and went back to it. I stood, waiting for Paul to dig in again, and after a few moments, he did.
My shovel hit something, it wasn’t more dirt, and my heart skipped a beat. I wanted to shout out, but instead I started digging faster. Joe and Paul picked up on it, all three of us going at the hole with a renewed vigor. Shovelful after shovelful of dirt, and we began to define the outline of the long buried automobile. My hands hurt, my back ached, and I was as excited as a kid on Christmas morning.
From what we could see, it looked like Doug made the original hole at a descending angle, and put the Maverick in face first. As we cleared away the last of the earth from around the back end of the car, I hoped he’d put the cash in the rear. With the first light of the sun starting to show off to the east, the three of us sat on the edge of our little excavation and looked down at the car. I felt a stiffness creeping into me, and stood up. I walked around a bit, watched my two cohorts go on staring, and finally said, “Let’s pop it open.”
“Right.” Joe got to his feet and grabbed his shovel again. He looked back to me, leaned his head toward the car, and said, “You want to do the honors?”
“You go on ahead,” I said. “I’m too nervous.” I hadn’t planned on saying so, but it was the truth. I guess what Paul said earlier, about the money not being there, had wormed its way into my thinking.
Joe got the shovel under the lip of the trunk, but it didn’t budge. I hopped down, tapped Paul on the arm, and all three of us put our weight on the wooden handle. The metal groaned, started to give, and then popped open. In the trunk there was something wrapped up in a packing blanket, and the three of us stood there, all hands still on the shovel, looking at it.
“All right,” Joe said as he pulled away from us and set the shovel so he could lean on it. “Get it out of there.”
I started to move toward the open trunk, but Paul rushed in and started clawing at the blanket. “It’s all taped up,” he said. “Give me a minute.”
I stood there, watching him, and my hand went around the handle of my shovel. One good crack across the back of the head, I thought.
Paul backed up, turned to face us, holding a steel briefcase Joe and I both recognized. The grin on his face almost made me feel bad about what I’d been thinking.
Joe swung his shovel at Paul’s head, and the sound it made when it connected echoed through the still air. He stood there a moment, looking at me, and the case fell from his hands.
“What…” He couldn’t find the words he wanted to say.
“It’s not your money,” Joe said.
Paul’s mouth moved in silence some more, and his eyes went wide with shock as I rammed the blade of my shovel into his gut. He rocked back onto his heels, arms suddenly thrust out reaching for a hold that’s wasn’t there, and then he toppled backwards, landing partially inside the Maverick’s trunk, the shovel still sticking out of him.
Joe dumped a shovelful of dirt back to the hole. “Money splits better two ways.”
He wasn’t going to get any argument out of me. I grabbed the other shovel and started throwing dirt.
Back to TOC
IOKI AND THE FAT JAP
(How I was recruited by the F.B.I.)
Tom Pitts
Wham. In an instant I was being propelled over the hood of a brand new Toyota; arching in mid-air, and for one brief second suspended, before smacking down onto the car. I rolled over the hood as though I had practiced it a million times. My heavy Schwinn one-speed bicycle didn’t make it as far. After impact, it too had arced high in the air, then, in an incomplete somersault, crashed down onto the hood of the car.
It happened at the intersection of Market and Kearny, a huge, congested big city artery where Third, Market, Geary, and Kearny Streets all met. With momentum pushing me, I thought for sure I had enough time to make it to the other side. I was wrong.
Immediately, traffic around us halted. My acrobatics had stunned onlookers. I heard several people shout, “Are you all right?” and a couple of cries of, “Oh, my God.” I was all right. I was worried about being delayed and not making it to City Hall in time for my filing. I pulled my bike off of the hood of the car with exaggerated care. Cars trying to navigate their way around our mishap began to honk and bleat. The driver’s door swung open.
�
��You can’t leave. You can’t leave.” The voice came from inside the car and was high and abrasive. It was a shrill command.
The driver struggled to get out of the Toyota. He pushed and squeezed his way onto the street and stood with one hand on his hip and the other held up as if to say, halt.
I hadn’t moved.
In front of me stood a soft, fat Asian man. His lips were large and puffy, his skin smooth and his forehead high and shiny. His shirt collar was clean and white, so tight it seemed to strangle his air supply. His face turned red as he barked at me. “Give me your driver’s license. You’re not going anywhere.”
I wasn’t going anywhere. With a fabricated limp for sympathy, I guided my bike off Kearny Street and onto the sidewalk to exchange information. The angry man got back into the driver seat and honked his Toyota over to the curb. It gave him time to deliberate with his passenger, then, when he climbed back out of his car, he promptly declared me guilty.
“You ran the red light,” he said. It was a statement, not just for me, but for everyone within earshot of his stage voice.
He didn’t ask if I was okay; he didn’t look at the damage to his car; he only stood with his hands on his hips wondering why everyone wasn’t stopping and joining him in condemnation.
The passenger in the front seat sat silent through the whole incident, waiting for the big man to take care of business, keeping his head down.
“Give me your insurance. Give me your license,” the man demanded.
I tried to explain. “I’m on a bicycle—I don’t have insurance.”
His fat face turned red again. “Maybe we should call the police?”
It was a threat, an effective one.
“No. No police.” I was scared of the police; I always had drugs in my pockets. I was in a hurry to get to City Hall. I was scared of losing my job, and, at the moment, I was scared of this angry Asian man shooting tiny, white pellets of spittle at my face. I just wanted my day to go on as it had before this asshole derailed it. With a sigh of resignation, I handed him my California driver’s license.
He snatched the ID from my hand, glaring at me suspiciously while jotting down my address, making sure my face was the same as the picture. I looked at his registration. The car was rented. I didn’t write down a thing.
“This is your fault,” he said, finger wagging.
It wasn’t. The details didn’t matter.
Weeks went by. The accident had been pushed to the back of my mind. I was eighteen years old. My life was constantly bubbling and reconstituting itself with new drama. The incident had been just another notch on my belt as a bike messenger, along with flat tires in the rain and road rash.
That day was the furthest thing from my mind as I sat in my tiny bedroom on Pierce Street, drinking my sixteen-ounce Budweisers and watching my twelve-inch black-and-white TV. The doorbell rang. Desperate for company, I was quick to answer it.
“I got it,” I called out to my roommates and pulled open the door. There was the fat Japanese businessman.
“Tim Potts?” he said. He was looking right at me, but announced it like a formality, like I was about to be served a summons. I said nothing. With a great flourish he produced a yellow carbon-copy receipt and waved it under my nose.
“Tim Potts,” he said, “you hit our car. These are the damages. You must pay us this amount.” When he said “us” he stepped aside just a little and I saw a frail young man behind him. The young man looked only at his own feet.
“This is my brother, Ioki. He was in the car. He is also my witness to your crime.”
Ioki looked sad and didn’t say anything. He glanced at me through the greasy bangs that hung over his eyes.
The fat man went on with his speech, but I’d tuned him out. I held the yellow piece of paper in my hand, staring at the figure in the bottom right hand corner. The total was hundreds of dollars. No way I’d ever be able to pay this guy. He was dreaming.
“No,” was all I said. It was all I could say. I was in shock. The fat man looked at me as though he didn’t understand. “No way,” I added, just to make myself clear.
“What do you mean, no? You don’t have a choice, Tim Potts. You have no witnesses, you have no evidence, and you have no money.” He made a big swooping gesture with his hand meant to take in the scope of my miserable and impotent life. “You must pay us, or we’ll sue you. We will take you to court. I have money; you have none. This is America, and in America…the rich win.” With this last comment he held his fist high in the air, pointing his finger toward God as though he’d just received this additional commandment right there on my front stoop.
He had me. He’d touched on one of my worst fears. Fighting a broken system, running in a fixed race, being locked in a losing battle, outgunned, out financed. His theatrics were drawing the attention of my roommates. My nosey landlord lived in the flat upstairs. I wanted him to be gone. I needed to buy some time to think about this. Finally, I agreed to pay him twenty dollars a week. I handed him a twenty, and, hoping to never see him again, was already formulating excuses for why I wouldn’t be able make the next payment.
He snatched the twenty out of my hand with great satisfaction and, as though he’d read my mind, said, “We will be back.”
One week went by and they didn’t show. I was ready to call their bluff, I was ready for a screaming match, I was ready for anything but to give them another twenty dollars. Another week went by and another no-show. After a few more weeks, I thought, once more, that I’d never see the fat Japanese businessman again.
Winter rains gave way to summer and my life moved on. When you’re young, time is so full that the few months since the accident seemed like years. I guessed that the rich decided this battle wasn’t worth winning. Twenty dollars was not enough to chase me down for, no matter how badly they wanted to teach me a lesson.
In June, my doorbell rang. A long, impatient, annoying ring. I peeked out the window to see who was on the front stoop. There, again, was the fat Japanese businessman. After all this time? For twenty bucks? That greedy, vindictive son of a bitch. I’d been waiting for this moment, still smarting from my naiveté; I wanted to show him my backbone. With my teeth clamped together and my jaw set firm, I swung open the door.
“I don’t have your money.” That was my greeting, all he would get, but as soon as I said it, I saw he was not the same man at all. His eyes were red and puffy and I saw tear tracks streaking his fat cheeks. He was still dressed in a suit, but he looked disheveled and broken.
“I’m not here for your money, Tim Potts. I’m sorry.” His tone was softer, more effeminate. “It’s my brother, Ioki…” His voice trailed off while he choked back several sobs. “…He’s missing.”
I was confused. I didn’t know what this man wanted. Was it all part of some elaborate ruse? Was he trying to draw me out for some other kind of extortion?
“I don’t want your money,” he repeated and plucked a twenty dollar bill from his breast pocket as an offering. “Look, here is your money back, okay? I just want to ask you a question. May I come inside?”
“No,” I responded without pause. His tears had emboldened me.
“Ioki is my brother. He is lost here in America. I must find him. You must help me find him.” He was pleading with me and commanding me at the same time.
“Why the fuck would I know where your brother is?” I couldn’t even remember Ioki’s face. I couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup.
“Because he knows where you are. Did he come by here to pick up our payments?”
I didn’t want to remind him I was only twenty dollars in. I thought about lying and telling him that I paid his brother the remaining balance, but his concern was not for my debt, it was for Ioki.
“No, I haven’t seen him.”
“Please,” pleaded the fat man as he plucked another twenty from his pocket, “can I come back next week and see if he has come for the money? Just give him this.�
��
I thought about it, debating whether I wanted to get further involved. The fat man took my hesitation to be haggling and promptly produced another twenty.
I relented. “What do I tell him if I see him?”
The fat man’s eyes lit up. “Don’t tell him anything, just give him the twenty and tell him to come back Friday for the next payment.”
I held the three twenties in my hand and watched the businessman climb back into his double-parked rent-a-car and drive away.
It was three more Fridays before the fat man returned. This time he rang my doorbell and immediately retreated into a black town car. When I reached the sidewalk, I could only see his chubby hand beckoning from the rear window. I climbed into the seat beside him and he signaled for the driver to pull off.
“Have you seen him?” I could tell by his tone, he expected no response. I shook my head, but he wasn’t watching. He continued, “I need you to make a phone call, can you do that for me? I will pay you twenty dollars.”
When I hesitated, he rolled his eyes and said, “Okay, forty. Here’s twenty now and I’ll give you the other twenty after the call.” He believed that all people below a certain income level would do anything for a twenty. He folded the bill around a card. On the card was a name and phone number. The number was local, the name was Japanese. Not Ioki’s name. “When they pick up, just ask for this man. Listen to what they say, and then hang up.”
Like the saying goes, it was his dime. I called, let it ring endlessly, reported back, and collected the other twenty. That was it. Easy money. The disappointed-looking fat man thanked me and instructed the driver to return to my home.
It was a pattern he kept for several weeks. The fat man would show up at my house on Friday, we’d take a short drive, I’d make a phone call, hang up, and collect twenty dollars. Soon he expanded my duties. He had me go into a newsstand in Japantown to fetch Japanese newspapers. It hardly seemed worth twenty dollars to have me walk a few short feet into a store to purchase a one dollar paper, but once more, it was his dime.
