The Man Offside

by A. W. Gray

  Fireplug mumbled to himself as he left me and Breaux standing there, continued to mumble as he crossed the room. A single shaded light hung over the table, and smoke and dust particles swirled in the beam like confetti in a fog. Fireplug skirted the table and sidled up to Ace. The cigar stump came out of Fireplug’s mouth and he whispered something. Ace passed the dice to the next shooter and came over with Fireplug trailing a step behind.

  “I know ‘em, Jackie,” Ace said, and Fireplug showed a glum scowl. “I ain’t going to say they’re okay,” Ace said, “but I know ‘em. Let ‘em on in.” He smiled slow and easy and extended his hand to me. As I shook it, Ace said, still to Fireplug, “This here cat cost me pretty good one year. How ‘boutcha, Mr. Offside Man, you ever learn to wait for the snap?”

  “I’m still waiting for it,” I said. “Long time, Ace.”

  Ace clapped Breaux on the shoulder. “Hey, Bannion, you got Captain Crawdad along, huh? What you doing on dry land, Bodie, your boat sink or something?”

  “Just came in to clean my pipes,” Breaux said. “You need to send your doorman to school, Acie. He leads us upstairs to where we can see the action, then starts checking to see if we’re okay. Jesus Christ, if we was working for the sheriff you’d all be in a paddy wagon by now.”

  Fireplug drew himself up as if to say something, but Ace the Book cut in. “Jackie? Jackie’s my boy, he’s doing okay. Tell you what, Jackie, I got a bottle of Johnnie Walker in the kitchen under the sink. Bring it for my friends, huh?”

  The kitchen was to the rear, behind a Coke machine and a standup cooler that probably contained Lone Star and Pearl Beer. The place must have been a real VFW before Ace had bought the license, and it would be a good idea to keep appearances up in case some legitimate veterans wandered in. Fireplug kept scowling as he waddled toward the kitchen. I hoped that the whiskey bottle’s seal was intact; otherwise Breaux might get scotch and rat poison.

  Ace edged between Bodie and me and slung an arm over each of our shoulders. I’ve never liked having men put their hands on me, even in good cheer, and not so many years back the gesture would have cost Ace a sore jaw. But it’s something I’ve learned to live with. Ace said, “Between you and me, Jackie’s married to my sister. What you going to do? If I don’t put him to work I’m never going to hear the end of it. So what’s it, you looking for action? Tell you what, the limit’s a thousand, hundred on the proposition bets. But for a couple high rollers I can get the limit raised. I got some clout.”

  The kid with the handlebar mustache and the pinky rings had the dice ready to roll, but now froze with his hand beside his ear. He eyed Bodie and me as though we were slices of white meat chicken. The other players licked their lips and did the same.

  I gently removed Ace’s paw from my shoulder. “No dice, Ace, no pun intended. We need to talk. You got a quiet place?”

  Ace cocked his head. “I guess I do.” He took his other hand from Breaux’s shoulder. Breaux enjoyed being pawed about as much as I did, and he brushed the sleeve of his T-shirt. Ace said, “I should have left Jackie by the door, I could have picked up the Johnnie Walker on the way. I got an office behind the kitchen. I’ll tell you before we go, I ain’t buying nothing.”

  “We’re not selling,” I said. “Lead the way, Ace, it might be worth something to you.”

  He nodded and led us through the kitchen. The linoleum floor was cracked and grimy; in one corner was a jumbled pile of empty boxes. We passed a rusty icebox and a stove that had black grease encrusted on its burners. Fireplug met us going in the opposite direction, and Ace took the scotch from him. Fireplug shot Breaux a glare that would stunt growth as he went by. Breaux grinned and nodded. The bottle swung at Ace’s hip as we entered his office.

  The office was more like a closet with a desk inside. The desk was old and scarred, with chipped brown paint; I read the initials “J.R.” where someone had carved them into the wood. Ace had to inhale in order to squeeze between the desk and wall, then he sank down into a rickety swivel chair that squealed in protest. At one time this had been a pretty nice little room; there was a cherry-patterned wallpaper that was now faded and wrinkled and a light green carpet that had brown stains in places, and whose backing was showing through. On one wall was a calendar advertising Midas mufflers; the calendar was showing the month of June. I told Ace that he needed to tear off a couple of months in order to be current, but he snorted and pretended not to hear me. A Playmate of the Month from a couple of years back peered at us around her saucy behind from another wall. A cloth couch that was sagging in the middle was in front of Ace’s desk. Breaux and I sat on it. Breaux sneezed as dust flew. There was a phone on the desk, sitting on top of a pile of football betting sheets from the previous fall. The phone was ringing.

  “Don’t pay it no mind,” Ace said. “Bastards. They know I don’t take action after seven, but some of ‘em wake up in the middle of the night. Got a vision about some baseball game on the West Coast.” He slammed open a bottom drawer and produced a stained coffee cup along with two glasses. One of the glasses was only dusty; in the bottom of the other was a sticky brown residue. Ace broke the seal and poured scotch into the cup. The sudden smell of the liquor mingled with the odor of stale cigars—probably Jackie’s. Ace hadn’t been a smoker the last time I’d seen him. He took a slug from the cup, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed, then started to fill the glass with the sticky stuff in its bottom. He looked at me and said, “Say when.”

  “Nothing for me, Ace,” I said quickly. “I’m working.”

  “Uh, me either.” Bodie’s nose was wrinkling. “I just had a couple down the road.”

  Ace’s eyebrows lifted. He set down the bottle, screwed on the cap, and emptied the glass into the coffee cup. He took another swallow. “So you won’t drink with me. It must be serious what you’re wanting. Working at what, Ricky? You ain’t joined no police force, have you?” His eyes narrowed. A slob, yes. A dummy, far from it.

  “Just the opposite,” I said. “I’m working for a guy against the cops. Federal cops. FBI, DEA, all the same difference.”

  “A man after my heart,” Ace said.

  “I’m looking for a guy,” I said. “Herman Moore. Skeezix. I think he might bet the sports. Football, some baseball maybe.”

  Breaux shifted beside me and crossed his legs. His shin brushed the corner of the desk. “I brought him here, Acie, so I already told him Skeezix bets sports with you.”

  Ace swiveled in his chair and eyed the playmate on the wall. He had a small bald spot at his crown. He said, “This guy, Ricky, the one you’re working for. It ain’t Muhammed Double-X.”

  “No way,” I said.

  The phone had stopped ringing, but now began once more. Ace ignored it. His gaze still on the playmate, showing us the back of his head, Ace the Book said, “Look, Skeezix is double-hot and don’t I know it. But I can’t help you. The guy is on the mattresses, which is better than being dead, which is what he’ll be if Muhammed runs across him. So I might not like Skeezix any more than anybody else does, but he’s a good player. One of the best I ever saw. Five grand a week he blows on the sports, pays of like Caesar’s Palace. I can’t afford to have the guy dead. So I can’t give up his location to nobody.” He turned around and faced us. “It’s business is all, I ain’t going to bullshit you.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “I got to have the guy and quick. I got no choice. If I—”

  Breaux place a restraining hand on my arm and shook his head. He said to Ace, “I dig that you’re making too much off the guy to give him up for nothing. So how about a trade?”

  “A what?”

  “Trade. You tell us about Skeezix, I don’t tell the boys out front about those six-ace flats in your pocket.”

  Ace had been about to take another slug of the scotch and God-knows-what, but now he froze. “Six-ace flats? The fuck you—”

  “Or lead-loads, whatever,” Bodie said. “You palmed ‘em, Acie. They’re in your righ
t pants pocket.”

  Ace shifted his gaze from Breaux to me and back again. You could practically hear the wheels turning; he was figuring whether Skeezix’s business was worth losing the boys’ out front. Getting caught cheating wasn’t that big of a deal—every man in the game was likely to have a pair of loads on him; the penalty for cheating in Ace the Book’s circle was the gambler’s equivalent of standing with one’s nose in the corner—but it was Ace’s game. The house man was supposed to watch for cheaters, not cheat himself. Ace wouldn’t bother lying to us about the crooked dice—it wasn’t as though his conscience was bothering him. I didn’t really like to put this kind of pressure on, but Breaux was doing the right thing. I needed this Skeezix and I didn’t have time to screw around.

  Ace let go a long sigh and said, “Two things. Skeezix ain’t to know I’m the man that told you. And bigger than that, Muhammed Double-X ain’t to know that I know where Skeezix is at. Jesus Christ, I got enough trouble without a bunch of Muslim smokes in here beating the shit out of me.”

  “Yeah, they’re not exactly a pack of Uncle Toms,” Breaux said.

  I leaned forward, rested my forearms on my thighs, and put my fingertips together. I looked down. A prominent vein ran the length of my right forearm, outlined against the muscle. “You got my word on it, Ace,” I said. “All I want is to find Skeezix.”

  Ace drummed the desktop with his fingers. “You know Lewisville, Ricky? Up by the lake?”

  “Pretty well. I don’t get up that way much, but I know the general area.”

  “There’s a house. The owner’s Lorraine Daley—she’s a titty-shaker, dances as Connie Swarm over at Baby Doll’s. But Skeezix pays the bills on the joint. I think Connie Swarm gives him a little sniff once in a while. Anyhow, that’s where Skeezix is at. Ain’t stuck his head outside in a week. Take Hawley Road west off the freeway, it winds around behind the lake. The house is on the left, maybe a mile from the dam. It’s got a green windmill in the yard, you can’t miss it.”

  “Skeezix and Connie Swarm,” I said. “Who else is up there?”

  “There’ll be more, they come and go. Besides the other titty-shakers there’s poker players. Skeezix is the main sucker, he keeps the game going around the clock. Only when Skeezix stops to sleep, the other players just sit. Jesus, I never saw anybody has to have action as bad as that sonofabitch. There’ll be a little muscle, but nothing the pair of you can’t handle. Who you working for, Jack Brendy?”

  I wasn’t ready for the question, and I tried to hide my surprise as I said, “How’d you know? There’s been nothing in the paper to connect Skeezix to Jack.”

  Ace snorted. “It’s the feds, shit, the word’s out all over town. I can’t figure Skeezix. Anybody that thinks the feds are going to give them any protection just ‘cause they’re a snitch—shit, them FBI’s gossip worse than old women. Once they’re through with Skeezix on the Brendy deal they’ll throw him to the dogs. Or the Muslims. You watch what I say.”

  Breaux and I exchanged glances. “I guess we got what we came for,” I said.

  Breaux got up from the couch. “Yeah, we better be going. You need to get back to your game, Acie. You got to watch to make sure the game is on the square. You wouldn’t want nobody getting fucked in your joint now, would you?”

  I sat in my chocolate brown Corvette with the engine running and watched Bodie Breaux come out of the Quik Stop and jog around the Citgo gas pumps toward me. The interior of the Quik Stop was lit up like broad daylight. Between the long shelves which held the usual convenience store junk—soap, shaving cream, canned meat, tuna and sardines; every brand of candy bar known to man, giant dollar-and-a-half bags of M&M’s, plain and peanut—stood a big transparent plastic bin that was filled with murky greenish water. A stack of aluminum minnow buckets was alongside. The overhead lighted sign announced that the minnows were two sixty-nine and the buckets twelve dollars. When I’d been a kid in South Texas we had used earthworms as bait, worms that we had dug up on our own. I looked to my left, toward the narrow strip of asphalt pavement. Hawley Road had narrowed from a boulevard into a two-lane blacktop a mile or so after we’d left the interstate. Beyond the asphalt, past two hundred yards of mesquite trees and scrubby brush, Lake Bruce Alger shimmered and rippled under the full August moon. Breaux opened the passenger door, and the ‘Vette shifted slightly under his weight as he slammed the door.

  Between winded huffs and puffs, Breaux said, “Twelve and a half for gas. I got a Hershey.” He showed the candy bar, then handed over my change—a five, a single, and a couple of quarters. As he lifted his cap and rubbed his smooth, bald head, I looked from the money in my hand to Breaux and back again. He said, “‘S matter?”

  I put the car in gear and sprayed gravel as I wheeled back onto Hawley Road. “Nothing. Nothing’s the matter. Only every time you take that hat off it’s a shock that you’re bald. You sleep in that hat?”

  He bit off a chunk of Hershey. “You ain’t ever going to find out how I sleep. Can’t everybody have as much hair as you. At least what I got is still black. I think I’ll start calling you the Silver Turd, Bannion, how ‘bout that?”

  He got a laugh from me. I began to gray in my twenties and I’ve gotten used to it. “You make the call?” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I waited for him to go on. When he didn’t say more, I asked him, “Well? You set it up?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “How much I’m getting for this shit? I’m running around calling guys, setting things up, finding guys for you, pumping gas, you’re driving around like Stud Stingray asking questions.”

  “Oh, you know me,” I said. “I’ll make it worth your while.” I quickly switched on the radio and increased the volume. John Fogarty was singing “Put Me in, Coach” over KVIL.

  The house wasn’t near as easy to find as Ace the Book had said. It was set back a hundred feet from the road behind a thick six-foot hedge. The windmill was a small one and partially hidden by the house; the blades turned ever so slightly and reflected moonlight. I didn’t notice the house as we passed, but caught a glimpse of the windmill in my sideview mirror, made a squealing U-turn, and parked fifty yards short of a long, winding gravel drive. In the driveway sat an Eldorado, a Ford Bronco, and a Dodge Caravan. I cut my headlights and Bodie and I climbed out, moved from the road onto the grass, and approached the house.

  The house was white frame with dark shutters on the windows, and appeared well kept. Light streamed from the windows. The backyard extended to the lake shore. A boat—a pretty good-sized inboard job, probably a Cris-Craft—was moored to a dock with steps leading down into the yard.

  Breaux was moving silently along on my right; the bill on his cap threw a shadow that hid his face. Visible in the distance, tiny flashes danced across the surface of the lake like fireflies. Crickets whirred nearby and, farther away, water lapped against soggy wood. I whispered, “How long have we got?”

  “Well, it took us, what, a half hour from Ace the Book’s? Muhammed’s way to hell out in South Dallas, but he’ll be stepping on it since I told him Skeezix was out here. I figure forty-five minutes, maybe more,” Breaux said.

  “We’ve got to get inside before the Muslims show, and that may take some talking, jumpy as Skeezix is going to be. You got any idea how we’re going to get invited in?”

  “Yeah,” Breaux said.

  We were now crunching gravel as we went up the drive. I stopped beside a low cedar bush, the odor of sap in my nostrils. “Through the garage? Around back, what do you think?”

  “Well, I don’t know about you,” Breaux said, “but I’d just as soon not get my ass blowed off running around like a second-story man. The best way to get inside is to ring the doorbell.” Shaking his head, Breaux ambled across the front yard to the porch, ascended the steps, and pressed the buzzer. I followed a couple of steps behind him, my gaze darting warily from side to side. As we waited, he murmured, “Through the garage the man wants to go. Jesus Christ.”

 
So there we stood, me first on one foot and then the other and Bodie in a bored, hip-cocked stance. In a few minutes a yellow overhead light came on; a herd of fat june bugs attacked the light, wings whirring and bodies bumping against one another. The handle turned and the front door swung open a foot. My hand crept involuntarily toward my back pocket, where the Smith & Wesson rested.

  A soft female voice said, “Bodie? Bodie? What you doin’ out here, darlin’?” Then a pure knockout wearing snug jean shorts and a bare midriff halter came onto the porch and threw her arms around Breaux. Blond hair cascaded around her shoulders. She kissed him and she was anything but sisterly about it. I let my arms fall to my sides and counted to twenty before they came up for air.

  “Don’t mess with my hat, doll,” Breaux said.

  I had to admit, it wasn’t a bad line.

  The blonde stood on one foot, suspended the other a few inches off the concrete, and used her arm around Breaux’s neck to balance herself. She peered at me. “Who’s this dude, Bodie? And how’d you find me? Nobody’s supposed to know about this place, it’s my secret hideaway.” She had wide blue, China-doll eyes and a cherubic, pouty chin. I thought she would have been a whole lot prettier with a couple of coats less of makeup, but to each his own.

  “I asked around,” Breaux said. “Don’t matter how I found you.” He jerked his head in my direction. “This here is Ricky. Don’t get too close to him, he bites. Ricky, meet Connie Swarm. She dances. We . . . know each other.”

  She stood away from Breaux and curtsied cutely. “Pleased to meetcha.”

  This had all been happening so fast that I was having hell getting my thoughts organized. Connie Swarm’s name had rung a little bell the first time I’d heard it, back at Ace the Book’s, and now I snapped to and sorted out what I knew about her. Feature attraction at Baby Doll’s, the Madonna of the shit-kicker set. Her name had been linked to one gubernatorial candidate—a slightly cornpone type whose TV ad campaign featured pictures of all the death-row inmates he was going to execute if he was elected—and his opponents had blown the affair up big. Let’s see, hadn’t there been a shooting? Yeah. Her ex-husband, she’d shot him right in the balls (the papers had said, “in the groin”), and she’d been mixed up in a marijuana bust that had gotten a lot of ink as well. No Miss America candidate here, and with this chick’s credentials it would have been surprising if Breaux hadn’t known her Of course, he could have told me. The s.o.b.