Button Man

by Paul Lyons

  “Fence, thief, salesman, what’s the difference?” Fitz says.

  “A thief just takes things,” Hawk says.

  “You got permission from Disney to sell this stuff?”

  “Last I checked Uncle Walt was doing fine.”

  “You imagine Carla banging a guy like this?”

  “Hey, some women prefer a hot dog to filet mignon, okay?” Fitz says with a shrug. Then turns to Hawk. “What kind of valuables you got around here?”

  “Look around,” Hawk says. “Oh, and help yourself.”

  “You got any money?” Fitz asks.

  “‘Just enough to eat and play horses with,” Nelson says, and fingers the seersucker jacket over the chair. He kneels and looks face-to-face at the buttons with George Bush’s grimace of a smile on the lapels.

  “How much you sell some piece of garbage like this for?” Nelson says, fingering the buttons.

  “Deuce, maybe,” Hawk says then swallows.

  “Two dollars for this piece of shit?”

  “Sure, people buy ‘em. Don’t ask me why. I’m not a licensed psychiatrist.”

  Nelson picks up the seersucker by the collar.

  He reaches into the inside pockets, turns the chair around that’s holding the jacket.

  24

  FUNNY MONEY

  “You ain’t gonna believe this,” Nelson says to Fitz when he’s done counting. “We’re looking at maybe eight thousand dollars here!”

  Fitz looks up at the ceiling for a whole minute and exhales in a slow whistle. He takes the blinking visor off his head and runs his hands through his thick red hair and then puts the visor back on.

  He bends toward the money, then looks sideways up at Hawk.

  “Say you’re a sausage vendor?”

  Hawk nods.

  “Business must be good.”

  Hawk shrugs, looks at the money in front of Nelson and feels electrocuted, like when the dealer taps you in a casino. He’s frying so hot he can’t think. If they find out it’s payback money on a loan they’ll just take it. Who could vouch he ever had it? How could he explain where it came from? One thing he knows for sure is that, one way or the other, he can’t let them out of the loft with the money.

  “When I ask a question,” Fitz says, taking Hawk by the neck and practically lifting him off the ground. “I expect an answer. What’s a two-dollar, nickel-and-dime lard-ass vendor like you doing with eight g’s?”

  “What’s the difference?” Nelson says.

  “Let him answer,” Fitz says. “Don’t it make you think the guy’s into something?”

  “This guy lies like a politician,” Nelson says.

  “You running payroll?” Fitz asks, studying Hawk’s face like he’s trying to read a hole card. “I got to know about this money now. Understand? If you stole it, whose is it? Is there more?”

  “It ain’t my money is right,” Hawk says. “And there isn’t any more. Where would I get eight thousand? I’m holding it for someone. If I don’t bring it tonight, you’re going to have a problem.”

  “Yeah, right, punk,” Nelson says. “Come on, Fitz. Let’s tape him up good, kick his ass a little, and we split.”

  “Just because your ex banged this dink a few times you don’t gotta lose all sense of an opportunity.”

  “Maybe she banged him …”

  “I mean, if he was holding for the mob,” Fitz says. “He’d give a name.”

  “Okay, it’s Fives’ money, alright,” Hawk says. “He doesn’t like me talking about his business. You’ve heard of him, right?”

  “Like hell it’s Fives’ money,” Fitz says.

  “I’m serious.”

  “Fitz,” Nelson says. “Why do you always have to act like you’re putting on a robbery seminar? You’re a snitch.”

  “I got your ass out.”

  “Yeah, and I’m grateful.”

  “What’s the rush? I think we walked into something here. Your boy’s got something going. He ain’t telling us the truth. I can feel it. Don’t ask me how I know these things.”

  “You got ESP in an accident, Kreskin. You should be in a Vegas freak show for freckled fucking psychics.”

  “If this punk doesn’t want us to know something, there’s a reason.”

  “What reason?”

  “Why are you holding Fives’ money?” Fitz asks, leaning his wide, spotted face toward Hawk, who just sits there looking stumped, then turns away.

  “You see that, Nelson?”

  “Yep.”

  “The money’s funny. I don’t think its Fives’. What would Fives be doing with a dink like this on the payroll. I’m thinking, maybe there’s more.”

  “You want me to ask him nicely to tell us all about it?”

  “Think you can?” Fitz says.

  “My horoscope said I might be violent today.”

  Hawk tells Nelson he doesn’t know a thing about any more money but whatever they’re about to do, can’t it wait until he takes a whizz.

  Nelson can hold his dick if he wants, only he has to tie his hose.

  “Pissing his pants already,” Nelson says, and laughs. “I guarantee that if you ain’t, little man, you’re gonna be.”

  Hawk looks in the bathroom mirror. His slit of an eye is frozen into a wink.

  He takes off his button-down shirt and stuffs it into the towel rack and sees himself there, tan arms and white chest and crazy hair and scared in his bloodied T-shirt, his lip puffed though he doesn’t remember being hit there. Hawk spits in the sink, the pink of his blood swirling in the rusty water. He knocks his purpled knuckles against each other a few times, hard, then harder. Behind the mirror is the gun.

  There’s no way he’s letting them leave with his money. That’s basic. And with that recognition there’s a thrill and stillness framed by edges clean as casino dice. He’s gotta group his thoughts, retreat to a neutral corner, and slow things down. He’ll put a bullet in his own head before they walk off with that money, and once you look at it that way, he’d just as soon put a bullet in one or both of theirs. He’s had enough of people acting like they rent him his life, walk him around on a leash. Now the gun will be in the other hand. His hand. Let them try that on for size.

  He stands there, washes his hands and face with a French-milled bath bar he picked up in the lavatory of the CNN Building in Atlanta. The soap stings in the button scratches that criss-cross his fingers and in his cracked knuckles. He dabs at his eye with a towel. He washes dirt from the creases of his neck and the lines of his forehead. His heart winds down into a humming spool of clarity. He slaps cold water on his face, dries his face and his neck, staring at his own narrowness, at the whiteness of his chest compared to his sunburned arms and neck, then circle-mops his chest with the unstained part of the bloody T-shirt and throws the shirt in the tub. A line of confident ants troops slowly across the sink toward the soap tray.

  You pull a gun, kid, you better be ready to use it, Lee Marvin sings in a gravelly voice from the poster over the toilet. Ain’t no money for place or show in a gunfight.

  Hawk shakes his head at the vision, then opens the medicine cabinet and takes out the gun, light as a toy, and points it perfectly at his reflection in the mirror. Them or me, he thinks. He opens a box of the bullets Tuna kicked in and places each into the clip like a factory worker whose sole job is to place one piece inside another. Then he drives home the clip.

  How to handle things. Just come out blazing? No. He remembers Boardwalk saying how if he doesn’t get a good shot in he’ll just make them mad. He needs to get close. Only if he’s too close how’s he gonna get them both? He tries to visualize it. What about just stalling? Armand, a punctual, principled, manicured man, should be along any time now. He’d said eight o’clock. What time is it now? Carla might or might not be along at any time. If he can just keep the game going until Armand shows up, it’s gotta work in his favor. Armand wouldn’t steal the rest of the money or let it be stolen. The man has defined himself as a collector
who takes pride in his work and in being a man of his word. Though you never know for sure when there’s a pile of money involved.

  Hawk does a couple of push-aways on the wall tiles with each hand, giddy. If he stays in the bathroom too long they could just walk away with his money.

  “Spanking it in there?” Nelson yells.

  “Hold on,” Hawk says, “I’m so close.”

  Why should it always be him that people joke on? Mostly they don’t mean anything by it, but somehow it’s always him they joke on, not them. Hawk can just hear Fat Frankie: “You’re making me look bad, Hawk. I argue with people on your behalf. I’ve been trying to convince them that you’re good enough to live with pigs, but they argue that you aren’t. Now you’re proving me wrong.”

  And Hawk stands there, grinning like an ass-scratching snow monkey, unable to find a counterpunchline. On the street, of course, it was easier: if someone insulted you, you just tried to sell them a button or T-shirt.

  In the poster Lee Marvin looks like he’s outlasted the night, empty bottles all around him, ashtray overflowing with stubs, a candle burned down to the wood holder, an empty nacho dish. He could be staring into space or at someone. If you were in front of him, he’d be staring at you with that look of doggish inquiry—por favor, señor?—his pug nose looking like it’s been busted several times. The leather hat perfect on Marvin’s head, his eyes slightly narrowed, lips slightly parted and chapped, the ruffled white shirt and loosened tie, like his whole outfit would have been fresh from the laundry several days ago. The guy riding out the night in black gloves, not waiting or wasting motion, maybe remembering the things he has to remember, but ready. He looks like he’s used to drinking for ten hours and then in a second doing just whatever nasty thing might be required.

  Hawk feels a transfusion of nerve juice and nods to Marvin, absorbing the man’s calm alertness and focus. Marvin adjusts his creased leather hat, coughs hoarsely, and winks. Hawk winks back at the poster and steps out the bathroom, barefoot and bony chested in just jeans. He catches Nelson slightly turned, and presses the .22 smack against the thick of his skull.

  And just like that, it’s happening.

  “I will shoot if you turn your head,” Hawk says. “Be careful because my nerves could make me pull the trigger.”

  “That peashooter loaded?” Nelson says.

  “You know it,” Hawk says, gripping the gun, his cracked knuckles red and white from the pressure.

  “That a BB gun?”

  “It’s a .22 and from here it will kill you.”

  “You gonna kill me?”

  “If I have to,” Hawk says. “Now walk to the table, slowly.”

  And he guides Nelson with the end of his gun toward the kitchen area. Fitz is seated at the table, turning the packets of money over in his hands, and when they get there he looks up, surprised, like he’s just been check-raised by a joker-poker machine.

  “Be cool, Fitz,” Hawk says, gun still poking the back of Nelson’s head. “Sit down, Nelson. Fitz, you wanna do something with that tape, you tape his hands to the chair. Get up slowly. And I mean you tape his hands up good.”

  Fitz doesn’t move, all attention though.

  Nelson sits, shaking his head and grinning.

  “Hawk. You don’t think you’re gonna get away with this?”

  “What do you think, Fitz?”

  Fitz shrugs, still deciding what to do, and then Nelson turns on Hawk and starts to get up slowly, and Hawk fires straight into his arm, a single shot—pop—and then points at his head from two feet away and Nelson pulls up, seeing in Hawk’s flushed face that he’d have to shoot.

  Pain flickers in Nelson’s eyes.

  The shot has gone into his elbow bone above his flag tattoo. The blood spurts crazily.

  Hawk steps in closer again, the gun practically touching Nelson’s head, and yells, “Sit, sit, sit,” and Nelson just yells, “Holy shit,” and slumps back into the chair, wincing, a stunned look on his face at the sight of his own blood everywhere. He squeezes his elbow with his good hand, blood bright and fast through his fingers.

  The sound of the small, unexpected pop of the gun—like a toy cap pistol—hangs in the air. All three of them stare at the bleeding hole in Nelson’s elbow that the little gun made.

  “Goddamn, I don’t believe it,” Nelson says, and spits, grimaces, laughs. “I was shot by Mickey Mouse.”

  “Everyone take it easy,” Fitz says. “Just relax.”

  “You relax, freckled asshole,” Hawk says, shaking without his shirt but feeling a grip on things, growing confident. “If either of you even looks at me wrong, you get it in the head. Fitz, tape the man’s hands to the chair or I swear I’ll pop him in the head.”

  Fitz still doesn’t move.

  One half of Nelson’s cutoff jean shirt is splotched dark red now. An amazing, impossible amount of blood has pooled on the linoleum, and Nelson’s slumped forward with the pain. Hawk holds the gun with both hands right on his temple.

  “No brain, no pain,” Hawk says. “You won’t even feel it.”

  Fitz walks around behind Nelson, Hawk shifting slightly to give him an angle.

  “Okay, buddy, be cool,” Fitz says.

  “Get his hands taped on the arms of the chair where I can see them,” Hawk says.

  “Wrap something around my fucking arm,” Nelson says.

  “After you tape him down, Fitz. Okay, tape it tight and it’ll slow the bleeding.”

  Like Marcus Welby M.D. in the field, talking a beginner through some procedure.

  “Hawk. You hit an artery or something. He’s bleeding bad. We need to get him to the hospital.”

  “You need to re-lax, Fitz,” Hawk says. “Nelson, keep your ass glued to that chair. I promise, man. You keep moving around and that arm will be the least of your problems. I’ll pop you in the head.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Nelson yells as Fitz wraps his elbow.

  “Keep wrapping,” Hawk says. “Wrap it all the way round a few times. Now tape each of his ankles to the chair. That’s it, you’re getting the hang of it. A few more times. Keep going.”

  “Calm down,” Fitz says. “Just take it easy, little man.”

  “I’m easy. Now you sit and don’t try any moves, because I’ll shoot you too.”

  Hawk needs to buy time.

  Fitz and Nelson are seated at the table, the money still in stacks in front of them. Though Nelson’s elbow is taped tight the blood gets through, running down the chair leg.

  Hawk’s antsy, standing over the table watching the two.

  Finally, the doorbell rings.

  “It’s Carla and Zoey,” Hawk says, stepping behind Nelson. “You said you wanted to see your little girl.”

  “Damn it, Mickey. Get this fucking tape off me before I bite your fucking ear.”

  The doorbell rings again, louder.

  “One minute!” Hawk yells.

  “Crazy runt,” Nelson says, and spits.

  “Fitz, the door,” Hawk says, firmly, holding the gun to Nelson’s temple. “You ain’t biting no one, Ginsu. Now quiet or I’ll tape your face.”

  25

  SETTLING ACCOUNTS

  Armand and Fitz, Mr. Skinhead behind them, walk to where Hawk’s still holding the gun to Nelson’s head. Armand wears a shiny suit that’s black or blue depending on which way he turns, a fresh carnation in his lapel. Mr. Skinhead wears a bowler hat like the sociopath in Clockwork Orange or Oddjob in Goldfinger. Armand looks at Hawk’s white chest and the blood smudged on his face and arms.

  “How come you’re naked?”

  Hawk waves his .22 at the money.

  “I brought your money, Armand. I was prepared to give it to you and we’re even. And these fucks want to rip me off. Only I wasn’t about to let it happen. Take what I owe you and we’re even. The other four g’s I gotta give Philly.”

  “Like hell it’s your eight g’s,” Nelson says.

  Armand looks at Hawk. Nelson starts to talk but A
rmand places his index finger gently over Nelson’s mouth.

  “Mister, we were leaving,” Fitz says. “Hawk, you made your point. Come on, now. Nelson needs a doctor.”

  “Fitz, you let this runt take our money, I swear I’ll …”

  “Easy,” Fitz says, wincing at his name.

  “Fitz?” Mr. Skinhead says.

  He sets his bowler on the table. Fitz’s eyes widen at the sight of Mr. Skinhead’s pentagoned scalp. Next thing Mr. Skinhead puts his arm around Fitz’s shoulder and spins him into a lock.

  “I’ll kill your punk ass,” Nelson blurts to Hawk.

  “Hawk,” Armand says. “Tape that idiot’s mouth shut.”

  “Which one?” Hawk says.

  “Who are you guys?” Fitz asks Mr. Skinhead, words gurgling out. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

  Hawk completes a few turns around Nelson’s mouth and when the man tries to head-butt him yanks his head back by the hair.

  “Fitz … Fitz,” Mr. Skinhead says.

  “You know the guy, Mr. Skinhead?” Armand asks.

  “They were passing his picture around at Manny’s place.”

  “What do you have to say, Fitz?”

  “Fitz, Fitz,” Mr. Skinhead says.

  “You gonna go on repeating his name?”

  “Twice I saw it in a week. It’s him. Oh, man, Armand. Oh, man. They’re just creaming for this guy.”

  “Who?”

  “Fives is. That’s right. Its Fitz, Fitzsimmons or something. Can’t be more than a handful of freckled freaks like him on the planet. Fitz, my man. This just ain’t turning out to be one of your luckier nights.”

  “Maybe we could work something out?” Fitz says.

  “There’s no doubt about it,” Armand says.

  “Look, mister. No disrespect. But, like I said, it ain’t nothing to do with you,” Fitz says.

  “Wrong thinking. When you put your hand on my employer’s money, it does.”

  “We were leaving.”

  “Hawk,” Armand says. “Put down that bazooka for a second. The coast is clear. Please tape asshole number two’s mouth tightly.”