Button Man

by Paul Lyons

  “Fives has a fat COD on this guy,” Mr. Skinhead says. “It’s personal. His nephew got involved. This Fitz rats him to the cops. Fives is steaming, I mean he’s furious. Ten grand I think they’re offering for him and they want him alive. His second son is looking at serious time. Cops fixing to stick him for Daddy’s sake. It ain’t like they’s Kennedys. Then, get this: some rat cop countersnitches this freckled fuck back to Fives.”

  Mr. Skinhead cuffs Fitz’s hands behind and through the metal back of the chair. Fitz has this amused expression, shaking his head like he’s run out of angles, knew he would and accepts it in advance, a ripple of laughter in his belly. He doesn’t move as Hawk tapes his mouth, round and round.

  “I tell you, Armand, these cuffs come in handy,” Mr. Skinhead says. “You can get ’em at any sex shop.”

  Armand nods and takes out an Arturo Fuente, which Hawk snap-lights with his trusty king-of-hearts zippo.

  “Hawk, you in there?” Carla yells.

  “Yeah, in here,” Hawk says.

  “Man, you left your door open.”

  Carla’s got her hands full, carrying a box with Seymour’s sign and the pizza from Mama Mia’s. You can smell the aromas of the garlic and sausage and pepperoni and bonded mozzarella cheeses right through the box.

  Hawk’s eye is bloodied and swollen, the gun stuck in his pants. Dried rivulets of blood trace his cheek and bony chest. The eight grand seems a dull green block on the table next to Mr. Skinhead’s hat.

  “Nelson. What the … Fitz?” Carla says, putting down the sign. “Zoey, sweetheart, don’t you come in here. Zoey, don’t. No, ZOEY! SHIT!”

  But it’s too late.

  The little girl has darted in with her plastic machine gun and stuffed blue kangaroo under her arm, but stops short at the sight of Hawk all bloodied and then of her father with half a roll of duct tape covering his face, arms, and chest. Then Zoey rushes to Carla, confused tears on her cheeks, and turns her face against her mother’s hip.

  “Carla, he came up here,” Hawk says.

  “Idiot bitch,” Carla says to Nelson, and stamps her foot.

  Nelson raises his head and he and Carla look at each other. Carla takes in the jean shirt splotched with dark blood, the hair gummed to face with tape, breath wheezing through Nelson’s nose.

  “Serves you fucking right.”

  “Ahh-hem. Excuse me for interrupting,” Armand says, and takes a deep draw from his Fuente and lets the smoke out in staccato bursts.

  “Zoey, go in the bathroom, please. Quickly, right away, okay. Mommy will be with you in one minute. Please, honey.”

  Carla puts the pizza on the table, pushing the packets of money with the box.

  “Just one second, honey,” Carla calls after Zoey. “In the bathroom, okay, shut the door. Go now, okay sweetie.”

  “We haven’t been introduced. I’m Armand,” Armand says, pointing his cigar at Nelson and Fitz. “You know these guys?”

  “Yeah, I know their sorry asses.”

  “He came up here with freckles,” Hawk says. “He found the money that I was getting ready to give Armand and this other guy I owe money today, clear all my debts. I couldn’t let Nelson have it.”

  “Your debts? Where’d you get all that … you said you guys got busted. Never mind. You know what, don’t tell me what you haven’t been telling me. I don’t have any use for this shit. I thought at least you were …”

  “Carla.”

  “Damn, you really are a pair of idiot bitches.”

  “I shot him in the arm.”

  “I shot him in the arm,” she repeats. “Well la-dee-fucking-da.”

  And she snaps her fingers in Hawk’s face.

  “They came up here, Carla. I didn’t invite them.”

  “Well good for fucking you.”

  The phone starts quacking.

  “Who the fuck has a phone like that?” Carla says.

  “Maybe you don’t need to answer it right now,” Armand says, and lays his cigar on the edge of the table.

  A few more quacks and the machine gets it. Zoey comes running out to Carla.

  “Mommy, you said you were coming.”

  “Zoey-girl, didn’t I tell you to stay in the bathroom?”

  “There’s blood in the sink, Mommy.”

  “Okay. Shit. We’re out of here. Hawk, I’ve had it.”

  “Hawk,” Zoey says, sobbing now. “I thought you said my Daddy was only going through a phase.”

  “Wait on the stairs, Zoey,” Carla says. “Please. Now, okay? I’m not joking around. I’m coming in a second. Wait on the stairs, honey.”

  “I left Hopabout,” Zoey says.

  “Where’s the kangaroo?” Carla says.

  “This guy?” Mr. Skinhead says, stooping by Nelson’s feet.

  There’s blood on Hopabout’s paw and Hawk dabs at it with a pizza napkin.

  “We’ll get her a Band-Aid later,” he says.

  “Hawk,” Carla says, picking up the box with Seymour’s sign and shaking her head.

  “Yeah?”

  “Forget it, okay? I mean, good fucking luck.”

  “Carla, listen a minute, okay?”

  Zoey’s crying louder in the hallway.

  Carla says, “I gotta go.”

  She’s got tears in her eyes. The first that Hawk has ever seen from her.

  She puts down the box, runs her hands through her hair, and then drops them to her side, shakes her head and glares at Nelson.

  “Hawk, I’ll run the sign to Seymour’s. Don’t call me, okay?”

  But she’s just standing there, not moving for a minute.

  Then Carla picks up Armand’s cigar from the edge of the table, holding it gently in the middle. The ash drops off and she looks at the red tip and walks with that limp to Nelson and holds the cigar to his taped-down arm on the edge of his flag tattoo for a few seconds, skin burning. She holds the chair against her body when his body rocks back.

  “No offense, mister,” she says to Armand, puts her braided strand of hair behind her ear and sets the cigar back down on the table, still lit.

  “None taken,” Armand says.

  “Carla. What can I say?” Hawk says.

  “Don’t say anything.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, you are,” she says.

  And she’s out the door.

  “How about it Armand,” Hawk says after she’s gone, his insides about to come apart and wanting only to chase after Carla, explain how it isn’t his fault and after tonight he’s out of it, for real, and ready to begin the next phase of his life. He picks up two of the two-thousand-dollar packets. “Can I pay now? Get this over with. Settle our account. It’s all there.”

  “You know,” Armand says, “that’s an interesting broad.”

  “Yeah, she is,” Hawk says.

  He wonders with a sick collapse in his stomach if he’ll ever lay eyes on the interesting broad again.

  Fitz’s cheeks bunch around the duct tape in a smile like he knows what he looks like sitting there trussed with a Statue of Liberty visor blinking colors all over his face and a night of payback ahead.

  “How long’s this gonna take?” Hawk asks.

  “It shouldn’t be long,” Armand says.

  Hawk looks at the pizza box, its top slightly oil spotted. He takes a step forward, peeks, then flips the box open. Then he picks one of the crispy poker-chip pepperonis off the top and rests it on his tongue.

  “It’ll get cold,” Hawk says.

  The cheese is lightly browned and bonded to black olives, chopped tomatoes, and peppers, sausage and pepperoni and mushrooms. The crust is brown and shimmers from brushed garlic butter. A hot, wonderful smell wafts from the pie.

  “I’ll get some paper plates,” Hawk says.

  “Bring fresh napkins,” Armand says.

  Hawk brings paper plates and some plastic knives, forks and condiment settings courtesy of Taco Bell and a roll of the Scott towels he brought for cleaning the
place. He folds two slices Saturday Night Fever style, remembering him and Carla agreeing about how they screwed up the sequel. Well, no one in their right mind would disagree about that. Hawk finishes his slices fast, wipes his mouth with a napkin and looks over at Nelson and Fitz. Their mouths are duct taped, cheeks hollowing as they breathe through their noses. They look like a pair of dummies with their hair stuck to their cheeks, only you can tell the pizza smell gets to them, nostrils perking up.

  “I have to tell you,” Armand says, chewing slowly and pointing with a pearl-inlaid penknife he’s using to cut bite-size pieces of the slice. “This is one fine pizza.”

  “I’d kill for a milk shake,” Mr. Skinhead says.

  26

  BUZZARD’S LUCK

  “You need a little nap, you got a long evening ahead,” one of Fives’ men says to Fitz, and slides a syringe into his arm. “Say good night, cupcake.”

  Later they carry his unconscious body out, after unsnapping the battery of the blinking visor on his head and then removing the visor. Two slim white guys in slick suits, one a talker, the other with soupy bug eyes staying a few steps back.

  “Fives didn’t say nothing about two of ‘em,” the talker says.

  “Freckles is yours,” Armand says. “Help yourself to a slice.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” and, “Scratch, man, you want one?” but Scratch just shakes his head, and the talker says, “Armand, you know what?”

  “Tell me?”

  “That’s good pizza.”

  “That’s terrific pizza,” Armand says.

  “They’re chefs there,” Hawk says. “They deserve a medal.”

  “From the pizza Olympics in West Naples,” Mr. Skinhead says.

  “You’re in luck. Fifteen g’s worth,” the talker says, wiping his hands carefully with Scott towels and then handing Armand a fat envelope. “Fives appreciates it. He’s been losing at mah-jongg. You made his night.”

  “Fives plays mah-jongg?” Armand asks.

  “This Chinese partner of his got him hooked. I’m talking about one serious addiction. It ain’t about the money with any of ’em either. They play for change with his partner’s old mother who don’t even speak English. Only once they start playing they don’t stop for days and the old lady’s whooping him and laughing at his ass and they got him all hopped up on some special ginseng tea, too.”

  “What am I supposed to do with him?” Hawk asks, pointing to Nelson, when Fives’ guys are gone and Armand rises to leave.

  “I guess he’s your problem,” Armand says.

  “You handled yourself respectably so far,” Mr. Skinhead says. “Who’d have thunk it.” Then, looking around, he says. “Anyone ever tell you to clean the place?”

  Hawk nods, sadly, and shuts the door behind them and locks it. He walks to the kitchen, picks his bologna sandwich off the floor, looks at it, then throws it in the garbage. Then there’s a knock.

  “I’m thinking it was a team effort,” Armand says.

  Hawk’s speechless as the man hands him back the two wrapped packets of Sammy’s cash and opens the envelope and riffle counts thirty-five hundred dollars in hundreds and hands it to Hawk.

  “Seven-five for you,” Armand says. “You earned your half.”

  “Armand?”

  “I sincerely wish you luck.”

  “Armand, I … I can’t believe … you’re a prince.”

  “How’s your toe anyway?”

  “I hardly miss it.”

  “Got any experience moving pianos?” Mr. Skinhead says.

  After they’re truly gone, Hawk recounts the money Armand handed him. Now he can pay Phil the Pot too and still put Sammy’s money—all in its original wrappers—back in Sammy’s safe.

  He’ll even have a bit of a stake left over. Armand handing him the money like that.

  It might qualify as a minor miracle.

  Hawk picks up Zoey’s drawing calling him a freakazoid and her his queen. He smoothes it, a surge of affection for the little monkey, his hand palsied, and turns the drawing to the light. A few speckles fall off, and Hawk pins the thing, all twinkling now, back to the fridge with the Ronald Reagan in a space helmet magnet. Next to the laminated picture of his father leaning against the rink with speed skates around his neck and the photo of him and the gang with Sammy in the bleachers of Yankee Stadium.

  Nelson’s face is the color of watered-down chardonnay. He looks about empty, slumped, washed out, vacant, like he’s mostly through the phase between living and dying. Blood has soaked most of his shirt and dried and darkened. There’s a viscous red welt on his arm where Carla burned a few stars off his tattoo, like she could have been arrested for flag burning. The towels and tape wrapping his elbow are crusted with blood through which blood still trickles. Dark beads move slowly down the chair into a clotting pool.

  Hawk walks to the window and wheels over the helium canister and inflates a few Love Your Mother and God Bless America on the 4th balloons. He looks up at tall apartment buildings in the distance, with their pin-dot windows, that look like toys in which somehow humans live. Hawk opens a box of each kind of balloon and lays two stacks on the windowsill. They slick off each other like crêpes. He inflates about five more, ties them together into a bouquet, watches them nose, silver and apple green along the ceiling, then walks back through the loft to the table.

  Say Hawk drops Nelson at the emergency room, or brings him to Il Doctore at the IHOB. What happens? Does Ginsu thank Hawk for the new lease on life? It surprises him that Fives’ people or Armand didn’t take care of Ginsu. You could see it as a compliment. What’s he supposed to feel now? Killing someone never spoiled Charles Bronson’s appetite. He shoots a bunch of scum and orders a hamburger and fries. Like, you do what you gotta do. If you find a dog laid open on the road and suffering, aren’t you supposed to whack it in the head with a rock? A bullet in Ginsu’s head. Hold the gun to his head, pull the trigger. Scrub the place down like he’d been meaning to do, the bag of cleaning stuff still there on the counter. Dispose of the body. Just listen to him. He can hear Carla snorting. If the cops gave a rat’s ass about Ginsu’s disappearance, it wasn’t rocket science. But what were the odds of anyone giving a rat’s ass about this particular guy?

  Hawk clicks on the TV, angles it so Ginsu can see. There’s a CBS Special analyzing the negative ads of the campaign, which Dan Rather is calling the dirtiest of the century. A clip with horror-film music, black-and-white footage of convicts with zombied-out mugs going through a revolving door. The voice-over declares ominously that “Dukakis gave weekend furloughs to first-degree murderers not eligible for parole.” A red graphic announces: 268 ESCAPED, and MANY ARE STILL AT LARGE, and finally, in tiny letters, that this information had been provided by the Committee to Elect Bush President. Menacing mug shots of Willie Horton.

  “What does it have to do with electing Bush?” Hawk asks Ginsu.

  Then the screen shows Bush campaign brochures that were sent around Illinois, announcing: Murderers, Rapists, Arsonists, and Child-molesters Are Voting for Dukakis.

  “I guess I know who you’re voting for,” Hawk says to Ginsu. “They could make you head of the Drugs-for-Arms Program, or secretary of Cocaine Trafficking and Death Squads.”

  Ginsu looks at him, breath wheezing slowly out of his nose.

  “I guess you ain’t pushing anyone around now?” Hawk says, and turns Ginsu’s chair so it’s directly facing the TV, and his face catches the glow off the screen like he’s staring into flickering fire. For a moment Hawk pities the guy, switches channels until—hey, it’s Goldfinger. What were the odds of that, him thinking about Oddjob too.

  Nothing in this night would surprise him anymore.

  They watch in silence, Ginsu occasionally rattling his chair a bit. Hawk could just smack him on the head with a hammer. Buzzard’s luck, he thinks, like they say in the Texas Hold ’Em games. You can’t kill nothing and nothing will die. There’s a flicker of recognition in Ginsu’s pupils at
Connery about to outcheat Goldfinger at golf. You can tell he’s seen the film enough to know most of the scenes. The man with the Midas touch about to cough up a bar of gold. Then Oddjob demonstrates that he’s a badass by decapitating a marble statue with his hat.

  “Until tonight, I had the reverse Midas touch,” Hawk says, putting the packets of cash in the pockets of his seersucker and the other bills in his jeans. He looks around and picks up a clean Starsky and Hutch T-shirt and puts it on. He picks up the gun on the table and walks around behind Ginsu and holds it to his head, then puts the gun back down on the table.

  “Excuse me, okay? I got an errand to run.”

  Hawk wraps duct tape around Ginsu every way he can think, the man’s head sagging now, until he’s finished a second roll. He sees a plastic Dolly Parton watch, winds it and gets the time from the news channel and flips back to the Bond. Then the watch reminds him of Nelson’s Rolex buried under the tape and he cuts around Nelson’s wrist and wriggles off the watch and tapes the arm back down, though the man hardly seems alive. Hawk wipes the watch on his T-shirt a few times, turns it over and reads, “For Nelson, love Mom,” shakes his head, slips it over the Dolly Parton watch.

  “Now that’s enough to make any pawn-shop owner weep for joy,” Hawk says, and points his hand out like a gun, index finger out, thumb up, “don’t you go anywhere.”

  Then, listening to the Bond music, he switches to QVC, one of those shopping channels. When he turns out the lights the loft is dark except for flickers of the TV and dull moving shadows, quiet except for the faint sound of a salesperson on QVC making a pitch about gold necklaces for $17.95. Now this one I love. Eighteen-karat and they’re going fast. What an incredible price for this delicate, classy necklace. Folks, I want this one. To all my family and friends out there, if you’re wondering what to get me for my birthday, get me this.

  27

  IT TAKES A THIEF

  Hawk enters Sammy’s apartment lightly, though there’s no need to be sneaking around. Who could be up there? Just shy of 1:30 A.M. by his Rolex. He phoned from the loft to check. Then phoned the weather out of habit. He looked up at Sammy’s place for lights from the street. Still, he’s nervy. You could be making a mistake when you try to set a previous mistake right. You ever try putting money back into an ATM at your favorite casino, as if the night never happened?