Cadillac Payback

by AJ Elmore

  It's just as well he doesn't want to talk. The situation is heavy enough. When I said I could do this in a day, I wasn't lying. But doing so will require a certain amount of precision among a broad range of possibilities. Worst case, Izzy's right and I get myself killed. Best case, it's no holds barred and I pull it off. Goddamn, but the middle – the middle is vast.

  The feeling of the wheel in my hands is soothing, despite the journey's first destination. I don't get to drive the old ship very often, but when I do, it's art in motion. I've loved her since the moment I saw her, this ancient Cadillac. Then I got to work on her. Charlie got a lot of respect points from me because of this car. He kept her in perfect shape. She sails so smooth for me.

  I never told Charlie that it was Derrik who turned me on to mechanical knowledge, the one who took me in at fifteen. I was a foul-mouthed product of an absentee dad and a crackhead mother. I didn't get much parenting, didn't have any manners, but Derrik saw that I was smart and damn near fearless. He saw a rare mixture of callousness and cunning, traits he could definitely use to his advantage, which he did. So he taught me about guns, engines, and certain not-so-scholarly points in chemistry. When I talked back, he knocked me off my feet.

  Derrik taught me the ropes, showed me all the glamor of feeding the masses, as he would say. He was Gram's right-hand man at that time, and he needed a lieutenant he could control. Also, I didn't want shit to do with most drugs. I wouldn't become my mother, so I didn't partake in the product. They never knew the why part, so I was a perfect tool for them. They could trust me not to dip, and I got very deep in the network fast.

  After a few dozen times of getting my ass kicked, I learned to control my tongue. I still slipped up here and there, but the change was legendary. I was smart, after all, and I realized the best way to learn everything I could was to behave. Except the beatings didn't stop. Sometimes he'd get wasted and pick a fight just so he could throw me around. It wasn't all the time, but it would come out of nowhere, like he was possessed.

  Eventually, Derrik fucked up. He had his hands in too many pies and it came around to bite him on the ass. Well, it almost came around. He didn't die like my whole crew did. He gave us bad information that waltzed us into a death trap. And he failed to realize there was a traitor among us. I guess some would call it divine intervention that I had to hang back, that I was stalled by the shop owner who was our contact. She tried to seduce me. I was nineteen.

  Derrik was exiled from the territory and I split before anyone could lay a verdict down on me. I managed to steal a few fat stacks of cash and some expensive artillery when I went. By then I had an impressive list of contacts, even after I scratched off everyone tied to Gram and Derrik. When word got around that I’d cut ties with the Reaps, I found those contacts to be friendlier. It kept me alive for over a year.

  I hit the brakes in order to ease into some ruts. The Caddy just purrs as I shift her down. Josh's attention switches from the scenery to the road as we cut through the well-worn grooves. The change of pace doesn't sit well with him, it's too slow and there's too much weighing on him. I know because I've been there. Without looking directly at him, I see his hands ball into fists on his knees, then straighten to grip his legs.

  My previous experiences have taught me the patience of a monk, so I wait for it. Something in him is about to snap – a cord of innocence, maybe. The vibrations of the tires against the dirt make my sunglasses slide down my nose a little. It itches, but I ignore it. The seconds tick by.

  “What is it that no one's ever told me?” he says, his words more measured than I expected.

  I knew he was about to speak, but his voice makes my hands tighten on the wheel. The left tires scrape the wall of the rut. My jaw clenches. What he said occurs to me moments later.

  “Why does everyone get all tight-lipped when Gram is mentioned?”

  So Josh has finally cut the shit. Maybe. For a long time, I just navigate the shallows, creeping the Caddy along. Soon we'll be on the highway, all paved and soulless. Of course he wouldn't appreciate the noises of nature. He wouldn't know that we only pass here because the swamp allows it. A moment of conflict plagues me. Is it my place to finally initiate this prick? Is truth betrayal?

  I wait until I pull us onto some smoother ground to answer.

  “Three and a half years ago, a Fed operation infiltrated the Reapers ring.”

  I don't look at him, but I catch the movement of him slinging his arm over the car door. The metal is searing hot, but it's not pain that comes through in his rigid posture. Maybe it's the realization that I won't coddle him, or maybe it's something more mature, but something has triggered his training. The businessman is considering the angles.

  I push the pedal down and shift the stick once, twice. We're not going fast, but we're going fast enough that the car creates a cloud of dust. I can barely see in front of us. That's the thing about navigating, you can feel the way if you let yourself. It's a philosophy I'm counting on, one I learned from having a mentor who would beat me and no one to watch my back.

  My words come hotter than expected.

  “Back then, Charlie and Gram did business. The rat relayed the time and place of a huge deal between the two and the Feds raided it. Some real fucked up shit that led to a lot of dead bodies and just enough breathing room for Charlie, and Gram, to slip through the cracks.”

  The sound of the road falls into a gentle rhythm that steadies my temper. The anger within this topic has nothing to do with my assigned partner. The memories, though, are heavy. This road, this cast of players, it all feels nostalgic.

  Josh turns a half-cocked glance at me, but he doesn't hold it. He says, “That doesn't explain the beef between the Reaps and us.”

  I cut the wheel for a sharp left, my visibility extending about five feet in front of the car. The sudden movement makes him jerk his arm inside the car to grip his seat. A smirk teases my lips but I deny it and he doesn't see it.

  I say, “You're right. It doesn't. But if you're so willing to throw yourself into a war, it might be good to know why.”

  He sighs, but it's directed out the window again. I realize that he's not so different from me. He's furious right now, but it's quiet and controlled. He's always known there's shit he didn't know. He had to. Just now, as the truth falls, he realizes that he couldn't have prepared himself for this. There's a rage in him that's familiar.

  “Tell me,” he says without looking at me.

  I haven't actually voiced these memories in so long it feels like trying to use a torn muscle. I've gotten so good at silencing those thoughts that they seem foreign. Like a life that wasn't mine. Is this what it means to bite the bullet?

  “Charlie's operation lost a considerable amount of weight, not to mention a shit-ton of cash seized by the Feds. Most of his crew ended up dead, including several illegals and lower rung dealers. There was one arrest. The Pigs tried everything to get him to talk, but he wouldn't. He knew better. Anyway, he's rotting in jail for refusing to squeal.”

  I hit the brakes again, catching Josh off guard, so that his attention snaps forward. I shift down as we stop. We're about to turn onto a real road, about to leave the enchanted swamp behind. He taps his fingers on his knees, the only sign of his aggravation except his hard-set expression.

  I flip the blinker on as the dust begins to clear. There's not a soul on this two-lane this time in the morning, but I let her idle for an exaggerated moment. The sun breaks through the trees to slant directly into his window. His hair has fallen to hide his expression from me. Not that I care.

  I tease the gas, work the stick, and roll us onto the asphalt. He says, “And what happened to the Reaps?”

  My foot feels heavy as I gun the gas pedal in response to his question. As always, the topic feels dangerous, calls to a buried part of me who learned fast skills in a gutter. I push the speedometer past the fifty-five limit, level it out at sixty-two. Josh is still tense. Maybe he's paranoid, or s
cared.

  “We lost an operation, too,” I say, willfully ignoring him.

  I hear the snag in his breathing, can feel his attention redirecting to me. For a moment, I wish he weren't such a genuine shmuck. I wish he operated on spite or jealousy, just so I could hate him. But he doesn't, he's a good ol' boy. He really feels shit, he reacts based on his gut.

  “You?” he says quietly, barely audible and barely pitched as a question. It stings in my hollow chest, more than I'd care to admit.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Abuela did not appreciate the whole ordeal. She ordered the death of her own grandchildren. But, as he was apt to do, Charlie talked her out of it. Instead, she gave him probation, a small operation set up to repay the loss from the bust.”

  Josh's posture eases back against his seat as the air finally begins to move through the car. He's staring forward, expression blank, hands abandoned on the seat. Miles pass before he speaks again.

  “And you, you were a Reaper,” he says. The tone is flat, not a question at all. Not an accusation either.

  I lean forward, letting the wind whoosh between my back and the leather car seat. It's like a first breath after near-suffocation. The steel that I earned from the very subject we've broached brings me to life. I push my sunglasses up my nose with one hand as I drive with the other.

  The wind feels good, ruffling my hair and cooling the heat gathered on my surface. What am I doing, getting buddy-buddy with this prick? What do I care if he's confused? What if he has to cover my back some day? I glance down at my daishou tattoo.

  “It was my operation that got wiped out. I was supposed to be there.”

  Josh answers with more silence and he watches the road. Moments ago, he seemed on the verge of violence. Now he has deflated. History changes things. Maybe now he can understand how almost losing everything to the law makes people wary of others. It's fair, isn't it, to tell him? Maria is too wooed by his charm, and Izzy would rather see him fail.

  His voice comes quiet, reluctant, when he says, “What happened?”

  “I left the Reaps. They restructured.”

  I shrug. I won't give him everything. He wants the details of my switch to Abuela's side, how I managed to be an outcast of the enemy and yet accepted. Yet that certain bit of history has nothing to do with the relationship of the two ringleaders.

  Josh is eying me sideways, a narrow suspicion shining in his blue eyes. He says, “You just left? And they let you?”

  A sly grin creeps across my lips. I answer, “I disappeared and they had much bigger things to worry about.”

  “Sure you're not a Fed?” he asks with that same flattened look.

  I freeze, a rage bubbles up so strong I nearly slam the brakes just to punch him in the mouth. After the shit I've endured, I can't believe he would dare to be that stupid. I turn my glare at him and I know it's apparent despite my shades.

  He holds the connection for a few seconds before he cracks a smirk. He's testing me, seeing how far he can push it. Why? I swallow the anger, force my calm and my attention back to the road. My voice doesn't waver when I say, “Are you sure you're not?”

  He laughs, but it's not humor. He's coping, in his own way, with a new point of view. The smile fades. He cocks his hands behind his head and his plain white t-shirt sticks to his body. The suspicion melts into thoughtfulness.

  “Do you think it's because of you, then?”

  All the heat of the anger he provoked turns to ice in my chest. Maybe he doesn't mean what I think he means. Maybe I'm jumping the gun. I usually do.

  “What?”

  It's the only word I can manage without giving away the sinking feeling inside. I pointedly watch the road.

  “Do you think Gram moved against us because of you?”

  Haven't I considered it? Every day since the world fell apart.

  I won't tell Josh that, so I say, “I was never that important to them.”

  He lets the conversation stall, stagnating in the wind. Again, I can't see his face for his arm. He isn't the angry, caged up beast from earlier. He's cooler, looser. What changed?

  I bite back a curse. He broke my composure and he checked me. It may have been the first time ever. He's graduated and now he gets to gloat. Fine, dammit, it's all ahead full. I tease the speedometer up to sixty-five.

  Again the machine at my control calms me, grinding out some of my tension against the road. I'm quiet until my breaths are even and my emotions are locked away. Good for him. He's smart enough to shut the fuck up.

  Miles later, we're crawling toward city limits. Traffic gets heavier and the potholes start to appear. Something about the inherent grunginess of this city is familiar to me. My thoughts have slowed to an ordered pace, and I have cataloged all the anger for later use.

  I glance at Josh, staring miserably at the encroaching phantom that is New Orleans.

  The sun is well on its high climb. It beats down brutally on this land of cement, stone, and history. He doesn't get it – that feeling of homecoming – because he can't, but I'd bet the poker pot I won from Abuela last night that he's going to learn real soon.

  I'm not really one for words of wisdom, but I feel like I should at least bring him down a peg. Cocky so often equals dead in the game, a lesson he hasn't had to learn the hard way.

  I check the mirrors. I change lanes, slip around a few cars, then coast her back over.

  “Eventually, you'll figure out that appearances in this world are barely the surface. Everything is connected. I won't black both your eyes for calling me a Fed, but remember this – I only grant you mercy this once, because you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Next time you feel the need to climb on your high horse, remember that you're a wanted man, too, Josh. By being part of this team, your name is on the lips of the underground network. Don't get too comfortable up there above everyone, because you don't know the depths of slums until someone knocks you down.”

  He goes rigid, gathering all the tension he released in his introspective oblivion. He's not used to me having much to say, and he's not used to someone putting it to him exactly like it is. Try as he might to find one, there's no threat to it. Just that prevailing theme that's starting to piss me off: truth.

  Violence is not an option and it's starting to take its toll. His right knee is bouncing. He makes a long, shaky sigh. We usually don't push each other like this. We usually just ignore the shit out of each other.

  Finally he says, “That's fine, Freddy. Great. While you're mucking along that low road, make sure you presume to know who the fuck I am.”

  His reaction makes me grin. It's a wolfish smile that I learned from someone I now despise. But it's one reminiscent of the times when someone was proud of me – or when I was proud of myself. Josh could use some balls to survive all this.

  My reaction quells his anger, throws him off guard. He doesn't quite know what to say and – by hell he's finally learning – he leaves it to silence. And that's the way we roll back into the city's arms.

  Chapter 23 Long Island Tango

  Joshua

  Business is slow at the restaurant. Today is the top of the week, two hours to close, and I'm standing behind a bar shaded by neon blue lights. It's Jack's first night open since Noah got jumped, and whether it's because it's Monday or the rumors of the shooting, the place is dead.

  I haven't had to do much other than pop the tops off a couple beers and make change a few times. That may be a good thing, since I don't know dick about bartending. Right now, it takes everything I have not to fidget. I'm not used to being confined to a small space, surrounded by glass bottles that more or less look the same. The blue light is still nice, even from this side of the bar, but this wasn't what I had in mind in assuming the role of the diplomat.

  It took me halfway through this day to realize that when Maria said Jack might need help that I could literally help him keep his books. She sent me, the son of a banker, the one who had followed in
his father's footsteps until his arrest.

  I know numbers, know the right columns and decimals. Without ever having to ask, I know that Noah is the math kid and Jack is the creative kid. I've always known that Maria is smart, but still I'm impressed with her directive – as much as I hate it.

  I hate it because I hate numbers. I hate it because it made my dad a cold, greedy bastard.

  I hate it because she's so far from me with only Izzy to protect her, and maybe I hate it that she was right.

  I've never had a real job, just a lot of school. Somehow this is not what I imagined.

  I'm staring at two men boxing on the TV screen when movement in front of me catches my attention. It takes me a moment to swim out of my introspection, and to register the blonde female who has just sat down. She makes an easy smile that knocks my thoughts off-kilter.

  “Hi,” she says when I don't.

  “Uh, hi.”

  She laughs, and my brain finally tells me what a dipshit I'm being. Time to flip the switch before I completely burn. I let her laughter ring out for a moment before I crack a half smile, that innocent grin that always gets the first hit. I shove my hands in my pockets and shrug.

  Her smile softens and she says, “I'm Eva.”

  Nailed it.

  She's wearing a low-cut black tank top that begs me to look, a nice curve, green eyes, dark red lips. I don't make it past those eyes. When I don't answer, she continues. “I wanted to introduce myself earlier, but you seemed scared.”

  Scared? Some choice words race from my brain to my mouth, but I shut it down. Now is not the time. I'm just a friend of Jack's, helping him out. Cute and dumb will do.

  “Earlier?” I say.

  She giggles, and there go her eyes softening to me just a little more. I learned at a young age that girls will pity a stupid boy, take him under their wings and fuss over him.