by Mike Monson
“I guess you can have this bitch,” Dean said to Phil, “because it appears you purchased her outright. But first, I'm going to kick your fucking scrawny, lock-picking ass.”
Phil stood still and took a long, deep breath. He’d learned Zen meditation while in prison in his twenties and knew how to stay alert and open during tense or dangerous situations.
“Get your things, Paige,” he said, without taking his eyes off Dean Yancy.
“And get ready to drag your new husband’s unconscious body out of here in about a minute,” Dean said.
Paige didn’t move.
Dean walked up close to Phil and stopped. With surprising quickness, Phil pulled out his big, heavy Colt and smashed it against the side of Dean’s head. The big man groaned and went down. Hard.
Phil went to work on the nearly unconscious Dean. He methodically punched, kicked, and pistol-whipped him. When he finally stopped, Dean was out cold. Blood dripped from Phil’s hands.
“Get your stuff, sweetheart. We should go. But I better clean up first. Where’s the bathroom?”
“No, wait. Come here, now.”
She led him to the bedroom. She opened her blouse, pulled down her pants, and lay back on the bed.
“Come on, Jesus Christ.” She reached out, unzipped Phil’s pants, and pulled him down on top of her.
She licked his hands as they fucked, made him spread Dean’s blood all over her breasts, and between her legs, causing her to come again and again.
3
Phil lived a low-key, stable life. He’d been in jail as a teenager, and prison into his late twenties. After his last parole ended, he’d done his best to stay off law enforcement’s radar. He moved out of his home state of Washington and settled in Modesto, then a small, quiet town.
Except for the ninety seconds spent robbing a bank, nothing about him attracted any attention. He had no children or relatives or close friends. He stayed away from bars and clubs.
The nature of his work occasionally forced him to associate with other local criminals, but he tried to make sure those meetings were brief, discreet, and strictly business. Phil had a low opinion of the other outlaws in town and saw most of them as fuck-ups and assholes. Few came close to meeting his professional standards.
The day after the trip to Reno, Phil tried to resume his ordered life.
He got up early and gently closed the bedroom door on his new bride. Phil practiced zazen, the Zen seated-meditation technique, at least once a day, but he hadn’t done so since meeting Paige. He went to the far corner of his living room, sat in the lotus-position on a round black cushion, then straightened his back and faced the wall.
He’d learned zazen while in prison in his home state of Washington from Fudoki Jacob Ginzburg, the abbot of the local Zen temple. Fudoki came once a week to teach the prisoners and to sit with them for an hour. His students were men who were desperate to do anything but sit in their cells.
Fudoki got his Zen training from a Japanese master who’d settled in Los Angeles in the late 1960s. This was after Fudoki, once a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn, ended his own long prison sentence for conning senior citizens out of their savings with a phony investment scheme. Fudoki, by then in his mid-70s, taught the inmates a stripped-down version of the practice.
His instructions were simple.
“Put your mind in the bottom of your belly,” he said. “Keep your back straight, your chin in, and point the top of your head to the sky. Notice the rising of your abdomen as you breathe in. Notice the falling of your abdomen as you breathe out. Count each in-breath until you get to ten and then start over again at one. If your mind wanders and you lose count, go back to one. That is it.”
“What the fuck?” Phil heard Paige say from the bedroom doorway. She was naked. So far, it appeared to Phil she preferred not to wear clothes while inside.
Phil was ten minutes into his usual fifty-minute session. He hoped Paige would understand he was meditating and stay quiet until he finished.
In prison, Phil practiced zazen twice a day in his cell, perched on the edge of his bed. He didn’t mind meditating amid the usual prison noise, but he forbid the other prisoners from communicating with him during his sessions. He once used the sharpened end of a toothbrush to stab a gaping hole in the tongue of an inmate who dared try to speak to him while he was in the midst of an in-breath.
He spent the subsequent punishment time in solidary alternating between zazen and kinhin, the Zen walking-meditation that Fudoki taught him specifically for those times.
“Don’t think of solidary as a punishment,” Fudoki told Phil. “Instead, regard it as a retreat, what in Zen is known as sesshin. Use it as an opportunity to refine and deepen your practice and to possibly catch a glimpse into the mystery of your true nature.”
One day Phil told Fudoki he was already fully aware of his true nature.
“I am a thief and a murderer,” he said, “a criminal. There is no mystery.”
“Dude, really,” Paige said. “What are you doing, yoga or something?”
“I’m sitting zazen,” Phil said. Long deep sigh.
“You’re sitting, what?”
“Zazen. It’s like meditation.”
“Huh. How long do you do that shit?”
“Usually about fifty minutes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding. There’s no way I could sit still for, like, fifty seconds. That’s some crazy shit, man.”
“Uh huh,” Phil said. He turned back to the wall and took another long, deep breath.
Paige got a beer out of the refrigerator, sat down at the kitchen table, and grabbed a joint from her leather pouch. She lit up. As she smoked and drank, she stared at the silent and unmoving Phil.
“So when do we do the next bank job?”
Phil shook his head, stood up, and joined Paige at the table.
“What do you mean, we? You didn’t think you’d start robbing banks with me, did you?”
“I sure did. I assumed we were partners now. Fuck.”
“Look, I’m sorry.”
Paige offered him the joint. He shook his head; he hated weed. He didn’t mind that Paige smoked it non-stop and he kind of liked the smell, but he didn’t like what it did to his head. Getting stoned brought up too many uncomfortable memories and made it impossible for him to maintain the crisp and new awareness of the present that he worked so hard to obtain.
“The way I do it, it’s just me and my driver. I have it down to a science, which is why I never get caught.”
“But you’re married now. You’ve got another person to think about. Someone who wants to rob some fucking banks.”
“Look, I’m a professional. The typical bank robber is a messed-up crack-head who gets caught within days—or hours—of the crime. Sure, some people manage to pull off doing jobs for a period of time without getting caught. But, still, in the end, most people who walk into banks and take money at gunpoint end up doing time sooner or later. I’ve got no intention of being one of those people. I was in prison for almost twelve years when I was young and dumb, and I’m not going back.”
This was probably the most Phil said to Paige at one time since they’d met. He looked at her studying him. Feared she was reassessing him and the marriage.
“But why does that mean I can’t do it with you?”
“It’s a two-man job. Just me and a driver. And it has to be a fast and competent professional driver who knows how to work on and steal cars. I do all my jobs seventy miles or more from here and I need to make sure each job is super-fast and efficient. I can only do that if I’m alone.”
Paige stood up and walked over to Phil. She straddled him and began kissing his neck.
“I bet I could figure out a way to change your mind,” she said, breathing into his ear.
“I’m sorry, Paige. There is no way.”
“Then fuck you!” She stomped into the bedroom and slammed the door.
Phil went back to his cushion and tried to resume his za
zen, but found he couldn’t concentrate or relax. He took one last long breath, stood up, and went into the bedroom.
Paige was face-down on the bed. He took a moment to just stare. That wonderful red hair that had lured him in the first place covered her back. Just touching the top of her beautiful plump ass.
“Sweetheart?” Phil said.
“What?” Paige answered without lifting her head. She sounded as though she’d been crying.
“Maybe we could figure something out, okay?”
Paige turned over. “You serious?”
“Yes, let me talk to my driver. We’ve been partners for three years and I can’t just spring this on him, you know? Maybe he and I can find a way to include you somehow?”
“When?”
“We’re going to do a job in a couple of weeks. I’ll talk to him then. How’s that?”
Paige smiled. Phil felt his heart melt.
“Well?” she said. “Are you going to back to your Zen shit or are you going to come here and fuck my brains out?”
4
“You got fucking married?” Jeff said to Phil. “No. Way.”
They’d robbed a bank in Richmond, a city across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco, just north of Berkeley. Jeff navigated a stolen Audi though Richmond’s dense surface streets, taking the shortest route to the freeway.
“It’s true, I swear.”
“Jesus. When?”
“Nearly two weeks ago.”
“No, this can’t be right. Who the fuck would marry you?” Jeff laughed. “Man, I’d like to see this bitch, ’cause, Jesus Christ, you are the most boring human on the planet. She must be some prize.”
“She’s pretty great.” Phil’s voice was even and low.
“Pretty great? What else? Give me some details, man.”
“Well … she’s twenty-six.”
“Come on, really?”
“Really.”
“Shit. What does this young thing look like?”
“Long red hair, green eyes, great body. Paige is a beautiful girl.”
“Paige. Paige? Oh wow, this I gotta see. But what I don’t get is why some hot young thing would marry you. You don’t say anything, you don’t do anything. As far as I can tell, you don’t even like other humans. You just sit around your apartment staring at the wall. What would someone ever see in you, dude? It makes no sense, man. No fucking sense.”
With the exception of crime and violence, women and sex were all Jeff talked about. He had lovers all over Northern California. Six in Modesto, two in Turlock, and three in Manteca, with more added all the time. He had one girlfriend as far away as the Berkeley Hills, a middle-aged porn star named Marlene Huggley.
Recently, after robbing a bank in Oakland, Jeff insisted they make a detour to lay low for several hours at Huggley’s house. The place was completely hidden in a culvert high up in Berkeley’s labyrinthine, jungle-like hills. Jeff wanted to show it was an ideal spot to use if they ever needed to disappear indefinitely. Phil suspected the entire trip was an attempt by Jeff to prove to him the famous porn star was his lover—in spite of the fact Phil never expressed any doubts about the claim.
“Does she know you rob banks?”
“Yes.”
“No shit? That’s unbelievable. You’re the most careful criminal anywhere. You never say nothing to nobody and you told some young hottie that’s crazy enough to marry you that you pull bank jobs? Oh man, this keeps getting better and better.”
“She wants to rob banks, too.”
“What the fuck?” Jeff’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Okay, so that’s it. I get it now. She’s one of those really crazy cunts, like a wannabe criminal groupie type, right? Oh shit, Phil, sometimes, as great a thief and as tough as you are, I cannot believe how fucking stupid you can be. You don’t marry bitches like that, man. You fuck them. That’s it. Oh God, you’re doomed.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
“Still, we need to find a way to include her in the jobs.”
“Oh shit, you’re so far gone. It’s kind of pathetic, dude.”
“I know and I don’t care. Look, Jeff, just meet her, okay? She wants you to come over tonight for dinner, maybe take a swim and a dip in the hot tub, have a few drinks. What do you think?”
“This is ridiculous, but I’ll be there, man. I’ve got to get a look at the crazy fucking bitch who married Phil Gaines.”
5
Jeff Sweet was thirty-one years old.
His father, Ryan, had been a hold-up man who often shot, and sometimes killed, the clerks at the convenience and liquor stores he robbed. Between robberies, he got drunk and high on meth. He beat Jeff’s mother. He molested his big sister, Karen, while Jeff lay in the next bed.
He grew up in one of several decrepit trailers nestled together on the west side of Modesto along the Tuolumne River, practically underneath the 99 Freeway.
His father’s two younger brothers, Boyd and Dale, lived with their families on the same street. Boyd ran a junk yard and drove in demolition derbies. In his spare time he stole cars and auto parts. Dale usually worked as a bouncer in local card rooms. From time to time he’d partner up with less disreputable men to open various bars. These enterprises usually went bust within a year, leaving Dale a little bit richer, and his partners with their pockets turned inside out.
These activities left the Sweet brothers at times flush with cash, when things were going well, or, intermittently, in jail.
Jeff’s uncle Dale took an active interest in young girls. Runaways and junkies that wound up selling their bodies on South Ninth Street or who hung out around the Sweet’s neighborhood looking for tricks and drugs. He sometimes took one or two in for days or weeks, bringing them into the bed he shared with his wife. He hosted parties at local motels where men paid up to fifty dollars for their turn with one of the girls. When their novelty wore thin, he’d often pass them along to his brothers and, eventually, to Jeff.
Uncle Boyd’s entire world was cars. Working on cars and driving them as fast as possible. He was often employed as a driver by armed robbers of banks, jewelry stores, and liquor marts. At one time the area’s most popular wheelman, he did not discriminate between jobs or the people he worked for.
The three Sweet brothers were large and muscular men. All starred at various times on the Modesto High School football team. Both Dale and Boyd went to second-tier colleges on full scholarships before getting kicked out for stealing, fighting, and cutting class.
When Jeff was thirteen, his father, Ryan, was convicted of murdering a Fijian-Indian man during a liquor store robbery on Paradise Road. He lasted nine years in San Quentin before getting stabbed to death by his cellmate.
When Ryan went away, Boyd and Dale took over the paternal role at Jeff’s house. They terrorized and molested both his mother and sister while teaching Jeff all about crime. Boyd encouraged Jeff’s passionate interest in cars, teaching him how to break into and hotwire almost any make and model. Dale schooled him on violence and getting laid.
To the great disappointment of all the Sweets, Jeff missed out on high school football due to multiple extended stays in jail for car theft, assault, and rape.
After turning eighteen and graduating from Juvenile Hall’s high school (where administrators were shocked that his IQ measured an astounding 153,) Jeff slowly distanced himself from Boyd and Dale. He remade himself—on the outside at least—into a seemingly upstanding citizen. He managed to get legitimate jobs from time to time. Worked as a mechanic and eventually rented a garage where, when not driving getaway cars for Phil Gaines, he ran his own thriving business repairing cars. Also, he had a growing side job utilizing the skills taught to him by Dale. Jeff had a reputation as a person who could make people disappear—as long as the price was right.
In order to have a source for buying and selling stolen cars and car parts, he continued a polite but distant professional relationship with his Unc
le Boyd. He refused to speak with his Uncle Dale. If he encountered him, Jeff acted like the man did not exist. This hurt Dale, but he didn’t complain. Like every other criminal in the Central Valley, he was deathly afraid of Jeff Sweet.
Jeff’s father and his uncles were hard-looking men, with thick black hair and dark brown, nearly black eyes. Jeff, on the other hand, was blonde with brilliant blue eyes. (Marlene Huggley said their color reminded her of the water at Lanikai Beach on Oahu.) The features made Jeff nearly beautiful in an almost feminine way. Unlike his father and his uncles, Jeff kept his teeth in good shape (paying the dentist with wads of tens and twenties from bank hauls) kept his body lean and muscular at a local gym, and, when he wasn’t working on cars, dressed in elegant clothes he bought at upscale stores in San Francisco.
Jeff drank very little and did not smoke tobacco or consume drugs. In fact, he despised drug addicts. During restless nights he searched the Modesto streets for meth-freaks and crack-heads, stopping to take their cash and beat them bloody, the same way homophobes hunt for gay men to bash.
His overriding interest, though, from the time puberty hit just before he turned twelve years old—was women. He pursued them all day, every day, striving to fuck as many as possible, as often as possible.
This ended the day he met Paige Gaines.
6
When Paige answered the door to Phil’s apartment, Jeff saw his partner’s new wife for the first time. He was genuinely shocked. She wore a black thong bikini with a top that just barely covered her perky breasts. He loved red hair and freckles and Paige had a lot of both. That sonofabitch Phil Gaines had married one of the hottest women Jeff had ever seen.
It just wasn’t right.
They stared at each other for a moment. Jeff could tell he wasn’t what she’d expected either. He watched her drink him in. He wore tailored black slacks and a black tank top that showed off his deep tan, his popping delts, wide lats, and rock-hard biceps. He knew right then he could have her whenever he desired.
