by Tom Pitts
Kevin was lounging. That was his favorite term for it. He had his shoes and socks off, his feet up on the ottoman, and was flicking the channels of his giant flat-screen TV. The cable, also courtesy of his landlord, boasted 198 channels, but Kevin always had trouble settling on something to watch. He sipped at a beer from a local micro-brewery and contemplated loading up his new bong, a three-and-a-half-foot behemoth with a grinning skull for a base. He loved to lounge; he felt relaxed and good.
Then there was a knock at the door. Damn, he thought as he got up expecting to find his neighbor, it was well past midnight; didn’t this guy ever get enough?
But when he opened the door there was no well-intentioned neighbor with a pocket full of money, there were two short Mexican-looking gentlemen. Neither of them were smiling.
“Can I help you?” said Kevin the rose guy.
One of the men extended his arm and pushed Kevin straight back into his house. The other one followed and closed the door behind him.
“Excuse me,” said Kevin, still hoping there had been some kind of mistake.
“¡cállate!” said the first one. Kevin had no idea what that meant.
The second man pulled out a gun. The gun had what looked like a homemade silencer screwed onto the barrel. The contraption was huge and appeared to be bigger than a 40oz can of beer.
Kevin thought he was being robbed. “What do you want, what do you need?” He was ready to give these two anything they desired.
The man with the gun, the shorter of the two, pointed the end of the silencer about six inches from Kevin’s chest and fired. Kevin was pushed back by the impact and fell flat on his back. He was wheezing for a moment, then his breaths turned to short gasps. Intense pain set in, a burning square in the middle of his chest. He was surprised to discover he was still alive. He wished for a moment that this was a mistake, that one of these men would realize that and call him an ambulance. He tried to say ambulance, but nothing came out.
The man with the gun bent over and pressed the silencer against Kevin’s forehead. He fired once more.
Jimmy pulled the Camry all the way into the garage before opening his door and getting out. He gave them all a benevolent smile before saying, “Ladies, ladies. How are we doing tonight? Alright? Good. I know you two, Becky and Shelly, how are you?”
Jimmy wasn’t sure which one was which, but spoke to them both. He was standing in front of the Camry’s headlight with his arms held out, embracing no one. He turned his attention on the disheveled woman at the doorway to the house.
“You must be the lady of the house. How are you?” He formalized his tone only slightly to show deference to age. Mrs. Lafleur bought it hook, line, and sinker.
“How are you doing, sweetie? Did you come to see the girls or are you selling something.” She tried to tease like she was in control, but she was fussing with her hair and remembering she still had on that long leather coat. She must have looked like shit.
“Mom, I don’t know this creep …”
Linda Lafleur never heard her daughter; she was in full flirtation mode.
The passenger door popped open. All that emerged was Paul’s ass. He was leaned over into the backseat, desperately trying to cut the zip-tie from behind Tristan’s back. When he was done, he almost fell out of the car. He steadied himself, turned and saw Mrs. Lafleur and forgot about everything else.
To Paul, she was statuesque, standing three stairs higher than him with her long leather draped around her shoulders and the top two buttons of her blouse popped open. Her mascara was smudged from when she’d rubbed her eyes awake. She was bleached, tanned, and tired-looking; Paul’s dream girl.
Jimmy could see Paul was smitten. Drunk and stupid as he’d been all night, he stared at her like a lovesick teenager. Paul ignored the two younger girls. Shelly and Becky barely had time to react to the intrusion before the rear door of the Camry opened.
Tristan climbed out slowly, his face was white with fright. He mouth looked small because he kept it clamped so tight, but his eyes, his eyes were looking wildly around the room as if to send signals to the girls. He wiggled his eyebrows and pointed with his eyeballs, and pushed his pursed lips from side to side. Signals they didn’t understand.
“Tristan,” said Linda acting both excited and surprised. “So these are your friends. I didn’t see you back there. Well, come on in, all of you. We’ll have a night cap. You’re amongst friends here.” She spun toward the house, trying to look glamorous, expecting them all to follow her in.
“Paul, you’ve been wanting a drink, why don’t you go introduce yourself to our hostess and I’ll hang back a minute to have a word with the kids.”
Paul looked relieved. He almost forgot what they’d come here to get. He almost forgot about the dead body in the trunk of his friend’s car. He stepped up the stairs quickly and followed the woman into her kitchen.
Inside the kitchen, Linda threw her heavy leather toward the back of one of the chairs and missed, letting the expensive jacket hit the floor.
“So …” She hadn’t asked either of their names before inviting them in.
“Paul,” he said grinning, trying not to sound excited.
“Paul. What’s your pleasure?”
“What are you having?”
“Vodka tonic.”
“That sounds perfect.” It was, too. He was already wondering if this woman would be into a few lines of blow. If she was, he was home-free.
Linda pulled two tall glasses from the cabinet and, from the tray she’d left on the counter before, dropped a couple of melting ice cubes in each. She took the vodka and filled each glass three-quarters full.
“I don’t know about you, Paul, but I like ‘em stiff.”
Paul grinned, but couldn’t come back with a witty reply. He felt his face flush red. Linda saw he was tongue-tied and winked, stretching Paul’s grin even further.
Linda topped off the glasses with tonic and sat down on one of the tall chairs near the kitchen counter. The chairs were the height of barstools and they both felt comfortable there.
“So, what brings you boys by here so late in the evening?”
Paul wasn’t sure what to say. He and Jimmy hadn’t rehearsed any story, so he just shrugged.
“Really?” she said, sounding more sexy than suspicious. “How do you two know the girls?”
Paul hooked a thumb toward the garage.
“Oh, Tristan, that’s right,” she said, remembering that Shelly’s boyfriend climbed out of the backseat. It seemed that was explanation enough. The girls were adults now, she didn’t need to pry into every little thing they did. She smelled enough marijuana in the house; she figured maybe these two strangers were the girls’ connection. Who was she to judge and play hard-ass? She lifted her glass and said, “Cheers.”
Finally Paul knew what to say. He said, “Cheers.”
In the garage, Jimmy came out and said it. “I’m here to pick up my stuff.”
The girls seemed deeply offended. They looked at each other and decided to ignore Jimmy.
“Tristan, where the hell is Jerrod?” asked Shelly. Tristan made quick jerks with his head toward the car. The girls both looked over at the Camry. It looked empty.
“No, Tristan, where did you leave Jerrod?” Becky spoke to Tristan as though he were a child. Tristan made the same jerking motion with his head.
Jimmy interrupted, “You can talk, you know. Go ahead, you can tell ‘em.”
Tristan began to speak and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried it again. “He’s in the trunk.”
“The trunk? What the hell are you talking about?” Shelly sounded as patronizing at Becky. “And who the hell are these guys you brought over to my house?”
Jimmy interrupted again, “I told you—Shelly, I’m just here to get my stuff.” Jimmy put his hands on his hips and, by doing so, pulled back his jacket exposing the pistol in its holster under his arm. The mood in the garage suddenly changed. Jimmy smiled. It was a t
hin, fake smile, but Jimmy thought it sent goodwill.
Jimmy looked down at the suitcases on the cement floor and said, “So, what’s going on? You girls having a fight?”
Nobody spoke. The three young people caught in a game of freeze-tag. Nobody knew what to say. Jimmy knew that meant all they were doing was trying to come up with a lie.
“I’m not one for kidding around, Tristan here’ll tell ya. Now, where is that stuff of mine? I know you girls have it, and we don’t need to waste anymore of my time, do we?”
It took a few more uncomfortable moments of silence before Shelly said, “We can’t find it.”
She said it so plainly, so quickly, that it sounded like the truth. Jimmy knew it, the girls knew it, and now Tristan knew it. It was what Jimmy was afraid of the moment he saw those suitcases littering the floor. A frightened breath escaped Tristan’s lungs.
Jimmy stood there for a moment trying to decide what to do. His first impulse was to shoot one of them, one of the girls, but that was just anger. He didn’t know who knew what. There was still the mother inside the house. Now he had four people he had to worry about. Five including Paul. Six, if you count the dead body.
Damon Lafleur had pulled off the freeway into a Denny’s parking lot. He walked in and was seated, ordering a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie before the hostess had a chance to leave the table.
“You know what? Forget the coffee, make it a coke. With a straw, please.”
When his order arrived he grabbed the straw and left the rest to sit and went straight into the bathroom. There he stood in a stall and carefully poured out a small pile of coke on the toilet paper dispenser. Taking a credit card from his wallet, he chopped out two fat lines. He unwrapped the straw and sucked each line deep into each nostril. He put the straw back into his pocket and flushed the toilet and left the stall. He washed his hands in the basin with the abrasive powdered soap and dried them by running his fingers through his salt and pepper hair. As he was standing in front of the mirror admiring himself, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He looked at the number. San Francisco—caller unknown. He hit the green answer button and held the phone to his ear.
The voice on the other end had a thick accent.
“You never called me back.”
“I’m still on the road. Things are under control,” said Damon. He was sucking in his cheeks and turning his head ever so slightly, seducing himself in the mirror.
“Things are not under control, my friend. You should have called us.”
“I’ll be back home in about an hour. I’ll call you from a safe line and we’ll see what’s what.”
“What’s what? I don’t know what that means. I hope you will have good news for me, my friend.”
“You know I will,” said Damon, but the voice was gone. The call was over before he finished his sentence. He looked at his phone and saw the word disconnected. Damon shrugged, lifted his head up just enough to examine his nostrils for any traces of white powder, and then exited the bathroom.
He sat in his booth near the window with the pie untouched in front of him. He sipped at his cola without the use of the straw. He was looking out the window at the lights of the interstate, but couldn’t help being distracted by his own reflection.
“Oh sure, I was born and raised in Southern California. I didn’t come up north till my twenties. You mind if I smoke?”
Jimmy listened to Paul giving the mother his life story as he tailed Tristan and the two girls up the stairs toward Shelly’s bedroom. When they got there, he said, “All three of you, on the bed. Shut up and sit still.”
He pulled out Tristan’s cell phone and went directly to recent calls and dialed Shelly’s number. The phone rang in Shelly’s pocket.
“I’ll take that, please.”
He repeated the process with Jerrod’s phone. There was a vibration in Becky’s pocket.
“You, too,” he said.
Jimmy looked out the open window, then shut it and the curtain. He noticed a land-line on the nightstand and unplugged it. He surveyed the rest of the bedroom.
“Bathroom attached to your room? Must be nice.” He walked over and flipped on the bathroom light, flipped it off, and shut the door. Jimmy turned to the three on the bed and said, “Okay then, this is where I tell you that we can do this the hard way, or we can do this the easy way.”
“Who the fuck are you, pal? And why should we even be listening to you?” Becky’s burst of bravado caused Tristan to wince. He knew what was coming.
“Okay,” said Jimmy, “Who here votes that I kill Becky first? Tristan, it doesn’t seem like she cares for you much, would you like to see her die first?”
Tristan shook his head so slightly it looked like he was shivering with cold.
“Shelly, you wanna volunteer your life before Becky’s, or are we going to start talking about those duffel bags?”
“I told you,” said Shelly, “I don’t know what happened. I put them in the garage and now they’re, like, gone. I swear, I don’t know what happened to them.”
“Well, let’s start with what you do know happened. How did you and your friends come to steal them from me and my friends?”
Shelly looked at the other two and began to stutter. “I-I-I don’t know …”
Jimmy reached into his side pocket and removed the stun gun.
Tristan whispered, “Jesus.”
Without hesitation, Jimmy moved quickly toward Becky and zapped her in the crotch. A short, loud burst of electricity. Becky flew up and backward onto the bed. He gave her one more, square in the stomach, just to underscore his sadism with the girls.
Shelly’s voice went up two octaves. “Okay, okay, okay. We took it. We got it from Kevin and Dusty and we were supposed to drive it to Salt Lake City, but we just kept it, we figured Kevin the creep would be able to afford it. We drove it here and hid the car and put the stuff in the garage. We were going to call tomorrow with a story about how we got burned in Nevada. Please don’t shock her again.”
Jimmy put the stun gun to Becky’s thigh and gave her another blast.
“You’re only telling me stuff I already know.”
“We took some out and smoked it. The rest is all there, I swear.”
“All where?” asked Jimmy.
Shelly started to cry. Becky was groaning and trying to recover. Groaning and whimpering punctuated with quiet curses.
“Let’s start again,” said Jimmy. “How many bags did you open?”
Between her tears, Shelly said, “Just one, I swear. We only smoked a few joints. I swear to God.”
Jimmy tried to consider whether or not Shelly was telling the truth. If the girls had opened only one bag it was still possible that they didn’t know about the piggyback.
“How many bags were there?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “maybe thirty, the bag was heavy. I don’t know.”
“No, not inside, how many duffel bags were there?”
“Three. Two blue and one black. I only opened one. A one pound bag from one of the big blue bags, honestly.” Shelly was pleading, her mascara now dripping down her cheeks. Jimmy hadn’t noticed the false eyelashes before, but now one had come detached from her left eye. It looked like a spider trying to escape her tears. She looked pathetic; it was hard not to believe her.
Paul and Linda were into their second vodka tonic. Linda leaned forward with both elbows onto the kitchen counter, acting enrapt in everything Paul said. He sat back in his chair, feet not even touching the ground. He flicked his ashes into the kitchen sink and blew smoke toward the ceiling. Linda didn’t seem to mind.
“Yeah, college is for suckers,” Paul was saying, “it’s just a piece of paper. I mean, if I really had to, I could just fake it. Higher education, my ass. Nobody ever checks that shit. Turns out I didn’t need a college degree; I got mine certified at the school of hard knocks.”
Linda chuckled. She’d heard that one before. She tried to stay focused on he
r guest but her eyes kept blurring. When her chin slipped off of the heel of her hand, Paul asked, “You want a little pick-me-up?”
Linda raised her eyebrows. Paul smiled as he produced the small square baggie from his breast pocket.
“Oh my goodness, you are a naughty boy, aren’t you?” Linda smiled and winked with a red and tired eye. “Okay, but we’ll have to be quick; I don’t want to get caught by the girls.”
Paul was already fishing for his keys.
Linda said, “Wait, I have something better.” She stood up from the tall chair and went over to a small drawer beside the fridge. It was a knick knack drawer, full of pens and screwdrivers, broken flashlights and dead batteries. She found what she was looking for: a small, flat chunk of marble.
“Perfect,” she said. “One more thing.” She opened up their large pantry and, from a box with a clown face on it, took out two long, striped straws and handed one to Paul.
“Looks like you’re no stranger to naughty.”
“No, sweetheart, I’m well acquainted with naughty,” she said, hoping it sounded as flirtatious as she meant it.
Paul grinned and poured a healthy pile of blow onto the marble.
“Who else knew about your little charade?”
The girls gave each other a furtive glance. Jimmy crackled the stun gun.
“Nobody. Nobody knew. Just me, Becky, Tristan, and Jerrod.”
“Somebody else knew.”
“We didn’t tell.” Tristan had finally spoken up, he voice was hoarse and it still cracked like he was in puberty. “We were going to meet the girls here and take the stuff to a friend of ours back in Chico.”
“Who’s the friend?” asked Jimmy.
