The Hard Bounce

by Todd Robinson

  With great effort, Seven simultaneously tried to crawl into a corner and stay conscious. I stalked him slowly across the floor. “Those kids out there? You ever—and I mean ever—come across them again?” I booted him a shot to the ribs. Seven wheezed and flopped over. “You say one fucking word to either one of them…” I kicked him again.

  “Or look at them…” Junior punched him solidly on the thigh, sending a vicious charleyhorse through the muscle. Seven looked like he wanted to scream, but there was no air left in his lungs from my kick.

  “Or breathe on them…” I kicked him again, and he went fetal.

  “Don’t even think too hard about them,” Junior said, adding the heel of his boot to the fray. “That would also be bad for you.”

  “Have we made ourselves clear here?” I asked. Kick.

  Seven wheezed dryly before he managed to mouth a “yes.”

  “Got that, you G.G. Allin wannabe motherfucker?” Kick.

  Kick.

  Kick.

  Kick.

  Kick.

  Kick.

  He was still wailing hoarse yesses at us as we walked out the door. Probably be a while before he’d be singing again.

  I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t feel good.

  Real fucking good.

  Paul sat on the wide hood of the Buick, hugging himself. His skin tone still wasn’t a color I would consider healthy. He looked like he could puke at any second. Credit to the kid, though, he was hanging in like a trooper.

  “Tammy took off,” he said. I felt bad about how we had put her in that situation. I consoled myself with the thought that she’d be fine after she listened to a few Dead Can Dance albums. Maybe sacrificed a goat. Who knows what cheers up a Goth kid, anyway?

  “Now what?” Junior asked.

  “Yeah. What are we going to do now?” Paul rubbed his hands together, the excitement perking him back up. This was all one big adventure for him.

  The gig was shaping up to be a long evening of indiscriminate violence. “First, we drive you home,” I said to Paul.

  “Aw, man! C’mon,” he whined. “I hook you guys up with Baldy and the videos and you’re gonna do me like that?”

  I handed him another hundred. He shut up. “We appreciate your help, Paul, but we need to take it solo from here.”

  His eyes were full of Benjamin Franklin, but there was disappointment in his voice. “No, no. That’s cool, I guess.”

  “Where can we drop you off?” Junior asked.

  “Forget it. I’m gonna go to the Square,” he said. “Besides, the mom’s boyfriend has been drinking his unemployment check away all week. Best to stay mobile, you know? Later.” He flashed us a peace sign and was off.

  Junior and I silently watched him off for a moment. Junior said, “Boo?”

  “What’s up?”

  “Every goddamn time I hear something like that…” Junior shook his head.

  “Yeah.” I felt for Paul, though he seemed pretty well adjusted to his situation. The two of us knew all too well the art of adaptation. Either you made your way within your shitty life or they found you dangling from an extension cord in the janitor’s closet.

  As I went to light a smoke, I noticed a tiny smear of Seven’s blood on my finger. I wiped it off on my pants leg.

  Junior started Miss Kitty’s engine and gunned it, making her roar. “Now what?”

  “Let’s go rent some movies.”

  “Ugh. That was terrible, Boo. That was like, Steven Segal script terrible.”

  “Just drive.”

  Chapter Ten

  Sid’s Vids sat sandwiched between a Vietnamese restaurant and a Store 24 on Commonwealth, right down the block from where the BU campus began. The window facing the street looked like it last met Windex sometime during the Cold War. Sun-faded videotape boxes sat limply on display. I did a double-take.

  Videotapes? Even I, the man with the beeper, owned a DVD player. The titles popped up more red flags than a Chinese Army parade.

  Caddyshack 2.

  Joe vs. the Volcano.

  The place didn’t even hawk good videotapes.

  Obviously we’d found the right place. The piece of real estate the store occupied didn’t come cheap. And Sid’s Vids wasn’t working too hard to interest customers off the street. The money wasn’t coming off rentals. The only thing missing was a neon sign flashing FRONT. But I must have passed the place a thousand times before and never noticed the quirk of it.

  A little bell tinkled over the door as we walked in. The place smelled of stale dirt and something ripe and sickly sweet like old meat. The air conditioner over the window had to be broken; otherwise it should have been turned on by law. Putrid humidity hung the stench at eye-level in the small room. I could hear the sounds of a television and labored breathing coming from the rear. My heart pounded as we walked down the aisle. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if I saw a snake tattoo.

  Bad things.

  Bad, bad things.

  What I did see was one of the fattest beasts outside a zoo that I’d ever laid eyes on. The person sitting behind the counter was at least four hundred pounds. Limp, stringy hair lay across its forehead like overcooked spaghetti.

  I was looking right at it, and I had no idea if it was a man or a woman. There were tits, sure, but in the dim light, I couldn’t be sure there wasn’t stubble or an Adam’s apple wedged into the thick folds of its neck.

  “Oh, yuck,” Junior muttered under his breath.

  I cleared my throat. “Excuse me.”

  “What?” The beast still didn’t look up from the TV.

  “I want to talk to Sid.”

  “I’m Sid,” the beast said, pointing a thumb the size of a bratwurst back at itself.

  “You’re Sid?” Junior asked.

  “The fucking sign says Sid’s Vids, don’t it? You expecting a man?”

  Well, at least we cleared that much up.

  “It’s Portuguese,” she went on, “short for Sidonia.”

  “We were told we could get some movies here.”

  With a tremendous effort, Sid turned her head to look at us better. “Wow. You two managed to figure out that you could get movies at a video store. You two must be the fucking pride of MIT.” Sid laughed a wet gurgle at us.

  “Movies with girls in them.”

  Sid turned back to the television. “On your left. Through the curtain, Romeo.” To the left was a beaded curtain, a handwritten sign next to it that read, 18 And Over Only.

  “I don’t think you’d have these movies on your shelves,” I said.

  Sid’s broad face darkened as she turned back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Sure you do,” Junior said. “Rough stuff. With girls. And by girls, we mean girls.” Junior plucked a pair of quotation marks in the air with his fingers.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Sid’s voice didn’t have the same conviction the second time. Beads of dull sweat popped out on her face. Might not have been nervous sweat. Could have been exertion sweat from having to turn her head twice in less than an hour.

  “C’mon,” I said. “Seven told us this is where he gets his.”

  “Seven what? Little dwarves? I said I don’t—”

  “Whatever,” Junior said. “You don’t want our money? Fine. But just so you know, we’ve got a few people who want those kinds of movies and we’ve got cash.” Junior brought out the flash money—a hundred wrapped around a thick wad of ones. To Sid it must have looked like a Burger King’s ransom.

  Sid licked her thick lips at the sight of the money. I suppressed my gag reflex.

  “You two cops?” she asked.

  “We look like cops to you?” I asked.

  “Cause you have to tell me if I ask. It’s illegal for you to not tell me if I ask. That’s entrapment.”

  “I’m not a cop,” I said. I didn’t know if Sid’s information on the law was true or not, but I figured I’d humor her.
>
  “What about you, Red?”

  Junior sighed. “Nope. Not a cop.”

  “Say it. Say the words. Say, ‘I’m not a cop.’”

  “I. Am. Not. A. Cop,” he said, hammering it out like a kid at a spelling bee.

  One more shot, for reaction’s sake. “Listen, just call the snake man and tell him we want three copies of every movie he’s got.”

  Sid jiggled and wheezed at his mention.

  We have a winner.

  I sighed, feigning boredom at the conversation as we walked. “Make some calls. We’ll be back tomorrow. Have an answer.”

  Outside the store, Junior said in a mock-serious tone, “I thought you told Seven you wasn’t gonna bring him into this.”

  “Did I now?” I said with equal amounts of mock-forgetfulness. “Well, gee. It must have plum slipped my mind.”

  “Shame on you.” Junior waggled his finger at me. “And your plums.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes. Shame on me. Leave my plums out of this.”

  Junior sat on Miss Kitty’s hood, mulling over the situation. “Well, ain’t this a bitch,” he said, chewing on his thumbnail.

  “What is?” Humid sweat made my clothes stick. As I separated the fabric from my skin, I could still smell the stink of Sid’s Vids coming off me, as though the odor had dug itself into my pores.

  “This throws a monkey wrench right into our investigatory style, now don’t it?” he said, throwing his hands into the air. “I mean, hell… we can’t just kick the shit out of her to find out what we need, can we? She’s a girl.” He said the last with an aggravated sweep of his hand toward the storefront.

  Girl might not have been the term I would have used to describe our little Sidonia, but I knew what he meant. As a blanket policy, we try not to hit women. Even ones with as questionable a womanhood as Sid. Once I had to deck a townie biker chick when she went for my eyes with a corkscrew. Another time, a drunken skinhead girl chased Junior halfway to Roxbury when she decided she wanted a fight and picked Junior. That’s how far he’d go to avoid physical conflict with a woman. Literally.

  As extreme as the circumstances were, we couldn’t come up with a good enough reason to pound on Sid. Besides, I wasn’t convinced we could dish out anything that would register on her thick hide. Be like punching a waterbed.

  This was going to call for creativity. Not our deepest well to draw from.

  “Wait a sec,” I said. I walked back over toward Sid’s Vids. I was reasonably sure Sid wasn’t going to come waddling out the door unless it was time to close or the building was on fire. Over the windows, about seven feet up, was the broken air conditioner. I felt in my pockets for something to hitch up the vent flaps with.

  Pack of Parliaments, keys, and Sharpie pen.

  Bingo.

  My lucky self-defense Sharpie.

  I tiptoed up and arched my body to stay out of Sid’s line of vision. I heard her voice over the television before I lifted up the slats. I couldn’t make out what she was saying but I knew she was on the phone. Nobody was in the store when we went in, and nobody had gone in since we’d left.

  Detective of the Year Award, here I come.

  With the slats opened, I caught snippets of her side of the conversation.

  “… know who the fuck they are… [wheezing] yeah… I think that… [more wheezing]… pay fucking Seven a visit… [wheeze]… stupid fucking pussy ass faggot…”

  Too easy. Either we were better than we thought we were or these people were wicked retarded.

  Then my beeper sounded, nearly making me shit myself. I jumped down and tried to muffle the buzzing by cupping it in my palms as I ran down the street. I wasn’t worried about Sid giving chase.

  Kelly’s number popped onto the screen. As I walked past Miss Kitty, Junior rolled down the window. “The fuck was that?”

  “Got a beep. Gonna use the phone in the store.”

  I dropped a quarter in the pay phone in the Store 24. Much as I hated to admit it, I was going to have to get a cell phone. Pay phones were becoming scarcer in Boston than Yankees fans.

  “Kelly Reese.”

  “You beeped?”

  “Yeah. About that. You have a beeper?”

  “Yup. I’m kinda old school.” I waved at the cashier. When he looked over, I showed him the Twinkie package I’d picked up. He waved it off, so I opened it and took a big bite of chemical deliciousness.

  “That’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Hey, you beep me to bust my balls, or you need something?”

  “Touchy.”

  “Only when people make fun of my beeper.”

  “Can you meet up with me for a coffee in the next couple hours?”

  “I’m available right now. Sure you don’t want anything stronger?”

  “Want me to vomit on you again?”

  “Coffee it is.”

  She was sitting outside the Starbucks across from Back Bay Station when I got there. She handed me a large iced coffee. (You can fuck yourself if you think I’m calling it a venti.) I knew a hangover when I saw one, and she looked like she was coping with a doozy. Lot of that going around, apparently.

  “How you feeling, kiddo?”

  “Oh, ready to die.” She nodded toward the paper bag on the table. “Didn’t know how you took it, so there’s some sugar in the bag and milk in that little cup.”

  “Thanks. So…”

  “Again, I just want to apologize for last night. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  Her behavior had given me all the right ideas, but none I could repeat in public. “Like I said, no problem. You call me up to apologize again?”

  “Beeped you, actually,” she said, smirking.

  “What did I say about making fun of my beeper?”

  “Sorry. Forgot you were old school for a second.”

  “Thank you.” I lit a cigarette and saw her expression shift. “So, which is it?”

  “Which what?”

  “Are you a pain-in-the-ass cigarette hater, or did you want one?”

  “I quit a year ago.” She took a long pull off her straw.

  “Great. You’re the worst of both worlds.”

  “Give me a drag.” She plucked the cigarette from my hand and took a longer pull, closed her eyes, and groaned in a fashion not far from sexual. I wondered if she’d quit to impress her boss, the other ex-smoker I’d handed a cigarette to recently. “You’re a very, very bad influence, Mr. Malone.”

  She had no idea. “So other than using me to enable your vices, why are we here?”

  “Mr. Donnelly was wondering how you were doing.”

  I took the cigarette back and puffed. I got a strange pleasure from the taste of her lipstick on the filter. “Oh. Um, we’re making progress.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  I decided to edit severely, and dodge the exactly. “Have you ever heard her talk about boys at all? About a guy with a snake tattoo, specifically?”

  “Honestly? I’ve never really talked to her all that much. I’ve picked her up from school, driven her to the mall and stuff, but she’s at an age where anyone over twenty is the enemy.”

  “That may be the case, but the guy we think she’s with is well over puberty.”

  “That sounds bad.” She pulled a chunk off an apple fritter and popped it into her mouth, chewing it slowly.

  “It probably is.” I didn’t say just how bad.

  “Oh God, I think I’m going to be ill.”

  “Not on me this time.”

  “You’re never letting that go, are you?”

  “Probably not. She do any of that computer stuff? Friendster?”

  “Friendster? You’re not old school, you’re retirement home. All the cool kids are on Facebook. Besides, her dad keeps all her passwords saved. He regularly checks her online activity.”

  “He spies on her?”

  “Monitors her. But kids are crafty. They’re so much better than adults with the technology,
with adapting to it. Most kids, they want to hide online activity from their parents? A moderately savvy kid could do it easily.”

  I didn’t do any of that shit. I didn’t “friend” people on a fucking computer. I didn’t Twoot on Twatter or whatever the hell that crap was called, either. Maybe she was right. Maybe I wasn’t old school anymore so much as just out of touch. “So there is a possibility that she met some kind of pervo online, and her dad would have no idea, even with the monitoring.”

  “That is a possibility.” She shuddered at the thought. “Anything else? Anything less on the potentially skeevy side?”

  “Sorry. Skeevy is all we got right now.”

  “All right, then.” She stood and wiped the creases off her skirt. “One more drag.” She opened her fingers to grab the cigarette.

  I pulled it back. “Tell me I’m cute again.”

  She immediately blushed. “Did I do that?”

  “Yup.”

  “Crap. Well, you are, for old school.” Defty, she plucked my cigarette out of my hand and walked off with it.

  “Hey.”

  She winked at me. “I might not be old school, but I’m not as good as you think I am, Mr. Malone.”

  “No doubt, Ms. Reese.”

  No doubt.

  I met back up with Junior at a small Chinese restaurant about a half mile down Commonwealth. We didn’t talk much while we ate. We were both trying to think in between chews.

  Junior spoke first. “How do you think you’d fuck something that big?”

  “I wouldn’t,” I said through a mouthful of pork fried rice. Great partner he was. I was trying to figure out how we could get information out of Sid while he was trying to figure out the mechanics of sex with her.

  “I mean, you’d have to have a dick like a Pringles can to get under that belly.”

  My gorge did a little hurdle at the thought. “Junior, please. I’m trying to eat.”

  “You think Snake fucks her?”

  “Junior…”

  “He’d be capable, just—”

  “Junior! Fucking stop!”

  “Sor-ry,” he said, dripping sarcasm. “Didn’t mean to offend your delicate sensibilities.”

  “Did you see what time the store closed?” I asked, desperate to change the conversation.