Done Deal

by Les Standiford

  Deal sucked on the ice in his drink. He’d brought home a tiny set of golf clubs, not long ago. He would call Hermione, the woman who cleaned for Janice on Saturdays. Hermione could deal with the boxes, the little golf clubs, all those things.

  Deal cracked an ice cube between his teeth and glanced up. Henry was staring at him doubtfully. “Another one, Mr. Deal?”

  Deal thought a moment, then shook his head. “No. That’s fine. I think I’ll play golf this afternoon.”

  Henry nodded, his eyes averted. Although Deal’s father had been a fixture on the course, Deal had never held a club. Deal signed the check and slid it over to Henry. Henry gave him his mournful blood-hound’s smile. Who knew what the man was thinking.

  In the pro shop he charged a pair of pants printed with the same sort of golfers he’d seen on Penfield’s tie, some spiked shoes, a visor and polo shirt, and a set of Ping clubs to his account. “Are these the best you have?” Deal asked the young man in the shop. “Glenn,” his name tag read. “Assistant Pro.”

  Glenn looked as though he’d never spent a sleepless night. He checked the price tag on the set of clubs. “The best we have in stock, anyway,” Glenn said. “We’ll throw in the bag.”

  Deal nodded. “I think I’ll spend a few minutes on the driving range,” he said, and added a bucket of practice balls to his ticket. His words sounded strange in his own ears. Deal had the sensation he was being dragged somewhere by an annoying relative passing through town.

  Deal changed in the locker room, hung his clothes in the locker that bore his father’s name on a brass plate. There was still an ashtray full of tees on the top shelf. Deal took a handful on the way out. He glanced at himself in a mirror near the doorway. He wondered who was wearing the funny pants.

  Deal had the practice range to himself. Given the heat, he wasn’t surprised. His bag and clubs had been propped against a wire stand, the balls, each one glistening from the wash and striped in red, had been spilled out on a patch of grass that seemed to be thriving in the onset of the monsoon season.

  Deal selected a wood, its sleek black head reflecting his visored image and the arms of the huge live oaks overhead. He teed a ball up, gripped the club, and assumed a position he’d picked up from watching his father. “Never play a game you have to practice,” was his father’s comment on the driving range.

  Deal drew back and swung. He gave it everything. There was a sharp crack as the ball arced high out over the range. The ball landed somewhere past the 200-yard marker and bounded on, past 225. Deal watched it roll, finally stop. Two hundred and forty yards, give or take. The first time he’d ever swung. He looked at the club. Replaced it in the bag. Tossed his visor on the grass.

  He took off the shoes and left them beside the clubs, peeled off the bright red shirt, stepped out of the funny pants.

  He walked back toward the locker room in his briefs and socks, past a stunned foursome of onlookers, went inside to the showers. He turned on the water fully hot, at full force. Yo, Deal. Fan-fucking-tastic shot.

  He stood in the stream of water for what seemed like hours. Said good-bye to Flivey. And to Janice. And wept.

  Chapter 16

  The next morning, Deal found himself back on the job, his hammer rocketing nails as if of its own accord.

  The sound must have worked a charm. Emilio showed up at noon, with his helper. On their heels, a driver from Nachon Lumber arrived with the windows. The following day, Deal arrived to find the tile man already at work.

  Deal got on the subs in earnest. The casements went in, Emilio hung the cabinets, and the tile man set a personal speed record. The electrician hooked up the inside panels and hauled away the construction drop. The lights hummed and the toilets were singing. He had the painters scheduled for the first of the week and had placed an order for sod and shrubbery the following Friday. Now all he had to worry about was renting the place.

  He’d spoken to a couple of realtors who were gloomy about occupancy rates, the uncertain demographics of the area, the phases of the moon. Well, there were other realtors, he reminded himself. There had to be someone who could rent his units.

  He was standing at the curb in front of the place, inspecting the wooden lintels he’d just hung above the entryways.

  It was three hundred dollars’ worth of material that the architect hadn’t included, but once they were painted white against the peach backdrop Deal had chosen, the lintels would add a Caribbean touch. Throw in a few palms, he’d have the most attractive facade in the neighborhood, if it cut any ice.

  He heard a horn behind him and turned to see Cal Saltz pull up in an unfamiliar low-slung sedan.

  “What do you think?” Cal said. He levered himself up from the car and pointed. “Ain’t it something?”

  Deal looked inside. A lot of leather and wood. Old-fashioned seats, without headrests. He turned back to Cal.

  “What is it?”

  “I can get a hell of a deal on this one, Johnny. Goddamn car is worth twenty thousand dollars, guy’ll unload it for five.” He paused, shaking his head. “This is an automobile.”

  “Yeah, but what kind is it?”

  Cal shrugged. “Ribalta or Rivolta, I forget how you say it. Some kind of Italian. Got a Chrysler V-eight and power train, though. And it’s sure pretty, iddin’t it?”

  Deal nodded. “What if somebody kicks a rock through your windshield? You’ll have to write the Pope to get it replaced.”

  Cal nodded glumly, then looked up at the fourplex. “Who knocked out your window?”

  Deal followed his gaze. He’d missed the hole in one of the upstairs casements. But he wasn’t surprised. Another reason to get the place sold.

  Cal glanced at him. “I heard what happened at the country club, Johnny.”

  Deal nodded. He had no way of explaining what he’d done.

  “Henry picked up your things, put ’em in your dad’s locker,” Cal said. “Must have looked like a golfer up and vaporized.” He tried a laugh and Deal nodded along, trying to imagine Henry standing at the window of the grill, watching it happen. Poor Henry.

  They stood quietly for a while. Finally, Cal kicked one of the Rivolta’s tires. “Well, I just thought I’d look in on you. You sure you’re doing all right?”

  “I’m fine, Cal.” Deal put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry about the other day. About the funeral and all. I’m not ready for something like that, you understand? There’s no family, no real friends. I don’t see the point.”

  Cal nodded, patted Deal’s hand. “You don’t have to apologize to me, Johnny. Wasn’t any of my business in the first place.”

  “I’m just getting adjusted, Cal. That’s all.” Deal turned and gave him a smile. “Just bear with me.”

  “Whenever you need me, Johnny,” Cal said.

  He worried the toe of his boot in the dirt for a bit, then brightened. “You want to take this here Revolting for a spin with me? I’ll put a hundred-dollar bill on the dashboard there. If you can reach up and get it when we take off, it’s yours.”

  Deal laughed. “You got a hundred?”

  Cal snorted. “Always got a hundred. Day I don’t, they can bury me.”

  Deal nodded. “Maybe another time, Cal. I got a lot to do here.”

  “That’s okay, I’ll drive you.”

  Deal hesitated. He was probably as lonely as Deal felt. “I’m sorry, Cal. I’ll catch up with you though.”

  “Suit yourself,” Cal said. He paused. “You sure you’re all right?”

  Deal nodded. “I’m fine. I took a few days off. Now, I’m fine.”

  Cal didn’t seem convinced. He got back in the car and started the engine, gunned it enough to send a cloud of dust down the street behind them. “You better start sleeping here,” he called. “They’ll carry the goddamn place away, you’re not careful.”

  Deal waved, watching Cal whisk away. It did seem like an enjoyable car. Maybe he could brok
er his fourplex for a bunch of used cars. He and Cal could find a vacant lot, set up shop in a double-wide.

  He bent and picked up a nail from the curbside, tossed it into the trash. The used-car business? Maybe he was losing it, after all.

  ***

  Leon Straight watched the weird car go past him from behind a newspaper he held up in front of his face. This day Leon was using some piece-of-shit Chevrolet with the side windows smoked dark as you could get, but still it paid to be careful. He’d spent plenty of time in the neighborhood already, could still get a whiff of that burned-up gas station down the street.

  He watched the sedan disappear in his rearview mirror, trying to figure out what kind of car it was, anyway. Strange car, strange guy driving it. The same guy who had been talking to Deal by the curb. Boots, big broad brimmed hat like he was some kind of cowboy got jerked out of his life in the Wild West, dropped down here in the tropics. Leon got the license number. He’d let Alejandro find out who the guy was. Paperwork. Kind of thing Alejandro was good for.

  A couple trucks piling up to the curb down the street in front of this Deal’s place, now. A bunch of skinny black guys jumping out, firing up a tar pot, shinnying their ladders up the sides of the place. Dumb-as-squat brothers from the islands, blistering their black asses for nothing on a roofing crew. Leon shook his head in disgust. The black losers worked on roofing crews, the white ones on the tree-trim outfits. What was it about heights that drew in the lame brains, he wondered. Some kind of natural selection process, he’d figure it out. Meantime, it looked as if the building was getting built.

  Leon shook his head. This Deal guy wasn’t so smart either. Still building his building, put Leon in the mind of that wind-up bunny rabbit in the television commercial. Boom, boom, boom on his drum, no matter what. Well, they’d see about that. Leon would let Alcazar know what was going on here, maybe Leon could make some adjustments, tear him a new battery hole.

  He stretched, checked his watch. He had a man to see, but it was a little early yet. He could stop by that crap-ass market up on the corner, see if they had any Gatorade, although he doubted it. They’d have guava juice, mango juice, every kind of dog-shitting-peach-pit juice you might think of, but he’d ask for Gatorade and they’d look at him like he’d dropped down from some other planet and shake their heads, No, no, no, señor, no Gatorade in here. Especially, not for any black señor like you. No secret to Leon what the Cubans thought of blacks, especially American blacks. Some Cubano might have been an astrophysicist down home, up here he finds himself selling papaya juice and Kotex. Have to take it out on somebody. It made Leon tired just thinking about it.

  There was an old woman walking down the street toward the Chevy now, holding onto the leash of some scroungy dog, dog looking like it had been put together out of spare parts down at the pound. Dog was sniffing everything in its path, the woman moseying along behind it like that’s all she had to do in life, and it probably was. What a fucking neighborhood, Leon thought.

  The dog nosed along through the grass by the curb, came up to the Chevy. Woman right behind it. Eighty maybe, maybe more. She looked through the windshield, looked at Leon, wrinkled her nose like she saw something she didn’t like. Leon holding the paper low enough so he could stare back at her. The dog hiking his leg now, pissing all over the Chevy’s front bumper. Steam curling up in the air. The old lady giving him a look, like fuck your Negro ass, and moving along with her dog, down the street to her piece of shit house.

  ***

  Leon waited until the roofers were gone, Deal was gone, everybody was gone, he was late to see the man he had to see, until he was soaked through with sweat sitting in the heat in a closed up car waiting for everyone to leave. He read the paper through and through, knew the temperature in Caracas yesterday, how much Burdines wanted for three kinds of VCR.

  Finally, he got to fold up his paper, step out into the evening sun, stretch, feel 100 percent better right away. It might have been ninety out there in the street, but who knows what it had gotten to inside that car. Ready now. Something he shouldn’t be doing, but had to be done anyway.

  He walked down the buckled sidewalk past a couple of vacant lots, past a boarded-up house, up the sidewalk of the old lady’s place. Door was locked, of course, but hard as he turned the knob, everything gave way, and not much in the way of noise, either.

  He eased inside. Some kind of disgusting cooking smell making his stomach want to turn over. Something she’d brought over in a jar from Cuba about 1960, he supposed. Having to do a little dance step backward as the dog charged down the terrazzo hallway, its nails clattering, the thing making a snarling dive at him. No warning barks, just straight-ahead vicious, you had to give old spare parts that much.

  Leon caught him, tucked its body under his arm, clamped its jaws shut with his massive hand. Moved quiet and quick down the hallway, he had places to go.

  Nobody in the living room except for the Virgin Mary and her off in a terminal plaster statue nod overtop of some dead candles and a spray of plastic flowers all tucked away in a corner of the room where a sane person would have put a television set. Scared him for a second though, the statue was so big.

  Nobody in the dining room either, a gloomy place with a dark wood table and six dark wood chairs and some painting on the wall so dark you couldn’t tell what was in it. The dog wriggling around in his grip, but its heart not really in it. Some live things have the sense to know when it’s worth making a fuss, when it isn’t, Leon thought.

  And into the kitchen where whatever it was cooking. Or festering, was more like it. Something inside an old white stove, huge and rounded off, remind you of a Studebaker. And some refrigerator like they didn’t make any more of, either. But still no old lady.

  Leon went to the sink, glanced out the window at the scraggly backyard and saw her, hanging up some of her undies on a clothesline. Industrial-strength undies. The kind that would keep you safe from attack.

  Mmmm-hmmm, lady, you be safe, all right. He knew now what he was going to do. Another inspiration, you could call it.

  Leon turned back to the stove. Opened the oven door. Grabbed him a towel off the sink counter, pulled out the racks, bringing along something in an oven dish that broke all over the floor, and didn’t that stink to high heaven. Plenty of room in there now, though. And whoo-ee, hot, until he closed the door again.

  He was all the way back to the car before he heard the old lady start to scream. Scream to wake the dead. Good old Spare Parts, he thought. Good dog. Hot dog. Piss up that rope, lady.

  Chapter 17

  A couple of days after Cal dropped by, Deal got a call from Penfield’s office. The assistant would tell him nothing over the phone. He had to get down there, the sooner the better.

  There was a new receptionist this time, a woman in her thirties with red hair and a spray of freckles across her face. She’d folded back a gate in the Plexiglas so you could actually talk to her. The rent-a-cop was outside the building trying to roust a churrasco vendor who was grilling his little shish kebabs right there in the middle of the financial district.

  “That’s a shame, don’t you think?” The receptionist spoke to Deal, but she was watching the action outside.

  Deal turned just as a big swirl of charcoal smoke whipped up from the grill. The rent-a-cop staggered back, flapping his hands against the smoke. The churrasco vendor handed one of the beef sticks to a man in a three-piece suit and palmed a bill.

  Deal looked back at the receptionist. “I’m betting on the little guy,” he said.

  She smiled up at him. Green eyes, bright, even teeth. “Me too,” she said.

  There was a pause. For a moment, Deal had forgotten why he was there. “I’m Jack Deal,” he said, feeling the weight sink on him again. He’d been keeping it going, but sometimes he felt as if he were walking on one of the outer planets, where a cupful of him would weigh a ton. Fix your eye on a distant point, he reminded himself. Keep walking.r />
  “Can I help you?” Her gaze was a little puzzled now. Was he some weirdo off the street, some pocket pool artist, some mooch?

  “I’m here to see Thornton Penfield,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said. She sat down and punched a number into the phone. “What was your name again?”

  “Deal,” he said. “Jack Deal.”

  She nodded and spoke into the receiver. Deal made a quick check of his clothing. He’d traded the checked shirt for a white oxford button-down, the jeans for a pair of chinos, the boots for a pair of Top-Siders. Added a sport coat. He’d been ready for the former receptionist: “Some yuppie wants to see Mr. Penfield.”

  This one, with her red hair and honest eyes, listened to the phone, nodding, glancing up at Deal, then making a note.

  Finally, she hung up. Her expression had changed. Now her eyes seemed heavy, her smile faded. “You can go up now. The top floor…”

  “Elevator’s right down there,” Deal said, finishing for her.

  “That’s right,” she said.

  Deal turned to go.

  “Oh, Mr. Deal.”

  Deal stopped.

  “I…I just wanted to say how sorry I was.”

  Deal looked more closely at her. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. I’m Barbara Cooper. Mr. Penfield’s secretary told me what happened…” she trailed off.

  Deal nodded. “You weren’t here the last time I came in, Barbara.”

  “No. I mean, I guess not. I was out sick a couple days.” She glanced over his shoulder and Deal turned.

  The churrasco vendor had edged his cart out from under the granite overhang of the building onto the sidewalk proper. The vendor pointed at a line on the concrete and said something to the rent-a-cop. The first part was rapid Spanish, but Deal caught something about “public property.”