by Eric Beetner
“I figure we got two choices,” he said. “We can go to the cops. Or we can give the drugs you stole back to whoever they belong to.” He rested the rifle in his arms and stared at me. “Now, cops will arrest you. No doubt about that. You took the drugs without the intention of giving them back. Because you’re a loser who is married to my daughter.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off the gun in his arms. What was his plan? Get me to hold one gun while he held the other and then shoot me, claiming self-defense? Surely not. I was, as he so astutely pointed out, married to his daughter.
“What’s the second option?” I asked.
He gave me a tight smile. “We find the guys this stuff belongs to and give it back. You get out. Leave my daughter and her kids with me. We don’t see you again. Ever.”
55
BRENT
I could feel some of the cop’s blood on my face. The wet droplets I felt splash my cheek when this crazy bastard shot him at the rental place had dried now and itched like tiny scabs on my skin. I didn’t want to scratch though because the blood would have gone under my fingernails. I could only reach my face with one hand anyway, the other one was cuffed to the door.
Skeeter seemed manic. His eyes wouldn’t focus and I would not have picked him as my designated driver, yet there I was with this crank-head lunatic running the show.
I tried to reason with him: “Look, man, it’s over. Clyde has the Tahoe. He’s already met up with Corgan by now.”
“Shut up. Goddamn, how many times I gotta tell you to shut up.”
“I’m just trying to let you know the deal is over. Everything’s put back right.”
He punched me. Luckily it was a blind side shot and his loosely balled up fist only glanced off my cheek. We were in some dark corner of downtown Richmond I didn’t recognize and from the look on Skeeter’s face, he didn’t either.
“I know it’s here somewhere . . .” He stared at street signs as he drove slowly through intersections and drifted through stop signs.
“If you just call Corgan—”
He swung at me again, missing me mostly. He clipped the tip of my jawbone and it slammed my teeth together and made me bite my tongue. I cursed loudly and jerked my cuffed hand to put it to my mouth, forgetting for a second it was otherwise occupied. Skeeter swung the car to a stop at the curb outside a two story colonial that had seen better days—probably in actual colonial times.
Skeeter leaned over me and unlocked the handcuff that was clamped to the door. I knew I didn’t want to go into that house, even if I didn’t know what was inside. I thought for a second maybe he listened to me and was letting me go, but then he looped the chain of the cuffs through the door handle and clipped my other hand into the cuff, locking both my hands in place. His breath stank. His body stank. His ears were dirty. I was at least a little bit grateful when he leaned away from me, hands cuffed or not.
“Wait here,” he said with a laugh as he practically bolted out the door. So I sat there, tongue stinging, wrists aching, head pounding and without a thing to do about any of it. Just when I thought this mess was over . . .
I heard the hum of my cell phone on vibrate. I twisted in my seat, feeling the buzz against my thigh. My hands wouldn’t move anywhere close to allowing me access to my front pocket. I didn’t know who it was, but if I could get to that phone I could ask for help. Not that I’d know where to tell them to come find me. But if I could only reach . . . the buzzing stopped.
I leaned my head against the window and let loose a long sigh.
Five minutes later Skeeter was back. He hadn’t showered in there, that’s for sure.
“My phone rang,” I said. “I bet it was Clyde. He’ll tell you it’s all set now. Maybe it was Corgan, even.”
“The fuck you talkin’ about?” Skeeter was digging through the glove box for something.
“When you were inside my phone rang.”
“Why didn’t you answer it, dumb-ass?” He leaned back in his seat, his hand clamped around something small.
“Because you handcuffed me to the fucking door.” I braced for another punch, weak as it may come, but Skeeter was too busy with his little prize—a glass pipe. “Aw, shit, you’re not going to smoke crack in here are you?”
He gave me one crooked eye. “If I was, it ain’t none of your fuckin’ business.”
“Look, just let me out. You don’t even have to drop me back at the airport, I’ll get a cab from here. We’re all done on this deal. We never need to see each other again.”
He was ignoring me. He packed three small crystals like rock candy into the bulb of the pipe. “Y’see sometimes I snort it. It’s faster that way. You can grab a bump on the go real good with a snort. But it stings and it makes your eyes water. Smoking is a much more dignified way, don’t you think? Great men smoked pipes. Sherlock Holmes, Abraham Lincoln, probably some other presidents.”
“I don’t think Lincoln smoked a pipe and even if he did it wasn’t a crack pipe.”
He gave me both crooked eyes this time, staring over the globe of the pipe. “I didn’t realize I was in the car with a fuckin’ history teacher.”
He flicked his thumb on a lighter and I braced for a car full of smoke sure to get me a contact high—which I did not want—when my phone buzzed again.
“Oh, there. There. You hear it? Get my phone. I bet it’s Clyde. Answer it. Come on.”
I shoved my hip out so he could see the pocket where the vibrations were coming from. Annoyed, he lifted his thumb off the lighter, pulled the pipe down into one hand and dug through my pocket for my phone. He looked at the caller I.D. and pressed a button.
“The fuck you want?”
Clyde’s voice. “Brent? Who is this?”
“It’s someone who doesn’t have time to answer a lot of fool questions.”
“Skeeter?” He mumbled ‘Shit,’ under his breath. “Give the phone to Brent. I need to get a phone number for Griffin.”
Skeeter looked at me. For a second I had no idea why Clyde would be calling me for that number, then I remembered. “In my back pocket,” I blurted.
“This is all some sick game to get me to feel you, up you fuckin’ homo.”
“No, it’s on the rental agreement. It’s in my back pocket, left side.”
Clyde could hear me and he pleaded with Skeeter. “Please, Skeeter. I’m here with Corgan. We need that number.”
The mention of Corgan’s name kicked Skeeter into gear. Only when Skeeter was wrist deep in my back pocket did it register that if Clyde was with Corgan and they needed Griffin’s number, that was bad news.
56
SEAN
I didn’t know where we were going. I didn’t know what the plan was. Ernie just climbed in his truck and started driving. It was twenty minutes of silence before he pulled into the Virginia Beach Gun Club.
“Sit here and shut the fuck up,” he said. “I gotta get more ammo.”
We could have gone to Bass Pro Shops, I wanted to tell him, but I just nodded. Fucker wanted me to leave my family. My wife and kids.
My wife and kids. Did I really care? I sat for a minute and chewed on that. Becky, Chad, Linda. They could all stay here. I could go back to Detroit alone. Free. No more tuna casseroles. No more tater tots with green beans. No more Linda.
Ernie emerged from the building with several boxes of cartridges and clips. He climbed in the truck just as my phone rang. “Put it on speaker,” he said.
I did as I was told. “Hello.”
“Hello. Is this Sean Griffin?” Whoever it was sounded out of breath.
Ernie gave me a nod, like it was okay with him if I answered. “Yeah,” I said. “This is Sean Griffin. Who is this?”
“You’ve got what I want.”
Somewhere behind the voice, someone moaned. I also thought I heard the sound of a baby crying.
The connection went fuzzy. “Hello?” I said again.
“I’m here,” the voice said. “Not going anywhere.”
“Yes. We have your stuff,” I said again.
“Good. We’ll let you live if you return it. Don’t return it and we’ll make sure that the limited number of days you have left will be spent in agony.”
I swallowed hard. Ernie took the phone from me.
“Listen here, you fuckwits. We have what you want and we’ll gladly sell it back to you for a price. One hundred thousand. Cash.”
My mouth fell open. Ernie hadn’t been there when they opened fire on us, but his daughter was back at his house with the bullet hole in her side as a testament to what these guys thought of folks who interfered in their business.
The sound of the baby crying grew louder, until it was a shriek. A man’s voice rose with it, shouting. Sounded almost like begging. The crack of a gunshot came next followed by silence.
“Hello?” Ernie said.
“Yes. I’m so sorry. We’ll have to call you back.” The line went dead.
57
SKEETER
Once I’d had a few good pulls on the pipe and got my head right, I could think. Brent, the square asshole, was off in the corner holding his breath as long as he could and then letting it out in a big gasp like he’d just come up from the deep or something. Fuckin’ annoying. It disturbed my thinking and ruminating.
Thinking stuff like: if they’re going for another meet up with this Griffin jerk-off, why ain’t I invited? This is my deal, right? Griffin is driving my Tahoe, right? I should be the one to get it back.
And if they’re meeting with Griffin, then Brent was full of shit when he told me the deal was done and the drugs were back with Corgan, nestled right up to his ball sack safe and sound.
He gasped again. “Can you roll down my window, please?”
“No, I can’t. It’s hot out there.” I sparked the lighter again.
“I can’t breathe.”
I held in my lungful, let it work its magic, then let it out. “I can breathe just fine.” I let the high settle on my brain. Felt good—like pop rocks in a can of Coke. “So, you gonna admit you were lying to me?”
He exhaled. “What?”
“Clyde don’t have the dope. Why would he be calling to get that guy’s number if he had it?”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.” He sucked in more air and went under for a deep dive again.
“It’s ’cause they’re still trying to find him, that’s why.”
He blasted out his lungful of air. Really fuckin’ annoying. “But Clyde drove away in the Tahoe.”
“So?”
“So that’s where the drugs were.”
“Right, dumb-ass—were. The drugs were there. Now they’re somewhere else. On the street, up Griffin’s ass, who the fuck knows.”
Brent held his breath. I tried to think. No matter where the drugs were, I needed to be in on that meeting. Corgan would never see me as anything more than a delivery boy if I didn’t finish this one out. I’d have to give Corgan a call. Yeah, call him directly and tell him why I should—
He broke the surface again and panted for breath. Motherfucker broke my concentration.
“Hey, asshole.” I shot him in the foot. “I’m trying to think over here.”
58
CLYDE
Corgan used my phone to call Griffin, his voice going from amiable to menacing in a flash. I couldn’t really focus on what he was saying. One of the thugs was holding my baby, and he was doing it wrong. She was crying. I needed to hold her and let her know that I would get her home safe. “Give her here,” I said.
“Fuck off.” He moved away from me. Corgan gave us a look that spoke volumes.
“Give me my daughter,” I said.
He shifted and she started to wail. I reached for her but the second thug grabbed me and tossed me to the ground. He put his boot on my chest. Corgan fired a warning shot that kicked up dust next to my knee. The baby screamed.
“I’m so sorry. We’ll have to call you back,” Corgan said.
59
BRENT
I stepped on a bee once. In my bare feet. Stung the bottom of my foot. I thought that hurt at the time. It didn’t hurt at all, it turns out.
“You motherfucking shot me.” My head banged against the window as I bucked in my seat trying to escape the pain. I yelled through gritted teeth for what felt like a really long time. My foot sparked and jumped at the end of my leg, the pain coming in sharp jolts like a line of a thousand army ants had crawled into my shoe and were feasting on my flesh.
“Aw, quit whining,” Skeeter said.
I know I set out into this thing with all intentions of not hurting anyone, but if I’d have been able to reach his gun right then, I’d have gladly shot him in his stupid, pockmarked, peach fuzzed face.
“I need a hospital.”
“No, you don’t.”
I lifted my foot. It nearly made me pass out, not only from the pain but from seeing the ragged hole in my shoe rimmed with red on top and dangling bits of stuff out the bottom. Bits of my flesh and probably the bones of my foot. There was a goddamn hole all the way through my foot.
Even Skeeter could see things did not look good.
“Okay, shit.” He punched the dashboard like he was the one who was being put out. “If only you’d shut up like I told you to.”
I let my foot down gently. Nothing I did helped the pain. I started hyperventilating. Short breaths that did nothing to fill my lungs.
“Alright, alright, calm the fuck down. I know a guy.”
“A (breathe) (breathe) (breathe) guy?”
“Yeah, like a doctor.” Skeeter dropped the car in gear. He actually looked more lucid to drive after a half dozen hits on the pipe than he did before.
“(breathe) Like (breathe) (breathe) a doctor?”
“It’s this or I kick you the fuck out here.”
I kept silent and slumped against the door, trying to control my breathing.
“Yeah,” he said. “Thought so.”
This was not a sanitary facility. It looked like a house in foreclosure. Scraggly lawn, torn screens in the windows, a few missing bricks in the facade. And Skeeter didn’t even help me to the door. I had to hop behind him like an idiot. I almost tumbled into the dead shrubs more than once. By the time I got to the door I was breathing hard and the steady trickle of blood from the bottom of my foot had started again.
An old guy answered the door.
“Mister Gene,” Skeeter said like they were old pals. The look on Mr. Gene’s face said otherwise. “Got a patient for you. Put it on Corgan’s tab.”
Hearing Corgan’s name was enough to make the old man open the door wide enough for me to hop through. He watched me pass by with a curious expression, but he didn’t offer to help either.
In what used to be a dining room Mr. Gene waved me over to a table. I sat on the edge while he flicked on lights.
“So what happened?” he said, pulling on half glasses to examine my foot more closely.
“I got shot.” I figured I didn’t need to explain by whom.
He leaned his head back to get a glimpse through the full power of his lenses. “That so?” He turned my ankle which hurt like he was twisting my foot right off the end of my leg. When he’d given me the once over he let my foot drop with no warning and it banged off a table leg. I screamed and lay flat on my back making futile fists to fight the jolt of pain.
“Gotta get that shoe off,” he said.
“Aren’t you gonna give me something for the pain?”
“Don’t got an anesthesiologist. You didn’t bring nothing?”
I guessed his usual clientele either came in high on something or carried their own stash of mind numbing, muscle relaxing goodies. I had nothing. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t planning on getting shot today.” Though really it was a miracle I made it as long as I did.
We both turned to Skeeter who was standing in the doorway packing his glass pipe with new rocks. He caught our combined stare. “What?”
“Get over here and dose hi
m,” Mr. Gene said.
At the same time, Skeeter and I both said, “What?”
“It’s gonna hurt like hell and he don’t seem to want it to, so come on over here and dose him up with some of that.”
“No. No way,” I said.
“Will it shut him the fuck up?” Skeeter asked.
“That will or the pain will.”
“Okay then.”
Mr. Gene was strong for his age. He flopped his body over mine and it was like a lead blanket had fallen over my shoulders. Skeeter dug an elbow into my arm to hold it down as he leaned over, sparked the lighter and worked up a good cloud of smoke inside the bulb, then blew it into my face. I coughed and tried to turn my head, but Mr. Gene reached down and tweaked my foot so I opened my mouth wide in a shriek of pain. Skeeter blew another cloud down my throat.
Skeeter and I were getting high at about the same rate, and Mr. Gene being so close, was probably feeling pretty good himself. Exactly the kind of guy I want operating on my foot. I kicked and thrashed as much as I could but I was weak from blood loss, tired as hell and the drugs were going straight to the base of my skull and one by one turning out all the lights and replacing them with strobes and roman candles.
I was in for a wild ride, but goddammit if I didn’t forget about my foot.
60
SKEETER
Once the shitheel was out and Mr. Gene was picking through the bottom of his foot, which looked like a squashed grape, I skipped out to the porch to make my call.
I admit I sparked up too soon after the first hit. And I chugged at it extra hard trying to get Brent to go loopy so I was a little out of it when I called Corgan, but he needed to hear me out.
“I should be there to close the deal,” I said.
“Who the fuck is this?”
“Skeeter,” I said, a little hurt he didn’t know me by sound of voice.
