The Fix

by Steve Lowe

  “For what?”

  “For coming through tonight. I had you pegged from the start and you didn’t let me down.”

  Buster forced himself to lock in on Sonny, keep him in the center of his vision instead of rolling away. He was about to ask what Sonny meant by that when it struck him. “You didn’t bet on Ronnie.”

  “No, I did not.”

  “You never meant to bet on Ronnie, did you?”

  Sonny shook his head, smiled.

  “You had me set up from the beginning. Played me like a goddamn fool.”

  “I didn’t play you, Buster. I just knew you well enough to know what you would do. Call it intuition on my part, though I did also have experience on my side here, too. That’s a story for another day, though. They only thing I didn’t know is, who you fell in with to put up your bet. I’ll find that out soon enough, but I’ve got my ideas.”

  Buster laid his head on his shoulder again and closed his eyes. “Played me like the damn fool I am.” He laughed, thick and wet with blood and puke and phlegm.

  “If you were thinking clearly, you would have known your bet never would have gone through on its own. That’s the problem with this shit.” Sonny picked up the baggie, the last remaining bit of Buster’s dope. “Your mind is unclear when you use this. You make poorly informed decisions. You associate with the wrong crowd. It’s bad news.”

  Somewhere behind Buster, echoes from the end of a long, dark tunnel, a door banged shut. Sonny looked up at the office door, said, “Yes?” to someone there. A body passed into the room, a shadow crossed over Buster’s face. He looked up at Ricky, canted sideways with Buster’s head still across his shoulder. Ricky placed a leather bag on the desk and looked down at Buster.

  “You are one filthy fuckin’ nigger,” he said to Buster.

  Sonny handed the bucket across the desk to Ricky. “Do me a favor and fill that up again for me, would you?”

  Ricky grabbed the bucket without looking, kept his contemptible glare focused on Buster. Buster tried to spit on him but couldn’t tell where the projectile landed. Probably all over himself. Sonny tapped his boxing-gloved right hand and showed Buster the satchel, held it open for him to see the money inside.

  “There’s your winning bet, dog. This is as close as you’ll ever get to it.”

  Buster sneered and looked away at the wall. “But you ain’t gonna kill me?”

  “No, I am not going to kill you. But I assure you, your boxing days are over.”

  “What you gonna do then?”

  Sonny closed the satchel, set it on the floor behind the desk, returned his hand to the top of the upright wooden handle. “That’s what I need to talk to you about. You see, I’m trying to run a business here. I have ambitions, which go beyond the relatively low ceiling of boxing promotions. In fact, I’m moving away from that end of it altogether, mainly because I’m tired of dealing with this sort of thing. Your admittedly honorable attempt to circumvent my authority is a major issue for me. I informed some rather important investors and gaming enthusiasts that the outcome of your bout was known ahead of time and that they could place their wagers with the utmost confidence in me, that it was an ironclad certainty. And now their confidence in me is shaken, likely for good. At this moment, my own future is in question. I took that into consideration when I originally arranged this fight and decided that if I were to allow you to go ahead with your plans, I would be required afterword to make a grand showing on my investors’ behalf in an attempt to save face with them.”

  “You keeping my money, ain’t you?”

  Sonny laughed, said, “You’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?” Then his face was serious. “It never was your money, Buster. Your bet never goes through without me. The way the line moved right before the fight throws up red flags, but only for those not in on the fix. They don’t want to get caught with their thumbs up their collective asses, so their antennas are suddenly up, and then when your bet comes in five minutes before the fight, they notice it. They’re already looking, and this just stands out to them like a beacon in the dark. I knew who you were using and I was waiting for the call. Without my approval, the bet would have been rejected. I told them to let it go. That poses different problems, but those are uptown problems for me to deal with later.”

  Buster thought of the fight, right before the bell, Sonny on his cellphone. Knew the whole damn time. Just waiting for Buster to do what he knew from the get go Buster would do.

  “But the price for this is I keep the winnings. A nice little pile of cash, I might add. So the deed is done and it cannot be un. And as a result, another bill has come due and must be paid. Do you see?”

  Buster did, but didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Only thing he cared about was the price. He shrieked and jerked his head back when the bucket of freezing water rushed over him. Zapped him up out of his heroin murk a bit, but not much. He was still buzzing nicely, all the pain and despair from the night’s revelations remaining in the background. A concern for another day, not now. He didn’t even flinch when Sonny stood and hefted the sledgehammer off the floor.

  “The only thing I don’t know for sure is who backed you. Guy like you, Buster, doesn’t hatch this on his own. And as much of that shit you been flushing through your veins, I know you didn’t have the capital to lay down a bet like that yourself. The way I figure, you come back here, gather your affects, wait for your cash, even up with your backer, and then ride off into the sunset. Am I close?”

  Buster nodded.

  “And I suppose you aren’t going to just tell me who it is. Are you?”

  Buster said nothing, which Sonny took as affirmation.

  “That’s fine. I’ll know soon enough. We’ll just wait here for your friend to show and give him his payoff. Boy will he be surprised!”

  Ricky laughed, somewhere behind Buster.

  “But in the meantime, I’ll take from you what you owe me.”

  Ricky jumped on Buster, wrapped him up in a half-nelson, a heavy meathook under his right arm, snaked up behind his head. Ricky’s left arm shoved up under Buster’s chin, left hand grasping Buster’s bicep. Buster didn’t fight at first, the realization slow in coming. Swimming through the swamp of H in his brain.

  “Unfortunately, I’ve had to do this before,” Sonny said as he swung the sledge up and rested it across his shoulder. “I find it to be an effective display of what happens if someone conducts business with me in bad faith.”

  Sonny’s face contorted, scrunched into an animal snarl. He brought the sledge down hard and fast, mashed the clean red boxing glove and Buster’s hand inside. All the pain and torment languishing in the periphery of Buster’s mind exploded through the swamp behind his forehead in a nuclear blast of agony. Like his hand detonated inside the glove. He swooned, darkness around the edges of his vision. Felt like he was going to puke again, the pain so sudden and real.

  Sonny straightened and shouldered the sledge. Fixed his hair and mopped sweat from his upper lip with his jacket sleeve. “That’s what the last guy got. Most of the bones in his hands were crushed. He never boxed again. Can’t hardly use that hand for much anymore is what I hear. But he got the message. I thought everyone else did, too. But apparently, that wasn’t enough, because here I am, back in this same situation once more, having to teach the same lesson over again.”

  He stepped back and swung the sledgehammer a second time, harder. It rebounded off the metal desk, off Buster’s pulverized hand, nearly caught Sonny in the face. He said, “Whoa,” and smiled, but his eyes were on Ricky, not Buster. They shared a laugh, two workingmen appreciating the hazards of their profession. He loosened his tie and set the sledge down, pulled his jacket off and placed it on the back of his chair. Dark sweat rings stained the armpits of his expensive pink dress shirt. He unbuttoned the cuffs, pure white like the collar, and rolled them up his forearms.

  “I’m wondering now,” Sonny said, panting, “what will be enough.”

  He s
hrugged and grabbed the sledgehammer again, swung it with enraged violence, made sure to dodge the rebound this time. The pain reached and then passed full bloom. Buster was on the down side now, slipping toward blackout.

  “All those influential people who placed their trust in me and ended up losing money, they’ll want me to kill you, but what good would that do? Once you’re gone, everyone will forget. You’ll pass out of their memories, and then before you know it, someone will try it again, and what good was the lesson then?”

  Another heft, swing, smash. An audible splat from the glove, flatter now, its padding deflated. Bones inside just small pieces, ground to meal. Buster’s arm was nearly numb, a combination of the heroin and a lack of circulation caused by Ricky’s sleeper hold. A small mercy.

  “Clearly, my previous example hadn’t been adamant enough.”

  Sweat flew from Sonny’s forehead as he swung the sledgehammer again, smashed Buster’s right hand again. A crack bounced off the cheap paneling inside the office. Buster wondered if it was his hand breaking some more, or if the desk was giving way. He welcomed the darkness, wished it on quicker.

  “As you can see, I have chosen a bolder course of action this time.”

  Sonny swung the sledgehammer again and again and again, hammering Buster’s right hand until the glove was ruined and near to flat, the seams split and leaking blood. Sonny’s fine dress shirt was sprinkled with dark dots, a spray of crimson ink. More splotches on his face as well. He flung the sledgehammer away into wall where it smashed a hole in the paneling. He plopped down in the chair, spent. He watched Buster, panted, dripped sweat. Inspected the mess on the desk. Finally, Sonny looked at Ricky and nodded, tossed his chin toward the door.

  Ricky let Buster go and left the office. Buster slumped against his shoulder, numb like it was no longer attached to his body. He didn’t dare move his hand, if he even could. Tears streamed down his cheeks. Wished he would just pass out already, go away from that place, leave it behind.

  Ricky returned to the office, set something down on the floor next to Buster with a heavy clunk. Handed another implement across the desk to Sonny, who stood and took a deep breath. Smell of burning stronger. Buster wanted to look but couldn’t muster the strength to move his head. Ricky resumed his hold, but without the same intensity. Like he knew Buster was through.

  “I know you won’t want to hear this,” Sonny said, low and close to Buster’s ear. “But we’re not done yet. You will be an example for folks to point to for a long time to come, Tyrone.”

  Sonny stepped back and lined the axe up where Buster’s wrist met his hand. He rubbed a mark in the tape still there, lifted the axe high, brought it down slow, laid it on the mark. He lifted high again and brought it down hard. The head bit halfway through Buster’s wrist, stopped cold when it hit the top of the radius bone. The shattering of that bone awoke the nerves throughout Buster’s arm, the eruption of this new pain exceeding everything he just experienced. He screamed in agony for the first time, didn’t stop screaming as Sonny hefted and chopped and hefted and chopped. Four whacks with the axe before he finally made it through and buried the axe head in the desktop.

  Buster snapped back, tried to draw his ruined arm into his body, but Ricky gripped it between his hands and forced it down. Sonny stood at his side, the water bucket in hand, no longer filled with icy water, but with glowing, orange charcoals. Ricky held him down and Sonny drew the pail up. Blood streamed from Buster’s wrist, splashing and hissing into the coals.

  The darkness finally came and he was glad for it.

  A COUPLE WEEKS AGO

  Sims got into the car, made a show of himself, how hot it was outside. Fanned his face, red and sweaty.

  “Ray, how are things?”

  Nichols just nodded, didn’t say anything. Made him sick to even be sitting next to this asshole, let alone him using his first name. Like they’re friends.

  “So,” Sims said as he dabbed the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. “Let me guess. You don’t have the money.”

  “Yet. I will.” Soon as he said it, Nichols wished he hadn’t. That’s what every fucking deadbeat in history says, one time or another. It’s what he got for laying money on the Brewers and that piece of shit Braun.

  “Right, right. No, I understand, trust me.”

  Smug son of a bitch. Nichols wanted to just plug him right there and leave town. Don’t give the guy the satisfaction of putting him through the ringer like this. Use the .25 strapped to his ankle. Belonged to a dead Haitian who tried to rob a liquor store in Little Italy and walked out with a twelve-gauge hole blown through him. Stupid little fuck didn’t even get it out of his pocket before the shop owner blasted him. The .25 never showed up in Nichols’ report. He could pull it out, stick it in this prick’s ear, angle it toward the roof so the bullet didn’t come out the other ear. Scramble his brains for him, shove him out the door down some alley.

  He didn’t. Just daydreaming.

  “Look, don’t give me this shit,” Nichols said. “I’m not one of your goddamn deadbeats, alright? You’ll have it. I just need a couple more days.”

  Sims nodded. He said, “That’s fine. You pay me when you can. It’s a lot of money.”

  Twisting the knife a little more. Digging it in. Nichols waited for him to get out, but Sims just kept nodding, staring out the windshield at the dark-haired kids throwing a tennis ball back and forth across the street, over the tops of the passing cars.

  “Something else?”

  “Yeah, one more thing.” Sims opened his door, stuck one foot out onto the sidewalk, leaned closer to Nichols. “Should something… unforeseen happen, a package will show up at your precinct. There’s some stuff inside that package. Well, copies of stuff actually, no originals. You know, receipts, maybe some photographs. You follow?”

  Nichols watched a chubby Hispanic kid throw the ball, skip it off the roof of a passing Hyundai. “I follow.”

  “My nephew, the alderman, he’ll make sure it gets where it needs to go.”

  Sims got out, shut the door. Stood on the sidewalk and waved at Nichols as he drove off. The tennis ball smacked into the passenger window as he drove by, but he kept going. He didn’t even look at the fat kid.

  Ten minutes later, he was sitting under a low-hanging tree, watching the back stairs of a crumbling two-story walkup in West Woodlawn. While he waited, he thought about Sims. The way the prick thought he could just casually threaten him like that. Getting Sims his money would not be a problem. Nichols wasn’t even the slightest bit concerned about that. He was concerned with the alderman, though. That little shitheel, if he really did have copies of everything, gambling receipts and the like, would be a major issue.

  Nichols grabbed his camera, a Nikon N70 SLR, used but still in great shape, out of a bag behind the driver’s seat. He still used 35mm, mainly because he preferred the old fashioned way of doing things, but also because he learned to like the smell of the fixer. He appreciated the act of bringing a photo to life. He loved he technical side of real photography, knowing the how and not just the what.

  Nichols enjoyed a good darkroom.

  The guy he was waiting for showed up. Tall, broad, pale, the guy looked like a glow stick in this neighborhood. The dude glanced around quick before he took the stairs two at a time. Banged on a door covered in peeling green paint and a black guy answered, smiled and slapped him five, some ghetto handshake. He let the white guy in.

  Nichols watched the lone window on the back of the house through a telescopic lens. He sat in the sticky stillness of the Caprice and smoked cigarettes and drank Diet Sprite and waited another fifteen minutes for the sun to go all the way down. When dusk was finally giving way to dark, he removed the big lens, slung the camera over his shoulder and walked across the street. The yard behind the building had a fence, but the rear stretch was gone, whatever the scrappers moving up and down the alleys could yank away from it as they cruised by. Same reason none of the garages that lined the
alley had aluminum siding anymore.

  Nichols waited at the bottom of the back steps and looked around the corner. Thunder cracked close by, a summer pop-up storm flaring overhead. That would keep the bangers off the streets for a while, leave Nichols to do his work in peace. Thankful for small miracles, he made his way up the steps. Music thumped in the upstairs apartment. The party had started.

  He watched through the grease-streaked window, the two guys, one white, one black, leaned over a kitchen table, sucking coke into their faces, one line at a time. Heads bobbing to the music, Otis Redding. At least they had taste. The white guy leaned back, wiped at his nose, drained a Miller High Life. The black guy did the same then reached down and undid his pants. Let them slip down to his ankles. The white guy smiled and slid off his chair, onto his knees.

  Nichols brought the camera up to the window, made sure the flash was off. He snapped away and was heading for his car five minutes later, just as the rain began to slap against the sidewalk. He figured he had almost two dozen clear shots of Ricky with some jigaboo’s big, black dick in his mouth. Getting Sims his fucking money would be no trouble at all.

  PART II:

  OLD FRIENDS,

  BAD PENNIES

  Jimmy ignored the clock, just kept nailing. Stare at the clock too much and time slows down. So does your output. Can’t make money on piece rate by watching the clock. He laid out the next piece of trim, double-checked that the cut lined up right in the corner, and slammed in the first nail. It took him about a week to get comfortable with the heft of the pneumatic finish nailer in his left hand, but his rates were already creeping up close to some of the senior production employees’ numbers. They noticed that, too.

  He didn’t talk to anyone without first being talked to. Anti-social? Maybe. He preferred to keep his head down, keep focused on his job and his purpose for even being there. The more focused he was, the fewer mistakes he made, and on that job, every nail he shot came out of his paycheck. Every piece of trim that the assholes from QC pried off was a hit on his bottom line. The ones who talked a lot were the ones who took home less and bitched their lives away about it. Jimmy needed money, not friends. He’d had his fill of those.