The Deadly Kiss-Off

by Paul Di Filippo

  Nellie had joined me in the front room. “Ai, mamãe, what’s all this barudju?”

  “Stan’s down there,” I said. “With a truck.”

  Nellie squealed in glee. “What are you waiting for? Mas dipresa!”

  We hurried out to Stan, who stood proudly in his Carhartt uniform—though I noticed that neither the sides of the truck nor the breast of his jacket bore any company’s name or logo. He looked beefier, more like his old self, as if he had been eating better lately. A nice new cell phone protruded from the shirt pocket. Nellie, seeing her former coconspirator for the first time in months, wrapped herself around him like a liana around a giant mahogany tree. He didn’t seem to mind. I could only imagine how much a man of his generously randy nature was missing Sandralene.

  “Have you actually gotten a real job?” I said after Nellie had undraped herself and begun climbing enthusiastically and admiringly through the cab on a self-guided tour.

  Stan dropped his voice. “Well, in a manner of speaking. Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk with you about. I can use your help. You’d make a cool two thousand for about forty-eight hours’ work. Interested?”

  I thought again about how fast our little importing enterprise was leaking money, as well as the general costs of living without a real income. “Yeah, that sounds like decent pay,” I said. “But remember, I used to bill two hundred an hour as a lawyer.”

  “Yeah. And remind me, how much are disbarred lawyers billing these days?”

  “You have hit upon a true income-limiting issue,” I said. “So, what’s involved?”

  “I can’t tell you here. I don’t think you want Nellie knowing anything about this job. So we gotta take a little ride.”

  Nellie emerged from the cab. “Very, very bunitu, Stan. Is it yours? You buy it? Or maybe lease it?”

  “Naw, I got no dough to do that. Glen told you how I went broke, right? The rig belongs to my, ah, employer. I’m just a hired driver. But it’s a start.”

  “Well, I am so proud of you, Stan. I knew you would get back on your feet fast. You are a man of much koráji.”

  “Much courage, huh? Thanks.”

  Nellie had come innocently into our lives on the assumption that she was going to teach us her native Caboverdean language, easing us into our nonextraditable retirement in those paradisiacal islands. I had never learned that much of the creole, although I had certainly picked up additional key vocabulary, most of it filthy, from living together, and was mildly surprised at Stan’s comprehension.

  “It is only the truth, Stan.”

  “Thanks, Nell. When I get rich enough to support two women, I will definitely keep you in mind as Sandy’s pinch hitter.”

  Nellie thumped Stan on the chest with her small fist. “Ai, you buru! You know it’s only Glen for me.”

  “The offer still stands.”

  After showing Nellie and me the spotless empty interior of the trailer, Stan said, “Girl, you mind if I take your man for a little ride?”

  “Can’t I come, too?”

  “Well, everyone’s got to be belted safely in, and there’s only room for one more up front besides me. You don’t want me to get a violation on my spanking-new commercial driver’s license, do you?”

  “No way!”

  “Okay, then, I’ll take you next.”

  Stan vaulted easily behind the wheel while I clambered more awkwardly into my seat. Leaning out his window, Stan said, “We might be a little while. I want to get out on the highway and show Glen how smooth a ride this mother gives at cruising speed.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Stan went through his preflight ritual with reassuring confidence, then shifted into gear and pulled smoothly away from the condo lot.

  “How the hell did you learn to drive something this size?” I said. “You never knew how before we met, did you?”

  “Nope. Four-week course since the last time we saw each other. Instructor said I was a natural.”

  “And who paid for that?”

  “Gunther and company.”

  “And they own the truck, too?”

  “Natch.”

  “So I take it this job involves Gunther’s trade in counterfeit goods?”

  “A-yup.”

  We came to a zebra crossing where a bearded hipster was lollygagging as he studied his cell phone. Stan cut loose with a burst of air horn that made the guy jump and twist and spasm so violently, he actually lost one of his Tevas. Retrieving his shoe, the abused fellow scampered off.

  “So,” I said, “what’s the deal?”

  “I think I’ll let Gunther tell you.”

  Of course, we did not get on the highway at all but merely drove surface streets to the warehouse in La Punta. Given the full-to-capacity parking on adjacent streets, the parking spots in front of the warehouse were unnaturally empty, as if the locals knew better than to use them. Stan parked curbside, taking up a good third of the block, and we entered the dimly lit warehouse.

  An office space of sorts had been constructed at the back of the building by erecting three plywood walls against the rear wall of the warehouse. The resulting cubicle was just slightly higher than Stan’s head. Inside the enclosure, under a bare bulb dangling at the end of a long red utility extension cord, Gunther sat behind a folding table topped with various papers and a sample handbag or two. A battered metal cabinet with double doors occupied one corner. A several-year-old calendar from Lowrider magazine, featuring a mostly naked and very callipygian model, graced the back of the makeshift plywood door.

  The unprepossessing and clerkish Gunther nodded a curt greeting to us.

  “Stan fill you in?”

  Stan intervened. “I thought I’d let you do that, Gunther.”

  “Okay, here’s the story. We make regular runs to bring goods from transshipment points up to the city for sale. Our usual driver can’t do any more trips, so we’re trying out Stan, whom we have groomed for the job. I think he’ll perform good. He’s getting ten thousand per run, so that is some major incentive. We are also trying something new this time. We want to send someone to ride shotgun with Stan. That guy will get two thousand.”

  “I can’t help Stan with the driving.”

  Gunther sighed—a mix of pity and despair, as if I were his wife, Alice, doing something particularly boneheaded. “I didn’t say anything about driving, did I? I said ‘ride shotgun.’”

  I was about to remark that just keeping Stan company and maybe helping him stay awake at 3:00 a.m. did not seem to merit my fee, when Stan opened the metal cabinet and got out a long cloth-swaddled object. He unwrapped the thing and handed it to me.

  I looked unbelievingly at the alien object in my hands. “This is a literal shotgun.”

  Gunther rolled his eyes. “Do I hafta draw you a diagram?”

  I looked to Stan. “The guy you’re replacing?”

  “He didn’t have one of these, or a guy to use it, when he needed them.”

  8

  The shotgun that Stan had dumped in my lap was a classic Mossberg 500. I had handled this model many times, during my outings with some lawyer buddies who had a thing for skeet shooting. The fad, mostly an excuse for impressing women and engaging in postcompetitive drinking, lasted among us for roughly six months—about as long as the manufactured crazes for blacksmithing, artisanal brewing, and taxidermy. But during my brief tenure as a sportsman, I had gotten semiproficient with the Mossberg. My scores were never very high, but at least the sound of the gun going off did not cause me to drop the weapon, as it had the first time I fired it.

  But I did not tell Stan or Gunther any of this. Instead, I just said, “Okay, I’m on board.”

  “Great,” said Gunther, with his customary lack of enthusiasm. “Stan will let you know when the first run is.”

  Stan took the gun back, rewrapped i
t, and stuck it in the cabinet. “Best to leave this here for now,” he said. “It’s not exactly street legal. We’ll try to get you a chance to practice a little with it later.”

  We left our dumpy traffic dispatcher to contemplate the charms of Ms. September’s bounteous tush. Loyal as he was to the declining Alice, Gunther could still dream.

  Back in the truck’s cab and pulling away from the curb, Stan said, “I really appreciate you signing up for this job, Glen. I need somebody along who knows me and who I know I can count on in a pinch. I still remember you didn’t lose your nerve against Nancarrow and his goons.”

  “I hardly saved the day then.”

  “Maybe not. But you didn’t panic at a gun aimed your way, and that’s what counts.”

  “I appreciate your confidence,” I said. “But I’ve got to tell you right now, there’s no way I am going to fire a round at another living human being.”

  “Aw, it won’t come to that. It’s just for show and some intimidation.”

  “Well, then, what happened to your predecessor?”

  Stan rolled his eyes. “He was just plain stupid. He was riding solo and he stopped at a nowheresville roadhouse along the way, got slightly sozzled, and started boasting about what he was carrying. The guys who hijacked him were a little too liberal in their application of a tire iron to his skull. Otherwise, he woulda recovered fine and still been on the job. But we are not going to make any such fuckwitted mistakes. We’ll arrow down to get the goods, then zip right back here, stopping only at heavily frequented Triple-A-approved gas-and-gulps, where we will employ the buddy system even to take a piss. This is gonna be the easiest dough you ever made, son.”

  I had to stare out the window for a few seconds before responding. “So is this the big score you had in mind that you thought we could share? Because although the money is somewhat decent—especially your share—it is not exactly what I would call beaucoup bucks. It’s more like having a normal job—a lifestyle for which both you and I have expressed our well-considered disdain. Also, in this endeavor, your chances of apprehension and disaster increase with every run, whereas a one-off scam, I think, offers odds a little more in our favor, assuming we are careful and competent.”

  Stan made a dismissive raspberry sound. “No way is this gig the major move I want or imagined, Glen. No, that is yet to come. I’ve got some feelers out that I can’t talk about right now. Meanwhile, this trucker drudgery is gonna put some cash in my bank account that I can invest in our eventual scheme. You didn’t think I was gonna ask you to front the lion’s share again like last time, did you? Also, I will have some dough to use in going and getting Sandralene back, and to support her once she’s here, in a style that goddamn Caleb Stinchcombe, fuck his hairy ass, would never even be able to approximate even if he sold his prize mule.”

  “I really don’t think Sandy is staying away because you’re not buying her silk stockings and taking her to four-star restaurants, Stan.”

  “Nah, me neither. But I don’t want to bring her back here to that sty I’m living in now. There’s so many rats there, they have to hump in shifts. Anyhow, now that our parole is up, we are free to go get my woman!”

  Stan tugged the horn’s lanyard long enough to rupture every eardrum within a hundred yards of the rolling truck.

  “Hey, if you get a cop issuing us a noise citation, that’s not gonna be a good omen for this trip.”

  “Let ’em try! I’ll just say I was trying to get the attention of some bugger who was texting and driving.”

  We were approaching the parking lot of my condo. I could see Nellie still outside, waiting patiently for her turn to ride with Stan. I experienced an instant unease and sense of guilt at having to keep this mission a secret from her. But I tamped it down with the thought that she would appreciate as much as I would the extra freedom this money would bring us.

  I climbed out of the parked truck and held the door open for Nellie.

  “Gas, grass, or ass—nobody rides for free,” Stan declared. Nellie just giggled, and it suddenly struck me how much younger she was than Stan and I, and how much less jaded and coarsened by life. I blessed the luck that had brought us together, and, as she motored off with Stan, vowed not to do anything that might ruin her childlike faith.

  * * *

  The next time Stan called me was four days later. I was braced for the start of our run, but he only wanted me to come and practice with the shotgun. We couldn’t bring the illegal weapon to a public range, of course, so I drove us way the hell out into the boonies, to a parcel of land that, just a few weeks ago, had been legally open for May’s spring turkey season. Now, in mid-June, it was technically closed. But enough poachers still ignored the rules that I figured any shots would not arouse much comment or suspicion. Locals were leery of summoning the authorities, anyhow. Certainly, we would attract less attention here than elsewhere.

  We drove down a dirt road that dead-ended at the edge of a large overgrown glade, and parked. The day was warm and sunny. Birds serenaded us.

  Stan took out the gun and some shells. “Here, let me show you how—”

  I took the Mossberg from him, checked to make sure it was unloaded. Putting in the nine shells of its capacity, I brought it to my shoulder, flicked off the safety atop the gun with my thumb, then pumped off nine shots that shattered to shreds an innocent, doomed sapling some hundred feet away.

  Stan’s jaw made contact with his clavicle. This was the only time I had seen him thus gobsmacked.

  When he regained the power of speech, he said, “Why the hell did we even come out here?”

  “Just to see that expression on your face.”

  “You sly bastard.”

  I had prepped Nellie for my upcoming absence by saying that Stan and I intended to go camping—a real guys’ bonding expedition. I was going to make it sound as if we might even start a drum circle. But as it turned out, I never even had to use that excuse. Two calls came in nearly simultaneously. One was for Nellie, about a crisis at the pudding factory, which was on the island of Santiago. She must fly out immediately.

  The other call was for me, from Stan.

  “We are ready to roll.”

  9

  We had been driving for nearly ten hours and were past the outskirts of Detroit. I had heard enough inane talk radio to catch up on all the latest conspiracy theories, my butt was numb, and my tongue had a patented fast-food coating that approached Varathane for impenetrability. I had endured an endless stream of shaggy-dog stories from Stan—mostly true anecdotes of his wildly miscellaneous criminal doings, some going back to childhood. Many of these tall tales had been hilarious, some heartbreaking, and all of them narrated with his signature untutored flair for storytelling. In turn, I had supplied anecdotes from my own less colorful past.

  This exchange was the deepest communication we had shared in all the time we had known each other. Stan stood revealed to me now, even more so than before, as a complex bundle of honor and chicanery, wisdom and folly, cunning and openness. At the halfway point of this road trip, I felt a deeper rapport than ever with my coconspirator. I hoped Stan felt the same with me. We had only each other to rely on.

  Stan’s new smartphone was emplaced in its plastic mount on the dash, guiding us over the busy surface roads toward our rendezvous. For inconspicuous easy access, the shotgun was hidden under the mattress of the comfy bunk just behind our shoulders. The slick, high-tech interior of our Peterbilt Model 587 resembled some 1950s Popular Science dream of a passenger cabin on the Cunard route to Mars.

  I wished I could stretch out on that inviting mattress and grab a few winks. But I knew that Stan’s boundless energy—he showed no real signs of fatigue after all the tedious yet demanding driving—would serve as a silent reproach to my wussiness. And besides, the time to nap would have been earlier, not now when we were almost at our destination.

 
The hour was approaching 6:00 p.m. Other cities would be jammed with commuter traffic at this hour, but not Detroit—or at least, not this particular part of the city. So hollowed-out had the city become that vast stretches of it resembled the time-blasted ruins of some dead civilization.

  We had entered the city on Route 75, then branched off onto a different highway, finally taking an exit for West Davison Street. Our ultimate destination was 3033 Bourke Avenue.

  I thought about Nellie, thousands of miles away across the Atlantic, and wished I were home with her. Stan had gone quiet, and I imagined him to be daydreaming something similar about Sandralene.

  We picked up Bourke at last, and I began to suss out the neighborhood. Hardly any retail, just a scattered handful of small, modest houses with a few sheltering trees, each estate isolated on a checkerboard of weedy lots that had once held similar homes until they went vacant, got foreclosed and boarded up, or succumbed to weather and looters before finally being razed. In the warm early-June evening, brown kids played gleefully up and down the lawns and lots, seemingly unaware of the squalor and hopelessness all around them. They took little notice of our big truck—a fact explainable by the presence of several low industrial buildings consorting cheek by jowl with the houses.

  Bourke Avenue terminated in a grassy cul-de-sac with a chain-link fence demarcating the big empty parking lot on its far side. Arriviste junk trees, promiscuous flowers, and shrubs gone wild added a feral touch to the urban locale.

  The building that bore the stenciled label 3033 bourke was painted a sky blue that had weathered in patches to the shade of Paul Newman’s eyes. A sprawling single-story structure filling a whole square block, it featured rusty barred windows obscured from within by a hodgepodge of venetian blinds, sheets of cardboard, and repurposed laminated lawn signs for real estate agents, politicians, car washes, and church bazaars.

  Stan retrieved his phone from its mount, then climbed down from the cab. So did I. We both stretched.

  “I feel mildly but unpleasantly numb and sore,” I said, “like someone’s been thumping me with a Nerf bat for ten hours straight.”