The Deadly Kiss-Off

by Paul Di Filippo

  “Are you dissing the comfort of the Peterbilt Five-Eighty-Seven seats?” Stan replied. “Because if so, I’m going to have to report you to my union.”

  As we walked to the entrance, I said, “Why Detroit? Why not just get the stuff delivered directly to us?”

  “Most of these knockoffs come from China and into Vancouver. Ottawa rolls over for these guys. The authorities just don’t seem to care. Over seven hundred billion dollars in traffic might explain some of their attitude. Then the stuff gets hauled by truck across the Rockies and, finally, over the border to Detroit, which is nice and central for further distribution. Also, this city needs any kind of commerce so bad, they ignore blatant illegal shit almost as hard as the Canucks.”

  “The Good Neighbor policy in action,” I said.

  “Something like that.”

  The building had a flaking black-painted office door at the head of two concrete steps. Stan climbed up ahead of me and knocked. While we waited, he scrolled up a photo on his phone.

  “This is the guy who’s supposed to meet us. Name’s Nestor Jassruddin.”

  Jassruddin’s candid head shot revealed a hawkish young face of indeterminate ancestry, with skin somewhat darker than Stan’s or mine.

  As I contemplated the image, the door’s locks and chains rattled; it opened, and the man himself stood there. His slim form was clothed in a baggy plain white T-shirt, denim cargo shorts, and expensive and colorful limited-edition Nike LeBrons without socks. He appeared to recognize us.

  “You guys are early.”

  “Yeah,” Stan said. “We made good time.”

  “The loading crew isn’t here yet. You shoulda texted me.”

  “I tried, but you never texted back.”

  Jassruddin dug out his phone, studied it, then inexplicably dashed it to pieces on the concrete floor.

  “Fucking battery on this cheap-ass thing! Won’t stay charged for shit!”

  “Well, not now, it sure won’t,” Stan observed.

  “It’s just a burner, so screw it. Okay, here’s the deal. Get the truck around to bay number one, then come inside to wait.”

  Jassruddin retreated behind the closed door, and we returned to the truck.

  “Backing up is one thing I don’t do with my usual finesse and savoir faire,” Stan confessed. “You’re gonna have to spot me.”

  “Finally, I feel like I’m earning my money!”

  Between the two of us, with much halting and repositioning, we got the truck out of the cul-de-sac and rear-ended against the ragged bumper at the designated bay. The big door rolled up, and Jassruddin hailed us inside.

  “Wanna play some poker while we wait?”

  “Sure,” Stan said, and not wanting to appear standoffish, I nodded.

  The way toward a lighted office led past towering stacks of cartons.

  “This our stuff?” Stan asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Mind if I have a look?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Stan slit open a carton with the penknife on his key chain. I got ready to see some exotic luxury item, but instead he pulled out a can of baby formula with the familiar Similac label.

  “What the hell?” I said.

  Stan rotated the can admiringly. “Nearly forty bucks retail for the forty-ounce. Twelve to a carton, five hundred or more cartons per trailer. You do the math.”

  “Holy Christ, that’s a quarter million dollars for one trip! No wonder they can pay you ten grand.”

  “It’s not all profit, though,” Stan said. “This stuff must cost the Chinese at least a couple of bucks a can to make.”

  I had a twinge of guilt. “Is it any good?”

  “Well, it’s not poison. True, it might not have a hundred percent of what it says on the label. But with modern levels of obesity, you don’t want kids getting too fat too soon, do you?”

  I shook my head in disbelief, trying my best to morally rationalize my involvement in this scheme as a case of “if not me, then someone else.” This fake formula had been flowing for a long time, and no one had died or even gotten sick, although maybe they hadn’t quite spurted up to national-average growth levels at their yearly checkups. But maybe a lot of poor households had been able to buy nourishment, albeit of an inferior grade, that they couldn’t otherwise afford. I figured I could live with it, seeing as how my involvement was temporary.

  We had time for just four hands of poker, during which Jassruddin and I lost about a hundred apiece to Stan, before the moving crew showed up: three easygoing, muscular, jokey young black guys eager for a night’s under-the-table pay. They started hoisting the unpalletized cartons with a will, and in just a tad over one sweaty hour, they had nearly filled the forty-five-foot trailer with over six hundred cartons.

  Stan signed some paperwork, and we said goodbye to Jassruddin and the three guys resting on bales and drinking cold beers, then got back in the cab.

  By now the sun was going down, and the air felt cooler. The neighborhood looked a little sketchier in the twilight. The playing children had all gone inside, probably so they wouldn’t get shot.

  “You’re not going to start the drive back now, are you?” I said.

  “Yeah, why not? I just wanna get out of the city a ways, to feel like we’re making progress. Then we’ll find a rest stop and pull over for a nap.”

  “Who gets the bunk?”

  Stan grinned. “You remember who was top dog in our sleeping arrangements in that crappy old Impala of your uncle’s, when you me and Sandralene first arrived at the lodge?”

  “I hope the shotgun under the mattress is a real princess-and-the-pea situation for you the whole damn night.”

  10

  Over three hours of hard nighttime driving brought us to the Brady’s Leap Service Plaza on I-80, not too far from Youngstown. Neither of us had had much of anything to say during the run, although I did broach one topic with Stan—something that had been bothering me ever since the loading of the truck was finished.

  “Is that real Similac in those cans?”

  “No. It’s real fake Similac.”

  “It’s not cocaine or fentanyl or smack?”

  “Are you fucking insane? There’s like six fucktons of powder back there. I don’t think all of South America makes that much coke in a year. Besides, why should Gunther and company get their hands dirty that way when there’s plenty of money in fakes? And if you get caught, the penalties for selling this harmless stuff are a slap on the wrist compared to what you get for moving dope. And besides, you think I’d be part of such a killer enterprise after going to so much trouble to kick the stuff? No, my man, this is not any kinda Midnight Express–style shit, so you can rest easy.”

  “All right, then. My conscience can go back to sleep.”

  Sleep. That sounded good. By this hour, closing in on midnight, both Stan and I had been awake for over twenty-four hours, and I certainly had to crash. I couldn’t imagine Stan wasn’t whipped, too. But first, toilet and grub, in that order.

  Outside the truck, I made all my bones pop and creak with stretching. Stan locked up, and we ambled like two aged war veterans over to the main building. Circular and domed and futuristic, blooming with radiance in the insect-plangent night, it resembled a docked flying saucer. Three flags hung limp from their tall poles in the hot, still air.

  Leaving the john, my face wet from a cold-water spritzing (try drying your face with one of those Dyson Airblades), I felt almost human. We surveyed our limited food choices and settled on the PZA franchise. Stan demolished two meatball subs, and I wolfed down a sausage calzone. Stan favored Mountain Dew, and I had a Coke.

  Back at the truck, Stan kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the bunk as far as his long legs allowed. I reclined my comfy seat, and was gone before I could even say, “Now I lay me down to sleep …”<
br />
  Someone was shaking me after what seemed like just a few minutes of blessed unconsciousness. Stan crouched between the two seats.

  “Time to get rolling again, son.”

  “How long did we sleep?”

  “Three hours. That’s plenty. Here, have a pill.”

  I knew that Stan occasionally used uppers, and his supply had helped us out before, during our earlier conspiracy. I took one and washed it down with my warm leftover soda.

  “I gotta piss one more time,” he said.

  “I’ll come, too.”

  In the men’s room, the guy at the adjacent urinal, plainly another noble beer-bellied knight of the road, spoke to Stan without prompting.

  “Haven’t seen you boys around before.”

  “No, cousin. Just got this run.”

  “Thought so. Well, figured you should know. The weigh station on I-80 outside Clarion, PA, is operating tonight.”

  “Thanks muchly.”

  As we walked back to the truck, I said, “What’s that news mean for us?”

  “Means we are getting off the highway before Clarion. I don’t want no government boys poking around our goods. Chances are, we could get by, but maybe not. So why risk it?”

  Back on the freeway, I could feel the drug taking hold and my remnant fatigue burning off. We drove for an hour or so before I noticed Stan paying more attention to his side mirror than the traffic warranted.

  “What’s up?”

  “Could be someone’s following us. Maybe laying up at the stop wasn’t the best idea—might’ve allowed news of our cargo and route to circulate.”

  “What can we do about it?”

  “Well, they ain’t gonna try nothing on the expressway. And even when we get off, so long as we keep rolling there’s no way they can stop us. And after our detour around the trucker fuckers, we’ll be back safe on the highway again.”

  “Maybe it’d be smarter to risk the weigh station.”

  “Naw, getting off the freeway’s the best idea. Anyone following us will stick out like a hipster at a 4-H Club.”

  Despite Stan’s reassuring words, I began to check and recheck the reassuring presence of the shotgun under the mattress, my nerves amphetamine-taut.

  “For Christ’s sake, will you quit that! If you need your bazooka, I’ll tell ya!”

  We got off I-80 onto I-79, heading south toward Pittsburgh.

  “Anyone following us?”

  “Hard to tell.”

  Stan was fiddling with the directions app on his phone, and soon we left the superhighway behind for a succession of smaller roads.

  The next time I could make out a route marker caught in our headlights, it claimed we were on PA-68. The narrow two-lane semirural road took us past scattered darkened homes and long stretches of emptiness, where either fields or scrub forest bordered the pavement. At this hour, there was not another vehicle on the unlighted highway, and I began to relax.

  Until we came around a corner and I saw a pair of police cars, about two hundred yards away, their dome lights flashing, parked to block the road.

  “I guess this is it, Stan,” I said. “Should I toss the gun out the window now?”

  Stan’s answer was to tromp down on the accelerator, and we surged from forty-five to sixty.

  “What the hell are you doing!” I gasped.

  “Those are not real cops. A barricade in the middle of nowhere at four a.m.? Fuck me if it’s real!”

  “Maybe they’re looking for escaped prisoners or drunk drivers, or something!”

  “I say they’re fakes. Roll down your window and get your gun ready.”

  Not seeing much recourse, I did as I was instructed. The damp loam-fragrant air rushed into the cab.

  I could see several men standing alongside the “police” cars, in full expectation that we would do the sensible thing and stop, but in the dark and at this speed, I couldn’t tell whether they were even wearing uniforms.

  The land on the left-hand side of PA-68 at this stretch was a grassy field. Stan dropped the wheels on his side of the tractor onto the field. The cab dipped and swayed, and I was sure we were going over. The left wheels of the trailer followed onto the grass, and we steadied somewhat. Stan sped up, with half our wheels on pavement and half biting through the turf.

  Realizing we weren’t going to stop, the “cops” began shooting at us. Bullets zinged into our cowling but, luckily, missed the windshield.

  I got the shotgun’s barrel braced on my windowsill, but the truck was bucking so wildly I couldn’t aim.

  “Let ’em have it!”

  I pulled the trigger as the truck jounced around like college students screwing on a waterbed, and the shot went wild. I fired twice more.

  And then Stan clipped the front bumper of one of the parked cars.

  For all the noise of rending metal and shattering safety glass, our massive truck hardly slowed. The struck car seemed to rear upward and around like Trigger in an action photo op.

  Then we were past the barrier, and Stan had wrestled the truck and trailer fully back onto the pavement. We zoomed away at top speed.

  “Okay, now,” he said, “if no fresh reinforcement cops intercept us farther on, you’ll know I was right.”

  “Do you think I hit anyone with my shots?”

  “Ha! You did more damage to us. Look at that fucking mirror.”

  The mirror on my side hung in shreds from its wiring. The sight was so absurd and pathetic, I started giggling like a lunatic, and Stan joined in.

  “If Gunther wants us to pay for that repair, it’s coming out of your share, Glen, my man.”

  “Just so long as you pay for what is undoubtedly one truly messed-up paint job and grill.”

  We got back on I-80 eventually, with no further interference from police, real or bogus. Stan refrained from rubbing in the rightness of his decision.

  “What do you think would’ve happened to us back there if we had stopped?” I said.

  “Best case, a long walk. Worst case, a long, long dirt nap.”

  At that moment, a wave of deep fatigue and enervation swamped me, leaving me feeling like a pit bull’s chew toy. It took the rest of the ride for me to recover any semblance of energy or normality.

  We pulled up to Gunther’s warehouse in La Punta around 10:00 a.m. We had been gone about thirty hours, though it seemed like a month.

  Gunther greeted us in his cubicle office. “Any trouble?”

  “Not that we couldn’t handle.”

  “Good, good. The starving infants of our fair city are in your debt. And just so I won’t be, here’s your cash.”

  I took my two grand gratefully, and we left Gunther to arrange the unloading of the truck. We said nothing about the damage.

  Out on the street, Stan said, “I am gonna eat a large steak and some home fries for breakfast. Then maybe a piece of blueberry pie. Come with?”

  “Sure.”

  When we had finished our meal and sat sipping our fourth cup of coffee, Stan said, “Do it again soon?”

  Sitting there with a wad of cash in my pocket, I thought about the whole trip, the tedium and panic combined, and how I could just have sat at home counting my pennies of interest as they accumulated.

  “Hell, yeah!”

  PART TWO

  11

  Over the next three months, Stan and I did six more runs together, none of them involving any further deadly interference from mysterious road pirates. The rituals and rhythms of our Detroit jaunts became almost placid and predictable. The roadside plazas and other landmarks of Interstate 80 began to feel as familiar as my childhood backyard, and my share of the ongoing poker losses that Nestor and I forked over to Stan could have been included in my monthly budget as fixed expenses. I was afraid my handsome shotgun would rust from disuse or tha
t my position as stagecoach guard would, strictissimi juris, be deemed supererogatory. (Every now and then, my long-gone tenure as a sleazy lawyer popped words and ways of looking at things into the forefront of my mind. I nearly always succeeded in clubbing them down.) But Gunther kept wanting me to accompany Stan, and I was not averse.

  One day, sitting in the Inn at Turkey Hill—a Pennsylvania spot that we favored mainly because they brewed several nice lagers and ales—Stan and I sat savoring the remnants of our meal before hitting the highway again.

  “What do you think scared off the hijackers?” I asked Stan.

  “Probably Gunther’s connections.”

  “His connections?”

  “What’re you, a schoolkid or something? I thought you were a savvy guy. You figure that Gunther, who lives in a La Punta chicken coop with his skipping-a-groove wife who he can’t even afford a babysitter for, and who dresses like he shops exclusively at Aunt Sally’s, is fronting all the money for this operation and masterminding the whole thing? He’s just middle management. He’s running it for someone else.”

  “Who would that be?”

  “Vin Santo is my best guess.”

  The waitress came by, looking to tactfully dislodge our butts for new paying customers, but Stan placated her by ordering another Barn Dance Blonde Ale. A couple of pints never seemed to impede his driving, though it tended to make me drowsy.

  I recounted my brush with the mobster late last year, not long before Stan and I reconnected.

  “Oh, so Santo thought you were hot stuff, huh? Maybe that’s why you’re being kept on despite not doing anything more than filling my tractor cab with warm farts.”

  “At least half the flatulence may have something to do with your sudden mania for an exclusive diet of Taco Bell bean burritos.”

  “Aw, c’mon, you know I was just joking. I totally rely on your confidence-inspiring presence. I never in my life felt so safe from rogue side-view mirrors.”

  “If you hadn’t mistaken an eighteen-wheeler for an off-road ATV, I might’ve been able to aim better.”