Take-Out

by Rob Hart

  He must have gotten the idea, because once again I’m against the wall, the knife back to my throat. He’s so close that when he speaks, flecks of spit slap me on the face.

  “Forty thousand dollars,” he says. “That’s what that key is worth.”

  “We can get it,” I tell him. “It might still be there…”

  He presses the blade harder into my neck. I feel something hot that might be blood.

  A trickle running down my skin.

  Yes, that would be blood.

  “She thinks she knows where it happened,” I say.

  T. Rex stares at me a little more and I think I feel an increase of pressure on the blade. Wonder how much it hurts when someone cuts your throat. Death looks quick in the movies, but those are just movies.

  Then he backs away.

  “Go,” he says. “Your brother stays until you get back.”

  Richie looks at me with pleading eyes. There are few guarantees in this world, but I know if I agree to this, Richie is dead. Because even if T. Rex has the best of intentions right now, which I doubt he does, Richie has an incredible talent for taking good intentions and turning them the other way.

  “I need him. We’re better working together.”

  T. Rex sighs. “Fine. Take him. But you take Miguel, too. I’m not even going to threaten you. It’s not worth the energy. You know you’re dead if you don’t turn up with it.”

  The denim-clad thug holding Richie, presumably Miguel, smiles and lets go. His teeth look sharp, but that might just be the fear fucking with my vision.

  THE SUN IS nearly up now, the clouds washed orange and yellow. I pull out my phone and open up the map app. There’s a pulsing red dot right near where we’re standing. This is where Melinda said the drone banked.

  In front of us is a very tall building. One of those new buildings with no character that seem to be springing up everywhere now, just flat blue glass and steel. It’s shaped like an L, with a foot sticking out that can’t be more than two stories. At the base of the building there’s a fenced-in courtyard full of playground equipment.

  At the end of the block there’s a steady stream of parents dropping off toddlers. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the building’s little foot, we can see kids’ toys, bright pastel paint, crude finger-paint drawings pinned to the walls.

  “Dios mío,” says Miguel.

  Richie asks, “What?”

  “It’s a preschool or something,” I tell him.

  “You mean these kids got our coke?”

  “Keep your voice down, Richie.”

  “So what’s the plan?” he asks.

  Okay. If the key fell here, it’s either in the courtyard, somewhere around the building, or up on the roof of the school. It can’t be on top of the main building; Melinda said she had to bank around it.

  “We need to canvass the area, and we need to get up on that roof,” I tell them, pointing to the lower portion of the building. “We can check it out and it’ll give us a view down into the courtyard.”

  “And how do you suggest we do that?” Richie asks. “We all look like we shouldn’t be allowed near kids.”

  I turn to Miguel. “Any ideas?”

  He shrugs. “No lo sé.”

  “Do you even speak English?” Richie asks.

  “Vete a la mierda,” Miguel says.

  “That means ‘fuck you’,” I say. “So I guess the answer is no.”

  Miguel nods.

  I point up at the roof. “Miguel, can you go up there? Richie and I will search around the building.”

  Miguel shakes his head.

  Which is what I figured. No way is he leaving us both alone together. And he’s right, because I was planning on the two of us running away, very fast, as soon as he was out of sight.

  “Fine,” I tell him. “You and Richie search around the building. Then see if there’s a way you can get onto the roof from the outside. I’ll try to go in through the front through the school.”

  “Why do you get the school?” Richie asks.

  “Because I look less like a child molester.”

  “Fuck you. I don’t look like a child molester.”

  “You just said you look like you shouldn’t be around kids.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that, you sick fuck.”

  I press my face into my hands to keep from screaming. More kids are showing up. We’re running out of time. I am keenly aware of the raw, hot feeling of the slight wound on my throat, which T. Rex wants to make into a bigger wound. I head toward the school and call out, “Just get moving.”

  GIVEN THE LIFE I’ve chosen, this is not the first time I’ve found myself trying to get into a place I shouldn’t be. There’s a trick to it, and it’s easy: act like you belong there. Don’t ask for permission. Don’t come up with an excuse. Put your head down. Walk in like you’ve got a destination in mind. Smile, but not directly at people, because that’s creepy.

  Most times, people will just assume you know where you’re going and let you pass.

  Most times.

  Three feet inside the lobby, as I’m giving my neck one last wipe with my thumb to make sure there’s no more blood, a plump black woman steps in front of me. She has flat blue-black doll hair, her fingers tipped with long, blood-red nails that look like talons. The nametag pinned to her pink button-down shirt says “Dina”. She’s a foot and a half shorter than me so she’s stretching her neck to look up at me.

  Her voice booms. “Can I help you?”

  Another helpful thing for getting into places you’re not supposed to be: keep a script in your back pocket, just in case.

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m with the city. Just have to take a quick look at the electric. There’s was a surge in this neighborhood, so what happens is sometimes that can throw some circuits in a big building like this. Chances are it’s nothing. If there’s a cause for concern, I come back with a crew and we fix it. Should take five minutes.”

  None of this makes any actual sense, but I’m betting she’s not an electrician. Utility guys are wallpaper. They come in and out of buildings all the time.

  It’s never not worked.

  The woman smiles. “I got you. Show me some ID and then you can head on back.”

  “Oh, well…”

  She purses her lips. “You don’t have ID?”

  “Well, I mean…”

  “You really think I’m going to let some sketchy-looking motherfucker walk into a place that’s full of kids with no proof of who he is?”

  “I didn’t mean to…”

  She sticks a finger into my face. The talon on the end of her finger is so long that if she jammed it in my eye, it would surely pierce my brain. “You have exactly until I am done talking to get the fuck out of here, or I’m going to call the police and then beat the shit out of you while we wait for them. If you can come back with some ID, then we’ll be settled.”

  “Jesus, I’m sorry…”

  “And don’t take the motherfucking Lord’s name in vain. There are children here.”

  In this moment, I legitimately do not know who to be more afraid of: T. Rex or Dina.

  I STOP RUNNING when I’m sure I’m out of Dina’s line of sight, and I find that Richie and Miguel had better luck than me, the two of them poking around up on the roof.

  Richie seems me on the sidewalk and shrugs.

  It is a shrug of desperation.

  Miguel, though, is looking down into the courtyard, where the kids are now outside playing. The way he’s looking makes me think something is up, so I walk up to the fence and peer in.

  The kids are tearing around the playground, bouncing off objects like rubber balls. Their eyes are wide like they’re gripped by madness, their mouths rimmed in white powder.

  No.

  Oh fuck no.

  Richie is looking now, too. He calls down to me but I can’t hear him, so he takes out his phone. He fiddles with it and then mine rings. I answer and he says, “Dude, I think thos
e kids have our coke.”

  The kids are playing some elaborate game that involves jumping over each other while they screech like dinosaurs. One little Asian boy gets close and he looks like Al Pacino at the end of Scarface after he stuck his face into the mountain on his desk. He squeals at me like a pterodactyl before he runs off.

  Richie is still talking, the words bouncing off me and tumbling to the ground. After a moment I ask him to repeat himself.

  “We have to get the fuck out of here,” he says.

  “No way, man,” I tell him. “We have to tell someone.”

  “Fuck that. Fuck those kids. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “We’re not monsters, Richie.”

  The phone disconnects. I look up and can’t see Richie or Miguel.

  I look back at the kids, their faces turning red from exertion as they blast around the playground like they’ve got rockets strapped to them.

  I’ve done a lot of bad in my life and I’ve lived with it, but this, I can’t let go. They’re kids. And anyway, T. Rex is probably going to kill me soon. I may as well do a little good before that happens.

  DINA LISTENS TO my frantic explanation, that I think the kids have ingested cocaine and she needs to call an ambulance and we should probably get them some water or something, and maybe stop them from running around, I guess? I don’t know anything about kids and their tolerance level for drugs.

  Dina laughs. “You are some whacked-out motherfucker, you know that?”

  “This isn’t a joke!”

  I scream it at her. So loud that she flinches, and now people are stopping and staring. There are a few parents here now, some of them pushing their children behind them. A few of the dads make their way over to get Dina’s back.

  “Look,” I put my hands up, drop my voice, try to turn on the friendly. “We need to help these kids. I promise, call the cops and they can take me away, I don’t care. Just call 9-1-1 and get an ambulance…”

  There is now a very large, very angry group of people lined up behind Dina.

  “The only thing these kids are hopped up on is the powered donuts,” she says. “It’s donut day. Now, why don’t you just stay there, nice and calm, and we’re going to call the cops and sort this out.”

  “That white powder is…donuts.”

  “Where are a bunch of kids going to get cocaine, mother…” Dina notices a kid has gotten close. “…jibjab.”

  “Umm.” Shit. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding here.”

  As soon as the words are out of my mouth, two of the dads lunge and grab at my arms. I step back and shake them off and now people are screaming and yelling, so I throw an elbow and catch someone in the head and run outside and around the building, where I slam hard into Richie.

  We tangle and fall to the ground.

  As we’re getting to our feet, I realize someone took a bucket of blood and splashed it across his front.

  “Where the fuck is Miguel?” I ask.

  A group of parents come around the side of the building, headed right for us, wielding colorful plastic toys as makeshift weapons.

  “I think we should be running right now,” Richie says.

  “Agreed.”

  SIX BLOCKS LATER and we think we’re safe enough that we can duck into the alcove of a delivery bay. The block is quiet; there’s a bottled water delivery truck parked at the curb and no one in sight. I bend over and put my hands on my knees. Richie sprawls out onto the ground, huffing and puffing.

  When I can breathe enough to talk, I ask, “Seriously, where is Miguel?”

  “Yeah, so, T. Rex called him for an update and things didn’t sound too good so I figured it was best to make a pre-emptive strike.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “Possibly.”

  Okay. That’s not good.

  But it’s a problem that could be less severe if we can solve the bigger problem. Maybe T. Rex will go easy on us if we show up with the drugs. We can come up with an excuse for Miguel. Fuck, we can say that Miguel suggested we all make a run for it with the key.

  There’s an answer here. I can find one.

  First, we have to solve the case of the missing coke.

  I call Melinda again and she answers, says, “You didn’t find it, did you?”

  “No. We’re in a lot of trouble, Mel.”

  “Is Richie there?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Put the call on speaker. I want him to hear this.”

  I pull the phone away from my ear, fuck with the screen trying to figure it out. Richie asks, “What are you doing?”

  “Melinda wants to talk to you.”

  He smiles. “I told you she wanted to fuck me.”

  “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP.”

  I find the right button and click it, ask, “Mel?”

  “I hear you.” Her voice is high and tinny. “Are you both there?”

  “We are,” I tell her. “What is it that both of us need to hear?”

  “Okay, so, Billy, I want you to know I feel a little bad about this, because you seem like an okay guy, but at the same time, your brother is a fucking scumbag, so at the end of the day, I don’t feel that bad…”

  “Hey,” Richie says. “I’m not a scumbag.”

  “Yes, you are,” Mel says. “You grabbed my ass three times. Once is bad enough. Twice more after I told you to stop? You know how not-fucking-cool that is? You can’t just do that. So consider this a lesson. I never put the kilo in the drone. I’m going to sell it to another buyer. And I’m already out of the state and it should go without saying you won’t be able to find me, so, I guess this is goodbye.”

  “Mel, wait…” I plead.

  “Sorry, Billy. Fuck you, Richie.”

  The line goes dead.

  “So…what now?” Richie asks.

  “We go. Right now. Don’t even go home first. We have to fucking go, Richie.”

  Richie climbs to his feet, drops his thin jacket to the ground, and pulls off his gray t-shirt, flipping it inside out to hide the blood. “That fucking bitch…”

  “Maybe if you’d didn’t act like such a dick all the time, she wouldn’t have fucked us.”

  “Get real, little brother,” he says, pulling the shirt back over his head. “She played us. She knew exactly what she was doing. You think me making a grab at her was the deciding factor? She had a plan from the beginning.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Yeah? She has another buyer? How the fuck is some nerd bitch going to line up a buyer for a key of fucking coke unless she did a little legwork? If she had that kind of reach, she wouldn’t have needed us in the first place.”

  That’s not an unfair point.

  It’s also not the important thing right now.

  Richie puts his jacket on and buttons it and the blood isn’t even visible anymore, save a splash on his chin. I point to it and he wipes at it with the dark sleeve of his jacket. Not great, but better than nothing.

  “Let’s revisit this,” I tell him. “Right now, we have to get gone.”

  On this much, we’re simpatico.

  We turn the corner, stumbling in the light of day.

  “You know what the worst part is?”

  “What, Richie?” I ask. “What’s the worst part?”

  “This was a good fucking idea. Six months and everyone’s going to be doing this. Speed would have been the first.”

  “You and that fucking name.”

  “It’s a good name.”

  “No, it’s not. And when we’re settled, in whatever bumfuck burg is safe enough that maybe T. Rex won’t find us and kill us, we’re going to rent Speed, because I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”

  But Richie isn’t walking next to me anymore.

  I stop and turn, and he’s frozen a few steps behind, his eyes are wide and set, staring at something off in the distance.

  Down the block, there’s a flash of denim.

  Nova woke in a chair. Groans and shuffli
ng and scraping on either side of her. She tried to lift her hands and found they were clamped down. Her heart rate went up a few ticks.

  It took effort, like she was forcing out a sneeze, to remember the last thing that happened before the dark.

  The show.

  She’d gone to the taping for the show, where she was placed in a room and made to sign a waiver probably a hundred pages long before she met with the casting director. He was tall and had hazel eyes and a sharp nose and the look of someone who was not being fed. He asked her a series of questions related to her health.

  Allergies, especially to medications or chemicals (none).

  Phobias, and be as specific as possible (geese…long story).

  Any kind of injuries or chronic conditions (tightness in her lower back, nothing major).

  After the man left, she took out her phone. She wanted to check her e-mail. Make sure the team at her restaurant had things covered while she was gone. She hated being gone. Two years since opening and she hadn’t missed a day. But money was tight and cooking competition shows were a good way to get publicity. That’s even if she didn’t win the grand prize—$25,000. If she did win, it meant a new walk-in and updating the restrooms. Maybe she’d go totally nuts and take a vacation.

  They kept saying that over the phone: it was a brand-new, never-before-done concept. This would be the pilot and to say more would spoil the fun, said the casting director.

  Never-before-done. That hadn’t concerned Nova. She expected some cutesy bullshit like that show where you make a meal out of random ingredients in a basket, or the one where you bid on items to sabotage your opponents.

  Sitting in the dark, she wished she’d been more concerned.

  She wished she’d actually read the agreement, rather than skimming in before ultimately giving up a third of the way through.

  “What the hell is going on?” Male voice, hushed, to the left.

  “Dunno, brah.” Male voice, to the right.

  “…some bullshit.” Male voice, left, different from the other two.

  Nova coughed. “Anyone else rather be at work today?”

  No one laughed.

  “Good. You’re all awake.”

  The voice rattled and cracked in the darkness.