by Dan Taylor
When I go back into the living room she’s discovered my stash of premium-grade marijuana and blown-glass bong.
She holds up a baggie. “Do you mind? I can’t sleep for shit when I’m on a gig.”
“Knock yourself out.”
She hits it like a pro, adding to her mystique.
I join her, just for a baby-size hit.
Then I get a Belgian beer out of the refrigerator and rejoin her.
She says, “So, you were saying.”
Good weed hits hard and fast, making you suddenly realize you weren’t quite aware of your surroundings the moments before it kicked in as you are now, which goes someway to explain my response. “Was I saying something?”
“You were going to explain how you got this apartment while earning pocket change.”
“Oh that.”
“So?”
“Guess.”
She holds up the bong. “Marijuana farms south of the border?”
“I’m offended. And no.”
She looks around, as though looking at the artsy photos of mannequins I have hanging on the wall opposite her, my handmade Australian rug, and state-of-the-art home cinema system will provide clues.
Right out of left-field, she says, “Theme park owner?”
“Close.”
“Porn director?”
“Nah.”
“Porn actor?”
“Please, the male talent doesn’t get paid shit.”
“Then I give up.”
She sits so she doesn’t have to turn her head to look at me, puts her right thigh onto the couch, relaxing into the conversation. She’s got this expectant look on her face, as though I’m about to tell her the biggest secret I’ve ever kept.
I say, “I’ve never told anyone about this, not even my shrink.”
“Ooo, this sounds juicy.”
“It’s something all right.”
“Well, spill the beans, hotshot.”
“I lived in a cupboard the first year on the job, even though I could’ve probably afforded this place, if I went without clothes and ate cold beans out of cans. I was saving up.”
“To invest in something?”
“In a way.”
“You’re an investor?”
“I wouldn’t say that. But I invested in something.”
“And that was?”
“Myself.”
“I’m intrigued.”
“I spent the year, to all intents and purposes, locked up in a cave that had WIFI so I could watch YouTube videos, learning the ancient art of Gi Pi Fung Ty Shu.”
She giggles.
“It’s a thing. I assure you.”
“Then what is it?”
“It directly translates to finger pain in ticklish places. Though our feeble American brains can’t comprehend its true meaning.”
She giggles again as I look dead serious.
“And that’s what, a martial art?” she asks.
“The deadliest.”
“What did you do with your new skills?”
“I entered a prestigious fighting competition in the Duckfuckman province in Thailand.”
“Does Thailand have provinces?”
“You can’t go to Thailand without being in one or another.”
“And you won the contest?”
“I did, but it’s more complicated than that. And you ruined my ending.”
“Sorry, let me try again. So what happened next? I’ll be so surprised if you don’t win.”
“I struggled through each round, hiding my true skills.”
“So you were what, making it look like you were a poor fighter?”
“Exactly. When I got to the final, seemingly defying all odds and by the skin of my teeth, the American actors I’d brought along to wear business suits bet big cash on my opponent, an undefeated master of Taekwondo. The odds on my winning were long before they’d placed their bets, but after they were practically the length of a… notoriously long river.”
“You were gaming the system.”
“Right. I used a proxy to bet almost a year’s wages on myself.” I affect a faux-Asian accent, sounding a little racist. “Real crazy bet.”
I take a sip of beer, and then continue, “In the first round, before he’d even had a chance to launch his signature kick to my eyebrow, I delivered a double-pinky death blow to both his arm pits. It would’ve been deadly had I not taken pity on my opponent.”
“And then the contest was over?”
“Yep. Then it was just a matter of escaping on a dingy before the Thai Mafia caught on to what had happened.”
“A dingy? And here I was thinking I was going to find out how you’d become independently wealthy.”
“It was a streamlined dingy, real fast.” I pick up the bong. “Another?”
“Why not?”
As she takes a hit, I think about what she said. About finding out how I became independently wealthy.
Then I say, “I’m just going to drain the lizard. That beer’s gone straight through me.”
She smiles, and says, with more than a hint of subtext, “Hurry back, killer.” I might be wrong, but I think Michelle might be planning on reneging on the second part of the deal for staying on the couch. Must’ve been all that talk of delivering death blows with my fingers that did it.
While I’m in the bathroom I do have to take a piss, but at the same time I send a message to Detective Dukes. I get a reply almost instantly, him saying there’s no way he can help me out, he’s flossing.
I reply, saying it’s important. I don’t know how, yet. But I’ve got a hunch.
His reply? “And I’m supposed to risk getting a cavity for a hunch?”
There’s no point arguing the fact that he can floss afterwards and have a negligible increase in chance of getting a cavity. So I write back, “If it happens, I’ll pay the excess on your dental.”
“I’ve got full coverage, but give me a sec.”
When I go back out, Michelle has relaxed further still. She’s practically melted onto the sofa, has this shine in her eyes that means she’s really high, really horny, or both.
“Long piss?” she says.
“Sorry. I’m a meticulous hand washer.”
Instead of sitting next to her, where I was sitting before, I take the sofa chair opposite.
She raises an eyebrow and holds eye contact with me, probably expecting an explanation for why I switched seats.
After a couple seconds of this, she offers two herself. “Don’t like the smell of my perfume or are you hoping to get a peek up my skirt?”
I look down to see I could in fact peek up her skirt, if I had a flashlight and I slumped down in my seat a few inches. And her perfume? It reminds me of my Aunt Carol’s, which is a sick thing to think, considering all this eyebrow raising, talking in that slow way she is now, and the mention of looking up her skirt has given me a semi.
I shake my head, trying to snap out of it.
I look around. Has she dimmed the lights?
Still smiling, still raising her eyebrow, still presenting me with an opportunity to look up her skirt, she says, “Cut the shit, Hancock. How do you really afford all this?”
“You weren’t convinced by the fighting competition story?”
“Not even a little.”
“I can show you the YouTube videos and the scars on my knuckles.”
My phone starts to vibrate.
I think it’s Detective Dukes replying via text message, until I hear the ringtone.
I say, “I better get this. It might be important.”
“Okay.”
I escape to the bathroom. I could’ve gone to the bedroom, but there’s no lock on the door.
I answer, saying, “Dukes, what have you got?”
“Don’t call me that, Hancock.”
“You call me Hancock.”
“But I’m a decorated police officer. You’re a jobless, pot-smoking rich boy.”
“Fair enough. So
what did you find?”
“On Michelle Trueheart? Let me see, well, she’s an ex-drug addict, reformed hooker, 5’7” and…”
I didn’t quite hear the last part, or at least I think I didn’t. Sounded like something that’s next to impossible.
So I say, “Detective, can you repeat that last part?”
“She’s dead, Hancock. Found in a city trash container this morning.”
“Then who’s sitting on my sofa?”
“I think you should ask the lady that, and nicely.”
“Oh, boy.”
25.
Three days ago…
JENNY ULVERSEN IS WAITING outside Jimmy “Eight Fingers” Blumstein’s office when she hears him shout through the door, “Jenny Wolfersen, get your sweet ass in here.”
She stands up and goes through the tacky faux-oak doors to Jimmy’s office, where, as usual, he’s sitting eating a burrito. And just as usual, a creepy grin on his face as he stares at her chest, Jimmy’s right-hand man Beans is standing beside him.
Jimmy swallows and says in a Staten Island accent, “Take a seat.”
She does. He holds the burrito out to her, offering her some, and she shakes her head no. Then Jimmy slides open a drawer and takes out a bottle of hot sauce. The bottle’s almost empty, so Jimmy has to work up a sweat to cover the burrito, making a farting sound with the bottle.
After he’s finished with it, he opens the drawer back up and places it back in there.
Chewing on soggy lettuce, Jimmy says, “How you doing, Jenny?”
“Okay.”
“How’s your ma? I hear she had—how’d ya say—triple bypass surgery?”
“She’s okay.”
“And the kids?”
“Okay.”
Jimmy turns to Beans, says, “You believe this broad. All she ever says is okay.” Not mean, not angry, but playful, and not the first time he’s made that observation.
Beans grins but doesn’t make eye contact with Jimmy. Just keeps staring forward at Jenny, dividing his time between eye contact and cleavage inspection.
“After that enthralling conversation, it’s time to talk business,” Jimmy says.
Jenny nods, conscious of but not worried about saying okay again.
“Guy called Hancock, an ex-P.I., needs taking out,” Jimmy says.
“Right.”
“We don’t like him, do we, Beans?”
Beans says, “No, we don’t.”
Jimmy knows that what their motivations are for having a guy whacked are irrelevant to Jenny. Doesn’t matter whether he has a wife, kids, and a dog called Fido either. When Jimmy says he doesn’t like someone, that’s Jimmy talk for make the guy feel pain. No bullet to the head, at least not straightaway.
Just a guy like Jimmy, dropping hot sauce-covered lettuce onto his cheap office table, is too classy to say the words out loud. And especially in front of a lady.
“Fancy a trip to Tinseltown, Jenny?” Jimmy says. He takes an envelope out of a drawer, and then slides it across the table to Jenny.
She doesn’t take a look inside, only puts it in her bag.
Jimmy takes one more bite of his burrito and then looks disgustedly at it before throwing it in the trashcan.
“Fish got the wrong guy. You believe it?” Jimmy says.
Beans shakes his head. He can’t believe it either.
Jenny doesn’t ask for an explanation, but she gets one anyway. “Fish finds the guy, makes it look like a hit and run. Helluva hitman. Only he gets the wrong guy. Spitting image. Even carrying identification says he’s this Jake Hancock. Turns out there’s two guys called Hancock that look just like each other—how’d ya say—doppelgangers. You believe it?”
“Doppelgangers?” Jenny asks.
“Doppelgangers.”
Jenny can’t believe it. Seems like a guy walking around with another guy’s name in his wallet who looks just like him might not have the honest name in there. Now she’s intrigued by why Jimmy wants him whacked, but she would never ask.
But Jimmy being Jimmy explains anyway. “My sister’s husband, real sap. He’s got a little cash, figures he wants to make more. So he trusts this Hancock with his lifesavings. Believe it? Some guy starts talking and the next minute you’re investing your life savings. Sis didn’t like him so much, I’d castrate him, so that in twenty, thirty years’ time there aren’t three or four of the numbskulls ready and willing to hand over their lifesavings to a guy named Hancock. But love is love, and my sis is blinder than a deaf man in a pitch-black cave. Anyway, Hancock takes his lifesavings in one of these—how’d ya say—Ponzi schemes. Hancock skips town, goofball doesn’t know what’s happening until it’s happened, and sis is balling her eyes out, speaking of leaving the guy. Now you’d think that’s good news for me. Never liked the guy anyway. ‘Part from sis never worked a day in her life, and the son of a bitch made her sign a pre-nup. And God knows I’m not paying out the ass for his mistake, making sure sis doesn’t slum it on the streets as a bum. I figure if Hancock turns up dead, it might help to dry Sis’s tears.”
“Okay.”
Jimmy throws his hands in the air, exasperated.
Then he says, “Believe it, Beans, with the okaying again?”
Beans repeats, “With the okaying.”
“I’m telling a heart-wrenching story and all she has to say is okay.” As though she’s not in the room.
Beans repeats, “Heart-wrenching.”
Jimmy turns his attention back to Jenny, whose stoic demeanor remained the same during his theatrics. “Reason I tell you all this, I need to know we’ve got the right Hancock this time. Gig isn’t an in and out. I’m gonna need you to follow the guy, make sure he’s A) independently wealthy and B) trying to pass himself off as a big-shot investor. If you can get close to him and have him offer you a piece in the next play he’s running, better still.”
“Right.”
She listened intently, always does, but Jimmy’s story doesn’t make one bit of sense. Two guys with the same name who look the same, like identical twins. One of them rips Jimmy’s sister’s husband off. Jimmy wants the guy whacked, but makes no mention of trying to get the money back despite Jimmy being Jimmy. Fish takes out the wrong guy, the Hancock who isn’t a conman, and Jimmy wants her to make sure she’s got the right Hancock this time.
But as always, details don’t matter to her, so when Jimmy asks, “So, can I count on you to get the right Hancock?” she doesn’t think twice before saying okay.
She leaves Jimmy’s office twenty grand richer. When Hancock turns up dead somewhere, she’ll be forty up.
Reason she never answers Jimmy without saying right or okay isn’t because of Jimmy, but Beans. One day she expects to go into Jimmy’s office and Beans to be there, as usual, but not smiling like usual, but like he’s distracted, like he’s wearing a wire.
She takes the next flight to LAX, leaving her kids with her husband, who thinks she goes on Christian Missions. She’ll be back in a few days. Some folks in L.A. who are crying out to be saved; they just don’t know it yet. It isn’t a long one. And yes, she’ll be careful about which doors she knocks on. Love you, bye.
When she arrives at the airport and has collected her bag she goes to the car rental place. Slicked-back-hair grease ball wants to rent her anything but the kind of car she wants to rent. Toyota Camry, Corolla, or a Honda Civic. In silver, they’re the three most common cars in the States. They’re also reliable when picked up from the right rental place, and indistinguishable from any of the other hundreds of thousands being driven on the roads if they don’t have a dent in the bumper or sticker on the back that reads, “Lost your cat? Try looking under my tires.”
Her gun guy in L.A. was Walter Smithwick, but he sold the wrong gun to the wrong guy, so Jimmy has a new guy for her. Unlike Walter, he doesn’t do his business out of his apartment, but from the parking lots of fast food restaurants. She doesn’t ask him why, but like Jimmy he feels the need to explain. “You ever
come across a fast food joint employee who gave two shits about how he made the burgers, let alone kept tabs on what the folks in the parking lot are up to?”
She shakes her head, not agreeing with him, but dismissing the conversation as unnecessary.
He continues, “A motel employee? Those guys, in my opinion, take their shit way more serious than some burger flipper. Eyeballing who checks in and out, wanting names and asking for credit cards. No, I tried motels, but that shit seemed like a shortcut to the slammer. Ever tried coming up with a fake name while paying in cash for a motel, knowing that you’ll be checking out an hour later?”
She doesn’t answer, just stares out the window, thinking that she preferred Walter. He talked too, but he also showed her the weapons while he chewed the fat.
“Can I see them now?” she asks, still looking out the window.
“Sure,” he says, as though he was just about to get to that anyway.
After looking through the selection she chooses the G43.
“This one?” he says.
“That one.”
He shrugs. “The lady wants what the lady wants.”
She pays the guy, gets out of the car, and then gets in her rental, waiting for him to leave first. When he drives past, he salutes, gives her a warm smile she doesn’t return.
Jimmy doesn’t have an address for Hancock, only knows he hangs around Hollywood. How he knows that he didn’t say.
She strikes out at the first seven bars. Never heard of the guy. If he comes in here, I don’t know him. What’s it to you?
She starts to think that Hancock might be a teetotaler, or if he isn’t, he might be a stay-at-home drinker. Maybe she’ll try restaurants. Strikes out there, she’ll check bowling alleys and strip clubs. She gives one more bar a try, a place called Loaded. Jenny’s story is they were foster siblings for a brief time when they were young. Their foster mom can’t legally give out the address Hancock moved to, and she’d like to see how he’s getting on. They were close, and the foster mother’s sick. Real sick. Sick enough so that it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary or suspicious for her to be going around asking at bars if he’s been around.
