by Tom Kakonis
Jimmie made a fist of the pledge hand and laid a grazing little punch along Waz’s cheekbone. He gave him a big, no hard feelings smile and said tolerantly, “Nobody offended, Wazzer. You tell your buddy relax, enjoy bein’ a daddy. Nothin’ to sweat.”
Waz had been avoiding Buck all day, but at the sound of the shift whistle an hour later, he went looking for him and finally spotted him in a stream of blue uniforms tramping wearily toward one of the many gates in the interior fence. He took him aside and said, “Got some news I think you gonna want to hear.” That news he delivered eagerly, here and there embellishing a bit on the dialogue, putting the best face on it. Buck listened, nodding gravely, uttering not a word till it was finished, and then all he said was, “You believe him?”
The question was framed not so much in doubt as hope, and Waz declared, “Absolutely,” and then, appropriating some of Jimmie’s own lines, he went on to explain why. “Makes good sense. Five and dimer like that ain’t gonna run the risk, doin’ a stretch in the can. They’d eat him alive in there. He’s a turdball, sure, but he ain’t crazy.”
“So you think Della was wrong, that poster she seen?”
“What Della needs is one a them dogs they get, lead around your blindeyes.”
“I hope you’re right, Waz.”
“ ’Course I’m right. It’s over and done with. What you gotta do now is quit thinkin’ about it, get on with your life.”
Both of them wanted desperately to believe, and so they did.
Marshall was waiting outside another of the many gates in that fence. For well over thirty minutes he had been standing there, a stack of missing-child leaflets tucked under one arm, the hand of the other fashioned into a visor against the sun’s drilling, angular light. The heat seemed to swell off the asphalt and swim up into his face, and he swayed slightly, like a man on the fine edge of a faint. He felt tapped, exhausted, all the wire-strung charge of nervous energy that comes off a night robbed of sleep drained right out of him. Nothing at all like he’d felt only six hours before.
He’d timed his arrival precisely at ten a.m., his strategy being to give the management types a couple of hours to settle in after the weekend, then to make his pitch. He came outfitted in conservative summer-weight suit, a smart leather briefcase laid conspicuously on the car seat next to him, creating, he hoped, the impression of one of those “representatives” he’d heard about. Once he connected with someone in authority, someone reasonable, he’d whisk a leaflet out of the otherwise empty briefcase, explain the carefully rehearsed rationale behind his innocuous request, and certainly gain entry to the plant. Seemed to him a shrewd enough plan, and on the drive over this morning he had persuaded himself to believe in it.
That belief was, however, put to the first serious test when he pulled the Volvo up short of the access-barring arm outside the security building and the guard, a crusty old-timer, stuck his head through the window and said, “Help you, sir?”
The tone of the query was not unpleasant, but not particularly accommodating either. Bold as he could, Marshall replied, “I’d like to speak with someone in public relations.”
“Who?”
“It doesn’t really matter. Whoever has a moment free.”
“You got an appointment?”
“No. But as I said, it’ll only take a moment. If you could just—”
“Can’t go inside ’less you got an appointment with somebody.”
It was a name, seemed to be the hurdle here. Or the lack thereof. Any name. “Well, actually I do,” Marshall said, reluctantly falling back on the only one he had. “With Mr. Petrella.”
The guard looked at him skeptically. “Joe Petrella?”
“That’s right.”
“Mr. Petrella ain’t in public relations.”
“I realize that. But we spoke on Saturday—by phone, that is—and he said to come see him today, that he’d, uh, arrange for me to meet someone who is. In public relations, I mean.”
“You sayin’ he told you to come by today?”
“Yes.”
The lie must have been heavy in his face, for now the guard leveled a cold stare on him and drawled, “Funny he’d tell you that, seeing he took the week off.”
“Off?” Marshall blurted, incredulous, stunned by the treachery of this man, this Petrella, a voice really, nothing more, promising nothing and delivering just that through his calculatedly unmentioned absence. “But I thought—he said—”
“What’s the nature of your business here at Norse?” the guard broke in on the desperate stammering.
“Leaflets,” Marshall said helplessly, run out of lies and stratagems, his cunning plan unraveled, tattered.
“Huh?”
“All I wanted to do was pass out some leaflets to your employees.”
“What kinda leaflets? You sellin’ something?”
Marshall reached behind him, took one off the stack on the floor of the backseat, and handed it to him through the window. “It’s a missing child,” he said. “I’ve got reason to believe somebody here might have some information on him. Might be able to help me.”
The guard studied the leaflet a moment, his face kinked into a frown. Then he looked up at Marshall and, still a little dubious, asked, “Whose kid?”
“Mine.”
“Oh.”
Marshall thought he detected just the slightest softening in the wary, seamed face. “Could you let me inside the plant?” he said. “Just to distribute the leaflets. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Can’t do it. Rules. S’pose it wouldn’t hurt none, though, you was to come back at shift change and hand ’em out, one a the gates along the fence.”
“When is that?” Marshall said, a small ripple of hope stirring the surface of his dismay. “That shift change?”
“Four. You gonna have to park down at the end of the lot, visitors area, you decide to come back.”
“Oh, I’ll be back. Which gate do you suggest I try?”
“Shit, I dunno. Take your pick. One’s like another. But you ain’t gonna get to many people that way, one gate. There’s twenty-six hundred employees work here.”
“So I heard,” Marshall said, sliding the car into reverse. “Thanks anyway. I’ll do what I can.”
Which for the next five and a half hours amounted to nothing at all. He had no desire to return to Naperville, listen to Lori’s querulous whines about police, so he found a grungy eatery in a strip mall a couple of miles away and did in two of those hours sipping what seemed to be a gallon or more of bitter black coffee. Around noon the place began to fill, and the waitress appeared at his booth and asked pointedly, “You plannin’ to order anything?” The idea of food, particularly in here, made him vaguely nauseous. He paid his bill, went out to the car and waited, sealed in an oven of torrid heat. Perversely, the rush of caffeine induced a drowsiness. Off and on he dozed, his head braced against the window, sometimes slumping onto his chest, sometimes twitching spasmodically as he drifted in and out of fantastic, feverish dreams.
When he woke from the last of them, his watch read ten past three. Time to get moving. But his mouth felt as if it had been coated with resin and his limbs ached, stomach churned. Also was his bladder filled to bursting. He wobbled stiffly into the café, back to the men’s room, relieved himself, splashed his face with tepid water. The streaked mirror above the sink revealed a gaunt man in a rumpled suit, hair damp with sweat, eyes pouchy, skin the color of slate. Some stalwart paladin he was, ready not at all for the joust ahead.
Ready as he’d ever be, though, so he drove back to the plant, parked, as directed, in a remote corner of the lot designated VISITORS, got his leaflets, and threaded through the sea of vehicles to the interior fence. There was a gate every hundred yards or so, a guard stationed at each of them. Not an inspiriting sight. Worn down by rejection and shrugged indifference, abandoned to the vagaries of chance, he picked the gate closest at hand. Approaching it, he was conscious of the guard eyeing him suspiciously,
and he said, “I was given permission to hand these out at your shift change.”
“Yeah, we was told. But y’gotta stay on that side.”
Jesus, you might believe they were producing nerve gas in there instead of kitchen foil, was Marshall’s thought, but all he said was, “That’s fine.”
The guard turned away, evidently uninterested in him or what he was doing there, certainly in any idle conversation. Beyond the fence the wall of the plant loomed steep and sheer as a cliff. Fingers of smoke coiled out of the file of stacks jutting from the roof. High above, a jet carved a thin white scar into the powdery blue sky. An image of all those people up there, settled back in their seats, sipping cool drinks, exchanging pleasantries or plotting the steady course of their steady lives, took shape in Marshall’s head. Scalding down here in the sun, he waited.
Punctually at four a shrill whistle sounded. Soon after, swarms of men came pouring out the several exits in the plant, making for the nearest gates. The guard unlocked this one, swung it open, and Marshall positioned himself directly in the path of the oncoming throng, impossible to overlook or ignore. Yet that’s exactly what most of them did, either ignored him altogether or looked him over sullenly in passing, barest acknowledgment of his existence. A few accepted his leaflets, glanced at them, and kept on walking. And as their numbers gradually dwindled, Marshall was overtaken by the queer, airless sensation of someone stuck in a bizarre dream, other figures visible and events occurring around him though he’s really not there at all.
Among the last to troop through the gate was a scrawny little man with a pitted, sneery face, followed by a younger fellow, round and tubby, sporting a grin big with mischief. Predictably, the first one spurned Marshall’s offered leaflet and swaggered on by, but the grinner stopped, took the leaflet, and without so much as a peek at it said, “You runnin’ for office?”
“No,” Marshall said heavily. “It’s about a missing boy.”
Now he inspected the sheet in his hand, then looked up at Marshall, the grin ebbing some. “He your kid?”
“Yes.”
“Tough break, man.”
It was the first expression of genuine pity Marshall had heard all day, and he said quickly, “Actually, there’s someone works here who might know where he is. Maybe you could help—”
But that’s as far as he got. The scrawny one called over his shoulder, “Lester, you comin’ or not?” and this one mumbled, “Sorry, man, gotta scoot. Hope you find him.” And then they were both gone, leaving Marshall standing there watching the cars roll out of a lot littered with discarded leaflets. So much for pity. And clever strategies and grand designs. And for noble vows.
The gate clanged shut and a voice behind him said, “What’re you hustlin’ there, anyways?”
Marshall turned and faced the guard staring at him from across the fence. “I’m trying to find my son,” he said, holding up one of his leaflets.
The guard squinted at it, grunted, “No luck, huh.”
“No. None.”
He was a paunchy, leathery man, this guard, with mean, prying eyes and a thin slice of mouth, out of which Marshall fully expected next some spiteful jibe. Instead what he heard was, “Y’know, these boys come off shift, day like this one, they ain’t in your jolliest mood. You might do better checkin’ out some a the bars around here. Lot of ’em’ll stop off for a cold one, maybe be little mellower.”
“Any particular bar?” Marshall asked, his interest picking up a little, but not much.
The guard shrugged. “Bunch of ’em in the neighborhood you could try.”
Aloud Marshall said, “Maybe I’ll do that,” but to himself, under his breath, “But not tonight.” His shirt clung wetly to his skin, head throbbed dangerously. There were limits to endurance, boundaries to pain. Frontiers even to grief.
He started across the lot, slow, shuffling gait. A wisp of a breeze lifted a crumpled leaflet at his feet, sent it tumbling out ahead of him. The sun was behind him, and it seemed as if he were tracking his own lengthening shadow.
Because Lester had come through with the cush first thing that morning, like he promised, Jimmie, in a spontaneous burst of good fellowship, offered to pop for brewsters after work. Also good business. No percentage munchin’ a steady customer, even a worthless bumblefuck like him. And because through the course of his straight eight he’d nailed down thirty-eight solid Rolie orders and nineteen likelies, Jimmie had every reason to feel aces by the time the bustout whistle blew. Except for that little rap with the Wazzer, come outta nowhere, blindside, still naggin’ some, not much. Sell that dumb polack a lot on the moon, he had to, so he wasn’t gonna let it stress him. Sure as fuck wasn’t gonna say nothin’ to Dingo. Not with all this other nifty news he got to lay on him.
Jimmie told Lester to meet him down by the cast house exit, but naturally Mr. Dillweed got to take his sweet time showin’, leave him hangin’ there with his thumb up his ass, wonderin’ why he’d bothered to make the offer, first place. Wasn’t a total wash, though, seein’ he managed to collar some grunts on their way out and get three more probables, bumpin’ the Rolie total to 210 if everybody stepped up. Payday Friday, no reason they shouldn’t. So while Jimmie waited he entertained himself by doing the numbers in his head, and by extravagant visions of what he’d do with his half of the for sure over thirty extra long take-home, maybe more, he got lucky. Which was to get himself a shiny iron, real crotch rocket, fully dressed, go blazin’ down the highway with a piece a nasty scooter trash grippin’ onto you by the jingleberries. Livin’ large. Score like this one, biggest single hit he’d seen since teamin’ with Dingo four years back, it wasn’t outta reach.
These sunny visions were displaced by the sight of Lester coming around a furnace, moseying along about a mile-a-month, high gear for him. Figured. Little porker pro’ly cornered some poor schmuck with another one a his dickbrain stories. “Think maybe you could move your ass a little?” he said as Lester ambled up to him.
“What’s the rush?”
“Can’t speak for you, but I don’t wanta spend the night here.”
“I was just tellin’ Beans about that time I was suppose to meet Shineequa, that porch monkey bar. You ever hear that one?”
“Couple times. C’mon.”
They fell in at the end of a column snaking toward the gate. Lester nudged him, nodded at the man standing on the other side. “Lookit that suit there, tryin’ to give out some bungwipe.”
“Pro’ly some goddam Bible-thumper, gonna save your soul.”
“Or collectin’ for Jerry’s kids.”
“Collect this off me,” Jimmie said, clutching his testicles.
“Maybe it’s one a them politicians, wanna buy our votes.”
“Fuck, price is right, I can be bought. Just slap on the grease when y’roll me over.”
“Think I’ll pull his chain a minute.”
“Better be just that, minute, you ridin’ with me.”
Jimmie stepped through the gate and brushed away the dude’s extended leaflet and kept on moving. But the words “missing boy” trailing after him were enough to freeze him to the spot, and he turned his head slightly, cautiously, and called, “Lester, you comin’ or not,” and then he got out of there fast.
Lester caught up with him by the van, and Jimmie said, elaborately casual, “What’s that geek peddlin’?”
“Nothin’. He lost his kid.”
“Lemme have a look at that,” Jimmie said, indicating the leaflet still in Lester’s hand. And as he examined it a visible cloud, more than annoyance, less than panic, passed over his sallow, sunken features.
Lester, watching him, said, “What’s matter? You know that kid?”
“Fuck would I know him?”
“I dunno. Just look like you maybe seen him or somethin’.”
Jimmie balled the sheet and flipped it away. “Squirrels all look alike to me.”
“Too bad for the old man there, all them short eyes you got jackin’ around n
ow-days.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a mean world out there.”
A memory, buried by the years, surfaced behind Lester’s eyes: one a them foster homes he got dumped in, man a the house climbing into his bed, stinking of sweat and booze, pawing at him…Ugly man, ugly memory. He tried to shake it, but it wasn’t easy. “Still gotta be tough,” he said.
“For you maybe. By me, it’s a snore.”
“Tell ya the truth, I feel kinda sorry for the guy.”
“Ain’t our pro’lum. Our pro’lum’s gettin’ outside a cold one. Which you ain’t helpin’ here, all your sorry. Get in.”
But on the drive over to The Greek’s, Jimmie couldn’t quit thinking about it, about the goddam limpdick with his goddam leaflets, and about what he heard off Waz, and about how the two a them things happen, same day, it got to be more than coincidence. And for all the smoke he had blown at Waz, he wasn’t just bumpin’ his gums there, come to doin’ slam time, which he never done—knock on timber—and which he knew he couldn’t do, didn’t have the nuts for it. And the longer he thought about it, the more tweaked he got. Especially at the idea of tellin’ Dingo, which, like it or not, now he was gonna have to do.
So when they bellied up, first thing he did was lean across the bar and whisper in Nick’s furry ear, “You seen Dingo?” Got a negative grunt. So he sat there brooding over his Bud, half listening to dim bulb whining something about the poor guy lost his kid, and so to get him off that song, which wasn’t helping his nerves any, Jimmie asked incuriously, “How’s the mouth?”
“Mouth?” Lester repeated, momentarily fuddled by the sudden fork in the conversation, or, more accurately, in his dolorous monologue generated by the brief encounter back at the gate and the dark memories it had sparked.
“Yeah. That little, y’know, accident, other night.”
“Oh, that. It’s comin’ along. Still little raw.”
“I noticed. Way you talkin’. Maybe you oughta go see a quack, make sure it ain’t infected. Or a dentist maybe.”
