Money Men

by Gerald Petievich

  "Somebody I met in T. I.," Ronnie Boyce said.

  "Who is somebody?"

  "Stymie,"

  "What does Stymie look like?"

  "He looks a lot like a cop, but he ain't."

  Waxman smiled. "You look a little like a cop yourself

  "Your mother looks like a cop," Boyce said.

  "Okay, kid, what have you got? I'm busy today."

  Boyce handed the envelope to the lawyer.

  Waxman lifted the flap and blew into the envelope. Holding it open with one hand, he reached into his desk drawer and removed tweezers. He took the bills from the envelope with the tweezers and examined them carefully, both sides. He tucked them back into the envelope and handed it to Boyce.

  "Quantity?"

  "A hundred and twenty-five grand."

  Waxman wrote on a yellow pad. "I've seen better, but I can offer you ten points for the package. That's twelve thousand five hundred for you."

  "Thirty points is the usual price," Boyce said.

  Waxman raised his voice. "Where? Off the back of a turnip truck? I'll go fifteen points but..."

  "Twenty points is what I want. It's what I have to get to make my end. I'll take twenty percent or I walk."

  Waxman took a plastic bottle of hand lotion out of a drawer, squirted a fair amount on a palm. He rubbed his hands together until the cream disappeared.

  "You're a tough little bastard, aren't you? What's your name?"

  "Ronnie. Ronnie Smith," Boyce said.

  "And I'm Max Doe, the brother of John. Twenty points it is. I don't have time to quibble over a few bucks. That's twenty-five grand to you. It will be in hundred-dollar bills. My man will show you the twenty-five G's first, so you have nothing to worry about. Tonight, 11:00 P.M. exactly, be at the LA. airport. There is a phone booth in parking lot D-3. You better write that down. I suggest you get to the phone booth early to avoid any problems. At 11:00 P.m. the phone will ring and you will receive final instructions for the transaction. Be ready to deliver five minutes after you pick up the phone. If the phone doesn't ring exactly at eleven, the deal is off. It means something is wrong. Any questions?" He looked at the palms of his hands.

  "Who will do the deal at the airport?" Boyce said.

  Waxman took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief.

  "One person it's not going to be is me, young man. I'm an attorney at law. You saw the sign on the door... it's been nice talking with you. Come see me anytime you have something."

  They shook hands.

  Boyce walked through the outer office. A fat man with a full-head black toupee and cardigan sweater made a show of handing something to the receptionist. He stared at Boyce. The screen test, thought Boyce.

  Ronnie parked the car next to the airport gas station. Carol looked pale; her lips were colorless.

  "You just wait here until I signal you for the case," Ronnie said.

  "Then what?" Carol said. She looked at the attaché case sitting between them.

  "Then you bring it to me in the parking lot, hand it to me, and go straight back to the motel."

  She looked at her watch. "It's ten now. When are you going to want it?"

  "A little after eleven. Right now I want you to go across the street and rent another car." He pointed.

  "What for?"

  "Because this car is registered to you. That's why. After I take this guy off, somebody might grab the license plate. Rent a big car and drive it back here. Do you have a phony license that you haven't used for anything yet?"

  "Yes."

  "Use it." He looked at his watch. "Make it quick. The guy is going to call me at the phone booth in that parking lot at eleven." He pointed to the parking lot behind the gas station.

  Carol was silent for a moment. A jumbo jet roared to a landing on the runway across the street.

  "You're going to ice him, aren't you?" she said. Her eyes were wide.

  After a moment Ronnie spoke with a sneer. "When I tell you to do something, you'd best fucking do it without a lot of chickenshit questions. After I take this dude's money tonight, Red and I are going to have enough to set up a front. We're going to parley the score today into two or three hundred grand. No more chickenshit two-and three-grand capers that cost two or three years. Do you understand?"

  She nodded, her head down. He continued.

  "All you have to do is rent me a goddamn car and carry an attaché case a hundred feet. Is that too goddamn fucking much to ask?"

  She turned to him. "But if everything comes apart, I'll be an accessory. That's life. I've already got a ten-year parole. I don't want to go back. Ronnie, I couldn't take anoth..."

  Ronnie grabbed her ear lobe and jerked her toward him. His voice was a violent whisper. "Don't give me that shit about not wanting to go back. Nobody wants to go back. The difference is when you say you are never going back. That's the difference. To do that you gotta score big, woman. Your fifty-dollar checks ain't going to keep you out. They'll put you right back in with the bull daggers. Course, I heard you didn't mind it too much this last time. A tongue wash now and then made the time go faster, right?" He shoved her head away from him violently.

  She looked at him with no expression, checked her purse for the phony license, and got out of the car. He watched her walk across the street and enter the rent-a-car office.

  Fifteen minutes later she drove into the gas station in a new Ford. She handed him the keys, and they exchanged cars.

  Carol watched him drive through a toll gate into the parking lot. It was nearly full. The attaché case was next to her on the seat. He wouldn't say what was in it, but she assumed it was a piece, since they had picked it up from a bus-depot locker. She undid the latches and opened it. Sawed-off shotgun. She closed the lid and snapped the latches. Ronnie was nuts. He always had been. She wondered how he had found out about what had gone on in Corona. Was it because her hair was too short? Maybe he was just guessing.

  Ronnie's hands were wet on the steering wheel when he stopped next to the phone booth. He turned off the ignition. He tried to think of last-minute details, because he knew that was what he should be thinking about. What if someone tried to use the pay phone?

  He got out of the car and locked all the doors. A breeze of jet fuel. His hands trembled. He stepped into the pay booth and checked his watch. It was ten-fifty-eight. A few seconds later the phone rang. Waxman's secretary's voice. She was reading from something. "The man in the sweater is our representative. He is in a black Oldsmobile. Follow his instructions." The phone clicked.

  A car door of a black Olds slammed two parking rows away. In the darkness the fat man came toward him in a wrestler's walk. The pompadour wig could have been a hat.

  The fat man stopped and looked around the parking lot. "Are you together?" he asked.

  "Who the fuck are you?"

  "I work for Max. I'm here to do business." The fat man's eyes were riveted to Boyce's hands.

  "You should have said so," Boyce said. "I'm together. Where's your buy money?"

  The man stepped closer. "Max doesn't buy anything without seeing the full package. That's the way it has to work. It’s safer for everybody. You understand." The fat man's voice had a flat, disinterested tone, like a cop giving a ticket. He folded his arms across his chest.

  Boyce maintained eye contact. "I don't want to get ripped off any more than you do. When I talked with Max, he said I could show you the paper at the same time you show me the buy money. What's wrong with that? Otherwise we stand here jerking each other off about who's going to show first. Right?"

  The fat man glanced around the lot. He focused back on Boyce's hands. "If I was to agree to showing at the same time, then you shouldn't have any objection to letting me search you beforehand."

  Boyce spread his arms out wide, palms upturned. "Search away! I don't have a piece. You got nothing to worry about from me. The paper is nearby. All I have to do is give the come-ahead."

  The fat man glanced around the lot again.
He patted Boyce's torso.

  Boyce cased the lot. The fat man was alone. No backup near.

  "Okay," the fat man said, "you don't have a gun. Now you just stand there where I can see you and give your mule the come-ahead." He pulled up his sweater. Underneath was a canvas money belt and a .45 in a waist holder. "The twenty-five grand is in here." He unzipped the belt and flicked the edges of four stacks of hundred-dollar bills. "Now you signal your mule. If anything goes wrong, I'll kill you first." His hand was on the .45.

  "Take it easy, man." Boyce's voice cracked.

  He waved his hands over his head. Carol approached with the attaché case. As she came closer he felt sweat running down the middle of his back.

  She handed him the case without a word and disappeared quickly into the darkness. Another jet screamed onto the runway.

  "Now open the trunk of your car," the fat man commanded. "Lay the case down in it and show me the funny money. I want to count it. While you're doing that I will let you count the money in the belt. If anybody walks by, it'll look like we're just unloading the trunk or something."

  "Fair enough," Boyce said. He opened the trunk with the key. The fat man stepped closer. Boyce smelled tobacco on his breath. Boyce laid the case gently in the trunk and flicked open one latch. "Let's see the money in the belt," he said.

  The fat man pulled up his sweater. Boyce flicked open the other latch on the case. The man was looking down at the money belt, trying to take it off.

  Boyce slammed his fist into the fat man's jaw, knocking him backward and down. Opening the attaché case with flying fingers, he grabbed the shotgun and pointed it down at the angry fat face. The barrel was in the other man's hands. He gave an animal groan.

  Boyce pulled the trigger. Recoil knocked him backward into the trunk. The fat man scrambled on the ground. Boyce fired again. The fire flash spun the man's body over.

  Ears buzzing, Boyce dropped the shotgun into the trunk, jumped up, and slammed the lid. He ran to the car door. The money belt! He was on the ground tearing at the sweater and the money belt. Everything is red! Can't get it off! The fat man gurgled. He ripped the belt from the body and ran for the car door. He jumped in, threw the car in reverse, and backed out. He felt the car running over the body, back wheels, then front wheels.

  Keeping an eye on the speedometer, he drove to see Red. At a stoplight, he stuffed the bloody money belt under the seat. His hands felt sticky.

  ****

  FOURTEEN

  Red Diamond was waiting on the bus bench at Sunset and Gower. He was where he had said he would be.

  Ronnie sounded the horn, and Red got in.

  "Any problems?" Red said. He closed the car door.

  "I wasted the private eye," Ronnie said. He pulled back into the Hollywood traffic.

  "Where's the money?"

  "Under the seat."

  Red reached under the car seat. "Drive into that supermarket lot up the street on the right." He pulled out the money belt with two fingers. "Jeez."

  He unzipped the belt and pulled out a stack of hundreds and began counting. "Oh, no! Oh, shit! It’s a fucking gypsy bankroll!

  The hundreds are counterfeit!"

  Ronnie slammed on the brakes in front of the supermarket.

  "Let's see!"

  Red held out the bills. "Look! Look! We've been fucked! That rotten fucking Waxman was going to trade twenty-five grand in funny money for a hundred and twenty-five grand! Paper for paper! That dirty kike!" Red slammed his fist against the dashboard.

  Ronnie had a headache. His ears rang from the sound of the shotgun.

  "Maybe you should have gone with me, Red."

  "Uh...bad idea. Everybody in town knows Red Diamond--they could have followed up on us. You know. Don't worry about what happened. It's just one of those things. You know."

  Ronnie shook his head from side to side.

  People walked in and out of the bright supermarket. They were talkative. The heat of the day was over.

  "Shit, shit, shit," Red said, holding the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

  "What are we gonna do now?" Ronnie said.

  "We can recover from this if we just use our heads. This is a setback. Gotta come back. Gotta come back fast. That's the problem," Red said. His voice became rhythmic, constant, uncontrollable. He had started one of his lectures. "We can do it," he said. "Never doubt that for a minute! See the turkeys walking out of the store with their bags of potato chips? Every one of them has a game...a scam." Red pointed to a bald man in a jogging outfit carrying a carton of soft drinks in each hand. "Ten to one he's some kinda businessman. Probably life insurance. I can usually guess...He's got his scam. That's what insurance is. They bet you will die, you bet you will live, and they always win. Insurance companies are more crooked and powerful than the whole goddamn Mafia...Go down the street to the Fairfax Towers Hotel and you can see Brother Roper's church bus load up every morning with suckers. All old people with canes. They crawl into the bus at 8:00 A.M., and Brother Roper drives 'em out to the City of Moses, a plot of land off the freeway between here and Las Vegas. There's nothing there but desert. All they have to do is sign over all their money to him and he guarantees them a home in the City of Moses as soon as it's built. He's had the same scam for ten years and never been busted! The bastard has to be a millionaire by now...It's just luck...You and me pull one chickenshit caper and end up with a gypsy bankroll! But we can't let it get us down. We have to be positive."

  Ronnie Boyce's ears buzzed.

  Carol, in shorts and a halter-top, bought a morning newspaper from the sidewalk rack and walked back into the hotel room reading.

  "Ronnie, listen to this!" She folded the paper to the second page and read aloud. "'The body of an unidentified man was discovered in a parking lot at Los Angeles International Airport last night. Police sources said the man had been murdered by a shotgun, in gangland style, possibly as the result of an underworld dispute. A witness told investigators she saw two men talking at the trunk of a car and one brandished a weapon and fired twice. The police investigation is continuing.' "

  "Lemme see." Ronnie, in shorts, got off the bed and grabbed the newspaper from her hands. He read, moving his lips, and threw the paper back to Carol. "They don't have anything," he said.

  "Don't have anything? If they've got a witness, they've got somebody who can identify you. Pick you out of a line-up! Oh, God, I knew something like this would happen." She crumpled the paper.

  Ronnie sat down on the bed. He leaned back against the headboard. "That's always been your problem, Carol."

  "What?"

  "Your problem is that you lose your cool. You get excited and you lose your cool."

  Carol shook her head. "I just don't want to go back to..."

  "...to the joint," he interrupted. "Well, you won't have to as long as you keep your shit from getting disturbed. I used to be the same way. Everything was a big deal. But not any more. The only way to keep out of the joint is to relax, take each day as it comes. If a case comes down, you keep your mouth shut and ride the beef. Nine out of ten times if you keep your mouth shut, you can beat the case in court. That's a statistic, an actual statistic." He adjusted a pillow behind his head.

  Carol spoke. "I don't want you to think I'm..."

  "I don't think anything, Carol. I'm just telling you that I used to be dumb. That's right, dumb. Would you believe, the first time I did a bank job I didn't know that banks had robbery cameras? That's being dumb. But I'm not dumb any more. The guy I snuffed last night ain't going to take the witness stand too soon. And he was the only other person that saw what happened. Do you see what the fuck I mean?"

  She sat down on the edge of the bed resignedly. "Yeah, I guess."

  "It's all evidence. What the D.A. wants is evidence. Without it they can't do diddly shit. It's simple, really."

  "How much money did the guy have last night?" Carol said.

  "Twenty-five G's in funny money," said Ronnie. "But it's going to set u
p a front. My partner is a con man. He's the best. Within a month I'm going to be set for life, with no way of getting nailed. Phony land deal. There's only so many dudes that have enough smarts to pull one off The paperwork is set up so that there's no way of getting convicted even if you stand trial. They can't prove intent."

  "Sounds beautiful." Carol got off the bed and stood staring out the window.

  "It is beautiful. We just needed some front money. I did a guy the same way for ten grand a week ago. No witnesses there either." He scratched under his arm. "Let's go get some breakfast." He went into the bathroom and closed the door. The shower started.

  Carol turned on the radio fairly loud and dialed a long-distance number. She stared at the bathroom door.

  "Naomi?"

  "Yes."

  "It's Carol."

  "Carol, honey, I knew you'd call. I knew you'd change your mind."

  "I gotta get out of L.A.," Carol whispered. "I'm with a guy that's bad news. I'll be there this weekend. I'm gonna lay down all my paper-I've got a stack of cashier's checks-then I'm coming to you. I can't take it here any more. I'm paranoid. Can't talk now." She cupped her hand around the receiver.

  "Little sister, when you get here the first thing I'm going to do is turn you inside out. I've missed you so much." A kissing sound.

  Carol put down the receiver.

  The shower went off.

  Ronnie walked back in the room, soaking wet. "What's the weird look on your face for?"

  "Nothing." She gulped.

  "Get a towel." He stood with his hands on his hips.

  Without a sound, she picked up a towel from the dresser and began drying him. His back, chest, buttocks, legs, and groin.

  "That's the way the screws choke you out in T. I."

  "What?"

  "With a towel." He snatched the towel from her hands, spun her around, pulled it tightly around her neck. She gagged. He flipped the towel back to her.

  "Like that," Ronnie said.

  Carol coughed and rubbed her Adam's apple.

  "Get your clothes off, woman."

  Carol stripped as fast as she could.

  Without air conditioning, the field office would have been intolerable. Gray desert air hung outside. Exhaust City.