by Tim Maleeny
Tamara smacked harder this time. “He’s sweet.”
Sam interjected. “A sweet crackhead?”
Shayla corrected herself. “I’m just saying that to get under her skin,” she said, hitting Tamara in return. “Crack is too old school—and too urban—for these boys. They are white as bread, the both of them. But Jerome wears some powerful cologne that smells a whole lot like reefer.”
“So he’s a stoner,” said Sam simply. No judgment, just matter of fact. With medical marijuana legal in California, he couldn’t remember the last time anyone on the force busted someone for pot. The city had bigger problems.
Tamara tried a pout—it didn’t suit her. “He just likes to party.”
Sam nodded. “And he lives with his brother across the hall?”
“Yeah,” said Shayla. “But you probably won’t find them there—they go out during the day.”
Sam shrugged. “Maybe I’ll knock on their door tonight.”
“You know where they hang out a lot?” said Shayla. “That Mexican restaurant across the skybridge. We run into them every time we go to the bar.”
“Thanks,” said Sam, standing up. “This has been, um, enlightening.”
Both women stood together. “Stop by anytime,” said Tamara.
“Or go to the site,” added Shayla. “The URL address is—”
Sam held his hands up to cut her off. “No—thanks. Not sure I could handle it.”
“OK, neighbor,” said Tamara, sin in her eyes. The more time he spent with these two women, the less real they seemed to Sam. They were fembots from an Austin Powers movie, designed by some evil genius to tease a man to death.
He said, “They sound pretty harmless. Pot smokers aren’t known for their tempers.”
“Jerome is not a stoner,” Tamara repeated defensively.
“Sorry.” Sam held up his hands again. “How about his brother?”
“Larry?” said Shayla. “That boy—he’s a nervous one.”
Tamara nodded. “Nervous. Totally different from Jerome. He’s not—”
“Sweet?” offered Sam.
Tamara smiled. “Exactly!” She elbowed Shayla.
“What’s Larry nervous about?” asked Sam.
Shayla shrugged.
“Why don’t you ask Larry?”
Chapter Ten
Larry was sweating behind the blindfold.
Blindfolds were mandatory accessories for anyone visiting Zorro. The story behind them went something like this:
Once upon a time, there was an informer who once told police where Zorro held all his meetings. The cops tried to bug the place, but Zorro got an inside tip from someone on the force who also happened to be on Zorro’s payroll. Zorro cleared out before the cops could even get the warrant, but never again did anyone know where Zorro would be at any given moment.
The other part of the story was that the informer and his entire family had disappeared, leaving behind their clothes, car, cash, and no forwarding address. People in this neighborhood were too smart to believe the witness protection program could move that fast. But they all knew Zorro could.
The interior of the car had been dark when they climbed in, but Larry recognized the hulk in the front passenger seat as it twisted around and tossed two blindfolds at them. Julio, one of Zorro’s bodyguards. A man as thick as he was tall, with a face that looked like it was mauled by a pit bull. And now, as Larry tried to visualize anything other than Julio’s brutal features, he found himself sweating with the effort. He tried to breathe through his nose.
Jerome’s voice was muffled by the vinyl roof over their heads.
“Hey Larry,” he said in a forced whisper. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
Larry closed his eyes behind the blindfold and let his head sink into the headrest as they hit their first pothole. He could tell it was going to be a long ride.
“Think maybe we should have killed him ourselves?” asked Jerome.
Larry’s eyes snapped open. “Shut up, you moron.”
Julio’s voice rumbled around the interior of the car. “Who you skinny gringos going to kill?” Then he waited a full minute before adding, “Zorro, maybe?”
Larry almost shit himself as he lurched forward. “Fuck! Fuck, no! No fucking way, Julio.” He started sweating again. “Jesus, man.”
“Don’t blaspheme, gilipollas.” Julio smacked Larry on the forehead with his open palm. Larry’s head snapped back as if struck by a cobra.
“Jesus!” Larry repeated, regretting it instantly.
Julio cocked his arm for another smack, but the driver waved him off. Julio grunted and faced forward, crossing his arms as if pouting.
Jerome’s stage whisper roared in Larry’s left ear. “I think he just called you an asshole, bro.”
Larry’s head whipped around. “What?”
“He called you gilipollas,” said Jerome emphatically. “I’m pretty sure that means asshole.”
“So?”
“So?” Jerome was incredulous. “What are you gonna do about it?”
I don’t believe this. “I don’t think he meant anything by it,” he said dismissively.
“You’re saying he called you an asshole by accident?”
Larry’s jaw clenched. “What’s your point?”
“That’s not cool,” said Jerome, his voice getting louder. “We’re their meal ticket, Larry. You know anyone moving more weed around this city than us? I mean, we probably pay his salary, you know what I’m saying?”
“We’re not paying his salary, Jerome,” insisted Larry. “Give it a rest.”
“What do you think he makes?”
“Are you serious?”
“Sure,” said Jerome, leaning sideways on the bench seat. “I mean, you think he’s paid a regular salary, by the hour, or….”
“Or what?”
“By the job,” said Jerome dramatically, his voice getting deep. “By the head. By the scalp, you know what—”
“Shush,” hissed Larry.
“Did you actually tell me to shush?” asked Jerome.
“Shush,” repeated Larry. “Just be quiet, OK?”
“You’re a wreck, Larry, you know that?” Jerome shook his head. “Jesus…”
“Don’t hit me!” It was out of his mouth and echoing around the interior before Larry could stop himself.
In the front seat, Julio just shook his head.
“Gilipollas,” he muttered.
Jerome sat straight up.
“See?” he said triumphantly. “What did I tell you?”
Chapter Eleven
Sam couldn’t remember the name of the lesbian bartender.
He knew she was a lesbian because he’d hit on her last year. A moment of weakness during one of his rare nights out, sufficiently lonely to crave companionship and just drunk enough to look past the obvious signs. She’d been clear but kind. Looking at her sober, Sam realized now what a lightweight he’d become. Cues from her wardrobe, hair, and makeup sent signals in all directions that she preferred the company of her own gender.
Some detective he was.
“Sam.” Her smile was genuinely warm. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
Sam smiled back, relieved this wasn’t going to be awkward. Guess there was a difference between being a clod and a jerk. “How you been?”
“Can’t complain,” she said. “Nobody’s hit on me lately.”
“Ouch.”
A bigger smile as she reached across the bar and gave his hand a quick squeeze. “What’ll you have?”
Sam scanned the tap handles. “Boddington’s.”
A waitress only slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower squeezed next to Sam, tray balanced precariously over his head. “Sadie, I need a Ketel One and tonic.” She shifted to a bad Austrian accent, adding, “I’ll be back.” Without waiting for the drink, she disappeared, weaving between the tables as if she wore roller skates.
“Sadie,” said Sam, pleased her name was one less mystery he had to solve, �
��is Jill singing tonight?”
Sadie set the beer down, the head foaming over the top of the glass. “You bet. End of the bar, to your right.”
Sam glanced over as he drank. A woman sat by herself eight stools over, a glass of wine and sheet music in front of her. He recognized her immediately, had seen her around the building, in the coffee shop, the grocery. She’d made an impression.
She wasn’t so much beautiful as she was attractive. Auburn hair, gentle curls swept back on one side of her face, falling across the other until she swept the loose strands behind an ear. Smile lines around her eyes, a slender figure, long fingers unadorned with jewelry. Sam guessed she was about his age, but she had aged much better.
She glanced down the bar and caught him looking before he could turn away. She smiled and Sam felt himself pulled across the room, drink in hand and walking before he’d consciously thought to join her. As he got closer, the gravitational pull only increased.
“Hi neighbor,” she said, her voice less husky than he’d imagined, maybe sanded smooth by time. “Thanks for coming.”
“You’re Jill.” Master of the obvious, thought Sam.
“And you’re Sam,” she replied. “I knew your wife.”
Sam nodded. “Everyone did.”
“Great lady.”
“Yeah,” said Sam.
Jill smiled again. “Sweet of you to come.”
Sam shrugged. “I had an ulterior motive.”
Jill arched her eyebrows. Her eyes were green. This close, Sam noticed the mote in her left iris, a miniature sunburst of orange, a rogue star about to eclipse her pupil.
“I came to talk to you,” said Sam.
“Officially?” Eyebrows headed north again.
“No, no,” said Sam, waving his hand. “I’m retired.”
Jill gave him a once-over. “You don’t look old enough to be retired.”
“How much have you had to drink?”
Jill laughed. “Not that much. You look great,” she said, adding, “maybe a little wrinkled, that’s all.”
Sam touched his face and frowned. Jill brushed his hand away. “Not your face. Your clothes.”
“Oh.” Sam looked down—his slacks looked like crepe paper, his shirt like a papîer-mâché project. “Never mastered the iron.”
“I’ll show you sometime,” said Jill, finishing off her glass of wine. “But now I have to go sing for my supper.”
“Does that mean I can’t buy you dinner afterward?”
Jill stood, gathered up the sheet music. “For a man with so many wrinkles, that was pretty smooth.”
“Was that a yes?”
“I’ll tell you after my set. Otherwise you might leave early.”
Sam watched her move through the crowd, making her way to the small stage at the rear of the bar.
“I’m definitely not leaving early,” he said to himself.
You’ll like Jill. Isn’t that what Tamara and Shayla had said? It made Sam wonder about his neighbor Gail. His ex-partner, Danny. The girls down the hall. For a man who felt disconnected from everyone, shut off from the world, it felt strange to have so many people act like they knew him.
He’d been roused from a coma, amnesia fading with every waking moment, every social interaction. That was it—they were all alive and he’d been damn near dead, trapped between this world and the next, not sure if he should stay among the living or join Marie.
Pretty soon, Sam was going have to choose which side he was on.
Chapter Twelve
“Got any porn?”
The kid behind the counter gave Walter a sullen look in response. He was a study in teen angst, his Blockbuster vest askew over his Limp Bizkit t-shirt as if he didn’t give a shit about anything. “What were you looking for?” The punk daring Walter to say a title, trying to embarrass him in front of the rest of the customers.
“Anal Assassins,” replied Walter, raising his voice. “Volume one or two. Doesn’t matter.” Walter sensed the girl standing behind him in line move backwards a step.
The kid shook his head. “We only carry soft-core.”
“What’s the point?”
The kid didn’t have an answer to that, just stood there and shrugged. Walter wondered if the kid was grumpy because the store didn’t have any porn, or if he was being judgmental. Either way, fuck him.
And fuck this place. Only two of his movies in stock, The Revenge of the Scorpion and Snakes in the Grass 2. None of the cockroach movies, not a single fungus flick. What kind of a bullshit Blockbuster was this, anyway? Not that he came to rent his own movies, but still, it was the principal of the thing.
As for the porn, it was just as well this dump didn’t carry any—Walter had to focus on the job at hand. He dropped his stack of DVDs on the counter, twelve in total.
“Just these.”
The kid eyeballed the movies as he scanned them. “You havin’ a party?”
“You’re not invited.”
“I’m crushed,” said the kid. “Thirty-two dollars.” He crammed the disks into a bag and twisted his sneer into a smile for the girl standing behind Walter.
Twenty minutes later, Walter sat on his couch, the movies spread across his coffee table.
Scarface and Carlito’s Way, both starring Pacino. Blow, the cocaine flick with Johnny Depp. A bunch of other gangster movies with bullshit titles, second-tier actors, but always drugs as the theme. Then some lighter fare, like Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke. He even rented Dude, Where’s My Car, the stoner classic starring that punk who was boning Demi Moore.
Walter was doing research. He knew he had the Sandwich Brothers by the short hairs, but he also knew the tables could be turned. Happened all the time in the movies. One day you’re on top of the world, just like Pacino in Scarface, and the next day there’s some South American hit squad sent to kill you in your sleep.
Walter had never smoked pot, never used drugs. He came from a different generation, and booze did the trick every time. But now a major source of his income was going to come from a pair of stoners selling pot to a bunch of other dope fiends. Walter needed to understand their psychology, stay one step ahead of them before he got fucked out of his money. And if the movie business had taught Walter anything about life, it was that someone was always trying to fuck you. Walter popped in the DVD of Dude, Where’s My Car and sat back on the couch, a ruled notebook and pen on his lap.
It was time to get serious.
Chapter Thirteen
“You’re serious?”
Julio didn’t respond, just looked at Jerome with those dead eyes, his ruined face expressionless. Not satisfied, Jerome turned to his brother.
“He wants us to take off our pants?”
Larry shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, his right hand on his belt buckle. He didn’t like where this was going—he felt vulnerable enough already. “That’s what the driver said, Jerome.”
“The guy who left us here with Telemundo’s answer to the incredible Hulk?”
Larry winced, stealing a glance at Julio, but the ugly giant was immobile. “Yeah, that was our driver. Just do it, OK? It must be part of Zorro’s security procedure.”
Jerome shook his head, dumbfounded. “Bummer, Larry, ‘cause I was gonna strangle Zorro with my jeans. Now I guess we’ll have to choke him with our socks.”
Julio half-smiled like a man about to be issued a license to kill by Her Majesty’s Secret Service. As deadly and suave as a rattlesnake.
Larry was up on his tiptoes in supplication. “Ignore him, Julio. He’s stoned.” Then to his brother, “What’s the big fucking deal?”
Jerome looked at his feet. “I ain’t wearing boxers, bro.”
Larry sighed and started to say Jesus but caught himself, saying, “Gee, Jerome, I never realized you were so modest.”
“Fuck you, Larry.”
Larry leaned in close and put a tight squeeze on his brother’s shoulder. “Take off your fucking pants, brother. Now.”
Julio snorted and said something in Spanish. Larry thought he was laughing at his boxers, but Jerome caught the words for cut and short and got pissed.
“That’s right, Julio,” Jerome said testily. “No foreskin. I’m a fucking marvel of modern medicine. Welcome to the U.S. of A.”
Larry almost cringed in anticipation of a slap, but Julio laughed a deep bark from another dimension. He raised a massive arm and gestured toward the stairs. “Arriba…rápido.”
The two brothers looked at each other. Now that their moment had come, neither wanted to take the first step.
“Time to see Zorro?” asked Larry, knowing the question served no purpose but to stall.
Julio smiled cruelly. “El Diablo,” he said, his voice an octave lower than regret. When he shifted to English, it was somehow even more disconcerting.
“It’s time for you dumbass gringos to meet the Devil.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jill sang like a fallen angel.
Her voice was huskier when she sang, a silky contralto laced with sin. The band was a variation on a jazz quartet—stand-up bass, drums, piano, and alto sax. They opened with the usual standards, then segued into songs Sam couldn’t place. The arrangements Jill had been poring over at the bar, songs that Sam felt he must have heard before but somewhere else. Songs from another life.
Half an hour into the set, Sam was having trouble breathing. He had never believed in love at fist sight until he’d met Marie. Now he was wondering if there was such a thing as love at first listen.
You are one lonely bastard, he thought. You’ve got to get out more.
Sam scanned the crowd. Four couples at the bar, five guys clustered at the far end, Sadie working the length of it. Waitresses navigating the crowd, crossing lines of sight but never staying in one place. The tables near the stage full, mostly couples but a few with three or four girls crowded around, heads bobbing whenever Jill started wailing. From his perch at the end of the bar Sam had an unobstructed view to the stage, except for a support beam blocking the guy playing the bass. Sam didn’t give a fuck about the bass.
