by Tim Maleeny
Walter wanted to be a tapeworm.
He wanted to live off the inside of the drug trade, invisible and unnoticed, sucking away enough sustenance to keep him swimming in greenbacks during his twilight years. No ego, no hubris. No risk of ending up dead like the movie kingpins. He wanted to be a character actor, part of the story but quickly forgotten when the movie ends, until the name comes up in some Trivial Pursuit question and someone says I remember that guy…he didn’t get killed in that movie…he must’ve skipped town with the cash, got the girl after the boss died, outlasted them all…at least that’s what I think would happen if they ever made a sequel.
Walter wanted to be the one that got away, so he searched the rented DVDs for one that did. He wanted to find just one happy ending for some bit-player he could relate to.
But there were no happy endings. Even in the comedies, no one got away unless they got out of the business. And in the dramas? Everybody got killed or went to jail. No exceptions. No happy ever after for the drug lords.
Walter had rented this one flick, Layer Cake, an English crime drama by one of the guys that made Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. The lead actor was the blond guy playing James Bond. Totally smooth, always one step ahead of the competition. Ready to bail at the first sign of trouble. A middleman who outlasts them all. Walter’s kind of criminal.
After ten depressing movies, Walter was rooting for this guy, and sure enough, he gets away with it—keeps the drugs and the money, even gets the girl. Walter practically fell off the couch with relief.
But then, in the final scene, right before the credits roll, the guy gets capped. Out of nowhere, some minor character from earlier in the movie, somebody Walter had forgotten all about, comes up and shoots the drug dealer right in the chest. Boom. Then the movie ends, just like that. Walter couldn’t fucking believe it.
No one got away with it. Even Johnny Depp went to jail for life, fucked over by his own wife. So even if you get the girl, the bitch is your undoing.
More worrisome for Walter, the middleman actually got the worst of it. Funny how you forgot those parts until you saw them again. No matter how many times you’d seen the movie before, you only remembered what happened to the main guy. But long before the drug dealers went down, and way before the kingpin met his grim fate, somebody cut out the middleman. Sometimes the guys dealing on the street wanted to move up in the food chain. Other times the Mob boss needed a scapegoat. No matter how much money there was in the drug business, the margins weren’t big enough for the guy in the middle.
And Walter was the guy in the middle. Hell, he’d put himself there.
Might as well paint a target on my back.
Walter looked at the DVDs scattered across his living room and felt the sweat under his arms. Easy money was one thing, but getting killed was another. He had to figure out a way to stay off the radar.
He thought of the two brothers, how they’d backed into this drug business. Maybe there was an angle there. Walter knew people, places. Maybe he could supplement their distribution. He worked with all the edit bays in town, the recording studios. Production companies. They weren’t office buildings, but the people working there ate lunch, didn’t they? And they smoked pot, almost to a person, except for dinosaurs like Walter.
Maybe if he helped the brothers expand their distribution, he’d become an active partner instead of a silent one. Get on the front lines, away from the middle. Become the third leg of their stool. Then, when trouble came knocking, as it surely would, he would run out the back door and let those schmucks down the hall take the rap.
It just might work, if he didn’t get too greedy. The middle was the killing ground. He had to change positions.
Walter went over it in his mind until he was satisfied. From now on boys, we work together. Sound confident, tell them how it is. You are the puppeteer. Set them up now, before they see it coming. Then get out when the heat arrives. He recited these principals like a series of mantras until he was calm again.
Piece of cake.
Walter snatched his keys off the counter and stepped into the hallway, barefoot and covered with crumbs. In ten strides he had reached the brothers’ apartment.
Taking a deep breath, Walter raised his right hand and knocked on the door.
No one answered.
Walter put his ear to the door, heard nothing. Knocked again, loudly. Felt the adrenaline rush fade. Standing there in the hallway barefoot, he felt exposed. Vulnerable.
Fuck. He was getting paranoid. Walter checked his watch. Still early. They were probably having dinner, maybe at the Mexican place. He returned to his apartment and sat down heavily on the couch. Looked at the clock on the wall, just to see if it contradicted his watch. Still early.
Grunting with the effort, Walter pulled on his shoes. If he hurried he could make it to the grocery store before they closed, buy a six pack. Then he’d sit on his couch and wait them out. When he heard them walking down the hall, he’d give them five minutes to get settled.
Then he’d knock on their door and they’d invite him in.
Piece of cake.
Chapter Nineteen
“Piece of cake?”
Jill stood in her doorway, her russet hair backlit by the light from the foyer. From where Sam was standing, it looked like she had a halo.
“It’s angel cake,” she added.
“Naturally.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Sam shook his head, recovered. “You bake?”
Jill gave him a warning look. “I cook,” she said with just a hint of pride. “But I rarely bake. When you live alone…” She let that sit before adding, “Gail made it for me.”
“Birthday?”
Jill shook her head. “No, she was just being neighborly.” She said the last word slowly, as if she realized it might sound foreign to him. When he didn’t bite, she asked, “Want to come in for a cup of coffee?”
Yes. Absolutely. That would be great. Sam stood rooted to the spot, his shoes leaking glue into the floorboards, his soul nailed down like a tarp.
“No, thanks,” he said half-heartedly. “Maybe another night.”
“I don’t bite, you know,” said Jill gently. “At least not on the first date.”
Sam’s right eye twitched at the word date. “Dinner was great.”
Jill looked him up and down. “It won’t get any easier, you know.”
“What?”
“Joining the human race,” she said with a sad smile. “The longer you wait, the harder it is.”
“You talking about you now,” said Sam, “or me?”
“Maybe both of us.”
Sam nodded but stayed on his side of the door. “I like the way you sing.”
Jill answered with a smile that dimmed the lights in the hallway.
“So do I,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him gently on the cheek.
“Why—,” Sam began but stopped before the question could sound anything but lame.
“Sometimes you just get a feeling for someone,” replied Jill.
“I figured you were just being neighborly.”
Jill smiled ruefully. “I haven’t met many good men in my time—probably my fault as much as theirs.” She raised her right hand, jabbed her index finger against his chest. “I think there’s a good man buried somewhere underneath all that scar tissue. Maybe next time we get together, you’ll introduce me.”
Before Sam could respond, she took a step back and closed the door. He stood looking at her door for a minute, remembering the sensation of her finger tapping, putting pressure on his heart. Somewhere deep inside his chest, ice was breaking apart in silent agony, drifting toward an empty horizon.
But Sam could feel a part of him grasping—reaching out to savor the cold—as if the ice were the only life raft he had. Taking a deep breath, he turned and walked toward his apartment, thinking that the hallway had never seemed so long.
Chapter Twenty
“S
o long…so long!”
Jerome waved like a drunken idiot, a sneer on his face as he added, “Adios, motherfuckers.” The taillights of the Chevy had disappeared around the corner before Jerome gave the middle finger, but Larry grabbed his arm with a fevered hiss.
“You want to get us killed?”
“That a trick question, Larry?”
“We’re fucked.”
“What are you talking about?” demanded Jerome. “The Z-man just told us our problems were as good as solved.”
Larry looked around for a sharp object to stab his brother, but they were standing at the corner of Davis and Jackson streets, the only things nearby a grocery store, their apartment building, and a row of newspaper kiosks. He unclenched his fists and breathed through his nose.
“Zorro is going to charge us more than Walter would have,” said Larry. “We would have been better off paying our fat-assed neighbor.”
“I told you, Larry. Math’s not my thing.”
Larry lunged, ready to choke the life out of his younger brother, their mother be damned. His clawed hands had just made contact when he caught sight of Barney, the building’s security guard. Larry crumpled into his brother, transforming his abortive assault into an awkward hug. Before Jerome could react, Larry started sobbing uncontrollably. Larry was unstable on the best of days, and today was definitely one of the worst in recent memory.
Jerome smiled sheepishly at the aptly named Barney, who was shaped like a purple dinosaur and acted like Barney Fife from the Andy Griffith show. He was a threat deterrent on par with Inspector Clouseau.
“Hey Barney,” said Jerome.
“You guys OK?”
“Our hamster died,” replied Jerome, patting Larry on the back. “Larry’s kind of torn up about it.”
Barney nodded sympathetically but kept walking, smelling trouble just around the corner.
Larry wiped his nose on Jerome’s shoulder and tried to pull himself together before saying, “Sorry…I’m…I’m just a little stressed about all this.”
“You’re wound too tight,” said Jerome with surprising tenderness.
“Maybe you’re right.” Larry took a deep breath, blew out his cheeks. “It’s not our problem, right?”
“Not anymore,” replied Jerome. “Besides, it could be worse.”
Larry blinked. “How?”
“We could be Walter.”
Larry felt faint. “Don’t you feel guilty?”
Jerome tapped his forehead. “No room for guilt up here, big brother.”
Larry wanted to ask what there was room for, but he said nothing.
“Did we force Walter to blackmail our asses?” asked Jerome.
“No…no, we didn’t.” The observation caught Larry by surprise—the brutal simplicity of it all. Larry marveled at the wisdom of his younger brother when he wasn’t stoned. An innate, naïve logic that kept the real world at a manageable distance. He wondered if Buddhist monks were all stoners.
Jerome slapped Larry on the back. “Let’s go have a drink at the Mexican place—we’ll make a toast.”
“To what?”
“A life without guilt.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Sam felt guilty for being alive.
He’d been a cop in the line of fire every day. Earned a few scars and a wound to the leg trying to do more good than harm, but only succeeding on rare occasions. Marie had been a civilian, a prosecuting attorney, doing more good in a day than most people did in a lifetime. But she got sick, suffered, and died, while Sam’s only lasting injury was her loss.
The guilt grew in the space she left behind. A warm, dark place deep inside his heart where the light of logic and reason couldn’t penetrate. A chamber full of longing for things that might have been.
Sam shook his head to clear it, leaned against his kitchen counter as he opened the refrigerator. You didn’t have to be a police detective to guess he was a bachelor. The beer was gone, which meant the fridge was half-empty. The random assortment of foodstuffs looked suspiciously pale and faded, a sure sign of expiration dates long gone.
Running his hands through his hair, he walked disconsolately down the hall to his bedroom, kicking off his shoes as he crossed the threshold. The cloying guilt was fueling an undercurrent of depression, dragging him down. The bed was telling him to sleep, his brain saying not a chance.
The bed was winning the argument until he saw the message light on his answering machine.
“Hey partner, call me.” Danny Rodriguez’ voice bounced off the walls of his bedroom, shaking Sam out of his funk.
The pressure on his balls had returned.
Sam bent down and pulled on his shoes, walked down the hall, and grabbed his keys. He’d call Danny back later.
Right now, he needed a drink.
Chapter Twenty-two
“I’ll have a mojito.”
The bartender nodded, pulled a frosted glass and dropped in some mint.
Larry shook his head. “How can you drink those things?”
“I just like saying it,” replied Jerome. “Go ahead, try.”
“No, I just want a beer.”
“It’ll make you happy.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Mo—heeeet—ooh!”
Larry clamped his hand around Jerome’s mouth. “Cut it out.”
“Mmm…hhmmm…uuh.”
“What?” Larry lifted the lower half of his right hand, giving Jerome just enough clearance to work his mouth.
“I said…mojito!” Jerome got it out before the hand could slam into position. “There, doesn’t it make you want to smile?”
The bartender, a good-looking guy in his twenties, chuckled as he mixed the drink. The guy looked carefree, relaxed, content—everything Larry wasn’t. He turned to his brother and took a deep breath.
“I think you’re bipolar.”
Jerome slurped his drink. “Have you been reading again, Larry?”
“Never mind,” said Larry, realizing he was wasting his breath. “We need a plan.”
Jerome caught an ice cube and started sucking on it. “I thought we had a plan. I thought Z was—”
“Shhhhhhhhhh!” snapped Larry, almost coming off the bar stool. The bartender had moved about ten feet away, serving two girls who looked barely out of college.
“Did you just shush me again?” Jerome sounded deeply wounded.
“Don’t say his name, for Chrissakes.”
“That’s why I used the letter, Larry. It’s like a secret code.”
“Don’t even use the letter,” Larry insisted, looking right and left. He realized they were sitting in a Mexican restaurant. Who knew how many spies Zorro employed in the quick service restaurant industry? “Someone might guess.”
“OK,” Jerome shrugged. “How about Q? It could be like James Bond.”
“No.”
“X?”
“Drop it.”
“Fine,” said Jerome, taking another long pull on his drink. “So the drug lord we’re not talking about? I thought he had our back…”
Larry leaned close to his brother. “What if something goes wrong?” he asked. “Who do you think is going to take the fall for…” He paused, looked around before adding, “Walter?”
“You mean W?” Jerome said in a stage whisper.
“You know who I mean, you retard.”
“That’s whom, Larry. Gotta watch your grammar, bro.”
After a deep breath through his nose, Larry tried again. “We need a plan.”
Jerome crunched his ice and reached for the basket of chips on the bar. Music blared from cheap speakers overhead, all the lyrics in Spanish. This entire place was designed to give you a headache unless you drank heavily. Jerome swiveled on his stool to look Larry in the eye.
“You think we need a plan,” he said. “In case Z fucks us over.”
Larry let the use of the alphabet slide, relieved Jerome had tuned into reality. “Exactly.”
“You think he wil
l?”
Larry shrugged. “If you asked me a week ago, I would have said he needed us.”
“We move a lot of pot for that guy.”
“Now I’m not so sure,” replied Larry. “It’s a lot of pot for us—but what about all the runners he has, working the streets in the Mission, the Tenderloin district, Polk street? All those guys feed back into—” Larry stopped before he said the name.
Jerome finished the thought. “Back into Z.”
“Yeah,” said Larry. “You add all those runners up, moving all those bags around the city, now that’s a lot of pot.”
“So maybe we’re expendable.”
Larry nodded and reached for his beer. “If anything goes wrong, we take the fall.”
“How tough can it be to kill Walter?” Jerome palmed a stack of chips. “I mean, the fat fuck is halfway to a coronary.”
“Accidents happen,” said Larry simply. “Mistakes get made.”
“That dude Carlos doesn’t look like he makes too many mistakes.”
Larry shivered at the memory of those eyes but didn’t say anything.
“I guess the cops could take an interest,” said Jerome. “You know, after the deed is done.”
Larry caught his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Drawn face, tired eyes. Shake it off. He shook his head and took a swig of his beer. Optimists win, pessimists go to jail.
“We’re not on their radar,” he said with forced bravado. “The cops don’t know we exist.” He turned to face Jerome, noticed a man moving toward them. An older guy, a little rumpled. Walked right up and stood between them, an easy smile on his face. He looked familiar, but Larry was having a hard time placing him.
“You must be Larry,” the man said, nodding. He shifted his gaze. “And you’re Jerome.”
“And you are?” Larry spoke up before Jerome picked another fight with the wrong guy.
“Sam,” came the reply. “I’m the cop who lives down the hall.”
Larry looked at himself in the mirror, saw his eyes bugging out of his head.
Be cool.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions?” asked Sam.
“Sure, have a seat.” Larry shifted over one stool, making a space between him and Jerome. Kept his eyes off the mirror. “Want a drink?”
