by Lee Lamothe
A cellular phone began emitting a steady beep and it took him a minute to sort through the dozen units set up in chargers on the dining table. He didn’t recognize the number on the display and answered cautiously. “Yeah?”
Julia Gurr sounded as bright and happy as the day. “Marko, we’re working.”
“Both of you? Ah, good. Good.”
She told him Bobby Preston wanted him to send someone to a dumpster behind her building, although she didn’t say she lived there. “He’s left a bunch of cardboard boxes and stuff there. There’s a stencil, some spray paint, some packing tape. You have to get someone to paint the stencils on the boxes, each side.”
“Do we know what the variation is?”
“Nope. We have to get together, you and me. How about Holts, under the Tower Mall?”
She gave him an hour to make the fifteen-minute drive to meet her. She knew he had to make the requisite number of circles, to change vehicles, to dash through hotel lobbies with their crowds and escalators. He’d check reflections in store windows like a spy, stop to tie his shoelace, double back or stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk. He’d dive into and out of taxis like a comic book character. Following Marko, she knew, would require a battalion of badges with the patience of rocks. Cops were notoriously linear thinkers and Marko’s antics could be both high comedy and effective. He’d learned from Jerry Kelly, a master of the dodge.
She was glad of the wait. She was exhausted. She’d been taking telephone instructions from Bobby Preston and running around town. He had dictated slowly over the blind phone: go to a printing house and buy a stencil that read: “For Export Only — This Side Up.” Then to a corrugated paper box firm and buy a gross of cardboard cartons, C flute weight, one-by-two-by-two-foot dimensions, and inserts for reinforcement. Then to a stationery store for packing tape. Then to go to a paint shop to buy a gallon of fast-dry red paint and a roller. Leave it all someplace and have Marko send someone to pick it up.
It looked like a land transfer. Cardboard boxes would burst and split if they had to be tossed from a plane. The stenciling indicated Preston was working something through a Customs contact, maybe on the span bridge. Maybe in a transport truck, mixed in with electronics. Cardboard boxes, if he used the river, even C flutes, would fall apart if they got soaked. She didn’t know the variation, but she knew it would be a good one. And it wasn’t the river.
She jumped when Marko Markowitz dropped into the chair across from her in Holts Cafe. He was glazed with a light sweat. He looked like a cloud in a ballooning white shirt, untucked and smelling of astringent, with red slashes showing on the fabric on his chest and shoulders. He held up his hand. “Don’t fucking ask. You wouldn’t believe me.”
She gave him a pretty smile. “Can I call you Omar?”
He gazed at her and noticed immediately a difference, a change that retrofitted his heart. She looked happy and in control and there were no shadows of Spicetown running across her face, wrinkling confusion into her brow, tugging the edges of her mouth down. He wondered if it was the Presto effect, this change, if Presto had a variation for her heart.
“How’s Bobby? What’s the scene? He working his mojo for the greater good?”
“That’s why we’re here. He’s getting ready to move and he’s moving through me. He said you’ve got too much heat, there’s too much at stake.”
“Ten ems plus. Fucking right.”
“He means Zoe, Marko. He doesn’t care about the money. He’s worried about Zoe. Don’t you worry about her?”
“Jools, there’s no way anything’s going to happen to her.” He didn’t bother with the pretence he hadn’t got her grabbed up. “My word. I’d as soon hang upside down on a meathook in front of that fucking midget, Pavo, than let anything happen to her.”
“Why’d you take her, then?” She looked at him sadly.
“What’s done is done. I didn’t want to do it, but Bobby, well, he was just being the fucking Presto. The clean crook, the sporting bandit, the scarlet fucking pumpernickel or something. Saint Presto. It isn’t like that, Jools, and you of all people know it. He’s left people for dead, accident or no. He’s no fucking better than me. Or Jerry.” He felt bad for her future. She’d grieve the loss of Presto. But he’d be there for her and Zoe. “Anyway, Zoe’s safe, no matter what. That’s what’s important. Bobby works a variation, great, she comes home. He fucks it up, okay, them’s the breaks and she still comes home. It was just a shot; turned out it worked. It was a tight timeline, I couldn’t wait.”
“When we get her back, Marko, you should know Bobby and I’re going to take another shot. Get normal. This thing was a wakeup call. We’ve fucked up our lives. Now we fucked up Zoe’s.”
Marko already knew, but he’d had a faint hope that Jerry Kelly was just being an asshole. Hearing it confirmed angered him. “What the fuck?”
“You put us back together, Marko.” She put her hand on his. “You made us need each other. That’s a good thing.”
Marko pulled his hand back. “Cocksucker. Cock-fucking-sucker. What is it with that fucker? Ah, Jesus. Oh, that fucking guy.”
“Marko. C’mon, straighten up. We’ll work it through, you’ll get past it. We have to focus on doing the work, right? Bringing Zoe back.”
But Marko was focusing on Preston in the weeds with his head inside out. He was thinking that he should have been more creative and specific in his instructions to Jerry Kelly, that maybe Jerry should’ve been sent with a hundred bucks to the woodworking section of a hardware store to loosen his creative juices.
There’ll be time, he told himself, when frogs are feasting on Preston’s fucking eyes. He was going to have his day. Remain calm. The Colombian midget dough first, then Preston, then her and him and Zoe. “Fuck it.”
“Okay. The way he wants to work it is like this. He’s calling and giving me instructions. So far we did the boxes and stuff. I assume your guy picked ’em up and figured out how the stencil works. If Bobby has instructions for you he’s going to give them to me and I’m going to give them to you.”
“That’s it? Sounds okay to me.”
“One little thing though, Marko. When he calls he can’t hear me once I answer. Once I say Hello, once I’ve made the first sound of the first word, he’ll disable the hearing portion of his phone. He talks, I listen. I can talk, but he can’t hear.”
“What’s that all about? He can’t hear you? That’s fucked.”
“It’s smart, if you think about it. No one can threaten him, no one can manipulate him, get him to make stupid or dangerous moves. He gets a leaving alone until he sets up the variation. He’s going do it for you, but once it’s over there, he’s done. He’s going to want Zoe there, do a hand-to-hand. If he doesn’t see her there, he’s going to assume you’ve double-crossed him, or Jerry has, and that she’s dead. He’s going to set the money on fire.”
“What if I need to reach him? Something comes up?”
“He said if everybody does everything right, then everything’ll come out just fine. He said he isn’t interested in hearing Zoe scream over the phone because the psycho there’s got a blowtorch working. ‘Do this, do that, come here, go there. Take a dope shipment over while you’re at it.’”
“He’s taking a chance, a big fucking chance, Jools. You gotta talk him out of this shit.”
“Wish I could, Marko, but I can’t talk to him. No one can.”
Marko sat and stared at the tabletop, evaluating the ramifications of Presto’s plan. He appreciated the creativity, the removal of Presto himself from threat or enticement. It gave him total control. But at some point crazy Jerry and the Presto would have to be at the same place at the same time. “Okay. If that’s how he wants it. I’m going to want Jerry at the exchange in case Presto is setting up some scheme. What’s with the boxes? It looks like, what, over land?”
“I guess. I don’t know. If it was water, he wouldn’t use cardboard boxes, wouldn’t need the stencil. If it was a plane, he’d
use reinforced knapsacks. Maybe he’s got someone at a border point. Maybe a trucker. Stack ’em in behind something else. I don’t know. Anyway, once the dough’s here in town I’m going to have to start picking it up for boiling. I’ll only have a day to do what I can, Presto says, so I’ll be living in the cartoon for a while. You gotta find a place where I can get at it.”
“I’ll have to have some guys with you, make sure you don’t fall into bad company or something.”
“I’ll call and tell you what I need, you separate it from the main stash. When I take it around you can have a guy or two, no problem, but when I go inside someplace to do the boiling, they wait outside. I mean it, Marko. These are my people. I don’t want Jerry going in later and slapping people around and generally going ape.”
He nodded. “Okay, we’ll work it out when the stuff’s here. What’s the Presto need from me, right now?”
“Just the money in the city, someplace, ready for me to boil it. Then we follow his instructions.”
“Okay,” he said. “We’re sorting and counting now. I’ll get it down here, find a place. But no matter how much you boil there’s gonna be a huge fucking stack of it. Tell him he better be prepared.”
She made a small smile and a shrug.
Chapter 21
The slaves worked through the evening and well into the night. Jerry Kelly kept a close eye on them. He kept a close eye on Gary, hung a careful ear to his replies to Jerry’s attempts at reconciliation. There were stages Gary the moth had to go through to become Gary the butterfly. There were dues to be paid and, in the grand scheme of life, being blindfolded and forced to your knees by a pal who might’ve gone psycho was tough, but there were a lot of worse things, let Jerry tell you that, buddy. Gary had taken to delivering the under-cringe sideways looks.
After midnight, while Jerry and Gary were on the porch silently enjoying companionship under a Japanese-quality moon, inside the shed the first slave’s body sent out a message that it was lacking a necessity. Then another, moaning; a third shouting. Molecular rebellion.
The door was locked from the outside. Inside, frantic hands began pounding on it.
“Natives are restless, Gary,” Jerry Kelly said smoking a piece of hash off the end of one of Chyna Lily’s kitchen knives. He’d taken control of the shotgun after Gary didn’t come out of his pout in a reasonable time. “Go chip ’em a tap.”
“Let Roar do it.” Gary was smiling. “She’s a dirty old thing, eh, Jer’?”
Jerry Kelly’s inner ear picked that Gary had treachery coursing through his heart, that he was trying to put Jerry Kelly to sleep. He leaned over and flipped the lock. “Roar, it’s tap the dancers time.”
From inside, she called, “Get Chyna. She’s the magic minstrel.”
“Chyna’s having a private moment, doesn’t want to be disturbed. C’mon out, Roar. I got two dozen hits, you tap the team and you can have what’s left.”
Aurora came out naked, slipping through a crack in the door, trying to keep the groping hands and ratcheting mouths inside. “One for each of them, and the rest for me?” She figured out the happy math.
“Yep. Tap ’em, then come on out and smoke some hash with us.” He dropped a handful of little clear envelopes into her hand. “You up to supercharge?”
Without answering she nodded and she slipped back into the shed.
Jerry Kelly put the shotgun down beside Gary and handed him the knife with the chunk of hash smoking on the tip. “Finish this if you want, I’m zonked.” He stretched and made a series of cracks up his spine. “I’m going up to get some food for ’em from the van. You want anything?”
Gary shook his head. “I’m cool for now, Jer’.”
“We’ll feed the slaves and get high with Aurora, party the girl up, switch her back from Chyna’s bad habits, make an honest woman out of her.”
Gary laughed false: “Haw, haw, haw,” and the hackles on Jerry Kelly’s neck started dancing like nerves.
He walked up the curve of the road; the air was crickets and crackles. There were no cities or major towns nearby to create ambient light to dilute the heavy weight of the galaxy; there was a strong moon and a path of billions of stars of varying brightness. He identified the Big Dipper and the North Star and looked in vain for the Big Bopper, giggling, trying to make the shape of a Fender guitar out of the beautiful mess of anarchy up there.
He’d had hopes for Gary in his slavish devotion but maybe he’d gone too far with the first-rate Cambodian trick, although pal Marko seemed to think it was amusing. In any case, it didn’t look like Gary was going to make it through this thing. Jerry would have to get some real workers up there, some guys with muscle tone, maybe another vehicle, a crash car.
From the creek bridge he could see Chyna had lights on in the log house. It looked like anything that could be lit up was, as if she were afraid of some headless horseman riding the night, some evil nasty that could be repelled by the bright light of reality. Zonked Jerry Kelly evaluated the idea of lurching around the windows and scratching against the glass, of creaking around on the board flooring of the porch and going: “Oooooo …” He instead gave the well-lit front yard a wide avoidance, remembering a yarn about Chyna and a shotgun and a Harley rider being buried with his helmet but without his head. Sensitive Chyna might not be in the mood for midnight frolics.
At the van he quietly opened the driver’s door and dug his fingers into a two-inch rip in the bottom of the seat, probing. He found the blunt shapes of shotgun shells and slipped one into his pocket. He clicked the door shut securely and went to the rear and took out Gary’s worn biker jacket and a box of partially melted chocolate bars and a case of high-energy athletic drinks. Balancing the boxes and the jacket on his shoulder he stood listening to the subtle invisible sounds of night. A faint breeze stirred his hair but seemed to bring no sound until he listened closely and heard the moving air commit angel’s songs on the singing, giggling chimes of glass and bits of metal.
He made his careful way back toward the shed, veering to take a route that would prevent him from walking into the dark surprise he suspected was being concocted in Gary’s petulant mind.
Walking on the edges of his feet he came upon the sight of Gary with the shotgun in his hands beside the shed’s porch. Indian Scout Jerry Kelly slipped across the ground, coming up on Gary’s off side. “Quit horsing around, Gary,” he said from a scant few feet away. He took a step into the startled Gary, bringing himself inside the arc of the barrel. “Give me the scatter, then take the boxes inside. Fuel for the machines.”
He took the shotgun and held it by the cold barrels, loose at his side. “Bring Aurora out with you. It’s playtime.”
When Gary opened the door a sudden wave of speedy voices floated out. Astronauts, Steppenwolf lyrics spoken at a feverish rate, a high laughter, sobbing. He heard Gary’s voice, a tough voice now that he was dealing with subhumans. He came out with naked Aurora as Jerry Kelly, sitting on the top step, fired a piece of hash the size of a biscuit with six-inch flame from a butane lighter.
Time, he decided, to start putting Gary into a vulnerable nap. He made room for him to sit, then patted the wood beside him. “Sit here, Roar. Keep us warm.” Gary sat sideways on the bottom step and Aurora nuzzled on him and went for his zipper.
Jerry Kelly inhaled off the chunk of hash and put the knife under her face. Then he cured Gary’s face. Then back again. He was careful to make his companionship genuine, and in fact it was, for the moment. They all rode their stone and Gary stared at the sky, saying he’d never seen a shooting star.
“We make our own shooting stars, man.” Jerry Kelly busted the scatter and glanced at the two shells, side-by-side in the barrels. “Check this feature.” He snapped the gun shut and aimed at the oriental moon and fired. There was a hollow boom and it seemed that stars burst from the barrel, heading home, repatriating themselves. Coincidentally there was a meteor shower far up there, a cascade that seemed to explode and drip shards of li
ght.
Aurora said: “Wow. Lookee”
Gary briefly ducked away from the sound of the gunshot, but his eyes were kilns of joy at the beauty of the brief light. “Ooooo.”
“You like that, kids? Uncle Jerry’s planetarium. We make the stars. We are the stars.”
Aurora was dazzled. “We make the stars. We are the stars.” She said it again, and began weeping, eyes closed and mouth slack, her eyes retaining the after-image.
Gary was genuinely impressed. “That … Wow, Jerry. Do it again. Send ’em home.”
Jerry Kelly gave him a wide smile. The old Gary was back, he decided. The light show had burned the treachery from his brain. But he wondered how long Gary was back for. Was this just a brief visit? He aimed again at the moon. “Ready kids? Last shell, the last performance.” He made them wait, pretending he was going to fire, then lowering the gun to look at them. “Ready?”
“Yes, go Jerry, go.” Gary stared at the tip of the barrel, his eyes wide with excitement, anticipation.
“Okay, one, two, three …” Jerry Kelly shot the moon. It was beautiful, he had to admit, visual poetry. Even the sound, the booming rolling through the dark hollows, the undulations of the landscape. The after-sound seemed to go on for miles of time. When you thought it was done … there it was still, vibration faint and far.
Jerry Kelly walked back to the steps and sat down as though exhausted. He broke the gun open and used his fingernails to remove the shells. “Out of bullets, kids. Show’s over. Time for some serious huffing.” He put his hand on the back of Aurora’s head and turned her face to the sky. “Roar, you blow?”
“Sure, Jerry.” She was still entranced. “Like, who first?” She got off the step and knelt in the dirt at the foot of the steps.
“Roar, not that. Not yet, anyway. Supercharge us. Make us galaxies, like you. I’ll do you first.” He took the knife with the still-smoking hash and pulled off a lungful. He put the tip of the open shotgun against her lips and pushed it so the first inch was inside her mouth. He blew his lungful down the barrel and Aurora sucked.
