by Preston Lang
“Relax and have a drink,” Tony said.
“All right. I will have one drink.”
“Look at this girl.” Tony gave a little squeeze to Inez. “Beautiful, beautiful. Am I lucky with the honeys, or what? You know my secret? I’m funny. Women like to laugh. Look at this guy—look at that jaw.” Tony came within a few inches of tapping Duane on the chin. “He’s all rugged and handsome, but you don’t get any laughs out of him. So what are you going to do with a man like that, Inez?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe I’d fuck him for several hours and then watch some standup comedy later. You know, like on a DVD.”
Tony definitely heard that, and his fake laugh had more than a little surprise in it. He didn’t really appreciate this from Inez. He liked to be the headliner. But it went past that; had Inez just cashed in her chips? Whatever it was Inez got out of Tony—and Duane could imagine a few things—she was getting ready to move on. Tony stood up.
“What are you drinking?” he asked Duane. “And, no, you can’t just have cranberry juice.”
“Get me a beer, whatever she’s been drinking.”
“Mademoiselle?” Tony looked at Inez.
“More of same,” she said.
Tony went to get the drinks and Duane sat down across from one of the best-looking women he’d seen in a while. There were wings on the table. Some were eaten clean, but most had only a bite or two taken. Either Inez or Tony didn’t know how to eat a chicken wing. Duane put all the blame on Tony Braxton.
“How long have you known him?” Duane asked.
“Not long.”
“You know him from work?”
She laughed.
“What, from my workplace? Is that where I know him from?”
“Is it?”
“We meet people, you know?”
Duane nodded and hated Tony more than he ever expected he could hate a clown.
“You know Tony isn’t normal,” he said. “I mean when it comes down to it.”
“How do you know he’s not normal?”
“Because he cannot shut his mouth about anything.”
“So he tells you about the army men and the little plastic canoe?”
“I haven’t heard about the canoe.”
“It’s pointy.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Toys don’t make a lot of sense.”
Damned if he wasn’t flirting hard with this girl. Stop it—right now.
“You make sense?” she asked.
Before he could answer, two men approached the table—the bigger one in the lead.
“Get up,” he said to Duane.
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to talk to this Latino lady. You’re in the way.”
What the hell? Was this some noise sent by Tony as a joke?
“Let me ask you a question,” Duane said, still seated, looking up at the bigger man. “Are you right handed or are you left handed?”
“Am I right handed or left handed?”
“That’s the question.”
“I told you to get up.”
The man kicked at the leg of Duane’s chair, and Duane slipped his metal baton into his hand under the table.
“Okay, last chance: are you right handed or left handed?”
“You think this is—”
“I ask because I’m going to break one of your hands, but I’m going to do you a favor and break your off hand. So are you left handed or right handed?”
Inez watched—an interested spectator. Without her there Duane wouldn’t have done all the talk, and the man would already be on the ground in pain. But without her there would these guys have still stepped up to him? Duane wasn’t sure exactly what was going on, but physically, he was fully prepared.
“Tell Tony I’ll be at the Denny’s,” he said to Inez. “If there’s anything he really needs to say to me he should go there.”
“Who’s Tony, your boyfriend?” the smaller man asked.
“Okay, here we go,” Duane said. “Put your hands out on the table, so I don’t have to—”
And midsentence Duane hit the bigger man in the kneecap with his stick. A direct hit—and down he went. The smaller man didn’t move a muscle. Duane stood and gave the bigger man a kick to the face then walked to the exit. The word was moving around the room quickly, but Duane was out the door before it got anywhere near the bouncer.
CHAPTER 9
“I’m thirsty,” Willow said. “Are you thirsty?”
Willow had Cyril get her a plastic cup of water from the bathroom. She didn’t really get off on the subservience, but she did like watching him walk around the motel room.
“Here’s how I’ve saved your life,” she said. “You didn’t know you were done as a courier until I told you, right? Think about it: if Tony Braxton is setting you up to get jacked, then you can’t go home, can you?”
“So let me see if I understand who you are,” Cyril said. “Tony thought I was carrying money, and he sent you out here to take it and then return home and split it with him?”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“It’s his money to begin with, though, isn’t it?”
“No, mostly it goes to someone called Top. Tony thinks he should get much more than he does.”
“Why does Tony think you’ll come back to him?” Cyril asked.
“He thinks I love him. He actually thinks he’s irresistible to all women. He’s got, like, three or four buzzing around. But he really, really thinks I’m in love with him. I tell him as often as I can—you are my world, I need to be near you, I love you like no other. He thinks he’s Don Juan—like Don Juan of getting girls to throw plastic toys at his nuts. And he thinks I’m his hunting dog, that I’ll grab the money and bring it all back. Roll around at his feet like a lovesick puppy.”
Willow was now swaying with the romance of it all.
“You really like working that way?” Cyril asked.
“What way?”
“Nothing.”
“No, not nothing. You look down on me? You’re a mule—that’s the lowest thing there is.”
“No, it’s not the lowest thing there is.”
Willow kept the gun at her side, but she was angry now. He was trying to rattle her, but she’d stay professional.
“How about you just tell me where the money is before I shoot you in the thigh?”
“I wish I had money. I don’t. I’m waiting to pick up right now.”
“Where is the pickup?”
“I don’t even know yet. I’m waiting for a phone call.”
“And how much money are you picking up?”
“It’s not money, it’s dope. Look, I don’t know the whole story, but we have to move something around, and I guess Top doesn’t want the local guys out here getting too chummy with each other.”
“So they have a guy drive all the way from the East Coast to do a local courier job?”
“I don’t argue. I just try to do the job and get paid. You know?”
“How will you find out where the pickup is?”
“The local guys call me direct.”
“On this phone?”
Willow took his cell phone out of her pocket with her non-gun hand.
“Yeah, on that phone.”
“The one you left in the car?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re expecting the big phone call for the big drug deal, and you leave the phone in the car?”
“Yeah, that wasn’t smart.”
“You missed three calls,” she said, scrolling through the phone with one hand.
“No, I didn’t.”
“You want to look?”
Willow held up the phone.
“I can’t see.”
“Take exactly one step forward.”
Three Missed Calls, he read off the screen.
“Can you check the number. Please?” he asked.
Willow checked.
“Nope, no number. No messages. You miss
ed three important phone calls?”
“They weren’t supposed to call until tomorrow.”
***
It was more than a week ago that Tony told him about this job—go get some money in cow country. Tony said to start the drive Monday and wait for the exact address on Tuesday from the locals. Details are nice, but that was enough to get the trip started. Cyril had called Tony from the road three times. He wanted to know how much he was picking up, and as he made it to Illinois he started to worry he’d overshoot the location. But Tony wasn’t responding to anything. Next thing he knew, a girl had a gun pointed at his chest.
Cyril looked up at Willow.
“You’re right,” he said. “It is a good thing I met you. My whole organization is burnt up. Who knows what would have happened if I did the pickup.”
“No, you’re still doing it. If everything goes smooth, I’ll let you have a few thousand dollars. Then you scrape the tracker off your car and drive to Canada.”
“What do you mean? What tracker?”
“GPS tracker. There’s one under the car. Tony put it there, right?”
“Are you kidding?”
“What would the joke be?”
“Show me. You have to show me. This is—”
“Slow down. You can’t make demands, remember.”
“You saw a tracker on my car?”
“Yes. Do they always do that?”
“Never. Can you show me? Can we go back to the lot?”
Willow didn’t say anything.
“Please, if there’s a tracker on my car, then we have to get rid of it,” Cyril said.
“And then what?”
“Then we really have to get out of here without anyone killing us.”
CHAPTER 10
Danny let Marcus watch the receiver for a while. It showed a blip on a screen as it moved across the map. The screen froze every couple of minutes and it went out completely a few times, but it always came back and the car never did anything unexpected during these timeouts.
“Inez said the whole thing costs less than a hundred dollars,” Danny said.
“She put it on the car?”
“The girl knows what she’s doing. Luis showed me a picture of her—she looked like she was twelve. With the pigtails and everything. But I guess she’s grown up a lot.”
“You met her?”
“Of course, I met her. I mean, I’ve talked to her on the phone. She sent me the receiver in the mail.”
“He gets his daughter to do this kind of work?”
“He doesn’t have anyone else on the outside. All his old friends have chucked him. It’s really sad to see.”
They were still well in front of the car they were tracking, so they coasted west and enjoyed the scenery as Pennsylvania gave way to Ohio. Danny stopped at a place along the highway that sold specialty candy. He bought two bags of salty licorice and had Marcus try a bite on the way back to the car.
“This is disgusting,” Marcus said.
“Acquired taste.”
“How did you even know that place was there?”
“I’ve travelled some. Seriously, just give it a chance. Keep eating it until it tastes good. A lot of things that feel wrong at first end up being exactly what you need.”
When they got back to the car, Danny took the wheel again and played R&B ballads on the radio, sweet songs about breakups and undying love sung by men who claimed to be irresistible.
“You like Usher?” Danny asked.
“Yeah, I guess. I don’t pay enough attention to music.”
“Yeah, that’s a problem. If you don’t like music, then something is missing.”
“Saida tells me that. But I don’t hate music. It’s just that she plays me something, and I’m supposed to feel something. And she’s angry because I don’t.”
“What do you feel, nothing?”
“Not enough, I guess.”
They drove for about a minute in silence.
“I worry that, I don’t know, she’s going to leave me. I mean—I know that she loves me, but I feel like she should love me more than she does.”
“Yup.” Danny nodded like he’d spotted the problem. “Here’s the thing: it’s impossible for two people to love each other exactly the same amount. That’s like a mathematical impossibility. So, sure, you love her, she loves you, but you love her more and that is eventually going to tear the whole thing down. Love is never equal, and it has to be or it gets rotten. Therefore it always gets rotten. I’m sorry, that’s just the way it is. So all these people are out chasing love—they’re just kidding themselves.”
“So you should just feel up women on the train? That’s what you should go for?”
“No. Meet women, make love to women, but you can’t expect to build a real life with them. It can’t ever work.”
“What you should do is have a column, like a love column, where you give love advice to people.”
“You laugh, but I’ve got a much clearer view than just about anyone else out there. You said it yourself—she doesn’t love you enough. You think by staying together, she’ll start to love you more? For what reason?”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
Usher sang of regret, how he wished he could change the past, and that’s when state police pulled them over.
“Stay calm,” Danny said. “Just stay calm.”
The cop had a hard, weather-beaten face. He was an unsmiling mid-westerner with the name Tasker on his badge. He let them appreciate his stern saunter as he approached the car.
“Do you know how fast you were going?”
“I believe I was going 55, officer.” Danny said—it was the truth.
“Where are you headed?”
“Yosemite National Park.”
“Where’s that?”
“That’s in California.”
“Are you an American citizen?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Can I see your license and registration?”
Danny had everything within easy reach. He was relaxed. The cop looked at Marcus.
“Your ID, too.”
Danny gave Marcus a smile and a nod and Marcus handed over his driver’s license.
“Stay here and wait. Do not get out of the vehicle.”
The cop took the IDs back to his car.
“So he’s going to run our IDs, find out I’m pretty unsavory,” Danny said. “Then he’s going to ask to search the car, and I’ll say go ahead. After that he’ll probably let us drive.”
The cop was gone about ten minutes.
“You heading to Yellowstone?” he said when he returned.
“Yosemite. It’s beautiful. Breathtaking. Have you ever been?”
“Will you step out of the vehicle while I search the car?”
“Sure,” Danny said.
He and Marcus got out. The cop searched the interior for a few minutes; he found the bag of licorice.
“What’s this?”
“It’s licorice.”
“Yeah?”
“It is licorice, sir,” Marcus said, speaking for the first time, hoping the policeman would respect him as another large, serious white male.
“Are you his boyfriend?” the cop asked Marcus.
“Excuse me?”
“I asked a simple question—is this man your lover?”
“No. Sir.”
Now Marcus was furious, but Danny was still light and amused.
“Just friends? Sharing a car, driving out to California?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You also into the things he’s into?”
“What—do you mean?”
“You a sex criminal like he is?”
“No, sir.”
“Let me make this clear to the both of you—you’re not welcome here. Just keep driving. We don’t want scum like you in our state. You belong out in California. Not here.”
“Have a good day, officer,” Danny said.
Tasker walked back to his c
ruiser. He never wrote them a ticket.
“I like the stripes on the pants. It made him look real sporty,” Danny said.
“I don’t find this funny.”
“Any time you’re sure a guy is trying to get you worked up, make sure that you don’t get worked up. I mean, it’s such a cheap trick.”
“Yeah, a cheap trick. Doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have his ass beat.”
“No doubt. But when he’s baiting you like that, it means he doesn’t have anything. If he starts acting like your friend, that’s when you should be worried.”
They drove into the bright peach sunset over flat land. Danny wore shades and Marcus didn’t. On the radio was more love, eternal pledges, passion without limit. The passenger seat didn’t have a visor, so Danny handed his sunglasses to Marcus, who wondered whether he’d ever had a friend as good as Danny Chin.
CHAPTER 11
Duane checked his metal baton—not a dent in it. He’d bought the weapon for forty dollars a few years back—money well spent. Tony sometimes called him The Majorette and made stupid jokes about parades. It would be nice to use the thing on Tony someday.
Duane’s car was out near the Denny’s; that was at least a quarter of a mile away from the bar. Unless there was a clear reason not to, he always liked to have some distance between his car and where he was going. It was a chilly night but just about right for walking and trying to figure some things out. Was Top just a little annoyed with him, or was his life in danger? And if it was, why? For that mistake in Florida? That was Tony’s fault. Like almost everything else lately, it had been caused by Tony Braxton and his inability to keep his God damn mouth shut. Jesus, how could Top not know this?
And if Top was going to kill him, he wouldn’t send a couple of meatballs like the guys in the bar—I’d like to talk to this Latino lady? Come on. Top had two soulless Turkish brothers and a former US marine with some very frightening home videos working for him. What had happened back in the bar had most likely been something Tony came up with—for some stupid Tony reason.
Or maybe it went the other way: Tony was using Duane to handle some personal trouble. If Tony had come to him and said, Duane, can you help me fix these two local douchebags, Duane would have been happy to do it. As much as he hated Tony, he liked the chance to deal out punishment. Yeah, he still got off on the occasional bar fight, but only up to a point. He didn’t look for trouble anymore. Still, the crack of bone had felt so right.
