by Scott Frank
Roy heard a soft knocking sound from the kitchen and saw the wooden spoon rattling on its own in the pot. Roy felt a sudden lightness in his balls the way he did every time he rode a fast elevator and realized that the whole room was shaking. He stood there, panicked, as now the pictures of the old guys on the wall all began to sway on their hooks. Roy thought about diving under the coffee table or getting into a closet, but before he could make any kind of decision one way or the other, he felt his legs carrying him out the door just as Martin Shine crumpled to the carpet behind him.
Roy couldn’t find the rental car.
He had been walking around the neighborhood, the ground no longer shaking but his heart still racing, for nearly half an hour when he came to the conclusion that someone must have stolen it. Maybe someone from the party. Or maybe someone walking by had their eye out for a white Ford Fusion they could part out for a few bucks somewhere. It couldn’t be worth that much. The radio didn’t even work.
That is, if someone stole it in the first place. He wasn’t even sure that he’d been up the right street yet. He had already walked up and down several streets behind Martin Shine’s place and, for some reason, still hadn’t been able to find the little house with all the people dancing on the lawn. If he could find the house, he could find the car.
He stopped and stood there listening for the music, get a sense of which direction to head in. But all he heard was a dog bark one time and a voice—a woman’s—yelling something that sounded like Get off the fence Jojo!
Then footsteps. Behind him. Roy turned around.
“On your left,” the man said as he jogged past. Roy couldn’t see his face. He was dressed in a gray sweat suit, the hood pulled tight over his head.
Roy called to him, “Excuse me. Sir?”
The man turned back, but kept jogging in place.
“You wouldn’t happen to know where the party is?”
“Party?” He was breathing hard, looking at Roy with a look that said he was annoyed he had to stop. He made a big show out of holding up his wrist, pressing a button on the digital runner’s watch he wore so as not to ruin whatever personal record he was probably just about to break before some asshole stopped him to ask a stupid question.
“There was a party around here a while ago. I can’t find it now.”
“I don’t know of any party.”
Roy could see the guy was in his sixties. And tall. Over six feet. With a gray beard that almost got lost in the hood. His running shoes glowed in the dark. He was already turning to go.
“Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother.” And the man was off, pushing the button on his watch as he ran off into the dark.
Roy knew that even if he could find the party house, he couldn’t just walk in and ask, “Any of you stoners see who jacked my car?” They would certainly remember him once the stink in the apartment a few blocks away got reported.
Roy caught sight of the jogger again at the next corner as he crossed to the other side of the street and then started back the other way, Roy impressed how the old guy moved along, making up time no doubt.
Roy came to the end of a cul-de-sac and reversed his direction.
At one point, what looked like a patrol car drove past. On the side was stenciled VALLEY WEST SECURITY. The driver gave Roy a long once-over, then pulled to the curb, shone his beam into the windows of a dark apartment house on the opposite side of the street. The place had been fenced off with signs that said CONDEMNED STRUCTURE, KEEP OUT and WEITZMAN & SONS SEISMIC ENGINEERS hooked to the chain link.
Roy looked back as he heard the car door open, and then watched as the officer got out, crossed to a house next door to the earthquake-damaged building, and started gathering up what looked to be at least a dozen newspapers scattered about the driveway. The people who lived there, Roy thought, might as well have left a big sign that said, Hey, we’re not home! He was thinking about how once upon a time, Albert would have seen those newspapers and gone in, not looking to take anything necessarily, but just to do it, leave some kind of sign that he’d been inside—like hanging one or two pictures upside down or turning on the television—freak out whoever lived there and was dumb enough to let the world know they were out of town. Roy was thinking about one house in particular when he heard the music.
It was coming from the next street over. He turned left at the corner and quickened his pace. The houses and apartment buildings now all looked familiar, yet this time he noticed that there were a few metal-roofed industrial buildings mixed in. Company names like MAYFIELD MARBLE and CABINETWORX jumped out from signs next to more run-down homes that Roy hadn’t seen the first time through.
The music got louder and Roy could feel the heavy bass down to the sidewalk. He recognized the music as that rap crap he sometimes heard the kids listening to beneath his window, usually when he was trying to watch TV.
He approached the mouth of an alley, wondering what made the people at the party switch to this shit, when he heard a voice shout, Down on your hands and knees, son! Roy looked around, but didn’t see a soul.
I said, get on the motherfuckin’ floor!
Roy kept himself back from the mouth of the alley, but peered inside and saw the jogger he’d passed earlier now down on all fours. The man was in his socks, Roy couldn’t see what happened to his fancy running shoes.
There were three of them, black, none older than fourteen, fifteen tops. One of them waved a little .25 auto at the jogger.
“You do like we say or you gonna get fuckin’ worked, you feel me, Herb?”
The kid was heavyset, wore a down vest over a Dallas Cowboys jersey, and new, white, Nike high tops. A blue baseball cap was perched off angle on his head, the name of some malt liquor stitched across the front.
A tiny speaker hooked up to somebody’s iPhone and a brown grocery sack sat up against the wall directly below the dark windows of an upstairs apartment. Leaning against the wall next to the sack sat another kid, legs folded up under his chin, a bored expression on his face. As he took a drink from a bottle of something tucked inside a bag, Roy noticed this one was wearing the jogger’s shoes.
Drops of blood specked the ground all around the old man’s sagging head. His hood was off and Roy could see now that the man was totally bald, a wide gash opened just behind his ear.
“Yo, homes, check out my man.”
A new voice. Roy saw that this one belonged to a smaller kid in baggy jeans, mustard-colored work boots, and a giant T-shirt with a couple of wide blue stripes. He had his head cocked to one side and was staring down at the jogger.
The small kid said, “Dude look like one a them fuckin’ dogs, got the hot chocolate on their neck.”
The bored kid sitting on the ground said, “C’mon, Science. Fuck that fool. Let’s go turn out that fuckin’ party ’round the corner.”
But the smaller one, the one called Science, ignored him, nudged the jogger with his boot, bent down and said in the man’s ear, “Yo, doggie, where your motherfuckin’ Swiss Miss at?”
He then tugged at the jogger’s sweatshirt and said, “That is a mad hoodie, Herb.” Roy watched as he then pulled the hooded sweatshirt off of the jogger and said, “Thank you very much.”
He pulled it on over his head and turned to the fat kid. “Check me out, Shake. Stupid, right?”
Shake, the fat kid, laughed. “It’s fuckin’ double XL, cuz. You look like a fuckin’ Tiny in that shit.”
Science said, “Yeah?” and then turned to the bored kid on the ground. “How I look, L?”
L barely looked at him before he said, “Real stupid, Sci.” Nothing in his voice, the kid pretty well baked. He reached over and turned up the music.
The jogger was shivering. Roy saw that the man was in pain, his knees and palms bleeding. He tried to sit back to relieve the pain and the small kid, Science, kicked him in the ribs. “Don’t you fuckin move, less I tell you to.” He then took the jogger’s watch from his wrist and examined it. “It
stopped,” he said and threw it at the jogger. “It busted.”
Science crouched down in front of him now.
“What’s your name, son?”
“My name—”
“Yeah,” Science said, “the legend they give you at birth?”
The jogger raised his head. Started to get up. “Good Christ,” he said. “You’re just a boy. This is wrong—”
Science hammered the man on the head with the butt of his clenched fist. “What’s your name?”
“Please.” The jogger looked at the kid. “I have a family.”
“I didn’t ask you had no family, motherfucker. I ast your name.”
The jogger said, “Frank Peres,” and Roy got the feeling that he expected the kid to recognize it.
But the kid, Science, just said, “Stand up, Herb. I think I might want them hoodie pants.”
“No. Enough. Stop now and you won’t get in any more trouble.”
“I ain’t the one in no trouble.”
The fat kid came over and poked the gun in the man’s eye. “Take them pants off.”
The jogger pushed off with his hands, slowly got to his feet and rocked back and forth, unsteady from the blows. Science looked at the man’s sweatpants and burst out laughing. He took out his phone and shined the flashlight on a dark stain that had spread across the front and down one leg.
“Yo, son, don’t you got no home trainin’?” He looked over at the kid sitting by the boom box, “L, check it out. This motherfucker done pissed hisself.” He then looked up at the jogger and the smile went away. “You ain’t all that no more, Senior Peres.” He stepped up to the jogger. “You just like me.”
And then he pulled down the jogger’s pants and laughed even harder and said, “Check out the Herb standin’ in his jockstrap.”
Roy’s first thought was to shoot all three of them, go back to looking for his car. He didn’t give a fuck how old they were, they were making way too much noise talking some made-up, bullshit street language, all the while playing music he hated. But more than that, he didn’t like the rush they were getting from the jogger’s fear. The more the man appeared afraid, the more they seemed to get off on it. Roy was never into that. Drawing it out. Punishment hits where you cut up a guy a little piece at a time. Torturing people, all the while giving them some dumb message from this or that greaseball. Roy thought that even Albert, who was into that sort of thing, would have been disgusted at this situation. At least Albert liked things to be fair, always saying he was like the cat, wanted the mouse to respect him. Not these kids. This was more like pulling the wings off flies. This was out of control.
Albert would have shot them each once in the elbow or the kneecap and left them there to think about the error of their ways. Roy had enough left in the Walther to do that. Hell, he didn’t even need the gun to make his point. These kids probably only used to hitting, but not getting hit.
But then Roy remembered Martin Shine, on all fours, bleeding from the head all over the floor of his apartment.
No, this wasn’t Roy’s problem. The jogger got pulled through a door he didn’t open, but it was up to God to decide just how far it would go. Roy didn’t think they would kill him. They’d have fun until they all looked as bored as the kid sitting by the speaker and then move on.
They would walk away pumped, reenergized from the older man’s fear, confident that no one could touch them. And the man himself would certainly have learned his own lesson. Roy could see him lying in his bed, playing it all over and over in his mind, his wife asleep beside him while he experienced the adrenaline and the fear all over again until after a few months of this, anger gradually replaced humiliation and the moment became embedded in his memory like a knife in the head.
Whatever he felt a month from now, Roy knew the man would keep on running the next time he saw three li’l homies step out of an alley in front of him.
Roy had started to turn away, was thinking fuck the rental car, he’ll go find a cab to take him back to the airport, when he felt something cold against his neck, the muzzle of a gun.
And now a new voice: “Yo, Science, check my man out.”
Roy moved his eyes slightly so that he could see the new kid, one he hadn’t seen before, now standing beside and slightly behind him, holding what looked like a big pistol but was really a small machine gun to Roy’s neck, Roy wondering where he got hold of a weapon like that. This kid was tall and lean, Roy’s height, with a jet-black face and one sleepy eye on the left side above a small, maybe a square inch, of wrinkled skin. A burn of some kind.
“Motherfucker was watching the show.”
He shoved Roy into the alley. The small one, Science, came walking over to Roy now, forgetting about the jogger for the moment, and instead put his hands on his hips and stared up at Roy.
“Dude, what you think this is, motherfuckin’ HBO?”
The fat kid eyeballed Roy and pounded it out with the newcomer. “S’up, Truck.”
The one sitting on the ground, L, was now staring up at Roy, no longer looking so bored. He slowly got himself to his feet as Truck, the newcomer, shoved Roy over to where the jogger sat up shaking.
They were all giving Roy their best wolf, but the one Roy couldn’t take his eyes off of was Science. Up close, the kid was good-looking with smooth skin and clear eyes that bespoke of more going on inside than was Roy’s initial impression. These were dark, intelligent eyes set amidst a fine-boned, near angelic face. The kid looked out of place here in this litter-laden alley with a man bleeding on the ground. He looked too innocent, too clean to be hanging out with these loud assholes who kept kicking the old man on the ground and then punching each other’s fists.
But Roy had seen that look before. The innocent face. The easy smile. Here the kid was, standing in the middle of some heavy shit and he didn’t seem to give much of a fuck. If anything, the jogger’s pain put him at ease. There were lots of words to describe someone like this. Over the years, Roy had certainly heard them all. His entire childhood had been organized around and by such words. There was always someone trying to figure out what made people like Roy and Science tick.
Roy realized, then, that he’d made a mistake.
This kid with the face of an angel was a real killer. Roy just hoped that the kid didn’t know that yet.
Truck poked his gun into the jogger’s ribs and said to no one in particular, “Like, who the fuck’s this Herb?”
The jogger nodded to indicate Roy and said, “Let this man go,” he said. “Before you get in any more trouble.”
Roy looked down at the older man shivering in his jockstrap, bleeding from the head, and yet still trying to help Roy. Still thinking he could get these kids to walk away.
Science ignored the man, said to Roy, “Turn your ass around, motherfucker.”
Roy summoned Albert from some place deep in his memory and looked at the kid. Looked into his eyes and let him look back into his. Knowing that something there now would make the boy step back.
He did. But he smiled. “You trying to wolf me, motherfucker?”
Truck raised the machine gun, pointed it at Roy’s face, and said, “Turn ’round.”
All of them were standing too far away to grab. No way to make it back out of the alley either as the one called Truck now stood behind him.
Science said, “You deaf, motherfucker?”
So Roy turned around, gave Truck the same look he gave Science. If it bothered the kid, Roy couldn’t tell.
Science said to Truck, “He moves, like at all, fuckin’ splash his ass.” And then to the fat kid. “You two, Shake.”
The fat kid, Shake, pointed his gun at Roy’s head and Roy felt Science start to pat him down. He pulled Roy’s wallet out of his left front pocket; the rental car keys out of the right.
Science held up the rental fob and asked, “Where’s your ride?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? The fuck you mean, you don’t know?”
“What I said, I can’t find it.” Roy looked over his shoulder. “Maybe you wanna go look for it.”
Truck asked, “What is it?”
“Ford Fusion.”
“The hybrid or the regular?”
Then Shake’s voice, to the jogger: “Hey, Herb, you know how to throw down?” Shake poked the jogger with the gun. “Break off a little sumpin, Herb, dance for us.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
Roy could hear the man trying to get some control back into his voice. He sounded a little like Martin Shine telling Roy about his safe; like a man who thinks for a brief second that there might be a way out after all. And then Truck walked over and hit the jogger across the face with the machine gun. Then again on the back of the neck as the man bent over and covered his face.
Shake laughed. “Yeah, do that work, son. Work that motherfucker.”
The jogger stood there, stooped over, both hands on his mouth. Blood roaring between his fingers. Truck stared at him a moment, then put his gun back on Roy.
Shake, meanwhile, waved his gun at the other man’s wet crotch. “C’mon, dude, bust some moves ’fore I blow your motherfuckin’ dick off.”
Only one gun on Roy now.
He felt Science’s hand in his back pockets. From the left, he felt the kid pull out the directions the lady behind the Avis counter had given him, now folded up into a square. From the right, Science pulled the piece of paper on which Roy had written down Martin Shine’s address. Science looked at it for maybe a second, then tossed it aside.
“That’s it, Herb. Keep dancin’.”
Roy looked back to see the jogger moving slightly to the music. Shake and Truck both laughing at him. The jogger looked up at Roy. His mouth was full of blood, one of his upper teeth was dangling. Throughout all of this L stood there, stoned, staring at Roy. No weapon in his hand.
Grab that MAC 10 from Truck and kill them all.
Now, Roy thought. Do it now.
Then Science found Roy’s gun.
