Shaker

by Scott Frank

  Albert snapped his fingers, startling him. “You’re brave. That must be it.”

  Roy said, “You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “No, brave wouldn’t be enough,” Albert went on. “I wouldn’t trust you, wouldn’t take you in just because you were brave. There had to be another reason they liked you for this little gig.”

  Roy asked, “Who’s they?”

  Danny forced himself to stand up tall and look at Albert. “Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about?”

  The calm, confident surfer Roy had confided in was becoming someone else, even while stoned on Rita’s pills, even while trying to hold on to whatever it was he had been playing at the past year.

  Albert smiled. “I’m just asking, what it is about you they thought I would…respond to?” Danny flinched slightly as Albert gently touched his chest and said, “I mean, exactly what kind of man do they think I am, Danny?”

  Roy asked again, “Albert, who the fuck is they?”

  Before Roy knew what was happening, Albert ripped open Danny’s shirt and pointed to the microcassette taped to his chest. “Them,” he said. “Them is they. They is them.”

  And while Bob started laughing, Roy couldn’t accept what he was seeing.

  “Danny?”

  But now Danny was gone and some new person stood there staring back at Albert, fighting the Valium. “There are two agents parked just down the road from here. Four more in a chopper five thousand feet above your head.”

  Bob looked up at the ceiling.

  “You and Bob need to put down your guns and step away.”

  Albert didn’t move.

  “Albert, listen to me,” Danny said. “You need to do what I say, and you need to do it now.”

  Albert said, “Uh-oh.”

  “In another thirty seconds this place is gonna be full of agents.”

  “You wouldn’t by chance be referring to the agents that have been watching Harvey’s farm for the past three months, would you? Are those the agents you mean?”

  Albert then leaned down and spoke into the wire, “Hello? Special Agent Keefer? Special Agent Goetz? Are you there?”

  Bob reached into his coat and pulled two badge folders from his coat and tossed them at Danny’s feet, the leather on both caked with blood.

  All at once, Danny seemed to sag like the room.

  “Apparently,” Albert said, “they’ve been transferred to a better assignment.”

  Albert then removed two pairs of handcuffs from his own coat and held them up.

  “I believe you know how to use these.” He handed a pair to Danny. “Behind your back, please.”

  Roy watched as Danny did as he was told. There was no point in fighting. If Albert didn’t shoot him, Bob would. Hell, if what Albert was saying was true, Roy was certainly thinking about it. He wondered about all those times he had spoken to Danny, who else had he been talking to?

  Roy shoved Bob aside and walked over to him. “You’re FBI?”

  “DEA,” Albert said. “On loan for this very special assignment.”

  Roy said, “What have you been waiting for?”

  “He likes you, Roy. I’m sure he was hoping you’d get out before they made their move.”

  Danny said, “We never wanted any of you.”

  “Maybe not these two,” Albert said. “But I made your partners following me a month ago.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re nothing compared to the Coopers.”

  “The Coopers are fucking geriatric.”

  “So they’ve made you think. They’re smart, and they stay out of it, mostly by using you or others like you to keep clear and clean.”

  “Bullshit. Harvey is out of it.”

  “You put him in it the minute you took out Leo Bianchi for him.”

  “I didn’t do that for him.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  Albert looked at Bob and the two of them started laughing at the thought of the old couple pulling strings. But Roy could see that Danny was telling the truth; that Danny’s instinct to protect Roy had been as genuine as Harvey’s was calculated. But there was still no escaping that the man was the law and had come to put them all down.

  “Will you look at the size of that vise.”

  Roy slipped out of his daydream and watched as Albert dragged a rheumy-eyed Danny over to the workbench and began to winch open the big iron vise mounted there. Roy realized now that it was the only thing in the place that was brand-new.

  Roy asked, “What are you doing, Al?”

  Albert smiled at Roy and said, “When you love someone, you gotta trust them. There’s no other way. You’ve got to give them the key to everything that’s yours. Otherwise, what’s the point?” He then looked at Danny and said, “And for a while, I believed, that’s the kind of love I had.”

  “What is that? Casino?” Roy said. “You quoting a fucking movie now?”

  “And then, boom! The fucking car blows up. You remember that? Right at the beginning? Was my second favorite scene.”

  Danny struggled as Albert now tried to bend him over and put Danny’s head in between the iron jaws.

  “Help me hold him.”

  Roy stayed put as Bob hurried over and leaned on Danny while Albert started to crank the vise tight around Danny’s head. Danny opened his eyes and looked at Roy.

  “Albert, just shoot him.”

  “When I’m ready.” Albert looked at Bob, who opened his coat to show that he had Roy’s gun. “Hold him, he’s gonna buck.” And then Albert slowly started to crank the vise shut. Danny screamed and thrashed, but Bob held on to him. Roy could see blood running down his cheeks and heard what sounded like a floorboard creak when one of his eyes seemed to collapse in the socket sending a threadlike stream of blood into Bob’s face.

  “Motherfucker—”

  Roy heard a sound like nothing he’d ever heard before. The mewling of an infant mixed with the panicked cries of a trapped and wounded animal. Danny was screaming.

  Albert was only cranking the handle a fraction of an inch at a time, but the pain it delivered increased a thousandfold with every push. Through it all Bob was laughing at the way Danny squirmed and fought. It was that laugh that finally pierced the new skin Roy had long ago created for himself.

  He felt the cold night air, felt himself wake up after a twenty-year sleep. He felt the pistol in his sleeve slide into his palm, raised his arm, and fired twice. Not used to the little gun, his shots went low and he hit Albert in the chest with both pulls.

  Bob backed away from Roy, looked at Albert lying on the floor, wheezing through the two small punctures.

  Roy pointed the gun at him and said, “Do me a favor, Bob. Laugh.”

  “What the fuck did you just do?”

  “You’ve got my gun along with one of yours. Put them both on the floor.”

  “There’s only two shots in that thing.”

  “Wanna bet?”

  Bob thought about it, then did as he was told.

  There was a groan from the vise.

  Roy motioned with the pistol. “Open it.”

  Bob opened the vise and Danny slid to the floor beside Albert. Roy grabbed Albert’s gun and crouched down. Danny’s head looked like it had been dipped in a bucket of blood. He was almost drowning in it. He looked at Roy with one white eye as Roy handed him Albert’s gun.

  “That’s all the help you get from me.”

  Behind him, Roy heard Bob run out the door. Roy gathered up the remaining guns and walked out after him. Bob stumbled in the dark as he ran for the car, once going down face-first in the gravel.

  “What’s the matter, Bob?” Roy called out as Bob struggled to his feet ahead of him. “Isn’t this funny?”

  Roy raised his gun to tag him when there was a gunshot from inside the house, and Roy paused and looked back. There was no other sound until the car started and spit gravel as Bob drove away down the dark road.

  —

  It was an hour hike i
n the dark to a gas station along Route 14. Harvey told him he would call him back in fifteen minutes from another phone. He had known about Danny, and he and Rita had been operating for the past few months under the assumption that all of their phones were tapped.

  When he called back, Roy could hear the sounds of a restaurant or bar in the background while he told his story. Harvey listened quietly and said to stay put, that Rita was already making calls to have it cleaned up. Later Roy would learn that “cleaned up” meant burned to the ground and the bodies all disappeared. Bob had not come home as yet, and Harvey didn’t expect him to. Bob would run. He would eventually get picked up for something, but he’d never talk.

  Harvey was more concerned about Roy. Where was he going to go?

  Roy told him that he didn’t know, but that he was done with all of them.

  He heard Rita say, “Let me talk to him.” And then she got on and said, “We’ll kill your brother.”

  “What?”

  “You run anywhere and he’s dead.”

  “I’m already gone, Rita.”

  “We’ve got too much invested in you. You’re gonna come with us.”

  “Where?”

  “We’ll let you know. East most likely. New York or Boston.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Okay. But your brother is dead. Wherever he is. We’ll get him. And the little baby his new wife is about to have. It’s dead, too.”

  “Rita—”

  But Harvey was back on the phone, and said in a cheerful voice, “She’s letting me start my own business this time. We can all slowly move into something legit.”

  Like with Leo Bianchi before, Roy realized that he had just done the two of them a huge favor. They wanted Albert shut down and Roy just did that for them. They probably knew about Danny from the beginning. They probably told Albert about him.

  “I won’t live with you and Rita anymore.”

  “We’ll find you a nice place.”

  “I’ll find my own place.”

  “Sure.”

  “And I get a say in what errands I run and how the money breaks.”

  “We can talk about that.”

  “We just did.”

  “Okay, Roy.”

  “What’s this business you’re gonna open?”

  “I’m hoping you come work for me. With me.”

  “What is it? The weathervanes?”

  “Better,” Harvey said. “Home security.”

  “And my brother?” Roy said. “How secure is he?”

  “That all depends on you.”

  The mayor sat in the back of the SUV, crawling along the 110 toward Dodger Stadium, and fumed. Evan Crisp was in his usual Zegna get-up, while this afternoon the mayor had on full Dodger regalia. Hat, jersey, jacket, the whole shebang. It was the first game since the quake and he was to throw out the first pitch. Joy Levine thought it might help erase the memory of him diving under the desk. Joy saying that even the people of L.A. couldn’t accept a pussy as their mayor. The mayor had spent all morning in the City Hall garage throwing pitches to Marco, his driver, and was now pretty sure that he’d injured his rotator cuff. But all he needed was one good throw, and he had been feeling confident enough when they got word that “Science,” one of the kids who whacked Peres, had supposedly called into Tim Conway Jr.’s show on KFI and bragged about starting a new gang called the Vineland Quakers.

  “Quakers,” the mayor asked. “Like in Pennsylvania?”

  Evan said, “I think he’s referencing the earthquake.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

  If that wasn’t bad enough, someone had already in the last hour tagged the inside of one of the freeway tunnels leading to the stadium with THE SCIENCE MAN! According to Gordy Savage, the LAPD graffiti unit was reporting that similar tags had been popping up all around the city.

  The fucking Science Man was on his way to becoming some kind of folk hero.

  Why hadn’t they picked him up? Gordy had promised him that Kelly Maguire would be able to find him in twenty-four hours and yet here the little shit was calling into KFI. Gordy reminded him that they had picked up one of them—the kid’s lawyer already suing the city for violating his civil rights—and another had been shot and killed just that morning. The only one still out there was Science.

  Yes, but Science, the mayor wanted to tell him, was the only one he gave a fuck about.

  Science was parked in the C lot three cars down from Mr. Freeze. The game was another hour away and Mr. Freeze had been sitting in his car for the past fifteen minutes. Science was strapped, but knew he couldn’t get the gun past security. He thought about the various ways to get around that problem, and finally texted his brother Cole and then a tiny G named Zack Combs.

  Zack had moved from North Hollywood to Mount Washington, five minutes from the stadium. Zack beat Cole by ten minutes, and was sitting with Science when Mr. Freeze, St. Louis hat on, got out of his car and headed for Gate 4. Zack opened the door to follow and Science grabbed hold of the kid’s jacket and pulled him back.

  “Just find out where he’s sitting,” Science said, “and then hit me back. Don’t talk to him. Don’t look at him.”

  Science had purchased from a scalper three tickets up in the nosebleeds. He didn’t care about the crap location as the tickets were just to get his ass in the gate. Outside of Mr. Freeze having a VIP box or Dugout Club seats, Science would be pretty much able to follow him most anywhere he went. And if Science still got bumped or bounced, he’d come back outside and wait for the man in his car, do it then.

  But that wouldn’t be nearly the same as doing it in front of fifty thousand people.

  Science would finally be the ghetto star he deserved to be.

  Cole texted him from a spot in the K lot, a five-minute walk around half the stadium, then down to the outer rim of parking lots. As soon as Science got in the car, his brother, sitting up front with his lifelong road dog, Mickey, said, “Dude, you in a mothafuckin’ shitload of ice.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me none a this?”

  “Keep you clear, bro.”

  “Who says I wanna be?”

  “Well, you in it now.”

  They got out of the car, helped Cole into his chair, and started for the gate. Security was a breeze. Science and Mickey went through the detector while they ran a wand over the chair-bound Cole. They found nothing on him, gave back his wallet and phone, and waved them all through. The whole thing took maybe forty seconds, the little Raven .32 making the trip undetected, duct-taped to the underside of Cole’s wheelchair.

  As soon as they were away from the gate, Cole asked, “Now what?”

  Science looked at his phone and said, “Dude’s Lower Reserve, first base side.”

  —

  Kelly and Rudy stood at the back of the room, their eyes flicking between several dozen monitors. Looking at the images, it struck Kelly that no part of the stadium had been damaged in the quake or the subsequent aftershocks. Whereas the Memorial Coliseum, six miles away in Exposition Park, had been deemed totally unsafe due to several columns that had either cracked or collapsed completely.

  Sketches of Roy Cooper were taped to the walls all around the security office. Kelly assumed that he would disguise himself somehow, so they were all scanning any male face that looked over thirty. After an hour of this, Kelly was starting to get a headache. The stadium was nearly full and she still hadn’t seen anyone who even resembled what Rudy was calling The Button Man from Kansas City.

  It was just about game time and Kelly could hear the announcer say, Here to sing our national anthem, please rise and give a warm Dodger welcome to international singing sensation, Mr. Justin Beeeeeeeber!

  Rudy said, “He’s fucking Canadian.”

  Kelly could hear people booing.

  She watched the kid start to sing the first line, stop, and then start over.

  “Awesome.”

  As the kid murdered the tune, K
elly caught a commotion on one of the middle decks, saw that it was the mayor and his entourage making their way down to the field.

  And now to throw out the first pitch, the mayor of Los Angeles, Miguel Santiaaaaaaagooooh!

  The applause, if possible, was even more tepid than what had greeted Bieber.

  Kelly watched Miguel Santiago start down the steps toward the field, waving to the crowd. At the club level, he stopped to greet a kid in a wheelchair. A made-for-the-cameras moment, the kid was black, pushed by another black kid, both wearing Dodger jerseys. As the kid pushing the chair turned to scan the crowd, Kelly came off the wall and put her face close to the monitor.

  “Fuck me,” she said. “That’s Noel Bennett.”

  —

  The mayor came down the steps, could hear people shouting his name and immediately felt better.

  Miguel! Hey, Miguel!

  He waved at the sound of the voices, and saw people ducking and covering their heads with their hands.

  Hey, Miguel, where’s your desk?

  The mayor just smiled through it all. Kept heading down the steps. There was a young black man in a wheelchair at the bottom, parked right in front of the stairs that led down to the field.

  “How are you?” the mayor said, and held out his hand, then panicked that the kid might be paralyzed and not able to shake. But the kid grinned and held out his hand and said, “I’m just fine, Mr. Mayor, how are you?”

  “Wow. Quite a grip you’ve got there. You’re a damn good shaker.”

  He saw the camera and instantly regretted whatever had just come out of his mouth. He looked at Evan, who had a smile that said, Damn good shaker? What a fucking idiot.

  The young man in the chair was saying, “This is my brother Noel.” And the mayor instinctively held out his hand to the kid who stood behind the chair.

  “Pleasure, Noel.”

  And the kid smiled and pounded it out with the mayor, who stared back at him, a horrified look on his face, having realized a second too late who he was.

  The kid said, “Good to see you, cuz,” then turned and saw himself on the Jumbotron and waved to the crowd.

  The mayor looked out at the sea of raised cell phones, and then at the giant screen where the image of the kid standing beside him waving to the crowd was sixty feet tall. He moved away as gracefully as he could, turned to Marco, his guard and driver, and started to say something, but Evan had him by the arm and led him down the steps to the field.