The Big Get-Even

by Paul Di Filippo

  “Gentlemen, take your seats! I am doubly honored today. I never hoped to witness such a slate as McClinton and Hasso. Which of you is running for president, and which for vice president?”

  “Anton, you always bust me up. You know damn well how Glen and I hooked up. He saved my fucking life! And now we’re amigos.”

  “Yes, I recall that act of nobility. The cops woke me up at 2:00 a.m. to confirm everything about my client. Okay, so the two of you are the best of chums now. And you plan on leaving town together—if I let you.”

  I stepped into the conversation. “Yes, Anton, it’s to help my uncle out.” I explained about Uncle Ralph’s purchase of Bigelow Junction, the fulfillment of his lifetime dream, yada, yada, and yada. I could feel myself entering the same kind of hyperverbal fugue state—minus the opioid buzz—that I had so often felt when spieling to clients. And for the length of my talk, I sincerely believed in the truth of what I was saying.

  “And so you see, we’d be gainfully employed at last, and actually burnishing the state’s reputation by rehabbing a little slice of this rundown region and thus improving the local and even regional economy.”

  I sat back, spent and sweating, while Paget regarded the two of us in silence.

  “C’mon, Anton,” said Stan, “cut us a break! We’re trying to go straight here and become productive members of society! Just like you want!”

  Paget bent to his food-stained keyboard and began typing. “I am transferring your cases to Wilson Schreiber, my counterpart for Bigelow Junction and environs. If you think I’m a hard-ass, you have a surprise coming when you meet Will. If he tells me that either of you so much as looked askance at a meter reader, you will be back here so fast you’ll leave your fillings up north. Plus, I’ll be expecting to see stubs from regular paychecks, to show you two aren’t just on an extended vacation.”

  Paget suddenly scrutinized us in a fresh manner. “You guys aren’t like, I don’t know, cohusbands or anything, are you? Because if so—”

  Hasso slammed his palm down on Paget’s desk. “Jesus Christ! You know I got a woman, dude!”

  “Oh, yes, Ms. Parmalee. Will she be accompanying you to Bigelow Junction?”

  “Sure, why not? It’s a free country.”

  “No reason. I actually think she’s a good influence on you.”

  We all stood up. I stuck out my hand, radiating sincerity. “Anton, we won’t let you down.”

  “There’s always a first time for everything, I figure.”

  Outside, Hasso unbuttoned the upper half of his shirt to let his stifled chest hair breathe.

  “Okay, Glen, now we meet the rest of our merry crew!”

  PART TWO

  11

  The State House looked busy today at lunch hour. Outside the front doors, the broad terrace of frost-heaved brick was thick with conversing politicians, visiting citizens, deliverymen, a security guard or two, a well-behaved gaggle of sign-toting protesters, and a few scavenging gulls slumming from the bay a mile east, on whose less-than-pristine shores our capital sat. Satellite uplink trucks from three local stations and one national network had parked on the sidewalk. This meant diverting pedestrians into the street for a short stretch, which gave rise to much hooting of car horns and angry shouts from walkers and drivers alike. I couldn’t guess what newsworthy event had caused the media to converge like buzzards on roadkill. A small herd of visiting elementary-school kids, shepherded by two teachers glowing impossibly young and beautiful in their summer dresses, made their exuberant way across the pavilion from a big faded-yellow bus.

  Stan Hasso and I observed all this from the concealing shade of a large copper beech tree in the park across the street. A down-and-outer on the nearest bench was drinking from an iced-tea can the size of a mortar round. No doubt, the “tea” had the color and flavor of fortified wine.

  This was our last stop before heading up to Bigelow Junction. Our bags were packed in the trunk of the Impala, and Sandralene awaited us at Uncle Ralph’s. She had closed up her apartment for good.

  One way or another, none of us were coming back to this town.

  “It kinda gets ya, don’t it?” said Stan, nodding at the slow procession of cars and pedestrians.

  “Like how?”

  “Oh, you know, man. Democracy, justice, help the underprivileged, your tax dollars at work, Jimmy Stewart goes to Washington, Martin Luther King—that kinda crap.”

  “Yes, I suppose I could summon up some misty-eyed sense of patriotism and civic pride—if we weren’t here to deliver a thirty-thousand-dollar bribe to a state senator.”

  The money—a fat wad of well-circulated hundred-dollar bills in an anonymous envelope, cashed out of our bank account by Sandralene, weighed heavily in the side pocket of my light nylon shell.

  “Where’s the problem?” Stan asked. “Bribes are just as much part of the whole shebang as all them other things. Tradition’s gotta be maintained.”

  “I think you are just better at cognitive dissonance than I, Stan.”

  “Ya mean keeping two ideas that hate each other’s guts in your head at the same time, without letting either of ’em kill the other?”

  I looked in wonder at the hulking ex-arsonist. “You know what cognitive dissonance is?”

  “Hey, you think I never listened in class? Even back in the Gulch, I knew that the more knowledge you could collect, the more leverage you had against the other guy who maybe didn’t know as much. Also, in the jug I got used to reading books again.”

  “Stan, you are some kind of marvel.”

  “Believe it!”

  As we watched, the figure we had been anticipating made its slow and casual exit from the building.

  Senator Flavio Almonte, head of the Regulated Industries Committee, which oversaw the state’s nascent gaming business, was shaped roughly like a keg of beer topped by a palm-straw cowboy hat. His lack of any discernible neck made him resemble the legendary enemy of the X-Men, Juggernaut. As if to mimic that villain’s costume, today Almonte wore a red shirt with a blue tie and brick-colored pants. His sienna-hued face, beneath a thick mop of dull raven hair, exhibited the wary jollity of someone given to enjoying life’s pleasures at the slightest invitation, only to be betrayed by the consequences of such fun.

  Senator Almonte ambled across the State House terrace, heading straight toward us on the far side of the intervening avenue with no attempt at subtlety. He had the gait of a peasant carrying a yoke of water buckets.

  “Jesus,” said Stan, “this guy’s about as subtle as a turd on a doorstep. I just hope I didn’t read him wrong. He’s gotta be able to convince Nancarrow.”

  Watching him approach, I said, “Well, from what I’ve seen of him at his press conferences, any attempt he makes at being sly will come across as exactly that. So he might just deliver precisely what this insane scam needs from him.”

  “Anyhow, we got no choice,” Stan said. “It’s him or nobody. He’s the informer we need—the only guy who might logically have some idea of Steve Prynne’s plans that he can ‘leak.’” He made air quotes around the word. “Let’s head toward the fountain now and let him catch up.”

  We strolled deeper into the park. The shady grounds were a popular spot on such a nice day: nannies pushing strollers, retirees walking their yappy ornamental dogs. Even accompanied by the unsubtle Almonte, we could count on not standing out. Stan and I had debated meeting with him in a more secluded location but in the end had decided on more of a “Purloined Letter” strategy, right out in the open. Being the sort whose shenanigans had made headlines in the past, the senator was often tracked after hours by newshounds and tipsters. But lunch hour in the park across from the capitol—that seemed entirely too boring a venue for anything scandalous.

  The fountain loomed ahead: a big blatant, baroque affair of naked bronze figures, clenched buttocks and proud bosoms thrusti
ng everywhere. The gushing, splashing water conveniently overlaid and obscured any conversation conducted at the edge of the sculpture’s stoneware basin.

  A nearby food cart was selling arepas, and the delicious smell of the meat- and cheese-stuffed corn fritters wafted our way.

  “I could eat about six of those bad boys,” Stan said. “You?”

  My stomach was a little uneasy. Pulling off cons had been a lot simpler when I was always high. But I was beginning to feel some of that old thrill of getting back into the game, and it made me a lot more confident and a lot less jumpy than when Stan Hasso first rang my doorbell less than a week ago.

  “Just get me one,” I said, “and something to drink.”

  Stan went over to the cart and was soon back with the arepas and two bottles of Jarritos pineapple soda. He handed me my fritter and drink, and I regarded the bottle dubiously.

  “This stuff has to be the sweetest soda in existence.”

  “I like it,” he said. “You can pick the soda next time, when you’re buying lunch.”

  “That was my money—I am buying lunch!”

  “Oh, right.”

  Almonte strolled over to the cart and got his own meal. Hasso and I sat on the damp rim of the basin, and Almonte joined us at a decorous distance.

  “So, Flavio,” Stan said in a subdued voice, “¿qué pasa?”

  Almonte took a big bite of arepa, then proceeded to speak through it. “Everything is very tranquilo, my friend. Especially with this generous show of appreciation. It is much esteemed, and in return for such a small favor. Do you know what the state pays us? Fifteen thousand a year. How can a man survive on such a pittance?”

  “You’re supposed to be just a part-time pol, ese. Citizen statesman. Don’t you have a real profession?”

  “I help my people with their tax returns, but that is strictly seasonal work.”

  “You should know better than to count on seasonal stuff, man. That’s the trap la raza always falls into. Strawberries, lettuce, and apples, one right after the other, until your back is busted.”

  Almonte laughed with genuine pleasure. “You have me there, Hasso. Anyhow, I think you will agree that I have made a good deal. Some small lies to an obnoxious fellow, and I earn double my salary. You do have the money with you, I hope?”

  “It’s going in the trash bin when we leave. Make sure you’re right behind us. I don’t want some can-and-bottle scavenger hitting the jackpot.”

  I felt I had to add my two cents. “Remember, now, Senator, you need to let the information slip in a way that looks totally accidental. Bigelow Junction is where Prynne wants to build his casino. That’s definite. But let Nancarrow weasel it out of you. Feed his image of himself as a master manipulator.”

  “I understand. The guy is always hanging around the State House anyhow, digging for this, offering that. He already thinks I know more than I’m saying. It will not be hard to play this part.”

  “Great.”

  Stan had finished his six arepas before I got through half of my one. “Gimme your trash, Glen.”

  Under cover of wiping my hands on a paper napkin, I took out the envelope of cash and slipped it into my greasy paper bag. I handed it to Stan, and he casually crumpled my bag in his, then walked to the nearest waste can, where he deposited the whole expensive wad.

  “Don’t let us down, Flavio,” said Stan, in a tone that implied a causal link between following his advice and preserving one’s health.

  “You may rely on me completamente.”

  Some distance from the fountain, I looked back cautiously. Almonte’s front pants pocket showed a new bulge as he sauntered along, enjoying the balmy weather.

  “Christ, I hate to rely on a weak fish like that,” Stan said. “But sometimes you just gotta delegate certain things. Am I right, Glen boy, or am I right?”

  The sight of my twenty gold Pandas disappearing into the bowels of the State House left me feeling a little dispirited. Our scam seemed more real and consequential, even more than it had when we purchased the land.

  “I sure hope so,” I said. “I really do.”

  12

  Sandralene emerged from Uncle Ralph’s bathroom, wearing a fresh matrix of makeup and looking runway fine. Her blue and white summer dress, which stopped at midthigh on her bare tan legs, somehow reminded me of a sailor’s outfit. If Navy recruiters had used her on a poster, the line of both men and women queued up at the enlistment station door would have wrapped around the block. The leather uppers of her Dolce & Gabbana sandals were festooned with jingling fake gold coins. Whether she had chosen the sandals deliberately, to proclaim her status as custodian of my gold Pandas, or just to complement her dress, I chose to regard the footwear as a good omen for our enterprise.

  “C’mon,” said Stan, “shake your tush. We gotta hit the road now to get to Bigelow Junction before nightfall. I don’t wanna be messing around in the dark, trying to turn on the lights in a shack full o’ snakes and grizzly bears.”

  Bigelow Junction, the domain of Parole Officer Wilson Schreiber, lay some three hundred miles upstate. The trip would be all freeway except for the bumpy, curvy final stretch.

  “Maybe snakes and bears frighten you, Stanley, but not me,” Sandralene said. “What I’ve seen in the way of sketchy characters right here in this city is ten times worse. No snake ever tried to slither up my dress, and no bear ever tried digging in my purse with one paw while grabbing my boobs with the other.”

  The mental images conjured up by Sandralene’s colorful descriptions made me weak in the knees. I could not see myself at Bigelow Junction, where the close proximity of her Amazonian presence would be intensified by whatever sexual banter and bedplay she and Stan would get up to, without becoming a neurotic wreck. I had to find a woman soon. Maybe Bigelow Junction boasted a large assortment of easygoing farmers’ daughters eager to shack up with an unemployed land speculator.

  Uncle Ralph came out of the kitchen, followed by Suzy Lam carrying a brown paper sack.

  “Okay, kiddies, sandwiches and drinks for the road. No booze, not even a beer. Just soda! You listen to Aunt Suzy! Cops find ex-cons together in a car, no extra provocations needed! ‘Click it or ticket!’”

  I took the bag from Suzy while Uncle Ralph looked on with a smile of approval.

  As soon as the three of us had cemented our plans to decamp for Bigelow Junction, Suzy had announced her intention to move in with Uncle Ralph. “I love this frosty old tiger. He’s so good to little Suzy. And he knows how to have big fun. Besides, only crazy people pay two rents if they don’t have to. And your uncle, he don’t even pay none!”

  True, the old homestead had long been free and clear of any mortgage, and it made no sense for Ralph and Suzy to be subsidizing her landlord when they had grown so close. And Suzy’s contribution of her own car to the joint establishment made Ralph feel free to give me the Impala, without my even asking for it. Otherwise, we would have had to spend some of our remaining seventy thousand dollars on alternative transportation.

  Now I was glad I had invested my own money to keep the old heap in good running condition.

  The first thing Suzy had done upon moving in was to ditch Aunt Gillian’s prized parlor set and replace it with stuff from IKEA. Admittedly, the old furniture had been swaybacked and grotty. But the pieces had been there since I was a kid—a remnant token of Aunt Gillian’s tastes and a lifetime earnestly endured. And their absence now, along with the presence of alien hipster couches and end tables, rendered the house foreign to me. The changes drove home just how completely I had embarked on this new stage of my life, with no likelihood of return.

  “All right, Suzy!” said Stan. “If Ralph didn’t have both his hands on your ass already, I might not be able to keep mine off.”

  Sandralene rolled her eyes. Suzy punched Stan’s shoulder hard enough to make him wince authentic
ally.

  “Say your goodbyes, Glen boy. Sandy and I’ll be in the car.”

  After my coconspirators had stepped outside, I hugged both Suzy and Ralph. I hadn’t expected to feel so emotional about leaving them behind. When I had been flying high (in more ways than one) at Ghent, Goolsbee & Saikiri, Uncle Ralph had seemed merely a nostalgic artifact of my past, inconsequential if considered at all. In prison, I had been too busy surviving and pitying myself to consider his existence. Then he had taken me in to satisfy Paget and the parole board, participated as our front man in the purchase of Bigelow Junction, and, finally, given me his car. That anyone would still love me and invest in me after I so royally fucked up my life had to be some kind of miracle, and it brought tears to my eyes.

  “Hey, Glen, don’t you forget little Suzy’s share! One thousand dollars times fifty, pronto!”

  I wiped my cheeks and said, “Okay, Suzy. Pronto.”

  After shaking Uncle Ralph’s hand, I left the house for good.

  Miss Sandralene Parmalee insouciantly occupied the shotgun seat, but her man was not behind the wheel of the Impala, where I had assumed he would be. Instead, Mr. Stanley Hasso lay folded at the knees across the back seat, out of view, below the sight lines of the windows.

  Without venturing to ask the reason for this unconventional posture, I got into the driver’s seat, started the car, and drove slowly off.

  “We got one last stop here in the city,” Stan said. “I don’t think it’ll take too long. You know the Verger Building on Newcomen Street?”

  “I can find it.”

  “If there’s a parking spot not too close to the front entrance but with a good view, take it. If not, keep circling till one opens up.”

  Ten minutes of crosstown driving brought us to the Verger Building, an art deco relic still in excellent shape. Luckily, there was an open curbside slot diagonally across the street from the revolving glass door.

  “This is perfect,” said Stan. “Now we wait.”