The Amateurs

by Marcus Sakey

  She found him in the kitchen, still naked, rummaging in the fridge. He had a great body: gym-built muscles that were iron-hard but not flashy or ridiculous, black tribal tattoos around his biceps, nice legs, just enough chest hair. “Beer?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He came out with a couple of Sierra Nevadas, popped the tops, and passed her one. She leaned against the counter, the Formica cool against her bare skin. He opened the drawer, took out his reserve cigarettes, lit up. “Weird scene tonight.”

  She nodded. “That guy’s a trip.”

  “He’s an asshole.”

  “Well, yeah. Didn’t take much to spot that.”

  “What really happened?”

  She ticked a fingernail against the label, peeling the edge up. “I think he was about to ask me out.”

  “Johnny?”

  “Mitch.”

  He took a long pull of beer. “You know, if he ever does, I don’t want to stand between—”

  She shook her head. “I’ve caught him looking, but I don’t think it’s anything serious.” The post-sex glow was fading and leaving in its place a familiar sadness. “Is he dangerous? Your boss?”

  “Nah. I mean, he knows people. But he’s kind of a blowhard. One of those guys who used to be scary and isn’t anymore, not unless you provoke him. I just said that stuff to keep Mitch from doing anything stupid.” He shrugged. “I love the guy, but he’s not Holyfield. His idea of a good punch is left chin to right fist, you know?”

  Men and their alpha politics. The feeling in her chest grew worse, coupled with a hint of panic that she’d been getting lately. Like she was in the wrong place. “Do you ever feel,” she hesitated, “like you missed something?”

  “I miss my daughter.” He took another hit off his cigarette, then threw it in the sink half-smoked. “All the time I’m not with her.”

  “That’s sweet, but not what I mean. I’m talking about something abstract. Like”—she took a sip of beer—“it used to be that when I went out on a Saturday night, I’d have this lightness inside, this openness. The night could go anywhere. I could meet somebody incredible, or dance in a fountain, or have a conversation that would blow my mind. Have something really amazing happen, an adventure. Something that mattered. Life felt . . . imminent. You ever feel that?”

  He nodded, said nothing.

  “I don’t get that much anymore. Now I just go out, I come home, I go to work and book trips to places I’ve never been, probably won’t ever go. There’s no meaning to any of it. Those days are gone, and nothing that amazing happened, and now I’m out of time. All there is left to do is wait to turn into my mother.”

  “Would that be so bad?”

  “Have you met my mother?”

  He laughed. Dropped his empty beer in the trash and opened the fridge for another. “You know, when I was twenty, I had it all figured out. Finish college, go to law school, get a job in the city. Then Trish got pregnant.” He paused. “I wanted her to have an abortion. But she said she couldn’t live with herself. So I did the”—he made air quotes—“right thing. Quit school, married her, started bartending. Told myself I could take classes on the weekends.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “But it was OK, because Cassie was born. Best thing I’ve ever done. Only thing, really. The moment I saw her, all red and wrinkly and screaming . . . I don’t know. That angsty feeling you were talking about, it went away. Just went away.”

  “You still see your ex?”

  “Trish? Every time I pick Cassie up. She’s remarried, a guy who works in the Loop, does something corporate. He’s OK.”

  “What about her?”

  “She”—he hesitated—“She doesn’t think much of me these days.”

  They fell silent. Jenn could hear the hum of the overhead lights. Alex was staring at his beer bottle. They’d been sleeping together on the sly for more than a year, a secret in a group that supposedly didn’t have any, and yet this was the most intimate conversation they’d had. All the games the four of them played, the way they kept the world at bay with them, it wasn’t just the world that was excluded, she realized. They’d also held themselves in reserve from one another.

  All she’d wanted from life was adventure, something that mattered, that was exciting and maybe a little bit dangerous and had rewards to match. And yet here she stood, naked in the kitchen of a guy she knew well and yet not at all. A fuck-buddy. She wasn’t taking risks or reaching for anything. She was just killing time.

  “You know what?” Jenn finished her beer. “I think I’m going to go.”

  Alex looked up, surprised. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve got things to do in the morning. You know.” She dropped her bottle in the trash, went to the bedroom. Stuffed her panties and bra in her purse, pulled on her jeans and shirt, then sat on the edge of the bed to wrestle with her boots. The covers were still tangled from sex, and she had a flash of Alex beneath her, arching upward as she rode him, her knees astride his hips, sweat running between her breasts, her head thrown back. For a moment she hesitated, but that feeling was still there, frustration and faint panic and, yeah, a little bit of self-loathing, too. She finished zipping her boots.

  At the door, she went with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Have fun with Cassie tomorrow.”

  “Thanks. The four of us still on for breakfast on Saturday?”

  “Sure,” she said, “whatever.”

  “Hey.” He stood framed in the doorway, still naked. “You OK?”

  “I’m fine.” Then she turned and went down the stairs to hail a cab.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE HEALTH CLUB WAS SWANK, one of those places yuppies paid big money to not use. Not the good doctor, though. Bennett had been watching for a while now, and apart from one very interesting weakness, the doc was about as exciting as oatmeal. Up in the morning, coffee with the wife—through the windows she looked like she’d once been pretty—then the gym. Thirty on the treadmill, thirty in the pool, a massage, a shower, and off he went.

  Bennett liked people who kept a routine. Sure as a poker tell, it meant they had some part of their lives where they varied, went a little crazy. Everybody needed something to hold back the press of days. Dieters binged, teetotalers threw down punch at the Christmas party, faithful husbands got blown by flirty sales associates on business trips. Screwing up was wired into the DNA.

  And thank God for it. Man had to make a living.

  He walked in the front door of the gym, offered his pass to the pretty boy behind the counter, who said, “Your guest membership expires tomorrow. What do you say—ready to make a better you? Should I get the enrollment forms ready?”

  “I’ll think about it,” Bennett said, then headed for the pool.

  Four lanes, half-Olympic length, under bright fluorescent lighting. A fat woman in a bathing cap did a slow breaststroke, her expression painfully earnest. Beside her, the doc cut through the water with a nice clean crawl, four strokes to a breath, flip-turns at the end of the lane. He wore goggles and a Speedo, and managed three laps to every one of the woman’s. Bennett stood behind the glass and watched, chlorine in his nostrils.

  After ten minutes, the doc pulled himself out of the water. He stood on the edge and stretched, then headed for the exit. The lady’s eyes tracked his retreating back, something like hunger in them. Bennett held the door open.

  “Thanks,” the doc said.

  “No trouble.”

  Bennett stood for a few more minutes, watching the woman swim. There was something about her that touched him. She had to know that she was never going to change, that next year, and the year after, she would still be here, still be fat, still be swimming her clumsy breaststroke before showering and going home alone. And yet here she was, water weights on, plugging away. Human drama, right in front of him. Broke the heart.

  He walked down the hall to the massage rooms. A hatchet-faced girl with big hands was heading for a closed door.

>   “Excuse me,” Bennett said.

  “Yes?”

  “I know this is odd, but I work with the doctor. There’s been an incident at the lab. I need to speak to him right now. It’s urgent.”

  She hesitated, then said, “Well, I suppose I—”

  “Thanks,” he said, one hand on the door handle. She stood there for a moment, and he said, “Sorry, but as I’m sure you know, our work is sensitive.”

  “Umm . . .”

  “I appreciate it.” Then he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.

  The doc lay on his belly on the massage table, a towel across his ass. Candles glowed from a Zen stone arrangement in the corner, and soft music came from somewhere. Swank.

  “Cindi,” the doc said to the floor. “Afraid you’ve got your work cut out for you. My shoulder’s killing me. I think I pulled something.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Bennett said.

  The man’s head whipped around, and he planted his hands on the table, came partway up, then hesitated, seeming to realize he was naked under the towel. “What—”

  “Easy, Doc.” Bennett strolled around the edge of the table. “Don’t want to aggravate that shoulder.”

  “You filling in for Cindi?” His eyes narrow, but no fear in them. The kind of guy who saw the whole world as the help.

  “Let’s talk about who you are.”

  “Who I am? I’m sorry, I don’t understand—”

  “You’re a senior chemist at K&S Laboratories. You guys have a couple of steady contracts supplying medium-sized pharmaceutical companies with organofluorine compounds. Word is you’re likely to be running the place in a couple of years. Some folks might say it’s because you married the boss’s daughter, but I don’t credit that. Best I can tell, you’re a talented scientist.”

  The man’s face went through a series of expressions, his eyebrows raising, then lowering, nostrils flaring, mouth falling slightly open. He looked like he’d been trying to tell a joke but at the last second forgot the punch line.

  “You also have a bit of a naughty streak, don’t you?” Bennett squatted to lower himself eye to eye.

  The guy began to push himself up, saying, “I don’t know who you are or what—”

  Bennett broke his nose.

  “Unnuhhuh!” The man’s eyes went wide with shock, hands flying to cup his face, propping himself on his elbows.

  “Hurts, right? They say that in a fight, you should strike with an open hand, aiming the heel of your palm into your opponent’s nose. Disorienting as hell, the world spins, the pain slows them down. Plus, if you keep your hand at the right angle, a lot of times your fingers will go into their eyes. Why I went with a closed fist that time.”

  Blood was flowing between the man’s fingers—another benefit to a good nose punch, it looked dramatic—and the fear was in him now, that arrogant assumption of control gone. He scrambled backward on the table, the towel slipping off to reveal his bare white ass.

  “Sit still, Doc.” Bennett stood and took the Smith from behind his back.

  The man froze halfway up, flaccid penis dangling, looking for all the world like he was about to take it doggy-style.

  “Good boy.” Bennett reached into his pocket with his left hand, pulled out a handful of pages. He tossed the folded stack on the massage table. “Take a look.”

  For a moment, the man just stared, that prey gaze they all got when you put the screws to them. Then he reached out with a trembling hand and unfolded the papers. First a gasp, then a low moan that dragged on as he moved from photograph to photograph.

  “Walking the wild side, huh? Obviously, black-and-white can’t really demonstrate the full-color glory of the originals. But I think you get the point.”

  The man’s hands were shaking and his face had gone pale. “Where did you . . . ?”

  “You’re too smart to ask things you already know the answer to. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten your little adventure. So why don’t you use that big brain of yours and come up with a better question? There’s really only one.”

  The doctor stared at him, then at the pictures. Slowly he eased himself to a seated position, one hand on his nose, the other covering himself. Helpless to stop his whole world slipping away. Bennett had found that a flair for the dramatic was useful in his line of work. The man wouldn’t have been nearly so cowed sitting behind his desk, wearing a cashmere sweater and tailored slacks. There was a moment of silence, and then, staring at his feet, the man said, “How much do you want?”

  “Right neighborhood, wrong address.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t want money.”

  “Then what?”

  “Nothing that will take much time or effort. Just want you to cook me up a little something.” Bennett pulled another piece of paper from his pocket and held it out. Did it purposefully, wondering which hand the guy would use to take it. After a second, the doctor let go of his nose to grab the paper. Better to let blood run down his face from a broken nose than to expose his cock. Bennett chuckled. “Now, you know what that is?”

  The man focused on the page, his eyes growing wide.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. You make that for me, you got my word, I’ll delete the originals. They aren’t really my taste anyway. Though if you like, I’ll be happy to send you copies first, give you a little souvenir.”

  “I . . . you know what this is?”

  Bennett sighed, then leaned in and flicked the man’s broken nose with his middle finger. The guy yelped, dropped the page.

  “You think I’d be asking if I didn’t?”

  “I don’t know how to make it.”

  “You’re a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. And you have one heck of a chemistry set at your disposal. A lab like yours, deals with pharmaceutical companies, you probably have most of what you need in stock, right?”

  Looking like it hurt, the man nodded.

  “Good. You’ve got three days.”

  “Three days, that’s not enough—”

  “There you go again.” Bennett tapped the Smith against the table. “Talking without thinking.”

  The man swallowed, said nothing.

  “Better. Now”—Bennett stood—“I’ve got your cell number. I’ll be in touch. I were you, I’d get to work.” He slid the gun back into his belt, started for the door. “By the way, I think the lovely you were swimming beside might have a crush on you. Just between us, eh, brother?” He winked, then stepped out, leaving the man naked and bleeding.

  An excellent performance. Hitting the right tone was key. He strolled down the hall, feeling good. He was almost to the stairs when the masseuse stopped him.

  “Everything OK?”

  “Right as rain,” he said. “But you know what, hon? I’ve got a feeling the doctor’s going to skip his massage.”

  CHAPTER 3

  HIS EX-WIFE’S HOUSE was only a forty-minute drive if traffic was good, but it was so far out of his world Alex sometimes felt like he needed a space suit.

  It wasn’t the house itself, which was typical suburban: two stories of aluminum siding and painted shutters on a broad green corner bounded by neat sidewalks. Not one of the McMansions with four garages and a swimming pool and enough space for an extended Korean family. And it wasn’t the suburbs that bothered him. He’d grown up in them—in Michigan, not here, but the thing about suburbs was that they were the same everywhere—and so the strip malls and wide-laned roads and chain restaurants were familiar in a nostalgic sort of way.

  It was something else. The mothers pushing strollers and chatting. The kids racing on bicycles, legs pumping as they leaned on the handlebars. The quiet, tree-shaded streets. Everything seemed settled here. Proper. The predictable result of a series of calculated decisions.

  He thought of Jenn the night before, standing in his kitchen, pale and naked and unself-conscious. Holding her beer bottle by the neck and saying that all she’d wanted was to get swept up in an adventu
re. Beautiful, with her bright skin and small nipples and the faint marks of his fingers bruising her slender biceps. The kind of woman men could obsess over. And he cared about her, he really did. But as he’d looked at her, nothing in him had stirred the same way it did looking at the broad porch and well-kept lawn of his ex-wife’s house.

  Whatever. It was a shiny blue morning, he wasn’t working until six, and he had a date with his favorite ten-year-old. He unfolded himself from his car—the Taurus was solid and cheap, but a little small for six-two—and went up the walk whistling.

  The whistle died when Trish met him at the door. She wore jeans and a fitted T-shirt. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face was closed. “You’re late.”

  “Traffic.”

  She nodded, stepped inside. Turned and yelled over her shoulder. “Cassie!” She looked back at him. “You want some coffee?”

  He shook his head and thought he saw relief in her eyes. Alex put his hands in his pockets, ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. Glanced at the foyer, the floor spotless, mirrors on the wall, a small end table with keys and a stack of mail. He rocked from one foot to the other.

  “Listen, Alex—”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m late with my check. We had a screw-up at the bar, everybody’s pay was held. It should be hitting the bank today. I’ll put it in the mail tomorrow.”

  “And what about last month?”

  “I told you. The IRS, they—”

  “You always have an excuse.”

  “It’s not an excuse,” he said quietly, “if it’s true.”

  “Last month wasn’t the first time. More like the tenth.”

  “Trish, what do you want from me? I’m working double shifts. I live in a dump. I’m not spending money on hookers and blow. If the lawyer your father paid for hadn’t gotten the child support set so ridiculously high, maybe I could make some progress.”