The Max

by Ken Bruen

  Fourteen dias in the hole and it didn’t break Sino at all. Made him stronger, more duro. He spent the time workin’ out down there, doin’ a thousand push-ups a day, and thinkin’ maybe he do Fisher with his hands. Take his time with it, maybe start in on his face, to hear some bones breakin’, that was always a lot of fun. Fisher, the bandajo , would be screamin’ and beggin’, and that’d only get Sino goin’ more. Maybe he’d break his arms, then his legs, all the bones in his body one by one, till he was one big pile of maricon bones. But he’d still be alive ’cause, yeah, that’s what Sino wanted, to make the man stay alive, to keep feeling pain.

  Or, maybe he should burn Fisher’s ass? Yeah, seeing a man die in fuera was like a fuckin’ fiesta.

  Wait, hold up, Sino had a better way to do it. He’d get a shank and cut him up real good. Name’s Fisher, right? So Sino gonna cut him up like a fish. Do it nice and slow too. Little cuts first, make the man see some blood, then get in deeper, make him see some real blood. He’d cut his whole body up but save the best part for last. Man say he cut a man’s dick off, like to talk about it all the time? Maybe Sino gonna cut off Fisher’s dick, feed it to him, then kill him.

  Make that bandajo wish he never took that pie from Sino.

  Angela had the cash, now all she had to do was trade it for the weapons and the car Max wanted. Way back, her boyfriend Dillon, that wannabe boyo – and what a piece of work he’d been – had introduced her to Sean, a genuine boyo, as lethal as they came. She’d seen him roll a dead cop in a blanket and dump him like an old carpet. Sean was from that fierce and ferocious school of old paramilitaries, the sort that’d never surrender, they’d sooner go down in a blaze of armalites and were always tooled to the max.

  Sean, whose only claim to an income came from irregular shifts as a taxi driver, had a stammer and an atrocious record with women. He’d get seriously drunk, approach the most attractive woman in a room, and with his stammer go, “I’m Se… a… n… I’ve… n-n-n-n-n-o… job… will you let me r-r-r-r-r-ride you?”

  Subtle, right? It was certainly clear and direct communication, but he was batting zero.

  Angela knew he had the hots for her, due to the drool that leaked from his lips any time he looked at her. Time to make it sing.

  He lived in an abandoned warehouse on the Lower East Side. He didn’t bother too much with security. His rep was well known – you rip off the boyos, dig a deep hole.

  Angela knew how to visit a murderous mick: Bring a seven course feast – six bottles of the black and a litre of Jameson.

  She climbed the shabby, worn stairs to his apartment on the second floor, seeing rats scurrying in the stairwell corners. They didn’t trouble her. After Greece, four-legged rodents were the least of her fears.

  She knocked on his door, which had a massive Green Harp on it. He pulled it open and she thought, Jesus, he’s gone downhill.

  Never an oil painting, he was dressed in a Galway Hurling T-shirt and baggy combats. He was barefoot and his face, under the red beard… it looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to it. Probably someone had – though Sean was still here, so whoever did it was surely now feeding whatever still swam in the East River. She noticed the SIG in his left hand, held casually.

  Took him a moment to register who she was, then he went, “A…n… g-g-g-g-g-gela?”

  Nothing wrong with his memory.

  She smiled, said, “Conas ata tu?” How are you?

  You want to lure a boyo, talk Irish.

  He smiled. Most of his front teeth missing, and his gums, burned because he’d forgotten to close his mouth when they used the blowtorch. She did the real smart thing, the sort of move that kept her, if only precariously, in the game. She hugged him tight. He was an Irish man, and with that bust up against him, he was already signed, sealed and fooked.

  Then Angela said, “I’ll be needing some weapons and a car,” and Sean went, “I d-d-d-dri-v-ve a c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-c-cab.”

  She oh so accidently brushed his cock. The bastard was rock hard. She wondered how long it had been since he’d gotten laid. Yeah, how long since the Pope gave a shite?

  She said, “Let’s have a jar. You still drink, Sean, darling?”

  Let sensuality leak all over his name. He’d come before the next teardrop fell.

  He said, “I… I… t-t-t-t-t-ta… k-k-k-ke… the od-d-d-d-d-d jar, right… e… n-n-n-nough.”

  She went into his tiny kitchen and surprise, it was spotless. Bachelors, they went one of two ways, became total slobs – i.e., Max – or became obsessive-compulsive. He was the latter.

  She found some Galway Crystal Glasses, those babies went for a fortune, weighed serious tonnage and were no doubt an heirloom from his beloved mother. The micks loved their Mums; no doubt there was some fookin’ Irish lace tablecloth neatly folded and lovingly stored somewhere in the place. She made the working stiff’s version of The Black and Tan, always amused the boyos, and they were one hard fooking act to amuse. Ask the Brits.

  A large shot of the Jay and add just the right amount of Guinness, it was an acquired taste but it got you there, fast.

  She brought the glasses in and, indicating the immaculate sofa, cooed, “Join me a gra.”

  Nervously, he did, his combats showing a massive tent. She handed him the glass, said, “Slainte amach.”

  The very personal version of cheers.

  His hand shook as he took it and they clinked the precious glasses and drank deep. Well, Sean drained his, and she hopped up, said, “Let me freshen that, amach, and we’ll talk guns and why you’re going to help me.”

  She added three fingers of the Jay and not so much of the black.

  He half finished that, a dribble coming from his lips, tried, “A-a-a-a-ngela… I… d-d-d-d-dr… iv-v-v-ve… a… cab.”

  She put her hand on his dick, said, “I always had a thing for you, Sean.”

  The continued use of his name and with such tenderness, plus the booze, was really screwing with his head. Not that it looked like it took much, since the blowtorch incident; looked like his mind was mostly scrambled eggs anyway.

  She unzipped him, asked, “Would you like me to take care of that stallion you have rearing up there?”

  Would he fooking ever. He’d have sold the mother’s linen, glasses and grave for it.

  She said, “I’m going to be your woman, okay, darling?”

  He nodded, too weak to speak, and she asked, “The guns?”

  He stuttered, “How… m-m-m-m-m-man… y… d-d-d-d-o… y-y-y-y-you, you… y-y-you… w-w-w-w-w-want?”

  Seventeen

  “He had to hit him, but only him and only once.

  After that it was sadism.”

  JIM FUSILLI, Closing Time

  In the morning before the night when all hell broke loose, Max met Paula for an interview session for the book. She’d arranged to have another private meeting, wearing something super low-cut, but this time the view didn’t give Max any liftoff.

  “Sorry, babe, the wedding’s cancelled, kaput, finito.”

  Said it stone-faced, no emotion, figured, Why sugar-coat it? Gotta hit hard, hit low, and hit early. And, man, he loved delivering bad news – what a fuckin’ rush! It reminded him of the days when he was a CEO and he got to fire people. That was the best part of his job – crushing the assholes’ dreams, watching them fucking melt.

  “Oh,” she asked, “and why’s that?”

  He could tell she wasn’t taking it well. She’d probably been planning for the big day, telling all her friends. Fuck, she’d probably had the band picked out.

  “No offense, baby, but something bigger and better came along. A lot bigger and a lot better.”

  Still hurting she asked, “This won’t affect the book, will it?”

  “No, my motto is, Always do what you say you’re gonna do.”

  “All right, then,” she said.

  Was she stifling tears? Yeah, probably.

  But she was a pro and managed to put it behind her. S
he started in with her questions: Do you remember your first meeting with Angela Petrakos? Was it love at first sight? What are your impressions of her boyfriend at the time, Thomas Dillon, AKA Popeye?

  It was rough for Max, having to relive that dark period in his life. Well, it wasn’t really, but he acted like it was, knowing that sounding like it had been painful and traumatic was what sold books. Wasn’t that how Oprah did it?

  Then Paula started asking the harder questions like: Did you want to kill your wife? Did you plot with Angela and Dillon to kill your wife? And – the most potentially incriminating of all – did you hire Dillon to kill your wife?

  If Max hadn’t been flying so high, if he hadn’t been in the midst of the power trip to end all power trips, he might’ve thought it over first and realized that confessing to his wife’s murder, and admitting involvement in other murders and crimes he’d never been charged for, wasn’t exactly in his best interest. But, hell, he let it fly. It was the equivalent of an outright confession, details that could get him the death penalty.

  But right then Max wasn’t thinking penalty, he was thinking publicity, he was thinking celebrity. That was what it was all about, right? Why hold back on the meat? You’re gonna open the door, open it all the way.

  And Paula, yeah, she was eating it up, telling him how excited she was about the project, and how the biggest challenge would be to fit all this amazing material into one book.

  “I might have to make it into a trilogy,” she said, and Max suddenly had a vision of the great Hollywood trilogies. Star Wars, The Godfather, Shrek, Revenge of the Nerds.

  Imagining billions of dollars in DVD sales, merchandising, box office receipts, imagining walking onstage to accept his Oscar, Max made another impulsive decision.

  He said, “You wanna get a first-hand look at The… A.X. in action? What’re you doing tonight at, say, midnight?”

  “I don’t have plans,” Paula said. “Why?”

  “How’d you like to ride in a getaway car with The… A.X. and the rest of his crew?”

  Yep, he told her all about the whole prison break, down to the last detail. Probably not a good idea to share this info with a woman he hardly knew – and, worse, a woman he’d just fucking dumped – but the escape was going to climax the greatest moment in his life, and he wanted his biographer there to witness it.

  Later, heading back to his cell, Max was still pumped, thinking how lucky a thing it was to be Max Fisher, when he saw Sino. He’d probably just been released from the hole – he was in cuffs, being walked along by a guard. When Sino saw Max he stopped and the guard stopped with him. Sino gave Max the dead-eye glare, and his nostrils flared and his jaw shifted as he grinded his teeth. Max didn’t back down. He shot back with his own mean-ass look, feeling like he was in a Western, two hombres staring each other down before the big shootout.

  Then, suddenly, Max smiled widely. He made his thumb and forefinger into the shape of a gun, pointed it at Sino, and bent his thumb, pulling the trigger.

  Man, the look on the big lump of meat’s face was fucking priceless.

  Paula went back to the motel, real disappointed. She wouldn’t be the next Mrs. Max Fisher – how would she ever get over it? She laughed, thinking, Was the guy for real or what? Sometimes she thought he was fucking with her, with all the weird accents, the tough talk, the outrageous stories. It had to be some kind of schtick, a put-on. She was always waiting for him to crack up and say, Got you good there, huh? But it had never happened. And now he claimed he was staging a prison break? Probably a delusion like the rest of it. But hey, if it happened, she was going to be there to chronicle it. A first-person account of her subject escaping from Attica? It would like Junger getting a chance to ride the boat into the perfect storm.

  After she parked her car, she walked to the soda machine near the motel’s office and bought a Tab – had to watch the figure if she was going to attract maximum babe-age. She figured she’d find some girl-girl porn on TV, rub one out, then try to find some decent food for lunch, not an easy task in this shithole town. After the incident at the bar, she was trying to keep a low profile. For all she knew it was legal to shoot dykes up here. Jesus, up here you wouldn’t even know you were in New York. It was like a fucking red state.

  As she headed back toward her room she stopped and did a double-take when she saw Lee Child walking toward her with another guy. What the hell was Lee Child doing up here? Was he on an author tour? Was the guy his media escort? Was there a mystery bookstore in Attica? Were there any bookstores in Attica? Were there any books in Attica? Hard to imagine that they even knew how to read up here.

  Back in her straight days she’d had a big thing for Lee – who didn’t, right? – and now she was so flustered, so starstruck, she couldn’t even say hello or call out his name. She just watched with a dumb expression as he and the guy he was with went into their room.

  She wondered: Why was he staying at this crummy motel? Wasn’t he loaded?

  Then she had a thought that terrified her – was he up here to try to steal the story out from under her? She knew he was doing well these days, at the top of the Times list and all, but every writer was always on the lookout for the next big thing. Hell, Paula herself had gotten most of her ideas for books at the bar at one mystery convention or another. Piss-drunk authors would tell her their best ideas, then forget the conversations in the morning. Maybe Lee saw The… A. X as his next blockbuster, his big move into true crime. The more she thought about it, the more sense it made.

  She marched over to room 16, started banging on the door.

  If Sebastian thought riding in an airplane with Yanni had been a dreadful experience, and spending time with his family in Astoria had been painful, then riding in a car with him was a full-blown nightmare. Had the fellow heard that there’d been an invention – a true breakthrough – called deodorant? Lordy, the smell of the man! And he didn’t even have the decency to open the passenger-side window. He had all the controls on his side of the car, and he insisted on riding with the windows closed and no air conditioning. He mentioned something about allergies or whatnot, but Sebastian knew it was only to inflict maximum torture on him.

  They passed a rest area and Sebastian had never been so excited to see a McDonald’s in his entire life. Naturally the mad Greek wouldn’t let them stop, though. He said something about “making good time” and “saving gas,” but Sebastian figured he was just being an ass.

  They’d left at the crack of dawn and arrived in Attica at around noon. Oh, lucky them! Talk about a party town! Sebastian honestly didn’t know how his life had descended to this horrid state. A few weeks ago he’d been living it up on Santorini and now he was in a place that made those Western ghost towns you saw in the movies seem lively, being dragged around by the Greek from hell.

  Their room wasn’t ready. That’s correct – room, singular. Yanni insisted on sharing a room, even sharing a king-size bed, so Sebastian couldn’t slip away.

  “Oh, come on now, you can trust me,” Sebastian said as they stood at the front desk. The sarcasm couldn’t have been thicker.

  “We sleep in same bed,” Yanni insisted, “and you wear handcuffs.”

  The clerk heard this and with a concerned look said, “Uh, sir, this is a family motel.”

  “ Please,” Sebastian said. “I’ll treat myself to a nice-looking chappie every once in a while like any good un, but I’d rather die than be a bottom for this cretin.”

  “Cretan?” Yanni said, deeply insulted. “Yanni is not from Crete, my family live on Santorini nine hundred years.” Sebastian apologized for misremembering.

  They waited in – where else? – the car until the room had been serviced. As soon as they got in, there was a hammering at the door. Sebastian answered it, saw a woman there, full figured, longish brown hair – attractive enough, but something about her made him think, lesbian.

  She was saying, “Son of a bitch. You think you can steal The… A.X. from me, you fucking Britis
h bastard.”

  Sebastian replied with an ultra polite, “Sorry, have we met?”

  “Yeah, at last year’s ThrillerFest. I told you how much I loved Jack Fucking Reacher, remember?”

  Going along he said, “Oh, of course, silly me. How could I forget?” He had, of course, no idea who she was, but he said, “I’d invite you in, my sweet, but alas, I’m otherwise occupied.”

  Then Yanni was behind him, naturally, never more than Karelia spit away, and he asked angrily, “Who is this cunt?’

  Sebastian said, “I say, old chap, steady on.”

  The woman looked at the Greek and said, “What did you call me?”

  Sebastian, if not always ready, was most definitely nearly always prepared, had taken some hooch from the Greek’s home, and said, “Now let’s all calm down. Come in, gell, have a drink, and dammit, we’ll thrash this out between us like civilized human beings.”

  “Where you get booze in this shithole?” Yanni asked, and the woman asked, “The fuck is a gell?”

  But they took it inside, neither of them the sort to turn down a drink.

  Sebastian got the two plastic toothbrushing cups from the bathroom and produced a battered tin cup he still carried from his Chatwin days, he really believed he’d lived like ol’ Bruce. Then, with a flourish, out of the Gladstone bag came a bottle of scotch. Sebastian murmured, “Alas, we’re all out of ice, the maid has the day off.”

  He poured lethal measures and nobody complained. He toasted, “To jolly good company, what?”

  No one answered him.

  They drank in silence, getting the good stuff to ignite in their system. When they’d killed the scotch and the contents of the room’s minibar, the woman said, “You’re not fucking Lee Child.”

  Sebastian nearly laughed at the double entendre.