The French Revolution

by Matt Stewart

  “Funny you should mention that,” Big D responded. “Murphy’s done some killing. Tonight.” The men around the table grunted. “Broke out of juvie hall too.”

  Murphy stared at Big D. What a competitive advantage, he realized, D’s network of knowledge powering lethal-quick undercuts, insider information feeding a furnace of fear. And a big-time asshole for leaving him on his lonesome, not just mean but stupid too—that kind of shit comes back around when you least expect it, in nursing homes or on cruise ships or in a Chinese prostitute parlor having dreams come true.

  Big D reached for Murphy’s hand, pulled him into a highly untrustworthy oil-soaked grip. “What we concernin’ ourselves with is this Octavius Maximus shit. The Octopus. You seen him. With the rims.”

  Murphy knew the Octopus, a big tipper. He drove Lexus vehicles only, with razor-edged hubcaps that never stopped spinning, not when idling, not when parked, not when being washed. A couple of guys on the line had lost fingertips scraping for tire sludge; Murphy always used a hose.

  “Octopus wants credit,” Martin spat. “We don’t do that shit. Heard of the slippery slope, yo? Cause dis is like a ski jump ice skating wax job off a cliff. We bend, we break. Simple’s zat.”

  Big D lifted a cigar to his mouth and breathed in an impossibly long time, the ash tip turning red and purple and, briefly, hot pink. “Maximus want to make a large purchase,” he said at last. “Price is good. But he don’t have all the money together just yet.”

  Murphy nodded. He heard chimes in the distance, flies hovering by his ears.

  “Tell him ’bout the collateral, D.”

  Clouds of smoke stormed from Big D’s nose. “Deeds to houses. Jewelry. Sports cars. Fancy wines. More nice shit I can’t remember, but overall pretty good. Thing is, I gotta ask myself if this the kind of work we wan’ get into. I really gotta ponder that, reflect on that. ’Cause once we in, whole business changes. Gotta get some enforcers, no-bullshit guys. And eventually somebody gonna default.”

  The scotch in Murphy’s veins slowed and sank, half-dollars hanging on his eyelids.

  “What you think, killa? I a loan shark or what?”

  Murphy lifted his head into the haze-red light. “I wash cars, man. Do some drops at night.”

  “You a killer twice over, Murph. This your night at my table, best tell me what you think.”

  He watched the sequins dance in the dark, little caterpillars crawling up walls. “Well,” he said, leaning his elbow against one of the blow palace’s supporting walls, “how much we talking about?”

  “Hoo! Gettin specific on you, D!” Martin cackled giddily, then screamed over his shoulder for a Jack and Coke.

  “Ten million from him, ten million I front. Interest a million every three days.”

  “What’s that outta your bottom line,” Murphy drawled. “You got ten mil to lose?”

  Big D put his hands on his stomach and gasped laughter. “We can handle it.”

  “Worth a try then. Don’t work out, don’t do it no more.” Murphy fell back into the chair and bit his lip, the ropes around his skull loosening.

  “Your boy bleeding,” Martin reported, accepting a tumbler from a blond Latina genie.

  “Can we stop though, in actuality? That the thing, Murph. We get walked on, we pull out—then who we?”

  “Fucked on both ends,” Martin said. “‘Pushover’ stamped on your forehead.”

  Murphy pressed his tongue over the wound in his mouth. Tufts of cotton packed his brain. His skin felt chapped and grated, his body a slab of rancid meat. “Kill the guys that do you wrong,” he said, “and that’s that.”

  “What I was sayin’!” Martin yelled. “Kid ain’t so stupid after all.”

  Big D pounded down an auxiliary palace tower and chopped the rubble with a Chinese cleaver, then pressed his face into the dust and sucked. Dirty white wrinkles stretched across his cheek. “I need somebody to call this in. A headhunter, right? Shit goes wrong, take care of bidness, hunt some heads. I’ll toss you 10 percent of the interest, killer. You in?”

  But night had caught up with Murphy Ahn, a sledgehammer of murder, narcotics, booze, and prison break, and he did not remember his levée en masse into the band of énrages, how he was handed a guillotine and a tumbrel and the backing of angry extremists. He yelled and slumped forward face-first Tony Montana-style into the cocaine palazzo, squirting a mist of drugs into the room and inciting hideous laughter from Big D, tweaked hacking sounds that made the women shiver and the security detail brace, because there was one exception to the Old West rule concerning firearms, and Big D was it. But weapons remained holstered and Murphy Ahn remained gone to the world and the processed coca remained suspended in air, flitting through the nightclub like snow. A generous tablespoon of cocaine squeezed up Murphy Ahn’s nose—no avoiding it where he was positioned—knocking him into an eighteen-hour epileptic fury with a side of extreme dehydration. And though he didn’t remember agreeing to go along with it, all the witnesses did, and the surveillance video showed him moving his lips for what was likely the howl of affirmation everybody said he delivered, a wholesome “Hell yeah!” that had reduced the women to giggles before the face-plant, when thousands of dollars of drugs wafted through the room and the ramifications scared everyone.

  “What a kid,” Big D said as the ladies carted him off. “Hide him somewhere good—cops’ll be here first thing. Get him plenty of water, and food. Pizza. Gonna be a space cadet when he lands back on Earth.” Big D lifted a highball glass to his lips, set it back down. “And strip the vacuums and air filters. Somebody always wants the schwag.”

  Two weeks after they did the deal with Octavius Maximus, a Mercedes convertible exploded in the driveway of Château Versailles. No one was hurt—all Big D’s vehicles were equipped with remote ignitions—but the car was just three weeks old, with customized hydraulics newly installed and Big D’s favorite golf clubs in the trunk. After a thorough, wordless inspection of the chilly November morning’s carnage, Big D returned to the mansion and took the elevator to the subbasement apartment where Murphy was stashed. He sat down beside Murphy on his twin bed and turned off the television with one pull of his pistol.

  “There’s a principle here. One thing not to pay. But bombs? Imprecise. Inhumane. Collateral damage galore. Nasty, nasty shit.” He thought about smacking the kid in the face, wake his bitch ass up. “What the fuck is that?”

  A replica of Château Versailles covered a small desk tucked in the corner, an exact copy down to the satellite dishes and topless women in the Jacuzzi.

  “I made it.”

  “Out of what?” Big D spotted the model of himself playing tennis and smiled.

  “Pizza boxes.”

  Big D reached down and felt the thing, cardboard and latex paint, some ornate work around the windows he hadn’t thought cardboard was capable of. Kid could probably break open a safe in under a minute. “How long you been here?” he wondered.

  “What?”

  “In my house. How long.”

  “Six years.”

  “Six years? Shit.” Big D wound back and pictured the affiliate who’d offered him up, some crackerjack on the junk himself. Taylor. Three weeks later he’d gotten himself sliced into strips and shipped to the coroner in ski bags. “You been to school?”

  “Allen used to take me couple times a week.”

  “Unh-huh. You like it?”

  “It’s alright,” Murphy said. “I liked playin’ football.”

  Big D chortled loudly, pounded his fist on Murphy’s knee. “Shit, we got football here! Ain’t you seen us out on the front lawn?”

  Murphy nodded, the games were hard to miss with all the yelling and gambling, but he was intimidated by the size, the speed, the lack of officiating, the random gunplay.

  “Forget school, kid. You about to get all the education you need with Octavius a week late and blowin’ up cars. Go get him.”

  “What?”

  “Kill his ass. Armen’ll f
ix you up. I ain’t forget what I promised, 10 percent of the late fee. Right now, that’s two hunned K. You wrap this up tonight, I’ll throw in another five hunge.”

  Murphy considered the cash he picked up on his night runs, the envelopes brimming with hundreds, the plastic blocks of powder. He considered life imprisonment. His fourth-grade education and current house arrest. His moniker in local media: Baby Cop Killer. No workable exit strategy, his future soaked in shit and loss if he didn’t do something soon.

  “Aight.”

  “Yeah.” Big D punched his shoulder, pinched his nose. “Good.”

  Armen took him to the armory and fitted him with Kevlar, guns, bullets, grenades, maps and surveillance records, keys to a Hummer. “Big night, Murph,” Armen said as Murphy pulled on his boots. “This your chance to get that seat next to D pinned down.” Armen looked him in the eye and winked, then swallowed hard.

  “What?”

  “Put on some makeup. Blend in a little.”

  “Yeah,” Murphy said. His ugliness was so old, he’d basically forgotten about it.

  In the afternoon Armen’s girlfriend, Raquel, came over with a shopping bag full of cosmetics. He sat on the toilet and closed his eyes as she brushed, padded, penciled, dabbed, hummed. A second skin firmed over him, toxic smells mingling with Raquel’s gentle lavender perfume. She drew under his eyes and across his forehead with firm brushstrokes, then spread colored creams across his cheeks with her thumbs. Murphy swiftly determined that she was not only hugely attractive, with a deft rock-band pixie cut and big hawk eyes and a pert prim parabolic butt that could crack open pistachios, but also good, the type of authentic nice person he rarely saw in person but knew about from TV, who donated money to public radio and cleaned up her local park and gave restaurant leftovers to homeless people. After an hour in the bathroom she pointed him to the mirror, and he twisted at the sight of a strange face cringing. He almost, almost looked normal.

  She crouched beside him, her V-neck ribbing his shoulders, her fingertips spider-tapping over his buzz cut. “You’re kind of a cutie all dolled up,” she said. “Like a marine out on leave. I always had a thing for military guys.” She kissed him on the lips right before Armen came back in with beers from the kitchen, Murphy’s blush blocked off from view by layer upon layer of life-saving foundation.

  The Octopus was expected in Georgetown that evening, Armen explained. He had a fetish for teenagers and sat in a corner booth at a bar called the Tombs and bought drinks for college girls until one of them agreed to go for a stroll, grab some food, check out a band, put quarters in the meter. They inevitably wound up at the Octopus’s apartment around the corner, a leather-covered pad stocked with Rohypnol and Barry White records. On the walk back he was consumed with charming the girl, Armen said, and thus vulnerable. “Course he knows Big D’s mad at him, knows about you too, whole world knows about the Baby Cop Killer. But he won’t expect you there, ’specially not in makeup. Unless we got a snitch. Which is possible.” Armen resaddled his oval glasses. “Just get out fast, security’s gonna be everywhere. Questions?”

  “Why’s he called the Octopus?”

  “Hell if I know. Got his hands in a lot of shit or something? Who cares; just kill him.”

  For nearly an hour Murphy circled Georgetown streets hunting for a parking spot. The jarring bloops of radio pop songs combined with the endless red lights and the omnipresent double parking and the uneven cobblestones that kept pulling the Hummer off course to unravel his assassin’s calm, but just as he was on the verge of ditching the operation he spotted a limo pulling out and hit the blinkers. It took fifteen approaches before sticking it, and at that a solid three feet from the curb, but he headed to a liquor store to celebrate anyway. The cheap metal shelving conjured up memories of Marvin Ahn’s shop in Silver Spring, the same flickering mini TV behind the counter, the same overpriced Ho Hos, and he drank in the strange feeling of home until the manager asked him if he was going to buy something or what. He picked up a soda and went back outside.

  Soupy light from streetlamps fell on students in fleece vests and khakis, miniskirts and leather jackets, loud and oozing alcohol. Sound cracked off the ground, a bright chill ripped through his clothes. He was underdressed—T-shirt, jeans, Orioles cap—and thought about going back to the Hummer to get his sweatshirt, pick up the body armor and the grenades. But the extra gear made him feel slow and bulky, unmanageable, unbelievable. Instead he sipped on his soda and followed the students to a basement door with an oar stuck to a sign, a line thirty deep and growing. The Tombs. A stout bouncer stuffed into a polo shirt ran driver’s licenses through a computer and peered down girls’ shirts while dissecting the Hoyas’ Big East schedule on his cellphone.

  Every one of these kids was loaded. It was obvious from their catalog-fresh clothes, high-carat jewelry, abundance of handheld electronics, extensive dental work. He watched as warm taxis pulled up and unloaded more of them, blabbing about television programming and sporting events and dormitory liaisons. His bladder squeezed up, he pulled his chilled hands into his sleeves. Decidedly cantankerous, he looked down the line, scouting somebody to beat up.

  A few hard shoves to pretty boys and their dates generated mumbled apologies and beleaguered grimaces, typical rich-kid pussies. The mercury cranked up inside him, his ears boiled, he charged to the front of the line and pushed in. The bouncer told him to get the fuck out and turned back to a group of freshman girls who were telling him about a slave-and-master party coming up, invitation only, feathers and handcuffs and jugs of chocolate sauce. Murphy grabbed his arm, fiercely, digging in his nails, and just before the bouncer slapped his head he saw the shadow in the boy’s pants. Murphy was inside before the bouncer could hang up the phone.

  The bar smelled of ATM-fresh cash. He tunneled through sweaty denim to the bathroom, kicked open a stall, hosed the toilet bowl. Two minutes later he farted, flushed, tucked the pistol under his shirt, and walked out of the stall and into a man running a comb through his hair in front of the mirror.

  Murphy froze. Sorrel hair slicked back, scalene Roman nose, aloha shirt, corduroy pants, dirty sneakers. Murphy imagined octagonal sunglasses and motoring gloves on him and knew it was the Octopus, the rims on his Lexuses spinning like a meat slicer.

  “You the kid just came in here?” the Octopus asked.

  Murphy made for the exit like his pants were on fire.

  “They called the cops on ya. Like you a coldhearted killer or something.”

  “Nah,” Murphy heard his voice peep, “I just jumped the line.”

  “Ho! Tell that to Johnny Law, sonny! Line jumpers do not require police action, normally, now.”

  Forward motion eluded Murphy at the door. “Cops?” he mused, feeling tingly and excited and yet deeply disappointed by his inability to take action, how he couldn’t get out a complete sentence much less mow this guy down, the utter lack of luster in his style.

  “Very very really yeah. Now where you going to hide with a mug like that? I like your look, kid, the movie-star makeup thing. But here’s a news flash: it’s dripping off ya, and you still need plastic surgery and a trip to the salon. Fake as a snake, di-rect from central casting. You are painted into a corner, buddy boy ol’ pal.” The Octopus smiled glazed manila teeth. “Lucky you, I run this place. Way out, hear? Follow me, through the kitchen, down the rabbit hole, here we go. And pull down that cap low, try ’n’ block out your mug. That ash can’s a lotta unwanted attention, homeslice.”

  The Octopus wrapped his tentacles around Murphy’s wrist and they swam out of the bathroom into a sea of body parts and perspiration, police radios hissing close by. The bar brimmed with chatter and sloppy kisses, budget beer, the pall of forced happiness. Murphy floated through a swinging door into a hectic kitchen. “Hey, José,” the Octopus quipped, removing bills from his pocket “taking the back way, ¿vale? Don’t like the fuzz buzz.” José nodded and led them to a skinny rusted door and they were out in the cold, Murphy Ahn, the
Baby Cop Killer, and Octavius Maximus, the Octopus Beat Poet.

  They shivered across the street and around the corner and up a flight of shag-carpeted stairs. The Octopus relaxed his suction cups, and Murphy fell into a cavernous room, maple floored, marble rimmed, chandelier topped. Leather sofas, leather chairs, leather-padded walls, an Impressionist over the fireplace, a sterile well-founded smell like the lobby of a sports club for elderly plutocrats. The Octopus disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a glass of soda and a bottle of beer, just as “What Am I Gonna Do With You” came on the stereo.

  “Now, which one you want, dig? You read Hamlet? The death scene, switched cups and all? Probably not, huh. Not a reader.”

  He noticed the gun in Murphy’s hands and smiled.

  “Hey buddy, you took out your gun, whyzat? Bad news: I’m not into pervo swordfights. Leave that to the online bovines, man; I’m just helping a likeminded trouble-brother out of a jam.” He held up the drinks in a two-fisted toast. “Truth is, I see you, I see a new recruit, officer corps. Market’s always low on brass balls.”

  “I work for D,” Murphy stated. Octopus was just another fast-talking felon with bad fashion sense, he realized, meaning not-awful odds of claiming self-defense if it came to that. “D says you’re dead,” he said louder.

  “He said that? D did?” The Octopus sighed. “You know, I thought we had something, you and me. Couple of cool cucumbers, good rapport across topics. Already we’ve hit criminal justice. Fashion. English lit. But I guess once a Baby Cop Killer, always.” He tilted his head sideways and slid toward the wall, the bookcase, the handgun he kept taped under the third shelf. “Tough nuts I can’t help you through this awkward goofball stage. Fix the unslickness, put on the panache. Cuz I’ll be toasted with a fork sticking outta me. From D.”

  “You owe him money,” Murphy said and shot him in the chest. The Octopus fell on his knees, his lips pursed and hard-swallowing air like sucking paste through a straw.