The Smack

by RICHARD LANGE

  “Yo, Jingle Man,” someone called from one of the long cafeteria tables.

  Diaz waved in the general direction of the voice and hurried back outside. Jingle Man because he was in charge of dealing with the jingle trucks, Afghan vehicles the army hired to transport supplies to its various bases, the theory being, why use American trucks and drivers when you could pay locals to run the gauntlet of IEDs and Taliban headhunters? Jingle trucks because the wildly painted semis, flatbeds, and tankers were festooned with chains that made a god-awful racket as they bumped along the country’s rutted roads.

  The hot wind scooted trash across the baseball diamond chalked in the dirt between the dining facility and the MWR building, snatched up Styrofoam cups and plastic bags, swirled them, then carried them over the razor-wire fence and ran off with them across the scrub.

  Keller wasn’t on the phone at Morale, Welfare, and Rec; wasn’t on a computer. Diaz finally found him stretched out on a couch in the little theater, the only guy there, watching a DVD of The Hangover. He tapped him on the shoulder and jerked his thumb toward the exit.

  They headed for one of the bunkers that dotted the base. The storm was about to break over them like a thousand-foot wave, and the weight of it tilted the world that way and wouldn’t let you take your eyes off it. Day turned to dusk as the cloud blotted out the sun.

  It was even darker inside the bunker, a long, narrow, windowless tomb constructed of sections of concrete blast wall reinforced with sandbags. Diaz and Keller stepped into it as the storm hit. The wind was so powerful, the walls shook, and sand from the joints pitter-pattered on the ground like hard rain.

  These days you could be assured of privacy in the bunkers. There hadn’t been a mortar or rocket attack—not even a false alarm—in months. The bad guys knew the troops were on their way out, so no sense wasting ordnance to try to take a couple of them down. This particular bunker was curtained with spiderwebs that Diaz and Keller had to sweep out of the way in order to get to the beat-up office chairs someone had requisitioned for the space. They plopped down in the chairs, and Keller lit a cigarette.

  “Somebody’ll smell that,” Diaz said.

  “In a fucking sandstorm?” Keller said. He took a deep drag and exhaled the smoke slowly. “How many days you got left?”

  “I fly out Monday,” Diaz said.

  “Fuck you.”

  “What about you?”

  “Another month.”

  Sergeant Daniel Keller was a big pimply hick from Maine, still as pale as the Pillsbury Doughboy even after three tours. He worked in a hangar prepping cargo for shipment back to the United States. With the drawdown in full swing again, they were going nonstop these days. Everything from computers and printers to microwaves and washing machines had to be crated, labeled, and loaded onto planes.

  Keller was in for a quarter cut of Diaz’s treasure. As Jingle Man, Diaz had been responsible for paying the Afghan truckers for their runs, drawing from a mountain of cash kept in a vault on base. He’d quickly spotted holes in the system and taken advantage of them. At the height of the scam, between the kickbacks he got from the trucking companies and the ghost shipments for which he paid himself, he’d been siphoning off a hundred grand a month.

  He’d needed a way to get the money out of the country and back to the U.S., and that’s where Keller came in. The two of them had previously been partners in another swindle, buying TVs, Blu-ray players, and game consoles at a discount at the PX and reselling them to local shop owners. When Diaz told Keller about his jingle truck idea, he was all in from the get-go. Diaz would pass the stolen money to him, and he’d stash it in legitimate shipments on their way to Fort Bragg. There, a buddy of his, for another quarter cut, retrieved the cash and sent it on to L.A.

  Keller held out his hand and wiggled his fingers.

  “Gimme gimme,” he said.

  Diaz passed him a bindle of heroin. He’d copped it from Izat, the dirty who ran the haji store on base. Izat peddled carpets, man dresses, and bootleg DVDs to the troops and did a side business in dope. Keller liked to get high but was too chickenshit to score on his own, so Diaz sometimes did him the favor with an eye toward keeping him happy.

  Keller took out an Oakley sunglass case that held a syringe, a spoon, cotton balls, powdered vitamin C—everything he needed to fix—and set about cooking up a shot.

  “So as soon as I get back,” he said as he tapped junk into his spoon, “we’ll have a big reunion.”

  “Chop up the take,” Diaz said.

  “We should do it in Vegas. I’ve never been there.”

  “That’s cool with me,” Diaz said. He rolled back and forth in his chair, pushing himself off the wall with his foot. Outside, the wind howled and the sand whispered.

  “They got bitches there that can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch,” Keller said. “Bitches with nuclear titties.” He held his lighter under the spoon. The simmering dope gave off a sour smell. “I’m gonna buy a full-on purple pimp suit just to fuck with everyone,” he said. “Just ’cause I’m rich enough. Big fucking hat with a feather and everything.”

  “You ain’t that rich.”

  “Five hundred grand?” Keller said. “That’s rich where I come from. And anyway, I’m gonna double my money while I’m there, playing baccarat.” He dropped a bit of cotton into the dope and tied off with his neon-yellow PT belt.

  “What the fuck do you know about baccarat?” Diaz said.

  “I know all the rich Chinks play it,” Keller said, massaging a big blue vein. “They know what’s up.”

  Diaz held his breath as the needle slid into Keller’s arm, held it until Keller depressed the plunger on the syringe.

  “Whoa,” Keller said when he loosened the belt and sat back in his chair. He said it like he was losing his balance. “Whoa.” He blinked and shook his head. “This shit.…”

  “Give me the best stuff you got,” Diaz had told Izat. “One hundred percent pure, no garbage.” He’d paid triple for the dose.

  Keller slumped, chin on chest. He was already on his way out, the uncut junk too much for him. He tried to raise a hand to his face, maybe to wipe the drool from his lips, but the hand stopped halfway, wavered, and dropped back into his lap. His breathing slowed. A couple of seconds later he fell out of the chair and lay unmoving on the ground.

  Diaz bent over him and saw dust dancing around his nose and mouth. He sat back and listened to the storm for a while. When he checked again, Keller was dead. Gone to wherever stupid white boys from Maine go when they OD. One down, Diaz thought. He left the dude lying there and stepped out of the bunker and into the swirling sand, where the sun through the murk was a blood-red hole in the sky.

  8

  PETTY WOKE AT DAWN, FEELING LIKE HIS MIND HAD ALREADY been working for hours. He slipped out of bed without disturbing Tinafey and watched the sunlight creep up the Hollywood sign. He tried to make use of the quiet to plan a few moves ahead, but it was like attempting to draw a map from inside a tornado. Too many thoughts spinning too fast. And besides, everything that came next depended on what happened today. He brushed his teeth, got dressed, and went downstairs.

  Guests starting early on long days of sightseeing mobbed the coffee counter in the lobby. A couple of Germans scrutinized Disneyland brochures, a Japanese family struggled to decipher the menu, and a tattooed Brit in a straw fedora jabbed at his phone and shouted, “Hello? Hello?” Petty wasn’t in the mood to wait in line. He walked outside to search for another option.

  The Boulevard by day looked hungover, woozy. Its bruises showed through its powder and rouge. The sidewalks were empty, the trash cans overflowing. Steel roll-up doors decorated with ugly paintings of the stars of black-and-white movies covered the storefronts, and a noisy flock of ravens that was perched on the art deco flourishes of an old building put Petty in mind of vultures waiting for a meal to drop.

  He bought a foam cup of shitty coffee and a pack of gum at a convenience store across the street from the w
ax museum. The bus bench he sat on in front of the store had an ad on it for a bargain dentist. Some joker had blacked out the dentist’s teeth with a Magic Marker and scrawled 666 on his forehead. Petty gave the first bum that asked a dollar but ignored the next two.

  A tall bearded dude in a trucker cap and cowboy boots caught his attention. He was smoking a cigarette and leaning against a lamppost down the block. Petty at first thought he was one of the photo hustlers, supposed to be somebody from a movie, but his jeans and cowboy shirt weren’t much of a costume. He had a weird feeling the guy was watching him and tried to catch him at it, turning away, then whipping back around. Sure enough, he found himself looking right into the dude’s eyes for an awkward instant before the two of them broke it off.

  The interaction made him uneasy. He got up from the bench and started back toward the hotel. He checked over his shoulder to see if the cowboy was following, but the guy stayed where he was, watching traffic roll past with a blank look on his face. So just some lunatic, then, a redneck on a bender, wigged out by all the sun and sparkle.

  He made a lot of noise coming into the room, whistled and slammed the door, not wanting to startle Tinafey in the shower.

  “I’m back!” he called out.

  “I’ll be just a second,” she said.

  He sat on the bed and turned the TV to the news. The water went off, and Tinafey came out wrapped in a towel.

  “I’ve got some business to take care of today,” Petty said.

  “What happened to sightseein’?” Tinafey said.

  “We’ll get around to it, I promise.”

  Tinafey was disappointed but tried not to show it.

  “So maybe I’ll go swimmin’ instead,” she said. “They got a nice pool here.”

  Petty took two hundreds out of his wallet and held them out to her. “Buy yourself a new bathing suit,” he said.

  “I got my own money,” she said.

  “Take it,” Petty said. “I might not have it to give next time.”

  Tinafey let him tuck the bills into her hand but remained standing in front of him.

  “Are you really comin’ back?” she said.

  “Of course,” Petty said. “And you’ll still be here, right?”

  “Do you want me to be?” she said.

  Petty sat her on the bed beside him.

  “Let’s be straight with each other,” he said.

  “Why? You been lyin’ so far?”

  “I’ve only got a few thousand dollars to my name right now. I’m here chasing a score, but things might get tight before it happens. I like you a lot, and I’d like you to stick around, but whenever you want to go, let me know, and I’ll put you on a plane to Memphis.”

  Tinafey leaned away from him and pulled her towel up higher.

  “I won’t whore for you,” she said. “If that’s what you’re hopin’, forget it.”

  “I’d never ask you to do that,” Petty said.

  “That’s what you all say till your pockets are empty.”

  “I’m not a pimp, Tinafey,” Petty said. “That’s not my game.”

  Tinafey squinted into his eyes, looking for the truth, then said, “Nobody’s waitin’ on me in Memphis, so I might as well stay a little longer. I ain’t even been to the beach yet.”

  “We’ll do that.”

  “And Beverly Hills? Rodeo Drive?”

  “Wherever you want.”

  “And if somebody asks, can I say I’m your girlfriend?”

  Petty was taken aback by the question.

  “Do you want to say you’re my girlfriend?” he said.

  “It’d make things easier,” Tinafey said.

  “Can I say I’m your boyfriend?”

  Tinafey made a face. “That sounds stupid, doesn’t it?” she said.

  “Not to me,” Petty said.

  “Boyfriend,” Tinafey said in a funny voice. “Girlfriend.”

  “You ever had a white boyfriend before?” Petty asked her.

  “Once, in high school,” she replied. “His daddy ’bout shit, though. Made him break up with me.”

  “That’s Memphis for you.”

  “That’s everywhere for you.”

  Petty played with a drop of water on her shoulder.

  “You ever had a black girlfriend?” she said.

  “Sure,” Petty said.

  “One you didn’t pay for?”

  The sound of sirens spiraled up from the street. Tinafey hurried to the window, and Petty joined her. They watched three fire trucks and an ambulance weave through traffic, lights flashing, horns braying. In the distance a pillar of black smoke rose into the sky like an angry fist.

  “Someone’s havin’ a bad day,” Tinafey said.

  Petty stared at her reflection in the window. He wanted to kiss her but decided not to start something he didn’t have time to finish.

  “So,” he’d said to Don the day before at Starbucks. “The name? The address?”

  And that’s when Don began to hem and haw. Turned out the only actual information he’d gotten from the junkie was that the dude holding the money was named Tony, that he lived in East L.A., and that his mom owned a store, Alma’s Party Rentals, on Cesar Chavez Avenue. Petty googled the shop right there in Starbucks, confirmed that it existed, and let Don keep the two-dollar deposit. He’d already decided by then to say fuck you to Avi and get out of Reno. L.A. was kinda sorta on the way to Phoenix, where he was headed next, so what the hell. The couple hours he’d waste if the army money thing turned out to be a wild-goose chase were nothing compared to what the payoff would be if it panned out.

  It took him twenty minutes to get from Hollywood to Boyle Heights. He sped along the 101 through downtown and across the concrete channel of the L.A. River, then exited onto surface streets in a scruffy Mexican neighborhood.

  The party store sat in a block of old brick buildings from the thirties. Next to it on one side was a beauty salon offering tintes, rayitos y facials, on the other side was a mom-and-pop pharmacy. Petty parked in a loading zone across the street, in the shade of a giant ficus, the gnarled roots of which had buckled the sidewalk so badly that the displaced concrete slabs tripped old ladies shuffling home from the market. He watched the entrance to the party shop from the front seat of his car. In twenty minutes only one person, a girl pushing a stroller, went inside, leaving shortly afterward.

  Petty started the Benz, drove around the corner to a spot where the car couldn’t be seen from the shop, and parked again. After giving himself a once-over in the rearview mirror, he got out and walked back to the store.

  The place sold everything you might need for a fiesta. This time of year it was full of Christmas stuff. Ornaments of every size and style, cheap fake trees, laughing Santas, and angels, angels, angels. There were also cases of off-brand soft drinks stacked against the wall and a display of cleaning products. Overhead, dusty piñatas swayed in a breeze whipped up by a fan above the door.

  “Do you rent those bounce-house things?” Petty asked the woman behind the counter. She was around fifty, a bottle blonde with a mole on her cheek and orange-and-black tiger stripes painted on her long fingernails.

  “I got a few,” she replied, not returning Petty’s smile.

  She showed him pictures in a photo album of one that looked like a castle, one that looked like a birthday cake, and one that looked like a race car. Petty pretended to be interested, asking about prices and delivery and setup, then stopped suddenly and narrowed his eyes.

  “You’re not Tony’s mom, are you?” he said.

  The woman frowned, suspicious. “Why? Who are you?”

  “My cousin went to school with Tony.”

  “At Garfield?”

  “Garfield, yeah,” Petty said. “That’s crazy. I’m standing here talking to you and thinking, This lady looks so familiar. I met you a couple times.”

  “What’s your cousin’s name?” the woman said.

  “José,” Petty said. “He moved to Texas after he gra
duated. What about Tony? He still around?”

  “He was in the Marines, but he’s been back two years now,” the woman said. “José what?”

  “What?” Petty said.

  “Your cousin.”

  “Garza. José Garza. Do you see Tony much?”

  “Every day. He does my deliveries for me.”

  “He still driving that…that…what was it?”

  “He never had a car,” the woman said. “But they gave him a truck when he came back from Afghanistan.” An alarm had gone off in her head, and she was now scrolling through her memory in earnest, trying to place Petty. “Where do you live?” she said. “Not around here.”

  “I’m in Hollywood,” Petty said. “My girlfriend stays over here.” He’d pushed it far enough. The woman was about to start in with harder questions. Pulling out his wallet, he asked how much of a deposit it’d take to reserve the race-car bounce house for the second Saturday in December. “Twenty dollars,” the woman said. He gave her the money, and she pulled out a rental form.

  “My girlfriend will call you with all that,” he said. “It’s for her kid.”

  “I got to put something down,” the woman said. “What’s her name?”

  “Maria Rosales,” Petty said. “She’ll call you this afternoon.”

  The woman was flustered. First a friend of her son’s she couldn’t recall shows up out of nowhere, and now a deposit with no form. Petty made for the door before she could get her bearings.

  “Good seeing you again,” he said as he backed out of the store. “Tell Tony that Bill Miller said hello.”

  He hurried around the corner. The sun had turned his car into an oven while he was gone. He lowered the windows and drove aimlessly until he came to a taco stand, where he stopped for a chorizo-and-egg burrito.

  An hour later he was back watching the shop, parked half a block away, across the street, slumped low in the driver’s seat. Not a soul went into the store during the first hour, and only the UPS guy during the second. Petty listened to the radio for a while but shut it off before too long, worried about draining the battery. A stray dog trotted down the sidewalk, looking like it knew where it was going. For a while a police helicopter circled nearby. Petty watched it until it moved on, then made a game of clucking his tongue every time a car drove past.