by Marcus Sakey
Evan snorted. “No.”
A pretty brunette with a friendly smile bounced over, and they both ordered, neither looking at the extensive chalkboard beer list. Danny waited till she was gone, then tried on a quizzical expression. “So?”
“We didn’t finish talking before. But now it’s Sunday afternoon. So you won’t have to get your panties bunched about work.”
Danny let the remark slide.
“You live up here now, huh?” Evan asked.
“Not far.”
“A house, a woman, a truck. All settled in, snug as shit.”
He nodded, thinking, A truck? Wondering if Evan had just made an assumption, why he hadn’t said a car. The waitress appeared with two pints on a tray. Evan gave her a ten, told her to keep the change, and they clinked glasses with eyes locked.
“So that’s what you get. Life as a civilian.”
“That’s all I want.”
“Yeah? And what do I get?”
“For what?”
“For what.” Even shook his head, smiling ruefully as he tapped a cigarette free. He lit the smoke with the Zippo, snapped it closed, set it neatly on top of the pack. Blew jets of smoke from his nostrils, eyes hard now. “How long we known each other?”
“Since we were kids.”
“That’s right. Just a couple of Irish kids in a blue-collar neighbor hood, spics competing with blacks to see who could move in faster. We made it through that shit by sticking together.”
Danny decided to preempt the speech. “You’re pissed I walked out.”
Evan raised his eyebrows, not saying yes or no. His look said street. It said danger.
“Fuck you.” Showing strength was the first rule. “You went crazy in there.”
“I hadn’t shot him, that dude would have drilled you.”
“Bullshit,” Danny said. “He’d have told me to freeze, called the cops. Anyway, we should have been out the back with the money before he even showed up. Nobody would have gotten hurt. Nobody would have gone to jail.”
“Always the man with the plan. How about this, Einstein?” Jabbing at him with the cigarette. “You owe me. First I saved your ass, then I kept my mouth shut and went down alone. Twelve years the judge gave me and banged his little hammer, and you not even in the courtroom to see it. You know what I was doing while you were becoming a yuppie? Celling with a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound gangbanger named Isaiah. He knows I’m not affiliated, so he’s eyeing me to decide if I’m a guppy or a shark. How would you sleep?”
Danny held his hands up for peace. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to work out that way.” He kept his game face up, but behind it, his mind hummed. Yesterday, he’d have bet his savings account that he’d never see his old partner again. Now it seemed like Evan might have other plans, and if so, Danny needed to find a way to mollify him quickly. And then get the guy out of his life for good. “And I’m grateful you kept quiet.”
Evan leaned back, sighed, stabbed out the cigarette. “Yeah, all right.”
They sipped their beer in silence. The memory of his own jail time came to Danny’s mind. Summer camp compared with Stateville, but still plenty bad. The worst was the feeling, always, that danger rode hard on your back. Something as simple as holding a gaze too long – or not long enough – and bam, the shit storm started.
“I came out short seven years.” Evan seemed calmer, his voice level. “Okay, bad beat. But I figure when I go home, I’ll find my partner waiting with a new plan to make us money, that we’ll get back to work.
“Only that’s not what happens. Instead, my partner, he’s nowhere to be found. I have to track him down. And when I do? He tells me he’s legit. Then he buys me a beer and tells me good luck, ’cause he’s got work tomorrow and can’t be late.”
Danny kept his face calm. Don’t show any fear, and don’t give anything away.
“I say bullshit to that. From where I’m sitting, you got everything and I got nothing. You owe me.”
“What am I supposed to do? Dig out my tools and go back to work?”
Evan shrugged. “Why not? The money is better as a team. And I been away too long. I need somebody who knows how to work. Someone I can trust.”
“I’ve been away as long as you have. If you need someone in the game, I’m not your guy.”
“I’m not talking knowing fences. I’m talking about spotting opportunities. Help me level us out.”
“No.” Danny spoke without any hesitation.
“No?”
“I’m not going back to work,” Danny said. “Period. I’m not.”
“So I should just crawl back to my hole.”
“I don’t mean any disrespect. But my life is different now, and I won’t go back.”
“Then,” Evan leaned back, lighting another cigarette, “we have a problem.”
Careful. Be very careful. He remembered Evan’s temper all too well, how it could seize him, a white-hot fire that burned out his sense and self-control.
“I don’t have any problem.” A play had been spinning in his brain since that night Evan had surprised him out with McCloskey. A little bit crazy, yeah, but still… maybe worth trying. “In fact, I’ve got an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“But listen, you’re going to have to relax and think it over. Don’t just snap on me, all right, compadre?” He took a breath to steady himself. “I can’t come back. But I can help you earn.”
Evan leaned forward, his head cocked.
“I can give you a job.”
“You know a good score?”
“No, I mean a job. A civilian job.” As he spoke, he stared at Evan, trying to read a hint of a reaction. Hopefully he’d see it as a peace offering. Or maybe even a grift, and expect the money without the work. Danny couldn’t let that happen, but he’d welcome the play. It would mean that they were at the negotiating table. Better than squaring off.
“A civilian job.” His face a mask, Evan held the cigarette to his lips, took a long pull. “In construction.”
“Think about it. You know plenty to get started, and the pay is good.”
Evan shook his head, chuckling to himself. “Unbelievable.”
“I’m making as much money as we ever did – more – and nobody can look at me sideways. This is a chance to start clean. It’s a good offer.” Danny waited, but silence was the only reply. “The best I can do.”
Silence. Evan wasn’t biting. That was okay – Danny hadn’t really expected him to, not immediately. But maybe he’d consider it, spot the opportunity to escape the shadow of prison. And if not… well, Danny didn’t want to be sitting across the table from him if not. He stood up. “Think about it. Let me know if you’re interested.”
Evan crushed his cigarette.
“And thanks for the beer.” Despite the pounding of his heart, Danny made himself walk slow and steady, and didn’t look back as he shouldered open the door and stepped into the afternoon.
8
Out the Window
“Smug, down-talking fucker.” Evan spat the words.
“Who is, baby?” Debbie Lackey – she hated “Deb” and “Deborah,” always “Debbie,” like Debbie Harry – struck her best pout, flipping blond hair back over one shoulder.
Evan looked annoyed as he glanced over, like he was surprised to see her there. “The guy we’re waiting for.” He turned back to stare out the driver’s side window of the Mustang.
She wished he’d let her put on some music. They’d been sitting here half an hour, and he hadn’t wanted to talk the whole time. She surveyed the street again, hoping for something to take her attention. It was pretty, lots of trees with bright October leaves, rows of graystone apartments fronted by expensive cars. The people who walked their dogs carried little plastic bags to pick up the poop. “Your friend lives in a nice neighborhood.”
He nodded, still not looking at her.
“Lots of money. Remember I worked for the maid service? We did a lot of these places.”
“Stole a lot of watches and earrings.”
“Fuck you, Mr. Armed Robbery.”
He snorted.
“How long are we going to sit here?”
“Until we’re done,” he said. “Not like you have anywhere to be, right? You quit your job.” He reached for his cigarettes, tapped the bottom, and pulled one out with his teeth, like a tough guy in the movies. Despite herself, it gave her a thrill.
“What were you doing again?”
“Massage therapy. I took a night course at the community center ’cause anything was better than waiting tables. I thought I’d work in one of those nice places, you know, with the candles and that Asian music and everything smelling good? But it turns out they all want experience. So I ended up at this joint on Twenty-fifth to work my way up. Only,” she laughed, remembering, “these guys, I’d start on their backs, but when they rolled over, they’d be sporting wood. And that wasn’t what I had planned to work my way up, you know?”
He laughed with his head thrown back, the way he used to. Nice to see. He’d become so much quieter than she remembered. Back in the early nineties, they’d had some good times. Tear-assing down Lakeshore with the radio up loud and his hand in her panties, the speedometer hitting 109 as he hit her spot. Or the time they cleaned out her liquor cabinet, starting with bourbon and tequila, and then when the good stuff ran out, moving to the party leftovers; coconut rum, vermouth, and finally shots of crème de menthe as the sunrise poured pink across the linoleum kitchen floor. Hell, some great times. She didn’t mind starting them up again.
Down the block, a glass door shook, shivering the reflection of flaming trees, and then swung open. “Morning, partner,” Evan said, stabbing out his cigarette without taking his eyes from the apartment. The same man they’d trailed the other day stepped out. Nice-looking guy in khakis and an open-collared oxford, turning to smile at the brunette that followed him out.
“What’s her name?” Debbie looked over, but Evan ignored her. “She’s pretty.”
The woman leaned in to kiss the guy, rising up on her toes. She had her hands around his neck, and his rested on the small of her back. It looked like a good kiss, not the usual peck you saw couples giving.
“For people that’ve been fucking for years,” Evan mused, “they sure get a kick out of each other.”
She thought of them in the zoo, the way they had lounged on a bench, the guy with his head in the woman’s lap. Evan had stayed in the car, told her to follow them, to get as close as she could. But though she’d sat on the opposite bench, she hadn’t learned much. They talked too soft, speaking just for the other. A world of two. “I guess they’re family.”
“Huh?” Evan turned to look at her.
“Family. In love.” She realized her voice sounded wistful, and quickly threw up her distant expression, the one she used on the guys at the bar.
You can look, it said, but that’s all you get. Evan, though, was staring at her like she’d said something deep. It was the first time he’d really looked at her all morning. Her cheeks went warm, and she felt stupid to have let her guard down, exposed herself that way. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just – nothing.”
The guy had opened the door of a silver truck and tossed his bag on the passenger seat. He got in, and the woman stepped back with her hips cocked in a pose Debbie recognized from movie magazines. As the truck pulled away, the woman turned with a grin and walked back toward the apartment. Evan didn’t start the Mustang, just watched the truck roll down the street.
“Aren’t we going to follow him?”
Evan shook his head. “Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” he said, smiling at her, that thin smile that looked a little dangerous, the one that made her a little dizzy, “I just thought of a way to get rich and even at the same time.”
9
Floating on Reflections
Overhead, the El rattled along the circular tracks that gave the Loop its name. A grim rain darkened the faces of crumbling parking decks as Danny stepped out of the Harold Washington Library. Green-tarnished gargoyles loomed eight stories above him, eerie personifications of the confusion he felt. Of the many thoughts jostling for his attention, one overwhelmed the others.
Coming here had been a stupid idea.
What on earth had motivated him to leave work early, drive downtown, pay the rapacious parking fees, and spend three hours researching prison? What would you call that? Shame? Guilt? Idiocy?
People always talked about the value of firsthand knowledge, and they were right. No book could convey the lonely terror of waking in an eight-foot cell, the way living so intimately with fear marked you. No amount of sunshine and fresh air ever truly wiped away the stain on your soul. Almost ten years since his last fall, but some mornings he still mistook the buzzing alarm clock for cell count, and he still spent midnight moments reconstructing himself after a dream casually obliterated his life. No doubt about it, firsthand knowledge was a bitch.
But there was a special awfulness to secondhand knowledge, too. Sharing a table with a bum dozing on a pillow of unopened books, Danny had read scholarly prose that set his demons howling. The information from the Bureau of Justice alone was staggering. America imprisoned more people than any other nation – even Russia, for chrissake – with close to two million inmates. Many states spent more money on jails than schools. Amnesty International had actually condemned the American prison system.
And the devil was in the details. Seventy percent of inmates were illiterate, 200, 000 mentally ill. If you were a black man, you were born with a one-in-four shot of serving time at some point, and you could count on serving longer. Insult to injury, in many places former felons lost certain constitutional rights; the result was that in some Southern states, as much as 30 percent of the entire African-American population had permanently lost the right to vote.
At least Evan’s not black. Lucky him.
Danny turned his head upward, the rain soft on his face. He had a pretty good understanding of the machinery under his own hood, but he had no idea what had driven him here today. Was it guilt? Over what? Walking out, all those years ago? He replayed the look on Evan’s face, that sense that something dark had been freed within him, the vicious kicks. No. He had no guilt for bailing out of that madness. He wished to Christ it hadn’t happened, wished that he’d never seen the man’s blood pooling on the floor, wished that he’d never heard the sounds a person made in that kind of pain. For that he felt guilt, no question. Simply for being there, being a part of it. But that wasn’t what had brought him here today.
He leaned back against the wet brick. Taxis glided down State, floating on reflections of their taillights. Rain had driven the homeless out of the park next door, and they huddled together in doorways and under the El, smoking and staring. Across the street, Columbia students with backpacks and sandals sprinted through the rain, their laughter painfully young. Life went on.
There it was.
Life went on. Unless you found yourself in manacles one bright morning, aboard a school bus that had grilles welded over the windows and a police escort. A bus that took you past people heading for work or breakfast or home, normal people for whom you had ceased to exist. Because more than anything else, prison was exile. Both first-and secondhand knowledge told him that. Prison was waiting, routine. All the while slowly succumbing to a world where violence was the only noteworthy break in the endless march of identical days.
They’d come from the same place, but the moment Evan had pulled the trigger in the pawnshop, their paths had irrevocably split. Thinking of that brought on the old mixed-up feeling Danny knew so well. All these years later, and he still couldn’t say for certain if the owner would have shot him that night. He didn’t think so – the guy was too practiced in the way he brought the gun out, the way he handled himself. And either way, it didn’t make it okay to brutalize him, to beat the woman and try to kill her. But
in his midnight hours, would he always wonder whether Evan had saved his life?
Probably. And maybe that was part of what had driven him here. But standing under darkening skies, he realized there was more to it than guilt.
There was also fear.
In all the times he’d imagined seeing Evan, he’d pictured the Evan from the pawnshop, the one whose temper seared and burned and left him all too ready to pull the trigger. The one who’d gone crazy, lost his head and his humanity. But for all of that, in his calm moments, a buddy. A partner. A childhood friend who had always had his back.
But that’s not the way it worked. In all those fantasies, Danny had forgotten that time would have passed for both of them. He wasn’t dealing with the same man. The real Evan had lived a maximum-security nightmare for seven endless years. Had come out of it twice as muscled and half as talkative. Had adapted to a world built to hide the most dangerous of men.
Danny turned up his collar and hurried across the rainy street.
What would that do to someone?
10
Better Than to Look Away
Danny recognized the boots. They were the same battered black work boots Evan had worn that night, seven years and a lifetime ago. Steel toes with a rigid sole that made far more noise than the jogging shoes Danny had preferred. But that wasn’t what concerned him now. What concerned him was that he’d stepped into his apartment to find them propped on his kitchen table.
The retro clock on the wall seemed loud. Danny thought of loud. Danny thought of gunfighters in the old West, the silence before the storm of bullets. He dropped his bag on a stool, tossed his keys on the counter. Kept his voice calm as he spoke – “Make yourself at home.” His fingers tingled with adrenaline, but it was too late to back out now. It wasn’t just dogs that could smell fear; criminals had a pretty good nose for it, too.
