Running With Monkeys: Hell on Wheels

by Diane Munier

  “It’s good work. Real work this time,” Audie said.

  Jules kept his face turned to the window. He spoke that way to Bobby. “This guy from the Good Ship Lollipop?”

  Bobby guffawed.

  Audie pulled in front and put it in gear. “Fook you,” he said to Jules before he got out.

  Jules and Bobby were really laughing now. Potato Face stood by the door. Audie didn’t look back but went in like he owned Uncle Cabhan.

  “Guess we’re breaking up,” Jules said, and a new round of laughing overtook them, and Potato Face stared at them.

  “Hey,” Jules called to that oversized thug, showing the bird, “how many fingers?”

  Bobby fell over laughing.

  Potato Face waved Jules off cause he’d broken that moog’s nose and knocked him out last time they’d met. It seemed Potato had no wish to come over and get a repeat. Or maybe his ass was stuck to the folding chair he sat on while he looked out for Uncle’s camp.

  Bobby tossed that iron over the seat and Jules had it in his hands. “Mashed Potatoes!” Jules called to him, and Bobby laughed some more. “Little catsup with that?”

  Thug stood up. Now Jules was laughing. “Here he comes,” he said to Bobby.

  Audie came out then, passing Potato like he didn’t exist. “You guys get in here.”

  “Negative on that,” Bobby said.

  “C’mon,” Jules said, exiting the car, tire iron in hand.

  Audie looked at the weapon. “You Robin Hood?”

  “My walking stick,” Jules said.

  “Shit.” Audie shook his head.

  Bobby got out and slammed the door. They followed Audie, and when they passed Potato, Jules smacked that iron into his palm. “Almost got you to take the candy, Fooker.”

  So they went in laughing, but memories of this cramped entrance quieted Jules down. They went single file through the bar to Uncle Cabhan’s table.

  Everyone’s eyes were on the iron in Jules’s hands.

  “What’s this? You gonna take some prisoners?” Cabhan asked, eyes lit with amusement.

  “I’m a fast learner,” Jules said. “Your boys want to take it, be my guest.”

  Cabhan threw back his head and laughed loud.

  “Jules is…” Audie tried to say.

  Cabhan held up his hand. “Sit down.”

  Audie pulled up a chair and sat. Jules and Bobby stayed on their feet.

  Cabhan’s eyes were on Jules. “You want to say ‘fook you’? All right—hero,” he said, and a ripple of panic came with that. He couldn’t know Isbe. He couldn’t know about that. “But know when to bend,” Cabhan said.

  “No disrespect to you,” Jules said. “I’m better on my feet.” He remembered what happened to the last and only guy he’d seen sit before Cabhan. He remembered because he’d chopped on the guy and buried him.

  Cabhan had a half smile, but it was fading as he studied Jules. Then he turned his attention to Bobby. “What about you? Better on your feet?”

  “Yes, sir,” Bobby said. “Since the war—nerves are rattled.”

  “I make you nervous?” Uncle said.

  Bobby looked at Jules and then the floor. That was to try and hide his smile. Jules had the same urge. Laughter. Cause a part of him, and this baboon, wanted to go wild in here. Uncle Cabhan had no idea that Jules planned to go for his face first, so he wouldn’t see much of what came after, this low-level Irish goon, but they could bring hell in here—wild, crazy hell on wheels hell.

  “You can sit on your own—keep your pride—or I can make you sit. Which do you prefer?” Cabhan said.

  “Jules…” Audie said.

  “I prefer to stand, sir,” Jules said.

  Bobby nodded as well.

  Cabhan folded his hands on his stomach and leaned back, looking each of them over.

  “Tell you what I’m gonna do…you can both stand…if you earn it.”

  Audie looked off, cursing under his breath. Then he stood up and kicked the chair away. He took a step back near Jules. “Can we just have the meeting?” he asked.

  “No…Arthur…we can’t just have the fookin’ meeting,” Cabhan said loudly. He sat back again, for the force of his voice had pulled him forward. “You know the boys like a good fight. There’s money to be made. We’ll go Friday night…payday. They’ll bet hard. You’ll be given the address.”

  Audie started to protest, but over this, Jules asked, “How much money?”

  Cabhan smiled. “Win or lose a hundred. Bonus on a win.”

  “What kind of bonus?” Jules asked.

  “Another hundred,” Cabhan said.

  “I won’t fight them,” Jules replied, indicating Arthur and Bobby.

  “We don’t fight ourselves, Laddie. Not all the time, anyway.”

  “Who?”

  “The rest of the world. It’s a grand fooking world full of desperate fookers like you. How about a German? A nice big one.” He grinned, and Jules noticed the gold tooth for the first time.

  “What’s the job?” Jules said. “You said you had a job.”

  “And you need to earn the right to it now. Win the fight and we’ll see. But you lose…I’ll get someone else to deliver my papers. And you’ll be taking the bus.”

  “We all fight?” Audie said.

  “You’re all standing,” Cabhan answered, spreading his clean hands wide.

  Jules wanted to see Isbe. He had Audie stop on the corner. He hopped out and bought her an enormous bouquet and two bags of big soft pretzels. He felt like a man about to have sex—with Isbe. About to do something—Lord, he could knock down a building. With his dick.

  This would be bare knuckle. Audie wasn’t happy, but he was coming around. Bobby jumped out. “Hey, you chimpanzee,” he said, digging in his pocket.

  “Get me some too,” Audie yelled, a car honking behind him.

  “What the hell, Jules?” Bobby was saying, trying to keep up while he paid for two more bunches of flowers.

  Back in the car it looked like a funeral; smelled like one too. They were giddy and stupid and wound up.

  They got to Isbe’s, each of them carrying part of the garden. They were taking the girls to Shiney’s; they had a guy there tonight, and a harmonica. Isbe wore her blue dress, and they got to the club, and she and Jules didn’t even make it to a table—he grabbed her on the dance floor, and she still had her purse bouncing against his back. He didn’t feel it; didn’t care. He only wanted her.

  “What’s with you guys? You sure you haven’t been drinking?” Isbe laughed.

  “You taste it on me?” he asked, because he’d had his tongue in her mouth all the way to Shiney’s, and more than once since they got inside.

  “No,” she whispered, her arms around his neck.

  “You know what you do to me in this dress?” he said.

  “No,” she whispered. “Tell me.”

  “Well, you came down those stairs tonight, and everything went right there. My world,” he said, soft in her ear, his hands holding her sides, smoothing to her waist.

  “I know,” she said. “I came down, and you looked at me, and…you’re tall…and your hands were full of flowers…the way you see me, I feel like…it changes something in me, brings it to life…it’s in your face, all of you, and nothing I had before…matters as much…or feels like enough. Everything else…is what I do…until I can be with you again.”

  Her lips moved to his, and the soft press, her breath… it was exactly that way. Exactly. He thought love, he felt love, but he didn’t say it. Not yet. Like everything else, he had to earn the right. And he promised himself if he won that money, he’d have a right to say it then—when he could do, and give, and be…real, have something to back up the words—then maybe, maybe he could trust himself to be what she deserved. Cause one thing he knew, you say love, and you don’t love—you kill somebody that way.

  Chapter 24

  The day before Uncle Cabhan’s bare-knuckle fight, Jules was working his counter at Lo
u’s around two in the afternoon when they came in—two criminals dressed in black, wearing sock hats, one holding a rifle, the other a machine gun.

  Machine Gun walked rapidly toward Jules, his weapon trained straight at him, ordering him out from behind the counter. He had no idea what that did to Jules, but this familiar coldness came.

  Rifle marched Lou toward the front, insisting he lock the door. Lou told the guy, “Fuck you,” and the guy hit him with the butt of his gun between the shoulder blades. Lou went down and cracked his head, and the punk kicked him and screamed at him to get on his feet. Lou got on all fours, moving slow and groggy. Rifle kicked and punched and cursed Lou onto his feet. Lou was weaving, but he got upright and stood there. His forehead was bleeding, and he staggered to the front door, dug his keys out of his pocket and dropped them twice before managing to lock it.

  Rifle ordered Jules and Lou into the back and another, Handgun, who’d apparently come in the service door, held Stan at gunpoint. Stan had wet his pants.

  They had ordered Jules to hold up his hands and get beside Stan, and he did that easily to show compliance. They were screaming at Lou about a safe. Stan was pleading for his life, and Handgun’s pistol whipped him across the face, and he went to his knees spitting teeth and blood. He was sobbing. Then Handgun yelled at Jules to get on his knees.

  Lou was leading Rifle and Machine Gun to the safe, which was concealed behind the time clock. Jules had no idea it was there, artfully hidden.

  Lou held his handkerchief to his face to staunch blood and worked the red dial while Rifle trained his gun on him. Machine Gun waited beside Rifle, but his weapon was trained on Stan and Jules. Jules knew they would be shot as soon as Lou got that safe open.

  “Can I smoke?” Jules asked Handgun, hearing the safe crack.

  Handgun stepped toward him to shoot him in the face, but Jules grabbed and broke his wrist, took his gun, and shot Machine Gun. That moog fired a line at the ceiling as he went down.

  Jules dropped to his ass, and Rifle shot Stan. From the floor, his legs spread wide, Jules shot Rifle. Handgun lay on the floor, pretty much writhing between Jules’s legs. Jules still held Handgun’s broken wrist, bending his hand back so hard he yelled in agony.

  Jules shot him in the forehead.

  Stan was on the floor screaming for his mother and holding his shoulder. Jules got on his feet and ran to Rifle, putting another bullet in him, then Machine Gun, even though they looked dead. Then he turned to Lou. Lou was hurt, but he was breathing. “Jules…help me.”

  “Hang on,” Jules said. He ran to the phone and dialed the operator. After he told the cops, he checked the store’s perimeter for an accomplice. Out front, he saw a black Oldsmobile parked near the street, but no driver.

  Lou had sunk to the floor by the time Jules got back. Stan wasn’t shouting anymore, but lying still and moaning. Lou held his chest, panting like he’d been the one to run all over the store instead of Jules.

  “Hang on, Lou. They’ll be here,” Jules said.

  “Kid,” Lou said, swallowing hard, “grab the money. Leave some…in the safe…close it…the safe…and hide the rest. Hurry.”

  Jules pulled the safe door open and saw the piles. “You don’t believe in banks?” Jules said, looking around for a container. There was a metal bucket a few yards away, placed where the roof leaked. Jules retrieved the pail. Lou had his eyes closed.

  Jules stuffed most of the money in the bucket. When it was heaping, Lou said weakly, “Hide it good. No Sal.”

  Jules slammed the safe door shut and spun the dial. “Hang on, Lou,” Jules said, touching Lou’s shoulder. Lou feebly waved Jules off.

  He held the bucket against his stomach and walked swiftly into the showroom. He could hear the sirens drawing close. That was all the incentive he needed to hurry to the farthest corner and dump the money in a washing machine. He set the lid in place, bucket on the floor. He dug for a smoke and got it lit. His hands were trembling, and not from fear. He was walking toward the front windows when the coppers arrived.

  First one in the door he recognized. Isbe’s father, the guy she’d been eating with at Tillman’s. Jules threw his smoke on the floor and ground it out with his shoe as Blaise shouted for him to raise his hands.

  Three hours later, Jules was headed back to his room. He used the phone downstairs to call Isbe. It rang her house, but no one answered. That meant she was still on the bus.

  It was for the best. He went to his room and cleaned up. He wanted nothing more than to be with her. But he’d stay away from her now—until after the fight. She’d soften him down, ask a lot of questions. He didn’t need that. He’d never pulled away from her before. But the way he felt—he wanted to keep it—the rage.

  Her old man—had he put it together that some moog who was caught in a heist was making time with his daughter? Her old man—he’d said, “Who kills three men? Kills two of them twice?”

  Jules hadn’t answered.

  They’d taken Lou out unconscious on a stretcher. Heart attack was their guess. Lou was in worse shape than Stan, and Stan had taken a bullet and lost blood. The other three went to the morgue.

  The bums were from out of state. The three stooges, as far as Jules was concerned—Moe, Larry, and Shemp. Jules answered questions for the coppers—but not easily. The war had cleared his dread of uniforms, the way he’d shut down when he was a kid. But the questions, he didn’t give it all away. That’s how it was, the coppers; he’d had his times with them—the good fathers telling him to go straight—then the fathers worse than the one he had—Uncle Cabhans in blue.

  But today they called him a hero. The papers would eat this up, Blaise said. Reporters came to the scene, snapped his picture as he was walking out, Blaise staying close, wanting in the shot. Then he offered Jules a ride home, and that was a memory from another time, one he’d worked hard to forget.

  He tried to refuse, but Blaise persisted, and the reporters—it was easier to be driven away. If he went across the street for the bus, they’d have him then. So he got in the car—Isbe’s old man’s. He glanced in the backseat. Blaise had helped himself to a new toaster and a mixer. Merry Christmas.

  Blaise drilled him a little more on the ride. Mostly about the war. He asked if Jules had ever considered the academy. Jules laughed then, not out loud, but he had to look away.

  “No,” he said. Jules liked to fix things. He knew Blaise wouldn’t see the difference, but he’d as soon be a Nazi as a copper.

  He had Blaise leave him at the corner, and he walked the block to his building.

  He had to keep something to himself, even though this man now knew his address.

  Once Blaise pulled off, an urgency hit Jules. He needed to get to the hospital and see Lou. Stan was there too, in surgery. He didn’t care so much for him; wished him well, but he wouldn’t visit, but Lou…the money…Sal. Sal would come now. What would he expect? He had to talk to Lou.

  Soon as he was cleaned up, he went back downstairs and called Audie.

  “Hey. Get over here,” he said, the receiver sticky in his hand.

  Audie was still fussing when he hung up. Sounded like that moog just got out of bed.

  He had Lou’s keys in his hand, and he went outside and paced in front of the stoop, rattled those keys and smoked three fags before Audie showed.

  He got in the Buick and Audie drove off, saying, “I’m going over to Fourth Street and picking up some ham…”

  “We ain’t gonna see the girls tonight,” Jules said quickly.

  “Why not? I told Francis…”

  Jules cut right in and told Audie the story—even about the money. “I need to see Lou. And I need to get that money. The brother—Sal—he’s flying in.”

  Audie drove to pick up Bobby then, caught him going into his building. He was dirty as hell, carrying his toolbox, and Jules whistled to get his attention, then yelled that they’d give him five minutes to get his ass in the Buick.

  “Where we going?” Babo
on asked, ready to ride like always. It made Jules grin.

  “No girls,” Jules said. Then to Audie, he muttered, “He can save his Brylcreem now.” And they laughed because the man had a vanity about his finger waves.

  “He’ll think it’s another present from Uncle Cabhan,” Audie said.

  “This time, it’s Uncle Lou—all the fookin’ uncles we got,” Jules said. They laughed some more.

  Jules filled Bobby in while Audie drove them to St. Mary’s. Like Audie, he wanted the details of how Jules had killed three men. Jules told it three times. The Buick sounded like the ape house for a minute while they celebrated.

  Once they got to the hospital, Jules went in and asked about Lou at the desk. He was critical and in the unit for serious care, with the ones already seeing the light, or feeling the fire, and only his wife was allowed to go bedside.

  Jules went up to the eleventh floor anyway. He asked the sister at that desk if he could go in to see Lou, and she said no. He’d never had any luck with these sour frumps who held a post like God had set them down there and they’d grown roots through the soles of their thick black shoes.

  “Can I see Lou’s wife, then?” he said, old things swirling inside.

  Sister Sourpuss went to get her.

  Lou’s wife Sonya came out, her eyes red and puffy. Jules introduced himself, and she fell on him, her arms going around his neck, and Jules thought, “Shit.” But he braced himself and let her hold on until she was done.

  She swiped at his wet shirt, and rattled on and on, asking a question and not even breathing long enough so he could answer.

  Soon as a sliver of space hit, he said, “Can you get me in to see him?”

  “He won’t know you’re here. He’s not responding, Jules. What am I gonna do without my Lou?”

  It took another ten minutes to not have to answer that question. He told her he’d do his best to keep things going until Sal came through. She was so grateful.

  As soon as the elevator doors closed, he breathed a sigh in the stale air. It didn’t look good for Lou, and he didn’t want the money to go to Sal, so he took that as a fleece laid out and a fleece made wet.