by Rusty Barnes
KNUCKLEDRAGGER
Rusty Barnes
PRAISE FOR KNUCKLEDRAGGER
“Knuckledragger is fast and hard as a punch you remember for the rest of your life. The prose bursts with rough-hewn power, the pace is blistering, and the characters will break your heart. You couldn’t ask for a better slice of modern noir.”—Nick Kolakowski, author of A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps
“Knuckledragger is pulpy as hell, and with a plot as sick and twisted as a street pimp. As an enforcer for a local scumbag, Candy gets his share of bitter. Especially when the wrong girl gets sweet on him. When you find yourself on the wrong end of a beating, sometimes there’s nothing to do but run. But remember—the scumbags are always right behind you. Good thing Candy and his girl have guns. And guts. Too bad they can’t run fast enough. Or far enough. A slick crime story that starts on Boston’s North Shore, and eventually leads us down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass…”—Matt Phillips, author of Three Kinds of Fool, Redbone, and Bad Luck City
Copyright © 2017 by Rusty Barnes
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Knuckledragger
About the Author
Also by the Author
Other Titles from Down & Out Books and its Imprints
Preview from Les Cannibales by DeLeon DeMicoli
Preview from Dead Clown Blues by R. Daniel Lester
Preview from Accidental Outlaws by Matt Phillips
For Heather.
CHAPTER 1
I TOOK A CHOKED UP hold on the rubber grip of the bat and smashed his right elbow. I could feel the bone compress and break. It took the starch out of his dick, I’m happy to say. “Otis,” I said to the man, “You owe Otis a thousand dollars.” The man nodded nervously, holding his elbow. “I didn’t break your knees, so you owe me. Let’s call it a quarter. Twelve hundred fifty dollars, chief. Next Monday. I’ll be by to check in on you. Best have the money.” I clapped him hard on the right shoulder. He grimaced and told me to fuck off. I turned around and took four flights of stairs down onto Shirley Avenue. The beachgoing crowd was in full swing, hanging around the Banana Boat and at a couple seedy bakeries on the street proper. I stopped in the Gabriel Costa Park to plan what to do next. Three or four light-skinned kids chuckleheaded around by the plastic slides, pushing each other around and rattling off strings of Español.
I called the number Otis had provided to me, which was not his, so I could report in on the object lesson I’d just given the man with the broken elbow. I’d seen Otis only once. He came in when I was on my way out and I remembered a cloud of body odor barely masked by some cheap deodorant and all the precious metal he wore around his neck. I’d been told by some people he ran everything in Revere from closet whores to illegal immigrants to the meth trade, and most recently, to the burgeoning heroin industry.
He’d hired me on the basis of a bar fight I’d been in a year or so ago. I’d picked up a wooden captain’s chair with one hand and kept my girl behind me and my enemies at bay until I could get it to the street, where I abandoned the chair. I stuck my thumb in one guy’s eye while another tried to climb my back, looking to slit my throat with a toothbrush shiv he’d probably had since prison. I grabbed him by the short hairs and pulled him over my shoulder, where I learned him several lessons in pain with my boots. He might still be in the hospital, for all I know. I broke his jaw in three places and thrust his own shiv into a nostril and out the socket of his eye.
The problem was, I was always going to be a leg-breaker. Nowhere for me to go in the organization, at least based on what I knew, which was that there was no overt organization. Otis seemed to work on his own timetable for his own reasons, without depending on close colleagues to hold the bag during arrests while Otis remained free of connections. Cops knew he was dirty, but couldn’t catch him playing in it.
The man who answered the phone did not speak English well and after a minute or so someone else took over the line.
“You want?” the voice said.
“You got something else for me?”
“Who is this?”
“Candy,” I said. It was my weakness, it became my name. Could have been worse. I heard some high-pitched voices in the background and the man came back on.
“Barnes Avenue in Eastie. The liquor store. He owes Otis ten grand. Break something, yo.” The phone went silent, and I stuck it back in my pocket. I didn’t have far to go, so I decided to stay here in the sunlight for a minute. I tapped the baseball bat against the ground idly.
“You play ball?” one of the kids said. His chin stuck out like it’d been broken at some point, probably some asshole dad showing off.
“Not in years, buddy.” I’d done my rounds in Little League and high school, but didn’t follow the sport much.
“You got big muscles like a player.”
“I guess so,” I said, amused.
“You think you can beat this?” he said, curling his tight little biceps up for me.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “That’s a pretty big muscle.” I took off my overshirt and rolled up my t-shirt sleeve. I gave the kid a good pump, then at the end I popped a kiss on my own biceps.
“Wow, that is big,” he said, then scowled. “You probably juice.”
“Only the OJ my mama squeezed for me,” I said, threading my arm back through my overshirt sleeve.
“Miguel! Leave that man alone.” A skinny girl jogged over and took Miguel by the arm. Kinky black hair, small breasts, dressed well, not like a hoochie. Pretty eyes, though. They totally made her beautiful.
“We were just chatting,” I said. “No worries. I have to go anyway. My name’s Jason, but my friends call me Candy.” I offered my hand, which she took and shook. A good handshake.
“Nina,” she said. “And the friendly one is Miguel.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I said. Nina had great teeth and lips. Her mouth made a man have thoughts. “I’ll see you around,” I said to Miguel. I made a fist for him. “Stay off the juice, sonny.” Miguel giggled and looked back as Nina dragged him to the other side of the playground. It was about time for me to head into Eastie. I walked down the street to my beat up Sonata. I made enough money to have stellar wheels, but cops notice a guy in an Escalade
long before they’ d look at my shitty Hyundai. Tough hauling myself out of it day after day, but no one ever tried to steal it from me and I’d never been arrested in it.
I put the baseball bat in the passenger seat and pointed the car down the street past the Cambodian market on one side and the Revere Credit Union on the other. The beach streamed with locals and tourists both, as the annual sand sculpture contest had taken over the street with food trucks and radio stations blaring their wares live. I had to set my mind for this next stop. I didn’t know what “break something” meant exactly, whether that meant the owner or the property, so I’d have to do a little of both. I guided the car out onto Bennington Street, down through Beachmont and past the horse track. Barnes Avenue was tucked alongside the tracks for the Blue line train, and met three other streets in a tricky almost-roundabout. I parked in front of the old library and took the bat with me, as well as a steel set of knuckles in my pocket, just in case. The well-prepared enforcer probably would have gone in strapped too, but I tried not to carry guns unless I absolutely had to.
The proprietor, an older man named Salvatore Diovisalvo, didn’t seem to be in, or so the petrified woman at the counter told me, so I smashed the cash register with the bat, forcing the till open and spraying coins all over. Then Salvatore came out with a billy club, cursing in florid Italian. He turned around and ran back through a set of stockroom doors. I followed him, breaking up a display of new wines with two or three blows. By the time I got back there he had a revolver in his hand, an old Police Special with duct tape around the grip. He pointed it in my direction but never cocked it. I grabbed the barrel with one hand and twisted it away. I landed a one-handed blow on his forearm, breaking the bone under his worn tattoo, and he howled just a little bit. The woman at the counter banged through the doors then and started screaming in what I thought was Italian. So much emotion behind it I couldn’t really tell.
“Shut her up or this gets much worse,” I said. Diovisalvo grabbed his arm where I’d hit it and quieted her with a few words in their native tongue.
“There is a customer,” she said to me in heavily accented English.
“Get rid of them,” I said, shaking the baseball bat.
“I know I owe,” Diovisalvo said. “I owe too much, but please don’t break anything else. My heart will not stand it.”
“Should have thought of that before you gambled with money you didn’t have.” I smashed the computer on the desk and put the bat down, opening cases of wine and liquor and throwing them as hard as I could to the concrete floor.
“I can give five,” Diovisalvo said. “Five now and five next week.”
“Too late,” I said. “The debit is twelve now, since you’ve forced me to come to your place and act like an asshole. I don’t like to be an asshole to honest working folk. But you are no longer honest, are you, Salvatore?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Diovisalvo said.
“You got enough money to pay people and enough to lose thousands of dollars in your weekly game with people who you should not be playing with. These people, you know who I mean, take debts seriously.”
Diovisalvo twirled the dial on his combination locked safe under the desk. “I’ll prove it to you,” he said, opening the safe with as much of a flourish as he could maintain with a badly broken forearm. He came out with packets of twenties and tens in his hand. “But you can’t take it all, or I can’t operate.”
“I’m not the degenerate gamber here,” I said, pushing the man out of the way. “Get me a bag.” I counted out twelve-K quickly and left maybe 3 grand in the safe, then closed it and out of habit, spun the dial.
“All right? Enough?” he said.
“Just right,” I said. “Stay away from Otis’s games. I mean it.” I tapped the bat on his chest and let it rest there. I took a fifth of peppermint schnapps off the back of the display behind his cash register, where his employee swept up coins with a push broom. Her eyes held nothing but hate, pure contempt. It pissed me off so I smashed every bottle behind the counter. Then I pointed the bat at her and held it for a long few seconds, then turned and left.
On the way back to Shirley Street I called the number. Otis himself wanted to see me at the Apartment. I said yes.
CHAPTER 2
I WONDERED WHY OTIS wanted to see me, this of all times. His business picked up in a major way over the summer, and the hotter it was, the more people wanted something to take their minds off the heat. That’s where Otis stepped in. The Giver of all things mind-altering. He did a lot of business. Or his people did anyway. Otis spent his time playing video games, I heard, and tricking his ride out. I don’t know. I’m at the bottom of the criminal pile. I did people dirty, and if they don’t pay I hurt them. I try to make out like it’s a favor I’m doing for them, and sometimes it is, because these people got no idea what they’ve worked themselves into. So anyway. Me. Bottom of the food chain. So why does Otis want to see me? I reviewed everything I’d done over the last few days. No mysteries to it. I just couldn’t figure it out.
Just then my phone vibrated: 781 area code. Revere. “Where you at, son?” Otis said.
“Coming up Shirley,” I said. The only thing I could do was lay back and be cool.
“I’ll meet you in the park,” Otis said. “Five minutes.” I pulled in front of the credit union and parked, then hustled across the street to get a seat on one of the three or four benches. Nina and Miguel sat at the other end of the park, loaded water pistols and kids going after each other. Nina gave me a wave. It made me feel good. I cracked my knuckles and sat down.
I saw three men coming in the entrance that didn’t belong, the kind of guys who ignored kids, even if they had them and sometimes especially so. One stayed at the water fountain near the swinging metal gate, and the other two came my way. The guy that led the way I’d seen before. He nodded at me, his hands in the front of his crotch, pulling the shorts down just low enough to let me know he was packing. Whatever. Intimidation tactics and shit. I could play that game. I stood up and stretched, then offered my hand to Otis, who was a bullet. He had a shiny ass skull with tattoos under each ear and three teardrops under one eye. He lifted too. I could see the stretch marks around his shoulders and armpits.
“So you got the money from the liquor store guy?” he said.
“Yeah, I got it.” I reached inside my pocket, but he stopped me.
“Don’t ever hand me money in public.” He waved his boy over, who took the money and disappeared down a side street.
“All right,” I said, sitting back down.
“You been doing good work,” Otis said. “You bust some haid, you get results.” I shook my head.
“It’s nothing. I don’t like to hurt people who don’t deserve it. But if they do, I kind of enjoy it,” I said.
“I knew that about you, Candy,” Otis said, offering his hand for another shake.
“Well, thanks, I guess.”
“No need to thank me. You’re like a man to me, you know. A tool, a tool that can think. I may come up with some other way to use you. You down for that?”
What the fuck. “Sure, I’m up for it.”
“All right,” Otis said. “I had Tito leave something in your car for you. It’s on your front seat. I’ll call you in a few days.”
“Sweet,” I said.
“Look who’s coming over here now,” Otis said. Miguel came running from the other side of the playground and headbutted Otis in the gut. “Ooof,” Otis said, manhandling the kid a little. Nina came right behind him and I got a bad feeling in the pit of my gut.
“Candy. This my boy, Miguel.” Otis scrubbed Miguel’s head with a hard hand.
“We’ve met,” I said. “He’s gonna be a bruiser, that one.” I slapped hands with Miguel.
“And this is Nina,” Otis said. “This is one of my young bucks, Candy,” he said to Nina. I nodded to her. She offered her tiny hand to shake, which I did. Otis couldn’t see the spark between us, but I felt it a
ll up my arm and into my hair. Nina was sweet, and she was Otis’s girl.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
“The same,” I said. “Ima be off now,”
“Cool,” Otis said. “Thank you for your good work.” He stood up and took Miguel by the hand. Nina followed right behind him, her hand on his back. She turned around slightly and waved at me. My heart just flopped in my chest. I needed to forget this whole day happened. I waited till they went on down the street and went over to my car. Tito had left a bag with some ecstasy and some bills. I counted the cash as it riffled through my hands. Two thousand five hundred in fifties. Nice bonus, but it wouldn’t keep me from thinking about Nina’s kinky hair in my hands and the way her ass swayed in the short-shorts she was wearing today.
I drove to Beachmont and parked my car on the street. I lived in a condo on the second floor of a Victorian house on Winthrop Avenue, close to the subway and good pizza, with two liquor stores and a laundromat, all in walking distance. My condo was hot as balls, but I needed to work off some energy before I figured out what to do over these next couple days off. I had a full set of weights in a small room off my kitchen, and I stripped down to shorts and got some arm action in before I realized the energy I was feeling wasn’t going to be dispensed with so easily. I stopped lifting and thought about maybe biking out to Gloucester and back, but it was too late in the day. I decided to shower first and then call Rosario, a good friend of mine who actually seemed to like my company instead of the hoochies who only gave me the time of day because I was in Otis’s crew. She had no boyfriends, and I had no girlfriends, but we shook off the jitters with sex a couple times a week.
