Knuckledragger

by Rusty Barnes

  “I think you do,” I said. “Maybe not. You know Tito?”

  “Tito? Yeah, maybe.” He assessed me with two pale blue eyes. “I run things here.”

  “OK,” I stood up, and Eddie’s hand went to a drawer. “No need, there,” I said. “Call Tito and let’s get shit straight.”

  “Good idea,” Eddie said. His hand continued to the drawer and pulled out a little shit of a handgun, maybe a .32. “Until then, I don’t like or trust you.” He turned to John. “You can get the fuck out of here, John.”

  “No,” I said. “I want him to hear this.” John sat down again. A good sign for me.

  Eddie pushed a number in, but one hand stayed on the little pissant gun he had. I wanted to shove it up his colon. “Tito? Yeah, some fucking redhead built like a gorilla’s here telling me he’s in charge. What the fuck?” Eddie listened for a moment. A number of looks passed across his face, most of them uglier than sin. “Yeah? I know. But. All right. No, fuck you, Tito.” He pushed off the phone and put the gun back in the drawer. “OK, you’re in charge,” Eddie said. He threw a large set of keys at me. I caught them without thinking in my left hand and couldn’t hold back a flinch at the pain. “Have a good fucking time.”

  “Don’t you worry,” I said.

  “I’m going to go change Mrs. Delbanco’s shitbox tires since I’m only a mechanic again.” Eddie unplugged the coffeemaker and pulled the pistol again.

  “You’re making me nervous,” I said.

  “Just taking what’s mine,” Eddie said. John puffed on his cigarette and avoided looking at either of us. Eddie walked out, cursing a blue streak, but not at me.

  “I give three days before one of you hits the other one,” John said. “Then I will sue for a hostile work environment.”

  “You’re funny,” I said. “Go help Eddie.”

  “This will be interesting,” John said. He finished his cigarette, but didn’t throw it on the floor the way he had before.

  “This is now a non-smoking office,” I said. John nodded and left for the garage. Eddie had forgotten his coffee cup. I walked across the office and emptied it into the toilet. Then I walked outside. Eddie and John were working. I heard the squall of lugnuts being removed. Ramon and Marcos sat on the berm drinking soda. “Back to work, guys,” I said, and pointed to the car. The sun beat down on the pavement fiercely, and it was only noon. I motioned for Rosie to get out of the car. As she got out, a blast of air conditioning hit me like a brick.

  “How’d that go?” she said.

  “Could have been worse,” I said.

  “I see,” she said. “Let’s go look at the damage.”

  CHAPTER 29

  “JESUS,” ROSIE SAID, surveying the office. “You weren’t kidding.”

  “I tried sorting it when I was here the other day, but they seem to have ignored it.”

  “I’ll get it together,” Rosie said. “Go do something.” The first thing Rosie found that I hadn’t: company bank records and cards, all in an envelope in the bottom drawer.

  I grabbed the company bank card and a piece of paper scrawled with something that looked like a password. “I’m going to deposit those checks,” I said. “Back soon.”

  “Got it,” said Rosie, pulling out an earbud and nodding to me. Her work mode was powerful. I walked into the first bay and let Eddie and John know I’d be gone for a few minutes.

  “I don’t care,” Eddie said. “You’re the boss now. I don’t give a fuck about you.” He kept his head inside the wheel well the whole time, but I understood the whole mumbling thing.

  “Good,” I said. I got into the car and cranked the air. I headed for the Wal-Mart, the closest bank ATM. I wondered what would happen when Nina and Rosie met for the first time, especially since Rosie was going to be replacing Nina. I didn’t expect any trouble from the guys at the garage. A new boss was nothing to them. Tito had probably sent three or four different guys through there. Eddie hadn’t stolen as much as they expected, so he got to keep the job. I kept thinking about those thousand-dollar checks endorsed in Eddie’s name but not in his handwriting. I’d bet they were headed for Eddie’s bank account with a cut going to Nina. It would be interesting to see how things progressed from here on.

  I had to wait in line for the ATM. Once I got up to the machine and punched the numbers in successfully, I got a printout of the last ten deposits. Each one was between five hundred and seven hundred dollars, the last one dated day before yesterday. So based on the checks in my hand, either Eddie or Nina deposited five hundred or so then took a thousand and endorsed them at another bank. Even accounting for how much got done under the table, it was serious loss for Otis. I wondered what he’d say when confronted with evidence that Nina had done it. I wondered why I couldn’t stop thinking about the juncture of her thigh and hip.

  I got back into the car and considered things for a moment. It was hard to tell if Otis trusted me or not. He had to know he was losing money on this business, and he’d sent me to check it out. He had to know Nina was involved, and he’d already had me beaten just for being too close to Miguel and Nina. What would happen when I told him what went on? I sighed and turned the car out into the 1A south traffic, stopping at the DD along the way to get coffee for Rosie and the guys.

  When I pulled in, it seemed as if everybody was still working. A good sign. I left a cardboard tray with four coffees in it on top of a toolbox and carried lattes into the office for Rosie and me. When I got there, I saw Eddie shouting at Rosie, who had backed into the corner of the office holding a stapler in front of her as if she was going to hit him with it. I dropped the lattes and spun Eddie around by the shoulder and cracked him in the jaw. He jerked back and Rosie threw the stapler and hit him in the nose hard. I took my right hand to his nose twice, then three times, until it flattened against his face. He seemed a little drowsy then and I grabbed him by the belt and hauled him out to his car. “John!” I said. “Drive him home.” I pulled a thousand dollars out of my back pocket and tucked it into Eddie’s t-shirt pocket. “Show up here again and I’ll put you in the hospital.”

  “This is ugly,” John said. “It will not be good when he comes back from this. He has many friends.”

  “I’ll worry about that later,” I said. Marcos and Ramon stood in the bay silently drinking their coffee and smoking. As I walked back into the office, I could feel the tension from them relax into something like tolerance.

  Rosie had mopped up the spilled lattes by the time I got back inside.

  “You all right?” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ve dealt with worse than him.”

  “I thought you were cute with the stapler,” I said.

  “Go screw yourself,” Rosie said. “I used what came to hand.”

  “What brought that on?” I said.

  “He saw you’d taken the checks and figured out you weren’t going to skim off the top like he had.”

  “Otis launders enough money through this place,” I said. “He doesn’t need Eddie’s kind of headache too.”

  “That’s obvious, now.” Rosie sat back down and began sorting through papers again.

  “You finding much?” I said.

  “Nothing yet really. I found a couple more small checks. And I called Best Buy and ordered a window AC unit on the company card.” I saw tiny beads of sweat on her forehead.

  “That’s cool,” I said.

  “It will be,” she said.

  CHAPTER 30

  AT THE END OF THE DAY, I dropped Rosie off at the apartment so she could head to her night shift at the Cask and Flagon. I continued up the way to see Tito. Shirley Street looked abandoned. The lights were off in most of the storefronts. It must have been some kind of holiday. Tito sat in the back of the playground, wearing dark glasses. I parked the car and headed over to get his take on things.

  “I had to kick Eddie’s ass,” I said.

  “I figured that would come,” Tito said, rubbing his chin.

  “You coul
d have let me know he was a loose cannon.”

  “I didn’t know until you proved it. No worries, Candy.”

  “I figure Eddie’s been skimming a grand or more per week. I don’t know for how long.

  “That explains some things,” Tito said. “Otis and Nina broke up.” I felt a red shudder come up my face. I could never hide what I was thinking.

  “When did that happen?” I asked.

  “Some time this morning. Apparently, she got another guy on the side.”

  “Oh that’s not good,” I said. I ran a hand over my buzzcut. “Has he found out who it is?”

  “Not yet. That guy’s a dead motherfucker if Otis finds out who he is.”

  “I bet,” I said. This complicated my life in a major way. Was I another guy? Or just a temporary notch for Nina? Tito looked at me over the top of his shades.

  “I wouldn’t wanna be that guy,” Tito offered after an awkward silence.

  “Anyway, I dropped nearly two grand in skim back into the bank,” I said.

  “Otis’ll be pleased to hear that shit.”

  “All right, I’m going home.”

  “Right. Sleep tight, Candy.” Tito pushed his glasses back on his nose. I felt like I needed to calm down, so I walked down Shirley Street to BK’s. Inside, the loud roar of the TVs and the cool Corona in front of me calmed me down a bit, even though I didn’t know the bartender or anybody else in the place tonight. Mostly sandy-foot beachgoers I could ignore. The bartender was a tall girl with a cute face. She was basically straight up and down, but she poured a generous shot when I asked her for it, so I pushed her a five-dollar bill which she deposited in her pants pocket without even smiling at me. Ten minutes later I got another one with a beer back.

  “Here you go,” she said. I gave her another five and got a small smile for my money. I went back to staring at the TV. If Otis had figured out Nina had someone else it wouldn’t take long for the chain of events to come back to me. Unless Nina could keep her mouth shut. Just then she called me. I looked at the number for a long moment, then sent it to voicemail. She had no problem being obvious about it. If he’d done even the first thing a jealous boyfriend would do—check her phone use—I would be up shit creek. The phone buzzed again, this time a text message, from Rosie. Tough night at work, it said. I won’t be coming back over. I texted her back and got another beer. Maybe tonight would be a tie-one-on night. The bartender came back over. “Tough love life?” she said.

  I laughed shortly. “You could say that,” I said. “How could you tell?”

  “You’re sending calls to voicemail, drinking like any good Irishman, and you have a face only a mother could love.” She cut up lemons with a short bar knife.

  I ran my hand over my chin. I’d forgotten about the stitches. “What can I say? You got me dead to rights.”

  “I hope the other guy’s in the hospital.”

  I didn’t say anything. Tito came here too, and anything I said would eventually find its way back to Tito, and therefore to Otis. If it had been a normal night, I would have just gone into Boston to where Rosie worked and hung out with guys who were only concerned with the Sox score. I just didn’t feel like being the chick under anybody’s wing.

  “Sure thing,” I said. “I gave him hell.”

  “I’m Lori,” she said, and offered her hand.

  “You can call me Candy,” I said.

  “You want another beer, Candy?”

  “How about another shot, Lori?”

  “All right.”

  “Can I get a burger, rare?”

  “I’ll send it to the kitchen.”

  Watching the ball game with something approaching interest now, I thought about Nina. It didn’t seem like she’d go to Otis with my name, but it still worried me. At some point I’d have to answer her call, and who knew whether that would be a time Otis was trying to make it back into her good graces or vice versa. That would put me in trouble, and Rosie too, by extension. We weren’t a couple, but everybody knew we were together. I don’t know, maybe we were a couple. I shifted on my stool toward the far wall and felt the booze hit me all at once. I swayed my way to the bathroom and let go some beer, then came back to my stool, where my burger waited. I salted my fries down real good and stuck a few of them in my mouth. The burn against my tongue felt good after all the alcohol.

  A crew of couples, three of them, came through the door laughing and overloud. Clearly, they’d gotten lit up well somewhere else and were coming here to have a nightcap before getting on the T and going home. They took over two tables near me, shouting and gesturing. Lori would have to serve as waitress too, and she didn’t look pleased about it. I left two twenties on the table and nodded to her as she squeezed by me. Time for me to go. I carefully maneuvered my way through the crowd and gingerly walked back to my car. The foot traffic on Shirley was popping, so I had to be really careful driving through. By the time I made it around the turn toward home it was clear that I shouldn’t be driving. I didn’t drink and drive often anymore, but in my younger days I had some experience. Travel forty-five miles per and try my best to keep it in the middle. I stopped at Torretta’s Bakery and bought some apple turnovers and a pound of butter cookies. I thought I’d try to sop up the alcohol in my gut. I only dropped my keys once before getting the door unlocked.

  The apartment held that locked-up and hot summer feel, so I turned on the ceiling fan and all the box fans, and the AC in the bedroom. I turned the TV on and tried to find something worth watching. I ended up on some travel channel show where this guy drinks his way through different countries and never gets drunk. I couldn’t follow it, so I picked up my phone. Nina again and Rosie. I pushed Nina’s number, and she picked up on the second ring.

  “Hello, Candy?”

  “Yeah, what’s up? Why are you calling me?”

  “I guess you heard.”

  “Yeah. You gotta stop calling me. Continuing on is not a good idea. Otis is going to be looking at your phone and then I’m fucked.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Are you simple? He’s not going to give you up like that.”

  “Oh it’s all over with us. We just have to take care of Miguel.”

  “Look, don’t call me again.” Even as I said it I winced. I wanted to see her again. There was no logic, no smarts, no nothing about it. I was a full-grown idiot.

  “You don’t mean that,” Nina said. I sighed.

  “No, I guess I don’t.”

  “So can I come over?”

  “Yeah, but you can’t stay over. That would be a bad thing.”

  “I’ll be there in five minutes,” she said.

  “What about Miguel?” I said.

  “My sister,” she said. “Don’t fall asleep.”

  It took her ten to get there, and as soon as she got in the door she kissed me and pushed me toward the bedroom and onto the bed. She stripped down and kissed me up my legs till she got to my waist. Then I flipped her over on her stomach and went to town. I had drunk-dick, and there was no way I was going to come. Within ten minutes she cried for mercy and I finally let loose in her with every ounce of energy I had. I fell asleep with her slowly stroking my chest, her sweat-thick hair itchy on my neck. I woke up to the sound of my garbage can being knocked over, a familiar sound that scared me shitless nonetheless. Nina didn’t even move. I pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and went to the fridge for a drink. I didn’t feel like cleaning anything up, so I ignored the garbage can and sat on the couch looking at the blank TV screen. After ten minutes or so Nina came out dressed.

  “So soon?” I said, drinking from my beer.

  “Fuck off,” she said lightly. “I figured it was my sign when you came out here.”

  “I woke up thirsty.”

  “I know about the shop. You don’t need to expect me tomorrow.”

  “I figured as much,” I said. I didn’t know if she knew Rosie had taken her place yet. A conversation I didn’t want to have at 3 a.m. “So you’re going
to call me?”

  “Not if I keep hearing about a certain Dominican slut,” she said. All right. Now I knew how the game would be played.

  “I’ll still be at the park once in a while. Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  “Only on the days Otis has Miguel.”

  “Well, you know.”

  She waved at me with her fingers and exited my front door, slamming it. Good thing my college kid neighbors either slept like logs or never slept at all. I got up and went back to the bed, where Nina’s smell still permeated the room.

  CHAPTER 31

  EARLY IN THE MORNING I fixed a smoothie with some bananas and milk and protein powder. I’d be at the shop full-time from now on, and I felt like I needed something solid, so I drove up Route 60 to the IHOP. I banged open the door accidentally and caused the occupants to all look up. Among them was Tito, minus his dark glasses, his eyes bloody and nearly yellow. He motioned me over, so I sat down and got two orders of pancakes.

  “You look like shit,” I said.

  “Not as bad as you will if Otis finds out about Nina.”

  “Shit,” I said. “How long have you known?”

  “I knew something was up with you a week or so ago, but I didn’t know what until Otis’s boy Eddie told me a couple hours ago. When Nina walked out your place at three in the morning.”

  “So. They broke up.”

  “Last night they broke up. What about the two weeks before that?” Tito said. I shrugged. Truth to tell, I didn’t know what to do now that Tito knew. One step from Tito. I needed to get out of the city for a while.

  “You can’t talk or something? Otis is going to hang you up by your big Irish balls. And what about your hottie, that big Dominican chick?” Tito put his glasses back on. The waitress brought my pancakes on two warm plates, with a glass of milk.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You eat like a little kid,” Tito said. “Candy and pancakes and shit.”

  “All right, I’ll hit the road.” I thought for a moment. “What are you going to do with the shop?”