by Jess Walter
Knowing laughter.
“I swear I’ll go to church. Stop drinking. Be nice to children and old fuckers. I’m praying and the Miami players wander up to the line and by this time I’ve run out of prayers so I’m offering to do anything if they’ll make this point: I’ll eat shit off a sidewalk. I’ll suck off a dog.”
Heads roll back. Tears are wiped.
“Anything to make this point. And come on! It’s a goddamned extra point; they make these in their sleep. It’s gonna be okay, I realize, and as soon as I think that, I’ll be goddamned if the snap doesn’t go high and of course God would never let me push this game. He and I both know I don’t deserve a push. The ball sails high over the holder’s head, and I fall forward off my chair and wish I were dead…and I will be goddamned if that son-of-a-bitch backup quarterback doesn’t do the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. He jumps up and he somehow snatches that football out of the air—”
Jacks holds his hands high above his head, the guys grinning.
“And right there, on my knees in front of our nineteen-inch TV, I start crying. Like a goddamn baby. I whimper as that holder somehow gets that ball down just as the kicker is running toward it and I think, you know what, you son of a bitch, sometimes even a guy like me catches a break.”
Guys cover their mouths.
“And right, then, that kicker runs up to the ball, his footwork perfect, the line holding, and I’ll be goddamned if that goddamned kicker doesn’t do the goddamnedest thing I’ve ever seen in a football game. All that worthless dog-fucker has to do is kick the damn ball and I don’t lose two grand. Kick the ball and I break even. Instead, that cockbite son of a bitch takes his three steps and he falls on that thing like it’s a fuckin’ hand grenade. Apparently, he can’t get that high snap out of his mind and he just falls on it, lays there on that ball like it’s a goddamned cheerleader. Game over. I lose two grand.”
Howls of laughter. Guys slap the table.
“Couple days later, Peggy called. Said why don’t we give it one more try?” Jacks shrugs and mutters. “Bitch.”
THE LAUGHTER HAS faded to drunken hums, and Vince has nearly forgotten why he’s there as he rakes his cards in—a pair of sixes—and it’s not until he bets and hears the door open that Vince realizes this game can’t last forever and by then it’s almost a relief to look up and see the pocked cheeks, sharp sideburns, and aviator sunglasses of Lenny Huggins. Lenny looks around the room, settles on Vince, shakes his head, and starts walking over. He walks differently than he did before; Vince recognizes that walk, the confidence. He looks for the outline in Lenny’s jacket.
Just him and Jacks left. The cards are flopped and two more sixes hit the table. Vince smiles to himself. Four of a kind. You’ve got to be kidding. Lenny approaches warily. “I’m out,” Vince says, and pushes the money in front of him over to Jacks.
“What are you doing?” Jacks asks.
“I gotta go,” Vince says.
“Vince.” Lenny Huggins has reached the table. “I can’t believe you’re here. I heard you came back, but I really thought you was smarter than that.”
“No,” Vince says, “I’m not.”
The guys at the table follow the conversation like a tennis match.
“You ready?”
“Where’s your buddy?”
“He’s waiting for us.”
“I hope you know what you’re getting into, Lenny.”
“Is that some kind a warning?”
“Yeah,” Vince says. “Some kind.” He pushes his chair back and Lenny jerks away from the table, his hand going to his waist. Okay, Vince thinks, now you know where the gun is. If it goes badly, that might be a good thing to know. Vince stands and reaches for his backpack.
“I’ll carry that for you,” Lenny says.
Vince hesitates, and then tosses it to him. He still has his cards in his hand. He flips them up on the table and the guys stare uncomprehendingly at his four sixes, all except Petey, who is smiling up at him.
“See you tomorrow, Vince?” Petey asks.
It’s funny, the casual way people toss something like that off. That’s sort of a basic unit of happiness, a minimum daily requirement…tomorrow. How many times does someone ask that and you just say yes without thinking, when in fact there are any number of reasons it might not happen? Vince looks at Lenny, then back at the table. “Sure,” he says. “Tomorrow.” And he starts for the door.
LENNY THROWS VINCE’S backpack in the trunk. Then he has Vince open his coat and lift his shirt and his pant legs. Satisfied, he motions to the front seat of the Cadillac. “You drive,” he says to Vince.
“I’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Go slow.”
“I don’t know where we’re going.”
“I’ll tell you.”
“How about if you drive and I tell you where to go.”
“Get in,” Lenny says.
He has Vince drive west through downtown. It’s dark and cold; they swing from streetlight to streetlight on the dew-slicked streets, the buildings distorted by their own shadows, tilting toward them—a city of parallelograms, a city of sharp angles. “You must get terrible mileage,” Vince says.
Lenny watches him closely. “What?”
“An eight-year-old Cadillac. What do you get? Ten? Twelve?”
“I get fifteen,” Lenny says.
Vince laughs. “No way you get more than twelve.”
“Highway, I get fifteen.”
“Nope. There’s no way, Lenny.”
“Shut the fuck up, Vince!”
“Okay.” Vince drives. “But there’s no way.”
They drive in silence for a few minutes and then Lenny snaps.
“You’re such an asshole, Vince! Why do you gotta know everything all the time?”
“Twelve?”
“Yes,” Lenny spits. “I get twelve.”
He has Vince drive to a motel at the base of the Sunset Hill, at the west edge of downtown, etched into a basalt, pine-covered hill that guards the city like a wall; it is bisected by the old four-lane highway leading into town, which lost the traffic when the interstate was built parallel to it. But the highway still has the old fifties and sixties motor hotels that used to herald the beginning of the city, with their hopeful modernist signs—faded Technicolor horseshoes and curling, lighted arrows. ABOVE-GROUND POOLS! HOURLY RATES! COLOR TV!
They park at the far end, in the dark dark, outside a one-story row of motel doors—as the headlights roll across the face of the building, Vince can see the doors are marked with odd numbers between one and nine. There are no other cars in the gravel lot.
“Nine,” Lenny says. He nods toward the end of the building. “Knock once and then put your hands on your head. I’ll open the door and then you go in.”
“No password? You ought to have a password.”
“Shut up, Vince.”
They climb out of the car. Vince closes the door behind him and walks across the parking lot, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. He goes over it in his mind: the first part is going to be the toughest. Make it through the night and you’re home. Vince stands in front of the door, calms his jangly nerves, and knocks once. Then puts his hands on his head. From behind, Lenny reaches around him and opens the door. It swings into a dark room, lit only by a lamp on an end table. He pushes Vince inside.
They step into a narrow motel living room—a couch, a chair, a TV, and an end table—connected to an even smaller kitchenette, a Formica table, and one kitchen chair half on the living room carpet. There are two closed doors off the living room, most likely leading to a bedroom and a bathroom.
“Sit,” Lenny says. Vince sits in the chair. Above the couch is a strangely calming painting of a mountain landscape, with a line of black trees in the foreground. It’s one of those paintings you can’t quite get your arms around because the perspective is all fucked up—the foreground trees less focused than the mountains they shield. Still, he likes the trees. You could h
ide forever in a forest of fuzzy trees.
The bedroom door opens then and out comes Ray Sticks, wearing his dark slacks and a dress shirt open to a V-neck T-shirt. No shoes. He slicks back his black hair. “Hiya, chief.” Ray leaves the door open behind him and it takes a second for Vince’s eyes to adjust before he sees, in the windowless bedroom, on the bed, huddled against the headboard…Beth. Her cast is gone and she’s holding that red arm tenderly against her side. Her left eye is bruised.
“He broke my arm!” she says, and starts crying.
Vince’s head falls forward to his chest—his plan suddenly seeming naive and reckless. Goddamn it.
Ray looks into the bedroom and back. “Technically, I rebroke her arm.”
Vince forces himself to open his eyes. He looks past Ray into the bedroom. “Are you okay?” he asks.
She nods once. Pats her hair down and sets her face in anger toward Ray.
Vince says, “Look, I’m not giving you anything until I see her walk out that door.”
“That door?” asks Ray. He stands above Vince, smiling.
But it is Lenny who begins pacing around the room and speaking: “Look, Vince, I told you from the beginning this could go easy or it could go hard—”
Ray looks back at Lenny, then smiles at Vince, goes to the kitchen, and opens the refrigerator.
“And you chose the hard way,” Lenny says. “I didn’t want—”
“You don’t need her,” Vince says to Ray’s back. “Let her go.”
Lenny slaps him. Vince’s face barely moves. “Hey! Up here! I’m talking to you, motherfucker!” Lenny says.
But Vince continues to address Ray. “I mean it. I won’t tell you anything until she’s gone.”
Ray turns and smiles over his shoulder. “Sure. Whatever you say, chief.” He grabs two apples, a paring knife, and a dish towel, and returns to the living room.
Lenny looks from Vince to Ray and back. “What the hell’s going on here? Why are you two talking to each other? Talk to me.”
Ray ignores him. He spreads the dish towel out on the coffee table, sets the apples and the knife down on it. He sits down on the couch.
Vince can’t take his eyes off the knife. “Let her go and you can have the mailman. He wants to talk to you. He wants to steal more cards.”
“So call him,” Ray says. He picks up one of the apples and the knife. “Invite him over.”
“I can’t tonight. It’s too late. He unhooks his phone. I’ll call him in the morning. We meet at this restaurant. I’ll take you there.”
Ray begins slicing the peel off one of the apples. “I don’t know. Morning’s a long time away, chief.”
Vince leans forward. “I got some money.”
Ray laughs. “Yeah, your girlfriend was saying something about that. Said you two were gonna buy her a house.”
Vince tries not to show his deep disappointment.
Ray wipes the knife blade on the towel. “We decided we’d go down tomorrow and withdraw the money. Have a little party.” He winks.
Lenny stares at Ray. “What the hell’s going on here? What’s everyone talking about? This is my deal now.”
Ray stands, reaches in his pocket, and comes out with a twenty-dollar bill. “Go get us something to drink.”
Lenny looks from Ray to Vince to Beth and back. “It’s three-thirty in the morning. Where am I supposed to find something to drink?”
Ray just stares at him, until finally Lenny grabs the twenty and starts to turn for the door. Ray grabs Len’s shoulder, reaches into his coat to his waistband, pulls out the gun he was packing, a black semiautomatic, and puts it in the back of his own waistband. “I don’t want you to shoot your balls off,” he says.
Lenny looks briefly at Vince—a shudder of understanding, maybe—but he goes out for booze anyway.
“That guy’s a fuckin’ idiot,” Ray says when Lenny’s gone. “How could you work with such morons?”
“You take what you get.”
“I guess.” Ray walks to the bedroom door, the knife still in his hands. Beth shrinks beneath his eyes. “Honey, your boyfriend and I are gonna talk awhile. You get some rest.” Then he closes the bedroom door and sits on the back of the couch, his feet on the cushions, so that he’s still above Vince. They stare at each other.
“She’s nice,” Ray says.
Vince looks back at the painting behind Ray, those black trees inscrutable.
“You know who I am?” Ray points to his own chin with the knife.
“Yeah,” Vince says. “I know who you are.”
“Say it.”
“Ray Sticks.”
Ray smiles at the sound of his name, like a thirsty man getting a drink. “So you are from back there.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what Lenny said, but I just thought he was full of shit. So who were you? Would I know you?”
“No,” Vince says.
“You a mechanic? Work in somebody’s crew back there?”
“I stole credit cards. Same as here. I wasn’t connected.”
“Oh.” Ray is disappointed. “That’s too bad.” He sits back on the couch and considers Vince. “So you’re nobody, but then you come here—and you know a few things…how to play cards. All of a sudden you’re the man, right? King of the gangsters.” He laughs. “Shit.”
Vince is quiet. He watches Ray shave the peel off the apple, just taking the thinnest layer of rind, so that the white apple underneath is still tinted red. Ray looks up, his thick eyebrows arching. “I hate peels. I don’t like crust on my sandwiches either.”
He finishes one apple, then sets it down—raw and exposed—and starts on the other one. “So what do you think about this place?” Ray asks.
“Spokane?” Vince shrugs. “I like it.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t.”
“I like it a lot.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah.”
“You wanna know what I hate most about this place?” Ray asks.
“What?”
“The pizza. You can’t eat it. It’s a fuckin’ crime. I mean, come on. Where the fuck do you go for a slice around here?”
“You get used to it,” Vince says. “I’ve kind of developed a taste for deep-dish.”
“No! Come on! How can you eat that shit? It’s pepperoni on French toast. You can’t get used to a thing like that. What kind of place is it, you can’t get a fuckin’ slice of pizza? Or a sandwich? You ask for a fuckin’ cheesesteak in this town, they look at you like you’re askin’ ’em to grill a fuckin’ baby.”
Vince smiles in spite of himself. “You ever try to catch a cab?”
Ray’s hands go to the top of his head. “I been in both of ’em.”
They laugh.
“And the fuckin’ drivers!” Ray is incredulous.
Vince nods. “I know. I know. It’s like a whole town of old people. Even the young people drive like old people.”
“I never seen anything like it. So polite, it makes you wanna puke. I’m here a week, I pull up to one of them…four-way stops. What the fuck is that?”
Vince laughs. “I know. I know.”
“Four assholes sittin’ there, each with their own fuckin’ stop sign, everyone staring at everyone else like it’s a damn tea party. Sit there ten minutes mouthin’ to each other, ‘You go. No, you go. No, I insist. No, really.’ I tell you, chief, one of these days I’m gonna drive up to one of them four-way stops, pull out my gun, and shoot every one of them motherfuckers in the head.”
Vince is smiling, nodding. Glances at the bedroom door.
“And what about—”
Vince is up and across the room before Ray can finish the sentence, and while he’s quickly disappointed, he’s also duly impressed by how quickly the big man uncoils and comes off the back of the couch with a glint of stainless, and the sharpness of the point of that paring knife in his cheek, just below his eye, and it’s that pain and the force of Ray’s big hand on his throat, sq
ueezing, that convinces Vince to let go of Ray’s shoulders and allow himself to be pushed back into his chair.
Vince coughs and feels his tender throat, then runs his hand over the slash in his cheek. It’s small, little more than a nasty shaving cut. And yet he remembers the tip of the knife against his cheekbone, just below his eye socket, and the sound of his own bone being scraped makes him shiver.
Ray stands above him, holding the knife, a look of sheer boredom on his face. “Let’s see.”
Vince pulls his hand away and shows the big man the cut.
“I missed your eye. You’re lucky.”
Ray stands there a minute more, looking around the room. “Okay,” he says, as if he’s glad they’re through with that silliness.
He wipes the spot of red off the point of the knife, and then sits on the back of the couch again. He halves, then quarters, then eighths the apple, tosses a piece to Vince, who catches it. Ray looks like he forgot something for a moment. “Where were we?
“Oh.” Ray smiles and claps his hands. “What about the broads? Have you ever seen such ugly broads? I don’t know whether I’m supposed to bang ’em or have ’em chase sticks.”
LENNY COMES BACK with a three-quarters-full bottle of Kahlúa.
“What the fuck is that?” Ray asks.
“Kahlúa. It’s a coffee liqueur.”
“You brought me chocolate fuckin’ milk?”
“You can make White Russians. Or…them mudslides.”
“Mudslides.”
“Yeah.”
“Mudslides.” He looks at Vince. “We’re gonna fuckin’ make mudslides.”
Lenny looks from Vince to Ray. “I couldn’t find any open stores. It’s four in the morning, Ray.”
“So where’d you get this?”
“I drove to my house.”
Ray looks to Vince and shakes his head. You believe the shit I have to put up with? He opens the Kahlúa and sniffs it. Takes a drink. “Mudslides?”
“Okay, Vince, here’s how it’s gonna go down,” Lenny starts. “You’re gonna set up a meeting with the mailman. Introduce us.”
But neither Ray nor Vince even bothers to look at him.
