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An amped-up darkness, a television’s idea of black, roaring quiet like an airplane cabin on descent, rocked into sleepiness, ears closed to the combustion shoving forward and down.
I wouldn’t say I slept. Wouldn’t say I rested. More like I braced myself while I was out, and then somebody yelled “No, fuck YOU, motherfucker” and I jerked my head up to answer, heart slamming.
The tiny room was empty, dark. Mr. Motherfucker was drifting away with his buddies, just a syncopated clucking by now. Street light cut through a window and fell on a shitty dresser painted gloppy white, hair clips and bottles of who knew what girly stuff lying all over it. My face suddenly felt chilly and I noticed that I was three heavy blankets deep in a narrow bed and still in my clothes, contentedly close to sweating. I could’ve stayed there forever. But now I knew my face was cold, now my heart was gunning to meet a threat. And, well, I was curious.
I shoved my way out of bed and stretched. The room couldn’t have been more than twelve feet square. A few shelves hung from cheap wall brackets, an end table with an alarm clock, closet door slightly ajar. My toes, still in their socks, yawned awake on a nappy old rug. I stood there for a bit. Drop me in the Taj Mahal, I’d have known I was a tourist. Drop me in the ring with Micky Ward, I’d have known I was in a fight. I’ve been places. I’ve been in fights. I’ve even been in women’s bedrooms. But this, this was not a woman’s bedroom. Not a man’s, either, and not a kid’s. This was female-in-progress.
You know how long a man can stand in a strange female bedroom thinking about that kind of shit? Probably longer than three minutes, which according to the clock is how long I stood there—6:41 to 6:44–before a light hit the bottom of the door and I slid to its edge, hand grazing the knob.
“Lenny! Hey, Len! You up?”
Stan. I froze.
“I hear you, dumbass. Jesus, get out here if you’re up. Got pork steaks.”
Which reminded me that I was hungry.
Stan was at a tiny stove, dropping pink hunks of meat from their paper wrapping into a skillet. I’d never seen him in blue jeans—Stan dresses sharp—but there he was, a slob. Baggy jeans, faded blue sweatshirt and some canvas-looking hunter jacket flung over a chair behind him at the tiny dining table. Stubble covered his scalp and cheeks—I’d forgotten that Stan wasn’t naturally bald.
“He’s alive! You look good, Len. Rested.”
“You look like shit.”
“Hey, now, Stash”—he stabbed a pair of barbecue tongs at me—“be nice. I lived a hard life.” Stan only called people ‘Stash’ when he was in a good mood. Which wasn’t often. Not around me, at least. He was somehow more intimidating this way.
“Well, you look like a hobo. No offense.”
“None taken. You look like a fatass been beat up by an old man. Have a seat.”
“Thanks. Where’s the kid?”
“Kid’s fine. He-“
“Stan. Stan.” He finally turned to look at me. “Where’s the kid?”
“I dropped him off myself. At that truck stop. He’s with his mother.”
“Been a long day, Stan, and so help me-“
“Len. Lenny. He’s a kid. I’m looking you square in the face—and you know I’m a stand-up guy, Lenny, you know that—and telling you that the kid is fine.”
I grunted thanks, sat at the little table and took in the kitchen as Stan cooked. Small, but tidy, except for the refrigerator door, overflowing with pictures of happy drunken kids, and the books lying around everywhere. Not cookbooks, either: history books, books in Spanish, books I gave up reading their titles halfway through.
“Nice place you got here, Stan. This the second family you’re hiding from Marta?”
“Heh. No, it’s…Melissa and Amy’s place. I think. Only met ‘em to pick up the keys.”
“So what’s-“
“They’re in Argentina for some college thing. Gone a few months, so I paid in cash, they’re happy to get it, my name’s not on anyone’s paper, it’s fine.”
“And the hobo outfit?”
“When in Rome, Len. I got business here. But let’s hold off on that. I’ll bet you’re wondering about some other things, too.”
Right that moment, I was wondering what a pork steak was. Stan answered by handing me a plate nearly hidden by a gigantic slab of meat, which answered that. I tucked in and we ate in silence for a while.
“Yeah, about that,” I finally said between mouthfuls, “you and this dentist guy. What’s the deal, Stan? He got something on you? You turned on the outfit?”
“Well, Doc—I call him Doc—he’s not exactly what he claims to be. I don’t think.”
“Like queer?”
“I dunno, Lenny. I got enough to think about without any of that noise.”
“So he never-“
“Nah. What? Nah, never came up. Well, not to me personal. He did mention the Rosso jazz the first time I met him, but don’t that strike you as strange?”
“Strange, yeah. Strange is one word for it.”
“That he would just throw that sort of thing out there, first time you met him? Me, too?”
With a little time to think about it, it did seem weird that the old guy would blab about him and Rosso first thing we met.
“So what’s the truth here, Stan?”
“That,” mumbled Stan as he wolfed down a last hunk of pork fat, “remains to be seen. I tell you one thing, I don’t want to think about Rosso and the Doc like that. Maybe the old guy was trying to throw us for a loop, maybe he wants to turn us against Rosso.”
Stan took our plates to the sink and ran some water over them. “One thing I do know—wonder about—is that this has less to do with Rosso and the outfit than anyone wants us to believe.”
“Well, what’s the deal, then, Stan? Rosso wants-“
“What Rosso wants, Rosso’s gonna get. But like Doc said, this is small potatoes, the money he owes. Rosso’s not sending the army to come find us anytime soon. We ain’t that important.”
“Stan…you’re talking like you’re staying out here a while. I gotta get back to-“
“Not without finishing the job, you ain’t. And you’re in no position. Your heart, your health.”
“So what now?”
Stan grabbed his jacket and pointed me toward the door. “Happens the Doc’s got some deep pockets, knows some people. We got a job.”
“Huh. What kind of job?”
Stan stopped in the doorway and looked back at me for a moment. “What kind of job you think we’re cut out for, Stash?”
Yeah, we’d done this before. But Jesus, always for a few points on big bills. Very professional, everything understood. You could’ve written contracts.
But tonight, here were me and Stan, crawling through a little college town in a VW Bug for fuck’s sake, to collect $2,000 from “some kids,” as Stan kept saying.
“These kids, you don’t know. Never do. Some of them lift weights like they’re in prison or something. Some of them look tough.”
“Yeah, so-“
“So yeah, it’s more fun when they look like a challenge.”
“Stan, I don’t mind this business. You know that. Man’s gotta eat. But are we really taking $100 a piece for this job? You really dragging me out here for that?”
“Sit tight, partner. We’re independent contractors now.”
“Meaning….?”
“You’ll see. Loosen up a little. Jesus, we gotta get you a different outfit. You look like a tourist, and ain’t no tourists come to this town. But for now, just sit back, follow my lead, and use your imagination a little.”
The kids did not expect us. The kids were not ready to pay their bills.
This was at some newly thrown-up apartment building, third floor, music pumping from every other doorway in the carpeted hallway. They barely heard Stan pounding on the door. They were surprised when Stan burst the chain open. They asserted their legal rights. They learned that it hurts to put your hand on a lit stove. They learned that a hammer isn’t just for hanging posters. We used what they gave us. We were creative, and we were effective.
And finally, the kids were ready to pay up. The little fuckers actually had the money—the lawyer-looking one who’d been shouting about his rights actually went to his bedroom and returned with a roll of $50 bills. Then he stood there, flexing his bandaged hand, as if we were finished.
“You sit tight,” smiled Stan. “We got some cleaning up to do.”
We took what we could find. Another $1,800 in cash, some electronic gadgets, that was about all—these kids had some growing up to do. The electric guitar, we left on account of I’d broken its neck. But I got the idea. We paid ourselves here.
“Nice job, rook,” Stan said as we left the parking lot. “You get what we’re doing here?”
“Got it. And this is all from the Doc, huh?”
“I hear from the Doc. I don’t think this is his game, though.”
“Whose, then?”
“What, I’m the Great Wazoo all of a sudden? I got a feeling the Doc’s just feeding us jobs, is all. We’re new here. We got things to figure out.”
“Yeah, I guess. So when do I get to knock the dentist’s teeth out?”
“Easy, Lenny. Hands off the Doc for now.”
“Why’s that?”
“Think longer term, Len. There’s a score here somewhere. If we’re patient.”
“If Rosso doesn’t come after us. If I don’t drop dead from eating three tons of pork on top of a heart attack…and why exactly did you do that?”
“Why exactly do you think you had a heart attack?”
