Flotsam said, “We need to have a few words, sir.” Then more firmly, “Step outside, please.”
Reluctantly, the Nigerian walked outside with the cops, and after the glass door swung shut, Dewey Gleason rose and dumped his uneaten taco plate into a trash receptacle. He exited in time to see the cops walking the man toward an old Toyota at the far side of the parking lot. Dewey saw a parcel drop from under the man’s checked sport coat and fall onto the asphalt. The younger cop picked it up and the Nigerian acted as though he’d never seen it before.
Dewey slowed when passing the trio, and he could see that the package had torn open and several sheets of checks had spilled onto the ground. The dumb shit had only needed to bring one sheet of checks for Eunice to duplicate! Dewey quickened his pace, not bothering with the Bernie Graham limp and not looking back. He wasn’t sure, but when he reached the street, he thought he could hear the sound of handcuff ratchets chattering closed. It was a sound that chilled his blood.
SEVEN
MALCOLM ROJAS COULD HEAR his mother in the living room watching TV when he finally got home. That’s all she did when she wasn’t at work. He could hear the ice cubes tinkling in her glass of Jim Beam. She was laughing at some dumb show she was watching and might be half drunk by now. He thought he’d call in sick tomorrow. He hated working on weekends. The card belonging to that guy Bernie Graham was on his mind. He decided to make an appointment with the man and hear more about the debit cards and the real money he could make. It scared him to think about it, but it also excited him.
Excitement. That made him think once again of the woman in the apartment garage. Of how she’d been down on his lap. Of how he’d owned her. She’d promised she’d do whatever he wanted if he didn’t hurt her with the box cutter. For a second he remembered that he hadn’t done what he’d wanted to do with her, something he’d never done in his life. He’d wanted to come in her mouth, that fat old bitch. And he didn’t, couldn’t. He pushed it from his mind. He listened to his mother laughing again, but he didn’t want to let her make him angry. He began to listen to heavy metal on his iPod.
Music made him start thinking about that girl Naomi. He almost called her but changed his mind. He wanted to see her again and promised himself that he would. He even liked the retainer on her teeth. It made her look… what was the word? Vulnerable, that was it. She looked so vulnerable. Naomi didn’t seem to go with heavy metal, so he turned off the iPod. He wondered what she’d do if he kissed her and tried to touch her small breasts. He began getting an erection.
Then he heard his mother laughing again. He started to become angry, despite himself. He tried to think of Naomi again, but he could not. He pictured that fat bitch in the parking garage and thought of what he’d wanted to do to her, and that made him remember his failure. His fury grew powerful and he put his pillow over his head and tried to will himself to sleep.
It took him an hour, and when he awoke he was sweat-drenched. He could recall bits and pieces of a recurring dream. He was younger in the dream, and he was in bed with… he couldn’t say who. He smelled the booze on her, and she kept stroking his body, starting with his hair, until her hands slid down his hips. She was murmuring “Ruben… my sweet Ruben.” The dream was always like that. He awoke with an erection, and even after he masturbated, he could not go back to sleep for hours. The rage wouldn’t let him.
Because the Pacific Dining Car on Sixth Street near downtown was open 24/7, Dewey Gleason chose it instead of Musso & Frank on Hollywood Boulevard, which was much closer to home. He preferred the city’s oldest eateries, where little had changed since the likes of Gable and Tracy and Raymond Chandler had dined there. It was 1 A.M., and he was fatigued, waiting in the clubby little bar for the college kid, after having delivered two Whoppers to Eunice and changed his disguise. He loved old drinking spots like this, all mahogany, brass, and faux leather, offering timeless reassurance. He sat sipping a Manhattan, his first drink at the end of a very long day. There were three other men having cocktails, along with a bickering couple at the other end of the bar, no doubt having just come from somewhere that had gotten them juiced enough to fight it out in public.
What was the kid’s name? Christ, he’d dealt with four of them since he’d hit the streets this morning and they’d begun to look and sound alike. When contact was just getting started with these kids, they were all positively thrumming with nervous energy, and not a little fear. Eventually they became laconic and lazy and even insolent when the greed set in. That’s when Dewey had to dump them and look for a new set of faces, new college boys eager to sell their debit cards.
He asked himself again, What was the kid’s fucking name? One time last month when Dewey was this exhausted and it was this late, he’d almost forgotten his own name, or rather the name of the character he was playing. Now, at 1 A.M. in the Pacific Dining Car, he had to think for a moment and touch the eyeglasses he was wearing. They belonged to Ambrose Willis, who in his past fictional life had been a lecturer in business management at an Ivy League university. Dewey was always vague about which university until he was sure it was not one with which the kid had familiarity. Ambrose Willis wore an auburn toupee and had a large mole on his left cheek near his mouth.
It reminded Dewey that when he was applying it earlier that evening, Eunice had slouched into the bathroom in her tatty pink robe, the one with cigarette burns on the front. Her frizz of coppery blonde hair was so grown out at the roots that she looked like a clown in a fright wig, and he’d noticed that she was starting to get two chins.
With the perennial cigarette dangling, Eunice looked at him working on his makeup and said, “That’s quite a mole. It reminds me of that movie on TV the other night, Dangerous Liaisons.”
“John Malkovich didn’t have a mole in that movie,” said Dewey, who was a lifelong movie buff.
Eunice said, “I was thinking of the whores in the French court. That’s what you remind me of with that spot of shit on your face.”
Get in the fucking moment! he told himself. Christ, what’s that kid’s name? He was just so damn tired.
“Evening, Mr. Willis,” the young man said and took a stool next to him at the bar.
He was a lanky kid, an inch or so over six feet, as most of them were. Dewey wondered how it happened that this generation was a couple of inches taller than his. About half of his college runners were emos, with heavy hair flopping onto their foreheads so it bounced in time to the tunes of Morrissey, which they seemed to favor. This kid looked more metrosexual in a white linen dress shirt with the sleeves rolled above his elbows, a lavender T-shirt showing, and designer jeans he couldn’t have afforded without working for Dewey.
“What’ll you have?” Dewey said, and then it came to him and he added, “Stuart.”
Stuart, who had plenty of bogus ID attesting to his being of age, said, “The same thing you’re having.”
Without being asked, Stuart put a bogus driver’s license on the bar, which the bartender examined before making another Manhattan.
When the drink was in front of them, Dewey said, “Let’s go to a table and chat.”
After they got settled, Dewey said, “Would you like something to eat? How about a nice steak? They serve good food here at any hour of the night or day.”
“I had a big supper,” Stuart said, sipping his Manhattan. From his frowning response, Dewey was sure the Manhattan was a first for him.
“This place looks like a train car from the outside,” Stuart said. “Like you’re getting on a train.”
“It’s been too long since you’ve reported,” Dewey said. “I think you have something for me, do you not?”