The chirping of one of the cell phones brought him back into the moment, and as soon as he figured out which one of his characters the call was for, he answered, “Bernie Graham speaking.”
“Mr. Graham, it’s Clark,” the voice said.
Clark, he thought. Clark. Then it came to him. Yeah, the dimpled Latino kid from the taco stand. “How you doing, Clark?”
“Fine, Mr. Graham,” Malcolm said. “I’m ready to go to work.”
“Right,” Dewey said. “You have a day job, as I recall.”
“If I could make enough money with you, I’d quit the day job,” Malcolm said.
“I like your style,” Dewey said. “Okay, I’ve got your number and I’ll call you later today. Maybe I can use you this evening or tomorrow evening.”
“Thanks, Mr. Graham,” Malcolm said. “I’ll be waiting.”
Dewey shut the cell and checked his watch. What Eunice could accomplish without ever leaving their apartment never failed to intimidate him. He reckoned that his grudging awe for her abilities helped to keep him in bondage, as well as his dread of the future without her support. He had an address written on a Post-it Note that she told him to give his runners when they showed up.
After leaving home that morning, Dewey had personally checked out that Post-it Note address in Los Feliz. He had a three-hour window of opportunity when there was absolutely nobody home in the beautiful two-story Mediterranean-style house. The home itself, built in the 1920s heyday of old Hollywood, would arouse no suspicion from the delivery men, since the expensive merchandise was being turned over to a well-dressed man standing on the porch. Dewey wished he didn’t have to be the man to take that risk. He wished he had runners who could pull it off for him, but of course that could never be. At that moment he spotted his runners.
If Eunice could see Jerzy Szarpowicz, she’d crap icicles. There he was, galumphing along Hollywood Boulevard beside his lithe and handsome sidekick. Jerzy was wearing a baseball cap, his usual black T-shirt that barely covered his bulging belly, and baggy jeans that were falling off his fat ass. Nothing could be done with a guy like that except to use him as a mail thief and Dumpster-diver.
Creole had possibilities. Dewey even liked his dreads because they made him look more like a Hollywood guy, an aspiring young actor maybe. And Creole could talk, whereas Jerzy just grunted. Dewey regretted he’d ever used Jakob Kessler with these two. Bernie Graham or even Ambrose Willis would’ve been better, and certainly easier on Dewey, especially on these hot days when Jakob Kessler had to wear a suit, dress shirt, and necktie.
The lifts in his shoes were already hurting Dewey’s ankles, but he stood up rather than letting the runners sit. He said in his German accent, “Good morning, gentlemen. Walk me to my car.”
His car was in the large parking structure on Orange Drive, and as they passed among the arriving throngs of summer tourists, Dewey handed Creole the Post-it Note and said, “Did you rent a suitable delivery van?”
“Yes, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said.
“Did you have any trouble with the driver’s license when you rented the van?”
“We coulda,” Jerzy offered. “The pitcher on the license you gave him had me worried. I mean, it sorta looks like Creole, but with the glasses on in the pitcher and his dreads airbrushed out, it didn’t look too much like him today.”
Tristan shot Jerzy one of those you-dumb-fucking-Polack looks, and sure enough, their boss jumped all over it.
Tristan heard the man say, “What? You didn’t wear the glasses when you rented the van? And why were the dreadlocks showing? Don’t you understand that there are reasons to alter your appearance?”
“He forgot the glasses,” Jerzy said as they arrived at the parking structure. “And his little pinhead looked funny in my hat, so he didn’t wanna wear it. There he was with his dreads hangin’ out.” Only then did Jerzy notice his partner glaring at him.
“I want my people to obey orders,” Tristan heard his boss say in that Nazi accent of his. “Without discipline you jeopardize our work. We could’ve just let you use your own driver’s license and had you assume the risk that would entail.”
“It was just one of them-those things, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Don’t worry about it, boss,” Jerzy said. “The guy at the car rental was a fuckin’ moron.”
Both listeners allowed Jerzy’s remark about someone else being a moron to pass without comment. Then Dewey said, “The last phone call from my office said that according to the tracking number, the delivery truck will arrive between twelve thirty and one P.M. You will park a block away and wait. When the truck drops the merchandise, you will drive quickly to the address on the Post-it Note I gave you, park at the curb in front of the house, and load the merchandise as quickly as possible. Then you will follow me to the storage facility. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mr. Kessler,” Tristan said.
This was the part that Dewey Gleason hated, waiting for the arrival of a delivery. What if some very alert employee had somehow flagged the skimmed credit card that bought the plasma TV with a sixty-five-inch screen, as well as the big Sony home theater system? What if the check Eunice wrote for the two computers-a bogus check she promised Dewey would sail through the Los Feliz resident’s account that she “had thoroughly researched” online-had also been deemed suspicious? What if some cops from the LAPD’s Commercial Crimes Division were in the back of the delivery truck, ready to bust anybody taking delivery? Dewey’s white dress shirt was damp and sticking to his back and chest when he arrived at the Los Feliz address. He could feel the sweat running down his rib cage.
Dewey rang the bell and knocked at the door just as a precaution. As expected, there was no answer. He strolled out to the street to see if he could spot the van belonging to Creole and Jerzy, but it was nowhere in sight, and that worried him. He looked at his watch and removed his key ring from his pocket. The hand holding the key ring was trembling and his palms were damp. There was nothing to do but wait, since the imbeciles who checked the tracking numbers at the delivery services were never reliable.
Dewey felt his heart banging and his bowels rumbling when he heard the grinding of gears as a white delivery van began crawling up the steep residential street. This kind of anxiety wasn’t worth it anymore. By the time he paid expenses and sold the merchandise to his usual receiver, he figured he’d be lucky to net $1,500 from this whole gag. One thing was certain: If men with badges leaped from the van after Dewey took delivery, he was going to offer a deal the moment they Mirandized him. He was going to ask the detectives to phone the DA’s office, and in exchange for a promise of a plea bargain, he was going to give up Eunice and every runner they’d ever used. He would do all this right after he crapped his pants at the sight of them.
The Latino driver parked the delivery van in front of the house and got out with a clipboard. He quickly came up the walkway, seeing Dewey standing at the front door with a set of keys in his hand. Another trucker, this one a younger black man, got out of the van on the passenger side.
“Are you Mr. Harold Phillips?” the Latino said, looking again at the name on the delivery form.
Losing his German accent, Dewey said, “You caught me just in time. I’d gotten tired of waiting for you and was leaving.”