A Dangerous Man

  —But this is not why I am calling you.

  He’s not calling me to talk about his constipation. Somehow I had a feeling.

  —I am calling to talk about the work I mentioned to you. When we were talking earlier this week, I mentioned work to you?

  —I remember.

  —Yes. Good. This work then, this work begins tonight. Is your car clean?

  —My car?

  —You have. It is a Cutlass?

  —Yeah.

  —This is a nice car?

  —It’s, it’s not fancy, but it’s in good shape. I keep it clean. Clean enough.

  —It will need to be very clean. Waxed. The windows will need to be washed. Vacuumed. Detailed, yes?

  —Sure. Detailed.

  —Good. And then you will drive it to the airport and pick someone up.

  My head is still packed with Demerol-flavored cotton. I don’t know if he means pick up, or pick up.

  —I. David. Should we be talking about this on the phone?

  He laughs. Once again I can picture him, shaking his head, a hand waving misunderstanding from the air. No, I am unclear, forgive me.

  —No. Just to pick up. And to drive. You will pick up this young man and he will spend the evening in Las Vegas and you will drive him around and see that he gets in no trouble. That is all. A good job, yes?

  —I don’t.

  —Yes?

  I look at my right foot. Cheese and tomato sauce cling to my heel and a piece of pepperoni is wedged between my toes.

  —I don’t know if I’m up to this kind of thing.

  —This kind of thing?

  —People. Dealing with people.

  He makes a little tsk.

  —Dealing with people.

  The sound again.

  —We are on the phone, yes?

  —Yeah.

  —Yes, we are on the phone. And you know this is something I do not care for. To be on the phone. This job, I want you to have it. And I want you to know how important this job is. So I want to give you this job from my own mouth. But I am in New York again. So how to give you this job but on the phone? There is no other way. Do you understand?

  —I guess. I mean.

  —No. No, you do not understand.

  He is scolding me now. Scolding me gently as a parent scolds a child, or a pet.

  —I am in New York with my family. My whole family, we are on Long Island. My sister-in-law, she is here.

  Oh.

  —Yes? She is here and she is talking to me from the second she arrives. Asking me questions.

  Oh. Shit.

  —She is. The woman is a pain in my ass. Worse than constipation the woman is. Since her son was killed.

  He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to say it. He doesn’t have to say, Since you killed her son. It’s not like I’m going to forget. I spin my mental wheels on the memory for a second; he keeps talking.

  —She asks me again and again, when will I find you? When will she have revenge for her son? I tell her, I say, Anna, he is most likely dead. There may never be revenge. I say, Forget, Anna, live your life. This will not bring you happiness. But she is drinking. She says, No, if you will not find him, I will find him. I will have my nephews look for him.

  There’s a sharp smack over the phone as he claps his hands in frustration. This woman!

  —You see what it is I am putting up with? Two years I must have this from this woman. This woman I would not be in the same room with if she had not been married to my brother. Some days, I tell you this, some days I wish I could kill my brother for dying and leaving me this woman to deal with.

  We are both silent a moment. I think about David’s nephew. Mickey. The boy I killed in Mexico. Who knows what David thinks about?

  He coughs, clearing his throat, signaling a change of tone.

  —This is dangerous, this threat of hers to involve her nephews. They are here from Russia. They are here for their own protection. They are young and troubled and I do not want them involved in my business. There is a risk if she does this. A risk in my protecting you. And a risk can only be taken if there is something of value to be gained.

  I tilt my head back and stare up at the cracks in the ceiling.

  —This young man you will look after, he is an investment of mine. And he must be protected.

  —Branko.

  —No. You.

  The cracks in the ceiling remind me of the fractured surface of the mirror. I look away from them.

  —It must be you. Why?

  —I don’t know.

  —Yes you do. It must be you because now is the time that I must know what is your value. Can Branko protect this young man? Of course he can. Better than any. But Branko is not, he is not…he impresses only those who know him. That is part of his great value. You. You will make an impression on this young man. You are a large man. And you have your face. You will pick him up not in a limo, but in your own car, you will look to him dangerous. This will be interesting for him. Fun. And you will have this chance to show me your value. To impress this man with yourself and keep him safe.

  His voice drops.

  —If I am to deal with my sister-in-law, this threat of hers, if I am to take that risk, I must see your value. Now. Show me your value. Do not let these trials be for nothing.

  Help me to save you from yourself.—You understand now?

  —Yes.

  —Good. Good. Branko will come to you soon with money and details. Then you will do this job and this will be all behind us, this unpleasantness. Yes?

  —Yes. David?

  —What?

  I force the words from my mouth.

  —My mom and dad.

  —No.

  —I. I need to.

  —No. This we do not talk about. Not now.

  I can picture his finger pointed at me. There are lines not to be crossed.

  —But if.

  —No. You want to talk about this? I am a businessman and will talk always about an arrangement. But first this job. Do this job and we will talk. Show me there is work you are still good for, and then we will talk. When we are face-to-face in a room, we can talk about this. Not now. Not now.

  —OK. OK. Sorry.

  —Do not be sorry. Be. Be the man I know you to be. This is a wonderful opportunity. Seize it and we may talk of many things. I have learned in my life that anything may be changed. Anything may be fixed. But now. Now I will go. My family is on the beach and I will join them. I am wearing shorts. I have white cream on my nose. You would laugh at me. You would laugh.

  He says goodbye and I say goodbye and we hang up.

  But I’m not laughing.

  I pick up one of the water bottles, open it and pour it over my head. The water splashes off my face and I catch some in my mouth and I have a sudden flash of memory: the girls out front of the Jackalope dumping frozen blueberry daiquiris over themselves. The image is somehow crushing and I am hit with a childish depression, the kind you get when you see a kid who’s just lost the scoop of ice cream from his cone. I sit, all but naked on the floor, my ever-growing gut rolling over the waistband of my dirty BVDs, pizza on the bottom of my foot, the dripping water bottle held over my head.

  This would be a good time for it, but I don’t get up and walk into the bathroom and peel the tape from the broken mirror.

  BY THE TIME Branko shows up I’ve managed to get myself in the shower to hose off the two days of pill-sweat I’ve been wallowing in and pick the pepperoni out from between my toes. The Demerol crash is coming on strong and my eyes want to slide shut so I’ve popped a tab of x and that tilts me back the other way. It’s dirty x. The euphoria of the MDMA is cut heavily with speed, which is what I really need right now to keep me on my feet. I’ll drop another one right before I pick up this guy tonight and it might make me slightly more social than a corpse.

  I still have the towel wrapped around my waist when there’s a knock on the door. I know who it is, but I observe all the precaution
s out of habit. First, I peek out the back window to see if there are any guys with FBI blazed across their shirts hiding behind the cars in the back lot. Check. Next, I unlock the back door so I can run out it in a hurry in case something fucked comes in the front. Then I spend a minute going through drawers in the kitchenette until I remember that my gun is under the sink at the bottom of a bucket of cleaning products that I never use. I dig it out and walk to the front door, blowing Comet off the cylinder. I stand a couple feet from the door and move my head back and forth, trying to see the clear point of light through the peephole that will tell me no one is peering in from the other side waiting for me to stick my eye against it so they can send a bullet through. Check on the daylight. So I peek through the peephole, see Branko like I knew I would, and go to twist open the locks, none of which, I now realize, are fastened. I open the door.

  Branko looks at me in my towel, the revolver dangling from my hand, and taps a fingernail against the door.

  —Not locked?

  I shrug.

  —I remembered to look out back.

  He steps in, closes and locks the door.

  —Small miracles.

  I drop the gun on the couch and head for the bedroom to finish dressing.

  —The only kind there are.

  He makes the little grunting noise that passes for his laugh.

  In the bedroom I wiggle into a pair of size forty jeans that I bought a month ago and that are already getting tight on me. That’s another reason not to have mirrors. Most of my life I wore thirty-fours. Not anymore. No gym memberships for wanted criminals. Not that I can fool myself into thinking that I’d go anywhere near a gym if one were available to me. There are people at gyms, and I don’t really know what to do with people anymore. Except hurt them. I suck in my gut and button the jeans.

  In the living room Branko has turned off the Cannonball Adderley I was listening to, swapping “Somethin’ Else” for Cameo and “Rigor Mortis.” He’s bent over, adjusting the equalizer on the stereo he gave me when I moved into this place. It had fallen off a truck along with a couple dozen others just like it and he’d scooped up one for me because he hated the sound of the little boom box I used to have.

  When I come in he looks over his shoulder at me.

  —Your levels are wrong.

  I sit on the couch and lace my sneakers.

  —Thanks for taking care of that.

  He frowns and turns back to the stereo.

  —And your gun needs to be cleaned.

  I don’t know where the gun came from, but Branko gave me that, too. I was supposed to kill someone with it.

  BRANKO SHOWED UP one night and we drove into Paradise, to one of the New Mexico–style housing tracts over there that look just like all the other New Mexico–style housing tracts in Paradise. He parked the car outside a house. We went in and I beat the hell out of a guy who had welshed on one too many bets, or stopped paying his vig, or cheated at cards, or didn’t give a job to somebody’s cousin, or something. Then Branko handed me this little revolver with the numbers filed off. I hadn’t realized it was that. I thought it was a beating: beat the guy, make your point, get out. But it wasn’t. It was a job with a gun.

  Branko flipped the guy onto his stomach. I stood over the guy and pointed the gun at the back of his head.

  The way you do it, you empty the gun, you wipe the gun, you drop the gun. The gun is a big fuck you. First it says fuck you to the guy who’s getting it. Then it says fuck you to the cops. And finally, it says fuck you to all the guys out there who know why this guy got his head shot to pieces. The gun sitting next to the corpse says fuck this guy, fuck the cops who aren’t going to catch me and fuck all you assholes out there that are thinking about fucking with David Dolokhov.

  I’ve delivered that particular litany of fuck you’s three times.

  So I stand there with the .22 in my hand. It holds seven rounds. All I have to do is put them all in the back of this guy’s head and drop the big fuck you.

  But I don’t. Instead I just stand there. Stand there and flex my trigger finger. But it never moves.

  Branko gave it a minute, then he shot the guy with his own gun. Back in the car I tried to give him the little revolver, but he told me to keep it for the next time. But the next time I still couldn’t do it. And then David stopped sending me on jobs like that, and I started feeling more and more that I had let him down, and that sooner or later, I’d have to pay for it.

  But they let me keep the gun. A kind of promise to me that even if I have given up on myself, they haven’t.

  They know I still have it in me.

  Killing still inside me.

  I LOOK AT the gun. It’s a Smith & Wesson .22 Magnum. A perfect gun for killing people. It’s very small and very lightweight, but those Magnum loads still pack plenty of punch. I pull the cuff of my shirtsleeve down and use it to brush off the rest of the Comet. Branko straightens from the stereo and looks at me.

  —This is what you will wear?

  I look at my jeans, sneakers, and long-sleeve T-shirt.

  —Is it wrong?

  —For later. When you pick this man up. You must look better.

  —A suit?

  He thinks about it.

  —Black jeans. A clean shirt. A jacket. And nice shoes. You have these things?

  —No.

  He nods.

  —We will go detail the car now, and then we will shop.

  WE STAND IN the air-conditioned waiting room and watch through the window as the Mexican kids detail my ’91 Cutlass Calais. Branko takes a sip from the cup of coffee he got at the mini-mart next door.

  —Such an ugly car.

  —You said I should get something unassuming.

  —Yes, but this?

  He angles his cup at the Olds.

  —This is a piece of crap.

  —It’s a fast piece of crap.

  He nods, giving my piece of crap its due.

  They let me have a car when I was moved out of the Suites. Branko said it should be unassuming, reliable and fast. I clicked online and came up with a few options and we drove around to look at them. The Olds was a steal; a midsize, 2.3 four-banger with the Quad 442 performance package that cranks the horsepower over two hundred. The guy who owned it got it as part of his parents’ estate and had no idea what he had. Fifty thousand original miles and we got it for under three thousand dollars.

  The guy I’m picking up is a kid, a kid with a lot of money. Branko is concerned the kid won’t think the car is cool enough. It’s an ugly car, boxy and generic, aggressively uncool.

  —You want to lend me your car?

  Knowing he never lets anyone drive his car.

  He drains his coffee.

  —No. No one may drive my car.

  Branko is a Toyota fanatic. Every year he pants over the new Camry, and every year he’s behind the wheel of the new model by Christmas.

  —Fine. Wouldn’t want to drive that crap-box anyway.

  He crumples his coffee cup and tosses it in the trash.

  —Not a crap-box. Most reliable car on the road. My Camry will never break down. Safer than Volvo, and half the price. And if it ever breaks, it will not cost me my life savings to fix. Fucking Volvo.

  Branko used to have a Volvo. It broke down while he was on the way to a job. He got there late. In the meantime someone had tipped the guy off. The guy was waiting for Branko when Branko came in the door. Things turned out OK, for Branko. But after that he swore off Volvos and pledged fidelity to Toyota.

  The Mexican kids are waving their chamois over the red paint of the Olds. Branko and I slip on our sunglasses and push out the door into 100 degrees. If there was the slightest humidity in the air I’d sweat my clothes through by the time we reach the car. Instead, all the moisture is sucked from my body and into the atmosphere. Branko makes a show of looking the car over for any fingerprints or flecks of dry wax caught in the edges of the trim. I take a twenty from my pocket and hand it to the cr
ew-boss and stir my finger in a little circle, letting him know to share the tip with his boys. Then I climb in the car, start the engine and blast the A/C.

  THE GUY COMING to town likes to gamble. And he has money. That’s why David has taken an interest. All I’m supposed to do is pick him up, drive him wherever he wants to go, keep him out of trouble, and act tough.

  Branko takes a black jacket from the rack and hands it to me. I take the jacket off its hanger.

  —Act tough?

  —To make an impression.

  —So?

  —Tough. Say little. Look at everyone. Wear your sunglasses inside.

  I shrug into the jacket and Branko looks me over.

  —This will do.

  We’ve only been in the mall for thirty minutes, but already I have three new shirts, some black Levi’s that actually fit, a pair of black shoes, and now the jacket. We head for the register and I pull a roll of bills from my pocket. Branko pushes my hand down.

  —Business expense.

  He takes out a billfold, I pile the clothes on the counter, and he lays plastic next to them. The name on the card is Fred Durben. I don’t know who Fred is. Could be he’s a guy who handed his cards over in lieu of cash. Now he spends his sleeping hours having nightmares about the waste being laid to his credit rating; his waking hours a worse nightmare of watching the red-marked bills pile up. Could be he’s a guy who never existed, just a name with a credit history and this one account. Could be he’s in a hole in the desert, could be he’s in several holes in the desert. All I know for certain is that the card isn’t hot. If it belongs to a dead body, it’s a body that’s never been found and will never be missed. Branko would never trade in hot plastic. As it is, he’ll probably clip the thing into a hundred pieces when he gets home, and drop each piece into a separate storm drain.

  The cashier slides Branko the receipt and he signs it with a scrawl that might say Fred Durben, but that most certainly looks nothing like the signature he uses when he signs his real name. If he has a real name anymore. I pick up the bags and we head for the parking lot.

  WE BUZZ UP the parkway into North Las Vegas.

  —You have money?

  —Some.

  —How much?