Kick, Page 3

  Also, cut it how you like, some things are just wrong.

  “Fuck you, too,” I said, figuring it’d be a mistake to let anyone give it to me without giving it back. “Where are you?”

  “You’re shitting me, right? I’m at the house—waiting for you. Z’s on his way and I’d rather we were both here for that.”

  “Does he know the address?”

  I scooted quietly off the bed and over to the lacquered desk, where I grabbed a pen and pad.

  “Yeah, he’ll find it.”

  “Well, what’s the address?”

  “I told you he’ll find it.”

  In this short exchange, I took a gamble that I ranked at least the same as Stump in whatever pecking order they shared. Putting as much scorn and suspicion into my voice as I could, I said, “Look, just tell me the address you told him, ok? Humor me.”

  “Mike you’re acting weird, what’s up man?”

  “Just tell me the fu—”

  “—ok, all right, Jesus—1282 Calypso Lane.”

  “Off what highway?”

  With something like disgust, Stump said, “Rasco Road—you want the ZIP code, too, asshole?”

  “Never mind, I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Z’ll be here by noon, just sayin’.”

  “I’ll be there, don’t be a crybaby.”

  I hung up on him before he could reply.

  This trip had begun to suck a little. Dealing with friends and associates always complicated matters. For all I knew, Stump wanted my money, and I had no intention of giving it to anyone not on the other side of a cash register.

  On the other hand, I knew there were reasons for being here that went beyond my personal desires, that by reaching out to these doorways I’d made a bargain, of sorts. So I had to do whatever it took to find out as much about Mike’s crimes as I could, put a stop to them in the least expensive or time-consuming way possible and somehow squeeze in the odd baseball game or amusement park when I could.

  It was as simple as that.

  Chapter 5

  Before leaving the hotel, I stuffed my wallet and pockets with about $1500, then hid the rest of the money under the mattress. I wasn’t worried about a maid stealing it. In fact, I planned to leave the rest to one of them or give it away to someone who looked like they could use it—at the end of my trip, like I’d done with Helen back at the diner. I’d be damned if I let it go to anyone who hung out with criminals like Mike Nichols. Ok, sure, technically I’d judged him before I knew anything definite. But he did have a swastika tattoo and a bunch of strange cash. Judge Judy didn’t even need that much to pass sentence.

  Years ago, I memorized the road maps of every major city in the country. So I tossed Mike’s map away after a cursory look. After hearing the address, I knew how to get there.

  The wind helped keep the climbing heat and humidity to bearable levels as I roared out of the greater city, heading south. After a pleasant thirty minute ride, my internal GPS led me to a rundown neighborhood called Palmetto Springs. The houses were faded, Lego-shaped ramblers and boxy colonials from the eighties. I didn’t see any palm trees, and if there were ever any springs they’d dried up ages ago.

  Outside the address Stump had given me, I noticed a tough-looking chopper parked next to a primer-coated van on a cracked and spotted driveway. The house was a two story brick colonial with the curtains closed. A tree the height of the house escaped skyward from the parched and balding lawn.

  I worried the bike’s whuf-whuf-chuffing would alert someone inside.

  “Come on fraidy-pants,” I said to no one but me and parked just behind the chopper.

  Cautiously, I approached the door and began rehearsing various openers. Mom said it best: first impressions are everything. Dan Jenkins believed in knocking first, but I pegged Mike Nichols as the just-barge-in type. Still, if he and Stump were up to something illegal, a polite knock or a phone call might have been smarter. It helped that Mike Nichols was only a loaner body.

  I tried the door and found it locked. I reached for the doorbell, then thought better of it and tried my keys. I had to cycle through them twice before I found one that worked. Trying not to seem as if I were sneaking in, I sneakily snuck in and found myself in a foyer with a closed door at one end and a flight of ascending stairs to my right. The air reeked lousy with old cigarette smoke overlaid with the musty staleness you get when the windows haven’t been opened in years. The carpet made a tread-stained track through the house with the original beige color visible only along the edges. The walls along the stairs were tiled with little brown and white marbled bell shapes, each inverted over the other in a staggered pattern.

  I crept forward and tried the door. It stuck a little, and when it popped free of the frame it quivered loud enough to give me away, but nobody called out. Directly ahead stood a card table covered with beer bottles and overflowing ashtrays. Cautiously, I went left and entered a room with a large TV and a faded blue recliner with the stuffing coming out at the arms. Otherwise, the room was empty.

  I returned to the foyer and climbed the stairs.

  The living room had two couches, a coffee table, and an entryway I assumed went to the kitchen. I opened the door at the top of the stairs and looked inside. A drop cloth spread wall to wall, but otherwise the room was empty. The next door, to the right, clearly led to the master bedroom. Big enough for two dressers along two walls and a TV on a stand in the corner facing a king-size bed. There was a lady on the bed with her arms spread wide, handcuffed to a wooden headboard. She was completely naked. She turned her bruised and bloodied face toward me with a wary, baleful expression. About twenty years old and pretty, underneath the bruising, though I felt like a creep for noticing.

  Behind me, a toilet flushed. I half expected to hear a faucet start running, but the door just opened.

  “Eeuh!” Stump yelled and sort of seized up, his hands raised like claws. I could tell it was Stump because he had on a vest like mine, only his had a patch with the word “Stump” sewn onto it. Also, at some point in his life he’d lost the thumb on his right hand. I wasn’t certain if that qualified him for a name like “Stump”—in my book, you had to lose the whole hand or maybe a leg for that kind of notoriety. Even Frodo had to settle for “Of the Nine Fingers,” and he had the Ring of Doom and everything.

  “Jee-zus, Mike,” he said. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you sneaking around for, anyway? I should have never sent you that key. I could have killed you.”

  He sported a serious shoulder rig with the butt of a semiautomatic pistol poking out, so yeah, he could have.

  “Just keeping you on your toes,” I said.

  Stump looked at me and shook his head.

  “So how long you staying this time?”

  “Not sure yet,” I said.

  “It’s been a few years, hasn’t it?”

  I nodded.

  “You said it.”

  “If you wanna earn, there’s plenty of work. Sometimes it’s even fun.” He looked past me into the room, leering. “I see you found our Jill—whatchu think?”

  He asked me this in a professional manner normally reserved for discussing horseflesh.

  I played my part and looked at Jill, feeling ashamed again but hiding it well.

  “Kind of scrawny,” I said.

  “Best gash I had all year. You should have been here last night, sounded like someone was dying in there. But that’s all fixed now, I saw to that—ain’t that right Jill-Jill?” He chuckled, pleased with himself. “See for yourself before Z shows up. Man he’s gonna freak when he sees we got his girl here.”

  Chuckling some more, Stump slipped past me and went into the kitchen. I heard a refrigerator open, followed by a bottle cap bouncing off a counter onto the floor.

  So Jill was the “prime meat” that Stump had mentioned on the phone. Z’s wife or girlfriend, apparently.

  I glanced at her again and felt nothing but pity for the poor woman. Jill turned away
and stared forward as if waiting for whatever was going to happen to just happen and be done with. I grit my teeth, shut the door and headed to the kitchen, wondering about the mysterious Z and what would happen when he freaked.

  Stump sat smoking at a round dinner table so dented and scratched and cigarette burned I couldn’t imagine it factory new. I started to take the other chair, then thought better of it and went to the fridge and grabbed a beer. I opened it and sat down.

  “You get the money?” he said.

  “You mean the ten grand?”

  “You got some other money?”

  “No,” I said, taking a slow, deliberate pull from the bottle, suppressing my gag reflex as the Budweiser washed its way down. I’ve never been much of a drinker, preferring wine when pressed.

  “So Andy ain’t give you no shit?” he said. “He just give it to you?”

  “Well, Andy’s Andy, ain’t he?”

  “He is. But what I meant was—I didn’t think he’d have it all, is what I meant.”

  “Well I got it all,” I said, hoping he’d quit.

  I could feel him thinking about it.

  “Is it with you?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s hid,” I said.

  “Hid?”

  “Stump, let me ask you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Have you ever seen any palm trees around here?”

  “Palm trees?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Palm trees.”

  “You mean real palm trees? In Memphis?”

  “Yeah real ones, and I don’t mean Memphis, I mean here in Palmetto Springs.”

  “Oh, around here. No, why you asking?”

  “Because I’m changing the subject,” I said, and then looked at him hard until he looked away.

  The trick here is not to care what happens. If you care, you can’t do it unless you were the cold type already, which I’m not. Otherwise it’s just like acting, and you can sit there in your head watching it all play out, calm as any audience.

  Stump’s jaw took a hard set and his face reddened.

  “Ok man, don’t get weird on me, I just asked is all. Gimme a minute.”

  He went downstairs. When he returned, he had a black semiautomatic pistol in his hand with the business end pointed safely at his foot. He handed it to me.

  Over the years I’ve learned more about guns than I ever thought I’d need to know. I’ve even gone out of my way to do so, visiting libraries, bookstores and gun shows, knowing after I left a body the knowledge would crystallize in my mind. In recent years, the Internet has become an invaluable source of information, with a seemingly endless supply of instructional videos. I’ve also done this with other subjects, but few have come in as handy as my study of firearms.

  “Oh, that’s pretty,” I said, nodding appreciatively. “A Sig Sauer 226, in nine millimeter parabellum.”

  Stump seemed impressed, because he said, “Whatever you say.”

  “Nothing like a trusty Sig Sauer for Hell and back reliability.”

  Sure, throwing in the company’s catchphrase sounded a little corny, but I liked it. For fun, I drew on my YouTube memory and ejected the full magazine smartly into my hand. Then I drew back the slide to check the chamber and released it with a snap, then decocked it with the decocking lever. Afterward, I pushed the magazine back in, chambered a round and then decocked it again. Most Sigs don’t have safeties, and this one was no exception: Sigs are made for killing, not safety.

  “Well, you’re the Enforcer for a reason,” Stump said, sitting back down.

  Enforcer?

  It had less of a nickname feel to it than that of an official position.

  Stump said, “When he comes in we’ll get the package first, then take him to see his girl, then we do what we said. You cool?”

  “Yeah, sure, why not?”

  I was starting to get a spooky feeling about my new friend here.

  Stump didn’t strike me as much of a talker, especially after I’d punked him. Now on his third beer in my presence, he drank with his bad hand by holding the long neck between his first and second finger, taking pulls in a deft, flipping motion. I started worrying that this Z character wouldn’t show up and that I’d have to finish this God-awful Budweiser. I also worried about the woman in the other room. Increasingly so. If Stump tried to rape her again I knew I’d have to stop him.

  After too long a wait, just as I started wondering if Stump would ever run out of cigarettes, the doorbell rang.

  “You ready?” he said, getting up.

  “Yep.”

  “You gonna just carry it around like that?”

  “Sorry, I forgot,” I said, and holstered the gun—and with that word “sorry” I knew I made a mistake. I think I blushed or something because he just looked at me. I realized then that whatever balance existed before had just taken a dangerous tilt.

  “Come on,” he said, as if it hadn’t, and pushed past me. “You wait in the rec room and I’ll bring him in.”

  “Sure,” I said, and went to the room with the recliner and TV.

  Chapter 6

  The man Stump escorted in was in his late forties and carried a small, blue gym bag. I expected someone closer to the woman’s age, but these days who am I to judge? Dressed in a clean white polo shirt, tan slacks and brown loafers, Z didn’t match my rather low expectations for a biker. His face bore a scarred memory of bad teenage acne, and his smile dazzled GQ straight and white, like costume jewelry. A rat among cats, he projected an easy manner meant to control as much of the situation as possible without giving offense. All the time with a knowing, placating smile, permanently raised eyebrows and his head tilted just a little to the right, as if to say, “I’ve got things figured out, I’m on the same level as you.”

  Z spoke first.

  “Heya Mike-O, how you doing these days? Can you believe how hot it is out there? No wonder the Eskimos are going extinct.” He said it like a guy delivering a sales pitch: quick, fun and brimming with personality. Then he leaned forward to shake my hand, but not all the way, as if making sure I’d be willing to return it.

  Why not?

  I reached over and shook hands with him and said, “Good to see you.”

  “You two lovers wanna be alone?” Stump said, with just enough menace behind it to ensure nobody enjoyed themselves on his watch. “So let’s see it.”

  “Stump, come on man, I been driving five hours straight and we’re just gonna get into it? How you been?”

  “What I been is waiting for the package, so don’t fuck around,” Stump said, taking the bag away and dumping out several large, zipped plastic bags filled with hundreds of smaller baggies, each containing what looked like broken pieces of crystallized sugar. From what I knew about the street price of crystal meth, it looked to be about a gazillion dollars’ worth—maybe even a bazillion.

  “There, you happy now? It’s all there,” Z said, wounded. “Now, you gonna offer me a beer and tell me to take a load off?”

  Stump didn’t strike me as the hospitable type, but he surprised me this time.

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s go get that beer.”

  We followed him upstairs, but when we reached the landing, Stump motioned to the room with the woman in it.

  “After you,” he said.

  Z stiffened.

  “What, you don’t keep it in the kitchen? What’s this about?”

  He started to back down a step but stopped, abruptly. I mean, hey—that’s where I was standing.

  Stump started to say something, but then—

  “Daddy help! I’m in here!” yelled…the daughter?

  I looked over at Stump. This was definitely a new one.

  “Jilly? What the…Honey, hold on!”

  No longer backing away, Z stormed into the room like a firefighter saving a kitten from a burning building. Z might have been a drug dealer, and a smarmy one at that, but right then he jumped up a little in my estimation.r />
  “Jesus—what did you do to her, you sick bastards! Let her go, what’s this about?”

  Z alternated between rushing to his daughter and running back toward us. As Stump foretold, the man had completely “freaked.”

  Stump’s gun appeared in his good hand.

  “Well don’t stand there staring at her Z, ya sicko—that’s your own daughter, man.”

  For a second I thought Z might take a swing at him, but then the moment passed and he said, “Where…what, why you got the gun out, man? I didn’t do nothing—what’s going on?”

  “You’ll find out,” Stump said. “Next room—move it!”

  “Aw Jesus no man, no, no, we can come up with a deal of some kind, I can get you money, more meth, whatever you want.”

  Stump responded by jabbing Z in the head with the barrel, causing him to yelp.

  In the next room, the empty one with the now extremely conspicuous drop cloth spanning wall-to-wall, I stood slightly behind and just to the right of my thumbless friend. Z kept muttering, “no no no please man no no please no man no no,” occasionally varying the order of the words, and his daughter hadn’t stopped yelling and crying since we’d left her. Stump just smiled like the maniac he was, enjoying himself. Feeling left out, I fought down the thoroughly ordinary urge to visit the little biker’s room.

  “Mike,” Stump said, tossing a quick glance my way, “you said you wanted to be the one who told him how we found out. Tell him.”

  Moments later, when I hadn’t said anything, he glanced at me.

  “Anytime now’s good, ol’ buddy.”

  “He who would cross the Bridge of Death,” I said with a mysterious air of mystery, “must answer me these questions threeee…ere the other side he seeee…”