Bad People (2 page)

“I’m sorry.” he looked away—he didn’t know where to look. The barista-girl’s laughter, had already passed curious and become disturbing.

“Turn around, don’t watch me!”

He was at a total loss to understand her sudden hilarity. He turned around and stared out the window. How ridiculous he felt.

Someone must have picked up, because she started blabbering into the phone, struggling to get out words, meaningless banter with some boyfriend or girlfriend or someone.

He heard the phone put in its cradle, followed by some rustling behind the counter. He expected the convulsive giggling to resume but it didn’t. He turned around but she wasn’t there. Odd. She must have gone into the back.

The front door of the cafe swung open. A square-shouldered man in a suit came in—surely not his person. But it was. The man, grinning to reveal perfect teeth, extended his hand and said, “Barry, I presume. A pleasure to meet you.”

Barry started to stammer a polite greeting in return. No. This wasn’t right. They agreed. No names. “I’ve been waiting….” Barry began instead.

“Me too! I swore we said Victrola.”

“This…we said the coffee shop across from Starbucks.”

The man tilted his head sideways. “We said Victrola, which is across from Starbucks. This is Cafe Ladro, and if you will notice, the Starbucks is across the street a block away—right across from Cafe Victrola.”

“You said the corner of…”

“Okay, okay. We’re both here now. You don’t mind if I sit.” If Barry did, it didn’t matter. The man hadn’t waited for an answer.

Barry saw that the man was younger than he’d initially taken him for. Quite a bit younger. Twenty-five?

“I’m not what you expected.” The man chuckled. “What
did
you expect? A cop mustache and camouflage gear?”

Actually, that was close. “I don’t know.”

“Never fear. I’m your man. I’ll tell you what the key ingredient in this kind of thing is.”

Barry shook his head.

“Go on, guess.”

“I don’t know.”

“One guess. The most important thing, say it.”

“Discretion.”

The man poked his tongue into his cheek, then popped his jaw. An exceptionally square jaw, an always-gets-the-girl jaw. “The other most important thing is trust.
Trust
. I must trust you and you must trust me. You’ve got the envelope.”

He did, that’s why he’d worn the vest, but what did the man mean? He was
asking
if Barry had brought the cash, more like he was stating it as a fact.

“You trust me enough that you brought it,” said the man said.

“Maybe.”

“Come on, Barry.”

“How do you know my name?” Porter wasn’t supposed to tell him anything about Barry, except for what he wanted done.

“Don’t worry, Barry. I have no interest in learning who you are.” He nodded at the file folder. “Let’s see that.”

He reached, and Barry instinctively put his hand over it to stop him.

The man’s eyebrows arched, he pulled back and casually ran his fingers through his hair. The hair was thick and dirty-blond. Looked dirty blond. Well, it looked blond at first. After he had pushed his forelock the other way his hair turned brown. He looked older again. What was the word…
Protean
? Protean was the word.

“Trust,” Barry said. “You know my name, I should know yours.”

“It’s better for you…“

“I want to. I don’t know what you are expecting. I don’t know what kind of people you are used to dealing with, friend. I’ve been around the block. I can do this with you or without you. What name do I call you?” He said almost believing his own bluff, and that almost-belief felt almost good.

“Call me Luke.”

“Luke.”

“Luke,” said Luke. “Call me that.”

His name or not. Okay, it didn’t matter, but it felt like a victory and Barry accepted it. He pushed the manila folder over to Luke.

Luke opened it. “This picture is smudged,” he said.

Barry’s hands had shaken when he had impatiently pulled the full-page photo from the ink-jet printer and, unwilling to look at it, stuffed it into the folder still wet. He looked at it now. “You can see his face.”

“Whose arm is this?”

“Don’t worry about that.” He had cropped Connie out. Not this man’s business.

“So that’s her,” said Luke.

“That’s who?”

“Those are wedding rings. One on the guy, and one on the hand on the woman you don’t want me to see.”

Barry looked at Robb in the photo, looked at Connie’s disembodied arm around Robb’s neck. Barry had been in the original picture too, on Connie’s far side.

Barry had attached Robb’s business card to the top of the photo. Luke yanked it off, taking a torn white corner and a staple. He put the card in his suit pocket, then folded the photo over twice and fed that into his pocket too. He closed the folder and slid it back to Barry without so much as a glance at the other materials.

“That’s his schedule in there,” explained Barry. “His daily appointments for the next month.”

“Schedules change.”

“Yes but it’s a baseline with which to…”

“I do my own research. Don’t worry.”

“I think it’s best to prepare as much as possible. In advance…” Hell, he was babbling. The barista-girl was still in the back room, which was strange. “This in not a good idea. I’m leaving,” he said.

He stood up. Luke did the same and took Barry’s arm gently, but the touch spooked Barry nevertheless. He jerked away.

The barista-girl bounded from the back, iPod in hand, earbuds in, singing “Always Crashing in the Same Car,” in a deliberate dirge-like comedy rendition of Bowie. Something about the scene or looking at Luke startled her. She stepped back and peered at the men from the protection of the doorway.

Barry cursed himself for allowing the other to set the meeting in a public place. He wanted to meet in a car, on a quiet street. He was told that would not work, that the man would only meet under these conditions. Here in this unpopular espresso shop.

“You can’t call it off; it’s already done,” said Luke.

“It
can’t
be…?”

“As good as, anyway. I’m going to do it. Whether you pay me or not, whether you sit down and we finish our transaction like businessmen or not. I’m going to do it for sure, and you are culpable, because I’m here for you. Barry, you are a murderer already. I’m only an accomplice. They always turn the accomplice to get at the guy with the most to gain.”

“Keep your voice down, will you?”

The barista-girl was still watching them, he was sure. She probably couldn’t hear; Barry still detected loud music leaking from her earbuds. He wanted to run. He couldn’t run.

Luke leaned in and pretended to whisper. What do they call it?
Stage-whispered.
“Sit down, Barry. Everything’s okay.”

Barry sat.

“I’m sorry I called you a murderer, Barry. That was harsh. I’m still honing my people skills. You’re an experienced businessperson, Barry. You’ve got that polish, you know how to talk with people, I could learn a lot from you, I’m sure. Given that opportunity I would relish it. However, I’m not going to have the opportunity, because, together, we have this one instead. Your problem person is going to go away. I will never see you again, after today. Give me the envelope that’s in your vest pocket and when your person is solved, I’ll send word what to do with the balance of payment. And that is all there is to it.”

Barry stole a glance back toward the counter.

“Don’t worry about Ardiss.”

“Ardiss?”

Luke inclined his head toward the back room, and the barista-girl, who had disappeared again.

“Oh,” said Barry. That explained her flirting, and her breaking into laughter. She was spying on him for Luke. Probably his girlfriend. Barry felt ashamed. It made sense.

Luke leaned forward. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “She doesn’t know, she won’t
ever
know, the nature, or the details, of our transaction. I had to check you out. You understand. I waited down the street until Ardiss called me. She vouched for you. If it wasn’t for her assessment of you, I wouldn’t have come in at all. She likes you. I like you. This is good for everyone.” He almost smiled, but wiped it away, steeling his face. “Almost everyone. No! Everyone.” He took out the photo again and unfolded it. “Look at this person. He doesn’t even look happy here. He’s not smiling, and he’s got his woman’s arm around him. Where is this? New Year’s?”

“Anniversary dinner.” Ten years in business together. Robb and Connie. And Barry makes three.

“Not even smiling on his anniversary with his wife’s arm around him.”

Barry was certain that Robb
was
smiling in the photo—grinning, in fact, on the order of shit-eating—but he would not look at the picture again to be sure.

“This man betrayed you, Barry. This man betrayed life.”

Luke might be crazy, which meant that Barry was fucked. What about it? He couldn’t very well entertain bids from several reputable contractors throughout the Pacific Northwest. Barry took the long heavy envelope he’d stuffed down the inside of his vest and handed it to Luke.

Luke did not check the envelope. He put it away. “Thank you,” he said. “You leave first.”

“I have a question,” said Barry.

“No questions,” said Luke. He kept his face even, but put an edge in his voice.

A heady sensation had come over him, and a twinge in his solar plexus, now that the money was off him, and he couldn’t resist.
“How did you know I had the envelope in my vest?”

Luke smiled. “Oh that. By the way you were wearing it. You were not relaxed before. Now you are.”

“Yes, I am.”

Luke smiled with smug satisfaction.

Barry smiled back.
Everything—all of it—would all go wrong in the end. Really really wrong, but even that thrilled him. For the first moment in as long as
he could manage to recall, Barry felt alive.

Chapter 3: Luke

Luke crouched in the darkest corner of Robb Hart’s garage, in the space north of the workbench, on the side normally occupied by the wife’s Jetta, much longer than he’d planned. The Mariners’ game had gone into extra innings—fourteen in all so far. Luke listened to it on Robb’s radio, which rested on the open shelf under the work counter. Luke had the volume low, set to practically inaudible. He held one ear toward the tinny speaker while the other remained alert for oncoming vehicles. He stayed poised. There was no telling whether the target would stay for the whole game anyway.

Robb Hart’s wife Connie was speaking at an engagement out of town. Luke had spent four months planning. He had considered following Robb to Vegas on one of his jaunts, but it wasn’t in the budget. Now, baseball season well underway, a game that Robb stayed in town for, finally coincided with one of Connie’s trips. Robb had season tickets, but many of the tickets went to clients. Never Oakland games, however. Robb came from the Bay Area and he didn’t miss games against Oakland. He never took his son Stephen-David. Though still in high school, the son went his own way, and didn’t come home before two Am. Not usually anyhow. That was a risk. The family kept irregular hours, and no perfect opportunity had ever presented itself, but things were working themselves out now, as they always seemed to.

Oakland had an excellent chance that year. Luke had no interest in organized sports, except to understand Robb, but in his research he’d picked up the book
Moneyball
about A’s manager Billy Beane. The book riveted him. Oakland, with the smallest payroll in baseball, stayed in contention each year through careful analysis of the stats that actually mattered—not the stats conventional wisdom
claimed
mattered. Luke admired the thinking and strove to incorporate it in his own endeavors. He’d taken copious notes, and broken the book’s spine through many readings.

Luke pressed his hands between his thighs and calves and squeezed, in a new body game he’d just thought of. He had made up games like that since he was little, at times when he had nothing else to do. He might stand up, stretch his arms wide, trying to touch distant walls, which was his favorite body game. Nine years ago, at fourteen, he popped his shoulder out doing it, and had gazed at the red misshaped shoulder for minutes. He didn’t even feel any pain, so fascinated was he. Adulthood had fewer moments like that, where one could be alone with one’s body, discovering what it could do.

He kept himself fit, however. The odd, ordinary, bodies of baseball players were the one thing that amused him about the sport. Some, pitchers especially, looked like any old indifferent out-of-shape Middle-Americans. Beer guts and bad hair, unlike the superhuman bodies of other pro sports. Luke tensed himself. It would never happen to him. He had discipline. Robb was what? Nearly fifty. Yet he looked better than Barry did at only thirty-nine. Barry looked like a baseball player himself, right down to the gut and the beard, and hair sticking over his ears. Robb stayed fit. His hair was gray at the sides, but it hadn’t receded like Barry’s, and he kept it neat. He looked like Reed Richards in the early
Fantastic Four
comics. Luke felt he would look like Mr. Fantastic when he reached forty, or fifty. The expectation was reasonable; he now had corroboration, because Robb was doing it while running several successful businesses too. He prioritized.