Beluga
Authors: Rick Gavin
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For Sylvie and Jill with gratitude
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Contents
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ONE
It seemed like a good idea even if it came from Shawnica's brother, who was a lowlife and a chiseler but could be inspired sometimes. Me and Desmond had been casting around for investment opportunities, and Shawnica knew we had a little money we were willing to let out. We'd taken it off a crazy Acadian meth lord the year before and didn't mind turning some loose now and then for a rate.
Shawnica's brother had done time in Parchman Prison for robbery and grand theft. Larry had stuck up a pharmacy and stolen a tricked-out Mercury Monterey that he'd insisted straight through to conviction his cousin had told him he could drive. He ended up doing a three-year bit, and all he got up to inside was filing the papers to legally change his name. While the rest of the cons were studying law books and writing their appeals, Larry petitioned the state to let him become Mr. Beluga S. LaMonte. It was his way, I guess, of starting fresh without doing anything constructive.
Larry was staying with Shawnica, and we drove over to hear his scheme. Shawnica's house set Desmond off. It was the one he'd been thrown out of once Shawnica had wearied of him. He'd ended up back at his mom's place in the room he'd grown up in, and Desmond hadn't been twin-bed size in a decade and a half by then. He was decent enough to still be helping Shawnica with the mortgage and repairs. Desmond was the one who cut the grass and kept the porch screen mended. He fixed the leaks and painted the walls, paid for Shawnica's cable TV, and he did it all with typical Desmond grace and fortitude while Shawnica barked at him and worked her way through a string of sleazy boyfriends.
I took it as my job to keep Desmond calm and focused no matter what we met with once we'd stepped inside. But then Larry was stretched out on the sofa with his feet against the wall. He was eating microwave popcorn and rubbing grease all over the afghan that Desmond's aunt had knitted Shawnica as a wedding gift. Desmond claimed to cherish it, but it was yellow and green and brown and so badly made it looked like it belonged under a saddle.
By the time Desmond had said, “Larry, dammit,” there was nothing I could do. Once Desmond had decided a boy needed scuffing up, you couldn't really hope to stop him.
Desmond chuffed like a bear, crossed the room in two strides, and snatched Larry off the sofa. Popcorn went all over the place, along with all of Shawnica's remotes.
Larry said, “Hey!” or something, the way people will with Desmond. It's hard to know what to tell a man when he's turned you upside down.
Shawnica came scurrying out of the kitchen. She shrieked and slapped at Desmond. She was done up like usual with glittery stick-on nails and a couple of dozen metal bracelets, so there was the outside chance that Desmond would get sliced or brained outright. He ignored her for as long as he could while he lifted Larry over his head.
“Put. Him. Down,” Shawnica told Desmond. I would have gone another way, since putting people down tended to be a key feature of Desmond's brand of scuffing.
He deposited Larry on the coffee table. It was made like a wagon seat, built out of knotty pine that went to splinters when Larry hit it. The whole house shook. The lights flickered. Larry landed on a couple of remote controls and busted them to pieces. It wasn't like we could keep from lending him money after that.
Shawnica blamed me. She always blamed me. She came storming over to wag a finger directly under my nose. So I got a full dose of her gardenia scent and the music of her jangly bracelet clatter.
“Uh-huh,” she told me. I took it to mean that me and Desmond were living down to her expectations.
Larry had decided he'd best stay on the floor. He laid there checking for injuries. Larry was fine, of course. He was always fine. Larry was as indestructible as a cockroach and far luckier than he had any need to be. A fellow chasing him with a rifle once had been felled by his own ricochet, and some Little Rock Mafia hard-ass who Larry had sorely offended found Jesus for no good reason and let Larry off the hook.
Larry had grown to think, the way people will, that that was how the world worked. So he'd get all shirty when he'd meet with minor upsets, like getting pitched around his sister's front room by her former husband.
“What the hell!” Larry said.
Desmond objected to his tone and kicked Larry in the sternum, which caused Shawnica to slap me since I was handy for it.
“Hey,” I said to Desmond. I knew better than to touch him. Once he'd started, Desmond would scuff up anyone who came to hand.
“Hey!”
Desmond finally drew a deep breath and deflated a little. “All right.” That was all he ever said to let me know the fever was broken.
“Damn,” Larry told us all and rubbed his chest as Desmond helped him up.
Larry plucked up his empty popcorn bag and shook it at his sister. Instead of crawling up his sphincter, the way she would have done with us, Shawnica stepped into the kitchen to make a fresh sack for him.
Larry flung himself onto the sofa and tried three busted remotes before I leaned over and switched the TV off. Desmond parked in his skirted BarcaloungerâShawnica's Barcalounger nowâand I perched on a hassock alongside him so he could only get at Larry if he crawled straight over me.
“Okay now,” Desmond said. “Let's hear it, Larry.”
Larry just looked at us. Wouldn't speak. He finally crossed his arms.
Desmond snorted. “Beluga,” he said at last.
Even then, Larry passed a good half minute eating what popcorn he could forage off the couch. He finally told us, “Boy I know up in Collierville got a line on this thing.”
It was going to be one of those conversations. I said to Larry, “What thing?”
“Tires,” Larry told us. “Michelins. Tractor-trailer load.”
“What boy?” Desmond asked him.
“Skeeter,” he told us. “From the yard.”
I didn't like either end of that. So this was some con he knew from Parchman with a name like a waterbug.
“Skeeter who?” I wanted to know.
Larry waved me off. “Don't matter.”
If Larry hadn't been an in-law, we would have already tossed him onto the porch. A trailer full of tires and a couple of Parchman grads?
“Tell it,” Desmond said to Larry.
Shawnica came in with his popcorn and half a roll of paper towels that Larry tossed directly onto the floor. He explained himself by informing Desmond, “You went and broke the damn table.”
Desmond shifted. “Sorry about that ⦠Beluga.”
“Skeeter knows tires,” Larry told us. “These ain't no retreads or nothing. Straight out of the factory in Kansas or somewhere. Got the stickers and everything. Just like you'd buy them in the store. But that ain't even the beauty part.”
Larry dug a fistful of popcorn out of his sack and shoved it in his mouth. About a third of it ended up on his lap until he'd brushed it onto the floor. He waited. We waited. We were going to have to request the beauty part.
“So?” Desmond said. “What's the beauty part?”
Larry laughed. “Them tires is stole already.”
“Who by?” I asked him.
He waved a hand dismissively. “Some shitbag in West Memphis.”
“Which shitbag?”
Larry pointed at me and grinned at Desmond as if to say, “Who the fuck is this?”
Ordinarily, I wouldn't have cared, but West Memphis is a hellhole. It's across the river on the Arkansas side and makes actual Memphis seem, by comparison, the seat of enlightenment and grace. The place is the Arkansas version of Tijuana without the college kids. Just ample drink and petty crime and the occasional beheading.
A West Memphian stealing tires by the truckful might be somebody we shouldn't know. That's all I was thinking, but the power of in-lawdom seemed to trump even that.
“What's the play?” Desmond asked Beluga LaMonte.
“Skeeter knows this guy, got a truck and shit. Said we could hire him out. Trailer's parked right down on East Monroe, back behind a church.”
“You seen it?” I asked him.
Larry nodded. Larry told me, “Skeeter swung round there. He seen it, tires and all.”
Desmond still wouldn't look at me.
“How much you need?” he asked Larry.
“Hold on. Let's hear the whole thing.”
Desmond turned and studied me now. He gave me a look to let me know this was no time to get particular.
“I just want to know what they've got in mind,” I told him. “Somebody's probably watching that trailer. Don't you think?”
Larry proved pleased for the chance to lay it all out. “We'll go in like ⦠three in the
A.M.
and haul it out of there. Got a buddy in Belzoni with a big tractor shed. We'll drop it in there and let the shit all calm down.”
“What shit?” I couldn't help myself.
“Somebody bound to be mad.”
“Who exactly?”
Larry pointed at me again in his
Who the fuck is this guy?
way.
“How much?” Desmond asked him.
Larry shoved more popcorn in. He gave us a number we couldn't make out. It was just as well, because once he'd swallowed and told us again, it turned out that he'd said, “Fifty.”
“Thousand?” I tried to make it sound like a point of clarification, but getting up off the hassock as I said it didn't help.
“Seems like a lot,” Desmond told Larry. He turned around to find Shawnica in the kitchen doorway. “Seems like a lot,” he told her, too.
She nodded and said to Larry, “Tell them what you need it for.”
“Expenses and shit,” Larry informed us.
I glared at the side of Desmond's head.
“Got plans for the tires?” Desmond asked Shawnica's brother.
Larry pressed his lips together and nodded like him and Skeeter had given that some deep thought.
“Going to find out what kind of sizes we have.” Then he looked at me. “Tires come in like a hundred different sizes.”
“I've heard.”
“So we figure what we got”âhe was back on Desmond nowâ“and we work from here like down to Vicksburg maybe and let them go for a price. Stop at the garages and shit, take orders like people do.” Meaning people who hadn't passed three years in Parchman changing their names.
“How many tires are we talking?” I asked him.
“Full load. Skeeter seen them. I don't know. Four or five hundred maybe.”
“What are you going to ask?”
Larry reached down beside the sofa and plucked a catalog off the floor. It was from the Walmart in Indianola and had a page devoted to tires. Mostly tires from Bangladesh or Borneo or somewhere, but there were a few Michelins in the mix. They started at two and a quarter.