Evan Arden 05 Irrevocable (8 page)

“Yep.”

I think about it for a minute.  I do feel a lot less tense than I had before I walked into Sweetwater.  I replay the encounter in my head.

“You know, it’s actually funny when a Marine lieutenant with a dozen medals is called a coward by a nebbishy tough guy in a sports bar.”

“Nebbishy?” Jonathan raises an eyebrow at me.  “Isn’t that Yiddish?”

I shrug.

“I used nebbishy because ‘pussy-waste-of-rations-mattress-stain’ is no longer acceptable.”  I grin up at him.  “Standards must be maintained.”

Jonathan laughs and we both head down Lake Street.  Maybe he’s right.  A bar fight was just what I needed.  I feel a little lightheaded with elation.

Up ahead of us is a homeless guy reclining against one of those walls put up to block the public from construction areas.  I recognize him from the gas station a few weeks back.  He’s still wearing the same worn coat and threadbare gloves.  The coat isn’t even buttoned up to ward off the cold, and part of his chest is exposed.  I see a tattoo on the left side of his chest, up near his shoulder, depicting an American flag and what might be eagle’s wings around it.  I can’t see it all, but there’s a bit of green and yellow in the design as well.  Taking a closer look at his face, I notice he’s the right age to have been in Vietnam.

“Hey, dude!” I say as I reach down and shake his arm a bit.

He looks up at me with glassy eyes and blinks a few times.

“I ain’t bothering nobody!” he exclaims.  “You can’t arrest me!”

“Do I look like a cop?” I ask.  I point to my busted lip.  “Come on, let’s warm you up.”

“What the fuck are you doin’, Arden?”

I ignore Jonathan and haul the vet up to his feet.  He’s got a collection of plastic bags filled with God-knows-what, and he gets them all arranged over his arms before reluctantly coming along with me.  There’s a hotel in the next block, and I bring him up to the door.

“He can’t come in here,” the late-night doorman tells me.

“He can if he has a room here,” I say, arguing.

“Well, he doesn’t.”

“He will in a minute.”  I stare at the guy in the stupid red uniform until he looks away.  “Come on.”

“You’re nuts,” Jonathan says as I grab the bum’s arm and lead him up to the front desk.  Jonathan doesn’t follow.

“Give me a decent room,” I tell the woman behind the desk.

She pokes around at her computer for a minute before giving me a price.  I tell her to add a room service steak dinner and the breakfast buffet to the tab and then drop a few hundreds down.  I lead the bum up to the fourth floor, and he looks around the room with wide eyes when I hand him the key.

“Get warm,” I say to him.  “Dinner’s on the way, and there’s a buffet for breakfast.  You’re all set for the night.”

He stares at me for a long moment.  I can see our connection in his eyes long before he removes his coat and further exposes his tattoo, complete with the POW/MIA logo below the eagle and the flag.  Before he can say anything, I turn around and leave.  Jonathan is still out front, smoking a cigarette and calling the doorman an asshole.  He’s probably regretting not getting more physically involved in the bar fight.

“What the fuck was all that?” Jonathan asks as I start walking down the street again.  “Since when did you become a good Samaritan?

I can only shrug.

“Did you know that guy?” he asks.

“No, he just looked cold.”  I can’t say anything else.  Some things just can’t be explained aloud.

“You’re a fucking nutcase.”  Jonathan tosses his cigarette into the gutter.  “You know that, right?”

“Yep.”

I felt good.

“With a room like that, the bum is more likely to get laid tonight than I am,” Jonathan says.

“He deserves it more than you do.”

“Yeah, he’s obviously worked real hard for his change today.”

“Fuck off.”  I’m not really pissed off at Jonathan or anything.  If he had noticed the guy’s tattoo, he wouldn’t be talking shit about him.  He ignores my comment anyway.

“I might have to go your route and get me some hired pussy.”

“It does make things simpler.”  Images of Alina flash through my mind—long legs, curved ass, and bright blue eyes.  I wonder what her hair would look like if it were in two braids.

“Is that your plan now?” Jonathan asks as we get close to my apartment.  “You gonna go find you a hooker?”

“Probably.”

“Well, I’m out then,” he announces.  “This weekend’s a bust.”

We go our separate ways, and I jump in the Camaro to go looking for Alina and her long legs.  Maybe we could stop at the drug store for a few of those hair ties.  Then again, I bet her hair would feel good if I were just running my fingers through it.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.  Save the braiding for later.

Of course, when you have an actual plan in your head, the world likes to work against you.  I can’t find Alina anywhere.  When I eventually stop and ask another hooker where she is, I’m informed that she has the night off.  I’m finally in a good mood and horny, and she takes a vacation day.

Damn my luck.

*****

After more than a year away from Chicago, returning to the routine of work and life in the city has been easy for me.  The streets are familiar.  The bus schedules haven’t changed much, and I still prefer public transportation to driving in the traffic.  Aside from the gang-bangers down south, Rinaldo had only sent me out on two hit jobs.  One was out of town and completed with ease.  The other was one of the former Seattle guys who thought he’d set up shop in our area.  He was mistaken.

At least I haven’t lost my touch.

Though I make plenty of money on a hit, and I’m not a huge spender anyway, Rinaldo has also been paying me to keep involved in more of the day-to-day business.  I have a pretty good head for the numbers and organization of legitimate businesses for money laundering, and I’m learning more about the operations of those facilities as well.  It makes for long days, but I’m all right with that.

Felisa has appeared more than a couple of times, and each time she does, I feel less at ease about her.  I don’t like how close she is to Rinaldo.  I’ve followed her a few times.  She’s living in the building where I used to live, and Rinaldo has her set up with a bank account and a credit card.  At the same time, I don’t think she’s just a gold digger.  If she were, I probably wouldn’t care so much.

She’s interfering with Rinaldo and Lele. 
That
I care about.

I try not to think about it.  I try to tell myself it’s ultimately none of my business, but it still nags at me.  I need to keep my mind off of the whole thing.  I need a distraction.  That would be good for me because it keeps me out of my own head, and that’s in everyone’s best interest.

What I really need now is to get laid.

I’m tired, no doubt, but I’m not completely exhausted.  The last couple of nights have at least allowed for a few hours of sleep.  The nightmares have taken a different tone.  I keep dreaming that I’m in a firefight in the jungle, which is new.  I can only assume the image comes from seeing the homeless vet on the street.  The dreams are still horrific, but at least they’re something different.

Since the night of the bar fight, I haven’t been able to locate Alina.  No one will give me any information on her whereabouts, and I’m starting to wonder if she didn’t take a month-long cruise in the Bahamas or something.  All right, it hasn’t been a month since she was last in my apartment, but it has been three or four days.  I still haven’t fucked her.  When she had been there before, I had been content to get some sleep rather than do anything else, but I feel different now.

I want her.  I don’t just want a hooker; I want
that
hooker.

She never even questioned the lack of sex, and I definitely appreciate that about her.  I’d caught her eyeing me a bit in the morning when I drove her back to her corner, but she never asked anything.  She never even brought up the nightmares again.  I know she spent the night holding me until I fell back asleep, surrounded by the scent of lavender, but she didn’t make a fuss about it.

I’m grateful for that.

I cruise up and down the usual streets, looking for the one and only hooker I actually want to fuck, but she’s nowhere to be found.  I do find Loretta and eventually get her to come over to the car.

“I ain’t goin’ with you.”

“I’m not asking you to,” I say.  “Have you seen Alina?”

“She’s my roommate,” Loretta says.  “Of course I seen her.”

“Well, where is she?”

“She got picked up a while ago.”  Loretta shrugs and looks down the street.  “I been busy, so I ain’t been lookin’.”

So much for the vacation.

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“Do I look like her keeper?”  Loretta puts her hands on her hips.  “She’s got
normal
johns to take care of.”

Why do you even care if it’s her?  One is as good as another.

I consider offering Loretta double to come home with me, but it’s not only a lost cause; it’s also rather demeaning.  What’s worse than a desperate john?

While I debate with myself, Loretta walks off without another word.  I glance up and down the street once more, but the only face I recognize is Ralph’s.  He’s loitering around the back of my car, eyeing the Soccer Mom sticker.

I have to get that thing off the bumper.

I drive to the nearby gas station and fill up the tank.  While it’s filling, I go around to the back bumper and try to scrape the sticker off.  It’s really stuck on there, and all I manage to do is fray the edges a bit.

I buy cigarettes and hang around the door to smoke one.  Then I go back inside and get an iced coffee, smoke another cigarette, and finally climb back in the car.

She has to be back by now, right?

The street corner is empty when I drive around the block.  Loretta must have found someone she can tolerate.  I take a short drive around the neighborhood before coming back again.

Alina’s still not there.

“Fuck her,” I mumble to myself.  I shove my foot down on the accelerator and go look for action on another street.  It doesn’t take me long to find an available whore.  She gets in the car, and as I move into traffic, she starts talking.

“So, I’m Angela,” she says as she tosses frizzy red hair off of her forehead, “and I’m a Sagittarius!  You wanna maybe get some dinner?  I’m famished!”

“No.”

She looks at me with a giant, fake smile.  Her face is thin and gaunt; her eyes can’t seem to focus properly, and I’m fairly sure she’s high.

“What are you thinkin’, then?”

I check around the immediate area and locate an alley.  I pull over and yank up the parking break.

“Just blow me.”  I unhook my belt and unbutton my jeans.

“Sure!”  She’s trying to sound enthusiastic about the whole thing, but she fails.

I stare out the driver’s side window as Angela sucks my cock, trying to focus on the sensation of her lips around me.  I close my eyes, lean back in the seat, and try to be in the moment—just
feel
.

I need to get off, release some tension and experience a moment of pleasure, no matter how brief.  If I could come up with some way to relax for a while, I could get through another night or two.

My body is reluctant to cooperate.  I’m hard, but I can’t seem to bring about that feeling.  Maybe it’s because I know Ralph is standing near the car and looking in on us.  Maybe it’s because I know there isn’t anyone there at all.

“Take me deeper.”

Angela complies, licking and sucking my cock as she does.  I close my eyes again and concentrate on the warm moisture of her mouth.  I hit the back of her throat and feel it constrict around the head of my cock.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

She changes her angle a little, rising up on her knees in the passenger seat.  I reach over and squeeze her ass.  She’s got a nice bubble butt.  I consider getting her up underneath me and fucking her ass instead of just taking the blowjob, but apparently the thought of it is enough to get me going.  My thighs contract as I push up into her mouth.

She takes me deep in her throat, and I hold her head while I come.  She finishes me off with a long lick around my head and shaft and then sits back in the passenger seat with a disingenuous smile.

I run my tongue over my lips and ride out the aftershocks of the orgasm.  At least my body has calmed.  I breathe in cool air as I dare to look out into the alley.  Ralph is thankfully nowhere to be seen.  I button up my jeans, grab my wallet from my back pocket, and toss a couple of bills at Angela.

“Thanks,” I mutter as she opens the door.

“Anytime!” she replies with another fake smile.  She walks around the front of the car, out of the alley, and back toward her corner.

I really hope this will be enough to keep me going.

I shouldn’t be here.

Rinaldo and Felisa have been in her apartment for the last two hours.  It’s not like I’m out here, staring at the front door, wondering what they are doing—it’s quite clear.  I don’t even wonder why it makes me so angry.  It is obvious this isn’t a casual fuck for him.  If it were, he’d already be done with her, not buying her diamonds.

They were at Tiffany’s earlier, picking out matching earrings to go with the bracelet.

Knowing Felisa is also acting as Rinaldo’s therapist doesn’t make it any easier.  In fact, it just seems to lead me to try to psychoanalyze him.  He has Lele.  He loves her—I know this.  He’s been head over heels for her since the day he met her, and that’s never changed.

So why is he doing this now?  Did something change while I was gone?

I've been racking my brain about him, and it's led me to consider myself as well.  I know I'm far worse than he is, but if Rinaldo can screw things up, how am I supposed to believe I can do better?  I've never had a relationship that's lasted, but I thought Rinaldo's was different.  I mean, I don't give a damn about the sex.  It's just sex.  But feelings?  That's something else entirely.  Doesn't he realize he's jeopardizing the one thing with real meaning in his life?  He has to know that power can be taken away in a heartbeat—but love?  No, nobody can just take that away.

I didn’t grow up in the business, and Rinaldo did.  That doesn’t make me any less consumed by it now, but I didn’t start out that way.  I’m not sure the way I started was any better, but it was definitely different.

I pace back and forth a bit.  The wind shifts and brings the intoxicating smell of grilled meats from the steak and sushi place down the street.  I’m hungry, and it’s almost enough to make me abandon my post.

I’m really not sure why I’m still standing out here in the cold.  There isn’t any point.  It’s not like I’m going to jump out at Rinaldo and yell “Boo!” when he emerges from the building.  If he were to come out, I’d hide myself away quickly to make sure he doesn’t realize I’ve been following him.  He wouldn’t be happy about that.

Rinaldo is right about one thing: I would never hurt him.

I also won’t allow him to hurt himself.

My phone rings, and I see Jonathan’s name on the screen.

“I got somethin’ you need to see,” he says immediately.

“Where are you?” I ask.

“You close to home?  We could meet at your place.”

Well, I do need a reason to get out of here.

“Yeah, I’m nearby.”

“Be there in ten.”  He hangs up.

Glancing once more at the building where I used to live, I head down the sidewalk to my current apartment and make my way to the elevator.  I’m only home long enough to take a piss before Jonathan shows up.

“Like the new digs,” he says politely as he looks around the place.

“It’s all right.”  I shrug as I look around.  I really haven’t paid much attention to it.  The only adjective I can use to describe it is
empty
.

I guess it suits me.

Jonathan pulls his laptop out of its bag, and I open the fridge and grab a bottle of water.

“Want one?” I ask.

“Sure.”

I toss Jonathan a bottle, and we head into the living room.

“I’ve had someone followin’ Beni,” Jonathan says as he sits down and opens his laptop.  “See this guy?”

He pulls up a grainy photograph of Beni talking to a blond guy with broad shoulders.  He’s decked out in a tan suit jacket and striped tie, and they’re both drinking from whiskey glasses in the back booth of a bar.  I can’t tell which bar from the picture.

“Who is he?”

“Don’t know the name,” Jonathan says.  “Not much of an accent, so can’t tell where he’s from.  Might be from around here.  Could also be from Seattle or something.  I’m still checking him out, but look at this.”

He flips to a picture I’ve already seen—Marcello’s boys in a van, presumably with our guns, and possibly exchanging them for cash or heroin.  The camera angle isn’t clear enough to know for sure, but every time I see the grainy picture, I feel like I should know one of the guys in it.  Maybe it’s one of the Russians.

“Looks like the same guy, don’t it?”

I flip back and forth between the pictures.  Neither is a clear shot, but there is definitely a resemblance.  A tingle runs up my spine.

Where have I seen him before?

“So, what are you thinking?” I ask.

“Well, either Beni knows where the missing guns are, or he at least knows who’s got ‘em.”  Jonathan sits back and pulls out a cigarette.  “Don’t you have a balcony or somethin’ here?”

“No, this place doesn’t come with one.”

“Open a window?  It’s too damn cold outside.”

I sigh and go over to the large window in the living room.  It opens to pour in sounds of traffic from below and frigid wind from above.

“Smoke quick!”

“Sure thing, brotha.”

I go back to the laptop and flip back and forth between the pictures again, trying to make some sense of them.  Beni is family and should be trusted before others, but there is definitely something off here.  If the pictures are indeed of the same guy, and Beni is meeting with him, it’s not good.

I try to think of a reasonable explanation, but nothing comes to mind.  Another thought strikes me though.

“Does this laptop get me into the accounting files?”

“Sure,” Jonathan replies.  “Just get to the desktop.  There’s a picture of a pig on the right side, near the bottom.”

“A pig?”

“Piggy bank!”  He grins wildly, and I shake my head at him.

“You’re not right.”

“Never claimed to be.”

I open up a couple of files before I find the right one.  It’s the same one Rinaldo showed me the other day—the one with the discrepancies.  I’m not looking for anything going to Beni’s accounts though.  Instead, I pull out my phone and check my notes.

It only takes a couple minutes of digging to find the right reference.

Some of the missing money is going straight into the account Rinaldo set up for Felisa.  Some, but not all of it.  He’s skimming his own profits and telling me not to look into it.  I wonder what he told Becca about it.

Where is the rest going?

I scroll back to the year before when Justin was still looking after the books.  As I’m trolling through the lines of numbers, a couple of them stand out.  The name on the entries is Marshall Miller—a code name I’ve used in the past—and the lines should match up to what I was paid for my hits last year, but they don’t.

The numbers are way off, or I might not have noticed.  This isn’t a little bit of a discrepancy, but tens of thousands of dollars for each line compared to the cash I had actually received.  I start to search for a corresponding entry to make up the difference, but Jonathan calls over to me before I can find anything.

“Could he be doin’ his own investigatin’?” Jonathan asks as he finishes the cigarette and dumps the butt into his mostly empty bottle of water.

It takes me a second to realize Jonathan’s talking about Beni.  I close out the accounting file and flip back to the photographs as he moves closer.  I’m not ready to share the information related to Felisa.

“Possibly, but I seriously doubt it.  He thinks he’s above that kind of work.”

“We need to show these to Rinaldo.”  Jonathan sits back down on the couch and pulls the laptop closer to the edge of the coffee table.

“No,” I say as I shake my head, “not yet.  Keep it between us for now.  If Beni is involved in some way, he may not be on his own.  I don’t want any speculation out just yet, or we could alert the wrong person.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Someone’s been pulling money from the business, too,” I tell him.  “If Beni’s involved in that, he has to have help.  I want all the evidence together before we take it to Rinaldo.”

“Don’t Becca keep track of that shit?”

“Yeah, she does.”

“Maybe she knows more about it?”

“I’m not sure,” I say.  “If she’s anywhere near as good at bookkeeping as Rinaldo thinks she is, she ought to be able to account for every penny.  If she can’t, well, maybe we need to check her out more closely, too.”

“I gotta get the warehouse security shit in order,” Jonathan tells me.  “That’s gonna take a couple of days.”

“I think we have time.”

“I gotcha, brotha.”  Jonathan closes the laptop and shoves it back in its bag.  “I’ll let ya know what I find out.”

“Thanks for bringing this to me.”

“Always.”

Jonathan heads out the door, and I follow shortly after.  I need to talk to Rinaldo.  I need to understand what he’s planning and how much he already knows.

*****

“I was trying to call you.”

“My phone’s been on the fritz,” Rinaldo says as he takes off his coat and hangs it up on the rack near the door.  He wipes his shoes on the rug before sitting down at his desk and leaning back with a big sigh.

The phone problems are bullshit.  If Rinaldo’s phone wasn’t working properly, he’d have a new one within an hour.  I know exactly why he hasn’t been answering, but I don’t let on.  I want to get right into it, and the phone is just a distraction.

“Rinaldo, I looked into the skimming you told me about the other day.”

He looks at me without speaking, glancing from one of my eyes to the other.  I try to remain expressionless.

“And?”

“And I think I know why you didn’t want me to look into it.”

I can see the tightening of his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

“Then you know it’s not worth bothering with,” he finally says.  “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, sir, there is.”  He sighs and then nods for me to continue.  “There’s more missing than just what’s been transferred to that one account.  Justin’s entries for my payments are way off, but I’m not sure where the money went.  He probably thought I’d never be close enough to check.”

“He’s not the one skimming now.”  Rinaldo’s forehead creases as he thinks.  “I told Becca I would take care of it.  I don’t need her sticking her nose into it right now.”

“What’s the big deal?” I ask.  “Why don’t you just tell her it’s moving into Felisa’s account?  Call it her therapist salary or whatever.  What does Becca care?  Then she could figure out what else is missing.”

“It was a bit of a test for her,” Rinaldo replies with a shrug.  “I wanted to see if she would bring it to my attention.”

“And now that she has, you’re not going to have her pursue it?  She’s going to become suspicious.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t think it through all the way.  Besides, if it was Justin, the problem is already eliminated, isn’t it?”

“Maybe.”  I’m not confident with the assessment.

The corners of his eyes tighten.  He grips his fingers slightly around the pen on his desk, but he doesn’t have any intention of writing anything down.  He chews on his lower lip nervously.  He’s still hiding something from me.

I look into his eyes and feel my shoulders drop a little.  I want to call him out on it, but I can’t bring myself to do so.  I wish he would just come out and tell me, but I can see that he won’t.

Rinaldo looks at me for a minute and then drops his gaze to the desk and lets out a long breath.  He taps the pen a few times before glancing at me and then looking at his watch.

“I have to get back,” he finally says.  “I want you to focus on what happened to the guns, and let me deal with the skimming.”

“You said before you wanted me involved in all the businesses.”  The reminder obviously doesn’t sit well with him.

His shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep breath.  I’m pushing it, and Rinaldo is known to have quite a temper.  Of course, when it flares, I’m the one usually doling out the punishment.  He looks straight at me, his eyes stern.

“Evan, go find my guns.”  He leaves no room for additional conversation.

I nod and stand as he grabs his coat and walks out of the room, sans formalities.  Like the obedient son, I head toward the only lead I have—a man I put in the hospital.

Harpy is indeed in a coma.  He lies in a room with other unconscious patients, and I can watch him from the hallway through a large window.  When the nurses are changing shifts, I sneak into the room and get a glance at his chart.  It’s clear that the shock from his wounds hasn’t left him much of a chance.  He’s off life support but completely nonresponsive.

I won’t get anything out of him, but I am a patient man when I need to be.  Back in the hallway, I watch visitors come and go until I find one who might be useful.

She’s an older woman with a deeply wrinkled brown face.  Her head is wrapped in a brightly colored decorative scarf.  I watch her eyes focus on Harpy’s bed as she rubs a rosary clutched in her hands.

“It’s hard to see them like this,” I say kindly.

“It is, it is,” she replies.  She smiles up at me with tears dotting the corners of her eyes.  “He’s always been a troubled boy.  I can’t say I’m surprised he’s here, but yes…very hard.”