Frank Sinatra in a Blender (3 page)

“What about this piece of shit?” I kicked the back tire of the Neon.

Cameron said he didn’t know. He thought the driver was the crispy bastard in the bread truck. He said it looked like multiple gunshot wounds from up close, but don’t quote him on that.

“So maybe the bread truck flees the scene and tags the Neon, then the Neon chases him down. The driver takes a few slugs in his chest in the name of road rage. Sound right?”

Cam said it did. Then he asked me if I wanted a smoke.

“No, thanks.” I told him I quit.

“
Ouch
.” He took a long drag off his cigarette and scrolled through this morning’s photos on his fancy camera.

I took a long drink of beer from my cup and the straw made a quick, violent noise against the plastic lid.

“Who the fuck robs a credit union in a bread truck?” I asked.

Cameron said he had no idea.
Bakers?

I scanned the area for surveillance cameras but there were none in plain sight.

“Nice place for a switch,” I said, because it was. The alley was just a few blocks from the bank, between two major intersections. Easy access to multiple escape routes.

Cameron told me he had to get back to the newsroom. He dropped his smoke on the ground and crushed it with his dress shoe.

I told him I’d see him around and walked down the road toward the other body. I was finishing the last of my drink when I saw the Chief wave me down. I tossed my cup in a green metal trashcan.

The Chief’s lips pressed against my ear. “How you doin’, Nicky?” He asked. The Chief was the only one who called me that.

I told him I was getting by.

Chief Caraway and my old man went way back. They shared a twisted history of some kind but I never knew quite how deep the river flowed. If my old man was still alive I guess I could ask him.

“This is a fucked-up deal, Nicky.”

“Looks like it.”

“They got away with a lotta money.”

I shook my head, pretended like money didn’t mean anything. But the Chief knew me better than that.

“Inside job?” I asked.

He was already nodding. “Had to be.”

“Witnesses?”

“About a half dozen, but it went down pretty quick. Nobody saw much.”

“What about that beat-up little shitter?” I pointed to the Neon.

The Chief told me two different people saw the bread truck ram the car from behind then the Neon chased the truck down.

“How big was the crew?”

“One man inside. One, maybe two more in the truck.” Chief Caraway lit up a cigarette and and smothered me in a second-hand cloud. I took a step back. You never realize how many people smoke until you stop.

My thoughts went back to the dead guy on the staircase. He was a banker. Could be a coincidence but probably wasn’t.

The Chief’s walkie-talkie started to squawk about the same time his phone rang.

“You have no idea what kinda shitstorm I’m dealin’ with,” he said.

I said nothing.

“Chief Caraway,” he shouted into the phone, but covered the bottom with his hand and whispered to me. “What’d you find out yesterday? About that suicide?”

Before I could answer, he stuck his finger up, wanted me to wait a minute.

I wasn’t sure how to play my cards without revealing too much. I still couldn’t be sure what was what, I just knew something smelled funny and it wasn’t the guy in the bread truck.

I said I had to run, told the Chief I’d see him later. The beer went through me quick and left me wanting more.

I found a dumpster to pee behind then I headed to the east side to a strip joint called Cowboy Roy’s Fantasyland. I needed to see a guy about some business.

•••••

Telly drove an hour out of town
until he found a dead-end road. He sat with the car in park and stared at the duffel bag that filled up the passenger seat. Telly watched nervously through the rear-view, sure that the cops were about to roll up on him—sirens screaming, guns drawn, bullets flying. His heart was racing and the excitement made him sweat. Or maybe it was the speed. He didn’t know what to do first—look inside the bag of money or smoke a foily?

He pulled a baggie from the miniscule pocket above the right front pocket of his jeans, useless for anything except a small baggie of crank. He held the straw in his hand then had a better idea.

Telly pulled a box of Reynold’s Wrap from under the seat and his mouth began to salivate. His palms sweated as he folded a crisp new piece of foil precisely. Like a veteran tweaker, his preparation ritual was an art form.

He emptied most of the baggie on the foil then cocked his head and poured a little more. Telly held the foil at just the right angle and with the perfect mix of flame and wrist sent a clear pool of speed running down to the end. He inhaled the smoke through the hollow tube of an empty Bic pen then adjusted his hand as the boiling goo reached his thumb. Just as it hardened, he reversed the process and ran the trail back to the other end of the foil. His technique was beautiful.

Telly was a master when it came to smoking Bob White.

He thought about the indescribable taste of crank as he took the hit and held it, waited for a few seconds until his chest warmed, then exhaled a soft white cloud against the window and melted down into the seat. He stared up at the headliner of the car and waited for the magic to happen.

The gears inside his head were already grinding.

He noticed the material starting to sag above him; the cloth hanging low enough to touch his head. When he hit the foil again his brain shifted to a higher level of thought. A level he was incapable of reaching before the crank.

His world started to slow down when he ditched the bread truck but now it was all coming back fast. He was about to fall into that perfect groove of intellectual superiority that can only be achieved through excessive methamphetimine consumption. The more he thought about it, the more strongly compelled he felt to repair that headliner before it gave him any more trouble.

There was a toolbox in the trunk but Telly couldn’t remember what tools he had back there. He couldn’t remember the last time he looked. But maybe all he needed was a handful of well-placed tacks to do the job. Surely that would work, although he doubted whether he had any tacks. Or where they’d be if he did.

Telly put fire to the aluminum one more time then checked the rear-view again. He saw his eyes in the mirror. His dark, wet pupils turned the size of nickels. Then he thought about the money.
Yes, yes, the money.
He noticed the straw in his hand and stuffed it back into his pocket. Didn’t want to lose that.

Telly needed to get his shit together and put things into perspective. He had to stash the money, get more crank, then decide how he was going to go about telling his version of the truth to the man he worked for. He would tell whatever version he thought sounded best, but that version was still up for grabs.

When he finally unzipped the bag and saw all the money that was his to spend, Telly couldn’t move. He saw thousands of dollars. Could be millions but he couldn’t possibly count it with any degree of accuracy.

Telly popped the trunk and pulled the duffel bag across the seat and let it drop onto the ground. Then he heaved it up to his shoulder in one spastic motion.

When he got to the back of the car, Telly threw the duffel in the trunk where it crashed into a plastic toolbox. The car shuddered. He thought for a moment about all those tools and the work he could do with them up front on that headliner.

Telly closed the trunk and rushed back to the driver’s seat. He popped open his cell phone, saw it was low on minutes, and called the guy he got his shit from for the sixteenth time but of course he didn’t answer. The man with the meth never answered the phone when you needed him to. Telly turned up the heater. He was cold but sweating. Telly would need to call English Sid before long but he was a wreck. He just needed crank first—had to have it.

Telly started the car and turned around. He needed to see a guy he knew about some business.

•••••

I pulled into Cowboy Roy’s Fantasyland
and parked next to a Lincoln Town Car that belonged to Anthony Sparrow, though everybody called him Big Tony. Big Tony knew a lot of things about a lot of things. I was confident he’d know a thing or two about the credit union job.

I passed through the front door and Flames, the bouncer, gave me a nod. He told me I was good and I asked him if he’d seen Big Tony.

“He’s in the back,” Flames said. “He’ll be right out.”

I thanked him and we went our separate ways. We both had more important things to do then chat each other up. Besides, I needed a drink.

A brunette who smelled like cocoa walked by and gave me a casual squeeze, as if we were in a supermarket and my dick were an avocado. “Hey, Nick,” she said. I thought her name was Lilac but hell if I could remember. I watched her hard, tight body move as she made her way to the end of the bar.

“Whaddaya need, Valentine?” Flames was standing behind the bar mixing drinks.

I did a double take. “What? You’re tendin’ bar too?”

Flames shrugged, said it was hard times and all.

I told him I wanted a Scotch. Neat. Two shots of Crown Royal and a bottle of Corona with lime. He didn’t say a word, just set me up and walked off like a good bartender should.

A thick cloud of fake smoke swept across the stage. I did the first shot of Crown then chased it with the second shot, followed by a long drink of beer. I squeezed the lime into my mouth and took a shallow breath.
Fuck me.
The rush almost knocked me over.

I helped myself to a barstool and started working on that Scotch. I hadn’t been to Cowboy Roy’s in at least a month and it seemed like the scenery was always changing. This time of day you had to take what you could get, but I saw a girl about nineteen who looked like she knew how to do just about everything I wanted.

Another big drink and I could see brown liquor disappearing from my glass as the first hard rush of a wicked, nut-busting drunk came on strong. I looked around for Lilac. Started thinking about her firm, uncompromising body.

I turned and looked for Flames and told him, “Set me up one more time.”

Flames looked at me funny and I watched his eyes grow with curiosity. “
Jesus
, that was fast.”

I told Flames I was thirsty. “When it comes to drinking I don’t fuck around.”

Then Big Tony came out from the back room. He was walking by himself, sniffing. It was a safe bet his bushy mustache was covered with a nice white dusting of blow.

Big Tony saw me and veered over. We shook, his big paw swallowing my hand. He asked me what I was up to.

“What do you know about this thing downtown earlier today?”

Big Tony told me he didn’t know shit. “Ain’t heard much about it.”

I grabbed my Scotch and beer and followed Big Tony to his table. A waitress in a camouflage bandanna and an American flag g-string paused in front of him and he whispered something rude. His face was up against her ear. He sniffed her like a fine Barolo.

Bandanna Girl said she’d be right back, but when she walked away I could tell she wanted to bathe in disinfectant the first chance she got to eradicate the thin layer of funk that clung to her just from being in the presence of such clientele.

Present company excluded.

Big Tony took a seat while I took a hard hit of Scotch, then set the glass and the Corona bottle down on the table. I sat across from him and asked what he knew about Norman Russo.

Big Tony shrugged. “Who the fuck is that?”

I told him I didn’t know. Maybe just some fuck.

“What’s he into you for, Valentine?”

“He ain’t into me for nothin’,” I said. “He’s laid out right now with a
Y
carved in his chest.”

“Dead?” Big Tony asked.

“Yep. Gettin’ autopsied right now.”

The waitress in cammo returned with a well-rehearsed smile and I realized at once that I had a strong appreciation for her breasts.

She gave Big Tony a bottle of Pabst, the cheapest beer they had. He paid her with a five and said keep the change.

She asked me what I wanted.

“A shot of Yukon Jack. A shot of Wild Turkey, and an ice-cold Corona.” I told her, laying out the demands of a free-range drinker. “Don’t forget the lime.” Drinking had always been important to me and I did it with as much enthusiasm as possible.

Big Tony lit a cigar and took a drink from his PBR. He set a little box on the table, opened it up, set out a mirror, then dumped powder on the glass. He asked me if I wanted a line. I told him I’d better not, but I didn’t like the way he looked at me when I said it.

To avoid drawing suspicion, I thought I should probably go ahead and indulge just this once. I could always debate the finer points of the issue later. I’d made a promise to myself about the coffee and the cigarettes, but I never said anything about turning down cocaine.