Loser's Town (20 page)

‘I’m the most uncomplicated guy you’ll ever meet. I’m Mister Simplicity himself.’

‘This would have to be a lie, I’m thinking.’

‘Do you like seafood?’

‘Yes, but I’m not going to go out with you. You just beat up my ex-husband. Although this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.’

‘I know this great little place in Ventura, near where I keep my boat. Do you like boats?’

‘Yeah, I like boats, but as I was saying—’

‘We don’t have to see the boat, unless you want to. It’s a thirty-two-foot mono-hull sailboat. Great for sitting on deck and having a drink while the sun goes down. You’ll be perfectly safe. You’ll love it. Kids love it too. It’s a great
thing, sunshine, a picnic lunch. Get them out of the smog and some fresh air into their little lungs.’

‘Christ, you don’t miss a trick, do you?’

‘Just dinner. You can meet me there, if you want. If you begin to doubt my sanity, you can drive right home.’

‘I already doubt your sanity. What I’m not sure of is mine.’

‘It seems like a win–win situation to me.’

‘Okay, but on one condition. I don’t want you to come here again. I mean it. We go out one time, but that’s it, right? And I’ll be honest, the only reason I’m doing this is out of curiosity. I’ve never met anyone quite like you. Do not jump to the conclusion that this is a compliment.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘This isn’t going to go anywhere. I want you to know that.’

‘Okay,’ said Terry.

‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘Ah God, this is going to be a huge mistake.’

‘That was a huge mistake,’ said Allison.

She had climaxed for the third time, actually screaming at that last one and the world went dark for a little while. She was gripping Terry’s hair in her fist and couldn’t quite manage to let go. ‘Again?’ he said.

‘Oh God. Oh God no, please.’

‘It wasn’t good?’

‘I don’t know how you managed that but most men don’t even know that place exists. And if you do it again
I’m not sure I could deal with it. I mean it.’ Allison lay on her back and Terry propped himself up on one elbow beside her. ‘This is awful,’ she said.

‘Why?’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘do you mind if I don’t talk for a couple of minutes? I think I’m going to pass out.’

She closed her eyes and smiled contentedly. Terry kissed her.

‘This is all wrong,’ she said. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’d swear you drugged me but I know you didn’t. And I’m not even drunk. There was you talking about playing in the streets of Londonderry and there was that lobster and the next thing there was this.’

They were on his boat. The water lapped at the hull a few inches from her head and the sex had been amazing even with that poster of Gandalf staring down at them. She truly liked this little Irish bastard but she knew she had to find some way of getting herself up and going home and never seeing him again.

‘I mean, I promised myself this wouldn’t happen. You don’t know how screwed up my life is right now.’

‘Maybe I can help unscrew it.’

‘You’re in way over your head, here. Look, we can’t do this again. I don’t want to see you, I don’t want you to come anywhere near me, okay?’

‘The sex was that bad?’

‘I’m serious. I like you, but I don’t want to see either one of us get hurt. Just trust me on this.’

She started to leave.

‘Don’t go yet,’ he said. ‘Just a few minutes longer.’

He took her in his arms. She lay close against him, her eyes closed, breathing softly. Not asleep but safe.

Her cellphone rang. She reached out and grabbed her purse, fished it out and looked at the caller.

‘Shit, I have to take this.’

She gave him a look that said she wanted privacy.

‘I’ll go out on deck,’ Terry said.

Terry pulled on a pair of shorts and went up top. He lit a cigarette then eased over to the side of the boat where an open window allowed him to hear what she was saying.

‘No, I’m out . . . No, goddamn it, with a girlfriend. With Rima, you know Rima. No, look, for God’s sake, you’ve got to stop this . . . I’m telling you, this is not what I want, you’re putting too much pressure on me . . . Yeah, okay . . . Okay. Look, I’m going home now. I can’t talk, Rima is waiting for me, I’m in the bathroom, for God’s sake . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Bye.’

When Terry came back into the cabin Allison was dressing to leave.

‘If that’s your ex, you don’t have to let him push you around,’ Terry said to her.

‘No, it’s not my ex. I wish it was. Him I can handle.’

‘Whoever it is, I can help.’

‘Trust me, you can’t. Is there a bathroom on this thing?’

Terry pointed to the head. When she went in he took the phone from her purse and checked the last received
call. RICHIE. When she came out he was sitting on the bunk.

‘I’m sorry, I have to go. It was nice. I want you to know that. Really nice.’

‘He’s not going to let you go,’ Terry said to her. ‘Not without help.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I know Richie Stella. I know what he’s like when he gets his hooks into someone.’

Allison stared at him. Her mouth was open as if to say something but she didn’t. Finally she shook her head and gave a small sardonic laugh. ‘What are you,’ she said finally, ‘a cop?’

‘I’m not a cop, but I can help you. I can get him off your back.’

‘Who are you working for?’

‘Somebody like you. Somebody Richie is trying to hurt.’

She sat down at the table across the cabin from him, as far away as she could in the tiny room. She put her face in her hands. ‘You’re really good,’ she said. ‘You’re the best. I’ve met some lying bastards in my time, but you are without a doubt the king of them all.’

‘He won’t quit. You know that. He’ll end up owning you.’

‘He owns me already,’ she said wearily. ‘Anyway I don’t see the difference in him or you. You’re both vicious shits. You use me for one thing, he uses me for another.’

‘He’s just a two-bit punk. He’s not invulnerable. You can help bring him down.’

‘No. You do your own fucking dirty work.’

‘He doesn’t have to know it was you. He’ll never find out. He’ll never connect you to it. You know I’m right, don’t you? This won’t end until Richie goes down. You know that.’

‘And if I don’t help you what happens? What leverage have you got? Everybody’s got leverage, right? Richie’s got leverage on me. What’s yours? What have you come up with?’

‘Nothing,’ Terry said. ‘Nothing at all. But nothing changes. You think he owns you now, just wait. Wait until he gets bored with you, maybe. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve thought about it already. Maybe he wants you to run some errands for him. Maybe he’d like you to be nice to a friend of his. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.’

‘I can’t lose this job. I’ve got my baby, I’ve got the house.’

‘You think you’ve got some sort of future, just doing nothing? You think he’s just going to leave you alone? You want your kid to see you, what’s going to happen to you? You think Richie is going to be such a swell role model? One way or another, Richie is coming down. I don’t know how deep you’re in, but I can keep you out of it. You can walk away.’

‘You’re as bad as he is.’

‘You know I’m not.’

‘What’s your interest in this? I know it isn’t me. Why go to all this trouble? Why are you after Richie?’

‘Richie Stella has hurt a lot of people. Aside from the drugs and his connection to the mob, he’s responsible for the death of a young girl and he’s blackmailing the guy I work for. All this is going to continue unless Richie is brought down.’

‘Who are you working for?’

‘You know I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you that Richie has struck the wrong victim this time. My friend has the money and the power to bring him down. Richie has over-reached himself this time. He’s weak and he’s vulnerable. He’s gotten arrogant and he can be brought down. I need you to help me.’

‘You can protect me? You can protect my baby?’

‘Yes. I promise you. You can walk away from this thing free and safe and with a new life. My friend can help you. Money isn’t a problem.’

‘Maybe you’re lying,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can’t believe a thing you say. Why should I?’

‘Because,’ said Terry, ‘in the end it all amounts to the same fucking thing, doesn’t it? What are your choices? You stay with Richie and he is going to use you up and pass you onto somebody else or worse. You think he is going to let you quit? Richie has made his life never letting anything out of his grip. You’re waiting to ask him for a job reference while you stock groceries at Safeway? He’s got you, baby, and he’s going to keep you and you fucking well know it. He’s fucking sweet to you now, but what happens when he gets bored? Maybe he wants you to shove a kilo of
cocaine up your arse and take a stroll across the border? Or you’ll wind up in a hotel room blowing some spick drug supplier Richie needs to keep happy for a while. The longer you stay the more he has on you, and the more he has the harder it’s going to be. What happens to you and Cody then?’

‘If he finds out I helped you . . .’

‘He won’t find out. I’ve no connection to him. There’s no link. All this goes to my friend. I’m nearly out of it myself. I’m just helping to set the wheels in motion. After that we’re both out of it.’

‘You can protect me?’

‘Yes.’

Allison thought. She sat at the small table and lit a cigarette and smoked it through and she thought. Finally she turned to Terry and said: ‘You fuck me over again, you put my child in fucking danger, and I will crawl through broken glass in order to kill you. I mean that. Do you understand me? I never imagined I could say this but I will kill you if you fuck me over. I swear on my father’s grave.’

Terry got up to sit next to her but Allison pushed him away. ‘Don’t fucking touch me,’ she said. ‘Don’t you fucking come near me. You ask your fucking questions and when this thing is done I never want to see you again.’

Eleven

So there was Potts, in the fucking grocery store.

Potts was in Safeway, walking up and down the aisles, pushing that fucking stupid little cart around, the cart with the inevitable bad wheel, the one they always saved for Potts so he could feel even more of an asshole than he normally felt in these places. Potts hated it here, hated all the bright lights and the clean people and the smart-assed high-school clerks who looked at him like he was shit when he piled up his fucking Cheerios and his fucking Hamburger Helper and his fucking helpless-looking rolls of three-ply toilet paper on the counter to pay for them. What Potts longed for was one of those little mom and pop Mexican stores in El Paso, some dark little place where you didn’t have to have a fucking college degree to figure out which processed foods were least likely to kill you, where there were maybe two choices you had to make, you want the black beans or the pintos? Where you could go in and
get out fast and you didn’t have to worry about some Starbucks-sipping yuppie cunt on a cellphone killing you with her fucking SUV before you even made it across the fucking parking lot.

Potts was not happy.

He was looking for the canned peaches. Lately he’d had a craving for canned peaches. It was the thing he loved most as a kid, his favorite treat. His old lady would dish out some dismal supper – chicken or hamburger, both cheap in those days – then Potts would sneak outside in the dark where he’d cached a tin of peaches in syrup he’d boosted from some grocery. He carried a knife with a can opener on it and he’d pry open the peaches and sit in the dark drinking the syrup first and then spearing the sliced peaches like guppies with his knife and forking them down his throat. Jesus, thought Potts. The shit that makes us happy. There comes a point when you realize you can never be that happy again and it’s all fucking downhill from there, brother. What do they call it? Diminishing returns.

The other thing was, they always kept moving fucking things around in these places. Potts couldn’t find the goddamn peaches, and you ask one of these bastards and it’s like you interrupted brain surgery or something. Or else you follow around some dumb fuck who didn’t know any better than you did and before long there was a big fucking production with half a dozen assholes including the manager trying to locate one goddamn can of peaches. On the
other hand you could just leave all this shit in the same goddamn place day in and day out so that it was right where you fucking left it the last time. There was clearly some reason, some money-making reason, why these bastards played with our heads like this, why they needed to keep us off-balance. There always was. Potts just couldn’t figure it out.

So, anyway, here was Potts. Standing with his limping gimp cart in the middle of the aisle trying to figure out where he’d be if he was a can of peaches. Potts felt someone was behind him and he turned round to see a small, pleasant-faced woman waiting with her cart behind him. He was blocking the aisle. The woman smiled sweetly at him.

‘Oh. Shit,’ said Potts. ‘Sorry.’

‘Sorry,’ the woman said also, continuing to smile.

Potts dragged aside his cart to let her pass. He went back to his search for peaches and found them, except everything was either whole peaches or low-sugar peaches or diced peaches or peaches and something else. Potts gave up. Nothing made sense to Potts anymore. The world was joyless and there was nothing you could do about it.