Mr. Hooligan (39 page)

Lopez said to Harvey, “It’s you responsible?”

Harvey hesitated. He said, “Sorry, man,” and touched his belly. “Stomach’s acting up fierce.”

Lopez hiked the front of his shirt over his nose. “Another nervous habit?”

Harvey conceded with a shrug. They rolled over the speed bump and after that he lost the exact sequence of events.

Lights flooded the van from up ahead, a monster truck rumbled forward out of nowhere and hemmed the van in to the side of the road, where another truck was positioned. Intense light roared toward them, another big-wheel truck, fog lights, people leaping out from the back onto the road, everything happening at once.

Lopez said, “Back up back up back up—”

The windshield shattered, somebody in the van screamed, and everybody dived for the floor. The van rolled forward and crunched into the truck grille. Van doors flew open on both sides and long guns pointed in followed by faces in bandanas and ball caps, several men. The back doors swung open, two more men standing there with guns.

Harvey saw it clearly, lying with his chin on the rubber mat—dumb-ass Busha creeping toward the shiny Mossberg shotgun behind a seat, and one of the men clubbed him with the butt of a long gun. Busha covered his face, and they clubbed him again.

A voice stabbed the air: “The money, we want the money!”

More men swarmed the van, young slim guys, all wearing bandanas up to their eyes, ball caps or knit caps tugged low.

“Where’s the money!”

Nobody answered. Busha moaned, his hand clawed the air. Lopez said, “Take my wallet, take it, that’s all the money I got.” The voice said, “Screw that,” and hands were all over Harvey, patted him down, flipped him onto his back. The voice said, “Close your eyes, don’t look at me.” Another voice, “Got it!” Then Harvey heard them stomping around inside the van, picking up guns, heard them leaving the van.

Harvey opened his eyes, rolled his head to the side. Headlights were pulling away. The glove box was open, papers were strewn across the floor, dollar bills, a Yankees cap on its side. The trucks rumbled away, but no one on the floor moved. Then everybody started up at once, Lopez cussing and shouting like he’d lost his mind; Tic Tac on hands and knees with a flashlight, snatching up loose dollars, and Busha on his elbows, moaning loudly and palming his nose, blood gushing over his fingers.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Miles unscrewed the cup cover off the thermos and poured the coffee into it. Set it on the dash for Riley and topped off his own aluminum carry cup and stuck it back in the console holder. And they waited.

A pale dawn. Cloudless sky. A hard-packed dirt clearing amid abandoned half-finished houses and mangroves by the bay. Lonesome Point, a place for lovers and secret deals.

The windshield soon fogged up from the coffee on the dash and after a while Riley reached a finger over and drew on the glass. They sipped coffee and watched the smiley face.

When Miles raised his wrist, Riley said, “That’s the second time in less than five minutes, you know that?”

“So you’re saying you’re not worried? They said six o’clock, didn’t they say six?”

“They said six, but that could mean sevenish, or whenever they get done.”

“And you don’t think by now they should’ve been long done?”

“You’ve got to trust,” Riley said, settling back on the headrest and closing his eyes. He longed for sleep.

Somewhere in his dozing, in a land far, far away, he heard movement and motors and opened his eyes to see Miles’s hand on his shoulder.

“They’re here.”

Riley rubbed his face, working life back into it. “Didn’t I tell you?”

Miles watched in the rearview and turned his head one way then the other as pickups rumbled up on both sides. “I’m not sure if I like this.”

“It’s all right. I know Brisbane. It’s all good.”

“Your Mr. Cool act? Starting to annoy me.”

Riley grinned.

“Which one is Brisbane?” Miles pointed low, wagging his finger to one side. “Over here?”

“Guy riding shotgun, with the hat.”

The engines went quiet. Riley checked left and right. Two pretty boys in one pickup, Brisbane and his adopted son in the other, Rodrigo giving a nod when Riley met his eyes.

“Okay,” Riley said, “here’s Brisbane now,” and watched Brisbane step down out of his truck. “Yeeeah, looks like he got it. Beautiful. Pop the trunk, Miles, let’s show this man his guns.” Riley opened his door. “And let me go and give him a hug while I’m at it.”

Two minutes later, the trucks turned around, Brisbane flashed the peace sign and they roared away, leaving Riley and Miles in the car looking out at the bay.

On the floor at Riley’s feet was a burlap sack fat with cash. In one hand was a cup of coffee he was nursing to quiet his mind. Eventually, he scooped up two stacks of cash and tumbled them into his lap and Miles whistled. “Sweet Jesus.”

The bills were crisp and fragrant, neat bundles secured with rubber bands. Riley thumbed through a stack, counting, all fifties. When he reached a sufficiently high number, he removed those bills, tucked them into an envelope from his pocket, and handed the envelope to Miles.

“What’s this for?” Miles cocking an eyebrow at the weight in his hand.

“For you.”

Miles shook his head. “No offense? But you know I can’t take this.” He moved to give it back, but Riley blocked his hand. Miles shook his head again.

Riley looked away, then came back. “Then do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“Deliver that to my ex-wife? Tell her it’s for Duncan. Tell her it’s child support for the next six months.”

“And if she asks where you are?”

“Tell her I’m going to get in touch with them soon.”

Miles, nodding, shoved the envelope under his seat. Riley counted some more bills and when he reached a chunk almost as thick as the first, he jammed that in another envelope and handed it to Miles.

“And what’s this one for?”

“For a little boy’s family. A family that I don’t even know if they live at this house anymore,” and he gave Miles the address of a house on Manatee Road, an address that was burned in his memory.

Miles frowned and said he didn’t understand, so Riley sighed, put his coffee on the dash and told him a story.

*   *   *

It was about how one day, a youth, an ordinary guy with a little street in him, who wanted respect and attention and a measure of thrills and fun like any other guy his age, got himself into a scrape. Well, not a scrape really, more like a mess, something that changed his life, his identity. How he viewed his place in the world. It happened on a dirt road, the Manatee Road—you know it, the one that’s still not paved all the way. They cornered him, these two guys, a policeman and a Lebanese, and the youth responded in a fashion that shocked him—the quick violence of it. But truthfully, he shouldn’t have been so shocked because all the rough, lonely days of his childhood seemed to have been preparing him for that moment when he took those men’s lives.

But the point wasn’t the remorse he felt, although that sadness did torment him in later years—his point was what happened immediately after all the blood soaked the road, the moment the youth saw the little boy standing behind a gate of a yard down the way. Standing there sucking a pacifier.

It was the first moment that he recognized, starkly, how much his life was going to change. It wasn’t so much that from now on he would see the world differently or that he was beginning to grieve his lost innocence—no, no such philosophical fanciness—this was a down and dirty realization that this little boy had seen him kill two men.

Panic flooded his veins. He and the boy stared at each other across the dirt road in the fading sunlight. His legs carried him over to the gate to look closely at the boy, the curly black hair at the top of his head. Their eyes met and the youth lifted a finger to his lips. He smiled.
Shhhh
.

But because he was so far into self-preservation mode and because he was too frightened to be certain that a finger to the lips would suffice, too young, his hand came up from behind his back with the .45, and after looking down the dirt driveway to see if anyone else was around, he reached over the gate and leveled the gun at the boy’s head.

His forearm tightened and sweat burned his eyes. His arm trembled. He whispered to the boy,
Close your eyes, please
. The boy didn’t seem to understand, sucking that pacifier with a blank look on his face. The youth’s arm shook until the muzzle came to rest against the little boy’s skull.

Miles broke in with, “Let me stop you right there.”

Riley waited for him to say something. He shut his eyes. “It’s a long time I’ve wanted to tell somebody this. I need to continue.”

“No you don’t.”

Riley tied off the burlap sack, sat back and looked out the window. He said, “Sorry about all this, Miles. You’re a good friend.”

Miles nodded. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

After a moment, Riley said, “I wish I could promise you that.”

Miles turned the ignition, started to put the car into drive, then turned to Riley. “For what it’s worth, you’ve said enough.” He looked through the windshield, at the clearing and the shoreline and the bay. “It’s out there, you got it out of your system, now just let it float away. Let it go, Riley. You’re almost free.”

*   *   *

On the drive to the airport, Riley lay in the backseat admiring the sky through the rear windshield and talking about the money. Making sure Miles understood the plan they’d discussed last night. It was simple, he said. Two lots by the bay at Lonesome Point, Riley had found out they were for sale. Miles was going to use the money to buy those properties. After Riley got himself situated wherever he was going, he’d set up a legitimate company that exported hardware and home supplies, a company with one customer: Miles. Miles was going to use the money to build houses for Riley on these properties. Miles would import supplies and home furnishings from Riley’s company, and Riley would ship them down at vastly inflated costs. Over time, two homes would be built, which would be sold or rented; Riley would get his money, having avoided the banks’ red flags; and Miles, if he wished, could keep a few thousand for his troubles.

Again, Miles refused the money. But he understood the plan, and have no fear, he said, he would execute.

The tires hummed. Riley knew the roads so well he guessed by the bumps and turns, the change in the sound of the tires, that they were nearing the airport. He asked Miles what could he see.

The car trundled over the speed hump a few hundred yards from the terminal. Miles said, “Well … looks like any ordinary day … taxis over there, a couple vans. Okay, parking lot’s kinda empty. We’re early.”

“I know, that’s good.”

The car slowed, approaching the parking lot on the left. “Travelers unloading … workers eating breakfast over there … okay, what this? One SUV over here, two dudes … they’re just sitting there.”

The car moved to a crawl.

“What kind of SUV?”

“Looks to me … like a…” The car turned left into the parking lot. “It’s a Honda Pilot. Brown.”

“Describe the two dudes?”

“No problem, I’m passing them … right … now. One really black, like Nubian black, the other one … shades on, mixed with Spanish, tight haircut. Think I should circle back, forget parking?”

Riley felt it: They were on to him. It hadn’t taken long and it wasn’t altogether unexpected. Maybe it was Boat and Jinx.

“Wait,” Miles said, “they’re backing out. They’re leaving. Nah, Riley, these guys are laughing and eating pastries or something, I wouldn’t worry about these two.”

Miles drove out of the parking lot anyway, heading back on the road to the Northern. When the Pilot sped past him, he told Riley and waited for the word. At a point before the Northern, Riley said, “Okay, do it,” and Miles made a sharp U-turn and they drove back to the airport.

It was speedy. Miles parked directly in front of the terminal entrance, opened the door and stood up, a barrier, looking over the top of the car toward the building; Riley scooted out of the opposite rear door onto the sidewalk, wearing his floppy Tilley hat and shades, walking briskly, past porters and taxi drivers into the terminal, a small backpack hanging off a shoulder, $9,990 in two manila envelopes stuffed inside.

“Now act like you own the place and have nothing to hide,” Miles had said to him before he left the backseat. The bold move is often the only move if you want to win, Miles said. He learned that in boxing, sometimes in the middle of a fight he was losing. He’d said something else, and it was in Riley’s head now as he hustled across the lobby to the American Airlines counter. Miles had said, “That little boy. I guess I ought to know. Did you shoot that little boy?”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The passport and tickets were in his sweaty hand all the way up to the counter. He laid them down, self-consciously. The woman smiled and said chirpily, “Vacation, sir?”

He smiled back. “Some might say so.”