Circle of Enemies

He smiled without a trace of good feeling. “You always had a pretty good sense of direction, Ray. How’d it take you two years to get from the gates of Chino to me?”

“I got on the wrong bus.”

“The bus to Seattle. I heard. I’ve been following your name in the news. It’s very interesting, all the scrapes you’ve gotten into. What happened in Washaway? You can tell me, buddy.”

“Caramella said you were in trouble.”

He didn’t like that I’d changed the subject. “Do I have to remind you? You used to be smarter than that. I spent two hundred and fifty a month on you while you were inside. Every month, I sent a check to a sweet little lady in Boyle Heights so her son and his pals would babysit you.”

And now he was challenging me. The funny thing was that I didn’t feel like playing that game anymore. I’d seen too much to be afraid of Arne, and he knew it.

“Arne—”

“Because I knew prison would break you.” He was letting his anger show openly now. “I knew you couldn’t handle the misery. You were never tough enough up here for that.” He tapped his temple with his index finger.

I let him have his say. After he finished, we stared at each other for a second. Then I said: “Caramella said it was my fault.”

Arne laughed. There was something desperate and helpless in it. “Jesus. Ray. Ray.” He looked at the phone on the table, then slipped it into his pocket. “Okay. It’s time. Come on, Ray. You’re going to do a job for me.”

CHAPTER TWO

Lenard came up behind me. “You’re taking him?”

“He’s here and Ty isn’t,” Arne said, “so yeah. I sure as hell can’t take you. Stay here just in case. He only has to drive a car—as long as he doesn’t point the grill at Seattle and take off, he’ll be fine. Besides, if I show up with you, they’ll probably make us mow the lawn or something.”

Lenard laughed. “Fuck you. Those guys have Japs do their landscaping. They’d make me patch the roof.”

“I’ll be two hours at least. Probably three. Go into the kitchen while I’m gone and wash some dishes. Make yourself useful.”

“Hey, I was born in this country, just like you. I’ll do a day’s work when I see you do one.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Arne said. “No shit, Lenard. Be careful.”

“Always.”

Arne turned to me. “Let’s go for a drive, Ray. You owe me.”

He started toward the front door, and I followed. I’d always trailed after him, going from one place to another. It felt natural to let him lead me around, and the feeling—that if I did what he wanted he’d eventually give me what I needed—was startlingly familiar.

And he was right. I did owe him.

We went into the street. Arne was more watchful than he’d ever been, and I wondered why. We walked to a Land Rover, and he circled it carefully before he got in. I sat in the passenger seat and aimed the air-conditioning vents at my face. He pulled into traffic.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

“No. Seriously. Where?”

“You know what I always liked about you, Ray? Timing. You always had good timing. For instance, here you are today of all days. Remember Rufus Sceopeola?”

I did. He was a weight lifter and amateur boxer who’d tried to take over the Bigfoot Room some years ago. He was used to intimidating people with his size, but he wasn’t as tough as he’d thought. “Of course.”

“You remember how you took him out?”

“A couple punches.”

Arne laughed at me as he swerved onto a freeway on-ramp. “You don’t even realize you do it, do you? Anybody can throw a couple punches, Ray. You threw the right punches. Rufus thought he had defenses—I ran into him later, and he talked about you. He said he’d never been taken apart so fast, in the ring or out. He said you had a good eye. When I told him you were in jail, he dropped into a deep funk. I think he wanted to invite you to his gym.”

None of this interested me, but I asked anyway. “What ever happened to Rufus?”

Arne slapped his hand on my chest, then crumpled my shirt. I couldn’t feel anything where the tattoos covered my skin, but I didn’t like being searched anyway. “I’m not wearing a wire, and Lenard already checked me once.”

He finished searching anyway. “The asshole is doing a stint at Corcoran. Some bastard took his gun and mailed it to the LAPD in a shoe box. Funny thing. They had his fingerprints on file, and the gun matched a shooting in North Hollywood from the year before. Attempted homicide.” He glanced at me. “That’s what I heard, anyway.”

I didn’t answer right away. For Arne, asshole had a specific meaning. Assholes were criminals who liked to hurt people—or who tried to mess with his business—which was pretty much every criminal we met.

Arne hated assholes. He had always kept us low-key—we dressed like college students and did “safe” jobs— but there was always someone who heard about the money he was making and tried to muscle in. Arne hadn’t blustered or threatened, but those guys generally never came back a second time. We’d always wondered what he’d done to drive them off. Had he been turning them in to the cops? The idea made me a little sick.