Unknown Man #89

“I can give you a nice clean piece, still got the factory oil on it,” the voice said. “If you want it. I never tell a man his business.”

“I don’t know. I been wanting to try the twelvegauge before I shoot for the prize.”

“Yeah, see what way it pulls.”

“I’ll be over pretty soon,” Virgil said. “Let you know.”

An hour and forty minutes later, Virgil called his brother-in-law from Sportree’s Lounge on West Eight Mile. He told him he wanted to see him. His brother-in-law said, Man, way out there? His brother-in-law sounded half asleep. Virgil said it wasn’t far, take him about fifteen minutes. His brother-in-law said he had some things he had to do. Virgil said patiently, “Hey, Tunafish? One more once. I’m at Sportree’s and I want to see you. I want to give you some money… That’s what I said. Right now it’s two hundred and fifty dollars. But you know what? It’s gonna go down ten every minute you aren’t here past eleven o’clock. You understand what I’m saying?… Then quit talking, man. Run.”

Virgil came out of the phone booth grinning, seeing Tunafish throwing his clothes on, flying out of the house and jumping in the car-if Lavera hadn’t driven to work. Then he’d have to borrow a car. Or pick one up. Virgil looked at the clock that was over the cash register, between the bar mirrors. Tunafish would get here about five after and he’d pay him two hundred. Which he’d already decided was about right.

See, there was the hard way to do things and there was the easy way. The hard way looked good at the time; in fact, it looked like the only way. But it upset your stomach and could break your knuckles. It produced blind spots that could mess you up and cause pain, not to mention losing your ass. The easy way required thinking and remaining cool. Not standing-around cool, but authentic genuine cool. Cool when you wanted to smash something or break down a door. No, hold it right there. Think on how to do it the easy way. Then turn the knob gently and the door opens.

Virgil learned patience at Jackson. Not the first time he was there, on the assault with a deadly weapon conviction-when he was still trying to do it the hard way, pushing and shoving, getting caught with tin shivs and spending a total of nine months in solitary-but the second time, the Wyandotte Savings and Loan armed robbery conviction. He learned patience thinking about Bobby Lear as he stamped out license plates-Michigan, the Great Lake State-and how he was going to get the motherfucker as soon as they turned him loose.

His lawyer had said Bobby didn’t have any Wyandotte money, maybe a few bucks was all, and anybody who said he had a sizable amount was blowing smoke up Virgil’s ass. There wasn’t any talk that Bobby Lear was on the street spending money. He always had money, but he wasn’t throwing any around, was he? Virgil didn’t talk about it much at Jackson. He kept it in his head. Bobby Lear either had the money, hidden somewhere, or he didn’t. Either way, it didn’t matter. When Virgil got out he would go see the man- “Hey, Bobby, how you doing?” and all that shit-and ask him where the money was. If Bobby said, “I’m glad you mention that, I been saving your piece of it…” Then it better be close to eight, nine thousand, half what they said was taken. If it happened like that he would say thank you before shooting the man in the head. If the man gave him five seconds of bullshit he’d do it right then and not have to listen to any more. It was the only way to protect yourself from the man.

He didn’t care for Bobby. Just looking at him and feeling something, he didn’t care for him. He also didn’t care for the way Bobby ran out and left him humming Joe Williams in the Wyandotte vault all by himself while the blue and whites were slipping up to the curb. Bobby and Wendell Haines made it out, with or without the cash from the cashiers’ windows, leaving him dumb and alone in the vault. Virgil heard they got away clean. He sat in the Wayne County jail between arraignment, examination, and trial and didn’t say a word. Then he learned Wendell Haines was found shot dead in his room. That wasn’t hard to see. Either Bobby decided he didn’t want to split with Wendell or he was afraid Wendell would get picked up, cop, and turn him in.

So then it was Virgil’s turn, when he got out and went to see Bobby, knowing what a sweet man he was, what would Bobby do? Would he say, Hey, baby, and put his arm around him, and buy him his dinner? Shit. Bobby’d sandbag him on sight. Or talk nice and get him relaxed first, it was the same thing. Bobby Lear killed people. That’s why Virgil learned to be cool at Jackson.

The trouble was, by the time he got out and had bought the twelve-gauge Hi-Standard, Bobby Lear had been busted again and sent to a state hospital and Virgil had to use some more of the patience he’d learned and wait for him to get out. Then wait for him to show himself. Then use a little more of his running-out patience following Bobby’s wine-head woman around.

Five minutes to eleven in the morning in an empty cocktail lounge and Bad George Benson coming out of the hi-fi system, Virgil was still waiting.

Tunafish came out of the sunlight into night darkness, looked over at the reflection of the bar mirrors and the empty stools, then at the booths on the other side of the lounge, and walked over that way. He knew it was Virgil because of his hat. Nobody had a hat like Virgil Royal’s.

It had been a cowboy hat one time and was seasoned now and had a look of its own, with a brim that was almost flat except for a nice free-form curve to it, slightly up on one side, and a down-sloping dent in the narrow- blocked crown. The hat was part of Virgil, and the way he wore it-with his bandit mustache and usually sunglasses-down a little on his left eye, almost straight but down, you knew you had better not touch it.

Virgil said, “Two hundred and ten dollars.”

Tunafish, sliding into the booth, looked at his watch. “Hey, shit. Two hundred and… twenty.”

“Two hundred and twenty, then,” Virgil said. “You want something to drink?”

“I ain’t had no breakfast yet.”

“You want some coffee, milk?”

“You don’t have nothing.” Tunafish wanted to keep his voice calm, like Virgil’s, but it was Virgil’s calm that made him jumpy and suspicious. Virgil was different since he got out, quieter, like he knew a secret.

“I must have got you out of bed,” Virgil said. He took a fold of bills from his shirt pocket, beneath the maroon jacket, and peeled off two hundreds and two tens. “Here. So you feel better.”

Tunafish took the bills, all of them brand-new. He felt good, folding them and sticking them in his pants.

“What am I supposed to do now?”

“How you and Lavera doing?”

“Fine. We making it.”

“Long as she working, huh?”

“I bring home money,” Tunafish said. “You think I don’t?” Virgil’s tone was getting to him again. Virgil didn’t seem to notice, though. He was looking away, like he was thinking about something else.

“I don’t get no complaints from her.”

Virgil’s hat came back to face him. Virgil’s expression was calm.

“You remember a boy name of Lonnie? Used to work for Sportree?”

Tunafish straightened, looking across the empty lounge. “Yeah, he was a bartender, at night. But he don’t work here no more.”

“I said used to. You know where he work now?”

Tunafish had an idea he’d short-cut Virgil, show him something. He said, “Lonnie don’t know Bobby Lear. They was some dudes in a place talking about him one time, Bobby. I remember Lonnie say he don’t know him.”

Virgil waited, in no hurry. “What did I ask you?”

“What?”

“I said you know where he work?”

“Shit, Lonnie? He’s dealing. What he always done. He was working here he was dealing.”

“He’s a good friend of yours, huh?”

“Pretty good.”

“You see him much?”

“Yeah, you know. I see him around different places, sometimes the methadone center.”

“How you doing with your habit?”

“I’m making it.”

Virgil grinned. “Lavera stays right on your ass, don’t she? She was a little girl she was always serious, like a little mama.”