fours.
Knute followed Kenny into the room and used his aluminum bat to obliterate a flat-screen showing a harness race. Then he rang the bat off shins and elbows until a half-dozen would-be pea-shake players were hopping and squirming.
“What the fuck?” said a skinny blonde, in a miniskirt and heavy makeup-the “shake hostess”-as she emerged from the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee.
“Shut up, skank,” Charlie said, pointing to the wall where most of the patrons huddled. “Get over there with them.”
“Why should I? Who the fuck are you?” she screeched. Kenny approached her, pointing the end of his pipe in her face.
“Shut up and get over there before I kick you in the cunt,” he bellowed.
“Fuck off, tough guy-,” she started. Kenny swung his rear leg forward in a vicious up-kick that caught her where her legs met under her brief miniskirt. “Oof,” she said, going down, rolling and writhing, coffee spilling all over her.
“What the fuck did I tell you?” Kenny loomed over her.
“Oahhh, oahhhh,” she went on and on, curled into a ball.
Knute and Charlie exchanged a look, wondering if the kid, his blood up, was going to cave in her skull with the pipe.
“Take… the… money,” Hector grunted, barely able to move his mouth. He held up a thick, dirty wad of bills from his pants pocket.
“Shut up,” Charlie said, taking it, stuffing it in his own pocket, and racking him in the head with the flashlight. Then he turned to the assembled players, perhaps thirty people, frozen in front of him.
“Who said you could pea shake here?” Charlie asked them. He punctuated his words with raps to the face and head of the smallish man he held. “Who said you could shake with this little dirt-bag spic?” Charlie strutted around feeling like a WWE wrestler, and he considered whether he should bash the man’s head into something, or if that was too flashy. “Well?” he asked. There was a bulky, tough-looking Latino with ink creeping up out of his shirt collar standing near the door who wasn’t cowering properly. Knute caught it at the same time.
“Door,” Knute said.
“Got it. What the fuck are you thinking, bro?” Charlie screamed, advancing toward the bulky Latino, whacking his captive again and lifting his shirt to reveal the butt of his pistol. “See that door, motherfucker? Use it. And none of you ever use it again once you’re gone. This place is not authorized. You fucking get it?”
There was a moment’s pause as the gamblers wondered if their release was the truth or some horrible joke.
Kenny flicked open a Zippo with a metallic clink and waved the flame at them. “It’s that or we lock it and burn this shit hole to the ground.”
The bulky Latino acted first, hurtling out through the door and into the night. The rest followed, keeping wary eyes on their attackers but receiving boots in the asses and backs and shots across the shoulders all the same. Even the pea-shake girl, dragging herself along like a car-hit dog, made it out. Soon the room was empty and quiet save for the sound of engines starting and tires screeching.
Charlie straightened Hector up by the head and spoke directly into his face. “I don’t want to fucking see you here again, comprende?” Instead of waiting for an answer, Charlie nodded to Kenny, who swung the pipe across Hector’s stomach like he was lashing a double into the gap. Charlie let the man collapse.
Charlie, Kenny, and Knute sauntered down the hall the way they had come. They stepped over the body of the wiry old man, who hadn’t moved an inch. They went out to the car. Charlie hit the auto-lock button on his extra key and they got in.
“Let’s go to the bar,” Charlie said.
Inside, on the floor, Hector heard the car drive away. After a while he rolled over onto his back and felt around his ribs and organs. Nothing seemed broken. Eventually he got up on all fours, spat out blood and a gritty dust that was his molars, then made it to his feet. One advantage of being his size and growing up in the streets was that he’d gotten used to taking a lot of punishment over the years. He went down the hall and shook his head at the sight of his father lying there in a pool of blood. He couldn’t call 911. They’d all be arrested and deported if he did.
“Vamonos, Chaco,” he called out, opening the door to the den. “?Rapido!” Chaco emerged from a low cabinet along the floor where he’d been hiding. The boy’s eyes were huge, but he didn’t say a word, and he followed as Hector lifted his father and carried him out to the car.
Mierda, Hector thought, now I have to get a gun.
SEVENTEEN
Dean Schlegel was in his room crying in the dark when he got their call. It was the vodka and Percocet he was using for his mouth that must’ve made him this way, because he couldn’t remember crying since he was a kid. Then again, things had gotten plenty fucked up over the last little while.
“Yo, D., where you at? We’re down at the bar.” It was Kenny. He could hear the sounds of glasses and music and voices in the background.
“I’m home, man,” Dean answered.
“We’re down at the bar,” Kenny said again. “Me and Charlie, and Knute, and Dad, too. You gotta come out.” But Dean just didn’t feel up for the Tip-Over tonight.
“I don’t know, Ken-”
“Don’t be a puss, brah. Marcus is spinning down here and you know the hos flow where he go.”
Lately, it seemed every time that Dean left the house, something happened that he either didn’t like right away or after some time had passed, he liked even less. He felt guilty for all of it, especially that old man he’d busted up. Still, locking himself away in a dark room wasn’t an option that was paying off.
“Come on, meet some new, get that scurvy bitch off your mind-”
“Don’t go there, dick,” Dean said.
“All right. I’m just saying. Get your ass down here, drink your face off, you’ll feel better.” Kenny hung up. Dean sat there for a moment deciding, and then he reached for his pants.
Behr arrived at Flavia Inez’s new address and saw that her old building manager had been right: she’d found a much nicer place. It was a ten-story brick job with casement windows and a new awning. She lived in 9-F, according to the Post-it. Behr went to the building’s outer door and saw the apartments were marked “F” and “R,” front and rear, only two per floor. It was a real way of life she’d found for herself compared to where she’d been. What Behr didn’t find, however, was her name on the list. Instead, the resident of 9-F was listed as “Blanca White.”
Bullshit, he thought. White White? He checked his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. Too late for a proper, polite first interview. He hesitated for a moment before he pressed the buzzer. He waited but there was no answer. He tried again several more times. Then he took out his cell phone and dialed the number. Once again he got the pop song, but no voice on the outgoing message. At least it hadn’t been disconnected. “Hello, this is Frank Behr calling about Aurelio Santos again…” He left his numbers and asked her to call. He tried the lobby door, which was locked with a solid-looking brass Baldwin. It wasn’t going to happen, he realized, not tonight.
• • •
The Tip-Over Tap Room’s got one hell of an identity crisis, Marcus Daudre, better known as DJ M.D. or simply “the Doc,” thought to himself. It had the bones of a low-end outskirts Indy pub that should’ve been full of fifty-year-old rummies and blue-collar factory shit-kickers. But thanks to the Schlegel boys, the fact that Kenny loved hip-hop and every damn one of ’em loved fresh white females, they’d been hiring him to spin tunes. Now there were no rummies in sight, and the place was pulling more white shorties than Nicky Blaine’s. The little dance floor was currently filled with blondes in belly shirts who were freaking to his mash-up of T.I. and Lynyrd Skynyrd. It was chemical, M.D. figured, two parts black music, with a base of redneck, and the white folks just couldn’t help themselves. He wound it down and hit an extended mix playlist on his Mac and headed to the bar to take a
