A Dangerous Man

– Just before Christmas. Year before last. Tim came to town. He gave me a key for a unit. He said hang on to the key. Said he probably wouldn’t be coming for it. Said I might have to send it somewhere. Said you might come for it. Asked me if I remembered you. I said, Timmy, you think I forget that shit? Think I forget I drove him to the airport? Think I forget I could be up to my ass in aiding and abetting if I ever opened my mouth about him? But, Timmy, I said, I got kids now. I got two kids and a wife and a business and employees. I can’t be in that kind of shit no more. He said you needed help. He told me to remember where I got the money. I could start my own business in the first place. He said hang on to the key. He said nobody comes to pick it up, just pay the bills on the unit and hang onto the key. Shit. I saw his body on the TV, I almost threw the key in the garbage. Then I think, What is it? What’s it all about? Came over here. Looked in the box. That stain on the floor? That’s where I threw up when I saw that shit. I saw that money. I just about died. This shit is trouble. This shit is trouble like no man should have. I think, Throw it in the river. Then I think, What if he comes for it and I threw it in the river? What a man gonna do then? Shit. So I hang onto the key. Sweat every day. Say to myself, Two years. He ain’t here in two years, it goes in the water. Two years means he’s dead. After two years I don’t want nothing to do with shit like this. This shit. I have an ulcer from this. I yell and my wife, she don’t know why. Can I tell her? No. Got to lie to her about some shit at work. Try to play with my kids, all I think about is this locker and that box. Shit. Now, I’m finished.

I’m still standing there, the lid in my hand, staring at the money. Mario’s hand appears from behind me and he snaps the key-card down on top of the cash.

– This is the spare key. You gotta use it to get back out. Code is 4430640. My card, I’m gonna toss it in the sewer as soon as I get out of here. So that’s it. I’m leaving.

I don’t say anything. And he doesn’t move.

– You hear me, man? I’m out. OK? Sweet?

I manage to nod.

– Yeah. Sweet.

I hear him walk out of the unit. I stand there, listening to his footsteps retreating down the corridor. Then I drop the lid, rip the plastic and dig out two fat handfuls of cash. Two chunks of money. I rush out the door.

I turn the corner and there he is, just stepping into the elevator. He hears my footsteps and spins. He sees me and starts jabbing at the buttons. I hurry toward him, my arms held out in front of me, the bills clutched in my hands, the individually rubber-banded packets stacked high between my fingers. His hand is trying to find its way into his pocket, pawing for the gun inside. I stop and show him the money. I take a step closer, offering it to him.

– For you. For your kids. I.

– Keep that shit away from me. I told you, want nothing to do with that poison. That shit, it kills people. Keep it away from me. Keep it away from my family. I ever see you again, long as I live, I’ll think it’s bad, and I’ll kill you.

The doors slide shut on him, and the money squeezed so tightly between my fingers slips loose and spits onto the floor. I bend over and pick it all up.

IT’S AFTER MIDNIGHT.

I close the door of the unit and haul the case to the elevator. I use the key card. I have to punch in the code three times before I get it right. The elevator takes me down. I walk out of the storage place and look up and down the street. I need someplace safe. Just for a little while. Just till I figure out what to do with this shit. There’s a pay phone at the end of the block.

I find the scrap of stationery in my pocket and make the call. Then I tilt the case onto its side, sit on it and wait.

Times like these. Times like these I wish I still smoked. Wish I still drank. Wish I had some pills. Times like these I wish I had all my bad habits to make the time pass more quickly, and to keep me out of my own head. But I don’t. So I sit and watch the traffic flow by until an airport shuttle bus jerks to a stop right in front of me and rocks back and forth on its shocks, shades pulled down over the windows.

The door folds open and a huge cloud of tobacco and pot smoke rolls out along with the sound of “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’ ” at full volume.

– Yo, Scarface.

I get up, lift the case, and climb up the steps. Jay moves out of the way and I squeeze past him.

THE PARTY BUS is packed. Cyclones players, girls from wherever, and assorted odds and ends are crammed onto the banquets that wrap around the interior. More bodies heave in the wide center aisle, swaying to the music as a disco light spins above their heads and fog pumps in from below their feet.

Miguel squirts out of the press of bodies, the bartender from last night hanging off his arm. He has to scream over the music.

– My man! Where you been?

– Had some things to do!

– No shit? What’s in the box?

I look at the box.

– Something I lost!

Jay grabs me.

– Lost? Yo! You know we don’t talk about losing up in here! This is where the winners roll! Missed a game, Scarface! Missed my man’s first official pro home run. Missed the Cyclones beating the fucking Yankees!

He shakes the beer he’s holding and sprays it in my face.

– Now get your party on, yo! Tonight’s the night!

The song hits the nah-nahs, and everybody sings along at the top of their lungs.

I DRIVE THE party bus.

I drive the party bus because Jay has been feeding cocktails to Walter, the sixty-year-old chauffeur who’s supposed to be driving it. Now Walter is squashed into a corner in the back of the bus, passed out cold and sleeping it off. So I drive the bus with a box of money riding shotgun beside me.

Jay sticks his face through the curtain that separates the driver’s compartment from the rest of the bus.

– Yo! We’re running low on supplies back here. Need a beer stop.

He disappears back into the maelstrom. I cruise around until I spot a grocery on the corner of Third and Eleventh Ave. I double-park on the avenue, find the button that opens the door, hit it, and a crowd of drunken kids tumbles to the street and charges into the grocery for beer and cigarettes and snacks. I turn on the emergency blinkers, set the parking brake, and go into the back of the bus.

The lights are still spinning, but the fog has slowed to a trickle. Whatever the machine uses for juice must be just about out. I kick through the litter of empties, crushed cigarette butts and discarded clothing. The stereo is still blaring. I find the controls mounted above a cluster of empty decanters and switch it off, silencing “No Sleep Til Brooklyn.”

A lone couple has stayed on the bus. They’re half naked and twisting around on one of the banquets, oblivious to me. I have to push Walter out of the way to get the bathroom door open. I step inside the tiny cabinet and close the door.

I take off my sweaty, crumpled jacket and hang it on the hook on the back of the door. I flip up one of the levers on the sink and a sluggish trickle of cool water dribbles out. I hold my hands under it until they fill and splash the water onto my face. I look at myself in the mirror.

My hair is twisted and crushed from sweat and the hat I was wearing. There are streaks of dirt down my neck and on the front of my wife-beater. I get some water on a couple paper towels and use them to wipe away the dirt on my skin and blot at my shirt.

The bus rocks as people start to pile back on. I get more water on my hands and rub them over my head, brushing my clipped hair back into something resembling its usual shape. Someone turns the stereo back on.