And they all tell it the same way.
nce I worked out what I needed—once I decided that there was no other way to get it—the die was cast.
I chose those last words with care, as you’ll see.
On the day that started it all, Tory-boy wheeled me through the door of the DMZ, then went back to the van and waited. Just like I told him.
It was broad daylight, and the parking lot was almost empty, but Tory-boy didn’t question why I wanted him to park so far away from the front. It did take quite a bit of work to get him to accept the other part, which was: if I didn’t wheel myself out of that building, he was to get himself home first, and then call a number I’d made him memorize.
It wasn’t a number I could program into his phone, and that puzzled him some, but he proved to me he had it in his head.
And he didn’t question why I asked him to recite me that number, over and over again. Or why I asked him to recite it one more time before I rolled myself off.
I made sure not to look back. If I didn’t return, I wanted Tory-boy to have the image of how much I loved him showing on my face forever.
nce inside, I used my hands to get myself over to a big table where both bosses were sitting, each one in between two of his own men. The empty space across from them was for me; they knew I wouldn’t need a chair.
“You each got a note from me,” I said, polite but not nervous; it was too late for that. “And by now, you know you each got the same note. I’m not playing one side against the other, and I never would. But I know you’ve got at least one problem you share. A new problem. And I’m the man who could make that problem go away.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Lansdale asked. There was nothing hiding underneath his voice; he sounded like a man asking a reasonable question. Which, considering the circumstances, it was.
“For money,” I told him. Told them both, actually.
“How much money?” Judakowski asked, showing me the difference between the two bosses as clear as if he wrote it on a blackboard.
“That’s not important right now,” I told them both. “That’s because I don’t want to just solve this one problem for you. What I want is steady work, the kind of work either of you might need doing. Never for one against the other, though.”
“The kind of work that solves problems?”
“Yes, sir,” I said to Lansdale. I could see Judakowski nod out of the corner of my eye, but when he turned to me, his voice was hard.
“You didn’t come here for some friendly conversation.”
“No, I came because I can fix the problem you both have,” I said, letting a little iron into my own voice. “That problem is a motorcycle gang. They call themselves MM-13, which is a name nobody ever heard of. So it’s probably not any kind of national club, just a bunch of men using the motorcycles as cover. My best guess is that the ‘M’ stands for ‘money.’ And the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, that’s an ‘M’ as well. Money-Money-Money—that about sums them up.
“Now, I may be speculating on that, but I’m sure of this: they’re cooking up crank in that old hangar, and it’s cutting into your business. Both your businesses. Meth is cheap to make. So they can sell it cheap, and still turn a fine profit.
“That’s why that gang keeps adding reinforcements. They know, sooner or later, you’ve got to come for them. Neither of you is the kind of man who lets someone take anything away from you.”
“There’s somewhere around forty of them there already,” Judakowski said. I could hear the tiny trickle of interest as it seeped into his voice. “Plenty of military stuff, too.”
Lansdale didn’t ask him where he got that information. But he didn’t argue with it, either.
My turn: “Like I said, that’s the kind of problem I can fix.”
“How would you be doing that?” Lansdale asked. His voice was as polite as mine. Respectful, even.
“I can make it disappear.”
“The man asked you how,” Judakowski said. Now his tone was back to where it had started. But it wasn’t me he was playing top-dog games with; it was Lansdale.
I sat there for a few seconds, deciding. Then I told them: “I can blow it up. The whole hangar, with all of them inside.”
“What’re you gonna do, wheel yourself up to the front door and toss in a grenade?” Judakowski said, not even pretending respect.
“Even a grenade wouldn’t blow that whole thing up,” Lansdale put in, as if Judakowski’s crack had been an honest question. “You’d need dynamite, something like that. So how would you get that much explosive inside their place?”
“You know that big empty barn about a mile or so south of here? That farm that got foreclosed on about a year ago?”
They both nodded.
“If you take me out there, I’ll show you.”
“Planting dynamite in some empty barn—”
“I don’t think that’s what this man wants to show us,” Lansdale said.
“Count me out,” Judakowski said. “I got better things to do than wheel some crip around to watch a show.”
“No, you don’t,” I told him.
“You know who you’re talking to?” one of Judakowski’s men said to me. He was a big guy with eyes squeezed tiny from all their surrounding flesh.
One of Lansdale’s men—I later learned his name was Eugene—slid his right hand into the pocket of his jacket, like he was feeling around for his cigarettes.
“It doesn’t matter who I’m talking to,” I said to the whole table. “I can’t have one of you thinking I work for the other one—I know how that story would end. So either you both agree to let me show you what I can do at the barn, or everybody’s story ends that same way.”
“Now you’re gonna blow this whole place up?” Judakowski kind of sneer-laughed.
“See for yourself,” I said. Then I pulled up the right armrest on my chair.
Lansdale moved his head an inch or so. The man to his right got up and walked over to where I was sitting.
“It’s … it’s packed with dynamite, boss.”
Before anyone could say anything, I closed the armrest. Then I said, “The other side’s packed just as deep. Enough explosive to send this whole place into orbit.”
“And you’re saying … you’re telling us, we don’t go along to see this little ‘demonstration’ of yours, you’ll blow us all up, yourself included?” Judakowski said.
“That is what I’m saying,” I told him.
“You’re bluffing. How do we know it even is dynamite you’ve got in there?”
In a way, that was funny. I’d only used dynamite because it was something any of them would recognize on sight—I can cause a bigger explosion with stuff I could fit into a pack of cigarettes. But all I said was, “You know my name. I’m a man of my word. Always. Ask anyone. And I need money. Not just a payment; I need a supply of money coming in, steady. You, both of you, you’re my only path to that.
“When I say ‘need,’ that’s just what I mean. If I can’t get what I need, I’m not going to be able to protect my brother after I’m gone.
“I know what’s going to happen to me. That can’t be avoided. And it’ll be coming along soon enough. From where I sit—and, yes, I know what that means, too—if I can’t protect my baby brother, my time might just as well come right now.
“I mean no disrespect, but if you think you’re looking at a man who fears death, you’re not looking close enough.
