Short Stories

“I was hauling the coke north and the money south,” he said.

I said nothing.

“You ever seen that much cash?” he asked. “I mean, really seenit?”

“No,” I said.

“You can barely even lift it. You could get a hernia, a box like that.”

I said nothing.

“I was doing two trips a week,” he said. “I was never off the road. I wore grooves in the pavement. And there were dozens of us.”

“Altogether a lot of cash,” I said, because he needed me to open the door to the next revelation. He needed me to understand. He needed my permission to proceed.

“Like a river,” he said.

I said nothing.

“Well, hell,” he said. “There was so much it meant nothing to them. How could it? They were drowning in it.”

“A man takes a chance,” I said.

The guy didn’t reply. Not at first. I held up two fingers to the old girl in the short skirt and watched her put two new bottles of Heineken on a cork tray.

“I took some of it,” the guy said.

The old girl gave us our new bottles and took our old ones away. I said four importsto myself, so I could check my tab at the end of the night. Everyone’s a rip-off artist now.

“How much of it did you take?” I asked the guy.

“Well, all of it. All of what they get for ten keys.”

“And how much was that?”

“A million bucks. In cash.”

“Okay,” I said, enthusiastically, deferentially, like, Wow, you’rethe man.

“And I kept the product, too,” he said.

I just stared at him.

“From Boston,” he said. “Dudes up there are paranoid. They keep the cash and the coke in separate places. And the city’s all dug up. The way the roads are laid out now it’s easier to get paid first and deliver second. They trusted me to do that, after a time.”

“But this time you picked up the cash and disappeared before you delivered the product.”

He nodded.

“Sweet,” I said.

“I told the Martinez boys I got robbed.”

“Did they believe you?”

“Maybe not,” he said.

“Problem,” I said.

“But I don’t see why,” he said. “Not really. Like, how much cash have you got in your pocket, right now?”

“Two hundred and change,” I said. “I was just at the ATM.”

“So how would you feel if you dropped a penny and it rolled down the storm drain? A single lousy cent?”

“I wouldn’t really give a shit,” I said.

“Exactly. This is like a guy with two hundred in his pocket who loses a penny under the sofa cushion. How uptight is anyone going to be?”

“With these guys, it’s not about the money,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

We went quiet and drank our beers. Mine felt gassy against my teeth. I don’t know how his felt to him. He probably wasn’t tasting it at all.

“They’ve got this other guy,” he said. “Dude called Octavian. He’s their investigator. And their enforcer. He’s going to come for me.”

“People get robbed,” I said. “Shit happens.”

“Octavian is supposed to be real scary. I’ve heard bad things.”

“You were robbed. What can he do?”

“He can make sure I’m telling the truth, is what he can do. I’ve heard he has a way of asking questions that makes you want to answer.”

“You stand firm, he can’t get blood out of a rock.”

“They showed me a guy in a wheelchair. Story was that Octavian had him walking on his knees up and down a gravel patch for a week. Walking on the beach, he calls it. The pain is supposed to be terrible. And the guy got gangrene afterward, lost his legs.”

“Who is this Octavian guy?”

“I’ve never seen him.”

“Is he another Colombian?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t the guy in the wheelchair say?”

“He had no tongue. Story is Octavian cut it out.”

“You need a plan,” I said.

“He could walk in here right now. And I wouldn’t know.”

“So you need a plan fast.”

“I could go to L.A.”

“Could you?”

“Not really,” the guy said. “Octavian would find me. I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder the whole rest of my life.”

I paused. Took a breath.

“People get robbed, right?” I said.

“It happens,” he said. “It’s not unknown.”

“So you could pin it on the Boston people. Start a war up there.

Take the heat off yourself. You could come out of this like an innocent victim. The first casualty. Nearly a hero.”

“If I can convince this guy Octavian.”

“There are ways.”

“Like what?”

“Just convince yourself first. You were the victim here. If you really believe it, in your mind, this guy Octavian will believe it, too. Like acting a part.”

“It won’t go easy.”

“A million bucks is worth the trouble. Two million, assuming you’re going to sell the ten keys.”

“I don’t know.”

“Just stick to a script. You know nothing. It was the Boston guys. Whoever he is, Octavian’s job is to get results, not to waste his time down a blind alley. You stand firm, and he’ll tell the Martinez boys you’re clean and they’ll move on.”

“Maybe.”

“Just learn a story and stick to it. Beit. Method acting, like that fat guy who died.”

“Marlon Brando?”

“That’s the one. Do like him. You’ll be okay.”

“Maybe.”

“But Octavian will search your crib.”

“That’s for damn sure,” the guy said. “He’ll tear it apart.”

“So the stuff can’t be there.”

“It isn’tthere.”