Alan asks, again, “Did you do it?”
“Do what?” Irritating, that guy is. Such a moron.
“You know …” implying an additional fact or two that could stop a truck.
I put down my cigar, stamp it out roughly. Junior should almost show up by now. Sand through an hourglass. My wristwatch ticks and ticks.Alan grins: giant gums. I must punch that ugly mug of his. I so want to do that. But no, moron’s got cash, so I play ball. “J.R. will show. Trust us.”
Laughing, Alan says, “You know I do. But I just had to know …”
“If I did it? Or J.R?”
Moron shrugs.
I pick at a tooth, back by my molars. Ugh, blood. Sighing, I stand up, back cracking as I slink to a window. “Gustavo Schink.”
“Who?” Alan now sits, squirming as if a bad rash was all up his back. “Is that who did it?”
“I paid him to. Just as you want.”
“I think I know that bastard.”
Sunlight spills in through a big crack in a blind. “If you watch TV, you do.”
“Ohhhhh.” Now, my buddy is finding out I play hard ball. “You know,” Alan says, slowly, “I think you did a bad, bad thing – ”
“A bad thing bringing in Schink?”
“Um, okay, okay.” Alan panics. “What do you think I want? You know what I want!”
It’s my turn to grin. “Calm down, Al. And I did it for you. Now, it’s your cash – ”
“I got it!” Alan, that moron, is shaking, bad. High-pitch sounds spill out of his mouth. I try to nod, oozing sympathy, but it’s not my priority right now. Alan did a bad, bad thing.
A knocking at our door. It’s JR, I know. I put my gun away, but it’s still handy …
“Pay up,” I say softly. Junior walks in.
Alan sighs, back in control. Coughs. His black bag holds forty thousand dollars. And now, it’s all ours.
A round of hand-shaking, and Alan’s a born-again man. Moron splits.
Junior’s happy. So am I. In my car, us two guys, pull out onto Flat Road. Pick up Schink.
I put in a call to our local PD, knowing that Alan is toast.
Sayonara amigo!
No comments:
Post a Comment