Hustle (12 page)

Gilly
made a face, a thoughtful frown, and said, “Dustin? Nope, I don’t know any Dustin.”

“Think harder,” was all Bear said. He knew this punk was lying and he wanted to give him a chance to answer without losing face.

Gilly looked over at Rich with a look of concern, thinking maybe Rich had brought an undercover cop into his home. Rich said, “It’s pretty important.”

G
illy was still shaking his head. “Sorry, don’t know him.”

“Yeah,
you do,” said Bear. “Your name is all over his phonebook, and I know, for a fact, that you two have done business together. So cut the shit. I need to talk to this motherfucker right away.” Bear stood up from the couch, his size now very apparent to the scrawny Gilly.

“What the fuck, Rich
? Who you bringing in here to my home? I don’t know this guy.” Then, to Bear, “Rich brings you here to buy,” he stuttered, “used computer stuff, and you got no manners. Now, I don’t know who you think you are, but …”

Bear
pushed his face a little closer, “You think I’m a cop? Is that it? You fuckin’ wish I was a cop, you dumbfuck, ‘cause I’m gonna fuck you up in a minute. I’m gonna give you the kinda pain a cop never could. Now, where is Dustin?”

Gilly
stepped back, bumping into a monitor. A few empty beer bottles filled with cigarette butts fell to the floor. “Dustin? Dustin? Oh, shit, I thought you said Justin.” Talking fast now, selling it, “Yeah, yeah, I know a Dustin. But I ain’t seen him, I swear. Not for a long time. I think that dude’s in prison or something. I used to know him. I don’t anymore, he and I don’t see straight. If I see him I’ll tell him you’re trying to find him, but I won’t see him. I barely even know him.”

Bear reached forward and wrapped his fingers around
Gilly’s throat and squeezed. Gilly’s face turned red. “Bullshit,” said Bear.

The bedroom door opened. No knock, no warning. Bear let go. There was Kathy, the girl that had let them into the house.

“What’s going on,” she said. “What was all that noise?”

Gilly
couldn’t answer; his throat was still closed up. Bear glared at her, his face still red with anger.

So Donny said, “We’re looking for Dustin.”

“Oh, you just missed him,” Kathy said, smiling, thinking she was being helpful. She was. “He was here with some creepy old guy, like, an hour ago. He slinked outta here without sayin’ nothin’, as usual. If you see him, tell him from me …”

Bear cut her off
, “Excuse us.” He kicked the door shut. She pulled back her face in time to avoid getting it caught in the slamming door. With one quick motion, Bear grabbed Gilly’s elbow and smacked him, mid-biceps, with the palm of his hand. There was a loud crack and Gilly’s face turned white with the shock, the pain.

Gilly
dropped to his knees, crying, “You broke my arm, you broke my arm.”

There was knocking.
Kathy’s voice. “Hey, what’s going on in there? Hello? What was that? Gilly?”

Bear turned to Rich.
“The door.”

Rich moved fast and pushed up against it with one hand holding the knob. Donny began to move through the room, digging, stuffing things into his pockets.

“What did I tell you?” Bear said to Gilly who only cried out, “My arm, my arm.”

Bear hadn’t let go of the elbow, he held
Gilly down by squeezing it with one hand and reached into his boot with the other hand and pulled out the big hunting knife. He pushed it against Gilly’s throat. “Where the fuck did they go?”

There were more voices at the door now, more knocking and pounding. The whole diseased
herd of junkies were trying to push their way in. Bear twisted Gilly’s arm some more; he could see the broken bone pushing against the skin. “Where are they?” He was growling now, trying not to push the knife too hard against his throat.

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Gilly was whimpering. “Maybe Terrence’s, or Gavin’s. He said something about seeing his lawyer.”

“What did he come here for?”

“To get some speed and use the computer. That’s it, that’s all I swear.”

Bear let go of his elbow and smacked him in the face with the butt of his knife.
Gilly curled up in a ball on the dirty carpet.

“Okay,” Bear said to th
e boys, “I’m ready to go.”

Donny said, “What about the computer? We can check the history, see what he was doing.”

Big Rich said, “I can’t hold these fuckers. They’re gonna break down the door.”

Bear
moved behind Big Rich who was barely holding the door closed and said, “Open it.”

Rich stepped back and let the door swing open. When the junkies saw the big biker with a buck knife in his hand, they stood still. They weren’t sure if they wanted to fight this battle for
Gilly.

“Get the fuck out!” o
ne of them shouted.

“Gladly,” said Bear and, knife still in his hand, punched one of them hard in the nose. The blood flowed and the junkie went down. The rest of them stepped aside, still trying to look menacing.

Bear, Rich, and Donny moved as fast as they could through the hallway and down the stairs to the front door.

The
y heard more shouts behind them: “I’ll remember you”

“Get the fuc
k out”

“That’s fucked up.”

And Kathy’s voice screaming, “I’m calling the cops.” 

But no one
there was calling the cops.

They hit the street and moved as quick as they could to the parked car. Rich was practically skipping.

“Did you see that shit? Holy
fuck, that was some wicked-ass U.S. marine-type shit you pulled on that dude. Man, Donny, did you see that shit?”

Donny wa
s speed-walking with his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. “I saw, I saw. I was there, remember?” He checked over his shoulder to see if anyone had come out of the house to follow—or shoot at—them.

They reached the car and piled in, all three out of breath. Rich, still excited, hit Bear in the arm, saying, “Dude, you are a fucking bad-ass.”

Bear was still wheezing. He started the car and looked over at Big Rich, “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

***

They drove through the Mission for several blocks, waiting for the adrenalin to subside, before Big Rich said the obvious thing. “Where’re we going?”

“Looks like we’re back to square one.
That’s a lot of excitement that didn’t yield much information. I don’t know either of those fuckers he mentioned, do you?”
“I didn’t even hear what he said; it was too crazy in there.”

Then, in a quiet voice, from the back seat, Donny said, “I got his gun.”

“What?” said Bear. “You got that son of a bitch’s gun?” He laughed. “I wish you hadda said somethin’, we could have used it to get outta there.”

“What kind is it?” said Big Rich, excited.

“I dunno, but it’s heavy.” Donny pulled the piece out of the inside pocket of his jacket and held it pointed toward the floorboards.

“Whoa,” said Bear. “Put that thing away. That’s the last thing I need is for one of you
dumbfucks to shoot himself in the foot.”

“We’re just taking a look,” said Rich.

“I’ve had bad luck with other people’s guns, that’s all. Just put it away, we don’t need it now, not yet,” Bear said, adding, “Smart move, kid. Volatile situation like that, better us have it than him. Although, I doubt he was gonna be using it.”

“Way to go Donny. Good
lookin’ out,” Rich chimed in, proud of his friend.

“I got his phone, too.”

Bear looked at Donny in the rearview mirror. “Nice,” he said. “You’re smarter than you look, kid. We just may be able to do something with that thing.”

Donny smiled. It was half an insult, but it still made him feel good.

Chapte
r 12

Gabriel woke with his head bouncing off of the Bentley window. The sunlight pierced his eyes and he felt nauseated and in pain. He had no idea where they were, winding on a country road with Dustin taking the sharp curves way too fast. He lifted his head up and could smell tobacco and the ocean.

“Well
, look who decided to join us,” Dustin said.

“Us?” said Gabriel, almost to himself. He looked in the back seat and saw no one. The car veered left around a hairpin turn and Gabriel began to get his bearings. He knew this country. They were in Marin, driving near the c
oast. He could tell by the hue of the light that it was still barely morning and he could feel, by intuition, that they were driving north, away from San Francisco. Where to, he had no idea.

Dustin turned on the radio and
began immediately punching buttons when he heard Thaxton’s classical station. He settled on a pop station that promised,
More Hits, Less Commercials
, and he tapped his hands on the steering wheel cheerfully. Gabriel wasn’t used to seeing Dustin out in natural sunlight and noticed how awful his skin looked. The red blotches on his hands had been freshly picked over and looked irritated and infected. Except for the blemishes, his pale skin was nearly translucent. He had a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and the ashes fell from the cherry onto his lap.

“Where are we going?” asked Gabriel.

“To see a friend of mine, to finish our business. We’ll get you some lunch, you’ll feel better.”

“Where?”
Gabriel noticed his own voice sounding weak, raspy. He fought the urge to ask to see a doctor. He knew that would be pointless. There would be no doctors where they were going.

“Just up the street here. You’ll see,” said Dustin, then he added in a strange sing-song voice high in pitch, “
You’ll see when you get there
!”

Gabriel put his head back against the window and let it bounce lifelessly
against the glass. He tried to shut his eyes. He wasn’t sure whether it was the tobacco smoke or the winding road that was making him more nauseated. He settled in and kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.

Even at the high speed Dustin drove
, the road unfolded slowly. Twisting back and forth, first toward the water, then toward the hills, they slowly wound down to sea level. Gabriel recognized the town as Stinson Beach. He hoped they’d be stopping, but Dustin drove straight through and the small town disappeared behind them. Dustin paid little attention to traffic laws or posted speeds. Where were the police, thought Gabriel, where were the CHP when you needed them?

Soon they were driv
ing away from the coastline again, up into the hills. The road grew narrower and eventually turned to gravel. Dustin pulled into a long driveway that was lined with trees and turned off the radio.

“Be polite when you meet my friend, okay? He’s
gonna help us out with our problem.”

Gabriel looked up and saw a huge house. The front consisted of almost all pane glass facing the direction of the ocean. The sun was high enough now to reflect off
of the house and the result was blinding. You almost couldn’t look at it, like some real-world version of the Emerald City; it shimmered and burned like the sun itself.

Dustin pulled the Bentley between two
other cars in the gravel drive—a Jaguar on the left and a Volvo on the right—and put the car in park. The Jag looked like it hadn’t been moved for months. They both sat for a minute squinting at the great glass house, waiting for something to happen. Dustin laid on the horn. 

“Dusty,” a voice cried out.
Neither Gabriel nor Dustin could tell where the voice was coming from until a shadowy figure appeared at the right of the place. The man was older, looked a bit like a cowboy, Gabriel thought, and seemed to have that bow-legged gait one got from too many years on a horse. He wore a dirty white cowboy hat, too; that helped. His white hair stuck out from under the hat like straw, uncombed and unclean. Gabriel got the impression that they’d just interrupted him from some kind of yard work. He was tanned and leathery from the sun, or maybe just from being in front of that house. 

The cowboy walked in front of the car where Gabriel could get a better look at him.

“Dusty, my boy. How’re you doin’? I see you brought your friend.” The cowboy didn’t acknowledge Gabriel; instead he strolled over to the driver’s side and shook Dustin’s hand as he got out of the car.

“How
ya doin’, Terrence? Yeah, I got him. He ain’t doing so well right now, had a rough night. He’ll feel better after a shower and some lunch.” Dustin turned his head back toward the car, smiling a fake little smile that looked like it didn’t belong on his face. “Won’t cha, Gabe?”

Gabriel felt more exhausted than he had the whole ride. He was too tired to guess what Dustin’s game was, why he’d brought him here. He let his head fall back against the seat and was painfully reminded of the cigarette burns up and down his back.
He leaned against the headrest and let his mind drift. He fell back asleep.

Gabriel dreamed he was far away from the car, outside somewhere on a sunny day. It was a wheat field, deep in the country, but there was a baseball diamond etched into the flowing grass. He was there with his grandson, Jason, alone under a stretching blue sky. He
sensed his daughter’s presence, but she was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she was hiding among the stalks of wheat. Gabriel and the boy played catch. Then, it formalized into a game. Jason was wearing a little league uniform. He pitched the ball while the boy was at bat. He wasn’t sure who was catching, maybe it was him. He wasn’t even sure if it was baseball, but it felt like it. He wound up and threw, feeling youthful and energized. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his back, and when his grandson got a hit, he was forced to squint into the daylight as the ball arced above his head.

The next thing he was aware of was the slamming of the trunk; the noise and action shaking the car and jarring him from his sleep. He had no idea how long he’d been out. The sun still shone but had moved off the front windows of the house. He was covered in a film of sweat. He limbs felt heavy and stiff. He tried to sit up and was reminded of how much pain he was in.

In the rearview mirror, he saw Dustin walking from the back of the car with a large brief
case in his hand, one of the old-style leather ones with the brass clasps. He wondered for a moment if it was his own. The briefcase looked heavy and his mind drifted off to his younger days as a lawyer, lugging such a piece back and forth to the courthouse. He envisioned his younger self; the eager attorney he thought was so naïve. He new better now, he longed to once again be so full of optimism.

Then he saw the cowboy, standing in front of the car with his hands on his hips. It startled him, the
cowboy standing there grinning, not moving or saying anything, but staring right at him.

A
fter an uncomfortable few moments, Dustin reappeared beside the car and opened the passenger door.

“C’mon, sleepyhead.
Get outta there. I want you to meet somebody.” Dustin pulled at Gabriel’s elbow before realizing that the seatbelt was still strapped across the old man’s body. Dustin reached in and unbuckled it.

Gabriel sat, unable to move. He could
smell Dustin’s chemical sweat, the methamphetamine oozing out his pores. It repulsed him.

“Gabriel,” Dustin said,
trying carefully to help the old man from the car, “this is Terrence Halford. He’s a friend of mine. We’re gonna be his guests for a few days”

Terre
nce Halford? Gabriel knew that name. In his fog, he couldn’t recall where, but there was a feeling of
déjà vu
in hearing the name. He squinted in the sunlight to try and place the face.

“Gabriel
Thaxton,” the cowboy said, “The man, the legend. I’ve heard so much about you—for years. It’s a real pleasure to finally meet you.” The man stepped forward and stuck out his hand.

Gabriel eased himself out of t
he passenger seat. His shirt peeled away from the seat where the puss had soaked through and stuck to it. He straightened out stiffly and shook the man’s hand. Getting closer to the cowboy didn’t help him place where he knew that name. The man stood smiling, not letting go of Gabriel’s hand, his grip tight and calloused.

The cowboy said, “C’mon in, have a little lunch, get yourself cleaned up.
We’re having tacos.”

***

The boys sat in a booth with Bear. The boys on one side, Bear on the other. Jimmy’s on Mission Street was a landmark, Bear told them. To the boys, the cracked, red vinyl booths and grease-spotted menus made it seem like any other shitty diner they’d been in. It was noisy in there even though there were only a few patrons. One Mexican cook toiled over a grill while three waitresses shouted orders at him in Korean or Vietnamese, Bear was never sure. He just knew it wasn’t Chinese; he could recognize Chinese. The place was a seventies diner that had not updated its décor since it was originally put up. Oranges and reds that had faded over the years now looked as pale and tired as Bear himself.

When their food arrived—three cheeseburgers and three orders of fries—
Rich and Donny’s assumptions were confirmed, it
was
just another shitty diner. Bear took a huge bite out of his burger and made a deep growling sound to let the boys know how good it was. Rich and Donny each picked up a French-fry and took an unenthusiastic bite. 

“What we have to do,” said Bear, speaking with his mouth full of burger, “is to figure out how to,” he searched for the word,
“analyze the information in Gilly’s phone. Figure out who’s in there that Dustin might know, if he’s called anyone. Then figure out what to do with the information. You know, detective work.”

“Sounds like kind of a kind of a long shot,” said Donny.

“You got any better ideas? That’s the best thing we got right now.” Bear took another bite. “Shit, you were happy about it when you took the damn thing. You musta thought it’d be worth something.”

Big Rich squirted some ke
tchup onto his plate. The plastic squeeze-bottle made a farting noise. He stirred the red blotch with another fry. “We need to check them names,” he said, “quick, before Gilly shuts off that phone. What were they again?”

“I don’t think it’s
gonna get shut off quick. I think your friend is probably still at the hospital gettin’ a cast on that fucked-up arm of his. And I kinda doubt he stopped to look for his phone before he left, or his gun, for that matter.”

“He’s not a friend of mine, just some guy I know. That’s all.”

“Don’t get defensive there, son. Eat your burger.”

The three ate on in silence, the boys barely touching their burgers. Bear finished his an
d asked for the rest of the boys’ burgers. Not much of a question, he reached over and picked up the scraps.

After eating both of their burgers with quick determination, Bear said, “You
gonna finish those fries, or what?”

Donny pushed his plate across the table toward Bear. He took the phone
from his pocket and looked at it. “We’ll probably lose the charge long before it gets shut off.”

Bear
spoke to Big Rich, but pointed to Donny and said, “The brains of the operation.” Bear waved to the waitress, his favorite, an Asian woman named May whose accent was so thick little of what she said was understood, other than “Mr. Bear.” She greeted him as though he was their best and oldest customer.

“A chocol
ate shake, please, May. You boys want anything?” They both shook their heads and May retreated from the table. Bear picked up Dustin’s black address book from the seat beside him, opened it, and began to sort through the slips of paper. He asked Donny for the phone, turned it on, and started the long process of cross-referencing numbers.

The boys sat and watched Bear work.
He scrolled through the phone, through the made calls, the missed calls, the contacts. Most of them were first names only. He found a Terrence, also a Terry—both in the 415 area code. He wrote them down. He also found a Gavin. And, although he didn’t refer to himself as a friend of Gilly’s, he also found Big Rich’s number.

He took the piece of paper he’d written
down the numbers on and began comparing it to the notes from the address book.

Donny and Rich sipped at their waters and fidgeted. They shot quick
, knowing glances back and forth at one another. It was getting close to copping time. They still had a little cash from the tricks they turned the night before last and it was burning a hole in their pockets. Both of them still hung onto the bottles of Vicodin they’d stolen from Gabriel’s house, but neither wanted to use them; partially because they would, for the most part, be ineffective for the oncoming sickness, and partially because they were saving them as a last resort. Big Rich still had a half-gram of Mexican tar crammed into the pocket of his jeans, but he didn’t want to remind Donny for fear he’d have to share. He’d slip upstairs and use the bathroom at the restaurant, but he had no needles with him.