The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death (26 page)

He circled back around the counter, untwisting the neck of the bag.

—Jaime, what did I teach you for croaker? When your mama left you with me? What did I teach you?

Jaime never stopped looking at the booze.

—Mussels. Bloodworms. Ghost shrimp. Live ghost shrimp for croaker.

Homero smiled, putting a hand inside the bag and coming out with a zippered vinyl bank envelope.

—Mussels are easiest. Dig them up.

He showed Jaime the envelope.

—But ghost shrimp are best.

Jaime reached for the envelope, the old man pulled it back.

—Still owe a hundred.

Jaime knuckled the corner of his mouth.

—Gave you a grand.

—Yes, yes. Paid the grand. That was for the paperwork.

He nodded at the cooler full of squid.

—For storage, it's another hundred.

Jaime looked at me.

—You got a C?

—What?

—You want this deal greenlighted or what? I need a hundred fucking dollars.

I went in my pocket for what was left of the cash Po Sin had paid me the last couple days, what I hadn't spent or given to Chev.

—I got seventy-nine and some change.

I walked over and dropped it on the counter. Jaime looked at it, looked at the old man.

The old man shrugged and handed Jaime the envelope.

—You owe me the rest.

He scooped the money from the counter.

—Don't forget, ghost shrimp for croaker.

Jaime headed for the door, I followed.

Homero opened his cash register to put the money inside.

—And tell your mama I said hi.

Jaime pushed out the door, mouth closed, waiting for me at the truck until I unlocked his door. He jerked it open and climbed in.

I walked around and got in and put the key in the ignition.

—Uncle or something?

He shook his head.

—Mom's first pimp.

He looked at me.

—Croaker is the worst fucking fish in the world. Rather eat shit.

He looked out the window at the old man waving from inside the shop.

—Rather eat shit like a fucking dog.

—What went wrong?

Jaime took his eyes from the water below us as I worked the Apache up the steep incline of the bridge, past the parti-colored bulk of a Swedish cruise ship moored on our right.

—Mean,
what went wrong?
Motherfucker turned her out. That's what went wrong. Not that I give a fuck. Bitch wanted to whore, that's her business. Not like she stuck with it anyway. Moms is talent. Adult films. Got a name.

Feeling, I will admit, more than a bit awkward, I clarified.

—No, I mean, what went wrong with the almond deal? Why'd you cut Talbot and all that?

He played with the zipper on the envelope.

—That shit.
What went wrong.
What went wrong with that shit was Soledad's dad went totally off script and started improvising. Killed himself. Fuck do you think went wrong?

—But you didn't get involved until he was already.

—Yeah. So? Still, motherfucker had been alive, it all would have worked out.

I kept my own counsel, unable to find a hole in his logic.

He provided enlightenment.

—Not my business, this shit. I'm a dream merchant, yeah? Commodities aren't my thing. I mean some X, sure, but not produce. Took me a bit of time because they needed someone on the other end.

—Like who?

—Like a buyer. Harris, he lost his buyer on the other end, the one his relative had him hooked up with. He came down here, it wasn't just that he needed to get the load shipped, he needed a new buyer. Soledad's pops supposed to have one all lined up.

—So?

—So?
So whatever the buyer's name was ends up splattered all over the wall with the rest of the contents of Westin Nye's brain. Asshole. You, not him.

We crested the midpoint of the bridge and the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach rolled away below us, spiked with endless cranes, crossed with rail sidings, piled with containers. Industrial wasteland parceled and fenced and knitted together by wide roadways traveled by caravans of eighteen-wheelers, all of it reeking of oil and exhaust.

L.L. loved it down here. Wrote it into any number of unmade screenplays.

One of the great American metaphors, Web. The outer reach of manifest destiny, the point from which we ship the material instruments of our cultural dominance. The physical bookend to the work we do in Hollywood. Fuck, you could shoot an amazing chase scene here. Blow the shit out of
The French Connection.

Other things could be blown the shit out of at the port. I remember drinking a milk shake in a diner between a truck wash and a strip club up on East Anaheim Street while L.L. had his pipes cleaned by one of the strippers who worked both long-hauler conveniences.

I put aside my reverie.

—So, no buyer. What else went wrong?

He looked back at San Pedro, over the bridge and across the water.

—I couldn't find a forwarder who would handle the load. Turned out I was gonna have to deal with people I didn't want to have to deal with. Homero. And he wanted that grand for the paperwork, up front. Seeing as all my liquid capital is tied up with the YouTube kids, I'm a little cash poor just now. So I had to move some X and that took time.

—You blew your end of the deal.

—I did not blow my end. Obstacles came up that I hadn't been able to avoid. Shit took longer than I thought. They wanted turnaround like yesterday. But from working in the industry, I'm geared toward things moving at a steady pace. I'm used to weighing the pros and cons of decisions when millions could be at stake. Someday. These guys, they want to sell shit and get paid right away.

—Strange how thieves might be in a hurry.

—Fucking cool it with the smartass, asshole. Here, over here.

—Here?

—Yeah.

We came off the 47 onto Ocean Boulevard, past the twin domes of the waste reclamation plant, a monstrous installation far too evocative of colossal and perfectly symmetrical breasts for Jaime not to comment.

He pointed.

—Looks like big tits.

I declined to respond.

—Big titties.

I changed the subject.

—So what happened when you couldn't do what they wanted when they wanted it?

He threw his hands up.

—Fucking Talbot gets all in my face. Starts talking about the delay means costs and how they're gonna have to come out of my ten percent. Bullshit.

—Yeah, total bullshit. And that was before you knew they weren't even paying the full ten percent.

—Fucking right! Shit. Telling me I was gonna have to cover their hotel and meals for the extra days. As if.

I took a moment to replay what he'd said. Decided I had to be wrong. Realized I probably wasn't. Thought I'd ask. Thought I'd rather not know for sure. And finally couldn't help myself.

—Um, they wanted you to cover their expenses?

—Believe that shit?

—For like a couple days, right?

—Fucking gall!

—They wanted you to cover their room and board for a couple days was what they wanted? Am I correct about that?

—Yeah, that's what I'm saying. You need it in some other brand of English?

—You cut Talbot and started this whole round of shit because?

—Because motherfucker was reneging on a business agreement. I mean, shit may fly in Butte County, but not in Hollywood.

I stared at the rear of the bobtail we were stuck behind.

—Jaime. You cut a man. His boss, his uncle got pissed. He got so pissed, he killed the man you cut.

—And?

I cranked the wheel over and took us off Ocean onto the access road to Terminal T and pulled to the side of the road.

—Dots not connecting, are they? Pointless for me to continue? Yes, I can see that's the case. I won't even bother with the part where they must have been watching your hotel room when I showed up. The part where they followed me and Soledad up to L.A. and snatched her and, by the by, stole my boss's van. Oh, and that, that bit of grand theft auto, for the record, that led to another van being firebombed and shots being fired into a place of business. But I will refrain from lining it up so you can see how all these events result from you not being willing to pick up someone's fucking per diem. Asshole.

He brushed his hand at me.

—Not my fault. People responsible for themselves. Nobody in this, nobody that didn't put themselves in it.

I raised my hand.

—I'd beg to differ. My ass is in this because I got dragged in by a psycho cowboy who told me to get his almonds or
something bad
would happen to someone I like.

He leaned close.

—No, you're in this because my sis called you in the middle of the night for a little help and you came running as fast as you could because you wanted to get in tight with her and tap that ass.

It would have been nice to tell him he was wrong. More to the point, it would have been nice if he had
been
wrong. But he wasn't.

I slumped back in the seat.

—OK. Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck us all. We're all fucked. Now what?

He unzipped the bank envelope and took out a pistol and pointed it at me.

—Now we discuss terms. Points of gross and shit.

—They have your sister!

—Man, I don't care. I mean, I care. And I'm gonna get her back, but I don't want any misunderstanding, I'm getting my fucking ten percent.

—Wait, is that the real ten percent, or the fake ten percent you were too stupid to realize wasn't really ten percent because you are so fucking stupid?

—Man, did I show you this?

He picked up the gun from the dash again and showed it to me.

—That's all you've shown me for the last half hour.

He pointed it at me.

—So stop fucking around.

—You stop pointing that thing at me! I told you in the first place, I cannot think when you point that at me! I'm like a freak that way, all my brain juice runs out my ass when some moron who doesn't know his multiplication tables points a gun at me and might accidentally pull the trigger because he thinks it's his nose and he's trying to pick it!

—OK, OK, chill, chill!

He put the gun back on the dash.

—There, it's down. Chill.

I chilled. Or I tried to chill. My ability to chill being seriously hampered. My sense of proportion, already in sorry shape before I first walked into a cockroach-filled apartment and started hauling little plastic bags of shit out of it, was fucked beyond recognition.

And I was having some very creepy thoughts.

Like …

What if none of this is real? I mean, does it seem real to you, Web? Have you ever had experiences like this? Has anyone you know had experiences like this? Does this not seem rather more like a bad screenplay L.L. might have brushed up in the ’80s than like real life? Are you, perhaps, going a little more loony than you first suspected? Or, wait, how about this? Maybe you're not going crazy, maybe, wait for it, maybe you're dead? Get it? Like, you got hit
by one of the bullets on the bus? Like you died on the bus and all of this is like after-death experience, like your journey into the afterlife? Or maybe you're still alive, still on the bus? Like it all just happened, is happening, right now? What about that shit?

I shook my head.

—No. No way. Too weird.

Jaime shot me an eye.

—Say what?

—Nothing. I'm cool. I'm here. This is happening. I know this is happening. I'm here. This is here and now. I'm here.

—Dude, are you?

—I'm fine. I'm cool. So. You were saying, ten percent?

He tilted his head.

—OKaaaaaay. So, Mr. Scary Asshole, what I'm saying is, I want it understood that if we bring them their can, with the almonds, I'm not sacrificing my ten percent. They're the ones pulling out of the deal. I took the time and expense of arranging a buyer for their property and all that shit. I'm not just walking away with nothing.

I finished taking the deep breaths that seemed to be doing very little to help calm me.

—Yes, but you will not be getting
nothing.
You will, in fact, be getting your sister.

—That wasn't the deal! I want my ten percent! And the
real
ten percent. Whatever you said that was.

—OK, fine. So how do we?

He picked up the gun.

—With this. Motherfuckers try to duck out without paying my due, I'm taking action. So you know how I roll. That's what I'm saying. Respect, gotta have it.

That bit of dialogue coming straight from
Boyz N the Hood
if I'm not mistaken.

I stared at the gun in his hand. I thought about how my brain might react to a sudden outbreak of gunfire. Another sudden outbreak of gunfire, I mean. I thought about how my body might react to a sudden outbreak of bullets hitting it. I thought about cops, and who would be screwed if I called them, and found I couldn't keep track of all the details. I thought about thinking about what I said next, but knew if I did I
wouldn't be able to say what I said. If that makes sense. Which, of course, it does not.

—I'll cover it.

—Huh?

—The ten percent, I'll cover it.

—What? How?

—I can cover that. If they don't come through, and I kind of think we shouldn't even bring it up, I'll pay it.

He weighed the gun on his hand.

—Bullshit. You clean up after dead people. Where you gonna get twenty-two Gs?

I waited.

He shook his head.

—Twenty-six four! I mean twenty-six four! We're talking twenty-six four here.

—I can get it. I have savings and shit. I can cover it. I'll cover it. If they won't pay you, I will.

He looked me over, licked his lips.

—Know if you're fucking around what will happen, right?

—You'll cut me bad, is what I'm thinking.

—At the least.

—Yeah, at the least.

He nodded.

—OK. OK. Deal. We give them the can no matter what.

—After they give us Soledad.

—Yeah, right, whatever.

I pointed at the gun.

—And you leave that behind when we meet them.