David Corbett - The Devil’s Redhead

Frank was so behind on his nut now the whole thing was way out of hand. Shel knew he owed money; she had no idea how bad it was. And he didn’t dare tell her. Regardless, on top of everything else, he was nabbing cars for Roy now, like he was in fucking high school. Which was one of the reasons he got talked down to by absolutely everybody, treated like a grunt. I’m sick of the Akers brothers strutting around like they’re the kickass of crime, he thought. Time to make a little score, blow on out of Dodge.

Me and my redhead nurse.

At West Pittsburg he got off the freeway and onto surface streets again, heading toward the water. On Black Diamond Street, a rotting whitewashed billboard displayed a spray-paint chaos of gang names and street handles: The Jiminos, Vicious Richie, Hype Rita, the Beacon Street Dutch. Broken bodies lined the street, grinders, rappies, honks, a line of vacant-eyed women eager to work twists. Party balloons, emptied of hop, lay scattered down the sidewalk.

Reverend Ben’s sat at the end of a cul-de-sac named Freedom Court. The sign above the doorway read:

REVEREND BEN’S APOLLO CLUB

UPLIFTING REVIVALS

GIANT TV

SHUFFLEBOARD

Frank pulled behind the building and parked. The tar paper roof bristled with cattle wire. Candy wrappers and a discarded tampon littered the gravel.

At the doorway Frank hit a stench of gummed-up liquor wells and rancid rubber. As his eyes grew accustomed to the change of light, the barroom came into focus. A large empty room with scattered metal chairs, cracked linoleum, bare bulbs screwed into wall sockets for light.

No giant TV. No uplifting revival.

The bartender, with the chest and arms of a man twice his height, watched Frank wander for a bit. He wore a tight knit shirt and had a shaved head. This, Frank guessed, was Reverend Ben.

Two old men sat with their drinks at the bar. Frank got a feeling of slick, good-natured harmlessness from both, which reassured him. The nearest one farted loudly, and the other looked around in mock astonishment.

“Low-flying duck,” said the first.

“You got mail,” said the other.

The rest of the room was empty. No twins, not yet. Frank ordered a beer and sauntered toward the jukebox, eyeing the hand-scrawled selections. Hop Wilson’s “Black Cat Bone.” Sonny Terry’s “Crow Jane.” John Lee Hooker’s “Crawling King Snake Blues.” Reading the handwritten titles, he couldn’t help feeling that, if he put a quarter in, he’d choose exactly the one song they’d hate him for.

One of the old men drifted up behind. He waved his hand at Frank as though to say: Go on .

“Don’t be pretending you know those tunes,” he said, entering the jukebox glow. He wore a bow tie and a white shirt. His cologne overwhelmed the stench of the bar. He leaned down, staring into the bright machinery. “Slip in your quade.”

Frank took out a quarter and did as he was told.

“Pick this,” the man said, pointing out a song. His hands were large and fluid, the fingers thick as rope. Albert King, “Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven.”

Frank hesitated.

“Go on, won’t electrocute you.”

Frank punched in the code. The man said, “Then this,” pointing out another song. Elmore James, “Shake Your Moneymaker.” The man stood back and smiled.

“Feel better already, don’cha?”

The first song started out slow and raw. The old man recoiled softly, closing his eyes and working each arm as his hips rocked back and forth. Turning back around to his friend, he sang loud when the verse started, his voice a roar, like a preacher’s.

“Everybody wants to laugh

Nobody wants to cry

I said everybody wants to laugh

Ain’t nobody wants to cry

Everybody wants to get to heaven

But nobody wants to die.”

He turned back around to Frank for affirmation, but Frank just stood there. Shel usually handled these sorts of situations for him. Feeling a sudden visceral need for her there, Frank imagined her taking form by his side, like a ghost.

The old man shook his head and ran a thick finger under each eye. “Forget it,” he said, and humped back to the bar.

It took another ten minutes for the twins to appear. They came in one after the other, ducking into the bar with an uneasy familiarity. Their names were Bryan and Ryan Briscoe. They were identically towheaded, sloe-eyed, small and freebase thin. Frank called them Chewy and Mooch, to keep them separate in his mind.

One of the twins approached the center of the room with an expression of mock horror, his arms spread wide as though to embrace a missing thing. This was the wiseass, Mooch. He fell to his knees and cried out, “Reverend Ben! The snooker table! How could you?”

Reverend Ben traded glances with the two old men at the bar. Nobody looked happy.

“What is this,” Reverend Ben said finally. “National Skanky Hustler Day?”

Mooch rose to his feet and went to the bar, impervious to the contempt. He took out a tangled wad of cash, unraveled a bill and smoothed it out on the bar. “Drinks for everybody,” he said. “Gonna miss this place. Chump City. Made a lot of money here.”

The other twin approached Frank. This was the sad one. The nervous one. Chewy.

“We made it,” Chewy said.

The twins were a sight to behold, Frank thought. Youngest issue of the Lodi Briscoes, purveyors of quality feed. The twins were the family fuckups. Frank had made their acquaintance one night as they were hustling pool in a Manteca roadhouse. They had quite a little racket: Chewy suckered the marks in, knocked off to the can, then Mooch came out and finished them off. The brothers took their winnings in cash or blow. From the sounds of things, they’d played this room as well. Amazing, Frank thought, they made it out with their asses intact.

“How’d it go?” Frank asked.

Before Chewy could answer, Mooch came up from behind with three beers. He handed them around, grinning.

“Got three trucks,” Chewy said. He pulled up a metal folding chair and sat. Mooch remained standing. “All parked out in Antioch, where you said.”

“We did a follow-in out at the Red Roof in Tracy,” Mooch crowed. “Some salesman. Took his wallet and his sample bag and tied him up with duct tape. Sells ball bearings, you imagine? Went on out, used his plastic and rented us three big shiny white trucks.”

“Rented?” Frank said.

“Well, yeah,” Chewy said. He had yet to drink from his beer.

“It’s cool,” Mooch said. “They can’t trace it to us, I told you.”

“They can trace it to your follow-in,” Frank said. “Your salesman, he’ll hang a visual on you two. You kinda stand out, know what I mean?”

Chewy leaned closer and spoke softly. “It just seemed too much a risk to steal three trucks, Frank.” He licked his lips and swallowed. “You know, like three on a match?”

“Who’d you rent from?”

“That guy in Clayton you mentioned,” Chewy said. “Lonesome George.”

Frank froze. “Why him?”

“Why not?” Chewy answered. “No offense, but you’re making me very nervous here.”

Lonesome George DeSantis had operated at least a dozen rental agencies, one after the other, until the Insurance Commissioner got wise to his claims record. Lonesome George’s renters tended to have accidents. They tended to have their cars rifled, too, or stolen outright. Now he operated through a straw man. Since he had his shop in east Contra Costa County- CoCo County as the locals called it- Lonesome George kicked back to Felix Randall to keep his operation afloat.

“Why him?” Frank repeated. “Why Lonesome George?”

Mooch leaned down, close to Frank’s face. “Like my brother said, you gave us his name. You said he was a player.”