Dave Zeltserman - Fast Lane

I asked the gal working the tables to bring me a beer. I didn’t have to worry about Max spotting me. He wasn’t about to notice anything except the booze and all the crap he’d convinced himself life was dumping on him. He wasn’t going to see me until I wanted him to and by then it would be too late.

He kept me waiting quite a bit, taking extra care to treat each drink with kindness. Being gentler with the alcohol than he ever was with his own wife or kids. Almost two hours later, Max had his wallet out and was looking at it with dejected bewilderment. That meant it was empty and he couldn’t face up to the fact that the booze was going to be cut off.

He tried kidding the barkeep for one last drink but the barkeep turned a deaf ear. Max stood there, uncomprehending, before resigning himself to the cruelty of the situation, and, shoulders slouched, turned towards the door.

I headed for the men’s room. On the way I made a sharp turn out the side door. I took a deep breath and waited, holding myself close to the outside of the building. As Max walked past me, I moved out and pushed my foot hard against the back of his leg, hitting the area just below the knee. He sort of crumpled backwards, and I dug my forearm into his neck and threw myself forward, letting gravity do the rest. We ended up falling into a heap, me crisscrossed on top of him and his head wedged between the dirt ground and my elbow.

Spitting out dirt, he mumbled, “You picked the wrong guy. I’m flat broke.”

I forced one of his eyes open with my thumb and waited until it focused. “It’s me, Max,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you.”

He didn’t say anything for a minute, a little too dazed to realize what was happening. When he finally recognized me he demanded to know what the hell I was doing. Then he ordered me to get off him.

“Not until I kick your teeth in.”

“What for? What did I ever do to you?”

“Why don’t you talk to your wife about it? I was on the radio this afternoon and she tried to make trouble for me. Talked a whole lot of garbage about me blackmailing my clients.”

“Well, it’s true!”

I put more pressure to his head with my forearm and he squeezed his eyes shut. “I have to disagree with you on that. I think she should keep her ugly mouth shut.”

“Why are you telling me? Talk to her yourself. For all the good it’ll do you. She’s pissed at the way you’ve been treating me.”

“Get it through your thick skull that ff she hurts me she’s going to hurt you just as bad. Or worse. You’ll be the first one to get cut off.”

“You’ve already done that. I spoke to Tommy and Jim. I know what’s going on.”

I started laughing. It was all I could do looking down at his big ugly face, all puckered up on the verge of bawling. Filled with self-righteousness and goddamned hopelessness.

He demanded to know what I was laughing at.

“You,” I said. “And that big cement block you call a head. Look, why don’t we have us a talk? Let me buy you a drink.”

I helped him up and brushed him off. For a second he looked as if he was going to take a swing at me. I gave him my handkerchief to clean up his face.

We turned back into the bar. The barkeep raised an eyebrow but didn’t say a word. Hell, Max did look a mess, blood and dirt smudged across his face. I bought a round of drinks and we drank them silently.

After a while we were both fidgeting in our chairs. I started things off. “I want to be fair to you,” I said. “But you have to be fair in return. I never wanted a partner. I like running my own operation.”

“You owe me,” Max said, talking more into his shot glass than to me.

“Well, let’s say I do, and I have to tell you I’m not entirely convinced of that. What do you suggest?”

His face convulsed as if he had swallowed something that needed to be spat out. “Just make me your goddamn partner,” he said.

I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. I was only playing for time. When we were out there in the dirt an idea had snuck up on me. I needed to give it a few minutes to gel. And it was forming nicely.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “There’s got to be something else we could do.”

“Why? You promised me.”

“Come on, that’s not getting us anywhere.”

“At least give me some of your clients. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t know if that would be such a good idea. People don’t like to be told where to go-but you know what we could do?

“How about this,” I continued, acting as if I had a genuine revelation. “We could work it so we were more like partners. I’ll give you a fifty-fifty split on all work you do for me.

“You know what else we could do?” I added, drawing it out. “I can have you deal directly with the clients. If they’re satisfied with your work, I’ll recommend they contact you for future jobs. And when you get enough clients on your own, we can call it quits.”

Max was rolling his shot glass around in his palms. He kept his eyes on the table but I swear tears were popping up around them. “I only wanted what’s fair. Thanks, Johnny. I’m sorry about everything that happened.”

He wiped his shirtsleeve across his face, and started apologizing and thanking me like there was no tomorrow. He was overreacting to the situation. Fifty percent of nothing is still nothing, and that was all I was going to give him. I’d throw him a few scraps here and there but nothing he could live on. Just enough to keep him guessing whether or not I was on the level. He’d probably suspect pretty soon what was really going on, but he wouldn’t know for sure. And that would be the hell of it, because if I was on the level then the scraps would keep him going until the steak came, but if I wasn’t, then I would just be slowly starving him. By the time he figured it out it would be too late. Him and Moira would be too tired and hungry to want to cause me any more trouble.

I would have liked to have given Max another chance. Deep down I believed that. But him and his wife were too much of a nuisance to keep around. I couldn’t afford to give Moira another opportunity to get pissed at me. For all I knew, next time she’d end up taking out a full-page ad to air her grievances.

I bought another round. “Max,” I said. “One thing. Could you talk to Moira? Straighten her out as to how things stand?”

“It’s as good as done, Johnny.”

From the look he gave me I could tell he was planning on doing more than just talking to her. If I was lucky, in the drunken state he was in, he’d end up breaking her neck.

I gave him a slap on the back, said, “I have had a hell of a day and I’m going to call it quits. Stop by the office at nine tomorrow and I’ll set you up with an assignment.”

Max nodded and told me I wouldn’t be disappointed in him. I didn’t think there was a chance of that either.

I saw what I thought was a large dog lying on my front doorstep. My night vision’s pretty poor, always has been, and as I got closer I realized it was a person. A few yards from my door I realized it was Mary.

Her eyes were red and swollen but no more so than the rest of her face.

“Mary,” I said, feeling a sickness start up in my stomach, “what’s wrong?”

She looked beyond miserable. “Oh, Johnny-” she cried, as she got up and buried her face into my chest.

I took her inside and cleaned her face up. The crying eventually subsided. I made her some coffee, pouring a good shot of whiskey into it, and made her take a few sips.

“Can you tell me what happened?” I asked.

She nodded, and bit hard on her lip. “I went to see him tonight, and h-he-” she gasped. Then she got her control back and, with her eyes dulling a bit, said, “He tried to rape me.”