Charlie Huston - A Dangerous Man

When I come in he looks over his shoulder at me.

– Your levels are wrong.

I sit on the couch and lace my sneakers.

– Thanks for taking care of that.

He frowns and turns back to the stereo.

– And your gun needs to be cleaned.

I don’t know where the gun came from, but Branko gave me that, too. I was supposed to kill someone with it.

BRANKO SHOWED UP one night and we drove into Paradise, to one of the New Mexico-style housing tracts over there that look just like all the other New Mexico-style housing tracts in Paradise. He parked the car outside a house. We went in and I beat the hell out of a guy who had welshed on one too many bets, or stopped paying his vig, or cheated at cards, or didn’t give a job to somebody’s cousin, or something. Then Branko handed me this little revolver with the numbers filed off. I hadn’t realized it was that. I thought it was a beating: beat the guy, make your point, get out. But it wasn’t. It was a job with a gun.

Branko flipped the guy onto his stomach. I stood over the guy and pointed the gun at the back of his head.

The way you do it, you empty the gun, you wipe the gun, you drop the gun. The gun is a big fuck you. First it says fuck you to the guy who’s getting it. Then it says fuck you to the cops. And finally, it says fuck you to all the guys out there who know why this guy got his head shot to pieces. The gun sitting next to the corpse says fuck this guy, fuck the cops who aren’t going to catch me and fuck all you assholes out there that are thinking about fucking with David Dolokhov.

I’ve delivered that particular litany of fuck you’s three times.

So I stand there with the .22 in my hand. It holds seven rounds. All I have to do is put them all in the back of this guy’s head and drop the big fuck you.

But I don’t. Instead I just stand there. Stand there and flex my trigger finger. But it never moves.

Branko gave it a minute, then he shot the guy with his own gun. Back in the car I tried to give him the little revolver, but he told me to keep it for the next time. But the next time I still couldn’t do it. And then David stopped sending me on jobs like that, and I started feeling more and more that I had let him down, and that sooner or later, I’d have to pay for it.

But they let me keep the gun. A kind of promise to me that even if I have given up on myself, they haven’t.

They know I still have it in me.

Killing still inside me.

I LOOK AT the gun. It’s a Smith & Wesson .22 Magnum. A perfect gun for killing people. It’s very small and very lightweight, but those Magnum loads still pack plenty of punch. I pull the cuff of my shirtsleeve down and use it to brush off the rest of the Comet. Branko straightens from the stereo and looks at me.

– This is what you will wear?

I look at my jeans, sneakers, and long-sleeve T-shirt.

– Is it wrong?

– For later. When you pick this man up. You must look better.

– A suit?

He thinks about it.

– Black jeans. A clean shirt. A jacket. And nice shoes. You have these things?

– No.

He nods.

– We will go detail the car now, and then we will shop.

WE STAND IN the air-conditioned waiting room and watch through the window as the Mexican kids detail my ’91 Cutlass Calais. Branko takes a sip from the cup of coffee he got at the mini-mart next door.

– Such an ugly car.

– You said I should get something unassuming.

– Yes, but this?

He angles his cup at the Olds.

– This is a piece of crap.

– It’s a fast piece of crap.

He nods, giving my piece of crap its due.

They let me have a car when I was moved out of the Suites. Branko said it should be unassuming, reliable and fast. I clicked online and came up with a few options and we drove around to look at them. The Olds was a steal; a midsize, 2.3 four-banger with the Quad 442 performance package that cranks the horsepower over two hundred. The guy who owned it got it as part of his parents’ estate and had no idea what he had. Fifty thousand original miles and we got it for under three thousand dollars.

The guy I’m picking up is a kid, a kid with a lot of money. Branko is concerned the kid won’t think the car is cool enough. It’s an ugly car, boxy and generic, aggressively uncool.

– You want to lend me your car?

Knowing he never lets anyone drive his car.

He drains his coffee.

– No. No one may drive my car.

Branko is a Toyota fanatic. Every year he pants over the new Camry, and every year he’s behind the wheel of the new model by Christmas.

– Fine. Wouldn’t want to drive that crap-box anyway.

He crumples his coffee cup and tosses it in the trash.

– Not a crap-box. Most reliable car on the road. My Camry will never break down. Safer than Volvo, and half the price. And if it ever breaks, it will not cost me my life savings to fix. Fucking Volvo.

Branko used to have a Volvo. It broke down while he was on the way to a job. He got there late. In the meantime someone had tipped the guy off. The guy was waiting for Branko when Branko came in the door. Things turned out OK, for Branko. But after that he swore off Volvos and pledged fidelity to Toyota.

The Mexican kids are waving their chamois over the red paint of the Olds. Branko and I slip on our sunglasses and push out the door into 100 degrees. If there was the slightest humidity in the air I’d sweat my clothes through by the time we reach the car. Instead, all the moisture is sucked from my body and into the atmosphere. Branko makes a show of looking the car over for any fingerprints or flecks of dry wax caught in the edges of the trim. I take a twenty from my pocket and hand it to the crew-boss and stir my finger in a little circle, letting him know to share the tip with his boys. Then I climb in the car, start the engine and blast the A/C.

THE GUY COMING to town likes to gamble. And he has money. That’s why David has taken an interest. All I’m supposed to do is pick him up, drive him wherever he wants to go, keep him out of trouble, and act tough.

Branko takes a black jacket from the rack and hands it to me. I take the jacket off its hanger.

– Act tough?

– To make an impression.

– So?

– Tough. Say little. Look at everyone. Wear your sunglasses inside.

I shrug into the jacket and Branko looks me over.

– This will do.

We’ve only been in the mall for thirty minutes, but already I have three new shirts, some black Levi’s that actually fit, a pair of black shoes, and now the jacket. We head for the register and I pull a roll of bills from my pocket. Branko pushes my hand down.

– Business expense.

He takes out a billfold, I pile the clothes on the counter, and he lays plastic next to them. The name on the card is Fred Durben. I don’t know who Fred is. Could be he’s a guy who handed his cards over in lieu of cash. Now he spends his sleeping hours having nightmares about the waste being laid to his credit rating; his waking hours a worse nightmare of watching the red-marked bills pile up. Could be he’s a guy who never existed, just a name with a credit history and this one account. Could be he’s in a hole in the desert, could be he’s in several holes in the desert. All I know for certain is that the card isn’t hot. If it belongs to a dead body, it’s a body that’s never been found and will never be missed. Branko would never trade in hot plastic. As it is, he’ll probably clip the thing into a hundred pieces when he gets home, and drop each piece into a separate storm drain.

The cashier slides Branko the receipt and he signs it with a scrawl that might say Fred Durben, but that most certainly looks nothing like the signature he uses when he signs his real name. If he has a real name anymore. I pick up the bags and we head for the parking lot.