Johnny Temple - USA Noir - Best of the Akashic Noir Series

Ricky was in the rear, at the short L of the bar, his regular throne. The bartender, a dusty old guy, maybe black, maybe white, you couldn’t tell, kept an uneasy eye on the guys argu­ing. “It’s cool,” Ricky reassured him. “I’m on it.”

Mr. Suit had a briefcase open. A bunch of papers were inside. Most of the business in this pungent, dark Hell’s Kitchen bar involved trading bags of chopped-up plants and cases of Johnny Walker that’d fallen off the truck; the trans­actions were conducted in either the men’s room or the alley out back. This was something different. Skinny, five-foot-four Ricky couldn’t tip to exactly what was going down, but that magic sense, his player’s eye, told him to pay attention.

“Well, fuck that,” Wannabe said to Mr. Suit.

“Sorry.” A shrug.

“Yeah, you said that before.” Wannabe slid off the stool. “But you don’t really sound that fucking sorry. And you know why? Because I’m the one out all the money.”

“Bullshit. I’m losing my whole fucking business.”

But Ricky’d learned that other people losing money doesn’t take the sting out of you losing money. Way of the world.

Wannabe was getting more and more agitated. “Listen careful here, my friend. I’ll make some phone calls. I got people I know down there. You don’t want to fuck with these guys.”

Mr. Suit tapped what looked like a newspaper article in the briefcase. “And what’re they gonna do?” His voice lowered and he whispered something that made Wannabe’s face screw up in disgust. “Now just go on home, keep your head down, and watch your back. And pray they can’t—” Again, the lowered voice. Ricky couldn’t hear what “they” might do.

Wannabe slammed his hand down on the bar again. “This isn’t gonna fly, asshole. Now—”

“Hey, gentlemen,” Ricky called. “Volume down, okay?”

“The fuck’re you, little man?” Wannabe snapped. Mr. Suit touched his arm to quiet him, but he pulled away and kept glaring.

Ricky slicked back his greasy, dark blond hair. Easing off the stool, he walked to the front of the bar, the heels of his boots tapping loudly on the scuffed floor. The guy had six inches and thirty pounds on him but Ricky had learned a long time ago that craziness scares people a fuck of a lot more than height or weight or muscle. And so he did what he always did when he was going one on one—threw a weird look into his eyes and got right up in the man’s face. He screamed, “Who I am is guy’s gonna drag your ass into the alley and fuck you over a dozen different ways, you don’t get the fuck out of here now!”

The punk reared back and blinked. He fired off an auto­matic “Fuck you, asshole!”

Ricky stayed right where he was, kind of grinning, kind of not, and let this poor bastard imagine what was going to happen now that he’d accidentally shot a little spit onto Ricky’s forehead.

A few seconds passed.

Finally, Wannabe drank down what was left of his beer with a shaking hand and, trying to hold on to a little dignity, he strolled out the door, laughing and muttering, “Prick.” Like it was Ricky backing down.

“Sorry about that,” Mr. Suit said, standing up, pulling out money for the drinks.

“No, you stay,” Ricky ordered.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you.”

The man hesitated and sat back down.

Ricky glanced into the briefcase, saw some pictures of nice-looking boats. “Just gotta keep things calm round here, you know. Keep the peace.”

Mr. Suit slowly closed the case, looked around at the faded beer promotion cut-outs, the stained sports posters, the cobwebs. “This your place?”

The bartender was out of earshot. Ricky said, “More or less.”

“Jersey.” Mr. Suit nodded at the door that Wannabe had just walked out of. Like that explained it all.

Ricky’s sister lived in Jersey and he wondered if maybe he should be pissed at the insult. He was a loyal guy. But then he decided loyalty didn’t have anything to do with states or cities and shit like that. “So. He lost some money?”

“Business deal went bad.”

“Uh-huh. How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“Buy him another beer,” Ricky called to the bartender, then turned back. “You’re in business with him and you don’t know how much money he lost?”

“What I don’t know,” the guy said, his dark eyes looking right into Ricky’s, “is why I should fucking tell you.”

This was the time when it could get ugly. There was a tough moment of silence. Then Ricky laughed. “No worries.”

The beers arrived.

“Ricky Kelleher.” He clinked glasses.

“Bob Gardino.”

“I seen you before. You live around here?”

“Florida mostly. I come up here for business some. Delaware too. Baltimore, Jersey shore, Maryland.”

“Yeah? I got a summer place I go to a lot.”

“Where?”

“Ocean City. Four bedrooms, on the water.” Ricky didn’t mention that it was T.G.’s, not his.

“Sweet.” The man nodded, impressed.

“It’s okay. I’m looking at some other places too.”

“Man can never have too much real estate. Better than the stock market.”

“I do okay on Wall Street,” Ricky said. “You gotta know what to look for. You just can’t buy some stock ’cause it’s, you know, sexy.” He’d heard this on some TV show.

“Truer words.” Now Gardino tapped his glass into Ricky’s.

“Those were some nice fucking boats.” A nod toward the briefcase. “That your line?”

“Among other things. Whatta you do, Ricky?”

“I got my hand in a lot of stuff. Lot of businesses. All over the neighborhood here. Well, and other places too. Maryland, like I was saying. Good money to be made. For a man with a sharp eye.”

“And you have a sharp eye?”

“I think I do. Wanta know what it’s seeing right now?”

“What, your eye?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s it seeing?”

“A grifter.”

“A—?”

“A scam artist.”

“I know what a grifter is,” Gardino said. “I meant, why do you think that’s what I am?”

“Well, for instance, you don’t come into Hanny’s—”

“Hanny’s?”

“Here. Hanrahan’s.”

“Oh.”

“—to sell some loser asshole a boat. So what really hap­pened?”

Gardino chuckled but said nothing.

“Look,” Ricky whispered, “I’m cool. Ask anybody on the street.”

“There’s nothing to tell. A deal went south is all. Happens.”

“I’m not a cop, that’s what you’re thinking.” Ricky looked around, reached into his pocket, and flashed a bag of hash he’d been carrying around for T.G. “I was, you think I’d have this on me?”

“Naw, I don’t think you’re a cop. And you seem like an okay guy. But I don’t need to spill my guts to every okay guy I meet.”

“I hear that. Only… I’m just wondering there’s a chance we can do business together.”

Gardino drank some more beer. “Again, why?”

“Tell me how your con works.”

“It’s not a con. I was going to sell him a boat. It didn’t work out. End of story.”

“But… see, here’s what I’m thinking,” Ricky said in his best player’s voice. “I seen people pissed off ’cause they don’t get a car they wanted, or a house, or some pussy. But that asshole, he wasn’t pissed off about not getting a boat. He was pissed off about not getting his down payment back. So, how come he didn’t?”

Gardino shrugged.

Ricky tried again. “How’s about we play a game, you and me? I’ll ask you something and you tell me if I’m right or if I’m full of shit. How’s that?”

“Twenty questions.”

“Whatever. Okay, try this on: You borrow ”—he held up his fingers and made quotation marks—“a boat, sell it to some poor asshole, but then on the way here it sinks .” Again the quotation marks. “And there’s nothing he can do about it. He loses his down payment. He’s fucked. Too bad, but who’s he going to complain to? It’s stolen merch.”