April Smith: Judas Horse

He is wired and I am slow. He slams my chest against the door and cracks my neck in a reverse chokehold.

“No disrespect,” I gasp.

“Don’t make me nervous.”

“It’s cool, it’s cool.”

I am feeling nauseous, seeing sheets of light.

His cell phone goes off. He glances at the number. “Fuck!” He lets me go, spins back inside the car, and hands a gold-embossed Gucci briefcase through the window.

“You best not be fucking with us.”

“No way, bro.”

My throat aches from where he brutally compressed the trachea. When I get back to the Academy, I am going to find out who this asshole is.

“It better be righteous blow, or I’m coming to get your kids.”

Blow? Wait a minute. The deal is counterfeit money, not cocaine. Wrong scenario. Right?

I stare at him.

“I know where you live.”

Then he is gone.

So are Jennifer, the white truck, and the man with the shaved head.

Istand in the middle of the deserted shopping center, gripping the Gucci briefcase the brother thrust at me, which is allegedly stuffed with cash. I’m hatching a brand-new plan: I will hop a ride down the highway and disappear into the Blue Ridge Mountains, marry a coal miner with large spadelike hands, and live in a hollow with a clan of hill people, who distrust and despise the U.S. government almost as much as I do.

My head is swimming with fatigue. What is the “lesson learned”? Did I learn it yet? From deep in the gnarly undergrowth surrounding the now-dead shopping center comes the croaking of toads. No counselors have stepped out of the shadows to bring me in. The game is on. Pick up the thread. Find Jennifer. Connect with the counterfeiters.

I go back to the pay phone, but nobody answers the number I just dialed.

Someone taps my shoulder. “Darcy?”

I take my time responding because I have to run a mental check and the gears are running slowly. Yes, I am Darcy. Darcy from California. A criminal — remember that.

I turn to face Jennifer. “Where the fuck were you ?” “I wasn’t a hundred percent about your nigger friend,” she replies.

You redneck jerk! But, no. She’s pushing my multiracial buttons. Fight it.

“That fool is down.” I pat the Gucci case. “It’s all here.”

Then we are in the cab of the truck, with me between the two of them.

“Open it,” suggests the man with the shaved head. (Forty, weathered — Special Ops?) Jennifer has trained him well; his shoulders and biceps are huge, neck tattoo, and he must be local, because all he has on in the misty cold is a “wife beater” undershirt.

I flip the catch. The case appears to be filled with packets of real hundred-dollar bills. I smile complacently, but my heart is pumping. A narrow miss. I should have checked it right away; we could be looking at Monopoly money.

We pick up an access road that parallels the highway, then turn off, heading east through a maze of country lanes. The windows are tinted, but we seem to pass a development of modest homes separated by swatches of black woods before the truck pulls into the graveled driveway of a house with a sign that says NOTARY PUBLIC. Mr. Bodybuilder gets out fast.

“Make it quick.”

In the blur, I notice a magnetic picture stuck on the dashboard: a shot of Jennifer and three young children. “I’m coming to get your kids,” the black man said. Was he a real drug dealer who had gotten our phony identities mixed up?

Before I can ask about those kids, I am taken around the back and hustled down some steps to a basement where a counterfeit-printing operation is in full display.

They have a sweet high-definition laser color printer turning out leaves of counterfeit checks. There are shrink-wrapped packages of birth certificates and marriage licenses, piles of magazines in brown paper. For a moment, I am genuinely elated, as if we have actually busted a big interstate operation.

The guy who allegedly runs the show looks like a nerdy bean counter; he is wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a saggy red cardigan sweater. Balding. Potbelly. Sallow face moist with sweat.

Jennifer says, “This is Darcy, from California.”

He scans my getup, says in a taunting voice, “You look like shit from California.” A couple of lowlifes working the copier snicker.

“How about the bogus?” I ask impatiently.

Nobody answers. I notice Jennifer becoming agitated. She is stamping her foot and redoing the ponytail.

“We’re out of here,” says the man with the shaved head.

“Relax.”

“Sure.”

He exchanges a look with Jennifer.

Something has changed. Some note of tension has started to wail.

Addressing her, I say, “What’s the deal?”

But the guy with the shaved head answers. “Jennifer has to get home to the kids.” “Past their bedtime,” I agree. It is 3:00 a.m. “Can we cut to the chase?” The accountant indicates plastic bins lined up against the wall. A million bucks takes up a lot of room. I can tell just by looking they are down by half.

“You’re a little short there, dude.”

“When we finish this job, we’ll print more,” he assures me. “That’s the beauty of it. Sit down. This is pure Colombian. Free samples, limited time only.” The plastic bag is out. He cuts some lines on the cover of a pornographic magazine.

“Oh man.” I laugh. “I just did some.”

“More is better.”

“Go for it,” I say. “I’m done.”

“Bullshit,” he replies. “You’re a cop.”

“Get a life.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

I stare at the lines of coke. What is the parameter for —“Just because I politely decline your hospitality doesn’t mean I’m a cop. I hate cops.” Jennifer says, “Just do it, honey.”

— illegal activity?

“See,” I vamp, “we just met. So how do I know it’s not rat poison?” The accountant snorts a line and offers up the rest.

If I do it, will I be breaking the law?

“My boyfriend said I gotta keep my head clear—”

Will that invalidate — what did Diestal say about authorizing — The accountant whips a.38 automatic from an ankle holster and holds it to my head.

“Fuck you. I’ve never seen a cop do dope. You’re a cop.”

The hammer pulls back with a sound like rolling thunder. The steel barrel presses against my brain stem and at that moment I stop trying to figure out who is who, and what is true, and why I am falling through this cruel labyrinth.

Enlightenment at gunpoint.

“Jesus Christ,” pleads Jennifer.

“I’m doing it, okay?”

Cocaine — real cocaine — burns the lining of my nose and drips down my throat, and shortly my mind begins to hum a distracted tune while my heartbeat soars into the red zone: dreaming in bed and sprinting to the finish line at the same time.

Things have shifted again. Is it the drug, or is everyone else melting down also? I see a briefcase open on top of the copier. It is empty. But it is not the briefcase I brought. I hear the guy with the shaved head trying to explain.

“Look, we have a problem. There’s been a mistake, but don’t blame Jennifer,” he says.

“I never said I knew her!” Jennifer is shouting.

“She ripped us off.” The husband shrugs.

The accountant scratches his ear. I notice he is still holding the gun.

“So what happened?”

“We picked up the wrong person,” says Jennifer. “I had a bad feeling about it when that ghetto car drove up—” “No way.” I swim toward the briefcase. “There was a hundred grand.” Well, there isn’t now.

“That’s not my briefcase. That’s not the one I came in with,” I blurt. This one is cheap plastic. “I had a Gucci.” It echoes strangely. Gucci? Is that a real word?