Andrew Vachss - The Weight

“If I don’t fry to death, I’ll run out of oxygen.”

“You’ll be uncomfortable, that’s all. This thing’s not airtight. You can even crack the far-side window a little bit, if you want. But once you get down, and I throw these jackets and stuff over you, you have to stay like that, understand?”

“You think, just because it’s dark, I can’t bake to death? It must be over a hundred, even now.”

“Stop all the damn drama, Lynda. You’ve got a water bottle, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“What if-?”

“I don’t know what this Jessop’s going to be driving. But if he doesn’t see Albie’s Lincoln, he’s going to turn around and make tracks, right?”

“Yes,” she snapped at me.

“So, if that happens, you just climb into the front seat and go back to Tampa.”

“Sugar-”

“Zip it. I’ve got the key to the Lincoln and the button for the garage. That’s all I need, except for one thing.”

That one thing was the address of a little mall not so far from where the house was. The cab driver didn’t even try and make conversation. He was an older black guy, and I guess he figured it wasn’t worth working a guy who looked like me for a tip.

I went into the mall with my carry-on bag in one hand and walked through until I found the last exit.

The bar was a couple of blocks away. I went in. And, like Lynda said, it was full of just what I told her I needed. Albie probably had the whole town mapped for people like them.

I sat down at the bar, ordered a beer. It was loud: some kind of crash-pound-boom noise from the jukebox, people trying to shout over it.

All the punk with “88” tattooed on the back of his shaved head knew was that I was there to do a job on some kikes who were contributing way too much money to the wrong people. He was down with the cause. RAHOWA all the way, bro. But he still snatched the C-note I offered him for a ride on the back of his cycle.

When we got close enough, I slapped him twice on his right shoulder. He pulled over and rolled the cycle into a thick clump of bushes, just like I had told him in front.

I also told him that a car was coming for me in half an hour, after I got finished doing whatever I was going to be doing with whatever I had in the carry-on.

He gave me the White Power fist, saying goodbye. By then, I already had my left forearm around his neck, so I said goodbye, too.

I left him there. I wasn’t worried about prints, not with the leather gloves I’d been wearing.

If there’s one thing I know, one thing I’ve studied all my life, it’s how to be a thief.

And that’s me. Maybe, at first, I only got in on jobs because I was good muscle, and I’d stand up if the wheels came off. It was Ken who told me, and I never forgot: “This life of ours, where you stand isn’t about how much weight you can lift, kid. It’s how much weight you can take.”

That’s all I ever wanted to be: a man like Ken. Maybe “all” isn’t the right way to say it. Ken was a legend. A legend with witnesses.

I was getting there, I hoped. I was still a young guy, but I’d proved in by doing everybody’s time on that first robbery, so I could hang out in this bar where Ken did business. In fact, I was sitting right next to him when it happened:

This guy, Eugene, he was good-sized, and he was supposed to be a shooter, too. Reliable, people said about him. Never turned. But he’d never been Inside, either, so I always wondered about that.

Plus, he was twisted in his head. Always bringing his girlfriend in with him right after he finished working her over. Most guys, I think, if their woman had a big black eye and a split lip, they wouldn’t want her to be showing her face. But Eugene, he liked that.

This girl, she was kind of good-looking, but you could see she was… dull, or something. Ken and I were at the bar. Eugene, he drags the girl in by the back of her hair, throws her across from him, and sits down in a booth.

We could see the whole thing in the mirror. The girl was trying to hide her face with her hands. Eugene must have told her to get him a drink, ’cause she got up and walked over to where we were. Her blouse was ripped; you could see her bra. And her bruises. She was trying hard not to cry, like she was afraid to.

I turned my shoulders. I don’t know exactly what I was going to do, but Ken stopped me from ever finding out. He put his hand on my arm. “Not like that, kid,” is all he said.

“I was just gonna-”

“You know what happens when you slap a woman-beater around? He takes it, like the bitch he is. Then he goes home and makes her pay for it.”

“Then what should I-?”

But Ken was already gone. I reached out and pulled the girl into my chest. Not to hurt her, or to make a play for her. Just to keep her close enough to me so she couldn’t see anything.

In the mirror, I could see Ken walk up to this Eugene. When he got real close, Ken pointed at the wall next to the booth. Eugene turned to his left to see what Ken was pointing at. Ken stuck something in Eugene’s ear. There was a little noise, like a dry twig snapping.

Eugene’s face hit the table. Ken walked back to where I was still holding on to the girl.

“Eugene went to the dice game out back,” he told her. “He left me a message for you: When he’s done shooting craps, he’s going back to his wife. From now on, you’re on your own.”

She looked over at the booth. From where she was sitting, it looked empty.

“I didn’t even know he was married,” she said. “What… what happened?”

“I dunno,” Ken said. “I was walking by when he got up. Told me to tell you what I just told you.”

“Oh Jesus.”

“He got his clothes at your place?”

“Sure. I mean, we-”

“His wife’s in Boston, so you know he’s not coming back for them,” Ken said. Then he turned his back on her and started talking to me.

It took a few minutes for her to walk over to the empty booth. Only by then it wasn’t empty anymore. Four guys were sitting there, playing cards.

She kind of stumbled out, still crying.

Ken slid a red handkerchief across the bar. There was a little lump in it. The guy behind the stick swept it up so smooth you’d have to be watching close to see it. One of the guys who’d been playing cards, a skinny guy in an old brown leather jacket, he walked over and handed Ken a shell casing. A real small one. Maybe a.25; I don’t know much about guns.

“About those arrangements for your beloved aunt?” he said to Ken.

“Ah, you wouldn’t think so, but what she always said she wanted was to be cremated. Said it was the cleanest way to leave this earth. Only her spirit left behind.”

“Aye,” the man in the leather jacket said. He shook hands with Ken, pulled his cap down low over his eyes, and walked away.

That’s why I never wanted to be a hammer; I never wanted to work for anyone but me. And I wanted people to talk about me after I was gone. The way they talk about Ken now. A true hard man. Always true. And hard to the core.

Only, now that I’d met Grace, I realized there was more to being a hard man than what I’d always thought.

By my thinking, I was getting closer all the time. Everyone knows: Sugar, he’s a real thief. Not just stand-up if he gets caught, but good at not getting caught.

I know when someone’s been in my place. I was going to say “house,” not “place,” only I never had a house. That’s what convicts call their cell: “my house.”