Steven Thomas - Criminal Carma

Sizing the situation up while the door was still swinging shut behind him, the newcomer dropped the grocery bag, which burst, sending cans of beer rolling, and whipped out an ugly black automatic before I could reach for my gun. The nose on his long narrow face was covered with a bandage. Above the cotton strip, his eyes sparkled with malice.

“Jimmy Z,” I said.

His voice, strained through a swollen larynx, was a gritty whisper: “The last one you think of. The first one to show.”

“I was beginning to think you had abandoned us, Jimmy,” Baba said.

“Yeah, what took you so long?” Pete said, throwing off the loose rope and jumping up. “I thought we were going to have to deep-six these jack-offs ourselves.”

“You didn’t tell me it was eight blocks to the liquor store,” Jimmy growled. “I would’ve took the car if I knew it was that far.”

Namo was struggling to his feet, clawing at the wall for support. Now that Jimmy had the drop on us, he wanted to get at me as soon as possible.

“Wend you get out of the hospital?” Reggie asked conversationally, edging toward his gun.

“You can ask ‘em when they wheel you in,” Jimmy said.

Namo was hobbling toward me, his face like a rabid animal’s. As he passed Pete, he sucker-punched him on the side of his head, knocking him to his knees.

“Watch this bitch,” he said to Jimmy as he came toward me. “He’s got two guns on him.”

Jimmy raised the fascist pistol, targeting my breastbone. He was no fonder of me than Namo.

“Go easy!” Baba said. “We have to get the money from him.”

When the Muscle Beach moron was a step away, rearing back for a haymaker, and Jimmy’s finger was whitening on the trigger, the hall door swung in again and Mary burst into the room, blond hair streaming behind her, pearl-handled switchblade held low in her right hand.

Jimmy was quick. Keeping the gun trained on me, he lashed back with his left hand, hitting Mary in the face at the same moment she plunged the knife into the back of his thigh. He howled, dropped his gun, and staggered toward the table with the blade buried in his muscular leg. I ducked Namo’s awkward, time-delayed swing and sank my fist into his solar plexus, dropping him.

As Namo went down, Pete scrambled up, feet skittering on the lino like a cartoon character’s as he darted to the back door. When he jerked it open, Budge was waiting on the steps, slapping the fish billy in his hand. Stepping into the kitchen, he hit Pete with a tremendous uppercut. There was payback for a good many existential eye pokes and light pay envelopes in that blow, and it made an airman of the ex-swabbie, sending him flying halfway across the room. Landing hard on his back, he convulsed just once, then lay unconscious.

In the confusion, Baba sprang from his chair and charged the open back door with surprising agility and speed. Years of hatha yoga had kept him limber despite his size. His three hundred pounds of human freight train should have been unstoppable. But Budge still blocked the doorway. He dropped down to a three-point stance and met Baba head-on with the strength and leverage that made him all-city in 1973. Living up to Coach’s billing, he stopped the guru in his tracks and, after a brief sumo bout, shoved him back into the room, where he stood, slump-shouldered and panting, defeated.

Mary was sitting with her back against the wall, rubbing her cheek, watching Jimmy writhe on the floor. Namo was crawling toward the hall door. Ozone Pacific was crouched in a corner. Reggie had snatched up Jimmy’s cannon and his peashooter and backed himself against the counter, keeping an eye on all the players. I had the Tomcat in my hand.

“Are you all right?” I asked Mary.

“Yeah,” she said and then lit up the room with an amazed and amazing smile. “This is wild!”

While Reggie covered, I jerked the knife out of Jimmy’s leg, evoking a piercing scream and releasing a spurt of blood. I tied a piece of rope above the wound as a tourniquet and dragged him over to the wall by the table. With Budge’s help, I lugged Pete and Namo over and dumped them beside him.

Baba stood brooding, looking much sillier in his fine blue suit than he ever had in his ridiculous dhoti.

“You won’t get away with this,” he said. “I’ll turn you in for the burglary and grand larceny. That necklace belongs to me. If the police don’t get you, Discenza’s men will.”

“I’ll take my chances,” I said. “Turn around and face the wall.”

Before he could execute the maneuver, Evelyn came into the kitchen from the hall. It was getting to be like Grand Central station in there.

“Where is my grandson?” she asked the disgraced guru.

“He’s right here,” Mary said. She stood up and took Oz’s hand and led him to Evelyn.

“You’re the lady in the picture!” the boy said.

“She’s your grandmother,” Mary said. “She’s going to take care of you now.”

“I’m going to take the best care in the world of you, Kelly,” Evelyn said. “You are my precious jewel.”

Oz looked from the elegant lady to me, and then back at her and back at me again, wonder emerging from the confusion on his face. Behind the wonder, something sly flitted in and out of sight, like the flash of a fish turning just below the surface.

“I’m rich,” he said to me.

I nodded and smiled. “You were right, buddy.”

“Help me, too, Evelyn,” Baba pleaded. “Just give me a couple of the diamonds to get away with.”

“Where’s Christina? If you tell me, I will help you. I will help you get away.”

“He doesn’t know where she is, Evelyn,” I said. “He was lying about that.”

I didn’t want her to find out about her daughter’s death right then. The scene was fraught enough already. I could break the news to her later, in private, and let her explain it to her grandson.

Baba’s eyes darted to mine when I spoke, not knowing why I was covering up but accepting the lie as wise. He didn’t want Evelyn going banshee, either.

“Tell her to help me,” he said, conspiratorially. “I promise no one will know of your involvement in any of this. It is in your interest to let me go.”

“I don’t think so, Baba.”

Pete was stirring on the floor and Namo had pulled himself together. Only Jimmy Z was still incapacitated. He was in shock, his leg bleeding badly, despite the tourniquet.

“Get up,” I said to Pete and Namo. They got to their feet slowly, wincing and cursing, and stood unsteadily beside the bulk of Baba Raba, looking like his abused children.

According to the Seth Thomas wall clock, it was 5:10. Baba was late for his meeting with Discenza and the appraiser. Budge was standing behind the three upright bad guys, looking at me, waiting for instructions. Pointing the Tomcat at them to keep them still, I raised my other hand and brought it down, a judge passing sentence. Budge grinned and nodded.

Like a man playing an oversize xylophone, he went down the row, cracking first Namo and then Pete on top of the head with the broad edge of the billy. As they collapsed in sequence onto the bloody floor, I was moving Mary, Evelyn, and Oz into the hall, Reggie bringing up the rear. He looked back from the doorway as Budge raised the billy above Baba’s cannonball head.

“Hey, Baby Huey,” he said, thrusting out his hip and slapping his broad ass, “meditate on this.” Baba’s eyes got wide with what looked like fury, then snapped shut as Budge rapped his thick skull. The house shook when his body hit the floor.

On the street, we piled into the Cadillac-me, Mary, and Reggie in front, Budge, Oz, and Evelyn in the back. We had only gone a block toward the ocean when a black Cadillac limo turned off Seventh and pulled up in front of the ashram. In the rearview mirror, I saw four men in suits getting out. One of them was Councilman Discenza. The malevolence on his beaked face etched the glass of the mirror.