Chuck Hogan - Devils in Exile

Lockerty said, “What’s the gimmick? I called you here.”

“Like to make bonny first impression is all. You de big bout, yah?”

“Uh...”

“You Lockerty, you de top dog.”

Fale turned to Lockerty. “Is this the guys?”

Moodle focused on Fale. “Whas’ yer dance, mon? Feelin’ feisty?”

“I just... I never seen...”

“Seen what, mon?”

Fale stammered it out: “You guys’re white.”

“Never seen white Jamaicans before, bra?” Moodle looked at Leroy, who was twiddling the keys of the only piano in the room, badly in need of tuning. “Alla time, we hear dis. You wan’ dread bwoys comin’ in smokin’ ganja, dat it? You wan’ Tosh and Marley inna here. Be my personal pleasure reeducatin’ you bumbaklaat fools.”

“Hold on, hold on,” said Lockerty. “I think we’re all here for the same thing.”

Leroy came back to the travel bag. “Sure, dat. So give up what you know ’bout deese bandulus, sight?”

Lockerty shook his head after a moment, unable to understand. “About what?”

“Deese bandits, seen?”

“The bandits.” Lockerty looked at Fale. “The bandits. Tell them what you saw.”

Fale did. He was one of the sellers who had got ripped off in the Hyde Park auto shop job.

The Jamaicans asked no questions, as though listening to court testimony.

“Cho!” exulted Moodle, then sucked his teeth. “Dey knew fucken everyting.”

Lockerty nodded enthusiastically. “They’re like fuckin’... like fuckin’ devils, they are.”

“An’ you lagga heads keep a-goin’ on. Trustin’ de beast now.”

“The...?”

“Da bumbaklaat police.”

Lockerty was not used to being insulted, especially in his own crib. “Look. I am the one losing money here.”

“You lose, every man lose.”

“I put out a very healthy price on these clowns’ heads. But nobody knows shit. Now, your boss wanted more involvement, to secure his investment, and so I welcome you here in that spirit.”

“We got no boss, mon. We specialists, seen? We up onna con tract. Tek care dis problem you havin’. Make everyting cook and curry again, sight? We here to help.”

“Okay. Yes.” Lockerty thinking, These two white Rastas couldn’t find the corner store. “How?”

“Ah, dat.”

Moodle went into the bag on the floor, coming out with a knife with a short, hooked blade like something from a fisherman’s kit. He sprang forth without any warning and, with tremendous force, struck Fale in the side of the head, upending his chair and knocking the man to the floor. Moodle knelt on top of Fale and went at him with the knife. Lockerty jumped to his feet, but Leroy’s outstretched hand and tsk-tsk face held him in place.

Lockerty yelled, “What in the name of hell are you—!”

“Dis how you deal wit it, blood!” said Moodle, yelling over Fale’s horrified screams. “You show what failure mean! Is cru cial!”

Lockerty saw a spray of blood hit the floor. He looked at his doorman, who stared in horror, the live grenade in his hand.

“This is my office!” Lockerty howled.

“You tink you workin’ for you, but you work for de don. And de don — he not happy.”

Leroy knelt down, removing a white, medical-looking box from the duffel. “You tink you can handle deese bandulus?”

“Yes!” Lockerty yelled over Fale’s cries, thinking an affirmative answer might stop them. “Yes!”

“You wrong, mon. But we help you. Stop deese bag-o-wires. Do dis right.”

Moodle stood, leaving Fale rolling on the floor, holding his bleeding face. The high-pitched moan coming out of Fale’s mouth was an aria of insanity.

Moodle carried something small in his hand, like a baby onion with a bloody tail, over to Leroy. Leroy lifted the cover off the box, which breathed steam. Dry ice.

Into the box, Moodle deposited Fale’s eyeball.

“We earn a bonus, every eye we brin’ back.” Leroy closed the box, a drip of red stuck to the styrofoam exterior. “ Every eye.” Moodle turned back to Lockerty, the bloody fish knife still in his hand. “Feelin’ us now?”

Lockerty stared at the white Jamaicans, two psychos he had invited into his office and his life. “Jesus Christ.”

“Perk up, mon. Now we get us deese bloodclaat bandulus, sight? We got us a box to fill.”

Lash couldn’t say why the fatherly impulse had come on so late in the game, or why it had come on so strong. It really is a love affair, your relationship with your kids. It’s powerful and frustrating because there is no real consummation. No finish line. The closest you get are the moments when you can share in your child’s triumphs — as when watching them on the field of play — though even those successes are tinged with sadness because every accomplishment only pulls them further away from you, toward an adulthood all their own.

He was fighting afternoon traffic out of the city because he had missed too many of Rosey’s lacrosse matches to miss another. He liked to stand on the sidelines, apart from the other spectators, watching his boy play, this chunk of him that had broken away and grown whole into a man.

This was why, when Lash’s phone buzzed in his cupholder, he answered it expecting to hear Rosey.

“What up, M.L.?” Tricky’s serious voice.

“Everything good?”

“Breezy. Checking in.”

Not true, but better that than trouble. “I heard some bullshit about somebody rounding up the bandits.”

“Nonsense rumor,” said Tricky. “Junkies trying to turn in their brothers for twenty-five long.”

“They showed up that cop though, didn’t they?”

“Everything but put a pink party dress on him. Pretty good, maybe edging toward showboating. Fifteen-yard penalty for dancing in the end zone.”

“Could be they’re getting cocky. Could be anger.”

“You sounding sympathetic. You get anything from the cop?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” But, no, Lash hadn’t. The only people who lawyer up faster than dirty cops are dirty lawyers.

“Major haul, I heard.”

Couldn’t hurt to say. “Fifty-odd keys.”

“Blow?” The ensuing silence was Tricky figuring out the wholesale amount in his head, with a dealer’s facility for numbers. “Whoo, damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I’m in the wrong line of business.”

Lash said, “You are in the wrong line of business.”

“So lemme ask then. You want these guys because they’re in your way? Or because that was your money?”

“ My money? What’s that mean?”

“Your task force’s. These bandits are copping your style, Eliot Ness. Only cutting out the middleman — in this case, the U.S. gov.”

“What’s your point, Trey?”

“They eating all your pie, is what I’m saying. Can’t feel good seeing that. Hell, we should go freelance, you and me. There’s a team.”

Lash said, “Maybe you’re trying to be funny.”

“Maybe, yeah. Maybe I’m just working my way up to telling you this.” Tricky’s pause wasn’t meant to be dramatic. “I’m cooking up something for you. Something big. Real big.”

“In terms of? Men or money?”

Tricky answered that with a question. “What percentage can I get of seized assets?”

“Percentage of product? Zero.”

“I know that.”

Tricky had never asked about money before. Never discussed a payment package. Everything he and Lash had was personal, one-to-one. “There is a contingency fee. Twenty percent commission is standard, with a quarter-mil cap.”

“That’s tax-free?”

“Afraid not.”

Silence. “A cap, huh? Any give there? Cost of living increase, say?”