Tyler Keevil - No Good Brother

The guy grimaced at us and said, ‘Just got to finish this set.’

And Jake said, ‘Sure thing, Mark.’

We waited and watched, respectfully. As we did, the door shut behind us. I looked back, startled. Some other guy had been back there the whole time: I hadn’t even seen him. He had sunken, angular cheeks pitted with acne scars. He didn’t smile or greet us in any way. He just stared, clinically, and my overall impression of him was not a congenial one.

Mark finished with the fly press, hopped up, and patted his belly.

‘Trying to get rid of this goddamn jiggle-ball,’ he said.

‘Ladies like a man with a little padding,’ Jake said.

Mark laughed. ‘Fucking Jake Harding. Come here, man.’

He met Jake halfway and gripped Jake’s hand and they did a shake and punch. Mark started talking right away about how glad he was to see Jake, and have him on board.

‘How are things at the stables?’ he asked Jake.

‘I’m getting on all right.’

‘See, Novak?’ Mark said, looking beyond us at the other guy. ‘I told you Jake would make it work. Novak here thinks you’re gonna screw this job up. He thinks it’s a bad idea.’

Novak just smiled, or seemed to. His teeth were not nice to look at: yellowish and square and standing out from the gums. Skeleton teeth.

‘Nobody’s gonna screw anything up,’ Jake said.

He sounded very confident, very convincing. At the time, even I believed him.

‘That’s my boy. Send those fuckers a message. Pull some Coppola-type shit on them.’ Mark snapped his fingers. ‘Hey Novak – why don’t you see if that cake is ready?’

‘Cake,’ Novak said, as if considering it. ‘Yes, I will get the cake.’

He slipped out the door, eel-like, and shut it silently behind him.

‘Don’t mind Novak,’ Mark said. ‘He’s a crazy Slav. But useful.’

He led Jake and I over to the card table. It had four chairs around it and on top, in the middle, was a crokinole board. The board was carved from mahogany and so were the discs. I’d never seen a board like that. Mark noticed me studying it and rapped on the edge.

‘We just got into this. Crokinole. My bro’s obsessed with it.’

‘We used to play as kids.’

‘Oh yeah?’ He sort of perched sideways on the edge of the table, in a way that didn’t look particularly cool or comfortable, and eyed me up and down. ‘Jesus, Jake. You didn’t tell me you were bringing the Angels in on this deal. What chapter are you with, buddy?’

I told him I wasn’t with any chapter. I wasn’t with the Angels. I sort of got that he was making fun of me but I still didn’t understand it. Then Mark laughed. His laugh was really something: a high-pitched, squeaky giggle, like a teenager before his voice breaks.

‘Shit – I’m just messing with you. I meant the outfit.’

I was wearing my watchcap and goose-down jacket and work boots.

‘He’s on the boats,’ Jake said, clapping my back. ‘Fishing and shit.’

‘At the docks? We got some guys down there.’

Mark rattled off a list of names, but I didn’t recognize any of them, since I didn’t actually work at the docks he had in mind. This seemed to disappoint him momentarily, and he looked at me anew, as if I might not be a fisherman at all but a guy posing as one.

‘So this is your brother?’ he asked Jake.

Jake introduced me, and Mark held out his hand to shake mine. As we did, he noticed my fingers and turned my hand up so he could get a better look. He bent over it as if he were going to kiss it.

‘Jesus Christ. You get bit by a shark or what?’

‘No – I got bit by your mom.’

I do that, sometimes, when I’m nervous. I say something completely inappropriate and out of line. Mark let my hand drop. For a second it seemed as if it could go either way, but Mark laughed again – that squeak of a laugh – and said something about me having balls, to make a crack like that. Then he stopped laughing, and gave his earlobe a gentle pinch.

‘Just don’t say anything like that around my brother, okay?’

‘Where is your brother?’ Jake asked.

‘He’ll be here. We got a few minutes to kill.’

He took a seat and we did the same. While we waited he wanted to see our crokinole skills. We divided up the rocks and took turns shooting twenties. Mark wasn’t that good but he was very enthusiastic. We did that for ten or fifteen minutes, until headlights flooded the office. A vehicle had turned into the drive: another SUV, a big Durango. As it pulled into the garage beneath us the thump-thump of heavy bass beats made the whole room vibrate. Then the music cut out, and a few moments later Patrick Delaney made his entrance.

‘What’s the fucking dilly, yo?’ he said.

Pat had Mark’s features but he was heftier, all muscled up, with a crew cut and the kind of wide-shouldered, swaggering walk tough guys develop. It should have been comical but there was undeniably something intimidating about him. Jake and I both stood up, since the situation seemed to call for it. Pat ignored us. He had a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and he went right to the desk and dropped it. It landed heavily.

Mark said, ‘You got them.’

‘Check it,’ Pat said, and unzipped the bag.

There were black vests inside. They were puffy and heavy and when Pat pulled one out I realized it was a bullet-proof vest like cops wear. Mark held it up to his chest, checking the size, then undid the Velcro and strapped it on, over his sport coat.

‘Yeah, motherfucker,’ he said, and thumped his chest.

‘You’re invincible.’

They played around with the vests a while longer, and I got the sense that this was largely, or partly, for our benefit: they were showing off their toys. Then Pat deigned to notice us. Or notice Jake. He came over to the crokinole table and stood in front of him.

‘We ready to roll on this, Jake?’ he asked.

‘We’re rolling like dough,’ Jake said.

Mark patted Jake’s back. ‘Jake’s got full run of the place.’

The four of us sat down and Pat didn’t mess around with preamble. He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a white envelope and placed that on the table, beside the crokinole board.

‘There might be a key in that envelope. If there is, it might fit a vehicle that will be parked in a particular location tomorrow night.’

‘What kind of vehicle?’ Jake asked.

‘I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s in that envelope – get me? But whatever it is, it’ll be what you need. Once it’s there, ready to be picked up, you’ll get a call on this.’

He slid a cellphone across the board. It spun and came to a stop near us: a black clamshell Nokia. Jake took the phone and envelope and tucked them in his jacket pocket.

‘You drive it over,’ Pat said, ‘and when you get there, and everything’s a go, you give us a call just to let us know. We’ll make sure the next phase is in place.’

At that point, I assumed it was money. Or dope. That was what I’d been expecting all along: some kind of drug run or delivery with us acting as mules or couriers or whatnot.

Pat asked, ‘You sure you can gain access?’

‘I got clearance.’

‘If you screw any of it up, you’re fucked, and we don’t know you. You take the fall. That’s how it works. Can you handle that?’

‘We can handle it.’

Pat looked at me. I’d been frowning, trying to follow it all, but when he looked at me I smiled instead. I smiled in what must have been a weird and extremely unconvincing way.

He said, ‘Your brother doesn’t seem so sure.’

I said, ‘It all sounds pretty vague.’

‘That’s called being smart. That’s called deniability.’

‘Deniability,’ his brother repeated, and giggled. He was still wearing his vest.