Martin Seay - The Mirror Thief

Two of the thugs are the ones he saw earlier while working the grift on the hotrodder. The third punk wouldn’t have been larking around on his own. That means there’s a fourth someplace — probably off meeting the rest of the gang. He’ll bring them back here, and they’ll muscle Claudio into leading them to Stanley, so they can brace him for the evening’s take. It’s a straightforward operation. Stanley’s been on their end of it himself.

He zips his dark jacket to cover his light shirt and begins to walk toward them. Experience has taught him that people never pay attention to anything — they’re practically blind even when they do — so he’s not too worried about getting spotted. Once he’s closed half the distance he angles left onto the beach; he bears right again when he’s out of range of the streetlamps, moving parallel to the boardwalk. Mist has settled on the sand: it’s coarse and mealy at the surface, powdery where his new shoes punch into it. Stanley stops for a moment and shoves his hand down, grabs a fistful of fine dry grains, then another, and stuffs them into the right front pocket of his jeans. He puts a folded dollar bill in the left.

With the fog thickening and the boardwalk people backlit by neon it’s harder now to see, but he’s still able to pipe the greaser cavalry nearly three hundred yards off: what looks like six or seven of them, pressing through the crowd at the corner of Brooks Avenue, visible mostly from the attitudes of people they displace. They’re slowing down as the crowds get denser. Stanley figures they’ll be here in four minutes, tops.

Hey fellas, he says, sauntering up to Claudio’s bench. Let me take my buddy off your hands.

The three hammerheads look up at him, baffled. The two on the right turn to the third: the boss, a little older, stockier, swarthier, sporting a thin pink scar that splits an eyebrow and reappears at his hairline. The guy’s got deep cuts on his hands, too, which Stanley takes to mean either that he’s been in lots of knifefights or that he’s not very good at it. His chums both look fresh-weaned: one’s got a gluesniffer’s red eyes and runny nose; the other is white-blond and pimply.

Stanley shoulders past the two punks and tugs on Claudio’s arm. Man oh man, you’re really bombed, he says. Can one of you guys help me stand him up?

Not so quick, asshole, the boss says.

Stanley ignores him, lifts Claudio to his feet.

I wan’ go home, Claudio says. Sick.

Listen, the boss says, clapping a hand on Stanley’s shoulder. We saw the little con you were running tonight. Tell your friend to drop his drunk act. We need to have a discussion.

Stanley doesn’t shrug the hand off, doesn’t stop moving either. From the way these goons carry themselves, Stanley figures they’ve all seen The Blackboard Jungle maybe a dozen times apiece, but he keeps the smirk off his face for now. Yeah? Stanley says. So discuss.

You know who we are, buddy?

Stanley swivels to face him. Should I? he says.

You damn well should. We’re Shoreline Dogs.

Stanley gives the guy a slow up-and-down. Shoreline Dogs, he says.

That’s right. This is our turf. Nobody operates here without our say-so. What was your take tonight?

Stanley looks away, shrugs. Twenty, he says.

Bullshit.

So what’s your cut?

Our cut is all of it, jerkoff. You didn’t ask permission. If you’re gonna work the boardwalk it’s half your take from now on. Turn out your goddamn pockets.

Bafoom, Claudio says, sagging against Stanley. Need bafroom.

Stanley stares evenly at the boss. Then he shifts his focus over the guy’s shoulder to the rest of the gang, two blocks away, closing in. What if I tell you to go climb up your thumb? he says.

Well, then I guess we’re gonna have to pound you. Right now, and again every time we see you. You and your faggot friend.

Yeah, the whitehaired kid says, pushing in close, breathing on Stanley’s neck. We don’t tolerate fags around here.

He’s got a little extra sparkle in his voice, like this is a favorite subject with him, but that’s fine: Stanley knows how to play this now. Okay, chum, he says. But I’m keeping a couple of bucks. My buddy and me ain’t had a meal today.

Stanley reaches into his jeans, palms the dollar, turns the pocket out. Then he tips Claudio toward the gluesniffer, and Claudio drapes over him, moaning. Stanley loads up his fist with sand from the other pocket, fakes a switch, and holds the dollar bill out to the boss with his left. A few grains leak between his fingers, but nobody sees.

The rest’s in my sock, Stanley says. He lifts his foot to the bench.

The boss reaches for the bill, then stops, wary. Hold it, jack, he’s saying.

The whitehaired kid has just spotted his pals up the block; he’s raising an arm, opening his mouth. Stanley slings the sand in the boss’s eyes, throws himself backward off the bench, and elbows Whitey in the face. His funny-bone connects just under the kid’s nose, which starts spurting; Stanley’s arm goes tingly. The boss is digging into his motorcycle jacket for a knife, swinging blind: his hand ruffles Stanley’s hair. Stanley pops a crouch — just like his dad taught him — and kicks the guy in the balls. He can hear shouts now from up the block, sandy boots scraping wooden planks.

Claudio has come to life, punching the gluesniffer in the breadbasket; now he’s got the doubled-over kid stiffarmed, holding him off by the head. The two of them are drifting across the boardwalk, orbiting each other like a binary star. Stanley drops his shoulder and knocks the gluesniffer on his ass. Go, he yells at Claudio. Go go go go go.

Claudio’s wearing a perplexed look as Stanley runs past him — he hasn’t seen the real trouble coming — but his longer legs and easy stride catch him up in a hurry. Stanley sticks to the boardwalk, dodging people, zigzagging whenever he comes to a cross-street to try to fake a turn. The hooligans are way back, but closing in. Claudio could blow them off with no problem — his great-grandmother was a pureblood Indian from some tribe famous for its runners, or so he says, though he barely looks Mexican, never mind Indian — but Stanley’s not so quick. The rubber soles on his new Pedwins speed him up, but he can already feel blisters rising on his heels. The faces of pedestrians flash by like funhouse images: shocked, angry, laughing. For once in his life Stanley half hopes they’ll run across a cop.

But there are no cops, and now the greasers are barking. At first it’s only a couple of them, but soon they’re all doing it: a rhythmic chorus of low woofs and frantic yaps, in and out of sync, echoing down the colonnade. It’s a typical smalltime JD stunt, corny and dumb, but a worm of genuine fear still crawls down Stanley’s spine to his tailbone, and puts extra spring into his step.

At the stopsign at Pacific Stanley bears left into the intersection and starts running down the middle of the street. Cars roll past him on both sides, in opposite directions. Motorists scream at him. Somebody honks. Claudio’s gotten gummed up on the sidewalk, surprised by Stanley’s sudden move to the center. Stanley glances back to make sure he’s catching up, and when he turns forward again, there’s the hotrodder’s girl, just ahead to his left, her teeth bared, her finger pointing, standing in the passenger seat of a hopped-up Model A like a charioteer. He hears the driver-side door open as he barrels by, then the hotrodder’s voice. Hey! the hotrodder says. Hey you!

Stanley hits the brakes, spins, jogs back a few steps, waiting for Claudio, who’s still sprinting along the sidewalk. The hotrodder is in the middle of the street, waving an empty bottle by its neck, illuminated from below by the headlights of the Nash stopped behind his roadster. Farther back, Stanley sees the dark shapes of Shoreline Dogs under the hanging streetlamps, outlined against shop windows. One of them gets stuck behind the hotrodder’s open door, scrambles around it cursing, and the hotrodder swats him in the shoulder with the empty bottle. The driver of the Nash is trying to back up.