Tod Goldberg - Gangsterland

“That’s better,” David said.

“Fucking Christ,” Slim Joe said. “You scared the shit out of me, dog.”

“What’s that smell?” David said.

“What?”

“There’s a smell in here,” David said. “Like fruit mixed with grass and piss.”

“That’s my bronzer,” Slim Joe said.

“What’s that?”

“Makes my tan stick,” he said. “Dog, you scared the shit out of me. I could’ve put a cap in you.”

Slim Joe was wearing his usual outfit — a wifebeater, Nike sweatpants, white Pumas, a watch the size of a hubcap. Not much room to keep a gun, not that there was any need to bring a gun with you to a tanning salon. Bullets and intense heat don’t usually have a good, safe relationship. Not even Slim Joe was that dumb. Maybe he kept a gun in the glove box.

“This bronzer, what does it run you?”

“I dunno, fifteen bucks. Whatever, man. No disrespect, but what the fuck are you doing here?”

No disrespect. Two words David had grown to hate. Someone said no disrespect , it immediately meant they were about to disrespect you. The Jews, they had it right: They basically told the Palestinians they could either have a piece of crap land or they could fuck off. Being polite got you exterminated. They killed first now.

“Maybe I’ve been thinking about getting a tan,” David said. “It’s the one thing I haven’t really addressed since I got into town. You think I need a tan?”

“Naw, dog, you look good.” Slim Joe gazed up into the rearview mirror and then turned around to look at the parking lot. “You drive here? I don’t see your ride.”

David could see that Slim Joe was agitated, which was good. He wanted him agitated. When you’re off-balance, you’re not as prone to seeing the obvious things. Better to keep someone engaged.

David put Joe’s keys back into the ignition but didn’t turn the car on. “We need to have a conversation. You willing to have a conversation with me?”

“You know I’m down for whatever.”

“Then let’s go for a ride,” David said.

“We can’t do this at the crib?”

“House is bugged,” David said. “What I want to talk about wouldn’t include Bennie. Just be something you and I get some skin on.”

“Oh, shit,” Slim Joe said, though it wasn’t clear to David if he was happy or frightened by this prospect. “How long?”

“How long have I been there?”

“Oh, shit,” Slim Joe said again. “All the rooms?”

“That’s my guess,” David said.

“You think Bennie listens to everything?”

“He’s your cousin,” David said. “I barely know the man.”

“Oh, shit,” Slim Joe repeated.

“You get it now?”

Slim Joe didn’t say another word. He pulled out of the shopping center, and David told him to head toward the temple. Slim Joe kept stealing glances at his cell phone while he drove.

David picked up the phone and examined it. As expected, Slim Joe hadn’t made or received a call since the previous night. David wasn’t sure when it became cool to appear to be talking to someone. He’d read something the night before that stuck with him: Reason is a small word, but a most perfect thing. Some old Greek Jew said it when he was talking about being grateful for the natural powers men possess — life, death, soul, imagination, all that. None of these Jews ever talked about trying to be cool, or trying to impress anyone. They never got down and demanded respect, or complained about being disrespected. It was always about being aware that your deeds were your legacy and how you were viewed wasn’t based on something as illusory as respect. Content was the thing.

It was a point that didn’t exactly sit well with David. Not that he didn’t believe it, only that he hoped it wasn’t true for everyone. Because if so, he was fucked.

As it related to someone like Slim Joe, however, it seemed apt: What the fuck was he grateful for, really? All he wanted was for people to stare at him, maybe fear him. Normally, David tried not to think about the people he was about to kill. Once they became people, you could sort of imagine them being someone’s husband, someone’s brother, someone’s son, and then you started to imagine them as babies, and his job became harder. Usually, David tried to depersonalize the experience as much as possible. The world was usually a better place for his work. Even when he did contract work, he tended to kill bad guys as much as possible, not just cheating spouses, though he’d done that on occasion, too, like when Jennifer was pregnant and they didn’t know how they’d afford all the prenatal care.

David opened up the Mustang’s glove box, and, sure enough, there was a TEC-9. Of all the guns to keep in your car, the TEC-9 was among the worst, since they tended to jam more often than shoot. TEC-9s looked cool, though, which David assumed was enough for Slim Joe to choose it over the arsenal of practical assault weapons inside the house. David pulled out the gun and put it on his lap, then tossed Slim Joe’s phone into the glove box and closed it.

“Why’d you do that?” Slim Joe finally asked.

“You expecting a call?”

“Nah, man, I’m just freaked out,” he said. “You just roll up on me in a parking lot and tell me to drive, man, I’m a little on edge about that shit, you feel me? Now you got my TEC on your lap.”

“I feel you,” David said, the words sounding absurd coming out of his mouth, and David made a note to himself never to put those three words together again.

“Are you here to kill me?” Slim Joe said. Maybe he wasn’t so fucking stupid.

“Suppose I am,” David said. “There something you’d want to admit to, so maybe I don’t have to torture you first?”

“I’d want you to know,” Slim Joe said, “whatever beef I got with Bennie, that’s got nothing to do with you. That’s family shit, you feel me? Me and you, I feel like, you know, we bonded and shit while you were getting your face put back together.”

“Sure,” David said. He turned the TEC-9 over in his lap, inspected the clip. It had a full thirty-two rounds. That solved a problem. The gun was fairly light — two, maybe three pounds — which meant you really had to use some force if you wanted to beat someone with it, but it could be done. Metal versus flesh tended to have predictable results.

“So we’re straight, right?”

“Right,” David said.

“That’s a relief, dog,” he said.

“You tell anyone about me?”

Slim Joe swallowed. It looked like he was having some difficulty with general body functions, particularly now that David could see bulbs of sweat dotting his forehead. “Nah,” he said. “Bennie said keep your name out my mouth, so that’s what I’ve done.”

“So, your friends ask you where you’ve been living these last few months, what do you say?”

“Just that Bennie got me up in a big-ass crib for doing him a favor,” Slim Joe said.

“Rabbi Gottlieb?”

“Yeah,” he said, excited now, as if David wasn’t sitting there playing with his TEC-9. “You heard about that? Cuz Bennie said I couldn’t say shit about that.”

“It’s all right,” David said, the dumb motherfucker practically jumping out of his seat to tell the story. “How’d that go down?”

“Basically? I tied him up and forced about twenty shots of Jack down his throat, right? Make it look like he was drunk if they ever find his body, cuz Bennie, he was like, don’t beat him or nothing, but then the rabbi, he got mouthy on me so I ended up breaking some of his fingers and toes. I thought that shit was gonna come back on me, but then the boat motor pretty much ate him up, so it worked out fine.”

“Where was this?”