Siegel, James - Derailed

“Look, I just thought — ”

“What’s the deal, bud? I believe, when I said I’d do this, from the goodness of my heart, by the way—because you’re a pal and you’re in trouble—you said ten thousand.”

“I know what we — ”

“A deal’s a deal, right?”

“I understand.”

“What were the terms?”

“I think one-half — ”

“Tell me what the terms were, Charles.”

“Ten thousand,” I said.

“Ten thousand. Right. Ten thousand for what?”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you giving me ten thousand for? Because you like me? ’Cause you want to send me back to college?”

“Look, Winston . . .” I suddenly wanted to be somewhere else.

“ Look, Charles. I think maybe there’s some kind of confusion. I want to review the terms with you. You ask someone to do something like this for you, you have to know what the terms are.”

“I know the terms.”

“You do? Then state them for me so there’s no confusion. What are you giving me ten thousand for?”

“I’m giving you ten thousand to. . . make Vasquez go away.”

Winston said: “Yeah, right—that’s what I thought the terms were. Ten thousand to make Vasquez go away.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “Here’s my argument to make him go away,” he said. “What do you think? Think he’ll listen to it?”

“A gun.” I felt myself recoil; I edged back against the window.

“Hey — you’re good,” Winston said. “You sure you haven’t done this before?”

“Look, Winston, I don’t want . . .”

“What? You don’t want to look at it? Neither will he. What did you think I was going to do, Charles — ask him nicely?”

“I just want . . . you know . . . if at all possible . . .”

“Yeah, well, just in case it’s not at all possible.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I had been thinking in euphemisms all this time — making Vasquez go away. Doing something about him. Taking care of him. But this was the way a Vasquez was taken care of, Winston was saying. Sometimes it was this way.

“Okay what?” Winston said.

“Huh?”

“ ‘Okay, here’s your ten thousand, Winston’?”

“Yes,” I said, giving up.

“Great,” he said. “For a second there I thought you were only giving me half.”

I took the envelope out of my pocket and handed it over.

“You’re too easy, Charles,” Winston said. “I would’ve settled for three-quarters.”

Then, after he’d counted it all, he said: “Where?”

TWENTY-THREE

Under the West Side Highway.

One week into the new year.

I was sitting next to Winston in a rented metallic blue Sable with leather seats. Winston had his eyes closed.

I could see a lone tugboat chugging its way up a Hudson River so black, it was as if it weren’t there. Just an empty black space where the river ought to be. It was cold and sleeting; thin slivers of glass were exploding onto my face through the open window.

I was shivering.

I was trying not to think about something. I was trying to stay calm.

There was a hooker standing on the corner across the street. She’d been standing there ever since I entered the car.

I was looking at her and wondering where her customers were.

A fair question, since it was only a little past ten, and she was wearing a sheer red negligee and shiny black boots. She’d been dropped off by a Jeep with New Jersey license plates and was waiting for some other car with New Jersey license plates to come along. But it had been ten minutes and she was still stuck out there in the sleet. Doing nothing much but looking across the street at the blue Sable, which didn’t seem to be moving, either.

She looked as if she were freezing. She had a small fake fur wrap around her shoulders, but other than that nothing, lots of pasty white flesh out there where her customers could see it and put a price tag on it.

But where were her customers?

The insurance salesman from Teaneck, the broker from Piscataway, the truck driver on his way to the Lincoln Tunnel?

I was under the West Side Highway because that’s where Vasquez had told me to meet him.

Do you have the money? he'd asked me.

Yes, I did.

You’ll meet me ten o’clock at Thirty-seventh and the river.

Yes, I would.

You’ll tell nobody — understand?

Yes, I did. (Well, maybe just one other person.)

You’ll show up alone.

Yes, I would. (Well, maybe not exactly alone.)

How long had the hooker been standing there without a customer? I thought again. How long, exactly?

Then she began to walk over to me.

In the middle of the street now, closer to me than away from me, so I knew that she wouldn’t be turning back. Her boot heels echoing as she made a beeline for the blue Sable that had been sitting there all this time without moving an inch.

“Want a date?” she asked me when she reached my window. I could see actual goose bumps on her breasts and legs, because her breasts were only half-hidden by the red negligee and her legs were naked save for those calf-length boots.

No, I didn’t want a date. I wanted her to leave.

“No.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. Her face was young but old, so it was practically impossible to tell her age. Anywhere from twenty to thirty-five. “You got a cigarette?”

“No.”

But there was a pack of cigarettes sitting on the seat between Winston and me — Winston’s cigarettes. She could clearly see them there, one or two cigarettes even peeking out of the torn wrapper.

“So what are those? ” she asked me.

“Wait a minute,” I said. I reached for the pack, but when I picked it up I got a piece of Winston’s brain matter on my hand — the pack was smeared with it. I pulled one cigarette out anyway and handed it to her through the window.

“Thanks,” she said, but she didn’t sound as though she meant it.

Then she asked me for a light.

“I don’t have one.”

“What about him?” She meant Winston, who still had his eyes closed.

“No,” I said.

“Maybe he wants a date?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’s wrong with him? He drunk?”

“Yes, he’s drunk. Look, I gave you a cigarette, so . . .”

“What good’s a cigarette without a light? What am I supposed to do — eat it?”

“We don’t have a light, okay?”

I saw the reflection first — a flickering puddle of red in the middle of the street and then the sound of tires crunching glass.

A police cruiser.

“Get out of here,” I told her.

“What?”

“Look, I just want to be left — ”

“Go fuck yourself,” she said. “You don’t go telling me to get outta nowhere. Understand?”

“Yes, okay . . . I just don’t want a date, okay?” trying to be nice now, trying to be polite about this so that maybe she’d go away. Because Winston still had his eyes closed, and the police cruiser was almost up to our car. And the hooker — she wasn’t leaving, now that I’d made her good and mad at me.

“I’ll stay where I damn please,” she said.

And the cruiser rolled right up to the car; and the side window rolled down.

I expected the policeman to yell at me. Tell me to get out of the car, maybe — me and Winston. I expected the policeman to get out of the cruiser and shine a flashlight into the front seat, where he’d notice that Winston had his eyes closed and, if he looked closer, something else. That half of Winston’s head was gone.

“Hey,” the policeman said.