Matchstick Men: A Novel About Grifters With Issues (23 page)

“You look uncomfortable,” says Arbeiter as Roy takes a seat in his office. “Would you like a drink of water?” The guy is younger than Roy, clearly. Wears his position easily.

Roy shakes his head. His palms are clammy, sweaty. The office has a large window in back, looking out over a parking lot. The walls are brick, unpainted. “I’m good,” he says. “We can just get started.”

Arbeiter asks some innocent questions. Age, interests. Leafs through Roy’s résumé. Angela helped him type it up. Learned how in her Social Studies class at school. “No college degree?” he asks.

“No,” says Roy. Wants to keep it simple. Doesn’t want to slip. He put down that he graduated from high school. Didn’t want
to lie on the application, wanted a clean start, but Angela told him everyone does it. No one has a clean start. “I couldn’t afford it.”

The boss nods and flips the page. His hands look so young, Roy thinks. He can’t be older than thirty, thirty-two. And he’s the boss. “So you sold antiques.”

Roy nods. “For a while, yes. Sir.”

“That a hard thing to do?”

“Not hard to sell them. Hard to make a business of it.”

Arbeiter leans back in his chair, hands folded across his chest. “We’re not all born businessmen, Roy. Some men are better at it than others.”

Roy doesn’t know if he’s being smug. Doesn’t care. For a moment, he wants to leap across the desk. Grab this asshole by his tie. Tell him that he’s beat the snot out of younger men, out of stronger men. Tell him he wouldn’t stand a chance in the real world. Outside this office.

But that’s old Roy. New Roy needs a job. A verifiable job, at least until he’s got custody of Angela. After that … Well, there’s always quitting time.

“I’d just like the opportunity to work in a good company,” Roy says dutifully. The words sting his throat. He thinks about Angela. Steels himself. “If I can sell antiques, I can sell … what is it you make here?”

“Air-conditioning units.”

“Air-conditioning units. Same principles of sale. You give me a chance, I’ll sell a thousand of those things.”

“I’m sure you will. Okay, thanks for coming in.”

Roy remains seated. “I need—I need a job.”

“Right. We’ll call you.”

Roy shakes his head. “I will work hard.”

“Right,” the boss repeats, his tone firm. “And we will call you. Thank you.” He stands, and Roy takes this as his cue to leave. They shake hands, and Roy shuffles out. In the waiting room are five other applicants. They look up at him as he passes. Looking for a sign.

“Air-conditioning,” he tells one skittish-looking woman in the far corner. “In case he asks, they sell air-conditioning.”

The night before the game is set to go down, Angela sleeps over. The room is pretty much hers by now. Roy shoved the ceramic horse into a far corner, took down all the paintings she didn’t like. The horse only has walking-around cash in it now, ten thousand at the most. The watercolors went directly in the trash. Angela’s got her own sense of style, her own sense of place. Roy knows she likes tulips. Bought some at the grocery store last time he went, put them in a vase next to her bed.

Roy watches as she brushes her hair, preparing for a good night’s sleep. She knows what’s going down tomorrow. Knows it on an intimate level. Despite his initial objections, Angela will be in on the game. It’s the only way it will work right, the only way it can go down. There’s other ways to play it, but this one works best. Hit ’em with the right connection, and you can take out any mark. That’s what they need if this is going to work. That’s what Frankie needs if he’s going to be on his own.

Roy sits down on the edge of her bed. He’s bought her a real, honest-to-goodness bed to replace the fold-out twin sofa. It’s got a headboard and a footboard. Top-of-the-line mattress. She picked it out at the store. While she was doing that, Roy filled
out an application. He could sell mattresses. No problem. “You feelin’ good about tomorrow, kid?”

“Sure,” she says. “What’s not to feel good about?”

“Nothing. Just making sure you don’t have the jitters.”

“Jitter free, Daddy-O.” She puts down the brush and climbs into bed, pulling her hair back into a ponytail. Securing it with a rubber band. “You can’t do it without me, anyway. Right?”

“That’s right. And what’d we discuss—if there’s any problems—”

“If there are any problems, I run. I run to the train station and I get home to Mom.”

“Good.”

“But there won’t be any problems,” she says. “I know it.”

“I know it, too. Now tuck in.”

Angela climbs under her covers, drawing them up. Arranging her pillows just so. She pulls Roy over to her, draping his arm around her shoulders. He’s halfway on the bed, his daughter tucked into his arm, leaning against his body. She snuggles in tighter. Staring up at Roy. “And when it’s all over …”

This is a game they’ve been playing for weeks. “When it’s all over,” Roy says, “we’ll … sell this place, and buy a big house in the country.”

Angela’s turn. “When it’s all over … you’ll have a great job working at a pet store.”

“A pet store, huh?”

“Yep. There’s perks, see. They let you bring home one dog a day, and all cats are half price.”

“Good store. Okay. When it’s all over … we’ll have a pool with an inner tube slide and a ten-meter diving board.”

“Ooh, that’s good.” Her eyelids drop, head sinking lower on the pillow. “When it’s all over, we’ll spend the summers together …”

“And the winters, if you want. We’ll find you a good school, and you’ll make some good friends, and we’ll set you up right.”

“… and things’ll patch up between you and mom …”

Roy is quiet. He’s not playing the game anymore. Just listening. Knowing what she wants. That it won’t happen.

“… and then … we can all be … a family again.”

Angela is asleep in his arms. At the very least, she’s dreaming. Roy doesn’t want to wake her up. Not yet. He gingerly pulls himself away, carefully catching her head as it falls. Laying it against the pillow. Wishing her a good night’s sleep.

They meet on a darkened corner two blocks away from the theater. Angela, Roy, and Frankie pull up in one car; Saif comes by foot. He has the large gym bag Roy gave him for transporting the money. It hangs heavily off Saif’s shoulder, weighing him down. Roy hopes Saif plays it like he thinks he will. It all depends on that.

“This is your daughter, then?” Saif asks, holding out his hands.

“This is Angela.”

Saif leans down. “Your father is a very courageous man. A very good man.”

“I know.”

“To give up … all this. For you. You know that, yes?”

“Yeah, I know it.” Angela looks up at Roy. Does this need to go on?

Roy reaches out for Saif’s bag. “You brought the money?”

“All of it. It’s quite heavy.” He sets the gym bag on the ground and pulls back the zipper. Inside are stacks of hundred-dollar bills wrapped in cellophane. Bricks of cash. “Three hundred thousand dollars. The bait, yes?”

“What’s the Saran Wrap for?” asks Frankie.

“I could not find the … the wrappers. You know? And I did not want to go into a bank and ask for a hundred ties.”

“It’s fine,” says Roy. “Let’s get moving.”

Saif zips the gym bag back up and throws it over his shoulder. They emerge onto the street and head down the sidewalk, keeping in a tight formation. “This is very exciting to me,” Saif says. “To begin this way.”

“Excitement don’t enter into it,” says Roy. “You gotta treat this like any other job.”

“Yes, of course, but—”

“No
but
. This is an exchange, that’s what’s got to go down. That’s how it seems it should go down, at least. You don’t think anything different, and it’ll all go okay.”

A block before the theater, they arrive at a small office building. Frankie pulls a key out of his pocket and works the lock. “You got everything you need?” Roy asks.

“It’s all inside,” says Frankie. “I’ll change here, get over there quick, wait it out in the bathroom.”

“Fine. Just make sure you pop when it’s time.”

“I always do.” Frankie opens the door and steps inside. Reaches a hand back out, grabs Roy’s. “This is it, partner. Last dance.”

“Last dance,” echoes Roy. “Play it safe, kid.”

The door closes, and Frankie is inside the building. Saif, Roy,
and Angela walk on. Saif leans into Roy, trying to balance the gym bag on his hip. “A question,” he says. “How do we get the bag back once the … the mark has left?”

“We don’t,” says Roy. “No need.” He’s not being clear enough. “The thing is, if this goes down right, he won’t have the bag. Frankie’s gonna jump when the merchandise is on the floor, and—look, just let me do the talking in there, okay? Let me run the deal, and it’s all gonna go fine.”

Saif nods. “And this mark … he will fall for it?”

“He’ll fall for it hard,” Roy promises. “He’s a dealer from outta town. I found him a while back, got his trust big. He won’t suspect a thing, and we’ll be home free. Like I said, we don’t get involved with the drug trade—it’s a rule. So you’ll take the merchandise, sell it however it is you sell it, and distribute the cut. But you’ve gotta play it right.”

Angela can’t help but interrupt. “Roy says it’s a classic blow-off.”

“Right, hon. Old school.”

Saif says, “Yes, it seems simple.”

“It’s never simple,” corrects Roy. “It just comes off that way. It’s set up tight, and nothing should go wrong. But if something happens—”

“Such as?”

“I don’t know, that’s the point. Anything. If it breaks down, you get yourself outta there fast. I can’t protect you.” He puts his arm around Angela, hugging her close. “Inside, she’s my main concern, not you. If things go bad, I’m protecting her before anything else.”

“As it should be,” says Saif.

They round the corner. No one’s on the street this time of night, especially down here. In front of them is the old Adelphi theater, long since abandoned. “Now, from everything we know, this guy should fall over easy, so the blow-off should stick. Inside, we keep to the new names we talked about. And after it’s over, best thing to do is to skip town for a while.”

“Maybe we can check out Fiji,” Angela suggests. “I saw it in a magazine. Blue water, big mountains.”

“Sure, hon. Fiji’s great.”

The walls of the Adelphi are covered in graffiti. Bright orange scrawls, yellow names scattered on the concrete. The windows are boarded up, the front door padlocked. Roy leads the group past the main entrance and into a back alley. Next to a side entrance door is another window, marked with a red Q. Roy reaches up and pulls hard at the boards. They come up as one, lifting on a set of recessed hinges. “Fake front. Go, file in.”

Saif climbs inside, throwing the gym bag in front of him. Angela’s next; Roy helps lift her into place. She winks as she passes through, and Roy winks back before following her inside.

Trash lines the floor of the abandoned theater. Plastic bags, food trays. Needles, beer bottles, used condoms. The screen of the once palatial movie house has been ripped into dangling shreds. Seats ripped out of their mooring. Foam cushions scattered along the floor.

“Guess they canceled the late show,” says Angela.

Roy clears a path through the trash, kicking out at the rubbish. “They closed it up about ten years ago. Lotta deals go down in here.”

“With you?”

Roy shrugs. “Yeah. Sometimes with me.”

Saif lags behind them, muttering to himself. Roy can’t make out what he’s saying. “You coming?” he calls, and Saif smiles and nods. Picks up the pace.

Movement behind the shredded movie screen. A shadow. Roy puts out a hand, holding Angela back. “Mr. Thomas?” he calls out. “That you?”

There’s stumbling, heavy footsteps tripping over unseen trash. “Too fucking dark back here.” The silhouette, coming closer. Breaking into the light. A short, well-built man in a thin sweater stumbles out from behind the screen, stepping onto the narrow stage. Like Saif, he’s also got himself a gym bag. “Nice place you got here.”

Roy climbs up, pulling Angela with him. Saif does likewise. “Good to see you again,” says Roy, shaking the man’s hand.

“You’re late.”