Screwed (11 page)

More stupider? This guy runs an organization?

I do a little shadow boxing in the elevator to get my blood up, then practice my chosen look in the mirrored doors. I want Mr. Shea to see a guy who’s big and dumb but trying his darndest to look bigger and less dumb. It’s time to accept that I’m going through with this drop and use whatever skills I have to ensure I come out the other side.

In other words, I need to become a soldier again.

The elevator tells me in the sexist voice I have ever heard that we have reached the penthouse. At this point most elevators would ding but this one actually sighs, which almost breaks my focus.

Soldier, I tell myself. Stupid soldier time.

The doors open onto a corridor with plush red carpet like you’d get spilling out of the queen’s plane, and there are three guys on sentry duty.

These guys ain’t military, two of them are sitting down for Christ’s sake. One of the sitters is eating chicken. But the third sentry is in my face, waiting right there by the door, big smile all ready. One of those hearty smiles favored by people in public office. It comes on like a lightbulb but there isn’t any warmth in it.

I size him up from behind my dumb trying to look not dumb eyes. He’s big but a little soft, should’ve moved up a shirt size a while back but is holding on, strangling the buttons in their holes. He’s got a flat face and a weird constellation of teardrop freckles that look like he shotgunned someone close quarters and got spattered. He’s light on his feet and I can see muscle in his shoulders and arms. Also, I hate to say it, but there’s plenty of smarts in those eyes, which is the best weapon of all, at close quarters. From far out, a good scope and steady hands will trump smarts every time.

“I got the package,” I say, trying to sound gruff. “For Mr. Shea.”

The guy speaks and I am surprised to hear actual first-generation Irish-Irish. Maybe he emigrated on account of the recession, but I doubt it. I bet he threw a few things in a holdall and skipped the country with the laser eyes of law enforcement searing the seat of his pants.

“We were expecting you, Daniel. We have been for the past couple of hours. Mr. Shea is getting antsy.”

I don’t even bother offering a platitude. I give him a shrug that could mean traffic, fuck you or both. That’s what I like about shrugs: their ambivalence.

The guy beckons me out of the lift and my toe catches on the lip, which kind of puts a dent in my tough-guy routine, but also gives me an excuse to stumble forward and slip the lightweight Kel-Tec concealed in my paw into his jacket pocket.

“Easy there, big fella,” says the guy, like I’m a horse being led to the bolt room.

He pushes me away, gentle, then raises his arms high, wiggling his fingers.

“You trying to lev’tate me?” I ask, figuring my mispronunciation puts the comment in dumb guy trying to be a smartass territory.

“Just get ’em up,” he says, so I do. And he moves in for a thorough frisk. This guy knows how to frisk, I’ll give him that. In some cultures we’d be married now. It takes him five seconds to locate the two remaining weapons and a couple of probing minutes to ensure that there aren’t any more. No gentle hands here. This ain’t JFK. Nobody’s gonna be pressing molestation charges.

“You came prepared,” he says and passes my weapons off to one of the chair goons who gets chicken grease all over the holster before tossing the hardware into a bucket under his chair. Greasy fingers on my stuff is one of my pet hates and the only reason I hold it together is because those guns haven’t been in my possession long enough for me to consider them mine.

“Prepared is my middle name,” I say, which I figure sounds stupid enough to cancel out the levitation crack.

My frisker’s laugh is about as warm as his smile. “Really? That’s nice, Daniel. Now, why don’t you get your prepared arse into Mr. Shea’s office?”

Arse. Now there’s a word you don’t hear enough of.

“Couldn’t I just give this envelope to you?” Might as well ask.

“Nope. This is one of those in person situations. Mr. Shea is anxious to meet you.”

I am anxious to meet absolutely no more new people today.

“Okay, let’s get this over with.”

I walk toward the door, each step laden with doom, which sounds melodramatic, I know, but that’s how it feels. The tension churns my stomach and I am gripped by an almost irresistible urge to take on this group of sentinels, and then knock on the door and introduce myself to this Shea person. The seated guys hop to attention like they can read menace in my aura and treat me to vicious squints. I may have rushed to judgment about these two with all their sitting/chicken scarfing. Vertical, they look pretty formidable. My urge to violence fizzles out and I decide to let this situation play out a little more.

“You guys stay out here and watch the elevator,” says Spatter to his boys. “On your toes, please. No more bloody KFC.”

They’re staying outside. This is good, unless something is about to happen in the room that Spatter does not want anyone to witness.

The thing about witnesses is they never start out that way. People see nothing and know nothing until law enforcement types help them remember. Most people can be pressured into turning, and a good boss knows that. So if mortal injuries are about to be inflicted, the less people who see it the better.

The door is cast iron and ornate and I realize that it is a scale reproduction of the hotel’s façade right down to the arched entrance.

“It’s a little hotel,” I say, ladling on the stupid.

“That’s right, Einstein,” says Blood Spatter, shouldering me out of the way, which gives me that one second of up close I need to reclaim the little nine-millimeter from his jacket pocket. He doesn’t feel a thing and I feel a kinship with the tiny Kel-Tec now; this gun is truly mine as we’ve been through shenanigans together.

Now I have seven surprises for Mr. Shea and his boys, I think, slotting the featherweight pistol into my own pocket. Seven, and one in the pipe.

I don’t want to kill anyone if I don’t have to, but to be honest I’m less anti-homicide than I was yesterday. If I even smell rubber, then the gloves are coming off if you’ll pardon the expression.

This day is turning into a long series of confrontational meetings with angry men. It seems that no matter how far up the food chain you go, the head honcho is always a bag of insecurities just itching for some poor sap to underestimate his importance. This place, the Masterpiece, is pretty top end, but I just bet this Shea guy has a “high and mighty” routine he would switch on for all and sundry right down to the pizza boy. I never met a boss or an officer who was comfortable in his own skin.

As I go through the doorway, I’m visualizing how it’s gonna go. Even though Shea has been pacing all morning for me to show up with this valuable package, he’ll probably make me wait while he finishes his salmon blinis or shouts sell sell sell into his iPhone.

I am dead wrong.

This guy is out of one of those weird backless stool-chairs running at me with a mouthful of hummus.

I do not believe this. That’s my third thing: sucking coffee, greasy fingers, eating with your mouth open.

You know what? People are animals.

You’re not a monkey, I want to tell this guy. Shut your goddamn face.

It’s too much tension. So I giggle.

“It’s about time, McEvoy . . .” he begins, then hears the giggle and his techno trainers squeak to a halt on the wooden floor. “What? You’re laughing at me?”

Shea has got bits of food in his limp goatee. How am I gonna take this person seriously?

I remind myself that I am pretending to be dumb. Or more accurately dumber than I am. If I wasn’t dumb, would I be here in the first place?

“No, sir, Mr. Shea,” I blurt. “I got this condition. It’s a stress thing, Mom says. It’s like A . . . D . . . something and another D. I got stuff, like medicine, but we’re outta Cheerios so I didn’t take it. You’re like the real deal, Mr. Shea, and I ain’t never been in a penthouse. You know your door is like the hotel but shrunk down?”

I fear I maybe have played the shit-kicker card too strong but Shea is moved to laughter by my speech.

“Do you hear this bullshit, Freckles?” he asks Blood Spatter. “Mike said he was a retard and for once the man was right.”

I have one new piece of information now and an inference; The head muscle’s nom-de-goon is “Freckles,” which by the law of inverse proportions means he must be meaner than a snake.

Shea zigzags himself back into the ergo-stool and I take a heavy-lidded look at the guy, trying to see past the hummus for the moment, though I’m not ruling out bringing it up later.

Shea isn’t much more than a boy. Maybe twenty-two, dressed straight out of Abercrombie, probably stands in line with the other kids on the weekends. He’s got acne traces on his forehead and really well conditioned blond hair, artfully sticking up a hundred ways all at the same time. If this youngster is at the top of whatever organisation is being run out of this place, then he just got here.

Maybe the king is dead and this kid found himself on the throne.

Shea drums the desk a little with his forefingers and nods at me to sit.

“See, here’s what happened, McEvoy.”

I do not want to hear what happened. Finding out what happened rarely leads to happy ever after.

“You can tell me if you want, Mr. Shea,” I say, wondering how long they can possibly buy this dumb act for. “But if I gotta repeat it back, Mr. Madden says to record it on my phone.”

Shea smirks at Freckles and I know I’m screwed. “No need to record anything, McEvoy. You won’t be repeating shit.”

“Okay, then.”

Shea resumes his storytelling, shoveling food into his mouth from a deli carton as he speaks. “Mike. Mr. Madden. My dad let him have his own little operation out in the suburbs because he owed Mike a favor or two. Mike’s deal is small time, who gives a shit? But now Dad is gone and we’re in a recession, so all the small times need to be amalgamated. You stack up a hundred cents and they make a dollar, right?”

“That is right,” I say, amazed.

“I sent a representative to speak to Mike. A friend of mine. Nice guy, grew excellent weed. Harvard graduate like me, you know.” Shea wiggles a finger and I see a Harvard ring all pimped out with diamonds. “What a school? Wall-to-wall smart pussy.”

I nod along with the beat of his patter, waiting for the point.

“So there’s a misunderstanding with one of Mike’s people and now my boy is out of action for half a year at least and his nerves are shot to fuck, which really inconveniences me personally. My pot parties are legendary, man. You ever hear about my parties, McEvoy?”

“No. I never hear about ’em. Was I invited?”

This is outrageous bullshit, but they’re hooked now. I hear snickering behind me.

“I wanna do Irish Mike,” continues Shea. “But Freckles convinces me to settle ’cause he’s tight with old Mikey.”

Shea’s Harvard accent is slipping and I hear the nasal wah-wah of Brooklyn bashing through.

“So Mike agrees to partnering up and promises to reimburse me for my trouble and send me the name of the man who decked my boy in an envelope, as a peace offering. You got that envelope, Daniel?”

My confused look is now genuine as I am not sure what Mike’s play is if I’m supposed to be the guy who decked his Harvard buddy. He’s gotta know I’m not going down easy.

Shea snaps his fingers and hummus plops onto the desk. “Hey, rocket scientist. Do you have my envelope?”

I reach into my pocket slowly. “I got it here somewheres. This jacket has so many pockets but my other jacket is at the cleaners. It’s at my mom’s really but I don’t like to say that in front of the guys so I say cleaners.”

Shea nods at Freckles. “Looks like we’re talking to the dumbest guy on earth.”

Freckles taps his temple. “He ain’t all there, boss.”

“Don’t call me boss,” snaps Shea. “My father was boss. Like some plantation owner. Call me sir.”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Shea. Just reflex. I’m an old dog, you know?”

Shea nods like ain’t that the truth. “Well, we know what happens to old dogs.”

Oh. Hello there. A little tension in the camp.

Shea drums the table again. “Envelope, please.”

I slide it over and begin visualizing my moves. Freckles has shifted slightly, out of my field of vision, so he’s what my Ranger buddies would call the prime hostile. Shea is just a kid and I can tell by his posture that he’s not a physical guy, but I still gotta factor him in. You never know who’s a crack shot or can throw a knife. Maybe this prick grew up on Duke Nukem and can decapitate a rat at fifty paces.

I still can’t figure the play. Why would Mike throw me into this mix? I’m chaos and unpredictability. If Mike wants to suck up to this varsity kid, surely he’s gonna sacrifice one of those mooks he keeps around the Brass Ring.

He should know that at some point I am going to see an opening and bludgeon my way through and then come home in the dark.

Shea counts out the bonds then slides one across to me. “This word, dumb ass,” he says, tapping the bond. “What is it?”

“Bearer,” I say, sounding out the syllables.

“You know what that means?”

I can guess but I give him the answer he might expect.

“Something about being like naked?”

“It means that you’re the bearer, the guy. I don’t know if you’re the actual guy but Mike has no use for you.” Shea slides the empty envelope back to me like it’s Long John Silver’s black spot. “I think your boss is trying to kill two birds with one stone and, Mr. Daniel McEvoy, you’re one of those birds.”

I have a road to Damascus moment, the penny drops from a great height, and I see Mike’s vision of the future stretched out before me. Irish Mike is as dumb as moss, but he has a condition that makes him very dangerous; he sincerely and in spite of all evidence to the contrary believes himself to be clever. A master strategist.

And I think he’s bumped into some other dumb smart guy.

This is what I think: Freckles and Mike have partnered up.

Freckles asked Mike to send over a patsy so Freckles can shoot Shea and blame the patsy and step into the vacant top slot. This poor college grad is getting disinherited.