999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [98]
“That’s just plain cold, Bill.”
I was getting fed up. “Listen, Ray, it wasn’t you who had to live through the nightmare of childhood with Lilly, with her vomiting in your face, mewling all night like a cat with worms, trying to pull your hair out by the roots every time you came near her. It wasn’t you who got into fights three or four times a week because your schoolmates were so fucking cruel. It wasn’t you who had to live with parents who were so filled with dread, so utterly desperate they became helpless as children, taken advantage of time and again by con artists posing as doctors, healers, fortune-tellers. It wasn’t you who had madness staring you in the face for fourteen years. Christ, the thought of it all makes my skin crawl.”
He was silent for a time. “She’s on the point of death now, Bill. Herman has made it clear he feels he has no obligation in the matter of arrangements. So what d’you want to do?”
“I want to forget she ever existed, that’s what I want to do.”
Ray sighed again. “When she dies I’ll have her cremated, then.”
“By all fucking means,” I told him. “Scatter her spaz ashes to the four winds.” I waited a moment. “And Ray?”
“Yes, Bill.”
“Don’t even think about telling me I have to be there when they do it.”
That conversation set the tone. I was sour and pissed off when I got off the phone, and if I hadn’t been, what happened next might have happened differently. But I was and it didn’t.
What happened next was that the Tazzman breezed in. Not that I knew his name then; I’d never set eyes on him before.
“Hey, yo, whiteys, git yo hands in da air an do like I tell yo.” The Tazzman was a tall, cadaverous black man with a sunken chest, wild hair like Jimi Hendrix and a face like Ike Turner, only he was very, very young. The studied meanness of his features seemed no more than a millimeter thick, as if stamped upon him by circumstance rather than by any aspect of his own nature. Mike and I decided to pay attention since he had a scary-looking machine pistol leveled at us.
He advanced into the bar, watching both of us with quick, nervous movements. “Yo,” he said, addressing Mike, “I wancha money.”
“Tell me something, kid, you ever do this before?” I said as Mike was about to reply. “I mean, it’s eleven o’clock of a Monday morning. Nobody’s in the place but me and Mike here. What kinda money you think he has in the rill?” I could see from the disapproving glance Mike gave me that he was not a happy camper. Too bad. Someone had to take control of this situation, otherwise we’d both be fucked.
“Smart guy,” the Tazzman snarled. “Yo gonna git yo smart white ass stuck all over dis here wall yo doan watchit.” His wary, scared eyes took us both in. “Gimme what’s inna till an whut you got on you.”
I fanned open my wallet. The two fives made me feel briefly ashamed.
“Shee-it!“ the Tazzman opined as he lifted the bills so expertly I hardly knew they were gone. “Ain’t you even got a watch?”
“Time means nothing to me,” I said, showing him my naked wrists. “Speaking of which, you don’t look like you’ve eaten anything for a bunch.”
The Tazzman chewed on his lip and glowered at me as he sized up the situation. He was as jumpy as a bear scenting humans, which should have warned me. But as I said, those phone calls put me in one pissy mood and I was ready to take up arms against the next person who crossed my path. Stupid, right? The ancient Greeks had a better word for it: hubris.
“Mike, make this guy a burger, would you?” Since the Tazzman couldn’t make heads or tails out of this, I decided to press on. “What’s your name?”
“Huh?” He seemed stupefied. I guess I couldn’t blame him much. I doubt this robbery was going the way he had envisioned.
“You got a name, don’t you?” I got up from my booth. “My name’s Bill, and like I said before this here’s Mike. What do your friends call you?”