Caught Stealing - Charlie Huston [32]
He drinks more beer.
—Anyway, sorry I lost it in the car. I’m not like that. Really.
—No problem.
He sticks his hand out across the table. I take it and we shake.
—Sure you don’t want a beer, something to eat?
—Yeah, but thanks.
—Sure.
Ed plops back down in the booth.
—Sorry about that. When ya gotta, ya gotta.
The diner is mostly empty, just us and a mixed bag of travelers. Under the table I’m silently clicking my heels together while in my head I repeat to myself over and over, There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.
We cruise around Manhattan, Paris at the wheel. Ed tells me a story.
—When we were kids, me an’ my brother, when we were kids we used to hang out at this Boys Club in Queens. We hated goin’ there. Kids always wanted to fight, everybody, fightin’ all the time. Me an’ Paris, we hated fightin’. Every day, we’d tell our mom we didn’t want to go, an’ every day she’d tell us to get the hell over to the Boys Club an’ let her get some damn work done. They had this wood shop; supposed to make things. All they got to make things with is wood an’ old tires. No shit. Not even real wood, scrap shit fulla knots an’ sap an’ nails an’ shit. You ever try to make something outa old tires an’ scrap wood? A birdhouse? Bullshit, no fuckin’ way. Kids, what they did, they’d cut long strips of rubber from the tires an’ have whip fights up on the roof of the club. Go up there an’ whale the shit out of each other. One day this kid, Dex, he gets Paris up on the roof, but Paris, he don’t want trouble. Don’t fuckin’ matter to Dex. Him an’ his friends, they go after Paris, they pull down his pants an’ whip shit out of his rear end. Leave him up there cryin’, snotty, blood all over his butt. I get him home an’ our mom flips, wants ta call the club, call the cops. Tells us she’s sorry, we never have to go back. Next day, we go right back. We go to the wood shop an’ cut us some long-ass strips of steel-belted radial. Have to cut that shit with a hacksaw. Then we break off these little slivers of razor blade an’ stick ’em in the tips of our whips. I find that Dex kid an’ tell him I’ll see him on the roof. He shows up with his boys an’ before he can even open his mouth to start talking shit, I rake that whip across his eyes. Fucker went right down screamin’. His boys try to step up an’ I just start whippin’ all over ’em. Paris, he’s all calm an’ shit. He walks over to where Dex is on the ground holding his eyes in his head, yanks the boy’s trousers down, an’ cuts his ass up good. Dex’s crew freak out, can’t handle the action, so they bug out. But Paris just keeps the whip on Dex till he’s pretty much dead. Once he stopped, we were both a little worked up, I guess, knew we were in trouble, but we didn’t really know what to do about it. So we just dragged Dex over to the edge of the roof an’ rolled him off. Kid was so bloody, he actually splashed when he hit the ground. That’s how we ended up in Montana at one of those juvenile camps. Take troubled inner-city youths an’ put them in the great outdoors an’ make ’em work? That shit. But, man, was it beautiful. Plains, mountains, Big Sky Country. Coulda spent my whole life there. So look, Hank. It’s Hank, right?
—Yeah.
—So, what this is about, your role. When we didn’t find Russ at home, we decided to take a peek at Roman, see what he’s up to. An’ what he was up to was you. So we took a peek at you. Followed you to that place on the West Side. Thought we’d take you for a ride. Got it?
—Sure.
—So now, the thing is, Hank, we need that key. I figure Roman, he told you that he’d do something bad if he doesn’t get the key, right? Kill you, hurt your people, whatever, right?
—Right.
—But you get him the key, he’ll just leave you alone, right?
—Right.
—Well, fuck that, ’cause I guarantee you that zombie fucker’s gonna kill you key or no key. That sound about right?
—Yeah.