Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [56]
I told it. The boat, the bodies, Williams, the Colonel and the money, and of course the part about Vivian. That would be the part they would understand best.
They listened, and when I was done, Hank said, “We need to have ourselves a drink, don’t you think?”
He opened a small cabinet that was deeper than it looked and brought out an ice bucket, four glasses, and a bottle of Chivas Regal. Hank and Darin opened a pair of Heinekens. The silence came back, but it wasn’t vacant. There was a lot of thinking in it. They were weighing my story like a trio of diamond merchants examining a hoard of strange gems on a black velvet cloth.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think you fucked up,” Reginald said. He was the one in white, the one with the skull on his ring.
“You should have stayed at Krome,” Hank said. “Jail never suited me, but you would have been out in a few days. Now they’ll be out looking for your ass.”
“You wouldn’t like sitting in jail if some guy was out looking for your woman, would you?”
Darin, the one with the muscles and the leather vest, cracked his knuckles and leaned forward. I hadn’t noticed before, but three of his front teeth were gold-capped. “Anything else you forgot to tell us, Jack-off?”
“Chill out, Darin,” Hank said. “I told you homeboy here helped me out some. I don’t forget shit like that.” Then he looked at me, lifting up his shades.
“You want a beer?” Hank asked.
I said I did, and he handed me a Heineken. If there was anything that tasted better right then, the Good Lord had kept it for himself.
“Where you need to be at?” Hank asked.
“How about Alaska?” I said.
“Try again.”
“Coconut Grove. Take me to Miller Drive. It’s near the Texaco station.”
“What’s there?”
“A friend of mine.”
“Man or woman?” Darin asked.
“Woman.”
“Sheet,” Reginald said. All three laughed.
“I hope it’s not that Chinese bitch,” the Space Man offered.
“Vietnamese. No. It’s someone else. My lawyer.”
“She going to help you?”
“I hope so.”
“What do you think the shit is, dude?” Darin said. “You get rid of the boat, then the old guy sends his boy out to kill you. Must be a reason for that, something you don’t know about.”
“Unless they just don’t want to pay you the other fifty grand,” Reginald said.
“I don’t think it’s that,” I said.
“You got a plan?” Hank asked.
“I wouldn’t call it a plan.”
“Well, you better find one.”
“She played you, man,” Darin said. “Any fool can see that.”
Hank, the Space Man, shook his head. “Listen to the man, Jack. You used to be all laid back and shit. You had your shit together. Now look at you. You’re running loose, fucking with illegal aliens. You’re dressed like a big, ugly-ass, homeless, beer-drinking John Travolta motherfucker, and to top it all off, the cops are looking for you. Damned, nigger, it’s too bad your sorry ass can’t sing. With a story like that, you could have been a great rapper.”
“Who told you I couldn’t sing?” I said.
We all laughed. Darin leaned forward and extended his hand. I took it.
“You are one crazy white man,” he said with a lot of feeling. “I hope you don’t get killed.”
“Thank you,” I said.
We were on U.S. 1 headed north. The usual franchises flashed by us in a blur of neon script. Another ten minutes of light traffic and we’d be in the Grove.
“One more thing,” I said.
“What you need? Money? How much? You know I got it.” Hank leaned forward and picked up his little black handbag from the floor.
“That and something else.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t think I can get back to my apartment just yet. So I need to borrow a gun.”
The three men exchanged glances. “The white boy is high,” Darin said.
“What makes you think I got a gun?” Space asked indignantly, his voice rising toward a steep falsetto. “You think all black people have guns? Is that what you’re saying? That’s the kind of thinking that keeps the black man down.”
“Look,” I said, “I didn