Explodey
It’s funny how, in situations of extreme danger, your brain will tell you to crawl away as fast as your bruised knees will carry you, even if doing so exposes you to more danger than just sitting still. I am beginning to realize that my instincts are well-meaning, but dumb as dirt.
I stop mid-crawl, and Ping smacks into my ass, which is doing neither of us any good. Not in this context, anyway.
“What?” she hisses.
“Back up!” I hiss back.
“Back? Where?”
“Back!” I say, and start backing up myself. We’re halfway to cover when Ping stops suddenly, eyes wide open like a kid who saw Santa Claus snorting coke with a hand down his pants.
“Back, you moron!” I whisper, but she doesn’t react.
“It’s him!” Ping says.
“Him who?”
“Oliphant!” she says. “It’s gotta be!”
“Is he going to kill me right now?”
“No.”
“Then shut up and move!”
We get back under cover just as the Associate and Tony are heading out. Associate shakes Tony’s hand, smiles nervously, and is interrupted by his phone ringing. The theme to the Smurfs. It’s taking all my willpower not to burst out laughing right now.
“Yeah?” he grumbles into the phone. “Yeah. No. He what?” Oh, so they’re talking about me. “You idiots! Stay there, don’t say nothin’ to anyone!”
He hangs up and puts on the kind of smile you see from Mexican tourists when you inadvertently call their mothers toe-licking whores in broken Spanish, and they don’t want to risk jail time by fixing your vocabulary for you. Or something. We’re getting off track here.
“You okay, kid?” Tony asks.
“Oh yeah,” Associate lies. “All’s good. Just a problem with… stuff…”
“Don’t forget,” Tony sneers at him, “I’ve already whacked one wiseguy today. Two ain’t nothing to me.”
Killed someone else today?
Associate nods deeply, then turns and runs for the parking lot. Tony adjusts his belt over his sizeable gut and turns back to the races, eyes landing quite easily on Ping and I underneath the table.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he barks, and starts shuffling away like a walrus with hemorrhoids.
“Yo Tony!” I call, getting to my feet with something less than dignity. “Got a minute?”
Tony stops, turns, stares at me very seriously. I get the impression this is the part where I’m supposed to cower in fear, but honestly, there’s only so much cowering I can fit into a day. After a certain point, you’ve just got to do your fearing standing up.
“Piss off,” Tony says, and I grab his arm before he can turn again. This gets his attention. He stares at my hand like I’m an extremely leprous leper, holds his breath. Again with the drama. This guy watches too many mob movies.
“Who’d you kill today?” I ask.
“Eh?” Ping whimpers from underneath the table.
“What’s it to you?” Tony says with a voice so quiet it makes a whisper sound like a sonic boom. I think this is his mad voice. It could use some work.
“I think it was my partner, and I want to know where to send the funeral bill.”
Tony licks his lips.
“You’re a cold one,” he says finally.
“Tax deductions are tax deductions.”
“What if it was your partner? You gonna shoot me? Here? You’d never make it out alive.”
“If I wanted you dead, Tony, you’d be dead already.”
Ping stifles a giggle.
“So what, then?” Tony says. “What’s your angle?”
“I want to understand the situation. Why are you collecting debts for Jimmy Scaz?”
“I ain’t collecting on none of his debts. The little fucker owes me cash. I couldn’t care less about his midget-dick loans.”
“He owes… you money on his own?”
“The kid can’t pick horses for shit,” Tony says, glancing down at my hand on his arm. It let go, brush some of the sweat off awkwardly. “Dug himself a hole too deep. If he’d run his racket like I told him, he’d have thirty grand on him like nothing. Instead, he prances round like a leatherbound fairy and wonders why nobody takes him seriously. His mother’d hang herself again, may she rest in peace.”
There’s obviously a lot of baggage here I don’t want to get involved in without a bullet proof shield and a pair of long surgical gloves. Tony looks like he’s getting misty.
“So you didn’t blow up my partner?”
“Blow up?” Tony snorts. “Kid, I don’t blow up nobody. Leaves too much evidence, plus it costs a lot more than a bullet to the head.”
I should quit this job and write a “Mob Murders For Dummies” book with Tony. He’s a veritable fountain of grim trivia.
“So you definitely didn’t kill my partner? Exploding or otherwise?”
“Hard to say since I don’t know who the fuck we’re talking about.”
“Matt Richardson.”
“The cop?”
“Ex-cop.”
Tony shifts his weight, looks ominous again.
“Since when?” he says, voice darkening.
“Over a year. Listen, none of this is—”
Tony grabs my shirt and pulls me close. There’s a vein in the side of his head throbbing violently, and I think my only hope of survival right now is for it to burst and spew his blood all over the floor. Go, pulsing vein, go!
“He didn’t mention that last week,” he growls.
Ohhhhh no.
“Last week?”
“Last week when he came to collect his money, the lying weasel. It don’t help nothing for ex-cops to look the other way!”
“So Matt was… on the take.”
“Jesus, kid, I thought you were his partner!”
“It’s a fluid concept. Hard to pin down. Ping? A little help please?”
I can hear the sound of her crossing her arms in defiance.
“Fine,” I sigh. “Jei darling? Save me from the bad man?”
Ping pops up, eyes narrow with cunning and/or stupidity, puts her hands on both our shoulders, leans in conspiratorially.
“Hello, guys,” she says smoothly.
“Who the fuck are you?” Tony asks in a way that suggests he wants to know so he can inscribe it on a tombstone.
“How much did Mr Richardson owe you, Tony?” Ping asks sweetly.
“Ten grand. Maybe more.”
“Let’s call it fifteen.”
Tony eyes her suspiciously.
“Let’s.”
“Good,” continues Ping. “So here’s what I’ve got for you. Mr Marx here is going to get you the fifteen thousand today.”
“I’m what?”
“As a show of good faith,” says Ping, ignoring my impending stroke. “Because, truth be told, Mr Richardson royally screwed him too. But that’s no reason for you to suffer, right?”
Tony has nothing to say. I think he’s mesmerized by the idea that such a short person can think such big thoughts. I know it’s got me in a tizzy.
“But we need a favour first,” Ping says, voice dropping an octave to something resembling humility. “A people problem, if you will.”
Tony cricks his neck, lets go of my shirt. He doesn’t wipe the sweat off. I’m remarkably okay with that.
“What kind of people problem?” Tony asks.
“There’s his guy over there,” Ping says, pointing over her shoulder casually. “Name’s Oliphant. He stole a laptop that I need back.”
“What’s on the laptop?”
“Bad stuff.”
“Porn?”
“Thank you!” I say, vindicated.
“It’s beside the point,” Ping says, pushing me out of the equation. “Thing is, we need that laptop back. And I know you’re a busy man, so I’m going to give you an extra five grand — that makes twenty total — if you can persuade Mr Oliphant to hand over the laptop.”
Tony looks over at the Elephant man, back at Ping, then to me. He shrugs, walks off with his best mobster gait. It’s kinda comical, except for that air of death about it.
I look over to Ping and smack her in the forehead.
“What the hell was that?” I squeal.
“Saving your ass!” Ping counters.
“Saving? Fifteen grand plus five grand plus thirty grand equals fifty thousand dollars and two distinct mob assassinations in one day!”
Ping smiles, pats me on the cheek. A blood vessel in my mouth starts leaking again, reminding me how shitty a day it’s been already. And I thought it couldn’t get worse. I’m such a silly guy.
“You’re cute when you’re dumb,” she smiles.
“And you’re a bitch all day.”
“You’re not paying Jimmy Scaz anything,” she says. “You’ll take the thirty, give twenty to Tony, wait for him to kill Jimmy, and end up ahead five thousand.”
“Five?”
“After my share as partner.”
My eyes roll back in my head involuntarily.
“Okay, he’s coming back!” Ping whispers, brushing off my shoulders. “Don’t speak and we’ll be fine.”
Tony sidles up with the Elephant in tow, makes a respectful nod to Ping, and totally ignores me. Fair enough. I don’t like his hair cut.
“This your guy?” Tony asks Ping.
“That’s him,” Ping nods, and Elephant whimpers. His cheek is red, and his glasses are crooked.
“He don’t got any laptops,” Tony says without overt accusation, which is much scarier.
Ping doesn’t react. She leans closer to Elephant and squints at him.
“Mr Gafoday says hello,” she says. Elephant meets her eyes anxiously. “Now where’s the laptop?”
“I… I don’t have any laptop,” Elephant cries. “I don’t know who told you that I did, but—”
Tony belts him in the stomach, and he starts to fall before being dragged back up. He looks like me, circa two hours ago. Ah, memories…
There’s a long pause where I’m sure this will all unravel on us. I can just imagine Tony and the Elephant teaming up to beat me to death, while Ping munches popcorn from the cheap seats. Bur strangely, Ping is frowning, eyes darting left and right, as if she’s able to think like full-size people.
“Give me your phone,” she says ominously, and Elephant complies immediately. It’s one of those fancy touch-screen things that I was going to buy myself with my petty cash before the cash got petty and ran away. Ping taps a few buttons, reads, taps, reads some more.
She looks to Tony.
“Can you keep him quiet for a few hours?”
“Just a few hours?” Tony smiles greedily.
“Just a few,” Ping nods. “And as a thank-you, we’ll up the deal to an even thirty grand.”
Tony starts to laugh. He shoves Elephant towards the back stairs, and glances over his shoulder towards us.
“I can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned, girly!” he calls, and disappears into the darkness. I turn to Ping, then promptly collapse in a giant sack of anxiety. Death is so much easier when it’s imminent. This anticipation thing fucking sucks.
“What the hell are you thinking?” I stammer. “We don’t even know where the laptop is, so where are we going to get the thirty grand you just promised him?”
“Forget the laptop,” Ping grins. “We’re going to sell Gafoday the data on this phone for half a mil, easy.”