Chapter Two

 

          Next day, while he was coming home from the movie, just a short walk away in the shopping mall, Carter thought somebody might be following him. It was when he stopped to check out the Tony Lama boots he’d had his eyes on for a couple of weeks, at Dick’s Western Wear. He’d passed the window, still thinking about the movie, heavy movie, heavy fucking battle scenes, wondering, actually, could he really handle it, shit like that. He’d turned around suddenly, walking back to the window, and that was when he noticed the guy wearing the suit, the same one he’d seen at the theater on his way out sitting in one of the back rows, a block or so away. The guy had stopped also, looking kind of startled, and then started checking his watch, turning this way and that. Carter had good eyes, really good, better than twenty-twenty, actually, and something about the guy’s face, the expression, looked funny to him. He stayed at the window a few minutes, and noticed the guy was also looking in some store window, just standing there. Not the kind of thing, Carter thought, that you do after checking your watch. After walking another block or so he turned around again, quick, but the guy was gone.

          He didn’t really feel like being alone after the movie, needed to lighten up some, so he decided to drop by Socrates again, for happy hour. It was Monday and there was no music, but the beer was half price until seven, and sometimes chicks came in after work, secretaries from the Freemont building, up the street. As he drove out he noticed a blue Camero, the kind he’d always wanted, parked just up from his house.

          Later, coming out of Socrates after shooting the shit for a while with Horace, nursing his last cheap beer through the Monday night football game, he saw it again, in the parking lot.

 

 

 

          Sonny Stevenson was cleaning his guns. He was perched on the edge of his couch, knees spread apart in front of the coffee table, the table covered with newspapers, handguns, cleaning tools, and a can of Break Free. On the floor was a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels, from which he took an occasional slug, wiping his mouth with his shirtsleeve. It was his favorite ritual during the fall, cleaning his guns and watching Monday night football. Through the window of his North Beach apartment he could see the lights of one of the Bay Bridge towers, part of the bay, and the Berkeley hills, way in the distance. He was only half watching the game, concentrating on his guns. The Niners were shit this year, anyway, getting beat again, twenty-four to seven at half time.

          He was working on a Glock, one of the new ten millimeters, beautiful thing. He’d resisted the Glocks at first, all that fucking plastic. He was kind of old school, real metal, glossy finish, stuff you had to take care of and keep oiled, but he was getting used to it. Except for the trigger. Weird little button in the middle, and a funny shape. It was state-of-the-art, though, and lightweight, too. Little bit harder to keep on target, but he had strong hands, a good grip. It was no problem, really.

          He finished putting the Glock back together and took a swig of Jack. It was fourth quarter and the Steelers had gone ahead ten more points, unanswered, getting ready now to kick another field goal. He hit the remote and turned off the set, disgusted. No sense watching the end, like some kind of masochist.

          He strapped on one of his custom holsters, this one all ripstock nylon, made for the Glock, and posed a minute in the mirror, practicing his draw. “You talking to me?” he said out loud to his own image, looking tough. “You talking to me?”

          After putting the guns away in the floor safe, replacing the boards and then laying down the throw rug over them, he decided to take a look at the pictures he’d picked up earlier that day. He was still a little annoyed at Yaro. First the guy borrows his car again, last time, maybe, he says, then, just as he’s walking out, throws him a ticket and tells him to pick up the pictures, way down on Geary Street. Fuckin’ Eurotrash, getting more uppity all the time, the big boss. But he was running the show, that was the agreement, and so Sonny had dutifully hopped on the bus and spent over an hour getting it done, what would have been ten minutes by car.

          You better not scratch my fucking car, he thought. He loved his blue Camero, with the leather seats and Rhino sound system, not even a year old. And he didn’t want to see the gas tank sitting on empty, either.

          He took the newspapers, now soaked with oil, off the coffee table and opened the package. More pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, just like the first ones. There were shots of the approaches, from the San Francisco and the Sausalito sides, but mostly the two towers, where they came out of the bridge and also down into the bases, different angles, whole bunch of shots. Also a couple of close-ups of the original drawings and diagrams, hanging inside the tourist center. Hey now, what’s this? Some chick jogging. That was more interesting. Nice little ass. Long black hair streaming off behind. One shot where she was looking back. Good looking broad. Fuckin’ beautiful, in fact. Foreign, kind of Arab looking. Nice close-up of the ass. Using the telephoto. He took one of the pictures of the broad, stuffed the others back into the envelope, and sipped a little more Jack. Little bonus.

          Leaning back into the couch, he started thinking about what was coming next. Make sure these yoyos could pull it off, that was the main thing. A little surveillance, a little breaking and entering, but mostly making sure they could handle the guns. Maybe some kind of bullshit karate workout. Give ‘em what they expect, Yaro had said. Keep it clean, official-like. No drinking. Serious. And keep reminding them about how it was secret, that was important. He went to the filing cabinet next to his desk, took out the folders, the dossiers. Pretty skimpy for dossiers. Brief history, part or most of which might be bullshit, a two page questionnaire, some stuff people had said about them, and pictures.

          He looked at the pictures. Fuckin’ clowns, all three of them, one with his baseball cap on backwards, Mr. Gen-X, himself. Ex-security guard from San Rafael, no military history. Goddamn rent-a-cop. Frank Bouchet, was his name. Pronounced Bu-shay, the file said. More like bullshit, thought Sonny. He thumbed to the next one. Theodore “Teddy” Larsen. Out of work locksmith, little older, forty-one. He might be useful, at least. Sonny didn’t know a hell of a lot about locks. Just tell him the job and let him run with it. Needs weapons training, the file said. Give him one of the revolvers, keep it simple for him, Sonny figured. Who could expect a guy who called himself “Teddy” to handle a piece, anyway? Next one. Derek Cosack, what the Hell kind of name was that? Although he might be alright. No military history, again, but he was a Wing-Chun instructor, just moved out here from Cincinnati. Could probably handle himself OK.

          Sonny sighed, put the files back in the cabinet, alphabetical. He kept his shit in order. His whole apartment reflected it. Neat, clean, orderly. He hadn’t been a Sergeant in ‘Nam for nothing. He looked up on the wall, at the old group picture from firebase Charlie. Too bad he couldn’t get those guys back together again. There was a team, fuck. The shit they went through, that was really something.

          He’d tried the Merc thing for a while, when he got back from ‘Nam, but that went sour after the rip-off in Columbia. He should have stuck to straight political shit, hiring out for tribal conflicts in Africa, and stayed away from drug dealers. Hell, the temptation had just been too great, considering what they were getting paid. But aids was starting to come on strong about that time, and he'd wanted to get out of Africa. He’d underestimated the grapevine, though, no doubt about it. Nobody would hire him after that, not for any kind of legitimate work, anyway.

          Not that there wasn’t enough illegitimate work. He’d had to go underground, hadn’t paid taxes for years now, change identities, watch his associations, all that stuff. But it wasn’t too bad. The internet helped a lot. Hard to trace. Not impossible, but nobody up to it was going to go after a small fry like him, internationally speaking. Had to stay in the country though, these days. Getting in and out of America was too damn sticky, now.

          Everything had its bright side, of course. Without all the current terrorist hysteria, this current caper would be impossible. He smiled to himself as he took another jolt of Jack. Fucking Bush, he thought, lighting a cigarette. Got people worked up as hell. Little old ladies seeing ragheads hiding under their goddamn beds. He had to hand it to the Bush family. Now there were some genuine high level crooks. Everybody waving the flag and singing Hail to the Chief, while oil prices went sky high and the dollar did a fuckin’ nose dive. He really got a laugh out of Bush’s latest vibe. A couple ‘months ago, he had a face like an alligator was chewing on his dick, he looked so scared. Now he was all smiles, relaxed, giving the fucking Pope medals for morality. His dad must have set him straight. Sonny could just imagine the conversation:

          “But Dad, it looks like I might lose the election!”

          “Son, you really think I give a flying fuck about the election? Don’t worry, you’ve done your job. No matter what happens now, we’re gonna get rich. Just don’t give Donald any blow jobs at the office, and you’ll be fine.”

          It really depended on Yaro, on picking the right guys, dumb enough to fall for it, but still together enough to pull it off. But Yaro was clever, that was clear. Just coming up with the idea was pretty damn creative, and he was a slick customer - maybe too slick, Sonny sometimes thought. The guys to worry about, probably, were his customers, the other Czech assholes. He’d tried to find out a little about them himself, asked his friend Dario, down in LA, to nose around, but nothing. It was like they didn’t exist, was Dario’s report, which maybe meant they weren’t even from LA like they said, but somewhere else. It wasn’t a good sign. If Czechs were all like the ones he’d met so far, he’d better watch his step, that was certain.

          He got up and stepped in front of the mirror, something he maybe did a little too much these days. But sometimes he couldn’t believe what he saw. He was getting old, damn it, and it was starting to show, his pony tail turning snow white, more every day, and the wrinkles on his face making him look like a fuckin’ Charpee. But he was still a badass. He’d always been a badass, he’d always be a badass. He pointed a finger at the mirror, thumb sticking up like the hammer of a gun.

          “You talkin’ to me?”

 

 

 

          Serena was in the kitchen, helping clean up after dinner, drying the dishes and putting them away, while Mirna, her Mom, washed. She felt good, like she always did after eating at home, Mom’s cooking still the same, traditional Lebanese stuff. She’d never changed, never made an American style meal in twenty years. It was her cooking, she always joked, that had made Dad marry her, while he was still in the service, playing in the Navy orchestra. Only way, he used to say, that he could leave the mid-east without going hungry. Then he’d roll his eyes and kind of smack his lips, and her Mom would always smile and slap him on the butt. Serena had been in High School before she realized that he wasn’t talking about food.

          Back then, the scene had been the same, Mom washing and Serena drying, standing on a chair when she was still little to reach the cupboards and put the dishes away. They would always hear Dad at the piano, or the saxophone, old jazz tunes floating through the kitchen doorway after dinner, Serena singing along. Now the scene was the same, but the music was gone, replaced by the underwater gurgle of the hookah, and the sound of rolling dice.

          Serena tried to eat at home at least once a week, tell Mom about school or her part time job at the bookstore, or some guy she was dating. It was fun for both of them, and they tried not to think too much about the past, but focus on Serena’s new life and where it was going. Lately, though, for the past few weeks actually, Mom was more and more distracted. Tonight, she seemed even more so. But something else was bothering Serena.

          “Mom,” she said, “is Toufic really my cousin?”

          Mirna stopped washing for a moment, then started again. “What do you mean, honey?” she said, not looking around, her eyes still on the wall in front of her.

          “I mean, is he my cousin? It’s a simple question.”

          Mirna glanced over at her, then turned back to the wall. “Why would you ask a question like that? We told you, he’s Amar’s son.” She kept washing, slower now.

          “Dad knew Amar pretty well, Mom. He talked about him sometimes. He never said anything about his son.”

          Her Mom kept washing. The same plate. “Well, he was little then. What was there to say?”

          “That he existed. He never even said Amar was married. It’s kind of important information. About anybody.”

          They didn’t say anything for a minute.

          “Mom ...”

          “Yes, honey?”

          “That plate’s clean.”

          Her Mom looked down. She handed Serena the plate and took another one from the washboard, the last. Serena dried her plate, put it up on the shelf.

          “He doesn’t act like my cousin, Mom.”

          Mirna didn’t say anything for a second or two.

          “Why do you say that?” 

          “The way he looks at me. The way he talks to me. Or doesn’t talk to me. He hardly said one word all through dinner. All he asked me was about whether I would be in town for his next visit. That seemed really important to him. That and if I had a boy friend. Nothing about school, what kind of music I like, if I like living in Chinatown, the kind of stuff a relative is supposed to be interested in. This is only the fifth time we’ve met in three years, even though his ship comes here once a month. Don’t you think he should be just a little bit curious about his American cousin?”

          “He is shy. And his English is not so good.”

          “I don’t know about his English. But I can tell you one thing for sure.” She turned and looked straight into her Mom’s face. “He’s not shy.”

          Mirna seemed to get hold of herself a little bit. She finished the last dish and pulled the plug on the sink, wiping her hands on her apron before taking it off.

“I’m sorry, Honey, if Toufic has been rude. I will talk to him.” She moved towards the doorway. “I must use the bathroom.”

Serena leaned back, her hands on the sideboard behind her, and watched her Mom go. She stayed like that, not moving, until Mirna came back to the kitchen. The sound of dice continued to come from the living room.

“Honey,” Mirna started right away, “why don’t you come over tomorrow? We can go to the park, like you said, have something to drink at the Japanese tea room, maybe go to the aquarium.”

Serena raised her eyebrows, pushed away from the wall and started taking off her apron.

“I can’t come tomorrow, Mom. I’m going to Fresno for a gig there with Tony Squire.”

Her Mom smiled, looking relieved, actually.

“That’s wonderful, Honey. Your Dad used to play with Tony. He liked him. But what about school?”

“I told my professors. They said it was fine.” She paused. “I’ve got to go now, it’s getting late.” She walked into the living room and started putting on her coat. Two of the men were playing backgammon, while Toufic and Rimone sat over by the TV, talking. It wasn’t turned on. They looked over at her. They were all smiling. Except Toufic. She waved goodbye and walked to the front door. Her Mom followed her.

“Well, thanks for dinner, Mom, it was great. It’s always great.”

“Goodnight, honey. I hope you have a good time in Fresno.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it will be fine. Goodnight.” She stayed at the door a moment, looking at her Mom. “Just one more thing, Mom,” she said.

“Yes, honey? What is it?”

“You never answered my question.”

She turned and headed off down the hall and onto the stairs, not looking back.