Merlot (12 page)

“That’s the problem with public facilities
like the dome, you never know who you’ll end up seated next to.
Now, my office on the other hand is private. I can appreciate the
concern for your loan, but like I told you Friday, I’m concluding
arrangements shortly and intend to pay that debt on time if not
before. Anything else?” he asked.

“All of a sudden you’re a big media star and
you think your shit don’t stink?” Milton moved maybe a half step
closer and cast a glassy eye toward Merlot.

“Milton, please,” cautioned Osborne, brushing
imaginary dust off his pink tie. He wore a tan suit and pale blue
shirt, the pink tie apparently chosen to match the rim of his
eyelids.

“I think it’s time for you two to leave.”

“Milton,” Osborne said.

Milton quickly reached across the desk,
grabbed Merlot tightly by the collar, and effortlessly lifted him
off the floor.

Merlot gasped. He thought of kneeing the
giant, but the desk was in the way. Held inches from his face,
Milton’s eyes had a glassy look, breath a subtle mix of salami and
latrine.

“I trust you will endeavor yourself of our
generosity. Remember, in the event of nonpayment we can invoke the
special extermination clause,” Osborne calmly continued.

Milton snickered, and tightened his grip.

Merlot fought for air. He couldn’t swallow,
his eyes bulged, his tongue grew too large for his mouth, and he
panicked. He attempted to kick Milton but only succeeded in
smashing his shins painfully against the edge of the desk.

In desperation, he swung his elbow and caught
Milton solidly just under the edge of his jaw, teeth cracking as
the massive head snapped back. Milton’s eyes rolled as he fell
backward, grasping Merlot’s collar, pulling him up and over the
desk. They crashed onto the floor with a collective groan. Merlot
rolled off Milton and sucked in precious air.

Milton shook his head back and forth and
blinked his eyes.

Osborne leapt to feet, but not as quickly as
Merlot who suddenly brandished an aluminum softball bat in his left
hand, adrenaline coursing through his body.

“I’ve had a real fucking bad day, and your
unexpected visit isn’t helping. Now get him out of here before I
really get pissed.” Merlot smashed the bat viciously against
Milton’s swollen right hand just as Milton attempted to rise,
knocking him back to the floor.

Milton roared in pain and rolled to his side,
curled into a fetal position. The right sleeve of his sport jacket
ripped along the shoulder seam.

“I can assure you, Mr. Di…”

“Shut up, I’ll assure you, I’ll take you out
without a second thought if you two don’t get out of my sight right
now. Get him up, and get out and not another God damned word.” He
shook the bat in Osborne’s direction.

Osborne, red faced, furious, pink-rimmed eyes
glaring, helped the groaning Milton to his feet and out the
door.

“Good day, sir,” Osborne said not looking
back.

Merlot suddenly felt an incredible urge to be
sick.

* * *

Sidney sat at his desk, periodically looked
up at Mendel out in the bank lobby. He seemed lost, looking this
way and that, in and out of various teller lines. What a week to
come in here and open an account, Sidney thought. But just as he
was about to offer assistance Mendel suddenly turned and left.

“Where do all these loons go when it’s not
fair week?” Sidney wondered.

“Place is crawling with folks waving money,”
Mendel declared.

“And no guards that I seen. There’s one
little room in back but I don’t think there’s a guard in there,
just let’s ya into them bank tellers. I’m thinking they got all
that money sitting there just waitin for someone like us to come
take it off their damn hands.”

“No guards?” Lucerne asked.

“I said no guards. Get the shit out of your
ears, son.”

“If there ain’t guards why do we need the
guns?” Elvis asked leaning forward and feeling stupid before the
words had left his mouth.

Mendel’s look gave him his answer and he sat
back in the rear seat, quiet for the remainder of the ride.

* * *

The OK Corral gun shop sat on the far
northern edge of the suburb of Blaine, not a strictly rural
setting. The clientele consisted of guys who hunted whatever was in
season, survivalists, ex-military or military wannabes, like the
owner, T.J. Flood.

T.J. wore a side arm virtually at all times,
a blued Sig Sauer 229 with a twelve round .357 magazine, to be
specific. He took it off when he was in bed with his wife, Miss
Suzie, then the Sig Sauer rested on the nightstand within easy
reach.

A Dolly Parton look-alike, Miss Suzie
insisted on two things: First, even though her name was Marsha, he
was to call her Miss Suzie after the old Creedence song “
Suzie
Q”
. She’d partied with some of the Creedence roadies for two
nights and a day when they played Denver, not that she ever told
T.J. about it. Second, T.J. was not allowed to wear the Sig Sauer
into her bed, hence the nightstand repository.

T.J. himself was a rather slight man with
soft hands, a whiskey-tenor voice, dishwater blond hair, a waxed
handlebar mustache and soft brown eyes magnified behind Coke-bottle
glasses. It had been poor eyesight that kept him out of the
service.

He spotted the Ditschler brothers through the
tinted glass front door as Mendel, Lucerne, and Elvis piled out of
their two toned Fleetwood Brougham enveloped in a cloud of blue
exhaust fumes.

“I don’t think so,” he exclaimed.

He set down the Army field manual he had been
re-reading, FM-175 Ranger, and came out from behind the counter,
meeting the Ditschlers just inside the front door.

Mendel, Lucerne, and Elvis walked in looking
in desperate need of a shower without a dollar between the three of
them, a demographic T.J. wasn’t the least bit interested in
serving.

“I see some I.D., please?” he rested his hand
on his holster, blocking their path, not meaning the please
part.

“Just taking a look round see,” Mendel
grinned, exposing dingy teeth in a misguided effort to win T.J.
over.

“Sorry gents, not without a proper ID, and a
backup. House rules, we scan everyone’s ID, keep a record. I’m sure
you can understand, what with our inventory.”

Mendel’s eyes rested on a long steel gun rack
behind T.J. holding exactly what they had come looking for, AKs,
the ones with the folded plastic butt.

“Well, we just ain’t got that kinda time. Got
us an appointment in a few minutes, wanted to just pop in, take a
look around, is all. But, if you’ve a mind to treat good-paying
customers like this, I guess we’ll just be on our way. Come on
boys. Nothing here of interest for us and our hard earned
money.”

The three beat a hasty retreat back out the
door.

T.J. watched as they fired up the Fleetwood,
a blue cloud of exhaust drifted across the parking lot while they
revved the engine a number of times then drove off.

* * *

“Shit, now what?” Lucerne asked.

“Course neither one of you two dummies was
looking round, was you?” Mendel asked. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Hell, what we need is right there about fifteen feet inside the
front door. Right behind where that soft shouldered bastard was
standing. So, what we’re gonna do now is knock us off a liquor
store or two for a little walking-around money. Then one of these
next nights we’ll just come back up here and take what we need.
Simple,” he said snapping his fingers.

* * *

“You listen to me, Anthony,” Merlot’s mother
was using her no nonsense tone the moment he picked up the
phone.

“Please tell me your uncle Mario was wrong
when he phoned me at seven o’clock this morning from St.
Petersburg, Florida. Apparently you were on the news last night and
Good Morning America
this morning. Please
tell me that wasn’t my son staring back at me from my morning paper
with that Wiener person at the Vikings game yesterday. And that
dreadful performance by Suzanne Ulmbacher’s son, I’m sure she’s a
proud mother.

“Hi Mom,” he said, attempting to get a half
moment to think.

“Now you listen here, you’re known by the
company you keep, young man. You bear just as much responsibility
for those dreadful actions as if you’d done them yourself.”

Fucking Dickie, he thought.

“What are you thinking, Anthony? Did you, in
your wildest dreams, think that, that, that you could cavort around
town like some sort of ne’er-do-well? What are my friends going to
think? My God, I’ll have to move.”

“Mom, you’re not going to move.”

“Don’t you be too sure about that. Now you
just listen here, mister, I’ve had just about enough of these
shenanigans. Your father, God rest him, and I, did not raise you so
you could behave like some sort of criminal. Now you will cease
this nonsense, immediately, do you hear me, immediately. This is
exactly why you need a good woman in your life, so you settle down.
And you are going to apologize.”

“Apologize? Mom, I didn’t do anything.”

“Listen here, you’re not so big that I won’t
take you over my knee and blister that backside. And don’t you
think I won’t.”

He could see her, waving her finger as she
spoke to him.

“Okay, Mom. I’m sorry. Look, unpack the
moving boxes, I’ll be over tonight for dinner.”

“Well be prepared for a healthy serving of
humble pie. There is a lot I intend to say to you.”

“Gee, I can hardly wait.”

“Anthony, you will stop immediately. Do you
hear me? I will not suffer that tone from you. Now I will see you
tonight, and do not be late!” Click

Fucking Dickie, he thought, dialing Dickie’s
office number.

“Hans Ulmbacher, please.”

“Hello, you’ve reached the office of Hans
Ulmbacher. I’m unable to take your call just now, and I will be
unavailable for the next few days. If this is an emergency you can
press extension 011 at anytime. If you wish to leave me a message
please press star 015. Thank you and have a nice day.”

Merlot was not having a nice day, and he
pressed star 015. What he got was a computer-generated voice that
said, “this mail box is full,” before disconnecting him
altogether.

He had just hung up the phone, about to get
back to work when it rang.

“Hello.”

“So, how in the hell is your morning?” Victor
asked.

“Well, let’s see, I’ve been identified and
accused by everyone from a blond at the coffee shop to my own
employees. I assaulted some prick with a baseball bat, and my mom
called and said she’s so embarrassed she has to move. You?”

“About the same, except for the assault
thing. Do I want to know about that?”

“Just joking,” Merlot lied.

“Yeah, well, not funny the way things are
going. My loving bride Tasha raced over to her mother’s in hopes of
getting the paper from her before she saw me on the front page. She
called the office to inform me we’d talk about it when I got home.
My own mother called me to say she didn’t work two jobs to send me
through law school so I could embarrass her on national TV. On a
positive note, I got a call from my brother in Atlanta who said he
enjoyed it. Of course I had to cut that conversation short since
Mr. Ehrmann, as in Ehrmann, Benson, Benson and Barnes, the firm’s
senior partner called and wondered if I had time to chat with him
for a few moments, immediately.”

“Jesus, what’d he say?”

“We’ll let’s just say we won’t be using the
firm’s season tickets, ever again.”

“Fucking Dickie, I tried to call that giant
piece of shit and he’s got his calls blocked so I can’t reach him,”
Merlot whined.

“Look, his bank is a major corporate sponsor.
Word gets out that fat white ass beamed across all fifty states
belonged to an employee and Dickie is toast,” Victor reminded.

“You think they’ll do that?”

“I think it might be
shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later. Look I’ve got to attempt to
salvage something out of this morning so I had better go. You
playing poker Thursday night?” Victor asked.

“I plan to,” Merlot replied, thinking he
couldn’t possibly.

“See you there.”

He hung up, about to track down La Tondra and
Celeste, to see if they picked up the Saab from that Bernice woman
on Saturday. He found them in the kitchen.

“Merlot, caught you yesterday on the
television. Man, I’ve always wanted to do that, it was really
cool,” Celeste said.

“What, go to the Viking’s game?” he
asked.

“No, moon all those people. You know that
would be so awesome, just hang it out there. This is what I think
of you alls,” Celeste turned to shove her fairly well formed rear
in his direction as La Tondra came up behind her.

“How’d it go with the car Saturday, girls?
Were you able to pick it up?”

“Sure did Sugar. It’s back in the lot. We
ended up talking with that Bernice for a while so we didn’t get
back until last night,” La Tondra said.

“Last night, you mean Sunday?”

“Yeah, well, we started talking and then
things sort of turned into a little bit of a party and the next
thing you know it was Sunday afternoon. She’s got all these really
cute cats and she gave us each a kitty, too.”

Jesus, he thought, shaking his head, “how
bout the keys?”

“Keys?”

“Yeah, for the car?

Check the pockets, check the pockets,”
Celeste said turning round.

“How about you hand me the keys and then I
can pay the two of you, like we discussed. Deal?” he said.

“You’re no fun,” Celeste groaned.

* * *

He was standing in the parking lot sweating
in the midday heat and humidity looking at the recent damage to the
Saab. The left front quarter panel was scraped and dented, and the
front headlight was broken. He didn’t know if he should scream or
just drive home to his garage, pull inside, and sit there with the
engine running until he was asphyxiated.