Mr. Hooligan (32 page)

“A man who knows better than to push his luck.”

“That’s definitely a requirement.”

“A man who keeps quiet when necessary. Who is very careful. In light of how miserable eight years in Hattieville prison was for him.”

“And if I say today, yes, let’s do this, it’s you who will contact him?”

“This very afternoon.”

“No names can be exchanged.”

Roger gave him a nasty look. “I might be half dead but senility hasn’t set in yet.”

Riley lifted a palm in apology. “Just making sure.” He smiled at Roger, and Roger nodded, and that’s how the deal was made.

Sometime later, after small talk, mostly about how vile the hospital breakfast was, Riley helped Roger into his wheelchair and pushed him out into the hall, in front of the screen.

Riley put his hands in his pockets and stood beside him. “Hey, Roger? There’s nothing in it for you? As middle man, twenty percent maybe? I could insist.”

Roger inhaled the sea air and shut his eyes. “This
is
for me.” He looked up at Riley. “I’m doing this for Patricia, too, don’t you understand? I know how much you mean to her, and this is for my own sense of justice. Tell me something, Riley, who doesn’t hope to God that one day bad men will suffer, suffer and lose it all, even if in real life it’s so often the other way around?”

*   *   *

Later, Riley walked into Miles’s kitchen. Harvey was clearing breakfast from the table and Gert was at the sink, suds up to her elbows. Riley didn’t have to say anything. As soon as he sat, Gert toweled off her arms and huffed out of the room.

Harvey poured two cups of coffee and sat with him. He told Harvey about last night and why’d he just parked the truck in Miles’s garage with the intention of keeping it there indefinitely.

“Shit, Riley, if Lopez wants to find you, he’ll find you.”

“Maybe. I’m hoping to give him reason to not want to look for me anymore.”

Harvey sipped his cup, put it down. “How do you mean?”

Riley lifted a slice of bacon off a plate and crunched on it.

“Riley?”

Riley washed down his breakfast with a swallow of burnt-tasting coffee.

“Riley, you got something cooking?”

“You’re gonna have to help me.”

“You’re gonna have to tell me what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about is the Monsantos are making their run on Tuesday morning. On the New River. It’s me transferring the stuff to another boat, and once that’s done, I’ll radio Carlo and he’ll receive payment from the Mexicans, and that’s how, Harvey, that’s how there’ll be an opportunity.”

Harvey was shaking his head. “No, no sir, I’m not fooling with that again.”

“No, Harvey. Inform Lopez.”

Harvey reared back, eyebrows raised. “You lost me.” Then, slowly, he smiled. Yeah, I think I see where you’re going.”

“Tell Lopez he wants a payday? He can have one without the hassle of selling all that cocaine to get his cash. We can give him time, place, all the details he might need but first, first he’s got to lay off me. Tell him I can set this up for him but he’s got to step far away from me.”

“How much—”

“Four point four million cash.”

Harvey whistled.

Riley rose from the table and turned on a small radio on the windowsill, a British voice droning about Pakistan sticking to its schedule for parliamentary elections. Riley raised the volume, sat down, leaned across the table and beckoned to Harvey. He put a hand at the back of Harvey’s head and pulled him close. “You’re in this with me?”

“Yeah, yeah…”

“I need to trust you, I need to rely on you.”

“Of course, of course.”

Their heads almost touching, Riley stared into Harvey’s eyes until he started to feel convinced. He sat back in his chair and said, “This is how they’re going to do it. Two guys are going with Carlo, two jokers if you ask me, Boat and Jinx. Everybody, and I mean everybody, will be armed. They’ll be going to a farm in Orange Walk that’s off the Northern and a couple miles down a dirt road, just past an old rum shop. I’ll draw a map closer to the time, but anyhow, a house on the farm is the place where money will change hands. One guy will be with Carlo at all times, the other man will be outside as a lookout. The Mexicans usually have a couple guys themselves, maybe one outside, two inside. No reason to think it won’t be the same this time. Now, you’re saying Lopez has two men still running with him?”

“Yeah, and that’s it, far as I know.”

“Surprise being the chief factor, nobody ever having done something like this to the Monsantos in all my years with them, they won’t be prepared for it.”

“I don’t know if Lopez’s crew will want to do this. Remember before they had BDF and police working with them, but now?”

“Now? Now you tell them they’ll get some assault rifles. Pistols if they want that too. And Kevlar.”

Harvey dropped his head low and peered into Riley’s face. The radio newsman was saying that suicide bombings and other attacks in Baghdad had fallen significantly in the last month. Harvey glanced at the door as though somebody might be there, listening. Amusement creeping over his face, he said, “Riley, what the hell are you cooking up, you crazy fool?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Riley and Miles sat in the car across the street from the hospital, Miles at the wheel, Riley dozing. The day was blistering so it was good to be in the shade, catch a wink before events started churning.

Miles said, “How long ago did this guy go in there?”

Riley opened his eyes. “Twenty minutes? About that?” shutting his eyes, dozing off again.

Another minute passed, maybe ten, then Riley yawned and stretched, sat up and looked across the way at the hospital gate. Miles was watching it, too, a hand on the wheel. “He’s taking too long,” Riley said. “I hate this shit.”

“So your contact in the hospital that summoned him has to vouch for you, that’s how this goes?”

“Apparently the guy doesn’t trust anybody, and I don’t think he’s got a phone either. People can’t reach him unless he wants to be reached.”

“Cloak and dagger, huh?”

Riley stole a glance at Miles, assessing how he was handling accompanying him on this deal. He said, “I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but I can’t thank you enough.”

Miles said, “Hey, no problem. Like I told you before, I’ve been restless. I don’t know what it is, brother.” He scratched his head. “Maybe I miss the ring, the training, the whole discipline. But domestic life, that nine-to-five routine day after day—it’s wearing me down. Anyway, don’t worry, and didn’t I promise I’d help you?”

“I know that,” Riley nodding, “but it’s not like this is something you do every day, like taking out the trash,” and his eyes settled on Miles’s left hand resting on the wheel. “It’s not like you’re me. Who’s used to the gutter.”

Miles shook his head. “Don’t start.”

“No, it’s true. Just funny how we grew up close but life took us down some entirely different roads.”

“Boxing, you know? It’s because of boxing I struck out on a different path. If it weren’t for that, who the hell knows what I’d be today, or where. Jail maybe?”

“I don’t believe that for a second.” Riley staring at Miles’s hand on the wheel, half of his forefinger missing. “The guy that did that,” Riley said, “you ever run into him?”

Miles looked at his hand. “I used to see him around. Not anymore though. Might be he’s in jail, or somebody finished off that beating I started and killed him. Now, if he’d done this during my career? I really would’ve killed him.”

“But you didn’t, that’s what I’m saying, we’re different.” Riley leaned his head back and gazed out the window. “Sometimes I wish I could play it again. Rewind to that day, the moment right before I said yes to running that errand across the bridge for Israel Monsanto. I was sixteen. Damn, I didn’t know anything. Don’t laugh, but sometimes I wish—I wish I was innocent again.”

Miles said, “Why would I laugh?”

“I’ve hurt people, Miles. I’ve done some vicious shit.”

Miles was silent, giving the words thought.

Riley turned his gaze down the street and saw himself, sixteen and skinny, riding away on a black Rudge bicycle, his pants cuffs clothespinned tight to prevent them catching in the chain; heading over the bridge with a stuffed manila envelope in his backpack.

Riley said, “I’ve done things that made sense at the time but make me feel like a bully now. That feeling, it sticks to you, you begin to think, That’s who I am. All that shit, that must be the real me. You think it defines you, and you wonder if all these things, these things you did, if they were smart moves at the time, why do you get depressed whenever you remember them? And you always think about it, you can’t help it.”

“If you’re referring to something you did in order to stay alive or to help somebody, like save their lives? Don’t beat yourself up, man. It might’ve been necessary. Lots of times when I was boxing, my early days? They put me in the ring with some boy who wasn’t in my league, same weight class, maybe similar record but no way, no how shoulda been in there with me. Physically, mentally, skills-wise just wasn’t ready. So what do I do? Let him look good? Absolutely not. A couple times, I carried guys for two, three rounds but I still ended up thumping them. Did I feel like a bully? Sometimes, little bit. Listen to me though, Riley, when you’re in the game, you’ve got to be in all the way. Or don’t play. Because you can’t win half-assing it. That’s the mistake people make, they don’t
commit.
”

“I know you’re right but some nights when I can’t sleep, I wonder how my life would’ve been, and sometimes I feel like I’m still waiting for my old man to come home, hang out with my mother and me, and then, I’d let them show me the way.”

“The way?”

Riley nodded, looking off. “The way to live a decent life. For once.”

With anybody else it would have been awkward. Not with Miles, who had known him since forever.

Miles nudged his leg. “Look, he’s here.”

A man came out and stood at one of the gateposts smoking a cigarette. He was a cool, skinny black guy somewhere in his fifties in sleeveless T-shirt and dress slacks, red Kangol cap, taking a deep draw on his smoke. He didn’t look at them and didn’t move from the spot until he’d finished, flicking the butt aside and crossing the street. He traveled with a self-conscious hood bounce, a hitch and a glide, going away.

Miles said, “What, should I follow him?”

“That’s what I was told but … this guy’s still walking.”

They watched, the skinny man strolling on.

“I don’t believe,” Riley said, “this guy’s got a car.”

“So how…?”

The skinny man kept going.

“Let’s follow slow,” Riley said.

Miles eased the car out and rolled after him, ten miles an hour. A horn tooted behind them and a car veered around. After another driver overtook them, Miles steered to the far right.

The skinny man turned left onto Daily Street. Miles sped up to the corner, slowed way down into the turn, the skinny man crossing to the right side of Daily Street. He sauntered on, not a worry in his head. Miles hugged the far right, grazing parked cars. Another driver tooted him, zipped around, then another one, a woman shooting him a glare. Miles said, “Okay, this is bullshit.”

Crossing Queen Street, the skinny man lit up a cigarette, strolling to where Daily narrowed and became Handyside Street, dirtier and darker, the buildings shabbier, fences leaning. Maybe six houses in, the man stopped, turned casually and nodded, the first sign that he knew they were following him. Then he swung to the right and disappeared down a lane.

Miles parked streetside and he and Riley got out fast, Riley carrying two big duffel bags. They saw the man entering a yard down the lane. By the time they hit the yard, he’d gone around the shambling clapboard house to another one just like it in the back. A dirt yard, a netless basketball hoop on a straight wooden pole. A rusted bicycle, one wheel off under a mango tree, buckets and other trash in the bush behind the corrugated zinc fence.

The man opened a screen door, beckoned them with a nod. “Wipe off your feet.”

Miles paused, searching for a mat.

“Just fucking with you,” the man giving a half smile.

The room was cramped, dark and dingy, low ceiling. It smelled of sweat and chicken grease and stuff Riley didn’t want to imagine. He could make out dishes piled in a washtub in a makeshift kitchen to the right, daylight peeking through a round hole in the wall. They followed the man deeper into the house, where a light was shining. A kerosene lamp on a table. A woman in a headwrap sitting there, half her face in shadow.

Something creaked, and after Riley’s eyes adjusted he saw the playpen in a corner, a baby inside tottering around.

“These the fellows?” the woman said.

The man indicated yes with his cigarette.

The woman tipped her head back to appraise Riley and Miles. It was hard to see her eyes in the poor light, but she could’ve been the skinny man’s sister: same sinewy arms, wolfish face. “Mawning,” she said with a brief smile, no front teeth. “What’s the password?”