Skorpio (12 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

"Wheels"

Vince's father walked out when Vince was nine, leaving his mother to raise Vince, his brother Luke and sister Frances on her own. South End, Boston, 1990. Vince grew up on the streets with the Southies, a white trash street gang that fought turf wars with the blacks, robbed convenience stores, sniffed glue and shot dope. A lot of those guys were dead or in jail Vince did four years at Billerica for aggravated assault.

He tried enlisting but his record kept him out. He drifted west working a variety of hustles including fake roofer and fake asphalt repair usually on seniors. He'd worked construction a couple summers, just enough to sound like he knew what he was talking about. He'd landed in Vegas six years prior and took to it like a journalist to an open bar.

Vince hustled. He worked as a bouncer at a dive on Fremont, dealt a little meth on the side. Dealt a little more. Picked up a couple girls whom he ran at mid-level hotels like the Golden Nugget. He stole and he fenced. He was smart enough not to steal in Vegas--unless some mark was just begging for it. He would drive to Arizona and Colorado, case the big summer homes abandoned in winter, cut the power, break in and loot the place.

Almost got caught a couple times, once by a big dog.

Vince learned a lot in Billerica, including how to shut off home alarm systems and how to deal with aggressive dogs. You gave them hamburger mixed with roofies or ketamine if you could get it. He burgled a couple veterinary clinics and sold the stuff to the Playboy Bloods who used it to induct runaway girls into their stable.

Eventually Vince got his own stable, four hos who kept him in a style that was barely tolerable. They were junkies but he lost them when an undercover Narc saw him waling the shit out of Brigit one night in an alley behnd the Hard Rock and he ended up doing 30 in County.

When he got out his hos had gone elsewhere.

He tried the fight game, training at Pitbull's Gym and managing himself. His first three fights in Fight League West ended in first round knockouts.
Well all right
he thought. Here we go. Success at last. He moved up to International MMA Promotions and got submitted in the second round by some cowboy from Idaho. He overextended his Achilles tendon and was told he'd be out for at least twelve months. The fights paid shit anyway. He couldn't cut it in the UFC so there went that.

His luck changed when he wandered into Dante's. Blistering September day, the sun so hot you could cook flapjacks on the sidewalk. The interior was cool, dark, and fragrant. Mid-afternoon, the usual collection of pathetic losers, Arabs and blue collar stiffs watching a Rubenesque blond five years past her sale date spread it from table to table. Vince was just going to grab a quick beer and leave.

Summer took the stage like a thunderstorm. She crackled with wicked good looks and that smile. She was way above his grade but he had to try. She wasn't using when he picked her up. The trick was to make them come to you. The next day he was back, sitting at a table near her stage reading a comic book.
Mars Attacks Popeye
. Never looked up. He came back the next day and did it again.

She never so much as glanced at him. Like she was too good for him. So he cooked up another scheme.

Now the bitch was just another ho, only she had his car and goods. And she'd slipped him a roofie. No one did that to Vince and lived. The ungrateful bitch. He got hard just thinking what he was going to do with her when he caught up.

Emilio phoned back at noon. Emilio owned Emilio's Auto Emporium.

"Vince, mon, how you been, man? You still shackin' up with that hot broad Summer?

"I need a set of wheels, Emilio."

Emilio heard the impatience in Vince's voice and didn't ask about Summer again. "Whatchoo need, mon? Come on down. I just scored a sweet little Porsche Boxster. This baby'll do 180."

"I need something that can hold shit and go anwhere."

"Mon, I got Jeeps, Hummers, Range Rovers, I got 'em in every size and color. Come on down."

"I gotta take the fuckin' bus. I'll be down around two."

Vince showered, put on a clean set of clothes, grabbed a leather backpack and walked--WALKED!--twelve blocks to the Wells Fargo Bank where he kept a safety deposit box. Some fag with a rivet through his ear walked him back. When he was alone, Vince drew out the deep box, sat and opened it. He took out $15 thou leaving five for emergencies. He took the kilo of pharmaceutic grade coke he'd taken from a dentist passed out in his room at The Hacienda, Vince's Ho Shameeka having slipped the dentist a roofie. It was a pain-free removal.

Vince caught the Bernstein Boulevard bus, rode it twelve miles through town, transferred to Airport Road and got off at the bus stop a block from Emilio's. The sight of Vince approaching via prison stroll, wide-brimmed stetson set low over the sunglasses, the gaucho mustache, the jeans and boots caused Emilio's new salesperson Sally to chirp like a frightened bird and rush into the showroom to inform her boss that bad news was on the way.

Emilio was hustling a young Iranian drooling on the Enzo. $265,000. The Persian had come straight from Caesar's Poker Tournament where he'd walked away with a cool half mil.

"Emilio," Sally twerped in kewpie doll voice.

"What is it Sally?" Emilio said, looking up and past her shoulder to where Vince had just enetered the showroom. "It's all right. I know him. Would you help Mr. Viderous with this item? He may want to take it for a test drive."

Sally turned her charms on the Persian who grinned like a flower opening to the sun. Emilio intercepted Vince by a knee-high Lamborghini.

"Vince, mon, you're scaring the customers."

Vince stopped, shook himelf, pasted a waxen smile across his puss. "Sorry. Let's go talk." Vince led the way toward Emilio's glassed-in office. He'd been promising to set Emilio up with Summer for months. Emilio had a nose for the candy too. Emilio followed him inside and shut the door.

"Have a seat, mon. What can I do for you?" Emilio went to a cube refrigerator on the wall, pulled out a couple of RC's and tossed one to Vince.

"I need wheels, essay. Four wheel drive. Something big." He popped the can and glugged.

Emilio sat behind his desk and put his feet up. He popped his can and drank. "Everything irie?"

"Summer walked out on me. She took my Camaro."

Emilio put his feet back down and leaned forward, eyes wide. "No shit? That was one sweet ride. Why'd she do that, mon?"

"She got pissed 'cause I slapped her around a little. I caught her making googly eyes at some linoleum salesman at Dante's."

"You got to slap 'em around now and them just so they don't start getting ideas," Emilio said. "She took that Camaro, huh. Emilio's eyes narrowed with concern. "You report it?"

"Do I look stupid to you? Of course I didn't report it! I don't rat out my friends. But now I need something to go chase her down. I know where she lives--over in Navajo Nation. Nothing but sand and scorpions."

Emilio turned to his computer and pecked. "What's your price range?"

Vince grinned bodaciously. "I thought maybe we could do a little horse-trading. You might want to shut the blinds."

Intrigued Emilio rose, went to the blinds looking out on the showroom, lowered them and closed them. He resumed his seat behind his desk with an expectant smile. "Whaddaya got?"

Vince pulled the freezer wrapped brick of blow from his backpack and flipped it onto the desk where it thumped solid.

"Pharmaceutic grade blow. Got it from a dentist."

Emilio unwrapped the brick, opened the center drawer of his desk and took out a stiletto which flicked open at the touch of a button. He pulled out a smeared hand mirror and ladled a mound of white powder onto it. He wrangled the line with a business card, pulled out a cut soda straw and inhaled, one line for each nostril. His eyes popped. He stretched backward arms overhead.

"Oh YEAH!" he said. "That's the real deal! You want some?"

Vince was tempted but he had too much to do. "No thanks, essay. What I need are some wheels. That's got to be worth ten gees easy. You got something we can just work a trade?"

"Momentito." Emilio reached into another drawer and brought out a small electronic pharmaceutical scale. He set the brick on the disc and turned it on. It read one kilo.

Emilio stood. "Le's take a look." He led Vince out of the office, through the showroom where Sally and the Persian huddled by the Ferrari, out into the yard. Emilio veered right. He lumped all the SUVs together, just as he bunched all his other cars. They passed a dozen Porsches until they came to the SUVs including Porsches, Beemers, CrosSports, Jeeps, Escapes and Rovers. Vince beelined for the steel gray Hummer.

"That's a real sweetheart," Emilio said talking fast. "Just came in--only 45 thou on the clock and cleaner than a hound's tooth. Fully loaded air, Sirius XM, OnStar, Harmon Kardon speakers, lights, heated seats, bluetooth, 425 HP V8, leather." He opened the door. Asking twenty-five. It's an '09. Want to take her for a spin?"

"I'll give you that brick," Vince said softly.

Emilio's eyes bugged. He looked around and swallowed. He was ready for his next bump. Cocaine made you feel like a new man. But fifteen minutes later the new man wanted a line. It hadn't been easy lately scoring hi-grade in town. The DEA had been running sting operations up and down the strip and a lot of the cartels had switched over to meth which they could produce themselves in country.

"Let's go back to the office and talk about it," Emilio said.

Emilio ended up paying Vince four thou in addition to the Hummer.

***

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

"Glenwood"

Beadles wasted two days tracking the Permission Historical Society Collection to Aurora only to learn that the storage company had gone into foreclosure and sold off the contents of all their lockers several years ago. On to Durango.

He ran into an unexpected spring snowstorm in the Rockies on I-70 and learned that the old Jeep's four-wheel-drive worked as he passed dozens of spin-offs by the side of the road including a couple of semis. Even with four wheel drive he had to slow way down and only got as far as Glenwood Springs where he took a room at the Glenwood Inn, including a free pass to the world's largest outdoor community hot spring, a swimming pool the length of a football field between the mountain and the interstate.

Grabbing his swim trunkcs, Beadles left his hotel and walked a block to the springs entrance. He handed his card to a clerk and entered the big men's room where he changed into his trunks. There were at least two hundred people in the vast pool but it was so large it didn't seem crowded. Heated by thermal springs, one end was 106 degrees Farenheit, tapering down to 102 at the other end. There were coin operated back-spritzers lining the sides. Beadles sank into the hot water and felt anxiety leave through the pores.

Sure. This was going to be a snap. All he had to do was prove the Azuma's existence, ideally find the center of their civilization, and all doors would open to him, his past transgressions forgotten. He looked up. The moon winked at him through clouds and was gone.

A bitter worm crawled back into his heart. He'd always thought of Anatole as a friend given their class differences. And let's not kid ourselves--America was divided by class as much as anything. Maybe even more than race. Beadles was acutely aware of his "white privelege." It had been a required course when he attended Northwestern. He was also aware that he had been extraordinarily lucky to have been born into an upper middle-class family, that his parents stayed together and loved him, that he was unusually good looking and athletically gifted and had an inbuilt confidence.

It wasn't fair to the deformed or stupid but that was life. Not all the laws in the universe could make everyone happy. Beadles had been happy. Or at least he thought he was and wasn't that the same thing? Despite his misgivings about Betty, the constant academic jockeying for position, he'd felt secure, loved and respected.

How had Anatole felt? Beadles never asked. Anatole was a janitor. Oh sure they could call him a custodian or maintenance supervisor, but the fact was he was a janitor and he was an Indian. Whether he'd lived in a box down by the tracks or a mansion Beadles didn't know. Never asked. He did know that Anatole had a son. When Lars was born they got to talking and Anatole pulled out his phone and showed Beadles a picture of the then-sixteen-year-old Rory grinning on a pony, barebacked. The picture might have been taken a hundred years ago. There was nothing in it to indicate modernity--just the boy smiling on a the pony wearing only blue jeans, his grin a slash of white in the nut-brown face.

White guilt reared its handsome head. Had Anatole squealed because he resented Beadles' success? Had Beadles been condescending? He racked his brain. He didn't think he had, but maybe the false bonhomie of treating the janitor as an equal was a form of condescension.

Anatole's betrayal hurt Beadles more than Betty's. What was up with that? Every now and then Beadles thought maybe he should see a therapist. He'd never talked to one in his life except for a few perfunctory questions when applying for scholarships or jobs. He'd always thought of himself as at peace and comfortable in his own skin. He wasn't one of those emotionally troubled souls who lived in the past or the future. He'd been happy, hadn't he?

Sure he'd been ambivalent about the birth of Lars, as would any first-time father. It took a while but he came to love the boy. And yet here he was in a hot tub in Glenwood Springs, a thousand miles from his wife and son and he didn't miss them.

Maybe there was something wrong with him.

He returned to his room a half hour later. It was a small family motel, no servie bar. Exhausted from driving Beadles went straight to bed and dreamed he was trapped in a vast desert landscape beneath a sun so harsh he could only see by shading his eyes with his fingers and staring at the ground.

Until a shadow crossed the land.

***