The Carrier (14 page)

What had the finance guys made of Top?
They were probably laughing at him right now. A guy walks into the
office looking like an exiled colonel from some bad Central
American army, and he talks about having all his money in cash and
gold. What were they supposed to think?

“
You know, I could do with
some actual money in the near future,” Duane said.

“
What did you
say?”

“
I’m just saying I’ve got
money coming to me.”

Duane had put a lot of his own money
into the business, but he hadn’t seen anything back in almost six
months now. He understood the concept of an investment, but it
seemed like Top had been sending money a lot of places and not a
dime of it had come back to Duane. Did Top really think he was a
sheep?

“
You think I’ve
forgotten?”

“
No, and I’m not saying
right now, but soon. I just need to be paid.”

“
I let you come in on some
things. You wanted in, and I let you in. It was your
choice.”

“
I know that.”

“
But now you’re demanding
money.”

“
I’m not demanding money.
I’m just saying that I’m going to need something. You know? Just as
a person, you need money.”

“
You’d have had a nice
bundle for yourself if you’d handled Florida correctly.”

That again. Duane hated meeting Top,
because he had to act like such a pussy. He had to sit there and
take it. He had to try to act displeased without looking aggressive
or pouty. It wasn’t an easy balance.

“
You talk to your brother in
a while?” Top asked.

“
No. He’s
alright?”

“
Yeah, he’s
fine.”

“
Well, good. I don’t see him
much.”

Almost never. Unless Top was
going to give him a thousand dollar bonus every time Cyril made a
delivery, why even bring him up? Cyril drove a car and ate fast
food. He was a God damn UPS man—he might as well wear the brown
uniform. Duane did some complex problem solving, and he did it
well. It was a lot like high school. One time Top had mentioned
something about Cyril to him:
I’ve got
people out there requesting your brother for
delivery
. And just like in high school
Duane had a quick thrill of pride and then seeping resentment—who
cares if he won the Science Bean? And what the hell is the Science
Bean, anyway?

“
What was the meeting with
Tony about? What did he have to say?” Top asked.

“
Don’t you know? You’re the
one who told me I had to go meet him. There’s no other reason I
would have a face-to-face with him.”

“
Why not?”

“
I keep trying to tell you
that Tony is difficult in every way. I show up and he’s with a
girl. I say, Can you tell me what I need to know—he brushes me off
and goes to the bar.”

“
He met you in a bar, with a
girl?”

“
Yes.”

“
And he didn’t tell you
anything?”

“
Not one word of
substance.”

“
Who was the
girl?”

“
No one I’d ever
met.”

“
What’d she look
like?”

“
I don’t know. Hispanic, I
think. Young.”

“
Pretty?”

“
Yeah, she was pretty. I
don’t think she was a hooker, but she definitely had an
angle.”

“
Why do you say
that?”

“
Because no one is going to
be around Tony unless there’s a reason—money or junk.”

“
So she was using him for
free product?”

“
Probably.”

“
You get a name for
her?”

“
He introduced her as Maria,
whether that’s her actual name I can’t say. Can I tell you
something? Tony Braxton is an idiot. And it’s going to cost all of
us. He’s using too. You do know that?”

Duane paused, expecting Top to cut him
off like he’d done in the past, but Top just stared at him, so
Duane kept going.

“
It’s already cost
us.”

“
When?” Top
asked.

“
Florida.”

It was a bit of a risk taking things
back to Florida, but Duane felt pretty self-righteous when it came
to his behavior down there. He saved a lot of product and taken a
bite wound from a strange, dirty man dressed like an old-time sea
captain.

“
You really want to talk
about that, Duane?”

“
Yeah, I do, because I’m the
only reason we got anything out of the deal. I mean that. If it
were all up to Tony, we’d have just thrown everything into the Gulf
of Mexico.”

“
It takes two men to wreck a
two-man job.”

“
Top, I don’t think I agree
with that. I think that one man can be doing everything right and a
second man can just fuck the whole thing up to excess. You
give—let’s say—Kurt Cobain and a gorilla a guitar each, and tell
them to play. The gorilla is going to mess up the show, even if
Kurt plays his heart out.”

Duane knew Top was a big Nirvana
fan—it was about all the personal information he had on his boss.
Maybe it was an overstep to bring Nirvana into the conversation.
Duane wasn’t even a hundred percent sure that Kurt Cobain could
play a guitar.

“
So you’re the Cobain of
this operation?” Top asked.

“
Well, Tony is definitely
the gorilla. That’s what I’m saying.”

“
That’s not how he tells
it.”

Top gave a rare expression of
impatience—a slow exhale. Top hated meeting people face-to-face.
Duane only saw him every few months. Cyril had never met him. All
Cyril knew was that there was someone named Top—a presence, an
eminence. He kept himself scarce and built mystique. Looking across
the table, Duane saw a hard man, middle-aged, irritable, slightly
above average intelligence. Top was bald and he’d recently shaved a
beard. A lot of people thought he was Mexican. Maybe he was, but
Duane had never heard him speak Spanish.

“
Do you know where Tony
Braxton is?” Top asked.

Now it was the deep
penetrating stare—
looking back three
generations at the misdeeds of your great grandfather in the old
country
. What a joke.

“
I don’t,” Duane
said.

It was the truth. He hadn’t seen Tony
since he’d knocked him unconscious in Newburgh. Maybe he’d never
woken up.

“
And you think he’s the
problem?” Top asked.

“
Yes. And honestly, I don’t
have anything against him—other than the fact that he’s a fucking
moron. That’s all, really. He doesn’t understand when to shut up.
And he panics and makes bad decisions. And he’s got girls around
him too often. He’s probably telling them all kinds of shit. This
is going to hurt you and me. I mean—more than it already
has.”

“
Okay. So what do you think
I should do? Put you in charge of it—what do you do?”

“
Honestly, I would cut him
loose.”

“
Okay. You want to do
that?”

“
Yes.”

“
Go ahead.”

“
. . . Just so I’m sure I
get it—”

Top turned hard on Duane.

“
Let me say this: there’s
people out there telling me the problems you’re causing. So how
about you just do what I tell you, no mistakes. That’s the safest
thing for you to be doing.”

He got up and walked out of the bar,
leaving the bill for Duane. Yeah, I get it, you’re the big shot.
Duane had another drink, and then stood up, feeling pretty pissed
with the world. He hadn’t decided how he felt about the bartender
yet—a man of about thirty with a few low-key tattoos—but he wasn’t
in a generous mood.

“
You ready to settle up?”
the bartender asked.

Nope—Duane didn’t like that tone of
voice.

“
I’ll have to get you
another time,” Duane said.

“
What?”

“
Another time. Never. Right
after you go home and fuck your cat.”

Duane walked to the door. There was no
bouncer in the place this early in the day. Duane could hear the
bartender scrambling out from behind the bar, but he only made it
to the doorframe. That’s where he stopped and watched Duane walk
down Water Street. You want to make an issue out of it—be my
guest.

Why was Duane so upset? He should have
been relieved. But there had been constant reminders of how little
Duane was worth, and then Top had ended the talk with a threat and
that arrogant walkout. It meant Top was probably in trouble, and
that wasn’t good news for Duane.

He had heard the whole Midwest
operation hadn’t been a great idea. The people were hard to keep
track of and a lot of the money that was supposed to come back
never did. The one time he’d talked shop with his brother, Cyril
had told him he didn’t even bring money back anymore. That was
surprising, but Duane assumed that Top had perfected transfers in a
reliable way.

Duane had only been walking for a few
minutes, but he’d already hit the bottom of the island of
Manhattan. The statue of Liberty stood out in the harbor, and short
men dressed as the statue tried to get tourists to take their
picture. He looked back at the downtown towers, billions of dollars
moving right past him, right now. None of it was his. He had to
work around the edges, the suburbs and the hinterlands, and he had
to take care of some petty concerns for a boss who was starting to
see him as expendable.

CHAPTER 23

Willow and Cyril left the
diner.

“
And that was a fake baby
she carried, okay,” Willow said.

“
You sure?”

“
Yeah, I’m sure. I was about
to slap it out of her hands.”

“
Why didn’t you?”

“
Okay, fine. I was only
nine-nine percent sure. And you can’t slap a baby if you’re only
ninety-nine percent sure it’s fake. That’s a rule of
life.”

“
Sure.”

“
And you just let that guy
rip on you—talking about how you were missing a sack.”

Cyril shrugged.

“
Look, they were just
hustlers,” he said. “They don’t matter. They’re not the ones
following us.”

“
So where are those
guys?”

“
I think we lost them. I
think we take to the back roads and wait for the call.”

The Call. He’d already missed three of
them, but the dealers would try again. Cyril was Top’s ambassador.
These smallish Iowans weren’t about to cross Top because of a few
missed phone calls, right?

Some of the dealers tried to scare him
a bit, but most of them were really nice. There was a guy just
outside of Davenport who always wanted Cyril to listen to old jazz
albums, sitting on his porch with lemonade and Bix Beiderbecke.
That guy was nicer than anyone Cyril dealt with in the straight
world. He would point out the constellations and talk about how
shiny the stars were and load Cyril down with mixtapes for the ride
home.

Willow turned on the radio. The Lite
FM DJ read copy for Rite Aid.

“
You don’t ever carry a
gun?” she asked. “There’s going to be a lot of money changing
hands.”

“
A gun wouldn’t help
me.”

“
I just feel like you’re not
tough enough.”

“
How about I pick fights in
diners for no good reason? How about I get all tatted up, looking
like I just got out of prison? Those guys wreck pickups. And those
guys get stopped on the highway.”

“
You don’t get
stopped?”

“
Once or twice. But it’s
never been trouble. A cop helped me change a tire once. And I was
loaded down heavy that day.”

“
He didn’t want to see ID?”
Willow asked.

“
He did. I showed it to
him.”

Actually it had been a very pleasant
young female officer who’d joked about helping out a damsel in
distress. It must have been a slow morning for Indiana State Police
while she helped him figure out how to use his jack.

Willow turned away from the stone
buildings of town and out to a quiet single lane and open land. The
voice on the radio wanted someone to unbreak her heart, and Willow
sang along quietly. Her singing voice was higher and sweeter than
Cyril would have expected.

“
What?” she
asked.

“
I like hearing you
sing.”

“
I was singing?”

“
Yeah.”

“
You shouldn’t sing along
with the radio. It’s an insult to the recording artist.”

“
Really?”

The cell phone rang in her
pocket.

“
Let me have it,” Cyril
said.

“
Nope.”

“
Please, before it goes to
voicemail again. I have to answer it, and you can’t
talk.”

Willow took the phone out.