Where the dead lay

TWENTY-SEVEN

Some nights were hurtling locomotive engines, others just wheezed along the tracks. This night at the Tip-Over Tap Room wasn’t going anywhere fast. DJ M.D. was spinning, but they’d just called him down last minute, it wasn’t a night he’d promoted, so the crowd was thin. There were still a few girls worth doing, but Charlie Schlegel wasn’t there for fun. He checked his watch. He had Peanut coming for a meeting, and no doubt that fucked-up, silent, slit-eyed partner of his, Nixie, would be along with him.

Charlie pulled at the corner of the bar across from where M.D. was spinning. He raised his eyes at Pam, who started drawing him a Stroh’s from the tap. She delivered it with the shy smile of the once banged and seemingly forgotten. But he hadn’t forgotten her. They’d had a couple of fun nights after closing, but the way things worked in the family was to ring up the numbers and keep the attachments to a minimum, or a little more neatly put: bros before hos.

“Thanks, Pammy,” Charlie said. Besides, she was a bit of a “butter face,” and his mother would mock the shit out of him for it if he showed up with her like a proper girlfriend.

“Sure thing,” she smiled again, and moved away, giving him a chance to admire her rock-hard ass.

“Thanks, Pammy,” he heard in a derisive singsong at his elbow and looked over to see a chick named Raquel, who was the older sister of some little blonde Kenny and he had just done up an ID for.

“Hey, Rocky,” Charlie said.

“Chickie,” she said, “got any sniff?”

Before he could even answer he felt an arm, strong and hairy, wrench tight around his neck. “No, Chickie don’t have any sniff,” his father’s rough voice sounded, “’cause he knows if he fucks with that, Daddy will bust his head.” The girl went wide-eyed with fear and beat it. Charlie just shrugged, done with it. But Terry wasn’t done.

“Why the hell’s she even asking that, Charlie?” Terry demanded.

“I have no fucking clue,” Charlie said, grabbing his father’s wrist and unwinding the arm. “I don’t hardly know her.” There was some truth to what Charlie was saying-he had no idea why she was asking him for blow. He hadn’t advertised his upcoming move, and he certainly never sold to some neighborhood schoolie girls. “She’s just someone’s sister who’s got it wrong,” Charlie added, as his father’s black eyes stared into his.

“Uh-huh,” Terry said. “Better be the case.”

“It is,” Charlie said, cool, and not trying too hard to sell it, though he couldn’t help wondering how his dad had jumped him like that with the bar all empty and with mirrors around them, too. Maybe he didn’t cast a shadow. Sloppy shit on his part, Charlie concluded.

“Better fucking be,” Terry said and headed on toward the front door. The old man could still move like a wraith when he needed to. It was disturbing. Then Charlie saw Kenny appear at the back door and give him the nod. Charlie looked around to make sure that his father had left and that the room was clear, and then he went on out the back door.

Peanut Marbry and Nixie Buncher were waiting for them behind the building. The night glowed gold from the sodium vapor streetlamps that hissed in the near distance. That silly-ass car Peanut was so proud of idled ten feet away, shaking slightly from the bass thumping inside it.

Handshakes and halfhearted chest bumps were exchanged before any words were spoken.

“A’ight, a’ight,” Peanut said, “now it’s time to do some real commercializing. You gots the vegetation?”

“Just under five pounds. Call it four and a half libs, pure hydro. Two hundred oxys. A few eight-balls, too,” Charlie said, a little smile creeping up. “A whole party kit. Here.” Charlie extended a thick, tightly rolled spliff, which Peanut took.

“How much for it?” Peanut asked. He sniffed the joint and lit it.

“Five thousand,” Charlie said. “You got the cash ready?”

A silent moment passed, along with a look between Peanut and his partner. “Will have it, in a couple-few days,” Peanut said, blowing out the smoke. “But how ’bout this: start me off with a pound on consignment, then in two days, I re-up for the rest and give you all the cash.”

“Fuck that,” Kenny said.

Nixie sucked at his cheek audibly.

“Nah,” Charlie said, then repeated “nah.”

“A’ight then, it’s gonna be a couple-few days.”

The group of them seemed disappointed at the forced wait, then Charlie remembered their other business. “It’s time for us to be moving into the ’hood.”

At this Nixie sucked his cheek again, then spit.

Kenny looked to him. “All politics is local, bro. You got a problem with that?”

Nixie was about to say something when Peanut said, “Chill. ’S’all chill.” His eyes lit and he turned to Charlie. “I’s thinking, how’s about you front me the shit and then don’t pay me for the next house I take you to?”

Charlie and Kenny looked at each other. It made perfect sense. Better than perfect sense. Transition their old business into their new and more profitable business. He could pay for the information with the weed and keep the money his father gave him to pay for the information. But the thought of those black eyes and that coarse wedge of arm scraping around his neck came to him. His father would bury him for even having this conversation.

“Nah, man,” Charlie said, “we can’t commingle that shit. Like I said: next house you take us to is in the ’hood. You get paid for it. When you get the rest of the money together we’ll meet and do the other thing.”

After a moment Peanut nodded, took another hit off the joint, and he and Nixie headed for the car. Charlie turned to his brother. Kenny was smart enough to be anything he wanted to be; that’s why Charlie had cut him in on his side action. But the kid was a stone wiseass, way worse than Charlie had ever been. “‘All politics is local.’” Charlie shook his head. “You gotta stop reading the paper.”

Kenny just laughed and they went inside.

Getting into his car, Peanut stopped. “That’s some broke-ass chronic,” Peanut said, and flicked the joint away into the night.