Then he calmed himself by trying to use logic. What if she did mention him to the cops as possibly being the rock thrower? They couldn’t prove anything. And they sure couldn’t prove that he shoved the cop into the pool. And even if they could, how serious a crime was that for someone who’d never been arrested in his whole life? A broken window? Back in Boyle Heights, people broke other people’s windows every day.
And cops had a lot worse things happen to them back there than getting pushed into a swimming pool. Even now he had to laugh whenever he relived that amazing moment. Thinking of how he’d been brave enough to do it, as noiseless as a spider, and elude all of them and escape unseen like a ghost. It was incredibly thrilling. He masturbated again and then went to sleep.
Jerzy parked the van beside the steps leading to the upstairs apartment. This part of Frogtown was quiet, although it was widely known that gunshots fired by gang members could often be heard on quiet evenings in this part of Los Angeles. There was an unusual hum of cicadas in the air, making one wonder where they were coming from. There was sparse vegetation around the old commercial buildings, and the nearest house was a block away, but the hum was surprisingly strong.
Tristan got out and, using his flashlight, ran up the outside staircase and unlocked the door. He came back down and walked out to the street, looked both ways, and then slid open the side door of the van. He pointed at Dewey to begin emoting.
If Dewey hadn’t been so nervous, so downright scared, he would’ve objected to Tristan’s assuming the role of director. But now Dewey began striking and kicking the wall of the van before he hopped out, moaning as though his body were being roughly dragged. For good measure he cried out when his feet hit the pavement, as though a vulnerable part of his body had made contact with the ground.
“Turn it down!” Tristan whispered. The man was over the top again.
Eunice had stopped crying halfway to Frogtown, and she hadn’t uttered a sound since, except for her very heavy breathing. Jerzy dragged her out onto the sidewalk, and with Tristan lifting her legs, they carried her up the staircase, both men straining and puffing before reaching the open door.
When they got her inside, Tristan switched on the overhead ceiling bulb and they hoisted her onto the bed, dropping her on her side.
“Woman, you better call NutriSystem,” Jerzy muttered. “My fuckin’ back is broke.”
Jerzy made considerable noise descending the stairs while Tristan stayed watching Eunice. Jerzy and Dewey clumped back up the steps, Jerzy panting as loud as he could, and Dewey moaning as though in agony. Dewey flopped down on the floor beside the bed, Eunice’s back to him, and continued groaning while the two kidnappers walked to the door.
Jerzy said, “We’ll be right back, and if either of you moves, you’ll suffer for it, believe me.”
Then they went out, closed the door, and stood right outside on the porch.
Eunice’s breathing was so loud, it sounded like snoring, and Dewey said, “Eunice! Can you hear me?”
She didn’t answer, and he sat up from his reclining position and said, “Eunice! Are you conscious?”
“Yes,” she said in a feeble voice, “but I can hardly breathe.”
“What is it?” he said. “Why can’t you breathe?”
“I think it’s an asthma attack,” she said.
“You don’t have asthma,” he said.
“Or emphysema,” she said. “I been having… having lotsa trouble with my lungs lately.”
“Oh, God!” Dewey cried. Her breathing sounded like a hacksaw cutting through steel-like the steel bars of a jail cell! What if she stopped breathing? What if she had to be rushed to an ER? All this for nothing? Everything screwed because she had to smoke eighty fucking cigarettes a day for the past thirty years? He said, “We gotta get you outta here!”
Her sawlike breathing was a little less raspy now, and she said, “How… how do you plan to do it, Dewey? I can’t move. Can you?”
“No,” he said, “but we gotta think of something.”
After several seconds she said, “How… how did those goddamn… thugs get in our storage room, Dewey?”
He said, “I hate to admit it, but… well, they outsmarted me. I led Creole and Jerzy there today, like I usually do. They followed me in their rented van to pick up Hatch’s delivery. But when we got there, Creole said that Hatch just phoned him and called it off till later, not sure how many laptops he wanted. I left them there at the storage room to wait for Hatch’s decision.”
“You… you left them there?” she said, the extra stress making her breathing more difficult again.
“I didn’t wanna sit there waiting with them. You and me were going out to dinner, and I wanted to go home and freshen up. So, yes, I left them there, Eunice. They called me later and said an emergency came up and they had to make a run somewhere and they’d keep me posted. How could I know it was a lie and they were gonna hide in there and pull this shit?”
“What?… what’re they pulling, Dewey?” Eunice asked. “Maybe you can tell me, because I’m pretty confused by all this.”
“I don’t know, Eunice,” Dewey said. “I guess they saw through my Jakob Kessler act. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” Then he remembered his bogus pain and said, “God, he hurt me, Eunice! I think I’m bleeding from my ear.”
After another long silence, she said in more measured tones, “Why did the one you called Creole have Hatch’s cell number? Do you delegate your responsibility to runners now?”
She was sounding stronger and asking the right questions, and Dewey felt his confidence waning. He stalled by groaning in pain some more. When he finished emoting, he said, “Not usually. But today was a special day. I gave Creole Hatch’s cell number and I called Hatch and said Creole would be handling the transaction tonight. I did it so we could have a nice long peaceful evening away from all this… this awful fucking business we do. Okay, so they outsmarted me. I admit it and I’m gonna pay the price for it, not you.”
“Whadda you mean, you’re gonna pay the price?”
“Whatever they want, I’m gonna refuse them unless they take you outta here and drop you unharmed somewhere. I’ll let them keep me here and I’ll pay the price. Whatever happens, you’ll be safe.” After a few seconds he said, “God, I ache all over!”
She was quiet again, and he could almost hear her thinking. It worried him. He wished she’d start crying again. Then they heard heavy footsteps and the door opened.
Tristan and Jerzy entered, and Dewey nodded at them and said, “For chrissake, tell us what this is all about. Whadda you want from us?”
“We want money, of course,” Jerzy said.
“I always treated you right,” Dewey said. “Did I ever fail to pay you for your work?”
“You paid us shit,” Jerzy said. “But now you’re gonna make up for it. And we want more than you got in your wallet.”
“How much do you want?” Dewey said.
“About five hundred thousand should do it,” Tristan said.
Dewey looked at his watch. He’d rehearsed this moment several times in his head, and he’d decided that the period of silence should last a full ten seconds. After that pause he said, “Have you been doing acid? Or too much crystal?”
Then Dewey pointed at Jerzy and closed his fist, making a gesture of punching his left palm. Jerzy nodded and smacked his left palm with his big right fist and Dewey grunted and moaned again and said, “Please, Jerzy… please don’t hit me again!”
Tristan thought that both Jerzy and the man were getting into their roles with way too much gusto, so he tried to pull them back by saying, “Okay, dawg, shut it down.”