I sat there and thought about my dad and my brother and I thought about what my sensei had said about you can’t correct what’s done, and if you try, you won’t feel any better. He was right. You can’t correct what’s been done. But I did feel better. I felt bad about the girl, but I felt good about all those dead fucks being dead. I felt real good.
I felt around in my shirt, and my hand was like a catcher’s mitt trying to pick up a needle. I finally found my ballpoint and I opened the girl’s wallet, which was bloody. I pinched out the little card with her address on it, and wrote the best I could:
I’M SORRY. REALLY, I AM.
I laid the wallet on my knee, got out my own wallet. I had twenty-five dollars in there. I put the money from my wallet in her wallet, along with her five. I turned and looked at the door. I didn’t know if I could make it. There was a mailbox by the door, a black metal thing, and I wanted to get up and put the wallet in that, but I didn’t know if I could.
I thought about it awhile. Finally, I got some kind of strength and pulled myself up along the concrete railing. When I got up, it was like my legs and feet came back. I made it to the mailbox, opened it, and put her wallet in there with the card I had written on.
Then that was it. I fell down along the wall and lay on my face. I thought about all manner of things. I thought of my brother and my father. But the funny thing was, I began to think about my sensei. I was on the mat and I was moving along the mat. I was practicing in the air. Not traditional kata, because we didn’t do that. But I was practicing-punching, kicking, swinging my elbows, jerking up my knees. It felt good, and I could see my sensei out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t make out if he was pleased or angry, but I was glad he was there.
The sirens grew louder.
I thought of bullets and fire, and a deep pit full of darkness. I wished I could see the stars.
Judy’s Big Score by Patrick J. Lambe
Judy had every right to be pissed. I wasn’t supposed to stop at the bar after I’d cased it; especially not while the owner was there. But I just had to get a look at the loser we were gonna rip off. The other guy she was sleeping with.
She tapped her fingers on the bar, her arms spread out on either side of the beer, eyes narrowed, exaggerating the wrinkles that had started spreading from their corners since the last time I’d seen her-nearly seven years before the call out of nowhere.
“Five bucks,” she said.
I knew she’d be mad at me, but I hadn’t expected her to actually charge me for a goddamned beer. It was a business expense as far as I was concerned.
A quick glance in both directions showed no patrons within hearing distance, besides my partner, Dell. Tipping the glass towards her, I said, “I didn’t get a chance to pick up any cash on the way down.”
“Don’t look at me, I’m on the dole,” Dell said when Judy switched her attention from me to him.
“There’s an ATM right behind you.” She chin-nodded towards it. “You two idiots forget about it already?”
“Come on, hon, can’t you spring for a round?” I said.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” she said, picking up a bar rag from a sink under the cheap Formica bar top. “Maybe we should call it off.” She wiped the ring formed by my beer mug.
“Jesus Christ,” I said. “I’ll pay for the drinks.”
Pushing away from the bar, I nearly collided with a guy maneuvering a hand truck behind me. His close-cropped hair was a mix of dark brown and silver. Freshly touched-up tattoos covered the parts of his thick arms exposed by his light-colored T-shirt. One of the tattoos was a Black Flag symbol. Old pop marks could still be seen poking through the fresh coat of ink. Hard to believe punk rock kids were pushing fifty nowadays.
“Can you let me in, hon?” he said, scurrying past me to the part of the bar that swung upward to let people behind it. He had to be Steve, the owner.
Judy worked her way down the end of the bar and lifted the top up to let Steve in with the beer-case-laden hand truck. She was making too much of an effort to ignore me as I went over to the ATM and stuck my card in. I hoped Steve-O didn’t pick up on it.
I watched them out of the corner of my eye as I waited for the machine to process my transaction. He effortlessly picked up cases two at a time and set them on the bar, then transferred the bottles one by one into the cooler, rotating the older ones to the top. His arms looked like they were outgrowing the tattoos. I guessed he’d traded in heroin for weight training as his addiction of choice. He certainly wasn’t the pushover Judy had made him out to be.
“Something wrong, Judy?” he asked, pausing, looking at her as she brushed past him to service another customer at the other end of the bar.
“We need more Jameson,” she said, annoyed.
“What’d I do?” he said, catching a sympathetic look from Dell as she grabbed a near-empty whiskey bottle and poured.
Smiling, I hit my code, authorizing the machine to deduct a dollar fifty for the privilege of taking my money out of it. I guess Stevie boy wasn’t used to Judy’s moods yet. It’d taken me a while to get used to them myself, when we were together full-time.
A small screen popped up on the ATM, telling me the price for taking money had gone up another fifty cents. Two dollars to take out twenty. Seemed like usury to me, especially since I’d only have thirty-eight dollars left in the account after the transaction.
I guess I shouldn’t complain. I’d be getting my money back from the machine tomorrow night, right after Dell and I rolled it out into my pickup truck after the bar closed.
She held a large bag from an art supply store in front of her when I reopened the door to a professional and romantic relationship that had ended nearly seven years ago. I moved aside and let her into my apartment. I’d run out and bought outrageously priced air fresheners from the Indian running the Krausers, hoping they would make a dent in the musty stench my place had accumulated over the years. I wouldn’t have bothered with the fresheners under normal circumstances, but when an old flame calls after an absence it never hurts to put up a good front.
Judy wrinkled her nose, but she didn’t say anything as she put the bag down next to the front door and took off her coat. The crow’s-feet that had begun to gather around her eyes had multiplied and her hair seemed a little faded since the last time I’d seen her. But otherwise she still looked pretty much the same, tight little body, grade-A ass, and an expression that generally had nothing to do with what was going on behind her pretty face.
“Been a while,” I said. “Make your big score yet?” I didn’t think so, based on the Wal-Mart couture.
It was the reason she’d left. My lack of ambition. We had a nice little routine down. Minimal risk, but the return on the investment wasn’t generally more than enough to last us a couple of months, a half year at best. I yessed her to death about pulling off something big: an insurance swindle or confidence scheme that would set us up for life, or at least net us enough capital to start some kind of legitimate business. She finally figured out I hadn’t the fortitude to risk hard time for a scheme that big, and she’d moved on.
“I’ve been out of the game for a while, but I might have something.” She took a Corona I’d retrieved from the fridge. I’d given up Corona-bottled beer actually-since the money had become tight. Now it was whatever case of cans was on sale. My new partner and I hadn’t done anything significant in nearly six months, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to spring for her favorite brand.
“It’d be good if we could work something out,” I said. “I could use some quick cash.”
“Heard you got another partner.” She sat down on the couch.
“Guy named Dell. He’s good, but he lacks your obvious assets.”