Crayer gave him a hard look. “Look, boy, you don’t want to fuck up a good thing.” He shoved his right-hand index finger into James’s chest. “I’ll get Stan to cover your tires. New tires, rookie. Got it? By tomorrow afternoon, you’ll be ready to roll, but don’t screw it up. No cops. Do you understand?”
James never backed down. He didn’t move an inch, which is surprising for James. And Crayer didn’t have a clue how much James distrusted cops. Four flat tires and the mention of cops is enough to send James over the edge.
“I’m not sure I do understand.” James was treading on thin ice. He usually backed off when the action got a little rough. But the truck was his dream, his way into the big time. And somebody had screwed around with his dream. “Shove me with that finger again, and I’ll break it. I’ll break your finger, understand?”
“I’m asking you, son. Leave it alone. Finish your shift here tomorrow and Sunday, then go back to your day jobs. No complaining about your truck here. I’m serious. Please. You’ll save yourself a lot of pain. Please. You don’t want to mess with what you don’t understand.” Crayer spun around and disappeared in the direction of Stan’s pizza wagon. We watched him, until he disappeared into the dark.
“Nice guy, that Bruce. Eh?”
“Skip?”
“Yeah, James.”
“Shut the fuck up.” He walked over and kicked one of the flattened tires as hard as he could. He let out a yelp and lifted his foot, massaging the toe of his shoe.
“So what do we do?”
“I want to flatten the tires on every single wagon on this path. That’s what I want to do. I want to run every one of these assholes out of here. Look at this, look what they’ve done. If I had a pop gun, I swear I’d shoot out every tire on this row of junk food peddlers.” He took the coffeepot and poured himself a cup in an old mug with a faded blue logo. Never even offered me one.
“James, Crayer said he’d get Stan to arrange for the tires. Look at it this way. You get new tires. For free. Free, James. Brand new tires. Not too bad, huh?” I poured myself some coffee in a chinked-up faded red cup that we’d found in the apartment when we moved in.
“Well then, why didn’t we tell him about the theft? Why didn’t we tell him about somebody breaking into our cash box and taking the change plus tonight’s profits? Maybe they would have given us new money. Maybe fucking Stan would have given us our one thousand dollars for free.”
“James. Settle down. You accused me of being too uptight. Just look at you.”
He sat down on the edge of the now-lower truck bed. It was surprising how low to the ground the truck was. I thought about it for a second. It would be a lot easier to serve our food from this elevation. Even with the step-up, I was stretching way down when the tires were inflated.
“Skip, somebody’s trying to run us out. Why?”
“You’ve seen too many Rear Windo w movies, James.”
“Screw you. All right, maybe you were on to something. Okay? I’m sorry about accusing you of being a little conspiracy crazy.”
“You’re not sorry.” He wasn’t.
“Hey, I’m telling the truth. Even when I’m lying, I’m telling the truth.”
I knew the line. Al Pacino in Scar Face. James was going to be okay.
We lay down in our clothes, using some old towels under us, and our arms as pillows. The floor of that truck bed was harder than rock.
“Could have called a cab.” James shifted and I could feel a slight sway in the truck.
“Probably fifty bucks easy.”
“For the chance to sleep in our own beds? I could make that up in five minutes tomorrow at the poker game.”
I wanted to tell him. The game was fixed. But I figured he’d had enough anger in his system for the evening. I shifted. Sleeping on the ground might be more comfortable. Wet, but comfortable.
“Cashdollar isn’t sleeping in the back of a truck.” I closed my eyes and pictured that limo — number one — sliding by our truck on its way to wherever he lived.
“No. I read he owns a twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion, somewhere south of here.”
I’d read the same thing. And People or some other rag reported that his bedroom had a walk-in closet that dwarfed our apartment. Of course the magazine didn’t mention our apartment. I just superimposed our modest dwelling into his bedroom. And supposedly he owns like one hundred suits. I didn’t own one. Neither did James.
“Skip, we’ll have a good night tomorrow, and I’ve figured out how to beat these guys in poker.”
I could feel a little breeze blowing into the truck, and the smell of a small campfire drifted into our cramped quarters. “James, I don’t think we’re doing the poker thing tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
“You heard Crayer. Just finish the shifts and get out of Dodge.”
“Skip?”
“Yeah.”
“What was that he said about ‘don’t mess with what you don’t understand?’”
“Yeah. That’s what I consider a threat.”
“But, dude. He said please.”
“Nice guy, that Bruce.”
“I’m serious. He said please. He was trying to be nice. But he followed with something about saving ourselves a lot of pain.”
“Here’s what I really think, James. For some reason — either my questions or the fact that we’re not full time, or they don’t think we fit in with their country club set — one of these guys is messing with us. And they pushed it a little too far. Now, they just want to call off the dogs so we don’t call the cops. They’re going to make it all right tomorrow with new tires, we can stay through Sunday, and everything is all right. Just a fraternity hazing. Sort of. Nothing to worry about. Okay?”
“Just a fraternity hazing?” He grunted.
Somebody whistled as they walked up the muddy path. I looked at my watch in the pale moonlight. Eleven p.m.
James was quiet and I thought maybe he’d drifted off to sleep. Finally, “Is that really what you believe? Fraternity hazing?”
“No. That’s not what I believe.” And it wasn’t. I was pissed. “I don’t know, James. There’s obviously a body of politics here that we’re not part of.” I lay on the truck bed, acutely aware of the unevenness of the plywood floor. “Man, we should get some sleep.”
“Yeah. Listen. Do you know when all this shit started? The robbery? The flat tires?”
“About three hours ago.”
“No, I mean think about what happened.”
I thought for a moment. “When you put eight bucks in the collection plate?”
He mulled over my sarcastic remark. “Maybe. But I think this whole thing happened when you asked Crayer about the Washington girl’s death. When you mentioned the death of the food vendor, Michael whats his name.”
“Bland.” He was finally understanding that the questions might be responsible for the destruction of his tires. “Oh, come on.”
“You think about it. You mentioned the girl’s death. You even suggested Crayer might have been working for Cashdollar at the time.”
I thought my sarcasm was obvious, but he never once picked it up. “For Christ’s sake, James. I asked how long he’d been with the show. Of course I never insinuated anything else. Not me.”
“Doesn’t matter. He immediately responded with a retraction of his statement from the night before.”
“You see?” I raised my voice, rolling over on the hard surface and pointing my finger at him. “I try to tell you this and you tell me I’m crazy, but now that it’s your idea — ”
“Crayer was worried. You mention the Washington kid, and he defends with the senator.” He was quiet for a long time. “And he makes a big point of telling you that the food vendor, Michael — ”
“Bland.”
“Yeah, that he had an accidental death. You might be on to something, pal.”
“I told you that several hours ago.”
“Crayer is trying to protect someone. My guess is, it’s Cashdollar. And who the hell shot our tires out? I mean, who would do something like that?”
I’d told him that before too, but he hadn’t listened. Carneys. “James, I’m tempted to say let’s hit the road tomorrow. Once they get the truck fixed — ”