Black Dogs Page 8

  We both stood there staring at her. Alex finished a cigarette and flicked the burning butt into the crowd.

  “Well, what's she got?” he asked.

  He unzipped the purse and pulled out her wallet. He crammed a wad of cash into his pocket and then held up a small camera.

  “Want it?”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  Alex poured the rest of his beer inside before zipping it back up. He chucked the purse on the floor next to the couch.

  A girl's voice yelled from the kitchen, “Keep your fucking hands off me, you asshole!”

  A male voice shouted back at her but I couldn't hear it over the music. I pushed toward the kitchen.

  “Oh, I'm no fun?” the female voice shouted. “Fuck yourself. How's that for fun?”

  As I shoved my way into the kitchen a tall girl in a green sundress pushed through the crowd going in the opposite direction.

  “That asshole just grabbed my ass,” she said to her friend as we passed.

  Danny had arrived.

  I found him standing on the far side of the kitchen table. He wore a dingy T-shirt from Tony's Pizza that read, “If you like my meatballs, you'll love my sausage.” A bottle of Jim Beam dangled in the fingers of his right hand and he held a can of Pepsi in the left. He alternated swigs from each. First a mouthful of Jim, then a swallow of soda. A white-trash whiskey and Coke. He swayed a bit as I walked over.

  “Danny. I need to talk to you.”

  “Patrick!” He leaned in to whisper but talked loudly. “There's a lot of pussy here.”

  He slapped me on the back.

  “Sure is, man,” I replied.

  His eyes roamed over the people at the party. Judging by the whiskey missing from the bottle and the slur in his speech, I put Danny somewhere between drunk and really fucking drunk.

  “Listen, Danny. We gotta return that safe.”

  “What do you mean?” he answered, not looking at me.

  “Backwoods Billy wants his safe back. He knows what happened.”

  He stared out at the crowd and didn't say anything.

  “You have to give it to me. We have to give it back to him.”

  “No can do, amigo,” he said smugly, taking a hard swallow of whiskey, chased by a swallow of soda.

  “You don't have a fucking choice, man.” I tried to sound calm and reasonable. “He saw the car. He knows you have it.”

  “No. He thinks you have it.” He jabbed a finger in my face.

  “He wants the safe back and we're going to give it to him.”

  “Can't do it.” Danny shrugged.

  “Why not? Where is it?”

  “I don't have it.”

  Slug of whiskey. Slug of Pepsi.

  “Well, who the fuck does?” I asked. Danny looked away.

  Alex's head popped over the crowd, looking for us. He found us standing against the wall.

  “So are we getting the safe back from Boogie?” Alex asked. Danny looked annoyed.

  “Yeah. We are,” I answered.

  I stared at Danny. He took another drink of whiskey, long and hard, and didn't bother with the soda.

  “It ain't that easy, kiddies,” he grimaced. “I made a deal with him. If he opens it, he gets a cut of whatever's inside.”

  “Well, that deal is off,” I said. “We're not opening it and he doesn't get anything.”

  “You gonna tell him that?” Danny grinned. He looked away and laughed.

  “Who's Boogie?” I asked Alex.

  “Danny's buddy. He's a safecracker.”

  “We'll find him tomorrow and get it back,” I said.

  “Are you not fucking listening to me, Patrick?” Danny said, turning on me, his eyes read with anger and booze. “You're not getting it back. Boogie won't just hand it over to you. Once he cracks that fucker, I want what's inside. Boogie wants what's inside. And Alex wants what's inside. Right, Alex?”

  Alex shrugged. Danny looked irritated.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “I'm doing this because I need to give the safe back to Billy before he kills us all,” I shouted.

  Danny rolled his eyes and took a long pull from the whiskey bottle.

  “We're giving it back, Danny. And that's that.”

  Danny grabbed my throat in one sloppy thrust. Alex jumped between us. We struggled together, a triangle of sweaty bodies all grunting and pulling in different directions. I swung and my fist careened off the side of Danny's head.

  “I know kung fu, motherfucker!” Danny yelled, flailing with one arm. His feet tangled and he fell backward, pulling me and Alex down on top of him. He landed flat on his back on the kitchen floor with a grunt. My forehead ricocheted off the bridge of his nose.

  “Aww, shit,” he groaned.

  Legs stood over me and from the corner of my eye I saw Keith yanking on Danny's arm.

  “Break it up!” Keith yelled.

  We all separated. Danny stood up and straightened his shirt then bent to pick up his bottle of Jim Beam. Blood snaked down the side of his nose. He stared at me for a second and then left, kicking the door open with a dirty boot.

  Alex turned to me.

  “He's just drunk. He knows you're right. I'll talk to him tomorrow.”

  I nodded and picked my beer bottle up off the floor.

  “Let's get a beer and have some fun,” he said. “There's a lot of pussy here.”

  “Yeah,” I told him. “That's what I've heard.”

  TWELVE

  GODDAMN GENIUS,” DANNY SAID THE NEXT DAY AS WE DROVE PAST THE HIGH SCHOOL AND AROUND THE BOWLING ALLEY. I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN I PICKED HIM AND ALEX UP BUT ALL THE BULLSHIT FROM LAST NIGHT SEEMED TO HAVE BLOWN OVER. ALEX MUST HAVE TALKED HIM DOWN. DANNY WAS A BIT HUNGOVER BUT LOOSE AND RELAXED, CHATTING AWAY IN THE FRONT SEAT. A SNOOPY BAND-AID COVERED THE CUT ON HIS NOSE.

  “Tell Patrick what Boogie was locked up for,” Alex said, leaning up from the backseat. “You'll love this, Patrick. It's your kinda scheme.”

  “Get this.” Danny grinned. “Boogie is this poor black kid. Smart as fuck. And he's big. He was born big. Every year football coaches begged Boogie to play but that ain't him. He was always into music. He can play anything—drums, guitar, piano. He didn't want to play football and hurt his hands and fuck up his music career.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “He gets a job at this music store selling instruments and jewelry and shit. One time the owner went on vacation and the soda machine broke while he was gone. Boogie's too lazy to put a sign on it so people keep plugging in money. When they complain to him that it doesn't work he tells them they'll have to come back next week for a refund when the owner gets back. Nobody does.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Would you go all the way across town for ten cents you lost in a fucking soda machine?”

  “I guess not.” I shrugged.

  “So Boogie gets this idea. He and a buddy pool all their money and buy a bunch of soda and candy machines. They stick them outside Laundromats, magazine shops, movie theaters. The thing is, none of the machines work. People put in money and don't get shit. They don't know how to get a refund so they just give up. Once a month, Boogie and his buddy come by and clean out all the cash. And because the machines don't actually work, they're pulling in free money with no overhead.”

  “That is pretty goddamn clever.”

  “Hell yeah, it is.” Danny grinned. “Shoot. I need to get a setup like that. That's fucking smart.”

  “It wasn't that smart. He did get busted, didn't he?”

  “Well, yeah,” Danny huffed. “Only because some chicken-shit movie theater manager called the cops. They jumped him when Boogie came to collect.”

  “How long was he in?”

  “Just three months. Shit, really nothing.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “Not much. Lives out in this big house in Cherry Hill and works on his music. He's got a band.”

  “And
he knows how to open a safe?”

  “Hell yeah,” Danny said, filling the car with a giant smoke cloud. “I told ya he's smart. He knows how to do all kinds of shit.”

  “Has he got it open yet?” Alex asked from the backseat.

  “Not yet but he's working on it.” Danny sounded annoyed and turned to face Alex. “Damn. Don't you trust me to take care of this shit?”

  “I do,” Alex said, sitting back. “I do.”

  “It doesn't matter,” I said. “We're not opening it. We're getting it back from Boogie.”

  “We'll see about that.” Danny smirked.

  We barreled along the Washington Parkway. The businesses thinned out and soon we wound through used-car dealerships and run-down gas stations. Clusters of shabby apartment buildings huddled in threes and fours around sprawling parking lots dotted with burned-out cars and weed patches.

  We wound along Cherry Hill Road until Danny told me to turn off on a narrow road leading through a small cluster of houses. A group of kids playing basketball in the street moved slowly to the side of the road and stared into the windows as we passed. The road kinked left but Danny pointed for me to keep straight into a gravel parking lot next to a beat-up yellow house tucked in the corner under a tree. All of the windows were closed even though the temperature lingered in the nineties. A tattered blue couch sat on concrete blocks in the front yard next to a rusted charcoal grill.

  Danny said something to me and Alex as we walked toward the front door but I couldn't make out a word of it over the music exploding from the house. Tight funk drumming locked into step with a chicken-scratch guitar. Windows and doors rattled as the music pushed the old house to the verge of bursting.

  Danny pounded on the screen door but the music washed out the sound. I sat down on the step and Danny walked to the front of the house to rap on a basement window.

  “They're pretty good, eh?” Alex asked me.

  “Yeah, they are. Sounds like Sly Stone.”

  “Definitely Figured out what you're going to say to Boogie?”

  “I'll just tell him what happened.” I sighed. “I'm sure he doesn't want any trouble with the Holy Ghosts either.”

  The music stopped and Danny dove to his knees in the dirt to beat on the window, burning himself with a cigarette in the process.

  “Shit!” he yelped. “Hey, Boogie! Open up!”

  A deep voice in the house said something and heavy footsteps stomped up creaky basement steps. As the door opened, Danny pushed past us up the steps, brushing dirt off his jeans.

  Boogie filled the entire door frame; his giant red button-up shirt took up most of the view. He dabbed sweat from his head with a white towel hanging around his neck then ducked to angle a towering Afro through the doorway and poke his puffy face outside.

  “What's up, Danny?”

  “Nothing, Boogie. Just stopped by to talk a second.”

  “Cool.”

  Inside the house, cables snaked along the hallways, up and down the stairs, and tangled with table legs and other furniture. A microphone on a stand stood alone in a tiny bathroom off a kitchen cluttered with beer bottles and empty pizza boxes. Guitar cases, dusty mixing boards and an old organ surrounded another sagging couch in the living room. A sawed-off shotgun lay in the sink. Boogie dropped into a chipped wooden chair in the kitchen. It creaked under his weight.

  “So what's up?” he asked slowly in a deep voice.

  “Well, uh …” Danny stammered. “I just wanted to see how things were going with the safe?”

  “I'm working on it.”

  “Is it here?”

  “Nah,” Boogie said, giving Danny a suspicious look. “It's at my shop.”

  The basement door opened and a short, marble-shaped black guy ambled into the room. He held drumsticks in one meaty hand and rubbed the back of his neck with the other, creating rings of fat under his tucked-in chin. A short Afro radiated around his head.

  “That's our drummer Johnny Paycheck,” Boogie said.

  “You mean like the country singer?” I blurted out. Boogie laughed. A thick grin grew across his face.

  “Maaaannn,” Johnny hissed in a high-pitched voice. “I was using this shit before that corny redneck motherfucker.”

  “I take it you don't like country music?” I asked.

  “I'm from the South, man. I love country music. Hank Williams. Ernest Tubb. My mama played all that shit. Some of them country cats can really play”

  “So Johnny Paycheck is just a stage name?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “For the band.”

  “What's the band called?” Alex asked. Behind him Boogie whistled and shook his head.

  “See,” Johnny said. “That's another problem right there. I know what I want to call it but this motherfucker doesn't get it.”

  “I get it,” Boogie said. “It's just stupid.”

  “It's not stupid. It's smart,” Johnny said, tapping the side of his head. “I wanna call it the New York Giants.”

  Everyone in the room laughed. Johnny tried to calm us down.

  “Listen! Listen, you motherfuckers.” He waved his hands around. “This is the thing: when people see ‘Appearing tonight: the New York fucking Giants’ on a flier, they're going to come to the goddamn show.”

  “They're going to come to the show expecting to see the fucking football team, dumbass,” Boogie shouted. They'd obviously gone over this more times than Boogie wanted.

  “Wouldn't that get you in trouble with the real New York Giants?” I asked.

  “It don't matter. We'll have so many fucking fans by then we'll change it. We're just using it to get people to the goddamn shows.”

  “That's pretty smart,” Alex said.

  “See!” Johnny shouted, turning to Boogie. “He gets it. This motherfucker gets it.”

  “We ain't calling this band the New York Giants,” Boogie said, covering his eyes with one hand. “Man, I can't take this shit.”

  We all laughed, even Johnny. With all the joking I felt like I could bring up the safe again.

  “So that safe isn't here, man?”

  “Nah,” Boogie said. He sensed something. “Why? What's up?”

  “We need to get it back.”

  “What the fuck for?” Boogie said. He looked at me. We were eye to eye even though he was sitting down.

  “The owner wants it back.”

  “Is that right, Danny?” Boogie asked.

  “Well, you see,” Danny mumbled. “The guy we took it from sorta figured it out. And—”

  “Now we had a deal, Danny,” Boogie said, standing up. “You promised me five grand for hiding this motherfucker and getting it open. Who's gonna pay me my money?”

  Danny stuttered and crossed his arms over his chest. He tried to talk.

  “No, no, Boogie. See, I told him that we were gonna have to talk to you and work something out.”

  “Because I'm not going back to jail,” Boogie said.

  Finally, I thought, someone in this group with a brain. It felt like things were going my way. Thanks, Boogie.

  “Exactly. Nobody wants to go to jail,” I said. “The best thing is to just give it back and forget the whole mess.”

  “No.” Boogie turned on me. “That's my Moog money.”

  “What the fuck is Moog money?” Alex asked.

  “You know, a Moog. One of them fancy little keyboards. We need money to buy one.”

  “Yeah,” said Johnny. “Stevie Wonder has one. So does Parliament. That shit costs over a grand. Plus, we need new drums.”

  My stomach flopped onto the dirty kitchen floor.

  “The person that safe belongs to is not someone we really want to fuck with,” I said.

  “Some church motherfucker? That don't scare us,” said Boogie.

  “So you're gonna take on Backwoods Billy and the Holy Ghosts?” I asked.

  Boogie and Johnny looked at each other with wide eyes. This was new information to them and the effect registered all over their faces
.

  “You took the safe from them motorcycle nuts?” Boogie said, stepping toward Danny. “You told me you got it from some church group.”

  “Well, I, uh …” Danny mumbled.

  The way he shriveled reminded me of the time I was a kid and my mom caught me stealing a candy bar at Woolworth's and made me return it and apologize.

  “That's sorta what I meant.”

  Boogie sat back down and rubbed his eyes. He wouldn't back down now.

  “Fuck it. He don't know I'm involved.” He pulled a snub-nosed pistol out of the back of his pants and slammed it on the table. “And if any of you motherfuckers tell him, it's your ass.”

  He jabbed a thick finger at me, Alex and Danny.

  “We don't even know what's in the safe, Boogie,” Alex said. I felt proud of him for finally saying something. “Might be nothing.”

  “There's got to be serious cash in there. That's a big safe. The kind where you put something you don't want no motherfucker getting.”

  “How much do we have to pay you to get the safe back?” I asked.

  Boogie stared at the floor. The room went quiet. After a few seconds he groaned loudly. “Fine. Tell ya what. You bring me two grand and I'll give it back to you untouched. Otherwise, I'm gonna drill that motherfucker.”

  Johnny's head nodded up and down behind me.

  “We'll give you a thousand,” I said.

  “Two.”

  “You're crazy.”

  “Well, that's the gamble you're gonna have to take, white boy,” Boogie said. “You can pay me two thousand for the safe or you can go back to Backwoods Billy and tell that fucking psycho you can't return what you stole from him, hand him a thousand bucks and pray to fucking God that's more cash than he had in there and he's willing to let this shit go instead of running over your head with a motorcycle.”

  I looked at Alex to see what he thought and he shook his head with a disgusted look on his face. Danny shrugged.

  “All right,” I said to Boogie. “Just don't touch that safe.”

  “No problem.” He grinned.

  No one spoke as we drove back to town. I looked over at Danny as we crossed Hanover Street Bridge. He created this mess but I was the one who Backwoods Billy was going to kill. He sat slouched in the seat next to me, shirtsleeves rolled up, arm dangling out the window. I wanted to open his door and boot him, send him sailing into the Patapsco River.