Psychosomatic Page 5

  Alan smiled, shifted the car into gear so the guy would get a clue. He said, “We’ll be around. If you don’t see us so easily, know we’re always here for you. Whatever it was that got this guy mad at you, maybe it’s a good day to swear off it. Make it like Lent or something.”

  Tompkins nodded and said a lot of things that almost sounded like “Thanks” as he climbed out and shut the door gently. Alan saluted him and took off. Down the road, he tried to fill in the rest of the plan since that first part was off the top of his head. The idea was to string Tompkins’ along a while, maybe get some money out of him without actually having to kill the guy. If Tompkins and Norm confronted each other over this, Alan guessed he wouldn’t need to kill anyone. Let those two settle it face to face while he took Lydia on a cruise or something.

  Enough of that crap. Get some Mexican takeout, spend some time with Lydia. He wanted to smell her, a close examination, to check if Norm had been with her or not. Either way, Alan thought his plan was the better option, just in case. Get paid, let these morons clean up their own end of the gene pool, and keep Lydia all to himself—until the next guy shows up making big ass mistakes trying to fuck his girl.

  *

  After the agent pulled away, Tompkins glanced at surrounding houses and parked cars, covered boats and backyard tool sheds, wondering where the ATF guys hid to watch him. Why would ATF care anyway, unless they already knew about his business? Shit, with Winona hanging around like she did, both for sex and as a courier, how could they not? Probably waiting until after they stopped the assassin to bust Tompkins for the dope. That last thing the agent said, like a warning: I’d swear off it. Man, yeah, they knew.

  Tompkins walked back inside the house while he did some math in his head—how many months until Winona’s eighteenth birthday? Fourteen? He was sunk all over. He knew Norm wasn’t happy with the expansion project, but hiring a hit man? Damn! If Tompkins had told him up-front, “Okay, no problem. We’ll keep it down low,” then he’d be clear. Now he was sweating and shaking. He dropped onto his couch stared at the big screen TV, a Saturday Night Live rerun on cable.

  He thought, What if the agents came knocking, happened to look around the house, and found the stash? Winona could bring some friends over and sneak the stuff out to a safe place. But what if the agents had super-telescopic lenses and ultraviolet cameras? They’d see him having buck wild sex with a sixteen-year-old high school dropout. Damn, how she fucked like a college girl, like she’d try anything and pretty much already had.

  He looked at the wet spot on his shorts, then closed his eyes and banged his head against the back of the couch. He couldn’t trust the Feds, couldn’t trust Norm, so he was screwed. Unless he hired his own guys, found another way out of this shit.

  He found an address book in the kitchen in the pantry where he kept most of his plastic baggies and tin foil. A secret compartment behind that was full of ecstasy and pot. He flipped through the book while leaning against the sink, then remembered the window over the sink and ducked down, sat on the floor.

  A couple of guys he used to work with. Lately, they’d been dealing in hot cars they picked up on the side of the interstate. If the money was right, Terry and Lancaster handled almost anything. Tompkins found the listing. He’d already scratched out six numbers for them over the years and hoped the most recent still worked. He crawled across the sticky kitchen tiles to the bedroom, found his wireless tangled in the sheets he and Winona had kicked off the bed, and tried the number.

  SIX

  Both blond, both sleepy, Terry and Lancaster sat propped against the wall in their booth at Ruby Tuesdays shaking their heads at Tompkins and his dumb-ass offer. Terry tapped Lancaster’s arm and gave him a squinty-eyed head weave and grin. Tompkins was asking them to kill his business partner, who hired someone first to kill Tompkins. Tit for tat. He had no idea how ridiculous it sounded. Terry and Lancaster couldn’t blame him, though.

  Terry said, “We’ve got to leave now.”

  Tompkins raised a hand, almost waved it in Terry’s face.

  “I can pay more,” he said.

  Lancaster said. “You like my hair?”

  “What, you dyed it? Or the black was dye. I don’t notice those things.”

  “We’re changing our image, maybe going into a different type of business. We don’t have time for this crap.” Lancaster sipped his iced tea.

  Tompkins went dumb-faced. “Aren’t you guys my friends? Come on, Terry. What did I ever do to you guys except help out?”

  Terry slid closer to Tompkins, held a hand over his mouth and mumbled, “Friends would’ve noticed my partner’s new hair, would’ve taken a hint. No friend, you.”

  “Why’d you even come, then?”

  “We’re curious, I guess. Looking for something safer, thought you might have a lead. Seems we were mistaken.”

  Lancaster said, “Don’t you and this Norm guy work among the kiddies?”

  “The X? Not much anymore. The local cops are shutting down everyone they can find, giving in to politics. I was going to let that part slide. The kids don’t care where they get it anyway. I doubt one of them can describe my face if pressed.” He left out his plan about moving into heroin and cocaine, a step up in the world cash-wise, a more sophisticated clientele, not to mention a safer business all around.

  “That’s too bad, because we’ve never been much for the killing game,” Terry said. It was as much a hint to Lancaster as it was an answer to Tompkins.

  Lancaster nodded, not as good as keeping a poker face as Terry. “Nearly retired. At least for a while. Like a Michael Jordan retirement, what other people call a vacation.”

  “What if someone kills me, then? Or even if this Fed agent stops him, I’m still tied up, right? I’ll owe them. If you step in on my side, you’ll have all the work you want, or you’ll be left alone. Otherwise…”

  Terry nodded slowly. Lancaster watched him, no emotional response or reflex. Tompkins must have thought they were the perfect team—impossible to read from the outside, but in seemingly telepathic sync with each other. A pretty good con, same as everything else they did. Terry was having trouble sleeping at night in the condo, not so much at the memories of the past few days—the dead trooper, the textbook writer and his pool—but more from fear Lancaster might do something he couldn’t talk them out of. Then it was life in prison or a needle in the arm ending everything. Worse came to worse, a shot in the face from his own partner.

  They needed cash, though. It wouldn’t hurt to get some walking-around money and then later ditch Tompkins, the Coast, all of it.

  “How much you offering?” Terry asked.

  “Three thousand.”

  “Up front?”

  Tompkins shook his head. “A deal like this, I need to attend the funeral. I say maybe twelve hundred now, the rest later.”

  “Why twelve hundred?” Lancaster said.

  “That’s what I’ve got in the car. Probably more like twelve-oh-three and seventy cents, so let’s round down.”

  Terry said, “Might as well take the change. We might want to grab a couple Cokes out of a machine.”

  “No problem.”

  “You’ve got a picture of your partner? So we can be sure. And tell us about this agent in case we run into him.”

  “No. You can’t miss this agent, man. He’s pretty bulky, pretty short. Probably wouldn’t be a bad looking guy if he lost most of the weight. His car’s goddamned nice, I tell you.”

  Lancaster scrunched his eyebrows. “Yeah?”

  “A Monte Carlo, black, almost brand new.”

  Terry and Lancaster fought to keep from laughing. They made faces at each other. It can’t be…

  “What about him? You know him?”

  Terry shook his head. “Sounds like a nice car, though.” He rose from his bench and said, “I’ve got to piss.”

  Lancaster scooted to the end, pushing Tompkins out of the way.

  Tompkins watched these two head to the restr
oom together.

  *

  Lancaster washed his hands for no real reason other than keeping occupied while Terry whizzed. Alone in the restroom, they still whispered at each other.

  Terry said, “All this time, that cell phone number was still on. I shouldn’t have even answered. I can’t believe I forgot to lose it. Shit.”

  “What do you think, though? It’s got to be Crabtree. What’s he up to?”

  “Half a ton? Maybe you didn’t hear Randy clearly. It involves kill—” Terry cut himself off, started up with, “Involves something we shouldn’t do any more of, right?”

  “Hell, it’s not like we did a bad job the first time. Plus we know the target is a soft touch.”

  Terry shook himself, zipped up, and finished reading baseball scores on the USA Today sports page framed above the urinal. Starting to think Lancaster was bat-shit insane, some blown fuse in his head. Maybe a tumor. Finally, he turned, shoved his hands in his pockets, and stretched his neck.

  He said, “What if we say yes, take half up-front, warn the partner, then turn them all in? We’re like Brutus to Caesar. We get paid, Randy and his buddy get nailed, Crabtree gets screwed over, and then we leave town.”

  Lancaster elbowed the dryer button, methodically rubbed every inch of his hands, even between his fingers. He said, “That’s a bullshit deal. We don’t squeal. I say we take a look at the bigger picture—get rid of both and find their dope. We can be players that way.”

  Terry shrugged, tried to sound on the fence instead of dead opposed. “Sounds risky. Let’s give it some thought.”

  He reached for the door.

  “You aren’t going to wash up?” Lancaster said.

  SEVEN

  Alan sat on Lydia’s couch because Norm was in the leather chair. He hated someone else sitting in his chair, considering all the sweat he’d wiped off it after making love to Lydia. He felt like a pit bull marking his territory, growling at other dogs. This one kept coming anyway. Norm slumped low in the chair with his knees wide. He was here to tell Lydia a little more about the operation, get her thinking of a new business model. Alan wished he would hurry and leave, stop the chit-chat. Lydia probably knew that, too, so she kept up the small talk and offered him a beer. Now he and Lydia had been talking a good ten minutes.

  It was all about people Alan didn’t even know. The whole time, he couldn’t shake images of a sixteen-year-old fully limbed Lydia being fed Norm’s meat in a band closet. New images popped up like animated web ads—Lydia fucking Norm on his recliner, Norm gently cleaning her afterwards. He knew it hadn’t happened, since he checked thoroughly the day before when he stopped by with lunch. The shampoo bottles and soap were dry, still in place. No mysterious wads of tissue in the trash. No evidence at all. Maybe he imagined the background voice on the phone.

  A voice grumbled low in Alan’s head: That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe he just fingered her, ate her pussy. Maybe she sucked him off. All sorts of possibilities.

  This guy wouldn’t take care of her, clean her up, feed her, dress her, all the things Alan loved to do because she seemed to like the way he did them. Shoulder rubs, doing her make-up, washing her hair. Norm had no clue what it took. Sex with Lydia was one thing, but loving her meant sacrifice. Norm wasn’t even able to sacrifice his goofy mullet hair even though all the signs screamed Let it go, man.

  Finally, the conversation lapsed into half-sentences, awkward pauses. Lydia sipped her straw and backed up. Alan stood, escorted Norm to the front door. He tried to shake Alan’s hand.

  “Please, I’m not a hand shaker. Hope you understand,” Alan said.

  Norm grinned. “I can’t make you like me, can I? Can’t buy you a few beers?”

  “I like my business life separated from everything else. Makes things easier, no room for confusion.”

  “Confusion?”

  Alan nodded and raised his eyebrows. “If business and friendship were to mix, it wouldn’t be long before my friends become the object of my business. You get me?”

  He thought Norm paled a little. Maybe it was a cloud moving over the sun. The expression was priceless, though. Like a groom when the preacher asks if he’ll take this woman to be his wife—the split second of realization that if he ever fucks someone different, it’ll cost him.

  Norm climbed into his truck without another word. Alan closed the front door and eased back into the living room, trying to cool down his agitation, avoid a fight with Lydia. It was too late.

  “Maybe you could not antagonize my new employee, Sweetie.”

  He looked at the floor to avoid the flaming eyes and marble face. “If I’m supposed to be your enforcer, I have to be pretty harsh.”

  “You are an enforcer. For me. But, Jesus, you can’t run off business. Especially from friends.”

  “Whoa, now. Not my friend.” Alan found some nerve and stared her down, stabbed a finger in the air. “This is your guy, your childhood sweetheart. I think he fell out of a tree. To you, he’s gold. Don’t give me that ‘our friend’ shit, because if it were up to me, I’d tie him to a pole somewhere and pray for lightning.”

  Lydia laughed. She did that sometimes when she was angry. Laughed at him like he’d said the dumbest thing in the world. If it was supposed to make him feel small, then job well done.

  Alan scratched the back of his neck while she sputtered, mocking him. He worried that fights like this would end the relationship, and was always surprised when she got turned on by their arguments, which happened more than he thought was healthy. He’d learned to read her and knew this wasn’t one of those times. It lacked the far more vicious sarcasm that made her tingle, and in this case, it was about another guy. Alan wanted to kick the couch until either the wood frame or his foot broke.

  “If he were smart,” Lydia said, “then we’d be in deep trouble. The reason I don’t mind working with Norm is because he is infatuated with me and isn’t too quick to see that I’ll run the show in no time. Yes, I know it and I’m using it to our advantage.”

  She puffed her straw and rolled closer to Alan.

  “Rub my head.”

  Alan did, almost reflexively. His fingers wove through her soft hair and gently kneaded her scalp. This always calmed her down, made her feel less helpless, so she told him. It had the opposite effect, Alan falling under a spell whenever he touched her, Lydia able to get anything she asked for.

  “Mmmm, that’s nice,” she said. “Don’t let this get to you. Norm’s a fuck up. You’re the one I want, sweetie. You’re my true partner in all of this.”

  He kept rubbing while staring out a far window. What Lydia said made him feel pretty good, even if he didn’t believe it one bit.

  EIGHT

  Alan watched the house from farther away this time, using strong binoculars. He was in a rental car, a top model Kia. Not bad, but not his style. He thought Tompkins was alone that day. No visitors all morning, no one leaving either. Alan saw an occasional shadow behind a curtain, nothing more.

  Lydia expected today to be the day, so Alan needed to make some sort of effort, like it or not. Half-thoughts drifted through his head about actually going through with the job, and he read a few hit man books in his spare time—a bunch of Executioner novels, militia how-to guides—just in case. The best place to kill Tompkins was probably his own house, make it look like a break-in. Better if he had a bag of “Norm DNA” to sprinkle all over.

  Still, at home there would be neighbors, bored enough to come looking if they heard something confusing. If not in the house, then far out in woods or on the Gulf. Alan didn’t have a boat, and neither did Lydia or her dead ex-husband. So this needed to be a trip north of I-10 to the pine forest that covered so much of the state. Small towns were cut out here and there, as well as highways and timber mills, although for the most part, the woods were untouched except by wildlife and hunters.

  He didn’t plan to use it, but Alan chose a hefty .45 from the stash in Lydia’s garage. It looked cheap and old. A nice trip t
o the woods, a shot in the head, a shallow grave, then collect the rest of his money.

  No, no, no. Then Lydia and Norm will turn on you and you’ll go to jail for a long goddamn time. Paranoia and fear, hand in hand, the only things he felt lately when he wasn’t plowing away at Lydia, hoping the animal need was what love really felt like. He had no idea. He pushed it out of his mind and thought, Take him to the woods, tell him the score, and hope he takes the advice to get lost. So as far as they’ll know, I killed him.

  Alan cranked the Kia and took a block before pulling into Tompkins’ driveway.

  *

  Terry and Lancaster were having a hard time watching Alan Crabtree watching Tompkins. They kept cracking up thinking about the fat bastard bluffing as a Fed, trying to run a scam on a basically harmless drug pusher. Maybe Norm was the one who hired him in the first place. With Crabtree involved, the death threat probably wasn’t real anyway.

  “Crabtree?” Terry said, slapping the steering wheel of the minivan they’d found near Slidell under an overpass. He’d said it five or six times, always sending Lancaster into spasms of giggling. “Jesus.”

  “I like slapping him around. It’s fun.”

  “Yeah. Too bad he paid the car off. We should think up surcharges.”

  After pulling into Tompkins’ driveway, Crabtree had gone to the door and disappeared inside. A few minutes later he reemerged with Tompkins trailing. The guy looked more sleepy than usual, wearing surfer shorts and a faded Sea Wolves T-shirt that was stretched tight. Probably belonged to the teenager he was fucking, Lancaster thought. Lucky guy.

  Terry laughed. “Sea Wolves. Ice hockey in Mississippi. I can’t believe anyone fell for that.”

  “There’s another team in Jackson, one in Lafayette. It’s like a snow cone on a hot day.”

  Crabtree climbed into the rented Kia. Tompkins shuffled to the other side, lifted the handle before Alan hit the auto-unlock. He did it three more times until Crabtree pantomimed Wait until I do this…