Enforcer (5 page)

Larry nodded, and Connor kicked out at the door as hard as he could. Both of them were surprised as the door blew off its hinges and flew into the room. Connor jerked on the junkie’s hair and forced him inside. Larry pointed at the edge of the mattress closest to the wall.

“It’s under there,” he said, pointing at the mattress corner.

“Get it,” Connor told him.

“I can’t with you holding my fucking hair, man!”

Connor punched him in the stomach, doubling him over. Larry coughed and retched, but while he was bent over, he reached down and pulled the mattress back, revealing plastic baggies full of cash.

“How much is here?” Connor asked him.

“Eighteen thousand,” Larry answered.

“Grab it,” Connor commanded.

Larry reached down and collected all of the bags. The instant the bags were in his hands, Connor jerked him by the hair, leading him down the hallway and back into the living room.

“Put it on the counter,” Connor told him, and Larry obeyed.

Connor gave the man one last punch to the face, hitting him square in the eye, before shoving him back toward the couch.

“I’m going to count it. If there isn’t at least thirteen thousand dollars here, I’m going to keep punching you until you are blind,” Connor announced, brushing his hand on his pants to remove any of the meth head’s hair that had stuck to it. Holding on to the junkie’s hair as hard as he had for that long had made it ache, but not as much as his left hand did after striking Larry in the face repeatedly.

Connor counted out the money. Eighteen thousand dollars in hundreds and twenties. He looked at Petre, giving his partner a nod before he gathered up the money and put it in as few bags as possible.

“You got your fucking money!” the woman on the floor shrieked at them. “Now get the fuck out of here!”

Connor walked over to where she was still curled up on the floor, the souls of his shoes struggling to break free from something sticky that had fused with the stained carpet at the molecular level. He knelt down and grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look up at him.

“Did he do this to you?” Connor asked her.

The woman spit in his face, a disgusting blend of phlegm, saliva, and blood that had leaked into her mouth from a cut on her lip when he’d slapped her earlier. He held her chin for a few more seconds before he let it go. She curled into a tighter ball and began to cry again. Connor stood up and walked to the couch. Larry shrank into the cushions in fear.

“What’s her name?” he asked the junkie.

“J—Juh—Jera,” Larry stuttered.

“Jera,” Connor said, rolling the name around in his mouth. He walked back to where his partner had become a statue in a business suit. “We’ll be seeing you again in a week. If you don’t have thirteen thousand dollars, it will be worse next time. Each time we come and you don’t have the money, it will be worse than the time before. Eventually Mr. Ojacarcu will decide you are too expensive, a waste of our time. You don’t want to waste our time.

“If you think next time to have a gun or one of your dopehead pals, or anyone other than you and your lady friend here, Mr. Ojacarcu will stop treating this as an annoyance, and begin treating it as a serious matter. You don’t want this to become a serious matter, do you, Larry?”

The sweaty little man shook his head. He knew better than to cross the boss, his supplier. By morning, he’d realize that getting kicked around and losing some hair was preferable to waking up in a crude box buried somewhere in the endless scrub wastes that littered the Snake River Plain.

“It was pleasure to do business with you,” Petre said, giving a slight bow, pretending to tip his hat like Humphrey Bogart.

“Get the fuck out of my fucking house,” Larry said, blood running down his face from multiple cuts and a smashed nose.

*****

“You really need to work on your phrasing,” Connor told Petre as they headed back to Boise on the freeway.

“What is phrasing?” his partner asked.

“It means when you say some shit like ‘Politeness will get you more honey’ you sound like a retard foreigner,” Connor chided. “The correct phrase is, ‘You will catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar.’”

“You think I am retard?” Petre asked.

“No. I think you need to work on your catch phrases so you don’t sound like one.”

“My saying is better,” Petre said with a grunt. “I will have to have suit cleaned. I smell their stink even now.”

“God, it was horrible in there. I had to breathe through my mouth, and even then it was bad. Touching that slimy fucker’s hair almost made me puke.”

“I think you make new friend,” Petre grinned.

“I’m pretty sure we won’t be exchanging Christmas cards,” Connor said. “Besides, he’s your buddy too. He gave you some hair for a present as well, didn’t he?”

His partner laughed and made a disgusted face. “And that girl! She has great tits!”

“Jesus, Petre, don’t you ever think of anything else?”

“You are mad that she does not like you. She is first girl that does not like you?” Petre laughed at his own joke.

“She was nasty, and I think she might have stunk worse than Larry,” Connor said.

“Don’t be jealous. Petre will wash her up and give her a good home.”

“Be my guest.”

“Don’t be jealous,” Petre said again, reaching over to punch him in the shoulder.

CHAPTER 5

Petre parked the Lincoln in front of Larry’s house. He looked over at Connor, wincing once more at the black eye and the four stitches under it from Connor’s fight the night before against one of the Earthquake goons. Petre checked his pistol one more time.

“I have shotgun in trunk,” he told Connor.

“I’m cool,” Connor replied, wanting nothing to do with a firearm.

“Are you sure? I do not trust this junkie. I do not trust his woman either.”

“I’m cool,” Connor said again, making a show of his two fists being more than enough weaponry to take care of business. “Besides, you have your gun. I’m pretty sure you actually know how to use it. Larry would probably end up shooting himself in the leg if he was stupid enough to draw down on us.”

“Mr. Ojacarcu says I cannot kill him,” Petre said with a frown. Connor wasn’t sure if the man was truly unhappy at his orders. “Mr. Ojacarcu says this… dirty man is good money maker.”

“I’m sure he is,” Connor said, unlatching his seat belt and opening the door.

It only took three knocks this time before the door swung open. Larry glared at them, but backed away from the door quickly. Petre pushed the door all the way open, poking his head in to have a look before stepping inside.

“Where is your woman?” Petre asked the junkie.

“Fucking some guy,” Larry answered. “You want a turn? It’s a hundred bucks this time, asshole.”

Connor feinted a punch to Larry’s face, getting a squawk from the greasy little man, and a laugh from Petre when Larry tripped over a pile of garbage while trying to back away from them.

“The money is on the counter, just take it and leave,” Larry told them.

Connor walked over to the counter to count the pile of bills stacked on it. As he counted, he glanced down the hallway, noticing the destroyed bedroom door had been either repaired, or more likely, leaned up against the frame to make it look like nothing was out of order. Considering that the bedroom was where Larry stashed his money and probably the dope as well, it didn’t seem like much protection from someone who might really want to rob the place.

Thirteen thousand dollars in hundreds and twenties made its way into Connor’s jacket pocket. He patted the pocket, letting Petre know that it was all there. Petre nodded, but kept staring at Larry.

“What the fuck do you want, Lurch?” Larry taunted him.

Larry knew he had some protection from harm as long as he paid the boss and kept moving a couple of pounds of product each week. Connor felt like the man was testing the limits of what would and wouldn’t cause him to piss blood for a few days.

“I am wondering where your woman is,” Petre said.

“I fucking told you, she’s screwing some guy.”

“You let your woman fuck other men?” Petre asked.

“Oh right, you’re the moral police now? Well fuck you, Lurch. And fuck your buddy as well. I know who you are now,” Larry said, turning to Connor. “You’re some douchebag hockey player. I saw you on television after you left the last time.”

Connor said nothing, wondering how the junkie saw him on television when there wasn’t a single TV in the house that he’d been able to see thanks to the endless piles of trash that lined every room.

“Yeah. You’re a badass motherfucker when Frankenstein is with you, aren’t you? I bet you ain’t shit without him, or without the boss protecting you.”

“Are you done?” Connor asked, tired of listening to his empty, whining threats, more than ready to get back out into fresh air and away from the stench of garbage, rank sweat, and some kind of sour chemical smell that he assumed was the result of meth being smoked.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Larry sneered.

“Tell Jera I said hello,” Connor said before opening the front door and walking out.

“Fuck you, you fucking faggot!” Larry screamed, making Connor smile as he went down the steps and back to the Lincoln.

*****

“I think he likes you even more than before,” Petre said to him as the car accelerated down the entrance ramp to the freeway. “You two are to be best friends now, yes?”

“Eat shit,” Connor laughed.

“Why does a man make his woman fuck other men?” Petre asked, catching Connor by surprise.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s for money.”

“Larry, he makes more than enough working for Mr. Ojacarcu. I don’t think he needs money.”

“I don’t know,” Connor said again, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe he’s an asshole and she needs money to buy dope from him. Maybe he’s just an asshole and feels powerful pimping his girl out to other men. Maybe she owes him a lot of money and he’s making her work it off.”

Petre scratched his cheek. “You think he beats her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the guys she fucks do it. Maybe Larry just adds to it. I don’t know, man. Why are you so curious about her?”

“There is something about her…” Petre trailed off, turning his blinker on before passing a truck.

Connor thought about the girl. Jera. He hadn’t thought about her for the last week, hadn’t thought about Larry either until two hours ago. He’d been too busy thinking about punishing any players from the Seattle Earthquake who needed an attitude adjustment.

He remembered her dark skin, full of grime and bruises to the point where he couldn’t tell where the bruises ended and the dirt began. Connor wondered if she was from somewhere in the Middle East. He decided it was more likely she was from Mexico or somewhere else south of there. He thought of the leather collar around her neck with the ring at the front for a leash or a chain.

A fleeting sexual thought made him ashamed. Some part of him wanted to feel sorry for her, while another part wanted to slap her again and scream in her face to leave Larry, run as far and as fast as she could before she ended up in the hospital from an overdose or from one of her johns beating on her.

“You are thinking of her too?” Petre asked, breaking his thoughts into pieces.

“Nah,” Connor lied. “I’m thinking about tomorrow night’s game.”

“You are going to beat an ass?”

Connor laughed. “I’m going to ‘beat someone’s ass’ is how you say it. Probably. Janakowski loves to get dirty with his stick when he’s shielded from the refs. He bruised up Cappy’s ribs pretty good last night right at the end.”

Dennis Capuano had ended up going to the hospital to see if the rib had been cracked after complaining about how much it hurt to breathe.

“And you didn’t beat someone’s ass?”

“There was less than thirty seconds left in the game,” Connor shrugged. “Coach tried to put me on the ice, but the ref wouldn’t allow it.”

“Why not?”

“Because he knew, same as everyone, that the instant the puck dropped I’d be punching someone, hopefully Janakowski.”

“You will revenge him,” Petre said, a statement instead of a question.

“We’ll see.”

*****

“You want to go, fuckstick?” Halderman asked him as they lined up for the face-off.

“I want your boy Janakowski,” Connor said, looking at the bearded journeyman through his visor.

“I want you,” Halderman told him, slashing Connor across the back of the legs with his stick.

Connor was about to retaliate when two whistles blew at the same time. The linesman skated over to them.

“Knock it off, ladies,” the linesman said to them.

“Aw, he started it, Mitch,” Halderman complained.

“I don’t give a damn. If you two can’t stand still for ten seconds while we do this face-off, you’ll both end up in the box.”