Jack Wakes Up (12 page)

The exit stairs come out onto a back alley: dumpsters, a chain link fence and the city’s hot clubbers running off into the night. Jack holds Al’s arm. He lets him go, and Al stands still, more confused than ever. “What was happening there?” he says. “Who was that guy?”

Jack puts his hands on his knees and notices they’re covered in blood. He wipes them off, realizes it’s not his blood, might even be wine and other drinks, and that now he’s a mess. The whole night is something worse than he could’ve imagined. He can hear the bell starting to ring in his head again.

“Who was that?” Al yells. “Fucking who? They killed Michal!”

“Calm down,” Jack says. “You’re all right?” He looks Al up and down: his suit seems to be in worse condition, wrinkled and messy around the knees, sweat showing through his silver shirt, but that’s no loss to the world. “We have to get out of here,” Jack says.

“Who! Who!”

“Stop.” Jack grabs Al by the shoulders and yells in his face. “Listen to me! I don’t know who did that, but we will find out. Right now we have to go!”

Al brings his arms down, finally stops shouting.

“Go!” Jack says, pointing to the other end of the alley. “Find your car.”

He turns to head toward his Mustang, goes a few steps, and when he looks back, Al has disappeared into the crowd.

At the front of the club, Jack sees the street packed with clubbers and police cars with lights flashing. He ducks around the barricade, crosses the street and makes his way to the parking lot, straight back to the Mustang. The valet kid is gone and people’s keys are locked up inside his little booth. No one’s going anywhere. Jack sees Maxine leaning against his car, still looking hot in her dress, smoking a cigarette.

“What took you?” she asks.

He opens her door and lets her in, walks back around to his side of the car. He sees her reach across the front seat and unlock his door—she’s his kind of woman, he decides now, if he was ever unsure. When they’ve both got their doors closed and the roar of the engine has calmed, he says, “I guess it took a while because I went back for you.”

She laughs. “Get us out of here, hero.”

Jack backs up to fit between the cars parked in front of him, a tight squeeze, then slowly rolls up the concrete embankment, onto the sidewalk, first the front wheels and then the back bumping over the rise. Then down off the curb, two more bumps, and they’re on the road, leaving the police cars and tripped-out crowds behind as they head north toward Market. In his rear-view, Jack sees the kids spilling out of the police barricade, some of them running and getting away into the night.

He slows down to make the turn toward Market and later, as he shifts up to third gear heading onto Van Ness, Maxine puts her hand over his.

They wake late the next morning, make love slowly, gingerly, Jack trying to protect his bruises and delicate ribs, Maxine as beautiful naked as Jack imagined, her bare skin practically glowing in the morning sun. She reacts to every touch; her skin soft under Jack’s fingers, her body so real, so sweet.

They share a cigarette after, give in to the cliché, but enjoy it: the soft exchange of the sharing, the slow inhales watching sun rays seep into the bedroom, the slow opposition to their hunger, the body’s desire to eat.

By 11:30 they’re in Jack’s kitchen making coffee, wearing robes, Jack in pajama bottoms.

He sees he has four messages on the machine. Mills Hopkins, he guesses, and the Czechs, but who else? Castroneves? He starts the coffee. Maxine’s found herself a seat on one of the high bar stools Victoria bought to go next to the kitchen island. She has on one of Jack’s old robes, a green plaid, and it looks good with her dark hair and green eyes. He can see a light spray of freckles on her skin at its neck.

“What is this?” Maxine asks, gesturing toward a six-inch gold statue of Bruce Lee on a small black pedestal. Jack looks at it, something he hasn’t thought about in a while.

“That’s my Action Movie Guild award for Best New Actor. You didn’t know?”

“Right,” she says, smiling, holding back a laugh. “That’s a nice place for it, right next to your bowl of fake fruit.”

“Victoria,” Jack says, nodding at the plastic produce. “What can I say?”

He picks up the statue, looks it over. He’d forgotten about this thing, can’t remember the last time he noticed it. “It’s funny,” he says, running his finger over the stern features of Bruce Lee’s face. “You can get used to things and then completely forget them sometimes; you get so focused on everything else.” He puts it back down, thinking about the time when Victoria threw everything on the mantle at him, piece by piece. “I’m not even sure how this got here.”

“It’s real nice,” she says.

Jack nods. “Did those guys last night say anything before they started shooting?”

“Not in English. They said something to your friends, but it wasn’t English. Sounded different from that stuff they were spitting at The Coast the other night, too.”

“Did anyone say anything back?”

Maxine shakes her head, no. “But the guy you were supposed to trade with? He didn’t like it at all. He started calling them motherfuckers, saying he would kill their families.”

“Nice. So they shot him.”

“They shot his guy. The one who wanted to kill you.”

Jack laughs. “Right. Lots of that lately.”

“But that’s basically how it went. They were looking at the Czechs when they first walked in.

Then the other guy spoke up.”

“You ever seen them before?”

“I feel like I have,” she says. “But I can’t say. Maybe they came into The Coast?”

“Think they know Tony?”

Maxine frowns. “I can’t say. Probably not though. I don’t think they’re Tony’s kind of style.

Too exciting, too—and I say this without any offense to your current bruises—too actually making something happen.”

“Right.” Jack’s not convinced that hanging with a few shooters is beyond Tony, but he leaves it for now. “But let’s acknowledge.” He waves his hands along the sides of his torso, putting some of Tony’s work on display. “Tony can make some things happen. He’s a bit of a psycho.”

“You’re not the first one to say that.”

“Not that he won’t see something coming back for this.”

“Forget it, Jack. Let’s move forward.”

They make eye contact, and Jack thinks it over. He gives it up for now.

Jack hits the button on his answering machine. The thing rewinds, then beeps. “Yo, Jack,”

Ralph says. “Where the fuck are you man? A couple of guys are here parked outside and banging the door. I may have to split. Wanted to make sure you knew I tried to call you if I do. Take care of Arthur, will you? That’s my dog. She’s here. If anything goes wacky with the Czechs, talk to Joe Buddha, from Paramount. He’s here now in SF. Pacific Heights. Shit.”

And then that’s all. The machine beeps again and the voice from the bank comes on, the guy starting to say something about the mortgage payment, and Jack stops it. He rewinds the tape back to Ralph’s message and plays it again. “When did you last check this thing?” Maxine asks.

Jack waits for Ralph to finish. “I checked it Thursday morning, before I left.”

She moves around the counter to pour her coffee. As she walks, Jack sees the robe part and gets a good view of her leg, most of her thigh. He pulls her toward him and kisses her hard, running his hand down inside her robe.

“Hey,” she says. She turns and pushes him back. Then she kisses him on the lips. “Stay with me,” she says. “Pay attention.”

Jack nods, puts a good-boy look on his face. “OK.”

“I guess Ralph called you when he knew something was going to happen.”

“And then he got popped.”

Maxine makes a face at this. “OK. So who’s Joe Buddha?”

“He’s a guy from Hollywood who helped me get my start. One of the producers on Shake

’Em Down. The funny thing is his name was above mine on the list in Ralph’s house. But I didn’t know he was up here, didn’t think of it until now.”

The machine beeps again and Sgt. Hopkins’ voice comes on, “Jack Palms. Trying to get you out of some trouble tonight. Call me before you go to The Mirage, fuckhead. OK?”

“Nice,” Jack says. “Very professional police work.”

“Who is this guy?”

“He’s an old friend on the force. The question is how did he know about The Mirage? Seems like a lot of people got clued in on our meet.”

The machine beeps and Vlade’s voice comes on, says, “Jack Palmas. We are at the hotel and Al is not with us. Michal is no more. What the fuck was that happening? Call us. We want to talk.”

“Fuck,” Jack says. He pours his coffee, looks back down the hall toward the bedroom—he knows his cigarettes are on the table by the bed—and raises the mug. “Here’s to working,” he says. “Looks like I have to follow this through the whole way.”

She looks at him long and hard, gestures to the room around them: the high ceilings and skylights. “You sure you want to leave all this to deal with these people? There’s two dead at least now, people you knew. Plus three, four with that shooter. You want to be part of all that?”

Jack nods, thinking about the money, Sgt. Hopkins’ words about terrorists and warlords, Jack not knowing what he was into. He shrugs. “It’s a good fucking question. I could tell you I need the money, but you’d think that’s bullshit.”

“So why else?” Maxine’s eyes get narrow, like this is the moment she’s really going to figure Jack out.

“Right,” he says. “Why?” He knows this has gone beyond the zero-sum game part of his involvement, that if it hasn’t, he’s in it now for the positives: the chance to act again, be somebody he’s not, even if this is real world with real guns. He has to admit it, to himself at 105

least: he’s been enjoying parts of it, the challenge of acting like he knows what he’s doing, feeling like he has a part in something, a role to play. Like part of him that hasn’t felt in a while is starting to feel again. But he’s not ready to say this out loud.

“What’s going on up there?” Maxine asks, reaching for Jack’s temple. “I can practically hear the gears.”

“Right,” Jack says. “So I’ll tell you two things.” He holds up his hand, first one finger. “One, I’m not happy about this shit with Tony.” He gestures at his face and his ribs. “And I still think if I follow through I’ll find out why this happened and maybe get a chance to do something about it.”

Maxine’s starting to look more and more serious. She has her hands on her hips, everything about her telling Jack she’s evaluating him. “He’s a fuck. Why else you doing this? What’s two?”

Jack’s about to explain how he feels when he’s acting, that he hasn’t felt good like this in a while and how he enjoys that part, but there’s something in her face, her narrowed eyes, that tells him she’ll think it’s bull. He shrugs. “The second part is my name was on a pad at Ralph’s house and I want to find out who killed him before those same people come up here and try to get to me.”

She puts her coffee mug on the counter, and pushes her finger up underneath each of her eyes, wiping off last night’s makeup. “Yeah,” she says. “That plan did real well for us last night.”

Jack takes her in his arms, runs a hand across her back. “That was bad,” he says. “But what if I stay up here? Who’s to say they won’t come after me?”

He can already feel his eagerness to go back out there, down into the city: it’s in the way he feels in the robe, a tingle running across his skin, the way he’s already checked the clock behind Maxine and thought about what time he can get to Sgt. Hopkins’ office to talk this over with the cop. He hasn’t even had his coffee yet and he’s already got that bump: a reason to get going like he hasn’t had in a long time, maybe as long as he can remember.

She shakes her head, her arms around Jack now. “Well count me out. This girl’s had enough getting shot at.”

After Jack’s driven Maxine back to her apartment and dropped her off, he heads to the Hall of Justice, like any good super hero would. But the secretary for Sgt. Hopkins’ section of the precinct won’t let Jack back to see him. “The whole task force does not take visitors without an appointment,” she says, stonewalls him until he finally has to go outside and call Hopkins from his cell phone.

“Mills,” Jack says, when the cop finally answers. “Tell your girl at the front desk to let me back there. She’s got this place like Fort Knox.”

“Palms. Glad you’re here. We need to talk.”

“I’m here. I’ve just been trying to get back to you.”

“We might’ve had to get a warrant for your arrest this morning.”

“Like I said, Mills, I’m here in your fucking precinct wanting to meet with you. Let me back.”

“Right. Actually let’s meet outside. I’ll buy you a coffee across the street. Blue Diner.”

Hopkins hangs up.

“Shit,” Jack says into the phone. Only a cop with something fucked up going on wants to meet you outside of the station, away from his desk. But Jack needs to see him, talk it through a little and find out what Hopkins knows. He has no choice.

Jack finds the Blue Diner right across the street from the Hall of Justice in the middle of a row of bail bonds offices that come in every ethnic denomination: Aladdin Bail Bonds, De Soto (Sé Habla Español), Al Graf, and Puccinelli (24 hours). The diner may as well be called the Justice Diner; the place is crawling with cops in blue uniforms, walking out with coffee and donuts or just coffee. The counter is lined with them from end to end.

Hopkins claps Jack on the back as he’s standing outside, taking it all in. “Nice place here, Sergeant. This would be a great theme bar for the Castro.”

“Good one,” Hopkins says. “I’ll have to remember that for later.” He starts to head into the diner and then stops short. “Ho! What happened to your face?”

Jack shakes his head.

“You look like you got hit with a truck. A small truck, maybe, but still.”

“Right,” Jack says, touching the fresh bandage along the side of his eye. “I’ll be happy to talk about that if you tell me why we can’t meet in the Hall of Justice. What’s up? Has Wonder Woman commandeered the whole place to vacuum out her Invisible Jet? It got lost?”