Since the Layoffs (18 page)

No, no, no. What kind of way is that to start a relationship?

I tuck the pistol into my belt and go and knock on Zorda’s door.

“Hey,” says Zorda as he opens the door, and he says it … just a bit off. He knows why I’m here and he thinks I’m going to kill him. It’s nothing specific I can put my finger on, it’s just a feeling that things aren’t right between us. There isn’t a smoothness, a relaxed be-who-you-are quality to his greeting, nor to mine, but we’re both trying hard to pretend the smoothness is there.

“Come on in, Jake.” Maybe I
can
put my finger on it. I haven’t been over to his apartment since the layoffs, and he doesn’t ask why I’m here now. And he’s pale. I imagine I can smell fear on him as he offers to take my coat.
Take my coat?
Does he think I’m royalty? Yes, there’s definitely something wrong. If he hadn’t left a blackmailing message on my answering machine, instead of “Take your coat?” I’d be hearing “What do you want, fuckface?”

I’ve seen movies where mob guys pay a visit to someone they’re going to whack. There’s this supposed tension and strained dialogue, as they all know what’s going to happen but no one wants to say it. I’ve always wondered about those scenes. Do they ever really happen? What a waste of energy, beating around the bush like that. I wouldn’t work out as a mob hit man. I take the tape out of my pocket and toss it on the chipped veneer of Zorda’s coffee table.

“What up with that tape, man?” I ask

Zorda looks at me, not at the tape. “What are you talking about?”

A person who hadn’t left the message would be looking at the tape, not into my eyes to try to determine his future. Then he glances down at my belt, trying to determine if I’ve got a gun or not. It’s in the back of my belt, and he can’t see it. “Sit down,” I say, pointing at the couch.

He remains standing. “What are you talking about?” he asks again. “I’ve never seen that tape before.”

That much is probably true. It’s spent its whole life in my answering machine, and I doubt he has actually
seen
the tape. He’s trying to stick to the truth here, with the correct wording and the omissions of a liar. It’s too easy to spot.

“How’d you figure it out?” I ask.

“How’d I figure what out? Jake, man, what’re you talking about?” Now he smiles, a totally inappropriate gesture of submission. Someone has come into his house and accused him of something and he’s acting conciliatory, submissive. The real Jeff Zorda would have screamed at me to get the fuck out of his apartment. His jerky, inappropriate smile and fruitless protestations of ignorance are starting to annoy me.

“Sit down,” I say angrily. “Are we going to fuck around all afternoon?”

“Jake, man, do you want a beer or something?” he asks, and he’s about to run off into the kitchen, so I have no choice but to pull the gun. Gardocki was right. This would have been a disaster without the gun. Zorda freezes. His face lights up with terror, and he starts taking another step backwards and he still might run to the kitchen, so I point the gun right at his nose.

“Just. Sit. Down.”

“Jake man, I swear—”

“Please, for the love of God, just sit down.”

“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jake, what’s the matter with you. Let me get you a beer—”

“JEFF!” I scream. I’m holding the gun about a foot from his head, and I speak very steadily. “I’m going to shoot you in the face. Do you understand that? I’m going to shoot you in the face right here in your living room, if you don’t sit down.”

He stares at me, thankfully silent.

“SIT THE FUCK DOWN!” I’m losing my cool here. Terrified people are not easy to deal with. I can see myself popping a few rounds in him just for being scared. But that’s not the way I want to be anymore. I need to think of getting my life back together. I think of Sheila, sitting at her desk, altering crime statistics with a look of boredom. I take a long, deep breath as Zorda finally, mercifully, sits down.

“Jake,” he says, his voice quivering. “Jake, I don’t know what—”

“SHUT UP!” I’m not ready for this, the begging and denying. Maybe I understand the mob way, now. Maybe the calm conversations which overshadow the real meaning are just a way of giving the hit man an easy time of it. I wish Zorda had seen a few of those movies. “I want you to shut up and listen to me, okay?”

“Jake, whatever you think someone did to you, it wasn’t me.”

“I’m going to ask you some questions. You’re going to answer those questions. If you answer all the questions honestly, completely honestly, you get to live. Do you understand?”

The mention of a possibility of living through this encounter gives Zorda an instant attack of nervous breathing, the hope of life swelling up in him, the fear pouring out. I let him pant for a few seconds as I look around his apartment. It is a lot like mine, except his cable service is stolen and his TV is nicer. I like what he’s done with the walls, beige paint giving the place a homier feeling than the off-white I have at my place. He’s always been good with plants, too. I should learn that. A few gardening techniques really come in handy when trying to make a house a home. Kelly took all the plants and I’ve never really thought about replacing them. I look back over at Zorda, who has become a sweaty mess. “You want a smoke?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. I take out my pack and we both grab a cigarette and light them.

“I like what you’ve done with your place,” I tell him.

He exhales. “Thanks.” He is still staring around, wide-eyed, wondering if every second of conversation will be his last, and discussing his furnishings is hardly a priority of his right now.

“Do you understand … about being completely honest?”

He nods.

“Okay. Question one. How did you figure it out?”

He exhales again, not looking me in the eye. “You went out of town,” he says softly. “I went by the convenience store looking for you, and Tommy said you’d left town.”

“So what?”

“He said it real funny.”

Tommy, dammit. That guy never could tell a decent lie. Oh, well. That should make him a good business partner.

“Then he started talking about how you guys were going to buy the store,” Jeff continues. “Where do you get the money to leave town and buy a store? And I just started thinking.”

I’m thinking about having a talk with Tommy, but Zorda’s on a roll. Now that I’ve got him talking, he won’t stop.

“I started thinking about that conversation we had in Tulley’s, when I told you Ken Gardocki offered me money to kill his wife. And I put two and two together. Shit, Jake, you didn’t even have money for smokes two months ago. I know they don’t pay that much at the freakin’ Gas’n’Go.”

I am about to ask another question, about how the whole blackmail payment was to have been arranged, when Zorda starts up again.

“Fuck, Jake, it wasn’t fair, man,” he tells me. “It wasn’t fair. He asked me if I wanted to do it, then when I asked about it a few days later, he said he’d changed his mind. Acted like he had just been joking. I needed the money, man. I can’t live like this, waiting for the fucking mailman to bring me my fucking unemployment check.” His voice cracks and he starts crying. “I just need to have something to fucking
do
, man, you know what I mean? I don’t even care what it is anymore. I just need to
do
something. Do you know? Can you understand that?” He looks at me imploringly.

“Of course.”

“And you got the fucking job,” he says. “He gave you my fucking job. That asshole.”

“Jeff, man, I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you! I could have done it. I would have done a great job. Why couldn’t he see that? What’s the matter with me, man? Why do people always pick you over me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about that, man. I’m talking about the factory. You remember that? You remember that?”

“Remember what?” The hand with the gun in it has gone flaccid, the pistol resting against my thigh. I look at Zorda, tears streaming down his face, and I wonder if he’s losing his mind, if fear is making him babble incoherently. But he isn’t that scared any more. “What, Jeff? What are you talking about?”

“That should have been my job, at the factory. They should have promoted
me
to loading dock manager. But they didn’t. Why? Why is it always you? Why don’t you just go ahead and kill me, you fuck. Just get it over with. You’ve ruined my life anyway.”

I can barely remember what he’s talking about. Eight years ago, they told the forklift guys there was a promotion available on the loading docks. I filled out the forms, got an interview, and got the job. Jeff, Tommy and I went out and celebrated. It never occurred to me that Jeff might have applied too, and I knew Tommy was looking for something administrative. He eventually got it. But after eight years, Zorda was still working the forklifts.

“What was it, man, my SAT scores? Did you do real good on the SATs, or something? I mean, what? Why does everyone go to you over me?” He is sobbing now, and I start to say something, but he starts again. “Shit, you remember that game,” he sobs and sniffles. “That football game? You picked five plays in a row. I mean, how the hell can anyone pick five plays in a row? We had a bet, remember? You took me for fifty bucks. Five plays in a row! You’re the luckiest sonofabitch alive, and you always win, Jake. You always fucking win.”

I always win? That’s a new way of looking at my life. “Jeff, there was a TV behind you showing the game a few seconds ahead. Didn’t you ever figure that out?”

He stops sobbing and wipes his eyes, then wipes his nose on his sleeve. “What?”

“When I won the football bet. There was a TV behind you that was picking up a signal. I was just watching the TV, man. I was going to tell you about it but you went and got coked up without saying goodbye to anyone.” I laugh, and look into his tortured eyes. I guess no matter how bad things got for me, they were always worse for him, because, I realize, Zorda just isn’t that smart. It’s endearing. I almost want to hug him, this guy who has spent his whole life intimidated by, and jealous of, me. Me, for God’s sake.

He watches me laugh, and he thinks I’m laughing at him. I am. But I’m also laughing at the whole fucked-up nature of everything. Look at him, ready to turn me into the cops unless I gave him money. Look at me, sitting in his living room with a pistol, ready to splatter his brains across his own living room. I’m laughing because the world’s a mess, and he starts laughing because he realizes I’m not going to kill him.

“I’ll take that beer,” I tell him.

We spend the next hour chatting like old times. I tell him I’m retiring so that I can run a convenience store. I’m going to hook him up with Gardocki, who seems to have a never-ending supply of people who need killing. Maybe that’s the sign of a life not well lived, knowing all these people who have to die. Maybe the ones who need to be killed are the ones with the lives not well lived. Whatever. I describe killing people to him, and he listens with rapt attention, learning the tricks of the trade. I give him a list of do’s and don’t’s. We finish off a six-pack. It’s a quarter to five when I look at my watch, and mention I need to buy some roses for Sheila.

Sheila’s boyfriend leaves at nine, and she’s in my apartment at 9:35. I remember the smell of her perfume the second she walks in, and I give her a kiss hello. It takes me right back to the hotel room in Miami. She tosses her purse on my couch as I take a roast out of the oven and the smell fills the room.

“How was your day?” she asks.

“God, it was a stressful one. Everything worked out okay, though. How about yours?”

She sees the dining-room table set, candles out, gives a squeal of delight when she notices the roses. She comes and puts her arms around me. “It was okay,” she whispers in my ear, and smiles. “It’s better now.”

TEN

I
t’s been a long, hard few months.

Gardocki got us the loan and we bought the store. We’re still working for Gas’n’Go, which is affiliated with Amalgamated Something-or-Other, which is a division of some other corporation, but basically, it’s our store. They tell us to put Wenke products on the top shelf, but it’s really up to us if we want to do it or not. I don’t. Fuck Wenke. Tommy doesn’t understand why I feel this way, says they’re good potato chips and we should try to sell them. Sometimes, after I take over the store, I see he’s put them all on the top shelf. Sometimes, I throw them down onto floor level. I figure I’ll stop doing that one day.

It’s going to be a while until we start making money. The loans are killing us for the time being. I start to sweat sometimes when we don’t get a rush in the morning, and coffee goes unsold. I tally it up in my head, the cost of the coffee we throw out. The gas sales are pretty steady, though, and Tommy tells me not to sweat. We figure in about two years, we’ll be making about twenty-five grand each, and we’re working about sixty hours a week. It’s easy, though, and it’s a whole different deal when you’re doing it for yourself.

Jughead got a raise to eight dollars an hour and his speech improved immediately. He does the inventory and I let him do his homework whenever we’re not busy. He asked me for a smock the other day, and I told him not to worry about it. I didn’t mention I’d set fire to them in a gasoline-soaked trash bucket. He needs to shave now, and I ask him to do it before he comes to work. He usually does. If he needs a favor, he’s always clean-shaven when he asks for it. Sometimes, though, I see him looking at me, and I know he knows something about the night I asked him to cover for me until two in the morning. The kid isn’t dumb.

Zorda comes by every now and then. He runs errands for Gardocki, and every time I see him, he is wearing a grin. He’s got a new leather jacket and he drives around all day in Gardocki’s SUV. The winter’s over, and he usually has the CD player blaring and the windows down when he comes in to ask for cigarettes. He’s never mentioned murdering anyone, but then, it’s best not to. Even an idiot like Jeff has figured that out. He mentions we should all go to Tulley’s when football season starts back up, and I think it might actually happen. He wants to see the TV with the signal which comes in ahead of the others. He still gets a kick out of that, though we stay away from any mention of his uncontrollable sobbing and my pointing a pistol in his face.

Sheila’s boyfriend is still alive, miraculously. If anyone deserved a bullet it was that prick. I had to chase him away from my apartment with a shovel one afternoon after Sheila called me at the store. She had just moved in with me, and she had come home from work and found him waiting for her. He couldn’t have cared less when she first moved out, played it all cool, but after a few weeks he started doing creepy shit, like slashing her tires. Tony Wolek told me he finally took up with some nineteen-year-old girl and got her pregnant, so now he’s got other things to think about. We haven’t seen him in some time.

Speaking of pregnant, Sheila’s doing well. We just found out last week. It might be time to get married soon, though it will have to be a Justice-of-the-Peace deal for now. There’s no way I can take time off from the store for a honeymoon. Tommy would be working a hundred hours a week. Can’t really afford a honeymoon right now, either. But being married would be nice. Every time I look at her, I think about how lucky I am.

It was my birthday last week, and I had to work the second shift, but Gardocki remembered it, of all people. He came into the store and gave me a handwritten gift certificate, instantly forgiving any losing bet up to and including one hundred dollars. What a sense of humor on that guy. Sheila doesn’t want me gambling anymore, so that’ll have to go in the trash. He also gave me a suitcase and told me to open it when I got home, not under the security camera. It was the sniper rifle from Miami, the one I never picked up. It’s a beaut, all right. It comes apart into three pieces, and it has, get this … a silencer!