This Wicked World (32 page)

“How do you get by?” Olivia asks Boone. “Like for money?”

“Again, none of your business,” Boone replies. The girl already knows where he lives, what kind of car he drives, that he’s still on paper. He’s not going to give her anything else she can use. She reaches down to scratch her ankle, then runs her hand all the way up her leg to her thigh while Boone tries not to stare.

“They make it hard for a con, don’t they?” she says.

There’s a knock at the door, and Joto barks. Boone presses his eye to the peephole. Amy.

She looks puzzled when he opens the door.

“I thought I heard voices in here,” she says. She notices the new damage to his face and raises a hand to her mouth. “My God. What happened?”

Boone smiles sheepishly. “In case anybody ever asks you, don’t spar with eighteen-year-old jarheads after a few beers.” Another lie. They’re coming easier and easier.

Darkness flits across Amy’s face. She doesn’t believe him but isn’t going to pursue it. “Looks painful,” she says.

“It’s not too bad.”

“I was coming over to check on Joto.” She holds up the key Boone gave her so she could feed the dog while he was in the desert. “I didn’t think you’d be home until later.”

“I decided to cut out early, beat the traffic,” Boone says as he takes the key.

“Probably smart,” Amy replies. She looks past him at the two on the couch.

“My buddy’s kids, Olivia and Virgil,” Boone says. “He asked me to give them a ride back to the city. Guys, this is Amy.”

Olivia and Virgil wave. Amy doesn’t wave back.

“Well, stay out of trouble,” Amy says coldly, all done pretending that everything’s fine. She walks off the porch, and Boone knows she’s insulted by his lame attempt to put something over on her. The woman’s an ex-cop. She can smell hinky a mile off.

“Hey, wait,” he calls and limps into the courtyard after her. She turns to face him, looking dubious. He puts his hands on her shoulders and draws her close to whisper in her ear.

“Some wild stuff’s obviously gone down,” he says. “As soon as I’m clear of it, I’ll explain everything.”

“What makes you think I want to know?”

“Let’s talk later, when I get home from the restaurant tonight.”

“I have to work tomorrow,” Amy says. “I can’t be up that late.”

“In the morning then, before you leave.”

She pulls away. “Jesus, Jimmy, you’re bleeding.”

He looks down at a fresh spot of blood on his T-shirt, seepage from the bite on his stomach.

“Please?” he says, covering the stain with his hand.

Amy shakes her head disgustedly and walks off. Boone turns back to the bungalow to see Olivia watching from the porch. She takes a deep drag on her cigarette, blows out a cloud of smoke, and tosses the butt in the flower bed.

“Girlfriend’s pissed, huh?” she says with a mocking tone as Boone approaches.

“Get in there,” he replies.

Olivia steps inside the bungalow. Boone follows and pulls the door shut. Virgil has the TV on and is surfing the channels.

“You got B-E-T?” he asks Boone.

Boone snatches the remote out of his hand and says, “Time for you two to go.”

“Girlfriend’s
really
pissed,” Olivia says.

“Get your shit together and call whoever you need to call.”

Olivia cringes and affects a hurt expression. “Wow,” she says. “Some thank-you this is.”

“What do you want?” Boone says. “Breakfast? I’ll make you some eggs.”

Olivia sits on the arm of the couch. She sips her Pepsi and says, “Let me ask you something: do you want to get back at Bill for what he did to you?”

“What are you talking about?” Boone says.

“I’ve got a way to fuck him over.”

Boone raises his hand palm out, like a traffic cop. He wants her to stop right now, doesn’t want to hear anything that could pull him in any deeper.

“As far as I’m concerned, I got what I deserve for being stupid,” he says.

“What about Oscar?” Olivia replies. “He get what he deserved?”

Boone walks toward the kitchen. “You like toast?” he says. “I have some bread.”

“I’m not talking about killing him,” Olivia says. “I’m talking about ripping his ass off.”

Boone’s injured ankle gives way when he turns to face Olivia. He grabs the door frame to keep from falling.

“What’d this guy do to you to piss you off so bad?” he asks.

“Let’s see,” Olivia replies. “He killed my friend. He treated me like a whore. He beat up my brother.”

“Which was a total shock, right?” Boone says. “Because you thought he was a perfectly nice guy going into whatever arrangement you had with him, a different kind of asshole from all the other assholes you’d hooked up with before.”

Olivia loses it then. She leaps up from the couch to stand chest to chest with Boone and screams, “Don’t act like you know my life, motherfucker!” Saliva spatters Boone’s face. He reacts instinctively, shoving Olivia backward. She almost falls over the arm of the couch but manages to stay upright. When it looks like she’s going to charge again, Boone points a finger and says, “Don’t.”

She holds back, seething. Virgil pops up like he’s going to get into it, and Boone shifts the finger to him.

“Get your stuff and get out,” he says.

“Big man,” Olivia says with a sneer. “You’re cool pushing girls around but scared shitless to go up against a dude who beat you down and humiliated you.”

“Spare me the lowlife logic,” Boone says.

“Ooooooh, logic. A smart man too,” Olivia says. “Big and smart. Wow.”

Boone refuses to be drawn in by her taunts. “Hit the road,” he says. “Now.”

Olivia and Virgil walk into the bedroom and reappear a moment later carrying their bags. Boone herds them to the front door.

“Get our guns,” Olivia says.

“Why? So you can shoot me?” Boone replies.

“Shit, dude, you are so not worth the trouble.”

Boone is uneasy about handing over the weapons but doesn’t want to give the duo any reason to hold a grudge. He leads them out to the shed and unlocks the door. After pulling on a pair of work gloves, he opens the cabinet where he stowed the pistols and the shotgun and hands them over one by one.

“Be careful with these,” he says.

“Oh, we will, Daddy,” Olivia says.

She and Virgil bury the firearms in their bags, then head off down the concrete path to the street.

“Sorry you’re such a loser,” Olivia calls over her shoulder.

“You have a nice life too,” Boone replies.

“Don’t worry about that, bitch.”

Mrs. Hu is standing on her porch when Boone limps back to his bungalow. She glares at him with her hands on her hips, and Boone tosses off a quick wave and sorry.

As soon as the door closes behind him, he lies down on the couch, lost in a whirl of anger and pain. It’s half an hour before he can muster the strength to walk into the kitchen for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a handful of Advil. Time to put in a call to Doc Ock.

“I
KNOW THAT
guy, Jimmy,” Virgil says after he and Olivia manage to flag down a cab.

“Yeah?” Olivia replies.

“I just now figured it out: he was the bartender at this place where they busted me for dealing. Him and this other guy took me into an alley and stole my stuff.”

“Seriously?” Olivia says. “He doesn’t seem like that kind.”

“Seriously,” Virgil replies. “Man, I wish I’d have remembered earlier. I’d have fucked his shit up good.”

Olivia doesn’t know whether to believe him. Virgil is so stoned half the time, he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going.

The cab driver is a raghead who barely speaks English. That kind of thing makes Olivia angry. Like the Russian girls she’s danced with at clubs, the Thai girls fresh off the boat. If you want to live in this country, you should learn the language. She looks out the window at the stores along Sunset with signs in all kinds of Spanish and Chinese, all kinds of other
alphabets,
some like a retarded kid’s scribbles. It’s not right.

She tried calling some old friends to see if anyone would pick them up, but their numbers weren’t in service or they didn’t answer, so now she and Virgil are stuck paying this fucking terrorist for a ride. All because Mr. Jimmy Boone all of a sudden freaked on them, the ungrateful prick. He’s gonna get his though. She has big plans for that boy.

Virgil is listening to his iPod. His head bobs up and down like he’s nodding yes over and over. The driver’s phone rings. He answers it and starts talking that camel talk, starts shouting, really. Olivia slips her hand inside the bag on her lap and wraps her fingers around the Glock hidden there. Armed and dangerous, the only way to be.

They stop at a red light, and she watches a homeless woman wrapped in black plastic garbage bags push a shopping cart overflowing with junk into the shade of a bus kiosk and sit heavily on the bench. The woman’s bare feet are swollen and caked with dirt. That’s you, if you don’t change shit up, Olivia tells herself. But then another voice says, No way, girl. You got brains, and you got beauty. Good things are coming your way. The woman on the bench lifts the bags covering her pendulous breasts in an attempt to cool off. Olivia grimaces and looks away.

Eton’s house is exactly like she remembers it, the front yard a little more overgrown, the roof a little saggier. She and Virgil get out of the cab, and the driver hops out to unload their bags from the trunk, where he insisted on stowing them. He must think they’ll tip bigger if they see him actually working.

“Okay,” he says as he sets the bags on the sidewalk. He’s a little man, round, with heavy five o’clock shadow. He’s wearing some kind of slippers on his feet.

“Okay,” Olivia says, mocking him.

“Is twelve seventy-five.”

“In dollars?” Olivia says.

“Pardon me?”

Olivia gives him a twenty. He reaches into his pocket for a wad of bills, peels off a five right away and hands it to her. He’s expecting her to let him keep the rest, but she doesn’t like him. And not just because he’s a foreigner. He hasn’t smiled once since he picked them up, and what was that about, talking on the phone when he had customers? People don’t want to hear that kind of crap. Finally, reluctantly, he hands her two ones and a quarter.

“Tank you,” he says sharply as she and Virgil walk away.

“No, thank
you,
” Olivia says, carefully enunciating each word.

Virgil leads the way up the path to the house. They climb the steps, and Virgil tilts a shriveled potted cactus on the porch to retrieve the spare key hidden under it.

He holds out his hand and says, “I’m shaking.”

“What, do you need me to open the door?” Olivia snaps, sick to death of gutless men.

“I’m just saying it’s weird,” Virgil replies. “Coming back after what happened here.”

He inserts the key, twists the deadbolt. The door opens, and a gust of Lysol-scented air trapped inside since Spiller, T.K., and Virgil scrubbed the place clean whooshes out.

Olivia enters first, steps into the living room. You can’t even tell someone was murdered here. An ornate cobweb cuts the room in two. It glistens in the sunlight streaming through the open door. Virgil walks to the couch.

“I was sitting right here,” he says. “Eton was over there. They took the chair he was in because it was all bloody.”

The place looks the same to Olivia as it did last time she stopped by, a couple of years ago. Same creepy knickknacks and paintings, same old-lady furniture. The flat screen is new, the Xbox. She raises her bag and uses it to break through the spiderweb on her way to the kitchen, which is as filthy as ever. A pot on the stove is caked with dried refried beans, and the trash is overflowing.

A bunch of photos are stuck to the refrigerator door with skull-and-crossbones magnets. One of them is of her and Eton way back when. She has blue hair and a nose ring; he’s sticking his finger in her ear and making a funny face. The one time they tried to fuck, he couldn’t get it up. Sad. Her anger at Taggert flares again, hot and bright, and the plan she’s been putting together begins to solidify.

She and Virgil walk through the rest of the house, the three bedrooms upstairs. Eton’s looks like a teenager’s hideout. Mattress on the floor, computer, two guitars on stands, amps, and posters of old punk bands tacked to the walls.

Virgil grabs a key ring off the nightstand. “Sweet,” he says. “Now we can use his van.” He moves to a three-drawer file cabinet, tries the top drawer and finds it locked. It takes him a few tries before he hits on the right key. Inside the drawer is a stash of marijuana divided into eighths, quarters, and ounces — a pound or so — a small quantity of black tar heroin and orange prescription bottles containing various pills.

“We’re rich,” Virgil says. “We move this shit, we could make, like, thousands.”

Olivia rolls her eyes. The kid’s so small town. He doesn’t even know how close he is to real money.

The second bedroom contains a bed, a dresser, and a bookcase full of dusty old books. Hanging above the bed is a painting of a glowing angel watching over two kids as they cross a rickety bridge. Someone has drawn a Hitler mustache on the angel and scratched 666 across her forehead. Virgil drops his gym bag on the floor and says, “I call this one.”

“Whatever,” Olivia says.

The last room is Eton’s grandma’s, the one left untouched as a kind of shrine to her memory. Her clothes are still in the closet, her gray hair tangled in the hairbrush, and there’s half a pack of Marlboro Lights on the nightstand and an ashtray full of lipstick-smeared butts.

It used to creep Olivia out back in the day. She’d get high and sit in the hall, put her ear to the door and listen for ghosts on the other side. What a dipshit she was. There’s nothing in here but a bunch of junk that smells of mothballs and mildew. She picks up an old-fashioned perfume dispenser from the dresser, leaving behind a perfect circle in the dust, and squeezes the bulb a few times. Roses. She carries the dispenser with her when she and Virgil step back into the hall and close the door behind them.

They go back downstairs to the living room. Virgil dumps a bag of Eton’s weed on the coffee table and sets about rolling a joint. He’s got one of the Glocks sitting there, thinking it gives him that gangster lean.