Jack Wakes Up, page 13
part #1 of Jack Palms Series
Now the little guy comes back out and he’s got another bouncer with him: the white guy from Jack’s last visit and untimely departure, one of the guys who Jack remembers looking up at from the floor. This guy touches the side of his face where Jack has the bandage. “What happened to your face, bro?” he asks, all surfer accent, raising his chin at Jack.
“I will fucking kill you!” Al shouts from behind Vlade. He starts to point at the Surfer, who jumps toward him. At the same time as Vlade holds back Al, the other bouncers hold back the Surfer. Vlade turns Al around, starts walking him back the other way.
Now Jack really doesn’t like where this is all going, but he likes the numbers a whole lot better than the last time he was here. But with Al on the loose, Vlade holding him back, and David an unknown, he doesn’t like the prospect of the immediate violence. Also, if Tony Vitelli’s not even here, what’s the point? He raises his hands. “We don’t want any trouble here, guys.
We’re just looking for Tony, is all. Just want to ask him a few questions about our friend.”
Now the little guy, the Talker, comes forward. “Mr. Vitelli doesn’t want to see you today.”
“Oh?” Jack says.
“No. He told me that you were not allowed in here any more.”
Afro steps forward; unfolding his arms, he reaches out to Jack. “I did like your movie, though, man. You have to understand though. This is business here.”
“But we’re still not allowed inside The Coast?”
“Huh unh.” He shakes his head. “You don’t come in no more. And Tony don’t come in Saturdays because he be at the other club.”
David and Niki are looking at Jack like they don’t know where this is going, why he’s talking so much. But now that Jack knows Tony’s not here, he wants to leave; there’s nothing else in it for them. Vlade tilts his head toward the cars. “Maybe we go,” he says.
Jack steps forward toward the bouncers. Maybe he can buy the Czechs and himself some insurance for the next time. “Guys,” he says. “Part of why I came down here today is that I just finished talking with Joe Buddha. You guys know him?”
Afro nods; the other bouncers look uncertain, and then nod just slightly.
“He’s the Hollywood producer who made Shake ’Em Down. We were talking about a new movie, a sequel, and he’s pitching me a script.” Jack shrugs. “I think I like it, and Joe’s excited about the project. But he wants to make it up here in San Francisco. He’s just asking me if I 135
know any local talent with muscle.” Jack shrugs again. “But I told them I don’t know.” He turns to look at the Czechs as if sizing them up for the parts. Then he turns back to the club.
“You guys don’t do any acting, do you? I’m only asking you because this is what I was going to ask Tony.”
“You don’t have to talk with Tony about putting us in no movie. He don’t own us.”
“That’s right. I guess he doesn’t.” Jack strokes his chin. “But if you guys are interested—
Would you be interested in that?”
The three nod agreeably. They try to look cool, still insouciant, but part of them wants to be on the screen so bad they lose their normal role of instigator, leader, and man-in-charge—they have to nod. Part of them believes they’re that good. They’ve spent so much time looking at themselves in the mirror that they believe it’s a sight everyone should appreciate.
“That’d be cool,” the Surfer says.
Jack nods. “That’s good. I’ll let Joe Buddha know I’ve got some possibilities. But you may have to take some time off from work here, so I just want to ask Tony. You know how that goes, right?”
Again they nod. “He be here. Later then.” Afro shrugs. “Just come back. He be here to talk with you.”
“Don’t tell me you guys believe this shit,” the Talker says.
The bouncers look at him like he just appeared. “Man, shut up.”
But he keeps talking. “Joe Buddha? Who the fuck has a name like Joe Buddha? This motherfucker is totally lying to you guys. You think he’s going to put you in a movie?”
“Check Shake ’Em Down,” Jack says. “John Taraval’s the producer. People call him Joe Buddha. That’s his name.”
“We look,” Afro says. “And you better not be fucking lying, either.”
Jack looks at the Czechs, then back to the bouncers. “You believe these guys? I just ask them one thing about the movie, they think I’m lying.” He shrugs. “I just want to know, do you want to act or not?”
Again they all nod. “Yeah, we do. We do.”
“OK,” Jack says. “That’s good. I’ll tell Joe Buddha we may have found some of our muscle.”
On the way back to the car, Niki walks close to Jack and tells him softly that he’d like to be in a movie too. “Whoa!” Jack stops walking. “You talk?”
Niki nods. Jack looks around at the others. They all look surprised, too, but more at him than at Niki.
David says, “Of course he talks. Niki’s just quiet.”
“OK, OK,” Jack says. He claps Niki on the back, assures him that he can be in the picture.
26
The Czechs want to know their next move, but Jack’s not sure. He wants to find Junius and talk with him, doesn’t want a posse of Czechs to go when he does. The backup could be good, but it could also not be. He tells them to follow him back uptown, toward their hotel. So he’s driving slow, letting them hang behind in their rented Mercedes as he makes his way uptown, knowing he doesn’t have much time to figure out what to tell them before they get back to Market.
When he gets to Market, Jack takes a left, doesn’t look back at the Czechs to see if they know this leads away from the hotel. He’s heading across downtown now, on a diagonal through the city, away from the water.
He tries Maxine again, doubtful that she’ll know anything about where to find Junius, but running out of ideas. She’s still not answering her phone though, or at least not his calls.
So Jack calls Castroneves.
He picks up on the third ring. “Hola?”
“Yeah. This is Jack. I’m glad to hear you’re all right.”
“What the fuck, ‘This is Jack!’ The fuck was that last night?”
“That’s the question, my man.” Jack slows down at a light and watches the pedestrians cross Market. In his rear view, he looks back to make sure the Czechs are still there, still relaxed in 138
their car, which they are. “We got to talk about this and my guys still want to make the trade. You up for that?”
“Oh, no, Mr. Palms friend. Fuck you. What the fuck was that? Now my Juan José is no more, the club get shot up and we almost get arrested! What the fuck is that, my man?”
“Do you still have your product?” Castroneves is quiet on the other end of the line. “Do you?”
“Yes. We have. And we are very lucky to get out with that.”
“Then let’s do this right now. We got the money and we’ll meet, before any other shit.” Jack looks back at the Czechs again to see whether they’re looking doubtful. Al’s sitting in the front seat, smoking a cigarette and looking away from the others. Niki is driving, both hands on the top of the wheel. “Right now at the wharf,” Jack says.
Castroneves sounds like he’s walking somewhere and talking to someone else at the other end. He comes back on. “We do that. Give us two hours. Then we meet at Pier 39. You bring one of your friends only, not all. And their money. We trade only. No party.”
“OK,” Jack says. “Alex, my man. You’re my man.”
Jack puts the phone away and turns off of Market, onto Van Ness, pulls over to tell the Czechs what’s next.
“You guys have the money?” Jack asks, leaning in the passenger-side window of the Mercedes. Both cars are pulled over and Jack stands on the sidewalk, his Mustang still running.
The Czechs are speaking to each other in another language, and David starts actually yelling at the others. This is the first time Jack’s seen him get mad, the first he’s seen David get anything other than drunk or high. Jack steps back from the car and goes back to the Mustang to get his cigarettes. As he leans in the window, he turns off the ignition, figuring they’ll be here for a little while.
By the time the Czechs stop arguing, Jack’s half-through a smoke, getting that nausea in his stomach that he likes for how it slows down his world. Sure, it makes him want to sit down and breathe slowly, but that’s usually a good relaxer. It all goes away soon.
Vlade gets out of the car and walks over to Jack. “We do not know about going through with this idea of having the trade still with the Colombian. Some of us yes, some of us no.” He opens his arms, shows Jack his palms.
“I hear you, man.” Jack drops his cigarette, scuffs it out with the toe of his sneaker. In the car, David looks straight ahead, chewing on the inside of his lips. In the back seat, Al punches the side of the car. He looks beside himself. “Seems like that last meet was enough to fuck up anything,” Jack says. “I were you, I’d be halfway to Vegas by now, maybe. But—” Jack waits to see if Vlade is with him, acts like he’s thinking it all over.
Vlade stops watching the cars drive by to look at Jack. “Yes?” he says.
“But what the fuck?” Jack shrugs. “You know these guys weren’t the ones who did the shooting. They were the ones who got shot. That seems safe to say. Plus, they don’t have time to set anything up. We go meet them right now, get this thing done, and then whatever happens, you guys’ll have your blow to take on the trip when you leave. How’s that sound?”
Vlade nods, thinks it over. Al slides across the back seat to put his head out the window closest to Jack. He yells, “We should do this. Jack is right.”
Vlade acts as if he’s heard nothing, nods again. In the car, David still stares straight forward, stays quiet. Vlade says, “That might not be bad, though.”
Jack goes for broke, puts it all out on the table: “Then we get to the bottom of this mess about Ralph and Michal, deal with Tony and Junius, get this whole thing figured out and wrapped up, and you guys are off for fun in the sun, my man.” He claps Vlade’s shoulder to wrap it up.
“Whoa, whoa, Mr. Palms,” Vlade says, his hands up. “Now you go too fast. But it is good, I think.” He smiles. “You feel good, no? That’s good. Let me talk with others for one minute.”
As Vlade goes back over to the car, Jack checks his watch for the time. It’s true: he does feel good, better than he has in a while, though the fact that Maxine still won’t answer his calls has him concerned. But damn, the sun’s shining, there’s less fog and, standing outside in the sun, Jack even feels warm enough to take off his jacket. He leans down to put it into the back seat of the Mustang. Just as he’s bending over to do this, he sees a car coming up Van Ness going way too fast and then realizes there’s a man in the passenger’s seat hanging half-way out the window with a gun. Then next thing Jack hears is gunshots as he drops into a crouch beside the passenger door of his car. “What the fuck?” he hears himself say, and looks over at the Czechs. They’re down inside of their car and Vlade’s crouched on the sidewalk. The guy in the car fires more shots, and Jack can hear bullets hitting the side of the Czechs’ Mercedes and breaking glass in the car. At that, his heart freezes up at the anticipation of what might come next; he starts to repeat the word, “No,” under his breath as the world slows down and then— chunk, chunk, chunk—he hears bullets punch against the other side of his Mustang, ripping through its pristine, mint-condition body panels and—though he hopes not—doing untold damage to its interior. “Fuck!”
Jack yells, over the shots.
Al scrambles out the sidewalk side of the Mercedes, a large handgun drawn in front of him, and pushes Vlade out of the way as he moves to the hood of the car, leans over it, and starts to fire. He lets off two shots and then Jack’s up and running. Trying to stay low, he makes it to the Mercedes in three strides and knocks Al back behind the car. The sidewalk behind them is empty of people and fronted by a brick wall, but across the street Jack has no ideas if there’re people behind where Al is shooting or who’s in what buildings he might hit. With Al under him and Vlade beside them, wide-eyed, Jack asks if anyone’s been hit.
Vlade shakes his head.
Jack stands in time to see the car that shot at them pulling away, up Van Ness, and turning around to come back. “Motherfucker,” he says, then yells at Al and the Czechs to stay down.
Vlade slaps Al across the face. He takes his gun away and holds him down behind the car. As 141
the other car starts to come back toward them, Jack can see now it’s a Ford, and the guy from The Mirage, Mr. Automatic Weapon with the bad flattop and the fancy lawyer, now wearing a bandage over the center of his face, and a stabilizer for his nose, pushes his head and arms up over the roof, holding the same silver handgun that he shot at them on the last pass.
“You motherfuck,” Jack says, wishing for probably the first time in his life that he had a gun in his hand to shoot at someone.
He can’t tell if Flattop sees him or not, but can only watch as the guy lets off a few more shots toward the Mustang, has to hear them punch through the fine metal—hoping and praying that nothing hits the engine—and then Jack hears the pop as one hits the Mustang’s back tire and he gets down low behind the Mercedes. He can already hear the air hissing out of his tire.
Again Jack hears the bastard shoot at the Mercedes, but only twice, probably his last two bullets. If he were better at this, he would’ve counted the shots, it occurs to Jack. Niki fires two shots out of the Mercedes’ window at the Ford, though Jack can’t see if he hits anything from where he is on the sidewalk, on his hands and knees.
Now Vlade jumps up and shoots twice at the Ford. As Jack stands, he’s just in time to see its rear window shatter. He runs over to the Mustang and around to its other side. There he sees the damage: three holes in the door and two along the side of the trunk. They’re small silver welts, just like you’d expect them to be, with little holes that Jack can just get the tip of his finger into.
“Fuck,” he yells, kicking at the asphalt. He can already see the rear tire going down.
“Jack,” Vlade yells, waving at him to come.
Jack runs his hand over the smooth metal curve of the Mustang’s roof and leans in the window to grab his keys. Then he takes a step back to look at his car again, the anger welling up inside him like he hasn’t felt it since he was still with Victoria. He shakes his head as Vlade calls his name again. Niki’s pulling the Mercedes away from the curb, turning to go after the Ford, with Vlade climbing into the back seat and David already out on the sidewalk. Al starts toward the car, but Vlade yells at him to stay. For a second, Jack’s caught in the street, watching 142
Niki and Vlade in the Mercedes, and seeing it turn to go after the Ford. But then Niki pulls up to where Jack stands and pushes the front door open at him. Jack meets his eyes across the seat for a heartbeat, then gets in as Niki nods, says something to Vlade in Czech.
“What are we doing?” Jack says, looking at David and Al standing on the sidewalk, Al waving his hand, yelling for them to go. “What are we doing?”
Vlade says something to Niki in Czech, and Niki honks the horn, starts waving his arm out the window for the traffic beside them to stop. To Jack he just says, “We go.”
“Watch my car,” Jack yells to Al and David, throwing them his keys, as Niki peels out into a hard U-turn across the four lanes of traffic, cars braking wildly to get out of their way, horns blaring as they accelerate going downtown toward Market and after the Ford.
27
On Market, Niki slows down in the traffic when he sees the Ford obeying traffic laws, driving normally about seven cars up. They stop at a red light and Jack says, “Shit, I can get out and run those bastards down.”
“No,” Niki says. “I drive.” He pulls out into the Muni lane just ahead of a bus that blows its horn at them. Then he drives the Mercedes up alongside the traffic and smashes into the side of the Ford. Jack can see Flattop from The Mirage inside and another guy driving, someone new with big bushy eyebrows and a head shaved bald. What is it with these guys and baldies, Jack wonders. People along the sidewalks start yelling and pointing, stopping to watch. Other cars start honking at the Ford as it swerves through traffic. The Flattop aims a gun at them and Niki pushes the Ford over to the other side of the road, riding it hard, metal scraping, but then the driver sees an opening and floors it to get through some cars and turns onto 10th Street.
Now, with the Mercedes behind him, Flattop turns around in his seat, aims at them through where the back window once was and shoots through their windshield just as Jack ducks down in his seat. Niki has slid way down so that he can barely see over the steering wheel, and Jack feels an impact on his side of the car as they crunch through two cars—one parked—to follow the Ford onto 10th. Now Vlade takes a shot from the back seat. The sound of the shot rings through the car like a bomb going off and Jack’s world goes quiet. They hit the back of the Ford, and Niki takes a shot over the dashboard blindly, then hands his gun to Jack and puts both his hands on the 144
wheel. Jack looks at Niki: still driving, he gestures with his chin ahead of them and at the gun, and Jack gets the message that he’s supposed to do some shooting. He hears a ringing in his ears that’s unlike anything he can remember. Everything moves in slow motion around him with the ringing setting the world in relief.
Jack looks out over the dashboard and sees the Flattop and the back of the driver’s bald head in the Ford. They’re swerving all over the street and so is the Mercedes. He raises his gun even as he can’t believe that he’s doing it. Part of him is thinking that this is absolutely not a movie and that in real life people have to pay huge consequences for taking actions like these, for shooting a gun on city streets, possibly even shooting someone. He can see that 10th Street. is wide open ahead of them: no one on the sidewalks, a green light up ahead. Then he remembers that these guys shot up his Mustang, and he’s filled with rage in places he didn’t even know were empty. Just as he’s about to shoot, Vlade lets off another shot from the back seat, right next to Jack’s head, and the sound breaks through Jack’s silence, leaving an even louder, deafening ringing. Jack’s ears hurt so bad that he drops down below the dash, puts his hands up over his ears. The cat-toy bell feeling starts in his head again. He sees Vlade’s arm and gun above him, realizes that Vlade’s leaning forward and trying to shoot through the windshield himself.
