Jack Wakes Up, page 19
part #1 of Jack Palms Series
“Shit.” Jack’s feeling it now, and he lets it go. “I think Tony popped Ralph and used the Russians to make it look like it was you, tried to have Alex and maybe me killed in here and busted by the cops last night, and now he’s trying to do the same to you, or at least get you arrested. That’s what I think.”
Junius looks at Freeman and then back at Jack. Jack has the sudden feeling that he’s said more than a mouthful. But now that he has it all out in the air, it actually sounds more than half believable.
Junius stares. “You know this?”
Jack figures it’s time to come clean. There has to be some honesty in things for people to believe you. “Part of it is I know this,” he says. “Part is me trying to put things together the only way they can go.”
“No, no, no, man,” Junius says. “Sit down. Let’s talk this back through again.” He sits down on his chair. “First of all, fuck the police, like N.W.A. say. They come in, they won’t even know there’s a room here. We got time. Talk to me about Ralph.” He points at Jack and then brings his finger down, presses it against the table. “The first thing I want to know, is why he’s cutting around me and going to Castroneves.”
“That’s a good question,” Freeman says, stepping closer to the others.
“Because that’s enough to get popped right there.” Junius points at Jack and Niki now. “And then trading with that fucker after, that’s another thing that might get someone fucked up.” He raises his eyebrows, moves closer.
“Hey,” Niki says. “Ralph connected us to him. You want to sell us more?” He holds his hands at his sides, his thumbs pointed out, and curls his fingers towards him, waving for Junius to bring it on. “We will buy.”
“Ho!” Junius and Freeman exchange glances. “OK, my man. We can talk business.” Junius laughs. He points to Niki and says to Jack, “Your boy talks big. Is that safe?”
Jack looks away. He wishes he had a drink or something he could throw against the wall, a bad reaction he probably learned from Victoria. “You don’t get it. All this means is we have to get out of here.”
“Because there’s a problem.”
“Tony’s the problem.”
“Oh he is? Let’s call him in here.” Junius brings his phone out of an inside pocket in his jacket and flips it open. It makes a beep sound, like the walkie-talkie phones do. Into it he says,
“Vitelli!”
“Yo!” Tony says back. “Jack Palms is here.”
“Jack’s up here. Says we got a problem.”
“On my way.”
Junius closes the phone and looks at Jack. “See that? Not so hard. We can resolve this all right now.”
Jack leans back on the couch, pats himself down for his cigarettes but doesn’t find them. He nods at Junius. “Got a smoke?” Junius takes a pack out of a jacket pocket and flips it onto the table. They’re not Jack’s brand, but they’re not menthols, so they’ll do. Niki steps forward to give him a light. Jack takes a puff and leans back on the couch. He’s not sure if Tony’s going to come with the police, his bouncers, a Russian army, or what’s going to happen.
Junius says, “So tell me why would Tony pop Ralph?”
“One,” Jack says. “He wanted to deal to his girls and these guys.” He nods at Niki. “Two, he figures if he can make it look like you’re the guy who did it, he can get you off the streets, get your spot and deal your share too. I’m betting on this guy as a ladder-climber, trying to make it to the top. He got a new supply line and wants to make good.”
Sitting down next to Jack, Niki takes out a cigarette and lights it.
Junius shakes his head. “Shit,” he says. “Dog eat dog is the only world I know. We all trying to eat each other out here.” He takes a cigarette out of the pack and lights it himself. “But Tony buys from me. He’s strictly middle.”
Jack takes a shot: “You supply him with the X he sells to those kids out there?” He looks around for an ashtray, but the table’s empty and there isn’t one around. He ashes on the floor.
“No man.” Junius frowns. “I don’t do that techno shit. Shit be all technologized.”
“Then who is?” Jack looks at Junius and knows he has him. Someone’s selling the ecstasy in this place, Junius has to realize, and if it’s not Tony through him, then Tony must have found a different supply.
Junius’s brow furrows. He leans back in the chair, takes a long drag off his cigarette, and exhales smoke straight up into the air.
36
Tony comes in with two bouncers holding Alex Castroneves up by the arms and a third in tow. Castroneves looks like they’ve been using his head for a soccer ball. They drop him on the ground in front of Jack and Junius.
“Here’s your friend,” Tony says to Jack and Niki. “Make a trade with him now.”
Jack snuffs his cigarette out on the tabletop. “This how you treat all your guests?”
Tony laughs. “No. You didn’t get the full hospitality because you had your mommy there to beg for us to let you go.” He looks around. “But I don’t see her now, so maybe we can accommodate you.”
“That’s OK.” Jack stands up next to Niki and takes a step toward Tony. Niki drops his cigarette, grinds it out against the floor. “Where your guys? The ones that whacked Ralph?”
“Fuck!” Tony says. “What the fuck is it with you and that dirt bag?” He takes one step closer to Jack and then lunges, punches Niki in the stomach. Niki groans and doubles over, looks up at Tony like he’s ready to rip his muscles from his bones, but Jack holds his hand out to restrain him, watching the three bouncers move closer. These are some of the guys from the inside, the perimeter players, not the muscle guys from outside. Now that Jack sees them from close up, he can tell these aren’t the normal goons you’d find on the streets of San Francisco. These are pros: they’ve each got on a tight black long-sleeve shirt, and a wired mic on their head. They have black pants on and tight belts with what looks like mace and a taser gun mounted within reach.
They’re white, but don’t look like California boys: they’re too clean cut. Jack hopes they’re not more ex-KGB. He looks to see that Freeman is still standing in the same position.
Junius gets up slowly, adjusting his suit. “Jack here has been telling me about how you wanted to cut me out of the city, trade up my ground, and get me in the clink for popping Ralph.”
Tony shakes his head. “How about we beat the fuck out of both these bastards, all them for going around us to this piece of shit.” He points at Castroneves. “I could right now—” Then he goes to kick him and stops, pulls back at the last second.
Jack helps Castroneves stand up. He’s wearing just a shirt and pants now, no tie or jacket, and through these clothes Jack can see that he’s in bad shape: his shirt torn, he has cuts across his back and blood on the side of his mouth; his nose looks broken. Jack helps him to stand, but Castroneves can’t stay up on his own. He slumps against Jack’s shoulder.
Jack looks at the big Samoan. “Freeman, you want to help me with this guy?”
Freeman shakes his head, his arms still folded in front of him.
Castroneves falls to the couch. “You are cocksuckers who will pay,” he says, glaring at Tony.
“Oh?” Tony says, “We’ll pay? And you bring that fucking Colombian army in here to make it happen, OK?” He waves at one of his guys, who moves over to Castroneves and points for him to get up. When he puts his hand on the taser, Castroneves stands.
Junius shakes his head and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I mean I know this guy’s competition, but you treating him hard.”
“Fuck,” Tony yells. “Somebody get rid of the fucking conscience on this guy.”
Junius points to Jack and says, “This guy’s saying you wanted to cut Ralph out and deal at the clubs yourself, T. What’s up with that?”
Tony shrugs. “So? You give a fuck about that bastard? What if I do want to deal this whole city? What then?” He looks hard at Junius, maybe more brash then he wants to come off, but with his guys to back him up, he’s feeling strong.
Jack wonders what’s happening with the other Czechs, wishes they were in the room, but they probably can’t even find the door. “When are the police showing up tonight?” he asks.
Both Tony and Junius stop and look at him. “Police?” Tony says. “There’s no police coming here tonight. Why would you think that?” He steps away from Junius, closer to Jack. Both of his bouncers have their arms folded, but they can get at their belts. They’re not big like Freeman, but they’re ready.
“This motherfucker’s undercover,” Tony says, pointing at Jack.
Jack holds up both hands. “Now let’s just wait a second. If anyone’s working for the cops, it’s the one who called in our meet here last night, the one who brought the cops down on this place.”
Tony laughs. “I called the cops on my own club? Why’d I do that?” But then he looks serious. “Matter of fact, who told you I did that?”
Jack says, “The only cop I know is the one who busted my house and made sure my picture got all over the tabloids, the asshole who helped destroy my career.”
Tony shakes his head. “Junius, you going to believe what this nut job tells you?” He waves his hand at Jack. “If you do, you’re as fucked as he is. Get rid of this guy.”
Junius looks at Freeman and tilts his head in Jack’s direction. Freeman starts toward Jack and Niki, his arms unfolded. “Let me show you boys the door,” he says.
“You take me out of this, he’ll cut you out next, Junius,” Jack says. “Listen to me. You know what I’m saying is right.”
Freeman gets close enough to Niki that he could hit him if he wanted, but he brushes past to the door. He opens it and the sound of the club comes in strong. Niki starts in that direction.
“Junius,” Jack says.
“This fucking guy is not leaving this club in one piece tonight,” Tony says, turning to his guys.
Jack holds up his hands. “OK.” He starts heading toward the door. With his hand on his head, Junius looks like he’s thinking; his brow wrinkled, he paces away from Tony and then 203
back toward him. “You know I’m right,” Jack says, backing toward the door. “Ask yourself what happened to Ralph.”
“That’s it,” Tony says, waving at his guys to move. “No more mentions of Anderino. Kick his ass.”
One of the guys says something to another in a language that’s not English and sounds different from the Czech Jack’s been hearing. Niki gives Jack a quick look, then the three bouncers start forward, but Freeman puts his arm out to stop them, holds them back. “No,”
Freeman says. “Give him one for his movie. That shit was decent.”
Jack heads toward the open door, following Niki. Outside, the music in full blast, he turns back and sees Tony say something to Junius, something he can’t hear. Then Tony takes his walkie-talkie off his belt and speaks into it. The door closes in Jack’s face and he’s cut out, he and Niki in the club with the other Czechs already coming over, asking Niki where they were.
Jack goes to the rail and looks down at the guys around the perimeter: they’re listening in on their headsets and then they look up, almost in unison, to the balcony.
They start to move.
“Shit,” Jack says. He starts toward the Czechs, standing in a group holding drinks and talking to Niki. Here we go again, he’s thinking, but this situation’s worse than last night, with more of these bouncers coming after them, not to take anything away from the hit men with guns and what a joy that was to deal with. “Come on,” Jack yells, breaking into a run. The only advantage this time is that now he knows the way out.
The Czechs take their time to pause and find out what’s happening, so Jack pushes Vlade toward the exit behind the men’s room. “We have to get out of here before every bouncer in this place comes down on us.”
Al stands firm. “We don’t run.”
Jack stops pushing Vlade and stands next to him, looking at Al, yells in his face, “You want to end up tasered and maced, then found by the cops when they get here in five minutes?”
Al starts to move, following Vlade and the others. Despite their suits and the fact they’ve been taking blow for a few hours—maybe because they’ve been taking the blow—they actually move pretty well, heading not in the direction Jack had expected, but to a new exit that he just now notices, probably the one Maxine used to take them out last night. Niki hits the door first, and Jack looks back to see three of the bouncers at the top of the ramp, one of them waving the others back down and talking into his headpiece. “Fuck,” Jack says, hitting the door and entering the dark stairwell. Small lights are set in a string along the base of the stairs on the outside wall, and in this light Jack can just make out the handrail and the flight of stairs, see the Czechs start down. He looks for a way to block the door and doesn’t see one, but then he makes out a fire extinguisher on the wall and grabs it, bangs at the door’s handle a few times and finally knocks it off. Then he pushes the rest of it back in through the hole, hoping this will slow the black shirts down.
Now, with his eyes starting to adjust, Jack can see the stairs and starts down them, jumping over the first half-flight and making the turn around the rail. On the second flight, he hears Tony’s guys hit the door above and for a second it holds. He keeps running, one flight up from the Czechs, who are already going out into the alley behind the club. Jack hears Niki say something loud, but it’s not until he comes into the alley himself that he sees why: a few of the guys, four of them, are waiting with their tasers out.
“Hold it,” one says, and lunges at Niki, who grabs his arms and runs the taser into the wall. He starts kneeing the guy in his midsection. Al gives a howl and rushes at another of the bouncers, followed by David. This leaves Jack and Vlade with two of the guys to themselves.
Jack shrugs as one guy comes at him with his taser, waits until he’s close enough, and dives at the guy’s legs, basically tackles him full out onto the asphalt of the alley. It feels good to move again, to have a moment of action without being outnumbered or sore, and Jack takes the guy down fast, turns him onto his chest, and takes the taser out of his hand. The guy’s struggling underneath him, but with one of his arms locked behind his back, there’s not too much he can do.
With his taser in one hand, it’s too much for Jack to resist. He hits him with the full stun of the voltage. The guy goes limp.
Jack looks for a way to restrain him and sees a set of flex-tie plastic handcuffs conveniently strapped to the back of the guy’s belt. He puts them on the black shirt’s wrists and gets up just as Al and David lift their guy up to chest level and deposit him into a nearby dumpster. Vlade’s got his guy pushed up against a wall, his face against the bricks and his arm pinned behind his back.
That’s when Jack first hears the sirens. At the end of the alley, toward the front of the club, he sees the flashing lights of the police. Niki stands over his guy and kicks him once in the side.
“Let’s go,” Jack yells, waving and then moving the other way down the alley, away from the lights. The Czechs start after him, moving slowly, as the stairway door opens right behind them and three more of the bouncers come out. Standing with them is the odd Russian Jack noticed when they first came in, the bald guy with the beard and the sweater. The one whom Vlade recognized. The Czechs start to move faster, breaking into a run behind Jack.
At the top of the alley, on a broad, brightly lit, downtown street, Jack turns and sees the bouncers by the exit, helping up their boys and taking off the handcuffs.
37
“Well, we fucked that up,” Vlade says, back in the SUV. Niki’s got them headed toward the hotel, Jack in the back with David and Al. Al’s hand is bleeding, mostly around his knuckles, where he missed hitting the bouncer and punched the side of the dumpster instead. He’s got a thin handkerchief wrapped around it, but the blood’s already starting to come through.
“No,” Niki says in the front. “Nothing we could do.”
“I think Junius was cracking,” Jack says. “I was guessing about most of what I told him, but I think he was starting to believe me.”
“You think Junius Ponds is responsible for killing Ralph?” Vlade asks.
“No, it was Tony, I believe,” Niki offers.
Vlade turns around in his seat to face Jack. “You think Tony Vitelli killed Ralph?”
“The guy’s fucked,” Jack says. “I’d say it’s more than a theory.”
Vlade nods, turns back toward the front of the car. Ahead of them, downtown glows in the late-night action, the bars crowded full and people walking the streets.
“Time to leave town,” Vlade says. “It is too bad here. Messy. We have to go.”
Al says something in Czech, and David rips off part of his shirt and wraps it around Al’s hand. “Did you see the cops coming again back there?” David says. “They are everywhere we go. Vlade is right.”
“Too many police,” Vlade says.
David nods. “We must leave.”
“Fuck this you are saying,” Al tells them. “Let us go back to there and kill them now.”
“Shhh,” Vlade says to Al, holding one finger over his lips.
Jack just pats Al’s knee. “It’s all right, big guy,” he says.
They come out onto Market and everything turns brighter, the shops glowing now inside and out. Soon they’ll turn onto Stockton and head toward the hotel. Jack resigns himself to looking out the window, wondering what he’ll do about Sgt. Hopkins now that he’s got nothing real on Tony or Junius Ponds. Anything he’d say about Tony would slide off, leaving him mad enough to send the bald Russian, or a couple of the other guys after him, and Hopkins probably has more on Junius than Jack can offer. Not wanting to piss off Freeman, either, doesn’t leave him many options. On a whim, he takes the cell phone out of his inside pocket and checks to see if he’s gotten any calls or messages. It merely states the time: 1:45AM, meaning no one has called, and it’s too damn early in the morning.
