Jack Wakes Up, page 22
part #1 of Jack Palms Series
“Fuck! Hi-po! Those things are rare as shit. You just rose up about ten pegs in my book, son.”
“Thanks. This afternoon some of these fucks shot up my driver’s side. That’s another reason I’m here.” Jack tells Junius who Vlade is and they lean forward to see Freeman wedged into the front passenger seat of the Mercedes like a bull in a chute. He just nods at the two of them, holds up two fingers.
Jack guns the engine of the Mustang, and Junius howls. Then he holds up his hand. “One word, Jack?” he says, opening his door.
Jack looks back over at the Mercedes. “What?”
Junius stands up out of his car, motions to its rear end with his hand. “Let me just talk to you for a second.”
Vlade gives Jack a look like he should be careful, that maybe they’d be better off just driving away now, but Jack shakes him off. Vlade takes a gun out from below his seat and presses it against the door, pointing at Junius. Jack looks in back at Niki: he’s got his knees pressed up into the air in front of him and he’s sunk way back down in the seat. He nods once, pats the side of his jacket.
Jack looks back up the street in his rear-view, making sure no one’s coming down behind him, and sees it’s empty. At this hour of night, Market may be busy with cabs, but no one’s coming down the one-way side-streets; most of them don’t even run for more than a few blocks.
He gets out of the car and walks around the back to meet Junius at his Mercedes.
Junius waves him closer and walks around to his trunk. “What you need, man?” he says, opening the trunk. Jack sees an array of weapons—guns mostly, but some brass knuckles and 231
knives—that would make most any urban warlord giggle. There, in front of him, the weapons are all neatly laid out inside a foam-covered trunk-liner. He sees a few small automatics, a couple of assault rifles, an assortment of handguns, including a shiny silver Magnum with a barrel long enough to poke your victims’ eyes out.
“I’m all right, man,” Jack says, holding up his hands. He takes an inadvertent step back away from the trunk.
“No, man. Listen.” Junius says, “You might need some of this shit if things get tight in there.” Jack looks back at the Mustang: Vlade and Niki watch with their full attention.
“I’m OK.” Jack produces Maxine’s revolver from his pocket, drops it into the trunk.
“You sure?” Junius asks. “You heard what happened to the Colombian?”
“No.”
“Police found his ass in back of The Mirage, stuffed in one of the dumpsters. Motherfucker had holes in him, Jack. I mean plural.”
“Shit.” Jack spits onto the asphalt, rubs it out with the toe of his sneaker. A car starts down the street behind them, its light bright in Jack’s eyes. He holds up his arm to shield them from the light. “I’m all right, J.,” he says.
Junius grabs his arm. He regards Jack with complete seriousness as he presses the side of a gun against his chest and tells Jack to take it. Jack can feel the gun in his hand: it’s warm, like molded black metal made to fit your palm.
“This is the Glock, Jack.” As the oncoming car gets closer to where they are, it honks once.
Junius pats Jack across his collar. “You’ll be glad when you need that.”
The car honks again and Junius rushes at it, his hands raised, yelling at the driver to get out and fight or shut the fuck up.
Jack walks back around to his side of the Mustang and gets in. He hands the Glock off to Vlade and guns the engine. Vlade nods at the weapon. “This is good, Jack. A nice gun.”
With the driver of the third car sufficiently scared and quieted, Junius goes back to his Mercedes, closes the trunk, and slowly gets in.
“He gave you this?” Vlade says. “Does he think we do not have weapons?”
“I don’t know,” Jack says. “And I don’t care.”
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As they drive to The Coast, Junius follows the Mustang lazily, as if he knows their path even better than Jack, dropping back and then coming up close to them at turns, fading off and drifting behind them for blocks on end. Jack smokes a single cigarette, taking his time to enjoy it. Vlade and Niki smoke too, hurrying through their cigarettes like normal smokers, and Jack watches them, monitoring his own inhales and exhales, watching the road, putting in a tape of some slow bass-heavy jazz to calm his nerves.
For all he knows, he’s the only one sober at this point in the night, the only one who’s not on coke or something else. Junius was drinking at The Mirage and probably with dinner, and it’s Jack’s guess from the smell around their car and coming out of the trunk, that he and Freeman smoked something potent after he got out of jail. With a gun he should feel safe, in Junius’s view, but Jack actually feels less safe with a loaded weapon. Long term, it just doesn’t make sense if he’s going to get out of this and go back to his life. He thinks of the bag in the trunk, the bills he’s had on his kitchen table for the past few months and how he’ll be able to pay them off now, get the bank and the mortgage straightened out, push the credit card bills off his back. Then he’ll get back into his routine of healthy living: running, weights, cereal for breakfast. At least that’s something to hope for.
But now that all seems dull, boring. Something far away.
They pull up outside The Coast and Jack sees Maxine’s VW Bug among the few in the lot.
He’s seen it a few times in front of her house, and she mentioned it when he dropped her off at home this morning—how that’s still part of the same day is more than he can imagine at this point. Thinking back to last night at The Mirage, the shooting feels like last night, but waking up in Sausalito with Maxine this morning feels like months ago. Somehow it seems like the whole arc of their relationship has happened since then.
Now he’s sure he’ll be awake to see it when the sun comes up in a few hours, and there’ll be something good to that. He says to Niki and Vlade, “Breakfast when this is over?”
“Yes,” Vlade says. “Fucking steak and eggs, mother-fucker.”
Jack laughs at Vlade’s accent around the familiar word that he must’ve picked up from Junius or someone along the way. “That’s right,” he says.
Jack pulls the Mustang around the corner to park on the side of the club, where the front doormen won’t see them coming. Judging by the number of cars, The Coast is close to empty at this hour, not long before closing. There are just two guys at the front door, and they didn’t look familiar to Jack as he checked them out driving by.
“You boys ready for this?” Jack asks. He gets out of the car and waits while Niki and Vlade get out on the other side.
“I am ready,” Niki says.
Vlade puts his chin to his chest, looks down at his body, his stomach mainly—a small-to-medium-sized protrusion around his middle—and then agrees.
Junius is slow to park his car, getting it into the spot just right, and then gets out, stands wearing a black fleece over his shirt. “Yo!” he says. “Let’s do this.” He goes around back to his trunk and takes out a black, stocky submachine gun with a big sight on top and something thick below the front barrel. He bounces it a few times in his hands, feeling the weight, and then slams the trunk closed. He looks at Jack. “H and K MP7, motherfucker. Let’s roll.”
Freeman steps out of the car stretching his arms and cracking his knuckles. He stretches one arm across his chest, then does the same on the other side. Then he hits his chest with his forearms. When he makes fists, his knuckles crack, and Jack can imagine him doing something awful to somebody’s head. He’s got on big, black warm-up pants and a top that goes with them, and Jack wishes he were wearing the same thing, something more comfortable than the jeans and button-up he’s had on all day.
Niki and Vlade have their guns out, look as if they need to be doing something. So Vlade drops the clip out of his weapon and checks to make sure it’s full. When he nods, Jack can see that he already knew this would be the case.
“Long night?”
Vlade and Niki agree quickly, Vlade putting one finger over his nostril and inhaling deeply, then putting both hands together on the side of his face, as if they were a pillow, and resting his cheek against them.
He laughs, pushes both eyes open with the first finger and thumb of each hand. “Let’s go.”
“Plan of attack?”
Junius and Freeman walk over to join Jack and the Czechs. “This place has a front and a back,” Junius says. “That’s all. Tony’s office in the back. That’s where he’ll be with his boys.
Whatever’s going on, they be doing it there.” He points around the opposite side of the club.
“Front is the part you already saw: the tables and stages, the bars. They got some private rooms in there, but those mostly just for hand jobs and shit.”
Vlade laughs, tilts his head two inches to the side to grudgingly admit that he knows what Junius means.
“So we will go in the front, you three go in the back?” Niki says, pointing to Jack, Junius, and Freeman.
“I’m not going in shooting, just so you all know,” Jack says. “I want to talk with this guy.
We find any hard evidence of him killing Ralph or Castroneves, something that can lead us to his supply, I call the cops, we bring the heat down on this place. That’s all they want.”
“Shit,” Junius says. “We can all say boo right now.” He looks around at the others. “I’m not saying I’d testify, but we know enough between us to say he killed both Ralph and Castroneves.”
“And had Michal killed,” Niki says.
“No,” Vlade says. “That was K.G.B.”
“I don’t know.” Jack kicks the ground. “Why’s that Russian with the sweater still hanging around? If he’s not hooked to those guys, what were they doing at The Mirage?”
Vlade shakes his head. He looks at his gun and then at Jack. “That is what we need to know.”
“Right.” Niki looks firm in his readiness to go in and get something done. “What about Maxine?”
Vlade puffs out his lower lip, shakes his head at Niki.
“No,” Jack says. “That’s all right.” He points at the club. “I think she’ll be inside. She said something about that guy being Tony’s new supplier. We’ll just have to find out.”
“Oh,” Niki says. “I am sorry.”
Junius cocks his gun and the parts engage, make a locking sound. “This your girl, Jack?”
“Was. Maybe.”
Junius squints, grimaces. He looks like he’s imagining one of his women ending up with Tony Vitelli. “Shit,” he says. “Come on, then. Let’s do this.”
Jack starts to walk around the back of the club with Junius and Freeman. Niki and Vlade say something in Czech and then start for the front door. As they go around the other side, Jack loses sight of them. The outside walls of The Coast are all black, tall—about two stories, though it’s all one high-ceilinged level inside—with a small parking lot stretched around the perimeter in the area the real estate allows. Where they are in SOMA, there are a couple of streetlights on the street and not much else: cars and taxis going past to get to or from the Bay Bridge, and just a 237
few people walking from the clubs to their cars. After the regular bars close, places like this stay open for “After Hours,” but it’s officially late, part of the night where you can already start to feel some of the pain you’re going to be feeling the next day.
Freeman looks like he’s had some sleep, though reading him is like reading a vending machine; he’s moving all right, fluid and without any hitches, but Jack can’t guess what the big man’s thinking. He’d guess Freeman caught a few hours of sleep somewhere in the night before Junius started calling to pick him up, but he can’t tell for sure.
Junius still wears his suit pants, but the tie is long gone. Jack still wishes he had on something more like the warm-up suit he wore back when he went to Ralph’s.
In his mind, he’s not all there; the day and the lack of sleep in the past few days is getting to him. But he tells himself that it’ll all be over soon, that if he takes care of this he’ll be able to sleep in his own bed instead of a small cell with bars for walls for the next few years. And that’s compelling. That and the thought of the bills piled up in the leather bag in his trunk. Jack leans his neck toward his shoulders and cracks it, pulls his arms back toward each other behind him, and feels a good crack in his back. There’s a release that comes from this, and if there was time, he’d spend a few minutes stretching out and trying to loosen up, get his blood flowing again. But Junius gets to the back door of The Coast and starts banging on it with the back of his fist.
“Stay in the moment,” Jack says, just to feel his lips moving over the words.
“Open the fuck up,” Junius says, and when one of Tony’s boys opens the door just slightly, Junius slams it against him with all his weight, pushing the guy back to the floor. Jack and Freeman follow into a dark corridor with a concrete floor and gray walls. Junius moves to the guy he just knocked down and holds his gun against the guy’s temple. He puts his finger over his lips. “Shhh,” he says.
Freeman produces a roll of duct tape from somewhere in his pants and rips off a strip that he puts over the guy’s mouth. Then he flips him over and runs the duct tape quickly around his 238
hands and feet. Jack’s having a hard time hiding how impressed he is with all this precision, actually says, “Wow.”
Junius just winks at Jack, once, and points down the hall toward a door not twenty feet away.
From farther inside the club, Jack hears the music, Sir Mix-A-Lot doing “Baby’s Got Back”—a song that’s sure to accompany a special performance on stage. Freeman closes the door behind them and makes sure it locks.
Wondering where the Czechs are, Jack stops for a moment, thinking, but Junius is already headed down the hall.
43
They come to a door and Junius puts his head against it. After listening for a few seconds, he points at it and whispers, “They in there.”
“OK.” Jack nods. “Do this.”
Junius and Freeman exchange a glance, and that’s when Freeman kicks the door open, loud and hard. Junius jumps into the opening, yelling, “Boo!” After a quick look to see the scene inside, Jack follows Freeman into the room.
What they come into is a big play den for Tony and some of his boys. It’s something of an extension to the club: there’s a big glass window on the back wall that you can see the girls on stage through, the other side of a two-way mirror—Jack realizes—the lights dim enough inside the room to keep it reflective on the other side. Tony sits behind a big desk off on the right-hand side with a significant pile of blow, about the size of a softball, and a small mountain of white pills that must be ecstasy piled up in front of him. He starts nodding when Junius walks in and then laughs when he sees Jack. He reaches up to the back of his head and straightens his pony tail, pulling it tight. “Jack Palms,” he says. “This is fucking hilarious. Call this your next movie, right?”
“I’ll get you as the big star,” Jack says.
Tony laughs. “But this ain’t no play acting here.” He looks around the room. “And I don’t see any stunt doubles to protect you, you fuck.”
In the middle of the room, two of Tony’s bouncers in black shirts have been playing pool with one of the clean-cut, slick bouncers from The Mirage. Now they stop and stand, holding their pool cues and looking at Jack and the other visitors. Two of them are the ones who beat Jack up when he got under Tony’s skin a few nights ago, The Surfer and a black guy with a shaved head that reflects the ceiling lights. These two smile especially wide smiles at him. The other one is the asshole from outside The Mirage, the one who wouldn’t answer Jack’s question, one of the clean-cut professionals.
The shiny Bald Head says, “We’re glad to see you back here, Jackie.”
Another guy leans against the pool table, smoking. He’s got on khaki pants and a light blue polo shirt. He looks at Jack with pure contempt. He’s hard to place without the uniform, but Jack remembers his face from somewhere he’s been with Hopkins, maybe from the Hall of Justice.
Beyond the pool table, on the left, is a sectional leather couch with Maxine stretched across one part, lying back with her wrist on her forehead. She sees them come in, doesn’t make a move to sit up or change position. “Jack,” she says, smiling. “What a dumbass.”
The bald Russian with the beard sits bolt upright on another section of the couch, smoking a long cigarette out of a plastic holder. He’s got his other arm draped over the back of the couch, an automatic resting on one of his thighs. The way he looks, the gun seems like the furthest thing from his mind. He touches his moustache with the first fingers of his cigarette hand as if he’s considering the situation.
“No, movie man,” Tony says, “No stunt doubles here.”
Jack says, “Right. Just you, your stooges, a cop, and a Russian mobster.”
Junius steps farther into the room, waving the gun around to make sure everyone sees it.
Tony stands up, clapping his hands. “That is very good, Junior. Nice work with the flashing of your thing there. How are you with the business end?”
Junius points his gun straight ahead, between two of Tony’s guys, The Surfer and the Bald Head, and lets off a few shots into the wood side of the pool table. They both jump back, but the 241
cop stays put. The Professional throws his cue down on the floor. On stage, the stripper keeps dancing, kicking her legs high, the music bumping through the wall.
“Fuck!” Tony says. “That’s a three thousand dollar table, you fuck! What are you thinking?”
Junius holds the gun up, makes a show of blowing off the barrel. “I was just checking to see I could shoot this thing.” He holds the gun out away from his body as if he’s looking it over, and then levels its barrel at Tony. “I’d say I can.”
Tony raises his hands lackadaisically, as if he’s just playing along with a game. “So what is it you boys want? Would you like a share of my coke? Do you want to buy some X? Or,” he looks at Junius, “Do you want to know where I get it now? Because I think that you must already know.”
