All Due Respect Issue #1 (11 page)

Chicken:
A Wellesport Story

Walter Conley

W
HEN JACK ENTERED THE
bedroom, Isaac was sitting in a chair by the window. Isaac’s legs were crossed. On his lap was a copy of
Teen Vogue
he’d found in the bathroom. He held it open with one hand, folded it back on itself. In the other hand was a chewed-up pen.

Jack said, “What the hell are you doing?”

“A personality profile,” Isaac said. “You have to list your qualities. What you think are your qualities. Then have five other people each give you a quality about yourself. That’s the part I’m on now.”

“Sounds like fun.”

Isaac shrugged. “It’s kind of interesting.”

“To women at hair salons.”

“Why don’t you give me a quality?” Isaac asked, tapping the butt of the pen on the questionnaire.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright,” Jack said. “You smell like diaper-rash cream.”

Isaac’s eyelids drooped a fraction of an inch. “No. Not like that. A quality, you know?”

“Tommy wants to see us. Downstairs. Now.”

“Okay,” Isaac said. “Hey, I don’t really, do I?” Isaac asked, as Jack left the room. “Do I?”

The house belonged to Earl, a recent addition to the crew. It was located on the outskirts of Wellesport along a sparsely-populated stretch of I-84, a quarter of a mile from the town’s industrial section.

A dozen men and women hung in the living room. Henry Sloan said, “You guys done fucking already?”

Isaac said “Ha,” and kicked the drink out of his hand.

There was a smattering of applause.

Tommy waited in the master bedroom. With him were Earl, perched on the edge of his bed, and Ray, who stood facing a corner.

Ray didn’t seem to notice them and Isaac was glad. Ray wore a suit, had his hair and nails trimmed. He’d done time, a couple years upstate, but Isaac didn’t know why and didn’t plan to ask.

Tommy sat in an armchair . His imposing bulk sank him into the cushions. He wore matching sweats and high-tops and was decked in gold-plated silver. His entire head bore a uniform stubble, flashed blonde to red as he nodded at Earl.

Earl nodded back, got up and walked out, closing the door behind him. Isaac breathed easier. Earl was a younger, scruffier version of Isaac and Jack. He was nice enough, but hungrier than he let on.

“Boys,” Tommy said.

Jack sniffed and said, “What’s up?”

“I need you guys to do something.” Tommy hoisted a briefcase that had been sitting by the armchair, tossed it onto the bed. It was imitation leather with brass fittings. “I need you to deliver this for me.”

“Where to?” Jack said.

“Across the street.”

Isaac squinted at Tommy, confused. Earl’s house was in a desolate area. There was nothing across the street but a lumberyard, down a little ways, that had gone bust. Tommy had been acting strange lately. He was always wired. He kept talking about putting things in order, taking care of loose ends—like he’d gotten word that he might die soon. Isaac wasn’t sure what to make of it yet.

“What do you mean, across the street?” Jack said.

“Means what I said. Across the street. To the lumberyard. Somebody’s going to be there at four o’clock. All you have to do is take the case over and give it to him.”

Who is it? Isaac wanted to ask. What’s in the case? But you didn’t press about details like that. The less you asked, the less you knew. The less you knew, the less you could say to police or spill when you’d had one too many.

“Piece of cake,” Isaac said.

Tommy smiled at him. When he wasn’t smiling, he looked like a heavyweight bent on killing you in the first round. Now he looked like the best buddy you could ever have.

“That’s it?” Jack said.

“That’s it,” Tommy told him. “I’ll hook you up afterwards.”

Ray looked at them from the corner. He dragged on a cigarette Isaac hadn’t seen him light, then opened his mouth, smoke sheathing his face like ectoplasm.

Tommy rubbed his hands together. “The rest of us are taking off. I have to square something. We’ll be back in a while.”

“I don’t like this,” Jack said.

“Why not?” Isaac asked.

“I just don’t.”

Neither did Isaac, but he blamed it on pregame jitters. He always got antsy before a job.

Everyone else had gone with Tommy. Once the cars had driven away, the two men were left alone, sitting in the living room. Isaac was in a recliner, Jack on the couch. Jack sat forward at the end of the couch farthest from Isaac, elbows on his knees, hands clasped, gazing at the floor. The briefcase lay at the near end, within Isaac’s reach.

“What do you think’s in it?” he asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Jack said. “What difference does it make?”

“No difference.”

Jack swiveled his head without changing position. Their eyes locked. His face had a concrete set to it that Isaac hadn’t seen in a long time. Isaac waited for him to speak. Instead, Jack sighed and looked at the floor again, eased back on the couch.

“What time is it?” he asked. Jack didn’t wear a watch or carry a wallet.

Isaac pushed up the sleeve of his coat and checked his wristwatch. It was the last week of March. They were both wearing coats. The house was heated, but the air didn’t move around like it should.

“Almost two-thirty,” Isaac said.

“Turn the TV back on, would you?”

They watched a documentary about chalk, then another about survivors of Hurricane Katrina. As the hands on his watch ticked closer to four, Isaac became increasingly tense. He wished the other guys had stayed. He wished he knew more about the deal they were going to transact.

Five minutes before the Katrina doc ended, Jack sat up and reached for the case.

“Ready?” he asked.

Isaac nodded. He rose from the chair. He was going to shut off the television, but decided to leave it on as kind of a superstitious guarantee that things would go smoothly and they’d be back here, plopped in front of it, minutes from now.

It was bright out, the sky a Styrofoam-white in all directions. Wind stung at Isaac’s face, neck, hands and ankles. He balled his fists in the pockets of his coat as they crossed the lawn.

The lumberyard was visible from Earl’s driveway apron. They walked the shoulder until they were even with it, paused, cut over. There was no traffic in either direction. A chain-link fence encompassed the property, but the gate was busted. Most of the lumber had been sold-off or stolen. A few pallets had rotting wood and shingles on them. Shrink-wrap littered the yard. The building was wide and low, painted yellow. It had two doors: one directly before them for the office, another midway down the front that must have led into the warehouse.

Just inside the gate, both men stopped.

“You’re right,” Isaac said. “Something’s not cool here.”

“I was wrong. Getting myself worked up over nothing. It’s a simple drop, Isaac. In and out.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“Because you did.”

“I’m telling you, man. I don’t like this.”

Jack said, “Get a fucking grip. You’re freaking yourself out, that’s all.”

“I guess.”

“Let’s do this.”

They went to the office door. Since Jack had the briefcase, Isaac tried the knob. It was locked.

“That one,” Jack said, tipping his head toward the other door.

They walked along the building, hugging the wall. Isaac twisted the doorknob. It spun and clicked.

“Showtime,” Jack said.

They stepped into a large room cluttered with rusty hand tools, boxes, shelves overflowing with junk. It was dark. The only light came through the doorway they’d entered and a dusty window in a wall to their left. Isaac saw a man in a raincoat by a table heaped with cartons. The man had uncombed hair and a beard. He stood motionless, watching them.

Thank God, Isaac thought. The guy was already here. They could hand him the briefcase and get back to Earl’s and be done with it.

Jack held up the case.

The man beckoned him forward.

Jack gave him the case and returned to wait beside Isaac.

Isaac fought the urge to look at Jack. He didn’t want to appear as skittish as he felt. While he watched, the man set the briefcase on the table. He thumbed the catches and peered inside, then focused his attention back on them.

“This is for the both of you?” he asked.

“Huh?” Isaac said.

“Oh, shit,” Jack whispered.

The man took a shotgun from the table and swung it at them. They wheeled to the door, Isaac almost tripping on a set of tiles. The shotgun rose to eye-level. Isaac moved behind Jack at the doorway. There was an explosion of light and sound and Isaac screamed as the top of Jack’s head disintegrated. He tumbled out the door, one of his wrists bending underneath him on the ground. Jack’s dead body landed on him. Isaac’s ears rang. He shoved at Jack, flipping the corpse so they were side-by-side.

“I told you it was a setup!” he yelled.

Isaac scrambled to his feet and bolted for the gate. He ran faster than he ever had in his life, so hard the joints in his hips and legs seemed to come apart. As he angled through the gate, a second shot rang out and Isaac heard buckshot ping the fence. He went right, away from Earl’s, toward an expanse of trees. The woods carried on for miles in that direction. If he could reach them, he’d live. He was breathing heavy and the sound was awful—he wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying. Steps from the tree-line, he glanced over his shoulder.

The man stood outside the gate, in the approaching lane of the highway, the shotgun leveled again.

Isaac ducked as the next shot missed him. He continued to duck, launched into the brush and slipped through the glistening black trees to safety.

Jack hadn’t merely been a partner-in-crime, although he and Isaac had functioned as their own small unit in Tommy’s gang. He’d been the closest thing Isaac had to a friend. Huddled on the back stoop of a coffee shop, where he’d emerged from the woods, Isaac was flooded with memories.

He and Jack had been recruited by Tommy the same night, the summer after graduating high school. They’d barely known each other as classmates. They were caught in a skirmish at Bridey’s All-Night. One of Tommy’s soldiers got jumped. Isaac and Jack were drawn into it simply because they’d each been sitting close. They beat the hell out of the punks who’d jumped Tommy’s punk, then helped him escape before the cops arrived. He gave them directions to Tommy’s house. When Tommy heard what had gone down, he offered them work.