I darted into the booth, toed shut the collapsible door, and the fan whirred above me. The corner seat felt rock hard. A punk ass had thumbed chewing gum now dried in the coin slot. I used my pocketknife's blade to chisel away the obstruction while my beeper went nuts. The phone receiver was still linked by its steel-armored lanyard. One quarter plinked in, but I dropped the second one. It rolled under the seat.
Cursing, I bent over between my knees and fetched the quarter. The dial tone had crackly line static. Maybe cell phones weren't so bad after all. Culling the number from memory, I saw my hand's tremulous grip on the receiver. An adrenaline rush always racked me when I placed this call, one reason why I kept doing it.
Mid-ring on the first peal, the other party's gravelly voice sounded familiar. "Zane? Tommy Mack? Is that you?"
"Who else."
"I got a job for you."
"Today?"
"Natch."
"Expect me in ten minutes."
"Eight."
"That bad, huh?"
"This is personal."
“Look for me.”
My boss, like always, beat me at hanging up. I left the drugstore and rocketed off as fast as possible without smoking the tire rubber on the pavement. The first traffic signal I flew up on was a fast red, so I ignored it. The honks of the irked motorist squealing his tires to avoid our T-boning didn't faze me. My flick of the lighter fired up my second
Blue
Castle
. It wasn't, I decided two inhalations later, as satisfyingly mellow as my first one had tasted.
E
very April 14
th
, or thereabouts, I sweated the same quandary when I filled out my 1040. Next to your signature, Uncle Sam asks for your occupation. I used to leave the space blank until I heard doing so goosed the IRS computers to flag your return for audit. Who needed the ten-ton IRS gorilla buggering them? Zane's Rule: never dick with the IRS. Never. Tax cheats—Al Capone, Richard Pryor, and Sophia Loren—did slammer time. Nobody was immune.
Freelancer
had been my job title of late. That shaved as close as I cared to admit my livelihood.
Uneven sidewalks flanked the narrow street, and my tires avoided smashing a razor scooter a kid had left in the street. Jade green buds speckled the nickel-gray, shaggy-barked trees and the matchbox bungalows, circa 1940's-50's, squatted on small plots. The local telecom had buried in its overpriced fiber optic cable through here.
A medical transport van lumbered the other way, and nobody on this sunny day sat outdoors. They seldom did, creating the ideal setup for Watson Ogg. The coupé edged over in front of his block's shabbiest two-bedroom bungalow. There was no sign of his dark suit driver usually hanging around like a vulture. During the daylight hours he didn't activate his security gadgetry, but at night his yard and bungalow bristled with the stuff.
Roofers had last shingled his bungalow in burlap brown when Slick Willie had left the Oval Office. The shade trees had been cut down for the solar panels a former owner had never gotten around to installing on the roof. One of the shutters dangled on its last screw. The sorry neglect was all part of Mr. Ogg's calculated ruse since he was rich as a Wall Street financier. He must've heard my engine's splutter. Before I tattooed my knuckles on the door, he growled from the front room, "It's open, Tommy Mack."
My eyes, adjusting to the dim interior, saw the burnt red sofa still clashed with the cobalt blue armchairs, and the leopard-spotted throw rugs rounded out the mishmash décor. A card table and bentwood chairs by the humming mini-fridge were for the knock poker he played with his cronies. The brown speaker cloth served as his curtains. The plasma TV, no doubt stolen, centered on the long wall was new as it was baffling. Did the background noise soothe his bestial nature?
"Hello there, Tommy Mack."
The nodding Mr. Ogg perched on the ladder-back, cane-bottomed chair in the room's epicenter. His look never varied though the wispy soul patch was new. The topmost button to his ivory white shirt under the seersucker jacket stayed buttoned. The aphid green aviator sunglasses sharpened his laconic face to become Hunter Thompson or D.B. Cooper's kid brother.
A neighbor had cracked to a dark suit how Mr. Ogg "looked like a bug." The fool neighbor soon tripped and fell into a rumbling gravel crusher at a construction site. Mr. Ogg always got the last laugh. Always. His tapered fingers twiddled with the gold skull knob on his bone white cane. Blind as a mole from a limo's battery blowing up in his face a generation ago, he let his scrutiny lag on me.
"You rang?" I asked him.
"Damn straight. Many times. What took you so long?"
"You knew I was getting my blood lab done today. This job you mentioned is personal. How so?"
Mr. Ogg heaved out a crusty sigh. "It's my niece."
"Rita?"
"No, Gwen."
My face flushed. "Ah, Gwen."
"She's the hell-on-wheels. It's my fault. Since their parents shipped off to
Leavenworth
, I've spoiled them both rotten."
"Right. Is she in trouble?"
"Big trouble, and that's where you come in."
"Why else did you call? Details, please."
"Shakedown."
"Who's her blackmailer?"
"Some scrote she hooked up with in a
Crystal
City
fern bar. Later they went back to his love nest. Things led to things."
The grift was clarifying in me. "What's he got on her?"
"Compromising photos."
"The old badger game rears its ugly head."
"That's it. Either she ponies up, or he goes viral with them."
"No doubt she's distraught."
"Very. Me, too."
"What's my role in this?"
He pointed the white cane in the direction of the door. "Go cut off his balls and shove them up his ass."
"I take it Gwen has learned from her poor judgment."
"We've talked, and she's heard my ire."
A new craving attacked me, and the Blue Castles came out of my shirt pocket along with the lighter. I tapped out a
Blue
Castle
and lipped it.
Craning his neck and squinching his nose with a wolf's keen sniff, Mr. Ogg jabbed the white cane at me. "Since when did you take up smoking?"
"Since this afternoon."
"Why?"
"My nerves are swaying up on the high wire."
He scoffed, his papery lips twisting into a derisive sneer. "Are you going soft or yellow on me, Tommy Mack?"
"No, my work ethic is up to par."
"Go see a shrink. Tony Soprano swears by them."
"Does my medical insurance cover that?"
Mr. Ogg grunted. "Yeah, all right, I'll pick up the tab."
"If I do, be aware our dirty, little secrets might slip out."
"Very true. You better use the self-cure."
"Then smoking is my first step."
"So then smoke 'em if you got 'em."
I lit up, and after exhaling Mr. Ogg nodded at me. "Mind if I chisel a butt off you?"
I arched an eyebrow. "Are your nerves shot, too?"
"No. The intoxicating scent of cured tobacco is better than sex."
"Very debatable." I pressed the wrinkled pack into his leathery palm. "Keep 'em. I’ve got a few more in the car."
"Thanks." Mr. Ogg sparked up his own coffin nail, vented the smoke, and knotted his lean jaw. "This scrote has gone too far."
"Nothing is private once it goes viral."
"God damn Web."
"Don't rupture a blood vessel, Mr. Ogg. This is easily fixable."
“Good.” He took up a manila envelope. "I've summarized the pertinent dope here."
I took the envelope and tapped it edgewise on my thigh. "Braille isn't my language."
"I dictated it to Rita. If you need her help, reach out to her."
There was an uptick in my pulse rate since Rita was hotter than little sister Gwen. "I'll get right on it."
As I heeled to go, he rapped the white cane on the plank floor. "Cool your jets, Tommy Mack." My look back saw he'd removed his breast pocket wallet from inside his jacket before the green bills in his gnarled hands fanned out. "Pick out a couple of twenties."
"Is this an advance?" My grin sly, I extracted two fifties.
"Buy a carton of cigarettes to keep you locked on this job. I want your full attention on it. Hear me?"
"Never louder and clearer."
"Excellent. Make the two fifties last you, too."
Hearing that froze my hand on the doorknob. "How did you know I took out two fifties instead of two twenties?"
Mr. Ogg smiled like a zoo carnivore when the dinner wagon rolls up. "I'm blind, but I can read you like Braille."
His spooky cleverness left my stomach queasy as I reentered the April morning. I took down a mental note to always watch my step around him.
W
hen I was a kid back in the 1960s, the Zanes, my adopted family in northern
Virginia
, sometimes drew fierce whispers and dirty looks whenever we ventured out into public. The COLORED signs had disappeared, but racial prejudice festered on. Amanda, my adopted mother, was a laid-back soul who didn't let it ruffle her. By marked contrast, Phil, my adopted father, grew defiant. He returned hot dagger stares as if daring anybody to voice their outrage or contempt over a black kid—me—raised in their white household. Nobody ever did.
The skin pigment issue didn't get to me until I entered junior high when the public schools were integrated in 1971. The other kids—older bullies too dense to get beyond adding on their fingers and toes—taunted me until my fists refused to back down. More than one bully got decked with a broken nose or busted jaw. Playing a psycho bad ass, I took to mumbling, touting a Hendrix Afro, and strutting with attitude. Fistfights escalated to switchblades. Before long, a .38 Special rode under my jacket.
"Man, is that steel just for show?" D. Noble (a snappier name than F. Scott, J. Edgar, or J. Paul) Yeatman, dark, tall, and slim as a pry bar, was my main homey. We spoke at our shared hall locker.
"The next fool who gives me any shit will find out."
"Don't be a chump. Guns kill. Killers rot behind bars. See what I'm talking about?"
"So, I just let the bullies and thugs beat on me?"
"Leave the steel under your mattress. If you run into trouble, get me, and we'll go handle it. I always got your back."
"Some trouble doesn't give me a timeout to go find you. I have to settle it on the spot."
D. Noble tapped me on the chest. "Who else knows you carry?"
"Just me and now you. Keep it that way."
"Teachers might eye you funny all zipped up in May and June."
I shrugged. "Thin blood runs in my family."
"You just love packing your steel."
"Next time I get cornered, I'll come out of it smoking."
D. Noble hatched a roguish grin. "Guess what. Brilliant minds think alike." He flipped up his shirttail, and I glimpsed the black polymer grips to the 9-mm wedged inside his waistband. He'd been messing with me. Again.
"So, bring it," I'd said, giving dap (a fist bump) with him.
This scene replayed, ending with a guilt pang that I hadn't called D. Noble in way too long. Seeing Gwen could wait for a spell. A cell phone would make communicating a breeze, say, while I sat idling at a red traffic light. My loathing cell phones had to end if just from a practical standpoint. Sooner than later, I knew this fossil had to relent and join the 21
st
century.
Until then, I kept a mental index of the city's dwindling pool of pay phones. Housing projects demanded their phones be kept operable. ABC stores were becoming less fruitful places to hunt them up. The old-line steak houses and taverns catering to the 55+ set offered their patrons the use of phones. One saloon—
Lincoln
's Dog Tavern—was the end unit at the upcoming strip mall. A wall phone was located inside the gloomy vestibule. While dialing, I'd a wistful remembrance of the three-slot coin (1¢, 5¢, and 10¢) phones back when a local call set you back a dime. Man, I was feeling old as the 80-foot T-Rex rack of bones collecting lint at the
Smithsonian
Museum
downtown.