Hustle (5 page)

“Quicker than givin’ ‘em to you one at a time.”

Donny got up and pulled on his jacket. He looked over his room. Dirty clothes, overflowing ashtrays, syringe caps, and empty bottles.

“Don’t worry, I ain’t gonna steal nothin’,” said Big Rich as he handed him the money for the two packs of smokes.

Donny hit the sidewalk. It was still sunny, but the wind had picked up. It howled through the corridors of the Tenderloin. A homeless man sat huddled near the front door of the hotel, trying hopelessly to light a match for a cigarette butt he’d plucked from the gutter.

“You got a light for this snipe?”
The dirty man held up the butt and pantomimed lighting it.

Donny looked at him as if
he spoke a different language.

A flat-sounding electric buzzer announced his
arrival in the store. The Pakistani man behind the counter got up and eyed him warily. Donny had never stolen from this store, not even a pack of gum, but the asshole behind the counter treated him like an arch-criminal every time he entered. Donny grabbed two chocolate bars—Snickers, his favorite, each bar was like a meal—and tossed them up on the counter. He asked the man for two packs of Marlboro Reds. The man rang it up, took the money, and made change without saying a word.

“Could I get some matches, too?”

The counter-man gave
a pained look and pulled a quarter from Donny’s change and tossed down a pack of matches.

“Fuck you,” said Donny very quickly.

“What did you say?”

“I said ‘T
hank you.” Donny said and repeated it again, “Thank you.”

Donny left the store and walked back to his hotel. The wind
, at his back now, was not quite as annoying. He flipped the matches to the bum at the doorway and said, “Good luck with that.”

The dirty man grunted thanks.

Donny opened the door to his room and saw Big Rich hunched over on the edge of the bed, his back to Donny, phone to his ear.

Donny shut the door quietly
.
“I am,” Rich said into the phone. “I know, I know … I do, just not yet … I’m working the door at a club, that’s how.” The voice in the phone buzzed near Rich’s ear. “A little, they have me do some bar-back shit, too. I’m getting my first check on the fifteenth, but I gotta pay the hotel and the corner-store guys.”

Donny listened to Rich’s lies, the life he’d constructed for himself. It didn’t seem that bad, the person he was pretending to be.
He spoke like a guy who cared about his kid, a guy who was trying his best. He almost wished Rich was that person; he’d be a friend he’d like to have.

“I am, baby, I’m working on it. How’s she doing?” he said into the phone. Rich listened for a long time before he said, “Can I talk to her?”

Donny could tell the woman on the other end was not going to let Rich talk to his daughter, the voice droned on and on, berating, nagging, he could tell by Rich’s posture. His friend practically wilted.

“Okay, okay,” said Rich,
“I’ll call you then.” There was a pause while the other voice said something else before Rich said, “Yes, I will … I’ll take care of it, you’ll see.”

Then Rich hit the end-
button on his phone and said, “Bitch.”

Chapter 5

Gabriel Thaxton sat in his office on the 23
rd
floor of 655 Montgomery Street facing the wide glass window that stretched from floor to ceiling. The office afforded him a view of most of the financial district. He often sat wondering what went on in the other offices in the high-rises around him. What the people in there did for a living, if it was wholesome busy-work they were able to leave in their offices each night, or if the cost of having a window on the world up at Gabriel’s altitude had a price tag. Like his did.

Gabriel
Thaxton, super-attorney, mega-counsel. He had climbed to the top of the ladder in the law game. He’d done it without looking back at the victims of the crimes from which he’d exonerated his clients. He’d ignored the death threats, he’d ignored the newspaper columns, he’d even ignored his conscience. Especially his conscience. He looked the other way when defending clients his gut told him had to be guilty. He clung to the idea that, no matter how guilty one may seem, one was entitled to the best defense that money could buy. He had to, that’s what a criminal defense attorney was. The facts weren’t always facts; it was the way one interpreted them.

His meek
, young receptionist knocked and opened the office door without waiting for a response. She faced the back of his seat, Gabriel being obscured by the leather back on the tall swivel chair. She noticed his coffee on the desk, cold and untouched.

“Mr.
Thaxton, sir. I cancelled your eleven o’clock meeting as you asked. Will there be anything else?”

Gabriel was about to say n
o, but then paused and, without turning around, said, “Beatrice, see if you can get a hold of Darrel Mayfield, tell him I’d like to have lunch, I’m buying.”

“Bear?
Sure thing, Mr. Thaxton.” The receptionist liked Bear. He was always friendly when he came into the office, flirting with her in a good-natured way. She knew he was potentially dangerous and had an extensive history with the firm, but he was a likeable character who had an ease about him she found refreshing and in direct contrast from their usual clientele.

Beatrice closed the door gently and returned to her desk. She clicked on the client file on her desktop computer and scrolled down to Bear’s number, picked up the phone and dialed.

The phone rang and rang before someone picked up and a gruff voice responded, “Yeah.”

“Could I speak to Mr. Mayfield,
please?”

“Mr. Mayfield? Who’s this?”
The voice sounding playful now, coy.

“Mr. Mayfield? This is G
abriel Thaxton’s office calling.”

“
Thaxton? Is that you, Bean? Sweet little brown-eyed Bean? How you doing, girl?”

Beatrice giggled. She loved the nickname he’d given her. She had always hated her
first name; it sounded archaic and stuffy.

“Yes, Bear, it is. Mr.
Thaxton was wondering if he could maybe meet with you for a late lunch.”

“You tell the old man that I’m not in town.”

“But,” said Beatrice, not sure if she was overstepping her bounds, “I called you at home.”

“I know, just walk in there and tell him and see what he says. I’ll hold.”

She did as she was asked and put Mr. Mayfield on hold and walked back to her boss’s office. Gabriel was sitting there in the same position, facing the window.

“Sir, Mr. Mayfield says he’s not in town.”

“Did you call him at home?”

“Yes,” said Beatrice.

“Okay, okay. Tell him I’d still like to see him anyway. Tell him at our usual spot.”

Beatrice went back to her desk and took Bear off hold.

“Bear? He says he’d still like to see you.”

“Okay, you got it.”

“Oh, and he said to tell you, at the usual spot.”

“Not in the office?
Dang, that means I won’t be able to see your sweet brown eyes, Bean.”

She giggled
again. He told her he’d meet the old man at three o’clock and hung up.

***

After hanging up the phone, Bear stood in his small kitchen rubbing his belly. When Thaxton called it meant he wanted something. Usually drugs. The man had friends in need and Bear didn’t judge or question him about it. He did what he could to fill the old man’s requests. This time, Bear let him know that he was out-of-pocket and the old fucker still wanted to see him. What did that slippery fuck want this time? Bear had no open cases, hadn’t been arrested in three years. He owed the old man money, technically, but the firm wasn’t hurting so he dismissed that as a reason. No, he wouldn’t have called if he didn’t need a favor.

Bear opened up his fridge and pulled out a
long-neck Budweiser, then decided he’d better wait till after lunch. He stood there a moment, thinking maybe he should have set the lunch earlier. It was a forty-five minute drive from his little shack hidden up in the Marin hills; he could easily make it by one. He walked to his bedroom and pulled a black T-shirt from his drawer, nearly identical to the one he was wearing, and changed his shirt. Now he was ready for lunch with the lawyer.

***

It was an older taqueria in the Mission and not one of the better ones. It was one of the only places that still had booths and wasn’t set up like a cafeteria. The food was average, as were the prices. There were so many taquerias on 24
th
Street. The competition was stiff and this place just didn’t have any fight left. That kept the joint quiet; perfect for indiscreet meets with clients who didn’t always feel at-home in the expensive tie-only spots in Union Square.

Gabriel sat in a booth near the back. He sipped a
strawberry
aqua fresca
and kept his eye on the entrance. At about ten minutes to three, his old friend Bear walked in through the door. Bear was big, bearded, and ugly, but always carried an almost jolly air. Thaxton admired someone who was so comfortable in their own skin. He waved him over to the booth and stayed seated as he shook Bear’s meaty hand.
“Gabe, my man.”

“How you doing, Bear?
Sit down.”

“Not till I get a beer first. You want
somethin’?”

Gabriel pointed to the
aqua fresca
and shook his head.

“I meant to eat, counselor.”

Gabriel told him to order whatever he wanted and to just get some chips and salsa with it. Bear did. He ordered a super
carnitas burrito
, a
carne asada quesadilla
, two long-neck Budweisers, and, almost as an after-thought, chips and salsa.

“You on a diet, Bear?” said
Gabriel.

“You’re
kinda long-winded, I want to be prepared.”

They made small talk
while they waited for the food, Bear draining his first beer. What small talk they could make, anyway. There wasn’t much the fifty-year-old biker and the lawyer had in common other than their legal entanglements.

The food arrived and Bear took a pull from his second beer and started eating. He peeled back the tinfoil on the burrito
and took huge bites, leaving dabs of sour cream and guacamole in his beard.

Gabriel watched him eat for
several minutes before he spoke, “I have a problem.”

“Sorry to hear that;
I hope I’m not it,” Bear said with a mouth full of food.

“No, but I was hoping that you could help me with the solution.
”

Be
ar set down the burrito, “I know, or you wouldn’t have dragged my old ass down here today.”

***

Donny and Rich’s lives ground on in a short cycle of copping, getting high, turning tricks, hiding from the world, then getting sick. Their time was marked by hours, not days. Once the idea of exploiting Gabriel had taken root in their minds, it was hard for them to return to their previous existence.

They didn’t hear from
Gabriel for nearly a week. Big Rich even tried to call him on the cell number logged in his incoming calls, but there was no answer. Rich assured Donny that he’d be back, the plan was still on. The boys went out and got the memory chip for Rich’s cell and waited for the phone to ring.

Time wore on and Donny began to give up on the old lawyer. Maybe he spooked the guy. He told Rich they shou
ld start looking for a new mark; there had to be more than a few out there in the endless parade of johns.

“No, Donny, he’s the guy, I’m telling you. I feel it. He’ll be back
. He’s an addict and this is his drug,” Big Rich said as he grabbed his crotch. “You’ll see.”

***

Bear, too, didn’t hear from Gabriel Thaxton. After the sick shit the lawyer told him that afternoon at the taqueria, he figured he’d hear from him right away. You call an exterminator, why keep living with bugs? Or, Bear thought, he’d never hear from him again. Maybe the shame kept him from calling. He knew the old guy had some weird habits and unsavory friends—why else would he need all that speed? But he wasn’t prepared for the confession he got over lunch that day. This wasn’t his thing. He’d done some dirt for his biker buddies, but the kind of thing that Gabriel asked was out of his comfort zone.

Bear tried to forget about it. He went back to doing what he did
best; sit around his secluded house, smoke dope, drink beer, and watch satellite TV. He’d tinker with his three Harley’s. Two he kept in the garage and one in parts spread across his living room floor. A lifetime on bikes had taught him how to assemble every nut and bolt on the machines.

All three
bikes seemed to be apart more than they were together, so he kept his little Toyota running for business. The Harleys drew heat anyway. As much as he loved to ride, he preferred being in a car when he hauled weed back from Mendocino County. Besides, his saddlebags weren’t big enough for the sizes of the loads he brought back. He’d made a run up north a few weeks before so he still had cash; no need to worry about making more until he needed to. His expenses were low while he was isolated. He had dope to smoke from the run, beer stockpiled, and he cooked his meals at home.

He was com
fortable where he was in life, respected by his peers and left alone by everyone else. His wild days behind him, he could now afford to spend time doing the things he never thought he’d enjoy, like watching golf, getting sucked into soap operas, and not drinking till mid-afternoon. His only social activity was his occasional visit to a bar on the highway near his house. It was the closest thing Marin had to a honky-tonk. There was a waitress who worked the bar. He was trying to get close to her. That was all the action he needed. For now.

It was out of sheer boredom one sunny afternoon that he decided to do a little web-surfing and find out what he could about Gabriel
Thaxton’s house guest. He sat down at the computer, woke up the monitor, brought up the search engine, and typed in the kid’s name.
Dustin Walczak
. He’d scrawled the name on a napkin at the taqueria and made a crack about the kid being a Polack. Gabriel didn’t laugh, didn’t even try to fake it.

The search brought up a number of results.
Find Dustin Walczak on Facebook!
People Finder—sign up to join!
Bear scrolled down till he glimpsed Thaxton’s name with an entry. He clicked. It was an article from the
San Francisco Chronicle
dated August 19
th
, 2004. It showed a picture of a scrawny pock-marked kid, a mug shot. Underneath was the caption:
Derek “Dustin” Walzcak at the time of his arrest
. Ugly little fucker, thought Bear. How’d Thaxton let a little shit like this get under his skin?

Bear began to
skim through the piece. Dustin, it seemed, had been charged with three murders that occurred down on the peninsula in the summer of 2004. Three separate killings on three separate dates. And Thaxton, of course, was his council. Bear wondered how the little fuck could afford a big-league attorney like Thaxton. He read on. The bodies of the victims, all in their thirties, were found in their respective homes. Each had been tortured, then mutilated. This was the only connection among the crimes: the twisted M.O. Bear moved the mouse to a link near the bottom of the page that said,
The Victims
. Photos popped up on his screen of the three men, all square-jawed yuppie-types with jobs and homes in Silicon Valley. The article contained no crime-scene photos, only the posed pictures that they always posted for sympathy in these kinds of things. One was a high-school graduation picture. Another was from a family portrait where the wife and kids were blurred. Why blur out the family, wondered Bear. The captions gave brief summaries of the victims’ lives, their families, and the potential taken from them when the killer wandered into their lives. Bear clicked back to the original article and decided to give it another read.