The Deadly Kiss-Off Read online

  Stan jumped to his feet. “Christ! How long we been gone? Alice has probably given away the store. I gotta get back to the table, Glen. Come with me for a while, will ya? We gotta talk this out some more.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ve got nothing on tap.” I explained about Nellie being off on a buying trip in Cape Verde.

  “Okay, we’ll hang out after the market closes, just like two single guys. You can be my wingman. And listen, this job of mine is not as small potatoes as it looks. It’s gonna lead to something bigger. That merchandise is not stolen.”

  “No? How can you sell it so cheap, then?”

  Stan leaned across the plastic table, his beer breath a pungent fog. “They’re fakes,” he whispered.

  5

  As we trotted back to Stan’s table to check in on Alice, I pondered Stan’s revelation. Aside from those bogus C-notes foisted on me at Vin Santo’s speakeasy, I had not had much firsthand experience with counterfeit goods. I knew that knockoffs were generally available across a broad spectrum of products. I recalled recent headlines about local cops breaking up a ring that sold fake Oakley sunglasses. My only other encounter with such stuff had been to buy a football jersey once from a vendor hanging around the fringes of the stadium parking lot. When I got it home, I noticed that the team’s hometown was misspelled on the back. And the thing fell apart after two wash cycles.

  Stan’s line of fake pocketbooks might be constructed better than that, but I wasn’t going to buy one for Nellie. She deserved the real deal.

  At the table, the dowdy, abstracted woman named Alice sat fervidly smoking. The array of handbags now had a gap or three.

  Stan spoke sternly. “Alice, did you sell anything?”

  “Nuh-uh, Stan. Nobody bought anything.”

  He did not bother to contest Alice’s statement or upbraid her, as if he knew that such tactics would be fruitless. Instead, he kicked the table leg. “God damn it! There’s definitely a few items gone since we left, and she’s probably got the bills stuffed down her frigging bra. Which is territory I’m not exploring.”

  “What’s the story?” I said.

  “Alice is Gunther’s wife. He’s the guy I work for. She’s half nuts. Early dementia. Part of my job description is to take her off Gunther’s hands while I’m here at the flea market, so he gets a few hours’ relief. He doesn’t give her any money, because she just spends it crazy or gives it away or loses it. So she’s always looking to scam some. By the time I drive us back to Gunther’s, she will have hidden the money somewhere, and I’ll be on the hook for it. She’s like some kind of goddamn magician when it comes to making cash disappear. One time, Gunther lost fifty bucks from around the house, and he found it six months later inside a bag of dry cat food.”

  While Stan itemized her peculiarities, Alice continued to smoke with zealous contentment, simply ignoring us as if we were discussing someone not present.

  “Let me make up for the loss.”

  “No way.”

  “C’mon, Stan, I want to. Just let me do it. Here’s two hundred. Will that cover it?”

  Stan looked genuinely embarrassed. “Yeah, that’ll do.” He took the cash. “You know this is just a loan, right? I’m in line to earn some decent dough once the right job comes up. There’s an assignment from Gunther I can’t handle yet, because of the travel limits that ballbuster Paget has laid on me. Same reason I can’t go down to Hedgesville right now and straighten out this Sandralene mess. But that’s all over with next month. I’ll be a free man again! Hey, you must be suffering from the same thing, right? That’s why you’re not with Nellie.”

  “Exactly.”

  The fact that I chafed under the same curtailment of liberty, despite being much better off financially, seemed to lift Stan’s spirits a bit. Misery loving company, and all that. He clapped me heartily on the back.

  “Glen, my man, seeing you again has made me remember that I ain’t dead yet. We did something wild and great in the past together, and I got a feeling that big things are waiting just around the corner for both of us again.”

  “Don’t get any ideas about roping me into selling fake perfume or bras or golf clubs with you, Stan. Those penny-ante rackets are not my preferred line of work.”

  Deflating a tad, Stan said, “I know, I know; it’s not mine, either. But it’s all I got right now. No, I realize that what you and me need and want is a big score.”

  “Well, sure,” I said. “I’ll listen when you’ve got something, I guess. I mean, what could it hurt? I can always say no.”

  Stan slapped my back again with thumping force. “Sweet! That’s all I ask. Now, let’s grab a seat and shoot the shit while we fleece some rubes.”

  Stan borrowed a spare folding chair from a neighboring vendor, and we joined the imperturbable Alice behind the display of faux designer wares. For the next few hours, along with handling a steady flow of sales, Stan and I caught each other up with what had been going on in our lives during the past year, as well as reminiscing about the improbable covert machinery we had designed to serve justice unto Barnaby Nancarrow—the thing that had first yoked us together.

  Around four, the crowds started to thin, and Stan said, “I got a feeling there’s not many more sales left today. Guess it’s time to pack up.”

  I helped disassemble the setup. With the wares boxed and the table legs folded, everything fitted neatly onto a dirty-carpet-cushioned dolly that had been stashed under the table.

  “Let’s go, Alice.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Back home. To Gunther.”

  “That’s my husband.”

  “Yes, true, such is the poor bastard’s fate.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll go.”

  I was struck by the genuine empathy—leavened with irreverence, of course—that Stan showed toward Alice, despite all the trouble she had caused him. Yet another peculiarity of his complicated personality.

  Stan wheeled the dolly off, leaving Alice and me to follow.

  In the vendors’ vehicle lot, we stopped at a Dodge Ram cargo van, vintage circa 2005. Its paint job might once have been forest green but was now the color of wan celery. Stan unlocked the doors and helped Alice into the passenger seat, making sure to buckle her in. Then he opened the rear door and began offloading the dolly.

  “How’s about you get your car and wait at the entrance here, then follow me.”

  “Sure.”

  By the time I retrieved my car—no longer the ancient Impala I had inherited from my uncle Ralph, but a handsome nebula-gray pearl Lexus IS—Stan was idling at the curb. He spotted me and took off slowly.

  We ended up in that district of the city known as La Punta, the Point. Not the most savory part of town. Stan pulled up outside a warehouse. He got out, helped Alice debouch, and then unlocked the big padlock securing the building’s garage-style doors.

  “This is where I stash the truck, so nobody busts into it during the night. Then I walk Alice home—it’s just a few blocks—and then I walk myself home.”

  “No wheels of your own?”

  “Not precisely at this exact moment in time, no.”

  “Well, today anyhow, you and Alice ride in style.”

  “Much obliged.”

  Stan threw back the double doors and drove the truck in. I got a quick gander at neat ranks of industrial shelving, rising up to the ceiling and loaded with scores of cartons.

  If those all contained fake handbags, they represented a considerable investment of capital.

  After Stan had resecured the building, we all drove to Mercer Street, where elderly brownstones lined up on parallel dirty sidewalks and consorted with a botanica, a liquor store, a check-cashing operation, and a Dollar Store, among other fine mercantile establishments.

  Alice’s husband, Gunther, must have been watching from the first-floor window o
f their apartment in one of the better-maintained buildings, because he opened the door before we could ring the bell. He was a harried-looking middle-aged guy, pear-shaped and with thinning hair, dressed in corduroy pants, a flannel shirt, and a sweater that matched his wife’s. But he did not exhibit Alice’s befuddlement by any means as he cast a sharp and suspicious look my way.

  Stan introduced me as an old pal, and Gunther lightened up some. Only then did he turn solicitously to his wife, ushering her gently inside. He returned to receive the sales proceeds Stan had collected, and paid Stan his cut. No W-2 forms necessary in this enterprise, I could see.

  “Thanks for everything, Stanley,” he said. “It does me a world of good to have a little time alone. You up for tomorrow and next weekend, too?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  Back in my car, I said, “‘Stanley’?”

  “Are you questioning my mother’s taste in baby names, son?”

  “Not at all. I just never thought of you as a Stanley. Kinda high-toned and delicate, isn’t it?”

  “And there, my friend, you underestimate me again.”

  6

  I drove Stan the three or four shabby blocks of grimy La Punta to his place, a nondescript tenement building noticeably more rundown than Gunther’s flat. I didn’t express any reaction to the crappy lodgings, but Stan nonetheless felt the need to offer a mildly defensive comment, accompanied with a wry grin.

  “It’s still fucktons nicer than where I grew up in the Gulch.”

  “Always moving on up.”

  After leaving Stan at the door of his apartment, I drove to my place to change clothes for our night out. After I picked up Stan around seven, we tooled in leisurely fashion through town and out to a nice restaurant on the waterfront, just outside the city limits. A seafood place named Monte Cara, it was owned by Cape Verdean friends of Nellie’s. Although our city did not boast the large immigrant population of Centerdale (Nellie’s hometown upstate), we were seeing growing numbers of Caboverde folks as residents, providing a growing local market for Nellie’s imports.

  After he had tucked away enough delicious exotic food to bloat three college linebackers, Stan sat back with a groan of contentment.

  “Man, I could get used to this lifestyle again. You know, I barely had six months of high living on that MGM payout dough before everything went kerflooey.”

  “I am truly sorry, Stan,” I said. “I wish you had called me for some advice about that investment.”

  “Hell, I was too damn proud. I wanted to show you I could play your kinda game and win big.”

  This seemed a natural opening. “Stan, do you want to borrow some money to get back on your feet?”

  “Fuck no! I did this to myself—and to Sandy, too, which is what really hurts—and I’m gonna get out of it myself.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I understand completely.”

  “Never thought you wouldn’t. But I appreciate the offer anyhow.”

  The rest of the evening passed in a pleasant, boozy succession of clubs, and when I left Stan at his place around 4:00 a.m., we sloppily vowed to do it again soon.

  But I did not see Stan again for several weeks. When I gave him my phone number, he sheepishly confessed that he lacked a phone himself, being flat broke and a bad credit risk. Neither did he have a working credit card. Everything in his life was strictly cash-and-carry these days. For someone who had once been just as compulsively wired as the next social-media junkie, this deficit was shocking. But he just shrugged it off.

  “I was relying on Sandy’s cell, but she took it with her. Now I borrow Gunther’s when I want to talk to her. I figured you’d understand, out of anyone. Once upon a time, you were all Mr. Antismartphone Guy, with your antique flip phone and shit.”

  I recalled those old days with a twinge of chagrin at my self-righteousness. “Yes, that was pretty smarmy and stupid of me.”

  “Just keep reminding yourself. ‘Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.’”

  I laughed. “Where’d you hear that?”

  Deadpan, Stan replied, “Somebody else said it first?”

  “A Frenchman about a hundred years ago.”

  “A hundred fucking years ago? That’s so outta copyright!”

  Stan did not feel free handing out Gunther’s number, so I was relying on him to call me, but he never did. And as the days ran into weeks, I just assumed that he was either too busy or too embarrassed to accept my convivial charity—or maybe even jealous and disgusted that I had managed to retain my relative wealth and my woman. Whatever the case, there was no use in forcing the relationship if he didn’t feel like it, so I just let the silence build.

  And besides, I had my own life to attend to.

  Nellie returned from Cape Verde a few days after my surprise encounter with Stan. I picked her up at the airport and found her exhausted but elated. After a big hug and an enthusiastic wet kiss, she said, “Oh, minha nossa! Glen, you would not believe what I accomplished on this trip. I got a whole factory off the ground!”

  When Nellie and I had first started this business, she trimmed her explosion of dark frizzy curls into a more businesslike cut, which complemented her sweet, heart-shaped face the color of crème brûlée even more than did the untamed mass of her immature days. I laid my hand against her cheek and said, “Let’s get home and you can tell me all about it right away.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know you are so, like, very hot to listen to big, boring talk about zoning laws and bank loans before you jump my skinny bones!”

  Such talk here by the baggage carousel was making me anticipate more private surroundings.

  “I am indeed eager to listen to such commercial chatter, but maybe second.”

  “Well, guess what.”

  “What?”

  “Meu cona is gonna do the talking first!”

  In bed afterward, Nellie, naked, suddenly jumped up and ran to her unopened luggage. I admired every angle and quiver of her active, agile form. She came back with a small squat can, from which she pulled the pop top. She dug her forefinger into the dark fragrant goop inside and made me lick the stuff off.

  “Holy Christ, is that delicious! What is it?”

  “Doce de café. Coffee pudding, made with coffee from Fogo.”

  Fogo is one of the islands that make up Cape Verde, and we were already importing bags of their unique beans, one of our best-selling items.

  Nellie explained. “I knew this stuff would go over big, but you could only get it fresh till now, in a restaurant there or maybe here. No one thought of canning it. Not quite as good as fresh, but it’s still great.”

  I had to agree. A little qualm overtook me. “So what did it take to make this happen?”

  Nellie looked adorably serious, or seriously adorable. “I had to write a check for fifty thousand, Glen. That’s our investment in the factory. I hope that was okay. You know it’s all to help my people, right? They are so poor on the islands. Here as well, but not quite so much. Anyhow, we are going to get rich, too. Not right away, but eventually!”

  “Yes, sure, of course.”

  But even as I said it—and meant it—I couldn’t help doing the math. Fifty thousand was one tenth of our capital. I was certain we’d get it all back, plus profits. For an untutored gal only twenty-some years old, Nellie had a visionary entrepreneur’s head as good as Elon Musk’s. She had never taken a wrong step yet. But the tight margins and limits on our funds still made me nervous. I wanted not to have to worry about such piddling amounts. I wanted the freedom represented by the five million dollars that had actually been in my hands before everything fell apart.

  As I finished licking the pudding off Nellie’s fingers and my own, I couldn’t help wondering how Stan was doing with those plans of his for a big score of some kind.

  Fee
ling a little guilty about entertaining such thoughts during—or at least, immediately before—our lovemaking, I told Nellie later that evening about meeting up with our old friend.

  “That is so great!” she said. “How is he doing? Can we see him and Sandy soon? I want them to try the doce de café, too!”

  I explained Stan’s current situation to Nellie, and she immediately expressed concern.

  “Oh, no, Glen, this is too sad! We have to help them!”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m doing all I can. But I have to wait for Stan to call me.”

  “Okay. Just don’t wait too long. Maybe you could drive over there.”

  But I didn’t have to drive over to see Stan, because he drove over to see me.

  In an eighteen-wheeler as big as a humpback whale.

  7

  The enthusiastic blaring of Zeus’ own air horn brought me to the window of our condo a day or two after Nellie’s return. I’d swear I could feel the building shake, although that was surely just my imagination. Looking out past the nice blue-and-white embroidered curtains Nellie had found—after dragging me along on a daylong purgatory of shopping at stores such as West Elm and Pottery Barn—I saw the big rig parked at a slant across a dozen reserved spaces in the condo’s lot. Luckily, at this midday hour, all the possessive and litigious owners of those spots were at work.

  Standing outside the tractor’s cab, clad in matching sand-colored work pants and jacket, his feet encased in safety boots that would have looked big on Dr. Frankenstein’s creation, stood Stan, yanking on the horn’s lanyard and wearing a smile as broad as the Mississippi.

  I opened the window and hollered out, “Hey, lay off! This isn’t the stockyards! I’ll be right down!”

  Just to demonstrate that he could not be forced to do anything against his own desires, Stan triggered one final resonant blast, then gave me the finger.