They Tell Me I'm The Bad Guy Read online

  "Will you turn your phone off?" Tracey snapped at me.

  I turned it off and flashed a scowl at Spencer. "I think we're making this a lot harder than it has to be--" I started to say, but Tracey cut me off mid-sentence.

  "Is there anybody out there who, like, can do several things combined?" she asked herself loudly. Jim rattled some names off of a secured FBI Post-Human catalog, but Tracey shot them all down. "We need Lee for this," she said, rubbing her temples. "He's supposed to be good at creative B&E. We need him here, where the fuck is he?" So she was gonna put this all on him and make it his fault she couldn't come up with shit. That was fucking Tracey to a T.

  She slammed her purse on the table and dug out her phone. "You guys take a break. I need to make a call. Keep trying to get in touch with Lee."

  Spencer and I stepped out of the conference room. I headed my ass straight out of the building, pack of smokes in hand and lit one up as soon as I hit fresh air. I made my way over to the fire and water show on the lakefront.

  The jets of fire shot upward for an audience gathered around.

  I texted Will on my phone: THIS IS BULLSHIT.

  He buzzed back: U GET $ YET?

  NO. THAT GIRL CALL U YET W/UR $?

  Buzz. N.

  I let that be my 'I told you so.' ANY NEWS ABT THE FIRE?

  NTHNG NEW. NO COPS @ MY DOOR ETHR.

  I punched in: NVR AGAIN....FIND A JOB.

  IS UR WRK HIRNG?

  Well, that had fucking backfired. If he only knew. NO.

  "Hey," Spencer said behind me, startling the shit out of me. "Want to hear something funny?"

  I texted Will LTR and put my phone away. "Stop texting me in there, all right? You're gonna get us both sent to the fucking Pacific."

  "She'll never know. She's too busy trying to pull her head out of her ass. Want to hear something funny?"

  Christ. "Sure, man. What."

  His eyes lit up. "I was in the middle of a major instance playing World of Warcraft in there that I've been planning and getting set up for three days. Some asshole has ganked one of the characters in my party five times and he keeps rezzing out in BFE and can't get back to rest of them. Everything's going to fucking respawn by the time he gets back there. So I found this asshole's IP, got his name, social and address; I put a worm on his computer that'll crash his system, wired half his savings to an Al-Qaeda bank account in Pakistan, vandalized three Fortune 50 homepages from his computer and added him to the National Sex Offender Registry."

  Why the fuck did I talk to these people? "For killing you in a video game?" I clarified.

  The joy fell off his face when he didn't get my approval. "Yeah. He's an asshole. If he's like that online, he's worse in real life." He got quiet before he came up with, "Is your friend having problems with his girlfriend or something? She owes him money?"

  I shoved him away from me. "Leave my phone the fuck alone. Stay out of it and out of my shit. Stop messaging me in the damn meeting, don't touch my fucking bank accounts, none of my shit, or I will hunt your ass down, do you understand me?"

  His posture shrank. "Okay, Donald. I won't text you in the meeting. Tracey's about to send you a message," he said, then walked off. The little shit.

  My phone buzzed again. YOU SHOULD KILL HER - JIM.

  Fucking asshole.

  The phone buzzed again, this time from Tracey: I FOUND LEE. GTF BACK HERE ASAP.

  Chapter 8

  Easy Doesn't Live Here

  Will picked me up at the Cincinnati airport.

  On my flight home, I got asked several times by a steward to please keep my voice down after I'd had more than a few drinks during my layover and decided to voice my opinion about the plane sitting on the runway for an hour. Clive Kimball almost got his ass ejected from the plane and left in Chicago. He also talked a nice old lady's ear off about this bitch he used to be fuck buddies with that was a total cunt now.

  I threw my suitcases in Will's backseat, put the window down and lit a cigarette, blowing the delicious smoke out into my Ohio air. Will pulled out right in front of an airport shuttle.

  "I just got back and you're already doing stupid shit?"

  "Settle down, Francine. I had plenty of room." He said this as he roared the car up to fifty in a twenty zone. "Hell, I should have let him hit us so you could sue and get some money out of this trip. Call that guy on TV. 'I'll fight for you . . . and I won't quit. Period.' Jackass."

  I exhaled smoke right in his face. "Huh? I wasn't listening."

  "Man, blow that shit out the window." He took a sip from the beer he had in his lap. "You need to call that dude and hit him up for the cash you lost because of him instead of taking it out on me."

  "I'm not gonna call him."

  "Want me to drive to St. Louis and beat his ass?"

  "I want you to drive in a straight fucking line if that's possible."

  Tracey turned up that Lee hadn't come back to the meeting for a good reason. He had gotten drunk on a bottle of Patron from the conference room Sunday night and t-boned his car into a minivan at two in the morning. He had priors and an outstanding warrant in the state, so after the fire department cut him out of his car, he resisted arrest, every dog within half a mile that wasn't fenced in came to attack the cops, and Lee was tazed into unconsciousness so they could throw him into a holding cell at the Hollister Police Department. They weren't talking about him being Post-Human, even with the dog thing, he had apparently been able to keep that under wraps during his earlier arrests, but every minute he stayed in custody was another minute for them to find out and call the SCEIA and their psychics.

  Right off the bat, Tracey started her shit about 'dealing with Lee's situation.'

  I was fairly Scotched-up by that point. "Tracey, just cut him the fuck loose from this group. It was a DUI. There's nothing for them to get suspicious about. He's not gonna tell them shit."

  "Are you fucking high right now?" was her response to that.

  "Don't fuck with him. Or you and me will have problems."

  "We already have a problem. Lee knows way too much about all this to be talking to cops."

  "He's not 'talking to cops,' he's sitting in a fucking cell. Just, fuck, Tracey, just take my fee, all right? Take my fee," I dug out the thousand bucks she had given me the day before and put it on the table. "Here, take your money back, take my $5500, shit, take whatever my cut would have been for the job. Leave Lee alone. Add that money back in to your budget to make it work, but leave him alone. I'm telling your right now; leave him alone."

  She scooped the hundreds up off the table and recounted them like I had fucking shorted her. "I'm not paying his bail," she said.

  Damn bitch, man. "Fine. Take it his bail out of his share of the job and his fee."

  "If you're prepared to vouch for him, then that's where we are."

  "I'm not--for fuck's sake, just leave him alone. Don't fuck with him. That's where we are. Don't turn this into London."

  "If that's what you want, Don."

  After that, she still couldn't shut the fuck up about Lee and kept going on about the whole thing. Just making shitty comments under her breath about him and all kinds of crap. We got into a shouting match, and I finally left telling her to go fuck herself and slamming the conference room door. I had already told her how to deal with the fucking vault door. They could figure the rest of the shit out themselves.

  Not even twenty steps out the fucking door, and she texted me that she would be in touch as to what my part in the job would be, which she would have to figure out without me because I had decided I was 'too good to help plan.' I walked for two hours, probably muttering with rage like a crazy homeless person, trying to calm myself down. I just stayed in my hotel room until my flight home.

  Will put us on the highway back north, tailgating the fuck out of people. "Are you really not gonna tell me what the job was?" he asked like it was inevitable I was gonna spill my guts to him.

  I ignored him.

  "Ju
st give me a hint."

  "Shut the fuck up."

  "Just tell me."

  I flicked my cigarette at his face, "No, dick."

  "You owe me, man. I'm driving your ass around and staying on stand-by to help you out for days. And you won't even tell me about where you've been living it up while I did that?"

  Fucking Will and his damn pouty shit. "I'll tell you to go fuck yourself and shut up. You pick which order you do it."

  He dropped me at my place and stopped answering my calls after that because he was too busy sulking like a kid.

  I went back to work and started hitting this bar by the factory before I went home every day. Four days after I was back on the line, I got called into some shit meeting about my breaks getting too long and my errors spiking since I had taken bereavement time for my 'aunt's funeral.' Helen from HR thought I might need to see a grief counselor. I played along and tried not to look irritated with the whole thing.

  A week after the meeting in Branson, drinking beer alone at my place became a nightly thing after I came home from the bar. I kept searching the Internet for stuff about the Wilmont fire, checking to see if Lee's name came up in an obituary or anything and searched Tracey's name with nothing coming up about her from anywhere. Every time I heard people pass my door, I turned down the TV because I thought it might be cops about to battering ram it down. Will didn't return my calls or texts, and I still hadn't heard shit from Tracey about the job. I didn't care if she included me or not but the not knowing was killing me. I texted her about it but she didn't text me back.

  Nine days after Branson, a knock came at my door at about eleven o'clock at night. I turned down the basketball game on TV and set my beer down. This was it. This had to be it. But on the other side of the peephole in the door, some bald, hairless, tattooed Hispanic kid in shorts and a wife beater with a fat duffel bag slung over his shoulder stood alone in the amber circle of the security light on the wall. He kept looking around like a bird.

  "The fuck is this?" I asked myself.

  I eased the door open a crack. "Yeah?"

  "HeymancanIcomein?"

  "What?"

  "Hey, Don-nie. CanIcome in?"

  The kid's bald head had been burned red by sun and wind. All his hair including his damn eyebrows had been shaved off. His hands never stopped moving and twitching restlessly. The shoes were some kind of thick, padded, customs they didn't sell in stores. And he talked ninety miles an hour.

  A fucking speeder at my door. I hated these fuckers more than fliers and psychics.

  I did not need this shit. "Look, man, I don't know what this--"

  His shoulders slumped for a half-second before he cut me off. "Rory. Rory, youknow him-m, right?"

  God dammit. Even dead, Kamikaze managed to do his best to fuck me over.

  "Sorry," I shook my head. "Don't know anybody named Rory."

  The kid had no patience and couldn't hide it. "I knowyouknowhim, man. Okay?" He laughed a rapid-fire cackle. "You knowhim, you know." He put his hands out in front of him and lifted one leg up like he was flying. "You know," he laughed. "He's a talkybitch. C'mon,man, canIjust come-canIjustcomein?"

  "It's late, and I'm going to bed. I got to go to work in the mor--"

  The kid put his hand on the door and pushed against me. Hard.

  "JustcanI come in for a minute?Ijustneed to sit down for aminute. Rorysaidyouwereallright."

  "Rory lied. I'm not all right. And let go of my fucking door," I raised my voice, "Before I turn this into a big scene that all my neighbors feel like they need to call the cops about."

  His eyes darted, looking to see if anybody had taken notice of us. "Ijustneeda . . . I just. Need. A. Place. To. Restaminute. Okay? Youcan helpaguylikeme out, right?" His eyes looked into me as he smiled with bared teeth. "Comeon, man. A favorfromold school to newschool." He raised his voice, "Youdon'twantyour neighbors knowingwho'sliving here,right,Biest?"

  Nobody was outside, nobody watching. And I didn't hear any sirens like someone was after the kid.

  "You got five minutes," I told him. "Then you're gone, and you don't give my name to any-fucking-body."

  He nodded. "Yeahman,yeahman,that'scool."

  And I let a fucking speeder into my home. He stank like buckets of sweat. And the little motherfucker sat his smelly ass down right on my damn couch.

  "Shit, thatA/Cfeelsgood," he said, laying his head back and shutting his eyes. His chest vibrated like a hummingbird's.

  "You running from somebody?" I asked him. "Am I gonna have cops coming here?"

  He laughed. "Shiiit.Yougotnoidea,man.ButI'm wayahead of 'em. Noworries." Inside, away from anyone else that might see him, he started moving his natural, disorienting speed. Trying to keep up with a guy who was so fast he blurred half the time nearly made me nauseous. Every five seconds he had his keyboard phone out checking his e-mail, surfing the internet, looking out my window, flipping through my DVDs, shifting in his seat. I couldn't even keep watching him because it hurt my eyes. He actually caused a draft in my living room.

  "Ibeenrunnin'allday. Startedin Mexico, crazyshitdown there, told'emI'dcome checkyouout. Fedspoppeduponme inArizona thisafternoon."

  "Feds?" That was the only damn word I could pick out of all of that.

  "DEA,youknow. Hey,canIborrow somewater?"

  "Sure." I went into the kitchen and filled a glass from the faucet. DEA. Perfect.

  "I can run adozenkilos atatime across theborder. Dothat forty or fifty timesanight, andIcan transport alotofstuff. Nopaperwork,novehicles, I'ma one-man operation and nobody can trackmeatthespeedsI go."

  He snatched the glass of water out of my hand and chugged the whole thing down, elbowed past me and drank three more full glasses of water before he checked his e-mail again. Then he dropped the glass in my sink and cracked the damn thing.

  Next he showed off the prison tattoo on his left shoulder blade. Speedy Gonzalez giving the finger with a blue 13 above it and the letters BP below. Classy. He had another one across his back in Old English print, flanked by curved spikes: W.C.S.C. RIFA.

  "West Coast Supervillain Crew," he said. "That'swhoIrollwith."

  Jesus fucking Christ, kids had gotten stupid.

  "Yeah, meandRoryand someotherguys. Werollthewestcoast,mostlyCali. Andwe'regettingtogetheran EastCoast crew, too. Nationwidelike a motherfucker,man. Youinterested? Wecouldmake you a,uh,satindisciple,y'know, whenwe pull everybodyalliedwith LaGranRaza over there. We'll takethatshitover in notime."

  I glanced at the brick pattern tattooed on his left shoulder and FC on his right. He had done time.

  He noticed me checking them out and lifted the front of his shirt. Below the ESCO over his heart, a bleeding cross with a blue 187 on it was tattooed on his stomach, surrounded by a couple dozen blue flowers.

  "A flower for everybitch-assmotherfucker's funeral," he said, pulling the sweat-stained wife beater back down. "Yougotanytats?"

  "Never got into--"

  "--Yeah,Ifeelyou,Ifeelyou.SoyoujustdothatB&E," he must have caught himself talking too fast because he slowed back down, "--stuff, huh?"

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "You just. Do. B and E now?"

  "No, I'm legit. I'm not in that anymore."

  "Toolegit,toolegit to quit, right?" God, the kid cracked himself up. He tapped his chest. "They callme Run ALC,Biest. AngeloLuisCabrera. Hey,you mindifI takea shit?"

  "Yeah, fine. Go ahead."

  "Thanks, mybrotha."

  He tore ass into my bathroom. I fell into my recliner and just stared at the ceiling. Fuck, I did not need this shit. Another piss ant kid trying to hit me up as a connection. And it wasn't gonna stop. Once my name was out there, man, this kid was just the beginning. Or Rory was the beginning or whatever. I would have to pack up and move to get away from it; change my name down at the courthouse, maybe. I was not getting back into this. Little fucking bastards. And fuck Tracey for giving them my name.

  The kid, Run ALC, came out of my bathroom smoking a blunt. "Wa
nt ahit?Weedswiththatcocaine kick. Hey,yougotanything to drink?" He threw open all my cabinets before I could tell him the whiskey was above the fridge. "Justthis Jackstuff, man? That'sallyougot?"

  "Yeah. That's it."

  He drank the whole damn bottle and hit the couch, hot boxed his roach, then pulled out another and lit it. "Man,I'm hungryas fuck. Shit. Allthatrunnin',man."

  I started pumping out enough heat to be uncomfortable to get him to leave. "There's a Wendy's on the corner. They're still open."

  "Youtryin'togetridofme?" he winked and yelled, "Run,motherfucker," at the point guard on TV taking his time getting across the court. "Hey,youseen Rory in thepastfew days? Vatto doesn'tanswer his cell."

  Shit. "Haven't seen him since Missouri."

  "Howwasthat? Yougotin forit?”

  "What?"

  He rolled his eyes. "Fuck . . . You. Got. In. For. It? Didyouget it thattime?"

  "Yeah, I don't know if--"

  "Damn,youjustgotbitched," he said at the TV. He sucked down his joint, throwing sparks on my couch that he slapped out with his hand. "Startin' to feelit now,man. Hey,thatchick downat 1410, shegot a boyfriendorhusband oranything?Shefuckin'fine."

  "You gotta fucking slow down if you want me to understand what the fuck you're saying. Are you talking about apartment 1410?"

  "Yeah, thatblonde withthem titties.Didn'tseeherface,but thatassstoppedmy world. Youtappedthatyet?"

  "She's got a husband," I lied, turning up the heat. "Guy's like a bouncer or something, You don't wanna fuck with him."

  Run ALC nodded with a smile. "Soheworks nights,though. Allright,allright."

  "She's also got a security system--"

  "Inanapartment? Bullshit,man."

  "--that'll kill anybody who tries to bust in her place with a fucking fireball up their ass."

  He stopped twitching, and I could finally lock eyes with the little s.o.b.

  "What?" was all he said.

  I leaned forward in my recliner and cranked up so much heat it made the fridge, the freezer and the A/C kick on and browned the paper towels in the kitchen. "Get the fuck outta here. You touch that girl, and I'll--"