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Enjoy Chapter 15 of T.K. O’Neill’s crime/noir enovel Fly in the Milk–and order the whole thing for just $2.99!

CHAPTER 15

William “Big Cat” Edwards always thought it peculiar how he grimaced when the cops passed by on the road. City cop, highway cop, sheriff or goddamn game warden, it didn’t matter. Every time he saw a vehicle with a flasher on the roof and a uniformed driver, he felt the stirrings of anger and resentment and maybe hatred. There was possibly a little fear, but he would never admit it.

Driving north on Highway 53 in his ’69 Buick Electra four-door, he wondered what his old parole officer would say if he ever told her that one. Like if he just came out and said I hate fucking cops, Marlene. The bitch would be busting her ass to get him back inside, that’s for sure. At least until after her period was done with and she mellowed out again.

The bitch. He’d see her in the bars all the time with her old man—her husband—both of them drunk as skunks. Yet they always found a way to look down at you, didn’t they? Give someone a job with power over others and they start thinking their own shit don’t stink.

Sure, he knew that all cops weren’t bad. And yeah, they were necessary to keep the real assholes in line, but he still swore to himself whenever they passed by on the road. Back when he was a kid, his teachers were always preaching that the cops were there to help you. He’d never seen much of the helping, only the throwing in jail part. His daddy… his uncle… him…

Sometimes he wished he were still a kid, innocent and playful, only worried about if his mother might embarrass him with her alcoholic incoherence or her lunacy. Now and then when he was a little down, he wondered if he’d be better off a retard like his younger brother. Ride around all day in a window van with all his tard buddies, making weird faces at the passing cars. Wouldn’t have to go through the grind anymore. Wouldn’t have a care in the world, except maybe if you crapped your pants or not. But maybe that wouldn’t bother you either.

Yeah, this life was getting to be a grind, that was true, but none of the straights would ever believe you if you told them. They think it’s because you’re lazy that you make your money on the other side of the law. They think it’s an easy life, running a blind pig. They don’t know it’s harder than running a regular bar, and you always got to worry about getting busted, besides. These days there’s lots of competition and the money is tight. People would rather stay home and get stoned and watch cable TV. And you’re always looking over your shoulder to see who’s coming after you. Is it the cops or just some crazy drunken asshole you eighty-sixed a month ago?

They think because the blackjack tables and the roulette wheel are always busy, it means you’re rolling in the dough. Nobody thinks that you got partners like anyone else in business. And you got cheaters coming in and trying to rip you off, and you got your own partners trying to skim every nickel they can get away with.

Nah, man, it ain’t easy being an outlaw. You got your times of underemployment just like anyone else. And if you fuck up, you don’t just get fired, you get thrown in the slam.

Big Cat, like his bud Johnny Beam, believed it was time to move on to sunnier shores. Bring the wife and kid down to where it was warm all year long. Score a nest egg and roll down to Florida; maybe buy into a bar or a liquor store and sell gin to retirees. It would sure be nice to not have to see Artis and Gary again. Why in fuck he’d ever partnered up with them, he didn’t know. Maybe it had been God’s will….

The rusty Electra rode like a pillow on a wave, floating along as the sky tried to decide if it was going to rain or shine. Twenty minutes past the Three Lakes Road at the first right after Dunston Road, Cat turned onto the gravel and pushed down the pedal, watched in the rearview as the dust kicked up behind him like an exploded vacuum bag. Two miles on the dirt and he’d be at the house, the sleazy shithole with the dilapidated chicken coops out back that Artis called home.

He was still kicking himself about the past, wondering how he could have let it happen like it did. If he’d been thinking back then, he would’ve asked Johnny to let him run the Hanging Dog. Just him alone, not the other two lizards. But the Big Cat, so named because of the three white vertical steaks along the left side of his full, dark head of hair and the feline grace he’d shown in the boxing ring, could never hang onto money. And Johnny had needed the bread up front. Gary Masati always had cash because there was money in his family. And Artis was Gary’s strong-arm guy. That was how the deal came together. But that was a long time ago and the Cat had always been Johnny’s man, the only one of the three that was smart enough to keep an enterprise going.

Artis Mitchell paced back and forth on the cracked, yellowed linoleum in his spacious and filthy kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled high in the sink and the place was getting too dirty, even for him. Time to get Elizabeth Hardy from down the road over again to do some cleaning. Maybe this time he would get her inside the bedroom and get her pants off. She was only sixteen but she could clean up the house real good. Three dollars an hour and she earned every cent. Watching her ass in them tight Calvin Klein jeans was worth two-fifty an hour alone.

Warmth flooded him as he replayed in his mind the night that had changed his life and brought a ray of hope into his otherwise bleak existence. That time when there was a knock on his door and Elizabeth was standing there in her red wool car coat, pretty as a pin-up. When she smiled that toothy smile, her lips all curvaceous, and asked so sweetly if she and her friends could come over to his house and party sometime, you know, hang out and smoke dope and drink beer—well, old Artis was thinking a miracle had happened. He’d hesitantly agreed, using every bit of his will, to keep from drooling and babbling like a diseased monkey.

On the evening of the much-anticipated party, five kids had showed up on Artis’ front porch: Elizabeth, her friend Jenny, and three boys whose names Artis kept forgetting. Ricky and Billy and Tommy or some shit like that. They’d brought their own weed and a partially consumed half-gallon jug of Red Mountain wine. Artis kept his own stash of Colombian pot a secret, but he did share a few cans of Pabst from his fridge.

The kids were nice to him but a little afraid of the man with the big beer gut and the huge, hairy arms. Artis chose to believe that their standoffishness was, in fact, respect and shyness.

After the get-together was over and the kids had stumbled out, leaving his little house quiet again, Artis had parked himself on the lumpy gray couch, beer in hand and cigarette burning on top of an empty Blue Ribbon can on the cluttered table, and come up with a grand scheme.

He would invite the gang over again, someday soon. Make sure he had everything set up just right before they got there: some nice Boone’s Farm apple wine for the girls and Steinhaus beer for the boys. Cheap booze always worked better. Then bring out the good weed and the Penthouse magazines and get the kids horny, tell’em to feel free and use the spare bedroom if they want to have a little fun. After a couple had been in the room going at it a while, he’d say he was going to roll a joint and go into the closet of the other bedroom where his camera was mounted on a tripod.

He could work the hole-in-the-wall action all night long.

When the film was developed he’d have leverage on the kids. They wouldn’t want their parents to know what they been up to, so they’d do some favors in exchange for the pics. Maybe some free weed or some stolen goods from the boys—maybe a grab-and-dash job or two. The girls—they got things they can do, too. Let your imagination work for you on that one.

Artis sighed, scratched a stick match on the window molding and fired up a Marlboro, looked through the dusty glass at the brush and scrub trees along the edge of his backyard. Dark clouds like buffalo turds were moving slowly across the steel-gray sky.

He was starting to get pissed off. Where in the fuck was that goddamned Masati? Fat fuck was supposed to be here an hour ago so they could work on their story… excuse… alibi… explanation for the discrepancies in the accounting books at the Dog. Porky son of a bitch was probably into the Valium again and would more than likely be totally useless in convincing the Cat of their innocence.

As Gary Masati bounced along the highway in his Ford Bronco in the direction of what he often caustically referred to as “Artie’s Acres” or “Mitchell’s Mansion,” he had indeed been into the Valiums. Trying to cut back on his coke and speed usage, he had ingested the tranquilizers as part of a self-prescribed therapy regimen.

Masati had two nicknames. One that you could say to his face: Assram, or Ram for short, which referenced his unique ability to break through locked doors using his sizeable hindquarters as a battering ram. The second nickname, “Gag me Gary,” referred to his predominantly rank body odor. You only spoke this behind his back, unless you wanted some trouble. At this moment, his jaw was a bit loose and his mouth hung open. He seemed to breathe and snore at the same time and he didn’t give a fuck about much of anything.

That’s the thing about Valium, take enough of it and you just plain don’t give a shit. No matter what you do, have done or are about to do, you care not. The little pills, be they yellow or big blue, were often prescribed as a means of putting the mind on an even keel, freeing the unhappy user from the sufferings of anxiety and fear and guilt. And they worked. Empathy, patience and tolerance were also frequently banished from one’s emotional repertoire by diazepam, but this side effect was one about which Gary Masati could not have cared less.

As far as he was concerned, the meeting was more for Big Cat and Artis; they were the ones who cared about the Hanging Dog. He, you know, didn’t give a fat fuck. He didn’t need the club and the club didn’t need him. He had an income, a monthly inheritance check from a long-dead uncle that kept him in the necessities of life, like food, dope and alcohol and a place to crash. And because of his ingenious method of entering locked rooms, he was a valuable addition to any burglary crew—and a damn good auto mechanic besides, if he had to work. If you had to work a steady, at least in a garage you could stay stoned on something all day. Currently, he had a tricked-out pick-up on the market that he’d assembled from all “borrowed” parts.

Sure, he’d skimmed a little off the top here and there at the Dog. Fucking anybody would, working that place. It’s not like there were any tips or anything. But the kind and size of the losses Artis was talking about had to be from something else. Like maybe fucking Artis was stealing a pile and concocting some kind of intrigue bullshit to cover it up.

Gary knew how easy it would be to start out small, lifting a few bucks here and there, telling yourself you were going to pay it all back later when you got ahead. But then you never got ahead and all of a sudden you were looking at a pretty big hole in the bookkeeping. That’s probably how it went down.

The road went by in a soft haze. Hardly seemed like any time at all before he was cutting the ignition and staring blankly at the dust as it swirled down on his hood and drifted into the side of Artis’ shitty house. Gary’s brain was a jellied mess, the last twenty miles a total blank.

He had risen that morning with a fierce craving for a burst of illicit chemical energy in the form of powders or pills, a habit that, in its infancy, he had told himself would be good for him, help drop a few pounds. Having finally assessed the damaging nature of such a habit to both his pocketbook and his mental health, Gary often fought the urges with a ten-milligram Valium, which usually reduced the craving to a muffled moan. He had boosted at noon with another blue tablet and nearly passed out during lunch at Silk’s pool hall. Then Peter Klang had given him a white cross in the men’s room to help him revive.

Gary climbed out of the fading orange Bronco, steadied himself on the doorframe and fired up a Viceroy with a black plastic lighter. Mellow but mean; he hoped nobody gave him any shit because he wasn’t in the mood. Didn’t want to pull out the .38 from the waistband of his jeans under the tail of his blue flannel shirt. All he wanted to do was rest. Rest and think about the burglary job that Tommy Soderberg had clued him to, a small safe with cash, old coins and jewels. The picture in his head glowed with warm colors that promised satisfaction like a five-course dinner.

He staggered up the incline and let himself in through the dirt-smudged, scratched-up wooden front door. In the nearly empty dining room, dust floated thickly inside an angled column of sunlight streaming through a high window on the west wall, the sun having found a break in the bank of clouds.

He saw a blurry Artis sitting on a wooden chair in the kitchen, nursing a can of Old Style, huge forearms resting on the rickety wooden table with a cigarette burning between his thick fingers. A steady blue-gray stream of smoke rose toward the yellowed ceiling. Artis looked worried.

“Jesus Christ, Artis, you pig,” Masati snorted, jiggling across the litter-strewn floor. “Don’t you ever clean this place? I remember that peanut butter jar over there from three weeks ago, for the Christ sake. You’re gonna get some kind of rat-shit fever or something. Smells like the fucking landfill in here.”

“Fuck you, Ram. Clean enough for a shitbag like you.” Artis bared his yellowed, tobacco-flecked teeth in an artificial smile that looked more like a grimace.

Masati sat down heavily. The wooden chair creaked and sagged. He dropped his cigarette into an empty Old Style can on the table and took a deep breath. His eyelids were heavy and so was his lower jaw.

“Well I’m heerrrrr…” he slurred.  “Whasss with all the drama? You knock up a sheep an need bread for an abortionnn?”

“I thought it was a sheep at first but then I discovered it was your mother.”

“You would fuck my mother, Artis, you sick fuck. Even the old man won’t do that anymore.”

“Who could blame him after you came out.”

“Fuck off. What the hell you call me out here for? What’s this goddamn emergency you’re all worked up about?”

“Big Cat’s on his way out. He’s gonna want to know why we’re out of liquor at the club and why we don’t have his usual share. Then, in a couple days, when he hears from Randall that he ain’t been paid, he’ll be ready for it.”

“It’s that bad, uh? We got to prepare him for the worst? Fucking shit. You never can tell… it ain’t my fucking fault.”

“Nobody’s saying it’s anybody’s fault. I’m saying we lost a ton at roulette last summer. I think someone was past posting. I think there was a team working us. Remember all those new guys? Them assholes with the Ohio plates?” Artis’ eyes pleaded slightly, hoping for backup on his grasp at straws.

“Nahhhhhh…… but, y’know… there’s new faces every summerrrr.  You can’t catch da same fish everrrryy day.”

“You better remember those faces when Cat shows up, Ram. You better remember how they slicked us. Otherwise he’s gonna think it was you and me been stealin’ him blind and causing the Dog to go tits up.”

“We’rrre tittsss ubp?”

“Like a beached sucker. We only got enough booze left for you and me to get drunk. We can’t afford the rent or the skid to Randall, and the women don’t want to come around no more  ‘cause nobody wants to spend anything on them. Dudes’d rather sit home and whack it to porn videos. And there just ain’t any money around. Not enough for a place like the Dog to stay goin’, anyway.”

“Hell’s gonna happenn to da stuffff?  Jukeboxss an pinball?”

“’Magine someone will come for them.” Artis said, watching the dust-filled column of sunlight as it faded away. “Can’t see Lambert or Johnny Beam leaving them behind. Unless the cops get there first. I think it was just a matter of time before we got popped, anyway, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, we’re getting out at the right time.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “You want a beer, man?”

“No thanks, I’mm watcchhin my waistline.”

“What are you watching it do, take over the county?”

“Fuck you.” Masati shot Artis the bird in slow motion.

Artis snorted, raked the empty beer cans off the table, pinned them against his barrel chest and stood up. He paused to gape at Masati’s head as it lolled on his thick, fleshy neck like a beach ball on a rhino, the chair creaking sharply each time it jerked back upright.

Then they both turned their heads at the sound of a blown-out, window-rattling muffler. Artis looked out the window above the sink and saw a big Buick pulling up, followed by a cloud of dust that swirled around the house. He dropped the beer cans in a plastic garbage pail under the counter by the sink and wiped his hands on the front of his blue denim coveralls.

The Buick jerked to a halt in the dirt. Big Cat held his breath as the dust cloud passed by and settled on the patchy lawn. The massive, copper-colored two-door hardtop with white vinyl roof shuttered and shook, chugging for twenty seconds before it finally wheezed and went quiet.

“Sounns like Cat couldd use hisss timing adjustedt,” Masati slurred.

“Why don’t you offer your services?” Artis asked, grinning.

“I hav in tha passst, I’ll havv yuu knowww—but he never sidts down long enough to gedt it donnne.”

“That’s another thing, man,” Artis said, eager for the opening. “He’s hardly ever at the club anymore, only shows up when we’re closing, to count the cash. Shit, lately he doesn’t even show up at all, half the time. Fucker’s been having me drop it off at his house. Trouble is… I ain’t brought nothing over for the last three weeks.”

“Thisss isss whadt I gedt when I de-le-gate yuuu sommme re-sponnsa-billlidty?”

“Fuck you, Masati, if you hadn’t been passed out in the office or not there at all every goddamn night, I wouldn’t have had to do it.”

“So it’sss my fauldt thattt you spennt the housse’s casssh?”

“I had to pay my rent and electricity, and I had a shit load of parking tickets—they were going to throw me in jail,” Artis frowned until the thick hair of his eyebrows joined at the bridge of his nose. “What fucking choice did I have?”

“I forgive you Artis,” Masati said, his speech momentarily returned to normal due to the rush of apprehension and fear brought on by Big Cat’s arrival. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. But you’re going to have to ‘splain that to our boy Mr. Cat. And I think I hear his footfalls a rustling on the porch right now.”

Then the front door scraped open and the screen slammed behind it. The six-foot-two former boxer and part-time musician known as Big Cat, came striding in, the heels of his blue and red cowboy boots knocking on the decaying wood floor.

“Greetings from the Land o’ Nod,” Masati said from the kitchen, his tongue thickening.

The three men jerked to attention as a clap of thunder ripped the sky. In an instant, a hard rain came ripping down from the black clouds, large oval drops hitting the dry dirt and bouncing. Drumming on the tops of the cars and tapping like a thousand tiny hammers on the shingled roof of the house.

“At least it will keep the dust down for a few days.” Artis said, looking out at the deluge as he moved slowly into the dining room. He kicked at a crumpled McDonald’s cheeseburger wrapping. “Hey, Catman, how’s it hanging?”

“Long and thick, as per normal,” Big Cat said, deep and mellow. He was a large man with wide shoulders, a strong chest and a square head, features that some mistook for Polynesian or Samoan.

“Beer, William?” Artis inquired, gesturing toward the kitchen and the grease-stained refrigerator that only a year before had been a shiny new unit, part of the swag from a warehouse rip-off on the Zenith waterfront.

“Yeah, I’ll have one, Arty.” Then, seeing Masati’s obvious intoxication, Cat went into the kitchen, bent down and looked into the fat man’s eyes. “And how are you today, Gary?”

“Pretty mellow, I guess.”

“Sampling the mother’s little helpers again, are we?”

“You might say that. Just a couple three, my man.”

“Blues?”

“Yessir. Want some?”

“No thanks. Maybe later. I got to stay sharp these days. These are trying times for the Cat. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. We’ve got to make some changes, I’m sorry to say. We have to shut down the Dog.”

Artis felt his nerves lighting up as he returned from the fridge with a can of Old Style and set it down on the table. Big Cat grabbed a paint-splattered wooden chair, spun it around backwards and sat down with his arms resting on the back. He picked up the beer, popped the top and took a large pull.

“Annnd jus exacly why does the Dawg haf to die, oh great leader,” Masati slurred, his lips undulating in a failed attempt at a smile.

“It’s losing money,” Big Cat said. “There ain’t enough cash left to keep it running. Fact is, it’s been going downhill for a while now, as you’ve probably noticed. You guys—”

Artis shuffled his feet nervously, stuffed his hands deep in the pockets of his worn, Oshkosh coveralls, lowered his eyelids and studied his feet. “Look, man, I’m sorry—”

“I’m sorry it’s over, too,” Big Cat blurted, “but it’s partly my fault. I gambled away the capital. It’s that simple. I got into this big poker game with some real high rollers. Big-time dudes with deep pockets that I thought I could clean out. To make a long story short, I lost. I came so fucking close on one huge pot—I still can’t believe the cocksucker hit the third ace. He pulled a full boat over my spade flush. I was tapped. Blew like nine grand, right fucking there. That’s why I haven’t been comin’ around.” He took a chug of beer and sat up straight, a serious look on his face.

Artis and Gary shared subtle “do-you-believe-it?” glances.

“Jesus Chrise, Cat, shhit,” Masati said. “I hat three gran in the Dawg but I made that a hunert times over. You can take yer time payin me back, buddy, I donn’t giv a shit.”

“You don’t owe me nothing, William,” Artis said.

“You guys take all the machines that are left,” William the Big Cat said. “The pinball and horserace machines are gone already. Had the guy in there today from West Side Games. You got the bag of quarters, Artis?”

Artis shook his head and tried to look solemn, when in actuality he was relieved. “No… I don’t. Sorry man, I had to use that to pay off these parking tickets I had. I swear, Cat, they were gonna throw me in jail.”

Big Cat took a sip of his beer and shrugged. “C’est la vie say the old folks. So ah, in lieu of a bag full of quarters—anybody know any guaranteed moneymaking scenarios? I need something, real bad.”

“Hey ah, lissen yu guyss,” Masati said. “I, ah, wasn’ goin’ say nothin’ bout thisss, but Tommy Soderberg tole me about this job. He ah, ah—wants me to do thiss job with’im, ya see.  As lonng as yu guyss are’n such rough shape, y’know, why ah, ah—don’t we doit arselfes.”

Cat was disbelieving. Masati was a chronic bullshitter and Tommy Soderberg always worked alone. “Tommy Soda told you about a job? You fucking sure about that?”

“I swear ta Godt, Cat, I ain’t gonna shit you.”

“I can hardly wait to hear this,” Artis said.

“Shut up Arty, let him talk. It takes him long enough, already. You got any coke or speed or something to give him? It’s like listening to a walrus croaking.”

“But, guys, I’m tryin’ to wean maself from stimulants,” Masati insisted, eyes widening slightly.

“Bullshit,” Big Cat said. “I’ll wean you from your nuts if I have to listen to anymore of your mumbling.”

“I shall make an effort to enunciate.”

“Here, then,” Artis said, shaking his head. “Maybe this will help.” He reached in the pocket of his coveralls and came out with a silver bullet filled with coke, set it on the table in front of Masati.

Assram fish-eyed the dull gray metal vial with the tiny hole on the tip. “I do believe it will, gentlemen, I do believe it will.” Moments later, the life was back in his eyes and he was ready to go. “So anyway, as I was saying. Tommy Sodapop told me about a lovely little safe job that he has researched. A safe that is full of old coins, cash and jewelry, he says. Old man used to own a business, but now he’s retired, but he keeps this office to make him feel like he’s still got what it takes, y’know? Maybe he does a little business once in a great while, y’know? Anyways, Soda said he was in the building doing some painting—doing some work for Harold Greene of Meridian Realty— and he seen the old guy going in the safe and pulling out these books of old coins and shit.

“And then he says that later in the day he’s sitting around at the Golden Flow and the old guy comes in, still dressed in his suit and bow tie. The geezer sits at the bar and has one tap beer and then leaves. Soda asks Paul the bartender if he knows the guy and Pauly says Sure, the guy comes in five days a week, always at the same time of day, has one beer and then leaves. He says the guy is loaded, owned a jewelry store for sixty years or some shit like that.”

“Sounds good, Gary,” Big Cat said. “But what the hell did Soda want you to do? I mean, can’t he get in there by himself?”

“He wanted me to help carry the safe out. Said the two of us could haul it out of there and throw it in the back of my Bronco.”

“Thanks for clueing us in, Ram,” Artis said, sarcastically.

“When can we do it?” Big Cat said, setting the empty can on the table and rubbing his hands together like he was washing with unseen soap.

“We hit the place and Soda’s gonna know it was me,” Masati said. “Not sure I want him on my case for jumping his gig.”

“How much of a cut is it gonna take to get you over your guilt and fear?” Big Cat asked, dryly.

“Half should do it.”

“Half the take?” Artis sputtered. Little balls of spit flew from his mouth and stuck in his scraggly brown beard. “You gotta be fucking insane, you fat bastard.”

“Listen, you hairy Greek fuck, not only do I deserve a chunk for finding the job, I should get another bump for crossing Soda. He’s not exactly going to want to hug me for this, in case you’re thinking otherwise.”
“Soda ain’t gonna do anything to you, Ram,” Big Cat said. “Fucker won’t get near you.” He gave Artis a wink on the sly. “All he wants to do is get high and play ball. He’s not the violent type. He’ll just spread the word around town about your deed and hope you get what you deserve.”

“Which is?” Masati asked, warily.

“Judge not, lest you be judged, has always been my policy, Ram. I’ll let someone else decide your just desserts.”

“I’ve got some good ideas about that,” Artis said, wiping at his beard.

“I bet you do, you sick fucking pervert,” Masati said, eyelids growing heavy. “Got another hit of blow?” he said to the air, his gaze directed at a place on the ceiling where a crack in the plaster resembled the letter Z.

“Maybe I do,” Ram, Artis said. “Providing you stay right where you are and give us all the details on this job.”

“Can do, Artis, my friend, can do. It’s not like I was going for a jog or anything.”

Big Cat got up from the table and walked into the dining room. This was the kind of shit that drove him crazy, the way those two dorks carried on. Took them forever to do anything. How he’d gotten this involved with these two was beyond his comprehension. He must have been lonely back then—or maybe he’d taken pity on the pathetic bastards.

He stared out the window at the puddles and the splashing water and the wind pushing the leaves on the popple trees to their silvery backsides. Now it seemed he was getting in deeper with the diet-challenged duo. When he’d thought that all was lost, opportunity had fallen out of the sky. More correctly and certainly stranger, out of Gary Masati’s rubber-lipped mouth. This was as close to “out of the blue” as you were going to get.

Curiouser and curiouser, Cat thought, wondering where he’d heard that before. Way back in the anterior lobes of his brain, another tiny voice was trying to be heard. But it sounded too much like his parole officer—the bitch—and he tried to ignore it.

You seem to look for trouble, William, it was saying.

(End of Chapter 15)