Payday
by Graham Powell

I was tending bar at Grabowski’s the night that pasty-faced Steven kid came in.  He had on one of his stupid college t-shirts, with the “Top Ten Ways Beer Is Better Than Sex” printed on the back.  A good kid, I suppose.  Sort of a lightweight.

I drew him a beer and he passed over some money.  “Not much of a crowd tonight,” he said.

So he wanted to talk.  “Wednesdays are always slow.  Something on your mind?”

He took a long pull from his glass.  “You were in prison, weren’t you, Duke?  What was it like?”

Like living in Hell.  “Why?  Planning a vacation?”

He flushed.  “No, ah, it’s just…”

“Damn tourists,” I said, and we both laughed.

Sandwiched as it was between a Harley shop and a tattoo parlor, I guess it was inevitable that Grabowski’s became a biker bar.  What I didn’t expect was all the college kids who overran the place, looking for something more “authentic” than a keg in the basement of their fraternity.  They didn’t get the full experience, though, as the bikers usually refrained from kicking their asses.

I went out back for a smoke break, and Steven followed me a few minutes later.  One parking lot served all three places, so there were motorcycles parked everywhere.  “Wow,” said Steven.  “Which one’s yours?”

I pointed.  “The blue one.”

“Is it a Harley?”

“A Buell.  More a sport bike than a road hog like a Harley, but solid, American made.  Not some pussy rice rocket.”

“Cool, man, cool.”

I smoked my cigarette.  He stood there awkwardly, hands in pockets.  Finally he said, “When you went to prison – you killed a man?”

I knelt in a spreading pool of blood as bodies surged around us, fists and curses flying.  The other man lay on his back looking up at me, white showing all around his eyes as his life drained away and they grew glassy and dull.  “Get up!” I cried, “Get up, get up, get up!”  The jagged sliver of glass sticking out of his neck said otherwise.

“Manslaughter,” I said.  “A bar fight.  If my lawyer had been worth a shit I would have gotten off with self defense instead of ten years.”

Steven was staring down at my feet.  He swallowed hard.  “Do you want to make some money?”

My jaw grew tight.  “I’m not going back, Steven.  Not ever.  Not for you or anyone else, so save your breath.”

“He beat her,” he said.  “My sister.  She was pregnant and he beat her.  She lost the baby.  It would have been a girl, Duke, it would have been my niece.”

“I don’t care.  Whatever you want, I won’t do it.”

He looked me in the face.  “I can pay you a thousand dollars.”

* * *

I parked my bike in the garage at the Creswell, a welfare hotel downtown, and went up to my room.  The clock said it was after two a.m., but like always I was wired.  I grabbed a paperback from the stack beside the bed and tried to read.  No good.  I didn’t want to go down to the lobby, to the old men with their television and their endless games of gin rummy and dominos.  So I lay on the bed, wide awake.  Aside from the bike, everything I owned was in that little room.

One thought kept running through my mind, over and over.  A thousand dollars is a lot of money.

* * *

I wasn’t just a bartender at Grabowski’s, I was the bouncer, too, so I tried to look the part: black leather vest with no shirt underneath, black jeans, and heavy black work boots.  I was a big, rawboned kid when I went to jail, but soft.  When I came out after ten years I was steel all over.

So I didn’t have much trouble, even with the roughest of crowds.  You show them how tough you are, they treat you with respect.  Any sign of weakness and it’s over.  Just like on the yard.

Steven was back a few days after our first little chat.  “So what do you say?” he asked.

“Maybe.  First I want to know more about this guy.  And I want to meet your sister.  I want to hear the story from her.”

Steven scribbled on a bar napkin and slid it across to me.  “Here’s his address.  I’ll be back on Tuesday.”

“One more thing,” I said, lowering my voice.  “Bring the money.”

Vicki was working behind the stick with me that night.  She saw me watching Steven and said, “Some trouble?”

“Nah.  Just a kid.”

Vicki had only been at Grabowski’s for a couple of months, but you could tell she had some miles on her.  Even so, she looked good.  She was maybe fifty but could easily pass for late thirties, with long hair blond right down to the roots.  Hard muscles from years of hauling kegs and cases of booze stood out beneath her shirt.  Her nose made a sharp turn to the south where someone had busted it once upon a time.  I thought it was cute, but God I’d hate to see what she did to the man who gave it to her.

I’d thought about asking her out, but she had grown children almost as old as I was, and that was just too weird.  I decided to be cool, just friends and all.

We chased out the last of the drunks and closed up at two.  Out back, her bike was parked next to mine, and hers was a Harley, a Softail Deuce.  With her ponytail hanging out of the back of her helmet, I swear she was the sexiest woman alive.

“You hungry?” she said.  “Murrell’s is still open.”

“Nah, sleepy.  I think I’ll pack it in.”

“All right.”  She kicked her motorcycle to life.  “Be good, Duke,” she shouted over the engine’s roar.

I wish I could.  I waved to her, and she was gone.

* * *

The next morning I got up early and put on a flannel shirt, faded blue jeans, and my soft low-cut riding boots – what Vicki called my “lumberjack” outfit.  After a breakfast of boiled eggs and coffee I rode over to get the lay of the land.
“The guy” had an apartment in a crappy old house on Ockley.  I checked the names on the mailbox.  Downstairs: M. Sieve and J. Burton.  Upstairs: M. Radek.  His first name was Mark.

Radek drove a truck for the Coca-Cola bottling plant on Stoner Avenue.  I followed his dusty Dodge pickup down there and waited a while.  Before long he came out at the wheel of a semi loaded with soda.  I spent most of the day following him around to gas stations and convenience stores.  His routine never varied: fill the paperwork, stock the cooler, and, if the
clerk was a girl and halfway good looking, flirt.

We got back to his place at about five.  He went upstairs and a light came on in the window to the left of the stairs.  I waited for a while, but he didn’t come out, and it was time I headed in to work.

Vicki didn’t see me come in the back way.  As I slipped behind the bar I touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“Hey, Duke,” she said, smiling.  “Say, I’ve been meaning to ask – why do they call you Duke?”

“My real name is John Wayne Cable.”

She laughed and pulled another beer.  “Looks like your buddy is here.”

I turned to see Steven come through the door with a girl I didn’t recognize.  “He’s not my buddy.  Just another biker wannabe.”

I drew a pitcher and carried it over to their booth.

Steven’s sister wasn’t quite fat, but she was on the big-boned border.  Her face was puffy, eyelids drooping at half mast.  On another woman those eyes might have called up words like “alluring” or “mysterious”, instead of “heavy sedation”.

I sat down across from them.  Steven pulled an envelope from his pants pocket and laid it on the table.  “It’s all there,” he said.

I made no move to touch it.  My stomach tightened.  “What’s your name?” I said to the girl.

“Christine,” she said.  “It’s Christine.”

Her voice was low and she mumbled.  “Tell me about Mark,” I said.

“We went out for a while.  I got pregnant and he beat me up.”  She spread her hands, let them flop back on the table, looked at me and then at her brother.

“What was he like?” I said.  “How did you meet?”

“We met at a place called Ivan’s, a little bar over on Market.  I was playing pool when he came in.  He grabbed a cue and bet me a beer that he could beat me, but he wasn’t really very good and I kicked his butt.  He got a laugh out of that.  He was…  I dunno, he was nice.  He joked around a lot.”

“So?  What happened?”

She shrugged.  “Well, first I got fired from the salon.  That bitch Denise was always riding me, and I finally told her where to stick it.  After that I had to give up my apartment, so I moved in with Mark, and things started going bad.  He kept telling me to get a job, but there was no way I was gonna flip burgers at McDonald’s, and with the economy in the toilet…”  She shrugged.  “Then I found out I was pregnant, and that really set him off.  He called me a lazy whore and said it wasn’t his.  That’s when he started hitting me.  By the time I got out the door I was bleeding so bad I could barely make it down the stairs.  I crawled into my car and called Steve on my cell, and he came over and drove me to the hospital.  That’s it.”

If her face held any expression, I didn’t catch it.

Steven’s face, though, was red and twisted with anger.  “When I got there, the seat was already covered in blood.  She could have died, Duke.  And she lost the baby.”

“I was going to name it Amy,” said Christine.

I looked at Steven.  “Did you go talk to this guy about it?”

He nodded, then stared down into his cup.

“Didn’t work out the way you hoped, huh?”  I shook my head.  “I hope he didn’t hurt you much.”

The envelope lay on the table, bright white against the oil-stained oak tabletop.  I reached out, my hand fluttering like a wounded quail, and lifted the flap.  I riffled through the crisp bills, their edges sharp as razors.  New, straight from the bank.  Fucking amateurs.  They probably wanted a receipt.
 
I folded the envelope and stuffed it into my back pocket.  “I don’t want to see either of you ever again,” I said.

Steven looked like a kicked puppy.  “But how will we know…”

“Watch the news.”

They drank up.  I didn’t see them leave.

* * *

A couple of hours passed quietly.  I was busy rinsing glasses in the sink when I heard the raised voices.  Some young guy at a table near the front had gotten a wild hair up his ass and was shouting at the booth next to them.  I eased up behind him and laid a hand on his arm, saying, “Let’s go, kid.”

And he turned around and popped me on the nose.

The next thing I knew I’d grabbed his shirt and hoisted him onto my shoulder like a sack of laundry.  I kicked open the front door and with a heave sent him sprawling across the sidewalk.  He started to push himself to his feet.  “Stay down and shut up!” I yelled, and he did.

I turned back to his table.  A boy and two girls sat there, jaws hanging open.  I took a step in their direction and they jumped up liked they’d been jolted with cattle prods and hurried out past me.

I touched a finger to my upper lip.  No blood.

Back behind the bar Vicki said, “Are you okay, Duke?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.  That punch didn’t have much behind it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said.  “What the hell is wrong with you?  For a minute I thought you were going to kill that kid.”

I turned away, dunked a glass in the sink.  “He shouldn’t have pissed me off,” I said.

“No, I guess not.”

We didn’t have much to say to each other the rest of the night.

* * *

After I got home I didn’t even try to sleep.  When the clock hit three I took a walk down to the lobby.  I was happy to see that Arnie was there alone.

Arnie had a face the color and texture of an old brown shoe.  He’d worked all his life at various automobile dealerships around town, washing cars, changing oil, doing whatever scut work needed to be done.  About twice a year he’d fall off the wagon and get himself fired, but he was a nice guy, and his past sins were always forgiven the next time he was out of work.  He was over seventy now and retired, and with just his Social Security he couldn’t afford even a flophouse like the Creswell, so the manager gave him a few bucks to look after the desk through the graveyard shift.  When I strolled in he was watching reruns of a sitcom that was new when he was a young man.

“How’s it hangin’, Arnie?”

“Lower every day,” he shot back.  “What’s up with you?”

I just shrugged and got a paper cup from a stack on top of the old water cooler.  From the corner of my eye I saw him watching as I pulled a flask from my back pocket and carefully poured an inch of bourbon.  I tipped the cup back and swallowed the light brown liquid in one gulp.  Arnie actually licked his lips.

“Watcha got there, young fella?” he said.

“A little Wild Turkey.”  I poured another shot and knocked it back.  “Care for a nip?”

“I don’t mind if I do,” he said.

Within half an hour I had him kicked back in the recliner with his feet up, snoring peacefully.  I made sure he was asleep before crossing the lobby to look for the gun they kept behind the front desk.

The makeshift cash drawer was closed up tight with a padlock and hasp, but I knew it wasn’t in there.  The gun had to be somewhere the clerk could get it in a hurry.  I poked around for a few minutes and found it on a shelf stashed behind a box of matchbooks, an old Browning nine millimeter.  I drew back the slide and saw the gleam of brass in the chamber.

I tucked it away in my waistband at the small of the back and pulled my shirttail down over the grip before heading up to my room.  That uncomfortable hunk of steel jabbed me in the kidney at every step.

* * *

I followed Radek around town for a few days, getting his routine straight.  By Thursday I had to admit it – I was stalling.  Tomorrow was Friday, and it was the fifteenth.  Payday either way.  I could make it look like a robbery and pick up a little bonus.

I dropped by Grabowski’s late that afternoon.  There were only a couple of customers in the place at that hour.  Vicki was stocking the back bar with whiskey, wearing a white t-shirt and cutoff jeans.  “Hey, Duke,” she said.  “I though you were off tonight.”

“Yeah.  I just wanted to apologize for the other day.  I don’t know what got into me, losing my temper like that.”

“Forget it.  After all, it’s taking out the garbage is part of your job.”

I couldn’t help a smile.  “Thanks, Vicki.  Say, do you think you could a favor for me?”

“Sure, what do you need?”

I pulled the envelope full of Steven’s money from my back pocket.  I’d carried it with me everywhere the past few days, even slept with it under my pillow, and I’d take a peek inside at odd hours to convince myself it was still there.  “Could you hang on to this for me?  Just until next week?  I don’t feel safe keeping it at the Creswell.  Too many nosy Nellies.”

She took it, looked at it for a moment, and slowly tucked it away.  “All right,” she said.  “Look, Duke, are you mixed up in some kind of trouble?  You know you can talk to me about it.”

Suddenly I wanted to climb up on a stool, order a beer, and flirt with Vicki like the rest of the drunks.  But that wouldn’t get the job done, so I forced a grin and said, “Nah, I’m fine.  No problems.  See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” she said, brow knitted with worry.  “See you around, Duke.”

Around five I drove by Radek’s house, but he wasn’t home.  I trolled around his neighborhood for an hour or so, swinging by every so often, and I was more than ready to give up when I turned a corner and saw his Dodge in the driveway.

I parked my bike and took a look around.  The sun was going down, people were already in off the street.  I put on a pair of gloves and pushed through the door into Radek’s building.  Doors on the right and left, and a stairway straight ahead.  I climbed to the second floor as softly as I could.

His door was to the left.  I checked Browning’s load again and snapped off the safety.  Then I reached out a hand and carefully turned the knob.

Unlocked.  I closed the door behind me and glanced around.  Fading sunlight seeped through an opening to the left.  Through it I could see a couch and bookcase.  The corridor led past a tiny kitchen and a bathroom to a bedroom not much larger than mine.  It took less than a minute to sweep the place clean.  Radek wasn’t home.  I’d missed him.

I was on my way out when the hallway door swung open and Radek stepped in.  He snapped on the light and froze.  “Who the hell-” he said, and then I was on him.

I slammed the pistol’s barrel against the side of his head and he staggered back.  Before he could turn to run I rammed him up against the wall and hit him again, then kicked his legs out from beneath him.  He hit the floor with a grunt and didn’t move.  I stepped out onto the landing and looked down the stairs.  Nothing stirred.

Radek was on hands and knees as I came back inside and shut the door.  I knelt beside him and forced him down, jamming the gun into the back of his neck.  “Don’t fucking move,” I said.  “You move, you die.”  I patted down his pockets and yanked out a wallet.  It held a little over fifty dollars.  “Where’s the rest?  Where’s the money?”

He tried to look at me, eyes rolling wildly.  “What money?”

I smacked him lightly.  “You got paid today, dipshit,” I said.  “Where is it?”
 
“I have direct deposit,” he said.

“Direct deposit.”  I flipped him over and planted a knee on his chest.  “Tell me what happened,” I said.  “Tell me about the girl.”

He shook his head.  “Girl…” he said.

I pressed the Browning to his temple.  “Christine.  You beat her.  She lost a baby, your baby.  Now tell me.”

Understanding flooded into his eyes, then they grew soft, unfocused.  I knew he was seeing it all again.  “I came home one day a little early and found Billy Earle’s car in the driveway.  The two of them had put the deadbolt on.  I had to pound on the door for ten minutes and they only opened up when I started yelling.  They weren’t naked or anything, but the way they looked at each other all shamefaced, I knew.

“Billy left and Christine and I had it out.  Things had been bad since she lost her job, and I guess we’d been heading for a fight.  She told me she wouldn’t need another boyfriend if I wasn’t always at work.  And I was supporting her lazy ass!”

He stopped for a minute and a tear trickled out of his eye.  “She didn’t tell me she was pregnant, man,” he said, voice quavering.  “I would never hurt the baby.  But she wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t just go and leave me alone… I grabbed her arm, dragged her to the door.  She slapped me, scratched my face, and I pushed her away.  She stumbled onto the steps…  I didn’t mean for her to fall.  I’d take it back, man, I’d take it back if I could.”

I believe you.  But it’s too late.  Radek came back to the present and looked at me, fear shining from his face like a light.  “Did her brother send you?” he whispered.

“Shut up.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“I’m going to kill you.”

He started thrashing, trying to throw me off.  I hit him with the gun again, then harder, and pushed it against the side of his head until his face was flat on the floor.  I held it there, every muscle in my arm jumping.  If I wasn’t careful I’d kill him whether I meant to or not.

We stayed like that for a minute, frozen, and he said, “What are you waiting for?”

“Are you in a hurry?”

“No!”

One squeeze of the trigger and it would all be over.  A bullet to the head, quick and painless.  A better death than most of us get.

I felt my throat constrict.  My only chance, and here I was choking it away.

Then a voice said, “Duke, no!”

Vicki.

“What are you doing here?” I said.  “Get out of here, Vicki, you shouldn’t be here.  What the fuck are you doing here!”

“I followed you, Duke.  Don’t do this.  Put the gun down.”

The grip was slick on my hand.  “I’m a criminal now, Vicki.  This is what criminals do.  Do you think I want to tend bar for the rest of my life?”

“It’s not so bad,” she said.  “You’re not a killer, Duke.”

“I killed a man!”

“You’re not a killer,” she said softly.  She took a step towards me.

“Vicki, you come any closer and I swear I’ll do it!  I’ll kill him!”

“Please,” she said, a hitch in her voice.  “Please, Duke, don’t…”

I looked up at her and said, “Vicki–” and that’s when Radek made his move.

He batted the gun away and swung hard with his right, connecting with the point of my jaw.  I rolled off him and tried to cover up but he kept flailing away until a punch caught me on the temple and the room went dark.

* * *

When I woke up Vicki was bending over me, one calloused hand on my cheek.  I lifted my head and the room tilted crazily.  I flopped back down, helpless as a child.

“Where’s Radek?” I said.  “Is he okay?”

Vicki smiled.  “He wouldn’t stop hitting you, so I had to convince him.”  She held up her right hand, knuckles scraped and bruised.

Tears and blood streamed down my face.  “You saved me.”

“No, Duke,” she said, the smile vanishing.  “The cops are on their way.  You’re going back to prison.”

“I’ll be okay.  I survived it once.  Another stretch won’t kill me.  I owe you one.”

She smiled again, and kissed me.  “Let’s call it even,” she said.  Then the room began to spin, and I closed my eyes and slept.

BIO: As a writer, Graham Powell is best known as the proprietor of CrimeSpot.net.  His stories have appeared on the Internet and, twice, in actual printed form which he can wave in his friends' faces.  He lives with his family in Fort Worth and tries to make money faster than his wife can spend it.