Loser's Town Read online

  Her cellphone rang. She reached out and grabbed her purse, fished it out and looked at the caller.

  ‘Shit, I have to take this.’

  She gave him a look that said she wanted privacy.

  ‘I’ll go out on deck,’ Terry said.

  Terry pulled on a pair of shorts and went up top. He lit a cigarette then eased over to the side of the boat where an open window allowed him to hear what she was saying.

  ‘No, I’m out . . . No, goddamn it, with a girlfriend. With Rima, you know Rima. No, look, for God’s sake, you’ve got to stop this . . . I’m telling you, this is not what I want, you’re putting too much pressure on me . . . Yeah, okay . . . Okay. Look, I’m going home now. I can’t talk, Rima is waiting for me, I’m in the bathroom, for God’s sake . . . Yeah . . . Yeah . . . Bye.’

  When Terry came back into the cabin Allison was dressing to leave.

  ‘If that’s your ex, you don’t have to let him push you around,’ Terry said to her.

  ‘No, it’s not my ex. I wish it was. Him I can handle.’

  ‘Whoever it is, I can help.’

  ‘Trust me, you can’t. Is there a bathroom on this thing?’

  Terry pointed to the head. When she went in he took the phone from her purse and checked the last received call. RICHIE. When she came out he was sitting on the bunk.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have to go. It was nice. I want you to know that. Really nice.’

  ‘He’s not going to let you go,’ Terry said to her. ‘Not without help.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I know Richie Stella. I know what he’s like when he gets his hooks into someone.’

  Allison stared at him. Her mouth was open as if to say something but she didn’t. Finally she shook her head and gave a small sardonic laugh. ‘What are you,’ she said finally, ‘a cop?’

  ‘I’m not a cop, but I can help you. I can get him off your back.’

  ‘Who are you working for?’

  ‘Somebody like you. Somebody Richie is trying to hurt.’

  She sat down at the table across the cabin from him, as far away as she could in the tiny room. She put her face in her hands. ‘You’re really good,’ she said. ‘You’re the best. I’ve met some lying bastards in my time, but you are without a doubt the king of them all.’

  ‘He won’t quit. You know that. He’ll end up owning you.’

  ‘He owns me already,’ she said wearily. ‘Anyway I don’t see the difference in him or you. You’re both vicious shits. You use me for one thing, he uses me for another.’

  ‘He’s just a two-bit punk. He’s not invulnerable. You can help bring him down.’

  ‘No. You do your own fucking dirty work.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to know it was you. He’ll never find out. He’ll never connect you to it. You know I’m right, don’t you? This won’t end until Richie goes down. You know that.’

  ‘And if I don’t help you what happens? What leverage have you got? Everybody’s got leverage, right? Richie’s got leverage on me. What’s yours? What have you come up with?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Terry said. ‘Nothing at all. But nothing changes. You think he owns you now, just wait. Wait until he gets bored with you, maybe. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve thought about it already. Maybe he wants you to run some errands for him. Maybe he’d like you to be nice to a friend of his. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know.’

  ‘I can’t lose this job. I’ve got my baby, I’ve got the house.’

  ‘You think you’ve got some sort of future, just doing nothing? You think he’s just going to leave you alone? You want your kid to see you, what’s going to happen to you? You think Richie is going to be such a swell role model? One way or another, Richie is coming down. I don’t know how deep you’re in, but I can keep you out of it. You can walk away.’

  ‘You’re as bad as he is.’

  ‘You know I’m not.’

  ‘What’s your interest in this? I know it isn’t me. Why go to all this trouble? Why are you after Richie?’

  ‘Richie Stella has hurt a lot of people. Aside from the drugs and his connection to the mob, he’s responsible for the death of a young girl and he’s blackmailing the guy I work for. All this is going to continue unless Richie is brought down.’

  ‘Who are you working for?’

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you that Richie has struck the wrong victim this time. My friend has the money and the power to bring him down. Richie has over-reached himself this time. He’s weak and he’s vulnerable. He’s gotten arrogant and he can be brought down. I need you to help me.’

  ‘You can protect me? You can protect my baby?’

  ‘Yes. I promise you. You can walk away from this thing free and safe and with a new life. My friend can help you. Money isn’t a problem.’

  ‘Maybe you’re lying,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can’t believe a thing you say. Why should I?’

  ‘Because,’ said Terry, ‘in the end it all amounts to the same fucking thing, doesn’t it? What are your choices? You stay with Richie and he is going to use you up and pass you onto somebody else or worse. You think he is going to let you quit? Richie has made his life never letting anything out of his grip. You’re waiting to ask him for a job reference while you stock groceries at Safeway? He’s got you, baby, and he’s going to keep you and you fucking well know it. He’s fucking sweet to you now, but what happens when he gets bored? Maybe he wants you to shove a kilo of cocaine up your arse and take a stroll across the border? Or you’ll wind up in a hotel room blowing some spick drug supplier Richie needs to keep happy for a while. The longer you stay the more he has on you, and the more he has the harder it’s going to be. What happens to you and Cody then?’

  ‘If he finds out I helped you . . .’

  ‘He won’t find out. I’ve no connection to him. There’s no link. All this goes to my friend. I’m nearly out of it myself. I’m just helping to set the wheels in motion. After that we’re both out of it.’

  ‘You can protect me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Allison thought. She sat at the small table and lit a cigarette and smoked it through and she thought. Finally she turned to Terry and said: ‘You fuck me over again, you put my child in fucking danger, and I will crawl through broken glass in order to kill you. I mean that. Do you understand me? I never imagined I could say this but I will kill you if you fuck me over. I swear on my father’s grave.’

  Terry got up to sit next to her but Allison pushed him away. ‘Don’t fucking touch me,’ she said. ‘Don’t you fucking come near me. You ask your fucking questions and when this thing is done I never want to see you again.’

  Eleven

  So there was Potts, in the fucking grocery store.

  Potts was in Safeway, walking up and down the aisles, pushing that fucking stupid little cart around, the cart with the inevitable bad wheel, the one they always saved for Potts so he could feel even more of an asshole than he normally felt in these places. Potts hated it here, hated all the bright lights and the clean people and the smart-assed high-school clerks who looked at him like he was shit when he piled up his fucking Cheerios and his fucking Hamburger Helper and his fucking helpless-looking rolls of three-ply toilet paper on the counter to pay for them. What Potts longed for was one of those little mom and pop Mexican stores in El Paso, some dark little place where you didn’t have to have a fucking college degree to figure out which processed foods were least likely to kill you, where there were maybe two choices you had to make, you want the black beans or the pintos? Where you could go in and get out fast and you didn’t have to worry about some Starbucks-sipping yuppie cunt on a cellphone killing you with her fucking SUV before you even made it across the fucking parking lot.

  Potts was not happy.

  He was looking for the canned peaches. Lately he’d had a craving for canned peaches. It was the thing he loved most as a kid, his favorite treat. His old lady would
dish out some dismal supper – chicken or hamburger, both cheap in those days – then Potts would sneak outside in the dark where he’d cached a tin of peaches in syrup he’d boosted from some grocery. He carried a knife with a can opener on it and he’d pry open the peaches and sit in the dark drinking the syrup first and then spearing the sliced peaches like guppies with his knife and forking them down his throat. Jesus, thought Potts. The shit that makes us happy. There comes a point when you realize you can never be that happy again and it’s all fucking downhill from there, brother. What do they call it? Diminishing returns.

  The other thing was, they always kept moving fucking things around in these places. Potts couldn’t find the goddamn peaches, and you ask one of these bastards and it’s like you interrupted brain surgery or something. Or else you follow around some dumb fuck who didn’t know any better than you did and before long there was a big fucking production with half a dozen assholes including the manager trying to locate one goddamn can of peaches. On the other hand you could just leave all this shit in the same goddamn place day in and day out so that it was right where you fucking left it the last time. There was clearly some reason, some money-making reason, why these bastards played with our heads like this, why they needed to keep us off-balance. There always was. Potts just couldn’t figure it out.

  So, anyway, here was Potts. Standing with his limping gimp cart in the middle of the aisle trying to figure out where he’d be if he was a can of peaches. Potts felt someone was behind him and he turned round to see a small, pleasant-faced woman waiting with her cart behind him. He was blocking the aisle. The woman smiled sweetly at him.

  ‘Oh. Shit,’ said Potts. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the woman said also, continuing to smile.

  Potts dragged aside his cart to let her pass. He went back to his search for peaches and found them, except everything was either whole peaches or low-sugar peaches or diced peaches or peaches and something else. Potts gave up. Nothing made sense to Potts anymore. The world was joyless and there was nothing you could do about it.

  Potts saw the woman again in Dairy products. She was buying yogurt, those little containers you saw healthy people slurping on TV. She was around Potts’ own age. She wore a pale-blue button-up dress and as she reached up to get the yogurt Potts realized she had a pretty good figure and nice legs. She was small and tight and she had this face like a grade school teacher. Potts didn’t think anymore about it. She wasn’t his sort of woman. But she reminded him of all those teachers he’d had the hots for as a kid, the series of not-gorgeous women in plain dresses who still managed to give him a hard-on every time they bent over his shoulder to correct his work. Potts stood in the Meats section and tried to figure out how much fat he needed in his ground beef.

  He passed her once again buying toilet paper. She nonchalantly picked up a big package of toilet paper and dropped it in her cart, like it was the most natural thing in the world, which of course it was. Potts on the other hand couldn’t pick up a roll of tissue unless the whole goddamned aisle was clear and even then he’d bury it under whatever was in his cart. Like nobody in Potts’ universe ever had a bowel movement. She smiled again at Potts and passed him with her big package of ass-wipe paper and Potts admired her, admired that ease in the world that he would never have. Potts sniffed some kind of perfume as she passed or maybe it was soap. Potts saw her bending over his desk, gently pointing out what a fuck-up he was in math, inhaling her scent and having his ear brushed by the cloth of her dress and praying, praying, she wouldn’t call him to the board because of his small but proudly distinct nine-year-old’s boner.

  He didn’t see her again in the store. He looked for her at the checkout but she’d already gone. Potts paid and lugged his peachless few groceries outside, two small bags. There was a Starbucks next door. Potts hadn’t eaten breakfast and he wanted coffee. Normally he wouldn’t be caught dead in the place. It was always full of teenagers from the high school and the girls were cute and wore revealing clothes and Potts always felt like a pervert. I mean, it was only human to look but still you felt like a pervert and what’s more you were convinced they knew you were looking and that you were definitely a pervert. Potts went in anyway because he’d forgotten to buy coffee. What Potts really wanted was a simple goddamn cup of Folgers but he submitted to a fucking coffee-Nazi interrogation and wound up with something from Sumatra and a triangular maple thing. Where the fuck was Sumatra? One more place designed to make you feel like you didn’t belong. He looked for a seat and saw the woman sitting alone at a table in the corner. She was reading a book. The available table was near hers. She gave him a big smile. Potts sat down. She said:

  ‘How do you get those groceries home on your motorcycle?’

  Potts was surprised. How did she know about the bike?

  ‘It’s a trick,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll bet. You strap them on the handlebars in some way?’

  ‘I’ve got panniers – saddlebags. I’ll just take them out of the bag and put them in the panniers.’

  She laughed. ‘Not much of a trick. I didn’t notice the saddlebags. People always want to make things more complicated than they are.’

  ‘I guess,’ said Potts. ‘You like motorcycles?’

  ‘My brother liked them. He used to put me on the back of his sometimes. I was a kid. It was the most exciting thing in the world then.’

  ‘It still is. Maybe. What happened to your brother?’

  ‘You’re thinking: tragic motorcycle accident. But no, he just got married and got responsible and stopped riding. I think I liked him better when he was wild and irresponsible.’

  ‘Not all bikers are wild and irresponsible,’ said Potts, although he clearly believed that he was.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’ve put my foot in my mouth.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I know what you meant.’

  ‘Thank you for being a gentleman about it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I have to go. It was nice meeting you.’

  ‘You too,’ said Potts.

  She gave him another of her smiles. Potts watched her walk out into the sunlight. He imagined, as he did with practically every decent person he met, what her home life was like. Whatever it was, it was not something Potts would ever have in common.

  Twelve

  A TV screen. Bobby Dye is being interviewed.

  BEV METCALF

  (to camera)

  Hi, I’m Bev Metcalf, and today we’re on the set of Wildfire, the new movie starring Bobby Dye, Tiffany Porter and Sir Ian Whateley. And we’re talking to Bobby Dye – Bobby, we’ve managed to catch you and pull you aside here. Wow, it’s a busy time for you, huh?

  BOBBY

  Yeah, I’m in a lot of scenes, and the days are long, but you know, it’s going to be worth it. It makes a difference, as an actor, to be working on a film you’re really proud of. You want to give it your all.

  BEV

  Can you tell us what the movie is about?

  BOBBY

  Well, it’s the sort of movie they don’t make anymore, at least not since David Lean. It’s an epic, a big movie, about a Montana ranching family at the turn of the century. I play Chad Halliday, a rebellious son, and Sir Ian plays my father, a powerful rancher who’s fighting to keep his ranch not only from crooked land developers but a massive forest fire that’s threatening to wipe him out.

  BEV

  It sounds symbolic, the forest fire raging . . .

  BOBBY

  Oh yeah. That was one of the things that really attracted me to the script, the whole environmental side, the encroaching of industry on nature, and the destruction of a whole way of life. I mean, we’re seeing that now. Look at the rainforests.

  BEV

  Wow!

  BOBBY

  And of course Tiffany plays my half sister, with whom I fall in love . . .

  BEV

  What? Ooh, this sounds pretty racy!

  BOBBY

  Well, I can’t
give away the plot. But everything works out okay in the end. I mean, there’s nothing to really offend anybody. So, you know, you can bring the kids. Something for everybody.

  BEV

  What’s it like working with Tiffany Porter? This is her first serious acting role, after her fabulous career as a pop star.

  BOBBY

  Tiffany is a doll, a real sweetheart. I mean, the press has always been so hard on her, so unfair, that you expect some prima donna, and she’s absolutely nothing like that. She’s absolutely professional, on time and knows her lines, and she’s got these great instincts. I just love working with her. And when people see the movie, they’re going to get an insight into a whole different character than the one in the press. I mean, you can’t carry off a role like hers and be some sort of flake. It requires real concentration and real dedication. She’s got both.

  BEV

  And Sir Ian Whateley . . .

  BOBBY

  What can I say?

  BEV

  Were you nervous?

  BOBBY

  Oh my goodness. Nervous doesn’t even touch it. Petrified, maybe. Rigid, I was afraid to speak. There he is, this . . . legend. I grew up on his films. I wanted to be Ian Whateley. So I’m, like, unable to speak, and he comes over and starts talking to me in that amazing voice he has – you know, that rich plummy British accent –

  BEV

  Unmistakable . . .

  BOBBY

  And he’s like the kindest, gentlest guy on the face of the earth. He makes you feel so relaxed, you forget all about the whole ‘Sir Ian’ business. And he’s funny as hell. He has this raunchy sense of humor – oh wow, maybe I shouldn’t say that – but he’s, like, hilarious. We sit around and laugh. We’re like two schoolkids, Mark –

  BEV

  Mark Sterling, the director –