The Dope Thief Read online

  He had worked straight jobs, but never for very long. He had worked in pizza joints when he was a kid, liked the smell of the dough and flirting with the waitresses and the girls who came in for a slice and a Coke. But then he’d just blow it off; he’d go get high with his friends, and the next thing he knew, he’d be driving someone else’s car to the Oxford Mall, or sneaking around a dark house, high, drunk, banging into things and trying not to laugh, or running through black yards at night with a pillowcase full of cheap costume jewelry he took off someone’s bureau while Manny took cold cuts from the fridge.

  Could he stop being who he was? He thought about Marletta, about the last time he saw her. What had they said? She wanted a normal life for him. If things had gone different with her, would that have been his way out? She was in his thoughts more and more now, working on his head. The way she loved him and thought he could be more. Gone all this time until that picture brought her back, the picture in the house on Jefferson Avenue of the young girl in the cap and gown.

  Marletta had died, and they’d sent him up for it, and he’d let them. He’d picked her up from graduation and they’d driven around, went to a park, gone to his house and made love, and when he was driving her home a drunk had crossed the center line and she’d been killed. Thrown from the car into a field full of tiny white flowers whose name he couldn’t remember. Her old man was a state trooper, and he’d hated Ray even before that day. They’d taken Ray to St. Mary’s with a concussion, and her old man would sit in the parking lot in his car. Every time Ray had gone to the window, her old man would be there. At night, he’d see his cigarette going in the dark, a slow red pulse as her father breathed.

  Her old man had pushed the case about the stolen car, and they’d locked him up. He sat in Juvie for months, waiting, and one night her old man came for him and took him out and beat him with a tire iron and took him back with a thin story about Ray falling in the dark. So when they finally convicted him, sent him upstate as an adult, he’d had two busted arms. Ray had let it happen, let it all come, and none of it, no matter how bad it got, was as bad as he thought he deserved for losing Marletta.

  After a few minutes he gave up the idea of going back for his shit. Instead he drove west to Montgomeryville to get more clothes, toiletries, and a couple of CDs to calm him down and help him think. It was late when he finally pulled into a motel on 611 near the turnpike. Standing in the bright lobby by the highway brought his paranoia on hard again, and he drummed his fingers and hunched his shoulders waiting for the sleepy clerk to appear from the back. He checked in, then drove around the back of the place, twitching with fear. He ran upstairs, his insides turning to water, and then sat in the dark with the pistol in his lap.

  What would Marletta think of him now? What would she say? He was so far from the things he had let himself want when they were together, but he felt like he wanted something like a normal life now more than ever. Was it just that things were so fucked up? That he was afraid and looking for a way out?

  He rummaged in his bag and pulled out some CDs and threw them on the bed, then chose one and put in the CD player on the bed table. Henryk Górecki. Classical music. What he called it, anyway. It had been playing when he walked into a Tower Rec ords in King of Prussia, and he asked the girl behind the counter what it was, and she pointed to a stack of CDs near the counter.

  He had looked up the music online and knew that the words were from a prayer, and they sounded that way. Someone pleading or crying, he guessed in Polish. He thought all pleading was the same in what ever language. Help me. Forgive me. Don’t leave me. Don’t kill me. He thought about the white- haired man and the terrible red arc streaming out of him, and Rick Staley slipping around in his own blood on the floor of the dope lab in Ottsville. He wanted to let himself go, start screaming and breaking things. He wanted to get high. After a while, he fell asleep.

  HE GOT UP at eight and had coffee in front of the window, watching the street. A woman jogged by; a man in one of those spandex outfits he didn’t get rode by on an expensive- looking bike. He got awkwardly to the floor of the room and did a few sit-ups and wanted to puke. He thought about being in Juvie, where he met Manny, and work details hauling trash and clearing brush.

  They had been tough little fuckers then, tanned and fit, ready for anything. They got out six days apart and started boosting cars and stereos together. They shaved their heads, and Manny gave Ray his first tattoo, SS lightning bolts on his right arm done with a homemade gun with the motor from an electric razor and a guitar string. They’d split the money from stealing and get high and go to the movies. They watched Predator, he remembered, over and over, doing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura to each other, capping bad guys in the jungle. “If it bleeds, we can kill it.” How different was his life now, when you broke it down? He had stopped spending money on candy and soda but still bought movies and CDs and books compulsively. Didn’t understand savings plans or IRAs, hadn’t worked forty hours in years. The year before, he had gotten his last tattoo, dope thief in heavy black Germanic letters high on his left arm. At the time maybe committing himself, or maybe just letting go of every wish he ever had for a normal life.

  Ho Dinh called Ray around ten, told him to come by. He took a shower, got dressed, and put on a sweatshirt and a sport coat to help hide the automatic. He spent a last ten minutes watching the street, his face tight, before he finally jogged to Sherry’s Honda and took off.

  WHEN RAY PULLED up, Ho came out of the house and jumped in alongside him.

  “Keep going, down to Green Street.”

  “Where we headed?”

  “West. We’re going to see a guy I know about your problem.”

  “What’s he know?”

  “So far, nothing. And we should talk about what you’re going to tell him. He doesn’t have to know your business, just the part about the guys from New Hampshire.” Ho took a piece of paper from his pocket and called the turns. They made their way along Kelly Drive, slaloming along the edge of Fairmount Park toward the Schuylkill River. Ho wore a light jacket even though it was in the eighties and expensive- looking sunglasses that he pushed up on his head whenever he consulted the paper.

  Ray asked him if the guy they were going to see was with one of the clubs that controlled the meth business in the Delaware Valley.

  Ho waggled his head back and forth. “I don’t know that he’s with any of the biker clubs, exactly, but he knows them and does business with them. They have some kind of deal together. I think he cooks for them and they distribute his product.” Ho took his glasses and cleaned them, which made him look momentarily even younger. “So if we’ve got guys from up north pushing into his area, he might care enough about that to make your fight his fight.”

  “You think?”

  Ho looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “You got a gun with you?”

  “Under the seat. And in the glove compartment. I got more in the trunk, it comes to that. We going to need them?”

  “I hope not. This guy’s a little nuts, is all I know. You can’t hang around that shit as much as he does and not be a little cooked yourself.” Ho opened the glove compartment and pulled out the Colt. He worked the slide to see that it was loaded and put it at his feet.

  THEY CROSSED THE river and made their way down Route 1 for a while, finally turning off and heading north. Ray stopped recognizing things as soon as they were out of Philly. The houses got more spread out, the yards big and green. He saw a sign for Blue Hill, and they made some more turns and came to a dirt road. When they pulled in, Ho told Ray to stop and handed him the pistol. He wedged it in his belt and pulled his sweatshirt over it.

  He put the car in gear again and rolled down the rutted track that led to what looked like an abandoned shack. There was a new- looking red pickup truck pulled in next to the house and a big guy with a shaved head sitting in the bed. He had wraparound shades, and his hands were under a blanket that covered his lap. He worked a toothpick in his
mouth and stared at them as they turned the car off and sat, listening to the engine tick.

  Ray raised his eyebrows at Ho. “Should I have worn the vest?”

  “Think bulletproof thoughts.”

  Ray shook his head.

  Ho looked at the big guy in the pickup. “Tell me, what’s with the shaved heads? Too much to look tough and comb your hair, too?”

  “I did it once. Me and Manny, when we were young.”

  “Remember why?”

  “No. If I had a nickel for every stupid thing we did when we were kids.” He considered this for a minute. “Wait, I probably do.”

  Ho sighed and opened the door. He kept his hands in plain sight and nodded to the guy in the truck, who inclined his head toward the open door of the house, his own hands still under the blanket.

  Ho disappeared into the house for a minute, then came back to the front door and waved to Ray. He slowly pulled himself out of the car and stretched, Pickup Truck Man watching him intently. Ray wished he had a toothpick to push around in his mouth; it would keep his mind off wanting to scratch himself and causing an accidental bloodbath.

  It took a long time to reach the door, but eventually Ray closed the distance and made his way in past Ho and let his eyes adjust to the darkened interior for a minute. It was hot inside, airless, as if the house had stood empty a long time. Ray took in yellowed wallpaper, a dusty coffee table, a crumbling piano, keys going brown with age.

  There was a tall, thin guy folded into a chair at the table and wearing a leather jacket. He had wiry gray hair pulled back in a ponytail, and his eyes looked cloudy to Ray, like the eyes of something that lived underground. His face was long and thin, and he had his hands flat on the table. The left hand was scarred, mottled with pink lines, and his left ear looked slightly melted. A woman stood behind him cradling a Remington pump gun. She was tall, too, and probably had been beautiful once. She had tattoos on her hands, yellow sun and bright clouds on one hand, stars and a smiling blue moon on the other. There were deeply etched lines running back from her hooded eyes, which were a brilliant green. The guy outside might be paid help, Ray thought, but this one was here for love. She was the one to watch if things got weird.

  Ho moved a hand between Ray and the table. “This is Cyrus.” The man nodded at Ray, who nodded back. There was one chair, and Ray stepped forward and sat in it.

  Cyrus tilted his head at the wall. “My grandfather built this place in the thirties. He built it himself from plans he saw in a Sears, Roebuck catalog. In them days you could order a house from Sears and they’d build it for you.” Cyrus had a deep, cracked voice to go with the lined face. Years of breathing chemicals.

  “It’s real nice.”

  “It’s all beat to shit now, but it was a good house to grow up in. My pop got killed in some rice paddy in 1963.” He nodded at Ho. “Probably by your uncle.” He put his eyes back on Ray, tilted his head. “Where’d you do your time?”

  Ray thought for a minute about how much to say to someone he didn’t know. “Rockwood. Some other places.”

  “I figured you for a yardbird. That where you met Luke the Gook here?” Ho chuckled and shook his head. Cyrus was quiet and intense, and Ray was on edge. He couldn’t figure whether the guy was going to blow up or if this was just how he was.

  Ray shook his head. “You been inside?”

  “Nope. I figure that’s what separates me from you retards. I’m ready to die to stay free.”

  “That’s one way to go.”

  “You should die proud when you can’t live proud.”

  “Nietz sche. You’re into Nietzsche, you’d love the joint. It’s all psychos who figure they got permission from a dead German to skip on their child support and shoot their girlfriend’s dog. I don’t get it myself. I figure you want to rob a fucking gas station, go nuts. Why do you need quotes from Twilight of the Idols to make it cool?” Ray looked at Ho.

  “Cyrus, my friend has a story to tell we thought you’d want to know.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Well, Ray thought, an ear and a half, but he let it go. “There’s a guy cooking dope in farm houses in Bucks County and Montgomery County.” Suddenly, Ray wasn’t sure what he wanted from this guy.

  “There’s a lot of guys cooking dope around there. What, you want a cookie?” Cyrus stood up, his left eye twitching, and Ray put his hands on the arms of the chair, closer to the pistol. “This is costing me money, parlaying with some yardbird thinks he knows shit.”

  Ho said, “This guy’s got people from New En gland clubs with him.”

  Cyrus was still and his face went slack. “And?”

  Ray held up a hand, but Ho went on. “He’s got guys down here from Massachusetts and New Hampshire.”

  “Who’s moving his shit?”

  “That we don’t know.”

  Cyrus sighed and looked up like they were exhausting his infinite patience.

  Ho pushed his glasses up on his sweat- slick forehead. “Tell him the last bit, Ray.”

  “I don’t know. I want to think about this.” Things were moving fast, and he couldn’t think. What did it mean to tell this guy everything?

  Ho looked at him but kept going. “We can draw you a map.”

  “You can fucking take me there.”

  “Yeah, screw that.” Ray made a wiping gesture with his left hand. He was having trouble keeping it together, the guy’s hard stare working on his head. “I already seen enough of these fuckers to last me a lifetime.”

  “So you want me to take care of some shit for you. You owe these guys money?”

  Ray sat up straight. “That’s none of your business, Merlin.”

  Cyrus slapped the table with his hand. The woman behind him pulled the shotgun down from port arms, ready to go to work.

  Ho put his hands up. “Okay, let’s all take a breath.” After a long moment, Ray and Cyrus sank back into their chairs. Ho looked at Ray, who nodded. “We’ll take you there. You can look things over, see what you think.”

  Cyrus breathed through his mouth. Was thinking, maybe, or just short of breath. “I’ll call you in a day or two.” Ray stood up slowly. Cyrus raised a finger. “You’re fucking with me, or you get me hung up or waste my time, you’re going to find your way to a deep hole in the dirt.”

  ON THE WAY back Ho looked at him. “Man, what the fuck was that?”

  “Ah. I just can’t stand that shit. Guys like that who think they’re in charge of shit and like to lay down the law.” Like his old man, he almost said.

  “Shit, Ray.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sorry.” He had almost lost control of things, pushed the crazy fucker too hard and made something bad happen. Something was happening to him, he could feel it. Old feelings and resentments were just beneath the surface of his skin, like barbs he couldn’t get out.

  Ho looked over at him. “Ray, this guy might be our ticket out of this thing.”

  Ray thought about that, about the fact that Ho’s name was on the paper he had taken off the dead biker and what that might mean. He thought about Tina and the kids and got a sick feeling. He knew there was no ticket out, but a chance, maybe, and he’d have to take it or other people would pay for his stupidity.

  He decided that what ever happened, he’d try to keep Ho and Manny at a distance. As they drove, he and Ho talked about what Cyrus might do and about other characters they had known in their business, most of them locked up or dead. Ho told Ray about his cousins who lived in Thailand and worked protection for Thai warlords moving meth from Burma.

  Ray frowned. “Meth? Really? I think of opium or heroin coming out of there.”

  “Who knew? Turns out they can make it and move it here and it’s still cheaper than the stuff made by those hillbillies you take off.”

  “The invisible hand, huh? I guess if it works for sneakers and T-shirts it works for dope.”

  Ho said, “Still, it’s kind of depressing, isn’t it? Another line of work for high school dropouts closed
off by foreign competition.” They laughed.

  “It’s the same everywhere, isn’t it? You’ve been overseas.”

  “Yeah, I guess in most places it’s only worse. It’s a crappy deal for people with nothing no matter where you are.”

  Ray looked up as they got back into the city, and he saw a row of tired- looking people waiting for a SEPTA bus on Roosevelt Boulevard. He thought about how the fact that he was outside of the law and straight life didn’t control his reaction to the way the world worked. His father had started off a working man, and Ray still thought of himself as working class, distrusted the rich, still thought there was something worse about Enron and country club crime than what he did.

  He tried to put it into words, couldn’t get it straight in his head, but said, “I mean, you got thousands of years of human history, people thinking about how to get organized, how to distribute work and money, and what? This is it? This is the best we can do?”

  He made a gesture that took in everything around them. The Korean dry cleaners and the Mexican kids standing outside the car wash, the lined and anxious faces of the women at the bus stop. Maybe the fix he was in, too.

  “Every man for himself?”

  “Worse. Worse than that.” What his mother had always said, bent over the unpaid bills like a galley slave over an oar, her face bruised with worry: “Dog eat dog.”

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  FOR TWO NIGHTS Ray stayed in a motel in Marlton across the river in Jersey. Clean, but the towels were like sandpaper and the bed sagged in the middle. He called Theresa on the cell phone the first morning. She’d won eight hundred dollars playing nickel slots.