The Dope Thief Read online

  Manny appeared near the porch carrying a can of acetone. He and Ray went back into the kitchen and began dragging the bodies down the hallway and into the front room by the cooker.

  Ray pointed down the hill. “Get the van, I’ll finish this.”

  Manny ran off the porch and down the drive. There was a flash of lightning that lit the whole world, and for one fraction of a second Ray saw everything in a flare of blue white light and black shadow: Manny halfway down the drive, running flat out, the dead man and woman and their horror- movie wounds, the tracks of blood and fluid leading out to the hallway, the footprints, the money, the discarded shotgun, and his own terrible face in an antique mirror over the fireplace. His eyes were huge and white, his hair matted, his mouth open as if he were screaming. Then it was dark again.

  He went back into the kitchen and bent down over Rick. Ray put a finger on Rick’s neck but wasn’t sure what he should find. He felt nothing but cold skin, and Rick’s staring eyes were dry and black. Ray looked into the dead and empty pupils, inches from his own but staring through him, as if reading something written on the wall behind Ray’s head. He almost turned to look.

  Finally he grabbed Rick’s jacket and pulled him slowly toward the door. The body twisted and began to come out of the jacket, and Ray struggled to get a purchase with bloody hands. He began to be conscious of the stink of shit and blood and piss, and he started to gag. How long had they been here? An hour? Three? Would it be light soon? He braced himself against the door jamb and pulled and got some momentum. He pumped his legs hard and didn’t stop until he collapsed by the front door. Good enough.

  He stepped out to the porch. He heard the van coming up the drive and grabbed Manny’s shotgun off the bag and ran to take a position behind the ruined pickup in the grass. When Manny opened the door and jumped out, Ray stepped from behind the truck and showed himself.

  Manny jumped. “Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry. I was standing there listening to you come, and it just hit me that it might not really be you.” He handed Manny the gun and ran to the porch and dragged the duffel, bumping, down the stairs.

  Manny left the side door of the van open and came over to help him heft it. “Christ, is that all cash? How much is in here?”

  “What ever it is, it’s not enough.”

  They policed up the house and the yard, doing a quick look for anything they had forgotten or dropped in the excitement. Finally Manny went to the van and Ray went back into the front room. He picked up the acetone and uncapped it, splashing it on the bodies and the floor and backing out to the door, choking on the stink. He spat into the grass and then dumped the last bit of the fluid on a snapped- off piece of dowel rod he found on the porch and lit it. He tossed the can underhand into the house and threw the lit stick in after it. There was a rush of air and a thump, and the front room glowed blue for a few seconds and then flashed over white and orange and the front windows blew out.

  He stood back and watched it burn for a moment, then ran over and jumped in the passenger side of the van. Manny gunned the engine, throwing gravel and splashing through ruts filled with water.

  AS THEY CRESTED the hill there was a flash of lightning, and they both saw a car turning into the driveway in front of them.

  Manny jammed on the brakes. “Oh, Jesus Christ. You have got to be fucking kidding.”

  “Swing right, up on the grass. Go.” Manny spun the wheel and the van skidded and slid, the back end fishtailing around. Ray tried to see behind them, but what ever was going on at the house was still out of sight behind the hill.

  “Calm the fuck down.” The car moved slowly toward them up the driveway, something long and wide across the ass’a Dodge Charger, an old one. Dark blue, maybe, or black. Manny hooked around them, and Ray caught a brief glimpse of a young guy be hind the wheel, long hair and a neat goatee, smiling, and a dark figure beside him. Manny punched the gas and the wheels spun in place, burning a hole in the wet grass. The other car disappeared over the rise toward the house. Ray, breathing hard, put a hand on his chest and felt his heart hammering. Manny smacked the steering wheel with the heel of his hand and stomped on the gas. The back end of the van slid down the hill and the tires caught. The van popped forward about three feet and the engine stalled. Ray put his hands up and caught himself. Manny hit the steering wheel hard with his chest. “Motherfucking motherfucker.”

  There was a couple of seconds of silence in the van, and Ray could swear he heard shouting from somewhere. Manny grabbed the key and twisted. Ray’s mind went completely blank, and he just watched Manny cranking the engine over and over. There was a glow over the rise behind them, and Ray began to see red light reflected on the tops of the wet trees. The starter growled and finally caught, and Manny hit the gas and spun the wheel to straighten them out. He got the van moving down the driveway and picked up speed as they moved down the last of the hill and thumped down onto the street. Manny twisted the wheel and the tires spun and whined, trying to find a grip on the wet asphalt. They shot down the road as the Charger’s headlights disappeared over the rise, where now Ray could see flames cresting the hill.

  “Oh, Jesus, get moving.” They were almost out of sight of the driveway when the Dodge shot back down the driveway and took the corner. Ray could see it fishtailing, and it almost kept going across the road into the trees, but the driver got it under control and gunned it. Smoke formed around the rear wheels as the car gained traction and shot forward after them. They lost sight of it as the van rounded a corner and began to climb.

  THEY WERE LOST, and Manny was moving too fast for them to get their bearings. Ray tried to keep him moving east toward the Delaware, and Manny made turns when he figured the van could make it without catapulting them across an intersection and into the trees that lined the dark country lanes. Ray climbed across the seats and tried to hold himself at the rear window with the shotgun. He jacked more shells into the breech and held on to a seat belt strap as the van banked from side to side. Manny jammed on the brakes to make a turn, and Ray smacked his head against the door. The car would be faster and handle better on the wet roads, but once they had made a couple of turns it didn’t seem likely that the men following them would know where they were.

  Ray climbed awkwardly into the front and dropped into the passenger seat, sweating and cursing under his breath. There were no lights and not many signs, and none of them meant anything to Ray. They passed farms and small developments with a few houses and crossed a creek swollen and black in the moonlight.

  There was a hissing, clicking noise, and Ray jumped in his seat.

  A voice, close by, said, “Ten- four, good buddy.”

  Ray looked at Manny, who looked at Ray’s waist. The walkie-talkie. Christ, they must have dropped the other one in the yard. The cheap thing only carried a few miles, so that meant the Charger was still behind them and moving fast to stay close.

  “Man, you guys know how to party.” Ray unclipped the radio from his belt and held it up. “Come on, let’s talk for a minute.”

  Manny shook his head. “Throw that thing the fuck out the window.”

  Ray held up his hand. There was something about the voice. Ray wondered if it was the young guy he had seen at the wheel of the Charger. It was deep, confident. Amused, maybe, at how fast things could get fucked up.

  “Say something. I figured you left this one behind ’cause you

  wanted to talk things over, figure out how to resolve this thing.”

  The guy had a soft accent, a New En gland burr that slightly opened the vowels with r’s and twisted others, like the way he said “resolve” with a throaty “aw” sound.

  Ray clicked the handset twice, then, after a beat, twice again. Manny slowed at a five- way intersection, headed vaguely left.

  The voice said, “Okay, that’s better.” There was a long pause. “I’m just trying to understand this. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Old Randy was a crazy man. Mayb
e things just got out of hand? You were just going over there to cop and Charlene came on to you, shows you her stuff. Randy flips out, starts in with the black he li cop ters or some shit? Something like that?” The voice was calm, but in the background they could hear the Charger’s engine racing, trying to catch up with them.

  Manny shook his head, glaring. “Will you throw that fucking thing away? Suppose they can home in on the fucking thing or something.”

  “They’re not the CIA, man. It’s just a pissed- off dealer, and maybe he tells us something we can use to stay the fuck out of his way.”

  The voice said, “I guess there are two problems with that scenario, where it’s all just a big misunderstanding. One is this here radio. Which I can’t figure unless you were police, or miscreants, and this little dime store thing is not police issue. The other thing’and this is where things get real complicated’the other thing is you stole my fucking money and my dope.” The voice had an edge now. “Now, I know you might think I want to avenge the deaths of those two hillbillies or some shit. I tell you sincerely I am only thinking about the money.” The voice was fading, static building on the line.

  “So here’s a way out for everyone. You just tell me where you are, you drop the bag out the door and drive away. Then this becomes a funny story about how you almost ended up getting tortured to death for no good reason, instead of a sad story about two headless corpses found in the river.” Riv- ah, the way the guy said it. Ray tried to think if the guy at the farm house, Randy, had an accent, or the woman. Rick had called him a Piney, and that’s what Ray remembered, a backwoods kind of accent tinged with Philly.

  They came to a stop sign, and Manny turned right. The road climbed and twisted, and the van slowed with the effort. The voice got louder and clearer. Ray stared into the rear window, eyes burning with the strain of trying to pick something meaningful out of the wet dark behind the van. “What do you think, that you’d be that tough to find? A couple of white guys ripping off dealers in a brown van? This walkie- talkie tells me you’ve been doing this a while. And that means there are a bunch of people out there who want me to catch you and put a bullet in your eye.”

  There was lightning, and the walkie- talkie hissed and popped with static. “You should think about this. You can still make it all go away. The fire, that’ll probably keep the cops out of it. I love a good fire, it’s like the fuckup’s friend.” Ahead, two yellow eyes appeared in the road, and Manny stood on the brakes. The van jerked and swiveled in the water, and Manny fought to hold the road. The van spun until it was sliding broadside down the road. Ray was thrown against the door, trying to grab at the dash, the seat, anything. The eyes in the road got huge, like some kind of monster bearing down on them. Finally the van stopped with a scream of rubber. They sat for a moment, watching the deer move daintily into the trees. Manny let a breath out like air escap-ing from a tire and cranked the wheel until the van pointed back down the road.

  The voice said, “Don’t make me do all the talking, pal. I’m patient, but you gotta start dealing with this situation or there are going to be serious fucking repercussions.” There was hissing and a harsh click timed with a flash of lightning. “I need that fucking money, you hear me?”

  Manny hit the roof of the van with his fist. “That’s enough of that shit.” He grabbed the radio out of Ray’s hand and sailed it out the window into the trees.

  Ray nodded. “Yeah, fuck it. Just go.” But he had wanted to hear more. He wasn’t learning anything, not really, and he probably wouldn’t have. It would have been impossible to say why he wanted to keep hearing the deep voice, telling him he was going to be caught and die, but he did. He would have sat there all night with the walkie- talkie listening to the terrible shit that was going to happen, if Manny hadn’t grabbed the thing and thrown it away.

  THEY MADE A right and then a quick left again and passed an old Victorian house with a bed- and- breakfast sign and then came to a dead end.

  Manny yelled at Ray, “Where am I going?”

  Ray took in the yellow sign marked with arrows pointing north and south. “This is River Road. Turn right and haul ass.”

  Ray stowed the shotgun under the first row of passenger seats and covered it with a parka and then climbed into the passenger seat again. The road was narrow, and they began to see traffic going the other way. Ray stiffened every time a car passed them, thinking they were going to get a face full of windshield if it was the Charger.

  What could they know? So they had gotten that there were two of them in a brown van. The guys in the Charger had been at the house for like five minutes before they came out after Ray and Manny. If they had looked at their faces, what could they have seen? Ray had barely registered the driver of the Charger, and it seemed to Ray that the guy had been staring straight ahead.

  “Assume the worst, right?” He looked over at Manny, whose face was dripping, as if the rain were coming directly at them into the van.

  “I’m way out ahead on that. I’m thinking they’re already at my house with a blowtorch.”

  “I mean, how much trouble could we be in? What could they even find out?” Ray’s mind raced and his head throbbed. “They saw the van, so what? The plates are from the junkyard, and we dump the thing tomorrow somewhere.” He wanted a cigarette. “They ID Rick? Can they tie him to us? And why would they? Who knows our business?”

  “Hoe Down.” Hoe Down was Ho Dinh, a Viet nam ese in Philly they downed drugs to from the dealers they took off. Ho was the one they ran all their scores by, the guy connected to the bikers and the organized guys running speed. They talked with Ho about everything they did, and Ho would warn them off dealers or cookers who were protected.

  It made what they did a kind of public service for the established guys. Cleaning the little operations off the street, keeping things quiet and running smooth in ways Ray didn’t even get. What Manny called agita, Philly Italian for heartburn, aggravation.

  Ray said, “Yeah, but doesn’t Ho have as much to lose as we do? If word got out he was taking the stuff we took off other dealers and putting it back out on the street?”

  “Dude, some biker sticks a gun in his mouth he’s only got one thing to lose.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Ray liked Ho, didn’t like to think of the moment they couldn’t trust him anymore.

  “Then? At that minute? He’s not thinking long term.”

  AFTER A FEW minutes they came to a bridge and crossed into Frenchtown on the Jersey side of the river. The houses were dark and nothing was open. When the road dead- ended again they turned south on 29, following the black coil of the river and passing through crossroad towns, most of them too small to have names. When they hit Lambertville, Ray told Manny to get off 29, and they drove through the town. Ray saw his first human being on the street, an old man walking a dog on George Street. As they passed under a streetlight Ray angled his watch and looked at the time. Twelve thirty- five. Everything had happened so fast. He tried to think about each thing but it all just unspooled in his head in a rush. The noise and fire and the stink of blood and ether and smoke. And those guys, those fucking guys in the Charger. At the south end of town they kept going, headed toward 95.

  CHAPTER

  FIVE

  THEY WERE TOO freaked to go home, so they rented a room at a no- name motel in Bordentown. Ray paid for the room, and Manny took the van off the street and parked it behind the hotel. When Ray got to the room, Manny was dragging the duffel bag up the curb. Ray unlocked the room and went back out and got the shotgun and wrapped it in his windbreaker and carried it in, locking the door behind him. He pulled the curtains tight, and Manny began dumping the contents of the bag out and sorting the plastic bags of dope from the cash. A fat black spider fell out of the bag, and Manny made a disgusted noise and stomped on it. Ray opened his knife and began cutting the rubber bands off the bundles of money and dumping more cash out of plastic bags. Manny found the remote and put the TV on, something to make noise and cover their
conversation. The bag stank of dogshit, so when it was empty Ray took it outside and stuffed it in a trash can near the ice machine.

  They developed a system, Manny making stacks of ones, five, and tens, and Ray organizing the twenties, fifties, and hundreds. Ray fished in a drawer and came out with a pad and a green pen. After a while Manny went out and got them Cokes from the machine. Around two Manny stripped off his clothes and took a shower. When he came back Ray leaned back against the bed and shook his head.

  “I can’t fucking count any more. I’m fried.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Right now, I’m at’” He added a column of figures on the pad. “One hundred and twenty seven thousand, six hundred, give or take. Not counting the dope. And there’s still all this shit over here.” He picked up a pile of loose bills and let it drop.

  “Jesus Christ.” Manny sat on the bed wrapped in a towel. “How do you figure Ma and Pa Kettle put together that much money? That’s a shitload of eightballs.”

  “Unless it’s not theirs.”

  “The guys in the Charger?”

  Ray shrugged. The most they had taken off anyone had been twenty- two thousand, from a Salvadoran crack dealer in a hous ing project in Bensalem, and that had been dumb luck. The Salvadoran’s crew of jugglers’underage kids who stood on the street and serviced the rockheads walking or driving by’had been sitting at the kitchen table emptying their pockets at the end of the day. One of them, who looked about nine, had actually started to cry when Ray and Manny came in with guns up, shout ing. The kid had put his head on the table and started sobbing, yelling, “No me mate,” with his eyes clamped shut. Don’t kill me. Which was a pretty useless thing to say, but Ray guessed you had to say something when the guns came out, and that was as good as anything.