The Jook

"We ain't go

"Da

I helped Burroughs get up. He looked at me sideways behind his glasses but didn't let on anything. If Da

Da

"What are you go

He stopped moving around, bringing the piece up on me. "What if I do, Zelmont? Nap ain't around to protect your ass now, is he? You the one that let him down, wasn't you? How I know you didn't fuck up and he died 'fore he was supposed to?"

If Burroughs was staring at me, I didn't let on. "Nap died from his gunshot wounds, Da

Da

"Whatever you decide, Da

"You let this dope fiend skeleton in on it." He jerked the pistol at Burroughs.

"He's used to this, Da

I wasn't sure that reverse psychology bullshit was the right angle with a hothead like Da

Da

It took a lot of effort from the four of us to get Nap up the hill. Even Burroughs pitched in, more out of fear of Da

With a lot of stops and starts we got Da

We got the bundles up and headed back to the Seven Souls Clinic in North Hollywood, me and Da

Burroughs had me get a gurney and we wheeled Nap in through a side entrance, a sheet draped over him. We left him in a room with nothing in it except a white metal trash can and a scale. He locked it up and we went into his office. The bundles were in there too.

Wilma cut a bundle open with a pair of snips he had on a shelf. She counted out seventy grand in fifties and hundreds. "This do it?" She handed the money over to him. He sat behind his desk, rocking back and forth in his chair.

"Well," he said, picking up the cash. "There has to be some compensation for all my exertion." He licked his lips like a lizard flicking his tongue for a fly.

"Fuck you." Da

I had to hand it to him, that old spook Burroughs kept his head. He took off his glasses and closed his eyes like he was waiting to be sent to that big pharmacy in the sky.

"Da

"Give him another $30,000," I said. "Stop playing Wesley Snipes every time something don't go your way, Da

He mumbled at me and Wilma and quietly put the gun away. Burroughs opened his eyes, and I swear for a second he looked disappointed. I counted out his bills and handed them over.

"I shall take care of everything on my end." He sat back, examining us like I'm sure he did when he was getting ready to cut a body open.

We split in Wilma's car, the bundles in the trunk. We were goddamn millionaires. We'd taken money from a dude that couldn't report it and who'd soon have even bigger worries to occupy his time. 'Course there was still his wild-ass cousin Rudy to deal with, but I wasn't sweatin' him right then. My cut was go

But something didn't feel right, and it wasn't just 'cause my best friend was lying on the slab.

Chapter 15

When I got back to my pad in Le

As the sun came up, I went to bed and tried not to think about Nap. Or the fact that Wilma was sitting on the cash. She was the only one of us who had a safe place to keep it hidden.

For the next few days everything seemed to be happening in a world I was only a visitor to. I was too paranoid to stay at my shitty apartment but too broke to go anywhere else. Wilma had leaked information to the contact she had in the Justice Department before we did the robbery. The day after the job there was a piece in the L.A. Times Sports section about the charges coming down on Ellison Stadanko. And there was a story in the Metro section about the investigation aimed at Rudy Chekka, reputed mob boss.

That night I was sitting in the Proud Bird on Aviation watching the TV that hung over one comer of the bar. On the news was coverage of Stadanko at a press conference. He was with his lawyers and was denying everything. His old lady wasn't next to him.

A hand came down on my shoulder. ''Shame, isn't it?"

"Assholes always get what's due them, Fahrar." I drank my drink, not bothering to look at the chump.

"How you been keeping, partner?" He sat down on the stool next to me.

"I've been just fine, pardner." Now there was a piece about an ice-skating bear on the news. A chick at the other end of the bar cracked up at this. "I know you don't expect me to buy you a drink."

"That might be construed as a bribe." He took off his hat and placed it on the bar.

"Ain't there someplace else your half-breed ass can get a drink at?"

"And miss your witticisms?" He leaned over the bar and ordered. "Give me a rum and coke with a lime in it, okay?"

The bartender, a big-tittied woman with a weave that needed repair, nodded and made his drink. Fahrar sat there, watching TV and getting under my skin as she made his drink. She put it on the bar for him and he paid her. Cheap civil servant motherfuckah tipped her a quarter.