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“What are we going to do with the rest of the money?” Andy asks.
“We’re going to donate it to the Sisters of the Poor Claires.” Andy is staring at C.T., incredulously. “What do you think we’re going to do with it? We’re keeping it. Interest on your loan, collection fees…why, by the time we total everything up, Jeff may still owe us some money.” C.T. puts the rest of the money in his pocket and says, “Now look, you need to keep bugging Jeff about what he owes you. If you stop asking him, it’ll look strange, and he’ll wonder about your sudden largesse. But what’s the lesson here?”
Andy shrugs, but answers, “I should have come to you?” C.T. shakes his head. “That, too. But remember what I said about your problem being Jeff? He’s not your friend. He hung your ass out to dry.” C.T. shakes his head again. “Shit. Hippies. Drug dealers. Fucking Kozee. What are you doing with these people anyway? I taught you better than that.”
Andy doesn’t say anything. He has no answer, not one that will make C.T. happy, anyway. He does have a question, though. “What about Kozee?”
C.T. stares out the windshield for a minute, then starts the car up. “I’ll take care of that freak,” he says.
Kozee is laughing.
C.T. doesn’t think he’s said anything fu
For being a whack-job, Kozee has taken really good care of his teeth, C.T. thinks, a few fillings here and there but otherwise everything is straight and white and sparkling. C.T. can see all the way back to Kozee’s second fucking molars, the guy has his mouth open so wide.
Kozee and C.T. are sitting in what used to be a 7–Eleven. It’s a blind pig now, not even officially a store, but there are some chips and loosies on the counter and beer in the cooler, the forty-ouncers that the mulies love and that are sold with impunity 24/7. The candy on the counter appears to get dusted once a year whether it needs it or not. There’s an occasional rustle in the dark corners of the store and in the aisles, and C.T. thinks that at some point a year or two ago Orkin should have been called in.
He and Kozee are behind the counter at a small table, the only people in the store. The rest of Kozee’s crew is outside, because, after all, C.T. is older and soft-looking, and if Kozee had muscle in the room with him, it would look like he couldn’t handle things, right?
Kozee, at the tail end of a laugh, leans forward. “Y’know, everyone says you’re straight up, but you’re out of your mind. Your son—Andy, right?—owes me five, three on the loan and two on the vig. And I’m go
C.T. is trying to keep it calm. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even half over. Worse, he is in danger of missing that all-important one-o’clock feeding. He is thinking of how easy it would be for him to kill this goon; it would cause more problems than it would solve, but he is within a minute or two of past caring. He says, “I don’t like repeating myself—”
Kozee half rises out of his chair, and leans over into C.T.’s face. C.T. can see that it registers with Kozee, just with an eye blink, but still it registers with Kozee that C.T. doesn’t lean back or give ground. “Listen, you old fuck, you don’t tell me what I do. I didn’t get all this—” He pauses for a second, because C.T. is looking around at the half-empty shelves while Kozee is talking to him, looking at the paper on the floor that seems to move on its own, the dust everywhere, and his eyebrows slightly raised, like he’s thinking whoopee-shit, disrespecting him. This pisses Kozee off. He pokes his finger toward C.T.’s chest to get his attention back.
At least he tries to.
Kozee suddenly can’t move his finger. C.T. has grabbed Kozee’s finger in midpoke. He thumps it down on the table that’s between them, and he comes up with some sort of little knife out of nowhere, it looks like one of those guillotine blades and he’s wearing it like a ring. The blade is pressed against Kozee’s pointer finger, right where the finger meets his right hand.
“I don’t like being interrupted, either,” C.T. says softly. “Now sit down, slowly, and I’ll talk, you listen. I’ll walk out of here with a promise from you, and you’ll still have your hand in the same shape it was when I walked in, so you won’t have to explain to your crew of little pussies how the head pussy got his finger cut off by an old man.”
Kozee slowly sits down. This old fuck, he’s pulled a knife out of nowhere, caught his finger and had it down on the table so fast it would take longer to tell about it, like that fat old blind guy on the reruns of Kung Fu. Kozee, for the first time since he was ten years old, before he started hitting his growth spurt, is actually scared.
“Now listen to me,” C.T. says, slowly, like he’s talking to a cat. “You’re not to lend money to my son anymore. His credit is no good here. You give him no reasons, no hassles, you just tell him no. In return, you get to keep your finger. And as a show of good faith, I keep quiet about that strap-on hooker you visit. The one in the second-floor walk-up on Hudson and McGuffey. With the lifesize naked dummy she keeps in the window to tell her clientele that she ‘be open for bidness.’”
Kozee’s eyes at this point are wide-open. Nobody is supposed to know about that shit. He can’t believe the shit that this old fuck knows, how he talks, how he acts, not even breaking a sweat and the guy is serious, he will take Kozee’s finger. Kozee wants to kill this clown, but the guy is reading his mind again.
“Yeah, I can read your mind,” C.T. says, “and it’s the shortest book in the library. If I’m struck by lightning or a car or something, the MPEG of you and your whatever winds up on muchosucko-dot-com and a half-dozen other Web sites before my body’s even cold. And I’ll take more than just your finger if you come after me. Are we solid?”
Kozee nods. He is furious and scared and is thinking that he will kill this old guy if he ever gets the chance but at the same time he knows he’ll never get the chance.
“Oh,” C.T. says, “one other thing. Don’t even look at my son. You’ll pray for St. Joseph to give you a quick and happy death.” He runs the edge of the blade softly, almost gently, across Kozee’s finger before he releases his grip and then he snaps his finger and the blade disappears, like he’s a sideshow magician or something. Kozee looks down and sees a thin line of blood at the joint, and for just a second he’s afraid to lift his hand off of the table, for fear his finger will still be lying there. C.T. gets up and throws three bills on the table—one, two and three—and looks around again, a contemptuous look on his face. He walks through the door without looking back, and gets into and starts up his car like he’s just left church or something and he has nothing else to do for the day. Kozee is furious, he’s trembling so badly he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop. One of his boys comes in to use the bathroom, and as he walks by the table he is staring at Kozee’s hand.
The finger, Kozee sees, is still bleeding.
Three days later Andy calls C.T. at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. “Guess who wants to talk to you?”
“Jeff,” C.T. says.
There’s a long silence on the line. “Did he call you, too?” Andy asks.
“No. Did he say what he wanted?”
“He wants—” Andy pauses and tries to contain himself, but he can’t help laughing “—for you to help him with a problem.”
“That’s what I do,” C.T. says. “Have him call me.”
The following Tuesday C.T. and Jeff are sitting in Lisa’s. Jeff has a circular bruise in the middle of his forehead from where C.T., while wearing his ski mask, had pressed his .38 special, and another lump along the right side of his head where C.T. had pistol-whipped him. C.T. has been listening to Jeff lay everything out, from Rakkim ripping him off to borrowing money from Andy to getting robbed by a couple of heavy-duty mokes who are now, apparently, in the wind.