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When he’s done, C.T. doesn’t say anything for a minute, just sits and sips his coffee, then asks the waitress for a refill before he starts in on Jeff.
“First of all. You tried to pull a game on Andy.” Jeff starts to protest, but stops when C.T. raises his hand like a traffic cop. “Don’t ever do that again. When we’re done here, you’re go
“Yes, yes, sir, I’m sorry,” Jeff says. C.T. waves it away.
“Okay. We understand each other.” C.T. takes a sip of coffee, and looks at the waitress for a moment, bending over a table across the room. The woman is new at Lisa’s, maybe her midthirties, probably too young for him, but she looks good in a pair of jeans, bent over a table, taking an order. She is the type of slum goddess that the Clintonville neighborhood has attracted by the busload for decades. He imagines her for a moment on a hotel balcony, kneeling in front of him, then turns back to Jeff.
“Now, your problem isn’t these mokes who ripped you off. Your problem is Rakkim. He owes you money. You get it from him. What he owes you and then some. For your trouble.”
“How I am supposed to do that?” Jeff says. C.T. takes another sip of coffee, and stares at Jeff over the rim of the cup. The coffee, he thinks, is really good this morning. The old hippie who owns the place is home where he belongs so he can’t fuck it up. C.T. looks at the waitress again and she smiles over her shoulder at him.
C.T. smiles back at her, then smiles at Jeff.
“How about,” he says, “I’ll show you.”
LAWRENCE LIGHT
Lawrence Light is no stranger to the world of financial skullduggery that his character Karen Glick tackles in Too Rich To Live and Fear and Greed. As an award-wi
“The Lamented” takes a slightly different turn as it examines the toll greed can take on the human conscience, even in characters who seem to lack one of their own. When their past pays them a visit, some unsavory individuals discover how easily the line between reality and imagination is blurred. But when all is said and done, payback is as unavoidable as it is deadly.
THE LAMENTED
When the man he’d killed a year ago walked into the bar, Joe Dogan was surprised. So surprised that he fell off his stool.
Dogan lay on his back on the sticky floor, his eyes as rounded as the moon, and mouthed words silently. His glass rolled away from him, trailing bourbon.
Brad Acton, dead a year now, smiled, showing his fine teeth. Brad’s well-cut suit fit just right on his trim, tall body, and his well-cut blond hair flopped just right down his noble forehead. Brad seemed delighted to be here, even though this had to be the seediest bar in Camden, New Jersey, arguably the nation’s seediest city. When he was alive, he had been perpetually delighted, and everyone was delighted by him.
With a smile as bright as the day outside, Brad took a step toward where Dogan lay sprawled.
Dogan managed to make a sound: “Noooooooooooo.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. It must be the booze. A few times before, after tipping too many wet ones, he’d had hallucinations.
Slowly, warily, Dogan opened his eyes. The bar was empty again. The light from the revolving beer sign was the brightest thing in this dark place. It twinkled off the treasury of neatly shelved booze bottles. The afternoon shined beneath the door. The bartender—
Wobbling, Dogan climbed to his feet. He steadied himself with a good, strong grip on the edge of the bar. “I need a drink,” he bellowed.
Where the hell was the bartender? The little weenie had diligently poured his drinks without complaint, even when Dogan drove the two other customers out, threatening to kill them if they didn’t stop yapping about politics.
His .45 lay on the bar. Dogan hefted the gun and admired it in the light from the revolving beer sign. Nice, powerful weapon.
Oh, yeah. The bartender left after Dogan had waved the .45 in his face. Dogan remembered now. Couldn’t the jackass tell that Dogan was only kidding around?
“That’s the gun you killed me with.”
Dogan gulped painfully, as if he were swallowing an entire lemon down his suddenly parched throat. He turned around with elaborate, jaw-clenched care.
“It’s in better shape than you are,” Brad said, pleasantly enough. He stood a mere two feet from Joe. The breezy, confident way Brad acted—this could have been another election campaign stop for him.
Dogan tried to say, “You can’t be here.” Instead, it came out as: “Yaaaacunbur.”
“Why not?” Brad said. “It was a year ago tonight.”
Dogan was breathing at a marathoner’s tempo. He could hear his heart slamming wildly inside his rib cage, as though it wanted to escape.
“Joe, Joe, Joe. What am I going to do with you? That no-show county job that Robert Stagg arranged for you isn’t doing wonders for your character. Drinking in the middle of the day? Your job is supposed to be on the roads. Hard work, but honest work.”
“I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I—I…”
Brad’s smile grew still more incandescent. “Robert and you and I really must get together. Tonight makes sense. How’s tonight for you?”
He reached out to shake Joe’s hand. Like any masterful politician, Brad was a skillful and eager shaker of hands.
Dogan screamed and backpedaled in panic. He knocked over several barstools and fell hard on his butt. He lost his hold on the gun. It went spi
“Robert Stagg only paid you ten thousand to kill me,” Brad said. “I’m worth a lot more than that. Ten thousand? Chicken feed. Too bad the Justice Department is going to bag him. And on a corruption charge, not for my murder. How is that justice?”
Dogan stopped crawling when his head hit the jukebox. Fortunately for him, drink dulled the pain. The collision jolted the juke to life. It played an old Michael Jackson tune, the one with Vincent Price. He slumped against the machine, staring at the fading tattoo that decorated his thick forearm: a heart pierced with an arrow.
Fearfully, Dogan raised his gaze. He brought his fingers, sticky from the filthy floor, to his stubbly cheeks.
Skanky’s Tavern was empty once more.
Dogan clasped the jukebox to get up. He moved unsteadily, whether from the shock or from the bourbon, to the bar. En route, he successfully stooped to collect his .45 from the floor. He knew he had to leave before Brad appeared again. But first—
Dogan trudged behind the bar and hoisted the bourbon bottle. He glugged down torrents of the blessed stuff, burning his gullet and soothing his nerves. The bottle emptied, Dogan threw it against the wall. It shattered satisfyingly.
Checking around for Brad, Dogan stalked—actually weaved—out of Skanky’s. He shoved the .45 into the pocket of his ratty jacket. The early spring sun assaulted his retinas. He stumbled as the pink, purple and green circles swirled. Then they disappeared, and he could see again. With his head tilted back, the first thing he saw was the soaring mass of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge over the wrecked rooftops.
His chin fell to his chest. Two small kids, maybe around nine or ten, were messing with his motorcycle. One had the stones to sit on it, his pipe-stem arms extending to the handlebars. “Vroom, vroom,” he cried with joy as he twisted the throttle in imaginary acceleration.