Ray enjoyed petty crime.
Twenty-seven years old and the system had branded him as a repeat offender. It wasn’t like he had aimed for a criminal career. Good Lord, no. It just kinda happened that way. And it sorta interested him. He was kinda, sorta good at it, and it was perhaps the only career choice where practice didn’t necessarily equal perfection. He knew the dangers of his work. Knew it was stupid every day he crossed the line. He even tried leaving the trade, swearing it off twice and promising himself to stay out of trouble. He really did. Even got a job with UPS for a while, which, in retrospect, probably wasn’t the best choice. The temptation to look inside the very packages entrusted to his care overcame him while behind the wheel of his truck, on a boring, rainy afternoon. It wasn’t before long his fingers were clawing into the cargo.
Like Christmas, that day.
The judge disagreed with him, disagreed that Christmas was in July. That day marked another year-long bout of In-and-Out.
His family hadn’t abandoned him, but waited for signs of his commitment to rehabilitating himself. To get on the straight and narrow again. Ray knew how narrow that median was, having wire-walked it enough times and stumbled into questionable traffic, sometimes with spectacular results. He missed his mom and dad. Missed his sister. Really missed his sister’s kid, little four-year-old Colt, a red-headed dynamo with a gift for reading and building things. Where the little guy had gotten that fiery mop was a point of vocal wonderment, as both his sister and her husband possessed rock-star locks of the blackest pitch. Regardless, Ray missed the little guy. Thought of him like the son he’d probably never get around to having. But sister Dawn and hubby Creed had believed Ray needed his own time-out. A righteous one at that, to get his head in the right place.
A better place.
Ray pinched the bridge of his nose. He thought of himself like a car in dire need of a wheel alignment. Take his hands off the steering wheel and he’d drift off the highway and onto questionable shoulders.
Like this morning.
Th’fuck am I doing here? The thought barged into Ray’s mind like a cold, unwanted finger, digging away at parts best left alone. He parked his van before a yellow lawn and town house in desperate need of a paint job. Or some siding. Something. Anything to remove the flaky beige coat of shit currently coloring the house.
Ray rolled down a window as if fresh air might smarten him up. He sighed into the cold and, like a drunk sailor, November shoved back. The wind rattled his collar and whipped the leaves into a sloppy spin cycle. He didn’t want to be up so early. Really didn’t want to be on the go, but the Ball Brothers wanted him to come talk, which meant business. And business meant ripping someone off.
Julian and Joey Pearson—the Ball Brothers—were always searching for an easy steal. The quickest grab-and-bag on items that resulted in the fastest turnaround in street sales with the least amount of confrontation. Confrontation wasn’t the Pearsons’ style. Confrontation meant having to crack open someone’s skull. Joey didn’t want that. Your stuff, he wanted. Your blood, not so much.
But he would if he had to, and if he had to, chances were you were dead.
The town house’s front door opened and Bernie walked out, stopped on a white step, and dramatically flicked up the woolly collar of his brown leather jacket while inspecting the overcast skies. He wasn’t a big man, neither tall nor fat, but he did have a way about him, a vibe of flow, of uninterrupted, take it or leave it. Behind the wheel of his van, Ray quietly marveled at the show, knowing it wasn’t all for his benefit. The only thing missing was Bernie cupping a hand to his face to light up a smoke. Wasn’t going to happen, however, as the man didn’t partake in that particular habit.
Bernie had plenty of other bad habits, however.
Both Bernie and the jacket had seen better days. Ray thought the man said he’d picked it out of a donation bin, along with a few pairs of sneakers and matching jeans. The sneakers Bernie flipped for a few bucks at a pawnshop. The jeans were an ongoing disagreement between the friends. Bernie liked to keep up with the local fashion, as idiotic as it seemed, and currently wore the denim halfway down around his ass with his white boxers on display. Gangster style. Whoever came up with the fashion obviously didn’t know any real gangsters, in Ray’s opinion, because a real, honest-to-God gangster would not wear their jeans in such a way. A real gangster would probably kick the living squirts out of anyone wearing their jeans like that. Ray could clearly see Bernie’s undershorts. The embarrassing exhibition made Ray roll his eyes. It was far too early in the morning for such foolishness.
Unshaved and appearing as if he regularly snorted his paycheck through his nose, Bernie walked over the leave-speckled front lawn and approached the waiting van, a big cargo model, puke green and sporting an ass that stretched into infinity. Ray once got caught on a patch of black ice on Springwell Road, right on the tail end of a ripening traffic light. His wheels had spun hard enough to conjure up of visions of spiraling supernovas, and when the rubber finally took hold, he shot into traffic and landed precisely in his lane like a guided missile. To this day, Ray remembered that split second of helplessness and total fear.
Bernie reached the door and found it locked. A tired expression followed. “Open the door.”
“Not till you pull up yer fuckin jeans,” Ray replied calmly.
“Wha’?”
“You heard me. Pull them up. You ain’t gettin’ aboard looking like you just shit yourself, y’goddamn punk wannabe.”
“I paid good money for these things.”
“You paid nothing for those jeans.”
“I paid in time.”
“It took you a second to snatch them, if that.”
“But they’re worth money,” Bernie pointed out.
“All the more reason to wear them right.”
“I am wearing them right.”
“You ain’t wearing them right. Lookit you. God forbid you gotta run somewhere, and if you do, God forbid I miss seein’ you run somewhere. Quit wearin’ your clothes like you got some sorta disability. Fuckin’ physically challenged folks put their clothes on better than you.”
Bernie stepped back from the van, clearly unimpressed. “Hey, don’t be makin’ fun of them folks. They got feelings, too. My cousin’s autistic.” He rattled the handle. “Open the fuckin’ door.”
“I’m not openin’ the fuckin’ door.”
“I’ll call Julian.”
“Julian’ll fuckin’ agree with me.”
“You’re bein’ an asshat here.”
“I’m being an asshat?” Ray shook his head. That was a good one.
Whether it was the cold or the wasting of time, Bernie swore under his breath, the words becoming vapor, as he savagely yanked his jeans up over his hips.
“You tuck them in right, too,” Ray told him. “You know I can’t see you, but if I open the door and see fuckin’ boxers I’ll floor it right here and let you pull yourself in.”
“They’re tucked, all right?”
Ray unlocked the passenger door. Red-cheeked and fuming, Bernie climbed in.
“Marnin’ Bern, me old trout.”
“Marnin’.”
Ray pulled away from the house and concentrated on traffic.
Bernie fastened himself into place. He struggled with the seat belt until he reached inside his jacket’s pocket and pulled out a square-edged pistol. Ray looked from the Glock to the traffic, sniffed and shook his head and reached for the radio knob to find some classic rock.
“Jesus Christ,” Bernie muttered. “Y’try to be discreet with these things and a goddamn seat belt won’t let you.”
He placed the gun between his legs and fought to secure the belt, the barrel pointed at his junk. Ray paused in his knob-fondling but ignored this egregious lack of weapon etiquette. That was Bernie. Every year it seemed like Ray had a better chance of shit monkeys flying out of his ass than Bernie making it to his next birthday. Not that he was stupid. Bernie could carjack any vehicle on the planet in less than five seconds. But he did questionable things at the worst possible times.
After his epic battle with the seat belt, a victorious Bernie pulled a second gun barrel out of his other pocket and, holding the Glock below the dashboard, screwed the accessory onto the weapon.
This interested Ray enough to surface from his personal morning fog. “Whatcha got there, Bern?”
“This? Silencer, b’y.” Saying the colloquial word for boy as bye. “Just got it.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Bought it online. Now I can go for the wicked stealth kills.”
Ray smirked. “Since when do you ‘stealth kill’?”
“I do. All the time. Just don’t talk about ’em is all. I’m a fuckin’ ninja, man. Got the certificate and everything.”
Ray didn’t bother commenting on that. It was too damn early in the morning. The van rumbled to a stop at a red light and he glanced at the overcast sky. “Y’know it don’t go pew-pew.”
“Wha’?”
“It don’t go pew-pew. That’s a Hollywood screwup. A misconception. It only marginally lessens the sound of a shot.”
“Wha’? Where’d you hear that?”
“Saw a video online.”
“Wha’? I don’t believe that.”
“Believe what you like, my son. ’Tis true. Buddy was firing the same make of gun with and without a sound suppressor. Big difference. Pretty loud, too.”
That horrified Bernie. “Lord Jumpin’ Jesus. What make of silencer was it?”
“He didn’t mention.”
“Well, maybe he had a Molly Mart version.”
“I don’t think Molly Mart sells silencers.”
“They sell everything else.”
“They do,” Ray stated as he stepped on the gas. “Freaks buy it, too. Which is probably good enough reason not to sell silencers.”
That logic struck Bernie hard. “Well, goddamn it. I was hoping for some quality sniper hits. Deep covert-op shit, y’know? Almost don’t want to use the thing now.”
Ray gave up on the radio and turned it off. Too much morning chatter. “Y’bought it. Should use it at least once.”
“Any dogs around…?”
That annoyed Ray. “Y’ain’t shootin’ no fuckin’ dog or any other animal. Christ, numbnuts. Have a sense of pride in what you do, willya?”
“Should fucking sue the company,” Bernie sulked, staring ahead at the thickening traffic.
“Yeah? Who you gonna sue?”
“Dunno. Jesus. Maybe I can return the thing.”
“You have a receipt?”
“Well… fuck!”
“Thought so.”
“D’fuck am I gonna do now?” Bernie wailed.
“Keep the thing,” Ray shrugged, eyeing a shiny red Toyota indicating it wanted to get into his lane. Ray waved at the vehicle to do just that. The driver held up a hand in thanks.
A pissed-off Bernie sat and chewed on the inside of his cheek. Ray minded the driving, glancing down at a Honda driving up alongside the car.
“Where’d you buy it again?”
“Online.”
“Yeah, where online?”
“Bay Bitches in Bikinis.” Bernie cleared his throat. “Dot org.”
Ray winced. “I can’t believe this. I should be writing all this down. You’re a book begging to be written, my son.”
The traffic thickened into four dull lanes of colors. Bernie regarded the silenced pistol with an air of poisoned regret before stuffing it into the glove compartment.
“Remind me to get that later,” Bernie said.
“You want me…. to remind you… to get your gun out of my glove compartment?”
“Yeah. Later on.”
“You can’t remember that one yourself? It’s not a fuckin’ pair of mittens you just stashed away in there.”
“Just remind me, okay?”
Fine, Ray thought with a shake of his head. “You want to stop by Timmy’s?”
“Nah,” Bernie said, leaning back as if he were anticipating a head-on crash any moment. “Who else is gonna be there, this mornin’?”
Ray checked his side mirror and shrugged.
“Not Wayne,” Bernie said.
“Don’t know.”
“I don’t like that guy.”
“He’s a hothead.”
“Man’s a fuckin’ psycho is what he is,” Bernie warned. “A fuckin’ rabid animal. You know about that fight he got into over at the Cave the other day? Took on three guys in the washroom. Real mess. Real mess.”
Ray nodded. He’d heard about that. “Wasn’t that over a girl?”
“That was over him,” Bernie stressed. “He was in the washroom havin’ a leak like you would, right? And he just happened to be looking to the door when these three guys come in, and the first one locks eyes and says to Wayne, ‘How’s it goin’?’ right? But Wayne thought the guy was hittin’ on him.”
“Where’d you hear all this?”
“From Coby.”
“Coby’s full of shit.”
“Usually, but he got it straight from Wayne himself. Anyway, conversation started up and Wayne pretty much wrung the unholy dingleberries off all three of them. All by himself. Three guys. Big ones, too.”
Ray sighed. “He’s got a temper.”
“That’s not even a temper, Ray. Jesus Christ, that’s fuckin’ unsettling. To go from ‘How’s it goin’?’ to breakin’ arms, jaws and legs in six seconds? Yeah, that’s what he did. Wayne put all those guys in the hospital. It’s a wonder the cops haven’t picked him up yet.”
“Don’t know if Wayne’s there.” Ray changed lanes and drove onto the outer ring to escape the majority of the morning snarl. Cars zinged by as he looked over his shoulder and eventually merged.
“Just hope Wayne’s not there,” Bernie muttered. “He stares at people, too, y’know. You ever notice that?”
“Yeah.”
Bernie rubbed his chin. “Stares at folks like, I dunno, like something weird. Perverted weird. And he can’t talk to you without cuttin’ you off. I mean, a fuckin’ conversation is a dialogue exchangin’ opinions and ideas. He doesn’t listen to the other guy, just starts talkin’ over them. And real loud, too, y’know.”
Ray knew. “He won’t be talkin’ over Joey and Julian.”
“No, I s’pose not. But then Wayne’s not the brightest. And I hope Jim Fraser ain’t there.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Man’s a slouch. Too damn sloppy.”
This all amused Ray. “Ever see those dentures he’s got? He’s got uppers and lowers. I remember one time he got so drunk that he took them out and forgot to put them back in. Eddie Kegan goes over to Jimmy’s place and he answers the door, looking like shit spray on a wall to begin with, but after five or six seconds, Eddie asks him where his teeth are and Jimmy goes and looks for them. He knocked under his bed and his fuckin’ cat had hacked a fur ball over them.”
Bernie’s features screwed up at that image.
“Eddie said when Jimmy first answered the door and his teeth were out, said his mouth looked like a blown-out asshole.”
The two men giggled.
“Is there anyone you can work with?” Ray asked eventually.
“You’re okay.”
“Thanks. Anyone else?”
“Can’t think of anyone right now.”
“Uh-huh. Well maybe you’ll get your wish this morning.”
“Morning,” Bernie scoffed. “The hell the Testicle Twins want us out here this early in the morning?”
Ray winced at the name. Julian and Joey Pearson were fifty-something-year-old career criminals. Old hands in questionable trades. The brothers had once been christened “The Testicle Twins” in the St. John’s underworld. They were identical, shaved bald, with their lower faces drizzled in about a week-old, arguably fashionable stubble they maintained. As the story went, once upon a time in an urban setting, a guy sitting at an in-house poker game hosted by the brothers sized up the twins in between hands. Perhaps it was the booze talking or some other chemical, but the guy (the tale never identified the offender, exactly) looked at the boys sitting side-by-each and, with a smile on his face no less, remarked that the brothers resembled a pair of unshaven balls. Wrinkles and all.
And thus, the Testicle Twins were born.
Neither Julian nor Joey appreciated the name at the time, as they felt it a slap to not only their appearance, but their intelligence as well, and being referred to as a pair of testicles isn’t particularly flattering on any day, chemically enhanced or not. In any case, about a week after the game, the label stuck like dog shit refusing to be scraped off a boot. Everyone started calling Julian and Joey the Testicle Twins. The name continued on, despite the boys’ efforts to change it, until one day, or so the story goes, the originator of the offensive name was once again playing a hand at the Pearsons’ place. Same smart-ass made the same crack yet a second time, off the cuff with a nod and wink, right in the lads’ presence. Up to that point, the two boys had been well and truly pissed off at how quickly the name had circulated in certain circles around town. Word had it that even their own mother asked them about the name at the supper table, which is the ultimate in underworld horror.
Well.
Needless to say, Julian and Joey took exception to the smart-ass’s breach of etiquette the second time around and proceeded to punish the source of their torment. “Punish” was a trifle of an understatement as to the physical, emotional, and psychological destruction they wrought upon the guy. It was traumatic, to say the least. Ray had heard details, the same details that quickly changed the Testicle Twins to simply “the Ball Brothers,” as in ball breakers, which was, oddly enough, more palatable to Julian and Joey.
Ray didn’t have to warn Bernie about calling Julian and Joey the Testicle Twins while in their presence. Bernie wasn’t stupid. And he knew the story well enough. Everyone did. Even the cops.
“Hey, guess what?” Bernie said. “Went out with Annie on the weekend.”
That particular feat impressed Ray. “No way.”
“Got another date this Friday.”
“Second one already, eh?”
Bernie waved a jazz hand over himself, presenting his figure. “What can I say? She wants it.”
Ray said nothing to that.
“I mean, what hot-blooded woman would not want it? And she’s hot, man. She is hot. Mmm-hm. The hottest one yet. Don’t think I can do any better. Perfection. Everywhere. I mean, everywhere. She makes yoga pants look hot, that’s how hot she is. She could do commercials for them. I said that to her. And she giggled. When you can talk to a woman about how she looks in yoga pants and she fuckin’ giggles, you know you’re in good territory. Can’t wait for the weekend. Can’t wait. Might even get her blouse off this time. Perfect. Did I say that already? She’s perfect.”
Ray sniffed. He’d heard it all before and was already tired of the drone. “She shits, y’know.”
That statement visibly mortified Bernie, who stared at Ray’s profile for long seconds.
“What did you just say?”
“You heard me. She shits.”
“She does not.”
“Oh, she does, make no mistake. She plants that perfect ass on a porcelain receptacle every day, spreads those perfect cheeks, and bombs the harbor with daisy killer. Sometimes chunky. Sometimes spray. Maybe even two or three times a day. Just unloads. Probably unloads with violence. Chokes up the sewer lines.”
“Oh you take that back.”
“Bet she wipes back to front, too.”
“Fuck off. Christ, why would you even mention that?”
Ray kept his expression in sleepy neutral and focused on the road.
Ending the conversation.