Armand and Fitz, Mr. Skinhead behind them, walk to where Hawk’s still holding the gun to Nelson’s head. Armand wears a shiny suit that’s black or blue depending on which way he turns, a fresh carnation in his lapel. Mr. Skinhead wears a bowler hat like the sociopath in Clockwork Orange or Oddjob in Goldfinger. Armand looks at Hawk’s white chest and the blood smudged on his face and arms.
“How come you’re naked?”
Hawk waves his .22 at the money.
“I brought your money, Armand. I was prepared to give it to you and we’re even. And these fucks want to rip me off. Only I wasn’t about to let it happen. Take what I owe you and we’re even. The other four g’s I gotta give Philly.”
“Like hell it’s your eight g’s,” Nelson says.
Armand looks at Hawk. Nelson starts to talk but Armand places his index finger gently over Nelson’s mouth.
“Mister, we were leaving,” Fitz says. “Hawk, you made your point. Come on, now. Nelson needs a doctor.”
“Fitz, you let this runt take our money, I swear I’ll …”
“Easy,” Fitz says, wincing at his name.
“Fitz?” Mr. Skinhead says.
He sets his bowler on the table. Fitz’s eyes widen at the sight of Mr. Skinhead’s pentagoned scalp. Next thing Mr. Skinhead puts his arm around Fitz’s shoulder and spins him into a lock.
“I’ll kill your punk ass,” Nelson blurts to Hawk.
“Hawk,” Armand says. “Tape that idiot’s mouth shut.”
“Which one?” Hawk says.
“Who are you guys?” Fitz asks Mr. Skinhead, words gurgling out. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
Hawk completes a few turns around Nelson’s mouth and when the man tries to head-butt him yanks his head back by the hair.
“Fitz … Fitz,” Mr. Skinhead says.
“You know the guy, Mr. Skinhead?” Armand asks.
“They were passing his picture around at Manny’s place.”
“What do you have to say, Fitz?”
“Fitz, Fitz,” Mr. Skinhead says.
“You gonna go on repeating his name?”
“Twice I saw it in a week. It’s him. Oh, man, Armand. Oh, man. They’re just creaming for this guy.”
“Who?”
“Fives is. That’s right. Its Fitz, Fitzsimmons or something. Can’t be more than a handful of freckled freaks like him on the planet. Fitz, my man. This just ain’t turning out to be one of your luckier nights.”
“Maybe we could work something out?” Fitz says.
“There’s no doubt about it,” Armand says.
“Look, mister. No disrespect. But, like I said, it ain’t nothing to do with you,” Fitz says.
“Wrong thinking. When you put your hand on my employer’s money, it does.”
“We were leaving.”
“Hawk,” Armand says. “Put down that bazooka for a second. The coast is clear. Please tape asshole number two’s mouth tightly.”
“Fives has a fat COD on this guy,” Mr. Skinhead says. “It’s personal. His nephew got involved. This Fitz rats him to the cops. Fives is steaming, I mean he’s furious. Ten grand I think they’re offering for him and they want him alive. His second son is looking at serious time. Cops fixing to stick him for Daddy’s sake. It ain’t like they’s Kennedys. Then, get this: some rat cop countersnitches this freckled fuck back to Fives.”
Mr. Skinhead cuffs Fitz’s hands behind and through the metal back of the chair. Fitz has this amused expression, shaking his head like he’s run out of angles, knew he would and accepts it in advance, a ripple of laughter in his belly. He doesn’t move as Hawk tapes his mouth, round and round.
“I tell you, Armand, these cuffs come in handy,” Mr. Skinhead says. “You can get ’em at any sex shop.”
Armand nods and takes out an Arturo Fuente, which Hawk snap-lights with his trusty king-of-hearts zippo.
“Hawk, you in there?” Carla yells.
“Yeah, in here,” Hawk says.
“Man, you left your door open.”
Carla’s got her hands full, carrying a box with Seymour’s sign and the pizza from Mama Mia’s. You can smell the aromas of the garlic and sausage and pepperoni and bonded mozzarella cheeses right through the box.
Hawk’s eye is bloodied and swollen, the gun stuck in his pants. Dried rivulets of blood trace his cheek and bony chest. The eight grand seems a dull green block on the table next to Mr. Skinhead’s hat.
“Nelson. What the … Fitz?” Carla says, putting down the sign. “Zoey, sweetheart, don’t you come in here. Zoey, don’t. No, ZOEY! SHIT!”
But it’s too late.
The little girl has darted in with her plastic machine gun and stuffed blue kangaroo under her arm, but stops short at the sight of Hawk all bloodied and then of her father with half a roll of duct tape covering his face, arms, and chest. Then Zoey rushes to Carla, confused tears on her cheeks, and turns her face against her mother’s hip.
“Carla, he came up here,” Hawk says.
“Idiot bitch,” Carla says to Nelson, and stamps her foot.
Nelson raises his head and he and Carla look at each other. Carla takes in the jean shirt splotched with dark blood, the hair gummed to face with tape, breath wheezing through Nelson’s nose.
“Serves you fucking right.”
“Ahh-hem. Excuse me for interrupting,” Armand says, and takes a deep draw from his Fuente and lets the smoke out in staccato bursts.
“Zoey, go in the bathroom, please. Quickly, right away, okay. Mommy will be with you in one minute. Please, honey.”
Carla puts the pizza on the table, pushing the packets of money with the box.
“Just one second, honey,” Carla calls after Zoey. “In the bathroom, okay, shut the door. Go now, okay sweetie.”
“We haven’t been introduced. I’m Armand,” Armand says, pointing his cigar at Nelson and Fitz. “You know these guys?”
“Yeah, I know their sorry asses.”
“He came up here with freckles,” Hawk says. “He found the money that I was getting ready to give Armand and this other guy I owe money today, clear all my debts. I couldn’t let Nelson have it.”
“Your debts? Where’d you get all that … you said you guys got busted. Never mind. You know what, don’t tell me what you haven’t been telling me. I don’t have any use for this shit. I thought at least you were …”
“Carla.”
“Damn, you really are a pair of idiot bitches.”
“I shot him in the arm.”
“I shot him in the arm,” she repeats. “Well la-dee-fucking-da.”
And she snaps her fingers in Hawk’s face.
“They came up here, Carla. I didn’t invite them.”
“Well good for fucking you.”
The phone starts quacking.
“Who the fuck has a phone like that?” Carla says.
“Maybe you don’t need to answer it right now,” Armand says, and lays his cigar on the edge of the table.
A few more quacks and the machine gets it. Zoey comes running out to Carla.
“Mommy, you said you were coming.”
“Zoey-girl, didn’t I tell you to stay in the bathroom?”
“There’s blood in the sink, Mommy.”
“Okay. Shit. We’re out of here. Hawk, I’ve had it.”
“Hawk,” Zoey says, sobbing now. “I thought you said my Daddy was only going through a phase.”
“Wait on the stairs, Zoey,” Carla says. “Please. Now, okay? I’m not joking around. I’m coming in a second. Wait on the stairs, honey.”
“I left Hopabout,” Zoey says.
“Where’s the kangaroo?” Carla says.
“This guy?” Mr. Skinhead says, stooping by Nelson’s feet.
There’s blood on Hopabout’s paw and Hawk dabs at it with a pizza napkin.
“We’ll get her a Band-Aid later,” he says.
“Hawk,” Carla says, picking up the box with Seymour’s sign and shaking her head.
“Yeah?”
“Forget it, okay? I mean, good fucking luck.”
“Carla, listen a minute, okay?”
Zoey’s crying louder in the hallway.
Carla says, “I gotta go.”
She’s got tears in her eyes. The first that Hawk has ever seen from her.
She puts down the box, runs her hands through her hair, and then drops them to her side, shakes her head and glares at Nelson.
“Hawk, I’ll run the sign to Seymour’s. Don’t call me, okay?”
But she’s just standing there, not moving for a minute.
Then Carla picks up Armand’s cigar from the edge of the table, holding it gently in the middle. The ash drops off and she looks at the red tip and walks with that limp to Nelson and holds the cigar to his taped-down arm on the edge of his flag tattoo for a few seconds, skin burning. She holds the chair against her body when his body rocks back.
“No offense, mister,” she says to Armand, puts her braided strand of hair behind her ear and sets the cigar back down on the table, still lit.
“None taken,” Armand says.
“Carla. What can I say?” Hawk says.
“Don’t say anything.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you are,” she says.
And she’s out the door.
“How about it Armand,” Hawk says after she’s gone, his insides about to come apart and wanting only to chase after Carla, explain how it isn’t his fault and after tonight he’s out of it, for real, and ready to begin the next phase of his life. He picks up two of the two-thousand-dollar packets. “Can I pay now? Get this over with. Settle our account. It’s all there.”
“You know,” Armand says, “that’s an interesting broad.”
“Yeah, she is,” Hawk says.
He wonders with a sick collapse in his stomach if he’ll ever lay eyes on the interesting broad again.
Fitz’s cheeks bunch around the duct tape in a smile like he knows what he looks like sitting there trussed with a Statue of Liberty visor blinking colors all over his face and a night of payback ahead.
“How long’s this gonna take?” Hawk asks.
“It shouldn’t be long,” Armand says.
Hawk looks at the pizza box, its top slightly oil spotted. He takes a step forward, peeks, then flips the box open. Then he picks one of the crispy poker-chip pepperonis off the top and rests it on his tongue.
“It’ll get cold,” Hawk says.
The cheese is lightly browned and bonded to black olives, chopped tomatoes, and peppers, sausage and pepperoni and mushrooms. The crust is brown and shimmers from brushed garlic butter. A hot, wonderful smell wafts from the pie.
“I’ll get some paper plates,” Hawk says.
“Bring fresh napkins,” Armand says.
Hawk brings paper plates and some plastic knives, forks and condiment settings courtesy of Taco Bell and a roll of the Scott towels he brought for cleaning the place. He folds two slices Saturday Night Fever style, remembering him and Carla agreeing about how they screwed up the sequel. Well, no one in their right mind would disagree about that. Hawk finishes his slices fast, wipes his mouth with a napkin and looks over at Nelson and Fitz. Their mouths are duct taped, cheeks hollowing as they breathe through their noses. They look like a pair of dummies with their hair stuck to their cheeks, only you can tell the pizza smell gets to them, nostrils perking up.
“I have to tell you,” Armand says, chewing slowly and pointing with a pearl-inlaid penknife he’s using to cut bite-size pieces of the slice. “This is one fine pizza.”
“I’d kill for a milk shake,” Mr. Skinhead says.