Joey Rag went back down the hall past the rolling drums where the dry cleaning was spinning around, feeling the heat on the side of his cheek. He passed through the larger area where fifteen Miskito women were pushing irons over huge flat tables piled high with hospital linens.
At the back of the pressing room was a flight of iron stairs that led up to a catwalk, and the catwalk went back out over the pressroom to an office made out of Sheetrock and plate glass. You could see the whole factory from the office, as well as the street outside.
Joey Rag climbed up to the office and went inside. A man in a pale green guayabera and tan slacks was leaning back in an oak chair, his heavy arms folded across his chest, his smooth red leather boots up on Joey Rag’s wooden desk, his head forward, his long black hair hanging down in front of his face.
As soon as Joey Rag got the door open, the man came forward, awake, alert, and in his hand he was holding a shiny steel hatchet. Joey Rag looked at his eyes and thought they looked like painted stones, or like the eyes that you saw on lizards or dead fish.
“He’s gonna be at the monument at three.”
Crow smiled.
“How did he sound?”
“He wanted to know if he had a situation.”
“What’d you tell him.”
“I said it was cool. Not to worry.”
“He nervous?”
“Yeah. He’s nervous. You want something to eat? A chorizo?”
Crow stood up, tucked the hatchet into his belt, and pulled the guayabera down over it. When he wasn’t using his hands, they hung at his sides, limp. There was no nervous motion in the man. When he moved, it was quick, no wasted time, then he went right back to stillness.
“No.”
“We got time.”
“No, we don’t.”
Crow picked up a leather satchel and stuffed his hatchet inside. Joey could see a lot of cash in there too, thousands. Whatever Crow was going to do with Paolo Rona-from-Denver or whatever his real name was, there was a lot of money involved. Joey Rag watched the man’s back on the way down the stairs to the Quality Cleaners truck and began to feel that he would not want to be the one who had to ask this man for money, even if he had earned it. Especially if he had earned it.