Beef Guidry skipped the French vanilla creamer in his coffee that morning. Ever since Ben Matlin went down, he’d felt he deserved no luxuries. He could afford no pleasure. He took that coffee extra bitter and sans accoutrement. He took it straight to the face. He had it coming.

However, he had a sinking feeling he should share the blame, and that was what he explained to Jack Jordan, standing before him, sandwiched between the file cabinets and boxes of liquor in Manson’s back office.

“I have no problem taking up business with you,” Beef explained. He wore a see-through, sequined evening gown that showed off everything except Upper Mongolia. “I told you from the moment we met that I liked you.”

They were far from alone. Cramped into the office with them were the beefcakes, slick and aromatic. They crossed their meaty arms over barrel chests and grinned like gargoyles.

“Thank you, Mr. Guidry.”

“Please, honey,” he said. “I’ve told you to call me Beef.”

“Beef, sir.”

Pleasantries exchanged, Beef handed him the pleather shaving kit. Jack opened it and peered inside. It was not the reaction Beef expected.

“Usually, Matlin said he would bring back three times this much.”

Beef tittered and sipped his martini through a blinky straw. He winked at both beefcakes. He smiled wide enough to reflect every neon light in the room.

“Matlin? That name, it sounds so familiar…” Beef danced his finger through the air. “Oh, that’s right. He’s the little fella who left for Nacogdoches with a bag full of my shit and never returned. He’s the one who was nearly arrested by the police.”

Jack’s Adam’s apple jiggled in his throat.

“Don’t you worry about me,” said Beef. “I, for one, am not a girl who believes she should dance all night with the beau who brought her. There are many hours to a successful evening, and if we’re lucky…” he dismissed Jack with a flick of the wrist, “…many beaus.”

“I assure you,” Jack said, “we’re far from sunup. There’s a good thing going on down there in Nacogdoches and I assure you, I’ll have what’s in this here bag sold out before the weekend. And it’s going to be a big weekend.”

“Then come back before the weekend,” said Beef. “A fool and his trip are not soon parted. I already lost enough money off the last package I sent north on Highway 59. I’m not ready for my heart to get broken again.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Beef,” he said. “Go ahead and have that re-up ready for me. I’ll be back here come Friday with your money and more. You’ll see.”

“I’m sure you will. You know why?”

Jack shook his head. Beef leaned over and cupped Jack’s cheeks with his soft, clammy palms.

“Because you’re a good boy, that’s why.”

Jack thanked him. He wondered how he would react, should Beef put lips to his. Could he manage himself from the room through yonder beefcakes, or would he take the easy way out?

Lucky for him, Beef decided against further tomfoolery and instead let loose his hold on Jack’s face.

“What’s so special about this weekend?” he asked after he’d resumed sipping his shiny martini.

Jack sighed a thousand sighs.

“It’s finals,” he answered. “All those college kids party after finals.”

 

SAME AS he said it to Summer and Scovak hours later when he returned to the Light House trailer. Cramped inside his bedroom, neither of them able to function because of the dollar signs in their eyes.

“Finals week?” asked Summer. “Nobody’s going to want to party during finals. They’re going to want speed so they can study.”

“Speed’s my area of expertise,” said Scovak. “Keep your hands off my shit.”

“I’m not talking about while they are taking the tests,” explained Jack. “I’m talking about after. I’m talking about long after. Most these kids are going home for Christmas vacation. I don’t want them to spend their daddy’s money in Dallas or Houston, I want them to spend it with me.”

“You’re a genius.” Summer snapped her fingers. “All we got to do is convince them we have the best shit around and they won’t be able to find it nowhere else. They’re going to want to snatch it up before they go home to party.”

“Not to mention the ones who are going to want to blow it out for end of the semester parties,” said Jack.

“No one but me sells speed,” declared Scovak.

Summer ignored him. “We’re going to need a lot more than what’s in that sack.”

“Tell me about it,” said Jack. “But this is all I could get him to front me. If we sell out by Friday, I can go back for a bigger package. Then maybe a bigger one still after that.”

“We’re going into the ecstasy business?” asked Summer with a smile blooming. “How ex-citing!”

“I see what you’re doing here,” said Scovak. “I see what’s going on.”

“We’ve got to create a social media campaign,” said Jack.

“This is the same fucking thing you did in South Carolina,” said Scovak. “Except that time, I was the connection who got screwed.”

“We’ve got to give it a good name,” said Summer. “Something catchy.”

“You know how everybody always talks about how the E back in the day was so much better, nobody trips like they used to?”

Summer tossed ideas into the pot. “Back in the Day? Retro? Vintage…” She scratched her head, then her eyes lit up. “Old-School!”

“Old-School Ex!” Jack smelled what she was cooking.

“That’s it!” Summer high-fived him. “We’ll call it Old-School Ex!”

“We can hashtag it up! Think about the possibilities!”

“Start a conversation about things we remember fondly on the internet, then use it to promote our brand!”

“Hashtag OldSchoolEx!”

“Oh my God!”

“I’ll handle the chat rooms,” said Jack. “You know I’m good at that.”

“I’ll handle word of mouth.”

“I’ll create a couple Facebook pages, a couple accounts. Get folks talking about it.”

All of this drove Scovak up a wall. He harrupmhed and pouted about the Light House trailer as the two of them plotted away. Occasionally, he blasted the stereo speakers with his shitty glam rock, but neither Summer nor Jack could be deterred. Unsatisfied with the state of things, he stepped out to hurt someone. By the time he came back with his shirt bloody and torn, they’d found a way to get him involved.

“Right now, the kids are digging on those hydroponic mushrooms coming out of Tyler,” Summer told him. “We can’t let everybody spend their money on mushrooms. We’ve got to shut them down.”

“Want me to head over there with a baseball bat and tell them to quit selling?”

“Jesus, no,” said Jack. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Aw, Jackie…” Summer shook her head. “He wants to help. We need to let him.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of a smear campaign,” said Jack.

“Smear them into the road with my baseball bat?”

“I couldn’t do that to Downtown Tony,” said Summer. “He’s been so good to me.”

“We don’t smear Downtown Tony,” said Jack. “We smear hydroponic mushrooms.”

“You’re crazy.”

“We manufacture outrage. Make a big stink about how the mushrooms have been loaded with strychnine. That they’re not organic.”

“MDMA ain’t organic,” said Scovak.

“Whose side are you on?” asked Jack. “All we got to do is make a bunch of bogus accounts across the internet chat rooms. Talk a little shit at parties and coffee shops. Put down mushrooms and praise Old-School Ex. Hashtag it up. We’ll move this stuff in two days.

“And we sell out, then get more?” asked Scovak.

“That’s the plan.”

“And when that happens,” said Scovak, “this time I will be riding out with you.”

Jack clenched his teeth.

“Like I said, buddy-ro: this is a team sport.” Scovak stood nose to nose with Jack. “The next time you point your car toward Houston, you’ll have me riding shotgun.”

Jack said nothing. He lowered his eyes and gave in, like he always used to do when Scovak started pushing him around.

However, this time, it was an act. One well designed and rehearsed over the long drive up from Houston. Jack, for once in his life, had Scovak right where he wanted him.

“Baby steps. I’ll take you with me, but only after this next trip,” he said. “And only if Summer says it’s okay.”

 

THAT FRIDAY, he got to Manson’s early, just after sunrise. He carried with him a shaving kit full of money and a bottle of champagne he’d bought from a gas station. His plan was to celebrate a new union between successful businessmen, but Beef immediately let him know he had other ideas.

When finally he arrived—thirty minutes late—to let Jack into the club, he’d brought with him the beefcakes. This time, they wore twin jogging suits. Beef, himself, was dressed in bright purple sweats. They all appeared to have either arrived from a strenuous workout, or were preparing for one.

Jack tried to ignore his own shaking hands as he let go his hold of the pleather shaving kit, dropping all that money to the floor.

“I’m so proud of you,” said Beef. “You sold all those pills in so little time. Just like you said you would do.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Beef.”

“You strike me as the kind of guy who will stop at nothing to get done what he says he will.”

“Thank you, Mr. Beef.”

“So I’m going to give you a little something to do,” Beef said. He traipsed behind the bar to help himself to a shot of something green. He sipped at a second one. “Next time you come here, you are going to bring me the man who delivered Bengie Matlin to the police.”

“I got no idea who—”

The beefcakes were at his side. They didn’t touch him. They didn’t have to.

“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t,” said Beef. “But you strike me as the ambitious type.”

“Put your mind to it,” said the beefcake to his left.

“Visualize it happening,” said the one on the right, “then make it happen.”

“Let’s say I bust my ass and find out who done it,” said Jack. “How do you expect me to get them all the way out here to Houston?”

“I really don’t care,” he answered. “And neither should you. All you need to worry about is bringing that person to me. We’ll take care of the rest.”

It took all he had, but Jack finally managed a weak “Thank you, Mr. Beef.”

Beef received the pleather shaving kit from him and replaced it with another that a beefcake kept in the pocket of his jogging suit. Jack didn’t bother to open it, and Beef didn’t bother to count.

“If you don’t bring this man to me in three days,” said Beef, “I’m going to assume the worst.”

“What’s the worst?” asked Jack, over the lump in his throat.

Beef stepped up, nice and tight, into Jack’s face. He didn’t say a word. Just eyeballed him from top to bottom. When finished, he smiled at the corner of his lips, then disappeared into the back shadows of the nightclub.

“See you in three days,” said one beefcake.

“Have a great weekend,” said the other.

 

JACK HAD a wonderful weekend. Of all the scores in all the towns in all the world, Jack never saw so much money in one place at one time. The first Monday after the madness, he counted it not once, not twice, but three times, each time slipping another twenty from the stack into his pocket because didn’t Summer nor Scovak deserve an extra lick.

He’d been counting it a fourth time when Summer wandered into the kitchen near about one in the afternoon. Her hair was askew and her face looked as if she’d been through the wringer. She staggered across the carpet and into the kitchen where she stared at the coffeemaker far too long before screaming at the top of her lungs.

“What the hell is your problem?” Jack demanded.

“Why is there never any fucking coffee when I wake up?”

“Because these days you don’t wake up until after one in the afternoon,” said Jack. He was dressed and had already been in and out several times. Summer collapsed into a dining table chair and hated his guts. “Seriously, how do you propose to sell shit full time if all you do is sleep?”

“Scovak does all the selling,” she said. “That’s our part of the bargain.”

“I thought that was your favorite part,” he said. “Mixing with the people, making friends. And what do you do instead these days?”

“I do plenty, thank you very much.” But neither of them bought it. She festered a bit before puffing up her chest. “I’ll have you know that Scovie has been very good for me.”

“Is that a fact?”

“It is.” She gathered steam, but did not rise from the table. “I have been incredibly focused and…I’ve taken a lot of time, you see. A lot of time for myself and it’s helped me get my shit together.”

“And is it together?”

“I reckon it is.” Across the kitchen, a tiny cockroach made a run for it. She watched it until it disappeared behind the microwave. “Used to, I’d run like a wing nut from party to party. I’d talk all kinds of trash, and who needs that, Jackie? How does anybody get to know anyone when they’re running their mouths, doing all kinds of drugs, and getting drunk all the time? Now that I’ve taken some time for myself, it allows me to focus. To get to know who I really am.”

“And it’s Scovak that helps you with that?”

Summer nodded. She thought it over. She nodded again, but harder.

“Then congratulations,” he said. He excused himself, then crawled up the steps to his bedroom. Once inside, he fished again the wad of paper bills from his jeans and began to count again. He wasn’t halfway through the stack when Summer entered the room.

“Jackie?” she said from the doorway.

“Yes, Summer?”

“You remember when you came home from Houston?” She fingered a trail in the wood of the doorframe. From about her head down to her waist.

“A couple of nights ago? I sure do.”

She crinkled her face, then straightened it again. “You said you had something to ask me.”

“Did I?”

“You did,” she said. “But you didn’t never ask it.”

Jack shrugged. He took a seat at his desk and started counting the money back at the beginning. “Then I guess it was probably nothing.”

Summer stepped slowly into the room, eyeballing everything like she’d never seen it before. Jack never looked up. He continued counting the cash. He’d nearly finished when finally she said, “I’m just saying…if you were to ask something important and you got interrupted, I wish you’d go ahead and ask it.”

Frustrated, Jack set the money back to his bed. He half turned to her. “If I remembered, Summer, I’d be sure to ask you. Now do you mind letting me count this money? I got a long drive tomorrow.”

“You know, I get interrupted all the time,” she said. “I don’t think Alan’s let me finish a sentence since he moved in.”

“You’re the one who summoned him.”

“Yeah.” She pulled her pipe from her pajamas pocket and loaded it with some shake from the bottom of a sack. “You’re right about that one, Jackie. It’s all my fault.”

Jack started counting again.

“I don’t feel like I have any friends no more,” she said.

Jack nodded, kept counting.

“I never go out anymore.” Her bottom lip stuck out an inch beyond the rest of her. “I never do anything.”

“Seven fifty…eight hundred…eight fifty…nine fifty…”

“You know what,” she said, her voice dragging behind her, “I ain’t even heard once from Luther since a couple days after Scovak got here.”

“Summer, do you mind?”

She never so much as looked up. “I think you’re the only person who listens to me.”

Jack set the money on the bed. He spun around on the blanket and faced Summer. “If that’s the case, I need you to hear what I’ve got to say,” he said. She didn’t act fast enough, so he took her chin and lifted her eyes to his. He saw all he needed. Her eyes were the Great Lakes.

He sighed.

“Those guys want somebody to answer for what happened to Ben Matlin.”

Summer’s pupils jiggled.

“You understand what I’m saying?”

She pulled her tattered shirt sleeves down over her hands.

“Summer, you should let me take Scovak to Houston with me.”

She nodded, her head going all the way back and all the way down.

“I think you should,” she said.

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

Her voice was a whisper. “I do, Jackie.”

“Do we need to talk any more about this?”

“No, we don’t.” She shook her head wide from side to side. “Never again, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Now, will you please let me count this here money?” She agreed and Jack hadn’t got a quarter way through the bills before she spoke yet again.

“Jackie?”

“What?”

“You always do the best thing for us.”

Jack didn’t dare pick up the money again until he heard her stumble out of the room. Still, he waited another minute, for fear she’d pop her head back to declare some new truth or great discovery, or worse, to change her mind. However, she did not. The next sound he heard was her pill bottle rattling from the back bathroom, then the closing of a drawer. The running of the sink. The setting down of a glass.

The soft sounds of the Grateful Dead from the tinny stereo speakers in her room.