MY
BUSINESS
A Story by Michael Mesmer© 2006Cover photograph © Austin McManus www.theflopbox.com
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Mesmer wrote three full-length dramas for the stage in the 1970’s
and 80’s, and half of a fourth one that might become a story some day. He’s also
written or co-written a couple of dozen blues, techno, ambient and folk-rock songs, as
a producer, guitarist, bassist and percussion instigator, alone and with friends.
Michael has been reading detective and crime fiction since he was a teen,
when he first worked his way through “Crime and Punishment”, then devoured Arthur
Conan Doyle and Edgar Allen Poe. He escapes into the work of classic writers such as
Jim Thompson and Elmore Leonard and the hard-edged noir of James Ellroy and
Andrew Vachss, as well as the exotic alternate-reality mysteries of Jon Courtenay
Grimwood. Yet he finds equal pleasure in the criminal zaniness of Donald Westlake
and Carl Hiassen.
“My Business” is Michael’s first crime story. Write to him at:
Michael Mesmer, P.O. Box 2711, San Rafael, CA 94912-2711
mjmesmer@comcast.net
MY
BUSINESS
For Laurie,
forever
The Beginning Of My Day
You should know, I move slowly. I adjust my posture carefully. I have no
reason to rush, no reason to hurry towards anything. I get where I'm going at a
leisurely pace. Trust me, I am motivated to move, I recognize the dangers of
indolence. But I operate procedures at my own speed. I always have time to take care
of my business.
There’s a lot you don’t know about me.
I like to have a cigarette in bed first thing, light one up, suck it in, wake up
slow. I don't think about anything at all. My mind is empty. I just lie here, smoking. I
don't think about what's going to happen later in my day or something that
transpired during the previous twenty-four. I’m alert from the moment I’m awake. I
look up at the cracked ceiling, try to find something different, something new. Does
the stain look darker? Is that bug green or black?
At the beginning of my day, something’s usually happening in the building or
on the street outside. This room is in the back, but the window there opens on the
airshaft. I like to leave it up an inch or two, listen to the sounds of the city muffled by
the walls and the distance. I grew up in this building. Everything about it is familiar,
predictable. Safe. I know the sound of Jimi the UPS guy's truck and the rattle of its
tailgate going up as he says hi to Mrs. Simmons who's out walking her little rat dog. I
recognize the noise in the pipes when Mr. Gleason in 2F flushes the ancient toilet my
father refuses so far to replace for him. At that time of day, there's this background
buzz. Cars and trucks, buses, subways, taxis, kids on bicycles, a dozen kinds of music.
I know some people couldn’t sleep here during the day, they would find it too noisy.
To me, it's reassuring. It sounds like home.
Some days I wake up and right off I can hear someone breathing heavy over
on the couch, a friend or a relative sleeping off the night before. Or they’re quietly
shuffling around the room getting their gear together before they sneak out, trying
not to wake me up. It doesn't bother me. I never let anyone stay over I don't feel
completely safe around. Very rarely there's a woman here. When I get together with a
woman, I usually go to her place. She feels more comfortable in her own
environment. Most people coming here come for business, at night. That's why I sleep
until the afternoon. At night, I operate my business.
Some of the people who visit me in my room don't like the smell. I can tell,
even though they don’t say anything about it. I have a Calico cat and a Siamese
kitten. They use the litter box in the winter because it's cold and wet outside, in the
summer because we live in a city of concrete. I don't clean the litter that much. I like
waking up to that cat piss stench, fecund and funky. It reminds me of the jungle. Their
turds don’t smell, not like a dog’s. There’s this guy I know whose girlfriend has a
150-pound German police dog. Man, that dog’s shit stinks. With cats, it’s the piss
clumps that reek after a few days. Sometimes my eyes water from the ammonia smell.
Smell that? Smoking a cigarette clears out the room pretty well. I tried incense but it
gives me a headache.
It takes me a couple of minutes to smoke a cigarette down to the filter. I like
Camels but it's not a rule or anything. Then I begin to focus on getting out of bed,
swing my legs over the side and sit up. Occasionally, I crawl out. Sometimes my day
begins, I’m untangling the sheets while I feel around for my gun. Once I found myself
tucked down, lying on the box spring in the small space created by moving the
mattress away from the wall. Blinders, the Calico, likes to sleep against my face now
and then, and I’ll wake up in the middle of a dream in the tunnels, suffocating. Or my
little Slice, she operates unscheduled procedures on my feet. Any of these variations
can result in a change to the usual sequence of posture adjustments.
Eventually, one way or another, I sit up at the edge of the bed. This is one of
my favorite situations, especially when I first get up. It feels good, head hanging
down, arms on my thighs, hands on my knees, bare feet on the tile floor. I can stay
this way for fifteen minutes sometimes. In the winter my feet get cold, but still I don’t
usually change my posture until it’s time to use the toilet. I might scratch a little at
the scabs from the needle on my arms. Examine the veins running under the skin on
the back of my hands, twitching with my heartbeat.
I’m not sleepy, I’m just resting, taking in what’s around me in a relaxed
manner. People seem so hurried all the time. They try to do too much in the time
they’ve allotted. Simple solution: do less, or spend more time doing it. I can never
understand people rushing off to work in the morning. It’s nothing that can’t wait.
Everything can wait. Living, dying. Everything.
I might smoke another cigarette while I’m sitting here. This blue comforter
my mother made as a girl in Germany before the World War. She met my dad after it
was over and came here to America, to the big city, to live as the wife of a building
superintendent, have his son, raise him up, have a daughter who dies a day later and
then die herself from hemorrhaging that won’t quit. I enlisted the day after that.
Seventeen, but they didn’t care. They were taking everyone who wanted to go and
drafting the rest. I like the comforter but I don’t think about my mom much. Why
should I? There’s been as much of my life without her as came before. I get along with
my dad, but I can tell he misses her.
Too bad, huh? I don’t worry about it. I have my business to keep me focused
on the present.
When I feel the urge in my groin, I stand up and head over to the bathroom.
Once I’m in there, I get a lot done. Every day’s a mission, so I prepare for it. Shit,
shower, and shave, leave a full moustache on my upper lip. I check out my skin in the
mirror but I rarely have pimples or blemishes that are noticeable. I put a little
aftershave on, trim my ear hair and nose hair. I brush my teeth, use a toothpick on
my gums, and rinse my mouth out with mouthwash. I use a cotton swab to clean my
ears. I brush my hair vigorously and then carefully comb it to create a straight part
running front to back from over my left eye. Sometimes I use electric clippers to trim
my hair. For a full haircut, I go to a barber I know on 112th street who served in the
101st Airborne. Last, I put some talc in my armpits and on my face.
I think about my business while I’m getting all this done. I think about who
I’m going to meet with and what they’re going to want from me. I think about what
I’m going to get from them for giving them what they want. I measure out my
resources in my mind and consider the potential costs to me and those I care about. I
begin formulating the mission plan for the day, nothing too tightly organized. I
include an element of improvisation in every mission plan. One of my drill sergeant’s
mottos was, “ImPROV is the only way to imPROVE after preparations are comPLETE.”
I’ve forgotten his name, but I remember that voice.
When I’m done in the bathroom, I attend to my weapons. Field strip my M1,
clean it, and reassemble it. Put it back in its place behind the big armchair in the
corner, by that tall lamp Jayne gave me when we lived together. I still socialize with
Jayne more than any other person, but I can’t say we’re exclusive. She goes to acting
school at H.B. in the Village. She keeps busy. I go about my business. I sharpen and
oil my K-Bar and put it back under the mattress. Then I clean my Smith & Wesson
9mm, modified for full auto. The regular clip holds ten rounds, the backup fifteen
more. I use hollow-points to compensate for the smaller caliber, but I like the 9mm.
Easy to control in a tight situation. My nine comes with me everywhere. Next, I clean
the Remington pump. That goes over the door inside the bathroom, up behind the
ceiling tiles. I keep the shotgun shells in a waterproof case down inside the toilet
tank. Those blue toilet tablets hide the case pretty well. I leave a few shells lying
around on the top of my dresser for cleaner access. They’re also a reminder to my
visitors that I have multiple levels of response available to any set of provocations
presented by them. Including some procedures I won’t get into right now.
To be honest, I don’t clean every weapon on a daily basis. More often than
the cat litter, less than an injection or a cigarette. But I clean my nine every day.
There are people trying to get their hands into my business. If they’re not actively
trying, they’re thinking about it. I don’t even have to discuss it, it’s just the truth.
Some people cannot be trusted. You smile in my face and then try to cut my throat.
You bring me a gift and then attempt to steal from behind my back. Usually, I’m
prepared if you come at me.
Breakfast
After the guns, it’s time for breakfast. I enjoy food, when I’m not nodding
off. I can’t say I eat more or less than anyone else. I don’t pay attention to what
others are eating. I focus on my own food and the procedures for getting it into my
mouth from the plate or bowl in front of me. I always eat the amount of food I need
for the mission I’m on. If someone wants to share my food, I share and then order
some more so I don’t feel deprived in any way. Some missions require an empty
stomach, in which cases I don’t eat. Water is essential so I drink that every day,
maybe more than most people who haven’t spent time in a tropical jungle. I have a
good sense of how much water I need, I don’t piss or sweat much. My body uses all
the water I drink.
I go out for breakfast, usually to this juice bar on Broadway, the one near
105th. I think it’s important to consume something nutritious as early as possible in
my day. Junk food, drugs, business, all that should happen later when I’ve got some
momentum. A smoothie helps get me going. I got into them in Berkeley, California
one summer when I R&R’ed there for a month between missions in ’66 or ’67. Orange
Julius. I never did find out if the store owner was named that or if there was another
reason. It was a new experience for me. I operated daily procedures on those
smoothies.
I hope this is interesting for you. We may not have an opportunity to be
together again.
You know, my breakfast time is just about your tea-time. Are you into tea,
Mr. Down-Under? I could never develop a taste for it, even though this woman I dated
in Berkeley, Carissa, she tried to get me into tea. Peppermint tea, chamomile tea, I
need something heartier. Now I drink a smoothie for breakfast whenever I can. I’m
not into the vegetable option, fruit’s what I like. I remember sitting in the jungle one
night on a recon mission, full camo, invisible. We were situated on this hill that must
have had a hundred lime and lemon trees in bloom, remains of a plantation the
French planted back in the 50’s. Every other sense was almost overwhelmed by the
smell. To this day if I meet a woman wearing citrus anything, perfume, a printed
orange on her T-shirt, doesn’t matter. I will get fully focused on her for as long as
she’ll permit me to accompany her to wherever she wants to go. I don’t like citrus in
my smoothies, though.
So I’ll stroll down Broadway and operate my smoothie procedure, then over
to Riverside and down into the park. I find a bench and spend some time drinking,
thinking about my business. Not in the dead of winter, but almost any other time of
year. I enjoy sitting in the park, looking out over the river towards Jersey. I like the
late-day light. Not the sunsets, by then I’m about my business. But the afternoon sun
coming in from the west, shadows leaning back at me, it all fits together. When I find
something I like, I stick with it. Why change a thing? I had one today, a smoothie in
Riverside Park. Better than the food you eat in Australia. My last week in Vietnam, I
almost killed a “leftenant” in a mess hall for handing me a bite of his Vegemite
sandwich.
You’re pretending to be cool with this situation. I can understand. But I can
also see you’re having second thoughts about where you’re at and who you’re with.
Now, your Aussie mates in the jungle with us, they were some of the most
intense fighters I ever met. I admire that in a man, intensity. I admire the
commitment that intensity requires. I go all the way, too, I just do it quietly. I go
about my business and complete the mission successfully. I have a photograph of me
being pinned a Silver Star on by General Westmoreland. You would know it was me, I
look the same, hair trimmed, mustache. I didn’t get into the Hippie thing over there.
Peace sign on the helmet, long hair. I did acquire an interest in injections. But I didn’t
spend time in action with anything else on than a mild headache from the heat. I can’t
complete the mission if I’m high, I don’t even try. I started my injections when I got
out of the jungle and into a supply truck based outside Saigon. I got bored by the
relative level of safety. The slowness I could relate to, though. When I’m on a mission,
I move slowly, carefully, quietly. I don’t want to get noticed, just come in and look
around. Maybe hurt you a little but not so you know what’s going on before I am out
of there and somewhere else. It’s nighttime when I work. Daytime is for sitting on a
bench, drinking a smoothie after I wake up.
Going About My Business
When I finish my breakfast, I jog up the park, sometimes to 125th and back
again. Not too far, just something else to get me ready for operations. Every so often
I pass someone I know from business or from socializing. I just nod and go on my
way. This is a time for getting ready for business, not conducting it. Business should
occur at times and places of our choosing. Like tonight, you and me and your friend
who we both hope is on his way here at this moment. I’m guessing you would have
done things differently if you could, at least, now that you have some knowledge of
how the evening’s going. Looking back, you probably wouldn’t have come here
tonight to meet Pico, would you?
By the time I’m done with my roadwork, I’m ready for business. First, I stop
in to see friends. At this point in my day I don’t have any merchandise on me. That
would be foolish. Take the order, find out what’s wanted, then decide how I’m going
to fulfill the need. Between the time someone says, “Get me” and I get around to
getting it, lots of things can change about the situation. Sometimes I have to adjust
my posture to a more aggressive one. Other times, the usual procedure is all that’s
needed.
Friends are important to my business besides the money they bring in. I like
to socialize so I can have a full life. Friends expose me to different activities outside
my regular routine. For instance, this woman Jayne I see from time to time, she’s into
acting and music and film. She takes me to concerts and plays I would never go to on
my own. Because of my injections, I’m usually nodding off during the performance.
But it gets me out. I go to Carnegie Hall, Bleecker Street Cinema. Most people
wouldn’t think that I go out. I’ll bet before tonight, you hadn’t heard any of what I’ve
been telling you. Maybe you never thought you should know anything about me. But
if you had, you might not have found yourself tied to that chair you’re in.
Friends help me expand my horizons and learn about others. I’m interested
in other people, that’s why I made such a good Lurp. Long Range Reconnaissance
Patrol. L. R. R. P. I wanted to know what was going on, not just with the NVA or VC.
Everyone. If I saw an old woman out among the fields, carrying a basket on her back,
I would think, what’s her story? Kids? Family? I want to get to know people, so I
learned how to go out among them, find out what’s happening. I did that growing up
here. A lot of people moved out when the Hispanics and the Asians started moving in.
Not my dad or mom, not me. We figured out a way to make things work for us. I
learned Spanish, befriended the gangs. I got in a fight now and then, but my dad
taught me how to defend myself. He knew stuff from the war so he let me in on the
secret. You know what it is? Get close. A lot can happen when I’m in close, within
your reach. Most people think they’re better off keeping away from their opponent.
That’s a punk’s way. Get in there, nose to nose, see what’s happening in your eyes.
Tells me everything I need to know.
Sorry I can’t offer you a cigarette. I’m going to be firm about keeping that
gag on you tonight. In other situations I might bend the rules a little bit. But the way
you two have behaved towards me, everything about tonight’s mission needs to be
tightened down. Personnel, planning, equipment, execution. Everything.
Sometimes I stop off to see my friend Mark. He has the big dog I was talking
about, Max is his name. We walk him down the hill from Mark’s girlfriend’s
apartment to the park, let him off the leash. It scares some people to see Max off the
leash. A hundred fifty pounds. He’s a good dog, comes when Mark calls. Mark and his
girlfriend, they’re both actors, rent this nice place on 113th. I met them through Jayne
at a party. Mark works at a theater company in New Jersey. He’s interested in my
stories about the war. One morning last month I’m asleep, this detective from Vice I
know comes calling. Gives me half a pound of merchandise he liberated at a crime
scene. Take the package, go back to sleep. Next day, I call Mark, “Skip work today.”
We split the half pound in half again. Our half lasts a month, the captain gets a good
financial return on his. Why change a thing?
Mark doesn’t know the extent of my business. He knows about the teenagers
selling for me. He knows I can get merchandise when he or his girlfriend wants it. He
knows I nod off a lot at parties. I have some straight friends. I don’t have any friends
in business, though, just associates, customers and competitors. Which are you?
Risk Management
Don’t get me wrong, mate, I know there are certain risks in conducting my
business. I know other businessmen want to operate their own procedures in place of
mine. They seek money and influence. They believe it can be taken from me or anyone
who has it. They don’t know about my time in the jungle, they don’t know how I’m
prepared to respond or what I’ll give up. They think they know enough about me. I
understand how they could make that mistake. I try to mislead others so they think
I’m vulnerable. Sometimes it works.
I operate my business here in this room in my father’s building. My father
has no idea, he’s asleep by eight or nine p.m. and gets up at five when I’m closing
down. The watchman Gianni gets a twenty each night. I like to have several associates
present when I meet with others. Four nights, it’s Juan and his cousin Ramon, the one
from L.A. On Saturday night they have another job, so I use Pico and his father
Hector. They’re bigger, able to cope with most of the problems that arise. The kids
selling for me aren’t much trouble. They just want to make some money and get their
girlfriends stoned. They sell small amounts along Amsterdam to their cousins and
friends, maybe a random tourist outside Saint John the Divine. Students at Columbia
and my other direct customers come to the room.
I don’t work Sunday and Monday much, I’m usually nodding somewhere
after an injection. But I operate the same procedures every night I’m open. After
friends, I have dinner in the neighborhood, like the Greek place on 104th. Then I do a
little grocery shopping, or I go out with Jayne and some of her friends. Around 10 or
11, I meet Juan, get set for business. Ramon is always late. I don’t mind, he shows up
eventually. Pico and Hector -- clockwork. In five years, they have not missed or been
late once. They meet me at the room. Juan, I have with me. Ramon comes late, every
time.
Three weeks ago, Tuesday night, Ramon is on time. Juan and I get to the
building, Ramon is waiting outside. That’s all it takes, one change. If we’re awake,
we notice, we think, “That’s different.” We understand, in our gut. We adjust our
posture when something changes. I do not adjust my posture. I march inside the
building and let Juan and Ramon follow. I think, “I’ll take care of this inside. I’m not
going to conduct my business on the street.” I enter using my regular, Juan-and-I-are-
opening-the-room posture. I do not adjust to the presence of Ramon. The usual
procedure, Ramon comes in late. I’m sitting here at the table, counting money or
weighing merchandise when Ramon rings the buzzer. Juan checks the door. I give
Juan the go-ahead, he lets Ramon into the room. No one enters the room unless Juan
inspects and I approve. On Saturdays, Pico checks the door while Hector waits with
me.
This particular night, Ramon follows Juan into the room after me. I turn on
the overhead light with the switch inside the door. I cross the room to my chair, flick
on the lamp. Then I turn to talk to Ramon. I don’t really feel the bullet. It slams me
backwards over the chair. Forty-five? Loud, but these walls are thick. I’m unconscious
for a while. I wake up thinking, “Why am I in the corner?” I hear people moving in
the room, I keep still. Ramon says, “In here”, and I hear them lifting the bed and the
box spring and the false floor underneath. One of them says “Choice.” I understand,
it’s business. It’s about $10,000 in cash and a few handguns and a kilo or two of
merchandise.
These people with Ramon are not professionals. They shoot me, I’m behind
the chair. I’m still alive, why not finish me off? Maybe he thinks he’s a marksman,
the one who shot me. He’s good at the gun range, hits the bull’s-eye a lot. Maybe he
sees me go down and plans on getting back to me. Or he thinks he might need me
alive, save me for later. But the buzzer goes off. Ramon goes to the door, says to
someone, “He’s on the toilet”. The way he talks, he has to repeat it. The caller must
go away. A moment later, Ramon and the others leave. They close the front door but
they don’t have the key so they leave the dead-bolt open. The door doesn’t latch
completely.
I drift off. Then I hear a voice I recognize but don’t know why saying,
“Mierda!” over and over again in a tense voice, but quiet, almost a whisper. I move
just a little. Footsteps come towards me. I’m ready to die, believe me, I should be
dead already. I’m driving this truck in Saigon. One day I get out, there are three large
bullet holes, two and one, in the driver’s door, made from the inside. Understand? I
look across to the passenger door, three matching holes. The rounds came through the
cab, right across my legs, under my arms, in front of my body. Not a scratch on me.
Happened a dozen times at least, these near-misses. And that was driving supply
trucks.
This time, I’m hit pretty good. Pico, that’s who it is, sees beaucoup blood. He
can’t figure out at first where I’m shot. Shoulder, it turns out, high up, above my
heart. Even better, above my lung, no sucking chest wound. But my clavicle is history,
the scapula shattered. There’s a hole the size of the Midtown Tunnel in my back from
which bodily fluid spills onto the tiles. Pico moves the chair out of the way and helps
me stretch out on the floor. Kneels beside me, puts a pillow under my head.
I am wide awake. Pico says, “Juan es muerto, Pedro. Knife in the back.”
I look right in his eyes. “See anyone?”
He says, “Just Ramon and a couple of customers, I thought they were. I
screwed up, man. I let them go.”
“It’s okay, Pico. Get me a towel.”
Pico rushes off, comes back. Rolls me over to put the towel under me.
“9-1-1?” he asks.
“No, Pico, no, call my dad.”
He looks at me for a moment. He knows my dad has been kept out of it. But
the way I figure, it’s his building. Before this, there were no problems in here, he
could sleep soundly. Now it’s at his doorstep, I think he should know.
“Tell him to get Doctor Shachter in 6-B.”
After Pico leaves, I reach around under me and find my nine. A little late, but
who knows who’s coming back to finish what they started? Pico knows to shut the
door on his way out and the buzzer rings a few times while he’s gone. I don’t get up.
It takes a while to raise my dad, I guess, then some more to get Doc Shachter out of
bed. While I’m lying there, bleeding but not so fast now, I turn my head to the side
and see Juan lying on the floor across the room, near the bathroom door. He is very
dead. Sixteen years old. His mother lives two blocks away. Three younger kids, no
dad. I’ll take care of it, Pico will make a donation for me. The reason is, I realize just
then, I won’t be here to do it myself.
The Cost Of Doing Business
I lie there, adjusting to it, holding down the bile that tries to rise up inside
me. I’m going to have to leave. No living here with my dad anymore, where I grew
up. No smoothies on a bench. No Jayne, no off-off-Broadway plays. All this is finished
for me. I find the guys who ripped me off, settle up. Then I go away for a long time.
Not prison, if I handle it right, but away, definitely. I don’t talk to my dad ever again.
I can’t put him in that position. If the Man figures it out, there’s a tap on my dad’s
phone, or they’re stopping by now and then, hassling him. Better he doesn’t know
where I am, maybe even thinks I’m dead. I think about that, dying or pretending to.
It’s the same thing, isn’t it? Either way this life is over for me.
I tell some of this to my friend Mark the other day. I’m sitting with him on
some steps in the park, watching Max terrorize the joggers. I ask him how things are
going with his girlfriend. He’s not sure, she has a girlfriend of her own. When the
three of them have sex, he can touch his girlfriend but her friend won’t let him come
near. So it’s Mark in the back, doing his girlfriend while she’s doing hers. Everyone
seems to be having a good time with it except Mark. He’s pretty insecure, living a
sheltered life.
Finally I say I’m going away and he won’t see me anymore. He laughs at
first. “What do you mean, anymore?”
I look at him, nod. “Never.”
“Something I said?” Trying to get his mind around it.
“No, nothing to do with you. But that’s the way it’s got to be. As far as
you’re concerned, I’m dead. No funeral.”
He wants to understand. I relate a little about how you and your friend paid
me a visit. I tell him, “Let’s just say, a man has to adopt an aggressive posture in
response to certain provocations if he wants to operate his business. You’ll get it,
after I’m gone. Watch the papers, see what they say in the next week or two. Two
guys, Cuban, Australian, maybe in the river.”
Hey! I should have told you, struggling just pulls that wire around your neck
tighter and tighter. That’s it, quiet down. Shh. I think it might help to remember, you
still have a choice. If your friend doesn’t show up, I can find him on my own. But you
could assist. That’s up to you.
Maybe it’s the shock from the blood loss or the realization that my life is
ending, at least this part of it. The next thing I see, Doc Shachter is standing beside
me. I’m on the bed, bandaged and feeling the drugs he gave me. I know my dad is in
the room because I hear him say, “Thank you, David,” as he walks the Doc to the
door. Pico comes over and gives me a poke on my good shoulder. “You got nine lives,
Pedro.” He calls me Pedro, sometimes “El Roca” when we’re high. Pico and I get it on
sometimes, just for fun. I think everyone is basically bi-sexual. Of course, we don’t
tell Hector that. He’s too old-fashioned, thinks fags are not men.
I learned in the jungle what a man is. Sometimes his head is on a stick in a
village square next to a few of his squad members. Or a man is the guy who’s got the
barrel of his handgun against the village leader’s temple, asking, “Where are the
men who did this to our friends?” I shot six people that morning, two women, before
the seventh person in line, this old papa-san, starts rattling off, in Montagnard,
directions to the men who did this to our friends. When we finished with them, I was
done with the jungle. I took that transfer to Saigon.
There’s the buzzer now. Think this could be your amigo at the door? You
thought I couldn’t get to you. It was easy, Ramon is such a loud-mouth. By the time
we found him, he told half the neighborhood he was so tough, how he used you guys.
That’s funny, huh? He was the one being used, you and your friend from Havana let
him live afterwards. You thought I was dead, who cares if Ramon talks? “Good for
our reputation, taking over from Pete. People should know we took Pete down.” I can
see how that would make sense.
Sit quiet now. Pico, is that him?
Okay. Let him in.
THE END
~Dream Deferred~
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