Scar Tissue: Seven Stories of Love and Wounds Read online

  Finally, at eleven, Lester White comes in.

  The place reacts the way it always does, shifting to acknowledge him, like sweeping a magnet above iron filings. Men who work for him nod and raise glasses. Hard kids vie for his attention. Suckers who owe him money stare at their beers and hope to Christ he won't pick them to make an example of. I pour his Glenlivet rocks as he steps to a suddenly-open space at the bar.

  "Frank," he says.

  "Lester."

  He turns to lean an elbow, picks up the highball glass and sips at it. "Heard on the radio, they're saying snow tonight."

  "Yeah?" I can't imagine anything I could care less about, what with the words my daughter, my daughter, my daughter going round and round in my head, but I can't rush into this. Lester is the only option I have. How else am I going to get the money by tomorrow? Rob twenty liquor stores?

  "Winter again." He shakes his head. "This fucking town."

  "I hear you," I say, and run a towel over a glass that's already dry.

  He nods, starts to step away.

  "Hey Lester, you got a second?" I try not to sound anxious, but I can tell it creeps into my voice by the way he narrows his eyes. He turns back, rests his forearms on the bar. He knows something is coming. You don't get where Lester is without an eye for desperation.

  I set the towel down, take a breath. "I was wondering if I could talk to you about a loan."

  He raises an eyebrow.

  "There's a…" I sigh. "My daughter."

  "She okay?"

  I think about telling him everything, the cokehead, the locket, everything, but I know it's the wrong move. Lester may hang around after hours, but that doesn't make us friends. He's a big man, a player, a very dangerous guy. If I tell him the situation, it's the same as asking him to help directly. A bad play for a couple of reasons. First, he wouldn't do it. Second, I couldn't afford it if he did. Third, and most important, Jess. If something went wrong…

  So I just hold my hands open and look him in the eye. He finally bobs his head. "How much?"

  I force myself to say it. He stares at me. Sizing me up. Wondering if I'm for real.

  I stare back. My daughter, my daughter, my daughter. The bar noise goes away.

  After a minute, Lester scrunches up his mouth. "Frank, you know I like you. But ten grand?"

  "I'm good for it."

  "Say I give you a friend rate, call it seven-and-a-half. Almost a grand a week, and that's just the juice. You stop eating, stop smoking, give me your whole paycheck, it's what, five? So you owe a full grand the week after. One and a half after that. Just in juice, you understand, I'm not talking principal." Lester shakes his head. "Sooner or later, I'd have to send someone to put your fingers in a car door. Can't do it. I like you too much."

  I pick up the rag, start wiping the bar. Truth is, I knew what Lester was going to say. But I had to ask. Now there's only one option. The one thing I said I'd never do again.

  My daughter, my daughter, my daughter.

  I rub the same circle over and over. "What if I worked it off?"

  "Doing what?"

  I shrug. "Whatever you need." I look up.

  Lester meets my gaze, starts to smile like I've told a joke. Then something creeps into his eyes, but I can't tell what it is. He breaks the stare and looks away. "Come on, Frank."

  "I'm serious. You're always saying you need good people."

  He turns back, and I realize what I saw on his face.

  Embarrassment. Lester White is embarrassed for me.

  "When I say that, I'm just, you know. Blowing smoke, playing around." He shrugs. "You were a serious man back in the day, but now …" He waves his hand, and doesn't finish the sentence, which was probably meant as a kindness. Except that I can fill in the blank: Now you're a 51-year-old bartender. That's all you are. The days when you were anything else—an earner, a husband, a father—those days are gone.

  There's a lead numbness in my stomach that I've only felt a couple of times. When the judge stole five years of my life away. When Lucy told me the doctors had found a tumor in her head. When my little girl called me to weep into the phone and I couldn't do a goddamn thing about it.

  Lester is clearly uncomfortable. He breaks the spell by downing the rest of his scotch, then pulling his roll from his pocket. "Look, don't think I'm a bad guy, though," he says. "Let me help you." He flattens a wad of money a half inch thick, and snaps off three crisp hundreds. As an afterthought, pulls off two more. "Here you go, pal." He smiles at me. Then he sets his empty glass on the bar and gives the tiniest nod towards it.

  And, sick to my stomach, I reach for the bottle and do what a bartender is supposed to.

  #

  Usually a couple of guys would stay after I lock the doors, but tomorrow is Friday, so tonight I kick everybody out. Then I pour myself four inches of Jim Beam, light a smoke, and sit on one of the stools in the dark. Through the front window I can see the snow falling. When the El clatters overhead, orange sparks spray out to shimmer amidst whirling flakes of white.

  I'm short ten thousand dollars, and I have until tomorrow morning to get it.

  I get off the stool and walk behind the bar, punch open the register. Maybe two dozen twenties, twice as many tens and fives, and a thick stack of singles. Call it a thousand dollars. If I'm lucky. Taking it means losing my job, but that doesn't matter a damn.

  But it doesn't matter, because a thousand dollars isn't ten.

  I crush my square and light another. Suck hard, picture the smoke twisting and curling into my lungs. I tap my lighter against the bar and I take a belt of the bourbon and I think about the way my feet feel like someone is scraping barbed wire across my heels and I watch the sparks and snow mingle and none of it helps relieve the thought that I'm about to let my baby girl down again, maybe for the last time.

  And before I can think too much about it, I lean down, grab a couple of paperclips from the junk cup beside the register, take the bat from beneath the counter, and head for the front door.

  #

  Three in the morning, snow whirling from a sky stained pink with reflected light. The city sleeps.

  I try not to think about what I'm doing. If I think about it, I might back out, and if I back out, I lose everything. So I just focus on Jess and the road.

  It takes half an hour to find the right block. The house is somber against the sky. A thin layer of snow drapes the porch. I'd like to circle back to take another look, but I can't be sure that someone isn't watching. So I keep my speed steady, go two more blocks, then swing into the alley and kill the engine.

  There is no silence like the middle of the night in the midst of a Chicago snowstorm when you are about to do something truly stupid.

  I take a breath.

  I take my Louisville Slugger.

  I get out of the car.

  I rifle through the trunk for the ski mask I wear to shovel the car out. Putting it on does nothing to muffle the sick-sweet odor of trash. I stick to the side and move carefully. The air is sharp. Snow crunches under my boots. My fingers are cold, the skin waxy and thin. After two blocks, I'm right behind the house. And sure enough, Lester was right.

  Kids these days aren't worth a goddamn, because there's still no security cage on the back of his stash house.

  Taking delicate steps now, careful not to disturb the broken bottles and chunks of concrete that line the sides of the alley, I move to the building. There's no screen, just a solid-core door with a metal kick plate. The cold of the wood is startling when I press my ear against it, but I can hear music. Someone is awake. Figures. Twenty-four-seven, people want what Lester sells.

  The door is locked, of course. But you don't go down for a robbery beef without knowing a thing or two about locks. I bend one paperclip into an awkward tension wrench and the other into a scooped pick. My tools are clumsy, and it's hard to work with numb fingers, so it takes almost ten minutes. But finally the cylinder of the deadbolt gives, spinning counterclockwise.


  My heart is hammering my chest hard enough I'm afraid my ribs might crack. There's no way to know what's on the opposite side of this door. I could be walking right into the barrel of a shotgun. Even if I'm not, there will definitely be two or three guys in the house, definitely armed and probably jacked up. Tweakers aren't known for trigger discipline.

  Trying to remember the words for a Hail Mary, I turn the knob, pull the door a scant inch, and press my eye to the crack.

  It's dark, but looks like a backroom or a pantry. I can make out metal racks sagging under the weight of shadows. There's an archway screened by a bed sheet, and beyond it, yellow light. The music is clearer now.

  Gripping the bat so hard my hands shake, I step inside and close the door behind me, and just like that, I'm back where I started. The last time I broke in where I wasn't supposed to be it cost me five years, my wife, and my daughter. And now, here I am again, and just like last time, I'm doing it for Jess, even if she'll never understand.

  The kitchen is on the other side of the curtain. It's been converted to a lab, every surface covered with burners and flasks and tubing and jars. An efficient little operation: cook meth in the back and sell it out the front. No muss, no fuss. Of course, when the cops get wise to it, everybody inside will face federal time. But what does that matter to Lester? There'll be nothing connecting him, and there's always another stupid kid ready to step up for a spin of the wheel.

  I can hear voices now. The music swells, and realize it's a television. Perfect. If they're caught up in something, maybe I can sneak right by, find the stash, and get the hell out without anyone the wiser.

  Adrenaline sings in my blood as I step through the kitchen towards the stairs.

  #

  One night in a past life, Lucy rolled on her side and looked at me. Leno was on mute, and the light flickered across her features. "I think Jess is starting to figure out what you do."

  "She say something?"

  My wife shook her head. "Not exactly. But she roots for the bad guys on TV."

  "What, I'm a bad guy?"

  Lucy touched my cheek. "No, baby. But you're not a model citizen, either."

  I snorted and rolled over on my back, stared at the ceiling. "I don't know. Maybe it's time I quit."

  "Maybe it is."

  I looked over. "A little fucking judgmental, are we?"

  Lucy smiled, that slow sweet thing. She turned to take the locket from the bedside table. Dangled it from her right hand and used her left to open it. Inside were two pieces of tan paper, cut to ovals and glued in place. Us. On the left, her thumbprint; on the right, mine. Whorls and spirals marked in black ink, two one-of-a-kind things brought together. Facing each other.

  I waited for her to say something. But after a minute, I realized she had.

  #

  I can hear my pulse. Not just feel it—hear it.

  The house is a small bungalow, with two bedrooms and a filthy bath opening immediately off the top of the stairs. Which means that before I've even reached the second floor, I can see straight into the opposite room, where a man lays on a bed with his hands laced behind his head and a shiny automatic beside him.

  I freeze three steps from the top, one foot stopping in midair. I'm a stranger wearing a ski mask and carrying a baseball bat. If he looks over, I'm going to die. A warm fist spins greasy in my belly. I realize I'm holding my breath. I was scared before, but now panic hits, and it's all I can do not to turn and run. I can be out the back door and heading home in minutes. No one ever needs to know I was here.

  Then I see the money.

  It's in a paper grocery bag on the floor, which seems strange until I realize that it's not like addicts pay in crisp C-notes. There are hundreds of dirty bills piled loose in the bag. More than I need.

  The man doesn't stir. His eyes are closed.

  I stare at the money, and then at the man, and then at the gun, and then at the money again, my eyes flicking in a circle as my mind races, but the truth is, I've already made up my mind, I'm just working on my nerve.

  Gently, very gently, I lift one foot and put it down on the next step. Again. Again.

  A board squeaks and I freeze like I've been turned to stone. Wait a long moment. Nothing happens.

  I step onto the landing. The bat is a comfort, and I grip it tight enough to leave marks. Force myself to breathe, and take another delicate step, and another. The bag will be awkward, and I'll have to lift it carefully so as not to make a—

  The man's eyes open.

  We stare at each other for what's probably less than a second but seems longer. He looks to be in his twenties. Black hair, soap opera scruff, blue eyes. I've seen him before. He's been in the bar. A vodka tonic man, I recall, absurdly.

  And then he's lunging for the pistol, his right hand flying, moving so fast I can almost see a blur behind it. He must not have been napping, only lounging, he's too alert, and before I can move he's got his fingers on the pistol and is starting to bring it up and I don't think, just step forward and crack the bat into his head like I'm swinging for the fences.

  The sound is nothing like hitting a baseball.

  Everything stops. I stand and stare at what I've done. And for no reason I can understand, I think of that day Jess broke her ankle, the way she said I'm sorry, Daddy, and how all I wanted was to hold her and keep her safe from every bad thing.

  Then I reach down and pick up the bag and tiptoe back down the stairs and through the kitchen and out the back door, a grocery bag full of cash in one hand and a bloody baseball bat in the other.

  A whirl of soft white erases me.

  #

  The shirt is different. Everything else is the same: the sneer, the cokehead twitchiness, the pistol tucked where I can't help but see it. Standing across the bar from me, he says, "You have what I want?"

  I take a moment to study him. Not a bad-looking kid if you could convince him to take a shower, get a haircut. He's young, and too cocky. I could yank the bat and sock him in the head, and the way he's got it tucked under his shirt that gun would do him no good at all.

  Instead, I open the cupboard and hand him the duffel bag. There was almost fourteen thousand in the grocery bag. I was up till dawn counting and bundling.

  He unzips it, glances inside, and I can see triumph flow through him. I remember what it feels like, that raw and animal joy from taking something you could never earn.

  "Smart move, old man." He straightens. "So here's how this works. I'm going to walk out of here. You follow me, or I get any hint the cops are following me, and your daughter dies."

  And I laugh. Was I ever that young?

  He's not ready for that, and it throws him. "You think I'm fucking kidding?"

  "Come on, kid." I shake my head. "You got your money. No need to keep pretending you really kidnapped her."

  He goes tense. His eyes dart right to left and back again. "How—"

  "Only a person that believes I have money would bother to run an angle on a guy like me. And the only person who'd believe I have money is Jess." I shrug. "She always believed in the bad guys on television. Why she ended up with you, I guess. You two are together, right?"

  The kid nods, looking like he's trying to do math problems in his head.

  "Was this your idea or hers?"

  He finally finds his voice. "She was always going on about how her dad was this big criminal, been to prison and everything. So I figured, you know…" He shakes his head. "Wait a second. If you knew from the beginning, why—"

  "Do you have a daughter?"

  "Naw, man." He says it almost boastfully, like the idea is ridiculous.

  I sip my beer and shake my head. "Then you wouldn't understand."

  He stares for another few seconds, finally blinks, shrugs. "Whatever." He backs towards the door, keeping an eye on me, like I might lunge for the bag.

  "Hey."

  The kid pauses, nervous.

  "Give this back to her, will you?" I hold out my hand. The locket dangles.


  His features war with themselves, the sneer faltering. He's young, doesn't know how to handle his emotions yet. It's easy to see that he doesn't understand why I'm letting him walk out with that money. It just doesn't compute to him.

  Not yet, at least.

  For a long moment he just stares at the locket swinging back and forth. Finally, he steps forward, and I let the chain unspool from my fingers.

  After he leaves, I think of following, letting him lead me to Jess. The daughter I haven't seen in seven years, who calls every couple of months to say she hates me. My baby. Instead, I pull a pint of Bud and drink it slow. I top off a regular's beer. I wash some glasses in preparation for the evening rush. Then I lean on the bar and light a cigarette and watch the snow fall.

  I think about the guy I hit with the bat, and whether or not I killed him. I wonder how long it will be until Lester White runs down the list of people that knew about the back door of his stash house, until he puts that together with me asking for a loan. I wonder if it's true what they say about his pit bulls, and I think it probably is.

  I wonder if, maybe, just maybe, my phone will ring one more time before I find out.

  Around 2006, before my first novel The Blade Itself had been published, I was talking to a friend of mine, the author J.A. Konrath. Joe mentioned he was editing a collection of short stories about hitmen entitled These Guns for Hire, and that it would include tales from legends like David Morrell, P.J. Parrish, Jeff Abbott, Ken Bruen, and Lawrence Block. In other words, a list of people I had no right to be among.

  But I figured what the hell, and I asked if I could submit a story. His answer was classic Konrath: "If it's under 3,000 words and doesn't suck."