Ride Along

“Place smells like it has yeast infections on tap.” Lynch heaved himself up on a barstool and ordered a Coors from the guy behind the bar. That guy looked like he might have been the Lurch stunt double from the Addams Family. The TV show, not the movies.

I stared at Lynch until I decided he wasn’t aware of the irony surrounding his recent comment and choice of beverage. I also thought he might not even know what irony was.

“Hey Lynch”, I said. “You know what irony is?”

The Lurchalike shambled up and clattered a mug down in front of my drinking buddy and said, “Two eighty.” My hand to God, a second between his mouth opening and the words coming out, I was braced to hear You rang?

Lynch took his wallet out and slipped a few bucks out and held them up like he was about to show the bartender a card trick. The bartender stared at the folded bills like maybe he was expecting a card trick. Then he just blinked and took the money from Lynch and walked away down the bar towards two fat old guys in baseball caps. Maybe they rang, I thought.

“Yeah I know what irony is.” Lynch’s voice was deep and even and calm. It was his thing, according to people I knew who also knew him, and had put us in touch. Guy could walk in and tell you his mom just got kidnapped by the Pope and he found out his real dad was Osama bin Laden all on the same day, and he’d tell it all like he’d tell you he just heard the weatherman say it’s gonna be partly cloudy tomorrow. “It’s when people smarter than they are meaner think they’re getting one past someone meaner.”

He took a long pull from the Coors and set the mug down, and said, “Not bad for a yeast infection.”

I looked at his hands on the bar, one pressed flat, the other resting on the edge, turned up and against the side of the glass mug. Big hands, knuckles looked like they’d spent more time broken than whole. Lots of scars. There was a story about one time Lynch took a knife away from someone by letting the other guy stab him in the hand, just because he could. Probably just a tall tale.

But I’m a small guy, and I like to think I’m a smart guy, even when I start to do something stupid. So I said, “Hey, Lynch, all in good fun, right? Can’t have a beer or two without a joke or two, too, right?”

Lynch looked over at me, mostly corner of the eye look. “Beer’s done and so’s the joke. Now what am I here for you to sell me on doing?”

Lynch. Goddamn stone cold Lynch. When it absolutely positively has to be there right the hell now and don’t stop to smell the roses and don’t even think about blowing past Go and getting that two hundred bucks. Humorless prick.

I shrugged and said, “Guy’s owed me money for near a year now. Can’t let it slide any more.” Then I reached into my jacket and fished out a wad of cash could pay rent on all of Trump Tower for a decade and I dropped it into the hand Lynch had moved off the bar and then Lynch pocketed the cash with a noise split the difference between grunt and sigh.

He nodded. “He need to come up with some payments, after? Or does he need to just be over?”

I gave him my best mean-street-bastard smile. “Like the goddamn Addams Family.”

Lynch said, “Like the what?”

I just shook my head. Humorless prick.

And we talked business for a few.

#

Phone rang. Loud as that air raid shit you hear in war movies. Goddamn. I thunked around the nightstand with my fist, almost broke the stupid little plastic piece of crap.

I said, “Whogeyya” or words to that effect. It was late and I’d passed out after a long day making the rounds and a longer night getting good and tanked. I like to stay busy.

Lynch’s voice, that hard, even sound. “I worked out his routine. It’s tonight.”

I blinked and let some wakefulness fuck with my eyelids. “Great, buddy. I did spend enough, right? So tell me after the show, and tell me how it went, huh?”

“No. You’re doing a ridealong.” Like John Wayne on Iwo Jima, I swear. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d called me cowboy.

I was wide awake then. “You know, about who gives who orders and shit. I have some things to say about that.”

That voice. Jesus. Guy used it like he was willing shit into existence. “Not how I work. You’re doing a ridealong. That’s how I work. I’m parked now, two blocks east and one block north.”

I sat up in bed and frowned as the bottles clinked and the wrappers crinkled. Aside from my landlord, was about two people knew where I lived, and Lynch wasn’t my mom and he sure as hell wasn’t Lucy With The Tits.

I said, “From where?”

That cold even voice said, “The Addams Family mansion. Where do you think? Get your ass over here.”

And he hung up on me.

I thought about the guys put me in touch with this maniac, thought about maybe sometimes friendship ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Then I thought, Well, shit, if he was on a job FOR me, and not on a job for me, so to speak, and he knew about this place, well.

I looked at the front door to the place, cheap fiberboard stuff, and thought about Lynch, way over six feet tall and had to be two-fifty easy, no lard to the bastard.

I got up and threw some clothes on. Somewhere along the way stowed a pistol and then I stopped at the fridge for a slice of cold pizza and then I was out the door and I locked up and I headed out to meet Lynch, two blocks east and one block north.

#

It was late November so it was cold and damp and Lynch didn’t give a damn, turned the car off the second we got to the place. I shivered in the passenger seat while Lynch sat in the driver’s, calm and still, looking out through the windshield at the house on the corner. Place was all cracked shutters and peeling siding, the lawn mostly dirt trying to choke the life out of a couple weeds.

I fidgeted. Lynch looked at me like I was the bad kid on a family vacation. I shrugged. “What?”

He shook his head and then went back to looking out through the windshield. His car smelled old, but clean. No cigarettes anywhere, no trash on the floor. The dash was scuffed and scarred, though. And what I’d seen of the paint job when I’d met him a few blocks from my place hadn’t been pretty.

The people who’d put us in touch had said, Guy’s all business. Everything he does, all business.

Guy’s goddamn car, too. Jesus.

We waited and he watched and I shivered, and that went on for way too damn long. Then he said, real quietly, “Here we go.” I looked up from my white, shaking hands in my lap and looked out the windshield too and I saw that a light had come on in the house on the corner, first floor, side, towards the back. We barely had a view of it, parked where we were.

“What the hell?” I said. Lynch tossed me a black ski mask, pulled one over his own head. “His routine. Let’s go. Now.” He opened up his door and got out and eased the door closed. I tried to do the same, ended up sounding just like someone slamming a car door good and loud in the still cold nearly midnight air.

Lynch shook his head and started jogging to the house, fast and easy. I scrambled to keep up, huffing and puffing. Our breaths plumed up and out and away from us, drifted off into the night. Ghosts of unsaid words, maybe. Mine would have been Jesus H Christ why the fuck are we running this isn’t the goddamn gym, maybe.

We got to the side of the house and Lynch settled his giant frame against the edge of a door and motioned for me to be still on his other side. I drew my gun and looked at Lynch, for what I still don’t know. Approval? He glanced at the gun and glanced at me and shrugged. He whispered, “Only if shit goes all wrong. I’ve got this.”

From inside the house, not too far away from the door we were standing by, we heard the clatter of pots and dishes. I figured either late night chores or a late night snack.

Lynch eased a hand onto the doorknob and turned it, movement slow and smooth. It kept right on turning as far as he wanted it to go, and he eased the door open and stepped right on inside like he owned the place. Guys that big had a way with that. Probably comes from who the hell’s going to tell them otherwise.

I followed him inside, gun in my fist. I sweated into, maybe right through the damn ski mask. Sneaking into an old pal’s house, gun in hand and a maniac sneaking point, and I was worked up about how hot and itchy a ski mask was.

#

Lynch stopped short in the little hallway led off from the door. The pots and dishes clinked very clearly now, close by. I peered around Lynch’s bulk, saw part of a shabby kitchen, saw a little girl standing on a stepstool by the sink, washing dishes. A shadow passed into the room, then its owner, my old buddy Cal Brinks. Tall and skinny and wore big cloudy glasses. He stepped up beside the girl at the sink and picked up a towel and started drying the dishes the little girl was washing. They worked quietly, easily, together. Cal stacked the dishes in cupboards after he dried them.

Lynch and I stood in the hallway, peering in, barely breathing, barely fucking blinking.

Cal put the last of the dishes away. He looked at the girl. “Nice job, sweet pea.”

She gave him a big, bright smile. Hallmark movie of the week stuff. “Now a story, Grandpa.”

Cal smiled down at her. “Your mom would kill me if she knew I let you stay up so late.”

That little girl kept right on smiling. “You said you’d tell me a story. And you said I had to have the dishes washed before I went to bed.”

Cal, my old buddy, once one of my very best dealers, said, “And you waited up for me all this time.” He shook his head and laughed. It was a kind of laugh I didn’t hear much. No meanness in it. No sharp edge to it. Just a laugh.

“You keep funny hours, Grandpa. Your job must be weird.” She hopped off the stepstool. Jesus Christ, kid was Shirley Temple.

Cal sighed. “Your mom thinks so, too, hon.” He scooped her up in his arms and she laughed, a bright high sound. “Let’s get a story into those big old ears of yours.”

She mock-yelped. “My ears are tiny! Mommy says so all the time!”

They laughed and moved out of the kitchen, away from Lynch and I.

Lynch stepped into the kitchen. His breathing was light and even. He walked through the kitchen like it was his, that kind of familiarity. I thought about the way Lynch had talked about Cal’s routine. Holy shit, I thought. This ain’t the first time this psycho has walked through this kitchen.

My heart was crashing into my ribs like it wanted the hell out. Maybe it did.

I followed after Lynch, gun cold and slicked with my sweat. I thought, I don’t like this ridealong bullshit.

#

Lynch stalked on down through a hallway. Ahead of him was Cal, ahead of Cal was the little girl. She was skipping down the hallway, back to all of us. Cal was hurrying after. Lynch took a couple of extra long, extra quick steps and moved right up behind Cal.

The little girl ducked through a doorway to her right.

Lynch reached out and got his hands around Cal’s neck and squeezed and Lynch heaved Cal right up off the floor and then slammed Cal down onto the floor. Lynch dropped a knee into Cal’s gut and squeezed his hands hard enough they turned stark white all at once.

Cal gurgled and wheezed and his legs kicked around some.

The little girl came back out through the door she’d ducked into, took one look at the scene, and opened her mouth to scream.

I had a second to think, god damn it, kid’s gonna scream, neighbors are gonna call the cops, and holy shit we are fucked.

Hand to God, it never occurred to me to shoot the kid. Or even hit her. Or even, I dunno, yell at her or anything.

Lynch let go of Cal for a second and backhanded her so hard she spun right back out of sight, back through the same doorway again. Just that loud awful crack as the blow struck and she disappeared, an awful kind of magic trick.

Then Lynch turned his attention back to Cal, who spluttered and tried to sit up. Lynch, still crouching, pivoted on the knee stuck in Cal’s belly and hit him, a right hook took Cal’s glasses off and mashed his nose sideways against his cheek. Lynch leaned over a little and punched down, then, and then again, and then again, and then again. Crunches as Lynch’s fists drove into Cal’s face, sharper cracks as Cal’s head kept slamming into and bouncing off the floor.

Cal’s legs thrashed, and his arms flailed, but not for very long.

Cal made some more gurgling sounds, and twitched a lot. Lynch stood up and looked at me and said, “Windpipe’s shot and I’ve got most of his face caved in.”

I stared at Cal. He was moving less and less. Somewhere in the gurgling was a sound like crying.

I looked away from that, and looked at Lynch. “The fuck you want? A medal? Jesus Christ.” I brushed past him and looked in through the doorway the little girl had disappeared into, reappeared from, and disappeared into again. She lay in a heap, arms and legs every which way, blood all over her face, neck at a weird angle. But maybe that was just the shadows. Fuck, I hoped so.

I turned away from that and looked back at Lynch. He was prodding Cal with a boot. Cal had stopped moving and was silent, now.

“God damn it, Lynch.” My voice was shaking. I held up my gun. “Couldn’t you just use something like this on him, some night when he was out, dealing?”

Lynch shrugged. “He expected trouble out there. Didn’t here, especially when she” — he pointed at the room I’d looked in but couldn’t bring myself to go in, must have been the shadows, she’s gonna wake up tomorrow sore and scared and needing her nose fixed by some doctor and she’ll have nightmares about this shit but hey Cal was a bad fucker just like me and maybe like Lynch so she’s better off, was the kind of shit I thought — “was around.” His voice, calm and cold and steady, like we were neighbors talking over a fence, discussing the goddamn tomatoes this year.

Must have been the shadows, I kept thinking. She’ll be fine.

Lynch led the way out of there.

#

A couple days later, I woke up, middle of the morning, shaking, face wet. Again.

Lucy sat up next to me in the bed. She made lots of cooing noises and took my hand and told me everything was okay.

I looked at the door to my place, cheap fiberboard bullshit.

Didn’t matter what Lucy did, I just shook and cried and looked at the door. After a while, I cracked the blinds and looked out at the street, at the cars parked on it.