Bullet from the Heart
Mike Robertson
For Made Up Words
Sometimes in the morning it hits me. A tsunami that I might have seen comin’ if I’d been awake. Patrice’s face. My poor sweet angel. I wake with a gasp and I’m wet with sweat, sour with sadness and with a lingering odor in my nose — her perfume, the one I used to fall asleep to after twining our bodies, our sweat and juices amplified by our passion.
During the day I’m mostly able to keep her at bay with an array of neurotic motions. I start to remember and I cough and pinch my nose, pull my earlobe, scratch my head, raise both arms high and twist my back, crack my neck, cluck and burr with my tongue and smack my mouth. These sometime work, catch the lip of the wave and thrust me to some place where memory is vague and has to struggle to keep up with me. It’s meant to keep me focused on my mark, limber and lithe, able to duck and smile, able to do my business. For a while. Until sometime in the afternoon when all my highs, sugar, adrenaline, meth and cocaine, have settled into a low-level stew and I find myself walking in circles, looking in all directions, not yet remembering what I’ve lost, but hungering for it. Then the wave crashes down on me and I have to go someplace fast where I can be alone, shaking, eyes dripping, wiping my nose on something, a toilet tissue, whatever I can find.
I jump in my ’93 Porsche 911 and I’m off to my day’s first delivery. The wave hits me just as I reach my destination and I have to pull the 911 over from Rodeo to the club’s parking lot, where I sit and weep. Ten minutes later I’m okay, out the door and heading in past the back of the bar to the door to Jimmy’s office. Up the stairs and there he is, in his three-grand chair behind his ten-grand desk, huge salt water aquarium behind him, one way glass overlooking the dance floor in front, and I’m standing there tugging on my earlobe with one hand and covering the handle of the 38 Special under my jacket with the other, slipping my finger down through the trigger guard because suddenly I realize Jimmy ain’t alone.
“Hey Jimmy,” I say, avoiding the eyes of the two other stiffs standing there in Sears suits and well-worn cop shoes.
“Hey Tony, ya a little late. Ya shoulda been here like twenty minutes ago.” He points. “This here’s detective Murry and what’s his name. The other guy.”
The two cops don’t talk yet. I’m bobbing my head, still sniffling, like I’ve got a cold. “I wasn’t feeling too good this morning. Got a late start. Maybe I got a cold.”
“Okay. So I think maybe you oughta go away and take care of that. We can talk later, okay?”
“Wait,” says the first cop. Must be the alpha, the one called Murry. “What’s your name? What’s your business here?”
“Me,” I say. “I’m just here to take Jimmy’s lunch order. You want me to bring you the usual, Jimmy? You guys good with tuna on rye?” I give my 38 a final pat and lift my hands, trying to look as harmless as possible.
“Funny guy. Okay. Ya got business to discuss? Go ahead and discuss. Pretend we aren’t here.”
“Now who’s being funny,” I say. “Sorry to bother ya, Jimmy. I’ll check back with ya later.” I’m out the door and to my surprise, the cops let me go. They must be onto Jimmy about something other than our usual business, which is bringing him something for his head. I’m back in the 911 and out on Rodeo before you can sneeze and I turn on my radio and cruise to my next customer.
A couple hours later I’m finishing a hot dog and watching the waves roll in from the parking lot by the beach in Malibu. I call Jimmy. “Don’t call me here,” he says when I tell him who it is.
“Yeah, okay, I just wanted to…”
“Listen, are you stupid or what. I said don’t call me here. I’ll call you.” And he hangs up. Maybe he thinks his phone is tapped. Come to think of it, maybe it is.
The only business I got left today is with Jimmy and I really want to take care of that before I go home, but I don’t want to do it where there might be cops, or anyone else for that matter. So I just start driving around, hoping he’ll call me back when he’s alone. If not, I’ll just drop in on the guy.
He calls, about four in the afternoon. “Okay, I’m at home. This line should be okay. What ya got for me?”
“I got something extra special. Just came in. You’re gonna want some.”
“Come on over then. Make it quick, though, I got to shower and get back to the club before the talent shows up.”
I’ve been to Jimmy’s place before. It’s just up the hill from Ocean Drive. A sharp right turn up a street that circles around the place to his gate then past the tennis court and pool house. I ring the doorbell. I’m let in by a big blond hunk in a bathing suit and tank top. Jimmy’s downstairs, just out of the shower and fixing drinks.
“Yeah, I’ll have one, thanks,” I say without being asked.
“Pushy little bastard,” he says but he hands me a gin and tonic. “Okay. What you got?”
“Oh yeah, you won’t believe this,” I say, turning around, setting the drink down, and pulling out the 38. “I don’t know if you’re gonna like it so much though.”
“What is this!” Just like him to turn a question into a command.
“Remember Diego Cardenas? Your guys rubbed him out like a cockroach a couple months back? They were sloppy, Jimmy. Real sloppy. Came in and sprayed the place like they was exterminators. Killed everybody there. Well, who was in the bathroom that night? Yeah, me. And who was in the living room enjoying the view of the valley with Diego and his squeeze? My girl Patrice, that’s who. You’re gettin’ off easy, Jimmy. A lot easier than she did.” I point fast and shoot. Center of the forehead about an inch above the eyes.
You don’t want to know the ugly details, but Jimmy goes down and he ain’t gettin’ up. Then like I expected, his pool boy shows up and he’s carrying a shotgun and him and me exchange a few, and then he’s down. Me, I don’t exactly get out of there clean. I’m gut shot. Big buckshot too. Tears you up something awful, that stuff, but I stumble out and collapse into the bucket seat of my ride. I turn on the CD player and out comes Patrice’s favorite tune, “Dying For You Darlin’.” I listen and nod, listen and nod, for as long as I can.
