The Price You Pay Read online

  KILL YOU?

  Probably not me. You and I we’re just on the same train, right?

  I GUESS.

  Is there someone here you were gonna kill? Like really?

  FUCKING LUCILLE.

  Fifty-fifty: there is a Lucille and she is maybe going to die, or he’s not just heavily armed and psychotic he’s also big into Kenny Rogers. Fuck me but the first one would be so preferable.

  By the way where the fuck is everyone? He’s got the gun pointed at the floor now. Is no one going to step up and just take it away? Mother fuck I can’t do it! I’m a professional criminal. There are limits to how much media exposure a person in my position really wants.

  FUCKING LUCILLE!

  Pointing the gun again. Seriously my fellow travelers are a disappointment. Guy’s pointing the giant gun at me for crying out loud. What did I ever do? At me. Away from me. At me. Away. At me. Away. Like that fucking tick tocker on the top of my piano teacher’s piano fucking tick tock tick tock. I hated piano but she was hot and I was old enough to know that boobs were really interesting. Jesus Jack not right the fuck now you know? Tick fucking tock.

  LUCCCCIIIIILLLLLLE.

  Shit on a shitstick.

  I sing the song. Hungry children, crops in the fields. I always think that line is four hundred. Four hundred children. Like he’s farming them on little allotments and they come out of the ground and he picks them and sells them off the back of a wagon.

  Well, maybe I don’t think that because it’s Kenny Rogers not Pink Floyd’s unreleased rural gothic album, but I did have a nightmare about it every week for a year when I was fifteen. Gun guy stares at me like we’re communing with god.

  Then I forget what the next line is.

  LUCILLE!

  OhfuckitSMACK.

  LUCILLE!

  Smack.

  Bang.

  Smack smacksmack fuck you smacksmacksmack fucking miserable smack bastard. What are the odds? They’re astronomical. Like literally it’s more likely I get hit by a meteorite than I have to deal with this level of crap this often in one week unless the city is really sliding into anarchy and it’s not despite what you read in the news. Crime is down which is how a serious criminal likes it. Down, stable, controlled, profitable. Nothing to get excited about. Fact of life.

  LUCILLLLLLE!

  How are you even conscious, man? For fuck’s sake.

  Black leather gloves. I always wear gloves in winter. Hit him as hard as I want to, don’t have to worry about hepatitis or whatever because gloves. Fucking loser with a gun. Shot a hole in my crosstown and now I’m going to be late because cops and whatever that I do not want. Sure my life is an open book and I’m this completely upstanding citizen pillar of the la la la but you don’t want to be standing in the precinct house passing the fucking time because that is just an opportunity to fuck yourself in the face.

  SmacksmackSMACKforgoodmeasureyouasshole.

  Crunching sound is boots and they pull me off, my fellow travelers on my crosstown. Man down! Stop. Oh sure you’re all heroes now that it’s over. Fucking fat boy there will be on the news tonight like how he charged the perpetrator and made an opening for me. Fucking ridiculous.

  This whole thing is fucking ridiculous. Statistically improbable. Absurd.

  Is that a problem like my kind of problem? Is this part of the same shit as Didi? Is someone dicking with me? This is not how I would dick if I was dicking but maybe that’s the point.

  Ash taste again but this time it’s mine. Belongs to me, not like me on fire. This is me as fire, salamander style. Who the hell understands how the head works?

  That’s what I tell the first responder. She says yes sir that’s fine and puts me in the back of her car to settle down. Little while later the sergeant takes a statement and says I can go. Tells me I did a pretty good job: coulda been lighter but I’m a civilian and I haven’t been trained and to be honest in that situation sir it’s better to be like totally excessive because you do not want to leave the thing half done and get shot.

  That’s right. Just a civilian.

  BACK WHEN I WAS THE CARDINAL (of coffee but we do not say of coffee because everyone knows) there were a lot of guys who would bet on anything. It was a pathology with them like they could not get enough of their buzz from trading a commodity that is already almost psychopathically weird anyway. They had to bet fifty euros or fifty dollars or fifty-nine-point-seven Swiss francs on which fucking fruit fly would fly out of the bowl before all the others. These assholes would put money down and then someone would start trading derivatives and spread and before long one of them would owe like ten thousand and the others would make him stick to that or pay it in strippers. Even the women were like this. Like if someone ever tells you that women do not behave like assholes in that environment like no. The straight ones will just make all those asshole male colleagues go to a club with male strippers so that there are pictures of macho Don the King of Coffee (Delaware) sitting in a blue velvet lounger with nine inches of improbable dong right in front of his nose and of course then there has to be a bet on which stripper will have the most improbable dong. Your own dong size is what’s really going on here but no one ever bets on that because once you know, where do you go from there?

  You know what else they would bet on? Who had to pee first. Who could pee straightest for longest. Who could memorise more digits of the daily ticker. Who could guess the phone number from the beeps on a cellphone. Whatever. They would bet on anything, because sooner or later you’re in a helicopter that’s landing on a pad somewhere in the jungle and the pad has a fucking swastika painted on it because that’s who you’re talking to today. Fucking jungle coffee Nazis. Because coffee. Because humans. Fucking humans.

  Because they did these things I did them too and because I was the Cardinal I always won and that meant I didn’t have to bet. I can tell you the first ten items on the ticker for every day the whole of 1998. Still. Cannot get that shit out of my head if I want to. Whatever.

  Fucking humans do fucking awful shit.

  Such as killing my horrible neighbour for no good reason. Should I just let that go? Chalk it up to humans and forget it?

  It just bugs me. I need to know why. Not like need to need to. Just like need to because if I don’t it’s just gonna keep bugging me and actually that is not good. Focus is important. Didi is a fucking productivity suck. She is like Candy Crush but with murder.

  Inevitably there’s a kind of temptation here. I am a criminal so I could go all hard-boiled about it. I could just go loco. Go rogue. Show this fucking city what it’s like when I cut loose. I’ve been cautious and well-behaved this whole time. I’ve been polite. What would it be like if I just let go? Over the top. Totally out to lunch. Crazy Jack Price. Fuuuuuck yeah. Blaze of glory man like old school. And there is an argument for that if I am being dicked with because it is clearly not what would be expected of me and it is not something anyone will have planned for.

  But it’s not good business is what it’s not. I’m all about the business.

  Crazy Jack Price.

  There’s a line I’ve always joked about in my head. Standing on top of a bar with a broken bottle like fucking old school is what:

  MY NAME’S JACK. YOU DO WHAT I SAY, OR I’M THE PRICE YOU PAY!

  Could get myself one of Lucille’s golden guns while I’m at it. I’m calling the fuckhead Lucille. Why not. Turns out he doesn’t have much of any other name.

  NOW I’M AT THE PRECINCT HOUSE and this face is a cop face: all jaw and Officer Krupke. Leo’s not around. This is another guy who thinks I am a lucky fucking amateur. He’s talking Didi but not like talking talking, like making a statement to someone on the outside. Which is good. I am on the outside. I am totally unfamiliar with the criminal milieu because I am a standup civilian is what I am.

  Cop says: Well sir
I can tell you what this was not. It was not a random thing. There is no one out there just doing this that we know of and we would know because this is not a first-timer. There is no hesitation here and there are no mistakes. So you should not bother yourself on that score sir. This person will not be back and is not interested in you unless you and Miss Fraser are connected which I understand you are not.

  (Didi Fraser. Desdemona Fraser. I suppose I did know her full name. It’s on her box down by the main door. Was. They’ve already taken it off. Now it’s just a brass blank.)

  Homeowner Jack: Thing is I guess officer, thing is I guess, we’re not connected except by physical proximity. You don’t think someone was looking to use our building as what would you call it a vantage? I mean am I in danger from—I don’t know—if somehow this is an ongoing thing?

  Cop gives me a little pro-class smile like what am I six years old? Says: Like a sniper’s nest or some such? Yes sir we also watch TV sir. So we thought of that Mr. Price but there’s really nothing in that line that we’d expect. There are no government buildings or what have you, nothing that anyone would particularly hate. There are no banks so it isn’t a heist situation. There’s no political angle, not like a motorcade coming down your street. And if you just reckon that this is someone looking to shoot randomly into a crowd then the angles are bad and anyway having done this the building is now off limits because we’re aware. The whole point of that would be to leave us unaware until the Event.

  (I can hear him say the E in Event.)

  So it really is a puzzler sir but what it is not is a problem for you.

  Cop face is hard-working and cooperative. He’s giving me the best information he can within bounds. I am maybe a recent hero of some deal on the crosstown that he privately thinks was bare-ass and hare-brained and I am lucky to be alive but that does not make me a cop so I cannot have everything he knows. All the same he’s telling me the truth. I can check with Leo later but I know already this is the straight shit.

  Thanks officer thank you. I do feel better.

  I remember to ask about Lucille. Concerned citizen is what. Like: Oh that poor man is he being cared for? I was so distressed that I had to beat the shit out of him with my personal hands.

  Lucille is in a secure hospital. Guy seems to be living on the far side of crazy canyon and could have gone off like a bomb so I’m this big exemplar of civic action and shit. That really was a role I had in mind for someone else. There was that huge college jock sitting two seats over. I was sure he’d have a go but he just fucking sat there.

  Cop shows me to the door. Basically kisses me goodbye and waves me away. Tells me not to worry about it. Read that as: Respect man but don’t come back asking for more, this is what it is, we’re on it.

  Okay then.

  MY PENTHOUSE. My home which is directly above where Didi Fraser got shot twice in the chest and once in the face. You need a key to get to the top floor. I have one. No one else does.

  They get me coming out of the elevator. Heavy hands and a billy club or a real old-fashioned sap. They stretch me out. Not white light but yellow and a noise like BOCK that is the back of my head and warm stuff down the collar of my expensive shirt. Falling down I see masks: those fuck ugly flesh tone ones that aren’t of anyone or anything. And what the fuck are those masks actually supposed to be for if not for anonymity during the commission of a crime?

  Inevitably: someone kicks me in the balls. I go away for a moment, puke some. Nearest boots dance away swearing. Seriously man you’re gonna beat a guy down but you’re scared of puke. Weak as shit. Come down here I got coffee breath.

  Next one’s my mouth. Teeth crack. Yellow light goes green-brown like a tunnel made of bugs all around my head. Crawling green-brown and some asshole is making a noise like a donkey or a violin like hee-yurr-hee-yurrr. Godfuckinghell they are breaking me and I can feel it happening and FUCK YOU for that feeling because now I will always know what it is like. I will remember this moment forever. This is a body being damaged. This is fragility is the limits of life is the boundary condition and fuck you so much.

  Who does all that in a fucking blank mask? Show some respect. Wear a fucking clown face or Gojira whatever I don’t care. Be a monster not a parenthesis.

  Fuck. It’s going on and on. Cracked ribs cracked everyfuckingthing and pain and beneath the pain the knowing. You wanted to tell me something I get that and I’m a reasonable guy so what the FUCK is wrong with the phone?

  Fuck.

  One actual message right into my ear. One message in words: Forget about Didi. Fucking leave it alone.

  They watch me, all just standing there around me while I crawl across the floor. Cold. Surgical cold. They watch me knock the phone down off the table. They watch me fuck up the numbers as I try to dial and I have to start again. They watch me call the cops.

  That same guy answers, the enthusiast. Send the fucking car, send it, I’m bleeding on my own floor. Three men. Masks.

  It comes out different. Mafkf. Vree meh’ i’ mafukuh. Bleeheh ow o’ muh vluh.

  One of the masks gets his phone out too like real demonstrative. Dials a number. Tells someone it’s done. Just like that, like pro stylee like in a movie. Wow what a jackass. Almost had me believing you there believing you were actually someone competent. Fuck. Fucking bullshit masks and now this. Just rude. Just fucking unnecessary.

  Fnukng uknegegahy.

  Phone guy shrugs and they go.

  Hak. Hak. Fnukg rug gnuknegegahy. A hak hak.

  Listening to my own voice: strangest feeling in my chest. Is that a rib in my lung? In my heart? Is that my death in there waiting?

  Nope. Still here. What is that?

  Man what is it? Perfect in the moment zen state like a religious thing is what. The opposite of death like birth but like being born complete as me. Like ash in reverse ash falling up and becoming stone and metal. Like getting beans from an espresso. I’m a little bit hazy—

  They start in on me again like they were just having a break for a chat and a beer and then I know it, it’s—

  Clarity.

  Clarity like the mute button like cold water in the dry heat. I’m back baby. No more hippy revelation shit. Yeah fucking kick me that’s right get it done. I got places to be man ain’t got time for this.

  These boys have no idea how badly they have just screwed the pooch. And the pooch is being screwed so hard the fucking cat next door is screaming. There are wolves in Canada looking at one another’s assholes right now like FUCK that’s uncomfortable what the actual FUCK?

  Masked men. Do you know who I am?

  No. You have no clue.

  But you just fucked up, my friends. And when you fuck up you know what I am? I am—

  Yeah that line was cooler when I wasn’t angry. Now it doesn’t even begin. Lying on my own floor. Expensive fucking carpet covered in my own blood. Pissed myself, as you do. Don’t tell anyone that part. Tell them about the broken fingers not the fucking swollen agonising balls. Hope that’s not blood in there.

  Does.

  Not.

  Begin.

  Get better. Then we’ll see. See if that line is funny.

  Oh, shit. I hope that’s not me dying. I can feel it coming up: huge shadows red and black but not really black. More brown. I’m not blacking out. Brownout. When I had to have my appendix done they gave me anaesthetic and it wasn’t like this. It was like cold in me like a wave, and then I was back again and all hilariously doo-lally flirting with the nurses.

  Not like this. Warm brown creeping in at the edges, seducing and cosy and what if it’s the end? This 70s geometric print carpet. Wall carpet like in one of those Frank Lloyd Wright holdovers. I loved this carpet but now I’m not so sure. I’m worried it’s like a little too post-ironic like maybe it’s just tacky but hell it’s gone now right? No way I can get this much me o
ut of it. Pain in the ass.

  Stay away from Didi? Forget about her? Fuck Didi. Are you fucking joking? In my own house? You’re fucking joking. You do this and you expect me to go away? Boy did you ever misread your fucking audience.

  You made me see mortality you pricks. I’m scared. Scared of dying on my own floor, dying of vintage funkadelic wallcarpet.

  But I won’t die. This is personal but it’s also more than that. Because there’s a business issue here too, and business never dies. There’s an issue of criminal territory and reputation.

  Money never sleeps, and I’m the Price you pay.

  BEEN STARING AT THIS CEILING FOR A WHILE, and I know my mood’s all gussied up with high-spec medical opiates. It’s like the local speciality: go to hospital, get whacked up with some appalling fucking painkiller you’ll never quite see the back of, like a bad relationship you can’t leave because the sex is so good. Doesn’t matter you wake up and she’s looking down at you with a carving knife in one hand, stone drunk and calling you all kinds of things you’ve never heard of, and fucking thank you yes I have and I never want to do that again.

  Still staring at the ceiling. Can practically see the outline of her face, perfectly still and calm. Face and chin and breast and knife, this stunning outline like a goddess, like something from a temple where the hand and the eye and nipple and blade say something meaningful and eternal. I had sleep paralysis for a while and this was one of those times. She thought I was asleep with my eyes open. Lucia. That was her name. Gorgeous Lucia, the Milanese blonde by way of Connecticut. I got out that same day, it’s not you it’s me thanks for the memories changed the locks. Back in my pre-Cardinal days back when I was just a kid really. Two years later she opened a man’s throat with a straight razor and then cut herself to ribbons. Both of them died and two EMTs quit on the spot.