In Three

“Well, you didn’t do it, so I did.”

John Cordova was holding a pool stick, poised straight up by his heel like a warrior in the Congo might. He was glaring at a new chap named Luke Mitchum, who was looking red with anger and embarrassment. We were all in the basement of Benji’s cute little hideout, having a friendly round of pool while discussing the “situation” as it had been delicately put.

I was sitting in a Laz-y-boy in the corner, watching the argument between Mitchum and Cordova escalate.

“I couldn’t get a shot,” Mitchum said, wiping his pointed noise with his sleeve. His posture and actions reminded me of possum. “I tried, I did, but the cars started pulling away before I had a chance….”

Cordova turned to me. “This little turd is exactly what we don’t want, Mr. Monohan. He never takes chances, never puts his heart into it.”

“Hey, screw you,” Mitchum hissed. “It was a couple of tires. Wasn’t a big deal.”

Cordova narrowed his eyes. “You stupid bastard. What if you were supposed to be shooting those tires out because we had someone stealing files and needed a clean getaway? What if they were collecting evidence? Do you ever think?”

Mitchum stared, his eyes watery and nervous. “I was thinking, John, I just”-

Cordova suddenly turned fast and smashed Mitchum in the shins with the pool cube. “No, you do not think. You just make a jackass out of yourself, out of me.”

Mitchum hit the ground, moaning in agony. “Oh, God, John… you broke it, you broke it…” He clawed at his pant leg, rolling onto his back, his head thrust outward.

I watched quietly, chewing on a piece of Big Red Cordova had offered. It was losing flavor, but I didn’t know where a garbage was to spit it out in.

Cordova shook his head, hovering over the bawling wounded mammal on the floor. “That was the last time, Luke. You don’t make mistakes in here, do you understand me? This isn’t the goddamn KKK, or the skinheads, or even the Taliban, this is MAN.” And he swung the pule cube down hard again and broke it inches from Mitchum’s head.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He bawled.

I waited till Cordova had replaced his stick with a new one, and then said, “Where can I spit out this gum, John?”

Cordova motioned to a basket I hadn’t seen earlier, by a jukebox in the corner. I rose and spit out the wad, and sat back down, waiting for him to explain to me the “situation”.

“Okay,” He said, turning around to me after scratching with the six ball. “Here’s what I’ve gathered. Three days from now, at roughly two o’clock a.m., we’ve got a cop whose dropping off some documents at the Conoco across from the White Castle on the old part of town. It’s virtually all the evidence that’s been collected thus far in the case they’ve got against us. The Colonel, Leo Grant, Luan Rodriguez, and that guy over in St. Cloud we took last year. The undercover cop, Hunter, or whoever he was. We’ve got a man on the inside telling us they’re finally putting it together, so we’ve got to know just how to pull it apart.”

I nodded.

“You’re gonna pick it up. Do you understand me?”

I nodded again.

“You will not read it. I will, and then I will inform you on your next move.”

I nodded a third time, and Mitchum hobbled up onto his good leg using the pool table as a crutch.

“Get out,” Cordova said to him without even looking. “I don’t want you here.”

Mitchum stared at him for a few seconds, and then wiped his beady eyes and made his way for the stairwell. As he passed behind Cordova, Cordova shoved the new pool cube out and jabbed it into his ribs. Mitchum made a strange noise, and hobbled away like he’d been hit by a semi and narrowly avoided death.

There was a minute or two of silence, and then Cordova said, “Did you like him?”

I shrugged. “No. I didn’t bother to get to know him.”

“Good,” he said. “’Cause he’s dead.”

I nodded once more. I felt like a bobble head on the dash of a Ford Escort.

“Alright, Mr. Monohan. I trust you. And if you break that trust, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Are we clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. You get those documents, and you get them to me as soon as possible.”

“Yes sir.”

“No go.”

I walked the streets of Brainerd in a daze.

I walked by my apartments, and kept walking down mainstream until I’d reached the café where I’d first taken Morgan. I peered through the thick glass windows, and smiled. She was sitting inside, reading a newspaper and sipping what I knew was a strawberry latte. She didn’t see me, and I put my head down, and continued walking.

We’d talked it over the night after my incident at the bridge. She said she needed time, and she had to think. I respected that.

I passed by a bar that was already full of customers, on this sunny Tuesday morning. I found it sad, yet comforting. It was the same as it had always been, no matter what was happening in my personal portion of the world.

I passed by Craig Lieferman outside of a gas station, filling up his blazer. His lip was swollen still, and he had a cut below his chin. He looked at his feet, and gave me a feeble wave. I waved back with a friendly smile. I’d already taken the most important thing he’d ever have. I didn’t have to continue on in the same spirit.

Minutes later I came to a Joe’s trailer park, and knocked on the door of house 659. Joe answered, in a bathrobe with a mug of coffee.

“Well, hello,” He said smiling. “You should have called. I could have freshened up a little.”

He winked like a two-dollar harlot.

I punched him in the shoulder, and pushed past him into the kitchen. His house was small, cozy, and smelled of mold and a cheap air freshener. Mmm. Homey. “Got any of that left?” I asked, motioning to his coffee cup.

He shook his head. “Nah, chugged the whole pot a few minutes ago.”

I stared at him as he rummaged around in his fridge. “You’re lying.”

He shook his head. “I don’t lie, Cal.”

After he finally gave in and poured me a mug, we sat down at his table and discussed the plan.

“Alright,” I said. “We’ve got a drop at the Conoco on Friday, at ‘roughly’ two a.m. It’s evidence that they have built against us, the cops I mean. Some cop they have on the inside. I’m the one picking it up.”

Joe nodded, eyeing me. “Shoot him.”

I stopped, watching his blank face. “What?”

“Shoot him in the face. Just take him out of the game.”

I continued to just stare stupidly. That didn’t sound like Joe at all. “Are you serious?”

He laughed, shaking his head. “No, I’m not.”

“I hate you.”

“I know. Anyway, here’s what you do.”

He ducked down low, looking around, out the windows and towards the door. I leaned in to hear him. “Okay. You get the evidence, and it’s going to be in a manila envelope, I expect?”

I shrugged. “Most likely. No one’s dumb enough to use a brief case.”

He nodded. “You’re right. Okay, so you’ve got a big fat manila envelope, full of confidential police documents. Are these purely police documents, or are they FBI too? Federal stuff?”

“I don’t know…” Cordova had probably given me as little information as possible for purely these reasons. I couldn’t foil a plot if I didn’t know anything about it.

“That’s fine, that’s fine… Okay, so you take it. And I’m sure you’re not supposed to read it, then.”

“Nope.”

“Okay. There’s a solution, some kind of solvent I’ve heard of, though I can’t remember what it is… it can open the seal and you can’t even tell. And when you’re done”- he smiled. “-you just seal it right back up. We get the information, send it to someone whose not… you know… compromised. Get the stuff out there.”

I shook my head. “No, Joe, I don’t think you get it. It doesn’t matter if we steal it or not. The only reason they’re taking the evidence is so they can erase their tracks, and so when they do get investigated, they can throw the FBI or whoever off. If we get that information, it won’t do any good, except that we know what tracks to cover before Benji and Cordova.”

Joe smiled. “Well, that’s something.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m not doing it. I’m telling you, this Cordova guy, he’s the real thing. He’ll kill me and no one will even know for years. He’ll erase that I ever even existed, I’m telling you.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah… what if I steal it?”

I gaped at him. He was dead serious though, his eyes even and calm, a thin smile on his lips.

“…Why?”

“Well think about it,” he said. “If I take this thing, your butt is off the hook. I’ve just got to get this thing before you even get anywhere near the gas station. And we’ve got to frame someone.”

He itched his chin thoughtfully. “Who do we frame?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know… the only guys I know in this thing are Cordova, Benji, Leo Grant- and he’s dead, obviously- that cop, what’s his face, and the new guy, Luke Mitchum. But Cordova’s taking him out sometime soon, too.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “A new guy, you say?”

I stared at him, and then shook my head again. “No way, Joe. I don’t want to get in any deeper in shit than I already am…”

“I understand.” Joe stood up and went back to his coffee maker and began pouring himself another cup. “But think about it: you give me the stats on this guy, all the stuff I need to know, and I frame the prick. Then we get me in the picture, take these documents, and lay real low for awhile. We won’t meet for a long time, just so you don’t get tailed or anything… you know, for a couple of weeks. Meantime, I start making some phone calls. Not to the Brainerd Police Department, but somewhere else… get the FBI more involved, tell him the whereabouts of all these guys, and you get to get the hell out by covering your tracks only. It’s gonna be tricky, but then again- it could be our only ticket.”

I sat still for awhile, chewing things over. It was a theoretically sound plan, but theories are scary. There was a massive amount of things that could wrong, and they all seemed to point in me and Joe’s demise.

“We’ll see,” I said after a few minutes.

Joe laughed. “Now you sound like my mom. ‘We’ll see.’ What are you, like forty?”

I flicked him off with a smile on my face.