Briefcase
The dark grid of streets lay empty before us like hungry mouths gaping. The
daytime denizens of these sprawling avenues had long since returned to their
two-storied, picket-fenced sepulchers in the suburbs, placing the city in our
hands, all the more beautiful for its quiet disorder. Streetlamps at every
corner revealed tattered and unpaired shoes, contorted bicycle frames, tables
with missing legs and two sets of initials carved into their tops. The Cadillac
we were riding in cut across lifeless intersections that would, in six hours, be
choked with the chaos of morning commuters; we passed through red lights, drove
fifty miles per hour through school zones with the cool, calm confidence that
every cop in the city had his lazy eyes fixed somewhere else.
“Slow down, Joe. The drop-off isn’t for another fifteen minutes.” I looked from
my wristwatch to Joe in the driver’s seat, who had taken both hands off the
wheel to light a cigarette.
“No harm in being punctual. Besides, I want to get this over with quickly. I owe
a few guys a bit of cash.”
“Well at least steer the damn car, for Christ’s sake. Tomorrow morning they’re
gonna pull us out of the wreckage, along with the ten goddamned kilos in the
backseat. Two scumbag dealers who got what they deserved, dying in a flaming
wreck. Then what would your family think of you?”
Joe only laughed. He had no family, as I well knew, though we often joked that
we could be half brothers; we had the same dark hair, sharp nose, and a similar
gravitation to what some might call the amoral side of society, though I had a
well-established moral code of my own, into which our actions fit quite
acceptably. Hell, we could have had the same father – my dear old dad abandoned
my mother while I was still curled up happily in her womb, and there’s no
telling who else he could have knocked up.
But regardless of our respective parentage, we were partners in business,
supplying the petty street dealers with a healthy supply of dope. I was the one
who ran the numbers, set prices, things of that general nature. He was the one
who watched over things and intervened with an iron fist, should the situation
have demanded it. Or, to put things a bit more accurately, he was the guy with
the gun at his hip.
“And what about your mother? Wouldn’t she be devastated to discover that little
Pete was out late at night running drugs?” Joe flashed a grin in my direction.
“She would be devastated, yes.” I returned the smile. “All the more reason to
pay attention to the fucking road. Besides, how else would I be able to keep her
in that plush retirement home?”
“She can’t seriously believe that you’ve got her in the goddamned Brighton House
through that little liquor store of yours. She hasn’t ever asked about it?”
“She doesn’t ask, and I don’t have to lie to her. I’m pretty sure she thinks I
get the money through poker or something. That’s my dear mother, always
expecting the best out of me.”
Joe pulled off into a side street and parked the car a few blocks from the
meeting place, a dimly lit alleyway in the back of a tiny Italian restaurant
that, for some reason, always closed before dinnertime. I pulled the package out
of the backseat, concealed in the brown leather briefcase my mother had bought
for me when I had graduated high school. I think she was trying to coerce me
into going on to college, but I was heavy into my piano playing at the time – I
was trying to raise money to move to
And so here I was, walking next to Joe with cold, cracked hands and a bag full
of contraband, ready to feed the spiraling addiction of some junkie who could
have probably gone on to be a foster parent or a history teacher if they hadn’t
gotten hooked on smack by some tragic turn in fortune. On occasion I would feel
guilty, but I always figured that if I weren’t doing it, someone else would be,
and that someone else wouldn’t be using the money to keep their loving mother in
care and comfort for the rest of her days. The way I figured it, I was taking a
bit of the evil out of the system. Or maybe I was just fooling myself.
We rounded the corner to the meeting place. Our client was there in the
alley waiting for us. Joe and I had dealt with him several times before, and
each time we asked what his name was he told us to mind our own business. After
the third or fourth time, we started referring to him as “Mr. Business”. This
made him laugh.
“Is that all ten kilos?” Mr. Business gestured to my briefcase.
“Only if that’s our money.” Joe pointed to the small burlap bag lying at
Mr. Business’ scuffed loafers.
“Yeah, it’s all there. You can count it if you want.”
“We wouldn’t insult you like that,” I replied. “But I do have one
request. I’m rather fond of this briefcase of mine, so it would be much
appreciated if we could just swap contents and keep our respective bags.”
“Yeah, sure, that’s fine, just do it quickly. I don’t want to hang around
here too long.”
After all the materials had been transferred, Joe took charge, as he
tended to do.
“For security, we’ll hang back here for a bit while you make your exit,”
he said to Mr. Business. “In five minutes or so, provided we don’t hear
screaming and gunshots, we’ll leave as well and be on our merry way. It was a
pleasure doing business with you, as always.”
“Yeah, of course. And hey, Joe, what’s this I heard about you getting
into some shit with th—”
In a flash, Joe seized Mr. Business by
the collar with his left hand and pushed back his coat with his right, revealing
the holster strapped at his waist. “You’ll leave now if you know what’s good for
you.”
Mr. Business looked down at the gun nervously. He didn’t seem the
confrontational type.
“Alright, alright, I’m going.” He brushed away Joe’s hand and fled, his shoe
soles sounding against the pavement as he rounded the corner of the alley,
headed towards the street.
“What the hell was that about?” I asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I had long since learned not to press Joe for information he wasn’t willing to
give. I never knew what he did with his share of the money – though I was pretty
sure it went cause that was a bit less benevolent than mine – but he made it
clear that it was not my place to ask, and I was polite enough to give him his
elbow room. It was one of the unspoken laws that governed our interactions.
Joe lit another cigarette in silence; the flame of the match created a
dancing reflection in his black, downcast eyes. He tossed the match away and
leaned back against the wall, one hand in his pocket, tendrils of smoke curling
from his mouth and vanishing in the cold dark. Joe’s smoking was one habit of
his that had always bothered me. At one point I tried to convince him to quit –
I told him that smoking could have been what killed his father. He wasn’t
amused.
I was fingering through the stacks of bills in piled in my briefcase,
struggling to focus my eyes in the light from the single, wavering lamp that lit
the alleyway. From the street came the faint sound of a car starting. The hum of
the engine swelled and faded to silence once again as it passed us and continued
on down the street, going wherever drug dealers go at two in the morning with a
fresh shipment.
“That’d be Mr. Business leaving,” I said, still doing my quick tally of
the money. “Should we follow suit?”
“Not quite. There’s still one thing to take care of.”
“And what would that be?” I glanced up at him – straight into the barrel
of his Smith & Wesson. I laughed, but my heart skipped a beat. “Put that thing
away, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
“No joke, I’m afraid.” He was sweating. “But I suppose I owe you a decent
explanation before we do this.”
“What the hell are you talking about? We’re not doing shit here, so put
that goddamn gun away.” I inched back a bit, hands clutching the handles of the
briefcase, my knuckles white.
“Calm down for a second and I’ll at least justify things a bit before I
see you off. Now, I’ve been taking my share of our profits to a little gambling
ring situated uptown. I got carried away on a few bad bets, kept digging myself
deeper, getting myself into more and more shit. Long story short, at this point
they’re out for cash or carnage, and I’m not keen on having my kneecaps blown
out. They’ve already done some persuasive maneuvering.” Joe pulled off his left
glove, never relinquishing his grip on his weapon. In the dim glow of the lamp
he showed me the stump where his little finger used to be.
“Take the money then, goddamnit, just leave the gun out of it.”
“I wish it were that simple. See, I’m not going to be able to cover my
debts on my own, so I offered them our trade route as payment. Only thing is,
they want you out of the equation. Dead, no compromises. At this point, it’s you
or me. I’m sorry.”
My head reeled. This was Joe, for Christ’s sake. I had known him since he
was a high school dropout; he watched graduate from the bleachers and shook my
hand afterwards, congratulated me. When I was getting into the business and
needed someone I trusted, he was the first person I called, and the last. And
now he was pointing a pistol at me.
“Fuck you.” I couldn’t think of anything more appropriate to say. I
looked around for something within reach that could crack a skull and get me out
of that alleyway without any holes in me. The hard leather in my hands woke me
up, and without a second thought I took a swing at his head.
Joe’s eyes widened, and before my impromptu weapon could reach the
bastard’s face he put two bullets through my chest. The sound reverberated off
the walls and diffused into the empty night, and I fell backwards, blood soaking
my shirt and creeping its way down to the cold, trash-strewn pavement.
Wordlessly, Joe walked over and picked up the briefcase that had fallen at my
side. Struggling to breathe, I stared up at him as he took the cigarette from
his mouth, and flicked it onto the ground next to me.
“You know, maybe you’re right. Maybe I should quit smoking.”
He turned around, headed back the way we came in. If I could have lifted
my head, I would have seen him leave, two shares of cash at his side, his hand
wrapped around the briefcase my mother had given me.