INTERLUDE
Ashley's Story
Jimmy DiPippo was my weed dealer in high school. He was a rich kid anyway, but the weed only made him richer. He had a used BMW, a nice watch, a couple gold rings. He was a nice guy, Jimmy, but rich or not he was dumb as a bag of retards, and smoking all that weed didn't help. Well, last year I was… passing through my hometown… and I heard through the grapevine that Jimmy was still around, that he was still a dealer and still about as sharp as a tree stump.
Naturally, I figured we'd catch up, and I'd dick him out of some money.
I track him down at this party. Some girl's house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the middle of the suburbs of Scranton, which is about as awesome as it sounds. House party full of teenage assholes, for the most part – beer bongs and regular bongs and some kid with a super-bong made out of a World War Two gas mask, and bad techno music and dudes in sweetsmelling frat cologne. Just some shithole party, whatever, no big deal.
I find Jimmy out on the patio, smoking up this cute little hottie and her lunkhead fat-ass linebacker boyfriend, trying to sell them some weed, and I say hey, and he seems surprised to see me, too surprised, nervous surprised. But I don't think much of it, because Jimmy's always been itchy-twitchy. Sweaty, too – kid looked like a drowned rat in high school, and he wasn't much different now. Sweat was soaking through the band on his longbrim cap, the hat pulled cockeyed like he was some kind of hip-hop suburban hero, and I figured if you reached down the waist of his pants – which hung around the crack of his ass, thankfully covered up by his tighty-whities – you'd find his balls were floating in a swamp, too.
I let him finish his deal, then we stay outside and head to the patio furniture by the pool to play catch-up. He tells me he's still dealing, he's doing well for himself, and I tell him I'm a Wall Street broker in the big city, and I don't know why he believes me. I'm convincing, I guess. I was always convincing. Plus, him, dumb, you know the drill.
Thing is, he's getting more and more nervous by the minute. His foot's tapping. He keeps licking his lips and looking over his shoulder, and right then I have no idea why. First I think, it's just because that's how he is. But this is something else.
"Whatever," I say to myself, I don't care about Jimmy. He sells drugs to kids, and more power to him, but we're not talking sacred cow-tipping here. I decide to get into the scam.
Scam's not a real complex one, and it's something I pretty much make up on the spot. I figure, if I'm playing the Wall Street broker made good, I can pretend like I have some cool insider trading secret. Some tip about a pharmaceutical company about to release a new antidepressant, some new concept car coming out of Japan. Whatever. I could've told Jimmy that Wal-Mart was designing a new shock-absorbent anal tampon and he'd have bought it. I say to him, if he wants in, I can do him a solid like he did for me so many times way back when – and he did do me favors, free weed, lots of it – and I'd be happy to invest his cash without taking any cut for myself.
I have him interested, I can tell. But then he sees something out the corner of his eye, and he tells me he's gotta go meet some people, and he'll find me later. Then zoom, he's off like a bottle rocket. I trail him inside, and I lose him for a minute – some busty chick, busty because she's a little overweight but that's fine, she wants to do a shot with me, and that's okay, I'm good with shots. We slam back tequila shooters with the lime and the salt while the techno is doing its thump, thump, thump and the red Christmas lights are winking to the beat even though its summertime, and yay, whatever. She takes a picture of me with her cell phone. Everybody's having a good time, and for a second I forget why I'm even here.
Then I see Jimmy coming downstairs with a metal suitcase.
Yeah. This metal suitcase.
I hang back and trail him – he's out through the kitchen and into a dark two-car garage. I follow him out there, and I duck behind a Range Rover and then, boom, the lights come on.
"Damn, man," I hear Jimmy say. "My eyes, that's bright."
From where I'm at, all I can see is feet. I see three pairs. I see Jimmy's high-tops. I see a pair of scuffed black loafers. And then I see a pair of white sneakers on small, stubby feet.
Nobody says anything, so Jimmy has to fill the space: "It's cool, you just surprised me is all. Hey, what's up? I got your message, I brought the case. I don't know what the problem is, not like you guys do a recall on this product, right–" And he laughs, a nervous heh-heh-heh. "So, what's up? I'm good to go in case you were–"
And then this woman speaks. Her voice is a monotone.
She says, "I hear you've made some new friends, James."
And it's weird, because I don't know that anyone has ever called Jimmy "James." Not even his parents. I always figured "Jimmy" was the name on his birth certificate.
He stammers something out, something like, "Yeah, man, I'm a – I'm a real friendly dude, everybody knows Jimmy." But he knows something's up. I can't see him, but by now I figure the sweat's pouring off him.
"Even the police," the woman says. It's not a question. It's an accusation.
"No," Jimmy says, but it's half-hearted at best.
"Oh, yeah," the dude says, got a Bronx or Brooklyn accent. "Jimmy, you been talking to po-po. You been cozying up next to the pubic fuzz."
"The pubic what?" Jimmy says. He really doesn't get it.
And those were his last words. The worst last words ever, I might add. Whoever has the white tennis sneaks moves fast behind Jimmy, and then I hear choking, and Jimmy's feet do this epileptic dance on the cement floor of the garage, and I'm goddamn paralyzed with fear. I want to scream and run and piss myself and vomit, but I can't do any of those things. My mouth is open and my hands are frozen.
Then dots of blood hit the cement. Pit, pat, pit.
His foot kicks out, knocks the case back. It's not far from me. I could just reach out –
Something happens in my head. A switch flips. I don't know why I did it. It wasn't something I thought about in a conscious, "do this" kind of way.
There's a mop to my left. I grab it, and I stand up.
I see who's there now – the Italian asshole and this short, stocky bitch. She's got a wire around Jimmy's neck, a wire that dead-ends in two black rubber ball handles, handles she's got tight in her pudgy grip.
The wire's biting into his neck. That's where the blood's coming from.
They all pause to look at me. They're shocked to see me. Even Jimmy, because right then and there, he's still alive, though not for much longer.
That gives me the time I need.
The dago reaches into his jacket, and I jam the mop into the lights. The fluorescents above our heads pop, throwing us back into the dark, and I grab the case and haul ass back into the kitchen. I slam the door behind me, toss a microwave cart under the handle, and it buys me enough time to get back out to my Mustang, throw this heavy-ass case into the passenger side, and get out of town. Only later do I even find out what's in it – it wasn't locked, Jimmy never did up the combination.
So now, here we are.
I never thought they'd find me. Never.
We're fucked.