North Of Likely

NORTH OF LIKELY

GARY D AKER

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Gary D Aker

Published by Light/Dark at Smashwords

ISBN: 9781301434923

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

For my mother, Beatrice

Acknowledgments

Joe Adams

Ann Haroun

Rachel Short

Rick Short

Alicia’s Song by Gary D Aker

Table of Contents

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

Epilogue

About the Author

You will be flogged for being right and flogged for being wrong, and it hurts both ways—but it doesn’t hurt as much when you’re right.

—Hunter S. Thompson

"And if I cease to desire and remain still,

The empire will be at peace of its own accord."

—Lao Tzu

The following story takes place the last week of August, 2001.

1

My cell chirped after midnight. Thought it might be her. I had this fantasy that she’d find some excuse to call me up on the way over, even though she wasn’t seeing me anymore. Say she just had to figure it out—how to keep seeing me on the sly. All that was shattered. It was the boss calling with a job. His nephew was coming in from out of town. Not just any ordinary nephew, but the son of a boss on the East Coast. The guy I work for is still a big fish in these parts, northern Nevada. Hell, anyone that’s even connected around here is a major news flash. Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Winnemucca, who cares? Just the fact his nephew’s one of those guys is a big deal.

I work personal security, so my job is to pick him up at the Reno-Sparks Airport, off a flight from Pittsburgh. Babysit him till he decides to flop at his hotel, the Flamingo Hilton. For that I’ll get a lousy fifty bucks an hour. Definitely not my usual rate. Not even my discount rate. But since I was run out of Vegas and listed at every casino, my fee’s been on the decline. Not to mention, I owe my boss because he got me out of Vegas . . . alive.

He could have me go on this errand for free. And he’d be well within his play. Instead, he throws in a couple bucks, and tells me this one’s important.

But I’m not going over a hundred-fifty on this. He’s my older brother’s son and all that, but Jesus, I’m busy. Don’t know what he’s doing coming out here anyway.

Fifty bucks an hour? I don’t know anyone who works for that kind of money. Maybe a new girl at the Bunny Ranch, flat-chested and scared, who hasn’t figured it out yet.

There’s not a lot of people who live in northern Nevada. And the criminals, hell, we all know each other’s favorite comic strip, usual breakfast, the last woman we were with, and the one we hope to have next. Out in the middle of all this space, and yet it’s so small around here, half the time I feel like I’m standing in a goddamn phone booth.

It’s all so routine what we do, waiting around for big scores. San Francisco, Seattle, L.A., Phoenix—those are the only jobs we ever talk about, not the jobs we do around here. We all know what we do in between the meal tickets.

I provide personal security for businessmen, executives, fences, drug dealers—even the occasional movie star (more like porn queen) has come under my watchful eye. But that was back when I worked in Vegas. When I never left home and had work all the time. Now, if I want real work, I have to leave town. The bad reputation that got me kicked out of Vegas is what lands me work all over the western states these days. But up here in northern Nevada, where I’m holed up, it’s funny, but I need protection. That’s why I’m under the wing of my boss, and do favors for him. Plus, he finds me work to help through the lean times, which—I have to admit—aren’t really the lean times anymore, but more like the way it is. Porsche Boxster got traded in for a Celica long ago. At least the cost of living is cheap here. But it’s not living that scares me.

I have a one-bedroom bungalow, looks like the wind could knock it over, out in Fernley. Ferngully is what we call it around here. At eighty miles an hour on I-80, it’ll take me twenty-five minutes to cover the thirty-four miles to the airport. It’s 12:35, which means I’ve got to jet. His flight’s due at 1:15 a.m. I have a thing going on, keeping an eye on a dealer who’s coming into Phoenix next month. But right now, my bank account is down below four figures, which means no traveling money. And that always makes me nervous.

I’ve had the runs for five days straight, ever since I heard little Bobby Barone was coming to town. I’ve known all along this call was coming. The regular work I do for my boss, we sit down and talk about it, days, weeks in advance. But the special work, the work I owe him, always comes after midnight, in cloak and dagger time. Just when I think I’m going to come in free and clear, under the radar, not a scratch on me, almost ready to let go of that knot in my stomach, and wake up in the morning without the pounding in my forehead—the exact second I’m ready to shrug off all that for the first time since Vegas, the call comes. They always sound so nice on the surface, these special jobs.

Just pick up Bobby Barone on the flight from Pittsburgh. Show him a good time. I know it’s not Vegas, but you know the tour. And if he wants to go out to the Bunny Ranch, for Chrissakes, take him out there. You can handle that.

But I’ve got a sinking feeling like the Titanic on this one. I know it’s not going to be cake and ice cream, do the usual tour, take him out to the Ranch if he wants. Because I can taste something out there in the desert like cold metal, getting closer. It seems like it’s finally arriving on the flight from Pittsburgh.

It’s not like I suspect I’m being set up or anything. Let’s just say if you wanted to get rid of a guy, or kidnap a guy who’s the son of somebody very important, you would wait for him to do something stupid, like go out to northern Nevada.

A splinter of a late August moon has been shining off the river the whole way into Reno. And it only reminds me of the glint off a knife. Just me and the truckers this time of night, headed west to Reno and the California border. State cops are all in bed, and won’t be back out till six a.m. Eighty-five mph is just a little hairy around some of these curves. But if I blew through the guard rail and went into the drink, I’d almost be grateful. No more looking over my shoulder, flinching at every little sound. Funny, when I lived in Vegas—over ten thousand people at the Mirage or the MGM at any one time, in a perpetual motion machine—it felt so quiet inside my head, I could hear a deck of cards shuffled up at fifty yards, the click of the dice, or the whisper of the woman I wanted most. Out here, the silence is deafening. I hear a twig break in the wind and think it’s the guy they’ve sent to settle up.

Northern Nevada is my boss’s turf, so anyone who comes for me . . . well, they’ll have to answer to him. If he let one of his guys get swiped—even just one of his hires—that would be bad for business, like declaring open season on what’s his. Somehow that doesn’t help me sleep at night the way I thought it would. Except for a few nights nurtured by the woman I’ve been dating, sort of, I can’t remember anything like just falling asleep and staying asleep till morning.

City lights, up ahead, usually calm me down coming into Reno to work . . . Not tonight. The lights look wrong. They’re too bright, or not bright enough. Roll down the window to catch some air. It’s cooled off quite a bit, down into the low sixties. I expect that cool breeze at eighty mph to wake me up, reassure me, make things solid. But it feels wrong, too. It’s too cold, or not cold enough. So I roll the window back up. Light another cigarette. Turn the radio up. And the radio’s too loud, or not loud enough.

Exit for the airport dead ahead, time to scrape up that little shit-bag Bobby Barone. He’ll probably have something smart to say about my car. I’ve met Bobby before, in Vegas about three years ago. I had a Boxster and a Benz back then. So yeah, the little toad will have something to say about my ’98 Celica. I’ll just have to smile and see if I can throw his head back a bit, starting out in first and popping the clutch. I can almost make the tires squeal . . . for about a half a second. I might wish this car on my worst enemy. I couldn’t pull away from an eighteen wheeler going downhill.

I check my teeth in the rearview. Yeah, you’ve come a long way, Bob Taggart. Former Secret Service agent, they let you walk away to save their embarrassment. Previously in the back pocket of the Shark out of South Beach . . . That impotent turd bandit almost got me killed in Vegas back in ’97. That’s when I got turned out of the Service, and fell into personal security work. I lived high for two good years. I didn’t land on all fours, I touched down on another planet. Got rid of the rug, shaved my head, grew a goatee, stuck a diamond stud in my ear, wore nothing but finely rumpled silk, linen and cotton shirts, all softer than a baby’s behind. I was suddenly whispering my lines to women who’d never looked at me before.

Bob Taggart, who once upon a time attended seminary school, graduated cum laude—masters in criminal psychology—from the University of Pennsylvania, aced the Secret Service entrance exam, got the highest evaluations for five years straight, all that was me . . . until the day I met Paul Steiner.

I interviewed Paul his last week in the Federal Pen up in Sheridan, Oregon. I was trying to track down missing funds embezzled from a Cadillac dealership in Portland. His sentence was so tame, I didn’t have much to bargain with except shorter parole, maybe even no parole, if he would cooperate in getting the dealer more of his money back. It was a stupid, errand-boy kind of job. I never got the choice work in the Service, probably because I’m half-Armenian, on my father’s side, and I take after him. No matter. We’d heard that Paul had stashed some of the missing funds in Vegas. That he wasn’t really a gambling addict who’d blown it all at the tables, like it came out in his plea. Supposedly he was cooperating with me for a shorter time on paper, if we located the money. With a couple of US Marshals in tow, I took him down to Vegas. Cooperate, my ass, he wound up cutting a deal with me. He could tell I was burned out and fed up. That I’d already achieved my lowly pinnacle with the Service and reached a dead end. One night we sat down for a little chat. Two-hundred-fifty thousand dollars seemed like a lot of money at the time. Still does. And Paul never talked me into anything. I pushed myself into it. Never fired my gun till after I resigned. Paul knew I was already retired the day he met me.

I downshift to thirty and pull into the passenger pick-up zone. Hope I’ve got it timed so Bobby will have just walked outside as I pull up. Not bloody likely. I can’t make him wait, but if he makes me wait longer than about two minutes, I’m going to hurt somebody. Three cabs waiting, too—all green with white lettering. They look like money. I turn the engine off. Bobby's not here yet. He hasn’t a clue my given name is the same as his. He only knows me as John Taylor, who used to work for the government. In my business, the less people know about you the better. The more mystery, the more room for them to make up stories about you that are a lot bigger than you really are. Right now, sitting here waiting for Bobby Barone, I feel smaller than a cake crumb at my ex-wife’s wedding.

2

My stomach turned sour as Bobby Barone shuffled through the revolving door, leather overnighter in tow. Spat out on the empty sidewalk like an overstuffed Chicken Cordon Bleu, his dead eyes shot from side to side. Of course, he was looking for someone to take his bag and his fat ego. Sitting in my car, I savored the moment, stretched it out like the eternity it takes to turn over your cards at Hold ’em, knowing you’ve got the nuts.

Yeah, make him squirm. Lost dog far from home, coming into my neighborhood, wants to be the big dog. Pretty soon he’ll be yapping my ear off about his flight, the crummy food, his hemorrhoids, and god knows what else. And I’ll be staring at my ghostly past, stuffed into his misshapen body, reminding me of everything I did wrong back in Vegas.

For a half second, I thought about just taking out my gun and shooting him. But I like cab drivers, so I didn’t want to have to kill the witnesses.

One of the cabbies was gesturing to Bobby. I had to fight every instinct to drive away. Instead I threw my door open, stood up out of my car and waved like a wooden soldier. God, I hate my life.

Bobby didn’t wave back. He managed a little frown that was half condescension and all irritation, then walked like the prince of penguins towards my car.

I could tell he expected me to bolt to the passenger side with a thousand apologies routine and offer to take his bag. Open the door for him. I just stood there with one foot on the running board, the other on the pavement, my arm casually draped over the roof, smoking my cigarette. Letting him know he had crashed hard as a diamond in the river, going for a flush-draw spades.

Finally, I hollered across the hood. Hey Bobby, didn’t recognize you there. Did you put on a few? Different haircut?

Yeah, well, here I am. The only person standing out here. Do I need to wear a sign around my neck for you ranchers, or whatever the hell you do around here? Bobby barked back, trying to take command.

Why don’t you just get in?

I didn’t wait for his response, just dropped into my seat and punctuated my remark with the slam of my door. That told him I wouldn’t be getting the door for him, holding his hand, carrying his luggage, or doing any other Stepin Fetchit routines for him, now or ever. Not for what I was getting paid. Not for ten times the amount.

I was used to my girlfriend occupying the passenger side, so I could scarcely hide my horror as I looked over at Bobby, packed into the black bucket seat. Where to, chief?

Where’s your pick-up with the gun rack? he said, looking at me and right past me.

Back at the ranch . . . So, am I taking you downtown now, to the Flamingo, or what?

Nah. What do you recommend? He eased up on the rude rhetoric.

What do you play?

Baccarat.

No shit. Idiot’s blackjack.

He fidgeted. Baccarat can be an exciting game.

What’s so exciting about it? All the moves are preordained. How about I take you to see some of my buddies playing Hold ’em at the Peppermill? I’ll bet they’d be very happy to meet you.

Actually, I am here to meet someone . . . later. Someone you know. An old friend of yours, in fact.

He’d turned the tables on me. It was like he had been slow-playing a flush against my straight the whole time. I had to call him. And who might that be?

Someone from the good old bad old days. A real pal of yours.

My mind raced through the probabilities and the possibilities. Not Horowitz?

Are you kidding me? You know he never leaves South Beach. Especially now that he’s dead.

No shit. And he was such a nice man . . . Well then, who, for Chrissakes?

I wanna play hundred, five hundred, maybe even a-thousand-a-hand baccarat. That’s all I’ve been thinking about on the flight, that and your old friend.

All right. Be that way. I’ll take you to your hotel. The Flamingo probably has the highest limits and best comps anyway, so . . .

Yeah. Just take me to my hotel, Taylor.

As you wish, I said, digging it into first and peeling out onto the airport way promenade.

Front tires squealed for a downbeat before giving in to the smooth, well-worn asphalt. I wanted to grab Bobby by the throat and shake it out of him so bad my knuckles turned white, clutching the wheel in the glaring street lights. Heart pounding, damp forehead, sweaty palms, splintered images raced through my mind. He’d got me.

I’m gonna freshen up, then I want you to keep me company at the table. Sit to my right and take all the bad cards.

I don’t have much cash on me tonight, Bobby.

Doesn’t sound like the John Taylor I know.

Baccarat’s not my game. I’ve got to be able to make all my own moves at cards.

I’ll spot you a thousand. Whatever you win, you can keep. Whatever you lose, my uncle takes outta your pay. Deal?

Look, I . . .

I’ll take that as a half-assed yes.

His uncle, Peter Castagnola, has dark, Sicilian looks—a five-o’clock-shadow-at-noon kind of guy. Bobby looked more like a light-skinned Hispanic who outgrew his five foot seven inch frame when he was twelve. Maybe he didn’t get much sun back in Pittsburgh. Smooth baby face, didn’t look a day over twenty-five, when in fact he was about ten years older. But the guy had never worked a day in his life, while I carried all the scars of my forty-five years, inside and out.

I was really going to have to earn my paltry pay tonight. Baby-sit this king baby, my ass. He sat there like a twitching rabbit, nose too small for his face, pulling on his pink, fleshy ears. Razor cut, forward-styled, grease-waxed Roman haircut, and his Italian suit, so what? I used to have ten suits like that. Fucking Armani. I burned them in my back yard, howling at the moon.

He was slow-playing me into some kind of setup. Baccarat was so boring, it was sure to put me in a stupor. As I nudged it up to seventy-five on the freeway into Reno, I hated him more than ever. Because, despite my best play at the airport, he already had me. I’d be pushing tonight's measly wages into the middle, and myself along with them, wondering what in the hell was waiting for me down the line. I was at the bottom, my neck under his leather-soled loafers. If only I hadn't started out so bold, at least now I could be in the enviable position of trying to topple him from the bottom. As it was, I’d used up almost all my moves and the game had just begun.

I turned the radio on. Loud. Tapped my jittery fingers in time on the vinyl steering wheel. A meeting. Later. And I don’t know who we’re meeting, or where. The fear reached all the way down into my bowels. I clenched my sphincter, clamped down on all the tomorrows I’d been dreading for the past two years. Thought about my daughter, somewhere back in Baltimore. Guys from the Service over at my house, back when she was nine or so, all sitting around playing Saturday-night stud games: Chicago, Black Mariah, Baseball.

Daddy, can I watch for a while? Sidling up to sit in my lap. Mom’s already passed out from drinking. Got an early start.

Sure, sweetness. Give me some luck. Not that I need it with these stiffs. Then whispering in her ear as I reraise, trying to push out the lucky last-card draws. Daddy’s going for a flush draw. Diamonds.

Her ear smells like kittens and crayons. Like marshmallows in hot chocolate.

She whispers back, her words so soft they’re like cat’s paws on a midnight kitchen floor. What’s a flush?

She elongates the shhh at the end, and for a second I don’t care who folds, who stays, or who might be the one to reraise on the turn. With four diamonds, and my little Stacy sitting in my lap, I’ve already taken those clowns, who think poker is about luck, for about a hundred.

If only I had stopped right there, realizing I had the whole world in my lap. I hadn’t started going to Atlantic City yet, where I really got my taste for diamonds. I thought the wife and daughter were a package deal. And I knew I couldn’t contend with King Alcohol and Queen Valium’s rule over my wife . . . over my life, too. Cards were the way I could take back control after getting passed over for promotion in the Service no matter how many hoops I jumped through. And everything I did or said was yet another reason for Joyce—my Scotch-Irish and Cherokee, from-the-hills-of-Kentucky wife—to spark a fight and start drinking. We had settled into our demise. Booze for her, cards for me. Except I was good at cards. And Joyce, well, I suppose she was no worse at drinking than any drunk could be.

I’m so far gone I can’t even contact Stacy now, my only princess. And I can’t blame that on the court order, either. I have to take that on myself. She just turned eighteen, a little over two weeks ago, on the ninth. Doesn’t matter. I couldn’t even get up the nerve to send her a card. I’m as good as dead to her. We haven’t spoken in two years, not since I sent her a Krugerrand for her sixteenth birthday. Smart girl, she wasn’t impressed. I’ll never be able to out-run her words. Why couldn’t you have just stayed? I’m on the swim team now. I’ve got medals . . . .

Turnoff for downtown, dead ahead. I light another cigarette, turn the radio down. Suddenly, I don’t care what little Bobby has planned for tonight. Flamingo’s only five minutes away. I’m trying to wager my way back to her, back to where I started nine years ago. And the thousand faces I’ve worn along the way . . . hell, if anyone could do a three-sixty like that, it would have to be a chameleon like me. The only true thing I’ve ever known is my daughter’s smile. The rest of the world is made out of bullshit. And he who has the best bullshit wins. Hands down.

3

While Bobby was freshening up, I imagined a team of undertakers trying desperately to restore some semblance of life to his swollen, yellowing, dragged-from-the-river face to please the cash-paying relatives. Meanwhile I raced to the men’s room, barely making it in time. I took a shoe shine afterwards, to celebrate the event. As my thirsty boots sucked up a can of polish, I grabbed a cigar off the attendant for five bucks and winced it around in my mouth, already on fire with the acid words I wanted to hurl at the world.

Life is good, eh? I said to the obsidian surface of my boots.

The shine boy was a lanky, blonde, college-looking kid who worked the leather like he had lice in his armpits. I liked him. Looking six feet down at his hearty work, I gave him a twenty. What good were the few lousy Jacksons I had riding in my wallet?

Out on the floor, I heard that hiss of a balloon, leaking luck, somewhere out on the green ocean of despair. Two a.m., a few dealers were just standing around. They look so presidential, waiting for your money to vote them back into office. I took my time meandering over to the baccarat pit, stealing glances at my shiny boots sliding over the carpet. Here’s my boots gleaming by the craps table. And here’s my boots glistening by the always-brighter roulette table. Maybe it’s better lit because of all the old farts who like to play roulette, and they can’t see very well, so . . . Let’s brighten it up for them so they can marvel how close the little ball landed to the number they covered with their gigantic five-dollar bet.

I saw Bobby’s puffy hand waving me over. No surprise that the undertakers hadn’t had much luck making him look any better. In his evening black, he could have been