Luck and a Gun

Originally published in Plots with Guns, January 2001

When the helicopter fell from the sky, I was sitting in my rusted Nova, waiting for a traffic light to go green. It was early. The morning sun was burning away the night and Johnny Cash was on the radio singing "Ring of Fire." I listened, drumming my thumbs against the steering wheel as I watched the traffic flow by.

Then the shadow stretched over the street. A dark, whirling blur.

The helicopter came down on its side--rotor blades chopping into the black top. I saw shards of jagged steel rip away from the craft. Saw them rain into windshields like buck shot. Heard the sick sounds of metal ringing off metal. People screaming. Brakes screeching. Fenders slapping against bumpers.

Then everything went silent.

Everything but Johnny Cash singing, "And it burns, burns, burns, that ring of fire."

***

Darcy and I sat in the blue glow of the television, watching the ten o’clock evening news. Darcy was on the floor, sitting yoga style among old pizza boxes, smoking a Camel cigarette. I was in the broken E-Z-Boy that didn’t recline. The crash was the top story again. It had been the top story all day, followed by the space shuttle landing and the upcoming Ortega fight.

Darcy watched the crash footage, eyes wide, like a fish being hauled into a boat--a bony fish with bifocals and bad hair. "Those poor people," she said. She was twenty eight but had the voice of a forty-year-old. Funny, I hadn’t noticed that when we first started dating. Now, sixteen months into the relationship, I was noticing lots of little things about Darcy.

Craning a leg up, Darcy touched her toes to her forehead. A yoga thing. The soles of her feet were the color of dirty cement.

"I bet they saw it in slow motion," she said. "You know, like in the movies. I bet they saw it coming."

"No they didn’t."

"What’d you say, Quinn?"

My finger played over a hole in the E-Z-boy’s fabric. It was one of Darcy’s cigarette burns. "Nothing," I said. "I’m beat. I’m going to bed."

"Okay. But remember, seven o’clock. Just like this morning."

"Sure," I said. Darcy was talking about my job hunt.

"Early bird, right?" said Darcy.

"Early bird," I repeated. Then I shuffled down the hall.

Inch by inch, the walls seemed to close in on me with each step.

***

That night in bed, I stared at the cracks in the ceiling and listened to Darcy snoring next to me. I never told her about being at the crash. For some reason, I wanted to keep it to myself. A secret all my own. Something even Darcy’s prying claws couldn’t touch.

She was on my case a lot lately. Maybe with good reason. I’d lost my job two weeks ago and hadn’t tried too hard to find another. I just didn’t have the will for it anymore. I’d worked as a bar back, a grocery stocker, even a janitor. All of them paid lousy, and when I looked at my check each week, I felt empty inside. Like I was missing out on something. Not just money, but something else.

I closed my eyes and saw the helicopter again, its blades whirling ever so slowly, each one snapping against the street like old tree branches. In memory, the moment was perfect. I could see it all without panic or shock. I remembered looking to my left, catching a quick glance of the car sitting next to me. A piece of the helicopter’s landing skiff had speared through the hood, stabbing all the way into the front seats. Blood was splashed across the side window. So much of it, I couldn’t see inside.

I opened my eyes again.

The car. It had been right next to me. So damn close.

I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I thought of helicopters. Of Gravity. Of my life with
Darcy in a shitty one bedroom rat-trap full of roaches and unpaid bills. But most of all, I thought about luck.

And thinking about luck always brought to mind Richie the Y.

***

There was a rumor about Richie the Y. He was said to have worked as muscle for the Cleveland books. When somebody didn’t pay on time, he’d leave a dead dog with a nail through its skull on their doorstep. If they still didn’t pay, he’d catch them on the street and pull them into the back of his van, the one with the dark tinted windows. Then he’d use a hammer on them, smashing their toes one by one.

Now, seeing Richie outside his pet shop, I could believe the rumor was true.
He was at his usual spot, on a short wooden bench, watching college girls go in and out of the bagel place next door. He drank coffee from a foam cup, leered over the frames of his sunglasses. Behind the lenses, his eyes were black and flat and strangely dry. Shark eyes.

"Morning Richie," I said to him.

Richie peered up at me. The vein that had given him his nick-name bulged on his bald head like an exposed wire--a blue/gray Y against pale skin.

"That you Quinn?" he asked.

"Yeah Richie. It’s me."

Richie the Y smiled. "You fuck-heads always come back," he said. Then, without another word, he stood up and lead the way into his store.

The pet shop was warm inside and the air was heavy. Puppies yapped in kennels, birds squawked behind bars and fish circled lazily around foggy aquariums. I followed Richie through a door marked "Employees Only," then into a back room. The room’s walls were dirty and its floor was piled high with sacks of dog food. In one corner, a jumble of filing cabinets and loose boards had been built into a makeshift desk. Richie took a seat behind the desk and pulled a leather satchel from a drawer. The muscles in his forearm flexed a bit as he set it on the desk top.

"Let me guess," said Richie. "The Ortega fight."

"Yeah," I said.

"I can read you like a watch Quinn. So what do you want? A couple hundred on Ortega?"

I didn’t answer. Behind Richie was a chalk board with rows of numbers scrawled out next to the names of sports teams. Beside the chalk board was a poster, its edges ripped and yellowed by the sun. It was a promotion of some sort, an advertisement for an exotic bird, its wings like brilliant flags of red and green. But it wasn’t the bird that caught my eye. It was the beach in background, the water that surged up to perfect white sand.

"Hey Quinn? You want Ortega or what?"

"No," I said. "I want Wilson."

Richie glared at me, the vein on his head coming to life again. "Wilson? You serious?"

"That’s right. Wilson to win."

"He’s a fucking white guy. Not only that, he’s a bum. This fight’s all for show. Odds are at thirty-to-one."

"I want Wilson for a grand. You taking my bet or not?"

Richie smiled again. "Listen to you," he said. "Mr. Tough Guy. Okay I got you, Quinn. A thousand dollars on Wilson."

Richie filled out a slip of paper with a short pencil, the kind found at golf courses and libraries. When he finished, he zipped open the satchel to slide the paper inside. That’s when I saw them, stacks of green bills strapped together carelessly as if they were just paper. Among the bills was a gleam of chrome, a nine millimeter pistol bulging against the satchel’s side. Money and a gun.

It was what I had come to see.

Turning on my heels, I started to leave. Before I could get through the door though,

Richie’s voice boomed behind me.

"You can cover your action, can’t you Quinn?"

"Yeah," I said. "I got it."

"Good," said Richie. "Because I’d hate to see our relationship soured. You hear me?"

I nodded. "I’ll have it Richie."

"That’s what I like to hear," he said. He stowed the satchel back in his cabinet drawer.

"So tell me, why Wilson? You usually go for the safe bet."

Once more, I saw the helicopter in my mind.

"I feel lucky," I said.

***

On his deathbed, my father told me, "Son, sometimes you can be choking and not even know it."

He had lived to see his sixty second birthday. He had raised a family and worked forty years as a warehouse foreman. Came home everyday to his nice safe home and slept in his nice safe bed. Once, I thought his life had been full. Now, I knew better.

***

The night of the Ortega fight, I didn’t go home to my apartment. I didn’t want to see the place. Didn’t want to see Darcy, her fish-eyes beaming at me in disappointment. Instead, I rented a motel room close to Richie’s pet shop and sat alone in the dark. It was silent. I had tried to watch TV earlier but couldn’t focus on it. I had tried to listen to the radio, but everything sounded like static.

From an open backpack, I drew out my father’s revolver, an old .38 special, the grips worn smooth by time. I held it up, staring at it hard. Moon light filtered in through the window blinds, cutting black and white slats across the gun’s barrel, illuminating its scratches. It might not have been a shinny nine millimeter automatic. But it was still a gun. It was still heavy with a hair trigger and bullets that would tear through flesh.

I held the .38 close to my chest and closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to come. It never did.

***

I drove to the pet shop at eight am. I knew Richie would have more money in the morning than he would that night. When gamblers lose, they take as much time as they can paying off their debts. But when they win, they show up early, palms extended, smiling like bastards. Richie would be ready for them. He’d stuff that satchel of his with just enough cash to pay off his losses. I wanted to get to Richie before the winners did.

I pulled into the parking lot and backed the Nova into a space up front. I needed to be able to get out quick. Richie the Y was waiting for me in the doorway, shoulder against the frame. A couple of college girls in cut off shorts strolled past him, sunning their bare legs. Richie didn’t even glance at them.

"Why so early?" he asked.

I pulled the backpack from the front seat of my car and stepped towards him. "I want to get this over with."

Richie smiled, showing off yellow teeth. "Yeah," he said, "I bet you do."

He waltzed into the store, turning his back to me. Not a care in the world. He was expecting a thousand dollars. He wasn’t going to get it.

Slowly, I unzipped the backpack and reached inside. My fingers wrapped around the worn grip of my father’s revolver. My heart began to pound. Richie was just two feet ahead of me, his bald head so white and big. I could do it now. But maybe he didn’t have the satchel here, or he could have it locked up, the key hidden. No. I had to wait. Just a few more minutes and it would be done.

My hand began to sweat as I drew the revolver out. The dogs in their kennels were barking, exposing their teeth. They could smell the fear on me. They knew. Did Richie know too? Was he trying to get to his satchel so he could pull the nine millimeter?

He reached the back door and swung it open, walking inside. I stepped in behind him. I was so close. He bent down beside his makeshift desk, slid open a drawer, then brought out the satchel.

I made my move.

The first time I hit him, he had his back to me. I brought the butt of the revolver down against the base of his neck--brought it down hard. Richie fell forward, bracing himself against the wall, and I hit him again. This time, I struck at the side of his head. The revolver clipped his ear and slammed downward into his collar bone. I felt something give way. Heard Richie scream. Saw him spiral to the floor.

Blood surging in my veins, I lashed out with my foot. The force of the kick sent Richie rolling onto his back and we faced each other. His eyes no longer made me think of sharks.

"I don’t understand," said Richie the Y.

"Shut up," I shouted. I picked the satchel up from the desktop, where Richie had dropped it. I unzipped it and took a quick look. The bills were still there, filling the leather case to its brim. The pistol was there too.

Hauling up my back pack, I stuffed the satchel and my father’s revolver away then turned the nine millimeter on Richie. In the corner of my vision, I saw the bird poster again, the perfect beach in the background. Blue water. White sand.

"Why?" said Richie. His ear was bleeding and he was cradling his bad shoulder like it was a sleeping baby. "Why are you doing this?"

I leveled the pistol on him. It felt so heavy in my hand. "Sorry Richie," I said. "I just don’t want to choke anymore."

Then I pulled the trigger.

***

The Nova rumbled among the mid-morning traffic, spitting smoke out of its exhaust pipe. I sat behind the wheel, thinking of white sand. Just moments ago, I had cleaned my fingerprints from Richie’s pistol and tossed it down a drain pipe. Then I filled the Nova with gas and took the first freeway entrance flowing south. If I made good time, I could reach Mexico in under 12 hours.

Sitting on the seat next to me was the satchel stuffed with money. I wasn’t exactly sure how much was there. Counting the stacks of hundreds, I guessed around $24,000. Enough to start a new life in a new place.

I traveled a good 30 miles before the silence got to me. I needed noise. I turned on the radio and spun around the dial until I found a sports station. Two guys were talking about the Ortega fight. Jesus. In all the excitement I had forgotten about the fight itself. I was too focused on Richie. On what I had to do.

On the radio, the two guys were squawking at each other like the birds back in Richie’s shop. Their voices were excited and full of disbelief.

No, I thought to myself. It couldn’t be.

I kept listening as the two men recounted the entire fight, blow by blow. When they got to the third round, they began to laugh a bit.

"Who could believe?" said one of the men. I imagined him shrugging his shoulders with his palms up, confused. "Who could believe a no-name like Robby Wilson could throw such a lucky punch."

In that moment, my whole world seemed to close in on me. Wilson had beaten Ortega, knocking him out in the third round.

My grip grew tight on the steering wheel. I saw images of Richie on the morning I placed the bet. He was smiling. I had put a grand down on Wilson, a known loser. The odds were thirty to one.

Richie only had about twenty four grand in the bag. If he was alive, he would owe me another six thousand dollars. Thirty thousand in all.
If he was alive.

Again, I saw Richie’s face. This time, he was staring down the barrel of his own pistol. "Why are you doing this?" he had asked. Now, that question made all the sense in the world.

I gripped the wheel even tighter, my knuckles going white.

Damn that Wilson. He was a horrible boxer. Who could believe a loser could get so lucky?