Tuesday, March 24th. 839 words. (ASBS)
Inside the apartment, he pulled a pillowcase from one of the pillows. He sat in the bathtub with the jacket and the pillowcase, the pillow under him. Every four or five minutes he’d pull a handful of bills from the jacket and stuff them into the pillow case. He did this for six hours, until it was full dark and he was hungry. And he would eat, would eat food so expensive it would probably make him sick. Before that, though, there was money to count. Lots of it.
He dumped the pillowcase on the bed. The bills were mostly twenties, with other denominations peppered in. Fives, fifties, ones, hundreds. He put the twenties in stacks of fifty, and kept the others aside. Before long he had thirty stacks of twenties, or thirty-thousand dollars. He put it back into the pillowcase. From the remaining bills, he took twenty hundreds and divided them up into four rolls of five. These he tucked into the lower right pocket of his jacket. The ones and fives he put into the lower left. The fifties, which totalled sixteen hundred, he tucked into the drawer by the bed with the few remaining hundreds. He left the pillowcase on the bed, where it looked just like all the other pillows.
On his way out of the building, he tipped the smiling man a hundred from his inside pocket, which had filled itself again.
Outside of the Blue Iris, he stood in the street and looked up. His belly was full of buttery lobster. The club was brightly lit, neon-stained bass from inside made the air in his lungs hum. He checked his pocket, but the thing he was looking for was missing. He’d been standing here for twenty minutes checking the pocket, but it still wasn’t there. Maybe he was doing something wrong. Shrugging, he got in line. There were three men in front of him, and they were all ushered inside after a group of three drunks stumbled out. It was his turn, but the door guard just stood there, staring at him. Domingo watched the door.
Another man left. The door guard turned to him and held a hand out. “Member card.”
“Oh, right.” Domingo put a hand into his jacket, hoping this time it would be there, and he almost didn’t believe it when it was. “Here you are.” The guard took it, looked at it, and then nodded. Domingo was in.
He took three steps inside the club, moving toward the bar, when someone shouted. Then he was being grabbed, not by the door guard, but by another man. Domingo said nothing, and let himself be pushed out the door.
“Marcelo,” the new man said, “This pendejo is on the list. What are you doing letting him in?” Marcelo, the door guard, looked confused. “Oh, of course. My mistake.”
“Keep him here. I’m getting Ramon.”
“Okay.”
The door guard pulled Domingo to the wall and held his chest with one beefy arm.
“Don’t try to get away.”
“Of course not.” He said it cheerfully, and Marcelo’s eyebrow lifted a little and his mouth twisted into a sneer.
And then Ramon was there, with the man who’d grabbed Domingo and two others. Four hired men. The perfect amount.
“Oh, hello, Ramon.”
“Shut up. What are you doing here? I told you to stay away.”
Domingo smiled. Ramon nodded at Marcelo, and the bigger man pinned him against the wall with both arms. Ramon pulled back and sent a fist into Domingo’s gut. He doubled over.
“Answer the question.”
Domingo came back up, gasping. Through it all, he kept the smile. “I’m confused. Did you want me to shut up or not? Hell of a way to treat your boss, Ramon.” The other men looked at Ramon, who rubbed his palms together.
“You aren’t my boss.”
“Oh? I must have misunderstood. You said you were working for me. That’s why I’m paying you, isn’t it? So you can keep my club alive? My muscle under contract?”
A smarter man would have realized what was going on and said yes, but Ramon was angry.
“Your club? Your muscle? Who are you kidding? These are my men. Handpicked.”
“Faithful, too, right? But how faithful would they be if they knew how hard you were going under? Cutting their pay, and they understood. Hard times. Let me ask you, Ramon, how much of that money I gave you did you pay my muscle? I’m guessing none.” He looked up at Marcelo.
“That’s why I’ve come to pay you each in person.” He put a hand in his lower pocket and brought out a roll of hundreds. He put it in Marcelo’s hand. He leaned forward, and said in the man’s ear, “Come find me. Why have this man skimming your pay when you can get it directly from me?” Marcelo pocketed the money, and looked down. He let go of Domingo.
“Why you dirty, lying hijo de puta!” Ramon lunged at him, punching at his belly again. Domingo turned, expecting it, and Ramon’s fist met brick.
