IQ(49)

Skip entered Goliath in a show and caused an uproar, the other owners calling Goliath a freak of nature and Skip Dr. Frankenstein. Skip laughed in their faces and imagined turning Goliath loose and watching the people scurry around like ants; screaming, hiding, praying, crying, and calling out for their loved ones.


Skip kept shooting until all the targets were obliterated. His gun hand ached and his ears had shut down. He went into the barn to rest and be with the dogs. He called Kurt.

“What?” Kurt said. That was how he answered the phone.

“Q Fuck was here,” Skip said.

“Who?”

“IQ, the black guy.”

“Shit.”

“Basically, he needs to go, the smart-ass prick.”

“I’ll call you back.”

An hour later Kurt called back. “Do what you want about IQ but get the rapper. That’s what we paid you for.”

“Basically, the rapper’s still in his house,” Skip said.

“Basically, figure it out.”

“I need some intel.”

“Intel? Intel? What are you, the CIA?”

“Do you want the job done or not?”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”


Skip ended the call and listened to the palm trees creak and shiver in the wind. All the hits he’d done and the cops didn’t know he was alive but that smart-ass prick had found him just like that. Skip had almost shot him while they were sitting with the puppies but somebody else might have known he was at Blue Hill and the other guy would have had to go too. Messy. Especially at his own place. Skip thought about how he’d kill that prick. Kneecap him first and say something cool while he was on the ground, begging for his life, and then shoot him so many times he wouldn’t be identifiable with dental records.

It was late. Skip got up from the sofa, the naked lightbulb casting his giant shadow on the wall. He thought he’d go in the house and watch TV with Goliath, maybe have something eat. He could do that now. The puppies were asleep.





CHAPTER TWELVE


Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye


July 2013

Heaped in the laundry basket were three handguns, an assault rifle, a Mac Air, two iPads, a Bose iPod dock, an Xbox, a Blu-ray 3-D disc player, a PlayStation, and a bird’s nest of wires. Cal toted the basket out of the house to the patio and the chest-high mound of his belongings already heaped there. He’d been working on it for the last couple of hours, popping Focalins to keep his energy up and Ativan to keep his nervous system from vibrating into dust. He upended the basket onto the pile and said: “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”

He’d started with a base layer of furniture and bric-a-brac. A white ash Eames ottoman and the Mistral sectional. A Fiam Italia coffee table, Akua’ba fertility statues, a sculpture of a Rottweiler with his face on it, and the life-size oil paintings of Michael Corleone and Malcolm X. He was getting to like the one of himself. After that came dozens of custom-made suits and shirts, silk underwear, stacks of NBA and NFL jerseys, cashmere sweaters, three-hundred-and-twenty-five-dollar Cucinelli T-shirts, thirty bottles of his cologne, his huge collection of sneakers, copies of his latest contracts, thick as phone books, and a bundle of rolled-up antique Persian prayer rugs from his two weeks as a practicing Muslim.

Also in the pile were tangled clumps of jewelry, most of it made by Teddi the Gleam, jeweler to the stars and CEO of Xtreme Custom Jewelry, his outrageous bling must-haves among the hip and famous. In addition to multiple chains and pendants, Gleam made Cal a grill. The teeth were cast in gold, the two front ones inset with one-carat solitaire diamonds certified for VS1 clarity and achromatic D-grade coloration. The incisors and premolars were etched with gang signs and inlaid with Brazilian emeralds. The bottom teeth were inscribed with the words RAP GOD and adorned with more diamonds and emeralds. The Gleam had also created Cal’s favorite piece, a customized watch. Gleam started with an ordinary eighteen-karat-gold Rolex with diamonds on the dial, around the bezel, and embedded in the band. Gleam replaced those ho-hum diamonds with Argyle Pink diamonds, squeezed in some new ones, switched the hands with ones made from a rare mineral extracted from a meteorite that crashed in Siberia, and changed the band to a rolo chain bracelet that was described by one blogger as heavy enough to secure the front gate at the US Embassy in Beirut.

Cal brought out a couple of baskets full of liquor, a nod to Chapter 4 of Dr. Freeman’s book, “Avoiding Drugs and Alcohol.” Cal used both hands to empty bottles of Bacardi 151, Nouvelle-Orléans absinthe, Glenfiddich Snow Phoenix, thirty-seven-year-old Rémy, and Everclear, a 190-proof grain alcohol, onto the pile. This was largely a symbolic gesture. There were cases of liquor stacked up in the racquetball court. Cal’s arms were getting tired and he dumped the rest of the bottles onto the pile unopened. “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.”


Hegan, Bobby’s driver, was sitting in the BMW 750i with the window rolled down. Bobby had called a meeting in Cal’s circular driveway. He liked to do that, talk to people in driveways, parking lots, hotel lobbies, and on his way out of restaurants. It made him seem like he only had time for a quick word or two so you better let him say his piece. Bobby liked to say if you control how long you talk you control what’s talked about. And the man could talk you into the ground. The best bullshitter Hegan had ever seen and he’d seen more than a few. Like he was doing now with that IQ kid, the one that crazy f*ck Cal hired to investigate the dog attack; Bobby doing his busy-man-trying-to-be-patient routine in a sea-green Armani, suede slip-ons, and no socks, talking to the kid like a prosecutor, letting him know who was in charge.