Blacktop Wasteland(43)
“I got a deal. $7,000. He even threw in a set of rims.”
“And you don’t think broke-ass Ronnie Sessions throwing around money ain’t gonna attract some attention?”
Ronnie rolled his eyes. “Bug, will you get that six-foot-long stick out ya ass? We did it! The cops ain’t releasing any information cuz they ain’t got no information. They chasing their fucking tails. So, relax.”
Ronnie leaned over and grabbed two cereal boxes out of the passenger’s seat. He handed them to Beauregard.
“Go buy yourself something nice. Take your wife over to Barrett’s. Go have some nice quiet married people’s sex at the Omni Hotel.”
“Don’t talk about my wife, Ronnie.”
“Hey, I ain’t mean no harm. I’m just saying Captain Crunch and Toucan Sam are holding $80,000 that belongs to you. Enjoy that shit.”
“$87,133.33. It’s supposed to be $87,133.33.”
“It is, Bug. Jesus, I was just talking.”
Beauregard put the two boxes in the back seat.
“Hey, man, maybe down the road we can talk about working together again. We make a good team. I can get somebody to replace Quan. I know how you feel about him. To be honest—”
Beauregard cut him off. “No. We done. And keep my name out ya mouth, Ronnie.” He wound the window up and started the Duster. He hit the gas and tore out of the lot. The sky began to cry as he passed the water tower and turned onto Naibor Street. As he merged onto the interstate a sign to his left thanked him for visiting Carytown, Va. He turned on the radio and settled in for the two-hour ride back to Red Hill County. Felt like the bear crushing his heart began to relax a bit. No one had seen him in the store. Only Ronnie, Reggie and Quan knew he had driven for the job. If his name ever came up, he knew who he had to go see.
And who would have to disappear.
* * *
Ronnie passed a box truck on his way down 64. He had Jenny’s cut in the back seat and an overnight bag in the trunk. He didn’t know about Bug, but he planned on partying like Tony Montana all weekend. Ronnie steered around a ramshackle SUV while taking a sip from a pint of Jack Daniel’s. He put the bottle back in the cup holder and popped in an Elvis CD. The King’s deep baritone rumbled through the speakers.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Ronnie said. He took another sip.
Bug was giving him a hard time, but he had a point. The Sessionses were not known for their immense wealth. People would start talking if he spent too much money around town. Good thing he didn’t plan on being in town much longer. He realized he had meant what he had said to Jenny. They were going to leave the coal mines and cornfields and crab pots of Virginia behind. He was going to go somewhere and spend his days drinking pi?a coladas and his nights getting his dick sucked by Jenny until the cash ran out or it was time to trade up. He didn’t understand why Bug couldn’t take one minute to celebrate. True, he had held out on him and Quan a little, but they were still rolling in enough dough to make it rain in strip clubs for the next three years. That black motherfucker wasn’t even grateful Ronnie had let him in on the deal.
He put the bottle in the cup holder and pulled out his new smartphone.
“Call Jenny,” he said into the phone. He had picked it up the same day he got the car. The hands-free feature was like science fiction. Fuck a flying car.
He’d gotten back from DC three days ago after spending some time in the nation’s capital with Reggie. They’d met Brandon Yang in Chinatown and gone to see his boss at a bar that catered to Chinese diplomats and immigrants. Ronnie had met Brandon inside just like Quan and Winston. Brandon was doing a year for mail fraud. He’d told Ronnie that the mail fraud beef was nothing. He worked for a guy that moved so much money as a fence for high-end merchandise, he stored it in coffins stacked six high in a warehouse he owned in Maryland. Brandon said he would be taken care of for keeping his mouth shut and doing his time.
He hadn’t been lying. No one hassled him inside. He had a cell to himself. He had a cushy job in the prison laundry. Guards let him have two conjugal visits a month. It was like he was on a vacation instead of doing a bid. The only thing he didn’t have was someone to play chess with. He was absolutely obsessed with the game. Ronnie approached him one day and offered to play him for some cigarettes. He’d lost, but he made Brandon work for it. They’d hit it off and when Brandon left Coldwater he told Ronnie to look him up if he ever came across something that might interest his boss.
He had done just that. When they went to see Brandon’s boss, he had learned two things. First thing he learned was that Chinese guys liked to smoke a LOT. Second thing he had learned was that he didn’t know shit about diamonds and neither did Jenny.
“I give you $700,000,” Brandon’s boss had said. Or more accurately, Brandon had said after translating for the old guy, who looked like a villain in a kung fu movie.
Ronnie had held on to the sides of his chair. Seven hundred thousand. You could add up all the money everyone he had ever known had made and it wouldn’t come close to that. If they were offering seven there must have been three or four million worth of diamonds in the box. He couldn’t speak. His tongue refused to work.
They thought he was negotiating.
“Seven-fifty. Final offer,” Brandon said after some more gibberish from his boss. Ronnie found his voice.