Saturday Night on Edgehill

I showed up at Rhinestone's Honky-Tonk around 10 pm, looking for Madeline's contact. I was jittery. It had been almost a year since I was on anything more than a shakedown for some meth dealer or low-level extortionist. Those were hard months financially, but the work itself wasn't particularly challenging.

I resisted the rookie urge to check for the envelopes in my jacket pocket. My blacklisting had put me in the dregs for too long, made me rusty. I was hoping, maybe stupidly, that this job would pull me back out. I ordered an O'Doul's and glanced around. Madeline had said the contact's name was Dale, a lanky redheaded guy with a big handlebar mustache who dressed like Hank Williams.

Yep. There he was. Skinny, big mustache, wearing all white from hat to boots. He definitely stood out, but he also fit right in, like he was an integral part of the Music Row kitsch that Rhinestone's was famous for. I nursed my bottle, watching all the tourists in their stiff new boots and just-purchased Wranglers partying on overpriced cocktails and stealing glances at him. He was in a corner booth (at least he was aware that being a fence needed SOME discretion), but he clearly enjoyed the attention.

Apparently Dale had done some work for Madeline in the past. Her personally, not the company. He was a hustler and wannabe gangster. Brokering was only one of many pies he had his finger in, and guys like him were usually too flaky for pro-level company work. But according to her, he was generally reliable. He didn't look it. I wondered again if this was some back-door set up, and if Madeline was finally being pushed into having to kill me.

It was just a fleeting thought. She had nearly destroyed her own career going to bat for me when it would've been easier just to put two in my brain; standard procedure for a botch like mine. Despite whatever scheme the company may have been cooking up, I was sure she was acting in good faith.

It was showtime. I strutted over to Dale's booth with my beer, all Mr. Friendly.

"Well I'll be damned! Dale! How ya been!"

Dale looked up, smiling in that confused way people do when someone they don't know is talking like old friends.

"Well hey, partner! Good to see you!" He had an accent dripping with "aw shucks" charm.

"You don't remember me, do you?"

Dale was still smiling, but the confusion was frozen onto his face. Obviously he didn't remember me, this was our first time meeting. I just wanted to see if he would bullshit me or be honest.

"Naw, I, uh, I remember you. You was there when..."

So, bullshit. I had a better idea of who I was dealing with now. I could see his wheels turning, trying to spin a solid memory or, failing that, a braggadocious half-truth. I decided to save him the trouble.

"I'm Madeline's friend."

Dale's demeanor changed instantly. His soft edges seemed to harden up all at once.

"Have a seat", he said. His Partonesque drawl was gone as well, replaced by something rougher, something of homemade moonshine and hand-rolled cigarettes.

"So what's Maddy up to?" He asked. She too good all of a sudden to come down and see ol' Dale?"

Maddy. He had called her Maddy. Christ.

"You know her," I said. "She's outta town on business so I'm looking into this thing for her."

Also bullshit. She wasn't out of town. When she first offered me this job, she had an edge of panic in her voice that I had never heard before. She was right here, mere blocks away, anxious for my call.

Dale knew it too, but we were just sizing each other up. It was part of the game. He took a pull from his beer, eyes never leaving mine.

"Yeah, this thing. Maddy tell you what this thing is? How many goddamn people want this thing?"

I got an old familiar feeling, a "things are tipping sideways" feeling.

"She told me that it's a little black notebook, that it was stolen from her colleagues, and that they need it back."

He chuffed out a laugh. "Son, the amount of zeroes I've been offered to move this notebook would put me right up there with the ones pulling her strings. So unless there's a sum attached to whatever you're fixin' to ask, the answer's no."

Madeline assumed the notebook was liable to go quick, but she thought 2 or 3 days. It had been missing less than half a day. Whatever was in this book was valuable enough to turn her contacts. My next gesture was going to be useless, but I prided myself on professional courtesy.

"I have an envelope in my pocket. May I?"

Dale nodded.

I reached slowly into my jacket, grabbing the thicker of the two envelopes and laying it down on the table. Theatrical, but Madeline thought that this way would appeal to Dale's sense of melodrama.

Dale smirked.

"I can already tell you whatever's in that envelope ain't anywhere near what them other fellas could give me."

I took one last pass as Mr. Friendly.

"Look, Madeline asked me to do this because she's embarrassed. What happened, happened on her watch. This money is hers. Not her colleagues'. Hers. She's coming to you as a friend asking for a favor. A big one, yeah, but one she's gonna pay back. She's always been fair to you, Dale. Always."

Dale looked at me. He was breathing deep, his chest behind his open-collared shirt rising and falling slowly. He was considering at least.

"How much is in the envelope?"

"$20,000."

I could see the wheels turning again, weighing how important his loyalty to Madeline really was. Then that smirk reappeared.

"I understand Maddy's situation, but it ain't my particular problem. You know what they say about a bird in the hand."

I pulled a hangdog face, pretending that I was surprised by his rejection. "I need the 20 thou back of course."

Dale shifted back into Hee-Haw mode.

"Of course! Why, I ain't a thief!"

He slid the envelope hard, apparently hoping I would fumble and miss it. But I wasn't that rusty. I snatched it up and had it back in my pocket before he had time to register that I had grabbed it. He blinked in surprise, then glared at me. I gave him a disdainful sniff. I wanted him keyed up and off-balance. The second envelope was less pleasant.

"There's a second offer. I think you'll be more receptive to this one."

Dale removed his cowboy hat and rubbed his forehead impatiently.

"Boy, you're about to piss me off. Tell Maddy to..."

I reached into my pocket and flung the second envelope out like a weapon. It smacked Dale in the chest, making him jump. He reddened, chest and face matching the color of his mustache. He was close to coming over the table at me. I looked at him blandly.

"Open it."

"Fuck you."

"Okay, don't open it."

I sat there sipping my beer and watched those little threads of curiosity wrap tightly around him. Dale the Music Row Mafioso; The guy calling Madeline by a cutesy nickname even though I had once seen her pull a glass shard from between her own ribs and lacerate a man's neck with it.

He opened the envelope.

It contained a single photo. He stared at it, color draining from his face and turning it from red to white. I let it sink in a little before twisting the knife.

"Cute kid. Biology Major, right?"

Dale stared at me, trembling with a rage and fear I knew intimately.

"You're threatening my family."

"Whatever you say. Where's the book?"

"I ain't got it. Haven't set up the deal yet."

"I realize that, Dale. Who does?"

Dale looked at the picture. His color had come back, but his hard edges had crumbled. He had underestimated Madeline, the slump of his shoulders testifying to that realization.

"Guy named Buster."

"Buster his real name?"

Dale shot me a look.

"I don't know. I'm a broker, not a super fuckin'...whatever-the-fuck Maddy is. Why don't you ask her? Give y'all somethin' to talk about while you're sniffin' her asshole, you fuckin' mutt."

It's always the same. The post-defeat shit talk. I ignored it.

"Where were you due to meet?" I asked. "Here?"

"A motel."

"It would be smart to tell me which motel, Dale. For your niece's sake."

Dale was still absorbing his situation. I gave him space.

He mumbled something.

"I didn't catch that, Dale."

He repeated the info. It was some 2-star tweaker shack in West Meade, the kind with at least one unsolved parking lot murder. I finished off my beer and stood up.

"Thanks for the conversation. It's been enlightening."

He looked up at me, eyes desperate.

"What about Tara? Y'all gonna leave her alone?"

"If your info's good, yeah. We won't touch her."

"What about me and Maddy?"

"Well Dale," I said, "That's up to her. But I know her. She values relationships. Loyalty. Know that old saying 'You gotta dance with them that brung ya?"

Dale looked down at the table.

"You may wanna think about how you can make up," I said.

I walked toward the exit leaving Dale to ponder the enormity of his fuck-up. It was an exercise I was familiar with.

I stepped out of Rhinestone's and dialed Madeline.

"So how did it go with Dale?" she asked.

"Great," I said sarcastically. "What a stand-up guy. He even said, more or less, that your money's no good with him."

"How noble." Her voice was shot through with venom. I didn't envy Dale's immediate future. "He mention any buyers?"

"Yeah. Buyers with big cash. And he said a guy named Buster has your book."

Silence.

"Madeline?"

"Yeah, sorry, just...thinking."

More silence.

"Buster's a nickname," she said.

"So you know this guy."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know him. Jess, I want to ask you a question. Then I want to make you an offer."

That familiar sideways feeling returned, sharp in my guts.

"Ask away" I said.

"Will you stick with me for the rest of this? See it all the way through with me?" The panicked edge again.

After I had been blacklisted, I worked for anyone who paid. I tried to romanticize it, like I was some wandering samurai, but really I was just another thug for hire. Madeline wasn't responsible for those months, but she worked for the people who were.

On the other hand, she got me started in the business. Risked her neck for me, both physically and professionally. Saved my life more than once.

"You gotta dance with them that brung ya," I had told Dale. Time to boogie.

"Absolutely," I said.

"Okay." The tension drained out of her voice. "Now the offer. The 20k? It's yours. Call it a signing bonus."

"What am I signing on for?"

"You help me get that notebook and I'll show you. This 20k could be the start of big things."

Or it could be the last money I ever touch before getting my head blown off, I thought. But what the hell. Guys like me didn't usually see retirement anyway.

"Deal," I said. "So you wanna carpool to Buster's or what?"