All right with me

 

My friends call me Big Mac.

My enemies, scum bag.

The cops don’t have a name for me yet.

But when I climb down the drain pipe from a second-story job on the third floor of the apartment building, a beat cop named Lefkowitz gets a good gander at my face.

So I kick him in the nuts and run like hell, hearing – between his moans – the echo of his shout for me to stop.

I’m over the fence in the back of the alley before he can squeeze off the shot.

His seeing my face scares me more than the whizzing bullet does.

I’m new at this.

Since getting fired from my warehouse job, I’d had to scramble to make a living.

Stealing from a cargo hold is a lot different than breaking into a house.

I figured I’d learn on the job.

Now I’m not so sure.

I make it home all right.

But the kids are screaming in the other room and my wife bitches at me about their being hungry and for that matter so is she.

I dump my loot on the kitchen table knowing it’s not nearly enough.

It never is.

Fate or a curse rings me up on the phone.

It’s one of my buddies from the warehouse telling me my fat assed ex-boss want to table to me.

Why, I ask, so he can fire me again?

No, my friend says, it’s about a job.

But when I get there, it’s not my old job the son of a bitch wants to give me.

He wants me to visit a friend of his in jail, a guy who got busted before he could make a special delivery to my boss.

My boss is sweating so much I know his ass is on the line.

I don’t ask questions.

I just go.

I tell the desk jockey cop I’m the jailed crook’s mouthpiece and I get let in.

The crook asks who I am and what I want.

So I tell him.

He says he needs bail before he’ll say anything.

I pat my pocket and tell him I got it.

He bits.

Then he watches me leave.

I don’t have bail.

But I have an address and one last job to do.

Maybe it’s drugs in the shipment.

Or hot cash

But I know my boss will pay through the nose to get it back.

Maybe enough to keep my wife and kids quiet.

The man in jail?

He won’t blame me.

He’ll blame my boss.

Which is perfectly all right with me.

I’ll be in Florida.

 


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