Negative Space by Mike Robinson (classic literature list .txt) 📗

a week ago, how could so much accumulate so fast? A cosmic coercion, it seemed, playful strings of coincidence knotted in some impermeable truth or lesson, whatever it was. Suddenly he had a family. Even if Karen wasn’t his true half-sister, she was family. They had shared enough in so little time. They had held hands and descended to the cellar of their selves, explored corners never illumined. A lifetime’s worth of closeness crammed into a mere weekend.

Relativity ever at work. There were people like his co-worker Tyler he’d known for years about whom Max could probably not answer more than three basic questions. And yet what did he really know about Karen, other than what he felt about her? Likely he could offer few facts about her, too, yet all intimacy with her was not fact-based but a nebulous intuition containing all things to know, and ready to portion out any answer when called.

“Do you think he was really drugging people?” Max asked abruptly.

Karen closed her eyes. “Maybe. Maybe they just wanted to be. We can’t just do shit anymore. Everyone needs an excuse.”

“You mean it was psychosomatic?”

“What does that mean?”

“Means you feel something but it’s all in your mind.”

“Oh, sure. I think so. When I was in high school in Baltimore I went with some fraternity guys to a bar—”

“When you were in high school?”

“Uh-huh. I was seventeen. It’s crazy easy for girls to get into bars there.”

“Okay.”

“Anyway, one of the guys went to get us drinks, and got these two other guys non-alcoholic beers without telling them. I think he wanted to get back at them for something, can’t remember. But the guys got drunk anyway. Red-faced, busting up, acting stupid as hell. I’m surprised no one actually vomited. But they thought it so.”

Max took this in and drank more beer. To their left a figure appeared, a young man with gelled hair and a five o’clock shadow. Approaching them. Eyes trained laser-like on Karen. He leaned in toward her, ignoring and shutting out Max.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s up? I’m Dylan.”

Karen glanced at him and made a revolted face. “Oh God, go clean your nose.”

Dylan stiffened. He cupped a hand over his mouth and nose then scurried off toward the bathroom.Karen grinned.

“I didn’t see anything,” Max said.

“Eh, there wasn’t,” Karen said. “But it’s the quickest deflector.”

Karen sipped her whisky. Max’s eyes traveled about the gathering crowds. Stopped. The brunette at the bar. Striking blue eyes, little make-up but needing none of it. Hair long and straight to her waist. Tight figure in a blue dress from which long creamy legs protruded. She looked alone.

“She’s hot,” Karen said, steeliness in her eyes.

Max nodded.

“Go get her.”

He snorted. “Right.”

“Just try talking to her.”

His head now swam from the beer. “I think I need another.”

“Here.” Karen held out her glass. “Take the rest of mine.”

***

II

There was the van again, parked across the street, down 28th. Could be one of Bendoni’s cronies, waiting to pop him, bust his balls for the bombed trial? But no, it was a clunker. And good God, it was a van. Unless Bendoni had farmed out work, or this was a cheap-o shot, assigned to one of the less professional hitters. He wasn’t even worth a high-priced hit, apparently.

Stop and breathe. James closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled.

But the van was real. He had noticed it only two nights ago, on his way home from the office. A whale on wheels, wide baleen grill, body chipped and dented with travel. Hippie-travel. Dark tinted windows. He wasn’t sure why he noticed it. Could’ve been because it stood out in a lot of BMWs and Mercedes. He imagined it abandoned there, full of explosives, imagined somewhere close an itchy finger poised and ready above a red button. The lot, the office, engulfed in radiating flames.

It appeared again not far from the Baja Fresh where he sometimes ate lunch.

Then, outside Larry’s place, from which James had stumbled tipsy after cards, he’d seen it again. Larry had known nothing about it. Told him to go home. Rest. Save his money for the next go-round, loser he was.

Loser.

There was no way I could’ve won that case.

Maybe James was supposed to notice him, given the conspicuousness of the vehicle. And who tailed people in a van anyway, anymore? The unmarked van was a Hollywood cliché. Seeing it, one might assume a bunch of wired-in FBI agents were having a pizza party, twisting all sorts of constitutional privacy laws.

Bullshi.t I’m not a loser, not a pushover, not a guy to fuck with so Penelope watch this—

He went to the garage. From a box of old sports equipment, he drew an aluminum baseball bat, picking a long cobweb off the handle. Moving quietly from the side yard, he approached the vehicle from behind. No movement within, least none that he could see.

Palms moistening, James went around to the driver’s side, slightly hunched, then popped up in the window. Any movement? No. Was there—yes, someone was inside. He peered in. The driver was sleeping. Sleeping! Definitely not a hitter for the Family. He was wiry, bearded. Ball cap. Clothes that looked raided from a church donation box.

James tapped on the glass. The man stirred, looked at him. James awaited the telling second, the moment of truth when the man’s fearful eyes would betray panic—instantly legitimizing James’ paranoia.

He’s here for me.

In one full thrust, James sent the bat through the driver’s side window. The man’s arms flew up, he yelped—yelped who the hell yelps?—as the glass blew across him, showering his lap, the dashboard, the floor.

“Who are you?” James said. “The fuck do you want?”

The man fumbled for something below his seat. James raised the bat once more, strode forward—and met the hollow black mouth of a gun. The man’s eyes burning. Stalemated. James’ gaze slipped from the man’s to the glass-stippled dashboard, where she spotted a girl’s scrunchie. By the glow of the nearest streetlight, he could make out the velvety texture.

Penelope’s. Is that hers? Hers?

James backed