The BOYS

Episode TWENTY-NINE

By a quarter to five... when Fermeley returned, via the number eight bus, from the lockup at San Cris Civic Center... the plink plink of rain had swelled into a stead drumroll. A tattoo of splatterdrops raised six months' dust from the valley, mingling with six months' dried oil and exhaust on the roads that, with a million stains animated, soon boasted a thin, slick coat of grease and water. Barry invited her back into his office, and there were a couple of angry cries but, when she emerged again, it was with confidence, satisfaction, even... "bitch wanted to dock my check for the time I lost off the window," she'd huffed. "I told him he could keep this job, and I'd go to that lawyer on the Fox Channel infomercials..."

"Avery Brett," Eunice nodded. "He's good. Has to be, keep rakin' the money in to do all of those commercials...my sister in law called him, she used to take the arthritis medicine..."

"He's the one. I tell ol' Roachie who do you think gonna win in court, good lookin' Avery or that creepy Martian fellow Mister Z keeps around his premises..."

"If we'd had a union," Davy pointed out, "none of this would've happened in the first place... I'll bet they never would've taken you off in the first place..."

"Yeah, get a little, teeny raise and watch it go off to Italian guys in black shirts... no thank you, boy, I will take my chance with Mister Avery." And then she'd evicted Eunice from the window without so much as a by your leave... though Eunice had seniority and the red key, and all but ran the DP while Barry sulked and fumed under the steely scrutiny of Britney Spears. Fermeley was that hot, she was incandescent... if she'd told Mister C to take his job and shove it, the Valley's first rain would've boiled off into clouds of steam coming off her on the way back to her car.

"Go back on the grill," Eunice told Walt, red-keying the register and removing the cash from the drawer. "Pretend to look busy..."

Achmed returned through the security door, wet, but whistling. "Where you been, all this time..." Fermeley turned on him.

The kid whistled some more, hummed a few lines off an old some... twirling a wet, rust-spattered rag. "Up-a on the rooof! You know, doin' traps..."

"Traps shouldn't take more'n a half hour, each," Ed ganged up on the DP's resident man of leisure; Walt's occasional, furtive glances measuring the composition of the bulge in his back pocket. An idea had begun to coalesce in his numb, dusty brain... it needed to be taken outside and scrubbed a while, before cohering into a plan... but it was coming..."

"Not if you do 'em right," the young layabout simpered, drifting towards the gents' to wash up, resuming a mangled, martyred verse from the Drifters... "n' all you troubles stay, up on the roof..."

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Just before the dayshift's end, Barry emerged... taking Walt aside without either apologies or recriminations. "If you want to get on my right side, again, how 'bout you can cover Gwan's shift tomorrow... that'll be a lot of overtime," Mr. C. dangled.

"Sure," he replied. He'd made calls, that morning, to the Outplacement to reschedule his Columbused appointment, then to Special Agent Melk's machine at the North County DA's office, but the business these represented could be knocked off in the morning. "Why not?" Then, Walt drove carefully back up his mountain and, overnight, the tentative raindrops swelled into a gullywasher, a statement by the father of rains that winter loomed, just around the bend. And, on his fuckin' day off... well, just part of a morning, now... with hundreds of errands yet to be done, hundreds of joyless, little household tasks. He blew these off, dressing conspicuously... savagely... knotting his best red power tie, grimacing as he rubbed his teeth with a patented whitening strip, and began cramming freshly printed resumes into his old BCM briefcase...

"I thought Tuesday was your day off," his wife reminded him as he was tying the laces of his freshly-polished black shoes... no goddam sneakers, today...

"Hospitality never rests," he snapped, and Missy tottered away, back into Johnny's old room with its poster of bears and kayaks, and the calendar, stuck on September, 1999...

The windshield wipers slawed inexpertly, piling up scum for the first few miles until the sheer bulk of precipitation lavaged them, as the rest of the Town Car. "Have to go to the Auto Zone," Walt made a mental checklist... parts for the busted toilet, a blower to blow those goddam leaves his neighbors' Mexicans were blowing onto his property back onto their properties, plenty of disinfectant. "Police, Homeland Security Agents and Imperial County sheriffs report eighteen arrests related to the so-called Mecca Festival held, over the weekend, on public land," the car radio intoned, "all but two of these, reportedly, were drug-related, marihuana and the synthetic, Ecstasy, being among the illicit substances apprehended. Despite rumours, no anti-American, terrorist or Islamic sentiments appear to have been disseminated, at least not openly."

"And I," Walt said, "slept face-down in the desert and have ridden atop a great ball of fiery, incendiary gas, and lived through it all, so fuck you... fuck you all!" he howled gleefully, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel while, as it seemed, the whole rest of Southern California crept onwards, onwards to their petty, precarious jobs on Tuesday morning, in the rain.

In spite of the rain, the outplacement office was jam-packed with wet unemployables and a few victims... like Walter... of preternatural circumstances. More than half of these were still working... but just not at the jobs they had trained for, jobs that used to pay more than ten dollars an hour. There were quite a few downsized defense engineers in white shirts, beady eyes and twitchy fingers that reminded him of that movie, and hepped him... quick... to the possibility that anyone there might gladly kill him for the thirty-two dollars still in his wallet. There was a former technical support worker whose job had been outsourced to Bangalore - he was a liquor store night clerk, now, and, Walter figured, would probably be dead inside six months. An autoworker, reduced to kennel boy at the local animal shelter, an insuranced-out obstetrician working as a poolboy... more skilled machinists and realtors than he could count, or cared to contemplate.

Competitors!

The counselors and applicants weren't even afforded the privacy figleaf of cubicles - they sat, desk to desk, in ragged rows, their lethargy of the former and pain and helplessness of the latter exposed for all those waiting to absorb, making the fear and desperation communal. Now and then, a kid in shirtsleeves and a red, bow-tie would careen down the rows of desk, screaming out jobs taken, less often a new opening, causing the counselors to stab, feverishly, at their desk phones.

Lucky bastards had jobs, at least, government jobs. With a pension and security, right?

When Walter's name was called, he was assigned to a shambling time-server in a gray suit, a big man, older, even, than himself. Mister Garland. With dead eyes, the buron scanned Walt's paper application, comparing it to the vacancies on his computer screen. "Waste of time," Walt was beginning to think when the counselor cleared his throat.

"There is, or will be, an opening in hospitality management... pay's not terrific, but the jobsite's out by the beach. There's a paid training period, the employer has indicated he would prefer sales experience or a prior hospitality-related background..."

"I have both," Walter smiled, trying not to show his teeth.

"Well," replied Garland, "this might just be your lucky day. Let me see if I can set up an appointment... the company's local, Zweiss. Zweiss Interplanetary. Uh... the position is coded, we may have received some irregular information about this..."

"In that part about the paid training," Walter sighed, "does it specify whether or not the manager is being trained and receiving pay, or is he paying Zweiss?"

"I'm sorry, all it says is that they are requiring paid training. And I'm afraid that's all we have that fits your profile, for the moment. For everything else, you're either overqualified... or you would be taking a pay cut."

"A pay cut?" Walt recoiled. "From five thirty-eight an hour?"

Garland was a sweater, and an acrid stench of fear wafted up from his armpits. It wasn't only nite-clerks getting shot at, these days, after all. "Thanks to the government's new training wage legislation, most of what we have here starts at four thirty-five an hour. Technically, these jobs are only supposed to go to teenagers, and for only ninety days before the higher minimum wage kicks in... but there's a sort of don't ask, don't tell, you know?" Garland's lip curled into the weak smile of an indifferent Elvis impersonator, more like a sneer, a half-assed sneer. "We have people who work eighty-nine days, get fired, then get hired back after a day or two... so if you have a higher-paying job already, I'd suggest that you keep it."

A higher-paying job...

He was dismissed with a handshake and a reminder to attend the job fair at the Palo Real Hotel, Thursday morning. Mindful of the time and rain he took the six miles to the North County civic center at a legal pace... during a smoke break, Monday, he'd crossed the parking lot to the Double Dollar and, within five minutes, found a two-buck digital watch he strapped over his wrist, high up, under his white shirt. All the boys had them... or something similar, cheap, efficient and Chinese... Tex, Ed, Joe, even Achmed (for all time mattered to him!). Yesterday, he'd merely left word that he'd drop by around ten, ten thirty... if Ted Melk was in, he might have something for him, if not, he'd come back, later. The young hotshot from Sacramento bit, he was in... still trying to look cool behind those tiny dark glasses only a fool or junkie would wear, even indoors, on such a rainy day, but Walter Fales proffered a strong handshake, accepted Melk's offer of indifferent (but free) coffee, and settled into the plain, hardback wooden chair arranged in front of the desk for the benefits of Melk's rats and snitches.

"The other day, you and Agent Curry mentioned that what you were looking for was name... names and dates, good, precise facts that'll result in clean cases. Well..." and he let the young DA get a glimpse of his still-dazzling white fangs, "I think I've come up with something tasty for you."

"Re-eally?" Melk replied, picking up a pencil, which he held in both hands, like a spine, waiting to be snapped. "If you can tell me that the Z-man's back to running Fathom whores out of his mystery meat stations, or that you know where Bill Braxton's camped out, I guess that would make it worth my while, coming in on a day like this..."

"No," Walt dashed the young man's hopes... playing it straight, for once. "If I did, you know... and I know... that I'd have gone to Agent Curry, first. Maybe he'd let you sit in, maybe not. This is something else, though, probably not directly in SEC's corner, tho' if you open up a file and ask the right questions, who knows what might fall out of the closet?"

"Very well," Melk said. "And this intelligence of yours... it concerns..."

"Drugs!"

"Drugs?"

"A narcotics ring," Walt settled back, as far as the uncomfortable chair would permit, sipping the government's coffee.

"You want names, faces, dates... I can give you dates, faces. One name, only... this guy where I've been working, temporarily. He'd never fit your profile..."

"Oh?" Melk merely nodded for Walt to continue.

"Every now and then this fellow, I... I'll give you his name, if we can work something out, you know? Make whatever charges are in the pipeline against me go away... I haven't done anything wrong, you must know by now. In fact, I've kept up with the markets," Walter said, "and six of our seven standard offerings have outperformed the Dow, and the NASDAQ."

"Yeah," Ted Melk acknowledged, "just one of them nasty little ol' Preferred packages. Cigarette?"

He'd opened a pack of generics, shook them like a croupier whetting the appetite of the marks... Walt hesitated, but finally drew one of the pack. It wasn't a cigar, even a good cigarette, but smokes were expensive and courtesy must be shown.

"Thanks," he nodded. "Well?"

Melk took a draught off the generic, balanced it on the tip of a San Diego State ashtray. "Druggies, well... hate to disappoint you, but they're a dime a dozen. We take one down and five more spring up, not to mention all that trash pouring over our so-called borders... he got any assets worth seizing, or is he just your eight-time loser, crashing at some motel."

"Well, they've got to be worth something?" Walt protested, then took a leap, without a net. "Dude I'm talking about owns a house, think you can do something with that? I can hand you this guy at the bottom on a silver platter and a couple of his buddies from... down there, you know. After that, well, I'm not a cop, you know what to do better than I..."

"Actually," Melk squirmed in his official chair, a squamous grin breaking out as if he were on the receiving end of a lapdance...

"Uh... no way am I going to wire up and get myself and my family into the middle of one of your investigations. Even if I had done something wrong, so one of those relocation deals would make sense... you see what's happening out in Georgia and Oklahoma, even ordinary witnesses bein' gunned down, left and right..."

"Too bad," Melk shrugged, "guys who get themselves on the inside get convictions, and we sort of like convictions, once in awhile... tell you what I'll do. Your cooperation goes into your file, I ain't promising anything, but it'll be taken into account when decisions are made..."

"Copy to SEC, copy to IRS," Walt bargained.

"Aw hell!" the DA threw his arms up, "John's an alright guy, sometimes, but you know I don't have any influence over the tax guys..."

"I don't want promises, just a letter to the IRS. They froze my fuckin' bank accounts..."

"Yeah, I got a memo to that effect. What a hoot!" the DA smirked, "how much did they pry out of your bank to put in the ol' IRS lockbox... two thousand, three? Look at it this way... you're lucky that all these troubles are crashing down on you at the same time, it makes sorting everything out easier. What would you feel like if, well... if nothing happened at BCM, except that the IRS went ahead anyway? Instead of bein' out three thousand bucks, you're out... what was is... three quarters of a million? Look on the bright side of life, for once..."

"Alright," Walt said, feeling distinctly unbright, himself, "it's an old guy, I'm tellin' you about, meets these Mexicans out in the parking lot of the place I work. Name's Ed, Ed Musgrove..."

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And the traitor's rain rained on throughout Walt's penitential shift... it flushed San Cris' unvehicular homeless from their hidey-spiderholes in alleys and under bridges. The Dog Pound reeked of urine and wet, ripe flannel... mothers pulled their squalling kids to safety by an arm, or knee, the heads in the steamy cars backed up at the window bobbed in anger and impatience and Barry, taserless, stood like the figurehead of a pirate's brigantine against the wall between grill and frypit, arms folded, calling perdition down upon the ragged men nursing single coffees or packets of fries, chewing slowly, fumbling with pouches of crumbly tobacco and rolling papers while the day manager called out: "This is a no-smoking facility. No smoking!"

Walt manned a register with a silly, taped-on grin under his paper hat - cocked, peaked, sagging from the humidity. Between orders... "two GDs, one chili, large fries, large Slushie... Salty, small coffee, pie..." he measured the fruits of OT in his mind. Five thirty-seven times seven, multiplied by three... divided by two... near as he could figure out, it'd come to fifty-five dollars. Not to mention that half-cent which, with OT, would be three-quarters of a cent. But, of course, there would be taxes... fuckin' IRS!... payroll, state and local, the thirty cents Mr. Z. took out for one of his Martian foundations, "charity", the half-tab for Slushies he'd slurped through the week. Figure forty, a square, round number. Walt promised to treat himself to a lottery ticket, a box of insoles, a fifth of Maker's Mark... well, half a pint, maybe, or at least a couple of those airline bottles. And insoles... definitely insoles!... for his wet and aching feet, if they had them on special at the Double Dollar.

Some retard waddled from the line to the register - big guy with a small, piggy face in wet sweats.

"Dog Pound, are you alright?" Walt recited. "May I take...”

"What the fuck you mean... am I alright?" the guy exploded. "It's rainin' like God's tears out there, I'm a painter, and I'm out of work. Am I alright? Who the fuck are you to be asking, grown man in a paper hat, working the register inna fast food joint? Screw you... I'm out of here."

Walt couldn't help himself... "have a ni-ice day," he said.

"Eat one of them dogs," the fat guy warned three teenage truants in baggy shorts, "it's your fuckin' funeral." They cracked up, all the way to the register, then ordered five guacamole and two pizza dogs.

"Mr. Z. will hear about your attitude," Barry sniped. The manager was leaning against the wall separating the grill from the frypit and Davy Pearson held two fingers up behind his head.

This is what I do, Walter realized. This is my life.

Just before four, the rain... not exactly stopping... lessened somewhat, and Walt decided to make a break for the Lincoln, drive the seventy or eighty yards to a space in front of the DD and get his feet taken care of... now!... and he almost ran over the girl from the hearse, coming in to start her shift. Elle! She must've thought he was holding the door open, for her, because she smiled and thanked him, and he stood far too long in the doorway, half in and half out of the rain, feeling like... what did he feel like? A kid?

And it kept raining... Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. Walter's feet ached from all that cashiering in his meet-the-cops shoes, weekend yardwork (and from the Desert Debauch, too, beyond a doubt!) he looked through Missy's half of the medicine chest, drew out a bottle of cream that she said was for menstrual cramps, so might have some palliative effect on his aching dogs. Then he pulled on clean, dry socks and a pair of sensible sneakers, ventured onto his lawn long enough to kick at one of the plate-sized mushrooms that had sprouted on the lawn, then ducked back into the Town Car (smelling only slightly less like dead fowl), drove through the pounding rain with those damn, malfunctioning wipers still malfunctioning and, finally, Walt clocked in, beginning another payweek with another regular, god-damned shift.

Half an hour in, Mister Z blustered through the front door of the DP, shaking his hat and umbrella like a wet spaniel. The sanpaku lawyer, Omartian, took his coat and gloves... the scattered, wretched souls who'd come into the Dog Pound to escape the deluge looked up, stared, went back to chewing their cud. Zweiss blew into his hands, rubbed them feverishly, Eunice passed a cup of hot coffee over the counter.

"Too bad he didn't bring that lady, Pauline..." Tex told Walt and Ed and, while Mr. Z. warmed himself with the coffee, right fist in the air with an index finger pointing upwards... to God, or to the rain, Eunice turned, stonily.

"Miss Pauline's old enough to be your mama," she scolded.

"My mama's fat," Tex replied, undeterred. "An' she's back in Lubbock, doin' it with flyboys from off'n the base, when they're drunk enough to lose their good sense..."

Mister Z handed his cup to Omartian, exhaled deeply, lowered the finger and aimed it at Barry. "Assemble the team," he said.

The day manager promptly delegated to Eunice... she even retrieved Achmed from the cooler. "Ed can stay at the grill," Zweiss ordered, and looked to Walt as he said this... waves of paranoia issuing through the steam and the raindrops, did the boss have his fingers into the DA's office - perhaps, even, through Martian intelligence? And, if so, Walt wondered... just how much did they know about his situation with BCM?

"Make space!" Barry told him and, perhaps with less diplomacy than called for, Mr. Fales approached the sole occupant of the corner booth Mister Z preferred. This guy his own age with a full beard and a black cap with little red and green chili peppers and the name of a bar in Juarez was sipping from a nearly empty cup when Walt suggested he move across the DP aisle... or leave, if he preferred.

The guy looked up to him, one eye was a pure, white cueball... "I fought for my country," he said, "so's puke like you would never push me around again, and I don't care how big you are. You want me to leave, make me..."

Walt looked down, looked up. "Seems like you're due for a refill, buddy, how about one on the house?"

One-eye sneered. "And?..."

"Gettin' near lunch," Walter said. "Pick something to go, anything, off the menu..."

The guy stroked his chin, and Walt was aware of Mister Z, in the background, counting down the seconds until his booth became available. "Dog with chili and guacamole, large fries, and I want you to bring it to me. And Walt looked down, past the single crutch leaning on the red vinyl, to the empty cuff, the leg that ended below the knee. He nodded.

"You got it," and pointed to the opposite windowbooth, empty, with a fine view of the rain and sodden Juvenile Jungle. He'd gotten as far as the condiment bar when Barry caught up, buzzing into his ear like a persistent horsefly.

"No freebies! I don't care if it's for Mr. Z... we're not going to be held up by winos. Anything he gets is coming out of your check."

Walt looked over his shoulder, too tired to swat. "If it has to be, it has to be." And, by the time he'd gathered up the food, Zweiss and the guy in the pepper cap were laughing and cutting up, one-eye having scrunched back, so that he'd remain there during Z's meeting and Barry... Barry, of course, steaming like hot griddle-iron left out back for the rain to cool down.

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