Payback
Gambling
The young dickweeds who went out back to smoke kept the door open, like they needed to watch something inside.
The smoke wafted back in, the next morning the guy who owned the flower shop next door would be calling Tim Slayton, threatening to call the cops, the health department, Buddha.
Tim slammed the door without a word.
Nice young kid sat at one of the two poker tables in Slayton’s little West Side Small Business Association.
They did real business, sometimes, but cards and dice and sports all the time.
This kid was Delaney’s nephew. One of the nieces told Tim the kid, Kevin, was a poet.
Liked to play cards for the danger.
Tim never kibitzed, never interfered nor commented, but he knew who could lay em down, who was shadowboxing with their own brain and who had a weight around their ankle.
This Kevin kid was an earthworm trying to fly an airplane, staying in hands and even raising when he was holding sawdust and Twinkies.
Kevin must have dumped thousands in the span of three weeks, and it was starting to hurt Tim Slayton all the way to his hairy earlobes.
He owed Delaney. Even though Delaney was a corpse now, he owed him.
Slayton was on a date, stopped at Rutherford Party Store, 17 years old going on never, him and his date got fronted off by three Fenkell Top Hats, high, bored.
“Slay” was tough, but not three Fenkell Top Hats tough, with his date not knowing how to drive a stick to get herself to safety.
If he got deep in a hook, the Hats would kidnap his girl.
The Westwoods, the Sconis, there was a lot of ruthless out there, but the Top Hats were straight up insane.
Delaney showed up like they had planned it. But they didn’t. Slayton and Delaney didn’t know each other that well. But there he was, like he saw it unfold, screaming at the biggest Top Hat of the three, frigging bicycle chains wrapped around his fists.
Bicycle chains.
Crazy ass Delaney.
He survived the Fenkell Top Hats and all the other shit and let Marlboro Reds kill him at 52.
His nephew, one of many, tapped out and headed dejected for the door.
Tim gave a short nod to Gravaldi to keep an eye and Tim followed the kid out the door.
“Hey, Kevin, right?”
Kevin turned around.
“Yes, sir.”
“You Sheila’s son or Katie’s?”
Kevin’s eyelids fluttered nervously.
Slayton looked at his watch.
The kid stuttered: “Ummm, uh..Anne Marie is my mom-”
“She had you young.”
Another nervous flutter and the kid said “Umm, yessir.”
“Your uncle Tommy and me got a history. Mind if I show ya a little…trick?”
“No sir, I mean…yessir…no, I mean, sure, I don’t mind.”
Slayton sat against the low brick wall in front of the WSSBA.
“You know all city buses got a number, right?”
“Ummm, I…I don’t ride the bus, I have a Tempo.”
Slayton folded his arms.
“Well, they all got a number, illuminated, down by the bottom of the window. Not the route number, that’s all the same on the Grand River buses, that’s 3. But they have a 6 digit ID number.”
Kevin nodded but looked confused.
“When you’re bored,” Slayton said, “settin’ outside of Albert’s Hamburgers, or the Norwest Theater, you can bet your friends whether the last number of the next bus is gonna be an odd or even number.”
Kevin smiled.
The Grand River bus was about two blocks away.
Tim Slayton whipped out a twenty.
“You got any money left, kid?”
Delaney’s nephew turned the color of a candy apple. Pale Irish-American skin always blushed strong.
“Yeah.” He pulled a crumpled twenty from his pocket.
“I got even,” Delaney said.
Kevin smiled. “C’monnn, odd!”
The bus picked up a lone rider at Burt Road, then wheezed down Grand River in front of the two men.
Slayton pointed at the illuminated number and read it aloud.
“One Nine Zero, One One Six.”
“Even number, damn,” Kevin said and handed Tim Slayton his twenty.
Tim pulled out a thick knot of bills and slipped the twenty into it.
“Of course it was even. All the numbers on the buses running west are even, all the ones running east are odd. You walked right into it, kid. Never bet on nothing you know nothing about.”
Kevin’s red reddened. “But I…”
Slayton turned to the kid. “I’m serious. Don’t come back to my place.” Go write poetry or something. No more cards.”
Slayton pressed a bill in Kevin’s hand. “Take your money back, because I suckered you. I ain’t that guy. But don’t come back unless you own a small business, You’re not welcome to gamble in here anymore.”
Kevin’s lips trembled like his fluttering eyelids.
“And if I see you gambling anywhere else, I’ll beat your ass with a bike chain. Got me?”
All Kevin could do was swallow and turn and run to his car.
When he opened his fist to pull out his car keys, he saw that the bill was a hundred.
***
This was really good. I loved it
When I was driving out west, all the busses had even numbers.
I don't remember much about Florida, but I do remember 313 could pull some serious numbers down the expressway!