Brendon was sitting across from me, smiling like the cat who just swallowed the canary. "My suit's a little tight on you." he said, nodding. "You were always heavier than me, even as a kid. Always bigger than your big brother."
"I-It's okay. I d-don't -" I fumbled with my beer glass, spilling some of it. He reached over the table and moved it away from me.
"You got to be more careful, Nick," he glared at me.
He stopped a waitress and had her wipe off the table. After she left, he turned back to me, smiling again. "Ah never mind, in a couple of days when I have time we'll go out shopping and buy you your own clothes." He hesitated. "Nick, do you know how much it cost me to have that detective find you?"
I looked away from him. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not complaining, Nick." He grabbed a handful of pretzels. "I promised our parents I'd take care of you."
"I was oka,." I said. "I had a job. Almost for two months and ..."
"Yeah, I know." Brendon waved it away. "You had a job deep-frying burgers. I know, it was the longest job you had since Nam. But you can't settle for something like that. I'll get you set up with a real job."
I could tell he was losing his patience with me. I didn't want to ask him anything else, I didn't want to get him any madder at me, but there was something I had to know.
"Uh, Brendon." I cleared my throat. "Is Marge still mad at me?"
"That was over three years ago." He took a sip of his beer and held the glass in front of him. A dullness crept into his eyes as he studied it. "It was my own fault, Nick. I shouldn't have left the credit card out in the open. I know it's something you can't help." He stood up. "Got to go answer to nature. You won't run away on me while I'm gone?"
I shook my head.
"Good." He put his hand on my shoulder as he walked by. "Order yourself another beer. I'll be right back."
After he left, I stood up and looked for the exit. I wanted to leave. I wanted to walk out the door and go away, but I couldn't. I promised Brendon I wouldn't. The waitress came over. I tried ordering a beer. She started joking with me, but I must've said the wrong thing because she looked at me funny and walked away. It was getting hard to breathe. I felt like I couldn't sit there any longer.
I looked around, wondering what was taking Brendon so long. Then I saw him walking back with a small redhead. I turned away, hoping he wouldn't bring her back to the table. Brendon clasped my shoulder. "Nick," he said. "I want you to meet a friend of mine, Lisa Chaney."
She moved in front of me and took my hand. Her hand was small, her fingernails painted a deep blood red. She sat down next to me.
"Hi," she smiled. "It's nice to meet you." She had the pale white complexion that redheads usually have. Her lipstick - the same blood red as her fingernails - stood out on her skin like a knife wound.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "You know how to talk?"
"Uh, sure -"
Brendon grinned. "I think he's shy."
She reached over and whispered something into Brendon's ear, and he started laughing. He whispered something back. I guess I was watching her and her eye caught mine. I lowered my head.
"What do you think you're staring at?" she demanded angrily.
I realized my head was level with her chest. I turned away.
"Uh, Brendon." It was difficult to talk, everything was so hot, dizzy. "I-I h-have to go. I have to -"
"I was just kidding you," she said. "Can't you take a joke?"
"Sure he can." Brendon winked at her. "It just takes him a while to get used to people."
"Friends again?" she asked me, smiling.
"Uh, s-sure."
The waitress came over and told Brendon he had a phone call. He left and came back a minute later. "Nick, I have an emergency. I got to go to the police station and see a client."
He took fifty dollars out of his wallet and handed it to me. "This should cover the drinks and a cab ride home. Will you be okay?"
"Don't worry about him." Lisa interrupted. "I'll take good care of your little brother."
"Okay, then." Brendon gave me a funny look and then hurried out of the bar.
"So," she cocked her head, studying me. "Brendon said you were in Vietnam?"
"Yeah, I guess so." I turned away from her. "Yeah."
She didn't say anything for what seemed like a long time. I could feel her staring at me. Then, in a tired voice she said, "Look, I don't see any point in staying here. I think I'm going to head home." I nodded, waiting for her to leave, waiting for her to stop standing over me. Something touched my hand. I looked up and she was grinning. "Well, are you going to sit here all night?" I let her lead me out.
When we got to her apartment, Lisa took her coat off and I realized how pretty she was. She was wearing a tight skirt which outlined slender hips, and the rest of her, her face, her -, I turned my head away. I didn't want her to think I was staring.
She moved me into the living room and had me sit on a leather sofa. She then told me we were going to have a little party and she started taking bottles out of the liquor cabinet.
She turned to me, and with disappointment, told me she was out of gin and she would have to go get some because that was all she felt like drinking. Right before she left she kissed her finger and pressed it against my lips and told me that when she got back we would really live it up.
I looked around the room and noticed a desk next to the liquor cabinet had one of its drawers half opened. I got up and looked inside. There was a stack of hundred dollar bills sitting there. I picked it up and counted five thousand dollars. I put it back and tried to walk away, but I couldn't.
I stood frozen, feeling the blood rush to my face. Hearing it pounding in my ears. Tasting its hotness in my mouth. I grabbed the money and left Lisa's apartment.
Out on the street, I just started walking. I wanted to go back and return the money, but I couldn't. I had to keep moving. A half hour later I came to a bar and went inside.
After three hours of buying drinks and handing out money I had nothing left. I didn't even have any of the fifty dollars Brendon had given me. But for those three hours I had people smiling. I had people slapping my back and laughing with me, not at me. For those three hours I was something other than a dead man. It's hard to explain, but taking the money was something I had to do. When you feel dead all the time and you know there's something that will make you feel less dead, you just don't have any choice. And I've felt like a dead man for almost twenty years.
About a month before my eighteenth birthday Brendon killed a woman in a hit and run accident. He came to me afterwards, beg-ging and pleading that I tell the police I was the one in the car. After all, he had just gotten accepted into Law school and this would ruin his life, but I was still a juvenile so they'd only slap my wrists.
Well, I didn't have any choice. I had to help my brother so I told the police what Brendon wanted me to. The judge though, did give me a choice. I could either be tried as an adult and go away for ten years or I could enlist when I turned eighteen and serve my country in Vietnam.
When Bobby Johnson heard I had to enlist, he told me he'd go in with me. Hell, hadn't we been best buddies since first grade? He'd be damned if he'd let me go alone and have something happen to me, so we signed up together and arranged to be in the same platoon.
The first week we were over there, a kid ran up to us and pulled out a gun and shot Bobby in the chest. I tried to help Bobby. I tried to keep his blood from pouring out, but after about a minute he wasn't breathing. I got up and ran after the kid. I chased him almost two miles into the jungle before I caught him. And when I did, I stuffed mud into his mouth so no one would hear him scream. Then I took out my knife and skinned him.
From the moment Bobby died it was like I had a blindfold on. I had to keep killing - I had to keep paying them back for him. Later, when my tour was almost over, the blindfold slipped off and I realized what I'd done. I realized that for a long time I'd stopped being alive.
I had to walk about ten miles to get to Brendon's house. When I got there, I could see a car parked outside with people in it. When I got closer, I could see it was Brendon and Lisa in the front seat and another man in back. Brendon saw me and rolled down his window and gasped, "Nick, what did you do?" The other man opened his door and pointed a gun at me. "Get in," he ordered softly.
I stood where I was. The man started to get out of the car. Brendon burst out, "For Godsakes, do what he wants!." Lisa looked amused. I walked around the car and got in next to the man with the gun. He was a heavyset man with big ears and not much hair. He poked the gun under my chin. "You stole my money." His voice was raspy, kind of like his throat had been scraped with sandpaper.
"I-I'm sorry."
"He's sorry." the man with the gun chuckled. He pushed the gun into my throat. "What you going to do about it?"
"Brendon," I said. "Could you give him the money?"
That made the man laugh harder. "It don't work that way, smart guy. You stole from me, now you got to pay me back. You got any money?" I shook my head.
"Then you owe me. I got a job I need help on and you're it, smart guy. You gonna help me steal some money."
"No," I shook my head.
"No?" he raised an eyebrow. "It's okay to steal my money but not someone else's?" Then, low and mean, "You say yes right now or I blow your goddamn head off."
Brendon lurched forward, his eyes wide with excitement. "Do what he says, Nicky!"
I didn't say anything. The man with the gun growled, "You think I'm joking?"
I shrugged.
"Okay, smart guy," he said. "You don't care about yourself, is that it? What if I take your brother inside and blow his head off?"
Brendon was screaming at me. "My God, Nicky. Marge and the kids are home! Please Nicky, try and understand what's happening!"
"I'm sorry," I told him. I turned to the other man. "I guess you better take him inside."
Brendon's jaw dropped. The man with the gun gave Brendon a questioning look, like he was unsure of what to do. Lisa broke out laughing. I slapped the man hard and his eyes went dumb. I slapped him again. Lisa laughed harder. The man's eyes exploded with fury. He raised the gun and I hit him across the mouth with my open palm, splitting his lip. Brendon reached back and grabbed the man's arm, the one with the gun. He shouted at the man, "No Mike! No!" Then he turned to me. "What the hell -", he choked it off, swallowed and tried again. "Nicky, what are you doing?"
I faced my brother. "You wanted me to steal the money. You had her take me to the apartment so I'd steal the money."
"No, Nicky." He was shaking his head like that would settle the issue. The other man had gotten his arm free, but just sat silently holding a handkerchief against his mouth.
"The detective you hired," I said to Brendon. "I saw him six months ago and I saw him other times too. He was keeping tabs on me until you needed me."
"Oh boy," he muttered. "Oh boy. Y-You're confused and -"
Lisa interrupted, her eyes shining. "I thought your little brother would be too dumb to guess what was going on. Isn't that what you said?"
Brendon's face was flushed. "Shutup!" He tried looking me in the eye, but he couldn't. "I'm sorry, Nicky. Can we talk?" I told him we could always talk. We drove to Lisa's apartment and during the ride no one said a word.
Inside the apartment, Brendon was grinning and acting like nothing had happened. He introduced Big Mike, the heavyset man I slapped around. He then told me about a client of his, Paul Dreason, who was the top man in the local crack trade. Dreason had five million dollars and Brendon told me we were going to take it away from him.
We sat down and Brendon explained it to me. The five million dollars was sitting in a safe in an empty warehouse waiting for the mob to pick it up. Brendon asked Big Mike to get the blueprints of the warehouse, and then he spread them out, showing me where the safe would be.
I looked up at Brendon. "How do you know about this?"
"It's a long story, Nicky. I don't think you'd understand."
I nodded and then asked, "Why isn't it being protected?" Lisa smirked at Brendon. "For someone as dumb as you say he is, he asks a lot of questions." Brendon's face went white. He turned to her, his lips pressed into a tight smile. "Will you lay off!" he ordered. He raised his hand as if he were going to slap her. I interrupted. "What do you want me to do?"
Dropping his hand, he turned back to me. "This is going to be easy, Nick. Big Mike has already put together a bomb that will blow off the safe cover. It works on a timer. All I need you to do is place it next to the safe and carry out the money after it blows open. It won't take more than five minutes."
I stared at him and kept staring until his smile cracked. Then I asked Brendon why he needed me to blow up the safe. Why he or Big Mike or anyone else couldn't do it.
He looked rattled. "I-I need someone I can trust. And you've been in Vietnam, you know how to handle yourself in difficult situations. I'm going to be in the car driving. And Big Mike needs to be watching the building in case there's any trouble.
I-I need you, Nicky. You won't let me down, will you?"
"No. I guess not."
Relief washed over his face, leaving a broad, wide smile. "Okay, Nicky. Why don't we go home and get some sleep." Lisa grabbed Brendon by the arm and the two of them turned their backs to me and talked in hushed voices. I could see Brendon nodding and then he turned back to me. "Nicky," he said. "Why don't you stay here tonight. Is that okay?"
I told him it was. "One more thing." he hesitated. "We have it planned for twelve tomorrow afternoon. We have to do it then. But don't worry, the explosion will just be a little pop, no one will hear us."
I told him I guess it didn't matter. He smiled, nodding his head. "I'll pick you up at eleven. Don't worry, Nicky. Everything will work out fine. And Dreason deserves this. We're not doing anything bad." He got up to leave. Big Mike joined him, glaring at me as he left. I could see his lip had swelled.
Lisa took me to the guest room and helped me make up the bed. She gave me a funny look. "Yeah, what do you want to ask me?"
"Why did Brendon want me to stay here?"
"Because," she smiled slightly. "I promised your brother I'd make sure you didn't run out on us. But that's not the reason I wanted you to." She started to unbutton her blouse, her flesh warming to a soft pink as she did.
"Are you and Brendon... " I didn't know how to finish the sentence.
"Maybe," she smirked. "He's planning on leaving his wife for me after we get the money. Why, does it matter?" She gave me a hard look and stopped unbuttoning her blouse. "I guess it does," she said softly. She took hold of my chin and studied me, and then nodded to herself. "You do look a lot like your brother." she said. "You're about the same height and have similar features. But you're better looking, you're heavier, more muscular, and you don't have his shifty eyes."
She laughed and walked over to the door. "No," she said. "You got big, dumb eyes, like you don't know a damn thing." Her face softened. "Nicky, it's not too late for you to just walk away. You could leave now and be in another state by tomorrow."
"I-I c-can't. I promised Brendon."
"The two of us could go, Nicky. We could walk out together. "Would you like that?"
"But the five million dollars -"
"Skip it." Her eyes hardened. "You really don't have a clue, do you?"
I shook my head.
"I guess you don't." she said, her voice brittle. "You see, when I'm driving at night and I catch an animal in the headlights, and they freeze and look at me with big, dumb eyes like yours, you know what I do?"
"I'm sorry, I don't -"
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