Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

Frank feeling safe. It was during our eighth job for Frank that the shit finally hit. He’d been hired by a suspicious fiancé to tail a young woman on the night before her wedding and sent Augie and me out on the job. We videotaped the woman bar-hopping with girlfriends, drinking too much and dancing with a half-dozen different men. Later on we caught her in a car in a lot behind the bar, rolling around with what turned out to be an ex-boyfriend. When the groom-to-be saw the tape the next morning he flew into a rage and went to his fiancé and beat her with an antenna he broke off a truck. It cut her face and hands and arms like a whip. She was taken to Southampton hospital and he got himself hauled off to the Suffolk County Jail, while in the meantime 150 guests were driving to the church where their wedding was supposed to be.
    That was all I needed. That was all I could take. I was ready to ditch, and Augie knew it. He could see it in my face. He tried to calm me down but I wouldn’t have it. This was just all wrong to me. What could possibly be the reason for such destruction? For so much pain? I went home that morning but couldn’t sleep. My phone rang all day but I didn’t answer it. Eventually at some point I grabbed the thing off the coffee table and flung it across the room. The cord tore the jack out of the wall, but I didn’t care. I bought a bottle of Beam and came back with it and got drunk alone on my couch. I watched shadows move across my living room floor and then up the walls as morning became afternoon. I looked out my windows watched late afternoon gel into evening. Then I watched evening bleed off into night. Sometime after dark someone knocked on my door. I didn’t answer. The knock turned into pounding. Then someone started calling my name. It was Augie. I ignored him. Finally, the door burst open. Bits of lock and wood flew across the room like shrapnel. I just sat there and stared toward my three front windows and the night beyond.
    Augie looked at me for a moment before finally crossing the room and standing beside me. He looked down at me, his hands in the pockets of his field jacket.
    “I’ve been trying to call all day,” he said. “I’ve been worried about you.”
    “Something’s wrong with my phone.”
    He looked away, probably saw the thing in a heap on the floor, then said, “Yeah, I can see that. You okay?”
    “I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.”
    “Try looking at the big picture, Mac.”
    I shook my head but said nothing.
    “Listen, we have a plan, right? We need to stick to it.”
    “This isn’t what I do. You don’t understand. You can’t.”
    “Just try to hold on a little longer, Mac. Right now Frank thinks we’re all happy as clams. I don’t want that to change.”
    “I’m sorry, Augie. I really am.”
    “Look, there’s shit going down you don’t know about. That I haven’t told you about. I’m going to need Frank’s resources. I’m going to need you.”
    “I’ll do whatever you want, Aug. You know that. But I can’t work for Frank anymore.”
    He took a step toward me. “I need you to suck it up and stick it out. Just a few more weeks, that’s all. Just hang on for a few more weeks. That’s all I ask.”
    I didn’t say anything, just looked out my windows, toward the dark night beyond the bare elms that lined my street. The way the branches moved in the wind reminded me of the way people breathe when they are asleep.
    Finally, I said, “Okay.”
    “Just a few weeks more, Mac.”
    “Okay.”
    Augie picked up the bottle of Beam from the coffee table. He shook it. If we had been in utter darkness right now, we’d still know by the pitch of the swishing sound that the bottle was almost empty.
    “Mind if I have what’s left?”
    “Help yourself.”
    “I think I’ll take it with me, if that’s okay.”
    “Suit yourself.”
    “You should get some sleep, Mac. I’m going to need your help tomorrow night. There’s something I want us to do.”
    I nodded once more. “I’ll be here,” I said.
    Augie went into my bedroom and came out with a blanket. He placed it around my shoulders.
    “I’ll be back in a while to check up on you, so stick around.”
    “Yeah.”
    Augie looked at me for what felt like a long time. Then he left. After he was gone I stayed where I was. Everything was moving around me. My surroundings seemed suddenly strange. I stared at the train station. How easy, now that I had a little money, would it