Hello, Callers. Thank you for being here.
Today we’ve got Andy Boyle serving up a tale of brothers, revenge, and unfinished business. Andy’s got a great knack for pacing and dialogue, but what I loved most about this story is the family that sits at the heart of it. I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do.
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Used to Be Some Kind of Badass
Jeremy sat on the edge of his brother’s bed, still wearing the black suit from the funeral, his heart thudding in his ears, not wanting to open the box he’d found. It’d been swaddled in a dirty Motorhead shirt, which had been stuffed inside a ratty backpack in the back of Denny’s closet. Along with five grand tightly wrapped in thick rubber bands. He stared at the lid, his hand unsure. Pretty sure about what he’d find inside.
“Jer?” His mother’s voice from the hall. Her footsteps creaked on the second story floorboards outside the room, the room that had once been Jeremy’s, and had become his brother’s long ago.
“Just a minute ma,” Jeremy said.
A pause. Her voice cracked. “Take all the time you need, hon.” Strong for both of them.
He took a breath and flipped the lid. He stared, then closed it and sighed, hating to be right. Jeremy took the cash and stuffed it in his jacket pockets, not sure what he’d do with it but knowing it was safer with him. He decided to not touch what was in the box. Didn’t even want to be near it.
“Fuck.”
He wrapped the box in the same t-shirt he’d found it in then slipped it into the backpack, resting it in the rear of the closet. Then he covered it all with what he could find—Denny’s high school football jersey, a peacoat Jeremy bought him two Christmases ago after Denny graduated college, an old pair of skinny jeans that he’d once made fun of his younger brother for wearing while Jeremy was home on leave. The backpack had to stay hidden. He’d need to get it out of the house before mom found it. Throw it in fucking Lake Michigan. Anywhere. He needed to save her from knowing anything that would ruin the image of perfect Denny.
Jeremy turned toward the door when he heard a soft hum. Steady and rhythmic. He turned back toward the closet, pulled out the backpack again. The front pocket vibrated.
Inside, a small cheap phone. A burner. A number with a suburban area code flashed on the screen. Jeremy stared at it, letting the cell buzz a few more times. He flipped it open.
Jeremy never would’ve picked this bar. Even while in the service, he preferred dives, places with low lights and patrons who looked like they were cosplaying Tom Waits. This place had garish fluorescents. Loud televisions galore. Every local professional team was represented in memorabilia on each wall, including the warring north and south side baseball teams. Blasphemous. Choose a side, Jeremy thought. Every other place in the city did. Why not here?
The red-haired woman sat down next to him. She wore a thin leather jacket, hoodie, jeans, black boots. No makeup. Her hair up in a bun. Smelled of cigarettes and jasmine. Cute in a mean sort of way.
“How you know Denny?” he asked her.
“We worked together sometimes.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of business?”
Her brow narrowed. “I don’t even know you, man.”
“I’m his brother.”
“Good for you.”
She ordered an IPA. He got a club soda. He asked her name and she said to call her Katie. Jeremy knew that wasn’t her real name. After a bit more bluster, the woman finally said she’d met Denny at DePaul their freshman year. They were friends—just friends, she assured him with a playful smile—and they fell out of touch after graduation. Few months back they’d ran into each other at a concert. Became just friends again. Realized they had similar commercial interests.
He studied her. Pretty sure she was mostly telling the truth. But holding something back.
“He ever tell you about me?” he asked.
Not-Katie looked up at him from her beer, her eyes starting at his bald head and moving their way down his dark black pearl snap shirt, his even darker black jeans, and his boots that were—shocker—also black. She was maybe five years younger than Jeremy, mid-20s. Deep green eyes. Fair skin. High cheekbones. Freckles.
“Knew he had an older brother. Said you were like a writer. What was it before that? Used to be some kind of badass in the Marines?”
“Army.”
“Yeah, Army.” She took a sip. “Didn’t tell me how cute you were, though.”
He ignored that and asked what his brother had—what Jeremy had found in the backpack’s box—was worth.
Not-Katie took a long drag from her beer. Her eyes ran over him again, then she put her hand on his chest, feeling around. Her palms lingered a bit longer than they needed to.
“Think I’m wearing a wire?” he asked. So that’s why she’d brought him to a loud bar.
“You never know.”
“Your pat down wasn’t that thorough. Anywhere else you wanna check?”
A single finger slid down his chest, passing across his left quad. She moved it toward his crotch then pulled it back.
Back to her beer. “I’m good.”
“Make a guess,” he told her, annoyed. He made an H with his fingers, then used his hands to give her a general size of what he found in the box.
Her eyes went wide and her voice dropped. Six, seven hundred grand, she whispered, depending on the purity. Maybe more. Wholesale. On the street you’d get three or four times that, depending. But she’d need to see it, test it, before she could give him a straight answer. The amount felt right to him. He kept his face calm, keeping eye contact.
“How would a guy like him get that much?” he asked. His little brother, Jesus Christ, Denny, what the hell were you doing?
She shrugged. No clue. But Jeremy had an idea. He was pretty sure she did, too.
“You normally move that much weight for him?”
She shook her head quickly. Mostly prescriptions, some weed, not the heavy stuff. And never in that quantity. She wasn’t that big of a fish. Didn’t want to be, neither. She stayed small, made much fewer waves in the pond. Didn’t have to deal with the sharks.
“Who could?” he asked.
“Who could what?”
“Who could buy that much from him?”
She put up her hands. Not her fight. She was sorry about Denny, sure, but didn’t want to get any more involved. She got up to leave and he grabbed her wrist. Not-Katie’s face changed in an instant, Jeremy suddenly feeling like he’d snatched the paw of a tiger. He let her hand go. She massaged her wrist, her face melting back to placid and calm. Like nothing happened.
He told her, “You make the sale, you can keep a third.”
Her eyebrows raised. “Just a third?”
“Okay, half.”
Not-Katie took a long breath. “No promises,” she said.
“Sure.”
She turned to leave and stopped. “If you ever touch me again without my permission, I’ll fucking kill you. Got it?”
Mom was sitting at the dinner table when he came home. He kissed her on the back of her head, gave her shoulders a squeeze. She’d been crying but put on a strong front. Like she’d always done. Like when Dad didn’t come home that day when Jeremy was 14. Or when Jeremy got arrested for the first time at 15. Or when the judge gave him the choice at 18—Army boots or prison issue slip-ons.
She made him coffee as he sat studying the papers and bills on the table, laid out like a deck of unlucky cards.
She’d been laid off about a year ago. Worked thirty years at a factory only to have her job shipped overseas so someone else could do it cheaper. No severance. No pension. Fucking nothing. They’d busted the unions in the mid-90s. NAFTA helping everyone but the working poor. Nobody would hire a woman her age, it seemed, even though she’d be a blessing wherever she went.
And then came the diagnosis. Stage three.
Mom had gotten on COBRA, sure, paying extravagant rates for her former insurance, which wasn’t great to begin with. Lots of doctors out of network, apparently. Maximum payments met. Normal insurance company bullshit. After a hell of a fight, she’d eventually beaten those malformed cells—mom had always called her cancer it, never wanting to speak the full name.
But now she was in a different kind of ruin.
In front of him, the remaining bills added up to about two hundred thousand and change. Almost like its own malignant tumor, ever growing. Twenty grand remained to pay off the house. She was two months behind on that. He hoped the cash he’d gotten from upstairs could help buy some time.
Jeremy thought that’s probably why Denny had started to sell. Get mom back on her feet. She’d mentioned that he’d been helping out recently, giving her money sometimes. Denny told Jeremy he’d gotten a nice job downtown, the little shit. Told mom, too. And she believed it, like she’d believed many of the good lies children tell their parents. Denny had knocked off almost a hundred grand from her original debt. Maybe he’d decided to try and do the whole thing all at once.
And that got him fucking killed.
Jeremy had tried to help out, too. He moved to New York after the Army, started working in media. Sold his first book a few years ago, sent money home. Got a better agent, sold the second for more, sent even more home. His third was technically due next month—deadlines were sometimes more hard suggestions than anything else—and then he’d get another big payment. Enough to float his mom and himself for a year, maybe, but he wouldn’t get that until at least eight weeks from now. There are no emergencies in publishing, his agent once told him. Especially when it comes to paying the talent. It was supposed to be his breakout book. That’s what they said about the last one, too.
She set the coffee in front of him, along with a carton of milk and their sugar bowl. The crappy one he’d made for her in fourth grade, the sides all malformed, the shape as awkward as a child’s first steps. He took his coffee black but poured in some sugar and milk anyway. He drank it, not using a spoon to first mix the ingredients, and his mom smiled softly at him.
“A friend of Denny’s stopped by earlier. A friend from work.”
Jeremy kept his face cool as his blood pressure spiked, his face feeling flush. “Yeah?”
“Said he was sorry to barge in, but that Denny had some important work documents? Thought maybe they were in the house because they weren’t at his apartment downtown.”
His pulse ratcheted up like he was mid-sprint. “Did you let him in?”
She shook her head. “I told him you’d take care of it. He left a number.”
“What’d he look like?”
White, tall, shaved head. Tattoo on his neck, some kind of eagle. Local accent. She did her impression, inflating her own, counting one two tree, knowing it’d make him smile. It did. The man had left a card with a number on it for what Jeremy assumed was a dummy company.
Jeremy finished his coffee and told her he was going for a drive, asked if she needed anything. Her lip quivered and she said no. He told her he loved her and gave her a hug and, in his most nonchalant way, mentioned to lock the door after he left.
Jeremy drove past the park near their house where he’d taught Denny to throw a baseball. Denny hadn’t been altogether that athletic, but he tried, for Jeremy’s sake. Jeremy was the jock. Denny was the brain. Was supposed to be, anyway. Then Jeremy did what some jocks do, got in trouble, but got out of it by becoming a grunt who held a gun and followed orders. It had never occurred to Jeremy that his younger brother was the one in any real danger.
He parked the car and sat on a bench in the cool December air, staring at the baseball diamond, glinting under a light patch of snow from that morning’s storm. It had fallen as they’d lowered Denny’s casket, which Jeremy thought was a bit heavy-handed of God. His editor would’ve called it a little too emotionally manipulative. At least it wasn’t rain. The casket had been closed at the wake. They’d identified Denny by a tattoo on his lower back, one of the few parts of his body that hadn’t been mutilated during the torture. No fingers left to check for fingerprints. No teeth for dental records. No skin left on his face because someone had burned it all off.
Which hadn’t made sense. If Denny’d been tortured, he would’ve given up the backpack. Nobody lasts under torture. Nobody.
He knew that last detail for a fact.
A polite, nondescript white car parked on the street behind him and a man lumbered out. He wore a thick blue jacket and slacks and walked slowly and sat next to Denny on the bench. They didn’t greet each other, instead they just sat in the silence of the late night cold.
“Sorry about Denny,” the man finally said, his words accentuated by the puffs from the cool air. His name was Rusty—Rust—and he was a cop now, a detective, but about eight years ago they’d been together in the shit. Jeremy had been the man’s sergeant and had saved Rust’s ass more than a few times. He’d called after his encounter with Not-Katie. Asked his old compadre to meet. And to bring a few things.
“Did you get it?” he asked Rust.
The man’s face had grown softer around the edges. Too many donuts and fast food lunches had removed the leanness of the desert. His eyes less haunted, at least.
“Not sure you want it,” he said. “This doesn’t end well for anyone.”
“Did you get it or not?”
Rust stared at him and then slipped his hand into his jacket and pulled out a manila envelope. As he passed it over, Rust held onto it, looking intently into Jeremy’s eyes.
“We can’t prove any of this,” he said. “It’s all circumstantial, Jer. These may not even be the guys who did it.”
“Are they bad men?”
Rust didn’t hesitate. “Among the worst, yes. God yes.”
“Then does it matter?”
Rust let the folder go. Inside the backgrounds of a handful of men. All white. Long histories of violence. Most had done time. All were assumed to be working for an intermediary of the cartels down Mexico way. Funny, for a group of assholes who thought their race was superior to all others. But these were homegrown bad guys, from the city’s northwest side, living among the cops and firefighters and civil servants.
One man, under the identifying characteristics, had three words listed: Eagle tattoo, neck.
“I need something else,” Jeremy asked, closing the folder.
Rust shook his head. “I know what you want. So let me get it out of the way.”
“You’re saying no.”
“Yeah, no. I won’t get you one. I’m sorry, Sarge.”
A pause. “Then I’ll find someone who’s going to say yes.”
“You sure you want to go this route?” he asked. “I mean, you’re a civilian now. Let us handle this.”
Jeremy reflexively grasped his leg with his left hand, squeezing, letting the tension drain, calming himself. “You have a single actual lead? Any evidence you can follow-up on? Anything that leads to a conviction?”
Rust opened his mouth to speak then turned back toward the baseball diamond. His breath rolled out of his lips like smoke from a sleeping dragon. “Let us do our jobs. Let us do this the right way.”
“You going to stop me?”
Across the state line in Indiana, Jeremy found a convenient swap meet where you could buy many things without needing to notify state or federal authorities. It was a loophole, long reviled by his city of birth. The reason for all the violence, city officials maintained. They never seemed to instead blame the crushing poverty and lack of opportunity. Because that would require some self-reflection. That would require hard fucking work to fix. And if things remained broken, well. That gave them potential campaign promises they’d never keep.
He used some of Denny’s cash. The weight was good, it was well-oiled, came with an extended clip. He also picked up a suppressor, which cost more than the gun. The man who sold it wore a 1 Percenters patch on a denim jacket and had a Ron Paul 2008 sticker emblazoned on his cheap foldable table. He gave Jeremy a short salute as he walked away. Happy hunting, the man said.
That was the idea.
Union Station wasn’t busy the next morning and Not-Katie was on time. They met in the Great Hall, the grand ceiling a hundred feet overhead. She sat beside him in one of the massive wooden pews. He felt like they were at church, like he needed to genuflect or confess. An Amish family walked past, father with the neck beard, wife with the bonnet, kids and parents in their old-timey clothes. Jeremy wondered what the hardest problems in their lives were.
“Five hundred,” Not-Katie said. “Best I can do.”
He winced reflexively. “Not enough.”
She cleared her throat. “That’s split two ways, mind you.”
“Like I said, not enough.”
“Take it or leave it.”
After a breath, he took it. She explained how the deal would go down. He shook his head.
“I’m coming with you,” he told her.
“No way. They don’t know you.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight with the goods.”
Not-Katie smiled at that, ran a finger across his chin, scratching his beard with her deep red fingernails. “Don’t trust me?”
“Would you?”
“Smart.” She pulled her hand back. “Where’d you stash it?”
“Somewhere safe.” He explained his plan to her, mostly. She listened intently and her eyebrows raised like she was surprised.
“That’s actually better than what I had in mind,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’ll get it set up.”
“I’d rather be more involved.”
“Suit yourself.” Not-Katie smirked and stood up. “You’re a fucking writer. What do you know about this shit?”
The man got up late, like many men in his profession. He walked to his car wearing a leather jacket, black wool knit hat, jeans and work boots. Jeremy creeped up behind him, shoved the Indiana-purchased Beretta in his back.
“Hey Francis,” he said. “You’re going to be late to your appointments today.”
The man turned his head slightly, just enough that Jeremy could make out the eagle neck tattoo.
“Are we acquainted?” Francis asked. His voice was focused, relaxed. Only his eyes were tense, narrowed like a lion ready to pounce.
“You knew my brother. Denny.”
Francis thought for a moment. “Name doesn’t ring a bell, my friend.”
“Sure it does,” Jeremy said, gesturing with his head. “Get in your car.”
Jeremy had Francis drive southeast, the Beretta pointed at him from the passenger seat. Francis remained cool the entire time, like he was showing a friend around town. Over here’s a great brunch spot, he might say. And this place has the best vegan tacos. This here’s the spot we dropped your little brother’s body after torturing him beyond recognition. Francis kept his eyes front, didn’t ask any questions. Whatever happened would happen.
“You’re not covering your face,” Francis finally said at a long red light.
“You’re observant.”
“Means you don’t mind me seeing what you look like.”
Jeremy didn’t respond immediately, getting the implication. He told Francis to park on a side street near the Lincoln Park Zoo. Fancy part of town, where well-to-do people walked past in their Canada Goose jackets and heavy fleeces.
“Got a few questions for you, Francis. I’ll know if you’re lying. It’s kind of a skill I have. And if you lie, I shoot you in the knees. Which I heard hurts like a bitch.”
“You know,” Francis said, “I’ve heard the very same.”
“You tell the truth, you won’t have to find out.”
“Ask away, my friend.”
Jeremy waited a beat. “Did you torture Denny or did someone else?”
Francis was quiet, weighing his options. Then he said, “Someone else. But I was there in what one might call a managerial capacity.”
Jeremy reminded himself to stay cool and keep good trigger discipline. “What were you looking for?”
“Someone ripped us off. Stole a big shipment of ours.” He looked at Jeremy. “Maybe you’ve seen it?”
“Eyes front. How did you get ripped off?”
“Killed two of our couriers while they were coming back from the buy in Wisconsin. Shot dead at a podunk gas station. Real pro shit.”
“How much was it worth?”
He held up a hand, wiggled it slightly in the air. “A little over a million. But that’s wholesale. To us, on the street, three or four times that.”
“Big shipment.”
“That a question?”
“No,” Jeremy said. “Why’d you think it was Denny?”
Francis shrugged. “Got a tip. Found a bit of the product at his apartment in the South Loop. Not all, but enough.”
None of this made sense, but Jeremy pretended like it did, nodding.
“Who gave you the tip?”
He smiled. “It was anonymous. A concerned citizen.”
Jeremy pointed the gun toward Francis’s knee.
“I swear,” Francis said. “Someone sent a message to one of our guys on Telegram, all encrypted and shit. Told us to check the kid out.” He coughed into his hand. “We’ve got a lot of people who believe in the cause, brother.”
He was telling the truth. “What did Denny tell you?”
“That he didn’t have it. Didn’t know who did. That he wasn’t involved. Had no clue how the shit ended up at his condo.”
“Did you believe him?”
Francis nodded. “Eventually, yeah. It gets to a point where they don’t lie anymore.” Francis looked away from the gun and into Jeremy’s eyes. “You said you were his brother?”
“Still am.”
“He mentioned you. At the end.”
Something stirred in Jeremy. “Yeah?”
Francis nodded. “Said you’d come for us all. Said you’d kill everyone. That you used to be some kind of badass. A Marine super soldier mother fucker.”
“Army,” Jeremy said, correcting him. “Army super soldier mother fucker. Did you believe him?”
“I believed he believed what he was saying. So.” He looked at the gun. “Are you?”
“An Army super soldier mother fucker? I dunno. Maybe not anymore.”
Francis shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean that.”
“Am I going to kill you, is that your question?”
“Yeah.”
Jeremy didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled out his phone, showed a photo of Not-Katie he’d secretly taken of her when she came into Union Station. “You know her?”
Francis leaned forward, squinted. “Maybe.”
Jeremy pulled back the gun’s hammer and pointed it toward the man right knee. He enunciated each word: “Do you know her?”
“Yeah.”
“Tell me about her.”
He did. Jeremy listened.
“So.” Francis said, folding his hands across his chest. “Should I make my peace with God or what?”
Jeremy stared at him, holding the gun, his trigger discipline gone to shit. His hand so steady you could’ve built a house of cards on it.
They met at Steve’s Grill, a 24-hour dive west of the Loop, where the waitresses were more likely to yell at you than serve you. Jeremy’s idea. Big windows. A back exit. He and Not-Katie sat across from each other in a back booth as the sun set. She told him she’d worked with these guys before. They were trustworthy. As if on cue, a man walked in. He wore a blue European cut business suit, custom brown shoes. Dark hair with specks of gray, clean shaven. He sat next to Not-Katie and inclined his head as an introduction. She then nodded to Jeremy, as if saying this is the guy.
He carried an Armani weekender duffel bag. He set it between his feet and pushed it across to Jeremy, who reached down and unzipped it. Stacks of hundreds inside. Jeremy flipped through a few. They were legit. Seemed the right size for a quarter million. But he would have to go on faith.
“You got a name?” Jeremy asked.
“I do not,” the man said. He had a slight accent. Russian, Jeremy guessed.
“Then I’ll call you Ivan.”
The well-dressed man—Ivan—shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever floats your boat.”
Jeremy took a key out of his pocket and slid it across the table. Union Station locker 442. Near track 18. Ivan studied the key and then waved toward someone outside. A second man, similarly dressed but much younger with a thin mustache, came in and took the key. The man said something in a Slavic language and then Mustache left with the key.
“Now we wait,” Ivan said, leaning back in the booth. “And if all goes well, you get the other half.”
“It will,” Jeremy reminded Ivan, maybe himself too. “And if you don’t come through with the other half, you don’t leave here at all.”
Ivan smiled. His teeth were the whitest Jeremy had ever seen. “Such is the cost of business, my friend.”
All three sat in silence for five minutes. Ivan ordered a coffee and then made a face while he drank it. Not up to his usual standards. Not-Katie’s fingers fidgeted on the table, her red nails reflecting the restaurant’s harsh overhead lighting. Ivan’s phone buzzed and he answered it and winced, his face turning grave.
“He said the key doesn’t work.”
Jeremy stared into the man. “Tell him to try it again.”
Ivan spoke into the phone in his consonant-rich home language while eyeing Jeremy. He paused and nodded before hanging up.
“It appears to have worked.”
“Good to know.”
Ivan wiped his mouth with a napkin. “It’ll be a few more moments before we know for sure we have what you say we should have.”
“Of course,” Not-Katie said, speaking for the first time.
Ivan smiled without it reaching his eyes, then he looked out the window and gave a nod. The minutes crawled like a drunk at last call, the group tense before Ivan’s phone buzzed again. He looked at the screen and typed something before putting it away. Then a third man in a suit with a shaved head came in with another duffel bag. Except after he set it on the ground next to Not-Katie, he moved into the booth behind them.
“My colleague,” Ivan said, “is currently pointing a firearm at your back.”
Jeremy looked at Not-Katie’s face with alarm, expecting the same. Instead, she had a smirk, a tiny dimple he’d never seen before appearing on her left cheek.
“I told you not to trust me,” she said. “Now, I assume you came armed. So. If you’ll politely drop the piece into my hand, I think we can be done here.”
“This is bullshit,” Jeremy said, hesitating. “You know I’ll find you.”
Not-Katie nodded toward the bald man behind him. “That’s what he’s here for. To make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“You bitch.”
Katie chuckled lightly. “Pretty much, yeah. Bitch with half a million.”
Ivan put his hands up in a what can ya do gesture. “It’s just business. No hard feelings.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Right. Hard to have any if I’m dead.”
“We all have to die someday, my friend,” Ivan said. “It is what it is.”
They sat there until a massive black Escalade pulled up outside. Ivan got up and lifted the Armani bag. Not-Katie picked up the second duffel. She peered at Jeremy. Like she pitied him.
Jeremy fumed. “Just answer me one thing. I think you owe me that much.”
She studied him. “Do I?”
“Did you set up my brother on purpose or on accident?”
Not-Katie cocked her head. “I don’t have accidents.”
Jeremy tried keeping his voice calm as his fury rose. “And you hid the backpack in my mother’s house?”
She let out a small sigh. “Initially I was going to just tell those Nazi fucks where it all was for a fee. But then I called the phone, just to make sure your snooping mom hadn’t found it. And you answered. And I came up with a better plan.”
“Not better for me.”
“No, it wasn’t,” she said. She reached over and lightly patted his hand. “Goodbye, Jeremy.”
Not-Katie and Ivan walked out the door. Jeremy tracked them as they got into an SUV. Then the bald man—Jeremy decided to call him Roscoe—behind Jeremy finally spoke, his accent thick. “We go to other car.”
It happened quickly.
Jeremy walked out of the restaurant, his new friend Roscoe keeping the gun hidden underneath his suit coat, pointed at Jeremy’s back. The man stayed back far enough so Jeremy couldn’t spin around and snatch the gun. A real pro. Jeremy’s stomach was doing enough gymnastics to win a bronze at the Olympics.
Roscoe directed Jeremy to a nearby car, one he assumed had been stolen and had its plates changed. Another man with a heavy scar on his face was in the driver’s seat. Jeremy was about to open the passenger door when he heard a loud whistle.
A few cars down, the SUV Not-Katie got into was idling. Ivan’s suited arm came out of the passenger door, waving at them. Something was said in another language.
“He want to tell you something,” Roscoe said. “He say I stay here. You run? I shoot.”
“Okay.”
“And I’m good shot. Okay?”
Jeremy didn’t doubt him. “Okay.”
Jeremy crept forward, stopping at the SUV’s passenger side. Ivan had a Glock pointed at his perfect little haircut. The holder of the gun, the driver, was wearing a black denim jacket. SS bolts tattooed on his neck. He gave Jeremy a smile and jerked his head toward the backseat.
Another tinted window rolled down. Sitting behind the driver, holding a Sig Sauer on Not-Katie, was Francis. In the third back seat were two other pale-skinned men, similarly dressed in all-black garb.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Francis said.
“You get your stuff back?” Jeremy asked Francis.
The man nodded and scratched the eagle on his neck. “This the bitch who stole from us?”
“Yup.” Jeremy said. “And she set me up.”
“Fuck you both,” Not-Katie said, then looked at Francis. “Whatever this guy told you is a lie.”
Francis grinned. He spoke with a cheesy fake German accent. “Zat may be true, fraulein. But vee have vays of making you talk.” The guy sitting in the driver’s seat laughed at the joke.
Ivan did not look well, sweat already dripping down his face. Looked like he might throw up all over his nice suit. Francis told Ivan to say what he needed to say to not die just this second, and Ivan looked out the window and yelled back at the other car in English. “I’m letting him go with the money.” He pointed at Jeremy.
Roscoe, standing by the rear car, yelled something back in that Slavic language, an incredulous look on his face.
The driver pulled the hammer back on the gun and pushed it into Ivan’s head. “Convince him,” Fracis said. “Last chance.”
Ivan sighed, then stuck his head out the window and said something in his native tongue, sounding almost annoyed. Jeremy looked back at Roscoe, who eventually shrugged and got into the car. After flipping a U-turn, they drove away.
Not-Katie had kept up a strong front until now, but her resolve broke. Her tears flowed. “He made me do it,” she said, pointing to Ivan in the front. “It was all his idea.”
Francis ignored her and Ivan and to give Jeremy the duffel bags. They handed each out their car windows. Ivan held onto his for just long enough to stare Jeremy in the eyes. “It is what it is,” Jeremy told him. Ivan let go.
Jeremy turned back to Francis and said, “Y’know, I thought you might keep the money.”
Francis shook his head. “A deal’s a deal. We square on this?”
Jeremy gestured with his head toward Not-Katie. “She’s the one who caused everything.”
“We’ll make sure she atones for her sins.” Francis leaned across Not-Katie and handed Jeremy his Beretta. “Thought you might want this back. Heard this neighborhood’s got some bad mother fuckers around.”
“But you’re just a fucking writer!” Not-Katie shouted. One of the men behind her quickly covered her mouth with duct tape, muffling her screams. Another put a black bag over her head.
Francis laughed and said, “He actually used to be some kind of badass.”
The tinted windows rolled up and then the SUV drove off, heading toward the interstate. And then the far northwest side, Jeremy presumed, to a warehouse with a waiting blowtorch.
Mom was at the kitchen table, her checkbook out as she tabulated bills on a sheet of paper. It was late. He walked in and sat across from her. He could tell she’d been crying. “Busy day?”
“Something like that, Ma.”
“Catching up with your old friends?”
“A few.” He reached over and grabbed her hand. “You know I love you, right?”
She cocked her head, squinting her eyes. “Of course I do. Why? What’s the matter?”
“I’m just sorry I couldn’t help out as much. Maybe if I was around more, this wouldn’t have happened to Denny.”
His let out a long breath. Stayed strong. “What happened to your brother—what someone did to your brother—is not your fault. He loved you, too. He’d be happy to know you were here. Helping your mama.” She squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back. “There’s something else. I didn’t want to tell you. Because of what happened to Denny.”
“What’s that, hon?” Her face grew concerned. “Are you okay?”
Jeremy massaged her knuckles with his thumb. He smiled, thinking about the check he got from the Horseshoe Casino across the state line. How he brought in fifty grand cash, lost about five, then cashed out the chips. He’d have to report it on his taxes, and he could maybe only do it once or twice at a few other places, but he’d be able to use the money to pay some of his mom’s bills. At least until he figured out how to clean the rest of the cash. And, of course, there was the money from his publisher. Eventually.
“We’re going to be okay, Ma.”
He slid the check from the casino across the table. She eyed it for a second, but instead of joy, her face turned sour, like she smelled rotting eggs.
She pushed it back. “Does this have anything to do with Denny?”
Jeremy hesitated, only for a second. “I just had a good night at the casino.”
But it was enough—she knew. He wasn’t the only one in the family good at catching lies.
She sucked in air, her eyes already watering. “Don’t bullshit me, Jer. Don’t you bullshit me. Denny did enough of that.”
Her words hit him like a strong slap.
“No bullshit, Ma. Not anymore.”
After a breath, Jeremy used one of the free bank pens sticking out from a nearby mug and signed the back of the casino check. He got up and stood, leaning into her, holding her head, and she gripped his hand tight, like she’d never let go, as he gently leaned down to kiss just above her ear, smelling her shampoo’s sweetness.
He’d had enough of being a badass. He was all in on the quiet life. Jeremy then quietly went upstairs to edit his book. It was due next month.
Andy Boyle is a Chicago-based writer whose work has been in Esquire, NPR, NBC News, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe and more. As a journalist, his work was cited in the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. The author of two non-fiction books with Penguin Random House, his short fiction has appeared in Philadelphia Stories, Rock and a Hard Place Magazine and Uncharted Magazine. He is also the winner of the 2023 Mystery Writers of America Midwest’s Hugh Holton award. Find him on Bluesky or at andyboyle.com.
Well done! Favorite image: “patrons who looked like they were cosplaying Tom Waits.”
This works well. Nicely done