26

IRIS AND JOEY

Wednesday, September 27, 1989

On Wednesday evening Iris and Joey settled down on their tiny patio, which was just big enough for two wicker chairs with a small table between. Because their apartment building was set back from the street, traffic noise didn’t bother them. The lighted businesses stretching off from the intersection made the scene as changeable and engaging as a wood blaze crackling in a fireplace. They never tired of watching the passing cars, the pedestrians, neighbors walking their dogs. Joey topped up her wineglass and paused to light a cigarette for himself and then one for her.

When the phone rang, he leaned back and snagged the handset from the planning center. The cord had been stretched so often, the coil had flattened in places. “Hello?”

He sat up. “Oh hey, how’re you?” he said.

As Joey listened, he got up and walked around his chair to the patio door. He carried the long phone cord with him so it wouldn’t get hung up on anything. He made a point of maintaining eye contact with Iris, who was trying to gauge the caller’s identity from Joey’s responses. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and pantomimed “Fritz” so she’d know who he was talking to.

Iris could hear Fritz’s miniature voice, like an agitated buzzing sound, but not what he was saying.

Joey’s focus sharpened. “Really?”

It was clear Fritz was excited. She could tell by the pitch of his voice and the rapidity with which he was speaking. She heard him crow once, completely smitten with himself.

Joey said, “I don’t believe it. You’ve got to be kidding. Tell me again and slow down, for god’s sake.”

Joey was doing the big rolling-arm gesture, urging her to join him. Iris stubbed out her cigarette, jumped up, and eased into the living room, where she crossed to Joey’s side. Apparently, Fritz was repeating the news, whatever it was. Iris tilted her ear toward the receiver just as Joey said, “How’d you get your hands on twenty-five thousand bucks?”

“I didn’t say I had the money. I have a plan for getting it,” Fritz said. “It’s foolproof. Well, almost.”

“Oh, shit. What plan?”

“Don’t worry about it. Not an issue. I got it wired.”

“Is this legal or illegal?”

“Let’s say it’s semi-legal. Close enough at any rate,” Fritz said. “No concealed weapons are involved.” He laughed at himself, enjoying the momentary superiority of knowing more than Joey did.

Joey put a hand over the mouthpiece and he and Iris exchanged a look of disbelief. Iris rolled her eyes and opened her hands as if to say, What now? Joey turned his attention back to Fritz. “What happens when your parents find out?”

“They won’t until it’s too late. Once the money’s paid, that’s the end of it, right? So how can they complain?”

Joey ran a hand across the top of his head. “Dude, you’re scaring me.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m just looking after you, Fritz, so hear me out. Let’s say you have the cash in hand, now what?”

“That’s why I’m calling. He left a message on the answering machine. He’s picking me up at the corner of State and Aguilar. Noon on Friday. I should be set by then.”

“I can’t believe you’d agree to get in a car with some faceless unidentified stranger.”

“I didn’t agree to anything,” Fritz said. “I didn’t even talk to him. Those were the instructions he left.”

Joey gave Iris the thumbs-up, both of them amazed that the plan was working so well. “What if he turns around and holds you for ransom or something like that? You could be in way over your head.”

“Don’t be such a dick. If he looks like a badass, I’ll toss the money in the front seat and take off on foot. What’s he going to do, run me down?”

“But once you’ve seen him, doesn’t that make you a liability? He can’t afford to have you on the loose. You talk to the cops, look at mug shots . . .”

Hesitantly, Fritz said, “I’m thinking this could be Austin.”

“Really. Well, that’s a changeup. What brings you to that conclusion?”

“He said, ‘This is a voice from your past . . .’ Almost has to be him, don’t you think?”

“I thought you were convinced he was dead.”

“I said if he was alive, he’d be in touch. Didn’t I say that? Well, now he’s been in touch.”

“You’re saying Austin’s behind this whole blackmail scheme,” Joey said, stating it as a fact instead of a question, curious to see if Fritz would confirm.

“Okay, yeah. I guess I am saying that.”

“I hate to remind you of this, but Austin swore he’d come back and kill anyone who blabbed about Sloan. That’s you, isn’t it?”

There was a moment of silence.

“Why would he come back to collect twenty-five grand and then kill me?”

“Why wouldn’t he? That gives him the best of both deals. You deliver the money and he takes you down. Mission accomplished.”

“Actually, that did cross my mind and it’s one of the reasons I called. I want you to come with me so the guy doesn’t get any ideas.”

“Me?”

“Like an insurance policy. It would keep things on the up-and-up.”

Iris got Joey’s attention and waved an index finger back and forth vigorously.

Joey said, “I’m not sure about this. It sounds risky.”

Fritz’s voice jumped half an octave. “What do you mean, you’re not sure? You said anything you could do to help. This is ‘help.’ This is what I need.”

“Why don’t you ask Bayard?”

“I guess I’ll have to call him if you won’t help. I was hoping you’d say yes.”

Joey said, “Let me see what Iris says. She’s out right now but I’ll talk to her as soon as she gets back. You’re at home?”

“Right. Call me as soon as possible. I’m counting on you, buddy.”

“Fine. In the meantime, see if you can talk Bayard into it.”

“Thanks a fuckin’ bunch. I should probably mention that Bayard doesn’t believe it’s Austin’s voice on the machine. He thinks it’s yours.”

“Well, that’s stupid on the face of it,” Joey said. “Where’d he get that idea?”

“I let him listen to the message.”

“Dude, you’re nuts. Why would I do that to you?”

“I don’t know, Joey. Why would you?”

“Yeah, right. Up yours. I’m done with this conversation.”

Once Joey hung up, he and Iris stared at each other, trying to absorb this unexpected turn of events.

Iris said, “So what’s this big hot scheme of his?”

“You heard the same thing I did. This is Fritz being coy for once. What a dork.”

Iris shook her head. “That message was a mistake,” she said. “You shouldn’t have set it up that way because now we’re stuck.”

“Wait a minute. So far we’ve threatened Fritz, but we haven’t done anything. Once we take the money, we’re guilty of grand theft or theft by deception or some damn thing.”

“That’s the point. The money is the point,” she said. “It’s like when a jury awards you . . . what’s it called? Damages. I’m entitled to compensation for the pain and suffering I’ve been through.”

“Forget pain and suffering. You were stoned. You don’t have a clue what went on.”

“Not so. You’re wrong. The tape brought it all back. What they did was humiliating.”

“Get off of that for a minute. Let’s stay in the here and now.”

“Would you shut up? You sound like a therapist. You forget we’re not ‘taking’ the money. He’s giving it to us.”

“But under duress. Extortion’s a crime.”

“Joey, we knew that from the get-go. Why worry about it now?”

“Okay. So we didn’t think it through.”

“Not ‘we,’ Joey. You didn’t think it through because you didn’t believe we’d succeed.”

“Hey, you didn’t either, so don’t put it all on me.”

“I don’t understand what you’re so worried about. We come up with a plan and it works. Why is that so hard to accept?”

“Because until now, we’ve always had an out. Just drop the whole thing and take a walk. No harm, no foul. This is the point of no return. If we pick him up on that corner, then he’ll know it’s us.”

“So what? Good news for him. He’s dealing with his pals instead of some tattoo-covered loser.”

“It doesn’t work that way. We’ve been lying through our teeth, pretending to be his friends while for all practical purposes, we’re robbing him at gunpoint. We can’t do this.”

Exasperated, Iris said, “Okay. Shit. We don’t pick him up and he never knows it’s us. What does that buy us?”

“He can give the money back. He can tell his parents it was all a big mistake.”

“And he corrected this big mistake by doing what?”

“I don’t know. He got the money. He went to the place where the guy said he’d pick him up and the guy’s a no-show. So Fritz brings the money back, every dollar accounted for, they put it back where it was, and that’s the last they hear of it. Extortionist never contacts them again. Problem solved.”

Iris blinked. Reluctantly, she said, “That’s actually not a bad idea.”

“It gives us an out and no one’s the wiser.”

“What about all the time and energy we put into this?”

“A pipe dream. Who cares? We had fun. Fantasy revenge without any consequences.”

She thought about it, tilting her head this way and that.

Joey said, “Please. Do this for me. We’re not crooks. We’re just a couple of lunkheads, harassing some twerp who did you wrong ten years ago. Now we lay it by and it’s done.”

Iris said, “Shit. I was ready to rock and roll.”

“We do this and we’ll be caught. I can feel it in my bones.”

She sighed. “All right. Crap. I agree. You were brilliant to come up with the idea of creating a phantom suspect. We’ll be out of it and that private investigator will be chasing her own tail. Good luck with that.”

“Fine, but you’re the one who has to call Fritz and tell him we can’t help.”

“Why me?”

“Because I told him you’d have the final word.”

“What am I supposed to say?”

“Shit, Iris. Be inventive. You’re a genius when it comes to ad-libbing.”

Grudgingly she picked up the handset. “You’re just saying that because you want to get laid.”

“Pretty much,” he said.