Jimmy and I go way back. Well, about twelve months. Last time I saw him, he was not especially happy with me, and I was not especially happy with him. The difference is, I’m not a mobster, so the fact that I’m still alive means I must’ve come out on top. Either that or he forgot about me. Which is possibly the case. Which is why I’m not looking forward to visiting him again.
I can tell by the shiny new limo outside his place that he’s doing really well for himself. He must have learned how to do his job! Golly, it’s making me misty.
We head in the front door of his restaurant and bump into a large Associate with a look of serious contemplation on his face. Probably trying to memorize the alphabet. Poor guy.
“Looking for Jimmy,” I say. “Tell him Gare Marx says hi.”
The Associate nods, heads off into the back. Anzia is studying the paintings on the walls. They’re renaissance-looking things. By way of Hong Kong. By way of Wal-Mart. As interpreted by an autistic cabbage. Oops, sorry! Vegetables again.
“Gare Marx!” calls Jimmy, swaggering out of the back. His leather jacket is as tacky as ever, and his hair is so thick with grease you could probably paint the entire room a lovely shade of Holy Fucking Gross with it. I decline to wave to him.
“Hey Jimmy,” I say. “How’s life treating you?”
“Not so bad,” he smiles. “Not so bad.”
“That’s good!” I smile. “I was afraid you might be angry about—”
He knocks me clean off my feet with a pair of BBQ tongs. And let me tell you: that ain’t easy. I have little claw marks in my cheek now. I land on my back, stunned while he leans over me, pushing the tongs into my jugular.
“You little shitface!” he spits. “How dare come back here? After what you did?”
“What did you do?” asks Anzia.
“What did he do?” laughs Jimmy, and his Associate laughs too, because he’s an obedient fucking parrot. “What did he do?”
“Can’t we just forget the past and—”
He slaps me around with the tongs again. It’s painful and humiliating, all at once!
“Your boyfriend here stole my money.”
Anzia gasps, looks at me.
“Is he the bomb shelter man?”
“No,” I sigh. “He’s the greasemonkey.”
“Shut it, dick!” yells Jimmy, and stomps on my chest with his foot. The Associate laughs some more just because he can. Anzia doesn’t make any move to help me, which is probably to be expected, but it makes me hate her doe-eyed “golly gee” attitude all the more obnoxious.
“I’ve been compounding interest,” Jimmy scowls. “On the thirty grand. You know how much it comes out to? I’ll tell you! One hundred and twenty grand!”
I roll my eyes.
“In your dreams, garlic boy,” I say. “You know the deal.”
“I know the deal?” he laughs. “So you don’t know?”
This smells like trouble.
“Know what?” I ask.
He whacks me across the face again.
“Your cop friend, detective Brunch, he left the country with all the cash you bribed him and his partner with. Took it all, man. All.” Shit. “So your leverage? It just went away.”
Yeah, that’s what I figured.
The Associate hauls me to my feet, slams me into the bar. A few ribs go pop, which is ten kinds of fun. I can see they serve Pival’s here too, which only serves to confirm my impression of Jimmy as a person. I get lifted up suddenly, turned around so I’m facing Jimmy again. He grabs my nose with the tongs.
“You shoulda stayed away,” he says. “I was going to let it go. I’m magnetic like that.”
“Jesus, Jimmy, it’s magnanimous.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you more! You think I wanted to come back here? I want to see you as much as I want to have a Liquid-plumr enema via a firehose. Hey, speaking of which, take a look in my pocket—”
He smacks me again. No dice. I wanted to see him cry.
“Jimmy,” I say, gasping for breath, “all I need to know is whether you’re into art. Stealing art, that is. I don’t think you are, but I have to ask.”
Jimmy starts laughing the way he probably does when the hooker tells him she can’t service what she can’t see.
“Art?” he cackles. “What do I know about art?”
“Well, I figured, but—”
“I mean what kinda art? Nudey stuff?”
“No, it’s like… jewels and shit.”
He almost falls over laughing. The Associate does too, which gives me a moment of rest before he remembers what his role in life is, and my neck is squeezed again.
“I don’t do jewels, man,” says Jimmy. “I’m busy enough as it is. You know how many people I got working for me?”
“Including the team that greases your hair?”
Oops, punched again.
“Wait!” squeals Anzia. “Please! Leave him alone!”
Jimmy looks at Anzia, a smirk on his face. He grabs her by the cheeks, gets real close. She starts trembling, watching him in utter terror. If she knew him, she wouldn’t be acting like that.
“You know what the great part of my new deal is?” Jimmy asks me. “I have Turner on my payroll now. So I can kill anyone I like and no one’s ever going to get mad about it.”
“That’s a swell deal, Jimmy. You’re a real man.”
He snaps his fingers, motions to the back.
“Throw ‘em in the limo,” he says. “Bring ‘em outside town and kill ‘em. Do it fast, too. I wanna watch American Idol, and I dunno how to work the remote.”
Anzia whimpers as she’s thrown out the back door. I take one last look back at Jimmy, and he waves a little “toodle-loo” at me.
“Have fun dyin’!” he calls, and I’m thrown out into the cold, dark night. To die. Again.
