The Wrong Man Read Free

were world class thugs. He had learned the virtue of taciturnity. Unless he had something to say he tended to just listen to you and respond in clipped, monotone phrases, single syllables, or grunts.  
    Today he watched me as I entered the store, kept his eyes on me until I was behind the counter with him, and said, “You heard about your buddy, Rich?”
    “No.”
    “He got killed—almost. You better watch your back.”
    “ Me ?” I felt my eyes go wide.
    “I’m just telling you what I heard. They say you guys stole some shit. ” He put special emphasis on the word shit , as if he found this street jargon amusing. He had a way of speaking that made it seem he was always leading up to a punch line.
    I started to say no , but he said, “Know that dude, Owen Ferguson?”
    I said, “Yeah.”
    “He fucked your buddy up is what I heard. Blackjacked him. Rich is in the hospital ’n’ shit.”    
    “This has got nothing to do with me!”
    “I’m just telling you what I heard,” Sully repeated. “You guys gotta give ’em money or something. I don’t know. Owen lives over there,” he pointed to Rancho Bonita, the Mexican restaurant across the parking lot, “and he’s probably gonna come over and see you tonight. You might want to be ready. That’s all I’m saying.”
    I was trying to grasp it, my eyes losing focus as I stared at the diamond and gem-colored bottles of hard liquor in their neat shining rows on the far wall, watching them through the dust specks swimming in a ray of afternoon sunlight. “Hey,” I said, looking back at Sully. “Thanks for taking the trouble to warn me, man. I appreciate it.”
    He looked at me for a moment, thinking, and when he spoke, his casual mockery of everything in the world wasn’t present for once. “Just be aware, dude,” he said. “These are the gangsters you don’t fuck with around here. What I heard is, Owen was trying to kill your buddy, and it didn’t work out, but Rich has got it coming sooner or later. And you’re next on the list. All kinds of people saw you guys at that party, saw you leaving, and you got named. I’m just warning you, dude. You’re in it.”
    I nodded again. “Okay. Thanks, man. Seriously.” It seemed I couldn’t quite fill my lungs. You live like a maniac through your twenties, do so many idiotic things for so long, and nothing much ever happens. And here, now, I didn’t want to take any chances in my life, just wanted to get the fuck home and work my job and go to my classes, and the worst kind of trouble had latched itself onto me. It was like winning some lottery of shit luck.
    Sully had his jacket draped over his arm now and was fitting the earbuds of his iPod into the sides of his head. We didn’t close out the register between shifts and he simply stepped away from it as the door buzzer sounded and a customer came in. I had to step up to my post behind the register and as I did Sully said, “Adios, Sam,” and sauntered out.
    By the time I closed the cash drawer and thanked the customer, Sully’s VW was gliding away through the parking lot. I was alone, wondering what the fuck I was supposed to do now.
     
    I wouldn’t claim to understand gang politics in this town any more than a man outside a zoo cage can understand how hyenas choose their alliances and organize their hierarchy. All I know is the Mexicans who shoot and beat on each other and operate Blackmer’s drug trade aren’t anything like the East Coast gangsters you see on TV. The organized criminals in this town will never run bookkeeping operations or protection rackets or have the mayor or chief of police on their payroll. They have only one consistent trait that I’ve ever observed: massive, steel balls. Their only rule of conduct is Don’t go out like a pussy . They don’t give a second thought to trading blows on the sidewalk downtown with complete strangers who wear the wrong color or say the wrong word in passing. They keep pit bulls and behave