Gone in 60 seconds, p.2
Gone in 60 Seconds, page 2
"Well, well, well. What do you pay your pit crews—Oreos and gummy bears?"
Memphis looked up and acknowledged the remark with a strained smile. He finished wrapping a Band-Aid around a driver's cut finger and focused his attention on his visitor.
"Hello, Atley," Memphis said. "How's the leg?"
Atley cupped his bony hand around his right thigh, just above the knee. "Only hurts when I breathe. And when I drive six hours straight just to see you. What the hell are you doing, boy-o?"
Memphis raised his hands at his sides, palms up, and Atley took it all in: the blue sky, the old-time gas station (with Raines's name on the sign-Raines Auto), the little kart track, the kids.
"Woo-hoo! This is livin'," Atley concluded. Then he gave Memphis a hard, questioning look, as he would an impostor. "You been gone how long now?"
"Six years," Memphis reminded him, and because he and Atley had a history, he felt the need to show something for it. "Some of these kids are pretty good. See Billy over there? The one with the red helmet? We're taking him to the California Junior Invitational."
Atley nodded, but it was clear he measured things differently. "Six years of bake sales and bingo. How do you survive?"
It suddenly occurred to Memphis that Atley wasn't owed an explanation, that he probably wouldn't understand anyway. "You'd be surprised at how good it is, not to have to worry about a bullet in my back or a cop in my cupboard." That was enough. "Now, what are you doing here?"
"Is there someplace we can talk?"
"What about?" Memphis couldn't imagine anything in Atley Jackson's world that would matter to him anymore. But he was wrong.
"It's about your brother," Atley said, "and the deep shit he's in."
In the single-bay garage fronting the go-kart track Memphis pulled two root beers from an old glass-bottle vending machine, cracked the tops in the built-in opener, and handed one to Atley. The man took a pull and then turned and goof-walked to the pumps, whistling the Andy Griffith theme. The small-town atmosphere struck him as funny. He pulled a handle from the pump and said, Gomer Pyle-style, "Hey, Andy! Where's Aunt Bea and Opie hanging out at?"
Memphis just smiled and shook his head. Atley hung the pump up and returned to the garage bay, grinning. "Haw! Are you kidding me, man?"
"Tell me about Kip," Memphis said.
Atley quieted down, took another swig of root beer, reached inside his coat for a cigarette, then changed his mind. All of this was only meant to put off the final act of bringing Memphis the bad news.
"He took a job. And he fumbled it. Now he's jammed up. Jammed up bad."
"A job? What kind of job?"
"A boost," Atley told him. "A big boost."
"A boost?" Memphis's eyes narrowed. "What's Kip doing on a boost?"
"You're shittin', right? You don't know? Kip's become quite the little crew-runner since you left. He's been working a low-rent ring for two years now. You don't talk to your ma?"
Memphis felt knocked down. "It seems she neglected to mention it."
Atley shook his head. "The point is, Kip's been living the life. Only he's a wild child. Crazy. Makes our old behavior seem like altar boy time. But he fungoo'd this one so bad, folks around L.B. are already speakin' about him in the past tense."
"Who was the job for?" Memphis wondered if he might have some influence. Six years was a long time, but he still knew people.
"New guy. Brand new. Moved in a year ago. Raymond Calitri. They call him 'The Carpenter.' Running all the dark ponies in town. It's the full-on, 'Devil Came Down to Long Beach' trip, man. He's bad. Real bad."
"And this Calitri's after my brother?"
"Like stains on a mattress. And you should know: I work for him."
Memphis gave Atley the look he deserved for that.
"Hey—there weren't a lot of opportunities for retired car thieves on the gimp. He put me to work. But I gotta tell ya, Memphis ... this guy? He scares the shit outta even me."
Memphis nodded, fully understanding.
The joke around the shop at Long Beach's Exeter Salvage and Steel was that if you pissed into the hydraulic crusher when they were doing a Mercedes, you got Becks in cans, and even if it was just a joke, it said a lot about the power of the machine that inspired it.
The night of the same day that Atley went to Independence, the boys at Exeter were getting ready to do a Trans Am. It was after hours, but if you asked any of the crew, it was worth staying up for. This was going to be a unique crush. The vehicle's owner, Kip Raines, would be in the driver's seat, handcuffed to the wheel.
"Calitri!" Kip yelled through the bruises on his face. "We can work this out! Think about what the hell you're doing!"
Calitri, early fifties, wearing the kind of clothing you saw pictured in woodworking magazines— pressed, immaculate overalls, starch-white shirts-believed he knew what the hell he was doing, all right. He was applying to Kip the "no pain, no gain" principle that was the foundation of the Calitri empire—no pain for you, no gain for Calitri.
Kip's car was cradled in the blades of a fork-lift, poised over the crusher's ramming chamber. He nodded to the forklift operator, and the boom tilted the car in, blowing the airbags, pinning Kip to the seat.
"Gimme a second chance!" Kip screamed, muffled behind the airbags.
Calitri heard him. "Were it only that easy," he said quietly, and nodded again. The crusher motor squealed and the ram gave the roof columns a new set of elbows. The top collapsed and the firewall caved in, snapping the steering column. Kip's eyes widened in terror; desperately he tried to force the door open.
"Listen, Calitri!" he screamed.
Kip's terrified voice was drowned out by the sound of his car's steel panels undergoing reconfiguration in the crusher.
"Call me Ray," Calitri shouted over the noise, and raised his hand for the operator to stop. "Better yet, call me 'asshole,' because that's how you've treated me!" he yelled. Then he nodded, and the crusher stole another couple of cubic feet from the car's interior.
"Calitri!" Kip cried out.
Memphis and Atley came down from Independence in Atley's car and went around the city, picking up the 110 on the south side and taking that straight into Long Beach. When they had entered Long Beach proper, Atley made a call on his cell phone, then hung up, face grim.
"They have Kip right now," he said.
"Take me there," Memphis told him.
Atley steered the car through a maze of streets and alleys in the West Basin until they came to a vast yard of automobile carcasses. They pulled up to a salvage yard where a sign by the garage warned:
LOCK YOUR CAR OR IT MAY BE G0NE IN 60 SECONDS!
Atley parked, and Memphis followed him through the building to a three-thousand-square-foot, state-of-the-art woodworking shop—saws, drill presses, planers, a jointer, and a deep inventory of highgrade, quartersawn hardwoods and rare and endangered exotics: Brazilian kingwood, ebony, olivewood, pinkwood, teak, and pear. Chemicals were stored in neat cases against the back wall-jars, bottles, and cakes of glues, resins, oils, paints, stains, bleaches, waxes, varnishes, putties, strippers, thinners, and cleaners.
At one of the benches, a trio of young fops were flirting with a lovely blonde.
"Well, well," said one of the boys. "It's Atley, and he's brought a friend."
"Gentlemen," said another, introducing the girl, who was on his lap. "Say hello to Tami." Then to her, "Give us a minute, would you, love?" and she sidled off.
Passing close to Memphis, she said, "They're kind of like the Beatles."
Memphis failed to see the resemblance. They frisked him, and led the way to Raymond Calitri. "Hope you like cricket," one of the Fab Three said. "He's got a game on the telly right about now."
It was baseball. Calitri, priggish and smug, was tuned to the playoffs. A couple of bodyguards loitered nearby.
"Those two are Digger and Butz," Atley let Memphis know on the way in. Then he introduced Calitri and Memphis. "Raymond Calitri. Memphis Raines."
"I try" Calitri said to Memphis, without a hello, "try to be acclimated. To learn your ways. Appreciate your obsessions. But this baseball. It's so bleeding boring, isn't it? Nothing happens. Nothing at all. What's it all about?"
"It's a game of inches," Memphis said.
"Exactly. And who has time for inches?" Calitri said, and he flicked off the TV.
"Where's Kip?" Memphis said.
Calitri appraised Memphis with a sickly smile. "You were the best, Raines. They say after you left, auto theft in the South Bay went down forty-seven percent. That's impressive."
"Where's my brother?" Memphis asked again.
"Ah! Your brother—Kip." Calitri folded his arms and looked down, lost in thought for a moment. "I'm proud of these," he said softly, walking past Memphis to a display of woodworking projects. "The wagon-wheel planter. The doll-house. The drop-leaf movable server." He gently touched each item, caressing the exquisitely worked surfaces.
Then he went to a window that looked out on the scrapyard.
"Metal is cold," Calitri pronounced. "Cold and ugly. Wood is warm. Clean. Provided by nature. To see a piece of furniture take shape—is like watching a child grow...."
Memphis was unmoved. "I'm sure you're working your way to some kind of point. I'll wait right here."
Calitri blinked and smiled. He went to a desk and removed a manila envelope from the center drawer and handed it to Memphis, who opened it. The envelope contained a single sheet of paper, upon which someone had typed a list of fifty auto-mobiles.
"I need those fifty cars—five-zero—delivered to Long Beach Harbor, Pier Fourteen, by eight A.M., four days from now. I'll pay two hundred thousand dollars."
Memphis tossed the list down onto Calitri's desk. "I'm not interested. I'm just here for my brother."
"Indeed. Young Kip," Calitri said. "Young Kip came to me. Had good street credentials: the brother of the famous Memphis Raines. So two weeks ago, I hired him—and advanced him ten thousand dollars."
"Atley told me. If it's about the advance, I can understand your anger. The debt has to be settled. Memphis withdrew a tight stack of bills—ten thousand dollars—and placed it on Calitri's desk. "Ten grand from me to you."
"Were it only that easy" Calitri replied.
Memphis gave him a hard look. "I don't see the complication."
"I have four days to deliver fifty cars," Calitri repeated. "And I have no cars."
"Well, that's another problem,* Memphis said.
"It is another problem, isn't it?" Calitri said, glaring. "It's about me delivering fifty top-end California cars. Because I said I would. Because if I don't, my South American friend goes elsewhere. He buys them from someone else. And that is a humiliation. Because I'm the jackass who couldn't deliver." Calitri's expression turned fierce. "Am I a jackass? Do I look like a jackass?"
Memphis shrugged. "That's a judgment call I'm not comfortable making. Where—?"
Calitri threw the money in Memphis's face and growled, "I don't get off the toilet for ten thousand dollars!"
Atley stooped, wincing from the pain in his leg, and gathered up the bills, whereas Memphis's green eyes stayed fixed on Calitri, cold and furious.
"I'm retired," Memphis said.
"So said Muhammad Ali Three times," Calitri said.
"Where is my brother?"
Calitri went to a corner, where a tarp covered all but the front of a wooden box like a chest. "I made this, too. My first one. Brass extension handles, not plated. Silk coverings, not rayon, lined with spray green Lorraine crepe."
"Where is my brother?" Memphis repeated.
Calitri pulled the tarp off, revealing a mahogany casket.
"Don't worry," he said quickly. Memphis looked ready to pounce. "He's not in it. But at eight a.m. Friday morning, if that boat sets off without my fifty cars, he will be. Here, let me help you make up your mind." He turned and went to the door into the salvage yard, followed by Digger and Bute. Memphis and Atley went after them.
"It takes eighty thousand pounds of pressure to crush these cars," Calitri told them when they were all outside. It was power he clearly had at his disposal. Down aisles between stacks of flattened vehicles, Memphis followed Calitri and the goons. At one point, Calitri stopped, scooped a handful of steel shavings off the ground, showed Memphis, and explained what they were: "The end product." He dropped the steel shavings into Memphis's palm and turned away.
Memphis stared at the shavings. "Where is he?"
Finally they arrived at the crusher, waiting momentarily while a forklift rumbled onto the scene. It stopped a few yards away, and Calitri nodded at the driver. He switched on his headlights, illuminating the crusher with the half-flattened Trans Am still in the well, Kip handcuffed in the driver's seat.
"Kip!" Memphis called.
"Who's that?" came Kip's voice from inside the crusher.
"Memphis. You all right?"
Nothing for a few moments. Then Kip told him, "There's things I can't feel right now. Like my feet." Memphis stepped toward Calitri, and Calitri gave a quick nod, ordering the operator to give the ram some juice. It came alive and caved the car a foot more, bending metal, causing Kip to scream, and scaring Memphis off.
"I'm waiting for your decision," Calitri told him,
Memphis turned away, apparently considering the offer, then wheeled around suddenly and threw the steel shavings in Bute's face. The man staggered and Memphis snatched his gun, bringing it under Calitri's chin.
Then Digger drew his gun, making it a standoff.
"Memphis!" Atley yelled.
Memphis glared. "Back off!"
Calitri eyeballed Memphis's hand holding the gun to his throat and motioned for Digger to stand down. Memphis ferociously backed Calitri to the machine and Digger trained his gun on him, waiting for an opportunity.
"You won't do it," Calitri said to Memphis. "You're a car thief, not a killer."
"Was a thief, Calitri. Was!" Memphis corrected.
"You don't kill people like me, and you don't take your brother and run, because we'd find him. You don't go to the police because we have friends there, too. You do nothing except deal with me. I don't care how the fifty get onto my ship. I just care that they do. You decide."
They stared hatefully at one another. Then Calitri called Memphis's bluff. He looked to the crusher operator, who hit the power to the machine and took another bite into the Trans Am.
Kip howled, and Calitri was out of it now, let-ting things happen, wondering what would happen, frankly. He was a firm believer in the Fates—you exercised control where you could, figured the odds, prepared for known contingencies, and set yourself up always, always to have the advantage. But then you had to recognize the fact that—what did that bumper sticker say—Shit happens. It certainly did. It was happening right now to young Kip.
Your call, Memphis.
He dropped his gun. Calitri's men rushed him, and Calitri gave the order to stop the crusher. The others hardly noticed. Digger and Butz were preoccupied with punishing Memphis—Digger holding him for Butz, Butz taking his shame for losing his gun out on Memphis, punching him, enjoying the contact.
"Stop," Calitri ordered. "He's no good to me dead." Digger let him go.
Calitri unpocketed a folded square of paper, took it to Memphis, and opened it in front of him. The list of fifty cars. He held it out for Memphis to see, then let it flutter to the ground and walked off, trailed by the bodyguards.
"You gonna let the scumbag dog you out like that, Ray?" Butz complained. They were on their way back to the woodworking shop now.
"That 'scumbag' is the only one can get those fifty on our timetable," Calitri growled. "But once he does? We'll box his bones."
Fifty cars.
Atley dropped Memphis off in front of the small, New England-style, shingle
and clapboard guesthouse where Kip Raines lived on a hill overlooking the port. Memphis went up the walk, let himself into the living room, and sat down on the couch. The walls were postered with Kurt Cobain, Kobe Bryant, Pamela Anderson, and a glamour shot of a Lamborghini Espada being used as a sun deck for two nude girls.
Kip was in the kitchen, illuminated by cold light from the open fridge. He was wearing a T-shirt, leopard-skin Speedos, and fur-lined moon boots. He came into the living room carrying two beers.
"I heard you were pumping gas. Someplace up north," he said.
"Something like that," Memphis said.
"You're kind of cultivating a new look."
Memphis considered Kip's outfit but held his tongue. Then Kip offered him one of the beers, as an eye-opener apparently, since the day was just breaking.
"No thanks."
Kip took a pull from the bottle and went back into the kitchen with the other beer. He started to return it to the fridge, then wrapped it in a paper towel and used it as an ice pack against the bruises on his head. "You want somethin' to eat?" he called.
Memphis was up now, standing in the doorway between the two rooms. "You sure you're okay? Maybe you need a stitch."
"Nah. It's a scratch. Hungry, though." Kip limped to the fridge and peered inside. He put the cold-compress beer inside on a shelf that was bare of anything except more beer and a jar of olives.
"What've you got?" Memphis asked out of curiosity.
"I got olives," Kip said. "You like olives?" He spilled half the jar into a bowl, and they went back into the living room and sat down again. Kip put the olives where they both could reach, then popped one into his mouth and bit it. The juice stung his Up, then he chased it with beer and showed Memphis an appreciative nod.
"So what are you gonna do?" Memphis asked him, serious.
"About what?"
"About what?" He was a little stunned by Kip's reply.
"Calitri just wants to know I'm still on it. He needs reassurance. All these big swinging dicks do. No worries." The car crusher of a few hours ago was now a distant memory. He picked up another olive, but dropped it back into the bowl. His Up was still smarting. He'd forget that, too, in another minute. Memphis stared at him.
