The BOYS

Episode twenty

Curry returned Walter's call early Tuesday morning, while the Dog Pounder was chewing on shredded wheat with warm, sour milk. The fridge was definitely busted and, because it was more than three years old, the warranty had expired. There were repairmen... if you could make an appointment two months in advance... but for what they charged, he'd be better off buying a new unit. Fortunately, a lot of the steaks and shrimp in the freezer hadn't even defrosted yet, and wouldn't go bad for another day or so. They were another intangible that had entered into Walt's financial calculus, jotted down on one of the Halloween napkins on sale this week... black and orange, with cats and pumpkins and cheerful witches on broomsticks.

Missy was still in bed, if not asleep, behind Johnny's locked door. Scottie was already gone, the house still looked like something from "Cops" and he had to answer the phone when it rang, which he hated doing. Gloria screened his calls at work - his wife or boy screened them at home. But it was Curry, returning Walter's call. He wanted to speak to the Fed, but also feared what Curry would tell him. So, after the lady told him to hold for Agent Curry, he did as he was told, like a refugee in a basement somewhere... Europe, maybe... a guy who mopped floors and scrubbed urinals in a restaurant under a sign that was a big, retarded dog's head. A grown man who wore a paper cap.

"This is Walter Fales," he said.

There was a sort of noise on the other end... a squealing and clicking probably meant to remind him that his voice was being recorded. So... no threats...

"Walt!" said the jovial John fuckin' Wexford, fuckin' Curry. "Been meaning to get back. Hey, I was on the horn to Sal Duquesne, the other day, and he told me that he's not representing you. That so? If he ain't, then who's your lawyer?"

"I don't have a lawyer," Walter replied, peeved. "You an' that asshole from the State, you and I don't have to go through intermediaries anymore. Just you and me, man to man."

"Mister Fales," the SEC agent clucked, "a man in your position needs counsel. I would strongly recommend that you avail yourself of other representation at the earliest opportunity."

"I can't afford a lawyer, you know that!" Walter rasped.

"Well, that puts us in a difficult position. Yours, more than mine, of course... you were duly informed of your right to counsel, and Mr. Duquesne's limited participation is on the record.

So," the Fed mused, "we seem to be at a sort of an impasse. If we were to arrest you, you would be entitled to a public defender, for whatever that's worth to the taxpayers." Curry chuckled. "The question, then, seems to center upon what you can do, for us, that would argue against our taking this next, and logical step, thereby saving the taxpayers..."

"The question," Walt interrupted, "is why you came into my house, trashed it, took away confidential papers and terrorized my family."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

"You weren't one of those Nazis who came by around six, while I was still working? Who left my wife in bed, sick and trembling, my kid humiliated and my house looking like something a mudslide came down over..."

"We don't operate that way. And Melk doesn't... I did tell you, though, as I recall, that Internal Revenue was probably going to open its own investigation. Big, messy raids are their trademark, but if you could read to me a little bit of what was on the warrant, just the first page ought to clear up who's responsible for this trouble."

"They didn't bring a warrant." Then Walter closed his eyes, feeling a migraine coming on. "They might've given one to my wife, but she's not speaking to me. Christ!... what is it that you people want?"

And then Curry chuckled again, at him, this time, Walter realized. "We want what all good people want. A fair shake for the innocent, swift and certain punishment for the guilty. You're no innocent, Mister Fales... the question is, are you guilty? Or, rather, how guilty? Or, even more appropriately, is there some way you can make yourself useful so that, even if you are very, very guilty, there might be a way that both of us can get what we want."

"You mean give you the goods on Braxton? I've already done that, but if you want me to say something, swear to something in court... hey, no problem. He took my money, too, you know... as a citizen, and a victim, I have the right to ask what you're doing about that..."

Curry sighed. "As you know, Bill Braxton has a genius for secreting funds in places that we cannot gain access to, even if we did prove that they were criminally obtained. But let's let Braxton be Braxton for awhile and look at other alternatives... hey!... Sal Duquesne said you've made a career shift..."

"He told me, before he said that he couldn't represent me without more money than I have at the present time, to get any job I could in case someone... meaning you... would take character into account in determining what's going to happen with this. I'm a man of decent character... I don't have felonies, I don't have anything against me except traffic shit. I've worked long fuckin' hours, had the same wife for thirty fuckin' years and raised three kids."

"Yeah... you work at a Dog Pound." And the goddam Fed actually giggled, like a little girl. "What's the meaning of that... are you angling for an insanity plea? Dear Lord on a purple snowboard... off the record, I have to say that you're one hard-core case to figure out. But we have our ways of cracking hard cases and, as for your former lawyer's advice, can I remind you that we have a war and terror, an economy that's in the toilet, guys in suits bein' marched off to jail left and right, and we're still headed towards re-electing a President with the IQ of a poinsettia because character counts... C-H-A-R fuckin’A-C-T-O-R. OK? So, maybe even some pathetic character like you, working a hot dog joint, might stumble on to something we could use... your boss, Walt Zweiss, now talk about one shady character..."

"You want me to be your rat?" Walt asked.

"Hey, you said it, I didn't."

"And if... like... but if there were people or a person doing something illegal, and I gave you the information, I could get my life back. Illegal... like Mexicans, or drugs..."

"Information from the public is always welcome, and sometimes consideration might be extended... down the road a ways... Mister Fales?"

Walter had paused because his head was killing him, he lifted the phone from his ear and situated it where the pain was worse, behind his left ear where there was that vein that pumped blood, swollen as a mob corpse fished out of the drink after a long, involuntary swim. Then, with the knucks of his right fist, he massaged the corresponding vein on his right.

"I keep my eyes open," he said. "I do good work. If I get something, I'll be sure to let you know..."

"Uh huh?" Curry yawned. "Oh, by the way, good luck to you and your boss... Mister Z, I mean, not whatever loser runs that roach coach on Gerson. Litigation is so messy..."

"How do you know that?" Walt replied, crossly...

"We're supposed to know things. We're the government!"

On his way to the DP, Walt stopped at an ATM for some spare cash, but found a trick, not a treat - his plastic disappeared into the slot and never emerged and, finally, little orange ciphers on a Halloween screen of black started flashing: "Account Invalid".

"What the hell have you people done with my money?" he menaced the young, female teller in her cage, after having stormed right into the fuckin' lobby. The girl called over an oily looking manager and, also, a security guard who stood, tall and ominous, with a hand near his revolver while the manager... another young punk with an eerie similarity to Mister C (as if there was a factory, somewhere (in China, probably), stamping out assholes like flip-flops, radios, or the unwanted plastic Cat-in-the-Hat action figures stacked up in boxes in the DP cooler)... tapped a few keys on a keyboard, looked up at Walter and shook his head.

"Sorry, I can't help you. This account has been frozen."

"What?" Walt recoiled and then, trilling through the gamut of W's that the perplexed and indignant are wont to ask, exclaimed: "Why? Who ordered this... who's in charge?" He really didn't have to ask where his disposable money... only about eighteen hundred something... had gone, or when it would be returned to him, the banker having already anticipated his next few moves. The security guard edged closer.

"It's a Federal freeze. The system isn't otherwise authorized to give out details," the bank manager shook his head. "Sometimes these have to do with taxes. Orders have come down from headquarters, in Santa Ana, all I can do's give you the number of our internal security department there, and your attorney can contact their attorneys about the reasons for this account having been frozen."

"I don't have an attorney," Walter explained, the way he'd used to tell his boys that they couldn't have another baseball glove, or videogame or... when that time came, the car that they wanted him to buy for them. He'd been a good father, he thought, inexplicably... not too hard, not too easy. For what it had been worth. "You can't pay attorneys with frozen money, you know? I do have a defective refrigerator of frozen food that is unfreezing, and I'll have to throw it out if I can't get access to my own money for repairs or a replacement..."

"I understand," the banker nodded, compulsively, "but this is company policy. There is nothing I can do... perhaps," he suggested, treacherously, "the team at your own branch might be more likely to bend the rules."

But, after winking at the large, irate fellow on his premises, the manager clammed up and stared at Walter, who stared back. Perhaps a minute passed this way, before Walt turned to the security guard... a big man himself, though not so big as Walter... and said, "...you know, people have been killed for less than this."

Over the last thirty seconds of the staredown, a wild hope kindled that the guard might panic, draw his gun and shoot Walter... not fatally, of course, but in a painful, disabling way so that, once the nonsense with BCM cleared up and the government had apologized for ruining an innocent man's life, Sal would be able to sue the damn bank for million bucks, for the guard's hostile, overreactive impulse. Or... no, Sal had dumped him, left him in the lurch. So he'd get some other lawyer who'd get him ten million, then he could get the hell out of California, with its crime and taxes, mean people and a Governor who couldn't talk plain English.

But the guard just watched him, and watched the spineless manager, who kept dithering on about company policy and how he was only following the rules... the minimum wage lady at Gas n' Go couldn't have done any worse... and Walt, who hadn't brought his Police Special with him, anyway, just got disgusted and walked out. At least a useful idea had come to him during the talk of freezing and unfreezing, so he sped back to his violated refuge, waved to Martinez at the gate... wondering if the Feds had come by on his shift, or if Marty had already been hepped to his humiliation by one of the other security people… Gonzalez, Rodriguez, those guys. One of the bean-fuckers had been on duty when the Feds roared up with their flashing lights and their warrants. Well, it didn't matter, he'd refused to talk to the media but his name had been mentioned in the paper among others who'd been lumped together as "persons of interest" who'd been questioned, and would be questioned again. He hadn't seen himself on TV, but that didn't mean he hadn't been on the box... maybe even on the Spanish noticias... people had started turning away from him since September eighth which, he reckoned grimly, had become his own, private version of nine eleven. But... was it nine-eight, or nine-oh-eight?

Screw it all, screw the media and the neighbors... he took the cul de sac way too fast, roaring into his driveway like a kid on a first date. There were some styrofoam coolers in the garage, a plastic tub for recycling old cans and newspapers; he hauled these into the kitchen, flung open the freezer door of the dead fridge, and started piling shrink-wrapped steaks and chicken legs into the receptacles, bags of frozen peas and fries, boxes of Clams Casino. Missy was up and hovering, sputtering... he asked her, politely and with precise, measured enunciation, if she had kept a copy of the invaders' warrant, or even had seen the damn thing, or remembered if those jackboots had come from the IRS, or SEC, CIA or any other damn initialed, taxpayer-subsidized parasites. All she could do was cry. So he tossed a half-melted, half-gallon carton of strawberry shortcake ice cream her way.

"You remember that movie with dinosaurs?" he said, having reached that strata where various leftovers in plastic had been secreted. "The first one, where they ate this lawyer on a crapper and the fat guy from Seinfeld... the guy who started it all in the first place being some faggot with a white beard and, when the trouble began, he just sat down and started eating ice cream like some kind of useless prick that he was. Get a spoon and dig in! Might as well, it'll just go to waste, and it'll coat your stomach if you find something to drink, again..."

He snarled and he grinned, yanking leftovers and passing summary judgment, tossing the condemned into one of the styrofoam coolers. When they started to smell after a day or two, he could pitch them down the ravine, and that would attract the coyotes who lived up in the hills. He could take small, domestic animals or leave them... he'd never had pets as a kid and, despite the boys' occasional pleas for some messy dog or cat, he'd kept a clean house, free of furballs and shedded hair. (John had kept rodents when he was eight, or so, and they were living in the City, rats or gerbils... something... and he'd fed them, buried them when they died and searched when they gnawed their way out of their cells and disappeared in the ductwork of their first house.) If a coyote drawn to the community by some rotting, leftover turkey parts carried off someone's cat or poodle, well... served them right for their clucking and condemnations, their Mexican-blown lawn debris and secret satisfaction at his misfortune.

He carried one styrofoam box and the recycling tub back to his Town Car, made a second trip, filled two plastic bags with frozen chicken parts that he stashed in the trunk and drove off to the Dog Pound. He clocked in and was shootin' shit with Louie and Gwan... who'd come to work in more sensible footwear... when Barry loomed up, engaging him in another pointless argument to the effect that, since he was off the clock and there, only, at the request of Mister Z, Walter wouldn't be on the Gerson DP's budget, but would have to be paid out of some other account, some slush fund buried in the entrails of Zweiss Interplanetary. "That goes for the whole night shift, too," he added, for Louie's benefit.

"And you can't... what's that, absolutely not!..." Mister C shrieked when Walt carried in the styrofoam box, dropping it at the day manager's feet in order to open the freezer. A leaning bag of frozen, breaded okra dripped several pods over Barry's shoes, he recoiled as tremulously, as if scorpions had been scattered over his feet.

"Mister Z said it was alright, as I'm doin' him a favor today... my day off!..." Walt glared, thrusting his face against Barry's, so close he could see the smudges and partial fingerprints on the geek's glasses. "You have a problem, take it up with him."

A cool curtain enveloped them both as he opened the freezer. "Plenty of room, see?"

Mister C backed off, but Walt knew, even as he toted the recycling tub into the freezer, that it was just another debit to his account, and payback lurked... somewhere, somehow. When he backed out of the freezer, Barry was waiting for him, and so was the mop and bucket.

"As long as you're clocked in, make yourself useful until Mr. Z arrives."

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