CHAPTER THREE: Delivery Boy

Part 1.

By the time he was heading over to do the pick up he was ok. The beer had helped some and the fat joint he'd smoked had helped some more. He felt calm and in control again. He wasn't high at all. It was more like he'd just gotten something out of his system, like throwing-up when you had the flu. That's what crying was like. You felt better afterwards, usually. You just had to stop fighting it and let it happen and get it over with.

But just like nobody wanted to watch somebody else puke, because it was disgusting, nobody wanted to see somebody else cry, either. If you had any consideration for your fellow man at all, let alone any pride in yourself or any self control, you took care of these things on your own. And then the beer and the joint washed away the taste.

He picked up his backpack and headed up the three flights of stairs to the apartment where Jim and the others were waiting for him. As usual the hallway smelled like a toilet and you could hear some guy yelling at his wife from two floors away and a baby was crying and the old lady who lived on the top floor (where else?) was trying to get her bag of laundry up the stairs. So he helped her and then knocked on Jim's door and after they figured out it was him they let him in.

Jim came out from the back room while Jack was demonstrating that his backpack was empty.

"This thing yours?" he asked, picking up a from the table. He expertly felt the weight of it in his hand and then sighted it towards the TV. "It still has the serial number on it. You'd better file that off." He turned it over and examined the underside. "It's got 'JB' on the handle. Is that you?" He looked at Jack through half closed but attentive eyes.

"No, it was a relative's. We just have the same initials."

One of the other three men laughed. The others smiled.

"You mean you pinched it from the old man's nightstand."

"Isn't he going to miss it?" Jim asked. His eyes were fixed on Jack.

"No. He left us. He left a lot of his things behind and Mom never got rid of them. So I figured, at least I could put this to good use." Jack was careful to keep his voice casual and easy and his face blank while he said this.

"C'mon in the back" Jim said, placing the gun on the table. "You get that back on your way out."

In the center of the room was a long table that had about twenty-five bags of grass neatly wrapped in cellophane. Twenty-five bags at five pounds a bag came to 125 pounds total. There were an equal number of smaller bags of white powder, probably coke, and they totaled about a hundred pounds. He knew those were coke because the smack was packaged in even smaller bags. On another table there were about 500 baggies of crack. Plus there were bottles of pills stored in boxes that were stacked up all along the wall. Jim was an all-purpose distributor who handled about $250,000 worth of drugs in a week. His inventory was worth a good million. His chosen place of business was a pigsty of an apartment in a building Jack assumed even the cockroaches were ashamed of.

He wondered where this guy really lived. What type of cars did his kids drive? Did they have to use the same surf boards they'd used when they were ten years old, even if they were too short and battered and patched up and chipped? How about wet suits. Did they just go out and buy a new wet suit every time the old one got a tear or a snag? He'd like to have one, period. What about motorcycle parts? He was sure they didn't have a motorcycle gathering dust in the garage because there was no money to buy a part that cost $159, used. He smiled at himself. Now he was whining and feeling sorry for himself. He sounded just like Eddie, and all the rest of them. He needed to start paying attention again.

The three men in the front room, the ones whose job was to prevent anybody who wasn't wanted from reaching the back room, were watching a ballgame, drinking and playing cards, exactly what they'd been doing like every other time Jack picked up his deliveries. They had two .345s and an X and there was some kind of a shotgun or a semi-automatic attached to the underside of the card table with duct tape. Jim's question snapped his brain back from "Save" mode to the here and now.

"They said they wanted three bags of grass and two of the coke." Jack answered.

Jim grunted his assent, counted out Jack's money and started to put the order together.

"Here's yours. Same as always, you get the rest when you drop off the payment."

Jack picked up the money and counted it. Once he was done Jim would give him another seventy-five bucks. It wasn't much but he could count on it each week and it only took him two or three hours of pretty easy work to get it.

"You still interested in that other piece, the one I showed you?"

"Hell, yes. I'm walking around with eight thousand dollars worth of your stuff in a backpack with only a thirty-year old popgun for protection. Anybody who really wants to could just get in my face and tell me to hand it over. Of course I'm still interested."

Jim grinned. "For a school boy from a white-bread town you sure figured out this side of the world pretty fast. Tell you what. Make two more deliveries and it's yours."

Jack smiled back. "No thanks. I make your deliveries. You pay me. Then I buy the gun".

The man shrugged with an appreciative glint in his eyes. "Whatever. How long you plan on staying in this line of work?"

"Until something better comes along."

"You moved up pretty fast, moving up from turning it around yourself to moving product and money for me in just a couple of months. How'd you like to take the next step?"

"Which would be...?"

"This is the tail of the dog. I've got about fifty guys just like you moving stuff to about a hundred street dealers. You were smart to get away from that part of the business as fast as possible. Too much work, too much risk, for too little potential payback. The next rung up, you help me with the receiving end of it, with the pick-up from the guys who get it to me."

"What's it pay?"

"Three-fifty a shot. Instead of working every week, you show up maybe twice a month. Takes about six, seven hours each time. You have to be able to stay out overnight, though. We have to travel a little distance. Can you get that past the 'rents?"

Jack made his eyes and his face blank. "No problem. A friend can cover. I'll say I'm staying over at his house. I just need about a week or so, maybe two, to get finished with something else I've got going on. Fact is, somebody will have to cover for me next time and the week after."

Jim looked at him sharply. "I don't like making changes like this on the fly. Gets everybody out of synch, to have to deal with different people on short notice. What's the problem?"

"Family vacation." Jack said smoothly. "Gotta go to my aunt's, they make me go there every year." Then, seeing Jim's less than satisfied look, he added, "Listen, you employ people who live in places like Santa Monica, you have to expect this kind of thing. The Brady Bunch, and all that crap."

Jim chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Keep everybody happy. So nobody thinks to ask too many questions".

"That's the idea. So, I'll let you know about the other when I'm freed up, ok? And you won't see me for the next two weeks."

"Fine. You want a hit?" he asked, offering Jack a joint. "Its on the house."

Jack looked up from putting the packages in his backpack.

"No, thanks. I've got a buzz on right now anyway. I don't want to get pulled over for driving funny."

Jim looked at him pointedly. "You want to stay away from the hard stuff, Jack. You're too smart for that, its sucker bait. Leave it for the ass holes who are too stupid to figure things out the way you can, like the three morons sitting out in the front room. Do a couple of joints, or run a line every now and then. Hell, get shit-faced on beer every weekend if you want. But stay away from the other. I mean it. You got too much raw talent. Use your head."

Jack grinned as he moved towards the door. "Thanks sincerely for the career counseling."

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