Author's Note: This was inspired by a friend's serve in an art trade; the more I looked at it, the more this drabble started to come forth in my mind.
"Kid, look, just remember...if it's four knocks, I'm back and everything went fine. If it's six knocks, I want you to grab the magnum out from under the futon and get ready. If it's anything else, hide. Try and get up into the ceiling."
Geez, Pilat thought to himself, unsure if it was the terror or anger that was making him shake. We're stealing Gucci purses but sleeping in shitholes like this.
He had been left in the gang's latest makeshift flop house; it must've been a gaudy roadside hotel at one point, but time and local misdemeanors had turned it into, as his boss had called it, "an upscale crackhouse." Pilat wondered if he'd been left alone as punishment for something, or out of utmost trust.
He sat uncomfortably on a futon on the floor, one of the few clean ones left in the building, so of course Skunk had taken it for his room. Dents and smudges on the walls had been covered with taped-up Hustler pages. Pilat glanced over his shoulder at the newspaper-wrapped bundles under the stout coffee table, feeling a chill run up his back.
"What's in them?" he whispered, squirming through the doorway.
Skunk pulled the bundles out of his trenchcoat and shoved them under the table as if they were diseased. He looked up, breathing hard; you could just hear how chapped his throat was from running.
He swallowed hard, gasping, "Couple bags of cocaine."
"Wh-what?" In fucking Japan?
"Yeah. It's the most valuable thing in this building, so I'd might as well put it up for safekeeping, you know?" Skunk locked the door. He almost had a bemused grin upon proposing the question, but it faded away when Pilat didn't return the sentiment. "Well, it...it's good keepin' track of it."
"H-How much is it worth?"
"Kid, you don't even wanna know how much. I'm gonna get a couple guys selling this in baggies, and..." Skunk looked over his shoulder. "You hear that again? Was that Ox's van or-"
"Sounded like the bus," Pilat whispered.
"Okay, good," Skunk breathed. "The guys should be comin' back pretty soon. I'm gonna go out and make sure those noises have stopped."
"Just...just you?"
Skunk sighed, looking over his shoulder, and then back at Pilat with dismay. "Kid, look..."
Pilat was now resigned to waiting for his boss's specific code. The room around him wasn't any different from the other garbage places they'd stayed in before, at least aesthetically, but the tension that night was ripping away at his nerves. A train whistled in the distance, and it took him a moment to process what he was hearing. Just a train.
Pilat imagined all the things he wanted to say to Skunk. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go with completely pissed, mournful, or thankful, but that would depend on how the boss looked wh-
Four sharp thumps came at the door. Pilat's heart jumped into his throat, and he paused, trying to recall what that meant: "I'm back and everything went fine."
Pilat, distantly relieved, opened his mouth to speak and only made a gurgling, "Aaaeehh...?"
Skunk proudly opened the door, declaring, "The boys are here! Building's ours now."
"You absolute motherfucker," Pilat hissed, barely containing his rage.
"What, what?"
"Why'd you leave me like this?!" Pilat yelped, sounding less authoritative than he wanted. "I felt like my heart was gonna fuckin' explode!"
"Jesus, Hare, I was gone for five minutes!"
"Yeah, and you weren't sure if we were gonna be in a shootout tonight!" Pilat, frustrated, stood up and kicked at the futon. "Fuck! I thought I was gonna die!"
Skunk was incensed now. "God, have I ever failed you before?!"
"Yeah!" Pilat shouted back. "When you ditched us after we fucked up the plaza robbery and I spent a week in jail!"
Skunk froze, eyes searching the space around him. When he was unable to find something decent to say, he began yanking off his trenchcoat all while avoiding Pilat's eyes.
"Fuck..." he mumbled. "I haven't been this paranoid in forever..."
Pilat sat back down on the futon in a huff. He probably wouldn't be getting a spoken apology for a while. Skunk, in the meantime, was rifling through the closet in search of one of his stashed booze bottles.
"Well," Pilat began. "Maybe there was something weird in the hash you got yesterday."
"I could believe it...I thought my head was gonna explode for two full hours," Skunk hissed.
One of the guys whooped downstairs, and Pilat flinched so hard he fluttered into the air. Skunk, who didn't seem to notice - or, most likely, pretended not to - approached the futon with a half-full Hennessey bottle. He sat down, groaning as his legs audibly clicked.
Skunk ripped off the cap, and began to lift it to his lips, but froze. He offered it out to Pilat, asking, "You want some of this?"
"Sure..." Pilat took a modest swig, and then handed it back. Choking back the shudder, he added, "I'd rather this than the weird laced weed."
Skunk laughed, almost sounding like a cackle; Pilat was just relieved to be on his good side again. The men downstairs were talking about a rugby game, presumably one on the shitty cart-bound TV they'd dug out of the garage.
Outside, the bus went by once more. Skunk didn't seem as unsettled as before, either from the cognac or Pilat's reassurance, and the younger man considered it a victory. At least for now.