Crooked Roads Read online

  Crooked Roads

  Copyright © 2015, Alec Cizak

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Mike Monson and Chris Rhatigan

  Edited by Rob Pierce and Chris Rhatigan

  Cover design by Eric Beetner

  Crooked Roads: Crime Stories by Alec Cizak

  The Space Between

  Columbus Day

  No Hard Feelings

  American Chivalry

  Dumb Shit

  Spare Change

  State Road 53

  Patience

  Katy Too

  My Kind of Town

  A Matter of Time

  Methamphetamine and a Shotgun

  Little People

  A Moral Majority

  The Ralphs at Third and Vermont

  About the Author

  ©2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014 by Alexander Cicak

  “Spare Change” (originally titled “Diseases from Loving”), “Katy Too,” “No Hard Feelings,” and “The Ralphs at Third and Vermont” first appeared in Beat to a Pulp. “State Road 53” first appeared in Beat to a Pulp: Round Two. “Little People” and “Methamphetamine and a Shotgun” first appeared in All Due Respect. “The Space Between” first appeared in Shotgun Honey. “Columbus Day” first appeared in Dark Corners. “Dumb Shit” first appeared in Indiana Crime 2012. “My Kind of Town” first appeared in Thuglit. “A Matter of Time” first appeared in Powder Burn Flash. “Patience” first appeared in A Twist of Noir. “A Moral Majority” first appeared in Paraphernalia Quarterly. “American Chivalry” first appeared in Grift.

  THE SPACE BETWEEN

  She wears a nametag—Susan. You want her to be more. To see the gray smudges on the bottom of your pants legs, to put a hand on your shoulder and say, “That snow bank sure seemed solid.” She should notice the gash across your left, index knuckle. Wince at how the wound has turned yellow and brown. “Sometimes we forget to aim the knife away from our bodies,” she should say. Beyond that, she should offer empathy over the alimony you can’t pay, the money you owe the IRS, the foreclosure. “An apartment might be more manageable, don’t you think?” The angle her head rests on her shoulders, the light bouncing off her eyes, the smile she greeted you with when the bell over the front door went ‘ding,’ these things dissolve layers of hatred gathering mold since your wife insinuated you’re a “mama’s boy.” They cancel the sneers in college, the snubs from attractive sorority girls, the signs stuck to your back in high school (Kick Me!). Your father’s fist, once a ton, now evaporates with a chuckle from you as Susan drops a cliché on the counter—“Cold enough for you?” You don’t hear the formality of the situation. You don’t realize this relationship is over the moment you pay and walk out the door.

  * * *

  The creak of your car door slices into your ears and carves canyons in your bones. Did you think the girl at the Kwik Trip would look at you twice? As you turn the ignition and wait for the heater to fire up, watching the fog of your breath splatter against the windshield and shrink, over and over again, you listen to the voice of reason on the radio (“This country ain’t what it used to be!”) and remember how you will spend the night in a motel with nothing but a television, mini bottles of shampoo, small towels, and a Gideon’s Bible that can do nothing to correct mistakes you’ve made your entire life. Mistakes other people tricked you into making—

  Your mother, dressing you in clothes from Second Time Around.

  Your father, refusing to look at you after you said you had no interest in baseball.

  Junior high girlfriends, lovers, and the wife, calling you one form of inadequate or another.

  Would Susan be any different? She doesn’t care about you, chump. Look at her now—can’t you hear the smacking of her bubblegum? She’s in uniform, on the clock, and yet she has her cellphone pasted to her ear. Remember the way she spoke to you, thinking you wouldn’t catch the disregard her cliché revealed?

  The car’s warm.

  There’s a tire iron in the trunk.

  Haven’t you reached that point where you could just drive?

  COLOMBUS DAY

  6:19 p.m.

  Kristos jammed the end of the shotgun into Hector’s mouth and pulled the trigger. Bump had never seen somebody get killed. Not actually. He hadn’t been hanging out with Kristos for too long. His throat went dry when Kristos first handed him the Benelli and said, “You do it.”

  Bump said, “Jeez, let’s just take his stuff.”

  “You some kind of bitch?” Kristos said.

  Hector reached for a dirty steak knife that had fallen on the floor. Carpet and cat hair stuck to what looked like dried spaghetti sauce. So Kristos took the gun back and shot him. Afterwards, he said, “I had no choice.”

  Bump said, “Oh yeah, I know. Sure, sure. I know.”

  They finished the rails on the coffee table, the ones without blood in them. Then they tore the house apart. Flipped couches and chairs. Knocked the fridge over, pulled drawers in the kitchen, dumped plastic spoons and knives all over the floor. Kristos said it needed to look like an army had plowed through the joint.

  They returned to the yuppie’s SUV with a freezer bag of meth and ninety-two bucks.

  4:12 p.m.

  They left Sophia to watch after the yuppie’s wife. Drove the yuppie’s car, a black Escalade. Bump couldn’t breathe. Had to be eighty degrees outside. He said, “Good grief, what happened to autumn?” He tugged at his ski mask.

  Kristos smacked him. “You stupid?”

  The yuppie, hands tied behind him, mumbled through the sock stuffed in his mouth. Something like, “I won’t tell anybody.” He’d been saying the same thing since they busted into his house. His wife, right along with him, like a night club act—

  Him: “We won’t squeal, honest.”

  Her: “Yeah, honest, we won’t.”

  They stopped at an ATM in Owatonna. Kristos held the barrel of the shotgun to the yuppie’s temple. Bump removed the gag and untied the rope around his hands.

  “First thing,” Kristos said to the yuppie, “let me see your account balances. All of them, fucker.”

  The yuppie nodded. He’d given no resistance since his awful afternoon began. And it must have been awful. Bump couldn’t imagine being on the other side of the situation.

  “Remember,” said Kristos, “you do anything stupid, any goddamn thing at all, and we’ll cut you down right here, go back to your house, rape your fucking wife, and kill her, too.”

  “Yes sir,” the yuppie said.

  He stepped out, walked to the ATM, shoved his card in, and brought back a slip of paper. Bump couldn’t believe the numbers. The guy might as well have been sitting on gold.

  “You know,” the yuppie said, “I can’t draw more than three hundred from the same ATM.”

  “That’s fine,” Kristos said. “We can hit every machine between here and Mankato. We’ve got all day.”

  They took the last of the yuppie’s money in Waseca. The total haul: nearly fifteen-hundred.

  Bump said, “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a claims adjustor at Farmers.”

  “Well then,” Kristos said, “looks like we’re just robbing a fancier breed of thief.”

  “Maybe so,” the yuppie said.r />
  Bump wanted to ask him why he would agree so quickly to an insult, but decided not to.

  “Hector is sitting on a stash,” Kristos said. “We do this proper, things’ll work out better than we ever imagined.”

  3:49 p.m.

  Kristos said they were just going to get some crank and head back to his place to chill and watch the Vikings on Monday Night Football. He said folks were using a new house in the Fairland development to cook. Said they’d bust in, take whatever they’d made, and book right back to New Ulm.

  Sophia said, “Cool.”

  Bump said, “Jeez, why don’t we just buy some from them?”

  Kristos glared at him in the rearview. “Don’t be a little faggot, now.”

  They pulled into the development. Most of the houses were still under construction. Bulldozers sat on the dirt where grass would eventually be installed. Three pickup trucks lined the roads. Nobody working. Maybe because of the holiday. At the farthest end of the first cul-de-sac, a black SUV occupied the driveway of a finished house.

  “Must be it,” Kristos said. He parked and popped the trunk.

  They walked around to the back of the car. Kristos handed out ski masks and loaded the shotgun. He put extra shells in the breast pocket of his flannel and closed the trunk. Bump stood still, stared at the ski mask.

  “Gosh, we really doing this?”

  Kristos forced the mask over his head. “Get your shit together.”

  Sophia said ouch as she put on hers, no doubt catching fabric on one of the four hundred piercings on her face. Her left cheek rolled as she chewed a piece of gum. She followed Kristos, snapped her fingers at Bump. “The fuck you waiting for?”

  They ducked near the front door. Kristos peered into the picture window on the other side. He scratched his head, crouched down, and snuck back to Bump and Sophia. “They got nice sweaters on,” he said. “You know that means they got money.”

  “Well,” Sophia said, “shit.”

  “Maybe the cook’s happening somewhere else,” Bump said.

  “Don’t matter,” Kristos said. “We’ll rob these motherfuckers and buy some legitimate shit.”

  They crept to the door. Sophia clapped her hands at Bump. “Get it up,” she said.

  Kristos beat the door handle with the butt of the rifle until the lock gave. He barged in, gun raised. Sophia marched behind him. “Get your asses on the ground,” she said.

  Bump looked at the flat land surrounding him, just beyond the half-finished houses. If he ran, Kristos would have to make a decision.

  Sophia poked her head out the door. “Get your stupid ass in here, boy.”

  He climbed the steps, wiped his feet on the Welcome mat, and entered the house.

  The place looked as though someone had lived there a long time already. Smooth, oval table in the dining room. Beautiful, plush couch in the TV room. And the TV on the wall, holy cow, a small movie screen. A window at the top of the staircase blasted sun into the house as though God had designed the place Himself. Nothing like the trailer Bump stayed in with his mom. Then he saw the yuppies, sprawled on the floor with their hands covering their necks.

  “Anybody else here?” said Sophia.

  “It’s just us,” the man said. His voice cracked. “And now, you.” He was crying. So was the woman.

  Kristos draped the shotgun over his shoulders. He paraded back and forth between the dining room and the TV room. “This shit looks like paradise.”

  “Sure does,” Bump said. “Sure, sure does.”

  Sophia flopped onto the couch. She pressed random buttons on a giant remote until the TV channel changed. She found some reality show about rich girls in LA with big butts. “I can die now,” she said.

  Kristos asked about money.

  The man pulled his wallet from his pocket. He showed him the two twenties in it. Kristos took it from him and shuffled through the plastic. “These good for ATMs?”

  7:09 p.m.

  The yuppie mumbled through his gag. Said something like, “Are you guys okay?”

  Kristos said, “The fuck you talking about?”

  The man said he heard a gunshot.

  “Worry about yourself,” Kristos said. He put the Caddie in drive and did the speed limit back to the housing development.

  Bump opened the bag of meth, scooped some onto his pinky and snorted it.

  “Ain’t you had enough already?” Kristos said. “Fucking junkie.”

  Times like that, Bump wondered why he hung out with him and Sophia. They made constant fun of him, said stuff like, “Is it true you all don’t know your sisters from your mamas?” Like they were better than him, like they hadn’t grown up on a rundown rez outside Bemidji.

  “I’ve never seen this much at once,” said Bump. He carved out another hit. Made sure he was so high he couldn’t feel a thing.

  Kristos snatched the bag from him. “You’re going to waste this shit. Fucking junkie.”

  The yuppie said something like, “Should you guys be driving right now?”

  “Fucking white boy,” Kristos said. He turned on the radio. NPR. “Faggot shit,” he said, and punched the dial until he found a classic rock station.

  Bump stared out the window. He stared at the border of the horizon. Hardly seemed that far away. He closed his eyes and imagined himself a giant, stomping across the Minnesota countryside, cracking the Earth with every step.

  7:41 p.m.

  Bump’s heart beat in his chest like a couple of tribal drums. He clawed at the bottom of his mask, wanted to rip it off. Was it possible to be blinded by your own sweat?

  Kristos dragged the yuppie from the Caddie. Rushed him across the tiny lawn with his free hand wrapped around his hair. Then he pitched him onto the porch. “Let your wifey know you’re home.” He kicked the door in and threw him into the TV room.

  Bump’s toes throbbed inside his shoes. His chewed sneakers looked like they were breathing.

  Sophia sat on the couch, vegging to some other reality show. The yuppie’s wife leaned to her side, weeping. Half her blonde hair had been braided, like Sophia’s. “You boys got good news?” Sophia said.

  “Let’s go,” Kristos said.

  “Sweet.”

  Bump scratched his right arm. He knew there were worms crawling just under his skin. He could hear air-conditioning, why the heck was it so gosh darned hot? He took his mask off and said so.

  Everyone stared at him.

  “You dumb motherfucker,” Kristos said. He peeled his mask over his face, wore it like a snowcap.

  Sophia took hers off and dropped it on the floor.

  “Guess we got to stay a while.” Kristos grabbed the yuppie from the floor and threw him on the couch, next to his wife. “Might as well have fun.” He lifted the yuppie’s wife’s face by her chin. “You like to suck dick?” he said.

  “Bullshit,” Sophia said. “You put your junk anywhere near her, I’ll cut it off while you sleep.”

  They circled each other, like school kids on a playground. Kristos stuck his tongue out, flicked it side to side.

  Bump said, “They’ll be cool.” He believed it, too. He transmitted a message to the yuppies, psychically, told them to keep their traps shut.

  “Doubt it,” Kristos said. “You think your sister, or mom, or whoever the fuck that bitch is you live with, you think she’d mind if you wet your dick in this rich bitch?”

  Bump shook his head. “I don’t need that right now,” he said.

  Kristos leapt at him and twisted the collar of his t-shirt around his fist. “You totally FUBAR’d this misson,” he said. “You make it worthwhile for all of us.” He let him go and put his arm around Sophia.

  The yuppie rolled over, stared at Bump. He spit the sock in his mouth onto the couch. “Don’t touch her.” Like he assumed Bump could be threatened, knowing damn well he’d never talk like that to Kristos.

  Bump wanted to kick him in his face. Before he could say anything, though, Kristos turned the rifle around and
smashed the yuppie’s skull until it popped like a watermelon and splashed blood across the couch.

  “Jeez,” Bump said.

  “Cool,” Sophia said, chewing her gum faster.

  The yuppie’s wife slumped off the couch. Red slime covered her blouse. She screamed through her gag and kicked at the nice, glass coffee table.

  “You going to fuck this bitch, or what?” Kristos said.

  The woman shook her head. “No way,” she said.

  This made Bump angrier. Every single person in the room, telling him his business. “Bitch,” he said, “I’m going to do whatever the hell I want to do.”

  “Well go ahead,” Sophia said. She shoved him hard enough to send him over the glass table, onto the woman.

  “There it is,” said Kristos. “Hit that bitch like she’s your mom!”

  The woman squirmed. Bump reached for her breasts. He couldn’t ignore the goo from her husband’s brain, leaking through her blouse. And he knew he wouldn’t be able to get hard for all the gold in the world. Nothing sexy about a woman doused in gore. He tried thinking of Kendra, a friendly girl from Mankato who let him put her hand in her panties when they were teenagers. That usually did the trick when he jerked off. Just that memory—the first time he slipped his fingers inside a woman. But even that didn’t work.

  “I can’t do it.”

  Pointing at the dead yuppie, Kristos said, “Did I kill this one too soon?”

  Sophia laughed.

  The woman said something like, “Don’t listen to them.”

  Nothing worse than someone assuming you were the same, just so you wouldn’t hurt them. “You think you’re smart?” Bump said. He stretched his hand out for the gun.

  Kristos stepped back. “Oh, shit.” He gave him the Benelli.

  It looked like an antique, like something Bump’s great-great-great granddaddy might have used in the Indian Wars. “Sympathize with this,” he said. He jammed the barrel into the sock in the woman’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The backsplash soaked him.