GOOD TIME CHARLIE

By Chris Everheart

  

      Don’t mistake me for a man who gives a shit. He’s dead and that’s all there is to say. It’s how he died that makes a problem for us, Detective. The fact is if he’d had a heart attack or even been shot by his bitch ex-wife, you and I would never have met. Now, that would have been sad, because I think there’s something between us. Am I right? But we can talk about that later. First I have to explain all this so I can get out of here and get ready for our date. Wink.

      It wasn’t a cold autumn day, like the ones you hate to see coming, it was more like Indian summer—apologies to the Indians. No one expected what happened because they were all blinded by the sunshine and that one last ice cream cone stuffed in their face—putting on the winter layer like they do here in Minnesota . The crash was ugly, it’s true. For most of those folks, the site of a car wrapped around a tree on the Lake Harriet parkway, spitting gas-fueled flames into the air was kind of scary. But you have to admit it was pretty too, those orange flames licking the crystal blue sky. I know I have a way with words. You don’t have to be shy, Detective.

      I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude. You asked how I came to know Paul Applegate. I grant you, we may not seem like the types of folks who would normally mix, but as my grandma up Brainerd-way used to say, “The horses and the pigs aren’t too good to live on the same farm as one another.” Sweet lady, Grandma. She died tragically too, but I guess that’s another story.

      Anyway, Paul Applegate—Sweet Paulie we called him—liked the boys. The young ones mind you, not the older ones who were all drugged out and had been around the block. Shit, in the early days he’d cruise Loring Park for hours on the weekends, drive past the same available guy six, seven times, hoping that one new sweet one would show up the next time around. Isn’t that one of the definitions of insanity: doing the same thing the same way over and over, and expecting a different result? If it is then Sweet Paulie was insane—crazy for the young ones.

      He popped up on the scene a couple years ago. He said he was new to town but everyone knew he was lying. One of the queens said he knew him from high school in Wayzata, that he had been married for about fifteen years and recently divorced. Paulie had money at one time but it all went in the divorce—the guy never worked a day in his life: grew up with money, married money. Daddy lost the family fortune when the dot-com bubble burst and then daddy lost his head, if you know what I mean. But after the divorce, Paulie had a little bit left. He got the lake house up here and she stayed south—West Palm, I think. But, brother, did she fuck him six ways from Sunday. Took everything else away, except the Beemer, and shipped his ass back up here to the Minneapple. Anyway, he came back up here with no wife, no job, no entanglements and a wicked appetite for boys and methamphetamine.

      Boys and meth were number one and number two for Paulie—can’t tell you which was one and which was two, but let’s just say he was always talking about getting off the meth. Problem is, after while, the honey-money ran out. He tried hooking it up downtown, but ISH! Who wants a thirty-something softy with no personality? People might take it if he was giving it away—maybe. That’s cruel, isn’t it? But this is where I come into the picture. Looks better already, doesn’t it? I met him at the Gay 90’s one night a few months ago right after I got out of Stillwater—fraud, Detective, nothing violent, mind you —and he immediately tries to hustle me like I’m just off the bus from International Falls. Right away I know he’s not who he says he is. I mean for Christ’s sake, who wears a five year old Rolex, Gucci gold-rimmed glasses and no underwear? Someone who’s ready to score, right Detective? It’s OK, you can admit it. I bet you used to work Vice.

      So he comes on to me like he’s a rich businessman in town for a convention and I’m lucky he stopped by, only something’s odd about him. I’m telling you he had a screw loose. I was wearing my good-dick-jeans and he wasn’t even checking me out. He was looking for some meth, that’s why. I couldn’t believe it! He wanted me to straighten him out and then blow him or something. I’m not gonna share. My program was solid and I barely had enough to get through the weekend. But he wanted drugs and drugs cost money and he didn’t have any money or any way to get any.

      But I could help him with that. I had an idea that will knock you over. But remember this is my idea, Detective. Don’t try to steal it from me. Paulie and I started working together. We started hanging out at the Monte Carlo, at Taxi in the Hilton and at Sunset’s out on the lake—don’t smirk, we scored there a few times. Anyway I would go in, have a few drinks and sit at the bar, looking not-too-obvious. I’d spot the guys right away—you know, the older guys who come in with hot young chicks, flash their money around and act like Cleopatra. These guys are such phonies. Half of them can’t get it up and it’s not because of old age, either, it’s because they’re playing the wrong field, if you know what I mean—wink. So I spot these guys and wait for them to circle the bar—they always do, acting like they’re making the rounds. But they want something and I got it. I mean, I’m not exactly a Studio 54 bartender anymore but to these oldsters, I’m young fresh. And compared to me, who the hell would want Paulie? Yuck!

      So I let them make conversation: “What’s the score of the baseball game?” Puh-lease! Like I’m watching it for the score? Anyway I drop ‘em a signal and I wait. Sometimes they send the disco queen home in a cab and sometimes—and these are my favorite ones—they take the hottie home and come back—classy! I get three or four on the line each night and the first one to return gets the prize.

      On the way out the door I signal Sweet Paulie with my red scarf and he follows us to Kenwood, to Navarre , to North Oaks—wherever—and his seventy-thousand dollar car doesn’t look suspicious. I go into the house with the mark—wife’s passed on, out of the picture, living in Florida, whatever—and blow his top off. It’s not the prettiest work out there, but what the hell? And while I’m doing this I slip the guy a suppository with horse tranq in it—I swear I didn’t know it could kill someone; that was an accident; the guy had low blood pressure—and in about ten minutes I’m dressed and casing the joint.

      I let Sweet Paulie in the front door. He gets a piece if the mark is up to it—wink—and we clean the place out. No alarms, no guard dogs, no private security car driving by to check things out. We load the Beemer and celebrate. What? You’re damn right. You can’t even sleep when you’re on meth, much less forget anything. I remember every cent we stole, fenced and auctioned. I’m no crackhead, Detective. I have standards! Anyway, these old guys don’t call the cops or say anything. What are they going to say—“I was out in the stable, naked, checking out a suspicious noise and fell ass-first on a horse tranquilizer, which lodged in my rectum and put out my lights”? Uhuh. Uhuh. It was a sweet ride.

      That is, until Pugsly Paulie fucked it all up. Look at me, Detective—wait a minute, sailor, not like that—but look at me. Do I look stupid to you? I have a college education, you know. What? Minneapolis College of Art and Design—Interior Decorating, thank you very much. But I know when I’m being hustled and that fat fuck starts messing with me as soon as we have a good thing going. He says he knows a fence from his high school days—I know it’s a lie, but what can I do? I know pretty boys, hot bars and good drugs. I don’t run with the rough crowd. He starts coming back with half resale value for what we stole. And the cash starts disappearing too. Did I mention he’s staying at my apartment by this time?

      What? Hell no! Ish! He was holing up there—no pun intended—because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. Ex-wife stopped paying the property taxes on the lake house. I guess he forgot to get that in writing. Anyway, he’s coming home, lying to me about the money and I gotta blow and dope twice as many old men just to keep paying the minimums on my credit cards. And the herd is thinning, sweetheart. We had to start cruising other bars—and not all of them very nice, either. I screwed up once and picked up an out and out leather man. Jesus, my ass hurt for a week and all his money was tied up in custom-made leather goods and party equipment. That shit doesn’t have resale value!

      So Sweet Paulie comes home one day after being gone for a week and obviously not having slept either and says we gotta go out and work. WE GOTTA WORK? Hell, Detective, do I look like a hooker to you? Don’t answer that. And I’m not. I’m an artist. What I do is subtle and requires using my delicate instrument—I mean my entire body, naughty boy—to entice and build desire in men who aren’t sure they want what they want but know what they want when they see it, if you know what I mean. But I’m not a hooker. And this guy ain’t no pimp, either! Yuck!

      So he busts in during Oprah and tries to drag me out of there like I’m gonna hit the street for him and I start slapping the shit out of him. I mean, I give him what for. I hit him so hard—I used to wrestle in high school—that his glasses fly off his face and land in the toilet. No man is gonna treat me like that—especially during Oprah. That woman knows what true power is. So he’s all wild-eyed, crazed, like a rabid squirrel or something and he goes to the kitchen and starts digging through the drawer looking for a knife, like he’s gonna pimp me the hard way.

      That’s when I run out the door and down to the parking lot to his BMW. I take my red scarf and stuff into the gas tank hole and stand there with my Madame Butterfly commemorative lighter—QVC; seven ninety-five with a matching candle holder; it’s darling! Anyway, I go down there and I stand next to the fat little pimp’s out-of-style and dented Beemer with my M Butterfly lighter poised right under it and I tell him if he comes near me I’m gonna light it and he won’t have anything left. But he comes at me anyway and I tell you, Detective, I may look like a fatal beauty but I just didn’t have the heart. Besides, I wanted the sniveling little prick out of there.

      But as he storms past me to jump into the driver’s seat, nose bleeding and walking all funny from when I kicked him in the you-know-what’s, he calls me a CHEAP SLUT! Yeah, just like that, “Cheap slut!”

      NO! I mean, no way. I am not a cheap slut, but someone might have gotten that impression because I was spending so much time with him. That’s when I decided he could ride that kept-man-mobile all the way to hell and I lit the scarf just before he drove off. I hated to do it—it was my favorite scarf.

      What? Of course I was following him. I ran upstairs, fished his glasses out of the toilet, jumped into my new Acura—TL model; you saw it; what did you think?—and chased him down Lyndale, across to Lake Harriet and halfway around the fucking lake before it happened. Damn Beemer went up like a roman candle. Who knew? Oh, I know: gasoline and fire, but I was just trying to scare him. And I was worried, because I was almost out of gas myself and I didn’t know if I would make it to a station to fill up.

      That’s right, Detective, I do have a heart. Sweet Paulie couldn’t see anything without his glasses and I was just trying to return them to him. Can I go now? I have to take a bubble bath and shave. You look like a guy who likes a clean-shaven man, if you know what I mean, Detective. What? Sure I’ll step into the holding cell. But don’t keep me too long. Remember: you and me; Linguini & Bob; 7:30. Wink.

 

Copyright 2006 by Chris Everheart

Chris Everheart's other recent projects include the short
story “Chili Dog,” which appears in Twin Cities Noir—part of Akashic Books’
popular Noir series—two sci-fi children’s mysteries awaiting publication,
and two new thrillers for young adults that are currently seeking a home
along with his first adult thriller manuscript “Secondary Target.” In
addition to writing, Chris holds two jobs in Minneapolis where he lives
with his wife and step-son.