Ask the Dice by Ed Lynskey Page A

can buy that. Why do I get all this enmity?"
    "Your dark suits are swarming to nail me."
    He laughed at me. "No-no, that's just your acute paranoia talking, Tommy Mack."
    "Are you saying it ain't so?"
    "Uh-huh. Calm down, man. Drop by for a cup of coffee, and we'll talk."
    "Do I have your word no heat is on me?"
    "Word."
    "All right then, be on the lookout for me in a few."
    "I look forward to it, Tommy Mack."
    Never trust a dude whose hustle is shadier than your own. I'd gotten that piece of advice from a fortune cookie or horoscope, and I sure wasn't trusting Mr. Ogg. He'd manipulated me to play the pawn in his murder scheme, and I felt more betrayed than ever. My wary trek over the backstreets came as the street lamps blinked off, and the morning's first bright sunrays trickled their golden beneficence down onto the suburbs.
    The amber lights illuminated the residents' windows, and I pictured them performing their bleak rituals to prepare and depart for their cubicles and offices. One young wife performing a quick breast self-exam in the shower rubbed across a thimble-sized lump. One young wife, sighing, plundered her lingerie drawer in a quest for any panties without the elastic band shot. One young wife, her eyes clamped tight, pleasured her husband who'd also do her kid sister that afternoon at a hot-sheets motel. I broke off my imaginings.
    Hispanic day laborers clotted at the rim of Home Depot's paved lot. I'd soon number in their jobless ranks, but only if I could dodge Mr. Ogg’s dragnet. As I gnawed on a piece of beef jerky I'd dug out of the glove compartment, I circled the periphery of Mr. Ogg's neighborhood. My flyby paid off in dividends when I spotted six dark suits in parked navy blue sedans, all idling there to pounce on me when I arrived for my cup of coffee. One of the sedans was leaving, so I sped up to dog it, growing certain the lone driver was none other than my old pal Arky.
    My smoky glass windows veiled my face as he signaled a turn into a nearby Gas-N-Sip. He braked, and I nosed up to brake within a few inches of his rear bumper before I timed our exits to coincide. Vigilance wasn't his hottest priority. He moved toward the Gas-N-Sip's door where I overtook him and yanked him around to face me.
    "Yo, Arky."
    After his flash of shock, he chalked on a smile. "Tommy Mack, fancy bumping into you again this soon."
    "Why did I see you parked back there on the street?"
    "I was making a cell phone call."
    "Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining, Arky."
    "What's gotten under your skin?"
    "You and your pals want to bushwhack me."
    Arky jerked his head back and forth. "No. No. You're talking crazy."
    "Then why did I count you and five dark suits out guarding Mr. Ogg's shanty? Who was it that saw me at the bodega and raced off and ratted to him I was still around town?"
    "I told you that I don't work for him no more."
    "Just make like a statue." I ran a hasty pat down, and he was clean. I channeled my eyes on his car. Of course he wouldn't carry on his person. "Are you tooled up, Arky?"
    "A parole beef like that sends me back to jail."
    "Move it." I marched him back to his sedan, and we halted by the driver's door. "Unlock it."
    He stalled. "Look, I stow a sawed-off shotgun under my car seat."
    "Unlock it."
    "You can't take enough precautions is how I like to operate."
    "Unlock it."
    Sending me a sullen glower, he fished out his keys and used the fob to bleep off the door lock. We stood alone in the lot. I wrested out his rear door, retrieved his sawed-off, and placed it inside the coupé.
    "Has Mr. Ogg slapped a hefty bounty on me?" I asked. "Is that what you hope to collect on by toting a sawed-off?"
    "No, but I tried to warn you of trouble."
    "Shut up," I said. "Where's your cell phone?"
    "Why don't you take my wallet, too, and clean me out?"
    "Good idea. I'll take both along with your car keys. Your following me is no good."
    Surly, he forked it all over to me.
    "Now stand pat and count to fifty