The knocks at my door grew louder, whomever it was losing any sense of patience. I was down to a pair of shorts and a tee shirt. I didn’t have my gun handy and it didn’t seem like I had time to go digging out of my bedroom. So, I grabbed a knife out of the kitchen and held it behind my back. The apartment wasn’t high tech. There was a camera by the front door, but once inside you had to rely on the classic peephole to see who was out there, or just open the door. I did the latter, spreading my legs and bracing one foot against the door as I opened it about a foot wide.
I recognized the boy on the other side. I said, “Larry.”
He said, “My name is Jae-Sung, slitch. You freakin know it.”
The boy wore a leather jacket and jeans that were tighter than they had a right to be. His tee shirt advertised a Seattle-based techno band, ARO dreams. He was scowling. He was also armed.
I said, “I prefer Larry. I also prefer you leave.”
Not-Larry said, “No can do, omae. Boss wants to see you. Says things aren’t square with the bet.”
“Bulldrek. I won that fair. Giants came through.”
“Yeah but he says you owe him anyway. Says since you didn’t put up the full up front there’s a tax.”
There is such a thing as being too sore of a loser. My bookie was definitely that guy. Here he’d sent this kid to do the lifting on what was obviously a shakedown, only I didn’t know why. My only guess was too many of the bets he laid out came back good for the other guy and he wasn’t willing to pay his end. Also bad business for a bookie. Out loud I said, “Bad business for a bookie to cut on his bets.”
Not-Larry frowned. He held a small pistol at his hip, thinking it would motivate me. It didn’t. By the time he brought that thing up I’d have the knife hilt deep in his chest. Then I’d have another set of problems. I started thinking that maybe that was my bookie’s play all along.
It didn’t come to that. Not-Larry said, “I leave and go back without you, I get yelled at. You wanna know what you get?”
“Another visit?”
He nodded and smiled and stepped away from the door. I closed it and like that he was gone. I sighed. I needed to be gone too then. All gangers like that needed was a reason to cause a problem. It was cheaper to cause a problem than to pay out on a bet–especially one as large as I laid down. See, I was confidant the Giants would win. So much so that I’d leveraged that months rent against the possibility of three. Big payout if it happened.
I sighed and started getting dressed. I had two choices this evening. Find somewhere safe to sleep, or go find my bookie and put an end to this proper like. I knew exactly what the right choice was, but I decided to go the other way.