Passenger 14A

Part One of Three

What follows is a true story. It has been retold by a federal agent who worked extensively on the case, changing key details like names and dates, not to protect the innocent, but rather to keep these men from the notoriety that too often clings to a crime pulled off this well.

St. Paul, Minnesota
October 30th, 2006

Johnny's mother painted another layer of rouge on her droopy right cheek. She'd been at the vanity for over an hour and needed more ice to make another vodka Coke. A half-empty fifth of Fleischman's sat at her left foot, swollen red with edema.

"Johnny, Johnny," she called out in a raspy voice. Her call went unanswered. "Johnny, get Mama some more ice. Won't you, Johnny? Help Mama out."

She slipped a Virginia Slims 120 from the pack and lit it. The tobacco crackled, her lungs hoovering up the smoke. She blew it out at the old, gussied up face staring back at her in the mirror.

The ice wasn't coming. Johnny hadn't been anything but trouble since he got out, she thought, piece of shit son just like his dad.

Three more staccato puffs from the thin cig. The nicotine smoothed her edge.

"Johnny, won't you be a good boy for mama. Come on out. Get me some ice. I'm busy at the vanity."

Johnny laid low, playing chess inside his room. The same dingy room he grew up in at the tail end of the double-wide. Sat on the same twin bed he slept on as a boy, walls covered with the same Lamborghini Diablo and Pamela Anderson posters he jerked off to. He was twenty-eight now and this room was his Hell.

She banged on his door.

"I'm not drunk, I swear to God, Johnny. I only had one glass. Get out and get me some fucking ice. Look at all I did for you when you were locked away. Five years you've been gone. All that fraud shit you did, the feds kicking down my front door. Who sent money to put on your canteen? You think that was easy? You think your dad would have? I've done everything for you, Johnny. Ponied up for the lawyers. Let you come back here after all you did. And look at how you repay me. Hiding in that room of yours like a little fucking kid. Can't even get your mama some ice."

Johnny stepped across the room to the wall mirror. A coward stared back at him. His mind went back to third grade, sitting in a circle on the gymnasium floor in the middle of winter.

"Duck, duck, duck," the blond boy said, tapping each kid on the head. Two more to go. "Duck, duck." He was nearing Johnny, whose stomach knotted up. He knew how this ended. "Gray duck!" the blond boy shouted, bonking Johnny's head, and at this all of his classmates burst into laughter, pointing, whispering about how he smelled, how his jeans tore at the cuff, how his dad left because of the bad things he had done.

Johnny slammed his fist into the reflection, then kicked his chess board. Always the gray duck.

"Crazy fucker," his mother said. "Stay in that room. I'll get my own ice."

Johnny wrapped his bloodied hand with a white Hanes t-shirt and slumped back down on his bed.

St. Paul, Minnesota
October 31st, 2006 - Halloween Night

The sky opened up and pissed down rain. It was just barely warm enough to not freeze on the ground, but the local news gave a warning about black ice that night, and the cops had big plans to set up as many checkpoints as they could around St. Paul to catch drunk drivers leaving the bars.

Johnny sat at the back of the Metro Transit bus, which plodded down Maryland Avenue on Route 3. A brood of Somalian kids stared at him, clinging to the ends of their mother's black dress, which flowed like spilled ink over her fat legs. A walking trash bag, he thought, and did they even know about Halloween?

Johnny huffed on the window pane, fogging it up, and traced a sloppy skull and crossbones, finishing the design with his initials. He pulled the cord, the bus slowed and stopped, and Johnny sprung out from the side door. Sharkey's Pub was on the next block over.

Although his crimes weren't violent, nor drug or alcohol related, a condition of his probation stated that Johnny couldn't be in a place that primarily sold alcohol. He had no plans to go back to prison, but Johnny figured that one night out on Halloween, when everybody wore a mask, would go unnoticed as long as he didn't cause any trouble.

Sharkey's was a neighborhood corner bar, the kind that are common in the upper Midwest. It had been run by the same guy — they called him Smalls — since 1983, and was housed in an aged brick building, with red and white painted gutters, and a weathered, fading bar sign above the door with a grinning shark flexing a bicep tattooed with a broken heart.

Johnny stepped inside and before his jacket came off he was greeted by an older man, late-40s, balding. He towered over Johnny by a foot and his chiseled jaw contorted to one side. He wore a neatly ironed, tucked in flannel shirt and starched blue jeans.

"You made it, J-Bird!" He patted Johnny's shoulder and guided him to the back of the bar. "Finally got you out of the house. It's no good being cooped up like that all the time, kid."

"That's right Ray," Johnny said. "Needed to get out of there. Can't stand being holed up with mama."

"No man would," Ray said. "A beer and some darts?"

"The darts, but no beer."

"Suit yourself. Hey, Crystal, get Johnny here a Sprite, and another tapper for me."

The bleach-blond bartender grunted an “OK.” The edge of her black bra stuck out from her low-cut white shirt. She had perky tits, smooth legs with a thigh gap, but her cheeks were blasted with pock marks and she had sad blue eyes that glimmered deep beneath the mascara. Johnny couldn't tell if she was 25 or 40.

"That broad gives sloppy head," Ray said. "Crazy bitch on that white horse, though. Cuts herself. Punches holes in cabinets. Worth it though." He turned back to Johnny. "Anyway, good to see you down here. And look, you even got dressed up."

"Yeah, just stuff I had laying around."

Crystal brought the beer and pop over, slipped a couple coasters on the table, and set the drinks down. Ray grabbed her around the waist — she wasn't more than a hundred pounds — and lifted her with a spin. She squealed, which Ray silenced with an aggressive kiss. He set her back down with a thud and pinched her ass, pushing her back towards the bar.

"Whatever, Ray," Crystal said. "I told you none of that here."

Johnny and Ray started throwing darts. They played a couple rounds of Cricket, with Ray winning both, and got to talking.

"Two years it's been, eh Ray," Johnny said.

"Two years, three months, and seven days," Ray said. "I count every day that I've been free."

"You're doing good," Johnny said. "Real good. But I don't know if I can do it, man. It's like I'm stuck in a hole, with a big demented ape on a throne above, raining turds down on me."

Ray cracked a smile. "A black ape?"

"Yeah, a black one."

"Probably a nigger then," Ray said.

"Look, man, I need work," Johnny said. "Need my own place. I dunno if I can make it in that trailer with mama, man."

Ray stepped back from the Bull Starts Here toe line sticker. He set the darts down and leaned in close to Johnny. "That mama boy shit is something inside of you, J-Bird. You got to let it go. I told you that when we were inside."

"I know, man."

Ray changed the subject to the Vikings and that "jigaboo QB, Culpepper.” Two more dart games and four beers later, Ray left to lean over the bar and bug Crystal.

Johnny kept throwing darts by himself, plugging quarters into the machine from the stack that Ray had left behind. He lined up to throw another dart when he was poked on his left ass cheek. "You know I don't play like that Ray."

"I don't know a Ray, but I know you're hogging this board." It was a woman's voice. Johnny turned around and there stood a gal dressed up as a black cat, long tail curled up from her backside, painted whiskers, pointy ears, the whole nine yards. "I've got a friend coming in ten. Wanna sneak in a quick round?"

The chick was built like a piggy, her tits spilled out from the top of her costume. She'd also been drinking, and heavily, reeking of vodka and cranberry. What's more, her left ring finger was wrapped with a gold band set with a thick diamond.

"I'm Ashley," she said. "But everyone just calls me Ash."

"I'm Johnny. Everyone just calls me Johnny."

Ash poked Johnny's chest. "You're funny. I like a funny guy. Let's play, you goofball."

The two threw darts in silence, standing close, stealing glances and flashing smiles. Her aim was off, the darts bouncing off the side of the board and onto the floor. Johnny's eyes avoided her tits and ring.

"So what are you supposed to be anyway?" she asked.

"A burglar."

"Well ain't it my lucky night," she said. "I get dressed up as a black cat and who do I run into but a cat burglar."

"They say a black cat is bad luck," Johnny said. "But you don't look that bad."

"You flirt," Ash said. "You trying to steal me tonight?"

Johnny glanced at the ring. "Adultery still carries time in sixteen states."

"Only if you get caught."

"I've got that kind of luck," Johnny said.

"We can make it so you don't."

Johnny shook his head. This was the kind of trouble he was fixing to avoid. The two were close to finishing their round, with Johnny well ahead, when a man approached. He was dressed up as a zombie, with dull gray paint neatly concealing his face and giving a ghoulish look. He was short and scrappy but walked with a limp. He set his Diet Pepsi on the table by the dart board.

"Here's my friend," Ash said. "Hey, Johnny, it was nice playing. Don't go too far. I won't be long."

"Sure thing," Johnny said. He retreated into the corner of the bar nearest the dart board, where he could keep an eye and ear on the two. He was the only sober head at Sharkey's by this point. The drunks yapped and the jukebox kicked loud, so his ears strained to make out what they were saying.

Johnny picked up that this was Ash's work friend and the two regularly hit the St. Paul bars to throw darts together. They were comfortable with each other, cracking jokes and clinking beer mugs. Most importantly, he wasn't Ash's husband, or whoever it was that gave her that ring.

It wasn't long before the two started complaining about their job. They worked for Loomis, the armored car company. Johnny's ears perked up when hearing this. The other ruckus in the bar — the drunks singing along to Garth Brooks' Friends in Low Places, the hollers and laughs — faded away, as his attention crystalized around their conversation.

Little gems fell from their lips and piled up in Johnny's head, building a small mountain of intrigue. "Heavy J-bags, three million for that Mall of America run," "Scared of that much cash?," "You think that's bad, wait until Christmas," "Double that to seven, at least."

Sweat collected on Johnny's brow. It dripped down the black grease that he'd smeared across his eyes as part of his burglar costume. His gut tingled. The call of crime, of thieving and larceny. Freedom from the room in his mother's double-wide. A new life somewhere exotic. A proper big score, but a fantasy.

An empty beer mug clanked down on Johnny's table. Ray sat down across from him. Johnny snapped out of it, shook his head, and let out a long, defeated sigh. He couldn't rob an armored truck. He wasn't a stick-up man. He knew numbers. He could forge papers. His larceny worked in the shadows.

"I'm headed home, J-bird," Ray said. His speech slurred, mixed in with a belch of Miller High Life. "If you need a ride, I got you, man."

Johnny shook his head. "I'm good. I'll walk home."

"Yeah, I bet you will, big guy." Ray stumbled out of the bar.

---

This is part one of three of a series of stories by Mythos Noir.

Crime and speculative fiction. Essays from the underbelly. Lives in the Orient.