The Cool Room by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 53

Sitting on their respective bar stools, Frank waved off the bartender, who, as during other times, served him his favorite ale. This was not a time for drinking but for compromise, as Frank prepared to sacrifice his dignity to a man without a man – someone who, in psychiatric circles, would receive the moniker of psychopath. Frank had always been uncomfortable around him, but now saw the man as a danger not just to him and his staff but society. If he could get away with killing him, he would do so without hesitation. But committing murder was not a practical solution, and Frank would spend a great deal of time contemplating how he might deal with him. He hoped to arrive at a solution that would be permanent – one that would escape the eyes of the legal system.

“So, Frank,” he began. “What can I do for you?” With such sarcasm, Frank began to feel his blood boil with increasing anger.

“Don’t play with me, you asshole,” he replied. “You know why I’m here.”

The man sat, his chin resting on the heel of his hand, as if deep in thought – another expression of sarcasm.

“Oh, right,” he continued. “We were going to organize a business venture, weren’t we?” Selling drugs, by any means, is not a business venture, but Frank agreed nonetheless. “Right,” he answered.

The man paused as he considered options as to how to proceed, and came up with only one. “Well,” he said. “I suggest we get together at your place -- maybe on a Saturday—so we keep things on the down-low. How about this Saturday?” Frank was always busy and had a service scheduled for Saturday afternoon. After that, he would be free to discuss the sordid details of their ‘business venture’.

“Saturday at five,” Frank answered. His voice was flat, giving way to the underlying anger he was now possessed with. “Five it is, Frank,” the man replied. Getting up from his bar stool, the man briefly stood at Frank’s side, and placing a hand on his shoulder gave him an encouraging remark. “You won’t be sorry, Frank,” he said. “We’re going to make a lot of money, you and I.” Under other circumstances, Frank would have been elated to be involved in such an enterprise. But as he got up from his bar stool, he turned and watched the man round the corner to the left, heading for Kingsboro Avenue. Just then, he felt the full impact of what he was becoming involved in, and sensing an increasingly sick feeling in his stomach, he quickly left the bar. Rounding the corner to the right, Frank ran to the alley, sprinted to the back, and, bending down, began retching -- his breakfast coating the ground as well as his shoes. Tears soon ran down his face as the pain of vomiting took hold. “Fuck,” he murmured.

Vomiting again, tears turned to weeping as his voice produced words of desperation. “I don’t want to fuckin’ do this. I just want to die.” But Frank didn’t have the courage for suicide, and having just made a deal with the devil, he found himself committed to seeing it through, regardless of the outcome.

The flow of stomach contents soon stopped, and Frank, forcing himself into an upright position, started on his way home. He thought about stopping at the bar for a bottle of water, feeling the need to cleanse the noxious layer of vomit from inside his mouth. However, he wanted to avoid becoming the object of staring eyes that might see him as just another drunk. Occasionally, he felt the need to stop as his stomach began churning. As he was now in public, he tried to avoid bending down and feeling a gurgling sensation building in his throat swallowed hard, refusing to allow anyone to see the state he was in. Regardless of the agreement he had entered into, Frank still felt it was important to maintain the image he had spent so many years working for. Perhaps, it can easily be said that empires rise and fall mostly out of reputation, and in the business world, this is especially true. It was no longer just about his business. It was everything. His reputation was his bond with the community. It was his existence. Now, it too hung in the balance, and if he were connected to the one thing he recently came to hate, his life would be over – his mind, beyond recovery; his body, held behind iron bars. It wouldn’t matter how many years he’d serve. His life would be irreparably damaged.