Authors: Owen Matthews
The Fixes (23 page)
Jordan and E drive back to Studio City to pick up more explosives. “I blew our whole stash on Haley's Fix,” he tells E. “Gotta prepare for my turn, though.”
“One bomb wasn't enough?” E replies.
Jordan shakes his head. Downshifts and pulls out into the passing lane. “The Côte d'Azur was just a test run. I had to make sure the bomb actually worked.”
“It works,” E says. “So what's your target?”
But Jordan just smiles. “Fixes always stay secret, E; you know that. You'll have to wait and see.”
They're supposed to meet Mike behind the same studio as last time. Except he's not there when Jordan and E arrive.
Jordan parks the Tesla. Looks around. Pulls out his Galaxy, punches in a number.
“Hey,” he says. “It's me. Where are you?” Pause. “No, we're here. Same place as before.” Pause. “Mike, I told you it's no problem. Don't make me come over there.”
He listens. “Good. We'll be waiting.” Then he ends the call.
“Something wrong?” E asks.
Jordan shakes his head, pockets his phone. “He's just being a baby. He'll be here in twenty minutes.”
Mike shows up forty minutes later. He pulls up in an old Ford SUV, sits in the truck and doesn't climb out right away. Jordan and E watch him from the Tesla.
“Come on,” Jordan mutters. “Don't be such a pussy.”
Then the Ford's door swings open, and Mike steps out. He looks smaller than last time, like he shrunk or something. E doesn't have much time to look at him, though, because Jordan's reaching for his door handle and stepping out onto the gravel.
E and Jordan stand in front of the Tesla and wait for Mike to close the distance. He stops maybe ten, fifteen feet away, like he's afraid to come any closer.
“Did you bring the stuff?” Jordan asks him.
Mike doesn't answer.
“The powder,” Jordan says. “I told you, we need more of it. Did you bring it?”
Mike seems to be fighting something. He doesn't make eye contact. Finally, he spits on the ground. “I told you, I can't do this anymore. I can't help you boys.”
“Why,” Jordan says. Flat. It's barely a question.
“That bombing on the North Shore, that bathing suit store. You think I don't know that was you?”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Jordan says.
“You ask me for a couple thousand dollars' worth of explosives. Soon as I give it to you, your neighborhood starts
blowing up. Now you come to me wanting more, and you think you're going to get it?”
He doesn't look like he's going to play nice. E's starting to get worried. This guy could sell them out, after all. He could tell the police what he knows.
But Jordan doesn't look worried at all. “First of all, we're not setting off any bombs. We're filming a movie, and we
hate
CGI.”
Mike spits again. He doesn't look convinced.
“
Second
, even if we were setting off bombs, what the fuck does it matter? You're still getting paid, aren't you? You still have your job. It would really suck if Grant Studios had to find a new demolitions expert, though, you know?”
Mike laughs. “You can try to threaten me, son, but something tells me I won't be doing a lot of demolitions work for your dad if I'm locked up in jail, either.”
“You don't want to go down this road,” Jordan says. “You're not going to like where it takes you.”
“I believe that.” Mike's already turning back to his truck. “Sure seems to have brought me nothing but bullshit so far.”
He walks back to the old Ford. Calls over his shoulder at Jordan and E.
“Sorry, boys,” he says. “You'll just have to get your kicks some other way.”
“He could fuck us over,” E says as Jordan speeds the Tesla back toward Capilanoâ
(and I mean, like, triple digits, engine humming, lock-you-in-jail speeding).
“He could totally tell the cops that he sold us explosives.”
Jordan drives, his jaw set, his right foot to the floor. “He's not going to fuck us over, E. He'd be just as fucked. He sold gunpowder to teenagers. How do you think that would play in court?”
E doesn't say anything. He holds on to the armrest as Jordan slaloms through traffic.
“My dad's Harrison Grant,” Jordan continues. “Harrison Grant can afford a better lawyer than some piece-of-shit draft dodger, and Mike knows it.
“He's not going to pull anything,” Jordan says. “Ergo, we'll be fine.”
“So I guess you have to change your Fix, huh?” E asks Jordan. “Now that we're screwed out of gunpowder.”
Jordan glances at E. Downshifts and pulls out to pass some trophy wife in her Lexus. “I'm not changing the Fix.”
E blinks. “Wait, what?”
“I'll get the explosives,” Jordan says. “One way or another, I'm going to pull this thing off, and it's going to change our freaking lives.”
Even E can admit that that's kind of a worrisome comment for Jordan to make. And if E were, you know, in a different headspace, he might be inclined to look more critically at what's going on here.
But E's in Jordan's headspace.
E's living in the Moment.
It's like E's the iron filings, and Jordan's the magnet. Or maybe E's the moth and Jordan's the flame, and E's drawn to Jordan even though, somewhere deep down, he knows he'll probably get burned.
That's a pretty apt metaphor, actually.
Let's go with that.
Anyway, that's just a speed bump. A minor glitch in
the Moment
. Life remains good.
Even Liam seems happier.
“Wow, you really must be feeling better,” he tells E, after E's been back at the health center for a week. “It's like you actually
want
to be here.”
“I'm just trying to put the work in,” E tells Liam. “Anything I can do to help.”
Liam watches as E sweeps the floor. Rubs his chin like he's thinking about something. “Forget about the broom for a second,” he says finally. “Come on into my office.”
“That project I mentioned the other day,” Liam says. “You still want in?”
E cocks his head. “What, the really important one?”
Liam nods. “You've been busting your ass since you came back. It's kind of a waste to only use you for lunch runs.”
“I don't mind,” E says. “But if you have something else you want me to do . . .”
“We need to raise money. It's a hard sell right now. Giving clean needles to drug addicts isn't exactly the most popular cause in the world.”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed.”
Liam shuffles some papers. “People don't understand. They hear âneedle exchange' and think we're just enablers. They don't see the other stuff we do here, the counseling and the detox resources we offer. So we don't get the funding we need.”
E nods. “I get it. So what do you want me to do?”
Liam reaches in his desk. Pulls out a digital camera, some fancy DSLR, the kind that shoots video. “The director wants me to make a fund-raising video. You can help by interviewing people who use the exchange. I'll put you in contact with some of our success stories. We can quote science to politicians all day long, but someone needs to show the reality. We need to show the public that we actually help.”
He slides the camera across the desk. “So what do you think? Are you in?”
E takes the camera. Wanders out through the health center in search of subjects.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Most of the health center's clients are pretty scary. They're dirty and they kind of smell funny. Some are very obviously mentally ill. They all look like they'd rather be left alone.
E gets shot down, like, four or five times. A couple people swear at him. Somebody spits.
“Don't worry about it,” Liam says. “This stuff always takes time.”
E finds his first interview subject that afternoon. She's a stringy-haired lady about his mom's age, sitting on a milk crate next door to the health center. She's been into the center a couple of times, E remembers. He introduces himself, shows her the camera. She tells him she'll talk if he gives her a dollar.
E finds a couple of bills in his pocket and hands them to her. She takes them, crumples them into her own pocket.
“What do you want to know?” she says, her voice chainsmoker ragged.
E looks through the camera's viewfinder. Makes sure it's recording. “I guess I'm just supposed to ask you your name, and whether you like the health center or not.”
The woman's name is Jill. She's forty-three, and she was born back east, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She wound up on the West Coast because it's warmer than the east, and she's been here longer than E's been alive.
“I've seen you in the health center a few times,” E tells her. “We're trying to film a video to show people that it's useful. Is there anything you can say to convince them?”
Jill shrugs. “I don't really know much about the place. I go in when I need a clean needle.”
“Do you think it's worthwhile to have a needle exchange in Railtown?” E asks.
“Well, sure.”
“Why's that?”
Jill looks at E like he's stupid. E motions to the camera. “For the general public,” he says.
Jill laughs, ragged. “Shit, I would have thought that was obvious.” Then she looks at the camera, looks out into the street. “I had two friends die of AIDS they got from dirty needles.” She looks at E. “How's that?”
“Great,” E says. “Uh, who were your friends?”
“Bud Traverse and Casey Z. This was a couple of years ago, before your little center came along.” Jill looks out into the street some more, so long that E thinks she's, like, zoned out or something. Then she blinks.
“There's been less people dying since that center opened,” she says, pushing herself to her feet. “And that's about all I know about that.”
E feels okay about the interview footage.
It's pretty decent stuff, he figures.
(Maybe it's even doing some good in the world.)
Liam seems to like it, anyway.
“This is perfect,” he says when E shows him the footage. “This is exactly what we need, Eric. Simple, stark, and
real
. Good job.”
“Thanks,” E says, even though he really didn't do anything. He's heading back to his car when his phone buzzesâPaige. Calling, not texting.
“Hey, can we talk?” she says, her voice halfway between crying and mad. “I just lost my fucking job.”
The Pack convenes at the Cactus Club, on Capilano Beach. They get a four-top in the lounge, show the waitress fake IDs. Order a round of the club's signature drink.
(The Sunset Beach, a vodka soda with peach Slurpee.
Perfect
for those endless summer nights.)
Then Paige lays out the story.
“It's
,” she tells them. “He got me that PA job on the movie he's shooting.”
The others nod. Yeah, they know this. Get to the juicy bits.
“Anyway, it was all going fine. He's, like, flirty or whatever, but I didn't really think anything of it. He has a fiancée back home in L.A. and stuff.”
“Like that ever stopped anyone,” Haley says.
Paige rolls her eyes. “Exactly. I met him here about a month ago. We hit it off, I guess, and then he got me this job, and my first day on set, he called me to his trailer and tried to hook up.”
The drinks come. Paige waits until the waitress is gone again. She sips her Sunset Beach, and then continues.
“So, I kind of avoided him after that. But today, I got called to his trailer.was in there, all by himself. He tried to give me a back massage, and when I told him no, he said if I didn't play along, he would get me fired.”
“So what did you do?” Jordan asks.
Paige looks at Jordan like he slapped her. “What the fuck do you think? I got the hell out of there. And, like, ten minutes later, the AD pulled me aside and told me he had to let me go.”
She downs the rest of her drink. “So, here I am. Last week of summer and I'm officially too broke to pay for college. Yay me.”