Done Deal by Les Standiford Page B

be a week or more getting any paperwork out to Faye. He sighed and reached into his pocket.
    Faye palmed the bill, checked to be sure the right picture was on it, and nodded back at the hole. “I’d just cut her back two, three feet, weld a joint, step her up to an inch.”
    “Why don’t I just have you do it?” Deal asked.
    Faye narrowed his porcine eyes. “I’m just tryin’ to be helpful.”
    “Great,” Deal said. “Be sure and warn me when you’re going to be a pain in the ass.”
    Faye waved his hand airily as he walked toward his car. “Glad to see you’re still in there pitchin’, Deal. Be a shame to turn the whole damned construction business over to the His-pan-yoles.”
    Deal watched him back up over the broken curb and crunch into the scrap pile, then pull out. If there was any justice, he’d just picked up a nail in his tire. It wasn’t until Faye was out of sight that Deal remembered he’d meant to ask for a ride back to the dealership.

Chapter 4
    Leon tried three pay phones on the street near the dealership before he found one that worked. The first one was lacking its handset and cord. The second one took his quarter. When he dialed the eight-hundred number for help, the recording told him to deposit fifty cents.
    The third one, outside a convenience store, looked battered, but the call went through. He got the recording that wanted to know if he was at a touch-tone phone. Leon glanced at the keypad. It looked as though someone had touched it repeatedly with a pickax. You really couldn’t read any of the numbers, but he pressed what had to be the “one,” just like the voice wanted him to. Then he pushed the code that would get him through to Alcazar. Just one more of his boss’s paranoid safety measures. A secure line. Like he was the fucking president.
    While Leon waited for the connection, he shifted his feet and felt something crunching under the Balys. He glanced down. There was a regular snowdrift of broken bottle glass there, beer bottles, wine bottles, who knows what all. A flattened work glove. A mangled butter knife. By the post that held the phone, a pile of grunt that looked too big to have come from an animal.
    Leon shook his head. Ten blocks south, you could see sky scrapers, bank buildings, the big red-tiled roof of the cultural center. Up here they were shitting in the streets.
    “Yes?” It was Alcazar’s voice. Impatient, as usual. Like who was Leon to be interrupting the president.
    “We got bad news and good news,” Leon said.
    “Get to the point,” Alcazar said.
    “Alejandro fucked up,” Leon said, feeling a smile on his lips.
    “What happened?” Alcazar said. Leon knew he had his jaw clenched. You could hear breath hissing through the man’s teeth. Guy was going to blow out a blood vessel before long.
    “Nothing happened,” Leon said. “That’s the point. Except for the biggest traffic jam you ever saw. Man drove away from it, not a scratch on him.” Leon kicked glass over the grunt at his feet, glanced about the neighborhood. Boarded-up this, caved-in that. There was an old VW on its side down the block, all the wheels gone. Only two blocks off Biscayne, it looked like he was in Beirut. They ever got their business finished up in Little Havana, he’d mention this neighborhood to Alcazar.
    “…supposed to be a simple accident. Can’t you do anything right?”
    Leon tuned back to the phone, registered Alcazar’s barely contained fury. “Hey,” he said. “Was Alejandro fucked up, not me. He was ready to shoot the dude. Got his macho way out of whack, you know what I mean.”
    Leon heard a sigh on the other end. When he spoke again, Alcazar sounded weary, his voice faint, like he was ready for a nap. “Why are you calling me, Leon?”
    Leon nodded to himself. Now that was better. One of these days, the man was going to reflect back, tally up all the times of who was a help and who was a hindrance, he’d realize what he had in Leon