Every Man a Menace by Patrick Hoffman Page A

circle around. I’ll be back.”
    Raymond went to the desk and bought a one-way ticket to Mexico City. It was the first time he’d ever bought a ticket at the airport. The traveler’s checks made the woman helping him smile mechanically. She muttered to herself while she counted. Tired-looking people shuffled by pulling bags. Raymond’s own weariness had faded. He was wide awake.
    Outside, he waited for Shadrack. The man’s face, as he pulled up, looked so serious it almost seemed funny.
    “You did it?” he asked, when Raymond was back in the car.
    Raymond handed him the ticket. Shadrack took it out of the envelope, examined it, then folded it up and stuck it in his pocket. Raymond felt a brief wave of fear. He didn’t like putting his name on paper, didn’t like the idea of Shadrack holding this over him somehow, but arguingseemed impossible; instead, he sat there and felt doomed. Shadrack looked around for a moment, then pulled out into traffic.
    “I knew this dude once,” he said, when they were back on the freeway. “Back when I was still just a kid selling weed in Eureka. He was one of those dudes with a wide face. You never wanna fight one of them; they’re liable to head-butt you. He used to scare everyone. There wasn’t a single tweaker on the street wouldn’t cross over when they seen him coming. Matter of fact, they called this wide-faced dude—”
    “You saying wide or white ?” Raymond asked.
    “Wide— wide ,” said Shadrack, waving his hand in front of his face. “They called him Pan Face, or some shit. I’ll tell you a story, though, he got cut in the arm with a knife by a girl one time, and they took him to the hospital and he got one of them staphs, one of them MRSAs. He ended up dying from that shit. The point is, the girl that cut him, did it just ‘cause she was crazy. She didn’t have no reason to do it. See? You had the scariest boy in town, shit, scariest boy in the area, get cut by a girl, and dies from a fever.” He shook his head. “My question for you is: When you were in prison, you ever thought Arthur was the scariest boy on the yard?”
    Raymond didn’t like the question. He felt his stomach knot up. “Yeah, he’s a scary old boy,” he said.
    “Yep, and Gloria’s a scary old girl.”
    “So what are you saying?” Raymond asked. “Gloria’s going to stab Arthur in the arm? He gonna die of a fever?”
    “She gonna stab somebody. She always do,” said Shadrack, shaking his head side to side like a man unhappily speaking the truth.
    You are in the hands of a crazy man, thought Raymond. “We gonna finish this deal tonight?” he asked.
    Shadrack turned and looked at him. “Sure as a song is sung by a singer,” he said. “This deal will be done. Don’t you worry, Mr. Deal Broker. Look at that van,” he said, pointing at a white van that had veered in front of them, out of its lane. They drove in silence for a moment. Then, after taking a deep breath, Shadrack said, “I wish I could just do the deal with you, though. No Gloria, none of them Filipinos.”
    Raymond glanced over at Shadrack and watched his head bump up and down with the road. He thought about that stolen boat. He thought about his mother, hidden away at Uncle Gene’s. When Raymond was twelve years old, she had tried to get him into the Best Buddies program. She thought he’d needed a positive male influence. Raymond was a sullen boy, and he’d told her he didn’t want to do it. Maybe his life would have turned out different. He might be working in a bank now, or be a paramedic, or some bullshit. You never know: he might have ended up with a child molester for a mentor.
    Shadrack dropped him back at the Prita. Said he’d call him later, told him to shower and shave—get cleaned up.
    “Since you been out,” he asked, “you go and get yourself a good meal? Steak, or some shit?”
    Raymond said he hadn’t.
    Shadrack looked him up and down. “My advice is make sure you get yourself pretty