Joseph Bottum - Wise Guy: A Christmas Tale

I

It all starts... but then, where doesanything start? Back at the first moments of Creation, maybe, or down in somelong-ago legend, its meanings and purposes faded now into the darkening past. Everystorys opening is a little arbitrary, one way or another. Every beginning is asmall lie.

Still, since this particular storyconcerns a thief named Bart Sagan, we should probably begin where hedidthe afternoon of December 18, a week before Christmas, when he foughthis way through the icy winds that slice down High Street to meet a friend atthe Evergreen Tavern and ask her for some help. Hatch a quick plan with her, inother words. Plot a little crime.

So, as Bart laid out the story for hisfriend, it all starts when a drug runner for the local crime lord Harry Kinggets himself rattledrattled good and hard, convinced hes only half ajump ahead of the cops.

Billy is that runners name; Billy Euston.And maybe hes right to think the police are closing in on him. Or maybe hesjust gone crazy. Who knows? Eventually, all drug runners imagine they hearfootsteps, creeping along behind them, and start to twitch in their sleep. Buteither way, there this scrawny, longhaired Billy character finds himself:abandoning his car on a south-side street to duck down an alley, lugging an oldbrown-leather suitcase.

Of course, with twelve three-kilo packagesof heroin inside, the suitcase weighs almost eighty pounds. Both hands on thehandle just to carry it, wheezing like an asthmatic sheep, even Billy, loopy ashe is, begins to realize hes not getting far. But up ahead, midway down theblock, he sees a big delivery truck coming out of a gate. And its then thatBilly has the first of his bright ideas: Hell throw off the police by slippingaround the truck and hiding in the shipping yard.

Only trouble is, the yards full ofpeople: paper-baggers finishing their lunches, and smokers taking a nicotinebreak, and drivers standing around in little knots, shouting back and forthwhile they drink their coffee and wait for their loads. The place where hethought he could hole up for a whiledodge the police, maybe call Mr.Kings people for a pick-upturns out to be the loading dock of a hugeshipping center, a bustling madhouse in the middle of the Christmas rush.

Its not so much a plan as sheer momentum,at Bart explained it, that carries Billy forward into the buildingredfaced and sweating, jostled by the tide of workers: a scruffy kid in a leatherjacket thats practically a sign on his back reading Arrest Me, Im aCriminal , hauling alife-sentence load of uncut heroin and trying to pretend he belongs there.

Inside, the shipping center proves evenwilder. The last thing a paranoid, adrenaline-fueled drug runner needs isnoise, and this place is loud . People shouting, forklifts banging around. An every-which-waytangle of conveyersyou know the kind of thing: those waist-high trackscovered with little wheels to help slide the packages alongallclattering away. The building is like a hundred-decibel pinball machine, andBillys the ball, bouncing from bumper to bumper, tripping over people,stumbling into boxes, trying to find an exit. He notices a security guard downthe aisle giving him the fish-eye, maybe, and talking into a radio, so he cutsback around an assembly line of workers packing up Christmas boxes for mailingand slips through a door.

Unfortunately, what hes walked into turnsout to be a storage room, the shelves piled with empty white gift boxes, prettygold bows on the lids. And its there that Billy has his second of his brightideas. He pulls down a dozen of the boxes, packs a bag of heroin in each, andstacks them on a rolling cart. Then he shucks his jacket and hides it behindthe door with the suitcase. He puts on a stray blue apron, to match the workershes seen, and grabs a dusty clipboard to look even more official.

A deep breath, and hes ready togoexcept, trying to maneuver the cart out of the closet, he runsstraight into a square-built woman, as immovable as a linebacker, wearing a redsupervisors apron. There you are, she says, like she knows him, taking holdof the cart. Where in the name of all thats holy have you been the lasthour? Billy tries to wrestle the cart away from her, but shes stronger thanhe is, theres a pair of security guards standing only five feet away, andshes shouting, Susan, Bob, the rest of you, here are the last of them. Cmon,cmon, people, the trucks waiting.

Susan and Bobwhat looks like the whole assembly-line crewof packerscome running up, and before Billy can say a word, theyvegrabbed the gift boxes and packed them for shipping. The linebacker in the redapron snatches the clipboard out of his hand, glares at him, and marches off,yelling, Here are the addresses. Lets go, people. Move, move, move. Thesecurity guards give him that sympathetic shrug men share when one of them hasjust been flattened by a woman, and there we are: Billy watches open-mouthedand helpless, gaping like a fish, while maybe $10 million of Harry Kingsproperty goes floating down the river of conveyor tracks, through a labelscanner, and out the door as Christmas presents for God knows who.

He always wants to make it a story, LizMcCally grumbled to herself as her friend Bart paused his tale of misadventuresto sip at the hot drink hed ordered. Thats his weakness. Barts the best ofus, maybe: smart, careful, always thinking ahead. Strong, too, with that kindof whipcord strength of a ranch hand who looks like he weighs a hundred pounds,dripping wet, but can master an unbroken horse in an afternoon.

Liz shivered a little, as she watched himacross the table in one of the Evergreens back booths, his long safecrackersfingers stirring his cider with a cinnamon stick. A thin, wiry man with a mopof black hair, handsome in an ugly, Abraham Lincoln way, Bart could beanything. Make a big score and retire, leave us all behind. But he wants it tomean something: to have a shape, reveal some purpose. He needs to turn everythinginto a storya fable, capped off with a clean little moralandeventually thats going to get him killed.

She liked Bart, she knew. Trusted him,would work with him on any parts of a job she understood. Maybe she was even inlove with him, a little. But she wouldnt tell him, wouldnt get tangled upwith him, because it would hurt too much when the end they all knew was comingfinally arrived, like a hearse pulling up to the door.

Swirling her own drink, studying hishands, Liz missed Barts explanation of how Billy the Stupid Kid got out of theshipping center and reported back to Mr. King. Not that she cared about somedrug runner shed never metor Harry King, as far as that went. Shedbeen a con artist in this town long enough to know the score: Anyone whocrossed Harry King ended up knee-deep in the sludge at the bottom of the river,and Liz didnt figure she could learn water-breathing fast enough to escapewith the kingpins drugs or money, if she were fool enough to steal them. Butapart from that, why should it matter? You didnt break into one of Mr. Kingscribs, in the same way you didnt try armed robbery at a police station.Otherwise, you were free to take on any job you thought your luck and skillwould carry you through.

Whats this got to do with me? With you,with any of us? she demanded, while Bart stared off into the distance asthough he were trying to see the end, see what it all meantthe Saga ofBilly the Unlucky.

He looked back at Liz across the table, smiled that lopsided smileof his, and answered, Yeah, well, thats the second part of the story.

Turns out, a couple of bruisers had pickedup Bart that morning, casually scooping him off the sidewalk like well-dressedtrash collectors just as he was leaving his apartment. Mute in the car, theystayed, as they drove him along. Not a word in the elevator and speechless downthe marbled hallway, escorting him in silence through the mahogany doors andinto the famous penthouse suite of Harry KingHarry King, in all his pompand glory.