I, Racki (Part X)

This is a continuation. To start from the beginning, click here.

The paper bag I was carrying was dumped out by the agent at the door and I watched as he violently shook and then tossed aside each article when he was satisfied it was harmless. The agent’s name was Jim Riley and I tried to figure out how I knew that until I remembered that he went to school with my older brother and after that had kind of dropped off the face of the earth.

Now he was mumbling something into his collar. He was beefier than I remembered him, the look of a stone cold killer. He straightened his tie and crossed his hands in front of him while never taking his eyes off me as I put everything back into the bag. “How have you been, Racki?”

“Shot a four-over this morning.”

“That’s nice. How many putts?”

“Do you really care?”

“No.”

“Nineteen then,” I said.

“I guess that’s okay.”

“I guess you want to know why I’m here.”

“I already know.”

“A delivery.”

“Right.”

“Jim,” I said, “I’m totally surprised, seeing you here. I just assumed you were dead all this time.”

“Really?”

“What happened to you after you graduated?”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” he told me.

“I’m from Stone Creek, Jim.”

“You’re from Stone Creek, pal, and I am, too. I just barely graduated from high school. I was totally clueless on what to do next. I’m not college material, I don’t want to be college material, and just the thought of being around college material makes me very hostile in my brain. I may not know the difference between Rimsky-Korsakov and Kolmogorov-Smirnov, but I just put a new racing suspension on my Mitsubishi and I have an all-access pass to the Champagne Room at the Red Windmill.”

“Damn, how do I get in on this action?”

“Get the Mayor to hook you up.”

“Is there a lot you have to do, to get this job?”

“Lots. I went through six years of hell. The easy part was five years in the French Foreign Legion marching all over Central Africa after which I returned to go to a special school no one knows about in the mountains of Virginia. That was the hard part. Not everybody survives the course, if you know what I mean, and the people who live through it get hired by important people who need nasty things done quietly like the government and big business, or people with lots of enemies, and the money to make them go away.”

“What, Jim? Say that again. I wasn’t listening.”

For the next installment, click here.