Scout’s Honor: Chapter 3

The Fall Guy

Roy Cross sauntered into the Denny’s, nodding at the tired restaurant as if he owned the place. He cooed “hey baby” to the frowzy hostess twice his age and chucked her under the chin when she giggled her delight. He spied Tommy Mahoney in the far booth, head down on the table like a napping kindergartner. Strolling back, Roy eased himself onto the warped plastic banquette, flipped up his Ray-Bans, and shook his shoulder-length hair into place. He lit a Marlboro with a gold lighter. A pretty teenage waitress appeared at his side before his first smoke ring drifted away. Pointing at his sleeping friend, Roy shushed her with a finger to his lips, mouthing the word “coffee.” The teenager gawked at him, then fluttered off to make a fresh pot. 

The cigarette dangling from his lips, he leaned back, clasping his bare arms behind his head. He knew why Tommy had demanded the meeting. A month ago, Roy would have been desperate at the thought of his partner bailing on him, but now the score of a lifetime was a mere handhold away. He only needed a little more time. Juan Sierra was on the verge of entrusting him with serious weight, the crooked cop Schmidt was circling the bait, and he’d figured out the perfect fall guy. Someone he hadn’t seen in years, someone he couldn’t be connected with, someone few would miss. 

A few more smoke rings lazed upward before Roy softly patted Tommy’s shoulder. 

“What?” Tommy whimpered in his sleep. Groggy, the pudgy twenty-four-year-old sat up blinking. He groped for his thick glasses, shook himself awake, but couldn’t shake his firing squad nightmare. Awake, his terrifying visions were more realistic: Roy fingering him as the genius behind their drug smuggling, a federal judge decreeing that Tommy had betrayed his sacred trust as a U.S. Customs inspector. 

“Music Man, what’s with the siesta?” Roy asked. 

“I can’t sleep any more. You’re late, Roy, you’re always late. How did they even let you in here without a shirt?” Tommy snapped, pointing at the black leather vest that covered little of Roy’s lithe chest and muscle-rippled stomach. “Jesus, you get away with everything.” 

Roy chuckled, nodding in apparent agreement. “T, you know the difference between lunch and a blow job?” 

“For Christ’s sake. No.”

“Great, meet me here tomorrow at noon.” Roy laughed. The short-skirted waitress hustled back with coffee and a half dozen tiny plastic creamers, gushing to Roy about his boots. Tommy hesitated, looked under the table, and rolled his eyes. Roy was wearing skin-tight black leather pants and black cowboy boots. The pants’ seams were adorned with silver conches and the boots with anklets of silver stars. Tommy blanched. 

“OK, dude,” said Roy, slurping the coffee. “You called this meeting, what’s so important you had to get me up at, like, the crack of dawn? Hey, maybe I’d get it up for Dawn’s crack.”

“I quit,” he said, ignoring the meager jest. Tommy had long since realized that Roy used humor like a safecracker’s tools, a way to break in. 

“What?” cried Roy, his surprise feigned. 

 “You heard me, I quit my job. We’re done. No more runs. Finito.” Tommy was so determined to get out, to flee San Diego—to hide somewhere Roy could never find him—he’d walked into the chief inspector’s office and resigned, declaring that the border traffic’s endless exhaust was fueling his asthma, killing him. He’d added that he’d been accepted at some East Coast music school he’d seen an ad for in Guitar Player magazine. “I mean it. I’m done.” Tommy ran his fingers through his unruly copper-colored hair and thrust out his soft chin, working on his defiance, wishing he’d defied Roy from the start, wishing he’d never met him. 

“You, like, quit already?”

“I had to give two weeks’ notice. Dolores and I are out of here the Friday after next. The moment I get off work.”

“Dude, think of all that dinero you’ll be losing.”

“I’d leave tonight if I could, King.” Tommy held a trembling thumb and forefinger a dime’s width apart. “You and I are this close to getting caught.” “How many more times do I wave you through before Secondary stops you and fries us both?” He’d met Roy at a party a couple years earlier. Roy and a handful of his friends—two had actually finished high school—had thrown a wild class of ‘67 graduation party. The cops were called three times. Tommy’s garage band was the entertainment, everyone was high, and Roy’s extravagant praise of his wicked guitar had Tommy insisting he wasn’t a rock star, just a customs inspector at the Tijuana border. Almost overnight, Roy was winking at him as he rolled across the border with sacks of marijuana. The more runs he made—the more he pocketed—the more outlandish his dress, his muscle cars, and his behavior had become. Now Roy stood out like a peacock on a turkey farm, begging to be slaughtered. Was he ever sober? Tommy knew his imperfect system for knowing his line assignment in advance—the trick to Roy’s smuggling—only had to fail once for them to be imprisoned. 

“OK,” Roy said. Grinning, he banged out a drum roll on the table, and shot Tommy with a finger pistol. “OK.”

“OK? OK what? You’re really cool with that?” Tommy asked, incredulous. Having steeled himself for battle, Roy’s indifference was astonishing.

“OK, T. I get it. We’re cool. You’re not cut out for a life of crime.” He laughed so hard the waitress giggled from behind the pick-up counter. A blue-haired pair looked up from their waffles.

“Roy, please. Everyone can hear us,” Tommy begged.

Roy raised his hands in a papal gesture and smiled, the picture of benevolence. He’d been expecting the breakup for months, since he’d first noticed his chubby partner losing weight. But he thought he’d have more time to polish his scheme—the last run where he’d rip off the Colombians. If it worked, Roy’s beach party would be endless; the twenty-one-year-old’s life would be one wave, one high, and one girl after another.

“Tranquilo, T,” Roy said, chuckling. He set his cigarette on the table and again folded his arms behind his head, contemplating his useful friend. He was glad Tommy was leaving town. Not that he really cared about him—or anyone for that matter—but the music man had made him a boatload of money (if only he hadn’t pissed it all away) and had been true to his word. His plan was foolproof, but nothing wrong with Tommy out of harm’s way. 

Roy remembered he was hungry. The joint he’d smoked on the drive over had him craving something sweet. “Let’s celebrate. Let’s get some pie. Yeah, baby, some banana cream pie. Then let’s talk about one last run… for old time’s sake. I’ve got a dude I want you to meet,” Roy crooned, reflecting on his fall guy. “I guarantee he’ll take all the worry out of it for you. The guy’s such a wuss he washes his cock before he takes a piss.” 

He beckoned the waitress with a smile, and the eager teenager trotted over with her pad and pencil in hand. She stood close to him, pressing against the table. Roy leaned forward, dragged on his cigarette, insisting Tommy try the apple pie. Meanwhile, he trailed his free hand up the back of the girl’s thigh, stroking it. She sucked in her breath as he toyed with her panties’ elastic band. He laughed, softly this time.

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