Nothing is Easy
By Jas. R. Petrin
Art by Hank Blaustein

Skig studied Lorpa, the wrinkled guy bright as a peacock once, so faded and desperate now, with hollow eyes, a sweep of glistening stubble on one cheek where he had done a lousy job with his razor that morning. Skig was prompted to say yes but wasn't convinced he would see the money again. And he had other reservations. This was a guy, three months ago, could lift a finger and have you dumped, cold meat, in a vacant lot.

Lorpa's begging was uncomfortable.

"So I give you the twenny," Skig said, "what good does it do?"

"Puts me back in the game, like I said. Makes me a player again." Bone-rack shoulders rising, knobby lumps under the rumpled golf shirt.

"You started out, you got your money from the brothers."

"The Tuittes, yeah." He pronounced it "toots". "A long time ago."

"So with the twenny-"

"Who knows? Maybe I shop it out, get somebody to change some things, startin' with that skuzball Weiss-"

Skig creaked back in his chair. "Better I don't know."

"Listen, what you do know is that I got problems. I didn't, I wouldn't be here, right? You're wonderin', are you gonna see your money again. I understand that. For that reason I don't mind telling you. I know I can trust you, Leo. Everybody knows Leo Skorzeny's okay. You're not like those other pieces a crap."

"See," Skig said, "problem is, I got to wonder if you can handle this. Somethin' goes wrong, the twenny, I got to come looking for you. I don't want to have to do that."

Lorpa studied him a moment with mild surprise, as if trying to imagine such an implausible situation. Then he said, "You got no worries there. I can handle things. Guaranteed." He leaned forward suddenly. "I won't dick around. Double in two weeks."

"Double-"

"In two weeks. End of the month, I walk in here an' slap the twenny plus another twenny down on this table. Your stake back plus twenny large, Skig. Where else you gonna make that kinda juice?" His face fell suddenly into grim lines, harsh and threatening. "I need this float, Leo. I gotta have it." He held his ferocity, then slumped, turned sheepish. "Hey, I'm beggin' you, Leo. Me, Lenny Lorpa. Gimme the cash."

Seeing the guy out the kitchen door with two chunky envelopes riding under the limp PGA shirt, Skig wondered if he'd done the right thing. At one time Lorpa could have gone home and pulled twenty large out of a sock. But it wasn't that way now. He wasn't "the boss" anymore. He'd been sidelined, cut out of the action by his own money man, Silly Weiss. Skig figured the old man was lucky to be walking around with no holes in him, never mind plotting to recover his empire.

He locked the door, plugged the kettle in, and rattled some Tylenol-threes out onto the countertop. Washed the painkillers down with a splash of Teacher's, straight up. Then he stood in the middle of the room with his eyes shut, his right hand pressed down low against his gut. His mind turned to food, what he could have for lunch that wouldn't eviscerate him. In the back of the freezer lurked a pizza that he had been eyeing for several weeks, one of those small single servings, a year old, but each time he reached for it, his gut screamed at him. Lorpa wasn't the only one lucky to be walking around. No, he wasn't. Every quack Skig went to see told him how fortunate he was to be carrying what felt like a handful of broken glass around in his belly-fortunate compared to the alternative. Had they personally tried the alternative? No, they had not. Then why were they so damn sure? That question usually shut them up.

There was a tap at his door, and his eyes cracked open. Lorpa again? He lifted one corner of the curtain next to the fridge, and saw his neighbor and friend from down the street, Eva Kohl, standing on the stoop. She wore a men's powder blue shirt with the tails hanging out, a white top under it, and white slacks, and had one of her little plastic food containers clutched tight in her hands. He unlocked the door and pulled it open. She raised the container like an offering, smiling up at him.

"Homemade cream of chicken soup, Mr. Skorzeny."

"You musta been reading my mind," Skig said.

A retired hairdresser, Eva trimmed Leo's hair once a month, what was left of it. And lately she had become interested in nursing him back to health. Waste of time, he told her, but she was determined, and he let her get on with it. One reason was, her homemade soup was to die for. Maybe literally in his case, but he would go out smiling.

"Chicken soup," he said, a smile threatening to break out on his thick, square face. He sat down at the table. "Cure you of anything, right? My mother used to think so."

"If you think something helps you, it does, Mr. Skorzeny."

"You been cutting my hair, we been friends, how long? Three years? You can call me Leo, don't you think? Or Skig. I keep tellin' you that."

She rattled a pan out of the cupboard, switched on a burner at the beat-up range, and began heating his soup. "Leo's a nice name. I don't know why you let people call you Skig."

"Neither do I." A riddle from the mists of time. "Started back . . . let's see . . . I was a kid, my uncle called me that."

"He must have been a callous man."

"Callous, yeah, I guess you could say so." Uncle Joe had been some kind of enforcer for the Bar Harbor Longshoremen's local.

"Have you decided to let them do the operation?"

"The quacks?" He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess I'm gonna have to do something. It's just, I dunno if I can trust them. A kid goes into doctoring today, he does it for the money. It's not like the old days, a doctor wanted to help people."

"Have the operation. The sooner, the better."

The stove was popping, the soup starting to smell pretty good.

"Your stove heats up fast," Eva said appreciatively. "Mine's not working worth a hoot anymore."

"Last time I came for a haircut you were having some kinda trouble with it. I told you I'd buy you a new one."

"And I told you that would be much too generous."

"So then I said I'd lend you the money. A woman cooks like you do, she ought to have a good stove."

"Borrowing money is a very bad idea, especially between friends. You told me so yourself, Mr. Skorzeny, some time ago." He started to argue with her, then stopped; he really had told her that once, he realized. The pot was steaming. She switched off the burner, ladled the contents into a bowl, and placed the bowl on a tray. Adding salt and pepper, a few soda crackers, a glass of milk, she put the tray in front of him. A piece of paper towel, folded fancy, served as a napkin beside the spoon. "And you're not the only one who says so. My mother always told me, if you borrow from a friend, you won't have that friend very long."

"Some reason we're talking about our mothers today."

"You really don't believe in borrowing money, do you?"

"No."

And he didn't. But he did believe in lending it. Almost eight hundred grand on the street this month, some of it floated to people who liked to say they were his friends.

He spooned up some hot soup, blew gently on it, then tasted it. He closed his eyes, savoring the flavor, and winked at Eva. "The best."

"I'm glad you like it." Beaming, she rinsed the pot in the sink, along with the plastic container, then sat down across from him to watch him eat. "Anyway, I'll get a new stove. I'm already working on that."

"Save up the dough? Is that your plan?"

"That's one way. Save up for one or else win one. I've been to the East Coast Home and Hardware Show at the Forum three times this week, and each time I buy as many tickets as I can afford on the range they're raffling off there."

He took some more soup and swallowed it. Beautiful. He said, "How many winners can there be, and how many tickets you buy?"

"Six winners. One for each day of the show. I don't know how many tickets I bought. Quite a few now. And I'm going to buy some more today. If I don't win, then I'll go back to plan A-save up the money. I'm not in a big hurry."

You should be, Skig thought, remembering that first doctor's visit. The jolt. The sense of betrayal. The sudden realization of how little time he had left on this earth. Everybody should be in a hurry. He said, "You play the lottery, too, I seen that. I seen the tickets stuck up there on your fridge."

"You can't win anything without a ticket."

Skig lowered his spoon and eyed her sternly through a wisp of steam. "The stove. You know you don't have much of a chance."

"I have just as much chance as anyone else."

Which is practically zero, he wanted to say, but didn't. That would be too harsh. Knock her sand castle down. As for borrowing, he was glad not everybody held her views. If they did, he might not have any customers. Not such a bad thing, maybe, in Lenny Lorpa's case.

"I know what I told you," he said, "but this day and age, people need money, they borrow it. Poor people, rich people-everybody. I wouldn't even charge you interest."

She went to object again, and he raised his hand. "Okay, okay," he said. "Forget it. What part of 'no' don't I understand, right?" He tipped his head to the side. "Tell you one thing, though. You start canning this soup of yours, you'll rake in the dough. You'll put Campbell's right out of business."

She grinned back at him. "What a nice thing to say, Mr. Skorzeny."

"Leo. Call me Leo, remember?"

"All right-Leo!"

The end of the month came and went. No word from Lorpa. Things were happening, though. Oh, yes. Halifax rocked with one headline grabber after another. Ernie Caul, pulled out of the harbor, bludgeoned to death with a heavy rust-covered object, they figured, before being splashed. Ernie had been Silly Weiss's heavy lifter. Then two days later, it was Joe the Pro's turn. Joe Proulx, Lenny's driver and bodyguard, crushed under a steel plate at the container dock, not enough left of him to ID except for his size fourteen Adidas. And most recently, a double whack: Tommy Jakes and Hector Sappoda. These two had practically run the Lorpa empire before joining Silly's camp after Lenny's fall from grace. They were found out back of a Sackville restaurant-the Clam Shack-shoved so far down into matching green compost garbage bins, they had to be removed with tin-snips and a garden trowel…

Be sure to read the exciting conclusion in our January/February issue, on sale now.
"Nothing is Easy" by Jas. R. Petrin, copyright © 2008 with permission of the authors

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