This is really a crime story, but it too deals with fantasy of a different kind.

Attitude Adjustment
by Violette Malan

I am Rodrigo Rascón.  They call me Dingo.  I am not Australian.
Nor is the girl sitting across from me, trying not to put her elbows down on the chipped formica table between us. Ginny wears music video tough.  Street kid by The Gap.  Stupid cow.  Ginny is after a big score so that next week she can be wearing street kid by Armani.

"You need someone like me," she says, leaning forward so that her sweater doesn't catch on the torn plastic upholstery fixed with grimy duct tape.  She did not expect to meet me in such a place.  A working man's bar.  Ceilings yellowed with smoke.  The smell of stale beer and staler cigarettes.  Her mother would warn Ginny against such a place--if the woman believes such places exist. 

But they know me here. 

Ginny dies to use one of those little wipes girls like her keep in their purses.  But this she can't show me.  No, she must be cool.

"It's not just that I know how to dress," she goes on, so sure that I'm listening.  "Anyone can fake that with a trip to the right stores.  Then they open their mouths and give themselves away.  And there goes your market.  Someone like me can go anywhere and no one will think twice."  She says this as if she really believes that no one in the business has thought of this already.  As if all that money gets made from only junkies, down here on the street. 

"I mean even you stand out at the mall," she goes on.  "In a good way, of course.  But I can talk the talk.  It's attitude." 

You see?  Telling me about attitude.

I know what hers is.  Ginny thinks her parents are dull and stupid. Dull to live their boring suburban lives; stupid to work so hard when the little kids on the street make more in an afternoon than her old man does in a month.  She looks at me from under her lashes, trying to figure out who makes my suit and how much I pay for my silk shirts.  Her eyes keep coming back to the edge of tattoo that isn't quite covered by the collar of my shirt.  Using some sexy look she got out of her old man's Playboys.  Stupid cow.  Wiggling her ass and smiling in promise.  Thinking that because she has all her college-bound football players drooling on command she can do it to anyone.  Thinking she's something special.  When there are hundreds more just like her.

And every one of them worth money to someone like me.

I didn't lift my finger to make her come to me at the mall.  She came over herself, with her 'proposition'.  Drawn by the promise my clothes made.  Once I would have called this irony. 

Ginny is still speaking.  I don't really listen.  That's not why I'm here.  I look over her shoulder and smile my mad dog smile.  She flinches, but stops herself from looking around.  That wouldn't be cool.

I tap out my cigarette in the tin ashtray and stand up.  Slip my cigarette case and my cell phone into my jacket pockets and check that they disappear without causing a wrinkle.  "Let's go," I say. 

I walk out without paying and no one says a word.  As I say, they know me here.  I lead Ginny around the corner to where Jake leans against the Jaguar.

I nod at him.  "Jake."

"Hey Dingo, it's jake with me if it's jake with you.  This the lady?"  I nod again and he grins.  Two of his teeth are missing.  He holds the door open for her and Ginny walks far around him as she gets into the car, without even being aware of it.  Jake smiles at me again.  A different smile, now that the girl cannot see.

She's looking around at the inside of the car like she is pricing it for auction.  She smooths the leather of the seats like she touches the skin of her lover.  I just stop myself from shaking my head.  From the way she leans back in the seat, I can tell Ginny is styling, picturing herself driving a car like this some day.

After we drive 'round a few corners, she forgets about the impression she's making.  Miss Fits-in-at-the-Mall is looking at the real street for the first time, and she still has enough real kid in her to stare a little bit, like a tourist.

This street isn't where Ginny comes when she visits what she thinks is the city.  The rain that just begins seems to wash all the colours away, until the street is a black-and- white movie.  The mix of people here--again, different from what Ginny is used to seeing.  No teenagers shopping.  No office ladies on their lunch.  There's a kid much younger than her--maybe nine-years old--talking into a cell phone.  That's all he's got.  Just the cell phone.  No book bag, no knapsack.  No jacket.  I give you odds he isn't calling his mama.  The guys carrying briefcases down here aren't wearing suits.  I see Stevie on the corner while I wait for the light.  Baggy pants, football jersey hanging down to his knees.  He's carrying a briefcase, all right.  Nice cowhide.  I can see the raindrops beading up on the leather.  It's handcuffed to his wrist. 

Stevie gives me the nod, and I nod back.  I wonder what he's carrying today, worth the risk of getting dragged if someone in a car grabs the case. 

I make a right into a block full of old buildings.  Boarded-over store fronts and dingy warehouses.  Some still have signs on them.  Hainey Glass Works.  Wilson Tool & Die.  There's an empty space in front of a loading door and I pull into it.  I get out and walk toward the door.  I don't even look at Ginny.  She follows me or she doesn't.  It's up to her. 

Like the High Priestess of Attitude isn't going to follow.

She looks at me out of the corner of her eye, a little twist to her lips, like she's deciding whether she'll screw me or not, if she feels like it.  If it turns out that's what is needed to seal the deal. 

Like the choice is hers. 

I knock out a complicated rhythm on the man-sized door set into the larger rolling door.  The breeze catches her hair and swings it into her face.  Even in the rain, even over the stink of wet, dirty streets, I can smell the strawberry shampoo she uses.  I hear the sound of heavy boots as Cruise comes to open the door to my knock. 

It is dark inside the old building, and it takes a second for my eyes to adjust.  The room is large, open.  They used to fix cars here and you can smell the oil that's soaked into the blackened concrete over all the years.  There is a bathroom and a couple of old offices along the back, one of them glassed-in like maybe the old boss wanted to watch his guys at work.

Bobby's dragged an old oak desk out of one of the offices and he's sitting there now with Rash and Sonia, playing cards.  Bobby and Rash are wearing windbreakers.  Sonia's wearing a blue button-down shirt and like usual she's left her jacket off so you can see the .45 Colt Anaconda hanging in her custom shoulder holster.  The three of them are smoking, cigarettes hanging from their mouths.  Three identical columns of motionless smoke rising into darkness.  Martin's not playing in this hand.  He leans against one end of the desk, his scuffed leather car coat open over a mint green T-shirt, talking into a phone.

"What's this," Cruise says right on cue.  "Fresh pussy?"

Startled, Ginny looks left and gives him the big frown.  She would make football boys shake in their helmets.  Cruise just smiles at her.  Cruise is tall and junky thin, with scraggy red uncombed hair, T-shirt ripped at the shoulder, hip bones the only things holding up his ragged pants.  Ginny looks him up and down, but the look that terrorizes high school boys leaves Cruise cool and cocky.  She transfers her look to me.  Straighten this guy out, her eyes say.

I stretch my lips back from my teeth.  "She's all yours Cruise."

I tell you, it's very funny, the look that comes over her face. There is shock, yes.  A little outrage like salt in a wound.  But you can see her trying to control herself.  In case this is a joke, she doesn't want to seem like she is easily frightened.  She's getting her mouth ready to smile, ironic and bored, when we all laugh.

Except we don't. 

"No problemo, Dingo my man," Cruise says instead.  "No problemo at all."  Cruise moves much faster than anyone who takes him for a junky would expect.  His hand is large enough to wrap completely around Ginny's wrist. 

"Hey!" Her voice squeaks.  She tries to pull her wrist out of Cruise's hand, but it is like pulling open a locked safe.  Cruise is stronger than anyone who takes him for a junky would expect.  Ginny winces and Cruise laughs.  It sounds like someone with asthma. 

"What's the matter querida?"  I come close to her and this time I give her my wild dog smile.  "You had a different job in mind, sí?  That's okay.  You'll like this one."

"But--"

"What?  You thought you were something special?  I got dozens like you, querida.  Maybe hundreds.  Prettier.  And sure as shit smarter.  And guess what?  They all got the same thing between their legs."   I gesture with my hand, and Cruise starts dragging her off toward the offices.  Martin follows her with his eyes, still holding the phone up to his face.  The card players don't even look up. 

Ginny fights, but Cruise is too strong, his arms too long.  She can't get close enough to hurt him.  The card players start to take an interest, Sonia turning in her seat and grinning around her cigarette.  Ginny sits down to give Cruise dead weight and tries to bite his wrist.  Cruise doesn't even hesitate.  He turns and punches her in the face.  He shifts his grip until he has her by the hair at the top of her head. 

"Don't mark her too much," I say. "Unless it turns out she likes it."  She grabs hold of Cruise's wrist and this time he lets her.  Tears squeeze out of her eyes and her mouth's making 'let-me-go' shapes, even though no sound's coming out. 

I lean over until I'm looking right into her face.  Cruise shakes her a little until she opens her eyes.  "Don't worry querida," I say.  "You'll get used to it.  You just need the right attitude."  This time Cruise laughs, and I join him.

I watch the card game while Cruise drags her, crying and calling out now, into the back office.  He doesn't bother to shut the door.  I hear him ask her what she was crying about.  "It's okay you don't like me," I hear him say, "you gonna like me before long, you know what's good for you." 

Martin finishes his call and lays the cell phone down on the table close to Rash.  He takes his leather coat off and slings it over the back of Bobby's chair.  He winks, gives me a nod and turns toward the back room.  The card players watch as he walks across the oil-stained floor. 

"Hey Cruise," he calls out as he nears the open door.  "What, you not going to share?  Turn her over man, man, you're wasting her."  He's unbuckling his pants as he steps into the room. 

I wait until I heard Cruise say "Come on honey, open your mouth," and then I push my jacket aside, reach 'round to the Sig Sauer I got tucked in the small of my back.  I shoot a couple of careful shots into the card game.  Sonia has that twelve inch Colt out in flash and blasts back at me.  She misses, and I don't.  I run to the doorway and fire four times into the room.  Cruise's head explodes and he falls forward over the kneeling girl, grinding her face into the worn carpet.  I shoot Martin as he starts to stand up, pants around his knees.  Two bright red stars appear on the front of his T-shirt and he slumps against the brain-spattered wall.  The room smells of the inside of bodies.

"That's all of them," Rash calls out in his gravelly voice, "let's book."  Bobby is over backwards, chair and all, his winning cards still in his hand.  Sonia is sprawled out face down on the old oil, like she was trying to get to the door when she acquired the two bullet holes in her back. 

I run out the door, Rash at my heels, and we jump into the Jag.

Cruise comes out of the rusty old shower stall rubbing his hair in a towel, the fake blood and brains washed down the drain.

"Man, for a minute there I thought you was really going to shoot me," he says.

"Yes?  Well for a minute there, I thought I was really going to have to." I stand at the sink, scrubbing at the tattoo on my collarbone until the colour runs and all that is left is the black ink.  I'm in chinos and nothing else.  There's a cotton shirt like Sonia's waiting for me on a chair.  My Tullio Di Lorenzo suit is already on a hanger, waiting to go back to my cousin Fernando.  "Man, you were stiff," I say to Cruise.

"Did you see that ass?  Who wouldn't be?"  Cruise pulls on a pair of brown twill slacks and a shirt with a crest over the heart that said "Phil".  As soon as the shirt's buttoned up, he looks just like any delivery man.

"Where's Rash?"

"Taking the car back," I say.  "We only had it for the day."

"The kid get home okay?"

I try not to smile.  Maybe Cruise figures he'll get another look at that ass he likes so much.  "She will.  Sonia's following her."

Cruise shakes his head.  "Easy money.  You figure she'll stay?"

I shrug as I slip my bare feet into a pair of Spanish leather loafers.  That isn't the job.  We're supposed to scare the kid back home.  Show her that the street wasn't all drug billionaires and Jaguars.  On the real street, the street Ginny only thought she knew about, women are meat, or they are wolves like Sonia.  And even Sonia carries always her gun.

I let Cruise out ahead of me and take a last look around before stepping out myself and locking the warehouse door.  Bobby and Jake have already gone over the place, made sure we've left no traces.  No blood.  No cigarette butts, not even the deck of cards.  The place belongs to Jake's uncle and we have it only for the afternoon.  We can't use our own place for something like this. 

I wait until Monday, call the mother at her work.  Confirm that Ginny's home, safe, and maybe giving things some thought.  Confirm where the mother is to deliver the rest of our money.  She asks the same question as Cruise. 

I tell her what I told him.  What I told her to start with.

"No guarantees, lady.  You paid us to scare her home.  Keeping her there's your problem.  Nice doing business with you."

© Violette Malan