Jump by Tim Maleeny

he was wasting his breath. “We need a plan.”
    Jerome caught an ice cube and started sucking on it. “I thought we had a plan. I thought Z was—”
    “Shhhhhhhhhh!” snapped Larry, almost coming off the bar stool. The bartender had moved about ten feet away, serving two girls who looked barely out of college.
    “Did you just shush me again?” Jerome sounded deeply wounded.
    “Don’t say his name, for Chrissakes.”
    “That’s why I used the letter, Larry. It’s like a secret code.”
    “Don’t even use the letter,” Larry insisted, looking right and left. He realized they were sitting in a Mexican restaurant. Who knew how many spies Zorro employed in the quick service restaurant industry? “Someone might guess.”
    “OK,” Jerome shrugged. “How about Q? It could be like James Bond.”
    “No.”
    “X?”
    “Drop it.”
    “Fine,” said Jerome, taking another long pull on his drink. “So the drug lord we’re not talking about? I thought he had our back…”
    Larry leaned close to his brother. “What if something goes wrong?” he asked. “Who do you think is going to take the fall for…” He paused, looked around before adding, “Walter?”
    “You mean W?” Jerome said in a stage whisper.
    “You know who I mean, you retard.”
    “That’s whom , Larry. Gotta watch your grammar, bro.”
    After a deep breath through his nose, Larry tried again. “We need a plan.”
    Jerome crunched his ice and reached for the basket of chips on the bar. Music blared from cheap speakers overhead, all the lyrics in Spanish. This entire place was designed to give you a headache unless you drank heavily. Jerome swiveled on his stool to look Larry in the eye.
    “You think we need a plan,” he said. “In case Z fucks us over.”
    Larry let the use of the alphabet slide, relieved Jerome had tuned into reality. “Exactly.”
    “You think he will?”
    Larry shrugged. “If you asked me a week ago, I would have said he needed us.”
    “We move a lot of pot for that guy.”
    “Now I’m not so sure,” replied Larry. “It’s a lot of pot for us —but what about all the runners he has, working the streets in the Mission, the Tenderloin district, Polk street? All those guys feed back into—” Larry stopped before he said the name.
    Jerome finished the thought. “Back into Z.”
    “Yeah,” said Larry. “You add all those runners up, moving all those bags around the city, now that’s a lot of pot.”
    “So maybe we’re expendable.”
    Larry nodded and reached for his beer. “If anything goes wrong, we take the fall.”
    “How tough can it be to kill Walter?” Jerome palmed a stack of chips. “I mean, the fat fuck is halfway to a coronary.”
    “Accidents happen,” said Larry simply. “Mistakes get made.”
    “That dude Carlos doesn’t look like he makes too many mistakes.”
    Larry shivered at the memory of those eyes but didn’t say anything.
    “I guess the cops could take an interest,” said Jerome. “You know, after the deed is done.”
    Larry caught his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Drawn face, tired eyes. Shake it off. He shook his head and took a swig of his beer. Optimists win, pessimists go to jail.
    “We’re not on their radar,” he said with forced bravado. “The cops don’t know we exist.” He turned to face Jerome, noticed a man moving toward them. An older guy, a little rumpled. Walked right up and stood between them, an easy smile on his face. He looked familiar, but Larry was having a hard time placing him.
    “You must be Larry,” the man said, nodding. He shifted his gaze. “And you’re Jerome.”
    “And you are?” Larry spoke up before Jerome picked another fight with the wrong guy.
    “Sam,” came the reply. “I’m the cop who lives down the hall.”
    Larry looked at himself in the mirror, saw his eyes bugging out of his head.
    Be cool.
    “Mind if I ask you a few questions?” asked Sam.
    “Sure, have a seat.” Larry shifted over one stool,