Mr. Hooligan by Ian Vasquez Page A

think so. Let’s go with one fifty-five today and three hundred a month.”
    “That sounds reasonable,” Riley said to Lopez. “If not that, you’ll get nothing because giving you a grand a month will put us out of business.”
    Lopez scratched his weekend stubble, smiling.
    Riley said, “One sixty. Three hundred monthly and one sixty today, but you’re absolutely killing me, you’re killing me.”
    “You don’t believe a word I just said. I’m beginning to think I might need to go ahead, prove myself to you.”
    Riley plucked the cashier’s check from his shirt pocket and slapped it on the table. “It’s what I got.”
    Lopez rubbed his palms together and looked down his nose at the check. Sat staring at it.
    On his periphery, Riley saw Minister Burrows swipe the windowsill with a finger, give the finger a disapproving look and flick away the dust. Harvey’s right knee was pumping, and Riley reached under the table and held it down.
    Riley and Lopez studied each other. Lopez shook his head.
    Riley said, “Damn,” slumping his shoulders. He scooped up the check, tucked it in his pocket. “Well,” he said and threw up his hands, slapped his thigh. “I tried, I really tried.”
    Harvey turned to him. “Wait, hold it now … that’s it?”
    “What you want me to do, Harvey? Blood outta stone?”
    “This is how you’re going to take care of it? This how you say you got things covered?”
    Riley turned his head away. Rested elbows on the table and admired the sunlight on the palm trees out in the park.
    “One sixty,” Lopez said. “That’s the best you got?”
    Delivering the opening line Riley was waiting for. “I suppose…” He nodded, scratching an ear. “My personal savings, you know … I suppose…” He detected the change in Lopez’s body language, a small forward tilt, raised eyebrows. “One moment,” Riley said and got up and walked away, past Gert and the minister, their eyes following him, into his office.
    When he came back, Burrows was saying to Lopez, “I think if we knocked this wall down and added more feet to the deck, it would be just as nice, or keep the general airy feel of the big windows, only put them farther out.”
    Oooh, Gert’s eyes were afire.
    Riley stepped to the table and set the check down, in front of Lopez. Next to the check, he plopped a paper sack.
    Lopez cracked his knuckles before he picked it up, tested the weight, the sack chunky with cash. “Added some sweetener?” He unfolded the top, peered in, and set the sack back on the table. “How much?”
    “Ten grand cash. Plus the check. One seventy, absolutely all I got. And don’t forget, the five hundred guarantee.”
    Lopez took a deep breath and stood up. He glanced over at the minister. If something passed between them, Riley missed it. He watched Lopez eye the sack … one second, two seconds, hand hanging loose at his side, twiddling his fingers. Then he snatched up the check and the sack, held the sack to his chest. He gave a little laugh, an embarrassed boy caught stealing.
    Harvey lifted his eyes to the ceiling and pumped a fist. “So we’re good?” He looked around at everyone. “We cool?”
    Lopez said, “Well, there is another little matter,” with a sly grin.
    “What now?”
    “We’re cool if you could fix me a good Bloody Mary. How I like it is with not too much black pepper, put a stalk of celery in there, fresh celery. The minister may care for a little refreshment, too.”
    “A ginger ale would be fine,” she said.
    “We’re all out,” Gert announced from behind the bar.
    Harvey said, “Maybe I can find some in the back?”
    “No bother. A Sprite will do.”
    Harvey sprang up to get behind the bar.
    “Tell you what I must insist upon, though,” the minister said, “is this photo here.”
    Riley turned to see her pointing at a photo on the wall: Lindbergh crouched by the propeller, repairing the plane in the field, amid a group of onlookers.
    “Gives me the feeling