Third Saturday Fiction

Slip Sliding Away (a short story)

By Steve Glossin

[The previous Farley story, "Walking the Dog," was published in October.]

Farley in his new maroon sweatpants glanced up at the avocado green neon sign above the weathered yellow door. Moe’s Irish Pub, between two large flashing shamrocks. Three weeks ago it was Moe’s Tex-Mex, with a couple of pulsating cactuses, and next month it would probably be a rice and noodle dive. Farley liked Big Moe’s philosophy, give’em what they want and if they don’t like it...give’em something else. A good thing Moe’s brother-in-law was in the neon sign business.
    Farley twisted the brass handle and pushed open the door. Paint flaked off like a bad case of dandruff. Could use a bro in the paint business, he thought as he stepped into a dim hallway. “Moe, it’s me, Farley,” he yelled somewhat nervously. Moe wouldn’t be open for business for a couple of hours and unless he expected you…he’d assume you were there for a heist.
        “I be in the bar.” The gravelly voice sounded like two pieces of coarse sandpaper being rubbed together.
        Farley took a couple of hesitant steps and peered through the beaded curtain that separated the entrance hall from the bar and restaurant. He saw Moe’s bald ebony head leaning over a stack of greenbacks spread out on the stained mahogany counter. The sawed-off shotgun lying within arms reach made Farley glad he had announced himself.
        Moe was five-foot three with a girth that almost matched his height and gave him his name. His plump face, round dark eyes, and mouthy smile gave the impression of an over-baked Poppin’ Fresh Doughboy.
        Moe glanced up, muttered something, then went back to counting.
        Farley wondered whether he’d heard “sunny beach.” Moe was from the islands, though he never said which one and Farley guessed either Rhode or Long, having heard they talk funny there. “Something wrong, Moe?”
        Moe swept the bills into a paper bag and slid it under the bar. “Can’t get no good help. They be skimming the shit out of me and I ain’t figured out how they be doing it.”
        Farley was confused. “I thought your helpers were family?”
        Moe swiped a stained rag across the bar top, leaving a greasy streak behind it. He studied the rag, sniffed it once, and tossed it into a garbage can overflowing with empty beer bottles. “They is, but they think it not be stealing when they take something from their own...just be borrowing.”
        Farley ran a boney finger through the smudge, then held it up to his face for a look and a sniff. “Smells like bacon grease.” He wiped his finger on a napkin, not wanting to soil his new sweat pants. “Maybe you ought to hire someone else.”
        “No way. I don’t trust strangers...they rob you blind.” Moe reached under the bar for a can of spray cleaner and pressed the plastic nozzle, sending out a cloud of something that wasn’t cleaner. “Shit.” He looked at the label and shook his head...then tossed the can into the garbage can. He flapped his arms to break up the floating mist.
        “Moe, you got roaches?”
        “Not on the bar.”
        Farley wrinkled his narrow, ridged nose and moved away from the drifting fog to a stool with a cracked red-leather cushion and sat down.
        Moe rummaged under the counter until he found a can of cleaner. He sprayed a generous amount and used half a roll of paper towels to get the bar top semi-clean. “Good as new. The smell be gone by opening time. Farley, you want a beer?”
        “Yeah, sure. You got a Guinness?”
        “Maybe…in a couple of weeks.” Moe set a bottle and a glass on the bar. The glass was smeared with film. “Still got thirty cases Corona and Dos Equis I gotta sell.”
        Farley thought about customers drinking Guinness while eating their Chinese and shuddered. He pushed the glass away, picked up the bottle and half-emptied it. He smacked his lips. “You got something for me?”
        Two or three times a year, Moe turned Farley on to a job, which included fencing everything Farley stole and a guarantee to cover half of the bail bond if needed. To date, the haul included a pickup load of overripe melons, six fifty-five gallon drums of motor oil, which turned out to be used, and two dozen Mexican Rolexes. His cut hadn’t kept him in unfiltered Camels and Jim Beam for even a week.
        Moe walked up and down behind the bar spraying air freshener. “You know my brother-in-law?”
        “Which one?” Farley had been introduced to a half-dozen over the past three years. Some had Moe’s ebony skin tone, others pasty white, and one appeared to be Chinese. He figured Moe went through wives as often as he changed the name of the establishment.
        “He the one working at the neon place.”
        Farley thought a moment. “Name’s Tony or Tiny, right?” Farley slipped a pack of Camels out of his sweatshirt pocket, pulled a cigarette out, tapped it on the bar twice then flipped it up and caught it between his lips.
        Moe watched Farley’s trick with the cigarette, then struck a match and gave him a light. “That’s him, Trini. He say just before payday the safe at the neon place got a couple grand in it...”
    Farley choked and blasted a cloud of smoke toward the diminishing roach fog. “Whoa, I don’t do safes, Moe.” He had gotten a hernia when he couldn’t drill a small office safe open and made the wrong decision to carry it out. Farley walked around for three months bent over like a seventy-year-old charwoman searching for spare change.
    Moe held up an arm that looked like a sausage covered with tattoos and waved for Farley to calm down. “I know you don’t. But who loan you the money for the operation?”
    Farley tilted the Corona bottle up and drained it. Thinking about the hernia made his mouth dry. “Okay, tell me.”
    “Trini say the boss goes on a toot, once, maybe two times a month and he forgets to lock the safe.”
    “So why don’t Trini pinch it?”
    “No way. He say the boss chase everybody out before he lock the building. Damn place built like Fort Knox and got an alarm system.”
    The roach mist had settled and Farley moved closer. He couldn’t figure out where this was going, but Moe hadn’t steered him wrong yet…discounting the hernia. “What’s the drill?”
    “Trini say to me, Moe, it’s dream come true…for a skinny guy.”
    The taut skin on Farley’s forehead creased and he ran a hand through his locks of brown Bermuda growing wild. “Skinny guy. I don’t get it.”
    Moe leaned over the bar and looked around to make sure they were alone. “They got an air vent up on the roof. Like that one over there.”
    “And?”
    “All you got to do, unscrew the mesh that keep the birds out, slide down the vent and bingo, you in the shop. You go to the office and help yourself to the safe. Like a self-serve restaurant. Clean and simple.” Moe grinned. “One thing you gotta remember...lock the safe. That way the boss don’t know nothing until the end of the day when it time to pay the boys.”
    Farley was beginning to wonder if Moe had been sampling the bottles sitting in front of the mirror. “Jeez, Moe. Sounds simple enough. I slide my skinny ass down a vent, go to the office, grab everything in the safe, then shimmy back up to the roof.”
    Moe set a bottle of Dos Equis in front of Farley. “How long we know each other?”
    “Three years.”
    “Have I tipped you on a bum deal? Other than the hernia thing?”
    Farley raised his head toward the ceiling and contemplated the question for a moment. “Guess not.”
    “Good. You don’t go nowhere. You take a seat in the toilet and after everyone come to work, Trini give you the all clear and you walk out the building.”
    “When’s payday?”
    “Tomorrow. Trini will leave everything you need behind the dumpster in back the building...next to the fire escape.”>

The night sky was pockmarked by an occasional glimpse of the moon and stars through breaks in the dense clouds. Gusts of warm wind whipped around the building and nearly knocked Farley off the fire escape. He had a length of rope slung over his right shoulder and a canvas bag with tools on his left rattling as the tools banged together.
    “Shit,” he whispered when his hand grasped the last rung and flakes of rust peppered his face. Farley had put on a pair of sunglasses when he started the climb then took them off when he reached out and grabbed a handful of air. He lifted his right leg over the edge of the roof and pulled his body over.
    Farley stood up and took a penlight out of the tool bag and played it over across the flat tar roof. “Gotcha,” he whispered when the thin beam found the air vent. Five minutes later the cover was off and the rope was tied to the base of the vent. He ran a hand around the inside of the shaft and when he saw how dirty it was, he took off his sweat suit and tied it to the free end of the rope. Farley might not shave for a few days, but when it came to his attire, he was particular.
    He was halfway down when his legs slid past a section that had buckled when it was being installed. He pulled up on the rope and let his weight drop him a few inches lower. Farley was now jammed in like a canned tuna.

Trini was the first worker to arrive after the boss had opened the shop. He checked the toilets and finding them empty made a bee line to the air vent. He looked up and saw a balled-up maroon sweat suit hanging inside it.
    “Farley?”
    “Yeah.”
    “What the hell are you doing?”
    “I’m stuck.”
    “Just hang in there. I’ll get you out tonight.”
    “I ain’t going anywhere.”
    It was midnight when Trini climbed up on the roof.
    “Trini, what the hell is this?” asked Farley when he sniffed the contents of the plastic cola bottle Trini had lowered.
    “Just pour it over the stuck parts and I’ll pull you up.”
    “It stinks!” said Farley.
    “Yeah, but it works. Take my word for it.

“What’s that smell?” asked Moe in a gravelly voice when he looked up and saw Farley standing at the bar.
    “It’s Trini,” said Farley.
    Moe looked around, but didn’t see his brother-in-law. “No, it coming from you.”
    Farley raised his hand and gestured for Moe to follow him. When they arrived in the kitchen, he led Moe to the air vent and pointed up.”
    Moe looked up and sniffed. “What is it?”
    “Bacon grease. The same thing Trini gave me last night when I was stuck in the shaft at the neon place.”
    “Sunny beach. Trini’s been skimming me.”
    Farley shrugged, then turned and walked out.
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Copyright © 2013 by Steve Glossin
[The character Farley was introduced in the short story, "Walking the dog," which was published on October 19.

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