The Book

The cargo in the trunk was quiet. Either from accepting the inevitable or worse. Andrew Ruocco hoped it was the former.

A light snowfall started just as he exited the highway. That wasn’t good either. The weather experts on the radio were calling for one hell of a nor’easter. The winter blizzard of 2017 as the media called it. But this kind of business followed the same adage of the postal service. Rain, snow, or shine, it had to be done.

The old steel foundry came into view. It loomed over the residential neighborhood of derelict houses, a lot of them boarded up, some missing roofs, others on the verge of collapse. A few lost souls wandered about. One guy pushed a shopping cart packed with black garbage bags overflowing with cans and bottles. He looked up to Andrew, probably wondering why a fellow like himself was even in the neighborhood. He glared. Andrew glared back and the man went back to pushing his shopping cart along.

This entire area was once a bustling and thriving neighborhood of steelworkers, in a time that was well before Andrew’s day. The old guys talked about it with a strange fondness and equated to a time when America was great. It was all bullshit. This crumbling neighborhood was the direct result of greed and extortion. It was nothing different from how those old guys made a living.

But none of that mattered on this evening as fat snowflakes gingerly drifted down from the sky and began forming a white film over the windshield. All that mattered was the business in the trunk.

By the time he reached the foundry a thin layer of snow covered the parking lot. His sedan lost traction for a small moment and the car fishtailed. An audible thump echoed in the car.

He went slowly the rest of the way—around back near a loading dock with three ports for trucks and came to a stop. He killed the engine and waited. Nothing. No muffled screams. No thrashing.

“Son of a bitch,” Andrew mumbled. He got out of the car and walked around back. “You alive in there?” he said giving three sharp raps on the back of the car with a closed fist.

Nothing.

It could be a ploy, he thought. He stepped back, bent down, and retrieved the revolver at his ankle. In his other hand, he held the key fob and aimed it forward. The taillights blinked. A sharp chirp echoed through the night air and the trunk door slowly drifted into the air with a light hiss.

He was still there. He was still alive, curled up in the back of the trunk with a strip of duct tape over his mouth and his hands bound behind his back with bright yellow nylon rope. He simply lay there, dressed in that ostentation black and white checkered blazer, over a black shirt and khaki pants. A strip of short grey and black hair made a horseshoe around his head. Purple and black bruises blossomed around his puffy left eye. Even with the shiner, something about this man’s gaze bothered him. It was calm. It wasn’t the usual look Andrew saw in these situations.

“We’ve arrived,” Andrew said. He hoisted the man out of the trunk and forced him to stand upright. “Now walk.”

The foundry floor was filled with broken-down conveyor belts, piles of rotting wooden pallets, and other ancient and rusted machinery now defunct. He placed the man in the checkered suit—the fellow’s name was Cronin Payne—in a fold-out chair and ripped the duct tape off. This action bothered him too. Cronin winced in pain and let out a cry of agony as any man would, but he didn’t say a word after. He didn’t beg like most of them do.

“You mind if I smoke?” Andrew said and pulled his pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his leather jacket. He pounded the back against his palm. The sound echoed like massive strikes on a timpani.

Cronin didn’t answer. His eyes looked past Andrew and into nothing.

Andrew lit up. He picked up an old plastic bucket, flipped it upside down, and took a seat a few inches away from Cronin. He slowly exhaled a plume of blue and curly smoke. It coiled around Cronin’s head and crawled up into the air.

“I’ll give you the rundown here, my friend. It’s really simple. You’re going to tell me what I need to know. If you don’t, or if I think you’re bullshitting me? Well, let’s just say that black eye is only the beginning of it.”

“Just kill me,” Cronin replied. It was almost a whisper. “I got no reason to live anymore.”

“Why are you talking like that?” Andrew said and chuckled. He pinched Cronin’s cheek followed by a few light taps. “Because the way I see it? You got plenty of reason to live.”

Andrew presented a little black book. It was worn, covered in cracks, a piece of the top corner was missing like something had bit it off. A frayed yellow ribbon spit out of the center like a snake’s tongue.

“Tell me about this,” Andrew said and gave Cronin a few light taps on the head with the book.

“You should throw it away. Burn it.”

“Now why in the hell would I do something like that?”

Cronin cocked his head back and moaned.

“You don’t understand, mister.”

Andrew flipped through pages that might have once been a mighty white but now were an off-yellow. Some of the pages were torn and dog-eared. Tiny, tight, and neat handwriting filled the pages in bold black ink. It covered the winners of losers of every football, baseball, and basketball game from 2016-2018. He stopped on a page toward the end.

“The Eagles are really going to win the Super Bowl?” Andrew asked. “How do you know that?”

“Like I said, mister. Just throw that book away,” Cronin replied.

Andrew flipped through the book again. “To know such things. Maybe the better question is, where did you get this?”

He sat up from the bucket and threw the butt of his smoke to the ground.

“I found it. On the street,” Cronin said. “And ever since, it has brought me nothing but grief.”

“Greif? You’d call winning twenty large grief?”

Cronin slowly shook his head.

“Twenty thousand dollars is a lot for a guy like me. It was supposed to take care of a few bills, pay off my car,” a slight small crossed his face, “and my wife and I? We had planned a trip to Cancun. We always wanted to visit Mexico. But mister, using that book? It comes with a price of its own. The money isn’t free.”

“Let me get this straight. You expect me to believe you happened to stumble across some magical book on the street filled with years of winning sports scores? Then you use it to place a bet with Carlo and magically win twenty grand?” Andrew lit up another cigarette.

“That’s about right.”

Andrew drew his arm backward and slammed the back of his hand into Cronin’s cheek. The blow reverberated throughout the foundry like an echoing whip-crack. Cronin’s head cocked to the side and spittle peppered from his face.

“I think you know more than you’re letting on,” Andrew said. “Because none of this makes sense. I want an explanation.”

Cronin turned his head and gazed up at him. A bright trickle of red ran down his lip and over his chin. His eyes remained calm.

“This is part of it,” Cronin muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“I can’t explain it. All of this is preordained somehow. It has to be.”

“What are you? A nutjob? You’re talking crazy.”

The tears started and streamed down Cronin’s cheeks.

“As soon as I won that twenty-thousand dollars my wife starting getting headaches. Two days later she passed out at work. She had a brain aneurysm.” He lowered his head and let out a whimper. “She’s in a coma now. They don’t expect her to come out of it.” He looked up to Andrew and took in a shaky breath. “Without her? Like I told you, I got nothing.”

“And it’s all because of that book?” Andrew asked, more out of confusion than confirmation.

“I can’t prove it. Hell, I know how it sounds. But it has to be. I mean, I never gambled before. I wasn’t that kind of man. Then suddenly I find this book and take a chance? Just kill me. It’s what I deserve. I did this to my wife.”

Andrew started to chuckle and it soon turned into all-out laughter. When he got himself under control he bent over and was nose-to-nose with Cronin.

“You ever think that maybe you are reading too much into things?”

Cronin shook his head in the negative.

“No. That book is…some sort of…I don’t know. It’s cursed or something. It has to be.”

“So if it’s so evil, or whatever the hell you are saying it is, you won’t mind if I keep it?”

“It’s all yours,” Cronin said.

Andrew took a few steps back and pulled his revolver from his ankle holster. He held it pointed to the ground at his side.

Andrew sat at his kitchen table, sipping coffee and flipping through the neatly-written sports stats in the little black book. For something that predicted the future, it looked like it had been around for a hundred years. But on that morning, the book’s aesthetic was not on his mind. The Steelers and Bengals game from last night was. Steelers won, 23-20. His phone was laid side-by-side next to the little black book. The same score was written down in that very neat and snug handwriting.

His cellphone rang. Carlo was calling.

“You figure it out?” Carlo asked. “What that book was?”

“Sort of,” Andrew answered. “It’s a list of probabilities and statistics. A lot of math shit, you know? Goes well beyond my understanding.”

“That piece of shit. I knew he was playing me somehow.”

“It’s not all accurate. I’m looking at it now and guess what? It predicted the Bengals would win last night’s game.”

“Imagine that?”

“Looks like our friend did have a little bit of luck on his side.”

“Luck or no luck, using a book like that? In my opinion? It’s the same as cheating.”

“I agree with you, Carlo. But there’s nothing to worry about now. It’s all taken care of.”

Andrew Ruocco spent the next few months on a winning streak and dismissed the incidents of misfortune as coincidence. His brother’s front porch roof caved in in a botched repaired attempt and killed him. His mother complained of stomach pain and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. His wife, who finally managed to get pregnant, lost the baby and nearly lost her life when he found her passed out in the kitchen with blood everywhere.

Just coincidence, he told himself. Nothing to do with the little black book.

One evening on his way home, a semi-trailer truck smashed through a concrete barrier and crossed into his lane. He gazed at the massive headlights and grill of the truck. The word MACK grew larger and larger by the second.

Nothing to do with the little black book, he thought.