26. Rey

"Pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olives, chives." Esteban hung up the phone and tore a page off his notepad.
"Chives? We don't have chives." Manuel scratched his mustache.
"What the hell is a chive?" Tomas was getting the ingredients ready, flattening out a dough ball and looking over the dishes of toppings.
"It's like a green onion."
"Think they'd just like onions?"
"It's not the same. Just put the other stuff."
Tomas shrugged and went about the process of making the pizza.
Reynald, who did the deliveries, came in the back door and walked behind Tomas, dropping the delivery bag on top of the oven. "Did someone order chives on a pizza?" he asked.
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"I was having a cigarette, door was open, I could hear you guys. It's from a System of a Down song, they're probably fucking with you."
Tomas stopped, his hands on the ladle of tomato sauce. "Do I make the pizza?" He looked at Manuel.
Manuel looked hard at Rey. "Are you sure it's a prank?" His mustache blew around with his breath.
"What? I never said it was a prank," Rey said nervously, "just leave the chives off it. It's a deluxe. They probably just want a deluxe."
Manuel nodded. "Make a deluxe, Tomas."
"Deluxe," he said, and spread the tomato sauce in a circle.
"Weird orders tonight," Esteban said. "Someone else asked for a delivery with green peppers on 'half of one quarter,' no kidding."



Rey went back out to the parking lot with the pizza. He opened the passenger door of his own car, and went into the glovebox. Opening a pencilcase, he took a few postage-stamp sized baggies out, put them in his pocket, and put the rest away. He went back to his delivery vehicle, put the pizza in, and drove away.

"You ordered a pizza, right? Twenty bucks."
"Yeah man, sure."
"Pepperoni, green peppers, mushrooms, olives. And here's your 'chives.'" Rey dropped two bags of weed on top of the box. "Twenty bucks for the pizza, plus twenty more."
The guy at the door laughed. "Oh man! You are the best. My buddy told me about you, man, I thought he had to be shitting me, but you're for real!"
"Yeah," Rey shrugged, "just don't spread it around. There's already too many people asking for shit we don't have on pizzas, it's heat like crazy. Look, for future reference, just order whatever you want, none of this code-word bullshit. I'm either working, or I'm not, take your chances."
"Alright," the guy nodded, frowning. "Thanks. Sorry." He handed over a handful of bills, tipping generously.
"Don't worry about it. Enjoy your night. Thanks for ordering Pizzano's."

Rey walked out the back door of the apartment building and stopped. The sky in front of him was a striking shade of deep indigo as the peach sunset receded somewhere on the other side. Moments like this were rare, lasting only a few minutes, and Rey remembered a few other times that the entracing colours of the upper atmosphere had seemed like magic to him. He stepped over to the alcove near a maintenance door to reflect on this, reminiscing as he took a bag and a pack of rolling papers out of his pocket.

Rey drove back to the pizzeria, watching the streetlights. If he let his eyes go out of focus, they looked like an old filmstrip's edges, drifting past the top edge of the windshield. There weren't many cars on the road. He saw a red light above him, and it passed over the car, too late for him to stop.
"Shit," he muttered, but it was okay. If he'd done that in rush hour, he'd be dead.
There was a low wail behind him. Lights blared to life and a police car, sirens lit up, cruised out of a nearby parking lot.
"Oh fuck!" Rey bit his lip. What could he do? His first thought was to speed around the corner, make a few fast turns, and park in an alleyway with the engine off until the heat died down. He'd been playing too much Grand Theft Auto in his spare time. The only thing to do was pull over. It would be okay.

He waited. He waited for what seemed like a long time. Then, for even longer. Finally, the officer got out of the car, and approached Rey. He'd rolled down the window and turned off the car, and sat there with his hands on the steering wheel.
"You need to pay more attention," the officer said. "License and registration?"
"Yes, sir." Rey took his license from his wallet, and paused. He didn't know where the registration for the vehicle was.
"Is there a problem?" The policeman raised his flashlight to Rey's eyes. He tried not to wince.
"It's my work car. I'm not sure about the registration, I --"
"What do you do?"
"Deliver pizzas. Can I look around for the papers? They must be in here somewhere."
"Step out of the car, please."

Rey did as he was told. He tried not to sweat. He tried to remember how much weed he'd sold, how much he'd smoked, and whether any was still in his pockets. He didn't think it was. He didn't think so.