Complicated Shadows

by James D F Hannah

  Tennis raised his eyebrows. "What?"

  "The money you gave Pete," I said. "How d'you know it was stolen?"

  "What money?" Isaac said. The voice was small, but full, and surprising. His hands lay flat on the table top. He lifted his head and looked at Tennis.

  "Your father gave Pete a hundred thousand dollars the day we came here," I said.

  Tennis seemed smaller than he had a heartbeat prior. His body language screamed he had been caught. "Isaac, I did it because we couldn't tell him the truth."

  "So somehow money would fix it?" Isaac said. "You thought paying him would solve the problem. Pete loved me, Daddy."

  "Isaac, please—" He stepped toward his son.

  "Stop right fucking there." Isaac's voice dripped venom and ice water. Tennis listened to his son's command. "Don't. Just. Don't." Isaac drew his lips into a tight bow. "You came and said you had an idea. Said it would help the family. Once I left here and made my own life, you said you had seen about cryptocurrencies on the news. Except you didn't call them that. You called them 'electronic money.' You said I could develop something like that."

  "So Cashbyte was your idea," I said to Tennis. "Shame you never got to settle that pissing match between Kaur and Price."

  Tennis stared at his son. "I was honest with you, Isaac. What you made, it will help the family. It takes the danger out of getting paid—"

  I said. "Talk to me about the missing money, Tennis."

  The old man turned to me. He didn't seem calm, bemused, or genteel anymore. He seemed like someone who had lost control of a situation, mired in a circumstance he was unsure how to navigate.

  "Shut up," he said through gritted teeth.

  I pushed on. What was there to lose?

  "No one's said anything about that money. It wasn't in the newspapers, and the police aren't talking about it." To Davies, I said, "Did you tell Tennis about the money?"

  Davies swallowed hard enough for it to be audible. "I didn't."

  "The other one," Tennis said. "The one in the trunk. Burwell. He told me." His voice lacked the strength and authoritative nature it had before. He had a lot more quiver in it now.

  "Right," Isaac said, nodding. He worked to hold back tears.

  Davies said, "But I was at every meeting with you, Mr. McCoy, and Burwell never said anything to you about the money when I was there."

  Tennis said, "Woman, you need to shut your mouth."

  "No, she doesn't," Isaac said. "You told me the Japanese would help me, that they’d hide me and keep me safe. You said you talked to Wakahisa, and he'd protect me. And what you're really doing is selling me to them."

  Tennis breathed a sigh. "Isaac, understand this. This is bigger than you or me. This is for your family."

  The fork was in Isaac's hand, and he leaped from the table and tackled his father. They were both on the ground, Isaac on top of Tennis, and Tennis never had time enough to scream before Isaac stabbed him in the neck. He repeated the action over and over, blood spurting in the air, splattering across Isaac's face, the sound of the fork tongs piercing flesh and sinew, then cracking the old man's trachea. Tennis' body spasmed, but not much, held down under Isaac's weight. Isaac raised the fork and plunged it over and over into his father's throat.

  At first, it was like watching a horror film, one I couldn't turn off. Then the shock wore off, and Davies and I leapt forward and grabbed hold of Isaac and pulled him back and off his father's body.

  Blood covered Isaac's face, so thick and dark the only other thing you could really see was the whites of his eyes. Those eyes had gone devoid of feeling, thought, care, concern, familial connection, or the acknowledgement he had just killed his father. He didn't even breathe hard. He seemed unaware of anything around him, existing only inside this moment, separate and alone from everything else.

  I took the fork from Isaac's hand. He didn't put up a fight. I moved him into a chair. He stared blankly at me. Closer to through me.

  To Davies, I said, "We've got to go."

  Davies stared at Tennis' body. Blood pooled around him like a crimson halo.

  "Now," she said. "We've got to go now."

  41

  We weren't quite to Davies' car when there the sound of a shotgun getting racked behind us rattled through the night air, and someone said, "Hold it right there, fuckers."

  I cranked my neck around to peek over my shoulder. Jed, the kid who'd met us on the four-wheeler during the first visit, had a shotgun in his hands. He chewed on a toothpick like he'd seen in a movie, trying to appear like a tough guy. Behind him stood two other boys. They had been staring down at us from windows up in the house the first time we had come out. They held rifles I couldn't identify in the darkness, but the bullets would hurt regardless.

  "Which one of your fuckers did that to my grandpa?" Jed said. His voice came out as a cross between a hiss and a growl.

  I said, "Why d'you pump the action on that shotgun?"

  "What?"

  I began to pivot on my right foot, the foot shifting behind me, when Jed said, "I didn't say you could fucking move."

  I glanced at Davies and Isaac. All I could see for the mess of the blood on Isaac were his tired eyes, seemingly defeated in the moonlight. Davies's mouth was pulled tight and thin.

  I lifted my hands into the air. "Can we turn around?"

  "How come?" Jed said.

  "Does it matter why? You guys are pointing the guns at us, not the other way around. I just don't want shot in the back."

  Jed offered the question the consideration most people give ordering fast food, and said, "Go on."

  I looked at Davies and Isaac. "Both of you, hands up. Fingers wide apart."

  Davies looked as if the action caused physical pain. She raised her hands, every muscle and tendon stretching taut in the motion. Isaac did it quicker, sighing as he moved.

  We each twisted ourselves around to face the trio. Jed glared at us. He gave Isaac a hard stare and shook his head and raised the shotgun into a firing position.

  I took a half-step over, in front of Isaac. Jed watched at me from the far end of the weapon. I looked down the barrel. I didn't much care for the view.

  Jed held steady with his aim. "Mister, this'll go through you as much as it'll go through him." He had one eye shut and a cold, solid hold on the weapon. "He's going down."

  Jed was about 15 feet away. He kept the shotgun aimed chest-level on me. The spread on the shot from the weapon would tear me apart, spray chunks of me in every direction, shatter my bones and splatter my guts all over the place. It would kill Isaac, too, though he'd linger awhile since I'd have taken the biggest brunt of it. They might put a second shell in him, to put him out of his misery, or they might let him bleed out and die in agony, as their version of justice.

  I did this entire calculation of pain and suffering in my head in the time it took to blink. A by-product of friendship with Woody was learning these sorts of things.

  "You never answered my question," I said. "Why d'you rack the shotgun?"

  Jed kept his bead on me, but his face shifted a little. You could almost sense the thoughts going through his head, the rattling of barely formed ideas knocking around an otherwise empty void.

  "Got your fucking attention, didn't it, though?" he said.

  "It did. You saw it in a movie, didn't you?"

  More thinky-hurty expressions. Neurons that had laid dormant for years fired to life, stretching out and clocking in for work.

  "What if I did?" he said. "You got a fucking point, asshole?"

  "It's a waste of a shell."

  He opened both eyes and angled the barrel down to where it pointed in my stomach/crotch vicinity. I felt myself stop breathing for a moment, and I decided I would rather he shot me in the chest, all things being equal. I guess, however, that's not how it goes as far as getting shot-gunned goes.

  He drew his finger away from the trigger. Air went out of my lungs. I smiled.

  "You hadn't fired yet," I said. "
You only need to pump the action on a shotgun after you've fired. Otherwise, you're wasting a shell. They do that all the time in movies, and I'm guilty of doing myself, but it's a bullshit kind of thing, something they do because it looks bad ass. Which it does, but if it comes down to matters of need, which would you prefer: to look badass, or to have the wasted shell?"

  Jed sighed and raised the shotgun so the barrel stared down at Isaac and me.

  "You fuckers are gonna die tonight," he said. "You gonna do this hard or easy?"

  A figure walked toward us. It was Grandma McCoy. She came up behind her grandsons. They parted and let her through.

  "Put the gun down, Jedidiah," she said.

  Jed kept the shotgun raised.

  "He killed Grandpa."

  "Do as you're told."

  There was a pause, and Jed lowered the gun.

  Grandma McCoy walked over to Isaac. A painful smile was pushed deep into her face.

  "You did that, didn't you?" she said. "In the kitchen?"

  Isaac nodded.

  "What your friend said about your daddy, him killing your man, that was true?"

  Isaac nodded again.

  Grandma McCoy shook her head.

  "We didn't know," she said. "I didn't know, and I never would have let this be."

  "I wouldn't suspect you would, Grandma," Isaac said. "There wasn't any good way for him to tell you."

  She reached up and touched her grandson's face, covered in her son's blood. "Your daddy, he was a lot of things, but I don't suppose he was always a good man. He never seemed to get that family was all that mattered."

  "Pete was my family, Grandma." Isaac bowed his head and cried. Grandma McCoy reached out and pulled him into her, resting his head on her shoulder. Isaac cried harder. She seemed oblivious to the blood that covered him. She patted him on his back, and leaned into his ear and sang so softly, I strained to hear.

  "I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger

  Traveling through this world of woe

  There's no sickness, toil nor danger

  In that fair land to which I go

  I'm going home to see my father

  I'm going home no more to roam

  I'm just a-going over Jordan

  I'm just a-going over home."

  She sang without form or tune, in a voice no one would have mistaken as pretty, but that didn't matter. Nothing else mattered. It was a woman comforting her grandchild over a loss, a woman who'd lived a life filled with losses, and understood the pain.

  Davies and I stood there, unable to say anything. No one else seemed able to, either. The moment was personal in a way that didn't let you comment, but instead just observe, because it didn't need us to make it about us.

  When she was done, she took Isaac by the shoulders and pulled him back and righted him, gave him a slight shake.

  "What your daddy did, that was wrong, no two ways around it," she said. "And you got angry and did what people would do. You lost your shit."

  Jed moved towards them. "This faggot killed Grandpa, and we're supposed to just let him walk out?"

  Grandma McCoy gave Jed a look that pushed him backwards without touching him. "You know the first goddamn thing about loss, Jedidiah McCoy? You've never been off this piece of land, doing nothing but killing things that didn't need killing, waiting on someone to die so you can get their share of whatever it is, doesn't matter if it's money or chicken gravy. I don't know you've ever loved nothing that wasn't your own dick, so don't be telling me or anyone else who's lost something how it is." She looked back at Isaac, her expression softer. "Isaac, he headed off into the world, found himself family, and he lost it."

  She pushed herself around Isaac to see Davies. "Where you gonna take him now?"

  "I'm not sure, ma'am," Davies said. "The DEA will still likely drop the investigation into your marijuana business, and Isaac may play a role in getting some dangerous people off of the streets."

  "It's a damn shame to use people's loved ones against them," Grandma McCoy said. "Must be one reason we've stayed off to ourselves. Except Tennis; he always thought there was a need to keep getting more. He always wanted to make it bigger, make it bigger, didn't matter how many times I told him we done got everything we need, and we got everything we want, so what's 'more' than that?" She shook her head. "Damn child never listened, even as an old man."

  She smiled at Isaac. "You go on now. We got stuff to clean up." A tear ran down her cheek, caught in the corner of her smile. "There's likely not much time left for me on this side of dirt. It will not be a good idea, you decide to show back up to the family reunion or my funeral, so this is gonna have to be the goodbye we get. You good with that?"

  Isaac choked back a sob. "Thank you, Grandma."

  She hugged him again. "You and these folks go on. The gentleman in the trunk, we done took care of him." There was a bend to her voice meant to imply humor. I suppressed a chill. "That blood, we couldn't do nothin' about, though." She smiled at Davies and winked. "Sorry about that, honey." To Jed, she said, "Get your ass into the shed, get out shovels, head back to the family plot, start digging the holes."

  Holes, I thought. Plural. Eek.

  They turned and walked away. No one said anything to us, or gave us a second glance, as we got into the VW, and drove away.

  42

  Davies and I were at the lunch counter at the Riverside. I had a cheeseburger, and she was picked at a salad that didn't seem to be much more than iceberg lettuce and radishes. I think I saw a sliver of tomato.

  "Isaac's back to working on Cashbyte," she said. "We'll re-introduce it under a new name, create a new cover story for it. It won't be what we had hoped, but there's still something they can salvage from it."

  "Anything said about Tennis?"

  "Who's going to say what? Homicide is a local matter, and the McCoy family never reported a crime. The only reason we know Tennis McCoy is dead is because we watched it, and I'm sure as hell not going to say anything about it." She looked at me. "What about you?"

  "I've got no reason to want to relive that slasher film of a night. This also negates a solution for Pete's murder. How did Tennis work the deal with the Japanese?"

  "The best we put together was after Pete's murder, and there was a greater threat to Isaac, that opened the door to use their money and resources against the cartels muscling into his trade. When we hand-delivered him Isaac, it was exactly what he wanted."

  "Would Tennis even thought of this if Woody and I hadn't shown up with Pete?"

  Davies pushed lettuce around on her plate until the steel tongs scraped against the ceramic. I drank some iced tea and nodded my head.

  "What you’re saying me by not saying anything is Woody and I helped Pete get killed," I said.

  Davies pushed the plate way. "Don't do that, Henry. You'll lose your mind if you do. Who knows what would have happened. I think that little homophobic psycho Jed who was so intent on shooting us that night has a hundred grand hidden somewhere, and a lack of a conscience about what he did." She rested her elbows on the counter. "Tennis understood what giving the money to Pete would do to someone like Jed. He cocked the hammer on that and just waited."

  "But we can't be sure of that."

  "No, we can't. But what we can be sure of is Wakahisa seemed to have been involved with people he shouldn't have been involved with because they found his body cut up into small pieces and shoved into several heavy-duty garbage bags on a curb in Pittsburgh. It took dental records and someone good with jigsaw puzzles to ID him."

  "Obviously they weren't happy Wakahisa couldn't provide Isaac as promised."

  "Obviously. About the only obvious thing is this whole goddamn mess. Otherwise it's just a litany of unanswered questions."

  "Things don't always get tied up in a neat little bow, the way we want them to, do they?"

  "My life is like that." Davies pushed her salad away. "You tell anyone about what happened?"

  "Hell no. Who the fuck would I going to te
ll?"

  Spoiler alert: I lied. I had told Woody while he was still laid in the hospital once he woke the hell up, sore and unhappy about his pickup. He listened to the story and told me I was the luckiest gimpy bastard alive.

  After Davies, Isaac, and I cleared the McCoy farm, we drove to Marlington and Davies called her contacts. The longest fucking hour of my life later, a series of anonymous black Ford SUVs pulled up, and guys in FBI jackets got out, and I half-expected someone to say, "Come with us if you want to live." It would have made my day if they had. They strapped bulletproof vests onto us and hurried us into the vehicles. The vests seemed rather "a day late and a dollar short," but as in so many situations, I doubted anyone cared what I thought.

  Someone asked why Isaac was covered in blood. Davies and I said it was from the gunfight at the safe house. No one pushed for more on the answer.

  They drove us to the Clarksburg FBI building and took us straight onto a helicopter and flew us somewhere that I was sure was Washington.

  They interrogated me for hours, just to make sure I was as clueless as I seemed to be, and I tried to no disappoint. Everyone was firm but polite, and they kept asking me what I knew about Burwell's involvement in this cluster of fuckery. I told them them I didn't have a clue, and they finally seemed to accept that, which was good since all I had to go with there was the truth.

  I ate a French fry.

  "How are you and Felicia?" I said.

  "We're fine," Davies said. The tone didn't match the words.

  "You know what 'fine' means in AA."

  "'Fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and egotistical."

  "Want to reconsider your answer?"

  "No. We're at where we're at for the time being."

  "Still sleeping there?"

  "Fitfully, but yes. Trust isn't the issue so much as—"

  "The issue is the fact you almost died."

  Davies nodded and wiped at the corner of her eyes. "It's tough to face how close she came to being a widow."

  "Cops, Feds, anyone with a shield and a gun, they sign up aware of what it's like to deal with that. Divorce is an occupational hazard, but no one wants to give up the occupation."