Lucky Bones

by Michael Wiley

  Rodman glanced at Kelson with concern. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Sure. I’m always lightheaded.’

  ‘Don’t be a pussy,’ Marty said.

  ‘Listen, Tweety—’ Kelson said.

  ‘Guys,’ Rodman said, smooth and calm.

  Then the thick boom of a shotgun sounded from one of the second-story windows.

  ‘Fuck,’ Marty yelled. He stared at his vest. Buckshot had dented the yellow Kevlar.

  ‘Your ear’s bleeding,’ Kelson said.

  Gripping the semiautomatic, Marty wiped a dot of blood with the back of his hand. ‘A nip,’ he said.

  The shotgun fired again, the sound booming over the yard.

  Kelson, Rodman, and Marty ran for a stand of trees.

  Kelson peered out and saw two men arguing at an open second-story window.

  ‘Someone got overexcited,’ Rodman said. ‘Why would they want to scare the neighbors?’ He stepped out from the trees and raised his hands over his head, his Beretta tucked into the back of his pants, his little revolver in his side pocket. ‘They should want us inside where they can try to get their money and the thumb drive without so much noise.’

  No one shot at him.

  ‘You’re a smart guy, DeMarcus,’ Marty said.

  ‘I hope you can still say that later,’ Rodman said. He walked – slow, calm, staying near the trees – through the yard and toward the house.

  Kelson and Marty followed him, Kelson’s hands high, his guns in his belt, Marty cradling his semiautomatic.

  The men in the window – Kelson recognized one of them as Stanley Javinsky – watched them come. Another man appeared behind a closed window a couple of rooms from the first, his face obscured by the glaring glass.

  As Rodman, Kelson, and Marty approached the veranda, Javinsky aimed the shotgun down at them from the open window but didn’t pull the trigger.

  Rodman, Kelson, and Marty went up the front steps and under the shelter of the veranda roof. Rodman and Kelson each got out a gun – Rodman his Beretta, Kelson his KelTec. Marty slipped to the side, crouched, aimed his gun at the front door, and readied it to shoot.

  Kelson slipped to the other side. Then Rodman kicked the door in.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Javinsky, now at the base of the stairway, fired the shotgun out the doorway and across the veranda, the noise thundering.

  Rodman was suddenly by Kelson, out of the blast pattern. The two of them and Marty waited a moment, then fired back into the house, shattering wallboard, glass lamps, a large mirror.

  Then they stopped shooting.

  Silence rang in their ears.

  Footsteps came up the hall toward the door – hard little heels.

  Marty glanced at Rodman for a signal. Rodman shook his head.

  The footsteps stopped, then started again.

  The three men aimed their guns at the doorway.

  Sylvia Crane stuck her head outside and eyed Marty and then Rodman, before holding her gaze on Kelson. ‘You goddamned fool,’ she said. She ducked back inside, and the footsteps retreated down the hall.

  ‘What?’ Kelson said, then called into the house. ‘What?’

  Marty moved from the side of the doorway toward the middle. When no one shot at him, he disappeared into the house.

  ‘Hard-ass canary,’ Kelson said, and followed him.

  Rodman went in behind Kelson, but when Marty and Kelson went down the hall toward the back of the house, he peeled off into a big living room decorated all in white.

  The hardwood floor at the front end of the hallway was covered with dust and broken glass, but as Marty and Kelson went back they entered a gleaming dining room with a dark-wood table set for twelve with glistening china and glassware. The high-backed chairs were tucked against the table, the creased white linen napkins bedding a selection of three forks.

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Shh,’ said Marty, and he went through another door into a kitchen.

  Harold Crane stood by the marble counter wearing a white shirt, white pants, and white Adidas tennis shoes. When Marty and Kelson pointed their guns at him, he raised his hands with a wry smile.

  ‘What’s the joke, old man?’ Marty said.

  Harold Crane nodded toward an open door at the far end of the kitchen. It led to a book-lined room, where Sylvia Crane and three men, including Stanley Javinsky and Greg Cushman, surrounded another man, who was tied to a chair. The tied-up man was Chip Voudreaux, and the third man held a pistol to his neck. Bruises covered Voudreaux’s face and arms. His mouth hung open, bloody and missing teeth. Stanley Javinsky, seeing Kelson and Marty, came to the doorway. He pointed the shotgun at Kelson.

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said again.

  Marty shoved the barrel of the semiautomatic into Harold Crane’s ribs. ‘I’ll shoot him.’

  Javinsky rasped, ‘Why does anyone need to get shot?’

  Kelson aimed his KelTec at him. ‘Listen, Squirt …’

  Javinsky raised his gun a few degrees, aiming at the ceiling over Kelson. ‘Come in,’ he said, the words sounding like pain.

  Kelson followed Javinsky into the book-lined room. Marty came in after them, prodding Harold Crane along with the gun barrel.

  Sylvia Crane looked like she wanted to spit on Kelson. She wore a blue pantsuit with the jacket buttoned once above her belly. Kelson pointed his KelTec at that button. ‘Where’s your other friend?’ she said.

  Before Kelson could tell her where Rodman went, Marty said, ‘He’s a pussy. Ran for the woods. Big black dude like that, you’d never guess it.’

  She told the man who held the pistol against Voudreaux’s neck, ‘Go after him.’ The man slipped out of the room, leaving only Javinsky and Cushman with guns to face Kelson and Marty.

  ‘That’s better,’ Kelson said. ‘Evens the odds.’

  So Sylvia Crane reached into her jacket pocket, drew out a small silver pistol, and, without seeming to need to aim, shot a bullet into Voudreaux’s left foot.

  Voudreaux screeched – the hoarse screech of a man who’d been screeching a lot.

  Kelson yelled, ‘Why’d you do that?’

  ‘With me, you’ll never have even odds,’ she said, and she pointed the gun at him. ‘The thumb drive.’ Cold and controlled.

  He looked at her from her head to her toes, which she’d tucked into blue stilettos that matched her pantsuit. ‘Nice shoes.’

  She stared at Marty. ‘And our money. All of it. Now.’

  Marty aimed the semiautomatic at her. ‘You’re making two mistakes,’ he said. ‘First, you think the money’s yours. Second, you think shooting this asshole in the foot changes anything. It doesn’t scare us. Sooner or later, it doesn’t even scare him.’ He wiggled the stump of his missing arm at her. ‘Proof positive. Shoot a man in the foot, he’ll hop after you and kill you.’

  So she shot Voudreaux in the other foot.

  Voudreaux howled high and long. Before he stopped, Marty shouted at her, ‘He’ll fucking crawl. If you shoot him in the chest, I’ll drag his fucking corpse after you to show you what a man can do.’

  ‘You’re a vicious little bastard,’ Sylvia Crane said.

  Voudreaux made a whining moan.

  Standing next to Marty, Harold Crane laughed – a strange high-pitched laugh that harmonized with Voudreaux’s moan.

  Kelson moved toward Voudreaux but stopped when Sylvia Crane turned her pistol toward the injured man. ‘What did he do to deserve this?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Besides trying to steal our money?’ she said. ‘Besides trying to blackmail and extort my father? Besides threatening to bring our whole lives down on us?’

  Harold Crane said, ‘Besides betraying all I did for him?’

  ‘You fucked him,’ Kelson said. ‘I saw the video.’

  ‘I did nothing he was unwilling to do,’ Harold Crane said. ‘And I made him a rich man.’ He smiled. ‘I made him into a man.’

  Voudreaux tried to speak, but his pain and brutalized mouth got in t
he way.

  Harold Crane looked down at him with smug satisfaction. ‘Now I’m taking back his manhood. A piece at a time.’

  ‘You’ – Voudreaux forced the word out – ‘wrecked – me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Harold Crane said. ‘Yes, I did. I made you and destroyed you. That was my prerogative.’

  Then, a sound from outside the room interrupted them. Out on the street – a block away, maybe two blocks – sirens approached.

  A flash of fear crossed Sylvia Crane’s face. She seemed to calculate. ‘We finish this now,’ she told Stanley Javinsky and Cushman. ‘Then we clean up.’

  Kelson laughed at her. ‘No way you can buy your way out of this now.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate me,’ she said. She stepped close to Voudreaux, pressed her pistol against his forehead, and shot him dead.

  Marty opened his mouth as if he would say something to her. Instead, he fired the semiautomatic five times into her body.

  Javinsky and Cushman stared at Kelson and Marty. Then everyone was shooting. Everyone but Harold Crane, who’d hit the floor when Marty shot Sylvia. In the small room, a shooter could hardly miss. But Marty hit Javinsky first, in the shoulder, and Kelson hit Cushman, in the neck. The two wounded men fired wild and wide, ten or more shots crashing into bookshelves, lamps, a settee, and a framed painting of a girl with an umbrella. Kelson and Marty pumped round after round into the men until the men fell.

  Harold Crane stayed down until the shooting stopped. When Stanley Javinsky’s pistol clattered across the floor and came to a rest against his thigh, he didn’t dare touch it. But with the shooting over, he fingered it – as if it might be hot – and picked it up.

  Kelson and Marty stood in the hazy light, stunned by the noise and the blood. They let Harold Crane get up with Javinsky’s gun in his hand. They did nothing as he stared at the gun. They seemed to come to themselves only when he lifted it and pressed the barrel against his jaw.

  ‘Huh,’ Kelson said.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ Marty said, and pointed the semiautomatic at Harold Crane, as if he could stop him from shooting himself by shooting him first.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ Harold Crane said, and he smiled a childish smile.

  Then Rodman stepped into the room behind Crane. Quiet. He stuck his big pistol into his belt. Then he grabbed Crane’s gun arm and yanked it up and away. Crane squeezed a single shot into the ceiling before Rodman broke his wrist.

  Crane crumpled to the floor as if Rodman had broken bones throughout his body. Rodman stared down at him and said, ‘Letting you die would be easy. You don’t get easy.’

  FIFTY-FOUR

  The Lake Forest police arrested everyone still alive at Sylvia Crane’s house, including Kelson, Rodman, Marty, and a cook and a maid who’d holed up in the garage when the shooting started. The cops put them in handcuffs, all except Harold Crane, who marched out of the house cradling his broken wrist with his other hand, looking indignant and righteous.

  But eighteen hours later, when Ed Davies led Kelson, Rodman, and Marty out of the station into the warming air of the first June morning, no charges filed against them, Harold Crane sat alone in a jail cell, accused of multiple murders, embezzlement, and money laundering. That afternoon, the police arrested Susan Centlivre. The evening news showed the FBI raiding the G&G office.

  Two days later, White Dove Cremations incinerated Neto’s remains, and afterward, as Neto’s little circle of friends drank to his memory at Fuller’s Pub, Kelson asked Marty where he would scatter the ashes. Marty looked hurt. ‘Now on, that boy stays with me. Get a nice fucking jar and put him on a shelf where I can keep an eye on him.’

  Janet, whose mascara streaked her big cheeks from all the tears, squeezed him hard.

  ‘Careful with the goods,’ he said.

  They sat at three tables they’d pushed together near a stage where rock ’n’ roll bands played live on Fridays and Saturdays.

  ‘You’ve got money now, Marty,’ Rodman said.

  ‘Yeah,’ the little man said, staring into his beer, ‘a fuckload.’

  ‘What’re you going to do with it?’ Rodman asked.

  ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking about,’ Marty said. ‘You know how much I got? Almost thirty-two mil. Seems like after one or two million, it’s cheating. I worked for it. I risked my life. But a little prick like me, who am I kidding? I’m discount basement. But you guys, you’re the best. Gold fucking standard. So, what I’m saying is, we share it. We did this together, right?’ When no one said anything, he looked from face to face. ‘Right?’

  Kelson turned down the money. ‘I worked a job,’ he said. ‘Anyway, if you gave me the money and anyone asked, I couldn’t help telling them where I got it.’

  Rodman and Cindi turned it down too. ‘I’ve got what I need,’ Rodman said. ‘The hustle’s good. With money in the bank, I’d get fat and lazy.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t,’ Cindi said, ‘because if you took a penny of it, I’d kick your ass so hard you’d never sit down.’

  Janet said she’d take a piece – but no more than a million or two, or at most three.

  ‘Three for you, two for me,’ Marty said. ‘That’s twenty-seven for a place.’

  ‘For a place?’ Rodman said.

  ‘That’s what I’m thinking,’ Marty said. ‘A place to help kids like Neto. Smart kids who get in trouble and need a way out. Teach them good fucking manners. Teach them skills.’

  ‘Wasn’t Neto’s problem that he had too many skills?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Teach them the right skills,’ Marty said.

  ‘Aww,’ Janet and Cindi said together.

  ‘Neto would be proud,’ Rodman said.

  The little man blushed and puffed up, and Janet squeezed him again.

  ‘Careful with the goods,’ he said again, and squeezed her too.

  Doreen didn’t join them at the gathering. The previous afternoon, a judge had revoked her bond after the news included her name in reports on the bloody collapse of G&G Private Equity and the wealthy family who ran it.

  ‘But she did nothing wrong,’ Kelson said to Ed Davies.

  Davies sighed and said, ‘Getting close to you is wrong enough.’

  ‘They can jail a woman for that?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  Late in the evening at Fuller’s, when Kelson found himself alone with Rodman by the bar, he dug a folded envelope from a pocket. He opened it and took out the red thumb drive.

  ‘What are you going to do with it?’ Rodman asked.

  Kelson held it in front of his eyes the way he might a large pill he was thinking about swallowing. ‘Some things shouldn’t be,’ he said.

  ‘Does the DA have enough on Harold Crane without it?’ Rodman signaled the bartender for a shot of Wild Turkey.

  ‘Venus Johnson says Crane’s talking. He thinks he’ll cut a deal. She thinks he’s already talked himself into life in max.’

  Rodman watched the bartender pour the shot. Then he raised the glass to his lips and drank it like medicine. ‘Some things shouldn’t be,’ he said to Kelson.

  ‘What good would it do?’ Kelson said.

  ‘Genevieve Bower hired you to take it out of circulation. She didn’t want anyone to see it.’

  ‘But if anyone asks, I’ll tell them what I did with it. I won’t be able to stop myself.’

  ‘True. It would be destruction of evidence,’ Rodman said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what it would be.’ He dropped the thumb drive on the floor.

  It was just a little thing.

  He stomped on it.

  ‘Obstruction of justice,’ Rodman said.

  ‘Some things’ – Kelson stomped again – ‘shouldn’t be.’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Many, many thanks to Julia for her first readings, to Lukas, Philip, and Anne-Lise for always advocating, to Kate and the great people at Severn House for making me better, and to Michael for putting a good face on me. I’m grateful to Dr K for our conversations about disinhibitio
n and autotopagnosia and to books and articles by Angélique Stéfan, Jean François Mathé, Andrea Kocka, Jean Gagnon, and Oliver Sacks for filling in many of my remaining gaps. My love to Julie, Isaac, Maya, and Elias, who bring me laughter and the noise of life.