by Landon Beach
“Where are you two headed this morning?” Robin asked.
“Bringing Mickey some coffee and then out to the bight to see how the construction is going on our new place,” Lucille said.
“Looking forward to moving in?”
Gary rubbed his chest again. “It’ll be hard leaving our old house. We raised our kids there. Lots of memories.”
“Your chest all right?” Robin said.
Gary looked at Lucille and then back to Robin. “Pain comes and goes. I probably keep sleepin’ on it funny.” He jerked his thumb at Lucille. “She keeps naggin’ me to go in and have it checked out.”
“Couldn’t hurt,” Robin said.
“That’s right,” Lucille agreed.
Robin put a hand on Gary’s shoulder. “When I get back, if he hasn’t gone in yet, I’ll carry him there myself.”
They laughed and Gary looked at his watch. “We won’t keep you any longer, Robin.” He put out his hand and Robin shook it. “Want to hear all about it when you get back. Maybe we’ll have everybody over for dinner.”
Lucille surprised Robin with a hug. As they parted she said, “You boys be careful out on that water.”
“We will,” Robin said, and they walked off in separate directions.
The front door chimed as he entered, and he smelled coffee, lumber, and sawdust. The sound of a power-drill came up from the basement. No one was behind the counter, and the aisles were empty.
“Anybody home?” Robin shouted.
The drill stopped, and from the basement came a deep hard voice, “Comin’ right up.”
Heavy steps could be heard on the stairs, and soon his six-foot-five-inch brother-in-law came into view. Tyee was thirty-six, with black hair parted to the right, green eyes, and a body that might have been built in a laboratory. His back, chest, and arms were enormous strings of muscles pulled down to a thirty-four-inch waist. His leg muscles looked like they should be casted and put on display in some physiology hall of fame. And he held the distinction of being the only person in Hampstead who was just as fit as Robin. They had felt themselves going soft in their late twenties and made an agreement to work out together five times a week in Robin’s home gym. Until this past year, they hadn’t missed a workout.
“He’s down there,” Tyee pointed to the steps and then gave Robin a manly hug.
At some point over the past decade, Tyee had gone beyond being his brother-in-law and had become his closest friend.
“How’s the renovation going?” Robin said as they parted.
“Slower than I want, but soon I’ll have a place to sit down and have coffee. Never needed a break room before, because I didn’t need breaks. But we’re not twenty-three anymore are we?”
“No, we’re not,” Robin said.
“Got your box for you.”
“Thanks.”
“And somethin’ else,” Tyee said.
“What?”
“Follow me.”
Tyee led them behind the counter and into the back room. In the far corner was a make-shift cabinet made out of plywood secured with a master lock. Tyee pulled out a ring crammed with keys and flipped to the key that unlocked the cabinet.
He swung the door open. Inside was a gun safe. Another key, another lock, and Tyee pulled the safe door open. The interior held two 12-gauge shotguns. Boxes of ammo were on the top shelf, all facing the same direction and equidistant apart.
“And here I always thought you only kept your wallet locked up because you hate to have it in your pocket,” Robin said.
Tyee gave a grunt as he bent down and pulled open a drawer below the shelf that the shotgun butts were resting on. Inside the drawer was a black wallet sitting on a pile of loose change. Tyee gave a devious smile and then closed the drawer.
“Why the guns?” Robin said.
“In case I need more firepower than the revolver I keep behind the counter. If I make it back here during a robbery and get my hands on one of these,” he patted the shotgun closest to him, “I’ll come out and blast the bastards. So far, nobody’s been stupid enough to try.”
“Hampstead has to have the lowest crime rate in the entire state, Tyee.”
“I know, but people are still people the last time I checked. There’ll always be shit goin’ on that we don’t see,” he said. “Call it over preparedness or, hell, even overly cautious,” he shrugged. “That’s how I operate.”
Tyee picked up one of the shotguns, unloaded it, and passed it to Robin along with two boxes of ammo. “Take this with you on your trip. I wish I could say the Great Lakes are safe from yo-yos, but we have had nice people on nice yachts taking nice trips who have never come back.” Tyee closed the safe, then the cabinet, and padlocked the door. “You never know who you might run into up there.”
Robin took the gun and ammo. “I’ve got a Saturday night special at home—”
Tyee cut him off. “Where you’re headin’ ain’t home. With this, you don’t have to be as accurate. Plus, people respect the sight of the double barrel.”
Tyee led him out of the back room.
Trist came up the stairs and saw his dad with the shotgun. “Where are you heading with that, Dad?”
“Uncle Tyee thinks it would be a good idea to have it with us on the boat.”
“It would be,” Trist said.
Had they been talking about it? “Good. Take it out to the Suburban,” Robin said passing the gun and ammo to Trist.
“You done sanding down there?” Tyee asked Tristian.
“Almost.”
“Chop, chop, Trist. I want to be varnishing this afternoon.”
They watched Trist leave the store.
“He still givin’ you lip?” Tyee said.
Tyee was his closest friend, but this had been one area Robin had never discussed with him. Levana.
As if he knew what Robin was thinking, Tyee said, “Yeah. My sister can’t keep her mouth shut.” He grinned. “I still can’t believe that Trist doesn’t know about your condition.”
“I’m having to rush my fatherly advice to him, and it’s not going well.”
“Don’t worry about it. My father waited until my mom and your other boy died to tell me anything. Trist will be fine.”
Robin was silent.
“You bring your tanks?” Tyee said.
“Out in the SUV.”
“Let’s fill ‘em out back, and then I’ll give you the box with the foul weather gear you ordered.” Tyee paused, his eyes glancing across his store aisle by aisle. “You know, I ought to expand what I carry in the store. Nobody else in this town carries any boating gear that’s worth a damn.”
“Do it,” Robin said.
Trist propped open the front door and then brought in the four scuba tanks.
“Now look at this guy,” said Tyee. “You’re startin’ to anticipate, aren’t you? That’s another step toward becoming a man: thinking about what needs to be done and doing it before you’re asked to do it.”
Robin walked toward the door and grabbed two tanks. “Thanks, Trist.”
“No problem,” Trist said bringing in the other two tanks.
Tyee had started toward the hallway that led to the back door. “Hey, Uncle Tyee. Two guys stopped me in the parking lot and asked if you carried bait.”
Tyee stopped and turned. “You send them to Mickey’s?”
“Yeah, I did and gave them directions,” said Trist.
Tyee nodded. “Good boy. We’ve gotta help Mickey get through this rough patch with that sonofabitch out by Shelby’s.”
“Gary and Lucille told me about that in the parking lot before I came in this morning,” Robin said.
“The idiot’s days are numbered now that he made an enemy of Gary,” Tyee smirked.
“Speaking of Gary, have you noticed him rubbing his chest?”
“He did it twice in front of me, and I called him on it yesterday,” said Tyee.
“Stay on him about it,” Robin said.
“I plan t
o.”
They exited out the back door and walked down a long dock to a shed that Robin had helped Tyee build. Tied up to the end of the dock was Tyee’s boat Magnum.
“When are you going to paint the shed?” Trist asked.
Tyee laughed. “You mean when are you going to paint that shed?” He looked back at Trist. “Probably when you get back.”
Tyee opened the shed and started the compressor. Robin and Trist set their tanks down, and Trist headed back to the store.
Tyee motioned for a tank, and Robin brought one inside and handed it to him. Then, Robin unfolded two chairs and placed them across from each other. Tyee hooked up the tank and sat down. The back door to the hardware store closed and the steady chug of the compressor was the only sound as the first tank filled up. Robin sat down.
When Tyee disconnected the first tank and waved for the second, Robin signaled for him to shut the compressor off.
Tyee did. “What’s up?”
Robin took a deep breath. He’d rehearsed and rehearsed, but that was all out the window now. “Tyee, when I’m gone, I want you to look after Levana and Trist.”
The men held each other’s stare.
Tyee’s voice shook. “Why you askin’ me this now?”
“Because little by little, I’m getting weaker. I’ve lost ten pounds that I can’t get back on. It’s the start.” He took a breath. Tyee remained motionless. “But I still feel like a man. I don’t want to ask when that part of me has been taken away and I’m lying in some hospital bed asking. I’ve seen it in my line of work, and it’s not pretty.”
Tyee stood up and turned away. His hands rose to his face and stayed there for a long time. Robin closed his eyes and the memories began to appear: Tyee at Robin and Levana’s rushed wedding, staring at Robin, then getting drunk at the reception and taking a swing at him for knocking up his sister; A few years later, sitting on this very dock fishing together, Tyee reaching his hand out to apologize; The unexpected hug at the joint funeral of his son and Tyee’s mother; Then, a series of moments from Robin’s gym, the sweat, the grunts, the encouragement to pump out one more rep. When he opened his eyes, Tyee had turned around and sat down. His eyes were dry but red.
“I got it covered,” Tyee said.
Robin reached out his hand, and they shook as men do who know enough to be quiet at that moment.
8
VANCOUVER, B.C., CANADA, JUNE 1995
Fresh mulch crunched underneath Grant Livingston’s boots on the six-foot wide path through towering Douglas firs. The trail left from the estate’s north lawn and ran a quarter of a mile into the woods before making a ‘T’ where one could walk in either direction and circle the estate, ending back at the ‘T’ two and a half miles later. Livingston ran the trail at six every morning and then walked it before dinner every night.
The target appearance to maintain now was age forty. Everything that went into his body and every liter of sweat he produced trimming and shaping it was aimed at that target. The only area he would concede to his fifty-three years was hair color. Too much of a pain to dye it, the wrinkles on his forehead and around the eyes had finally convinced him that he couldn’t get away with it anymore—it looked out of place, and his stylist had done wonders cutting and snipping, combing and gelling, modeling his black and gray hair into the coveted category of distinguished. A wrong part here, or a bit long there, and it dwindled down to: old.
Livingston looked behind him. Trailing him by twenty yards—as always—was his bodyguard, Eric. Dressed in denim slacks with a black cotton turtleneck, Eric Bannon was a chiseled copy of Livingston’s own physique twenty years ago but taller and a much better marksman with a 9mm and a throwing knife. And...he was bedding Livingston’s wife. The conquests were recorded by the estate’s video surveillance system: on the wicker couch in the greenhouse, standing in the shallow end of the Olympic indoor pool, on an ottoman in the library, and in one of the guest suite showers.
Eric gave him the okay sign. Livingston signaled back and then continued, picking up his pace. If it had been his first or second wife, it might have mattered. But this was his third. She was three years younger than Eric, the owner of a magic ass, breasts that no sweatshirt could shelter from inspection, and a face that made anyone forget her lack of substance in the cranial region. She was seen with him, tended him, even humored him, but the truth was clear: she was uninterested in him. His one and only visit to a marriage counselor with his second wife had given words to her main complaints: he was a misogynistic, narcissistic bastard who was unwilling to change. Wifey number two had clapped from the therapist’s couch when the therapist doled out the diagnosis. Livingston had smirked, and then shut down. The therapist was now married to ex-wife number two.
After the session, alone in his study, a repressed memory had assaulted his conscience while he sipped a scotch by the fire. He was eight years old and his father walked him across the backyard where his mother painted in the afternoons. Arriving at the easel, his father made him drop his pants and then piss all over his mother’s finished painting—a work that had taken over a month. After destroying the painting, he began to cry as he zipped up his pants. It was then that his father had latched on to his neck and dragged him into the garage. Bending him over the workbench, his father had removed his own leather belt—and begun to swing. He didn’t know which was louder, his screams of agony or the sound of the belt whiffing through air and smacking on his buttocks and back. When his father had finished, he said to Livingston, “Now you’ve got something to cry about.”
His mind had started to access other sessions that had occurred from then until he was around fourteen, but his anger had taken over at that point, and he had left the study and worked out for two hours in his estate’s gym. This was one way he dealt with the past. There was also another way.
Livingston looked at his watch. His guest should be arriving for cocktails now. Another half-hour to finish the walk, another half-hour to shave, shower, and dress for dinner. Then, business.
✽✽✽
Livingston remembered the first time he saw him. November, 1975 in this house. The blessing of Korean descent made the man’s age ambiguous, and the small figure approached Livingston in the same manner as he had used to approach his father: slow gait, eyes fixed on his, the mouth in something short of a smile, and the timed extension of his smooth hand.
“Mr. Sanders,” Livingston said, shaking the man’s hand.
Dai Sanders said nothing, but shook hard.
Sanders was a chain smoker, and cancer waited in the old man’s lungs like a vulture sitting on a wounded animal’s chest, peering into the eyes, waiting for death. Seventy-seven. Maybe less than a year left. No wife. A mistress. No children—that were known of. A multi-millionaire, by virtue of the work for Livingston’s father, and now Livingston. Sanders was here to discuss his replacement.
The men sat down at the end of a long mahogany dining room table, and a servant uncorked a thirty-year old bottle of wine. After pouring the men’s glasses, he disappeared into the pantry.
Sanders took a drink and then nodded his approval. He had the look of a man who had lived with a secret too long.
Livingston took a drink and watched Sanders light a cigarette—might as well go down swinging.
✽✽✽
Sanders’s performance in the company had been superior in every way for forty-one years, even strong enough to survive that one blemish. The board had been split as whether to execute Sanders when the hiccup occurred; the elder Livingston’s vote to keep Sanders had broken the tie, but the old man had now passed away and Livingston was in control. Half the board members said that it was Sanders’s fault: he was in charge of the seaplane’s maintenance, and it was assumed that the plane had gone down. The other half said that it had been the pilot’s fault for trying to rush the shipment in bad weather. The board let Sanders live but only on the condition that someone had to go. One cold Friday night in January 1976, Sanders’s a
ssistant—and part-time lover—left for a weekend getaway and never returned.
Livingston remembered thinking that something must be very wrong for him to be summoned back to Vancouver on the first available flight from New York—the destination of the goods his father shipped—that November morning in ‘75. He knew that the situation would not be discussed over the phone—business was only discussed in person. On the flight, he had read about an iron-ore carrier that had been lost in Lake Superior due to a huge storm. When he had arrived in Vancouver, he discovered that the ship was not the only thing the storm had claimed: the largest shipment his father’s company had ever attempted had been lost. Over twenty million dollars in jewels.
The legitimate side of the family business was trucking in the U.S. and Canada and shipping on the Great Lakes Waterway and the Atlantic, and it had made the Livingston family millionaires many times over. As for the jewel smuggling, Livingston’s father had been skeptical of adding another wing to his business. The jewels were stolen: either robbing couriers and retailers or through simple smash and grab operations by a large number of replaceable street thieves looking to make a quick buck, with enough cut outs between them and the boss that it didn’t matter if a few got caught. It wasn’t the stealing that his father had worried about, it was the transportation method. Speed was the name of the game; trucks were too slow for the entire trip, and the jewels had to be transported and sold off in a hurry. The sellers in New York had been bought off to not ask where the gems were coming from, but if the efficiency of the exchange dropped, then it put the operation at risk. Livingston’s father hadn’t trusted aircraft—never flew—and there wasn’t enough of a profit margin for assuming the risk on his own. But, as a professional courtesy for another partner in a drug distribution machine, his father had agreed to transport the jewels from Vancouver to New York for a year—Vancouver to Lake of the Woods by truck, Lake of the Woods to Lake Superior by air, and the rest of the way by truck. When the mega-shipment disappeared, he had arranged to pay some of the money back, but avoided paying back the majority due to the fact that the business partner had hired the pilot and co-pilot.
