The Quiet Edge

by Rob Cornell

  After that thought, part of him was thankful the knob didn’t turn.

  He stepped back so he could take in more of the house. No more moving curtains (if they’d actually moved in the first place). No lights coming on. No surly gangster types telling him to fuck off and mind his own business. It was this last part that bothered him the most. The lack of guards made him doubt Jen was here anymore.

  But she had to have been at one point, right? Giving out a phony phone number or email was one thing. But who gave out fake street addresses? There had to be some significance to this place. Eckman had seemed to expect Harrison to find something here.

  So he had a choice—walk away or break in and search the place.

  This was feeling more and more like Jankowski’s place. If he broke in, would he find Jen dead with a slash in her throat? Maybe another fly crawling around in the wound?

  He was beginning to regret offering his help to Jake again, but he shook that off. If Jen was already dead, Jake deserved to know it, especially going in to meet with Ona.

  Harrison jogged back to his car, recovered his lock picks out of the glove box, and hurried around to the back of the house. While it didn’t look like anybody was paying attention, he’d rather break the law in the shadows behind the house instead of on full display on the front porch.

  Enough moonlight illuminated the way so he didn’t trip on the coiled garden hose in the overgrown lawn. A small deck not much bigger than a few card tables came off the back of the house. The steps felt soft under Harrison’s feet, the wood on its way to rotting through.

  The back didn’t have a storm door like out front, but based on the empty hinges, it used to. Harrison crouched in front of the door, opened the leather case to his picks, and took out the pen light he kept inside. He turned the light on and clamped it in his teeth so he could directed the light onto the lock hands free.

  But he never got the chance to use his picks.

  A light came on inside.

  The door opened.

  A familiar bullish face peered down at him. Her scowl widened her nostrils.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jen said. “You sure don’t know how to mind your own damn business, do you?”

  Forty

  The first thing Jake noticed when he entered Mother’s office was that the TV was off. Not a good sign. Mother meant to stay focused.

  She sat in her recliner, feet up, a bag of Better Made potato chips open in her lap. A crumb of chip stuck to the corner of her mouth like a beauty mark. A streak of salty grease ran across the front of her turquoise muumuu as if she’d been using it as a napkin.

  Jake shuddered.

  “What are you gawking at?” she barked.

  “Nothing, Mother.”

  Her nostrils flared. She looked ready to say something else, changed her mind, and dug her hand into the bag of chips. Her eyes—which had dark circles under them, Jake noticed—stayed locked onto Jake while she stuffed a handful of chips into her mouth.

  Jake averted his gaze while she chewed. The sound of her lips smacking and chips crunching turned his stomach. He wondered how big a handful would cause her to choke. Or how much longer her disgusting habits would finally catch up to her and stop her heart.

  Mother swallowed and dragged her hand across her chest, adding to the smear of grease there. “You didn’t see Arlie on your way in, did you?”

  “No.”

  “He’s supposed to be here, too.”

  “What is it you want, Mother?”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I want my fucking files, Jacob. That’s what I want. Are you any closer to finding them?”

  Jake resisted the urge to touch the bulge in his pocket. “As a matter of fact, I know who has them.”

  Mother had started to reach into her bag for more chips. She froze. “You do?”

  Jake nodded. “You’re not going to like it.”

  “Of course I won’t. Who is it? Tell me.”

  “Venezio Moretti.”

  For a moment, Mother didn’t speak. Her jaw hung slack. Jake could see a wet mash of crumbs stuck to her tongue. Her massive bosom rose and fell, the only sign she hadn’t suffered a much deserved stroke. “How the hell did he get them?”

  “Does it matter? He has them and he has no intention of returning them.”

  “You spoke with him? Yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  Mother grasped the potato chip bag in a fist. The crinkling sound set Jake’s teeth on edge.

  “You went over my head to meet with the don of the Moretti family?”

  “What was I supposed to do? If I came to you, you’d cut another finger off Jen. Or worse.”

  She released her grip on the bag. It crinkled outward as if taking a breath. Jake could not think of a worse sound. He would have preferred to scrape his front teeth across slate. It bothered him so much, he almost missed what Mother said next.

  “You’re right.”

  He blinked at her. “I’m sorry?”

  “I said, you’re right. You did the right thing going to Moretti on your own. In fact, that is exactly the kind of move I’ve been trying to get you to make ever since your brother died.”

  “You…aren’t angry?”

  She chortled like a troll. All she needed was a bridge to live under. “Of course, I’m angry. If Moretti has my files, and he isn’t willing to give them back, it means war. It means bloodshed.”

  “It doesn’t have to. We have no chance of winning. Our best bet is to cut our losses. I know it’s a huge blow, but—”

  Mother flattened her hands over her ears and screeched, face puffing out and turning red. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

  Jake started at the sudden outburst. Something quivered low in his gut.

  Mother waited, watching him, and when he didn’t say anything more, she lowered her hands from her ears. “One minute, you tell me you sat down with the biggest mobster in Detroit and walked away alive, and the next you cry like a woman and say we should cut our losses? You damned pussy. What will it take to finally make a man out of you?”

  Jake opened his mouth, but he had nothing to say. Nothing he said would make any difference in her world, anyway. His efforts would never amount to enough. She would never take him seriously. He would always be a disappointment.

  He saw her television remote on her side table and remembered his vision of ramming it down her throat. For some reason, he couldn’t imagine it as clearly as he had, as if whatever internal energy that had powered the vivid scene had since dissipated.

  He didn’t need to choke her on her remote, though. He had a gun in his pocket. He could shoot her in her nasty, fat, ungrateful face.

  But he wouldn’t do that, either.

  Because mother was right.

  He was weak.

  He was—

  Jake’s cell vibrated against his chest in the inside pocket of his sport coat.

  Could it be Harrison Hart? Had he found Jen?

  If so, he didn’t need to shoot mother to escape her insults. He could leave, walk away and never turn back. All power over him would be lost. Running was the coward’s way, yes. Perhaps it was time to accept himself for the coward he was instead of fighting it.

  He withdrew his phone.

  “Who is that?” Mother asked. “Is that Arlie? Why would he be calling you? He’s supposed to be here already.”

  Harrison Heart’s phone number displayed on the screen.

  An icy wave rushed through Jake. His hand trembled as he tapped the screen to accept the call. His head spun as he pressed the phone to his ear.

  “Jake?” Hart asked. “Are you with your mother?”

  Jake swallowed. “Yes.”

  Mother stared at him questioningly.

  “I’m with Jen,” Hart said.

  Jake smiled. “Thank god. Is she safe?”

  Mother set aside her bag of chips and slowly lowered the footrest on her recliner. “Who is that?”

  Jake ignored her.

 
“She’s safe, but there’s something you need to know. I’m not sure how to cushion it for you—”

  “Then don’t, Mr. Hart. Though I’m not sure it will matter. As long as Jen is safe,” Jake said while looking pointedly at Mother, “everything else will work itself out.”

  Hart made a hesitant sound.

  Mother planted her hands on each of her chair’s armrests and pushed up. The leather made a wretched flatulent sound as she slowly rose to her feet. The effort to stand turned her face pink. “Are you talking to that detective? Where is he? What’s going on?”

  Was that a note of panic in her voice? Was she realizing that her grip on him had slipped?

  Hart said something, but Jake missed it. “What’s that?”

  “I said, it’s a hoax, Jake.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Jen was never your mother’s prisoner. She was a willing participant.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Heat and pressure filled Jake’s ears, muffled the sounds around him. Mother moved toward him like a silent whale. “What…what about her finger? They cut off her finger.”

  “It wasn’t hers. They put her ring on it to make you think it was.”

  “Who the hell’s finger was it then?” he cried, the question absurd and irrelevant, but it leapt from his mouth nevertheless.

  “Jakey,” Mother said and reached out to touch his face.

  She hadn’t called him Jakey since he was ten. He remembered the very last time she had. A week before his eleventh birthday. He’d asked for a Furby. She had told him that eleven was too old for silly toys. You won’t be little Jakey anymore, she’d said. And then had proved it by refusing to use the nickname ever again.

  He slapped her hand away.

  “Whose finger was it, Mother?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, flustered. “Arlie got it from a mortician friend. It doesn’t matter.”

  Tears burned in Jake’s eyes. He hated the feel of them. Scoured them away with the back of his sleeve. Hart was saying something through the phone, but Jake didn’t care. He tossed the phone aside and pulled the gun out instead.

  Mother took a step back. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Why?” Jake hissed. “You turned my own wife against me. Why?”

  Her expression went flat. “I saw an opportunity. Your sweet little wife came to me begging forgiveness for this foolishness you two cooked up. Told me everything. She’s more of a man than you’ve ever been.”

  “And you thought…what? You’d pretend to threaten her life to make me more manly? Did you really think that would work?”

  “It almost did. That you faced Venezio himself tells me so.” She frowned. “But in the end, you went right back to being your old self. Joshua would have spat in that man’s face and stood by my side, willing to go to war, no matter the odds.”

  “That’s not bravery, Mother. That’s stupidity. It’s the same stupidity that got Joshua killed. He had to go out in a blaze of bullets because, by god, no copper would take down Joshua Seelenberger.”

  “Don’t you talk about your brother that way.”

  “Or what?” Jake looked down at the gun in his hand. He almost couldn’t believe he had it out, had the barrel pointed at her, had his finger on the trigger. The moment felt like a dream on the one hand. Too sharp for anything but reality on the other. The feel of the sweat trickling down the edge of his spine. The smell of salt and potato riding Mother’s breath. The weight of the gun in his hand.

  And the look on Mother’s face. He’d never seen her look afraid before. He found the look suited her.

  Mother raised her hands. “I was trying to help you, Jakey. Don’t you see that?”

  “I do, as a matter of fact. And, Mother, I have to congratulate you. Honestly, well done. I think your little plan worked a charm.”

  The first bullet went through one breast, tearing a hole through her greasy muumuu, and spraying a plume of blood as the force of it staggered her.

  He aimed better with the second shot, lifting the gun up, sighting down it’s barrel. Really, only a few feet stood between them. There wasn’t much room to miss.

  The second bullet obliterated her nose and spat blood, bits of skull, and brain matter out the back of her head.

  When her body hit the floor, Jake felt the vibrations through his feet.

  He stood over her lifeless girth for a long while. Time didn’t have a hold on Jake. He had all the time in the world now.

  Eventually, he retrieved his phone and dialed Arlie.

  “Come to the office,” he commanded. “I have a mess for you to clean up.”

  Forty-One

  Harrison marveled at the changes Jake had made to Ona’s old office. It barely looked like the same room. From the massive cherrywood desk in the room’s center, to the framed abstracts hung on the walls, to the fresh berber laid out on the floor. No TV. No recliner. Even the air smelled different, thick with vanilla scented candles that burned away on a display table where the bar used to be.

  Jake Seelenberger sat behind the desk, hands folded and resting on the blotter, a vague smile on his face. Afternoon light poured through the window behind him, creating a yellowish aura around him.

  “Thank you for coming,” Jake said. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  Harrison hadn’t been sure himself. The invitation came from Gregory—former assistant to Ona Seelenberger, now serving Jake—that morning. This was three days after Harrison found Jen, perfectly intact and unharmed, and dropped that truth bomb on Jake. In those three days, Harrison had talked to Jake only one other time. Jake had come to the agency with a check for six grand and a short update…

  Mother and Jen’s plan worked. I’m in charge now.

  He refused to elaborate and left the check.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he meant.

  Which was why Harrison surprised himself when he decided to meet with Jake. The man had killed his own mother. He had bought into the family business one-thousand percent. He was exactly the wrong kind of person to associate with.

  But a mix of curiosity and a need for closure prodded him to take the meeting.

  “I probably shouldn’t have,” Harrison said.

  “Well, I’m glad you did.” He pointed at one of a pair of leather-padded chairs across from his desk. “Please, have a seat.”

  Harrison hesitated.

  “Mr. Hart, you’ve come this far. You might as well hear me out.”

  He had a point. Harrison took a seat. “Okay, what’s up?”

  “I imagine you have a number of questions.”

  Harrison shrugged. “Your business is none of mine.”

  “Nevertheless, I am sympathetic to your situation. I would be happy to clear the air. Ask me anything.”

  “Where’s Ona?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that one.”

  “What about Jen? She with Ona?”

  Jake’s lips pressed together. Some of the color in his cheeks faded. “Not hardly. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  Harrison smirked. “I think you know the answer to that one.”

  “So your mind is made up about me? Am I wasting my breath here?”

  “That depends. You still haven’t told me why I’m here.”

  Jake gave a curt nod. “Fair enough. But I was hoping you’d have a more open mind before I made my offer.”

  “Offer?”

  “I want you to come work for me.”

  Harrison burst into laughter. “You can’t be serious.”

  Jake’s expression soured. “Do not laugh at me, Mr. Hart.”

  “I’m sorry if I’m hurting your feelings, but I already have a job. A legitimate one. I’m not about to throw in with gangsters.”

  “That’s just it,” Jake said. “I plan on turning the family business around. Make it legitimate. That’s why I want to hire you. I value your moral compass.”

  It would
have been great to believe him, but Harrison couldn’t imagine it. Especially not after Jake’s hostile takeover of his mother’s operation. And if Harrison had learned anything from dealing with the Seelenbergers, it was that his nose did not belong in their business.

  Harrison stood. “Tell Jen I said hello.”

  “That’s it? You won’t even listen?”

  “I wish you luck, Jake. I hope you really can go legit. But my path leads elsewhere.”

  Jake’s face turned red. He balled his hands into fists on his desk. “You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Mr. Hart. I’m not the pushover everyone thought I was.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

  Forty-Two

  “I think it’s working.”

  The smile on Dylan’s face looked brighter than any Harrison had seen on him in far too long.

  They sat together on a bench at Dodge Park. Ten minutes ago they had finished a long walk through the paved trails through the park’s woods. In the second week of September, the worst of summer’s humidity was behind them, so they had made a habit of coming to the park to take walks on the days between Dylan’s treatments. In the shade of the maples and oaks, they could make a brisk pace without working up too much of a sweat.

  Harrison ruffled his hand through Dylan’s new haircut. He couldn’t get used to it being so short. But the shorter cut made it easier for the docs to attach the electrodes for his treatments.

  Dylan playfully swatted away Harrison’s hand. “Don’t mess with the do, bro.”

  “You’re looking better. I think it’s working, too.”

  A young couple on inline stakes sailed past them, headed for the bridge over the creek that would take them into the woods.

  The brothers watched them go.

  “I wonder if I could start dating again after I’m through with the ECT.”

  Harrison exaggerated his shock by hanging his mouth wide and gasping loudly. “You’re thinking of dating?”

  Dylan shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking out loud.”

  “Well, I like the way you’re thinking.”

  “You should try, too.”