Harvey waved his cigar at Ty in acknowledgment of his skill. “Keep this up and there will be a plaque with your name on it in the trophy case next to Tony’s. And just like Tony, there will be scholarships in your future. And, Cory, what can I say? You’ve made a good restaurant even better. We are rated the number one hamburger establishment in Luster, beating Red Robin for the first time. I’ve had three requests for franchising—one of them tonight by our guests from Portland. They said your hamburger was—what was the word, Tony?”
“Transcendent.”
“Yes, transcendent. That’s the word,” Harvey said. “I may take them up on the offer. Given your skills with math, and your ability to run a kitchen, I see a significant role for you on the management team. But let’s save that discussion for another day.”
Cory glowed with the praise. But secretly he hoped that day would never come. The kitchen of his dreams did not include flipping Harvey burgers for the rest of his life.
Harvey looked at Tony. “Do you have anything to add?”
Tony said, “I just think about the hand you guys were dealt, and how far you’ve come. You’re amazing examples of how important the foster care system is, and how great it can be when good people such as yourselves are given half a chance to succeed.”
Cory said, “Thank you.”
Ty just nodded. It occurred to Cory that he might be bored.
Harvey said, “Now you may open your envelopes.”
Cory briefly flashed back to the envelope from Stellah. The odds of the contents hitting him that hard were close to—but not quite—zero. Cory opened the envelope. It was a check. He had to hold it close to the fire pit to see. He blinked, then blinked again. There were too many zeroes. He counted four, preceded by a one. Was that—
Harvey answered for him. “That’s ten thousand dollars, in case you can’t see in this light.” Cory looked at Ty. He was staring at the check, no doubt wearing the same stunned expression that Cory was sure he had plastered all over his own face. Harvey said, “But before you get too excited, notice the date.”
Ty said, “Graduation day.” Now he wasn’t bored.
“That’s right. If you meet two simple conditions that I’m about to share, then on the day you graduate I will contribute ten thousand dollars toward your continuing education. Call it the Harvey Mott Milestone Three Scholarship Award. Tony was the last beneficiary of this award.”
Tony leaned forward, his expression more serious than Cory was accustomed to. He said, “I’m sure by now you’ve heard about what happened to me my senior year.” Both boys nodded. Although several versions still circulated around town, the one most commonly heard was that eight years ago Tony and his best friend and teammate broke into a garage to steal some beer. DeShawn was shot in the back while running from the scene by homeowner Virgil Wiggins, father of three. DeShawn died with a six-pack of Budweiser in his right hand. Virgil Wiggins was still in prison. Tony got three weeks in juvie boot camp and six months’ probation.
“What you don’t know,” Tony continued, his eyes on the flames, “is what happened after. My family fell apart. My dad stopped talking to me. My grades tanked. My mom couldn’t deal with it and went into a depression and didn’t leave the house for six months. Coach used to tell us that when you’re in a hole, stop digging. Well, I dug me a great big black hole, but I kept flinging the dirt over my shoulder on the way to China. But Harvey…” Tony lifted his eyes from the fire to look at them straight on. “He gave me a job after boot camp. He offered to pay for my first year of school if I got my shit together. I managed to graduate, went to OSU, got a degree in education and a master’s in social work so I could help kids like you not fuck up like I did. And here I am.”
“Plus, you continue to work for me on the side,” Harvey said.
“Yes,” Tony said, and returned his eyes to the flames. “And I think I always will.”
Harvey said, “I’m very proud of what Tony has done. What happened was tragic, and bad decisions were made by everyone involved. But people make mistakes and the challenge is to keep them from turning into roadblocks that limit…future opportunities. Before I list the two conditions, are there any questions?” Harvey ashed his cigar against the arm of his chair, stared at the glowing tip as if he’d created a work of art. In the wake of their silence, he said, “Condition one: You both must maintain at least a three-point-oh GPA until graduation. Cory, you’re already there. Ty, with a little focus you will be. Condition two…” Harvey took a long puff on his cigar, blew out a slow stream of smoke. “I know about the rumors around town regarding the termination of a…valued employee. It was a painful time for us. This individual was very close to our family and the grounds for her termination are a private matter. Please respect our privacy by not pursuing a relationship with her. Normal civil interactions are fine and expected.” He focused exclusively on Cory. “Just don’t go for private rendezvous at a gazebo.” The cigar tip glowed. “Does that work for you?”
Cory took a moment to think about Kayla’s parting words: I like you, Cory Bic. Then he nodded. Harvey moved on to Ty. “And you?”
Ty said, “That’s not a problem.”
Harvey grinned. “Excellent! Now give me those checks.” Cory and Ty returned the checks. He slipped them into his coat pocket and stood. “Gentlemen, I thank you for a fine and productive day. Great fishing, great food, great company. What else could a man ask for?” He tossed the stub of his cigar into the fire pit. “Air Harvey departs at six a.m. Sleep well.”
Harvey left. Tony waited a moment, then said, “I don’t know what happened at the Motts’. I know that Charlene was very upset, and whatever it was is still pretty much an open wound. They need time to heal—they all need time to heal. I’ve known Kayla since she was in middle school. I like her a lot. She’s a special girl.” He stood and gazed up at the sky. An owl hooted from somewhere across the river. “Harvey’s running for senate, guys. It’s…complicated.” Then he turned and walked into the house.
As soon as the patio door was closed, Ty leaned in close to Cory and whispered, “How did Harvey know about you and Kayla?”
“I have no idea.”
“Want to know what I’m thinking?”
“Sure.”
Ty leaned back and smiled. “Ten thousand dollars buys a lot of Swedish Fish.”
Cory watched the last of Harvey’s cigar blacken and turn to ash.
“Yes, it does.”
STUMPTOWN
NOW
41
I’m working on a theory. Rather than start at the fishing trip, I rewind all the way back to Portland. I tell her everything except a few of the gory details from Luster because, seriously, why pile my train wrecks on top of hers? By the time I get to the part about stealing the Volvo, I’m pretty sure she’s down for the count. The last thing she said was “Tell me more about that Harvey chap.” Her eyes closed and they haven’t opened since. Enough time has passed between then and now for my toes to refreeze. I whisper, “Astrid? Are you awake?” She doesn’t respond. I decide now is probably a good time to read Ty’s letter and start to pull the envelope out of my pocket, when the girl who misses nothing whispers, “You think Benny did it?”
“Did what?”
“All this money.”
“It makes the most sense.” I put the envelope on top of the chest for later. “Tirk knew Benny was stealing from him and this is a killer place to stash it. But it’s hundreds of miles from Portland. What I don’t understand is how he got up here to do it.”
She asks, “Who else knows about Stumptown?”
“Besides me and Ty? My guess is nobody. Benny’s been dead for almost a year. If someone knew about it, this shit would be long gone. But I do know one thing: they’re still looking for it.”
A beat. “Can I have some pills and water?”
“Sure.”
I don’t know how long it’s been since her last pills, but I give her three anyway. Death by ibuprofen is the lea
st of her worries. I cap the water bottle after we both take careful sips. It’s well under the quarter-liter mark now. That won’t get her through the night, not with the way she’s sweating. Hopefully the snow-in-the-bottle trick is working. My feet aren’t cold anymore.
After Astrid settles in she says, “While you were talking about Benny and how this place was a great spot to hide his stash—I remembered something that might help.”
“Like what?”
“It was my first night there. I woke up on the mat. It was dark. I didn’t know where I was. Someone was crying. I had a heavy chain on my ankle. Then a torch turned on. He was sitting on the stairs watching us. There was a ski mask over his face. He aimed the light at Yana, then me. He said, ‘Welcome to the warehouse. Checkout time is like, never.’ ”
The connection explodes like a bomb in my head.
She sees my stunned expression and asks, “Did that help?”
“Benny had this secret place he would disappear to on weekends. When he came back there would be pine needles in the truck. One time he came back with a really bad scratch under his eye. All he ever told me about the place was that Tirk had a side business and that’s where he’d keep his spare parts. He called it the warehouse.”
“Oh my God…your father…?”
“Yeah. No shit. This recipe is starting to come together—and it stinks.”
We both take a beat to process this latest revelation. But there’s still another blank I need to fill. “I hate to ask you this—but…when this guy threw the bloody sweater down, you told me he said something about ‘listening.’ Can you tell me what he said again?”
Her eyes close. The silence becomes so complete I swear I can hear the snowflakes piling up outside. In a voice that screams with a pain I can’t imagine, she whispers, “ ‘Listen up, buttercup.’ ”
And BAM! Another bomb goes off in my head.
LUSTER, OR.
FIVE MONTHS AGO
42
Air Harvey was wheels down in Luster at 8:04 a.m., and that included ten minutes of waiting for a thundershower to pass before Harvey muttered, “I can fly around that,” and took off. It looked to Cory like they were headed into the bowels of Mount Doom. But the little plane banked, shuddered up through some clouds, leveled off at eleven thousand feet, and cruised the rest of the way to Luster.
Harvey had some calls to make before church, so he headed for his office at the dealership. Tony dropped the boys off at the ski lodge, asked Ty if he wanted to shoot hoops later, which Ty did not. Then Tony left to do whatever Tony did on a Sunday, and the boys had a morning to kill before Ty went over to Frankie J.’s to watch baseball and Cory’s noon-to-eight shift started at Bravo. As they walked in the front door, Charlene called out from the kitchen, “Cory, can you make breakfast for the kids? I need to get ready for church.”
“Sure!” he said.
“Your special pancakes?” Ty asked.
“If there’s enough yogurt.”
And his phone rang. It was Kayla.
Cory stared at the face of his buzzing phone, not sure what to do. His finger hovered over the green button.
Ty said, “Milestone three, dude.”
Cory sent the call to voice mail.
Ty said, “Not good enough. Give me the phone.”
“I’ll delete the message.”
“You know you won’t.”
Cory hesitated.
“Give me the phone.”
Charlene said, “Cory? Are you coming?”
“Be right there!” He handed his phone to Ty and hated himself for doing it.
Charlene breezed into the kitchen dressed for church and smiled at the four of them seated around the table finishing up the syrupy remainders of breakfast. Cory noticed that her hair was down instead of up, her lipstick was a muted shade of red, and her dress was new and a few inches closer to her ankles than was her usual style. He wondered how much of it was Lester, the perpetually frowning campaign manager, who believed optics were everything, and how much was Charlene just going for a new look on this sunny spring morning.
She said to Cory and Ty, “Did you have fun on your manly trip?”
“Cory caught a fish!” Justin said. “He showed me the picture! It was huge!”
“Oh really?” Charlene winked at Cory. “Can I see it?”
“Sure.” Cory pulled up the picture and handed her the phone.
“Wow,” she said. “That’s a big fish. I’ll bet Harvey was beside himself.”
“He was,” Cory said.
“What about you?” Charlene said, looking at Ty. “Did you catch anything?”
Chloe said, “Ty caught a tree.”
Ty said, “And it was huge!”
And Cory’s phone rang again.
Charlene’s eyes narrowed at the screen; then she returned the phone to Cory, her lips a thin, tight line. It was Kayla. Again. He pushed a button to stop the ringing and buried it deep in his pocket.
“Sorry about that,” Cory mumbled. He did his best to ignore the glare Ty shot his way.
Charlene forked the last bite of pancake from Justin’s plate. “I heard your dinner was a great success. Thanks to you, Harvey managed to impress a very important donor.”
“I made your charred romaine salad. It was a huge hit.”
“Did Harvey smoke a victory cigar on the deck?”
“Yes,” Cory said.
“I wish he would stop smoking those nasty things.” Charlene shook her head sadly, and plated the fork. Then she leveled her eyes at Cory. “But some habits are just too hard to break.”
Cory didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say.
Charlene smiled. “Cory, your pancakes were delicious. The nutmeg is a wonderful touch!” She nodded to Justin and Chloe. “Thank Cory for breakfast. Then put away your dishes and let’s go.”
As soon as Charlene’s SUV was headed down the driveway, Ty said, “Dude. You need to get that girl off your phone.”
“That girl? Her name is Kayla.”
“Her name should be history.”
Cory said nothing.
Ty shook his head. “What do you see in her anyway? I’m mean, seriously? She’s not my type by a mile. And she’s definitely not your type, so what’s the deal?”
Cory had asked himself the same question on the flight back. He couldn’t come up with anything definite. Just a feeling he had that something was broken and she was asking him for help. “She’s a friend, that’s all. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Well, that’s one friendship you can do without. I’ve risked a lot sucking up to that rich asshole.”
A red flag shot up in Cory’s head. “What does that mean?”
This time Ty said nothing.
“You’ve risked a lot? Why did you say that? You have to have a reason.”
“I’ve got ten thousand reasons. How about you?”
“This is about more than money.”
After a beat, he said, “Don’t fuck this up, bro.”
“I won’t, Steamer.”
Ty shook his head and left.
Cory scrubbed the kitchen until it shone.
Then he went up to their attic room.
He thought about checking Kayla’s message, had his finger over the button—but deleted it instead.
Then he deleted her contact.
Then he opened his laptop and pulled up the website for the International Culinary School in Seattle. He knew exactly what he wanted to do with his ten grand.
Cory was in the Bravo kitchen showing a thoroughly bored Brian Castleman the right way to mince shallots when Rebecca walked up behind them and tapped Cory on the shoulder.
“How’s our stock on condiments?”
“Fine,” Cory said, wondering, When did she ever care about condiments?
“I think we need to check the inventory.”
Cory knew what that meant. She had dirt to share, and since he was the unfortunate target this time, it almost certai
nly had something to do with him. He tossed his latex gloves in the trash and followed Rebecca into the supply closet.
She picked up the inventory clipboard but didn’t look at it. “How many times are you going to show him how to cut those fancy onions?”
“They’re shallots. And I’ll show him until he gets it right.”
“They stink.”
“That’s the price of using shallots.”
Rebecca leaned in closer and spoke in a near whisper: “A couple of people stopped by looking for you yesterday.”
“Yeah? Who were they?”
“One was Kayla. She ordered an aioli burger and was like, oh, by the way, have you seen Cory Bic? She was all casual about it, but I could tell she was like, really wanting to know.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her you and your brother went fishing with Harvey.”
Cory thought about what Kayla said at the gazebo: He’ll take you. But by that time it will be too late. Your fate is sealed, Cory Bic. That would explain all the phone calls—which he subsequently ignored. Cory said, “So I went fishing. What’s the big deal about that?”
“I don’t know. But I think it shook her up. She like, changed her order from the dining room to takeout. I mean, what’s up with that?”
“I think you’ve been hanging around the fryer too long. All those grease fumes are scrambling your brain.”
She hung up the clipboard, pretended to count the jars of relish.
“You know the story about her and the Motts, right?”
“What story?”
Her eyes lit up like the Fourth of July. That’s what happened when she had the opportunity to share some really big dirt. “OMG! Do you not know anything?”
“Please share.”
Rebecca leaned in again, this time in a full whisper: “She got caught stealing meds from Mrs. Mott. Zoloft is what I heard. That’s for like, depression.”
Cory’s mind reeled from all the rumors why Kayla was no longer the nanny. It was hard to keep track. What was next? Something obviously happened, because Harvey put the hammer down on seeing her, and Charlene certainly wasn’t a fan. As far as Cory could tell, the real reason was a mystery and that’s how it would stay. But he couldn’t just let this tale go uncontested. “I’m sorry. That doesn’t sound like the Kayla I know.”
Deadfall Page 21
