When I finished talking, Miller said, “You’re out of your goddamn mind, but sure, let’s try it.” He took a business card from a jeans pocket and scribbled across the back before handing it to me. “That’s my cell number. Set up the situation, and then you let me know what you need from me.” He gave Charles a wink and did that shooting thing people do with their thumb and forefinger. “We’re gonna get you out of this, Bobby, don’t you worry.”
Charles shrugged. “What’s it fucking matter? You’ll never convict him. Mitchell is rich. He’ll spend down to his last dollar to stay out of prison, and he’s got plenty of dollars to spend.”
“You underestimate the persistence of the United States government, Bobby,” Miller said. “We always get our man.”
“I thought that was the Mounties,” I said.
Miller popped his gum. “Fuck Canada,” he said and got into the driver’s seat of the SUV. Davies climbed into the back and they drove off.
Once the SUV had pulled away, Charles said, “What the hell just happened?”
“The Feds decided you’re worth keeping alive,” I said. I patted him on the back between the shoulder blades. “You might live another day. Lucky you.”
“Yeah. Lucky fucking me.”
43
I gave Charles instructions to call Gillespie, tell him to meet us at the Charles house that night at ten, and then I went over to Billy’s. Woody was already there.
We sat on the front porch, looking at the space where my piece of shit trailer had sat. We’d need a bulldozer to clear the area out. I didn’t have the money to rent heavy equipment, but Woody told me not to worry; he knew a guy.
Billy was inside, frying chicken. Izzy had opted to hang with us rather than dance her way around Billy’s every movement in the hope he would sneak her a chicken leg. Or a whole chicken. I didn’t put it past Izzy to make that big of a plea, or past Billy to be that big of a sucker.
Instead, Izzy sat between Woody and me, her head flat on the porch, snoring. She stayed close, and whenever I moved, her eyes popped open and she lumbered to her feet and followed me. She ambled like her body ached. Woody had checked her over and said nothing had seemed broken. Nothing physical, at least.
“Charles is right about something,” I said. “Gillespie will never see the inside of a prison.”
Woody sipped from a glass of ice tea. “Probably not. The Feds would love to bring someone like him down, though. Federal prosecutors get hard-ons you could hang a hat from for cases like that.”
“But you don’t think they can convict Gillespie.”
“Unlikely. They’ll come in with a subpoena and seize all of his records and go through his financial history and try to connect the dots between Gillespie and Charles and these land deals. They may put together enough pieces to get an indictment. But they’ll want Charles to testify.”
“He won’t do it. When push comes to shove—”
“Bobby’s not a crutch player. He would have to admit he’s been nothing but a sham for decades. He’s survived based on the weight of the Charles name, and once he lays his hand on that Bible, it’s all over.”
“It’ll ruin Dagny as well. Which sucks because she’s the last member of the whole goddamn family who had a hope of not being screwed up beyond belief.”
“You giving up on Deacon?”
“Deacon killed his sister and his father covered up the crime. That boy ever comes out of his coma, his addictions might be the least of his issues.”
“You’re turning into a cynic, Henry.”
I slouched into my chair, throwing my arms over the back. “I didn’t want to do this at first because Meadow’s murder was so messy. But once you brush away dust, you realize the entire family is a goddamn nightmare. And it’s not like I’ve not seen that shit before, because back with the state police we used to find fourteen-year-olds with so many track marks there was little actual flesh left. Houses with dried dog shit everywhere, the parents fucking in the other room, and they’re juiced on their own stash, so they don’t know or care what’s happening with their kid so long as they don’t have to share. These people are disaster artists, and that hopelessness drags their kids down. But the Charles family, even if what they had was only because Gillespie let them have it, it was still more than most people.”
“Tolstoy said happy families are all alike, but unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.”
“But everyone’s unhappy. No one gets through this bullshit being happy and shit.”
“They don’t, but how they navigate the bullshit matters. If either of us had better coping skills, we wouldn’t sit around drinking coffee and listening to other assholes complain about their lives every night.”
“But then someone like Dagny, who can cope.”
“Don’t judge the interior lives based on exterior appearance.”
“She’s the one who’s kept it all together for these lunatics. Plus, there’s still the matter of Deacon killing Meadow. I’ve got nothing that proves it outside of Charles’s statement. The Feds will keep him tied up for a while, and if someone in the prosecutor’s office will listen to him, it might not be enough to get Eddie out of prison before his mother dies. This thing, it’s just the most clustered of all the fucks.”
Woody said, “You want this to be neat. You want tidy solutions. Life’s not about that. It’s messy and gross. We don’t always get over the hurt and the pain. That shit hangs with us for a long time. Sometimes it’s a hurt that gets buried to the bone. The Charles family, that’s an example of people who never figured out how to get through the hurt.”
“So all of this, it’s been for nothing, is the long and short of it. Eddie might still die in prison. Deacon, the person who, it seems, killed her, is shitting into a bag for an indeterminable future. What I’ve done is stir up a hornet’s nest of fucked-up familial relations and resentments. Odds are Gillespie gets to keep on being the same asshole he’s always been. April’s murder, that’ll never be answered for because no one cares about a drug addict who thought she could blackmail a rich man.”
“When you put it that way, it could make a person wonder what the hell you were thinking getting into all of this.”
The front door squeaked as Billy came out. He stared out across the yard, and toward where my trailer had been, through chunky black-framed glasses. His white hair was slick and combed perfectly into place. He lit a cigarette and exhaled a carefully controlled gray cloud.
“You boys are gonna have a time with that,” he said. “You might consider getting suits to wear. Old trailers like that, they burn up, there’s chemicals you’ll end up breathing.” He looked over at me. “Other things might kill you before that, too, so I guess it’s whatever.”
“Your parental concern warms my soul, Billy,” I said.
“Just trying to do my part. Dinner’s done, if you all are ready. And even if you’re not, it’s still done.”
Woody and I went inside and ate. Izzy joined us. She took up her usual spot next to Billy’s chair. He pulled chicken off the bone and set it on a plate for her, along with some mashed potatoes and gravy. I’m sure she got a bigger portion than I did, but I chose not to begrudge her too much for that. You’ve got to be an awfully petty individual to be jealous of your dog. I’m not saying I’m not that individual; I just wasn’t feeling like it then. I had other things on my mind.
Woody helped wash dishes, and afterward we left Billy and Izzy asleep in Billy’s chair in the living room and walked over to the pile of rubble that was my accumulated net worth.
“The cell phone we got from Gillespie’s,” Woody said.
I pushed at something with the toe of my Chuck Taylors. I thought it had once been my front door. “Any word?” I said.
“Rooster cracked it. You were right. It belonged to Meadow.”
“What did he find on it?”
“So many naked selfies it’s a little daunting. He also found videos. Some of them seem to date back to when s
he whored in Charleston.”
“Wonderful. Anything with Gillespie?”
Woody dug his cell phone from his back pocket and pulled up the video player. He thumbed through it and hit play.
We stood there in the darkness, watching the video.
“Jesus,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
44
We had the paperwork with us when Woody and I drove over to the Charles place. The gate was open when we got there.
“I’ll bet Gillespie doesn’t like having to wait for the gate to open,” Woody said.
“Man has things to do,” I said.
Dagny answered the door. She had dark half-moons underneath her eyes, and her hair was frizzy and pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. She looked as though she and sleep weren’t on speaking terms.
“Robert said you and Woody were coming over, but he didn’t give me a reason,” she said. “Should I be made aware of why?”
“We’re wrapping up business,” I said.
“Sounds vague.”
“It’s intended to be.”
“I’m not a fan of vague responses, Henry. I’m a woman who appreciates solid answers.”
“As am I.” A beat. “About solid answers. Not the part about being a woman.”
“Thanks for clarifying.” She gave me the up-and-down. I wore a black T-shirt and acid-washed jeans—still more of the stuff that Woody had picked up for me at Goodwill. “Will your band be opening for Def Leppard?”
“Say what you will about the late ’80s, but the clothing sucked.”
“You must tell me all about it sometime. I’ve only seen the movies.”
I looked over my shoulder. Woody was behind me, carrying the paperwork. “No one stylish and your size had died. All they had was stuff left over from the drummer to a KISS cover band.”
I said, “How’s Deacon?”
“Better. He comes in and out of consciousness. He mumbles things, but they would barely qualify as words. The doctors say to let him come out of it at his own speed.”
Dagny led us down to Charles’s man-cave. It seemed less impressive than it had when I had first seen it. There were dust and cobwebs I hadn’t noticed. Fine, thin cracks ran up the length of a wall, ducking behind a Star Wars poster before re-emerging from the top, as if borne from Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber. The video games were gone, with nothing left in their space but squares of carpet in their shape, darker than the surrounding carpet.
“Robert sold the games,” Dagny said. She wore a forlorn expression on her face. Dagny had grown accustomed to being the official family giver of excuses and apologies. “He needed quick cash, and there’s not much available. We let the housekeeper go. I’m doing what I can, but between this and work and being at the hospital with Deacon—”
“I’m sorry, Dagny,” I said.
“Don’t be. Shit happens, and it happens in waves to us. It’ll change. It always does.”
Woody was at a window, checking out the back yard. “Where is your old man, anyway?”
There was a pause so pregnant you could feel it having contractions. “He’s upstairs,” Dagny said. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”
Dagny left, and I joined Woody at the window. The tennis courts stretched out before us. If they ever made a post-apocalyptic film about Wimbledon, this would have been the location for it. The court had faded to the barest of green, the cement cracked, with dandelions and waist-high weeds growing. The net hung by the thinnest of threads, ripped and shredded and sad. A breeze blew through, spreading the dandelion seeds into the darkness, shuffling leaves across the court.
I nodded. “Charles said he had a tennis court.”
“The same way that the Ottomans once had an empire,” Woody said.
You smelled Robert Charles before you saw him. In a cartoon, he would have had clouds of booze fumes emanating from every angle, like Pig-Pen from Peanuts. His hair was disheveled, flopped in several directions, his khakis and pastel shirt wrinkled, the shirt untucked and the sleeves unbuttoned and pushed past his elbow. There was a glass of something amber-colored in his hand as he attempted to walk in our direction.
“Goddamn but if it isn’t the brilliant and beautiful Henry Malone,” he said. I’m translating here; the words slurred together until it was just mangled syllables and some spit at the end.
He hugged me, and I felt most of the drink splash onto my back, and ice cubes bounce off me onto the floor. My guess was scotch.
“Goddamn but you are nothing but the fucking Black Death. Plants must die when you walk by.”
“Good to see you too, Bobby,” I said. “Had a few?”
“I’ve had quite a few, to be honest.” He waved a finger at me. “And I intend to have many more by the end of the night, because goddammit, why the fuck shouldn’t I?” He looked at his glass. “What happened to my drink?”
“I’m wearing it, Bobby.”
He laughed. “This is twelve-year-old single malt scotch. You know that?”
“I do now.”
“Do you know what a shame it is to waste it on a guy who can’t even drink it?” He shook his head and refilled the glass at his bar. His pour was as unsteady as Jell-O on a fault line, and he closed one eye and squinted the other.
I took a step. Woody’s hand went to my shoulder.
“You can’t,” Woody said. “I know what you think, but you can’t, any more than anyone could for you.”
Woody was right. He most often was.
Charles brought the drink to his lips with shaking hands. More spilled to the floor than got in his mouth, though it seemed plenty had gotten there already. He threw it back with vigor and slammed the glass down onto the bar top hard enough to send the ice flying into the air. “You know, Malone, for a long time, I thought Meadow dying, that was the worst thing that could have happened. Not now, though. Now you are the worst thing that’s ever happened.” He refilled the glass. “Congratulations.”
“I didn’t do a thing to you, Charles,” I said. “All of this, that’s your own making.”
“I had shit under control.” He waved his hands around as though he were conducting an unseen orchestra. He closed his eyes, moving in time to the music in his head. “I had it all moving along smoothly. Things worked. Things were together.” He stopped, and his eyes flipped over as if the lids were on hinges, and his face twisted into that angry snarl that real drunks get. “And you showed up and started swinging your dick around and knocking everything over—”
The snarl softened, and he turned tomato red, and for a moment I thought he might cry. Then I saw Brooklyn Charles standing in the doorway, and I started planning another escape.
She resembled what you order at an Eastern European whorehouse if you want to fuck someone who looks like the First Lady. Her hair was in an updo to rival the holiest of Baptists, and her dress was green and shimmered in the light, long enough to leave trails in the carpet, and tight enough to cause concern about circulation. Her circulation, not mine. Mine was working fine.
Charles’s cold gaze followed her as she walked toward him, took a large inhale of her cigarette, and blew the smoke in his face. He didn’t move but just kept that hard look.
Brooklyn looked at Woody and me. “So you’re here to watch the implosion? What fun. It’s always a joy to invite guests for your life slide into oblivion. It’s like gathering to watch a building blow up.” Her eyes moved off of me and onto Woody. That little seductive smile twitched across her lips. “What are you?”
“Not on the menu, sorry,” Woody said.
“Your loss. I’d only charge you fifty bucks.”
Charles slapped Brooklyn. The movement was sudden, the sound like a baseball bat cracking a home run. Brooklyn’s head snapped backward and popped back into place. The only change was the narrowness of her eyes.
“Everyone gets one last chance, Bobby,” she said, her mouth barely moving. “That was yours.”
“Goody,” Charles said. “You going to let G
illespie claim you as his own? Christ knows he’s been planting his flag in you long enough.”
“What would make you think I want anything to do with either of your limp dicks? I’ve got no intention of being here as you’re led off in handcuffs, no matter how entertaining that might be. I’m gone tomorrow morning. I’m simply giving myself the pleasure of watching Gillespie turn you into his bitch yet again.” She took another drag on her cigarette and dropped the butt into Charles’s glass. “You’ve got no idea how satisfying it is to see you put right where you belong, for the hell you’ve put me through over these years.”
Charles laughed without pleasure. “I’ve sat by as you fucked your way across three or four counties, and endured the laughs and the snickers and the whispers and the gossip because of it, so don’t try to act as though you suffered in stoic silence. You’ve been a whore throughout our marriage. That must be where Meadow got it from. She was turning into a whore just like her mother.”
Brooklyn’s open palm came up swinging. Charles let his glass drop and he caught her by the wrist. Maybe the old boy wasn’t as drunk as he let on.
A sick grin crossed his face. Brooklyn whimpered like a kicked puppy. Her legs wobbled, and she stared at the wrist Charles had a grip on.
“Let me go, Robert,” she said. Then, softer, she said, “Please.”
Charles moved his face closer to Brooklyn’s. “You were never a mother to Meadow. You tired of her once she stopped being new, once she became inconvenient. I saw what a real mother is like. I saw it with Deacon and Dagny’s mother. You weren’t even a caretaker. You were nothing, Brooklyn, and that’s all you’ll ever be.”
I said, “Let her go, Charles. You’ve made your point.”
Charles kept a hold on her for another second, then let loose of her. Brooklyn clutched her wrist. Their eyes locked on one another.
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