I put it all together, wasn’t too hard. The smooth hum of that garage door told me it was newer. This is a house, probably a mini mansion of the type all those new developments had before the economy hit the fan. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s a foreclosure on a street full of unfinished jobs and more foreclosures, probably people squatting in some of them. Who are not going to say a thing about a truck backing unknown cargo up to a nearby garage. This could be Vancouver or Hillsboro, but my smart guess is Happy Valley or West Linn, which is none too far from Oregon City Bridge where I just could not take it anymore. My dad and I used to work on new neighborhoods out here back in the early nineties, from Canby to Beavercreek, Sunnyside to Damascus. Oscar and I used to work some more recently. Hell, I might have even worked on this very house. Odors tell me a lot when they make it through this hood. I smell exposed drywall, Pergo glue, some dry rot maybe, so it might be a remodel. I can tell it was probably a squat at one point, from the festering food reek mixing with the moldy smells of a house left unventilated in a cold and damp climate like ours. A good whiff of the two together is worse than any guy on the street, like a sweat-drenched T-shirt left under a pile of decaying fruit.
I relate all this to myself because working things out in my head is the only thing that keeps me from freaking the hell out. I am screwed here. They can do anything they want with me and no one would know or care. Pretty much what I been asking for since day one, and I don’t just mean today. So much for Einstein.
They were rough with me, all elbows and shoves, let me drop on the hard floor. From the echo clang of the bars attached to my cuffs I can tell there is no furniture in here. I heard them setting up gear at one point near me, and I just hope it’s not something they are going to use on me.
My chest squeezes up again but worse, like cable is winding around it taut till there’s no slack, and a heat blazes behind my eyes. “Shit, shit,” I mutter, the drool coming out and not making it through my stocking cap hood. I gag. The fabric around my eyes turns hot, damp. At least the little warmth it brings is better than the previous tear stains going cold on me. I keep shuddering, because there’s no heat on.
I try to close my eyes and then laugh at that move because, hell, I got a fucking hood on.
Doors open, close, muffled but nearer. Footsteps, two sets. I straighten up like I got rebar up my ass.
They bound into the room—one of them closer, the other pulling a door shut behind him. Flashes of mag light beam flash by my eyes under the hood.
My nostrils pump air with a sound like sandpaper grinding, can’t help it.
“Calm the hell down,” the one close says but low like he’s trying to disguise his voice.
My hyperventilating sounds like a cross between a death rattle and a machine gun. I let it happen, to throw them off—
“Said calm the hell down!”
He smacks me across the cheek and temple, knocking my head against the railing. The back of my head stings hot from the blow, like someone bit right into my head. It would have been worse without the hood on.
“All right, all right,” I mutter.
I let my breathing calm down. We keep still a while. He might be crouching but he’s not close because I can’t feel his air.
The blow helps me focus. Let’s just get this over with. Maybe they can toss me off the Oregon City Bridge when they’re done.
A white flash permeates my hood and stays on me. A spotlight.
The guy comes over and pulls off the hood. I breathe in that shitty air of squat foreclosure but it’s ten times better than a drool and tears-soaked stocking cap. He holds the light between him and me, right in my eyes squinting.
“You killed him,” I say.
The light flutters. He pulls back. He sets the spot back on its stand. The light is still directed into my eyes, and he crouches down behind it. It’s dark otherwise. His silhouette is big. He wears dark clothes and has one of those stocking caps over his head with eye and mouth holes.
“No,” he grunts, “no way.”
The grunt makes me realize who it might be, and it makes me shake my head. I laugh even though it hurts my face. My realization, it practically fills me with joy. Joy just kicked Fear’s ass.
The silhouette grunts again. I keep laughing, even though I might get smacked again.
“Keep it up,” he says, “just you keep it up.”
I let some silence creep in. He sighs to himself. I see his head shake even though this blinds me. More silence.
“Well, fuck me running,” I say eventually.
Another sigh bursts from him like a shot of air hose.
He pulls himself up and he stomps out of the room.
Leaving that damn spot on. I squint my eyes shut, turn my head to the side. At least I’m getting a little heat from that lamp.
The big silhouette marches back in. The other one keeps his distance. He’s got the stupid cap over his face too with the holes. They stare at me like two bank robbers who lost their way to the savings and loan and only I got the map.
My eyes look squinted shut but I’m really a kid pretending he’s asleep, spying on his parent in the room.
“Tell us what you know,” big guy says using his disguise voice.
“Someone used too much glue for the Pergo. I can smell it.”
“What? You think this is funny?”
“Definitely not.”
“Oscar. Tell us about Oscar.”
“I wasn’t the one who killed him,” I say. “I know that much.”
“Maybe you did ...”
“What, that supposed to be a threat?” I raise my head, pop my eyes open letting the light blind me. “If it’s a fall guy you want, get in line.”
Silence. Big guy turns around. I see his hands raise, palms upturned as if to say, What now? The other guy just stares.
I sigh, like a balloon being squeezed out. “Why don’t you turn a regular light on? At least turn this spot off.”
Big guy swings back around to me. “No way.”
“You forgot to change your voice this time,” I say.
Big guy loses his voice.
“Go ahead,” the other voice says.
Big guy gives another burst of air hose, then clicks off the spot. All goes dark.
“Happy?” he says.
My eyes adjust. A little moonlight comes in from another room, our room being some kind of den off the garage with one wall open to a living room.
I say over big guy, to his master farther back, “You should’ve just driven me to the next city, dropped me off. Done both of us a favor.”
The man stands there frozen, a black silhouette on that wall like crappy street art.
We wait it out.
Me, I got all night.
“You weren’t supposed to hit him,” the man against the wall says to the big guy.
Gerald Tappen to Burly Manny, that is.
I tell them, “Just take your stupid masks off, will you?”
They do, slowly, like villains in a cartoon pull off rubber faces to reveal their true identities. Here they are, confirmed. Apparently Manzanita wasn’t that nice.
“Happy?” Burly Man repeats.
“You already said that,” I snarl.
I see Burly Man’s teeth gritting, a white brick. “You sure are getting smart for a dude not seeming so smart.”
“‘Seeming’ is the operative word,” Tappen says, his voice thin, grave.
They take my cuffs off, get me a cheap fold-up chair and two for them, and we sit in a little circle in the dark like the lamest therapy group there ever was. I don’t say anything the whole time. Tappen turns on a light in another room and some of its glow outlines us, not much, Tappen adding that they can’t have too many lights on at once or it will attract attention. From who? I think. No one gives a crap about a street like this or even wants to know. A development gone bust is the rich successful family’s severely disabled offspring sent away to some hush-hush hospice in the hill
s.
Then we’re all staring at our feet. Like we’re waiting for the counselor to ask who wants to go first.
“You weren’t supposed to hit him,” Tappen repeats to Manny, who lifts his palms again.
More silence. I’m starting to realize that maybe I am their counselor. That being the case, I’ll let them hang a little longer here in their chicken shit-stained cage of their own making. It’s the least I can do. Throats clear. Sighs. Nails are chewed.
“Why?” I say to Manny finally.
“A man has to work,” he mutters.
I nod for him to go on.
“What did I tell you about the dream?” he says.
“What dream?”
“The American one.”
We’re just dreaming, I’m supposed to say. Money talks, walks, and sucks you down like a cheap lollipop. But I don’t give him the satisfaction. I turn to Tappen.
“I had to treat you this way,” he says, “after what you almost did to me. What am I going to do, invite you to a spa?”
“Do what you want to me. I don’t give a rip. Don’t you know that? Dumbshits. I got nothing you can take away. And sure as hell nothing you can give me.”
Manny lowers his head. This is getting to be above his pay grade. I still don’t think Tappen or Manny did it. I wonder if they’re trying to solve Oscar’s death themselves. Maybe Tappen’s even hired an investigator. Meanwhile, I’m a guy in the way. Men like Tappen, but especially his masters, they want the truth revealed their way if ever at all.
“Do I have to do all this myself?” I say. “No? Yes? Okay then: this is the part where you tell me why.”
“I wanted to see what you would do,” Tappen says. “How you would react.”
“Not that why,” I say.
He throws up his hands. Keeps quiet.
“You don’t know anything. Is that it? Not much more than you told me. But, there is something else. Meantime, you’re not sure I won’t go to the cops. So, now what? How long you think you can you keep me on ice?”
Tappen says nothing. He and Manny are having a floor-staring contest.
“I’m sorry,” Manny blurts. “I’m sorry I hit you.”
“You owe me a beer,” I say.
“Whole keg,” he grunts.
“Quiet,” Tappen tells him, “Please.” He leaves a space where he might have said, I’m trying to think. “You want something to eat?” he says to me.
“Not yet.” I face Tappen, actually scoot my chair his way. He tries to keep his eyes on me but they keep lowering, shifting left. “I been doing some thinking about what happened to Oscar,” I tell him, “And you giving me that joyride here confirms it. It had to have happened at that job site. Like I said from the get-go.”
“My job site. Let’s call it what it is,” Tappen says, his voice straining to sound penitent now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes and lies prostrate before me.
“Your work was what killed Oscar,” I say.
“Whoa—what?” Tappen laughs, looking around like he’s got his buddies with him. He doesn’t include Manny.
“The real problem is the work,” I say. “The way it’s all under the table. That’s how it’s done. How everyone does it.”
Tappen opens his mouth to speak. It hangs open. Manny isn’t touching this now. He stands, mutters, “I’ll be out in the truck,” and leaves the room, out through the door to the garage.
We watch him go like you would a drunk who has to go vomit. Watch the door shut behind him.
“What happened?” I say to Tappen.
Tappen takes a deep breath, sighs. “It was that hole. Like you said. Right down there below us where you almost threw me off. He fell through there, right into the cellar. It was late, everyone gone home.”
“You were there. The only one. You saw him fall.”
“No! I found him there. Already. What was I supposed to do?” His voice cracking.
What does Tappen want me to say? I feel sorry? I glare at him, squeezing at the frame of my chair seat. I don’t feel my smacked face, got no back spasms now. The adrenalin’s taking over.
“Keep going,” I tell him.
“I, I tried to stop the bleeding. Oscar, he wouldn’t let me take him in.”
“Take him in? God forbid you’d call 911 to your precious job site.”
Tappen shakes his head. “He was looking me in the eyes and he said to me, ‘You have nothing.’ Then he just … went. What the hell was I supposed to do, man?” He hugs himself, rocking back and forth. “I mean, what else could I do?”
Did he really expect a response? Sure, you did just great—dumping him along the train tracks was a great call. You’re a real self-starter. You deserve a bonus, no better, a kickback.
Now I am the one with the spotlight on him. I say, “That newspaper report came from the cops said his ‘body’ was hit by the train, not that it killed him. They’re gonna know something.”
“He had no insurance,” Tappen says.
“Me, I got no insurance. Lot of people don’t and the ones that do barely—”
“You’re not hearing me. We would’ve gotten a shitstorm.”
“We?”
“Holding company. Developers. Investors. You don’t know ...” He lets the words trail off.
Of course I can’t know. How could a guy like me? If Tappen only knew. I squeeze tighter, gritting my teeth, wanting to rip this flimsy chair apart right out from under me. “There is no ‘we.’ I got news for you. They use you—and you let them.”
“What the hell are you talking about? You keep saying that.”
“No one even has to give you orders. You just do it, do it for them, and that’s the way they like it.”
Tappen laughs. “Ah, I see. I’m the big loser here. Last thing you want to do is end up like me? Right. I’m the victim.”
Victim was nowhere near the word I had for him. I just shake my head at him. “You know what? I think I will eat something.”
Tappen sends out Manny for tacos. Getting rid of his hired meat for now seems to brighten his mood.
“You want that beer?” he says. “There’s Coronas in the fridge.”
“No.”
“Who is ‘you two’?” Tappen says.
“Huh?”
“When we found your spot, when we took you, you thought Manny and me were someone else. You said along the lines of ‘You two, not this again ...’ Said you’d go find them when you’re ‘ready to play along’.”
I stare a moment. This confirms to me that Tappen and Manny probably have no idea that I’ve been talking to Matt and Jack. So Matt and Jack might well be on the level. Tappen probably thinks I have a homeless gang or something like it’s The Warriors.
“Just a couple dudes I run with,” I mutter.
“They anything to know about?”
“Only if you’re hopping.”
“I’m what?”
“Hopping a train. Riding the rails. One time they jumped off and found my spot. They just like fucking with me.”
“Oh. All right. Forget it.”
“You forget it. I’m sick of this shit. Tell me what you’re going to tell me before Manny comes back.”
Tappen nods, and stares at the floor a moment as if remembering lines.
I really want to kick him out of his chair at this point, but then I don’t get a taco.
“You won’t accept my money,” he says, still nodding. “So, how about doing a job for me? As a transaction. Then it won’t feel like charity. Sorry if it’s not the best choice of words.”
“Gee, Mister Tappen, when you put it like that and all wrapped up in a nice bow too—in the form of a fucking foreclosure squat of a dungeon, how can I refuse?”
“Just listen.”
I really want to say, “How’s about you take me to the nearest bus stop for downtown? And I won’t tell the cops.” But he might not like that answer. He might even add a bonus paycheck for Manny—or someone worse—to take care of me for good if he
doesn’t like it.
“I’m listening,” I say instead. It’s what a Machiavellian type would do. And so I listen.
I wonder if I should have taken the chance and told Tappen to go jump off a bridge like me, but it’s too late now. He has given me the work. This day laborer is back.
When Manny returns his head is drooped and he’s way past losing his mojo, like a guy who knows this is his last paycheck (what are they going to do, fire him?). Maybe he just ate too many tacos, some churros thrown in. He won’t even look at me. But he brought me a bag of ice for my face along with my two steak tacos.
On the way out they let me ride in the back seat of the cab with them, but Tappen insists I put the stupid stocking cap hood back over my eyes, for formalities’ sake—so I don’t know what development this was supposed to be.
“I was thinking Happy Valley, but now I’m pretty certain we were out toward Oregon City,” I say once we’re back on the freeway and they let me take off my hood.
Neither speaks.
“Was it a boat?” I ask Tappen.
“What?”
“The little ride you gave me.”
Tappen grunts. “Teardrop trailer.”
“One of those tiny campers? Of course it was.” I have to laugh. Probably cost him a fucking fortune too and this was the first time he’d used it.
“I didn’t have a car with a trunk,” Tappen adds as if it’s an excuse.
“Should’ve just used one of your porta potties. At least I could have peed—oh, wait, I had my hands tied ...”
“Sorry,” Tappen says, after a half mile or so.
Manny drives; says nothing, never met us. Tappen’s phone keeps chiming and buzzing and he eventually turns it off and sighs like a dusty cowboy sinking into a hot tub, but not in a good way.
I say to Manny, “About that dream again—why you think they call it a dream?”
He doesn’t answer. Can’t even shake his head. I see his worrying eyes in the rear view mirror. They’re working on the road ahead like it’s a potholed fire lane along a high ridge and a long way down.
“Can’t blame help for doing their job,” Tappen mumbles to no one in particular.
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