Deadly Stakes

by J. A. Jance

  The school probably wouldn’t call his mother to check on him, but the manager of the Walgreens, Madeline Wurth, was his mother’s best friend from the time they were in grade school. If he missed a shift, Madeline would be on the phone to Sylvia, A.J.’s mother, before he could blink an eye. That was how he had gotten the job—Maddy and Sylvia were friends—but Madeline ran a tight ship. She didn’t tolerate unexplained absences or tardiness. The one time A.J. had shown up fifteen minutes late because someone had a tire-slashing spree in the North High parking lot, Madeline had called his mom before he had a chance to change the tire, change his clothes, and get to work.

  So, yes, he could most likely get away with missing school, but he wouldn’t ever get away with missing work, because if Madeline called Sylvia, the jig would be up. His mother would find out he’d been lying to her for a very long time. That was the last thing he wanted—for his mother to find out about the lies. He didn’t want her to know, because if she did, he was certain it would break her heart.

  A.J. got onto the 51 and then drove north to the 101 and finally onto I-17 again heading north. His father had given him simple directions. Take I-17 north to General Crook Trail. Take that exit west for six tenths of a mile. Walk north approximately fifty yards. Find the boulder with the heart painted on it. Dig there, behind the boulder.

  His father. That was the problem. A.J. had an ongoing relationship with his father, and his mother had no idea.

  Until a little over a year ago, it had been just the two of them—A.J. and his mom. His mother’s favorite song, the one she had played and sung to him for as long as he could remember, was Helen Reddy’s “You and Me Against the World.” She had played it when he was tiny and she was driving him back and forth to the babysitter’s. Later, when he was old enough to learn the words, they both sang along. A.J. and his mommy—the two of them and nobody else.

  When he was in first grade, A.J. noticed that other kids had both a mommy and a daddy, and he had started asking the big question: Where is my daddy? Sylvia never said anything particularly bad about A.J.’s father. The worst thing she ever said was that he was “unreliable.” When A.J. was six, the closest he could come to sorting it out was that you couldn’t count on his father to do what he said he would do or be where he said he would be. Still, that didn’t seem like a good enough reason not to have a daddy.

  In Sunday school he found out that the Virgin Mary was Baby Jesus’ mother, but Joseph wasn’t exactly His father. Somebody called the Holy Spirit was. For a while A.J. thought that might be the case with him, too. Maybe his father was some kind of ghost, and that’s why no one could see him and why there weren’t any pictures of him.

  By then he had a friend, a kid named Andrew who lived down the street. He didn’t have a daddy, either. Andrew said that was because his parents were divorced, but he had a picture of his father that he kept in the drawer of his bedside table. A.J. wished with all his heart that he had a picture in his drawer, too. Not that he didn’t love his mommy, but he had this feeling that something important was missing from his life, and he wanted it with all his heart.

  By the time A.J. was in third grade, he had sorted out that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy weren’t real, and he was pretty sure there was no such thing as a Holy Ghost, either, at least not as far as he was concerned. Besides, he was almost nine and other possibilities had arisen that were both more interesting and more ominous.

  Andrew maintained that A.J.’s father was dead, while Domingo, who lived down the block and was a year older than A.J. and Andrew, suggested that perhaps A.J.’s father, like Domingo’s uncle, had been shipped off to prison.

  “When Uncle Joaquin went to prison,” Dommy explained, “my grandmother took his picture off the wall in the living room, threw it in the garbage, and said he was no longer her son.”

  That simple statement had caused a knot of worry to grow in the pit of A.J.’s stomach. Maybe something similar had happened to his father. Maybe A.J. had done something wrong and his father had decided that he no longer wanted a son.

  By fourth grade, A.J. was a genuine latchkey kid with his own house key and two hours to fill after he got home from school and before his mom came home from work. Some kids might have gotten into trouble. A.J. didn’t because he didn’t have time. He was far too busy. His mother made sure he went out for tee ball and Little League, for soccer and Pop Warner football. When it came to football, A.J.’s mother was the only mother who knew enough about the game to be one of the coaches rather than just sitting in the bleachers on the sidelines.

  For most of his after-school activities, A.J. was able to make it to practices on his bicycle. For games that were farther away, his mother managed to organize complicated car-pool arrangements. On weekends when the dental office where Sylvia worked as a receptionist was closed, she did a lot of the driving to make up for what she couldn’t do during the week. During the summers, there were day camps and swimming lessons at the YMCA, along with two weeks of camp with the Boy Scouts, usually somewhere in the White Mountains.

  So most of the time, A.J. was too busy with sports and school to spend much time getting into trouble or thinking about what he was missing. By the time he hit high school, he’d come face-to-face with the reality that, although he had participated in any number of sports, he wasn’t outstanding at any of them. He would never be big enough or strong enough to make a name for himself as a football player. He wasn’t tall enough for basketball or fast enough for soccer. As for swimming? Forget it.

  With only a high school diploma and a certificate from a business school, his mother had made enough to scrape by and keep a roof over their heads, but there wasn’t much room in her budget for extras. From an early age, Sylvia Sanders made it clear to her son that he would need a college degree and that college didn’t come cheap. Since an athletic scholarship was out of the question, an academic one was the only possibility. That made keeping his grades up essential. His mother also made it clear that while they were saving for college tuition, his having a car at his disposal was a no-brainer.

  “It’s not just the expense of buying a car,” Sylvia had explained when he brought up the subject two weeks before his sixteenth birthday. “The cost of having an inexperienced driver would send my insurance premiums through the roof. Add to that gas and upkeep, and you have a major expense—more than what you’re making stocking shelves for Madeline. Your legs work. Your bike works. Use ’em.”

  A.J. grumbled about it, but that was the end of the discussion until a week later. It was almost time for his shift to start. He had ridden from school to the store and was in the process of locking up his bike when a man who was standing nearby, smoking a cigarette, spoke to him. “Hey, kid,” he said. “Aren’t you a little old to be riding a bike?”

  A.J. felt a hot flush of anger. He was tempted to lip off at the guy. What business was it of his what mode of transportation A.J. used? Then he noticed the plastic bag sitting on the sidewalk at the guy’s feet. The Walgreens logo was clearly visible, and that meant he was a paying customer. Being rude to customers was something Madeline didn’t tolerate in her employees—not at all.

  “You gotta do what you gotta do,” A.J. muttered.

  He started to shoulder his way past the guy and go inside, but the man with the cigarette wasn’t done with him. He dropped the still-smoking butt on the sidewalk and ground it out with the sole of his shoe.

  A.J. wanted to say something to him about not using the sidewalk as an ashtray. After all, he’d be the one who would have to come out later with a broom to clean up the mess.

  “Did anyone ever tell you that you look like your old man?” the man asked.

  A.J. stopped in midstride. “You knew my father?” he demanded.

  The guy grinned at him. “What’s the matter? Do you think I’m dead? Is that what your mother told you?”

  For a long moment, A.J. was too shocked to speak. He looked the man full in the face, and then he saw it The resemblanc
e to his own face was right there, especially in the eyes. All the things he had wondered about over the years—the questions he had long ago given up asking his mother—went roiling around in his head. He knew his father’s name. One day while his mother was at work, he had gone searching through the strongbox she kept on the top shelf of her closet. There he had found his birth certificate. On it, A.J.’s father was listed as James Mason Sanders. A.J. had tried Googling the name several times, using Andrew’s computer. He had found someone with that name who had gone to prison on charges of counterfeiting back in the mid-nineties, but he hadn’t been able to ascertain if that James Sanders was his father or even if his father was still alive. Now, to A.J.’s amazement, the man was not only alive, he was standing right there, laughing at him.

  “She didn’t say you were dead,” A.J. said when he found his voice. “She said you were unreliable.”

  Busy lighting another cigarette, James Sanders let loose in a burst of laughter that ended in a fit of coughing. “Unreliable,” he said, grinning. “She got that right, didn’t she!”

  “What do you want?” A.J. asked.

  “Wanted to see you, is all,” James said. “Wanted to know a little about you. Have you worked here long?” He nodded toward the store entrance.

  “Three months,” A.J. said. “One of Mom’s friends is the manager.”

  “That would be Bethany, maybe? Bethany Cole?”

  A.J. shook his head. “Her name’s Ms. Wurth.”

  “Oh,” James said, nodding. “That would be Maddy. She and Bethany and your mother were always great pals. Called themselves the Three Musketeers.”

  A.J. glanced at his watch. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got to clock in.”

  “Sure,” James said. “Go ahead. It might be best if you didn’t mention me to your mother—at least not yet. But about that bike. Shouldn’t you be thinking about getting yourself something with four wheels? Do you even have a license?”

  “I’m taking driver’s ed, but Mom and I can’t afford a car—not the car itself or the insurance,” A.J. said bluntly. “I’m trying to save money for college.”

  “There you go, then,” James said, blowing a cloud of smoke skyward. “Suit yourself, but don’t work too hard.”

  A.J. hurried into the store. He made it to the time clock on time, but just barely. He was working on clearing out the back-to-school display and restocking the shelves with Halloween merchandise when Madeline stopped by to check on him.

  “Who was that you were talking to outside?” Madeline Wurth asked. “I noticed that guy hanging around. I was about to tell him to move along when you turned up.”

  A.J. flushed. Anything he told Madeline would go straight to his mother. “Just a guy who was lost,” A.J. mumbled. “He got Seventh Street confused with Seventh Avenue. I told him he needed to be on the other side of Central.”

  “Easy mistake to make,” Madeline said.

  Summoned by a page from the pharmacy, Madeline Wurth hurried away, leaving A.J. restocking the shelves and struggling with his conscience. Yes, he had lied to Madeline; with his mother, it wouldn’t exactly be lying. He was just leaving something out—something she probably didn’t want to know about in the first place. Besides, A.J. reasoned, if there were almost sixteen years between visits, it didn’t seem likely that James Sanders would be showing up again anytime soon.

  But that assessment was wrong. A.J.’s father had turned up again the very next week. A.J. came home from work on the day of his birthday, expecting that he and his mother would go out to have pizza, just the two of them. That was how they usually did it. As he rode his bike into the carport, he wondered about the strange car—a silver Camry—parked in the driveway behind his mother’s Passat. On the window of the passenger side was one of those AS IS, NO WARRANTY stickers. Even before he opened the front door and smelled the cigarette smoke, he could hear the sound of raised voices. Quietly, he opened the door and slipped into the entryway, staying just out of sight of the living room, where his mother and James Sanders were arguing.

  “After doing nothing for all this time, you’ve got no right to do this now,” Sylvia declared hotly.

  “Look,” James was saying, sounding conciliatory. “That’s what I’m trying to do here—make up for lost time.”

  “You think that will make up for sixteen years of being an absentee father? You don’t raise a finger in all that time, but now you think you can walk in here and give him a car for his birthday? Just like that?”

  “He’s a good kid. He gets good grades. He works hard. He deserves to have a car.”

  “I don’t know how you know about his grades or where he works, but A.J. and I have already discussed the car situation. Between insurance and gas, it would be more than we can afford.”

  “That’s what this is for,” James said.

  A.J. heard the sound of something—an envelope, maybe—landing on the coffee table.

  “What’s this?” Sylvia asked.

  “The title’s in there, and so is the bill of sale,” James answered. “It’s all in order. I called an insurance guy and found out how much it’ll cost to insure the Camry with an inexperienced driver. There’s enough coin of the realm in there to pay the insurance costs for the next three years, as well as a hundred dollars a month for gas money.”

  “You can’t do this,” Sylvia objected. “It’s not fair. Is this even real?”

  “The money, you mean?” James replied. “Now who’s not being fair?”

  Afraid that his mother might be about to hand the envelope back, A.J. decided it was time to stage an appearance. After quickly opening the door, he slammed it shut. “Hey, Mom,” he shouted from the entryway. “I’m home.” When he entered the living room, he stopped short. “Sorry. I didn’t know we had company.”

  He was relieved to see that his mother, seated on the couch, was still holding the envelope. James, standing by the window, wasn’t actively smoking a cigarette, but the room reeked of secondhand smoke.

  He turned toward A.J., holding out his hand in greeting. “So this must be A.J.,” he said with an easygoing grin. “Glad to meet you. I’m your dear old dad.”

  So that’s how he’s going to play it, A.J. thought—as though he and A.J. had never laid eyes on each other before; as though the conversation in front of Walgreens had never taken place.

  A.J. glanced at his mother, staring at the envelope as if mesmerized. At last she raised her head and looked at A.J., giving an almost imperceptible nod. A.J.’s heart skipped a beat because he recognized the look of abject defeat lining Sylvia’s face. The nod implied affirmative answers to both questions—yes, this was his father, and yes, she was going to let A.J. keep the car.

  “It’s true,” she said. “A.J., this is your father, James Sanders. He’s offering to give you a car.”

  A.J. took the proffered hand and shook it. “Glad to meet you, sir,” he said.

  That was the first real lie he ever told his mother, and he knew at once that it wouldn’t be the last.

  “I got my first car when I turned sixteen,” James explained. “I thought you should have one, too. Did you see that Camry outside in the driveway? It’s yours, if you want it.”

  A.J. turned to his mother. “Are you kidding?” he asked, trying to act as though he hadn’t known it already. “A car of my own? Really?”

  Sylvia nodded again. A.J. understood why. His mother was nothing if not practical. The car parked in the driveway and the contents of the envelope had wiped out all her objections to his having a car. The car was paid for; the insurance was paid for; the gas was paid for. End of story. Besides, if A.J. had access to his own transportation, his mother’s life suddenly would be far less complicated.

  “Happy birthday, son,” James said with a grin. “Maybe you and your mom would like to take it for a spin.” He tossed a set of keys in A.J.’s direction, and A.J. plucked them out of the air.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I can’t believe it.”

 
; Sylvia sighed and got up. “I’ll go get my purse,” she said, heading for her bedroom.

  While she was out of the room, A.J. and James stood in a conspiratorial silence. Between that first meeting and now, A.J. had come up with a million questions he wanted to ask his father, but there in the tiny living room, he didn’t give voice to any of them. He didn’t want to make a mistake and say something that would arouse his mother’s suspicions.

  “Nice car,” he said. “I was looking at it as I came inside.”

  “Only two years old,” James said. “Got a good deal on it. It’s got a couple of dents in the trunk, like maybe somebody backed into a bollard, but other than that, it’s in great shape.”

  Sylvia returned with her purse. “Can we drop you someplace?” she asked.

  James took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth. “Sure,” he said. “You can take me back up to Indian School. I’ll catch a bus from there.”

  Since Indian School ran for miles, east and west, catching a bus there offered no clue about where he was going or where he was staying.

  After dropping James off at the corner of Indian School and Seventh, right across the street from Madeline’s drugstore, A.J. drove his mother as far as the nearest Pizza Hut. He was self-conscious about having his own car, and he felt guilty about it, too. It was as though he had helped trick his mother into accepting it.

  “Why’d he show up now?” A.J. asked while they waited for their pizza. “Why after all this time?”

  Sylvia shook her head. “I have no idea, but one thing you can count on.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You can’t count on him. He paid for the insurance and gas three years in advance. That probably means you won’t see him again for at least that long.”

  “But I thought I could get to know him,” A.J. objected. “Find out about where he’s been all this time; find out what he’s been doing.”