Citizen Vince

by Jess Walter

  “Paula? At her sister’s.”

  “You gotta get cleaned up. Go over there.”

  “She won’t talk to me.”

  “Don’t call her. Go over. Be a man. Tell her you’ll never do it again.”

  Grebbe suppresses a little belch, and then looks around wildly, as if he’s going to be sick. He stands and goes to the bathroom, but Vince can’t hear anything over the running tap water.

  Vince sits for a moment, then looks at the drink in his hand, walks across the shag living room, and grabs Grebbe’s drink. He takes it to the hi-fi, takes the bottles in his arms, and marches them all to the kitchen, where he dumps the ones that still have booze in them down the sink. He puts the empties on the back porch. Back in the living room, Gene Rayburn is congratulating a woman in huge glasses as the number “$15,000!” flashes on the screen below her face. The water is still running in the bathroom.

  After a minute, Vince walks down a narrow hall—lined with school pictures of the handsome Grebbe children in front of dappled backgrounds—to a closed bathroom door. He knocks lightly. Nothing. “Hey! You okay?”

  Finally, Grebbe opens the door and comes out. Squeezes past Vince. The bathroom behind him smells like stomach acid and booze. “Sorry,” he says.

  In the living room, he seems more upset by the fact that Match Game is over than about getting sick and having his drink poured out.

  “So what are you gonna do now?” Vince asks.

  “I think $20,000 Pyramid is on.”

  “The election tomorrow—”

  “That doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Vince watches the TV for a minute, then stands up and starts for the door. But he stops. “Look, do what you want. I don’t care.”

  He scratches his head, trying to figure out what he means to say. “But what about all that stuff you were saying the other day? When you said you couldn’t wait to get up and get to work every day. A better zoo is a better zoo. Because, for what it’s worth, that was the best thing I’ve ever heard from a politician. Maybe from anyone.”

  Grebbe is considering the coffee table, his head in his hands.

  Vince stares at the TV and then shrugs. He grabs his backpack, walks to the door, and opens it. But he spots the newspaper on a table next to the door, slides the rubber band off, and flips through it until he comes to the classified ads. Then he steps out into the cool afternoon air and opens the newspaper on the porch. He runs his finger along the real estate section until he finds it. Looks up. Across the street, Kelly is leaning back in her car seat, staring at the ceiling of the Mustang. Vince waits on the porch until he hears Grebbe turn on the shower in the house behind him. Then he walks across the street and climbs in the car. “He’s gonna be fine. He’s getting cleaned up.”

  “Did his wife—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh God.”

  Finally, Vince turns to her. “Look, you gotta stay away from him now. You know that, right, Kelly?”

  She looks down and her shoulders crumple as she cries. The thing about architecture is that some buildings are just better from a distance. Vince waits patiently, until she wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When he’s sure she’s done Vince holds out the folded newspaper. “Do you think you could drop me off at this address?”

  DUPREE SHIFTS HIS weight and tries to find a comfortable place in his lower back for his handcuffed wrists. His ribs ache when he breathes deeply. The two on the bottom left side might be broken. The bruise on his cheek feels like a shortcut to his brain. He leans forward in the backseat of Charles’s unmarked car. He hasn’t been in handcuffs since the academy. They’re uncomfortable. Charles flips around a corner and Alan falls against the pile of shoeboxes. Winces from the pain in his chest. Rights himself.

  “I told my lieutenant all about you,” he lies. “They’re gonna come straight to you if anything happens to me.”

  Charles simply drives, doesn’t look back. Dupree stares at the horizontal lines in the back of the man’s bald neck and head, divided by the strap from his jaw brace. Dupree is glad for the strap; otherwise, he couldn’t tell where neck ends and head begins.

  “The people in the lobby of the hotel heard me yelling. They saw the whole thing,” Dupree says. In fact, they stared at Dupree as if he were some kind of bank robber, or pervert, his hands cuffed behind his back, dragged by an arm through the lobby by the big detective, who held his shield in front of him. Dupree made a lame attempt to get away at the curb and Charles simply bounced his head off the top of the car once—a slick move that, once his head cleared, and assuming he somehow gets out of this alive, Dupree filed away to use sometime himself.

  He tries to catch Charles’s eyes in the rearview. “All it’s gonna take is one call to the hotel and my lieutenant is going to know what happened. With that wired jaw, you’re pretty easy to identify.”

  Nothing.

  Dupree falls back into the backseat. They drive north along Central Park and Dupree finds himself staring out the window, shocked that a city of this speed and size and density would have at its core a place so beautiful and serene. Joggers, skaters, people on bikes, old ladies with sweatered dogs. Dupree looks up at Charles, one hand on the wheel, other on the window frame. Then he looks down at his suitcase, on the floor at his feet. He pinches it between his ankles, glances up at Charles’s back. If he could somehow get the bag onto the seat behind him, open it, take out the gun, find the shells, load it, and then spin around and shoot Charles—all of this while facing backward, with his hands cuffed behind his back.

  Plan B: “Hey, don’t I get one phone call?”

  Charles drives up Amsterdam, past Columbia University, into Morningside Heights. Harlem. Alongside the car, the neon fades and the brick storefronts are pocked with graffiti and caged with bars. Charles drives. The blocks become a blur of faces and brick buildings, and Dupree falls back into his seat and closes his eyes. Finally, the car slows and Dupree opens his eyes. The sign reads 153RD STREET and they are driving along an ivied, rock wall that opens into a wrought iron gate that Dupree reads backward through the back window.

  TRINITY CEMETERY. That doesn’t sound good. Charles drives slowly along what looks for the world like a country road, cresting low grassy hills thick with the leaves of shedding elms and oaks, toward a cloister leading to a country church. Dupree can’t believe this place exists in the city, at the top of Manhattan. He looks around. There are a handful of cars and people along these winding roads, bowing in front of graves, placing flowers, making their way to mausoleums.

  Finally, Charles stops the car, climbs out, and opens the back door. He grabs Dupree by the arm, yanks him out of the unmarked, and drags him along the road, up one of the grassy hills, to a headstone ringed by flowers and stuffed animals. At the grave, he pushes Dupree down among the plastic flowers and vases. Dupree’s face is pressed against the cool slate. He pulls himself back up to his knees and reads the flat headstone: I SOUGHT THE LORD, AND HE HEARD ME, AND DELIVERED ME FROM ALL MY FEARS. MOLLY ANNE CHARLES, MARCH 9, 1978—NOVEMBER 11, 1978.

  Dupree looks up. “Your daughter.”

  Charles purses his lips and writes furiously on the pad.

  heart defect

  valve stuck

  “I’m sorry,” Dupree says. He looks at the dates again. Almost two years to the day. “She was born with it?”

  He writes:

  four surgeries

  expensive

  Dupree can imagine where something like this leads, can picture Charles working through the problem in his mind of how to make the extra money to pay for the rising medical costs—the fear and anger and helplessness.

  she was

  always crying

  He could try moonlighting, but that won’t even come close. Meantime, he’s at work every day seeing the money drug dealers throw around. It makes him sick: thugs driving BMWs, rich kids driving their parents’ cars into the city to buy coke. And the first time, it must have been so easy: nothing, a dr
ink of water from a river.

  fought with

  my wife got

  Charles concentrates on the pad, his face twisted. He seems to be searching for a word. Finally, he turns the pad.

  lost

  I was

  Dupree nods. Who can say what he would do in that situation? How far he’d go? He catches the eyes of a woman walking by; he imagines how odd this must look: him on his knees in front of this small gravestone, his hands cuffed behind his back while the big detective with the mashed face looms above him with a pen and pad.

  at work

  the night

  Dupree looks back to the grave. There are faded cards and plastic flowers and a stuffed elephant with big floppy ears. Charles turns the page.

  she died

  it’s like

  He concentrates on the notebook, turns the page again.

  I never

  knew her

  Finally, Charles seems to have finished. He lets the pad fall to his side. Dupree shifts his weight to his right knee and manages to pull a foot underneath himself. Pain shoots through his ribs and the knob on his cheek. But he manages to stand. Charles doesn’t do anything to stop him. Dupree straightens, looks Charles in the eyes, and says, quietly, “I’m sorry.” Then he takes a deep breath and prepares to be hit. “But it doesn’t matter. You know that, right? It doesn’t change anything.”

  Charles stares at him, his eyes flat and cold.

  Dupree gets even closer, even quieter: “In some ways…it makes it worse.”

  And finally the tears come, arcing over the sides of Charles’s cheeks. He shoves Dupree and the young cop flies to the ground, skids against the headstone, knocking the toys and flowers over. Charles lurks above him. He throws his head back, but he can’t get his wired jaws apart and the sound that comes is the moan of a dreaming child—a low shivering hum over the grassy hills.

  CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. Vince smells them as soon as he climbs the porch of the small stucco house. The screen door sticks, and he smacks himself in the forehead yanking on it. The door, however, is smaller than its opening and he can see horizons of light along the edges before he opens it.

  Beth looks tiny sitting alone at the dining-room table, behind two stacks of “Open House” informational flyers on either side of a plate of cookies. She is wearing a tan suit, the sleeve rolled up on her left arm to make room for her cast, which rests on the open page of a magazine. “Vince?” She catches herself smiling and quickly looks down at the table. “What are you doing here?”

  “House hunting.”

  She ignores this. “People have been asking about you.”

  “The police?”

  “Yeah. And this guy, Ray.”

  Vince doesn’t like the way she said his name, the familiarity in her voice; she’s slept with him. He feels a shiver along his spine. “You gotta stay away from that guy, Beth. I don’t care how much he pays you. Stay away from him.”

  “He’s been coming down to Sam’s the last couple of nights. Playing cards. He says you guys are old friends. He reminds me of you.”

  “Beth—”

  She stands up and gives him an awkward hug, pulling away the whole time. “Thanks for coming, Vince. You didn’t have to.”

  He grabs her shoulders. “Promise me you won’t see this guy, Beth.”

  She recoils and returns to her chair. “So, are you back for good, Vince?”

  “No,” he says.

  She nods, her face betraying nothing.

  “Beth, I mean it. You have to stay away from this guy.”

  She just stares at him.

  “I just want to know you’re safe.”

  “Well.” She tries a smile. “You don’t get to know that.”

  Vince takes one of the flyers. “How’s the open house going?” The house looks worse, if possible, in the picture, tiny windows set at random in a mound of pink stucco. Two bedrooms. One bath. Oil heat. Tar roof. Asking price: $32,500.

  “I had some people over the weekend, but you’re the first one today…it almost feels like Larry gave me a house that he knew would never sell. I don’t know—to teach me something. Keep me in my place.” She picks up one of the cookies, turns it over in her hand, and sets it back on the plate.

  “Nah. The weather’s just bad for house hunting,” Vince says. “But you look good sitting there. Like you belong.” Vince wishes there were something else he could say. “Aren’t you going to show me the place?”

  “You don’t have to do that, Vince.”

  He looks around: metal cabinets in the kitchen, dripping faucet, water damage on the living-room ceiling. “How will I know if I want to buy it unless you show it to me?”

  “Vince. Don’t do this.” She offers him the plate of cookies.

  He takes one and eats it in two bites. “Did you make these?”

  “Vince.”

  “I’m serious. These are really good. This is my business, Beth. I’m a baker, remember? This is a great goddamn cookie. I mean it. Perfect ratio of dough to chip, cooked just enough to hold together, but not too brown.”

  Vince takes another cookie, and then sets his backpack on the table. “Listen. I might need to hide some money for a while. So tell me.” He unzips the bag, takes out the flour bag, and slides it across the table. “What will they take for this shithole?”

  IT’S A FAIRLY simple transaction: with Vince at her side, Beth deposits Vince’s $20,000 into her bank account (raising the balance to $20,428.52) and then the bank draws up the home-sale papers. Since she’s putting more than two thirds down, they agree to loan her the rest with the house as collateral, although the 20 percent interest rate raises her payment to nearly $160 a month—as much as she pays now for her apartment. Over the course of the thirty-year loan, Beth will pay almost $50,000 in interest. It’s an amazing racket, Vince thinks; he got better points when he borrowed from the mob.

  Still, Beth was ecstatic when she offered $28,500 and the seller jumped. Of course Larry refused to waive his commission, and so the percentage he promised Beth—under the table, of course—is going to him. She declines the inspection and the appraisal, and says she’ll take care of insurance herself. She nods quickly as the loan officer goes over the rest.

  Throughout, Vince is aware that he’s never felt this good. He has to cover his mouth with his hand to hide his smile. Every few minutes Beth looks over her shoulder at him, and he doubts her hand would be big enough to cover her own smile.

  She’s been smiling like this since he opened the flour bag and showed her the cash and said, “I want you and Kenyon to live here.”

  She had flushed and caught his eyes. “Are you—” But then she hadn’t finished the sentence, as if afraid to ask for anything more.

  “Not yet,” he said. “I have to do something and I might have to go away for a while.” He took a breath. “But when I come back, yeah, I’d like us to try.” He found himself believing it.

  She argued with him, at first: “I can’t do this, Vince. I can’t take your money. You told me you were saving to open a restaurant.”

  “I can do that later,” he said. “Please, Beth. Take it.” And suddenly he pictured Beth and Kenyon sitting on the porch, waiting for him to come home from the donut shop—only it’s not him, it’s his father—and that’s when Vince realized: That is your dream.

  When she finally agreed, it felt great to see the look on Beth’s face. Except for the movies, he’d never seen someone so happy that they actually started crying.

  The bank loan officer slides the papers toward her. “This has to go to the sellers. So it will take a few days, but since you don’t have a house to sell and since you’re waiving the inspection and appraisal, I could see it closing as early as two weeks. If the sellers agree, you could move into your house in a month.”

  Beth grabs Vince’s hand and squeezes it. She leans over and whispers in his ear. “Hurry back.”

  CLAY IS WAITING at the normal time, at the normal spot, at a picnic
table at Dicks Drive-in. Vince walks up, sets his backpack on the bench, and plops down. “You can’t believe the week I’ve had,” he says.

  Clay doesn’t even look up.

  “You’re not still mad about the car. It’s an ugly car, Clay.”

  “I take all the risk and get none of the rewards.”

  “You should buy American.”

  “If I get caught, it’s my career. My life.”

  “You’re right, Clay.”

  Clay looks up, surprised.

  “That’s why we have to call it off,” Vince says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we’re done.”

  “What do you mean, done?”

  “Done. It’s too hot, Clay. The guy who used to make the cards got killed the other night. You understand? Dead. The cops are all over me. And there’s a guy in town, a dangerous guy—a connected guy. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  Clay doesn’t say anything.

  “This guy wants me to turn you over to him, Clay. He wants your name.”

  “So give it to him.” Clay pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. “Tell him I want to meet him. I want to do business with him.”

  “You don’t do business with a guy like this, Clay. You give him your money and he shoots you in the face.”

  “I want to meet him.”

  “No.”

  “Look, Vince, you can quit if you want, but I want to keep going. I can do more. I can take twice as many cards, make twice as much money.”

  Vince bends down and speaks in a low voice. “I’ve told you a hundred times. You can’t take more cards. You’ll get caught.”

  Clay shakes his head. “I didn’t ask you to protect me. Give me his goddamned name. If you’re too scared to keep going, then at least get out of my way.”