Spoonbenders

by Daryl Gregory

  Buddy seemed to be holding himself to the chair through force of will.

  “But I got a real problem right now, and the stakes are high,” Teddy said. “So how about this?” He reached into his jacket pocket and held out a manila envelope. “You don’t have to say a thing. Just nod or shake your head, okay? A nod or a shake.” He leaned forward, watching his son’s face. “Buddy, is this going to be enough?”

  Buddy’s eyes flicked toward the envelope and away, as if it were a too-bright light.

  Teddy said, “All I’m asking is a nod or a—”

  Buddy jumped up and fled the room. Teddy listened to him clomp up the stairs and bang through the back door.

  “God damn it,” Teddy said. He was going to have to do this blind.

  He went upstairs to his bedroom, opened the closet door, and dialed open his safe. The top rack was piled with Maureen’s letters, the top one being the one he’d opened last month, as Graciella lay in the hammock.

  He’d drunk them in as they arrived over the years, each pen stroke like a scratch upon his heart, summoning her to life and killing her again in the same moment. Her words had coached him and soothed him and chided him, helped him navigate the minefield of years. Made him a better parent, a wiser man. Each letter was like a pocket ace.

  But the letters hadn’t told him what to do now, and no new letter had arrived today. He’d outrun the reach of Maureen’s advice. Fallen off the edges of the God damn map. He’d have to go forward into the dark, steering by his own lights. Improvising.

  On the floor of the safe rested a black velvet tray. He eased it out and set it on top of the bed.

  Arrayed on the velvet were two sets of gold cuff links, Maureen’s engagement ring, one diamond tie pin, and four watches of various worth: a Tag Heuer, a workaday Citizen, an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, and the one he was looking for. It was a near twin of the watch he was currently wearing, a 1966 “Paul Newman” Rolex Daytona with a diamond dial, and a novice pawing through his collection would have thought a second one redundant. Teddy, however, had held on to the one in the safe for sentimental reasons. If he was going to go see Nick Pusateri Senior, there was only one watch he wanted to wear.

  He wound it, set the time, and realized it was time to go.

  He went looking for Irene, and it wasn’t hard to find her. Whenever she wasn’t at work, she was parked at the dining room table. She turned the room into the command center for her dissection of NG Group Realty’s finances. File boxes were stacked on the floor, and her new computer was set up in the middle of the table, probably scarring the wood. Frankie was yammering at her while Irene kept her eyes on the screen.

  “It wouldn’t be just a video-game arcade,” Frankie said to her. “We’d do food, beer, sports events—”

  “I thought you were done with computers,” Teddy said to Irene.

  “This one’s been disconnected from the Information Superhighway.”

  “The what?”

  “Dad. Dad,” Frankie said. “Tell Irene. You gotta invest your money rather than let it sit there, right?” He was talking fast, the mark of a desperate man. Loretta had kicked him out, and Teddy had a good idea why.

  Teddy said, “What money? You’re broke.”

  “But what if I wasn’t, huh? What I’m talking about is an arcade, a whole family thing, like Chuck E. Cheese without the fucking robots and the dress-up characters.” Frankie had always been scared of people in costumes. Never sat on Santa’s knee, ran terrified from the mall Easter bunny. “We serve good food, good beer, play good music. And here’s the clincher—no video games.”

  Irene finally looked up from the computer. “You’re going to open an arcade,” she said, her voice flat. “With no video games.”

  “Nothing but real pinball,” Frankie said. “It’s ready to make a comeback. Kids will eat it up.”

  “You’re an idiot.” She did not quite glance at Teddy. “Do you know what this family would do for you? You’d throw everything away, and you have no idea what any of us—”

  “Irene,” Teddy said, interrupting. “Time to go.”

  “Where are you going?” Frankie asked.

  “Out for an errand,” Teddy said. “Delivering some food to a sick friend. Irene, you ready?”

  “Let me get my shoes,” she said. She did something on the computer keyboard, then stood up. “Don’t touch my stuff,” she said to Frankie. “And would you please wake up my son? He’s going to sleep the day away.”

  “Let him sleep,” Frankie said. “He deserves it.”

  “For what?”

  Frankie hesitated. “For being a good kid who loves his mother.”

  She snorted and went up to her room.

  Frankie said to Teddy, “That’s Irene all over. Conventional. Not a risk taker. But you understand, right? I can’t just keep working as a phone tech. How’s Loretta supposed to respect me when I’m an installer? What are my girls supposed to think? I’ve got to work for myself. I’ve got to do something I’m passionate about. You wouldn’t believe the ideas I have for this place. I was thinking of making it a real, old-style arcade, with, like, 1950s memorabilia. You could come in with me!”

  “My boy, my boy,” Teddy said. He walked forward, hands out, as if going in for a hug.

  Frankie looked up at him eagerly. “You could be my partner! Silent partner, maybe, since you’ve never even gone to an arcade, but you could put in—”

  Teddy gripped Frankie’s head. “Stop it. Just—” He didn’t know what to do with this kid. Never did know. He was the boy who wanted everything, and didn’t know how to get it. Hours in the corner, trying to levitate paper clips. “Stop it.”

  Frankie tried to speak through squashed cheeks.

  “No,” Teddy said. “I love you, but you’re killing me. Just killing me.”

  The morning after he drove Maureen to the hospital and stayed the night at her bedside, he came home to shower and get a few things she’d asked for. Mrs. Klauser, their neighbor, had stayed the night and had made the kids pancakes.

  Teddy called the children into the living room and tried to sit them down, but Frankie wouldn’t stay still, kept trying to explain the miracle that had occurred in their kitchen: “Best pancakes ever. Mrs. Klauser is the best. I want pancakes every day.”

  Buddy was quieter than usual, on his own planet, crouched over a Hot Wheels car, pushing it through the carpet. Only Irene seemed to understand what was happening. She was almost eleven, only a year older than Frankie, but she seemed a decade more mature, a full voting member of the Parliament of Seriousness. Teddy was pretty sure she outranked him.

  “Is Mom in the hospital?” she asked. He’d been planning to ramp up to the “H” word, but Irene had jumped ahead in the script.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Teddy said. “She wasn’t feeling well, so we thought the doctor should—”

  “Is she going to die?” Irene asked.

  This wasn’t in Teddy’s script at all. “No, of course not! We’re just checking some things out and—damn it.”

  Tears were already running down Irene’s face. He should have known better.

  “She’s very sick,” Teddy said. “That’s true. But the medicines they’ve got today, the tools they have available—it’s just amazing. They’ve got a machine there that zaps the bad stuff. Pow, like a ray gun.”

  “I know about radiation,” Irene said. “She’s been going for months.”

  “Yes, but—” Damn it, what didn’t Irene know? “We gotta let all the medicines work. We’re not giving up, because that’s not who we are. Frankie, stop that.” The boy was standing in front of Buddy, deliberately blocking the Hot Wheels car with his foot. “Leave Buddy alone. Did you hear what I was saying?”

  “Mom’s in the hospital,” Frankie said.

  “That’s right. Now later I’m going to come back and pick you up. Mrs. Klauser is going to get you all dressed, and we can go down there for a visit, okay? I want you to wash
your hair. All of you. And put on something nice.”

  Frankie said, “Could you tell Mom something?” Buddy drove his car in the other direction, his back to the rest of them.

  “Sure, sure,” Teddy said. He crouched down to look Frankie in the eye. “What do you want to tell your mother?”

  “She should buy blueberry syrup like Mrs. Klauser. It tastes just like IHOP.”

  “Syrup,” Teddy said.

  “Blueberry. Can I go play now?”

  Irene hadn’t moved, not even to brush the tears from her face.

  “I need your help,” Teddy said to her. He stood up, and brushed the crease from his wool pants. “Can you help get the boys ready?”

  She nodded.

  “Good girl. I’ve always been able to depend on you.”

  He was still leaning on her, now literally. He hobbled up to Mitzi’s Tavern using the newly purchased tri-tipped cane, but for extra drama he made Irene keep a hand on his biceps, as if at any moment he’d pitch over onto the sidewalk. He’d told her to keep one hand on him at all times, and to not forget to be nice.

  Another weekend morning, another empty tavern. Barney locked the door behind them. “Don’t want the drunks wandering in,” he said. He nodded toward the open door of the office. It took Teddy and Irene a while to get there.

  Nick Pusateri Senior sat behind the desk. Unlike Barney, who looked like an air mattress that had been inflated and deflated too many times, Nick was essentially the same man, only more weathered. Teddy thought, God preserve us from the longevity of assholes.

  “Great to see you,” Teddy said.

  Nick came around the desk and shook hands, his grip deliberately crushing. Teddy didn’t have to fake the wince, and he saw Nick enjoy that sign of weakness. Teddy didn’t let on that his only desire was to jam his tri-cane down the man’s throat. Yes, it’d be more work than a regular cane, but so worth the effort.

  “And you must be little Irene,” Nick said.

  Irene smiled a tight smile. Teddy hoped she could pretend to be the dutiful daughter through this meeting. She was innately honest, like her mother. Deception was Teddy’s department.

  They took their seats on opposite sides of the desk. Nick had six pencils lined up on the cherry surface, all perpendicular to the edge, all sharpened to exactly the same length. So, Teddy thought. He’s stressed. Nick’s OCD always kicked in when he was stressed. It had to be the pressure of the trial.

  Nick said, “You’re looking well, Teddy.”

  Irene’s hand tightened on his arm. Teddy smiled, kept his eyes on Nick. “And that haircut never gets old.” He leaned toward Irene. “Literally, it cannot get old.”

  Irene kept her smile in place.

  “Because it’s a fake,” Teddy said.

  “Uh-huh,” she said without moving her lips.

  “A toupee.”

  “I get it, Dad.”

  Nick laughed like it was a thing he’d seen people do in movies. “Still giving me the business, after all these years. Glad you still got some balls, Teddy.”

  Teddy shrugged. “Mitzi not coming?”

  “She’s feeling under the weather. Caught a bug.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Teddy said sincerely. “She seemed fine the other day.”

  “She’ll snap back. She’s a tough bird.”

  They agreed on this. Teddy told the story about Mitzi hitting an unruly drunk on the side of the head with a telephone. “What was his name? Right on the tip of my tongue.” He made a shaky gesture with one hand, playing the doddering old man, the scatterbrained ancient. The name of the victim was Ricky Weyerbach, and he used to be an electrician at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse before he hurt his back. “Anyway. Big guy, twice her size, and bam, right on the temple.”

  Nick laughed, and it nearly sounded human this time.

  “This was one of those Bakelite monsters that weigh ten pounds,” Teddy explained to Irene. “Put the guy in the hospital.”

  Nick liked that, Teddy saw. He liked any story about the fearsome Pusateris. At least any story that wasn’t on the front page of the Sun-Times.

  “So,” Nick said. He frowned at one of the pencils, and made a microscopic adjustment. “I’m meeting with you out of respect for our history.”

  “I appreciate that,” Teddy said.

  “But your boy has already been in here, and we’ve worked out a payment plan.”

  Frankie came on his own? God damn it. Teddy had deliberately not told Frankie what he was up to, so the boy wouldn’t do something stupid. And now he’d gone and stupided it up anyway.

  Teddy let his annoyance show. “I told Mitzi I wanted to be the one to work out a deal.”

  Nick shrugged. “He’s a grown man. And if you’re here to get back the house, that’s not going to happen.”

  This was the first Teddy had heard about a house. But it might explain why Frankie had moved into Teddy’s.

  “Why take a man’s home, when you can take cold hard cash?” Teddy asked. He reached into his jacket pocket—a move Nick paid close attention to. Teddy’s arthritic fingers came away with the envelope. Teddy set it on the desk, being careful not to disturb the pencils. “That’s fifty thousand. Mitzi let me know the full amount when I saw her.”

  “The full amount,” Nick said. Putting a skeptical spin on it.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Just that you saw her over a week ago.”

  “Ah,” Teddy said. He pretended to just now understand that over a week meant that interest was due. “How much?”

  “It’s not just the vig,” Nick said. “A lot has changed. The real estate market, for example.”

  “How’s that doing?”

  “It’s booming, Teddy. Fucking booming.”

  Irene squeezed Teddy’s arm. “How much to make it all right?” Teddy asked. “The house, Frankie’s remaining debt, everything.”

  “You don’t have that kinda weight, Teddy.”

  “Try me.”

  “A hundred K.”

  Teddy let his face fall.

  “And the watch.”

  “What?” Teddy’s hand fluttered near his wrist, as if unconsciously protecting it.

  Irene looked shocked. “What do you mean, his watch. That’s—that’s his pride and joy.”

  “He owes it to me,” Nick said. “He’s owed it to me for twenty years. I should have taken it back then, but I fastened it to his fucking wrist, and let him go.”

  “We’re leaving,” Irene said. “Come on, Dad.”

  “No.”

  Teddy lifted his head. He withdrew a second envelope, put it on top of the first. Then, without looking at the watch, he unlatched the steel band and slid it over his fingers. He dropped it onto the middle of the desk, sending the pencils rolling.

  Nick quickly caught the pencils. Only when he’d lined them back up did he pick up the watch. “Jesus, that’s beautiful. Paul Newman used to wear one of these when he raced.”

  “You don’t say,” Irene said.

  “It was worth twenty-five grand when your pop won it in a poker game. And now? Who knows?”

  “Right. Let’s go, Dad.”

  Teddy put his hand over hers, so she wouldn’t move it from his biceps. “There’s one more thing,” he said.

  Nick raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s about your son,” Teddy said. “And your daughter-in-law.”

  “Graciella?” Nick seemed genuinely confused.

  “She never wants you to see her again. Or the boys.”

  “What the fuck is that to you?”

  “I said I’d speak to you on her behalf.”

  “Are you talking? To my family?”

  “And she wants you out of Nick Junior’s real estate company. It’s not going to be your front anymore. No more money laundering.”

  Nick still didn’t seem to understand. “Graciella said this to you. A stranger.”

  “We’re not strangers. I met her at the grocery store. By acciden
t.” He held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. The thing is, she’s offering something in return.”

  “And what the fuck would that be?”

  “Your freedom.” He nodded at Irene. She opened her purse and took out the lunch box. Nick looked impatient. Then Irene lifted out the clear-plastic container of teeth and set them next to the envelopes of cash. She was polite enough to not disturb the pencils.

  “Those once resided in the mouth of Rick Mazzione,” Teddy said. “Before you evicted them. Nick Junior says that some of the blood on ’em is yours, though the FBI wouldn’t have to take his word for it. They’ve got labs for that kind of thing.”

  Nick picked up the bag. He tapped the bottom of it, as if testing whether the teeth moved realistically.

  “Graciella will take no action against you,” Teddy said. “She hasn’t talked to the cops. All she’s asking is that you promise never to contact her, or the boys, again.”

  Nick couldn’t take his eyes off the teeth.

  “She wants them out of the life,” Teddy said.

  “The moron kept them,” Nick said in a faraway voice. “Why would he do that? Why would he fucking keep them?”

  “Why do kids do anything?” Teddy said. “They disappoint us. Half the time they’re trying to win our approval, half the time they want to bury us.”

  Irene dug her fingernails into his arm. That wasn’t a signal, except if the signal was “I’m pissed at you.”

  “So what do you say?” Teddy said.

  Nick rubbed a hand across his face. “Where are the other teeth?”

  “I don’t know,” Teddy said. “I told her to put them in a safe place, not in her house.”

  “You’ve got them, don’t you?”

  “I’m not that stupid,” Teddy said.

  “Oh yes you are. You’re an idiot if you think you can come between me and my grandchildren.”

  “That may be so, but I felt I had to help her out. She was afraid to talk to you.”

  “Why would she be afraid of me?” Nick asked, distraught. “I’m Pop-Pop. I’m God damn Pop-Pop.”

  “All she wants is your word,” Teddy said. “If you promise to give up your interest in the real estate company, and promise that you won’t come after the boys or try to hurt her, she’ll give you the rest of the teeth.”