Silver Threads

by Bette Lee Crosby

  The darkness in the sky grew deeper, and one by one the lights of the building began to go out. After a while there was only the faint glow that came from the dimly-lit hallway. Eddie waited a while longer just to be certain; then he crept toward the parking lot.

  The cars in the back of the lot were also covered with a thick layer of dust and pollen. It was obvious they had been sitting there for a long time; months, maybe even years. He walked along the row and tried the door handles. The first five doors were locked. Then the sixth, a Ford Fairlane, squeaked open. Hopefully it would start.

  Sliding into the driver’s seat, Eddie reached under the steering column and used his pocketknife to pop off the plastic panel covering the wiring. He pulled the bundle of wires out, but without a light it was impossible to distinguish color. He reached up and clicked the light switch. Nothing. He tried again. Still nothing.

  “Friggin’ battery’s dead,” he grumbled and got out.

  After he searched the remainder of the back row and found door after door locked, he remembered how Tom had gotten the Buick they’d snatched in Kentucky. Eddie started working his way back down the row, feeling up under all four fenders of each car. Finally he found what he wanted stuck under the back fender of a Lincoln Town Car. He grinned and pulled out the small magnetic box that held a spare key.

  Easy peasy. The key slid in the lock, and the overhead light came on as he opened the door. He slid into the driver’s seat and twisted the key in the ignition. The engine coughed once or twice then came to life.

  The dust and grime that covered the car also covered the windshield. Eddie pushed a button. Washer fluid squirted across the windshield, and the wipers swished back and forth. It was enough to see. The first thing he had to do was get out of here. After that he’d think about stopping to clean off the windows.

  The Town Car was long and wide with a big squared-off grill in the front. Eddie inched back, cleared the parking space then turned toward the drive. He glanced across at the building. It was still dark, and he could see no movement. He moved slowly down the long driveway then turned onto the road that led back to Route 72. The car had over a half tank of gas, more than enough to get across the county line.

  At the junction of Route 72, Eddie swung into the right-hand lane and headed west. He waited until he’d passed the sign that read Limestone County then pulled off the road. He popped the trunk open and found a bottle of washer fluid and some rags, so he cleaned the windows. Beneath the dust and grime he discovered the car was a metallic gray, black almost.

  “Nice and forgettable,” he said to himself and began searching the trunk for something else that might be of use. There was a baseball cap, a sweater and what looked to be the nozzle of a garden hose.

  He put the cap on and pulled the brim low then stuck the nozzle in his pocket and climbed back into the car. After he crossed into Marion County, he left the highway and turned down a side road. It was less than a mile before he came to a brightly-lit roadhouse with the sound of music coming from it. He pulled in and circled around to the back parking lot. Now the only thing he could do was wait.

  The clock on the dashboard ticked off twenty minutes before he saw a column of light fall across the lot. The door swung open, and two couples stumbled out laughing and falling into one another. Drunk was good, but even drunk he couldn’t handle four of them.

  Eddie slunk down into the leather seat so he was less visible and waited until they’d passed by. After that group there was a couple and then another couple. Still he waited. He was hoping for a loner, someone with half a bag on who’d be easy to take. The clock on the dashboard ticked on minute after minute, and before long it was nearing one o’clock. The place would be closing soon; he had to act now.

  The door swung open again, and another couple came out. They stopped a few feet from the door, and the man pulled the woman into a passionate embrace.

  Too close to the door.

  Eddie eased himself out of the car and stood in the shadows. He waited, his fingers nervously clutching and then unclutching the nozzle. After what seemed like a ridiculously long time the couple broke apart. She turned toward the front parking lot and he moved toward the back. Even from this distance Eddie could tell the guy was soused.

  Perfect.

  He waited until the man walked past him without noticing. Then he came at him from behind. Eddie swung his right arm around the man’s neck and with his left hand jabbed the nozzle into his back.

  “Make a sound, and you’re a dead man,” Eddie hissed. “You hear me?”

  The man gave a silent nod.

  “Now put both hands on the back of your head. Nice and slow, don’t try any funny business.”

  Eddie released his hold on the man’s neck but kept the nozzle pressed tight against his back.

  “No fast moves,” he warned. “Keep one hand where it is. Use the other to reach into your pocket and pull out your wallet and car keys.”

  Following instructions, he pulled the wallet from his back pocket.

  “Pass it back,” Eddie said. “Now the car keys.”

  Without turning the man fished in his right pocket and pulled out the keys.

  “Good boy,” Eddie said. “Now walk to the far end of the lot and lie face down. If you even think about turning around, I’ll blow your head off.”

  Again the man nodded.

  “Go,” Eddie said and gave his back another sharp jab.

  Before the man reached the end of the black top Eddie was gone. About thirty miles later, Eddie opened the window and tossed the car keys into a wooded lot. There was no way the man from the roadhouse could follow him now. He kept the wallet and the nine hundred bucks in it.

  It had been fifteen hours since he’d last eaten, and the lack of food was causing his head to hurt.

  Not yet.

  No more tossing caution to the wind like he did with Cassidy. This time he was playing it smart. He was going to do things the way Tom wanted. No violence. Go for smaller scores, nothing big enough to have the cops chasing him.

  He drove until he’d crossed the line into Marengo County, and somewhere near Demopolis he stopped at a twenty-four-hour truck stop, ran the Lincoln through the car wash then went into Denny’s and ordered the Grand Slam.

  The Search for Tom

  It was after three in the morning when Eddie finally got to Clarksburg, and it took another twenty minutes to find Parson Street. He’d held on to the letter for almost three years knowing this is where it had come from. Now that he was here, he couldn’t get through the damn door.

  Eddie rattled it a second and then a third time, but the lock refused to budge.

  Irena Polanski was in bed trying to get some sleep when she heard the noise. Figuring it to be another drunk looking for a hallway where he could sleep it off, she buried her head deeper into the pillow.

  “Go away,” she said with a moan then turned over to face the wall.

  Parson Street was a crooked little strip of cement close to the edge of town. It was one block long, and the only things on it were two small apartment buildings and an empty lot covered with overgrown weeds. The end of Parson Street was smack up against the city dump, and on the far corner was the Mother of Mercy Church. It was the kind of street where even the church locked their doors at night.

  After nearly twenty minutes of banging on the apartment building door, Eddie gave up and returned to the car. He pushed the seat back and closed his eyes. He’d waited three years to see Tom; he could wait another few hours.

  The sun was well into the sky when Eddie woke. He eyed the building across the street. The door was now propped open, and a bushy-haired woman was busily sweeping the front steps. He climbed from the car and started over.

  “Hey there,” he hollered.

  Irena gave the broom another swoosh then glanced up. “What?”

  Her tone reflected the annoyance she felt. The building was an albatross around her neck. She’d have sold it long ago if she had a bu
yer.

  As Eddie drew closer he said, “I’m looking for Tom Coggan. You know his apartment number?”

  Irena turned and leaned heavily on her broom. Getting involved in other people’s troubles was something she didn’t need. She had troubles enough of her own.

  Skipping over the gory details she said, “He don’t live here no more,” and went back to sweeping.

  “Where’d he go?”

  She gave an offhanded shrug and continued swooshing the broom back and forth across the steps. Eddie reached out, grabbed hold of broom handle and held on to it.

  Irena looked up and gave an angry glare. “Let go or—”

  “Or what?” Eddie said, keeping his grip on the handle.

  “Or I start yelling for the cops,” she said, looking him square in the eye.

  Clearly Irena wasn’t a woman who was easily frightened. After staring her down for another minute, Eddie let go of the broom.

  “I ain’t looking for trouble,” he said apologetically. “But Tom’s my brother. He’s all I got in this world, and I gotta find him.” There was a sense of urgency in his words, a sound of neediness.

  For a brief moment the thought of her own sister flashed through Irena’s mind. More than two years had gone by since Helga’s death, but the thought of it was still raw and painful.

  Dead, the policeman said. A hit-and-run driver who didn’t bother stopping.

  Irena leaned the broom against the porch rail and turned back to Eddie.

  “I’m sorry I gotta be the one to tell you this,” she said, “but your brother died some five months ago.”

  Eddie stood there looking like he’d been struck by lightning. “But…how…”

  She glanced at the car he’d gotten out of. It was clean, conservative, responsible-looking. He was not the type of man she usually got in here.

  Trying to soften the blow she said, “Some sort of an accident; he got caught up in a robbery gone bad.”

  “Tom?”

  She nodded. “Look, I’m not sure what happened. All I know is that the police came banging on the door, and when I let them in they carried a bunch of stuff out of his place. Evidence, supposedly.”

  “You sure it was Tom?”

  “He had the same color hair you got. Ain’t too many with that color.”

  It seemed almost inconceivable. Tom was careful; he was always in and out. Quick. No violence. Tears welled in Eddie’s eyes, and he brushed them away with the heel of his hand.

  “They didn’t tell you nothing about what happened?”

  Irena shook her head. “Sorry. Seeing as how you’re family, you could try asking them. The stationhouse is down on Branch Street.” She went on to say the remainder of Tom’s things was packed away in a box she’d stored in the basement.

  “You can take them if you want.”

  “Yeah, I’ll take them,” Eddie said.

  He stood and waited while she went to fetch the box. When she returned he took it from her. It was small and surprisingly light.

  “What about Tom’s apartment?” he asked. “Is it still avail—”

  “We ain’t got no apartments here,” she said. “Just furnished rooms, and all of them’s rented right now.”

  Saying it she sounded believable enough, but in truth there was an empty room on the fourth floor and another one on the second. Something about the way he looked had made Irena lie.

  “Sorry,” she said again.

  Eddie carried the box back to the car, placed it in the trunk and drove off. Going to the police wasn’t an option for him. He’d have to find another way to learn what happened.

  For the rest of the afternoon he drove around town, looking for something but of what he was unsure. He and Tom were twins, and twins had a thing about them. A sixth sense, something that connected them to one another. There had been any number of times when he’d been able to reach out and grab hold of Tom’s thoughts. He was hoping he could still do it.

  He drove up and down Commerce Street several times, but nothing jumped out at him. It was like any other business street, one shop pushed up against the next with nothing but a neon sign to tell them apart. Whatever sense of knowing he’d hoped for was not here.

  Turning off of Commerce, he drove through one side of town and then the other. Nothing. No feel of Tom ever being there.

  Impossible, he thought as he drove past small houses with bicycles left in the driveways and front doors painted a rainbow of colors. Eddie knew he was missing something. But what?

  When darkness settled over the town he turned back to Route 20. Less than three miles down the road he came across The Hungry Eye, a roadhouse with only a handful of cars in the parking lot. He eased his foot down on the brake and turned into the driveway. He needed something to eat and time to think.

  Under other circumstances, Eddie would have bellied up to the bar. He’d done enough drinking to know they poured heavier there. Tonight he had other things on his mind. If the drink came watered down, he’d tell them to take it back and make it a double. With nine hundred bucks in his pocket, he could afford it. He passed by the bar and slid into a back booth that was away from the crowd.

  He didn’t notice the brunette on the far side, but she noticed him. She noticed him the minute he came through the door. There was no mistaking that hair.

  Alisha watched for almost fifteen minutes; then when she couldn’t stand it any longer she walked over and slid into the booth across from him.

  She leaned forward and whispered, “I thought you were dead.”

  Eddie looked at her the way one eyes a crazy person. “I know you?”

  She pinched her face into an angry looking snit. “So that’s the way it is? You don’t want to talk to me, fine, Tommy, but don’t think—”

  “Tom? You knew Tom?”

  She glared at him with the same look he’d given her seconds earlier.

  “Forget it,” she snapped. “I’m not up for some asshole game where—”

  “Tom was my twin brother.”

  “Brother, huh?” She eyed him suspiciously. “Funny, when you was Tommy you never said nothing about having a brother.”

  “I been away.” Eddie pulled Tom’s letter from his pocket and handed it to Alisha. “Tom wrote me that letter and said come stay with him when I can.”

  She did a quick read through of the letter then raised an eyebrow. “Tommy said come see him when you get out. Was you in jail?”

  “Yeah; so what?”

  “Don’t get snippy with me. I was just asking.” Alisha slid to the end of seat and started to stand.

  Eddie grabbed hold of her wrist. “Hold up. Sit. Have a drink.”

  “You buying?”

  He nodded and signaled the waitress over. Alisha ordered a Jack Daniels on the rocks. Eddie said, “Make it two,” and drained the last of his beer.

  Once they were settled with their drinks, he asked how much she knew about what happened with Tom.

  She gave an almost cynical laugh. “Nobody knew nothing about Tommy; he mostly kept to himself. He’d come here, we’d spend a few days together, then he’d take off and I wouldn’t see him for another month or two.”

  Eddie shook his head sorrowfully. “Man, that sure doesn’t sound like Tom.”

  “It got worse. For a while he was just dealing. Then he got hooked on the stuff. Real bad. That monkey on Tommy’s back wasn’t about to let go.”

  A look of doubt crawled across Eddie’s face. “The landlady said Tom got killed in a robbery gone bad. You got anything to say about that?”

  “When that happened I hadn’t seen Tommy for two, maybe three months. All I know is what they said in the papers. Two people were shot, Tommy and some woman. It was all over the news, even on TV.”

  “You keep any of those newspapers?”

  She shook her head. “Nah. That was five months ago. They probably got ’em at the library. They keep stuff on file.”

  Alisha and Eddie sat across from one another knocking back
one Jack Daniels after another until the bartender hollered, “Last call.”

  When Alisha asked if Eddie wanted to come home with her he was tempted for a moment, but after he remembered how things turned out with Cassidy he shook his head.

  “Some other time,” he said.

  For the second time, Eddie spent the night in his newly-acquired car. He didn’t get much sleep, but that was mostly because he was still thinking about how he was going to find out the truth of what happened to Tom. Alisha claimed the library kept old newspapers, but he’d never once even been inside of a library and wasn’t sure he was up to doing it now.

  Tomorrow he’d go back to Clarksburg and hopefully this time he’d find a clue, some thought or memory Tom had left behind. There had to be something. He’d simply missed it that first time around.

  Coming of Summer

  Drew thought once Brooke was out of school his life would be a bit easier, that there would be less hurrying from place to place and he could focus on the clients he’d been neglecting. It turned out to be just the opposite.

  Without the distraction of school Brooke’s moods went up and down like a yo-yo. One moment she would be the happy little girl she once was, and then without warning she’d turn sullen. Or clingy. And on occasion there were temper tantrums that erupted over some bit of silliness not worth worrying about.

  Such an episode happened on the Tuesday morning Drew had a conference call with Ed Mathews, the client he’d been trying to get for three years. Mathews was the owner of a chain of discount stores that stretched across Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina and did over two million mailers each month. Landing an account like that would more than make up for the business he’d lost.

  They were less than ten minutes into the conversation when Drew heard crashing and banging from upstairs. Hoping Mathews wouldn’t hear it, he slid his hand over the mouthpiece and tried to focus on what Matthews was saying. The noise continued, so with the phone in his hand Drew started upstairs. When he opened the door to Brooke’s room, she was sitting on the floor sobbing and the big dollhouse was in pieces.