A Living Grave

by Robert E. Dunn

  I nodded mutely. He watched me for a moment then looked away.

  “She was having headaches. Everyone has headaches and all she’s going through, who the hell wouldn’t have headaches?” He kept looking out the window as he spoke. “Shit.”

  After a long silence, I said, “Sheriff . . .”

  “Shit,” he said again. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Goddamn, motherfuck.” He turned and looked right at me and continued. “Son of a cocksucking bitch, Hurricane. Headaches. Why would you think anything about that when she had breast cancer? She was dizzy too. We thought it was stress. Bad sleep. Bad thoughts.

  “Did I ever tell you how glad she was you joined the department? She barely knew you but she was proud of you just the same. She loved that we had a woman we could call Hurricane. ‘That girl kicks ass,’ she’d always tell me. ‘She’s a keeper.’ Hell, if you were to run against me, I think she’d vote for you.”

  I tried to smile. I said, “Thank you,” then wondered why. There was no knowing what to say.

  “It’s in her brain,” he said, all the fire having gone out of his voice. “Breast cancer in her goddamn brain. How does that happen? How does any of this even happen? No one deserves this.” He rose from his chair and shoved it aside as he went to a box of tissues he kept on the windowsill. They were there for hard conversations with loved ones. He probably thought he’d never need them for himself. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  I took the precaution of locking the office door before I embraced him. He cried as I held him tightly with nothing to say that could ease his pain.

  When he had finally fallen quiet I suggested that he should go be with his wife. He wouldn’t, not with the biker bust in the morning. “It’s too big,” he said. “Too messy with too many jurisdictions. Complicated is dangerous.”

  So I went.

  * * *

  “Detective Katrina ‘Hurricane’ Williams,” Emily Benson said as soon as I appeared in the doorway of her hospital room. The flowers I had sent were on the nightstand beside the bed. They were not alone. There was a river of flowers, cards, and balloons running along the room’s windows. Emily herself looked as lively as the festive display that hemmed her in.

  She was smiling and wearing a pink gown as bright as her eyes. I smiled back, so relieved not to see a frail, suffering woman.

  “You look like you saw a ghost,” she said. “Or maybe you expected to.”

  “The sheriff is pretty worried.”

  “I know he is. In here you can call him Chuck. Sit. Talk with me.”

  “How are you?”

  “About anything but that,” she jumped in.

  So we spent the afternoon talking. Technically, I was on duty. If anyone really needed me they’d call, I rationalized. Since no one did . . .

  She was easy to talk with and aware of everything that went on within the department. When she heard about my handwritten reports to her husband she said, “We’ll put a stop to that. It’s just because he likes you. I can count on you not to try and steal my husband, can’t I?”

  “No promises,” I said.

  Emily laughed hard. It was like the cackle of the good witch.

  Telling her about my morning eased my mind more. Not because she offered any profound advice. It was more because she was a good person to talk to. And talking about my encounter with Carrie and her mother actually created a bit of distance from the moment. It was easier to believe my fears were foolish chatting about them with someone who was doing so well with their own worries.

  When I left, I promised to visit again and often. The day was over. I called in and checked myself out.

  * * *

  I went home to Nelson’s place and, for the first time, put on the ring that he had given me. I would have been happy staying in. Actually, I would have preferred it, but we went to Moonshines again. Nelson said he needed to check in and talk with a lawyer about how Middleton’s death impacted the partnership. There was something about it that he left unsaid, though. Worries or thoughts that he kept out of words showed on his face. It had something to do with why Figorelli had come to see him, I was sure. Nelson denied it.

  Walking into the place, I noticed a genuine difference. There were all the same things in the same place but the feeling had changed. For one thing there were fewer people and a lot less noise. The Wild West party atmosphere was gone, replaced by a kind of police-state vibe. It was what I imagined a Mob club might have felt like in the 1940s—Have all the fun you want, but we have ways of making sure you color inside our lines.

  Without a word the hostess took us into the restaurant. As we passed the bar I noticed a knot of men at a table. They were all thick-necked and black-suited like a funeral director’s mafia. In the center of them was Byron Figorelli. He saw me looking and he stared right back. I couldn’t hear but I saw him saying something and smirking at his own sense of humor. Everyone at the table turned and looked at us, then shared a laugh at our backs. Nelson seemed not to notice and I held my tongue. The hostess took us back to the same secluded table we had before.

  Again, without our having asked, a platter of assorted appetizers came to the table. It was followed by the appearance of Figorelli. He was shadowed by Jimmy Cardo and the other four men in black.

  “I see you got the appetizers. I wanted you to give them a try. A peace offering for things over and done with, know what I mean? I fired the yokel tried to pass off cow nuts as food.”

  “Bull,” Nelson said.

  “The fuck?” Figorelli shot back. His face went in two directions like he wasn’t sure if he’d been insulted, but he hoped that he had been.

  “Bull nuts. Cows don’t have nuts. A cow is female.”

  Figorelli stared for a moment, his mouth open and his eyes narrowed. Then he decided to laugh. It was a mocking bray that triggered lifeless smiles in the other men.

  “You’re all right,” Figorelli said to Nelson. “An’ I want you to know I have forgotten all about our earlier encounter.”

  “Very kind of you,” Nelson said flatly.

  “Damn straight,” Figorelli responded, not catching the tone at all. “No hard feelins. I understand a man wantin’ to hang onto things. I don’t let go so easy myself, but when it comes to gettin’ mine . . . well, then I can be a patient man.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Nelson asked.

  “What? I’m being too subtle? I’m just trying to be respectful with the good lady present.” Figorelli nodded at me but his eyes stayed on Nelson. He was enjoying his position and whatever secret he thought he had. Looking at him I could see him as a child holding other kids in the dirt for the joy of hearing them scream uncle.

  “No need to be prissy on my part,” I told him. “Nothing about a man like you can shock me.”

  “Hey, that’s good,” he said, shifting his gaze my way for the first time. It was just for a moment, then his eyes targeted right back on Nelson. “Maybe the cow has the balls after all.”

  Even at the edge of my vision I could see a new tension form in Nelson’s shoulders. At the same time, his hands flexed against the edge of the table. He would have stood and taken a swing at Figorelli in the next moment if I hadn’t have put my hand on his shoulder. I didn’t do it so much for Nelson. It was more for my job. The goons behind Figorelli were ready and eager for Nelson to make a move. I would have killed at least one of them. This time I hadn’t left my weapon in the truck.

  “Stop trying to show off your dick,” I told Figorelli. “If it was all that big you wouldn’t need four low-rent goombahs to stand around and give you reassurance.”

  Color bloomed in his jowls, darkening into a red deposit under his eyes. The false smiles on the four other men turned into straight lines of icy anticipation.

  “Nice.” All the life was in Figorelli’s face now. His voice had gone as lively as rigor mortis. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

  With my hand still on Nelson’s shoulder I rose from my seat and looked d
own into Figorelli’s face. “Believe me,” I said, my voice as cold and hard-edged as his. “You don’t want to compare which one of us shames their mother more.”

  The red on his face turned a deep, boiling scarlet. I think something would have happened then if we hadn’t been interrupted.

  “Well, ain’t this a pretty picture?” It was the man in the sequin suit sidling up between the four sour-faced men in black.

  “Pretty don’t cover everything,” Figorelli said, keeping his stare locked on me.

  My hand was pushed off by Nelson as he stood slowly. He was the Marine he had once been: strong, straight, and angry. He moved sideways, injecting himself between me and Figorelli, then leaning down to get his face close to the other man’s.

  “We’re a long way from pretty right now, you little pissant son of a bitch. If you want to trade insults or work it out some other way, let’s you and me go dance outside.”

  I had to admit, even then, in the middle of the situation, I was proud of Nelson. There is something to be said about someone who won’t back down even if he knows the fight won’t be fair or go their way.

  Figorelli broke first, though. He laughed softly without amusement. “Look at us,” he said. “This isn’t what I wanted. An’ there ain’t no reason for it, after all. Is there, Bodie?”

  “None a’tall,” said the man in the shiny suit.

  “Excuse my manners,” Figorelli went on, “This is Bodie Dauterive. He’s a lawyer helping me out on some business affairs. He was just filling me in on some new developments before you arrived.”

  “Indeed I was,” Dauterive said, lifting the Stetson he had been holding down by his knee to cover his heart and satin-embroidered cactus. He did not offer his hand. “The lady deputy and I have met, although there were no introductions.”

  “Sheriff’s detective,” Nelson corrected him and I thought he sounded proud to say so.

  “Detective.” Dauterive nodded to me.

  “And these are some other associates of mine from down home,” Figorelli said, gesturing to the black suits. “You know Jimmy Cardo.” Cardo didn’t react at all to the acknowledgement. “Then there is Charlie Castellano, Dean Morelli, and Sal Rubio.” The men were like statues almost posing for us.

  “No one really cares,” Nelson said. “I got a call from Mr. Dauterive here asking me to talk with him about Johnny’s estate and the partnership. Now that I see he’s your lawyer, I don’t imagine that we have much to talk about.”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Figorelli said. “You don’t. Or you won’t much longer, will you?” He let that hang there a moment, then went on. “Johnny had contracts with us just like he did with you. An’ funny thing about contracts. They can take care of so many little problems. His had a—whaddaya call it?” He looked at Dauterive.

  “A buyout clause,” Dauterive said.

  “A buyout clause,” Figorelli echoed.

  “In this-here case, the clause compels the sale of shares to the partners in the event of death. We have exercised those rights and acquired all of Johnny Middleton’s share.”

  “I imagine I had some rights to exercise if I wanted to. Why wasn’t I offered the chance to purchase shares?”

  “Well, now . . .” Dauterive looked like he found something distasteful. “See, we considered the point kind of... well . . . moot, bein’ the best word, I’m guessin’. Considering your condition and all.”

  “And what do you know about his condition?” I asked, letting the anger rise in my voice.

  “Everything we need to know,” Figorelli said. “What is it? Couple of months at best?”

  It couldn’t be true, but hearing it spit out like that—bald-faced and hateful—was like pornography in kindergarten. It was Nelson’s turn to place a hand on me, gripping my upper arm. Until he had, I was unaware of reaching for my weapon.

  “Truth is we’ll have all your shares in just a couple of months and all we have to do is wait. Unless you want a little play-around money before you kick off? We can still make a deal.” Figorelli kept talking, kept trying to pull me out. I realized he wanted a scene for some reason. I realized as well, he was close to getting more than he wanted.

  “That’s what you’re hoping for? That I’ll just keel over and you get what you want?” Nelson almost laughed. It started as a half-smile, the kind that hides its meaning, then opened up ready to give sound to the expression. What came out never really matured into a laugh, though. It was a cough of dismissal, deep and full of irony. He covered his mouth with a napkin that came away wet with blood. All the men lined up against him looked at the red stain and saw weakness.

  “I’ve got news for you,” Nelson said to them, tossing the napkin down without looking at it. “You think I’m hard to deal with, wait until you have to talk to my wife.”

  “You have no wife, Mr. Solomon,” Dauterive said. “You have been checked out pretty good, if I do say so.”

  Nelson grinned. I smiled. “Gentleman,” he said, “First, maybe I don’t plan on dying to fit your convenience. Second, please meet my fiancée, Miss Katrina Williams.”

  I lifted my left hand to show off the diamond sparkling there. No one was smiling.

  “Understand—as soon as we’re married,” Nelson went on, “Katrina becomes my heir and executor of the trust into which all my assets will be tucked away.”

  I was as surprised as they were.

  Figorelli said, “It won’t matter. She’ll have to sell.” But I could tell a little of the air had gone out of his tires. He wasn’t nearly as sure as he wanted to be.

  Nelson looked over at Dauterive and said, “I have my own lawyer, Mr. Dauterive.”

  “He can’t do that, can he?” Figorelli asked.

  Dauterive said, “Yes. He can transfer or sell his shares before his death.”

  There was no reason to include the phrase before his death, yet it was spoken with obvious meaning. It wasn’t a threat so much as pointing out a timeline. He was telling either Figorelli or Nelson that this wasn’t over. I wasn’t sure which.

  “But you told me that he had to offer them to the partners before he could sell them,” Figorelli said. He clearly had not caught the same meaning that I had.

  “But he’s not selling them, Byron. He’s putting them into trust to provide for his wife.” Dauterive looked from his client to Nelson, then said, “It is a rightly good move.” It sounded like a compliment but this time his eyes showed that the words had real threat. They set the hairs on my body upright and sizzling.

  “Ah believe we should leave these people to their dinner now, don’t you?” He spoke to Figorelli, even putting a hand on his elbow to urge him away from the table, but there were two other things I noticed about Dauterive at that moment. His accent seemed to thin out when he wanted it to. And it was to him, not Figorelli, to which the four background men looked to at that moment. The one who had been introduced as Sal Rubio, a squat, bald man with eyes like a rheumy pig, nodded so slightly it might have been just a tic. Then he looked at me. He was the last to wander from our table.

  They didn’t go quickly but it was still a sudden silence. The tension that seeped from my body told me how ready I had been for violence.

  Ready for violence or wanting it?

  Not all of the tension left me. There was still one thing about the encounter bothering me.

  “Do they know something about your health that I don’t?” I asked Nelson.

  He looked down before looking at me. On the table was the napkin spotted with his blood. Nelson turned it over as if hiding the evidence denied it. It was a guilty move. When he looked at me I asked the question again.

  “They think they know something,” he said. “Things were bad. For a long time they were very bad, you know that.”

  “And now?”

  “I was weak. I was wasted and dying. Now I’m living.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “I don’t have any answers.”

  “Are you
better? Are you going to keep getting better? What is your doctor telling you?”

  “Look at me,” he said.

  I did. Even standing there in the faded light of Moonshines he stood straighter and filled out his pants more than when I had first met him. Reaching to touch his face, which had lost some of its angles, I let my hand stroke behind his ear and felt the new hair.

  “Do I look like a sick man?”

  He was right. What he looked like was a man who had been sick but was mending rather than a man who was sliding toward his death.

  “I want to talk to your doctor,” I said.

  “Don’t trust me?” Nelson asked, smiling.

  “You’re not telling me something.”

  He smiled again. It was easy and quick like a silk sheet pulled over a naked body. Then he relaxed into it and said, “You’re right. I was going to wait until I got you into bed again to ask, but I want to marry you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” The word came right through my ears and splashed the back of my mind. He wasn’t playing or bluffing.

  Am I?

  “First thing,” he said. “Let’s get out of here and tell your family. They’ll want to be there.”

  “Yes,” I said, just then making my decision. “Yes they will.”

  We left Moonshines laughing and holding hands and for the second time without tasting any food. As we passed the bar I noticed Figorelli sitting alone in a dark corner. He saw us but made no acknowledgement.

  I didn’t waste another thought on the man. As soon as we were outside of Moonshines I called Uncle Orson to let him know that we were on our way.

  Chapter 23

  By the time we pulled up at the dock, the smell of steaks over hot coals was coming through our open windows. In the parking lot were two other vehicles that I recognized. Clare’s truck was close to the water and made obvious by the glare of the dock’s strings of bare bulbs. Nestled into shadow, trying hard not to be obvious, was Major Reach and his rented car. Still watching.

  Once out of the truck we started up the bobbing plank walkway hand in hand. At the gate, I stopped, then turned my body to block Nelson. With a quick smile I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and put one hand on the back of his head. It was good to feel the new fuzz on his scalp as I pulled him in for a deep kiss. I don’t think he felt it when I lifted my hand and held a single finger up in Reach’s direction.