Palindrome

by E. Z. Rinsky

  “Is everything going okay?” I ask. My eyes are getting heavy. “Just tell me everything’s going to be okay, Courtney.”

  “I was tentatively involved with a woman before we left, but I’m beginning to suspect she’s getting nailed by someone else in her spinning class,” he growls, fiddling with the ends of one of his few mustache hairs, slurring his words. “If she’s even going to spinning classes at all. Great cover. Every evening I see her, she’s sweating and pumped with endorphins. Her ‘class’ is probably getting it from behind in a Best Western.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone? We coulda had guy talk,” I say, my head swimming pleasantly, vaguely surprised that he’s not gay.

  “Wasn’t relevant to the case. Didn’t want any distractions,” he says demurely. Then hands me back my phone. “No word. Remember Frank, if it’s too good to be true . . .” He jabs my chest with a boney index finger, then swivels back to the bartender. “Two more beers,” he says slowly, then lowers his head onto the bar for a quick nap.

  There’s a cup of water on the bar that might be mine. I chug it. The girls next to me are braying like donkeys. A guy with a tattoo on his face appears to be threatening a much smaller man, but then they both smile and hug each other. The beers arrive. The bartender leaves Courtney’s right in front of his nose and closed eyes.

  “Hey,” I say in his ear. “I don’t know how much more we should drink. We gotta drive to the airport at some point.”

  He jerks up violently, fire in his eyes.

  “Frank . . .” he says slowly. “Frank,” he repeats, beckoning me to come close. I roll my eyes and oblige. “How do we know it wasn’t a setup?”

  I lean away from him, catching myself to prevent an embarrassing tumble onto the disgusting floor.

  “Setup?” I ask, struggling to keep my eyes open. I grope on the bar blindly, hoping to summon another glass of water.

  “What if Savannah isn’t dead!” His eyes are frighteningly wide now, veins and blood vessels scurrying across his irises like roaches. He lowers his voice, presumably to prevent anyone in this bar from eavesdropping on his drunken ranting. “Have we seen the body? No. Supposedly buried six feet under. The pictures are all doctored! It’s all a setup, don’t you see?”

  “Shut up.”

  He tries to flag down the tattooed bartender, not even aware of the untouched beer in front of him. I slap his hand out of the air. He eyes me suspiciously.

  “What?” He’s slurring badly now. “Why d-­d-­don’t you want me to drink? You think I’m gonna fucking . . . fucking . . .”

  “I’m gonna drive.” I check my watch. “If I stop drinking now, I’ll probably be sober enough by three or four in the morning.”

  “I like this beer,” Courtney groans, reaching his glass to his lips with great deliberation. “Hey.” He waves to the bartender. “What beer is this? I like it.”

  “Yeah, it’s a doozy, isn’t it?” She smiles. “Black Lab. Brewed up in Colorado Springs.”

  “Mmm.” Courtney takes a gulp.

  Something clicks in my mind. A flash. In an instant I’m half sober, my vision suddenly straight. I spring from my barstool, nearly grab the bartender.

  “What did you say this beer is called?”

  “Black Lab,” she says, confused.

  “It’s a Colorado beer,” I say slowly. “A local craft beer?”

  “Uh-­huh.” She nods, looking around like anyone else see this guy?

  “Small brewery, right? I’ve never seen this on the East Coast.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And there’s a black dog on the bottle, right?”

  “Um . . .” She takes a step back. “I think so.”

  I smack Courtney on the cheek. He looks up at me in a daze.

  “Courtney. This beer we’re drinking. Black Lab. Sound familiar?”

  “It’s . . . delicious.” He smiles.

  “Courtney!” I squeak. “This is the beer that was stacked in the cabin. Outside Bangor. Silas’s cabin.”

  This gets through to him. He sits up a little straighter.

  “Are you sure?” he says groggily.

  “Check your notes or pictures, but I’m almost positive.” I lean in close. “The only way this beer ends up in Maine is if someone brings it. From Colorado.”

  Courtney’s eyes are wide.

  I continue in a whisper: “The Beulah Twelve. They knew what they liked to drink, so they brought it with them, all the way across the country. Stopping in Chicago first to pick up some supplies.”

  Courtney’s pupils narrow. He’s silent.

  “And there were trucks back behind the cabin. Rusty skeletons of old pickup trucks.”

  “Jesus Christ, Frank.” He’s shaking his head. “So they . . . they went there . . . but we were already there. They weren’t there. So where did they go from there?”

  “We weren’t thorough enough.” I grimace. “They must still be there. In the cellar.”

  PART FOUR:

  Rewind

  WE CHANGE OUR tickets to Boston and get into rainy Logan at eleven in the morning on Friday, dash to the airport Hertz in a trance. I’ve got that jolting, manic, hungover energy. Courtney is just sick, his pallor the color of a dollar bill. Spent the first twenty minutes of our drive to Denver raving nonsense about Savannah and Silas and asking to see my phone to check his email. Then I think he blacked out for the rest.

  Helen was incredulous when I called her from the parking lot of Harry’s Hole in Pueblo. Called her cell three times before she picked up, swearing at me. I forgot it’s two hours later on the East Coast. I could feel the unmitigated words pouring out of me, a river of conspiracy bursting through the dam. Knew I must have sounded nuts. Took me fifteen minutes to convince her we figured it out. We were gonna get Greta what she wanted. Probably.

  “Have you started the search yet?” I demanded.

  “I . . . I started making calls yeah, of course. Haven’t briefed anyone yet though.”

  She only agreed to call off the troops once I leveled with her:

  “It’s my daughter, Helen. I wouldn’t do this unless I was damn near sure. Because I realize, if I’m wrong, her blood is on my hands.”

  The words felt sort of empty when I said them. But she relented.

  Words have to feel empty, because to really process them, the situation, would probably leave me in shock. So I pretend Courtney and I just have a series of tasks to complete, each devoid of importance or emotion. They are simply things that have to get done. Household chores. Mow the lawn, paint the fence, acquire water saw. Don’t think about the endgame here. Just one foot in front of the other: smile to the lady at Hertz, pretend that we’re not walking hangovers that reek of sweat and the smoked meat odor of the Ritz that seems to be permanently ingrained in all of our possessions.

  I floor the minivan out of Logan, stopping only to pick up a dozen donuts and a lake-­sized coffee. I feel like I’m driving a tank, but it’s critical that we have plenty of room in the back.

  It’s about a four-­hour drive to the cabin, but we have a crucial stop to make first. Courtney is on my phone trying to figure out where that stop is.

  “Davis Brothers Metalworking,” Courtney mutters. “Sounds promising.” He keys in a number and shields his bloodshot eyes from the mist-­clouded sun as the phone rings. “Hi, my name is Leonard Donavan. I’m calling from AquaTech. We’re a producer of cutting-­edge waterjet saws and were wondering if—­Oh, I see. Well thank you very much for your time.”

  Hangs up.

  “They don’t use water. Have a huge conventional drill.”

  “Way too heavy for our purposes,” I say. “Is there any place that like, rents these out?”

  Courtney shakes his head. “No. I looked into that. This is the kind of thing that’s a permanent fixt
ure in a manufacturing warehouse. Maybe if we had more money and more time, but we’re probably the first ­people in history that have needed to rent an industrial water saw for onetime use.”

  He makes eight more calls before we find a candidate.

  “It’s a textile manufacturer,” Courtney explains to me. “Gonna have to go about an hour and a half into western Mass. But they have one. Take the next exit off this highway and pick up Route 90.”

  I try to arrange the upcoming hours in my head, which currently feels like a kernel of wheat being ground into powder.

  “But we’ll still get to the cabin tonight, right?”

  Courtney nods. “We should. But it depends how long it takes us to get the saw.”

  I slurp down some coffee and take a bite of chocolate donut, spilling crumbs all over my lap.

  “So what are you thinking?” Courtney asks. “We offer them three grand to borrow it for a few days and they’ll just let us waltz out of there with it?”

  “Honestly, I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

  “The saws are worth about fifteen grand, based on what I saw online,” he says, gazing emptily at the rain-­splattered windshield.

  “Then I guess that possibility seems unlikely, doesn’t it?” The implications of this hang in the air for a moment. I say, “We’re just going to have to take it.”

  Courtney throws his head back and rubs a hand through his stringy hair.

  “How much do they weigh?” he asks.

  “Don’t know exactly. Few hundred pounds? Never actually seen one in person before. Just read an article about them in Popular Mechanics a few years ago.”

  Courtney stares at the sunroof. “So you don’t even know if it will fit back there?” he sighs.

  “It probably will.”

  Courtney rubs his hands together nervously, chest heaving. “And if it doesn’t?”

  “This is our only shot at getting into that basement,” I reply, fully aware that I didn’t really answer the question. “This isn’t going to be a smooth, clean operation. You understand that, right? Things are going to get a little ‘extralegal.’ You’re okay with that, right?”

  This is just like before we busted in on those Italian forgers, the threat of imminent physical confrontation making Courtney bite his fingernails, twitch and blink rapidly.

  “Yeah,” he replies softly, lacking conviction.

  “We can’t leave this place without that saw.”

  WE PARK THE minivan in a strip mall across the street and each slip on a black balaclava. The rain has picked up and is splattering angrily on the windshield like God knows what we’re about to do and isn’t crazy about it. Three in the afternoon. Every time I check my watch, another little piece of me dies. Friday. We have till Sunday.

  I keep waiting for an adrenaline rush, but it’s like trying to rev up an engine without gas. Tank is just empty; been running on nothing but booze, coffee and donuts for over twenty-­four hours. Still, I couldn’t eat now to save my life.

  “I’m gonna say some real nasty things,” I say as Courtney slips on latex gloves, then hands me a pair. “I just want you to know, I don’t really mean any of this. It’s all about intimidation. Being in and out before they really realize what hit them. So don’t, you know, think less of me.”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?”

  I snap on the gloves and admire them. They create the temporary illusion that we’re about to engage in a precise operation.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve tried anything like this.” Maybe ever. But I gotta keep Courtney’s confidence up. “Especially in broad daylight. Let’s hope I’ve still got it, eh?”

  “Can we just try this straight, like we did at Berkley?” Courtney pleads.

  I shake my head. “We have no credentials, and we need that thing now.”

  His face is bloodless, hands trembling. “Should we take some vitamins first?”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to draw this out or even give myself a chance to really mull over this “plan.” Pretty sure I won’t realize how stupid this is until some skinhead cellmate is making me his bitch.

  “Let’s just fucking go.”

  We jump out of the car, slam our doors shut, and march across the street to Fortin Fabrics, cold rain blasting our faces.

  It’s a dull, whitewashed box of a building. Size of a large restaurant. Shares a parking lot with a paint store, and only seven cars between them. So there won’t be a lot of ­people here. Let’s hope they’re not big ­people.

  I think I spot someone in the paint store window looking at us, probably confused as hell on account of the ski masks. I just stare at the wet asphalt, listen to Courtney’s boots splashing behind me.

  I put on sunglasses as we approach the entrance. Stop and turn to Courtney, indicate for him to do the same. With the ski mask, glasses, flannel and jeans, he looks like some kind of modern interpretation of a scarecrow. A soaked scarecrow.

  “Are you sure you—­” he starts.

  I snap my fingers in front of his face. “Shut up. This is for my daughter. If we don’t get this saw, my daughter dies. Simple. Just keep thinking about that.”

  The adrenaline finally fires up as we burst through the glass door. A small front office, the kind that never actually receives ­people besides employees. Just for administration. A sixty-­year-­old woman with pink cheeks and round glasses sits behind a desk, typing on a grey, boxy computer. Before she can even let out a gasp, I’m around the desk, have a gloved hand around her mouth, my ceramic knife at her neck.

  “You have a waterjet saw inside, right?” I ask coolly, trying to emulate Courtney’s yoga voice. Her eyes are wide, darting from him, back to me. He’s not sure how to stand, so he awkwardly crosses his arms and tries to look menacing. I pray this woman doesn’t faint. “Nod yes or no.”

  It takes a few seconds. She’s confused as hell. But she eventually jerks her head up and down. Yes.

  “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth in a moment, and when I do that, I’d like you to pick up your phone, call whichever department has that saw, and tell them that the manufacturers are here. That we’ve been getting some malfunctions on the model you have, and we’re going to take it back with us today and ser­vice it. Try to fix it up. Do you understand?”

  She nods fast this time, her eyes about to pop out of her head. Courtney flinches. I can see the guilt consuming him even through his disguise.

  “If you say anything else into that phone, I’m going to stab you in the throat. You probably won’t die—­I’ll avoid the jugular—­but you will likely lose the ability to speak, and may well have to eat and drink intravenously for the rest of your life. You understand?”

  She makes a sound like mmm, muffled by my latex-­gloved hand. Courtney stares at the wet linoleum floor and shudders.

  “Just nod yes if you’re going to do what I’m asking of you as soon as I let go of your mouth. Just make that call and we’re not going to have any problems. Got it?”

  She nods, furious little nods. Tears streaming down her cheeks. Fuck. She’s definitely somebody’s grandma.

  “Alright then,” I say, deep and intense—­even scarier than yelling. The voice I’ve used a handful of times to discipline Sadie. Sadie. Sadie. “Here we go.”

  I gently remove my gloved hand from her mouth but keep the tip of my blade under her neck. She takes a deep, panicked breath, gives me a quick look, then picks up the phone. Courtney watches her fingers.

  “Keep it on speaker,” I say. She obliges. Phone rings once, then a man picks up.

  “Kerney,” he says.

  “H-­h-­hi, Patrick,” she stammers. I wrinkle my nose. I think she pissed herself. “There are two gentlemen here from, um—­”

  “AquaTech,” Courtney whispers reassuringly, leaning in over the desk. Good cop.


  “From Aq . . . AquaTech. They want to take a look at our water saw.”

  “Um . . .” Patrick has a deep fucking voice. I clench my hands into fists imagining him as a husky ape in overalls. “Alright, I mean, I’m a little busy now, but send ’em in, I guess.”

  I clamp a hand over the woman’s mouth again. Nod urgently to Courtney: Talk to him.

  Courtney throws his palms up helplessly.

  “Make him bring it to us,” I whisper.

  Courtney shivers, then leans into the phone. “Patrick?” His voice is warm and sultry. Salesman voice. For a second, I forget what we’re doing and allow myself to just admire Courtney’s composure and attention to detail. “This is Leonard Donovan from AquaTech. We actually were hoping we could take the saw with us today. We brought the truck all the way over from Boston. There have been a few users who’ve been experiencing malfunctions, and since you’re still under warranty, we thought we’d just take it back to the shop and fix it up for you.”

  “Uh . . .” Patrick sounds distracted. “I mean, I’ll probably need it this afternoon—­”

  “Yeah, I know. Thing is, it’s potentially dangerous. I’m not saying it’s likely, but we need to check the pressure envelope to make sure it hasn’t eroded. If it has, it’s really a huge hazard. I really would be more comfortable if you’d let us take a look at it. We’ll get it back to you by tomorrow morning.”

  “Um, shit. Alright fine. You want to take your truck around back to the loading dock?”

  I grit my teeth. Loading dock is no good. Then he’ll see we have a Hertz minivan and start asking questions. I lean over the desk.

  I say, “Actually we’re parked out front. Maybe you could just roll it around front for us?”

  I look down at the terrified receptionist as Patrick mulls over this request. My hand’s clamped over her mouth, knife point tickling her wrinkling neck.

  “Goddammit,” Patrick mutters into the phone. “Don’t know why you guys didn’t call first. Look, just take your truck around back to the loading dock. Gonna be way too heavy to just lift into your truck. Gotta back up to the dock.”