Souvenir

by James R Benn

  “See ya,” Clay said, wishing he’d never have to again. Dom already had his back to him, heading to his heavy bettors.

  Clay walked down the hall to the rear door. The cardboard box was heavier going out than it had been going in, all that loose change sitting on top of the cash. He could feel the pull of it, the desire for easy money overwhelming him. Could he do it? What if it meant he could give up the cigarette route, sit in the Tavern and take big bets on the races, baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball in the winter? Greed could work year-round for him. Addy. Addy was a problem. A fleeting thought passed through his mind. Let her leave, then do what the hell you want. Rake in the dough. It startled him in its simplicity and directness. Let her leave, he wouldn’t have to do a thing, just keep on as things are, and it would happen.

  No. No, he shook his head, as if trying to clear it. That’s not what I want. He wanted it all, but all wasn’t in the cards. Addy or lots of money? His wife or paper sacks of worn greenbacks? Holding the box in front of him, he could feel the bag of money near his heart, and hated himself for weighing his family against easy cash.

  He hit the lever on the wide delivery door with his box and pushed it open, swinging around to clear it as it closed behind him. He took a step towards his station wagon and saw the pickup truck that had pulled in behind him blocking his car. Shovels stuck out of the white sand piled up in the truck bed. No one was in the cab, but Clay spotted a guy in cherry-red Mustang, backed into a spot at the corner of the small lot. The Mustang was running, and the guy in the driver’s seat tapped ash from his cigarette out the window. Clay could see the guy look around, checking to see the coast was clear. Then the guy looked straight at Clay, and laughed. His eyes darted right, and Clay saw who he was looking at.

  Leaning against the back of the truck, running his hand through the sand, clutching a fistful and letting it run out between his fingers, was a strangely familiar figure. He wore a black suit, white shirt and pencil-thin black tie. His pointed black leather shoes gleamed, as shiny as his slicked-back dark hair. It was the clothes that confused Clay for a second. A few days ago Clay had seen him in a deliveryman’s outfit.

  Clay felt his face flush and sweat break out down his back. His stomach felt like it hit the ground and he wasn’t sure he could speak without a tremor in his voice. He walked up to the hood of his station wagon and set the cardboard box down on it.

  “Liquor on Monday and sand on Thursday, Al?”

  “It’s nice you remember me, Mr. Brock.”

  “You got me in a fair amount of trouble last time I saw you. Not hard to remember that.” Clay glanced over at the guy in the Mustang. He had gotten out and was leaning against the adjacent car. Al still leaned into the truckbed, playing with the clean white sand.

  “Fiorenza must’ve been pissed, huh?”

  He looked over at Clay, smiling, one eyebrow raised in question, as if he were a pal asking about a practical joke.

  “Is that what you came here to find out?” Clay asked, crossing his arms out in front of his chest. Al looked up at him, shook the sand from his hands and walked over to stand next to the driver’s door of the station wagon. Clay was up on the sidewalk, the cardboard box on the hood, between them, as if it meant nothing at all.

  “Why do you think I’m here, Mr. Brock?” Al put his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, very slightly. Clay looked at the other guy again. He was big and beefy, his weight pressing down the car on one side as he leaned against it. He had big ears that stuck straight out from his head.

  He looked bored, not jumpy the way you might be if you were about to grab eight thousand smackers. Clay wondered if this was about something else. He had to do everything he could to not draw attention to the cardboard box.

  “Lift my smokes and chump change from my first pickup? And at the country club? The numbers are too low class for them, never has been a big stop for me. Doesn’t make sense. Maybe if you sent Dumbo over there to my last stop…”

  “Richie is very sensitive about his ears, Mr. Brock. I wouldn’t say that too loud.” Al was smiling, maybe at the thought of telling Richie what Clay had called him. “You’re right, I’m not after chump change.”

  Al took a step towards the box. Clay tensed, and tried not to show it. He felt a line of sweat working its way down his face and his heart racing. He had to hold back from grabbing the box and running like hell. If they didn’t know about the cash yet he’d be okay. Al reached into the box and pulled up the leather zipper bag full of change. He shook it, and the silver jingled and jangled inside.

  “You work for this?” Al asked, tossing the bag back into the box. “Driving all over, picking up quarters for Fiorenza? Is that what you want?”

  “Nobody gives a crap what I want,” Clay said, “including you. Now what the hell do you want from me?”

  “That’s very perceptive, Mr. Brock. And that’s why I’m here. I’ve been studying Fiorenza’s operation for a while, and you’re a pretty important part of it. You bring in good numbers at your tavern, you’re working the cigarette angle, and your pickups are substantial. There’s only one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He doesn’t pay you enough.”

  “And you would.”

  “A bigger percentage, yeah,” Al said, “and expansion. Bigger territory, more opportunity. Fiorenza’s too old to make a move like that. But the DePaoli family isn’t. If I don’t take over from him, someone else will sooner or later anyway. A matter of time, that’s all.”

  “So you’re here to offer me a deal?”

  “Yeah. Work with me, Mr. Brock, and it’ll be worth it to both of us. Bring over your route to us, and we’ll put money into your tavern, make it a real nice place. For you and your lady.”

  “It’s not for sale.”

  “You think it over, give me a call when you decide. It’d be a partnership, that’s all,” Al said as he stuffed a piece of paper with a phone number on it into Clay’s shirt pocket. Walking back to the truck, he stopped and grabbed one of the shovels that stuck out of the sand. “But remember, this is a one-time offer. Get in on the ground floor…”

  He raised the shovel and swung it against the rear window of the station wagon. It clanged against the glass as it shattered. The window held for a second, then disintegrated into a jumble of tiny glass pieces.

  “…or end up under the ground.”

  Al dropped the shovel and snapped his fingers toward Richie. He shuffled over and got into the truck, started it up and drove it forward, enough for Clay to be able to pull out.

  “We’ll be in touch for your decision,” Al said, a smirk lingering on his lips, “if we don’t hear from you.”

  Turning away he walked to the Mustang, Richie following along. As they drove out Clay could see Al gesturing with his thumb towards him, laughing, as Richie leaned forward over the steering wheel, glaring at him. Big ears.

  Clay held his stance until they were out of the lot, then dropped to his knees, steadying himself with his hands on the hood of his car, feeling weak and dizzy. Smashing the window had been unexpected, but that’s what Al had intended. What would he have done if he knew there was eight thousand bucks in there? The loss of eight thousand, plus the pay-outs, would’ve hurt Mr. Fiorenza, so much that he’d have to make an example of the dope that lost it. His head swimming uncontrollably he retched, spraying his bumper with a stream of fear, bile and beer.

  Leaning on the side of the car, Clay grabbed the box and unlocked the door of the car, stuffing the box in the back seat. His mouth was sour and his throat burned, but he focused on getting out of there and stashing the cash somewhere safe. As he backed up, he could hear the tinkle of glass shards as pieces of the rear window fell to the ground. He drove slowly and deliberately, not wanting to draw attention to himself and then have to answer questions about the shattered window or what he had in the back seat. He turned on the radio, desperate for a distraction. He found th
e game in time to hear Mantle hit a home run and win it for the Yanks in the bottom of the ninth. He tried to get excited about it, but it wasn’t the same. There was no switching allegiance at this point.

  Driving down Pratt Street, Clay started to turn onto Mill, forgetting that the road was being repaved. It was a short stretch, but the Town crew had started yesterday, jack hammering up the pavement, blocking off one end of Mill Street. Parking for customers was going to be a problem, not to mention the noise. He took the long way, going around on Cedar Street. He eyed the road crew as he pulled in, slowly coming closer, the constant noise from their generator bad enough without the staccato bursts of the jack hammer. In back of the Tavern, he hosed down the front bumper and rinsed his mouth out from the spigot. Stacking his boxes inside, he checked on Cheryl to make sure she was okay at the bar, then went back into his office and locked the door behind him.

  Walking over to his old roll top desk, he moved the chair aside, got down on his hands and knees and stretched his arm out until his fingertips grabbed hold of a groove in the floorboards. Lifting a short section of three floorboards, they came up, held together by a strip of wood nailed across the bottom. He reached in the hole and pulled out a red tin box. Laying it on the desk, he took the paper sack with Dom’s eight thousand and put it in the hole, laying the boards carefully back over it. He sat in the chair and laid his hands on the red tin box. Taking a deep breath, letting it out, he opened the box. He pulled out a bundle wrapped in chamois cloth and unwound the cloth, placing the Colt .45 Automatic on his desk. It rested in its shoulder holster, the leather of the strap and holster still supple after twenty years. A two-clip pouch, marked with a round U.S. stamp, lay at the bottom of the tin box. Taking the pistol out of the holster, Clay removed the clip, checked to be sure the chamber was empty and made sure the safety was on. It was the same ritual he followed every year when he took it out and cleaned it, rubbing the leather holster down with mink oil. He never thought he’d need to use it, but couldn’t think of anything else to do with it. It was the only thing he’d brought back from the war. Everything else had been stolen while he was in the hospital. Enlisted men weren’t supposed to have them, but everyone wanted a sidearm, and although German pistols were easier to get, you were taking a chance if you got captured with one. The Krauts didn’t like it when they found G.I.s with their hardware, and you were likely to get beat up or worse if had a Luger or Walther in your pocket.

  Pistols weren’t actually fired that often, but it was nice to have one. For close in fighting, when there wasn’t room to swing your rifle around, a pistol was the thing. But Addy didn’t see much use for one around the house, and when Chris started walking she demanded that Clay get rid of it. He told her he gave it away. For the past fourteen years, he had pulled it out from under the floorboards, and every year, he looked forward to it. The smell of the oil, the feel of the blue metal, the soft leather and hard memories.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do next, but as he took out the gun oil and cleaning rags, he knew that he had to stop letting things happen to him. All his life, others had made him go here or do this. Forced him into things he’d never thought possible. Addy had every right to let him know her conditions. He could meet them or not. It was the way she was, and it was one of the things that had first attracted him to her. Her certainty. She knew the path she wanted to take in life, and at a time when Clay had no direction other than getting from one day to the next, it had appealed to him.

  Addy had moved to Meriden to take a job with the phone company. Clay had gotten off the train there because he didn’t have the fare to go any farther. Addy had wanted to support herself and get some distance from the rest of her family in Rhode Island. Six other brothers and sisters, her mother and father both mill workers with little left at the end of the day for their brood. There was scant food on the table, birthdays were forgotten, clothes went unmended, and school was not as important as the afternoon jobs the kids held, all their earnings going to their parents to help pay the rent.

  It wasn’t a life Addy wanted to pass on, so she left the state, got a good job, and decided she’d only ever have one child. That way she could give it all the love, clothes, books and food it needed. She told Clay her plans the first day they met at the picnic. A plan. Addy always had a plan. Now her plan was to get away from the crime Clay had brought into their life. It made sense. She had given him fair notice and a choice.

  Mr. Fiorenza and Al, they gave him no choice. It was their way or nothing. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Removing the slide he gently oiled the metal, watching the oil settle into the engraved “U.S. Property” letters.

  Being in the Army had been the ultimate in control, being told what to wear, what to eat, where to go, who to kill. Oddly enough, it was when they were all together at the front that he had felt the freest of all. He could think about every choice, where to dig a hole, where to place a foot, which way to go, high ground or low ground? No fire, or risk a fire? All life or death decisions, and they were his to make. He couldn’t decide to go home, but he could decide how to best stay alive. Stay off the ridgeline, keep out of open fields. Listen. Watch. Fire. Move. Every minute held a decision to be made, if you wanted to stay alive. It was time he started acting like that here. Stop plodding along and assuming everything’s going to be okay. The feel of the crosshatched grip made him think that it just might be possible. Stop being the other guy’s patsy. He opened and closed his palm around the grip again. Yes, it could work.

  Addy wouldn’t have to know. I can tell her I’m done, and that’s that. I have to plan this out, carefully, so she never knows anything happened. I’ll come home one day and tell her it’s all over, it was no big deal, no problems.

  Clay stared at the automatic, and at his hand wrapped around it. Here, behind locked doors he felt himself at the far end of a long line of space and time separating himself from his wife and son. There was so much they didn’t know about him, so much that they’d never know. You couldn’t tell anybody who hadn’t been there the whole truth. You couldn’t even think about it yourself half the time, how could you ever tell them? Even if you could, it would defile them with gore and horror, lathering them with your killing frenzy, opening up a book of death for them to read. He remembered Red writing letters home after guys had been killed. He never knew what hit him, he’d write. Everything was going fine, then out of nowhere…he never knew…it was all over in seconds. What he really meant was you’ll never know, thank God, how he screamed and how we couldn’t help him and how long he took to die out there and how scared we all were.

  Clay’s head pounded. He felt the tears pushing against the dam of his eyes. He could never tell them, they should never have to know, and that was right and good. But he knew that it also meant they would never be able to really know who he was, really understand him, his demons and stories and joys and shame. Never.

  So much had happened twenty years ago, and so much of that only he knew. He, and this pistol he cradled in his hand. No matter what good and evil it had done, it was his only connection to the past. His past made real by the feel of cold metal, the dull, glistening sheen of the dark barrel giving away nothing, knowing everything.

  Chapter Twelve

  2000

  The siren swirls in his ears, dipping in and out, a whining crescendo followed by a chirping whirr that bottoms out and then starts all over again. He’s heard the sound before.

  Of course he has, who hasn’t heard a siren? Coming down the street, whipping by you as you pull to the side of the road. An ambulance appearing in your rearview mirror, the sound coming from nowhere as lights fill your mirror and then disappear, the flashing and noise fading as the ambulance rounds a curve and vanishes. Cars pull back into the road, order and normalcy restored, drivers shaking their heads, poor sunavbitch, hope he’s gonna make it. Wonder what’s for dinner tonight?

  But this sound is different. It doesn’t fade away, it just keeps on going, reach
ing for that high, shrill note and then dropping back, just a bit, letting you think this time it might stop, but it doesn’t. Someone’s in big trouble. No—wait, it’s me. I’m in trouble, I know it.

  Something is pressed into his face, and he tries to pull at it, but can’t move his arms. They’re stuck at his side, immobile. Panic surges through his body, up from his belly and out the top of his head. He can’t move! He swivels his head but can’t get his arms to move. He feels something pressing down on them, rope or straps tight against his skin. His frail arms, skin wrapped around bone, muscle and flesh worn away under the weight of years, can’t move the weight.

  Am I tied up? Where am I? Are they taking me off the line? No, no. It was raining. I was in the car. Whose car? Was I driving? Was there an accident?

  His eyelids are heavy and they feel thick and coarse as they lay shut over his eyes. He tries to open them, focusing all his energy. Open, open, open. It feels like waking from a deep, sound sleep, when you don’t want to get out of bed, or maybe don’t have to. What a good idea. Don’t even try. Why do I need to open my eyes anyway? What’s all the fuss? He can’t remember, but know it’s important, and he has to struggle against the easy fatigue that could let him drift off if he let it.

  Tiny slits let in light as his eyelids part. Somebody in a yellow raincoat is bent over him, fiddling with something, he can’t tell what. Water runs off the slick coat and dampens the sheet covering him. The raincoat moves and there’s two people standing next to each other. No, that isn’t it…everything is doubled up, images stacked onto each other and overlapping. He can see the window to his side. It is dark gray and streaked with rain, and then another, a mirror image, above the first window. There hadn’t been windows, and this confuses him. Why is there a window there now, never mind two? He has no idea where he is, where he is going. He closes his eyes, afraid of what else he might see and not understand.