Over Their Heads

by Eric Beetner

  Earned me one favor, and there I was driving down the freeway, calling it in.

  “What’s the credit card number?” he said.

  I smiled and read it to him off the receipt I’d pinched from the wreckage back at the rental shop. Sean Griffin, Visa card, expires August of 2018.

  “Meet me at your place in an hour,” I said.

  “How about I get it to you tomorrow.”

  “No way. Gotta be today. ASAP. Just take an early lunch.”

  “I usually don’t take a lunch.”

  “What do you mean you don’t take lunch?”

  “I eat at my desk. I don’t like them to see me away from my work.”

  Different work ethic, that’s for damn sure. I guess that’s why a guy like Viks would never find himself in a situation like mine. Unless, of course, some asshole he used to know dragged him into it.

  “Just be there, Viks. Sandy would want—”

  “Fine. I’ll be there.”

  He hung up on me.

  22

  SKEETER

  If not a bump of something up my nose then at least a motherfucking Dr. Pepper or some shit. I was crawling out of my goddamn skin.

  I decided to call in the update. Figures I couldn’t get through to Corgan. Got some shitbag middle man punk.

  “I’m on his ass now,” I said. “No clue where’s he’s headed.”

  “You think he’s got a line on our merchandise?”

  “He sure as shit lit outta there like a rocket when the cops showed up. Must mean somethin’, right?”

  “Well, stay on him. Clyde left the hospital so maybe he knows something, too. Hopefully the asshole you’re tailing is getting his orders from Clyde.”

  “You want I should go after Clyde instead? Isn’t he the man in charge?”

  “No. Stay on that one. We got ways to keep Clyde in line.”

  I figured I’d poke the dick weed with a stick a little bit. “Those are orders direct from Corgan?”

  “Might as well be.”

  “What’s that mean? You’re the puppet and his hand is up your ass?”

  I wasn’t even sure which kiss-ass yes man I was talking to. Like frat boys and NBA fans, they all look the same to me.

  “Just keep on following your guy, Delivery Boy. Call in again if anything happens.”

  He hung up, pissed off. Like I gave a shit.

  So, fine. I follow this Brent guy for a while and hope he happens to drive right to where the Tahoe is. Sounds like a hell of a plan.

  But goddamn, any drive is a better drive with a little speed in your veins. I knew it for a fact—first thing I was gonna do when this shit was done with, was get good and high for three days. I needed the damn vacation.

  23

  CLYDE

  I managed to slip my jacket off before I fell into my car. My shirt was covered with dirt, blood, and sweat and I smelled like one of the homeless guys that asked for change downtown. I started the car, turned the air on high and then I pulled down the visor and checked myself in the rear-view. Shit. I looked like hell. Double shiners were already puffing themselves up from my bruised face, pushing my eyes toward my nose in what could have looked masculine if I hadn’t looked so terrified.

  For a crazy minute I felt like bolting, just starting the car and heading south, toward Florida and maybe Cuba from there. Let Madeline and the baby take their chances with Corgan. They were innocent, after all. Madeline was clueless about what I’d been up to. Plus, she had two sisters—one in Trenton and one in Boston. One of them would look after her and the baby.

  It was a shitty thought. Shame warmed my face. Blood dripped from my nose onto my khakis and I fished around in the glove box for a Kleenex and found nothing but the stupid CD of whale sounds we kept in the car in anticipation of Madeline’s labor. It had been in there for the last five months. We bought it and stored it for the big day and then I guess we never gave it another thought. I rested my head on the steering wheel and thought about my wife. I’d really fucked things up. She had to be wondering where I was. Had the fat nurse told her I’d been walked out by two thugs? Were the necktie twins back in there, threatening my family?

  I needed to head east, that much I knew for sure. I just didn’t know exactly where I needed to go. I needed to call Brent to figure it all out, but first I needed to talk to Madeline.

  I pulled out of the hospital parking lot, struggling to see through swollen eyes, tasting blood, swallowing it, knowing it was dripping from my nose onto my shirt and my pants. My shirt was drying in the blast from the air conditioner and I shivered a little. They’d been careful not to break my phone. I dialed Madeline, swerving to miss an old lady in a crosswalk. Horns sounded and my tires squealed, but no harm no foul. The call went to voice mail. I listened to her voice tell me to leave a message. At the beep I took a breath. “Madeline. God. I don’t know what to even say. I’m in my car. There’s something I have to do. It’s urgent or I wouldn’t have left you. But listen to me. You have to stay safe. After the baby comes, don’t let him or her out of your sight. That’s important. Don’t let the baby out of your sight. Stay together, no matter what that fat nurse says to you. Got it? I love you, babe. I love you so much. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  She would be pissed, but she would forgive me. Maybe. Corgan said he’d give me half. Not as much as I’d hoped, but enough to set us up decently. And my kid would still have a dad, provided I didn’t end up in jail.

  The phone buzzed just as I hung up and the hospital’s number flashed onto the screen.

  “Madeline,” I said, hating that my voice sounded choked.

  “Sir, this is Starla Johnson. I’m one of the nurses at Richmond General. We’ve been trying to locate you in the building, sir, but you didn’t answer any of the pages.”

  “I’m not in the building. Is Madeline okay?”

  “Well, we figured you weren’t in the building, that’s why we called your cell phone. Just a minute, please.”

  What the fuck? Was Madeline okay? I needed to call Brent.

  I merged onto I-64 East and joined the traffic moving at a snail’s pace toward the historic triangle and Busch Gardens. Everyone was ready for some good, old-fashioned fun in the sun. The nurse’s muffled voice rose and fell as she talked to someone else. Who? Another nurse? Madeline? “Hello?” I said. “Is Madeline okay?”

  She came back on the line. “Madeline’s fine, but there has been some trouble.”

  I thought of the men in the neckties. “Listen, those men are not relatives. Keep them away from my wife.”

  “I’m sorry, what? I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Those men. The ones in the neckties. They aren’t family. Keep them away from my wife.”

  She backed off again, yelling at someone to hurry up and get scrubbed, the surgeon was on the way. My stomach clenched and despite the cold blast of the A/C, sweat started to bead again on my smelly shirt. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I breathed.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”

  “There’s been a complication. Your wife is asking for you. We’ll be taking her into surgery. I don’t think at this point you’ll be allowed in, but we’ll be in O-R three in Maternity.”

  “Is she in danger?”

  “We don’t believe so, but—” and then she was gone again.

  “Is she okay? Is the baby okay?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. McDowd. I have to scrub in. The surgeon is here. Come as soon as you can.” She hung up.

  “FUCK!”

  The phone buzzed again. Brent. I picked up. “They’re headed to Williamsburg,” he said.

  24

  BRENT

  I had to wait a half hour outside Viks’s apartment building. When he finally showed up and let me into his place I got ready for the questions, but he kept quiet.

  “Aren’t you gonna ask?” I said.

  “I don’t want to know.”

  Fair
enough. He seemed grumpy, but I guess I understood why. He tapped a few things on his laptop, accessed his computer at work or something and before I knew it his printer was humming with a rundown of every credit card transaction the Griffin family made starting from back in Detroit twenty-four hours ago on to ten minutes ago.

  “Holy shit,” I said. “You can really trace someone like this?”

  Viks looked at me like I’d asked to see naked pictures of his mom. “Yes. You’re not supposed to, but you can. I can get fired for showing you, but you can. We can both get arrested, but you can.”

  “Okay, let’s not start that shit again.”

  “This is it, right, Brent? No more favors.”

  “Last and only one, I promise.”

  He handed me the single page, still warm from the printer. Not much on it. There was a fast food place back in Detroit, a charge from one of those magazine, gum and airsick pill shops in the Detroit airport terminal and one mini-mart charge here in Virginia that I guessed was traveling supplies like sodas and chips and whatever else a family that fat and Midwestern would keep in the car. Then a meal at a Waffle House.

  Viks got on the internet and using the store number locations on the receipts, we could see where the places were where they stopped. It drew a semi-straight line toward the coast and Williamsburg, which meant either the Colonial history-buff shit or Busch Gardens.

  Better than nothing.

  “Thanks, Viks. This is awesome.”

  “Okay, I wanna know,” he said.

  I folded the paper and put it in my back pocket. “I don’t think you do.”

  “I’m risking my job and jail time for this. I wanna know who the hell this guy is and why you need to find him so goddamn bad.”

  Like I said, Viks is not an intimidating specimen and this was about as heated as I’d ever seen him get.

  “For your own good, Viks, you do not. Just know that it’s not my doing. I’m looking as a favor for a friend. And this friend of mine, my boss really, he got me tangled up in this shit and so I had to get you in it and I’m super sorry, but the less you know the better.”

  “Am I in any danger?” Viks accent came out more when he was stressed. He was starting to sound like he was just off the boat.

  “Fuck, no. Not a bit. With this info,” I patted my hip pocket, “I’ll have this taken care of tonight.”

  I went to the door, thinking I needed to call Clyde and give him the update.

  “Thanks again, Viks. Seriously. This is a life saver.” I hoped I didn’t mean that literally. Flashes of the Tahoe coming through the window at my head came back to me. And the way Clyde had been talking, these guy were serious shit and they weren’t keen to wait too long to get their merchandise back.

  “I really hope I covered my tracks well enough on this,” Viks said.

  I hated to, but I left him to deal with that end of it on his own. I should have been more worried—it’s not like he would take the fall for me. He’d sing like canary at the first sign of trouble and tell anyone who would listen that I’d strong-armed him into breaching national security, which I guess I did. Didn’t take much arm twisting though.

  Either way I’d end up in Guantanamo or something. So, great, life in prison as an enemy combatant or beheaded in the street by a drug cartel. Nice life choices I’d come to.

  These guys Clyde was dealing with didn’t exactly seem like cartel guys, not like I would know. But that Skeeter guy sure wasn’t any criminal mastermind. He wasn’t even Mexican.

  Bug shit crazy for driving a Tahoe through my shop, but I couldn’t tell yet if that put him in the ranks of a beheader.

  I got back in my car and dialed up Clyde.

  “They’re headed to Williamsburg,” I said by way of greeting.

  “You found them?” The eagerness in his voice made it crack and squeak.

  “Not yet, but we got them narrowed down to a reasonable area.”

  “Family of tourists,” Clyde said, reasoning it out the same way I did. “One of two places.”

  “I can take Williamsburg first.”

  “I’ll do Busch Gardens.”

  “Shouldn’t you be with Madeline and the baby?”

  Now the exasperation in his voice made it sink low. “There’s been some trouble. She’s going into surgery, and, dude, if we don’t find that car really fucking soon, it’s not going to make a bit of difference. My kid is never gonna see his dad at all.”

  25

  SKEETER

  I had two choices: follow the douche again like a homeless puppy dog looking for a bone, or go inside and talk to whoever the hell he just went to see.

  Chances were real strong whoever was in that apartment knew where Brent was goin’ anyhow, so inside I went. I’d seen the door he left from so I knew just where to go. I knocked and an Indian answered the door carrying a laptop bag and a heavy sweat on his forehead. And when I say Indian I don’t mean like the guy on the Redskins helmet, but a real honest-to-Vishnu Indian fella.

  He sure as shit didn’t expect me, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

  I pushed him back inside his cracker box apartment.

  “So what did my buddy Brent want with y’all?”

  “What? Who are you?”

  Funny accent and everything. Classic. “I said Brent’s a buddy of mine, and I want to know what you two talked about.”

  “Are you the boss?”

  I liked the sound of that. “Yeah, I’m the boss far as you’re concerned. What did you tell him?”

  He got all squinty eyed on me, like he was deciding how deep my bullshit was.

  “I told him nothing.”

  “Wrong answer, Gandhi.” I punched him in his stomach and I thought my hand would go straight through, the bastard was so goddamn skinny. He bent in half and dropped his bag. I never met a man before that didn’t give one ounce of resistance.

  “So tell me, what did you two chat about? Old girlfriends? Baseball scores? SUVs?”

  “He had me look . . .”

  The guy was so out of breath from my one shot that he couldn’t even get a goddamn sentence out of his mouth. I felt so bad for the guy I had to motivate him a little further, so I stepped on his hand. I laid into it with the heel of my boot and felt the bones crunch around a little. I didn’t break nothing, but I could have. Gotta start somewhere though so’s you got leverage for later.

  “Had you look for what?”

  “Had me look up credit card receipts.”

  “What the fuck for?”

  “Somebody. A guy. I don’t know who.”

  He started crying like a girl. Now, I don’t know if it was a good thing he didn’t give anything back—because my nerves were a bit frayed and I don’t know how well I’d do if I had to go up against anyone with too much to give—or if it sucked because I was so on edge that I just really wanted to kick the crap outta someone.

  Either way the little pussy started pissing me off.

  “Shut off the fuckin’ waterworks and talk straight. Who did he want you to check on?”

  “I tell you I don’t know.” His eyes were squeezed shut and he ground his teeth together. I don’t know if he’d ever been in so much pain, and I hadn’t even started yet.

  I lifted my boot and he tucked his hand inside his other one and held it like a sick kitty. Just for that I kicked him the ribs. The toe of my boot could crack walnuts so a rib or two was a given thing if I kick a man in his cage.

  “Well, where the fuck is he going to next?” I shouted.

  “He’s following the printout.”

  I kicked him again. “What printout?”

  The Indian squirmed on the ground like a squashed bug. He was so long and lean it seemed like he was some kind of centipede.

  “The one I gave him.”

  “Well, fuckin’ give me one, too.”

  He had to get out his laptop and boot it up, which took a while because of his broken ribs and squished hand and all. I saw the screen and it had a bunch
of lines like a bank statement or something. Payments for McDonald’s and a Gas N Stop. The name on the account wasn’t any Brent, it was some guy named Sean Griffin.

  Now, I ain’t a smart man, but I also ain’t a dumb one. I’m looking for a missing SUV, Brent’s looking for a missing SUV. He gets this list for some Griffin guy. Don’t take more than my five grades to figure this is our man who has my car.

  I snatched the paper off the printer tray as soon as it came out.

  “This is what you gave him?” I said as I shoved it in the Indian’s face.

  “Yes. Just that sheet, that’s all.”

  “You swear to God, or all the gods you believe in?”

  “I swear on my life.”

  “Well, your life doesn’t mean shit right now so you can do better than that.” When I’d watched Brent leave he didn’t have anything in his hand, so I was inclined to believe the little bastard. Then the printer spit out another page.

  “I thought you said just that sheet?”

  “It was. Only one page. I swear it.” He started getting the doomed man’s high pitch. His voice raised up a few octaves like he’d been kicked in the balls. He knew something bad was coming down if I thought he’d lied to me.

  I grabbed the other page. It had a single listing on it from a Holiday Inn near Williamsburg.

  “Is this where he’s going?”

  “I don’t know. That transaction must have just gone through. I only gave Brent one page. Just one.”

  He still cradled his mashed up hand and he bent at a funny angle in the middle from the bad ribs. I felt like he was trying to lean away from me so I wouldn’t hit him again. Hit him? I coulda kissed him. Brent didn’t have this page, he said. I checked the time on the transaction. Four minutes ago. Mr. Griffin was in a Holiday Inn, and Brent didn’t know it.