by Eric Beetner
As a way of thanking the Indian for his help, I kicked over his chair. He’d almost leaned all the way out of it, so I only helped him over the edge. He went crashing down and bounced his head off a weird little low coffee table with a brass elephant on it.
I left him on the floor, crying again. I hoped Mr. Sean Griffin would be better company.
26
SEAN
We got a second floor room with a little balcony that overlooked the pool. Linda was still pouting because I snapped at her.
“I just wanted you to park closer to the door to let us get the bags out,” she said. “You didn’t need to bite my head off.”
I don’t know why I felt bad about it. Linda could find a way to be pissed about anything. Somewhere along the line she got it in her head that being a woman meant being angry and overworked and being married meant fighting all the time. It was bullshit really. And I’d been married to her long enough to call a bitch a bitch. And Linda was a bitch. But, she was still my wife. And in this particular instance, the mess we were in really wasn’t her fault.
Chad and Becky changed into their suits and headed down to the pool. Linda called room service and ordered ice cream sundaes. She’d eat two of them and then be mad at me for letting her do it. Still, I refrained from pointing out it had only been an hour or so since we’d eaten and that she’d made me promise before we left Detroit not to let her eat too much during our trip. Christ, I wouldn’t win. I couldn’t win, no matter what I did.
She hadn’t spoken to me since we checked in. She really hadn’t spoken at all except to call room service. I could hear Chad and Becky down in the pool splashing around. I peeked out the window to make sure they were okay. Already they were turning pink in the sun. Linda was normally insistent about sunblock and sunglasses, but when she was in the a pout, she was a little more lax about things. This way, she could blame me for their sunburns.
“Hey,” I called out the window. “Put this on.” I tossed a bottle of Coppertone down to them and turned to face Linda.
“We’ve got to talk,” I said.
She pursed her lips and flared her nostrils, but at least she looked at me. It looked like she was going to say something, but a knock on the door took her away. She disappeared down the tiny hallway to the door and came back leading a kid in a polyester getup that was supposed to look like a tuxedo into the room. He sat the tray on one of the beds and handed Linda the ticket to sign.
“Not me, son,” she said, sitting down and picking up a dish of ice cream. “Give it to him.” She gestured to me with a spoon. “He’s Mr. Moneybags.”
The kid cleared his throat and held out the ticket. I added a tip, signed it, and handed it back. When he left I sat next to Linda.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
She was still angry, still pouting. Her nostrils flared again as she took a bite of ice cream. She turned it over in her mouth. “So talk,” she said.
I looked down at my hands as if staring at them would let me know what to say, would guide me through the next few minutes.
After a minute she put down the spoon. “Well, Jesus,” she said. “Now you’re starting to scare me.”
I cleared my throat and looked at her. She had a little bit of chocolate syrup in the corner of her mouth. I wondered if I still loved her. Maybe this was what it was to be married, to sit beside someone you didn’t really even like very much and tell them the bad shit you’ve done, knowing that they’ll stick with you mainly because they have to.
It wasn’t like I murdered anyone. I just took money that was rightfully mine. Somehow, I knew Linda wouldn’t see it that way. And yet, she was it. She was all I had and someone at that car lot was trying to get in touch with me, had probably already called the police, and I just didn’t know what else to do.
Throughout our marriage, it had always been Linda who had the answers, who ran the show. I earned the money, and she tucked it into our checking account and used it to make our little world run.
“What is it?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed and she licked at the little speck of chocolate on the corner of her mouth. “Oh my God, Sean. What did you do?”
I took her hands in mine, and I told her.
27
SKEETER
Holiday Inns, do they even have those anymore?
Another reason I really could use a new car was this thing didn’t have a damn GPS. Why the hell should I poke around the darkness like a blind man who lost his cane when I can get maps from space beamed right to my dashboard? I tell you, what I couldn’t do with a decent goddamn paycheck for once.
I thought out loud, “Corgan better damn well appreciate this when it’s all over. Otherwise, next load I may just up and run off with myself. I ain’t even met the man but I’ll be good and goddamned if this Griffin dude thinks he’s got more balls than me.”
I spotted the hotel by the sign off the highway. A tall orange and blue lighted thing that might as well have been a big ol’ ATM sign for me. Payday.
I pulled off and found my way to the parking lot and went way round back to park in the shadows. I took my keys with me and tried to decide if I was gonna move the shit from the Tahoe into my own car, or finally ditch the old rust bucket and take the Tahoe as originally intended.
Yeah, better to do that. Corgan hated it when the plan got altered.
Now, to find out what room our Mr. Griffin is in. The guy behind the counter wore a sweater vest so I immediately picked him out as a queer. Flirting with a fine young gal fit right in my wheelhouse, but I wasn’t gonna get no information by acting like I wanted to suck this guy off behind the vending machines. Some things just ain’t worth it.
I decided to go for confident with minor annoyance. Anyone in the service industry just wants to get you out of their face if they think you’re going make their day even two percent more difficult.
“Hey, hoss. My uncle check in yet?”
I set my bare arms on the counter and started drumming my fingers. They hate that.
The queer boy made a face like someone had just cut a fart and asked, “And who is your uncle?”
“Griffin.”
He typed a few things into the keyboard, but then turned and looked out to the pool.
“I believe the Griffins are on our pool deck.”
I followed his look and saw two chubby kids getting set to do cannonballs in the pool outside. I didn’t see any grownups and I didn’t figure a pair of teenagers to steal my Tahoe and my load, but if Mom and Dad were out there on a lounge chair I’d just have to invite them inside where we could talk privately.
“Thanks, hoss,” I said and let him get a good long look at my ass as I went.
28
SEAN
Linda stared at her feet, letting the sundaes melt in their dishes. “I don’t know what to say, Sean. I don’t know what to say.” Her lips made that funny twitchy movement they do whenever she’s mad.
Kids’ voices floated up and into our room along with the smell of chlorine. It was the sort of sound that would have made me want an afternoon nap on any other day. I felt like I had been up for days, worrying about getting caught, waiting for it to happen.
“So what the hell are we supposed to do now?” she asked. “I suppose I should call my parents.”
“No, Linda. Don’t call them. If you call them it will just make things worse.”
“Jesus, Sean, how could things get any worse? You’re a criminal for God’s sakes. A fucking loser criminal.”
Someone down below in the pool did a cannonball and squeals erupted, followed by giggles. I hated to think of Linda calling her parents. We were already planning to visit them and that visit would go the same as all the others, with or without my criminal activities. Her mother would ask her, ever so slyly, why she hadn’t married that nice Michael Turner with the big ears. Such a nice boy.
I had ignored her blathering for years, but lately, I had been wondering the same thing myself. Linda probably should
have married Michael Turner with the big ears. Then she’d be his problem.
She was still talking, incessantly talking. I imagined wrapping my hands around her neck and squeezing the life from her pasty face.
A knock at the door interrupted her tirade.
I left her sitting on the bed beside the ice cream dishes and dirty napkins.
A skinny kid in a dirty, sleeveless T-shirt stood at the door.
“Give me your fuckin’ keys,” he said.
A lot of things ran through my head right then, like somebody was going to see this piece of trash asshole standing in the hall outside my door . . . like Linda was going to freak out when she saw him . . . like how the hell did he get all those tattoos on such scrawny arms . . . like what the hell had he been doing to get such rotten teeth? But the main thought that came in, the one that blocked out all the others and screamed at me in stereo, was that he’d been sent from Detroit to break my thumbs or cut off my dick, or arrest me. Maybe he was one of those Dog the Bounty Hunter types.
All those thoughts happened in rapid fire motion, one after the other and while I was just finishing up, he pulled back one of those scrawny little arms and landed a ringed fist right in my gut. I sank to my knees, my hand involuntarily reaching for the little shit. He backed up a step, kicked me to the side, and moved around me into the room. “I said give me your fuckin’ keys.”
“Ack, ack,” came out of my mouth. I was trying to tell him to fuck off.
He moved down the tiny hall into the bedroom where Linda was. Good luck, Chuck. She was pissed off and had just eaten two ice cream sundaes. No way in hell was she going to put up with any shit.
“Who the hell are you?” I heard her say.
I crawled in their direction on all fours, sucking wind. When I was finally able to push myself to my feet, it was to the sight of the skinny dude holding a gun on Linda. “I need the keys to your car,” he said.
“You look like the sort who could just hot wire it, so why don’t you do that.” Linda crossed her arms in front of her.
“We don’t want any trouble,” I said. “I’ll give the money back.”
“Jesus Christ, you moved the load? You liquidated it? It wasn’t yours to sell, you FUCK!” He shot a hole in the floor.
For a second I was afraid the kids would hear the shot and come running, but the gun wasn’t too loud. It sounded more like a firecracker and with the amount of noise everyone at the pool was making, it probably didn’t even register as a sound to them.
“I’m on vacation,” Linda said. “I’ve waited five years for this and I’m not going to have it ruined by some wiry little shit in a jean vest.”
“Fucking cow,” he said and pointed the gun at her.
I shot off the bed and aimed for his tiny little legs. I was about four times bigger than he was and I knocked him into the low dresser that held the TV. We fell to the floor with me on top. The gun flew out of his hand and landed somewhere by the sliding glass doors. Linda had hefted herself off the bed, grabbing the room service tray as she stood. The ice cream dishes flew, spraying the dingy carpet with chocolate syrup and strawberry sauce. She hefted me from the kid with one arm, tossing me aside like I was nothing but dirty laundry. It occurred to me to wonder how I had never noticed she was so strong, but then she brought the tray down on the top of his head with a loud TWANG! The kid’s eyes fluttered once, twice, and then they closed.
“Did I kill the little shit?” she asked. “I hope I killed him.”
“Jesus, Linda. We gotta get out of here.”
“Is that one of the creeps you work with? Is this what I have to look forward to the rest of my vacation?” She was zipping suitcases and putting them by the door. “Move it,” she said.
I grabbed as many as I could. A brisk sweat had started under my arms and around my neck. My gut ached where he punched me. It also hurt deeper. Maybe I was going to have a heart attack. Maybe I would just die. Who the hell was I married to?
We moved out through the hall, down the stairs and past the checkout desk. I had already paid with my credit card. They’d track me down. There was no question of that. They’d find the guy in our room, the bullet hole in the carpet, and I’d be in jail.
I stowed the bags in the Tahoe and climbed in. It had already cooled off a little when Linda showed up, towing two wet, sun-baked, pissed off teens behind her.
29
BRENT
Some lights are meant to lure you in, like a bug to one of those zapper things. Other lights make your gut seize up and make you want to turn and run the other way. Things like police lights.
There’s something unnerving about cop lights on without the siren. The urgency is gone and that means something happened, as in past tense. As in, move along, nothing more to see here. An ordinary space, say a Holiday Inn, becomes a crime scene.
I drove by slowly, the elation I felt when I saw the sign off the highway oozing out of me like a nice buzz wearing off. When Viks had called me and told me about both the weird guy who came in and beat the crap out of him and the new credit card charge for Sean Griffin, I felt guilty that he’d been beaten, but thrilled that I had the new lead.
Of course I knew exactly who the guy was who terrorized Viks. Skeeter, the same jerk-off who crashed a Tahoe though a wall at my face. Had to be him. And he had a lead on me. I asked Viks how long it had been since Skeeter was at his house and he told me fifteen minutes. After I yelled at him for tending to his wounds first and not calling me immediately, he had to get off the phone since the ambulance had arrived to take him to the hospital to get his ribs set and his hand x-rayed... I felt bad all over again.
I hope I looked like any other rubbernecker as I drove by the scene. Three police cars, their lights in an unsynchronized frenzy of red and blue, crowded around the main entrance of the hotel. A guy in a sweater vest who I took to be the manager was speaking to a cop, waving his arms and describing the evening’s activities in animated detail.
I almost drove over the curb when I saw Skeeter. He was sitting on the back bumper of a police car with an ice pack on his head and telling his version of events to a different cop. I was too far away to hear anything so I parked and got out to join the small crowd of onlookers.
I kept away from Skeeter and tried to stand close to the manager and get some of the story. The cop was taking notes.
“And then they just left?”
The manager swung his arms around and moved his fingers to indicated the quick shuffling of feet. “They all piled in their car and just took off. The kids still had bathing suits on.” He waited for the cop to be as amazed as he was. The cop gave him nothing.
“Did you see what kind of car it was?”
“Chevy Tahoe. Black.”
Shit. Our car. So the Griffins still had it. I didn’t know yet if that was a good or a bad thing.
“License plate?” the cop asked.
“I didn’t get the number, at least not all of it. It had a six.” I breathed a small sigh of relief, but the guy in the sweater vest went on. “I did notice it had a license plate cover. Y’know those things that go around it and advertise, like, the dealership or something?”
“Yeah,” the cop said, disinterested in any detail except the license for his report.
“Well, it was for a car rental place. Clyde McDowd Rentals. I remember it because it sounded so weird. Like, who rents from a cheap ass place like that?”
A cold chill broke out over my body. It would all be coming back to us. Damn it damn it damn it. I heard what I needed to. The SUV was gone, now the cops knew where it came from and apparently Skeeter hadn’t been able to loosen it from Sean Griffin’s grasp. What that last bit of information meant I wasn’t sure, but I needed some advice, or at least to pass the cold sweats on to someone else.
I called Clyde.
“Forget it, they’re on the run again,” I said.
“What? How do you know?”
“I’m parked outside the hotel they registe
red at, but they’re gone with the Tahoe and they left behind a crowd of cops and our pal Skeeter with a lump on his head.”
“How the fuck did that happen?”
“I don’t know and I’m not about to ask him or a cop for the story.”
I debated telling him about the license plate cover, but I could hear the panic in his voice. The man was about to be a father, how could I shit on his happy day anymore? The news would keep.
“Look,” I said, “you stay with Madeline. I’ll keep after Griffin. At least we know we’re close.”
“What the fuck is Skeeter gonna tell Corgan?”
“We can’t help that. As long as he gets his load back, he’ll be fine.” I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, but it made me a little calmer to hear it. Maybe it would do the same for Clyde.
“Alright. Shit. Call me as soon as you know something, okay?”
“Will do.”
I drove away, leaving the silent flashing lights behind.
30
CLYDE
I pulled over to the side of the road and reminded myself to breathe. Purple Tie and Blue Tie could still be at the hospital. It was entirely probable that they were there watching over Madeline, waiting for my kid to be born. I gripped the steering wheel tight. Traffic shot past me, causing the car to shudder in a spasm of summer air. I thought of calling Madeline, of asking her to understand, but that would only make me look like a bigger asshole. This wasn’t for her to understand. This was my mess and all I could do now was try to clean it up.
I pulled back out into traffic wondering if I should eat something. It was past lunchtime, coming on toward dinner. Would I still be alive at sunset? The thought turned my bowels to water.
I pulled off at the first exit, used the restroom, and got back on the highway heading west, toward Richmond. I drove ninety, planning to use the “my wife’s having a kid” line as an excuse. It was the truth and I’d already exploited Madeline and the baby so what was a little more bullshit added to the steamy pile.
