Tar Heel Dead

by Sarah R. Shaber

  “Deborah!” her mother startled, a hand to her sagging bosom as she came through the swinging doors from the kitchen. “You almost gave me a heart attack! I didn’t hear you come in!”

  “I-I-I,” Deborah stammered, her eyes still fixed on her father. He had remained entirely motionless and silent throughout the exchange—as he would have, being made from canvas and cotton batting.

  “You caught me before I had a chance to clear up breakfast,” her mother fussed, grabbing at a plate soiled with poached egg and toast and heading back to the kitchen.

  Deborah stood rooted to her spot, tilting her head and examining the specimen of her father as if trying to understand some alien species. The face was painstakingly sculpted and painted, the gray hairs applied individually and so skillfully she wondered idly if they had to be trimmed occasionally. “Mama, what is this?” she asked, her voice now taking on an exasperated tone.

  “It’s nothing, Deborah,” her mother called from behind the door. “Don’t trouble yourself about it. It’s just a doll. Mrs. Leiberman told me about a woman who makes life-sized dolls, and I decided to have one made of Shelton. Don’t make more of it than it is,” she said as she pushed back through the doors and used her hand to brush a few crumbs of toast from the tablecloth. She pushed in her chair, picked up the newspaper, and placed it on top of a neat stack in a wicker basket. Then she grabbed her pseudo-husband by the hair and hoisted him up, swinging him unceremoniously around the back of the chair and depositing him with a thump in an armoire in the hallway. “There,” she said, wiping her hands on her housedress, “all tidied up. What are you doing here so early, dear?”

  “I came to bring you your prescription, Mama. I knew you were almost out,” Deborah said, squeezing the bridge of her nose and struggling to keep her voice level. “Now tell me about this—” she hesitated, motioning vaguely toward the armoire, struggling to fit a word to the situation. In the end she could find no better characterization than her mother’s—“this doll.”

  “What’s to tell? It’s nothing, Deborah. I told you. It’s just a doll,” her mother said, trying to sound defiant, but her voice was now quivering.

  Deborah sighed and pulled her mother into the living room and sat her down. The plastic her mother insisted on keeping over her davenport crinkled under Deborah’s legs as she sat down beside her.

  “Mama, this can’t go on,” she said softly. “Pops has been gone for a while now. You’re going to have to accept it. You’ve got to find a way to get on with your life. It’s time.”

  “I am ‘getting on with my life,’ as you say.” She mimicked Deborah’s delivery. “I get on just fine. You’re just blowing this up all out of approportion, Deborah.”

  “Proportion,” Deborah corrected absently.

  “Whatever,” her mother said, patting her hair. She wore it skinned back into such a tight bun that the tension in her face gave her a perpetually questioning look. “I know very well that Shelton is gone. I’ve accepted it and I’m getting on just fine.”

  “Mama,” Deborah said, throwing up both hands and letting them fall helplessly on the couch’s cushions, “you have pictures of Pops in every room of the house, you’ve kept all his clothes and things—you still keep up all his magazine subscriptions, for God’s sake!” She plucked a copy of Popular Mechanics from its place in the fan configuration on the coffee table, presenting it to her mother as evidence.

  “I like to look at that magazine sometimes, too,” her mother said, turning away from the offending issue and feigning interest in the arrangement of chotchkes on the coffee table: a silver cigarette lighter, though no one in the house had ever smoked; a candle carved into the shape of a fish, which she’d never allowed anyone to light; and a cut-glass candy dish filled with buttermints circa 1970, which no one ever ate. “It’s inter-resting.”

  “Oh, it’s inter-resting, huh?” Deborah asked, flipping open the pages and reading, “‘Toolbox Treasures: Great New Picks from the Hardware Show’; ‘The Best Wet-Dry Vac on the Market’; ‘The Car Clinic: Fixing a Leaky Radiator.’ Yeah, Mama, this is right up your alley,” she said, slapping the magazine shut.

  “You don’t have to get sardonic with me, Deborah,” her mother said, pulling herself up straighter and arranging the magazines back into their perfect fan.

  “Sarcastic, Mama,” Deborah said through clenched teeth. “I don’t have to get sarcastic with you.”

  “No, you don’t,” her mother agreed, smiling as she patted her daughter’s hand and picked lint off the sleeve of Deborah’s new coat.

  Jimmy squinted at the brownstone, concentrating. The woman had gone in a good ten minutes ago. She was dressed in a long black coat and looked all business. A fed? But alone? Feebs almost always worked in pairs, he was pretty sure. Somebody from the prosecutor’s office? Whatever—he didn’t like how this was shaping up. Too many loose ends.

  He’d never had things go bad like this. He was a meticulous planner. His brother Joey had given him the nickname Jimmy the Nitpick for his attention to detail. It had bugged Jimmy at first, but it was better than what they called Joey—behind his back, anyway.

  Joey’d had only one ambition from the time they were snot-nosed little boys. Joey wanted to be a wise guy. He wanted to be connected. He started carrying a switchblade when he was fifteen and calling himself Joey the Blade. But Joey had one problem—he just didn’t have it in him to hurt anyone. When this became obvious his buddies had started calling him Joey the Butter Knife.

  Jimmy had never had the kinds of ambitions Joey had. He didn’t want to be connected. He didn’t care about rank or respect. He pretty much just wanted to be left alone. But he did like money. Jimmy would do anything for anyone if the price was right. No loyalties or constraints. He took a job, or he refused it, his choice. An independent contractor.

  No, Jimmy didn’t share his brother’s ambitions. He also didn’t have his brother’s sweet nature. That was for people who wanted to end up having friends snicker behind your back. Jimmy didn’t want the snickering—or the friends.

  What Jimmy had was a flourishing assortment of idiosyncrasies and urges. Like now he really needed to step over and check the return-change slot on the pay phone outside the little bodega where he was skulking in the doorway watching the brownstone. He’d already checked it five or six times since he’d been waiting, and no one had used the phone in the meantime. But he felt a pressing urgency to check it again. This time it might have a coin in it. There was no reason to believe it did, but Jimmy’s brain was wired to allow for a continual string of maybe-this-times—logic be damned. And so what if it did have a coin in it—chump change. The coin wasn’t the point. The point was that when he put his finger into the slot, there might be a coin in there. The fulfillment of the maybe—that was the point.

  Jimmy had made it this far—three weeks from his twenty-fourth birthday—without being popped. Not once, not even juvie stuff. His record was as clean as his apartment, and you could perform surgery in there. He didn’t get caught because he never left anything to chance. He planned to the last detail and checked—and rechecked—everything, way past the point of caution or reason.

  Until now Jimmy had never taken on the big job—never taken a contract to dust anyone. Not out of faintness of heart or any jiggle of his moral compass—Jimmy’s only true north was a dollar sign. But the big job always brought heat, and Jimmy definitely preferred a cool climate. If the big job was ever required, however, Jimmy knew just how he’d do it. He’d use the Glock, one to the body, one to the head, by the book. And he’d stay around until the close of business.

  Jimmy stayed with second-layer stuff where the pay was good and nobody got all lathered up about things. He applied his skills like any craftsman. He studied and he planned. But as the most recent job had taught him, there are some things you just can’t anticipate.

  It should have been a walk in the park. He’d just been supposed to stick the guy up. Make it look like a routine robbery,
something he did with regularity. Take the guy’s watch, the diamond cuff links, and the wallet. Jimmy would get the jewelry, whatever cash was in the wallet, plus his fee for the job. All he had to do was hand over the small white card with a list of numbers on it that was tucked inside the lining of the wallet. The guy was a short, overweight, pasty-faced accountant. If he’d had half a brain he wouldn’t even have been hurt—not bad, anyway. He’d have had a doozy of a headache the next day and a lump the size of a golf ball on the back of his head—but he would have been alive. And he’d have been wise to the error of his ways and very eager to make amends.

  If the pitiful little toad hadn’t decided to fight it out, if he hadn’t thought he stood a chance of getting to the gun he had stashed in his glove compartment, Jimmy would never have shot him. Wouldn’t have had his ski mask torn off by the flailing man, wouldn’t have ended up chasing the bleeding man out into the street and up onto the front stoop to finish him off. Wouldn’t have been spotted as he stood bathed in light from the street lamp outside the brownstone.

  And after all that, he hadn’t even gotten the card. Sometime during their tussle the guy’s wallet had gone airborne. The little worm had pulled it out and run with it, like he was going to find a place to hide it or something. Like they were a couple of kids playing Keep Away! By the time Jimmy took care of him and started to look for the wallet, people were yelling and he could hear sirens coming closer, so he bolted. The wallet was probably sitting in the property room of the local precinct at this very moment. But it wouldn’t be there for long, Jimmy knew that. Somebody on the inside would get the job of lifting it from there.

  Jimmy’s contact had told him that all was forgiven for the botched job, but he was watching his back just the same. The tension was activating a facial tic that made him blink in a series of three, then two, then three again, like some berserk Morse code.

  He shifted from one foot to the other. If the old grayhead was talking, by this afternoon there could be flyers out all over the neighborhood with an artist’s sketch of his face looking out at every person he’d ever ticked off. There were a few people around here—okay, more than a few—who would just love to see him with a can tied to his tail. Jimmy wasn’t much of a people person. He started to make a mental inventory of everything he owned that he could turn into quick cash for a getaway. It didn’t amount to much. He’d be lucky to get to Jersey.

  He shrank back into the doorway and watched as the woman in the black coat emerged. “I’ve got to get to work, Mama,” she called back over her shoulder. “I’ll call you later today. We really need to have a long talk.”

  Just the daughter. He huffed a sigh of relief. There was still time to head this off. Jimmy knew one thing: Old people didn’t usually want trouble. They liked being left alone, too; they were usually scared to get involved. Odds were pretty good that nothing had been reported. Not yet.

  He looked down at his highly polished brown shoes and bent down to adjust the laces. This was only partly to avoid having the departing woman see his face. The laces did need his attention. They weren’t tied evenly, and Jimmy couldn’t abide that. He retied them, careful that the loops were equal on either side. That done, he needed to move on quickly, get some other noises into his ears. Jimmy’s auditory system couldn’t tolerate voices in a certain register, usually carried by old ladies and sometimes by whiny young ones. It was almost as if his hearing were allergic to the sound. It made his head feel swollen and his neck muscles clench. He moved on down the street and turned the corner where the soothing sounds of traffic, cursing taxi drivers, and blaring horns made him smile with relief.

  “Now, Mama,” Deborah said as they sat down at the dining room table that evening, cardboard cartons from the Chinese takeout aligned in a neat row beside plates, napkins, and silverware. Her mother fidgeted, looking for some task to perform. She finally settled on filling the water glasses. “Tell me how you’ve been doing,” Deborah continued, trying to sidle up to the subject of the doll.

  “I’ve been doing just lovely, dear,” her mother replied. “I have so much to do, you know? Taking care of the apartment, and we play canasta now every other day. Plus, I help out at the Center two days a week now, did I tell you? So much to do.” She spooned rice onto Deborah’s plate and continued, “And I’m feeling well. A little touch of the arthritis, but that’s to be expected.” She flexed her hands and winced to demonstrate the pain the motion caused. “And how are you doing, Deborah? We haven’t really talked in a while. Is your job going well? Are you seeing anyone?” For the last question her mother’s voice went down half an octave, and she leaned forward to await the answer.

  “Ma, we have dinner together at least once a week. We talk plenty! And things haven’t changed since last week. Yes, my job is going fine. And yes, I’m seeing someone—two or three someones—but no one special. I’ll give you a heads up if a good marriage candidate enters my radar field, okay?”

  “Sure, Deborah,” her mother said, reaching over to push a stray strand of hair out of Deborah’s face. “It’ll happen, honey, don’t be discouraged. I just meant—well, you are twenty-six years old.”

  Deborah slumped and cradled her forehead in her hand. “Ma, what am I? A piece of cheese nearing my expiration date? Listen to me. I’m in no hurry to get married. I like my life just the way it is. You understand?”

  “Yes, Deborah, I understand you,” her mother said softly. “Do you understand me?”

  Deborah looked at her mother, who returned her gaze with an iron stare. “Tell me, Mama,” she said finally, heaving a sigh. “Tell me about the doll.”

  Her mother paused, smoothing the lace tablecloth over the edge of the table. “Again with the doll? Deborah, it’s simple. I miss your father. You don’t spend that many years together and not have a big hole in your life when they’re gone. I miss having him to talk to. And that’s all this is about. When Mrs. Leiberman told me about the woman who makes the dolls, I thought it would be a comfort to have it around, just to talk to. It makes me feel like a crazy old woman to talk to myself. Like I’ve got that All-the-timers.”

  “Alzheimer’s,” Deborah corrected.

  “And it’s not like Shel ever chattered on or anything. He mostly just rustled the paper or grunted,” her mother continued, then smiled to herself, remembering. “But just the same, he was there.”

  “Mama,” Deborah said, her voice melting, puddling the word out.

  “Anyway,” her mother went on, sitting erect, her words coming brisk, brooming away any emotional litter, “about that same time, I read in the paper that some women out in California were buying those blow-up dummies to put in the passenger seats of their cars so it didn’t look like they were driving alone. As a divergence to crime, you know?”

  Deborah frowned and hesitated. “As a—oh, a deterrent?”

  “Yes,” her mother replied, rushing on, “so I figured it couldn’t hurt for me to have another person silhouetted on those shades.” She motioned to the dining room windows facing the street and paused. She stared at the shades for a moment, narrowing her eyes, then shook her head and went on. “So that was another good reason to have the doll made up. You can’t be too careful, you know? Only last week a man was shot to death, right out there on that street. While I was sitting right here, having a cup of tea.”

  “Yes, Mama, I know that. I came over after it happened, remember? I was with you when the police were knocking on doors looking for witnesses. I wish you’d give some more thought to moving.”

  “Deborah, we’ve had this conversation, we’ve conversed it to death. I’m not going to reallocate. This is my home.”

  “Relocate,” Deborah corrected automatically. “I just worry about you, that’s all,” she said, noticing for the first time the slight tremor in her mother’s hand.

  “You don’t need to worry about me, honey,” her mother said, starting to stack the empty food cartons. “I’m just hunky-dory. I like everything just the way it is. I do
n’t want anything stirred up. I didn’t tell you about the doll before because I figured you’d start to think your ol’ Ma was a little moonstruck.” She held up her hand like a crossing guard. “Which I am not. But I just didn’t want to have to convince you of that. Who needs it? So I kept it to myself. Sometimes it’s better just to dummy up, no joke intended there,” she said, nodding her head toward the armoire.

  “I don’t think you’re anything like that, Ma,” Deborah said, “I just want you to be happy. I don’t want you to shut yourself up in this house and be lonesome. And you know Pops wouldn’t want that, either.”

  “I’m not doing that, Deborah. I’m really not. You can ask anyone. I’m even thinking of taking a cruise with the seniors group. One of my friends is going.” She gathered cartons and dishes and rose. “I’m doing just wonderful. If you don’t believe me, ask your father; I can go get him out of the armoire if you like.”

  Deborah’s head snapped in her mother’s direction, and she saw the sly grin on the old woman’s face. “I’m just indirigible, aren’t I?”

  Deborah smiled and, yanking on her mother’s lace-trimmed apron, said, “Incorrigible—you’re definitely incorrigible.”

  “That’s what I said!” replied her mother, balancing Deborah’s Kung Pao chicken container on top of the growing tower and hipping her way through the swinging door.

  Getting in the front door of the brownstone was a piece of cake. The lock wouldn’t have discouraged a seven-year-old with a pair of safety scissors. Jimmy had circled the building several times, checking for the telltale wiring of alarm systems. The inner door to the apartment he was interested in turned out to be more of a challenge. Old people were getting crafty. There were double deadbolts and, he suspected from what he could see in the tiny sliver of a crack underneath the door, a bar slide in the floor. He’d have to creep the place.