Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  —SPANISH PROVERB

  DEE DEE MCCALL WAS in deep shit. Working undercover as a hooker, she had infiltrated a gang of long-haired thrill-killing South African extortionists, and one of the bad guys, the albino, was trying to get her to shoot up a sample of a heroin shipment they had hijacked from a greasy-headed, bejeweled, sadistic dope peddler named Slash. Hunter was driving his beat-up green Plymouth, homing in on her concealed transmitter. Unfortunately for Dee Dee, the albino had discovered the transmitter while trying to feel her up and had attached it to the collar of a rabid German shepherd. Hunter stopped his Plymouth at the entrance to the alley, got out, and followed his hand-held homing device toward the looming shape of an overflowing Dumpster, behind which the shepherd was crouched, its mouth dripping with what looked like runny shaving cream.

  Orlan Johnson was entranced. He could imagine himself in that situation.

  The doorbell rang.

  “Got-dammit!”

  He kept his eyes on the television. He was perfectly comfortable, drink in hand, Hunter on the tube, sitting well back in his new oxblood-colored La-Z-Boy recliner with genuine leather on the seat and arms. No way was he going to move. The doorbell rang again, this time for several seconds, drowning out the growling rabid dog.

  “Hill! You want to get the damn door?”

  His wife didn’t respond. She was way down in the basement, doing the laundry. The idiot on the doorbell wouldn’t quit.

  “Got-dammit, I’m coming,” Johnson shouted. He set his drink on the side table, fumbled for the lever on the side of the chair, yanked at it until the footrest folded back into the chair, then heaved his abdomen up into a standing position. “I’m coming. Hold your got-damn horses, wouldja?”

  He opened the door. “Aw, f’chrissake, Crow, what are you doing here?”

  Crow pushed past him, walked right into his house.

  “Hey!” Johnson said. “Who the hell invited you in?”

  Crow said, “I heard you were looking for me.” He pulled off his gloves, stuffed them in a coat pocket.

  “Now who told you that?”

  “What did you want?”

  “Don’t matter no more. I had some questions, but we don’t need you no more, Crow.” He turned his eyes to the television, attracted by the sound of gunfire. Hunter was doing his thing.

  “Well, I have a question for you,” Crow said. “What were you doing at Melinda’s?”

  “Who?” Johnson pulled his eyes from the set.

  “My wife.” Crow picked up the remote control and turned off the TV.

  “What the hell? Are you drunk or something?” Johnson could feel his bile rising, a green mass crawling up his throat. He made a grab for the remote. Crow stepped back, holding it away.

  “Just a simple question. I know you were there looking for me. What did you say to her? Did you threaten her?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Now give me that thing before I remote your ass in jail.”

  “Just tell me what you were doing there.” Crow’s voice was flat and quiet, each word delivered with equal emphasis, like a man trying to hold his breath and talk at the same time. “Just tell me if you know where she is.”

  Johnson squeezed his eyes down to where he could hardly see out of them, closed his fists and held them out to the side, a gunfighter ready to slap leather.

  “You gimme that thing right now. The hell’s wrong with you, Crow? You got some kind of death wish?” The words were coming out faster now. Johnson could hear the shrillness in his own voice, feel the tightness in his throat, the heat coloring his face. “Now get the hell out before I haul your sorry ass down to city hall.” He jabbed a shaking forefinger in Crow’s face. “You mess with me—”

  Crow slapped the forefinger aside as if it were an offensive insect. Johnson took an astonished step back, staring at his finger, his face finally hitting peak color.

  “You just assaulted a police officer, Crow.” Johnson took another step back, spread his arms wide, bent his knees, lowered his head, and charged.

  To Joe Crow, the rapidly advancing bulk of Orlan Johnson embodied all the shit in his life—the Murphys, his missing wife, Bellweather, Dave Getter, and various other personal demons. He wanted to meet Johnson’s charge head-on, but the undeniable fact that he was outweighed by more than a hundred pounds persuaded him to step aside like a matador.

  He was almost quick enough. Johnson had the deceptive speed of a rhinoceros. His right fist flailed out and caught Crow on the ribs. Crow staggered back, hit the doorframe with his shoulder. The remote control flew from his hand; he twisted away just in time to avoid a second punch. Johnson’s fist crashed into the wall, producing a depression in the wallboard and a grunt of pain.

  Crow saw his opportunity and went for Johnson’s belly, a hard, short jab, then followed up with a less successful blow that skidded off the top of the balding skull. Johnson responded with a wild backhand swing that just brushed Crow’s chin. Crow backpedaled, giving himself room, not wanting to risk getting inside those surprisingly powerful arms. Johnson howled and charged again, but this time Crow was ready, dodging at the last moment, then coming back with a well-aimed foot to Johnson’s well-padded rear, sending the big man crashing facefirst into his recliner, which instantly reclined, the footrest snapping forward, the back thumping against the wall, followed immediately by the top of the chiefs head.

  Johnson lay stunned for a moment, his hands flapping against the leather arms of the chair. As he watched Johnson struggling, Crow had a moment of relative clarity, trying to figure out what to do next, now that he had attacked the chief of the local police in his own home. Perhaps coming here had not been one of his more brilliant moves.

  A shiver ran up Johnson’s corpulent body; he rotated, bringing his body into the more usual recliner position. His eyes fixed on Crow, his brow flexed. “You little bastard, I’ll teach you, you little fuckhead—” He launched himself up out of the chair at Crow.

  Crow did not mind being called a bastard, which he was, or even a fuckhead. It was the modifier “little” he objected to, so the moment Johnson’s charge brought him within range, Crow threw his best punch, hard and straight as a steel bar, dead center on Johnson’s ample gut. His fist buried itself deep—for an instant it felt as if it had gone right inside—then Johnson sagged to the carpet, breathless and paralyzed.

  Crow was thinking how good that had felt. He was wishing Johnson would come at him again, when he heard a whisper of movement and turned in time to see what looked like a black hole rushing toward his head. He heard a loud sound, like a gong, and his legs gave way. He felt the texture of nylon carpet on his cheek.

  All his effort went into forming a single coherent thought.

  The answer to his problems was there, if only he could think of it.

  Above him, far away, he could hear voices.

  Something was thudding repeatedly into his side. He forced the roiling sludge that had been his brain to mold and form this remarkable idea that would fix everything. But when, as Orlan Johnson’s slipper crashed repeatedly into his ribs, the thought finally bloomed and fell into focus, it turned out to be of no use at all. He was thinking, It’s not fair—I still hurt from the last time I got the shit kicked out of me.

  “Stop it, Orlan! That’s enough.” Hillary grabbed her husband’s arm and pulled him away. “You don’t want to kill him.”

  Orlan Johnson looked at his wife. “Why not?”

  “It’s not necessary. He doesn’t matter anymore. Look at him.” She gestured with the cast-iron frying pan. Crow was on his hands and knees, swaying, his head hanging loosely. “If he can leave, let him. You don’t want to have to carry him out yourself, do you?”

  “I want to throw his sorry ass in jail is what I want. The son-of-a-bitch hit me!”

  Hillary shook her head. “You don’t want to do that. Let him go. You put him in jail, you’ll just have to deal with that lawyer again.”

  Johns
on grimaced.

  “What is he doing here?” Hillary asked.

  “I don’t know. He thought I knew where his wife was or something.”

  “Do you?”

  “Now why the hell would I do something like that? I stopped by her house to see if this idiot was there, but she didn’t know anything. Look at him—he’s crawling like a got-damn animal.”

  Crow was moving toward the open front door. They watched as he used the doorknob to pull himself up. He looked back at them, blinking uncomprehendingly, his hands gripping the door as though it were a lone bit of flotsam in a raging sea.

  Johnson grabbed the frying pan from his wife’s hand and shouted, “You get the hell out of my house!”

  Crow’s eyes drifted, finally settling on the black iron pan. He shuddered, released his grip on the door, wavered, then toddled unsteadily out into the gathering snow.

  Moments, minutes, or hours later, Crow regained consciousness in his car. He was sitting upright in the driver’s seat. The windows were opaque with frost. He was cold. He searched his pockets for his keys, discovered them in the ignition. His head felt numb, as if it were coated with ice. He turned the key; the car started. He turned on the dome light and looked at himself in the mirror. A hillock the size, color, and shape of an overripened tomato had appeared above his left eyebrow. He remembered, with unwanted clarity, the bottom of the frying pan coming at him, but he could not remember how he had got back to his car.

  “You look like shit,” he observed aloud. The vibrations in his skull sent ripples of nausea down his body. He closed his eyes, breathed shallowly, and waited for it to pass. When he felt he could move without vomiting, he turned on the defroster and waited for the glaciated windows to clear. It would take several minutes for the thick layer of frost to disappear, but he was in no hurry. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know where he was and, once he found out, had no idea where he wanted to go. Crow let his head settle back and observed disinterestedly as consciousness once again slipped away.

  The Sea Breeze Motel, fifteen hundred miles from the nearest ocean, offered air-conditioning, phone, and HBO. Shawn watched from the car as Doc went into the office and got a key. When he climbed back into the car, Shawn asked him, “How come we’re staying here?”

  “Because it’s only a few miles from here to Big River and because we can park out back,” Doc said.

  “I thought you were gonna take me home.”

  “It’s snowing too hard. We’ll stay here tonight. I’ll take you back in the morning.” Doc put the Jaguar in gear and, pulling around the office, drove back behind the long, low motel. “Here it is—number sixteen.”

  “It’s not snowing so hard. You could probably call my dad. I bet he’d come pick me up.”

  “I bet he would. You know, they have cable TV here. I bet we can find a good movie to watch.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s go inside and find out what’s playing.”

  The eleven o’clock movie turned out to be something called Daytona Dolls.

  “I never heard of it,” Shawn said.

  Bellweather was reading the program listing. “‘Mechanic and his three girlfriends foil Mafia plot to blow up racetrack, hard-driving brothers fall for twin beauty contest winners, a woman race car driver shows her stuff.’” He looked up. “Sounds like tits and tires to me, kiddo. Should we watch it?”

  Shawn said, “Sure.” He still wanted to go home, but the movie sounded pretty good. Doc picked up the phone and dialed.

  “Hi, it’s me. Did you call him?”

  Shawn grabbed the remote and turned on the TV.

  “Good! So we’re all set, then. You’ll meet them at ten tomorrow morning, right?”

  Shawn flipped through the channels. A cooking show. Hunter. Cheers.

  “Don’t give me that shit, Dave. We have a deal. You’ll be taken care of. You do your part, then you can leave, okay?”

  Shopping channel. Star Trek. He paused and watched Mr. Spock for a moment, then continued to channel surf until he found a cartoon show.

  “Don’t be late.” Doc hung up the phone. He grinned at Shawn. “He’s a wimp,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The guy I was talking to.”

  “Oh.” Shawn reached for the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Doc clamped his hand down on the handset.

  “I want to call my dad,” Shawn said. He didn’t like the expression on Doc’s face. The smile was still there, but it looked wrong.

  “You can talk to him in the morning.”

  Shawn didn’t like that. “I wanna talk to him now.”

  Doc closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head. “Let’s watch some TV.”

  “Why can’t I call him?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it, Shawn.”

  Shawn was getting this really weird feeling. The urge to get away from Doc, to get home no matter what, was getting stronger.

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “I want to go home right now.”

  Doc shook his head.

  Shawn rolled across the bed, stood up. “I’m gonna go,” he said. He put on his jacket and started toward the door. What happened next completely surprised him. Just when he had his hand on the doorknob, Doc grabbed him by the wrist, gave him a slap across the cheek, threw him down on the bed, slapped him again, shook a finger in his face.

  “You, you’ll stay right here. You’ll stay right here until I say you can go.” Doc’s face was all red, veins popping out on his forehead. “You understand me?”

  Shawn was scared. His cheek stung, and his wrist hurt where Doc had grabbed him. Now Doc was digging in his bag. Shawn was afraid to move. Doc came up with a pair of handcuffs, grabbed his wrist again, clamped a manacle around it

  Shawn said, “Hey!”

  “Just making sure you stay put,” Doc said. He felt around the headboard and down along the side of the bed, looking for someplace to secure the other end of the cuffs, finally settled for clamping it around a leg at the foot of the bed, leaving Shawn facedown on the mattress, his right arm hanging over the side.

  “There, that should hold you,” Doc said. “Comfortable?”

  Shawn didn’t say anything. Doc asked him if he could see the TV. He could see it fine; it was only about three feet from his face. They sat and watched Daytona Dolls, which Shawn enjoyed despite his predicament. There were a couple of cool car crashes, a wet T-shirt contest, and this one part where one of the bad guys got run over by a steamroller. Just after the steamroller scene, Doc got off his bed and went into the bathroom. Shawn listened until he heard the sound of urine spilling into the toilet bowl, rolled off the mattress, lifted the corner of the bed, slipped the end of the cuff off the leg, opened the door, and ran.

  When Bellweather heard the door open, he nearly collapsed. His knees actually buckled and hit the edge of the toilet bowl. He thought he was a dead man. He thought Ricky Murphy had found them. He didn’t even care that he was pissing all over his leg. What difference did it make to a dead man? He forced himself to take a step back, to look out the bathroom door into the room. The door stood wide open. No Ricky Murphy. Nobody at all. Shawn was gone.

  His relief was instantaneous but momentary. The kid had got loose. He started for the door, realized his penis was flopping around outside his pants, paused to zip up, caught himself. He stopped, frozen in the characteristic posture of a man in the thrall of his zipper, gritted his teeth, tore the zipper open. He almost didn’t feel the pain.

  At the open door he stopped. He didn’t have his shoes on. The kid was already out of sight. He leaned from the doorway, called Shawn’s name.

  Silence.

  A layer of sparkly snow, another six inches at least, had already coated the Jag. Shawn’s deep footprints led toward the lobby, then veered toward the highway. What did he think he was going to do? There was nothing between the motel and the outskirts of Big River, five miles away, and Talking Lake Ranch was another ten
miles out of town. The frigid air caused the fine hair on his legs to stand up, his scrotum to contract. Using greater care this time, Bellweather closed his zipper. He slipped his bare feet into his loafers, and threw his coat over his shoulders, and trudged out to his car, cursing the snow that immediately filled his shoes. It was deeper than he’d thought, all the way up to the bottom of the car door. He had to get the kid back before somebody picked him up. Before he got to a phone and called his dad. The Jag started immediately, but he couldn’t see a thing. He jumped out and frantically brushed the blanket of snow off the windshield with his hands, got back behind the wheel, and dropped the gearshift into reverse. The car started to move, the back bumper pushing up a wall of snow. It slowed, wheels losing traction, then stopped completely as the wide performance tires spun impotently. He shut down the engine, climbed out, and took a good look at the mired Jag. Even if he got it moving, he’d never progress more than a few yards without once again becoming hopelessly stuck. He started walking across the parking lot, lifting his legs high, pushing through the knee-high snow, but stopped after only a few yards. There was no way he was going to get anywhere, especially in his loafers, already stuffed with snow. On the other hand, Shawn wouldn’t get far either. He would almost certainly be back. Bellweather turned toward his room. He stopped at the Jaguar, opened the compartment in the back, and pulled out the aluminum gun case containing his shotgun. If the kid didn’t return, if he somehow found his way home, it might come in handy.

  XXII

  I don’t look for trouble. I look for balance.

  —JOE CROW

  THE RABBIT’S WINDOWS WERE ninety percent clear the next time Crow regained consciousness. The engine was still running, the gas gauge hovering at a quarter tank. Last time he remembered, it had been half full. Christ, he thought, I’m lucky I’m not dead of carbon monoxide poisoning. The numbness that had filled his head before now felt like a rat-tail file embedded in his forehead, slowly rotating. Moving his head minimally, he examined the glittering, snow-covered neighborhood. He was still parked in front of Orlan Johnson’s house. Snow had settled on every horizontal surface. Mailboxes wore six-inch caps of white, power lines bore fragile icy crests, trees and bushes sagged under their frozen load.