by Eric Beetner
Calvin came back inside from the garage, his second beer can empty. “Hmmm.”
“What?”
“His cars are all here. Don’t seem like Webb to split without one of his babies.”
Three of them out there, all classic American muscle. All had girls names, the sisters Tucker never had.
“They said he left in a semi-truck.”
“And I said he didn’t drive any semi. Not unless he snuck out and took a course without me knowing. Seems odd he would hide that from me. The boy told me when he took a crap that clogged the john. Why would he hide work-related stuff from me?”
Tucker shook his head. If he wasted words every time he didn’t know the answers behind his dad’s actions, his throat would be raw.
Just as Calvin was screwing his face into a thinking scowl the cell phone in his pocket rang a digital version of an old-time phone bell. He didn’t seem to notice, lost in thought as he looked at nothing in the living room.
Tucker waited for him to answer. Two rings. Three.
“Granddad?”
“Huh?”
“Your phone.”
He came to, took the phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “Yeah?”
Tucker watched him nod like he was taking instructions.
“No problem.” He hung up, turned to Tucker. “Got our first job.”
“Guess we’re going across the river.”
“Not yet.”
“What?”
Calvin pocketed his phone. He explained to Tucker what he’d heard on the phone. The studied look on his face read to Tucker like he was parsing the full meaning of the conversation as he talked.
“Money won’t be ready until tomorrow. They’re sending us on a back and forth until then.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just what it sounds like. Take something somewhere and bring it back.”
Tucker studied Calvin. “You don’t look too sure.”
“Oh it’s a back and forth all right. I kinda figure it might be something more though. Must be some reason it can’t wait. Unless they’re just excited to have cheap labor.”
“What do we do? Do we go?”
“Yep. We go and we watch our asses.” Calvin pulled the Superbird keys from his pocket and spun them around his finger, turned for the door and led Tucker out.
If he’d been standing anywhere else Tucker would have hesitated, protested the wisdom of the whole plan. Being in the haunted house of his youth he made for the door almost as fast as he had when he was eighteen, suitcase in hand and registration forms for community college in his back pocket.
The job was a transport. The cargo was human.
Calvin instructed Tucker to remain silent, let the old pro handle the finesse required for a job of this pedigree. His exact words were, “Shut up. Don’t say or do a fucking thing and whatever happens, do NOT interact with him. He’s as inanimate as a bag of hammers as far as you’re concerned.”
Calvin pulled the Superbird to a stop in front of the last room on the bottom row of a motel and let the car idle. He cracked his neck in a fast twisting motion that looked painful to Tucker.
After three minutes listening to the music of the V-8 sipping slowly at the gasoline, a man emerged.
Calvin nodded and Tucker got out, flipped his seat forward so the man could climb in back.
Their cargo was young, mid-twenties. Vintage leather jacket, jeans a few weeks between washes and a sunglasses resting on a bed of short spiked hair above his forehead.
“You guys my limousine?”
Tucker showed him the open door, his brain humming, Don’t talk to him. Don’t talk to him. Bag of hammers. Bag of hammers.
The man took in the full view of the bright orange Plymouth. “What the fuck is this?”
Calvin had no such rule about not talking to the cargo. “It’s a classic. Get in.”
The man folded himself into the back seat and Tucker took his place in front.
“You know where we’re going?” the man asked.
“Yep,” Calvin said.
“Okay. Name’s Richie. Looks like we’re gonna be in business together, eh?”
“I’m only here to drive you. Whatever business you got is yours alone.”
Calvin dropped the car in gear and roared off.
It was a thirty-minute drive to the lake. Richie tried several times to make conversation, his nervous energy getting the best of him. From what Tucker could discern, they were driving Richie to some sort of meeting with the Stanleys, which ones he wasn’t sure.
“You boys think maybe you ought to use a less…um, conspicuous car next time?”
Calvin kept his arm planted in the window, working hard on his trucker’s tan. “Car like this is meant to be driven. Nice jaunt to the lake is exactly what a machine like this needs.”
Richie tapped out a beat on his knees. Tucker could sense he wanted so badly to have someone else to look at and comment, “You believe this fucking guy?”
Tucker answered in his head. No. No, I don’t at all.
The cabin stood lakeside with a small dock jutting out into the flat water. Bass fishing country. A simple fiberglass boat with an Evinrude clamped to the back sat tied to the crooked wooden dock.
Standing in the doorway were three men, all in plaid flannel shirts and Timberlands.
Calvin parked, Tucker got out and repeated the flipping forward of the seat. Richie stood straight, clapped his hands together and went into business mode. “Gentlemen!”
The three men escorted Richie inside. Tucker thought he recognized one of them as Kenny Stanley.
Calvin got out and leaned against the door, folded his arms and looked to Tucker indicating he should do the same. Calvin still hadn’t indicated how long this meeting might take, but by his body language Tucker assumed they would be there for a while.
“What now?” Tucker asked in a whisper.
“We wait.”
“How long?”
“Don’t know. However long it takes them to discuss their business.”
“They didn’t tell you on the phone?”
“All they said was bring him here and wait until it’s done. That’s all I need to know. Whatever they’re talking about in there ain’t my business. Or yours.”
Calvin turned toward the lake. Tucker slapped at a mosquito trying to find purchase on his neck.
There were sounds from inside. Sounded to Tucker like someone dumped a bag of apples on the wood floors. Then a “Hey!”
Tucker turned to Calvin who kept his gaze on the water.
The back door opened and Richie came out being helped along by the three Stanley men. Richie’s hands were bound with heavy chains. A flannel-shirted man had each arm and the third followed with a sack that was obviously very heavy. The man looked as if he could lift almost anything with no trouble but he strained at the burlap sack.
Tucker unfolded his arms and straightened. Calvin quietly put out a hand to keep him in place. “Steady.”
“Yeah, but—”
“I know.”
The quartet headed for the dock. Richie’s muffled screams were muted by the red handkerchief in his mouth, the ball of red spilling out like a blood clot.
Richie’s body went limp, an old trick, but his two escorts held him up as his toes dragged through the wet leaves on the ground. The work boots of the Stanley men pounded on the weathered boards of the dock and two ducks took flight at the sound. Tucker could hear the chains rattle around Richie’s wrists.
He came around the front of the car to Calvin’s side.
“Aren’t we going to stop them?” he whispered.
Calvin took his eyes off the lake and bore them into Tucker. “No.”
Tucker turned back to the lake as the men reached the small craft. Richie’s protestations nearly capsized them as the two men wrestled him to the bottom of the boat. The man carrying the heavy sack set it in the back and took hold of the rope and pulled the tiny engine to life.
As they puttered away Tucker felt he knew the feeling of watching a man walk to the gallows. The boat’s wake splashed over the dock and darkening the wood slats.
The water returned to calm. The motor sound faded as the boat receded further toward the center of the lake. The two ducks returned to float beside the dock as if the threat had passed. It had, thought Tucker, but not for Richie.
Tucker turned to Calvin who looked away from the lake now. His face was solid as the tree bark surrounding them. Tucker stared hard, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s a test,” Calvin said. “They want us to know they’re serious.”
“What do we do?”
“We sit here and take it. We let them know we don’t spook easy.”
“But that guy, Richie—”
“He was gonna get it anyway. You don’t know him, what he did. You shouldn’t even know his name. Forget it.”
Tucker turned back to the lake to see a shape go overboard. The sound took a moment to reach the shore. Soon after the boat began powering back to the dock. When it landed, only three men got out.
They all entered the house by the back door they’d come out with Richie. The heavy sack was gone.
Kenny came out of the front and stood on the porch. He addressed Calvin.
“All done here. You can go.”
Calvin didn’t say a word, turned to the car and gave Tucker a look that said, follow my lead and shut up. He obeyed and got in the car.
Calvin got back behind the wheel, cranked the engine to life. Tucker saw the two ducks take off again to circle the lake one more time. He knew after the rumble of the engine had gone they would return; the threat over. Calm, flat water again.
Tucker read with interest one time about the world record for holding your breath. Over seven minutes. The article said most people couldn’t go more than two.
As they retraced the drive through the woods, Tucker counted.
9
Back at Tucker’s house they separated, Tucker putting as much distance between he and Calvin as the generations that divided them.
Alone in his bedroom, Tucker could hear the thin aluminum crack of another Pabst opening in the kitchen.
He’d spent his whole life avoiding not only his father’s chosen career, but his entire family lineage. Never before had he come so close to the truth of what McGraw men did for a living. He’d lived through the hypothetical. His sojourn to the lake was an exercise right out of a junior college ethics class. Had he been implicit in Richie’s death simply for delivering him to the men who would ultimately do the deed? Was he bound by morality to intervene? Was accessory to murder not just murder under another name?
And the drugs his father was delivering, wasn’t he only one step away from putting the crystal in some kid’s pipe?
Tucker was broken out of his moral conundrum by a knock at the door. His heart sped up. Opening his front door hadn’t brought good news in a few days.
By the time Tucker got out to the living room Calvin already had the door open and was pulling in the figure standing there.
“Come here you old polecat. Put ’er in the old vice.”
He gripped hard on Milo’s hand and Tucker saw his son wince a little at Calvin’s grasp. Milo had to drop a soft-sided overnight bag in order to take Calvin’s handshake. Tucker knew the door wasn’t ready to give up any good news yet.
“I’ll be a son of a bitch, ain’t you big now?”
“Sixteen years old.”
“Sixteen you say? The age a McGraw man really comes into it. Get you a driver’s license so you don’t have to go catting around on the back roads anymore, right?”
“I haven’t taken my test yet.”
“Well, shit boy. What’s the holdup?”
Milo looked over Calvin’s shoulder to Tucker who stood in the doorway. Calvin turned and it made sudden sense.
“Is that true, Tuck? The boy doesn’t have his license yet?”
“Not yet, Granddad. I don’t have a whole lot of time with him these days to take him down there.”
“Well, shit, boy, the young man needs his wheels. You put a sock around his dick and tie his hands above his waist too?”
Both Tucker and his son blushed. Tucker stepped forward, picked up the bag.
“What’s this?”
“I was hoping I could stay with you for a while.”
“Milo, we talked about this.”
“I know, but…” he turned his eyes down to the worn and dirty mat in the entryway, “she’s a bitch sometimes, Dad.”
“Milo!”
“I said sometimes.”
Calvin broke out in a grin. “Well, don’t stand in the doorway boy. Come on in. No bitches in here.”
“God, Granddad!” Tucker scolded.
Calvin raised his hands in mock surrender. “Guess I can’t offer him a beer then?”
Milo sat on the couch as Tucker closed the door, still holding the bag of clothes his son brought.
“Milo, you know I want nothing more than to have you here with me.” Tucker set the bag down next to the couch. “But this doesn’t look good to your mother. This could set us back. She’s gonna fly off the handle and say I’m turning you against her and all that crap. We just talked about getting more visitation, possibly.”
Milo slumped into the couch, exhausted from his parent’s years-long fight.
“Just for a few days.” The words came out weak, like they were written on thin paper.
“Of course you can,” Calvin said.
“It’s not up to you,” Tucker said.
“No. It’s up to the boy. He can decide where he wants to lay his head.”
“No, he can’t actually. Not until he’s eighteen. I know because I’ve had a judge tell me so.” Tucker leveled his gaze at Milo’s downturned head. “And he knows it.”
“Bullshit.”
“Granddad, a driver’s license isn’t a free pass to do whatever you want, okay? Sixteen is still a child.”
“Aw Christ, Tucker. Why don’t you cut off the kid’s balls while you’re at it? Give him a little credit.”
Tucker hated giving speeches like this. He wanted to build memories Milo would want to relive, not run from. He let out a deep sigh, challenging Milo for the most exhausted and resigned McGraw in the room.
“Does your Mom know where you are?”
Milo looked up. “No. My buddy Derek dropped me off.”
Calvin brushed past Tucker on his way to the kitchen. Under his breath he said, “That kid has his license.”
Tucker ignored him. “Let’s go call her.” Milo dropped his head again. “To tell her you’ll be here for a few days.”
Milo perked up.
Three sounds stacked one on top of the other: Milo’s sigh of relief, the crack and hiss of another beer can opening from the kitchen and a fist rattling the door.
Tucker turned to the rattling. He began to hate even having an entrance to the house. He thought of barricading the door the way he would in a zombie movie.
Calvin rushed in from the kitchen, the beer foaming over his palm.
“Open up motherfucker!”
The voice sounded vaguely familiar. If it were Stanley’s men the door would be open and shots would have been fired already.
“Gimme my fucking car back, bitch!”
Tucker turned to Calvin. They silently reached the same conclusion. Ambrose.
“It’s open!” Calvin said. Tucker’s eyes went wide.
After Milo came in no one had locked the door. Better than getting it kicked in, Calvin figured.
The door swung open and Ambrose stood flanked by three men all with the same heavy eyebrows and thick necks. Brothers. Each man held a stick of some sort. A baseball bat, cut-off broom handle and a sawed-off hockey stick. Not exactly a posse with guns a-blazing but enough for a room with an octogenarian, an insurance salesman and an unlicensed teenager.
“You here with our money?” asked Calvin, his bravado
faking it in place of a plan.
“You ain’t gonna get the jump on me now, motherfucker.”
Milo brought his feet up on the couch, curled into a ball worried that he was in some sort of scared-straight program to keep him from running out on Jenny.
Tucker froze in place, wanting very badly to tell Calvin, “Told you so.”
“I thought we had a deal, Brose.” Calvin said, still the picture of calm.
“The deal now is you give me my goddamn car back, bitch.”
“What about my money?”
“Man, shut the fuck up! Can’t you see what I’m bringing?” Ambrose gestured to the three mute brothers surrounding him. By their flat-footed stance and the bark-but-no-bite rhetoric so far, Calvin knew these boys were nothing to fear. Still, uninvited house guests could be hard to get rid of sometimes.
“Relax, Brose. You want a beer? I’ll get you gentlemen a beer.” Calvin stepped back into the kitchen. Brose tensed, seeing his control of the situation eroding. Tucker stayed glued to the carpet.
“Get back here, motherfucker, and give me my keys.”
Calvin reappeared with a fresh beer can in each hand. “Afraid all I have is two left. I guess I’ve been hitting it a little harder than I thought.” He smiled and then hurled the can in his right hand in a fast pitch at Ambrose, then switched the other can to his right hand and reeled back for another pitch.
Tucker bobbed his head back as the can of Pabst sailed past him at an impressive speed. Ambrose wasn’t the bobber Tucker was and took a twelve-ounce can to the bridge of his nose.
The three brothers blinked like a family of possums caught on a highway at night. Calvin chose one of the thick-necked brothers on the right for the second can and caught him a ricochet shot across the temple.
“Let’s go!” Calvin shouted.
Milo scrambled fast up and over the couch and Tucker ran by instinct to the sound of Calvin’s voice.
“To the garage,” Calvin instructed. The trio shot down the hallway.
The remaining brothers stopped to help their fallen comrades then took two hesitant steps to follow their prey, stopped to stay, shuffled forward but couldn’t advance like their kin were magnets holding them close.
