by Eric Beetner
“A box.”
“A million bucks?” Calvin nodded. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“To see if she would take it. And Tucker, you know what happened? She took it like I knew she would and she left. She left you. She left Milo. She saw a million bucks and she ran. She’s exactly the woman I knew she was.”
Tucker began pacing the floor, his bare feet slapping the linoleum.
“Did you scare her? Did you tell her more stories about how she was in danger?”
“She was in danger. You know she was. Why the hell do you think you got on your white horse and went after her yesterday? Don’t take this out on me. I did you a favor.”
“Oh, bullshit. You hated her and you chased her off.”
“I didn’t chase nothing. You should have seen her eyes when I opened that box. Cartoon dollar signs lit up.”
Tucker spun and moved quickly back to the bedroom. Milo slowly eased out of his fog as Tucker dressed noisily.
“What’s up, Dad?”
“Nothing. Go back to sleep.”
Out by the front door Tucker called out to Calvin. “Where are the keys?”
“She took ’em.”
“What?”
“I gave her the Camaro too.”
“Jesus Christ.” Tucker scanned the hook and took down the Buick key ring.
He sped away from the house leaving a half dozen banker’s boxes exposed in the garage.
26
Tucker left the car idling next to the curb. He banged twice more on the door to Jenny’s house even after he knew she wasn’t there. He sat on the concrete porch steps and stared at his shoes for a long while. Still exhausted, now dazed, time ground to a slow ooze. Finally he got up and went back to the car.
A short ride later he found that the store was locked, the CLOSED sign tilted at an angle in the front window.
Tucker got back in the car and sat. What would he tell his son? Or, Christ, what was Calvin telling him right at that moment?
He couldn’t help thinking he drove her away with that stupid kiss. Did she hate him that much she had to run? Or was he worth a price to forget and Calvin found it. One million dollars.
He snapped back to the present, unsure how long he’d been drifting in the past, replaying his entire relationship all the way from first meeting until last night. But now that he was back, the rest of that money called to him like a homing beacon. There would be time enough to mourn Jenny, but getting that money out of his life and meeting his father’s killer face to face was a more pressing issue.
He steered the Buick by his own house to gather some clothes. Right away he knew something was wrong.
Burnt-out road flares were scattered in the street leading up to his house like discarded cigars with long trails of ash. A strip of yellow caution tape had come untied and waved in the wind like a long tendril of seaweed under the water.
He parked across the street. His driveway was blocked by another strip of bright yellow tape. If the flares were stubbed out smokes his house was the whole ashtray. Black except for the gray wisps of smoke still curling from some heat buried deep under the remnants of his home. Charred beams marked the four corners of the foundation and the chimney stood tall, the bricks blackened by the fire. Shapeless blobs he guessed were his furniture squatted inside the crumbling charcoal husk of his house.
Tucker stood on the lawn and stared. The smell burned into his brain replacing any childhood memories of campfires or night before Christmas marshmallow roasts.
“Tucker? Jesus, is that you?”
He turned to see Bill, his next-door neighbor, striding across the lawn.
“My God, we all thought you were dead. The firemen said they might never find a body in there, if there was one.”
Tucker turned back to where he house was supposed to be. It still wasn’t there. “No. I wasn’t home.”
“Well, thank God for that. Where were you?”
“Fishing. In Minnesota.”
“Man, you should have seen it last night. Must have been six or seven trucks here. I had to get out and turn the hose on my roof so it wouldn’t spread.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. We heard a bang like some kind of explosion and by the time I looked out my window the whole thing was in flames. Must have been a gas leak. That’s what we all figured last night. I don’t know what else it could be.”
“Yeah. Gas leak. Probably.”
Bill put a hand on Tucker’s shoulder, the first time the two men had ever touched in nine years of being neighbors. “You gonna be all right, buddy?”
Tucker looked deep into the black heart of the wreckage. He felt like he was staring into his own scorched heart.
“I’ll be okay. I can stay at my dad’s place.”
“Hey, you need anything. You give me a call.” Bill patted Tucker’s shoulder like a dad sending his kid up to bat in a little league game.
“Thanks, Bill.”
“No problem. We’re just glad you’re alive. Last night we all…well, we about held you a funeral.”
“Yeah.”
He drove back to Webb’s place slow and steady, more passenger than driver. As soon as he stepped inside he said, “Call Stanley again. Tell him we make this deal now or we walk away.”
Calvin turned off the TV. “Fine. You okay?”
“No. Not really.”
“Look, Tucker, I’m sorry about Jenny. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but she’s the one who took the money and run off.”
“Yeah. You were right. Is that what you want to hear?”
“No. I want to make sure your anger is aimed in the right direction. Anger aimed in the wrong place can get mighty ugly.”
“What the hell do you think the last two weeks has been?” Calvin braced himself. He could tell the flood was coming. “I’ve been aiming it at the Stanleys over Dad. I’ve been aiming it at Jenny for three years now over my mistakes in our marriage. I’ve been aiming it at you since you came here, but I can’t say you didn’t deserve at least most of it.”
“You call that anger? Hell, Tuck, why didn’t you pop me one if you felt like it? Why didn’t you jump across Hugh’s desk and knock out his teeth with an ashtray? Keeping it all inside will kill you.”
“I was following you. You agreed to work for them. You took me on those jobs and you made it clear you were in charge.”
“Hell, Tucker, if I waited for you we’d still be sitting waiting for the Stanleys to come take ten million in cash or flesh. And up until our little trip here, we didn’t have it in cash.”
“Fine. So now I’m showing my anger. I’m letting it all hang out. Call Stanley. Find out who the fuck killed my dad and bring him to me. I’ll show you what anger looks like when it’s aimed in the right direction.”
Calvin sat still feeling a heat come off Tucker he’d never felt before.
“Okay then.”
Tucker tried to loosen his jaw. His eyes ran down the hall. “What about Milo. Did you tell him yet?”
“I told him.”
“What did you say?”
“I kept it simple. Figured you should be the one to fill in the details.”
“Thanks.” Tucker took two steps toward the back bedroom then stopped, his back to Calvin. “They burned down my house.”
“They what?”
“Last night. They burned it down. Everything’s gone. Everything.”
Calvin’s fist tightened. “We’re not staying in this crap town anymore anyhow.”
“Yeah.”
“Burn the whole thing down for all I care.”
Tucker walked down the hall and Calvin stepped into the kitchen to make the call.
Calvin recognized the voice of the blonde receptionist. “Put him on the phone. He knows who the fuck it is.” There was a click and some smooth jazz played. After thirty seconds Hugh picked up.
“Cal, that you?”
“Nice try on the match job. Missed your mark though.�
��
“Oh yeah? We weren’t sure. The boys didn’t stick around to find out.”
“You gonna blame that on Kirby too?”
“No, no. You boys have become my problem too now. So what is it you’re looking for? I assume you still want to make some sort of deal?”
“Same as it was. I want who killed Webb served to me on a silver platter and you get your money.”
Calvin could hear Hugh’s jaw working on grinding his teeth down further.
“Even swap?”
“Even Steven.”
“You know I can’t give you Kirby.”
“I know he hasn’t pulled a trigger or fired up a chainsaw for any head cutting in years. I’ll take what you give me. And you take what I give you, even if it’s a little light.”
“You spent some of my money?”
“Call it fire insurance.”
More teeth grinding. Hugh was going to need a dentist by the end of this conversation.
“Cal, we’ve known each other a long time.”
“A long time.”
“If this is really the walkaway, let’s do it no bullshit. No funny business. I need that money and I’m tired of slugging it out with you boys. If this was thirty years ago you know your ass would already be separated from your head and sitting next to your son in our little secret spot.”
“That spot ought to be designated a historical landmark, all the bodies you got in there.”
“I’m going to make this deal out of respect for what our families have meant to each other over the years. But, after this, if I ever see you again, your name won’t mean shit.”
“Hugh, after this if you ever see me again it will mean we’re both dead and the devil made us roommates.”
“Fine.”
“You say where and when.”
Tucker sat on the bed next to his son, both staring forward at the carpet.
Milo said he understood, but how could he? Maybe he’d seen the side of Jenny Tucker had always been blind to. Something made him want to get away from her. He’d gotten his wish.
“So I think we’ll be moving soon. I’m not sure where yet. I’ll have to see where I can open another insurance office. Shouldn’t be too hard. That is if I haven’t pissed off too many clients here yet. With the Internet a bad rating can dog you for a long time.”
“I’m sure we’ll be fine, Dad.”
“Well, then you’re one up on me.”
Milo let his dad have his moment. He knew he should have told him about the note, but he didn’t. Jenny asked him specifically not to in her goodbye letter. She didn’t bother to explain. She wrote that as hard as it was, she thought it would be what Milo wanted. He’d been trying so hard to get away from her recently that having her out of the picture might make him happier. In case he ever needed her she left a cell phone number. Strictly confidential. Don’t tell your dad.
Milo read the single page ten times in a row. The ending never changed. Goodbye. Mom.
27
Milo helped them load the eleven remaining boxes into the truck even though he had no idea where his dad and granddad were going.
“Thanks,” Tucker said.
“Be safe, okay?” Milo knew what it meant if he wasn’t on the need-to-know clearance level about their latest meeting. “Don’t get killed. You’re kinda all I have right now.”
“You don’t have to say it like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s only bad if you don’t come home.”
Tucker hugged his son, patted him twice firmly on the back and climbed into the cab of the truck.
Tucker and Calvin drove in silence. It could have been the street lights, but Tucker felt Calvin looked old. He knew that Calvin was old but since he showed up from Omaha he had aged quite a bit. Might have been the lack of beer intake. Calvin had been a teetotaler all day.
It was close to midnight and neither one of them had gotten decent night’s sleep in several days. For a man in his late eighties he looked okay, but he looked his age.
The meeting place was deep into a wooded area near a lake where Tucker used to come fishing with his dad and Calvin when he was a boy. Rain began to fall but not in any way you’d call committed, more like the sky had started to sweat.
They passed the cutoff that took you down to the water and continued up toward the crest of a small hill. As they started to climb they passed three black Hummers all parked at the bottom. Tucker and Calvin exchanged a look.
“Is it me,” Calvin said. “Or is this what an ambush looks like?”
“If it’s an ambush they sure are lousy at hiding.”
The road angled sharply to the left and Tucker slowed the truck to make the turn. Branches scraped along the top of the truck’s payload sounding like a Halloween sound effects record. The tires spun momentarily on the sweat-soaked ground at the start of an incline and Tucker dropped the gear into low and eased down onto the gas until the truck gripped and started climbing slowly.
They reached the top of the hill and were greeted by six men all standing in a semicircle around a figure in a chair. Each of the six men held a road flare in one hand lighting the night sky in a red misty glow.
The row of beefy men looked like the offensive line from the ’86 Bears, but wearing matching black suits with no ties. The man on the outer edge of the semicircle held up a hand motioning Tucker to stop.
He parked the truck a good thirty yards from the chair.
“Well,” Calvin said reaching into the glove box and taking out a revolver. “Here goes nothing.”
The air outside clung damp to the trees slick with the thin rain and the hissing sound of the flares sounded like a forest full of cicadas whispering. The moon and stars were blocked by high clouds so the flares were the only light. It gave Tucker the impression of being at the bottom of a giant well.
As they approached the men they could see more clearly the figure strapped down. He sat in a folding lawn chair, duct tape bound his arms to the chair and his legs to the thin metal of the base. More tape covered his mouth and looped around his head several times. He sucked air in and out through his nose but Tucker saw dried blood crusted around each nostril. A matching pair of shiners adorned each eye.
The same man who raised his hand spoke. “Here’s your man.”
“This the one that killed Webb?” Calvin asked.
“This is the man we were told to bring to you.”
Calvin nodded, eyeing the trapped man up and down.
The Stanley man swiveled his flare to point at the ground as he checked his watch. “You have something for us?”
Tucker gestured over his shoulder to the truck while holding out the keys in front of him. “How do we get home?”
“We’ll leave one of the Hummers.” The man held out a set of keys of his own.
He and Tucker engaged in a short game of chicken, each one daring the other silently to throw their keys first. Calvin kept staring at the man lashed to the chair.
Finally the man brought his arm back and launched the Hummer keys forward. Tucker did the same and the sets of keys passed by in the moist air. Tucker’s throw was wild so the man next to his target had to lean to snatch them out of the air, but the Hummer keys came straight into Tucker’s palm.
The six men all began walking in formation. Tucker and Calvin both tensed. The men passed by them with no regard for the man in the chair. Tucker and Calvin each had a flare placed in their hands without a word.
The men who had been talking looked at his watch again. “Let’s move out.” The men all began to walk double-time like a military exercise.
Four men trotted down the hill while two got in the truck and started it. The rain morphed from a mist to droplets, gaining confidence.
Tucker turned to the man in the chair.
Like anyone duct taped to a chair and beaten, he pleaded for his life. His head moved violently around, his eyes wild with things to say, a case to plead. The hissing of the flares roared in Tucker’s ears like s
tanding too close to a blast furnace.
Calvin gripped the revolver, tightening and loosening his fingers around the gun.
The man bucked and rocked the chair, trying to get away or make his case by charades.
Calvin abruptly handed the gun to Tucker.
“Here. You do it.”
Tucker regarded the revolver like Calvin had just shoved a pile of shit in his hand.
“Why me?”
“I thought you wanted to.”
“Well…”
He looked at the man’s eyes. That was a mistake. He understood why executioners used a black hood.
“I don’t want to.”
Behind them they heard the truck downshift into low and then a crunch. The mud they encountered on the way up had apparently got the best of the truck on the way down. Next came the grinding of reverse gears.
“What do you mean you don’t want to?”
Tucker turned away from the man. “Look, why don’t we admit that we’re not this kind of guy. We’re drivers. We don’t kill people in cold blood.”
“He killed your dad.”
“So okay, he did. I’m sure it wasn’t his idea.” The man’s wild eyes rattled in his head as he nodded the affirmative. “If we do this we’re no better. And we are better.”
Calvin’s face was carved deep with shadowed lines from the flare. His eyebrows bent with the struggle his mind worked over. For a moment he was that confused old man lost at the mall.
Tucker stared at his granddad. “We’re not them. We’re McGraws.”
Calvin sniffed back tears. “You’re right.”
Down the hill they heard gears grind again.
Calvin tossed down his flare and dug in his back pocket for his knife. He unfolded a blade about the size of a lady’s pinky finger and went at the man in the chair.
At first the man’s eyes went wide again, but when Calvin started sawing at the tape around his mouth he began to weep. His face already glistened with sweat in the glow of the flares and now snot mixed with the dried blood and made it smear again over the silver tape.
