Dirty Money ARC

by Deforest Day

  “Looks like something a kid would build with his Erector set.” A sign said Three Ton Limit. Below it another proclaimed Opposing Traffic has Right of Way, and they waited while an old man slowly crossed the river, then waved to them as he headed toward town.

  “It ain’t much, but it’s ours,” she said. “The town used to have another historical marker, at the hotel, but somebody stole it.”

  The second property was a farm, its three hundred acres, she said, rented to a local dairyman. The barn was padlocked, filled with hay and machinery. The house was a three story Victorian with a Mansard roof and had to have been the inspiration for The Addams Family.

  “Old Lady Bergen lived here, all her life. Inherited the place from her parents. Along with, I’m afraid, the furniture. Are you partial to horsehair upholstery? Anyway, she died at the age of ninety-three, after burying three husbands, and raising eleven children. The estate is in probate, and the heirs are fighting. If you’re willing to rent on a month to month basis—”

  “Perfect. I’ll take it. Now, can you recommend a good men’s clothier?”

  ”In Shaleville? You must be kidding. There’s a couple in Sunbury, but a man like you, I’d send him to Harrisburg.”

  “How about you take me there, instead?” Why drive, when you can ride? With a personal shopper.

  Cynthia Cross helped Curtis Baer max out his new MasterCard on clothing, including an Hermes scarf for her. Over a candle lit dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Susquehanna river, she asked, “Is there a Momma Baer?”

  “Not anymore.”

  She thought as much, and decided to make a move. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Forty two was not an age to savor alone. “Oh, my; we’re on the same page. If you’re free this evening, we could go back to my condo. I’ve got a bottle of champagne in the fridge.” She reached across the linen tablecloth for his big hand. “I always have one ready, for when I close a deal.”

  Champagne! That finally scratched the tickle he’d first felt yesterday, when he saw the body by aerobics and the auburn locks by Clairol. She was the image of his mother-in-law, twenty years earlier.

  It was a week after the twins birth, and an hour after their christening. Back at the in-laws for champagne and bonhomie with friends and relatives. Hers; his had not been invited. At dusk Daphne took the girls home. Curtis was in the cabana, relegated to the job of bartender by ‘Sir’.

  Daphne’s mother was feeling no pain as she adjusted to grandmother hood. At forty four she felt she was much too young for the role. She came in with an empty flute, did an exaggerated curtsy. “Curtsy Wurtsy. More bubbly for Mummy.” She put her glass on the bar and her chin on her palms, fluttered her lashes.

  “Sorry. It’s all gone. I can mix you a drink.”

  “No-no-no. Mummy wants champagne.” She flicked fingers at him. “Lots in the wine cellar. Go fetch. Good boy!”

  “Isn’t that kept locked?”

  “Oh, pooh. Time you learned where the key is. Come with Mummy, Curtsy.” She took his hand and led him across the lawn to the house as Sir took note.

  Somewhere between wife and mother Daphne had lost interest in oral sex, and at the onset of the third trimester intercourse in all its variations was put on hold. So when his mother-in-law gave him a sloppy kiss under the Burgundies he kissed her back.

  He leaned against the Bordeaux and pushed Mummy to her knees. Laced his fingers into her hair and held her fast. She drooled, gagged, and it was over; Curtis was young, copious, and blessedly quick.

  He carried two magnums of Moet & Chandon back to the cabana, and she followed with smeared lipstick, hair in need of a shampoo, and her dignity in need of a great deal more.

  If he decided to stay in Shaleville he could do better. Or at least younger. “I can’t, tonight,” he said, covering her hand with his. “I’ll take a rain check on that, if one’s available.”

  The next morning he dropped his key on the front desk, drove to the supermarket and liquor store for supplies, and headed across the cast iron bridge, idly wondering if the Navigator violated its three ton limit.

  The key was where she said it would be, under a flowerpot of mummified pansies, and as he bent to retrieve it a cat appeared around the corner, made an annoying feline noise, and watched him, warily.

  His mother had a cat; fat, always rubbing on his legs. His job was to keep the litter box clean; she couldn’t do it, because of her migraines, she said. The cat never went outside. Because of the traffic, she said.

  He said, “Here, Puss Puss,” put his fingers down at cat level, wiggled them. The thing came over, tail in the air, and rubbed against his ankle, just like hers did.

  He brought his foot down, feeling a crunch under his shoe; bones, ribs, and the animal let out a yowl, began flopping around in front of the door. He shoved a toe under it, flipped it twenty feet, the cat writhing, twisting in the air, landing in an overgrown tangle of forsythia.

  He unlocked the front door, opened some windows, let a bit of the Twenty First Century in. The cat was still yowling. There was a floor model Philco radio in the corner, the size of a small refrigerator, and he switched it on. A green eye came to life in the center of the set, and yellow light illuminated the dial.

  Good as her word, the real estate woman had gotten the electric back on, and after the tubes warmed up he heard a station playing hick music, with a side order of static.

  He turned it up enough to drown out the cat, and carried his supplies into the kitchen. The real refrigerator, slightly musty smelling, was cold. He stowed beer, cold cuts, juice, eggs.

  The well pump had also kicked on, and he let the rusty water run clear, then filled an ice cube tray, anticipating opening the bottle of single malt sitting on the kitchen table.

  He attempted breakfast. The toaster was a mystery; probably one of Edison’s less successful ideas. Likewise the coffee pot, a metal and Bakelite contraption with a little glass bubble on the top and a 1923 patent date stamped on the bottom. He’d seen them in movies, but it didn’t seem to have an electric cord, and it’s actual operation was beyond him. The stove he could handle, and he scrambled four eggs, consumed them standing at the sink, washed them down with orange juice straight from the carton.

  He took the three pistols out behind the barn, fired a magazine through each of the Colts, laying waste to a rusty milk can at twenty feet. They had quite a kick, a lot more than the Beretta nine of today’s army.

  The little Taurus was trickier, and he missed the can more often than not. He was tempted to fire a shot at the big red building, just to experience the broad side of a barn cliché. No, he’d save that bullet for Bluto; of the three, he was the one to watch.

  He field-stripped the three weapons on the kitchen table, cleaned, and reassembled them. One Colt, cocked and locked, went in the drawer of the table inside the vestibule, and the other he slipped in the side pocket of the driver’s door. The smaller pistol in its ankle holster would most likely be the one that made the difference, when it came time to empty the RoachMobile.

  Chapter 19

  Two thirty, a weekday, Pudge had Oprah overhead and K.D. Lang under the bar. And her Bob Marley Phatts T shirt, the one with Bob’s image in black and white, smoking a big blunt, dreads framing his face. She was cleaning the back bar, wiping down the bottles with a damp cloth. Mister Baer’s remark about Bushmill’s being Irish stung a little; she ought to know that.

  They got city folks in on weekends, running the river. People from Philly, New York, asking for mimosas on Sunday morning, could they see the wine list at lunch. As if. Her wine list consisted of a pair of Gallo Brothers screw tops. A red, a white. The actual variety, she’d have to check the label. Pretty sure one of them was called Chablis. She remembered that, because a guy had told her you didn’t pronounce the s.

  She rinsed the cloth and went back at it. There were brands she’d never heard of, bottles she’s never poured a shot from in the five years she’d been tending bar for her grandfathe
r. Who was over by the pool table, dozing in his chair.

  Her parent split up the year she graduated from high school, and she left town with the first guy who asked her. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire!

  A year later she was back, moving back in with her mother. Learned bar tending at the community college, and here she was. Welcome to the Hotel California; you can check out, but you can never leave.

  A man came in the street door, looked around. Another new face; probably a river rat, living out of a rust-bucket ride, with a couple of grand invested in the kayak on the roof. He had that outdoorsy, Marlboro Man look.

  He came to the bar, scanned the taps, asked for a Yuengling, said, “I’d like to get a room.” Not the usual ‘do you have rooms’, or ‘is this still a hotel’. Somebody, most likely the white water telegraph, had told him, ‘stay at the Shaleville. Quiet place. Some people would say dead.’

  Pudge ducked her head into the kitchen doorway. “Oops, forgot. My girl’s off today. Come on, then, I’ll fix you up.” She raised her voice over the TV. “Pops? I’m gonna go register this guy. Be right back.” She led him through the swinging doors, down the dark hallway.

  She stepped behind the front desk, plucked a key from one of several dozen cubbies. “Twenty-five night, a hundred a week.”

  “Let's make it a week. I have a lot of ground to cover.”

  Pudge laid the key on the counter. “Number 36, end of the hall. Shares a bath with 34, but not likely you’ll have to. Sign the book, I’ll show you up. Luggage?”

  “In the car. I’ll bring it up, later.” He followed her up the wide staircase, focused on her buttocks, filling out a pair of Wranglers.

  She opened the drapes, pointed at the bedside table. “The phone’s not hooked up anymore, but since most everybody’s got a cell nowadays, I guess it don’t matter. The bar kitchen is open from noon to ten, midnight on weekends. Burgers, fries, soup du week. There’s no room service, as such.” She took a step closer to the guy, gave him a wink. “But you want, I could probably bring you something, after I close the bar.”

  He gave her a little eyebrow shrug and a small smile, said, “That sounds nice.”

  Next few mornings, the guy took off in his rental, came back a little after eleven. Salesman, covering Northeast Pa, Northern Jersey. Or a technician, installing new equipment out at the bottling plant. Didn’t take her up on the after hours room service. Maybe he swung the other way; she got their kind, too.

  Friday, he came in, closer to twelve than eleven. There was a pretty good crowd, for Shaleville. Tonight she was wearing her Revolution T-shirt. Olive drab, John’s head in orange and black. She put his usual on the bar. “You’re late tonight,” she said. Paused. “Hot date?”

  He watched her breasts move behind Lennon’s face while she rinsed glasses in the bar sink. “Last date. I’m gonna go get a good night’s sleep, and then it’s hasta la vista, baby.”

  The line made her smile. Came back with one of her own. “Well, if you need anything, just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you? Put your lips together, and blow.”

  The guy grinned, turned with his beer, rested his elbows on the bar. Watched the eight ball game. After a minute he turned back and let out a low whistle between his teeth. “Know who those pool sharks are?”

  Pudge flicked a glance across the room. “Yeah. It’s Chick and Howie.”

  “They from around here?”

  “All their life. They’re exterminators. At least, they were.”

  “Exterminators. Were they in Iraq not too long ago?”

  “Iraq? Maybe; they were someplace over there. Is that where Erbil is at?”

  He carried his glass to the pool table, stopped next to the old man in the wheelchair. “Hey there, Waggoner! Small world.” He grinned at Howie. “Still got that K-pot?”

  “Huh?”

  “Erbil? The airport?”

  Howie said, “I think you got us confused.”

  “You were exterminators, killing bugs in the Green Zone.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Chick said, “you heard the man. Wasn’t us. So piss off.” He bent over the table, missed the seven ball, scratched. “Dang,” he muttered.

  The guy shrugged, went back to the bar. Chick watched him disappear into the Friday night crowd. He leaned close to Howie, lowered his voice.“I don’t like that. Somebody who seen us over there. Maybe heard about the fire, all that money, and somehow tracked us to Shaleville. I think we need to tell Mr. B. about that dude.”

  “Yeah, but where’s he at? I went by the garage a couple of times, but he ain’t never there. How we going to find him?”

  Chick pulled out his new cell phone. “With this. I’ll call him up, stupid.”

  “Oh, right; I oughta get me one of those.”

  “Mr. Baer. Chick here. I’m at the hotel. We’re shootin’ pool, me and Howie, and this dude recognized us. From over there.”

  He listened for a moment. “What? No, I don’t know. Hold up.” He leaned over the bar, called to Pudge, talking to a couple of canoe people at the far end. “Yo! Yo! Pudge! C’mere. That guy, was just here. What do you know?

  “What do I know about what?”

  “About him. Where’s he from? Where’s he at?”

  “I don’t know where he’s from. As for where’s he at, he has a room, so I guess he’s upstairs. Why you want to know?”

  Chick put the phone to his ear. “Mr. B. Pudge says-”

  “I heard what she said. Sit tight. I’ll be over; meet me in the lobby. Fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes, the three of them were up in Chick’s room. The Presidential Suite. Because it had a private bathroom. Howie rolling a smoke; some of the new chronic he’d scored off his Mexican connection. Chick explaining one more time the brief conversation over the pool table.

  Baer stood close, looming; well inside the Chick’s zone of comfort. “You sure about this?”

  Chick took a step back; looking up into that pissed-off face gave him a bad feeling. Like the situation was fallin’ apart, and it was somehow his fault. “Yes, of course I’m sure! The guy knew we were exterminators, said he saw as at the airport.” Chick shoved his hands in his pants pockets, took them out, put them back. “He knows about us. What the heck are we gonna to do?” He took his hands out a second time, finger combed his hair back past his ears, leaned against the foot of the brass bed, then pushed away, went to the door, and looked down the hallway.

  “Calm down, that’s the first thing.” Baer shook his head with disgust. These two were falling apart. He raised his voice at Howie. “Hey, Sport, don’t light that.” Couple of goddamn stoners. He should have seen that one; losers like this pair, it stands to reason. Well, you work with what you have. The immediate question is how do we deal with this new development? He walked over to the window, pulled the heavy drapes aside, looked down at the dark side street.

  This is some wild happenstance, coincidence, bad luck. With all the different units rotating through Iraq, it could easily happen that another contractor, or a Guardsman, recognized this pair. He turned from the window. “What room is he in?”

  Howie fiddled with the joint, twisting the ends closed. “I don’t know. You want I should go down, ask Pudge?”

  “No! Champ, go check the register. Happy, put that goddamn thing down. I want you as lucid as you’re capable of.”

  “Only one person checked in, after you did, Mr. B. And he’s in 36,” Chick said, and they all went down the hall.

  The door was open. The man was standing over the bed, his back to them, packing a suitcase. Headphone wires dropped down to an iPod clipped to his belt. This was almost too easy.

  Baer took two long strides into the room, snaked his thick forearm around the man’s throat, lifted, and used his big right palm to slam the back of the head forward. Snapping the neck.

  “Aww, Jesus!” Chick moaned, the crack loud in the room.

  Suddenly he was twelve, working with his old man on
the trash route—four am until Pop dropped him off in time for second bell. In the icy predawn they hit a deer as it bolted across the road.

  A button buck. It lay on the blacktop, kicking, trying to stand on the ice-slick surface. Its eyes were wild in the headlights. Pop grabbed its head, twisted, and there was a sickening sound like a tree limb snapping.

  “Frikko! You killed him!” Howie’s voice brought him back. His mouth had filled with saliva, and he thought he was gonna puke. Like he had, that morning, when his father had laughed and gutted the steaming carcass with his lockback. They looked down at the tangle of arms and legs on the floor.

  “You boys have a problem?”

  Howie’s eyes went wide. Same question this man had asked, back in Eye-rack, right after he’d blown off Mr. Tomczak’s face. “No, no; not me.” Stepping back, about ready to wet himself.

  Chick’s eyes slid from the corpse to Baer, to Howie. He gave a little shake of his head. A warning; this crazy son of a bitch is liable to kill us with as little reason.

  Baer studied the body, smelled the stench of voided bowels. Time to put the living to work, cleaning up their mess. “Good. Now, listen up. Wait until this place is closed down; two, three o’clock. Then carry him downstairs, put him in your truck, and dump him off your famous bridge. Send our problem downstream.” He turned from the body on the floor to the pair of losers. “You boys got that?”

  They got that, and Baer left them with the disposal. Chick saw the room key on the dresser and scooped it up. “I ain’t sitting here with a dead body for no three hours. Let’s go wait in my room.” He locked the door and pocketed the key. Howie followed him down the hallway.

  Safely in Chick’s room, Howie asked, “Now you think it’s time to boot the gong?”

  “You better believe it.”

  Howie took a hit, passed it to Chick. “Frikko! You see how he done that? Baer oughta be on the WWF.”