by Deforest Day
It was good herb, better than that hydroponic ragweed Howie had been providing over the years. The past half hour began to acquire a new perspective. “He done that man same way he done Mr. Tomczak. Sudden like, I mean. I got no clue what’s going on in that man’s head. I tell you, Howie, we need to step light around him. When we get the rest of that money out of RoachMobile, if’n he don’t leave town, I will. I want no parts of the man.” He took another deep hit, held it. Smoke and a giggle leaked out. “I about shit myself, back there!”
Howie laughed. “I think I need to go inspect my own britches, bro.”
Later, way more than one toke over the line, Howie asked, “How come he leaves us with the dirty work? What if someone sees us? We’re across the freakin’ street from the police station. A cop looks out the window, sees us putting a dead guy in my new truck. What then?”
“Or catches us throwing him off the bridge. Jeezums, it’s right out in the open.” Chick went into his bathroom, peed, splashed cold water on his face. Laughed.
“What?” Howie stood in the doorway.
“I got a better idea. You ever hear about guys strangulate themselves, when they jack off?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Wrap a necktie, a belt around their neck, hang from the shower rod, while they beat their meat. Make’s you come harder. Only, sometimes they go too far, wind up dead.”
“Get out! How you know about that? This the voice of experience I’m hearing?” Laughing, getting the Zag out to roll another, while he still could.
“Up yours! I seen it on Jerry’s show. Or was it Oprah?” Chick knelt beside the bed. “I got some skin mags under here. We put the guy in his bathroom, his belt around his neck, a bottle of hand lotion, it looks like he killed himself. And we don’t have to go near that bridge.”
“Let’s do ‘er, then. But I ain’t touchin’ him. It’s your idea, you’re the one to rig him up.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Always me, doin’ the work. Sometimes I wonder why I tolerate you.”
Howie laughed, passed the spliff to Chick. “Because you and me, we’re the Three Musketeers.”
Chick gathered a trio of magazines from under his mattress, and a supersize squeeze bottle of Hydrating Moisturizer, with Soothing Aloe and Vitamins A&E, from the shelf over his sink. Howie followed him down the silent hallway.
They stopped outside the door of Room 36. Chick put his hand across Howie’s chest. “You hear that? Somebody’s in there!”
“Maybe the guy ain’t dead.”
“Jeezums. He sure looked dead a couple hours ago.” He put the key in the door, eased it open.
Faintly, they heard singing.
“Shit,” Chick said. It’s the Dead.”
“Frikko! Dead people don’t sing!”
“Grateful Dead, dickwad.” He pointed to the headphones on the floor, stooped, picked them up, unclipped the player from the man’s belt. Slipped it in his shirt pocket, put the headphones on. He bobbed his head, said, “Truckin’.” He pulled the headphones down around his neck, and laughed, his residual high bubbling to the surface. “This here dude sure has got his chips cashed!” He figured out how to turn off the player. “I been wantin’ one of these jiggers.”
“What? You gonna take it?”
“Why not? This do-dah man sure don’t have no use for it no more! Come on, help me get him into the bathroom.”
Chapter 20
The next morning, after Alice went in to make up 36, and found the dead body, then bounced down the stairs, ran to Pudge in hysterics, got the pill from the paramedics that came with the cops after Pudge dialed 911, and the afternoon excitement subsided into an evening of drinking and gossip, Howie and Chick were back in the bar; weightless, maintaining with beers.
A little too ripped to shoot pool with any finesse, they stood at the far end of the bar, close to the swinging doors and away from the buzz of the crowd.
“How much you think we still got in the ol’ RoachMobile?”
“Aw, man, I don’t know. Like you said on the way back from Jersey, thousands and thousands.”
“Howie. Mr. Baer gave you fifty thousand bucks. Each of us. Get real.”
“Well, yeah, I guess. Arithmetic wasn’t never my strong subject.” Howie ran his finger around the rim of his mug, dipped it in the beer, sucked it. “Aside of him and us getting it out, counting it up, how we gonna know?”
“Remember, he fished out two packs, split them four ways, so that means there's a hundred thousand a pack. Right? And there was a good armload in each of those boxes Bumpsy tossed up from that basement.” He held his arms out, fondly cradling a baby. “Couple dozen? Let’s say it was twenty.”
“Twenty what?” Howie was getting a headache from thinking.
“Twenty bundles to a box.”
“Sounds about right.” Chick lost him when he switched from packs to bundles.
“OK. How many boxes was it? Before we quit, on account of the fire?”
Howie pictured Bumpsy down in the hole, surrounded by busted boxes and burning money. “I have no idea.” His best friend needed help, so he searched for something familiar to work with, and found units of beer. There were six cans in a six pack, and four to a case. “Four.”
“Close enough.” Chick raised his voice. “Yo! Pudge! You got a pencil and something to write on? Howie. What’s a hundred times twenty?”
Howie pulled out his bankroll, separated his small bills from the roll of hundreds, returned it to his pocket. “Twenty, forty, sixty. I only got three twenties.”
“It’s two thousand, stupid. Same as two times ten.”
“So?” Howie shoved the twenties, the five, the singles in his other pocket. Time to start keeping his finances in some kind of order, now that he had some.
“There's two hundred thousand bucks in a box, and you say there were four boxes.”
Pudge dropped a bingo pencil and a stack of Coors coasters on the bar. “What are you Einsteins counting?”
“Uh. . . Fish. We’re trying to figure out how many is in the river.”
Pudge shook her head, returned to her other customers. Twenty six years of Shaleville was making nuts look normal. She’d loved some, let a few others, and dismissed the rest as losers. Like those two sitting down the bar, making plans on how to get out of their own way. Too bad about the dead guy; he’d had potential.
Howie tried to focus on the numbers. “So it’s eighty thousand?”
“Man, you are such a moron. it’s eight hundred thousand!”
“Man, now you’re way over my head.”
Chick turned a coaster over, wet the pencil with his tongue, and wrote a two with four zeros after it. “Look, it’s just figuring how many zeros you got.” He underlined them and stated, “That’s how much we figured was in a box.”
“Zero? That don't sound right.”
For once Howie was right. “No, wait.” Chick added zeros, pushed the coaster in front of his best bud since third grade. “You got that?”
“Yeah.” Howie didn’t, but what the heck. As long as somebody did. He dipped his finger back in his beer. A nervous habit; as a kid he played with his food whenever his mom got on his case. About school, chores, whatever.
Now that he was grown, he played with beer. Sometimes he shook salt in it, just to watch the bubbles form out of nowhere, rise, disappear. Magic. A lot of nature was that way. Foolin’ with stuff was why he liked weed; getting ready to smoke was almost as much fun as getting ripped. Almost.
Chick pulled the coaster back, wrote a four under the two and six zeros, drew a line, cast his memory back to ninth grade, came up with an eight and a long line of goose eggs. He studied it for a moment. Yeah, that was right. Good thing there wasn’t no carryin’ involved, they’d be here ‘till Pudge closed up. “OK,” he said, his voice filled with excitement. “Now, when you multiply it out, you get a eight, with six zeros.” He sat back, grinning. “How much is that?”
“I don’t know, C
hick; I don’t even count the change Pudge gives me for a hundred. So, what's the answer, Mister Wizard?”
Chick’s voice dropped. “A million! There’s eight million bucks in the RoachMobile.”
“Frikko! We rich!”
“Yeah, when The Man gets around to divvyin’ up them millions.”
Chapter 21
His cell rang, and Justice climbed out of the shower. He could count the people who had the number on one hand, so he grabbed a towel and picked up his phone.
“Sergeant Justice? Robert Justice?” A woman’s voice. And nobody called him Robert. “You probably don’t remember me,” she added in a rush. “We met at Fort Campbell, oh, gosh, years ago? I’m Pen, Penny Driver, Davy’s sister. Mom and I came down to see him graduate from Ranger School.”
A skinny, redheaded kid. Shy and quiet. Overshadowed by Davy’s mom, a fast-talking Yankee, with a Salem tucked in the corner of her mouth. Flirting with the soldiers, calling their company commander ‘hon’.
“Yes, sure,” Justice said, toweling himself with his free hand. “We went out to dinner that night.”
Dinner was at one of those franchise restaurants lurking outside the main gate of military installations across the nation. Dark, icy cold, with Coors and Bud by the pitcher, and enormous steaks served on metal broiler pans that the waitress warned was hot.
When the hostess offered a choice, Davy’s mom quickly selected smoking, and they were hardly seated when she stuck another Salem between her lips, and leaned over the candle in the red votive cup situated between the condiments and the hard rolls. Justice got a good look at the display of bosom she offered. She sat, blew smoke skyward, and winked at him, igniting a blush.
“You drive down today, Mrs. Driver?” he asked, recovering, more or less ignorant of where Philadelphia was.
“Oh, call me May, darlin’. No, it's over eight hundred miles, and Penny’s too young to drive. We stopped in West Virginia last night, got an early start this morning.” She reached for her son’s hand, held it, and turned to her daughter. “Ain’t he the most handsome thing you ever seen? I could just eat him with a spoon!”
The kid smirked and stuck her tongue out at her brother as her mother continued. “He’s been the man of the family since he was ten years old. And look at him now, all grown up. Oh, I’m so proud!”
Davy said, ”Penny’s the one you should be proud of.” He turned to Justice. “She’s the smartest person I ever knew. I used to call her ‘whybaby’ when she was little, ‘cause of the constant questions. If I didn’t know the answer, and I hardly ever did, she get down the encyclopedia. Heck, I was in tenth grade and Penny was in third, she’d help with my homework!”
Penny slumped in her chair, extended her long legs sliding beneath the table, and put her napkin over her head. “Ma! Make him stop!”
“Yes’m, ‘course I remember you.” I should, after sharing your e-mails, and listening to your brother brag on you, all through high school and into college.
“Listen- it’s Bob, not Robert, right?”
The name came like a kick in the gut. Because nobody called him that, neither. Except for Davy. “Yes’m.”
“I, uhm; I don’t know how. . .” Her voice was small and hesitant, but then picked up speed and the words came tumbling out. “I’m going through Davy’s stuff, his address book; there isn’t much in it— mostly women’s names, a couple of sergeants he never mentioned, and I don’t really know what to say to complete strangers; well, of course I recognized your name, and I figured I’d call you first. Because I have absolutely no idea of what I am supposed to do.”
Call. You. First. Justice stared at his ghostly image in the fogged bathroom mirror. He could picture the government car pulling up and the uniforms getting out. “What hap—”
“Davy’s dead, Bob.”
Damn. Damn-damn-damn. ”Iraq?” If I hadn’t screwed up, we’d still be together, and I would never let this happen. He dropped the lid and sat. Had to, before he went out. He put his head between his knees, waiting for the spell to pass, as he listened to girl.
“No, here. Davy is—was—on leave. Planning to go see you for awhile, a surprise, before heading back to his unit.” There was a pause, and Justice could hear faint sounds, voices, other conversations, bouncing across the ether. After a moment she said softly, “They say he killed himself.”
“Wait a minute. Where’s ‘here’? Who says it was suicide?” He couldn’t picture Davy going out that way.
”Pennsylvania. A little town called Shaleville. It’s in coal country, up the river from Harrisburg. The police broke the news, but a man, the county coroner, called later. He said that Davy hung himself. Said I need to go identify him.”
“Give me your number, your address. I can be there in—”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes’m,” he said. “I do.”
Chapter 22
Howie parked in front of the hotel, as close as he could to the street lamp. There was most likely a space on Pine, but he admired the way his red paint glowed under the amber lamp. Imagined people driving past.
Who’s that new rig belong to?
That’s Howie’s. Sharp, huh?
Better believe it. Wish I had me one like it.
Compare that with females, Pudge in particular, get all huffy when you look at their Pride and Joys. Spend a ton of money on a bra at that Victory Secrets, one that pushes ‘em up, puts ‘em on display, then blow hot when you dare to check out the show. Maybe she’d change her tune, now that he was rich.
He strolled in, through the lobby, down the dark corridor, using the hotel entrance to the bar. That way he could pause at the swinging doors, look inside, scope things out. Watch, see who’s who, what’s what.
He pictured himself, a hundred years earlier, and a thousand miles west, making this entrance. Cowboy boots, maybe some spurs; making that little jingly sound. A six gun, low on his hip. Frikko. It could happen; he’d have to see about getting a piece. Wondered if his juvie record would stop it. He pushed on through.
“Dude,” he said to Chick, and bumped a fist. “What’s the word?” He spun his Coors cap around backward, settled against the bar. Maybe he’d get an actual hat, like Chief Schmidt’s; gray, with a black band. Same kind the fat cop wore in Smokey and the Bandit. To go with his gun.
Chick broke his fantasy. “I seen your ma’s neighbor at the laundromat; she was askin’ where you been.”
Howie raised a fist at Pudge, tilted his thumb to his mouth, mimed drinking. “Who? that stooped over old lady, looks like a frog?”
“No, the ugly one, with the moles.”
Pudge put his usual mug of Coors in front of him, and he peeled a hundred from his roll, made a production of folding the crisp new bill lengthwise, held it between his index and middle fingers. As she reached for it he closed his hand, pulling it just out of range.
“OK, cutie pie, that’s it. Your new boss, that Mister Baer, said to tell you no more hundreds. The beer’s a buck fifty, and this is now the exact change lane.”
“ Frikko,” he muttered, and dug in his other pocket, came up with a crumpled wad of singles. “Hey, Pudge. How come, back in high school, you wouldn’t never go out with me, I asked you?”
“Howie, you’re not my type.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your type?”
“Anybody that ain’t you. Pay for the beer.”
“Well, ain’t you missy stuck up!” He unfolded a pair of bills, smoothed them on the bar top. “So then, what’s your excuse for not never goin’ out with Chick?”
“Excuse? Well, excuuuse, me! I went out with Chick. Once.” She dropped a pair of quarters in place of the two singles.
“You never!” Chick said, pretty sure he would have remembered. Pudge was hot, back when she was Dorothy.
“Yeah, I did, too. I was a Junior. You’d quit school, just bought that crappy old Camaro you’re still drivin’.”
“What you mean, ‘crappy’? Fo
ur more years, the Z28’s gonna be a classic car, and I can get them purple plates for it. It’s got the 400 cube engine, five speed tranny. ”
“Uh huh. And the eight track player that came with it. I got some classic Rheingold cans down cellar, got less rust on them than your car.” She ran a bar rag across the mahogany.
“Hell of a date; you took me to see some movie with Clint Eastwood and a monkey. Gave me a can of warm beer, tried to get your hand under my sweater. You remember that?”
“No, can’t say as I do.”
“Go stick some disco in your eight track, refresh your memory.” Pudge turned to Howie. Today's signature T-shirt was SpongeBob SquarePants. She folded her arms across his buck tooth grin and SpongeBob’s big white eyeballs got bigger. “He offered me five bucks to go down on him. He probably don’t remember that, neither.”
Howie felt a zinger bubble up, and he fired it off. “You still got the five?”
“You boys need to go see Alice. Maybe she’ll give you a twofer discount.”
Chapter 23
Justice dumped his toiletries into a scarred leather Dopp kit and zipped it closed. Tossed the kit and a washcloth in a soft-side carryon. Added whipcord khakis and a pair of jeans, a week’s skivvies, socks, a couple of shirts. Packed a sweatshirt; Pennsylvania might be cold. Mason/Dixon was alien country.
He tossed the suitcase and his go-bag on the passenger side of a Ford pickup truck he’d bought from a sergeant shipping out. There was a dog-eared atlas under the seat, and he traced a route with his finger from Clarksville, T-N to Harrisburg, P-A. Mostly Parkways and Interstates; the cruise control and the radio would make for an easy, if long, trip. A quick stop at an ATM, and he was on the road. Again. On the road again.
Goin' places I've never been.
You got that right, Willie. Except for you, it’s makin' music with your friends; for me it was killin' strangers in a strange land.
