Running from the Dead

by Mike Knowles

  “Did you think you might find him in there?”

  Irene had stayed in the living room. It was probably for the best; the bedroom wasn’t meant for two. Jones ignored the question and scanned the length of the closet. “Five empty hangars.”

  “What?”

  Jones leaned back and craned his neck so that he could look at Irene. “There are five empty hangars.”

  Jones stepped around the bed and out of the room. “Go and see for yourself.”

  While Irene checked the closet, Jones went back into the bathroom to confirm a hunch. He almost collided with Irene when he walked back into the living room.

  She put a hand on her hip and gave Jones an exasperated look that felt like it relied on muscle memory more than real emotion. “I don’t see what the number of hangars has to do with—”

  “Sure you do,” Jones said. “His toothbrush is gone too.”

  “Toothbrush?”

  “Check it out.”

  Jones started opening drawers in the living room while Irene looked at the empty spot in the ceramic toothbrush holder on the sink.

  “I can’t find it,” she said on her way out of the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m looking for clues.”

  “What kind of clues?”

  “Bills are always a good start.”

  “You won’t find any bills,” Irene said. “I pay all of them.”

  Jones saw a small table on the other side of the recliner. He sat down in the chair and opened the top drawer. He lifted out the first sheet of paper and skipped to the best part. “Do you pay his credit card bill?”

  “He doesn’t have a credit card. He only has a debit card that I put fifty dollars on each week.”

  Jones took a picture of the bill with his phone and held the paper out for Irene. She snatched it from his hand and tried to read the bill but had to adjust the paper so that it was closer to her face. When that didn’t work, Irene slowly moved the paper away from her in a furious search for some kind of personal sweet spot.

  Jones made it easy for her. He got up from the chair and said, “He has a credit card and he has definitely been spending more than fifty dollars a week.”

  Irene threw her purse into the vacant seat and rummaged for her glasses while Jones went back into the bedroom.

  Irene spoke louder than she needed to. “He’s had this card for two months.”

  He figured she finally found her glasses. “Un hunh.”

  “His last charge was a dinner for three hundred dollars!”

  “Must have been good.”

  Irene swore while Jones moved to the bed.

  “He bought a suit for seven hundred dollars!”

  Jones saw a red stain on one of the pillows. “Probably wanted to look good for his girlfriend.”

  “He’s eighty years old. He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

  “You sure about that? Five minutes ago, you didn’t know he had a credit card.”

  Jones heard Irene’s heels march across the laminate flooring. “What do you know?”

  Jones held up the pillow. “Nothing for sure. I’m just guessing this shade of lipstick wouldn’t match his new suit.”

  7

  “A girlfriend!” Irene’s hand tensed and creased the bill she was holding.

  Jones had run out of things to check, and Irene took his presence as a sign to unload the anger she had been carrying.

  “He’s—”

  “Eighty,” Jones said.

  “Don’t be an asshole. What would a eighty-year-old man do with a girlfriend?”

  Jones smiled. “The lipstick on the pillow says he figured it out.”

  Irene held out an index finger. “No. No. I do not want to hear it.”

  “On the bright side, we know he’s not walking the streets like a lost dog.”

  Irene looked at the bedroom door. “I wish he were a dog. You can neuter a dog.”

  Jones laughed, but Irene didn’t join in. “Judging by the missing clothes and toothbrush, the credit card, and the lipstick, I’d say your father is not so much lost, as he is out of town.”

  Irene turned her back on the bedroom door. “It would appear that way.”

  “Do you still want me to find him?”

  Irene picked up the bill, put it back in the drawer, and slid it shut. “Perhaps we should take the advice of the police and give it a few days.”

  Jones took the cheque out of his pocket and held it out. Irene took the slip of paper and slid it into the depths of her purse. “You can send me a bill for your time, Mr. Jones.”

  Jones said, “Sure,” even though he had no intention of sending her anything. Irene moved toward the door and Jones was happy to follow. He had been inside the cramped apartment for ten minutes and he was already itching to get out of it. He hoped William Greene made the most of his few days.

  They rode the elevator together, and Irene felt no need to try to fill the quiet with small talk. Jones was happy for the silence. Irene took a step forward when she heard the muted elevator chime. When the door opened, she stepped out and, without looking at Jones, said, “Thank you for your help today, Mr. Jones.”

  Jones watched Irene Hogarth walk away. She didn’t look back to see if he was following, so she didn’t notice him walk in the other direction.

  There was a common room on the first floor, and Jones found four men playing a card game at a battered felt-topped table. The soft green surface had worn slick and shiny in places where elbows had rested for countless hours. The men were playing euchre and the grunts and monosyllables told Jones it was a regular thing. He watched as a suit was chosen. The choice of spades earned a harrumph from the player to the right of the man who had chosen it and a grin from the bald man opposite him.

  The first card hit the table and the sound it made was like a starter’s pistol. Plans of attack that had been silently drafted in the moments between the call of spades and the drop of the first card played out in a steady rhythm that seemed to surprise no one at the table.

  The bald man looked up as the cards were being collected. “Can I help you?”

  Jones said, “I’m looking for William Greene.”

  That made the card players laugh. “No one calls him that except his daughter.”

  “She brought me here.”

  All of the smiles vanished and so did the friendliness in the bald man’s voice. “You’re with her?”

  Jones shook his head. “She’s gone. I stayed behind to look around.”

  “Thank God,” the previous dealer said. He turned his head and looked at Jones through thick glasses. “That woman is real piece of work.”

  The bald man was dealt the first card of a new hand by an elderly black man to his right.

  “She came in here the other day looking for Willy,” the man with the glasses went on after he peeked at his card. “She was raising all kinds of hell downstairs about it. You know she threatened to sue the building for letting him walk off?”

  The threat elicited snorts from the other players.

  “Letting him walk off,” he said. “Like we’re prisoners who might escape.”

  “I’m new to this place,” Jones said. “What’s it like here?”

  “We’re playing cards at eleven o’clock in the morning,” the bald man said. “What are you doing?”

  “Working,” Jones said.

  “We win.”

  “What are you eating for dinner tonight?” the new dealer asked.

  “I haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “Me neither,” said the dealer, “but it will be on the table at five o’clock, and whatever it is will be good. There will be ice cream for dessert too.” He laughed and Jones saw a row of perfectly white teeth. “We win.”

  The man with t
he thick glasses turned his head away from his cards. “How many women do you live with?”

  “None,” Jones said.

  “Last count, we live with seventy-eight. We most definitely win.”

  Jones looked at the fourth man. He was the oldest of the group and even from across the table Jones could see tufts of hair growing out of his ears. Jones waited for the last man’s contribution. He spoke without looking up from his cards. “Do you ever get interrupted by people trying to sell you stuff?” Living in Europe had left a stain on the man’s voice that would never totally fade away. Jones guessed Germany.

  “Sure,” Jones said.

  “I guess we tie on that one.”

  The whole table started to laugh again.

  “Can I sit?”

  The man with the glasses said, “Sure, but you can’t play and you can’t offer advice.”

  “Deal,” Jones said. He slid a chair away from the wall as trump was called and seated himself just behind the players.

  “I hear Willy played poker here.” Jones wondered if the men would object to him talking during the game, but no one seemed to mind. Their actions were so practised that they seemed to be automatic.

  The bearded man’s smile showed his perfect teeth again. “He did, but this is euchre, son.”

  “Did Willy play euchre?”

  “Just poker,” the man said.

  “Did any of you play poker with him?”

  “We all have at one time or another, but not anymore.”

  “Why?”

  The expensive smile flashed again. “Willy cheats. No one knows exactly how he does it, but he does.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “No one wins that often.” The game ended, and the German began sweeping the cards toward him. The cards were shuffled quickly and tossed back toward the other players.

  The bald man lifted the corner of his first card and evaluated what he saw. “Willy has taken our money more times than any of us want to admit,” he said.

  “Not mine,” the German said.

  Jones saw a smile creep on the bald man’s face. “That’s because you don’t have any.”

  The jab earned another chorus of laughter from everyone at the table.

  “Not to get too personal, but I get the impression that Willy doesn’t have a lot of money.”

  The bald man was suddenly more interested in the conversation. “What makes you say that?”

  Jones shrugged. “His daughter has him on an allowance.”

  “She’s not hurting for money. That’s for sure,” the man with the thick eye glasses said.

  The German leaned back in his chair and held his cards close to his chest. “She is rich,” he said, “and yet, she treats her father like a criminal who just walked out of prison. Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know,” Jones said.

  The old man slapped a card down on the table and answered his own question. “Because he is a criminal who just walked out of prison.”

  8

  Jones couldn’t hide the surprise in his voice. “Willy just got out of prison?”

  “He didn’t just get out,” the bald man said. “He got out about eight months ago.”

  “Willy served twenty years for armed robbery,” the German said.

  “He told you that?”

  “Nope,” the bald man said over his cards. “I Googled him after we figured out he had done time.”

  “Did he brag about it?”

  “Nah, he just couldn’t hide it. Willy didn’t know anything about what was going on in the world. I mean anything. At first, we thought he was like a lot of folks in here, but he was sharp.”

  “Sharp enough to cheat us at poker,” the old man said. He put a lot of emphasis on the word us, to let Jones know it was an accomplishment.

  “Twenty years is a long time,” Jones said.

  The old man smiled. “Well, Willy robbed a lot of banks.”

  “His daughter said he disappeared two days ago.” Something about what Jones said brought about another round of laughter, but the sound was different. The laughs were deeper and accompanied by the shared glances of men who were all in on a joke.

  “Something you guys want to share?”

  The German nodded. “He didn’t disappear alone.”

  “He went with a woman.”

  The bearded man smiled. “You’re not as dumb as you look. But he didn’t go with a woman he went with the woman.”

  “Wore red lipstick?”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Saw it on his pillow,” Jones said.

  The man with glasses let out a heavy sigh. “Charlene.”

  “Is Charlene Willy’s girlfriend?”

  The bald man barked a laugh. “Charlene is always somebody’s girlfriend. Before Willy, she was with Phil.” He nodded to the bearded man, who had done most of the talking.

  Phil smiled wide. “That’s right.”

  “And before Phil, she was with Harry.”

  Harry adjusted his glasses. “Not right before.” He smiled and elbowed Phil. “But I was first.”

  Jones looked at the bald man. “How about you?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve never had enough money for a woman who wears lipstick that red.”

  Jones understood. When men closed their eyes at night and journeyed to the places their feet couldn’t go, there was often a Charlene there. And when good men lost fortunes, or families, the way others lose car keys, there was usually a Charlene there too. Jones wouldn’t have been able to make a living if there weren’t Charlenes in the world.

  “So when the money runs out—”

  Phil smiled and shook his head. “That’s when the fun is over. After that, she usually looks around for someone else. Maybe next time it will be Kurt’s turn.”

  The old man picked up the cards and started to deal. “Fuck that.” His accent made the profanity almost elegant. “I didn’t spend my whole life in a steel mill to give my money to Charlene.”

  Phil laughed. “You didn’t spend your life in a steel mill, Kurt. You owned the place.”

  “I was there every day.”

  Phil laughed again. “In your office.”

  The easy back and forth was felt comfortable and practised.

  “I sweat through my clothes in that office every day for thirty-five years. Not one drop of it was for Charlene.”

  Phil tilted his head toward Jones, covered his mouth with the back of his hand, and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “He’s full of shit. He’s just too old to get it up.”

  “Maybe,” Kurt said. “But officially I said no because of the principle, not the physical.”

  Jones laughed with everyone at the table. It felt good to laugh; like he hadn’t done it in years. The feeling of happiness felt wrong all at once and Jones remembered the people who had nothing to laugh about and how he would be joining them soon enough.

  9

  Jones was back in his Jeep by one. There were no messages from Melissa about appointments he had forgotten and nothing on his calendar except a meeting in six days. In six days, he would break Ruth’s heart. He wanted to rationalize it. What was six more days on top of six years? It was nothing, but Jones knew it would be everything to Ruth. A feeling of shame crept up like a tentacle and tried to grab hold of something inside of Jones. He forced himself to push the feeling away.

  The girl—that was the name Jones had given whoever had left the messages in the café bathroom—was out there, and there was a chance Jones could save her. He just had to keep moving for as long as he could and hope he had enough time. Jones scrolled through his phone, selected The Rolling Stones, and turned the volume up loud enough to drown out his thoughts. When he heard the opening chords to “Moonlight Mile,” he turned the wheel
and drove toward Brew.

  Sheena was behind the counter again and the line was four deep. Jones made it five and looked around to make sure Diane wasn’t at a table nursing another bottomless glass of wine. When it was his turn to order, Jones turned to the only other person in line and said, “You go ahead. I’m having trouble deciding.”

  Sheena rolled her eyes.

  When it was his turn, Sheena said, “You manage to choose something?”

  “Can I get a cortado?”

  “Shocker.” Sheena opened a jar and scooped out some coffee beans. “You know I don’t even know your name.”

  “Jones.”

  Sheena put a hand on her hip. “That’s not a name.”

  “Says the girl named Sheena.”

  “Is that your first name?”

  “Nope.”

  “What is your first name?”

  “Not the one they call me.”

  Sheena rolled her eyes and turned her back on him. Jones waited for Sheena to finish grinding the coffee beans before he said, “Did you get a chance to ask around about the door?”

  She nodded. Without looking turning her head, she said, “No one knows anything.”

  “Did you paint over it yet?”

  Jones saw her laugh. “It’s yours until the rent money runs out.”

  “How long does twenty dollars get me?”

  Sheena shrugged. “A week, or until my boss tells me to paint over it—whichever comes first.” She set the cortado down on the counter and took Jones’ money. “After my shift yesterday, I went and looked at the door. It’s weird. I almost never even notice what is on it until I’m painting over it. Even then, I usually just pay attention to the pictures or the really good swear words. That message was there for who knows how long and no one paid attention to it except you.” For a second, Jones thought Sheena sounded different. Her voice didn’t seem to have any of the piss and vinegar that had been there the day before, but then she said, “You some kind of do-gooder, or just a lonely guy looking for someone to talk to?”

  Maybe just the vinegar.

  “Neither. I think I only saw it because I was looking for something to see,” he said.