by Scott Pratt
The lines in Barnes’ face were tight and deep. Behind him, Charlie saw Jasper walk out the door of his shop with Biscuit at his heels. He secured the padlock and started walking toward them. Barnes didn’t notice.
“I want you to listen to me, young lady, and I want you to listen closely,” Barnes said. His voice was growing harder, edgier with each word. His lips barely moved when he spoke. “I’m willing to make it worth your while to walk away from what rightfully belongs to me. You’ve gotten lucky. You’re looking at a three-hundred thousand dollar windfall you don’t deserve. But I’m warning you, it would not be wise to push me. You need to think about how much it really means to you to own that land. Because if you insist on acting in an unreasonable manner, the cost is going to be much, much higher than you can imagine.”
Charlie didn’t respond. She watched as Jasper passed close behind Barnes, who was so startled that he jerked visibly.
“You remember Zane Barnes, don’t you, uncle?” Charlie said as Jasper climbed the concrete steps onto the porch.
Jasper squinted at Barnes and spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground a few feet from Barnes’ shoes. Biscuit let out a low growl.
“Sure do,” Jasper said. “Went to school with him. Never did care much for him, though.”
“Zane was just threatening me.”
Jasper straightened and his eyes hardened. “Threatening you? How do you mean?”
“Roscoe had a will that left all his land and property to me. Zane isn’t happy about it. He was just saying something about the cost is going to be higher than I can imagine. Isn’t that what you said, Zane? Higher than I can imagine?”
Barnes’ chin dropped slightly. He suddenly looked like a child caught in a lie.
“That right, Zane Barnes?” Jasper said. “You threatening my niece?”
“No,” Barnes said, “of course not. I was just talking to her, trying to reason with her, that’s all.” The edge was gone; his voice had taken on a higher pitch.
“So you’re saying she’s lying? You’re calling her a liar, right here to her face?”
“I’m not calling her a liar. There’s just been a misunderstanding. It’s a complicated situation.”
Jasper moved back down the steps, his dog beside him. He stopped a few feet from Barnes, pointed a spindly finger at him. Charlie had never thought of Jasper as an intimidating figure. The overalls, the cap, the sneakers. It didn’t really fit. But his posture was one of aggression. The atmosphere was almost electric. There was an aura of danger in the air.
“I’ve known you all your life, and there ain’t a bit of good in you,” Jasper said in a tone that frightened even Charlie. “There ain’t an ounce of truth in you, either. What you need to do right now is haul your sorry carcass back to that fancy car of yours and get on out of here. If I catch you here again, I’ll skin you and mount you on a mannequin.”
Barnes needed no further prodding. He turned without saying a word and hurried toward the Mercedes. Ten seconds later, he was gone.
Charlie stood silently as Jasper climbed the steps again. She didn’t know what to say.
“Ain’t nobody gonna mess with my Peanut,” Jasper said as walked past her. “Not while I’m breathing.”
Chapter 25
ABOUT half an hour after Zane Barnes left, Charlie heard another vehicle. Her stomach fluttered because she knew it would be him. She looked out the kitchen window and saw Jack Dillard’s red Jeep. She had texted him earlier and asked him to come visit her on the mountain. He’d said he would, so she had texted him the address and he’d found the place.
In her mind, Charlie likened her history of dealing with men to the history of the lost colony of Roanoke Island – brief and uncertain. She could count the number of men (both of them were boys, really) she’d slept with on two fingers. As a teen, she’d been tall and bony and awkward and flat-chested and smart, a combination that didn’t exactly attract the attention of boys. She was a classic ugly duckling, didn’t fill out until she was a junior in high school at the age of seventeen. When she returned to school after the summer, she noticed a distinct change in the boys’ attitudes toward her, but by that time she found them silly and boring. She’d dated a boy named Dustin Hanks during her freshman year in college and lost her virginity to him, but as soon as she slept with him he became possessive and abusive and she ended it shortly thereafter. She kept her distance from boys after that, although she sometimes fantasized and often dreamed about them. The only other time she’d slept with a man was two nights before she graduated from law school. She’d gone to a party at a bar in the Old City in Knoxville and wound up taking her first shots of tequila. A blurry night followed, memories of flirting and dancing with a second-year law student, awakening in his apartment the next morning naked with him lying next to her and no memory of anything that occurred after midnight.
Jack Dillard was unlike any man she’d ever met. He was beautiful – tall and muscular and dark haired and dark eyed with a chiseled face, deep dimples and an easy, honest smile – but more than that, much more than that, he was funny and intelligent and unassuming and had a gentleness about him that made her feel safe and comfortable in his company. She knew the romance, if it really was a romance, was in its early stages and that they had much more to learn about each other, but even with everything else that had happened to her recently, she’d found herself thinking about him constantly. They’d been to dinner, they’d been to a movie, and they had texted back and forth hundreds of times already, and she had yet to find a single thing about him that she didn’t like. He was a perfect gentleman, almost chivalrous, and Charlie found that endearing.
Charlie went out the back door onto the porch and down the steps while she watched Jack get out of the Jeep and start walking. He was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt with “Vanderbilt Baseball” written in gold across the front.
“Hey,” Charlie said as Jack approached.
“Hey yourself,” he said.
She wanted to drape her arms around his neck and hug him, but she restrained herself. Jack reached out with both hands and she took them in hers.
“Nice place,” he said.
“I told you I lived in the boonies.”
“I like it. It’s beautiful up here. It smells fantastic. And so do you.”
Charlie felt herself blushing.
“You look nice,” she said.
“Really? Thanks. You look… you look… like you always do. Incredible.”
Charlie held onto Jack’s right hand and started pulling him toward the back porch.
“I want you to meet my uncle,” she said. “He’s a little different, okay? Don’t freak out.”
“Different how?”
“You’ll see. I’d invite you into the house but I’m a little ashamed of how it looks in there right now. My uncle is a bit of a hoarder.”
“I think you mentioned that.”
“Hang on, stay right here.”
Charlie walked up the steps to the door, opened it, and yelled, “Uncle? Uncle! Will you come out here for a minute?” She walked back down the steps and a few seconds later Jasper stepped onto the porch followed by his massive wolfhound. The dog came down off the porch and sniffed Jack’s pants for a few seconds, then wandered off toward the barn.
“I’d like you to meet someone,” Charlie said. “This is my friend Jack Dillard. Jack, this is my uncle, Jasper Story.”
To Charlie’s surprise, Jack walked up the steps and offered his hand to Jasper. “It’s nice to meet you, sir,” Jack said. The two men were about the same height, although Jack was much broader.
Jasper shook Jack’s hand and Charlie was pleased to see just a hint of a smile cross his lips. “Good to meet you, too, young feller,” he said.
There was a brief silence before Jack said, “Charlie has told me a lot about you.”
“Has she, now? She ain’t mentioned you to me.”
“That isn’t true and you know it,” Charlie said.
; “Must have slipped my mind,” Jasper said. He turned his gaze back to Jack. “You courtin’ my niece?”
“Yes, sir, I am. Well, I’m trying anyway.”
“Say your name is Dillard?” Jasper looked at Charlie. “Ain’t that lawyer you’re working for named Dillard? Is this him?”
“His son,” Charlie said. “Jack is Joe Dillard’s son.”
“You a lawyer?” Jasper said.
“Not yet,” Jack said. “I’m in law school. Working on it.”
“I ain’t never had much use for lawyers.”
“Uncle!” Charlie said. “I’m a lawyer. Well, almost.”
“Didn’t mean nothing by it, Peanut,” Jasper said. “I’m just sayin’ I ain’t never used a lawyer in my life.”
“Everybody hates lawyers,” Jack said. “Until they need one.”
“You gonna give him a tour of the place?” Jasper said to Charlie.
“I was planning to. Everything but the house.”
“Ain’t much else to see other than the barn and my shop. You ain’t planning on showing him my shop, are you?”
“No, uncle, I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Good. Nice to meet you, young feller.” With that, Jasper turned and disappeared back inside the house.
“C’mon,” Charlie said. “I’ll give you the grand tour.”
They walked slowly around the edge of the property for the next half hour, holding hands, taking in the beautiful views of the mountains. The cloud cover had started to thin and streaks of light from the setting sun slipped through and bounced off the distant peaks. Eventually they made their way to the barn where Charlie introduced Jack to Sadie.
“Do you ride?” she asked.
“I used to,” Jack said. “My mom and dad bought my sister a horse when she was ten. Quarter horse like Sadie, but he was a black gelding. His name was Tasmanian Devil, but we just called him Taz.”
“Your sister’s name is Lilly?”
“Right. We both rode him every day for a while, but Lilly fell off one day and wound up with a concussion. Talked in circles for hours. We took her to the emergency room at the hospital and one of the doctors started telling my parents horror stories about people he’d treated that had been kicked by horses or thrown off horses. It freaked my dad out so much that he wound up selling the horse. He told Lilly he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if she got hurt seriously or killed.”
“How did she take losing the horse?”
“It broke her heart, but I think she was a little relieved, to tell you the truth. She was young, and Taz was a lot of horse.”
“We’ll have to go for a ride soon,” Charlie said. “We can ride double. Sadie won’t mind.”
“Sounds like a plan. You drive.”
Charlie smiled and took Jack’s hand.
“I had a meeting with your father yesterday,” she said. “Did he mention it to you?”
“Yesterday? Where did you meet?”
“At his office.”
“He didn’t say anything to me about it. What were you meeting about?”
“I found something. I probably shouldn’t tell you about it, but I already know I can trust you and I just can’t bear this alone. I have to make some difficult decisions and I need someone to talk to. I just… I just… I need help, Jack. Will you help me?”
“Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“I don’t know. I mean, no, I’m not in trouble, but what I found could cause some trouble, I guess. I haven’t done anything wrong, though. Nothing illegal or immoral or anything like that. You remember the other day when the courier came to the office? After Roscoe killed himself? There was a map in the envelope. It was a map of Roscoe’s property and it led to a cave on the mountain and I followed it. I followed the map, Jack, and I found something.”
Charlie studied Jack’s face carefully. He was looking at her steadily. There was no sign of amusement, no sign of alarm, no sign of judgment. He was taking her seriously.
“Do you want to know what I found?” Charlie said.
“If you want me to.”
Charlie held on to Jack’s hand and started walking toward the trunk where she had stashed the bar of gold. She let go of his hand, bent over and opened the trunk, and pulled out the saddle blanket that contained the bar.
“Brace yourself,” she said. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Chapter 26
THE machine filled the room, and the room wasn’t small. It was a quiet monster, given to hums and clicks instead of roars and growls. It was a diagnostic, bone-scanning, imaging machine, one that would tell us whether Caroline’s cancer had spread over the past three months. We were at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, engaging in the same ritual we’d been engaging in every three months for the past year, since her breast cancer had metastasized to her bones. We would avoid talking about it until a day or two before the next test. We’d talk about it briefly, express hope that the results would be good. We’d load up in the car, make the four-hour drive largely in silence.
“Don’t try to interpret what you see on the screen,” the heavy-set, male nurse said to me just before he disappeared into an anteroom filled with computer screens.
“I know what the lights mean,” I said. “We’ve been through this before.”
“All I’m saying is that you’re not a doctor. Let the doctors worry about it.”
“Right,” I said, and he closed the door behind him. I watched through the large, glass panel as he sat down and started pushing buttons.
“You okay?” I said to Caroline. She was lying on her back on a long table that was attached to the machine.
“I’m good.”
The table began to slide toward a large tube as a steel panel began to lower itself toward her head. Within seconds, I couldn’t see her face. The bone scan would take thirty minutes. Three hours earlier, Caroline had been given a drink that was filled with radioactive isotopes. Those isotopes had attached themselves to the cancer cells inside her body, and when the machine sent electromagnetic waves through her, the isotopes lit up on a computer monitor that was mounted on the wall across from where I was sitting. Less than five minutes into the scan, I saw the first, faint glow in her skull. It was still there. The cancer was still there. Then another in her shoulder near her right clavicle. Then two more, one in each humerus. A brighter glow in her spine where the tumors had already caused three vertebrae to fracture. Two more in her legs.
“How does it look?” It was Caroline’s voice from beneath the panel.
“Looks good, baby. Hasn’t spread. At least I don’t think it has.”
“So that’s a good thing.”
“Yes. Yes. That’s a good thing.”
“But it’s still there.”
“It is.”
“That’s a bad thing.”
“Could be worse. It could be a whole lot worse.”
“I love you, Joe.”
“I love you, too, baby.”
Chapter 27
MORE than a week had passed since Johnny and Carlo’s meeting with Big Legs Mucci. Tommy Maldonado had lit up both of their cell phones looking for the weekly tribute, but they’d ignored the calls. It was 1:15 a.m. on Monday morning when they walked out of Quattro’s bar on South Thirteenth Street, a place they’d been going every Sunday night for the past two months. It was a bar frequented by locals around their age, mostly blue collar types. The beer was cold, the music loud, the girls hot, and, for the most part, friendly. The Sunday crowd wasn’t as big as Saturday’s, but Johnny and Carlo were always busy with the drug trade on Saturday night. Sunday was the best day to party, even though the bar shut down at one. Both of them were drunk, especially Carlo, who had started a little early had knocked back fifteen beers.
Their apartment on Passyunk was just over a mile away, so when the weather wasn’t bad, they walked home, past Methodist Hospital and South Philadelphia High School. They’d just crossed West Moyamensing, less than a block fro
m the bar, when four men stepped out onto the sidewalk from a parking lot on their right. The night was cloudy and there was only one streetlight at the corner behind them, so Johnny didn’t recognize any of the men until he got closer. Tommy Maldonado was flanked by three bruisers Johnny had never seen. He and Carlo stopped about five feet from them.
“Been trying to get ahold of you guys,” Maldonado said.
“Yeah? What do you want?” Carlo spoke. Johnny could practically feel him seething.
“You forgot to pay me yesterday.”
Johnny heard footsteps behind him. He turned. Four more men approached, one of them Big Legs Mucci.
“We ain’t paying,” Carlo said.
“That’s what I heard,” Maldonado said. “Yo Bobby, what else did they say? Something about soft? People don’t respect us no more? What was that other thing?”
“Welfare gangsters,” Mucci said as he and the three men with him fanned out around Johnny and Carlo. “They called us welfare gangsters.”
Johnny looked around quickly. They could probably break through the men and run, but there was no point. The same thing would eventually happen again, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. This was inevitable after the insults he and Carlo had hurled at Mucci. The way Johnny saw it, they could either start asking for forgiveness and pony up, or they could stand their ground and fight
“So it’s like this?” Carlo said. “Eight of you against the two of us?”
“Yeah,” Maldonado said, “it’s like this. You need to learn to respect your elders. Some manners, you know?”
“You’re about to find out how much respect I got for you.”
Johnny and Carlo instinctively put their backs to the fence. They’d been in many fights, even a few involving knives and chains, but they’d never faced so many guys. And these guys were big, all of them older. He eyed them, looking for weapons, waiting for somebody to make the first move. His fingers were tingling, his vision narrowing as the adrenaline began to pump. He decided he’d go straight at the guy directly to his left, try to knock him out, and then see what happened from there. The group of men had backed up a couple of steps and formed a semi-circle with Mucci and Maldonado in the center. Johnny noticed that both of them had their right hands behind their backs. He wondered briefly whether he was about to be shot, but if they intended to shoot him and Carlo, why would they bring eight guys?
