Seeking Carol Lee

by Nace Phlaux

  “Candy, Richter. Nice to meet you.”

  “Same.” He reached out a hand that seemed strangely soft compared to my own calloused mess and gave a firm handshake.

  We spent the night as we did the one before, talking about everything and nothing. You’re probably laughing at me, Dottie, thinking I’m being inappropriate. At any time, Jill might’ve come down to find me and assume I’m cheating on Jer. But it was all so intoxicating. The simple joy of talking to another adult without judgment. I mean, you and I could do that too, if you ever called or visited me. So take this as a big hint. I’ll sign off now and eagerly await your call. (Okay, honestly, I’m just going to fix myself another drink and maybe order myself a meal. Maybe enjoy some pay-per-view. That’ll be nice.)

  Fondly,

  Candy

  Eddie 7

  I didn’t notice Gaunt was walking behind me as I entered work until he called my name. The hoarse voice was far from familiar, so I turned around on guard, and even seeing his face wasn’t enough to calm my heart at first. But I stopped and let him catch up as my mind slowly made the necessary connections. Keep in mind how early we’re talking and how “functional alcoholic” is the nicest way to describe me.

  “Clock in,” he tells me gruffly. Didn’t stop walking or even turn his head when he passed. “And come to my office. It’s too early for Jamie, so come on through when you’re ready.” I stayed behind and let him get to his office before I even moved. My joints may not be what they used to be, but I could still spin circles around the old man shuffle Gaunt usually mustered.

  With the vanilla-doused secretary missing, I could detect a faint trace of Gaunt’s Old Spice in his office. He read something on his monitor for a while after I sat down, but he eventually tore his attention away and said, “You have a distinct advantage over your coworkers that I could use for a special project. And after having a long discussion with your previous employer, I feel I can trust you to perform well and to do so with discretion.”

  He talked with Getsinger? I remember thinking. And Getsinger either said something complimentary or sold me out in a way that made me sound useful. And what was considered a long conversation anymore? “Good to hear. I hope Getsinger’s doing well.” Gaunt nodded, confirming that’s who he talked to. There’s no one else he could’ve talked to, but with this weird conspiracy we were all elbow-deep in, exact details were welcome. “How may I be of service?”

  Tran. Quinn Tran. According to Gaunt, Tran had beef with him thanks to a coworker being promoted over Tran a few months back. The guy had apparently took things personal, and minor incidents had been occurring ever since. An increase in clogged toilets, containers of nondairy creamer exploding all over the break room, the number of pieces bounced back from Quality Assurance doubling. “I’d show you his picture on the network, but they’re never reliable. Mine looks like I’m an old crone who eats children.” Imagine.

  I asked what distinct advantage I had. What made me so special? “You’re free. Being the newest hire, you have no connections to anyone here yet,” he said. “No obligations or loyalties. I’m proud of the company’s tight community, but it makes rooting out troubled employees difficult. Everyone circles the wagons against big bad management. But I felt like I could trust you, Eddie, and Getsinger agreed.”

  A grin spread across my face, a combination of the thought of my mission with the boss lady and the memory of the oddly hairy Dutchman with his suburban prostitute. “So how’d you like me to take care him? Scare him out of town? Bury him six feet under a layer of dead dogs buried six feet deep? I mean, what’s your managerial style? I guess is what I’m asking.”

  “Nothing like that, although I appreciate your enthusiasm. I just need proof. Everything above the boards. Bring me his head on a silver platter. Or whoever’s head. I’m not entirely convinced the culprit is Tran. But I can’t be entangled in a racial profiling dispute, so I need something definitive.”

  I told him I’d see what I could do, and on the way out, he stopped me as I reached for the door. “Oh, and Eddie, I don’t know whether you have any plans this Sunday, but I’ve invited some guys both in and out of work over.” It was too early in the morning, and I hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet. I couldn’t think of what he was talking about, and I remember mentally going over the Flyers’ schedule until he said, “Rooting for the Ravens or the 49ers? Or are you in it for the halftime show with Beyoncé?”

  “Well, all the single ladies do call me bootylicious, sir, but I’m just in it for the wings.” He smirked and wrote down his address, holding it out until I grabbed it and pocketed the note. Not like I would need it, but he didn’t realize that, of course. I told him I’d try to make it, knowing damn well I’d be there with freakin’ bells on, and when I got to my truck after my shift ended, I called the boss lady, the call going straight to voicemail, and simply said, “I made a friend.”

  * * *

  A snow had fallen during my shift heavy enough to make Pennsylvanian drivers forget how to handle a car. Times like that always make me hope you’re having a busy, profitable day. And that, you know, everyone’s alive and safe, of course. But mostly the profitable day thing.

  It was actually your wife who invited me to spend the weekend at your place when I entered the shop. She was ringing a guy out but motioned for me to hold on. Once he left, Hayleigh explained how busy it suddenly got that day. “If he gets too backed up, it looks bad on us, and he gets in a bad place,” she said, tapping her forehead.

  Once I was in the shop and saw you on the creeper, I shot straight for the drawer I’d opened last time, only to find it empty except for a copy of Auto Trader. You rolled out from under the car you were working on, pointed to the other bay, and said, “Fool picked a hell of a time to get an oil change.” Subtle. But effective. I went to work, putting on one of your spare overalls, and brother, gotta be honest here: I’m buying you a gym membership for your birthday.

  The next thirty-six hours were some of the best I’d had in ages. We were mostly silent, exhaustion stopping us both nights and Hayleigh cooking me breakfast Saturday morning. I’m pretty sure that was tofu bacon she made. Or she massacred a simple piece of pig more than I’ve ever been privy to before. But I guess it’s the thought that counts, as you’d probably point out. I only left to run home and walk and feed the dog before he tore up and pissed on everything. Found him just laying on my pile of clothes like I never left.

  I didn’t like that suspicious look you gave when I asked “You think you can handle the rest?” on Sunday morning. But, dammit, I had a mission to follow through. In the end, I should’ve stayed with you. After your stink-eye, Hayleigh tried guilting me into staying, but I knew full well you could handle the rest of the cars lined around the garage.

  Gaunt’s house was quiet when I walked up to his door with bags of chips and Funyuns. The driveway was empty too, making me check the time on my cell. I was never a big football fan, but I thought I had a rough idea of when the Super Bowl played. The door opened shortly after I knocked, and the old man welcomed me inside, wearing a black polo shirt with the Baltimore Ravens’ logo on it.

  The place had a spacious living room with a damn nice TV and a couple tables set up along the one wall with meat and cheese trays and bowls of snacks. The guests, though? None, despite the timer on the TV saying we were only twenty minutes out from the game. Gaunt offered me a beer, and when he came back with a couple Yuenglings, I asked where everyone else was. He gave this exaggerated shrug and said, “Running late mayhaps? How did the roads look?”

  The roads had been clear since Saturday morning, but I tried to say something reassuring. We exchanged awkward small talk between sips of beer, until a vibration in my breast pocket interrupted me mid-sentence. I pulled out the burner phone to find a text message from the boss lady saying “Play along.” A moment later, Gaunt’s doorbell rang, and he excused himself with a bit of a giddy smile on his face.

  I heard the front door open, foll
owed by a series of shots, more like blows of a hammer than anything made by a firearm. “Run, Eddie! Run!” Gaunt nearly fell into the room covered in splotches of paint, crawling away from the entryway as three masked boys followed him in, the leader holding a paint gun. The boss lady’s goons, there and in the flesh. And I was supposed to work with them? Fuck that.

  “Where’s the party, Gaunt?” the leader asked, dressed again in a nice button-down and a thin tie that matched his sickly skinny pants. “Did all your invites find themselves tied up?” He nodded toward the old man curled into a fetal ball, and his lanky Indian and military boyfriends grabbed Gaunt off the floor and hauled him into a chair. As they pulled out rope from a duffel bag and worked on tying my host up, the leader held his paint gun in my direction. “Doesn’t this one look left out now?”

  The lanky Indian tied me up, but he did so in a way where everything was loose or manageable. Whether he did that on purpose or out of stupidity I couldn’t tell you. As soon as he thought he’d finished with me, his next victim was the bowl of Doritos on the table. The leader watched him for a second before shouting, “How hard is it to hold a bowl and keep an eye on him?” The Indian brought the food over by me and munched loudly with his back turned to me.

  “Would you like to see what I brought to the party, Mr. Gaunt?” The leader tossed the paintball gun to Officer Buzzcut and reached into the duffel bag, pulling out a blowtorch and a sparker. “Are we ready to open a dialogue, Larry?”

  “Don’t tell them shit,” I yelled. ‘They’ll torture us either way.”

  Buzzcut shot me a couple times in the gut with the paintball gun and told me to shut up. He wasn’t wearing the skeleton getup like last time, but he still wore the skull bandana over his smug little face. He seemed downright happy as he pulled the trigger, but he quickly went back to scoping out Gaunt’s shelves and valuables.

  “What are we to do with such liars, hmm?” the leader asked as he scraped the flint and lit the blowtorch. “Now, Mr. Gaunt, what can you tell me about Eric Milnes? Worked for you for a few years? Manager of some pathetic aspect of your company? Am I ringing any bells?” With that, the leader grabbed Gaunt’s shirt and grazed it with the blowtorch, causing the material to catch fire. The old man began to scream, but the leader grabbed an open beer one of us had left out and poured it over Gaunt’s chest.

  “Just tell us what we want to know, gramps,” Buzzcut said, practically mumbling. He’d found a bronze sculpture on the shelf that seemed to have some weight eyed it over. “Can we just get to the pruners? I know you like fire, but lose a finger, and he’ll confess shit his own mother’s done.”

  I kept feeling like they were waiting, like they were giving me a cue. The Indian was standing close to me but wasn’t paying any attention to what I was doing. Hell, he didn’t even have a weapon. If this was a setup, then they really were feeding him to the wolves. Wolf. Whatever. I’d loosened the ropes around my body, but my wrists were still strapped together. I wondered if maybe I was supposed to save the day. Attack the Indian and shout a bit, scare the kids off. A whole scene designed to make Gaunt fall for me as his hero. The only problem was that I didn’t want the scrawny asshole.

  I wanted Skeletor.

  The Indian glanced back at me, but I only sneered. The leader blew out his blowtorch and made slow, accentuated strides to his bag, pulling out various blades and rope and barbed wire until he found the pruning shears. When Gaunt caught sight of them, he retched and leaned over to the side. Buzzcut jumped like the old man was trying to run, then stopped when he saw the bile escaping Gaunt’s mouth. Luckily, he stopped right in front of me.

  I leapt from the seat and wrapped my tied wrists over the thick guy’s head. No matter how muscle-bound you get, you still have a throat. I punched his before, and this time I aimed to tie it shut. A kick to the back of one of his legs, and he fell to his knee, trying to scream as he landed but only managing to make a sound like he was constipated instead. The bronze statue dropped to his side as the arm with the gun swung erratically, causing the Indian to duck and cover. The hand that was holding the statue tried swatting at me, but I just pulled the ropes tighter.

  “Can we be civil here?” the leader asked.

  From my vantage point, I could see the big military brat’s forehead turning crimson. “Weapons. Lose ‘em.” Buzzcut let the gun slip from his fingers, and the leader dropped the pruners, missing his own toes by an inch. I released my hold on the kid’s neck, and he fell on all fours, gasping for air. The others seemed to relax a bit, but the leader kept his eyes on me, even as I reached down and situated the statue awkwardly in my bound hands, taking a swing at the assholes head.

  The Indian moved as if he aimed to stop me, while his comrade just stared with wide eyes. I tossed the statue away from me and said, “Take your buddy and get out of here. And don’t think of coming back, you hear?” I backed up until the chair I’d been tied to was between me and the others, and they gripped their beaten friend underneath his arms and hauled him out of the house, the asshole groaning the entire time. Without much to soak it up, the blood pouring from where I hit him covered the back of his neck. Probably ran straight down and filled his underwear. His mama had questions that weekend, I’m sure.

  I locked the front door but couldn’t see anything out of the peephole. My truck could’ve been getting the brunt of their anger for all I knew, but I had an old man to handle. He couldn’t untie the rest of the rope around my wrists, so I suggested using the pruners. He dry-heaved but reluctantly agreed, helping me realize that choking someone with bound hands can leave a nasty rope burn. One look and he suggested we go to the hospital.

  “Who was that they were asking about?” I asked as I drove him to the nearest emergency room. The boys hadn’t touched my truck after all. Either another sign of their stupidity or of their commitment to whatever plan I was a pawn of. In fact, the truck was even better than before since a six pack I stole from Gaunt’s house sat behind my seat.

  “Hmm? Milnes? Oh, I don’t know. Worked for us years ago. Maybe about 30 years ago. Good worker. Made his way up the ranks quickly. Had family issues, from what I recall, and it took its toll. Had to let him go. We tried to give him a severance package, suggest he should take some time...” From the corner of my eye, I could see him gazing out the window, licking and pursing his lips in that disgusting elderly way. “He didn’t respond well.”

  I pulled into a spot in the emergency room parking lot and placed a hand on Gaunt as he moved to open the door. “Before we go in...Those kids. Why Milnes? Why would those assholes attack you over a deadbeat you fired?”

  His hand reached up to his chest as if that was the first time noticing the burn marks. One of the polo shirt’s buttons had been burned or ripped off, and pale skin matted in gray hair poked through holes in the material. None of it looked damaged, but he still smelled like the beer that put out the flames. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s been decades. Anything I knew of him would be old news by now.”

  He moved to leave, and I told him I wouldn’t be following him in. “But your wrists, Eddie. They look awful. I can cover the costs if that’s the—”

  “It’s my sister,” I told him. “She’s signed some bad checks in this township. Made some shady sales. Didn’t act too kindly to the police force neither.” And the Academy Award for Bullshitting goes to... “I wouldn’t want you negatively affected by my family BS.”

  He looked like he wanted to object for a moment but eventually shook his head and got out. I waited until I saw him shuffle through the doors and headed back to town.

  * * *

  Instead of driving home or to a hospital, I went to the parking lot of Indian Creek and called Ort. I didn’t want to call you and ruin the weekend we had had or...well, ever call Richter again. So who else did I have? He eventually made his way out to the truck and directed me to a guy we used to work with involved with a cat rescue project that traps and neuters the poor furry bastards. But he had
Neosporin and a ton of gauze, so I didn’t question.

  “Got ketamine, if you’re interested,” he tells me. “Any friend of Ort an’ all.”

  “I’m good for now,” I told him. “But either of you remember a guy named Milnes?” The three of us sat in the cat guy’s station wagon. Guy’s name turned out to be Barlow. I recognized him from the steel, but we never talked much. He finished bandaging me up while Ort lit a joint in the front seat. Outside the car, a group smoked during the plays of the game, puffing through the boring parts and waiting for the commercials. February had started off chilly, as you could tell since not all the idiots’ exhalations were smoke, but some of the younger of the crew still wore shorts.

  What I hadn’t mentioned to Gaunt and sure as shit didn’t tell the trio was that I knew the guy they were looking for. He worked off and on at All-Lite for a while. Mostly kept to himself and seemed to pick up the shifts when we were overworked or short-staffed. Could’ve been through an agency or on some list for strays who could show up quick when needed, I guess. Either way, I figured it was only a matter of time until somebody was trying to burn my chest hair off in the chase for the guy.

  “One of the floaters, right? I remember talking to him once about his cats. Said something about his ex-wife being a crazy cat lady, and he was wondering if he could bring her up on charges. Told him only if she’s being cruel. He just scoffed at me. Real sad sack, that one.”

  “Didn’t he used to eat with that guy that sounded like a retarded Russian when he talked?” Ort said, trying to hold in a hit and finally coughing it all out.

  “Dude was deaf, moron.”

  “How am I supposed to know this shit? Christ. Why don’t you ask Evelyn, dipshit? She knew how brown everyone’s asshole was in that place.” While the man wasn’t exactly a poet with words, he did have good ideas at times. I thanked the two of them, went inside with them, and bought the three of us a round or two, heading out as soon as Ort started his annual rant of how the Monday after Superbowl should be a national holiday.