Ring Game

by Pete Hautman

  He’d listened to both of his Led Zeppelin eight-tracks too many times. He had to find some new music, but eight-tracks were as outdated and hard to come by as leaded premium gasoline—another requirement of riding the Goat. Maybe he should sell it and get another car. Something that would get better than nine miles a gallon. A Mercedes, a Land Rover, a BMW convertible—even a Volkswagen would be nice. Something with a cassette deck in it, or a CD player. Anything but an eight-track. He supposed he could take it out, replace it with a cassette deck. But the eight-track was original, it had come with the car. It was part of the whole classical sixties shtick that the Goat represented. If only he could find some decent tapes. Something besides Robert Plant’s screeching vocalizations.

  He thought about Laura Debrowski.

  She had called from Paris a week ago, all chipper and bright.

  Crow had asked her straight out, “So when are you coming home?”

  The line crackled. “I don’t know. I want to get this CD nailed down. These guys are good, Crow. I’m gonna make them the first French post-grunge superstars.” She was talking about Les Hommes Magnifiques, the band she had discovered when she and Crow had flown to Paris last April for an open-ended vacation.

  Crow had lasted less than two weeks in the land of baguettes and Camembert before heading back to the states. Debrowski stayed in Paris to work with Les Hommes. Their parting had been awkward. Crow didn’t like to think about it. The phone conversation had been awkward, too.

  “Hey, did I tell you I moved to a new place?” she said.

  “No, you didn’t. You’re coming back sometime, aren’t you?”

  “Why? You miss me?”

  “I’m keeping busy.”

  “Playing cards?”

  “Some. So, things are going okay with that band?”

  “Pretty good. How’s Milo doing?”

  “Pretty good.”

  After they exchanged a few more conversational packets and said good-bye, he realized that he had failed to get her new phone number and address. Or she had failed to give it to him.

  Crow downshifted and depressed the accelerator, felt himself sink back in the seat. He watched the speedometer needle swing across the display. Ninety, ninety-five. He upshifted. One hundred, one-o-five, one-ten … there, he felt the fear hit him—visions of a blown tire, a tie rod giving way, wildlife jumping into his path. Crow held the speedometer at 110 for half a minute, feeling alive, then lifted his foot from the gas. The big engine slowed the car quickly to a sedate sixty-five. Hadn’t blown a tire, cracked a rod, hit a deer. Hadn’t got nailed by a trooper. Had he broken his thought pattern? For a brief moment, he could not remember what he had been thinking about. Then it came back.

  Debrowski. He was still thinking about her. She would’ve liked that burst of speed, he thought. She was a fast car type of woman. Crow smiled at himself. Ah well, better to brood on her than on Beaut Miller. He imagined the two of them meeting. He did not think that they would like each other.

  These days, thinking about Debrowski on the other side of the world brought sadness and loneliness. Thinking about Beaut and Bigg made him agitated and tense. The stew of emotions blended imperfectly; he arrived at the Whiting Lake landing feeling nauseous and jittery. Summoning all of his cerebral powers, Crow kicked Laura Debrowski and Beaut Miller and Arling Biggie under a large piece of mental furniture where he wouldn’t have to look at them. For the next two days, he promised himself, he would think only about the fish.

  “Hey, Sam.”

  Sam grunted, staring intently at the point where his line entered the water.

  Axel pointed his rod tip toward shore. “Somebody’s at the landing, waving at us.”

  Sam didn’t move his head. “How come you think they’re wavin’ at us?”

  “On account of we’re the only goddamn thing on the lake, that’s how come.”

  Sam raised his chin and squinted toward the landing.

  “That would be my kid,” he said.

  Axel frowned. “Your kid Joe Crow?”

  “No. Joe Stalin. Who the hell you think? Course it’s my kid. What the hell you think we been doin’ out here? Can’t see the landing from the cabin now, can we?”

  “I thought we were fishing.”

  Sam pulled in his line and waved the homemade lure in front of Axel’s nose. “You think I’m gonna catch a fish with this piece a shit?” He set his rod in the bottom of the boat and started yanking the cord on the outboard. It usually took him seven or eight vigorous pulls to get it going.

  As he reeled in his line, Axel said, “You know, I got a problem with that Joe Crow.”

  Sam paused in his efforts. “What’s that?”

  “I said I’m pissed at that kid a yours.”

  Sam gave the cord another yank. The motor sputtered and coughed, then settled into an unsteady putter. He adjusted the choke and dropped the motor into gear. The prow of the boat slowly swung around. They moved toward the landing.

  Sam leaned toward Axel. “What did he do this time?”

  4

  I chose my wife, as she did her wedding gown, for qualities that would wear well.

  —Oliver Goldsmith

  HYATT HILTON SET THE case of Evian on the carpet and perched his lanky body on the waiting room chair. He said to the receptionist, “Nice day, huh?” and gave her his most disarming grin.

  The receptionist smiled back at him—a quick flexing of her prim lips and a crinkling of the eyes—then returned to a sober perusal of her computer screen. Her hair was cut so short that Hyatt could see glare from the overhead fluorescents on her scalp.

  “So, I guess you get to meet a lot of interesting people,” Hyatt said.

  “Mr. Chance will be right out,” she said, granting him another smile, this one even more brief than the last.

  Hyatt settled back in his chair and propped his feet on the case of water. He could always sense the way people reacted to him, and he used their reaction to divide humanity into three camps. There were the Suckers. There were the Assholes. And there were the Players.

  The Suckers loved him. They saw the innocent kid in him, the farm boy. They bought their own first impression and stayed with it, too unimaginative to imagine he could be anything different than what he appeared to be. In Hyatt’s experience, 20 percent of the human race were Suckers. Hyatt liked Suckers. He more than liked them. He loved them the way a dairy farmer loves his cows.

  Most of the rest of humanity—79 percent, to be precise—fell into the Asshole category.

  Assholes usually started out looking like Suckers, but at some point—sometimes it took seconds, sometimes days—their perception of him evolved. He had seen it, again and again. He would meet an individual, shake hands, see them taking him in, and then something would happen. Eyes would narrow slightly, chin would come down a quarter inch, arms would cross. Sometimes they would actually step back, expanding their personal space. It was not a good feeling, to watch a Sucker turn into an Asshole.

  Generally speaking, Hyatt did not like Assholes. This receptionist was an Asshole.

  The remaining 1 percent of the population were Players, those who, like Hyatt, understood the Sucker/Asshole equation and who had the smarts, the guts, or the position to take advantage of it. Hyatt didn’t like Players, even though he was one. They were the competition.

  He had been puzzling for some time as to how he should classify Carmen Roman, soon to become Carmen Hilton. She seemed to straddle all three camps. The more time he spent with her, the less he understood her.

  His old friend Drew Chance was more easily classified. His reputation was a part of the public record. The simple fact that he made his living packaging celebrity gossip and personal tragedies into ninety-second news bytes was sufficient to define him as a Player.

  Drew Chance was the host and executive producer of Hard Camera, the half-hour weekly TV news magazine that had recently gone into syndication. A few months back, Hyatt had read a newspaper article ab
out the amazing success of the locally produced program and had realized for the first time that Drew Chance was actually Andy Greenblatt, a guy he’d used to play pool with at Moby Dick’s back in the seventies. The realization that he had important contacts in the media had inspired Hyatt to devise his wonderful, perfect plan. His one shot at fame and fortune. His ticket out of the bogus Evian business and into the big time. Andy Greenblatt. Who’d have thought it?

  It was Drew Chance who had broken the story of Sister Hulda Flood, the trailer park Madonna who had discovered an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the scum-crusted water of her backyard pool. That story had gone on to appear on both Dateline and American Journal, making both Sister Hulda and Drew Chance Productions a pile of money. According to the article in the Star Tribune, DCP had made better than six figures on just that one deal. Drew Chance had also reenergized the story of the Sandusky twins, the fourteen-year-olds who had gained notoriety last year when they were tried as adults for murdering their eight-year-old sister. They’d pled not guilty, claiming that she had jumped off the roof of their apartment building of her own volition. The jury had believed them. A few months after the trial, Drew Chance had convinced the twins to confess their guilt during a live edition of Hard Camera. The story was titled “Flying Lessons,” and it had sold big overseas. DCP had made a few bucks on that one, too.

  Yeah, Drew Chance—or Andy Greenblatt or whatever his name was—was definitely a player. Hyatt did not necessarily like Players, but he understood them. He could work with them.

  “Mr. Hilton?”

  Hyatt looked up. “Andy!” He stood up. Hyatt Hilton was a good fourteen inches taller than Andy Greenblatt.

  Drew Chance’s eyebrows drew together. He had those perfect news anchor eyebrows: dark, mobile, and expressive. His hair, curlier and more abundant than Hyatt remembered, glistened under the fluorescent lights. Drew’s mouth fell open, then widened into a smile, showing a complete set of large, well-formed teeth, also more abundant than Hy remembered.

  “Well I’ll be butt-fucked. It’s Hy the Guy.”

  Hyatt said, “How’s it going, Andy?”

  “I’m killin’ ’em, Hy. God damn. You’re looking good. Man, I thought you’d be dead or in jail by now. God damn. Is your last name really Hilton? I don’t think I ever knew that. God damn. Somebody asked me, I would’ve said it was the Guy. Hy the Guy. Still got all your hair and everything.”

  “I see you got yours back, and then some.”

  Drew laughed and shook Hyatt’s hand. “It’s a rug, you moron.”

  “I brought you a present, Andy.” He pointed to the case of water. “You like Evian, don’t you?”

  “Evian? Sure, what’s not to like? Everybody likes Evian.”

  “Thirteen hundred dollars?” Sophie Roman let her mouth fall open.

  The saleswoman, who dealt with such exclamations on a daily basis, nodded seriously. “It’s a very good price,” she said. She had introduced herself as Glinda, but she looked and talked more like the mayor of Munchkinland. Her three-inch heels and elaborate hairdo brought her up to an even five feet.

  “Good for who?” Sophie asked, fingering the lacy fabric.

  “An excellent price, considering all the beadwork. It all has to be done by hand, you know.”

  Sophie turned to her daughter. “It’s too much,” she said flatly.

  Carmen pushed out her lower lip, but said nothing. Glinda made herself invisible.

  Sophie said, “When I got married, I bought a dress for one hundred twenty-nine dollars, and it was beautiful.”

  “When you got married,” Carmen said, “I wasn’t even born yet.”

  Sophie digested that, shook her head to clear it. She retreated to her original position. “It’s too expensive,” she said.

  “I only get married once, Mom.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “Besides, Axel’s going to pay for it, isn’t he?”

  “Not if it costs thirteen hundred dollars he’s not.” Sophie moved to another mannequin, this one wearing a dress with no beadwork whatsoever. “How much is this one?” she asked Glinda.

  Carmen said, “I don’t do big bows, Mom.”

  Sophie frowned and began to stalk the showroom floor, looking for something without beadwork or bows.

  “Did you have a certain price range in mind?” Glinda asked, following her.

  Sophie said, “Yes. Under three hundred dollars.”

  “No way,” Carmen said. The expression on Glinda’s face confirmed Carmen’s analysis.

  Sophie sucked in her upper lip. “We could check out some other shops.”

  Sensing a critical moment, Glinda asked, “Might I ask when the wedding date is?”

  Sophie and Carmen spoke as one. “August ninth.”

  Glinda smiled sadly and shook her head with obvious relief. “All of our dresses are made to order. The fastest we could possibly deliver would be in about eighteen weeks. I think you’ll find this to be the case at any quality bridal shop.”

  “I told you this was happening too fast,” Sophie said, giving Carmen a triumphant look.

  “The date’s set, Mom. It’s Hy’s lucky day.”

  “I don’t see what’s so lucky about it.”

  “It’s lucky ’cause he gets to marry me!” Carmen giggled and turned back to Glinda. “What about all these dresses you’ve got hanging here? You don’t sell them?”

  “These are our display models. They aren’t for sale.”

  “I think we should go to J.C. Penny,” Sophie suggested.

  “I’d rather cut my throat.”

  “You’ve got some pretty fancy tastes for a girl with a baby in her belly.”

  Carmen rolled her eyes.

  Glinda said, “We do sometimes sell our display models, but only when they’re discontinued. Unfortunately, they’re all size ten.”

  Carmen perked up. “I’m a ten up top.”

  Sophie said, “You’ll be a ten down below by August.”

  “I’m sorry to say, we really don’t have any available right now,” Glinda said. She did not look sorry.

  The other saleswoman, who was styling a dress nearby, said, “We do have one, dear. You know.” She lowered her voice. “The Madonna.”

  Glinda turned to look at Carmen, tapping a long pink fingernail against her chin.

  “The Madonna?” Sophie said, envisioning a saintly, mother-of-God edition of the classic wedding dress. “May we see it?”

  Glinda smiled. “Why not?” she said. “We might be able to get near your price range with that one. Plus alterations, of course.” She gave Carmen another appraising look and said, “You know, this might just work on you.”

  After Hyatt left, Drew Chance cracked open an Evian, pressed the intercom button on his phone and told Melissa to hold his calls. He leaned back in his ergonomically correct, black leather BackSaver Executive swivel chair. With a grunt of effort, he lifted his feet up onto the desk. As always, the desktop was empty except for a leather blotter, the telephone, and the remote control that controlled the bank of four monitors on the opposite wall. Drew believed that an empty desk was conducive to concentration. He lifted the Evian to his lips and sipped. It tasted like tap water, right down to the slightly swampy flavor that Minneapolis water developed during the summer months. Drew looked at the bottle. Imported from Evian, France. It seemed sort of silly to ship water all the way across the ocean, especially if it tasted like it had just come out of the kitchen faucet. It was all marketing. The right sales pitch, a guy could sell ice to an Eskimo.

  That was pretty good. Drew sat up and pulled a notebook from the right-hand drawer. He uncapped his Waterman fountain pen and wrote: Like selling ice to an Eskimo.

  Drew liked to write down a good line when he thought of one. He would use it during one of his hard-hitting news stories, and it would come across as if ad-libbed. He returned the notebook to its drawer and his feet to the desktop. Once again, he considered Hyatt Hilton. Hy the Guy, ma
n, he’d been crazy back in the old days, and he hadn’t changed a bit. Hy had spent an hour pitching his story, and Drew still didn’t know what the guy was talking about. Something about a big wedding with lots of local celebs, a beautiful virgin bride, an evil cult of blood-drinking vampires, and a handsome courageous hero. Comic book stuff.

  Drew had told Hy that he didn’t do fantasy. “Real-life drama, Hy. All I do is the real stuff.”

  “This is what I’m saying, Andy!”

  “Please. It’s Drew.”

  “Drew! It’s what I’m saying, it’s real! I mean, what if it was real? What could you do with a story like that?”

  “You mean it actually happened? In what universe?”

  “Right here! Only it hasn’t happened yet. I’m asking you, what if it did happen?”

  Hy had even promised the story for the second week of August, which was—statistically speaking—the slowest news week of the season. That was according to the magazine TV Journalist! Hy was dreaming up some crazy stuff, but Drew was intrigued. A surrealistic real-life comic book thriller on a slow news week? What was not to like?

  Of course, Hy had been sort of vague on the details. Drew still didn’t know who, where, or why. Hy said he had all that, but he wanted money in exchange for exclusive rights to the story. A story that had not yet happened.

  Drew had told him where to get off with that. “Hy, you ever hear of a thing called journalistic ethics?”

  “We’re talking story of the decade here, Andy.”

  “Yeah. You want to talk story of the decade? Suppose those guys that blew up that building in Oklahoma had come to me first, before they did the deed, and I’d paid them a few thousand bucks for the exclusive. You know. To be there with a film crew when it happened?”

  “You’d have had one hell of a story.”

  “I’d be in jail, you moron.”

  “I’m not talking about blowing up anything.”