Fortunate Son

by J. D. Rhoades

  Mick interrupted him. “It’s a good thing I’m here,” he said. “Else you might have forgotten who you are.”

  The gun barrel was suddenly gone. Tyler didn’t look up. “Hallowed be thy name…” he whispered.

  Then Mick was back, kneeling beside him. Tyler turned to look, his eyes bleak and hopeless. Mick held a towel in his left hand. He pressed it against Tyler’s cheek almost tenderly. “Here,” he said, “let me look.” Tyler was numb with shock at the sudden display of concern. He winced slightly as Mick wiped away the blood. “You got any Band-Aids?”

  “In the bathroom. Cabinet above the sink.” Tyler slowly got to his feet as he heard Mick rummaging in the medicine cabinet. He thought of trying to run. Later he would wonder if it was fear or guilt that stopped him.

  Mick came out of the bathroom with the box in one hand. He put the gun down on the dresser by the bathroom door. “You can’t hit no harder’n that,” he grinned, “guess I got nothin’ to worry about.” He shook some bandages out of the box and began taking them out of their wrappers. “Don’t look so shocked, Keith,” he said as he began applying them to the wound on his cheekbone. “Who do you think used to patch you up when you were little?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “That was me, little brother,” Mick said. “I took care of you. And now I need your help.” He put the last of the bandages in place and took Tyler’s shoulder. He looked into his brother’s face earnestly. “Mama needs your help, too.”

  “Why?” Tyler said. “Tell me why either of us should do anything for her.”

  Mick straightened up. “What do you mean?”

  Tyler got to his feet. “She left us, Mick. She walked out. And she never looked back.”

  Mick grabbed Tyler by the shoulders. “No!” he yelled. “That’s bullshit! That’s the lie they told you to cover up what they did to us.” The sudden return of Mick’s fury stunned Tyler back into silence. That ferocity was something Tyler remembered all too well. Mick turned him toward the door and picked the gun up off the dresser. “Get your stuff,” he said, his face now expressionless. “And don’t forget the money.”

  “SO,” CHANCE said. “She’s our asset.”

  “Our asset?” She wanted to smack that condescending smirk off the man’s fat face, but she didn’t take the bait. Finally, Winslow nodded. “She thinks she can turn Charleyboy. And when Charleyboy turns, he can help us bring Luther down.”

  “In exchange for his safety.”

  “Among other things. Or so she thinks. “

  She narrowed her eyes. “She mentioned her boys. What’s that all about?”

  Winslow turned back to the recording console set up on a collapsible table in the empty room. He began logging the last recording on a laptop computer perched on the table. “A few years ago, she lost her kids. Two boys. They got adopted out. She wants to know where they are. How they’re doing.”

  Chance shook her head. “You didn’t promise her that, did you? Those records would be sealed.”

  He shrugged, not looking at her. “I said we’d try.”

  She looked out the front window. Asshole, she thought to herself.

  AFTER SHE’D smoked the cigarette nearly down to the filter, Savannah unfolded herself from her position on the floor and got to her feet. She looked in the dulled mirror over the fireplace and ran a finger lightly over the cut on her cheek. The bruise around it was rapidly swelling into something she couldn’t easily cover with makeup. She winced and took her finger away. She sighed, then winced again as the intake of breath sent stabs of pain through her ribs. Normally, she could see the blow coming and cover up. This time, however, it had come from out of nowhere. She couldn’t even remember what she had said to set him off.

  She knew Charleyboy was under a lot of pressure. She had walked on eggshells for the past month as he brooded and drank at the kitchen table, smoking cigarette after cigarette, the last one of every evening slowly burning down between his fingers as he nodded off. The immobility, the passivity, was the surest sign that something was drastically wrong. From the moment she’d met Charleyboy, she’d been drawn to his vitality, his energy. He’d seemed to be perpetually in motion, and she had been caught up and drawn along in the wake of it, laughing along with him in delight at the great ride they were sharing. There was money and whiskey and smoke and pills and powder to go around. It was good times for everyone. And if sometimes the good times went a little too far—well, there wasn’t really any such thing as too far, was there? She was a party girl, always had been, since she’d found out at fourteen that a pretty face and blossoming figure could get her into the places where the fun was, places a hell of a lot more interesting than the single-wide trailer she’d shared with an alcoholic mother and an aunt who’d checked out of reality years ago.

  As she checked her face and body in the mirror, Savannah had to notice, not for the first time, the deeper, more permanent damage that time was doing. Her body was still reasonably firm, even if the curve of hips and ass had grown a little more pronounced. Charleyboy had always said he liked her curves better than the rail-thin model look, anyway. But the face was beginning to show the years and the mileage, the laugh lines deepening inevitably towards crow’s feet. It took a little longer these days to put a face on. Even when she did, Charleyboy was too preoccupied most of the time to notice. He had always been quick with a compliment or an endearment. It was one of the things she loved about him. But now, he seemed so wrapped up in whatever was bothering him, it was as if she wasn’t even there. Until she said something to make him mad. Then she was there, but as a focus for his anger.

  But it would be okay, she told herself. He’d be back. He always came back. And he’d be tender and sweet to her, tell her he loved her and always would. There’d be gifts. Their relationship in the times after he hit her was always like falling in love all over again. And the sex…well, there was nothing quite as hot as make-up sex. She smiled to herself. It was going to be all right. But then she looked back into the mirror, hugged herself, and shivered. Someone’s walking over your grave, her mother’s slurred voice said in her mind.

  She had always known, in the back of her mind, that the good times couldn’t last forever. She always knew the party would end. Someday. Now, the day was rushing toward her like a black hurricane, and she only hoped she’d found a way to ride it out.

  HE WAS STILL in the grip of the sick, shaky feeling he always had after he’d lost it like that. Charleyboy hated losing control. But he seemed to be doing it more and more these days. He knew the trouble he was in was what was making him so stressed. Actually, being in trouble with Mr. Luther created something somewhere beyond stress and in the neighborhood of mortal terror. But that wasn’t Savannah’s fault. He’d always been able to charm his way out of whatever scrapes they’d been in before. This one, however, was something he might not be able to get them out of, and Savannah’s constant presence served as an infuriating reminder of how badly he’d failed both of them. It wasn’t logical to take that out on her, he knew. But he couldn’t seem to control it. And since hitting her was just another form of failure for her to remind him of, he hit her again.

  He took a deep breath. He needed to focus. Mr. Luther could sense when someone was feeling weak or unsure. And he would exploit it without mercy, working that raspy, insinuating voice into the tiniest cracks in his victim’s confidence, widening them until he levered them open like an oyster and devoured whatever was inside.

  He pulled the Mercedes up to the iron gate. A voice came from a speaker box by the driveway. “Yeah?”

  It was one of the seemingly endless parade of cousins that served as Mr. Luther’s inner circle. This one had sworn up and down that his name was Zig. He and his twin brother, who stated with equal solemnity that his given name was Zag, were Luther’s favored bodyguards.

  “It’s Charleyboy,” he said. “Mr. Luther’s expecting me.”

  There was a brief silence on the other
end, then the black iron gate ponderously swung wide.

  “C’mon up to the house, Angus,” the speaker said. Charleyboy could hear the malice beneath the words. Ever since Zig had learned his given name—Angus Charlebois—he and his dimwitted brother had used it to mock him and his Cajun heritage. Charleyboy took a deep breath and tried to steady himself.

  He drove down the long dirt driveway, past the paddocks and barns of the horse farming operation that served as a cover for Mr. Luther’s other interests. A few thoroughbreds raised their heads and looked at him incuriously before going back to cropping grass.

  The house was a sprawling one-story glass and wood structure that seemed to be assembled mostly of afterthoughts. There was no obvious coherent plan; wings and rooms had been added on apparently whenever space was needed and money could be found. A pair of gleaming, jacked-up 4X4 pickups sat at the end of the driveway, next to a vintage Mustang convertible with the top down. Zig leaned against the fender of the Mustang, six foot three inches of country bumpkin that time and his uncle’s employment had whittled down to bone, gristle, and pure meanness.

  “Unc’s ’round back,” Zig grunted. He levered himself up off the fender like it was a major imposition, turning and trudging sullenly towards the back of the house. He didn’t look back to see if Charleyboy was following. That was about par for the course; Zig rarely spoke except to make fun of Charleyboy’s given name or make some crude remark about Savannah. Charleyboy pondered just how nice it would feel to put a bullet in the back of the redneck’s head right then. He toyed with the thought lovingly for a moment, then put it away as they rounded the house.

  Mr. Luther sat on a rickety camp stool in the shade of an ancient oak tree. He was dressed in frayed khaki pants, a wife-beater T-shirt stained with sweat, and a battered old porkpie hat. He fanned himself slowly with a tattered magazine, the limp flesh of his skinny old arms wobbling with the motion. His attention was fixated on the dog that hung a few yards away.

  The dog was a young pit bull, already bearing battle scars across his shoulders and head, his muscles bulging and grotesquely knotted. His jaws were locked on a leather bag that hung from a rope slung over a nearby branch. Zig’s brother Zag held the other end of the rope, pulling the bag off the ground high enough that the dog’s hind legs jerked and twisted in the air. He could have released his locked jaws at any time and returned to earth, but he hung on as if for dear life. A low, terrifying snarl came from the dog’s throat as he whipped his head back and forth. Something inside the bag screamed in pain and fear.

  Charleyboy took a step back. The sound of agony seemed to whip the dog into a greater frenzy. He tightened his jaw lock and worried the bag even more viciously. There was the sound of crunching bone and the screaming stopped.

  Mr. Luther cackled. “Tole you he was badass,” he said to Zag. “Din’t I tell you? Let ’im down, boy, and let ’im get his ree-ward.” Slowly, Zag let the dog down, still grinding his teeth against the tough leather bag. Zag approached the dog carefully, then quickly moved to seize him by the collar. He led the animal away, the leather bag still in his teeth. Blood dripped from the bag onto the carefully manicured grass.

  Mr. Luther turned to Charleyboy, his eyes bright in his lined and wrinkled face. He had a weak chin and prominent nose that gave him the look of a turkey buzzard. “That there’s Ajax,” he said, gesturing towards where Zag and the dog were disappearing into a long, low building that housed the kennels. “Some nigger calls himself a rap star thinks he’s got a dog that can beat ’im.”

  Charleyboy tried to keep his voice level. “Looks like he’s got his work cut out for him.”

  “Hah,” Mr. Luther said. “Damn niggers done took over football, basketball…they even thought they’s gonna take over golf. I aim to see they don’t take this sport over, too. We gotta have something that’s ours.” He wiped his hands on his pant legs. “Now, boy,” he said, his voice sharpening. “You got my money?”

  Charleyboy took a deep breath. Here we go, he thought. “Not yet,” he said, “But—”

  “Then tell me why I shouldn’t string your skinny Cajun ass up in that there tree and let Ajax work on you.”

  “Because I have a way you can make more.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?” Mr. Luther’s laugh was somewhere between a wheeze and a choke. “You think you got a way to make money I ain’t thought of yet? This I gotta hear.”

  “Caspar Gutierrez is bringing a package in from down South,” Charleyboy said, keeping his voice level. “A hundred kilos. Maybe more.”

  Luther’s eyes narrowed. “I’m listenin’,” he said.

  “I know when. And I know where.”

  That laugh again. “An’ if I write off the money you owe me, you’ll tell me, right?”

  “Cheap at the price, wouldn’t you say? A load that big, and Gutierrez along with it.”

  “Wait a damn minute,” Luther said. “Gutierrez is going to be there hisself?”

  “It’s a new distributor. He wants to meet the big man personally. And he’s bringing cash.” Luther was silent, his eyes on the ground, thinking it through. Charleyboy took enough encouragement from the silence to plunge ahead. “You’ve been scrapping with Gutierrez for five years now. I’m putting him, a major package, and a pile of cash in your hands. Take him, the money, and the drugs, that’ll give you a monopoly in this end of the state. That ought to be worth the forty K I owe you.”

  Luther rubbed his chin. “Yeah. If it’s true.” He looked sharply at Charleyboy. “If it ain’t…” he gestured towards the tree, “…you’ll be hangin’ by your thumbs from that limb. An’ while Ajax is tearin’ your balls off, Zig an’ Zag’ll pay a visit to that lil’ redhaired gal o’yours.” He grinned nastily. “They always did like that gal.”

  Charleyboy tried not to clench his fists. “There’s no need to bring her into this.”

  “Sure there is.” Luther chuckled. “She’s your weakness, boy. An’ since you were dumbass enough to let me know it, I own you. That’s the way of the world.” He chuckled again, the laugh turning into a rasping, phlegmy cough. “Now,” he said when the spasm was over. “Tell me. When and where. And how strong he’s comin’.”

  Charleyboy hesitated.

  “You think I can’t get it out of you anyway?” Luther demanded.

  “Just tell me the debt’s canceled, and I’ll give you all the information I have.”

  “I’ll tell you the debt’s canceled when I have the package, the money, and Gutierrez’s head in a bag. Now start talkin’, before I get impatient.”

  “Okay. Okay. There’s an airstrip, out in the country. Just a long concrete runway with a couple of hangars. The guy who owns it does crop dusting, but he’s going broke at it. He’s got a cousin in Florida who’s big in real estate or something. The market’s down, so the cousin’s trying to, I guess you could say, diversify. He’s fronting the cash.”

  Luther frowned. “The crop duster’s going into distribution?”

  “No. He’s just providing the place to meet and to store the package while it’s being cut. The cousin’s flying in. Gutierrez is meeting him with a van.”

  “What kind of security?”

  “He doesn’t think anyone else knows. You might catch him by surprise.”

  “When?”

  “Two days from now. Midnight.”

  Luther mulled it over. “Huh,” he said finally. He looked at Charleyboy.

  “You’re wondering how I know all this,” Charleyboy said.

  “Yeah,” Luther said. “I am.”

  “The crop duster drinks. When he drinks, he talks too much. He wanted to know if I wanted to come in on it.”

  “Uh-huh,” Luther said. He didn’t sound convinced. Finally, he stood up. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “Somethin’ about it I still don’t like, though.” He looked at Charleyboy appraisingly. “Maybe I’ll have Zig or Zag stay with that gal of yours, just for insurance.”

  Charleyboy felt the sweat runni
ng into his collar. “Gutierrez might come heavy. You’re going to need every gun. Just in case.”

  “Well then,” Luther said, “maybe the two of you can come with us. I’ll let you know.” He turned away in obvious dismissal.

  Charleyboy desperately tried to think of something else to say, some comment that would clinch the deal, but nothing came. It was all in Luther’s hands now. As he watched Luther’s retreating back, Zig appeared at his elbow.

  “I can see myself out,” Charleyboy said.

  “No, you can’t,” Zig said. He followed Charleyboy out to the parking lot and watched him get in the car. Charleyboy glanced in the mirror as he bumped down the driveway. Zig stood and watched for a moment, then turned and walked back towards the house. When Charleyboy saw that, he reached down and picked up the cell phone. He glanced down as he dialed the number he knew now by heart.

  “Speak,” a voice said on the other end.

  “It’s me,” Charleyboy said.

  “Of course it is.” There was a pause. “Are the fish biting?”

  “A couple of nibbles. But I feel pretty good about it.”

  “Okay.” There was another pause. “You’ve backed the right team,” the voice said finally.

  I hope so, Charleyboy thought. “Yeah,” was all he said. “I know.” He snapped the phone shut.

  I sure hope so, he thought again. For both our sakes. Mine and Savannah’s. Because I can feel it in my bones. This is our last chance.

  CARL WELCH HEARD the sound of the ax as he came up the front walk, a grunt followed swiftly by the sharp crack as metal met and prevailed over wood. The sound echoed in the trees that surrounded and loomed over the isolated house.

  The door opened before he reached it. Glenda stood there, a smile on her lined face. As he approached, she opened her arms and swept him into a warm hug. “It’s good to see you, Carl.”

  “You too.”

  “How’s Marian?”

  He shrugged. “Well, you know how it is. She has her good days and her bad days.”