by Martin Clark
The room smelled like pot and cigars, and the tall woman with loose hair was asleep in the bed with Pascal. Evers was worn out and drunk. He walked down the hall to Ruth Esther and Pauletta’s room; no one came to the door when he knocked. He went back to his room, lay down on his bed on top of a clean shirt and beside their two suitcases. He left his pants on and finally was able to fall asleep, spinning for just a few moments after he closed his eyes.
Several hours later, Evers woke up and left his brother and the woman in bed and went outside. The sun was hot and strong; it seemed so close that it was reachable. Evers hadn’t bathed, his clothes were wrinkled and he felt a little dark from drink and lack of sleep. He hadn’t checked the time, did not know if it was morning or afternoon, only that it was daytime. He saw people eating eggs and ham and toast at outdoor tables and assumed it must be sometime before midday. He breathed in the desert air, baked and dry, felt it going down and pushing his lungs, traced it from his nose to his throat and into his chest. A horse-drawn carriage loaded with a family of tourists passed by on the street. The kids in the buggy—a boy and a girl—waved at Evers, and the horses’ metal shoes clopped and danced on the asphalt.
Evers started walking toward the capitol, and he stopped at a kiosk to get some bottled water or a can of fruit juice. Just as he leaned down on a wooden counter under a canopy of newspapers, magazines and calendars, Evers heard a sound above all the business and shuffling of the city, a voice right outside his ear, sharp and trilled, like a bug scratching its legs and feelers together, and he choked with panic, felt his throat plug and his cheeks and feet tingle. “What in the world …” He spun around and looked up and down the sidewalk, across the street and at the windows above his head. The man in the kiosk took a step back, and Evers kept spinning and searching, jerking his head back and forth. “I thought I heard someone I knew, someone from home,” Evers explained when he stopped turning in circles and looking at the sky. “Guess I was just hearing things.” The vendor smiled, but didn’t seem inclined to venture any farther out of his shell. Evers looked around some more and left without buying anything to drink.
He was sober now, awake, filled with adrenaline, and he decided to call Jo Miller again. He used a phone booth, a closet with a folding door, in the hotel’s lobby. Strange how things bite and worry you and become immediate; Evers was committed to calling his wife from another time zone, thousands of miles away.
“Hello?” Jo Miller sounded disoriented and startled, although it couldn’t have been too early in the morning in Durham.
“Jo Miller?”
“Yes.”
“This is Evers.”
“What the fuck do you want? Did you call here last night?”
“Good morning.”
“Where are you?” Jo Miller wondered.
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” she asked.
“About settling our problems.”
“I don’t have a problem, Evers.”
“I mean money, divorce, property—you know, settling things.”
“Did you call here earlier?”
“No,” he lied. “I wanted to talk about all our marital affairs.”
“Affairs, Evers? What’s that—some heavy-handed humor?”
“Things. Not a great word choice. Sorry.” Evers was trying to be civil. “It would just be better if we could get this behind us. We’d both have less discord and worry.”
“What do you want?” Jo Miller seemed agitated.
“Let’s do a separation agreement and get on with our lives.”
“That presupposes we can agree.”
“What do you want?” Evers noticed two fat, pale men in shorts passing through the hotel lobby. They were pink on the tops of their arms and legs, white everywhere else.
“Half of what you have.”
“Half? Jesus. That’s fair. You contributed nothing to my getting it, ridiculed me for being rich, live like some regal exile on a farm that I bought you and drive a fucking Lexus that I hate but bought because you whined incessantly. That’s not enough, huh? You want my fucking money, too?”
“You should’ve thought about that when you bound me to a sign.” Jo Miller’s tone was restrained, the remark pointed enough without inflection.
“If you’re so bitter and angry about the sign thing that you want to drag this on for a long time and refuse to throw me a crumb, then so be it.” Evers almost yelled. He was mad.
“You don’t want to push me on this, Evers.”
“Why?” He shifted his weight.
“Your career and reputation won’t stand it.” Jo Miller raised her voice. “I’m sure that you’d look none too good in a divorce court. Your personal habits won’t stand the scrutiny, Evers. And I’ll do whatever’s neccessary to make sure I’m treated fairly.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, Evers, that I’ll testify about how much dope you smoke, how you abhor minorities and how you treat women like concubines—good qualities for a judge, huh? And anything else I need to swear to, I will.”
“Whether it’s true or not?”
“Exactly.” Jo Miller hesitated. “Whether it’s true or not. Whatever it takes. And if I do have to compromise the truth, we both know that’s not altogether unfair.”
“I don’t plan on leaving you destitute.” An Asian woman with an oversize purse tapped on the glass door and gestured at Evers.
“Anything else, Evers? I don’t think this is very productive, and Ellen and I are going to Siler City today. I’m buying a horse.”
“A horse?”
“Horses, actually. Two.”
“Where’d you get the money?”
“I took it out of your savings at the bank. They bent the rules a little since I’m your wife.”
“Bitch.” Evers leaned against the back of the booth.
“I took a little extra for living expenses, and since you and your white-trash brother are into travel and leisure, I thought maybe I’d take a trip as well. Mr. Falstaf and I.”
“You had better put my money back. That’s theft and forgery and everything else,” Evers shouted.
“Just to keep you stewing in your juices, I thought you’d like to know that I called your office today and let it slip that I knew you were on vacation, not at home sick. Good-bye.”
“You are a brutal cunt, Jo Miller.” He had to squeeze past the woman waiting to use the phone. She had posted herself right outside the door to the phone booth and wouldn’t budge. “Fuck you,” Evers said as he pressed by her. Not knowing what language she spoke, he gave her the finger to emphasize his message.
Evers left the lobby and, after walking several blocks, found his brother outside an old hotel eating at a table with an umbrella. Pascal was wearing shorts and deck shoes, his hair wet and slicked back. He smelled like shampoo and had not shaved.
“Evers. Come and buy me my food and let me tell you about my night.” Pascal smiled. “Did you come in last night?”
“For a while.”
“Sit down.”
Evers sat down in a metal chair with a hard back. “What a morning.”
“Whatever. Mine’s been pretty tolerable. The little while I’ve been up.”
“Did you fuck that woman?” Evers asked.
“I can’t remember, to be honest.”
A waitress stopped at the table and filled Pascal’s water glass. She asked Evers if he wanted to order, and he told her that he wasn’t hungry.
“Good waitresses are heroes, Evers. Not heroines, heroes.”
“Especially those who have to wear dresses without backs or work more than four tables at a time. You’re right.” Evers took a piece of toast from the edge of his brother’s plate.
“What were we—oh, so—I got major-league drunk, and we sat around in the desert and looked at the lights in the distance and rolled in the sand. I don’t think that I fucked her, though. What did you do?”
“Drank and sulked. Slept
for a while.”
“I’m sure it was very forceful sulking, huh?”
“Yeah. I tried to talk to Jo Miller.”
“And?”
“It didn’t work. I called her just a few minutes ago.”
“Whatever.” Pascal assumed that Evers had told him all he had wanted to tell, and didn’t explore all of the possibilities.
“What am I going to do about Jo Miller?”
“Whatever, my brother.”
“What the fuck, you know. Now I really want to sear her ass and see her suffer.” He looked at Pascal. “I’ve always been a good provider and a decent person, don’t you think?”
“Always have been to me.”
Evers was hot, sweating. He bit the middle out of the toast. He chewed for a while, but the bread was dry and hard to swallow. “This is poison, Pascal. Arsenic. Jesus. I want to cry. Five years ago everything was so perfect. Now my marriage is gone, my wife is gone, my job’s probably going to end up tied to this money and I’m in Utah with zero future plans and a stunted Moor with a drug habit. And I’m completely jumpy and about to lose my mind—just a minute ago, I thought I heard the cop who arrested Artis. When I was in West Virginia, I almost passed out in Pauletta’s office, started thinking about power tools and imagined I was in a jungle.”
“Don’t give up, Evers.”
“Let’s start drinking and get some more dope—maybe we can find the same guy who sold us the bag yesterday. I’d like to be thick-tongued and happy, at least for a few hours.”
Pascal smiled. “I may have to go visit my new friend. She said come by.”
“I’m going to take a shower. Come up and talk to me while I’m getting ready.” Evers finally swallowed the last of the food.
“Great. Then why don’t you come with me, maybe hook up with her friend, the blond girl? And while we’re on the way, maybe we could pick up some souvenirs for Henry and Rudy.”
“You go ahead. I’m going to drink and smoke dope and see the city and sit in the hot sun and wallow in self-pity. And I don’t want to tag along and weigh you down with the smoking Medusa.”
“Whatever.”
“I want to do some stultifying things. I want to walk around in the Delta Center. I want to ride a bus somewhere. I want to see some of those stone arches. I’m just going to get ripped and wander around in a stupor doing asinine things. You can be the coital carpetbagger—just spend a few hours drinking with me before you leave to cast your nets. Okay?”
“Okay.” Pascal wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin.
“What time are we going to go to the bank?”
“Noon tomorrow. I don’t know why we’re waiting until tomorrow, though,” Pascal said.
“What time is it now?”
“About nine-thirty.”
“I wonder if that’s all there is to this, just stopping by to collect a hundred thousand dollars. There has to be something else.” Evers was beginning to feel light-headed.
“Whatever.” Pascal picked up the check from the table and handed it to Evers. “I don’t have any money. I’d be grateful if you’d cover breakfast for me; I was going to have to use a credit card.”
Evers looked at the bill and reached into his pocket for his wallet. He noticed a man in an expensive shirt standing a few feet away from him and his brother. The man was looking at them with his head slanted at an odd angle. Pascal stood up from the table, and Evers took a five and several singles out of his billfold. The man took a step closer, so he was standing between Evers and Pascal.
“May we help you, sir?” Pascal smiled at the man. “Are you with the restaurant or something? Do you work here?”
“No.”
“Do you know us?”
“Yes.” The man offered Pascal his hand. “You are no doubt Pascal Wheeling, Judge Wheeling’s older brother.”
Evers was putting a water glass on top of the paper money and he hesitated, stopping the glass in the air for an instant before setting it on top of the cash.
Pascal shook the man’s hand. “I’m going to guess that you didn’t see us get off the shuttle at the airport with our name tags on. So how do you know us?” Pascal held the stranger’s hand while he talked to him.
“May I sit down?”
Pascal looked at Evers. “Sure. Whatever.”
The man sat down in a chair between the two brothers. He sat very straight; his back and arms were rigid, and his neck was stiff. “I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting either of you. But we have something in common.”
“What’s that?” Evers asked.
“I’m Lester Jackson.” The man put his hands on the table.
“Damn.” Pascal raised his eyebrows.
“Should I know you? I don’t think your name sounds familiar,” Evers said. His mouth twitched, and his eyes shifted toward Pascal.
“Evidently, it struck a chord with your brother.”
Evers picked up his glass off the pile of money. “Pascal, do you know Mr. Jackson? Ever heard the name?”
Pascal’s face was blank for a moment, then animated. “Of course. Everybody’s heard of Reverend Jackson. He ran for president and does those great speeches with all the rhyme and rhythm and urban cadences. He’s the Rainbow founder. Or was that Sammy Davis, Jr.? No. He was the Candyman. Right? You know, though, I’ve got to tell you this, and don’t think I’m being a racist, but on TV you look like a black man. Even with a tan, it’s apparent to me that you’re white.”
Evers looked down at the table. “I think the gentleman said his name was Lester Jackson, not Jesse Jackson.”
“Oh.” Pascal raised his eyebrows again. “I thought he said Jesse. Jesse Jackson. I misunderstood. I’ve never heard of a Lester Jackson.”
Lester Jackson seemed amused. He smiled, and the corners of his eyes and the ends of his mouth wrinkled. He was not as tall as Pascal and Evers, and he was quite trim. He was wearing a green linen shirt, long pants and leather sandals; his hair was short and parted on the side. Evers guessed that Jackson was probably older than he, but not by much. Lester Jackson was a nice-looking man, neat, and very measured when he moved or spoke.
“I’m not here to cause either of you any problem,” he pointed out.
“That’s good news.”
“I’d be grateful if you would sit down, Mr. Wheeling.” Jackson was talking to Pascal. “I’d like a word with you and the judge, and your sort of looming above me makes me uncomfortable.”
Pascal waited for a few seconds before sitting down on the edge of his chair.
“What is it that you want from us, Mr. Jackson?” Evers asked.
Jackson sighed. “My property. No more, no less. That’s not an unreasonable request, is it?”
“My brother and I don’t have anything that’s yours, as far as I know. Maybe you’ve made a mistake.”
Pascal raised his hand and waved it back and forth. “Perhaps this is my fault, Evers. It’s the soap and shampoo, isn’t it? From the room? I’ve already packed it, along with the shoe-shine mitt. You’re with the hotel, aren’t you, Reverend Jackson? Hotel security?”
“You’re welcome to all the soap you can carry. I would like to recover my property from the Englishes, however.”
“What property is that?”
“Ruth Esther and Artis have not told you the true depth of this endeavor, have they?” Jackson was still very formal, full of hard angles.
“What would that be, Mr. Jackson?”
“Do you know what you are looking for here?”
“That’s an excellent question.” Evers was beginning to feel the sun on his arms and the back of his neck.
“It is hard for me to believe that a judge would be involved in this type of … of scheme.”
“Perhaps you could just tell us what you want,” Pascal said. “All this bluffing and feinting and Boris-and-Natasha shit has already lost its appeal. What the fuck are you up to?”
“Fair enough. Mr. English and his sister have a significant amount of mone
y which belongs to me. They stole it from me. I assume you are here to help them find or retrieve the money. I simply want what is mine returned to me.”
“How did you get this money?” Evers asked Jackson.
“To be honest, some of it I gained in transactions that traditional commerce would frown upon. So be it. But I’m not really here for the money. I simply feel that I’ve been victimized by thieves, and I am upset by that.”
“So what do you want?”
“Do you think that these two are here to pick up fifty thousand dollars each? Do you? Think about that. What are you getting out of this? Twenty thousand? Ten?”
“We’re not getting anything.” Evers shifted his weight in his chair. He picked up his glass, tapped the bottom with his fingers and knocked some ice free and into his mouth. “Pascal, check Mr. Jackson and see if he’s recording this. Pat his clothes.” Evers looked around at the people at other tables and on the sidewalk and street. Jackson seemed startled but held his hands up while Pascal felt up and down his arms and stomach. He got out of his seat, and Pascal checked his waist, legs and ankles. Several people stopped eating and watched what was going on.
Jackson sat down and put his hands back onto the table. “What possible reason would I have to record any of this? I will gladly give the two of you fifty thousand dollars. That certainly must be better than the division you’re getting now.”
“If you’re not after the money,” Evers said, “what is it you’re here for?”
Jackson wiped a small line of sweat off his forehead with his finger. “Redemption. Principle. That’s all.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that you came all the way to Utah to prove a point, Mr. Jackson.”
“What offer would convince you to share your information with me?”
“I think we like things just as they are,” Pascal said.
“I agree,” Evers added.
“Certainly there must be something I can offer you.”
“We just came for the trip, Mr. Jackson. Jack Kerouac, Ken Kesey, Hunter S. Thompson, Pascal and Evers Wheeling. We came for the flight and hotel and souvenirs and to see the big organ in the tabernacle. We came to get out of North Carolina. We came to travel. That means, of course, that you really can’t give us anything. We’re getting all we want.”
