by Joe Clifford
I hadn’t been to Owen’s place since moving home from Plasterville three years ago. He’d expanded operations. Bigger showroom. Larger auction house. Double down on the glitz, ramp up the glamour, rake in the profit. I knew he was on-site. His truck occupied the same primo spot closest the door. The vanity license plate gave it away: LKQUID8.
Owen was either on his way out, or he had been warned. Before I could grab the handle, he was at the door, holding it wide, carnival barking for me to step right up.
“Come on in, Jay,” he said, ushering me into his sanctum, which splayed out as if it had been decorated by a Louisiana Purchase trapper. Pelts furred the walls in between huge skulls of dead beasts, longhorns and mounted muskets, the rest of his office littered with the assorted knickknacks that hallmark the profession. Glass figurines. Whittled walking sticks. Tea sets. Made me wonder why I didn’t at least have a new Keurig coffeemaker. Tom often gave me picks of the litter. Didn’t have much interest in acquiring more stuff, I guess. Looking over Owen’s riches, I promised myself: next time I saw a decent coffeemaker, I was snagging it. That swill Charlie made last night tasted like it had been brewed through a sweaty jockstrap.
“Good to see you,” Owen said, pointing at the tiny chair in front of his long cherrywood desk. “Have a seat.” Cowboy boots kicked up, fat ass plushing the captain’s chair, he reminded me of a Texas oilman, not that I’d ever seen a Texas oilman other than on campy late-night soaps. Probably the boots, these obnoxious snakeskin things no one in northern New Hampshire had any business wearing.
“Can I get you something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Scored one of them Keurigs at auction recently. Kind that uses those little pods? Tasty.” He pressed a button on his phone, bringing up the speaker. “Marlene, mind brewing a couple fresh cups?” Then to me: “Cream, sugar?” Before I had a chance to answer, he was back on the phone. “The works. And hurry up.”
“I’m sorry to hear about Tom,” he said clicking off. “Got a call from your sheriff up there. Nice fella. What’s his name?”
“Turley.”
“That’s right. Told me what happened. Awful. Just awful.” I thought I detected a slight grin. Then again, the smarmy bastard always seemed to be smirking. I wondered how much Turley had told him. I doubted he’d go so far as to mention the note. But that smirk didn’t make me feel too confident.
“Did he tell you it was a botched carjacking?”
“He implied as much, yes.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little weird?”
“A carjacking in your hick town? Very.”
“Turley said it was meant to look like a carjacking. Someone pretended to be stranded, setting a trap for Tom. So they could crack his skull open.” I waited, watched his reaction. “Someone who wanted him out of the way.”
Took him a moment. Owen Eaton cocked his head, sizing me up with a squint. “Don’t tell me that’s why you’re here?”
The door opened and a dowdy woman with field mouse brown hair and a body shaped like a bowling pin waddled in, presenting a tray, a house maiden in some old film noir. Except instead of sterling silver and ornate spouts, she carried paper cups with mini creamers, the kind you get for free at 7-Eleven or the Gas ’n’ Go. No matter how much money Owen made, he’d always be a chintzy SOB. I wasn’t complaining. Gave me time to think how I wanted to play my next move.
Marlene set the coffee on his desk.
“Make sure you get me in five minutes,” Owen said, wrinkling his forehead, wriggling his bushy eyebrows, stopping just short of winking. “For that . . . thing.”
“Of course,” Marlene said, only slightly less confused.
Soon as the door closed, Owen put down his boots and leaned across his desk. “I know you’ve never liked me, Jay.”
“That’s not true.” Of course that was true, but declaring your intense hatred for someone is seldom the best way to get answers.
“That’s okay,” Owen said, grabbing his coffee. “You don’t like anyone. You think you’re better than everyone else. Don’t bother me none. I don’t trust people who like everyone. I think we’re all too friendly up here. A little distrust is a good thing.”
“Glad to see we are on the same page.” What an asshole.
“But walkin’ into my office and accusing me of attempted murder? I can appreciate a set of stones as much as the next guy. But those balls of yours ain’t quite that big and brassy.”
“I’m not accusing you of anything—”
“You know the problem with smart fellers like you?” He said it like that, too, “fellers,” even though he knew it wasn’t really a word, the way some people will drop the “g” to sound more street, use “ain’t” even if they’ve gone to college. This guy probably had a million plus in the bank. But Owen Eaton, one of the biggest liquidators in the Northeast, still needed me to believe he was down because he retained a twang and said stupid shit like “fellers.” Dollars to donuts he wasn’t even from the South. “Smart fellers like you—and I think you are a smart feller, Jay. Whether you like me or not—I have respect for you—but you are just smart enough to think everyone else is a moron. A little intelligence is a dangerous thing.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
Owen slapped the table, spitting out a laugh. “Maybe you ain’t so smart after all.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little weird? Tom’s talking about getting out of the business, hosts this last-minute secret sale, which also happens to be one of the biggest to date. Then someone lays him out?”
“I could ask the same of you. This ain’t Silkwood, son.” Son? Guy was ten years older than me. I wasn’t his fucking son. “Can I be honest with you?”
“No, lie to me.”
Owen pointed a finger, busting himself up. “No disrespect to Amos and Andy at that rinky-dinky police department you got up there, but your sheriff, Turkleton—”
“Turley.”
“Right. Turley. Seems like a nice guy. But I find it hard to believe that within ten minutes of finding a man bleedin’ on the side of the road, they can start lobbing theories that include manslaughter, don’t you? Seems a little . . . melodramatic? I mean, who’s to say Tom’s truck didn’t slide off the icy road—you know those mountain passes, how treacherous they get in storms. His truck’s slippin’ and slidin’, Tom gets tossed, he’s stumbling around, all shaky, falls and cracks his skull on a rock.”
“And the crowbar covered with blood and bone?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Throwin’ out hypotheticals. Just sayin’ your boy, Turley, might be fishing. Can’t imagine there’s much crime to fight up there in Ashton. The devil will find work for idle hands and all that. Now listen, as long as I got you here, I want you to know, your feelings for me aside, I’ve always thought you were a damn fine estate man. Have a real eye for antiques. I’m not blowin’ smoke up your ass. When I go to an auction and see you there, I get worried, because I know I’ll have to bring my A-game.”
“You mean like slipping out back for a little wheeling and dealing?”
Owen slapped the table, pointing that finger at me again, beaming.
Marlene cracked the door. “Mr. Eaton, you have that meeting—”
“Dammit, Marlene!” He threw up his hands, shocked to find gambling in this establishment. “Can’t you see I’m talking to my good friend Jay Porter here? I’ll be there in a minute. Sheesh.”
Owen caught my eye, waving me closer, like we were on the same team. “I want you to know, you’ll always have a job at the Clearing House if you want one.” Before I could say a word—like I already had a fucking job and that Tom was going to pull through like a champ, call Owen Eaton a dick for suggesting otherwise—the smooth-talking snake-oil salesman cut me off. “God forbid, I mean. Tom Gable is one tough sonofabitch. I am sure he’s going to overcome this bump in the road with flying colors.”
Owen stood up and walked around his desk, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, guiding me to my feet, offering r
eassurance as he escorted me the hell out of there.
“Think about it,” he said.
Then he shoved me out the door and slammed it shut.
CHAPTER NINE
TOM HAD SAID to start moving Monday, but I had the key. He’d already signed the lease. The property was ours. I began schlepping the biggest, most expensive items down to the new space in Pittsfield. The security system was up and running. Tom didn’t skimp on security. Couldn’t risk it. I started with our main warehouse off Lamplight Lane. I’d clear the temporary pod at You Store, which housed the Mortenson haul, last. Despite some good scores from that auction, the value paled to our permanent collection. Over the years, Tom Gable had acquired more than three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of merchandise. The relocation required several trips, and this was the most efficient route.
With Tom laid up, the business wasn’t going to stay on course without someone’s taking the reins. Freddie’s feelings for me aside, my loyalty was to Tom, not her.
After dropping off the first load at Everything Under the Sun—I had to admit, the new name was growing on me—I stopped by the hospital to check on Tom’s progress. I was hoping Freddie would be taking a break. But she was there, along with her two sisters, all huddled together, a clamor of harpies. Tom still lay unresponsive, hooked up to the machines that were helping him breathe. I wanted to remain optimistic, but for the first time, I feared he wasn’t going to make it. My big, burly friend was shriveling up, cheeks withering gaunt, pale, like the life force was being sucked out of him. Everyone in the room pretended to acknowledge me. Freddie answered my questions. Clipped, unenthusiastic responses but she answered them. I knew they’d been talking about me before I walked in, and they’d be doing so again the moment I left. She was polite enough, I guess. Very few have the guts to call you an asshole to your face.
I’d known Tom Gable for almost twenty years, which meant I’d known Freddie that long, too; they’d been married forever. And now because of the rotten timing of good intentions, I was the bad guy.
Turley should’ve fucking known better. As much as I detested Owen Eaton, he had a point. How the hell can you find a man, unconscious and bleeding out his head, in the middle of a snowstorm, and say with any certainty what happened? Turley had honed in on me because of my family’s history. If my brother didn’t have his reputation, I don’t have mine. Chris’ involvement in our parents’ death had become part of small-town lore, like the crane stuck on the bottom of Duncan Pond, main boom and fly jib breaking the surface, backstory buoyed by rural folks’ need to fable the fabulous. My brother had the misfortune of working at an auto garage and not getting along with his dad. What hard-headed teenager gets along with his father? If Chris works at the Dairy Queen, no one is accusing him of tampering with anything other than the Mr. Misty nozzle. But he worked in a garage, had intimate knowledge of mechanics, and access to the hardware. In other words, luck of the draw, which can still be a shitty hand. If I’m back in Plasterville, working in that stupid monkey suit, denying claims to soccer moms and prematurely balding dads, and Tom has an accident? No one is pointing a finger at me, regardless of any letter. Then again, I’d always be Chris Porter’s brother. Which rendered me a fuck-up by proxy. Maybe I was selling myself short. After all the mistakes I’d made, I’d earned that reputation all by my lonesome.
With daylight savings stealing time, darkness slinked in earlier. Late-afternoon jet streams picked up as more flurries fell. Turnpike traffic jammed, sludged like chilled maple syrup, bumper to bumper, lights stuck on red, horns bleating. I scanned radio stations. Nothing I wanted to listen to. Tried sports talk, but everyone was screaming. Callers, hosts, even the commercials sounded deranged.
When I was growing up, the Turnpike, with its slew of off-track betting sites, fast-food chains, and single-room occupancy hotels, represented squalor, providing mean-spirited kids with endless material for the bus ride home. When Chris started living as a junkie in these flophouses along the strip, my discomfort around this part of town intensified, became more personal. This was where my brother began killing himself, one shot at a time, and long before the police fired any bullet. Now after everything I’d been through, my disdain for the diseased thoroughfare had burrowed deeper, eating away at me like the scabies and bedbugs that infested half these rooms.
I drove past the Kenilworth Motel, where I’d suffered the worst morning of my life. In the midst of that psychotic break, I’d holed up there to elude the tactical units on my tail, the shooters on the roof, the helicopters circling the sky, the world that waited to come crashing down. Of course none of this was true. My brain chemistry out of whack, I was imprisoned within the walls of paranoia, unable to separate fact from fantasy.
But a few hours trapped inside the Kenilworth Motel was all the fuel my nightmares needed. These days when I closed my eyes to sleep, I still saw the streaks of blood across the walls and ceiling. Long, sweeping arcs of black and red. The walking dead clearing the line, spraying unholy constellations across fractured chapels.
Instead of veering off onto Orchard Road, the straightest shot back into the center of town, I continued north on the Turnpike, past the new Coos County Center recently erected on the grounds of the old TC Truck Stop, through the unchartered territory of Coal Creek, climbing the mountain into an affluent section called Crimson Peak.
There weren’t many houses on this part of Lamentation, but the disparity between the blessed and the rest was never more pronounced. Crimson Peak was the mountain’s Park Avenue. In the low-lying flats my brother and a junkie pal had run their crooked electronic recycling con, easy to hide among the blight of used car lots and Chinese restaurants shut down for serving cat. On the hill, a different narrative unfolded. Grand houses, modern architectural wonders. Rich red cedar frames, gleaming steel beams, walls made entirely of glass. Postcard snapshots of brilliant blue lakes and towering green trees, the chosen ones lording over lesser peoples.
I pulled out the address I’d scribbled down for Joanne Crowder, wishing I’d come better prepared. I didn’t even know what I planned to ask her if she answered the door, my decision to drive up here spurred by frustration, anger, outrage. In retrospect, coming up to Crimson Peak should’ve been my first move. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so pissed off if I knew what the hell was going on.
From my days in insurance, I’d learned house calls were the most effective method for getting people to talk. Catch them off guard, pants down, unprepared. Folks have an easier time slamming down the phone than they do shutting a door. Though I’d been on the receiving end of both plenty.
All the lights were off, no car in the driveway. I parked my truck in the deep, unplowed snow, and rang the bell anyway. Nothing stirred inside. No light switched on. The mailbox was overstuffed with shopping mailers, letters, and bills, correspondence crammed into the tiny slit, spilling to the steps. Financial newspapers, wrapped in blue plastic bags, stuck out of the frozen ground. I thought about leaving a business card. Stick it in the door, hope for a callback. But I knew then that Joanne Crowder wasn’t coming back.
The drive to my dumpy one-room pad above the garage was a cold, hollow road. I’d been hoping for a quick fix. There’s no such thing. Ask any junkie. I tried not to dwell on the Crowders’ domestic troubles, I had enough of my own, and I didn’t want to obsess over Freddie and her family’s opinion of me. I mean, if I were in Freddie’s shoes, I’d be thinking the same thing. Tom pens that note, gets attacked the next day; I have no alibi, what else is there to ask? My question had to be different: Why then? Of all the times to put those wishes in writing, Tom Gable had picked that night. Something must’ve spooked him. Freddie told Turley she’d heard Tom and me fighting on the phone at two a.m. That wasn’t me on the line. Even if I’d been hammered after Biscoglio’s visit, lost track of time, blacked out, no way I call my boss after midnight and pick a fight. Over what? I had no gripes with Tom. Except simmering resentment over his possibly selling the company to Owen
Eaton.
During our breakfast at Julie’s, Tom didn’t mention any argument. But he had been acting odd. Not his usual Zen-bear self, more hesitant, like he had something on his mind. He’d start, stop, stammer, words on the tip of his tongue before he’d clamp up, swallow them back down. I’d noted it then. Now that I thought about it, he’d addressed the issue of selling to Owen before I even brought it up, promising me we’d work it out. He and I were close, but not mind-reading close. Had I been so drunk that I phoned my boss at two in the morning? I did possess a tendency to let shit fester. In efforts to avoid conflict, I’d push grievances down deep, letting resentment build and build and build, until I blew up at the worst possible moment. Did it all the time with Jenny.
No, that wasn’t me on the phone. I had no record of any such call on my cell. Although I would’ve used the landline. Better reception. Could check the call list when I got back. If you hadn’t Russell Crowed the thing against the wall. Why hadn’t Turley checked phone records? Maybe he has. Unless the threat came via e-mail? If someone stopped by unannounced, Freddie would’ve told the cops. Who says she would?
I needed to get my hands on Tom’s phone log and access his computer. Lucky for me, I had two friends skilled in each. Even if I didn’t like one of them much, and the other was a shiftless, chronic alcoholic.
I saw this movie last year about a lawyer who operated out of his car to save money on office rental expenses. Only caught the tail end of it. One of the cops from True Detective, Matthew McConaughey, was in it. Meeting up with Charlie and Fisher at the Olympic Diner felt like that. The twenty-four-hour dinette was like our office. And it beat all hell out of a car. For one, there was more room, better food, and the view was spectacular. The Olympic Diner on the Desmond Turnpike laid claim to some of the best-looking women in the state. Young, Greek, gorgeous. I swear I wasn’t like this in high school. When all my buddies overheated from sex on the brain, I barely noticed girls. I had better things to do. But the older I got, the worse it got. I also hadn’t been laid in a while, which didn’t help. The longer you go without getting any, the more desperate you come across. Nobody wants to be the answer to all your problems. I wasn’t improving my chances hanging out with the Wonder Twins. Charlie had let himself go, sprouting gin blossoms and bitch tits. Fisher, decked out like a Dungeons & Dragons reject, was a couple sides short of a twelve-sided die, even on his best day. No man’s hair should be so long he has to wrap it on top of his head and secure it in a bun. Maybe it was for the best. Last thing I needed right now was a romantic entanglement. I’d deal with blue balls on my own. That’s why God invented porn.
