Gone ’Til November

by Wallace Stroby

  Birds chattered in the trees, and he could hear the rush of the creek. Far above, a plane left a white contrail across the sky.

  He wiped a wrist across his slick forehead. A band of pain circled his skull. He couldn’t afford to be sick, not now. Couldn’t afford to lose a day.

  He went back in, closed the door, opened the top panels to let air in. In the bathroom, he swallowed a Vicodin half, then went to lie on the bare mattress, looking up at the water-stained ceiling. After a while, he took the Beretta from atop the nightstand. He set it in his lap, the metal cold in his grip.

  If it ever got too bad, if the pain was too much, if the doctors couldn’t help him, this was what he would do. When his system began to shut down, when his skin turned ashen from the waste his kidneys couldn’t process, this was how he would end it. Vicodin and then the gun. The cold muzzle against the roof of his mouth, his finger on the trigger.

  He was sleeping again when the knock came. Then another, hard on the door frame. He woke with a start, and the Beretta slid from his lap, thumped on the floor.

  The fever was gone, but he felt drained, weak. He pushed himself up, went to the curtains, looked out. A dark green Range Rover with tinted windows, New Jersey plates, was parked next to the Monte Carlo.

  The knock came again, rattling the glass. He picked up the Beretta, held it at his side.

  “Yo, man, open the door.”

  With his free hand, Morgan undid the dead bolt. He stepped back, his finger sliding over the Beretta’s trigger.

  “It’s open,” he said.

  When Dante came into the room, Morgan shoved him hard toward the bed, swiveled and raised the Beretta. DeWayne stood framed in the doorway. When he saw the gun, he ducked fast to the right, out of sight.

  Morgan kicked the door shut, turned to see Dante getting up off the floor. He grabbed the back of his basketball jersey, jerked him off balance again. As he fell into a sitting position, Morgan crouched behind him, left arm around his neck, put the muzzle of the Beretta to his temple.

  “Hold on, man!” Dante said. “Hold the fuck on!”

  “He comes through that door, you’re going first.”

  “What the fuck you doing, man? Chill.”

  “Who’s out there?”

  “DeWayne.”

  “Who else?”

  “No one.”

  Morgan tightened his grip. “Tell him to come in.”

  “I ain’t telling him shit.”

  Morgan thumbed the hammer back for effect. “Tell him.”

  “Man, you don’t want to do this.”

  Morgan screwed the muzzle into his skin.

  Dante looked toward the door. “Yo, DeWayne,” he called out. His voice was flat. “Come on in, it’s cool.”

  The door cracked open. DeWayne looked around it into the room, left hand hidden behind his leg.

  “Come in,” Morgan said. “Slow.”

  The door opened wider.

  “Let him go,” DeWayne said, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  “Whatever you’ve got back there, put it on the bed. Do it quick.”

  DeWayne’s lazy eye twitched. He waited a long five count, then came into the room, tossed a chromed automatic onto the bare mattress.

  “Shut the door,” Morgan said.

  He did, stood with his back to it.

  Morgan loosened his grip on Dante’s neck and got to his feet, his knees aching. He took a step back as Dante got his feet under him, adjusted his jersey. Morgan reached under the back of it, took out the small automatic he’d felt. He dropped it on the bed.

  “Man, why you going off like this?” Dante said.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Why you think?”

  “I told him I didn’t need anybody.”

  “I don’t know what you told him. But he told us to come down here, hook up with you. So that’s what we did.”

  Morgan decocked the Beretta. “You drive down?” he said.

  “Just got here.”

  “We here to do work,” DeWayne said. “Just like you.”

  He should shoot them both now, Morgan knew, leave them where they lay and head out. But then he would lose the motel as his base, bring in the police.

  “Man wondering,” DeWayne said. “Where you at with it.”

  “He should have called, saved you both a trip.”

  “He said for us to see for ourselves.”

  Morgan felt the adrenaline rush fading. He needed to sit down.

  “Should have told me you were coming.”

  DeWayne raised his shoulders, let them fall.

  Morgan nodded at the desk chair, said to Dante, “Sit down.”

  “You don’t look so good,” DeWayne said. “You all sweaty and shit.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Morgan said, the words sounding weak and false. He went into the bathroom, put the Beretta on the toilet tank, ran the faucet and drank cold water from a cupped hand, splashed some on his face. He looked into the mirror. His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones showing through. The skull beneath his skin.

  “Hotter than a motherfucker down here,” Dante said. “I ain’t used to this shit.”

  Morgan dried off with a towel, picked up the Beretta, went back into the room.

  “Three’s too many,” he said. “No good. Especially down here. We stick out.”

  “Big Man said there’s three or four of them you watching,” Dante said. “That’s why he sent us. Divide up the work, you know?”

  “Don’t need it.”

  “You want to call him, tell him different, go ahead. He tell us to go back, that’s what we’ll do. Until then . . .”

  “So where you at with it?” DeWayne said.

  Morgan looked at him. “If Mikey wants to know, I’ll call him.”

  “Anything you wanna tell him, you can tell us.”

  “He say that?”

  DeWayne nodded.

  And how much did he promise you? Morgan thought. A third? More? Or are you just planning to take it all?

  “These people you watching,” Dante said. “They the ones got the money?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “They the ones did Derek, though, right?” DeWayne said.

  “Probably,” Morgan said. “Why?”

  “I been knowing Derek’s people longtime. His father an OG. He watched out for me on the tier, you know what I’m saying?”

  “That’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Derek was good people. They shouldn’t have done him like that. I’ll make sure that shit gets settled, you feel me?”

  “You haven’t thought this through.”

  “No thinking about it. Whoever did Derek gonna get got.”

  “Money come first, though,” Dante said. “Big Man down to stems and seeds. He need that cash.”

  “And then?”

  Dante pulled at an earlobe. “Like the man said. Whoever did it got to go.”

  “That’s what I mean, about not thinking this through. Think you can come down here, kill a cop, walk away?”

  “A thieving-ass cop,” DeWayne said.

  “You think that makes any difference?”

  “It should.”

  “We do it fast, then we git,” Dante said. “We be gone before they know it. With the money.”

  Morgan felt fresh sweat on his forehead. The Beretta seemed heavier. He put it on the nightstand.

  “You up to this?” DeWayne said. “You look like you about done.”

  “Where you staying?” Morgan said.

  “Holiday Inn,” Dante said. “Town or so over.”

  Used your own name, too, Morgan guessed. And after things jump off and the police start checking motels, they’ll have that name, and an address, a description of the car, maybe a tag number. Stupid.

  Morgan nodded at the guns.

  “Pick them up,” he said. “Mikey give you my cell?”

  “We got it,” Dante said.

&
nbsp; “Go back to your room. Hit me on it later. I got a couple things to do first, get organized. Then we can talk about where it’s going, how to divide it up. Don’t do nothing until we talk.”

  “All right,” Dante said. “Big Man calling the shots, though. You know that, right?”

  “Up there, maybe.”

  “Down here, too.”

  Morgan said nothing. DeWayne opened the door.

  “Later then,” Dante said.

  They got into the Range Rover, Dante behind the wheel. As it pulled away, Morgan could hear hip-hop thumping inside. He watched them head back down the access road to the highway. Then he went back inside to wait for the dark.

  TWENTY-ONE

  They had an early dinner at the Dairy Queen, Danny picking at his hamburger, pushing fries around his plate. It was his favorite place to eat, and seeing him like this worried her. She reached across the table, put the back of her hand to his forehead. It was warm.

  “You okay, little guy?”

  He nodded, broke off a piece of hamburger, chewed it. The tyrannosaurus model was on his lap. He’d been carrying it all day.

  She took another bite from her hamburger, realized she had no appetite. Her right hand was stiff, the knuckles still red.

  She looked around the restaurant. Late Saturday afternoon and mainly teenagers in here, an elderly couple near the front window, the woman cutting up the man’s food for him. There were decorations on the windows. Cutout jack-o’-lanterns, witches.

  “Maybe a pirate,” Danny said.

  She looked at him. “I miss something?”

  “For Halloween. I could be a pirate.”

  “Danny . . .”

  “I know.” He looked down at his food. “I was just thinking about it, that’s all.”

  “You feel like you have a fever?”

  He shook his head.

  “Your hamburger okay?” she said.

  He nodded.

  “You have room for ice cream?”

  He looked up. “Can I?”

  “Try to eat a little more of that for me first, all right?”

  He broke off another piece, chewed it. Her own hamburger was cold to the touch now.

  When he’d eaten some more, she said, “That’s okay, you don’t have to finish it. Go on up, see what you want.”

  When he went to the counter, she cleared the table, dumped the uneaten food in the trash bin, and stacked their trays on top. They ordered small chocolate sundaes, and took them outside to the plastic tables near the parking lot. The sky was blue and clear. She watched a plane pass by far overhead.

  “How would you like to go by the garage?” she said. “See Howard and Reno?”

  “Can we?”

  “You think you can handle it? It’s pretty hot today.”

  “Sure. I’m okay.”

  He scooped ice cream with the yellow plastic spoon, ladled into his mouth.

  “How’s your stomach?” she said. “You feel like you’re going to be sick?”

  He shook his head.

  “Let me know if you are.”

  They finished their sundaes. She got rid of their trash, unlocked the Blazer, and opened the front and back doors to let the trapped heat out. As she helped him into the booster seat, he said, “I’m too old for this.”

  “Not yet. But soon.”

  When she had him secured, she got behind the wheel, started the engine, and cranked up the air-conditioning. He was playing with the tyrannosaurus, making growling noises, off in his own world.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled into the lot at the Sunoco station that served as the Hopedale Municipal Garage. The flatbed was parked out front, along with two cruisers waiting to be repaired or picked up. Both bay doors were open, and she could see Howie Twelvetrees inside, standing under one of the lifts, looking up at the undercarriage of an EMT van.

  He saw them, waved. A German shepherd/mutt mix trotted out of the bay, ran a circle around the Blazer.

  “Reno!” Danny said.

  She shut the engine off, reached back, and got Danny unstrapped. He let himself out the side door, and the dog reared up, planted paws on his chest, almost knocking him back. He laughed, the dog licking at his face.

  “Reno!” Howie said, coming out of the bay. “Easy.”

  The dog got down, flopped at Danny’s feet. He scratched behind its ears, under its chain collar.

  “Hey, Howie,” she said as she got out.

  He wiped his hands on a rag, slung it over the shoulder of his jumpsuit.

  “Sara,” he said. “So easy to look at, so hard to define.”

  He was in his late forties, she guessed, his complexion weathered by sun and wind. His jet black hair was lank and fell over one eye, his expression impassive. He could have been sixty for all she knew. She had never asked.

  Reno had run back into the bay, come out with a cowhide pull toy, and dropped it at Danny’s feet. He picked it up, hefted it over his shoulder, and tossed it across the blacktop. The dog spun, streaked at it, caught it on the ground and carried it back, dropped it again.

  “What can I do you for, Sara? Don’t usually expect to see you on a Saturday.”

  “I was wondering if I could have a look at that Accord. The one from the shooting.”

  He looked at her, rubbed his hands on the rag. “Sheriff send you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so,” he said.

  “Just curious about a couple things.”

  “Curious.”

  She waited.

  “No harm in it, I guess,” he said. He whistled sharply. “Reno! Back!”

  The dog wheeled to face him, the toy in its mouth. It trotted up the short driveway and through the gate that led to the wrecking yard behind.

  Howie led the way. The yard was high-fenced on three sides, chain link and barbed wire. There was a plywood doghouse against the back of the building. Reno dropped the toy, drank noisily from a plastic water dish.

  There were three cars in the yard. A Ford station wagon with a crushed grille that Moss Harmon, the town’s director of public works, had run into a cedarpost fence last month, half drunk. A VW Jetta that had been abandoned in Libertyville and impounded. Near the back fence was the gray Accord.

  Danny squatted beside Reno. The dog finished drinking, picked up the toy again.

  Sara walked around the Accord, remembering it that night, bathed in the light from their rollers. There were traces of white fingerprint powder on the doors, trunk, and hood.

  “Locked?” she said.

  Howie shook his head.

  She opened the passenger side door. The rocker panels had been removed, dumped in the back. The safety seat was facedown on the floor, the back of it gone. She opened the door wider, saw the inside panels had been loosened. Wiring hung from beneath the dashboard.

  “We took the whole thing apart,” Howie said. “Sheriff’s orders.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Me and Sam Elwood. Sheriff dropped by to supervise for part of it.”

  “Find anything?”

  “Where you going with this, Sara?”

  “Like I said, just curious.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “Me? Nothing.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “I don’t want to put you on the spot. I’ll ask the sheriff.”

  “Nothing personal, Sara.”

  She went around to the driver’s side, pulled open the door. The console between the seats had been dismantled. She knelt on the seat, leaned over and opened the glovebox. Empty.

  “They took all that stuff,” he said. “Registration, insurance, whatever else was in there. Sheriff’s got it all.”

  “I guessed.”

  She backed out of the car.

  “You looking for something specific?” he said.

  “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

  “You have to be careful about what you’re not looking fo
r. Sometimes you find it.”

  “Don’t go getting all Indian on me, Howie.”

  “One thing we did find, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Reach in and pop that trunk.”

  She looked at him a moment, then leaned back into the car and felt around under the left side of the seat. She found the trunk latch, pulled, heard the click.

  “Come have a look at this,” he said.

  She followed him around to the trunk. He lifted the lid. It was empty inside, the carpet sagging in the middle.

  “Where’s the spare?” she said.

  “We took it out, cut it open. What’s left of it is in the shop. Nothing in it, though. Feel around behind that left taillight.”

  She did, tracing the wires to where they disappeared into the taillight mount.

  “Up on the left,” he said.

  Her fingers found the small lever there.

  “Pull it?” she said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  She heard a click.

  “Now lift up the carpet.”

  She did. A section of trunk bottom to the left of the spare well, about two feet across, had risen slightly.

  “You could look at the floor of that trunk all day, not see it,” Howie said. “Whoever built it did a good job.”

  She got her fingers under the edge, pulled. The section swung up on small hinges.

  “It didn’t roll out of the Honda factory that way,” he said. “I can guarantee you that.”

  She looked into the space beneath. Bare metal. Empty.

  “Anything in it when you opened it?”

  “No. Just the way it is now.”

  “There were guns in the trunk when he pulled the car over,” she said. “In plain sight.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But nothing in here?”

  “Nope.”

  She put her fingertips on the compartment lid, pressed it down so it clicked into place, flush with the trunk floor.

  “Something, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It is.”

  “Doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t to the sheriff either.”

  “I wouldn’t guess it did. Any fingerprints on it?”

  “Wiped clean.”

  “Find anything else?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Thanks, Howie.”

  “If the sheriff asks if you’ve been around, what do I say?”