The Mortal Nuts

by Pete Hautman

  “Where’s Carmen?” Axel demanded, shifting gears again.

  Dean appeared genuinely confused. “How the fuck should I know?”

  “You tell me where she is, maybe I’ll tell you about the coffee cans.”

  Dean lifted the crowbar. “Maybe you’ll tell me about the coffee cans anyways.”

  Axel watched the crowbar turning in Dean’s hands. He had to say something. “It’s in the safe,” he said. Get out of the room, he was thinking, get outside. “I put it all in the motel safe.”

  Dean raised his eyebrows, then looked over his shoulder toward the bathroom.

  “Hey, Motel 6! How come you didn’t tell me about this?” he shouted.

  “It’s a lie!” came Bill Quist’s frightened voice.

  Axel said, “Bill? That you in there?”

  “He’s lying,” Quist shouted.

  Axel shook his head. “You in with these guys, Bill?”

  No reply.

  Dean said, “He says you’re lying.”

  “What’s he doing in the bathroom?”

  “Let’s talk coffee cans,” Dean said.

  “It’s like I told you. I put the money in the safe. I did it when the other guy was on duty. Bill doesn’t even know about it. You don’t believe me, we can go look.”

  Sophie drifted toward the curb, then pulled a quick U-turn on Larpenteur Avenue, throwing Sam against the door.

  He said, “Whoa! Hey! Hold on there, what you doing?”

  “I don’t care what he says,” Sophie muttered.

  “What? Who?”

  “You saw him. The man can hardly walk.”

  “He don’t need to walk to sleep.”

  “I can’t leave him like that, all by himself. Somebody has to take care of him.”

  “Well, he ain’t going to like it.”

  “I don’t care what he likes. He needs me.”

  The parade moved slowly across the parking lot, Axel supported by a frightened-looking Bill Quist, with Dean and Tigger walking a few steps behind them. Axel, a glazed look in his eyes, had departed the present. As his body limped across the dimly lit parking lot, one arm hanging on Bill Quist’s shoulder, his mind traveled into the past. He saw himself in Deadwood, about to get the shit beat out of him by a trio of drunken cowboys. His mistake back then had been to wait too long. He had let the cowboys confront him in their own time and place. Now, he was thinking, he’d made the same damn mistake all over again. He should have dealt with this James Dean a long time ago, the first time he’d met him. Instead, he had offered the kid a free taco.

  Was it too late? Axel expelled a mental sigh and returned to the present.

  “I’m sorry about this, Bill,” he said.

  Quist said, “This isn’t fair. I just work here.” His hands were tied together in front with a pair of Axel’s knee-high black nylon socks. A large bruise had formed on the side of his neck.

  “You seen Carmen today?” Axel asked.

  “She called. She wants you to go get her.”

  “Get her where?”

  “Ramsey County detox.”

  “Oh.” Detox? At least she was safe. One less thing to think about. They were almost to the lobby. Well, he decided, as well this time as another, and he let his good knee collapse and fell to the tarmac. Quist tried to hold him up, but Axel slipped his arm loose, groaning piteously. Behind them, Dean and Tigger stopped.

  “Get him up,” Dean commanded Quist.

  Quist tugged at Axel’s arm, but the only effect was to make him moan.

  “My knee,” Axel said, coughing.

  Dean said, “You better get up, or we’ll just drag you.”

  “Why don’t we just leave him?” Tigger asked. “We don’t need him, right?”

  “If the money’s not there, we need him.” Dean pointed the crowbar at Quist, who had dropped Axel’s arm, edged a half step back, and was rocking slightly on his feet. “Don’t you even think about it.”

  Quist’s shoulders sagged. Dean returned his attention to Axel.

  “Time to get up, old man.” He gave him a vicious poke in the ribs with the crowbar.

  The crowbar stuck. Dean tugged at the steel, thinking for a moment that he had actually shoved it into the old man’s body and gotten it stuck between two ribs, but in the quarter second it took for him to realize that Axel had grabbed the bar, the old man twisted and yanked, tearing the bar from Dean’s grasp, coming back at him with a one-handed swing. With a shout, Dean jumped back. The crowbar missed his knee, but he felt it flutter the denim of his jeans. The amphetamine plateau had shifted; things were coming at him too fast now. From the corner of his eye, he saw the motel clerk moving, stumbling back, turning, running. Tigger somewhere behind him, saying, “Hey … hey …” A car stopped on the roadway opposite the parking lot, headlights glaring. Confusing shadows. His heart was making his ribs vibrate. The old man was getting up, using the crowbar like a cane. Too much, all at the same time. Dean backed away, trying to focus his thoughts. He heard himself shout something to Tigger, but Tigger wasn’t there. He looked back and saw Tigger running. The old man was hopping toward him on one leg, holding the crowbar like a baseball bat, his shoe slapping loudly on the asphalt with each hop.

  There was a moment when Dean almost ran, but then the scene snapped into focus again and he saw that he was still in control, still on that plateau. The guy was old, he was tired, and he was hopping along on one leg. Everything had slowed down again. The old man’s hops were shorter. He was getting tired. Every time he made another little jump, Dean took a step back, keeping about eight feet between them. Let the guy wear himself out, then take him.

  Hop.

  Dean took another step back. He could deal with Tigger later.

  The old man stopped, balancing on one leg. He lowered the bar. Dean smiled, took a step forward.

  “You done now?”

  The old man glared, breathing loudly.

  “How about you give me the bar.” Dean reached out a hand. He saw the end of the bar start to move, started to jerk his hand back. The old man fell toward him, bringing the bar up over his head, chopping down with it. Dean saw it all in slow motion, plenty of time to get out of the way, but his body refused to match the speed of his mind. The hook end of the bar crashed into his sternum, driving the air from his lungs, raked down his belly, and snagged in the waistband of his jeans. He went down, his chest in spasms, and the old man was on him.

  Axel wanted to split James Dean’s head wide open. He managed to bang it on the pavement a couple of times, but it was like trying to hold on to an oily bowling ball. No hair to grab. Then the kid caught his breath, howled, and snapped his body into a reverse arch, sending Axel up and off. Axel’s bad knee hit the pavement. A bright flash of light hit his eyes, a moment of blindness. He heard a roar. The kid rose up before him, silhouetted against a pair of headlights coming right at him. Axel picked a direction and rolled.

  “Go!” shouted Sam. “Go-go-go-go-go!” He reached over with one foot and tromped on the accelerator. The truck lurched forward, hopped the curb, and headed down the grassy embankment toward the Motel 6 parking lot, spitting sod from its rear wheels. Sophie screamed, her hands white on the steering wheel. The truck hit the parking lot, bounced, a shiny, bloody head appeared above the hood, they felt a thud, and Sophie hit the brake, still screaming, her eyes closed. The truck skidded toward the motel office, hit one of the two overhang supports, and crashed through the plate-glass doorway into the lobby.

  Axel didn’t see the truck strike James Dean, but he saw his body airborne, saw him rotate in the air and land flat, facedown on the parking lot, the sound of his impact covered by the louder sound of the truck crashing into the lobby.

  For a moment, everything stopped. Axel gave himself three seconds, then climbed to his feet and hopped slowly toward the office. The overhang, deprived of one support, sagged dangerously. Axel squeezed between the remains of the doorway and the back end of his pickup truck. He heard a grindin
g, whining noise coming from beneath the hood, the sound of the starter trying to crank a frozen engine. He hopped up to the driver’s door, opened it, and saw Sophie twisting the ignition key, probably so that she could back over the kid in the parking lot. Axel opened the door. Sophie stared at him fiercely, cranking the starter, pumping the gas pedal. Her eyes were squeezed down to slits, her face and shoulders covered with white powder. Axel frowned at the steering wheel, at the limp white bag dangling from its center.

  He reached out and gently removed her hand from the starter. He held her face. “Are you okay?”

  Sophie slumped and nodded shakily. “Something went bang,” she said.

  Axel looked at Sam, who sat blinking stupidly out through the shattered windshield, a rivulet of blood running from his nose down his chin.

  “You—son—of—a—bitch.” Axel felt a smile flutter onto his face.

  Sam wiped his sleeve across his chin, smearing blood. “What?”

  “You never unhooked the goddamn air bag.”

  Chapter 40

  “I raise,” said Sophie. She looked across the table at Axel. “Can I do that?”

  Axel frowned at his cards. “You don’t want to,” he said. His new dentures clicked when he talked. They didn’t fit right with the stitches the doctor had taken in his gum.

  They were sitting, the three of them, in Sam O’Gara’s kitchen. Axel took up two chairs, one for his body and the other for his leg, now confined to a plastic cast. The refrigerator, an ancient Philco, emitted a low rumble. Chester and Festus were sacked out under the table, Festus giving Sophie an occasional interesting moment by licking her ankle. The first time, she’d squealed and jumped out of her chair, but she was getting used to it.

  Sam fished a can of Copenhagen from his pocket. “Don’t listen to him, Soph. Anyways, I fold.” He pushed his cards away and shifted his chair closer to Sophie. “What you got there, sweetheart?”

  Sophie pulled her cards against her breasts.

  Sam said, “Don’t worry, I’m out of this hand. Just show me your cards, I’ll tell you if you wanna be raisin’ ol’ Ax. He’s a tricky sumbitch. C’mon, I’m on your side.”

  Sophie hesitated, then tipped her cards toward Sam. He leaned closer. “Not bad,” he said.

  Axel snorted. “She’s showing you her cards, Sam, not her boobs.”

  “I’s talking about both.”

  Sophie shot out an elbow, forcing Sam to jerk his head back out of range, but she couldn’t completely conceal a smile. “What should I do?” she asked.

  Sam thrust a thumb in the air. “Raise it up!” he said. “Make him pay to see those babies.” He twisted the top off the Copenhagen can, pinched up an enormous wad of the black tobacco, and packed his lower lip.

  Axel groaned and watched as Sophie pushed four quarters into the pot.

  He said, “What can you have?”

  Sophie advanced her chin and fixed her eyes on Axel’s stack.

  Axel looked again at his cards. It wasn’t a bad hand for five-card draw. He had a flush, jack high. Almost certainly a winner—unless Sophie’s cards were better. That was the thing about poker. Any hand was a winner until it got beat.

  Which seemed to happen a lot.

  He fiddled with his pile of coins, found four quarters and five dimes, tossed them on the pot. “Let’s see ’em,” he said.

  Sophie looked at Sam. “Do I have to?”

  “If you want to win you do, sweetheart.”

  “Can I raise again?”

  “You’re called,” Axel snapped.

  Sophie carefully set her cards on the table, face up. A full house, queens over fives. Axel rolled his eyes and threw away his hand.

  “You have to show too!” Sophie said.

  Axel said, “Why? You won.”

  Sam grabbed Axel’s discarded hand and flipped it up.

  Sophie said, “What’s that? You didn’t even have a pair.”

  “That’s a flusher,” said Sam. “A flusher and a loser. My deal.” He swept the cards together.

  “I win?” Sophie asked guardedly.

  Axel snapped, “Yes, goddamn it, you win.”

  Sophie’s mouth softened and spread into a wide smile as she scooped up the pot. For a moment, Axel saw her as a happy little kid on Christmas morning. What a strange woman this is, he thought. I give her half of my business, my life, and she’s all frowns and doubts and suspicions, almost as if I’d given her nothing but trouble. Last night, when they’d paid off the help and counted their remaining take from the fair, her ten percent had come to over four thousand dollars. You’d think that would’ve made her happy, but all she could talk about was how much more they’d have made if it hadn’t been for losing Kirsten and having Carmen flake out on them and Axel’s being in such rough shape that he’d had to spend the last two days of the fair propped up on a stool, making burritos at half speed. Axel was glad to have made it through the weekend, period. But not Sophie. Four thousand dollars in her pocket, and all she could think about was how it should have been five. Now, a few hours later, she wins one lousy three-dollar pot, and she’s all smiles and joy.

  He never knew what she was going to do. Three nights ago, in the emergency room at St. Joseph’s, she had surprised him then too. Throughout the entire ordeal—the scene in the parking lot, the cops, the questions, the long wait in the emergency room at St. Joseph’s—she’d kept it together. He’d expected her to be hysterical, but she’d been like a rock. And then, after the doctor had finished with him, when they’d pushed him out of the examination room in that wheelchair, feeling about as bad as he ever remembered feeling, she looked at him and her face collapsed. They’d wheeled him out into the waiting room, and she’d looked at him and just lost it, started crying like a baby. He’d never seen her do that before. And then when Carmen had shown up at the stand on the last day of the fair, not wanting to work, just wanting to get paid .. . Axel had expected Sophie to lose it then. But all that happened was that she had wearily counted out Carmen’s money, too tired or numb to argue. “I don’t get a bonus this year?” Carmen had whined. Even then, Sophie hadn’t said a word.

  The blond girl, Kirsten, stopped by at the same time, all apologies and embarrassment over being hauled off by her mother in the middle of the day, but mostly wanting to collect her pay. Axel paid her off. She didn’t ask for a bonus. A few minutes later, he had seen Carmen and Kirsten sitting out on the mall, smoking cigarettes and laughing. All Sophie had said was, “They don’t know what’s important.”

  Axel remembered thinking that Sophie looked … not old, but mature. He thought she looked good.

  She looked good now. Winning that pot had put some color in her face.

  “Where’s Carmen gone off to today?” Axel asked.

  “She went shopping with that Kirsten.” Sophie finished stacking her coins. “They went to the Mall of America. Can you imagine? What on earth could those two have in common anyway?”

  Sam laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Sam squared up the deck of cards and riffled them. “They both got trouble with their mamas,” he said.

  Sophie made a face. “Excuse me.” She left the kitchen. Sam and Axel listened to her footsteps climbing the stairs, the sound of the bathroom door closing.

  Sam said, “She’s got the touch, Ax. Maybe me and you and her ought to hit the road. Odds are, we’d do better, the three of us, than we ever did with old Tommy.”

  Axel smiled and shook his head. “Maybe we wouldn’t get in so damn many fights.”

  “You got that right. And if we did, she’d just run ’em over.”

  “You know what it’s going to cost to get my new truck fixed? About four dimes.”

  “Well, your old one’s out back, ready to roll. I even gave ’er a little tune-up.”

  “I’m going to need what was under it too.”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “Now, Ax, you say that money ol’ Festus and Chester dug up was yours. Now explain
to me again how come I’m s’posed to think that.” He leaned back in his chair, shifted the wad of tobacco with his tongue.

  “It was under my truck. I put it there.”

  “I said you could park your truck here, I didn’t think I was including mineral rights. Besides, I don’t see how come a smart fella like you would go burying his money like a goddamn dog in somebody’s backyard not even his own.”

  Axel took a deep breath. Sam had been hanging him out there for the past two days, not admitting that the money was Axel’s but not coming right out and saying he wasn’t going to give it back, either. Axel was about eighty percent sure that Sam was just playing with him. He trusted Sam. Maybe not a hundred percent, but a solid ninety.

  Sam said, “Even if you did find your money someplace, I don’t know what the hell good it’d do you. You don’t spend it. You’d probably go bury it in the goddamn park, leave it for the squirrels.”

  Axel did not reply.

  “Suppose you did get it back,” Sam went on. “What would you do with it?”

  Axel looked at his old friend hopefully but saw nothing in Sam’s face to encourage him. “Is this a test, or are you just trying to make me miserable?”

  Sam shrugged and riffled the deck of cards with his thumb. “Just wondering.”

  “Maybe I’d invest it in something,” Axel said.

  Sam cocked an eyebrow.

  “Maybe I’d put it in a bank,” Axel growled. “Hell, I don’t know. Does it matter?”

  Sophie’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  “Don’t matter to me,” Sam said.

  Axel muttered, “I suppose I should be glad you’re letting me have my truck back” A click from his dentures took the edge off the sarcasm.

  “The truck is yours.”

  “So’s the cash.”

  Sam picked up the deck and shuffled. “You’re a goddamn peasant, Ax. I ever tell you that?”

  “I tell him that all the time,” Sophie said.

  Axel said, “You ready to go?” He didn’t want to talk about the money in front of Sophie. He didn’t want her to know. It was embarrassing.