Hearts of Stone

by Brad Smith

  ‘And what would you call sizable, Chino?’

  ‘A thousand.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Johnny said. ‘I’m carrying half the fucking town these days and I’m getting sick of it. You owe me thirty-three hundred. I want it.’

  ‘It’s three grand.’

  ‘Thirty-three with the vig,’ Johnny said. ‘And you can’t say you don’t have it because I know you’re working for Tommy.’

  ‘You don’t know as much as you think,’ Chino said. ‘If you did, you’d know that Tommy ain’t paying me enough to get square with you. Like I said, I’ll give you a grand to keep the account running.’

  ‘Before you make another bet with me, I need to be paid in full,’ Johnny said. ‘This ain’t the fucking bank. See you.’

  The line went dead and Chino had an urge to throw the phone into the river. He stood there for a time, thinking. He knew now why Johnny had vouched for him with Tommy Jakes. It was just Johnny looking out for Johnny, as usual. And then Tommy offers Chino two grand, so Johnny gets payment, Tommy gets his delivery made and Chino is left walking a fine fucking line between the two of them. What else was new?

  When he got back to the room, Bug was awake. He had crawled up on to the other bed and wrapped himself in the bedspread. He was watching TV, his hair sticking out every which way, his eyes droopy, jaw slack.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ he asked.

  ‘Out for smokes,’ Chino told him.

  ‘Thought you left.’

  ‘Did you start crying?’

  ‘No, I didn’t start crying,’ Bug said. ‘Where’s the coke? I need a pick-me-up.’

  ‘It’s all gone,’ Chino lied. There was plenty left but it was in his pocket and staying there. If he needed a line, he’d go into the bathroom. ‘You snorted it all, you hog.’

  ‘Well, fuck,’ Bug said.

  Chino sat on the bed. As consolation he tossed Bug a cigarette. Lighting one for himself, he looked at the TV. Some Thanksgiving show was on, a family on a farm somewhere. Chino really wasn’t seeing the picture. He was seeing Tommy Jakes and Johnny K, sitting at the Hard Ten, working out their little plan.

  ‘I ain’t had a good Thanksgiving in years,’ Bug said. ‘I always loved it when I was a kid. My grandmother would have us all to her house.’

  ‘You’re breaking my heart.’

  Bug, his eyes on the TV, shook his head at Chino’s attitude. ‘You ever see this chick? She’s a sexy woman.’

  ‘I’ve seen her,’ Chino said. ‘She bugs me. Everything she does is fucking perfect.’

  ‘Oh man,’ Bug said. ‘She’s fucking hot. She’s gotta be, like, in her forties, but she’s got a great body.’ He laughed. ‘I want her to cook for me.’

  ‘You know this is all bullshit,’ Chino said. ‘You think she cooked any of that food?’

  ‘Sure she did.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ Chino said. ‘They got people who do that for her. It’s all done someplace else, like in a restaurant or something, and then she comes in and pretends she did it. Broad probably lives in a condo somewhere.’

  ‘She lives on a farm,’ Bug said. ‘They just showed it. She was chopping fucking wood, man.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ Chino got up and went to the dresser and splashed some bourbon into his glass.

  ‘Lookit,’ Bug said then. ‘She’s raking leaves, man. That’s the farm.’

  Chino sat down on the bed again. ‘So it’s a farm. It’s not her farm.’

  ‘You know everything, don’t you, Chino? I’m surprised they don’t give you a fucking TV show. You could tell everybody everything you know. Be on twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘Don’t piss me off, Bug. I’m not in the mood.’

  Now Chino was taking a second look at the image on the TV. ‘Wait a minute. I know that fucking place. Look at the barn, says River Valley Farm. Shit, that’s outside of Talbotville, on the way to the lake. I worked out at Lowville, used to run that road every day on my Harley.’

  ‘Told you she had a farm,’ Bug said. ‘I wish she’d turn around, I want to see her ass.’

  ‘You keep dreaming about all these women. She might let you check the oil in her Mercedes, that’s about it.’

  ‘She’s going inside now.’ Bug grinned like an idiot. ‘It’s turkey time.’

  Chino was dozing, sitting up in bed, when the noise of the Pontiac’s engine woke him. He opened his eyes to see the headlights through the blinds, then the lights went out and the engine shut down. Chino walked over to take the chain from the door and let Billy in.

  The Indian stood there, looking over the mess. Bug was sleeping on the other bed, pulled up in a fetal position. There were chicken bones everywhere, on the floor, on the dresser, even on the pillow beside Bug’s head. The bottle of bourbon was nearly empty.

  ‘Well?’ Chino asked.

  ‘All good,’ Billy told him.

  Chino picked up the bourbon and took a drink straight from the bottle, watching the Indian as he did.

  ‘Who were you dealing with down there?’ he asked. ‘Bikers?’

  ‘He wasn’t a biker,’ Billy said.

  ‘What was he?’

  ‘Just some guy.’

  ‘Mafia maybe?’

  ‘I don’t know what mafia looks like.’

  ‘You don’t know much,’ Chino said.

  Billy shut down then. Chino went into the bathroom, took a piss and did a line. When he came back out, the Indian was still standing just inside the door. He hadn’t moved an inch. Chino walked over and kicked Bug in the shins a couple of times to wake him.

  ‘Ow!’ Bug blurted as he came to. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Get up,’ Chino told him. ‘We’re blowing.’

  Bug swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there for a time, rubbing his shin.

  ‘The money’s in the tire?’ Chino asked Billy.

  ‘That was the plan, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You just answer yes or no,’ Chino said.

  ‘The money is in the tire,’ Billy said deliberately.

  Chino walked to the bed and picked up his jacket. ‘The fucking shit I put up with,’ he muttered. ‘I should be making ten times what I am.’

  The money had been bothering him since Johnny K had called and it was still bothering him as the three of them loaded into the Pontiac. Bug sat up front with Billy and Chino was in the back seat. Pulling out of the motel parking lot, he leaned forward and pointed to the right.

  ‘This way,’ he said. ‘We got a stop to make.’

  ‘What stop?’ Billy asked.

  ‘Just do what you’re told.’

  They took the parkway all the way to Niagara Falls. It was two in the morning and there was virtually no traffic along the route. Chino told Billy to keep to the speed limit. The cops would be suspicious of any vehicle they saw out at that hour, particularly a fifteen-year-old Pontiac with rust on the doglegs and an Indian behind the wheel. When they got to the outskirts of the Falls, Chino indicated a hamburger joint up ahead.

  ‘Pull in here,’ he said. ‘I’m hungry. Bug – you hungry?’

  ‘I could eat something, yeah,’ Bug said.

  ‘Pull around back,’ Chino ordered. ‘Out of the light.’

  Billy did it, parking the Pontiac in the shadow thrown by the building alongside.

  ‘Give me the keys, Billy,’ Chino said when they had stopped. ‘You guys go in. Grab me a cheeseburger and fries.’

  ‘What do you want with the keys?’ Billy asked.

  ‘I want my fucking money,’ Chino said. ‘You got my money in your trunk and I want it. Did you think it was yours? You’re working for me, remember?’

  Billy and Bug went into the burger place and Chino popped open the trunk. He removed the mat and the jack and then with his buck knife he cut a twelve inch slit in the tire, the air escaping in a whoosh. Chino reached into the cut and brought out one of the bundles of cash. He stuck it in his jacket and got back into the car.

  They ate there in the p
arking lot. When they were finished, Chino pointed out the window, to the row of casinos downtown, their lights blinking and flashing in the night. Just beyond them they could see the mist rising from the Falls.

  ‘Head over there.’

  Billy looked to where Chino pointed. He took into consideration all the ramifications of what might happen, with the people involved, and the amount of cash in the trunk. None of it was to his liking. All he wanted to do was get paid and go home. To his girlfriend and his boy.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘No?’ Chino repeated.

  ‘No.’

  Chino produced the thirty-eight from his jacket and pushed the barrel against the base of the Indian’s neck.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  EIGHT

  Late in the afternoon, Carl took a load of pears into Talbotville and dropped them at the whole food place in the market square. A skinny teenager with bad acne helped him unload the fruit, stacking the hampers on a wooden skid. Carl tried to engage the kid in conversation but he didn’t want to talk. Maybe he was chafing at the fact that he had to work, or maybe he was pissed off about his skin. The way Carl saw it, neither situation would be so desperate that a person couldn’t make polite conversation. When they finished the kid went inside, still without a word. The loading dock was less than a hundred yards from Archer’s. Carl left his truck in the parking lot and walked over.

  He wasn’t surprised to find Rufus Canfield at the bar, drinking draft and looking at some paperwork. The place was half full, people getting off work or in for an early meal. Taking a stool, Carl ordered a beer for himself and another for Rufus.

  ‘How are you, Rufus?’

  ‘I’m well. And you, Mr Burns?’

  Carl nodded his well-being and waited for the beer. He put a twenty on the bar and the bartender took it away to get change. She was young – early twenties – with streaks of blue in her hair. Carl had never seen her before.

  ‘New waitress?’ he asked.

  ‘First week,’ Rufus said. He drank some beer and wiped his bushy mustache. ‘A nubile young thing.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be thinking that these days,’ Carl said. ‘Man your age.’

  ‘I can think it all I want,’ Rufus said. ‘So long as that’s all I do. Matter of fact, I take the admiring of attractive women to be a sign of good mental health. If ever I stop thinking along those lines, I give you permission to drown me in the Grand River.’

  ‘Can I finish my beer first?’

  ‘You may.’ Rufus gathered the papers together and pushed them carelessly into a leather case at his feet.

  ‘What are you working on?’ Carl asked.

  ‘Domestic shite,’ Rufus said. ‘Couple divorcing after thirty-two years. They have each decided that the other is the most despicable person on earth. It took them three bloody decades to figure that out?’

  Carl shrugged and had a drink. He wasn’t much interested in the unhappy couple. However, he had asked, so he couldn’t blame Rufus for telling.

  ‘How are things at the farm?’ Rufus asked.

  ‘Things are good at the farm.’

  ‘I was there last week one day, picking up some assorted root vegetables for the big dinner this weekend. Neither you nor Frances were around. A young lady served me.’

  ‘Stacy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rufus said. ‘Another nubile young thing.’

  Carl laughed. ‘What day was this?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Thursday Frances and I were both back at the bush lot all day,’ Carl said. ‘We’re going to build a sugar shack. We’re going into the maple syrup business next spring.’

  Rufus smiled at the statement. Carl had a drink, watching the lawyer in the mirror behind the bar, his flushed face posed among the bottles there.

  ‘Is there something about maple syrup that you find amusing?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Rufus said. ‘I consider it a fine breakfast condiment.’

  ‘Then what are you grinning at?’

  ‘You,’ Rufus said. ‘In the years that I have known you, you have gone from a young Marlon Brando in The Wild One to one half of the couple in Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Quite a transformation.’

  ‘I don’t own a pitchfork,’ Carl told him.

  ‘In general, you and Frances are considerably more attractive than Wood’s sour Midwest farmers. Well, Frances anyway. But you know what I mean.’

  Carl had more beer. ‘And here I thought I was just building a place to boil sap.’

  ‘You think that because you live an unexamined life,’ Rufus told him. ‘That’s why you seek my company. You revel in my astute observations, even though you are probably not aware of the fact.’

  ‘You got that last part right,’ Carl said. ‘I came here seeking beer. Apparently a five dollar draft comes with your ten cent psychoanalysis these days. They should put that on the sign out front. It would bring in a lot of business – for the place across the street.’

  ‘You mock me,’ Rufus said. ‘But I am right, you know. You have found your niche in life, Carl. Not everybody does. I hope that you are happy because you should be. And you can thank Frances Rourke for that.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you there, Rufus.’

  ‘You’d better not,’ Rufus replied. ‘I’m a hell of an arguer, especially on those occasions when I’m right. How is Frances anyway? I saw her last night on the tube, the big Thanksgiving program. Filmed at the farm, I noticed. Is she enjoying her new gig as a lifestyle icon?’

  ‘Not particularly,’ Carl said. ‘She’s got the Christmas show coming up and then her contract expires. They’re bugging her to re-sign but I think she’s going to walk.’

  ‘She’d rather make maple syrup with you?’

  ‘I think there’s a lot of things she’d rather do than play make-believe on television.’

  Rufus drained the draft and signaled to the young blue-haired bartender, showing two fingers. As usual with Rufus, Carl was falling behind. He drank his beer down in two gulps and put the empty glass on the bar as the bartender arrived with the fresh recruits. Rufus told her to put them on his tab.

  ‘So,’ he said when she was gone, ‘when are you going to make an honest woman of Frances?’

  Carl indicated the glass in the lawyer’s hand. ‘How many of those have you had?’

  ‘That’s a question, not an answer.’

  ‘Frances doesn’t want to get married,’ Carl said.

  ‘When did she tell you that?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me. I know.’

  ‘It might surprise you, what you don’t know,’ Rufus said. ‘Of course she wants to get married.’

  ‘You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Frances is a modern woman. She’s pragmatic. She’s too smart to worry about that stuff.’

  ‘You’re saying that pragmatic, smart women don’t want to get married as a rule?’ Rufus asked. He thought for a moment, his lawyerly mind making a case. ‘What about Gloria Steinem?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s modern and pragmatic and smart,’ Rufus said. ‘And she’s been married.’

  ‘Gee, I had no idea,’ Carl said. ‘So you’re suggesting that Frances and I get married because Gloria Steinem did? That changes everything. Is there a jewelry store nearby? I need to pick up a ring.’

  ‘Again you mock. But now you’ll be thinking about it. You know you will.’

  ‘And I have you to thank for it,’ Carl said. ‘Next time I want a beer around quitting time, I’ll pick up a six pack to go.’

  Frances took tea and a plate of butter tarts down to the warehouse, where Stacy was alone, doing online orders and answering the phone. The pup was in the back yard, lying on its back with its feet in the air, and when the dog saw Frances it jumped up and followed her. Frances put her collar up as she walked across the lawn and down the slope to the building. The day had started out sunny and mild but had now grown cold, the wind whipping across the river, p
ushing the leaves across the lawn and into the field behind the chicken house.

  Stacy was on the phone when Frances walked in. With her eyes she feigned great excitement at the sight of the tarts. Frances poured tea for them both, placing a cup on the counter where Stacy stood before moving over to her desk, the desk she’d seen little of lately. She went online and checked the sales figures for the month.

  Stacy hung up and reached for the tea, blew into the cup and had a sip. ‘Thanks, Frances,’ she said. ‘And butter tarts too.’ She took one and looked at the pup, standing expectantly inches from the plate. ‘No, these aren’t for you.’ She bit into the tart, closing her eyes as if in ecstasy. ‘Ooh, how do you do this?’

  ‘I possess this amazing talent,’ Frances replied. ‘I was in town, happened to walk by Burk’s Bakery, saw those tarts in the window and went in and bought them. There are certain things you can’t teach, Stacy.’

  ‘Another illusion bites the dust,’ Stacy said, her mouth full. ‘Good tarts though.’

  ‘How busy has it been?’

  ‘The online stuff has been so-so. But a lot of people calling, wanting stuff for the weekend. We sold our last pumpkin this morning.’

  ‘Bad time for Norah to get sick.’

  ‘She called and offered to come in,’ Stacy said. ‘But she sounded terrible on the phone, hacking and coughing. I told her to stay home.’

  ‘I’ll hang around and help this afternoon.’

  ‘I thought you were at the studio.’

  ‘Just this morning.’ The dog made a move for the tarts. ‘Stop that,’ Frances said sharply.

  The dog ignored her. ‘Sit,’ Stacy commanded and the pup sat.

  ‘Why does he obey you and not me?’ Frances asked.

  ‘I’m just around him more. He’ll come back to you. You know how fickle the male animal is.’

  Frances laughed.

  ‘Well, maybe you don’t know,’ Stacy said. ‘You have Carl.’

  Frances had some tea. ‘So Carl’s not fickle?’

  ‘Not when it comes to you, he’s not,’ Stacy said. ‘I mean, he’s got this taciturn thing going, but he totally adores you. You know that, right?’

  ‘Actually, I didn’t know that,’ Frances admitted.