Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  He grabbed on to a leg, placed the palm of his other hand against a seat cushion and pushed the sofa off its back, righted it. Tomorrow, as soon as he got out of bed, before coffee or cereal, he’d expose the bottom again, put the brush attachment on the vacuum and suck off the trash and dust. He looked at Sophie, standing opposite him with her hands in free fall, her fear and dismay beginning to harden into anger, her house trashed, her property in the hands of hoodlums, her plans to write a children’s book and a Franklin Pierce article on hold while she hunted secondhand TVs and made lists of what had been taken from her. “Shit,” she said, and Joel was glad to hear it, relieved there was moxie still remaining.

  Joel waited until four-thirty to call Sa’ad. He and Sophie were able to accomplish a lot before Baker’s bus arrived, and Joel met the boy at the end of the drive and told him in gentle terms what had happened, informed him there’d be no videos or TV for several days because bad men had stolen things from their house. He asked Baker to help his mom and be a big boy for her, and the lad promised he would, ran down the snow-slick road ahead of his uncle after Joel had explained matters, dropped a glove on the way to the door and was panting and pink-cheeked when Sophie hugged him. Baker told her not to worry, he’d just read books and color and make the best of the situation, and she started quivering in her mouth and fanning herself with her bare hand, almost cried some more.

  The Volvo had all-wheel drive and snow tires, and after Baker went inside, Joel cranked the car, turned the heat on high and drove to a pay phone outside a grocery store. He didn’t stop at the first phone or the next one after that, drove farther than he had to, wasted four miles’ worth of gas. He had two dollars and seventy cents in his front pocket, all in change, hoped it was enough to get through to Sa’ad so he wouldn’t have to bust a five.

  As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait long. After reciting the code phrase and warning the secretary that his pay-phone minutes were going fast, Joel stood shivering in the awful weather, on hold, listening to a prerecorded Sa’ad thank clients for their calls while classical music played in the background, the piece heavy with cellos, bass and kettledrums. The receiver was cold against Joel’s ear, and he was starting to absorb the air in his face and hands, had left his scarf and gloves in the basement, but he was stranded on hold only for a few moments before the real Sa’ad came on the line. He took Joel’s number and instructed him to hang up, then called back immediately.

  “Is this Joel King?” Sa’ad asked.

  “It is,” Joel said.

  “I want to verify that. What is your middle name?”

  “My middle name? Walker. Joel Walker King.”

  “Your ex-wife’s maiden name?”

  “Stanley,” Joel answered. “It’s me, Sa’ad, okay? You ought to recognize my voice by now. I’m outside and freezing and in a bad mood, so let’s get down to brass tacks.”

  Sa’ad ignored Joel’s protests, continued with his litany of questions. “In a moment, Joel. In a moment. Am I correct that you are calling me as your attorney?”

  “Yeah, right. Whatever.” A pickup chugged by with two shaggy black dogs in the bed.

  “You expect this to be a privileged communication, and there is no one else listening or within earshot on your end?”

  It occurred to Joel what Sa’ad was doing, building in a legal safeguard for them if their conversation was intercepted or overheard. “Correct. This is a legal call between me and my attorney.”

  “What can I do for you? Are you sure we don’t need to meet in person?”

  “No. Not at all. I simply need a bit of advice, Sa’ad, because guess what, some worthless, sorry crooks broke into my sister’s house and robbed us. Did you hear that, Sa’ad? We’ve been robbed. It’s not the stealing, Sa’ad, I mean, hey, you almost expect that, right? Crime’s everywhere.” Joel was becoming agitated. His voice got faster and higher. “So the theft wasn’t a surprise. No surprise there. But what really enraged me was the shambles they made of our house, how it’s absolutely destroyed.”

  “Hold on. Wait. You’re telling me that your sister’s home was robbed? The dwelling in which you now live?”

  “Yeah, Sa’ad, the dwelling in which I now live. My sister’s house, you idiot!” Joel screamed at the phone. He couldn’t help himself. “It looks like a hurricane hit.” Another pickup passed by, rolled through a stretch of slushy melt that its tires spun out in small, dirty plumes. “Sophie’s at home with her child, crying.”

  “This robbery happened today?” Sa’ad asked. Joel’s shouting didn’t seem to affect him.

  “Today. A few hours ago.” Joel switched the phone to his other hand and jammed the free hand into his coat pocket.

  “Where were you?” Sa’ad asked. “As I recall, you don’t usually go to work until late in the day. Were you at the restaurant?”

  “Well, as it happened—just one of those things—I was at my other job, eating lunch with my boss when the call came.”

  “So you were at work, and there’s a break-in?” Sa’ad was still confounded.

  Joel sensed for the first time something might’ve gone wrong. He’d phoned expecting stock replies and apologies and burnished answers, but Sa’ad was clearly surprised by the information or else was very, very skilled at feigning bewilderment. “Correct,” he said.

  “I see. And what is missing?”

  “Everything. You name it.” Joel lowered his voice. He turned up his collar, wiggled his toes inside his boots.

  “The police come?”

  “Yes. They mentioned there’d been four other break-ins near our place. They think they’ll catch the people responsible.”

  “They always think that,” Sa’ad said, returning to form.

  “I’d bet on the good guys in this one,” Joel said.

  “Difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys sometimes. I’m not sure who to root for in this instance.”

  “Well, before you buy the pennants and foam fingers, you should know the burglars left some blood at the house, and the cops are planning to do DNA tests. I’m guessing the dolts who did this will be caught, and they’ll probably squeal like stuck pigs to save their own worthless hides if they happen to know anything helpful.”

  Sa’ad was quiet, and Joel could envision him in his office with the guns and mounted animals, twirling his trendy spectacles in one hand, his chair close to his desk, his face metamorphosing every few seconds. “So, Joel, as I’m understanding your circumstances, you were at work with your employer, miles from home, and your sister was also absent, when thieves hit your house, taking everything not nailed down. And one of the thieves leaves behind sufficient blood for a DNA sample and maybe some other clues.”

  “You got it.”

  “Well, how about that.” Sa’ad’s voice was no longer fractured, had regained its customary force. “This must come as quite a shock, my friend. It certainly comes as quite a shock to me, something so violent and random.” He emphasized the words “shock” and “random,” provided them with thick, rich vowels and elongated them like an elementary school teacher drilling a spelling class.

  “I’m pretty darn shocked all right. And mad, Sa’ad. Mad as I’ve ever been.” A cloud covered the sun, and a gust of wind tore through the parking lot. Joel could see his sentences take shape in the freezing air, tiny snippets of warm breath the cold outlined and condensed. “It was so unnecessary, the complete disregard for our home.”

  “I agree, Joel. It seems, sadly, you have been the victim of a senseless, random crime. You were selected without rhyme or reason.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Absolutely,” Sa’ad said with conviction.

  Joel hesitated, pondering his next question. “So you don’t think these people are part of a ring, something bigger? Working for someone else?”

  “No chance. None at all.”

  “You’re positive of that?” Joel pressed.

  “Damn right, I’m positive. You get my drift, Joel? E
very eight minutes there’s a burglary in this country—this one happened to be yours. I’m your lawyer and your friend, so there’s no need for you to take out your frustration on me. I thought you were calling for advice, not to vent and complain.” Sa’ad was shaping the conversation, steering Joel, covering their tracks, always feinting and dodging and paranoid.

  “I’m not convinced.” Joel kicked at the ground, hacked through hard mashed snow to the dark pavement. “I’m at a place I don’t know who to believe, or what’s true and what isn’t. I don’t trust a single person on this planet except my sister. No offense, but right now you’re not someone I’d want holding my wallet or watching my dog while I’m on vacation.”

  “Believe me, Preacher, if these people were professionals, if they were part of an organized effort, they wouldn’t have done four houses in the same neighborhood and been so damn sloppy and inept. You’re dealing with kids or pipeheads or rubes. You simply caught some bad luck and that’s the end of the story, and maybe it’s not so bad after all, huh? Think about it.”

  “I am.”

  “So did you yourself lose anything of value?” Sa’ad asked.

  “Did I? Well . . .” Joel stopped, unsure what to say.

  “If you did, if anything is missing, you should immediately report it to the insurance company and the police.”

  “Really?” Joel asked.

  “Yes. Why wouldn’t you? Didn’t I advise you some weeks ago to have your belongings insured? That’s why people purchase insurance and pay premiums—you should file a claim for your loss.”

  “What if they catch the people who broke in? You know, what if the burglars say they didn’t take my stuff? And me with a record—I might not be believed, might get in trouble.”

  “Don’t concern yourself with that. File the claim.”

  “I’m worried—”

  “Listen to me. Quit dithering and wringing your hands. Quit thinking the worst. If they catch the guys—and here I’m speaking legally—it’s actually a positive for you. If they find criminals who’ve broken into other homes, who admit to some degree of involvement, who actually did several crimes besides yours, there can be no suggestion from your insurer that this was a put-up job. So what if the stupid crooks don’t want to claim responsibility for every item missing? This is, in the final analysis, far from a catastrophe.”

  “For what it’s worth, you’re giving me your word about this? About it being random, pure happenstance?”

  “I am,” Sa’ad said solemnly. “I’m as surprised as you.”

  “What about . . . I seem to have lost a piece. There’s one I didn’t get insured. Problems there, you think?”

  “No. None as things stand.”

  Joel let down his guard, spoke a little more directly than he should have over the telephone. “That’s still a huge riddle to me—I’m not so sure you couldn’t tell me what happened, where it went. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced I’m on the sucker end of some kind of bait and switch. Doc’s my first candidate, but I won’t be bowled over if other folks are responsible.”

  “Yeah, well, I know the other folks intimately, and they feel exactly the same about you. And those folks have better things to do with their time and effort than get into a pissing contest over a few thousand bucks. Those folks wouldn’t fool around with some little infant hustle, especially among friends.”

  “Maybe it’s just the tip of an iceberg,” Joel said.

  “Or maybe it’s merely someone’s incompetence or naked greed. Few thousand dollars might mean a lot to a poor man.”

  “At any rate, it was a horrible sight. My sister’s, I mean. I won’t ever forget it.”

  “It’s unfortunate when anyone is victimized by a home invasion,” Sa’ad allowed.

  “Well, in the long run I suppose—possibly—you could be right. I certainly am rid of one problem—there’s no doubt we’ve been robbed. No question there.”

  “Exactly. And say they catch the guys, and they deny taking your items— who’s going to take the word of a bunch of thieves?”

  “Well, I’m not sure I want to put it in those terms,” Joel said, the irony causing him to shake his head even though he was standing by himself in a frigid parking lot, his cheeks and toes numb, his insides a jittery stew.

  Sophie stayed home from work the next day to restore her house and assess her losses and write her list of missing items. Joel helped her, worked without taking a break, and by late morning the two of them had cleaned and organized until rooms and drawers were mostly in satisfactory order, returned to where they’d been. Sophie was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, compiling her list on sheets of notebook paper, using a dictionary as a lapboard.

  Joel leaned against the den wall and watched her. He was tired, enervated and frazzled, hadn’t slept more than an hour and hadn’t shaved or showered, but this was as good a time as any. “I need to talk to you for a second while you’re doing that,” he said, his voice ricocheting in his ears.

  “Okay,” she answered without interrupting her efforts. She started using her fingers and counting aloud, calculating how many videotapes were gone.

  “I’m missing some things as well. I just wanted to let you know.”

  “Let me finish this, and you can tell me. I’ll add them on.”

  “They took some jewelry Mom gave me. I had it hidden in the basement.” He hated to lie and immediately asked to be forgiven, offered a silent prayer and instinctively glanced upward.

  “Say again?” Sophie stopped what she was doing and laid the pen on the couch.

  “I, uh, brought some jewelry with me from Roanoke, some pieces Mom gave me. They were for both of us, to be shared. I’m not claiming them for myself, anything like that. I was planning to surprise you with them at Christmas.” He’d concocted this twist several hours ago, lying in his basement bed fitful and wide awake, the radio playing low and the persistent cold bleeding through the cinder-block. “It looks like they’re missing also. I’m sorry.”

  “What kind of jewelry did Mom give you? And when?”

  “She insisted I have it when she was in Roanoke, still coherent, and Martha and I were taking care of her. I stored it at the bank and brought it with me when I came back from Roanoke.”

  “And you kept it here? In the basement? How smart is that?”

  “In retrospect, not very.”

  “How will we ever prove what it was or what it was worth? I remember she had a few bracelets and a keepsake ring, but I couldn’t begin to tell you anything about the style or value.”

  “Well, for a change I have good news. Very good news. I had the items insured. All of them. I had them appraised and photographed, and we should get every dime we’re out.”

  “You had them insured?” she asked incredulously.

  “Yes.” He swayed forward, stopped leaning on the wall.

  “When?” she asked.

  “Not long after my trip to Roanoke. I didn’t want to just leave it lying around here.”

  “So how much was it worth?”

  “That’s the other happy news. I mean, I’d rather have Mom’s gift than cash, but at least we’re not completely out of luck. We should get fifty thousand, or thereabouts. It was insured for around fifty.” That would be his cut, after paying Sa’ad and Edmund and Abel Crane and having his share docked for the missing ring, the loss of which remained a complete mystery.

  “Fifty thousand dollars?”

  “Right,” Joel said tersely. “And I’m sorry to have lost something so valuable and irreplaceable, but it could be worse.”

  “Yeah, could be.” She was looking at him, sizing him up. “I thought most of her jewelry was still with her, at High Pines.”

  “A lot of it is. But the nicer things she entrusted to me for safekeeping and for us to have when she passed away.”

  “What nicer things that would be worth that kind of money?”

  Joel crammed his fists against his sides, spread his legs. Gl
owered. “I’m not going to stand here and debate this with you. I’m not trying to be rude or disagreeable, but I’m darn tired of you second-guessing everything I do and say.” The words were noisy, amped by cheap mettle. “There were some rings and pins and bracelets, okay? You can check with the bank in Roanoke, and the insurance agent has photos of each piece and an appraisal. Why is this such an issue?”

  “It’s not an issue, Joel,” she said, retreating. “All things considered, you can see why I might be skeptical. If you tell me this is a legit loss, then so be it. Get the cash and give me whatever you think is fair for my share.”

  “Okay.” He dropped his arms. “I was planning on you receiving ninety-nine percent, most of the money.”

  “And you promise me there’s nothing crooked going on?”

  “Goodness, Sophie, how could there be? Huh? Tell me that?” He hardened his voice and glared at her. Joel’s irritation had become genuine, and it occurred to him he’d managed to gain a scoundrel’s capacity for indignation, was taking offense at the truth and pistol-whipping his sister and screwing his lips into a pained scowl. The realization braced him, causing him to shake his head in the abrupt way people do when they’re groggy or bewildered, like a cat shedding rain sprinkles. He let the belligerence drain for a moment, tried to regain his perspective. “My,” he muttered. “I’m sorry. You have every right to ask. I promise I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  Three days later, at his office in town, poor Scottie the insurance agent looked as if he’d been handed the hot, humming end of a power line when Joel told him about the burglary and the missing jewelry. He was sitting behind his desk, dressed in a loud, bulky sweater, and he did nothing to camouflage his discomfort.

  “All of it?” he croaked.

  “Sorry,” Joel said. “There’s nothing left.”

  “Any leads?” Scottie asked.

  “The police are optimistic.”

  “Crap. I can’t believe it.”

  “Maybe they’ll recover some of it if they catch the guys,” Joel offered.