by S. A. Cosby
“That’s what I’m talking about,” Ronnie said. He took another sip.
Bug was giving him a hard time, but he had a point. The Sessionses were not known for their immense wealth. People would start talking if he spent too much money around town. Good thing he didn’t plan on being in town much longer. He realized he had meant what he had said to Jenny. They were going to leave the coal mines and cornfields and crab pots of Virginia behind. He was going to go somewhere and spend his days drinking piña coladas and his nights getting his dick sucked by Jenny until the cash ran out or it was time to trade up. He didn’t understand why Bug couldn’t take one minute to celebrate. True, he had held out on him and Quan a little, but they were still rolling in enough dough to make it rain in strip clubs for the next three years. That black motherfucker wasn’t even grateful Ronnie had let him in on the deal.
He put the bottle in the cup holder and pulled out his new smartphone.
“Call Jenny,” he said into the phone. He had picked it up the same day he got the car. The hands-free feature was like science fiction. Fuck a flying car.
He’d gotten back from DC three days ago after spending some time in the nation’s capital with Reggie. They’d met Brandon Yang in Chinatown and gone to see his boss at a bar that catered to Chinese diplomats and immigrants. Ronnie had met Brandon inside just like Quan and Winston. Brandon was doing a year for mail fraud. He’d told Ronnie that the mail fraud beef was nothing. He worked for a guy that moved so much money as a fence for high-end merchandise, he stored it in coffins stacked six high in a warehouse he owned in Maryland. Brandon said he would be taken care of for keeping his mouth shut and doing his time.
He hadn’t been lying. No one hassled him inside. He had a cell to himself. He had a cushy job in the prison laundry. Guards let him have two conjugal visits a month. It was like he was on a vacation instead of doing a bid. The only thing he didn’t have was someone to play chess with. He was absolutely obsessed with the game. Ronnie approached him one day and offered to play him for some cigarettes. He’d lost, but he made Brandon work for it. They’d hit it off and when Brandon left Coldwater he told Ronnie to look him up if he ever came across something that might interest his boss.
He had done just that. When they went to see Brandon’s boss, he had learned two things. First thing he learned was that Chinese guys liked to smoke a LOT. Second thing he had learned was that he didn’t know shit about diamonds and neither did Jenny.
“I give you $700,000,” Brandon’s boss had said. Or more accurately, Brandon had said after translating for the old guy, who looked like a villain in a kung fu movie.
Ronnie had held on to the sides of his chair. Seven hundred thousand. You could add up all the money everyone he had ever known had made and it wouldn’t come close to that. If they were offering seven there must have been three or four million worth of diamonds in the box. He couldn’t speak. His tongue refused to work.
They thought he was negotiating.
“Seven-fifty. Final offer,” Brandon said after some more gibberish from his boss. Ronnie found his voice.
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. For a fraction of a second, he wondered why such a small store would have that much in diamonds sitting in a safe. The bag of money they handed him forced that idea to flee like a startled rabbit. It didn’t matter. With what they were giving him, he could pay Chuly, give everybody their cut, and still have enough to shit on a gold-plated toilet.
After the meeting, they hit the town. Drinking up and down the alphabet streets. Going to rooftop clubs where the waitresses walked around opening champagne bottles with swords. They’d eaten in restaurants with names Ronnie couldn’t pronounce. They had even picked up some women who had turned out to be working girls. He and Reggie and Brandon had taken turns with all three girls. Ronnie had lived out one of his fantasies and snorted coke off the sexiest hooker’s ass. They had partied like rock stars. And why not? He was in high fucking cotton now. No more counting loose change for gas. He wasn’t Bill Gates rich, but he was far from poor. Even though the AC was on, he lowered the window. He let out a loud whooping rebel yell.
“Hello?” Jenny said.
Ronnie raised the window. “Hey, sugar bottom. I’m on my way to you right now. I feel like Santa Claus. Can I put something in your stocking?”
“You got the money?” Jenny asked.
Ronnie frowned at the phone. She sounded … strange. Like a kid who had dropped his ice cream cone, lost his puppy, and seen his dad get beat up all on the same day.
“Yeah, I sure do. I’ll be there in like forty-five minutes. Maybe sooner. This Mustang got some kick.”
“Okay.” She hung up. She didn’t even ask about the car.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he said, staring at the phone.
SIXTEEN
Beauregard got back to Red Hill a little after six. He got to the bank just before the drive-thru window closed. He deposited three thousand for the mortgage payment and another five for all the other bills. He left the bank and headed for the nursing home. He pulled in and headed straight for the administrator’s office.
Mrs. Talbot was putting her laptop in a leather valise.
“Mr. Montage, how are you? I’m just about to leave for the day. Perhaps you can come back in the morning? I can help you arrange transportation for your mother. And I’ll be more than happy to organize her oxygen deliveries at your home,” she said. Beauregard could count every one of her capped teeth as she smiled at him.
“That won’t be necessary,” he said. He had already counted out $30,000 in the car. He put six bundles of $100 bills on Mrs. Talbot’s desk. Each bundle consisted of fifty $100 bills. The smile on Mrs. Talbot’s face melted away like the wax from a cheap candle.
“Mr. Montage, this is highly unusual.”
“No, it’s not. I’ve paid y’all in cash before. I’ve specifically paid YOU in cash before when my Mama has shown her ass up in here. So, could you please give me a receipt? I’ll have the remainder of the money later this week. I don’t have any change right now,” he said.
Mrs. Talbot sat down and pulled out her laptop.
* * *
His mother was lying back against a pillow that was engulfing her head. A few cardboard boxes were stacked in the far corner of the room. A talking head chattered on from the television about the weather. The rain that had blessed Carytown was not headed to Red Hill. She was so still he almost thought she was dead. Her thin chest barely rose as she took a breath. He turned to leave.
“You gonna make me sleep on the porch?” she asked. She sounded weaker than the last time he had visited her. He went to her bedside.
“No.”
“Oh joy, I get to be in the big house, Massa,” she said.
“I paid the bill. Well, most of it.”
Her eyes widened. “That was you?”
Beauregard frowned. “What was me?”
“That shit on the news. The jewelry store. When they said the robbers got away in a Buick Regal that jumped an overpass under construction, I knew it. I just knew it. Sounded like something your Daddy would have done.” She started to cough ferociously. Beauregard grabbed the pitcher off her nightstand and poured her a glass of water.
“Don’t you worry about that.”
“You would do anything not to have me at your house, wouldn’t you?”
“Mama, please. It’s not that. I’m just trying to do what’s best for you.”
“Right. Right.” She coughed again, and he gave her another sip. She did not say thank you. Beauregard smoothed her head scarf.
“They gonna find you.”
“I told you don’t worry about that.”
“They gonna find you, and you gonna have to run just like he did. Leave your kids and your wife behind. Let them fend for themselves like your Daddy did to me.”
“To us,” Beauregard said.
She ignored his correction. “You thought you was saving him that day at the Tas
tee Freez. All you did was postpone the inevitable.”
Beauregard flinched. “Mama, don’t,” he said.
His mother turned her head. The low fluorescent lights gave her a cadaverous appearance.
“‘I’ll save you, Daddy. I’ll stop the bad men from hurting you.’ And what did he do? Left town while they tossed you in a cage. Lord knows I didn’t have no money for a good lawyer. You did all that for him and he just ran.”
Beauregard’s head began to throb. “You think he ran from me or the cops? He ran from you. He couldn’t stand to hear your mouth one more minute,” he said. The words left a foul taste in his mouth, but he couldn’t help himself. No one knew how to push his buttons like his mother. If anyone else had talked to him like that, they would be counting their teeth in the palm of their hand. All he could do to his mother was try and strike her where she was softest.
“That’s how you talk to your mother?”
“That’s how you talk to me.”
“When I die, don’t sit up in church pretending you miss me. Just burn me up and toss me in the trash like you doing now.”
Beauregard rolled his eyes. This was her fighting style. Attack you from the front, then pivot and spring a surprise attack on your flank.
“Good night, Mama.” He turned and walked to the door. Before he could leave, Ella had another coughing fit. He went back and gave her some more water, but it didn’t seem to help. He slipped his hand under her back and was shocked by how insubstantial she felt. He pulled her up and lightly tapped her between her shoulder blades. She nodded, and he let her lie back on the bed.
“I … should have picked a better father for you. But Anthony had the cutest smile I’d ever seen,” she said. She was wheezing, and a thin line of saliva was hanging from her stoma.
“You want the nurse?”
She shook her head. She wrapped her bony fingers around his wrist.
“You could have been better than you are, but you spent too much time looking up to a ghost.”
Beauregard felt a hitch in his chest.
“Not anymore.”
“Liar.”
* * *
Beauregard got in the Duster and pulled out of the nursing home spinning tires. He had one more stop to make, and he was dreading it.
Beauregard brought the Duster to a stop in front of a two-story white farmhouse that was quickly going to seed. The black shutters had faded to a washed-out greenish color. The porch was beginning to lean on the everlasting. Beauregard got out of the car and tramped across the yard. His feet kicked up dust devils as he walked. There was no grass or shrubs near the house. An El Camino sat up on blocks near the front door. An old brown couch covered by a tarp sat on the right corner of the house. Empty beer cans and cigarette butts littered the yard.
Beauregard knocked on the screen door. He didn’t hit it as hard as he could because he was afraid it was going to fall off the hinges. He could hear Fox News blaring from somewhere inside the house. Shuffling footsteps brought Ariel’s grandmother Emma to the door. A short stocky woman with jowls on top of her jowls. An unfiltered Pall Mall was hanging on to the corner of her lip for dear life.
“Yeah?”
“Can you get Ariel for me? I called her phone, but she didn’t answer.”
Emma took a drag on her cigarette. The tip glowed red like a piece of ferrous metal being melted. “Phone’s off. You’d know that if you called her more.”
“Just get her for me,” Beauregard said.
“What you want with her?”
“I want to talk to her. I’m her daddy. No matter how hard you try to pretend she has the world’s best perm.”
“You coming around here every once in a while with your drug money don’t make you a father.”
Beauregard leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Go get my daughter. Now. I’m not in the mood to play this fucking game with you. Not today.”
Emma blew a cloud of smoke out through her nostrils before turning away from the door. He heard her whisper “asshole” as she walked down the hall. He went back to the Duster and sat on the hood. Ariel came out a few minutes later. She was wearing a tank top and shorts so tight they would become a thong if she sneezed.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Where’s your car?”
“Rip needed it for work. And since my phone is off, he can’t call me to pick him up, so I let him take it.”
“He got a license?”
“Yeah, he just ain’t got a car.”
“Come here.”
She joined him on the hood of the car. “You gonna give some static about that?”
“Nah. There are more important things than Lil Rip driving your car.”
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a bulky rolled-up brown envelope like the one you used to mail documents.
“One year of tuition at VCU is $24,000.”
“Yeah. Plus, textbooks.”
He handed her the envelope.
“What is this?”
“Twenty-four thousand dollars. I guess colleges don’t take cash so open some bank accounts. Don’t deposit more than $10,000 in each. The government will come asking questions if you do.”
Ariel’s mouth was agape.
“Where the fuck did you get this money?”
“Watch your mouth, girl.”
“Sorry. Where the hell did you get this money?”
Beauregard laughed.
“Look, don’t worry about that. Just don’t let your Mama or your grandmother know you got it. I can’t promise you I’ll be able to do more anytime soon, but this is a start.”
Ariel twisted the envelope in her hands. She frowned.
“Am I gonna get in trouble taking this money?”
“Why would you say that?”
She pushed an errant curl behind her ear. The breeze came up and knocked it loose.
“Mama says that you do things. Illegal things.”
“Does she.”
“Yeah.”
Beauregard crossed his arms and looked straight ahead.
“You take that money and you get the fuck out of this house. Out of this county. You ain’t gonna get in any trouble. Go and don’t look back. Don’t ever come back. There’s nothing here for you. Not Lil Rip. Not your Mama. Not me. Your star is too bright for a place like this,” he said.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You ain’t gotta say nothing. You my daughter.”
He didn’t say he loved her. He wanted to, but it felt wrong to say it now. She might feel obligated to say it back and he didn’t want that. Just because he had given her this money didn’t mean he had earned an “I love you” just yet.
Ariel let out a long sigh.
“And you my daddy,” she said. She hadn’t called him that since she had learned how to tie her shoes.
There didn’t seem much to say after that so they both stared straight ahead with their feet on the front bumper of the Duster. They stayed like that for a while, neither one of them saying a word. They just watched the sunset and listened to Emma yell at the television. At some point, Beauregard felt Ariel’s hand in his own. He squeezed it and sat there for a little while longer.
* * *
Once he had left Ariel, Beauregard decided to go out to the Walmart and pick up some Delmonico steaks, potatoes and some ice cream for dessert. He wasn’t going to buy a car, but Ronnie had a point. He should enjoy some of the money. He usually avoided going by the Walmart because it meant passing Precision and he didn’t have any desire to see all the cars that should have been at his shop behind their black-powdered aluminum fence. Kia did most of the shopping by herself. On the days he did accompany her he took her over to the Food Lion in Tillerson two counties to the north.
He turned onto Market Drive and dropped his speed down to 35 miles per hour. A mile from the Walmart he heard the shrill whine of sirens. He clenched the steering wheel and got ready to punch it. He looked up in the rearview mirror and saw a fire e
ngine bearing down on him. He pulled over and let it pass. Two more followed the first one, sirens and lights blasting at full power. Beauregard pulled back onto the highway and continued to the store. He wondered if the trucks were headed to the Walmart. Had some bored high school kids called in a bomb threat?
“Goddamn,” he said.
Precision Auto was engulfed in flames. Plumes of fire shot fifty feet into the air, setting the sky ablaze. The volunteer firefighters were valiantly battling the inferno, but it didn’t look like they were making much headway. The Precision Auto Repair sign was melting on its fifteen-foot-tall pole. Beauregard studied his rearview mirror as he passed by the scene. The flames glowing behind him made it seem he was driving straight out of Hell.
When he got home from the store, Kia was sitting on the couch with Darren.
“Hey, where’s Javon?” he asked.
“He asked could he stay over at Tre Cook’s house. I didn’t think you would mind.”
“I don’t. I was just asking.”
“What you got there?”
“Got some steaks. Gonna make some potatoes au rotten,” Beauregard said as he brushed Darren’s head with the shopping bag.
“Eww.”
“What, you don’t want no rotten potatoes?”
“No, Daddy, that’s nasty.”
“Well, more for me,” he said as he walked into the kitchen. Kia got up and followed him into the kitchen.
“You got paid?” she asked.
Beauregard put the steaks on the counter. “Yeah.”
“No more, right?” Kia asked.
Beauregard went to her and enveloped her in his arms.
“No more.” He kissed her forehead before releasing her. He cut open the packages of steaks and placed the meat in a bowl. He poured some seasonings in the bowl and filled it with water for a quick marinade.
“Precision Auto Repair was on fire when I went to Walmart.”
“What? When did this happen?”
“I just told you. About an hour ago.”