The Flip (An Angel Hill novel)

by C. Dennis Moore

  He went to the men’s room first, emptied his bladder, washed his hands, then went to the coolers and got a twenty ounce Sprite. He perused the snack aisle, trying to find the one thing that might tide him over right now. He thought it would be Funyuns, but when he saw them on the shelf, he decided that’s not what he wanted. He was thinking maybe a bag of Potato Skins or some jalapeno cheddar Cheet-Os when a dark figure burst in the door yelling, “Hands up, bitch, I want that money!”

  Ed had to strain to see over the top of the snack aisle.

  The robber had a pistol in the cashier’s face and the cashier stood frozen, staring at it.

  “I said I want the money. Now!”

  The cashier hit a button on the register and the drawer dinged and slid open. He started pulling out the money, but kept his terrified eyes on the barrel of the gun.

  Ed thought about calling the police, but it was just the two of them in here and there was no way he could say anything into the phone without the robber hearing him, so he just stood there, hiding and watching.

  Christ, he thought, why did I have to come inside?

  He tried to see out the window, maybe he could get a description of the robber’s car, maybe even a license plate number, but there was another rack in the way. Instead he tried to shrink back and wait out the robbery, then run to the window after the guy left and hopefully see his car then.

  “What the fuck you doing?” the robber asked.

  Ed stared at the rack in front of him as if he had X-ray vision and was looking through it and watching the cash register.

  “You got someone else working here? Where are they?”

  Fuck, Ed thought when he heard the robber’s footsteps.

  He tried to duck around the snack aisle, vanishing from the robber’s line of sight just in time like they do in movies, but he never really bought that move anyway, and it’s just as well because it didn’t work.

  The guy caught a glimpse of the top of Ed’s head just as he slid around the chips to the stationary aisle and he yelled, “Come on out of there, man, I see you. I won’t hurt you if you come out where I can see you and make sure you’re not trying anything. I just want the money, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I will if you make me.”

  “Just take the money and go,” the cashier said.

  “Fuck you,” the robber said, which didn’t make Ed feel good about his chances. If the guy did just want the money, he’d have taken it and ran. “I said come out here,” he called again.

  Ed tried to calm his breathing, but he was close to hyperventilating and he thought he might throw up or pass out. Neither option made him feel any better.

  He tried to guess how close he was to the door and whether he thought he could make it out before the guy caught him.

  There’s no catching you, he thought, he’s got a gun. Stay put and do what he says.

  I’m trying.

  But his body wouldn’t respond.

  The guy appeared around the corner of the aisle Ed was hiding behind and Ed got a glimpse at what the cashier had been staring at just a few seconds before. Behind that, he saw a face wasted by drug use, marked up with what looked like fake scars tattooed here and there, thin red lines crossed by black stitches etched into the skin of his cheek, his jaw, his neck, and across his forehead.

  “What’d I say?” the robber asked him.

  Ed made a conscious effort not to look at his face.

  Don’t give him a reason to kill the witness, he thought. But the guy wasn’t having that.

  “Look at me when I talk to you and answer the question.”

  Ed tried to speak but his jaw wasn’t working with that gun pointed at him.

  “I said look at me when I talk to you, bitch. Now, what did I say?”

  Ed dragged his eyes up from the gun, over to the guy’s face.

  “You said,” he stammered, lost the sense of what he was trying to say, and tried again. “You said to come out and you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “And did you?”

  Ed shook his head.

  “That was the wrong choice, wasn’t it?”

  Ed nodded. The blast of the gun echoed in the cashier’s head. At least for the next fifteen seconds. After that, the cashier didn’t have ears left with which to hear anything.

  The robber took the money from Ed’s pocket, then from the cashier’s before grabbing the money off the counter, then he walked out the door, got into his car, which had been parked around the corner in front of the dumpster and had been, in case Ed was interested, a forest green Challenger.

  Chapter Ten

  Only a few hours after Ed Mason had ducked behind a snack aisle in an Angel Hill gas station before being shot in the face, Mike was getting out of the shower and trying to decide if he wanted to call up a movie on Netflix or just go to bed.

  He’d known when they started that remodeling a house was going to be backbreaking work, and he hadn’t been wrong about that, but he’d underestimated just how hard it could be at times. He had never given it a second thought before but now he knew just how heavy empty cabinets could be.

  And people do this for a living, he thought. Kevin and his guys, this is their regular job, this is how they make their money. All respect to them, but I think we need to look for houses that don’t need new cabinets, or start hiring a crew that can all make it through the reno in one piece.

  Damn, that was kinda mean. Not intentionally, he wasn’t mad at Paul for leaving them shorthanded any more than he was mad at Andrew for getting a stomach bug or at Gary for almost cutting off his foot. Mike understood shit happens, but let’s face facts, he thought, three down from a five-man crew in just a few days.

  They weren’t dead, though, he reminded himself. At least not all of them. Which, he wanted to believe, rendered Sean Ellis’s claims incorrect.

  Maybe, he wanted to believe, Paul’s death really was just a coincidence that it happened the day he finished the plumbing for the new bathrooms. He was trying to be optimistic this close to completion of their first project.

  He had decided he would go ahead and scan the Recently Added list on Netflix and, if anything caught his interest, he’d watch it in bed. If not, he’d just go to sleep. He grabbed his laptop and had just climbed into bed and was about to open the computer when his phone rang.

  He looked at the caller ID and thought it strange his dad would call him this late.

  Mike’s parents had moved to Arizona six years ago. Mike found out later the move had put the brakes on an impending divorce. Neither of them had been happy in Missouri, but the winters always took a particularly rough toll on Mike’s dad who turned into a sullen waste of a man with frequent outbursts of a worsening temper as he got older.

  Mike’s mother, he found out a few years after the move, had secretly been saving money to pay for a divorce and move out when an opportunity came up that saved both of them. Mike’s dad had moved them from St. Joe to Angel Hill when Mike was ten in order to take a job as hospital administrator at Angel County Hospital (a name that always struck Mike as coming out of nowhere since Angel Hill was actually in Buchannan County). Six years ago, he found out there was a hospital in Phoenix that needed a new administrator, so his dad applied for and got it.

  His mother told Mike later how the change in her husband was almost instantaneous the moment they arrived in town. The weather was good for both of them, but especially for Mike’s father, who had always preferred summer anyway.

  He still talked to them a couple times a month, but never this late at night, and the sound of his ringing phone coupled with his dad’s picture on the screen sent an instant chill through Mike’s body.

  He answered and asked, “What’s up?”

  “Mom’s bad, Mike,” was all he said at first.

  During the call, Mike yelled at his father for the first time in his life, but with good reason. Why hadn’t they told Mike about the cancer? Were they purposely waiting until it got this bad, then were going to spring it
on him?

  “No,” his father said, “of course not. It hit hard and fast, it was very aggressive. We barely had time to react ourselves.”

  “Well, barely is more time than I had. What the fuck, dad?”

  “I’m sorry, I know. She didn’t want to worry you until we knew more and the treatment center here is very good. She smiled all through her treatment, and didn’t want to tell you about it until she beat it.”

  “Well, she didn’t beat it, did she?”

  He heard his father sob from the other end. He had never heard his father cry before, and he decided he hated the sound of it.

  “It hasn’t taken her yet,” his father said after a few moments. “There’s still a chance.”

  “There’s no chance,” Mike said, “and you know it, otherwise you wouldn’t have called to tell me to come down. How long does she have left, do you think?”

  “The doctor said a week, if she’s lucky. I don’t know, though. If you can make it, I wouldn’t waste any time.”

  “I’ll see when the soonest flight is,” Mike said. “If I think it’ll be quicker, I’ll just drive down.”

  “Let me know as soon as you’re in town,” his dad said. “I’ll give you directions to the hospital.”

  “Alright. Tell her I love her and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  They hung up and Mike just sat there on his bed for several moments, trying to catch his breath and calm the pounding of his heart. This wasn’t the time to sit around and do nothing, he thought, he had to get up and move.

  He checked for flights online and saw he could get one departing at 5:00 AM, so he bought the ridiculously expensive ticket, printed his confirmation info and boarding pass, then threw a handful of clothes, enough for a week, including something appropriate to wear in case the worst happened, and his toothbrush into a suitcase.

  He locked up his house and got into his car. He had several hours to kill, but it wasn’t enough to sleep, and with the adrenaline coursing through him, he wasn’t going to be tired for a while anyway. On the drive out of town, heading to KCI, he called Brian who was probably on his way to work if not already there and told him the news.

  “Shit, that really sucks, man,” Brian said. “You think she’ll come through it okay?”

  “Honestly, I think I’m heading down to say goodbye.”

  “Wow. I’m really sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, we already know God hates me. But thanks. I just wanted to let you know I won’t be around for a bit, but I’ll be back as soon as I can. Can you run by and grab my mail while I’m gone? Don’t want it to pile up and get my house broken into.”

  “No problem. You gonna call Steven and Keith?”

  “Yeah.” He was about to hang up when something in the back of his head made him say, “Don’t finish the house without me.”

  Brian chuckled and said, “Okay, we’ll let you brush the last stroke of paint.”

  He hung up and Mike called the other two and filled them in. They both gave the customary condolences and Mike said thanks, then slid the phone into the front pocket of his suitcase to make sure he didn’t leave it in the car.

  He got to the airport, parked his car and took the elevator to the airport level. He found his gate, went through security with several hours still to kill, and took a seat in the empty waiting area.

  He watched the news for a half hour before he felt the weight of everything finally pressing down on him and he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes.

  The adrenaline had worn off and his mind was shutting down from everything he’d had to process recently. He awoke to a full waiting area when someone nudged him and said, “They’re boarding.”

  Mike looked up, rubbed his eyes, then sat up straighter and said, “Thanks.”

  He had an aisle seat, but the flight was nonstop so he’d be in Phoenix in about three hours. With the brief rest he’d gotten in the terminal, his mind was wide awake now and racing with thoughts of his mother.

  He couldn’t believe she’d chosen not to tell him she was sick. The more he thought about that part of it, the more pissed he got. He tried not to be mad, because if this was the end for her, he didn’t want his last memories to be marred with a bad attitude, but the attitude stemmed from the fact he loved her and she had kept something pretty damned important from him.

  He tried to get his mind on something else and turned it to the Irving house, the thing that had dominated his mind so long already. When he thought about what the house looked like before, and the improvements they had made to it, he knew this business had great potential. He thought about the day he’d first seen it and how it had been a case of right place and right time. He really felt this was what he should be doing with his life.

  Ten years ago, he never would have dreamed he would be a real estate mogul, but he’d taken to it like a duck to water, he felt, and with the rest of the guys in tow, he felt very confident in their business and their future. He hoped they shared his enthusiasm and vision and didn’t come to regret their decision or to resent him for getting them into it. With that in mind, though, he was definitely determined to do whatever it took to make sure this business worked, if not for him then for the friends he felt responsible for convincing to take this leap with him.

  He imagined within a year they’d have another three or four properties under their belt, with more in their sights and a healthy income from selling these places at such a good profit. He wanted to see the company get to a point where realtors were coming to them, suggesting houses they felt the Angel Hill Improvement Company could work their magic with. That’s a quality problem, for sure, he thought, being too successful.

  He’d been feeling pretty depressed when this all started, with losing his job then being completely unable to find anything else he was qualified for. For a long time he’d feared ever losing his job, but felt if he ever did, he was qualified to just move on to the next restaurant, if that’s was what he wanted to do. But when it actually happened, he didn’t know what to do with himself. And now he felt at peace with his decisions and with being “laid off’ in the first place. He wasn’t angry anymore that he’d been let go and if this was his future, it had probably been the best thing to happen to him.

  Until he heard Sean Ellis telling him about the “curse” on the house, or whatever it was, before stepping in front of that van.

  The image of the man’s broken and twisted body, covered in blood, came to him again and he had to look around the plane for a distraction.

  It was only a three hour flight, but if that was the image he was stuck with, it was going to feel a whole lot longer.

  Luckily, the time passed quicker than he’d thought it might and then the plane was descending, touching down, rolling to a stop at the terminal. Once he got inside, he dug his phone from his suitcase and called his father to tell him he was in town.

  His dad got there an hour later, during which time Mike was overwhelmed with thoughts of his mother. Not knowing before last night that she was even sick, he had no idea how bad it had gotten for her. Obviously bad enough if the doctor was saying this is probably the end for her. But he didn’t know how bad she looked, and wasn’t sure what to expect when he saw her.

  He imagined the worst, because God hates him, but he really didn’t want to see her if she was going to be emaciated and hooked up to machines. She’d been such a rock all through his life, a great support system for him, for his dad, for the family as a whole, that he didn’t know if he could take it seeing her so broken and weak.

  But what was the alternative? Not see her? That wasn’t even an option.

  So he got into his father’s car and rode with him to the hospital, asking questions the entire time.

  When did she first get sick? How did she know something was wrong? What kind of cancer was it? Did she do chemo? And the big one, did his dad think there was any chance at all she might make it, and come out the other end of this?

  His dad didn’t ans
wer the last question at first, and that alone lent the response such gravity even before it was spoken, Mike didn’t want or need to hear the answer. But his father gave it anyway in a solemn shake of his head as he said, “No. She won’t be here in a week.”

  “Wow,” Mike said. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. This was the last thing I was expecting when I woke up yesterday. All I was thinking about were getting the cabinets installed and hoping the countertops made it soon so we could finish up that kitchen.”

  “How’s all the going?” his dad asked, happy to change the subject.

  “Really good,” Mike said. “Surprisingly good, in fact. We’ve already sold the house. Well, we sold it to Brian, who’s a partner in the company, but a sale’s a sale and it gives us the money to move on to the next house. Which is Brian’s old house. I told you his parents died a while back, right?”

  His dad nodded and said, “Yeah, car wreck, you said. That’s rough, to lose them both at once like that. How’s he doing?”

  “He’s getting by,” Mike said. “Can’t stay in the house, though, which is why he bought the one we’re working on and wants us to help him sell the other one.”

  “But overall the business is going good?”

  “So far,” Mike said. “Fingers crossed. I really think we can make it work, though. There’s a lot of houses in town could use the help, we bring the property values up and do what the company name says, we’re hometown heroes with a float in the August First Parade by next year.”

  “Wow, the parade. Lofty goals, huh?”

  Mike laughed and was surprised that he was able to, and at how good it felt.

  “That’s me,” he said. “Full of ambition.”

  “Well, I’m just glad it’s going well. Starting a business yourself is scary. I could have never done it. But then, I had a family to support, so I needed stability. And how are things on that end? You seeing anyone?”

  “Not for a while,” Mike said. “I don’t know if you know it or not, but ‘I manage the Burger King on The Slant’ doesn’t really do it for the chicks. Especially when you smell like grease twenty-four hours a day. Yet another reason I’m looking forward to this business taking off. I think a guy who dresses and smells nice and spends his day making big money real estate deals sounds a little more impressive, you know?”