A Dead Issue

by John Evans

  Cash shifted his backpack to his left shoulder and walked from window to window in much the same way Liza did the night we first met. I looked down the valley. Headlights blinked through the trees and I wondered where Liza was. I longed for her to come back. I followed the lights, willing them to be Liza, and mentally directing them through the twists and turns of country roads to Cameron Drive. But it did not happen. The car moved on and eventually disappeared from view.

  Cash, meanwhile, looked up at the stars, holding his hand at arm’s length and peering through a viewfinder formed by the L of his thumb and flattened hand. I watched him for a moment and glanced over at Dusty who shrugged his shoulders vacantly.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  Still squinting at the sky, he said, “I’m looking for a special piece of the sky.” He continued his search. “It’s just a little patch.” He turned from the window to face me and added, “It’s the one you’ll be able to see from your cell window.”

  He paused while the words “cell window” took their full effect.

  “There it is!” he announced as if making a great discovery. “That bright star right over the horizon. Ur-anus.”

  “Uranus is a planet,” I corrected him in an attempt to hide my growing fear behind a veil of bravado. “I don’t think you can actually see it.”

  “Don’t matter. Planet. Star. Once you’re in jail, the only thing you’re going to worry about is your anus. Fact of the matter, it’s never too early to start.” He slipped the backpack off his shoulder and let it drop.

  “What do you want?” I said, and the resignation that spilled out with those words shocked me. I had just given myself over to Cash Williams.

  “My fee.” He paused and came at me, stopping to stare down at me while I tried hard not to flinch. “You got the ten thousand?”

  I said nothing, and he moved to the telescope and toyed with the knobs. He pushed it closer to the window in front of us.

  “Didn’t think so.” He bent down and peered into the eyepiece. “What’d you do, pay Shitbird to take the tapes?”

  “There’s been a new development,” I said, seeing a way to slither out from under Cash’s heel. “I got busted by DiNuccio at the accident. He put me in handcuffs and then made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He wanted that tape.”

  “For Devereaux?”

  “He thinks he’s being investigated for accepting freebies.”

  “And you think he’s that stupid?”

  I nodded.

  “How about this,” he said, “Devereaux is setting you up, using DiNuccio to get that tape and implicate you at the same time.”

  He stared at me until I shook my head in agreement. Cash glanced at Dusty then he looked through the telescope again.

  “And you figured you wouldn’t have to pay up if DiNuccio destroyed the tape—right?”

  “No, I wasn’t going to give DiNuccio the tape. Dusty told him it got erased—taped over.

  “Twice,” Cash added, letting me know that he overheard our little exchange back at the accident.

  “I wasn’t thinking about paying,” I said. “I had an accident . . .”

  Cash straightened up and looked at me. “Oh, yeah. The accident—where you accidentally lost the gun.” He shook his head, advertising his chagrin over my ineptitude. “Where are the tapes?”

  Dusty looked up. “Downstairs. In the kitchen.”

  “Those you can have.” Cash went to his backpack and pulled out a tape. His usual predatory smile was replaced with one of glee. “This tape,” he started and then paused, “this is the real deal.”

  Cash looked at me and threw a glance at Dusty.

  “Asshole here stole all the tapes except the one that shows him stealing the tapes.” He shook his head. “Shitbird forgot that there was a tape in the surveillance system catching his every move.”

  Dusty sank low in the chair.

  “You know,” Cash said conversationally. “When I saw Dusty walking off with those tapes, I was really pissed. I mean, Devereaux is after those tapes. And this fuckin’ nitwit goes and takes them. Makes it look like I’m trying to cover my black ass. I don’t need that.”

  I glanced over at Dusty. He was in a Death Row pose—head down, hopeless.

  “Then I reviewed the tape—watched him set up the oil spill and walk off with a bag full of tapes. Then I go back a little more and see him dip into the till, looking around with his head on a swivel. When I saw that move, things got a little brighter—everything but Dusty that is. He keeps getting dumber. Know what he was going to do with that money?”

  I shook my head and looked over at Dusty. He glanced up, caught my eye, and lowered his head.

  “He’s squirreling away a nest egg so he can go to Brazil!” Cash moved closer to him, leaning over him. “Brazil!” he laughed. “They have a McDonald’s in Brazil?”

  “Sí,” Dusty said quietly, and I knew that he was beaten but not crushed.

  CHAPTER 49

  Cash swung one of the leather chairs around to face us and sat with his backpack between his feet. He took his time and looked us in the eyes with a reassuring nod before speaking.

  “Everything is going to work out just fine,” he said quietly—almost to himself. “This tape, in its own fucked up way, is the answer to everyone’s problem,” Cash said, getting serious. He paused and leaned hard in Dusty’s direction. “We had a long talk on the way over here, didn’t we?”

  Dusty said nothing, his eyes darting everywhere.

  “Dusty’s going on a little trip.”

  Cash waited until Dusty focused on him.

  “Then I give this tape to Devereaux.” He waited for that information to sink in and then continued. “That gets my ass off the hook. It actually shows someone dipping into the cash register. That gets you off the hook, too. Devereaux wants those tapes to prove you weren’t working that night. Once Dusty gets on that plane, his investigation ends—no evidence. The case goes on the back burner for good. He’s not chasing Dusty down to Brazil for dipping into the till.” He remained silent and looked at Dusty. “And Dusty gets the trip of a lifetime.”

  Dusty smiled weakly.

  “Case closed.”

  He pushed himself out of his chair and walked to the window facing the Farmhouse with Uranus shining down upon it. He stood quietly for a moment and then continued. “Except we have one small problem—maybe two.” He turned toward Dusty and me. “See, I’m the captain of this team, but I’m not sure I have any team players. Everybody thinks they can do their own thing. Shitbird over there thinks he can steal the tapes and the game’s over. Well, it ain’t over till it’s over. And it’s over when I say it’s over—or when Waldo here finds himself in an orange jumpsuit lost in general population.” He wheeled a chair up close and sat, his face inches from mine. “Tell me about the gun—no bullshit.”

  “No bullshit,” I said taking a deep breath. “The night Jonah died, I went back to get my wallet.”

  “Yeah, I heard that part,” Cash cut in. “He was dead when you got there and you left. Now tell me what I didn’t hear.”

  I glanced over at Dusty. He looked up and then dropped his head. “Actually, he was alive when we went in.”

  His lips twitched into a brief smile of satisfaction that faded quickly.

  “He heard us and thought we were burglars. He fired off a shot and fell down the steps. We ran like hell.”

  Cash sat back but remained silent, evidently satisfied with a story that made sense.

  “We went back in to see if he was all right.”

  “You went back into the house? And he had a gun?” Cash pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows at our courage—or maybe our stupidity.

  Dusty sat up. “I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. We go in and he was hiding in the other room. Came staggering out like some kind of zombie and started shooting all over the place. Fuckin’ Dodge City.”

  “Later, we found out the gun was missing.” I looked
at Dusty. “Someone took it.”

  “It wasn’t me!” Dusty screamed. “For the last fuckin’ time, it wasn’t me.”

  “How did it get in your car?” Cash looked at me, ignoring Dusty’s outrage.

  “Someone left it there,” I said pointedly.

  “Someone planted it there,” Dusty corrected.

  Cash pursed his lips and studied us for a moment like Judge Judy—trying to decide who was lying.

  “Dusty. No bullshit. Did you take the gun?” Cash stared at Dusty until he made eye contact.

  I watched as Dusty straightened up. He looked at me and then locked his eyes on Cash. “I did not take that gun.”

  Cash studied Dusty for a moment. Then his lips tightened and he turned toward me. “That means you are being set up. Someone wants to make it look like you were there.”

  Dusty spread his hands in an I-told-you-so gesture. I rolled my eyes.

  “That shouldn’t be too hard,” Cash continued, “Since the fact of the matter is you was there.” He thought for a moment and then asked, “Where’d you find the gun?”

  I told him how it slid out from under the seat when I almost hit Devereaux’s car at Granger’s.

  “So you picked it up?”

  “Yeah, my fingerprints are all over it.”

  He chuckled and shook his head in that way he had of making me feel like an idiot. I closed my eyes.

  Cash stood and paced back and forth, gathering his thoughts. “I got a five-step program gonna keep your sorry ass out of jail.” He stopped and faced us. He held up his index finger.

  “Step one, we get rid of those tapes. You can burn them—dump the ashes somewhere safe.”

  He continued tracking his steps with his fingers.

  “Step two, you give Dusty five thousand so he can go to Brazil and never come back to this town—ever.”

  He waited for Dusty to agree and then held up three fingers.

  “Three. I give this tape to Devereaux. Tell him he has his man—Dusty dipping into the till and stealing tapes to cover his crimes.”

  “I only did it once. It was only forty dollars,” Dusty said.

  Cash grunted a laugh. “They gonna chisel your face on that mountain right next to George Washington and Honest Abe.”

  Cash turned his back to us for a moment as he stared out at the night sky. Dusty’s eyes followed Cash as he stepped away.

  “That brings us to step four—my fee.”

  He turned and faced us. He used a moment of silence to transform his face into the mask of a stone-cold killer—shark eyes, shark teeth. “You pay me one lump sum for my efforts, and I’m out of your life forever.”

  Cash cracked his knuckles and waited for my reaction. I knew he wanted me to ask how much so I said nothing.

  “One hundred and fifty thousand.” It came out in slow, deliberate syllables so there would be no mistake, no doubt, no negotiation. “And I’ll take care of step five—the gun with your fingerprints all over it.” He gave Dusty a long, hard stare.

  Cash was chucking his career at McDonald’s and going for the big one.

  “Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

  Cash spread his palms out and slowly turned in a full circle, displaying our surroundings in case I had forgotten where we were—in the home of a very rich man who just happened to be my father.

  “I mean, how am I going to get that kind of money?”

  “Easy,” he said walking over to the telescope. “You’re the caretaker here. That’s your new job—right? Taking care of this place?”

  “Estate manager.”

  He wheeled the telescope over to the window toward Uranus.

  “Well, see if you can manage this. You call your father up, and tell him you have a situation.”

  Cash grabbed the telescope and mount, and in one twisting move threw it against the window. The glass exploded outward. The telescope seemed to hang in the air for an instant before plunging out of sight, landing with a hollow, metallic bang.

  “Tell him you need to do some remodeling.” Cash stuck his head out the broken window and looked down. Dusty and I used the opportunity to exchange a glance.

  “Tell him you have to get the Beamer fixed—needs a new roof.”

  Cash snatched up his backpack. When he stuck his hand in, I thought he was going for a gun, but he pulled out a plastic bottle of Kingsford, pissing a fine stream of charcoal fluid across my chest and down my leg. Dusty scrambled to avoid the stream, but Cash got him up the back and continued squirting the fluid onto the empty chair. I was at Dusty’s side in an instant.

  “Tell him you had a fire,” Cash said as he struck a match and tossed it. The fluid exploded with a soft whomp and quickly settled into yellow tongues two feet high lapping at the leather. Dusty and I backed well out of range and I eyed the door to the stairway. “Tell him the insurance went up. Tell him if you don’t come up with one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, someone’s gonna burn this whole fuckin’ house down with you in it.”

  The phone rang, cutting off Cash’s rant. “Ignore it,” he snarled.

  It rang twice more.

  “That’s ADT. You want me to pick it up, or do you want them to send the police and a fire truck up here?”

  Cash thrust his head in the direction of the phone, grudgingly giving me permission to pick up the handset. ADT reported that I had a broken window and smoke in zone 9. I watched Cash’s impatience grow as I assured them that everything was fine and that I would reset the alarm. Cash’s performance had been interrupted and he was losing momentum.

  I dropped the phone and walked to the wall panel. “If I don’t reset it now, they’ll think I’m a burglar and send the police anyway.” I punched in the numbers, taking my time to piss off Cash. “Or maybe I should wait to see if the chair goes out.”

  Cash glanced at the chair. The fluid was burning off with little effect on the leather surface except for some discoloring. A pool of fluid in the center of the cushion held a steady flame.

  “You want the chair out?” he screamed. “You want it out?” He darted forward and snatched the padded arm of the chair and spun his body like an Olympic shot putter pivoting on his right foot. The chair crashed through another window, trailing a splutter of blue flames and broken glass.

  As it landed below with a thump, Cash followed through with his spin and caught me by the wrist. He turned one more time, and my arm was twisted behind my back—my head jerked as Cash wound his fingers through my hair and yanked. I could feel individual hairs tearing at the roots.

  I resisted as he pushed me toward the broken window, dropping to my knees in my struggle, making it impossible for him to push me through the opening. Cash drove harder until I hit the wall, leaning through the window. My throat was now inches from the shards of glass stuck in the frame. He pushed my head forward, increasing his pressure until I felt a sharp pain to the right of my Adam’s apple. One swallow and I would slice my own throat.

  “Twenty-four hours,” he growled. “One hundred and fifty thousand in cash.” The pressure eased on the back of my head, but I did not move for fear that he would react with a shove. “It’s a long way down, isn’t it?” he said without emotion.

  I did not look. My eyes were closed, my full attention on the pinprick of pain on my throat.

  “Twenty-four hours or you’re going down—one way or another. It’s all up to you.”

  Cash released his grip on my wrist and hair and I felt him stand up. He hovered over me for an instant before taking a step backward. I pulled away from the sharp glass and slowly allowed my arm to slide down my back, but made no move to rise or turn.

  “You can start by filling this.” He kicked something and his backpack slid into view at my knees.

  “Twenty-four hours.” His voice was more distant. He was leaving. “Be ready for my call.”

  And he was gone.

  CHAPTER 50

  Dusty came over and knelt beside me at the other broken window. “Ooh,
that feels good,” he breathed. The cool air blowing in revived me, and I also took a deep breath. It may have been the first real breath I took since Cash grabbed me. We looked below us to the Beamer with the telescope imbedded in the roof and the leather chair next to it on the tarmac. The flames were out. From this distance, the chair seemed to have survived the fall pretty well—certainly better than I would. Cash’s GTO was parked off to the right. He was still in the house, taking his time—casing the joint for his next visit.

  The wind started to chill rather than refresh and I thought that Cash was not going to come out—that he was coming back after stumbling on my father’s vault. A moment later, he appeared below with Dusty’s bag of tapes and walked to his car.

  “Would have been funny if he dropped that chair on his own car—pimped his ride with new, flaming-leather interior,” Dusty said.

  We watched as Cash tossed the Bosov’s bag into his car and drove off. It wasn’t until his taillights were well into the woods that we got to our feet.

  “By the way,” I said, “thanks for stepping in—pulling Cash off my back before he killed me.”

  “I thought about it,” Dusty said. “Didn’t seem like a good idea to tackle him while he had your neck against the glass.”

  I raised my hand to my throat. My fingertips were smeared pink. I showed Dusty.

  Dusty shook his head. “The guy’s a freaking maniac.”

  I looked from my bloody fingertips to the broken shards of glass in the frame.

  “Do you think he’d really throw you out the window?”

  I nodded.

  “Are you going to pay him?”

  There was something in Dusty’s voice—a note of hopeful anticipation, a child’s voice asking, “When we go to Grandpa’s, will we visit the zoo?” It was the suppressed excitement of a wish about to be fulfilled. Dusty had a personal stake in this.