by Brad Smith
He stood in front of the bathroom mirror and reset his broken nose. It was a painful process and there was considerable blood. After a while, he decided that he would settle for a rough semblance of his old nose. He cleaned the blood from his nostrils and mouth and then he brushed his teeth. He had a long and painful shower and took a handful of aspirins and went to bed. He slept all day Saturday.
Lee Cumberland lived in a neat bungalow on Fairview Avenue in Talbotville. The house was part of a subdivision built thirty-five years earlier. Red maples and white pines and Colorado spruce, planted back then, were now twenty-five feet high. The houses in the neighborhood were for the most part immaculately kept, the lawns trimmed, and in the summer expansive flower beds of brilliant blooms were in evidence everywhere. The flowers were mostly dying now, but here and there a flash of color could still be seen, the plants persevering against the coming season.
Rufus spent the better part of an hour with Lee Cumberland and his wife, Shirley. They gave him coffee and banana nut muffins and information. More information than he had counted on.
Afterwards he decided to drive out to River Valley Farm to report to Frances directly. He thought that Carl might be there too, even though it was Saturday. Rufus wasn’t sure if River Valley Farm had adopted Carl or if Carl had adopted River Valley Farm, but it was apparent that some connection of the sort had been made. Working for Frances made it possible for Carl to stick around. Rufus had no idea what would happen when the work came to an end.
It was growing dark when he got there. He found Frances in the front section of the warehouse, in a large area that served as a communal office, seated at a desk with her feet up, a computer keyboard on her lap. She wore jeans and a maroon sweater. She was looking through rimless glasses at a computer screen on the desk.
‘Hello, Rufus,’ she said when he walked in, her eyes still on the screen.
‘Ms Rourke.’
‘Just a sec,’ she said. ‘I’m e-mailing the government money. Unless you advise me that I’m really not required to.’
‘Death and taxes,’ he told her.
‘You’re a lot of help.’
Rufus heard a noise and he turned and looked through the open doorway to the main warehouse. Perry was pushing a skid of boxes across the floor toward a shelving unit against the far wall. He was focused on his task and if he’d seen Rufus arrive, he didn’t let on.
‘Done,’ Frances said. She stretched and yawned. ‘What do you know, Rufus?’
‘I’ve just come from Lee Cumberland’s house. Is Carl around?’
‘I haven’t seen him today. About time he took a day off. He’s not exactly charging me the going rate anyway.’
‘And why is that, Frances?’
‘Nice try,’ she said. ‘Back to Cumberland.’
Before Rufus could reply, Perry appeared in the doorway.
‘I guess I’ll be going then,’ he said to Frances.
‘OK, Perry. See you Monday.’
Perry gave Rufus a look before going out the side door. Rufus could see him through the front windows, walking quickly toward the road.
‘First time I ever saw that man in a hurry,’ Rufus said. ‘He’s an odd one, isn’t he?’
‘I’ve quit studying the oddity of men,’ Frances said. ‘What about Cumberland?’
Rufus flopped down in the chair opposite her. ‘The man has a mother lode of gas well information. And he’s willing to help. We need to photocopy what he has, put it in a package and get it in the hands of the right people.’
‘OK. When does that happen?’
‘He’s going to gather everything together and bring it to my office tomorrow for photocopying,’ Rufus said. He paused. ‘And there’s something else.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Hank Hofferman paid Cumberland a visit.’
‘What?’
‘My reaction precisely,’ Rufus said.
‘What the hell did he want?’
‘He offered Cumberland a consulting job on the landfill.’
‘I’ll just bet he did.’
‘So he knows that Cumberland has the goods. How he knows is another question. But he was there to pay the man off.’
‘What did Cumberland say?’ Frances asked.
‘He showed Hofferman the door.’
‘Good for him,’ Frances said. She sat quietly, thinking for a time. Something wasn’t right. ‘So who tipped Hofferman off?’
‘I don’t know,’ Rufus replied. ‘Does it matter – if Cumberland turned him down?’
‘Probably not,’ Frances admitted. ‘But it would be nice to know, either way.’
Carl was still in bed Monday afternoon when Frances showed up, although he’d been up earlier and gone downstairs for breakfast. His ribs were worse, if anything, and the skin over them was now several interesting shades of purple. When Frances knocked he pulled a sheet over himself, flipped the TV on and told her to come in.
‘Jesus,’ she said when she saw his face.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘You don’t answer your phone,’ she said.
‘I’ve been under the weather. What’s up?’
She took a long look at him. ‘I had a discouraging meeting with Rufus Canfield and I thought you should know about it. You going to tell me what happened to you?’
Carl gave her a mild version of the incident in the alley, suggesting that the entire fight had consisted of a couple of wild punches being thrown. There was a chair by the bureau and Frances moved to sit in it while she listened.
‘We’re going to the police,’ she said when he finished.
‘No,’ Carl told her.
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because we’re not.’
She stood up and walked across the room to the window overlooking Main Street. She looked down on the street for a moment, then glanced toward him. He turned slightly to follow her movement and when he did, he grimaced. He saw her eyes fall on the sheet covering his torso.
‘What’s this about Rufus?’ he asked.
‘Rufus took the Cumberland data to Natural Resources this morning. They got back to him in a couple hours, which was surprising. The bad news is that they say it’s an environmental issue. But the Ministry of the Environment has already signed off on it. And they’d rather not take another ministry to task. Guess they don’t step out on one another, these ministries.’
‘Even if it means doing their job.’
‘Even if it means that.’
‘Well, shit,’ Carl said.
‘So the message Hofferman sent you behind Archer’s was for nothing. It’s a non-issue.’
Carl shifted in the bed. ‘What makes you think that had anything to do with Cumberland?’
‘Hofferman found out about the maps and the rest of it. He tried to buy Cumberland off.’
Carl thought about that. ‘How would he know about it?’
‘That’s a very good question. I have a theory on that.’ Frances took two quick steps and grabbed the sheet covering Carl and pulled it back. ‘Jesus Christ! Look at you. OK, I’m taking you to the hospital.’
‘I’m all right, Frances,’ he told her. ‘I’ve had broken ribs before. They’ll heal.’
‘Why do you have to be so tough?’
‘If I was tough then Hofferman would be the one on his back.’
‘You need a doctor, Carl. Will you listen to me?’
‘A doctor’s gonna tell me I’ve got broken ribs and I should stay in bed. I’m already doing that.’ He smiled.
‘Don’t you smile at me,’ she snapped. ‘You’re a frustrating man.’
He shrugged. ‘Have you heard from Kate?’
‘I guess we’re done talking about you seeking medical help,’ Frances said.
‘I was hoping.’
She shook her head at his obstinacy. ‘I haven’t heard anything. I left her a couple messages but nothing.’ She paused. ‘She said she’d come out to the farm. I keep hoping she wil
l.’
Carl nodded. ‘So what about the landfill? What’s next?’
‘Nothing’s next,’ Frances replied. ‘Who were we trying to kid anyway? You can’t beat these guys, Carl. It’s money and it’s politics. They won’t stop.’
Carl lay back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling. He’d spent most of the past three days in bed and yet he was tired. His sleep had been ragged. Every time he moved, the pain in his ribs woke him up.
He opened his eyes. ‘Got to be a way.’
‘Last time you got thinking that way, you went to jail,’ she reminded him. ‘You get some rest. I still think you should go to the hospital but I’m not going to fight you over it. You could use a shave, you know.’
Carl’s hand went to his chin. He hadn’t shaved since his run-in with the gang behind Archer’s. There were too many sore spots on his face. He watched Frances as she walked to the door. She was wearing a skirt and a sweater under a leather jacket, and her hair was hanging loose to her shoulders. Usually she had it tied back when working at the farm. It was the first time Carl had seen her in a skirt since he’d returned to town. She had nice legs.
‘I ever tell you that you’re a good-looking woman?’
She turned. ‘I wondered when you’d get around to it. Did it take a blow to the head?’
‘Well, I was married to your sister,’ he said. ‘And then there was some guy in a Land Rover. Taking your picture every ten seconds.’
‘The guy in the Land Rover drove off into the sunset. He took his camera with him.’
‘Well,’ he said.
She kept watching him until he looked away. She shook her head.
‘Slow but sure,’ she said, and she left.
He smiled as he lay back and closed his eyes. He thought about her legs for a while. Then he thought about Kate and what she was doing. He wished he could talk to her. But everybody else had, and he didn’t know what good it had done. Maybe she would come to the farm, as Frances said. That would be something, at least.
Thinking about Frances made him think about what she had said about the landfill.
She was right about one thing. It always came down to money and the money always won. Carl’s mother had died broken at the side of the highway, her life leaking out on to the gravel there in the dusk, while the money that caused it had motored on unchecked toward the city. The same money had sucked the marrow out of Carl’s father, sitting on that back porch, drinking case after case of Old Stock Ale, unable to talk about what happened to his wife, or what didn’t happen to the man who had run her down.
It was money that had lured Carl to that half-constructed pig barn that night. Of course, it was money. He realized he hadn’t thought about it in years. It was supposed to be a simple thing. A midnight fire, a victimless crime – unless anyone considered Hank Hofferman a victim, and Carl didn’t. All it took was a gallon of gas and a single wooden match. Douse the studding and the truss system and strike the match. The building was fully engulfed by the time he walked through the bush lot to his truck, parked on the side road a half mile away. He met the fire trucks as he drove back into town.
The next morning he learned that Red Walton had died at the scene. Carl hung around the house for most of the day and at five that afternoon he turned himself in to the police. He could have lived with the arson but not the dead firefighter. Hofferman had dozers on the site the next day and a week later the barn was being rebuilt. And Carl was in jail, waiting for trial.
The money won again.
She sat huddled in the wool coat, a cigarette cupped in her hands as she tried to light it in the wind. She was against the pavilion wall, on the lee side, but still the breeze whipped around her. It had snowed earlier, before the wind had risen, large wet flakes which had floated through the air like indolent falling leaves before melting immediately upon hitting the ground. Kate pulled on the cigarette and took a drink from the take-out coffee at her feet.
The wind abated and rose again, strong enough to whip the wet leaves from the ground. She was content with the cold. It meant the end of pickup basketball for the year. She was counting on that meaning the end of The Mayor’s visits to the park, the end of his gift giving and his benevolence, to the basketball players in general but most specifically to the blond girl Lindsay.
Still, she couldn’t resist coming today. She needed to know firsthand that the weather had ended his Fisher Park schemes, that the girl was safe. The Mayor could walk his dog in the ice and snow if he wanted. But there would be no girls for him to charm, no more lambs stumbling blindly into the path of the lion.
Butting the cigarette beneath her shoe, she got up and walked around to have a view of the basketball court and wading pool. The park was deserted. Leaning against the wall, she fished in her jeans pocket and brought out the container of Percocet and opened it. She took two and washed them down with the tepid coffee.
It was time to stop this, she knew. Maybe she needed the onset of winter to show her that.
It seemed that everyone else was of that opinion. David, Frances. Even Sasha had called from Shoeless Joe’s, asking how she was doing. She could tell by what she said, and what she didn’t say, that she’d been talking to David. And David had been staying at his brother’s the past week or so. He said he couldn’t watch her anymore. Wouldn’t watch her anymore.
So she would quit. When winter set in, The Mayor would lose contact with the girls at the park, and that would be that. He was getting old. Maybe it was finally time for him to quit too. But how could she know that? Maybe he hung out at hockey arenas or schools during the winter, inventing some excuse to be there, to insinuate himself. How could she know?
She couldn’t, but maybe that was a good thing. She needed to get on with things. First and foremost, she had to make things up with David; she knew it had been a terrible time for him. He’d stood beside her for as long as he could. In the end it was almost as if she’d deliberately driven him away because she couldn’t stand to see him watching her. The way she was.
As she was considering the matter of the rest of her life she heard a car and turned to see the Lincoln as it pulled into the Millburn Street parking lot. After a moment The Mayor got out, carrying the little pup. He bent over to clip a leash on to the dog’s collar and then he straightened and started into the park. He was wearing a fedora with little ear flaps, and a tan trench coat.
Kate moved back behind the corner of the pavilion wall to watch him. He looked forlorn and even older than his years as he trudged along the gravel pathway, the energetic pup straining the leash. Maybe he was harmless at long last. Maybe that was all she would ever have. Knowing that he was finished. A lion with no teeth wasn’t much of a lion at all. Time had done to the animal what his victims couldn’t, and the law wouldn’t.
Then she saw Lindsay, walking across the grass from the direction of the housing development, wearing jeans and a nylon coat and a ball cap. She was smiling as she approached The Mayor. Kate watched in horrid fascination. It was no chance meeting. When the two met on the pathway, The Mayor reached into his coat and pulled out a book. Another fucking book. He presented it to the blond girl and then he embraced her, briefly and chastely. Kate couldn’t watch and she went around the corner of the building, out of sight. She sank down, kneeling there, for a few moments, her breath coming in spurts. When she looked past the corner again, the two of them were on a park bench, side by side, talking. The pup was off its leash and was running zigzag courses across the dying grass of the park.
And so that was it, Kate thought. She was willing to stop but he wasn’t. He would never stop, not on his own.
Somebody would have to help him along.
Carl met with Rufus at his office and laid out what he had in mind. He’d been expecting an argument but Rufus, to Carl’s surprise, had warmed at once to the plan. Carl called River Valley Farm and left a message for Frances with Grace, who worked in the shipping office of the warehouse. Ten minutes later, Frances called back.<
br />
‘You said they’d use their money to win,’ he said.
‘I guess I did,’ she said. ‘Why?’
‘Then let’s make them use a little.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I need to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I’m going to drive out there today and tell you a story.’
‘Can’t you tell me over the phone?’
‘I have to tell you in person. And Perry has to be there.’
‘Perry has to be here,’ Frances repeated slowly. She considered this. ‘All right. Should I set out some cheese?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For your trap.’
‘You’re a smart woman, Frances.’
‘You’re just full of compliments lately,’ she said.
‘You know me. Slow but sure.’
She was laughing as he hung up the phone.
When Carl arrived at the warehouse a half hour later, Frances and Perry were disassembling a steel shelving unit and moving it from one side of the room to the other, an obvious make-work project. Frances looked suitably surprised when Carl walked in.
‘There you are,’ she said. ‘We were wondering where you’ve been. We were just talking about it. Weren’t we, Perry?’
‘Yeah, we was real worried about you,’ Perry said. ‘What happened to your nose?’
‘I slept funny,’ Carl told him.
Perry smiled and moved away to lift an end frame on to the tow motor. Carl turned to Frances.
‘I just had a visit from Lee Cumberland,’ he said.
‘Oh,’ Frances said. She hesitated, waiting.
‘He’s getting cute,’ Carl said.
‘Cute in what way?’
‘Well, he’s suddenly decided the gas well info is a valuable commodity. He wants money for it now.’
‘Shit,’ Frances said. She frowned at Carl, looking for a lead.
‘The stuff is for sale,’ Carl said. ‘The good news is he’s giving you first refusal on it.’
Frances caught on now. ‘Does Hofferman know it’s for sale?’
‘Not yet.’ Carl shrugged. ‘I’m just a messenger, Frances. It’s up to HALT to decide what they want to do.’