by Johnny Shaw
“Hey!” the man shouted.
Axel turned around, smiling even wider.
“Are you the owner?” the man said.
Axel shook his head. “No. I just work here.”
“Do you know someone that drives a big, older SUV?”
“Yeah,” Axel said. “Probably Fritzy.”
“If you see him, do me a big favor and tell him he’s a shit eater that eats shit. He’s going to kill someone the way he drives.”
“Shit eater. Eats shit. Got it,” Axel said, entering the building and closing the door behind him.
The expansive space had the faint smell of motor oil. Large machinery lined one wall, its function a mystery to Axel. The center of the large room was mostly empty, with scattered tables and smaller equipment. In the far corner was a car that someone had sloppily tried to cover with a tarp. One bloodstained corner of the tarp had slid off the hood of the silver Saturn.
Not knowing if he was alone, Axel stayed along the perimeter. He made his way to the car slowly. Hearing a noise, he stopped and closed his eyes. The air in the room felt dead and still. A hum came in from the street, as did dull, fart-like noises from the rubber molding factory.
Axel opened his eyes and continued his slow creep. He reached the car and pulled off the tarp. Small holes pockmarked the side panel. A smear of blood ran down the door. The driver’s side seat was soaked dark.
His lockpicks were getting more mileage than they had in years. He popped the trunk. The canvas sacks from the armored car filled it, one of them ripped open and exposing its contents. If he had to estimate the amount, Axel would calculate that it was a bunch. A bunch of money.
Axel whistled, because not whistling would have been wrong. He texted Gretchen and Kurt, told them to forget Fritzy and come there. He looked around the room, eventually spotting a big wheeled trash can, the kind you rolled to the curb on garbage day. Not bothering to empty the layer of trash at the bottom, he transferred the money from the trunk into the can.
When he was done, he tilted the trash can and rolled it toward the exit, only to see Mother blocking his path.
“Where’re you going with my money?” Mother stepped toward him.
“You robbed my robbery,” Axel said. “I’m robbing your robbery.”
“I admire your moxie.”
“A plagiarized robbery, by the way,” Axel said. “You used my plan.”
“I rescind my admiration of your moxie,” Mother said. “It may have been your target, but the plan was garbage. All paste and glitter. Too many moving parts. A great opportunity, but you assed up the execution. I simplified it and reduced the risk.”
“Your plan was way more risky.”
“I meant the risk to myself.” Mother smiled. “There’s a point one reaches in life when you no longer do any heavy lifting. Stanley and Steven were underused in your scenario.”
“And Fritzy.”
“Friendly fire.”
“No different from what you did to us in Mississippi.”
“If something works, you don’t futz with it.”
“How did you convince Stanley and Steven that they wouldn’t be implicated when it was over?”
“I didn’t have to. They’re idiots. They were focused on how much money they would make. They never thought that far.”
“I’m assuming you’re armed,” Axel said.
Mother nodded. “I’m surprised you’re not. Fool me once, you know?”
“I don’t like guns. Not since Dad.”
“So long as we’re on the same page, it’ll stay in the purse.”
“There wasn’t any good reason to double-cross us in Mississippi. It was free money for you.”
“I saw an opportunity to make more,” Mother said. “Have I answered all your questions? Because it’s time for you to wheel that garbage can out to my car. And to show you there are no hard feelings, I’ll give you—let’s say—two random bags as your cut. You can share with your brother and sister or keep it for yourself. I don’t care. Think of it as a ‘story by’ credit on the robbery.”
“That’s supposed to make us square?”
“Grudges are bad business,” Mother said. “Fairness isn’t a thing. You kids are going to be pissed at me no matter what, but you can’t buy lessons like the ones I taught you.”
“I’m supposed to forget that you came to the funeral of my mother and saw it as an opportunity to not only steal from me and my siblings, but to get us to commit crimes for you. A fake will. You leveled our house. You made us think our own mother betrayed us. And those are the things that I can think of off the top of my head.”
“You were enthusiastic enough,” Mother said.
“Are you the devil?”
“No, I’m an Ucker.”
“You forgot one thing,” Axel said.
“What’s that?”
“So am I.” Axel picked up the gas can from the trunk, unscrewed the cap, and poured its contents into the trash container.
Mother drew her gun. “Don’t do something stupid. That’s money. Take it for yourself or let me have it, but don’t invent an option that makes no sense.”
“It’s the only option I have,” Axel said. “If I take all of it, you’ll try to get it back. Or, at the very least, find a way to screw up my life even more. If you take the money, then you win. And I can’t stomach that. But if I burn it, you lose and there’s no reason for you to be in my life.”
“What about revenge?” Mother said. “Maybe I’ll get revenge?”
“Grudges are bad business.”
“Do it, Ax,” Gretchen said, standing by the door with Kurt. “Light that mother up.”
“You got here quick,” Axel said.
“We were on our way back when you texted,” Gretchen said.
“Did Fritzy get away?” Mother asked.
Kurt shook his head. “Stephanie and Louder are taking him to the hospital.”
“Tough break,” Mother said.
“It’s a gunshot wound,” Gretchen said. “It won’t take long for the cops to put two and two together. Especially with witnesses. He wasn’t happy with you.”
“He won’t talk,” Mother said.
“Normal people would ask how bad he’s hurt,” Kurt said.
Mother nodded and looked down at the gun in her hand. “Normal people probably would.”
“So here we are,” Axel said.
“I’ll call your bluff,” Mother said. “Let’s see what a bunch of money looks like on fire.”
Axel reached into his pocket. And then into the other one. He looked in the trunk and patted his hand around the carpeted interior.
“What is it?” Gretchen asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I thought I had matches,” Axel said. “I don’t have a light.”
Mother laughed and walked toward Axel. Axel closed the lid of the garbage can and attempted to roll it away from her, but he couldn’t get any speed with its weight. Mother was faster than she looked—which wasn’t saying a whole lot. She caught up to Axel and knocked him to the ground with a hard push.
Mother put a hand on the lid of the can and held the gun on Axel. She gulped air. “You made me run. I’ve shot other relatives for less.”
Axel didn’t see the arc of the butterfly knife. From his perspective it appeared out of nowhere. First, Mother’s arm had no knife sticking in it. And then, presto, knife.
Mother yelped and dropped the pistol. Axel slid on the ground and picked it up. Gretchen and Kurt ran over to them. Gretchen had Fritzy’s gun in her hand.
“Nice throw,” Axel said.
“You get pretty good when you’re stuck in a hotel room in Mississippi,” Gretchen said. “I just hope they don’t take the pictures off the wall, or they’re going to find some holes.”
“Let me take a look at your wound,” Kurt said, reaching for Mother.
“Stay away from me,” Mother said. Grimacing, she pulled the knife out of her arm.
“Damn,” Gretche
n said.
Holding the knife, Mother seemed to consider something for a moment, but then dropped it. She grabbed the handkerchief that Kurt held out for her and held it to the wound. “I’ll be interested to find out what you think is going to happen next. You going to kill me?”
“We’re not you,” Kurt said.
“Are you sure?” Mother said. “Uckers are as Uckers do.”
“There’s no such thing as bad blood.”
“You’re wrong,” Mother said. “Blood is everything.”
“Blood and family mean nothing to you,” Gretchen said. “You wanted the money. It wasn’t any more than that.”
“It’s naive to think that family is supposed to arbitrarily help each other,” Mother said. “What have you done for me?”
“A family is what you make of it,” Kurt said. “It only takes a little bit of effort. Fritzy was better family to me than you, and he was lying to me and trying to steal from me, too.”
“We need to get out of here,” Axel said. “There’s a guy with a dildo outside that I don’t like the looks of.”
“Him?” Kurt said. “Naw, he’s cool.”
“We should get going anyway,” Gretchen said. “It’s going to take a few hours to get everyone together.”
“Everyone?” Mother asked. “Who is everyone?”
“Your family,” Axel said. “The other Uckers.”
CHAPTER 39
The Skinrippermobile—returned to its former gory glory by Pepe—pulled into the massive parking lot of Hofbräuhaus. Kurt drove. Gretchen sat in the passenger seat. Axel kept an eye on Mother in the back, her hands bound in front of her.
“You didn’t have to tie me up,” Mother said.
“I know,” Axel said.
“We wanted you to know what it feels like,” Gretchen said as she got out of the van. “Hurts, don’t it?”
“You think I ain’t never been tied up?” Mother said. “Handcuffs, rope, zip ties, phone cords. And that’s just recreationally.”
“Not a picture I want in my head,” Kurt said.
Mother looked out the windshield. “Appropriate place to leave my body, I suppose.”
“I told you, we’re not going to kill you,” Gretchen said. “I don’t think we are. Are we?”
“I’m not. I don’t know about them,” Axel said, gesturing toward the restaurant entrance.
Standing at the front door, a group of five men and three women waited.
Gretchen and Axel helped Mother out of the van. Kurt shook hands and hugged the people gathered. As Mother walked past her relatives into the restaurant, she said, “Be careful, kids. These are bad folks.”
Kurt had been the only sibling who had fully embraced the family reunion that first introduced them to the rest of the Ucker family. While Mother sequestered and recruited Axel and Gretchen that night, he mingled and made relationships with aunts, uncles, and cousins.
Gretchen didn’t know if Mother had seen Kurt as simple or a nonthreat, but she had underestimated him. He was all about family, something that had eluded him to that point. He had created ongoing correspondence and social media friendships (under pseudonyms) with a half dozen relatives. That led him to contact a few incarcerated Uckers whom he hadn’t met in person, members of the family eager to connect with anyone.
The subsequent correspondences that arose from that single meeting helped Kurt create bonds. He wrote a few of his relatives once or twice a week. Everyone remained cagey about discussing any criminal activity, but there was still plenty to talk about. He mostly traded book and movie suggestions, jokes, and recipes. He played Words with Friends. And found a cousin who was more of an aficionado of Viking metal than he was. Friendships had been formed from far less, especially within the arbitrary bond of family.
After Axel pitched his plan to catch Mother in the act of robbing the armored car, they knew they needed to do more than just get the money from her. It wouldn’t end there with Mother. They needed a path that wouldn’t create a never-ending back-and-forth between them and Mother. Kurt suggested he reach out to the other Uckers.
He sent a simple message to his contact list: “I need some help. Will you help me?” No context. No backstory. No scale to the amount of help. Did he need help moving an old refrigerator or to bury a body?
Not a single Ucker answered with equivocation. No “Depends.” No “First you have to tell mes.” The overwhelming response was “Whatever you need. Give me a time and place. I’ll be there.” Kurt brought that kind of loyalty out in people.
“Let it be known on this day herewith that the official tribunal of Mathilda “Mother” Ucker took place in San Diego, California, for the purpose of determining violations in the Ucker family code.”
“Shut up, DJ,” Mother said. “There’s no code.”
Dolphus Ucker Jr. laughed. “Where’s your sense of humor, Matty?”
Mother sat at the end of the table, with Kurt and Gretchen on either side of her. The rest of the family sat or stood throughout the room.
Axel wheeled in the trash can filled with money. It had been easier to just put the whole thing in one of the cars than to load and unload the bags of cash. He left the trash can near the table and found a seat.
“When did you get out of Club Fed?” Mother asked Dolphus Jr.
“A couple weeks ago,” he said. “If you get the chance, Lompoc is nice. Knocked a couple strokes off my handicap. I would’ve stayed longer, but the more money you steal, the less time you do. Nobody is impressed if you steal a hundred bucks, but try to steal a few million, the jury is so impressed, they want to let you off.”
“You still angry with me about that thing in Manitoba?”
“You threw me off a moving train,” Dolphus Jr. said. “I broke my leg and got arrested. Luckily we were in Canada, so it wasn’t like real jail.”
“That was fifteen years ago.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Dolphus Jr. said. “That makes all the difference.”
Mother turned to Kurt. “Every single person at this table is worse than me.” She pointed around the table. “She ran a fraud scam after that hurricane in Texas. He bilked senior citizens out of their retirements. DJ shot a man in Reno. Not to watch him die, but because he’s the worst shot on the planet.”
“That may be,” Gretchen said, “but they didn’t screw us over. They didn’t turn us against our dead mother, destroy our home, use us, and then throw us away.”
“Matty is good at that,” Uma Ucker said. “The bag you’re left holding is always empty.”
“I don’t want to be a prima donna,” Mother said, “but can we put the gasoline-soaked money somewhere else? I was getting light-headed in the van, and I’m still smelling it.”
Nods and grunts from the room seconded the motion.
“She’s right,” Dolphus Jr. said. “It’s a strong odor.”
“Sorry,” Axel said, getting up and rolling the trash can to the far end of the room.
“Thanks,” Mother said. “That’s better.”
“Kurt explained to us what happened,” Dolphus Jr. said. “Pretty bad, even for you. Especially to family. We’ve worked together and bilked each other, to be sure, but this is different. They weren’t born into the life. You should have shepherded them. The preacher thing was your normal MO, but the will and the house—that was over the line. You destroyed the house they grew up in. Not so happy you used Pop’s name either.”
“Henry held my half of our scores. I never got that money. Henry owed me. When he died, the family inherited his debt.”
The Uckers, except for Mother, all performed the sign of the cross.
“What about my money?” Mother asked.
“A write-off,” Dolphus Jr. said. “These kids are Uckers. They are family. They owe no debt to you, but now, you owe them.”
“Let them take the armored car money,” Mother said. “We’ll call it even.”
“That money is not yours to give. They stole that money from you fair
and square. You owe them for the house. Damages. Pain and suffering.”
“We don’t want anything,” Axel said. “Other than for it to be over. The things she took, we can’t have back. Money don’t matter. She can walk away, but we need to know she won’t show back up in our lives.”
“That’s where you were after Mississippi,” Mother said. “You didn’t need to do any of this for that to happen. If you had gone home, licked your wounds, and left me alone, I would have stayed out of your hair.”
“That was on your terms,” Gretchen said. “This is on ours. You don’t get to beat us.”
“Which is where we are,” Dolphus Jr. said. “We need your assurance that you’ll stay out of their lives. We’re here to make it official.”
“Or else what, DJ?” Mother asked. “You’ve been acting the big shot since we were kids.”
“First off, there’s the matter of Fred Kramer.”
“Who?” Axel said.
“Fritzy,” Dolphus Jr. said. “He’s been arrested and charged. He might keep quiet out of love or loyalty or tradition or whatever reason. Sounds like a stand-up guy. But the lawyer we sent to talk to him suggested to me that he was open to giving up his associate.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Mother said, but the confidence waned in her voice.
“He has the distinct impression that you were done with him and even if he hadn’t gotten caught that you would have probably double-crossed him at some point very soon. You have a habit of swapping out boyfriends.”
“I’ll be honest,” Mother said. “I was getting a little tired of him.”
“You are a piece of work,” Gretchen said.
“No matter which way the wind blows,” Dolphus Jr. continued, “keep in mind that your condo in Rosarito isn’t a secret and Mexico extradites.”
“I’m getting the picture,” Mother said.
“Also.” Jeremiah Ucker, a young man in a suit, pulled out a piece of paper. “I’ve done some research and dug up your account in the Caymans, your other account in Costa Rica, safety deposit boxes in Panorama City, Irvine, Palm Desert, and Yuma, and some other assets that every Ucker will consider to be in play if you don’t take the deal. I’ve distributed the list to everyone. You’ll get hit on all sides.”