The Winners Circle

by Christopher Klim

  “He’s stockpiling guns.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Jerry sorted through Tucker’s recon photos. Willie Nelson wasn’t the famous singer, just some guy with nutty parents who named their kid after a country music star. Seven months ago, Super Pick Millions remade Willie into a rich and bitter winner. One photo showed him emerging from an army-navy store in Voorhees with three rifles.

  Jerry called to the front. “What’s that I smell?”

  “Linzer Tart.” Tom sampled desserts from an Atlantic City bakery. He planned on returning to the business as soon as he gathered the capital.

  “Any good?” Jerry encouraged Tom’s plans. He’d lend Tom the money, if he didn’t think the hapless dreamer would turn it into a bagels-by-airmail franchise and lose every dime. Hell, he might lend him the cash anyway.

  “I’ve had better pastries,” Tom said.

  “Pass me something.”

  Tom held the white box above the seat. He turned his chunky nose from the wheel and shot a sarcastic glance at their leader. “Try the Napoleon, Dick.”

  Dick ignored him.

  Jerry reached for a clamshell pastry and bit into the flaky dough. The rich lemon custard evoked old memories. Chelsea and he occasionally splurged on fancy desserts or part of a gourmet meal. They’d spread the good china on the living room floor and light candles. Now that he had the means to eat with style, he ate quickly, standing in front of the TV. Last night, he gulped down a frozen microwave dinner: Cajun Shrimp with Savory Potatoes. It tasted like the cardboard and plastic in which it was packed.

  Dick stroked his chin. He loved to add mystique to an already sketchy situation. “Our source tells us that Willie Nelson is about to hit a sour note.”

  “Great,” Jerry said, devoid of emotion.

  “He’s planning to send anyone who ever crossed him On The Road Again, if you catch my drift.”

  “Yeah,” Tom said, “but with a one-way Ticket to Ride.”

  “That’s the Beatles,” Jerry said.

  “What?” Tom glanced into the rearview mirror.

  “‘Ticket to Ride.’”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Forget it,” Dick said. “Stay on the subject.”

  Tucker snickered and scooped a handful of cookies from the box.

  Jerry pulled Chelsea’s file from the briefcase and flipped through the pages. Haskell Cogdon was in trouble with the IRS and a few state agencies. The whole mess centered on a bad real estate deal in the Pine Barrens, but Jerry didn’t need the Alliance for that information. The newspapers ran a story almost every day.

  Dick held a furtive look in his eye. “Still keeping up with Joneses?”

  Jerry closed Chelsea’s file. “I can’t help myself.”

  “Did you catch his real name?”

  “Melvin?”

  “Melvin Cogdon. Not as aristocratic as Haskell Cogdon. No wonder he changed it.”

  “No wonder.” Jerry felt sorry for Chelsea. She still had no children, and her life was more imperfect than ever. Neither one of them got exactly what they bargained for.

  Dick waved Willie Nelson’s file in the air. “Can we stick to business?”

  “Sure.”

  “I think we can make headway here.”

  “What are we going to do?” Jerry waited for him to suggest a phone call, but they’d traveled too far down the Garden State Parkway for that. A sign for Cape May raced past the window: 15 miles. They were heading toward something big—Dick’s most ambitious plan to date. Since the moment the Alliance formed, Jerry felt this day coming. Dick needed to get it out of his system.

  “We’re doing what we set out to do.” Dick brushed back his coat jacket, revealing a handgun in a side holster. The holster looked grainy like alligator or eel skin. It matched his shoes.

  “You think we need that?”

  “It’s just a precaution.”

  “A precaution?”

  “I’m not willing the purse yet.” This was Dick’s term for dying and passing on his fortune.

  “Neither am I,” Jerry insisted, although part of him didn’t care. Perhaps if he had a wife and family. Chelsea’s sister in California had tried to get chummy, but she no longer spoke to him. He refused to buy her a waterfront condominium in Malibu. To most people, he’d be more use dead than alive.

  “What’s the plan?” Jerry asked.

  “We’re having a talk.”

  “A talk?”

  “We’re his only friends. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “Let’s make that point clear before he shows us what he bought at the army-navy store.”

  When they reached Willie’s house on the beach, Tom parked the Lincoln along the boardwalk. The rain stopped, and the wet sand appeared brown and dimpled, like the spiked up infield on a baseball diamond. Foamy green waves curled into the surf. Jerry felt queasy from looking at the swells, so he turned away.

  “I’m staying in the car,” Tom announced.

  Dick’s psycho-mumbo-jumbo vanished in the salt air, as he adopted a firmer tone. “You’re coming with us, dough boy.”

  “Somebody’s got to watch the car.”

  “Put on the alarm and get ready to head out.”

  Tucker nudged Tom. Begrudgingly, Tom yanked the keys from the ignition and sighed.

  Jerry studied the exchange. Dick appeared too itchy to solve the world’s problems. This intervention served Dick as much as Willie Nelson. Jerry hoped that one of them learned a lesson tonight. “Let’s get going, before Dick empties his gun right here on the boardwalk.”

  Willie Nelson owned a Victorian mansion overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Once a glorious hotel, Willie bought the place, closed the doors, and occupied the top floor with his wife. That was the balance of the Alliance files. They walked into this blind, except for Dick’s and Tucker’s handguns and the twenty or so rifles stashed somewhere in Willie’s thirty room seaside manor. Talk about bad ideas, but Jerry kept moving forward because he hadn’t heard a better one in years.

  They spoke to Willie through a video monitor above the door. His face looked covered with razor stubble, like the real Willie, but beyond that, the comparison stopped. Jerry felt strange judging a man by what he wasn’t.

  Dick assumed the lead. “Good evening, Mr. Nelson.”

  “What do you want?” Willie barked.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Did my wife send you?”

  “Is she home?”

  “Very funny.”

  “I assure you this isn’t a joke.”

  “Are you playing games with me? What is it you want?”

  The dialogue stalled. A pair of seagulls squawked overhead. The waves crashed the surf, and the breeze tousled Jerry’s hair. The air smelled like rotten clams.

  Dick reached into his pocket and held up a magazine article about the Winners Circle. It showed a picture of Dick standing outside the JCC. “We don’t want your money.”

  “No?”

  “The last thing we need is more cash.” Dick wasn’t speaking for Tom of course.

  A moment later, the door buzzed open.

  “Take the elevator to the top,” Willie said.

  The Alliance spread out in the compartment, and when the doors parted, Willie sat with a low caliber rifle across his lap. The blue steel barrel and stained wood blended with the earthy decor. Red velvet covered the walls, and an eclectic array of leather chairs and brass floor lamps dominated the floor. The exception was the electronics. Digital audio and video equipment filled an entire wall, glowing in the dimly lit room with subtle accuracy.

  Jerry reached for the button to go down, but Willie seized the elevator by remote control. He pointed the black clicker in his hand, and the elevator buttons fell dark. “You may as well come in.”

  “I know this is unusual.” Dick went first, strutting into the center of the room. Jerry never met a psychologist who didn’t want to be a hostage negotiator and steal center stage.

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p; “I know who you are.” Willie rubbed the rifle barrel.

  “Do you know why we’re here?”

  “You’re from the Winners Circle.”

  “Correct.”

  “You want me to join.”

  “That’s your choice.”

  “I’m out of choices.”

  “I assure you that things aren’t that bad. We’ve all been in your shoes.”

  Willie stood up. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “You’re confused, but the last thing you need is to feel sorry for yourself.”

  “Sorry for myself? You don’t know the half of it.”

  “Perhaps you want to tell me.”

  “Why? What’s your game?”

  Tom moved through the corner of Jerry’s vision. The fidgety baker shaded himself behind Jerry, pinching his nose. He often developed a nosebleed whenever he became upset.

  “Easy now.” Jerry backed against the wall. He didn’t want Willie getting nervous, although Tom was probably peeing his pants in private.

  Tucker sucked on a toothpick. He appeared only half-interested in the rifle, checking out the stereo equipment instead. He bent over and examined the myriad buttons, knobs, and flashing lights.

  Jerry imagined how things might play out: Dick gets shot at first, and then Tucker brings Willie down by reflex. Jerry counted on the Australian’s cool hand. Behind Dick’s mansion, he’d watched Tucker shoot the letters out of Fosters Lager cans from a good distance.

  “We want to help,” Dick said.

  “No one wants to help.” Willie’s hands clenched the rifle. “Everyone wants a piece of the jackpot.”

  Jerry tried not to laugh but found it impossible. It was Dick’s words coming right back at him.

  Willie turned the rifle on Jerry. “What’s your problem?”

  Jerry observed the long barrel, imagining a small projectile piercing his gut. It resembled a lot of things in life. It went in small at the start and left a huge whole on the other end.

  “Answer me,” Willie Nelson demanded.

  “Dick thinks he can help you,” Jerry replied.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you don’t want anybody’s help.”

  “Why did you come?”

  “I came to support Dick.”

  Dick gave Jerry a weird glance. Willie’s rifle dropped, aiming at the rug.

  “The two of you need to work this out,” Jerry said. “Dick wants to save you. You want to blow peoples’ heads off. We have a difference of opinion.”

  Jerry’s calm unnerved the others. He was surprised that Dick failed to recognize one of his own Winners Circle tactics. That was something else Jerry had learned about psychologists. While busy dissecting other people’s problems, they rarely looked in the mirror.

  “Do you know what it’s like being Willie Nelson?” the namesake Willie asked, his tone bordering on rage.

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s a living hell.”

  Jerry cringed. Here comes the big confession. He’d witnessed this one hundred times at the Circle meetings. The idea of hearing another wet-eyed trip down memory lane repulsed him. But this one had a rifle, so he guessed he was going to have to listen to every word. “Go ahead.”

  “People laugh at you,” Willie said.

  “I suppose.”

  “They hum songs behind your back.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Even the real Willie’s miserable. The IRS hounds him every waking minute.”

  Jerry didn’t refute it. True, both Willies were miserable.

  He let the poor soul talk himself out, turning a deaf ear to the conversation. Jerry didn’t give a damn what happened next. It was all over. Pack it up. Go home. Nothing left to see here. He expected to find Willie in room 201B at the Trenton JCC next Tuesday night. Willie would be huddled over a styrofoam coffee cup, telling stories, bitching and moaning with the rest of them.

  A big screen TV droned on the electronics wall. It showed a cheery Hispanic woman, with a tad too much makeup, plucking balls from a lottery machine. Jerry checked his wristwatch. It was time for Super Pick Millions, the highlight of his day.

  Four balls already sat on the chute. He recognized the numbers—a scramble of Chelsea’s birthday and his own. He watched his birth month number roll down the chute.

  “Nine,” the woman announced, all teeth.

  His adrenaline kicked up a notch. Only Chelsea’s birth month remained. It sucked up the tube and rolled into view.

  “Eleven,” the lottery diva said.

  He’d hit the Super Pick Millions numbers again and started to chuckle. “Good deal.” His heels did a little dance on the carpet. He didn’t even know how much money he’d won, much less if he’d have to share it with another winner.

  When he spun around, he noticed the others in the room. They were watching him, each man aghast at his overt display. They peered at him as if he were crushing baby seal skulls with his boots.

  Willie clutched his rifle like a spear, still tethering the trigger. “You won?”

  “That’s what the numbers say.” Jerry stopped smirking, nonchalantly tossing his shoulders. Of all the stupid things. I won another time.

  “Again?” Willie’s voice cracked, not unlike the real Willie Nelson.

  “Looks that way.”

  Willie charged, a crazed look in his eye. Dick stuck out his leg and tripped Willie but not before the confused millionaire squeezed the trigger by accident. The gun set off as he fell, shooting Jerry through the thigh. Jerry had even heard the shot a split second before the bullet struck. He twitched ever so slightly to the left, unable to dodge bullets as well as rattlesnakes.

  Time collapsed. Jerry fell to the floor. The curse of the lottery lay upon him. It burned like a snakebite, and he laughed out loud a demonic mixture of pain and irony. This freaked out the others in the room even more than the shot.

  Dick’s hands shook. Tom started to cry, bunching tissues into a nostril to stem his own blood flow. Willie Nelson threw up on the oriental carpet. Only now was Tucker turning away from the elaborate controls of Willie’s expensive stereo, trying to understand what had transpired.

  In the back seat of the Lincoln, Jerry bled through the makeshift bandages. Crimson blood and rattlesnake venom purged from his veins, spilling onto the genuine leather seats. It was a catharsis of sorts.

  “I’m sorry.” Willie gripped Jerry’s shoulder, apologizing like a Christian after Mardi Gras. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”

  Jerry listened to Willie ramble about his sad life. Please God, don’t let this be the last thing I hear.

  “I don’t know what to do without her.” Willie looked weepy.

  “Without who?” Jerry asked. He felt dizzy.

  “My wife,” Willie said, finally reaching his point. “She left me three months ago.”

  That wasn’t in the files. Jerry grabbed his saturated bandages along with Dick, but his hands were growing weak. He submerged into the twilight of consciousness.

  “Get a move on it, Tom,” Dick yelled.

  The Navigator’s engine roared like Jerry’s Porsche in high gear. His life felt too dumb to be his own, but it was his. It was the life he’d let happen to him, a life by attrition.

  “We were married seven years,” Willie continued. “I’ve known her since high school. That’s forever.”

  Jerry studied Willie’s face, taking a good look at the man who shot him. He understood what made Willie so angry. He didn’t blame the poor slob for anything after that.

  “And you know what his name is?” Willie Nelson sobbed like a lost toddler.

  “No.” Jerry didn’t care. He wanted to stop hemorrhaging. Suddenly he wanted to live a long time. The mundane aspects of life—breathing, hurting, laughing, crying, itemizing tax deductions—made sense as he encroached the point of release. Alright, maybe not itemizing tax deductions.

  “Her boyfriend’s name is Tony Bennett,” Willie said.
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  “The real Tony Bennett?” Jerry asked.

  It was a good thing they’d left the rifles back at the mansion. Willie looked ready to shoot Jerry on purpose this time.

  CHAPTER 18

  Florence Frightingale

  Jerry received two blood transfusions in a forgettable south Jersey hospital. A nurse with sallow fingers swabbed his gunshot wound with sterile gauze, while a yawning surgeon phoned ahead to the operating floor. Jerry felt trapped in a nightmare. His life acquired the graininess of late night television.

  “You’re saying Mr. Nelson didn’t intend to fire his weapon at you?” A rural police detective stood beside the emergency room gurney, flipping through the pages of his spiral notebook. He poked his large forehead with the eraser tip of a pencil. His day probably amounted to stolen bicycles and vandalized mailboxes, and he fought to make sense of the shooting.

  “He didn’t want to hurt anyone.” Jerry examined the jagged vivisection of his leg, keeping his eyes away from the cop. He knew that much about lying. “He was showing us his rifle.”

  “A loaded rifle?”

  “I know, not very safe.”

  The detective scribbled in his notebook. “Then it was an accident.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Jerry glanced up at the disbelieving cop. Yup, that’s my story.

  “You’re certain.”

  Jerry refused to turn over on Willie. He understood the effects of a wife who left after you gained the means to offer her anything in the world. A bullet in the thigh and a pint or two of blood was nothing in comparison. “I’m certain.”

  At home, Jerry limped about the farmhouse on crutches. He visited a physical therapist three times per week. Tom drove him around, brought in food, and removed the trash. Jerry considered hiring him fulltime. The sweet baker wasn’t all that different than Cortez, who endlessly roamed and guarded the property. With the proper maintenance, Tom would be loyal to the end. Tom could be Jerry’s version of Tucker, except wielding a rolling pin instead of a gun.

  The phone rang, and Tom barged into the living room with the cordless. “It’s for you.”