Trouble No Man

by Brian Hart

  She puts the truck in gear and drives cautiously through the sweltering city. The dust thins as they get closer to the river.

  “Squatters have all of this,” she says, nodding at the high-rises, broken windows, scorched brick, and cracked marble. Clotheslines have been strung between some of the buildings. “It’s like twenty square blocks, all the way to the river. The codies play like they’re being humanitarians letting them stay but they can’t move them. Nobody can. It’s too many people. Where would they go?”

  They drive in silence until they arrive at the floating bridge. The man puts on his new shoes, laces them up, a dead man’s shoes.

  At the roadblock the vet shows her papers and they pass through without issue. She takes her place in the queue behind a battered, propane-converted, rooftop-solar minivan brimming with children, their arms and legs too lolling out the windows.

  “How’d you know to pick me up?” the man asks. “Those codies text you?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “They must’ve used my number to look up my name.”

  The man turns to see if she’s messing with him and she’s not.

  “Unlike you,” she says, “I’m a friend of the police. Always have been.” She pulls forward onto the bridge and he can feel the ground shift. The wipers thump and screech the spray away. In front of them all the arms and legs have returned to the inside of the minivan. The man hangs his old shoes out the window and tosses them into the river. The cool air from the water settles into the cab as the wind swells mount. The dog begins to whine and the man reaches back and tries to calm him but he doesn’t stop until they reach the other side.

  On the vet’s porch, the dog leaves his side and paces and sniffs around the bicycle and trailer parked beside the garage. The staples shimmer on the shaved pale skin of his hip.

  “Do you need to take those out before we leave?”

  “I thought you’d stay awhile, but if you’re ready to go I guess you can do it. Snip in the middle and roll them out like a fish hook. No biggie.”

  “OK,” the man says.

  “I could take you out of the city.”

  “You’ve done enough.”

  “I wouldn’t take I-80 if I were you.”

  “I’m not. I’m doing like you said, going out the back way through Sierra City.”

  “I have some food and antibiotics for the dog,” the vet says. “It’s not much.”

  “I wish I could repay you,” the man says. “STT stole your money, said it was fake.”

  The vet laughs a little. “Maybe it was.”

  “I’m sorry about all this,” he says.

  “A man with debts who’s sorry. What a novelty.” She smiles a closed-lip smile and in some part of his brain he wants to kiss her. Perhaps sensing this, she steps away from him. “I’ll miss you,” she says. “I’ll miss the dog more but I’ll miss you, too.”

  He doesn’t want to leave her here alone with the strays. “I’ll tell the girls you send love,” he says.

  She nods and goes back inside. When she returns, she has a plastic bag dangling from either hand. The man is sitting on the ground rubbing the tender V under the dog’s jaw.

  “It’s just bread, some salami, a couple of tomatoes, basil,” the vet says. “Kibble and pills. Not much. Follow the instructions.” She points at the bag nearest the man. “I put some balsamic and olive oil in a pill bottle in there, so make sure it doesn’t spill.”

  “Thanks.” The man takes his time getting to his feet, like a dog would do, stretching on the way, and gives her a hug and a peck on the cheek. He can smell woodsmoke in her hair, along with a hint of lilac. Her work shirt smells of flea dip.

  “Be safe out there,” she says, patting his chest and pushing him away. “Take care of that dog. He’s smarter than you, you can trust that. OK?”

  “OK.”

  She holds the bike upright while he stows the food in a pannier. “I still remember the first time I met you.”

  “Be better to forget. Wasn’t much to like back then. Even less than now.” He buckles the pannier and meets her gaze.

  “Things change.” She smiles. “Some things, believe it or not, change for the better.”

  He mounts up and pushes off and thinks he hears her say something but when he turns she’s watching him from the porch with her hand over her mouth.

  [13]

  R<25

  CA 96118

  The door was unlocked. Karen went in first, Roy and Aaron behind her. They dropped their bags in the mudroom and made their way through the cardboard box clutter into the kitchen. There was a rifle with a scope on the table along with a brass cleaning rod and a small orange bottle that said Hoppe’s on it.

  “Hello,” Karen said. “Mace, we’re here.”

  Roy could hear him thumping up the basement steps and the door flew open and pressed Aaron against the wall. Mace had shaved his head and his mustache was gone and he looked mutated without it. He was dressed in black jeans and a dingy white undershirt, no shoes. Mace picked Karen up and swung her around.

  “What’s this?” Mace said, when he spotted Aaron. He set Karen down and stepped back. “Officer Simmonds, ex-Officer Simmonds. What’re you doing here?”

  “He gave us a ride,” Karen said. “Saved our bacon.” She winked at Aaron.

  “Hey, Mace,” Aaron said. They shook hands. “Going for deer?”

  “You bet.” Mace picked up the rifle and slung it on his shoulder and gathered the rest of the gear from the table into a small duffel bag. “Let me get this out of the way so you can sit down.” They watched him disappear back into the basement.

  Karen opened the fridge but there was only protein drinks and gas station chicken, a few bottles of hot sauce.

  “No beer,” she said. “Sorry, Aaron.”

  “It’s fine. No worries.”

  When Mace came back he turned to Roy. “Better come in for a hug, homeboy. My favorite little inkblot. How you been?”

  Roy let Mace hug him and smiled at Karen. “Our van died,” Roy said to Mace. “Lucky that Aaron came along or we’d still be hoofing it. Since you don’t have a phone.”

  Mace held Roy at arm’s reach and gave him a scary look. “That sure was nice of ex-Officer Simmonds.” To Karen: “I don’t have anything to drink, or eat for that matter. I was about to head out. You guys never said when exactly you’d be showing up.” He glanced out the window. “Jesus, my truck’s still running. I forgot. I’m probably about out of gas by now.” He charged through the mudroom like he’d been shoved and banged outside in his bare feet and Roy watched from the window as he reached in and turned off his truck. When he came back they all looked at his feet.

  “I’ve been trying to go barefoot more,” he said to Karen. “Grounding, remember? You told me about it? It’s supposed to be good for the orientation of your cells and shit.” He grinned his snaggle-tooth smile. “Not that I want to be oriented in a cell anytime soon.”

  Aaron headed for the door.

  “Thanks for the ride,” Roy said.

  “You’re not leaving, are you?” Karen said.

  “No,” Aaron said. “I got some emergency whiskey in my truck. We can still have a drink. That OK with you, Mace?”

  “Sure, man. Whatever you say,” Mace said. Aaron went out looking a little hurt. “He got canned for drinking,” Mace said.

  “I thought he wrecked his car or something,” Karen said.

  “At eight a.m.,” Mace said. “Still drunk from the night before. Killed his partner, his drinking buddy. They paid him to dry out. Taxes paid him. You’d think he woulda quit. Seven chances later. They only gave me three.” He smiled again, eyes bright and joyful, other people’s trouble.

  “You’ve had more than three,” Karen said. “And you know it.”

  Roy followed Karen into the living room. There was new furniture since her mom’s funeral, like from a furniture store, not from Goodwill. “What’s with all this?” Karen said.

  “Nice, huh?” Ma
ce said.

  “Compared to the old stuff, yeah,” Karen said.

  “I sold all that crap to Benji Lanigan.” Mace turned away from Karen, walked by Roy, and returned to the kitchen. They followed him. “Actually,” Mace said. He had the fridge open and was shoving cans of Ensure into a paper sack. “I traded it. Benji took the furniture and I took that .308 you saw on the table.” He rolled the top of the bag down and put it on the counter by the door.

  Karen busied herself getting the ice and glasses, and when Aaron came back with a bottle, she took it from him and poured. Aaron took his drink and wandered into the hall looking at the pictures of Karen’s mom, Whip and her grandparents, Karen and Whip, Mace and Karen’s mom, Linda, everyone together, a series of long-dead dogs, pretty much long-dead everyone.

  “Ding ding,” Karen said. “Enough with the museum tour.”

  “Sorry,” Aaron said.

  Mace set his drink down on the counter. He had a mean look on his face as he stepped by Aaron and went to the back of the house, toward his bedroom.

  Aaron came and stood next to Roy on the torn linoleum, rattling and chewing the stale ice in his glass. “I don’t think he likes me,” Aaron said quietly. Roy shrugged his shoulders because he was most likely right. Karen had turned up the thermostat and the tablecloth fluttered in the warm draft of the furnace vent.

  Karen sat down at the table. “He doesn’t know what he likes,” she said. “Have a seat.”

  “He lives here now?” Aaron asked, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

  “Yeah, more or less,” Karen said. “He bops around a lot, doing who knows what. Benji Lanigan? Do you know who that is?”

  Aaron shook his head. “No idea.”

  Roy pulled out a chair but didn’t want to sit at the table so he shoved it over to the counter and hopped up and rested his feet on it instead.

  “Bopping around,” Aaron said. “When he’s not in county psych or getting stabbed in Susanville.” Aaron kept his eyes on Karen as he took a long drink from his glass.

  Karen didn’t react to the news of the stabbing. “If you were a cop,” she said calmly, “then you probably know some things about Mace. He knows some things about you too.” She glanced at Roy. “I’m not going to apologize for him.”

  Aaron held out his left arm as if he were testing the fit of his jacket. “There probably isn’t a cop or an ER within fifty miles that doesn’t know Mace,” Aaron said.

  “He got stabbed?” Roy asked.

  “That’s what I heard,” Aaron said. “Gas station parking lot, several people involved. I don’t think they ever caught anybody for it, though. Is he your stepdad? I never figured out how you two were related.”

  Karen was looking at the pale crescent in her thumbnail as she did when she was getting angry. “We’re not related,” she said. “He and my mom were high school sweethearts.” She looked at Aaron for a long few moments. Sizing him up, Roy thought, deeming him worthy of precious information. “He came back, after my dad left. I was probably six or seven years old. My sister got sick.”

  “Half sister,” Aaron said. The furnace kicked off and it was suddenly quiet in the house.

  “Not how I’d put it,” Karen countered, not lowering her voice at all. “Six of one, know what I mean?”

  “Sorry,” Aaron said in a whisper. “So that was his daughter? Whip was his daughter? What was her real name?”

  “Sandy,” Karen said. “Her name was Sandy.”

  Go ahead, Roy wanted to say, ask her another one. Ask her how Whip got her nickname. Ask her if it was cancer that killed her. Ask her what kind. Hope you have some sodium pentathol, headgear, and a mouthpiece because it’s gonna get rough.

  “New furniture,” Roy said, repaying Karen’s earlier rescue. “I guess we were wrong about Mace going feral.” To Aaron, “We thought he’d be in here with lawn chairs and a barbecue, cooking meth or whatever.”

  Karen smiled at Roy. “Where did he go anyway?” she said. She called his name and he came into the kitchen dressed in a too-small peacoat, black Levi’s, army-surplus desert boots, no hat.

  “I gotta go take care of some shit,” he said, picking up his drink and downing it. “I’ll be back, not tonight, a couple days. I’ll try and hurry. I feel like shit for zipping out the door like this.”

  “It’s OK,” Karen said. “We’ll be here. Like Roy said, our car broke down. We couldn’t leave if we wanted to.”

  “I can take you to pick up your van after Moody’s done with it,” Aaron said. “Give me a call.” He reached into his pocket for his phone but couldn’t find it. “It’s in the truck. You want my number?”

  “Sure,” Roy said, taking out his phone. He acted like he was typing it in but he didn’t.

  “You leave me enough room to get by?” Mace asked Aaron.

  “Yeah, I’m about to go anyway,” Aaron said.

  “I wasn’t telling you to leave, buddy,” Mace said. To Karen: “I’ll see you two in a couple days.” He snatched the paper sack from the counter and went out the door. Roy watched from the window as Mace not-so-carefully backed around Aaron’s big truck and whipped around in a reverse slam as soon as the road widened a little. When he turned around he saw that Karen had been watching him watch Mace.

  Aaron tilted his glass to Karen. “You probably never knew this,” he said. “But my dad owned a dry-cleaning business and a coin-op laundry in Reno, the one on McCarran with the angel on the sign holding the pants. He inherited it from his dad.”

  “I remember that place,” Karen said.

  “He’d stay in Reno during the week. He had an apartment above the shop but he’d come home on weekends.” Aaron looked down at his feet. “He died a couple years ago now. The store was turned into a Subway six or seven years before that, long time ago.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Karen said.

  Aaron waved off the apology. “He put thirty years into that shop. For what? Cancer of the goddamn nose and throat? A shitty wake at Conkey’s? It’s depressing to even think about what that man put up with.” He grinned. “I used to think he had another family down there and at his funeral I half expected to meet them.”

  “Anyone show up?”

  “No, I knew everybody. No surprises.” He refilled his glass, then Roy’s and Karen’s, raised his glass: “To homecomings.” They drank. Aaron looked at Karen first, then Roy. “I was a good cop,” he said. “You can ask anyone. I fucked up. I know I fucked up, but until then—it was everything.” He nodded for a moment or two, then shook off his sentimentality and blinked his eyes clear. “Mace is pissed at me because I busted him once with an unregistered handgun. He did six months for it.”

  “That’s a good reason not to like you,” Karen said.

  “Maybe,” Aaron said. “But he’s not supposed to have guns at all. He’s a felon. Deer hunting? Season closed over a month ago. He can’t get a hunting license any more than he can vote.” His eyes were unfocused and Roy doubted if he’d been anything but a bully when he was a cop, if he’d ever been anything but a bully his whole life. Roy was born to hate cops. “I testified that the gun was unloaded in plain view,” Aaron said, “or he’d still be locked up. He should thank me.” The muscles in his neck thickened as he took another drink.

  “And now you’re a motorcycle man,” Karen said. “Chopper man.” Roy sneered involuntarily but Aaron didn’t catch him.

  “Yeah,” Aaron said. “Some people don’t make it where they want in this life.” Phony and prophetic, Roy thought, as if they were ever separated.

  “I don’t know,” Aaron went on. “I love motorcycles but it’s not wearing a badge. Not even close.” A long pause. “But you’ve done some shit, huh? You guys are still riding riot. Living life. Traveling.”

  “More like limping toward happy hour,” Karen said.

  “You’ve always been funny. I remember you in class cracking me up.”

  She winked at Roy. “Hear that? I’ve always been funny.”

 
Roy smiled broadly with his proud love of her, but his guts were twisting.

  Aaron wiped his mouth and looked at Karen then back at Roy, establishing a pattern that Roy considered to be a bit sexist but couldn’t decide if it would be better or worse if he did the opposite.

  “Did you ever go to college?” Aaron asked Karen. “I thought you’d be off to Columbia or Yale by now.”

  “No,” Karen said. “I mean I went for a little while, a state school, not Columbia or Yale by a long shot, but then I met Roy and things changed.”

  “First the nanny job, now college?” Roy said.

  She gave him a look that told him this was not the question to ask right now. Because she did blame him.

  “You should go back,” Aaron said. “You could do anything. Be a lawyer or a doctor.”

  “Maybe,” Karen said, suddenly sheepish.

  Roy thought, Drink your drink and mind your own fucking business, pig boy. Ex–pig boy. But it was true that Karen had given up big things for Roy—life goals, guiding lights snuffed out. He worked up a list of things he’d given up for her. It was a short list—strange and recreational cocaine use, not to mention the semi-professional, buying and selling, life-crushing cocaine use that used to pop up now and again.

  “My two cents,” Aaron said. “Go back. Get a degree. Change your life and in the long run, if you have kids, you’ll change their lives too. The whole arc of the arrow changes if you get an education. I know that now. I learned it from my wife.”

  Sad Aaron, Roy thought. Sad-my-life-didn’t-work-out Aaron. These complaining, discontented motherfuckers get younger every year.

  Aaron offered his hand to Roy, said: “Anyway. Cool running into you guys.”

  Roy shook his hand and smiled back at him nodding, like: Yeah, bro, yeah. Now fuck off.

  “I’ll admit it,” Karen said. “When I first saw you I thought, this guy? The football hero? The jock? Anybody but him.”

  “I’m old now. Glory days and shit. I hate how Springsteen songs now make sense.” He crossed the kitchen in two steps, wrapped Karen in his big arms and squeezed.

  Roy’s hands had begun to sweat and his drink was empty. He couldn’t think of a Springsteen song except that piece-of-shit pink Cadillac one.