Gone ’Til November

by Wallace Stroby

  Mikey shook his head. “There ain’t no DEA, no FBI involved in this. If there was, I’d have heard. This is a bunch of redneck Confederate-flag-flying small-town motherfuckers. Whether it was one motherfucker or two, or the whole goddamn town, fact remains. Somebody stole my money.”

  “Hard to believe you sent that boy down there on his own like that.”

  “Best way to do it. Down there, two niggas in a car get pulled over for sure. Cash was in a panel under the trunk. All he had to do was leave the car where we told him, then rent another, drive back. Didn’t have to deal with them any more than that.”

  “So it went bad. Nothing you can do about it. Walk away.”

  “Can’t take that kind of loss. Not now. Too much shit going on. I need that money or I need that powder so I can sell it and make that money back. Now I ain’t getting any product out of those Haitians, because that money never got to them, and they not gonna believe me when I tell them what happened. Or care, even if they did. So I need that money.”

  Morgan got up. The Vicodin was kicking in, easing the tension in his stomach, taking the edge off the pain. He went to the window, bent the blinds, looked out. It was raining lightly, the parking lot shiny with it. The Suburban hadn’t moved.

  “If the cops do have that money,” he said, “they’re using it to build a case. No way you’re going to get it back. And if someone stole it, they stole it. Either way, it’s gone.”

  “If some nigga broke into my house and stole three hundred fifty K of my money, you think I’d let it go? Say, ‘what the fuck, it’s gone, forget about it’? Just because that shit happened in Florida doesn’t mean it’s any less fucked up. If I start letting people steal from me, I might as well pack this shit up right now. Or let some motherfucker put a bullet in my head, get it over with.”

  “I still say walk away.”

  “I can’t, dawg. I need that money. I need you to go get it for me.”

  Morgan looked at him, then at C-Love.

  “This shit can’t stand,” Mikey said. “I need that money. That’s my money and I’m going to get it back, whatever I need to do. I don’t have no choice.”

  “I do,” Morgan said.

  “You do. But you ain’t even asked me the terms yet.”

  “Terms?”

  “Three hundred and fifty K,” Mikey said. “No way whoever took it could have spent it yet. All the shit in the news down there, they’d be laying low. So somebody dug a hole and buried it till things calm down. You find it, keep a third. You find the whole three fifty, you keep an even hundred twenty. That fair?”

  A hundred and twenty thousand, Morgan thought. Combined with what was in the safe deposit, it might be enough for the treatment, maybe enough to get him started in another town. More money than he’d ever had at one time before. Might ever have again.

  “Well?” Mikey said.

  “I don’t know anything about the South. D.C.’s the farthest I’ve ever been.”

  “You don’t need to know shit about the South. Like I said, that’s a backwater cracker town, man. They still burning crosses and fucking their sisters. I’ve already got someone looking into things down there.”

  “Who?”

  “Derek’s shorty. She went down there to bring the body back. She ain’t too happy with the way things played out, but there it is. He took the chances. She don’t want shit to do with me, but she’s looking into things, seeing who’s who, what they say happened, all that shit. Maybe she gets us some names, too.”

  “And then?”

  “You go down there, straighten that shit out, get my money, and bring it back here. Take your cut. Then we clear.”

  “You make it sound easy.”

  “It ain’t nothing you haven’t seen before, dealt with. It’s the same thieving bullshit, man. That’s all it is.”

  Morgan scratched his elbow, looked at C-Love.

  “You’re the only one I can trust with this,” Mikey said. “If you get down there and it don’t work out, then it don’t work out. I’ll pay you for your time.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty K.”

  “I’ll need to think on this.”

  “All right. But one other thing. If you do find the motherfucker that got my money?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to put him in the ground. Cop, sheriff, judge, mayor, whatever. I don’t give a fuck. Put him in the ground.”

  The machinery clicked, hummed, and Morgan slid into darkness. The plastic table was cold through the thin hospital gown. Wraparound safety glasses blocked his view, but he could sense the walls of the tunnel closing in around him. A steady hum grew louder, then faded. The table buzzed, slid him farther into the tunnel, stopped. Then the hum again, rising and falling like something in a science fiction movie.

  He tried to slow his breathing, fight the gathering fear. He counted his breaths as the table juddered, moved, and the hum rose again. Four more times and then the last hum faded and the table slid back out of the tunnel. He was slick with sweat.

  “Take your time getting up,” a voice said. “You might be a little dizzy.”

  He blinked as the glasses were drawn away. A black woman in flowered hospital scrubs stood beside the table.

  “All done,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  He sat up. The room was dim, light coming through a window in the far wall. He could see two technicians behind the glass, neither of them looking at him.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You can get dressed now.”

  He went into the small anteroom, the tiles cold under his bare feet, pulled on his clothes. Soft music was being piped in, some white girl singing about rain on her wedding day.

  When he was dressed, he went out to the main desk, stood at the counter. The woman in flowered scrubs was typing on a computer.

  “You’re all set, Mr. Morgan,” she said. “Dr. Kinzler will get the results this afternoon.”

  “How do I pay?”

  “We’ll bill you,” she said. She peered at the screen. “Are you still at this same address?” She gave the name of the hotel.

  “I may be moving,” he said.

  “I’m sure we’ll catch up to you,” she said without looking up. “We always do.”

  Outside the hospital, he used his cell to call a cab. He hadn’t wanted to drive the Monte Carlo around Newark in daylight. Around him, a half-dozen people, some in scrubs with no coats, smoked cigarettes, shuffled in the cold. None of them seemed to notice him.

  It was nine o’clock, and he was watching cable news with the sound low, stretched out on the motel bed, the Beretta beside him. On the nightstand, his cell began to buzz. He reached for it.

  “Mr. Morgan? Dr. Kinzler.”

  Morgan sat up, used the remote to mute the TV.

  “Sorry to call so late, but the MRI results got back quicker than I expected. I’m tied up here in the office anyway, so I thought I’d give you a call.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I know Dr. Rosman probably explained to you how goblet cell manifests itself. It’s a slow grower. If we diagnose early and get all the tumors out, we have a pretty high curability rate.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “That pain you’re having in the abdomen. The MRI shows a series of tumors in your small intestine. They’re confined to that area, though, from what we can see. That’s good.”

  On the TV, a woman anchor mouthed words, stock market prices crawling along the bottom of the screen.

  “Mr. Morgan, are you there?”

  “How many?”

  “What?”

  “Tumors.”

  “Maybe seven in all, from what I can see. They’re small. I wouldn’t say any are more than one centimeter in diameter, though we won’t know for sure until we get them under a microscope. At that size, there’s a good chance they haven’t metastasized yet.”

  He laid a hand on his stomach, thought about what was there, beneat
h the skin, beneath the muscle. His body betraying him.

  “What do we do?” he said.

  “We go in there as soon as we can. Take them out, have a closer look. If we get them all and there’s no immediate recurrence, you’ll be in good shape. However, there’s always the chance of undetected microscopic cells remaining, though they might not show up for a number of years. We’ll keep you on a steady program of surveillance, testing.”

  “Then what?”

  “If they occur again, we’ll go to the chemo. But Mr. Morgan, all this is speculation until we get in there and have a look. Have you been having issues with diarrhea or difficulty breathing? A flushing of the skin maybe?”

  “No.”

  “If you do, let me know. We need to move on this as soon as possible. Until I can examine the tumors, we can’t decide the best route to go with treatment. I can’t overestimate how important time is here.”

  Morgan heard a warning tone. The phone was nearly out of minutes.

  “I need to leave town for a little while,” he said. “Do some business. Couple, maybe three weeks.”

  “Can you postpone it?”

  Morgan took a breath. “No.”

  “Then that puts us into mid-November, and, as I said, we don’t want to hesitate too long here. There are other things that need to be handled as well. Pre-op testing, paperwork—”

  “I know. Do what you need to get it started.”

  “Have you looked into any of the things I mentioned, as far as insurance is concerned?”

  “No.”

  “You should. This could turn into a long and costly process.”

  Another tone, only a few seconds left.

  “Set it up,” Morgan said. “When I get back I’ll call you, and we’ll do this thing. I’ll have the money.”

  “Call my office as soon as you get back, Mr. Morgan. And I mean that day.”

  “I will,” Morgan said, and then there was a final tone and the phone was silent.

  NINE

  Sara was in the kitchen, drying the last of the dishes from dinner, when her cell trilled on the counter. She looked at the display. Billy’s number.

  It was a little after eleven, Danny asleep, JoBeth home. After leaving Tiger’s, Sara had driven aimlessly, until the crying stopped, not wanting JoBeth to see her like that. She felt tired, drained.

  The phone trilled again. She wiped her hands on a dish towel, picked it up. Thought about pushing the SILENCE button, setting it back down, ignoring it.

  She hit SEND.

  “Hey, Sara. I’m glad I got you.”

  She leaned back against the counter, closed her eyes.

  “Sara? Are you there?”

  “I’m here. What is it?”

  “I’m really sorry about that. I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything.”

  “It’s Lee-Anne. Sometimes she’s just . . . I don’t know.”

  Something flared inside her. When she’d seen them in the truck, she’d felt only shame. Now came anger.

  “Billy, I don’t want to have this conversation.”

  “I embarrassed you, and I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have let that happen.”

  “It’s none of my business.”

  “I’m trying to apologize, Sara. Can you let me do that? Just this once?”

  There was something in his tone, almost a pleading, and she felt herself soften. She shifted the phone to her other hand.

  “I don’t know what to say, Billy. I don’t know what you want me to say either.”

  Silence on the line.

  “Billy?”

  “I used to be able to make you laugh,” he said. “I loved that sound.”

  “Billy, please—”

  “I’m sorry it all ended up like this.”

  She felt the sadness then, moving like slow fatigue through her body. You are not going to cry. Not now.

  “I’m sorry too,” she said.

  “I’m getting you upset again. I didn’t mean to.”

  “Billy, I’ve got too much going on in my life right now to deal with this. To deal with you. We make our choices, and we live with them. I’m living with mine. Why can’t you do the same?”

  “I’m trying,” he said. Something seemed to break in his voice. “I’m trying my best, Sara.”

  “It’s late. I have to go.”

  “I’m sorry for everything,” he said.

  “Good night, Billy,” she said, but he was already gone.

  At 2:00 A.M., she was still awake. She looked at the red numbers on the nightstand clock, pushed the covers aside. The central air was on, but it was still warm. She lay in the darkness, thought about Billy, remembered his hands on her.

  You ended it. It was your choice. And it was the right one.

  For months after she’d found out about Angie, she’d kept her distance from him. He’d made promises, pleaded with her, cried on the phone, but her humiliation had been too fresh, the hurt too deep. She’d see him at the SO or Tiger’s, but always with others around. Later on, when her anger had come to seem pointless, irrelevant, there had been long nights when she’d wished he would call. He never had. Then Lee-Anne had come along.

  She rolled onto her side, pulled the other pillow closer. It was cool against her skin. You have to get up in four hours. You need to sleep.

  She closed her eyes, trying to will herself to sleep, knowing it was no use. Realized then she was damp. Her hand crept down to the waistband of her sweatpants, tugged at the drawstring. Her nipples were already hard, pushing against the thin T-shirt.

  When the sweatpants were loose, she slid her hand in, found her wetness. She imagined Billy standing in the darkness, a silhouette against the window, then turning to her, coming closer. She could almost feel him there in the dark, smell his skin, hear the creak of the bed as he lay down, reached for her.

  Then she heard Lee-Anne’s laugh. Saw her face through the truck window, remembered the way she’d felt then.

  She took her hand away, feeling foolish and alone.

  She lay there for a while, the moment gone. Then she got out of bed, tightened the drawstring, went to the window, looked through the blinds. The Blazer sat alone in the driveway vapor light. Dew glistened on its hood. In the distance she could hear a freight train.

  Four hours.

  She got down on the floor, did slow push-ups, breathing in and out with each one. Her arms tightened, ached, but she kept her rhythm, not speeding up or slowing down. Watching the carpet rise toward her, then pushing it away.

  When she reached twenty-five, she stopped, her arms locked straight, sweat on her forehead. She held that for a moment, then slumped onto her back, sucking in air. After a few seconds, she rolled to her feet, lightheaded, her breathing deep and steady. She crawled back into bed, pulled the pillow toward her, held it tight. Almost at once, she felt herself drifting. She went with it, let sleep take her.

  Sara pulled the cruiser into the lot of the Starlite, saw the woman through the coffee shop window. She sat alone, most of the tables around her empty.

  Eleven in the morning and the temperature already in the eighties. Sara shut the engine off, wondered what she was doing, why she’d driven out here.

  When she went into the coffee shop, Shirley Osteen greeted her from behind the register.

  “Hi, Sara. Anywhere you like.”

  Simone James was in a booth halfway down, her back to the door. Sara started toward her, aware of the noise she was making, the creak of leather, the static-y hum of the radio.

  The woman didn’t turn. She had a cup of tea in front of her, a plate with the remains of breakfast. Beside it was a folded copy of the Sunbeam, the county’s weekly paper, and a cell phone.

  “Miss James?”

  The woman looked up at her. She was younger up close, her skin the color of lightly creamed coffee. Her hair was straight, pulled back with a green jade barrette that matched her eyes. She wore a sleeveless blue blouse,
and on her right shoulder was a dark tattoo of two Greek letters. Sara didn’t know what they meant.

  “May I sit?”

  The woman watched her for a moment, then nodded. Sara slid into the booth across from her.

  Under the blouse, Simone James wore a diamond-studded heart on a thin gold chain. It was simple, yet beautiful. Sara didn’t envy it, knew it would look out of place on her even if she could afford it, but on this woman it looked like it belonged, had always been there, always would.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Sara said.

  The woman met her eyes. Sara felt awkward, her confidence slipping.

  “Miss James—” she began.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I was passing by, saw you. My name is Deputy—”

  “I know who you are.”

  Sara sat back. “Good,” she said. “Then you know—”

  “I know all about you. You and the man that killed Derek. I know you were there.”

  “I wasn’t,” Sara said. “Not when it happened.” Then regretted it, the words feeling like a betrayal.

  The woman slid the paper across to her.

  “This just came out,” she said. “You read that story in there?”

  Sara shook her head. She had the paper delivered, but more often than not it went into the recycling unread.

  “It says Derek was a ‘suspected drug dealer.’ Why would they say that?”

  “Miss James—”

  “Because he was black?”

  “There were weapons in the car.”

  “But no drugs. So what makes him a suspected drug dealer?”

  “Newspapers print what they want.”

  “No. Town like this, newspapers print what you police tell them. Am I right?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Sara thought about getting up, leaving, but that would be a concession, a sign of weakness.

  Simone James took a leather wallet from the seat alongside her, unsnapped it. She slipped a snapshot from a plastic sleeve, set it on the table between them. Derek Willis wearing a yellow T-shirt and an easy smile, holding a toddler against his chest, the child twisting to look at the camera. Trees in the background, people in shorts and T-shirts. Some sort of picnic.