Stagger Bay

by Pearce Hansen

  This man and I had all the time in the world to size each other up as he approached. His oncoming face should’ve been blandly politic. He was supposed to project the ‘hail fellow well met’ aura that was second nature to all con-men. And I’d’ve expected him, like any carnival barker, to switch gears instantly to hurt innocence if I didn’t embrace the false friendship he wanted to ensnare me with.

  It was startling to see how much he needed me to approve of him.

  “Welcome Markus,” he said, handing me a glass of champagne.

  “Markus, this is Jim Scallion,” Mr. Tubbs said, and Jim and I shook hands. “He’s one of our star developers right now. He’s doing some really good things for Stagger Bay, like the new James Scallion Opera House, and a lot of the improvements I know you’ve been noticing around Old Town.”

  Tubbs grinned at Jim. “So how’s the boardwalk project going?”

  “Pretty well,” Jim allowed, swirling his champagne in its glass. “We pour the foundations for the pilings next week.” He looked at me. “We’re trying to bring in more tourist dollars. Our analysts project that an esplanade walkway along the old waterfront would be a real draw. Quaint.”

  “You see, son?” Tubbs asked, brows raised. “It’s not just about taking. We give back too.”

  Tubbs pinned Jim with his gaze. “Tell Markus what we was talking about,” he said.

  Jim’s eyes brightened, and his shy smile widened. “Well, we were also thinking about building a rec center for the children of Stagger Bay, maybe even a public swimming pool.”

  That didn’t sound so bad. But how would the Driver react to such a concentration of vulnerable children on supermarket display? And would the kids from the Gardens be welcome there?

  “We were also thinking you’d be the perfect person to run it,” Jim continued.

  “You wouldn’t have to survive off a glorified babysitter’s salary,” Tubbs hastened to add. “After we televise the real parade, we’ll have even more outside money to play with. It’ll put us on the map. More development, more investors, a good thing for everybody.”

  “Real parade?” I asked with a scowl. People looked over at us, as I’d raised my voice. “What do you mean, real?” I asked more quietly, setting down my glass.

  Tubbs reached over and squeezed Jim’s shoulder. “I know you’ll be making time for Markus soon enough, but I need him all to myself for right now,” Tubbs said with a shooing gesture.

  Jim obeyed, returning to his table with an air of relief.

  Tubbs focused his attention on me. “All right, so the dry run was a fiasco. You put egg on my face there, but I can forgive you. All those paparazzi sneaking up on you, all those flashbulbs going off in your face unexpected like – its only natural you’d get upset.

  “But I need you to go through with the main event Markus. It’ll be a classic ticker tape parade, as good as Stagger Bay can give you. We’re going to have live network coverage, TV bigwigs are going to host it, and some heavyweights from Sacramento and Washington are planning to show up, hand you some awards and medals, and use it for a photo op for themselves as well. This is very important for everyone involved. Important for you, Markus.

  “When you join up with us, I admit we’ll pimp your celebrity to buy a little more credibility, have you front for us doing meet-and-greets with potential investors. You’ll pump some hands and pretend to laugh at some pretty corny jokes – but you’ll also be well taken care of, I promise. You’ll be part of the payday, son – part of the family. You’ll be on the inside for once, and I think you’ve come to realize just how big a stick we swing around here.”

  I considered his words as I watched the flickering sidelong glances of the murmuring people keeping their distance. I’d rolled in here wanting to hate and despise these people. Maybe I’d expected them to be clutching cigars in their trotters and oinking together in glee like the hogs in Animal Farm, I couldn’t tell you.

  But now that I was face to face with them? Just like with the cops at the deposition, I couldn’t deny our common humanity.

  Maybe these club members were on the other side of the tracks from where I’d spent my entire life. Maybe they were disconnected from the lives and concerns of the middle class blue collars dependent on them for a paycheck. Maybe they looked the other way whenever they saw anyone living on the rock bottom of the American underbelly.

  But they were as worried about their income as anyone on their payroll. These club folk had as much to lose as anyone in the Gardens, and further to fall if the current development failed.

  If they weren’t in with the Driver, they weren’t automatically my enemies. But just how many of these club folk knew about the Driver, and thought he was good for business?

  I turned to study Tubbs. Jim and the others were afraid of this hillbilly kingpin. Just why did these people kowtow so hard to him?

  Tubbs grimaced at my assessing expression. “You keep looking at me like you’re judging,” he said, coming close to breaking his stated rule against complaint.

  He kept his voice low, and his eyes tracked all the others in the room as he spoke. “Grow up, Markus. You think I don’t know they’re buying Stagger Bay from under us? You saying we should just give up without getting our end? The newcomers are gonna own it all anyways. We just need to make sure we’re not out in the cold when it’s over. You either rule here or you serve; there’s no middle ground in Stagger Bay anymore. It’s time to make your choice which one you’ll do, son.”

  I looked around the club house, keying in on the signs of dissolution that hadn’t been apparent when we first walked in: a halo of flies buzzed in the void just below the high vaulted ceiling. Beneath the splendor of that Persian rug, the hardwood floors were cracked and sun-faded despite their wax and polish. A background sense of gimcrackery and decay wafted from beneath this club’s expensive, tempting veneer.

  “You’re being selfish here, Markus,” Tubbs accused quietly, mistaking my meditative expression for the default stubbornness I’d gotten him accustomed to since our first meeting.

  “There’s others you might want to be thinking of besides your own stiff-necked self.” He looked away from me out the window, jerking his chin toward Sam’s Lincoln across the street. I followed Tubbs’s gaze to see Sam staring right at me, white-faced.

  But Sam couldn’t really see me in here, could he? No, I thought, stepping back away from the window – the sun had to be reflecting off the pane to conceal me; I had to be invisible to my son.

  “Think about it, Markus,” Tubbs said, sounding like he was pleading. “You could buy Sam’s way out of his current sorry financial position. You could put your child through college, help him kick start a business, help him buy a house when he starts his own family.”

  Oh God, that one hit me right where I lived, I’ll tell you. Tubbs might as well have punched me in the solar plexus.

  Right now me and Sam were two drowning men; but I could let my son step up on my shoulders and thrust me down into the watery depths so he could have his chance at gulping air in the sunlight for a little while longer. Sam could maybe even get a leg up into the boat of prosperity, where he’d be sitting pretty as he and his fellow passengers watched the rest of us tread water around them.

  So what if me sinking to the bottom was the price for my son’s salvation? Who cares Sam didn’t like me?

  But after he turned his back on his friends and me, my son would live alone with whatever pile of money he managed to scrabble together after I gave him his jump start. He’d have no people to care whether he lived or died.

  “I want to sincerely thank you for putting things in perspective Mr. Tubbs,” I said.

  He continued to radiate some kind of pseudo-familial fondness at me, as if he wished me and mine no harm at all. If he hadn’t aimed my gaze out the window at Sam, he just might have had me.

  But this club was built on sand, built of sand. The Club could no more protect these people from meaninglessness than the t
ool boxes on the pickup trucks driven by Stagger Bay’s construction workers could manufacture salvation. These people were as deeply trapped in this world as anyone else, and there was no escape for any of us.

  This club was a gang just like any other gang I’d ever seen, either as a young blood or inside. And just like any other gang I’d ever encountered, once I got in the car with them I wouldn’t belong to myself anymore. I’d belong to them.

  This wasn’t where Angela would have wanted me to wear that fancy suit anyway – and Sam would despise me all the way if I ever called this place my own while the Driver was still at large.

  “We’ll be talking again later,” I said.

  “You are a stubborn stiff-necked fool,” Tubbs said, realizing he’d muffed the sale even if he didn’t know exactly how. “You’ll never really step through this door all the way with me.”

  I’d been about to leave but the paternal disappointment oozing from his voice irked me no end. So this withered son of a whore wanted to use Sam to work me? He wanted to keep playing like some sort of surrogate daddy to me?

  “I suppose you’ve talked to whoever switched Kendra and Reese’s tours, right?” I asked, keeping my own voice as low as Tubbs was keeping his.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, cocking his head.

  “Answering a question with a question – go on playing dumb why don’t you? Kendra wasn’t on her normal patrol when she died, I’m sure you know that at least. In case you didn’t know though, about the guys who killed your daughter? A little birdie told me the guns and grenades they murdered Kendra with came from the SBPD evidence locker – the drugs they were high on too. They made a grand old party out of your daughter’s homicide, huh? And it all came from you and yours.”

  For the first time that poker face cracked – he went pale. He tried and failed to be impassive, cranking down on his facial muscles hard enough his features twitched.

  Still, I leaned in closer, spoke even softer and quieter so he’d have to listen hard and focus exclusively on my words over the hum of the Club. “Kendra was set up. It was a hit. And you know who murdered her.”

  Tubbs trembled as both Meshbacks robotically approached, awaiting their master’s command.

  “You will tell me who told you that. Now,” Tubbs gasped, his voice harsh and low.

  He still didn’t want anyone else in the club to know we were having a border dispute over here; he had something to lose if they figured out I wasn’t as deep in his pocket as he had maybe been implying I was.

  I kept anything even resembling a smile off my face, not wanting to push him any further than I already was – I wasn’t stupid enough to think I knew his limits. “Like I said, a little birdie. Tweety tweet, Mr. Tubbs.”

  I turned on my heel and strolled down the hall, out the door, and across the street toward Sam’s Lincoln, my back crawling the whole way. I had no real faith that having all his business buddies around as eye witnesses would slow Tubbs down.

  Sam had started the Continental, but the passenger door was locked and the window was up. I rapped on the closed glass with my knuckle but he just gave me the stink eye.

  “What?” he mouthed.

  “Open sesame, kid,” I said. Sam unlocked my door and I climbed in. Across the street Tubbs’ Bronco roared out the Club parking lot like it was in a hurry.

  Sam wiped his face with the back of his hand. “You know we got nothing to offer to match what they’re putting on the table, and I know you’re looking out for number one like always. So what’s changed? How is now any different from an hour ago?”

  I grinned at him. “Quit fishing. All you need to know is I want to go back to the Gardens.”

  Chapter 42

  Sam started to pull away from the curb.

  “Wait,” I said, looking over at the library, where Chief Jansen had busted the under-age hooker a few minutes before. “Let’s go to the library really quick, I need to check on something.”

  Sam drove over there, managing to take up two spaces when he parked at an uncaring angle.

  “Wanna come in with me?” I asked, but he only laughed.

  I left him and entered the cool quiet hush of my church. When I’d been inhaling the prison library whole I’d just about memorized the Dewey Decimal System. Now I wended my way through the rows and shelves, running my fingertips along the exposed book spines as I searched for those familiar catalog numbers.

  Here was 818.3, and I nodded patriotic respect to the Transcendentalists as I passed: Thoreau with his bleak ironies – his attack disguised so well by the beauty of his words that his victim was unaware of the damage before it was too late. And Emerson, the King – his unapologetic world view was such a lonely one, I was surprised more of Ralph’s readers didn’t try to hack their wrists up with a dull butter knife. A little ways down at 811.3 Whitman held court, aloof as always: Walt, with his suicidal compassion dripping crimson from his poems like a squeezed triage room sponge.

  From there a straight leap back to the ancients and my buddies the Stoics: 187 and Lucretius, with his flat gaze and incisive mind, attacking the world as if it were an enemy deliberately trying to pull the wool over his eyes. 188, and my almost-namesake, Marcus Aurelius – reading his Meditations was like chewing on tin foil sometimes; but Marcus freely gave all the tools necessary for courage and honor in a universe so obviously not constructed with our benefit in mind.

  What should I do now, Lucretius? I asked silently. How would you go about things here, Marcus? But of course all I got from my boys was static.

  Which of my mentors did I want to hold in my hand? What book would be worth the effort of carting it away from here?

  I smiled as I realized who it had to be. I walked to 844, grabbed a copy of Montaigne’s Essays and headed to the checkout counter. “I don’t have a card,” I admitted to the librarian, a pretty young brunette.

  “Do you have proof of residency?” she asked.

  “Sara,” an older librarian called from behind her.

  “Excuse me,” Sara said, going back to join her coworker. The two huddled together whispering, both of them turning to look at me occasionally. I was getting ready to leave when they both marched up to me and Sara took her seat again.

  “We know who you are, Markus,” the older librarian told me, while Sara pressed all the necessary keys on her computer. I nodded, blinking a little.

  I was happy as a kid at Christmas when I left the library with Montaigne, no longer fully alone. Sam just smirked when he saw the book in my hands, and we commenced to driving.

  Chapter 43

  “Just so you know,” Sam said, “the family’s name is the Vangs; the girl’s name was Mai. The mom you saw crying? She told me once she had seven other children back in Laos that didn’t even make it here to the Land of the Big PX – she still has two left, even with Mai gone. Maybe the Vangs ain’t gonna make you guest of honor at their next Moon Festival, but they know who killed Mai. And they know damn well it wasn’t you.”

  “Thanks Sam,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “Just ‘thanks,’ and let’s leave it at that.” I glanced at the floor but our Kodachrome was gone. I looked around at Sam’s belongings scattered around the car and almost asked him why he didn’t stop pretending he wasn’t with Elaine; why he didn’t just move in with her.

  No, I thought, studying his stony profile as he chauffeured me home to the Gardens. Sam’s love life was none of my affair.

  Chapter 44

  That afternoon Big Moe drove me to Mai’s funeral in a Ford Taurus that had seen better days, but was clean and looked well maintained. The Taurus had an infant’s car seat in the back but Moe apparently decided to leave his baby at home.

  It was quite the juxtaposition, this young slanger driving such a conservative, respectable family car. My confusion must have shown; Moe said, in an almost apologetic tone, “It has a very good safety rating.”

  The funeral was a dismal affair, as such rituals always
are. Her family stood around that cold, cold hole while some kind of priest dressed in colorful robes mouthed words in a language I couldn’t understand. Mai’s tiny casket was lowered into the ground and that was that.

  One of the male Vangs looked my way; I was standing with Moe several graves over, as distant as I could manage and still pay my respects by attending. This Hmong guy just stared at me; I couldn’t interpret the expression on his face but I didn’t take it for friendliness.

  “I was out of line, what I said before,” Moe said, both of us watching the funeral instead of looking at each other. “You’re still needed – can’t let you get away that easy. It was like an act of God, not your fault.”

  He spat on the ground. “Just like an act of God,” he said again.

  I turned to see Officer Reese standing by his car a ways behind us with a bottle of Wild Turkey in one hand and a soda can in the other. His black-and-white was a brand new Crown Victoria. Given Stagger Bay’s money problems, it had to have been bought with drug seizure money.

  Big Moe was right by my side as I walked toward Reese, but I shook my head at him. “Go wait in the car.”

  Moe didn’t like it, but he peeled off.

  “Tell me Kendra didn’t know about any of this, Reese,” I said by way of greeting, lobbing the name right up in his face to get it over with. “Tell me she had no part in it.”

  But Reese was already intent as a targeting attack dog: “What you was saying to Mr. Tubbs before, about those douche bags that killed Kendra? Where’d you get that? Who told you?”

  “That’s between me, Mr. Tubbs, and my source.”

  “Source,” he snarled. “You’re full of it, just trying to stir things up.”

  “You may be right. You’d be the one to know whether you and Kendra got your shifts switched. You’d even know who was the one made it happen.”

  Reese shuddered but it was no more than a momentary spasm, nothing to hang my hat on. He hadn’t shaved since the last time I’d seen him. His uniform was wrinkled and soiled like he’d worn it overnight on a stakeout.