AHMM, January-February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  * * * *

  Some insipid classical organ piece plays on an over-adorned boom box perched on a folding chair. Margaret would have hated the music, thinks Harold. She'd have wanted “S'Wonderful,” but the police had taken her iPod as evidence at the crime scene in Reynolds's garage. As if that was evidence of anything. As if there was any evidence other than that which they'd planted. That young copper with the dirty tie is clever, though, thinks Arthur, the way he avoids eye contact except for ogling that new Russian nurse. She's a looker, that one. The older cop is wiser, more subdued, more at ease. He stares at his shoes most of the time, raising his eyes periodically to look over their heads. Arthur can smell the cigar smoke on his clothes from across the room.

  * * * *

  "There,” said Harold, pointing at the bent sign that said Locust Tree Lane.

  "And there,” said Arthur, as he saw the familiar house across the intersection, 2837. “Bingo."

  "What's that?” shouted Margaret from the back.

  "Bingo,” said Harold.

  "Bingo?” said Margaret. “What's Bingo? What the hell does Bingo have to do with...?"

  "We found it,” said Arthur. “Hang on tight.” He pulled over to the narrow graveled shoulder just past the driveway, stopped, and glanced at his watch.

  "Of course we found it. I told you where it was,” said Margaret. It was two o'clock and Reynolds was due home at four thirty from his bridge game. Like every Thursday.

  "Guide me in, will you, Bob?” Harold stepped cautiously down from the cab in his bright orange coveralls with BOB embroidered in script on a patch over the right breast. Arthur's suit said DAVE. Both coveralls had large embroidered discs on the back that screamed AAAABSOLUTELY BEST PEST CONTROL. Maybe it was the loud uniforms that scared the insects and animals away. Why would anyone hire these people and their truck to announce to the whole neighborhood that they had problems with vermin?

  * * * *

  It hadn't been difficult to find Reynolds. Sixty years later, Margaret, like any good secretary, still remembered his full name and his wife's name, their anniversaries and their kid's names, and everyone's birthdays. The insurance company was still in business, run by a new generation of salespeople and managers, but there's always someone in charge of the glorious past, and when Margaret couldn't bring herself to call, Arthur had posed as Reynolds's long-lost brother-in-law and found his address through the pension fund. No one was suspicious. Old people aren't frightening to the young, or threatening, or even interesting, so why would one old guy searching for another old guy raise any eyebrows? It didn't.

  Reynolds and his wife had moved to the ranch-style bungalow when he retired. The kids were spread out across the country. When his wife Moira died, he stayed there by himself. He was set in his ways, grocery shopping at the same time every week, watering his immaculate lawn from seven to nine each night, right through the water restrictions. He had no pets. His children seldom visited. He did not travel. He seemed content at home, fixing things and keeping things neat. He played contract bridge and drank tea in the city on Thursdays from one thirty to four thirty. It took him forty-five minutes to drive home. He always backed into his garage.

  * * * *

  Harold/Bob waved his forearms straight back toward his shoulders as if he had a red-capped flashlight in each hand like he used on the tarmac at Richard H. Grinnell International. Arthur/Dave watched the oversized rearview side mirrors as he backed up to the garage door. He could hear Margaret fidgeting with something, swearing at some problem in the back of the van. Harold/Bob crossed his forearms in an X to signal a stop, leaving enough room for the rear panel doors to open and the lift to fold down. Arthur looked up and down the street as he put the transmission in park. Empty. Maybe nobody lived here. Maybe that's why there were no street names or sidewalks or house numbers. It looked like a derelict film set for “Leave It to Beaver."

  The music ends. No one else is showing up. Most are probably upset that the damned funeral interferes with the card games, thinks Harold. The two policemen look toward the door, and Arthur leans toward his seatmate.

  "Hell with ‘em, Hal,” says Arthur, under his breath. “Don't look at ‘em. Don't give ‘em the time of day. Ignore ‘em.” They can suspect all they want. They can even jail one old man with terminal cancer or another whose series of coronaries will continue until the last one kills him. “Hell with ‘em, Hal. Don't let ‘em get to you. That's what they want."

  * * * *

  Reynolds's house was a single story, with a double garage linked to the main house by a long breezeway, a screened-in passage with a sitting area open to the front and back yards. The breezeway made the place look longer and larger than it was. The driveway had been recently topped with fresh black tar, including the small river rocks that lined it. The wooden frames and quarter-round moldings on the breezeway screens wore a fresh glossy coat of forest green enamel, with a minimum of spill on the fiberglass screening. The place was cared for by someone with little else to do.

  Harold pulled on a pair of bright yellow rubber gloves, opened the door on the passenger side of the van, and began removing rolls of large hoses with red plastic connectors on the ends. Arthur opened the rear doors and pulled down the electric lift platform.

  Margaret had managed to turn her scooter to face the rear, so that when Arthur opened the doors wide she faced out, glasses askew, rasping, oxygen mask hanging loosely around her neck with its plastic tubing inextricably snarled with the headphone wires. She was pulling at the cables, swearing, trying to untangle them. From his low angle, Arthur saw her thick laced hiking boots and where her thick stockings ended in uneven rolls around blue-white calves. Margaret blinked several times, relieved to see light again. She smelled like sweat and chemicals and human gas. Like mornings in prison. Arthur knew that feeling. He knew all about jail. He'd just pushed it from his mind, written it off as unjustified loss—until The Old Hat Gang came together, until Lizzie Parsons hadn't shown up for Euchre.

  * * * *

  There was a random rhythm of arriving ambulances at Riverside, screeching into the circular drive quickly and noisily with intent, then leaving laconically, in no rush at all, attendants chatting about increasing union dues or children. A partner who ruined your lone hand with the wrong lead one day wasn't around the next. Like in prison, thought Arthur, it stopped you from making too many close friends. The morning Lizzie Parsons didn't show up, he and Harold and Margaret had started talking about their lives instead of playing three handed. That was how all this started.

  After they dismissed their regrets for others, they talked about their own. The conversation became serious, confessional, a surprise to all of them. Arthur dealt cards for the order—spades were trump, Jack tells all first; left Bower goes second. Margaret had to nag Harold to talk about his invention and the thieving airport manager who had built a wealthy and happy life around the proceeds. At least it looked happy with that flashy car and flashy wife in the papers. Lived up in the Bundle, had a cottage worth more'n any house Harold ever owned.

  Arthur admitted to spending the best years of his life in prison charged with fraud, until new evidence proved him to be the innocent he'd insisted he was for so many years. In jail he'd become inured to order, comfortable with regulation, so he'd rejected independence for Riverside, where he festered with resentment for the time he served instead of the crooked phony who'd since built a life in politics.

  It was Harold who came up with “The Old Hat Gang.” He was always saying the same words and phrases over and over: “good old days,” “dang kids,” “copasetic,” “right-o,” “bird in the hand.” He used “Old Hat” as a compliment to the days when life was easier and less self-conscious, when justice was simple and revenge rewarded.

  * * * *

  What are the damn cops doing here anyway? Arthur sits facing the billiards table altar with his legs straight out and arms folded across his belly. The evidence to convict Reynolds is obvious, he thinks. T
he police have already jailed him for killing Margaret. Two cops in a cruiser found her dead right in his garage workshop, tipped off by a 911 call from a pay phone. Reynolds denied knowing her until they found the series of her pleading letters under the socks in his dresser drawer. The letters were Harold's idea, tangible evidence of a treachery that had ruined young Margaret Owens's life. The police found strands of Reynolds's hair on her scarf and skirt, traces of his saliva on the pillow he'd used to smother her—a pillow identical to the one on his bed. When the forensic laboratory compared the evidence with hair from his brush and saliva from a cigarette in his car ashtray, the man was doomed to a hell worse than the one to which he'd condemned Margaret. That's the point, isn't it? That's what The Old Hat Gang is all about.

  * * * *

  Arthur heard Harold whistling as he hooked up the hoses to each other. None of them knew what they were for, but they'd rehearsed every move of the entry and what Harold called “doing business.” Looking busy and professional was an important part of the plan, he said. People only noticed the unexpected. It was why white vans and uniforms and old people were invisible, why people ignored them, didn't even notice them. Margaret gave up on her tangled wires, maneuvered her scooter out onto the platform, and Arthur pressed the hydraulic down button.

  "How-dee there,” said the mailman. Harold jumped a foot off the ground, dropped the hoses, and clamped his hand to his heart.

  "Sorry,” said the mailman.

  "Oh no,” said Harold, blowing gusts of air out his mouth like a swimmer waiting for the starting gun. What a lousy time this would be for him to die. “No problem.” Puff. “Gee whiz.” Puff, puff. “Scared me all to heck is all. I was in a world of my own, just trying to, uh...” He gestured toward the hoses and connectors.

  "I could see that,” said the mailman. “Didn't mean to give you no fright.” At the rear of the van, Arthur pressed the stop button on the lift and put his finger over his lips, signaling Margaret to be quiet. He was dripping with nervous sweat on his brow and inside his coveralls. He punched UP, and Margaret rose a few inches to the height of the van floor. Arthur opened the passenger-side rear panel door square to the van so the mailman couldn't see around the corner, then looked out and nodded hello.

  "Hi there,” said the mailman. “Nice day?” Arthur nodded tersely.

  "Nice enough.” He pretended to be terribly busy dealing with something in the back of the van.

  "Fire ants, Bob?” said the mailman.

  "Sorry?” said Harold.

  "Old Reynolds got fire ants?” said the mailman. “People ‘round here always complainin’ ‘bout fire ants."

  "Oh yeah. Fire ants. Lot of ‘em,” said Harold. He began undoing the hoses he'd attached, staring at the color-coded connectors, blowing on them, rubbing them on his coveralls as if they were plugged or faulty. Doing business. “Hordes of ‘em. Dangerous things, fire ants."

  "Well I dunno about dangerous,” said the mailman, “but they sure can sting a bit if you step on ‘em barefoot."

  "That's for dang sure,” said Harold. “Barefoot's real bad."

  "You ready yet, Bob?” said Arthur, grimacing. Margaret had released some sour gas. He couldn't blame her. She must be on edge. It wasn't a big deal like when you were a kid and everybody giggled when you farted in class. Christ, everyone he knew had gas now, or peed themselves a little, or couldn't pull their socks up without help, or couldn't eat some things because it made them belch or fart more than other stuff did. It was just part of getting old, not the nicest part, but part of it just the same. It wasn't brain damage or anything. Slow bodies didn't make for slow minds, that's for sure. The Old Hat Gang knew that, but being old was part of their cover.

  "Well, I'll be on my way,” said the mailman. He looked at the letters in his hand and shuffled through them, hesitating to leave a rare audience in this ghost town. “Another pension check,” he said. “Reynolds does all right by them.” He looked at another and shook his head. “Darn book clubs. Once you join ‘em they hold on, don't they? Pay their postage, though. Can't fault ‘em there. Make you spend another stamp just to tell ‘em you don't want a book. Good for the mail business, book clubs. Not like e-mail.” He walked up the front path to the mailbox and put the letters in. Arthur stepped between the van door and the garage, blocking any possible view of Margaret. It wouldn't be easy to explain what a flatulent elderly women on a bright red scooter, wearing an oxygen mask and an iPod, was doing in the back of a pest control van. He got the giggles. The mailman waved and continued across the grass to the next house, talking to himself. Harold waved back and started reattaching the hoses, frowning at the rear of the van where Arthur stifled his laughs. Still smiling, Arthur lowered Margaret to ground level. This was the most critical part, getting Margaret into position. The mailman hadn't been part of the plan. Had they missed anything else? How was the time?

  * * * *

  Around the card table by the garden window, set apart from the other players, Margaret told them how Reynolds had treated her initially like a pet rather than a secretary. She hadn't minded that so much, she said. He wasn't bad looking, and she prided herself on her sense of humor. Then he'd started holding onto her hand a bit longer than necessary, touching her, giving her neck massages when she was trying to type his letters, pushing his fingers down her front a bit farther than was proper, even undoing a button once. He would watch her every move, then wink at her when she noticed. Begging collusion. One night he insisted she stay behind for extra work. That night he raped her, and the next day he fired her. She lost her young man over it. He thought she was dirty when she told him. She thought she was dirty. She lost all respect for herself and for life. It seemed a curse that she was still alive sixty years later, puffed with compounded hate, ready for revenge.

  * * * *

  Maybe the reason breezeways weren't so popular anymore, thought Harold, was that anyone could break into them. The spring roller opened with a twang and slapped closed with a satisfying thwack, a sound that made him think fleetingly about his childhood summers, about his father telling him not to give the chickens names, not to offer them that respect, not to personalize tomorrow's supper. He brushed the thought aside. He had more and more mental flash cards about his childhood lately. More like still pictures than miniature movies. He tried to retain them, to examine one to see if it was black and white or in color, to see what the people looked like, but they wouldn't stay with him long enough. The breezeway floor was covered in green indoor-outdoor carpeting, and the aluminum chaise and folding chair had been re-webbed in orange and white plastic strips. This Reynolds guy sure took care of things, Harold thought. Was that too much respect? Was that giving the chicken a name? No matter. His neatness couldn't make up for what the dang fella done to Margaret.

  Inside the breezeway, he turned right and opened the side door of the garage with the copy of the key Arthur had made by the nice young lady who ran the Wednesday afternoon craft classes. When she'd asked Arthur what it opened, he'd said it was the key to his heart and she'd laughed. A week later she brought it and its twin back and refused any money. The original, wiped clean of fingerprints, was back under the smooth rock in the planter by the breezeway door.

  This was a real retired man's garage. Harold envied Reynolds this garage. The near half was actually used for his car. There was a yellow tennis ball hanging from a string to show him where to stop when he backed in. He always backed in. The far half was a workshop. Both shared a spotless, gray-painted concrete floor. Lawn tools hung on proper hooks all around the parking half, and on the far side, electric woodworking tools on gray-painted plywood cabinets with casters were squared away on black rectangular outlines painted on the floor. Against the far wall was an immaculate workbench with suspended pegboard panels covered with black-ink silhouettes of tools, with the correct tool inside every silhouette. A place for everything.

  * * * *

  Arthur's question had been the obvious one to the Old Hat Gang: “W
hat are we going to do about it?” The simplicity of the question stunned them, including Arthur. It was as if none of them had asked themselves that question before, or if they had, their answer had been “nothing"; there was nothing anyone could do. No one else would listen. No one else would hear. They would be relegated to some B-list of losers, of whiners who bored others with their wounded stories of what could have been. But with the three of them talking, planning together, anything seemed possible. The awful power held by those who had hurt them, the dismissive force that had seemed unassailable, became porous when attacked by the group.

  They had good minds, if not good bodies. They had time, limited only by inevitable death. They had intent, if only to right wrongs before they died. They had each other and the odd combination of respectability, invisibility, and determination that came with old age. They could wear that cloak of others’ indifference like a shield from suspicion. They had the perfect prescription for vengeance—a passionate desire to right wrongs with a carelessness for consequence. When Margaret's emphysema took a severe turn, they found the commitment to act.

  * * * *

  Harold pressed a button and the well-lubricated garage door rose silently, eerily, he thought, letting in the dull afternoon light and Margaret, who gunned her scooter and entered immediately. She looked determined. This was it for her. Arthur stayed outside by the van, not meeting Harold's eyes, raising the lift and folding it back inside the van, closing the rear doors, disconnecting hoses, and stuffing them back inside the side entrance. Doing business. Harold closed the garage door and helped Margaret back in between the table saw and the workbench. She smelled stale but that was probably nerves. Or maybe it was his smell, thought Harold. He was feeling anxious too, not about what he had to do, just about doing it well. Margaret had been waiting her lifetime for this. Maybe the smell was determination.

  * * * *

  It was Margaret who had changed the rules from those of simple revenge. It was Margaret who said “killin's too damn good for ‘im.” It was Margaret who offered herself as sacrifice. “Let him live with regret too."