by Peter Giglio
Advance Praise for Stealing Night
“With razor-sharp characterization and hard-as-nails prose, Peter Giglio’s Stealing Night is a literary punch in the gut—brutal, stunning, and not to be missed.”
—Tim Waggoner,
author of Like Death and The Harmony Society
“Sunfall is one hell of a place. And Peter Giglio is one hell of a writer. I am impressed, not only with Giglio’s fine prose and appropriate poetic moments, but also by the tension he builds throughout the story. Gripping, endearing and suspenseful, Stealing Night is a wonderful book.”
—Benjamin Kane Ethridge,
Bram Stoker Award-winning author of
Black & Orange and Bottled Abyss
“An agonizingly deep look into loss and rebuilding, bad decisions and their immutable consequences, Peter Giglio’s Stealing Night is an indispensable piece of painfully human crime fiction. It will tear your heart out and you’ll thank him for it.”
—Ed Kurtz,
author of A Wind of Knives and Dead Trash
“Stealing Night masterfully weaves themes of humanity and sacrifice into a story of love, life, and redemption. Peter Giglio’s compelling thriller will keep you captivated until the very end!”
—Rena Mason,
author of The Evolutionist
“This is the kind of story relevant to today's America; its pulse beats strong, the blood inside derived from its heirs, but unmistakably young, fresh, and vital. Giglio leads a new pack of modern noir voices, and this is not a story I'll forget.”
—John Palisano,
author of Nerves and Bipolar Express
“Mr. Giglio’s ear for dialogue might very well have been scalped cleanly off Elmore Leonard’s head. Someone should check. Yes, the players here are that good! Stealing Night is smart, effectively rural in its sensibilities, and most certainly a winner!”
—Jon Michael Kelley,
author of Seraphim
“Layered, haunting and elegantly written, Peter Giglio’s rural crime thriller Stealing Night rushes at you like a pair of headlights on a dark and lonely road, leaving you shaken and awed by the story’s raw power of love & redemption.”
—Jan Kozlowski,
author of Die, You Bastard! Die!
P e t e r G i g l i o
STEALING
NIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Stealing Night
Copyright © 2013 by Peter Giglio
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Ebook Edition
April 2013
Nightscape Press, LLP
www.nightscapepress.com
Edited by Robert S. Wilson
Cover art by Gary McCluskey
Printed in the United States of America and the United Kingdom
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is dedicated to
Rick Hautala—
an inspiration in my formative years and a good friend later.
Heaven better have great cigars.
In a murderous time
the heart breaks and breaks
and lives by breaking.
It is necessary to go through
dark and deeper dark
and not to turn.
—Stanley Kunitz,
The Testing Tree
I’m taking a ride
with my best friend.
I hope he never lets me down again.
—Depeche Mode,
Never Let Me Down
Prologue
On a cold Saturday morning in late March, I woke up.
With Nora’s head nuzzling my chest and the day’s first light bleeding through the bent and broken blinds of my tumbledown living room, I studied the rise and fall of her breathing.
There she was, my eleven-year-old niece.
No one ever needed me before, and guardianship sure as hell was never a thing I went in search of. That doesn’t change the way things work. Charges, whether we seek them or not, have a way of finding us in those dimly lit, cold moments of our lives.
My nameless cat caught my attention with a loud yelp, pulling me away from the cadence of Nora’s fragile existence. In her paws was a half-eaten rat. In her eyes, satisfaction, as if she were saying, Caught another one, Daddy. Aren’t you proud of me?
Pride, however, was not my thing. The gateway drug, as I saw it, to everything I never wanted to be.
A group of large wild cats is called a pride. Those fuckers’ll rip your head off.
Put a bunch of housecats in the same space and the worst thing you’re likely to get is a mess. That aside, I’d always admired feline independence. Let’s face it, they don’t need us. Never have. What they need is something to fuel their predacious energies and curiosities, and I was the perfect cat owner, living in a two hundred dollar a month shithole with rodents aplenty.
Now Nora needed me, and I was starting to understand big cats.
March was when her mother, my sister, really started going off the rails. Lily had been broken for a long time, but not to the degree that caring for her child wasn’t priority number one. Things, as things have a way of doing, had changed, and that morning was the dawn of my niece’s first sleep over at “Uncle Jack’s.” The morning I discovered a deep love for another human being; the morning I started seeking higher ground.
Like I said, I woke up.
I hadn’t slept a wink the night before.
Tuesday
Chapter One
A panting mutt slogs next to me and stops. It looks miserable in this heat—looks the way I feel—but I keep scrubbing the rims of a 2004 Acura, trying to ignore the animal, who’s just standing in front of Bud Sweeny’s Auto World, looking at me.
“Move on,” I growl. And the dog, it moves on. Was a time when I might have felt sorry for the thing, given it a scrap of food, maybe even taken it in.
Maybe not. This one looks sick.
My cat came down with a light sneeze last month. She died.
On my knees, I’m done with disease.
Back to work.
Getting the grime off these cars isn’t easy. First of all, Bud’s fleet is made up of revitalized relics beyond their intended expiration. The wind makes everything worse. Anyone who thinks of wind as a blessing on a hot day—a nice cool breeze, perhaps—lives in lands with large bodies of water and mountains. Someplace nice. Insult added to injury, our nosebleed winters make summers all the more ironic. This land is manic.
The flatland wind, she’s fierce today, hot and gritty, as unforgiving to flesh as metal. Next door, the Dairy Queen sign rattles. Across the street, First Confederated Bank’s yellow banner, proclaiming Lowest Interest Rates Ever, flaps violently and looks like it might sail Ozward any moment.
“Somewhere, over the rainbow…”
I open the valve of the hose and spray the wheels. Even the water’s hot, and the occasional backsplash does nothing to relieve the sickness deep in my head and heart and gut.
I said I’m done with disease, not that it’s done with me.
“Hey Jack,” Bud bellows, drawing my attention away from matters at hand.
I shut off the hose. “Afternoon, Bud.”
“Do you have a minute to talk?” he asks.
You’d think Bud might invite me into his air-conditioned office for such discourse, but that’s not his way. He wipes his br
ow with a handkerchief, even though he’s been outside for less than a minute. A stuffed pig in a cheap suit, and when he’s done talking, he’ll amble back into his Freon cocoon and forget all about me.
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, son,” he says.
“I’m just trying to wash these—”
“C’mon, Jack, don’t play dumb. Stuart Mills just phoned. Told me all about your pitch.”
So this is what’s on Bud’s mind. Was only a matter of time, I guess. Was hoping we could have this conversation when I’d gained a stronger hand, but here I go. I take a deep breath, then say, “What’s wrong with trying to drum up some business for the lot, Bud? Just trying to prove that I—”
“Stuart wasn’t so happy.”
“Told me he was in the market for a car. His daughter, Emily, just turned sixteen and—”
“Folks ’round here like to talk, Jack. They got nothing better to do. But Stuart’s been out of work for two months. Didn’t appreciate the hard sell, the guilt approach.”
I’d laid it on too thick and had known it even in the moment. What could I do? It was the closest I’d come to success, and I couldn’t just give in, back down. Stuart promised he wouldn’t say anything to Bud, but I should have fucking known better. Bud’s right; people around here, they do like to talk.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t have any experience, any training. Maybe you could teach me—”
“Here’s the thing, kid, I’m less than a year from retirement. Time has been kind to me, more or less.” Bud pats his gut and forces a lopsided smile. “Now…” He shakes his head, looks around with more than a trace of disgust. “Town’s dried up. I sell two, maybe three cars a month, and that’s…well, that’s enough for me—got a lot of steaks in the freezer, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, but it could be better. I’ll work in the office. You got that empty desk in there. I’ll help you go out on top, blaze of glory shit, like it should be. We can move the rest of your inventory. What do you have to lose?”
Bud laughs. “I’ll move the rest of the fleet in one transaction. Already have a buyer, a clearinghouse in Omaha. Not much of a profit, mind you, but… Look, I understand what you’re trying to do.”
I doubt he really grasps my intentions, but I nod agreement.
“You want to take the lot over when I give her up,” Bud says, “but you have to understand, the car business isn’t what she used to be. And being a used car salesman?” A dry chuckle. “There’s not exactly a lot of glory in the profession. Never was.”
“You don’t understand, Bud. I’m just trying to make enough money to get out of this place. Like I’ve told you before, washing cars two days a week for minimum wage isn’t cutting it.”
Bud shrugs then blows smoke at the sky. “I’d do more for you if I could, but I don’t need a salesman. This has always been a one man operation, and I’ve never, will never, take my pitch door-to-door.” His stare locks into my gaze. “People,” he says, “don’t appreciate the Watchtower approach. Damn Jehovah’s Witnesses ruined the whole knock-and-shake racquet long ago. Truth is, salesmen didn’t do such a hot job with the whole business, either.”
“Bud, I’m hungry. I’ll hustle. I’ll work on commissions. All I need is a phone and—”
“No,” Bud groans, shaking his head. “I’ve been good to you. You come my way a few months back looking for work. I tell you I don’t have anything, but you don’t go away. So what do I do? I set you up with this job washing cars. Not much, but more than I need or can afford.”
“Thanks. I do appreciate that. But what’s wrong with—”
“I don’t mean to be an asshole, Jack. You’re good people. Really. If there was one person in this town I could help, it’d be you, but there’s one way and only one way a guy my age does things, and that’s my way. I’ve worked too hard for too long to let anyone, even a scrapper like you, call the shots. If you don’t want what I’ve given you…?”
What can I say? What can I do? I can’t lose my only income, so I apologize and go back to spraying the Acura.
Bud doesn’t walk away immediately. “Why don’t you go up to Henderson’s Farm,” he shouts over the sound of the high-power spray. “They’re always looking for good men up there. Good pay, too. Long as you don’t mind getting bloody, it’s a fine bit of work.”
Still spraying, I say, “Place is twenty miles west of here. Don’t suppose you could set me up with a car? Weekly payment plan?”
Bud lights another cigarette and shakes his head. “Ten years ago, sure. I can’t shoulder a loan no more—don’t even plan to be doing this long enough to see it through. Don’t guess the banks’d touch you?”
“You kidding?” I say with a joyless snort. “I can’t even get a cell phone plan. Gotta buy prepaid minutes, most of them used shaking the trees for you.” I’m trying to keep anger out of my tone but that’s not working.
“Don’t get bent out of shape with me. I never asked you to do that. Never wanted you to. So don’t run that trip on me you ran on Mills. Doesn’t become you anyhow. Makes a man look…weak.”
I shut off the hose. “Bud, I know. None of this is your fault, okay? I’m just trying to get my family out of this hole.”
Bud nods. “Can’t say I blame you. Town’s gone to shit.”
“Sunfall’s always been shit, and you know it. Maybe you didn’t realize it because you were doing well enough. We’ve got the Millie-Mart, the bank, the DQ, the coffee shop on Cedar, and your lot, and it sounds like we won’t have that much longer.”
“Or the DQ,” Bud says.
Rumors had circulated, so I’m hardly surprised; still, I say, “Really?”
“Yeah, Mark Rollins’s lease is up in October. Told me he’s not renewing.”
“I need four grand,” I say, cutting to the chase. I could care less about Dilly Bars or Mark Rollins. “That’s all I need.”
“How much you have now?”
“Little more than five hundred.”
“Can’t do it for a little less? Make some sacrifices? Cut a few corners? I know a guy who owns some reasonable properties in Lincoln.”
“That’s not the way,” I say. “Nora…she deserves a real home. And we all deserve a little opportunity. Lincoln’s far better than here but not good enough, and it doesn’t seem like a fun place to struggle.”
Genuine sympathy sweeps Bud’s face, a rare expression. “There’s no fun place to struggle,” he mutters, then wipes his forehead again, exhaling smoke with a dry cough. Stamping out the butt with his boot, he says, “Keep washing cars, Jack. Best I can do.”
* * *
I walk back to my apartment, tired but not dead, eating a bargain burger from the DQ as I try to process Bud’s words. He’s a good guy, despite dressing me down earlier, and I know he’ll do the right thing if I make a sale—cut me in on the money; maybe even give me the empty desk. There’s really no other short-term way out of this place. Nothing else of value to sell in this town, no other way to make quick cash, and Bud knows it. For everything he said, he never came right out and told me to stop. Sure, I’m grasping at straws, but I’ll take what I can get.
I’ve seen Bud’s markup while snooping through his books when he’s out to lunch. The margins are big. Twenty percent of five deals, which I know is fair, would get me—get us—out of here fast. Although I hate myself a little for invading a good man’s privacy, I don’t think I’ve gone too far. Not like I took anything that wasn’t mine.
The same sad dog from earlier looks up at me from a prairie-yellow patch of yard. It doesn’t even have the energy to wag its tail or whine. Black dog. A Labrador?
I kneel down in front of the animal as it scrambles painfully to its feet, then lay the rest of my burger on the ground.
The dog’s still eating—slowly, as if this may be its last meal—when I turn and walk away.
Chapter Two
When I get home, Ernie Sullivan’s pounding on my door. He’s my landlord
and not a good guy like Bud. A vile vision, rather, decked out in a ratty Tasmanian Devil tee and cum-stained cargo shorts.
“Stop waking the dead,” I say, “I’m right here.”
His head swivels in my direction as he sneers. “Where’ve you been? You’re two months behind on—”
“Work. Trying to earn what I owe.”
“So you’re telling me you don’t have the money yet? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
I smile and shrug. This guy doesn’t scare me. He’s got four vacant units, and my debt is better than a fifth goose egg. He knows I’m smart enough to realize this—at least that’s what I think—and it’s clearly getting under his flea-ridden flesh. “Times are tough, Ernie. What can I tell you?” For dramatic effect, I turn out my empty pockets, which seems to increase Ernie’s anger. I don’t generally like pissing people off, but the gambit feels right with this guy.
“Times are tough for me, too, Jack. All you people think you can slow-pay me like I’m the fucking government or something. This doesn’t work that way. If you want a roof over your head, you’ve got to pay.” He heaves a consumptive sigh, then adds, “Don’t think I won’t—”
“Please,” I say, trying to look intimidated for his benefit, or is it mine? “I’ve been looking after my niece lately, picking up the slack for her mom. Haven’t I always been on time in the past?”
“The past doesn’t feed me. Besides, that’s when you were on the dole. Now that you’re working, I can’t count on you.”
“Trying to be an honest man. Not the easiest thing for a guy in my situation. Not these days.”
“Hey, pal, I don’t care where your money comes from, I just—”