Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  “That’s not good.”

  “I know. I talked to Crow about it before, but he’s stubborn. Too much got-damn Irish in him. George thinks I should get rid of him.”

  Hillary said, “Well, then, I expect George is right. He has to go.”

  Orlan Johnson sighed. “I suppose. It’s too bad, though. I kind of liked the little guy.”

  Crow sat in the dark living room, savoring the moments of numbness that came and went, punctuating longer bouts of pain. He held a bottle filled with green Chartreuse, a thick, sweet liqueur with a medicinal taste, made by monks from an ancient recipe. It was the only alcohol they had left in the house. He took a large sip, shuddered, wedged the bottle between his legs, picked up a tarot card. He couldn’t see its image in the dark. He tore it in half, then in half again. He tore each quarter into smaller pieces, let them flutter to the carpet with the rest of the tarot confetti. He heard a rustling and a moan from upstairs. Melinda, tossing in bed. How could she sleep?

  Trial separation, she called it.

  What a lousy birthday.

  He swallowed some more Chartreuse. The pale-green liquid hung in his throat, crept toward his stomach. He thought, Is this what it feels like to hit bottom? Is this as bad as it gets?

  The worst thing was that he suspected Melinda was right. Moving from Minneapolis to Big River, searching for the good life, fleeing the temptations of the unclean city—it hadn’t worked. Their four years in a small town had only intensified the negative. Perhaps it was right that they should separate, that they should try to live their lives apart.

  He took another hit off the Chartreuse, held the fluid in his mouth. What a piece of shit you are, he thought, sitting in the dark with a mouth full of fluorescent green monk juke. He stood, made his way toward the kitchen, whacked his shoulder on the doorjamb, spat the Chartreuse into the dish-filled sink. This had to be it. Anybody who tries to get drunk on Chartreuse has got to be sitting at the bottom of the shaft, with no way to go but up.

  The realization produced a moment of euphoria, of freedom. He thought, I don’t have to do this anymore. I don’t have to be a cokehead, a drunk. He took a deep breath, flooded his lungs with more air. It was true. He had a choice. This must be what they call an epiphany, he thought. This must be what it feels like when your life changes, when you shrug off your past, when the future opens up and you are free to live your life.

  He heard a car pull up in front of the house. Red flashing lights filtered through the curtains. Voices. Banging on the door.

  I was wrong, he thought. He hadn’t hit bottom after all.

  He was free, all right, but he was still falling.

  PART TWO

  IV

  Professional men, they have no cares;

  whatever happens, they get theirs.

  —OGDEN NASH

  NICE VIEW,” JOE CROW said.

  David Getter nodded, not looking up from his desk, making notes on a thick, densely typewritten document. His crisp white sleeves were fastened at his wrists with initialed cloisonné cuff links; a complicated-looking burgundy necktie was precisely centered and snug at the base of his throat. His black-and-gold Mont Blanc fountain pen hovered over the page, darting in and out of the text. Holding his mouth in a small, tight oval, Getter clicked his tongue after each hasty scribble.

  Crow turned back to the seven-foot-high window. He could see the frozen Mississippi to the east, the Minnesota River valley to the south and, beyond, bisected by a pillar of steam from the Black Dog power plant, the gray late-November horizon. Looking down past his feet, he identified Marquette Avenue forty-three stories below. Downtown Minneapolis, dotted with piles of snow and crisscrossed with skyways, surrounded the IDS tower. The height made him feel loose in his stomach. He reached out a hand and pressed his palm against the cool glass.

  “Everybody does that.”

  Crow jerked his hand back; a steamy print remained on the window.

  Getter had cleared his polished desk and was leaning back in his chair. His mouth had relaxed. “I can tell how many new visitors I’ve had by counting handprints at the end of the day.” The mouth became a broad, practiced smile. “Sorry to have kept you waiting.” He pointed with his pen toward the document. “I had to take care of that while it was still fresh in my mind. How have you been, Joe?”

  Crow lowered himself into one of the two identical upholstered chairs in front of Getter’s desk. The chair, which looked luxuriously comfortable, felt awkward and lumpy. Crow wasn’t surprised. He crossed his legs, uncrossed them, shifted his weight from one hip to the other.

  “I’ve been fine,” he said. “How have you been, Dave?”

  “Great. We’re great.” With Getter, it was always we. “Mary says to give you her love.”

  Crow nodded. Mary, his sister, sending her love via David Getter. Like using a pit bull to deliver a valentine.

  “You said you had some work for me,” Crow said, wanting to get down to business, be out of there before Getter started with the head games.

  “Just a little job, Joe. Give you a chance to pick up a few dollars. How’s the apartment working out for you?”

  Too late. Head games were in session.

  For the past month Crow had been living in a sterile, cheaply furnished efficiency in Lakeview Court, a suburban apartment building owned by Getter. Broke, jobless, credit card maxed out, separated from Melinda, Crow appreciated the fact that Getter was letting him slide for a month or two on the rent. Looking now at the lawyer’s face, at the phony patina of compassion and concern, he wondered whether he might be better off wrapping himself in newspapers and Hefty bags and sleeping under a bridge. He pushed back in the chair, then twisted his hips. Every position he tried felt worse.

  “The apartment’s fine,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”

  “How are things going with you and Melinda?”

  He knows damn well how things are going, Crow thought. “Doesn’t Mary keep you posted? She talks to Mel every damn day.” He clamped his mouth shut, not wanting Getter to see him hurting. His marriage was disintegrating, but Melinda’s friendship with his sister Mary was still going strong. It felt like betrayal. “We’re still separated, but still talking,” he finally said. “Anyway, I’m talking.”

  Getter nodded. “Good for you, Joe.”

  “Good for me,” Crow said, staring at Getter’s tie. What had looked like a detailed geometric design he now recognized as a flock of embroidered ducks, all exactly the same, their wings interlocked in a pattern, flying from the vicinity of Getter’s liver toward his left shoulder. Getter probably thought they were pigeons. Mary must have bought it for him—Minnesota chic.

  Getter’s features moved into a new configuration. “I ran into our friend Orlan Johnson last week.”

  Crow’s diaphragm spasmed. “Oh? Was he in town?”

  “I had to drive out to Big River. He seemed embarrassed to see me. I think he feels bad about what happened.”

  “I doubt it. What were you doing in Big River?”

  Getter flicked off Crow’s question with a hand motion. “Joe, before we talk about this job, I have to ask you something,” he said. The catalog of unconvincing expressions he was able to produce was remarkable. No doubt he sat in front of a mirror and practiced. The one he wore now was probably called Grave Concern with Traces of Pity.

  Crow waited for the shot.

  “Are you staying clean?” There it was. Getter steepled his fingers.

  “I’m doing fine,” Crow said. “I’ve got my four-week plastic medallion and everything.”

  “Sorry. I had to ask, you know.”

  Like hell you did, Crow thought.

  “I mean, if I’m recommending you for this position. Did I tell you what you’ll be doing, Joe?”

  “You haven’t told me a damn thing, Dave.”

  “You see, it’s not like I’m just asking you to serve some papers or something. You won’t be working for me. I’m acting as a go-between here, as
a favor to you and to my client. Do you understand?”

  “Not yet. What’s the job?”

  “You’ll be providing personal protection for a gentleman who feels his life is in danger.”

  “Bodyguard, in other words.”

  “Yes. You can see the reason for my concern. He knows something of your history, and I had to assure him that you’re solidly on the wagon. I needed to hear it from you.”

  Crow sighed. This was getting old.

  Getter stared across his desk, lips pressed together, tapping his chin with his pen. Another phony expression: Agonizing over the Big Decision.

  Crow said, “You know, these chairs are incredibly uncomfortable.”

  Getter sat back and grinned, showing nearly all of his neatly arranged teeth. It was the first completely natural look Crow had seen on him that day.

  “Milo!” Crow listened for an answer. He shook the box of Meow Mix and called again. “Milo!” He waited another minute, hugging himself, holding the glass door open with his shoulder. It was five degrees below zero, twenty-two below wind chill—what the TV weatherman called “bitter cold”—and he was standing outside in a T-shirt, sweat pants, and slippers. Stupid damn cat. He went back into the lobby, walked down the carpeted hall, identified his apartment by the number on the door. The walls had recently been painted a neutral grayish-cream color; the odor of latex paint lingered. As Crow returned the Meow Mix to its place above the refrigerator, the only cupboard Milo had so far failed to penetrate without human assistance, he told himself that the cat had disappeared before, told himself that Milo would show up when he was good and ready. Probably got himself locked in a garage someplace. Or charmed his way into some lonely old lady’s apartment. Dining on smoked oysters and whipping cream.

  It was five o’clock in the evening and already dark out. Crow had grudgingly agreed to meet his prospective employer—whoever the hell he was—at nine. Every time he remembered Getter’s smirking refusal to tell him the client’s name, he had to repress the urge to get on the phone and bow out of the deal. The problem was, he didn’t think he could refuse a job when he couldn’t even afford to pay rent on the apartment. Also, he owed Getter for extracting him from the Big River jail.

  After his arrest for aggravated assault and unlawful restraint, Crow had used his one phone call to contact his brother-in-law, who, being a relative, he had hoped might represent him pro bono. Getter had hopped into his Mercedes, driven halfway across the state to Big River, thrown some aggressive-sounding legal jargon at Orlan Johnson, and had him back on the street by noon, less than nine hours behind the gate. So far so good. All it took was for Crow to agree to quit his job with the police department, an easy call under the circumstances. In a way, it had worked out for everybody. Orlan Johnson got rid of Crow, Crow got rid of his job, and Getter got Crow for three hundred thirty dollars. He’d waived the legal fees but billed him for mileage to and from Big River at one dollar per mile. So much for pro bono.

  The hundred bucks a day he was being offered for this bodyguard gig was not exactly Fat City, but it beat driving all over town serving papers in the middle of winter.

  Crow unfolded the sofa bed, revealing the same tangled mass of sheets and blankets he had crawled out of that morning. He sat on the edge of the mattress. A couple hours of sleep would be nice. He thought about Milo, the way Milo would tuck his feet under his black furry body and wrap his tail around his toes and let his head sink down between his shoulders and close his yellow eyes. Milo could sleep anywhere, and usually did. Crow lay back and stared up at the textured ceiling, trying to convince himself that he was sleepy, thinking about the way it feels when you are very tired and can’t keep your eyes open. He tried to remember a good dream, something he could replay, something that would lead him into unconsciousness. He thought about how it had been with Melinda, her body radiating heat, the sound of her sleeping, breathing through her mouth, making little sounds with her lips. He sat up, picked up the phone, and dialed. One hundred fifty-three miles to the west, in the small house they had bought together in Big River, Melinda Crow answered her phone on the sixth ring.

  “Hi,” he said. “Are we still married?”

  “I don’t know. Who is this?”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  She laughed then, a throaty laugh that threatened to awaken a painful cascade of memories. “Is that why you called? I’m supposed to put you to sleep?”

  Now that they were separated, their conversations were always friendly, a kind of light, teasing banter that insulated them from whatever it was they were going through.

  “Milo took off again. He’s been gone since last night.”

  “He’s probably got himself a girlfriend.”

  “He doesn’t do that anymore. I made him give it up. All he does now is slink around and act dangerous.”

  “Sort of like you. How come you want to go to sleep at this hour?”

  “I got a job. I’m supposed to meet the guy tonight at nine.”

  “Oh! That’s right! Dave found a job for you. Mary told me about it yesterday. I had lunch with her at the Blue Point.”

  Everybody knew what was going on in his life except him. Why did that bother him so much? And if Melinda had driven all the way to the cities and then had lunch with Mary, why hadn’t she called him? He was afraid to ask.

  Melinda correctly interpreted his silence. “I had some business in town. I would have called you, but I had a ton of errands to do.”

  Weak, but at least she acknowledged the oversight. They were supposed to be working on opening the lines of communication. Was this progress?

  “So how is my favorite sister?” he asked. “Still smiling all the time? Was she wearing her crystals?”

  “Just a few. You shouldn’t give her such a hard time, Joe. She’s trying to find herself. Like the rest of us.”

  “She’s not going to find herself in all that New Age bullshit.”

  Melinda didn’t reply at once. Crow realized he’d put his foot in it again, using the descriptive terms “New Age” and “bullshit” in the same sentence. His tarot-card-reading, organic-vitamin-popping, seaweed-eating wife owned a few quartz crystals of her own. During their last few months together, the things had been popping up all over the house, multiplying like Tribbles.

  “It’s not all bullshit, Joe.” Her voice was cool. “One day you’ll see. But I don’t expect you to believe that. You think you’ve got it all figured out, that what you see is what you get. It’s the things you can’t see that guide your life, you know.”

  Crow closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sorry,” he lied.

  “That’s okay,” she said, but he could tell it wasn’t.

  “I just called to tell you I got a job. But you knew that already.”

  “It sounds exciting. Mary said you were going to be a bodyguard for a friend of theirs.”

  “Right.” He opened the nightstand drawer and picked up his Taurus, a .38 snubby that he’d bought during his rookie year with the Big River police. The checkered plastic grip was cracked; he’d wrapped it with silver duct tape. “Dave wouldn’t even tell me who the guy is. He lives out on the lake, not far from Dave and Mary’s. All I got’s an address.”

  “Well, as long as you know how to get there.”

  “If I wasn’t so damn broke I’d tell him to shove it. You know the only reason he’s doing this is he’s hoping I turn into a paying tenant. Also, it’s another opportunity for him to remind me he got me out of jail.” Crow pointed the .38 at a magnet on the refrigerator door and squeezed the trigger. The hammer came back a quarter of an inch. Crow released the pressure, and the hammer settled back down.

  “At least you’ll have some money coming in.”

  “Yeah. I thought about joining the homeless, but it’s pretty cold out.”

  “It’s supposed to get colder,” she said. “Below zero the rest of the week.”

  You could always talk about the weather. They could talk abo
ut the weather all winter long, and in the spring they could talk about it some more. Crow filled his lungs with new air. “So how have you been?”

  “I’m doing okay, Joe.”

  Crow waited, then said, “I’m doing okay too.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Their conversations always came to this. They would talk for a few minutes, search for a painless topic of mutual interest, then drift into empty pleasantries. Sometimes he thought that Melinda would forget who she was talking to, or that she found it impossible to care. He always wondered if she was high. Usually he could tell, but not always.

  He pictured her sitting at the kitchen table, holding the telephone against her shoulder, using one hand to arrange two lines of cocaine on the Formica surface with a single-edge razor blade, brushing back a wisp of fine blond hair with the back of her other hand.

  He pictured her sitting in the leather chair in the living room, sipping cognac, leaving a faint lip print on the rim of the snifter.

  He pictured her in bed, propped up against the mahogany headboard, watching the TV with the sound turned off, touching up her short nails with an emery board, a decanter of raspberry liqueur resting atop the clock radio.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “In the kitchen.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Talking to you. Standing at the stove heating up some milk for hot chocolate.”

  Crow liked that. He filed away the other images and concentrated on seeing her at the stove, watching the gas flame heat a saucepan full of milk. He blinked, and his own apartment came back into view. Cardboard moving cartons piled against the far wall, still unopened. While the boxes remained untouched it was as though the remains of their marriage would be preserved, as though the bond could endure, for a while, without its human components. What I need, he thought, is some lonely lady to make my bed, unpack my boxes, and feed me smoked oysters and cream. Or hot chocolate.

  After a time Melinda said, “How are we doing? Are you sleepy yet?”

  Crow said, “No.”