Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  The Cocaine Anonymous meeting at the Golden Valley Community Center ran like a tape loop from three P.M. until one A.M., a ten-hour coffee and cigarette orgy with a formal twelve-step session commencing every two hours. Crow parked his Rabbit between an old rusted-out Honda and a custom-painted gold Cadillac Eldorado with all the trimmings. After his conversation with Melinda he’d tossed and turned in bed for an hour, finally decided the hell with it, got dressed, and drove over to the CA meeting.

  For the past month, Crow had been making it to CA meetings two or three times a week. He preferred the CA groups to the AA groups—they were darker, funnier, faster, and more colorful. AA people, by comparison, struck him as gloomy and sluggish.

  The meetings seemed to help. Not that he had trouble staying sober—since his episode with the green Chartreuse he’d felt no real desire to get high again. It was more a matter of having trouble being sober. Once he’d made his decision to get clean, Johnny Yen had booked. The monk juice had chased him right out of town. There were no intense cravings, no overwhelming urges to run out and score a gram or a bottle. Still, he attended the meetings dutifully, sitting quietly during the proceedings and participating as little as possible. He always felt a little bit better when he left—less empty and not so alone.

  Crow walked in late to the seven o’clock session. The group leader, a former pro basketball player named Chuckles, was addressing a wildly diverse group of sixteen cokeheads, telling them about his personal relationship with God. They were on step three that night—the one where they were supposed to hand over the reins to “God as we understand him”—not one of Crow’s favorites.

  “It was the hardest thing I ever did, axing The Man to take the wheel,” Chuckles said, his cavernous voice filling the classroom. Chuckles, who owned the customized gold Caddy, was heavy into vehicular imagery. He was in his mid-fifties, had skin the color and texture of a Brazil nut, and a wandering left eye. Chuckles had been clean, he claimed, for three years. Crow took a seat near the back and listened to the big man’s rap, letting the words melt together, trying to clear his mind of Melinda.

  “A man axes for a lot of things in his life,” said Chuckles. “Only thing is, we so busy axin’ for things make us feel good, you know what I mean, we cruisin’ down the highway, we forget to get us some help from The Man Upstairs. You know what I mean?”

  Someone on the other side of the room snorted. Chuckles jerked his head up, scanned the room with his good eye, landed it on a woman with spiky blond hair, a furious slash of lipstick, and a black leather jacket carrying enough zippers and chains to befuddle Houdini. He put a long finger beside his nose and nodded. “And I include you ladies in that too,” he said.

  As always, the CA participants were a twitchy lot. Virtually all of them were smoking and drinking coffee from paper cups. Some were hunched forward, listening intently to Chuckles’ discourse on step three; others had their minds turned inward, observing an internal dialogue, waiting to break up into smaller groups so they could spew it all out. The group was predominantly male, about a third white, a third black, and a third other. The three women in the group represented three extremes: a young, angry-looking, eggplant-colored, three-hundred-pound woman in an orange muumuu; an extremely tense, dandruff-ridden redhead in a navy-blue suit, whose pink nails were bitten far beyond the help of any manicurist; and the blond woman with the chains and the rock-and-roll hair. The men in the room displayed variations of similar breadth and intensity.

  Chuckles finished his talk with a prayer, which made Crow uncomfortable, as always. He chose to visualize his own “higher power” as a mean-spirited, grinning gnome running an enormous factory, dashing frantically from room to room, shouting nonsensical instructions to uncaring workers, throwing switches and pressing buttons at random. Crow would acknowledge a higher power, but that didn’t mean he had to like it, and he was damned if he was going to turn his life over to the little despot. Maybe he had an attitude problem—as many had suggested—but at least he was staying sober.

  The large group broke down into three smaller groups. Crow wound up with an ex-gang-banger named Jellybean, whom Crow had met before; an emaciated kid with a head full of proto-dreadlocks; the muumuu woman; and the rock-and-roller with the spiky hair. They all exchanged first names. The kid with the locks called himself Vince. The muumuu woman said her name was “Vogue, like the magazine.” The rock-and-roller’s name was Debrowski.

  “Say what?” said Jellybean.

  “Da-brow-ski,” said Debrowski. “Like the fucking magazine.” She had a nice voice, deep and clear.

  Jellybean sat back. “Hey, it’s cool. Da. Bra. Ski. I got it.” He turned to Vince. “You got that, brotha?”

  Vince muttered, “Hey, I just be bein’ here.”

  Jellybean took another run at it. “Duh-bra-ski.”

  “Close enough, Bean,” Debrowski said. She looked at Crow. “So what’s your story? I haven’t seen you here before.”

  Crow said, “I don’t have a story.” At least not one he cared to share. A black-and-red button on Debrowski’s motorcycle jacket read Bitch + Attitude.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Like hell,” she said. “So what do you do when you’re not hanging out with us losers? I bet you sell shoes or something. That what you do? I bet you used to get a snootful and sell those shoes like a demon. Used to be number one with a shoehorn, I bet.”

  “That’s right,” said Crow. It didn’t pay to argue with some people. Obviously, this woman didn’t play by the rules. “I sell shoes. I’m this wizard with a shoehorn.”

  Debrowski laughed.

  Crow repressed a smile. Strangely enough, he liked her. At least she wasn’t moping around and feeling sorry for herself. He figured her for a newcomer, maybe on her third or fourth meeting. She would never make it past step one. He found himself wondering what she would be like with a few drinks in her.

  Debrowski winked at him, as though she’d scanned his thoughts, then turned to the voluminous Vogue, whose large lips were knotted into something resembling the terminus of her digestive system.

  “So what are you looking so pissed off about? You’re not the only one can’t go out and get fucked up tonight.”

  Vogue glared.

  Jellybean muttered, “No shit.”

  Crow hid a smile. This was not going to be one of your peaceful gatherings, but it promised to be interesting.

  V

  Work ain’t about making money, son. It’s about spending time, and you only got so much of it you can afford to shell out.

  —SAM O’GARA

  STANDING IN FRONT OF his dresser, David Getter centered his tie and snugged it up.

  “Why do you have to go?” Mary Getter looked at his reflection in her vanity mirror. She was applying a layer of AromaVedic Restorative to her face, carefully spreading the oily cream over the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.

  “I have to go introduce him to his new boss.”

  “You have to be there for that? Joe can’t introduce himself?” She replaced the jar in its pyramid. As usual, she felt a comforting warmth as her fingers entered the twelve-inch-tall, open-sided copper structure. The pitch of its sides exactly matched that of the pyramid at Giza.

  “It’ll be better if I’m there.”

  “I don’t see why you have to go out there in this cold. It’s below zero.”

  He shrugged into his suit coat. “It’s just over on the other side of the bay, Mary. I won’t be gone long.”

  “I don’t see why you have to get all dressed up.”

  “I always get dressed for business meetings.”

  “This is business? I thought you were just doing Joe a favor.”

  “A business favor.”

  “And you have to be there?”

  He slipped his wallet into his inside jacket pocket. “I want to be there.”

  Mary watched her husband make a final check for lint on his shoulders and sleeves. She took a deep, cleansing breath, forcing
the negativity out of her body, seeking a critical mass of positive thought. David was so fastidious. Always looked good, smelled good, kept his fingernails clean. It was good of him to have found Joe a job. Surprising, but good. She knew that Joe and her husband didn’t get along, but that didn’t stop David from doing the right thing. He’s a good man, she told herself. He tries so hard.

  A brass plaque on the stone arch read: ORCHARD ESTATES. Crow guided his Rabbit through the arch, entering a tangle of neatly plowed streets named after fruits and berries. He followed Cherry Curve to Appletree Drive, then explored Blueberry Street, Circle, and Lane before locating Blueberry Trail. The homes of Orchard Estates were set well back from the winding streets, each home well isolated from its neighbors by heavily wooded borders and a minimum lot size that must have run five or ten acres. From the little he could see from the street, all the homes appeared to be large and expensive, and no two the same. Still, Crow had the sense that all had been designed by one architectural firm. He suspected that clones of each one of these homes existed elsewhere, on other lakes, in other “exclusive estates.”

  Blueberry Trail, a short street that quickly dead-ended, was buried deep in the maze. The last house, number 17380, was a split-level mock Tudor on a large lot, secluded from the neighbors by a couple acres of woods on each side. A three-foot-high bank of carefully plowed snow defined the outer perimeter of a circular driveway. He recognized Getter’s Mercedes parked near the front door and pulled his Rabbit in behind it. An aging Dodge station wagon was parked at the far end of the driveway. White deicing pebbles dotted the brick walk that led to the front door. Checking his watch, Crow noted that he was late by twenty minutes—roughly equivalent to the amount of sleep he had gotten. It was going to be a long night. He pressed the illuminated doorbell button.

  He was about to press it again, when a tinny voice said, “Yes?”

  Crow looked for the speaker, found it set into the stucco to the right of the door.

  “My name’s Crow,” he said. “I’m here to—” He remembered he didn’t know the name of his prospective client. “I’m supposed to meet Dave Getter here.”

  The door opened, and a cloud of warm, moist, rich-smelling air poured out into the night. A mild-featured man in a rumpled gray sweater and rimless eyeglasses, about Crow’s size but older and softer around the cheeks, motioned him to enter. Crow stamped the snow off his feet and stepped into the vestibule. What was that smell? Something strong and organic, but not unpleasant. He shrugged out of his trench coat, an eighty-nine-dollar poly-cotton knockoff of the Burberry classic, and held it out to the man who had answered the door. The man frowned at the coat.

  “I am not a butler,” the man said. “Mr. Getter and my brother are back in his office.” He turned and walked into a spacious, severely formal parlor. The upholstered furnishings were done in white and ivory damask, the matching glass-topped end tables supported by a fragile framework of white oak. A cut-glass chandelier sent spatters of light across patterned white satin wall covering and an eggshell-colored carpet. The room had a cold, sterile feeling. No one would want to be in this room. No one would ever be offered a glass of red wine or a cup of coffee here. It was a room to be photographed, or a room to walk through, being careful not to brush against anything. Crow stopped at the perimeter of the carpet, aware of his snow-caked, salt-rimed wing tips.

  The man said, without turning back, “Don’t worry about it.”

  Crow noticed a faint gray path across the carpet, evidence of many feet passing since the last cleaning. The glass tabletops supported a patina of dust. Crow followed the man who was not a butler through the parlor and into a formal dining room that carried over the same sterile theme. The floral arrangement on the table had been dead for weeks, or longer. They walked down a short hallway. The man rapped twice on the door at the end. “My brother’s office,” he said laconically as he turned and walked back down the hall.

  A moment later, Dave Getter opened the door. “Car trouble?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  Crow jerked his head from side to side. The odor that he had noticed before was much stronger here.

  Getter ran his eyes down Crow’s well-worn brown herringbone sport coat, black cotton turtleneck, and faded twill pants. He stared for a moment at the beat-up wing tips, then took it all in again in reverse.

  “Looking sharp, Joe.”

  “Thanks, Dave.” He looked past Getter. “Oh,” he said, recognizing the smell at last—the smell of leather and bone.

  The “office” was as large as the living room but had been decorated after a somewhat different aesthetic. Grayish pink suede wallpaper was sandwiched between the oak wainscoting and a picture rail, from which a collection of elaborately framed wildlife paintings—a bull elk, a herd of bison, a stalking mountain lion, a flock of Canada geese—hung on braided maroon cords. A chandelier made from bleached deer antlers and wrought iron hung to within seven feet of a grizzly bear rug that lay in ambush in the center of the room. A gas flame flickered in a fieldstone fireplace at the far end of the room. Above the mantel, a mounted bison head was flanked on one side by an eight-point whitetail and on the other by a four-foot-long elephant tusk mounted on a teak plaque. A snarling leopard, seven feet from nose to tail, crouched against one wall, frozen in time. The rest of the room was crowded with furnishings that appeared to have been constructed exclusively from the hides, antlers, horns, and bones of large dead animals. A sofa and a love seat—pale leather accented with zebra hide—looked almost sedate beside an uncomfortable-looking but cleverly designed chair made from moose antlers and woven strips of dark leather. Crow felt as if he were in the belly of a great beast, about to be drenched by stomach acids, surrounded by the indigestible parts of previous victims.

  A man wearing professionally faded jeans, an ornately embroidered red rodeo shirt, and a deep suntan stood with his hip resting on the corner of an antique mahogany desk, the only piece of furniture in the room that did not include parts from dead animals. When he saw that he had Crow’s attention, he walked across the grizzly bear’s flattened back, holding out his hand.

  “Thanks for coming, Joe,” he said, flashing a wide, white smile. “Dr. Nelson Bellweather. Good to have you on board!” He stood about five-nine in his ostrich-hide cowboy boots, giving him a couple of inches over Crow. He raised his chin, took Crow’s hand in a firm, precise, ephemeral grip—long fingers clasped and released and were gone. Tipping his head back a few more degrees, he looked at Crow expectantly, waiting for a response. Getter followed the encounter with the intensity of a dog on point. Crow examined Bellweather’s face: soft, smooth, regular features. Narrow lips. Gray eyes, wispy blond hair. Somewhere between forty and fifty. Dr. Nelson Bellweather looked like his brother the nonbutler, but younger and with more attitude. He kept his head tipped back. Crow’s eyes fixed on the small, perfect ovals formed by his nostrils.

  “Nice place,” Crow said. “You shoot all this furniture yourself?”

  Bellweather cocked his hip and hooked a thumb in his belt. It looked utterly artificial, like a pose he had seen a bad guy strike in a fifties horse opera. He laughed, a little too loud. “Some. You remember me, don’t you?”

  Crow hadn’t, but suddenly he did. “I remember you,” he said. He felt as though someone had shoved a long, rusty pin into his likeness. “The pink Jag, right?”

  Bellweather grinned, showing most of his teeth. “I loved the way you handled Ricky.”

  Crow felt no pleasure at the compliment. The episode had cost him far too much. He looked at Getter.

  “You having a good time there, Dave?”

  Getter squelched a smile and held out his empty palms as if to say, Who, me? Crow gave him a blank stare, the same expression he had found so useful as a cop, and held it until Getter looked away, finding something fascinating about the wallpaper. Crow turned back to the doctor. “What’s going on here?”

  Bellweather turned up his smile. “Joe, I can’t tell you how please
d I was when David told me you had agreed to work for me.”

  Crow raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know that I had agreed to anything,” he said.

  Bellweather tipped his head back another five degrees and swiveled it toward Getter. “David?”

  Getter jerked his head around. “Yes? What?”

  “Didn’t you tell me that Joe was on board?”

  “That was my understanding. I told Dr. Bellweather he could count on having you, Joe.”

  “I don’t remember saying anybody could ‘have’ me, Dave,” Crow said. “I want to know what’s going on here before I agree to anything.” The last time he’d felt like this was when a friend—now an ex-friend—had invited him over for a beer and he’d found himself in the midst of an Amway recruiting seminar.

  Getter reached out and put a hand on Crow’s shoulder. “Joe—” he began. Crow twitched his upper body, and Getter’s arm bounced off him as if repelled by a magnetic field. Getter backed off a step. “Now listen, Joe, this is exactly the kind of attitude that gets you in trouble. Dr. Bellweather has offered you a good job here, and I’ve gone to a lot of trouble—”

  Bellweather interrupted. “Why don’t you let me and Joe talk, David. I’m sure we can work this out. He has some very legitimate concerns, and I’m confident that I can satisfy him. You’ve done your part, and I thank you for it. Mary must be waiting up for you.”

  Getter looked from Crow to Bellweather. “You sure?”

  “Quite sure.”

  Getter shrugged and left the room.

  “You don’t like him,” Bellweather said. “I don’t blame you. David is a good lawyer, but he likes to make people uncomfortable. It was never my intention to take you by surprise. David is like that. He likes to blindside people, catch them off guard, make them uncomfortable. It’s part of his power trip.”

  Crow looked again at the mounted leopard.

  Bellweather followed his glance and laughed. “I guess we all have our power trips. Do you hunt, Joe?”

  “Just birds. I like duck hunting. So what’s this all about? Why do you think you need protection?”