Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  —CLASSIFIED AD IN SEDONA: JOURNAL OF EMERGENCE!

  THE QUIET, SPACEY SOUNDS of Enya meandered through the house, softened by the curtains and weavings, reflected from hanging crystals, amplified by the glass pyramid displayed on the mantel above the gas fireplace. Candles, tall white tapers, burned in every room. On the right front burner of the gas stove, a kettle of potpourri simmered; the air was moist and rich with spicy aromas of cinnamon and clove.

  It was three-thirty in the afternoon. Sunlight pressed against drawn curtains; thin bars of yellow light crept up the walls and across the hardwood floors.

  Melinda Crow danced, eyes nearly closed, in the center of the four-by-six-foot blue cotton rug she had woven from strips of recycled denim, her arms sweeping from left to right and back again, her hips performing a languid figure eight, long blond hair swinging from breast to back to breast. These movements caused her to turn slowly, each revolution taking several seconds.

  Although the outdoor temperature was below zero, it was warm inside the house, and she wore only a light sundress of soft, unbleached cotton—the one dress that let her move freely without bearing down on her shoulders, chafing her nipples. The music flowing from the stereo was quiet and gentle, and she could hear herself breathing. She could smell the cinnamon. Flickering candles filtered through her short, pale lashes.

  The portrait mirror that usually hung by the staircase now lay flat on the kitchen table. As Melinda performed each slow rotation, her eyes widened slightly as they swept across the doorway that led into the kitchen. She could see the mirror and the parallel white lines that cut across its breadth.

  The song ended, and in the silent seconds before the next cut began, the sound of her bare feet on the denim rug raked her eardrums, her breathing became harsh, her nipples recoiled from the raw cotton. Melinda stopped moving and pulled the fabric away from her breasts. The next song, a faster, more upbeat time, began.

  Melinda said, “Shit.” She stepped off the rug, feeling grit between her feet and the hardwood floorboards. Crossing the room to the stereo, she turned it off. A faint ringing persisted in her ears. She sat down on the futon sofa, stood up, crossed her arms, made a fist with her right hand, and struck herself on the hip. She examined the magazines on the coffee table, flipped through a recent copy of Sedona, skimmed an article about a woman whose unhappy cat, Spark, was processing her irritable bowel syndrome. The woman’s problems with her lower intestinal tract, it turned out, had resulted from her running over a cat with her car several months earlier. Spark’s purpose, according to unnamed sources channeled through veterinarian Dr. Kuhan Lightbody, was to help the woman through her period of mourning by helping her process her irritable bowel. Melinda skipped to the end of the article. It turned out that Spark was channeling the dead cat, who wished the woman to know that he forgave her and that he hoped she would drive more carefully in the future. After several months of hypnotic age regression therapy, the woman and her cat made a full recovery.

  Melinda closed the magazine. Hypnotic age regression. Was that the solution, the way to begin again? She sat still for a full ten seconds, hands resting on her thighs, eyes moving jerkily, seeing nothing, her mouth open, passing air. She licked her lips. Her eyes returned to a focused state.

  “Now what?” she said, her voice flat.

  When there was no response, she shrugged and went into the kitchen, where she took her seat at the mirror. She pulled a purple elastic band from her wrist and used it to tie her hair back, picked up a short gold-plated tube. There were four thick lines left, each about four inches long. Melinda considered, then used the edge of a gold-plated single-edge razor blade to divide each fat line into two thinner lines. She arranged the lines neatly, in pairs. The final result looked like four white equal signs. She then went over the entire surface of the mirror carefully, seeking out every stray grain of cocaine and incorporating it into the design. When all was perfect, she brought the gold-plated tube to her left nostril, leaned forward, and made one of the lines disappear. She moved the tube to her right nostril and snorted the other half of the equal sign, then sat back, a gentle smile on her lips, staring down into the mirror. Within moments, she became disturbed by the fact that there was an odd number of equal signs on the mirror, and she proceeded to consume two more lines.

  The light cotton dress pressed in on her. She slipped it over her head, let it fall to the floor. Suddenly it occurred to her that she had not heard the Beatles song “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” in years. Which album was it on? She could not decide between Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. Where were all her old records? She and Joe had retired all their record albums when they bought the CD player, but she was sure they had not thrown them out. In her mind, she thought she could see the box on the top shelf of the closet in the spare bedroom.

  Felix had commandeered the bed. Over the past months he had created a depression, lined with his shed white fur, in the exact center of the bedspread. He greeted Melinda with a green stare and a twitch of his tail. Melinda sat on the edge of the bed and stroked him, an activity that Felix tolerated but did not seem to enjoy. He had never been a friendly or a particularly wonderful, wonderful cat. Was he channeling a dead relative? Was he processing for her?

  “Felix? Are you feeling my pain?”

  The cat jumped off the bed, ran out of the room.

  Melinda remembered why she had come into this room. She opened the closet door. The air inside smelled old and dry. The old record albums would be in a cardboard box. Digging through the closet, she came across her high school yearbook. A treasure! She sat on the floor and opened the black-and-red cloth-covered volume.

  Some unmeasured time later, she stared in wonder at a picture of herself, the Melinda Lee Connor of fifteen years past. She stood and looked at her body in the full-length mirror on the closet door. Her face was not so bad. Her eyes dropped to her breasts. Still good, though a couple of inches lower now. She looked at her thighs.

  Her thighs. Larger now, decidedly so, and dimpled with cellulite. Awful. Disgusting. A lump formed at the base of her throat. All the evil in her life—the bad thoughts, the drugs, the wasted years, the Fritos—had gathered on her legs, shaming her. She went to the bathroom cabinet and found her jar of Mountain Dove Fat Burner, which drew fat energy directly through the skin and radiated it in the form of pure light energy. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, she slapped a glob of the golden, rosemary-scented cream onto her right thigh and began massaging it into her skin, pressing it through the pores. Methodically, using all her strength, she kneaded every square inch of her burgeoning thighs. A film of perspiration grew on her body. She could hear her own breathing, a loud huffing, echoing from the bathroom walls. Ten minutes later she stood before the mirror, staring in horror at her throbbing, burning thighs, thunder thighs, bigger than ever, now glowing bright red and reeking of rosemary. She wanted to cut them off, grow a new pair.

  Or she could do what Mary Getter had done. What she had been thinking about. A way to start over. She would have to call Mary, get the number of that clinic. What was it? She thought she should remember.

  The doorbell rang. Melinda sucked in her breath, held it. She peeked out the bathroom window. A pink car in the driveway. No one she knew drove a pink car. A Mary Kay saleswoman? Good. She wouldn’t have to answer the door. The doorbell rang again. Something she was forgetting. Yes. Joe had said something about a pink car. She moved to the far right edge of the window, looking through the glass at an angle, trying to see who was standing on the front doorstep, but the edge of the chimney blocked her view. The doorbell rang again. She was sure it was Joe.

  She heard his key slide into the lock, heard the dead bolt click open, heard the doorknob turn, the bang of the door against the chain. She imagined him standing pressed against the door, glaring angrily at the two-inch gap. He had installed the chain himself.

  “Melinda? It’s me, Joe.” His voice echoed.

  “Go away,” she whispere
d, letting her head fall back to rest against the wall. She wasn’t ready for him, if she ever had been.

  He called out again. After a time, she heard the door close, heard a car start. She looked again, saw the car back out of the driveway. The license plate jumped out at her: FATGONE.

  That was it. The doctor’s phone number. Of course. She wondered how much it would cost. He had told her not to worry, that they could work something out.

  She watched the pink car pull away and suddenly regretted not answering the door. What was it about Joe? What was it that made her afraid? She looked again at her thighs, the red now fading to pink, and thought about how it would feel to have all the fat sucked out of them. She imagined a sound, a whooshing sound like a vacuum cleaner, or a toilet flushing. She imagined it would be like blowing her nose, a sudden ejection of superfluous matter. She wondered what Joe would say. Would he notice? Would he care? Married the better part of a decade, and she still had no idea what went on in his head. Maybe that was it. Maybe that was what scared her.

  Crow tried to think about what he had learned at Talking Lake Ranch. Or had he learned anything? The ramblings of a crazy old lady, and the veiled accusation by her corpulent son, might add up to nothing. He tried to imagine Bellweather and a young boy, together. The image was foggy and unconvincing. A semi came up behind him, honked, and moved out to pass. Crow looked at the speedometer. Forty-five. He let the truck pass and pull in front of him, then sped up to match its pace. He tried to get his mind back on the Murphys, but thoughts of Melinda had taken over. He was angry. He was sure she had been at home. The door had been chained, and besides, he could tell. The house—his house—had felt occupied. He turned on the radio and proceeded to review all the things he had ever done for her, all the little sacrifices he’d made, all the troubles he’d endured, all the efforts he’d made to save their marriage. And the bitch wouldn’t even answer the door. Angrily, he punched the buttons on the radio until he found a country station. He was no country music fan, but there was a time for everything.

  As he was passing through Dassel, Crow’s anger began to subside, and his memories suddenly expanded to include Melinda’s noble acts, sacrifices, generosities, and efforts performed on his behalf. Like the sweater she had made for him for his birthday, thick as a quilt; must have taken her two hundred hours. He recalled a time when he had been able to talk to her and when he had cared enough for her to listen. Aided by the sad sounds of Clint Black, Crow’s thoughts soon turned to his mistakes, foolish acts, and irritating behavioral quirks, trying to understand what it was he had done, how he had lost her. As he approached the cities, the sky clouded over and a fine, misty snow created a haze in the air. His thoughts darkened with the sky, and he arrived at Orchard Estates—the Jaguar slipping and spinning its tires on half an inch of fresh snow—filled with ambient, undirected anger. He was almost disappointed to see that his Rabbit had been roughly repaired, the fender pried away from the wheel as promised. He triggered the automatic opener clipped to the visor, waited for the garage door to roll up, drove the Jaguar inside, then went out and checked the ignition of his Rabbit. No keys. He had hoped to simply switch vehicles, head straight back to his apartment, and catch a few hours’ sleep, but it looked as though he was going to have to see Bellweather after all. Walking up to the front door, he felt his anger establishing a new direction. During the three-hour drive from Talking Lake Ranch, he’d had trouble seeing Bellweather as a child molester. Now, as he stood on the doorstep, it crashed to the front of his mind. He could see it.

  Nate Bellweather opened the door. Crow held up the keys to the Jaguar. “I need my keys,” he said, stepping inside.

  Nate closed the door. “You’ll have to ask my brother about that.”

  “Where is he?” Crow asked.

  “Watching movies.” Nate pointed toward the back of the house.

  Dr. Nelson Bellweather, his ostrich-hide boots propped on his desk, sat watching a large-screen television set into the wall. Crow noticed that the doctor looked different to him now. Smaller and softer. More like a pederast than a surgeon.

  “Joe!” he said. “Aren’t you a little early?”

  “I came to pick up my car.” Crow lifted a hip onto the edge of the desk and looked at the picture on the TV screen. A zebra, grazing in a field. The sound of wind. A nature show? Bellweather pointed a remote control and turned off the sound. Something was wrong with the picture: behind the zebra, a row of pine trees defined the edge of the field. Pine trees on the African veld? The zebra suddenly staggered to the side, fell to its front knees. A line of red blots appeared across its abdomen. The zebra regained its feet and took off running, but it went back down after only a few yards, this ground facefirst and remaining motionless. A man’s jacketed back appeared, running toward the fallen creature. The man looked back over his shoulder and grinned at the cameraman. Bellweather. The image froze. Bellweather put down the remote control.

  “You know, Joe, there’s always hope. One day you’re looking at disaster, the next thing you know, you’re the smartest guy in the world.” He thumped himself on the chest.

  “Oh?” Crow had no idea what this was about.

  “You ever hear of a little company called BioStellar GameTech?”

  Crow shook his head.

  “Well, neither had anybody else!” Bellweather laughed, always an unpleasant sound. “Except me and a few other brilliant investors. You want to know what it closed at, first day of trading?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Thirteen!” Bellweather slapped his thigh. “I’m going to ride the son-of-a-bitch to the moon, Joe!” His eyes were wet, his lips loose.

  Crow had never seen this giddy, nearly hysterical side of Bellweather. It made him wonder about his other extremes of behavior. When he was around ten-year-old boys, for instance.

  “I take it that’s good,” he said.

  Bellweather nodded vigorously.

  “Well, congratulations. By the way, I drove out to visit your friend George Murphy this morning.”

  Bellweather’s mouth fell open. He blinked, and the light seemed to leave his eyes. “You what?”

  “I helped him feed the pigs,” Crow added.

  Bellweather let his head fall back, took a breath, and blew out his cheeks. He shook his head as if he could not quite believe what he had heard, let the air hiss out between tightly held lips. “I hope I don’t have any more holes in my car,” he said. He pulled his booted feet off the desk.

  “Your car is fine.”

  “I thought you were just going to make a few calls, talk to your friends.”

  Crow shrugged.

  “I hired you as a bodyguard, not an investigator. You could have gotten yourself killed. Then where would I be?”

  Crow said, “Is it true?”

  Bellweather looked puzzled. “Is what true?”

  “About George’s kid.”

  Bellweather frowned and shook his head. “What about him?”

  Crow thought, Is it possible that he doesn’t know? More specifically, that he doesn’t know that George Murphy knows? He said, watching the doctor’s face, “He thinks you’ve been playing doctor. With his son.”

  Bellweather’s mouth fell open. “What’s that supposed to mean? Is that all he said?” If he was acting, he was damn good at it.

  Crow cleared his throat and looked away, toward the frozen video of the dying zebra. He shifted his gaze to the fireplace, to the bison head above the mantel, to the elephant tusk. Someone was putting on a show for him. Bellweather’s bewilderment was convincing, but so had been George Murphy’s painful anger and his mother’s rage. Had they invented the molestation of his boy for Crow’s benefit? It seemed far-fetched.

  Crow asked, “So you know the boy?”

  “Shawn? Sure I know him. He’s a nice kid. Says he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. What did George say? Does he think I did something to Shawn?”

  “He implied that you molested him.”
<
br />   Bellweather gaped, then burst into a nervous giggle. “Mo-lest-ed?” He stood up and paced the room, shaking his head, the heels of his cowboy boots striking the floor sharply with each step. “Mo. Less. Ted. Molessssted.” Repeating it, trying it different ways. He pointed a long finger at Crow. “What did he say?” His voice rose. “What exactly did he say?”

  “He said you’d been playing doctor with his boy. Did you?”

  “No! Of course not. George told you that? Why did you go out there anyway? You think you can believe anything he says? He wants you to quit, leave me unprotected, that’s what he wants. It’s not true. What exactly did he say? What did he say I did?”

  “He wasn’t specific.”

  Bellweather shook his head. “George knows I didn’t do anything. Sure, I got along good with the kid. Shawn used to hang around the lodge. I taught him how to play gin rummy. Christ, I can’t believe George told you that. I can’t believe you listened to him. What did I tell you? What did I say to you? I told you he was crazy, didn’t I? Playing doctor. You want to know what that was all about? I’ll tell you. Shawn says he wants to be a doctor when he grows up, so I’m telling him stuff. The hipbone is connected to the leg bone. Colds are caused by viruses. Hair is dead but skin is alive. George was there, hell, the whole time. Playing pinochle with Orlan. Right there in the lodge. The kid wants to be a doctor. You want to know what I think? I’ll tell you. The kid likes me, but he’s scared of his old man. Who wouldn’t be, a guy like George?” Bellweather abruptly stopped pacing. “That’s what it was,” he said. “The kid likes me. George can’t handle it.”

  “He gave me the impression that it was a lot more than that.”

  Bellweather’s face was getting darker.

  Crow went on. “Why would he make something like that up?”

  The doctor was quivering, his fine hands knotted into fists, his cheeks blotchy. Crow observed this clinically, not knowing who, if anyone, was custodian of the truth here. What had really happened between Bellweather and the boy? He might never know. Did it matter? Five minutes ago, he’d been convinced he was working for a child molester. Now he wasn’t so sure. He still thought it possible, perhaps even probable, but he wasn’t sure. Could he work for a suspected pederast? A few hours’ sleep—something he hadn’t had much of lately—would help him to sort and clarify. Crow started for the door.