Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  Debrowski nodded. “I know what you mean.”

  “Good.”

  “So what happened to your face, Crow?”

  “Ran into a door. You want some coffee?”

  “Said I did.”

  Crow stood, keeping his face frozen to conceal the bolt of pain that ran up his back, and put a kettle of water on the stove. Debrowski followed him into the kitchenette. She noticed the bowl of cat food on the floor.

  “You got a kitty cat?”

  “I did. He ran away.”

  “Really? When? What’s his name?”

  “Milo. Haven’t seen him in four days.”

  Debrowski nodded. “I used to have a cat. You check the Humane Society?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “You should check again. You put up any signs?”

  Crow shook his head.

  “You should put up some signs, Crow. You got yourself a good cat, you don’t want to lose it.”

  “I know. I’ve been busy.” Actually, it hadn’t occurred to him. He’d always thought of Milo as the self-sufficient type.

  “He’ll probably come back. That’s how you tell a friend, you know. No matter what kind of shit you pull, they keep coming back.”

  Crow said, “Are we still talking about my cat?”

  “What’s he look like?”

  “Black. Big and black.” Crow put a paper filter in the Melitta coffeepot, added three scoops of stale Folger’s. “Yellow eyes.”

  The intercom buzzed.

  Crow poured a stream of boiling water onto the grounds.

  The intercom buzzed again.

  “You going to answer that?” Debrowski asked.

  Crow shrugged, put down the teakettle, looked out the kitchen window into the parking lot. A familiar-looking police car was parked directly in front of the entrance. He poured coffee into two plastic mugs. The intercom buzzed repeatedly. Debrowski went to the window to see what he was looking at.

  “You got a police problem?”

  “I don’t know. I got some kind of problem.” Crow tried to think of a reason why the Big River police would be visiting. He couldn’t think of one. He pressed his lips together and handed Debrowski her coffee.

  She sniffed, took a cautious sip.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.”

  The intercom gave off one final blast, then fell silent. Debrowski lit another cigarette. A moment later, they watched Orlan Johnson return to his squad car and spin his way out of the icy parking lot.

  “You going to group tonight?”

  Crow stared into his coffee. “I don’t think so. I’m having dinner with my wife.”

  “Oh. I thought you were separated.”

  “We are.”

  “Oh.” She lifted her coffee. Crow could hear the crinkling of her leather jacket. “Well, listen, how about if you do something for me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You want to talk or something, give me a call, okay?”

  XV

  When good things happen, sometimes all that happens is they make the bad times seem worse.

  —JOE CROW

  IF HE WOULDN’T ANSWER the door, then he wouldn’t answer the got-damn door. And if he wouldn’t answer the got-damn door, then what the hell was a guy supposed to do? Who was he s’pose to be, Dirty Harry? Break the got-damn thing down?

  Anyways, he didn’t believe it. Why would little Joe Crow go and steal a got-damn kid for anyways? If George Murphy couldn’t keep track of his own got-damn kid, then how the hell was anybody else supposed to find the little son-of-a-bitch? Damn, he hated politics.

  Got-damn Murphys.

  Christ sakes, what did they expect him to do? Just because a guy gets to be chief of the got-damn police doesn’t mean he can snap his fingers and the kid comes like a got-damn dog. Wise-ass little son-of-a-bitch anyways. Bunch a assholes.

  Christ sakes, what a drive! Damn near three hours just to ring a guy’s doorbell so he could say he tried. Now he had to drive all the way back again.

  Got-damn Hillary.

  He pulled into a liquor store in Cokato, bought a half pint of peppermint schnapps and a couple cans of Bud.

  The beers got him to Litchfield. He stopped at a gas station to take a leak, got back in his squad car, cracked the seal on the schnapps.

  Half an hour later, Orlan Johnson wrenched the wheel of the patrol car, bringing it back into the approximate vicinity of the right-hand lane.

  Got-damn curvy roads.

  A green sign flashed by. Big River—24 miles. Johnson took a last pull off the schnapps, rolled down his window, tossed the dead soldier into the ditch. He felt in his pocket for an El Producto. Hill hated it when he came home reeking of cheap tobacco, but there was a chance that if he smelled bad enough she wouldn’t notice the booze. He lit the cigar and puffed furiously.

  It didn’t work. He wasn’t in the house more than two minutes when Hillary figured it out.

  “Well?” she asked, before he hardly even got his got-damn coat the hell off.

  “Well what?”

  “What did you find out? Did you talk to that Officer Crow, like I told you?” She was carrying one of her books. One of the hardcover ones, cost a fortune, couldn’t wait for the got-damn paperback. She crossed her arms, hugging it.

  Johnson glared at her, giving her his best chief-of-police stare. Some sort of misguided schnapps-driven intelligence inspired him to reply, “He isn’t an officer anymore, Hill. I fired his got-damn ass.”

  Hillary stepped closer, wrinkled her nose. “You didn’t even talk to him, did you?”

  “I couldn’t find him, got-dammit.” He had intended to get right in her face with that one, but her angry eyes forced him to look away. “Wasted the whole got-damn day looking for your nephew. Least you could do is cut me a little slack.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “Who? Whose wife?”

  “Joe Crow’s wife. Maybe he’s staying with his wife.”

  Johnson wasn’t following this line of thought. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. They got separated.”

  “She might know where he is. I want you to go see her.”

  “The hell I will.”

  “The hell you won’t,” she said. “First thing tomorrow, after you’ve sobered up.”

  Johnson drew himself up, gaining a good three inches. He thought hard, seeking a witty response, but all he could come up with was the old favorite: “What the hell’s that s’pose to mean?”

  “You’re drunker than a skunk. And you smell like a cigar.”

  “Like hell!”

  That was when she hit him with the got-damn book. Damn near broke his got-damn nose.

  Crow thought of it as the house. Not their house, for he had moved out over a month ago, and certainly not Melinda’s house, because he still owned half of it, but the house. Sometimes, talking with Melinda, he referred to it by the address. “How are things at 3410?” he would say.

  It felt odd to be ringing the bell, waiting on the front steps. He almost hoped that she wouldn’t be there. That she’d forgotten, or had chosen to forget, that she’d invited him for dinner. What was the occasion? He preferred not to speculate.

  She opened the door and stepped back, giving him plenty of space.

  A few things had changed since his last visit. The sofa, which had been against the south wall, now sat in the center of the living room, facing the fireplace. A framed lithograph of penguins leaping into an Antarctic sea was propped on the mantel beside a copper-and-glass pyramid. Finchley, one of a pair of finches they had bought, together, at the Bird Barn, was missing from his cage. Finchster, the other finch, had died a year ago. Otherwise, the house looked much the same—it was easy to remember living there. The wallpaper was the same, and the weavings. The furniture they had bought together—cheap stuff, most of it purchased from Wicke’s or Sears. He remembered painting the ceiling, getting paint in his eye.

  Me
linda had bound her long, pale hair in a casual twist that looked as if it was about to unravel. Two picks, looked like chopsticks, held it in place. No makeup, at least not that he could detect. Maybe a little something on the lips. She was covered with a great deal of fabric—a long, loose wraparound skirt the color of raw pine, one of her own handwoven fabric belts, a ribbed rust-colored turtleneck, and over all an absurdly long off-white cotton cardigan—must have had twenty buttons—that hung like a duster past her knees. Her feet were tied into a pair of fabric creations that looked like a cross between slippers and hunting boots. Crow wondered whether she was wearing leather these days. A three-inch-long quartz crystal caged in sterling silver vines hung between her breasts. He decided to ignore it.

  He would have preferred her in jeans and a T-shirt—wholesome, casual, and accessible—but he supposed that this outfit was something special, something she had put on for his benefit. Either that or she was feeling fat again, a delusion that came and went like the weather, accompanied at times by bouts of bulimia that she would not acknowledge.

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said with a faint smile, her soft blue eyes sliding away.

  He had been there for—what?—nearly a minute? And they hadn’t touched. He hadn’t hugged her, an easy and natural thing to do fifty-nine seconds ago, but the moment—had there been a moment?—had passed. Crow crossed the room and lowered himself into a chair, his chair, wincing at the sensation in his gut. His body hurt, but not as bad as it had a few hours ago.

  “Are you all right?” she said, looking at his swollen jaw, reaching up to brush her own cheek with her fingertips.

  “A little sore, but I’ll be okay.”

  “What happened?” She crossed her arms, uncrossed them, took a half step back.

  “I ran into a door.” He didn’t want to talk about the Murphys.

  Melinda bit her lower lip and headed for the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?” she called over her shoulder.

  “Juice. Something like that.”

  He sat down. To keep his mind occupied, he counted the candles burning in the room. Sixteen. No doubt a number of great significance.

  Melinda returned with a glass of apple cider for him, a glass of white wine for herself. Crow tried not to look at the wine, not because he wanted any but so that no disapproval would show on his face. Melinda pulled out a side chair and sat in front of him.

  “Cheers,” she said, candlelight flashing from her eyes, her wineglass, her crystal pendant.

  By the time the lasagna was on the table, they had talked about the neighbors, Melinda’s latest weaving, and national politics. Somehow that led to Big River politics, which led to Talking Lake Ranch, and Crow found himself back on the subject of preserve hunting versus “real” hunting. Melinda had had only the one glass of wine, but she was loosening up.

  “It’s all about killing animals, Joe,” Melinda said as she cut through layers of cheese and pasta. “The animals don’t know the difference. Either way, they die in a state of terror.”

  “It’s different,” said Crow. “In the wild, animals are free. They live each day knowing they have to struggle to stay alive. There is a balance there, between freedom and risk. Hunters are a part of the picture. It’s been going on for millions of years. It’s the most natural thing there is. But what the Murphys are doing is completely unnatural. They buy and sell domesticated wild animals. It’s not sport. You go duck hunting there, they have ducks that are trained to fly over you. It’s like a shooting gallery. It’s like hunting chickens on a chicken farm.”

  He waited for her response. Melinda could be fierce in defense of helpless animals. He loved the passionate Melinda. When she was angry, she was alive.

  “I don’t see the difference,” Melinda said, sounding more weary than fierce. “A dead duck tame is just as dead as a dead duck wild.”

  She had another glass of wine with dinner. An Australian chardonnay. The lasagna was wonderful. Caesar salad, the real thing, dressing made with organic eggs, Spanish anchovies, homemade croutons. Real butter. Melinda the vegetarian had no problem with animals held in bondage—just don’t kill them for meat. She made a special exception for anchovies. Crow wanted to ask her why she had invited him for dinner, but the conversation was flowing in other directions. Movies neither of them had seen but about which they both had opinions. Books. Family. She asked him about his dad, and Crow realized he hadn’t seen the old man since August. She told him that his sister Mary had taken up pottery.

  “She has a real feel for it, Joe. She’s making coffee mugs.”

  “Good for her.” Crow hadn’t seen much of his sister since she had married Dave Getter. He would never get used to the concept of Getter as a brother-in-law—he resented his sister for marrying the jerk—and he resented that her friendship with Melinda was so close, so solid. It bothered him to imagine them together, but he did not understand why.

  “So what’s the occasion?” he blurted.

  Melinda looked as if she’d been slapped. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how come you invited me to dinner?”

  Melinda shrugged and stood up. “I thought it would be nice,” she said. “Isn’t it nice?” She went into the kitchen. “Do you still like spumoni?”

  It was nice. Crow shifted in his chair. A minor twist of pain from his groin came and went, making him realize that he had forgotten about his injuries for almost an hour. He decided to try to enjoy himself, go with the current.

  “It’s nice,” he said quietly. He looked back through the kitchen door. Melinda was opening an ice cream carton. Crow raised his voice. “It’s nice,” he said.

  Melinda nodded, digging into the carton with an aluminum scoop.

  “You were so cute,” Melinda said, laughing, eyes bright with memory. “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we? We had some really good times.” Her face, flushed from wine and recollection, glowed in the firelight.

  She had thrown a pine log on the fire. The spitting, crackling resin made a miniature fireworks display in the fireplace. He had told her—how many times—not to use pine. It was bad for the fireplace. It coated the chimney with resin. She had never listened to him before, and on this night, his eyes full of Melinda, he said nothing, choosing instead to bask in her capacity for joy. Melinda was capable of great bouts of happiness. In such moments, Crow would plunge unguarded into the effervescent soup of her emotion.

  Crow opened his eyes. Something hanging over him in the half light. He blinked, brought it into focus, remembered. Copper tubes; a four-foot-wide pyramid-shaped framework suspended from the ceiling with a coil of tubing at its apex. He sat up and pushed the feather comforter forward, drew his feet back and swung them out over the side of the bed. His body hurt. Whatever powers the pyramid held, it had not repaired his aching body. Oh well. It seemed unimportant now, a minor aberration, charming in its own way. If she wanted to believe in such things, why should he argue? He would tell her how much better he felt.

  He was in their old bedroom; he was in Melinda’s bedroom. The door was open a few inches, and he could hear one of Melinda’s spacey New Age tapes playing on the stereo downstairs. He opened and closed his mouth, frowning at the taste. His lips were swollen, unaccustomed to long, hungry kisses. He closed his eyes and listened to the music, imagined Melinda on the sofa in her bathrobe, her feet tucked under her body, reading a book. It would be one of her books about channeling or the tarot, something to go with the music. He felt tired and sore, but relaxed. Maybe sleeping under a pyramid had some therapeutic effect after all.

  He stood up carefully, letting his tissues stretch, replaying the evening in his mind. The memories arrived with a warm, rosy tint. Melinda making dinner, his favorite, more relaxed than he had seen her in months, smiling, talking, listening, laughing. Sitting in front of the fire after dinner, surrounded by candles, and she had drunk a third glass of wine—but that was okay. The bottle, still half full, sat quietly
on the dining room table while they made love first in the living room in front of the fire, then again, slowly, on her soft bed. How had it happened? He wasn’t sure. They were talking, and then a moment had come and this time he had touched her, felt her soft hair on his palm for the first time in … it seemed like years. He remembered laughing with her, saying whatever came into his mind. Remembering the good times. Something good had happened. He looked down at his body, at his muscular and compact torso. He felt taller, as if his shoulders had come out of a perpetual hunch. In the bathroom mirror, his face looked younger—the bruise on his jaw seemed a minor, youthful blemish. He frowned at the stubble on his jaw, ran a sinkful of hot water, and shaved using Melinda’s razor, careful because the blade was meant for legs, not faces, and had not been sharp for a long time; he did not cut himself once. He brushed his teeth with Melinda’s toothbrush, then rinsed it several times and tapped it dry on the edge of the sink. Looking at himself in the mirror, he smiled. I’m not such a bad guy, he thought.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed again, he thought of things to say to her. He remembered she had asked him to look at her body, her lips quivering. He had told her she was perfect, and so she had appeared. She’d said her thighs were getting fat. He’d told her no, your thighs are beautiful. He stood up, imagining himself walking down the carpeted stairs, moving quietly to the sofa, where he would interrupt her reading with a soft kiss. He thought of the things he would say to her: that he loved her, that he missed her, that he wanted her. That he wanted to remain her husband. That he wanted to start over, try harder, make it right. He took a deep breath, smelling the last wisps of their lovemaking. Melinda’s terry-cloth robe hung on a hook by the door. Crow put it on. The sleeves were short, but it felt good.

  He noticed, first, that the wine bottle on the dining room table was empty. Then he saw Melinda in the kitchen, sitting at the table, leaning forward, her eyes on him, her chin raised—elated, defiant, and determined—staring at him with brittle, merciless clarity. He saw the big mirror that belonged on the wall by the staircase, now on its back covering most of the kitchen table; four long white powder lines, perfectly parallel, were spread across it like the clawmarks of a frost giant. Melinda was naked, her hard nipples resting on the edge of the table, tiny blue veins showing through the translucent flesh of her breasts. She was holding a gold-plated single-edge razor blade in one hand, a matching gold-plated tube in the other: his gift to her two Christmases ago.