Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  A few flakes still drifted down from the sky. Crow put the Rabbit in gear and slowly released the clutch. The front wheels gripped the new snow, and the car moved away from the curb, out onto the street. Crow held the wheel tightly, hardly able to believe that he was moving. He could hear the underbelly of the car dragging through the snow. He would have to keep rolling if he didn’t want to get stuck.

  Twenty minutes later, he turned onto the highway. The plows had been by, the surface scraped nearly clean. Crow let his shoulders drop to their normal setting and brought the car up to speed. The pain in his head subsided somewhat. The rat-tail file had withdrawn from his forebrain and been replaced by the repetitive pounding of a child’s wooden hammer. As he passed beyond the outskirts of Big River, he allowed himself for the first time to reflect on his visit to the Johnson residence. He’d come away from his encounter with the Johnsons with two things: a possible concussion, and the memory of what he’d heard Johnson tell his wife as he staggered out the door: “I stopped by her house to see if this idiot was there, but she didn’t know anything.”

  Wherever Melinda had gone, Orlan Johnson had not taken her there.

  Five miles outside Big River, Crow drove past a boy running down the opposite lane of the highway. He thought, That’s odd. The middle of the night, snow everywhere, cold as hell, and the kid wasn’t wearing a hat. Crow drove another half mile, remembering what it felt like to be a child and to be cold. When he reached the Sea Breeze, a small motel, he turned around and went back. It would bother him for days if he didn’t offer a cold kid a ride. When the headlights hit the running figure, the kid stopped, turned to face him, then took off into the ditch, sinking waist deep in the snow. Crow stopped and rolled down the passenger-side window.

  “Hey, are you okay?” he shouted.

  The kid stopped and looked back.

  “You need a lift?”

  The kid said, “I’m freezing.”

  “It’s warm in the car,” Crow said. “Hop in.”

  The kid hesitated, then slogged through the snow to the car, opened the door, climbed inside. It was a boy, ten or eleven years old, his face red with cold and effort, his eyes tearing. No gloves. He sat in the seat, shivering, hugging himself, breathing in gasps. Crow turned up the heater fan and directed the vents toward his passenger.

  “Put your hands up next to the vent,” he said. “Get them warmed up. And open up that jacket, let some heat in. What the hell were you doing out there?”

  “Nothing.” The boy, his hands against the heat vent, worked his fingers. A handcuff dangled from his wrist. He was a chubby kid, and his full cheeks looked frostbitten—red blotches encircled by a ring of pale skin.

  “Just out for a stroll, huh?”

  The boy shrugged, intent on absorbing all the available Btu’s.

  “Where’d you get the fancy bracelet?”

  “I dunno.”

  “You got a key? You want me to get that off for you?”

  “That’s okay,” the kid said.

  Crow put the car in gear and pulled back onto the roadway, drove for a few minutes without speaking, waiting for his passenger to warm up. The pounding in his temples, which had temporarily receded, became louder, merged with the hissing of the heater fan.

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, hoping he could get the kid home before he passed out.

  The boy turned his head and looked straight at Crow for the first time. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you live around here? You want to go home?”

  He drew his shoulders in. “I guess.”

  “Where do you live?” Crow heard the words coming out of his mouth, but he couldn’t feel them. The pain in his head seemed to be migrating downward.

  The boy pointed in the direction they were going. “It’s up here a ways.”

  “How far?”

  “I don’t know. I know when to turn. Do you know where Talking Lake Ranch is?”

  Crow took his foot off the gas and looked carefully at his passenger.

  “You’re the kid,” he said.

  The boy drew back.

  “You’re the Murphy kid. What’s your name?”

  “Shawn.”

  Crow took a deep breath and brought the car back up to speed. This was too much for his pureed mind to deal with.

  “What happened to your head?” Shawn asked.

  “I ran into your aunt.”

  “You know my aunt?”

  “Better than I’d like to.”

  Shawn said, “I know who you are. You’re the guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “The guy in Doc’s car.”

  “You’re thinking about somebody else. If you’re talking about Dr. Bellweather, he’s no friend of mine.”

  “It was you,” Shawn said.

  “Have it your way.” Crow had no idea what the kid was talking about. It was hard to think and drive at the same time.

  “You aren’t going to take me back to him, are you?” Shawn asked.

  “Back to who?”

  “Doc.”

  Crow shook his head. “I’m taking you home,” he said. “What were you doing with Bellweather? Did he put those cuffs on you?”

  Shawn opened his mouth, closed it.

  “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  “I don’t care,” Shawn said.

  “Was Bellweather messing with you?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “You know. Touching you and stuff?”

  Shawn took a few moments to reply. “No,” he said at last.

  Crow nodded carefully, not wanting to jar anything loose in his skull. He kept the speedometer at forty, swerving occasionally to avoid the snowdrifts that were again invading the recently plowed highway. The car seemed to roll with unusual smoothness, as if it were floating a few inches above the icy road. The steering wheel felt thick, the pedals squishy. In a distant sort of way, Crow enjoyed the sensation of disconnectedness. They drove for what seemed like hours. He knew this highway, having driven it thousands of times during his stint with the Big River police, but now it looked different, a landscape white, black, silent, and surreal. He concentrated on steering. It was astonishingly difficult to keep the thing moving in a straight line.

  “Hey, you’re on the wrong side of the road.”

  Crow turned his head, which seemed to weigh thirty or forty pounds, and stared at the boy. For a moment, he had forgotten he had a passenger. He forced the steering wheel to turn, and the car edged back into the right lane.

  His head was a watermelon, his fingers bratwursts. The road felt slick and spongy. The pain in his head had become a sound: whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. From time to time he looked at the speedometer. Sometimes it read fifty, sometimes it read twenty. It seemed to make no difference. Either way, the land rolled by.

  Crow heard a voice.

  “Hey, mister!”

  He tried to think of a reply, one that would not take too much effort. The steering wheel evaporated.

  “Hey! Look out!”

  The roadway writhed.

  Crow relaxed. He was too tired to care.

  The landscape spun.

  XXIII

  A pig bought on credit is forever grunting.

  —SPANISH PROVERB

  SOMETIME AFTER THREE A.M., Bellweather fell asleep sitting up in bed, fully clothed, the shotgun resting in his lap. He slept for an hour or so—it was four-thirty when he woke with a start, rolled off the bed, sidled to the window, peeked through the curtains. Nothing. Just his snowbound Jaguar, and the few other vehicles that had been sitting there since he’d arrived. No Murphys, large or small. He went to the sink, threw a few handfuls of cold water in his face, dried himself, picked up the phone, and dialed.

  After eight rings a thick voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Rise and shine, Dave. This is your wake-up call.”

  “Jesus Christ. Who is this? Is that you, Bellweather?”

  “Doctor Bellweather. Are you
awake yet?”

  “What is it, four-thirty in the morning?”

  “Four thirty-five. Time to get up!”

  “What are you talking about? I set up the meeting for ten.”

  “Big snowstorm out here, Dave. Better give yourself plenty of travel time. You’re going to be there, right?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Getter said, and clicked off.

  Bellweather hung up the phone and took another peek out the window. This was too nerve-racking, sitting in this motel room awaiting his fate. Besides, he had a serious transportation problem. He eyed a white 4x4 parked beside the motel office. Putting on his coat, he stepped outside. The snow had completely stopped, but the temperature had fallen. He could feel his nasal tissues freezing as he inhaled the subzero air. The lobby door was locked. Bellweather trudged through the snow around the motel office, to the back door of what looked like the manager’s apartment, and he hammered on it until he saw the light go on. The door opened a crack, and an irritated male voice said, “Yes?”

  “I’m Dr. Bellweather, staying in room sixteen?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you the manager?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is this your vehicle?” He pointed at the 4x4. The door opened another few inches, and the man inside looked where Bellweather was pointing.

  “That’s my Isuzu. What’s your problem?”

  “It’s quite serious. I’ve just been called on a medical emergency, and I have to get to Alexandria as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, my car—that Jaguar over there—isn’t going anywhere in this weather.”

  “What sort of emergency you got? Can it wait?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s an emergency multiple thoracic lipectomy. I’m the only surgeon in the state who is qualified to perform the procedure. I was scheduled for the surgery tomorrow, but the patient, a six-year-old girl, has had a serious prelapse.”

  The manager opened the door wider and turned on the light. “A prelapse, huh? You wanna come in, let me shut this door?”

  Bellweather stepped inside. The small apartment, essentially another motel room, with a kitchenette squeezed into one of the corners, reeked of old perspiration, cigarettes, and intestinal gas.

  “I’m Loyal Fitz,” the manager said. “So you want me to drive you all the way into Alex?”

  “Actually,” said Bellweather, “I was hoping you would simply loan me your vehicle.”

  “My Isuzu?” Fitz scratched behind his ear. “Jeez, I just got the thing a couple months ago.”

  “I’m a very careful driver,” Bellweather said. “And I’ll be leaving my Jaguar here. I’ll be back before noon.” He smiled. “It would be much easier. You could go back to bed.”

  Fitz looked longingly at his rumpled bed.

  “And of course, I’ll pay for the use of your vehicle. Say two hundred dollars?”

  Loyal Fitz nodded slowly.

  Shortly after sunrise, the Murphys gathered in their kitchen. Amanda was making pancakes again. None of them had slept well. Ricky wanted to leave early, get to Birdy’s at nine or so, be there waiting for him, but George said there was no point to it.

  “Best thing, Ricky, is just do what they say.” He slurped a mouthful of coffee, set the cup carefully back on the table.

  “You mean you’re gonna give that son-of-a-bitch the money?”

  “What money? What we do is, we go to Birdy’s and we do whatever we have to do to get Shawn back. Except pay for him.”

  “How we gonna do that?”

  “We just do it. You know what those guys are like. A couple of city boys. They think that because they’re in a public place, nothing can happen to them. We just go in and make them give us Shawn. You want to do something useful, go get the Ford going and open up the driveway.”

  Ricky scowled. He finished his stack of cakes, then zipped up his parka and went out to plow the road.

  “I still think you should call Orlan,” Amanda said.

  George rolled his eyes. “He’d just be in the way.”

  “I don’t want you boys getting hurt.”

  “Hurt? By a chubby doctor and his weasely lawyer friend? Don’t worry about it, Mandy. You just get lunch ready. That boy’s gonna be hungry for some real food, he gets back here.”

  Although he always had his doors open by nine, Berdette Williams rarely made a sale until after eleven. The only reason he opened up so early was for the delivery guys and so that he could have a couple hours to himself. Arlene liked to sleep in, and that was fine by him. He had the whole rest of the day to put up with her. Sitting behind the bar, he sipped his third cup of coffee and let his mind slide. Used to be, he’d always been a nervous guy, always had to be doing something—cleaning up, repairing a broken something, watching television, talking on the phone, working the crossword puzzle. The last few years, since he had turned seventy-five, he didn’t have to do that anymore. His energy had pretty much dissipated, and with it his anxiety. He could sit and drink his coffee, or just plain sit, and that was fine. He didn’t feel things like he used to, didn’t need to, and didn’t mind a bit. The best of times, he had come to believe, were those times when a guy could let the time flow by without touching it, without feeling a thing.

  He was surprised when the front door swung open a few minutes before ten o’clock. He was even more surprised—and irritated—to see George and Ricky Murphy enter his establishment. It took a lot to get him pissed off these days, but these two could do it.

  Berdette put down his coffee.

  “Morning, George,” he said.

  George inclined his big head.

  Berdette shifted his eyes to Ricky. “Thought we had an understanding, Ricky.”

  “Oh, yeah? What was that?”

  Berdette said, “Thought we agreed you were going to keep your scrawny ass out of here.”

  Ricky sat down at the far end of the bar. “Guess I forgot.”

  “Well, I’m reminding you.”

  “Now just take it easy, Berdette,” George said. “Ricky, he’s not going to do anything. Ain’t even going to have a beer. Right, Ricky?”

  Ricky shrugged.

  “You’re damn right he ain’t gonna have a beer,” Berdette said. “And if he ain’t gonna have a beer, then there’s no point in him being here, right?”

  George sat down across from Berdette, put a hand on the old man’s arm. “It’s okay, Berdette. We’re just here to meet a fellow. That’s all. Ricky ain’t gonna make any trouble.”

  “Still owes me for that stool.”

  Ricky laughed. “Hey, it was the guy’s head broke it. I was just holding on to the legs.”

  Berdette glared, thinking about the old twelve-gauge he kept under the bar, wondering if the thing still worked. He’d had to wave it around a few times, but he hadn’t shot it in years.

  George seemed to read his thoughts and tightened his grip on Berdette’s arm. “Now what’s that stool worth, Berdette? Fifty bucks?” He released his grip, pulled out his wallet, and put two twenties and a ten on the bar. “Okay?”

  Berdette looked down at the money sourly.

  George said, “We’ll be out of here in no time, Berdette. I promise.”

  Berdette stared back at him. He didn’t have any quarrel with George, but Ricky was another matter, sitting down there with his shitty little grin. “You just make sure you keep a leash on that boy,” Berdette said, picking up the money.

  “I will, Berdette. Don’t you worry about it, okay?”

  Berdette turned away, found a clean bar towel, and started wiping down the schooners he had washed earlier. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do except wait it out, whatever it was. There would always be unpleasant moments in this business, and they would always pass. George and Ricky sat silently, waiting.

  At ten o’clock precisely, Dave Getter entered Birdy’s. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim light. The bartender, an old man wearing a white shirt, stood behind the bar, polishing glasses.
A big man wearing a baseball cap sat with his ass draped over a barstool, staring at him expressionlessly. That would be George Murphy. Getter looked around the room. At the opposite end of the bar, a gaunt young man glared at him from beneath the brim of a cowboy hat. Ricky. Getter pulled off his gloves, approached George.

  “Good morning,” he said. “George Murphy? I’m David Getter.” His voice sounded pretty good. Hearty and confident. The first step was to put them at ease, impress them with his professionalism. He held out his hand.

  George, unmoving, stared back at him.

  “So.” Getter clapped his hands together. “Here we are.”

  George said, “Oh? Seems to me somebody’s missing.”

  Getter looked around. “Oh. You mean Dr. Bellweather. We should be hearing from him any minute now. Why don’t we all have a cup of coffee and sit down?” He motioned at the man behind the bar. “Could we get some coffee here?”

  The old man snorted but gave no other indication he had heard. Getter felt something behind him and turned around. Ricky was standing uncomfortably close. Getter took a half step back. “How’s it going?” He gave Ricky a sharp nod, as if acknowledging an equal, looked down at the holstered revolver, looked at Ricky’s hands, thumbs hooked into his belt on either side of an enormous brass buckle.

  “‘Cowboys Do It in .45 Caliber,’” Getter read aloud. He laughed. “That’s pretty good.”

  Ricky attached his unblinking gaze on Getter’s forehead.

  “Where’s my son?” George rumbled.

  The phone behind the bar rang.

  “That’s probably them now,” Getter said. He leaned over the bar and raised his eyebrows at the bartender, who was answering the phone. “My name’s Getter,” he said. “Is that call for me?”

  The bartender brought him the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Are they there?” Bellweather’s voice seemed strained.

  “They’re here. George and Ricky.”

  He could hear Bellweather’s long exhalation. “Good. That’s good. Anybody else?”

  “Just the bartender.”

  “Good. Ask George if he brought the money.”