Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  XXVIII

  Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

  —MAHATMA GANDHI

  GETTER SAT BENT FORWARD in a chair, his hands tied to his feet, looking thoroughly miserable. The tiger lay stretched on the floor, her eyes nearly closed, one paw resting atop the remains of an elk’s foreleg. Ricky was sitting at the card table, playing spin-the-Ruger.

  During his first few hours as a guest of the Murphys, David Getter had been more concerned with the possibility of being maimed than with the unthinkable prospect of dying. Even after seeing Berdette Williams shot, Getter still considered himself too important a person for the Murphys to outright murder. He would be missed, and besides, now that George had his son back, there was no reason for them to continue holding him hostage. They were only making their legal position more precarious. If they would just untie his hands and feet, he could help them. If he could just make a few phone calls, everything could be smoothed over. He had tried to explain this both to George—who simply ignored him—and to Ricky, who slapped, punched, or kicked him. His face now felt thick and numb, like a slab of meat hanging off the front of his skull. Nevertheless, he kept trying, convinced that he could argue his way out of anything.

  “I’ look like selp-depense to me,” he said, the sweet voice of lawyerly reason undermined by a pair of painfully swollen lips. “He wa twying to shoo us. You din ha any choice. I’d ha no prob’m tedifying to tha in court.”

  Ricky spun his gun on the table. The Ruger stopped with the barrel pointing at the tiger. Ricky reached out a long forefinger and rotated the barrel until it pointed at Getter, who continued to speak.

  “I’ wa a hones mistake, right? I mean, you know now I din do anyting. No hard feelings, okay?”

  “You think you’re so smart,” Ricky said. “Hell, I knew old Berdette had a gun full of salt. It weren’t self defense—I just wanted to shoot the old bastard. There you go. Now you can say I kilt the old man on purpose, you ever get a chance to say anything. How you like them apples?”

  Getter did not like them apples at all. He was formulating an argument, but before he could speak, Ricky pulled a grimy red paisley bandanna from his back pocket and stuffed it into Getter’s gaping mouth.

  “Steve Anderson. Can I help you?”

  “Mr. Anderson?”

  Anderson expelled a silent groan. Mrs. Franklin Pilhoffer, flakiest rich widow in the western hemisphere. Every week, the same damn thing.

  “Yes, Mrs. Pilhoffer.”

  “Could you please tell me how much my 3M stock is worth today, Mr. Anderson?”

  “That would be at eighty-seven and a quarter per share, ma’am. You have—let me look—three thousand forty shares.”

  “And is that one going up or going down?”

  “It’s down a quarter point from yesterday.”

  “Oh, my. Is that a lot?”

  “It’s a normal daily fluctuation, ma’am. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Why didn’t she just look up the prices in the paper? It wasn’t like she was going to be buying or selling anything today.

  “I see.”

  Knowing it was hopeless, Anderson made a halfhearted pitch.

  “3M is a good, solid stock, Mrs. Pilhoffer. Of course, you’ve made a lot of money on it since your husband bought it back in the 1960s. It might be a good time to take your profit and get into something even safer. T-bills, for instance.”

  “That’s a very good suggestion, Mr. Anderson. I’ll talk to Franklin and see what he says. He doesn’t like to sell his stocks, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Anderson grumbled. Why did he bother? Every week, the old fool made him go over her entire portfolio. Every week, he tried to get her to do something, anything to generate some account activity. And every week she told him she would have to consult with her husband, who had been dead and quit of her for thirteen years. Old dead Franklin Pilhoffer, unfortunately, was of the buy-and-hold-for-all-eternity school of investment. Anderson was in no mood for this today. All he could think about was that damned elk.

  “Now let’s see,” continued Mrs. Pilhoffer. “What about my Coca-Cola? How many shares do I have?”

  He knew that one by heart. When Wicky had given him the Pilhoffer account two years ago, Anderson thought he’d hit the big time. He remembered staring goggle-eyed at the numbers. Three thousand shares of 3M, fifteen thousand of NSP, twenty thousand of Dayton Hudson, a collection of lesser quantities of lesser stocks, and then the biggie.

  “One hundred thousand exactly.” Every week, he told her the same damn thing. The Pilhoffer account was as static as it was enormous—she hadn’t made a trade since her husband died. “Just like always, Mrs. P.,” he added, his mind drifting. He could just have the elk mounted, and no one would know that he hadn’t really killed it, but he would never be able to look at it again without getting all twisted up inside. He kept seeing George Murphy, grinning, slapping him on the back, telling him what a great shot he’d made.

  “Excuse me?” Mrs. Pilhoffer’s voice had gone all frosty.

  “Sorry, did I say something?” Anderson was momentarily confused.

  “My name is Mrs. Pilhoffer. Not ‘Mrs. P.’”

  Anderson blinked. Had he actually called her Mrs. P.?

  “Now please tell me, Mr. Anderson, what is my Coca-Cola stock worth today?”

  Anderson cleared his throat. “That would be at forty-three even. One hundred thousand shares at forty-three. Do you want me to multiply that out for you, or can you handle it yourself?” He’d had enough of Mrs. Pilhoffer for today, and they weren’t even a quarter done with her weekly portfolio review.

  “Excuse me?”

  She sounded angrier than ever, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. All he could think about was George Murphy, laughing at him.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Pilhoffer. What was that? We’ve been having some trouble with our phones. Listen, if you can hear me, here’s what you should do. You should go buy yourself a newspaper and learn to read the stock tables, okay? Oops, I’m getting this buzzing in my—” He hung up. The best way to hang up on somebody is to do it while you are talking. Hang up on yourself, and they’d blame it on the phone company.

  If he was lucky, she’d be too upset to call back. He had this elk problem to think about. He was in no mood to deal with Mrs. Pilhoffer.

  His phone buzzed, an internal call. Anderson picked up.

  “Stevie, you want to come in here, please?”

  It was Rich Wicky, his boss.

  He sounded pissed.

  “She’s gonna be okay, then?” Ricky asked.

  “Quit asking me that,” George said, taking off his coat. “The doctors say she’ll be fine. She was sleeping when I left.”

  “So how come you never told me about you had that pig stuffed with money? I wanted some cash, you always give me that song and dance about having to sell some of our stocks, about how our money was out there working for us. Christ, getting a few hundred bucks was like a major production or something, and here you was sitting on a stack of cash all the time.”

  George raised his eyebrows. “You knew about it, you’d’ve been out there spending it.”

  “Damn right I would’ve. I work hard around this place.”

  “So do we all,” said George.

  “Well I don’t like it. How much you say was in there?”

  “A few thousand. Not enough to get all bent up over.”

  “Yeah, well, as far as I’m concerned, whatever that doctor took, it’s coming out of your share of our profits.”

  George blinked. “Oh really?”

  “You might be my big brother, that don’t mean you can cut me out.”

  “You think I was trying to cut you out?”

  “I’m just saying it ain’t right. You got no right to be holding out on me that way.”

  George sat down at the table, gathered up a deck of cards, shuffled.

  “You hear me, bro?”

  George closed
his eyes and took a full breath. “You want to run this ranch, Ricky?”

  “I damn well could, and that’s for sure.”

  “Well, you ain’t never going to. It’s in my name, and you’re here on my say-so. I make all the executive decisions. You understand that?”

  Ricky squeezed his eyes into two hyphens. “I’ll tell you what I understand, Mister Ex-ek-you-tive. Our deal is I get a third. That’s what me and you and Mandy agreed. You’re in charge, but we each get a third.”

  “That’s right. I’m in charge. And you get your share of the profits as long as you’re working here. But it’s my goddamn business. I say what’s profit and what gets plowed back in. You don’t like that way I run it, you got two choices. You can like it or you can leave.”

  “We’ll see what Mandy has to say about it,” Ricky said.

  “Mandy don’t got nothing to say about it. What do you think, she’s gonna spank me?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  They heard the door from the house open and close. Both men turned toward the entrance. Shawn, his eyes still half closed, stood sleepily in the doorway.

  George said, “Morning there, sleepyhead.”

  “Morning,” Shawn said. He blinked and dragged the back of a hand across his eyes. “Is it morning?”

  George laughed and stood up, walked over to his son, tousled his hair. “It’s about six o’clock at night, boy. You sure conked out there!”

  “I’m sort of hungry.”

  “Well, go get yourself a snack out of the fridge. We’ll cook up a little something later on.”

  “How’s Grandy?”

  “She’s not feeling so good. We can go visit her tomorrow, okay?”

  Shawn nodded, then noticed the trussed lawyer.

  “How come he’s sitting like that?”

  “He’s negotiating.”

  “What does that mean?”

  George looked uncomfortable. “It’s business, Shawn. Go get yourself a snack, then watch TV or something, okay?”

  Shawn said, “Okay,” and wandered back toward the house. After he had gone, Ricky opened his mouth to say something, but George cut him off with a hand motion.

  “I don’t want to hear no more, Ricky.”

  Ricky glared at him but got no response. He aimed his gun at Getter, said, “Bang, you’re fucking dead.” Getter, his head bowed, did not respond. Ricky cocked the revolver. “I’m gonna shoot you dead, you piece of shit.” A tremor swept Getter’s body, but he wouldn’t look up.

  “Cut it out, Ricky,” said George. “Leave the poor son-of-a-bitch alone.”

  Ricky sighted carefully along the long barrel and fired, blowing a sizable hole in the floor a few inches to the left of Getter’s tasseled loafer. The sound of the explosion sent both George and Getter straight up into the air, with Getter achieving the greater altitude despite his bound and gagged condition. George landed on his feet and swung, hitting the gun aside with one paw and delivering a powerful backhand to Ricky’s cheek, knocking him off his chair.

  “What the hell you think you’re doing? Look what you did to the floor!”

  Ricky was sitting on his butt, laughing. Getter had landed on his side and was trying to worm-walk his way out of the room, his eyes wide with terror, his pants leg dark with moisture.

  “Sorry, bro.” Ricky grinned. “I thought he was trying to escape. I had to make an ex-ek-you-tive de-cision.”

  When Shawn came running into the room to see what the shooting was all about, he found his father and his uncle red-faced and glaring at each other. The bound man was on the floor on his side, trying to wriggle his way out of the room like a snake. The tiger sat watching, a ridge of fur erect on her back, eyes wide and dilated to solid black orbs, nostrils flared at the scent of fresh human urine.

  XXIX

  Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

  —MARK TWAIN

  MARY GETTER ANSWERED THE DOOR wordlessly. The chunk of quartz hanging from a silver chain around her neck must have weighed close to a pound. She turned and walked back into the house. Crow stepped inside, closed the door, followed her to the kitchen. She sat down, her crystal thudding against the edge of the small kitchen table. Knotting her hands in her lap, she looked up at her brother, the skin on her face transparent, fine blue and red veins showing through.

  “Have you heard from Dave?” Crow asked.

  She lifted her knotted hands to the table. White knuckles, more blue veins. She shook her head. “He was supposed to be home hours ago. His secretary won’t tell me anything. He’s been so tense, and then he didn’t come home. I’m getting a bad connection here, Joe. I can’t feel him.”

  “He’s out at Talking Lake Ranch.”

  “That hunting club? David doesn’t hunt.”

  “I know.”

  “But he’s all right?” She looked hard at him, afraid to believe but begging to be lied to.

  Crow felt her plea knot his intestines. After dropping Bellweather at the airport, Crow had driven his new Jag back across town, arguing with himself. David Getter’s plight was none of his affair, he told himself. The guy had dug his own hole and slimed his way into it. Mary would be better off without him. He’d tried to go home, back to his apartment, but found himself drawn to his sister. He needed her permission to bow out. Now, as he stood before her, he realized that it was a futile hope. His sister actually loved the guy.

  “I’m sure he’s all right,” he said. The lie left his throat raw.

  “I don’t believe you. What’s he doing out there? He left this morning dressed for the office. He left at six this morning. David never gets up that early.” She leaned toward him, breasts pressing the quartz bauble against her clasped hands. “What’s going on, Joe? I want you to tell me what’s going on. You are holding something inside. I can feel it.”

  Crow looked away, focused on an embroidered serenity prayer hanging on the wall near the refrigerator, a bit of mystical detritus more suited to their mother’s generation.

  “Dave has got himself in some trouble.”

  Mary sat back in her chair, crossed her arms, made her face into a waxen mask. “Tell me.”

  He took a breath, then told her as much as he thought she could absorb. He told her how Shawn Murphy had run away and how the doctor had, according to George Murphy, tried to ransom the kid by using Dave as a go-between. He told her that the doctor was now attempting to flee the country, leaving Dave at the mercy, such as it was, of the Murphys. Mary had her fist pressed against her teeth. Was she hearing him?

  When he had finished his story, she said, “David wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’ll admit it seems strange, but you’re wrong. David did do that.” Why did he want to convince her that her husband deserved whatever was about to happen to him? Would that make it okay? Mary was shaking her head, but he thought he could see something in her eyes, in the set of her lips. She knew it was true, but that didn’t matter. It was true, but not true. Mary was good at that. Hot, but cold. In, but out. Red, but blue. It had served her well as an artist, and it now made it possible for her to love Dave Getter.

  She said, “We have to call the police.”

  Crow shook his head. “George Murphy owns the Big River police.”

  “We have to get him back. You can get him, can’t you, Joe?” Her eyes accused. “You can if you want to.”

  “I don’t owe him a thing, certainly not enough to justify risking my life for him.”

  Mary sat back in her chair, her eyes shrinking. “Melinda was right about you.”

  “What?” Where was that coming from? Her voice sounded different. Deeper, and stronger.

  “You really are a narcissist, aren’t you? You don’t care about anybody but Joe Crow, do you?”

  “That’s not true.” He stared at her face, which had come into hard focus. Her eyes glittered with life and anger.

  “Bullshit,” she snapped. “All you care about is being right. Fu
ck you.”

  He hadn’t heard her talk like that in years. “That’s not true,” he repeated, watching her carefully.

  Mary leaned across the table, getting her face inches from his. “I want my husband. I want him back. If you aren’t going to help me I’ll go get him myself, goddammit.”

  Crow said, “Look, if I wasn’t going to go after the son-of-a-bitch, I wouldn’t be here.” His lips formed a wry smile. He remembered this woman. This was his big sister, Mary Crow, back for a visit. “I knew you were in there somewhere,” he said.

  Mary sat back, her shoulders rigid, holding him with hard eyes.

  “Tell me something. Is it really you, or is the other Mary channeling you?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you going to help me?”

  “I said I was. But tell me something else. Where is Melinda?”

  Mary’s eyes shifted to his chin. “In what sense?”

  “The physical. As in: Where has she gone? You know where she is, don’t you?”

  She remained motionless.

  “Is she all right?”

  After a pause, Mary nodded.

  “Where is she?”

  Mary shook her head. “First you bring me back my man.”

  Crow said, “It’s good to see you again.”

  The phone rang twice before George’s voice answered.

  “This is Crow. How’s it going, George?”

  “We’re still waiting here, Officer Crow.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t feel like talking right now.”

  “You want Bellweather, you put Getter on the line.”

  “He’s doing fine.”

  “Put him on.”

  Crow heard an exasperated exhalation, then the sound of cloth on cloth, then heavy breathing, then George’s distant voice: “Heads up, Counselor. I’ve got Officer Crow on the line. You want to talk to him?”

  Ragged breathing, a cough.

  “Joe?”

  Crow looked over at Mary, gave her a thumbs-up. She nodded. The hope in her eyes was painful to see.