Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  Crow examined the rest of the room as best he could without letting Ricky out of his peripheral vision. Dave Getter lay curled up on the floor beside one of the club chairs, staring up at him with eyes the size of hen’s eggs. A piece of red cloth had been stuffed into his mouth.

  Crow prodded George’s abdomen again with the gun, moving him farther into the room. He wanted to keep as much of George as possible between him and Ricky.

  “You okay?” he asked Getter.

  Getter shook his head frantically. Crow saw that his hands were attached to his ankles with bright-yellow nylon cord. George was standing very still, his head turned to the side, looking back at Crow.

  “What are you going to do now, Officer Crow?”

  A very good question.

  George stood directly in front of him, his belly inches from the end of the gun barrel. Ricky sat about twenty feet away, his hand inches from his revolver, tendons and veins popping, eyes slitted.

  At the far end of the room, Crow detected a fifth presence. The tiger yawned and blinked, watching the humans with the mild curiosity of a well-fed though never entirely sated carnivore. It stood and stretched, long claws digging through the straw into the wooden floor, muscles writhing beneath its striped coat. This is just great, thought Crow.

  “Do you know what I’d do if I were you?” George asked.

  “Please tell me,” said Crow. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “I would go home,” said George.

  “I plan to do that.” He did not like the motionless Ricky Murphy. He wanted a blink, or a facial tic—anything other than the reptilian resolution he was seeing. He had no idea how Ricky would move, or when. Nevertheless, he was convinced that the man wouldn’t remain motionless for long. There was no way he would be able to untie Getter without getting both of them shot.

  He would have to convince George to do it.

  “I think you should go now,” said George, “before somebody gets hurt.”

  “Soon. First let’s get Mr. Getter untied. You think you can handle that?”

  “You want me to untie the man? Why would I do that? Ricky went to a lot of trouble to get those knots just right. Besides, I don’t see Nelly Bell. I thought we had a deal.”

  Crow shook his head.

  Again George displayed his capacious, mirthless grin. “You know what you could do? You could shoot me and Ricky both. How would you like that, Crow? Then you could go in the house and shoot my boy. Then you would have your kidnapping lawyer back. You think that’d be a good idea, Officer Crow?”

  It sounded good to Crow. He was trying so hard to watch George and Ricky at the same time, his eyes felt as if they were protruding from their sockets. He had to make a decision. He visualized himself taking a step to the side, aiming, and firing at Ricky. The problem with that was that Ricky was almost certainly faster and more deadly with a handgun. Crow didn’t think his marksmanship would stand up, and even if it did, George would be on him before he got off a second shot.

  “The other thing you could do would be to back slowly toward the door, close it behind you, and go find me that doctor.”

  “The doctor is out,” Crow said. “He’s gone.”

  “Oh?” George’s eyebrows ascended. “Where’s he run to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do.”

  “I want you to untie him.”

  George shrugged but did not otherwise move. “It’s not going to happen, Officer Crow.”

  For several seconds, the four men and the tiger formed a tableau.

  Am I going to have to kill somebody? Crow wondered, less disturbed by the concept than by its flip side: Am I going to have to die?

  The sound of tires rolling over snow crackled through the open door. George’s eyes narrowed and jerked past Crow. The sound of a car door opening, slamming. Crow backed up, getting farther away from George, holding the Taurus in both hands, the barrel now pointed more at Ricky than at George. Ricky’s hand had somehow moved an inch closer to the revolver grip, but his eyes were on the doorway. Crow thought, I could do it now, swing the gun a few degrees to the right, pull the trigger, pull it again for good measure, then deal with George and whoever was outside. He heard footsteps, something being dragged toward the door. The back of his body prickled.

  George’s expression dissolved into a look of utter astonishment.

  Crow couldn’t help it. He had to look. He turned his head.

  It took his mind a moment to identify what he was seeing. A man in a business suit backing in through the doorway, dragging an enormous set of antlers. The antlers were too wide for the opening; the man had to twist them sideways to get them through the door. The remains of an elk’s head, neck, and shoulders—or rather the empty hide that had once contained them—was attached to the antlers.

  Crow snapped his attention back to Ricky, whose mouth was hanging slightly open. Entranced by the arrival of the man with the dead elk, he had missed his opportunity.

  The man dropped the antlers and turned on George.

  “I want my money back,” he gasped.

  George said, “Stevie? What’s the matter?” He tried a friendly grin.

  Both George and Ricky seemed to have forgotten Joe Crow. Even Getter had his eyes focused on the elk man. Crow now recognized him. He’d seen him once before, at Birdy’s. One of the Murphys’ customers, though apparently no longer a happy one.

  “You know what’s the matter, you son-of-a-bitch—you had me shoot a dead elk!” Anderson shrieked, his voice cracking as it hit the word “elk.”

  George cleared his throat. “Uh, Steve, you think we could talk about this some other time? I think you’ve somehow gotten the wrong idea here—”

  “You think I’m stupid?” Anderson beat a fist on his chest, staggered to the side from the force of his own blow. Crow realized he was not only furious; he was also besotted. “You think I’m a fool?” He took a step toward George, jabbing a forefinger at his sternum.

  George stood his ground and let Anderson thump him. His smile showed too many teeth, and his cheeks were visibly heating up.

  Ricky had moved slightly. He was still seated, but his shoulders had shifted. His eyes remained fixed on Anderson.

  Behind him, the tiger sat on its haunches, alert, its golden eyes following whatever moved. The black tip of the tail twitched. Its mouth parted slightly, revealing a creamy length of fang.

  “You think I’m some kind of sucker? You think I’m stupid? This thing’d been dead a week when I shot him. What do you take me for?”

  Crow thought, A guy that shoots a dead elk, then comes back shit-faced to complain about it. What does he expect to be taken for? He noticed that Getter was moving, performing a sidewinder-like motion that was carrying him away from Ricky Murphy an inch at a time. If no one else noticed him for twenty or thirty minutes, he might get somewhere.

  “I want my money back, Murphy. Now!” Anderson raised his chin triumphantly, as if he had scored a fatal thrust of logic. To follow it up, he made another jab at George’s chest, but this time his finger ended up locked in George’s fist, George standing solid as a ton of scrap iron, Anderson swaying slightly, his extremities twitching with anger, staring with bewildered fury at his captured finger.

  George growled, “Take it easy now, Stevie.”

  Anderson squeezed his lips together, inflated his cheeks, and jerked his finger from George’s grasp. They could hear the soft pop of a knuckle dislocating. Anderson gasped and hunched over his injured hand, then lifted his head and launched himself at George with an unintelligible cry. George stepped aside to avoid him.

  At that point, Crow realized that he had made a mistake. It had seemed that the Murphys had been totally focused on their unhappy elk hunter, but George had not forgotten Joe Crow at all. As he twisted back, away from Anderson’s charge, one arm shot out and up and struck the underside of Crow’s forearm. The Taurus flew from his grasp. George reversed direction, whirling like a fat
dervish, and struck again, this time hammering Crow’s chest with a four-pound fist. Crow staggered back, registering as he did that Anderson’s drunken charge had taken him past George’s position and toward Ricky, who was now on his feet, bringing up his revolver, eyes on Crow.

  Crow dropped to the floor, rolled behind one of the heavy leather sofas, thinking only of getting something solid between himself and Ricky’s gun. George was coming at him again, fast. Where had his Taurus landed? There, ten feet past the end of the sofa. Too far. He heard Anderson shout something, heard Ricky yell at him to get the fuck out of the way. Crow was on his hands and knees, speed-crawling toward his lost gun, expecting George’s weight to come crashing down on him at any moment. He dove out into the open, his hand landed on the gun, its taped grip feeling like the only solid thing in the universe. He twisted, looking back just in time to see George descending on him, his body filling Crow’s field of vision. Crow swung the gun in a short, hard arc and caught George on the jaw as he twisted his body away. George’s momentum carried him past Crow into the poker table, sending the table and several chairs crashing down as he landed hard on his belly.

  Crow rolled into a crouch, gun in both hands, looking for Ricky.

  At first, he didn’t know what he was seeing.

  Steve Anderson had his arms wrapped around Ricky, wrestling with him. It looked like the last drunken dance of the night, but there was no music, and Ricky was squirming frantically. Crow saw Ricky’s hand come around with the gun, slap it against the side of Anderson’s head. An explosion. Anderson screamed, grabbed his ear. Ricky stepped back, locked his eyes on Crow, and raised his revolver.

  Crow fired. The lead slug flattened against Ricky’s oversize brass belt buckle, sent him staggering back toward the corner. He seemed to recover, raised his gun. Crow was about to fire again when an orange-and-white shape rose up behind Ricky. In a gesture that looked like love, the tiger reached out with a plate-size paw, wrapped it around Ricky’s waist, drew him back. It seemed to happen slowly, Ricky rotating in the tiger’s embrace as if to return it, narrow eyes widened to almonds, then going rigid as the tiger tipped its head to the side, gently kissed the base of Ricky’s throat, and released him.

  A jet of bright crimson arced across the room, spattering the windows.

  Ricky dropped his gun, clapped both hands to his neck, and spun, hosing down a ten-foot-diameter semicircle with arterial blood. He staggered away from the tiger as it stood watching, its instinct telling it that the food would soon stop moving and could be more conveniently devoured at a later time. Ricky dropped to his knees, his eyes rolled up, and he fell facefirst into a gathering pool of red.

  Anderson had fallen to his side, both hands cupped over his left ear. A high-pitched gasping, keening sound came from his mouth, providing an eerie sound track for the scene.

  George Murphy climbed to his feet. He made a low sound in his throat and started toward Ricky, his eyes on the revolver still gripped in his brother’s hand. Crow watched, wondering whether the tiger was about to kill two Murphys in one day. George stopped himself before reaching the perimeter of the tiger’s territory. He looked back at Crow, his face gone slack.

  Crow shrugged as if to say, Hey, this wasn’t what I had in mind.

  He heard a muffled, frantic sound. Getter, who had managed to worm his way almost to the door, was staring wide-eyed at something behind Crow, trying to shout through the gag in his mouth. Crow spun and found himself facing Shawn Murphy, who was armed with a small-caliber rifle, pointing it at Crow’s midsection from six feet away. His face was dead white but for two red disks glowing on his cheeks. The boy’s entire body shook, the end of the rifle barrel moving an inch or more with each tremor of his arms, but at six feet he could shake all he wanted and still make a hole in Joe Crow.

  Crow looked back at George. “If he shoots that gun, I’ll kill him,” he said.

  “You put that gun down, Shawn,” George Murphy said. Shawn looked at his father, breathing fast and hard. “Now!” George said.

  The rifle fell from the boy’s hands, hit the rug with a dull thud. Shawn sidled away from Crow, then broke and ran to his father. George wrapped his arms around his son. He looked at Getter, then at Crow, then at Anderson.

  Still making the strange throat noises, Anderson had managed to stand up. He brought his hands down, looked at them. No blood.

  Crow said, “Are you okay?”

  “What?”

  “Are you hurt?”

  Anderson shook his head. “I can’t hear you.” He started toward the door, hesitated, grabbed the unfinished elk mount, and dragged it after him. They watched him leave.

  “What was that about?” Crow asked.

  George Murphy just shook his head. Getter was squirming again, trying to talk. Regretfully, Crow bent over and slowly pulled the red kerchief from Getter’s distended mouth.

  Getter worked his swollen lips. “Ah dose my clothes?” he said to Crow.

  Crow looked at the slimy piece of cloth in his hand and briefly considered putting it back where he’d found it. He looked over at George.

  “I still want that Nelly Bell,” George said.

  “Get in line,” Crow said.

  George Murphy scowled. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  G. Wayne Zizzi, eight-year veteran of airport security at Hubert H. Humphrey International Terminal, was having one of his best days ever. He’d started out, ten o’clock that morning, by spotting a flick knife in a teenager’s carry-on. A lot of guys wouldn’t have spotted it on account of it was sitting at this weird angle in the kid’s bag, but stuff like that didn’t get past Zizzi. They’d finally let the kid go after confiscating the blade. Zizzi got to add the knife to his personal collection. Then an hour later, he’d got a joker, one of these guys that says some dumb-ass thing like, “You better take a good look in there. I might be the mad bomber of Minneapolis.”

  Guy like that, Zizzi took personal pleasure in helping him miss his flight.

  Early afternoon, he’d spotted another knife. Turned out it was a kitchen knife, a present for this guy’s sister in Toronto. Couldn’t let it on the plane, though. The guy was pissed. They made him check it through baggage.

  Days like this, Zizzi really loved his job. Felt like he was doing some good. Protecting people.

  Mostly, though, it had been a pretty boring eight years. Looking at X-rays of people’s luggage, it got so you knew what you were going to see just about every time. People were predictable.

  Another thirty-five minutes until his next break.

  He stared at the screen, at the ghosts of disposable razors, lipstick, car keys, compacts, belt buckles. …He’d gotten so good at it, he didn’t really have to think about what he was seeing. Another bag moved into view.

  Zizzi stopped the belt, backed it up.

  He could feel the hair rising on his neck.

  Here was something he had never seen before. Except in training films.

  Zizzi looked up at the man standing at the end of the belt, waiting patiently for his bag. Not a big man, not particularly dangerous looking in that prissy leather cowboy shirt. Reminded him of Roy Rogers, only his nose was all swollen and he had a bandage over his upper lip. Could be a disguise.

  Zizzi looked back at the screen, at what appeared to be a machine pistol with a full clip. A TEC-9, or maybe a MAC. One of those little machine pistols.

  This is a biggie, thought Zizzi as he flipped on the silent alarm switch on his belt radio. This one’s gonna make my day.

  XXXII

  I like outlaws better’n in-laws.

  —ORLAN JOHNSON

  ORLAN JOHNSON TIPPED BACK a beer, swallowed, belched. He waved his cigar in the air.

  “Y’know something,” he said. “I always thought you was an all right guy, H.”

  Harley Pike’s head flopped forward, then back. “Me too,” he said, sucking on one of Johnson’s El Productos. He was having trouble keeping it lit. He reached for h
is beer, found it already in his hand, poured another ounce into his mouth.

  Johnson slapped his hand on his thigh. “Is jus’ too got-damn bad we wound up on opposi’ sides a th’ law, y’know?”

  “Uh,” said Harley. He would have passed out a long time ago if it were not for the novelty of playing host to Big River’s number one cop. He was having trouble keeping his eyes pointed in the same direction.

  “I got to tell you, you folks, you know how t’ live. Got-damn Hill, she won’t even let me smoke in my own got-damn house, you know what I mean?”

  Puss turned up the TV.

  Harley said, “Uh?”

  “I mean, you know what I mean?”

  Harley opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

  “Got-damn right,” said Johnson.

  “I want to talk to my lawyer,” repeated Dr. Nelson Bellweather. “I don’t know where that gun came from. I don’t know anything. I want to call my lawyer.”

  He was sitting in a white room, about the same size as one of the examination rooms at his clinic. Correction. His former clinic. With the two airport security guards, each of them weighing as much as a razorback hog, the room felt very small. So far, they hadn’t gone for the rubber hoses, but they weren’t exactly looking out for his rights.

  The dumb-looking one with the cold sore on his lip, the one named Zizzi, was enjoying himself. His phlegmatic partner, Al, watched disinterestedly.

  “Please remove your shirt and pants, sir,” said Zizzi.

  “I want my lawyer. I’m not doing anything until I talk to my lawyer,” Bellweather said, thinking that the thirty thousand dollars in his boots wouldn’t do anything to improve his situation.

  “Please remove your shirt and pants, sir,” repeated Zizzi.

  Or maybe, he thought, it will get me out of here.

  “Just a second,” he said. “Let me ask you guys something. How much money do you take home every month?”

  Zizzi and Al looked at each other.

  “What are you trying to say, sir?” asked Zizzi.

  Bellweather took a deep breath. There was simply no elegant way to do this.