by Tom Lytes
“Thanks,” Leonard said.
“Yeah,” then Hansel said to Roger, “This isn’t too bad. Let’s get out to the computer lab. We can make it by dark.”
“What about her?” Roger pointed to Peggy. Then he pointed at Leonard, “And him. Aren’t they coming too?”
“Nah, they don’t need to,” Hansel said, looking at Peggy conspiratorially. “We’re coming back after we’re done. You going to be here?”
“Yeah,” Peggy said. “We’ll both be here.”
Roger put his hand across Hansel’s chest.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “They come with us.” He pointed at Peggy and then Leonard and looked back to Hansel. “With us, and where’s the other guy?”
“While you were sleeping, some shit changed. We’re okay,” Hansel said.
“You talk to Bobby?” Roger asked.
“Trust me on this,” Hansel said.
Leonard interrupted by saying, “Go ahead and take one of my Porsches. We’ll be here at the house. Come back when you’re done.”
Roger ran over, picked a floor mat off the pavement next to the passenger seat of the Porsche Cayenne S, and put it in place. Sitting down, he expertly navigated the seat controls down and back. Then he gazed out the sky window.
“Let’s go,” Roger said.
43
Officer Pincus wasn’t listening to Miss Tress.
“That basil needs watering, and I told you not to put those planters on this side of the house.” Miss Tress put her hands on her hips as she stood over the wilting plants. She looked and sounded like she was chastising a disobedient puppy. “You remember last year. We had them out of the afternoon sun and they did fine. Look at them burning up over here, just terrible.”
Officer Pincus let his sunglasses hide the deadpan look he couldn’t will away from his face. He didn’t care a flying turd about the spices. They were a hassle every year and took so much effort to keep alive in the hot months, they barely seemed worth the effort. Besides, he could buy spices at the Harris Teeter on Isle of Palms.
“We tried the planters over here because they look better from the sidewalk, and as you approach the front door,” Officer Pincus said without enthusiasm.
“Well,” Miss Tress said, “they’d look better if they weren’t dying in the sun. And that’s exactly what they look like. If we must, I can go down memory lane with you and tell you exactly what outfit I was wearing each of the three times this week I asked you to move the plants over there. It’s like your head is completely somewhere else the past few days.”
Officer Pincus didn’t mention that the neighbor’s gray, white and orange cat peed in the planter most days. Miss Tress changed her focus briefly, bending to put new life into the plants by fluffing them. Officer Pincus looked on as he tried to enjoy the money he knew was in his special, new bank account. He couldn’t, partially because it was all so unbelievable and new to him.
The other, more complicated reason involved Peggy. She’d died according to the county’s paperwork and Leonard’s program, but couldn’t be more alive if she tried. Now with the money safely in his account, Officer Pincus hoped her existence wouldn’t change something. Would the program take the money back, or punish him for his deception? No matter how Officer Pincus thought about it, he couldn’t put the situation in a place where it could just be, and not mess with his moods and distract him.
He came back to the idea of killing Peggy. What better choice did he have?
Miss Tress yammered on about the planters. “They have to be watered twice a day until the last week of September or first week of October. Then you gradually cut back to once a day. Late November turns into every two or three days.”
Officer Pincus lost patience. He needed to think about how to keep the five million dollars safe. Miss Tress seemed to take his silence for genuine interest. He wanted her to stop talking.
“I don’t care about the planters,” he said.
He stepped on one of them and left his weight on top of the plants he was crushing.
“Wha—what are you doing?” Miss Tress asked.
“I have to go,” he said, spinning his heal and walking towards his garage. He opened the walking door, and saw Miss Tress gaping at him, her head bobbing slightly as she looked incredulously from his face to his feet. He looked down too and kicked off an herb plant caught in the upper hook laces of his boots.
Miss Tress recovered from her surprise enough to move, making her way back to her house with enough glances over her shoulder to ensure that Officer Pincus didn’t follow. Finally, alone and left to his own thoughts, Officer Pincus went to the back of his garage and moved the salt water fly fishing gear he spent over three hours arranging on a moveable rack along the wall. Behind the rack was a compartment built into the wall seventeen years ago, right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
It was a time when patriotism ran high, and the defense of even the smallest, most unlikely places in the country became top priority. During those uncertain days, Officer Pincus took it upon himself to call Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s office in New York City. A sergeant in the police force there provided him the name of a Homeland Security appropriator in Washington D.C. Officer Pincus asked for stuff to protect the town, and was given a huge, jacked-up truck with bullet proof tires. The Town Council made a big deal of it at the time, and the truck featured prominently each year in the Memorial Day parade that went down Middle Street.
As an afterthought, it seemed, the appropriator, who’d become friendly with Officer Pincus, asked him if he’d like a half-dozen rocket launchers. At first Officer Pincus laughed, thinking it a joke. A month later, the damn things arrived in sturdy wooden crates, much to his surprise. As a security precaution, he told nobody except for his boss, the mayor, who’d since passed. Officer Pincus failed to mention the weapon’s existence to anyone else, which seemed prudent at the time, and downright genius now.
The compartment in his garage opened easily on greased hinges. His fishing stuff fell to the floor, but this wasn’t the time to worry about fishing gear. In between the exposed studs of the wall stood the rocket launchers. A Homeland Security serial number, printed in red on the butt of each one, accompanied a stick figure diagram to demonstrate its ease of operation.
He went to the garage door. Miss Tress hadn’t come back outside, and his quiet street remained… quiet. He pulled the cruiser up close to the garage’s walking door. He collected a painting tarp from off to the side, white with splotches of baby blue paint. They knew for sure Sullivan would be their child, his birthmother having signed the paperwork a month before his birth. Lisa Anne left for the hospital to share mothering duties with the birth mom, and he stayed behind. Shelton at the Ace Hardware on Ben Sawyer Boulevard. in Mount Pleasant sold him the paint and tarp as he basked in the news of the baby. Officer Pincus painted straight through the evening until finishing the room, all in one go. The spatters of paint on the tarp slowed him down now as he thought about the past, and he ran his fingers over them. The paint drops were shiny and slick, in contrast to the coarse cotton fabric of the tarp.
He shook the tarp a little and wiped at the dust and debris he launched into the air as it drifted into his eyes. Officer Pincus stood in front of his compartment of rocket launchers and held the painting tarp in one hand.
“Five million dollars,” he said aloud.
Without any further hesitation, Officer Pincus leaned a rocket launcher onto his shoulder as he squatted down. He wrapped the painters tarp around it and hoisted it up off the ground. It weighed just over a hundred pounds, and his old sports injuries made him adjust his feet to account for the weight. He’d been a pretty good baseball player when he was at University of South Carolina. More recently he found fame at the annual Isle of Palms Half Rubber Tournament, which was essentially baseball but with a pole for a bat and a half red rubber ball. Officer Pincus coul
dn’t keep thoughts from crashing into his brain and dragging up memories good and bad. They all seemed to propel him into action, and towards ensuring the five million dollars would be his.
Staggering out of the garage with the launcher flung over his shoulder, the tarp blew fiercely in the breeze and sounded like a soaring kite. Lowering the bundled weapon into the trunk, on top of Barbara Pelman’s body, Officer Pincus reviewed his plan. Five houses down from Leonard’s, he knew of a new house, barely completed. That’s where he’d go.
Once there, he prepared the rocket launcher by following the easy steps outlined on the attached diagram. He waited for the unmistakable roar of Leonard’s Porsche Cayenne starting in the driveway down the street. The back bumper of the cruiser stabilized his foot, his hand rested on the hard steel of the rocket launcher. The quiet around him pressed from all sides.
44
Bobby Touro felt pretty good.
His driver felt less good, but, Bobby thought, you can’t have everything.
Bobby could hear his driver’s stress building throughout their phone conversation.
“Wait, tell me that again,” Bobby said.
“I gave Hansel the address down on Sullivan’s Island,” the driver said. “I waited until the last minute, like you told me.”
“That’s good news. That means they made it down there.”
“Yeah,” the driver said. “You know I’ve been with you a long time, and I’m not hysterical.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bobby said.
“Hansel, he didn’t sound good,” the driver said. “He sounded nervous. Like, hiding something.”
“Hiding something? What the fuck do you think he’s gonna be hiding?”
“I have no idea,” the driver said. “He left for South Carolina and then he got down there and didn’t sound right.”
“Okay, I’ll be careful,” Bobby said. “I won’t announce my presence when I arrive places.”
He pulled over, sitting in the red Dodge with the windows open, a few doors down from Leonard’s house.
“It’s not like we’ve been knowing Hansel forever. I mean, he checked out as a good guy, no question, and the older guys in his neighborhood have good things to say about him, but we have seen what the program can do to people, boss.”
“We have,” Bobby said, cringing at the thought of Joelle’s deception. “I don’t underestimate the program at all. Everything smooth up there?”
“Yeah, I’ve been driving around, trying to make everything seem normal,” the driver said, “but it’s not. The Bennington lotto profits are down again. I think you’re right that they aren’t sending you the full take. I called Rosco to ask him about it and told him you weren’t happy. He says the numbers are down mostly because of the old people who used to play at the nursing home. They died, and so the numbers are down.”
“Does he think I’m a fucking idiot?”
“Yeah, boss, I think he does.”
Bobby reached over to the other side of the bench seat and pulled a chicken wing from his Bojangles chicken box. There was a gallon of sweet tea next to it. Bobby tried it, but honestly didn’t have a taste for the sweetness of it.
“Tell him I’ve got four grandmas on the payroll in the nursing home who are telling me different,” Bobby said.
“I didn’t know about the grannies. When did that happen?”
“I don’t have any grannies,” Bobby said, sighing. “Just tell him. And tell him I’m gonna come and visit him soon. Tell him I’m real concerned.”
“Real concerned,” the driver repeated. “Got it. I’ll tell him.”
“Good.”
“Anything else I can do for you, Bobby.”
“No, I’ll let you know what happens with Clean.”
“Yeah,” the driver said, “I want everything to go back to normal.”
Bobby hung up, knowing that wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t want anything to be like it had been before, anyway. He was sick of following up with all the people he dealt with each day. He didn’t want to worry about who cheated him, or whose actions forced him to coerce them into submission. Running a fear-based enterprise meant anyone who stepped out of line, even just a little bit, needed a pounding. And whenever he delivered punishment on that side of his relationships, he needed to think about the other side. Who might come for him if he pushed too hard. Finding a balance between the two wasn’t a simple thing.
Maybe he could change his life - take his money, start over and go somewhere else. Leonard was weak, and somehow, he managed to do it. He found this beautiful island and set himself up with a nice house. Bobby heard through his people that Leonard kept a busy social schedule, too. Bobby thought about what he might leave behind if he left New York, and if he cared about any of it. He would miss the old speakeasy laundry place and a few buildings but wouldn’t miss many of the people. His driver would relocate if Bobby asked, and everyone else he could leave behind. It would be easier to get Peggy if he left the life up there, he knew that. She wasn’t attracted to the big personality of Bobby Touro, the businessman.
When Bobby finished the chicken wing, he threw the bones out into the bushes next to him and saw a car poke it’s nose out of Leonard’s driveway. It felt like a music video for a big-hair band as the radio played heavy drums and guitar in the background, as Leonard’s hedges looked like they gave birth to a shiny black Porsche. It turned out of the driveway and picked up speed quickly as it came towards where he’d parked the red Dodge. Bobby strained to see the two passengers inside but was having a hard time seeing through the Porsche’s windshield due to the glare of the sun. Middle Street wasn’t wide, and the Porsche was forced to move across the center line to pass his truck.
It swerved, going faster than what was smart on the narrow residential street. When it was alongside Bobby, he finally saw inside the vehicle and recognized Hansel driving, and Roger riding shotgun.
“What the hell are those guys doing driving Leonard’s car?”
The men didn’t recognize him in the red truck, out of context, and before Bobby could decide what to do next, the Porsche raced past him. An instant later, a flash of light bright enough to hurt his eyes reflected off his rearview mirror. He turned, instinctively, and shielded his eyes. His head spun around just in time to see the aftermath of a grenade or some other massive explosive impact the passenger side door of Leonard’s brand-new Porsche Cayenne S. To say the car moved would be an understatement. It slid sideways, crossing over the other lane and stopping fifteen feet off the road. Every piece of glass blew out of place, and car parts of every size scattered in the yard, on the porch and even on the roof of a nearby house. The passenger side where the vehicle took the impact looked like it turned inside out. Hansel and Roger could not have lived through what Bobby just witnessed.
“What the—” Bobby hollered.
His own survival instincts took over, and he yanked on the trucks gear shift, engaging it with a jerk. While cranking the starter of the Dodge, he looked at the fiery wreck in the rearview mirror. The truck lurched forward until he tamed his nerves and settled on a slow, consistent speed. Almost out of sight, moving slowly, he saw the nose of a police cruiser edge out of the driveway across from where the remnants of the Porsche littered at least an acre of land. Bobby hit the gas and spun the tires of the old truck, careening around the corner and down the street before he slowed down again.
“Well, what do you know?” Bobby asked himself. “Could Peggy’s old friend, the local cop, be sneaking away from the blast site?” He looked in the rearview mirror again. “Son-of-a-bitch. He blew up Hansel.”
Bobby shook his head at the loss of his henchman. But he couldn’t waste time mourning him. He accelerated, and up ahead he saw firetrucks and firemen in the street hanging around next to their trucks outside a small metal building. What were they doing just hanging around anyway? He didn
’t want to be driving past the large group just as they realized what was going on, thereby implicating him or putting him at the scene of the explosion. So not having many options of where to go, he drove into the only public place available where he saw activity. He pulled off Middle Street and into the half-full parking lot of the Fort Moultrie Museum. The bells in the clock tower of Stella Maris made their presence known by ringing in the hour. Bobby spun his head when he heard the sound and then chastised himself for reacting, maybe bringing attention to himself. He sat in the truck for a couple of seconds to calm himself down. A park ranger walked towards him and was halfway across the grassy area that led from the parking lot to a dock at the far end of the property when Bobby stepped out of his truck and walked over to speak with him.
“Excuse me sir,” Bobby said.
“Yes,” the ranger said pleasantly as he swung the mostly empty white trash bag. “How can I help you?”
Bobby smiled the best he could and said, “Mighty fine dock you have over there. I’m from out of town, New York actually.”
The ranger looked down at Bobby’s clothes and nodded. It made Bobby wonder what he was looking at, so Bobby looked too. He didn’t see anything. When he looked back up at the ranger, the young man was patiently waiting for Bobby to finish talking.
“Any chance me and my lady could bring a little boat out and leave her at your dock for the day?” Bobby asked. “I’d tie her up really good. You know, I mean my boat, right. I wouldn’t be tying up my girl.”
“Ha, no sir,” the man said. “That, there dock is for official business of the United States Government only. Y’all could pull up to the restaurant at Breach Inlet, though, and they wouldn’t mind you tying off there for a long while. Lots of people show up for lunch or dinner over there by boat. Or you could go to the public marina on the Isle of Palms and dock there too.”
Bobby made a show of hitting his forehead lightly with his open hand, and said, “Oh, I didn’t know about those places. I’ll give one of those a try. Hey, thank you so much.”