Rumrunners

by Eric Beetner

  A trip across the flat cornfield carpet between Omaha and Iowa City took most people about four hours. Calvin showed up in two and a half. The original leadfoot. His dad, Edgar, never lived long enough to see a car with three hundred horsepower. Would have wept like a baby to be behind the wheel of a ride like that.

  When his grandfather arrived at Tucker’s house he looked like a returning soldier. Calvin’s face glowed with the wind-blown top-down aura only high speed night driving could accomplish. He walked straight and with purpose to his grandson, a thick hand extended out before him.

  “Put ’er in the old vice, kid.” Vice is about right. He pumped Tucker’s hand up and down, squeezing until the bones ached and knocked against their neighbors. McGraw men don’t hug.

  “Hope I’m not too late for the wife and kid.”

  “They don’t…we’re separated. About three years now, actually.”

  “Goddamn. Sorry as shit to hear it, Tuck. Goddamn. McGraw men don’t get divorced, we outlive our wives. My dad, your dad, me.”

  “Yeah, well. First time for everything.”

  Tucker ran down what he recalled about his conversation with Kenny.

  “Ten million?” barked Calvin. “They’re fucking with you.”

  “I don’t think they are. I think they wanted to light a fire under me to help find my dad. He didn’t set a specific timetable. Just said he’d be back.”

  “Which one was it you say?”

  “Kenny.”

  “Hmm, don’t know him. Been a while I guess. Hell, I ain’t even seen my own great-grandson in a coon’s age. How is the boy?”

  “With his mom. Can we focus here?”

  Calvin eyed Tucker with a judgmental look, assessing some kind of weakness in a man who would let his ex-wife take away his only son. With a shake of his head Calvin finished the can of Pabst Tucker gave him the moment he walked in. “Got any more?” Tucker went to the fridge to get another round for Calvin. He stuck with water for himself.

  The forced bachelor squalor of Tucker’s house didn’t bother Calvin. He’d been a widower for twenty-seven years and his place in Omaha would take a bulldozer and a hazmat team to clear out. Retirement hadn’t agreed with him. Still spry and in shape he spent time fidgeting around the house like a teenager low on Ritalin. The tank-and-a-quarter blast across Iowa to get there had been the most fun he’d had in years.

  “I’ll tell you one thing, Webb didn’t steal nothing and he didn’t run off. He wouldn’t do that. He was a McGraw through and through. We don’t disrespect the job that way.”

  “Then where is he?” Tucker had been avoiding the D word since Kenny arrived at his door. If Calvin said it, or at least brought up the possibility, it might lessen the blow.

  “I don’t know. But I aim to find out.” Calvin drained the second beer. “That ought to help me hit the hay. What do you say we pick this up in the morning and find out a few things?”

  Tucker checked his watch. Twelve-thirty. No other eighty-six-year-old man in the state was still awake. With visions of his dad dead on a roadside and a pile of ten million dollars about to topple over and crush him, Tucker knew he wouldn’t get much sleep tonight. Something about having Calvin there made him feel a little better though.

  Calvin lifted his feet and began pressing his body into the couch cushions.

  “Granddad, you can have the bed. I’ll take the couch.”

  “Couch is good enough for me. Don’t you worry.”

  Tucker brought him a blanket from the hall closet.

  “Thanks, kid.” For the first time since he arrived, he looked old. “Good to see you.”

  Tucker smiled, but it faded quickly. “Good to see you, too.”

  Calvin looked back at him with a stare only years can bring. “You want me to tell you it’s all going to be fine, don’t you?”

  Tucker turned his head down, fighting off a wave of embarrassment. “It’d be nice.”

  “I’m not gonna. Them Stanleys are good, upstanding business people who may have treated us like the help, but always treated us square. But let’s not forget what business they’re in. And these young kids now taking over, they don’t have the same length of memory. Might be your dad isn’t treated with the respect he deserves. But I mean what I say when I say he didn’t steal nothing. No truck. No drugs. Whatever it is, no son of mine ever turned crooked and ran.”

  Tucker’s head might have thought his father capable of anything criminal or unsavory, but his heart knew Calvin was right. Webb operated under a strict code of ethics in an unethical profession. It made the alternative harder to stomach.

  “G’night, Granddad.”

  “G’night, kid. Nice to see you got some of the McGraw code of honor in you yet. Might be you can’t drive worth a shit, but you know never to leave a man behind.”

  “He’s my dad.”

  “And he’s my son. And we’re gonna find him.”

  6

  Calvin scratched his balls as he stepped into the kitchen, his white hair at kinky angles from his night on the couch. He ignored Tucker and went straight for the fridge, pulled the last can of Pabst from the plastic rings and cracked the top.

  “I made coffee, y’know,” Tucker said, offering a mug.

  Calvin took the cup by the handle, looked at the beer, then the mug, then the beer, back to the coffee. He took a long pull on the beer can, swallowed deep, set it on the counter and followed with a coffee chaser.

  A loud knock rattled the door. Calvin halted the coffee mug half-way to his lips as he and Tucker shared a look.

  “Stanleys?” asked Tucker.

  Calvin set the mug down next to the Pabst. “You got a piece?”

  “A piece of what?”

  “A gun, you fool.”

  “No.”

  Calvin shook his head like the boy had admitted he couldn’t change a tire.

  “Go on ahead,” Calvin said.

  Tucker walked to the door. Calvin stayed behind, hiding his body in the doorway to the kitchen which gave him a partially obstructed view of the front door. No way the Stanleys would be so dumb as to come back the very next day to make their claim, and no way they’d come in guns blazing without some talk first. This was not a vengeful clan, they’d rather have the cash.

  Tucker opened the door to Jenny, his ex. Tall, blonde with boobs barely two years old and still smelling of that boyfriend who wasn’t much older. Ron. Jerk-off smoked menthols like a high school girl.

  Tucker felt the same tugs, like marionette strings, to his heart, his stomach. The flush to his face. The torch he still held for her burned him every time.

  “Jenny,” Tucker said with genuine surprise.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “What’s what?”

  “That.” She pivoted her hips and pointed to Calvin’s convertible 1980 Trans Am, his dream car. The Smokey and the Bandit car. The fruits of Calvin’s labor. “Did you get a goddamn new car?”

  For a woman who cheated and left him, Jenny was a shit to Tucker.

  “No. That’s not my car.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you have a woman in here? In my house?”

  “Okay, a few things. One, it’s not your house. Two, I don’t have a woman in here and even if I did it’s none of your concern and three, it’s my granddad’s car and he’s here for a visit.”

  Calvin faded back around the doorjamb, not wanting the she-devil to spot him.

  “Oh.” Jenny’s anger had no place to go. She strained for a direction to aim her momentum. “How is Calvin?”

  “Good. He’s good. He was asking after Milo. Wanted to see him.”

  “Milo’s grounded. He skipped school again. Third time this month. That boy, Tucker…that boy. He needs a talking to.”

  “I wish you’d let me then. This every other weekend crap doesn’t exactly lend itself to a close father-son relationship. He doesn’t tell me things anymore. He’s at the age when he doesn’t want to tell anyone over age thirty a d
amn thing about his life.”

  She thrust out a hip and her bracelets rattled as she planted a hand on her jutted out midsection. “You expect me to increase your visitation without you increasing your monthly payments? No judge is gonna agree to that.”

  “Why do we have to get judges involved? Can’t we just be his parents? If the boy needs something, if he’s drifting, let me help.”

  “I don’t know, Tucker. I just do not know. Look, I don’t have time to argue about this now. I was driving by and saw the car and I thought…”

  “You thought I was holding out on you and buying myself toys.”

  She at least had the decency to look ashamed. “Something like that.”

  “Believe me, Jenny, you get every last cent that’s left over each month. I’m not going to be buying any new cars any time soon.”

  “Okay.” She did her best to peek around Tucker and make sure no women were hiding under the couch or behind the potted plants. “Say hi to Calvin for me.”

  “I’ll do that. Would you tell Milo his granddad wants to see him?”

  “Okay. Maybe y’all can get a Dairy Queen together or something while I go to the gym.”

  “That’d be nice.” Tucker realized his definition of what would be “nice” had eroded over the years.

  The high tick-tick-tick of Jenny’s heels faded away as she walked down the driveway, eyeballing the Trans Am.

  Calvin stepped out from the kitchen, coffee mug back in his hand. “Quite a reunion there.”

  “That was about average.”

  “What’s she on about with the money?”

  “Alimony. My monthly bill. Her lawyer went after me during the divorce and it happened at a high point in the insurance game. People buying homeowners policies for houses they shouldn’t have ever been in. People with extra money to spend on some peace of mind. Nowadays people spend their extra money on stuff like food and clothing. They set my monthly payment at a time when I made more money than I ever had. Now the judge won’t hear my appeal to get it reduced to match my salary ’cause my base salary is the same, but it was the bonuses and commissions that make the difference. Those are all gone.”

  Calvin sipped his coffee, shook his head. “A goddamn shame.”

  “I know. The whole system is—”

  “A McGraw man hard up for cash.”

  “Well, it’s the whole industry really. It’s—”

  “You’re pissing away your gift, boy. Selling insurance. What the hell is that?”

  “It’s a decent, honest living.”

  “It’s a cemetery plot with a business card. It’s an iron lung with a company car. It’s a slow suicide by bus bench advertisements. And it’s a waste of valuable resources. McGraw blood is meant to be coursing through a V-8, not an actuary table. Yes, I know what that is.”

  “I’m not a criminal.”

  “Bullshit. What you’re doing with your own blood is the biggest crime I know.”

  Calvin turned and went back to the kitchen. Tucker followed. Calvin set the coffee mug in the sink, picked up the can of beer, upended it and slurped down the last drops. The can thunked empty on the tile countertop. “Let’s get going.”

  Tucker waited for the Trans Am’s engine to quiet from the revs after Calvin started her up.

  “Where are we going exactly?”

  “Sounds like you need a little dough.”

  Tucker sat up in his seat, reacting like he’d been told the roller coaster he was on didn’t have brakes. “I’m not going to steal it.”

  “Neither am I. There’s a guy who owed your dad some money. We’ll go see him.”

  “Who?”

  “A guy.”

  “How do you know about it?”

  “I actually talk to my son.”

  The Firebird squealed tires away from the curb. Somewhere Jerry Reed was singing “East Bound and Down.”

  The farmhouse sat with fifty acres between neighbors on either side. The isolation made Tucker uneasy, but anywhere this transaction was to take place would have made him uneasy.

  Calvin took it slow down the unpaved driveway, careful not to ride the Firebird’s shocks too hard. Dust kicked up and swirled in through the open T-top. Tucker covered his mouth to keep out most of the dirt which, this being an Iowa farm, he assumed was fifty percent manure.

  The fields were low, as if nothing was planted on them at all. The telltale smells of livestock were absent. Whoever lived on this acreage made their money some way other than farming.

  The sky had gone overcast in thick gray clouds like lint balls overhead. A slow breeze moved a tire swing on the oak in front of the farmhouse. The house itself was well-kept. White with dark green shutters. Trimmed lawn. No rusting farm implements in the yard like most properties in the Midwest.

  “Should I be scared?” Tucker asked.

  “Every day, all the time,” Calvin said. “That way you don’t get surprised and you don’t get hurt.”

  Calvin turned off the car, reached over Tucker’s lap and opened the glove box to remove a .38.

  Seeing Tucker’s reaction Calvin said, “Relax. This is a just-in-case gun. This ain’t enough to get in any real trouble.”

  “I’m not all that interested in any trouble, real or imagined.”

  Tucker stared down his grandson. “You sure your mom didn’t fuck the milkman?” Calvin popped his door open, slid the .38 into the belt on his pants and walked toward the door. Tucker chased after him, a feeling in his chest like a rope tightening around his heart.

  Before Calvin reached the top step on the porch the door opened. A man stood just inside, a shadow cutting him at the knees and making his face impossible to see. A long straight shape ran down from the man’s right arm. Tucker thought it could either be an umbrella or a shotgun. He made up the part about the umbrella to make himself feel better.

  “Help you?” said the shadow.

  “I hope so,” started Calvin. “You owe my son, Webb McGraw.”

  “Maybe I know him.”

  “Oh, no, I know you know him. I said you owe him. About five grand as I heard it. We’re gonna need that.”

  Tucker inadvertently shielded his body with Calvin’s. When he realized he was doing it he felt ashamed to be hiding behind an eighty-six-year-old man.

  “You’re his dad, you said?”

  “And this here’s his son.” Tucker held up a hand in a short wave. “This is not a shakedown. You owe that money legit. I aim to collect it. Seems my son is in a bit of trouble. We’re gonna need some resources to help him out.”

  The shadow stepped forward into the flat cloud-covered light. The man wore a T-shirt, dirty jeans. Long drooping mustache, silver hoop earrings in both ears, tan skin that pegged him as at least part Latino. You could practically hear the rumble of a Harley between his legs. He did not hold an umbrella.

  “What’s wrong with Webb?” the man said with genuine concern.

  Calvin kept on speaking in his even keel. No need to relax because he’d been relaxed from the get-go. Tucker felt the rope around his heart slacken a bit.

  “Seems he got in a bit of a mess with the Stanleys.”

  “No shit?”

  “None at all. Ambrose is it?”

  “Call me Brose.” Brose lifted his chin, his form of a handshake. Calvin reciprocated. Brose scratched the soul patch below his lip, smoothed his mustache with his forefinger and thumb. “Wish I could help you man. I don’t got it right now. Webb was giving me a few more weeks.”

  “I don’t have weeks, Brose.”

  “I don’t got it. Sorry, man.”

  “You have a son, Brose?” Calvin was all faux friendliness. This is what people think of when they think insurance salesman, Tucker thought, dripping insincerity and a pistol tucked in their belt.

  “No, man. I don’t.”

  “But, you have something that’s valuable to you.”

  The tip of the shotgun lifted very slightly. Like an animal smelling a threat from across a
valley, Brose tightened his senses.

  When he didn’t answer, Calvin continued. “The other accessory we’re gonna need for this trouble we’re in is another ride.”

  “You got a pretty sweet set of wheels right there, bro.”

  “Yeah, but see, I don’t want anything to happen to that. If Webb is my son, that there is my baby girl. So we need another vehicle.”

  “Can’t help you, man. I got a pickup but it’s got a hundred fifty thousand on it, tailgate’s busted off, stereo don’t work.”

  “I knew your name, Brose. I knew where you lived. What makes you think I wouldn’t know about your car?”

  Calvin stepped off the porch, turned left and began walking toward the barn. Tucker chased after him, suddenly exposed and aware of how close the shotgun was. Deep tire ruts finished the path from driveway to the double barn doors and Calvin walked steadily to the classic American red-painted barn.

  Brose followed anxiously. “Why you want my car, man?”

  “I told you. We need it or the five grand.”

  “I don’t have the cash, man.”

  “Then it’s settled.”

  Calvin opened the barn doors. Tucker waited for the shotgun to erupt.

  There was only silence. Silence and a bright orange 1970 Plymouth Superbird, a car most notable for the absolutely ridiculous three-foot-high spoiler on the back. A genuine stock car, made street legal and sold to hicks, rednecks and outlaws for a few short years before even GM realized how silly it was.

  To Calvin, she was a centerfold beckoning him forward with a smoldering look and whispering, “Turn-ons: guys who drive fast, white hair, senior discounts and arthritis.” It was automotive Viagra.

  “Come on, man,” Brose said, appealing to the better part of Calvin’s manhood.

  “Nothing personal, Brose. Just business. Keys?”

  Tucker looked at the pumpkin-colored eyesore and knew this was what his dad wanted him to have posters of in his room growing up. Not Joe Montana and Troy Aikman. Cars like this, cars in general, were where the communication began to break down.