Rumrunners

by Eric Beetner

  “I can’t let you take my car, man.”

  Tucker snapped out of his memory. Here came the shotgun shells. No help for miles. In Iowa, no one could hear you scream.

  “I’ll bring it back. And know this, Brose. No one respects a vehicle more than me. Look at my baby. Cherry as the day she was born. I know what you got here. She’s a classic. Proud as a peacock. Think of it as a rental. I’ll drive it five grand worth and then bring it back.”

  Brose worked his soul patch some more. Almost wore his lip clean. The shotgun weighed in his hand. Tucker could see him feeling its weight versus the weight of killing two men. Over a car.

  “Let me make it easy on you,” Calvin said. He swooped up a hand, gripped the barrel of the shotgun and twisted it, ripping it free from the younger man’s grasp. Once Calvin held the single barrel firmly he pushed forward, driving the butt of the gun into Brose’s chest, knocking the wind out of him.

  Tucker backed up until he hit the side of the Superbird. He turned his head, saw the spoiler almost at eye level and flinched, thinking it was someone else in the room.

  Brose stumbled back, hit hard off a post from one of the old horse stables and fell to the dirt and straw floor. Calvin followed him and swung the stock of the gun like a golf club, clipping the man’s chin and making a sound like a backfire in the high-ceilinged barn.

  Calvin stood over him, Tucker held his breath. Brose groaned from the ground.

  “Keys,” demanded Calvin. Brose dug into his front pocket. Two small keys on a single ring. “Can’t say I didn’t give you a chance, kid.”

  Calvin spun and tossed the keys to Tucker. He flinched again and cringed like a flaming sack of shit was headed his way. The keys hit him in the chest and fell to the ground.

  “Ow,” he said.

  “You drive that one,” Calvin said.

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because no one but me drives the Bandit.”

  Calvin turned and walked out of the barn back toward his car, taking the shotgun with him. Tucker almost stepped over to check on Brose, but thought twice. The faster he was off the farm, the better.

  He feared Brose’s retaliation. After all, how you gonna keep ’em down on the farm after you’ve kicked their ass? For the time being, though, it was Calvin’s problem.

  The acoustics in the barn turned out to be perfect for the throaty roar of the Superbird’s engine.

  Deep down in Tucker, in a place that doesn’t have a name, something stirred. An echo through the ages, a flash of lightning down the helix of his DNA.

  Tucker barely noticed, but above, the clouds parted a little, carving a path of light for the drive home.

  7

  With the Trans Am safely stored away in Tucker’s garage Calvin powered the Superbird and its ridiculous tailfeather toward the office of Hugh Stanley.

  “You mind telling me what we gain by doing this?” Tucker asked.

  Calvin drove with one arm propped in the open window, breeze blowing his still-thick hair. “You dealt with one of the kids, right?”

  “Kenny.”

  “Yeah. You’ll never find out anything that way. We go to the top. Lucky for you, we have an in. Me. Hugh Stanley will see me and he’ll act glad as hell. Inside he’ll be shitting a brick, and if he is, that will tell me a hell of a lot about what really happened to Webb.”

  “You think the Stanleys are behind it?”

  “I doubt it. They’d be pretty stupid to take out one of their best men. But, it’s a start. Our other option is to start knocking on doors and asking if anyone has seen him. Or take out one of those milk carton ads.”

  Tucker folded his hands in his lap, squeezed until his knuckles turned white. “If it’s not the Stanleys then who?”

  “No idea. First thing is to find out what he was hauling. You neglected to get that little tidbit when Kenny came to see you.”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  “Right. Uh-huh. If we know what it was we might know who else wanted it. Highest rate of trouble for a driver is a jacking. By nature we always have valuables on board. Lots of big-for-their-britches types like to try to cut in on some of that. All reward and no risk. At least they think no risk. In my experience, you jack a driver—a good, connected one—you always come out the loser.”

  “Did you ever get hijacked?”

  “Sure. Lots of times.”

  “And they never got away with it?”

  “Not once. Most of ’em never even got a look at the goods.”

  Tucker turned to his grandfather. “So, wait, that means you…”

  “I did my job, kid. Deliver the goods. That’s what I’m paid for.”

  “Were paid for.”

  “Yeah.” A dim mask come over Calvin’s face. The kind of melancholy usually reserved for thoughts of a lost loved one. For Calvin, it was the loss of his greatest love—the job.

  His wife said goodbye. In the hospital, attached to those machines. The moments were few and getting fewer that she could communicate through the fog of drugs and the tubes down her throat, up her nose. The worst was the hole they drilled in her skull. An electric wire ran from beneath the bone to a small screen that pulsed with tangled yarn lines and beeped like an alarm clock with no snooze button.

  They were alone. She gripped his hand and he opened his eyes, sleep wasn’t coming anyhow. She said her goodbyes. She knew. He knew. They kissed, a rubber hose marring an otherwise perfect meeting of lips. So familiar it took him back to a time before the alcohol smell and the bedpans. Back to a time when he would come home from a run and sweep her up in his arms, still fueled with adrenaline, and race her to bed to make love.

  Even now any electronic beep made him think of that kiss. The machines little robot mosquitos in his ear as he tried to have a last peaceful moment with his wife.

  “Turn it off,” she said to him.

  He clicked a switch and the room fell in to wonderful silence. Backseat in a clear-cut cornfield staring at the stars kind of silence. He held her, gripped her strong so she would be sure to feel it. She inhaled his aftershave, burying her nose between his neck and his shirt collar. The smell of him. The smell of a life lived in love.

  They had their twenty seconds of farewell before two nurses and a doctor rushed in to save her, the machine suddenly showing no signs of brain function at all.

  The silence burst apart, the smell faded from her senses but the memory remained. Calvin was banned from being in her room unsupervised. He stayed away for three days. He woke up on day four and knew it was pointless to go in. The call came a half hour later.

  But they’d said goodbye.

  The job ended before he could give it one last farewell. The calls stopped coming. Too old. Too risky. Nothing to do but move to Omaha. If death had a waiting room, that was it.

  Behind the wheel of the Plymouth, Calvin savored his last kiss.

  “Calvin you old rumrunner, how the hell have you been?” Hugh Stanley stood, as sure a sign of respect as you were to get out of the old man.

  Tucker hung back a courteous three paces as Calvin entered the office.

  “Hugh. Been a long time.”

  “A long time. Good grief. I suppose you’re here about Webb.” Not ones for chit chat, the Stanley men.

  “I am at that.”

  The headquarters of the Stanley family empire of crime were housed in a three-story office complex that still had the outlines from the long-gone letters of an aluminum siding company that used to own the place. Hugh had overseen the purchase of the building back in the late eighties as a way to appear legitimate. Hugh and the extended family occupied the bottom floor of suites and the top two sat vacant. A sign on the building advertised space for rent, but any time someone actually called the number they were told the space had just been rented that morning.

  The carpet needed changing back in the Clinton years and the lighting was nothing but fluorescent tubes in the ceiling so every room had floor lamps and desk lamps pooling light in a p
ermanent indoor dusk.

  Hugh padded over the fake Oriental rug he’d spread over the ruined carpet. Two leather chairs sat facing Hugh’s important-looking desk. Hugh sat back down without offering a seat to his guests.

  “Wish I had some news for you. Truth be told, I was kinda hoping you boys would have an easier time raising some word from him. A call from the road. A postcard.”

  “From the islands, perhaps?”

  “I hope he didn’t try to drive my truck to an island. We’ll be pulling him out of the bottom of the ocean.”

  Calvin stood, waiting to be offered a chair. Old-fashioned manners. “You had him on a truck job?”

  “Yes, sir. Big payday too. I don’t see why he chose to take off with the goods. It was a fair price for an easy run.”

  A mutual distrust ran between the two men, Tucker could sense it. They spoke with the veiled acrimony usually reserved for family members.

  “And what, to you, is a fair price?”

  Hugh laughed. “Let’s not get into money now, shall we?”

  “I’d like to know.”

  “It makes no difference. It was more than fair. A three-hour pizza job. One-way delivery.”

  “If you’re asking ten million from my grandson here,” Calvin gestured to Tucker who shrank under the attention. “What is a fair percentage of that amount?”

  “That number could be a lot higher if we weren’t talking about a McGraw.”

  Calvin took a seat. Breaking protocol his way of telling Hugh the master and servant relationship had changed. The gesture fit with Calvin’s general fuck-you-I’m-old mentality. Standing on ceremony was a young man’s game, and with that, Tucker stayed standing.

  “Look, Hugh, your dad and my dad, you and me, your sons and my son, your grandsons and…” Calvin stopped himself from gesturing to Tucker again. “We’ve got a lot of history. You want Webb found, so do I. More so. I need something more. What was he hauling? Let’s start there.”

  Hugh let it be known with a long sigh and a folding of his hands that he didn’t appreciate the tone, but he explained anyway. Tucker felt weak in the knees.

  “And it was an eighteen-wheeler you say?”

  “Direct from the plant where they make the stuff.”

  “Webb didn’t do big rigs.”

  “Said he did.”

  Calvin scratched his chin. He hadn’t shaved that morning and the sound of his stubble being scraped filled the silence. The sound of a man gathering clues.

  “You’d think something that big would be hard to hide,” Calvin said.

  “You’d think,” Hugh said. “But we hid one for him to pick up.”

  “True, true.” Calvin went back to working his scratch. Hugh let the man stew, watched him with a finger on his chin like he was trying to read his thoughts.

  “Y’know what, Cal? I have an idea.” Hugh leaned forward on his desk, interlaced his fingers out in front of him. “More of a proposal, if you will.”

  Calvin raised his eyebrows, a gesture that said, I’m listening.

  Tucker looked on, happy to be ignored in the room and wondering what about his fate was about to be decided.

  “You still seem on top of your game. Got your grandson here to help you. And McGraws and Stanleys go together like gasoline and spark plugs, right? And like you said, you want to find Webb and I want to find him.”

  Calvin nodded once, acknowledging the truth in his statement.

  “We still owe delivery of payment to the two punks who jacked the truck in the first place. It was supposed to be payment on delivery, which we never got, but we have every evidence that Webb was there. Even left a stolen car for them to keep. A payoff like this, when I got no product at the end of the deal, is one reason why this whole deal sours my stomach, but Stanleys are no welchers. Anyway, what I’m driving at, I bet you have a lot of questions for those boys. Why don’t you make the delivery for me? Drive out there, give them their cash and then you do whatever the hell you want. Ask ’em questions, take ’em to dinner, give ’em a bath, I don’t care. What do you say?”

  “Me drive for you again?” A grin curled the edges of Calvin’s mouth.

  “Let’s go one further, come work for me. Take that debt and work it off. I’m no fool, I know you don’t have that kind of money. We just wanted to see if we could beat the bushes a little, scare Webb out of hiding.”

  “If I knew where he was hiding, Hugh, I’d do the beating myself.”

  Hugh laughed again, the patronizing laugh of a supervisor inviting his subordinate into the parlor to talk like equals, knowing the equality ended on the other side of the door.

  “I know you would, Cal, I know you would. What do you say? Want to fire up the old pistons again? My operation isn’t right without a McGraw on the payroll. Like we got a flat tire around here.”

  “You can cool it with the car talk. I get your point. And we’ll take it.”

  If Tucker had been offered a drink he would have spit it. His neck cracked when his head whipped so fast to the left. Calvin ignored the slack-jawed stare and stood.

  “I recently got me a new ride and I’ve been eager to try it out.”

  “You got rid of the Bandit?”

  “Oh, no. But she’s more like the fine china. Only comes out on special occasions.”

  Calvin offered his hand across the desk and Hugh stood to shake it. Calvin beckoned Tucker over to do the same.

  “Great to have you aboard, boys. We’ll put our heads together about this Webb thing and in the meantime, you can drive off what he stole.”

  “Allegedly,” Calvin corrected. He stopped pumping his hand but held Hugh’s palm firm, looked him straight in the eye.

  “Yes, counselor,” Hugh said with a smile. “Now, it’s gonna take me a day or two to put together the payoff. You sit back and I’ll give you a call when it’s ready to go. We’ll be in touch.”

  In the circular driveway the bright orange car stood out among the black BMWs and Mercedes like a pimple on a prom date.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Tucker’s voice nearly cracked.

  “We got ourselves a job.”

  “I know that. Driving for Stanley? I told you I’m not a criminal.”

  “No, but you are a McGraw. And we stick together. We can learn a hell of a lot more about what happened to Webb from the inside. Don’t you want to talk to those Illinois boys? I know I do. Or did you want to go back to my knocking on doors idea? Or I can go home and you can raise the ten million on your own.”

  Tucker sputtered like an out of sync gearbox. “Yeah, but, I don’t know how to do all that…driving stuff.”

  “You got me. Don’t worry. You’ll be like my apprentice.” Calvin opened the door and slid behind the wheel. Tucker followed into the passenger seat.

  “It seems dangerous to get this close to the Stanleys before we know what they had to do with it. I mean, a truck load full of drugs? Who knows what these guys are capable of?”

  “First, it was truckload of stuff to make drugs with. Second, I know what they’re capable of. They’re capable of killing both of us and feeding our severed body parts to pigs on a dozen different farms across the tri-county area. And if they wanted to do that, we’d already be in different trucks headed east.” Tucker swallowed hard. “You ever hear the expression keep your friends close but your enemies closer?”

  “That’s what we’re doing?”

  “Nope. I think that’s what they’re doing.”

  The Superbird engine growled to life.

  8

  “You think they’re afraid of us?” Tucker asked as he handed Calvin a second beer. Calvin’s calloused finger lifted, pushed and folded back the tab. The old man missed the days when you’d lift that tab right off. Then some dumb-ass in Connecticut went and choked on one of those little metal deals and we got safety cans.

  Calvin leaned a hip against the counter in the kitchen. Webb’s house was cold, but the fridge was well-stocked in beer. Like father, l
ike son, unlike grandson.

  “I’m just sayin’ what better way to keep eyes on us than to bring us into the fold. They’ll know if we get close to finding Webb and then, if there’s something they don’t want us to know,” Calvin raised an eyebrow, hinting that he felt this was a very strong option, “they can throw us off the scent.”

  “Okay, I guess.” Tucker sipped on his own beer, using his slow nursing drinking style that drove real drinkers crazy. “Won’t that make it harder for us to find out anything?”

  “Not if we know they don’t want us to know things. If we know they’re trying to stop us, they can’t stop us. We’ll be one step ahead.”

  What he wasn’t saying, what Tucker should have been able to tell, was that Calvin almost jumped for joy at being back in the game. Like a pitcher who got called up from the minors for one last game, Calvin was going to make the best of it and savor every detail.

  The ink had faded but the indent of the writing still cut deep into the layers of paint. TUCKER AGE 13 and a line, about chest height to Tucker now. When they came to Webb’s house Tucker had forgotten how long it had been since he’d been inside his childhood home.

  Now that the fridge had been raided of beer he and Calvin could begin their search for clues. Not that Webb left much in the way of paperwork or anything connected to his job. Calvin already knew more than they could learn spending a week inside the tired-looking home, and that was from speaking to his son on the phone from a state away at least once a week.

  Tucker wandered around the familiar rooms not touching anything. He felt like he was touring a section of his own brain, a part that kept memories of his childhood. To touch something would open a rift in time and space and he might be sucked in, taken back to the 1980s. No one wanted that.

  Calvin stepped deeper into the house than Tucker was willing to go so he waited in the living room, seeing ghosts of his mother fluffing pillows. The McGraw women—silent sufferers of the life the men couldn’t leave behind. Maybe that’s why Jenny left. She saw the writing on the wall. Plain as the height chart carved into the kitchen doorway, a line marking out each year closer to the end.