by Eric Beetner
Brent howled and went to the carpet, a place no one should have to endure. Mystery stains, mouse turds, body fluids by the gallon. He grabbed at his knee like a football player after a career ender.
“I don’t know anything,” Randy said.
“You sure don’t. Don’t know shit, do you? What did the guy look like?”
“I don’t know, man. I don’t remember.”
“Short, tall, fat, thin?”
“Uh, uh, kinda fat. Medium height. Had a big belt buckle.”
“So you still got a few brain cells in there, don’t you?”
“That’s all I remember. I swear.”
Calvin pushed Randy to his knees, stood over him with a firm grip still on the T-shirt. “You gonna remember me? Are you?”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no. Whatever you want.”
“Well, the man you can’t recall is my son. He’s gone missing now with your load. All I wanted was a few simple answers but you’re too goddamn busy. Got a suitcase full of cash and now you’re a hotshot. Is that it?”
Randy sputtered, his eyes about to come loose from the speed and the crazed old man in his face.
“Next time, you answer someone when they ask you a goddam question.”
Calvin let Randy go and he fell to the carpet with his friend. Calvin bent down and picked up the pipe. He stepped one foot over Randy, the boy’s shoulders between his feet. With his left hand he grabbed the front of the shirt, with his right he held the pipe.
“Open up.” He shook the boy.
Randy tried to focus his eyes, but the room was racing out toward the edge of space at a million miles an hour.
“You want this?” Calvin held up the pipe. “Open.”
Randy opened his mouth. Tucker stood back, keeping an eye on Brent who still wailed on the floor. Tucker spotted Randy’s shirt ride up exposing a glimpse of white belly. He turned his eyes away.
Calvin pushed the glass pipe into Randy’s mouth. Didn’t stop at his lips. Pushed it and kept going. Nearly fit the whole thing in until only the blackened bulb sat outside his lips like a spit bubble waiting to pop. Randy gagged with deep retching sounds.
Calvin let go of the shirt and moved his hand under Randy’s chin and pushed his mouth shut. The glass crunched. He pulled the jaw open and the broken bulb fell into the opening. Calvin pushed on the chin again and the glass bulb popped inside like a ripe grape.
Working Randy’s mouth like a nurse feeding an invalid Calvin pumped his chin up and down crushing the glass inside. Stifled screams tried to escape Randy’s mouth.
Tucker stepped forward and put a hand on his granddad’s shoulder.
“Stop it. Stop.”
Calvin stood abruptly, breathing heavy, his face red with hot blood just under the surface.
“Next time you answer a man when he talks to you.”
Randy rolled over and coughed out a slime of crushed glass, saliva and blood. The mixture ran down his chin. He coughed violently and sent glass shards across the curiously stained carpet.
Calvin pushed a hand across his head to straighten his hair. “You think it hurts now, wait until it comes out the other end.”
“Let’s go,” Tucker said.
Calvin leaned forward and lifted a stack of cash off the pile. “And I’ll have this for my trouble. You’re welcome for the rest.”
He put the money in his pocket as he stepped over Randy’s heaving, hacking body. Tucker urged him along by grabbing hold of his elbow and pushing him like a manager removing an unruly older man from a Denny’s during the early bird special.
As he passed by, Calvin kicked Brent’s leg starting the wailing all over again.
They drove in silence until they crossed the river again. Something about being out of Illinois lifted the cone of silence.
“Well, they didn’t know shit, did they?” Calvin said.
“No.”
“Bit of a wasted trip.”
“I guess so.”
Calvin twisted his neck, trying to crack it. He’d be sore in the morning.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“Yeah,” Tucker said. Inside he felt a small sense of relief. Calvin had been holding the news of Webb’s disappearance so quietly inside Tucker couldn’t be sure if he took it seriously. He’d seen the crack in the veneer. The man’s son was missing. If anything, Calvin knew how serious the situation was much more so than Tucker.
They drove with the windows open, an attempt to get the drug den smell out of their noses. Tucker looked down at the water, watching the slow moving flow amble south to Missouri.
12
Tucker tried his best to work the lock quickly to make it inside for the ringing phone. He left the keys in the lock as he pushed in to grab the phone off the kitchen counter.
“Hello?”
Idiot hadn’t bothered to check the caller ID.
“Tucker, what the hell is going on over there?” Jenny. Pissed off.
“Not now, Jenny.”
“Yes, now. You kidnapped my son.”
Tucker slapped on the light, the fluorescent bulbs struggled to life. “Come on, Jen. Don’t say shit like that. He came here on his own. Unannounced, I might add.”
“Well, he’s back home now. Ron picked him up at school before you could get your hands on him again.”
“I thought only family was allowed to pick the kids up.”
“I added Ron to the list. He’s practically family.” Practically because if Jenny and Ron got married it would end Tucker’s alimony payments.
Calvin dropped the keys onto the counter and eavesdropped on Tucker’s end of the call. He opened the refrigerator and searched the shelves fruitlessly for a hidden beer.
“Jenny, if Milo wants to stay here every now and then I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Maybe you should look at why he wanted to come over here. It’s not like I have an Xbox and a hot tub. There must be something he really doesn’t like at your house.”
Calvin shut the refrigerator door. Spoke loud enough for her to hear: “Like your whiny voice or your face.” Tucker waved an angry hand for him to shut up.
“My condo, Tucker. I can’t even afford a house to give this boy.”
“I’ll tell him to let you know next time he comes over. You can’t keep him away from his own father though. He’ll hate you for it.”
“Among other things!” Calvin spoke up from behind the pantry door, still foraging for beer, even warm.
Tucker shook his head, squeezed his eyes tight. “Look, it’s been a long day. He’s safe at your place now. Let him cool off and maybe we can all sit down together and work out a new visitation plan. Huh?”
Jenny hung up. Tucker took the phone down from his ear, wondering how many more polite conversations he had in him before he erupted and made her eat one of her martini glasses. Another McGraw skill passed down through the generations.
“We need beer,” Calvin said.
“I can go to the gas station and—”
“We need to make a stop too. But beer first.”
Calvin picked the keys up off the counter and headed out of the kitchen.
“Wait, where are we going?”
“To see Hugh Stanley. But first, beer.”
After waiting ten minutes outside of Hugh’s office Calvin was steamed. When he and Tucker were finally waved in by the blonde at the door Calvin shifted into high gear. All Tucker could do was hold on.
Hugh sat behind his desk with a stack of papers before him like a regular businessman. Calvin came at him like a bar fight about to start.
“Those two dipshits didn’t know squat. You’re gonna need to start telling me a little more than you are, Hugh.”
Hugh responded in kind. “Calm down there, Cal. I don’t know no more than you.”
“Well, then you don’t know shit.”
“No, I don’t. Webb up and vanished into thin air.”
“A man don’t just disappear.”
“Well, this one did.” Hugh
threw down the gold pen in his hand. “Cal, I respect that Webb is your son and all but you gotta understand what he took from me was mighty valuable. I want him found.”
Calvin stood over the desk. Tucker lingered a few feet back, his usual position. He was getting so good at standing back and observing the goings on he ought to have taken up sketching. Preserve these precious moments forever.
Hugh said, “I’m sorry none of us are detective enough to track him down but last I checked we both lived our lives on the other side of the fence from those deductifying types.”
“Put Kirby on it.”
The mention of the name sucked the air out of the room. Out of Hugh at least. Calvin stood tall and waited for a response, he knew he’d thrown a grenade, but he wasn’t sure if he’d pulled the pin.
Tucker shifted on his feet and the floorboards groaned. He didn’t dare move.
“Kirby ain’t currently taking on assignments.”
Kirby Stanley, the black sheep. When all else failed you called Kirby. Fifteen years Hugh’s junior he was raised on a steady diet of beatings and insults from his three older brothers. Grew him up mean. The business angles in the Stanley corporation had all been claimed by the elders leaving only the task of lead muscle. With a lot to prove, Kirby set out to be old reliable.
The legend grew. Rumor was he’d do anything. Some said he ate the heart of a man he killed once. Ate it in front of his family.
One story went that all he did was look at a man on his shit list and the boy up and died of a heart attack. Kirby Stanley could kill a man with his stare.
Most of it, if not all, was pure bullshit but legends never grow from the truth.
“Why not?” Calvin asked.
“Kirby and I…we had a falling out of sorts.” Calvin’s posture and sneer told Hugh he needed more than that. “He went up for a few. Some stupid domestic thing. He beat on a girl he was with. Got ten and served seven. When he came out he was a changed man. I mean, Kirby never was one for social graces or conversation. But since then…I don’t know. He wasn’t a help to business matters anymore.”
“So we got dick is what you’re saying?”
“I suppose so. Now what’s this I hear about you making one of them boys eat glass?”
“He wasn’t cooperating.”
“And you took some of his money?”
“Ten grand off the top. He was aggravating me.”
Hugh reclined in his leather CEO chair. “Cal, I gotta tell you, I’m disappointed. Used to be the McGraw name meant reliable. Now I got Webb running off with my truck, I got you coming in here and shouting and spittin’ at me. I got you feeding people glass. I got this one,” he pointed to Tucker. “What was your name again?”
“Tucker.”
“Why are you even here?”
Calvin finally moved his feet, began pacing the area in front of Hugh’s desk. “He’s Webb’s son. Ain’t that enough?”
“No, frankly. It’s not. I don’t know if you remember, but I hired you boys on. I need to know if I can count on you.”
“We’ve done your jobs so far, haven’t we?”
“I suppose.”
“Somehow I got a feeling I’m gonna be working off the debt of what’s in that truck to my dying day.”
Hugh sighed. Calvin watched him struggle to keep business over friendship, or at least fake a struggle.
“I’ve got some guys in other states looking for the truck. He’s not in Iowa anymore. Not unless he’s an idiot.”
“He’s no idiot,” Calvin said. Hugh nodded slowly.
“I got another job for you. If you want it.”
Calvin looked at Tucker. Tucker shrugged. Calvin knew the boy was being pushed beyond his normal limits but he also knew the McGraw inside wasn’t near the ragged edge yet. The boy needed to push himself a little further.
“What’s the gig?”
“You’re gonna need a different car. I don’t know what the hell kind of clown car you’ve got now but it won’t do for this one.”
“You got one?”
Hugh laughed. “I got six but you can’t have any. You figure it out.”
13
“I don’t want to know, do I?” Tucker stared at the black Lincoln Town Car in the driveway the way a parent looks as a report card full of Ds and Fs.
Calvin shut the door, turned to admire his new acquisition. “I suspect you don’t. No.”
“If the Stanleys can’t tell us anything about Dad, why are we still working for them?”
“You know a better way to work off that ten million? You want to offer to shine his shoes for him? Pick up his coffee in the morning? Tell you what, he’s got a blonde for that and she sucks his dick too. You willing to step up?”
Tucker kicked a pebble on the ground.
“I didn’t think so.” Calvin hitched up his pants. “You about ready?”
“I guess.” Tucker climbed in the passenger seat, a boy on the way to the dentist. Pouting and letting the world know he disapproved of how his evening was being spent. Being in the front seat with him, Calvin felt the heat of his stewing.
“Tucker,” Calvin said, perching his arm in the open window. “I know you don’t think much of the family business. And I know you don’t much care for being dragged into it this way. But let me tell you, wherever your dad is, when he hears how you stuck with it to try to find him, well, he’s gonna be mighty impressed.”
“What if he’s dead?”
The words came out on a thick cloud of noxious fumes. The stink of something long fermented, left to rot for too many days. Someone should have said it sooner.
Calvin turned and spit out the window, a foul taste in his mouth all of a sudden.
The Lincoln hummed along on soft shocks. The velour seats cradled the men in armchair comfort even at fifty miles an hour. Over the fields to his right the sun fell to eye level with Tucker. The bruised orange hung over the flatlands, dipping behind a silo and diffusing the dying light behind trees whose branches appeared black against the glow. Tucker could stare at the sun. It wasn’t high noon overhead sun that would burn your eyesight away, it was the kind of sunset that oceans made prettier but Midwesterners made do with. The Iowa version of pretty.
“I tell you what,” Calvin said. “He made off with that truck, let’s say. He’d lay low. He’s not gonna go calling you, me or anyone else until he reaches his destination. And even then he might wait a while. He knows these Stanleys better ’n anyone. A McGraw man never leaves no trail of breadcrumbs leading anywhere.”
Tucker was beginning to get real tired of hearing what a McGraw man did and didn’t do.
“This is the job, huh? Driving out to some random, isolated place in the dark. Picking up drugs. Taking them somewhere else. Mailmen with more expensive packages. Is that it?”
“You think what you like. Never seen a mailman in short pants have to outrun the law. Or worse—an outlaw.”
“Never seen a mailman kill anybody either.”
“Well, then Tuck, you’re not paying attention.”
Deep in the bowels of Johnson County the Lincoln bounced over a rutted road out to a house that once would have been owned by a farmer and his family. Honest working men and women up at five a.m., growing their own food and food for others. Now, the two story house earned another living as a thriving methamphetamine lab.
Ten years of reaping, sowing, milking, tilling, sweating would earn as much money as the lab could make in a month.
Calvin parked by an oak tree. The two men got out and both noticed the sweet manure smell of the Iowa countryside had been replaced by a stinging chemical tang. Chances of stepping in anything and ruining your shoes had been reduced, but even if every hog in the yard was sick with swine flu you’d never have to wear a gas mask like the men working inside.
They hadn’t been trying for stealth so the headlights moving up the long drive gave them away minutes ago. By the time both Tucker and Calvin were out of the car the activity had started in
side.
Hoarse, overused voices shouted commands. The door burst open and a line of men marched single file onto the covered porch. Tucker watched them move like an infantry. He doubted they’d come outside to set a spell and drink lemonade.
Seven men altogether, Hispanic, hands on top of their heads with fingers interlaced. Some had breathing masks dangling around their necks. Behind them came the shouters. Three men with shotguns, dressed in black. A fourth man came from the house but Tucker could still hear movement inside, and destruction.
The fourth man carried a pistol and he passed quickly by the prisoners and stepped off the porch, bound for Calvin and Tucker.
Calvin kept eyes on the man, spoke to Tucker. “This’ll be Rudy.”
Rudy didn’t bother with introductions. “Pop the trunk. My guys will load you up.”
“Fill the back seat first,” Calvin said. “I like my load where I can see it.”
“So can the cops.”
Calvin turned his body flat to Rudy. “Look at me, son. At my age do you think I’ve made it this far by lettin’ cops see what I’m carrying?”
Rudy was either in a hurry or sufficiently impressed to give in.
“Let’s move!” he shouted and moved back toward the porch.
A new line of men, also dressed in black, stepped out of the house each carrying an armload of tightly wrapped bundles. Silver duct tape sealed them all the size of two footballs sewn together. Each of the three men carried three bundles.
Calvin opened the back door of the Lincoln for them.
Tucker kept his eyes on the seven men, now on their knees, lined up on the porch. The shotguns hovered close to their temples, moving man to man down the line making sure everyone felt the aim of twin barrels. The seven men stayed still and obeyed.
The porch light silhouetted their figures so Tucker could not read fear in anyone’s eyes. He saw by the swaying movement of their bodies that their knees were starting to hurt on the rough wood of the porch.
When the first deposit of drugs had been made in the car, the trio turned back to the house for another load. Alone again for a moment Tucker whispered to Calvin.