Rumrunners

by Eric Beetner

  The speedometer on the Lincoln climbed north of fifty. The pickup matched them.

  “Goddammit, Granddad, you can’t make that.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  By the time Tucker could see the gates, they were down. The red lights flashed and a bell rang, but out of habit more than anything.

  The Lincoln’s headlights swept over the crossing and Calvin did the math.

  “Nope. Not gonna happen.”

  Both feet went on the brake. Much as Calvin loved his Bandit, he was grateful for anti-lock brakes. The tires skidded and chirped along the asphalt as the car gripped and slid, gripped then slid some more.

  When the car stopped Calvin immediately dropped gears into R and spun his torso around to look out the back window.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Tucker demanded. “You’ll kill us.”

  “He’ll move.”

  The pickup accelerated down the main drag. What the air horn or the spinning red lights on the crossing couldn’t do, the sight of a dark blue Lincoln Town Car reversing toward them at full speed did. The pickup hit the brakes.

  Committed to a brake-locking slide, the truck was unable to veer out of the path of the backwards Lincoln.

  “He’ll swerve,” Calvin said. A split second later his good sense caught up with him and said he would not. Calvin also hit the brakes.

  The two vehicles ground hot rubber into the asphalt of the sleepy town and slowed from their highly illegal top speeds, but still collided at a forceful clip. As the two vehicles hit, Tucker heard a pop and thought the back tires must have blown.

  The Lincoln was shoved forward about ten feet but then crunched to a stop again, the pickup now nosed into the Town Car’s back end.

  The train rolled by ahead of them, steady and rhythmic. Headed for other states, other adventures.

  The pickup rolled backward, the driver’s foot having come off the brake.

  Both vehicles sat, unmoving, as Tucker, disoriented from the crash and still in shock, counted out twenty-three train cars go by.

  “You okay?” Calvin asked.

  Tucker hadn’t thought about it yet. He did a quick personal inventory. “Yeah. You?” Calvin didn’t answer.

  “Gimme that.” Calvin took the gun out of Tucker’s hand and stepped out of the car. Tucker got out as well.

  Calvin approached slowly, the steady metal on metal sounds of the train masking his footsteps crunching on the pavement. “You were supposed to swerve, asshole.” There was no movement inside the truck.

  As he passed, Calvin turned to the crumpled wreckage of the Lincoln’s trunk. He turned his eyes back to the pickup.

  Tucker had reached the passenger side. The man inside slowly rotated his head as if he couldn’t believe it was still attached. Blood seeped from his nose and his ears and a growing knot on his forehead. Across his lap lay a shotgun, the barrel pointed at the driver whose face was a cherry red mass of open skin and exposed muscle. The pop he heard. The gun going off during the impact.

  Calvin came around to Tucker’s side, saw the man still moving. He pushed Tucker back and extended the gun. Tucker raised a hand to protest but no words came out to go with it.

  Calvin squeezed the trigger. An empty click. The gun hovered for a moment. The man in the passenger seat didn’t notice anyone else was there.

  Calvin gripped the gun in his fist and punched out, clipping the passenger across the nose with the butt of the gun and knocking him out. Calvin grunted from the effort and lost his balance for a moment. He managed to right himself but looked every bit his age in doing so. The noises he made, the grunting and groaning, seemed involuntary.

  He straightened, put a hand to his lower back then turned and walked to the Lincoln.

  They both stood by the rear of the car. Neither one asked if they thought Rudy would be okay inside. The origami metal of the trunk said no, as did the flow of blood dripping from the corner like drool from a Saint Bernard.

  Calvin put the gun back in Tucker’s hand, inspected the back tires, assuring they had enough clearance from the damage to continue on. They did.

  They both waited in silence as the train lumbered on for another seven minutes. Once it was gone and silence fell across the plains again, Calvin turned to Tucker.

  “Let’s go make this delivery.”

  He didn’t need to tell Tucker that was the job. Make the delivery at all costs. Do your best to explain the body in the trunk, the carnage at the farmhouse.

  But deliver the goods.

  14

  Calvin was right. There were questions to be sure. About the body in the trunk. About the shootout at the farmhouse. But most important on the Stanley family agenda was the delivery of those bundles of drugs.

  Tucker did not stay nearby when they muscled the trunk open with crowbars. Took three men to wedge it open. They would have left it, left Rudy inside, if not for the load of crystal meth crushed beneath the body.

  Only one bag had split and Calvin thought he heard one of the men say something about salvaging the load.

  They left the Lincoln with the delivery and got a ride home, stopping off for beer on the way.

  By the time they arrived back at Tucker’s place it was one-thirty in the morning and Milo was asleep on the couch, a note pinned to him reading: DON’T BE PISSED. IT’S YOUR WEEKEND.

  Tucker cursed to himself. He couldn’t remember that last time he’d looked at a calendar. He’d completely forgotten it was his court-appointed weekend with his son.

  Hugh Stanley’s breakfast was interrupted.

  “They did what?”

  “All seven of them. Went fucking nuts and shot up the place. Our guys already had the fire going so it’s toast now but at least three of them got away we think.”

  “Cal took out the rest?”

  “Looks like it. Picked up a police report this morning about two cars with Mexicans in them holding shotguns. All dead.”

  “Any link to us?”

  “Not so far. As soon as the old man and his partner told us about it we sent some guys out to clear out our guys’ bodies from the house. We got three but the others were inside and burned so bad they couldn’t even tell what was a person or not.”

  Hugh set down his orange juice. “And the guy in the trunk?”

  “One of ours. The old man said the pickup hit him from behind.”

  “Yeah, but what was he doing in the trunk?”

  “Said they were trying to escape. It must have been crazy out there. The car had shotgun pellets all over it.”

  Hugh thought for a moment. “But the load made it?”

  “Yeah. Good size too. We’re cutting it right now.”

  “Good, good.” Hugh picked up his juice again, drained the last of it. “We fucking need that.”

  Calvin entered from the kitchen, pulling his first beer at eight-thirty in the morning. “You ready to go?”

  “Go where?” Tucker asked.

  “To see Hugh. Rudy was about to tell me something about Webb. I don’t think Hugh has been up front with us.”

  “No way. You can go without me. I’ve had enough.”

  “Suit yourself.” Calvin tipped the beer and gulped the last two-thirds.

  Tucker looked closer at Calvin. Unshowered, hair a mess of gray angles and cowlicks, eyes unfocused. He wasn’t drunk but, same as he had the night before, he looked every inch of his age. And after the less-than-stellar display of the fabled McGraw driving skills Tucker had lost confidence in his granddad as a trustworthy representative of their case.

  It made Tucker a little sad. Like meeting a celebrity without makeup. They weren’t the golden heroes you once thought.

  “Okay, I’ll go. But I drive.” Tucker eyeballed the empty beer in Calvin’s hand. Calvin looked down and saw the can as if for the first time. He tipped it again to see if there was any beer hiding in the bottom of the can before setting it on the side table.

  Tucker looked at his son, felt a hundred different ways he
was failing him in his attempts to shield him from the family business. “You wait here.”

  Calvin entered Hugh’s office unannounced again.

  “This is getting old, Cal.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  Tucker was closer behind this time. Hugh noticed the younger man as more than a tagalong, an unsevered Siamese twin that came with Calvin no matter where he went.

  The two men crowded the front of Hugh’s desk. “Sit, boys. We can talk better once you take a load off.”

  Calvin sat in one of the two armchairs facing Hugh’s desk. Tucker stayed standing.

  “I’m obliged to you for that situation last night,” Hugh said.

  “Oh, you mean the unholy shitstorm you sent us in to?” Calvin may have sat down, but his attitude still loomed over Hugh’s desk like a vulture on a branch.

  “How the hell am I supposed to know the Mexicans are gonna go apeshit out there? They were all supposed to be dead by the time you got there.”

  “They weren’t.”

  With each meeting it took less time for Hugh to become exasperated. “What do you want, Cal?”

  “One of your guys said he knew something about Webb. Made it seem like he didn’t run away.”

  “What did he say?”

  “I don’t recall exactly. Just that there was more to the story.”

  “So ask him.”

  “You know damn well they’re all dead.”

  “Well, then what the fuck am I supposed to do about it?”

  Tucker put out his hands in a calming gesture. “Okay, everyone settle down.”

  Hugh pushed back from his desk, his leather chair banging the wall behind him. He ran a hand through his hair. “Goddammit, Cal, you don’t know the other shit I’ve got on my mind right now. Things aren’t like when we were coming up.”

  “Don’t give me the old things ain’t what they used to be speech.”

  “They’re not. There’s competition. The overhead is greater. The talent pool is shrinking. Any backwoods jerk-off with Internet access can cook his own drugs these days. I’m like those musicians who used to make millions and now everyone is swapping songs for free online. I’m down and out, Cal. Why do you think I’m shutting down the competition?” His anger grew and the stress showed on his skin like a rash.

  “They’re like cockroaches. Stamp one out and three more crawl up from south of the border. That score last night is gonna help keep me in business for a month. After that, who knows? That’s why I needed that truck that Webb ran off with. Needed it bad, Cal.”

  “Hugh, I’m real sorry and all, but how is this my fault?”

  Hugh pounded on the desk. “Because your fucking son took my last best shot is why.”

  “We still don’t know that,” Tucker said. Hugh turned his anger on him.

  “Unless you can prove to me otherwise, it’s a fact. You can fuck you’re innocent until proven guilty. That might work in your world but when you live your life surrounded by criminals, if you think they might have possibly, maybe there’s a small chance they fucked you—they did.”

  Tucker took the abuse. He didn’t shrink like normal. Years of Jenny stiffening his backbone? Or days of Calvin?

  “So that’s why,” Hugh said, “you’ll keep working off your debt to me. Because I believe in responsibility. I believe in family. And I believe in getting what I’m promised, no matter who promised it.”

  The door behind them opened. Two of Stanley’s larger assistants filled the doorway. Calvin turned to them, took the hint, then turned back to Hugh and stood.

  “No more shitstorms, okay? And you hear from any of your guys about Webb, you let me know first.”

  “You keep doing what you’re doing. I’m serious, Cal. You did me right last night. I don’t forget that.” Hugh lowered his chin, stared at Calvin through low eyebrows and heavy eyelids. “I don’t forget anything.”

  Calvin and Tucker let themselves be escorted to the door.

  Hugh, for his parting words, said, “And stop coming by my office without an appointment.”

  15

  Tucker drove. Calvin fumed as he stared out his window.

  “Sounds like they’re really hurting for money, huh?” Tucker said.

  “Bullshit,” Calvin said. “They cry poverty all the damn time. If they went around talking about how much money they had coming out of their asses then everyone who worked for them would want a bigger share.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Wanna go to a shooting range?” Calvin asked. “Let’s go to a shooting range.”

  “No.” In high school Tucker’s nickname was “buzz-kill”. True story.

  Calvin spat out his window for no other reason than it felt good. “Well, the way I’m feeling it’s either that or a prostitute.”

  “No one is going shooting or to see a prostitute for Christ’s sake.”

  “Come to think of it, Tuck, it might do you some good.”

  Tucker scowled at his granddad. “I won’t even ask which one you are referring to.” Tucker thought that was the end of it. He was wrong.

  “The whore.” Calvin continued to look out his window, pouting.

  The rest of the afternoon Calvin sulked around the house like a teenager. He drained four beers while watching ESPN and ignoring his grandson and great-grandson.

  Around seven o’clock Calvin ran out of beer.

  “I’m going out.”

  “You’re not driving,” Tucker said.

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because you’ve had too much to drink. In fact, I think you’re all done with the beer for tonight.”

  “Who the fuck are you, my priest?”

  “No. But I think maybe you’ve had enough.”

  “Oh, you’ll know it when I’ve had enough.” Tucker didn’t doubt it. “Fuck it, I’ll walk.”

  Calvin pulled on his jacket. The Gas N Save was about a half mile down the road. Doable, even for a man his age. He seemed steady on his feet. It had been a slow but steady intake, not a mad rush to get drunk. If anything, thought Tucker, the air would get a little easier to breathe with some space between them.

  “Fine. Call me if you can’t make it back, okay? I’ll come pick you up.” He looked at Milo. “Maybe I’ll even send Milo.” Milo smiled.

  “Yeah, I’ll call you if I need you,” Calvin said over his shoulder as he pushed out the door and shut it behind him louder than he needed to.

  Tucker sighed. Milo watched his dad with a question on his lips.

  “You want a pop or something?” Tucker asked.

  “Sure.”

  “I think I got a Coke and Dr. Pepper.”

  “Whatever is fine.”

  Milo followed Tucker into the kitchen and they both pulled the tabs on cans of Coke. They each let the first swigs bite down their throats before exhaling loudly. Tucker had been wrong. The air was still quite thick.

  “So,” Milo started. “Is Grandpa really missing?”

  Tucker took another sip and wished he had a splash of rum to mix with it.

  “He’s not returning any calls at least. I think he ran into some trouble at work and he’s trying to sort it all out.”

  “Dad, I’ve been patient. You gotta admit.” Tucker nodded. “Will you tell me what’s going on around here. You stole a car. You and him and sneaking around to meetings. What gives?”

  The way he dreaded the day he had to tell Milo about the divorce, Tucker felt a block of ice in his stomach. He swallowed another mouthful of Coke and nearly choked on it. The boy was right. Time to come clean. Time to let him know he was a McGraw.

  Tucker started at the beginning.

  By the time he got around to their current day problems Milo was out of breath. His family? Working for mobsters?

  “Not mobsters,” Tucker said. “Just criminals. This isn’t The Godfather or anything. No one’s even Italian. There’s someone like the Stanley family in every state. And someone like the McGraws.”

 
“But we’re the best, right?” Milo had an eager smile on his face.

  “No such thing. Milo, what your grandfathers do is wrong. They’ve been doing wrong for decades. It was up to me to break the cycle and now it’s up to you to continue on the straight and narrow and not fall into their trap.”

  “Jesus, Dad, you sound like J. Edgar Hoover.”

  “Do you even know who that is?”

  “FBI guy. Look, if Grandpa is missing then we have to find him.”

  “We’re trying. But we’re gonna try within the law.”

  “Then why are you working for the Stanleys.”

  Tucker drained his Coke, giving him a minute to think. Goddamn logic coming along and ruining everything.

  “Right now we’re using any method available. The important thing is, now you know the mistakes your grandfathers have made in life and you can see the trouble it’s gotten them into. I don’t want you to think of them like folk heroes or something. They’re criminals. I don’t want you to be like them. It’s dangerous. I’m about to cut it off anyhow. We can’t keep doing work for Stanley. It’s not right.”

  “What about the money you owe him?”

  “I don’t know right now. I’ll work it out.”

  The front door opened and Calvin stepped in, a fresh twelve-pack under his arm.

  “All you gotta do is walk like that every now and then to see why the hell they invented the car in the first place. If God had wanted us to use our feet he would have put wheels on them and an engine in our ass.”

  Milo smiled. Tucker managed to hide his smile.

  Hugh Stanley reached for his desk lamp, done for the night. He rubbed his eyes and ran a hand over his hair, feeling how thin it had gotten, seemingly in the last six months. Christ, all those jack-offs on Wall Street didn’t lose this much sleep over the money they lost. And that was shitload more than the debt Stanley faced. It was all relative.

  A timid knock on the door halted Hugh’s hand an inch from the pull chain on the lamp.