Unmanned

by Lois Greiman

  We’d made it to the dairy department without adding more than ten thousand grams of carbs to the cart. He picked up a gallon of milk, but didn’t pop the top and slug it down like Gatorade. Impressive. Instead, he put it in the cart, grabbed another, and then an orange juice.

  “Depends,” he said, placing it with our purchases and glancing toward the cheese products behind us. “If I had to keep my job and just study evenings or if I went full-time.”

  I nodded, stunned; he’d actually thought things through. A few minutes later, we had checked out. Peter John had insisted on paying. My mind was still reeling when I started the Saturn and pulled out of the lot.

  “So that’s why you came here,” I said, “to ask for a loan.”

  “Well…” He shifted in his seat, drawing his knee up and half facing me as he grinned. His upper incisors were a little crooked. Our father would rather have bitten off his own tongue than pay an orthodontist one red cent. “…that and to put a snake in your underwear drawer,” he said.

  “You touch my underwear and I’ll tell Mom you cheated on your algebra test.”

  He laughed and leaned his head against the door behind him. “You know, I kind of miss you, sis.”

  Okay, he was an ass, and a liar, but he was still my brother. And family was forever. Damn it! I took a deep breath. I was hardly flush, but…“How big a loan would you need?”

  “Twenty thousand.”

  “What?”

  He straightened, expression earnest. “I know it’s a lot of money, but—”

  “A lot of money!” I was floored and may have been spitting a little. “Fifty bucks is a lot of money. Twenty thousand is an inheritance.”

  “I know.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “I got no right to ask, but with the baby coming and…” His voice trailed off.

  I glared at the road. I would not think about that baby. “You must have some savings,” I said, but my voice had lost its enraged edge.

  He was silent as he glanced out the window. In the past, prolonged silences had generally been followed by the culmination of some asinine practical joke. “Maybe I haven’t been real smart about money.”

  I thought of a couple nasty things to say…but that damned baby! “Can’t you take out a loan?”

  “God, no!” he said, and glanced out the back window.

  I looked in the rearview. Traffic was rolling along behind us at its usual Humpty Dumpty rate. “Why not?”

  “’Cuz I…Well, I just can’t. I mean, that’s no way to start a marriage. Holly don’t always think real high of men, and I don’t want to be one of them guys who lets her down. Not anymore.”

  I turned onto Owens and pulled up to my curb. It was dark now even though I’d finally gotten the outside lamp fixed.

  “I’d like to help you, Pete. Really I would,” I said. Getting out of the car, I opened the rear door and grabbed a paper bag by the handles. I prefer plastic, but Laney had threatened me with deterioration of my soul if I didn’t reduce my ethylene/oil consumption.

  Pete snatched up another two bags. The front door was tricky, what with the groceries and my purse and the stupid sticky lock. But I managed. Harlequin torpedoed at me from the kitchen, reared in happy greeting, and thundered out the door toward my brother. “It’s not that I don’t understand what you’re going through, Pete. Really,” I said. “But I have some problems of my own.” I paused, soul-searching, tone weakening. “I didn’t tell you this, but…”

  And suddenly Harlequin was back. He sprinted through the door, ears crushed against his bony head as he scooted beneath the leggy console that stood beside my front door. “What’s wrong with—” I began, and glanced behind me. The yard was empty, the car door open. “Pete?”

  No answer. I set the groceries beside my door and hugged my purse to my chest. Everything looked quiet. I stepped onto my walkway.

  Then someone yelled. There was a guttural grunt. And suddenly a black form was streaking along my fence line.

  “The keys!” someone rasped.

  A gunshot zinged through the night. I squawked something indiscernible.

  “For God’s sake, Chrissy, give me the keys!” yelled Peter, and dove into the backseat of the Saturn.

  A bullet pinged between me and the house. I was galloping toward the car before a coherent thought cleared my cranium, but Harlequin whizzed past and leapt onto Pete. The driver’s door stuck for a moment, but finally I wrenched it open and dove inside, temporarily stunned.

  “Jesus Christ!” Pete was clawing his way out from under the dog and looking behind. Three forms were racing toward us. “Drive!” he yelled, and bending over the seat, slammed the locks shut.

  A ski-masked man banged on my window. I screamed something even I couldn’t understand.

  “Damn it, Chrissy!” Pete yelled. Yanking the keys from my hand, he shoved them into the ignition.

  The Saturn roared to life.

  “Open the fucking door!”

  “Go!” Pete shrieked.

  I went, slamming the car into gear and squealing down the street, with three men cursing in our wake.

  11

  Of course I believe in hell. I have three brothers.

  —Chrissy McMullen to Father Pat

  YANKING THE WHEEL AROUND, I screeched onto McVine. Harley and Pete hit the right window, but I didn’t care. There was a single headlight in my rearview mirror. I took the next turn at fifty miles an hour and punched the accelerator. We hit a bump. My head struck the ceiling. Pete swore. Harley whimpered. But I sped up and took the next turn, then an alley, wheeled onto Wentworth, and raced toward the 210. The single headlight was long gone. We’d lost them, but my heart was still trying to beat its way out of my chest. A Chevron station appeared on my right. I plowed up to the building, careened to a halt, and attempted to unlock the door, but my fingers wouldn’t cooperate.

  “What are you doing?” They were Pete’s first coherent words since I’d hit the gas.

  I gave up the battle with the lock, closed my eyes, and tried to convince my heart to stay within the confines of my chest. “Who were those guys, Pete?”

  Perched on the edge of the seat, he stared out the back window. “I think we should keep driving.”

  “What did they want?”

  He never turned from his perusal, reminding me of his earlier nervousness. I considered dragging him out by the hair and demanding answers, but my hands were still shaky, so I concentrated on the lock again, finally conquered it, and rushed stiff-legged into the store.

  In a minute I was back. Pete locked the door behind me as I fumbled with the plastic wrapping on my newly purchased pack of Slims.

  “I thought you quit,” he said. He’d moved into the front seat. Either Harlequin was hiding behind me or my little Saturn was convulsing. My seat shook at erratic intervals.

  I could see a trickle of blood snaking down from Pete’s hairline.

  “Who were they?” I asked again. Our eyes met, but Pete shifted his to the cigarettes, took them from my hand, and dispensed with the packaging. He lit one for me and one for himself. I took a drag and closed my eyes. “Peter—”

  “Okay.” He took a puff from his own and glanced out the window. “Just…let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Where to?” I stared at him, blinked. “Home? Oh, wait, I can’t go home, ’cuz there are three men there waiting to—” But a thought hit me suddenly, knocking me between the eyes like a sledgehammer. “It was you,” I hissed.

  “What?” He leaned away from me.

  “The guy who killed Will.” I felt myself go pale, felt my extremities chill. “He was after you.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Who’s Will? And Jesus…” His voice was cranked tight. His eyes were wide and white as he glanced out the window again. “Someone killed him?”

  Unless I was mistaken there was honest befuddlement there. I took another drag, exhaled slowly, and found my cell phone.

  “What are you doin
g?”

  I was already flipping it open. “Calling the police.”

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  The sledgehammer again, but this time the feeling was dulled by a queasiness in my stomach. I’d first noticed it when I was four and my brothers had put earthworms in my chicken noodle soup. I stopped my index finger millimeters from the 9. “What have you done?” I asked.

  “Let’s go. Come on, Chrissy. We can talk while you drive.”

  His nervousness convinced me. Generally my über-dumb brothers are smart enough to know when to be nervous. Back on the 210 I took a puff of my cigarette. I was looking for my Zen place, but a moron seemed to have taken up residence. “Why shouldn’t I call the police, Peter?”

  He blew smoke toward the windshield. “You know the Vette?”

  “Your friend’s car that you’re thinking of buying?” I crushed out my cigarette with rattly fingers and pulled out another.

  “I borrowed it.”

  “Borrowed, as in…” I closed my eyes for a second, but when I opened them, he was still there. “…can I use your car for the week, buddy? Or as in…stealing?” I stabbed him with a glare.

  “I didn’t steal it…exactly.”

  “Well, what the hell did you do?” I yelled.

  “If you’ll quit shrieking at me, I’ll tell you.”

  “Listen, Peter,” I said, “I’m considering drop-kicking you onto Rivera’s sidewalk. If there’s some reason I shouldn’t do that, you’d better pry open your pea-sized brain and tell me the—”

  “Rivera? The cop?” His tone was gleeful, his grin sudden. “You still seeing him?”

  I ground my teeth.

  “I always thought you’d end up with one of them geeky—”

  “Damn it, Peter!” I snarled.

  “Her name’s Alice.”

  My mouth was still open. I tried to use it to good advantage. “Whose name?”

  “The girl I was seeing.” He exhaled heavily and stubbed his cigarette out in my mini-ashtray. “I met her at the bowling alley. Wasn’t like I was looking for no action or nothing. But she was wearing this little—”

  “Oh God!” I said, and saw the sleazy tale roll out before my eyes like a cheesy B movie.

  “Oh, don’t get all high and mighty. I remember not so long ago you woulda given up dessert to be asked to go—” he began, but I rounded on him.

  “What about Holly?”

  He held my glare for a moment, then glanced out the window. “Holly and I were taking a break.”

  “When?”

  “What?”

  I felt a headache coming on. I gritted my teeth against it. “Did you know she was pregnant at the time?”

  “It wasn’t my idea. Swear to God, Chrissy. She was tired of me. Said as much. Said she didn’t want to see me no more.”

  “So?” I shrieked. “I’ve said that a thousand times.”

  “So I hooked up with Alice. But Holly…” He shrugged. “I couldn’t forget about her, even though…” He chuckled. “I shit you not, that Alice had—”

  “Shut up!” I said, then shook my head, trying to rid it of the stupids. “What are you talking about? Are you saying this Alice was so distraught about your leaving that she’s trying to kill you?”

  “Well…” He grinned. “She probably heard about my reputation in the—”

  “Don’t!” I may have screamed the word at him. “Don’t you dare tell me your stupid reputation. First of all, I’d barf, and secondly…” I paused, thinking. “No woman would want you back that bad, unless…she was the mother of your fourteen kids or something.”

  “I don’t have any kids. I swear…no matter what they say.”

  I left that alone. “Then, is she…” I made a circular movement near my ear.

  “A little crazy, yeah,” he said.

  “Ahh, shit, Peter…” I began, then found a smidgen of sanity. “Wait a minute. Wait.” I was shaking my head, remembering a hundred fantastical lies from our childhood. “That’s ridiculous. Unless you’ve changed your ways, none of those thugs was named Alice.”

  “Maybe she had a…” He paused, winced. “…an overly protective brother…or something.”

  I felt myself pale. “One of them was her brother?”

  “I don’t know,” he snapped. “She seemed kind of normal until—”

  “The guy at Vons!” I rasped.

  “What?”

  “The guy at the fruit stand? Was that her brother?”

  “You think we were pen pals or something?”

  I shook my head, thinking. “You’d have to be literate.”

  “Funny. Funny as ever.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy at Vons!” I may have been shrieking again, but it seemed appropriate. “Did you recognize him?”

  He shook his head, looking honest. Stupid, but honest.

  “What else?” I demanded.

  “What?”

  “What else have you done?”

  “Nothing.” Now he sounded wounded. Stupid, but wounded.

  “Tell me or I’m calling Rivera.”

  He scowled. “Well, see, Alice is the reason I borrowed the car. We’d been drinking a little…at the Longpoke—”

  “The Longpoke?”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “Funny story.”

  I held up my hand. I wasn’t in the mood for funny.

  “Long story short, Springer was an old friend of Alice’s.”

  “Springer?”

  “The Vette’s owner.”

  I blinked, uncomprehending. Maybe stupid was contagious. “You said you just borrowed it.”

  “Could be I forgot to tell him I was borrowing it. I mean, shit, the wedding’s been coming up so fast and—”

  “What else?”

  “What?”

  “Besides hooking up with a lunatic and stealing your friend’s friend’s car, what else did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  I waited, letting myself remember I was talking to a man who had once put a cherry bomb in a blender to see what would happen. “Why’d you need the loan, Pete?”

  “I told you—”

  “A lie.”

  “I’m hurt, Chrissy. I—”

  “You’re going to be if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  He stared at me for a second and then grinned. “Jesus, you were always such a damn hard-ass.”

  Forget Rivera. I was pulling out the stops, I thought, and flipped open my phone.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Calling Mom.”

  Our eyes locked. He must have been able to tell I wasn’t bluffing, ’cuz I think he teared up a little.

  “And mean,” he said. “You were always mean as a damned wet cat.”

  “I’m going to tell her you cheated on the mother of her first grandchild.”

  “Why don’t you just hand me over to Guido.”

  “I—” I began, but then his words came home to me. The world spun into slow motion. I blinked, thinking. “Guido?”

  He remained mute. A sign of intelligence…or death.

  I took a deep breath and kept my hands steady on the wheel. “Peter…please. Please tell me you didn’t get mixed up with the mob.”

  He stared at me for several seconds.

  “Holy crap.” I felt weak and a little disoriented.

  “I was trying to do the right thing, Chrissy.” His voice was very soft. “I was. For the baby.”

  “What’d you do?” I asked, but he barely seemed to notice me. He was scowling out the window, lost in his own thoughts…not an easy task.

  “Our apartment’s not big enough for three. The baby’s going to need a nursery.”

  “What did you do?” I asked, each word carefully enunciated.

  “Horses,” he said, and turned back toward me, expression blank.

  “Hor—” I began, then felt my heart stop. “You were gambling?”
/>   “Of course not,” he scoffed. “I was going for a bit of a gallop on the green and—”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass.”

  “Yeah, I was gambling, and I was doing good, too. Then I hit a piece of bad luck. Didn’t want to tell Holly. Or Mom.” He said the word like someone else might mention the black plague. “So I took out a loan.”

  I blinked and stared numbly through the windshield. “I didn’t think it was possible,” I said, kind of to myself.

  He frowned, not following.

  I nodded. “You’re even dumber than I thought you were.”

  “I didn’t know he had mob connections.”

  I turned on him with a snarl. “Guido? Guido! What did you think, Pete? A guy named Guido was a nanny?”

  “Hey, not all of us have Ph.D.s.”

  “But all of us have brains.” I paused, thinking back to a dozen events that called that statement into question. “Don’t we?”

  “Not like yours, though, Chrissy. You’re the smart one. I didn’t get no fancy education like—”

  “Oh, please! Fancy education? I paid my way through Schaumburg Tech, schlepping drinks and showing enough cleavage to hide a battalion of freedom fighters.”

  He stared at me a second, then grinned. “Yeah. God, I loved the Warthog. Whatever happened to that blond chick who worked there? The one with the legs—”

  “I swear to you, Pete, if you change the subject one more time, I’m going to shoot you myself.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, during which he may have been thinking. “You have a gun?” he asked, words slow.

  I shifted my gaze to the roadside. “Maybe,” I said.

  “Here?” He was staring at me like I was the stupid one. “With you?”

  I stared back, but suddenly he was digging through my purse and came up with the Glock, holding it in accusatory fingertips.

  “Jesus, why didn’t you just shoot them?”

  Turning, I snatched the gun from his fingers. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I asked.

  “Those guys could have—”

  “What? Killed you? Yeah!” I leaned toward him. “And I’m thinking of doing the same thing.”

  “Listen—”

  “And you know why?”

  He thought about that for a second. “Does it have something to do with sheep shit?”