Running on Empty

by Don Aker

  “For Christ’s sake!” shouted Ethan. “If I hear one more story about that goddamn woman, I’m gonna—”

  “Don’t you dare talk about her that way!” his father roared.

  “Right!” Ethan roared in return. “I shouldn’t disrespect a woman I never even knew, but it’s okay for you to defend a man like the one who killed the woman who carried me inside her, gave birth to me, and raised me while you were keeping white-collar criminals out of jail!” As angry as he was, he liked the way his voice sounded now. Stronger, more in control than he’d felt in weeks. Months.

  “Your mother was no saint.”

  “I hope not,” Ethan retorted. “There’s one too many in this family already.”

  His father shook his head. “If you could see yourself, hear what you sound like—”

  “That’s what it always comes down to, isn’t it,” Ethan barked. “What other people see and hear and think.”

  A third voice spoke from the hallway. “Well, the neighbours are certainly getting an earful right now.”

  Ethan and his father turned to see Raye with Winnipeg Joe’s bass guitar in her arms. “I could hear you two before I even got in the house.”

  “Yeah, well, too bad,” snarled Ethan. “I certainly wouldn’t want to shatter anyone’s impression of Jack Perfect here.” He strode to the door, pushing past both of them. In the process, his foot connected with his father’s briefcase and sent it crashing into the wall.

  Raye turned astonished eyes toward her brother, who was now heading down the hallway to the front door. He could hear her asking their father what was going on, but the reply was lost as Ethan banged open the hall closet door, yanked his jacket off its hanger, then slammed the door shut.

  “What’s wrong?” Raye asked, coming down the hall toward him.

  “Wrong?” He gripped the handle of the front door, swung it open roughly. “How could anything possibly be wrong in this house?” He stepped outside, poking his hands into each of the jacket’s pockets, finally pulling out a card. He looked at it, smiled grimly, and strode down the driveway.

  “What’re you going to do?” called Raye from the doorway.

  “Do?” he shouted back over his shoulder, then realized he’d been repeating her last words. Interesting, he thought, since their old man was the one who always got the last word. Well, by God, not tonight. If anyone was going to have the last word this evening, it was Ethan Palmer. “I’ll tell you one thing I’m not gonna do,” he shouted. “I’m not gonna worry about appearances!” Reaching the sidewalk, he took out his cell and began pressing buttons as he stormed down Seminary Lane.

  Chapter 29

  “Surprised to hear from you again so soon,” Hornsby said on the phone. Except Ethan didn’t believe him, sensed somehow that the guy wasn’t the least bit surprised. “I thought you didn’t like my plan.”

  “I’m in, okay?” Ethan muttered, walking past Big Ben Cleveland’s plantation-style monstrosity in the fading December light. The self-appointed leader of their non-existent Neighbourhood Watch, the asshole who couldn’t wait to report Ethan’s wrongdoings to his father, was standing on his front lawn holding a long-handled weed-digging tool. He jabbed it into the ground and twisted, his huge gut bouncing with the thrust, looking like the picture of compliance with the city’s ban on lawn poisons. But Ethan knew it was all show. Earlier that day, he’d seen their neighbour’s GMC Denali pulling into his garage, the back loaded down with something heavy. Even through the vehicle’s heavily tinted windows, Ethan recognized huge bags of Weed & Feed, which he guessed Big Ben would spread late at night when no one could see. Watching him now while listening to Hornsby spell out specifics made what Ethan was about to do seem a lot easier. Everybody took shortcuts to get what they wanted.

  Hornsby finished outlining the details, asked if Ethan had any questions, and then hung up. When he reached Monastery, Ethan looked at his watch and saw he had a few hours before he’d be joining him downtown, and he mulled over his options as he walked. He was still mulling them over when his feet decided for him.

  Ethan paused beneath the wrought-iron structure that arched over the entrance to St. Anthony’s Cemetery, trying to remember the last time he’d been there. The only good thing about living in Cathedral Estates was its proximity to St. Anthony’s, where his mother was buried, much closer than their last home had been. Although he didn’t come often, he liked knowing he could visit any time. When he’d last been here, in July, songbirds had trilled from several of the trees that dotted the cemetery, flowers were bursting around the graves, and he’d seen a gardener on a lawn tractor pulling a cart filled with soil and what looked to be a birch sapling ready for planting. For a place filled with dead people, St. Anthony’s had seemed to be teeming with life.

  Now, though, the trees were bare of leaves, and the few flowers Ethan could see dotting nearby gravesites were made of plastic. In the glow of the lights that lined the perimeter, he was the only person in sight. He tugged his jacket around him as a sharp breeze whistled through the wrought iron, and he stepped through the entrance.

  Ethan followed the gravel path that wound along the western side of the cemetery until he came to his mother’s headstone. A street light on the other side of the wrought-iron fence lit the inscription on the polished granite: Olivia Leanne Cameron-Palmer. And, below, the words that tore at him as much now as when he’d seen them the first time: Beloved Mother. Each time he came here, he expected—hoped—that his memories of her would strengthen, as if nearness to her physical remains would somehow bring into focus what he’d lost, but it never happened.

  He stepped forward, tracing his fingers along the intricate lettering, then noticed a large white spatter on the stone’s curved top—birdshit. Seagull, most likely, judging from the size of it. He swore and dug in his pockets for something he could use to clean it. Nothing. He swore again.

  To the right was the headstone that had made him and Raye laugh the last time they’d come here together. Twice as wide as their mother’s, it marked a double plot that still had only one occupant: Grace Althea Elliott, God’s Newest Angel. Married to Norm Elliott, their Cathedral Estates neighbour across the street, she had died last year from ovarian cancer while the Palmers’ house was being built. Nothing funny there, of course. What had made Ethan and his sister roar—for ten minutes straight—was the inscription beside Grace’s: Norman Robert Elliott, Loved By One And All. Norm had obviously saved money by getting both his and Grace’s epitaphs carved at the same time. Seeing the headstone now, Ethan smiled again, but not because of those ridiculous words. In a stone vase beneath Grace’s name were what appeared to be roses, remarkably red in that December setting, the flowers made of bright cloth. He grabbed a handful and rubbed and rubbed the moulded fabric across the mess on his mother’s headstone, but it only smeared the white stain.

  He let the ruined flowers fall from his hand, ground them beneath his heel, then jumped on them again and again, his curses puncturing the cold December air. He didn’t realize he was crying until, exhausted, he finally stopped, the roses obliterated beneath his feet.

  His cell rang. Sitting on the cold ground, his legs drawn up against his chest, Ethan lifted his head from his knees, pulled the phone from his pocket, and saw it was Jillian Ro-bitch-cheau this time.

  The phone had rung all evening, some of the calls from Pete, but Ethan had just hit Ignore. Pete was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.

  No, that wasn’t completely true. The last person would be his old man, who’d begun calling from their house phone and then switched to his cell an hour ago. Ethan had let those calls ring. It wasn’t like the sound was going to bother anybody in St. Anthony’s, and he liked picturing his father’s growing frustration each time he got Ethan’s voice mail.

  But now the Barbie doll was calling. Christ! Looking once more at the granite headstone—Beloved Mother—he tapped Ignore and got to his feet. It was already close to ten o’clock. Time to get m
oving.

  Afterwards, Ethan thought he should have taken the bus, but with a couple of hours to kill he walked all the way from St. Anthony’s to the downtown address Hornsby had given him. Even wearing his cross-trainers, his feet were sore by the time he got there, but he’d appreciated having the time by himself so he could think, get everything straight in his head. Or, as his mother used to say, “Connect the dots,” something he’d suddenly remembered as he sat on the ground beside what remained of her, trying to explain to her what he was going to do. And why.

  There’d been a lot of dots, but he’d connected all of them. He knew now why Link Hornsby had been outside that convenience store the night Ethan discovered Boots’s ticket was a winner. What was that line they still used sometimes on cop shows? The perp was casing the joint. Like Hornsby had cased lots of other joints in the city during the past few months. Convenience stores and gas stations, mostly, which might have seemed like small potatoes when there were banks and credit unions waiting to be robbed. But as Hornsby had explained, banks and credit unions had far tighter security than convenience stores and gas stations, and the risks were far greater. Of course, convenience stores and gas stations were small potatoes much of the time. No self-respecting career thief would consider a few hundred—or even a couple thousand—dollars worth the risk—but they could offer bonanzas, too. During those weeks when the 6/49 or Lotto Max million-dollar prizes soared into the double digits, businesses with lottery terminals had sudden boosts in sales. Countless customers who came in to play their own numbers almost always got an Insta Pik—or five—and then bought their cigarettes and shit while they were at it. And the smaller the operation, the less likely that there was manpower available for making multiple bank deposits throughout the day, which meant lots of cash lingering on site. So during weeks when jackpots were huge, those convenience stores and gas stations could offer some pretty substantial returns with—how did his father’s investment adviser put it?—”a modicum of risk.”

  Hornsby had told him some of this, of course, though not all of it. Ethan had to connect the rest of the dots, but he was pretty confident in his conclusions. He’d remembered seeing in the news how police had identified the perp’s M.O., and it was the same as the set-up Hornsby had told him about tonight’s job: lots of cash in the safe awaiting deposit, only one person working, surveillance system installed by Atlantic Alarms, and on and on. A robbery just waiting to happen.

  When Hornsby had suggested it that afternoon in his Echo, Ethan thought he was joking at first, then wondered why he’d risk telling someone else his plan. But it wasn’t hard to connect those dots when you thought about it. Wasn’t Ethan already a criminal? Hadn’t he been breaking the law for weeks, gambling online, buying an illegal driver’s licence he’d paid for with some of his lottery winnings? And hadn’t he told Hornsby he’d stolen money from his own sister and fraudulently activated and used his father’s credit card? Ethan wasn’t exactly in a position to rat out Link Hornsby. Besides, the legal system would go easier on Ethan—a minor and first-time offender from a good family—than on Hornsby if he got caught. And Ethan was motivated, desperate for cash. Even with a sixty-forty split, he would have enough money from tonight’s anticipated take to pay off what he owed everyone and buy Filthy’s car.

  Sitting in Hornsby’s rusted Toyota Echo earlier that day, Ethan had wanted nothing more than to take him up on his offer to get back the money he’d lost and clear the slate once and for all. But nothing he heard could sway him to take part in a robbery.

  That was this afternoon. Before he’d learned what kind of man his father really was, someone who would sell his soul for a sound bite, all in the name of appearances. After that revelation, Ethan didn’t give a damn how he solved his problem as long as it went away. And weren’t store owners insured for things like this? Ethan looked ahead at the sign hanging over the deserted sidewalk and grinned at the words glowing in neon green—Anwar’s Convenience, 24 hours, We have everything you need—and felt a zither of excitement run through him.

  Chapter 30

  As it turned out, what he’d felt wasn’t excitement—it was his cellphone vibrating, alerting him to an incoming text. From Jillian. He nearly laughed when he saw each word typed fully instead of in the shorthand he was used to seeing, complete with capital letters and punctuation: Ethan, please come home. You don’t know everything.

  Well, if her message was supposed to soften him up, give him the warm fuzzies, that walking clothes rack was even dumber than he thought. He jabbed the Delete key with his finger and watched the words vanish.

  It was true, though. He didn’t know everything. Like what would happen in the next few minutes. He could feel gooseflesh form on his neck, and it wasn’t all due to the frigid wind gusting off the harbour three blocks away. But what had Hornsby told him? Win-win, kid. Even if he got caught, nothing was going to happen to him. And there’d be the added bonus of seeing the look on his old man’s face. Wouldn’t play well for the voters, would it? he thought. Well, maybe his father should have asked Ethan before accepting that nomination. Would it have killed him?

  Despite Ethan’s sudden nervousness, he knew Hornsby had taken care of everything. He’d planned it all out to the letter and had no doubt taken care of the alarm by now. And hadn’t he done this kind of thing many times before? Ethan focused on the infusion of cash his bank account was going to get from Mr. Anwar, the asshole who was probably in the middle of selling The Chow Down and putting Lil, Ike, and Rake out of work, along with Jeannie, the other part-timer he’d never met. Not that Ethan gave a shit about Ike, but he’d come to think a lot of Lil, who’d been so good to him. Good to everybody, really. And not just good to them but good for them. She made everyone who came through the diner’s doors—even that goddamn two-chinned Clarence—feel that they were welcome, that she was truly glad to see them, that their being alive and well and present actually mattered to her. People got a whole lot to tell you if you take the time to listen, she’d told him. And you don’t just hear it in what they say. When The Chow Down closed, where would her regulars go? Where would Boots McLaughlin go?

  Ethan felt a wave of regret at the thought of the little man now. He suddenly wished the lies he’d told Allie had been true, wished he’d actually handed him that money and watched the guy’s face light up. And Lil’s, too, because she would’ve been so happy for Boots. Not fake-happy, but honest-to-God, in-your-face, over-the-moon happy. For him.

  Moving along the empty sidewalk through pools of darkness, Ethan stepped over a branch a gust had likely brought down and found himself thinking about what Pete had said to him on the phone. All you think about is yourself. You’re so wrapped up in what you want, what you think you need, that you don’t give a damn about anyone else.

  And that wasn’t all. You do whatever you want. But, hey, that’s pretty much your motto anyway, isn’t it? To hell with anybody else.

  Ethan had been pissed at Pete’s comment, but as he walked past Anwar’s Convenience now, he slowed his pace, wondering about the last time he’d done anything for somebody else without feeling obligated to or without getting something out of it himself. Even when he’d sprung for that dinner at Carruthers, he’d done it because he’d felt like such an ass for forgetting his and Allie’s anniversary. Not because he loved her, which he did, but because he’d been too busy thinking of himself to remember their anniversary in the first place.

  He thought of all those times he’d criticized his old man for putting himself and his work above everything else. And all those times Ethan had prided himself on being nothing like him. He was wrong. Even the photo on his fake driver’s licence said otherwise.

  Approaching Hornsby’s car, parked several doors beyond Anwar’s Convenience, Ethan thought about the actions that had brought him to this point right now. And not just the lying and the stealing he’d done but what he hadn’t done, too. Like spend time with Allie. He hadn’t even called her to find out why she’d been abs
ent from school the past two days. What was worse, though, was that he hadn’t even told her yet how he really felt about her, that he loved her more than anything. Three simple words, but he’d been too busy with other stuff. Screwing up his life. I’ll change, he thought. I’ll just do this one thing and it’ll be over. After tonight, everything will be fine. I’ll make sure of it.

  Coming abreast of Hornsby’s car, he saw through the windshield the tattooed man he’d originally thought was in his thirties but now knew was much older. Hornsby leaned over and shoved the passenger door open. “You took your goddamn sweet time!” he snarled. “We only got a small window to do this, now get in!”

  Ethan slid inside and shut the door. On the Echo’s scratched console, draped around the gearshift, was a pair of wire cutters. Hornsby reached under his seat and brought out a cloth bag. Opening it, he pulled out a black toque with holes for eyes and a mouth, and he tossed it into Ethan’s lap. Then he pulled out something else.

  “Christ!” breathed Ethan. His heart began to hammer.

  “She’s a beauty, ain’t she?” said Hornsby, stroking the gun. “I call her Perse.”

  Ethan blinked. “Purse?”

  “For Persuader.”

  For a brief, ridiculous moment, Ethan thought about a line from a comedy he and Pete had watched once, something about people who gave names to objects and body parts. Wished he could laugh now like he’d laughed then. “Is it loaded?” he asked, his voice quavering.

  “You’d be surprised how little it matters,” Hornsby replied. “Just so you know, though,” he said, patting a bulge in his jacket, “this one is.”

  As if underlining the moment, Ethan’s cellphone burbled, signalling another text.