Skunk Hunt

by J. Clayton Rogers

  Eight-hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Okay, divided by a third. Three-hundred thousand. Wait, that's not right. Damn, why were there three of us? I can do even numbers on my fingertips. Two-hundred and fifty thousand...? That's close. Eight-hundred and fifty thousand divided by three...carry the one...shit. It goes on forever. Let's leave it at a whole lot of change. I could pay off a few bills, take it easy on the taxes (that's what money's for), dump this dipwad job, ease back and watch the sky roll by. In other words, wait out my abundant remaining years in ease and with an easy conscience. After all, I hadn't stolen the money.

  As the kids popped out of the theater like overheated sesame seeds, I calmed myself with contemplation of a blissful future. It didn't seem likely. But it was no more unrealistic than a flight to Mars.

  I was getting ready to close up my cart when a woman staggered out of the theater, her eyes rolling in her head.

  "Jesus..." she murmured, pausing to steady herself against the wall.

  I pulled out an empty popcorn bucket and held it up. She gave me a woozy, inquiring look.

  "I never watch the Imax movies," I said. "They always make me puke."

  "I won't be repeating," she said, her mouth hovering like a threatening cloudburst over the paper bucket.

  Every few years the local television news reports on what pigs men are when it comes to stranded motorists. If a good-looking blonde is standing next to a stalled car, brakes screech and male Samaritans pour out to give the lady a hand. If she (or he) is otherwise, the world roars by without a second glance. And it's true. Roadside Assistance would have passed up this wreck even if she had been stretched out and bleeding. Her adiposal ounces were irregularly placed, as though she had ice packs strapped in odd places. Deep, chubby crevices splayed down from her nostrils. Her chin hung like an elongated blister. She had the stern countenance of the rejected, but at least she wasn't so ugly that I was forced to look away, that being the case with one of the girls I had dated—which I suppose explains that particular breakup.

  The woman's nausea gave way to some kind of reverie as she stared at the bottom of the cup. Since there weren't any dregs to contemplate or tea leaves to interpret, I guessed she was just pleased she hadn't heaved and was admiring the result.

  She handed the cup back to me.

  "Thanks," she said. "That was cute of you."

  The 'cute' fuddled me, but I gave her a gracious nod and tossed the cup into the nearest trash can.

  "I didn't use it," she protested.

  "Health regulations," I answered with rigorous uncertainty.

  "I don't have the plague."

  She could have fooled me. I shrugged, like the good, helpless automaton of bureaucracy that I was.

  "Well, it's wasteful," she continued, going green on me. The way her jowl flexed, she might have crawled out of a lagoon, complete with gills. I thought of asking her what happened to 'cute', then decided I didn't really want to know.

  I also began wondering if I recognized her. Was this the woman who had been sitting outside my house? I'd caught only a glimpse of her, but I couldn't ask her to take a gander at the Tyrannosaurus so I could study her profile. She matched Jeremy's thumbnail description to a lousy T—but the world is full of dogs.

  At this point you're thinking what a creep I am. You're not supposed to call people ugly, or deformed, or retarded, or terminally retrograde, descriptions which I often apply to the wonderful folks I share the planet with. I'm willing to try conformity. I don't mind calling the kettle white, or calling a spade a pitchfork, or pretending that taking out the garbage is entering a brave new frontier. Everyone has to fit in somewhere, even if it's in a nuthouse. But sometimes a great asteroid plants itself in your face and you can't call it but what it is. This woman was a wolf-wolf, a barf-barf, a real tail-wagger. The streets might not empty in aesthetic panic when she walked down the sidewalk, but a second glance in her direction would be masochistic.

  She was, in short, someone you wouldn't forget. The more I scraped my eyes against her, the more certain I grew she was the woman Jeremy had seen.

  I expected her to move on, now that her nausea had passed. But she looked at me narrowly, annoyed by my silence.

  "You like movies?" she said abruptly. "Not this brain scrambler..." She nodded at the Imax theater entrance. "I mean real movies."

  I shrugged, frankly puzzled.

  "What's your favorite?"

  "Tea and Sympathy," I said.

  Why it popped out like that I can't imagine. I hoped it didn't reflect badly on me. I mean, the story of a wuss having an affair with an older married wuss who served him tea and sex (the best form of sympathy) left a lot to be desired in the macho department. But there was no need to worry. She didn't know the title.

  "Deborah Kerr," I said helpfully.

  "Oh," the woman said. "An old movie..."

  She acted as though she had stumbled on an adult playing in a sandbox. I guess I should have suggested something dripping with testosterone: 300 or Terminator XXXX. Anything that would have placed me in the league of the lamebrained. Something she would have recognized.

  "You like anything they don't show at the repartee?" she asked.

  Repertoire, you ditz. There's something heartrending about anyone who exposes their ignorance while trying to show you up as a dummy. But my momentary sympathy for her was squelched when she toggled her wattle and said:

  "You ought to see something modern."

  "You mean, like at the Cineplex?" I asked, my hair prickling.

  "They're showing Avatar." She spoke with that jocular aloofness teenage girls use when they pretend they're not so desperate as to ask a guy on a date. Girls at least a decade younger than herself. "I've been meaning to go see it. 3-D, completely new technology."

  No, it wasn't, at least not the 3-D part. Hadn't she ever heard of the House of Wax? Or maybe 1953 was too far before her time. I had grown up on old VHS movies purchased for 50 cents at the local Goodwill. This was in lieu of cable television, satellite, computers, DVDs, Playstation and all the other electronic gizmos we couldn't afford. It had given me a peculiarly dated cultural outlook—witness Tea and Sympathy, for example. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers was my idea of first-rate FX. I might not have seen Vincent Price in 3-D, but I knew from the faded box notes that House of Wax was one of the first big hits that used the process.

  "Wouldn't 3-D make you sick?" I asked.

  "I didn't think of that..." she said dolefully. I could see her thinking of alternatives and moved quickly to cut her off.

  "I don't go out much," I said. To make myself look less useless, I began closing up the popcorn cart.

  The woman sniffed, not at the aromatic wafts from the popcorn, but at the $5.40 an hour she must have guessed I was earning. "I'll treat."

  I might have been standing in place, but I was running scared. "I mean, I don't go out much because I don't like going out."

  She gave me another long look. It wasn't what I expected, an accusatory glare that put the blame of the failed hookup on me. This was more speculative, as though she was weighing me on a bug-sized balance scale. Okay, I was an insect. But she wasn't holding that against me. In fact, she rather liked insects.

  "That's too bad," she said finally, and reached into her oversized tote. To my utter flabbergestation, she handed me a business card. "I ran out of embossed cards. These are cheapies I hand out to the skels and C.I.'s. If you change your mind, give me a call. I'm serious. Get at me."

  With a heavy flounce, she headed for the main exit. The Tyrannosaurus followed her with a lovelorn mating roar.

  I read the card:

  Bureau of Police

  Richmond, Virginia

  Sgt. Yvonne Kendle

  Investigator

  Followed by her email address and several phone numbers.

  CHAPTER 8

  When we weren't staring at the computer screen, we were glancing over our shoulders. We had chosen Starbucks because of the broad windows,
as if a tin-ass detective would be dumb enough to gape at us from the parking lot. Any of the customers lapping away at their lattes at the tables around us could be undercover cops. That young man downing a Danish might actually be eavesdropping on a microphone disguised as an Ipod. The young couple exchanging creamer-lips could be a phony police couple, although the fact they were both guys made them stand out a bit much.

  But Investigator Yvonne Kendle would have stood out even more, and she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe they didn't allow giant moldy pastries on the premises.

  We had driven in separate cars to reach this rendezvous, and each one of us had a near-wreck story to share. Jeremy had almost sideswiped a Neon on Huguenot Road. Barbara had dinged a Mercedes at a stoplight—fortunately, the other driver had been so enthralled by her Wonder Woman-ness that he had been satisfied with the phone number Barbara made up on the spot. Meanwhile, I had been so busy watching my rearview mirror I just missed fenderizing a student jogger at Broad and Laurel. For my nick-of-time braking I had received from her a bird from both hands. I might have mentioned earlier that the students of today have no manners.

  "You can't smoke that here," said a clerk nastily as Jeremy took out his pipe. He looked like a student.

  "Can I clamp it between my teeth?" Jeremy fussed. Barbara and I gave him dark looks. A pipe in Starbucks, lit or unlit, drew attention. Jeremy caught our expressions and returned the offending item to its pouch.

  "We should've picked a spot where we can smoke," Barbara complained, her fingers twitching.

  "I think they've outlawed smoking in restaurants," I observed weakly. Current events wasn't my strong suit. "I guess we could have gone to a park."

  "Hey," Jeremy tapped his laptop. "I need Wi-Fi, all right?"

  "So you can't do that in a park?" I asked.

  Jeremy smothered me with a look of contempt, then returned to clip-clapping at the computer's hieroglyphic keyboard.

  "What time is it?" Barbara had been fidgeting ever since we met in the parking lot.

  "Bottom right of the screen," Jeremy said.

  Barbara and I leaned forward. Forgetting the watch on my wrist, I marveled at the tiny digital clock in the blue border. Jeremy had the time at his fingertips. Will wonders never cease.

  "11:51," Barbara said breathlessly.

  "AM," I added.

  "April Fool's Day," Jeremy sneered.

  "You don't think this is legit?" I asked.

  "I wouldn't put it past Skunk to play a post-mortem joke on us," my brother said with a meaningful sigh.

  "That's kind of sick, don't you think?" Barbara said.

  "Skunk wasn't exactly a masterpiece of mental health." Jeremy did not take his eyes from the screen.

  "That's a mean thing to say," Barbara pouted.

  I flinched at this emotional goo. I had not expected the loyal-daughter act from her. Money (or the prospect of it) makes the heart grow fonder, or so I've heard. Money brings families together in a cuddly mass you can't imagine—just before that cuddly mass all-too predictably goes critical and explodes.

  Jeremy's fingers paused and he eased back to take a sip from his Espresso Frappuccino. Neither Barbara nor I had joined him when he strode up to the counter. In my current pay bracket, Africa Kitamu was beyond my means. And while Barbara's eyes lit up at the image of the Double Chocolaty Chip Frap above the counter, she pulled away fearfully. "I don't understand..." she had whispered to me.

  "It wouldn't be the first time," Jeremy said in an oddly meditative voice.

  "Dad never played jokes," said Barbara.

  'Dad', instead of 'Skunk'. Her family affection was boiling over. I knew what she meant, though. Dad had never bubbled with empty words or meaningless pranks. If he said he was going to lay someone's brain out on the sidewalk, you could count on a cranial extraction. Not that he ever said such a thing—not in so many words. But when he showed any inclination to whack you, you cleared the deck.

  It suddenly struck me that Jeremy wasn't talking about bad jokes. The only other interpretation was that it was not the first time Skunk had come back from the dead. On the metaphorical plane this made sense if you converged rebirth with getting out of jail. Yet a ghoulish cast in his tone hinted at a darker meaning. I began to wonder if I should have just shredded my letter and gone back to bed. I didn't believe in ghosts. I did believe in ghosts.

  You can see I was divided.

  Jeremy typed in 'www.treasure447.com' and watched as a narrow line at the bottom of the screen thudded slowly across the indicator. I supposed this registered his progress, or lack thereof.

  "Is that it?" Barbara half-shouted when something popped up. The Jeremy of the past would have popped her, but the new Doubletalk only scowled.

  'Sorry, 'www.treasure447.com' does not exist or is not available.'

  The message was pretty obvious, even for me.

  "You want to tone down your screeches a little, Sweet Tooth?" Jeremy hissed. He was still looking at the computer, shaking his head. "Boy, whoever's behind this is really anal. When he says noon, he means noon. Until then, all we're going to get are 404s."

  "Meaning..."

  "Not Found."

  We hadn't done anything to deserve bounty from Heaven, or wherever. We hadn't even done anything illegal. But legal or otherwise, you had to display some form of energy if you wanted something in your hand besides empty air. And I, for one, had about as much energy as a sponge.

  "Yeah," Jeremy said, flashing his Skunk-brow at me. "April Fool."

  "Don't say that," Barbara protested. "Daddy wouldn't play a trick like that on us."

  Now it was 'Daddy'. Our sister was regressing fast. 'Goo-goo-ga-gaaaa' was only a breath away.

  "I don't see why not," Jeremy shot back skeptically. "I think he was capable of some pretty nasty tricks, from what I've heard."

  From what he'd heard? Why not first-hand? Maybe he had been told Skunk tales in prison. At home, our father did not bother with tricks. Could his entire life—and death—be an elaborate bait and switch?

  "Try again," Barbara said, pushing her bosom onto the table, a pair of big creamy lattes.

  "Sweet Tooth," I ventured with brotherly solicitude.

  "Yeah?"

  "You're drawing attention."

  She brushed this away—or didn't guess my meaning—and poked Jeremy in the shoulder. "Go ahead."

  "We still have three minutes," Jeremy complained.

  "Maybe our clocks are off," Barbara said.

  "All of them?" But a bit of prematurity couldn't hurt, so Jeremy tried again.

  'Access Denied' the screen said.

  "Good," Jeremy said. "They're getting ready. Something's there."

  "What good is it if we can't get in?" I complained. I wanted to get this business over with. Every minute spent with my siblings reminded me why we had chosen to remain apart. Our separate dysfunctions were almost manageable. Put us together, and we couldn't fight our way out of a basket—and I think we all sensed this.

  "One minute..." Barbara was staring at her Betty Boop watch.

  Jeremy once again typed in the address, then sat back, like a gunman easing off on the trigger. There was more agony of boredom than suspense in his slouch. He doubted anything would come of this, and perhaps did not care one way or the other. It was a curious attitude for a man whose life hovered between intermittent pay checks and beer binges.

  Barbara popped a large wad of gum—actually, she swilled it. I had always thought avarice made people ugly, but right now her face looked as attractive as the rest of her. I don't think anyone with class would have appreciated it, but I'm sure in her social circles she was queen. I have to say, though, that the maniacal gleam of anticipation in her eyes made me uneasy.

  Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that the three of us didn't amount to much. Our combined intellectual curiosity, attainments and contributions to civilization might have almost added up to a normal human.

  "Hey!" Barbara protested through her gum.


  "Mmmm?" Jeremy said.

  "It's ten seconds past noon!"

  With a suave swing of his arm, Jeremy brought his index finger down on Enter.

  'Access Denied' popped up on the screen.

  "That's it, then," my brother shrugged.

  "What?" Barbara moaned.

  "Whoever is behind this has been pretty awesome up to now," Jeremy said. "He knows about the big skel in our closet, he's tracked down our addresses, he knows things about us individually that no one but Skunk could know. And I'm unlisted in every way."

  "What about your probation officer?" I asked.

  "Ah," said Jeremy. "Good point."

  "What if this guy's in a different time zone?" Barbara shot, almost spitting out her pink gob. "What if he's in India or something?"

  Jeremy snickered, but not nastily—if such a thing is possible. "He might be, but like I said, he's taken everything into account up to now. Why go to all this trouble and be so dumb to screw up the time? No, this guy is—" Jeremy did a doubletake on the screen. "How the hell did he get my eddress?"

  The balloon that had popped up on his screen said he had a new message in his inbox. Jeremy clicked on the caption. Barbara's breasts spooned through the sugar dust left behind by a previous customer as she drew closer to the screen. "What's it say?"

  "'Sorry for the delay.'" Jeremy read. "'You have one added minute to site access. Your opportunity of a lifetime ends at 12:16 EST.'"

  "He didn't sign it?" Barbara asked.

  "Did you think he would?" Jeremy answered. "And his address has been masked. Maybe I could...but there's no time."

  He re-entered the site address.

  A small image of a treasure chest appeared on the screen, overlaid by a single word: Enter.

  Jeremy clicked. What seemed at first to be a blank page came up. We all leaned forward, like kids trying to spot the bobcat tucked away in the tall cage at Maymont.