The stranger reached the landing in a sweat. He was about fifty pounds overweight and each ounce told on his cardiovascular system. But when he turned to us, he smiled broadly. And then he looked down and missed a few heartbeats, which seemed pretty dangerous for a chronic non-member of Gold's Gym.
"You—" he began.
"We didn't!" Todd blurted.
"Only four came in."
"We found them like this." I narrowed my eyes. "You've been watching my house?"
"Where's Carl?" said the man after skipping another beat. I could foresee adding another corpse to my personal morgue.
"On my bed," I said, cringing. That sounded even worse than it was.
"Is he—"
"He thinks it's the Congreve brothers," Todd said, pinning the theory on me with a hard punch in the shoulder. Who did he think he was? Jeremy?
The man mulled this over, chewing the edge of his grey moustache into a fine mulch. I thought he was mentally pitting Joe Dog and Carl against me and Todd and could not conceive of the result confronting him. It should be the feeble twins stretched out, not the bad dudes of Shockhoe Slip. He decided we must be telling the truth.
"They must have come through your back door." He scowled at me for having such a permeable house. He had lowered his voice. "Are they still here?"
"Uh...we don't know," Todd said.
"Oh shit," said the man.
I personally find it odd to hear swear words coming out of the mouth of an older man in a business suit. Skunk, Carl, Flint Dementis, the crew foremen renovating the houses of Oregon Hill—yeah, the shit thesaurus was their primary reference. But this was the kind of guy who called out 'garcon' instead of 'hey you!' and probably even tucked a serviette in his shirt at the restaurant instead of taking a handful of paper napkins from McDonald's to save on toilet paper at home. He didn't belong in my house in more ways than one. This was only a first impression, but the old Oregon Hillers had a surprisingly refined sense of the nation's class structure. We knew that anyone who wore a tie (especially one that looked pressed) deserved our contempt. But we were naturally reticent around them, too. Life hadn't kicked them in the teeth—not yet. You had to respect Fate.
The stranger stuck out two fingers and began reaching for Joe Dog's neck, then noted the hole in his forehead and gave up on the idea of searching for a pulse. With a sweep of my hand I graciously invited him into my bedroom to view Carl. His breathing snapped into small gusts. He had to steady himself against the wall. I guess it reflected poorly on my social app that I thought he was overreacting. Pulling back into the hallway, he saw the gun next to Joe Dog and threw us a suspicious glance. Todd held up his hands for inspection, as though asking the man to check him for gunpowder residue.
"I'm...sorry..." the man said.
"Apology accepted," Todd shrugged, lowering his hands.
"I wasn't talking to you," the man said, suddenly fierce. "I was apologizing to them."
I saw my own bafflement plagiarized on Todd's face and wondered if I could sue him.
"So great," Todd said, "You knew them."
"I knew about them," said the man.
"Well, you know us, it looks like. So mind telling us who you are?"
"Maybe I will, if we make it out of here alive."
The man had a point. Learning his name would be on a par with his apology to the dead if in the next few minutes we became riddled corpses. He was catching his second wind, and with it came his composure, along with an unlikely tendency to take charge.
"Obviously, you two boys could make a run for the door," said the stranger, reaching into his inside pocket and pulling out a cell phone. "But that wouldn't be practical for me."
While Todd and I patted down our ruffled feathers ("boys..."), he opened his phone and began speaking. He was alarmed by the answer from the other end.
"Police? Where?"
"Ugh," said Todd not-too-brightly. He had tucked his open cell phone in his shirt pocket and had promptly forgotten about it. He took it out and glanced at the display. "She's hung up. She must have called...I didn't think she would."
Which I supposed meant he assumed his great love, whoever she was, had gladly thrown him to the lions. But no...she had called the cops. Either she had some feelings for him, after all, or she feared being held legally liable for abandoning him to his fate.
The stranger took all this in, spoke into his phone, listened, then stuffed it into his jacket and grabbed our arms.
"Go!"
"But the Congreves—"
"If we can hear them, so can they."
What was it we were hearing? Jesus, sirens, closing fast. The Congreve brothers would have bolted out the back door by now. I wanted to look out my bedroom window to confirm this, but there was no time. Besides, the stranger gave us a surprisingly strong push and if we hadn't started working our legs we would have fallen down the stairs.
I waited for the gunblast as we reached the door. I must have been uncharacteristically optimistic, it being generally agreed that you never hear the shot that kills you. We tumbled into the street and looked both ways. The cops were circling around on Laurel, Pine being a one-way street.
"My car!" Todd shouted.
That sounded good to me. His Jag could lay rubber in Neutral.
"The van!" the stranger shouted, dashing out behind us.
For an instant I thought he was talking about Carl's white van directly across the street from my house. Then I followed the finger he pointed past my nose. A dark blue high-roofed Transit. I was getting tired of getting into strange vans and began walking away.
"Your cars..." the stranger gasped, again out of breath. "They're bugged. GPS."
"Aw shit," I moaned.
"He's lying," said Todd uncertainly. But the sirens were circling the block. Both Robert's Rules of Order and When to Know When You're Fucked dictated the end of debate. I had been electronically tagged so often over the past few days that I took the stranger's words at face value. I ran for the van. Todd saw no option but to follow.
The van's rear door flew open as we approached. A young man was signaling frantically for us to hurry, pulling back as we tumbled inside. A tight fit was made form-fitting when the plump stranger squeezed in behind us and drew the door shut.
"Let's go!" Todd's demand became a shout in the confined space.
"Let's not," said the stranger, forcing me off a swivel seat and leaving me to crouch in the aisle. "What will the police think if we suddenly take off?"
"What'll they think if we don't?" I countered rhetorically, because the answer was under my nose. I was so cramped that I was leaving a streak of nasal grease on a flat screen in front of me. On it was a view of the street in front of my house. I could only guess the camera was sitting on the van's dashboard because we were closed off from the cab. A patrol car flitted by—through the van panel we heard it pull up a few dozen yards away. Another cruiser stopped at the intersection, blocking traffic. No, we weren't going anywhere, driving or walking. After all, if we piled out of the van and began sauntering away, whistling idly as we gazed at the sky, we might look a little conspicuous. Blowing smoke was the surest way of drawing a cop's attention.
What was beginning to draw my attention was the extraordinary hi-tech cockpit into which I had fallen. Video screens were bolted to both sides of the bay, controlled by joysticks and a variety of plug-ins. On a separate screen I could watch the cops cautiously entering through my front door. It took me a moment to realize I was seeing them from inside my house.
"Hey!" I protested.
"You might want to keep your voice down," the stranger advised. "This rig isn't completely sound-proof."
"You put a camera in my hallway!" I was beside myself. Well yeah, Todd was crouched next to me, but I was also pissed beyond repair. After repeating the mf word a few times, I became absorbed by what I was seeing—which didn't make any sense.
"There's sound on this thing," I observed, hearing the cops thrash through my h
ouse. "You didn't hear any gunshots? And you would've seen the Congreves on the stairs. That's the only way up."
"We pulled up while Carl and Dog were going inside," said the man. "It took us a few minutes to set up. My nephew is still recovering..."
I looked past Todd at the young man at the front of the cargo bay. I had noted his stiff movements when he waved us into the van, but only now saw the rigid cast under his shirt. He could have been a few years younger than me, but his face was lined by discomfort, like someone just getting over an illness. I wondered if he had fallen while installing cameras in the old farmhouse or the abandoned plant on Belle Isle. Because, an instant earlier, I had been knocked hard by the resounding realization that these were my secret benefactors.
Or tormentors.
CHAPTER 24
I was feeling pretty icky, rubbing shoulders with Todd, watching the rubberneckers gather around my house, and listening to the cops' tense laughter over the tinny speakers in the van. They had just found two corpses. What was there to laugh about? The strangers had planted two cameras inside, one in the hall and one looking down the length of the house: living room, dining room, kitchen. It must have been placed near the living room ceiling, and in reality, the view ended at the junk pile in the dining room. But it was enough to inform the eyedroppers of who was coming and who was going.
"We don't watch 24/7 the man explained apologetically. "These are wireless. The range is limited."
But they provided me with all the evidence I needed that cops were even bigger pigs than me. They sifted through the same trash they had sifted through when Skunk became Public Dead Enemy Number 1, not to mention all the times before. I could see them gnawing at the dining room heap, and the noise told me they were following similar SOP throughout the rest of my house. Well, they had never found bodies in my house before, but I still thought they were going to extremes. The detectives had not even arrived yet, so I could only guess at what they thought they were accomplishing.
We settled in for a long wait. Todd and I crunched down and sat between the two swivel seats bolted to a track that allowed the strangers to slide out and give us a little more room. Someone farted, adding to the merriment. It wasn't me, I swear.
The Transit was speckled with exterior cameras, which must have been well hidden. I had not had a good look before diving inside, but people on the street did not see anything unusual—including the cop who took down the van's license plate, as well as the plates of every other vehicle on the block. There must have been no outstanding warrants on the van, or else we would have been tagged and towed, the four of us being tossed in the back like rotten beans. I watched for any inordinate interest the police might take in Todd's Jag. But except for a few glances from passersby (probably marveling that such a spiffy car could hold so much garbage), the attention paid to it was unexceptional.
While we watched the police deal with my pesky corpse infestation, I took occasional stabs at learning more about my benefactors. I shouldn't have been surprised by their reticence. They had spent a week avoiding me mano-a-mano, preferring instead to set up improbable remote link-ups in improbable places. If they had any decency they would melt in abject humiliation, now that I knew about the cameras they had planted in my house.
"If you hadn't followed us in I would never have known you were out here," I said as I watched a cop pull a rusty waffle maker out of the dining room pile.
"It seemed to me that you two were walking into a trap," the older man said. "I couldn't let all my plans end in a bloodbath."
I allowed a touch of teleology to enter my thinking. "You're giving us the Brinks money?" I ventured.
"The Brinks money," the man scoffed. "No, I don't have a clue where it's hidden." He looked over my shoulder at Todd. "I suspect half of it is tied up on River Road."
"Thanks for being able to tell us apart," Todd grimaced, shifting a leg that had fallen asleep.
"But..." I began. Like all theoretical Final Causes, mine had justifiably crashed and burned. It was Carl who had said the money had disappeared into Todd's house. I assumed the bar owner had been telling the truth—as he saw it. But not being someone who was accustomed to dealing with money, I had neglected to consider other possibilities. Maybe the Ferncrest house had not been paid in a lump sum. If there was a mortgage, the remaining money could have been invested in the market. If Carl believed there had been a hefty return on the investment, that would explain his deception. He must have thought Todd and I were conspiring to hide the money and had returned to Oregon Hill for a more thorough search while I was busy yapping with my brother. Only someone else had been looking, too.
Maybe it was time for me to move out of Oregon Hill. First, though, I would have to find a buyer for my house. Watching cops shuffle in and out, then bringing out the bodies (through the front door, no less—thanks for the discretion), I began to see my humble abode for the flea pit it really was. My rotting porch, my spiderweb-encrusted windows and my crooked lintels would lead the evening news. Every local station was represented. I grew nauseous watching them pan their cameras while reporters mucky with makeup mugged their self-righteous horror. Viewers would see my house on TV and say, "Of course they found bodies in there; what else would you expect?" Imagine the brochures I might tuck in a display box in my front yard: "Historic urban sump, built in 1899, charming fixer-upper, leaks limited to kitchen sink and second floor ceiling, but no basement to worry about; former residence of notorious Brinks robber Skunk McPherson; center stage for murder, mayhem and overabundant onanism; ghosts on demand."
"You're the man from the farm, right?" I reasoned. I gave Todd a butt-out look when he glanced at me questioningly. "Am I right? I can't think of anyone else who might have gone to all this trouble. You've been trying to give Jeremy and Barbara and me our share of the Brinks money, and I really appreciate that. Maybe you're trying to set it up so that we don't look like accessories. That's very considerate. But it's gone too far, and I'm not just talking about Carl and Dog. I've never been the type of guy who looks for his identity, you know? I didn't go searching for my roots, but I still dug up this—"
"Whoa," said Todd with a scowl, looking like a newly harvested Mr. Potato Head.
"Calm yourself, Mute," said the older stranger, raising a hand.
"And that's another thing—you know a helluva lot about the McPhersons. Until we got those letters, only my family knew my nickname. Are you a long-lost cousin? Skunk never talked much about his past. I never even met my grandparents. We must have a million relatives buried in the woods." Another thought occurred to me. "Or were you in prison with Skunk?"
This drew a curious sound from the young man at the other end of the cargo bay. He had not said a word so far, giving me a moony stare when I introduced myself and my "moron brother". Maybe that was because I was being a bit of a moron myself, seeing as he obviously knew who we were. I waited for him to elaborate on his weird snort, but he went back to fiddling with knobs and joysticks on the van-length counter. It turned out the Transit was even equipped with a periscope, hidden in the tall roof. Run silent, run deep. I thought at any moment this crate would spring a snorkle or a pair of wings.
"If you don't know where the Brinks money is, where did the thousands of dollars you gave me come from?" I said. "Don't tell me it came out of your own pocket."
"Not at all," the man said, adding cautiously, "For now, let's just say they came from your trust fund."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Todd snapped, tired of being left out of the conversation and forcing himself onto the information highway. "You can't say it's none of our business."
"He can and did," the young man at the front snapped back, looking at us directly for the first time. Something about us unsettled him and he immediately broke eye contact, turning back to his scope.
"I think I could do with some names here," Todd said. "I'd like to know who I'm dealing with." He paused, giving me a cagy look I couldn't begin to decipher. "Did you send out t
hose letters? If so, Mute is right. You know a lot about us that can't be explained."
"Explained under normal conditions," I elaborated, then blushed, because we all understood what he was saying. I had taken it for granted that my brother's idiocy needed clarification. I had only known him a few hours and already assumed the need for translation, as if he was a diplomat from Dumbville. Unfortunately for my self-esteem, he had said the very thing I had been about to say.
"Explanations will come," said the older stranger, and the younger one (his son? there was a resemblance) promptly...elaborated.
"Yeah, you need to wait. Take a look here. This guy has passed back and forth a half dozen times."
We craned our heads for a look at the top screen. From my seat on the floor all I could see was a blur of light, like scum on a florescent pond. I pushed myself up some and saw the crowd in front of my house. The young man was panning his camera to the left, following somebody walking down the sidewalk. I couldn't get a good look at him, but a sharp intake from the older man told me this was someone he'd rather not see.
Todd had somehow managed to stand and was looking at the screen. "Okay, a rubbernecker," he said. "What about him, besides being ugly?"
"Butch Congreve," said the older man flatly.
Properly motivated, I made it to my feet and stared. The man was just turning around the corner. "You sure?" I asked as he passed out of sight.
His grunt hinted that he knew the Congreves all too well, which left me treading water in another pool of unanswered questions. He spoke past me to the young man up front.
"Marvin, don't you think it's about time we dropped all of this? It's become far too dangerous for everyone involved."
"Nyet," said the young man, a bit nastily. "And don't give me that line about the Tuscan villa. I don't speak Italian. Oh, and thanks for telling them my name."
"You don't speak Russian, either," the older man shot back.
The situation had dropped a level, from the improbable to the inane. I shared a clueless glance with Todd, who was cluelessness multiplied since he had—until today, apparently—been kept in the dark about the Congreve brothers and their place in the world scheme. One thing came through loud and clear, though. With the appearance of Butch Congreve, that scheme had become infinitely more hairy.
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