"My cousin tried to convince me to put the house on the market. Legitimately. He didn't say who exactly was after him, only that he couldn't buy back the house himself. You would have thought Al Qaeda and the Night Visitors were searching for his carotid."
Hey, a classical music reference. A soft pitch, true—but I caught it. The night visitors as auditors. I liked it.
"When I told Skunk that Winny and his wife—Mrs. Neerson—might have to vacate the premises, he went ballistic as only Skunk McPherson could. He didn't live there, but his wife and one of his sons did. Skunk decided he, or a party acting on his behalf, would buy the house himself, and only a massive influx of cash would answer."
"He asked Penrose for the cash."
"No…" Uncle Vern said slowly. "The professor had vanished by then."
"Vanished?" I repeated, feeling a sickly something in my gut. And that something had the shape and non-flexibility of Skunk McPherson.
"He dropped out of the picture long before the Brinks job. How old were you when you last saw him?"
"I don't know…six, maybe? Don't you know?"
"He got fed up with the whole business," Uncle Vern said. "I think your father showed him his fist one day, and Penrose decided to keep his face."
It didn't jibe. Uncle Vern had gone out of his way to describe the professor as an irresistible, catastrophic force in our lives. I couldn't swallow his sudden disappearance.
"It wasn't Penrose who gave him the money, and it wasn't me—you don't just load a loose cannon like your father with three quarters of a million dollars."
That was good, too…all those bucks, blown away.
"That money was given to him—involuntarily—by the Congreve brothers."
There is was, the fate of the Brinks money. Between guesswork and confessions, I had known where it landed, but not the contorted course. I was sure Uncle Vern had shown him the ins and outs of laundering that money. Skunk sure as hell had no idea where East Timor was, or that it even existed. My father hadn't even been sure where Canada was, except that it was an onerous weight on top of the United States, lingering somewhere between the North Pole and the Artic Circle—wherever those were.
"I understand now that Dad wasn't talking about the Brinks money when he told me about West Virginia, okay? But where do the jewels come in?"
"There's no honor among…" Uncle Vern began grimly.
"Thieves," Marvin finished smugly."
"Your father hadn't gotten clean away with the Brinks mega load. Sure, he spent some time in the state pen for it, but then he was released. The authorities thought he would lead them to a stash that was already long gone. The wisdom of the bureaucratic mind is endlessly fascinating. And a good thing, too, or the Glass Heads would have been smashed a long time ago."
"I'm getting the feeling that my father turned on you," I said.
"I'm sure you do," Uncle Vern spat. "Criminal minds think alike."
"Hey, I never—"
"You have the potential. You kept the secret of Skunk's jewels through thick and thin. We did everything we could think of to squeak it out of you. You must have known, instinctively at least…"
"Maybe," I shrugged. "So how did Skunk doublecross you?"
When Uncle Vern hesitated, Marvin threw out a booger of scorn. "He robbed him!"
"Not quite," Uncle Vern amended, then gathered his pride in a less tenuous voice. "He kept the proceeds of the Bildass robbery."
"Never heard of it."
"They managed to keep it out of the news," Uncle Vern explained. "Bildass is located up north."
"Canada? Wait, you need a passport these days—"
"Not quite that far. Not even out of state. It's in one of those hideous satellite malls adjacent to Tyson's Corner."
"Wasn't your shop in a hideous strip mall?"
"The rent was cheap."
Hence hideous.
"For nearly seventeen years the Glass Heads had won awards for their performances," said Uncle Vern a little too dreamily. "In reality, we should have won awards for our superb criminal craftsmanship. But it was time to retire the gang, and Bildass was to be our swan song, a truly grand haul. And after all that fine work, Skunk goes and ruins it."
"So that's why we're in West Virginia," I said. We had crossed the border ten minutes ago.
"Skunk had handed over the entire proceeds of Brinks to his Elizabeth. He claimed that between taxes and the cost of living in the West End, they could spend decades there without financial worry."
"'They' meaning her and Todd," I said grimly, thinking of the cushy life my twin had inherited. "And Jeremy got nothing? And what about this Michael Schwinn creature?"
"We had to be discreet. It all goes back to Professor Penrose."
"I thought he was long gone."
"His legacy lived on," said Uncle Vern. "We're talking about someone with way too much time and assets on his hands. He had hired a detective agency to track down his precious twins. He found the house in the West End. He was ejaculating wonders over the prospect of going back to his perfect sets raised in radically different environments. In a panic, your mother put Michael up for adoption and sent Jeremy himself packing. That didn't make much sense, except that Jeremy was torturing Todd daily. From what she said, he would—"
"No need for details," I said. I was sitting and thinking, the hygienic equivalent of shitting and stinking.
"And after all that trouble, Penrose drops out. In spite of the risks, your parents decided to let things stand the way they were."
"Risks?"
"We didn't know who he had told about us. Another researcher could show up any moment. But your Skunk and Elizabeth were already committed to their circumstances. I don't think they were mentally able to complicate things even further."
To my infinite detriment.
"Jeremy had settled in nicely on Oregon Hill, and retrieving his twin brother from the adoptive family was problematic in that it might draw more attention to the family."
"So the story up to now is that my father gave the Brinks money to Mom and his wormy son, and then I guess robbed you because like all thieves he had a problem with recurring revenue. And he was a skunk."
"He knew he was asking for trouble. This was just too much to keep for himself, and he knew it. There were other Glass Heads involved, after all, some of them every bit as violent as the Congreve brothers."
"And without you, he couldn't fence the jewels."
"Right." He hesitated. I even heard Marvin hold his breath. I had the definite sense of a lie being inserted into a lie. "We came to an arrangement. He asked for one more job. It would be modest compared to Bildass, but enough to keep him in six-packs for years to come."
"You arranged your own robbery," I said. "You wouldn't lose anything because of your insurance. But weren't you taking a chance, having Skunk stand in front of you with a loaded shotgun?"
Uncle Vern pondered this as he slowed to squint at a road sign. Bartow was a mere five miles ahead.
"In fact, I did realized the risk--more than you know. I don't think he would have shot me. He knew which side his butter was breaded on."
Realizing he was more rattled than he was letting on, I let the inversion slide. I was surprised Marvin let it go, though. Twisting around, I saw the improbable killer of my father peering at the overhead monitor as he played the zoom lens rearwards. Did he really see headlights beyond Yvonne‘s van, or the reflection of a paranoid delusion?
"I was counting on Skunk's redemption," Uncle Vern continued.
Not believing my ears, I turned to face him. "You're telling me my dad was born again?"
"God forbid!" Uncle Vern barked, sounding remarkably like Marvin. "We had worked together many years. I know Skunk didn't tell me everything he was up to—the Brinks job came as a tremendous shock. But when it came to our own working relationship, I felt there was absolute trust."
Marvin's outrage-radar couldn't miss this huge blip and he reacted appropriately. Uncle Vern
ducked the rude comment while maintaining steering wheel etiquette.
"Many of my Glass Heads have gone on to live useful, productive lives in the conventional sense. I taught them a trade, after all."
"You can make money playing glasses?" I asked.
"Not really. But they learned certain skills—"
""They became security alarm specialists," Marvin laughed.
"Shhhh!"
And then the reason for the Glass Heads' phenomenal success rate struck me. Uncle Vern had skimped on most of the details of his heists, leading me to infer a superhuman virtuosity. But the cat was out of the bag. He had somehow bypassed the vetting process and placed his graduates in key positions in the alarm industry. There had been little in the way of balletic skill and timing. His people had simply turned off their customers’ alarm systems and opened the doors. Uncle Vern's reaction told me those upstanding citizens were still out there, earning paychecks, paying taxes and occasionally playing doormen to Uncle Vern's slackheads. It put me to thinking about truly gainful employment.
"Are we still being followed?" Uncle Vern asked Marvin, swerving off-topic and unexpectedly confirming his nephew‘s concern.
"Don't know," said his nephew. "Those headlights disappeared about ten minutes ago. Maybe they went off a cliff."
"To your sheer delight, I'm sure. Now, Mute...I don't want you to take me for a fool. I knew Skunk put no credence in honor among thieves. He might suddenly go off script and use his gun against me. But I had a strong sense that...he liked me. And don't forget, he had to trust me as much as I trusted him. I could have set a trap with the police."
"And he would have spilled the beans on your operation."
"Think again. We're talking about the Richmond Police—the Richmond Police—confronting two armed men in a jewelry store."
"Gotcha." I suddenly thought of the second man who had fatally run into a brick wall that momentous day. How much trust had he harbored in that little mind of his? But I had not given Winny enough credit. I had assumed he was on the dim side because he had allowed Skunk to make him his factotum. But let's face it, he had successfully hidden the fact that he had moved out of Oregon Hill, a neighborhood notorious for its nosiness. I assumed he must have sold his house, then rented a room (a common enough transaction on the Hill for the cash-strapped) to keep up residential appearances. It was Winny, not Skunk, who lived the good life in the West End. Skunk was too high profile to attempt that kind of deception. And had Winny shared my mother's bed as well as her roof? She had looked awfully pleased with herself in that picture Todd had shown me. At least, her chin had looked pleased. Winny was looking more and more like a genius of manipulation, with the exception of the aforementioned momentous day.
What I heard next confirmed what I had pretty much guessed. Uncle Vern, who was to send Marvin off on some typically useless errand while the Ice Boutique was being robbed, had his plan drastically amended when some idiot in a four-wheel drive slid into his car, leaving clueless Marvin and my two daddies to their fate—God's rules for punctuation for wicked intentions always plants the period halfway through the sentence.
"You were all slobbery over me getting shot," Marvin said lowly.
"Yes, I was. Otherwise, I wouldn't have confessed all to you, allowing you to blackmail me into this scheme."
"Hey, cut the shit!" Marvin shouted, genuinely outraged. "It wasn't me who started this."
"A large part of it was—"
"And besides, I was shot!"
"Yes, yes."
"Shot!"
Uncle Vern waited a moment for the wave of indignation to pass. "I am making amends, as you can see. Comprende? Have I told you how annoying all your electronic games have been to me?"
"Many times."
"And where did they get us? We could have approached Mute, explained the situation in plain and simple turns, and been on our way to West Virginia weeks ago, without prolonging the risk. Mute getting kidnapped, the Congreve brothers nearly killing us, those two sad sacks in Mute's bedroom—it could have all been avoided."
Marvin's silence signaled a momentary sulk. "Well anyway, it's not like this all isn't for you, too. It's not like I plan to keep all of the jewelry, right?"
Something about his tone piqued Uncle Vern, who glanced at him nervously in his rear view mirror. "Right..." Then he pushed himself back a little in the driver's seat and smirked. "Right."
Ooo-boy. Something was wrong here. I mean, wronger than it already was. I was feeling a bit nauseous from the curvy descent down the mountains that divided the strict blue-law counties of Virginia from the rowdy moon-sucking yahoos of the west. Add in the possibility that tomorrow might not be another day, at least for me, and there was real potential for a toss. Chucking up a morally righteous stomach-full on Uncle Vern might be the only weapon at my disposal."
"You didn't finish your sentence," I said.
"What sentence?"
"I'm talking to Marvin. What he said about him not being the one starting all of this."
"Bartow," Uncle Vern announced. And indeed it was, unless the small sign we passed was just one more lie planted by my elusive reality. We paused at a three-way intersection. To the left, the road led to that hotbed of scientists at Green Banks searching for extracurricular life beyond the current permitted limits. To the right, at a much shorter distance, lay our destination. We crossed a short bridge and immediately found ourselves within the outskirts, suburbs and town center of Bartow. I thought it said something for the local council that they could wrap all three in one, a purity of concision sorely lacking among the boggled planners of urban sprawl. Bartow was also sorely lacking a population, but that suited our purpose, so I didn't cavil. At this time of the morning, Richmond too was barely sucking on life support.
We passed the Starlight Motel and discovered if we wanted to spend the daylight hours counting our loot, it wouldn't be there. A For Sale sign nearly as decrepit as the building itself dangled with useless promise. It was an ideal location for visitors to the observatory. Had stargazing gone out of fashion? The motel's fate had been written in the stars.
To the right a monolithic darkness blacked out a square of stars. It was not quite time for the cockcrow, but even in this poor light I could see the screen's decayed trusswork. Like the motel, the drive-in had not been used in years.
"When did you say the Bildass robbery took place?" I asked.
"Why do you want to know?"
"My father told me to take in a movie and sack out at the Starlight when I came to get the million."
"He was pulling your leg," Uncle Vern asserted. "The Bildass job was only two years ago."
I wouldn't put it beyond Skunk to do a little leg-pulling, but this bordered on unnecessary malevolence. He knew I was unfamiliar with my grandfather's old stomping ground. That I might come sneaking up here one night (you don't disinter stolen cash—or, now, jewelry—during the day), and that misinformation about what I would find in Bartow might shatter what little courage I could screw. Up. But there was no denying the half-seen evidence.
Uncle Vern pulled off at an abandoned gas station across from the drive-in. Yvonne stopped behind him. Through her van's windshield I could read something from the "what the —" category on her lips. I wondered what she had expected from a West Virginia fleapit.
"No GSM," Marvin complained, checking his cell phone signal. "This is a total dead zone."
"Must be the mountains," I said.
"Or they block cell phones this close to Green Banks," Uncle Vern theorized. "The signals might interfere with their radio telescopes."
"Or maybe it's because you can't call from an armpit," said Todd, opening his eyes and looking at our surroundings. I could tell right away he had been faking sleep. I know how I look when I've been feigning a nap, and he definitely had that cagy 'I haven't heard a thing' expression. He said, with a yawn, "This isn't a flight to quality."
"How do you know?" I demanded. "You can barely see anything ou
t the window."
"When you tell me I'm downtown and I can't see anything, it's an armpit. Even George Washington had a candle. Was it through your grandmother or grandfather that you're descended from a monkey?"
A quote from the famous Thomas Huxley/Samuel Wilberforce evolution debate. We read the same books, recalled the same iconic moments in cultural history. It made me itch all over. But he couldn't really be denying our joint venture in the womb. The evidence was as plain as his face.
"We can't call out and no one can call in," Marvin's plaint continued. He was one of the new breed who grew all namby when unplugged from the social network.
"You were expecting a call?" I asked him.
"In case of an emergency…we might have to…"
"Call the cops?"
When he didn't answer I wondered if he was indeed expecting a call. I caught Uncle Vern's eye and saw the same question. A call from whom?
We got out of the van and stretched nervously, half expecting a pack of pit bulls to come leaping out of the dark.
"Anyone got a flashlight?" Jeremy said querulously as he emerged from Yvonne's van and joined us.
"We don't want to draw attention to ourselves," Uncle Vern said.
"Right, Sherlock. Then how are you planning to get from here to there without us breaking our necks?"
"You didn't leave Yvonne in the van with her keys, did you?" I fretted.
He held up her keys.
Marvin stumbled out, wincing from his barely-healed wound and cramped muscles. He squinted nervously up the road and the hunkering shadows of megasauric mountains, unconvinced we had not been followed. I saw no headlights, but that could be deceptive. The U.S. Army might own the night, but you could count your biddy they rented shares.
Yvonne looked redder than usual in the flow from Uncle Vern's taillights. Frowning her way out of the driver's seat, she grunted her limbs this way and that, popping gaps in her apparel like a sub springing leaks after a close burst. Damage control consisted of stretching her shirt down and pants up, an extensive effort that made me exhausted just watching. Michael looked on dourly from the back seat before saying something to Mom and getting out. He gave Yvonne a look filled with accusatory disgust. He was blaming her for botching the best laid plan.
Skunk Hunt Page 47