by Hob Broun
He went to his knees and pushed through the layer of paper. The first coffee can he opened was stuffed with gold turnip watches.
In the days that followed Karl found it hard to sleep. There were dark raccoon circles around his eyes. He floated through the house in a glowing envelope of bliss, the only nourishment he needed. He played on the floor like a child with the rings and stickpins, the gold coins and gold toothpicks and gold cigar cutters. He picked necklaces for Tildy like wildflowers, topaz and emerald and sapphire. A strange reserve played across his face. It was as if he had popped through a celestial warp into another dimension and nothing, not even the news of Lester Clines’s jailhouse suicide, could touch him. He was happy just to play, but Tildy couldn’t be so just watching.
Her initial elation had worn off; the impact of their discovery had left bruises. But she breezed off to work each morning, spent the day making change, helping ladies decide which pair of cheap earrings to buy; and the absurdity of the situation offered no comfort. While Karl was on a bender, reeling with visions of a new life that changed hourly, she saw only how much coping she’d have to do; she saw that this sudden blessing of theirs could just as easily be a curse, a machine to manufacture worries. Sooner rather than later, Karl would want to broadcast news of their discovery all over town—she worried about that. True, Lester Clines had discouraged further investigation by hanging himself with his own trousers, but still they were holding evidence in a murder case—she worried about that. They were holding a few thousand in cash and an array of nonnegotiable but traceable items that would have to be fenced somehow—she worried about that, too.
“It’s too much for me to handle. I’m afraid.”
Tildy repeated and repeated these words like a mantra in the vain hope that an admission of fear would in some way strengthen her. “I’m afraid,” she would whisper, to which her only response was, “Yes, you certainly are.”
“Let’s buy a boat and sail around the world,” Karl said to her one afternoon as she arrived home early from the Medi Quik. “Let’s buy a farm and raise racehorses.”
Tildy scooped up the cufflinks he’d been sorting through and shook them in his face. “You can’t buy anything with this, it’s not money. Do you understand me? That’s not a treasure chest we’ve got, it’s a toy chest. So play with your fucking toys and leave me alone.”
She went into the bedroom and slammed the door. All Tildy had in mind was stashing herself in that little box of a room and shutting down her tired brain. But she was about to uncover one more false theory, about to prove that desperation, not necessity, was the mother of invention. She pulled off her shoes, flung them one after the other at the back of the closet; and she thought of Sparn.
Sparn the fixer, the Big Peter who could always get into dark and unseen places. He knew all the angles and how to play them. He knew all the pipelines, where they began and where they emptied. She needed outside help to turn toys into money and he could give it. Sparn was a businessman first and always, and last year’s grievances wouldn’t count for much if she could bring him a deal.
Before her emotions could get in the way, Tildy went to the telephone and dialed his office.
Dolly Varden answered. “Good afternoon, Seminole Star.”
“I want to talk to Pete.”
“I’m sorry, he’s on another line. May I …”
“He gonna be in tomorrow? I’m coming to see him.”
“… ask who’s calling?”
“Tildy Soileau. He knows me.”
“Yes. The one who walked out on us.” Dolly dropped her Southern accent for the hard nasality of her hometown. “You better not be looking for work, sister. We make it a policy not to involve ourselves with people like you. People who betray us and spit on our trust.”
“Well, I didn’t get a Christmas card from you either. Tell him I’ll be there in the afternoon.”
“Mr. Sparn will be quite busy all day tomorrow.”
“Fine. Just tell him.”
Tildy set out for Jacksonville at six the next morning, alone. Karl had instructions to phone Holstein and tell him she had some “personal business” to attend to. There were good reasons for excluding Karl from this trip. She was embarking on an expedition that was perilous enough; she’d need all her warning systems and couldn’t afford to keep one eye on him. But the road was white and peaceful in the morning sun and when she stopped outside of Hoppachula for a new radiator hose, the old man gave it to her for nothing because she reminded him of his daughter who’d moved to Oregon. She made excellent time, had succulent fried catfish for lunch and actually arrived in Jacksonville with a tinge of confidence.
The Seminole Star office was frigid, air conditioners running at maximum output. The sweat on Tildy’s face and neck dried instantly, drawing her skin tight. Roosting behind an enormous desk, Dolly Varden suggested she come back later, Pete was tied up in a meeting. Tildy sat down with an old copy of Boxoffice magazine and tried to listen through the door. A woman’s husky voice: “… and in 1975 I was named Miss Inland Waterways.” Staring with tight, fierce eyes, Dolly turned her radio up loud and that was that.
Four songs and a news broadcast later, the woman emerged clutching a stack of 8x10 glossies. She was an unbewildering Sparn selection in red boots and smoky glasses, her nosecone breasts jutting against a rayon shirt. Pete, gliding close behind her, whirled when he saw Tildy, and then smirked, folding his arms.
“You look like hell, kid. Been up all night?” Then, “Leave your pictures, honey. Dolly, coffee please.” He took Tildy by the hand and led her into his office; the furniture had been reupholstered in beige velour. “So tell me what you think of Crystal. Scrumptious, huh?”
“If you say so.”
“Crystal’s a dancer and a cake popper. You know, bachelor parties, birthdays, conventions. A real piece of talent. Tells me she gets so turned on to an audience when she works that she actually comes.”
“An act you can book with pride.”
Pete sank into his swivel chair, picked up one of the plastic puzzles he liked to fool with when talking on the phone. “You got a world of nerve, I’ll give you that. Went AWOL on me in the middle of a tour, attacked my son when he came to straighten things out and nearly jeopardized his ability to have children, and yet you can blow in here without an appointment and crack wise about a girl who’s got twice your sex appeal. You do have a strong supply of nerve, I surely will stipulate to that.”
“Thanks, Pete, even though you didn’t intend a compliment.” She kept her eyes off his, tore dead skin from her lower lip. “I was hoping we could stay off the past and concentrate on business. I don’t want to waste your valuable time.”
She placed the round package she’d brought atop his IN basket.
“So what’s this, a bomb?”
“You could say that.”
Dolly came in with mugs on a tray and from her expression, she’d put rat poison in one of them. She threw down some packets of nondairy whitener and said, “You’ve got a three o’clock with that new candy salesman.”
“The one who wanted me to put granola health bars into all my drive-ins? Fuck him. He can wait.”
Outside, Dolly slammed drawers and spun the dial on her radio.
Sparn held the package to his ear. “Anyway, it’s not ticking.” Tinny thumps when he shook it.
“Take a look inside, Pete. Something pretty.”
He cut the twine with scissors, separated petals of brown paper, lifted out a rusted coffee can. “You sure this won’t go off in my face?”
“Promise.”
Slowly, he prized off the lid; inside was a nest of glinting shellfish, antique watches all of gold. He showed her his poker face, bent over the desk blotter to study a diamond chip monogram, a carved hunting scene, ruby numerals and enameled hands.
“Lovely. People had more time for time in the old days.” Sparn pulled a whiskey bottle out of a bottom drawer. “I like my coffee with a stick in it. Join m
e?”
Tildy shook her head and pushed the words out. “I want to fence them, Pete. Do you know anybody?”
He smiled lewdly at her and stroked his necktie. “Where’d you get them?”
“Let’s say they were a gift from a friend, an old man who thinks he has a crush on me.”
“Hell of a gift, he must dream about you every night. Just how old is this old fool?”
“I don’t know. In his seventies I suppose.”
Sparn sipped from the bottle before pouring a shot into his mug. “You got some strange birds down there in Gibtown, no doubt about it. Whole town’s kinky when you come right down to it, but I guess you’ve gotten used to that by now. Some strange birds, though…. Just recently I was reading about this ole boy, Les Clines, did for himself right there in the hoosegow. Heard about it?”
“I seem to remember something.”
“Yeah, that Lester was quite an item. He ran with the carnies for years, but thieving was always his first profession. Had his own mob for a time, the fox, and did real well according to some of the old timers. There was a big beast of a roustabout named Thunder who supplied the muscle, and the Diropolous brothers had the finesse. They were safecracking Siamese twins and real artists. Never once blew a box open, so it’s told. But Clines, he was the brains of the operation and picked all the marks. No better place to read people than at the fairgrounds, but I don’t have to tell you that, do I? See, he used to work one of those guess-your-age-and-occupation gimmicks and he’d find out all sorts of interesting things about the town doctor and the local lawyer and so on. Les was scrupulous. He kept all his info in a card file and then they’d hit these people on getaway night, just as quiet as a summer breeze. This was years ago but … Am I boring you?”
Tildy felt a rubber ball bouncing in her stomach. “Not at all, Pete. The taller the tale, the better I like it.”
Sparn poured himself another shot. “To departed friends and colleagues,” knocking it back in one go. “Funny thing about all this … Well, must have been three, four years ago I heard that Thunder passed. Working on his car when it slipped off the jack and crushed him. Now the Diropolous brothers, they were down in Sarasota. Worked in a supermarket. One was a cashier and the other one bagged the groceries. I’m on the phone with a client of mine down there and he happens to mention in passing how both of them drowned in the bathtub. Probably fighting over the soap or something. Real sad. Now here’s old Lester with his name in the paper, he’s checked himself out, and that’s all four. Kind of ties it up with ribbon, if you see what I mean.”
“I’m fascinated, Pete, but I’m also on a schedule. So …”
“I know, I know. I’m really an old cornball, yammering away about those old guys. But, man, they used to tell some stories. Late-night stories when you’d have that glow on, just a round or two short of toppling off the barstool. They’d talk about all the yummies Lester was supposed to have put in the ground and how one day we’d have to put our heads together and go looking for them. Saw in the paper where they found a block of ice at his place turned out to be Mrs. Clines. Wonder what else they might have dug up around there.”
“If it was anything interesting,” Tildy said with a kind of paralyzed composure, “they’ve certainly been quiet about it.” Her mouth was very dry, but she wouldn’t touch that coffee. “But those watches, beautiful as they are, I need to turn them over. You can help me if you want to. Will you help me or not?”
“Sure, kid. I can call around, talk to some guys. I’m willing to forgive and forget so long as everything’s on the table. I have this thing about secrets, it’s almost like an allergy with me.”
“I’m not keeping any. Guy’s a little weird for me, I need ready cash, you’re a man who can do favors. Pretty basic. No secrets.”
“I’m so glad. Help is much easier to give when I feel comfortable…. And about that friend of yours. Think he might be good for some more gifts anytime soon?”
“Possibly.” Tildy looked at her wrist where there was no watch and got up. She had to get out of here right away, before Sparn brought out the thumb screws. “Possibly.”
“Let’s stay in touch then, kid. If you’ve got a problem, any kind of problem, I’m always ready to talk.”
She trembled in the elevator and stumbled in the lobby. Back to the heat in the street, where she felt stupid and girlish. This exploratory trip, contacting Sparn at all, had been a mistake—that was obvious as a neon sign. But it didn’t have to be an enormous mistake, only a modest one. Despite his lumbering innuendo, Sparn had nothing conclusive to go on, no way to make the connections definite. Still, he’d laid out those connections so readily that he must have been working from a script formulated in advance. Which meant what? Surely nothing good. Keen temptation notwithstanding, it was never wise to underestimate Sparn, particularly where money was involved. Maybe he’d even sent someone to follow her?
Driving home through thickening darkness, all Tildy saw were dim and scabby faces staring back at her from stoops and alleyways, the circuit bums who flocked to Jacksonville each year to wait out cold weather up north, men with corroded vision and the cowering instincts of dogs systematically abused. Tildy sat feebly in her car as shadows deepened, filled with the realization that she was as defenseless as they were. The more she told herself to stop thinking about probabilities, the more relentlessly her mind turned and turned on the knot of her troubles, making the same progress as a canvas drill bit. Facts were facts. Sparn had her in his crosshairs, Karl was a refugee in fantasyland, there was a trunkload of secret wampum to take care of, and everything teetered over her head. Tildy had the frantic wish of someone who had just lost fingers in an industrial accident: If I could only go back in time; back to before.
She knew exactly where she’d go, too. Back to a night not unlike this one, enclosed in a speeding car, but with the animal presence of Christo next to her on the first leg of that journey to New York that had been so alive with possibilities … Yes, Christo next to her. He’d know how to fence the jewelry, how to deal with Sparn and his ticklish suspicions, the whole squalid mess. This sort of thing wasn’t merely in Christo’s territory, it defined that territory. Amazed and sorry that she hadn’t thought of this before, Tildy stopped at the next rest area and went to the telephone.
This had nothing to do with desire or nostalgia, she reminded herself, piling coins on the chewed-up yellow pages. You’re only looking for guidance. There’s no reason for the stiffness in your fingers. She got Pierce’s number out of her handbag, threw in a bunch of quarters and shuffled her feet listening to the rings.
“Hi. I’m not here right now, but if you leave your name and number at the sound of the tone, I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can.”
Tildy left the receiver dangling and backed away.
Karl was waiting up for her. He took the sack of diner food from her hand and mashed her in his arms.
“Take it easy. I’ve only been gone since this morning.”
“Yeah, but I had these bad feelin’s once it got dark, could see pickin’ up that phone and there’d be a cop or a doctor on the other end.”
They tore into lukewarm hamburgers, dribbling ketchup and fat on the bedspread. Tildy ate so fast that she bit down on the inside of her cheek, a salty taste of blood seasoning the food.
“Gonna tell me what come off with Sparn or do I have to guess?”
“Nothing much. We talked about old times, what some of the girls were up to, stuff like that.”
“You know I’m talkin’ about the gold. What’s that old turnip bleeder gonna do about it?”
Good question. His big lie-to-me eyes were looking at her across the bed. “Well, I don’t expect he’ll be much help. We’ll be on our own. Independent, like it or not.”
“That’s a long way to go, and I ain’t just talkin’ Jacksonville and back, to come away with so little. You all right, baby? You look bone tired.”
To fill him in would be the decent t
hing, let him hear what she’d heard in that cold room with the velour furniture. Sometimes decency served no purpose; dead echoes, an alarm shouted into a cavern miles long.
“You’re right, I’m beat. But before I get in bed I’d like to wash this dirty trip off in the shower.”
“Can I come with you?”
Waiting for something to happen, Tildy called in sick to work the next couple of days. It rained very hard the first night, exposing two separate leaks in the roof. Inexplicably, a tape-recorded lecture on estate planning was delivered to them in the mail. Karl jabbered incessantly about the set of drums he wanted to buy. Ondray Keyes fell off his bicycle and broke his wrist. But nothing happened.
When Tildy showed up at the Medi Quick on Friday morning, Holstein asked what she was doing there.
“I work here, Ray.”
“Not anymore.”
She turned and looked to the back of the store where he was pointing with his chin. DaVita was buttoning herself into the red and blue company smock. She had a lavender bruise on her face and her hair was much shorter.
“Hey, wow … This is very embarrassing and all. I came in looking for you a couple of times ’cause I wanted to talk and finally he asked me if … You gotta understand. Dennis cracked up the car and the kids were coming out of the bottom of their shoes and we been living on macaroni and lunch meat the last few weeks. I’m sorry, I’m real sorry.”
“You two know each other?” Holstein was crushed.
Tildy’s eyes pinned him. “Does the Pope shit in the woods? Sure, Ray, we were turning tricks together in high school.” She tugged at her belt, extruded a sliver of tongue.
Holstein just stared with mouth open as if watching a hardcore loop.
DaVita, her mouth going white at the corners, lunged forward and grabbed Tildy’s hands. “Don’t, don’t,” she stage-whispered. “I know you must be sore and everything, but don’t mess this up for me. Those kids, you just don’t know. I can’t deal them off like an old washing machine and Donnie’s no good to us out in the street all day and they won’t let me on the welfare and I need this job.”