Night Road

by Brendan DuBois

  So after a couple of years of long drives to a UNH satellite campus about an hour south, she got her associate’s degree in accounting and the skills to keep the books and do payroll. Since most of his businesses operated on a cash-only basis, her salon and the other interests allowed him a convenient way to launder funds.

  Three other women worked with Karen, and he gave them all a cheery wave as he strolled in. Karen had on a white miniskirt, black pumps, and a tight black sweater. She took off her black salon coat and led him into the back office, where lunch waited: a steak and cheese sub for him, a large steak, cheese and mushroom sub for her, both delivered from Turner Subs & Pizza. Like about ninety percent of Italian pizza joints in the state, it was run by a Greek family, a mystery Duncan had never bothered to solve.

  He sat down across from Karen and munched on his sub, drinking a Coke—he had tried Diet Coke once and instantly spat it out, thinking the foul stuff tasted like cold battery acid—and said, “So you get a large sub and I get a small one?”

  She gently dabbed at a piece of cheese at one corner of her lip. “Part of your diet, love bug.”

  “You know I’m not overweight.”

  “Oh yes, your studly body is definitely not overweight, but your bad cholesterol is so high I’m surprised I don’t hear your arteries clog at night. So eat up and be thankful I’m not giving you salad again.”

  The office was small, with no windows, the desk, two chairs, two filing cabinets, and a computer. “Okay, I’m thankful.”

  When they finished with lunch, she spent a few minutes going over spreadsheets for his convenience stores, his restaurant, and the gun shop, checking the cash flows and expenses. As she talked numbers she leaned over him. He enjoyed her scent and the gentle touch of her long red hair tickling his cheek.

  “So there you go, hon,” she said. “We’re either on track or doing just a bit better than projections for this quarter, but there’s bad news on the horizon.”

  “State going to vote in an income tax? Or sales tax?”

  She rubbed the back of his neck as she tidied up the spreadsheets with her free hand. “Hon, the day that happens, mobs will burn down the capitol building in Concord, and there’ll be a race on to see who could hang the most state reps. No, what’s coming is going to be bad enough. Our Blue Cross and Blue Shield premiums are going up later this year.”

  “Damn,” he said. “How much?”

  “Our broker says sixteen, maybe eighteen percent.”

  “Double damn.”

  “Yes,” she said, walking over to the filing cabinet in the office, bending over to put the spreadsheets away, exposing a lot of tanned, firmed legs. “But at least we’re not in Massachusetts. You hear what happened down there? Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts shit-canned their executive director after a couple of years of suckitude, and they gave him a firm handshake and fired his ass. Oh, by the way, they also sent him off with an eleven-million-dollar golden parachute.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Honey, after all these years, you’re surprised? You know the Golden Rule: Them that has the gold, makes the rules. So insurance company premiums are going up all around the region, and some insurance guy who didn’t do his job gets an eleven-million-dollar payout. God bless America.”

  She was still puttering around the open filing cabinet when he stood behind her. He put a hand on the small of her back and she said, “What’s on your schedule for the rest of the day?”

  “Little more work with Cameron. Then he and I have to go out later tonight. Business.”

  “Oh,” she said, closing the file drawer, locking it up. “Just remember I’m off with the kids to my mom’s tonight. Be back around nine. So you’ll be a bachelor for at least a couple of hours. Lucky you.”

  He smiled at her. “Lucky me.” Duncan touched her lips with his finger, then stepped back, locked the door leading out to the salon.

  Karen rolled her eyes. “Sweetie, I’ve got Mrs. Blakely coming in for a trim and color in ten minutes.”

  He went to her, kissed her gently, then more forcefully, breathing in and tasting her, his right hand up under her short skirt. “If you’re late, then you have my permission to comp her.”

  She kissed him back, softly sighed, “Hon, I don’t need your permission for a damn thing.”

  His hand went up her smooth thighs, touching the lace of her thong underwear, gently pulled it away, as she moaned. His fingers probed and moved, and he was thrilled as always, to find her warm and wet and inviting for him.

  She bit his ear, started to undo his belt. “You bad, bad boy,” she whispered.

  “Baddest boy you know,” he whispered back, bringing up his fingers to taste her sweetness.

  About forty-five minutes later and twenty miles northeast of Turner, his brother Cameron drove him down an unmarked dirt road until they came to a chain-link fence, posted with several No Trespassing signs. Cameron got out, unlocked the gate, and then came back to the Honda, drove a few yards, and went out again to lock the gate behind them.

  The dirt road went on for a number of yards before turning into pavement. The paved road went up a slight incline, passing a faded wooden sign on three posts that announced Turner Overlook Estates with a phone number for a local Realtor office. Trees cleared away, revealing loam, dirt, and concrete foundations, as well as stakes with flapping orange flags. The foundations then blurred into half-built homes, and then two homes that were nearly complete. But those two homes weren’t shingled and didn’t have clapboards, only torn Tyvek coverings on the plywood walls. The road ended in a cul-de-sac and Cameron turned the Honda Pilot around and switched off the engine.

  “Here we are,” Cameron said. “Let’s take a look.”

  Duncan joined him outside as they looked at the planned homes, which looked to total sixteen. Four were bare foundations, ten were half-built, with framework and plywood stanchions, and the nearest two were the most completed.

  “Looks interesting,” Duncan said. “Tell me what you’ve got.”

  Cameron said, “Got the idea from you, if you can believe it.”

  “I used to believe in Santa Claus and balanced federal budgets, so I guess I can do that.”

  Cameron laughed. “You know when we were up at Lake Palmer a couple of months ago, looking at those distressed vacation residences that had been set up for hunting and fishing? Including some Euro trash and Mexican millionaire or two? Couple of ex-congressmen? We even talked to a couple of ’em. Couldn’t agree on a price, but I liked the remoteness of the properties, and how well they were built.”

  Duncan kept quiet. He remembered that trip very, very well, but for other reasons. Cameron pointed to the construction near them. “This development was designed as vacation homes for the rich and upcoming in Portland, Boston, and Burlington. But when crunch time came a couple of years back, the rich and upcoming become poor and struggling. The demand for vacation homes three or four hours away equaled the demand for men’s ball waxing. There you go. Long story short, this place is owned by a Manhattan banking consortium that’s doing its best to get rid of what they call toxic assets. Did some snooping around, bro, and this place is going to stay like this for two, three, maybe even four years.”

  “Sounds even better,” Duncan said, feeling a warm affection for his tough-looking biker brother, whose rugged exterior hid an imaginative and inquisitive mind. He looked at the windswept hill, the tall pines, and along the far tree line, a red-tailed fox trotted along, pink tongue hanging out.

  “So this is what I’m thinking,” Cameron went on. “What we got going on with Chuckie and a couple of other farmers in the county is fine for now, but it’s dangerous stuff. We’ve been lucky so far, but all it’s gonna take is one pissed-off farmer’s wife, or a teenage boy who’s heard a rumor and is looking for a quick hit, or a curious State Police trooper who wants
to do something spectacular for a promotion.”

  Cameron gestured to the homes. “Here we’ve got ten full foundations, enclosed and protected. With a little creative work, we could transfer our gardening activities here. Out of sight, out of mind, for at least a couple of years. Hell, with some judicious negotiation on your part, bro, you could probably buy the place for a tenth of what it was originally worth.”

  Duncan said, “Sounds attractive. But won’t it take some work, getting the power set up here? Don’t see any utility poles.”

  “You won’t see any,” his brother said. “This was going to be a high-class place for high-class people with high-class tastes. Can’t have any unsightly utility poles, now, can we. So all the utilities are underground. With some creative work—maybe from Chuckie—we could tap into the nearest PSNH line without much problem.”

  Duncan looked around, saw the wind flapping the Tyvek covering on a couple of the near walls, the rotting plywood, the rebar still protruding out of the concrete. It gave him a chilled feeling, thinking about how many of these abandoned projects were scattered across the country, from wooded areas like this to the flat desert plains of Arizona to the outskirts of once powerful Detroit. How the hell did his America get to this place?

  Off in the distance there was a dull roar that increased in volume as seconds passed. He and Cameron turned and Duncan said, “The west. Sounds like it’s coming from the west.”

  A blur by the tree line and Duncan instinctively ducked as a dark green Air Force C-130 four-engine plane roared overhead, barely a hundred feet in altitude. The four propellers were a spinning blur as the aircraft rocketed over them and then disappeared beyond the far tree line.

  “Christ,” Cameron whispered.

  Duncan said, “Training flight, I bet.”

  “What are they training for? Identifying trees and brush?”

  “No, heard it from a guy who’s in the Air Force reserves. Those aircraft are connected to Special Forces. They train to fly real low, hug the terrain. Supposedly this part of the state looks a lot like chunks of Afghanistan.”

  The sound finally went away. Cameron said, “Nice to see priorities are still getting funded. So, what do you think of my little proposal?”

  Duncan smiled. “Damn it, Cameron, that’s some fine planning, some fine thinking. Make it happen, all right?” He could tell his older brother was pleased with the praise. Duncan added, “Of course, it breaks my heart, thinking about those high-class people who won’t be living here, who got stuck with the bills.”

  Cameron started back to the Pilot. “Don’t know much about high-class people, but I know a lot of locals—plumbers, electricians, contractors—who got stuck when this development fell apart. They never got paid, and some of them are working as cashiers or clerks at Wal-Mart or Home Depot now, instead of owning their own businesses.”

  From where he stood, Duncan had a great view of the downside of the far slope, showing wooded areas, lakes, the scattered few buildings of Turner, and the near peaks of the northern White Mountains.

  “What a darn beautiful country,” Duncan said.

  Cameron called out, “Yeah, but what a fucked-up nation.”

  Nearly an hour later, Cameron parked the Honda Pilot outside of the small one-story brick building that was the Turner Post Office. Turner’s Main Street was just a couple hundred yards away from Karen’s Cut & Curl, and Duncan smiled, thinking of his filling lunch and dessert. A good break in the day.

  He folded his arms and looked across the street. A two-story brick office building, with a law firm taking up the entire second floor. Johnson & Carleton. Years ago, before he and Cameron were born, it was Crowley & Carleton. The ground floor of the building had a temp office agency, a satellite office from the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services, the Jade Dragon—a Chinese food restaurant—and a copy and print shop.

  Years ago, as well, the whole block belonged to their parents. His leg throbbed, just below his right knee, where a titanium rod kept things in place. Some folks’ injuries hurt in the morning, others gave notice when bad weather was approaching, and his leg always ached whenever he was across the street from where his family had once owned nearly half of downtown Turner.

  The driver’s-side door opened up and Cameron came in, smiling. A small USPS box was in his hand and Duncan said, “Everything in shape?”

  “Super,” Cameron said. “It’s a new lens for my Meade telescope. The focal length and the—”

  Duncan laughed, held up his hand. “For Christ’s sake, Cameron, I don’t understand all those details. Just tell me, what’s it going to do for you?”

  Cameron weighed the USPS box in his hand. “Some clear night, I’ll come over and show you and the kids. Set it up with my Meade and its motor drive, with this lens, it’ll look like you’re flying over the mountains of the moon. Real good stuff, bro. Not as good as a video game, but it has the advantage of being real.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Duncan said, looking again across the street. He recalled playing in the conference rooms up on the second floor, in his dad’s law office, trying to climb the tall book cases with leather-bound law books. Doodling on long yellow pads with pens marked with the firm’s name. The secretaries secretly passing over candy. The memories stirred something inside of him. His leg ached some more.

  Cameron caught his eye. “Checking out the old family estate.”

  “Can’t help it.”

  “I understand,” Cameron said. He started up the Pilot. Duncan swiveled his head, saw there was no traffic coming.

  The Honda stayed in park.

  Cameron said, “Not a week goes by when I drive by there, bro, that I don’t remember what happened.”

  “It was almost twenty years ago, Cameron. Forget it.”

  “Can’t forget it, and you know it. I should have met with that son-of-bitch Caleb Carleton instead of you. You were too young. He could push you around, get drunk and mean, and deny he did

  anything screwy with Mom and Dad’s wills. I should have been there. We had plans.”

  Duncan said, “Cam, just drop it, all right? Almost twenty years.”

  Cameron kept quiet. The Honda’s engine was still idling. Duncan remembered the plans. He was going to go to UNH on a baseball scholarship and get something squared away after graduation. Either make it up that steep ladder to the pros, or get a good career going with his business degree. With money coming in after getting out of school, it’d be Cameron’s turn to go to college next, to study what always fascinated him: the night sky.

  That plan was shot to pieces the night Mom and Dad died in a plane crash in Colorado. But other opportunities, as morbid as they were, presented themselves with their inheritance. But Dad’s law partner, Caleb Carleton, said everything had been left to him and the firm. He and Cameron agreed one day to confront him, to demand what was theirs, but Cameron never showed up, and Duncan got into Carleton’s Cadillac to continue the discussion, after the proverbial three-martini lunch.

  Duncan put a finger on the box with the telescope lens. “My fault, too, Cameron. Let you down big time. I shouldn’t have let Carleton drive off drunk with me next to him. When he wrapped the Cadillac around that maple tree and flew through the windshield … well, if I hadn’t been with him, my leg would have been fine, and UNH would have still wanted me.”

  “Life does go places, now, don’t it,” Cameron said.

  “It does, and there’s still places it can go,” Duncan said, raising an old topic. “I’ve said it a dozen times, if I’ve said it once. We’re in a place where you could easily go back to school, get that degree, study astronomy and—”

  “Duncan.”

  “Yeah?”

  His biker brother sighed. “When I was maybe ten or eleven, there was a special-edition model being released, of the Saturn V rocket, complete with command and lunar module.
Cost a bundle. At the time, I wanted it so bad for my birthday. But Mom said we couldn’t afford it, so I didn’t get it. Didn’t get it that year, or the next. You know what? I could go on eBay and get it whenever I want. I got the money, for Christ’s sake. But I won’t do it. Fucking time has passed me by. So don’t mention school again, all right?”

  “Got it,” Duncan said, looking away from his older brother.

  Cameron shifted the Honda into drive and they went out onto Main Street.

  eleven

  Zach Morrow slowed down as Route 115 wound around Gibson’s Hill, offering a fine view of Turner, where he had spent the first eighteen years of his life. He pulled to the side, put the truck in park, looked off to the left. The town was as small as he recalled, two church spires rising up into the sky, the small brick and wood buildings clustered by the Bellamy River. Back inside of him were a collection of memories, a mix of good and bad, and he didn’t feel like wasting his time dicking with them, deciding which ones to ponder over.

  He shifted again and went out to Route 115, drove about a hundred yards more, when he stopped again. To the right was a metal sign in the shape of the state of New Hampshire, and in a Gothic script were the words: The Montgomery Morrow Memorial Highway. The sign looked in pretty good shape. The last time he had seen a sign like this was nearly twenty years ago, the night before he left for Cape May in New Jersey for Coast Guard basic training. He had taken his dad’s Lincoln—maybe it was thievery, maybe not—and had driven up here for a hard look at the sign, before pounding the Lincoln’s accelerator and running the sign down.

  Zach smiled at the memory. Damn road agent had done a pretty good job of installing the sign, and the first run-in had just knocked it over a bit. It had taken about five good tries before the sign was flattened, and along the way, he had dinged up the front bumper, fender, and the Lincoln’s undercarriage pretty well. He had returned the Lincoln to the house, left the keys in the ignition, and hitchhiked his way south to Berlin, where he caught a Greyhound bus that eventually brought him to New Jersey.