Gathering String

by Mimi Johnson

  Sam woke with a start as the Jeep hit the shoulder of the road, braking hard. The loose pebbles spattered, and he looked over to see Jack staring into the rear-view mirror. It was dark now, and the flashing lights of the patrol car cast eerie reflections on the windows.

  “Jesus!” Sam sat up and looked out the back to see the cop pulling over behind them. “How fast … ?”

  “Fast.”

  Sam looked over at him and suddenly grinned. “I guess they moved the speed traps. Wanna bet this is one ticket you’re going to have to pay?”

  Jack’s eyes dropped from the mirror at Sam’s laugh, and his mouth became a thin line. “I’m not the one who’s got a summons out on me. What’ll we do if he wants to see your ID?”

  “Fuck!” All amusement in Sam’s face was gone in a flash of the flickering lights.

  Jack looked into the rear-view mirror again and bent forward slightly. “Here,” he reached under the seat and flipped a seed corn cap in Sam’s direction, “put this on.” Sam caught it and did as he was told. Jack frowned. “Try to keep your face in the shadows.” Sam hunkered down a little, but Jack muttered, “You still look so …”

  “What?” Sam snapped, “Jewish?”

  “I was going to say ‘out of place.'”

  “I can’t help it if I stick out in this land of white bread.”

  “Well, pull it down more, and for God’s sake, try to keep that Boston yap of yours shut for a few minutes.” He looked at the side mirror and saw the patrol car’s door open. “Here he comes.” He put down the window and shut off the engine, then put both hands on the wheel to be seen.

  With a crunch of cinders, the officer bent down, shining his flashlight on them. “License and registration.” The voice was stern. Sam couldn’t see the face beyond the bright light, and he looked down to keep from being studied too closely.

  Jack reached over and took the registration and insurance card from the glove box, then pulled his license from his wallet. The cop studied them and then looked back at Jack. “So you’re Jack Westphal.” It wasn’t a question, but Jack nodded. “And this gentleman?” The light wavered back toward Sam.

  “My employee, Quincy Nordquist. We both work at the …”

  “Lindsborg Journal,” the cop finished for him. “Yeah, Mr. Westphal, you’re kind of a highway legend. I thought you might be flying low through here some time tonight. Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

  Jack rubbed his ear and squinted up at him. “Not really, officer.”

  The cop looked them both over for another long careful moment and then said, “Step back to the patrol car with me, sir.” With a glance at Sam, Jack opened the door and got out. The dashboard clock read 10:12.

  They’d been gone quite awhile when Jack’s cell phone, which was plugged into the lighter, went off. Sam looked at the screen and saw that it read “Tess.” If he hadn’t been worried about her himself, he probably wouldn’t have picked it up, but maybe she needed help. He flipped the answer bar. “Tess? Everything OK?”

  There was a pause, and then she said softly, “Sam?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Jesus, you really are with him.”

  He laughed grimly at her shocked voice. “He told you, huh? Looks like we’ve got an unholy alliance going here. Toughie, are you OK?”

  “Yes. But he didn’t tell me much. Where is he?”

  “At the moment?” Sam twisted the mirror around, and could see Jack listening to the talking patrolman, under the dome light. “He appears to be having a discussion with very solemn state trooper. He’s in the patrol car.”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How bad?”

  “I don’t know. I was asleep. Why did you call?”

  “It’s very quiet here and I was thinking about you two, driving together …”

  “Don’t worry. We had an uneasy truce going until Deputy Dog showed up.”

  “How did you two end up … ?”

  “I’ve been asking myself that all day. All I can say is if there’s a God, he’s laughing his ass off.” In the mirror, he could see the cop was writing on a pad. “I think they’re wrapping up.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I don’t know for sure. Someplace north of Des Moines. Don’t you want to talk to him?”

  “No. Don’t even tell him I called. You’ll be here soon. He’s hanging on a thread, Sam. Try not to piss him off.” She clicked off.

  It was still awhile before Jack came back. As he got in, he tossed a ticket up onto the dash.

  “Bad?” Sam asked, the cap now pushed back and slightly askew.

  Jack nodded.

  “Well?”

  Jack looked over his shoulder, the patrolman waiting patiently for him to go first. Carefully he pulled back onto the Interstate. “Bad enough that he could have run me in. But he dropped it down to a whopper of a fine.”

  “A basketball fan?”

  “I don’t think so.” Jack looked over at Sam, his brow creased. “Did you hear him say he thought I’d be out tonight?”

  Sam looked back at the patrol car as it went off the exit they’d just passed, “Uh-huh. Why? You think …?”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s not one of their usual spots for a trap. And he nailed me like he was just watching for this Jeep to go by.” He glanced at Sam again. “Think someone tipped him?”

  “Someone? Someone with a whole lot of sway at the Highway Patrol?”

  “Maybe. Right before he wrote me up, he said he’d cut me a break if I went straight home and stayed there. That’s exactly what Swede told me to do, almost in those exact words. And Swede said he’d be checking to make sure I got home safely.”

  “You think having Dudley Do-right nab you was his way of doing it?”

  Jack sighed. “I don’t know. It’s not like the cop didn’t have a reason to stop me. Maybe I’m just getting jumpy.”

  Sam repeated softly, “Maybe.” He pulled the cap down as he settled in the seat and added, “But maybe we’ve got a shitload of reasons to worry.”

  Jack just shook his head as he set the cruise control at 70. It felt like a crawl. When the first pattering of rain hit the windshield, he flipped on the wipers, and Sam reached into his pocket. At the sound of cellophane being pulled away, Jack snapped, “I told you, don’t smoke in my …”

  “It’s gum, Hoss.”

  Jack glanced over and saw Sam was offering the pack. Pulling out a stick, he grunted, “Thanks.”

  Sam shrugged, and as the silence began to draw out, he decided to make his move. “Tell me something: Didn’t you ever think about going off to the ‘big city?’” He said the words with a country twang. “Come on, you played round-ball. Didn’t you want to go on to the pros?”

  For a second Jack took his eyes off the road, looking at Sam as if to discern if it was some kind of loaded question, and then he answered, “Sure.”

  “So? Why didn’t you go for it? From what I hear, you were pretty damn good.”

  “For State, I was good. But for the pros? No.”

  Sam snapped his gum, fighting the craving for a cigarette. “So why journalism?”

  Jack shrugged, “I wrote some sports stories for the Journal after basketball ended my senior year of high school. I liked to write. I wanted to tell people’s stories. I admired the writers who told mine well.”

  “But just drawing a paycheck wasn’t enough. What made you think you wanted to buy the Journal? Jesus, at a time when newspapers are dying by the dozens it was a hell of a risk.”

  “Yeah,” Jack’s eyes narrowed as he stared out at the rain slanting into the headlights, “but it was going at a fire-sale price. Working at the hide-bound Globe was like standing on the Titanic, watching it sail into the iceberg, just too solid and slow to turn. But I knew I could make something new. I had a thousand ideas, and I wanted to try them all. It was the only way to get to call the shots. So I stuck my neck out.”

  “And it’s be
en worth it?” Sam stared through the windshield too.

  “I think so. I mean, my God, look at what happened to Knight Ridder, the Tribune, and the Rocky Mountain News. The big newspaper companies that aren’t dead or bankrupt have their stocks in the toilet. We’re doing better in the small towns. I don’t need to please Wall Street with my profits, and I like being the sole investor. I can cover my payroll and my loan payments, and if I need some new video cameras or want to update the press, that’s my choice.”

  “And your worry,” Sam injected.

  “Right. But when I sell my reporting content to every little weekly in six counties and when I turn that press into the best printing shop in the western half of the state, I get to laugh all the way to the bank.”

  “So business is good?” Jack didn’t answer, and Sam turned to him with a shark-like smile. “You know, I was thinking. You told me your dad had enough life insurance so the farm wouldn’t have to be sold to settle his estate. Your brother was going to be the farmer, right? Your father must have meant to have his other two kids inherit equally. I figure that 1200 acres, times the going price of land at the time, let’s say conservatively 4K an acre, plus money to cover the inheritance tax, and adding in double indemnity, it had to have added up to at least a couple million from Mutual of Omaha, maybe more. And you still had all that land too.” Jack glanced over, but still didn’t say anything.

  “You had to pay the taxes, but your college tuition and expenses were all covered by your basketball scholarship,” Sam went on. “And you worked for the Globe for a few years, so I suppose you didn’t have to touch your capital that whole time. You only had yourself to support, and besides, you were banking the rent money you got from tenant farmers. Your house is well over a hundred years old, so I suppose your great-grandpa paid off that mortgage. You sold about half the land when you bought the Journal, renovated the building, improved the press and put in a new computer network. Again, using 4K as the selling price, that’s another 2 million, a hell of a fine down payment. You’re still banking the rent on the remaining land. You’re making the press pay for itself by jobbing out other printing besides your paper. The Journal's circulation is way up since you took over. You’re selling content, templates and brokering actual sales on your web site, and actually making money there. And you’re probably still holding onto your original investments from what was left of your folks’ life insurance. Let’s see, if Swede Erickson guided you into some healthy diversification between high risk and conservative investments, well,” Sam sighed, “I’m not that good at math. Let’s keep the numbers round and say your long-term stuff got ten percent return annually for the last 15 years. That’d be,” Sam paused as he worked the figures in his head. “Jesus, that’d be, well, a hell of a lot of money. And with the exception of one Jaguar, a couple Jeeps, and some very nice stereo equipment, you still seem to live pretty conservatively …”

  At last, Jack broke in, “What’s the point here, Sam?”

  Sam sat up a little. “Obviously my point is that you’ve got some serious gelt.” Jack looked over at him with a vague smile, and Sam explained, “Money, Hoss. It’s Yiddish for money. So why are you letting Swede Erickson scare you out of running this story? You must have the wherewithal to make a run at outlasting the bastard. Let him pull his fucking business. Maybe the Journal will struggle, but Jesus, you’ve got a nice camel’s hump of capital to keep things going until the shit storm blows over. You said you wanted to tell people’s stories. Why aren’t you telling this one?”

  Jack’s mouth screwed down. “What are you going for, Sam? If I take your advice seriously, I'd throw you out right by that bean field and write the story myself.”

  Sam’s laugh was scornful. “I’d hit the ground running and kick your ass into next Sunday. No, what I’m thinking is that we write it together. Politifix would pay you as a freelancer. It could run on Politifix and the Journal's web site and in print all on the same day.” Sam’s sharp eyes watched the younger man carefully. “Come on, Hoss. Isn’t there a little part of you that wants to run with this story? It’s a hell of tale.”

  Jack’s eyes left the road and swept Sam as he said, “This is your play to get me on the record.” Sam pushed the cap back on his head in acknowledgement. Jack asked, “Are your parents still alive, Sam?”

  “No. Well, my dad’s gone. I don’t know about my mother.”

  “Did he leave you anything?”

  “He left me 15K in life insurance, about five times that in hospital and doctor bills, and my mother’s wedding ring. Why?”

  “So you can’t know what it’s like then, to have everything generations before you worked for and saved, just put into your hands.”

  “No,” Sam grunted.

  “Well, I do. I’m responsible for it. I want to hang onto it and add to it, and pass it down when my time comes. Erickson … ” Jack’s brows drew down, staring hard at the dark road in front of him, “he’ll hurt me, any way he can. And he knows what matters most to me. If I drop the dime on him, Swede won’t hesitate to turn the whole town against me.” The windshield wipers slapped heavily in the increasing rain, and Sam barely heard him add. “I have to live with those people.”

  Sam shook his head, his reply also soft. “I’d be more concerned about living with myself. But then, that’s just me.”

  In the dim light from the dashboard, Sam couldn’t mistake the withering look on Westphal’s face as he looked over one more time and muttered, "Shut up, Quincy."

  A few miles from Lindsborg, Jack picked up his phone. Sam, who had appeared to be asleep again, sat up as Jack spoke, obviously to Tess. “You still up?” Sam could see whatever she replied made a brief smile flash over his face. “We’re just getting to town, so we’ll be there in a few minutes. Listen, if the yard light is on, kill it.” Jack listened for a moment, then said, “I know but …” he hesitated, and then said, “if anyone is watching the house, they’ll see the truck pull in, but once I shut off the lights, it’ll be too dark to see who gets out. Or how many get out.” He listened again, and then replied sullenly, with a half-glance at Sam, “Yeah, the downstairs bedroom.”

  If Sam needed any evidence that Jack was anxious to reach the end of the line, it came with the speed at which the Jeep flew toward the farm. Coming to a jolting stop by the front gate, Jack flipped by rote, shutting down the stereo, the wipers, the air, the lights and the ignition. In the sudden quiet, the only sound was the soft ticking of the warm engine under the hood, cooling in the rain. For a heartbeat they both just stared out the windshield, then Sam said softly, “Jesus, it’s dark out here.”

  It was. In the overcast, with no lights for miles, it was a black night. “Well,” Jack’s voice was clipped, but Sam couldn’t see his expression, “come on.”

  There was an abruptness in Westphal’s movements, getting out of the truck and leading the way down the walk, that put Sam on guard, the man’s usual easy-flowing grace stifled by a sharp strung tension. With sudden clarity, Sam knew what the problem was: It was allowing Sam himself back into his house. And as they came to the porch steps, Sam understood exactly how he felt. In just a few seconds, he would have to stand witness as Tess welcomed her husband home. It was too weird, for all of them.

  Jack jerked the screen door opened, and Sam muttered, “Look man, I’ve been dying for hours for a smoke. I’ll be along in a minute.”

  Jack grunted, not turning around, and Sam sank to the top step. He heard the door behind him close, and he leaned against the porch pillar, staring out into the dark, unable to see the falling rain, but watching the drops hit the sidewalk and listening to its soft patter in the leaves of the trees. He dug into his pocket and brought out the fresh pack of cigarettes.

  He was well into a third one when the door behind him opened. “Sam?” Tess’s voice was quiet in the darkness.

  “Yeah?”

  She couldn’t see his features, just the glowing tip of the cigarette. “Come on in.”

  H
e nodded. “In a minute.” With the soft light behind her, he could tell she was wearing some kind of long robe. And faintly, on the night’s fresh air, he caught the scent of linden.

  She said, “Jack’s gone up. He’s beat. He told me a little, but …”

  “Not now, Toughie, OK? Give me until morning, and then I’ll fill you in if he hasn’t.” There was silence behind him at that, and he added, “Sorry about the dog. You’ve had a hard day.”

  “Haven’t we all?” His only answer was a rueful smile that she couldn’t see. “You’ll find everything you need in the downstairs bedroom. It’s at the opposite end of the hall from Jack’s study. The bath is through the door on …”

  “I’ll figure it out, Tess.” He flipped the cigarette out into the wet grass where the faint glow flickered and went out. “Go on. It’s late. Get some sleep.”

  “Throw the deadbolt when you come in.” She could just make out the nod of his head.

  Upstairs Jack undressed in the dark. As he pulled off his shirt, he glanced at the bedroom windows over the window seat directly over the porch. One was open a bit to the fresh air, and he could hear the faint murmuring of voices. They didn’t talk long.

  When he came back from a quick shower, she was in bed and it wasn’t until he slipped in beside her that he realized she was awake. “I’m sorry, Jack.” It was a faint whisper, and he pulled her close.

  “Sorry?” She smelled like that French soap she loved. “This is Swede’s doing …”

  “I’m sorry it had to be Sam that you went to. It had to be him because Swede knows about him and me, doesn’t he?” He didn’t answer. He kissed her cheek, the medal dangling away from his chest and brushing her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  He settled against her, her small body curved into his, and he whispered, “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.” He fell quickly into an exhausted, dreamless sleep.