by Scott Smith
Carl peered at me over the rim of his half-raised window, a look of concern on his face. "What happened to your head?"
I touched the bump with my hand, then waved out toward the woods. "Walked into a branch," I said. It was the first thing I thought of.
He continued to stare at me for another second or so, then glanced off toward Jacob and Lou. They'd both given him a wave when he pulled up, but now they'd climbed inside Jacob's truck. Their faces were close together, practically touching, and they were talking in what I could only call a conspiratorial manner. Lou was speaking, gesturing excitedly with his hands, and Jacob was nodding at what he said. Mary Beth was sitting on Jacob's lap, staring out the window at us.
"They been drinking?" Carl asked quietly.
"Not yet," I said. "Jacob and I were at the cemetery this afternoon."
"The cemetery?"
I nodded. "Visiting my parents' graves. This is the day we always do it."
"New Year's Eve?" His face lit up. He seemed to enjoy the idea of this.
"I took the day off," I said.
Carl reached forward and flicked a switch on the dashboard, turning the truck's heater to high. There was a warm, rushing sound inside the cab. "Is Jacob still out of work?" he asked.
"He's looking," I lied, feeling the usual flood of embarrassment I experienced whenever my brother's joblessness became a topic of conversation.
"Lou working?"
"No. I don't think so."
Carl shook his head sadly, staring across the road at them. "That's a shame, isn't it? Two grown men, both eager for work. This country..." He trailed off, seemingly lost in thought.
"Well," I started, "we should probably--"
"Lou used to coach baseball," Carl said, cutting me off. "At a boy's camp up in Michigan. Used to be one hell of a shortstop. You know that?"
"No," I said. "I'd never heard that before."
"You wouldn't guess it looking at him now. But there was a time..."
Jacob's truck made a creaking sound as he pushed open his door. Carl fell silent, and we both watched my brother squeeze himself out onto the road and lumber toward us.
"Hello, Jacob," Carl said. "I was beginning to think maybe you were trying to avoid me."
Jacob smiled sheepishly. It was his usual expression when approaching figures of authority. As soon as I saw it, I remembered it from our childhood. It was how he'd looked when a teacher called on him in school.
"I was just cold," he said. "I wanted to get in the truck and warm up a bit."
"Hank tells me you two were visiting your parents' graves today."
Jacob glanced at me, then gave Carl a hesitant nod.
"That's a good thing," Carl said, "a real good thing. I hope my kids do the same for me when I'm gone."
"My dad made us," Jacob said. "It was in his will."
Carl didn't seem to hear him. "I remember your father," he started, but then seemed immediately to think better of it, as if suddenly unsure that it was actually our father he remembered and not some other deceased native of Ashenville. He shook his head. "A good man," he said. "An exceptionally good man."
Neither Jacob nor I could come up with a way to respond to that. There was a moment's silence, which Jacob ended finally by saying, "You tell him about the plane?"
I looked at him in shock. He had a big grin on his face, his fat cheeks ridged with dimples, his lips pulling back to show his teeth. He glanced toward me, and, for a second, I was afraid he might even wink.
"What's this?" Carl asked. He looked from Jacob to me.
"Hank and I were driving by here on Tuesday, this exact same stretch of road, and we thought we heard a plane going down."
"A plane?"
Jacob nodded. "It was snowing pretty hard, and we couldn't be sure, but it sounded exactly like a plane having engine trouble."
Carl stared at him, eyebrows raised, waiting. I tried to think of something to say, some way to change the subject, but nothing came. I stood there, angrily willing Jacob to shut his mouth.
"There haven't been any reports of a missing plane?" he asked.
"No," Carl said slowly, drawing it out, as if to show that he was thinking while he talked, taking what Jacob had told him seriously. "Can't say I've heard anything like that." He glanced at me again. "You just heard an engine? No crash?"
I forced myself to nod.
"Could've been anything then. A motorcycle, a snowmobile, a chain saw." He waved across the fields toward the southeast. "Maybe it was something Dwight Pederson was tinkering with."
We all turned and stared at the Pederson place. There were lights on in the downstairs windows, but the barn and outbuildings were lost in the darkness.
"If you do hear anything," Jacob said, still wearing his clownish smile, "you should give us a call. We could show you where we were."
"I'm sure it would've been reported by now," Carl said. "Planes don't just drop out of the sky without people noticing them missing."
I looked at my watch, trying to cut things off before Jacob had a chance to say anything more. "You're probably eager to get home, Carl. It's after five."
He shook his head, sighing. "I've got a late one tonight, New Year's Eve and all. Apt to be some drinkers out driving." He looked at Jacob. "I trust you won't be one of them."
Jacob's smile faded from his face. "No. You don't have to worry about me."
Carl stared at him for a second, as if expecting him to say something more. Then he turned toward me. "How's Sarah getting along? She must be about due, if I'm not mistaken."
"End of January," I said. My wife was eight months pregnant with our first child.
"You'll have to wish her a happy new year from me," Carl said. He began to roll up his window. "And tell Lou not to be so shy next time. I won't bite."
CARL drove off while we were climbing into the truck. He continued westward, away from Ashenville.
"Just drive for a bit, Jacob," I said. "Don't follow him. Head back toward town."
Jacob started the engine. It took him a while to turn around on the narrow road.
"Go slowly," I said. I was afraid that some of the packets might blow out of the truck bed if we went too fast.
Nobody spoke until we were on our way. Then, as we were crossing the bridge over Anders Creek, I said, "Whose idea was that? To ask him about the plane?" I leaned forward so I could see both of them. Lou was sitting in the center, with the dog in his lap. He had his arms around him, hugging him to his chest. Neither of them answered me.
"Was it yours, Lou?" I'd meant to question them calmly, to rationally show them the danger of what they'd done, but my voice betrayed me, coming out tight and full of anger.
Lou shrugged. "We thought it up together."
"Why?" I asked.
"So we could find out if anyone was looking for the plane," Jacob said. His voice sounded triumphant, as if he felt he'd outwitted me. "And not only that, but now if someone does come looking for it, Carl'll call us first. That way we won't be surprised."
"You've just decided to steal three million dollars, and the first thing you do is interrogate the sheriff about it. Doesn't that seem even the slightest bit foolish to you?"
"We found out that no one's looking for it," Jacob said. "We never would've known that if we hadn't asked."
"It was stupid, Jacob. If they find the plane now, and they realize that the money's missing, he's going to know right off who took it."
"But that's the beauty of it. There's no way we'd have mentioned it to him if we were the ones who took the money."
"Promise me you won't do anything like this again."
He smiled at me. "Don't you see how sneaky it is? Our asking him about the plane puts us on his side."
"It was a risk," I said. "It was stupid."
"But it paid off. We found out--"
"This isn't a game, Jacob. We've committed a crime. We could go to jail for what we've done tonight."
"Come on, Hank," Lou said. "No one's go
ing to send us to jail for this. None of us has records, we aren't criminals. Anyone would've done what we did."
"You're saying we didn't commit a crime?"
"I'm saying they wouldn't send us to jail for it. Even if they convicted us, we'd get a suspended sentence."
"Especially if we hadn't spent any of the money yet," Jacob said. "I think--"
"I don't care what you think," I said, my voice rising toward a shout. "If I feel like you're taking unnecessary risks, I'll burn the money." I looked from Jacob to Lou. "Do you understand?"
Neither of them said anything.
"I'm not going to jail because of something stupid you two idiots have done."
They both stared at me, shocked by my outburst. Mary Beth made a whimpering sound in Lou's arms. I looked out the window. We were on Burnt Road, moving south, surrounded by fields.
I took a deep breath, tried to calm myself down. "I just want you to be careful," I said.
"We'll be careful, Hank," Jacob said quickly. "Of course we'll be careful."
Lou didn't say anything, but I could sense him, even with my head turned toward the window, grinning at Jacob.
"Stop the truck," I said. "We can count it here."
JACOB pulled off onto the edge of the road, and we climbed outside into the cold. We were about three miles west of town. Snow-covered fields lined either side of the road, and there were no houses in sight, no lights of any sort. If a car had approached us from either direction, we would've been able to see it for nearly a mile before it reached us.
Jacob and Lou counted the money; I stood behind them with a flashlight. Mary Beth remained inside the empty cab, sleeping on the seat. They organized the packets into stacks; each stack was ten packets high. It seemed to take forever to count them. I divided my attention equally between the piles of money and the surrounding horizon, alert for approaching lights.
The night was very quiet. The wind hissed across the empty fields; the snow made an occasional creaking sound as it settled alongside the road; and over it all, soft but insistent, came the steady shuffling hush, like cards being dealt at a casino, of Jacob and Lou counting the packets into piles.
When they finished, there were forty-four stacks lined up one after the other along the truck's tailgate. It was $4.4 million.
It took a little while for this to sink in. We stood there, gazing at the money. Lou counted the stacks again, touching the top packet of each one with his forefinger.
"How much is that apiece?" Jacob whispered.
I had to think for a second. "Almost a million and a half."
We continued to stare at the money, stunned.
"Put it away," I said finally, shivering in the cold. I handed Jacob the duffel bag and watched it grow solid as he slowly refilled it.
When all the money was inside, I took it back to the cab.
LOU LIVED southwest of Ashenville, in the opposite direction from me, and we drove there first. It was getting colder and colder; a fretwork of ice was forming along the edge of the windshield. The torn rear window flapped in the wind, sending a steady stream of frigid air pulsing through the cab. Mary Beth rode in the back, huddled halfway into the truck, right up against our necks, so that I could hear him breathing in my ear. The bag of money was resting on the floor, wedged tightly between my legs. I held the top shut with my hand.
It was quarter till seven by the time we reached Lou's.
Nancy's car was in the yard, and there were lights on in the house. It was a large, run-down farmhouse, ancient, one of the oldest surviving homes in the area. Lou and Nancy rented it from Sonny Major, whose grandfather had once owned all the surrounding fields, growing corn and cabbage in them; he'd been one of the region's gentry in the high days before the Depression. Things had gone downhill since then. Sonny's father had sold nearly all the land over the years, except for two thin strips along the road. One of these supported the farmhouse; the other, a smaller plot about three quarters of a mile to the south, had a tiny, rusted-out house trailer on it. Sonny lived in the trailer, alone, within sight of the house he'd grown up in. He called himself a carpenter but survived chiefly off the money he made from Lou and Nancy's rent.
Jacob parked in the driveway, leaving the engine on. Lou opened the door and climbed outside, hesitating for a second before shutting it.
"I was thinking we might each take a packet now," he said. "Just to celebrate with." He smiled at me.
I slid over toward the door, keeping the duffel bag between my legs. Mary Beth climbed in through the window, his fur smelling fresh and cold. He shook himself and then sat down on the seat, leaning up against Jacob. Jacob put his arm around the dog.
"Forget about the money, Lou," I said.
He wiped at his nose with his hand. "What do you mean?"
"Nothing's going to change in your life for the next six months," I said.
Jacob patted Mary Beth's side, a hollow sound. There were trees clustered around Lou's house, huge ones with thick, gray trunks rising up tall against the blackness of the night sky. They were swaying a little in the wind, their branches clicking together. Down the road Sonny's trailer was completely dark. He wasn't home.
"All I'm asking for--" Lou started, but I shook my head, cutting him off.
"You aren't hearing me, Lou. What I'm saying is, don't ask."
I leaned over and pulled shut the door. He stared at me for a moment, through the window, then exchanged a quick glance with Jacob before turning and walking slowly up his driveway.
IT TOOK forty minutes to drive from Lou's house to mine. Jacob and I covered much of this distance in silence, sunk in our own private thoughts. I replayed my encounter with Carl. I'd lied to him; it'd come easily, naturally, and I was surprised by this. I'd never been successful at deceit before. Even as a child I couldn't lie; I hadn't had the self-confidence for it -- the essential calmness -- and had always ended up either giving myself away or breaking down and confessing. As I reviewed my talk with Carl, though, I could find no weak points, no holes in my story. Jacob had overstepped, it was true, asking about the plane, but I realized now that what he'd said wasn't as compromising as it had originally seemed. Perhaps, as he claimed, it might even help us.
I hardly thought of the money. I hadn't yet allowed myself to begin considering it as my own. It was too vast a sum for me to personalize; it seemed abstract, a mere number, nothing more. I felt an edge of lawlessness, it's true -- a cool, cocky feeling rippling with a terrible fear of getting caught -- but it stemmed more from my mendacity with Carl than from any understanding of the magnitude of our theft.
Jacob had pulled a candy bar from the glove compartment and was chewing at it while he drove. The dog sat on the seat beside him, his ears erect, watching him eat. We were on Highway 17 now, making our way into the outskirts of Delphia. Trees were springing up alongside the road, houses beginning to cluster into subdivisions. The traffic slowly thickened. I was almost home.
The thought came to me suddenly, in a little jolt of panic, that if we were to be caught, it would be because of Lou.
"Lou'll tell Nancy, won't he?" I said to Jacob.
"Will you tell Sarah?" he asked.
"I agreed not to."
Jacob shrugged, took a bite from his candy bar. "Lou agreed not to tell Nancy."
I frowned, dismayed. I knew that I was going to tell Sarah about the money as soon as I got home -- I couldn't imagine not telling her -- and this knowledge seemed to confirm my reservations about Lou. He'd tell Nancy, and one of them would screw it up.
I reached over and adjusted the rearview mirror so that I could look at my forehead. Jacob turned on the dome light for me. When I touched it, the bump felt smooth and hard, like a pebble. The skin directly above it was shiny and taut, while the area around it was taking on a purplish tint, a painful-looking darkness, as blood coagulated within the damaged tissue. I licked the thumb of my glove and briefly tried to clean the wound.
"How do you think that thing knew he was in
there?" Jacob asked.
"The bird?"
He nodded.
"It's like a vulture. They just know."
"Vultures see you, though. They see you crawling in the desert. That's how they know you're dying, if you're crawling or just lying there. That thing couldn't see inside the plane."
"Maybe it smelled him."
"Frozen things don't smell."
"It just knew, Jacob," I said.
He nodded, three short, quick movements of his head. "That's right," he said. "That's exactly my point." He took another bite of his candy bar, then fed the last little bit to Mary Beth. The dog seemed to swallow it without chewing.
When we pulled into my driveway, I sat there for a few seconds before climbing out, staring off through the windshield. The house's front light was on, illuminating the trees in the yard, their branches glistening with ice. The living-room curtains were drawn, and there was smoke coming from the chimney.
"You and Lou going out tonight?" I asked. "Celebrating the new year?"
It was cold in the truck; I could see our breath in the air, even the dog's. The sky outside was cloudy, starless.
"I suppose."
"With Nancy?"
"If she wants."
"Drinking?"
"Look, Hank. You don't have to be so hard on Lou. You can trust him. He wants this just as bad as you -- more so, probably. He's not going to mess it up."
"I'm not saying I don't trust him. I'm saying he's ignorant and a drunk."
"Oh, Hank--"
"No, hear me out." I waited until he turned to face me. "I'm asking you to take responsibility for him."
He put his arm around the dog. "What do you mean, responsibility?"
"What I mean is, if he fucks up, it's your fault. I'll hold you to blame."
Jacob turned away from me and looked outside. All up and down the street my neighbors' windows were full of light. People were finishing their dinners, showering, dressing, busily preparing for their New Year's celebrations.
"Who takes responsibility for me?" he asked.
"I do. I'll look after the both of us." I smiled at him. "I'll be my brother's keeper."