“Who could?”
“It’s only money, right? You can always make more.”
Cal said nothing. He didn’t understand those who sought to fill their lives with chaos. Emotional, financial, sexual, it didn’t matter; it was, to him, all the same nonsense.
Carver paused a moment longer, then finally resumed crossing the remaining distance to the garage. He was still grinning, his perfect teeth, catching the light spilling from the doorway, showing bone white against the darkness behind him.
“You’re working late.”
“Lebell wanted to finish up the body work on the Citroën, so I just kept plugging away on the Benz.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that. How’s it coming? Everything’s okay, no major problems?”
“No, no problems at all. It’s just taking the time these things take.”
Nodding, Carver thought about that. He looked past Cal, through the office and into what could be seen from where he was standing of the work bays. “Is Lebell still here?”
“He ran out to get some oil and stuff.”
“We’re out?”
“Of oil?”
“Yeah.”
“Just low.”
“How many quarts do we have left?”
“Two.”
Carver glanced toward the dark road. He seemed to Cal to be preoccupied by something.
“Is he on his way back now?” Carver said.
“He should be, yeah.”
“I’m going to need the quarts we have back there. I think my work truck is burning oil.”
He stepped past Cal and into the office. Following him inside, Cal noticed that there was something else about his boss tonight that was odd—the man seemed to be just a little breathless, winded, even, as if he had very recently exerted himself in some manner and had yet to fully recover. His eyes, too, now that Cal could see them clearly in the office light, possessed a kind of wildness, like the eyes, maybe, of a man who had found himself suddenly on the run from something. Though Cal was only twenty-two and had lived since he was eighteen in the apartment above—alone, till recently, his days and nights all carefully structured to prevent any semblance of trouble from ever finding him—he knew enough of the world to know what the effects of certain illicit drugs looked like. His older brother, dead now, had been drawn since they were kids to one dangerous crowd or another; never completely belonging to one, Aaron Rakowski had instead existed on the edges of several. Cal had, then, seen enough of every type of abuser there was to recognize certain signs when they were right before him.
“Listen,” Carver said, “I want to ask you something before Lebell gets back.” He glanced at the road again, had to look past Cal and through the open door directly behind him to do so.
“What’s up?”
“The owner of the Mercedes is breathing down my neck. He wants it back, says we’re taking too long.”
“It’s a total engine rebuild, Eric. They take as long as they take.”
“I know that, and you know that, but he’s a rich fuck, doesn’t care, wants it done. I know you probably have plans tonight, but do you think you could maybe stick around and finish it up?”
Cal said nothing. There were advantages to the setup he had—thirty bucks an hour off the books; steady, year-round work; the apartment above, rent-free and all utilities paid. To a young man—a gifted mechanic but uncertified—this was the deal of a lifetime. The only real disadvantage was that he was, in effect, beholden to his boss—how could he, really, say no to anything the man asked of him?
“You were going to go out with Lebell tonight, I assume,” Carver said.
Every Friday night after work they made the rounds in Southampton. LeChef, Red Bar, Barrister’s, Fellingham’s, the Driver’s Seat, ending up always at 75 Main. Usual places, familiar faces, a way to mark the end of the week.
“Yeah,” Cal said.
“If you have just a few hours left, maybe you can knock it out and catch up with Lebell later. I’d consider it a favor.”
“I’m a little burned out. I’ve been at it all day.”
“The thing is, I don’t want to piss this guy off, ’cause he can get me a lot of construction work.”
“How about I get Lebell to help me? Together we can finish it up fast and still go out.”
“No, I gave this guy a deal, so we’ll be lucky to break even. I can only afford to pay you.”
It was odd, Cal thought, for Carver to think responsibly like that, but the man was hardly as rich as he wanted people to think. There were times, in fact, when Carver claimed to be completely without cash, anxiously awaiting some big payoff that was on its way. It was possible that Corvette had left him once again cash-poor.
“Please, man. I really need you to do this for me.”
Cal shrugged, glanced at the clock on the wall. It was just past seven, which meant he’d been at work for almost twelve hours so far today. What, though, could he say?
“Yeah, all right.”
Carver seemed relieved—tremendously so, actually. “Thanks, man. I’ll call the guy when I get home, tell him to pick it up at, what, noon?”
“Okay.”
“You’ll be here?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d come by myself and meet him, let you sleep in, but I’m leaving town for the weekend.”
“No problem.”
Carver checked his watch. “Listen, would you mind grabbing the oil for me?”
The shop floors, narrow wood planks long since softened by years of use, were stained with layers of motor oil. Carver only came to the garage about once a week, and then stayed for only an hour or so, however long it took him to go over the bills. He never came anywhere near entering the work bays, even while wearing the Timberland boots he brought out for visits to construction sites. He certainly wasn’t going to walk through them now, dressed as he was in his beloved snake-skin boots.
Cal headed through the first two work bays to the third. Beneath the plank stairs leading up to the apartment was the shelf where they stored the oil and antifreeze and transmission fluids. Grabbing the remaining two quarts of oil, he headed back to the office. Carver was standing by the large window, watching the stretch of dark road beyond. He turned suddenly, as if startled, when he realized Cal had returned.
“You okay?” Cal said.
Carver smiled his quick smile, but there was something false about it now. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Cal held out the two quarts, and Carver took them with hands that were trembling slightly. He looked closely at Carver’s eyes then—glassy, pupils dilated. On the man’s brow, despite the brisk night, were a few beads of sweat.
“I’ll make sure the Mercedes is picked up at noon,” Carver said.
“I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
It looked for a moment as if Carver were about to say something more. Cal waited, watching the man’s face. Eventually, shaking his head slightly from side to side, Carver dismissed whatever it was he was thinking of saying. Instead, in a flat voice, he said, “Remember to cover up all the windows.”
A precaution, to be taken every time Cal worked late, as much to keep the vehicles parked within away from potential prying eyes as to conceal the fact that this building housed a less than legitimate business.
“Have a good weekend,” Cal said.
“You, too, man.”
Crossing the gravel to the ’Vette, Carver was in a hurry now. Cal watched through the window as his boss placed the two containers of oil in the trunk, then, glancing once more toward the unlit road, climbed in behind the wheel and took off.
He headed west, toward Southampton. Like a man getting away. Despite the wind, the sound of the performance motor lingered long after the vehicle was gone from sight.
Finally, though, all trace of it faded to nothing. Flipping off the fluorescent light, Cal stepped into the open doorway for a moment, wondering as he stoo
d there what, if anything, he should do.
There was, of course, nothing he could do. He had built a good life—a safe life—around a series of consistent habits, one of which was minding his own business. He saw no reason at all to alter his behavior now.
He was about to swing the door closed and reactivate the security system when he heard off in the distance the sound of Lebell’s Mustang. A distinctive low and throaty rat-ta-tat rising above the sound of the wind, coming from the west, the Southampton side of town—the long way back indeed.
He closed the office door and moved through the garage to the third bay door, figuring he’d help Lebell carry in the cases of oil and fill him in on the change in plans in the process. Removing the two locking pins and releasing the center lock, he lifted the third door, its casters sliding noisily along their metal rails. He thought of Heather asleep above, was certain this noise would have awakened her. Stepping across the gravel to wait for Lebell, he glanced over his shoulder at the windows of his apartment.
Still dark.
He imagined Heather in her bed, stretched out in one of his shirts—she had come to him, more or less, with nothing but the clothes on her back. He didn’t think of her like that for too long, though; there wasn’t any point in it, and anyway it wasn’t appropriate.
He needed, of course, no more reasons than those.
“You’re killing me, man, you realize that, right?”
Lebell had parked his Mustang in front of the third bay. Even with that door open all the way, the light that strayed from inside the garage had little influence on the surrounding darkness. Lebell handed Cal the first case of oil, then leaned into the trunk for a second, shaking his head as he repeated, “Seriously, man, you’re killing me here.”
Cal shrugged. “What could I say?”
“It seems to me this was one of those rare occasions in life when the truth would have actually worked nicely.”
“He knew I had plans, but he’s in a jam.”
Balancing the second case on his knee, Lebell closed the trunk. He was taller than Cal by an inch or so, with a thicker build, standing more to the brutish side of athletic while Cal, at best, was somewhere off on the sleeker side. Older by more than a decade, Lebell had taken it upon himself, pretty much from the day he first showed up a year ago, to take Cal under his wing, in every way imaginable.
“Without you, this place would fall to the ground, you know that, right?” Lebell said.
Hoisting the case onto his right shoulder, he headed into the third work bay. Cal followed, waited as Lebell placed his case onto the shelf below the plank stairs, then slid his on top of it.
“Maybe, but he is my boss.”
“I just hate seeing you get taken advantage of, that’s all.”
“It’s what he pays me to do—and pays me well.”
“Yeah, he pays you well, and half what he’d have to pay a certified mechanic.”
Lebell crossed to the other side of the garage, where, mounted on the wall, was a large metal sink. Opening the two taps, he grabbed the bar of soap from the basin’s rim and began scrubbing his hands. The water falling from the spigot wasn’t much more than a trickle. Little in this building, upstairs or down, was up to code—electrical outlets weren’t grounded; most of them, uncovered, showed frayed and brittle wiring. That, combined with this wooden floor—layered with oil, saturated in spots with gasoline spills—made the place nothing less than a fire trap.
“How much work do you have left?” Lebell said.
Cal pulled the heavy bay door closed. The racket of the casters sliding down their rails made him think again of Heather. If she hadn’t awakened before, she was certainly awake now.
“Four hours or so, if it goes well.”
“We could still go out,” Lebell offered. “You could get up early, work on the thing then, have it done by noon, easy.”
“Yeah, but if I run into a snag, I’m screwed.”
“I’ll help you, then.”
“Carver says he can only pay me.”
Once more, Lebell shook his head disapprovingly. “Man, I love it when that guy cries poverty.”
Cal reinserted the lock pins through holes in the rails, then spun the center lever, locking the door. He made his way through the three bays, pausing at each door to lower the makeshift curtains—pieces of heavy black fabric secured to the wood with thumbtacks. Joining Lebell at the sink, he began washing his hands, watching the swirl of blackened water circle into the drain.
“Did you pass that Corvette on your way here?”
“Don’t tell me.”
“That was him.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. He just bought it.”
“Jesus.”
His hands clean, Lebell stepped away from the sink and pulled a long piece of paper towel from the nearby dispenser. He began to dry his forearms first. “Listen,” he said, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe you and I should go into business together.”
“What do you mean?”
“We could set up a little two-man shop. You practically run this place by yourself. Why work for someone else, right?”
“What kind of shop?”
“I was thinking we could specialize in motorcycles. There isn’t a place like that anywhere out here. We wouldn’t need that big of a space, so that knocks down the overhead right there.”
“You think there’s enough business out here for us to make a living at that?”
Lebell shrugged. “It’s worth looking into. We could repair bikes, maybe even customize a few and sell them on eBay. I knew a guy once who made a living rebuilding old Indian Chiefs. To be honest, it’s probably not the smartest thing for you to put all your eggs in one basket, especially when a guy like Carver’s the one holding the basket.”
Cal thought about the signs he’d seen tonight, wasn’t sure if he should say anything about them; in the end, though, he didn’t have to.
“The talk around town is that our man’s in a real downward spiral,” Lebell said. “The word is he overextended himself on some property deal recently—one of those old places he buys to tear down, only now the town is giving him shit, saying it’s a historic landmark and he can only restore it. And from what I understand wife number two is ready to bolt, just like wife number one did. If all that isn’t bad enough, he’s supposedly started hitting the coke. Hard.”
“Who told you that?”
Lebell crumbled up the paper towel, tossed it into the nearby trash barrel. “Who hasn’t?” he said. “Listen, I just don’t like to see you being so loyal to a guy who’d screw you in a second if he had to.”
“How could he do that?”
Cal turned off the taps, stepped to the dispenser, and tore off his own piece of paper towel. “I wouldn’t put it past Carver to do something stupid if it meant getting his hands on some quick cash. It might be more than him just hitting the coke, if you know what I mean.”
“You think he’s dealing.”
Lebell pulled down the sleeves of his thermal shirt. His forearms were thick, powerful. “I wouldn’t put it past him. I mean, I’ve always kind of wondered if this place was just a front for laundering money. It certainly has all the telltale signs of that. The thing that worries me is that, whatever’s going on, it probably wouldn’t take much for you to look like an accomplice.”
“What do you mean?”
“If he got busted, I could see him trying to make a deal for himself by implicating you.”
“How exactly could he do that?”
“I don’t know. I once knew a dude who kept a friend around just so he’d have a fall guy in case if he ever needed one.”
“You think Carver is doing that with me?”
“Like I said, I wouldn’t put it past him. Especially after hearing the things I’ve heard lately. Listen, if George is working tonight, I’ll ask him what he knows.”
George was a career bartender, a local fixture in Southampton. He currently worked at 75 Main
and had—or liked people to think he had—the lowdown on everyone in town.
“Don’t worry, man,” Lebell said, “I’m looking out for you.”
Cal said nothing.
“Listen, if you finish early or change your mind or whatever, you know where to find me. I’ll be making the usual rounds.”
Everyone, in one way or another, had a routine.
“Okay.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything till I knew more. Who knows, maybe his buying the Corvette means he found a way out of this jam. He always seems to save his ass at the last minute.”
Cal nodded. Again, though, he said nothing.
Lebell reached out and placed his hand on Cal’s shoulder. “I’ll ask around, see what else I can find out tonight. If I hear anything I think you need to know right away, I’ll call you. Otherwise, I’ll check in with you in the morning, see if you need help with the Benz.”
“Thanks.”
“What are friends for, right?” Lebell said. He read Cal’s expression and offered a smile that was meant to reassure his friend. Lebell was a handsome guy, had the kind of looks to which women, or at least certain women, were drawn—rugged, unpolished, a bad boy, you want to know in what way exactly, why don’t you come over here and find out? The opposite of Cal, who was at best still boyish and at worst almost... pretty. Beautiful boy, Heather used to call him back when he had first started working for her in the restaurant she and her husband had owned. He was all of fifteen then, a lowly dishwasher, and the nickname had made him blush. It did still, when, on occasion, and probably for old times’ sake, she said it.
Despite his older friend’s smile, Cal didn’t feel all that reassured.
“Don’t worry,” Lebell said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No. It’s better to know, right?”
“I’ve always thought so.”
“It’s just, you know, a few minutes ago things were pretty set.”
“Like I said, it’s probably not the smartest thing to put all your eggs in one basket.”
“You really think Carver would do that? Leave me holding the bag?”
[2010] The Violet Hour Page 3