by David Levien
The cornfields formed a corridor of green as they drove down 37. The windows were open and warm morning air blew through the car in place of conversation.
“I’m here,” Behr had said into his cell phone when he’d pulled up in front of Susan’s apartment building. “You need help with anything?
… All right, see you in a minute,” he’d said before he hung up.
“Hi,” “no,” and “I’ll be right down,” were all that constituted her side of the conversation. He tried to interpret what kind of day he had ahead of him, but based on that, he’d have done better if she’d sent him a braille telegram.
“How are you?” she’d said when she got in the car.
“Okay, considering,” he answered. “You?”
“I’m fine.”
“You look good.”
“Thanks,” she said, and then gave a glance at his clothes. “You’re wearing that?”
He looked down and realized the jacket and tie he’d worn to the meeting didn’t scream “day at the lake.” “I’ve got some shorts in the trunk.”
She shrugged and then fiddled with the radio before letting it rest on WFBQ playing Jackson Browne.
That had been it for the last half hour. Then she said: “So his name is Ed. My boss.”
“Ed Lindsey, right?” Behr nodded.
“His wife is Claire. The rest of my department will be there too, some others from the paper and maybe a few faculty from Indiana U-Purdue, where Ed volunteer teaches.” Behr just looked at the road.
When they’d passed Bloomington, and the signs for Monroe Lake and French Lick started popping up, Susan pointed out the window at a Kroger. “We should stop and get something.” Behr turned off.
Too many signs in the front windows, place is ripe for a strong-arm job, Behr thought, following Susan through the store. An armed team comes in and locks the door, and no one outside can tell there’s a robbery in progress. If someone does trip an alarm, suddenly you’re in a Dirty Harry movie. No clean views or angles from outside for the cops once they did arrive. Most urban stores consider this when they’re hanging their specials posters.
He almost bumped into Susan when she stopped at a refrigerated produce case and he nearly shook his head to clear out the useless chatter in it.
“How does this look?” she asked, holding up a tray of cut celery, carrots, and either cucumber or zucchini. “Some crudites?”
Behr shrugged. She put it down. “You’re right, don’t overthink it. Beer.” He followed her down an aisle and felt his feet slowing and his head turning. They were in the pharmacy area on the way to the beverage section. There was a shelf full of boxes-pastel pink with maroon script writing-that seemed familiar. He slowed to a stop. He knew why. There was a torn piece of cardboard in his bathroom trash can-a box flap, which contained a few letters but no full words-that he could swear was from the same product. Looking at it now he saw it was an at-home pregnancy test. Early Response. Doesn’t mean anything, he said to himself and glanced ahead at Susan, who was just turning the corner at the end of the aisle. He continued walking, no longer feeling his feet. Before long he was holding a twelve-pack of Heineken, then putting it down on the black rubber conveyor belt, paying for it, and they were back in the car.
Lake Monroe glittered like a handful of uncut diamonds had been thrown down on its surface. The trees were bunched thick and green along the shore. The sound of birds was ripped by the powerboats and WaveRunners that gnashed across the water. There was a small sprig of dock with a twenty-five-foot Bayliner tied to it, and not far away about a dozen people were clustered around a picnic table loaded down with cold cuts, coolers, grocery bags, and a sack of charcoal. Susan led the way in. Behr followed, carrying the beer.
“Hey, y’all,” she said, moving into the group, fake shoulder bumping a few of them. A round of “Susan!” went up. It was clear to Behr she was pretty high on the popularity depth chart. Susan turned, making room for him, and he plunked down the Heinekens on a corner of the table, and then she introduced him around. “Welcome, welcome,” said her boss, Ed Lindsey, head of circulation for the Indianapolis Star. He was an older man with curly hair and a potbelly, and Behr liked him immediately. The same didn’t go for Chad Quell, a twenty-five-year-old with a big white smile and an expensive haircut.
“So this is your better half, huh Suzy Q.?” Chad said to her as if Behr wasn’t there. “You told him lake not funeral, right?”
“Chad is in ad sales,” Susan said to fill the resulting awkward silence.
“Don’t underrate me, I am ad sales.” He smiled.
“And modest,” she said.
“It’s true, I’m not top dog. Yet. But the guy who is? He’s like forty-three, so it won’t be long before I run him down.”
“Hard to believe the newspaper business is collapsing with you in it,” Behr said, putting a pretty good pall over the proceedings. But Susan’s boss bailed him out.
“You just keep selling, Chad,” Lindsey stated, “the rest will work itself out.”
“So says the old hand,” the kid answered, before he ripped open the twelve-pack and helped himself to a beer. “It’s cocktail hour somewhere, isn’t it?” he said to the group. There were a few takers. He offered one to Susan.
“Too early for me,” she declined. Chad shrugged and started loading the rest into a cooler that already held a good supply of domestic light. Frank said hello to several other men and women from various departments on the paper, and also met the petite Mrs. Lindsey, “Call me Claire,” who appeared from somewhere holding a big bowl of German potato salad.
“Oh, come with me, Frank,” Susan said, pulling him away from the group to where a tall, thin man with salt and pepper hair stood smoking.
“Frank, this is Neil Ratay.”
Ratay turned. “Hello, Susan.”
“He’s a reporter. You’ll have tons to talk about,” she said.
Ratay extended a hand and he and Behr shook.
“Frank Behr. I’ve read you,” Behr said. Ratay was a crime reporter who delivered a steady supply of terse, informative descriptions of home invasions, domestic beatings, and drug murders to the Star’s readership.
“Pleasure,” Ratay said, putting his cigarette between his lips. “Have I heard your name?” he asked, breathing out a cloud of smoke.
“Could have. Couldn’t have been recent,” Behr said. Ratay just shrugged.
Lindsey, followed by some of the others, all carrying beers, made his way down to the dock. “First flotilla’s leaving. Who’s aboard?” he shouted.
“I’m in,” Susan called. She turned to Behr. “You coming?”
“You go ahead,” he said. “I’ll go change and get on the next ride.” She nodded and went after the group, which included Chad.
Behr went back to the car and took his time about it. He stood behind the open trunk and changed into shorts. He strolled back down to the picnic table where the landlubbers were congregated. Across the way, Ratay was finished smoking but didn’t rejoin the group. Instead, he sat down on a stump and watched the boats zip back and forth on the lake.
“You’re a strong-looking boy, you’re drafted,” the nearly sixty-year-old Claire Lindsey said, pointing to a big bag of Kingsford briquettes. He hadn’t been called a boy in some time. Amused, Behr hefted the bag, dumped it into a nearby Weber Kettle, and made a pyramid as directed by the hostess. He doused it with lighter fluid, tossed a match, and then grabbed a beer. Ratay drifted over and offered Behr a cigarette from his pack. Behr declined. Ratay lit his own by waving the end through the orange flame that leaped out of the grill. Behr sipped his beer, Ratay smoked, and they both settled in to watch the charcoal whiten.
Before long the boat returned and Susan and Chad came up the dock together laughing over some office joke.
“Holding down the fort?” Chad asked.
“Yep. All taken care of,” Behr said. Susan gave him a “be nice” look.
“Late enough for you yet?�
�� Chad asked Susan, opening a fresh beer. She shrugged and accepted the bottle, though she didn’t drink from it. She set it down in front of her, Behr noticed.
“You’ve gotta come out on the boat, Frank. It’s awesome,” she said.
“Okay,” he said, “in a while.”
Claire was hovering over a cooler pulling out hamburger patties. Susan saw it and went to her. “Let me help you get those going, Claire
…”
Chad leaned against the table near Behr. “So what do you do, dead eyes?” Chad asked. Behr turned and stared into Chad’s silver-framed sunglasses, the word “Armani” stenciled on the left lens.
“I’m a librarian,” he said. Behr felt Ratay smirk over his shoulder.
“Yeah? Interesting work. Dewey Decimal and all,” Chad tried to play back. Maybe he was just making conversation.
“Right.” Behr walked away. He found a spot that looked out over a glen of trees and toward a cove that held a few luxury houses that shared a common dock. He stood there for a while thinking about Aurelio, and how to get a toehold in his investigation.
“Beautiful isn’t it?” Susan said, putting a soft hand on the small of his back. Behr nodded. More than that, he appreciated the gesture. “Wouldn’t be too bad having a place out here,” she said.
“Nope,” he agreed, “sure wouldn’t.” He figured he might as well keep it positive, but that was the ten years between them talking. At her age, he’d have thought, “Why not?” just like her. Now he knew why.
“Let’s go out on the boat and get a burger when we’re back,” she suggested.
“Sure thing, Suzy Q.,” he said.
“Oh, stop. He’s harmless.” She elbowed him.
Behr followed her and a few others down the dock. He felt Chad walking behind them without even looking back, and as they boarded, he saw he was right.
“Hang on, my babies,” Ed said, behind the wheel, and he pushed the throttle forward, jumping the big Evinrude outboard to life. Behr could see what looked like a large rubber banana with handles tied to the port side. As they reached the middle of the lake, Ed throttled down to an idle. He moved to the side and untied the yellow float, letting it pay out behind the boat on a long nylon rope. “All right,” he said, “who’s up for a ride?”
“I’m first,” Susan said, letting her skirt fall to the floor of the boat.
“No thong, Suze? Awwwww,” Chad said. Behr looked at him and considered punching him in the face.
“Shut it, Chad,” she said, jumping into the lake. A moment later she surfaced with a “Yeow! Cold.”
“How many does it hold, Eddie?” Chad said, peeling off his shirt. Behr saw Chad had a suntan over hairless washboard abs. It looked like he shaved or waxed himself down like a triathlete.
“Four,” Ed said, “unless Frank wants to go. In that case we should hold it to three.”
“I’m good for now,” Behr said as Chad hit the water with a splash. Jenny, a chunky thirty-year-old from layout, stripped down to a one-piece and lumbered over the gunwale.
“Wait up,” Jenny said, swimming toward them as Susan and Chad slipped and slid over the inflatable, finding their spots.
“Come on, Jenny-girl,” Chad said. Behr tried to spot a look of disappointment on Chad’s face at the intrusion, but the glare off the lake was too bright.
“Hold on,” Ed yelled and powered up. The boat cut the lake. Behind them the inflatable bounced and churned in their wake. The three riders howled and held on.
“Thanks for having me out, Ed,” Behr called over the roar of the engine. “Real nice spot.”
“Sure thing, Frank. The more the merrier. Been wanting to meet you. Susan always talks about you so-” Ed looked forward and turned the boat and his last words were carried away on the humid summer air. Behr didn’t bother asking him to repeat it and instead leaned against a rear-facing seat and looked behind them.
Susan’s smile traveled back to him over the forty-foot distance of the towrope. The sun bounced golden off her hair. Behr took a seat in the stern, his beer between his knees, and watched for a moment, then turned his face straight up at the sun until it burned white in his eyes.
FOURTEEN
Peanut Marbry sat in Killah, his stock-to-shock Dodge Neon, and fucked with the bass setting on the Alpine, waking up the Bazooka tube mounted in the back window. The car started to thump and shudder to “Soulja Boy.”
“When they come, I’m gonna go with them,” Peanut said over the music. “You follow. You know where we going. Let us back on down first, then you come next. Back on down too, don’t front in. Keep it runnin’, won’t be long at that point.”
Nixie Buncher, sunk low in the Katzkin leather passenger seat, nodded one time. Peanut knew he had the drill. Nixie only needed to hear a play once and he was locked on. That was why Peanut ran with him, even though homey was skinny as a greyhound track dog.
“You notice bad shit always go down when them Schlegels around?” Nixie asked.
Peanut said nothing.
“Hear they walk some dudes out they bar one night and nobody see ’em since?” Nixie said.
“Bad shit happen to good people, yo,” Peanut answered. “Ever notice we get paid when they around?”
“Shit-talking white boys,” Nixie said, tsking through his teeth. “What you oughta do is take him out. Charlie. Bim-bam,” he went on, sticking out a left-right combo. “The minute any one of ’em say shit. Once Charlie Boy’s on the ground, them others scatter.”
Nixie reached out a long arm and slapped the crown-shaped pump bottle on the dash two, then three times, filling the car with the scent of Tropical Rainbow.
Peanut shook his head. “Nah, man, first off that’s bad fiscals. Second, them Schlegels’d just keep coming.”
“They only three.”
“Don’t forget they daddy. He the worst of the bunch. Who knows, momma prolly too. I bet they got a basement full of ’em-they keep coming like ants out a hill…”
Nixie went to hit the air freshener pump again.
“Hol’ up,” Peanut said. Nixie looked to him, his eyes red even though he was only a little high. “Shit’s nineteen dollahs a bottle.”
Instead, Nixie eased a tiny squirt out on his fingertips and rubbed it on his hands as the Durango pulled up next to them.
The window slid down revealing Charlie Boy Schlegel behind the wheel and that Crazy Kenny across in the passenger seat. No doubt Deanie was in the back behind the smoked window glass.
“Whassup, my negro?” Kenny shouted across the front seat. Peanut’s face went granite. Nixie tsked and spat out his window.
“Yo, man, don’t be testing me like that,” Peanut said. Kenny just laughed.
“So we follow you, or we gonna do a Chink fire drill?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah, dat,” Peanut said, getting out of his car. More car doors flung open as Nixie went to take the wheel of Peanut’s car, Kenny got in the backseat of the Durango, and Peanut climbed into the front passenger seat. “You paying enough for full service-” He stopped talking when he saw the man in the backseat. It wasn’t Dean, but an older guy with black coal eyes and a nasty pink rope of scar running down the side of his face. “Where Dean? Who you?” The man didn’t answer, just stared at him.
“Deanie’s not feeling too good,” Charlie said. “That’s Knute.”
“Newt?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said, and took off.
The man shot a hand forward, gnarled, hard, and small. “What the fuck’s up?” Peanut saw the tattoo on the side of the man’s hand, a pale green shamrock. He knew the man had been to prison, and he knew damn well who it meant he was with. Then the dude wiggled his teeth.
Freakshow, Peanut thought, but he didn’t say shit.
“Chad doesn’t think we’re right for each other,” Susan volunteered after they’d said their good-byes to her colleagues and were well into the drive home.
“Is that so?” Behr said, steering around a chugging tractor-trai
ler.
“He says you’re ‘too dark’ for me.”
“What’d you say?” Behr asked.
“I thanked him for the input. But told him I wasn’t shopping opinions,” she said. “I would’ve told him you’d just lost your friend if I thought it was his business…”
Behr kept driving, trying to keep his hands loose on the wheel.
“He’s harmless, Frank,” she said.
“So you keep saying.”
“I wouldn’t have repeated it to you if I thought he was right. Guess I shouldn’t have anyway.”
Behr grunted a one-syllable response.
“You didn’t help things, standing out there like a freaking gargoyle on the shore,” she said.
“I tried, Suze,” Behr said, “I tried.” That was it for the talking until they reached her apartment.
He pulled up in front of her building and put it in park, the engine idling in the twilight. Their usual practice would have had them going out to dinner, or a movie, or both, and spending the night at one of their places, but this was no regular Saturday. Tonight something bigger than his mood was hanging over them.
“Here you go,” he said.
“Thanks for coming along today. I know you weren’t really up for-”
“Listen,” he interrupted. “I saw you holding those beers, carrying them around all day. And I saw you not drinking ’em. I’m thinking… Well, I don’t know what I’m thinking. What am I thinking, Suze?”
They looked at each other across the expanse of the front seat for a moment, and then she just said it. “I’m pregnant.”
He felt like an express bus broadsided the car. The air went out of it, and him, too. His mind ran in twenty different directions.
“Did you plan on saying anything?” is what came out of his mouth.
“Of course. I didn’t know how. And I was hoping to give what happened to Aurelio some time.”
“I see,” he said, knowing the words weren’t enough, and worse, knowing his tone was all wrong. “How the hell did-”