The Soak
Page 19
NINE
Broyles was drunk. He had just come home from a dinner on an energy company’s expense account, and very expensive bourbon was percolating through his much-abused liver. His thoughts turned to Darlene, asleep upstairs, and he regretted his liquor-limp dick. But that was no impediment to a man with a bottle of little blue pills.
He staggered through the house to the wood-paneled room that he called his study, but that was really nothing more than an office filled with books he had never read. There he concealed his Viagra from his wife. Of course, she knew, but both of them were grifters enough to know that there was no profit in destroying this pointless con of a vain old man.
When he turned on the lights, Broyles saw Hobbs sitting in his favorite chair.
“Jesus Christ!” he said, swaying as he tried to find a handle on the moment. “Hobbs. I had given you up for dead.” He squinted and realized how bad Hobbs looked. He muttered, “And you may yet be,” as he poured himself into an armchair that faced the desk. He asked, “Where’s the money?”
“Where I left it. Soaking in an armored car under the east side of the bridge over the Sopchoppy River. US Route 319. I dumped a crooked FBI agent and a car on top. But it’s all there.”
“Well?” Broyles asked, shaking his chin wattle in confusion. “When are you going to go get it?”
“I quit.”
“You can’t quit. There’s millions of dollars down there.”
“Find somebody else. I’m here to tell you I quit.”
“But what about your share? What about your crew? Don’t they expect to be paid?”
“They’re all dead.”
“Jesus, Hobbs! What went wrong?”
Hobbs told him.
“My God.”
Hobbs got up.
“Hobbs, when I recover it, I will save you a share.”
“Sure,” said Hobbs. And they smiled, both knowing that it was a lie.
TEN
Hobbs drove the pickup into the garage and pulled the door down behind him. As he straightened to look at himself in the rearview mirror, a pain shot through his ribs. His face was pale, and pools of blood in the whites of his eyes seemed the most substantial thing about him. Sixty, going on 160.
As he walked from the garage to the house, the quiet lapping of the lake made him uneasy.
He entered through the side door and heard music coming from the deck. Grace would be there, enjoying the last warmth of the day, reading a novel for diversion. It wouldn’t be a thriller, though. She never read those when he was away. She worried enough, she said, without fertilizing her imagination.
He wanted sunglasses. He knew how old and tired he must look. He wanted to spare her the shock of it. He wanted to take all the suffering for himself. For the first time, he recognized that this desire was love but could not shape this understanding into words.
He poured himself two fingers of Scotch and carried it to the glass door. From where she lay, he could see only her large sun hat and the bottoms of her legs. Just like the rest of her, her calves and feet still looked good to him after all these years.
He put the glass down on a side table and opened the door. She looked up, pretending she was still reading her book. Then she couldn’t pretend anymore. She rushed to his arms.
As they held each other, tears poured down his cheeks in silence. He was ashamed at his weeping, but that made him weep all the more.
After a while, she asked, “What is it?”
“I’m done.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrick E. McLean is an award-winning author and narrator who never writes anything straight down the line. His work includes the Parsec Award–winning How to Succeed in Evil series and The Merchant Adventurer.
Among his influences, Patrick cites such irreconcilables as Richard Stark, Douglas Adams, Mark Helprin, Terry Pratchett, S. J. Perelman, H. L. Mencken, Hafez, Homer, Georges Simenon, and Jorge Luis Borges.