by Jon Cohen
“At first, we couldn’t figure it out,” Bill said. “You dating somebody who works in an office. That’s so not Amanda.”
Dating, Amanda thought. Amanda dating Harry.
“But when Ronnie spilled the beans, said Harry was living in the tree house while he evaluated the wilderness tract—”
“Boy, you heard it all.”
“No, but just, that he’s living in the tree house. And that he can take a punch.” All Bill meant to convey was that Harry had been vetted and approved. I mean, the men of Green Gables were not thrilled that Harry had succeeded where they had abysmally failed, but still, Harry was, you know, as far as any guy ever approves of any other guy, okay.
More blood in Amanda’s cheeks now, hot enough to boil an egg. “You punched him?”
They’d had a picnic the other day, she and Harry and Oriana, down by the creek between the house and the tree house. Amanda immediately noticed a small contusion at the edge of his right occipital orbit. Assessing him professionally. Harry said he had walked into a tree branch. Amanda touched her fingers along the edges of the bump, Harry closing his eyes. This touching thing, even when they were not in a Green Gables booth, pretending.
Bill stepped back, because Amanda had moved in close. Up close and personal with Amanda—Bill, like all the local guys, had often fantasized about it—turned out to be a very threatening place. He tried to step back again, but he was against the wall.
“Not me, Amanda. I didn’t punch him. Stu punched him. Out in the parking lot.”
Amanda leaned away from Bill, staring in complete confusion. Stu, weasly Stu Giptner, got in a fight with Harry?
Bill quickly laid out events. Too many beers, Stu goading them out to the Green Gables parking lot to stand up for their rights...
“Your rights? Your rights to what? To me?” Ugh. It was even worse than she thought. The men thinking they had rights to the Widow Jeffers.
Bill put up both hands. “That came out wrong. We just, you know, wanted to know more about this Harry Crane guy. And we liked him, Amanda.”
“Except for Stu, who punched him. What the hell, Bill?”
“Sucker punch. Totally Stu, right? But here’s the cool part.”
Amanda thought about it for the rest of the day. Harry, who could’ve taken Stu apart, did not strike back. That was very cool. How many men (and women) had she treated in this very ER for giving and receiving blows? That there was a nonphysical way to beat a man. What a novel approach.
The other cool part was that Harry, nobly, was defending the honor of a woman with whom he was not actually involved. Harry took a punch for a romance the guys in Green Gables thought was true, but that Amanda had manufactured. He had been wounded for love. He had taken the punishment but had been afforded none of the pleasures.
* * *
Not only did Stu have unceasing bad luck, today he also had exceptionally bad timing.
Out in the ER parking lot, he was fidgety with the looming sense of victory. The beauty of his plan was that there was an element of truth to it. Fact: Amanda Jeffers was in arrears on her loan payments. Fact: he had her over a barrel. Fact: he was doing her a favor. Fact: she had it coming, for rebuffing the overtures he never (fact) had the guts to make.
Possible fact: Harry Crane evaluating Wilderness Tract A803 (Stu had looked up the official name on the website). Was the government about to sell it off? The fracking boom had petered out (Stu making not a dime, of course), so what was the deal? Lumber. You send a forestry guy in to evaluate the trees. The government was selling off everything, these days. Big Lumber was coming in. What a beautiful notion, clear-cutting all that creepy forest. Stumps, as far as the eye could see. As far as Stu was concerned, you could flatten the Endless Mountains and take every barrel of oil, ton of coal, board foot of tree. And suck the water out of the Susquehanna River while you’re at it. Stu was not big on nature.
The ER doors slid open. He went up on his toes. Here she comes. He straightened his tie. Practiced his opening line. Hi, Amanda! No. Amanda, how ya doing? No. Good to see you, Amanda.
She saw him standing by her truck. Boy, thought Stu, she’s approaching fast. Like a locomotive. Maybe this wasn’t a great day. Yeah, maybe she’s had a bad day at work. How could she not, it’s an ER. Is it too late to run?
Too late. She stood in front of him, arms crossed.
He tried to meet her eyes. “Hi! Good to, how ya see ya doing, Amanda?” Stu sputtered. Six figures, six figures, six figures.
“You’re next to my truck, Stu. Trying to steal it?”
He made an anxious laughing sound. Six figures, six figures. Because he absolutely had to go back to the office with something real to deliver to his boss, Vince Bromler, who had said, “Put your big boy pants on, Giptner. Make something happen out there.”
Stu forced himself to meet Amanda’s eyes. Then he locked on. Because you know what? He was in charge here. He had the facts. And facts were power. “Got a minute, Amanda? Want to talk to you. I have some good news.”
Amanda scrunched her eyes, trying to figure his angle.
With the customer, Stu thought, first you do the chitchat. You chat the chit. “Boy, that Susquehanna Santa, huh? Bag of that gold would be something, huh?”
Amanda, silent, waiting.
Stu cleared his throat. “But, in real life, money-wise, things are a little harder to come by. Money doesn’t just drop out of the sky.”
The jerk is up to something, Amanda thought. Look at the glitter in his eyes. Bet they glittered like that just before he sucker punched Harry.
“No, sorry to say, money doesn’t drop out of the sky,” Stu said, warming up to the fact that he was definitely the one in control now. Despite Amanda’s size. Despite her armor of beauty.
Amanda felt her right fist tighten. She made herself untighten it. “Stu. I’m going to do you a favor. Move out of my way. I’ll get in my truck.”
“No, see, I’m here to do you a favor. You’re three months in arrears on your loan payment.”
Amanda was so angry and so embarrassed, she was actually flustered.
“Yeah, see. It’s come to my attention. Via my sources. My in at Susquehanna Mortgage & Loan.”
Amanda shivered. It was like being touched by the little creep. She actually felt his slippery hands all over her. Plucking and probing for money. “You broke the law.”
He laughed. “No way. Don’t know what you’re talking about. A piece of info from a guy who knows a guy who knows a computer.” He sounded like the mob! God, this felt good.
“I’m making the payment,” she said. It made her sick that she was rattled, making excuses to Stu Giptner. “At the end of the month, I’ve already—”
He touched her arm. She jerked free.
He smiled. “Here’s where we are. If you miss a fourth payment, which I suspect you’re about to do, the bank will no longer allow you to catch up. They will not accept any further payments. They will simply foreclose.” A beat, and then he added, “I could help you out on this hardship.”
“Put my house on the market? Screw you. It’s a month’s payment. And I have it.”
“And enough to pay the three months you missed, plus interest and penalties? Maybe you’ll squeak by. But can you keep squeaking by?”
Stu was up close and personal now. In Amanda’s space.
Amanda could smell his cigarette breath. She felt sick to her stomach.
“The house is too big for you now, Amanda. Don’t you think?”
As the words left Stu’s mouth, he had a teeny tiny thought: Did I just overreach?
Yes. In a swirl of rage—that the house that Dean built was being threatened, that the little weasel getting in her face had sucker punched Harry—Amanda swung her right fist toward Stu Giptner’s head.
But the beauty of it? She stopped her fist a fra
ction of an inch from his jaw. She didn’t hit him. But he felt the blow, yes he did. The crashing fury of a woman protecting her man. Stu screamed in pain and fell to the asphalt. Amanda shook her head in wonder, stepped over him, got in her truck and sped off.
He wobbled to his knees and whimperingly patted his untouched jaw. This is what it felt like to not get hit by Amanda? If he ever provoked her enough to land a real punch, he knew he’d never survive it.
* * *
Like a punch to the head. That’s what it felt like. Pow! It’s Harry.
“It’s fucking Harry!”
Even through his Bose QuietComfort 25 Noise Cancelling Headphones, Doug Hufnal, on the other side of the cubicle, heard Wolf loud and clear, but very carefully did not react in any way. He never did. No one in the office did, not even the office manager. Not when Wolf banged on his desk or shouted into his phone—usually at his wife’s lawyer. Not even last week, when he put his fist through the partition of his cubicle, penetrating into Doug’s side. Doug had never seen such hairy knuckles. Or big ones.
“It’s fucking Harry!” The words jumping out of Wolf’s mouth. Then he clammed up, hunkering close to his computer screen. He didn’t want anyone else in the world to know that his brother, fucking Harry—stunningly, unbelievably—was Susquehanna Santa.
When the “Lucky Bastards” app had pinged the second bag of gold landing in Susquehanna County, Wolf had pulled up Google Maps, looking from Elkdale to Halfordsville, back and forth, back and forth.
Wolf had dismissed the premonition of the Elkdale bag, because of one simple piece of logic: the bag on Phil Bartek’s doorstep didn’t contain four million dollars in gold coins, only $250,000.
But now Halfordsville. Another bag, this time $300,000.
Harry had some kind of insane, mysterious plan: he was going to hand out the four million in increments.
To the forest and the trees. Those words suddenly made sense. Wolf traced a line from Elkdale to Halfordsville, a straight line, as the crow flies. And right between the two little towns was a big patch of green. A forest.
Wolf could barely breathe. You didn’t go to that forest to hide, Harry. You’re a man with a plan. You’ve converted that four million into goddamn gold. And the forest is where you’re hiding it! You’re like some sort of troll with his big stash of gold. You go into your hiding place, fill up a burlap bag, and you make a drop in some little Susquehanna County town. You’re a demented troll, Harry. Because you got it upside down. Trolls stash their gold and sit on it and laugh at the world. They hoard it...that is, until their brother comes and finds it, and steals it.
Or what’s left of it. Christ. Harry’s almost whittled it down to three million!
Wolf stared at the map.
Forest.
White-faced, stunned, Wolf walked out of his office, got in his car and drove north to the USDA Forest Service.
Bob looked up as Wolf approached again. When the elevator door opened and he saw Wolf, Bob allowed himself a tentative smile. Was Harry behind Wolf? In handcuffs? Bob looked at the miserable mountain of paperwork on his desk. Yes, Wolf, cuff Harry to his cubicle, so that he can never leave again.
But Harry wasn’t with him.
Bob jumped up and extended his hand.
“Hi, hi, hi! Good to see you, Wolford.”
Wolf pressed Bob back down in his chair. Pivoted Bob to his computer.
“Harry was in charge of managing federal forests and wilderness tracts in the Mid-Atlantic region, yes?”
“Yep. Yes.”
“Pull up your regional map. Could you do that for me, Bob?”
Wolf pointed to various patches of green, Bob providing each time a name or a wilderness tract number. Wolf pointed to the patch of green between Elkdale and Halfordsville.
“Wilderness Tract A803,” Bob said.
Wolf twitched. Bob didn’t notice. Wolf pointed to a few more sites, to cover his tracks.
“Thanks, Bob,” he said abruptly and slapped the little bureaucrat hard enough on the back to dislodge the glasses on Bob’s nose. When Bob looked up, the beast had vanished.
* * *
“You gotta have a roof over your head, Harry. Everybody needs a roof over their heads.”
Wolf would soon need a roof over his own head, when the divorce went through. He was sitting out in the parking lot, formulating a plan of action. Wolf loved action.
Okay, Harry. You’re hiding your gold in Wilderness Tract A803. But you need a place to live. To sleep and eat. A place to park your car, so you can drive around to your little Susquehanna towns and deliver your bags of gold. Then you gotta come home and take a shower, sleep. It takes a lot of energy to be Susquehanna Santa.
Wolf typed on his phone. Swiped his screen, searching sites. There. Laurel View Realty, just outside Elkdale. He dialed the number and put the phone to his ear. After this call, he would find a real estate office in or around Halfordsville, and maybe a few of the other little towns that dotted the outskirts of the forest. Harry wouldn’t have bought a place, but rented something. Condo maybe. Or some little shit rental up in the hills, so he could come and go without attracting attention. Harry had walked into a real estate office and signed an agreement, Wolf was sure. Harry existed, somebody’s seen him, he’s living right next to his forest.
Oh, am I going to enjoy the look on your face. Wolf had to laugh, because Harry and this gold thing was perfect. Because really, how could he have forced Harry to give him his share if the four million had been sitting in Vanguard or Schwab or some bank? But now it’s in the form of gold. Whatever millions of it are left. It’s untraceable gold, which is why Harry’s doing it this way. Jesus, Harry. Now I can take it all. Because who knew you ever had it if it’s untraceable? If it doesn’t exist on any record? Whether the gold is in your pocket or mine, no one will ever know.
Thank you, Harry, for giving me back purpose in my life. Bless you. I’ve been floundering this last year. These endless divorces. These dull jobs. What a Wolf really wants to be is on the hunt.
Someone at Laurel View Realty answered Wolf’s call.
“Hello there. How are you today?” Wolf said into the phone. “Listen, I’m calling because I’m interested in property around Elkdale. Do you have a minute to chat?”
28
Stu was beside himself. He stared beseechingly at the Susquehanna County map taped to his wall. Elkdale. Halfordsville. Those crummy little burgs—New Milford, where he lived, was only twenty miles away from either of them. You notice that, Susquehanna Santa? Drop one of your damn bags on my doorstep, will ya? I’m in dire straits here, pal. The Good Ship Stu is going down.
Stu leaned his forehead against the map. “Please, Santa,” he whispered. “Please, please, please.”
This morning, Stu had come within a rat’s whisker of losing his job. The ax about to fall—Mr. Bromler had set up a meeting—then a last-minute reprieve: Mr. Bromler’s mother died. Mr. Bromler was a mama’s boy. Ate dinner with her every Sunday. Took her on vacations. This was a guy with a wife and three grown children. How many times had Mr. Bromler rushed out of the office to change a light bulb for the old lady? Mama always came first.
Well, she certainly was first in Stu’s book. Thank you, Mama Bromler, for dropping dead so fortuitously! So, granted a few days’ reprieve, how best to take advantage of it? Nabbing Amanda Jeffers’s house would’ve been a coup. But he needed something spectacular, now. A showstopper. He needed Pratt Public Library.
Town Council, of which Stu was president, had endured ten years of Olive’s pleas. They were hoping she’d die or something, because even though the building was a hazard and an eyesore, the softies on council felt like they’d be stealing Olive’s home out from under her if they closed Pratt’s doors. Who wants to torment an old lady? the other six council members said.
But she already has a perfectly
nice home, Stu argued. And she’s a volunteer. It’s not like we’re sacking her. Who goes into that library, anyway? When’s the last time one of you even walked through the doors? Never. You know why? Because you’re afraid if you yank on the door handle the whole building will cave in on you.
Ronnie’s in there sprucing it up, one of them said.
Ronnie, Stu said. Ronnie is the death knell. If you got Ronnie Wilmarth sprucing you up, you’re beyond terminal. It don’t need sprucing up—it needs tearing down.
It just seems mean, they stammered, as Stu fumed. Let’s see how it plays out. She’s an old lady, jeez, Stu.
Whoa, hey, he wasn’t looking to torment her. He didn’t have anything against Olive Perkins personally, he told them, but the library was in the way of downtown development. It was on a primo lot. You put a Dunkin’ Donuts on that lot and, hell, the whole town turns around. Dunkin’ Donuts, and before you know it, Chick-fil-A will be clamoring to get in here, and bam, New Milford’s a destination. A place people come, not just pass through to get to Scranton. New Milford was one Burger King away from becoming the next Scranton, don’t you people have any vision?
As for Stu’s vision? Stu, the town booster? What he was really trying to boost? His career. More people in New Milford, more houses to sell. Action, baby. Because selling real estate, which he was crummy at, was the only thing he did well.
Stu glared at the map. Tapped New Milford with his finger, like God should do to Pratt Library. Give it a good, hard tap, knock it down. Okay, he thought, so I’m just going to nudge Olive a little, loosen her up so she volunteers to quit the place, you know? We’re not talking about tasing a geriatric. I’ll just throw a few civilized elbows her way. Like I did with Amanda. Which was going great, until, you know, it didn’t.
It was a dumb move to go after Amanda. You don’t go after the young and healthy. You cull the weak.
* * *