Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  “I’m fine,” Joel said.

  Someone began knocking and wouldn’t stop, and Joel scurried across the room and cracked the door, opening it only enough to give his eyes peeking space. He told two young boys about a problem with the plumbing and advised them to use the other toilet, gave them directions and thanked them for their patience.

  “So what’s the deal?” Edmund asked when Joel rejoined them. “What’s happened?”

  Sa’ad began running the water again; he instructed Joel to whisper.

  “In a nutshell, the items you gave me were stolen,” Joel said.

  “We know that,” Sa’ad said sharply. “Of course they were. But we’ve returned them to the rightful owner. Except the damn ring you either lost or pilfered.”

  “No, it’s not so simple.” Joel leaned closer to the faucet. “One of the rings you borrowed is famous and itself stolen. You fools gave me the Eiffel Tower of jewelry and had me try to insure it as my own.”

  “What?” Edmund was perplexed; his mouth soured at the corners.

  “One of the rings you gave me was taken from the Jewish Museum in a big art heist, and the FBI is having a conniption to learn where I obtained the jewelry so they can find the rest of the stolen loot, primarily some important painting.”

  “It was just a bunch of jewelry,” Sa’ad protested. “No huge stones, nothing fancy or exceptional. You sure about this?”

  “Of course I’m sure,” Joel said, his words piercing the water noise. “The stones and whatnot aren’t the problem—I take it they’re pretty average. It’s just that this ordinary piece was stolen at the same time as a big-deal painting, and yes, they know it’s the right ring. It has initials on it, Sa’ad. Initials. Like a calling card. Nice job you guys did.”

  “Believe me, Joel, we didn’t know,” Edmund said.

  “Of course we didn’t know.” Sa’ad spoke immediately. “Why would we give you high-profile property and expose ourselves to significant risks?”

  “I didn’t suggest you did it intentionally,” Joel replied. “Only that you’ve screwed up royally. Some experts you turned out to be—I’d have done better partnering up with Moe and Curly.”

  “Fuck you,” Sa’ad said.

  “Oh—and from what I can gather, the red ring I showed to the State Farm agent, the one the feds know about, is a mate to the emerald ring that’s mysteriously vanished. Red and green sisters, they’re called.” Joel tunneled in on Sa’ad. “I hope that doesn’t affect anyone’s plans or finances.”

  “Why would it,” Sa’ad answered, “given that neither Edmund nor I has the emerald piece? It sprouted wings on your watch, not ours.”

  “What did you tell the FBI?” Edmund asked.

  Another customer tried the door, shook the knob but didn’t knock and finally went away. Edmund slowed the water.

  “Nothing. I stuck to my story and insisted I talk to my attorney. And it wasn’t just the FBI—oh no. The visit was with my probation officer and a local cop as well. There’s no way this thing is going to pan out now. We, gentlemen, are about to be shown the gallows.”

  “Damn,” Edmund said.

  “And I’ll get thrown in jail and perhaps even tagged with a major art theft I’m clueless about.” Joel shrunk his mouth, gave Sa’ad a withering, accusatory once-over. “Thanks.”

  Sa’ad pointed at Joel. “Short term: keep quiet and say nothing. I’ll have a lawyer here pronto, someone who can’t be linked to us. If they had the absolute, one-hundred-percent goods on you, you’d be wearing a jump-suit already. They obviously can’t prove where you obtained the ring or even that you knew it was stolen.”

  “True,” Edmund remarked. “I agree.”

  “Let’s think out loud,” Sa’ad said. He took off the ugly glasses, slid the cap closer to his hairline. “Some things I can put together from what you’ve told me. Let’s work through this. The owners never made a claim for the missing ring. Never did. Now we know why—it was stolen.”

  “Let me repeat how pleased I am about that,” Joel grumbled.

  “That’s why I advised you to proceed with your claim here after you and your sister were robbed—the folks in Vegas, the true owners, never reported the emerald ring gone, never raised a stink. I didn’t really know why at the time, but now I do. Abel informs me that the jewelry came from a safe at a residence, belonged to a bimbo showgirl who’s married to some ancient troll from Holland. Dumb bitch wrote down the combination and taped it to the bottom of her clock radio. She mentioned the missing ring to Abel once and that was it, asked him if he’d seen it around the house—as best we can tell, no police ever came, no adjusters, nothing. Nobody’s bothered Abel, and he’d be the first guy they questioned. Either she was afraid to give her husband the bad news, or she told him and he damn sure didn’t want to file a claim.” Sa’ad fussed with his chin and pinched a fold of skin between his thumb and index finger. “So it would appear we’ve been snake-bitten like nobody’s business. Abel picked the one house in town with jewels everybody’s after.”

  “Yeah, but you can’t blame him, Sa’ad,” Edmund said. “Who knew? Huh? We followed procedure—nothing too large or splashy or unique. Just bad damn luck. Un-fucking-believable bad luck.”

  “What should I do?” Joel asked.

  “Like I said, keep quiet,” Sa’ad told him. “Don’t volunteer a thing and go about your business. All they can prove is you had—maybe—a piece of jewelry that’s now gone. Your mother’s still not competent, true?”

  “True,” Joel answered.

  “So they can’t make any progress there,” Sa’ad said. “And if they come to search your house, they won’t find any painting or anything else incriminating. It’s a standoff.”

  “That probably won’t keep them from arresting me. They left me with the impression it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Don’t let them bluff you, Joel,” Edmund encouraged him. “Talkin’ to ’em never helps. Don’t open your mouth. Make them prove their case. All they know is you most likely had a stolen ring—can’t say where you got it or that you stole it or knew it was part of a burglary. You’re an innocent bystander caught up in somebody else’s wrongdoin’.”

  The water had reached the lip of the sink, was about to spill onto the floor. Joel shut both spigots and studied the two men next to him, pausing a good long while after he twisted toward Sa’ad. There wasn’t the slightest speck of betrayal or duplicity in their expressions—the same cads who’d sent Christy Darden to snare him in a nasty insurance scam were now giving him self-serving advice and doing it with forthright eyes and solemn, earnest lips. “An innocent bystander—amen,” Joel said flatly, the sentence without pitch. “Don’t you know it.”

  Several lopsided bubbles rose and glubbed in the sink, and the water dropped through the drain, made a muffled, sucking noise as it poured down the pipes.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” Joel said. “I’ll keep you both posted.”

  Sa’ad completely removed the cap and revealed his whole face. “You understand, Joel, that there’s no way you can sell us out. It would be your word against ours, and there’s not a single piece of physical evidence to support your story, nothing to connect all of us when the nitty-gritty comes. There’s really very little for you to offer them, you see, beyond tall tales and wild accusations, and those won’t mean shit for you in terms of a deal. So, please, don’t be getting any brilliant ideas.”

  The letter from Gentry, Locke was waiting for Joel, propped against the salt shaker, when he arrived home at one in the morning, the FBI on his butt, Sa’ad and Edmund gone, headed out of town four hours earlier, the two of them haints of a sort, who probably began to fade into mist and vapors the instant they stepped outside the Station and hit the night air. Joel opened the envelope with a butcher knife, withdrew several sheets of paper and positioned them at an angle, bent them toward the sink so they would catch the ceiling light. The correspondence was from Brian Roland and tersely informed Joel the c
ase against him and the church had been settled and dismissed. Attached to the letter was a four-page release, signed by Christy. She’d received three million, five hundred thousand dollars.

  The release had been completed on December twenty-first—weeks ago—and Joel felt his jaw fall slack and lost the tension in his hands. The papers went to the floor, landing with a small plop and folding up at each end. She had betrayed him, cut his throat, taken the money he’d helped her earn and left him behind, abandoned him. “Oh God,” he said out loud. He looked around the inside of his sister’s tiny house but was unable to discern very much with only one bulb burning, saw lumps, shadows, outlines and the concentrated reflection of the overhead light on the silver side of the toaster. He was, right then, at absolute nothing, played out and cornered, all his strategies gone to naught. It didn’t do him any good, but he kicked the pile of papers, kicked them twice before he collected them and went belowground to his bed.

  The following day, Agent Hobbes and Anna Starke appeared at noon, rapped on the door and announced themselves from outside. Joel opened the door only as far as the safety chain allowed, and they inquired about coming in. He told them no, asked what they wanted. Hobbes seemed oddly serene, as if he knew something Joel didn’t, and Anna Starke told Joel time was expiring, that they knew he was up to no good and he needed to help them and help himself. “You’re looking at twenty, thirty years in prison if you grab the short end of this particular stick,” she warned him. He promised her he’d contacted a lawyer and was eager to meet, would soon make arrangements. Hobbes didn’t have much to say and began to whistle as they walked away and climbed into their dark blue sedan. They sat in the drive fifteen minutes before leaving—just sat there with the engine idling—and Joel watched them through the window, rubbernecking around the fabric hem of the curtains so they couldn’t see him.

  There was nothing left for Joel to do but hunker down, just retreat and cover himself with his forearms and elbows to stave off as much of the avalanche as he could and hope he didn’t smother underneath the rush of lousy breaks and curdled fortune. After Hobbes and Starke finally disappeared, he phoned the Station and reported sick, and Sarah came on the line to speak with him, sounded solicitous and concerned, promised to save him a pint of the chef’s minestrone and cautioned him not to rush his recovery. He spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to figure an escape from the labyrinth he’d wandered into, found a pen and paper and drew diagrams and scribbled plans and stared at the walls and walked outside in the frigid air but came up with nothing, could think of no more tricks or clever subterfuge, was done.

  When Baker and Sophie arrived home, he was sitting on the sofa doodling, not dressed for work, his hair poorly groomed, his skin sallow. Baker hurried to the couch and hugged him, oblivious to his ratty appearance and the bigger issue of his not being at the restaurant. He wrapped the child with both arms, kissed his head and asked him to go to his room for a moment while he spoke with Sophie, made the request quietly but with enough iron and adult intonation in his words that the boy knew he meant business.

  “I’ll do my homework and you can check it for me,” Baker said brightly. He lifted his backpack from the floor but didn’t loop it over his shoulder, just carried it at his side and commenced an obedient trek through the den, down the hall.

  Sophie knew an unhappy report was imminent; the only question was its breadth and length and how much it would affect her. She dropped her purse on the kitchen table, walked around to the front of the sofa and frowned at her brother, looming above him. “Let’s have it,” she said, her voice ready to rupture.

  “Want to sit?” Joel suggested.

  “No, I’ll stand for the present, thank you.”

  “You’re sure?” He raised his face, looked at her full.

  “Out with it, Joel. Say it and get it over with. What is it this time?”

  “Well, it’s not really ‘this time,’ I’m afraid. It’s an accumulation of events, and it’s pretty awful.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” She sounded irritated, upset, but there was a trickle of pity in her tone as well. She took a seat on the edge of the coffee table and crossed her legs.

  “I hate to have to tell you,” he said. “I hate being such a failure.”

  “Just say it.”

  Joel melted into the corner of the sofa. “Okay,” he said, and he told his sister what he’d done, laid out the stories in a monotone, described the jewelry scam and how it had gone awry because of rotten happenstance and the initialed “red sister” ring, admitted the police and FBI were about to arrest him. Then there was the problem with Karl and Lisa, their threat to sue him and ruin Dixon unless he went along with their outright lying—which really wasn’t his fault, he hastened to add, made sure he had his sister’s eye and showed her his innocence when he finished this part of his yarn. The worst, though, was Christy, who was missing, and he was a suspect evidently, and at a bare minimum they’d heard him on tape arguing with her and that was good enough to get him returned to the Roanoke jail. And to beat all, Christy had screwed him out of the money he was planning to donate to the church and to hand over to her—to Sophie— well over one point five million dollars, the money he’d generated with his Elmer Gantry shenanigans at their deposition. In retrospect, the saga was so hapless and amateurish that Joel finished with a rueful, winsome chuckle, swiped his fingers through his hair and left his hands atop his head, his arms flopped out and resting against the sofa cushions. “A lot of sound and fury, toil and trouble, for nothing. Nothing,” he concluded. “You were absolutely right—I should’ve simply let things be.”

  Sophie was tearful, but she seemed rational and remarkably emotionless. Her shoulders were still, her breathing normal, her mouth steadfast. “To start with,” she said, “how could you have ever in a thousand years trusted a crazy bitch like this Christy girl?”

  “I never really trusted her, Sophie, but, you see, at least I had a chance to turn the situation around. A chance, like buying a lottery ticket or taking a swing at bat. Can’t win if you don’t play. If I do nothing, I get nothing, and the bad guys—Christy and Edmund and Sa’ad—stroll off with everything. Did I completely trust her? Of course not. Did I figure she’d split the payoff with me? I guessed it was fifty-fifty, and that was better than where I was, at zero and a chump.”

  “I told you from the first that you were out of your depth,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “And this idiotic jewelry plan to defraud insurance companies,” she continued, her voice gaining volume. “What were you thinking? Huh? You weren’t forced into that, now were you? You signed up for it, and it’s pure laziness, greed and impatience, the same faults you’re supposed to know so much about conquering. A lot easier to preach it than to live it, isn’t it? Words versus deeds, Joel. I’ve struggled to put food on the table for my son, been broke and ass-kicked and abandoned, but I’ve never so much as taken a stamp from work. Never. The first time things get tight, you go to pieces. And the clincher is you lied to me and flew self-righteous when I questioned you about where you got thousands of dollars’ worth of jewelry—crawled all over me, yelled and wagged your finger.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve made mistake after mistake, but I did have a long, difficult stretch. I didn’t simply walk out of church and stumble into a deck of cards, an eye patch and a bottle of sweet wine. Give me a little credit. Some of this is my fault, some isn’t.”

  “If you hadn’t hit on a seventeen-year-old girl, then none of this would be happening, correct? The way I see it, everything flows from that shining moment, and you’re damn sure responsible for your bad decisions and midlife libido.” There was no bitterness in her voice, no spite. She seemed more amazed than angry.

  “I am, and maybe this is part of the Lord’s will. What I did was bad, and I’m perhaps still paying my debt.”

  “The saddest part, Joel, is Baker.” She wiped her cheek. “He’s going to be devastated.” She sounded ne
ttled now, emphasized the last word.

  “I’m so sorry, Sophie,” Joel said. He took down his hands and placed them in his lap. “Believe me, I’ve considered that. I love him. I truly do.”

  “Yet another man walks out of his life and disappoints him. Thanks, Joel. Thank you.”

  Joel pushed off the sofa, joined Sophie on the low, wooden table and molded his hand over her knee. “Through the entire thing, from my first foul-up with Christy to this very moment, I have kept faith in God and believed—believed absolutely—that He can deliver me from any abyss. I’ve prayed again and again that He would bless you and this house and Baker, and I’ve knocked at His door and begged Him to grant me wisdom and let me get money for you and Roanoke First Baptist and, most of all, for Baker. It makes me sick to realize I’ve been so inadequate and will end up hurting a wonderful, beautiful boy. I’m not altogether sure why my prayers have remained unanswered, can’t explain it.”

  Sophie stared at him, astonished. She opened her mouth to speak and a guttural groan made it to the top of her throat, but nothing else came, not another sound.

  “What?” Joel asked. “What is it?”

  “Gee, Joel, isn’t that a lot like asking for chocolate icing to spread on a bowl of shit? Or the dope addict asking the Lord to sanctify his needle, or Sirhan seeking a special blessing for his pistol, or my cheating husband praying he won’t get caught sneaking into the house as the sun comes up? I like your take on this, Joel, your particular brand of the gospel—do what the hell ever you want and beg your Good Lord to put His imprimatur on it, then sulk and pout if He doesn’t.” She shook her head, tossed off a mystified, derisive laugh. “Damn.”

  He removed his hand from her leg.

  “I mean, I don’t have a degree in this crap, didn’t go to friggin’ grad school and write term papers on the Council of Trent—you’re the expert. But common sense might suggest you try praying for guidance rather than doing as you please and whining to have it validated. Have you thought about how foolish your position is? You supposedly believe in this great, gracious divine hand, and the moment things turn a tad sticky you jump ship and start lying, cheating and stealing, hit the sin trifecta, really ring the bell, and then you wonder how come you and your snake-oil friends aren’t prospering.” She was looking at him in the same way she looked at her son when the boy clung to some immature foolishness, her expression mostly bafflement.