The Last Kind Word

by David Housewright

  He watched my eyes for a second. “When I leave—when I leave,” the bartender said, “you’re going to shoot me in the back.”

  “Don’t worry. If I shoot you, you’ll see it coming. Now get out of here. And don’t forget; when I call, you had better do exactly what I say. Okay?”

  He nodded, then looked over at Skarda. “Sorry, Dave,” he said. The bartender started for the door, then stopped and turned around. “Please don’t tell Josie.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “Can I have my gun back?”

  “No.”

  The bartender left the house in a hurry.

  “Why did you let him go?” Skarda asked.

  “Because you didn’t want to shoot him. What else were we going to do? Chain him to a post in your basement? Besides, there’s an old saying—keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Al Pacino in Godfather Part II.”

  * * *

  We returned to the cabin on Lake Carl about a half hour later. The old man was asleep on one of the sofas, and we tried not to wake him. I had rarely seen a man go through a day so quickly—it wasn’t even one in the afternoon yet. There was a stack of old paperbacks on the floor next to him and I sorted through them. They were all romance novels written by authors I had never heard of—Helen Carter, Violet Winspear, Catherine Coulter, Heidi Strasser, Roumelia Lane …

  “The old man reads these?” I asked.

  “He likes ’em,” Skarda said. “He’s been getting sentimental as he grows older.”

  “From the moment actress Marla Travis begins reading the lead role in Alexander Stratis’s new play, she feels something vibrantly compelling about him—a restrained masculinity that fires her blood, a sensitivity to the deep mysteries of life that stirs her soul! Her impassioned reading convinces him to produce his play; but Marla’s wary of rushing into more … convinced that her life of bright lights and applause can never mesh with Alex’s faith in family and tradition. Then, in a sun-baked Greek village, she experiences a moment of shattering insight … and realizes that her elemental need for this dynamic man outstrips all else!”

  After reading the book description, I set Carter’s Change of Heart on top of the pile. “I don’t know about sentiment,” I said. “There sure seems to be a lot of exclamation points, though.”

  “Only ten percent of all the books that have ever been written are worth reading,” Skarda said. “But it’s a different ten percent for everybody.”

  Skarda busied himself filling the refrigerator with Leinies while I went onto the deck, leaned against the railing, and watched the lake glistening in the sun. There was no TV in the cabin, no ESPN, so when lake watching got old I went looking for a book to read and found only the old man’s romance novels. I gave Bad Karma by Theresa Weir a try. It wasn’t enough to convert me into a Harlequin Harlot, yet it did make me reevaluate my prejudices. I even made Josie wait a half hour when she returned to the cabin so I could finish reading the book before heading off to Buckman’s.

  * * *

  After switching the padlocks again, we sat on the same stools at the end of the bar as the previous night and watched the Twins play the Angels. About the only difference was the starting pitchers. The bartender served us, just not with a smile. I ordered Summit Ale, only he didn’t have it. He was very apologetic; claimed he had searched far and wide only to come up empty. I didn’t believe him, but let it slide. Josie wondered why Scott would have gone to the trouble of chasing my favorite beer.

  “Apparently I’m a celebrity up here,” I said.

  Josie ordered the same drink as the evening before, only fewer of them. Around the third inning she noticed that the bartender was keeping his distance.

  “Scott doesn’t seem to be himself tonight,” she said.

  “He’s probably jealous because I’m sitting here with you.”

  “Why would he be?”

  I remembered what he said at Dave’s place—Please, don’t tell Josie—yet shrugged and said nothing.

  “Do you have a girlfriend, Dyson?”

  I flashed on Shelby Dunston, which I found inexplicable, and then refocused on Nina Truhler.

  “No,” I said.

  “Have you ever been involved with a woman?”

  “Frequently.”

  “I meant with someone you cared about.”

  “I cared about them all or I wouldn’t have become involved. That’s just the way I’m wired.”

  “Yet none of them lasted.”

  “I’m a professional thief, remember?”

  “There are plenty of women who like bad boys.”

  “I’m not a bad boy.”

  “What are you?”

  “Misunderstood. What about you?” I didn’t really want to know, yet I was desperate to change the subject.

  “What about me?” Josie asked.

  “Whose little girl are you?”

  “No one’s.”

  “Not ever?”

  “I’ve known my share of wrong men.”

  “Anyone lately?”

  “Besides you?”

  There it was, I told myself. Josie was making her move. I couldn’t allow it. I couldn’t do that to Nina. I couldn’t do it to Josie, either, not if there was even the slightest chance that I might be responsible for sending her to jail.

  “We’re not involved,” I said. I spoke firmly. Decisively.

  “What are we?”

  “Co-conspirators. I’m here for the money. Once I get it, I’m out the door and down the street. I’ll be going alone and I won’t be coming back. I’d prefer not to leave any misunderstandings behind.”

  “Such as?”

  “Josie, I’m not taking you to Paris.”

  “Who asked you to?”

  “We can’t have this conversation. We can’t even think about it. You can’t look across the table at me and think ‘Mmm, mmm, mmm, how I’d like me a slice of Dyson pie…’”

  “Dyson pie? Does that come à la mode?”

  “Someone will read your thoughts and all hell will break loose. Do you understand?”

  Josie started laughing at me. She paused only long enough to whisper, “Dyson, you moron. I’m gay.”

  I must have had the dumbest expression on my face, because she shook my shoulder with one hand and laughed even harder, laughed until a quarter of the people in the bar, including Scott, started laughing, too, even though none of them could tell you what was so damn funny.

  First Jenness Crawford and now Josie, my inner voice said. How can you not know these things? McKenzie, you are a moron.

  “You thought I was hitting on you, didn’t you?” Josie said.

  “I kinda talked myself into it, yeah.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful.”

  Josie clapped her hands and laughed some more. I had been more embarrassed, but not since high school.

  “All right, all right,” I said. “C’mon, now. It was an honest mistake. After all, you did kiss me last night. Your old man did get bent out of shape when he thought we spent the night. And, and, and what about all this ‘I’ve known my share of wrong men’ stuff?”

  Josie leaned in and lowered her voice.

  “First of all,” she said, “my father doesn’t know. Only Dave knows, nobody else. Not up here, anyway. I’ve dated men, some because I enjoyed their company and some because—most people think I’m high-maintenance, they think I haven’t married because I have impossible standards. I like it that they think that. This is small-town America, Dyson. You get politicians and pundits, people talking about small-town values as if they were something to emulate, and sometimes they are, but small towns, this is where bigotry and intolerance hold sway. Discrimination. This is where the militias live. And the Klan. So, please, please, I beg you to keep my secret.”

  “Only if you promise not to tell anyone what a nitwit I am.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Wait a minute. Y
ou still haven’t explained the kiss.”

  “What can I say? Pour enough vodka into a girl and even you will look good.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “That makes me feel so much better.”

  * * *

  Sometime during the dark side of midnight, we left the tavern and went to Josie’s Ford Taurus. A few patrons followed us out, and we sat in the car until they left the parking lot. While we were waiting, Josie leaned across the seat. “Should we pretend to make out?” she asked.

  “You’re an evil woman.”

  “You’d think it was because my parents didn’t love me, but actually they loved me a great deal.”

  As soon as we were alone, I crept across the county road, opened the padlock, entered the enclosure, reclaimed the GPS loggers, locked the gate, and returned to the car. Josie started it up, and a few moments later we were on the county road heading for Lake Carl. Somewhere along the way I started thinking about Jenness Crawford and the fact that I had known her almost as long as I had known Nina without having any idea that she was gay. Or bi-gay. Or whatever they call it. I found myself shaking my head at my own confusion.

  “What?” Josie said.

  “There’s something I never thought I’d say to a woman.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I know a girl that would be perfect for you.”

  NINE

  The next morning, Jimmy walked into the cabin carrying a map stretched out on a sheet of plywood the size of a high school chalkboard—the City of Krueger was nearly actual size in his blow-up. He probably knew what I was going to say, because before I could open my mouth he reminded me, “You said a big map.”

  He propped the board on the back of a sofa in the living room. He knelt on the cushion below it and proudly indicated a series of red numbers inside circles. Each number corresponded with a cash-intensive business that he had identified in a three-ring binder.

  “I stopped after I got to eighty-seven,” he said.

  “Fair enough,” I told him. I gave him the three GPS loggers. “These will tell you the routes the three trucks took yesterday. Track the movements on your map. Pay close attention to where the trucks stopped, when, and for how long.”

  Jimmy produced a PC from a black carrying case and proceeded to connect it to a phone jack. I moved to the cabin door. I was dressed in a pair of Skarda’s swim trunks and carrying a towel. He asked me where I was going. I thought it was obvious, yet I told him just the same.

  “There’s no beach,” Jimmy said. “If I were you, I’d take the pontoon out in the middle of the lake and anchor it. You won’t be bothered by weeds out there.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “What about Dave and the old man?”

  “They’re still asleep,” I said. “From what I’ve seen of their habits, I don’t expect to see either of them until noon.”

  “I should have this all worked out by then.”

  “You’re a good man, James.”

  He smiled and then quickly looked away, as if he felt it was unmanly to be pleased by the compliment. As I descended the wooden staircase to the dock, I thought what a complete louse I was for putting him and his family in the jackpot.

  * * *

  I anchored the pontoon as Jimmy suggested and swam around it a half-dozen times, loosening my muscles and clearing my head. My plan was simple and nearly complete. I’d return to the cabin in a little bit. Together, the Bandits and I would pick a target, I’d make an argument for the need for enhanced firepower, Roy would name his gunrunners, I’d sneak away and call Bullert, and then I would drive home. With luck, I’d be at Rickie’s in time for happy hour. Simple. Yeah, right.

  The pontoon boat had a number of cushions arrayed on top of lockers that contained all manner of life jackets, ropes, a couple of paddles, fishing equipment, and suntan lotion. I slathered a palmful of the lotion over my body after I took my swim and stretched out across the back cushion. I was only going to rest my eyes. Instead I slept for over an hour. I was so concerned I would get sunburned that I rolled over on my stomach and slept for another half hour. Afterward, I swam a few more laps. Just for fun I slowly circled the lake in the pontoon. There was only one other cabin that I could see. I returned to the dock, tied off the boat, and climbed the stairs to the deck. A woman stepped out of the cabin carrying a tray of hamburger patties for the grill. She was a healthy-looking girl and so stereotypically Minnesotan with her pale skin, short blond hair, and blue eyes that she could have posed for the brochures extolling the state’s scenic wonders that the tourism office sends out.

  “Hi,” she said. “You must be Dyson. Dave told me about you, although—I thought you’d be taller.”

  “Dave?”

  “I’m Elizabeth Skarda, Dave’s wife. Call me Liz.”

  “Liz, what are you doing here?”

  The question seemed to surprise her. She set the tray on top of the picnic table. “Dave said I could come over…”

  “Did he tell you what we’re planning to do?”

  “Yes. It sounds very exciting.”

  “Who did you tell?”

  “What do you mean?”

  I turned toward the door. “Dave,” I shouted. I walked across the deck and went inside the cabin. Dave was standing next to Roy, who was standing next to the old man. The three of them were watching as Jimmy put the finishing touches on his map.

  Skarda turned to look at me. Before I could speak again a pretty voice interrupted. “Dyson,” it said. “There you are.”

  Jill was standing at the kitchen table with a knife in her hand. She was using it to slice wedges of pie and lift them from the tin onto paper plates. Josie was behind her, opening plastic bags filled with hamburger buns.

  “Did you enjoy your swim?” Jill asked.

  She was wearing sandals and a short yellow sundress with a khaki scarf tied around her thin waist. She looked like a million bucks. Hell, she looked like the gross national product of Venezuela. Her smile was so bright that it hurt my eyes to watch her.

  “Fine,” I said. I was confused. What did Jill have to be so gloriously happy about all of a sudden?

  “Have some strawberry-rhubarb pie,” she said. “We brought it down from the Chocolate Moose in Ely. Roy and I went there together for brunch after church.” She repeated the word—“together”—speaking it the way some people say “love.”

  I took the pie from her outstretched hands and ate a forkful. It was mighty tasty. While I chewed, she sidled up to me and spoke softly. “May I speak to you for a moment?” she asked. “In private?”

  “Sure.”

  I set the remnants of the pie on the table and followed her into the master bedroom. I could see Roy watching us out of the corner of my eye, and my internal alarm systems climbed to Defcon Three. We stepped into the room, and Jillian closed the door. She leaned against it, her hands behind her back. I sat down on the bed, thought better of it, and stood again, circling the bed until it was between us.

  “I want to thank you,” she said. Listening to her voice—it was the most I’d heard her speak since I arrived, and I noticed for the first time that it had a sweet, rhythmic quality that reminded me of woodwinds.

  “For what?” I asked.

  “For beating some sense into Roy.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “He told me what you did. He told me what you said. He told me that he loved me more than his own life and that he was so very sorry it took you punching him in the mouth for him to realize it. He said he was glad that you punched him and said the things you said, too, because it reminded him that I was the only person in the whole world that he cared about and that we were a team and that he would never hurt me again, not ever. He said it was me and him against the world and while he might get angry at the world, he would never again get angry at me.”

  “I’m happy to hear that,” I said.

  “Anyway, I just wanted to thank you because, well, you kinda saved my marriage.”

 
; No, no, no, my inner voice chanted. Don’t tell me that.

  “It doesn’t work this way, you know,” I said aloud. “Roy might be contrite now, but he’ll fall back into his old habits. They always do.”

  “You’re wrong, Dyson.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t know anything about love, do you, Dyson? Love is unconditional.”

  No, it isn’t, my inner voice insisted.

  Jill replied as if she had read my mind. “My love is unconditional,” she said. “I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve never told anyone else because I was afraid they would laugh at me. You won’t laugh, though, will you, Dyson?”

  “Not even if I thought it was funny.”

  “When I was a little girl—and I mean little, three, four, something like that. When I was a little girl my parents took me to the Science Museum in St. Paul, and they were showing this film, this film about insects on the giant Omnitheater movie screen. They showed this extreme close-up of a butterfly, the butterfly’s face, and I thought it was the most horrible thing I had ever seen in the world. It terrified me, made me cry. My parents had to take me out of the theater. I’ve been afraid of butterflies ever since. What it taught me, this experience, it taught me to take things for what they seem and not look too closely, especially at the things that I find beautiful.”

  “I don’t agree that’s a good idea.”

  “That’s because you’re cynical.” She waved at the people behind the closed door. “All of you are.”

  “I suppose…”

  “Should I tell you how we met? Roy and I? It was during the Ely Winter Festival just before I graduated from high school. First at the Spaghetti Feed and then later at the Polar Bear Dance. Roy had been discharged from the army, only he was still wearing his dress uniform with his medals on his chest, and when I saw him—saw him from across a crowded room, isn’t that how the song goes?—I knew he was the one. He didn’t come after me; I went after him. He doesn’t remember it that way, though, because guys are all like, ‘Hey baby, want to see the bruise where the puck hit me?’ and women are way more subtle than that.

  “We didn’t spend time together around here because people—so many people knew us—you can’t date in a small town without everyone knowing your business. Instead, we went to Virginia or Hibbing or Tower or even Duluth. Then, after I graduated, well, then we made it official. I know what you’re thinking, Dyson. You’re thinking he’s too old for me. Everyone thought that at first. Roy did, too. Only then he told me after we were seeing each other for a while, he said how being with me, it made him feel young. He said that I reminded him that he was over forty years old but he had never been twenty because of the army, you see. Maybe I should have looked closer. I’ve told myself that the last couple of weeks. I didn’t, though, and I’m not going to start now. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you.”