The Devil’s Share

by Wallace Stroby

  He went around to the bare backyard, where a floodlight was mounted over the doorless, half-screened porch. Stiff from the ride, he rotated his neck to get out the kinks, then went up the porch steps, knocked on the kitchen door. Inside, a small dog began to bark.

  He looked around. Planks were cracked and missing in the porch floor; what screening there was had rips in half a dozen places. All the money Greggs had brought in back then, and he’d spent none of it here.

  He heard her talking to the dog, trying to calm it. Then the door opened and she was smiling at the sight of him.

  “How you doing, Sharon?”

  The dog, some sort of poodle mix, ran past her and out onto the porch. It circled his legs, barking, snapping its jaws.

  “Down, Snowflake,” she said. “Down, girl. It’s all right.”

  “You got a killer there.”

  “Snowflake wouldn’t hurt anyone. She just likes to kick up a fuss. Come on in.”

  He followed her into the kitchen. She closed the door behind them, leaving the dog on the porch. It scratched at the door, barked.

  “She’ll calm down after a couple minutes. Then I’ll let her back in. Sorry about that.”

  “That’s okay. Sorry I got here so late.”

  The kitchen was old but clean. Peeling linoleum on the floor, an old refrigerator and gas stove. She was barefoot, wore a bathrobe over jeans and a T-shirt, was thinner than he’d last seen her. Her hair was washed-out brown, tied in back. She looked tired.

  “I didn’t hear you drive up,” she said.

  “I parked down the block. I didn’t want Arlen to know I was here. Wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Let me get you something to drink, then. Tea? A beer? I think there’s some left in here.”

  “I can’t stay long. I just want to talk to Arlen, then I have to get on the road. I’m headed back to L.A. tonight.”

  “Let’s sit, then, at least.” The table was Formica and aluminum tubing, at least thirty years old. He waited for her to sit, then drew out a chair for himself. She pushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes.

  “I told him you were on your way,” she said. “Maybe he’ll listen to you. I’ve given up.”

  “He stay out there all the time?”

  “Hasn’t been in the house in weeks. I bring him his food out there, groceries when he needs them. Beer mostly. I asked him to go back to that VA doctor, but that just sets him off. God knows what he does out there all day.”

  “He ever talk to you about what’s going on, what he’s thinking?”

  “He says he feels safer out there. It’s a smaller space, he can ‘control the perimeter’ better, whatever that means. I don’t know what to say when he starts talking like that. I just get upset.”

  “Anyone else ever come by, talk to him?”

  “No. The home health aide visited once, but he wouldn’t let her in. He doesn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. I wish there was something I could do.”

  “There isn’t,” he said. “Not at this point. You’ve been taking good care of him, as far as he’ll let you. That’s all you can do.”

  “Maybe. But it just isn’t right, living like this. What kind of a marriage is this?”

  “I’m sorry. It must be rough on you.”

  She got up. “I think I’m going to have some of that tea. Sure you don’t want any?”

  “I’m good,” he said. The dog had stopped barking.

  She went to the stove, filled a kettle with water and set it on the burner, got the flame going beneath it.

  “How many years have you known him, Randy?”

  “Long time.”

  “Longer than we’ve been married.”

  “I expect so.”

  “Was he ever like this before?”

  “No, but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this kind of thing. Guys coming back from active duty, guys who saw combat. They like small spaces, quiet, environments they can control. It’s not that unusual.”

  “Not unusual? We’re supposed to be husband and wife, and he lives in a camper parked in the driveway. I’m surprised code enforcement hasn’t been out here yet.”

  She got a mug down from the shelf, a tea bag from a ceramic canister on the counter.

  “He’s up until all hours of the night,” she said. “I see the lights on, hear the TV going. He sleeps mostly in the daytime. Maybe he feels safer then.”

  “He ever seem … I’m not sure how to put this.”

  “What?” she said.

  “Like he’d hurt himself? Do something like that?”

  She set a hip against the counter. “I don’t think so. I mean, who knows for sure? But he never talks about it, if that’s what you mean. He’s never threatened it.”

  “That’s good.”

  The kettle began to whistle. She turned off the flame, poured water into the mug, watched the steam rising up. “I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” he said. “But I don’t know that it’ll do any good.”

  “You’re his oldest friend, Randy. You two went through a lot together. If he’ll listen to anybody, it’d be you.”

  She spooned sugar into the tea, stirred it, sat back down.

  “He say anything to you about what’s bothering him?” he said. “I mean lately?”

  She blew on the tea, shook her head. “Nothing new. It just seems like he’s mad at the world. It’s the ‘effing’ this and the ‘effing’ that. The VA and the politicians and the NSA. And something about drones that doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s always the same.”

  He crossed his legs, adjusted his right boot, looked down the short hallway into the living room. It was dark there except for the light of a TV.

  “Anybody else here?” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anybody. Is there anyone else that’s been around here, knows what’s going on?” He tilted his head toward the driveway.

  “No. He won’t see anybody, won’t talk to anybody. His sister called once, from North Carolina, but he wouldn’t talk to her. Not that I blame him. She has her own problems.”

  He exhaled, looked around, heard a clock ticking somewhere, voices from the television.

  “Well,” he said. “I guess there’s no sense putting it off.”

  “He has a cell phone out there. When I need to, I call him from the house phone. You want me to do that?”

  “No.” He stood. “Don’t bother. I have the number. I’ll call him when I’m outside.”

  “He might not say it, but he’ll be happy to see you, I bet. He always talks about you.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Just what a great marine you were. That you saved his life in Fallujah. He’s always telling that story. Is it true?”

  “Some of it. But he exaggerates. We were all in the same boat over there. Just doing our jobs.”

  “Sometimes it seems like you’re the only person in the world he isn’t mad at.”

  “We’ll see about that, I guess.” He started for the door.

  She touched his arm. “Will you come back after you talk to him? Tell me what he said?”

  “I will.”

  He opened the door and the dog rushed in, began to bark at his heels again. Sharon called “Snowflake!” and he eased the dog aside with the edge of his boot, stepped out onto the porch, shut the door. Moths swirled in the floodlight.

  As he started down the driveway, he took out his cell, dialed Greggs’s number. He answered at the first ring, said, “Where the fuck are you?”

  “In your driveway, jagoff. Where do you think?”

  “I knew someone was out there. I could hear that goddamn dog.”

  “You gonna leave me standing around out here, or invite me in?”

  “Came all this way, I guess I can give you a minute. It’s open.”

  He went up the frame steps, knocked on the door, stood to the side as a precaution.

  “I said it
’s open.”

  Inside, the air smelled of stale cigarette smoke and sweat. Greggs sat on an orange daybed, crutches leaning against the wall beside him. He held a .45 automatic in his right hand, pointed at Hicks’s chest. The hammer was back.

  Hicks raised his hands. “Careful with that.”

  “Where’s your car? I didn’t hear it.”

  “It’s down the street.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to disturb Sharon, in case she was sleeping. If she was, I would have turned around, come back tomorrow.”

  “That your story?”

  “It is.”

  Empty Olympia cans on every flat surface, cigarette butts on the floor. Greggs’s prosthetic leg, all gleaming metal and white plastic, was on the table in the breakfast nook, a Nike sneaker on the foot piece. Greggs wore a stained white T-shirt and knee-length camouflage cargo shorts, the left leg loose and empty. On his right foot was the other Nike. He was unshaven, his hair long and dirty.

  “Make me nervous,” Greggs said. “Sneaking up like that.”

  “Wasn’t any sneaking involved.”

  “Anyone else out there with you? Durell maybe? Sandy?”

  Hicks shook his head. “Durell’s still over there. And I haven’t seen Sandy in months.”

  “Close the door.”

  Hicks lowered his hands, pulled the door shut behind him.

  “Now step over here.”

  Holding the gun on him, Greggs reached up with his left hand, slapped his sides, his waistband.

  “Sad to think we’ve come to this,” Hicks said.

  “Whose fault is that?”

  “What I’m here to talk about. But not while you’re holding that.”

  Greggs looked at him, then lowered the .45.

  “Thanks. Why don’t you decock that sumbitch while you’re at it?”

  Greggs pointed the gun at the floor, used both hands to lower the hammer. They heard the dog bark twice more, then go quiet.

  “I’m gonna shoot that thing someday,” Greggs said. “I hate that dog.”

  “You’re not shooting anything. Can I sit?”

  Greggs nodded at the breakfast nook. Hicks pushed aside dirty laundry, sat facing him. “Maid’s on vacation, I see. How long you intend to live out here like this?”

  Greggs didn’t answer. He put the .45 beside him on the daybed, next to his cell phone.

  “Sharon’s worried about you,” Hicks said. “That’s not very fair to her, is it?”

  “She understands. Grab me those butts, will you?”

  There was a hard pack of Marlboros beside the prosthetic leg. Hicks picked it up, tossed it into Greggs’s lap. He thumbed the box open, took out a cigarette and a cheap plastic lighter.

  “So, what?” he said. “I’m supposed to be happy to see you?”

  “You should be. I imagine you will be when you hear what I have to say.”

  “I’m listening.” He lit the cigarette, put the lighter back inside, closed the pack.

  Hicks picked up the prosthetic leg. It weighed less than he expected. “You don’t wear this? It cost Uncle enough.”

  “It chafes. Itches like a motherfucker, too. Can’t seem to get it to fit right.” He took an open beer can from the windowsill behind him, wedged it between his thighs.

  “Can you walk with it?”

  “A little. Not far.”

  He set the leg back down. “What’s the therapist say?”

  Greggs blew out smoke, tapped ash in the beer can. “You bring me anything?”

  Hicks waved away smoke. “Why I’m here.”

  “About time.”

  Hicks reached inside his jacket, and Greggs put his hand on the .45. Hicks drew out the rubber-banded envelope slowly, held it up, then tossed it onto the daybed. “Part of your share. More to come.”

  “How much is in there?”

  “Twenty K, brother. The reason I had to drive my ass all the way up here instead of flying. But like I said, it’s only part.”

  Greggs drew the envelope closer, slipped off the rubber bands. The cigarette bobbed in his lips, ashes falling in his lap. He opened the envelope, looked through the manicured bills.

  “Nice and clean,” Hicks said.

  “I can see that.” He riffled the bills with a thumb, closed the envelope again, set it beside the .45. “I’ve still got thirty coming.”

  “I know it. He knows it, too.”

  “You still working for that old bastard?”

  “Sometimes. His money’s good.”

  “But he’s slow on paying, isn’t he? Everything we did for him over there, all that shit we helped bring back. We should’ve got a bigger cut from all of that. We’re the ones took the risks.”

  “It’s never that easy,” Hicks said. “Things like that, you have to wait, find the right buyers. Let things cool down before you make a deal, see any money.”

  “More bullshit.”

  “But the way you’ve been going, threatening him, saying shit about talking to the FBI, well, that only makes matters worse.”

  “I wanted him to know I was serious.”

  “He knows. That’s why he sent me up here with your money. And as soon as he has the other thirty together, I’ll bring that up to you, too. Then we’re square. But he needs to know you’re still on the team, that your allegiances are intact.”

  “I just want what’s owed me, that’s all.”

  “I know. And you’ll get it.”

  Greggs nodded at the kitchenette. “There’s beers in there.”

  “Best thing you’ve said yet.” Hicks got up, bent over and opened the short-boy refrigerator. Inside were four loose Olympia cans, a bottle of peppermint schnapps, and a curling slice of pizza on a paper plate. He took out two cans, kneed the door shut. “I didn’t know anybody drank that peppermint shit after high school.”

  “It does the trick. Keeps me from having to go to bed sober.”

  Hicks popped a can, foam oozing out. He handed it to Greggs, opened his own, sat back in the breakfast nook.

  “Sorry about the smoke,” Greggs said. “You’re still living healthy, I see, kind of shape you’re in.”

  “I try.”

  Greggs looked at his cigarette. “I never used to smoke. At least not before I went over there. Now I’m doing like three packs a day. Calms my nerves.”

  “Must get expensive. The VA rep still come by?” He drank beer. It was thin and lukewarm.

  Greggs snorted out smoke. “They’re done with me, I think. I did the counseling at first, listened to their bullshit. They wanted me to move back into the house. Sharon did, too. They didn’t understand I was just fine out here.”

  “Maybe you should try to get out more. Be healthier for you. Get some fresh air. Interact with people.”

  “Fuck people.”

  “How the neighbors feel about you living in your driveway?”

  “Fuck the neighbors, too.”

  Hicks laughed. “You haven’t changed, sure as shit.” He sipped beer, nodded at the .45. “Nice weapon—1911? Can I take a look?”

  “It’s fine where it is. You’ve seen one before.”

  “You getting paranoid in middle age, Arlen?”

  “Just careful. So where’s Durell?”

  “Kabul, last I heard.”

  “You stay in touch?”

  “Now and then.”

  “And Sandoval?”

  “Not so much. Sandy’s stateside now. We were a good team while it lasted, all of us.”

  “Until it went to shit,” Greggs said, and drank beer.

  “We had a good run.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not doing much running these days.”

  “You know what I meant. So what’s your plan? Sit around, drink yourself to death?”

  “It’s a thought.”

  “You used to be one squared-away motherfucker. What happened?”

  “What do you think happened? That good run we had cost some of us more than others, didn’t
it?”

  Hicks ran a thumb around the rim of the can. “You ever tell Sharon anything about all that? Kind of thing we were doing over there?”

  Greggs shook his head, tapped ash. “That what you came all the way here to find out? If so, you wasted your time. She doesn’t know shit about any of that.”

  “Just asking,” Hicks said. He drank beer, swirled what was left in the can, set it on the table.

  “So you came here to pay me, and now you did,” Greggs said. “Are we going to sit around now, bullshit about old times?”

  “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

  “And find out if you could still trust me?”

  “That, too.”

  “You think I can’t keep my mouth shut? That if I got pissed off enough about the money, I’d put us all in the shit?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You thought it, though.”

  Hicks stood, put his palms in the small of his back, stretched. “Where’s the head in this thing? I’ve got a long drive back.”

  Greggs pointed at a narrow door past the kitchenette. Hicks went inside, closed the door, pulled the string to turn on the light. It was no cleaner in there. His shoulders brushed the walls.

  He unzipped, urinated loudly into the toilet, knowing Greggs would hear it through the thin door. Then he zipped back up, put his right boot on the toilet seat, pulled up his jeans leg. He drew out the wood-handled ice pick from his boot, took the cork off the tip. Then he flushed, turned the light off, and went back out, the ice pick hidden in his cupped right hand.

  Greggs was counting the money, the envelope in his lap. Hicks closed the distance. Greggs looked up at the last moment, reached for the .45. Hicks slapped his left hand over Greggs’s mouth, slammed his head back into the wall, and sank the ice pick into the left side of his chest, angling upward to slip between the ribs.

  Greggs bucked, his eyes wide. Hicks held him there, leaning all his weight into him, drew out the ice pick and drove it home again.

  He felt Greggs’s teeth scrape against his palm, trying to bite. He straddled him, used a knee to knock the .45 to the floor. “Easy, Arlen. Easy. Don’t fight me.”

  The ice pick came out and went in again, all the way to the handle this time. Hicks twisted it, felt the wet warmth on his hand.