Way Past Legal

by Norman Green

  “Ayuh,” Bookman said. He had us up over a hundred and ten, and the Crown Vic felt like it was floating. If it’d had wings, we’d have been airborne. “So what’s changed? You any moah ready now?”

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I’ll be so good from now on, I promise. “You want to know the real difference?”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Nicky’s the difference.”

  “Yeah? Howzat.”

  “Back then, you know, he was just this little baby that shit his pants and cried and woke me up in the middle of the night.” Actually, I couldn’t remember ever having been there for that, but I’d heard about it plenty. “But now . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  I could feel myself getting into uncharted territory. “Now he’s a person. And he thinks, ahhh . . .” Jesus. Where was this shit coming from? “He thinks, and he believes, that I’m a great guy. He believes that completely. He has this certainty, this expectation, that I’m going to take care of him, that I’m going to do the right thing. I can feel the weight of it, you know what I mean? Especially when I feel tempted to, I don’t know, exceed the speed limit or something.”

  “How ’bout that.” Bookman took his foot off the gas, and the car settled back down on the road and began to slow down.

  “I don’t think I can be the guy he thinks I am,” I said. “But I’m trying like hell.”

  “Good to heah,” Bookman said. “Now yaw in the same boat with the rest of us.” He braked, turned west off Route 1 onto a narrow two-lane road that headed uphill into some woods. I didn’t see any other cars around. The trees hung low over the road and visibility was poor, so Bookman held it down to eighty. “Glad you nevah shot them Rooskies,” he said.

  “I don’t know what difference it would make,” I told him. “There’s plenty more where they came from.”

  “So what’s yaw ansah?”

  “I guess I have to move on. Find a quiet place somewhere. . . .”

  “Ayuh,” he said, peering ahead. The trees opened up, there were some big empty fields on one side of the road, and you could see straight up the road for a half mile or so. Bookman cranked it up a little higher. “You showah there ain’t no way you can do this legal?”

  “I’ve got an appointment with a lawyer tomorrow, in Manhattan,” I told him. Another small piece of the truth. “I don’t know if anything is going to come of it.”

  “Don’t hurt to try,” he said. “You can leave Nicky with us if you like.” He looked at me, and I thought I saw something in his eyes, but I didn’t know him well enough to know what it was. “He and Franklin have become fast friends. You could pick him up when you get back.” He paused for a minute, shook his head. “I don’t know what you two have done to Franklin, he’s said mowah in the past two days than he did in the previous two yeahs.”

  What choice did I have? It would be a terrible idea to bring Nicky back to Manhattan with me. I hadn’t even thought about what I was going to do with him. Great work, Dad. “Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate that.”

  We rocketed up the hill, and the trees petered out as we got to the top. The road we were on ended at a T-shaped intersection. The road we were about to turn onto pierced the empty landscape north to south. Straight ahead to the west was nothing but trees covering the round and furry shoulders of what had once been the Appalachian Mountains. I could see three hawks riding the thermals, and either a turkey vulture or a black vulture far to the west. They were all too far away to identify, even with glasses. You can tell a vulture from an eagle or a hawk, though, because turkey vultures and black vultures almost never flap their wings, they tip side to side, taking full advantage of every slight difference in the air currents.

  To our right, a vehicle crested the hill, heading south. It was a big Chevy Suburban, new and shiny, four-wheel drive, the kind of thing you see frequently in places like New Jersey but rarely up in this part of Maine, unless it is driven by tourists. The driver apparently did not notice us, because he barreled down the deserted road at a speed that, while it did not rival Bookman’s preferred rate, was still surely far above the posted limits. He picked us up, finally, when he was a couple of hundred feet away. You could see the nose of the thing dive as the driver braked, even though he had to know it was too late, and that he was dead meat. Bookman sat there and watched the guy go past, and then he turned right and headed north.

  I was surprised. “Ain’t you gonna go get that guy? Give his ass a ticket?”

  “Bet you think I live for that.” He ramped the Crown Vic back up to warp factor one. “Ain’t that right? Nobody out heah, he wants to go sixty-five instead of fifty-five, why should I cayah?” He looked over at me. “Tell me, Mistah Williams. What do you think my job is?”

  Now there’s a loaded question. I gave him the textbook answer. “Enforce the law?”

  “That so? Make everyone go fifty-five? Make showah nobody undah twenty-one drinks a beer or two? All that shit?”

  I looked at him, curious. “That was my assumption.”

  He drove on in silence for a few seconds. “Tell you a story,” he said. “The lobstahmen up here use the honah system. Did you know that?”

  “I got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Think about it,” he said. “Yaw out theyah on yaw lobstah boat, pulling yaw traps. Nobody in sight, yaw all alone. Now, each lobstahman has his own colors, so he can tell which buoys ah his. You get it? No policemen watching him.”

  “So you’re telling me nobody steals lobsters from the other guy’s traps.”

  “I ain’t telling you no such thing. But when it does happen, they don’t call me. They handle it.”

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  “The traditional wahning is to burn down the guy’s bahn. If it still keeps up, they burn down his house. Then, last, well, you can probably figure that out.”

  “How often does that happen?”

  “It has happened, but not in yeahs, not up heah. But what I’m trying to tell you is that things ah different up heah. Everything runs along just fine without my thumb on the scale, most of the time. Oddinary people, they know I ain’t gonna bothah them if I don’t need to.” He shifted in his seat. “I know most everyone up heah,” he said. “I know who drives fifty-five and who don’t. I know who grows dope in theyah woodlot, and I know who smokes it. I know Louis Avery don’t have his Jeep registered, and that the law puts limits how fah you can go from the bahn on a tractah. But I also know that Louis is doing the best he can, and that he’s got to get to Lubec to get his groceries on occasion. Do you undahstand what I’m trying to tell you?”

  I wondered, and not for the first time, how much this guy really knew about me. “I think I catch your drift.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “This is just what I’m trying to teach Hopkins. I been trying to explain to him that there are reasons for the things I do, the things I don’t do, and the way I try to treat people. You, for example, and yoah boy. But don’t think, if a fella is going around stepping on othah people’s toes, that we won’t do what we need to do.”

  “That why you put Louis in jail?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “No. I put Louis in jail because without Eleanor keeping him straight, he ain’t nothing but trouble.”

  “Can I bail him out?”

  “Why?”

  It was a stupid idea, half of my brain knew that absolutely, but the other half had already decided. “He doesn’t need to be in jail, he needs to take care of Eleanor.”

  “Yeah, I know he does, but the rest of us don’t need him ramming around drunk and raising hell.”

  “I think I know why he was doing that.”

  “That so?”

  “Yeah. She needs an operation, and he can’t pay for it.”

  “Heard that.”

  “Well, I think I can help him out with it.”

  “That so?” He looked at me appraisingly. “How you gonna do that?”

  I didn’t even want to sa
y it out loud. “I can help him out. Trust me, okay? You gonna let me bail him out?”

  He thought about it for a minute. “All right,” he said, and he looked back over at me. “Go get him, if you want to.”

  “How much is bail?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll call and tell them to release him to you. Go get him.”

  Nicky, of course, was overjoyed to see me. He came charging across Bookman’s front yard and nearly knocked me over. I was beginning to feel a little light-headed, and my shoulder was throbbing. I had to turn to shield it from his exuberance. Franklin ambled over, too, shook my hand, and watched as Nicky told me excitedly about the fish that he had caught, and that Franklin had thrown back. “Pickerels are too bony,” Franklin rumbled. “Can’t eat ’em.” I was vaguely conscious of Bookman and his wife standing and watching the three of us. Nicky was the embodiment of something Franklin would never be, and I felt a little of the pain that caused. I was on my knees in the grass of their front lawn, looking around at their house and their station wagon and their dog running around, barking his ass off. I realized then that I was taking something from them. It was the same old thing, you know, I didn’t have it myself, so I stole it from somebody who did. I had been stealing it from Louis and Eleanor, and now I was going to take it from Bookman and his wife, and Franklin. You got no choice, I told myself, but that sounded pretty hollow.

  None of the drivers going by recognized the minivan, and nobody waved to me. I kinda missed the Subaru for that reason. I pulled out around in back of the municipal building, got inside without seeing Hopkins, or anyone else I knew.

  Bookman had been good to his word, he’d called ahead, and a deputy was waiting for me. I stood behind the guy when we got down to the cell. I watched Louis through the glass. I held a finger up to my lips when we made eye contact, and he gave a little nod, like he understood. He took it seriously, too, because not a single word escaped his lips until we got outside the building.

  “I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “Cut the bar in half?”

  He grimaced. “Not that. The other. Get tanked up, drive around with Nicky in the truck with me.”

  I’m always paranoid around police stations. “Shh. Wait until we’re in the car.” He went down the stairs in that halting way common to young children and old men, right foot down one step, left foot down onto the same step, then right foot down onto the next step, left foot down onto the same one, and so on. “Louis, you all right?”

  “Little stiff,” he said. “Nothing to do in theyah.” He got to the bottom of the stairs, looked up and squinted. “Getting tossed into the drunk tank didn’t seem so bad back when I was eighteen or twenty. This time, I didn’t think I’d ever get out again.”

  I shook my head. “Things have changed a lot since then, Louis.”

  “Not enough,” he said. “Not near enough.”

  We got out back and he climbed awkwardly into the minivan. He winced when he slammed the door. I hadn’t asked anyone how long he’d been in there, but I didn’t think he could still be hungover. I was pretty sure he was feeling lousy, but it had to have more to do with Eleanor than with booze.

  “Is he all right?” He asked the question without looking at me. “Is Nicky okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine, Louis. He’s staying with Bookman. Him and Franklin go fishing every day. He didn’t say anything about what happened with you two, and I didn’t ask. I figured, if it doesn’t bother him, no point in bringing it up. Let him forget about it.”

  He nodded. Louis was silent for a long time after that. He looked out his window as we drove out of Eastport, and he didn’t say anything until we reached the long causeway that connects the island to the mainland. “Nice cah,” he finally said, rubbing the soft cloth of the seat.

  “Not bad,” I said.

  “Buy her new?”

  “Used.”

  “Pay cash?”

  “Yeah. Fifteen grand.”

  “Hmm.” We rode in silence for a few minutes. “I hate cah payments,” he said finally. “I hate payments, period.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  Four herring gulls were chasing a fifth, who apparently carried something edible in his beak. He swooped and dived to escape them, and they chased him with a skill and determination that were truly impressive. One of the pursuers finally induced the fleeing gull to drop what he was carrying, and one of the other gulls dived down and snatched it out of the air. Immediately that one took off, fleeing in a new direction, with the other four hot on his tail. The calories each of the birds was expending in the chase had to far outweigh the value of the prize, and besides, why didn’t the lead bird just swallow it down? I guess that would end the game, though. You’ve got it, I want it, I’ve got it, you can’t have it . . .

  “I coulda took a job at the mill,” Louis said. “I coulda went to work for the Calders. Coulda had benefits. Health insurance and all. But I was selfish, I didn’t want to do it.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I kept quiet. I didn’t have health insurance, either, hadn’t even thought of it. It had never occurred to me that I needed it. Something else to put on the list.

  “I thought it was a lousy trade,” Louis said. “Take the most precious thing you got, your life, and give it up to some company. And what do they give you back? Enough money, and bayahly enough, for you to buy some of the things you see on yoah television. Frozen vegetables. And a new pickup truck. Does that make any sense to you?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Spend every day of my life in some stinking hole of a factory, take the money they pay me, go to the stowah and hand it ovah to someone who gives me back a bag of frozen vegetables. I can grow better ones myself, thank you very much. And Eleanor can put them by.” We reached the end of the causeway, where it connected to the Passamaquoddy Reservation at Point Pleasant. Small houses dotted the landscape on both sides of the road, and a large red church stood off on a hillside.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said, and he looked over at me for the first time since we’d gotten into the van. “I didn’t figure on insurance, though. Didn’t figure Eleanor was gonna have to die because I didn’t have forty thousand dollars.”

  “I think I can help you out with that, Louis.”

  He didn’t take me seriously. “Yeah? You got forty thousand dollars you ain’t using?”

  “I want to buy an option on that piece of land you got up in Eastport. That ought to be worth something.”

  He still wasn’t listening to me, not really. “You know Sam Calder, that son of a hoah, he’d offered me fifty for it, but when he found out how much I really needed the money, he decided he didn’t need to buy it aftah all, he just needed a right-of-way to cross it. Twenty-five is all he’ll give me. And his boy will give me twenty-six. And no matter which one of them I give it to, they’ll have something fuming up theyah before I’m cold in the ground.”

  “Maybe so, Louis. But not if you sell me an option on it. I’ll give you fifty for it, just like Calder’s original offer.”

  He turned slowly, looked at me. “Yo-ah serious, ahn’t you.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “You a rich man?” he asked me. “I didn’t figure you for one.”

  “Being rich is kind of a fluid concept, Louis.” It was my turn to think for a minute. I hadn’t considered myself a rich man, either. “Put it this way: paying you fifty grand for an option isn’t gonna put too big a crimp in my situation.”

  “I’d be saying no,” he said. “If Calder can’t build his tanker port, there won’t be no new jobs at it.”

  “You been out there on the bay, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You want ’em bringing loaded oil tankers in there? Picture a bunch of old trucks with lousy brakes, overloaded, sitting at the top of a steep hill. You might get most of them down, but sooner or later one of them is gonna get away from you.”

  “Oh,” he said, “you don
’t have to convince me. I’d set fiyah to the whole state if it’d get Eleanor out of that hospital whole. It’s just that I didn’t want to have to be the one to decide whether that place got built or not.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “No?”

  “No. First of all, it’s just an option. Call it the right of first refusal. Something else happens to put you in dire need, you can still dump it. Okay? We’ll make the deal run until your son Gerald moves up here, and then you can give it to him, let him figure out what to do. Besides, the property might be worth a lot more by then.”

  Louis nodded his head. “Might,” he said.

  “There’s only one condition,” I said.

  “What’s that?”

  “You gotta take the money in cash.”

  He looked over at me. “Why in cash?”

  “That would make it easier for me, Louis. If I had to write you a check, it would take too long to set up. Besides, then you’d have to deal with the taxes.”

  “You get paid in cash often in the computah business?”

  “Louis, you used to be different, Bookman told me so. Said before you found religion, you used to raise hell, but then something happened to you, and you changed. Am I right?”

  He nodded. “Ayuh.”

  “I, ah, I guess I pulled a lot of shit in my life, Louis, but I’m different now. I’m trying to do something good, for once in my fucking life. Why you trying to make it hard?”

  “Oh, I’m not,” he said. “I’m sorry, Manny. None of my business where you got it from. I appreciate what yo-ah doing, I can’t tell you how much.” He took a deep breath, straightened up a little bit. “Where should I say I got the money from?”

  “I don’t think anybody will care where you got it. Tell ’em you had it buried in coffee cans under your barn floor.”

  “You know, I nevah thought of that,” he said. “Maybe I should go dig around undah theyah, see what I find.” It was an attempt at humor, but it didn’t hide the sadness in his voice. He’d never believe I was a computer programmer, never again.