by Mike Faricy
Obviously, they had been smart enough to realize J.W. couldn’t go to the police but not smart enough to realize, if a man couldn’t go to the police, he may not be the sort of man you steal from. He spent that evening tucking Todd in bed after grilling a nice, large, medium rare, rib-eye steak just the way Todd liked it. He cut the steak into bite-sized pieces, feeding Todd one piece at a time until it was all gone. Todd eventually drifted off to sleep under the effects of warm food, J.W.’s special care, and prescription medication.
Chapter 25
It was well after the noon hour when Hub and Val got together. Val moved gingerly, a noticeable limp in his left leg. They had driven Val’s rental car to Security Storage, Hub driving, pulling the trailer. Val sat against the passenger door with his leg stretched out, whining the entire trip, occasionally glancing out the window as he caught a breath before starting up again.
“This’ll shoot any chance I had at National Swing Champion right in the ass,” he said, not for the first time, delicately patting his extended leg. “Near as I can figure out, that old bastard probably tracked me down from the rental car. God only knows how. That means it’s a pretty sure bet he’s got my address, too. So I’m out of there, effective right now. Too bad, too, I was just getting ready to close the sale on a couple of those chicks always sunning around the pool.
“You mind if I spend the next couple nights crashed at your place? I’ll start looking for somewhere new to live soon as we unload all this stuff. But I’ve got to get away from my place. Those good ole boys come down here, they’re gonna be looking for a big piece of me. We can’t afford to have them blow this whole deal. In the meantime, I’ll get rid of everything we have next weekend in Atlanta and just make sure I stay clear of J.W.
“You know,” Val glanced over at Hub, “it might not be a bad idea if you came up there with me. Just in case I run into them, I mean. You know, a little backup never hurt. Maybe you follow me up in your truck and watch my back.”
Hub wasn’t exactly wild about that idea. His weekends had become more and more filled with Macey, and he liked watching her backside a lot more than Val’s. “Why even go up there again, man? You’re just looking for trouble in Atlanta. Take this stuff somewhere else. Or maybe it’s time to shut it down and let things cool off for a bit.
“It might be a good idea for you to get a different source for wheels and ditch this trailer as well,” Hub continued, “just in case they have other guys looking for you. Maybe they’re wired into the car rental company or something. Seems to me, if they figured out your name and the fact you’re down here, well, they probably have an idea who else you’re selling this stuff to up there in Atlanta. So maybe, Atlanta isn’t the best place to go back to. Can’t you do the same thing somewhere else? New Orleans? Birmingham? Maybe go all the way up to Memphis or along the East Coast?”
“I don’t want to do that,” Val said. He shook his head but didn’t sound all that convinced. “It’s not a bad idea to just lay low for a week or two, maybe a month. I want to make sure these guys didn’t make us or the Moonlight. I don’t want to give them a chance to put any part of our operation together. It’s all been working too well.”
Once in front of their storage unit, Val climbed out the passenger side, winced noticeably, and groaned. “Arghh, damn it. Let’s not unload this today. Just wheel the trailer into the space. You move some of that stuff over there, it’ll fit,” he directed.
Watching Val limp and hobble about, Hub couldn’t argue with the logic of rolling the trailer inside the storage area and dealing with it later. He didn’t feel like arguing with Val about moving things out of the way so the trailer could fit. Instead, he just followed Val’s directions and cleared an area as quickly as possible. He did notice that Val’s limp and accompanying pain seemed to increase whenever there was physical work to be done.
“Let’s pick up some of your stuff on the way back,” Hub said, rolling the trailer into position. “Less time you’re at your apartment, the better off we both are. You think they may have made me, too?”
“I don’t think they know who you are. But obviously, they know you’re out there. That muscle-bound guy knows for sure,” he said and chuckled.
“Yeah, I’d guess that boy’s got himself quite a headache today,” Hub said, and they both laughed.
When Hub had suggested Val stay at his place, he thought Val might grab a shaving kit, a change of underwear, maybe a shirt or two.
He now had Val’s rental car loaded, make that overloaded. The trunk was full, the back seat stuffed, piled high blocking the rear window. The car was filled to overflowing with a pair of Val’s dancing shoes spilling onto the front seat. He was getting awfully damn tired of dragging Val’s things down to the car while Val sat on the couch with an ice pack on his leg, sipping the only remaining beer, and giving nonstop directions.
While Hub dragged another armload down to the car, Val recovered another wad of cash from the half-dozen stashes he had throughout his apartment. Their 50/50 split ran closer to 70/30 and had left Val with quite a bit of cash. He crammed as much cash as he dared into his pockets and stuffed the remainder inside a box of cereal. He took a last, longing look out the window and sighed at the collection of women sunning around the pool.
Hub drove while Val nibbled pretzels and stared out the window.
“You dancing tonight?” Hub asked, having noticed Val seemed to have no problem making it to the car once everything was loaded.
“Yeah, I might do a little more work on proper posture, hand and arm position tonight. I can’t really dance, obviously,” he added, gingerly patting his leg. “I don’t want to miss a night at the Moonlight. Things have been working too well there to go and screw them up now. I’ll just have to soldier on somehow. We might want to look at a couple of possible candidates who may need a little visit from you tonight,” Val said, staring out the window again.
“I thought we agreed to let things cool off for a while after the mess up in Atlanta?”
“Well, yeah, we did, but cool off up in Atlanta. I mean, what does that have to do with our deal down here? We’re still gonna need stuff, whatever city I decide to move it in.”
“Yeah, I get that. I thought that, since we have all that stuff back there already, in the trailer, maybe that’s enough. At least for the time being, you know. Maybe—”
“No, I don’t want to stop. You never know when we may have to lay low here, so I don’t want to miss any opportunity just because you don’t feel like it. Look, if I can dance tonight, I think you can go out and acquire some items. Don’t you?” Val winced dramatically for effect.
Hub pulled into the parking lot, grabbed an armful of clothes, and climbed the stairs toward his unit.
Val carried his cereal box and followed, limping directly onto the living room couch and grabbing the TV remote. “Ahhh,” he groaned, stretching his leg on the couch. He adjusted the cushions as he settled in. “Hey Hub, grab me a cold one from the fridge. Will ya?”
Hub stared for a long moment, thinking he would give Val a day, maybe two. Living together was clearly going to do nothing to improve their relationship.
Chapter 26
At the moment, Hub was sitting alone, letting his mind drift, enjoying the peace and quiet of his apartment, wondering how long he could last before he strangled Val. He had talked Val out of any ‘acquiring’ tonight. Actually, he simply told Val he wasn’t going to do it tonight. The whole thing struck Hub as a bad idea. He wanted to wait and watch for at least a week or two, see if anything else developed with that bastard up in Atlanta. Wait and see how much, if anything, J.W. Brooks might know about their operation.
Besides the night in Atlanta, two things had happened recently. First, Hub had taken stock of his little jewelry nest egg. A conservative estimate put his take at somewhere between fifteen and twenty grand. It could be half-again as much with a little luck when it came time to sell the stuff.
Second, Val was, for the moment
, staying at Hub’s. He had been there for all of four hours, and Hub was ready to run him over with his Ford Ranger. Once Val had left for the Moonlight, Hub had cleaned up the plates, beer cans, empty Captain Crunch box, and pizza crust from his living room, neatly arranging the piles of Val’s clothes on the couch and dining room table.
He realized he was a bit hyper when it came to cleaning. Even with Macey, he was continually straightening up after her, clearing dishes, wiping the kitchen counter. One of the results of living with Monica was he swore he’d never, ever, live in a dirty house again.
Val’s stay offered absolutely none of the benefits of Macey’s visits. Hub had lain down the law, telling Val to be out by Monday, just four days from now. With the rental market the way it was, off-season and all, Val could have a place tomorrow with a rent-free month thrown in if he would get off his ass and sign a lease.
* * *
Macey was on her way out the door to the Moonlight Dance Academy. Dancing was her excuse, but she was actually going to meet Hub. It was Thursday night, so that meant Hub, being entirely predictable, would ask her to a movie or over for dinner Friday night. She would sleepover at Hub’s on Friday, and they would go out together for a late breakfast Saturday before she went home. Hub would be over about 5:00 Saturday night. They’d party a bit too much and sleep in Sunday morning, with Hub drifting home around 1:30 Sunday afternoon. He would casually bump into her Tuesday night at the Moonlight after arriving late. They’d go out for coffee Tuesday after dancing. Then Thursday night, Hub would make a date for Friday night. It wasn’t exactly her ideal, but it was a start, and she was satisfied with that, at least for the moment.
She stopped by the front door, checking her lipstick one final time in the mirror, when her cellphone rang. She debated answering, knowing it wouldn’t be Hub. She had a premonition. She should learn to trust her premonitions. Instead, she answered her cellphone.
“Well, hello there, Sweetness. Long time no talk, baby,” said the raspy drawl on the line.
Macey froze, feeling a stab of fear rip through her heart the moment she heard his voice, a voice she had hoped she would never, ever, hear again.
“Hey, Sweetness, you there, baby? Talk to me, darling.”
She had prayed she would never deal with Willy again. The same Willy who had beaten her, degraded her, lied to her, stolen from her, and she had let him do it. It was her fault. If she was guilty of anything, it was that she didn’t shoot him right between the eyes the very first time he hit her. And now, after more than a year, here he was, back and as close as the other end of her cellphone.
She heard him take a long drag from his cigarette, exhale into the phone, and then silence while he waited for her response.
“I’ve got a restraining order on you,” she screamed into the phone. “You aren’t supposed to contact me at all. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. You understand me? You stay away from me.”
“Hey, look, baby, is that any way to talk to me after all we had together? I figured you’d want to see me, just for old times’ sake. Maybe see if we couldn’t work something out, get you back on track, pulling my train, he-he-he.”
She knew a threat when she heard one and disconnected. Why the hell did he have to come back? Things were just starting to work out for her. She felt sick deep down in the pit of her stomach.
She checked her purse for her can of Mace, not the wimpy over-the-counter stuff. She carried a department issue olive drab can. That damn Willy came anywhere near her again, she was going to blind him, permanently. She was also going to report the phone call, get a record started. Her caller ID listed ‘payphone’, so there wasn’t going to be much of a record. God how she hated this.
The phone rang again as she was collecting herself by the door. The shrill ringing sent a chill up her spine as she ran to her car, drove to the Moonlight Dance Academy and Hub, whenever it was he decided to drift into view.
* * *
Hub left for the Moonlight earlier than usual, looking forward to a low-key night of dancing with Macey. He was even beginning to like dancing, as long as he didn’t have to talk. He was still unable to dance and talk at the same time. They had been working on spinning, Macey and Hub together. Hub learning that, to keep from getting dizzy, he had to stare into her eyes, focus on her.
He was on edge tonight, and having Val stay with him did nothing to improve his sense of humor. He was looking forward to dancing with Macey and trying to relax a bit. That dream evaporated less than ten minutes into the dance music. It was only the second, well, maybe the third time he had stepped on her foot. This time, he really caught it. Not the light, somewhat subtle bump he usually delivered, this was more like stomping a cockroach, hard and seemingly deliberate.
He had sensed something was wrong about thirty seconds into seeing her. She seemed agitated, standoffish. His question if anything was wrong received an uncharacteristic brooding stare and a shake of her head in response.
“You sure you’re okay?” he asked again for the fourth or fifth time. Unfortunately, they were dancing when he asked, and he immediately lost track of the rhythm, executing his cockroach stomp on her right foot. Usually, she would laugh it off and tease him. This time, she just bit his head off.
“Jesus Christ, Hub! That really hurt,” she snapped. “Can you start paying attention to what you’re supposed to be doing? I’ll dance on the damn bottoms. You stay off the damn tops. They were new shoes before you decided to grind them into the floor tonight.”
“Whoa, calm down there, Macey. I’m sorry. It’s not like I did it on purpose.”
She stomped off, and Hub smiled weakly as if women always stomped away from him. Once he felt completely foolish, he quietly left the dance floor. Maybe, he thought, he’d just give her some space, let her cool down for a half-hour.
But she never did seem to cool down and, finally, about the time Hub had screwed up the courage to talk to her, he looked around, and she was gone. All he saw was Val gliding around the floor, apparently fully recovered from the banging his leg had received up in Atlanta.
Without Macey, he didn’t feel much like hanging around, and twenty minutes later, he was sitting in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, drinking a warm beer next to a pile of Val’s shirts. He was watching the Braves pound the daylights out of the Mets. A one-sided game between two teams he couldn’t have cared less about, the fitting end to a less than perfect evening.
Sometime after midnight, Hub caught the flash of car lights in the parking lot below. He listened as Val took the stairs two at a time, slowing a few feet from the door. He entered, limping, rubbing his left leg, a look of eternal pain screwed onto his face as he hobbled over to the couch.
“God, this damn thing is just killing me. Hey, you got another cold one in the fridge?” Val stretched out on the couch once Hub left to serve the beer.
On the way to the refrigerator, Hub made a mental note to get a paper first thing tomorrow morning, give Val the classifieds, and remind him to be out by Monday. He grabbed a beer for Val and another for himself. Macey’s blowup was bothering him more than he wanted to admit and ending the night drinking with Val did nothing to improve the situation.
He woke up surly. His head hurt, his stomach churned, his tongue was thick. All those beers when you start at 10:00 at night, can do that to a guy. On his way to the bathroom, the sight of Val flaked out on the couch, sleeping soundly in a nest of empty beer cans, did absolutely nothing to improve his mood.
He grabbed a quick shower, put on some clean clothes, and tiptoed out for breakfast. He wasn’t concerned about interrupting Val’s sleep. He just didn’t want Val waking up in time to ruin breakfast.
He turned his attention to the Macey situation. He figured he had better call and, at the very least, leave her a message. They usually got together on Friday. The thought of this being Friday immediately brought him back to what he was going to do about Val living on the couch.
Breakfast seemed
to help, and with a newspaper in hand, he planned a day of action. Tell Val to find a new place in the next forty-eight hours, then call Macey’s house after she had gone to work and leave a message. No point in setting her off first thing, just in case she was still mad. But he did want her to know he cared. After all, today was Friday.
Val rolled off Hub’s couch sometime after 2:00 in the afternoon. Once he limped out of the bathroom, Hub handed him the classifieds. “Best find yourself a place and soon,” Hub said. “We can’t afford to have someone placing us together. We got too much riding on this. I’m not interested in doing any jail time because you didn’t get off your ass and look for a new place to live.”
He let that sink in for a few seconds then added, “You got to be out of here by Monday. It’s just too chancy with you staying here.”
“Oh yeah, good morning to you, too. What? Are you still pissed off about our argument last night? Man, get a life! Hey, you got any fresh coffee around here?” Val asked as he settled in on the couch and ran a hand through his hair, smacking his lips.
“Val, I’m not kidding. Things have been working well for both of us. You set this up perfectly. Let’s not ruin it because that old man up in Atlanta threw us a curve. Just figure we made a few grand extra, and in the process, he showed us a couple of weak spots in the way we were working things. Let it go at that, and let’s move on. By the way, you said you cleared two grand. You owe me one.”
“I’m with you, man!” said Val, ignoring his request for payment. He settled back and turned to the apartment section, going through the ads, making mental notes.
“So, you got my coffee going yet or what?” Val asked, talking through the paper, not chancing a glance at Hub.