Stinking Rich

by Rob Brunet

  “Fifty bucks says he won’t make it,” said one cop.

  “This old coot? He’s seen worse,” came the answer. “I been here long enough to know this skunk’ll be round again. Tell ya what, I’ll match your fifty and double or nothing says he’ll be back here on some other charge before New Year’s.”

  “You’re on. Grab his legs.”

  After the lights were turned down, Perko asked, “Why the hell do you screw your father’s girlfriend?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “It ain’t nothing. Just can’t figure it out, is all. There’s lotsa women. No need to do the nasty at home, is there?”

  “Ain’t so many women where I’m from. We live way up, more’n ten miles off of Buckshot Lake Road. Town named Wex Corner but they ain’t even a store no more. Closed two years ago. Apart from us and my cousin there’s only one other family within a day’s walk. Only girl there looks like she’s half horse. Smells like a stable.”

  “Still don’t get it.”

  “I don’t gotta explain nothing to you. My honey chose me over my pa, and I ain’t gonna let her down is all.”

  “So how’d you end up in here?”

  “Fightin’ with my pa. We hitched a ride down to Madoc, pick up our checks, drop in the hotel for a drink. Could a just had our beers and gone home. ’Stead, my pa gets right pissed. Decides to rip off a pickup from the parking lot out back. All ’cause he saw boxes marked ‘Splosives.’ He loves that stuff. We was always blowing shit up out back o’ the house...ever since I was a kid. Fact is, Pa moved us on up to this frigid country o’ yours ten years back thinkin’ he could get into Fleming College, get all learned an’ git paid to blow things up.”

  “No shit. Your old man’s got a college degree?”

  “Naw. Seems ya need your letters ’n all afore they’ll even let ya into ’splosives school.”

  “Smart enough to steal a truck though.”

  “Weren’t that complicated. My pa just snatched the keys off the table while some greasy bugger was trying to get close with the waitress. Pa grabs my arm and hauls me outside. Next thing you know we were rolling outta town and on our way to home. That’s my pa. He’s always doing shit like that when he’s on a tear. Can’t handle his alcohol.”

  “So then the cops came after you and caught you and brought you in here.”

  “Nope.”

  “Guy with the truck follow you with his buddies and a shot gun?”

  “Nope. Good thing, too. Dude looked mean as dirt. Fact is, we’d a got the truck home if we didn’t crash.”

  “Crashed the truck?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The one you just stole.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your pop was too pissed to drive.”

  “Nope.”

  “Then, what the—”

  “It was me driving. Not my pa. He was pissed, alright, and besides, I can drive faster, so he gave me the wheel. Then he starts into me about how he wants me to lay offa his woman. Go find my own girl. And he grabs my ear and starts whacking my nose over and over. I elbowed him but good and shoulda left it alone. But when he called me a no-good loser who couldn’t get his own girl if I was the last man alive? I grabbed his throat and punched him one good left to the head. And that’s when the truck ran off the road and smashed right into a parked FedEx van.”

  “Oh.” Perko couldn’t fathom the stupidity. He’d spent his entire adult life in the company of bikers and had no illusions about his own particular smarts, but raw moronic behavior was beyond him. “Lucky you didn’t blow sky high. What with the ‘Splosives,’ I mean.”

  “Naw, it couldn’t blow. Weren’t wired up or nothing.”

  Perko wasn’t convinced it was a good thing Jonah knew so much about dynamite.

  “FedEx van weren’t so lucky. Busted the back end wide open. For a minute there, I figured we struck it rich. Maybe find some ’spensive stuff like a big ol’ TV like that poor slob burned to death over by Lakehurst there.”

  “Someone get toasted?” Perko was finally starting to drift to sleep.

  “Yeah, some old dude in a cabin with a honkin’ big TV. My pa said he heard tell they think someone offed him. ’Tweren’t just a fire, maybe.”

  Kind of like a bed time story, Perko let the runt drone on.

  “Some kind of a recluse or something. Place burned to the ground, him inside it. Can’t figure out why he stayed put. Seems he was blind and all, but the bugger could walk. Why not jes’ walk right on out?”

  Perko marveled at how a stunted yokel who likely couldn’t spell his own name would know details about every backwoods crime that happened within a hundred miles.

  “Who was this guy?” he asked.

  “Just some guy. My pa says any time a guy fries least he’s gonna be ready for Hell.”

  “Your pa is one sick bastard.”

  “Yeah, well, he knows what he says is all. And he says this guy knew somethin’ for sure. Says bikers and cops and everyone been all over him for a coon’s age, him just tryin’ to be a hermit and all, and then suddenly a year or so ago he starts having all this cash, buys a big TV and everything, and the bugger can’t even see worth a damn. Blind as a bat, says pa. Helluva waste of a TV set.”

  Perko rolled onto his side and looked at the crumpled kid in the corner. “What’d you say his name was, this guy with the TV?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to know his name? He’s just some guy is all. My pa told me about it.”

  Lying on the hard bunk fighting sleep, Perko wondered if there could be two blind guys living in Lakehurst that bikers and cops had taken an interest in? And if this Jonah jerk was, indeed, talking about Ernie McCann, how had the old man suddenly come into a bunch of money? The more Perko thought about it, the less he liked the answer.

  Danny awoke shivering. He sat up and whacked his head against the dune buggy’s oil pan. Stiff and aching, he shimmied out from under the car and made his way to the side of the road. He wished he knew how to read the stars well enough to tell what time it was. From the lack of cars on the road, he knew it had to be late. Each time one did come along, he threw himself in the ditch and waited breathlessly for it to pass.

  By the time dawn came, he was exhausted and chilled to the bone. In a daze, he barely made it to the ditch at the sound of an approaching engine. An RV slowed for a look. The driver honked its horn and three kids plastered their noses against the window, waving.

  Around the next bend, civilization appeared in the form of a low-slung building with fake log siding and a pink neon sign on its roof: “All-day Country Breakfast $6.99.” The RV that had just passed him was parked at the far end of the building.

  Danny had little trouble jimmying open its side door.

  He found the spare set of keys right where he thought he would. In the arm rest console, in a plastic envelope along with copies of the ownership and insurance and the waste water instruction manual.

  The driver’s seat was still warm and for a moment, he sat there, drowsy, soaking it in. Then he fired up the engine and pulled the camper out onto the highway. Driving it was easier than he’d imagined, and surely he’d have at least an hour before those kids would be done scarfing breakfast.

  The eastern sun bathed the road in front of him with sharp autumn light. Within minutes, he thawed out enough to day dream about road tripping with his mom. They’d often talked about trekking west in a halfway decent car with a real good tent. The dream had never involved driving an RV. Now he could afford one.

  “You’re the guy from the radio, aren’t you?”

  The voice startled Danny so badly he swerved across the road and nearly rolled the camper. He shot a glance to his right and looked straight into the most piercing blue eyes he had ever encountered. The eyes were set in a wrinkled prune of a face and the little old lady to whom the face belonged looked ready to rumble.

  “You’re him,” she croaked.

  “Who...?”

  “Him. From t
he radio.”

  Danny’s knuckles whitened.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m stealing your bus, Granny. And you’re getting off at the next stop. Oh look! Here it comes now.”

  “I’ve been listening to it all morning on the police band: you’re the murderer who ran from the prison. You’re him, aren’t you?”

  “What the fuck?” Danny couldn’t believe it.

  “Saw you back there in the ditch. Kind of a giveaway.”

  “Okay, lady, you’re getting off here,” Danny scanned the road for a rest stop or a gas station. Nothing but tree-lined road ahead and a soft shoulder to boot. A pickup screeched by, the driver leaning on the horn. It gave Danny such a jolt he nearly sideswiped the guy. “Just as soon as I find a place to stop this thing.”

  Twenty-One

  Linette’s Jeep was parked outside The Boathouse in a lot full of pickups. A small circle of people with coffee cups in one hand and cigarettes in the other huddled around two rickety picnic tables at one end of the ramshackle building.

  Inside, the music was country and loud, despite it being breakfast hour. Linette shared a darkened corner with a square-shouldered man piling into three eggs over easy. She nibbled a piece of his toast and said, “You think I should give up? Get chased away by enviro-barbie and her scrawny dog?”

  “I’m telling you there’s nothing to give up, Linette,” said Officer Maxwell Ainsley. “We scoured that place four years ago. You of all people should know that. You were Grant’s lawyer, for God’s sake. If there was something there—drugs, money, anything at all—we would have found it.”

  “Keep your voice down, Max,” she said, hushing her own and leaning close to him. “I could get disbarred for talking to you about his case.”

  “What do you think the squad room would do if they found out I’m sleeping with a defense attorney?”

  “Former defense attorney,” Linette corrected. “I did my stint at Legal Aid. Much happier doing what I do now.” Making money, she thought. “Besides, if your pals haven’t figured us out yet, there’s not one of them gonna make detective. It’s not as if we’re hiding things.” She clinked her coffee mug to his.

  “We’re not exactly a couple, either. All we do is shack up and talk about The Case of the Missing I Don’t Know What.” Linette rolled her eyes as the police officer went on: “You know, Linette, sometimes I get the impression you’re only banging me because I arrested Danny Grant.” He squinted at her.

  She drew her skinny lips into her best fake pout. “I recall you chasing my skirt around the court house. You were still married.”

  The cop frowned. “Barely. While I was out risking my life chasing bad guys, my ex was busy boffing some long-hair audio tech.”

  “I hear they get around.”

  Officer Ainsley drained his coffee and signaled the waitress for more.

  “Don’t look so glum,” Linette said. “You’ll make me think you miss your wife.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. “Just thinking about that old man.”

  “And?”

  “I dunno. Strange him dying in a fire, I guess.”

  She said, “Bad way to go.”

  “My uncle burned to death,” he said. “Died in Patterson’s sawmill fire. Thirty years ago.”

  Linette struggled to keep from rolling her eyes at the history lesson. She kicked off her shoe and her toes found Maxwell Ainsley’s calf under the table.

  He said, “He and Ernie McCann worked together. Ernie may have been blinded, but he still got off easy. He survived.”

  She stroked him until his breathing took on a different rhythm before saying, “Maybe he buried it. Or hid it up a tree.”

  Max gave her a confused look.

  “The money, Max, the loot.” Linette didn’t want to talk about fires, new or old, or the men who died in them. This time, her pout was genuine, even if her skinny lip resembled the tip of a tongue depressor. “What if it was Ernie who hid it somewhere?” she said. “It took you guys three or four days to figure out the coveralls Danny Grant was wearing belonged to Ernie McCann.”

  “One of my finer investigative moments,” Max said, sitting back in his chair.

  “Maybe Ernie hid it for Danny. Maybe they were in cahoots! Could be that’s why he’s dead now. Burned to a crisp by the Libidos ’cause they found out! What about that?”

  “Linette, Ernie was a whacked-out loner freak, for God’s sake. What the hell would a punk like Danny have to do with him? We found no connection and no money. We must have searched twenty acres around his place with the dogs. Far as I’m concerned, if it didn’t go up in smoke with that barn, then the Skeleton crew took the money and the dope back with them across the border.”

  “You said yourself, the Libidos have been doing deals with the Skeletons for years both before and after that bust. There’s no way they would’ve kept the traffic open if they had any doubt about the New York crew.”

  “What about that other fairy—the one who got away?” said Max. “Bernard said the runner was a Nancy’s Nasty. Wish to hell I’d got a name out of him before he hanged.”

  “No way some gangbanger disappears with that kind of money and leaves no trail. Everyone was watching—especially the Libidos.” She pushed her toes a little higher on his leg. “What say we sneak over, look around a little together, Max.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. How ’bout I swing by your place when my shift ends? I’ve got three days off. Cook a couple meals for you?”

  She dug her big toe into the soft flesh behind his knee. “Why wait for your shift to end? I can peel out of the parking lot in my Jeep. Let you chase me down in your patrol car, try to give me a great big fine.”

  “Again?”

  It wasn’t hard for Granny to convince Danny he couldn’t ditch her. The longer it took for the family to miss their RV—not to mention their grandmother—the longer it would be for the cops to get their next pointer. She told Danny being kidnapped by a fugitive was one experience she’d never had, and confessed to finding it rather exhilarating. Besides, how much worse could it possibly be than spending the next three days with her infernal son-in-law?

  “‘Dickhead.’ That’s what I call him. The darned fool can’t drive this bus worth a dang. My husband, bless his soul, should never have willed it to him. Thought he was doing me a favor, not having to deal with selling the thing. Now that blowhard my daughter married thinks it’s his destiny to haul me all over Hell’s half acre until I keel over from sheer boredom!”

  Cars passed Danny every few moments. Most honked.

  “You sure drive slow for a young buck, don’t you?” The old lady shot him another brilliant blue glance.

  “Trying not to attract attention,” he said.

  “Ha! Kidnapping an old lady in a forty-foot RV. Yeah, that’s laying low alright. Why don’t you try tossing a string of firecrackers out the window while you’re at it? Call it camouflage.” When Danny said nothing, she added, “I’ve got a pack of Lady Fingers in the back.”

  Danny leaned on the brake hard as they came up on a bridge.

  “You’ll fit,” said Granny. “Thirteen-foot five. We’re twelve nine.”

  Danny sped back up.

  The blue-eyed old lady smoothed her dress with her palms. “I’m curious. What did your mother say, when she found out you killed a man?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Children do all manner of things their mothers don’t expect. I know my kids did. My youngest son became an interior designer. Against his father’s wishes. Put him in his grave, I’m sure of it. And then my daughter marries Dickhead who thinks driving an RV across the country is some kind of royal outing. Like we should all kiss his boots for it. With a figure like hers, she could have married anyone—a doctor, a lawyer—not some fish tackle salesman who can’t give her a vacation that doesn’t involve schlepping through campsites.” She sighed. “Kids disappoint. It’s what they do. But murder? Can’t say I’ve de
alt with that. So I just wonder what your mother thought about it.”

  “Manslaughter.”

  “What?”

  “Manslaughter. That’s what I pleaded to, and that’s what it was. Accidental death. Probably would have gotten away with something even lighter if I’d had a real lawyer.”

  “Lawyer-schmoyer. What I want to know is, What did your mother think?”

  Danny gripped the steering wheel tightly. They were driving down a stretch of highway with solid bush on both sides of the road. There was no one immediately ahead or behind. He desperately wanted to stop the RV and throw the old lady out the door. She waited in silence for an answer to her question. It was obvious she had all day.

  “My mother believed me,” he said. “She knew I would never knowingly kill a man. Don’t think I could even have done it in self-defense. Just not wired that way.”

  “So she forgave you.”

  “Didn’t even have to. Nothing needed forgiving. One of those wrong time wrong place kind of things.”

  “So she’s stood by you? All this time? Visits you, takes care of you from the outside? I’ve always wondered how people do that. How they don’t break down themselves, with loved ones in jail, I mean.”

  “Yeah, she took care of me. For a while anyway. She had to go away, though. For her health.” Danny couldn’t figure how the old lady was getting him talking. He wondered whether he could tie her up without hurting her. “Maybe you should get off at the next Timmy’s,” he said. “I’m sure your family must be worried about you.”

  “Phfffttt,” spat Old Blue Eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I know, I know. If I kick you out, I might as well just call the cops myself,” he said. He couldn’t very well bop her on the head. In the movies, that made people sleep for a while; Danny figured Granny was like as not to die no matter how carefully he whacked her noggin. “Like Lester,” he said under his breath.