Short Money (22 page)

“So you ain’t still mad about it?”

Crow considered. “Oh, yeah. I’m still mad,” he said. “The worst part of it was having to ask that son-of-a-bitch Getter for help.”

Sam grinned, showing a set of long yellow teeth. “Don’t like ol’ Dave much, eh?”

Crow shook his head.

“Sort of a priss-butt, ain’t he?”

“Something like that.”

“That doctor fellow. You think he took that kid?”

Crow said, “I don’t know if he took him, but my guess is he has him. Murphy said that they found the boy’s hat at Bellweather’s place. I don’t know why he’d lie about something like that.”

“Don’t make sense to me. Even if the guy is a goddamn pre-vert it don’t make sense. There’s kids all over the place. Why grab one could get you killed?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where you think he went to?”

“I figure he’s left town.”

“Don’t make sense. You say he’s rich?”

“He sure acts like it.”

“You think so? Seems to me, rich guys don’t just disappear. They own too goddamn much stuff. It’s like they got a leash on ’em.”

“You sound like Debrowski.”

“Who?”

“A friend of mine.”

“What is he, Polish?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sounds Polish. I bet he’s a hairy mother.” Sam had an enormous collection of such gems. Poles are hairy. Finns always carry knives. Scots are inveterate liars. Crow steered the conversation back to Bellweather.

“Something must’ve happened that scared that doctor, Sam. He must’ve grabbed the boy and took off. Maybe he thinks the kid will buy him some kind of insurance. Maybe he thinks he can cut a deal with George Murphy. Whatever it is, it’s not my concern. I’m out of it.”

Sam nodded and reentered his ice-fishing trance. After a few minutes, he lifted his stubbly chin and asked, “You playing much cards these days?”

“Not much, Sam. You need money for that.”

“That a fact? I ever tell you the time I won a bundle offa Amarillo Slim?”

“I thought it was Johnny Moss you won the bundle off of.”

“Yeah, well, I played ’em both.”

Sam claimed to have been a high-stakes player in his younger days. Claimed to have won millions playing no-limit poker from roadhouses in Brownsville, Texas, to the card clubs of Gardena, California. Crow believed maybe ten percent of it, sometimes less. Sam said he’d had to give up the road because of his stomach. “One thing you got to have, you want to sit in those games, you got to have an iron gut. Mine got rusted out. I play a few close hands, I get all twisted up inside. Poker’s for you young fellows.” Crow thought that the whiskey and cigarettes might have had something to do with his father’s stomach problems, but he knew better than to argue.

“Down in Tulsa, must’ve been about nineteen hundred sixty-two, we was playing lowball back of a truck stop, me and Slim and a couple of the local ranchers, plus the old guy owned the truck stop. I can still see it, five guys sitting around with these big hats on. We always use to wear our Stetsons down there. Everybody wanted to be a damn Texan. Anyways, this trucker hears there’s a game going, and he comes on back and wants us to deal him a hand. Only thing is, we’re playing with a fifty-dollar ante—understand, that was big money in those days—and this boy only had three hundred dollars in his pocket, wants to sit in a few hands. Course, I don’t want no part of that, but Slim says, Hell, boy, I’ll take your three bills. Slim never could say no. So I say to the trucker, Fine, you just sit right down here and play. I’m going to take a walk. And that’s what I did, goddamn it.”

Sam jogged his line up and down, lit a cigarette. Was the story over? Crow couldn’t be sure. Sam’s stories often just trailed off without making a point. Crow unscrewed the top of his thermos and poured the last of the coffee into a plastic cup. It was still slightly warmer than body temperature. A few minutes later, as if a button had been pressed, Sam resumed his story.

“So I come back an hour later, and wouldn’t you know it, the trucker’d got lucky and was sitting back of the biggest stack on the table. Ol’ Slim is down to the ones, pulling bills off his roll looking like a dentist made to yank his own choppers. So I sat down and got back in the game. I busted that boy in about an hour.”

“Slim?”

“No. The trucker. He had so goddamn much fresh money he didn’t know what he was doing. See, one thing you always got to know is, who’s got the money? Ol’ Slim, he finally came back, but he didn’t win a dime offa me. I took down close to twenty G’s that game.”

“That’s great, Sam.”

“Only reason I won was, I knew not to play against short money. A guy like that sits down at your table, what reason have you got to play against him? What do you think you’re gonna win? He’s got nothing to lose, and you’re sitting there trying to protect your big stack. You might take his three hundred bucks nine times out of ten, but the tenth time he’s going to rob you.”

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Thing is, a guy that’s got nothing to lose, he can afford to stir things up. Never know what a guy might turn up.”

“A guy might turn up dead.”

Sam shrugged. “You feelin’ better today, son?”

Crow considered the question seriously. Physically, only a faint aching in his side remained. And he was having periods measured in minutes when he did not think about the Murphys, Bellweather, or Melinda. He thought he was feeling pretty good, considering that he had no resources, no money, and no hopes. Actually, that was no more true than it had ever been. He still had his VW, twenty pounds of frozen walleye, fifty-some bucks in cash, and the hope that his cat would come home. He’d left a bowl of food out on his apartment balcony.

“I feel fine, Sam.”

“Like hell you do. You felt fine, you wouldn’t be sitting in a damn icehouse with your old man. You’d get in the goddamn game. And if you’re playing against a New Yorker, watch out he don’t short the pot.” Sam fixed him with a glare, daring him to agree—or disagree.

Crow reeled in his line. “Okay, Sam.” He smiled, remembering a poem written by a Japanese monk who, after years of study, had attained his spiritual goal:

Now that I’m enlightened

I’m just as miserable as ever.

Never give a client advice regarding a decision he has already made for himself.

—RICH WICKY

G
EORGE MURPHY HANDED HIM
a beer. “Get you loosened up for the hunt. You know what they say. One steadies the eye.” He laughed. “Two, you’re good looking. You ever hear that one?”

Anderson said, “Heard what one?”

“Three beers, I’m brilliant. Four, I’m bulletproof.” Murphy tipped his head, his fleshy face sliding toward his left ear, and grinned. “Five, I’m invisible.”

Anderson laughed politely and sipped the beer. It tasted sweet and wasn’t quite cold enough, but he planned to drink it quickly. Midafternoon, only a couple hours of light left, and he wanted to get on with the hunt.

Murphy, however, seemed to be in no hurry. He leaned his butt against the edge of his desk, his muddy eyes fixed on Anderson.

Anderson held the opaque gaze for two seconds, then let his eyes slide away. Murphy seemed like a nice enough guy, but he made him uncomfortable. He looked around the office, which managed to be both spartan and cluttered at the same time. Other than the old desk, the homemade leather chair, a few hundred old magazines, potato chip bags, empty coffee cups, and a gun cabinet, the only notable feature in the room was an enormous stuffed pig.

“That’s a big pig,” Anderson said.

“Those are the real tusks. Six-inchers.”

“So you think this elk is going to run over four hundred points?” Anderson asked.

“I guarantee it.” That was when the interrogation began. “So what do you hear from your friend the doctor?” Murphy asked.

Anderson looked confused.

“Bellweather,” Murphy prompted.

“Oh!” He had been trying to forget Dr. Bellweather altogether, put him out of mind.

“You talk to him lately?” Murphy had a funny look on his face.

Anderson said, “Not for a few days.”

“You sure?” Murphy crossed his arms.

Anderson blinked. What was going on here? There was a distinct edge to Murphy’s voice. He said, “I’m sure. We aren’t doing business any longer.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

The conversation was getting very uncomfortable. Anderson took a long swallow of beer. He had come here to hunt, not to talk about Dr. Bellweather. The beer foamed in his belly.

“He take his business to somebody else?” George said.

Anderson shook his head, not in answer to Murphy’s question but in an effort to avoid it.

“I don’t know,” he said, ending his statement with a belch. “Excuse me.”

Murphy said, “That’s okay, Steve. Just us boys here. So what happened with you two? You have a falling-out? He make a pass at you or something?”

Anderson hunched his shoulders. He wasn’t enjoying this conversation. Not good to be passing out information about a client, even if Bellweather was a child molester, as Murphy had claimed. Also, his parting of ways with the doctor had not been amicable. It did not reflect positively on his skills as a stock picker. The value of the doctor’s account had nose-dived after the SEC seized the BioStellar corporate records, dropping the value of his account six figures into the nether zone, necessitating a margin call, which the doctor refused to honor. A very sticky affair, and still very much unresolved. Besides which, it was none of Murphy’s goddamn business. Anderson decided to play a safety.

“It’s history, George. Dr. Bellweather and Litten Securities are no longer doing business together, and I am not at liberty to discuss the particulars.”

“You know where I can find him? He’s not at home or at his clinic. I’ve been trying to get in touch with him.”

Anderson shrugged. “Sorry.”

“It’s important,” Murphy said, his voice flat. “You know what kind of guy he is, right?”

“I know what you told me. Look, I came out here to hunt elk, not talk shop.”

Murphy leaned forward. “Let me tell you something you don’t know. He has something that belongs to me.”

“I’m sorry, George. My tongue is tied.”

“He has my son, Shawn.”

Anderson cleared his throat. Holding the beer bottle in both hands, he said, “Your son?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s what I said. He has my son. You met him, didn’t you? Shawn. A good kid.”

“Jesus! Look, I don’t know where he is. If I did, I’d tell you.”

“So you don’t know where he is?”

“I said I didn’t.”

Murphy held up his hands. “Okay, okay, I believe you. I was just asking, Steve. You don’t want to tell me, that’s okay. I understand.”

“It’s not a matter of what I want to tell you. I really don’t know where he is.” He looked at the beer bottle in his hand, set it on the desk among the coffee cups and back issues of Outdoor Life.

Murphy turned his head to look out his window, but his gaze was blunted by the frosted surface. “What’s it like out there? Still snowing?”

“It’s snowing.”

Murphy nodded. “Good for hunting elk. They can’t see you coming.”

“Did you call the police?”

“They can’t find him. Think about what he might do to my boy, Steve. You sure you can’t think of where he might be?”

Anderson shook his head, trying to remember what the Murphy kid looked like.

“You know any of his friends? People he might stay with?”

Anderson considered. “Well,” he said, “he has a brother.”

“Ah. His name?”

“Well, it’s Bellweather. Ned, I think. Or Nate.”

Murphy leaned forward so far Anderson thought he was going to fall on his face. “Where’s this Ned or Nate live?”

Anderson tipped his head back, gripping the arms of his chair. “It’s Nate. Somewhere in Minneapolis, I think.”

The office door opened, and Ricky walked in. His face was red, his Stetson studded with melting clumps of snow. He clapped his gloved hands, nodded at Anderson, then said to George, “Best get on with it, bro. She’s gettin’ thick out there.”

“I’ve never seen a kid could eat like that, Nels. I’ve got to loosen my belt just to watch him.”

Shawn pushed the last piece of cheese pizza into his mouth and pretended not to hear. He thought it was stupid the way Nate talked about him—like he wasn’t even there. Like he was a dog or something.

Doc Bellweather said, “He’s a growing boy, Nate. He needs his calories—don’t you, Shawn?”

Shawn looked up and nodded, took another cheesy bite. No sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, or any of that stuff. Shawn liked plain cheese, and lots of it.

“You sure polished off that pizza,” Doc said. “You want some dessert?”

Shawn nodded, his mouth full. It was weird, spending all this time with Doc. Sometimes he acted really pissed, and then he would act really nice, like now.

“Why don’t we all have some dessert, then. You’ve got cookies or something, don’t you, Nate?”

Nate shouted, “Hey, Ginny! We got any cookies?”

Nate’s wife, a pinch-faced woman wearing stretchy violet slacks and a beaded sweatshirt, appeared in the kitchen door.

“We got any cookies?” Nate repeated.

Ginny glared at each of them, then opened a cupboard door, pulled out a plastic tray of Oreos, slapped it on the table.

“I need you to help me with something,” she said to Nate, her voice flat.

“Can’t it wait, honey?”

“No.”

Nate shrugged and followed his wife into the living room. Shawn twisted apart an Oreo, scraped the filling off with his front teeth before eating the black cookie part. He was on his sixth Oreo when Nate returned, his face a shade darker.

“So how long you planning on staying, Nels?” he asked.

“You having a little domestic problem, Nate?”

“Look, this was supposed to be just for one night. You’ve been here three days now. Ginny’s getting perturbed. She doesn’t like the idea of keeping …” He inclined his head toward Shawn. “You know. And the idea of those guys looking for us. I mean, you can’t blame her for being worried.”

Doc rolled his eyes, looked at Shawn, and winked. “Women,” he said.