Short Money (27 page)

He called Felix, but Felix wasn’t home either. His cat bowl sat empty on the kitchen floor.

She had made her bed and straightened the magazines, which meant that she was planning on leaving, planning on coming home. It wasn’t like she had been raptured, or taken against her will. Crow looked at the sofa, remembering the times he had slept there, too loaded to climb the stairs to the bedroom. He took a step toward it, caught himself, then turned to the front door. He did not want to awaken in this silent, abandoned home.

Before he left, he shoveled the sidewalk and the driveway. Melinda hated the snow. As he shoveled, he began once again to wonder about Orlan Johnson. Although all the signs were that Melinda had left deliberately and with some forethought, Orlan Johnson’s grinning, cigar-impaled face continued to assault him. Was he responsible for Melinda’s disappearance? Had his visit frightened her into leaving? Why was he driving all over the state, looking for Joe Crow? It had to be something to do with the Murphy kid. Did they still think he was involved in that?

Crow jammed the end of the shovel into the snowbank. Two facts stood out in his mind: The last person who had actually
seen
Melinda, so far as he knew, was Orlan Johnson. And Melinda was gone.

It would drive him crazy not to know.

Mary Getter mixed another Manhattan and brought it to her husband, who was slumped morosely in his leather club chair. This was number four, three more than he usually drank before dinner. He took the drink without looking up at her and tossed half of it down his throat. Mary sat across from him in her coordinating bone-colored leather armchair. She was getting these jangly vibes from David, and when she looked directly at him, then closed her eyes, she discovered the afterimage of an alarmingly blue aura—not David’s color at all.

The eggless Caesar salad had been sitting on the dining room table for half an hour. The lamb roast with mustard sauce, prepared according to a recipe featured in the latest
Minnesota Monthly
, was slowly cooling, the fat congealing. David usually had a good appetite, but something was bothering him and tonight he had shown no interest in food. “Are you getting hungry?” she asked.

Getter shook his head.

Mary smiled and nodded, her brow knitted. A difficult case, she imagined. She considered eating her own dinner and leaving him to himself. But that wouldn’t be right. Perhaps she could help him rechannel his thoughts. She thought back over her day, searching for a topic of conversation that might interest him.

“Joe stopped by today,” she ventured.

A tremor shot up Getter’s body, sending a globule of Manhattan arcing out of his glass onto his shirt. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t seem to notice the spill. He kept his eyes locked on some distant landscape.

After a second, he said, “What did he want?”

Mary shrugged, looking at the spot on his shirtfront. “Nothing. He was asking about Melinda.” She decided not to mention that Joe had also been asking about Dr. Bellweather. Whatever was bothering David, she didn’t want to add to it.

“That’s all?”

“Yes. He said he’d been fishing with that horrible old man.”

Getter drained the remains of his cocktail.

“I hate to say it, Mary, but your brother is a sleazy little son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “Not only that—he’s a compulsive liar. Remember that, Mary. Nearly everything he says is untrue. I think he should be under the care of a psychiatrist. The guy’s—what?—thirty-something? Look at the mess he’s made of his life. Sticking his nose into other people’s business. He’s going to get himself killed. I can’t say I’ll be sorry.”

Mary pressed her lips together but did not reply. She had never heard anything quite like this before. She knew that David didn’t like Joe, but he usually wasn’t so blunt about it. Besides, he was wrong in his assertions. Joe had had some troubles, and his mind was closed in many areas, but he had always been straight with her. In Mary’s opinion, that was part of his problem. His honesty made people uncomfortable.

Getter stood up, weaving slightly.

“Do you want to eat now?” Mary asked hopefully.

Getter snapped his head back and forth. “I have to make a phone call,” he said.

Amanda Murphy had no illusions about the quality of her cooking. Everything she made turned out dense, sticky, and powerful, like her sons. Her apple pie, for instance. The bottom crust was half an inch thick, charred on the bottom and slimy on top, covered with a loose layer of oversweet, mushy apples. The top crust was better, except for the lumps. Not the worst apple pie she had ever made and eaten, but darn near. Fortunately, George’s sense of taste was not acute, and he’d been eating her pies since he was a kid. He didn’t even complain about the raisins.

“Great pie, Mandy,” he grunted through a gummy mouthful.

Anyway, it was nutritious. A pie that weighed that much had to have some good in it. Amanda cut herself a small slice, helped it along with a glass of bourbon-spiked Pepsi.

The late afternoon call from the lawyer had put George in one of his dangerous moods. Then when Ricky called to say that Nelly Bell wasn’t hiding out at his brother Nate’s, he got even worse. Threw his office phone right through the window, busted them both into smithereens. Amanda had been tiptoeing around him all evening. So far, the lawyer hadn’t called back like he said he would, and with every passing minute George seemed to be getting shorter, darker, and wider, looking as if he was about to explode. She wished Ricky would get home, so George would have somebody to yell at.

When the phone on the kitchen wall rang, Amanda let George answer it.

“Murphy here.”

He listened, grunted, listened some more.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be there.” Pause. “Yes, I’ll have your goddamn
reward
money. …Well, whosever it is, I’ll have it. And you’d best have the boy. …Well, somebody sure as hell better have him.” He hung up.

Amanda thought, Here it comes. His head is going to explode.

But George let out a long, whistling breath and returned to his seat at the kitchen table. “That was the lawyer,” he said. “He wants me to bring the money to Birdy’s tomorrow morning. He says Nelly Bell will be there with Shawn.”

Amanda said, “How much money do they want you to bring?”

“Three hundred thousand dollars.”

Amanda coughed into her Pepsi. “For a child?”

George shrugged. “What difference does it make?” he asked. “I don’t have it anyways.”

“Where are we going?” Shawn asked.

Doc Bellweather smiled. “Where do you want to go?” he asked.

Shawn thought about that. The adventure, hiding out with Doc and Nate and Ginny, had been getting old. He was glad to be going someplace instead of sitting around Nate’s house watching TV, with Ginny always looking at him weird, like he was a dog going to bite her or something.

“The Mall of America,” Shawn said. “Camp Snoopy. You can take me on the rides.”

“You don’t want to go there,” Doc said.

“Yes I do.”

“Well, we’re headed the other direction. Don’t you want to go home? See your dad?”

Shawn looked out the window. They were on the highway. He saw a sign: HWY 12 WEST. Did he want to go home? He thought about his room and about the animals. He thought about the tiger chained up in the lodge, the smell of Grandy’s cooking. He thought about telling the kids at school about how he had run away.

“My dad’s going to be mad,” he said. “But I’d kinda like to see the animals.”

“That’s okay. I’ll talk to him.”

“He might be mad at you too.”

“I think you can count on that,” Doc said.

The man who has injured you will never forgive you.

—SPANISH PROVERB

D
EE DEE MCCALL WAS
in deep shit. Working undercover as a hooker, she had infiltrated a gang of long-haired thrill-killing South African extortionists, and one of the bad guys, the albino, was trying to get her to shoot up a sample of a heroin shipment they had hijacked from a greasy-headed, bejeweled, sadistic dope peddler named Slash. Hunter was driving his beat-up green Plymouth, homing in on her concealed transmitter. Unfortunately for Dee Dee, the albino had discovered the transmitter while trying to feel her up and had attached it to the collar of a rabid German shepherd. Hunter stopped his Plymouth at the entrance to the alley, got out, and followed his hand-held homing device toward the looming shape of an overflowing Dumpster, behind which the shepherd was crouched, its mouth dripping with what looked like runny shaving cream.

Orlan Johnson was entranced. He could imagine himself in that situation.

The doorbell rang.

“Got-dammit!”

He kept his eyes on the television. He was perfectly comfortable, drink in hand, Hunter on the tube, sitting well back in his new oxblood-colored La-Z-Boy recliner with genuine leather on the seat and arms. No way was he going to move. The doorbell rang again, this time for several seconds, drowning out the growling rabid dog.

“Hill! You want to get the damn door?”

His wife didn’t respond. She was way down in the basement, doing the laundry. The idiot on the doorbell wouldn’t quit.

“Got-dammit, I’m coming,” Johnson shouted. He set his drink on the side table, fumbled for the lever on the side of the chair, yanked at it until the footrest folded back into the chair, then heaved his abdomen up into a standing position. “I’m coming. Hold your got-damn horses, wouldja?”

He opened the door. “Aw, f’chrissake, Crow, what are you doing here?”

Crow pushed past him, walked right into his house.

“Hey!” Johnson said. “Who the hell invited you in?”

Crow said, “I heard you were looking for me.” He pulled off his gloves, stuffed them in a coat pocket.

“Now who told you that?”

“What did you want?”

“Don’t matter no more. I had some questions, but we don’t need you no more, Crow.” He turned his eyes to the television, attracted by the sound of gunfire. Hunter was doing his thing.

“Well, I have a question for you,” Crow said. “What were you doing at Melinda’s?”

“Who?” Johnson pulled his eyes from the set.

“My wife.” Crow picked up the remote control and turned off the TV.

“What the hell? Are you drunk or something?” Johnson could feel his bile rising, a green mass crawling up his throat. He made a grab for the remote. Crow stepped back, holding it away.

“Just a simple question. I know you were there looking for me. What did you say to her? Did you threaten her?”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Now give me that thing before I remote your ass in jail.”

“Just tell me what you were doing there.” Crow’s voice was flat and quiet, each word delivered with equal emphasis, like a man trying to hold his breath and talk at the same time. “Just tell me if you know where she is.”

Johnson squeezed his eyes down to where he could hardly see out of them, closed his fists and held them out to the side, a gunfighter ready to slap leather.

“You gimme that thing right now. The hell’s wrong with you, Crow? You got some kind of death wish?” The words were coming out faster now. Johnson could hear the shrillness in his own voice, feel the tightness in his throat, the heat coloring his face. “Now get the hell out before I haul your sorry ass down to city hall.” He jabbed a shaking forefinger in Crow’s face. “You mess with me—”

Crow slapped the forefinger aside as if it were an offensive insect. Johnson took an astonished step back, staring at his finger, his face finally hitting peak color.

“You just assaulted a police officer, Crow.” Johnson took another step back, spread his arms wide, bent his knees, lowered his head, and charged.

To Joe Crow, the rapidly advancing bulk of Orlan Johnson embodied all the shit in his life—the Murphys, his missing wife, Bellweather, Dave Getter, and various other personal demons. He wanted to meet Johnson’s charge head-on, but the undeniable fact that he was outweighed by more than a hundred pounds persuaded him to step aside like a matador.

He was almost quick enough. Johnson had the deceptive speed of a rhinoceros. His right fist flailed out and caught Crow on the ribs. Crow staggered back, hit the doorframe with his shoulder. The remote control flew from his hand; he twisted away just in time to avoid a second punch. Johnson’s fist crashed into the wall, producing a depression in the wallboard and a grunt of pain.

Crow saw his opportunity and went for Johnson’s belly, a hard, short jab, then followed up with a less successful blow that skidded off the top of the balding skull. Johnson responded with a wild backhand swing that just brushed Crow’s chin. Crow backpedaled, giving himself room, not wanting to risk getting inside those surprisingly powerful arms. Johnson howled and charged again, but this time Crow was ready, dodging at the last moment, then coming back with a well-aimed foot to Johnson’s well-padded rear, sending the big man crashing facefirst into his recliner, which instantly reclined, the footrest snapping forward, the back thumping against the wall, followed immediately by the top of the chiefs head.

Johnson lay stunned for a moment, his hands flapping against the leather arms of the chair. As he watched Johnson struggling, Crow had a moment of relative clarity, trying to figure out what to do next, now that he had attacked the chief of the local police in his own home. Perhaps coming here had not been one of his more brilliant moves.

A shiver ran up Johnson’s corpulent body; he rotated, bringing his body into the more usual recliner position. His eyes fixed on Crow, his brow flexed. “You little bastard, I’ll teach you, you little fuckhead—” He launched himself up out of the chair at Crow.

Crow did not mind being called a bastard, which he was, or even a fuckhead. It was the modifier “
little
” he objected to, so the moment Johnson’s charge brought him within range, Crow threw his best punch, hard and straight as a steel bar, dead center on Johnson’s ample gut. His fist buried itself deep—for an instant it felt as if it had gone right inside—then Johnson sagged to the carpet, breathless and paralyzed.

Crow was thinking how good that had felt. He was wishing Johnson would come at him again, when he heard a whisper of movement and turned in time to see what looked like a black hole rushing toward his head. He heard a loud sound, like a gong, and his legs gave way. He felt the texture of nylon carpet on his cheek.