Short Money (40 page)

David A. Getter, Attorney for the Petitioner.

He licked his lips and said it out loud: “She’s divorcing me.” The words seemed to melt into the air as he spoke them. He climbed the steps to his apartment, picked up the morning newspaper that was lying in front of his door, went to the telephone, and dialed Melinda’s number.

“Hello?”

“This is Joe.”

Silence.

“I just got served papers.”

“Oh.”

“Is that all you’ve got to say?
‘Oh’?”

Crow did not hear a click, but after some time had passed, the telephone produced a dial tone. He replaced the handset, crossed his arms, and sat motionless for nearly an hour, waiting for the anguish to strike him down, wondering at the peculiar lightness in his chest. Oddly, he did not feel bad at all. He felt as if someone had relieved him of a great weight, almost as if he could fly. It was a familiar sensation, but he couldn’t remember when he had last felt this way.

A bittersweet taste coated his tongue.

He remembered now.

The flavor of green Chartreuse.

“Take your time, boy. Rest it right here, alongside this branch. Hold it right there. She’s not going anywhere—you just get yourself settled there and take your time now.”

George Murphy squatted beside his son in the melting snow.

Shawn wiped his nose on the thumb of his glove, lowered his head, peered through the scope. The .270 Winchester felt heavy, much heavier than his .22. He pressed his cheek to the smooth stock.

“She’s right there, son. Just go easy, relax, let me know when you see ’er.”

The image in the scope wavered. Shawn repositioned his hands, concentrated on holding the rifle steady. He found the crest of the hill, moved the rifle slowly to the right, looking for the tree, the big white pine.

There. He gradually brought the tip of the rifle down.

There. Sitting at the base of the pine, looking right back at him, its white-orange-and-black body bright against the dark tree trunk.

He couldn’t even see the chain.

“You got ’er?”

Shawn said, “Uh-huh.”

“Then you take ’er, boy. You squeeze it off nice and easy. Take your time.”

Shawn took a deep breath, held it, focused on his target, waited for the crosshairs to settle on the tiger’s white breast, on the point of the V formed by two black stripes. He could feel his father standing behind him. The tiger yawned. He squeezed the trigger.

The recoil knocked his shoulder back six inches, but Shawn didn’t even feel it. The tiger staggered, regained its balance for a moment, then toppled.

George let his breath hiss out through his nose. He said, “That was a good shot, son. You’ll make a damn fine hunter.”

“Has it affected your ability to do your job?”

“Well, I have to hold the phone with my right hand now, since I can’t hear very well out of my left ear. That means I have to take notes and enter commands into my terminal with my left hand. It definitely slows me down.”

“That’s good. That’s excellent. So you aren’t able to handle as many calls. What do you think, it slows you down fifty, sixty percent?”

“Maybe ten percent.”

“Are you sure?” David Getter’s pen made circles in the air above his notepad. “I think we could go higher.”

Steve Anderson, catching on, nodded. “Sixty percent. Also, the time I lost at work, all the doctors I had to see.”

“Good. We’ll argue that you’ve lost sixty percent of your earning capacity, which is … what did you make last year?”

“About two twenty.”

“So your injury is worth a hundred thirty-two thousand a year. We figure you’ve got another forty years to retirement and that your earning ability will increase by, say, ten percent a year—I think they’ll go for that. Where’s that put us? Say fifteen million?”

Anderson’s eyes widened. “Really? You think we can get it?”

“Depends on how much money George has and whether he’s carrying a good liability policy.”

“It sounds like a lot of money.”

Getter smiled. “We’re just getting started, Steve. Let’s talk about how your injury has affected your sex life.”

“Well, it really hasn’t—”

“You sure? No problems obtaining and maintaining an erection? You’re in bed with Patty, you maybe think about that tiger, and you all of a sudden lose it? Think carefully now—we might not have another shot at this.”

Anderson looked away. “Well, maybe I do have a little trouble. What would it be worth if I did?”

Crow sat on his sofa bed, reading the newspaper. Starting with the front page, he read every article, enjoying them all. The newspaper was really quite interesting when you read it carefully. On page 2A he read about a local politician who had been arrested for solicitation of a minor. The editorial page provided him with some interesting perspectives on the impact of free trade with Mexico, and the comic section, which he read in its entirety without smiling, was highly amusing.

He was as happy as he had been in years, but he didn’t know what to do with it. An odd sensation, to be happy in a vacuum.

Someone knocked on his door. Crow looked up from his paper. The security door downstairs had been broken for weeks. People he did not want to see—bill collectors, sales professionals, Mormons—would come right up to his apartment door and pound on it.

Crow set down the paper and opened the door. A black, furry, yellow-eyed shadow banged into his leg, trotted past him. He felt a bubbling in his abdomen, as if a bottle of Dom Perignon had been uncorked in his chest cavity. Milo, fat, sleek, and energetic, made a beeline for his food bowl. The cat rounded his bowl, which had been empty for weeks, and came back to bump his head insistently against Crow’s shin. Crow felt a well of tears mount his lower lashes. He picked up Milo and buried his face in the cat’s fur, wiping away the wetness, feeling the bass vibrations of his purring.

Milo’s fur smelled like tobacco smoke. He put the cat back on the floor, then looked out into the hallway. Debrowski was leaning against the wall, smoking a cigarette.

“How you doing, Crow-like-the-bird?”

Crow felt himself smile, using all the muscles in his face. “Much better,” he said. “I’m doing okay. I really am.”

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1995 by Peter Hautman

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

978-1-4804-0622-3

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