The Big Ugly (21 page)
"Fayetteville," he said. "At the university."
"Should be a good discussion," the governor allowed. "I look forward to debating the issues with you."
"And what she said …" Kingston replied, "we leave this mess in this room? There's not going to be an anonymous leak pop up in the paper next week, or next month when I'm whipping your ass at the poles?"
Governor Colfax crossed the room, ignoring the rest of us, and put his hand out to Kingston. "It's the nuclear option, Jerry. Mutually assured destruction."
Kingston met his hand, and they shook vigorously. "You're gonna lose that debate, Lou Don."
Colfax smiled. "We'll see, Jerry. We'll just see about that."
They finally let go of each other.
The governor stepped toward me. He smelled of good aftershave, but his smile dropped away, and his eyes were as cold as his brother's had been that night. "Me and you are back to zero, Bennett. You're just another ex-con. I don't blame you for what you did. Anyone would have done the same thing in the same situation. But I don't want to ever hear about you, or from you, ever again." He turned to Alexis. "Either one of you."
Then he walked out of the office. We heard him open the door to the stairwell and disappear.
Kluge patted the desk. "That was unexpected but welcome. Welcome nevertheless."
Kingston took a deep breath and grinned at Hamill.
Alexis regarded her father. "What about … me?"
My heart sank a bit. Alexis could still fuck this up. She could demand too much, she could thrust her need right into the middle of my delicately brokered truce.
Kingston didn't look directly at her. He'd stared the governor in the eye, but now he hung his head as he mumbled, "I don't … know what to say, Alexis. I failed you a long time ago. I want to make it right. I can give you money."
Her eyes filled with tears. "I wasn't after your money. I wanted a father. Like your other children got."
He nodded. "I know." His face reddened even deeper and his eyes searched the space between his daughter and himself. He held up his hands. "I failed you, Alexis. A long time ago. I don't see any way to fix that now. I can't be what you want, what you need, what you deserve."
She pulled out the envelope with the letter. She held it at the corners, lifted it to her mouth, then dropped it on the floor.
She turned and walked out of the room.
His eyes followed her, and when she was gone he walked over and picked up the envelope. He opened the letter and read some of it. Then he placed it back in the envelope.
He asked me, "What's going to happen to her?"
I couldn't stand there any longer and look at his sweaty face. "Why even ask?" I said. "You don't care."
I turned and left.
* * *
She was waiting for me down by the car. Not crying. Just standing there, arms folded, waiting. We got in, and I drove back to the bar to pick up her daughter.
About a mile away from the bar, she started crying. I pulled over to the side of the road and put the car in park and pulled her close and let her cry into my shoulder.
She cried a long time, cried out a lifetime's worth of pain and anger and neglect and failure. When she was done, I put the car back in drive and we went to pick up Kaylee.
There was one more loose end. I hadn't forgotten that Frank was still out there, that he knew more about this business than was healthy for any of us, and that he was just the kind of guy to keep poking at the embers to see if he could get another fire going. I didn't want to do anything about it. I didn't want to see him or talk to him. I didn't want to think about him.
But I had to.
I dropped off Alexis at the bar with a promise that I'd see her the next day, and then I drove over to the Morley residence.
I got there after dark, but I didn't stop at the house. I drove past it, and seeing that the lights were on, I went up a street and took a left.
The backyards along Frank's side of the street stopped at some woods. I drove around the wooded area to see where they ended and found a strip mall. A Hallmark store, a Cold Stone Creamery, a liquor store, a Chinese restaurant. I drove around back and parked my car at the back edge of the building. Then I pulled out my purse from under the seat and removed the gun.
The woods hummed and twittered with bugs and birds, but I moved among the gray trees easily. I could see a line of yellow windows glowing in the distance. After just a few minutes, I found my way to the backyard of the Morley house.
The darkened yard wasn't fenced in. I half expected a motion light to kick on, but one didn't. I walked up to the sliding glass door that looked into the living room.
The place had been cleaned, but Kitty still lay on the couch staring at the television.
After a while, Frank walked into the room.
He looked different than I had ever seen him. Smaller. Less impressive. Untucked shirttail. His hair looked as if he'd just awakened from a nap. Kitty didn't seem to notice. This was the Frank she knew.
Seeing them together unaware they were being observed, I realized what a fool I had been to think I could ever understand the inside of their marriage. No matter how screwed up it may have been, it was theirs. Good, bad, functional, dysfunctional—those terms didn't really matter. The entity known collectively as
Frank and Kitty
was just the sum total of everything that had ever happened between them—love and struggle and lies and heartbreak—and I would never have entry into that world.
I didn't want it, either.
I leaned against the door so the gun in my right hand stayed out of view. With my left, I tapped on the glass.
Kitty and Frank turned at the same time and looked at me.
I waved.
They looked at each other. It was so perfectly timed it was almost funny. Then they turned back to me.
Frank walked over and unlocked the door and slid it open.
I smiled. "Evening, Morleys."
"What are you doing here?" Frank asked.
I showed him the gun. "Want to back up, Frank?"
"Ellie …"
"Just back up, Frank."
He backed into the room, and Kitty sat up as much as she could manage and stared at the gun.
She blinked and rubbed her eyes. I don't think she was entirely sure she was awake. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Frank shook his head. "This is a dumb move, Bennett."
"Why? 'Cause I got a gun? Why do you think I'm here, Frank?"
His mouth opened but no words came out. He laughed nervously at his own speechlessness. "Ellie …"
Kitty said, "Why is she here, Frank?"
Morley told her, "Just sit back and don't worry about it, Kitty. Everything is going to be fine, just fine."
"You thought you sold me out, Frank. But you didn't. You tried, but you didn't have anything to sell. Alexis never went to Oklahoma."
Frank blinked a few times. "What?"
"I just finished things with Alexis, and with every concerned party who was out there looking for her. It's over."
"Is that a fact?"
"That is a fact. So you sold me out for nothing."
Frank tucked in his shirt while he processed that information. "I'm sorry to hear that. I guess Hamill's going to ask for a refund."
"Maybe, maybe not. But it's over. For Alexis, Kingston, Colfax. All of them. And for you. You try anything stupid, and I'll rat you out."
"Rat me out?"
"Both of you."
"For what? For what we did to you? No one cares, Ellie. You're an ex-con now. You just have to live with that."
Kitty stared at the gun in my hand.
I said, "Why don't you sit next to your wife, Frank. You two belong together. Sit there next to her."
Frank moved to the couch and sat next to Kitty. She reached over and grabbed his hand. Frank grimaced, his hand limp in Kitty's trembling embrace, but he left it there.
"That's sweet," I said. "You two really are made for each other. You'll go down together, too, if I tell Junius Kluge that you're the ones funneling drugs into Eastgate."
Morley's face darkened.
I said, "You're not going through him to move your product, are you, Frank? No, because if you were getting drugs from Kluge, you would have sold him the information about Alexis. But you didn't, you went to Hamill and Kingston."
He sat up. "Now look, Ellie—"
"Yes or no, Frank? You want me to tell Kluge who's been cutting into his penitentiary drug market?"
"No."
"No. I didn't think so. So you keep your fucking mouth shut about Alexis."
"That it? That why you came in my house with a gun tonight, to tell me that?"
"In part. But I also came in here with a gun tonight to tell you both to stay away from me. I don't want to hear from you. I don't want to see you. You see me coming, you turn around and start running. From this point on, you'll have to have to make do with each other."
Kitty watched me with eyes that seemed to clear. Still holding his hand, she glanced over at Frank with something like hope. It was a horrible thing to see. I think even at that moment she wanted to get him back—like she thought that perhaps this was a chance.
Frank didn't even see her. He let go of her hand and stood up.
He told me, "I'm going to miss you, baby."
Kitty's face fell; it just seemed to crumble. Her eyes filled with tears.
Frank walked over to take me in his arms and kiss me goodbye, so I moved the gun to my left hand.
Then with my right hand I punched him in the nose.
It hurt my hand, but I took some satisfaction in knowing that it hurt his face more.
"Like I said, Frank. You see me again, you better start running the other direction."
Morley held his bloody nose.
Kitty stared at him with tears still in her eyes. Then she looked at me.
She wiped away some tears and started clapping.
I turned around and left.
* * *
I don't remember the drive over to Nate's house. I'm not sure I obeyed all the traffic laws. I'm not sure I stopped at every red light. I really don't recall.
My hand still hurt from hitting Frank. My nose still hurt from where Vin Colfax had smashed my face into the floor of the chicken plant. I felt these things, but I didn't think about them. I just drove.
Walking up to the door, I had my first thought in over half an hour.
Should I knock?
Before I could decide, the door opened.
My brother leaned in the doorway. The light behind him cast a long shadow over his face. He asked, "Are you okay?"
"Opinions vary."
"You want to come in?"
"Yes."
He didn't move. "Are you going to be alright, Ellie?"
"Probably not," I said, "but do you really want to miss the show?"
Without saying anything my brother opened the door wider. His face was still obscured by shadows, but it almost looked like he was smiling.
Hell on Church Street
,
The Posthumous Man
, and
Saint Homicide
. He lives in Chicago.
Also by Jake Hinkson
HELL ON CHURCH STREET (New Pulp Press)Kindle edition
Geoffrey Webb is a natural born con man who talks his way into a cushy job as the youth minister at a small Baptist church in Arkansas. He gets free housing, a steady paycheck, and he doesn’t have to work very hard. His only mistake is to begin an affair with the preacher's teenage daughter. When a corrupt local sheriff named Doolittle Norris finds out about Webb's relationship with the girl, Webb's easy life starts to fall apart. Sheriff Norris, backed by his family of psychotic hillbillies, forces Webb into a deadly scheme to embezzle money from the church. What the Norris clan doesn't understand, however, is that Geoffrey Webb has brutal plans of his own.
Twisted City
The Ice Harvest
Los Angeles Review of Books
Kindle edition
When Elliot Stilling killed himself, he thought his troubles were over. Then the ER doctors revived him. It's infatuation at first sight when he meets his nurse, Felicia Vogan, a strange young woman with a weakness for sad sacks and losers. After she helps Elliot escape from the hospital, she takes him back to her place. He’s happy to go with her, even when she leads him straight to a gang planning a million dollar heist. Does Felicia just want Elliot to protect her from the outfit's psychotic leader, Stan the Man? Or is Elliot being set up to take the hard fall? One thing’s for sure: if he's going to survive this long night of deceit and murder, Elliot will have to finally face himself and his own dark past.