The Witch Tree, page 6
He eased the car forward, into the open. Exposed, Buck’s heart leapt. A penned-in driveway was nowhere to be. Sure enough, a patrol car slowed up the block, turned, then came up the alley behind them.
“Here we go,” Eli said, and pulled out into the traffic.
Buck spun around to look behind. Moments later, the patrol car re-appeared, following.
“When Bear visited me that week in September,” Eli said, and glanced sharply into the mirror, “I got him a job with us on a tow.” He glanced over at Buck. “He must’ve said something to you at the lodge after all that, right?” No, it was clear, he hadn’t. “He didn’t say anything?”
“Just that he’d had enough of the city.”
Eli glanced into the mirror again. “Fucking cops.” He put his foot down on the accelerator, and the car shot forward, Eli weaving through traffic, and the patrol car staying with them.
“So, Bear. He comes down to visit,” Eli said, leaning into the windshield, “and at the end of it, he’s broke. I didn’t know squat then. I’d worked with that other outfit before, right? Kosmoski’s?
“All aboveboard body work while I was takin’ classes, most of it just slingin’ mud and shootin’ paint.
“Jen was in school, too, and Ruben called and offered me way better money, and I thought, ‘Why not?’ And Bear, we needed a satellite guy for tows we had when we were busy.”
Turning, he looked behind them again. The cop was two lanes over, back a block or so.
“And?”
“The guy you just saw with the envelope – Cleve? He and Bear headed over to I-94 on a tow – Cleve, and Bear, and this third guy, a shinob, shows up toting a bag, one of those giant soft drink cups in it, the straw sticking out and the bag crimped around it, like it was booze. But what of it, Bear’s not going to mention the guy’s drinking on the job. And then, Cleve doesn’t get onto the highway, he circles it. Three times, and Cleve, each time, making some excuse – a car’s blocking them, or there isn’t enough space, which Bear saw was bullshit. The whole thing was some ‘Clown Show, drivin’ in circles,’ he says, until the third time, and now the three of them, Cleve, Bear, and the new guy, they have an eighteen wheeler on their bumper – remember what I said about eighteen wheelers? – and Cleve takes off down the ramp onto the highway like he’s fucking Mario Andretti.”
Crossing the Franklin Avenue bridge, they turned, and the patrolman pulled off too, closing the distance.
“And a… patrol car–” Eli motioned with chin behind them “–just like the one comin’ up behind us, he tears right in front of the wrecker from off the shoulder. Cleve slams on his brakes, to not pile into the fuckin’ cop, and–” Eli slapped his hands together “Ka-Pow! – that eighteen wheeler hit Cleve and Bear from behind and shit goes flying everywhere, there’s shattered glass, horns blaring, and Bear jumps out and runs to the eighteen wheeler behind them and the boom on the wrecker’s gone through the windshield and killed the driver, and here’s the shinob, the one went out with them, puking blood on the shoulder.
“Only, when Bear stooped to help him, and by accident he sets his hand in it, that blood – it was cold. And there was a lot of it – just about what’d fit in that drink cup, he said.
“Anyway, I told him, Forget it. Maybe… what… the guy had an ulcer? So Bear heads back up north. You saw him, right?”
He had. Bear hadn’t seemed himself. He’d seemed… unsettled, not his usual, jovial self.
“Friday of that week, Doc Miller shoots Bear,” Eli said. “A hunting accident. Took me so low that–
“Yeah,” he replied, a burning in his throat, “don’t go into it,” and Eli glanced into the rear view again.
His mouth set, he wrenched the car to the right through three lanes of traffic, an angry smear of horns around them, and the car screeching up against the curb to an abrupt, jarring stop.
Traffic went by, and the cop with it. Sizzling in the rain. They waited, there at the curb.
“You’re in it,” Buck said. “The ‘business.’ Aren’t you. You’re in it up to your neck.”
Eli turned to Buck, his mouth puckered. “YES!” he said, “But not the way you’re thinking.”
A patrol car pulled in front of them, but not the cop who’d been following, the one with the sunglasses.
“So, how?” Buck said.
“All Ruben asked,” Eli said, “was for me to help him deliver cars; it took two drivers. Ruben’d run Lester’s stuff to out-of-state auctions. Chicago, usually. I got four hundred a night, cash; that’s all it was.”
A couple holding a red umbrella over their heads went by on the sidewalk, the girl smiling. The cop, in front of them, made a quick, pumping motion, no doubt racking up his shotgun.
“But you didn’t just drive, did you,” he said.
Now, behind them, the first cop with the sunglasses was back, the two working together.
He’d seen it in Chicago, plenty, a roust; the cop in front got you out of the car, and the cop behind shot you in the back, “resisting arrest.”
But neither cop was getting out. Or calling to them over a bullhorn. They were waiting.
“So, how’d you get caught?”
“Caught?”
“Stealing Lester’s inventory. Because, otherwise, how’d Ruben pay you that kind of money for driving?”
Classic bait and switch. Never not look a gift horse in the mouth, any shinob knew that.
“Lester showed up – at an auction in… Topeka, Kansas, and, I mean, what were the chances? – Lester’s got this guy with him, a suit, like he did sometimes, just lookin’ for a deal on a high end car, and Ruben’s all but runnin’ from this Mercedes 600, which he never, never should’ve tried to skim.”
“It wasn’t the car that was the problem, though, was it,” Buck said. “It was that Ruben recognized the suit.”
His eyes blank, seeing it, Eli nodded. “Yeah, but even worse, the suit recognized Ruben.”
“Who was it?”
“Our Dr. Miller,” Eli replied.
In front of them, the officer got out of his cruiser, the officer behind, too, and Buck pinned Eli’s hand behind his back, where he’d had it on the revolver, the officers calling to each other.
Then, just like that, they were back in their cars and both pulled away into the traffic.
“So,” Eli said, “you see now, how it went down? And why I couldn’t have you going after Miller?”
He did. Had he, someone would have retaliated, taken out Eli. Only, he also knew Eli was hiding something they wanted, and wanted badly. Because, otherwise, he’d’ve been dead, and long before. The traffic going by, he thought on it, and for a good space of minutes.
“You know if they’ve got anyone to replace Ruben?” he asked.
“Why?”
“‘Why’? Because you’re going back and, since they’ve got to be a man short, you’re going to get me Ruben’s job.”
Eli laughed, “That’s a joke, right?” and when he saw it wasn’t, he said, “You are out – of your – fucking mind.”
“Yeah,” he said, “and, brother, you’re going to be right in the middle of it with me, all the way to the end.”
BOOK II
10
“So… put a smile on it, can you?” Eli said, the two of them, just after dark, approaching the apartment.
Eli had talked to Lester, got his hours, as if it were all nothing, his having not shown up for work the last week. After which they’d spent the day running errands, at one point Eli calling Jen to tell her he’d ‘fixed things’.
“Like you saw,” Eli said, stopping on the sidewalk, “for Jen it was just some… in-shop misunderstanding, okay?
“Christ,” Eli said, “you look like some… fuckin’ undertaker. Spread some happy on that mug, okay?” Eli grinned for him, gave a show of teeth, demonstrating. “So, can you?”
A crash came from the alley, and they both nearly jumped at it, and Buck went over to see what it was.
Just garbage cans, overturned, and a dog chewing on what appeared to be a pork chop. The Evergreens, what a nightmare. Inside, the smell of urine was stronger after the rain, and in the fading light, the worn holes in the dirty maroon carpet all the more scabrous.
At the apartment door, Eli slipped the key in the lock. “Now, you’re going to keep your mouth shut, right?”
They went in, Jenny there. Standing, she seemed taller, her crutches propping her up, Jenny setting out plates, and flatware, and her legs long, Jenny coltish in a knee-length dress, and her molasses-dark hair in a comb.
Music was playing, the Chairman of the Board crooning like there was no tomorrow, something about flying to the moon.
Jenny spun a half circle, for Eli, her dress billowing from her knees. It was new, she said. She’d gone shopping while they were out. Had seen the dress in a shop window.
Eli slung his arm around her waist, then pulled her into the living room and she sang out, “Eli!” and he turned her, crutches and all, Jenny blushing and looking abashed over his shoulder.
He set her at the table and bowed. “Bon appetite!” he, said, miming a French chef.
He three-stepped to the table from the stove, the pot of – whatever it was she’d put together – held at his shoulder. For years, Bear and Eli had amused each other like this, playing Frenchmen, a towel draped over a forearm. Guests at the lodge had loved or hated it.
“Mademoiselle,” Eli said, and slid the pot onto the table.
And so it went, to the lighting of the candles, and like that they passed the better part of an hour.
“Eli told me you played for Cleveland, in the Major Leagues,” Jenny said, Eli setting a cup of coffee at her elbow.
“I was just a redshirt, you know, a rookie,” Buck replied, and shrugged; he didn’t want to get into it.
“Jen, come on,” Eli said, and sat again.
“Well?”
“Isn’t it enough that he got in?” he said, trying to communicate this wasn’t something to talk about.
“I’m just asking.”
“He had one of the best pitches in the whole League.” Eli pointed his fork across the table. “Koufax didn’t have one better.”
“‘I coulda been a contendah!’” Jenny mimed, joking. But it wasn’t funny. “Was it like that?”
Eli bent over his plate. Then, unable to help himself, he glanced up, held his eyes on Buck’s.
“We all, every- last- one of us,” he said, angrily, “we were desperate for you to make a life of it. You have to know that, right?”
“I knew,” he replied.
“So… why? Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?” Jenny asked.
When he didn’t answer, Eli said, “We were all there. Took buses from Red Lake, Thief River, White Earth, to see the big game and–” he pointed with his fork, snarled “–and our hero, our fucking… own Jim Thorpe here, he goes and….” His mouth pursed, Eli turned from the table.
“What?” Jen said.
With a wave of his hand, Eli tried to let it go, “Shit. I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”
With a nod, Buck went up the hallway and ducked into his room, but couldn’t help listening.
There was a murmur of voices, and Eli said, “These… idiots were jeering at him.” Jen said something, and he opened the door, slightly. “‘What were they jeering’?” Eli replied. “Well, what do you think?
“‘Go home, Timber Nigger,’ like when we’re out gill netting, only, he brained their batter. On purpose.”
He’d all but leaned into the hallway, and the two of them saying exactly what he couldn’t make out. It went on at a whisper and for the longest time, then became contentious.
“And he’s been doing… what since?” Jen asked, and Eli replied, “Well, since we got screwed at the lodge, he’s been playing step-and-fetch-it for the new owner, trying to get our cabin back.
“Only, I quit, see?”
On his cot, he lay in the dark, his hands folded over his middle, trying to calm himself.
There was a clatter of plates, then the sink faucet ran. He heard the rubber-tipped tap of Jenny’s crutches coming up the hallway. Then Eli. The wall of their bedroom shared his, and their soft voices ran in stops and starts, in it an easy give and take. Jenny laughed, then laughed again. There was a light slap, and Jenny said, “Stop it, he’ll hear.” A short while later Jenny sighed, deeply, and then he heard nothing, until a short while later there was a single gasp, and Jenny said, “Oh – God!” Just that, and they laughed, after, and he felt a terrible ache in his chest, a vast loneliness.
“If you belong nowhere, Michael,” Seraphim had told him, “you belong everywhere.”
Turning this way and that on his cot, he was furious one moment, and in a state of grief the next.
After baseball ended, his fall had not been gradual, and the pent up feelings he’d carried in him since St. Mary’s he put to use in Cleveland and, later, Chicago. It wasn’t a secret what he became, not entirely, and that due to a friend of his father’s having mouthed off.
He’d nearly died in Chicago. His father, humiliating though it was, had found him and taken him north to a lodge.
Od’s Ingozis they’d called him there, Od’s son, though later he was just Mike, and the owner of the lodge, Saul, valuing his quiet, dependable nature, and astute, though wary, conscientiousness, had him manage the staff. He didn’t drink. Or carouse. Was a fiend for organization, could repair any outboard built, was affable with guests and dropped easily into an idiom that was, others knew, city, yet he could navigate the Djigan, knew where to fish walleye, or bass, or muskellunge. Autumn, where to hunt white tail, moose, and duck.
The other guides, much younger, were different. Suffered “bottle flu” days, got in squabbles, fought at times. They spoke a patois of the old language and English, moved easily between the lodge and the nearby reservation, and Rat Portage or International Falls. He stayed on the island, without exception. Was useful, in a more than practical way. What more could he want? he admitted to Saul, it was a life of real-world, honest satisfactions.
And The North Woods were beautiful, weren’t they?
Saul, one evening, asked him the most simple of questions. Wasn’t he lonely? What did he do nights? He’d handed him what he was reading. “It’s all Greek to me,” Saul said, joking, and there had begun a true friendship. “Put that in your book of life,” he’d say, and the two of them sharing games of chess, or scrabble evenings, and Saul’s wife, Gert, there with them, too, three survivors, in-betweens on an island, on a lake of fifteen thousand lakes, on the Canadian border.
Saul a holocaust survivor, Gert a once Displaced Person, and Buck having long before left life on the reservation.
Bear had come up, and then Eli when he wasn’t at the university. He’d been seeing a woman, one the Spectors introduced him to, Rachel, and then the unthinkable happened.
Saul lost the resort. He’d bought it on foreclosure, and the former owner, somehow, won it back.
Saul and Gert left; he lost the cabin Saul had given him; and he, Bear, and Eli lost their jobs, all to an infuriated Iowa farmer, who, having gotten the lodge, put it up for sale.
Dragged to banks by Eli, where his having been a Major League baseball player had been made much of, the answer at each was the same, a humiliating, “Just who the hell are you, with no credit history, no jobs, and no collateral, to be asking for a loan from a bank? Any loan, much less one for a million dollars?!”
“Keep skunks and bankers at a distance,” Eli’d said, at the last, and he’d replied, trying to soften the blow, “If you find yourself in a hole, brother, the first thing to do is to stop digging.”
Eli, having had no experience with the long game, or losing games but winning seasons, became obsessed. He had a head for numbers, and legalese, and contracts, and he got into it with the farmer, about how the lodge, in the first place, had been built on stolen land.
“Look, Tonto,” the farmer told him, “You just go ahead and try and get ‘your land’ back.”
That, right there, had put Eli over, had been the final, scalding indignity – that, and, when the new owner got the lodge running again, Buck and Bear’s working for him at half the wage, and no cabin in the bargain.
Eli, incensed, shot down to the Cities, and they hadn’t spoken since. Not until he’d called about Ruben.
He bolted upright, the room dark; lashed out, punching the cardboard box that had fallen onto his head, then swept the box clunking onto the floor. Went to the window and raised the blinds and forced the window open.
A clean, chill draft smelling of wet leaves spilled in. At a window across the alley, a squat, bespectacled man drew back from the glass and the light there flicked out. Were they being watched?
Seconds later, he looked again – the window across the alley dark – then sat on the rail of his cot. He took his wallet from his pants pocket, flattened a spot on his sleeping bag and turned the wallet over. In the Perspex window was his driver’s license: Fineday, Michael. He picked through the receipts: bait, gasoline, outboard parts. He hadn’t squared things with the owner of the lodge before he’d left, had a hundred or so dollars in receipts, the times and dates scrawled across them. One read, Two cases Bud three pop Bread Marg White gas eggs bacon. He crumpled the list and tossed it into the corner of the room. Then another: Clean cabin 3, sink in 5 broken – Mercury 35 needs tune up.
He dug into the front pockets of the wallet, emptied them onto his bag. An old Indianhead penny, for luck. Paper clips – he used them on the outboards. And, finally, Bear’s charm, the dibindowin. He tried to remember what he kept in his wallet. But why would Sally have taken anything other than his money? But there was something missing. And then, in a cold sweat, he realized what it was: His card with Eli’s phone number and unit at Little Earth. In Event of Death, Contact: He got the sick feeling Sally had gone looking for Eli there. And granted she had?
She was connected now to him, and through Eli, Ruben. And after what had happened to Ruben?
