Rain Dogs, page 15
“Guess probably so.”
Jack nodded and stood. He put his cup on Hilliard’s desk without finishing it.
Hilliard looked at Tom. “Something else on your mind?”
Tom took his eyes off the wall, shook his head. “I was just admiring your needlepoint.”
Sheriff Hilliard looked where Tom had been looking: a small frame hanging by a string from a nail. A square of white cotton fabric had been stretched over the frame, fancy script lettering stitched in brown and orange silk.
Age and treachery beat youth and skill every time.
The sheriff’s eyes grew distant. After a moment, he said, “Needlepoint, huh? Hell. I always thought that was a cross-stitch.”
Tom got up and joined his dad. They left Hilliard sitting behind his desk, out of uniform, still studying the writing on his wall.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Agent Terry Farmer’s master plan began with an immediate return to business as usual.
The DEA had several cases of over-the-counter ephedrine tablets to locate in an area roughly the size of Connecticut and Rhode Island combined. All things being equal, Farmer’s bosses were less interested in finding the ephedrine than in finding the ephedrine and Vince Magruder in each other’s company.
This Farmer expected to accomplish, with Tom’s cooperation, in just over four weeks’ time.
Until then, Tom was to run his business. He was to treat Scott Greer the way he’d always treated him. He was to treat Duane Foster the same. He was to keep his ears open and his eyes peeled, to steer clear of Cory Severs and Harlan Pack. He was to report anything that seemed like it ought to be reported.
Scott came back to work the morning after Morgan Wheeler’s funeral. Abby tried to coax him into taking the rest of the week off, but he didn’t want to hear it, and she didn’t want to force the issue. She wasn’t convinced that keeping busy wouldn’t be the best thing for him anyway.
So Tom sent Duane to her place in the truck, and Scott was back on the Landing in time for the first morning run.
Tom’s parents stayed the night at the Circle Slash and left for Lincoln after breakfast. Jason Greer carried twelve summer hours and needed to be back on campus first thing Friday for a bio exam.
Joyce Coleman didn’t know why they couldn’t drop Scott off themselves on the way. She wanted to stop at the Landing anyway; she wanted to see Tom before they went back.
Jack Coleman drove south to North Platte instead and took the interstate home.
Tom was glad.
While Duane was gone, Terry Farmer came down from the campground and briefed him one last time.
“Nothing changes.” He smiled. “As long as you don’t screw up and call me Terry, we should be fine.”
“You should have picked a fake name that doesn’t rhyme with your real name.”
“Yeah, I know.” Farmer put an imaginary gun to his head and pulled the trigger. “By the time I thought of that, though, I’d already lived with it too long. I just sort of felt like a Larry.”
“I guess you wouldn’t have wanted to learn a whole new character.”
“Don’t let anybody tell you acting’s not work.” Farmer put his imaginary gun in an imaginary shoulder holster. “You want to talk commitment to craft? I’ve got mosquito bites on my fucking mosquito bites.”
“Hope you don’t get West Nile.”
Farmer chuckled. He looked at his watch, checked the clock above the candy rack. “Duane ought to be back pretty soon. You’re all set?”
“Mind if I ask you one thing?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you guys even know the stuff is still out here? I mean, for sure?” Tom looked at Farmer across the counter. “You can’t watch everybody all the time.”
“We haven’t located the material, obviously.”
“You’re operating partly on theory.” Tom nodded. “Sorry. I remember you saying that now.”
Farmer stood with that for a moment, then said, “I’ve never seen your liver, but you’re still alive. So based on theory, I figure it must be in there somewhere.”
“Milk thistle,” Tom said. “Works miracles.”
“Yeah? My mom swears by bee pollen for hay fever. I just take a multi, myself.”
“Well,” Tom said. “This has been nice.”
“Foster called a pay phone in Garden City last night,” Farmer told him. He cracked a grin, shook his head. “But he called from here. We’ve got a hard date now.”
Tom sighed.
“So the theory is holding up pretty well so far. If I do say so.”
“You win.”
“Four weeks,” Farmer said. “As long as Foster is here, going about his business, acting like everything’s peachy-keen, this operation is on the rails.”
“Go team.”
“I know you’re pissed off, Tom. If you want the truth, personally, I don’t blame you.”
“You know, I like it better when you do that.”
“When I do what?”
“Let me know when you’re getting ready to tell me the truth. I can get ready for it that way.”
Farmer gave him a disappointed look. “The point is, I don’t want you to think that your help isn’t appreciated.”
Tom sipped his coffee.
“Four weeks,” Farmer said. “When Magruder shows up, we’ll get this done.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tom said.
Four weeks.
Tom gave Agent Farmer his due. The plan hung together nearly forty-eight hours before it fell apart.
To be fair, it wasn’t the theory so much as the variables. But then, if Farmer had asked for Tom’s help preparing the character of Larry Salinger in the first place, Tom could have passed along what his old editor once said about hanging your hat on might and if.
It all went to hell on payday.
TWENTY-NINE
Duane said it best the first week Scott Greer arrived at the Landing:
The kid knew how to work.
Tom sometimes had to remind himself that Scott was only fifteen. On a normal day, he shouldered his load and half of Duane’s. He slouched around, but he never complained. He had a knack for fixing things, an eye for the best way to get a job done. When some problem came up around the place, Tom often found himself evaluating Duane’s opinion based on whether Scott backed him up or disagreed.
When it came to the river itself, Scott was far and away the savviest of the three of them. He let the novice customers know when they had too much gear, when they didn’t have enough. He tipped them where to look for wildlife and how to paddle Fritz’s Narrows without taking a bath.
Even when he was being an asshole, which was more often than not, Scott rarely slacked off. And even when he slacked off, he never did a job halfway.
That was a normal day.
The day after Morgan Wheeler’s funeral, Scott dropped into another gear entirely. He started when he stepped out of the truck Thursday morning and didn’t stop until after dark. Friday morning, Tom heard him clanging around outside before sunrise. Scott started over and did it again.
He stocked and loaded and organized. He combed the campgrounds picking up trash. He spent half a morning lubing and sharpening the sickle attachment for the riding mower; when he was done with that, he took the mower up and down the tall grass along the access road. When he was done with that, he inspected all the gear and split a cord of firewood they didn’t need.
For two days, Scott scourged himself with labor. He stayed out under the sun. He didn’t come in for meals, and Tom barely heard him say a word.
He worked himself blistered, bloodied, and burned. If you didn’t know better, you’d have thought the kid was trying to prove something.
Tom got the feeling he was just afraid to stop.
Friday night, after the last of the campers had settled in, Duane and Scott came up to the shop to collect their cash.
Scott clomped in first, still wearing his work clothes. He had rings of dust under his eyes and crescents of grease under his nails. Streaks of dried sweat stood like veins against the dust on his arms. Duane had already showered and put on his lucky shirt.
He said, “Damn, dude, you gotta learn to pace. You got this whole work-yourself-into-an-early-grave thing going on.”
Scott stood at the end of the counter and didn’t say anything. Duane glanced at Tom. It seemed to dawn on him that perhaps it was an unfortunate week to joke about early graves. He gave a little wince. Oops.
Tom paid him out of the register as usual. As usual, Duane took out a dull silver money clip and folded the bills into it. As usual, he kissed the clip. “Work for Daddy.”
“You should look into a mutual fund,” Tom said.
“You kidding? Have to be crazy to take those odds.”
“Yeah, well. Don’t get caught counting cards.”
Duane put a hand on his chest. “I’m a professional.”
Looking back, Tom realized that his next move was probably the beginning of the end. He didn’t know why he reached under the counter. Normally, he paid Scott out of the register and reimbursed from the cash box later, when he did the books.
Maybe it was because he’d been preoccupied ever since walking out of Sheriff Hilliard’s office late Wednesday afternoon. His mind felt cluttered, attention span short. Maybe, in his distraction, his brain just skipped a step.
Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that he hadn’t had a drink yet today. Tom had been feeling anxious since lunch. Now he felt cold and sweaty at the same time. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, and his right hand shook. He’d told himself he’d hold off until the end of the day, just to prove that he still could, and he’d been straining toward the mark for hours. Now that the hour was near, every task seemed to take on urgency.
Whatever the reason, Tom knew something was wrong the moment he lifted the box. He heard the hollow sound the box made when he set it down on the counter. He glanced at Scott.
“What?”
Tom slipped his fingers between the end of the counter and the wall. He fished out the key, pushed it into the lock on the lid, and stood there for a moment.
“What’s the matter?” Scott said.
Tom knew what was the matter before he opened the box.
Even before he twisted the key, he told himself that Scott was coming off a hell of a week. He told himself he could cover two days’ work out of the register and talk to Abby about it later. It wasn’t his responsibility. It hadn’t even been his idea. He had bigger things to worry about.
But opening the lid and seeing it for himself—four bare corners and an empty bottom waiting there—made something flare in Tom’s gut.
He was coming off a hell of a week, too. He was coming off a hell of a year. He wanted a goddamn drink and he wasn’t in the fucking mood.
So he shut the empty box and tossed it under the counter with an empty steel clatter. He pushed the register drawer shut with his fist.
He looked at Scott’s confused expression. “What are you waiting for?”
“Um, my pay?”
“Nice try.”
“I put in two days.”
“Life sucks, I know. Get used to it.”
“Dude, what’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” Tom said. “Abby covered your salary before you started. On payday, that’s what I pay you.”
“I know that.”
Tom looked at him.
“She told me yesterday. You’re paying me out of my trust.” Scott bit a hangnail off the side of his thumb and spat it out. “Whatever. I don’t give a shit where it comes from. Long as I get paid.”
Tom didn’t know why he was so pissed off. It wasn’t like the kid was stealing from him personally. It was Scott’s money in the first place. He wanted a drink so bad it was starting to hurt.
“Look,” he said. “Your mom gave me enough to last the summer. If it doesn’t last the summer, that’s not my problem. It’s yours.”
“Abby’s not my mom.”
This again.
“News flash. She’s the closest thing to a mom you’ve got, and she loves you more than anybody you know. You should do yourself a favor and wake the fuck up to that.”
Scott’s face twisted into something ugly then. Tom could hear himself talking. He didn’t kid himself. He wasn’t trying to help. He wasn’t being tough on Scott for any special reason. He was a grown man with alcoholic tremors slapping down a fifteen-year-old kid. And he couldn’t seem to stop.
“It’s your money. It’s been right there in the box.” He shrugged. “Should have counted it as you went. It might have held out a little longer that way.”
“Bullshit!”
For a brief moment, Scott’s expression relaxed and turned helpless. There was a pleading quality in his eyes.
Tom shrugged again.
Scott’s voice shot up a register. “I didn’t take shit!”
Tom was about to respond when he saw the look on Duane Foster’s face.
Everything stopped then. Tom looked at Duane. He looked at Scott. He looked back at Duane and saw the whole thing. All at once, the anger drained out of him. Something sick and sad filled the space.
“Jesus,” he said. “You can’t be serious.”
Scott turned on Foster, eyes blazing now. Duane raised his hands.
“I can explain.”
“You took my money?”
“Listen, dude.”
Scott was moving before Tom had absorbed the depressing truth. Duane didn’t even have time to put down his hands before he went flying.
Scott Greer was a big kid, and he was strong as hell. One shove, both hands, all his weight behind it, and Duane’s feet left the floor.
Foster crashed into the candy rack, pulled it down with him in a multicolored rain. Before he recovered, Scott was on him again, tossing the empty rack aside, hauling Duane up by his lucky shirt.
“Piece of shit.”
Scott shoved him again, back across the room. Duane hit the Mr. Coffee; the machine toppled off the table and hit the floor with a crack of plastic and a shatter of glass.
Duane got his balance and straightened, held up his hands one last time. “Don’t. Please.”
Scott was already coming.
With no room to maneuver, Duane took a small step forward and dropped him with a straight right hand.
Tom heard the meaty smack of fist on flesh. Scott’s head snapped back, and his knees buckled. He did an awkward backstep, couldn’t get his feet beneath him, and hit the floor on his ass.
Scott’s hand went to his mouth. After a moment, blood squeezed through his fingers. After that he just sat there, bleeding, surrounded by a litter of candy bars and beef jerky and packs of gum.
“Shit,” Duane said.
Tom hadn’t even lifted his palms from the counter. It was over before he’d had time to react.
Duane stepped forward and held out his hand. “Sorry, man. Come on, this is stupid.”
Scott slapped the hand away. He took his other hand away from his mouth, looked at the smears of red on his fingers. He ran his tongue around the insides of his lips and spat blood. Tom didn’t see any teeth hit the floor.
Without looking at anybody, Scott scrambled to his feet and bolted out the door.
Duane sighed. Scott pounded down the stairs outside. Duane flexed his hand. He sucked a spot of blood from a gouge on the middle knuckle.
“Sorry,” he said again. “Goddamn.”
Tom couldn’t summon a response. He didn’t know what to say.
“Listen,” Duane said. “I was going to pay it back. In the morning. I swear to God.”
“Jesus, Duane.”
“You never do the books until Sunday. I was gonna have it back. No problem.”
“There had to be three grand left in there.”
“It’s that fucking cop!” Duane looked exasperated. “He’s already on my ass. He was here Wednesday already, while you were off wherever the hell you went all day. Pissed off about his cousin, all emotional. He doubled the juice on me and I didn’t have shit to pay him.”
Tom stood with his hands on the counter. He tried to get as angry at Duane as he’d been at Scott just now. He tried to feel something.
“Plus that weed he took was Harlan’s, man. And Harlan’s pissed.” Duane raised his hands to Tom the same way he’d raised them to Scott a minute ago. “You don’t want Harlan pissed at you too long. Let’s just put it that way.”
“So your big plan was what?” Tom looked at him. “Fucking cards?”
“Dude, I’m in the groove. You gotta trust me on that. I can’t lose.”
Tom shook his head.
“Don’t look at me like that. I can print money when it gets like this. I’m telling you.”
“You can’t lose.”
“Seriously.”
“But you’re still broke. Am I getting that right? How does that work?”
“Look,” Duane said. “I figured I’d simmer Harlan down, keep that cop off my ass for a few weeks, make it back at the tables.”
“Bullshit.” Tom understood so much now. “You’ve been dipping since the kid got here.”
Duane shook his head and looked at the counter, but he didn’t deny it. He looked at the clock on the wall, finally gave out one more sigh. He seemed to be full of air tonight.
“Okay,” he said. “Maybe I got a little pissed off for a while there. I’m human, okay? Not saying I’m proud of it.”
“This I definitely want to hear.”
“Gimme a break, huh? I’m the one who brings the kid in, and already the first week you’re paying him more than me?” Duane lapped a new puddle of blood from his knuckle. “I figured you owed me at least a few extra shekels a week. I didn’t know Abby had you hooked up already.”
“Surprise.”
Outside, work boots banged back up the stairs. They sounded heavier as they crossed the deck now. Tom heard a thud. When the bell jingled, and the screen door slammed open, he saw the top of Scott’s duffel bag leaning against the frame.
Scott stalked in without looking at them. His eyes were red and moist-looking. He’d cried.
