The Witch Tree, page 15
Buck circled the block, got to Seven Corners again from a side street and killed the engine.
Shortly after one, a man in a belted raincoat stepped out of Donnelly’s, a little drunkenly. He slung his maroon and gold scarf over his shoulder and climbed into the de Ville, and Eli flashed his lights. The de Ville pulled from the curb and, when the light at the intersection was green, it shot through it, Eli passing, and Buck swinging in alongside the de Ville.
They were all three of them headed up the road, Eli, the de Ville, and Buck, when, at the following intersection, Vern swung in front of Eli, came to an abrupt stop, Eli braking so violently the de Ville plowed into him, the two cars caroming across the intersection, tires screeching, to come to shuddering stops, the de Ville nosed out against traffic, Eli dead center.
A hub cap popped off the de Ville and rolled up the curb and clanked onto its side in the storm drain.
Buck circled, then parked on a side street, and Cleve shot by in the Mercedes. The conscientious witness, he leapt from his car and ran to the mark, who’d gotten out of the de Ville.
“You okay?!” he shouted. Already there were sirens and blue lights fast approaching.
Eli staggered from his sedan, his face covered in blood. He stumbled, then fell to the asphalt. The mark tried to go to him, and Cleve swung him around, Cleve jabbing his index finger into his palm, making a point.
The mark gave Cleve his card, hesitated for one long, conscientious moment, then jumped in his de Ville and was gone.
After which, Cleve, laughing, scooped Eli up off the street and slung him into the Mercedes.
In seconds, they were in their cars, headed in opposite directions, even as the sirens drew closer.
Back at the apartment, he sat quietly on the couch, waiting for Eli, the shakes overtaking him, as they had at times after a bad game, or a fight; and there’d always been that.
When Eli came in, he went to the sink, where, with a towel, he wiped the fake blood from his face and neck. He tore the towel into strips, then flushed the strips down the toilet and returned to the kitchen.
“Attorneys,” he said, “you never know when you’re going to need another dirty one, hey?”
“So, that was it?”
“Like all of ‘em, he never saw us comin’.”
Eli opened the window and fed the bird, cupped it in his hands, the bird larger. Returned it to the box. He was going to go back to Jenny, who was sleeping in the bedroom, when Buck said, “Brother, sit.”
Eli did that. Then, as if he’d just thought of it, he reached into his pocket, held out a roll of bills.
“Yours,” he said.
Buck didn’t so much as stir. He had no idea what to say, but he had to say something.
Only Eli said it first, his voice catching, a world of hurt in it, “Somebody’s got to stop all this, don’t you think?”
“Rise and shine!” Eli said. “You wanted in, so….”
He snapped on the light, and Buck, blinded, threw his arm over his eyes. He felt as if he were swimming out of a nightmare. When he could open his eyes, he saw Eli’s pupils were pinpricks.
He sang, grimly now, “Good morning merry sunshine, how did you wake so soon?”
“What’s the time?”
“It’s just after three,” Eli said. “Get up. We’re delivering a ‘rebadged-totaled.’ You’ll follow me in my car, drive us back.”
He squinted, with one eye, up at Eli. Sleep deprived as he was, he couldn’t do it, and he said as much. And hadn’t they already done more than enough damage for one night?
“Hold out your hands, brother,” Eli said, “come on, right now. We don’t have time for this.”
“For what?” But because he wanted nothing more than to shut Eli up, he did it, in it a too familiar supplication.
“‘Given and shed for you,’” Eli joked, “right?” and dropped two green and clear capsules into his hands, then held up a glass of water. “You gotta be sharp,” he said, “in case the competition shows. ‘Cause, this time they’ll shoot, and you along with me, since we’ve been warned, okay?”
And as he had all those years at Mass with The Host, he swallowed the pills, hating himself.
“So, you good to go?”
“Good as I’ll ever be,” he replied.
Scant hours later, at the Paradise, he mended broken steel, pulled dents, and set fenders straight. Each time he lit the cutting torch it appeared to him like the head of a snake, the flame a yellow centered, blue tongue.
Had it just been bennies Eli had given him, or had they been laced with something?
Working, he clambered, his damn hand aching, under yet another car, set a cable, and scuttled out. Went around to Ambrose, who was jotting on a pad and jabbed it into his pocket.
“That your Op Ed?” he asked.
Ambrose feinted, left, left-right, and Buck wove and danced, threw a too-ragged punch, nearly connecting.
“I thought so,” Ambrose said, staring in his goggles. “You got into it anyway, didn’t you? Workin’ nights.
“‘n’ I hope what you’re on is pharmaceutical, cause,” he stared, in his blue-lensed goggles, “ice’ll kill you.”
It shocked him – that he’d been so easily caught out.
33
Yet, a week passed, and all seemed business as usual. Up early, off to the Paradise, then home for dinner and after that some insipid television show, Jenny and Eli at one end of the sofa, and he on the other, and in him a sense that the very walls were incrementally pressing in. They were – all three of them – waiting, each for some opportunity that never came.
But it was spring, now, and the days were longer, and each warmer, and the trees in leaf.
Sally’d come into her own, and she and Buck had strolled around Lake Calhoun one evening. Jenny got a new dress and modeled it in the apartment, fanned the pleated skirt, delighted, and Eli tinkered with his car, and when he came in, balmy, warm evenings, the blue jay flew from its box on the window ledge to nearby trees, then to Eli’s hand again.
He could almost believe he was just visiting and soon would be off for opening weekend up north.
And then, late one night, Lester rang. “Got a job,” he said, and an hour later they stood, Lester, Cleve, Eli, and Buck, under the light behind Moby’s, moths circling it, just as they had before, only something was off.
“We’re hitting a Bekin’s moving van,” Lester said. “You and Eli, you’ll roll squat.”
“Squat?”
“It’s eighteen hundred bucks for your time, and the car’s been prepped, should be safe. You have a whole trunk full of tires, which’ll soften the impact. Scoot down just before you get hit.”
“Where?”
“On the St. Anthony Parkway. We just got word on their route, south and east to Highway 35.”
Buck had a moments misgiving. Wasn’t St. Anthony Parkway up in Nord East, in that industrial area, Russian Hill?
Lester handed them IDs, and he glanced down at his: Head like a melon, eyes like raisins.
Barney Ayasha, or, Little Barney. Was it some kind of joke? If it was, he didn’t think it was funny.
“Just follow Cleve,” Lester told him. “Eli’ll drive.” He lifted his jacket, a walkie talkie there. Turned to Eli.
“You get that Bekin’s van behind you, and Cleve, he’ll blink his lights. Twice, is that clear? The first time, you slow down, close the distance. The second, Cleve’ll hit his brakes and, Eli, you squat.
“Got it?”
On the St. Anthony Parkway, they followed Cleve, his taillights burning red in front of them. The car they were in was a boosted 1970s Montego, and it wallowed on its shocks.
“We take the hit,” Eli said, “then talk nice to the EMTs, and the lawyers and docs do the rest. Got it?”
Buck glanced behind them. Just dark road, and trees, and to the west the moon, at quarter. They crested a hill, Cleve ahead of them, and in the distance, off the highway, a gas station, lit bright. Still no Bekins van, but now Cleve’s brake lights flashed, and there it was, up ahead. The van. Green, with that yellow lettering on the side. Sure enough, they both went sailing by it, got into the lane in front, only, it was all too fast.
Eli, blinking, glanced into the rear view mirror, said, “God – dammit, Cleve. Slow down! Not now. Just–”
Buck turned, there yet another set of lights coming on behind the van, set to overtake it, too.
The gas station loomed up, Cleve flashed his lights, and Eli braked, the car standing on its nose, and the van hit them, the rear window shattering, spraying them with glass, and the car sliding sideways, threatening to roll, only it came shuddering to a stop on the shoulder.
There was a hot, otherworldly silence, which went on, and on, until he realized a horn was blaring. Theirs.
Eli stumbled into the intersection and, stooping, he set his hands on his knees, vomited fake blood.
Buck came out after him, and the driver of the van dropped down from his cab, shook himself.
“Don’t- move him!” he called out.
The car that had been behind them, a Lincoln, slowed, then veered smartly around the wreckage and a thick-necked Slav got out. His head bent, he marched into the intersection.
“Eli!” Buck shouted, and bolted toward him.
Eli stood and turned. His eyes went wide, in shock, and the Slav buried a knife in his stomach.
Buck hit the Slav at the waist, knocked him off his feet, and the Slav, on all fours, scrambled to his Lincoln and rocketed away, Lester pulling up and throwing his back door open.
“Get him in,” he said, and the driver of the van calling out, “Hey! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
At the Paradise, Lester was on the phone in the office, had shut the door so he couldn’t be heard. Pacing, shouting into the phone, he kept his back to the window overlooking the shop.
Only the office door, now, was ajar behind him, Lester’s voice echoing off the near wall.
When they’d first come in, Buck followed Lester to the office, where, as Lester’d told him he didn’t want him calling an ambulance, they’d argued, and Buck jimmied the latch in the strike plate.
As old Gaspar Sacco had taught him – nothing like distraction to put things by people.
“Now, you just… hold up,” Lester’d told him, “we’ll have someone for Eli in no time. We’ll get a doctor.”
Lester had yanked the door shut, and when he turned his back, Buck opened it with his foot.
His ear cocked to Lester’s conversation, he went around to Eli’s car, parked in the center stall. “Eli?” he said, and leaned in.
He’d moved him to the rear of the Goat to run him to a hospital, if it were going to come to that. Eli had forced his head between the cushions of the back seat, his arms drawn protectively into his sides, as he’d done when he was a boy, sleeping. But this wasn’t sleep.
In the office, Lester said, “Yeah, your guy, he didn’t just scare him like he was supposed to – he all but killed him.
“No. He’s not going anywhere–” Lester glanced over his shoulder, out the window.
He turned his back, again, said, “I know… the idea was–” Lester threw up a hand. “Well, he’s not – going – to go after – ANYTHING NOW, Bill, thanks to you and your–
“No. Right, I’ll take care of it – I know he can’t go to the…. Well, if he’s dead, then we’ll have to find it some other way, won’t we?”
Eli, hearing it, got up on his elbow, mouthed, “Help me.”
That did it. Buck reared back, hit the button for the stall door. The door coming up, he got the Goat started. As Lester was sending the door back down, closing it, he shot backwards, tires smoking, out into the lot where Lester hammered on the roof. Swung the car around and put his foot to floor and veered into traffic.
His face in the windshield, he passed one car after another, swerving around them, laying on his horn.
Back at The Evergreens, he stepped into the bathroom, leaned over the sink and splashed cold water on his face. He had the apartment to himself. Jenny was still at the hospital.
He put his face to the mirror, his cheeks shiny with water, his eyes puffy and swollen.
“What does the happy Native think?” he said, smiling and pointing to himself. He let the smile fall.
As long as he didn’t kill Ambrose, he could get him over to Carol Miller, who had to know… something.
34
Jenny home and making a racket in the kitchen, he eased out of his room, anxious to get word of Eli at the hospital. In a white dress, red poppies splashed across it bright as blood, Jen took a tug on a cigarette.
“Well, look who’s here, Red Lake’s finest,” she said, and she blew off a plum of smoke.
She’d set a bag of groceries on the counter. She rarely went shopping, but then, she’d been on crutches.
“I have you to thank,” she said, a cutting note in her voice. “So, thanks. So much….” When he said nothing, only waited, she added, “For not being there” – she smirked–”and, too, for being there. He would have died if you hadn’t driven him in yourself. No question about it.”
She turned to the window, smoke coiling from the cigarette.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Well, what you should be thinking about now.”
“Which would be?”
“Well, for one,” she said, “you could tell me why you’re not at the hospital. I mean, what if he… dies?”
“You mean,” he replied, “what if he doesn’t have a chance to tell me what he’s been up to? And where he’s hiding things?”
“I didn’t say that,” Jenny said.
“But it’s why you’re still here, right?”
“Yes, it’s why we’re here.” Jenny shuddered. “And you really don’t know him. Not like you think you do. He just plays stupid, but he’s got this whole, complicated game plan, you can’t even imagine. And it would’ve worked, too, and perfectly, if it hadn’t been for Ruben having the… shit luck to run into….”
She pinched a strand of tobacco from the corner of her mouth. “I know you were a… a father to Eli, but, no, you don’t know him. Not really. Since you were gone all those years, how could you?
“So,” she said, “you going to make good on your reputation, or show yourself to be King Bullshit?
“I mean,” and here she threw her arm out, pointed to him, “just look at you, could you be any more… pathetic?”
He glanced down at what he was wearing, clothing stained and burned and torn from work at the shop.
“Mike Fineday. Our big hero, Red Lake’s baseball star.
“Eli–” she said “–worshipped the very water you walked on. Did you know that?
“–he lived for those games. All those cities, and that car you bought, the convertible, and – that woman you were with, ‘Prettier than Marilyn Monroe,’ he said, and the fights? You always ‘knocked ‘em dead.’ Oh, yeah, you ‘knocked ‘em dead’ all right, only now?
“What are you but a has been?” She glared. “And, letting yourself be put out, like you were up north?
“I don’t even know what to say to that.”
He gave her a hard look. As Seraphim’d said, “The best sermons are lived, not preached.”
“You’ll be ready?” he asked. Just that. “And don’t say ‘yes’ if you don’t mean it, and all the way. Cause it’s gonna get real ugly. And you’re gonna be right in middle of it.
“You good with that?”
She lifted her cigarette, took one last, angry tug on it, then crushed it out in the ashtray.
“I am.”
“All right then,” he said, and swept up his jacket. “I’ve got something to do, but I’ll be back. Count on it.”
35
Gut shot with guilt, he sat with Sally on a bluff over the Minnesota River, trying to rise to it. She’d done her hair up – ”Change of scenery,” he’d told her, “let’s make it an outing” – had braved driving over, only to plunge into the dark woods and emerge here, in moonlight.
Where they sat, the river below, there marshland, and a chorus of spring peepers singing.
“It’s so… beautiful,” Sally said, then slung an arm around his waist, scooting close.
“Plenty of places like this in Seattle,” he said. “I hear, when it isn’t raining it’s the closest thing to paradise.
“You should head out, isn’t it about time?”
“Uh-huh…” she said, and pointed, overhead, where bats darted, stitching the sky together.
They’d eaten at Archie’s and, unable to tell her under the glowering, top-hatted malevolent frog, he’d suggested coming here. Or, he realized now, it was she who’d suggested it. “A pretty place, one you love.”
“And you were here last… when?” she asked.
“1961, May seventh.”
“Really?”
“Nah,” he told her, “I was just funning.”
“No, you weren’t,” Sally said.
He’d sat on this very bluff with Joe the day he’d signed to play for Cleveland. He shrugged, and she settled her head against his neck, in her hair the scent of strawberry shampoo.
That Eli, elsewhere, was fighting for his life, he wouldn’t tell her about that, either.
“Well, if you’re not going to tell me about you, then… tell me a story,” she said. “Tell me–” she pointed to a constellation “–about that one. The Big Dipper. What do you call it?”
“Ursa Major,” he replied, and she jabbed him with her elbow, said, “I’m crazy, remember, not stupid?”
“You know, you’ve got to stop saying that, that you’re ‘crazy,’ because you’re not.”
“Aren’t I?”
“No, you aren’t. Not at all. You’re just…. And who put that idea in your head, anyway?”
“My mom,” she said, but then, a thoughtful look on her face, she added, “No, it was my dad. He was the one who sent me to Dr. Lerner when I started having the panic attacks, who got me all… drugged up.
“Said I was ‘crazy.’”
“You know, you might want to ask yourself, sweetheart, if there might be some reason he wanted people to think you were–” he made finger quotes in the air “‘Totally Bug Nuts Certifiable,’ don’t you think?”
