Skunk Hunt (6 page)

There was a cagy twist in his tone. I thought
he was planning to rip off a computer from Best Buy, and considered
warning him against doing anything stupid. Our letters made it
clear we each possessed only a third of the key necessary for
revealing what I assumed was a treasure map. Jeremy in jail would
end whatever chance we had of recovering the Brinks stash.

"It looks like we can't get anywhere without
Sweet Tooth," Jeremy continued. "Maybe I should get off the phone,
in case she's trying to call."

"Are you coming over?" I asked.

"Let's see what she's got, first. You've got
my number."

He hung up before I could contradict him.

CHAPTER 4

Barbara was Mom, only more cheerful. Men were
as much objects to her as she was to them. She had not yet
encountered a man devoted to destroying her life.

In short, another Skunk.

Not that Skunk ever beaten our mother, but a
look from him could be like nine rounds with Tyson. And there are a
zillion other tried and tested ways to wear out a human soul.
Besides, it wasn't really as if he had dedicated his whole being to
squashing Mom. It was more like transference of negative
energy.

Was he unfaithful? Kids are usually as
ignorant as moms when their father flies the flag in foreign ports.
Beyond carousing with his drinking buddies and the occasional
robbery, I had little knowledge of Skunk's extracurricular
activities. But Barbara and I couldn't help but wonder how our
pleasant little twosome became so unexpectedly a threesome. No
adoption agency ever sent a representative to check up on Jeremy's
well-being. No social worker sniffed at our home-atmosphere, so
inappropriate to the raising of well-rounded, law-abiding citizens.
No, Jeremy wasn't kosher. Or maybe he was 100% kosher. One-hundred
per cent under-the-counter McPherson.

No one bothered to fill in the details, or
even provide an outline. As the years passed and the mystery kid
became a mystery man, we would sometimes catch sly looks from
Jeremy, as though his ultimate joke was right up his sleeve. Like
Dad, he was a pip at keeping secrets.

In Barbara's case, there was a fairly secure
chain of evidence. I was too young to remember her birth. Come to
think of it, I don't recall my own. It's the one trauma we all
share. The biggest day in our lives, and our eyes are squeezed
shut. Our talent for ignoring evidence is ingrained, like we know
from the beginning things are not going to turn out for the best. I
couldn't remember a day when Barbara wasn't part of my life. And if
this wasn't proof enough of her McPherson-hood, the fact that she
was a ringer for Mom cinched the case. Since Mom would never have
had the moxie to step out on the fearsome Skunk, the genome map was
fairly clear, until it dropped off the cliff of my brother.

But if physical appearance, a sultry voice
and a pronounced sashay established Barbara's genetic credentials,
her personality suggested an alien implant. She was the liveliest
of all of us. If you include impulsiveness as a civic virtue, she
was also the most dangerous. Whenever she saw injustice, she was
inclined to say things like, "Let's call the police!"—the last
people Dad wanted to see around his house. Which probably explains
why Jeremy and I gravitated to her presence whenever Skunk was on a
rampage. He couldn't trust his own daughter not to turn him in.

To say this was alien behavior on her part is
not much of a stretch. Our neighborhood had a long tradition of
treating the police like an occupying garrison. There was plenty of
fault on both sides, with overreaction the standard baseline from
which everything escalated. Barbara risked her neck several times
when she called the cops down on wife-beaters. Both Jeremy and I
told her she should mind her business—it made Jeremy look bad with
his friends, and it inclined neighborhood boys (usually Jeremy's
friends) to add spice to the usual beatings they doled out to
me.

That's something else you know about me,
now—if you haven't guessed already. I was at the bottom of the
pecking order. Beat me. Unlike Jeremy, being Skunk's offspring
offered no protection. This was because you had to show some spunk
of your own before he took a mind to step in. Spunk was something I
sorely lacked. Dad looked at me like some awful outgrowth. Even in
my case, I doubt he suspected Mom of infidelity; but if he did, he
must have thought she had been consorting with hamsters.

Both Jeremy and I sensed Barbara was doing
the right thing. We only had to see the battered faces (and you had
to live among the lowlifes of the Hill to see a woman beaten within
an inch of her life, with no one lifting a finger to help) to get
the squeamish sensation that we were in the wrong place at the
wrong time. But we also saw it as the normal course of
things...whereas Barbara demanded change.

Not too much change, though. A child of her
environment, Sweet Tooth saw no sense in self-control when it came
to the lesser sins. The boy who lapped up her virginity at 12 also
taught her how to smoke cigarettes, which she took to with gusto.
Of course, I smoke too. We all do. It's part of the air we breathe.
Oregon Hill was a great smokestack of tobacco-inhaling,
chaw-chomping nicotine addicts. It still is, the current student
population being as hooked on the weed (and even more drunk) than
the original Hillers. The only difference is that we were ignorant
addicts, while the students...I guess they're rebelling against the
establishment. Sounds better...means less.

Once or twice Jeremy felt compelled to defend
our sister. Not her honor, of course, which was a lost cause. I'm
talking about her life. When Bernie Matthews unhinged the jaw of
his common-law wife with a left hook, Barbara not only reported it,
she escorted the cops to his front door. It was an inconceivably
dumb act, and the McPherson clan concluded that she was even more
retarded than the rest of us. It was as if she had been stricken by
a baleful disease that stripped her of common sense—and
accountability.

A day later, Jeremy found out Bernie's two
boys were planning to waylay our sister and teach her a lesson in
anti-civic duty.

"Cal told me," Jeremy said. "It wouldn't look
good, us not stopping them. He's willing to help me."

"Help you what?" I asked.

"With some counter-insurgency work," was
Jeremy's response, exposing the fact that he often hung out with
Dad's weird pal, old Flint Dementis, who had suffered a minor
setback at Hue when a bullet entered one side of his head and
exited with part of his forebrain.

Jeremy was playing a delicate balancing act
with his reputation. Defending Barbara meant he was standing for
law and order, a horrible notion. But if he left the Matthews boys
free to do their worst he could be accused of letting down his
family. There wasn't much in the way of family loyalty among the
McPhersons. We let each other down regularly. Skunk, for example,
was once again in prison. Or maybe he was giving us a break.

"They're a lot bigger than you," I reasoned.
"And Cal's no great shakes."

"I know that. You ready to go?"

I had sort of seen this coming. Backing out
would be totally chickenshit. I gulped and nodded. At least there
would be three of us.

What I hadn't foreseen was that, when we
confronted the Matthews boys in the alley between Laurel and Pine,
Jeremy and Cal would push me in front of them and shout:

"Here, take him, instead."

And they did.

I survived. I wasn't important enough to
kill. Besides, the Matthews boys knew Skunk would be out of jail
soon and might take offense if they converted Barbara into sliced
bacon, which had been their avowed intention. With them working me
over, instead, everyone's honor was satisfied without fear of dire
consequences. Well, at least I got out of school for a couple of
weeks.

I asked Barbara why she didn't call the
police when I got slammed. She looked stupefied, as though the
thought hadn't crossed her mind, and should not have crossed
mine.

"If all the Matthews men go to jail, who'll
take care of Mattie?"

One of those Matthews men had dislocated
Mattie's jaw, but no matter. I dropped the subject. At school, my
contusions earned me some respect among my peers and sympathy
(something I had an unhealthy craving for in those days) among my
teachers.

Barbara's golden heart was laced with
impurities, but these could be explained away. She was the one,
after all, who complained to playmates that her father was a
"convicted feline." But mental shortcomings aside, between nature
and nurture it was universally marveled that she had any scruples
at all.

Several hours after Jeremy called, the phone
rang again. My home was becoming a communications hub. I was
accustomed to going months without hearing a dial tone.

"Mute..."

It was a whisper backed by heavy breathing, a
voice obscene with dread.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"You don't recognize me?"

"Sweet Tooth? I can barely hear you. We must
have a bad connection." I was thinking of my grandmother, who used
to shout into the phone because that was what you did to be heard
over a long distance. South Carolina was pretty far away, by my
lights.

"I hear you fine." There was a deep breath
and her voice became clearer. The interference had been emotional.
"I think we should meet."

"Yes," I said. "How are you doing? How did
the wedding go? How's...what's his name?"

That was a lot of questions from someone who
wasn't particularly interested in his sister's life. I'm not
particularly interested in anyone's life. Not even my own. But
there was a part of me that was irresistibly piqued by Barbara's
fate. She had shown more gumption than anyone else in our slouching
family. Perhaps this kind of energy, plus luck, could be
shared.

"I'm not doing great," Barbara said. Then her
voice picked up, as though the admission had made her stronger. "To
tell you the truth..."

"You're not married to...what's his
name?"

"Don't ask for details."

"OK."

"Thanks."

"So," I continued, "what happened?"

Then it came, the old laugh. Most people
exhale when they laugh. The bursts might be short or long, but are
still generally directed outwards. Barbara, on the other hand,
sucked wind—shrill, staccato gulps. I've heard laughter that made
you cover your ears. This wasn't quite that bad, but I was still
inclined to call for an ambulance, or at least take a stab at the
Heimlich Maneuver.

"You haven't changed," Barbara said when her
fit had passed. "If you want the long and the short, he dumped me.
That's all there is to it. Don't ask why. It's too...don't
ask."

"All right," I said, finally committing her
secret to the well-used family closet. "I guess you're calling
about a letter you got."

"Yeah, about the Brinks—"

"Barb!" I shouted.

"You got one too, right? About the
Brinks—"

"Barb!" I shouted again.

"I wish you'd stop that," she said
peevishly.

"Don't say that word." I was probably being
overly cautious. Jeremy and I had already spilled enough beans to
make a stew. Our earlier conversation would have raised the stench
of suspicion in any eavesdropper. But we never spoke the Word.
Barbara probably wouldn't get the point unless I spelled it out for
her. So I did. "Sweet Tooth, the authorities have software programs
that pick out key words."

"'Authorities'?" Barbara inhaled. "You mean
cops?"

"Yeah, your old buddies."

"They aren't my 'buddies'," Barbara said
angrily. "You and Dad and everyone else, you never understood.
There wasn't anyone else to go to for help."

I heard a low, sharp clink. For an instant I
wondered if my paranoia had turned true. Barbara might be on a cell
phone, but I had an old-fashioned landline, susceptible to bugs and
their accompanying signature clicks. Then the receiver filled with
wind and I realized Barbara was blowing smoke. The click belonged
to her lighter.

"What about us?" I asked, a bit indignantly.
"What about me?"

"You mean like when Doubletalk threw you to
the wolves?"

Meaning the Matthews brothers.

"Well?" I pressed.

"You can't fight the world with a noodle,"
was her blithe answer.

I was hurt, but to show it would have
made me a
wet
noodle.

"So about this Brinks letter—"

"Stop it!" I bellowed.

"Bombs, terrorists, president, holy war, box
cutters, Israel, dynamite, rat poison, fertilizer...have I covered
all the bases? Come on, FBI spy, show me the handcuffs!"

Was she drunk? She emphasized each word like
a general outlining an air strike, rounding it all off with her
sucking laugh. I was speechless. The Brinks money was like a badger
in the McPherson collective mind, sometimes barely stirring,
sometimes raging, but never asleep. What a difference it could make
in our lives! But El Dorado was just over the ridge, too high to
see over, too steep to climb. Why bother thinking about it at all?
Was it the only dream we had? Had we allowed ourselves to slouch in
life because we were all...waiting? Then why was Barbara risking
what little hope we had? Maybe she wasn't a true believer.

"You really think there's money hidden away
somewhere?" Barbara asked.

The eavesdroppers must be having a field day,
I thought.

"Don't you?" I sighed hopelessly.

"It's crap," said Barbara. "Skunk was a born
liar. About the only good thing you can say about him is that he
didn't diddle what he shouldn't diddle."

"Oh," I said. "You mean...like you?"

"Exactly."

"Well...that's good. Right?"

"Of course it's good, moron." A column of
smoke toppled against her mouthpiece and was pulverized at my end
in a cloud of sound. "So, I guess you want us all to meet. Has
Doubletalk called?"