The Best American Mystery Stories 2014 (24 page)

Jamie surprises me on Saturday night by bringing two couples into the Dollar. Her friends. Nice people. I’m wearing my coveralls so I drive a wrecker for the night. I don’t ask what they do, and they don’t volunteer anything. We sit in a booth and chat. Everyone is polite. Doc says American society is egalitarian.

When the grape-picking season starts in September, Jamie moves over to her vineyards in Yolo County. She’s still battling with her brothers but has not mentioned anything more about roughing them up. She’s trying to wrest control of her third of the family property. I really miss her. She phones me every night, and there’s always plenty to talk about. She gets away one Saturday night and meets me at the Dollar. I am so glad to see her. We can’t keep our hands off each other. “I’ve been thinking,” she says, “why people buy into the whole package—marriage, kids. It’s like taking the next step.” I listen, surprised. Noncommittal.

Doc happens to come in that night, and I introduce him to Jamie. He’s impressed. She’s read my copy of his book on the Dollar and has a lot of questions for him. Jamie can’t be anything but what she is: smart, educated, rich, and beautiful. I go to piss, and Doc comes in after. He says to me, taking the big brother tone, “Dwight, do you know what you’re doing?” I know what he’s talking about, but I’m stumped for a comeback. “She may be out of your league.” I still can’t think of anything to say, until I realize he’s jealous. “Go fuck yourself, Doc,” I tell him.

I try to relax around Jamie, not always jump to the wrong conclusions. I can see her making an almost visible effort to slow to my pace. She throws me off: she’s always so happy to see me. She wakes up in the morning bursting with energy, like those commercials on TV with athletes smashing through some paper wall to get onto the playing field. Early one morning she takes me to the country club, and we wait on the road by the first hole of the golf course. We’re in her convertible. She hands me her binoculars. “See those two with the plaid shorts? Those are my brothers. I’ve been thinking, it’d be better if we killed them instead of just beating the crap out of them. It would be easier. I don’t mean you—I mean get someone in your family to off them. I’ll pay a hundred thousand dollars. Each. Is that the going rate?”

Is this a test? I’m not ready for this. I know this could be the end of us, too. Why would she stick around if I say no? But I want to be explicit. We are not going to be conspirators. “Listen to me, Jamie. I have no association with the Petrov family. I don’t want to rough up or do anything else to your brothers. Do you understand that? If that is why you’re with me, just forget it. I’m not going to do your dirty work. You shouldn’t ask me that.”

She doesn’t answer me. We drive back to the yard, but she doesn’t pull in through the gates. Lets me off at the entrance. Won’t answer when I ask, “What about tonight?” Is this the last I’ll ever see of Jamie? I’m full of regrets.

What no one knows is that I am in touch with Mr. Petrov. His trial lasted three months. I was the only one working for him who wasn’t indicted. The only money coming into the company legally was from what I was bringing in with my wrecker. That’s what I thought. Until he phoned me from his lawyer’s office and told me to look carefully in the tire rack for a 16-inch 650 Michelin on a chrome rim. The tire was full of hundred-dollar bills. He must have known he was going down and felt he had to trust me. Over the last five years I’ve paid people, maybe half a million dollars: family, when they get out of jail. I get a phone call, probably one of his lawyers, saying,
My good friend So-and-so will come by
, and then the amount I’m to pay out. I’m Mr. Petrov’s bagman. I owe the man. To tell the truth, it was some of his money I used for the down payment on the yard.

I don’t see Jamie for a week. Then two. But I don’t want it to be over. I think a lot about ways we could get together. But then there would always be that unspoken deal between us. I go to the Dollar early on Saturday night. Doc is there. Always generous, he buys me a drink. That means I have to buy him one back, so we’re on our way. I’m just getting comfortable when two uniformed cops come into the Dollar. This is not unusual. The place quiets down except for the two customers playing liar’s dice at the bar, banging the leather boxes hard against the top of the bar. But this time they come for me. One cop reads me my rights. Doc asks, “What’s he supposed to have done?”

Attempted murder. I know the rest of the story before they go on. The brothers have been shot up but are still alive. Doc yells, “Don’t say another word. I’ll call my brother-in-law; he’ll meet you at the station.” One of the cops knows me from service calls; his wife is always running out of gas. Whispers, “You dumbbell, you dropped one of your business cards at the scene.”

When we get to the station, Doc’s lawyer brother-in-law is there. “Dwight, have you been shooting a firearm in the last few days?” When I say no, he demands that the cops give me some test to see if I have any residue from firing a weapon. It turns out there are no witnesses; the brothers, sedated now, never saw their assailants. As I’m being fingerprinted I can hear Doc’s brother-in-law yelling, “If you found my card, would you arrest me too?”

They don’t set bail. I’m put in the drunk tank for the night. Waiting is not easy when your mind is full of things that won’t let you alone. I don’t want to think that Jamie had anything to do with me sitting here on a hard bench with half a dozen other guys. I did a couple things when I was younger. Once you get in the system, it’s like a card game you can’t win. You may have a full house, but they always have four aces. It’s better never to sit down at the game. Worry and despair enter the big cell like it’s being filled with water.

I’m surprised: I’m out by noon. I have an alibi. The cops on their own checked their accident reports and found out I was on the scene of a fender bender on I-5 during the time of the shooting. There’s a CHP report. No one is waiting for me, so I take the bus back to the yard. I feel relief; I can’t say how much. I strip my clothes off and hop in the shower. Thinking it all over, I speculate that one of the Petrov family must have got out of jail and come by the office without the usual phone call, and Jamie made a deal. Whose idea was it to drop my card? After a lot of thought, I decide it was too obvious a move for Jamie. I like to think she would have known better.

I follow the story in the
Sacramento Bee
. The brothers recover enough to buy their sister out. Jamie relocates to Chile and buys one of the largest vineyards in the region. I could get her address, if I want it. Sometimes I think of taking a trip to South America.

Doc never tires of telling me I’m a lucky fuck. “You got in over your head.” And sometimes he adds, “What did you learn from that?” Always the teacher. I stay in character: I’m someone who drives a wrecker. After taking my time to think it over, I say, “Nothing.”

FROM
West Branch

M
Y SISTER DECIDED
we had to go see her estranged husband in Reno. When she told me, I was in a mood. I said, “What does that have to do with me?”

Carolina married when she was nineteen. Darryl, her husband, was a decade older, but he had a full head of hair and she thought that meant something. They lived with us for the first year. My mom called it
getting on their feet
, but they spent most of their time in bed so I assumed
getting on their feet
was a euphemism for sex. When they finally moved out, Carolina and Darryl lived in a crappy apartment with pea-green wallpaper and a balcony where the railing was loose like a rotting tooth. I’d visit them after my classes at the local university. Carolina usually wasn’t home from her volunteer job yet, so I’d wait for her and watch television and drink warm beer while Darryl, who couldn’t seem to find work, stared at me, telling me I was a pretty girl. When I told my sister, she laughed and shook her head. She said, “There’s not much you can do with men, but he won’t mess with you, I promise.” She was right.

Darryl decided to move to Nevada—better prospects, he said—and told Carolina she was his wife and had to go with him. He didn’t need to work being married to my sister, but he was inconsistently old-fashioned about the strangest things. Carolina doesn’t like to be told what to do and she wasn’t going to leave me. I didn’t want to go to Nevada, so she stayed and they remained married but lived completely apart.

I was asleep, my boyfriend Spencer’s arm heavy and hot across my chest, when Carolina knocked. My relationship with Spencer left a lot to be desired for many reasons, not the least of which is that he only spoke in movie lines. He shook me but I groaned and rolled away. When we didn’t answer, Carolina let herself in, barged into our bedroom, and crawled in next to me. Her skin was damp and cool, like she had been running. She smelled like hairspray and perfume.

Carolina kissed the back of my neck. “It’s time to go, Savvie,” she whispered.

“I really do not want to go.”

Spencer covered his face with a pillow and mumbled something we couldn’t understand.

“Don’t make me go alone,” Carolina said, her voice breaking. “Don’t make me stay here, not again.”

An hour later we were on the interstate, heading east. I curled into the door, pressing my cheek against the glass. As we crossed the California border, I sat up and said, “I really hate you,” but I held on to her arm too.

The Blue Desert Inn looked abandoned, forgotten. Mold patterns covered the stucco walls in dark green and black formations. The neon
VAC NY
sign crackled as it struggled to stay illuminated. There were only a few cars in the parking lot.

“This is exactly where I expected your husband to end up,” I said as we pulled into the parking lot. “If you sleep with him here, I will be so disappointed.”

Darryl answered the door in a loose pair of boxers and a T-shirt from our high school. His hair fell in his eyes and his lips were chapped.

He scratched his chin. “I always knew you’d come back to me.”

Carolina rubbed her thumb against the stubble. “Be nice.”

She pushed past him and I followed, slowly. His room was small but cleaner than I expected. The queen-sized bed in the middle of the room sagged. Next to the bed were a small table and two chairs. Across from the bed, an oak dresser covered with used Styrofoam coffee cups, one bearing a lipstick stain.

I pointed to the large tube television. “I didn’t know they still made those.”

Darryl’s upper lip curled. He nodded toward the door leading to the next room. “You should see if the room next door is available.” He patted the bed and threw himself at the mattress, which groaned softly when he landed. “Me and your sister are going to be busy.”

In the office, an older man with a large gut and thick head of red hair leaned against the counter, tapping a map of the hotel, explaining the merits of each of the available rooms. I pointed to the room adjacent to Darryl’s.

“Tell me about this room.”

The motel clerk scratched his stomach, then cracked his knuckles. “That there is a fine room. There’s a bit of a leak in the bathroom ceiling, but if you’re in the shower, you’re already getting wet.”

I swallowed. “I’ll take it.”

He looked me up and down. “Will you be needing two keys or will you be needing company?”

I slid three twenties across the counter. “Neither.”

“Suit yourself,” the clerk said. “Suit yourself.”

The air in my room was thick and dank. The bed carried a familiar sag, as if the same person had gone from room to room, leaving the weight of their memory behind. After a thorough inspection, I pressed my ear to the door separating my room from Darryl’s. Carolina and her husband were surprisingly quiet. I closed my eyes. My breathing slowed. I don’t know how long I stood there, but a loud knock startled me.

“I know you’re listening, Savvie.”

I pulled my door open and glared at my sister, standing in the doorway, hands on her hips. Darryl lay on his bed, still dressed, his ankles crossed. He nodded and grinned widely.

“Looking good, little sis.”

Before I could say anything, Carolina covered my mouth. “Darryl’s taking us out to dinner, at a casino even.”

I looked down at my outfit—faded jeans with a frayed hole where the left knee used to be and a white wifebeater. “I’m not changing.”

The Paradise Deluxe was loud in every way—the carpets were an unfortunate explosion of red and orange and green and purple, classic rock blared from speakers in the ceiling. The casino floor was littered with bright slot machines, each emitting a high-pitched series of sounds that in no way resembled a discernible tune, and at most of the machines drunk people loudly brayed as they pushed the Spin Reels button over and over. As we walked through the casino, single file—Darryl, Carolina, me—Darryl nodded every few steps like he owned the place.

The restaurant was dark and empty. Our waiter, a tall skinny kid whose hair hung greasily in his face, handed us menus encased in dirty plastic and ignored us for the next twenty minutes.

Darryl leaned back, stretching his arms, wrapping one around Carolina’s shoulders. “This,” he said, “is paradise. They serve the best steak in Reno here—meat so tender and juicy a knife cuts through it like butter.”

I pretended to be deeply absorbed in the menu and its array of cheap meats and fried food.

Darryl kicked me beneath the table.

I set my menu down. “Must you?”

He slapped the table. “The gang’s together again.”

While we waited, Carolina idly rubbed her hand along Darryl’s thigh. He did weird things with his face and started smoking, ashing his cigarette on the table.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to do that,” I said.

Darryl shrugged. “I’ve got pull here. They’re not gonna say anything.”

I stared at the small mound of ashes he was creating. “We are going to eat at this table.”

He exhaled a perfect stream of smoke.

Carolina touched my elbow lightly and looked across the table. “Leave her alone,” she said.