An Incidental Reckoning (27 page)

Will walked around in the house, listening for a loose floorboard or looking for a seam in a wall, something that might indicate a place to store hidden things. Surely the former drug kingpin of Erie might have something like that.

He heard a car pulling into the driveway and rushed to the window to peek outside, his heart thudding wildly, expecting a police cruiser. A large man exited a pick-up truck and walked towards the door. He held a keychain in his hand, and fished out a single key from a bristling mass as he approached. Will considered running out the back, but doubted he could make it unseen. Instead, he quickly slunk back through the living room and down the hallway to Brody’s bedroom and crouched on the far side, between the bed and the wall, working to control his labored breathing.

The door opened and he heard heavy footsteps that stopped abruptly.

“What the hell?”

He knew the visitor reacted to the mess he had made: couch cushions tossed on the floor, the contents of two end-table drawers scattered on top of them. He wondered if the man would call the police, considered Brody’s background and the status of anyone that would have a key to his house, and decided probably not.

Then the footsteps started up again, rapid and coming towards him, growing louder. The man's heavy breathing filled the room. Will heard wood scrape against wood, muffled so he guessed the man was doing something in the closet.

He shifted his weight, and the floor creaked beneath his knee. All noise ceased, the room wrapped in utter silence. Will felt the increasing need to exhale and then draw a fresh breath, knew that any sound sent into that vacuum would act as a beacon and reveal his presence and location. Sweat slid down the bridge of his nose to the tip. He felt the cold presence of metal against his back and remembered the gun.

"Who's there?"

The man sounded afraid. Good. Will pulled out the gun and stood up quickly, aiming at the intruder. The man, clutching a shoebox, took a large startled step backwards.

"Don't," he said.

He was tall and fat, wore a stained t-shirt that did its best to hide his belly but failed spectacularly. A Ford ball cap was pulled down over his head to his ears, and a tangle of brown hair bristled in all directions from under it. Will knew that if he pulled the cap off, the hair beneath would maintain the exact shape. His blue jeans had a tear in the knee, and several days of growth coated his face and neck. He looked a man that could hurt someone if he chose, but his face said his heart wasn't in it. And something about the face struck a chord with Will.

"I won't do anything I don't have to," Will answered. He stepped out from behind the bed but stopped at the far edge to keep distance between them. The man's eyes flicked towards the door.

"You run and I will shoot you."

"Who are you?"

"It's not important. Brody owed me some money, and since he left for Hell without telling anyone, I figured I'd come by and collect on my own. Problem is, I haven't found anything. And then here you come in with a key and go right for that box. Must be something important."

The man regarded the box in his hands stupidly, as though it had materialized out of the air.

"Brody told me to come by and get it."

"What's in it?"

"I don't know. Look, man. Brody was my friend, but the stuff he was into, I didn't want to know about. I'm just doing him a favor, that's all."

"I want it. Put it down on the floor and push it over here."

He looked at the box again, and back at Will, but made no move to comply.

"He was my friend. He wanted me to do this for him." Defiance crept into his voice, and Will wished that for once he couldn't do this without having to first put down a rebellion. But he knew he wasn't physically imposing, knew that without the gun he stood no chance of pulling this off.

But he did have the gun, dammit.

"Give me the box."

When he didn't obey, Will swung the pistol wide and fired a round into the wall, and then sighted the muzzle on the man's chest.

"Next one goes into you. No joke. Give me the box."

Trembling, the man stooped down and placed it gently on the floor, almost reverently as if he handled the ashes of Stape himself, and pushed it towards Will. Will walked forward and crouched slowly, keeping the gun ready. He flipped off the lid and immediately spotted the camera nestled amongst a few banded stacks of cash and another pistol. Will forced down a shout of elation and quietly reveled in the wave of relief that flooded through him. He took the camera from the box, and nearly stood up and then grabbed the cash as well. The man would expect him to, and he could certainly use more money to finance his sabbatical.

"What was that? A camera? What do you need that for? You got the money."

"If Brody put it in this box, there must be something on it he didn't want anyone to see. Maybe something I can turn into more cash. And anyway it doesn't concern you."

The man stared in sullen silence, and Will realized he was waiting for instructions.

"What's your name?"

The man looked at the floor.

"Is a bullet in your knee really worth it, just to end up telling me anyway?" Will aimed the gun at his left knee cap for show, possibly more.
Just tell me your name, you idiot.
His finger tightened on the trigger, steeling himself to follow through.

"My name's Alan. But they call me Crush."

"Crush? Why's that?" Will struggled to remain calm despite the surge of anger and the vestigial fear of a fourteen year old.

"Brody gave it to me. We were friends in high school. I used to crush beer cans on my forehead. You know, you actually remind me of this one guy we used to pick on. Brody made him and this other kid fight each other. Funniest thing you ever saw."

Will took two strides towards Crush with the gun outstretched, his anger white hot.

"Hey, man, take it easy. I..."

"You think I'm some punk you can push around? Cause I look like this kid you used to pick on? Is it funny now, asshole? You think getting shot is funny?"

"No man. No. I just said you look like him, I didn't say..."

"You live around here, Crush?" Will's cheeks felt feverish and he knew he was squeezing the trigger harder than he should, almost wished the gun would fire on its own and spare him from making the choice.

"Yeah. Yeah. I live in Tanville. I run an auto body shop there. I'm sorry. Like I said, I knew Brody from school. I was just doing him a favor. I don't think this is funny at all."

"Good. I hoped you were smarter than that. I'm leaving now. You never saw me.” He paused and added, “ I'm going to send someone around to keep an eye on you. Don't bother looking because you won’t see him, but he'll be there. You give him any reason to believe that you talked about this, to anybody, not just the police, you’re dead. If you're married, your wife is dead. You got kids, they're dead. We'll even kill your pastor if you have one, which I doubt but you get the idea, right? You should always assume I’m telling the truth."

Crush put his hands out in front with the palms up. "Yeah. I get it. I'll never talk about this, I swear."

"Good. Now get down on the floor and…count to a thousand."

Crush complied, crumpling to his belly in an ungainly fashion that forced Will to stifle a laugh. He liked the bit about the pastor, felt like a gangster, like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas when the kid told him he was funny. But Joe Pesci shot the kid at the end of that scene. He pointed the gun at the back of Crushs' head, gave it one quick consideration but checked himself. He believed that Crush was sufficiently scared to keep his mouth shut, already had one killing to deal with and didn't need another to hope the police couldn't solve. And maybe someday he could come back and see him, after designing a fitting form of revenge. He wondered if Roger still lived around here, too. Something worth looking into.

"A thousand."

Crush nodded and started counting out loud and Will stepped past him, keeping his distance should an arm swing out to knock him off of his feet. He started for the front door, but then decided exiting out the back would give him a better chance to stay hidden from any more surprise visitors.

As he passed through the kitchen, a scrap of paper caught his eye, for the simple fact that it sat in the middle of the tabletop by itself. He glanced at it, a help-wanted ad, read the words "Armored Car Guards Wanted". He turned to go out the door and stopped and spun around again. The robbery. The score. The thing he and Jon were supposed to do. Maybe this is what Brody had picked. He snatched it up and stuffed it into his pocket, not sure why, as it no longer mattered. Maybe he could start a scrapbook detailing his career as a criminal.

Once outside, Will peeked around the corner of the house to the front, saw only the idle pick-up, thought that he should have taken the keys and tossed them into the cornfield but wasn't going back inside now. He walked the length of the driveway, his pace quickening, and when he got to the blacktop started to run.

Will drove slowly past his apartment, and then circled the block again, looking for suspicious vehicles occupied by suspicious people. Satisfied that the police hadn’t made at least an obvious sign of their presence, hoping it meant they still didn’t have a clue as to the identity of the shooter of Robert Aikens the Third, he walked up the steps and went inside, closed and locked the door, then peeked out the window for a good five minutes. He watched a plastic grocery bag tumble down the street and hang up on someone’s tire, and a stray dog meander down the sidewalk, pausing occasionally to sniff the concrete or pee on something. He relaxed and sat down on his couch.

Will pulled the stacks of cash from his pockets and broke the seals and counted it. Ten-thousand dollars, all in twenties and hundreds. Not too shabby, but again he reflected on how he assumed Brody would have a hundred times that. Maybe he did, stashed in other places with more friends assigned to collect it. At least the camera had been in the house. If he had waited a half hour more to go look for it, Crush would have taken it and maybe developed it and then…

Last, he took the crumpled bit of paper out and looked at it again. Thought about robbing an armored car, getting away with enough cash to never have to work again. If they did it without Brody, they could keep it all…

He looked at his machine, the blinking number no greater than before, and pulled out his cell phone, found no new messages. But it had just happened. Maybe Jon had gone out to celebrate with Erin. No, he wouldn’t have told her. Perhaps he went to a bar and got drunk, buying everyone inside a round and once past the hangover, he would call. But what if he didn’t?

Will decided to wait a week. No, two weeks.

Certainly he had the experience now, didn’t believe that time served was the biggest factor but rather the quality of the deeds done, and his rated up there somewhere beyond the average moron breaking the law. He could pull this off.

They could pull this off.

All Jon needed to believe was that Brody still rode at the helm. And since e-mail would be the method of communication, that could easily be accomplished. Will's excitement grew, but he cautioned himself that Jon remaining unaware of Stape’s death was a long shot. He
could
go ahead and do it himself…but two was better. Two shared the risk. He would give Jon something as a reward, but he deserved the bulk of the money for planning the whole thing and having the audacity to do it in the first place.

Will felt a stab of guilt at the thought of deceiving his friend.

Friend.

A word he had always associated with Jon, in a deeper sense than he had ever used it before or since. But what basis did it have in reality? He thought back to that first day at Tanville High School. He had just moved from Scranton, leaving his friends behind: kids he went swimming with, rode bikes with, and lately before the move discussed that whole new frontier of girls with. Then his father had accepted a position with a company in Pittsburgh, and they had moved to Tanville. He had gotten into trouble that first day with Stape for showing some attitude on a foolish impulse, after failing to move out his way fast enough, which led to the incident outside, to the fight with Jon and everything else. Sure, he had agreed to endure their situation, not wanting to disappoint his father, to let him know that he was
that
sort of kid. Though so different, his and Jon's fathers shared some qualities. They would have expected them to fight back, to win; could never have understood the true nature of their oppressor.