Curtains (10 page)

“I don’t have no problems.”

“That you’ll admit, anyway.”

“No worries nothing.”

“You’re old and alone and it’s slipping away.
The last thing you have left to fight for is that patch of grass up
there”—Peter Reynolds waved at the dark window in the direction of
Herman’s house—“and a picket fence. And it’s getting harder to keep
that fence standing straight, isn’t it? The winds keep coming, a
little stronger every year, the snow leans on it, the neighborhood
kids get a little bigger and bolder, and a fence starts looking
like a dare instead of a warning. Yes, Mr. Weeks, I understand
fences. I’m territorial myself.”

The hippie’s gray eyes, which were the same
color as the carpet, seemed far too old. “All I want is a place to
spread out, a yard for my dog to dig in, a roof over my head, and
no barbarians at the gate.”

“Barbarians at the gate,” Herman repeated, as
if he had the slightest idea what the hippie was going on about. He
had a fleeting image of one of those old chariot movies, where the
Romans were always punished because of nailing Jesus to the cross.
You never saw John Wayne in a toga, that was for sure. Charlton
Heston, maybe, but that was a different nut altogether.

“I’m a loner like you,” Peter Reynolds went
on, standing across the room even though his guest was sitting. “I
take care of what’s mine. That’s why I was so upset when I saw you
had fixed my leaning fence post. It was an insult, you see.”

Herman could see that plain, now. At the
time, he’d thought the hippie has bone lazy, without a stitch of
pride. But the truth was the hippie was just like Herman, proud to
the point of stubbornness. Ready to fight for home ground.

“I didn’t mean nothing,” Herman said. “But
from where I come from, you set your fences straight.”

“I’m tired, Herman. I don’t mind burying a
trespassing cat once in while.” The hippie gave Herman a look that
said maybe cats weren’t all he’d buried. “But I don’t want to run
anymore. Every time I think I’m settled in for good, that I’ve
staked out a place to call my own, along comes some lousy neighbor
to spoil it all.”

Herman didn’t want to think that he was
spoiling anything for Peter Reynolds. Because the hippie’s left
eyelid was twitching just a little.

“Well, I’m not running anymore. This time,
I’m trying to recruit an ally. A good neighbor. A man who respects
the property rights of others.”

“I’ve always been a good neighbor,” Herman
said.

“You’ve got more to fight for than any of us
do, since you’ve been here the longest.”

“I’ll fight to protect what’s mine. I
registered for the draft, though I had the bad luck to come of age
between Korea and Vietnam.”

“You don’t have to go overseas to find the
enemy,” the hippie said, and those gray eyes had gone even darker,
on toward charcoal. “The barbarians are right at the gate.”

Herman’s stomach was in knots and his bowels
gurgled, scoured raw by fiber. He didn’t like the distant anger in
the hippie’s voice. That was a murderer speaking, someone who could
deprive another human being of the ultimate in property rights, the
right to possess a living and breathing body. He flinched when the
hippie spun and stormed toward the computer.

“It’s a technological age we live in,
Herman,” Peter Reynolds said, tapping some keys. “All the public
records are right here on the county Web site. Birth certificates,
deaths, deeds, criminal charges, tax liens. And look here. Building
applications.”

Herman squinted, trying to see around the
hippie’s back, that long pony tail nearly down to his rump. From
behind, wearing a dress, he could have passed for a girl. Assuming
he shaved his legs. But he heard women didn’t hardly do that
anymore. Barbarians at the gates was right.

“Next door,” the hippie said. “The Devereaux
heirs have been busy.”

“The dentist’s boys?”

“Yes. They’ve sold the lot to an outfit out
of Texas. Highland Builders LLC.”

“Damn. I knew that was going to be developed
sooner or later. Wonder who the new neighbor is going to be?”

“Neighbors,” the hippie said. “Plural.”

“Do what?”

“Apartment complex. Six buildings. A
hundred-and-fifty-two parking spaces. Legal occupancy of up to 122
unrelated persons.”

Herman dug a finger into his ear, as if wax
buildup prevented his brain from accepting the words he’d just
heard. “No way. You can’t fit that many people on such a little
scrap of ground.”

“You must have missed the zoning hearings.
This application says the property was zoned for multi-family back
in the 1980s.”

“Oh, that. We didn’t go to none of those. We
stayed away as a protest against zoning.”

“They zoned anyway.”

“Tarnation.”

“A foreign developer like that has absolutely
no respect for the neighbors. Oakdale would be changed forever. For
the worse.”

“I’ll say. How we going to keep all them
people off our property?
“You know what they say. A good fence is the first line of
defense.”

Herman wasn’t sure he liked the gleam in the
hippie’s eyes. Those were Osama’s eyes, the look of a man who would
just as soon bury you as nail up a “No Trespassing” sign. He
thought of the fence post with its embedded razor, the barbed hook
big enough to snag a cat. He wondered what sort of contraption the
hippie could cook up to deal with a major invasion.

“I’ll bet they’ll put up crooked fence
posts,” Herman said.

“No doubt. A Texas developer wouldn’t know
the first thing about building in the mountains.”

“And those apartments will have kids.”

“Lots of kids,” the hippie agreed.

“Squalling, squabbling little yard monkeys
who will wear a path in your grass deep enough to bury a mule.”

“Or bury a person.”

Herman looked at the window, at the dark,
empty field. Fireflies blinked above the ragged vegetation. A
crabapple tree swayed in the wind. Headlights cut twin yellow arcs
across the small plot of land as a pizza delivery car cut into the
neighborhood. Herman tried to picture the security lights, the
view-wrecking walls, the cars crowded around the buildings. Four
stories of noise and strangers. Bad neighbors.

The best way to stop bad neighbors was with
good fences.

Fences like the hippie made.

“Want to see my shop?” Peter Reynolds
said.

“You bet.”

Herman was sure it was full of sharp, shiny
things and heavy, black hammers. He got up from the couch, feeling
younger than he had in years. His heart, which usually beat in a
tired and uneven rhythm, now burned with pride and a sense of duty.
There was work to be done and fences to be mended. Herman, as old
as he was, figured he could still learn a thing or two about
handling property disputes. They could beat this problem
together.

After all, what else were neighbors for?

Bud Millwood pushed his sunglasses up the
bridge of his nose, something he’d probably seen in a detective
movie somewhere. Herman let the door stand open, and though the
October air was brisk, he didn’t invite the deputy in. Herman had
nothing to hide, but a man’s home was private property and Bud was
here as an officer of the law, not as a friend. Plus, his breakfast
was getting cold, and nothing went down rougher than cold
oatmeal.

“Find anything on that Reynolds fellow?”
Herman asked.

“No. It’s been two months. We figure he knew
the Tennessee law was closing in, so he cut out, started a new
identity, maybe drifted to Canada or Mexico.”

“That kind, they don’t understand the value
of setting down roots. They think they can just barge in any old
where and call it ‘home,’ with no respect for what went on
before.”

“Maybe so,” Bud said. “But he left a lot of
his tools and clothes and furniture. Like he got up and drove off
in the middle of the night.”

“How else do shiftless hippies know how to do
it?” Herman looked past Bud to 107 Oakdale. A metal “For Sale” sign
was stuck in the grass, its hinged metal face swinging in the faint
breeze. Bud had explained the property wasn’t a crime scene anymore
because there was no evidence of any crime. A new neighbor would be
moving in soon, now that the bank had taken it over. There was no
way such prime real estate would stay on the market for long, what
with the mountains becoming such a desirable destination and all,
like the Chamber of Commerce said.

“Hard to believe he killed a poor old woman
over a property stob,” Bud said.

“Well, that’s Tennessee for you. And
hippies.”

“The M.E. over there said she bled to death
real slow. She might even have still been alive when he poured the
cement over her.”

Cement. Herman looked over at the Devereaux
property, the site of the new apartment complex. Those Texas
developers hadn’t wasted any time, they’d moved in the backhoes and
bulldozers and already a cement mixer was maneuvering to pour the
oversize footers, beeping as it backed up, its gray sluice chute
extended.

“So, you sure you didn’t see nothing?” Bud’s
mouth was tucked in tight at the corners, but Herman stared
straight into his own reflection doubled back in Bud’s
sunglasses.

“I’m a big fan of this Community Watch
program, but even neighbors can’t keep track of every little thing
that goes on. Crosses the line into nosiness.”

“Reckon so.”

“It’s just as well,” Herman said. “That
fellow didn’t have any sense of pride nor place. Just look at that
fence post up yonder, leaning like a Thursday drunk.”

Bud looked at the fence at 107 Oakdale, then
at the construction site. “Going to get real crowded around here
soon.”

“They call it ‘progress,’ I reckon.”

“Well, let me know if you remember anything.
I got to get on to the real cases, not make garbage runs for
Tennessee.” Bud started to the sidewalk, back to the white picket
gate and his patrol car.

“Don’t lose no sleep over him,” Herman called
after Bud, over the rumble of the earth machines. “To run out on a
mortgage like that, and to leave the place in such a mess, it goes
to show he had no respect.”

Bud stopped at the gate. “You said ‘had,’
Herman. Past tense.”

“He’s past tense to me. We don’t need people
like that around, them who think their way is the only way.”

Bud nodded and lifted his hand in a
half-wave, then climbed into his cruiser and eased up the
street.

The red-headed girl passed in the other lane
on her bicycle, the shaggy mutt running down the street after her,
barking and snapping at the bike’s rear tire. That dog wasn’t as
bad as its former master. At least the dog had a sense of
territory. And it kept its bones buried.

Herman looked once more at the construction
site, the men in their hard hats milling around the loud machines.
The cement would be hard by sundown. New neighbors on the way. More
barbarians at the gate. But, for now, the fences were mended and
order restored.

He went into his garage to clean his
tools.

###

THE AGREEMENT

By J.A. Konrath

Hutson closed
his eyes and swallowed hard, trying to stop sweating. On the table,
in the pot, thirty thousand dollars worth of chips formed a
haphazard pyramid. Half of those chips were his. The other half
belonged to the quirky little mobster in the pink suit that sat
across from him.

“I’ll see
it.”

The mobster
pushed more chips into the pile. He went by the street nick Little
Louie. Hutson didn’t know his last name, and had no real desire to
learn it. The only thing he cared about was winning this hand. He
cared about it a great deal, because Bernard Hutson did not have
the money to cover the bet. Seven hours ago he was up eighteen
grand, but since then he’d been steadily losing and extending his
credit and losing and extending his credit. If he won this pot,
he’d break even.

If he didn’t,
he owed thirty thousand dollars that he didn’t have to a man who
had zero tolerance for welchers.

Little Louie
always brought two large bodyguards with him when he gambled. These
bodyguards worked according to a unique payment plan. They would
hurt a welcher in relation to what he owed. An unpaid debt of one
hundred dollars would break a finger. A thousand would break a
leg.

Thirty thousand
defied the imagination.

Hutson wiped
his forehead on his sleeve and stared at his hand, praying it would
be good enough.

Little Louie
dealt them each one more card. When the game began, all six chairs
had been full. Now, at almost five in the morning, the only two
combatants left were Hutson and the mobster. Both stank of sweat
and cigarettes. They sat at a greasy wooden card table in
somebody’s kitchen, cramped and red-eyed and exhausted.

One of Louie’s
thugs sat on a chair in the corner, snoring with a deep bumble-bee
buzz. The other was looking out of the grimy eighth story window,
the fire escape blocking his view of the city. Each men had more
scars on their knuckles than Hutson had on his entire body.

Scary guys.

Hutson picked
up the card and said a silent prayer before looking at it.

A five.

That gave him a
full house, fives over threes. A good hand. A very good hand.

“Your bet,”
Little Louie barked. The man in the pink suit boasted tiny,
cherubic features and black rat eyes. He didn’t stand over five
four, and a pathetic little blonde moustache sat on his upper lip
like a bug. Hutson had joined the game on suggestion of his friend
Ray. Ray had left hours ago, when Hutson was still ahead. Hutson
should have left with him. He hadn’t. And now, he found himself
throwing his last two hundred dollars worth of chips into the pile,
hoping Little Louie wouldn’t raise him.

Little Louie
raised him.