A Dead Issue (29 page)

“It wasn't me!” Dusty screamed. “For the last fuckin' time, it wasn't me.”

“How did it get in your car?” Cash looked at me, ignoring Dusty's outrage.

“Someone left it there,” I said pointedly.

“Someone planted it there,” Dusty corrected.

Cash pursed his lips and studied us for a moment like Judge Judy—trying to decide who was lying.

“Dusty. No bullshit. Did you take the gun?” Cash stared at Dusty until he made eye contact.

I watched as Dusty straightened up. He looked at me and then locked his eyes on Cash. “I did not take that gun.”

Cash studied Dusty for a moment. Then his lips tightened and he turned toward me. “That means you are being set up. Someone wants to make it look like you were there.”

Dusty spread his hands in an I-told-you-so gesture. I rolled my eyes.

“That shouldn't be too hard,” Cash continued, “Since the fact of the matter is you was there.” He thought for a moment and then asked, “Where'd you find the gun?”

I told him how it slid out from under the seat when I almost hit Devereaux's car at Granger's.

“So you picked it up?”

“Yeah, my fingerprints are all over it.”

He chuckled and shook his head in that way he had of making me feel like an idiot. I closed my eyes.

Cash stood and paced back and forth, gathering his thoughts. “I got a five-step program gonna keep your sorry ass out of jail.” He stopped and faced us. He held up his index finger.

“Step one, we get rid of those tapes. You can burn them—dump the ashes somewhere safe.”

He continued tracking his steps with his fingers.

“Step two, you give Dusty five thousand so he can go to Brazil and never come back to this town—ever.”

He waited for Dusty to agree and then held up three fingers.

“Three. I give this tape to Devereaux. Tell him he has his man—Dusty dipping into the till and stealing tapes to cover his crimes.”

“I only did it once. It was only forty dollars,” Dusty said.

Cash grunted a laugh. “They gonna chisel your face on that mountain right next to George Washington and Honest Abe.”

Cash turned his back to us for a moment as he stared out at the night sky. Dusty's eyes followed Cash as he stepped away.

“That brings us to step four—my fee.”

He turned and faced us. He used a moment of silence to transform his face into the mask of a stone-cold killer—shark eyes, shark teeth. “You pay me one lump sum for my efforts, and I'm out of your life forever.”

Cash cracked his knuckles and waited for my reaction. I knew he wanted me to ask how much so I said nothing.

“One hundred and fifty thousand.” It came out in slow, deliberate syllables so there would be no mistake, no doubt, no negotiation. “And I'll take care of step five—the gun with your fingerprints all over it.” He gave Dusty a long, hard stare.

Cash was chucking his career at McDonald's and going for the big one.

“Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

Cash spread his palms out and slowly turned in a full circle, displaying our surroundings in case I had forgotten where we were—in the home of a very rich man who just happened to be my father.

“I mean, how am I going to get that kind of money?”

“Easy,” he said walking over to the telescope. “You're the caretaker here. That's your new job—right? Taking care of this place?”

“Estate manager.”

He wheeled the telescope over to the window toward Uranus.

“Well, see if you can manage this. You call your father up, and tell him you have a situation.”

Cash grabbed the telescope and mount, and in one twisting move threw it against the window. The glass exploded outward. The telescope seemed to hang in the air for an instant before plunging out of sight, landing with a hollow, metallic bang.

“Tell him you need to do some remodeling.” Cash stuck his head out the broken window and looked down. Dusty and I used the opportunity to exchange a glance.

“Tell him you have to get the Beamer fixed—needs a new roof.”

Cash snatched up his backpack. When he stuck his hand in, I thought he was going for a gun, but he pulled out a plastic bottle of Kingsford, pissing a fine stream of charcoal fluid across my chest and down my leg. Dusty scrambled to avoid the stream, but Cash got him up the back and continued squirting the fluid onto the empty chair. I was at Dusty's side in an instant.

“Tell him you had a fire,” Cash said as he struck a match and tossed it. The fluid exploded with a soft whomp and quickly settled into yellow tongues two feet high lapping at the leather. Dusty and I backed well out of range and I eyed the door to the stairway. “Tell him the insurance went up. Tell him if you don't come up with one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, someone's gonna burn this whole fuckin' house down with you in it.”

The phone rang, cutting off Cash's rant. “Ignore it,” he snarled.

It rang twice more.

“That's ADT. You want me to pick it up, or do you want them to send the police and a fire truck up here?”

Cash thrust his head in the direction of the phone, grudgingly giving me permission to pick up the handset. ADT reported that I had a broken window and smoke in zone 9. I watched Cash's impatience grow as I assured them that everything was fine and that I would reset the alarm. Cash's performance had been interrupted and he was losing momentum.

I dropped the phone and walked to the wall panel. “If I don't reset it now, they'll think I'm a burglar and send the police anyway.” I punched in the numbers, taking my time to piss off Cash. “Or maybe I should wait to see if the chair goes out.”

Cash glanced at the chair. The fluid was burning off with little effect on the leather surface except for some discoloring. A pool of fluid in the center of the cushion held a steady flame.

“You want the chair out?” he screamed. “You want it out?” He darted forward and snatched the padded arm of the chair and spun his body like an Olympic shot putter pivoting on his right foot. The chair crashed through another window, trailing a splutter of blue flames and broken glass.

As it landed below with a thump, Cash followed through with his spin and caught me by the wrist. He turned one more time, and my arm was twisted behind my back—my head jerked as Cash wound his fingers through my hair and yanked. I could feel individual hairs tearing at the roots.

I resisted as he pushed me toward the broken window, dropping to my knees in my struggle, making it impossible for him to push me through the opening. Cash drove
harder until I hit the wall, leaning through the window. My throat was now inches from the shards of glass stuck in the frame. He pushed my head forward, increasing his pressure until I felt a sharp pain to the right of my Adam's apple. One swallow and I would slice my own throat.

“Twenty-four hours,” he growled. “One hundred and fifty thousand in cash.” The pressure eased on the back of my head, but I did not move for fear that he would react with a shove. “It's a long way down, isn't it?” he said without emotion.

I did not look. My eyes were closed, my full attention on the pinprick of pain on my throat.

“Twenty-four hours or you're going down—one way or another. It's all up to you.”

Cash released his grip on my wrist and hair and I felt him stand up. He hovered over me for an instant before taking a step backward. I pulled away from the sharp glass and slowly allowed my arm to slide down my back, but made no move to rise or turn.

“You can start by filling this.” He kicked something and his backpack slid into view at my knees.

“Twenty-four hours.” His voice was more distant. He was leaving. “Be ready for my call.”

And he was gone.

CHAPTER 50

Dusty came over and knelt beside me at the other broken window. “Ooh, that feels good,” he breathed. The cool air blowing in revived me, and I also took a deep breath. It may have been the first real breath I took since Cash grabbed me. We looked below us to the Beamer with the telescope imbedded in the roof and the leather chair next to it on the tarmac. The flames were out. From this distance, the chair seemed to have survived the fall pretty well—certainly better than I would. Cash's GTO was parked off to the right. He was still in the house, taking his time—casing the joint for his next visit.

The wind started to chill rather than refresh and I thought that Cash was not going to come out—that he was coming back after stumbling on my father's vault. A moment later, he appeared below with Dusty's bag of tapes and walked to his car.

“Would have been funny if he dropped that chair on his own car—pimped his ride with new, flaming-leather interior,” Dusty said.

We watched as Cash tossed the Bosov's bag into his car and drove off. It wasn't until his taillights were well into the woods that we got to our feet.

“By the way,” I said, “thanks for stepping in—pulling Cash off my back before he killed me.”

“I thought about it,” Dusty said. “Didn't seem like a good idea to tackle him while he had your neck against the glass.”

I raised my hand to my throat. My fingertips were smeared pink. I showed Dusty.

Dusty shook his head. “The guy's a freaking maniac.”

I looked from my bloody fingertips to the broken shards of glass in the frame.

“Do you think he'd really throw you out the window?”

I nodded.

“Are you going to pay him?”

There was something in Dusty's voice—a note of hopeful anticipation, a child's voice asking, “When we go to Grandpa's, will we visit the zoo?” It was the suppressed excitement of a wish about to be fulfilled. Dusty had a personal stake in this.

“Dusty,” I asked softly. “What's going on? You want me to pay, don't you?”

At first he seemed embarrassed by his inability to hide his joy and tried to cover it with a show of concern, but finally he gave up. “Mark . . . Brazil, Rio, Carnival . . . titties!” He gave me that devilish grin, “Shitbird, Mark. This is the chance of a lifetime! I'm going to Brazil!”

“Dusty,” I said quietly. “I'm not paying.”

“You can't get a hundred and fifty thousand?”

“No, and I'm not giving you five grand to go to Rio.”

I watched Dusty's face, expecting to see disappointment set in. His expression was flat as if waiting for an explanation.

“Cash is a lying son-of-a-bitch,” I continued. “He's played me every inch of the way, and I keep paying—we keep paying. How much has he squeezed out of you?”

Dusty looked down, calculating, maybe weighing his own gullibility.

“Around two-fifty.” He paused and then added, “So far.”

“He lied about the overtime; he lied about Phil and Dexter. I'll bet he's lying about the tape.” I shook my head. “Maybe Devereaux isn't even interested in the tapes. For all we know, may be he is investigating stupid DiNuccio. All of this is bullshit just to scare money out of me.”

Dusty was quiet for a moment and then thrust his chin toward the broken windows. “I thought that was meant to scare money out of you.”

“It was—that's the only thing I don't think he's lying about.”

“Then pay him!” Dusty said passionately. “Get him off our ass.”

It was almost as if Dusty knew there were drawers full of cash available for the taking. All I had to do was fill a backpack with bundles of money and all our problems would magically disappear and he could run off to Brazil to look at titties during Carnival.

“Dusty,” I began, “let me explain something to you. Cash is sucking me dry. First it was fifty dollars to keep Dex's mouth shut. Now he wants a hundred and fifty thousand. What's next, a quarter million? A half? Where does it end? In the second place, I borrowed . . . no, I stole that money from my father. I found it in a drawer.” I made it sound like he had pocket change tossed into his nightstand. “I took it, and I have to pay it back. I know it's fucked up, but I can't ask my father for money, and I can't lie to him to get it. This is on me, and I don't have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”

Dusty seemed to be weighing and actually understanding my point of view. Then I threw one last jarring detail at him. “And even if I did pay Cash and send you off to Brazil, there's still a gun out there with my fingerprints on it. Until I get my hands on that, nothing else matters.”

Dusty stared at me for a moment before saying, “Cash has the gun.”

“He told you that?”

Dusty shook his head. “No, he showed it to me.” Dusty waited until those last words registered. “He found it while we were looking for my teeth—said he'd shoot me with it if I said anything.”

“Shit,” I muttered.

“Puts a different spin on it, don't it?” Dusty said with unaccustomed seriousness.

“It doesn't change the fact that I don't have the money.”

Dusty paced over to the window, perhaps to make his point. “Listen, why don't you break down—borrow a few thousand from your old man, and we'll both go to Brazil. We'll just walk away—a fresh start.”

I thought about Liza walking away, led by her husband, hand on her upper arm like a cop escorting a prisoner back to a cell. I pictured her sweater hanging down and the pitiful backward glance she threw me—her fresh start coming to an end.

“Dusty,” I said. “If we go to Brazil, it wouldn't be a fresh start. We'd be looking over our shoulders all the time. We'd never be able to come back . . .”

“To what? Fannett Meadow?” He snorted. “So what?”

His question stirred up conflicts and contradictions I could barely understand myself. How could I explain my new relationship with my father or why I needed Liza's forgiveness? Or my screwed up idea that I could earn that forgiveness by saving her from her sleazebag husband. Images of sweeping her away to safety swirled in my head, and her forgiveness translated, irrationally, into Devereaux's forgiveness—society's forgiveness. I could not leave until I was free. Running off to Brazil would forever cut off any hope that things would somehow work out and I could live happily ever after.