A Simple Plan (17 page)

“I can’t believe he did this to me.”

“Even if we make it through to the summer and split up the money, he’ll always have this to threaten you with. He’ll wait ten years, until he’s spent his share, then he’ll track us down. He’ll blackmail us. He’ll send you to jail.”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t thinking about Lou; I was thinking about Jacob.

Sarah took my hand again. “You can’t let him do that. You have to take control.”

“But there’s nothing we can do. You keep talking about threatening him, but how’re we going to do that? We don’t have anything to threaten him with.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Is there something you want me to do?” I asked. “Do you have a plan?”

She stared at me, hard, and for a second I thought she was going to say she wanted me to kill him, but she didn’t. She just shook her head. “No,” she said. “I don’t.”

I nodded. I was about to stand up, to head back to the bedroom, when she grabbed my hand and held it to her stomach. The baby was kicking. I felt it beneath my palm, something dark and mysterious, the warm softness of her body pushing up forcefully against my skin. It went on for several seconds.

“It’ll be all right,” I whispered, when it was finally finished. “Trust me. We’ll see it through.”

It was the type of thing people always say when they’re trapped in untenable situations; I realized that as soon as I began to speak. It was like what my mother had said to me the last time I’d seen her, something both false and brave, an aversion of the eyes and a closing of the ears, a denial of the peril we were in. It was a bad sign, that I felt the need to say it, and I could tell by the way Sarah kept my hand pressed against her belly, her grip tight and insistent, that she knew it, too. We were in trouble; we’d started something dangerous together, full of naive self-confidence and assurance, and now we were watching it slip out of our control.

“I’m scared, Hank,” she said, and I nodded.

“It’ll be all right,” I whispered again, feeling foolish this time. But there was nothing else to say.

I
WAS
up early the next morning. I dressed in the hallway and brushed my teeth downstairs so I wouldn’t wake Sarah. In the kitchen I made myself some coffee, and while I drank it I read yesterday’s newspaper.

Then I drove over to Jacob’s.

I parked across the street from his apartment, right behind his pickup. It was a beautiful morning, cold, crisp, cloudless. Everything looked clean, scrubbed—the striped vinyl awning of the grocery store, the parking meters’ silver pillars, the flag snapping in the wind above the town hall. It was still early, a little before eight, but Ashenville was already wide awake, the street active with people coming and going, newspapers folded under their arms, cups of coffee steaming in their mittened hands. Everyone seemed to be smiling.

Jacob, as I’d expected, was asleep when I arrived. I had to pound, wait, and then pound again before I heard him shuffling slowly toward the door. When he finally got there, he seemed displeased to find me standing outside. He leaned against the doorjamb for a moment, squinting at the light from the hallway, a look of profound disappointment on his face. Then he grunted hello, turned, and stumbled back into the apartment’s dim interior.

I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light. His apartment was cramped, airless. It was just a big, square, carpetless room. Off to the left was a door leading to a tiny bathroom. Next to it, running the entire length of the apartment, was a two-foot-deep recess cut into the wall. This was Jacob’s kitchen. There was a bed, a table with two chairs, an old, broken-down couch, a television set. Dirty clothes were strewn across the couch; empty beer bottles dotted the floor.

It stank of poverty. Every time I saw it, it made me sick.

Jacob returned to the bed, collapsing on his back. The bedsprings moaned beneath his weight. He was dressed in a pair of long johns and a T-shirt. The thermal underwear clung grotesquely to the soft thickness of his thighs. There was a good three inches of skin showing beneath the bottom of his shirt. It was fat—white, rippled, malleable. It seemed obscene to me. I wanted him to cover himself with a blanket.

I went over and pulled open the blinds on the two windows, filling the room with sunlight. Jacob shut his eyes. The air was thick with dust, sifting slantwise through the light like miniature snow. I considered briefly the possibility of sitting down, eyed the couch with distaste, and decided not to. I leaned back against the windowsill and folded my arms across my chest.

“What’d you do last night?” I asked Jacob.

Mary Beth was on the foot of the bed, his head resting on his paws, one ear cocked, one eye open, watching me.

Jacob, eyes shut, shrugged. “Nothing.” His voice was gritty with sleep.

“You go out?”

He shrugged again.

“With Lou?”

“No.” He coughed, cleared his throat. “I’ve got a cold. I didn’t go out.”

“I saw Lou,” I said.

Jacob pulled a blanket over himself and rolled onto his side, his eyes still closed.

“He came by the house.”

Jacob opened his eyes. “And?”

“Nancy was with him, and somebody else. I thought it might’ve been you.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Were you there? In the car?”

“I told you.” His voice sounded as if he felt picked on. “I didn’t see Lou last night. I’m sick.”

“That’s the truth?”

“Come on, Hank.” He rose up on his elbow. “Why would I lie to you?”

“Was it Sonny?”

“Sonny?”

“Sonny Major. Was it him in the car?”

“I don’t know. How would I know that?” He put his head back down on the pillow, but he was fully awake now. I could tell it from the sound of his voice.

“Are they friends?”

“Sure. He’s his landlord.”

“They go out together?”

“I don’t know,” Jacob said tiredly. “Why not?”

“Does he know about the money?”

“The money?”

“Yes,” I shouted, exasperated. “Has Lou told him about the money?”

Someone banged against the wall next door, and we both froze.

After a moment, Jacob sat up in bed. He dropped his legs over the edge, leaned forward with his forearms resting on his knees. I stared at his naked feet. I was always shocked by their size. They looked like two raw chickens.

“You’ve got to relax, Hank. You’re getting paranoid. Nobody knows but us and Nancy and Sarah.”

“Sarah doesn’t know.”

He looked up at me, then shrugged. “Us and Nancy then. That’s it.”

The dog climbed out of bed, stretched, then walked across the floor toward the bathroom. He disappeared inside and started to drink loudly from the toilet. We listened until he stopped.

“I killed Pederson for you, Jacob,” I said.

He straightened up. “What?”

“I killed him for you.”

“Why the fuck do you keep saying that? What does that mean?”

“It means I put myself at risk for you, and you turn around and betray me.”

“Betray you?”

“You told Lou where I hid the money.”

“Hank, what the fuck’s going on with you today?”

“He knew it was in the garage.”

Jacob was silent. The dog came walking back out of the bathroom, his nails clicking against the tiled floor.

“You never said I shouldn’t,” Jacob mumbled.

Very quietly, I said, “You told him about Pederson.”

“I didn’t…”

“You betrayed me, Jacob. You promised me you wouldn’t tell.”

“I didn’t tell him anything. He’s just guessing. He did the same thing to me.”

“Why would he’ve guessed something like that?”

“I told him how we went back to the plane that morning. He’d just seen about Pederson on the news, and he said, ‘Did you kill him?’”

“And you denied it?”

He hesitated. “I didn’t tell him.”

“Did you deny it?”

“He guessed, Hank,” Jacob said, his voice impatient, put upon. “He just knew.”

“Well that’s great, Jacob. Because now he’s using it to blackmail me.”

“Blackmail you?”

“He says he’ll tell if I don’t give him his share.”

Jacob thought about that. “Are you going to do it?”

“I can’t. He’d start spending hundred-dollar bills all over town. He’d get us caught just as quick doing that as he would by telling Carl about Pederson.”

“You really think he’ll tell?”

“Do you?”

Jacob frowned. “I don’t know. Probably not. It’s just that he’s been gambling lately, so he’s short on money.”

“Gambling?”

He nodded.

“Where’s he been gambling?” For some reason the idea seemed absurd to me.

“In Toledo. At the racetrack. He’s lost some money.”

“A lot?”

Jacob shrugged. “A bit. I’m not sure exactly.”

I rubbed my face with my hands. “Shit,” I said. Then I turned to the window. There was a pigeon sitting outside on the ledge, puffed up against the cold. I tapped the glass with my knuckles, and it flew away. Its wings flashed in the sunlight.

“Do you see what’s happening, Jacob?” I asked.

He didn’t say anything.

“Lou can send us both to jail now.”

“Lou’s not going to—”

“And we can’t control him. Before, we could threaten to burn the money, but now we can’t. He’ll tell if we do.”

“You never would’ve burned it, Hank.”

I waved this aside. “You know what the problem is? The problem is, you think you can trust him. He’s your best friend, so you think he won’t betray you.”

“Come on. Lou’s just—”

I shook my head. “You don’t have any distance on this. You’re too close to see what he’s really like.”

“What he’s really like?” Jacob asked incredulously. “And you think you’re going to tell me that?”

“I can tell you—”

He cut me off, his voice rising with anger as he spoke. “He’s my best friend, Hank; you know nothing about him. You’ve seen him drunk a few times, so you think you know him, but you don’t. You can’t tell me anything.”

I turned to face him. “Can you guarantee that he won’t turn us in?”

“Guarantee?”

“Will you write up a confession, saying you killed Dwight Pederson all by yourself, sign it, and give it to me to keep?”

He threw me a frightened look. “A confession? Why would you want that?”

“To show the police if Lou were to tell on us.”

Jacob was speechless. He seemed mortified by the idea, which was exactly what I’d hoped for. I didn’t really want a confession; I was just trying to scare him, trying to shock him out of his complacency.

“It’s your fault, Jacob, our being in this mess. You’re the one who told him.”

Jacob didn’t say anything. I waited a moment, then turned back toward the window.

“Now Lou’s asking me for something I can’t give him,” I said. “And when I refuse to do it, he’s going to tell. He’s going to send us to jail.”

“Come on, Hank. You’re the one that’s going to end up getting us caught. You’re getting all worked up over—”

“I came here this morning,” I said, not turning from the window, “to find out whose side you’re on.”

“Side?”

“You have to choose.”

“I’m not on any side. You both keep talking about sides…”

“Lou talks about sides?”

He ignored my question. “I’m on both your sides. We’re all together. That was the plan.”

“If you had to pick a side—”

“I’m not going to pick a side.”

“I want you to pick one, Jacob. I want to know: Lou, or me?”

Behind me I could sense his confusion, his panic. The mattress creaked as he shifted his weight.

“I’m…”

“Pick one.”

There were perhaps ten full seconds of silence. I waited through them, holding my breath.

“I’d pick you, Hank,” he said then. “You’re my brother.”

I rested my forehead against the windowpane. The glass was cold; it made my skin ache. Out on the street, right below me, an old man dropped his newspaper, and it flung apart in the wind. A passing couple helped him gather it back together, and they talked for a bit, the old man nodding vigorously. “Thank you,” I saw him say as they parted. “Thank you.”

Mary Beth made a yawning sound, and I heard my brother start to pet him.

“Don’t forget it, Jacob,” I said, my breath steaming the glass in front of me. “Whatever else happens, don’t forget it.”

T
UESDAY
afternoon there was a knock on my office door. Before I could say anything, it creaked open, and Lou stuck his head through. He smiled at me, showing his teeth. They looked like a rodent’s, sharp, yellow.

“Hey, Mr. Accountant,” he said. Then he stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. He came all the way up to my desk but didn’t sit down. He had on his white jacket, a pair of work boots. His face was pink from the cold.

This was the moment I’d been dreading for the past three days, but now that it had finally arrived, I experienced no fear, no anger. I simply felt tired.

“What do you want, Lou?” I sighed. I knew that whatever it was, it probably wasn’t something I could give him.

“I need some money, Hank.”

That was all he said. He didn’t issue any threats, didn’t mention Pederson or Jacob, but I could feel it hanging in the air between us, like a scent.

“I already told you—” I started, but he cut me off with a wave of his hand.

“I’m not asking for that,” he said. “I’m just asking for a loan.”

“A loan?”

“I’ll pay you back as soon as we split up the money.”

I frowned. “How much?”

“I need two thousand,” he said. He tried smiling at me but seemed immediately to sense that it was a bad idea and gave it up.

“Two thousand dollars?” I asked.

He nodded somberly.

“Why would you need that much money?”

“I’ve got debts.”

“A two-thousand-dollar debt? To who?”

He didn’t answer me. “I need the money, Hank. It’s real important.”

“Gambling debts?”

He seemed to flinch a little, surprised perhaps that I knew about the gambling, but then he managed a smile. “Lots of debts.”

“You’ve lost two thousand dollars?”