Bad Penny (10 page)

Sam started to get sick. Pinto handed him some chewing gum and a bag. Then he offered a piece of gum to Frank.

It was some minty thing. Frank took the piece and said, “Who’s the lady above the door?”

Pinto looked over at the portrait of the handsome Black woman. “That’s my north star.”

Frank unwrapped the gum and popped the stick in his mouth. “Yolanda?”

“No, Yolanda was a woman my wife Kerry knew when we were first married. She was always getting away, going off to see Yolanda, going to bake a cake with Yolanda, going on a walk with Yolanda. Those two were joined at the hip. So I got me my own Yolanda.” He patted the plane.

When Pinto didn’t go on, Sam said, “Kerry died a couple years back from cancer.”

“She’d just turned forty,” Pinto said.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“She loved to fly,” Pinto said. “Said it put everything in perspective. Made you look to the stars. Made you realize there was a lot more to this universe than the thin layer humans inhabited.”

Getting some altitude certainly gave you something; right now the jerky flight was making Frank sick, but he nodded. He imagined Pinto and his wife had taken a number of rides in this plane—all decked out with fairies and lace. Maybe with Henry sitting in back like he was now.

Pinto said, “Sometimes, I swear she still takes a ride now and again.”

Frank didn’t know much about spirits and the next life. From what the pastors said, folks seemed to be constantly sucked up into the light or down into the other place. Like a tug-o-war between two huge vacuum cleaners. The earth ought to be a tidy place. But maybe a few souls got caught in the cracks and crannies. Maybe the vacuums didn’t reach everywhere. Frank knew he’d be motivated to find cover if Hell’s vacuum was coming after him.

“You married?” Pinto asked.

“No,” Frank said. “Mine didn’t quite work out.”

Which was an understatement. It had started well enough. He had met Blanca one summer in Colombia. He was there teaching Colombian soldiers assigned to fight the cartels. She was broken down on the side of the road in a bad part of town. He and the other guys had stopped, helped get her on her way. Then she’d come back to the base to say thanks with empanadas. Frank had been struck the first time he saw her—quick-witted, smart, fun. Gorgeous Colombian skin and eyes. She worked for a bank, managing their ATMs.

They saw each other multiple times. He sent her flowers, a necklace with a jade pendant, and Maduritos, these sweet plantain chips she loved. And then he had to leave. He told her on the patio of a restaurant, the mariachis playing in the background and red macaws squawking in the trees, that he was going to come for her. But Uncle Sam had other plans. So he paid a coyote to bring her over the border. He married her in Texas at the side of the sea.

The first years were good. But he’d had to ship out a lot. She was alone and didn’t speak the language. He thought she was doing well. But the back-to-back military tours took their toll. He loved the service. Hated turning his back on his team, but there was no way things were going to work between him and her if something didn’t change. And so he left the Special Forces when his enlistment ended.

But it was too little, too late. By the time he came home, Blanca was already halfway out the door. He said hello and her gorgeous hair and quick-witted smile walked right out of his life.

A few weeks later, he made the dumbest decision of his life and got involved with Simon Haas, an acquaintance who was making big bucks in the private sector using the skills he’d learned on Uncle Sam’s dime. And he was doing it for clients that you didn’t ask questions about.

It had been good money, but it had also been dumb money. Almost nineteen months after Frank took off his camo, he found himself putting on another uniform—one that was Day-Glo orange. The consequences of his decision smashed through his idiot life like a tornado.

Tony and Kim had been there for him. But now the consequences of those actions years ago were reaching out again to take them.

Pinto said, “Kerry was one hell of a woman.”

“You can say that again,” Sam said.

Frank thought of Blanca, Kim, and Tony. He sighed with frustration.

Pinto said, “She was a little bit of fire and a bit of banana cream pie.”

They flew on in silence for a bit, and then Pinto looked over at Sam. “Have we said a prayer?”

Sam nodded.

Frank said, “Sam’s two and O. I think he’s hooked up to the wrong answering service.”

Pinto said, “You praying to your Excel spreadsheets again?”

“I’ve repented of that,” Sam said with a grin.

Pinto said, “If anyone’s hooked up, it’s Sam.”

“Well, then maybe I’m the one dragging us down. Because God’s not been answering my calls.”

“Maybe you’re not going about it right,” Pinto said. “I once read this book that claimed to have the secret to life. The secret to getting anything you desired. Basically it said that God, the Universe, whatever you want to call it—it was this big vibrating genie. That was the secret, hidden for ages, now come to light. And all you had to do was vibrate your wishes out, and the Universe would respond. Things would suddenly pop out of the woodwork to help you. You vibrate a new TV, and suddenly there’s a coupon in the mail. You vibrate a better job, and suddenly your uncle’s mailman knows about one. Ask, and you shall receive. Vibrate, and the Universe will open the way.”

“Tony’s with a psychopath, and you’re telling me the answer is to vibrate?”

Pinto said, “It all seemed true. God’s like this big vending machine in the sky, but one that doesn’t work all the time. I mean I’ve prayed. Sometimes the candy bar falls; sometimes it doesn’t.”

Frank had to admit it sometimes felt that way. Right now the machine wasn’t doing anything but eating his quarters.

“But then I saw the flaw. Say you buy yourself a big yellow truck. What happens? Suddenly there ain’t nothing but big yellow trucks on the road, and you wonder where they all came from. But the thing is: they were there all along. What’s changed is your focus. What you paid attention to in the first place.

“If you have a problem and start thinking on it, you’re primed to notice solutions. And as you discuss it with others, you prime them to notice too. That isn’t some galactic genie. That’s just what happens when you’ve got a limited working memory that forces you to choose what to pay attention to. Same thing happens a lot of times when people pray. You’re praying, and so you’re paying attention. And so you can see the solutions that were there all along plus others that arise which you would have missed. It’s not a vending machine or a genie. It’s all big yella trucks.”

“You’re saying I shouldn’t be waiting for help. There is no God. Prayer’s just a way to get focused.”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t a God.”

“You’re going to jinx the little connection I have with the upstairs brass.”

“I’m not saying not to pray. I’m saying it’s easy to think every little thing has some divine origin. I’m saying you’ve got to have the right expectations. Sooner or later, unless you’re living on the moon, it’s going to rain, right? But you’ve got some farmer out there praying, and all he can see is that he prayed, and then it rained sometime later. And there’s no thinking about cause and effect. Did his prayer change the weather? Who knows? But to him it’s shazam—an answer! That, my friend, is your classic post hoc ergo propter hoc.”

“Cut the Greek, Aristotle.”

“It’s Latin,” Pinto said. “It means coincidental correlation, false cause. The two events just happened to occur one after the other. There’s no relationship whatsoever.”

This guy wasn’t in witness protection. He was some farmer-philosopher combo transplanted from weird-land California.

“But you can’t always say there isn’t a relationship,” Sam said. “It’s not always easy to separate out cause and effect. Sometimes when there are too many factors, or the effects take too long to show up, you can just as easily miss a causal relationship. Some folks used to believe smoking tobacco was healthy. The cancer effect happened too long after the cause for them to see the relationship. And sometimes it didn’t happen at all.”

“But they figured that one out with science,” Pinto said.

“Sure,” Sam agreed. “But there are some things science can’t test. Variables you can’t control. Things we can’t even detect and measure. And if you can’t measure and control, you can’t do science.

“The physicists claim there’s this stuff called dark matter and dark energy out there. They theorize that it makes up ninety-five percent of the universe. Another four percent is invisible atoms. So ninety-nine percent of everything is stuff they cannot see, feel, hear, or detect in any way. They don’t know what it is. They don’t really know if it’s even there. The only reason they say it’s there is because they can’t get their equations to work without it. But they’re just doing some big-brain guessing. And their equations are changing.

“The universe holds far more mysteries than we can begin to unravel at this point, including the technology of God. You can talk to somebody thousands of miles away with a radio or satellite; I’m sure God’s got his own science. I’m a hundred percent sure he’s got the technology to hear and respond.”

Pinto said, “I never said God couldn’t help. I only said you need to have the right expectations. Not get your panties in a wad if things aren’t happening all television style.”

The plane droned on. The little fairy with the acorn hat slowly swung to the plane’s vibration.

“All I know,” Frank said, “is that I need to get Tony back. And my assets are two hicks—no offense, big guy—a cookie man, and this plane.” He looked up. “And you, God, if you want to play, which would be first class.”

Sam smiled. “The petition has been made.”

Frank said, “Let’s just hope it hasn’t been filed with some divine desk jockey.”

Henry had been looking at the men like he was trying to follow what they were saying. Frank gave him a scratch on the head. “You think it went to a desk jockey?”

Henry shimmied.

Frank shook his head. Typical Golden Retriever.

At that moment Tony’s phone blooped. Frank pulled it out of his pocket and saw an anonymous text. It said, “Jockstrap, this is God.”

“Is it Kim?” Sam asked.

“We vibrated,” Frank said, “and brought back the devil Ed Meese.” Then he texted, “I am two minutes away from calling the cops.”

A moment passed, and then the phone blooped a reply: “Not a nice way to talk to your maker.”

“One minute forty-five and counting,” Frank texted.

He got down to one minute nine before Tony’s phone rang. Frank tapped Talk and said, “Put him on.”

Ed laughed, a big belly buster, like he was laughing so hard he might fall over, like his eyes were all squinting up with laffy tears. “You followed that phone,” Ed said and laughed some more. “You followed that phone! Priceless.”

“You now have forty-five seconds.”

Ed regained some control. “Come on, Frank. You’ve got to admit it’s funny. Mr. Green Beret Army hunter chases the phone. Did you do some recon?”

“Thirty-nine seconds, Ed.”

“You’re no fun, Frank. No fun at all.” Then he must have held the phone out for Tony to speak because his voice came through as from a distance. “Say something to Uncle Frank.”

“Tony?” Frank asked.

“I’m here.”

“Location?”

Ed’s voice came up close to the phone. “Uh-uh,” he scolded. “None of that. No reason to keep Tony around if he’s just going to blab our whereabouts. You want me to get rid of him? Is that what you want, Frank?”

Frank’s anger rose up in him, but he kept control. “Put him back on.”

Ed’s voice was far away again. “Go on, my minutes are ticking.”

Frank said, “They touch you?”

“I’m okay,” Tony said.

Ed chimed in, “He’s got a mouth on him, but he’s learning real good, aren’t you? I’ll have him trained here soon enough. Maybe you’ll rent him to me.”

Frank said, “Meese, you’re digging your own grave.”

Ed’s voice was close now. “None of this would have happened if you had just lent us your car.”

“Just like a con—everything is everyone else’s fault.”

“Then Tony here went all Lone Ranger, saving the damsel in distress. My hands are tied. The boy’s got to learn: this is what happens when you stick your fingers in somebody else’s pie.”

“I’m sure he’s learned his lesson.”

“Naw,” Ed said. “You can see it in his eyes—he wants payback. The material just hasn’t quite sunk in. Sometimes people are slow. But we’ll call you around ten. Just a few more hours and this will all be over.”

“Ed—,” Frank said, but Ed hung up the phone.

Frank looked at the phone, his anger running through him like ice. A few more hours gave Ed a total of nine on the road. Plenty of time to slip the net, to be so far away Frank couldn’t catch him. But it was the tone in Ed’s voice that chilled him. If Tony pissed those two off, if he threatened them, if they thought he would go to the authorities later, Ed would slip a bullet in his head and not look back.

They’d have Frank to deal with then. Except they knew he had nothing. Frank hadn’t kept tabs on any of his cell mates. He’d tried to forget every last detail about them. And even if he could track down these two pieces of trash, it would be too late. Because Tony would be gone. Dragged to the side like road kill. And no amount of vengeance would bring him back.

Frank was not going to lose that boy. “This plane go any faster?”

“She’s topped out.”

“But we have the wind,” Sam said.

Pinto asked, “What did this Meese jerk say?”

Frank related the details of the call, and then Pinto said, “If we were in California, I’d be calling a couple of my brothers right now.”

“Ha,” Frank said. “I knew you were in WITSEC.”

But Pinto was right: they needed more assets. Frank asked, “What about Henry? Can he put on a ferocious guard dog show?” A ferocious show of intent, even if Henry did nothing but bark, could put Ed and Jesus on their heels. There was something about a mouth full of sharp canines that tended to psychologically deter someone from contemplating stupid acts.