Authors: Stephen Schottenfeld
“Just seeing how tastes change. Anyway, I was just over on Dogwood.”
Joe rolls his eyes. “Where’s Harlan?”
“He’s hanging with KayKay.” And Huddy watches Joe shake his head as if Huddy’s responsible for not sheltering Harlan from nonsense and trouble.
“The greatest clown on earth.”
“Now now. Not all of us do our lives just perfect. He worked good for me today.”
“Day One ain’t never been his problem. It’s the next when he starts acting like a mullet. He’s gonna be chained up one day, you know that?” He makes a face and looks away, over at a corner of the room like Harlan’s collapsed there, looking pitiful, kicked against the wall.
But Huddy doesn’t want to account for Harlan’s lowly story, to feel sorry for it, much less have it be his.
“What you got there?” Joe says, nodding at the papers rolled up in Huddy’s hand.
“Bringing you a four-leaf clover.” He shows them like a bouquet. “You know the Yewells, live over on Dogwood?” And Huddy knows he’s repeating the street name, but it feels good to tell a suburban story containing not just a happy ending but happy all the way through. Joe’s used to Huddy telling some ragtag bit about the city’s sinkhole and instead Huddy’s got a Germantown story even better than this sunny spot on Wickersham, as if Wickersham were knocked back across the city line.
“You think I know everyone in Germantown?”
“I’m sure you know how they
live
. Fancy-fancy. Man, I thought I was seeing the topside of things here,” and Huddy taps the table, “and then you realize there’s a whole nother world you ain’t been invited to. Anyway, this widow, I knew her husband, Lee, and she’s a lady extraordinaire. I mean, a prima suprema lady lady. We talked about her garden club, and I told her about your water garden, and she’s real impressed. Thought it was very tasteful. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ladies from her club visited one day with a welcome basket. Or decorated your mailbox. Whatever it is they do that’s classy and society-like. Anyway, me and her, we had a long conversation. I think she would’ve liked me better if I was a plant, but like I said—Hey Joe, you listening? Your neck get snapped?”
“Huh?”
“Maybe you can look at me when I’m telling you this. Unless you’re needing neck support.”
“I’ll look at you when you tell me something needs looking.”
“Fine, I’ll bring it down to your level.” And Huddy presents the pages, spreads them out on the table like blueprints to the biggest project Joe never built. “See, we didn’t just talk about flowers. We had ourselves a nice little tea table, and then we talked about the hundreds of guns she was wanting to sell.” He releases his hands and the edges of the pages curl up.
Joe grunts, his shoulders slumping. “This all about moving off Lamar so you can stiff me with rent? Thought we already had a talk on that.” His eyes close.
“You could make more on this deal in a month than ten years of rent money.”
“Why . . .” And his head shakes all about and his mouth puffs in anger. “Why you keep coming here asking for stuff? What you bringing tomorrow?” He looks down, still shaking in a fit, like the pages have been torn apart from a single sheet and made meaningless, and could never be patched together to make sense again. “Guns? You come here to show me guns?” He starts to say more but gives up, tilts back in his chair and stares overhead at the ceiling. His hand rubs at his neck.
“Not just guns. The prettiest, best, rarest collection I ever seen.”
“Oh, yeah?” says Joe, the chair returning with a thud. “Which one of these is the gun that killed Jesse James?” He hunches over the list, his face fake and bright. “Which one of these guns is famous? I’ve always liked a good Western.” Huddy glares but Joe won’t stop talking. “Gimme something personal. How about Buffalo Bill Cody? You got something about him?”
“They
all
famous. Don’t need no sheriff or outlaw to make it so. You looking at Winchesters. The gun that
won
the West. If you knew guns, you’d know that. You looking at history right there. You just need to use your mind to see. Surprised you can’t see a fur trader with his mountain rifle pointed right between your eyes. Cutting you down like he’s cutting buffalo.” His eyes meet Joe’s and keep there until Joe breaks away.
“Okay, so this society lady wants to sell her husband’s guns.”
“She weren’t just that. You should have seen this house. Old-time mansion. Columns. Guest house. And the land . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Miles of it. Can barely see the house from the street—and you
can’t
see all the backyard from the house. They used to have horses. She grew up there, on this estate, and she had horses all her life. Man, I wish I was raised in that barn. I’d be so comfy and secure, I’d just lay down in my stall and sleep. Probably get a nameplate on the door. A fan over my head to keep me cool.”
Joe leans into the list or maybe it’s just the table, and Huddy watches him freeze and think. “How much?” Joe says, a hand hooding his eyes.
“How much I offer?” Huddy says, but the question feels wrong and he’s already catching the deal changing. He looks at Joe, waits for the hand to come off his rising face and see what’s been formed.
“How much
land
?”
Huddy keeps still but his mind shakes no. “Why you wanna know that?”
“What’d you say the name was, Eubell? Husband—husband was Lee? You say widow—she talking about selling it?”
“We didn’t talk about the land,” Huddy says, slow against Joe’s stirred-up voice. “We were talking about guns. Joe, this is
my
deal. And the deal is
guns
.”
“If it was just your deal you wouldn’t need me to make it.” And he pushes the pages back.
And Huddy knows he should take off, gather the pages and go away, but there’s nowhere else. Not until he collects this money first. “This help us both. I need it more, but it’s win-win. Damn, you think I like crawling over to ask your help. Last place. If I could pay this myself I would. I’m asking you, brother to brother—” And he watches Joe’s lips clamp shut. “I know, you think I’m always pulling the brother bit when I want money.” And when he hears himself say it, it’s true—it’s like losing the argument to both sides of the table, Joe and himself both calling him out—and he shakes his head bitterly at what he’s lost to two people. He pulls at the pages, slips his fingers between them, watches them slide and come apart. Flips them down so he can stare at nothing instead of the numbers taunting him on the other side.
“We sharing blood, Huddy,” Joe says, his voice soft but set. “It’ll always be that.” And Huddy watches a finger smooth across his lips, then his hands link together. He rests his chin on top. His face turns blank. “How about this?” Joe says, and his neck tilts left to right as if to weigh his claim and compensation. “You tell me about the guns. And then you tell me about the land.”
“Why?”
“The land—it’s how Germantown grows. It can’t grow any other way. ’Cause Germantown’s surrounded. You got these old-time horsey people, and when they die or sell off their ranchland, somebody like me develops it. Call it infill. Only way to develop is to parse out these estates. That retirement home I built. The husband died and the wife moved out. Gave the big house to the kids and sold the acreage. And the way I got that bid was knowing the son. That’s the only way. Knowing the family. Just like you got with your gun collector here. Inside dibs. And there’s never a For Sale sign with places like these. That kind of property is never on the market. Maybe your widow ain’t selling today . . .” Huddy watching Joe’s eyes shine, feeling his own excitement rise because of it. “But it’d be a good thing to know her before tomorrow come. ’Cause when it does, it’ll pay for years of tomorrows. Now: tell me about the guns.”
And Huddy’s head bobs with the rush and wonder, the guns and the deal kick-starting, Joe walking away but then walking a bloodline back.
“Going up now, Joe,” Lorie calls out from the other room and Joe answers he’ll be up soon, and Huddy’d like to ask about her overhearing or tell him that of all his wives, she’s his favorite, but he’ll save those jokes for another day. He doesn’t want to look at Joe’s marriage or disturb what’s in place before them on the table.
“I knew the guns would be good,” he says. “But there ain’t a single wall-hanger in the bunch. A couple you’d even donate to the Smithsonian—except they don’t know they could go there. These two guns,” Huddy rifling through the pages, “he didn’t even mark these! But I can’t get to them without getting the thing whole. Which is fine, ’cause we’ll make money on everything. He’s got lever-actions with no levers broken. He’s got every modification, primo condition. I mean, there ain’t more than a dozen guns used up. The rest are just beautiful. Some generic stuff, but not much and even the generics is solid. I mean, it’ll all sell.”
“How much you gonna offer?”
“Like I said, it’s all desirable. This is an advanced
Winchester collection,” Huddy says, wishing he could talk profit and not the money to get it. “Some junk, but no doggy stuff.”
“Huddy, what’s the outlay?”
“One hundred thousand. Hundred thousand to make three-fifty. That’s a quarter—”
“You’re not asking me for that?!” Joe says, eyes wide. But it’s a false outrage, Joe objecting to the number but also not refusing the smaller numbers beneath it. Huddy can feel Joe’s pride in his being needed, his understanding that the deal is solid ’cause the purchase is nearby.
“I’m seeing what you’re willing to give. And I’ve got my own guns to sell. And then I’m gonna go to my gold buyer, my diamond buyer to raise the rest. I’m emptying out my cases.” He looks at Joe, watches him concentrate and listen, his interest drawn in. “Sell my diamonds to the diamond buyer. The gold buyer, I’m dumping all my gold. People can’t pay the price of a necklace. With the market as high as it is, I’ll make the money as scrap. Scrap everything.”
Joe’s silent, and then he says, “Going for broke.”
“I
am
broke. Or almost. This is so I won’t be.”
“Still. It’s a gamble.”
“Damn straight. It took years to build up those cases.” But then Huddy shrugs. “The jewelry’s just filler, sitting there.”
“You really can’t get any help from the banks? A little?”
“Sure. I’ll just tell them I got five nice guitars. But I don’t want them to laugh at me. I ain’t in stocks and bonds and real estate. And banks have a thing about collateral.”
“What’s
my
collateral? On this deal.”
“Your collateral is me. I’d offer you the building, but it’s already yours.”
Joe runs his finger along and off the table edge. “What happens if I say no to all this?”
“Well, then it goes to bye-bye land. Unless I can phone all the doctors and lawyers I grew up with.” And Huddy’s about to keep talking, but he can feel Joe moving to a decision, getting close, almost, and he figures he’ll just pause and push with silence.
“What if I gave you fifty?”
This small-big number a stun gun out of his brother’s mouth, but Huddy shrugs for more. “Sixty’d make it easier.” Huddy trying to weigh what he needs from Joe with the profit he needs to start his new life on Summer. “Hey, it’s your fault for being rich.”
Joe laughs. “Sure, I’m rich. But it would help if someone paid me to do something more than fix a door or window. That’s all
anyone’s
doing. Everybody else in a bind puts
me
in a bind.”
“But you got your money diversified. Nobody wants a door or window, you just get it somewhere else, right?”
“Multiple streams of income,” Joe says, as if he were confiding life’s secret. “’Cept they’re all drying up. Six months ago, people were calling for everything. This one fella, lives on a dead-end street with the street named after him. He pays me to turn his garage into a bar, and then pays me again to build him a garage next to the bar. People were spending like they could never spend all they had . . . What I’m saying, Huddy, is right now I don’t have room for bad ideas.”
“Only bad idea is not making this deal. It’s the one foolish thing. You saying your business is coming to a roaring, screeching halt—this the perfect time. The surest thing. The only guarantee I can’t give is timeline. It’ll take six months to disperse a collection like this—I’m estimating—but most of them gonna move real fast. Heck, I could sell the whole collection online to Cherry’s, get you your money back in thirty days. But if we do it right, piece it out, wait awhile longer, I’ll get you double, triple of what I could get faster. And I’ll pay you before I pay me.” And he waits for Joe to nod. “Joe, we hit this right—”
“What about
wrong
?”
“How you mean?”
“You tell me,” Joe says, his eyes popping. “You the gun expert. And there’s always ways to hit wrong.”
Huddy shrugs. “It ain’t selling candy. It’s involved. You don’t just get a table and set ’em out on the sidewalk.”
Joe waves his hand, bats away Huddy’s corner lemonade stand. “What happens if some of the guns are stolen?”
“Say a few are. Two hundred guns. Some gun stolen in ’72 and Yewell never knew it and we log it in and find it’s bad, so we turn it over to the feds and that’s it. They take it, we lose the gun.”