Heads You Lose - Lisa Lutz [19]
“Yeah. In fact, I had front-row seats,” said Paul.
“What the hell happened?”
“They don’t know,” Paul said. “A little plane just blew up. You know anything about it?”
“No idea,” said Terry. He let out a theatrical sigh. “I’m too young to be sayin’ I’m too old for this shit.”
“Actually, you’ve been saying that since I was twelve,” said Paul. “What shit, exactly?”
“Just the usual times a hundred, alimony and whatnot. You know me—shit reaches shin-level, I can wade. When it gets to be a shit Katrina, I head for higher ground.”
Terry was fading, leaning to one side and closing one eye, a sure sign that he was only a couple of units shy of matriculating9 to the next level of drunkenness. When that happened, he’d be beyond human comprehension. If Terry had any beans to spill, Paul would have to get them spilled soon.
“So, have you talked to Darryl lately?” Paul asked.
“Look, man, I don’t know. He’s in the wind as far as I know,” Terry said, leaning a little farther toward his sleeping bag.
“What?”
“Just a figure of speech, man. Like ‘Heads are gonna roll.’”
Paul felt that one at the base of his neck. He grabbed Terry’s hand. “Terry, what the fuck’s going on?”
With his other hand, Terry gulped down the rest of his gin. “Remember that favor I did for you?”
“Which one?” Paul asked.
“All of them, man. I’m calling ’em in. I need you to take something over to Tate at the Timberline.”
The Timberline was a bar downtown; Tate was its owner and daytime bartender. Paul didn’t relish the idea of interacting with him, but the errand sounded simple enough.
“No problem,” Paul said. “What is it?”
“Two grand.”
“Uh, okay,” Paul said, glancing around the shed. Stacks of money were not in evidence.
“The other part is I need to borrow two grand,” Terry said. “No joke. If he doesn’t get it today—” He interrupted himself to look Paul in the eye, asserting his lucidity. Paul had spent enough time with drunk Terry to know when he was bullshitting. He wasn’t.
“What’s going on? Why do you owe Tate so much?”
“Like fresh milk, a bad deed does not turn at once,” said Terry.
Paul was silent. He’d learned that responding to one of Terry’s maxims only led to more of them.
“Just can you do it or not?” Terry asked, flopping back onto his sleeping bag.
“I can do it,” Paul said. “But I need to know what’s happening. What’s going on with you and Tate? Why’s Sheriff Ed asking about you?”
Terry was done talking. When Terry went down, he stayed there. It was only midday, but Paul guessed he’d be out until the next morning. Terry was prone to passing out suddenly, but when he woke up, he’d remember every detail of their conversation.
Then Terry mumbled something that sounded like “Hotels going up on Atlantic and Ventnor.”
“What the hell? Terry?” Then the snoring kicked in, overwhelming the cheery clamor of the insects and birds below. Paul sat with him for a while, then found an old wool blanket in a corner and covered him up.
Paul lifted up the hatch in the floor and climbed down the ladder. His truck was parked a mile away on an old fire road. The hike gave him time to think about the errand. Two grand was a major hit these days, but it was way less than he’d borrowed from Terry when he was getting started. And an unhappy Tate, he knew, was a dangerous thing. By the time he reached his truck, he felt like he’d sweated out all the gin and most of the anxiety. He thought about stopping by the Tarpit to talk to Lacey, but decided it would be simpler to keep her out of it. She had a way of complicating things. Paul pointed his truck downtown, where his bank and his bar were next-door neighbors.
The teller didn’t raise an eyebrow; in Mercer, cash transactions were still the norm. With a fat front pocket, Paul went next door. The Timberline was the default bar for most locals, having outlasted numerous fringe bars that were trendier, more upscale, more violent, more granola, more whatever. Back when Paul and Darryl were regulars, the tree in its green neon sign used to grow, fall, and regrow in blinking cycles. Now it stayed fallen, but at