Heads You Lose Read online

  “He means, did he sound normal? Was anything strange about your conversation?”

  “You could be a detective, Lacey,” the sheriff replied.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Paul replied.

  “Do you recall what you and Terry talked about?”

  “He was working on his Survivor application. He wanted to know if I’d shoot the video for him again.”

  Ed and Lacey sighed in unison.

  “I wish he’d give up on that,” Ed commented, looking to the ceiling as if that wish were just as hopeless as Terry’s dreams of fame.

  “They always have one redneck per season. Terry doesn’t see why it can’t be him,” Paul said.

  “Why are you asking about Terry?” Lacey inquired.

  “He’s been missing forty-eight hours. His ex-wife called and asked if I’d locked him up for the usual and then we had a talk. I made a few phone calls. He might have taken a vacation. You know Terry. He’s unreliable on a good day. But still, let me know if you hear from him.”

  With that, Sheriff Wickfield departed. Lacey double-bolted the doors and joined her brother on the couch. The silence between them was as unnerving as a jackhammer right outside your bedroom window. Paul turned on the television and ramped up the volume. He didn’t want Lacey to ask the question she was going to ask.

  “Do you think—”

  “No,” Paul replied with the speed of a man drawing his gun.

  “They’re about the same size,” Lacey mumbled.

  Paul turned up the volume even higher. Lacey shot up from the couch and manually turned off the television, although it took her a minute to find the button, not having done that in years.

  “Have you heard anything about Hart lately?” she asked, sitting back down on the couch. They looked like two spies meeting on a park bench, avoiding eye contact and speaking under their breath.

  “Why are you asking about Hart?”

  “No reason,” Lacey replied.

  “There has to be a reason,” Paul said, and you could tell he was curious about that reason since he didn’t turn the television back on.

  “I haven’t heard from him in a few months. Wondered if anybody else had.”

  If Lacey told Paul the truth, that she had Hart’s ring in her back pocket, they might have reverted to their childhood selves and gotten into a wrestling match right then and there. It was unfair, Lacey thought, that a man whose primary forms of exercise were fetching beer from the fridge and hopping into his truck could outfight her. But it was one of those hard facts women live with.

  Paul looked at his sister askance; his brain played with just a few pieces of a puzzle.

  “Did Hart steal your shoes?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Out of the blue you start asking questions about Hart. And your shoes have mysteriously disappeared and you won’t talk about it. I’m just trying to make the facts add up.”

  “Listen, Sherlock, that’s probably the worst example of deductive reasoning I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then enlighten me.”

  “There’s trouble brewing, so it’s only natural that Hart comes to mind,” Lacey said. While it was true that trouble seemed to follow Hart around, when they were a couple, she couldn’t see it until the very end. Hart let you see only what he wanted you to see. Eventually Lacey accepted that he was a skilled con artist, but she never remembered feeling like she was being conned. He’d made her feel like she was always the only person in the world.

  “What happened to your shoes?” Paul asked.

  “My footprints were all over the second dump site. I got paranoid and decided to get rid of them.”

  “Where?”

  “I tossed them in the Diner dumpster in Emery.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, Lace?”

  “No.”

  NOTES:

  Dave,

  While this is the first time I’ve indulged in a traditional whodunit, I do know that we should be sprinkling the story with clues, to move things forward. You have to admit you have a tendency to become infatuated with characters at the expense of story.

  Still, I think we’re generally heading in the right direction. Good luck dealing with that plane crash. If you’re having trouble sorting it out, let me know and I’ll help.

  Lisa

  P.S. Can we meet Terry Jakes, please?

  Lisa,

  Thank you for your generous offer of help. But keep in mind that it’s still early. Try to be patient. I’m reminded of all the weak lukewarm tea you’ve served me because you couldn’t wait for the water to boil.

  Don’t worry about Terry. Once you meet him you’re going to want to feature him in all your chapters.

  As for the road trip, I would think after all this time you’d have a few fond memories of it. I know I do.

  Dave

  CHAPTER 6

  Late Saturday morning Paul stood at the base of a thirty-foot wooden ladder in the forest, looking up.

  “So this is your idea of irony,” he shouted up at the platform above him. “Lying low above it all.”

  No response.

  “Terry!” he shouted.

  “Terry no here! You come back later!” came the answer from above, in a ridiculous accent alternating between Beijing and Edinburgh.

  “I’m coming up,” Paul shouted. At the top of the ladder, he nudged his head up through the wooden hatch. It landed with a whack as his head popped up through Terry’s floor.

  “Hey, little brother,” Terry said to the head.

  “Sheriff Ed’s looking for you,” said Paul. He smelled chili, Terry, and gin, in that order.

  “And I’m all the way out here. What a coincidence. What did he say?” He was slurring his words.

  “Nothing, just if I’d seen you.”

  “What’d you tell him?” Terry asked.

  “The truth.”

  “Hmm. An interesting gambit. I’ll look into that,” Terry said, offering his hand to Paul and helping him up into the shed.

  The forest service fire observation tower was Terry’s retreat whenever the pressure of work, ex-wives, or the “powers that be” tripped his hairtrigger instinct for self-preservation. Not that he was selfish—when Terry had taught Paul the business, he did so with no expectation of reward. “You don’t owe me shit,” he once told Paul. “I take that back. When I’m old and pissing myself, you got to pull the plug.” Even early on, he never asked Paul about his parents. Terry knew he was no one’s idea of a father figure, and he never tried to fill that role. As a result, in a weird way, he partly did.

  Paul took a seat at the tiny wooden table. The shed was just big enough for the table, a stool, a cot, and the hatch. Surrounding the shed was a rickety observation deck. The whole thing felt like a crow’s nest on a pirate ship.

  “So what brought you out here? Hard time from the ex-wives club?” Paul asked.

  “Just protecting the citizenry, as usual,” Terry said. His voice was shaky, and not from the gin—Terry usually got louder and more articulate when he drank. “Me and Smokey taking care of business.”

  “Glad you’re okay. I—”

  “You’re just in time for happy hour,” Terry interrupted. “I forget—how do you take your martinis?”

  Paul thought for a second, taking a seat on the stool. “Warm, bone-dry, not shaken or stirred, served in a plastic Thermos cap. Preferably Winner’s Cup. Failing that, Bombay Sapphire.”

  “That’s a can-do,” said Terry, and poured them a round. “Here’s to the survival instinct,” he said, tapping his camping cup against Paul’s Thermos cap and spilling a little gin.

  They knocked their drinks back. Paul grimaced and Terry refilled them.

  “So. Catch the fireworks yesterday?” Terry asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Yeah. In fact, I had front-row seats,” said Paul.

  “What the hell happened?”

&nb
sp; “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 least it was still lit.

  Tate wasn’t behind the bar, which meant he was probably in the office in back. Paul had never seen him hurt anyone firsthand, but there was almost a hum of violence about him. Like a lot people around Mercer, he had a side job that was more lucrative than his main one, as a kind of supervisor—more like pimp, Terry liked to say—for the couriers who took product back and forth between L.A. and the north. He had a stable of drivers of all ages and backgrounds, and was quick to let them go if they didn’t execute perfectly.

  Paul sat down at the bar, feeling the envelope in his front pocket bend. He smelled menthols and perfume. The woman on the next stool spun to get a look at him. It was Deena, Terry’s first ex-wife.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Paul Hansen, Jr.,” she said, in her sultriest voice.

  “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?” It was their running joke.

  Paul was glad to see her. If anyone knew about what was going on under the surface in Mercer, she did. She had a fat man’s capacity for booze and a marine’s discipline when it was time to stop.

  “Seen Terry lately?” he asked her.

  “Nope.”

  “Is he behind on his checks again?”

  “Nope. Maybe he took a run up to Spirit Rock, for old times’ sake.” Spirit Rock was the Indian casino outside Tulac. “If you see him, give him a kiss.”

  Before Paul could get the bartender’s attention, Deena said, “Two more John Dalys”—Arnold Palmers with vodka. They made small talk for a while. When it became clear she wasn’t going to dish up the gossip, he asked her what the latest was.

  “Hmm, I guess nothing. Unless you count ‘Mysterious Plane Explodes.’”

  “Come on, there’s always something.”

  “Okay,” Deena said in a stage whisper, leaning toward him. “But this one is not for general consumption.”

  “Agreed,” said Paul.

  “You know Sheriff Ed’s hot little wife? Turns out she might have dipped a toe into some very, shall we say, deep waters. From what I hear, things could get really complicated really soon for her. I really shouldn’t be talking about this.” Then she drained her drink. “You know, I think I just reached my quota. See ya, sweetie.”

  Paul turned to the bartender on shift. “Tate around today?”

  “Your name?”

  “Paul Hansen.”

  Without another word, the bartender went to the back of the bar and into the office. He came out and gave Paul the okay with a thumb over the shoulder.

  Paul went back and through the open office door. Tate was sitting behind a big metal desk.

  “Have a seat,” Tate said, and Paul did.

  “I have some money for you from Terry.” He handed over the envelope.

  Tate didn’t even look inside. “Where is he?” he asked.

  “No idea,” Paul lied. “He dropped this off at my place.”

  “How much is here?”

  “Two thousand.”

  Tate shook his head a little. “One more time. Where is he?”

  “If I knew, I’d tell you,” Paul said, looking him in the eye but not overdoing it. He could lie okay.

  Tate lowered his head, put his elbows up on the desk, and stroked his ponytail hand-over-hand.

  “Can I go?” Paul asked.

  Still no reply. After a few moments Paul tentatively stood up and started back toward the bar. Before Paul reached the door, Tate said, “Tell Terry I won’t take any more payments.”

  “Okay,” Paul said. When he got Tate’s meaning, he added, “How much is the whole thing?”

  Tate gave him a look like it was an interesting philosophical question. “All of it,” he said.

  Paul sat in his truck, trying to pull himself together. His first impulse was to get out of there, to just flee from whatever insanity had overtaken Merce
r. If he had been alone, he might have done it, too—headed to the coast for a few weeks. But Lacey depended on him to keep the business running, and money was tight even before the day’s unexpected expense. Paul decided to go straight to the only person who was tied to the body. Whatever was going on, Darryl was involved in it, and probably deeper than Paul was.

  Paul hadn’t been out to Darryl’s house for almost a year—not since he and Darryl had argued about the best way to water an associate’s big hillside plot. Darryl was the best irrigation guy around, but he was also well aware of that fact, and very touchy about his methods. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but they’d been distant ever since.

  Paul pulled over a few houses down the street, not wanting to give Darryl a chance to slip out the back door if he didn’t want company. As he sat there thinking about what he’d say, he noticed a little guy in a baseball cap creeping along the side of Darryl’s house, ducking low to avoid the windows. Except it wasn’t a guy. It was Lacey. He watched her unlatch the side gate and disappear into the backyard. Paul sat there for a moment. Then he put his truck in reverse, backed away down the block and around the corner, and drove away.

  NOTES:

  Lisa,

  I think I’m getting the hang of this clue business. Let me know if you need me to spell out the Monopoly reference.

  To respond to your last note, you’ve always had this notion that plot and character are two separate entities. In the Fop days you bulldozed characters in the name of moving the plot forward. The croupier, for example, was a casualty we couldn’t afford. When the casino burned down in the third act, he would have been the natural choice. Instead we had to conjure a suspect out of the blue.

  If our book doesn’t have the requisite number of kills and thrills, who cares? The reader will remember the characters long after they’ve forgotten who done it.

  Dave

  Dave,

  Thank you for your thoughts on character and plot. But I kind of want my readers to remember “who done it” rather than who drinks warm gin in a Thermos cap and calls it a martini. It’s a nice detail, but even the finest martini could use an olive. Meaning something to chew on.