David Levien - Where the dead lay

After a moment, Linda’s face, still beautiful to him, appeared in the door’s glass pane. She still looked young-younger even than the last time they’d spoken several years ago. Her black hair was only betrayed by a very few gray strands. Upon seeing him, her eyes lit in an initial smile that quickly went out as she became guarded.

“Frankie,” she said, cracking the door, “what’re you doing here?”

“Hi, Lin,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

They stood there for an awkward moment before she opened the door to him, and he stepped inside.

It was a nice home, not lavish, but comfortable. There was evidence of early teenage children’s artwork and sporting goods equipment and the like. The place had a familiar smell.

“Beef stew,” he remarked, mostly to himself, as Linda led him into the kitchen.

“Todd likes it,” she said, “so do Gina and Jared.”

“Why not? It’s the best.” It wasn’t enough to put the smile back on her face.

“I just put up a pot of coffee. You want some?” she offered. Behr nodded. Some things didn’t change. Linda drank coffee all afternoon long. She always had. It never stopped her from sleeping either. Until their bad time together, after Tim died. Then she swore off coffee altogether and endured the terrible headaches that going cold turkey brought on, but to no avail. Nothing she tried would allow her to sleep back then. They’d both lie awake all night, helpless in their grief. Maybe this resumption of her habit signaled a return to some kind of normal. He sat down at the kitchen table while she poured and delivered his cup.

“Are you in some kind of trouble, Frankie?” she asked. She was looking at his forearm, which the EMTs at Rubber House had wrapped and taped in a white bandage. He didn’t answer for a moment. “Because you’re pale as a sheet. And you’re here, so it must be for a reason.”

“I was, I suppose, for a minute there,” he allowed. “I’m not anymore.”

“That’s good.” She stood uncomfortably across the kitchen from him.

“So you like it down here?” Behr asked. She nodded.

“It’s nice. Quiet. People down here don’t know what happened. If they do, they don’t let on. I can be how I want.”

“And things with Todd?” Behr asked.

“It’s good. He’ll be home soon with the kids. You can meet them.” She paused and grew shy, and then: “They call me ‘Mom.’”

He expected to feel like he’d been stabbed. But he didn’t. A pleasant sensation washed over him with the words.

“So you’re happy?” he asked.

“I’ve come to be,” she said.

“That’s good,” Behr said, meaning it.

“And you?”

Behr didn’t move and couldn’t answer. The traitorous feelings he’d had before, that day after the lake, made their way back into his chest, but she cut them off.

“You’ve got to,” she said. Got to what? he wondered, but Linda went on. “You’ve got to do it-whatever you want. Whatever you have to do. To get out of the tunnel… Back into life, Frank. There’s a lot of ways to say it, I guess. Do you get it?”

Behr nodded and he recognized he had come there for absolution of some kind, and that her simple words had granted it. He sat there for another minute and knew he was looking on Linda for perhaps the last time. Finally, he got up to go. That’s when he saw a stuffed monkey, a wooden fire truck, and a few dinosaur figurines along her windowsill above the kitchen sink. He recognized them well-they were some of Tim’s old favorites. There they were just beneath the window she looked out of as she washed dishes. He realized she lived with it every day, even as she’d moved on, and that it was okay. He crossed the kitchen and picked up the truck and handled it. He saw there was a rescue hero action man in the driver seat. He looked to Linda.

“Sure,” she said, “you go ahead.”

Behr drove north toward Indy, going slow, his eyes locked on the road, the little fire truck riding on the seat next to his leg.

The shit had truly hit the fan. The Schlegels had been blown up and burned the fuck down. Terry done, Dean done, Vicky locked down, and Kenny and Charlie apparently lit out for the territories. Knute Bohgen had just lost all the friends he currently had, along with the only thing in his life that passed for a semblance of family. He no longer had an income stream, or any real ideas on how to open a new one.

He had sat in his car down the street from Rubber House watching the police activity and calling guys he knew who worked there. Rumors were flying thick and furious already. SWAT had taken the place down. Terry had wasted a handful of them before they got him. An ex-cop had shot him. They’d surrounded the place, and after they lobbed in gas, Terry ate his gun.

Knute didn’t know the truth, and he didn’t much care to at this point. There was really only one thing on his mind, and that was getting a piece of payback for all of them.

The Tip-Over Tap Room was not currently open. Besides Terry, Knute was the only one with a set of keys, so it’d be a perfect place to meet with the Chicago guys, whom he’d called and told to hang back for a while until the cops had dispersed. After having a drink and seeing what was in the safe to pay them with, Knute would call the Chicago guys again, have them come in, and give them the assignment of punching this Frank Behr’s ticket. Even if there was nothing in the safe, Knute felt pretty sure he could talk them into doing it on a payment plan. After all, their asses were riding on the outcome, too.

The building was dark and locked, as it should have been. That’s why it was such a goddamned surprise to Knute when he walked into the back office and saw they were already there.

“What the fuck’s up, guys?” Knute said, reaching into his pocket and coming out with a slip of paper that had Behr’s address on it. “You’re early.”

Tino nodded and kicked the office door shut behind Knute, who felt the air change in the room, just like out on the yard at ISP before someone got offed. It just changed. It got cold or dark or somehow unfamiliar and indistinct. Whatever it was, Knute didn’t have much time to weigh it, because the quiet one, Petey wrapped him up in a bear hug and lifted him straight off the floor. The guy was strong as fuck, and all of a sudden Knute felt weak as diner coffee…

When he’d recall it later, Petey wouldn’t remember the man with the pink scar on his face fighting very hard, but then again, when it finally comes, there’s not much use in fighting it. Before long it was over and they’d wrapped him in a blue plastic tarpaulin. They considered whether or not they should drop him in the same place they’d done the dumping the last time, but that spot hadn’t seemed to hold up very well. Bobby B. figured he knew another one that was a lot closer and easier. Knute Bohgen never made it beyond the parking lot-specifically his own trunk. Petey remembered to pick up the slip of paper that Bohgen had dropped. Add-on jobs were not the way you stayed out of jail in their line of work. Eliminating the nexus was. Petey burned the paper before they made their way out, back to Chicago.

You want another?” Neil Ratay asked, threatening to pour a fourth cup of coffee, black and strong. But Behr had had enough and waved Ratay off. Behr had gone straight home on the heels of the longest day he could remember living and passed out into a dreamless sleep. Seven hours later he shot bolt upright. He’d sweated through his T-shirt and the sheets. He had a feeling that would be happening for the next few weeks, or months, or maybe even longer. When he noticed morning had slipped around the blinds and into the bedroom and there was no point in trying to go back to sleep, he rose and went to get Susan. And while Susan sat there listening, her jaw clenched tight, he’d told it all to Ratay-all except for Pomeroy, and the name of the big investigation firm. It was what he owed the man, plain and simple.