Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

This morning, after the Hilldale fiasco, Carl had promised himself that this day would be different. After showering off the mud, he put on a fresh pair of boxers and turned on the morning news with every intention of getting his sorry ass in gear as soon as it was over. It was Saturday, normally not a workday, but given the week’s events at the mill — which was now officially a clusterfuck — there was much to be done, all of it urgent. First, he needed to locate Rub Squeers and get him started mucking out the yellow shit that was seeping up from the basement floor so that on Tuesday the masons could start rebuilding the collapsed wall, and his regular crew could get back to work on renovations. Convincing Rub to work on a holiday weekend wouldn’t be easy unless Sully was somehow involved. For the privilege of spending the whole day with his best friend in the whole wide world, Rub wouldn’t just stand in liquid shit, he’d eat it. Sully, on the other hand, would require a lot of convincing, and even then, there was the question of whether he was capable. Lately, Carl was beginning to wonder if something was seriously wrong with him, some medical condition he was keeping secret. Any exertion at all left him gasping for breath. This morning he’d been okay once aboard the backhoe, but he’d had a hell of a time climbing up onto it and getting back down later. And they’d only worked for an hour. Could Sully manage eight or ten, two days in a row, if that’s what it took? Even three? How much of that vile, viscous shit was down there? They wouldn’t know until they knew. The only thing he was certain of was that it’d be double time the whole ride, and double time had a way of turning two days’ work into three. And where was he going to find the money to pay them?

It had been his intention, had he not fallen asleep and wasted the whole damn day, to join Sully at Hattie’s for breakfast and give him the opportunity to repeat his offer of a loan. Though Carl was reluctant to accept help from a man who’d been saying for years that it was only a matter of time before he succeeded in completely bankrupting his old man’s business, the idea of paying Sully with his own money did have a certain appeal. Could it really be considered Sully’s, though? Over the last week or so Carl had lost over five hundred dollars to him playing poker at the Horse, which meant the money Sully’d be loaning him to pay them with had very recently been in his own pocket. Would this be like paying them double time twice ? It was all very complicated, and trying to resolve the conundrum had made his head hurt. Which was why he’d closed his eyes, and now it was seven fucking hours later and his head still hurt.

There was a Cary Grant movie on TV, the one with Audrey Hepburn. Her recently deceased husband has left her an airline bag that everyone believes contains something — a key? a combination? a code? — worth a million dollars. Except the actual contents of the bag appear worthless. Carl had seen the movie several times and remembered it was the stamp on an envelope that everyone was overlooking. That’s where they were in the movie right now, the bag’s contents spread across the bed in a Paris hotel room, Audrey and Cary picking through the combs and toothbrushes and other useless shit. “The stamp, stupid,” Carl told them, though the first time he saw the movie he hadn’t tumbled to the stamp’s value, either. Cary Grant, in Carl’s considered opinion, was even dumber than he himself would’ve been had Audrey been coming on to him in that hotel room. At the very least he would’ve had the sense to sweep all that crap onto the floor and have hours of sex with her, even if she was too skinny. They could always resume the search later, and so what if they never did figure out it was the stamp? At least they’d have gotten laid, which would’ve been something.

But that was it in a nutshell. People just couldn’t gauge their own circumstances with anything like objectivity. Okay, sure, Audrey and Cary were in a pickle. In addition to being ignorant of the stamp’s significance, they had an American embassy official and three murderous if charismatic thugs breathing down their necks — and speaking of necks, Audrey’s really was exquisite. Still, the way Carl saw it, they had each other for company, and if you had to be in trouble somewhere, there were worse places than Paris. Carl’s own circumstances, except for the thugs, were much worse, having neither stamp nor girl nor, for that matter, a working dick should some girl magically appear. He was alone in North Bath, New York, so really there was only so much sympathy you could extend to these people.

At least he didn’t think he had the stamp. Was it possible that, like the characters in the movie, he did possess something whose value he was overlooking? If so, what? It didn’t have to be worth a million. Fifty thousand would suit his immediate purposes. Okay, in the end he’d probably need a million, though 50K would tide him over until the end of next week, when his next loan payment came due and he yet again had to make payroll. Was a measly 50K so much to ask for? He looked around the flat for something worth fifty grand, but Toby, his ex, had taken everything worth taking. If not what, then who ? Gus Moynihan, after bailing him out on two occasions, had made it clear he didn’t intend to ever do so again. Sully, since his luck changed, was sitting on some cash. Probably not as much as he needed, though. Who else did he know that might have that kind of dough? Somebody who might be willing to part with it. Who thought giving it to Carl Roebuck would be a good idea.

She answered on the first ring. “Schuyler Properties. This is Toby.”

“Hey, babe, it’s me.”

“No,” she told him. “Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely not what ?”

“Whatever you want. Money, I assume.”

“It could be sex.”

“It’s working again?”

One night after the operation, he’d gotten drunk and called her, hoping for sympathy, or at least not derision. “Not yet,” he admitted. “Soon, though.”

“You hope?”

“Well, hope’s all I’ve got left. You took everything else.”

“I had a much-better lawyer than you did.”

“Mine was free, though.” Better than free, actually. Feeling bad about losing in court, Wirf had loaned Carl some money, then died before he could repay it.

“You still see Sully around?”

“Pretty much every day. We went grave robbing just last night.” He thought this admission would surely stir Toby’s curiosity, but they’d been married too long. She was familiar with his narrative head fakes and seldom fell for them. “He mentioned you the other day, actually.”

“Remind him that I want to list his house. In fact, if you convince him to put it on the market, I might consider loaning you some money. How much were you thinking?”

“Fifty.”

“Dollars?”

“Grand.”

“You always were a stitch.”

“Yeah? Well, what you always were rhymes with stitch. I keep hearing about what a kick-ass realtor you’ve become.” Indeed, every time she sold another million-dollar property in Schuyler, someone felt obliged to give him the details. “Besides, if you sell Sully’s house I’m out on the street. Why would I help you make me homeless?”

“I don’t know, Carlos. I really don’t.”

He couldn’t help smiling at this. “Hey,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“It’s been years since you called me that.” It had been her pet name for him back when they were first married and she still went for his head fakes pretty much every time. Back when he could still laugh her into the sack. Back when she used to love him. Before he gave her so many reasons not to.