Fled Read online

  Fanny smiled like she was about to recite the alphabet to a neighbour’s special child for the third time. “Listen, Bub. Intel like that would cost you a hundred. At least. But you’re young and not entirely too bright. I can tell. So I’m gonna do you a big fat favour. Not sure what you want with this ‘feller’ of yours but I’m pretty sure I know who he is yer talkin bout. I’m going to take two of your twenties and I’m gonna tell you where to find him. After that, I don’t want to know what you’re into. If he’s who I think he is, he won’t be down with it. I know, because I’ve done a thing or two—or three—for him before. Lotsa times. If’n you get me.” She winked at him. Her jovial mood was back. Sort of. “But I’m not stupid. Not by a long shot. And I can see you’ve brought your luggage—” She threw her eyes down at the paper grocery bag on the floor by the wall. “I can surmise a lot more than men gimme credit for.”

  She sat back down.

  She sipped her tea again, gulped it really. She looked like she was simply pleased she’d be making forty and not having to do one of her three things for it. She looked tired. Charlie could understand that. Maybe it was a third of her evening’s regular take. Maybe more.

  “So who is it? Someone from around here? Wait. Let me guess. Police Chief Birkhead? Nope, not, definitely not. One more guess, okay?”

  Charlie leaned back and had another mouthful of his drink. “Sure. One more.”

  “Denny Munn.”

  She dropped it like a bomb. And Charlie’s face must have looked like it registered the explosion.

  “Am I right?”

  She smiled. He swallowed.

  “I’m right, aren’t I? Ol’ ‘Dirty’ Denny Munn.”

  “How’d you—?”

  “Easy enough. He likes things nasty. He always has plenty of crisp bills and I ain’t seen him work a day since we met. Guy like that either stepped into a pile of money like most of us step in cow chips, or he made a few unhappy people on his way to rakin it in. He takes me back to his place pretty regular. And I’m sure he’s got a few skeletons in his closet. I’ve heard a few of his chats on the phone. Now, I’m not on the best of terms with Chief Birksie but he pretty much turns a blind eye and stays out of my way. Thing is, Denny Munn gets enough of the hard stuff in him and he’s bound to lay a wallop to a lady.”

  Fanny poked at her top lip with her index finger. She lifted it and showed one empty spot where a tooth would be.

  “Trust me, it looked lots worse,” she said, “When Munn had me finished, Ol’ Doc Sawbones stitched me up and it was at least four months before I could work again. But I go back to Denny Boy now and again—when he doesn’t have too much Crown Royal on his breath. A gal’s gotta make a living, even though it makes me sick to do those three things I mentioned. Least for him. Now. You hand over my pay and I’ll tell you where to find him.”

  She looked over at the bar. No clock there. A bartender would be stupid to have one of those on display in a sleepy little town like this one. You didn’t want husbands and fathers to know it was time for the little boy’s bath or spelling bee. You wanted to forget time in a place like LowBalls.

  Instead of finding her answer there, Fanny reached out and took Charlie’s wrist to look at his watch. It was about twenty to ten.

  I’ll tell you where to find him.

  That was game-changing.

  Charlie gave an uh, and stammered a bit. He didn’t know what to say. Not about her missing tooth and the hidden damage that went with it. And not about her offer.

  He dug in his back pocket for his wallet. His last two twenties, wrinkled and bent, went on the table and Fanny Mae snatched them up and folded them into one red cup beneath her crop top. But she even gave the wad a smell first. “Shame. I’d-a done two of my three things for this. You’re dumb...but dumb is usually fun. Least I don’t have to. Not yet anyway—” she took his wrist again and looked at his watch one more time, as if she was late for something.

  Charlie stammered some more. “Now you can’t—I can’t—you have to understand—”

  “Not to worry, sugar puss,” Fanny said, getting up. “Remember: men forget to give me due credit. And the chief, him and his deputy treat me like the plague. Anything happens to Denny Munn and they ain’t gonna ask me. I’m invisible as far as they’re concerned. You do your worst to ol’ ’Dirty’ Munn. I think it’s about time I stopped going ta bed with a woman beater like him anyways. Don’t you?”

  Charlie nodded. He didn’t have anything in his back pocket to say. Not to that.

  Charlie got up too, a holdover of chivalry from his church-going days. Back when Dad and he were on better terms, back when he, Charlie, was just a little boy and hadn’t yet been smacked around by the old bastard.

  Fanny looked down at the crotch of Charlie’s suit pants. Then she reached across the table to where they bulged in a tell-tale snake down his left pant leg. She grabbed a handful of him through his pants and tittered. “Too bad, sailor, we’d-a made some noise, you and me, I think.”

  Red-faced, he pulled away from her reach and her hand fell away. It wasn’t the first time a gal had made a sly comment about his gift down below. But definitely the first time anyone had gone in for a grab without consent. He started to say something but she just smiled and turned away. She took her hot mug and headed back for the bar.

  With his two twenties.

  “Wait,” he said. “You didn’t say—”

  “No, you wait,” she said without turning around. Charlie immediately thought he’d been taken for his money. Sob story, misdirection and then off with the cash bills firmly clenched in her twat, or something like that. And when he went to roughhouse her to get it back, John behind the bar there would have something to say about it.

  “I really do mean, wait,” she said, turning half-sideways back at him as her rear end lilted and swayed just as nicely as her front had on the way over. “Seriously. Wait. About...Mmm...five or ten minutes. He’ll be here. Tonight’s Friday. Denny always comes looking for a party on Fridays. So just wait. And he’ll be here. I’d bet my two twenties on it.”

  She smiled and winked. And Charlie immediately knew it: Fanny Mae Banks was good at her job.

  Wait. He’ll be here.

  Charlie believed her. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe that she was just a working girl with a simple outlook and that he’d paid her fair and square. Or maybe that Dennis Munn had roughhoused her pretty badly and the thought of a bitchy karma finally coming down for some payback was too good for her to pass up.

  Plus, she didn’t have to do anything. It would all be up to Charlie.

  And it would. He sat back down with his grocery sack and his shaving bag and he took a long drag off his second pint, warm as piss.

  And he started to sweat again.

  4.

  The door squawked open and brought the breath of cold, dark winter, replete with the scent of the Pacific on its wet tongue. Charlie looked up from his last half pint and saw the salted back of a man’s head. Below it, a heavy grey tweed coat. He wasn’t a hefty man, wasn’t too tall either. Charlie did what men do; he sized up the man relative to himself and did a mental tally that ended with a single question. Can I take him?

  Charlie angled himself to get a look at the side of his face, but didn’t get much of a view. Not yet.

  As the mystery patron approached the bar, he pulled a scarf from around his neck, tossed it across the low top of a stool, and said, “John, gimme a double Tom. No orange, two cherries.” And then he put out his arms to two of the shleps at the bar, one stool between them. He looked like a Sunday morning evangelist meeting his parishioners to share the good news of their full collection plates. “Martin, Dave, how’s the world treatin you boys tonight? John, pour these two a round on me, wouldja?” They muttered something but looked moderately pleased to see him. And pleased for the round, too, no doubt.

  Hands clasped hands and shook. Smiles were exchanged. Next, he caught sight of Fanny Mae down a few stools. She was stan
ding and rubbing herself up to another gent nursing a tumbler while she fiddled with a little plastic sword in her mouth. She caught this new fellow looking her way and Charlie thought for a quick second she might drop this deadbeat for the one being so generous with his bills.

  She touched the tumbler-tilting gent on his arm and her demeanour changed. Quietly, she said, “Going to the loo, be right back.” Charlie couldn’t hear her but he could read those words on her lips easily enough. Seems this new guy wasn’t a welcome entrant to LowBalls, not for Fanny Mae’s money. She smiled and headed off. She’d cross paths with this new fellow in a moment. Her eyes glazed with ice.

  “Oh come on now, Fan,” said the fellow as she passed. “Don’t be that way. I need a little comp’ny t’night.” He reached out and snared her arm. She struggled and fell into him before shoving him off and getting a foot or two of distance.

  As this altercation unfolded, the fellow turned fully in the direction of Charlie’s table. The photograph in his wallet was at least a few years old—it showed dark hair, not this greying age—but it was the same man. It was Dennis Munn and Charlie’s heart quickened at the sight of him. A fresh drop of sweat fell from one armpit somewhere into the folds of his dress shirt.

  “Not tonight, Denny,” Fanny said, now clear of him. “Bless those who bless themselves,” she said. The tussle had been brief but lingered on her as she straightened up and smoothed her low slung top down to the white belly button above her jeans. Now she made her way towards Charlie’s table. Startled, and thinking she was coming back to speak with him, Charlie stood up. With her back to the bar and to Dennis Munn—who would apparently need to bless himself on this cold night—she gave Charlie a crooked smile but kept passing, evidently for the loo at the back of the bar. Out of one hand dropped a set of keys onto his table with a clack and a mild jangle. A gold and silver key ring glinted in the dim light. When Charlie caught sight of them he scooped his hand over them and looked back at Fanny. She winked and kept walking past.

  In a heartbeat, she whirled around. “Oh John?” she called. All eyes in the bar went to her while Charlie pocketed the keys and sat down.

  Johnny Wile looked up from his work of pouring Denny his drinks. Denny had returned his attention to the first of the pints taking its place before his fairweather friends. “Yeah, doll?” John said.

  “Professional advice. Get Mr. Munn here to pay his tab tonight. Got a feeling.”

  5.

  Charlie nursed the last half of his second drink for another half hour. His ass was starting to tingle in the wooden chair. The set of keys burned in his hip pocket.

  Fanny Mae hadn’t come back. She’d either left out the back or, strangely, waited in the loo.

  Charlie kept a discerning eye on the levels in Denny Munn’s drink. To himself, he kept saying, Keep ’er cool, Charlie. You can’t tip your hand. You can’t. To Munn he was just another shlep in LowBalls who’d rather overspend on beer than go home to a wife on this cold night.

  Denny ordered a second and then a third. Nothing more was said about another round for the fairweather friends. In time, one of them hitched himself off the stool and meandered slowly past Charlie to the back of the bar.

  When the other put his attention on the TV overhead, John Wile, the barkeep leaned and whispered to Denny.

  A raised eyebrow from Denny and then he scooped his wallet out to count his bills. Not enough. “How much?” He looked through his wallet again. “Well, John, I can appreciate you’re running a business here.” Denny’s volume was going up. He was drunk and making a big show of things all of a sudden. “Honestly, Johnny, and this is the God’s honest, I’ll have to write you a check. You’ll take a check? I’ve lived in this town for two decades and I know you’re second cousin to the police chief so I don’t intend to stiff you. I can’t truly believe you’re gonna make me cover a tab going back a few months...and just on the say-so of that—” He looked out towards Charlie but was actually looking way past him at the distance of the back of the bar. “—hussy,” he finished in a lengthy, drawn slur.

  He plopped back down and proceeded to pull a wrinkled check from his wallet. “Got a pen?”

  This was Charlie’s cue. He got up, and the world swam for a moment. He steadied himself, letting the blur of the world come back to sharpness. With his overstuffed grocery bag, his coat, and the set of keys pressing against his member under the facade of his pants, he swallowed his last tepid gulp and placed his pint glass on top of his final ten-dollar bill on the table.

  He fled the bar, the door drew closed behind him and shut out the slurred words of Denny to the barkeep while he scribbled on his blank check. “Lousy no good hussy telling me I should pay up. I tell you what. Dennis H. Munn doesn’t listen to no two-bit hussy. How much, you say? Jeezus H. That’s a shitload of booze, ain’t it?”

  And then he laughed—like drunks do when they have enough money to cover the tab.

  6.

  The Cadillac was blue. Or a dull gold with silver accents and rims. It was hard to tell in the night with only the silent falling snow and one street lamp to bring light to the road. Beacon Street was nearly abandoned. One other car was way down the street under a coat of grey-white. Here, a dozen feet from the doorway to the bar, the Caddy sat in the quiet, accumulating its own thin layer.

  The windows were dark and so were the quarter panels from the slush of the road. It sat wide against the curb, likely one of the nicer rides in town. The snow came in sideways to sting Charlie’s cheeks and neck as he pulled on his overcoat. He fumbled for the keys and dropped them once in the newly-forming down at his feet.

  He reached into the thicket and put warm fingers on the icy keys, retrieved them and nearly dropped his crinkled grocery bag in the process. He wanted to hurry, to get inside the big Caddy before anyone spotted him. Fanny Mae knew Denny. So did those two fairweathers in there. The sourpuss barkeep, John, he knew Munn as well. The town knew him, plain and simple.

  And if the town knew him, and knew he frequented the Beacon Street bar on Friday nights then they surely knew his car. And that meant, they’d know a stranger climbing into it. Now, whether Munn was liked or not—and whether that meant anyone would set him straight about some mainlander climbing in or not—who knew.

  The passenger door faced this side of the street so he turned the key in that hole and opened the long, heavy door. It squawked louder than he imagined it would. Feeling cold sweat spring out on his body, he glanced down the street in both directions, then tossed in his bag and climbed in after it. The door squawked a reverse of the first noise as he pulled it shut and the interior light flicked off.

  Footsteps, he thought. His damned footsteps would press a path right up to the door of Denny’s car, then disappear. That would give him away.

  He tried to push that idea out of his head. Surely, most people aren’t that observant. And surely, Denny could be counted among the ignorant after his three double-Toms.

  In only the piddling light from one streetlamp, he waited for his eyes to adjust. The white rings of snow clinging to his loafers dripped. He blew into his hands and rubbed them. Then he set about the business of this.

  The business of Dennis H. Munn and Charles S. Scobie.

  Charlie had the advantage. A big one. He was a lot closer to sober than Munn. He was in Munn’s car unbeknownst to Munn. And, the biggest: Munn had no idea Charlie was here and that he only had eyes for him. He let out a laugh. Fanny Mae might have thought that one was funny too.

  If only she knew how much of a woman’s man he was. Maybe, he thought, as his balls swelled and his dick throbbed with excitement, he’d circle back here and show her just how much.

  He thought Munn would be out of the bar soon. And that made sweat grow under his hairline again. Suddenly, his two beers caught up with him. With a flush to his groin, not blood, but urine. He held it back. It didn’t flow out of him but biting it back hurt. He’d hold it. He had to. What he really needed to do was avoid blowing h
is lead. He was ahead. Say, ten points to zero. Let’s not lose eight of those by not being ready, by leaving the Caddy to take a piss in the snow.

  Munn would be out any second. He had to hold tight.

  He scrambled in the wide back seat over to his grocery bag and pawed through it. His eyes had adjusted but it was too dim to make out anything more than light objects (his shirt and towel) and dark objects (his other pair of shoes and the shaving bag).

  He pulled out the shaving bag and unzipped it. Back in the restaurant, where he’d indulged in a plate of the best steak and lobster he’d ever had, he’d gone to the bathroom and loaded the pistol with bullets. It was a Colt M1911, well-carried by the looks of it, but hardly used by how tight the clip went in. He knew enough about a weapon like this one to make sure he had one round in the chamber too.

  Eight rounds at the ready.

  He zipped the case closed again and leaned back to get the pistol into the waist band of his pants. No. No good. He’d hold it. He’d have to. He didn’t have the time to pull it from his pants. And what if he grew nerves and fumbled it.

  Surely, Munn would be along right away. He’d just hold the weapon. And his water.

  And so he did.

  And he lay down across the wells beneath the big back seat, watching his breath clouds form and dissipate, form and dissipate, trying not to think of the two beers he forgot to relieve before climbing back here. He looked up at the ceiling of the Caddy and he waited for Dennis Munn.

  7.

  Charlie couldn’t see his watch in the dark. He was down in the back of the Cadillac and didn’t dare move, for fear he’d burst a pipe and leak his urine. He heard voices. Someone was laughing. Footsteps in squeaky slush. Then the whine of the hinges on Lowballs’ doorway, Hank Williams droning out, the door’s whine again, and then all went into muffled silence. A heavy warmth in his bladder, but no rush of hot piss yet.