Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 32, No. 13, Mid-December 1987

Like Kin by Brendan DuBois

He was always one to sleep lightly and when the phone started screeching Sam Whelan was out of bed, slipping on his robe by the third ring. At his side his wife Terry murmured, “Whaz-zat?” and he softly reached out with a hand, stroking a bare shoulder. “It’s all right,” Sam whispered. “I’ll get it.” He padded out of their bedroom, past four-year-old Brian’s room and downstairs. As he was going down the carpeted stairs he scratched at his back, wondering, is the phone really ringing?

In the kitchen the tile floor was cool against his feet, looking freshly painted in the cold moonlight. The phone screeched again, making one of those new computerized tones he hated.

“H’llo?” he said, weaving slightly. He was still only half awake. His eyes were crusty, as if they had been dusted with beach sand.

On the other end was the hiss of a long-distance line, static crackling and popping from some unimaginable electrical interference. Briefly he thought of far-off stars exploding, sending their radiation this way, disturbing delicate phone lines.

“Hello?” This time his voice was demanding. “Who is it?”

He was set to hang up and ramble back up to bed when the whistling started. At first it seemed like another form of static or interference, but the whistling formed itself into a tune, a tune he had not heard for some time. He grasped the receiver tightly, holding his robe firm with his other hand, imagining he was being watched.

The whistling stopped. A man cleared his throat. He spoke.

“Sam,” the voice whispered. “I’m comin’ home.”

Click. The line was disconnected.

Sam replaced the receiver, his hand shaking. He leaned against the kitchen wall for support, looking at the familiar surroundings. The refrigerator in one corner, which dispensed ice cubes and water. The multi-featured microwave oven, with green numerals that blinked at him and said it was two in the morning. The mini color TV set and the dishwasher and garbage disposal, and the side door that led to the garage, and his and her BMWs.

He rubbed his hands along his arms, feeling the goose-bumps that were there. Before going back upstairs he made sure every door and window was locked, and when he went back into the kitchen for a glass of water, he disconnected the phone. A wrong number, he tried to think. Just a wrong number. The water tasted flat and metallic, and he put the glass in the sink. It made a ringing noise. For no reason he lifted the glass up again and dropped it from a little higher up. He did that three times until it finally smashed, and the sudden noise made him jump. He put the broken pieces of glass in the garbage disposal, washed his hands, and slowly went back upstairs.

He went back into bed, sliding underneath the warm and slightly moist covers. Terry snuggled over to him, resting her head on his chest. He found the weight oppressive.

“What was it?” she sleepily asked.

“Wrong number.”

“Hmmm.” She rearranged herself and some hair tickled his nose. He didn’t move.

“You were down there long enough.”

He had an urge to scream at her so what if I was! He gritted his teeth and said, “I was just up. That’s all.”

“Oh,” his wife murmured.

At work the next day Sam Whelan had pretty much forgotten the previous night. He owned and operated Whelan Security, and for a very long time it had been a shoestring affair, run out of his old house in the crummy part of Devon. Terry had answered the phone and Sam and two retired cops had provided the security. Most of the time it was hanging around fast-food restaurants down at Tyler Beach, chasing off drunks or rowdy kids. Then one spring a computer firm had moved into the area and they needed security, bad. Sam was the only firm within twenty miles, and he went out on a limb, a very long limb, to get their business.

Some limb. He remembered the long days, scraping up every piece of credit and money he could, buying up uniforms, running ads and practically raiding the high schools, looking for people to become guards. If it had gone bust, Sam would have ended back with the two old cops, with thirty uniforms in cardboard boxes, and with every bank and collection agency outside the door, howling and chewing on the shrubbery. But it hadn’t gone bust.

He went through the weekend reports from his guards. Nothing major. Nope, no busts. Not only did they still have the computer firm, they also had two malls, a factory, and a chain of outlet shops from Maine to Massachusetts.

His office door opened and Marcie came in. She was in her early twenties and wore a bright yellow dress, highlighting her tan.

“Phone call for you, Mr. Whelan,” she said. “Line two.”

“Thanks.” She walked out and he watched her with a critical eye. Not bad but young, damn it, too young. Terry was ten years older than Sam’s secretary, but she still had a smile that made his blood warm. On his phone the second line was blinking. He popped the button in and raised the receiver.

“Sam Whelan,” he said, easing back into his chair, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the downtown, open brick-mall look of Devon. A good view. Damn it, he deserved a view like that, after those long winters — there never seemed to have been summers — when he and Terry ran Whelan Security from that crummy house.

The whistling started.

He sat up in his chair, his back rifle-straight. He recognized the tune all right. An Irish tune. And another thing. There was no long-distance hiss on the phone line. He slammed down the receiver and buzzed the intercom.

Marcie came back in and Sam said, “You’ve been with us how long?”

She had been smiling but the look faltered, and she tightened her grip on a yellow legal pad. “Two years.”

“Two years,” he said thoughtfully. “Two years ago I told you one thing, one simple rule. Each and every time I get a phone call, you get the name of who’s calling, right?”

“Mr. Whelan, I—”

“Right? Each and every time. I don’t got time to waste with idiots on the phone and right there, that phone call cost me time. And time is money in this business. You think you can remember that?”

Marcie’s face was red and she avoided looking at him. “I’ll remember.”

“Good. You don’t, I’ll get someone in here who will.”

When she left, slamming the door behind her, Sam rested his head on both hands, rubbing his fingers against his skin. You’re going bald, you got little round sausages of fat over your kidneys, and you just insulted the best damn secretary a guy could want. Security guards, just hire them and give them uniforms, and a week later they’re ready. Simple. But to get someone in here who could run a computer, keep track of invoices and pay the bills and answer the phones, well, that was harder to find. And what do we do with someone when we find her? We insult the crap out of her. Marvelous.

He looked at the pictures on his desk. Three of Terry, one of Brian — taken a day after he was born — and one of him and Terry, arms around each other, at the beach in Maine where they spent their honeymoon. They had been to other beaches later in their lives, especially after the business took off, but he always smiled at the memory of the rocky coast and cool nights in that wooden cottage. No hot water, and no electricity. Some honeymoon.

In the bottom desk drawer was a holstered.38 revolver. Under the revolver were some old legal files and on the bottom was a framed black and white photograph. The photo was creased and stained and showed two young boys standing in front of a blueberry bush. A very young Sam Whelan was on the left, arm flung over the shoulders of the older boy standing next to him. The older boy was standing straight, arms at his sides. Their hair was cut impossibly short. The young Sam was smiling. The other boy wasn’t. He held the photograph in his hands and remembered other things.

He was nine. Or maybe ten. It was hard to remember everything, but some things remained fresh. Sam ran along the side of the road. Ahead was his older brother Derek, and the guys. The guys were a nameless bunch, all about Derek’s age, and they smoked cigarettes and rolled the packs up in their T-shirt sleeves and swore a lot. They were ambling ahead, walking fast, and Sam called out, “Hey, Derek! C’mon, wait up.”

It was summer. There was nothing to do at home. Mom made you dust or wash dishes, and Dad always had yard work to do. Derek and the guys were out, doing something secret, doing something special. Maybe take in a matinee at the Ioka and eat popcorn and throw things at the screen, or go to the sand pits and break beer bottles with rocks. Sam kept on running, his chest burning with the effort, wanting to be a little bit faster, wanting to be with Derek and the guys.

Derek shook his head and smiled at his friends. There were three of them. One was smoking and the other two had cigarettes tucked behind their ears.

One guy said, “That’s your little brother, ain’t it?”

“Yeah,” Derek said. “He’s queer, you know.”

Sam slid to a stop. “I am not.”

Derek laughed. “Man, you are so queer. Go on. Beat it, will you?”

Another guy picked up the chorus, yeah, beat it, go away queerbait. One grabbed a rock and threw it and other stones started to come at him, and the chorus, queerbait, queerbait, queerbait, and a rock struck Sam, right above the eye. Sam turned and ran back home, holding onto his eye and crying, blood trickling through his fingers. He wasn’t crying because of the cut, though it hurt a lot. He was crying because his older brother had been right there with the other guys, throwing rocks and chanting, a happy smile on his face.

The third phone call came after dinner that night, right after Brian had been put to sleep, dressed in his Star Trek pajamas and cuddling a stuffed bunny he insisted on calling Laura. He and Terry were on the living room couch, Terry with an ice-cold margarita in her hand.

When the phone rang Sam put down a newspaper and got up, touching Terry on her knee. “It’s okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I’ll get it.” In the kitchen he took a quick glance at a wall mirror and saw the dull white scar just above his right eyebrow. The shrill tone rang out again and it disturbed him so, like fingernails being run down a blackboard. He took a deep breath.

“Yes?”

No hissing. No crackling. No whistling.

“Surprised?” the man on the other end said.

He sagged a bit, holding out a hand on the paneled wall. “Yes, I suppose I am. Where are you?”

“Around. Thing is, I know where you are.”

Sam rubbed at his face and looked away from the living room. Terry had been sitting there safe, drink in hand, engrossed in whatever was on the television.

“I thought, well... A parole and all...”

The man laughed, but it was not a laugh from humor. “Oh, so they say, so they say. You know the time runs on so you can’t even tell what month it is sometimes. You just know it drags. And for me, well, I was in Indiana. You ever hear of Indiana? Damn, I know I didn’t until those troopers rolled up. Life plus twenty. Hard to believe. Time gets going so after a while you just gotta get out. And you don’t worry none about parole papers or such. You just go. Anything in your way, you go through, over or around, it don’t matter none.”

Sam closed his eyes, not wanting to see the kitchen with all the fine accessories, his wife sitting calmly out in the decorated living room, or even his hand gripping the phone.

“How long you been out?”

“Hard to say. Some days it seems like a few hours, other times, it’s like I never went in. But the nights, man, the nights, that’s when the stone and the bars come back. Always at night.”

Sam whispered, “Damn it, what do you want?”

The man chuckled. “Anything and everything. I’ll be in touch.”

It seemed to take a long time to hang up the phone. From the kitchen he went back to the living room, standing behind the Scandinavian-design couch. Terry was at his elbow.

“Who was on the phone?” she asked. On the television, a large white dog was attacking a man. The dog’s teeth looked very sharp and the man’s screams were an odd, tinny sound. “Nobody special.”

Terry turned her head up at him, a frown suddenly there. “Well, it had to be somebody. Even if they weren’t special.”

She turned back and he was thankful for that because he had quickly clenched both hands into fists. He put them behind his back, for he was ashamed of them. He had an incredible urge to strike out and tear at something, and she was the closest something about. Sam felt something tugging within him and he had quick fear that he had been infected with some awful thing. He dug his fingernails into his palms.

“Like I said,” he murmured. “Nobody special.”

Some years before that a young Sam Whelan, the scar fresh and bright over his eye, lay in bed, listening to the rustling sound from outside. His parents were away visiting Grandpa and Grandma down Maine, and Derek was supposed to be home, taking care of him. But he wasn’t. And something awful had happened.

Sam pulled the blankets tighter about him, listening to the sound of a person climbing up onto the porch. The screen window screeched up and Derek tumbled in. He muttered a curse and stood up. There was a thick odor of beer in the room.

Sam called out: “You in trouble?”

From the darkness: “Why do you care?”

“Two cops came by. In their cruiser. Looking for you.”

Derek swore. “What did you say?”

“I told ’em you went and got ice cream for me.”

His brother laughed, switching on an overhead light by his bed. “That’s a good one.” He had a smirk on his face and there were fresh scratches on his cheek, as if he had run into a thorn bush. Or something else. He dug out a cigarette pack and lit one up, the sharp tobacco odor making Sam’s nose twitch.

“You listen here,” Derek said, pointing the burning cigarette at him. “Anybody else ask, even parents, I’ve been here all night.” He grinned and took a drag off the cigarette. “ ’Cept the time I got you ice cream.” Derek shifted on the bed, his greasy engineer boots making dirty furrows on the blankets. He reached down between the bed and the wall and came up with a men’s magazine, the type with naked women on the cover. He flipped through the pages, a sly grin coming to his face now and then. Sam watched him, hands on his covers, not moving.

His brother started whistling. Sam asked, “What’s that you whistling?”

Derek looked up from the magazine. “Hunh? Some tune Mackey taught me. Irish, he said, called Garry Owen. Only thing I could remember, one of the lines says, ‘Better times than these, Garry Owen. Better times than these.’ That’s a good friggin’ motto. Always be a better time.”

He flipped through some more pages. “Close your eyes and get to sleep ’fore I stick this cigarette on your forehead.”

Sam did as he was told, turning over to face the wall. He closed his eyes but he did not sleep. He was always afraid to sleep with Derek in the same room. And he always heard a whispering voice inside him, urging Sam to leap out of bed and attack Derek.

For most of the day Sam kept his office door shut, not even bothering to look at the folders within his IN basket. Instead he kept the bottom desk drawer open, and for some reason he propped up the old photo against the holstered revolver. He spent the morning with a pile of paper clips in the center of his desk. He leaned back in the chair and slowly went through the pile, bending and twisting the metal clips until they broke in his fingers. He would throw the pieces away and start over again.

He expected another call. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Fifty,” the man demanded. “Fifty by the end of the week. We’ll say Saturday night.”

Sam took a pen in hand and started doodling on a legal pad. “Fifty what?”

“Your brain going? Fifty thousand. In cash. And that’s just for starters.”

The pen flew across the room, striking the wall and gouging the paneling. “You’re crazy,” he hissed, intent on keeping his voice low. “And what the hell do you mean, just for starters?”

“Just what I said. Just for starters. Hey, you want to talk crazy here, listen to this — you got two options. Pay me or don’t. And you don’t, that’s fine, ’cause I can still have some fun. I went by your house today. Fine woman you married. You should tell her not to sunbathe out in the back yard — too many guys can spot her. Unless you don’t care. Then you wouldn’t mind me sharing some of that wealth — after all, I didn’t go to the wedding. She looks like a fine piece.”

Sam could not think of a thing to say. His throat felt like it had been stuffed with wool.

“Or if that don’t do the trick, well, there’s other things. I also did some reading in the library today. You’ve done okay for yourself. Nice business, home, belong to the right clubs. How’d you like me to go to your country club some weekend, introduce myself to your bankers and friends? I’m sure you could get me in. Or I could pop in on some of your best customers. How does that sound?”

“I could call the cops,” he finally said.

“You could, but would you? Would you want my picture on the front page of your local rag? My smiling face, your name dragged into it? And people around town saying, wow, if this guy’s like that, then what must Sam really be like. Not to mention, I get up there again, guaranteed I’ll get out. And the second time I won’t be so polite as to call first. I’ll just come barreling in.”

Sam closed his eyes and slowly re-opened them. The room, with its paneling and community awards neatly framed on the far wall, seemed slightly out of focus, like he had only been there for a few seconds. He blinked his eyes and reached into the desk drawer, pulling out another pen.

“Fifty thousand,” he said, his voice flat. “You know, I don’t have that kind of cash just lying around. It’ll take some work, I have to go to my bankers—”

“Tough,” the man interrupted. “I really feel sorry for you, man, really sorry. I feel so sorry chat if you’re not in your office by noon on Saturday, with the cash, I’ll go visit your missus, find out if you got money problems or something. I’m sure she’d enjoy it.”

When he was done Sam thought, Well, let’s throw another pen at the goddam wall, but he tried to keep his cool. He looked down at his neat handwriting, the numerals in black ink on the yellow paper. Fifty thousand dollars. Unbelievable. He underlined the number with his pen, and underlined it again, and again, until he was slashing at the paper with the pen, making deep, black gashes on the pad.

He stood silently for a moment in the room after the body had been taken away. In a way he supposed he was searching for one final scent of her, but all that was there was the strong odor of disinfectant. With his mother gone from where she had been so many months, the hospital bed seemed to have shrunk. Sam stood there for some minutes, hands clasped behind him, eyes stinging with salty tears. Out beyond the doorway nurses and doctors bustled about and the intercom squawked messages, but he kept his eyes on the bed. Dad had been dead for almost five years and now he was alone. He had outlived his parents, something that had scared him at five or six when he had huddled under his blankets, listening to a thunderstorm outside pound and rage. The thought had scared him when he was little.

It was still scaring him now.

He looked for Derek in the hallway, in the men’s room, and at the nurses’ station. He finally found him in the waiting room, at the far end of the ward. Derek was slouched in a chair, dirty jean-clad legs stretched out on the scuffed blue tile, reading an automotive magazine. On the table before him dozens of magazines were flung about, their covers torn and greasy. Derek looked up and tossed his magazine back into the pile.

“God, I’m glad that’s over with,” he said, zipping up his jacket. “Months and months, damn, you never knew when it was going to happen.”

Sam bit his lip. “Hell of a consoling thought.”

“Hey, c’mon, we knew for a long time what was going to happen. It was just a matter of time.” Derek stood up, brushing back his hair with one hand. “Something there, hunh, what Mom said just before she went?”

Sam shoved his hands into his ski jacket’s pockets. “I can see why. Obviously, you won’t be able to look out after me.”

“Yeah, I can see. So when do I start?”

The light in the room seemed stronger, hurting his eyes. “Start what?”

“When do I start working for your company? Man, I really need a job something bad, let me tell you. My motorcycle’s about two weeks away from being repossessed.”

In the ski jacket’s pockets were bits of lint. He started rolling them into little balls.

“There’s no way on God’s earth you’re working for me, Derek. None. You may be my brother and Mom might have said for me to look out for you, but there’s no job. I can’t hire you to guard somebody else’s property.”

Derek’s eyes were small and tight. “Some way of looking out for your brother.”

“Only thing you and I have in common is our last name. I work for a living, and I manage to do it without a record.” Derek rocked back and forth a bit on his heels. “Maybe you’re right. Hey, if I’m lucky, the old lady left me some insurance money. If my bike goes—”

Sam closed his eyes and swung out at Derek, and in a confused number of seconds he was on the floor, on his back, with his head in the grip of Derek’s arms. Derek grunted and moved his arms, and the bolt of pain made Sam whimper.

“So good, so high and mighty,” Derek said in a fierce whisper. “Younger brother thinks he’s so goody-goody but you’re not, are you? Deep down, we’re both alike. You see something, you take it. You don’t like somebody, you punch ’em out. Only difference is, I do it and you just think it, don’t you? That makes you any better? ’Cause someday you’ll slip, little one, some day you’ll slip. And we’ll both be in the gutter together.”

At the office on Saturday he looked down at the open attaché case on his desk. Nestled in it was the money, tightly bound in paper wrappers. It had not been a good week. He and Terry had been sniping at each other for days — actually, he had done most of the sniping. Complaining about dinner, about the way she drove, her clothing bills, until last night she had said, “When you decide to rejoin the human race, then I’ll rejoin you,” and with that she had taken two blankets and had gone to sleep on the couch.

The banks had given him a hard time, too, raising their collective eyebrows, sighing and wondering where the money was going. And yesterday — Friday — his secretary Marcie had given her two weeks’ notice. He stared down at the money, rubbing his temples with both hands. And damn, his head hurt. It felt as if the skin around his skull was shrinking tighter and tighter, like a plastic wrap over a salad bowl. This shouldn’t be happening to me, he thought. I’m a good person. Honest I am. I work hard, pay my taxes, take care of my wife and son, and this should not be happening.

He picked up the phone before the second ring.

“You set?” the voice asked.

“I got the money.”

“Good. Remember the sand pit we used to play at? Be there at ten tonight. Alone. And remember what I said: you got two options. Pay or don’t pay. It’s your choice.”

“Listen, I—”

The man hung up.

Sam held the phone in his hand for a long moment, and depressed the receiving hook and dialed a number. After three rings Terry picked it up.

“Where are you?” she asked. Her voice was cool. He had not liked the look she had given him that morning, after her night on the couch.

“I’m at work, I, uh, I got some things to do tonight. Business. I’ll be home late.”

“How late?”

“About eleven, maybe later.”

In the silence the faint static was deafening.

Sam cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

He looked out the window, remembering a time when he had once enjoyed the view of downtown Devon.

“It’s just this,” he said. “Am I a good person, Terry?”

He could hear her breathing. “Of course, Sam. What kind of question is that?”

“So I am a good person?” he said, pressing her.

“Yes, yes, you’re a wonderful person.” She paused, and the ice tone in her voice melted away. “What’s wrong?”

He let out a long, shuddering breath. “Oh, damn, I can’t tell you. Not right now. Maybe later. Maybe a long time later.”

After he got off the phone he sat at his chair, letting his fingers glide across the bundles of bills. So much money. Better take it out, count it, just to be sure. He reached down and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out the revolver. Carrying all that money, you might need protection, he thought. He slowly started to remove the bills from the attaché case.

A cool night in Maine, a married man only four days, Sam sat on the cottage porch swing, watching a thunderstorm approach from over the gray Atlantic. Terry was next to him, sharing a blanket over their legs. The calendar said it was August but the weather insisted on being October. The blue-black bank of clouds was reaching up to the sky, and Sam admired the way the lightning burst through the clouds, flaring them up like a flashbulb. After each burst of lightning, it took long seconds for the low rumble of thunder to reach them.

“Tell me something?” Terry asked, one hand on his arm.

“Sure. What do you want?”

“Your brother. Derek. Tell me about him.”

Sam said carefully, “Well, what do you want to know?” She smiled. “Anything. You’re so secretive about him. He wasn’t at the wedding — you just said he couldn’t attend, that he was in some sort of trouble.”

The Atlantic hissed and boomed against the rocky beach below the cottage, and Sam tapped his fingers against the wooden armrest of the swing.

“When I was growing up,” Sam said, “I collected airplane models. I must’ve spent hours making them. One day Derek got mad at me for squealing on him, and he smashed all of them. I can still see him standing there, the broken plastic pieces at his feet. He got into a lot of trouble for that, but for him, I think it was worth it.”

“And for that, he didn’t come to the wedding?”

He tapped his fingers again on the armrest. “I tell you, I don’t want you coming up to me later, saying, ‘Gee, hon. You shouldn’t have told me.’ ”

“Oh, come on,” Terry said, laughing. “How bad can it be?”

“I won’t bore you with the other scraps, the reform school. Let’s just say Derek has always been the bad one.”

“Sam,” she said, running her hand up his arm. “He’s your brother, your own flesh and blood.”

Sam said, “Three years ago my flesh and blood was in Indiana. He was working for a drug dealer out of Chicago. One night, I think it was winter, Derek and another man went to work. A man by the name of Duncan had just cheated the boss out of a deal. The boss told my brother and the other man what to do. They did it. And as they came out of the house, some troopers were waiting for them. Someone had heard the screaming. Inside the house they found Duncan, his wife, his eleven-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son. They were all dead. Two had been shot. Two hadn’t. Derek got life plus twenty. That’s my flesh and blood.”

Terry was silent. Sam said, “When I do think of him, I’m just glad he’s there and away. No more broken airplanes.”

Out over the ocean the lightning flared again. “My God,” Terry whispered. “How horrible.”

Yes, he thought. Quite so. And that’s just the beginning. When I heard the news reports and followed the trial, I could see how it happened. I could see Derek swaggering into the house, gun in one hand, knife in the other, smiling all the time the blood was being ripped out and spilled. That was Derek. That’s the way he was and always will be. And God, the dreams, sometimes I dream I’m there, there in the house with Derek, and I’m holding something cold, sharp, and sticky in my hand. And I’m smiling, too.

“Yes, horrible,” he said.

His headache was much worse. Even the low throb of the BMW’s engine seemed to pound at him like a sledgehammer to the base of his skull. The road was dirt and rough — twice he had scraped bottom — but he was at the sand pit. The cool green numbers on the dash clock said it was nine fifty-nine. He stepped outside, a tan raincoat on, a lumpy weight in one pocket. Sam stood by the door and decided to leave the parking lights on. The amber light sent out a soft, yellow glow.

Resting against the fender of the car, he tried not to think of anything but what was going on right there. The cool feeling of the metal under his hand. The chirping of crickets over on the other side of the pit, and the wind rustling a piece of cardboard across the gravel.

And whistling. Someone whistling, better times than these, Garry Owen.

“Derek?” he called out.

“The same. Where is it?”

“In the trunk.”

“Get it.”

The trunk lid popped up with no problem and there was the attaché case, resting against a shovel. He lifted the case up and turned, leaving the lid open. The trunk light lit up a small area around the car.

“Here it is,” he said.

From the shadows he saw someone move, and his brother slowly walked into the light. Derek smiled, and Sam’s first thought was, Jesus, look at his teeth. Blackened and rotten. His long hair was stringy and he had a thin, sallow look about him. Too long behind concrete, he thought. Derek wore a long leather jacket and jeans, and the clothes seemed two sizes too large.

“Hello, little brother,” Derek said.

“Hello yourself.”

Derek nodded to the car. “Not bad. Payments must be something, though, hunh? After all, you could never afford airfare out to Indiana.”

Sam said, “The cost wasn’t the problem. The destination was.”

“Fine,” Derek said. He reached out and Sam handed the case over to him. On Derek’s hand a spider had been tattooed on the pale skin.

He hefted it a few times. “Hard to believe there’s fifty in here, you know? And it’s hard to believe my little brother’s done so well. This is going to help. A lot.”

Sam put his hands in his coat. “You said something about a first installment.”

Again the grin, again the rotten teeth. “Yep. Mom told you, just before she croaked, for you to take care of me. Promises are still promises, ain’t they? So here’s another promise — I get through this set, I’ll be back for more. Or maybe I’ll ask your wife for the second installment.”

Sam scuffed the dirt with his shoe. “I’ve never been able, even on my best days, to understand what makes you tick.”

“You do, that’s what. You and I are kin, bro, and you’re more like me than you’ll care to admit.”

He tried to think but the pounding at the base of his skull almost made him wince. “Open the case, why don’t you.”

Derek chuckled and flipped open the two locks. His eyes narrowed and he turned the case over, and a bunch of legal pads tumbled out, falling to the ground like pieces of wood.

“Is there a point to this?” Derek asked.

“Yep. You said I had two options, big brother. But you forgot a third one.”

With that, he pulled out his revolver and shot him.

He put the shovel back into the trunk, the blade crusted with moist sand. It had been hard work and his hands ached, but by God it was over. No more phone calls, night visits, or demands. Or even airplanes. It was over, buried in the sand. He slammed the trunk lid in satisfaction, thinking, I had to do this. I had no choice. I am still a good person. And he tried to forget what looked like a smile on Derek’s face, just as he started shoveling the dirt in.

After he started the BMW he found his headache was gone. He had never felt so much alive, and he looked forward to going home and having a long bath and a drink with Terry, and hell, on Monday, he’d give Marcie a raise and plead with her to stay. It would all work out.

He felt so good he started to whistle, and he was halfway down the dirt road before he realized what tune he was whistling.