Cat Bearing Gifts

12

VIC GOT BIRELY into his sleeping bag, kneeling uncomfortably on the hard stone floor wishing to hell they had a couple of cots. The only light in the room, the only light they ever had, was the dinky emergency lamp with its six-volt battery, its glow so faint that from outside it didn’t show at all. Even so he kept it under the sink to fully block it from the window.

“Can you pull the bag up higher, Vic? It’s so cold.”

Vic hauled the edges of the sleeping bag up around Birely’s neck, immediately soaking it in blood. Guy must have lost a bucketful of blood, and it wasn’t just his nose that got smashed. Every time he touched Birely, the little turd groaned and clutched his belly. When Birely began to retch, Vic snatched an empty fried chicken tub from the overflowing trash and shoved it under his face to catch the throw-up. That made Birely heave harder, maybe at the rancid smell. Dry heaves, but all he coughed up was blood. Christ, what had the damn fool done to himself? The way he’d been thrown across the dashboard, Vic guessed the dash had gouged some kind of wound in his belly. When Birely started begging for water, Vic found a paper cup that smelled of stale coffee, filled it from the tap at the sink. Water always ran rusty, there. He rooted through Birely’s pack, found a neatly rolled-up pair of Jockey shorts that looked clean, used it to wipe the blood off Birely’s face. Found a shirt to tie around his face, to soak up the blood that was still gushing. Bleeding would stop for a while but if Birely moved at all or talked too much, it’d start again. Vic left his mouth clear so he could breathe, that was the only way he could get air in. Once the blood stopped for good, he’d be all right.

Vic’s own hurts from the wreck were mostly bruises, but he sure as hell was sore. Probably bruised all over, if he’d bothered to pull down his pants, pull up his shirt, and have a look. He knew there’d be a gash down his leg where blood was seeping through his jeans. He wasn’t a bleeder, never had been, he expected it would stop in a while. Birely asked for water again, he was lucky the water was working. That had been a plus, when they first broke in. Turned the tap on expecting they’d get nothing. Vic thought maybe the indoor and outside water were all on one cutoff, maybe Emmylou had left it on so she could water the half-dead flowers down in her scruffy yard. When Birely began to moan again, Vic gave him another codeine. He kept whining that his belly hurt, but Birely’d always been a whiner.

“What’re we gonna do, Vic, now the truck’s wrecked? I need you to take me to a doctor,” as if he’d forgotten they had the Lincoln. Though Vic sure didn’t want to be driving it around, under the noses of the local cops.

“It’s okay,” Vic said, “don’t worry about it. If you get worse I’ll take you to somewhere, Doctors on Duty, one of them twenty-four-hour walk-in places.” He got up from the floor rubbing his knees, waiting for Birely’s codeine to kick in, so he’d drift off. Digging into one of the paper bags on the kitchen table, he pulled out a can of red beans, opened it with the rusty can opener, found the Tabasco and dumped some in. They hadn’t eaten since Denny’s on the outskirts of San Francisco, way early this morning, hours before they headed south. He stood scooping beans out with a plastic spoon, wolfing them down, filling his belly.

They’d spent the morning, in the city, looking up the fence he’d been touted on, taking care of business with him. Old man working out of a Laundromat. Guy had given him a fair deal, though. Birely’d been edgy about going in there, but hell, they hadn’t stolen the stuff. That little chippie, Debbie, that was her haul. He wasn’t sure why he’d helped her out. Maybe because she worked so damned hard at conning him. Well, hell, he’d take his thirty percent like he’d told her, give over the rest. Maybe something would come of it. Young, dark eyed, and feisty, she wasn’t a bad looker.

Scraping the last of the beans from the can, he watched Birely drifting off, sucking air through his open mouth, the blood still running down staining his teeth red. Good thing they had the codeine, put him out of his pain for a while. But what if he got worse? And what would happen if he died? That would complicate matters.

The way things stood, he figured Birely had some kind of legal claim to this property and to the cash, too. He was Sammie’s only relative, so he said. Maybe a claim they could make stick. All they had to do was find some softhearted defense group, a two-bit lawyer providing free legal help for the needy, making his money from some kind of federal grant. Guy like that, he went into court, he could get anything.

But if Birely died, what? In a way, that would free things up. He could just take off with the money, get the hell out of there, and who would know? Forget about the property that he’d thought Birely could sell, move on out with the cash, and the cops’d never think about any hidden money, how could they know? Sure as hell Emmylou wouldn’t tell them, if she’d found any of it for herself. Not unless she could prove it was hers, which he doubted. Say she did tell the cops there was hidden cash, but couldn’t prove she had some legal claim. Cops got in the act, she’d never see those packs of bills again, they’d vanish like spit in a windstorm.

Picking up the keys to the Lincoln where he’d laid them on the edge of the stained sink, he stood looking at the other five keys on the ring. Had to be a house key on there, and who knew what else? Little fat key that might fit a padlock or a safe. Moving to the far wall, he removed the last few planks they’d left loose, removed the loose stone behind them. Reached down into the disintegrating pocket of old concrete, fished out the last two packs of musty hundred-dollar bills they’d left stashed there. Turning toward the door, he saw Birely was awake.

“What you doing, Vic?” Little bastard had raised up on one elbow, groaning watching him, his breath wheezing in his throat.

“Going to hide this in the Lincoln with the rest,” Vic said easily. “Maybe pull off one of the door panels. If that Emmylou comes snooping, spots us in here and maybe calls the cops, we’ll need to take off fast. I want the money stashed where they can’t find it, ready to roll.”

Birely retched and coughed and reached for the cup of water that Vic had set on the floor beside him. “What if the cops get their hands on the car, what then? We’ll never see that car again, and there goes my money, every damn bit of it.” Birely always put the worst spin on things, he never could see the positive side.

“I’ll muddy up the license plates until I can steal some. Maybe I’ll dirty up the whole car.” Vic smiled. “A bucket of garden dirt, a little water. Don’t look like the cops have a BOL out on the Lincoln yet, we passed three CHP units on the highway and two sheriff’s cars, and not one of ’em even turned to look. Maybe that old couple didn’t think to report the car stolen, maybe they were too far gone.”

But Birely wasn’t paying attention, he was real white. “I need a doctor, Vic. Otherwise I’m gonna die. You got to take me somewhere, to an emergency room.”

“Codeine should have kicked in by now,” Vic said. “I’ll give you another pill, then you’ll rest easy.”

Birely was hugging his belly and wheezing for air, and Vic felt his temper rise. Birely was going to slow him down, was going to get in his way, going to give the cops time to start looking for the Lincoln, and maybe time to find it.

As Vic stood pondering what to do, Birely began to talk as he had earlier, as he’d been muttering on and off ever since the accident, snatches of his childhood, some of them repeated over and over, useless memories of his sister and their old uncle, that old train robber that he guessed was famous in his day. “It was our uncle, Lee Fontana, sent the money to her,” Birely said now, “and Sammie only a kid, twenty-some, that old man sending her money like that, what was that about? He didn’t send me none.”

“Why didn’t she put it in a bank?” Vic said. If Birely kept on talking he’d wear himself out and go to sleep again.

“Maybe she hid it all that time because it was stolen,” Birely said, “afraid the feds had the serial numbers and would trace them if the money went in the bank, maybe thought the feds would want to know where she’d got it. Well, anyway she hated banks. Uncle Lee hated banks, she got that from him. I’m not so fond of banks, neither. Never have done business with one, all my life long.” That made Vic smile. Birely’d never had no money to put in a bank.

Some of what Birely muttered about was things before he was born, that Sammie’d told him. Some man following their mother, coming to the house when her daddy was off in the war. World War II, and that was some long time ago. Birely’d said Sammie was about seven. This stuff Sammie’d told him years later, it got stuck in his memory and he’d keep repeating it, stories about the man following and beating their mom, and the cops wouldn’t do anything, garbled stories warped by time and distance. Birely started whimpering again, as if the codeine hadn’t ever taken hold. Vic didn’t know how much codeine he could give him before he checked out for good, and he was torn about that. You had a dog this sick, hadn’t eaten and couldn’t eat, dog hurt like that, you’d put it out of its pain.

Sick man, dying man, what use did he have for two hundred thousand in musty bills? Nor did Emmylou, neither. What was she going to do with that kind of money? All she ever did was work away at her so-called remodeling project, and clump around in her scraggly yard talking to that mangy yellow cat. That in itself showed she didn’t have good sense. Sure as hell she was seeking out the money little by little, down there, as she tore out the walls. What a waste, what would she use it for?

OUTSIDE, EVEN AS Vic headed over to open the door, the yellow tom dropped down from the window and was gone. He’d watched from among the trees as the man stared around into the night searching for a prowler he’d never find. He’d heard enough through the window to know that Birely was Sammie’s brother, and to remember more clearly that moment from his earlier life. To remember that ex-con following Sammie’s mother and beating her. The other guy was a classmate from her high school. Sammie’s daddy off in the Pacific fighting in the war that was meant, once again, to end all wars, and this scum comes onto his young wife. Now, listening to Birely, that distant time came clear, the rooms of their tiny cottage in that small Southern town, the polished floors and handmade rag rugs, a gold-colored cross hanging over the bed; and then the old gas station and garage that Sammie’s daddy bought when he did get home from the war, bought to make a living for the three of them. Birely’s words woke in him sharp fragments of memory, each scene filtered through the eyes of the young and careless tomcat that he had been in that earlier life.