Dirtbags (18 page)

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve done some checking on that Krandall fella they found with your ex-wife. Turns out he wasn’t alone, it don’t seem.”

“Oh?”

Lorne looked behind him. Direction of Rhonda’s trailer. “What brought you out here last night, Tom?”

“Do what?”

“You’re outside Mrs. Cantrell’s trailer,” he said. “Your old manager. Manager and whatever else.”

“Listen here, Lorne—”

“If you think that ain’t none of my business, you can’t be more off the mark,” Lorne said. “We done some looking into the other fella with Corrina, and it turns out he lived just a few doors down from Rhonda Cantrell and her husband.” Lorne stepped closer to the car. “Do you have call to associate with Calvin Cantrell?”

“Calvin?” London did his best to look befuddled. “No, I don’t reckon so.”

“None?” Lorne cocked an eyebrow. “None at all?”

“I don’t imagine, no.”

Lorne looked down at his boots and spit on the ground. He looked back at the trailer, down the road, up the road. He looked every which way as though trying to gather his thoughts best he could. The whole deal stunk. London could smell it, and he put good money Lorne smelled it, too. London wanted nothing more than to load up his son and leave town a spell. Go out a while then, maybe, when he came back, he would have his restaurant, his wife . . . everything could go back to normal.

He would start all over, be a different person.

“I’m going to suggest you steer clear of Rhonda Cantrell,” Lorne said rather slowly. “Not just for your own sake, which would be a good enough idea. But we got reason to believe her husband may be in a bit of trouble all his own, and if it’s the kind of trouble we reckon it to be, then you’d do yourself a favor to stay away.”

London squinted. His head ached like the dickens. He looked to Lorne as if to ask what kind of trouble. Dry spittle caked on the corners of his mouth and he flecked at it.

Lorne didn’t need him to ask. The question hung in the air like rancid shit.

“We think Calvin may be a killer,” the sheriff said. “And if that’s the case, you best not carry on with his wife anymore.”

15

London’s wife wasted no time. She and her lawyer sliced through the restaurant, him trailing behind her, gripping the clipboard and jotting down everything she said. It was as if he feared missing one word would result in some unimaginable catastrophe, such as the ground below him opening up or the sky above him crashing to the earth. He rarely looked up from the paper. He’d known her long enough to understand her bad side was a bad side indeed, and he liked it just fine where he stood.

She pointed here and there, up and down. She called out each item with a dispassionate detachment that sent shivers down London’s spine. She noted the giant neon Hereford on the wall, the one London had once traded three meals to a local artist in order to finagle. She pointed to the paintings of Virginia lighthouses. The big-screen television in the bar. The pots, the pans, the stores of uncooked beef and vegetables and steaks both cut and uncut. Her devastation would be complete.

“You don’t even know how to cook,” London called from his booth. He was still wrapped in his blanket, hair askew and scattered this way and that, having awoken to his wife and lawyer casting lots for his restaurant as if they were Romans beneath the Crucifix. “What the hell do you want with the meat?”

“It can rot for all I care,” she said, then she went on to complain aloud about the bugs crawling in the back prep room, the unclean air vents, and a layer of something nasty spackled across the walls.

If anyone were to assume London handled himself calmly, they would have just arrived. No, the big show happened as London awoke from his booth that morning. Reyna had her own key, so it was no problem to gain entry. However, it being Sunday, London hadn’t expected anyone in, as it was the one day they were closed, and he tied one on the night before in magnificent fashion. The bar had been depleted, his clothes strewn across the dining room floor, a few cigarette holes burned into the carpet. A rank smell hung heavy in the room, a sort of fetid, stagnant stench one might expect in a gym locker years beyond the Apocalypse.

London woke in no mood for the proceedings. Caleb Johnson had been her family attorney for years and insisted London sign this and that before they married. Reyna took no chances. London never respected anyone that couldn’t be swayed to swear allegiance to him alone, and for that matter, Caleb could go straight to hell. He was told such no fewer than six times upon London waking that morning.

“Please inform my husband that I am here to ascertain our assets,” she instructed Caleb. “He can stay, or he can go, but if he insists on behaving like a child, I will insist he go.”

“Don’t do this,” London pleaded. “You don’t understand what I’ve been through. Don’t you care about Jason?”

Reyna looked at him with a half-smile, then continued dividing up the restaurant. Tomes were written in that half-smile. It was the smile that both answered questions, yet asked so many others. London was sure Jason was fine, having been left with a waitress, if that’s what she was driving at. However, he felt she didn’t. He knew in his heart of hearts she could give nary one shit about Jason or where he was or if he was safe. She was that kind of monster.

He leaned back in the booth and watched them move through the business he had built with his own hard work. His stomach was in fits, and an early case of the sweats began to set in. He put a cigarette in his mouth and tried to ignite it with a lighter that wouldn’t spark. He grunted and, with the blanket wrapped around his half-dressed body, shuffled to the kitchen to light it from the gas stove.

Caleb appeared beside him. “You do understand, don’t you, that the restaurant will, from this point forward, be closed for business?”

“Are you insane?” London took that first heavenly drag from his cigarette and massaged the crick in his neck. “What the hell do you mean it will be closed for business?”

“All assets of yours and my client’s will be frozen until both parties agree—”

“Your client?” London laughed. “Quit being a douchebag. Say her name.”

“Yours and
Reyna’s
assets will be frozen. We will arrange an arbitration in which we can decide the net value. The net value includes all property in the restaurant at the moment of separation, which is . . . ” He checked his watch. “ . . . about an hour ago.”

London threw the cigarette against the wall, sending an epileptic shower of sparks and ember flowering down to the tile floor.

“Are you stupid?” He squinted his eyes, as the fluorescents above threatened to split his skull. “I have to sell the shit inside this restaurant to make money. How does she expect me to live? To make money? Money for her to leech off?”

“My client—uh,
Reyna
—has informed me to relay to you that she could give a rat’s ass how you are to survive.”

London could drive a fist into his face. He clenched and unclenched his fingers, then stalked around the corner of the kitchen into the bar. He fingered each bottle until he found one with the most vodka and took a quick slug. Caleb materialized beside him.

“Put the bottle down, Tom,” Caleb said. “That is no longer your property and, besides violating statutes of the Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Commission, you are stealing from joint assets.”

“Like hell I am.” London turned the bottle up into his mouth. Liquid fire raced down his throat in violent, spasmodic gulps.

“You signed the papers, Tom,” Caleb said. “Now put the bottle down.” To accentuate his point, he snapped a picture with his cell phone of London guzzling the vodka. London slammed the bottle on the edge of the bar but, his head swimming as it was, misjudged the action and the bottle broke. Vodka and glass rained down at their feet. Caleb didn’t mind. He snapped another photograph of the debris.

“Caleb,” Reyna called from the back, “please come look at the POS system.”

Caleb excused himself and stepped out of the bar. London watched after him with unmatched hate and rancor. He’d never known defeat. Food bloggers, health inspectors, collection agencies, his ex-wife . . . throughout his life, he’d eaten adversity for breakfast. Why did he now find himself at the mercy of another? How had he so severely misjudged things?

He stepped into his pants and searched the booths and under the tables for his shirt. Unable to find it, he collected a dirty chef’s jacket from the linen bin and ran water through his hair in his best effort to appear somewhat presentable. He tried to light another cigarette but, remembering the defunct lighter, threw it aside and marched to the door.

He took one last look at his restaurant and, with nothing left in the tank, slithered out into the grey, winter’s day.

***

Breaking it to Jason that evening had been hard. The kid cried and pitched a fit and moaned and called him all sorts of things. London stood strong and paid the waitress.

“Mister London,” she said, “I can’t keep doing this. You tell me you’re going to be gone an hour and you don’t come home for like, two days. I have school and—”

“Are you finished?” London asked. She stammered a bit, but he continued anyway. “My life is falling apart, and all you can talk about is yourself? Fine. Here’s your money. That’s all you people want from me, isn’t it?”

She opened her mouth no less than three times, but instead of speaking, snatched up the cash and split. With her out of the picture, London turned his attention to the kid. Jason pouted and stuck out his lower lip.

“I don’t want to leave,” he said. “I don’t want to go to Grandma’s.”

“We have to,” London said. “Just for a little while.”

“But what about the restaurant?”

“We’re going to take a little break from the restaurant. Just you and me.”

“What about Reyna?” he asked. Tears streamed down his little cheeks. What sun there was shone through the motel window and reflected off the salty sheen on his face.

London fought the urge to scream
To hell with Reyna!
He fought it until the volcano roiling within him slowed to a standstill. He rubbed his palms against the thighs of his jeans. He looked his son in the eye and leveled with him.

“Look, it’s just you and me now. Your mother is gone and Reyna . . . well, Reyna never was any good for us. You saw how much she drank, right?”

Jason wiped an eye and nodded.

“It’s always been about you and me,” he said. “We’re teammates.”

Jason nodded.

“From now on, don’t nobody else matter. Just the two of us.”

London’s phone buzzed, and he snapped it right away, touching the screen and holding it out of his son’s view. A text from Rhonda.

“I NEED TO SEE YOU. IMPORTANT. 911.”

He shook his head. His fingers tapped across the screen. “NOT NOW,” he typed. “TOO MUCH GOING ON. NO SITTER.”

He put down the phone and tousled Jason’s hair as the kid flipped through the motel TV with the remote. The phone buzzed again. He grimaced and picked it up.

“I REALLY NEED TO SEE YOU. RIGHT NOW.”

“COME TO THE MOTEL.”

“NO. COME TO MY PLACE. NOW.”

He looked to the ceiling. This was the last thing he needed. Then, his face contorted. He put his palm to his son’s head. A funny thing struck him: what if this was
exactly
what he needed? What if all forces had led him to this very moment? What if it all was for a purpose?

Who better than Rhonda? He looked Jason in the eye. She’d always been so kind to him. Reyna never took to the kid, found him more a responsibility than anything else. Rhonda was so warm and open, speaking to the child as if he were an adult. Rhonda had taken care of his restaurant when he was forced to deal with Corrina’s shit, then later as a single dad and attend Reyna’s fancy parties. Rhonda responded to him; their chemistry was undeniable. All this time, it hadn’t only been about the sex.

What had he been thinking?

What if Reyna, Corrina, the restaurant . . . all that had been directing him this entire time to Rhonda? With a woman like that, he could start a restaurant anywhere. With a woman like that, he could start a new life—a new family— anywhere.

“Dad,” Jason whined, “you’re squeezing me.”

London realized for the first time, in his excitement, he’d been holding his son too close to him. He let him go, apologized, and kissed him on the head.

“Son,” he said, “I’m going to need to step out for just a minute before we go.”

“Is Casey going to come back over?”

He thought about how he left things with the waitress and grimaced. “No,” he said, “I don’t think Casey’s coming back over.” He thought a moment. “Listen, you’re a big boy now. Will you promise to be good?”

Jason nodded.

“You watch TV, okay?”

Jason nodded.

“I’m only going to be a little bit, then we’ll get out of here. Okay?”

Jason nodded.

London picked up the phone, and his fingers got to tapping. “ON MY WAY OVER. HAVE SOMETHING VERY IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU.” He fired over the text, then after a moment, sent another: “MISSED YOU. SEE U SOON.”

***

Having stopped only for a pack of cigarettes and a new lighter, Tom London made good time to Rhonda Cantrell’s trailer park. He blew through two yellow lights, a red, and a stop sign as he careened around corners until skidding to a stop just shy of her unit. He killed the lights and sat in the car a moment, caught his breath. Scanned the horizon.

The front of the trailer was lit like Christmas. Literally. Lights had been strung along the front windows and a winking red, blue, and white scattered the darkness. A streetlight over the unit cast a yellow hue in a pool around the edge of the lot and some others, and London didn’t relish the thought of stepping into it and out into the open. But he would. And damn, he wished he had some vodka.

Gravel crunched beneath his Crocs. Sticking to the shadows, he skirted the edge of the lamplight, reached the patio, and climbed the steps. He put one hand to the rail and the other to the front door, knocked three times. Waited. Knocked three times more.