The Mortal Nuts (27 page)

Axel didn't see the truck strike James Dean, but he saw his body airborne, saw him rotate in the air and land flat, facedown on the parking lot, the sound of his impact covered by the louder sound of the truck crashing into the lobby.

For a moment, everything stopped. Axel gave himself three seconds, then climbed to his feet and hopped slowly toward the office. The overhang, deprived of one support, sagged dangerously. Axel squeezed between the remains of the doorway and the back end of his pickup truck. He heard a grinding, whining noise coming from beneath the hood, the sound of the starter trying to crank a frozen engine. He hopped up to the driver's door, opened it, and saw Sophie twisting the ignition key, probably so that she could back over the kid in the parking lot. Axel opened the door. Sophie stared at him fiercely, cranking the starter, pumping the gas pedal. Her eyes were squeezed down to slits, her face and shoulders covered with white powder. Axel frowned at the steering wheel, at the limp white bag dangling from its center.

He reached out and gently removed her hand from the starter. He held her face. “Are you okay?”

Sophie slumped and nodded shakily. “Something went bang,” she said.

Axel looked at Sam, who sat blinking stupidly out through the shattered windshield, a rivulet of blood running from his nose down his chin.

“You—son—of—a—bitch.” Axel felt a smile flutter onto his face.

Sam wiped his sleeve across his chin, smearing blood. “What?”

“You never unhooked the goddamn air bag.”

Chapter 40

“I raise,” said Sophie. She looked across the table at Axel. “Can I do that?”

Axel frowned at his cards. “You don't want to,” he said. His new dentures clicked when he talked. They didn't fit right with the stitches the doctor had taken in his gum.

They were sitting, the three of them, in Sam O'Gara's kitchen. Axel took up two chairs, one for his body and the other for his leg, now confined to a plastic cast. The refrigerator, an ancient Philco, emitted a low rumble. Chester and Festus were sacked out under the table, Festus giving Sophie an occasional interesting moment by licking her ankle. The first time, she'd squealed and jumped out of her chair, but she was getting used to it.

Sam fished a can of Copenhagen from his pocket. “Don't listen to him, Soph. Anyways, I fold.” He pushed his cards away and shifted his chair closer to Sophie. “What you got there, sweetheart?”

Sophie pulled her cards against her breasts.

Sam said, “Don't worry, I'm out of this hand. Just show me your cards, I'll tell you if you wanna be raisin' ol' Ax. He's a tricky sumbitch. C'mon, I'm on your side.”

Sophie hesitated, then tipped her cards toward Sam. He leaned closer. “Not bad,” he said.

Axel snorted. “She's showing you her cards, Sam, not her boobs.”

“I's talking about both.”

Sophie shot out an elbow, forcing Sam to jerk his head back out of range, but she couldn't completely conceal a smile. “What should I do?” she asked.

Sam thrust a thumb in the air. “Raise it up!” he said. “Make him pay to see those babies.” He twisted the top off the Copenhagen can, pinched up an enormous wad of the black tobacco, and packed his lower lip.

Axel groaned and watched as Sophie pushed four quarters into the pot.

He said, “What can you have?”

Sophie advanced her chin and fixed her eyes on Axel's stack.

Axel looked again at his cards. It wasn't a bad hand for five-card draw. He had a flush, jack high. Almost certainly a winner—unless Sophie's cards were better. That was the thing about poker. Any hand was a winner until it got beat.

Which seemed to happen a lot.

He fiddled with his pile of coins, found four quarters and five dimes, tossed them on the pot. “Let's see 'em,” he said.

Sophie looked at Sam. “Do I have to?”

“If you want to win you do, sweetheart.”

“Can I raise again?”

“You're called,” Axel snapped.

Sophie carefully set her cards on the table, face up. A full house, queens over fives. Axel rolled his eyes and threw away his hand.

“You have to show too!” Sophie said.

Axel said, “Why? You won.”

Sam grabbed Axel's discarded hand and flipped it up.

Sophie said, “What's that? You didn't even have a pair.”

“That's a flusher,” said Sam. “A flusher and a loser. My deal.” He swept the cards together.

“I win?” Sophie asked guardedly.

Axel snapped, “Yes, goddamn it, you win.”

Sophie's mouth softened and spread into a wide smile as she scooped up the pot. For a moment, Axel saw her as a happy little kid on Christmas morning. What a strange woman this is, he thought. I give her half of my business, my life, and she's all frowns and doubts and suspicions, almost as if I'd given her nothing but trouble. Last night, when they'd paid off the help and counted their remaining take from the fair, her ten percent had come to over four thousand dollars. You'd think that would've made her happy, but all she could talk about was how much more they'd have made if it hadn't been for losing Kirsten and having Carmen flake out on them and Axel's being in such rough shape that he'd had to spend the last two days of the fair propped up on a stool, making burritos at half speed. Axel was glad to have made it through the weekend, period. But not Sophie. Four thousand dollars in her pocket, and all she could think about was how it should have been five. Now, a few hours later, she wins one lousy three-dollar pot, and she's all smiles and joy.

He never knew what she was going to do. Three nights ago, in the emergency room at St. Joseph's, she had surprised him then too. Throughout the entire ordeal—the scene in the parking lot, the cops, the questions, the long wait in the emergency room at St. Joseph's—she'd kept it together. He'd expected her to be hysterical, but she'd been like a rock. And then, after the doctor had finished with him, when they'd pushed him out of the examination room in that wheelchair, feeling about as bad as he ever remembered feeling, she looked at him and her face collapsed. They'd wheeled him out into the waiting room, and she'd looked at him and just lost it, started crying like a baby. He'd never seen her do that before. And then when Carmen had shown up at the stand on the last day of the fair, not wanting to work, just wanting to get paid .. . Axel had expected Sophie to lose it then. But all that happened was that she had wearily counted out Carmen's money, too tired or numb to argue. “I don't get a bonus this year?” Carmen had whined. Even then, Sophie hadn't said a word.

The blond girl, Kirsten, stopped by at the same time, all apologies and embarrassment over being hauled off by her mother in the middle of the day, but mostly wanting to collect her pay. Axel paid her off. She didn't ask for a bonus. A few minutes later, he had seen Carmen and Kirsten sitting out on the mall, smoking cigarettes and laughing. All Sophie had said was, “They don't know what's important.”

Axel remembered thinking that Sophie looked … not old, but mature. He thought she looked good.

She looked good now. Winning that pot had put some color in her face.

“Where's Carmen gone off to today?” Axel asked.

“She went shopping with that Kirsten.” Sophie finished stacking her coins. “They went to the Mall of America. Can you imagine? What on earth could those two have in common anyway?”

Sam laughed.

“What's so funny?”

Sam squared up the deck of cards and riffled them. “They both got trouble with their mamas,” he said.

Sophie made a face. “Excuse me.” She left the kitchen. Sam and Axel listened to her footsteps climbing the stairs, the sound of the bathroom door closing.

Sam said, “She's got the touch, Ax. Maybe me and you and her ought to hit the road. Odds are, we'd do better, the three of us, than we ever did with old Tommy.”

Axel smiled and shook his head. “Maybe we wouldn't get in so damn many fights.”

“You got that right. And if we did, she'd just run 'em over.”

“You know what it's going to cost to get my new truck fixed? About four dimes.”

“Well, your old one's out back, ready to roll. I even gave 'er a little tune-up.”

“I'm going to need what was under it too.”

Sam raised his eyebrows. “Now, Ax, you say that money ol' Festus and Chester dug up was yours. Now explain to me again how come I'm s'posed to think that.” He leaned back in his chair, shifted the wad of tobacco with his tongue.

“It was under my truck. I put it there.”

“I said you could park your truck here, I didn't think I was including mineral rights. Besides, I don't see how come a smart fella like you would go burying his money like a goddamn dog in somebody's backyard not even his own.”

Axel took a deep breath. Sam had been hanging him out there for the past two days, not admitting that the money was Axel's but not coming right out and saying he wasn't going to give it back, either. Axel was about eighty percent sure that Sam was just playing with him. He trusted Sam. Maybe not a hundred percent, but a solid ninety.

Sam said, “Even if you did find your money someplace, I don't know what the hell good it'd do you. You don't spend it. You'd probably go bury it in the goddamn park, leave it for the squirrels.”

Axel did not reply.

“Suppose you did get it back,” Sam went on. “What would you do with it?”

Axel looked at his old friend hopefully but saw nothing in Sam's face to encourage him. “Is this a test, or are you just trying to make me miserable?”

Sam shrugged and riffled the deck of cards with his thumb. “Just wondering.”

“Maybe I'd invest it in something,” Axel said.

Sam cocked an eyebrow.

“Maybe I'd put it in a bank,” Axel growled. “Hell, I don't know. Does it matter?”

Sophie's footsteps sounded on the stairs.

“Don't matter to me,” Sam said.

Axel muttered, “I suppose I should be glad you're letting me have my truck back” A click from his dentures took the edge off the sarcasm.

“The truck is yours.”

“So's the cash.”

Sam picked up the deck and shuffled. “You're a goddamn peasant, Ax. I ever tell you that?”

“I tell him that all the time,” Sophie said.

Axel said, “You ready to go?” He didn't want to talk about the money in front of Sophie. He didn't want her to know. It was embarrassing.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“The hell away from here.” Axel got his good leg braced, squeezed his lips tight together, and stood up. “C'mon. We've got to go over to the fairgrounds. I want to get the rest of the stuff out of the cooler, get the restaurant closed up for the year.”

Gripping his yardstick cane, Axel stood up and hobbled out the back door. Goddamn Sam O'Gara. You think you know a guy. The first few steps were tough, but once he got into the rhythm, walking wasn't all that bad. He jerked open the passenger door and climbed clumsily into the cab of his old pickup. His foot caught on something, a plastic bag on the floor. He grabbed the bag, tried to move it out of the way, then stopped. He felt through the black plastic. Rolls, like tight little burritos. He could feel them. He wanted to rip the bag open, to plunge his arms into it, but Sophie opened the driver's side door and hopped in.

“What's going on with you two?” she asked.

Axel sat up straight. “Nothing,” he said.

Sophie dropped her eyes to the bag. “What's that?”

“Just some stuff Sam was keeping for me.” He rolled down the window and looked back at the house. Sam stood in the doorway, smoking a cigarette. One of the hounds poked its head out between his bowed legs.

Axel shouted, “You son-of-a-bitch! You just left it here? Where anybody coulda come and grabbed it?”

Sam just grinned.

Sophie said, “I swear to God, Axel, I don't know who'd want to steal this old pickup.”

The aging Ford started right up, to Axel's surprise. She didn't have to pump the gas and grind away with the starter like before—just turned the key and they were in business. He liked the way the engine sounded. Sam must've worked some kind of magic. And once they got onto the road, it even seemed to roll better. The shimmy had disappeared. Or maybe it was the plastic bag between his feet, maybe that was what made the ride so smooth.

Axel said, “You know that bank on Snelling? You mind stopping off there for a few minutes? I want to make a deposit.”

Sophie looked at him in surprise. “You? Since when do you use a bank?”

“Things change,” he said. He wouldn't put it all in. Maybe just a few thousand dollars; give himself time to get used to the idea.

“You want to know something?” Sophie asked.

“What?”

“Carmen was right. You're weird.”

“You're weird too,” Axel said.

Sophie shrugged. “Carmen would agree with you.”

They rode down University Avenue without speaking, turned north on Snelling, Axel enjoying the comfortable silence. She was driving real nice for once, smooth and slow. As they turned into the fairgrounds, Axel was thinking that he wouldn't even get that new truck fixed, because he'd heard that once a vehicle got in an accident, it would never ride quite right again, and anyways, he'd never really gotten friendly with it. Never trusted the damn thing. He was thinking he'd sell it, or maybe give it to Sam, since, after all, the old one seemed to be working just fine.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Becky Bohan, Marilyn Bos, Charlie Buckman-Ellis, Andy Hinderlie, Mary Logue, Tom Rucker, George Sorenson and Deborah Woodworth—I thank you for all your help and support, and for saying nice things when I read those first tentative chapters more than six years ago. I thank Mike Hildebrand for his linguistic support, and I thank Bill Stesin, “still one of my ten best friends,” for telling the tales that made this book possible.