When Pigs Fly (3 page)

When the cop left, a cactus wren let out a raucous cry that sounded like a backfiring muffler.

Same time, back East

“Rule number one, B and E.” Ace quizzed Frosty. They were casing the back of a home in Lowell. The neighborhood was full of old ranch houses and split-levels from the ‘60s, with overgrown maples and pine trees and tree roots that buckled the asphalt under driveways. Most of the kids around here were grown, and the parents were likely all off to work to pay for their mortgages and second honeymoons and save for retirement. Still, you had to be careful.

“Be sure no one’s home,” Frosty replied.

Ace smiled. His little brother was catching on. They hid behind a pine tree and looked at the back of the cute bungalow, out of sight of other houses. Its gray shingles were all curled up and covered with pine needles, and its gray clapboard siding looked like somebody hit it with a hammer in eleventy-two places. An old lady walked down the side stairs, all prim looking with her white hair and her purse, and got into a van already full of old folks. The codger van backed down the driveway and headed toward town. Instinct told Ace there was something special in this house, something even better than the high-definition TV they’d lifted last week, though instinct didn’t tell him exactly what.

“Rule number two?”

“Double check rule number one.”

Ace nodded and picked up his cell phone from where he’d dropped it on the ground. Those shiny green leaves they were standing in, they weren’t poison ivory, were they? Luckily, they both wore latex gloves so they wouldn’t leave prints. He punched in a number.
Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.
Anybody else was home, they would have picked up by now. His nose itched, and he scratched it. But the itch was playing keep-away—every time Ace scratched, the itch moved—behind his ear, down to his Adam’s apple.

Nice thing about robbing old people was their places seemed so homey, with afghans, stale-smelling boxes of kitty litter, and pictures of great-grandchildren looking so freaking adorable. Ace and Frosty just wanted to score a couple bills, maybe the old folks just cashed their Social Security check or left their Bingo winnings on the nightstand. There were moral standards to uphold, naturally, so Ace would never take all the cash. If he found a couple of fifties, he’d take one and leave one. If he found only one, he’d take it but feel bad. What if it was all the poor geezers had?

Ace and Frosty went down in the bulkhead, which was rotting at the hinges. Right away they both caught a face full of spider webs they had to pick off their tongues. They hated spiders. Frosty said the ones that didn’t have poison sacs in their ass might carry plague germs that make your skin explode. Which wasn’t to say he wasn’t full of shit, as little brothers often are.

Piles of junk were all over the place.
National Geographics,
possibly every one published since Honest Abe chopped down the cherry tree. Dolls, garden hoses, dozens of cardboard boxes, a rusty bicycle, lamps, a green lawn mower, a radiator with a crank in the front that must have been popular in the Ice Age. Ace stepped on something, and a rake handle whacked him in the face. That stung like a hornet and made him see lots of purple and lemony spots for a minute, but Ace wiped his face and didn’t notice any blood.

They tiptoed up the cellar stairs, every one creaking as quiet as a bullhorn. They pushed a door leading past the end of a hallway and into the kitchen, which was as quiet as Ace’s heartbeat. A bouquet of flowers decorated the kitchen table. Frosty sneezed quietly into his shirt. Then he opened the fridge, and Ace pushed it shut. Pictures of kids and puppies decorated the fridge door, and a magnet held up a lottery ticket and a few envelopes.

“This is business,” Ace whispered, flipping through the mail, his face hurting like he’d been hit with a stick. There were no checks, and he knew the lottery ticket was a loser, because he made it his business to know stuff like that. They went through the kitchen cabinets and even under the sink, since old people hid valuables in odd places. Frosty looked at Ace and shrugged.

In the living room, a fireplace mantel held family pictures and bric-a-brac. Ace checked it all out quickly while Frosty looked under a bunch of papers on the coffee table. They were careful never to toss a place; they wanted to be long gone before anyone guessed what had happened. They lifted sofa cushions, and Ace pocketed seventy-five cents. Sometimes all you got didn’t even pay for gas money. The side tables didn’t have anything worth squat, and a peek under the couch just turned up an army of dust bunnies. The carpet had a couple of stains Ace didn’t even want to think about; he picked up a scrap of paper and put it in the trash.

They went down a dark hall and pushed open a bedroom door. There were lace curtains, a king-sized bed with a brass frame and a library book on a blue pillow, an exercise bicycle with a white towel draped over the handlebar. A small rack of pink dumbbells sat on the carpet by the wall. Frosty poked inside an open package of Depends sitting next to the dresser. Nothing interesting there. On the wall hung a framed photo of a woman standing in front of an old shack and a big cactus. The picture was stained and creased, and the lady was older than Moses’ aunt. He looked behind the frame: no hidden safe.

Ace flipped through a Bible that sat on the dresser, but found no money stashed inside. Ditto the drawers filled with creams, pills, powders, lipsticks, rollers, coins, loose stamps, and a whole confusion of the mysterious underthingies women wore. Where was all the great stuff his instinct told him about?

When he opened the nightstand drawer, he saw an envelope with a handwritten return address:

Mack Durgin

RR #1

Pincushion, AZ

He looked inside and pulled out a snapshot. For a second, Ace’s blood stopped flowing through his veins. Officer Mack Durgin, Lowell P.D.! Memories washed over Ace’s brain—of Officer Durgin arresting them, testifying in juvie court, picking them up, letting them go, warning, watching, offering lame advice, and generally screwing up their plans.
Best way to stay out of trouble,
he’d said once,
is
don’t touch what’s not yours.
Really, where would America be with an attitude like that? We’d still be trading with the Indians. Officer Durgin was a tall, solidly built cop with sandy hair and wrinkles around his eyes that some people had a funny name for—pigeon toes or crow’s-feet, Ace couldn’t quite remember which.

“Look at this,” Frosty said. He had a strongbox opened up on the bed; passports, cash, and a house deed were spread on the blanket. “I got it from the closet. There must be half a grand in here.”

From the front of the house came a rustle and a bump, and Ace caught his breath. “I think I hear something. Grab the cash and put everything else back where you found it.” Frosty did as he was told, feeling virtuous as he returned a couple of twenties.

A door opened and closed. Ace heard two guys as he motioned for Frosty to be quick.

“Where is it?” One guy’s voice rumbled like faraway thunder. He sounded like he was already sick of asking.

“Where is what?
Unnnh!
”

There was a loud thump that sounded like a body slamming against a wall. Ace’s guts clenched, and he suddenly thought those Depends weren’t such a bad idea.

“Last I was here, it was on the mantel.”

“I don’t know what—”

There was a sharp gasp, like all of the air had been squeezed out of some poor loser’s lungs.
Thump, thump, thump.
Ace and Frosty hadn’t bargained for this, and they backpedaled quietly down the hall. Wait, they couldn’t take those squeaky cellar steps. Ace motioned that they should hide in the bathroom. Frosty whimpered, and Ace slapped his arm.

“You don’t tell me, you’re dead.” That awful voice again, carrying from down the hallway. Ace’s throat went dry.

“I sent it to my son.”

“Where is he?”

Mack Durgin.
Ace had figured by now Mack would be chasing widows in Florida. Instead he lived in AZ, wherever that was.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ace whispered.

“Guy’ll get killed. We can’t just leave him.” Frosty’s eyes welled up. Caring was one of his better qualities. Ace nervously edged down the hall toward the living room and saw that same guy kicking a man on the floor, though Ace could only see the victim’s legs. This was wicked bogus, interfering with a perfectly honest housebreaking and using violence besides. The guy was much too big for Ace, though. Cowardice had served him well this far in life; why not stick with what he knew?

He closed his eyes, hoping to wish the mess away. When he opened them, he realized how big the man was—very—and saw that one of his hands was bloody and the other gripped an old lady’s neck.

Now Ace had lots of principles, all negotiable. The one that popped into his mind at this point was less flexible than most: If you absolutely, positively must hit some dude who’s bigger than you, make sure his back is turned.

Ace tiptoed into the living room and grabbed a ceramic lamp.

Same place, seconds earlier

Diet Cola was built like an ex pro linebacker who’d forgotten how to train but remembered how to eat. He kicked Carrick Durgin in the ribs, and the breath left Durgin’s chest like a popped balloon. “You got rid of the urn, you stupid whackjob?” Durgin’s eyes were rimmed with red. He moaned a soft prayer, and Diet sat on his face to smother him and put him down for good. A couple of months ago he did that to some fish in the can, and the sucker flat-lined in the E.R.

So the geezers FedExed the urn to their little boy in Arizona, did they? Well, Diet Cola had to go there and get the ticket. Meantime, though, he had to start repaying the entire Durgin family.

As Carrick struggled to breathe, Diet Cola wondered where the geezer’s wife was; maybe he’d finally get his twofer. There was a squeak in the floorboard, but Diet Cola knew damn well he was alone. He had made sure of that. He laughed as he bounced his ass a couple of times on the old man’s face. Now
that
was a squeaky floor!

He heard a cough, turned, saw—
Whack!
Diet went down, rolling off Carrick and onto the floor, grasping his face in a rage of purple pain. A noise like a cherry bomb exploded next to his ear and set off a half-dozen car alarms ricocheting across the inside of his skull. Between his fingers he saw a woman in a Sunday church dress, white hair and a string of pearls, face full of wrinkles, feet spread apart and her spindly right arm cocked back. There was the meanest-looking face that had ever worn lipstick, and the biddy had a bullwhip!

“You leave my husband alone, you wicked creature!”

That was a new one on Diet Cola, and he didn’t know how to react. If she’d called him a motherfucker, he would know to fly into a rage the way he’d always done in jail. Those twelve letters were like a warm, comfortable coat. But
wicked creature
?

“I’m killing you next, lady.” He stood up just as the leather was on its backswing.

Old Brodie Durgin apparently wasn’t in a talkative mood, but she didn’t look like she had enough muscles in her arm to do any real damage. The first shot was her best one for sure, so he reached out to ward off the second blow. The end of the whip exploded in the palm of his right hand. Pain tore like a lightning bolt up his arm. Unfortunately, that was the hand he used to forge signatures and jerk off with. Now he had a handful of his own blood, and he was pissed. He charged at the old witch before she could get her full weight behind another snap. He grabbed her throat with his good hand, and as he squeezed, the fear of God bulged out of her eyes. The lipstick, the nice flowery dress, the sweet perfume—here was a woman all dressed up for her own wake. She shook so hard he thought he heard her bones rattle, or maybe it was her dentures. “What do you think? Have you lived long enough—bitch?”

She spit in his face, as though he couldn’t get any madder. He smiled, though, and wiped blood from his palm to her face. “Lick it,” he said. When she bit his hand instead, he smeared blood down the front of her dress, got himself a handful of an ancient knocker, and squeezed it hard.

Sudden pain shot through the back of his skull.
First a bullwhip, now a hammer, maybe a brick. Jesus. Not fair! Holy shit, that hurts! Jesus Christ, Ma, make it stop!
He let go of Brodie and fell to his knees. The world spun in front of his eyes just like when he’d knock off a fifth of Jim Beam. He wanted to turn and see who—or what—had hit him, but what if they did it again? His bladder let go in a warm, wet rush. He staggered forward, pushed on the door, and smacked into the door jamb because he forgot to turn sideways. Then he got the hell out of there.

He squeezed into his GTO—technically, it wasn’t his, but it’s what he was driving at the moment—and gunned it out of the neighborhood and into an empty school parking lot. Half blind with pain, it was a miracle he could even drive. There, he stripped to his waist and wrapped his t-shirt around his wounded hand, but his head throbbed most of all.

He headed toward home, hid the GTO in an old garage and re-closed the rusty padlock. Then he went upstairs to his rat-hole of a tenement, which was supposedly empty, its windows having been boarded up sometime during his stretch in the can. In the bathroom, he dumped a bunch of Tylenol right from the bottle to his mouth, then washed them down with a diet cola.