Start with Chapter 1
CHAPTER 28
Sadie dragged her finger down his chest, touching his light chest hair, sending tingles into his shoulders. She took a drag off her cigarette from her other hand as she lay on her stomach with the bedspread covering her legs.
Dean lay on his back and looked at the orange cinder at the end of his cigarette flaring brightly in the room. Frank Morgan’s saxophone in “The Nearness of You” filling the space around them. Sadie let her hand rest on his chest.
“You had quite a day.”
He raised his head. “Huh?”
“You don’t normally take command like that, but you did. You walked in and took me.”
“Hmmm.”
“I’m serious. I mean, you pay for it, so it’s not like you can’t take command any old time, but you don’t. But today, you did.” She turned her head and smiled at him, a glint in her eyes. She was pleased, even proud.
He let his head fall back onto the pillow. “I guess I did. And, yeah, it was a good day.”
She sat up and dragged most of the bedspread with her, leaving him exposed. She giggled, grabbed the bottle of Wild Turkey, and sat back down, throwing the cover over him. She patted his crotch and smiled. “There, all covered up again.” She offered him the bottle.
He took it and drank some and handed it back to her.
She took a drink. “So don’t just sit there and say, ‘It was a good day.’ What was good about it?”
“I spent the day in the woods.” She stared at him. He smiled and then could not hold the laugh back. “I was doing some surveillance. The person went out of town and led me to something. I think it’ll be important.”
She stabbed the cigarette out in the ashtray on the nightstand. “Like what? What could be that exciting to bring the tiger out of Dean Wallace?”
“I think they’ve got a drug stash out there.” He waved vaguely in the air. “Just a hunch. I’ll find out more tomorrow when I go back out there. But that’s, that’s not what’s exciting. It’s the—shit. It’s what makes this job so exciting at times.”
She leaned over and kissed him on the chest. “Well, tiger, we’ve still got time. Wanna play?”
He nodded and took control.
* * *
When Dean returned home, he opened the refrigerator, hoping to find something he could make to eat. With limited options, he made a sandwich of Wonder Bread, three slices of generic brand bologna, and liberal spread of Miracle Whip. He downed it with a Pabst Blue Ribbon.
He cracked open a second beer to wash the last of the bread down. He picked up the phone and dragged the cord behind him to the kitchen table. He called the station and asked Jim for Guthrie. Jim set the receiver down, shouted at Guthrie, and then transferred Dean without saying a word.
“Hey, I was wondering about you,” said Guthrie.
“Sorry I didn’t call earlier. Josh actually moved today beyond the normal.”
“And I missed it. Damn.”
“It was in the afternoon. He left the store and took Forty-Three out to road One Hundred S. Drove past a farm house and beyond where the paved road ended. He disappeared for a couple of hours and came back with somebody I couldn’t ID, and then left.”
“What do you think it is?”
“I’m guessing they have a drug stash out there.”
“They need two hours to get to and from? They’re probably growing it.”
“Maybe. But I think we need to check it out. Let’s you, me, and maybe Etheridge go out there tomorrow.” Dean rubbed his finger along the edge of the telephone’s case. “See if we can find it.”
“You don’t know where it is exactly?”
“No idea other than a general direction. But I think we’ll find it.”
“Who do you think it was with Josh?” The sound of a lighter.
“I couldn’t ID him.”
Guthrie let out the smoke. “Yeah, but you have a guess.”
Dean smiled. “Yeah. I do. I’d bet it was Alex.”
* * *
Dean took a shower and put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He lit a cigarette as he flipped through his records, wondering what he wanted to listen to. He decided to stick with jazz. He debated between Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. He decided on Sonny’s Saxophone Colossus. The Caribbean vibe of “Saint Thomas” filled the room. He sat down on the couch and cracked open another beer.
As the drum solo hit the cymbals, a knock on the door took Dean out of his reverie. He left the music on and loud as he opened the door to his brother.
“Hey there,” said Tony with a smile.
Dean turned sideways and gestured for Tony to come in. As Tony walked past, Dean said, “Welcome.” He followed his brother in, stopped by the fridge, grabbed a beer, and tossed it to Tony. He sat down on the couch as Dean turned down the stereo.
Tony tapped the top of the can. “I thought I’d swing by. My continuing efforts.”
Dean raised his beer. “To continuing efforts.”
Tony opened his, raised it, and quickly drank the froth that came out of the top.
“How’s that going, by the way?”
Tony slumped into the couch beside his brother. “Pretty well actually. I think Mom has a lot to do with that. Buttering him up and whatnot.”
He had been making an effort to visit them once a week, and when he was unable to do so, he made sure he called. They had never, of course, gotten to the root of their long disagreement. But that was like his family. Just bury any unpleasantness, any strife as if it had never happened, though the tense words, the sullen quietness all showed through nonetheless. In this case, the years had done much of the work of burying the painful memories.
Dean said, “I understand not speaking to Dad all those years, but why didn’t you ever come around here? You just disappeared.”
Tony was silent for a while, scratching the front of his chin. “I always thought Dad’s response to Nolan’s death was over-the-top. Not in terms of his grief. No. Not that. I’m talking about his response to those around him. He shunned me. Practically disowned me. I was easy to deal with from his perspective. I’m the son who didn’t do his duty. You.” He wagged a finger at Dean. “You, though, were an entirely different issue for Dad. You’re the good son. Served your country. And then Nolan gets killed, and you’re the reminder. The son who lived who every day reminded him—Dad—of his sacrifice. You were the scab that never healed. I was the scar.”
“Great. I never thought of myself as the scab. No one likes a scab.” Dean drank the last of his beer. “I’m a reminder to myself. I can’t escape this skin.”
Tony smiled. “So my banishment was from the family. Not because you wanted it, but because Dad wanted it. He wanted me to feel the shame, to feel his disgust.” Tony’s eyes began to well up. “And because of that, I never forgave myself for having skipped the war. I couldn’t face you. I was too ashamed.”
Dean nodded and got up and grabbed two more beers. He sat back on the couch and handed his brother one of them. “You didn’t skip the war. No one did. You just lived a different horror.” He thought of their youthful years, thought of the evening when they played kick-the-can with a bunch of the neighborhood kids. Sometime in the Sixties, not long after Kennedy was killed. The Wallace brothers had always played as a team, and that night was no different. Huddled under a copse of pines at the Jordan house and about a hundred yards from the can, a duo from the “it” team had left behind a sole protector and a half dozen other kids were in jail—the Copley’s front porch.
The brothers had formed a plan: Dean and Tony would be the bait and Nolan would race to kick over the can and free a prisoner. The two older brothers darted from beneath the pine trees, startling the “it” team, who ran after them. Dean and Tony sprinted straight for the can—an empty Folger’s tin—hoping to get the guard to commit chasing after them. Nolan darted out from cover.
Tony glanced behind him and saw only one pursuer and called out to Dean to continue on. And the sound of four footsteps behind Dean dropped to two, but he did not know if his brother was behind him or the opposing player. He dared not glance back. He later learned Tony had saved Nolan from capture by doubling back to Nolan, who was almost caught. As Dean led the guard away, Tony and Nolan circled back to the can. A few yards ahead of the youngest Wallace, Tony threatened the jail, forcing the pursuers to divert their attention to him again, giving Nolan the valuable seconds and space to free a prisoner, kicking the can with a ferociousness that permanently ended its career.
In Dean’s memory, Tony had always seemed to be the protector. Dean had done what was needed to be done. Dutiful. More than once, Tony had dealt with a couple of guys who bullied Nolan. Dean had reported them to the principal, expected the system to administer justice. Nothing out of the ordinary, but then, the Wallace boys were a force.
Dean shared the kick-the-can memory with Tony, who remembered it as Dean being the hero. Tony shook his head as he recounted from his vantage point how Dean had burst out at full speed from beneath the trees and screamed to get the pursuers’ attention. How he sprinted and in that wake took the bulk of the risk, allowing Tony to retreat back, save Nolan, and let them free the prisoner.
They drank their beers and listened to the last notes of “Blue 7” and then silence.
With Nolan gone, they felt like a diminished version of themselves without any way to recover.
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