Chaingang

“What the fuck you pulling on me, man?” He couldn't help it. He was totally torqued. “We've got a deal."

“Absolutely. Not here,” he begged him with his tone and eyes, pleading Royce to go away. “Not the time or place."

“How many times I gotta phone?"

“You don't understand, Royce."

“That's right.” His throat felt so dry.

“I'm in a helluva bind.” Drexel spoke quietly. “I can't come up with it. I just got hosed."

"You the one don't understand. You don't do that. You don't fuck this kind of a deal over. You got to come up with it!"

“I'm into other people, too. Royce. I'm in a world of trouble. I ... I got in over my head."

“How dare you tell me that shit. You let me stick my dick into something this heavy and you tell me you're over your head? What the fuck is wrong with you?” He was trying to whisper, and it was coming out like a whine. He could see the deal dead in Drexel's yuppie eyes. “Sell your fucking house, and cars. You got to get me out from under this."

“It's gone. I've already mortgaged my house. I'm down the tubes, Royce. I just got in too deep. Listen—I'll call you tonight. I'll explain—"

“You can't explain shit. You can't explain your way out of something like this, bud. Get real."

“Well, it ain't happening,” he said, in mock tough guy. Hawthorne wanted to throw him up against the wall of the building. It ain't happening. Drexel turned, starting off. No good-bye.

“You got some set of balls on you for a fucking wimpy, no-dick pussy!" He was out of control. Fuck it.

He shrugged with his body and his face. “I'm—"

“Yeah. I know. You're sorry. You're that, all right. Fuck.” He didn't know what to do next. Go in the bank and try to move the weight in there? First Bank of Waterton was notoriously loose in their SBLs, and after all—wasn't he a small businessman? It wouldn't be like he didn't have the collateral.

He watched David Drexel get into his big car. Money in the bank. It couldn't have gone south like this. Jeezus—how much bad luck does somebody have to have?

He turned the corner of the bank, walking, nodding hello to people he'd known all his life. Would P. J. Thatcher, the State Farm man, come to his funeral when Happy and Luis finished with him? he wondered as he passed the insurance office. He needed somebody who had some serious bucks to get him temporarily off this dangerous tenterhook.

He saw Myrna Hyams at a desk and opened the door to Perkins Realty.

“Hi.” She'd been with Sam for a long time and wore her concern on her face.

“Hi, Myrna. I don't guess you've heard anything new?"

“Not a word."

“Does everybody in town know he's disappeared, do you suppose?"

“They will tomorrow. I gave Jake at the Weekly Dispatch the details just a while ago. They put the paper out tomorrow.” The Weekly Dispatch was printed in Maysburg, and this would be big news—a pillar of the community missing.

“Did you get those telephone bills ready?” Mary had told Myrna that he was “helping the family” look for Sam.

“Yes, sir,” she said, glumly. “I couldn't think of anything I haven't already said. I just can't imagine what has happened to Mr. Sam."

He couldn't think what to say, so he just shook his head by way of commiseration. Royce wondered who'd look for him if he disappeared.

Mary Perkins was working her way back down North Main with the handbills. She went in Judy's, the town's most popular cafe, and spotted a woman she knew.

“Hi, Francie."

“Howdy, Mary,” a heavyset woman said from behind the cash register, a look of condolence immediately wrinkling her plump, friendly features with concern. “It's awful about Sam. Have you heard any news?"

“No.” Mary showed the woman a stack of pages she'd just run off across the street at the bank. “Would you all mind handing these out for me?” They were reward announcements that showed Sam's photograph, followed by a photocopy of the account of his disappearance that had run in the Weekly Dispatch that morning.

“Of course not. I'll make sure they get handed out myself,” Francie assured her, glad to help. “I sure hope Sam's okay.” She had clearly written him off.

Mary thanked her and left, working her way on down North Main. She, too, had a very bad feeling now. She'd already caught herself several times as she spoke of her husband in the past tense. Too much time had gone by.

She worked her way down the block, leaving more of the reward handbills at General Discount, the doctor's office, and O'Connor GMC Motors. She'd parked their car on Maple, and she went back to rest a minute and regroup. The plan was to get more posters and work her way on out South Main. She unlocked the car, got in, and looked at Sam's likeness from a recent photo.

REWARD

A substantial cash reward will be paid to anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Sam Perkins, 33, of 911 South Main in Waterton, who has been missing since the morning of Friday, October 5, when he was believed to have been abducted from the parking lot of Perkins Realty.