“Down in the leaves, boys, I hear you now. We red-hot, boys. We got the goods.”
Tildy was frightened by the passion in his voice.
“Get the crowbar. Bring them things over here and we’ll rip this porch right up till we find what’s underneath.”
Raving. Delirious. He was like a man who’d been chasing a mirage across the desert for too long. She wanted to blanket him with her body, cover his parched mouth and burning eyes and lure him into sleep. But it was much too late for that. So she worked alongside him, trying not to think of anything but the cadence of her pickaxe swings. Steady as a metronome. Wood breaking apart, flying. Ground opening up to light it hadn’t seen in years … Clang. Pick point hitting something that was also metal. A shorter stroke, another clang. She reached down and felt smooth cold sides meeting in a rounded edge, little knobs up and down. She flopped on her stomach and peered down. It was a steamer trunk.
“Karl,” she said with cobwebs on her face. “Over here, Karl.”
He kissed her hands once he’d looked, very calm now, balanced. “You did it, babe. My good-luck charm, like always.”
They levered and lifted and heaved and there it was, a simple box reinforced with studded iron strips, scraps of railway and hotel decals grafted to its filthy skin. They stood looking at it, at each other, for a long time.
“Ready?”
As Karl worked the crowbar under the lock, Tildy thought: Maybe it’s just another body. Trunk murder. He wiped his hands, hesitated slyly and lifted the lid. The money was not neatly bundled but lay there in a frozen whirlpool of fives and tens and twenties.
“I love you,” and she held him tight.
It was not the sight of money that caused this welling up but a vast relief. He was not lost to her after all. Victory instead of lunacy. Karl had won.
“Let’s see what else we got.”
He went to his knees and pushed through the layer of paper. The first coffee can he opened was stuffed with gold turnip watches.
In the days that followed Karl found it hard to sleep. There were dark raccoon circles around his eyes. He floated through the house in a glowing envelope of bliss, the only nourishment he needed. He played on the floor like a child with the rings and stickpins, the gold coins and gold toothpicks and gold cigar cutters. He picked necklaces for Tildy like wildflowers, topaz and emerald and sapphire. A strange reserve played across his face. It was as if he had popped through a celestial warp into another dimension and nothing, not even the news of Lester Clines’s jailhouse suicide, could touch him. He was happy just to play, but Tildy couldn’t be so just watching.
Her initial elation had worn off; the impact of their discovery had left bruises. But she breezed off to work each morning, spent the day making change, helping ladies decide which pair of cheap earrings to buy; and the absurdity of the situation offered no comfort. While Karl was on a bender, reeling with visions of a new life that changed hourly, she saw only how much coping she’d have to do; she saw that this sudden blessing of theirs could just as easily be a curse, a machine to manufacture worries. Sooner rather than later, Karl would want to broadcast news of their discovery all over town — she worried about that. True, Lester Clines had discouraged further investigation by hanging himself with his own trousers, but still they were holding evidence in a murder case — she worried about that. They were holding a few thousand in cash and an array of nonnegotiable but traceable items that would have to be fenced somehow — she worried about that, too.
“It’s too much for me to handle. I’m afraid.”
Tildy repeated and repeated these words like a mantra in the vain hope that an admission of fear would in some way strengthen her. “I’m afraid,” she would whisper, to which her only response was, “Yes, you certainly are.”
“Let’s buy a boat and sail around the world,” Karl said to her one afternoon as she arrived home early from the Medi Quik. “Let’s buy a farm and raise racehorses.”
Tildy scooped up the cufflinks he’d been sorting through and shook them in his face. “You can’t buy anything with this, it’s not money. Do you understand me? That’s not a treasure chest we’ve got, it’s a toy chest. So play with your fucking toys and leave me alone.”
She went into the bedroom and slammed the door. All Tildy had in mind was stashing herself in that little box of a room and shutting down her tired brain. But she was about to uncover one more false theory, about to prove that desperation, not necessity, was the mother of invention. She pulled off her shoes, flung them one after the other at the back of the closet; and she thought of Sparn.
Sparn the fixer, the Big Peter who could always get into dark and unseen places. He knew all the angles and how to play them. He knew all the pipelines, where they began and where they emptied. She needed outside help to turn toys into money and he could give it. Sparn was a businessman first and always, and last year’s grievances wouldn’t count for much if she could bring him a deal.
Before her emotions could get in the way, Tildy went to the telephone and dialed his office.
Dolly Varden answered. “Good afternoon, Seminole Star.”
“I want to talk to Pete.”
“I’m sorry, he’s on another line. May I …”
“He gonna be in tomorrow? I’m coming to see him.”
“… ask who’s calling?”
“Tildy Soileau. He knows me.”
“Yes. The one who walked out on us.” Dolly dropped her Southern accent for the hard nasality of her hometown. “You better not be looking for work, sister. We make it a policy not to involve ourselves with people like you. People who betray us and spit on our trust.”
“Well, I didn’t get a Christmas card from you either. Tell him I’ll be there in the afternoon.”
“Mr. Sparn will be quite busy all day tomorrow.”
“Fine. Just tell him.”
Tildy set out for Jacksonville at six the next morning, alone. Karl had instructions to phone Holstein and tell him she had some “personal business” to attend to. There were good reasons for excluding Karl from this trip. She was embarking on an expedition that was perilous enough; she’d need all her warning systems and couldn’t afford to keep one eye on him. But the road was white and peaceful in the morning sun and when she stopped outside of Hoppachula for a new radiator hose, the old man gave it to her for nothing because she reminded him of his daughter who’d moved to Oregon. She made excellent time, had succulent fried catfish for lunch and actually arrived in Jacksonville with a tinge of confidence.
The Seminole Star office was frigid, air conditioners running at maximum output. The sweat on Tildy’s face and neck dried instantly, drawing her skin tight. Roosting behind an enormous desk, Dolly Varden suggested she come back later, Pete was tied up in a meeting. Tildy sat down with an old copy of Boxoffice magazine and tried to listen through the door. A woman’s husky voice: “… and in 1975 I was named Miss Inland Waterways.” Staring with tight, fierce eyes, Dolly turned her radio up loud and that was that.
Four songs and a news broadcast later, the woman emerged clutching a stack of 8x10 glossies. She was an unbewildering Sparn selection in red boots and smoky glasses, her nosecone breasts jutting against a rayon shirt. Pete, gliding close behind her, whirled when he saw Tildy, and then smirked, folding his arms.
“You look like hell, kid. Been up all night?” Then, “Leave your pictures, honey. Dolly, coffee please.” He took Tildy by the hand and led her into his office; the furniture had been reupholstered in beige velour. “So tell me what you think of Crystal. Scrumptious, huh?”