3

GARY AND BETH FOSTER LIVED IN A RANCH HOUSE WITH TWO SMALL BEDROOMS, an even smaller kitchen, and a living room filled with a sad ensemble of giveaways and Craigslist purchases. A starter home, the Realtor called the house fourteen years ago when they bought it. A house to live in for a few years, build up some equity, then sell to raise a family in a more spacious house.

More than a decade later, they still remained in their starter home.

On the morning after they returned home from the hospital, Gary and Beth sat at their kitchen table. Beth’s chair was pushed back a few feet, the upper curve of her belly just visible over the tabletop. A Detroit Tigers mug filled with coffee was in front of Gary, a glass of orange juice in front of Beth, and bowls of Cheerios in front of them both. They were doing more looking at their breakfast than eating.

“Can you give me a ride at ten?” Beth asked. “I’m going to head to yoga class.”

Gary glanced up from his Cheerios. “Yoga?”

“I think so,” Beth said. “Not to work out. When it’s over, I’m going to give the girls the news. I’m going to tell them about the brain tumor.”

“You’re ready?”

“Yeah. I thought about it all night, and I think it’s time.”

They’d planned on telling their close friends yesterday; instead, they spent the evening alone in the house, just the two of them, trying to make sense of it all.

When they weren’t crying, they’d searched online for as much information as they could find. Glioblastoma treatment. Brain-tumor remedies. Odds of glioblastoma survival.

Everything they read only reiterated the depressing, dismal news Dr. Narita gave them earlier. The cancer spread fast. Eighty-five percent of people diagnosed with glioblastomas didn’t make it a year. It was rare, extremely rare, for patients to survive longer than five years.

But the situation wasn’t hopeless.

They’d found a blog from someone who had lived for twenty years since being diagnosed with a glioblastoma. A message board post from another survivor who was diagnosed ten years ago. Various articles about new treatments that doctors were encouraged by.

“I just don’t know what to say at yoga class,” Beth said. “How do you tell people about something like this?”

“Just be honest. Up-front. Direct.”

“I suppose so. I have to tell everyone at some point. Might as well be now.”

Beth carried her bowl of Cheerios over to the sink and rinsed it out. She gazed out the small window over the countertop, out at the front yard.

“It will be good to get out of the house,” she said. “There’s nothing to do here but sit around and feel sorry for myself. Think about things I don’t want to think about.”

OTTO SAT IN A DINER A FEW BLOCKS FROM HIS PAWNSHOP. THE INTERIOR of the diner was shabby and worn down, with a few old Coca-Cola signs and sun-faded pictures hanging from the walls. Long strips of duct tape were raggedly patched over the booths, covering cracks and rips in the vinyl upholstery. On a chalkboard behind the counter, the day’s specials were written in neat cursive writing. Open-face Turkey Sandwich. Cobb Salad. Minute Steak with Mashed Potatoes.

Otto was the only person inside the diner other than the cook in the back and the waitress reading a paperback book behind the counter. A cup of coffee, bottom-of-the-barrel slop, rested on the table in front of him, steam rising from the cup.

He lifted the cup but set it back on the table without drinking from it. He pushed it aside so hard that some coffee sloshed out. Nervous—he was so damn nervous.

After Otto had waited for five minutes, a guy walked into the diner. The waitress set down her paperback and asked if he needed help, but he ignored her and headed to Otto’s booth.

Otto watched him approach. The man was six and a half feet tall at least, with a gray ribbed T-shirt hugging tightly against a chest so massive it looked like he had a bulletproof vest concealed under his shirt. His arms were two thick and defined cannons dangling from his body. He was almost bald but not quite. His nose was a mangled, crooked mess.

He reached Otto’s booth and sat down across from him. Otto nodded at the big guy.

“Thanks for coming, Champ,” Otto said.

He wordlessly nodded back. His name was Robert Smith. He was a retired heavyweight boxer who’d transitioned into a life of crime after his career ended, doing dirty work for whoever hired him. As a boxer, he’d collected a few small purses, but his career ended before he competed for, let alone won, any sort of championship; he had the brute strength but not the intangibles to go far. Despite never having won anything noteworthy, he told people to call him Champ. And when a guy that big told you to do something, you did it.

“You wanted to talk about something?” Champ asked. His voice was so deep, the question sounded like the blaring of a foghorn.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“So start talking.”

“I got a problem I need you to take care of,” Otto said.

“Figured as much.”

“It’s some pretty serious shit.”

“It’s all serious to me. You know I don’t play.”

Otto looked over his shoulder. Empty booths and tables all around. The waitress behind the counter was focused on her book.

“What I’m about to tell you remains between us, all right?” Otto said, turning back to Champ.

“No shit, it does,” Champ said. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

“I know, I know. But I gotta make that perfectly clear. No one can know about this.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Good. I’ll get straight to it, then. There’s someone who’s making my life hell. I need you to kill him for me.”

Champ’s heavy eyes stared across the table. Otto had hired him for jobs before, mostly to talk some sense into dealers who were behind on payments. Usually, the mere sight of Champ was intimidating enough for the problem to be resolved. But things got ugly occasionally. Champ put one guy in a coma for two weeks. Another time, Champ used a baseball bat to break a guy’s leg so severely, the bones had been damn near pulverized.

“Murder, huh?” Champ said. “This won’t come cheap.”

“I’m prepared to pay.”

“Who’s the target?”

Otto grabbed a manila envelope resting next to him on the booth. He removed an eight-by-eleven-inch sheet of paper and slid it across the table. Printed on the sheet was a black-and-white photocopy of a Michigan driver’s license.

“Devon Peterson,” Champ said, reading the name on the license. “What’s the story with this guy?”

“It don’t matter. I need him dead. I want you to do it. That’s all you need to know.”

“Devon Peterson. Name sounds familiar.” Suddenly, Champ’s dull eyes lit up. A spark of recognition. “Wait a sec. Shit, is this—”

“Yeah,” Otto said. “It is.”

“How’d you get messed up with this guy?”

“Long story. You gonna be able to help me out?”

Champ slid the sheet of paper back across the table. “I’m passing on this one,” he said.

“You’re passing? The hell you talking about?”

Only when the waitress set down her book and looked in their direction did Otto realize how loud his voice had been. Otto raised his hand to let her know they were fine. She eyed them for a second and returned to reading.

“What do you mean, you’re passing on this?” Otto said, lowering his voice.

“I’m not fucking with this guy,” Champ said.

“You turn into a Boy Scout overnight? You’ve never had a problem with shit like this before.”

“This is different.”

“How so?”

“Too much of a risk.”

“It’s no more risky than anything you’ve done for me in the past.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“I got everything you need. I know where he lives. I know when he arrives home every night. I know—”

“Save your breath. I ain’t doing this.”

Otto’s anger crystalized, becoming pure and diamond hard. He took in a deep breath through his nose, filling his nostrils with the stale smell of fried food and grease.

“You gotta help me out here. I’m desperate.”

“The answer’s no.”

“Listen, I—”

Champ cut him off with the wave of a burly, calloused hand. “Look, homeboy, the police don’t care if some low-life dealer gets murdered in a shit area of the city. A case like that, the investigation lasts for a few days and the cops move on to the next scumbag who gets killed. But if this guy”—he tapped the picture on the table—“shows up dead, the cops will care. They will look into it hard. And I ain’t facing that type of heat for anyone. No way.”

Champ lumbered out of the booth. “My mouth is shut,” he said. “I ain’t mentioning this to no one. But I don’t want nothing to do with this.”

With that, Champ walked across the diner floor. After he disappeared outside, Otto looked back at the photocopied driver’s license and stared at it for a long time.

GARY DROPPED BETH OFF AT HER YOGA CLASS AND DROVE BACK ACROSS River Falls, through working-class neighborhoods filled with unremarkable houses. Unremarkable: a fitting description for the city of River Falls itself. It was a drive-through city in a fly-over state, a once-proud manufacturing city that had seen its population steadily decrease for each of the past five decades as auto plants and other businesses shuttered. With more than two hundred thousand residents, River Falls was still big enough to have a mall, an airport, and most major chain restaurants. But the mall was barely half-occupied. The airport had fewer than ten departures a day. And it had been years since a worthwhile new restaurant had opened.

He reached the downtown district, passing a few of the city’s essential institutions—the post office, the fire department, the water plant. Half a mile later, he drove past the junior high building where Beth had taught art up until the beginning of the school year, when she lost her job in a budget cut that gutted the district. She’d served as a substitute teacher since then, working no more than a few days a month.

Gary finally arrived at the small red-brick development that housed his store, Ascension Outerwear. He stayed in his car for a moment, tried to think of how to break the news about Beth’s condition to his brother. It was going to be difficult. In some ways, he was closer to Rod than he was to anyone else in his life, Beth included.

Ever since they were young, Rod had been his opposite in almost every way imaginable, and Gary always felt that the differences in their personalities were why they’d grown closer over the years instead of drifting apart like other siblings he knew. Rod was impulsive, spontaneous, carefree—everything Gary wasn’t. After dropping out of college more than a decade ago, Rod had failed and flailed his way through life, jumping from job to job and wandering from state to state without ever finding any sort of path to pursue. He’d worked at a ski resort in Colorado, painted houses in New Mexico and Arizona, bartended at a casino in Vegas. There was even a stint in LA when he tried to become an actor.

To Gary, their relationship always felt more like a father-son relationship than a brotherly one. Rod was the rambunctious, immature child; Gary, the responsible, straitlaced parent who looked out for Rod, cared about him, worried about him constantly.

Gary stepped out of the car, still unsure of what to say to his brother. Just be up-front, honest, direct—the same advice he’d given Beth.

He walked up to Ascension Outerwear and opened the front door, stepping inside. It was a small, quaint store with narrow aisles crammed with outdoor equipment and clothing—sandals and waterproof boots displayed on acrylic shelving, hiking coats and shell jackets hanging on rolling garment racks, backpacks and hundreds of other items neatly organized on the white slat panels that covered the store’s walls.

“Look at what the cat dragged in,” Rod said from across the empty store.

“Hey, Rod.”

Gary passed the single cash register on the front counter as he approached the shoe display, where Rod stood with a small pile of shoes on the ground beside him. At thirty-four, Rod was a few years younger than Gary but looked like a man-child who’d never outgrown his early twenties. His shaggy blond hair was uncombed, a tangled mess of curls. His eyes were wide and expressive, the eyes of an overactive teenager. He wore an untucked black polo over his khakis.

“Jesus, man,” Rod said. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I had to deal with some things.”

“So you just disappear? Stop showing up to the store for a few days? I could see me doing something like that. But you? I thought you were supposed to be the responsible one.”

Rod chuckled. He grabbed a shoe off the ground and tossed it over to Gary, who caught it.

“I’m just busting your balls,” Rod said. “You haven’t missed anything. Wanna give me a hand, or is this too much excitement for you?”

“Actually, there’s something I want to talk to you about,” Gary said. He walked over and placed the shoe next to a few others displayed on a half-empty shelf. He took a deep breath—Just be open, honest, direct—and turned to face Rod.

“Look, there’s no easy way to say this,” Gary said. “That phone call I got the other day, when I disappeared? It was from the hospital. Beth collapsed while running some errands. At the hospital, they found that she has a brain tumor.”

Rod stared back with a dazed, blank expression on his face. “A brain tumor?”

Gary nodded.

“My God. Is she going to be all right?”

“It’s a pretty aggressive type of tumor. Hard to treat. The outlook isn’t good.” Gary cleared his throat. “But she’s going to beat this. She can do it.”

“Is the baby . . . ?”

“He’s fine.”

A silent moment passed. Rod’s eyes welled with heavy, glistening tears.

“I can’t believe this,” he said.

“It’s awful,” Gary said. “There’s no other spin you can put on it.”

“How’s Beth holding up?” Rod wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

“She’s strong, man. Heck of a lot stronger than I’d be if I just found out I had a brain tumor.”

“And you? How’re you taking the news?”

“It’s tough. I was twenty-one when I met her. I’m thirty-nine now. I don’t even remember what my life was like without Beth in it. If I lost her . . .” He paused for a moment. “If I lost her, that’d be it for me. There’d be no coming back from that.”

Rod walked over and hugged Gary tight. Gary could feel the raw emotion in his brother’s embrace.

“I’m telling you this right now: I’m here for you guys,” Rod said. He pulled away but looked Gary in the eye. “Whatever you need. Whatever you want. If you need someone to spend time with Beth, I’ll do it. You need someone to run errands, I’m your man. Hell, if the doctors find a way to perform a brain transplant, I’ll let them crack open my skull and donate mine to her.”

A weak smile crossed Gary’s lips.

“I’m serious,” Rod said. “I owe you two everything. You guys have done so much for me over the years. Who drove me out to Colorado when I got that job at the ski resort all those years ago? You and Beth. Who constantly loaned me money when I was trying to make it as an actor in LA? You and Beth. Who let me live with them when I moved back to River Falls—thirty years old, flat broke, no idea what to do with myself? You and Beth. Time and time again, my dumb ass has screwed up, and you and Beth were there for me. Hell, I wouldn’t have even met Sarah if it wasn’t for Beth, and Sarah’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Sarah was Rod’s wife. Wife—no matter how many times he heard it, Gary still couldn’t get used to the fact that Rod was married. Sarah owned the yoga studio where Beth took classes, and Beth had introduced her to Rod eighteen months earlier. No one had expected much—Sarah was sophisticated and mature, about as opposite from Rod as a person could be. Instead, in true Rod fashion, the relationship became a yearlong whirlwind that culminated in a wedding six months ago.

Since meeting Sarah, Rod wasn’t drinking nearly as much and stopped staying out with his buddies until the early-morning hours. He’d thrown himself into Ascension Outerwear, regularly putting in twelve-hour days. Rod had even read a few books about running an online business—the first books Gary had ever seen him read—and set up an eBay store and a few other online channels to sell product through.

Rod had changed. Maybe it was being married, maybe it was his devotion to the business, or maybe it was a combination of both. Seeing his transformation over the past year, Gary couldn’t help but feel like the proud parent of a misfit son who was finally getting his life together.

“Whatever you need, Gary,” Rod said. “Don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I might be a little busy. Might not be able to devote much time to the store.”

“I can hold down the fort,” Rod said. “Take off as much time as you need.”

Rod hugged Gary tightly again. “This will have a happy ending for you guys. You and Beth are two of the best people I know. There’s no way this won’t have a happy ending.”