IN DIM BROWN LIGHT, an old man scrabbled in a wooden bin, searching for the shiny two-cent nut that would thread onto his rusty bolt. Two boys in Keds and Wranglers studied red-and-white boxes of bicycle tubes for the correct size to fix their flats and give them their freedom back. Along with nails and brads and staples, the space behind the narrow storefront was crammed with lawn mowers, shotguns and rifles, a glass-fronted case of pocketknives, latigo dog collars, ripsaws and keyhole saws and bow saws, two-man crosscut saws so long they hung from pegs near the ceiling almost to the floor. Wooden spirit levels six feet long with silver bubbles floating in mystery green liquid. Many sizes of awls and planes and adzes and chisels. Wonderful adjustable wrenches in several sizes with knurled spirals to twiddle back and forth endlessly, imagining all the variety of nuts they were capable of turning. Brute murderous monkey wrenches two feet long with jagged teeth in their jaws. Sledgehammers and double-bit axes. A general odor of metal and oil, and also some funky underlying man smell that sparked an unwelcome prison memory for Bud.
His shopping trip was not for a little poke of finishing nails or a ball-peen hammer. He’d come to lay down an alibi. So he picked up a cheap rod and reel and the biggest, gaudiest bass lure, for purely artistic reasons. As an afterthought, a filet knife because of the thin, elegant blade.
At the register, Bud shouted, Three fucking dollars for this fucking piece-of-shit Zebco?
He tried to pay with a hundred, which the cashier couldn’t possibly break. He grumbled some more and finally pulled out a fist of ones and walked out to the car with no doubt that everybody in the store would remember him outfitting for a fishing trip.
Then, the lengthy scenic drive around the lake. Because, after much patience and discretion, he’d finally picked up a whiff of gossip about a couple of new kids with some woman that had to be Lily’s sister, living in an old-time lodge. Some place with a leftover Cherokee name.
IT WAS THAT DAY at the very tail end of August when the sun angled a degree lower and the quality of light made people begin saying, Fall’s about here. Bud spent a half hour casting with his plastic Zebco, thrashing his big lure against the water, two shades bluer than the sky, and looking over his shoulder at the bark-shingled shake-roofed hulk. Like a bunch of dead trees decided on their own to shape themselves into a building.
What he kept on seeing was nobody. So the plan from that point was simple. Knock on the door, Zebco drooping at his side. No way Lily’s sister could know him. If she answered, ask if she minded him fishing in the lake below the Lodge. Or, better yet, seek advice on bait. For bass, are you better off with worms or bread balls? Some bullshit story. It didn’t really matter. Just riff along in the moment and leave. Important thing was, if nobody was home, go treasure hunting.
So, two polite knuckle taps at the screen door. Rod in hand, Bud grinned through the distorting veil. The bottom half bulged outward from kids pushing against it to open the door. Bright outside and dark inside. Bud had his face close, toking on a Lucky. Smoke clouding his face and filtering in through the screen. He tapped again. Nothing.
Bud grasped the handle and rattled the door. Hook in eyelet. No problem. The thin springy blade of his new filet knife fit perfectly into the wide crack between the stile and frame. He lifted the hook and opened the door enough to stick his head in, drawing more of his smoke with him.
Around his cigarette he said, Hey?
Still nothing, so he stood inside the door and waited, listening for the slightest movement. Hearing nothing, though, other than the silence of an unoccupied building.
He started creeping the lobby, and immediately it became clear that the Lodge enclosed a lot of space. And that was just the first floor. So, needle in a haystack when it came to half-inch bundles of hundreds. And what a bizarre place to live. Like a museum nobody wants to visit. Evidently, they all slept in the lobby. Single beds reminiscent of jail cots with faded quilts, arrayed near a monumental stone fireplace.
Ears cocked, constantly checking out the windows, Bud looked in the obvious places. Beneath a thin layer of powder in the Ivory box and the oats in the Quaker drum, behind the coal furnace and inside the antique refrigerator with the wheel of coils on top. Hoping to smell fresh cash, he sniffed the heat registers and got only cinders and mildew down in the ducts. He felt all over the fireplace for loose stones and stuck his hand up the flue to check the smoke shelf for bundles of money.
Bud looked for the personal and found a bureau, its drawers full of stuff that must have been the sister’s. Boring everyday clothes. Also a disappointing underwear drawer. Not even one item deserving the term lingerie. In the bottom drawer, carefully folded and mothballed, a red-and-black cheerleader outfit from back when the pleated skirts fell almost to the ankles. Yet when the girls twirled, what splendid glimpses.
He considered the dizzying possibility that his money had been split up, hidden in a dozen places. Such as what? A fat book with the center pages cut into a perfect bill shape with a razor? Bud riffled through the Webster’s. Not there. Roll bills into a tight fat cylinder and stuff it up the ass of a baby doll? He checked the children’s few things, but apparently these two hadn’t become baby-doll children. So, where was his goddamn money? No way could he imagine Lily being clever and devious.
Bud ghosted around, learning the terrain. Staying careful all the time to leave things undisturbed, invisibility being a great advantage, at least for now. But, in time, he got itchy. Eventually, he couldn’t help himself. He went to the back porch and found a red can of kerosene. He took the precious cheerleader uniform from the drawer and carried it to the fireplace. Careful not to overdo, he drizzled it no more than taking a piss, then returned the can to its place. One match, and the uniform blazed. At some point, Bud stepped onto the hearth and stomped the fire out, careful to leave a few red-and-black scraps, a perfect spooky calling card. People start doing all kinds of interesting things when they’re scared.