One Good Deed(15)

He saw the gravel road that led out of sight and figured the home of L. Tuttle would be just along that way. He eyed the sky, and the sun told him it was now nearer to four than three. He checked his watch, although he trusted the sky more than he did his windup.

He saw dust kicking up in the distance: either a tornado, or a tractor working away. As he squinted, Archer could make out it was the latter. He took off his hat, slapped it against his pants leg to dispel the dust that clung to every bit of him, and headed up the road.

He’d been right; the one road branched off, like the sweep of a river, to three o’clock, and a quarter mile down this fork he saw the house and the outbuildings.

It occurred to him that Tuttle was a prosperous man, which made the matter of the debt more problematic, at least in his mind. But a promissory note signed, with collateral laid against it, was a serious thing, he was finding. While perhaps some would see it as a small issue, the fact was, if debts remained unpaid, whatever followed would genuinely be the collapse of civilization as any of them would know it, Archer included. And he and millions of others had just fought a world war to ensure that neither anarchy nor fascism nor anything else would replace the reasonable screwing over of people without money by those who possessed damn near all of it.

Archer had come back from the war feeling lucky to be alive. He had not come back to seek a fortune. He wanted his share, to be sure, but it constituted a small ambition, and would not move mountains or deprive others of theirs. He had undertaken a years-long, small detour due to a profound lack of judgment over a concern that he had no sooner deemed of little importance, when it rose up and smote him with the power of a king and his legions crossing the Rubicon. And that mistake had caused his ass to be dragged right to Carderock Prison.

His two years of college had included readings in ancient history. He didn’t know that material would have applied so readily to him in the year 1949.

He picked up his pace as he went in search of Lucas Tuttle. He had a plan. Whether it would work or not was anyone’s guess. But something tickled at the back of his head, same as when he was a scout looking first for Italians and later for Germans. He had found the Italians the far easier of the pair. They didn’t really want to fight, he reckoned, because every time he’d run into some, they were either drunk or eating their dinner. He wasn’t surprised they’d turned on Mussolini and stuck his head up on a pike. They probably wanted to simply get back to their pasta and bottles of wine and their women. The Germans, on the other hand, seemed to like killing about as much as Dickie Dill liked strangling folks or smashing hogs in the head just so till they died. Archer had never ventured to the Pacific Theater, but he’d heard the Japanese were worse than the Germans.

As he drew closer, he saw that the house was a large, neat, one-story made of stained plank siding, with quarry stone chimneys, plenty of windows, and a wide porch on which sat two rocking chairs. The thing looked well built, trim and tight as a drum. He supposed there was no dust inside.

He rapped on the single door with his knuckles. He could hear the footsteps coming. Something was about to happen. And you couldn’t ask more from life than that.





Chapter 6



THE FRONT DOOR swung wide open in an inviting way, until the twin barrels of the Remington twelve-gauge over-under greeted Archer; they were aimed at his belly and he could see no easy way around that.

He looked at the fellow holding the advantage on him.

He was around fifty-five with about as interesting a face as Archer had ever beheld. The large head was topped by a great crown of white hair that toppled downward like a snow avalanche off a mountaintop. The tanned brow was thickly furrowed, and the chin was a V of bone, while the jutting jaw seemed a flesh-and-blood version of the over-under’s muzzle. But what really caught his attention were the green eyes hovering in stark contrast to the tumble of white hair. They occupied their sockets with the intensity of twin machine guns in a bunker. The impression was mesmerizing and appalling to Archer all at the same time.

“Can I help you, mister?” the man said politely, belying the ominous threat held in his hands.

“Are you Mr. Lucas Tuttle?”

“What do you want, pray tell?” His benign look hardened several notches, the eyes now seemed an emerald fire. “And you might indeed want to start praying, son.”

“Well, right now, all I want is some separation from me and that Remington.”

“Oh, no. That may well be premature. State your business or your belly will grow quite familiar with the intrinsic purpose of this firearm.”

“I was hired by Hank Pittleman to come here and relieve you of your 1947 dark green Cadillac sedan.”

The machine gun eyes narrowed a bit. “You are not endearing yourself to me, stranger. You seem like a fine young man, though a bit rough around the edges. It would be a shame to end things for you right here and now.”

“I had determined to come out here at night when you were asleep and see if I could take back your Cadillac without you knowing. But then I decided to approach the matter on a more direct footing.”

The muzzle lowered to a part of Archer’s anatomy that was even more precious to him than his stomach.

“To answer your query, I am Lucas Tuttle, sir. Now explain yourself further, but you best tell me your full, legal name first. That way it can go on the tombstone properly.”