HOW TO BE GOOD

by

Nikki Dolson

Nikki Dolson is an undergrad at Columbia College Chicago and divides her time between school, work, kids and writing—not necessarily in that order. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Storyglossia, Spinetingler Magazine, and the Red Rock Review.

 

Revenge is a confession of pain. -Latin Proverb

 

            As they were lowering Tonya’s husband into the ground the wind shifted and drew the smoke from her father-in-law’s cigar across to her side of funeral tent. She looked up and met his gaze over the great divide of their grief. He was surrounded by the family men: his two brothers and their sons and directly behind him, his remaining son—the loyal one, and another six or seven people that Tonya only vaguely recognized. On her side of the tent, there was only the funeral director. Just like her wedding, her family hadn’t come.

            Her father-in-law, Michael, nodded at her. She looked away and focused on the coffin. It was more in the ground than out now and its sleek exterior reflected the gray clouds overhead. It was made of mahogany, its interior lined with champagne-colored silk. Sam had never liked the feel of silk, not for a shirt and most definitely not for his bed. Tonya had found this out the hard way. He’d complained long and loud when she had the mistake of bringing home a set of silk sheets, a gift from her mother. She’d given them to their neighbors the next day and lied to her mother every time she talked to her. Sam was more of a cotton kind of guy. When she’d asked if there was some other fabric she could use the funeral director had spluttered an answer that was more sales pitch so she gave in, if only to stop him from talking. She was too tired to argue over a dead man’s bed. Now she regretted it. Champagne silk? she thought. Sorry, Sam.

            When the gears that lowered the coffin had stopped their clicking, Michael stood up, grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it into the hole. The gesture was so violent that Tonya flinched. He saw it and he opened his mouth to say something but the wind kicked up stronger making the funeral tent flap and a folding chair tip over in the back row. He shoved his cigar into his mouth and moved away from the hole, his brothers tight to his side. She stayed where she was, watching the people as one by one they dropped handfuls of dirt into the hole. The funeral director touched her elbow.

            “Shall I walk you to your car, Mrs. Goodheart?”

            Tonya shook her head and gently pulled away from his grip. She didn’t look in the hole, just like she hadn’t looked at his body earlier at the viewing. She hadn’t needed to see her husband dead and didn’t need to see the depth of the hole he was buried in now. She’d seen him alive for three years and she’d imagined him dead in the coffin of her choosing for days now. She didn’t need to see anything more.

            She was halfway to the car, parked strategically away from the rest of Sam’s family, when she saw a black Cadillac driving slowly, too slowly, down the lane that led out of the cemetery. She heard footsteps behind her, pounding on the grass, gaining on her. She felt a hand close around her arm and she stopped, started to turn around then felt a body press against her own.

            “Hey, Tonya.”

            It was David, the loyal son, his voice smooth in her ear. He was Sam’s twin. Sam weighed thirty pounds more and the weight had rounded out his face; David was lean, his face all sharp angles. Tonya always felt the urge to feed David when she saw him. Soften him up; make him a little less hard. Mostly, though, when she saw him she felt guilty.

            “I don’t have anything to say to him.”

            David’s arm looped around her. She stood still against him. His chest was hard and unyielding. Sam’s body always seemed to envelope her when he hugged her.

            “He just wants to see you and for you to be a part of us.” 

            “Sam didn’t want to be around your father. He had his reasons.” Tonya glanced over at the Cadillac.

            “Those reasons were between Sam and my dad. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

            She could smell David. Sam had worn the same cologne. “Everything to do with Sam has to do with me.” She pulled away, walking fast to her car.

            “You’re a Goodheart, Tonya.” David called after her.

            She didn’t turn around. Only thought of Sam and how often he had said the same thing. He’d said it when they were trying to get pregnant. Sam was a Goodheart so there was nothing he couldn’t do. Not quite the truth as it turned out.

            Before she could get into her car, the Cadillac pulled alongside. She could make out the shape of a head behind the tinted glass. The window opened slightly and a stream of smoke escaped. Then the car pulled away stopping briefly to pick David up then continuing down the lane.

            She got in her husband’s Buick, started it and rubbed her hand along the bench seat, wishing he were the one driving her home. She was too tired. She checked her cell phone and saw the missed phone calls, all from her mother. She’d called her mother back later. Maybe next week. Maybe never.

            She put the car in gear and pointed it home.

 

* * * * *

 

            She’d meant to drive home. She drove to the house where Sam died instead.

            The house was a large 1950s ranch style. Large trees draped the house in shadows. The grass was in need of a trim but it was a healthy shade of green, as were the weeds that grew in the cracks of the concrete path that led to the front door. She walked up to the front door and rang the bell. She was nervous standing there, exposed. She’d only spent a few minutes to planning her lies while the Buick’s engine ticked.

            Two minutes went by then she heard someone. The door opened. The owner, Fred Andrews, stood before her in high-waist shorts and a thin white undershirt and sandals. He was in his mid-sixties, pale, wide-bellied, thinning hair dyed black but not the hair in his ears.

            “You’re here to see the house? Come in.”

            She hesitated. She hadn’t expected an invite in. She figured she’d have to work to make it over his threshold. Small favors. She plastered on a smile and strode in as if she knew what he was talking about.

            “Sorry,” he gestured to his attire, “I was out back in the yard. Let me give you a tour.”

            A large hallway led from the front door into the living room. Another hallway went left and the rest of the house opened up to the right. The house had light colored wood floors set diagonally. Just like the wood paneling was set in the living room. The furniture was a hodge-podge of red and green: plaid pattern on the couch, teal green on the club chairs, and a 4x6 forest green color block painting that hung on the wall. A brick fireplace painted white sat between two large windows that looked out on the backyard. Off the living room were the dining room and the kitchen, all within view of the living room. Deeper back he told her was the garage and the laundry room. Nothing seemed out of place.

            “That’s the garden there,” He pointed out the window. She looked. All she could see was a lot of green, green grass and a patch of dirt under a very large tree. She nodded.

            “I’ll be honest with you I’ve had a few lookers but no offers yet.”

            “You’re selling the house?” She couldn’t help herself.

            He cocked his head to one side. “Yeah, isn’t that why you’re here? My wife doesn’t want live in a house where someone has died.”

            “Where did he die exactly?” Tonya kept looking around the room waiting to see the evidence of Sam. Some intuition about where he had been when he died.

            “I didn’t get your name.”

            She looked him in the eyes when she said, “Tonya Goodheart.”

            His mouth drooped open.

            “I don’t want any trouble Mr. Andrews. I only want to see where he died.”

            He closed his mouth and pointed to a spot behind her. “In front of the couch.”

            Tonya moved closer to the couch. She saw the floor had a slight discoloration to it.

            “I took the varnish off the floor trying to get all the blood,” he said.

            She shivered. She crouched down and reached out her hand to touch the floor. Her fingertips slipped along the smooth floor then jerked to a stop on the area of discoloration. It felt rough and warmer in comparison to the rest of the floor. The onset of tears stung her nose. She straightened, exhaled one long breath then turned back to him.

            “Tell me what happened,” she said.

            “Lady, talk to the police.”

            “I did.”

            “You should go.”

            “You killed my husband. I’m not blaming you. I just want to understand exactly what happened. Tell me and I’ll go.”

            Andrews sighed. He hitched up his shorts and crossed the room. He stopped at the hallway to the bedrooms. “See, I heard something. I grabbed my gun and came out of my bedroom. I saw your husband standing there. I said something like ‘Hey, who the fuck are you?’” He winced. “Sorry.”

            “Go on,” Tonya sat down on the far end of the couch, so she could see both the spot and Andrews.

            “So I see him raise his gun. And mine, it’s already up, you know. Guess it was instinct. I squeezed the trigger. A lot, I guess. Until he fell down.”

            She imagined her husband falling, tilting, sliding, descending and wondered what he thought. Had he thought of her in those last seconds? Was it seconds or minutes of life after he fell down? She turned her head away from the thought, closed her eyes against the image of Sam bleeding slowly on the wood floor. When she opened her eyes, she saw only Andrews, looking uncomfortable. She blinked back tears.

            “So he raised his gun.”

            Andrews nodded.

            “And you were standing right there?”

            “No, I was closer to my bedroom.”

            “Down the hall then?” She walked over to him, pointing down the dark hallway.

            “Right.”

            “What was he doing?”

            Andrews cocked his head at her again. “What do you mean?”

            “Was he picking up something? Did he have his back to you when you came out of the room so he had to turn around to see you?”

            “No, he just turned his head to look at me.”

            “So he saw you first.”

            “I guess.”

            “But you were able to fire first.”

            “Guess I was the faster draw.” Andrews began to smile then remembered who he was talking to and stopped it.

            “I guess so. Would you show me how he was standing when you came out?”

            “Look, lady-”

            “Call me Tonya.”

            That seemed to soften him. “I don’t think this is going to help you get over your loss.”

            “I just want to understand.” She let a couple tears fall, wiping them away with the backs of her hands.

            “Sure.”

            He came over the spot near the discoloration and Tonya went down the hallway.

            “I’ll be you.” She said. He closed his eyes, remembering. First he turned to face her then adjusted angling, his left side away from her. He was facing the hallway for the front door, not the bedrooms.

            “He had his gun in this hand,” Andrews said, making his right hand into a gun, three fingers withdrawn into his palm. His other hand was doing something odd.

            “And the left hand? It was just like that?” Tonya said.

            Andrews glanced down. His left hand was held up to his side, the fingers of that hand seemed to be cupping his belly. “Yeah, I remember it like that.”

            Tonya walked slowly down the hall towards Andrews, picturing her husband. Sam, five-foot-ten, dressed in black, a black bag slung over his back, holding a gun and his stomach. His eyes widened, implored her, his mouth opened when she reached the juncture between the two hallways. She looked at the front door. Then back to Fred Andrews. “How many people did you hear?”

            Andrews swallowed. “I only saw one.”

            Tonya frowned. “Okay,” she said, “what was he after do you think? He didn’t have anything on him. I’m wondering what he might have been after.”

            “You’d know better than me, I think.”

            “No jewelry, paintings?” They both eyed the green painting.

            “The expensive stuff is in the bedroom.”

            “I see. Well thank you for your time Mr. Andrews. Good luck selling the house.” She left him standing in his living room.

 

* * * * *

 

            Tonya had been a thief. Sam, too. They stole things at the request of others. Jewelry, mostly but cars, boats, and documents too. Sam disliked stealing information. Papers had little tangible value to him. He normally avoided taking on jobs that only wanted information. Tonya had no such reservations. He’d been after documents when they met. Only she had broken in first and had what he was looking for. She remembered the look on his face when he entered the study. Finding not only the safe open but empty too. He turned around and saw Tonya standing there. He looked her up and down.

            “I think you’ve got something of mine,” he said.

            She was closer to the door and maybe could’ve made it but she saw him shift and realized he’d catch her easily. It was the way he dropped his shoulders and planted his foot. In the short run, she’d be beat. “So what do you want to do about it?”

            “You could give it to me,” he said.

            She shook her head.

            “Or I could take it from you.” She stiffened. He frowned and said, “No. I hate when people try to get cute. Look they’re playing us against each other.”

            She settled against the nearest wall.

            “Let’s say I get papers from you but have to hurt you in the process. Then there’s evidence. A body maybe.” She glowered at him. He put his hands up. “Okay, maybe there’s a little blood, from one of us.”

            “Gracious of you,” she said.

            “I try. Now with the evidence somebody— your client or mine— could call the police, they try to connect the dots, and then one of us is up to our eyeballs in this.

            “And you’re dead.”

            He pointed a thick finger at her. “Yeah, I’m dead but they’re chasing after you.”

            Tonya frowned. She was in the system, albeit for a minor infraction when she was eighteen. She’d been swept up with a hardheaded boyfriend, fingerprinted, then released. But still, she was in the system.

            “I propose a deal,” he said.

            She listened and agreed. They informed their clients of the others intentions, split the documents and delivered half to each client. Neither side was pleased, but they had bigger issues to deal with than Sam and Tonya. The money was non-refundable as far as Tonya was concerned and Sam had similar rules, so each got paid. No half now, half-later bullshit.

            Sam appeared outside of her apartment off Tropicana Avenue a week later. She’d liked the look of him from the moment they met. She liked his bulk. He brought dinner not flowers and for that, she liked him even more. They didn’t work for a while, the fallout from the last job still too fresh for new work, so they had time to get to know each other.

            Three months later, they worked a job together in Florida, stealing someone’s boat. They delivered it and walked away only to find out later that a body was hidden in it along with a quarter million dollars. Tonya hadn’t like the feel of this job but that revelation was enough for them to decide that it would be their last job. They called themselves lucky and then called themselves retired. Sam went to work for a lock and key company, Tonya found work in a bookstore chain. They were married a few months later, his family attended; her mother sent the sheets two weeks later.

            According to Sam, their job in Florida was the only time he ever worked with someone else other than his brother. He didn’t like the uncertainty of depending on others. Nevertheless, it was clear to Tonya that Sam had worked with someone else in the Andrews house.

            She requested the autopsy report from the Clark County coroner’s office. It would be close to a week before she received it. She thought about Sam over those days of waiting. During the day, she watched TV and tried to remember to eat. Sam would not have approved of her diet of canned peaches and store brand marshmallows but it was something. She did not answer the door, though she heard David calling her name. She did not answer her phone—not for her mother, not for her job and most definitely not for any of the Goodhearts.

 

* * * * *

 

            The autopsy report arrived in five days. Four bullets were found in his body, five bullet wounds were noted. The fifth wound was on Sam’s lower left side, no bullet found. The police report stated that a bullet had been recovered. It had to be pried out of the brick fireplace and was totally useless for identification purposes. The assumption was that it matched the other bullets, thus it matched Andrews’s gun. Tonya was convinced that Sam was shot before Andrews walked out of his bedroom. He heard a sound then got out of bed. He heard a fight maybe. Then a grunt from Sam when he was shot, a silencer was used. Andrews entered the hallway. Sam raised his gun to defend himself, not against Andrews, against someone in the other hallway. Maybe.

            Sam knew the truth. So did Fred Andrews.

 

* * * * *

 

            Tonya posted flyers on the doors of the Andrews’s neighbor’s homes the next day. She’d copied a lawn service flyer she taken off a house near her apartment complex. She’d slung a messenger bag over her shoulder, put her hair up under a hat and brought a knife, an unadorned switchblade that she wouldn’t mind leaving behind in someone, and a little 9mm Smith & Wesson 3913NL, a present from Sam and a gun she could hide easily under one of Sam’s hooded sweatshirts. It only smelled of fabric softener but it was a comfort to her to wearing something of his. Then she parked a few blocks away and canvassed the Andrews neighborhood. Now she waited outside the Andrews house until she saw them leave. It was five o’clock.

            She walked around to the next block and found the house that backed against theirs. It was deserted, red eviction/foreclosure stickers in the front window and on the door. She entered the backyard. She climbed the fence and dropped down behind the Andrews’s big tree with the dirt patch in front of it. She left her bag behind and walked up to the back door. The damage from the last break-in still hadn’t been repaired and she slid the door open. She stepped in and listened. There was the electric hum from the refrigerator but nothing else. She shut the door behind her and crept down the hallway. First door to the left was a small bedroom. The door to the right, a bathroom; next door on the right was a slightly larger bedroom. The last door was the Andrews’s master bedroom.

            Fred had decked the room out, floor to ceiling, in green paisley print wallpaper. Not pretty, at all. Tonya thought his wife was just waiting for a good excuse to get rid of this place. A large master bath opened up next to the bedroom. The roman style tub was elevated two stairs up from the tiled floor. Double sinks, shower stall and toilet behind a door. The other quarter of the room was a walk-in closet. Tonya flicked on the light. Shoes in boxes lined the floor under the hanging clothes. Winter clothes were shoved in the back. It was dark back there. The single light was not enough. She turned off the light and nestled herself down in the corner of the closet and waited for the couple to return.

            Her mind wandered in the hours she had to sit there. She remembered the day they found out that Sam was sterile. The panicked look he’d given her. She’d squeezed his hand and asked the questions. They had options: adoption, of course, sperm donors and at the very least a second opinion. Tonya had very much wanted that. Sam rebuffed it all. In the hallway outside of the doctor’s office, he leaned back against the wall, shoved his hand in his pockets and said, “If you were smart you would leave me now.”

            “Guess I’m not,” Tonya said, leaning into him. “Besides who would I leave you for?”

            “David.”

            David had a daughter that he never saw, by choice. It was proof that he could procreate, if not parent.

            “I don’t want David.” Tonya kept her voice level.

            Sam had wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer then whispering, “Good” into her hair.

            She wiped at her face now with the bottom of a wool coat. She didn’t like this memory. She didn’t like any of the times she had lied to her husband. Minor infractions of purses bought and major ones like the one told that day. Tonya knew that if she had met David first, she would have never given Sam another look. David was every bit the bad boy. He liked the finer things. Like his suit at the funeral, Armani. He drove a whisper silent BMW and maintained a condo on the strip. He charmed and lied. He was an obedient, clean-shaven thug who enforced his father’s will on others. And he enjoyed it. He would have been the perfect guy for her to fall for then be dumped by. She felt guilty for admitting it even to herself. But she had met Sam first and by the time she saw David she was mostly immune to those charms. Sam anchored her. He made Tonya want to be good and walk the straight line. With Sam at her side, she could be a different person. Without him, she could only be what she knew. She knew how to steal, how to lie, and if necessary how to hurt those who didn’t capitulate to her needs.

            She drew her knees up to her chest and put her head down. She was asleep before she even considered that it might be a bad idea.

 

* * * * *

 

            Fred Andrews’s singing woke her. Tonya winced and lifted her head slowly. His rendition of ‘Come On, Eileen’ might have woken her husband, it was so piercing. She checked the time on her cell phone. She’d been there almost four hours. The couple wobbled into Tonya’s line of sight. Andrews was draped over his wife and she was stumbling under his weight.

            “No come on, Eileen. Come on, Fred. Just make it to the bed,” she said.

            They disappeared out of view. He sang on. The bed springs squeaked when Fred hit it and he let out an ‘oof’ in the middle of his chorus.

            “Could you have gotten any drunker Fred?” she said.

            “Ah, Janice. Don’t be that way. Come here.”

            “I don’t think so mister,” she sang.

            “Where you going?”

            “I’ll be back. Go to bed.”

            Tonya heard the soft squish of Janice’s shoes on the carpet turn into clacking as she moved away from the bedroom. Tonya listened until the footsteps faded, then she listened for Fred. She heard his belt buckle as he undid it, the zipper as he pulled it down and the buckle again as it gave a muffled clunk against the floor.

            Tonya stretched one leg out in front of her, then the other, rolled her shoulders and her neck. She stood up. She walked to the closet’s doorway and peered out. Andrews was sitting on the edge of his bed, his pants around his ankles and his eyes shut. She stepped out into the illuminated bedroom, walked quietly up to the man and punched him in the face. Her hand hurt immediately. She wondered briefly if she broke his nose. He fell backwards holding his face, groaning. She jumped on him, straddling his chest with her knees on his upper arms.

            “You lied to me Fred,” she said.

            “What’s going on?” Fred’s eyes darted back and forth. His nose wasn’t bleeding much. Tonya was a little disappointed.

            “Focus, Fred, right here.” She slapped his face. “Remember me?”

            “The wife,” he said.

            “Yes, the wife.” She pulled out the knife, flicked its blade open and laid it against the man’s neck. “How many people were here when you shot my husband?”

            “I don’t know.”

            She pressed the knife harder against his neck. He sucked in a breath.

            “Tell me Fred, what kind of wife is Janice? Is she the kind of who’d hunt me down for killing her husband? Would she say fuck the police and the justice system and come after me for killing you? Is she that kind of wife?” Tonya grabbed him by the hair and pulled back, pressing the knife against his throat again. She leaned over him, held his gaze.

            “I don’t know how many were here. At least, one other, I saw him run out.”

            “One?” She pressed harder and blood flowed in a thin rivulet down onto the bedspread.

            “Yes, goddamnit, one. Next day, I got a call. A man said to change my story and say I shot him five times. I wouldn’t get in trouble and I’d get fifteen grand for my cooperation.”

            “Fred,” a voice said.

            Tonya leapt off the man, pulled the gun from its holster and pointed it at Andrews’s wife. She had a poker from the fireplace in her hand. Fred tried to stand up, got tangled up in his pants and fell down between the women.

            “You can put it down,” Janice said Tonya. To her husband she said, “Fred, how could you?”

            “That son of bitch broke into our house.”

            “So you take money for killing a man?”

            “I didn’t take money for it.”

            “Yes, you did. It’s what you used for the down payment on the place in Boca, isn’t it?”

            “Who brought you the money?” Tonya asked.

            The couple looked over at her.

            “Janice, call the police,” Fred said.

            “Yes, Janice, call the police so I can tell them what I know. So you can lose the house in Boca and have to stay here in this house.”

            Janice’s eyes widened.  She turned on her husband.

            “Janice…” he said.

            “Shut up, Fred,” Janice turned back to Tonya and put a hand on her chest. “I am so very sorry for your loss.”

            “I’m very sorry for my loss too Janice. We are both very fucking sorry, now what?” Tonya took a step forward. “You're in your early fifties, right? How many more years does Fred have, do you think? Ten, if you’re lucky with the way he drinks. When the day comes for you to pick out your husband’s coffin and decide between Champagne or Chantilly blue colored silk, you call me and you tell me how sorry you are for my loss. Then you watch them lower your husband—who drives you crazy when he gets drunk and sings stupid songs from the eighties—into the ground and you’ll come home and realize that’s it. Call me then and tell me you are sorry for my loss.” Tonya shook, her vision blurred and she felt herself slipping. But an arm held her up.

            Janice Andrews hugged Tonya tight, whispering, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” over and over. A minute passed then Janice loosened her hold and looked at Tonya. “It’s okay to be angry.”

            Fred had moved away and was pulling up his pants and reaching for the phone next to the bed. Janice let Tonya go and snatched the phone away from her husband.

            “Don’t you dare. Now tell her who brought you the money.”

            “Janice,” Fred groaned.

            “Please…” Tonya said. She closed the knife and stuck it back into her pocket; the gun went back in its holster.

            “I don’t know his name but he must have been his brother or something. He looked just like your husband.”

 

* * * * *

 

            It was only twenty minutes to the Goodheart’s house. Back in the eighties when the house was built, there had only been the Goodhearts and the airport that far out. Now the city surrounded their house on the hill.

            Tonya pulled into their circular drive and left her car parked behind the five others that clogged it. She didn’t ring the doorbell. She walked in and drifted down the hallway toward the voices she heard. Near the back of the house, she found the Goodheart men drinking and laughing. They went silent when they saw her.

            Her father-in-law turned around in his chair and grinned at her.

            “Goddamn, girl I didn’t think you were ever gonna come around. David and I were just deciding on how we were gonna come after you.”

            He got up and lunged for her, grabbing her arms and pulling her into his chest, lifting and squeezing at the same time. He smelled of cigars and aftershave. Her father-in-law released her, and then held her to his side, his hand gripping her shoulder. “David, look who’s here.”

            David set his glass down and rose from his chair. He smiled weakly.

            “Michael, I need to talk to you. Alone,” Tonya said.

            “Of course, sweetheart. Everybody out.”

            David was the last to leave. He closed the double doors, his face full of concern.

            Michael Goodheart sat down in his leather club chair and told her sit in the matching one. He put his drink next to an ashtray on the little table between the chairs. “Do you want a drink?”

            She realized she did, desperately. She wanted to crawl into a bottle and hide. But that was for later. “No.”

            “Okay, what are we talking about?” He smiled at her and in that face she saw Sam. The same round cheeks; the same eyebrows even. She almost laughed. She’d never taken the time to look at her father-in-law before. There were no pictures. Sam brought with him nothing of his family when he married her and they’d moved in together. Clean slate, he said, only my name to remind me where I came from.

            Other questions filtered up, stopping her from saying the real reason she was here. “Why did you and Sam stop talking?”

            He pulled a cigar from his pocket. “Eh, his mother. She left us and he blamed me. I told him that his mother was never happy. She had the boys and spent the next ten years going on and on about wanting to leave Las Vegas. I wasn’t leaving. All this sun and what like three weeks of real cold?” he scoffed. “Finally she did. Just up and left.”

            “Then she died.” Sam had told her this bit. She died late at night on a rural road. She drove right into to one of those big timber telephone poles.

            “Yes and Sam blamed me for that, too. I guess he mentioned that to you.”

            “He never told me why. Only that she died and he didn’t want to see you.”

            “Well, Sam was like his mother. He wanted things to be a certain way and when he couldn’t get his way, he sulked. He sulked for twenty years.”

            “David didn’t blame you?”

            “No or if he did he got over it. I’m his father that’s enough for David. Not for Sam, though.” He sighed and lit the cigar he’d been holding He puffed on it a few times then blew smoke rings her direction. Each one expanding as it drifted toward her like ripples in water. Tonya thought the rings formed a bull’s-eye with her father-in-law for the center target.

            “I think you should stay here with us. David is very concerned about you,” he said

            “David killed Sam.” She tensed, waiting for his reaction, waiting for the outrage and the anger.

            Michael tapped his cigar in the ashtray. “No, that guy Andrews, he shot Sam.”

            “Yes, he shot him four times. But Sam was shot before Andrews saw him. Someone else was in that house with Sam. It had to be David. Sam wouldn’t work with anyone but David or me. He trusted his brother.”

            “My son is dead. My boy.” He coughed. He set his cigar in the ashtray. “What are you going to do?”

            “I want to know why Sam is dead.”

            “Why did you want to take Sam away?”

            “What? I didn’t want leave.” Tonya was confused. She had said nothing about leaving to Sam. Where would she go? Her mother’s too small apartment off Howard Street? Tonya left her life in Chicago behind her. Her life had been here with Sam.

            “Sam told David different. Sam was gearing up to leave Vegas. A few more months and he would’ve been gone. I had to do something.”

            She felt the weight of the days since Sam deaths slide fully onto her. Sam died knowing his brother and his father had betrayed him. “David convinced Sam to do one more job. You set him up. There was nothing in that house except a trigger happy home owner.”

            Michael stood. Tonya backed off a step; she reached for the gun under her sweatshirt. “You all are never faithful,” he said. “Nothing makes you happy. Sam was a Goodheart. Now either you’re a Goodheart like Sam or you’re not. What’s it going to be?”

            Michael was on her before she could get the gun out. He grabbed her by the hair, threw her into the chair, and held her there with one hand clamped around her throat. Tonya punched and kicked at him. She drew blood on his arms but he didn’t waver, the pressure just built. She blinked away tears.

            “Sam loved you. Don’t ever doubt that, sweetheart. We all fall for the wrong ones. David did too. He let her go though. We found out later she was pregnant but then she had a girl and I didn’t see the point in chasing after another one of you. Maybe when she’s older she’ll find her way to the family.”

            He used both hands now. Tonya was losing focus. Spots appeared before her, obscuring the tunnel vision. She quit pawing at his arms and tried to get the gun. Her fingers closed on the handle. She pulled it around then felt a lessening of pressure on her throat as Michael tried to pull the gun from her hand. She pulled the trigger. Heard him curse. She tried to point the gun upwards and pulled the trigger again. Then Michael was off her. He was on his knees in front her. His mouth was open, his lips forming words that didn’t come.

            Tonya took gulping breaths. She didn’t hear David enter the room.

            “Tonya, give me the gun.” He stood over them but he didn’t look at her only extended his hand. “Give me the gun and then leave.” Tonya wiped at her eyes and rubbed her neck. She used the chair to pull herself up. She staggered backwards, bumping into a lamp. David turned.

            “Look, I’m sorry he’s dead. I’m sorry I took him from you. You made him happy.” David reached for her and she froze. He embraced her, his smooth cheek cool against her own.

            “Your father,” she said. Her voice was weak, her throat sore.

            “I told Sam if he did one last job he could score and make enough money that you and he wouldn’t have to worry. All he wanted to do was make you happy. So he took the job. Dad’s plan was to let him take the fall for a job. We figured he’d do a little time and be out in a year or two. So I had to shoot him. But that guy shot him before I even heard him come out.”

            “It’s your fault Sam’s dead. You killed him.”

            “Okay, yes. And that made you my responsibility.”

            She tried to pull away from him but he only held her tighter. “No, David.”

            “You looked so sad at the funeral. I thought we needed to take care of you now. I thought, hoped, maybe you might see something in me. You could be happy with me.”

            He took the empty gun from her hand and pushed her away. “You should go now. I’ll take care of this.”

            He pointed at his father who was slumped over now. His face pressed against the floor. His mouth had stopped moving.

            “You won’t have to worry.”

 

 

END

 

 

Copyright © 2010, by Nikki Dolson