The reckoning

“There’s no need for the gun,” Frank said, cold-reddened fingers tapping a beat against the wheel.

“The hell there isn’t” the stranger replied. “Open the damn package.”

Frank glanced across to the passenger seat, paused for a moment, eying the hand hidden beneath the stranger’s coat. “It’s not mine,” he said. “It’s your package, why don’t you open it.”

“That’s my business–your business is opening it for me”

“Fair enough,” Frank said. “Mind if I turn off the radio?”

The stranger nodded, and Frank reached slowly across the wheel, and clicked the knob. The music died with a static pop, and the car was quiet. The moon had dropped low on the horizon, and glinted off the stranger’s eyes.

“Just so we understand each other,” Frank said, “you paid for my time. But when someone like yourself, you know, a public figure like yourself, wants me to drive out to the hills and open an unmarked package, I got questions.” He paused a moment and cracked his knuckles together. “You are who I think you are, right?”

A metallic click beneath the coat, and the stranger put his free hand on the brown paper wrapper and slid it across the bench seat towards Frank. “That’s my business”

Frank shrugged and picked up the package. It was heavier than it looked, evenly weighted, and the brown paper was cool and smooth in his hand.

He glanced in the rear view, nothing visible there, the road this far out of town deserted, and the car parked well away from the blacktop under the pines.

“What do you want me to do when I’ve opened it?”he asked, raising an eyebrow at the stranger.

“Read it.”

“The whole thing?”

“No, just tell me what it is.”

“Look”, Frank said, evenly, “As I said, you paid me to come out here, you paid for my time, and I don’t like to make trouble. But, this doesn’t make sense to me, and I don’t like things that don’t make sense.”

A laugh burst from the stranger, and he pounded the dashboard. “You’re fucking right about that, Mister.” He paused for a moment and then pulled the gun slowly out from beneath the coat.

“Look”, he said. “You know who I am, and I know you by at least your reputation, which isn’t someone who asks a damn lot of questions.” He paused, put the gun in his lap and slapped at his pockets. “Jesus,” he exclaimed, “you have a smoke? Jesus, I need a goddam smoke”

Frank tapped the wheel again, and hefted the package in his right hand. He looked at the gun, sitting useless in the stranger’s lap. “So, he said, “I open it and I read it, and then I tell you what it says. Which you’ve paid me a lot to do.” He paused again and pointed the package at the stranger. “What then?”

“Then?” Exclaimed the stranger. “Then?? If I knew that then I’d open the damn thing myself.” He shook his head and put the gun back inside the gray wool coat. “Free advice?”

“Sure”, said Frank,

“Don’t make a deal that’s too good to be true.”

“Is that what you did?” Frank replied. “Seems like it worked out ok for you, from what I hear.”

“Seemed that way to me too”, the stranger said, shaking his heavy head, and exhaling a sour sick sigh. His face was heavy in the moonlight, the famous profile sagging and creased. “I was promised there’d be a bill. But that was a long time ago, and I’d fooled myself. I made myself think they’d forgotten.”

“What happened?”

“That damn package showed up, that’s what happened.” His face was getting redder as he talked. “That package with the plain brown wrapper. It was on my doorstep a week ago, when I walked out to get the paper. Sitting there in the sun like a bomb. I threw it away, idiot that I am, but there it was again that night, resting on my pillow when I came to bed”. He fidgeted with his hands, suddenly restless without the gun to calm them. “My wife was about to open the damn thing.”

“She seems nice”, Frank said,”if you believe what you read in the papers.”

“She’s nice enough,” the stranger said, “and she’s–what do they always say, slumming it with someone like me. Someone with my reputation.”

“They do say that,” Frank replied.

The car was quiet again for a moment, and the noise from the night insects was a low buzz through the windows. “You still want that smoke?”

“Please”, the stranger laughed. “They never let me smoke in public anymore. Makes me look old, they say.”

Frank put the package on his lap, and reached into his jacket pocket for the pack of smokes. He pulled it out and held it out towards the stranger, who took it greedily, and pushed the cigarette lighter in on the dash. After it popped, he pulled it towards him, and puffed eagerly, relaxing as the first puff of smoke escaped his lips. He sighed with relief.

“Thanks,” he said.

Frank nodded, and pulled the package back into his hands. “Guess it's about time to face the music,” he said.

“Yep,” said the stranger, taking a long draw. He rolled the window down a bit and blew a large gust of smoke outside, the sound of the night suddenly louder with the window down.

“Alright then,” Frank said, and began unwrapping the paper. It was a quick job, and he tossed the torn wrappings over the back of the seat as he worked. The book jacket was dark and shiny, with the stranger’s face filling the cover, a look of eagerness and satisfaction spilling from the surface.

“Open it,” the stranger whispered, hoarse and breathing shallow gulps.

He did, and leafed through the glossy, heavy pages, thick with images of the stranger alone and with others, thick with a life lived fully and without restraint or care for consequence. Thick with crimes and thick with victims.

The index in the back was full of names and ages and phone numbers. The reporters would have an easy time.

Frank grimaced for a moment. He closed the book, placed it carefully on the bench seat and pushed it across. The stranger stared blankly at his own picture, shifting backwards in his seat, and holding his hands close to his chest.

“They‘ll want me to be ashamed”, he said. “They’ll want me to weep and scream that I’m sorry.”

“They might,” Frank said, and suddenly he pulled the gun from the other seat, and settled it into his hand–sudden as a crack of thunder. “But we don’t care one way or the other about what they say. It’s just a reckoning. Pain given for pain taken.”

“Sonofabitch,” the stranger said. “You.”

“Me.”

The stranger’s massive frame wilted. Years of confidence and energy seeped away. “Will you even kill me?” he asked.

“Not hardly”, said Frank, “not yet.” He shook his head. “You can try yourself, but it’ll never quite work. That’s not the way it goes. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

He put the gun away and opened the car door, swinging his legs out and pulling himself from the seat. The night was warmer than you’d expect up so far out of town, this time of year, the air dead and dry, with a faint taste of smoke from far off. Frank leaned back in, staring at the stranger for the last time.

“Your wife, she’s got a copy of the package already. So do the papers. You know how this goes, you’ve seen how we work it”. He grimaced and smiled. “Suddenly, you know, the rumors are e-very-where. People come out of the woodwork. You remember the comedian, right. Everyone ‘knew’ for years, but suddenly it’s all over”. Frank snapped his fingers, “just like that.”

“They let the one guy hang himself,” the stranger pleaded. “And he was worse than me, wasn’t he? Can’t I have just that?”

“He made a different deal”, Frank said. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think it was necessarily a better one. We don’t care about worse or better.”

“What about the judge?” The stranger asked, plaintively. “He made it out.”

“He made a second deal, and if I may be ‘Frank’, Senator, we don’t think we get much more out of another deal with you.”

He closed the car door and walked slowly away, ducking between the thick branches til he got to the road.

The full moon was hanging huge and yellow, low, over the empty hills. Frank’s shadow marched before him down the road til he came to his destination. The carriage was there waiting, and he climbed aboard, the driver nodding to him beneath a dark and weathered hood.

“Is it done?” Croaked a voice from inside.

“It’s done,” Frank replied. “Time to go.”

As the carriage rolled away, faintly, from far off, Frank saw the stranger’s headlights flicker on.