Old School Read Free Page B

anymore, not like she wanted to talk to him anyway, not unless she had something to bitch about. The Caddy’d bought him a few weeks of goodwill, so she wouldn’t be bitching at him for another day or two, not in the morning at least.
    Got in bed, rolled over toward the wall. He had the spare set of keys under his pillow. The remote worked from here – he’d checked. Faint sound as the engine caught, nothing she’d hear over the shower.
    He heard the water running for another five minutes, maybe ten minutes of blow dryer hum, five or six minutes of make-up noises, bottles and shit rattling around in the bathroom, ten minutes of her fucking around in the closet, pulling her outfit together, tossing shit on the bed trying to find some combo that was going to make her sagging ass look hot. When she went back to the john to load up her purse, he hit the remote and shut the Caddy down. Half an hour, more than enough.
    He feigned sleep while the wife left the room. Heard her walk down the stairs, heard the car start, heard a few minutes of kitchen noises, heard the hall door close. Waited. Never heard the garage door go up. Half an hour later, the CO alarm went off in the hallway downstairs. He smiled.
    All my fault he’d say. That damn Caddy, he’d say. I warned her about the remote start, he’d say. In-laws would back him up on that. Talked about it at Thanksgiving, they’d say.
    No note anywhere, she hadn’t been making any depressive noises to anyone, nothing to point at him. That would make it an accidental death. Insurance paid double on those.
    Only January 5, and he had all his New Year’s resolutions checked off. Down one wife, up one Caddy. And the Packers had a first-round bye. Looked like a good year.

 
     
     
    Thin Mints
     
     
    Mopes has the Girl Scout, got the cheap-ass .38 shoved up under her chin. Grandma has the shotgun and this mother grizzly look on her face. And I have a choice to make. An easy choice three years ago. Three years ago, you put me in a room with some old lady, a kid and some mullet-headed Meth fiend and ask me which way to play it, that’s an easy call.
    But that was B.C. – before crank. Things are different now. Like, for instance, Mopes? He’s with me.
     
     
    ***
     
     
    Before crank, I was every thirty-something white guy you’ve ever seen following his wife around Target. Had an 8-year-old daughter starting soccer. Had the house in La Crosse, just three bedrooms, but a decent subdivision, good schools, reasonable taxes, all the shit I’d talk about with the other thirty-something dads in the other driveways with the other two-year-old minivans.
    Sales. I sold shit. Tru-Cor. Industrial equipment. My territory was the Upper Midwest – Minneapolis, Dubuque, Des Moines, all around in there.
    Anyway, three years back I’m closing a big-ass deal in northern Iowa. And I got Linda with me, new chick just out of Iowa State, sales trainee, and she is smoking hot. Didn’t want to admit it, but the fact that fact Big Al – the asshole who owned the joint who’d been stringing me along for two years – the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off her tits long enough to look at the numbers right added at least ten Gs to the final haul – and that’s 10 Gs of pure profit, which puts me in real sweet commission territory. Anyway, I’m throwing a little shindig for Big Al and his people at this steak joint in town welcoming them to the Tru-Cor family. We got Big Al and his wife, got a couple of guys from his shop floor I’d worked the specs with, couple of office pukes, and we got Big Al’s office girl, Liz, who’s giving Linda a run in the smoking hot department, but with a harder, don’t-fuck-with-me air that had always got me a little stiff when I’d make my quarterly sales stop.
    So the dinner wraps up, Big Al and the crew are all climbing into their SUVs, Linda and I are about to head across the parking lot back to the Holiday Inn, and Liz walks over.
    “You