Short Money Read Free Page A

have to give it up. Sooner or later they would bottom out.
    The late afternoon sun had disappeared behind a layer of cloud, the sky gone from blue to lead; the temperature was dropping rapidly. The air felt moist and smelled like snow. Crow rolled up his window. Winter coming. He could hear the wind.
    A Hummer with a camouflage paint job roared by at 78 miles per hour, 23 mph over the posted limit. That would be Ricky Murphy. Crow had never met George, the elder brother, but he’d run into Ricky too many times. The last time, Ricky had got shit-faced and started slapping some girl around outside Birdy’s. Crow had intervened, given Ricky a couple slaps back, then hauled him down to the station. Ricky had spent almost an hour and a half in the lockup that time—a personal record—before the call came in from Chief Johnson, demanding that he be set free.
    What the Murphys did was none of his got-damn beeswax.
    A few seconds later, another car flew by—79 on the radar—a bright-pink Jaguar. Crow thought about chasing it down, but his shift was over, and besides, the last thing on earth he wanted was to meet someone who would paint a nice car like that hot pink. Opening the brown coke vial, he turned it over and tapped it against the top of the radio, hoping to dislodge a few last grains, but the vial was entirely empty.

II
    You want to stay in business, you got to take what business you can get.
    —BERDETTE WILLIAMS
    B ACK IN 1946, BERDETTE WILLIAMS had named his joint Birdy’s, but everybody who knew him called him Berdette. Birdy’s was the only decent place to get a bump and a burger between Big River and Montevideo—and it wasn’t all that decent. The tables were sticky, the chairs unstable, the atmosphere a yellow mist of rancid grease, cigarettes, and sour beer. The songs on the jukebox were ten years out of date.
    Nevertheless, it remained a popular spot with the locals. Arlene, Berdette’s wife, knew how to fry up a Juicy Lucy, a beer at Birdy’s was as good as a beer anywhere, and if Berdette watered his whiskey, as was rumored, he kept the dilution within reason. A guy could still get a good buzz for five or ten bucks, and most nights there was a card game going at the back table.
    Dr. Nelson Bellweather loved the place. “Isn’t this great, Stevie?” he said as Berdette slid Juicy Lucy baskets in front of him and Anderson. “First time Ricky brought me, I asked Berdette here to see the wine list.” He laughed. “He looked at me like I was from Venus—isn’t that right, Birdy?”
    Berdette said, “You want another round?”
    They were sitting at the big table in back, Anderson, Doc Bellweather, and Ricky Murphy, fresh from the hunt. Ollie Aamold, the taxidermist, sat shuffling a deck of cards. When Ollie wasn’t up to his elbows in the carcass of some large dead animal, he spent his hours at Birdy’s, beer in hand, lower lip distended by a wad of Copenhagen, looking for a game of chance. Ricky Murphy, Stetson pulled low over his eyes, sipped his 7 & 7 and watched Ollie handle the deck. Neither Ricky nor Ollie had ordered food, but they both indicated with hand motions that another round would be fine.
    “So I asked him,” Bellweather continued, “if he had any, you know, imported beer. What did you say, Birdy? You remember what you said?”
    Berdette shook his head wearily and walked away.
    Bellweather was not offended. To him, Berdette was part of the local color. He continued his story. “So Birdy said, he said, ‘What, you mean like from Wisconsin ?’” He exploded with laughter, was dutifully joined by Anderson’s hearty chuckle and a perfunctory heh-heh from Ricky. Ollie Aamold’s features, never particularly mobile, remained inert. Grinning and red in the face, Bellweather pushed a cluster of french fries into his mouth, chewed, followed it with a pull from a Bud longneck.
    Steve Anderson, famished after the drama of his first hunting experience, giddy from three Scotches and two