Sex and Murder Magazine

By Sean Greenhill

Josh Perry liked to throw his weight around, both figuratively and literally, and he had a lot of weight to throw around. By second grade, was a head taller than the other children in his class, thirty pounds heavier, and he had already learnt that he could use his size to intimidate others. Twenty years later, Josh hadn’t changed very much, but at some point, he had stopped growing upward, and started growing outward. Now he weighted close to two hundred and fifty pounds, and on hot July days he tended to stay inside, and move around as little as possible.

Today he had made an exception.

“Little Mickey Calton,” he chuckled, putting his arm around the smaller man’s neck, pulling him into his sweaty armpit in a headlock. “Good old, Mickey Calton,” he repeated, messing the man’s neatly combed hair with his free hand. “Betcha never thought you’d see me again, did ya?” He chuckled again. The chuckle turned into a wheeze and he spat a large, black ball of phlegm at the ground, narrowly missing Mickey’s shoes. He released his hold on Mickey and pulled a dirty hankie from his pants pocket to cover his mouth as he started to cough again.

Mickey stood up, moved a few steps away from Josh, out of arms reach. “Are you alright?”

“Don’t…worry…about…me,” Josh replied, gasping for breath between each word, sweat pouring down his beetroot red face. “I’m…fine.” He wiped at his face with the hankie and shoved it back in his pocket. He looked Mickey up and down. “Christ,” he smiled. “Last time I saw you, you were only eight years old. Still the same weedy little runt you were then. Same stupid haircut, same stupid glasses. Haven’t changed much, have you? When’s the last time you had a good meal? You look like a greyhound, all ribs and balls.”

“I’m okay,” Mickey said, waving away Josh’s concern with one hand. “Fast metabolism.”

“Yeah, right,” Josh laughed. “And I’m big boned. It’s my DNA.”

“Have you thought about lap-band surgery?” Mickey asked.

Josh raised one eyebrow. “A rubber band around my food tube? Yeah, well, we’ll see. Maybe if things turn out the way I want, I’ll have enough money to get it done.”

Mickey glanced at him. “Things, Josh?”

Josh nodded. “Ya don’t think I’m here by accident, do ya? I knew you’d come back eventually. I’ve been watching this place for the past couple of months since your old man kicked the bucket.” He shouldered himself off the wall and took a step toward Mickey. “He’s the one who’s kept me from getting inside this place for the last twenty years. He never left it after they took you away. Started working from home a week after you were gone. Had everything delivered. Groceries, clothes, everything. Told everyone that he wanted to make sure he was here when you came back.”

“I didn’t know that,” Mickey said softly. “He really waited for me all that time?”

“Yeah,” Josh agreed. “He may have been a loyal old bastard, but he was like you.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “Not too smart. Could’ve lived years longer. Wouldn’t go to hospital to get the cancer treated. Too scared he wouldn’t be here.” Josh pulled out the dirty hanky, wiped at his face and neck again. “How bout we go inside to talk. This heat is killing me.”

Mickey nodded, pulled a large set of keys out of his pocket, selected one and pushed it into the lock. It slipped in easily and there was a soft click as he turned the key. He stepped into the gloom inside, dust rising at his feet. “We’ll have to open some of the blinds. The executor had the electricity turned off because there wasn’t anyone living here.”

“Leave ‘em down,” Josh instructed, closing the front door behind him. “It’s cooler. Besides, we can see well enough and no one needs to know we’re here.”

“Why are you here, Josh?” Mickey asked. “And why do you know so much about my father?”

“I know about your old man because, unlike you, I never left this little shithole of a town,” Josh explained, his voice thick with contempt. “I used to see him every day when I drove past on my way to work. I’d see him sitting at his desk in that front room and he’d still be there when I drove home every night.”

Mickey walked slowly into the front room, where his father's desk sat, angled so that it took in a view of the street and the mailbox on the opposite sidewalk.

“So where did they take you off to?” Josh asked casually as he followed Mickey into the front room. He circled the desk, rolled the chair out and smiled when he saw its well-cushioned seat. “They wouldn’t tell your father and all the records are still sealed.”

“I don’t remember,” Mickey admitted. “I don’t remember a lot from back then. My psychiatrist thinks I must be deliberately blocking out some tragic event.”

Josh laughed as he sat down behind the desk. “Headshrinker, eh? Waste of time. For two hundred bucks an hour, I’d tell you anything you wanted to hear, too.”

“Don’t bother,” Mickey said as Josh’s hand moved toward the desk drawer. “There’s nothing in it. Everything was cleaned out a month ago.”

“Right,” Josh nodded, pulling out the drawer anyway and then closing it again when he’d confirmed that it was empty. “Didn’t you ever wonder about your old man?”

“I told you, I don’t remember a lot of stuff from when I was a kid,” Mickey explained again, beginning to pace the floor in front of the desk. “I was told that both my parents had died and they kept getting moving me from family to family.”

Josh snorted as he opened the second drawer. “Probably thought they were doing you a favor. Must have been a surprise when your old man's lawyer contacted you about the will then?”

Mickey nodded once. “Yes. Yes, it did. But Mr. Graham wasn’t much help. He only took over handling my father’s affairs after the senior partner, Mr. Lyndcraft, died last year. He doesn’t know anything about my mother or what happened back then.”

“Then it’s your lucky day, isn’t it, Mickey?” Josh laughed. He leant back in the chair and steepled his fingers over his stomach. “Because I’m the one man who can answer all your questions.” He nodded, producing a fourth and fifth chin. “For a price.”

Now it was Mickey’s turn to laugh. “Is that what this is about, Josh? Just another version of taking kids lunch money? Because you’re out of luck. They’re going to sell the house to cover the mortgage. What’s left will just cover my father’s medical bills and his funeral expenses. There might be a few hundred left over and that’s it. If you don’t believe me, ask Mr. Graham.”

Josh shrugged his indifference. “But you are the sole beneficiary of the will, aren’t you? The last one Lyndcraft let me take a look at had it that way. I presume your old man didn’t change it.”

Mickey stepped up to the desk, put both hands on it and leant toward Josh, looking at him with suspicion. “Why were you looking at my father’s will?” he asked slowly.

Josh waved one hand dismissively. “Yes or no? Are you the sole beneficiary aren't you? Anything in this house is legally yours, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Mickey replied. “Yes, anything is this house is mine. Why?”

“Because it means we can come to an agreement,” Josh explained with a self satisfied smile. “I’ll tell you what I know about what happened to your mother and father and you’ll give me half of your inheritance. How does that sound? If there's nothin' left, like you say, then I don't get nothin’.”

Mickey stood back up and stepped away from the desk, staring at Josh's face at he thought. “How will I know that you’re telling the truth?”

“You doubt me?” Josh asked with raised eyebrows. “Fair enough. How about I give you a freebie? Your old lady really is dead. She put a bullet through her head in this very room twenty years ago. You can check that with the police, or the old newspapers down at library, if you don't believe me.” He smiled, knowing he'd hooked Mickey. “So that was the tempter. What do you say. Deal or no deal?”

“Yes, yes,” Mickey agreed quickly. “We have a deal. Tell me what you know.”

“Your old lady was nice and everything, but she was a gambler, Mickey,” Josh explained. “Owed a lot of people, started to pay off on her back, if you know what I mean. I heard my parents talking about it once when I was thirteen, a couple of years after you left. The official story is that your old lady was shitting herself that your old man was going to find out and she couldn’t face it. Took the coward’s way out.”

Mickey shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense. My mother? Gambling? Prostituting herself? Committing suicide?’ He shook his head again. “No. I don't believe you.”

“I don't blame you for not believing me,” Josh agreed. “Lot of people didn’t believe it back then either, but there wasn't any proof. Just some talk about the angle of the bullet not being right. Lot of people thought your old man found out about the money, and the screwing around, and snapped. Shot her dead, set it up to look like she did herself in. That’s why they decided to take you away from him.”

Mickey raised one eyebrow. “Is that it?” he asked. “Is that all you've got?”

Josh eased forward in his chair, took out his hankie and wiped his face before answering. “Like I said, your old lady bet on everything; cards, horses, dogs, you name it. She started to get loans off anyone she could, including my old man. She was into him for $10,000 when she turned up her toes.”

“Maybe my mother didn’t kill herself then,” Mickey snapped. “Maybe your father did.”

“Good theory, Mickey, but it doesn’t fly. My old man had an alibi. He was playing poker with some buddies; Mayor Saunders and Sheriff Tynan.” Josh shook his head. “Besides, your old lady had found a way to pay up. That’s where Honus Wagner comes in.”

“Honus Wagner?” Mickey repeated.

Josh lent back in the chair, looked up to the ceiling and closed his eyes. “Honus Wagner was probably the best short stop in baseball history,” he began, as if reading from a book. “Played twenty years, from 1897 to 1917. Eight batting titles, equal most in National League history. Led the league in sluggin’ six times, stolen bases five times. One of the first five men to be inducted into the hall of fame when it opened in ’36. In 1909 the American Tobacco Company started producing the T206 series of baseball cards including the Honus Wagner card. Round 1911, Wagner changed his mind and stopped them from producing anymore. Some people say he didn’t want kids to link him with tobacco, others reckon he wanted more money.”

Mickey shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “So?”

“Well the legend is that there were only 200 of his cards issued at most and maybe as few as fifty.” He paused, raised his eyes and looked directly at Mickey. “You how much the last one sold for? $2.8 million. $2.8 million and that was almost two years ago. Could be worth three, four million by now. The way I figure it, your old man must have known your old lady had started draining their cheque account. So, he decided to put some of the money somewhere she couldn't spend it. That's where the Honus Wagner card comes in. Your old man bought one and put it in your collection to hide it from her, but somehow she found out about it. She was going to get it and give it to my father to pay off what she owed, but died before she could.”

Mickey breathed in slowly and deeply. “Come on Josh,” he sighed. “Listen to yourself. It's a fairy tale and I'm not convinced. Maybe my mother did owe people money, and maybe she did kill herself. I don't know. But this nonsense about a Honus Wagner card is obviously someone's warped idea of a joke. Town gossip made up by small minded people with nothing better to do with their time.”

“No, Mickey,” Josh said softly. “No, you're wrong. You're father did have one of the Honus Wagner cards. I know he did because I saw it once. Even had it in my hand. Still would, if it wasn't for that old bag, Mrs. Whitlock, the art teacher.” He smiled despite himself. “Old as the hills, but nothing got past her. She saw me swipe the card out of your folder when you bought it in for show and tell. Made me give it back and gave me detention.”

Mickey looked at him, surprised. “You remembered that?”

Josh nodded. “And I've looked at all the sales of the cards since then except the black market ones.” He made a sweeping gesture with one hand taking in the whole house. 'And they didn't find four million bucks lying around when they cleared this place out, did they?' He paused and raised one eyebrow. “No, and you said yourself that selling the house would only just cover the mortgage, so he certainly didn't put any money into this place, did he? So you know what I reckon?” He leant back in the chair and laced his hands behind his head. “I reckon he stashed it somewhere in this office and I reckon you know where.”

Mickey ran a hand though his hair as he regarded Josh thoughtfully and then smiled. “You're right, Josh.” He laughed. “Back in school I thought you were just another meathead, but you're right. I do know where the card is. As a matter of fact, you're sitting right in front of it.”

Josh stared at the desk, then up at Mickey, stunned by the sudden admission, trying to work out if he was serious or not. “You're joking, right?”

Mickey shook his head as he walked around the desk to stand beside Josh. “No, I'm not,” he replied. “Give me a hand and I'll show you.”

Josh struggled to get his bulk out of the chair and when he finally got to his feet.

“Okay,” Mickey said, putting his hand on the corner of the desk. “It's under this leg. I'll lift the desk up so you can get it.”

“You better not be tryin' to make a fool out of me,” Josh warned as he leant one hand against the desk to support himself. He lowered himself to his knees, grunting and sighing loudly as he did, then leant forward onto his hands. He looked up at Mickey. “Well, come on. I don't want to be down here all day.”

“Okay,” Mickey said again as he bent his knees and gripped the desk with both hands. “On three. One, two, three.” He strained, every muscle taut and slowly the desk broke contact with the floor.

“Higher!” Josh yelled. “Higher! I think I can see it.” He slide the fingers of one hand under the desk leg, felt the card, still in it's protective cover, and pulled it out. “Jesus,” he whispered as he got knelt back up to his knees, holding the card reverentially in front of him. “The Honus Wagner card. Still in perfect condition, after all these years.”

Mickey put the desk back down, walked to stand behind Josh and looked down at the card over his shoulder. “Yes,” he agreed. “Mine again, after all these years.”

“Yours?” Josh laughed as he looked over his shoulder up at Mickey. “You mean ours. We've got an arrangement, remember?”

Mickey put one hand on Josh's shoulder and shook his head. “Josh, Josh, Josh,” he said. He reached into his jacket with his other hand, pulled out a gun and cocked it. “You were so close to being right, but it wasn't my father who shot my mother, it was me.” He reached over Josh's shoulder and plucked the card from his hand. “I didn't let her take it from me and I'm not going to share it with you either.” He smiled down at Josh's frozen face. “And thanks to you, I'll get the angle of the wound right too this time.” He put the barrel to Josh's temple. “I think this is about right, don't you?”