Shotgun Opera, Page 3

  “Wait until I get on the other side, then hit the water.”

  Keone flicked him a two-finger salute. The kid was thin, skin a healthy red-brown in the sun, black hair, sharp cheekbones and nose. Dark eyes but big and alert.

  Mike walked down one of the long vine rows. A wooden stake hammered into the ground every thirty feet, two metal lines pulled tight between the stakes, so the vines would have something to cling to. He’d rigged up thin PVC pipe along the rows, little pinholes to let the water spray out. On the other side of the vine rows was the small barn that had come with the property, a sun-bleached wooden structure with flecks of dark green paint flaking off. Mike had poured the concrete floor himself and turned the hay barn into his winery, the big press, which he’d also built himself, and the collection of glass carboys and the hand-bottling machine and a few big vats. A little desk in the corner where he kept his books.

  He was two feet from the end of the row when the PVC sputtered to life and sprayed him with water. He yelled surprise, ran ten feet, turned around, and scowled.

  “Very funny, asshole.”

  Keone’s high-pitched laugh floated across the wide field.

  Mike threw the big barn doors open to let in air and light. He sat at the battered little desk, took one of his books from the bottom drawer. He’d bought the book on Amazon.com seven years ago. From Bunch to Bottle by Adam Openheimer was basically the complete moron’s guide to growing grapes, fermenting, and bottling. The book had saved his ass on several occasions.

  When Mike had originally settled on the remote twenty acres, his intention had only been to hide from the world. In an effort to live quietly and occupy himself, he investigated what he might do with the land, rocky dry soil surrounded by gnarled oaks. Of the twenty acres, nine were on a gentle, open slope. The rest of the property consisted of thick woods or steep, rocky hillside. The soil was too piss-poor for beans or tomatoes or anything else Mike could think of growing.

  So for ten years he’d hidden and sulked and watched the seasons go by, all the time living with himself and sinking into a sort of dark, hermitlike existence. And for ten years he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep, the past always there in his dreams, reminding him he couldn’t really run away from what he’d done or who he was.

  An article in the Tulsa World had saved him.

  A feature detailing the fledgling Oklahoma wine industry. The article led him to Oklahoma State University’s Department of Agriculture Web site, which listed the varieties of hearty grape most likely to thrive in the Okie soil and climate. The loose, rocky ground, hostile for so many different plants and vegetables, was actually good for grapes. And Mike was willing and desperate for anything to take up his time and occupy his mind.

  Typically, it took three years for a vine to reach maturity and bear fruit.

  I’d better get my ass in gear, Mike had thought.

  And he’d purchased the stakes and the wire and a sledgehammer. He broke his back with labor and sweat that first summer, the July sun scorching him pink, then a darker red, the rocks fighting him every inch. The hobby snowballed into an obsession, and he found himself rolling out of his single bed at dawn, coffee mug in one hand, wire spool in the other. He didn’t quit until sundown. It took a month to put up ten rows. He ordered the vines from a nursery in Upstate New York and killed them because he hadn’t soaked them properly before planting. He ordered more, started over.

  He found himself in a war and took it seriously. Oklahoma baked the vines in the dry summer. Winter flayed the land with ice. And slowly, over the days, he forgot to think, forgot to dwell on the past or even to look very far ahead. There were only the sun and water and weeds to pull and leaves to check and vines to prune.

  He considered it work. He didn’t think of himself as one with Mother Earth or any kind of other hippie bullshit. It was long, hard work and that was all. And he wanted to do it right. He slept, so bone-weary, hands raw, dirt under his fingernails. He slept and slept and never dreamed.

  The first crop of grapes had been feeble. The next crop a little better, enough for a hundred bottles of wine, which he corked and stored for a year, then poured out after tasting a glass and nearly throwing up.

  It got better. Slowly, he learned.

  Three years ago, he’d sold five hundred bottles of his first batch of drinkable wine. He called it Scorpion Hill Red. A very plain table wine, not too dry. Local stores in Oklahoma and Kansas and a few in north Texas had agreed to stock it on a regular basis. Store owners told him customers liked the label, a simple black silhouette of a scorpion against a parchment-colored background. Simple yet cheeky.

  With some luck, Mike would ship ten thousand bottles next year.

  He craned his neck, tried to spot Keone through the barn door. Sometimes he felt he really had to keep an eye on the kid. Once, Keone had lost control of the little tractor and flattened an entire row of ripe grapes. In a fury, he’d chased the kid with a thick switch, but Keone was too fast. It was a week before he’d shown his face at the vineyard again.

  Mike couldn’t see the kid, but didn’t hear anything being demolished, so he turned his attention back to the book. He’d read it cover to cover ten times, knew what it would say, but always consulted it anyway. Always go by the book. Mike was a stickler. Follow the steps.

  The book told him to spread deodorant soap shavings among the vines. The “smell of people” would keep the animals away. He was ready. He slid open the top desk drawer, took out two bars of Dial and a penknife. Later, he’d walk the perimeter. Right now, he just wanted a drink.

  He went to the secondhand refrigerator in the corner of the barn, opened it, perused the beer selection. He had a few different brands. He liked beer.

  Mike Foley absolutely hated the taste of wine.

  On a hot day like this he’d need something light, a dark or even an amber would make him sluggish. He grabbed a Coors Light, popped the top, slurped. What was the old joke about canoes and Coors Light? Fucking close to water.

  He’d just finished the first beer and thought about opening another, when Keone walked into the barn. He had something cupped in his hands.

  “Freeze,” Mike shouted.

  Keone froze.

  “What are you bringing in here? It’s another goddamn spider, isn’t it?” One thing Mike had learned his first month in the wilderness. Oklahoma was lousy with giant spiders.

  Keone offered his lopsided grin, spread his hands open, and showed Mike a fuzzy tarantula as big around as a coaster.

  “Jesus.”

  The kid laughed.

  “Get that fucking thing out of here,” Mike said. “Giving me the willies.”

  Keone bent to set it outside the barn door.

  “No, no, no.” Mike pointed out the door. “Out there. Far away. I don’t want to see it.”

  Keone took it away.

  Mike would have smashed the spider flat with a shovel except he’d been told they kept the scorpion population down. And while he despised the spiders, at least he’d never woken up in the morning to find one scuttling across his kitchen floor. He couldn’t say the same about the scorpions.

  When Keone returned, Mike waved him over to one of the wine vats. “Come on, might as well do this now.” He took a clean wineglass off the shelf, blew into it to clear any dust. He thumbed the tap, filled the glass halfway with red wine, and handed the glass to the kid.

  Keone sniffed it. Then he took a swig, swirled it in his mouth. He frowned and swallowed. “Yuck.”

  “Hell.” Mike took out a notepad and pencil. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Acid.”

  Mike wrote acidic. “A lot or a little?”

  “A lot.”

  Shit. He wondered if it was too late to add oak chips to cover up.

  He took the glass away from Keone. When the wine was closer to being ready, Mike would have to taste it himself. But really, he couldn’t tell the difference. The kid was a better judge.

  “Tell you what,” Mike said. “Clean out those carboys, and we’ll call it
a day.”

  “Right, boss.”

  The phone rang.

  It was only last year, after Mike began missing calls from distributors, that he’d strung a phone line down to the barn. He grabbed the phone on the fifth ring. “Scorpion Hill Vineyard. What? No, I think you have the wrong number.” A long pause. “Oh.” Another long silence. “Yeah. It’s me. You caught me by surprise. It’s been so long I—” He glanced at Keone. The kid rinsed out a carboy, but Mike could tell he was listening with one ear. “Listen, I need to call you back. Give me your number.” He scribbled it into his notebook. “Wait for me.” He hung up.

  He stood there a moment, staring at the phone.

  Keone said, “Boss, you okay?”

  “Huh?”

  “Bad news?”

  “No. Just—” Mike shook his head, plopped into the chair behind his desk. He stared blankly at the rough desktop. He looked up, saw that Keone was still watching him.

  “Go home, kid.”

  “I didn’t finish the carboys.”

  “Forget it. Finish tomorrow.”

  Keone watched Mike a few more moments before leaving.

  Mike stood in the barn’s open doorway and surveyed his property. It suddenly seemed like a strange place, like it had nothing to do with who he was or where he’d come from. He took off his hat, wiped sweat off his forehead.

  It was so goddamn hot.

  4

  Andrew Foley had worn a path. Pacing. From the phone to his kitchen window to his bedroom. He’d developed a nice routine. First he’d stare at the phone a few minutes, willing it to ring. Then he’d go to the kitchen window, peer nervously between the blinds at the street below. Then he’d go into the bedroom and either pack or unpack (he’d changed his mind three times) the duffel bag on his bed.

  Andrew Foley was scared. It was the call from Vincent that had scared him.

  Vincent had sounded out of breath, like he was in a hurry. He’d told Andrew that Marco DeLuca, the wharfmaster, had been found with a bullet hole in the base of his skull. It had been DeLuca who’d told them which container to deliver to what warehouse. More bad news. Leonard “Juice” Luciano, the “union representative” who pulled Marco DeLuca’s strings, was blown to bits when he opened his freezer for an ice cream sandwich.

  “It’s that goddamn raghead,” Vincent had said. “I’m telling you, we weren’t supposed to see that shit, and now somebody’s going around putting a lid on the situation. They’re cleaning house. And if Marco DeLuca opened his fat mouth before they killed him ”

  Andrew didn’t need it spelled out. He didn’t want to be the next one to get exploded or shot simply because he’d been in the wrong place. But what could he do? He couldn’t go to the cops. If he did, he’d have to confess he’d helped let the stowaway into the country in the first place. Those Homeland Security guys didn’t fool around. They’d probably ship Andrew to Guantanamo or something.

  “Come over to my place,” Andrew had told Vincent. “Man, we got to stick together.” And he didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t know what to do.

  “Maybe,” Vincent had said. “But right now just lay low. I’m not even sure what’s going on. I wanted to give you a heads-up. Just in case.” Vincent told him he’d be in touch if he heard anything new, then hung up.

  Just in case? Vincent calls me up, terrifies the crap out of me, then says to hold on, he’ll be in touch? That’s when Andrew starting throwing clothes into a duffel bag. Wait around for a bullet in his head? Fuck that. But he froze in the middle of stuffing socks into the duffel. Where would he go? How long would he have to stay away? He could crash with friends, hide in a pal’s dorm room, but how long could that last? And he’d used most of his money to pay rent and bills. He only had a few hundred bucks to his name. That’s when it really sank in.

  He was fucked.

  Andrew Foley knew the kind of men Anthony and Vincent associated with. If they wanted to make you gone, then you’d be gone. Hiding in a pal’s dorm room for the weekend wouldn’t cut it. They would chase him and find him and kill him. These were serious people.

  Andrew knew because his father had been one of these men.

  In the Foley family it was generally known, and never talked about, that Dad had been a hard man in the old days. All that had been over by the time Andrew was born. Dad had married a woman twelve years younger, but she’d been hit by a taxi when Andrew was seven. Dad had raised Andrew alone while running a bar in Queens. When liver cancer took Dad, Andrew had just turned eighteen. He hadn’t learned a damn thing about running a business. There hadn’t been any life insurance, but selling the bar had provided just enough money to fund music school if Andrew was frugal and smart.

  When Dad’s cancer had been particularly savage, when the doctors told Andrew the end was only hours away, a day at most, Dan Foley sent for his son. Andrew hadn’t been far. He spent most of his time either in the waiting room or at Dad’s side. He found his father alert, if a little glassy-eyed from painkillers. His father gave him a picture, a black-and-white photo. Two men. Young. Maybe early twenties. It was an old photo from the fifties or sixties. The Statue of Liberty in the background. One of the men was his father. He looked young. So much hair. The other man had a strong family resemblance and wore the kind of hat people wore in old Frank Sinatra films. A little taller and thinner than Dad.

  “That’s your uncle Mike,” Dan Foley told his son. “Turn it over.”

  Andrew looked at the back side of the photo. A phone number written in fountain pen.

  Dad said, “When you’re really in trouble, I mean really stuck, life-or-death stuff, call Mike. Don’t call to socialize or to borrow money. Don’t even call when you plant me in the ground. He won’t come. But when your ass is on the line”— he tapped the photo with a gnarled finger—“that’s your ace in the hole.”

  That night Dan Foley died. He left his boy a dank bar and an old photo as a legacy.

  When Vincent had called with warnings of trouble, Andrew remembered the picture, dug in his closet until he found an old suitcase, birth certificates, and family papers. And the photo. He held his breath and dialed the number. Would it still be connected? It had been a few years. Andrew didn’t even know where he was calling, didn’t recognize the area code.

  He picked up the phone again and called the operator, read her the area code from the back of the photo and asked her where it was. Eastern Oklahoma. Perfect. Oklahoma. Nowhere.

  Would Uncle Mike even want to talk to a nephew he’d never met? The phone rang and rang, and Andrew felt so nervous in his gut he thought he might slam the phone back down on the hook and forget the whole thing.

  But then there was an answer. It was Uncle Mike. And Andrew found himself talking so fast, spilling out who he was and that he was in a jam and how Dad had said to call if he was really and truly up to his eyeballs in the shit. He hadn’t been able to get into any of the details. Mike had cut him off, told him to wait by the phone.

  And so Andrew waited. He paced and waited and wondered what in the hell he was going to do. He made a sandwich but only ate half. He sat on the toilet for twenty minutes but couldn’t shit. Nervous gut. He was all screwed up.

  He looked at the picture of his father and uncle again. There was something in their faces. Smug and carefree and dangerous and sly all rolled together. The phone number on the other side was smudged and faded. He transferred the number from the photo to a small spiral address book. Andrew didn’t want to accidentally wipe the number away with a sweaty thumb.

  The phone rang. He grabbed it. “Hello?”

  “It’s Vincent.”