Vengeance: Mystery Writers of America Presents

“Not anymore.”

“And it’s not even — you know how much I’m due? Thirty-seven years, paying in every single week? All I’m supposed to get is eighteen thousand dollars a year. Barely fifteen hundred a month. These new owners” — Joe heard his voice coarsen —“eighteen grand, they probably lose that at the cleaners. Loose change in their pants.”

“Everything they did was completely legal.”

“Legal.” Joe slumped back in his chair.

“Believe me, if there was any possibility for a claim, I’d have filed already. Class action, in every jurisdiction Valiant has so much as driven his Lamborghini through.” The lawyer seemed to have some anger of his own stored away. “But they’ve got two-thousand-dollar-an-hour attorneys out of Washington negotiating these deals and writing the agreements. It’s bulletproof like plate armor. We can’t touch them.”

“Okay, it’s legal.” Joe looked out the window, at the late-afternoon sun and, far in the distance, a low line of clouds. “But it’s not right.”

TWO WEEKS LATER, midmorning. Dim inside the community room with the lights off, but dog-day heat shimmered outside the windows. An air conditioner rattled and dripped, not doing much.

A dozen men and two women sat on metal folding chairs, filling a third of the room. The Rotary was coming in later, and their dusty flag stood in one corner. No one could hear the projected video very well, not over the air conditioner, and the facilitator had closed her eyes, fanning her face with the same copy of “Writing a Killer Resume!” that was on everyone’s lap.

“I still don’t understand how they did it,” Stokey said in a low voice to Joe. They’d taken seats in the rear. Long-forgotten memories: grade-school desks, ducking the teacher’s eye, daydreaming.

“Leverage,” he whispered back. “The lawyer walked me through it three times.” No one in the room had any interest at all in the career-counseling service, but they had to show up to keep the unemployment checks coming.

“It worked because Fulmont had borrowed all the money, six or seven years ago,” Joe said. Fulmont was the plant’s owner, the third generation to run Fulmont Specialty Metals. “For the modernization — ISO 9000, all that? But when the economy tanked, it looked like we were about to go out of business, and Valiant’s hedge fund bought up the debt.”

“How can you buy debt?”

“Like Rico laying off his markers? Fulmont doesn’t owe to First City National anymore, he owes to Valiant.”

“Oh.” Stokey squinted. “I guess.”

“So then Valiant called the debt, drove us into bankruptcy, and the bankruptcy court let him cancel every single obligation the company had. Suppliers, customers, subcontractors — they all got totally screwed, and we lost our pensions. Everything went into Valiant’s pocket.”

Tinny music came from the video. On the screen, young, well-dressed men and women strode through high- tech offices, smiling and making decisions and managing big projects.

“And then he opened the plant up again, only now everyone’s getting paid minimum wage.” Joe glanced at Stokey. He hadn’t shaved either. “You could do better pumping gas at the interstate plaza.”

“They ain’t hiring.”

“I know.” Joe felt his shoulders sag. “I asked out there too.”

“Valiant stole every penny that could be squeezed out of Fulmont,” said Stokey. “No different than he took dynamite and a thermal drill down to the bank after hours. Except instead of trying to stop him, the judges and the courts and the sheriff, they were all right there helping him do it.”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s how I see it. That’s how you see it. That’s how everyone in this fucking room sees it.” Stokey was getting worked up. Joe noticed the facilitator’s eyes had opened. “What country are we living in here? Russia? France? Who wrote these damn laws anyway?”

“The best politicians money can buy. You know that.” Joe put a hand on Stokey’s arm. “Forget it. Watch the movie.”

Stokey subsided, grumbling, and they sat through the rest of the session. People got up wearily when it was done, chairs scraping on the worn floor.

“Next week we’re doing social networking,” said the facilitator, shutting down her computer. “We’ll get you all going on Facebook.”

Outside, the sun and heat was a hammer blow.

“Where you going now?” asked Stokey. He’d taken a Marlboro box out of his shirt pocket and was gravely considering the remaining cigarettes. Seven bucks a pack. Joe knew he was figuring how long he could stretch them out.

“Down the river, by the bluff. Thought I might shoot a deer.”

“They ain’t in season.”

“There’s no season on being hungry.”

Stokey nodded. “Put some venison up for the winter.”

“That’s the idea.”

They separated, going to their trucks, and Stokey drove off first. Joe sat for a few minutes, despite the heat, gazing at nothing in particular.

THE DROUGHT FINALLY broke, like it always did, and the weather turned beautiful again. Mid-September, the high school’s first home game, and some of the nights were already cool.

On one of those nights, Joe ran into Stokey in the gravel parking lot out behind Community Baptist. Quarter to nine, mostly dark, right before the church food pantry closed up. Joe was walking out, carrying his paper sack of canned beans and margarine and Vienna wieners. Stokey hesitated, then started to turn away.

“It’s all right,” said Joe.

“I was just — you know.”

“I’ve been coming every week. No shame in it.”

“Yeah.” But there was, of course. Stokey wasn’t the only one to show up after dusk, at closing, hoping to avoid running into anyone he knew. Joe had nodded to two women inside, and none of them had spoken.

“Annie said we had to come.” Stokey sighed. “I didn’t want to. Didn’t let her last week. But she insisted. So I said I’d do it.”

“She trust you?” Joe tried to lighten it up, but Stokey just shook his head.

“It ain’t right, taking handouts. It’s not her job to be begging food.”

“It’s not begging.”

“Same as.”

They stood for a few minutes while Stokey finished a cigarette. Traffic noise drifted over from Route 87, across the soybean fields. The moon had risen, almost light enough to read by. Joe pulled a folded envelope from his shirt pocket. “Got this today,” he said, running his finger along the torn edge. “From the bank.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Yeah.” He looked at Stokey. “Foreclosure. I must have called six times since August, trying to talk them into a workout, but no go. They’re taking the house.”

“When?”

“Don’t know.”

“Harrell and his wife, they’re still in their place. Haven’t paid a dime since March. Sheriff’s even been out, and Harrell just says he’s working on it, shows another letter, and they let it go.”

“Working on what?” Joe didn’t know Harrell well, but once he’d seen him walking through the neighborhood at dawn, checking trash bags. “Buying Hot Lotto tickets?”

“It’s a game. The bank, they don’t really want to foreclose, because then they’re stuck with it. People ain’t exactly lining up to buy houses around here, you notice that? You could string them out for months, just like Harrell.”

Joe had thought about it, but he shook his head. “That wouldn’t be right.”