No Questions Asked

Nick knew something was wrong as soon as his phone rang and he saw Danny’s name on the screen. Not because it was after midnight. There had been a time when that would have been considered early for both of them. Even now, Danny occasionally forgot that Nick had become the kind of guy who went to bed on purpose. It was the fact that he called at all. 

Most of their communication these days came in the form of text messages. Memes. Links to songs neither of them had heard since they were kids. Nick looked at the phone vibrating on the arm of the couch. He muted the television and answered.

“What’s up?”

For a few seconds, there was nothing. Nick pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

“Danny?”

“I need you to do me a favor.”

Nick sat forward.

There were combinations of words that, when said a certain way, meant far more than they had any right to. We need to talk. The doctor called. Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you? This was another one, and neither of them had said it that way in years.

Nick looked toward the back of the house. The bedroom doors were closed. They’d put Tyler down a little after nine, and Emily had gone to bed an hour later after kissing Nick and telling him not to stay up too late.

He lowered his voice. “What happened?”

“I need you not to ask me that.”

Nick closed his eyes. There it was.

“Danny.”

“I know.”

“What the fuck?”

“I know, Nick.”

He stood and walked into the darkened kitchen, putting another wall between the conversation and his family.

“How bad?”

“You’re asking questions.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not a fucking kid anymore.”

“I know that too.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Is somebody else?”

A pause.

“You’re asking questions.”

“Fuck you.”

Nick squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What do you need?”

Danny exhaled. “I need you to drive out to the old Cypress Creek bridge.”

Nick immediately pictured it. Two lanes of neglected asphalt set back in the woods, running across a muddy vein of water that could almost pass for a river after enough rain. They’d been out there plenty of times when they were younger, usually drinking beer they weren’t old enough to buy yet.

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Pull off on the west side. There’s a gravel path that leads down to the bank.”

“I remember the spot.”

“I figured.”

“What am I looking for?”

“When you get there, go under the bridge. Third support from the edge. There’s a black garbage bag behind it.”

Nick said nothing.

“I need you to take it.”

“And?”

Another pause. This one lasted long enough that Nick became aware of the refrigerator humming behind him.

“Throw it in the creek.”

Nick stared toward the closed bedroom doors.

“What’s in the bag?”

“C’mon, man.”

Nick’s jaw tightened. Danny didn’t have to say anything else.

No questions asked.

It had been sacred when they were kids. But back then there hadn’t been mortgages or careers or women asleep down the hall. There hadn’t been a kid who called for Nick when he had nightmares because Nick was the one who knew how to make the monsters go away. 

“Nick?”

“Yeah.”

“I need to hear you say it.”

Nick hated him a little for that, but he hated himself more for already reaching toward the bowl on the counter where he dropped his keys every day.

“No questions asked.”

Danny breathed out slowly.

“Thank you.”

“One thing.”

“What?”

“If I get there and there’s a fucking body in that bag, I’m going to be pissed.”

Danny didn’t laugh.

“Just get rid of it.”

The line went dead.

Nick drove in silence. He hadn’t been to the bridge in years. There was a time when he and Danny had walked every street in a twenty-mile radius. When you’re up to no good, you tend to notice places that would be ideal for not getting caught drinking or smoking or setting things on fire. 

He was thirteen when he met Danny. His mom had moved them across town halfway through seventh grade, which was just about the worst possible age to show up at a new school knowing absolutely no one. By the end of his first week, Nick had caught the attention of a kid named Trevor who was bigger than him and apparently had nothing better to do than make the new kid’s life a living hell.

Nick had just opened his locker when Trevor decided he wanted to see if Nick could fit inside of it. Then Danny showed up. Nick didn’t even know his name yet.

Danny grabbed Trevor by the back of the head and slammed his face into the locker. Trevor dropped like somebody had switched him off.

Danny looked down at him.

“Shit.”

Then he looked at Nick.

“You should probably come with me.”

That afternoon, Nick saw Danny through the bus window. Four kids had him on the ground. Trevor was one of them. Nick was on his feet and grabbing the emergency release handle on the rear door before he could think about what he was doing. The alarm blared and he was barely able to stay on his feet as the driver slammed on the brakes. He leapt down and ran straight at Trevor.

Neither Nick nor Danny exactly won what happened next, but Trevor and his friends eventually walked away, leaving the two of them bleeding but upright. Danny had a split lip and one eye was already swelling shut. Blood from Nick’s nose had run over his mouth and down his chin.

Danny spoke first. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Nick spat blood onto the pavement between his shoes. “Neither did you.”

The promise had been made in spirit that day. The words came later.

By freshman year, Nick knew enough about Danny’s dad to understand that when Danny got in trouble at school, detention was not the punishment he had to worry about. Danny never talked about it much, but he didn’t need to. Nick had seen the bruises.

So when a bag of weed was found in Danny’s locker, Nick marched to the principal’s office and said it was his. Nobody believed him, but Nick insisted he had put it there. He had the combination.

Danny stared at Nick like he’d lost his fucking mind until Nick winked.

Danny understood.

When the police arrived, Nick’s story never changed, resulting in the first mark on his criminal record.

After that, they put words to what they had already been doing. Whenever one needed the other, the other showed up. No questions asked. No risk too great.

It sounded a lot cooler when they were fifteen.

Danny got his turn a couple years later. Nick was stranded in the city in the middle of the night with no money, no ride, and several people looking for him who he desperately did not want finding him. He called Danny and said the words.

“I need you to do me a favor.”

Danny didn’t have a car, so he stole his dad’s. No questions asked. No risk too great.

That night didn’t end particularly well for either of them, but Nick made it home alive.

The next time was in their twenties. Old enough to know better but still dumb enough not to care. Nick owed money to the wrong people. Danny knew a drug dealer and when he wouldn’t be home.

They left with two handguns, enough hard drugs to put them away for a very long time, and almost thirty thousand dollars in cash. They never got caught. They were never even suspected and continued to do business with the guy afterward.

Nick had counted that among the great victories of his life.

He wasn’t sure when he stopped feeling that way.

The houses grew farther apart as he drove. The road narrowed and the streetlights disappeared as dense forest took their place.

He thought about Emily. He wondered what he would say if she woke up and found him gone.

Then he thought about Tyler.

Tyler was nine. His biological father, Mark, hadn’t been part of his life for years. When Mark had been around, Emily had spent far too much of her life looking over her shoulder, and Nick’s testimony made sure she didn’t have to do that anymore.

Nick had never pushed Tyler to call him anything other than Nick. Then, about two years ago, the kid had started calling him Dad without either of them ever discussing it. They were sitting at the breakfast table when it happened.

Dad, can you pass the syrup?

Nick still thought about that moment every day, and it always made him smile.

No risk too great.

It had made sense when the only life Nick was gambling was his own.

His headlights caught a yellow sign warning him about the bridge ahead. He thought about driving right over it, to just keep going. He wanted to go home. To climb into bed with Emily. He wanted to tell Danny he wasn’t that guy anymore. That he wasn’t this fucking stupid.

Instead, Nick hit the brakes.

Gravel crunched beneath the tires as he pulled onto the shoulder. He killed the engine and darkness swallowed the car.

Warm, wet air wrapped around him when he stepped out. Metal ticked beneath the hood and cicadas droned from the trees. He found the path and turned sideways to stay upright on his descent.

Halfway down, the smell hit him.

Mud, dead leaves, and something that reminded him of the time a possum had crawled under Danny’s porch and died. There was a splash at the water’s edge that would have made him jump if he hadn’t seen the frog leap for himself.

He turned on his phone flashlight and kept going.

His shoe slipped in the mud near the concrete foundation. He caught himself on the first pillar, his hand coming away slick. He wiped it on his jeans with a grunt of disgust.

“Fuck me.”

His voice came back strangely under the bridge, and Nick immediately wished he had kept his mouth shut. The flashlight moved across graffiti, discarded beer cans and used needles, an old tire used as a fire pit, and a mold-infested loveseat someone had somehow dragged all the way down there. Nick couldn’t imagine anyone desperate enough to sit on it.

The third support stood ahead. He aimed the flashlight toward it.

There it was.

A black garbage bag, tied tightly at the top and streaked with mud along the bottom. The plastic reflected the light in broken patches along its creases. Whatever was inside gave the bag an awkward shape.

The smell was stronger here. Nick breathed in carefully through his nose, immediately regretted it, and switched to his mouth.

He reached for it.

A car door slammed somewhere above him, followed by the sound of gravel shifting underfoot. Nick fumbled with the phone and killed the flashlight.

Darkness rushed in. The creek moved steadily behind him, water folding over itself beneath the bridge. The sound of his heartbeat in his ears seemed louder.

A man’s silhouette stepped into view.

“Danny?”

“Hello, Nick.”

Not Danny. Nick knew the voice. He turned his flashlight back on.

Mark had lost a lot of weight. His face had narrowed to sharp angles, cheeks hollow beneath a patchy beard that was more gray than Nick remembered. His clothes hung loose, and sores scattered his face and neck. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here?” Mark asked with a note of incredulity in his voice. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Nick couldn’t help but let his confusion show. “What?”

“I followed you, but I didn’t expect you to show up here. How long have you known?”

“Wait, you followed me? You were at my house?”

“Your house.” Mark nodded as though considering it. “That’s funny.”

“What the fuck were you doing at my house?”

“Early release. I wanted to celebrate with my family.”

“They are not your family,” Nick bellowed as he took a step forward. “You don’t–”

Mark pulled a revolver from his waistband.

“That’s close enough.”

Nick looked at the gun. Mark held it low against his thigh, but his finger rested inside the trigger guard.

“When did you get out?”

“Last week.”

Nick pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“You didn’t know,” Mark said, his head cocked to the side.

Nick said nothing.

“I did four years, Nick,” Mark said, raising the gun. “Because of you.”

“You did four years because of you.”

“I thought I was going to have to do this in front of them. But then you came walking out all by yourself,” Mark said, shaking his head. “Couldn’t believe my fucking luck.”

“Fuck you.”

“No. I think I’ll save that for my wife.”

Nick clenched his fist, preparing to charge when he saw a shadow move across the embankment. Instead, he raised his hands.

“Wait, can I ask you one thing before you do this? There’s something I need to know.”

Mark chuckled. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”

Danny came down the embankment at a run. Mark started to turn. He wasn’t fast enough.

Something in Danny’s hand caught him hard behind the ear with a dull crack. Mark’s knees buckled instantly. The gun fired as he fell, the discharge beneath the bridge so loud that Nick felt it in his teeth. Concrete chipped behind Nick, and something skittered across the ground near his shoe.

Danny stood over Mark holding a tire iron. Nick stared at him. Danny was breathing hard.

“Bout time you asked a useful question.” Danny stared back. “You hit?”

“What?”

Danny stepped closer. “I asked if you’re hit.”

Nick ran his hands over his chest and stomach. “No.”

Danny nodded.

“What the fuck is going on, Danny?”

Danny didn’t answer. He picked up the revolver and tucked it into the small of his back.

“You killed him.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You hit him in the head with a fucking tire iron.”

Danny crouched beside Mark and pressed two fingers to his neck.

“Not hard enough, apparently.”

Nick ran a hand through his hair. “What the fuck, man.”

Danny pointed. “Grab his legs.”

“What?”

“Grab his legs. We need to move him.”

Danny wedged his hands under Mark’s shoulders. Nick grabbed his calves and they lifted. Mark’s head lolled forward as they shuffled under the bridge.

“Where?” Nick asked.

“Drop him on the loveseat.”

Mark’s weight compressed the cushions, forcing out a pocket of trapped air from somewhere deep inside. An overwhelming stench billowed out around them. Nick gagged. Danny turned his head and coughed into his shoulder.

“Danny, you need to start talking.”

Danny sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“You knew he was out.”

“I knew he was out.” Danny nodded.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

Danny shook his head. “Wouldn’t have worked.”

“What wouldn’t have worked?”

“Whatever you would have done with that information. It wouldn’t have worked.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Suppose I told you. ‘Hey, man. The asshole is out of prison and he wants revenge. He’s living under a fucking bridge like some kind of troll.’ What would you have done?”

Nick opened his mouth, but Danny cut him off.

“You’d have told Emily and she’d have freaked the fuck out. Tyler would have found out. Maybe not right away, but he would have eventually. You’d probably have called the cops and they’d have done fuck all. That’s what.”

Nick took a deep breath. Then something clicked.

“Wait. Living under a bridge? Here?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve been down here?”

“Of course.”

Nick looked around again. The beer cans, the fire pit, the loveseat. The bag.

“The bag. What’s in it?”

“Oh, that’s just filled with a bunch of his shit. Clothes and whatnot.”

“You told me to throw it in the water.”

“Oh, yeah.” Danny shrugged. “Thought it would be funny.”

Nick cracked a smile. He couldn’t help it. “Jesus, man.”

“I’ve had tabs on him this whole time.”

“Since he got out?”

“Since he went away.”

Nick looked at him. “What?”

“I know a guy on the inside. A little commissary money goes a long way.”

“And since he got out?”

“Been following him. He’s parked by the house a bunch of times. But tonight was different.”

“Why?”

“Because today I watched him buy a gun.”

“So you called in the favor to get me out here. How’d you know he’d follow me?”

Danny shrugged again. “I mean, I had a feeling he would. Mark really fucking hates you, man. My guy was pretty clear about that.”

“He talked about me?”

“A lot.”

“What if he didn’t follow? I left Emily and Tyler alone, for fuck’s sake.”

“Then I’d have handled it. But,” Danny lifted his arms and motioned around them, “this is cleaner.”

Nick nodded his head slowly. “Okay. Now what?”

“Now you go home.”

“What?”

“Go home, take a shower, and climb under the covers with your girl. I’ll take it from here.”

“Danny.”

“Emily is going to wake up and wonder where you are.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“This is not your problem.” Danny stared at Nick. “This is not your life anymore.”

Nick stared back at Danny. “What are you going to do?”

Danny closed the distance and wrapped his arms around his friend. Nick hesitated for only a moment before returning the gesture.

“No questions asked,” Danny said.

“No risk too great,” Nick replied.

They broke the embrace. Nick nodded once, then turned and started for the embankment. He didn’t turn around when he called back over his shoulder.

“Don’t forget the tire iron.”

Danny laughed. “Who you think you’re talking to.”