by Tom Wood
The muscles in Victor’s jaw flexed but his tone stayed the same. ‘When was that?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
Victor said, ‘Michelle didn’t show up for work this morning. That’s the first time that has ever happened.’
‘You don’t work, you don’t get paid, so what?’
‘That’s my point,’ Victor said. ‘She wouldn’t take the day off without warning and without telling her boss.’
‘I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her for weeks. I can’t help you and I have things to do.’
Victor said, ‘She made coffee for someone this morning and given her car is still on the driveway I’m sure she went off with that person too. Does she have any friends you know of, a new boyfriend maybe?’
Abe’s voice grew louder. ‘Stop bothering me. I told you: I got things more pressing to do with my time than answer some stalker’s questions. I don’t know where she is and I don’t care where she is neither. Beat it.’
‘Just a few more questions, please,’ Victor said.
Behind the door, a pump-action shotgun racked.
Abe said, ‘You hear that, punk? You know what that is?’
‘That’s a twelve-gauge Benelli,’ Victor replied.
‘Stalker knows his guns,’ Abe said with a measure of mocking respect. ‘That’s good. That saves us wasting any more time, doesn’t it? Get lost. Get off my property before I begin to fear for my life and accidentally discharge this Benelli into your stalker face.’
‘Have a good day,’ Victor said as he backed away from the trailer.
He had tried being polite.
He had tried being unthreatening.
Next, he would be himself.
SIXTEEN
Abe wasn’t going to shoot the stalker. At least, he wasn’t going to shoot him right away. He didn’t want a bloody corpse on his doorstep even if he could convince the local police he really had feared for his life. He didn’t want police anywhere near his trailer. If Castel found out he had done anything to attract the attention of the law or anyone else, there would be all kinds of hell to pay.
Thankfully, stalker boy was a coward and pissed himself the moment Abe racked a shell.
Kind of funny when you thought about it.
Abe peered out of one of the trailer’s small windows to watch the stalker back away and to make sure he kept on walking. He couldn’t help but wonder what Michelle had done this time. Woman was a whole whirlwind of trouble wrapped up in innocence and artificial sweetener.
Abe was glad to be rid of her. Glad he hadn’t fallen for any more of her crap.
Stalker boy might be her latest victim.
Yeah, he looked like that kind of sap.
Abe pulled himself away from the window because he had work to do. Cooking meth was a labour-intensive process and one that a careless person would do well to avoid if they wanted to keep their face attached to their skull.
Abe was nothing to look at, he knew, but he liked his face where it was, thank you very much.
He had pans bubbling on the stove. He had chemicals separating in glass jars. He had residue drying out into hard sheets.
He dropped the shotgun on to one of the vinyl-covered seats flanking the table and set his goggles over his eyes. Like with regular cooking, things spit and splash when cooking meth.
What was that noise?
Within the chorus of bubbling Abe thought he heard something outside. Was the stalker coming back?
Abe flipped up the goggles and reached for the shotgun just in case.
The trailer’s door – locked – flung open, kicked in by—
The stalker, charging through the doorway; intercepting Abe as he raised the shotgun, so fast he didn’t have the chance to exhale.
Abe could handle himself. Had handled himself on several occasions, yet the shotgun was no longer in his grip because his arms were twisting the wrong way and he thought his elbows might explode with the torque going through them so letting the piece go was his only option to save his joints.
The gun spun through the air, clattering hard against the far wall, knocking over a lamp as it fell, taking them both to the floor.
Abe threw a punch but his fist hit nothing, and he jolted himself off balance as the stalker side-stepped, then pivoted, and a kick to the back of Abe’s load-bearing knee dropped him down on to both.
An arm snaked around Abe’s neck from behind, and the hard bone of the stalker’s wrist compressed against his throat as he was wrenched back into the stalker’s savage embrace. The back of Abe’s head was against his attacker’s torso, trapping him with nowhere to escape the crushing force around his neck.
Pain.
So much pain.
In his neck, of course. But in his head, far worse. All through his head an incredible pressure was building at a ferocious rate, threatening to rupture the blood vessels in his temples, to explode his eyeballs, to force apart the plates of his skull.
Abe couldn’t scream because he couldn’t open his mouth because his teeth were clamped shut and grinding. He couldn’t scream because he had no air to expel.
Fighting back didn’t occur to him. It was the last thing on his mind because every other thought was the same: survive.
Undergoing such agony, aware that death was so close, created a fear unlike any Abe had ever known. If this was fear, he had never been afraid before.
‘Shall we try our conversation again?’
Abe couldn’t nod, but he tried.
The stalker released him.
Abe didn’t know for how long he coughed. He didn’t know how long his eyes streamed tears and his nose rained mucus. He wasn’t sure at which point he had urinated, whether before or after he had defecated himself.
‘A survival mechanism,’ the stalker explained. ‘The body shuts down all non-essential functions to provide more energy to where it’s needed most. Sphincter control is surplus to requirements when you’re about to die.’
The euphoria, the end of pain and fear, became anger, became hatred.
Raging, humiliated, Abe saw from his position face down on the floor that his shotgun was close by – and it was vengeance.
‘If you try,’ the stalker said behind him, above him, ‘we’ll just have to go through the same thing all over again.’
The shotgun called to him: not only vengeance but justice. Righteousness.
‘You think it hurt the first time,’ the stalker said. ‘But I was going easy on you.’
Abe could smell himself, his filth.
His humiliation.
‘What do you want?’
He said it as a demand and yet it came out as a whimper, a beg.
‘I only want to find Michelle and Joshua.’
‘I don’t know where they are. I haven’t seen them.’
‘Why would Michelle take an unscheduled day off and not tell her boss?’
‘How could I possibly know that?’
‘You were in a relationship with her.’
‘Doesn’t mean I can read her mind, does it? Leave me alone.’
‘Soon,’ the stalker said. ‘The manager of her motel thinks she has a boyfriend. If he didn’t mean you, do you know who that boyfriend could be?’
‘She dated a guy after me,’ Abe said, still prostrate on the floor. ‘I don’t remember his name but he works at the quarry.’
The stalker said, ‘If you’ve lied to me, if you’ve withheld anything, I’ll come back.’
‘Why would I lie to you? I don’t ever want to see you again.’
SEVENTEEN
After the stalker had gone, Abe frantically took the pans off the stove to avoid any explosions. He then stripped and threw away his soiled clothes. In the shower, he yelled and cried to release all of the rage and fear and humiliation.
Wrapped in a towel, he stared at the shotgun.
Stared at the vengeance he hadn’t taken, at the justice he had denied himself.
Abe didn’t like this f
ailure. He didn’t like himself for being so afraid, for failing.
He should let it go.
He should be grateful it was over, he knew. He should be happy to have survived.
Let it go, he told himself.
His trailer still stank of faeces. It was going to stink all day long.
He used a cell phone and dialled a number that wasn’t stored on the handset but that he knew anyway.
‘It’s Abe,’ he said when the call was answered. ‘We have a problem at the lab. Some guy came by asking questions. I think he’s going to be trouble.’
Castel said, ‘I don’t like trouble.’
‘That’s why I called.’
‘Sit tight. I’ll see you soon.’
The call disconnected, and Abe felt a little better.
Abe let nothing go.
EIGHTEEN
The foreman was a skinny young guy named Nieman who walked with a rigid, almost seized posture. Victor could see there was almost no curve to Nieman’s lower spine resulting from a posterior pelvic tilt. Maybe overtightness in his hamstrings. Maybe weak hip flexors. Victor didn’t expect any trouble from him, but if it ever came to it, Nieman wouldn’t run fast and he wouldn’t be able to fight with any effectiveness.
Nieman didn’t notice Victor’s physical evaluation of him because no one ever noticed. Victor was used to making such assessments, his gaze searching for, and finding, weaknesses to be exploited within a mere glance. Nieman was a civilian, not an enemy, but Victor planned to kill everyone he met until he knew for certain there was no need.
The quarry was loud enough that Nieman had to shout just so Victor could hear him.
‘Just through here.’
All around them were thousands of tons of machinery and vehicles, all with huge and powerful engines rippling the atmosphere with thumping, overlapping soundwaves. Victor moved his head more as a result, rotating back and forth to extend his range of vision to compensate for the inability to hear anything but background noise.
A few workers looked his way – he was an outsider – but those looks were only curious, not threatening. Victor was more uncomfortable with such curiosity than he would have been with threats.
Nieman led him to an arrangement of portable office cabins: two side by side, and another two on top of those. Aluminium steps provided access to the top two cabins; Nieman gestured for Victor to go up first.
To maintain his cover he went first even though he didn’t like giving his back to anyone, even someone who wasn’t a threat. When he reached the top he saw that Nieman was slow to climb the steps, his rigid posture making it awkward for him to do so.
‘I know, I know,’ Nieman said as he reached Victor, leaning close to be heard without shouting. ‘Everyone who comes here for the first time asks why I don’t use one of the offices on the ground. But trust me,’ he added, gesturing to the steps, ‘this is less hassle than getting them to change.’
Victor said, ‘Never pick a fight you can’t win.’
‘Exactly,’ Nieman agreed. ‘Let’s go inside.’
Victor hadn’t expected the cabin to be as effective at blocking noise. Once Nieman had shut the door behind them it proved possible to have a conversation at a normal volume.
Nieman fell into a swivel chair and motioned for Victor to do likewise. ‘Take a load off.’
Victor was never quite sure what such phrases meant. Did other people carry loads? Did they consider just standing or walking to be such a burden that merely sitting down was a relief? Victor preferred to stand. From a seated position it was harder to defend himself or attack another, and it limited visibility.
As the seat had wheels, it was simple enough to reposition it so that Victor could see the door and Nieman at the same time without the action of moving the chair seeming odd or unnatural.
Victor said, ‘As I told you at the entrance, I’m looking for someone who works here.’
Nieman said, ‘Didn’t we talk about something else too?’
Victor reached into a pocket. ‘Something about your time being valuable.’
‘That’s the one,’ Nieman said, gaze locked on the cash in Victor’s hand.
Because credit cards could be traced with ease, he either carried a lot of cash on his person or had access to currency nearby wherever he was operating. Sometimes that was a stash; other times it might be an expensive watch and other pieces of jewellery that could be exchanged for cash at pawn shops or jewellers. Carrying tens of thousands of dollars through an airport would lead to all sorts of difficult questions but no one batted an eyelid if he put a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Rolex through the X-ray machine.
His funds were almost exhausted because the Chicago job had eaten through them and Victor hadn’t expected to require more because he hadn’t expected to remain inside his staging ground after the job’s completion.
He peeled off a hundred Canadian dollars and handed it to Nieman, who couldn’t snatch the crisp banknote from Victor’s fingers fast enough. Nieman shoved it into a pocket with such urgency he almost dropped the hundred on the floor.
‘That’s my weekend covered,’ he said with a grin. ‘Who are you looking to find?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I believe we’ve already covered this,’ Victor said. ‘I’m hoping you can help me identify him. How many people work here?’
‘Including me?’
Victor shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Ninety-one,’ Nieman said. ‘You work round the clock?’
‘Nuh-uh,’ Nieman said. ‘Six a.m. to six p.m. six days a week.’
‘Anyone not show up for work today?’
‘Off the top of my head?’
Victor said, ‘I’m paying for accuracy.’
‘Want me to check?’
Victor nodded.
Nieman sighed because to check meant using a computer, which required him to get up from his chair and shuffle to the other side of the unit to flop down into a different chair and log into a desktop machine. He was a clumsy typist, stabbing at the keyboard with two rigid index fingers, his head bent over so he could look down at what he was doing.
He typed commands and clicked the mouse, and the tip of his tongue poked out of the side of his mouth as he brought up some software Victor didn’t recognise, databases with lists of names and corresponding columns holding other information.
‘No absences,’ Nieman said. ‘We run a tight boat here.’
‘Ship,’ Victor said. ‘You run a tight ship.’
‘That too.’
‘Anyone late for work this morning?’
‘Timesheets aren’t inputted until later in the day so I couldn’t tell you.’
‘What about shift patterns?’ Victor asked. ‘Your employees don’t all work seventy-two-hour weeks, do they?’
‘I wish,’ Nieman said. ‘But no.’
‘So,’ Victor continued, ‘who had the day off today?’
‘Ah, I see where you’re going with this,’ Nieman said, happy to have cracked the code. ‘But this is crunch week. Got an almighty order shipping next Monday so it’s all hands on top.’
‘All hands on deck,’ Victor said.
‘That too.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Victor said, standing up. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
‘Oh, we’re done already? Sure, whatever you say. Have a good one.’
NINETEEN
After Wilson Murdoch had left the office, Nieman sat in his chair and waited and thought. Should he? Shouldn’t he? Nieman didn’t like to make decisions and hated to make them on someone else’s behalf. That’s how you got yourself into trouble.
So Nieman waited a little longer and thought a little harder and tried to weigh up the pros and cons and picture the many potential outcomes.
Still nothing.
Thinking was exhausting, and Nieman didn’t like to sweat, physically or mentally.
He hauled himself up out of the c
hair to peer out of the door to make doubly sure he was alone. He saw Murdoch crossing the quarry towards the exit. Looked like he was taking a longer route than necessary when he could have just cut straight across the open space, but whatever.
Nieman shuffled back inside the office and closed the door, making sure he heard the click.
He used the office landline to call a number already programmed into the speed dial.
The line connected.
‘This is McAllan.’
‘Weird thing just happened,’ Nieman said. ‘I’ve just spoken to some guy at the quarry. Gave me money to ask about the employees.’
‘What kind of guy?’
‘A stranger,’ Nieman said. ‘From out of town. He was looking for someone but didn’t know who.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Beats me,’ Nieman admitted. ‘But I thought you should be aware without delay.’
‘You thought right,’ McAllan said. ‘Strangers are bad news, especially now. Talk me through the conversation. Leave nothing out.’
TWENTY
The elderly couple were not on their porch when Victor stopped his truck. It was a few degrees cooler today than it had been yesterday and a light rain was falling. Victor approached the house with the expectation of finding it to be the same as it had been upon his last visit in the morning. There were no lights on, no windows open that hadn’t been before and no curtains repositioned. The little yellow Honda was in the exact same spot.
He didn’t ring the bell, instead heading around the house to the back and the unlocked door.
He wasn’t sure what a second walkthrough would reveal but his first check had been a cursory one, a scouting mission. Now, he was investigating.
Both beds were made, which told him he had been right to consider the messy kitchen table to be an anomaly. Michelle wouldn’t leave dirty crockery out if she had a choice.
So, she’d had no choice.
She had been compelled to leave.
By someone other than Joshua because that someone had taken them away in another vehicle.
Two coffee cups on the table said that she knew that someone well enough to invite them inside her home.
