Friend of the Devil

by James D F Hannah

  Mickey pushed himself upright, sitting up. An open cut above his left eyebrow had a thin trickle of blood racing from it, and his face was already swollen and turning purple. Blood ran down across his chin from his cracked bottom lip.

  He wiped blood off with the back of his hand, examined it, and laughed. “That’s cool. Every motherfucker gets one shot. You got yours. Won’t happen again.” He looked at me. “Might want to put a shock collar on your friend there.”

  “He doesn’t have much of a tolerance for assholes,” I said.

  “He’s hanging with you, ain’t he?”

  “I must be the right kind of asshole.”

  We walked back into the sunlight with the stares of the rest of the club burning holes through us. They stood around talking and smoking. Deputy Oates had joined them, and they were all laughing and joking as if they were the best friends ever, planning Saturday night’s kegger and gang rang. As soon as they saw us, they clammed up tighter than virtue on a second date, and Oates gave us that serious expression that said he was a very serious man with very serious thoughts.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, approaching us.

  “Asshole,” I said, loud enough for Woody and me to hear, not loud enough for Oates.

  He stopped in mid-step. “Excuse me?”

  I smiled. “What the fuck can we do for you?”

  “You can tell me what’s going on here. Had reports of a discharged firearm in the area.”

  “That would have been us then, discharging a firearm.”

  He reached to remove the cuffs from his belt. “Thanks for not even trying to make it difficult.”

  I shook my head. “You won’t arrest us.”

  “I won’t? Funny you say that because that’s my plan, to arrest you both. I thought I’d cuff you, haul your asses over to Greenwood, and you all can keep Dave company.”

  “Goddamn, aren’t you the man-eater?” I said.

  He toyed with the cuffs in one hand, the sound of metal clicking against metal. “You might think you’re clever, but I’ll break your heart here and let you know you’re not. I’m used to this shit all my life, so you need to step up your game before I have two shits to give about what you have to say.” He held the cuffs up. “Hands behind your back, ladies.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Do I look like a man inclined to make jokes?”

  “I’d never accuse you of having a sense of humor.”

  “What charges?” It was Woody speaking up.

  “Discharge of a firearm within city limits, to start,” Oates said. “Then I’ll search your vehicle, where I’m almost positive I’ll find drugs, maybe an unregistered weapon or two. Plenty of stuff to keep you locked away for a while. And you know, all kinds of funny things happen to men once they get in the system. Paperwork gets lost, hearings postponed, you name it. By the time the charges get dropped against you, you’ll have been in there long enough, everything’ll have expired in your refrigerator, and your dog’ll starve to death. Goddamn shame.” He unclipped the snap over his service weapon. “I won’t ask you again to put your hands behind your backs.”

  Woody dropped his arms to his side, his palms open and flat against his thighs. “You try to cuff us, you’ll be eating applesauce through a straw with your jaw wired shut.”

  Oates wrapped his hand around the grip of his pistol. He wasn’t a man used to being called out on his bullshit. Something in it was confounding to him. “Sounds as if you’re threatening a police office?”

  “I’m promising a police office I’ll kick his ass if he lays a finger on me. Because that’s the sort of mood I’m in right now, and I’m willing to wager you don’t wanna pay the price it’ll cost you to get those cuffs on us.”

  Oates didn’t say anything, and he and Woody did nothing but trade steely gazes back and forth to one another. The bikers stood to the side, watching everything with the anticipation of children waiting for the fuse to burn to the end on a bottle rocket.

  Woody shifted his jaw back and forth. “Put the cuffs up and go inside and talk to Mickey. I’m sure that’s the reason you’re here anyway.”

  Oates touched the ends of his mustache. It was trimmed and well-kept and loved the way you loved a vintage car. “You that big of a badass?” Oates said.

  “Big enough. More than you, and sure as hell more than any of the rest of the wannabes hanging around here.”

  Oates chewed on his bottom lip, his eyes narrowed, before he placed the cuffs back on his belt. “This is a nice town without you assholes in it. Why don’t you get the fuck out and let everything be peaceful again?”

  I took Woody by the arm and walked him past Oates and the bikers. “Deputy, you don’t have to ask us twice.”

  17

  The North Central Regional Jail is as anonymous as something can be while surrounded by fencing topped with razor wire. Everything’s plain red brick, tucked away from the main roads, with signs that warn you not to pick up hitchhikers in the area, as if you needed reasons not to pick up hitchhikers, outside of common sense.

  Sheila’s car was already in the parking lot, and we slid into the spot next to it.

  We signed in to see Dave, and the officer behind the bullet-resistant glass in the reception area took the paperwork and told us to wait. Visiting hours for the jail meant the waiting area was filled with mothers and fathers and girlfriends and wives and little kids, hands folded in their laps, some nervous and apprehensive, new to the whole experience, others as casual as if they were at the DMV, their expressions reading that this wasn’t their first rodeo. Women talked to one another while children played with well-worn toys nearby. Other read magazines, seemingly trying to play it off like a visit to the doctor. Still others looked off into a void and wondered about life choices made by themselves and by those they loved.

  A buzzing sound turned everyone into Pavlov’s dogs, and we all turned in the direction of a steel door to the side as it opened and Sheila walked out. Her eyes were red, and her makeup had been reduced to streaks on her face, like rain pouring down a windshield. She saw us and eked out something close to a smile and swung her arms around Woody, burying her face into his chest and rattling out a fresh outpouring of tears.

  The rest of the room gave it all a second then went back to whatever had contained them earlier. The din of mindless conversation filled the air around us. There was nothing to see here, after all. A crying jag, nothing new. You were in a jail; what did you expect?

  She brought her face back into view and wrecked her makeup even further with the back of her hand and said, “Can we go outside?”

  “Sure,” Woody said. “But we’re talking to Dave in a few.”

  “No you’re not. He doesn’t want to talk. To you, to me, to anyone. He told me he’s gonna plead to killing Jimmy Omaha.”

  The smoking area looked like a scatter bomb full of cigarette butts had exploded overhead. The filter ends of a hundred different brands littered the ground, and buckets of sand overflowed with more. There were people there when we walked outside, working with a determination to shorten their lives. We joined in and lit up.

  Sheila parked herself on a bench and sighed. “The fucking asshole. Goddamn him.” She said it with resignation, with what could have been mistaken as humor, or the acceptance we hit when we realize how truly, exceptionally fucked we are as a species, and we’re out of options, out of hope, out of anything but the time spent waiting for that final moment when we close our eyes, and they never open again.

  Sorry, folks. It won’t get any cheerier from here on out. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

  “What happened?” I said.

  She sucked in carcinogens. “He hands me this look, like what you give your mom when your report card is shit, where there’s nothing that’ll help the situation. He says he’s telling the attorney to try to get a plea deal, so there’s no reason for him to talk to you guys today.”

  “We must have made one hell of an impression the other night,”
I said.

  “We’re charmers,” Woody said.

  “Right, because this is about you,” Sheila said. “I’ve already put one husband in the ground, or at least bits and pieces someone told me were him, and now I’ve got one who’s saying he’s okay with going away for twenty years. I’m about ready to think God’s trying to tell me something.”

  “Did Dave say he did it?” Woody said.

  “No. Never said he didn’t do it, either. He wouldn’t even look at me when I asked.”

  “That why he won’t talk to us?” I said.

  Sheila gave a nod. “Throws that at me and then goes into what I need to do for the business. Said Big Country could handle the day-to-day stuff with the shop. Said he’d sign everything over, that I could handle managing it while they do the actual fixing. I’m glad he wasn’t depending on me trying to repair HVAC units.”

  “You good running a business?”

  “Not much choice. I took business classes at the community college. I can get the swing of things.”

  “You okay dealing with Dave’s crew?”

  She laughed. “I scare those guys shitless. That ain’t a problem. I feel you’re maybe missing the big issue is here, though. I know my husband. As much of a dumbass as he is, he’s not wired to kill someone.”

  I finished my cigarette. “You know about the Saints’ protection racket?”

  “I’m well aware they take their cut off of everyone else’s top. It’s the worst-kept secret in town outside of every other goddamn secret in this town.”

  Woody knew what my next question would be, and his eyes met mine, and he exhaled smoke in response. He wouldn’t enjoy me asking it, but he didn’t have it in him to ask it, so I got to be the asshole that day. Which made it another day ending in y.

  I lit up another cigarette. “We talked to Mickey Nevada.”

  “What did that pile of shit have to say?” Sheila said.

  “He told us that you used to fuck Jimmy Omaha.”

  Had there been a nearby hole, something convenient for me to crawl into, I would have, to avoid the gaze that Sheila shot me. It was two parts anger for stirring up shit she would have preferred long since forgotten, one part immense regret and shame for a maligned decision-making process, and cupcake sprinkles of wonderment at where the hell had all of that time gone. At least, that was what it looked like from the split-second glance I gave her before I looked away, with those eyes of hers burning straight through me.

  I gave her long enough to let that initial anger subside, then turned back, and by then she had put out her cigarette and was pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes, sucking in deep breaths that might have been sobs.

  Woody walked over to her and put his arms around her. She shrugged away.

  With her hands still over her eyes, Sheila said, “That wasn’t all he said, was it?”

  “He said you’d been coming back around to the Saints,” I said. “That you were hooking up with Jimmy Omaha, and you were his girl again.”

  Sheila drew her lips taut until they disappeared, and she narrowed her eyes, and I thought she might turn into nothing but a series of thin, angry horizontal lines.

  “I doubt he called me Jimmy’s ‘girl.’ I’d wager it was ‘slut,’ ‘bitch,’ or ‘easy fuck.’” She pulled her hands back and looked at me. “Am I right?”

  “Is this one of those times where being right will make you feel better?”

  “It’s not.” She got up and walked over to lean against a steel beam holding up a corner of the sheltered area roof.

  Woody said, “Mickey was blowing smoke, trying to piss us off. Sheila. He—”

  Sheila’s face relaxed and her head rolled to one side. She was tired. Tired of everything. The steel beam became the thing holding her upright.

  “I went to talk to Jimmy,” she said. “The business hasn’t fallen on hard times so much as it got dropped on ’em from twenty thousand feet. Economy’s dying like cheap houseplants, and every goddamn day is us struggling to survive. And then there’s Jimmy and his crew, hanging around more, pushing at Dave’s buttons, jacking up the rent, working overtime to find what it takes to piss him off. I thought I could talk to Jimmy. It’s been a long time, sure, and I know I’ve put miles on my tires, but I hoped there was something decent in him.” She took her cigarettes from her purse and lit one. “Shit happens, Woody. What else do you want me to say? I was trying to keep my husband’s business alive. I’m not proud of it, but I’m not so proud as to act like I’m above it, either.”

  “Dave found out?” I said.

  “Yes. That’s why he was so ready to roll Saturday night. He wanted to take Jimmy to the mat. I begged him not to go, but you can’t tell men shit.”

  Woody shook his head. “We’re nothing but pride and ignorance sometimes.” He lit up a cigarette of his own. “I wish you had told us this from the beginning.”

  “Why? What would have been one good reason to tell you? I knew from square one it was a shitty idea. The only other option was Dave getting his CDL back and driving long-haul again, which would have put him on the road more days than not, and I already had one life with a husband gone for weeks at a time, and we see how well that ended for everyone involved.” She crushed the remains of her cigarette underneath the toe of her tennis shoe. “What you’ll never understand is how hard it was to lose Jay.”

  “I do understand,” Woody said.

  “No, Woody, you do not. Because you didn’t sleep with him. You didn’t have a child with him. He may have been your brother-in-arms or whatever it is you guys think you are, but he was this person I’d known in the most intimate way possible, and he was here and then he wasn’t, and I realized that I would never have those experiences with him. I realized that we had a child he’d never see grow up. For a long time, I was angry at Jay. I was pissed off at you because I blamed you, because whenever you showed up, you reminded me that Jay wasn’t ever coming back.”

  “I’m sorry, Sheila,” Woody said.

  “Don’t ‘sorry’ me about this. You wanted the truth in all of this.” She looked at the ground. “I’m going home. First thing’s first, I’ll buy myself a fifth of vodka, and then I’ll go home, where I’ll get rip-roaringly drunk, and I’ll try to forget that every man in my life has fucked me over. Everyone except one, but I’m sure Jonah will, with time. There’ll be that day. There’s always that goddamn day.”

  She took a step toward her car. Woody reached for her, and she jerked away as if he had shocked her with a stun gun. “Keep away from me, Woody.” She looked at me. “As much as I hate to say it, Iris was right, what she said to you. I hope you survive knowing him.”

  She walked away, headed into the parking lot. We watched as she got into her car and drove off.

  We stood there as her car disappeared down the road. Woody started up a cigarette, and I had one myself, to keep him company.

  18

  Woody didn’t talk on the way home. He didn’t even make me listen to NPR on the drive. He let me off at my house, and he didn’t remind me to be at the St. Anthony’s meeting that night. He just drove away, disappearing around the corner toward the main road.

  I was lost about what to do. Dave wanted nothing to do with us. Richie Brock couldn’t afford to pay us. Sheila sure as hell didn’t sound like we were getting on the Christmas letter list. Besides, if we knew about Sheila and Jimmy Omaha, the cops would find out about it soon. Between the van video and now a solid motive, Dave taking a plea sounded less like an admission of guilt and more like good sense.

  I wasn’t sure this whole adventure was worth the time it had taken from me that I could have been spent playing video games. Then again, I didn’t have Woody’s finely honed sense of honor. I didn’t go out of my way looking for trouble; it found me no matter where I hid, though, like your ex from college, the one who couldn’t take the hint. You remember the one: she swears that you have a “special” connection, how you’re supposed to be together, how she wants to w
ear your skin like a jumpsuit.

  I didn’t recognize the car in Billy’s driveway as I walked up to my trailer. It could have been anyone, I guessed; Billy had years on him, and he knew damn near everyone in the county, but he wasn’t the type who took to visitors often. Or ever. He hung out with the other retired railroaders at the mall in Clarksburg, or out at the Riverside. He didn’t have people over except for me and Izzy, and I think he preferred Izzy’s company to mine since she talked less.

  The car was a late-model Ford with Illinois tags. It piqued my curiosity enough it made me check on the old man. If something happened to him, who’d feed me?

  I knocked on the front door, and it swung open.

  “Billy?” I said. I stepped into the house, reaching back and drawing my .38. “What’s for dinner?”

  No response. The stereo played loud in the other room and an old Grateful Dead album was spinning on the table. He might not hear me yell, a chance he had taken his hearing aids out and either forgotten to put them back in or didn’t want to hear what the world had to say. It was a coin flip what his attitude would be.

  There had been a series of home invasions in Parker County, break-ins and attacks on the elderly. The sheriff had already made arrests, but it was the kind of thing to inspire copycats. Here was Billy, living alone, his only neighbor his ne’er-do-well son. He was prime pickings for someone with a sense of desperation and little in the way of imagination.

  I walked through the living room with the .38 at my side and sniffed at the air. Nothing cooking. Nothing burning.

  What if he had a stroke, I thought. A piece of me preferred that over other possibilities.

  I rounded the corner and headed into the kitchen. I fanned the pistol through the air, scanning the room. I listened to my heart pound in my ears.

  “Billy!” I said, louder this time.

  The floor creaked behind me. I didn’t have time to see who it was. There was the thud at the base of my skull, and then nothing at all.