Friend of the Devil

by James D F Hannah

  The EMTs rolled the stretcher, and Teddy screamed at me, “You son of a bitch! You fucking shot me in the goddamn foot! You ruined my goddamn boots! You shot me in the fucking foot!”

  I watched as they loaded him into the back of the ambulance. About the time the ambulance drove away, Deputy Holland Oates pulled up in a county cruiser. He came out of the car with his service weapon drawn. He used the open door as cover, crouching behind it and aiming the pistol at me in the V of the door.

  “Drop your weapon!” Oates said.

  I took a drag on my cigarette. “I’m not holding a weapon, Deputy. I’m holding a Marlboro. Which you might consider a weapon against my lungs.”

  “I am not fucking with you anymore, Malone. Put your hands in the air where I can see them.”

  “If you got out from behind that door, dumbass, you could see my hands fine.”

  Deputy Oates kept the pistol level in my direction. “Goddammit, are you trying to get shot?”

  I pulled the last bit of carcinogens from the cigarette and flipped the spent stick toward the alleyway. “Trying to, no. Is it possible it’ll happen? Sure. But I’m a white man in southern Appalachia, and we seem all but bulletproof against cops, no matter our ignorance.”

  Oates rose slowly, gauging his next move. The pistol and the baseball bat lay beside me. His eyes bounced between them and me, and when he seemed to think I wasn’t about to make a move for either of them, He slipped his weapon back into its holster and came around the cruiser toward me.

  From the sidewalk gave you the best perspective of damage. Giant chunks of display case glass were scattered across the floor. The flat-screens were nothing but spiderwebbed displays now. Stanley leaned in a blank spot where there had been a wall of video game consoles and held a wet paper towel against his forehead. The consoles were piled on the floor in hunks of broken plastic. There was a bullet hole in the middle of a cuckoo clock, and the cuckoo hung at the end of its extended arm, seeming to contemplate one last jump.

  Oates sat next to me on the sidewalk, and he shook his head. “You are nothing but a fucking pain in the ass, Malone.”

  I considered lighting a new cigarette and decided against it. “Play to your strengths, I guess.”

  He glanced back at the collected damage. “You did all that shit yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s that hippie friend of yours?”

  “Elsewhere.”

  “Goddamn. You must have been a man possessed.” He leaned forward a little. “You might be unaware of this, but my father, he owns this pawnshop. And he owns most of Raineyville by extension of that, so maybe you busting it up wasn’t the smartest decision you’d make today.”

  “I’m well aware of the power structure in this little burg, Deputy.”

  “Then do you mind telling me what the fuck you’re thinking? The best I can tell, you’re nothing but some no-name cripple ex-cop with an asshole friend who thinks he’s a kung fu master, acting you can roll into town and do whatever you want, pretend like you’re fixing shit that ain’t broke? We were doing just fine before you, and we’ll keep on doing fine long after you’re in the ground.”

  “There’s a running theme in this town about putting me underneath dirt. I may start to construe that as a threat.” I turned my head toward him. It hurt to do it, but it was worth it to see the strained pain on his face. “You know what ‘construe’ means, right? I don’t want to bring out the big words and scare you off or nothing.”

  Oates sucked in air through his nose and held it there. His eyes got big and it was obvious he had to put effort toward holding back the anger. He pushed himself to his feet and unclipped handcuffs from his belt. “I’m going to need you to place your hands on the hood of the cruiser, feet apart.”

  I didn’t move. “Why?”

  “That can’t be anywhere close to a serious question. On your feet, asshole.”

  I stood. Slowly. I was sore from the beating, and my bum rush of activity in the pawnshop hadn’t helped. But goddammit if it hadn’t been satisfying as fuck. There’s a reason they let you do that shit in video games.

  Oates snapped cuffs on me and led me to his cruiser. Once I was in the back seat, he got the pistol and baseball bat off the sidewalk and put them in the front seat next to him. He got behind the driver’s wheel and glared at me in the rearview mirror.

  “To be clear here,” he said, “my first thought is to take you somewhere, put a bullet in the back of your goddamn skull, and let wild animals do their worst to you. I won’t do that, though, because while you sure as fuck deserve it, it still don’t make it right.”

  “Glad those Sunday school lessons weren’t for naught, and you didn’t just show up for the snacks.”

  “Fuck you, asshole.”

  “Deputy Oates, I’ll bet that silver tongue of yours scores you more pussy than an old lady’s cat rescue.”

  He started the ignition. “There’s nothing that says I can’t change my mind about that bullet to the head, you know.”

  24

  We didn’t take the turn for the sheriff’s department. I put my face close to the steel grate divider between the front and back seats. “I believe you missed the turn to the sheriff’s department, Deputy.”

  Oates maintained his focus on the road. “You’re a right smart asshole then, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t like to brag, but my teachers always said I did well coloring within the lines.”

  His eyes flashed me a look in the rearview mirror. “You’ll want to sit back. I’d hate to think about your face ramming against that divider if I had to apply the brake too sudden.”

  “Tell me, Oates, do you have to work at being an asshole, or was it something you found came natural to you?”

  The car jumped and I flew forward and the left side of my face collided with the steel grating, and the grating got the better part. It pressed into my skin and I felt like I was getting slapped with a waffle iron. I pulled back and sunk into the back seat.

  Oates laughed. “Sorry about that. Need to get the brakes checked out.”

  We drove further and further outside of town.

  “You care to tell me where we’re going?” I said.

  “Not particularly. Why don’t you just take a breather and leave the driving to me?”

  Oates turned the car down onto a subdivision road. It was narrow and lined with nice houses that didn’t reek of being fancy, but rather solid and unassuming. We pulled into the driveway of what looked like the largest house in the neighborhood, a two-story brick place with lots of deep green lawn mowed so level you could measure it with a ruler.

  He parked and pulled me none too gently out of the back seat and led me to the front door. He rang the doorbell, and a woman answered. She was a fireplug of a person, tanned saddle brown, with dark hair the color of night, her denim cutoffs showing off calves thicker than oil drums, and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt cut up to display lots of cleavage and a belly button ring that was nothing but a bad idea.

  “About time you got here,” she said. “He was getting ready to go down for his nap.”

  Oates pushed me through the front door. “This asshole here wanted to be difficult. Is he still awake?”

  The brunette closed the door behind us. “Yeah, but he’s tired.”

  “How’s he been today?”

  “Same way he usually is. Today’s not been any better or worse than the other days, I suppose.” She walked toward the back of the house. “Take him to the pool. I’ll get Harold and have him bring him out.”

  “A pool?” I said. “But I didn’t bring trunks. Or sunblock.”

  The pool was nothing more than a cement hole in the ground. It was an Olympic-sized pond of stagnant water long ago turned green, the top caked with dead leaves and algae. Mosquitoes skimmed along like kamikaze pilots. Clouds of tiny gnats danced nearby, the swarm shifting size and shape like something from a horror film.

  “Bill Gates know you’re breeding malaria
?” I said.

  Oates unlocked the cuffs and walked over to the edge of the pool, staring at the fuzzy green water. I rubbed at my wrists and shook my arms to stir some blood to move.

  “He built it for my mother,” Oates said. “She’d been a swimmer. People said she would have made the Olympics, but she got pregnant with me and that it, so Dad, he had this dug for her, and she used to swim for hours and hours. Only her. Me, I was never allowed in.” He shrugged. “After she died, he let it go to this. I tried to clean it up, and Dad threw a shit-fit, so then I tried to talk him into filling it up, and he wasn’t having that idea either.”

  “Sounds as if your father has a stubborn streak.”

  “Sounds as if my son wants to tell all the family secrets,” a voice said behind me.

  The old man looked like the shell left behind after an animal sheds its skin and flies away, bigger and stronger. His red silk robe was worn loose to reveal the black-and-white cabana shirt and plaid pajama pants underneath. His skin was the color of cigarette ash, his eyes large and watery, his face dusted with patchy white stubble. He was the first person I’d seen in a while I knew I could take in a fight.

  I presumed the guy pushing the chair to be Harold. Harold might have missed some evolutionary steps along the way; he was a meaty dude who cast a lot of shadow in his wake, with a head like a rifle bullet, shaved bald and glistening in the sun.

  Harold got the old man over toward me. The old man stuck out his hand. It took a significant amount of effort on his part.

  “I’m Colonel Talbot Oates, United States Army, retired,” he said and smiled at me. His grip was weak, and his skin felt like the walls on a deep freeze.

  “Henry Malone,” I said.

  “I’ve heard a little about you,” he said. “Were a state trooper, if I understand right.”

  “You do, sir.”

  He gestured toward a patio table with an umbrella over it. “Let’s get in the shade.”

  I took a seat and Harold wheeled him up to the table.

  The colonel said, “You can go on inside, Harold.” He looked around Grape Ape and said, “You also, Holland.”

  Oates had been standing off to the side with his hand resting on his pistol. He didn’t look happy with his father’s request.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Dad,” Oates said.

  “Today’s not a good day for you to be thinking,” the colonel said. “And tomorrow’s forecast looks shitty also. Go inside now. Take Harold with you. And have Loretta bring us out some iced tea.”

  Oates glared at me. I smiled and waved. “Be a good boy now, Holland.”

  Harold dropped one of his meaty mitts on Oates’ shoulder, and the weight was almost enough to topple the deputy to one side. The two men went inside.

  The colonel said, “I see you’re as immune to my son’s charms as the rest of the world.”

  “He’s got rough edges, but nothing a good beat down with a Louisville Slugger wouldn’t fix. And by the way, he has my Louisville Slugger.”

  “Don’t let his sense of entitlement fool you; my son is meaner than a bag full of rattlesnakes, and he’s more than capable of causing serious harm if the mood strikes him right. He boxed at the military academy, fought a few Golden Gloves fights. He was too cocky—not a surprise, I suppose—and he’d drop his left, leave himself open for a right hook every time. He wasn’t the ‘Great White Hope’ or anything, but he could have had a good career getting his brains scattered. It’s shocking the number of people who want to watch a white man fight a black man hoping the black man loses.”

  “Look at the world, Colonel, and I’d say it’s not that shocking,” I said.

  “No, you’re right there. We’re a species high on ignorance.”

  The brunette brought out a pitcher of iced tea and two glasses already filled. She set the tray on the table and neither the colonel nor I made an effort to hide our attention toward her backside. Her hips swung wide, and it was like watching watermelons dance a tango.

  The colonel took a teaspoon-sized sip of his lemonade. “I’ve not so much as twitched down in my nether regions for almost twenty years, but every time I see that, I think the damned thing has stirred to life again.” Another sip. “Perhaps it’s like those who lose a limb and imagine they feel an itch. A phantom erection, maybe.”

  I took my own glass in my hand. “‘Phantom Erection’ would be a great band name.”

  I took a drink of the lemonade. There was less sugar in a bag of sugar. I’m sure I made a face, because the colonel laughed. At least, it sounded like a laugh. It might have been a struggle for breath, except there was a twinge of joy to it.

  “Loretta has a heavy hand with the sugar,” the colonel said. “But it’s the only sweet I allow myself, and even this my doctor would complain about. Fuck him. I say. If I can’t enjoy a glass of lemonade, then what am I bothering hanging on for?”

  “Priorities,” I said. “All about priorities.” I set the glass down. “We are not here to discuss lemonade, though, are we?”

  “We are not. You’re a man who gets to the point. I appreciate that as a character trait.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of shitty ones to balance out the good. Besides, I’m not overly fond of getting hauled here in cuffs by a jackass who claims to be an officer of the court. I’d need a blank notepad to list all the crimes and misdemeanors committed today. That’s just by him, much less me.”

  “And yet here you sit, safe as a child in his mother’s lap, sipping lemonade by the pool.”

  A frog leaped out of the muck and landed square on the concrete. He stared at me and let a large bubble swell underneath his mouth, then hopped off in another direction. The thought passed through my mind how Frog back at Dave’s HVAC business had been well-nicknamed. Man looked like something off of the cover of an old National Geographic.

  “With all offense intended, Colonel, that pool will be ground zero for a disease science hasn’t identified yet,” I said.

  “It is not the most pleasant of things to look at, I know, but it is all of have left of her.”

  “Holland told me about your wife.”

  The colonel clicked his tongue. “My son talks too much and shares too casually things that aren’t anyone else’s concern.”

  “Could she have been an Olympic contender?”

  “Maybe. She was exceptional. It would have been one of those miracle stories that the news likes to run, all about the girl who learned to swim in a creek in a holler in West Virginia and medaled in Montreal. She had the misfortune of meeting an older man, a little worldly, who charmed her pants off, both literally and metaphorically, and then he went and spilled his seed into her, and there all of those dreams she had died. She never seemed to mind, or if she did, she loved me enough to hide it. She said meeting me and having Holland were the best things that ever happened to her.”

  “She must not have known Holland as an adult.”

  “It’s considered poor taste to insult a man’s son to his face.”

  “I’ve never been accused of an abundance of good taste. How long ago did she pass?”

  “Twelve years ago. Cancer.” A moment of sadness crossed the old man’s face, a flicker of a smile on its tale, then back to business. “Swimming in that creek where the coal mines funneled their runoff didn’t help her health. And now it is my turn to die of cancer. The quacks give me six months, a year tops.” He reached into his robe pocket and brought out a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo lighter. He shook a cigarette loose, lit it, and handed them to me. “Told me that two years ago, and I soldier on despite the best efforts of my own body.”

  I took a cigarette from the pack, popped the top on the Zippo, and set fire to the tobacco. It was unfiltered, and the first pull was harsh and strong, and a cough got caught in my chest and shook my body trying to rattle itself loose.

  The colonel’s face turned up a smug smile. “Filters are for pussies,” he said. “Especially when you’ve got noth
ing to lose.”

  The next drag was milder, and I didn’t think I was dying or want to throw up a lung, so essentially it was winning. I looked at the lighter. It was tarnished from decades of use. One side was embellished with a raised eagle, its wings spread wide, a banner behind its head, arrows in one set of talons and a machine gun in the other. Etched onto the flip side were the words “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for I’m the evilest son of a bitch.”

  I flipped some flame from the lighter. “Things have changed since I was a Boy Scout. Used to be, you just got merit badges for not dying on a camping trip.”

  The colonel gripped the wheels on his chair and pushed until veins in his arms and neck bulged, with no movement for the effort. I grabbed the back of the chair. He sighed and relaxed and let his shoulders slump.

  “Sad thing when you can’t even move your own goddamn wheelchair,” he said.

  “Were you hoping for a spot at the Special Olympics this year?”

  “Goddamn cripples would kick my ass.” He pointed to the end of the pool, near the diving board. “Roll me over there.”

  I pushed the chair to the edge of the concrete. “At what point in this can we stop dancing around with one another and you get to tell me what it is you want.”

  “Loaded question to ask a dying man what he wants. My list of wants is lengthy. I want to not be dying. I want my wife to be alive and swimming every day in this goddamn cement pond I built for her. I want my son to not be a fucking emotional burden every goddamn day of my life.”

  “That’s a lot to pray about at night.”

  “It is, and I doubt the man upstairs to be taking collect calls right now.“

  The spot opened up a view of empty fields. The land dipped and rose, and in the distance was a scattering of houses and roads, some dirt, some concrete, and a narrow creek cutting through everything.

  “Is there a particular reason you did what you did today?” the colonel said.