Worse Angels

by Laird Barron

  He struggled to compose himself. Tears streamed from his bloodshot eyes. I left him, reached through the passenger window, and dug around in the glove box until I found some fast-food napkins. I gave him the napkins. Good call—blood trickled down his temple and dripped into his ear.

  “Thanks, homes.” Superfly rubbed his eyes and blew his nose. He leaned back and exhaled with a full-body shudder. “What can I do you for is what I meant to say.”

  I wanted to know who ran prostitutes, who ran drugs, who made book. Who’d supplied the Jeffers Project?

  “The what?”

  “Big hole drilling to China, twenty, thirty minutes north. Are your brains scrambled? Should I hit you again? Second knock in the head usually does the trick . . .”

  “Oh, you mean the Dig. Man, that’s old news. Place is boarded up and everybody’s gone.”

  “Yet, very much alive in your heart. I guess you must’ve just missed the opportunity to cash in, huh? You were in school.”

  “I graduated Valley that summer.”

  “Wow, you’re a Valley High product,” I said. “Putting that diploma through its paces too. The alumni committee is undoubtedly beaming with pride. Maybe you met Sean Pruitt. He’s the guy who fell in that hole before it was closed.”

  “Nah, man. I mean, I heard of him.”

  “Darn it, you’re not much help. Where do I go? Who do I speak with?”

  Several girls came near, chatting and giggling. Very young. One still wore braces.

  “Go on, bitches!” He shooed them. “Bitches, I see you tomorrow!” They moved along with reproachful expressions. “Yeah, I got a couple of names. I don’t know what they know. Feel me? I don’t vouch for shit. Ask them whatever you want.”

  He gave up a couple of individuals higher up the food chain.

  “Thanks, homie. Another thing.” I described the group of “teens” in their archaic uniforms.

  “Where did you see them? Up to the field? Nobody ever sees them.”

  “Vulture Bluff?” I said.

  “Vulture Bluff. That’s where they go when they . . .” He cast unhappy glances over both shoulders.

  “Who are they?”

  He became squirmier, as if he’d forgotten I could add more lumps to his noggin at my leisure.

  “One dude used to be a cop or something. Another ran a construction company. The spooky cheerleader bitches had family money or fat-cat husbands. Did dominatrix shit on the down low. Freaky as fuck.”

  “You’re yanking my chain,” I said.

  “This is what people say. I bet you won’t never see them again. Nah, bro. They’re ghosts, urban legends, whatever.”

  “Yeah? And?”

  “And what? Man, this is bullshit—”

  I made a fist around the brass knuckles.

  “They belong to . . .” He massaged his head, frowning as he searched for the word. “A club? No! A fraternity. Fuckin’ fraternity. Called the Mares.”

  “The Mares?”

  “I didn’t pick the name, homes.”

  “Who gets in?”

  “The beautiful people. People of means. It’s exclusive.”

  “Not you?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Sell them dope?”

  “Freaks got their own supply. Got their own kicks.” By “kicks” he meant perversions. “Hang meat in the woods; bury mason jars of cow’s blood. Won’t eat the meat until it falls on the ground. Drink the blood curdled by the dark of the moon. Heard it’s called greening. The rotten-meat trip. Greening.”

  “Sounds a bit out there,” I said.

  “They’re into Indian shit. Dancing naked in the woods. Performing rituals. Heap bad medicine.” He laughed nervously at his own joke.

  “Except it’s not native, is it? Bunch of soft white folks playing games. Fake voodoo. Fake satanism. These parts, it’s fake shamanism, huh?”

  Superfly was antsier by the second.

  “We through here?”

  “We through,” I said.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The bowling alley’s crimson and royal-yellow marquee had fallen to pieces. OWLING AL Y remained. Good enough. Distinct 1980s vibe and odor. Brick walls that partially absorbed every lackadaisical paint job. Rippled, uneven floors; tiles worn and chipped. Carpet, where it hadn’t come untacked, was stained with continental maps of alternate realities. Flat, diffuse lighting. I’m not any great shakes at bowling, although, like most Americans, I’ve whiled away a few hours down at the lane. In my teen years, it was expressly to hang with the posse and maybe meet girls. Latter days, such as today, found me there because it was the destination of choice for low-rent criminals.

  This represented a potentially beautiful shortcut for my intelligence-gathering mission. Mini-kingpins who operate legitimate fronts, such as motels, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, and bowling alleys, not only swim with the denizens of the underworld, they rub shoulders with everybody else.

  Two fogies in baggy shirts and sweats were rolling the rock to mellow pop hits of yesteryear. Neither appeared overly happy to be alive and bowling on a winter’s afternoon. Well past lunch, the young guy at the counter said the grill was closed. No dogs, no pretzels, no nachos, nothing. He could pull me a soda, if I wanted. I said I was there to see the Boss Man. The kid said the Boss Man wasn’t available as I walked toward a door with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign.

  “Sir, you can’t go back there!” He wrung his bony hands. He couldn’t have foreseen how lingering in Horseheads after graduation might present such quandaries.

  “I do as I please and I do it all the time.”

  * * *

  ■■■

  On the other side of the door lay a corridor, a tiny bathroom, a closet, a supply room, and a windowless office. Boss Man stoically observed my arrival from behind a surprisingly neat metal desk. A balding fellow in a red and yellow BOWLING ALLEY T-shirt and the weight of the world on his shoulders. To his right was a much older man. Flabby, suspenders, nose buried in the local paper. He didn’t get excited when I appeared.

  I plopped into an uncomfortable swivel chair. Boss Man waited bemusedly as I studied the plethora of bowling trophies, bowling plaques, and posters and photographs chockablock full of bowlers and bowling teams. There were a disquieting number of “businessman of the year” and “our school loves this guy” certificates littering the walls.

  “Hi,” I said when I finished. “Is this really called the Bowling Alley?”

  “Sure is. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I’d hope you can guess my name.”

  That elicited a pained smile.

  “Mick Jagger’s bag man? A hazard to my health and well-being, is who. Buffalo used to send guys like you to collect.”

  “You’re as close to a capo as this burg has,” I said. “Makes you the man I need to chew the fat with.”

  “Woo.”

  “I dig those arcade machines on the main floor. Galaga. Galaxian. Joust. Ms. Pac-Man. Space Invaders. Golden oldies. If I had a nickel for every quarter I lost . . .”

  He flipped the top on a box of mints and put one into his mouth. He glanced over at Tubby and clacked the lid shut, hard. Tubby folded his paper. He rose with some effort and waddled away.

  Boss Man returned his attention to me.

  “We got a few more. Those are the popular games. Girls like the claw cranes with the toy prizes. Guys like to pow-pow-pow.” He made finger guns.

  “Anybody else in town have machines?”

  “Quickstop over on Tenth has an Asteroids clone.”

  “The mall?”

  “Video game parlor’s gone. Most of the mall is gone. The theater in there has a couple shit games. I’ve been here twenty-three years. Got an industry connection. Be a gravy little sideline, but the home console racket is a pain in the ass.�
��

  “Basically, this is it if you want to come plug a few quarters into a game and chill.” I laced my fingers together behind my head. “Between here and your boy staking out the high school, you’ve got a monopoly on the teenage dime-bag market.”

  “My boy? Ah, that punk’s mouth is so big I’m surprised he doesn’t fall in.”

  “Isn’t it the truth? My day, you didn’t talk until they chopped the third finger.”

  Boss Man gave his head a small, warning jerk. I swiveled and saw the counter kid sneaking up with a steel mallet in his hand.

  “Jeff, it’s cool,” Boss Man said.

  The kid stopped dead. He pivoted and sailed away like a duck in a shooting gallery when it’s dinged. Boss Man rummaged in a drawer. He retrieved a bottle of cheap whiskey and two unsavory shot glasses.

  “Apologies. He’s on parole. Killer Jeff. Can we skip the brutality and take a snort?”

  “Can we?” I said, genuinely curious. He was older, a pillar of the community. He’d have the lay of the land, I hoped.

  Boss Man poured.

  “To old money and young women. But what do I know? I’m a cash conduit and my girlfriend looks like Christopher Lee in the morning.”

  “Here’s a counter-toast: Stop carrying whiskey glasses with your fingers on the inside, you fucking heathen!”

  We drank.

  “I’ll sing you a tune,” he said. “Hell with protocol. I’m not even interested in having the first finger chopped.”

  “We’ll see. Sean Pruitt.”

  “The security guard who offed himself at the collider site. Don’t know anything about that.”

  “Yes, but did you know Sean?”

  “He came in here. All the kids do, though.” A cagey light shone in his eyes. “That why you’re in town? Sean P’s suicide?”

  “We positive it was suicide?”

  Boss Man spread his hands and did an Alfred E. Neuman shrug.

  “Told you; I don’t know shit from Shinola about that.”

  “He a customer?” I pantomimed smoking.

  “Uh-uh. Not directly. His friends were and he got it from them. He came in here to bowl, grab a burger. The regular stuff. Sweet kid, to tell the truth. I’m sorry he fell into the pit, or whatever.”

  “Indeed, whatever. Got a theory?”

  “I don’t have an opinion.” He noted the threatening shift in my posture. “Easy, easy. I know what it says on the tin—he jumped and took a nosedive. Everybody got paid. Everybody’s happy. There’s always rumors to the contrary. Conspiracy theories, right? He was suicidal. He saw something he shouldn’t have; he was fucking the wrong gal—”

  “Or she was fucking the wrong guy and they iced hubby for the insurance money.”

  “Yeah, I heard that one too. Who wouldn’t contemplate snagging a cool million by hook or by crook? Then there’s the plain vanilla theory—industrial accidents happen. He tripped over his shoelaces. The end.”

  “What’s your favorite?”

  “I tend to believe what’s in front of me and doesn’t cause headaches. Cops say he tossed himself over.”

  “Ever meet the wife? Linda?”

  “Nope.”

  “The Jeffers Project,” I said, ticking off my list.

  “The Redlick Boondoggle. Money was sweet until it dried up. What’d the town get? Clear-cut land and a bunch of rusting shacks. Yeah, and a big ol’ hole.”

  “You have customers on-site when the project was going great guns? A few? A lot? Any of them harbor interesting opinions on the Pruitt matter?”

  “Course I had customers,” he said. “Goddamned boomtown. Made a shitload of dollars. Man you want to speak with is Lenny Herzog. Batty old guy was in charge of general maintenance at the Jeffers Colony. Herzog is the caretaker. He lives in the hills west of here, past Morrow Village and Buck Springs. Every fella out there has a gun and a dog. Not a man jack of them will like the cut of your jib.”

  “Let’s discuss the Redlicks—”

  “Gonna stop you there, chief. Redlicks pay the freight in Horseheads.”

  “The Redlick Group, then.”

  “Redlick family, Redlick Group. Difference without a distinction.”

  As casually as I could, I mentioned the Mares and observed his expression. Less thrilling or revealing than I’d hoped. More surprised than anything else.

  “Wowsers. How’d you hear about the Mares of Thrace?”

  “Ah, that’s the whole title. I saw them on Vulture Bluff.”

  “People born here go their whole lives and not catch hide or hair of those ones. Don’t like to be seen. You spot them in costume, it’s what they wanted.”

  “So, give me the lowdown.”

  “Goofy fuckers.”

  “Obviously. Any of them frequent your fine establishment?”

  He hesitated, weighing his words.

  “Three or four years ago, a man and a woman in those throwback costumes they wear came in off the street and wandered around. Five minutes before closing. Place was empty except for me and the janitor. The couple didn’t say boo. Just grinned and walked to the trash and dug in there for the spoiled hamburger patties. They chowed down on the way out the door. I recognized the guy from around. He thanked me for the ‘provender’ and laughed.”

  “Huh, some of the rumors are true,” I said. Superfly had mentioned the “kids” had a penchant for rotten meat and worse. “This is the village temple. What do the peasants make of these folks?”

  “You got your Civil War reenactors and dorks who wear chainmail for medieval fairs. The Mares relive their high school glory years while speaking in tongues and sacrificing animals and getting bombed out of their gourds. Religious insanity.”

  “Greek mythology,” I said. “Hercules stole the Mares of King Diomedes as one of his Twelve Labors. Matter of fact, Alexander the Great claimed his horse, Bucephalus, descended from those mares. Probably a goddamned lie, but it sounded bitchin’.”

  Boss Man gave me a blank look. Classical history wasn’t his bag.

  “Are members of the society all Valley High grads?” I said.

  “Who knows? Not me. Once in a blue moon some tourist asks how to contact them. Gonna be honest. That’s fucking unsettling.”

  He and I were in agreement on that count.

  “Admittedly, I don’t have much experience in this area. I’ve watched a ton of Italian giallo and devil movies from the seventies. This kind of shit is never good.” I opened a notebook and clicked my pen. “Hit me.”

  “Listen, chief, this would only be hearsay. It’s not like they got a public roster.”

  “Do your best. I’m easy.”

  He named names.

  “Tom Mandibole?” I underlined the name and glanced up from the notebook. “The Tom Mandibole?”

  “He works for the Redlick Group. He is a Redlick, as a point of order.”

  “The company mouthpiece? Snappy dresser, grins maniacally?”

  “The very one. Rides around in a midnight-black Bentley. Before he went to work for the RG, he did theater and television. Comedy clubs. I saw a video of his comedy act. Wasn’t funny.” Boss Man lowered his voice in reverence. “He did a ventriloquism routine with a dummy on each knee. Camera pans in tight, and he’s slathered on makeup and prosthetics so he’s a dummy too. Fucking life-size.”

  “Back up. He’s a member of this society? Mr. Personality?”

  “The main man. Tom’s busy globetrotting for the RG. Redlicks raised him, although he was in boarding school mainly. Gerald Redlick’s dad fostered him as an orphan. No secret there, or anything.” He hesitated. “Tom is pleasant. I mean, yeah, pleasant, but weird.”

  “You think?” I said, picturing Mandibole in pancake makeup and a tight letter jacket. Brrr. “This crowd is somewhere to the right of weird.”

&n
bsp; “Each to his own. Not mine to judge.”

  I estimated this interview to have reached the juncture of diminishing returns.

  “You’re going to rat me out to Mandibole, or whomever, thirty seconds after I leave, aren’t you?” It was a rhetorical question. The powers-that-be wouldn’t be powers-that-be if a goon could indefinitely schlep around their territory causing a ruckus and not attract attention.

  “Dude, I’m making that call before you make it down the hall.”

  “Be that way. While you’re at it, tell whom it may concern I’d like a sit-down.”

  Boss Man raised his brows.

  “Really?”

  I placed my hand over my heart.

  “It’s my fondest wish.”

  “I’ll pass it along.”

  I thanked him for not making me shut his hand in a desk drawer and left.

  * * *

  ■■■

  Tubby had replaced Jeff at the counter. He lowered his paper.

  “Hope you got what you wanted.”

  I laid down a five-dollar bill.

  “Every little bit helps. Quarters, please.”

  “Push and push until you hit a brick wall.” He made a small pile of change instead of bothering to stack it. “The brick wall falls on you.” He clapped once and made a brush-off motion, like Pontius Pilate’s second move.

  “Doesn’t sound very pleasant.”

  He raised the paper.

  “We’ll cover the hole and go about our lives. Always do.”

  I walked over to the Galaga machine and sacrificed fifty cents into the slot. The screen dissolved from the credits to its game face. Be cool to say that the teen reflexes were there to pair with the thrill of nostalgia. Wishful thinking. Those two quarters were burnt in under a minute. Clink-clank went another pair down the chute and into Boss Man’s pocket. I died and I died. Oh, but to be a kid again. That’s the advantage of adulthood, though. I no longer possessed the skill, or the extra lives, but I had lots of quarters.