Black Mountain

by Laird Barron

  Arguably, it was hypocritical to harshly judge insurance salesmen, middle-management office drones, machinists, off-duty soldiers, and small-business owners playing Daniel Boone for the weekend. Had I too not come to hunt? They were merely men—I was a wolf. It takes one to hunt one. Wolves were my spirit guides of the moment. Lone wolf, specifically. Yes, lone-wolf behavior was the key.

  The bar slotted against the wall; a shiny oak countertop and stools designed to approximate hewn stumps. Slim pickings in regard to the variety of liquor in stock, although it featured an acceptable selection of bourbon.

  The man behind the counter had twenty-five pounds on me, and about as many years. His uniform was a blue wool shirt and corduroy pants. He poured me a tall glass of Booker’s. His knobby hands bespoke a lifetime of setting chokers and swinging an ax. I asked if he’d happened to lop a few heads in his day, because every well-preserved senior tripped my radar, so why not inquire? The bartender scowled as he turned his back on me. Too burly, too tall, to match Oestryke’s profile.

  The Croatoan would be average height and not so broad of shoulder. I chided myself—as if we’d bump into each other by random chance in the Catskills.

  A pine post bracketed the terminus of the bar. Maps and postcards decorated the post. Visitors had carved their initials and dates into the stained wood. I scrutinized a framed map of the immediate region—West Kill Mountain and the Devil’s Path caught my eye. I made a note.

  Presently, Lionel and Delia appeared. Smug, flushed, and hastily put-together. Still holding hands with the covetous fierceness of new lovers. They fetched me to join them for supper, and this time around I steeled myself and made it past Fenris, or the long-lost head of Cerberus, or whatever mythological monster guarded the entrance to the dining hall.

  The meal was fine. I demolished a T-bone steak, bloody. My companions ordered salmon and picked at it while swapping moony glances. Once Lionel recovered from whatever ordeal he’d endured in the bungalow, he resumed hitting the booze. That loosened him up. My friend became jocular after three or four rounds, and, counting whatever he’d downed in the car, he was well past that stage.

  He soon explained, in a booming voice, why his last relationship had deteriorated despite a promising start.

  “It fell apart after she got a tattoo of her geriatric cat,” he said. “The cat was okay; kind a decrepit, and had that funky smell ancient, half-dead cats get. He was practically ossified. Deaf, half-blind, toothless. Nice kitty anyhow. The chick’s losing her mind over the cat’s imminent demise and, wham, she does some ink to commemorate his life or some such shit. I mentioned that it distracted me when we were, uh, you know. She took offense. Majorly.”

  “Very insensitive, Sergeant Robard,” Delia said. “Clearly, the woman was distraught. You couldn’t overlook a little tattoo? Tolerate pussy for the sake of pussy?”

  “I tried, man. Truly I did. The tat was enormous and lifelike. Goddamned Michelangelo didn’t put any finer detail work into the Sistine Chapel. The ink covered her whole back like a yakuza body sleeve. She’s up to a thousand career hits, easy.” He shuddered. “I’m getting my freak on and trying not to make eye contact with Chairman Meow. Mission failed.”

  “Horribly traumatic, I’m sure.” Delia stroked his shoulder and tilted her head to regard me. “You’re remarkably quiet. Feeling neglected?” Before I could answer, she said in a confidential tone, “I am absolutely dying to know two things, Mr. Coleridge. How did you become a ‘hitter’? And, what’s your high score?”

  Asking a professional how many people he’s dusted is discourteous. On par with asking him to tell you the worst thing he’s ever done. Contract killers have feelings. Fewer than most, but feelings nonetheless.

  I smiled and imagined fitting her for concrete shoes.

  “Men should do what they are designed to do. Dharma.”

  “A lion should be a lion, not a zebra,” she said. “Such a cute way of justifying execrable behavior.”

  “There the first immortal spirits were at the beginning of time, sitting around in the golden haze, choosing their roles for the next few eons. I wanna be a god! I’ll be a demiurge! A fox! An elephant! A sequoia! A shit-lobbing chimpanzee! A man! Et cetera. The ancestors of these individuals followed in the tracks of divinely inspired provenance.”

  “Quaint,” she said. “I don’t get it.”

  “I gotta see a man about a horse.” Lionel understood, but elected to avoid conflict. He heaved to his feet and walked unsteadily toward the men’s room.

  “Got to go powder my nose,” I said to Delia and left her alone at the edge of the wilderness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lionel and I ventured behind the lodge and stood on the lawn where it began its slope toward the water. A lamp shone an eerie greenish glow over the dock. A couple of skiffs, an outboard motorboat, and a canoe bobbed in the murk.

  “We may have been tailed,” I said.

  “You spot someone?”

  “I would’ve given you the high sign. It’s a feeling.”

  “Black Dog?”

  “They’ll be along presently. Different feeling.”

  He lit a cigarette.

  “Has it occurred to you that solving this case isn’t in your best interest? Finding the Croatoan might be unhealthy. Digging around in the mob basement . . . what if you turn something up everybody wishes you hadn’t?”

  “We’ll all have a good laugh?”

  The stars glittered with menace over the black slope of the mountains. I couldn’t make out the Death Heads like Gene might’ve. An ill wind whipped the lake and caused me to shield my eyes against a sudden sting of twigs and dust. Gone in an instant. The chill remained.

  “About Delia,” I said.

  “We’re going to try tantric sex!” He licked his thumb and stroked his eyebrows. His movements were exaggerated and he almost missed his face.

  “Nic Royal might give you some pointers in that department,” I said.

  “I’ll try to handle it on my own.”

  “Keep your wits, amigo. I agreed to let her tag along on this trip—”

  “Because she knows where the cabin is and we don’t?”

  I considered informing him that my research painted an increasingly strange picture of the Labrador family’s peripheral involvement with the death of Harold Lee. Zircon Corporation had controlled Valero Technologies back in Deering, Michigan; equally curious, Zircon essentially owned, through a chain of subsidiaries, the Albany refrigeration company—Rowden Refrigeration—where Morris Oestryke worked during the 1980s.

  Further, there was a privately funded expedition to Anvil Mountain in 1976, which resulted in a prime chunk of land getting designated a bat preserve. The preserve was administered by a nonprofit foundation related to Zircon Corporation and sanctioned by the Federal government. None other than Morris Oestryke had accompanied the original research expedition. This particular detail escaped the almighty redacting brush of the DoD by virtue of a typographical error. A clerk had inadvertently altered Oestryke to read “Ostrike.”

  I loved and hated it simultaneously. Progress was welcome. The bore of a rich family’s cannon orienting on my person, less so. Why do the bad guys usually possess an abundance of power and wealth? I suppose the question answers itself.

  The signs indicated that this investigation was approaching critical mass. My blood weighed heavily in my chest, and a clean, pale light burned through the clouds. How many of my collected facts amounted to mere coincidence? Coincidence happens and it doesn’t necessarily portend weal or woe. That’s my stance on the phenomenon. Contrariwise, Gene K had insisted that coincidence was a cowardly skeptic’s word for fate.

  Gene’s cynicism felt undeniably apropos right then.

  The cherry on top? Zircon also owned interest in a certain mercenary company that Lionel hated from personal experience.
Black Dog operated in war-torn regions around the globe, skirting international law and human rights protocols with the adroitness of spy-thriller villains. The two bodyguards assigned to Delia were Black Dog agents, sent from the company’s personal Security Solutions division. Lionel had done a brief tour with Black Dog and gotten a bitter taste of their extrajudicial routine. He departed under a cloud.

  Weighing the history of bad blood between him and the organization, I estimated my friend was too drunk and too emotionally unstable to trust with that kind of news.

  I opted to ruin his tomorrow instead of his tonight.

  “She may have lied when I put Oestryke’s photos in front of her. Said she didn’t recognize him. Seemed nervous.”

  “Isaiah, you’re suspicious of everyone—always. You might intimidate her. That mug of yours would make a grizzly nervous.”

  “Delia isn’t afraid of men. Good, bad, or ugly.”

  “Are you supposed to be bad or ugly?”

  “Men are her playthings. She’s—how do I say this without giving offense?—the living embodiment of evil.”

  “A femme fatale? That’s the phrase you were going for.”

  “A femme fatale. I fear you’re in trouble.”

  “Sign me the hell up for a recurring subscription.”

  “Delia’s the kind of woman who moons around with a shiner and, next thing you know, you’re digging a hole for her husband. She’s the kind who shoots you and smokes a cigarette after.”

  “You’re projecting,” he said.

  “Do tell.”

  “How do I say this without giving offense? Your description fits Meg to a T. Miss Library has a hard-case-gone-straight wrapped around her finger. Tell me true—has your unsavory past gone from a curse to a blessing? Has she joked about hiring you to off the estranged hubby yet? Has she cried over the mounting bills, unpaid child support, and his wicked ways in general?”

  I doubt he noticed I’d walked away until he turned and called for me. The slamming door muffled his voice.

  * * *

  —

  MY ROOM SMELLED STRANGE. I didn’t notice the odor until I’d stripped and rolled back the bedcovers. It lingered in my nostrils and clung to the roof of my mouth—a cloying whiff of decay, ripe as a hunk of green meat. I searched the room for dead mice or discarded material missed by the housekeeping sweep. By the time I’d finished, the odor had dissipated.

  Another night, another dream. Gene stood at the foot of the bed, his face hidden in the shadows. My muscles were paralyzed and I couldn’t open my mouth to call his name. His eyes were red pinpricks that brightened.

  I loved it. Big-game hunting, except instead of hapless beasts, I’m filtering the dregs of humanity. You wondered if I liked my job subtracting assholes from the populace? I whistled on my way to the office. His voice was different, flatter, metallic.

  Then I awakened. In daylight, nothing is ever as ominous as it seems in the dark. The dream latched onto me, though, and I reflected upon Gene and what he’d make of my case.

  As my apprenticeship wound down that one winter in Alaska, he’d pinched my ear and sat me down for a tête-à-tête. He disliked my attitude and where it might lead. He professed a reluctant fondness for my health and general welfare.

  He conducted a minor intervention.

  Bellicose youth that I was, I seriously contemplated reaching for the knife at my belt. Gene K had whacked more people than I’d shaken hands with, so I reconsidered any impulsive movement and endured his rough manners. He was loaded, although coherent. His features were hard and dead as a totem, except for the deadly glint in his eyes.

  He sipped from a bottle of single-malt and said unto me:

  Isaiah, evil is a real force. Now, we don’t get a free pass to commit our devilry—evil is an influence, a shadow that man gives form through supplication, veneration, and deeds. It’s a partnership between the impermanent and the immortal.

  Over the succeeding years, I’ve cut back on drinking and drugging. Gene’s words still percolate. “Hoodoo nonsense,” my dad would say. Nonsense? Anything that breaks off like an arrowhead and rattles around inside your brain . . . Well, skepticism hath its limits.

  Long after the witching hour, I’ve lain awake, hand over my heart, measuring the intervals between beats, wondering how much blackness has oozed into the hollow spaces where a large portion of my conscience and morality should theoretically reside.

  I testify that despite ongoing renovations, it’s dark in there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Breakfast proved interesting.

  Lionel slouched, messy, stubbly, and unwashed, his presumably bloodshot eyes obscured behind amber-tinted aviator glasses. By contrast, Delia smirked and preened, fresh as Muhammad Ali and ready for the middle rounds. She missed no opportunity to ruffle his unkempt hair or touch his arm or hand with the familiarity of a longtime paramour.

  I bemusedly drank coffee and watched the lovebirds interact. I couldn’t recall many instances when I’d witnessed my comrade share breakfast with another human being this early in the morning. In the wake of his increasingly epic debaucheries, he preferred solitude until the agony subsided. The whiteness of his lips and clenched fists told me he wasn’t ready for domestic bliss and might not be built for it in the first place.

  Jekyll and Hyde, the Black Dog security detail Delia had left in the dust, walked in and threw a literal shadow over the already tense proceedings. Their customarily grim expressions were extra-sour. I fantasized they’d received a royal ass-chewing for allowing the heiress to give them the slip.

  “Hello, boys.” Delia briefly raised her hands with a droll smile. “You’ve found me.”

  These were attack dogs disguised by snappy clothes. Murder glinted in their eyes. I scooted my chair backward in order to free myself from the table if it became necessary to move with alacrity. I draped a cloth napkin over a steak knife and held it against my thigh.

  Lionel gave me an exaggerated look of amazement.

  “You’re a goddamned prophet.”

  My well-honed paranoia had predicted the result. It didn’t tell me how the duo accomplished the feat. I ticked the possibilities. Had they tailed us? Was Lionel’s car bugged? Had a nefarious type slipped a tracking device into Delia’s purse? Could it be that Mr. Jonathan Labrador ran a credit card check and pinged Delia’s reservation? With Black Dog at one’s disposal, extrajudicial remedies were on the menu. Or, someone tipped them to our location; perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not.

  That’s the solution the cynical half of my brain lent the most credence. I flashed back to Delia texting her father as we departed Kingston. Oh, yes, we were well into the game. The “fun” lay in apprehending its objective.

  Another question nagged me—had anyone else sneaked into West Kill on our back trail?

  The bodyguards escorted Delia to the veranda, where an animated discussion ensued. I crunched a piece of toast and studied Lionel. He removed a cigarette from its pack, frowned, and stuck it back into the pack and shoved the pack into his shirt pocket.

  “Today is going to suck with passion,” he said in a rusty voice. “I’m calling it right here, right now.”

  We weren’t going to touch last night’s argument with a ten-foot pole. Fine by me if it remained buried forever.

  “Those dudes wear nice suits,” I said. “Their ensembles exude authority. Handsome, but rugged. Ready for a tussle in the dirt and confident they’ll look great. Slicker than that trash the Feds buy at fire sales, more utilitarian than mobster-wear.”

  “Sweet Jesus, why?”

  “Psychology plays an important role. From the Nero haircuts to their snazzy wingtips, it’s a uniform designed to address a spectrum of goals. Chiefly, intimidation.”

  “Allow me to repeat—why are you doing this? Someone, possibly a power slugger for the Mets, is pound
ing on my dome.”

  “You do realize those two lunks are Black Dog muscle?” I’d sat on the news for several days. No better time to break it to him than when he was in the throes of a skull-busting hangover. No funnier time.

  His response defied my expectations of a China Syndrome meltdown.

  “Old news. I sussed that out at the burlesque show.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Give me an ounce of credit, would you? I served with jokers like these two. Smell ’em from half a klick. Fuck ’em. I’m too tired; you fuck ’em.”

  “That’s another thing,” I said. “They smell great. Their aftershave is subtle and masculine. It makes getting put in a headlock almost worth the pain. It’s impressive they maintain that professional aura since they must get worn to the bone traipsing after your girlfriend day and night.”

  “You’re a terrible influence. Thanks to you, she refers to her nightshift detail as Humpty and Dumpty. I got a glimpse of those jokers. She’s not lying. Black Dog standards of physical fitness aren’t entirely uniform, to put not too fine a point on it.”

  “So, there is another item. I was going to suggest Black Dog unionize for improved working conditions.”

  “And the short haircuts you admire? Jekyll and Hyde are getting thin up top. Look how the morning sun reflects off their domes.”

  “I’ll concede, a close haircut is the last refuge of the balding man. Want to know what bothers me most about Black Dog?”