Black Mountain

by Laird Barron

  Whatever else is true of a man, if he makes an offer, he’s usually in a bind. This bolstered my morale.

  “Who does my life belong to?” I listened to him breathe. “Scared, Nic? You sound scared. Oestryke possessed a license to murder, courtesy of the rich and powerful. That day is over, pal. The Family will hunt you until the stars burn to ash. You pop up anywhere on the planet and a little egg timer starts ticking. The mob doesn’t find your sorry ass, I will. No one like me has ever come after you before.”

  “Phony heart of gold,” he said. “Hypocrite. Pretend rescuer of lost lambs. You want to be a guard dog, but you’ve bitten too many of the wrong people. Slink away.”

  “I can’t.”

  His reply wasn’t what I expected.

  “Good.”

  “Good?”

  “Mexico City was named Tenochtitlán in the golden days,” he said. “The city squatted in the middle of a lake. The Conquistadors came along and jacked the Aztecs’ shit.” He swallowed audibly. When he resumed, his voice had subtly altered. It traveled a great distance, perhaps through time.

  “Today, the city is modern on the surface; a Third World labyrinth of steel and glass and neon. Millions of people tramp about their daily routine, and the underworld yawns all around and beneath their feet. Municipal laborers dig up ziggurats in back alleys and a piece of the greater universe is revealed. Cartel armies slaughter citizens and police en masse. Soldiers take the heads of the sacrifices. Mexico City opens into the underworld, but the underworld is everywhere and has many openings for a man to fall into. The old death gods still require blood. You understand about the death gods, don’t you, Isaiah?”

  I understood, all right.

  “Do you remember the night we took a drive in the country?”

  “Yes,” I said. “A lovely drive on a lovely evening. I remember your fear. It occurred to me to shoot you then. That’s on me.”

  “Who do you suppose you were with that night?”

  “I was with you, Nic.”

  “Were you with me? Were you?”

  “I distinctly recall screwing my revolver into your ear.”

  “Nic Royal existed briefly and now he doesn’t. I have one of those faces.”

  The connection clicked off.

  * * *

  —

  I FIGURED CURTIS was awake and burning the midnight oil. Unlike solitary me, my Mafia captain associate would’ve surrounded himself with foot soldiers and machine guns.

  I knocked back another shot to fortify myself and then hit the speed dial. I informed him that his men were goners. Also, my lingering doubts had evaporated: Nic Royal was the odds-on favorite as the new Croatoan. The question of who Royal was before he became Royal seemed a topic safely ignored for another time and place.

  Curtis implied, in his laconic fashion, that a minor manhunt would ensue. I shouldn’t concern myself with Meg and Devlin or my hosts, the Walkers; his crew would patrol the places where Royal could be expected to make a move.

  What would he say to his henchmen? Would he reveal the truth or continue to keep a lid on? Had events begun to slip from his control? Mafia thugs don’t typically ask penetrating questions of their captains; he might yet right the ship without alerting the bigwigs.

  “Curtis,” I said toward the end.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “You’re absolutely, positively sure you killed Oestryke?”

  “What, you want I should drive out to the Pine Barrens with a pick and a shovel and dig up the bones? Would that make you happy?”

  “It’s not the worst idea.”

  “Coleridge? Kiss my ass.”

  We said our good nights. I doubt he slept much either.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Gene K routinely exhorted me that so long as I worked as a hitter, I’d be well advised to keep a passport and a wad of bills stashed for an emergency exit. Thanks to his nagging, I’d heeded the advice since before I could grow a full beard. Lately, in my dreams, he uttered the mantra like a broken record.

  You can’t fall in love. Love is a major fucking no-no. You say your dog died? Good! One less attachment. You have to be able to cut ties and disappear. If you love something, your enemies will destroy it to reach you. Harden your heart.

  But I’m out! Such was my protest.

  Sometimes, Gene K evaporated and Dad took up the gauntlet: Are you, son? Are you out? You’re a fool. Awake or dreaming, when the bastard is right, he’s right.

  * * *

  —

  PREVAILING MYTHS notwithstanding, serial killers aren’t usually geniuses. Even the sneakier, smarter alpha specimens are merely animals, and, like animals, are enslaved by their baser instincts. If the sadistic sonsofbitches had impulse control, they wouldn’t act out their miserable fantasies and end their days confined to a concrete pen or riding Old Sparky into the sunset. I wasn’t on the trail of a mastermind; I wasn’t on the trail of a man, but a wolf too clever and too vicious for its own good. A wolf, in its native environment, possesses nascent advantages.

  Yet for all this, its chief disadvantage lies in the fact that it is a wolf. Nonetheless, recognizing the nature and limitations of one’s quarry isn’t tantamount to dismissing the perils involved. Lacking support, intelligence, or appropriate infrastructure, a hunter can find himself overmatched.

  Into every life some rain must fall. In my life, rain is a metaphor for men with guns or knives intent upon perforating my precious hide. Staying in the plus column has boiled down to a simple premise. There are bigger and better killers roaming the earth and I endeavor to behave accordingly.

  None of my physical and psychological attributes have contributed to my continued survival half so much as well-honed pragmatism. There are people who exceed my abilities. Should we ever go head-to-head, I’ll lose. I can think of five or six guys off-the-cuff who qualify. The specifics aren’t important. What’s important is, I’m aware of my vulnerabilities and enact measures to mitigate them.

  I didn’t know whether the Croatoan—or his imitator—was my superior. The Croatoan had slaughtered hundreds of victims, the majority of those being well-armed wiseguys. A king snake preying upon rattlers. I could’ve racked up hits for the rest of my natural span and not made a dent in his body count. That alone hinted at the likely disparity in our talent levels.

  Yeah, on second and third thought, I was relieved Curtis had smoked the guy. Competition doesn’t motivate me. Testing one’s mettle in a life-or-death struggle is a child’s fantasy. Continuing to breathe is all the affirmation I require. To that humble goal, I fervently hoped to acquire information that would help Curtis do unto Royal as well.

  * * *

  —

  SUNDAY DISINTEGRATED in a barrage of phone calls—three to Delia without reply—and internet research. I had to laugh. Lionel and I were in the same boat, hoping for a callback from the inimitable Ms. Labrador.

  In domestic affairs, Chuck Bachelor confirmed all was quiet on the Western Front. Aubrey P remained a bubbling cauldron of fury, and the Trask gang hadn’t ventured from their stomping grounds on the other side of Kingston. I decided to let it ride and continued my preparations for Monday; a whirlwind trip to Rhode Island to visit wildlife photographer Xerxes Vance, apparent favorite of the Croatoan.

  Providence is a three-hour drive from Kingston. I rented a car and applied a lead foot to the pedal, zooming north before dawn.

  The former, excessively rancorous version of myself rattled his chains. Angry, hostile version of Isaiah Coleridge estimated the most efficient method of extricating himself from this debacle would be to locate Nic Royal, blow his head off, and present the corpse to Marion Curtis. That would settle accounts and even scores and life could subside to a semblance of normality.

  Yes, Nic Royal had become my new priority, although he wasn’t in Providence. The man I we
nt to interview wouldn’t know Royal from Adam either. An oblique angle isn’t necessarily more direct than a straight line; in this instance, it might’ve represented the only path.

  Oestryke’s cryptic maps would be helpful if I wished to spend weeks, or months, tramping around the Catskills poking into ruined hotels in search of hidey-holes where Royal might flee now that the heat was well and truly on. I didn’t relish the idea of counting on Curtis nailing Royal before Royal decided to forgo an intimate murder and ended the game with an ambush, a car bomb, or a rifle. My loved ones and associates were also potentially at risk.

  Possibly Vance knew something that would lead me in the right direction, and faster.

  I didn’t spot any Black Dog operatives on my six. Either things were unfolding too quickly for them to organize a surveillance detail or their people were doing a crack job avoiding detection.

  Upon crossing into Providence, I left the car in a parking garage and walked three blocks to the Westminster Arcade. I’d dressed to blend—windbreaker over a heavy T-shirt, dark pants, and a pair of scuffed tennis shoes.

  Cloudless midmorning, less than a week before Halloween; the mall was hopping. I mingled with the throngs, ducked into a bistro on the promenade, and slipped out a service door. I hustled several blocks, zigzagging through alleys, watching over my shoulder for pursuers. On the corner near the historic home where H. P. Lovecraft lived and died in the 1930s, I summoned a cab and directed the driver to ferry me south and east of downtown.

  * * *

  —

  XERXES VANCE GRADUATED FROM Suny New Paltz in 1977 with a degree in English lit. He went on to achieve cult fame due to his wildlife photography, a nascent and untutored skill honed in far-flung locales such as Siberia, Mongolia, the Amazon Basin, and Bangladesh. Ascetic dedication to his craft led to an isolated existence and a reputation as an eccentric hermit. Mainstream success and major awards eluded him; he’d survived on royalties derived from his sequences of wildlife photography and the beneficence of a handful of doting patrons.

  Currently, he resided at a big, decaying apartment complex called Willow Heights. My background sweep unearthed multiple residences over the past decade; he moved frequently, and seldom to anyplace nice. Willow Heights was no exception to his migratory patterns. It loomed over a shabby neighborhood of sparsely occupied shops and cramped houses with pointy roofs. Surrounding lots were hemmed by rusted fences and potholed streets.

  The keypad on the heavy, graffiti-marred entrance was defunct, and I walked right into a stale foyer that might’ve been grandiose between the First and Second wars. A rattletrap elevator emitted a yellow sulfurous light when it disgorged a couple of drunks. I noted the dings in the brass-plated doors, the maroon blotches on the carpet, and how the interior lamp flickered, and said, No thanks.

  I ascended the broad stairs to the fourth floor. A hallway ran east to west, illuminated by a series of recessed lamps. Washed-out-gray carpeting lolled like the tongue of a dead animal. I didn’t see or hear any of the residents, although classical music drifted in from somewhere.

  Vance occupied a corner apartment on the alley-facing side of the building. Nobody answered my knock. After a conservative interval, I used a credit card and the tip of a knife to jimmy the not-up-to-code lock and let myself in. Lackadaisical security, considering the high rate of crime in Providence.

  The loft was a narrow rectangle and brutally austere. I inventoried a cot, couch, bench, and three long tables loaded with arcane parts of equipment, stacks of photography and travel magazines, and not much else. He kept a transistor radio tuned to National Public Radio and had a 1990s Apple computer powered by a car battery. The lone concession to décor was an oversized print of a leopard carrying a limp baboon in its jaws. Had to be the original version of the photograph Swenson described viewing at Oestryke’s home in 1987. It compared perfectly with the chilling photographs I’d seen at Oestryke’s Catskills retreat.

  I settled in to wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Vance returned two hours later. Conveniently alone. Handsome and athletic, for an older man; he sported a buzz cut and was clean-shaven. I saw right through the façade. His grooming was typified by vagrants who’d lucked into a night or two at a good shelter where razors and aftershave are doled out gratis. In fairness, I hadn’t turned up any liquor around the apartment, just the meagerest quantity of grass and three bottles of meds with unpronounceable names. Years of hiking in the wilderness imbued him with a sinewy toughness that disguised his ailment—cancer abetted by malnutrition, if I knew anything about anything. He dressed in a wrinkled T-shirt, khakis, and hiking boots.

  He noticed me standing near a window and froze like a deer. First thing he asked was, had I come to put out his lights. I said no and he relaxed. He boiled a pot of coffee and we had cups, seated at the corner of a worktable.

  As we spoke, more tension drained from his shoulders and he finally smiled the smile of a prisoner who’d won a reprieve from the gallows. Reflexive, certainly. At this proximity, I smelled the taint of decay. The odor on his breath and emitting from his pores reeked of burnt copper. His shiny skin stretched tightly over his bones. He was nearly translucent—I almost expected to see his beating heart and the slosh and churn of his intestines as the shadows of goldfish swam past like his chest was an aquarium. The Big C, for certain.

  Once we’d moved past the preamble, getting-to-know-you segment of the date, I cut to the chase and inquired why Morris Oestryke owned a collection of personally signed Xerxes Vance masterpieces. Did he realize Oestryke was a mass murderer who also was most likely not even actually “Oestryke” but rather the black-sheep scion of a wealthy family by the name of Ephraim Labrador?

  “The man contained multitudes, as the poet once said. He called himself Morris Oestryke and that’s it. I became acquainted with him on a project in the ’70s. We’ve kept in touch since. His idea, not mine, believe me. Yes, I possess an inkling of his proclivities. Morris brags. He can be loquacious, if he takes a shine to you. I turned a blind eye, out of an instinct for self-preservation. But I knew. Here, in the twilight’s last gleaming, I’ll accept that much culpability.”

  His statement gave me pause.

  “The ‘project’ . . . Are you referring to the Anvil Mountain expedition?”

  “We were dispatched to assess the impact of development and recreational activity on a species of bats that lives in that region of the northern Catskills. Ridiculous. Our fearless leaders went through the motions nonetheless on behalf of . . . well, someone.”

  “Zircon Corporation. I’ve heard the name around.”

  “Well, then. As I learned in the fullness of time, our expedition leaders received a hefty cash advance from Zircon operatives and promises of fully funded research projects in years to come. Any inclination to ask questions was mitigated by pure greed. Anyway, our findings were complete fabrications, and, later, a corporate ally within the government rubber-stamped the scam. I initially regarded it as a harmless boondoggle to protect some inconsequential wildlife. Or so I thought until it was too late.”

  “I’ve read the report. You aren’t listed.”

  “My participation was off the books. Two professors organized the trip. Six students—three grads and three undergrads—came along as flunkies. Morris was assigned as a nonstudent by administrative fiat. Someone designated him the official photographer, although he couldn’t tell one end of a camera from the other. The younger professor and I were friendly off campus. I was his weed-and-pills connection. And—key point—I was handy with a camera.

  “He paid me under the table to tag along and supply dope and backup photographic documentation. The head man didn’t care—one more peasant to schlep baggage was agreeable to him. I may as well have been a ghost, as far as the official account is concerned. The devil protects children and fools. I’d be dead too if they’d handed me an application an
d a tax form.”

  “Oestryke was a plant,” I said. “By Zircon, right? For what purpose?”

  “Dust off the records, you’ll see Anvil Mountain has existed as a forestry stewardship since the Reconstruction era. Some folks—natives and European settlers—referred to it as the Black Mountain because its caves are haunted by the spirits of tribes who were around prior to the known indigenous cultures. The first official stewards were a committee of fabulously wealthy pricks—railroad barons and tycoons who amused themselves as hunters and naturalists. Men who manipulated State and Federal government by proxy; Zircon and its subsidiaries being the latest in the long, long procession. The Labradors sat at the head of the table then, and they sit there today.”

  His comments matched my own research, although I maintained a poker face.

  “Big bad companies usually want to clear-cut and strip-mine natural resources, not preserve their scenic wonders,” I said.

  “That’s how scams work. Sleight of hand and misdirection, my friend. There’s an unsurveyed cavern complex inside Anvil Mountain; main entrance is on the eastern slopes. Our expedition stumbled across it in the process of tracking and recording a huge colony of bats. Yes, the scientists did put in a bit of work. Had to make it appear legitimate, you see. We camped at the base of the mountain for a week. The professors, two of the grad students, and Morris descended each day. It was dangerous, stupid, and unauthorized. We’d received clear instructions from on high to not venture within a mile of the actual foothills. For once, though, our team leaders were genuinely enthused.”

  “Zircon was aware of the caves. Gold vein?”

  “Gold isn’t a bad guess. They’re protecting something else, likely a hominid graveyard. It may be similar to Sima de los Huesos in the mountains in Spain. The Pit of Bones. The important thing they’re hiding is an anomalous substance; a fungus with potent medicinal properties. My money is on the fungus as the proprietary motive to close the area off and conceal any evidence of the hominid fossils. Should the world at large get wind of a historical archaeological site, Zircon would lose their drug mill in a hurry.”