by Jason Miller
I stood up and we went in. Wince’s office was occupied. Too occupied. Lindley was there, and another guy, a bony thing with a face like a death mask. The serious character who’d made such an impression on Carol Ray. Ammons at last. Lindley was sitting. Ammons was pacing. When Wince led me in Ammons trained a pair of eyes on me might have been pulled from a taxidermied beast, cold, hard, and lifeless. Also, faintly yellow. I liked him immediately and wanted to make friends.
“Slim, you remember Sheriff Lindley?” Wince said.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“And this is Senior Agent Ammons of the Illinois State Police MCU.”
“Movimento dei Comunisti Unitari?”
Ammons looked confused.
“I beg your pardon?”
Wince put his head in his palm.
He said, “Oh, holy Jesus.”
It was going to be a long meeting.
IT WAS, TOO. LONG AND BAD.
“You’re pulling it.” Me.
“I wish I were.” Wince.
“The goddamn FBI?” Me again. “Here in SOIL?”
“Yes.” Ammons. “The FBI.”
“No. I’m sorry,” I said. “In this case, it’s got to be the goddamn FBI.”
“Slim . . .” Wince. Of course.
I ignored him.
“Why?”
“Interstate violation of some kind,” Ammons said. “But they’re keeping mum about the specifics. Usually, they at least tell us what it’s all about, but this time they’re keeping it to themselves, which means it’s big. Maybe nightly news big. Meanwhile, they’re working on scotching our case against the Cleaveses and Harvels.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. I rose to go. “Well, I wish all y’all the best of luck with that. I really do.”
“Slim . . .” Wince again.
Ammons pressed on. “We believe that the Cleaveses are up to their red necks in a criminal conspiracy involving the White Dragons, weapons, drugs, you name it. And we’re close. We’re very close to bringing them in. We even think we have a shot at bringing them in before the Feds do.”
“But if it’s their investigation . . .”
“We can’t really know it’s their investigation unless they tell us it’s their investigation.”
“And since they won’t talk to y’all . . .”
Ammons tried not to smile, but he didn’t get very far with the project.
“That’s it.”
“So basically this is all about spite.”
Ammons’s smile went away fast.
“Call it what you want.”
“Cool. How about spite?”
Lindley jumped in before Ammons could eat his own face. “There’s just one leak in the dike.”
“Not much suspense here.”
Ammons had calmed down enough to make his neck work. “If the Feds get to you—and trust me, they’re going to get to you—they’ll argue that you’ve tainted our entire operation.” He paused a moment to glare at Wince. “And they wouldn’t be too far off, either.”
I said, “I’m not sure this is my problem.”
“It is if we make it your problem.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “So what’s the plan?”
Wince cleared his throat.
“Well, we were kinda . . . uh . . . we were kinda thinking about locking you up for a while.”
I took the phone out of my pocket.
“I’m calling my lawyer,” I said.
Ammons looked at Wince. Wince shook his head back at Ammons.
“Fine,” I said. “Wince, I’m calling your lawyer. What’s your lawyer’s name?”
“Slim . . .”
I put the phone away.
“This is some bullshit now.”
Ammons shrugged.
“It’s suboptimal, yes. But there are a lot of butts on the line over this one.”
“A lot of butts, Slim.” Wince.
I said to Ammons, “Your butt included, I guess.”
“Especially my butt.”
Lindley said, “Maybe we could stop talking about our butts and start working on how to put Slim here into jail.”
“That’s not very nice,” I said.
“Well, I don’t like you.”
I looked at Ammons.
“If those are my choices, I choose the butts.”
“I’m willing to entertain counteroffers,” he said.
I thought about it. They pretended to think about it, too. Oh, they did a powerful job at pretending to think. Wince traced the wood grain in his desk, and Ammons stared off into space like he was working on a mathematical formula for the secret of the human project. But I think it was mostly just politeness. What they were really thinking about was putting me in a hole.
Finally, I said, “I have a counteroffer.”
They looked at me, ready to listen. Or to pretend to.
“It’s a shit-a-brick kinda deal, but at least it’s something.”
IT WAS A SHIT-A-BRICK KINDA DEAL, ALL RIGHT. A HOSPITAL’S worth. Or a jailhouse’s. At first they thought I was nuts, but somehow I talked them into it. Actually, Ammons did. Maybe he thought it would put a bug up the FBI’s ass. I’m not really sure. Ammons did the deed and stalked out. Lindley laughed and shook his head and rumbled away like a storm cloud. What a crazy place the world was. When they were gone, Wince and I found ourselves alone. We blew out hard breaths and sank into our chairs. Wince got up and went to a cabinet and opened it.
“Well, I’ll be . . .”
Inside was a small stack of cookies.
Wince stared at them as though he might cry.
“Secret admirer?” I asked.
“None of your goddamn business,” he said, but he was too happy to be genuinely cross.
“Five cookies?”
“Six.”
“Might have left you the whole box.”
“Why are you trying to prick my condom, boy?”
“I guess you don’t want to hear a warning about high blood pressure, then, do you?”
“That in your old-people magazine, too?”
“Matter of fact.”
I opened an orange soda and took a sip. Wince looked hungrily at that, too.
“Well, I ain’t got time for high blood pressure, boy. You, neither. You better get out of here before Ammons comes to his senses, comes back to relieve you of that badge.”
I took it out of my pocket and held its weight in my hand. They’d wanted to put me in an orange jumpsuit, but in the end I’d talked them into deputizing me. It made a kind of sense, anyway. At least in the mixed-up world of law enforcement politics. This way, anything I knew, anything I learned, anything I had learned, would be the property of the Illinois State Police, with all the protections that came along with that.
“You as a lawman,” Wince marveled. “The world’s turned itself over, belly up, and peed on the sky.”
“Grab an umbrella.”
“You realize the powers and authorities that come along with that, at least in your case, are less than those wielded by a school librarian?”
I pointedly ignored this.
“I got to get home,” I said. “Get myself a ten-gallon hat. Maybe some spurs.”
“You ought to go home and hide until all this is over.”
“I’ll hide under the hat probably.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “You also understand that badge puts Ammons’s career in your hands? You fuck up his case, he’ll go from cop to killer before I can do anything to stop him.”
“I promise to be a good boy.”
“There we are with that again,” he said. “Listen, Slim, I want you to stay out of trouble. You’ve done me a good turn or two in the past, and maybe I owe you one.” He shrugged. “Maybe that’s something you don’t want to talk about.”
“No, we can talk about it.”
He pretended not to hear that. He was having fun with his piety and didn’t want to let it go.
“But this
thing, it’s bigger than I think you realize. These men aren’t going to write you a ticket and smack your fanny, you get in their way. This is one of those things where the distinction between the cops and crooks won’t be all that obvious.”
“It was obvious before?”
“Those jokes are going to be the end of all of us,” he said. “I don’t suppose you know what any of this is really about, do you?”
“When I find out, I’ll tell you,” I said, but the truth was I knew. Knew it all for a certainty. Shelby Ann. The kill pit beneath the Cleaveses’ house. The Black coal mine. Tibbs’s magic ticket. Even a dummy can only be led around by the nose for so long. Or by the leash.
“I’ll hold my breath,” said Wince.
“Good idea. Make the bad men go away.”
“Hey.”
“Hey, what?”
“Before you go . . .”
“Yeah?”
“Give me one of them sodas.”
“Give me one of them cookies.”
We stared hard at each other for a long moment, but in the end an exchange was made.
“YOU WITH A BADGE? WONDERS NEVER CEASE.” IT WAS ANCI. We were on our cells, so I couldn’t see her face. But her voice sounded almost proud.
“You wanna know what I think? I think you want to give me the dozens but you’re too impressed with your old man’s new offices and powers. How’d it go with Jeep?”
Her voice dropped to a hush. “About him.”
“About Jeep?”
“You know he likes to sing when he drives?”
I was quiet a moment, but she had me. I had to tell the awful truth.
“I know,” I said.
“Show tunes?”
“I know.”
She laughed, but still quietly. Jeep must have been nearby.
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I wanted to,” I said. “Really, I did. But it’s not the kind of thing people talk about.”
“He’s actually got a pretty good voice, for a guy with a head like a cement block.”
“Listen, don’t mention it to anyone else, okay? It’s the man’s secret shame. I was kinda hoping he’d remember not to do it in front of you.”
“Well, I’d have hoped that, too, I’d have known. Truth is, I think he forgot himself and started singing out of habit.”
“Probably you were making him nervous, you and your secret mission,” I said. “Speaking of which, how’d it turn out?”
Her voice was grumpy about it.
“Disappointment. I thought maybe I’d found a real lead, but I came up craps.”
“Better luck next time,” I said.
“We’ll see,” she said. “Where are you off to now?”
“Loves Corner.”
I WATCHED FOR LONGER THAN I THOUGHT I WOULD. I PARKED on a grassy shoulder down the road and sat there sipping Anci’s orange sodas and waiting. I didn’t see Wesley or his car or any of his pot plants. Likely the boy was at work. I hoped the plants had been burned and buried somewhere far away. Seven o’clock rolled around. Then eight and nine. Maybe he was having trouble getting out of the house. Maybe he had kids and they wanted to hear Hop on Pop one more time. Everybody’s got a story. Even the bad guys. Or the good guys. Or whichever it was. But night came on at last, and so did the silver pickup. The one Wesley had mentioned to me that day. The one I thought he’d made up in his paranoia. Silver truck was laying it on thick: Stars and Bars decals, a gun rack, bumper sticker reading ASS, GRASS, OR CASH. The works. He parked twenty yards or so up the street, doused his headlights, and sat there. I jumped down from the Dodge and walked over, keeping low. I had my gun out, but I figured I wasn’t going to need it. Still, always better to be prepared.
One thing, when you’re staking out, you might want to keep the doors locked. Cuts down on nasty surprises. You’d think they’d teach that at the academy, but budget cuts have to happen somewhere, I guess. The passenger door was unlatched, so I opened it and swung on up and closed the door behind me. The man behind the wheel looked at sharply me and my gun. He smiled and raised his hands, but I could tell he recognized me and that he wasn’t afraid. He was wearing a dark suit and a red baseball cap.
“Agent?” I said.
He smiled at me.
“Special Agent. Carney.”
“Special Agent Carney, you and I need to have a little chat.”
14.
CARNEY DIDN’T WANT THE LOCAL SQUIRRELS TITTERING over their nuts about the mysterious goings-on at Loves Corner, I guess. Or more likely he was worried Tremble would come home from his shift, interrupt our parley. He insisted we drive north a ways and meet at Evergreen Park, on lonely County Road 16 near the Carbondale city reservoir. I told him he was crazy and laughed at his paranoia, which got our relationship off to a great start, as you might imagine. He was still huffing about it a half hour later when we parked our trucks nose to nose on a flat stretch of nowhere and approached each other like we meant to pull pistols and shoot one another for honor or money.
Carney was around thirty, with a bland face and a short, stocky frame that made his suit seem two sizes too big for him. He was sweating like an Alabama minister in August, but at least he’d ditched the ball hat. We got close to each other, and he showed me his badge: Robert L. Carney.
F.B Fucking I.
“Just so there’s no mistake,” he said.
He’d showed me his, so I showed him mine.
“Just so there’s no mistake,” I said.
“You’re shitting me. They gave you a star?”
“You should have seen them, too. I tried to refuse, but they persisted begging and crying until I took them up. Something about the future of law enforcement being in jeopardy if I didn’t go along.”
“Christ, they told me you could talk a blue streak.”
“Those files are awfully complete.”
“You have no idea.”
“Now you’re just trying to rattle me.”
Carney laughed and shook his head.
“Somehow, I think you’re hard to rattle. This was that little shit Ammons’s doing, I take it?”
“I honestly don’t recall. The glow of my pride has blocked out the details. Memory serves, though, someone was upset you won’t play nice with the other children.”
“Fucking Ammons. Look, company policy is to cooperate with local assets when cooperating with local assets makes sense and won’t compromise our case.”
I nodded slowly and sucked my teeth some, doing my best dimwitted country boy act. I even scraped my foot a little on the gravel road. I’d have brayed at the moon and done a little jig, I thought it’d get me what I wanted.
“And you’re not sure whether . . .”
I paused as though to fret it out. Carney smiled, but it was a certain kind of smile. It was a getting-over smile. I’d got him and got him good. Nothing lures ’em in like the ol’ Simple Son of the Country. Some reason, it just makes folks want to talk, preach, explain, whatever.
“We’re not sure the local assets aren’t up to their necks in it.”
I guess I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Lindley?”
“Or Wince. Or one of a half dozen others.”
“Or me.”
Carney nodded.
“Or you. Someone paid for that roof.”
“So what do you want?” I asked. These bastards could have my life, but they couldn’t have that new roof. “I figure you weren’t waiting outside Tremble’s place just to scout the local pot trade.”
“I’ll be honest. It wasn’t until recently that we figured out the connection. We were interested in a phone call he received a few weeks ago from a certain local character. Someone you met the other day in Marion, as it happens.”
“Tibbs?”
“What he calls himself. Tibbs is the Illinois White Dragon’s chief fund-raiser. Mr. Tremble is a drug dealer with a criminal connection to his former boss.”
“I’ll be damned,”
I said. “And what about me?”
Carney shrugged.
“Just back off. Rather, understand that you’re backing off, even if your brain doesn’t know it yet.”
“Is this the part where you describe the box I’ll be put in if I fuck with you?”
He grinned, and in the shadows cast by my headlights, he looked as much like the devil as A. Evan had on my front porch a few days earlier.
“I don’t have to, and that’s assuming there even is a box. When this thing starts to go, it’s going to come down like an avalanche. Everyone’s going for the ride.”
I looked at the ground again and scratched my head.
“You’re mixing your metaphors like Momma’s shut-up-and-eat-it leftovers,” I said. “I can’t keep up.”
“And you can drop the dumb hillbilly act. It’s not even summer stock caliber.”
I raised my hands.
“I’ll back off.”
“And be ready for a call from Carter.”
“Jimmy?”
“My boss. He’s going to want to talk to you. You won’t like what he has to say. He likes people peeing in his sandbox even less than I do.”
“Well, now I have something to look forward to.”
Carney sniffed. He climbed back in his truck and turned over the engine. I walked over to the driver’s side door and he rolled down his window.
“That’s it?” I said.
“For now that’s it. I wouldn’t get too comfortable. And you better have paid your taxes on that hundred grand.”
“No worries,” I said, and winked. “I’m laundering the money through a number of fake charities for wayward federal agents.”
“Jesus . . .”
“Is my bagman.”
“See you around, Slim.”
“Hey, one last thing?”
“What now?”
“Dennis Reach,” I said. “You haven’t asked me about him. I assume that means you know who popped him.”
Carney sniffed and shook his head and looked at the windshield like he meant to drive away. Then he turned again to me and said, “You heard of Helen Dees?”
“Nope.”
“She’s the woman who reported the AR-15 stolen.”
“The one used to kill Reach? I was told it wasn’t stolen.”
“You were told wrong,” he said. “Helen Dees is the mother of Amanda Dees. Amanda Dees used to be married to a guy called Jacob Terrence.”
