Red Dog

by Jason Miller

  Dennis Reach: FBI snitch.

  I COULDN’T CALL HOME AND ASK FOR A RIDE, SO PHONED MY lawyer in Marion, and in a stroke of luck, either good or extraordinarily bad, he was both available and willing to play chauffeur. An hour later I’d put Command Central and the special agents behind me. For good, I hoped. My lawyer wasn’t in a chatting mood. Instead, he sipped a can of Coors and listened to some pop-psychology call-in program on the radio. He appeared to have slept in his suit—more than one night, maybe—and even with those big sunglasses on his face I could see the black and purple bruises beneath his eyes. We’d made it all the way to Murphysboro before he started talking.

  “My wife hits me, you know?”

  “Pardon?”

  “My wife.” He thumbed his nose with a hand he kept on the steering wheel. “You know?”

  “I’m sorry, son, but I didn’t even know you were married.”

  “She gets drunk.”

  “Yeah?”

  “By which I mean, she gets drunk, then gets drunk on top of that. Then things get wild.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You hit back?” I asked.

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to look offended. “She’s a woman.”

  “Just asking,” I said. “I don’t suppose you’ve got another of those beers?”

  He pointed to the glove box, but there was only one left, and it was warm as the inside of a mitten. I put it back and closed the door.

  “Have you called the cops?” I asked after another moment.

  The boy shook his head.

  “Still love her,” he muttered. “Pretty good joke, huh?”

  We were quiet the rest of the way home. I guess everybody has a problem.

  EVERYBODY, THAT IS, EXCEPT JEEP MABRY. WHEN MY SAD-SACK lawyer dropped me off, Jeep was sitting on my front porch, shoes off, cooler full of beer, with one of my cats sleeping in his lap.

  “My name come up?” he asked as an opener.

  “Now that you mention it.”

  “Let me guess. Murderer?”

  “Close.” I sat beside him and took a beer from the mini-cooler. “Borderline psychopath, I think it was. And how do you plead?”

  “Define borderline.”

  Hell’s bells.

  “Where’s Sheldon?” I asked, rather than pursue the topic further.

  “Bound and gagged. In the bathtub. I hit him with a few more of those tranqs, too.”

  “You put him in the bathtub?”

  “You rather he be in your bed?”

  I didn’t want him in my bed.

  “Bathtub’s not full, is it?”

  “Now, that is an idea.”

  Sheldon just about ate his gag when he saw me standing in the doorway. Guess he figured the chickens were coming home to roost at long last. Guess he was right.

  “Now listen up, shithead,” I said. I knelt by the tub, slipped his gag down over his chin, and turned the cold water on full blast. “Since I met you and that rat’s-ass kid of yours, I’ve been knocked every which way but loose. And now it’s your turn.”

  “Princess phones and red-hot pussy!”

  I turned off the tap. I looked at Jeep.

  “Did he just say what I think he said?”

  “Sounded like it.”

  “Exactly how many of those tranqs did you give this motherfucker, man?”

  Jeep reflected.

  “Don’t know, exactly. Enough to make him stop kicking me in the head. Think I overdid it?”

  Sheldon belched. The smell was like someone had blown up a pharmacy.

  “Maybe a little. I have no idea what that shit will do to a person. Asshole’s probably running from wild dogs.”

  Jeep nodded.

  “Hope he is. What now?”

  “First, breakfast,” I said, trying to be practical. Really, I was wondering how many years in the pokey were lying, semiconscious, in my bathtub. Time I got out, Anci would probably be drawing Social Security. “Then Carol Ray.”

  “Think she’ll be easier on a full belly?”

  I didn’t give him an answer. I didn’t have one anyway.

  18.

  BREAKFAST WAS FINE. CAROL RAY TURNED OUT TO BE EVEN more of a pain in the ass than I’d anticipated. Her little house on Freeman Spur had been cleaned out and a hand-lettered FOR SALE sign was posted in the front yard. The kid I talked to at Shotguns & Shakes said she hadn’t been in for three days.

  The only other place I could think to check was Dennis Reach’s, but that was another dead end. The cops had left the locks open, and most of Reach’s meager possessions had been carted away, either as evidence or as booty by Dennis’s erstwhile friends.

  Around 5:30, I called Jeep.

  “How is he?”

  “Shitbird? Getting there. At least he can form complete sentences.”

  “Then he’s better than before. What’s he say?”

  “It’s unprintable.”

  “Just as I suspected.”

  “Any luck with Carol Ray?”

  “No. She’s gone.”

  “So what’s next?” Jeep asked.

  “I’ve got an idea, but it might take a while to work out, if it does at all.” If the little rat hadn’t already been hauled off, I thought. “What do you think the chances are of Sheldon’s volunteering useful information?”

  “Slim to none,” Jeep replied. “Unless of course you’re ready to play hardball.”

  “Which means what exactly?”

  Jeep said, “We could cut off one of his legs with a chainsaw, threaten to do the other.”

  “Perhaps something a bit subtler.”

  “Hacksaw?”

  “Pass. Hard pass.”

  “Well, that’s the best I can do.”

  “Hold off on gassing up the Craftsman for now, son. I’m going to give my idea a try.”

  “You’ll be back,” he said. “Few more hours, you’ll be begging me for my cut-off-his-leg idea.”

  “Maybe,” I said. It didn’t sound so far-fetched, really.

  MY CALL WAS TO MERLIN COWARD, A HERRIN COP I’D ONCE done an under-the-table favor for. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to hear my voice.

  “You nuts, man?”

  “Maybe, sergeant,” I said. “How’s tricks?”

  “I paid you, Slim. Now kindly fuck off, please.”

  At least he was polite about it.

  “I need you to run a license plate for me, Merlin, and I’m a little short on time.”

  “You’re not listening.”

  I read the number into the handset, then I read it again. I had no idea whether Merlin was writing it down.

  “I’ll call back in twenty minutes,” I said.

  “Slim . . .”

  I hung up on him. It felt good, I admit. Folks were always hanging up on me, and it vexed me something fierce, but I was beginning to understand the appeal of it. There was a Country Pantry across the street. I jogged over and bought a coffee and drank it in the parking lot. When next I checked my watch, twenty-five minutes had gone by.

  “You’re late,” Merlin said without preamble.

  “Bonus time, sergeant,” I said. “What’d you get?”

  “We’re even after this,” he said, not a question. I could almost feel the tension in his hand through the phone lines.

  “Right. Even like Steven.”

  “Rig’s registered to a Rhonda Lee Tipton, 409 West Valley Road, Makanda.”

  I asked him to repeat it while I scratched it all down on the palm of my hand. Must have misplaced my pocket notebook.

  “Anyone else on the insurance?”

  “Says Harold Tipton. Could be her husband.”

  I said, “I can’t imagine anyone would marry Pimples, but I guess it could be.”

  “What?”

  “I said thank you, sergeant.”

  “And we’re through,” he said.

  “How’s Sonny?”

  The line went dead between us.


  “He’s good,” the sergeant said at last.

  “Still off junk?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Glad to hear it. Give him my regards.”

  “I . . . I will.”

  SO PIMPLES LIVED IN MAKANDA. OR AT LEAST HIS WHEELS did. Assuming they weren’t stolen. By the time what was left of my beautiful Dodge maxi-cab roared down into the little valley, not a quarter mile from Tipton’s front door, late afternoon light was spreading slowly across the sky. I rolled past the frame house a couple of times, then parked a ways up the road, hopped down, and walked up. No reason to scare the little shit before I had a chance to wring his neck.

  The street was one of those you see all the time in rural parts, half neighborhood with sidewalks, half forest. The big-limbed oak and elm trees formed a canopy over the asphalted street and blocked out the last few drops of afternoon sun. The air was heavy with the smell of oncoming rain, and the leaves twisted gently against their stems.

  The yellow Ford I’d seen the night before at the Black mine was in a dirt swath on the east side of the house. Near the truck was a fat woman with dirty blond hair and a red dress strapped so tightly to her round form that parts of her seemed to be trying to escape. She was too old to be Pimples’ wife; mother, I guessed. She was bent over a washtub, saying sweet, soft things to a dog she was bathing. When the dog saw me, it set to barking in a high-pitched voice and suds went everywhere. The dog jumped the lip of the tub and scurried around the house. The big woman looked up at me. She stood up and wiped her forehead with the back of a soapy hand and said, “You got some timing on you or what, son?”

  “You want me to go get him?” I grabbed my lower back, hoping she’d get the hint.

  She didn’t get the hint.

  “Her,” she said, “and, yeah, I want you to go.”

  It took nearly a half hour. The rain came. Sweetie—that was the dog’s name—had gone under the house, through the crawlspace access. Rhonda Lee Tipton—that was the lady—assured me that Sweetie would stay in there all night if someone didn’t climb in after her. She said this like I should care.

  “What about your son?” I asked.

  “He’s passed out in the shed, probably. Back property. There were some strange men here earlier looking for his worthless butt, and I guess Harold’s trying to keep out of sight best he can.”

  “You mind if I talk to him?” I asked. She hadn’t asked what I wanted and probably wasn’t going to, either. She looked at me like a grocer looks at a head of cabbage.

  “You don’t look like one of them.”

  “The men from before?”

  “They were in suits,” she replied. “You look like one of Harold’s shit-kicking buddies, no offense.”

  “None taken. Where’s that shed?”

  “My boy in some kind of trouble?”

  “Maybe. Let’s put it this way. It’s better for Harold to sleep in the shed for the next few nights.”

  Rhonda Lee squeaked out a laugh.

  “He sleeps out there every night. Got to where I couldn’t allow him in the house no more.”

  “Mind my asking why?”

  “It’s personal.” But she answered anyway, with a shrug of her fat shoulders. “I’m not crazy about his friends.”

  “That all?”

  “You ever met his friends?”

  “Some of them.”

  “That’s all.” She clucked her tongue against her false teeth, flicking them up and down with a loud, wet snap. “You going to get my dog, or we going to stand here yakkin’ all day?”

  I could barely tear myself away. The underside of the house was as dark and wet as a turtle’s ass. Red nails, dripping rust, smiled down from rows of rotted wooden planks. Something bit me in the dark. And then Sweetie did. Twice. On the way out, my hands slipped in something foul, the exuviae of Rhonda Lee’s life. I dropped flat on my chest into the muck. Sweetie tore off toward the little rectangle of daylight at the edge of the darkness. When I made it there myself, Rhonda Lee was back at the washtub, scrubbing furiously.

  “She come out on her own,” she said, without looking at me.

  “Lucky fucking day.”

  She stopped scrubbing.

  “I don’t hold with no swearing.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You got dirt on your face.”

  I touched a hand to my forehead. Sure enough.

  “Mind if I have that talk with Harold now?” I asked.

  “Suit yourself.” She was bathing the damn dog again.

  “Where’s he at?”

  A soapy hand dribbled thick white dollops toward a hole in the tree line behind the house.

  “Like I said, back there behind the house.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Stop by on your way back through,” she said.

  The shed was at the far edge of the property, as far away from Rhonda Lee as it could get. Harold wasn’t inside, just a mattress and some blankets and a small television. I was just getting ready to give up and try Rhonda Lee again when Pimples came tromping through the tree line, zipping up with one hand, scratching his nuts with the other.

  He was shirtless and shoeless, and he didn’t look any smarter than he had the night I’d met him at Black #5. He saw me. He turned and bolted back into the high growth. I knelt down and took careful aim with the 9000S, and when I was good and sure I had a shot I put one in his ass. Actually, it was just below his ass, in the meat at the top of the back of his leg, but the effect was the same. The boy shrieked like a tropical bird and grabbed hold of his behind so hard he flipped completely over—ankles over bald spot—and landed in the dirt with a thud.

  “I don’t want to die,” he said as I stood over him. I’d hit him with a rubber bullet—not the real kind—but in his panic he didn’t know that. Far as he knew, he had a fancy new hole in his butt, one he could tell tales about down at his favorite watering hole or brag about to whoever was unfortunate enough to see him in a romantic way. He looked up at me now a little more closely, licking his dry lips.

  “You were at the fight last night,” he said, voice like a bullfrog. “The Black mine fight. I remember you.”

  “And I remember you,” I said. I crouched down beside him and stuffed the barrel of my pistol against the underside of his chin. “But you’re going to help me forget.”

  19.

  AFTER A WHILE, I CAME BACK UP TO THE HOUSE. RHONDA Lee was sitting on the stoop with a can of beer. Sweetie was sighing contentedly in sleep at her bare feet. It was dusk, and the light was turning purple and grey in the sky.

  “Heard a shot,” she said. She didn’t look too upset about it. “He’s not dead, is he?”

  “No, ma’am. He might walk with a limp, day or two, but otherwise he’s fine.”

  She nodded, thought about it.

  “I guess that’s good.”

  I shook my head. “You got a cold heart, Rhonda Lee.”

  “Let me tell you something, son . . .”

  “Don’t bother, sister. I’ve heard them all.”

  “You’re not being polite anymore. Before, you were polite at least.”

  She sounded depressed enough about it to curl into a ball and cry. Everything, everyone was letting her down. I thought of the boy in the field, thought of the story he’d told me.

  “I ask you something?”

  She shrugged. “Make you a deal?”

  “Okay.”

  “You ask me yours, I get to tell you a thing or two.”

  That was maybe the worst deal ever. I glanced at the watch on my wrist. In another half hour, it would be dark. No time for sad stories or whatever she had in mind. But I still needed to ask my question.

  “Deal,” I said.

  She looked at me until the suspicion had drained out of her face.

  “Ask.”

  “Dumbshit back there . . .”

  “Yeeeah?”

  “You know about his dogging, right?”

  She looked down at the ground. �
��Yeah.”

  “You ever see a guy named Dennis Reach around here?” I gave her a quick description of him.

  “Maybe.”

  I said, “Any idea what he wanted with Harold?”

  “Harold was growing a dog. Dennis come out to take a look, I think,” she replied, then added quickly, “I don’t hold with it myself. Sweetie . . .”

  “Did he come alone?”

  “What?”

  “Reach. Did he come alone?”

  “He was with someone.”

  “A woman?”

  “You know everything. Why not just talk to yourself?”

  That made me love her. I laughed.

  “You know her name?”

  “The dog or the woman’s?”

  “The woman’s.”

  “I know. I was kidding.”

  “You ought to do the Borscht Belt.”

  She sucked from her can.

  “People think I’m funny.”

  I wasn’t about to go there. “Carol Ray?” I asked.

  “Something like that.”

  “Blond?”

  “Yep. That’s the one. Snooty thing with a face like TV.”

  Okay. Shit.

  I sat down beside her on the stoop. She nudged over and made room. My head was swimming. I guess I’d hoped to be wrong. I tried to imagine what I was going to tell Anci that wouldn’t touch off an I-told-you-so for the ages. Rhonda Lee brought me out of it.

  “Your turn to listen,” she said.

  “Okay.”

  It took me ten minutes to actually begin listening, but then listen I did. Night came. Lightning bugs sparked to life and darted around the yard and up and down the road. Rhonda Lee talked for about half an hour.

  She’d led one hell of a goddamn life.

  I SPENT THE NEXT DAY WITH ANCI AT PEGGY’S PLACE, HELPED her with her summer reading homework, cooked her favorite meal. Anci played with Shelby Ann. She wanted to go home, but there wasn’t anywhere else to hold Sheldon Cleaves, and as long as A. Evan was still out there running around loose, taking her back to Indian Vale was out of the question.

  I slept over, too. Peggy and I made love that night. Afterward we lay in bed, under a thin sheet, sweating and talking.

  “Dogfighting,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that folks could find pleasure in something like that. Something so wicked and hurtful.”