by Laird Barron
“Uncle Eli!” she said with disarming sweetness and sat very close to me while Lionel smirked and Calvin kissed her hand. She was dusted in glitter and after a few seconds so was I. “Oh, vodka!” She leaned over to check Lionel’s glass. “I’ll take one of those.”
“Darlin’, are you old enough to drink?” Lionel valiantly attempted to sit up straight.
She plucked up my cranberry juice and sipped it. The bar was dim, but I could tell she was sky-high. I showed her the picture of Agent Noonan and asked if she’d ever seen him. Or an older black gentleman.
“I dunno this one. There was a man in a suit who dropped by the apartment last week. Barlow? Kinda nice-looking too. For an old guy.”
“Is he the cop who took the computer?”
“Yeah. He flashed a badge. What was I gonna do?” She coyly sucked on the straw. “I love your ’fro,” she said to Calvin.
They gazed at each other.
“Sorry to bust this up, but it’s time this young lady got home,” I said. “Don’t you have finals?”
“Maybe . . . And maybe I’ve got nothin’ but time to kill,” she said.
“C’mon, I’ll drive you home,” I said. When she opened her mouth to protest, I gave her the stern-uncle expression. “Hey, your eyes don’t even have whites, you’re so stoned.”
“Okay,” she said and pressed her car keys into my hand.
* * *
—
I DROVE KARI IN HER CONVERTIBLE. It took some doing to adjust the cramped seat and figure out the controls. I’ve always preferred trucks and big, boxy sedans from the 1980s for a reason. Meanwhile, Calvin dumped a nearly comatose Lionel into the Monte Carlo and trailed us at a distance.
It was a few minutes after midnight when I parked in front of her apartment and helped her from the car. She leaned heavily against me and at the door she tried for a kiss, which I deflected as artfully as possible. Her perfume and liquor scent made my stomach queasy. Whatever pills she mixed with alcohol couldn’t be healthy. She smelled like half the girlfriends of mafiosos did after they’d succumbed to the reality of their purgatorial existence.
Back at the Spitfire, Calvin had asked her why a rich girl wanted to strip and she said, “Because it’s mine.” I figured that applied to the fact she lived in a shitty apartment, went to a mediocre school, and toyed with the thug life. Just another bored, rebellious child.
I said, “Kari, a little birdie told me that Reba has been to Grove recently.”
“Gosh, I don’t know.”
“You were her driver.”
Her expression flickered.
“Uh, yeah. She had an appointment with her pain therapist. What’s his name . . . Private stuff. I don’t push her on it. She’s very sensitive about Grove.”
“Okay.” I’d already decided not to confront her with what I knew. Not like this. Easy as pie to grasp her elbow and squeeze. She’d cave before it got too rough. That was the old Isaiah. Reforming meant doing this the hard way.
“Hey, Uncle Eli. Don’t tell my dad I dance, huh?” She squinted up at me, trying for coquettishness but accomplishing mostly sloshed.
“Don’t sweat it, kid. See you around.”
“Mmm-hmm.” She punched my arm. “Wanna come in for a drink? I got rum an’ Coke.”
I stared into Kari’s vapid eyes and revisited the essential inequity of the cosmos and again thought how if it were her missing this past week and change, every media outlet in the United States would be running the tragic story until the cows came home. I also found myself wondering if she possessed the requisite steel to kill someone, to bury them deep. Doubtful, yet I’d seldom gone wrong overestimating the baseness and depravity of human beings.
“Good night . . . Shoo!”
She shooed. Calvin rolled alongside and I got in. Lionel curled in the back, snoring. We headed back to the Spitfire to drop Calvin at his ride.
“Lionel said what you two are doing. Righteous, man. He introduced me to Reba. Had me over to the farm for a barbecue. Coulda been my kid, if things had gone another way with one of my ladies. Need anything, holler.”
“I shall.”
He was quiet for a few moments, obviously choosing the right words.
“Not to be the prophet of doom, but if Reba isn’t lying low or turning tricks, then she’s dead. Eight, nine days? That’s the hard fact.”
“People keep telling me she’s a goner. She’s missing, that’s all we know.”
“You got to figure she’s history.”
“Her family hasn’t quit. I won’t.”
“Because you’re so close to some kid you’ve known a couple of months?”
“Because I am a man of my word.”
“Fair enough. What are you and L Dog gonna do if this turns out for the worst?”
“Vengeance.”
“Vengeance.” Calvin sighed. “I read you. My family believed in an eye for an eye. All the fighting boys I ever met live by the maxim, wound for wound, no brother left behind. It isn’t my way. I can respect it, though.” He drove a bit farther, then said, “Kari, our little Russian ballerina, does two sets a night. I caught her earlier act, had a couple of shots. Whatever she’s popping, it makes her quite talkative. Her daddy’s throwing a party at his house this Friday evening. A whole slew of fat cats bound to be in attendance. In case you’re interested.”
“Crashing a party now and again is good for the soul.”
“Shake the tree and see what falls out. Here we are.” Calvin’s rig was a nondescript hatchback. “Don’t judge,” he said. “Work I do, it pays to blend.”
“Them boots and that ’fro help you blend in too?”
“Depends on the terrain, brother. Depends on the terrain.”
TWENTY-SIX
The Walkers put on a breakfast spread in the main house. Scrambled eggs, hash browns, and coffee. One of Jade’s interns always smuggled home a few bags of beans when he performed relief work in South America. Jade’s and Virgil’s faces were drawn with grief. They smiled too broadly and with too much determination. Dawn Evans Walker greeted me with a scowl reminiscent of her daughter’s.
I wolfed down my eggs and related what I knew, omitting many of the finer points. Bottom line: Reba remained among the missing while I continued flailing after leads. Afterward, with the sky still black overhead and silver along the rim, I helped Gus feed the horses and shovel out the stables.
Lionel crept in, haggard and unshaven. No “Good morning” from him. He tugged his Stetson down low over his bloody eyes to avoid Coates’s withering glare, climbed aboard the tractor, and disappeared into the back forty as the sun finally broke upon the horizon. Jade brought out more coffee. Gus didn’t drink coffee. However, he happily gathered the sugar cubes and hid them in his pockets. The boy saved them as little treats for the horses. I sipped another cup of coffee and chatted with him about a dead mouse he’d scooped from the water trough and how it might be safer if he laced his boots properly. Fairly typical of an exciting morning at the farm.
Detective Rourke buzzed me. He’d run Hank Stephens through the database. Twenty-four years old and the proud owner of a rap sheet with way too many of the lines and boxes filled in. Felony assault, burglary, and possession with intent to sell were the biggies. Current whereabouts unknown, although his mama lived on a plot in the lower Catskills. Known criminal associates numbered in the scores; however, two matched nicely with the thugs I’d encountered at the Fire Festival—Philippe Martinez and Eddy Yellowknife. Both men had lists of priors a yard long, both were White Manitou foot soldiers. Neither possessed a current fixed place of residence since they had immigrated from Mexico and Canada, respectively, and neither had pinged the radar in over a week. I took down the address for Stephens and wished the detective a beautiful day.
I changed into a windbreaker, fresh jeans, and steel-toed hiking boots, j
umped in the truck, and headed in a northerly direction.
* * *
—
I DROVE INTO HILL COUNTRY. The back roads were the kind where potholes had been refilled so often that the lanes were lumpen and glaciated.
Admittedly, I sallied forth with a clichéd preconception of what awaited. This cynicism was rewarded by the gradual erasure of telephone poles and road signs lacking bullet holes and a concomitant proliferation of crapped-out shacks sinking into the boggy landscape, pre-1990s trucks with deer-horn ornaments and gun racks, and hefty yokels in coveralls congregating in weedy yards and dirt parking lots of mom-and-pop country stores and gas stations. Where my dad’s domain was a majestic wilderness aerie, this particular region was populated by the shades of Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight and “Dueling Banjos.”
The directions I’d snagged from the Internet proved incomplete. I pulled in at a log-and-tin building that advertised itself as a combination gun shop and liquor store. Nothing says country living like being able to stock up on bourbon and double-aught buckshot at one handy location. I did in fact seize the opportunity to buy a quart of Old Crow. I had plenty of bullets.
A bear of a man in bib coveralls wrapped my hooch in a paper bag as he listened to my questions about the whereabouts of the Stephens home. He hawked a stream of tobacco into a brass spittoon and counted out greasy change. Then he gestured vaguely and said to turn left at the intersection about four miles past his shop. At least that’s what I hoped—most of his teeth were gone and he spoke with a mushy accent.
Despite the proprietor’s stellar directions, it took the better part of an hour to locate the Stephens homestead. Driveways were barred by metal gates, barbed wire marked property lines, and NO TRESPASSING signs included a skull and crossbones or an American flag. Other posted warnings included mention of attack dogs and assorted firearms. The Stephenses’ family road wasn’t any different, except instead of a gate there was a logging chain strung from two decaying poplars and a rotted wooden mailbox with STEP ENS stenciled on the side. I parked and stepped over the chain and began trudging along the dirt lane.
It climbed steeply into the woods. Shade came as sweet relief from the midmorning heat. Yet I hadn’t walked a quarter mile before sweat soaked my clothes. Clouds of biting flies circled my head.
Eventually, the road leveled and I entered a clearing of gray tree stumps and fallen-down fencing. A double-wide trailer with an A-frame attachment sat toward the middle, surrounded by rusted hulks of tractors, junk cars, and arcane logging equipment. Parked alongside the trailer, a dented station wagon with muddy windows appeared as if it might actually run.
There were several outbuildings: a shed, chicken coops, ramshackle corral, and the remnants of a barn. Nothing left of the barn except for the far wall and posts sticking out of the charred earth. Exactly the variety of scenic backwater Americana where one might expect to find the bones of revenuers, T-men, G-men, and nosy census takers from the days of moonshine stills and tommy guns.
Two dogs skulked from the tall grass and trotted closer. Mutts, the pair of them, with mottled, shaggy fur, bright blue eyes, and sizable jaws. I continued to stroll as if I belonged and hoped these boys weren’t interested in chewing me to pieces.
“Barney! Buford!” A woman in glasses and a short-sleeved shirt stepped from the trailer. The dogs came close, stiff-legged, and sniffed my proffered hand, then loped back to their mistress.
“Beautiful dogs,” I said when I neared the porch. “They bite?”
“Tear your balls off,” she said. “Mean as the devil, when they wanna be. Deputy sheriff kilt their sire in ’09. Old Drake wouldn’t let him outta his cruiser, so the shitheel rolled down the window and shot him dead.” She pronounced it daid. “Deputy passed away last winter. I take the pups over to the cemetery so they can piss on his grave now and again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said and meant it.
“Clementine Stephens. Call me Clem.” Dentures and gray, straight hair to her shoulders. Her shirt was an advertisement for a 1983 bluegrass festival and it hung loose on her wiry frame. Faded, holey pants and mismatched moccasins. She appeared a decade older than her actual age, which I estimated in the late-forties range.
We didn’t shake hands.
“Name’s West. I’m here for Hank.”
“That so? Friend a his?”
“Afraid not,” I said, watching her hands without letting on. Doubtless, she kept an arsenal within reach. “Don’t worry. I only need to speak with him. My niece is missing and I’m asking her associates what they know.”
“You’re the one.” She stroked Barney’s ears. “Henry come in a couple weeks back, white as a sheet. Said a gang of Samoans came after him at the festival.”
“Wasn’t a whole gang. Me, myself, and I took a shot at young Hank and his homies. They had it coming.”
“Hank’s a no-account snake in the grass. Like his daddy before him. Wanna beer?”
“Okay, that’d be nice.”
While she went inside, it was me and the dogs. I wasn’t entirely convinced she wouldn’t come back out with a shotgun. She returned with cans of Natty Light and slung one to me underhand. Warm light beer isn’t my favorite beverage. Nonetheless, I popped the top and sucked it down with gusto.
She cracked her own beer and let the foam boil over her knuckles and forearm.
“My gut says to trust you. You the only man who ever come around lookin’ for my boy who didn’t try to bullshit his way into my good graces. Only two types shoot straight. Lawmen and criminals. You ain’t no lawman, by a damned sight.”
I rubbed my jaw.
“Not square enough to pass for Dudley Do-Right?”
“It ain’t bad. My husband had himself a weak chin, covered it with a scraggly old patch.”
“The sheriff shoot him too?”
She made a pistol with her thumb and forefinger and blew pretend smoke from the pretend barrel.
“Sheriff Cochran, or Cock in Hand as us hill folk call him, gunned down a whole passel of mountain folk durin’ his reign. Feud ain’t nothin’ new. Our families run moonshine durin’ Prohibition. The law been snipin’ at us since the days of Ness and Capone. Question I got is, who you workin’ for? The Italians? The Russians? Or one a them colored gangs?”
“None of the above. All I want is my niece. Simple.”
“Simple, shit.” Clem crimped her mouth like she planned to spit. “What’d the boy do to make you mad enough to squash him?”
“He and his pals were getting rough with the girl. Made the mistake of trying to get rough with me.”
She looked me up and down and clucked her tongue. The dogs growled in unison, ready for their cue. She shushed them with pats on the head.
“Henry was always the idiot. I mean, none of my kids are bright, but Henry’s a burned-out bulb. Took up with the Sons of the Iron Knife a while ago and Lord knows that woulda got him kilt sooner or later when they found out he’s a quarter Seneca.”
“You don’t say.” I scrutinized her more closely. The straight hair and chiseled profile made sense.
“I’m about as white as you are. Anyway, when he left ’em for the Manitou that horse guy vowed to make a belt outta his hide. Surely they want to find him as bad as you do. How it is with Henry. Makin’ friends wherever he goes. He always tracks shit into the house.”
“The Iron Knife seems enthusiastic about oppressing traitors and minorities. They have your address? Might be a smart policy to keep an eye peeled for a bunch of Teutonic dickheads going door-to-door in a van selling Avon.”
She guzzled her beer, licked the slime from her arm, and chucked the can into the bushes. Both dogs went on alert, although neither moved. Well-trained killers.
“Lemme see your driver’s license.”
I yawned and stretched and took the opportunity to glance at the tree line. I gave
her my phony ID.
She stared at it for a few seconds, then handed it back.
“You a long way from Alaska.”
“Some days, it does feel that way.”
“Take off your shirt and pants.”
“Mrs. Stephens! I’m shocked.”
“It’s lonely here without a man,” she said, wry as Highland scotch. “Shirt and pants. Do go lightly with that hog leg, else my man in the woods is gonna blow your brains all over the side of this trailer.”
I sighed theatrically and removed my jacket, then the holster with the pistol inside and laid it on a stump. I laid the fighting knife alongside and emptied my pockets of various items. After all that, I unbuttoned my shirt. The skin between my shoulders crawled. I could feel the crosshairs of a hunting scope zeroing in.
“Pants!” She stamped her foot.
“Lady, if I had a nickel for every time somebody said that.” I dropped trou and turned a slow circle for her. “I’m a boxers man. Do you want to check if I’m circumcised or are you convinced I’m not wearing a wire?”
There was a hint of color in her cheeks.
“Thanks, big fella. You all messed-up like nothin’ I ain’t seen in a coon’s age, but you ain’t wired and you ain’t Manitou. Got themselves a horrible tattoo, them scary boys do.”
“Might have a secret handshake too.”
“Go on and get dressed. Leave your toys where they lay. Let’s walk a piece.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Clem strolled a few paces ahead as we hiked through the field. The dogs ranged to either side, periodically disappearing into the waist-high grass.
“Watch your step, there’s gopher holes all up in here,” she said.
She wasn’t kidding. The ground opened occasionally, revealing pits and deadfalls. I picked my way with care and calculated whether it was best to drop low and slither into the undergrowth before the sniper in the trees could get off a round or keep moving and see where this impromptu tour led.
