Sweepers

by P. T. Deutermann

  The old Slade house up on top, all falling in. Plus the snake problem.”

  He looked obliquely-at Karen. “You sure you wanta go up there?”

  “I need to talk to this guy,” Karen said. “And what’s this about a snake problem?”

  “Like I said, Slade Hill Road goes mosta the way up a snaggle-assed hill that’s s’posed to be crawling with snakes.

  You know, it’s one a those places. Lotsa rattlesnakes just happen to be there, you know what I’m sayin’?”

  “Right,” she replied, trying not to show her apprehension. Snakes were not-high on her list of favorite things.

  This guy,” the postmaster said. “He never hasta know where you got the address, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Always happy to help out Navy law. But like I said, that’s a medium-rough crowd out there along the river Still kinda wild back in there. You be careful, Commander.’

  “Appreciate the heads-up,” she said, and thanked him again. She went back out to the car. “Snakes,” she said as soon as she had the engine running. She exhaled, got out her Prince William County detail map, and found Cherry Hill Road.

  It took fifteen minutes to get there and locate Cherry Hill Road. She thought about the jurisdictional problem she might be creating, then dismissed it. If she could get Jack to talk, Mcnair could deaf with any jurisdiction problems.

  The road narrowed as it curved around toward the river, and at one point she had to pull the Explorer to the right and almost stop to make room for a pickup truck coming toward her. The good news was that Jack wasn’t likely to call the cops just because some Navy people were harassing him with questions. But she was sure she was on the right track.

  With Sherman missing, his son had become the vital lead.

  The only other wrinkle was Carpenter. He had ordered them off the case, effectively. What was that term Train usedfreelancing?

  She concentrated on her driving as the narrow road climbed into the low hills bordering the river. The twisting road became even narrower, and she had to slow, both to avoid surprises and to size up the territory.

  There were no developments down here, only single-home plots. Along the upper p art of the road, the houses were presentable, if modest: a mixture of regular construction and prefabs, with neat, well-tended lawns, established trees, and, usually, one or two elderly vehicles. As the road canted downhill, closing in on the river, the dwellings became mostly trailers. The edges of the road became more ragged, and she had to steer around some major tank traps disguised as potholes.

  “Anywhere along in here,” she murmured to herself, holding the map in her lap. Slade Hill Road wasn’t on the map, but it did show some lines leading off Cherry Hill along in here. She decided to ask for directions when she saw a very fat man rolling a green plastic trash barrel down to the road from his house.’The man was about sixty; he was decked out in an armless T-shirt and red shorts whose tops were well shielded by his paunch. He had sparse brushcut gray hair and what looked like a few days’ growth of b-and littering his jowls. There was a large tattoo of the Marine Corps globe and eagle on his biceps. He peered suspiciously at the Explorer as Karen stopped, rolled down the passenger-side window, and leaned across to talk to him.

  “I’m looking for Slade Hill Road. Am I close?”

  “Round the next bend, first dirt road on the left. Watch yerself, lady.

  Buncha assholes up there. Bikers and shit.”

  Karen thanked him and rolled the window back up as she pulled out.

  Lovely, she thought. If he thinks they’re assholes, they must be some . serious assholes. She came around the next curve in the road and saw what had to be Slade Hill Road on the left, a badly rutted dirt track leading up a fairly steep hill. The entrance was flanked by two piles of white garbage bags lying in the rain ditch, both of which had been ripped open by scavenging dogs. She put the Explorer in four-wheel drive and turned left into the muddy dirt road. The vehicle slipped sideways for a moment but then gained traction and began to climb. For the first hundred yards, there was nothing but heavy trash-littered underbrush and sad-looking trees on either side, with deep runoff ditches limiting the road to a one-way passage. ‘ There must have been a spring or seep up at the top of the road, because it was wet. Then she passed a rusting, burned-out trailer on the left, surrounded by six or so junked cars and heaps of moldering trash and blackened debris from the fire.

  Two scabrous dogs came yapping out of the wreck and ran after her car, then quickly gave it up. The road zigged to the right, and Karen had-to maneuver the vehicle carefully over a deep erosion rut that ran diagonally across the road.

  The road bent back to the left, still climbing, and then widened in the vicinity of two more trailers that looked as if they had been dropped from the air several years ago and then landed haphazardly in a muddy clearing. The trailersbutted up against each ociter at -an angie, and the junction was draped in”Sheets of heavy clear plastic like some kind of air lock. There were signs of life, in that the trash and garbage looked fresh. A new crew of scavenging dogs, feeding happily on a white garbage bag, ignored the Explorer as it ground past. There were four large motorcycles parked under a makeshift lean-to constructed out of dirty plastic panels supported by two old refrigerators. A faint wisp of smoke was coming out of what looked like a woodstove stack cut through the roof of one of the trailers. Karen kept going, watching her rearview mirror to see if humans or otherwise had come out to check on her intrusion into this sylvan paradise.

  Maybe the purported snake problem up here is of the twolegged variety, Karen thought. She was suddenly glad it was morning, guessing that all the reptiles were still-in hiding.

  She kept climbing in first gear, the road now showing less sign of use.

  The lower tree branches were beginning to scrap’e against the top and sides of the Explorer, and the tire ruts were not so pronounced. Then the track just ended, or effectively did, because there was an enormous dead tree lying across the road. It had obviously been down for many years, but even half-rotten, the massive trunk meant that she would have to turn around.

  She stopped but kept the engine running. This has to be the top of Slade Hill, or almost so,, she thought. She looked through the windshield to see if the road continued, but it didn’t look like it. She tried to remember what the postmaster had said about a house up there, but she finally decided to maneuver the Explorer around so that it faced downhill. Then she shut it down and got out, wishing she had worn the trousered working uniform I instead of the skirted variety. Her toes were curling in her dress shoes until she remembered that she kept a pair of Bean boots in the back. She changed shoes and then extracted her oversized bag, slinging it over her shoulder and then locking the car.

  There was hardly a sound up here among the stunted trees and heavy underbrush, as if the native fauna had long since fled in disgust. There appeared to be the beginnings of a path on the river side of the clearing. She walked a few yards down the path before spotting the top of a trailer about feet off the road, back in a jungle of vines and weeds. e smell of a dysfunctional septic system competed with the odor of rotting vegetation and old tires at the edge of the dirt road.

  Single-wide paradise. She could imagine some covert marijuana patches out in those_ woods, and maybe a meth boiler room down below at the double trailer. Above to the left, there was a ridgeline outlined by old trees, where patches of gray limestone appeared as silvery smudges against all the burgeoning greenery of spring. There might have been the ruins of a house back in those trees, but she could not tell. And no birds, she noticed. Not a peep from what should have been a hillside full of birds. Did snakes at birds?

  This has to be the place, she decided reluctantly, although there was no mailbox or anything else with a number 4 on it. She started in toward the trailer along the dirt path, which was littered with an amazing variety of trash, beer cans, plastic shopping bags and ancient oily articles of clothing.

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sp; Stepping through the low underbrush, she wished she had a big stick to sweep the grass ahead of her. She felt a bramble bush put a good-sized tear in her right stocking. After about thirty feet, the path opened up into a clearing, where a badly damaged trailer lay half on, half off its cinder-block fqundations. The top of the trailer on one end looked as if it had been hit by a falling tree, although the tree was not in evidence. Electricity and telephone wires snaked down from a pole on the dirt -road to the comer of the trailer, so presumably somebody did live here. Off to one side, there was a motorcycle hootch built just like the ones at the trailer’s below. Battered packing crates constituted its sides and a plastic tarp stretched across some two-by-fours for a roof.

  There was room under it for a couple of bikes, -but only one motorcycle was present for duty. It looked quite large, and it was partially covered by a moldy-looking shower curtain.

  There was a mound of bags and clothes stacked to one side of the bike.

  She wondered if that was the motorcycle she had seen at the church, but all motorcycles looked the same to her. She looked around for dogs. She heard a sound, and sure enough, two brown rats skittered out from beneath a pile of rotting mattresses and dived into a hole under some pallets. If there was a big snake problem up here, it wasn’t big enough, she thought. Time to go being on the door. She walked up to the front of the-trailer, kicked aside a white plastic bag of trash, and knocked on the front door. There was no response. She tried it again. The sound reverberated inside the trailer, as if it was empty.

  She turned around and surveyed the littered yard. He hadn’t shown up for work, and he wasn’t answering the door. If this was his door, that is.

  But the motorcycle rather made her think it was his place. The silence was a bit unnerving , though, and she began to imagine that someone was watching her. She went back to the door and banged louder, but there was still no response. She stepped back from the door to check the windows, but they were covered up inside.

  She caught another whiff of sewer gas coming from under the trailer, an4 she stepped back out into the yard again.

  A thought occurred to her. Suppose Jack was more than just a bit player in this business? There had been two people putting her into the cart and dragging her down to the river.

  Suppose one of them had been Jack? As she stood there in the silence of the clearing, she began to think that being up here by herself might not be such a great idea. Then something moved in the pile of rags next to the motorcycle.

  She walked over toward the motorcycle shelter,’being careful of where she put her feet. Then, to her surprise, the pile of rags itself moved, and a pale-faced Jack Sherman sat up groggily among the rags, a confused, disoriented look on his face. So drunk last night he’d never made it to the trailer.

  He was wearing a filthy black leather jacket over an equally filthy T-shirt. His black jeans had been embroidered recently with the finished product of the brewer’s art. Karen could see the red of his bloodshot eyes from twenty feet away.

  She relaxed: Jack was in no shape to give anybody any trouble. Just as long as Galantz wasn’t lurking nearby.

  Jack swiveled his head around until he could focus on Karen. The bright light of morning was making him squint, and she wondered if he secretly needed glasses. He managed a liquid belch, and she decided not to get any closer lest the sight of another human provoke some even more distasteful bodily functions.

  “Is that you, Jack Sherman?” she asked.

  “Stop yellin’, man,” the derelict said, his voice thick.

  “I’m hurtin’ here, man.” His eyes were closed now, and he held one hand up to his right ear, which Karen noticed was crusted with a thin line of blood. He made no move to rise from his nest of rags.

  Karen moved a few feet closer, looking around to make sure Jack was alone. An admiral’s son, no less, she thought.

  She wondered if this was a sight not unfamiliar to the admiral.

  “Aren’t you a pretty specimen,” she said. “That man said there was a snake problem up here. This looks like a rat -problem.

  “Snakes,” the kid mumbled, his eyes still closed, his head weaving with the effort to stay upright. Then he giggled as if he was still drunk. “it speaks,” she said. “Hard to believe this is an admiral’s son, but there’s no denying the facial resemblance, is there?”

  The boy reacted to that, opening his eyes. “What’re you talking about, bitch? I ain’t no admiral’s son. Never was, never will be. -Fuck all admirals. And fuck you, whoever the hell you are.” . Karen moved a step closer. “You’re telling me that your father isn’t Rear Admiral W. T.

  Jack rolled slowly all the way over in his bed of rags, squinting hard now, staring at her, pushing himself up on one arm to look at her, and then she saw a wave of recognition cross his face. “Hey, it’s you,” he said. “From the base. Where’s your bodyguard?”

  “Not all that far away,” Karen lied. “But we thought we’d try asking our questions nicely, so he’s waiting in the car.

  “Well, fuck that noise. I ain’t answering any ioddamned questions. Even if you do have a great ass.”

  Karen cocked her head to one side. “You talk to all the girls that way, Jack?” she asked. “Or are you just attracted to asses in general?”

  It went right over his head, and he waved a hand at her as if to make her just go away. He belched again, and for a moment, she thought he was going to be sick. But then he was looking at her again.

  “Like I said, fuck you, lady. I don’t hafta talk to you.

  Besides, you oughta be thankin’ me, man. He was gonna plug your ass before we dropped you in the river. Whadda ya think a that, bitch? Hey, you like your little ride in the river, huh?”

  Karen felt a wave of anger swell up inside her chest. But Jack was getting up now, staggering to his feet, holding on to one of the two-by-fours.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ve got a great ass, lady, Commander, ma’am, sir, whatever the hell you’re called. I took a little look, see, right after my old man popped his flashbulb in your face. You don’t remember? I do.

  Great ass, like I said, sexy panties and all. Love that shit.” He was trying to move toward her, but he was still too drunk to stay upright without the help of the two-by-four. Then he stopped, looked into her shocked face, and made the mistake of laughing.

  Karen lost it when she heard that laugh. She reached into her bag and pulled out Frank’s .45, and, almost as if she had been shooting one for years, she snapped back the hammer in one smooth motion and let one -go in Jack’s general direction. The two-by-four just below his hand shattered, blowing wood splinters all over the place. Jack yelled and went windmilling backward, toward the bike.

  Karen stepped forward and fired again, the huge automatic kicking up in her hand and shocking her right -wrist.

  This round pulverized the bike’s headlight, sending shards of glass into Jack’s face and causing him to fall sideways over the bike. The bike tipped and then fell over in a crashing heap, with Jack now pinned under the front wheel.

  Karen walked toward him, the gun pointing right at him.

  “What did you say, you son of a bitch? You put me in that bag, did you?

  So that was you, Jack?” She fired again, aiming just over his head and hitting the back tire instead, and this time Jack was screaming for her to stop. She walked up close, her own hands trembling now, and lowered the muzzle to point right at his face. Jack started to babble and cry.

  It Vas the sudden acrid smell of urine penetrating all the gunsmoke that brought her to her senses.

  She backed away a step and slowly lowered the big gun.

  Jack was curled into a protective ball underneath the front wheel of the bike, his right arm across his face. He was blubbering incoherently, his noises blending with the hiss of escaping air from the tire. Karen just stood there for a minute, taking deep breaths, struggling to wipe away the red mist of rage from her vision. She physically had to fight the urge to bring the gun
up again and blow his damned head right off, and Jack sensed it.

  “Get up,” she ordered. Her voice was flat and hard, and there was a strong metallic taste in her mouth.

  “I can’t. I can’t,” he sobbed, still not looking at her.

  “Do it, Jack, or I’ll put one in the gas tank. Get up.

  Now! ” it took a moment for her threat to penetrate, and then he scrambled out from under the upset motorcycle, tearing his jeans and scraping his shins on a hub nut. He scuttled back away from her, farther into the hooch, a trembling hand still up in front of his face. There were shards of bright white glass on his T-shirt, and a large dark stain at his crotch.

  “I said, Get up, Jack. I want you out here where I can see you, not just smell you. Get up!” She raised the .45 again.

  He swallowed a couple of times and then crawled to his feet, suddenly very sober, his eyes locked on the black maw of the .45.

  “Now,” she said, “we’re going to have a little talk. Or rather, I’m going to ask you some questions and you’re going to give me some answers. Call me bitch again and you’ll have to learn sign language, understand, Jack?”

  He wobbled a little but nodded. She swung the gun around in the direction of the trailer. “In there.”

  Jack walked carefully around her, eyeing the gun, his face pasty. He wiped his lips a couple of times on the way to the door. She could indeed smell him as he went past. He opened the front door and pushed it wide against some trash behind it. She followed him into the trailer, then told him to open some windows. The trailer stank of marijuana, with an overlay of sewage. The living room area was pretty much bare, with only -a sleeping bag rumpled up on a thin. and filthy mattress at one end, and two overturned boxes that apparently served as chairs. There were beer cans, wine bottles, old magazines, motorcycle parts, plastic jugs of oil, and assorted clothes scattered along the wall. A single overhead light hung by a broken fixture from the ceiling, and a telephone sat on the floor. She could smell the kitchen but could not see it, and she didn’t want to. A single hallway led back to the part of the trailer that had been smashed by the tree, but the hallway was blocked by a pile of clothes that looked as if they had been rescued from a Dumpster.