by A P Bateman
“Conrad’s boys,” he paused. “They took exception to me staying at the hotel. They worked me over too.” He got back into the car. “Look, I need to find a doctor. Just tell me where to go.” He started the car up and gave the throttle a blip.
Deborah bustled around the hood taking off her apron and got into the rear seat. “I’ll show you, it will be quicker.” She heaved and sat Maggie upright, took hold of her wrist and felt for a pulse.
Stone didn’t argue. He swung the car out onto the street. “Which way?”
“The other way!” she shouted. Stone floored the throttle and swung the wheel and the big car half powered, half lurched and juddered through a hundred and eighty degrees and accelerated down the main strip, fish tailing wildly. “Left at the cross roads, two hundred yards and then next right!”
Stone swung the car, its rubber screeching on the asphalt. The car made the turn, just. It handled like an elephant on roller skates and Stone had to adjust his driving style quickly, or slow down. He kept with it, flooring the throttle to the rubber mat and taking the car up to sixty. He jammed on the brakes and swung a hard right. A mini-van was driving towards them, but once again, the roads were otherwise empty.
“Where now?”
“End of this strip, right on the outskirts of town, about half a mile.” She looked at Stone in the rear-view mirror. “Rob, I can’t feel a pulse here!”
“Jab your fingers into her throat. Right by the windpipe. Push as hard as you can, if she’s still alive you’ll feel something!” Stone had the car up to ninety now. “Push harder!”
“I’ve got something – just a faint beat,” she paused. “There’s definitely something there.” She took her fingers away and smoothed Maggie’s brow. She whispered to her, telling her it would be all right.
Stone saw the building. It was a single-storey ranch style house. A red cross and a separate American Medical Association symbol of the winged staff and coiled snake were displayed on a swing sign outside. Stone slowed the car and swung into the driveway, scattering loose gravel towards the building. He got out and turned to Deborah.
“You go and get them, I’ll get Maggie out.”
She nodded and ran up the slope to the door. She banged her fists on the glass and Stone joined her after a few moments with Maggie draped over his shoulder. A man came to the door. He was in his late fifties with greying hair and thick round glasses. He stood just under six foot and was noticeably thin. He eyed them all warily.
“Open the door!” Stone shouted. “She’s overdosed.” The man unlocked the latch and opened the door. Stone pushed past him. “Where do I take her?”
The man made no attempt to move. “I’ll need to see her medical insurance first.”
“Are you kidding me?” Stone snapped. “I just found her, she was conscious, now she’s out and we can’t snap her back.” He looked around for somewhere to put her down. He saw a doorway, slightly ajar to his right. It looked to be a triage, he walked in, barged the door open and laid her down on a gurney.
“I said, I’ll need to see her medical insurance,” the man repeated.
“Are you the doctor?”
“Yes, he is,” Deborah answered. “Doctor Fallon.” She glared at the doctor, her eyes blazing.
The man looked at her, then back at Stone. “I am,” he said. “But there are procedures.”
“You take cards? Credit, debit?”
“I do.”
Stone took out a black card. It bore no details other than the Visa emblem and the card number and valid dates. He dropped it on the counter beside a landline phone. “Swipe that,” he said. “But if she doesn’t make it because of your procrastination, you’ll never work again. Trust me.”
Maggie didn’t come round for two hours. Both Stone and Deborah had assisted Dr Fallon as he had pumped and flushed her stomach. The pills she had taken were a codeine based pain killer, thankfully no more than half dissolved. Apparently the best way to commit suicide was to grind them up in a pestle and mortar and put the powder into the alcohol, according to Dr Fallon. But she had also drunk almost a full optic bottle of bourbon, and that was nearly enough to kill anyone, without the pain killers. Dr Fallon had also x-rayed her head and cheek with a portable machine and confirmed that she had concussion and swelling, but no fractures. She was breathing well, propped up and made as comfortable as possible. He had also offered to tend to Stone’s injuries and sutured a small but deep gash to his cheek and trimmed some hair and put four staples into the wound on the back of his skull. He was sure that the swelling was subsiding and felt safe to close the cut, but preferred to staple instead of stitch. It made for a more durable fix.
When Maggie finally regained consciousness, she was groggy and wholly embarrassed and asked for a sick bowl. Naturally there was nothing to vomit, but she laid there comforted by the bowl nonetheless, sucking on ice cubes and looking like she was going to retch. She had called Stone over and whispered to him that he was welcome to stay, that he was to let himself in the open garden door and treat it as his home. She had seemed resolute; despite what she had been through. Stone recognised resolve when he saw it. She may regret it, but she was going to stand up to the Conrad brothers. He could see it in her eyes.
Outside, as Dr Fallon had swiped Stone’s card for the amount, and told him that he would give Maggie all the paperwork to forward a claim on her insurance, he made some coffee and offered them a seat in the corner of the foyer. There were outdated magazines on the table and three small wooden sensory toys for pre-schoolers. The kind you roll wooden balls through a piece of coloured wire. Timeless. They were new and unworn.
“You’ve met our mayor,” Dr Fallon said, taking a sip of creamy coffee.
“I have.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What are your impressions, Sir?”
Stone drank the coffee with cream and sugar. He’d been trying black and sour, but he was low on energy and past caring about staving off a few pounds for climbing. He rested the cup on his knee. “I don’t care if it’s a trick question. You have a town in tatters. People are scared. Three brothers seem to be running the show with force and intimidation. I don’t get it. I don’t understand why people don’t report it, go to the cops. The FBI,” Stone said. “Call them. You have a phone line here, couldn’t run the PDQ machine for a payment without it. I guess you have a working phone too, I saw one on your desk, for calling paramedics or a hospital? Nobody else in town has a working phone. That also means you’re trusted.”
Dr Fallon nodded. “To an extent, yes. But the card machine goes through a dedicated hard-wired socket. And the phone runs through a switchboard. I can’t call anyone without someone listening.”
“Then go to the cops,” Stone said. “You have a car outside, a GM Insignia station wagon. I saw it when we drove in.”
“Are you ex-military, Sir?”
Stone nodded.
“I thought so, something about the way in which you carry yourself. A purposefulness,” Dr Fallon nodded. “Did you serve in Iraq? No. Afghanistan, you don’t look old enough for Iraq. Well, maybe you are.”
“Afghanistan,” Stone nodded.
The doctor smiled, sipped some more coffee. “We look at those parts of the world, the regimes, the fanatics and we ask – why don’t they just do something about it? We judge a country, its people, by our own misguided elevation of civilisation. We see ourselves, here in the west, as the top of the pile, the summit and higher order of civilization and democracy. What we, or most people don’t realise is the fear instigated into a people in those distant countries. Because we can’t begin to imagine it. I have read, sometimes watched, accounts of the Vietnam war. A famous story is when we, the US, inoculated thousands of Vietnamese. We rolled out the medical corps, rolled up the sleeves of the people, injected them, gave them a lollipop and thought how great we were, giving people a chance against diseases and illness in their squalid little villages. The Vietcong simply c
ame by when we’d gone and cut off every arm we’d injected.” He smiled. “Now, who do you think they were more willing to obey after something like that? The mighty foreign army with its technology, its ability, its money? Or the ruthless and vicious Vietcong who would cut off the arms of every baby, child, woman and man just to send out a message?” Stone didn’t say anything. Deborah was wincing at the thought. “Now, fast forward to Afghanistan. We’ve heard the news, we’ve seen kangaroo courts, mass hangings, beheadings – we know these extremists are brutal. Why is it that a farmer, who quite understandably hates the Taliban and just wants to grow corn or cucumbers and feed his family, will lay an IED, or stockpile weapons for them?”
“Fear,” Stone said.
“Precisely.”
“But you can’t be comparing that sort of fear to what you have going on here?” Stone frowned. “Just get up and go to the police. What about the sheriff?”
“It’s difficult. What if they don’t believe us? What if they investigate and come up with nothing? It will be far worse then. I overheard Maggie telling you that you were to stay,” Dr Fallon said. “But where do you think that will get her? You’ll leave – or worse – and she’ll be alone and vulnerable. She will have crossed the line.”
“It’s three men,” Stone said. “I just don’t get it.”
“There’s more to it,” he said. He looked at Deborah. “You know that, surely?”
She shook her head, stood up. “Look, I’ve got to be getting back. The diner has nobody out front, I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
Dr Fallon put his empty cup on the table. “I don’t have many patients, that’s why I wanted to make sure I got paid. I’m sorry – I lost perspective on who I was, what I was about.” He looked up, stared over Stone’s shoulder, his heart sinking as he saw a vehicle pull into the drive. He leaned forwards, stared intensely at Stone. “It’s all about perspective. Look around this place and you will see what I mean. Not everything is what it seems.”
Stone turned around, saw the pickup pulling into the driveway. Bart Conrad was at the wheel. Stone got up, walked to the door, pulled it open and stepped outside.
Bart Conrad got out of the pickup, walked over to the Ford. He looked up at Stone. “That car belongs to a buddy of mine,” he said.
“Sorry about that.”
“Why sorry?” He walked closer to Stone. Three paces between them.
“Well that’s because he’s dead.”
“You killed him?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether he was the one digging my grave with his back to me,” Stone paused. “Or the one who somebody else shot in the head.”
The man said nothing, seemed to be digesting the information. Then simply said, “I’ve come to find Deborah. Offer her a lift back to the diner. The cook said she bailed with some guy. Medical emergency. Figured she’d be here. Figured that guy would be you.”
“That’s quite a lot of figuring. Sure you don’t need a lie down?”
“Funny guy.”
“Sometimes. But not today. Not feeling it,” said Stone. “You know what I find kind of funny though?”
“What?”
“I tell you that your buddy is dead and you don’t seem surprised, or bothered.”
“It is what it is.”
“Or you knew. Or suspected.” Stone stepped a pace closer. They were at striking distance. Or as good as. “Maybe you know who did the shooting.”
“What’s it to you? Why are you hanging around this place? City boy like you.”
“Nah, I’m a country boy through and through. Tracking, stalking, hunting. Thinking this might just be the place to do some of that.”
“Plenty out there to hunt.” Bart Conrad smiled. “But the secret is to make sure what you’re hunting doesn’t hunt back. Dangerous country up here.”
Deborah opened the door and walked down the slope, pausing almost between them. “I’ll take a lift, Bart. If you’re offering? Got to get back to the diner.”
Bart Conrad said nothing, but smirked as he walked back to the pickup truck and got in. Deborah got in the passenger side, glanced at Stone and shrugged.
12
Stone had collected his bag from the doorstep and his jacket from the lounge and showered in his old room at the hotel. He was careful with the injuries to his head and face, but managed to wash the blood out of his hair and shave carefully. He cleaned his teeth twice, combed his damp hair with his fingers and dressed in a clean set of clothes. Almost identical cargo pants, T-shirt and sweatshirt. He put his coat on and packed the rest of his things into his bag. He wasn’t going to put Maggie at further risk, but he needed to get himself presentable. He’d find someplace else to stay, even if it was just in the car again.
His first call was to the garage at the end of the strip. He pulled the Ford in to the lot and stepped out. The sun was bright and the sky was a deep blue, cloudless. The mountains behind made the view look like a computer screen-saver. At the very tip of the mountain was a glimmer of white. Stone wondered how far into summer the snow lasted there.
“Help you there, boy?”
“What do the Conrad brothers say?”
The man laughed. He was strong-looking, late-fifties and had a beard. It wasn’t like the beards he’d seen on everybody else, this was trimmed and tidy and salt and pepper flecked. “Well, you’d be about right. Had a word with one of them this morning.”
“And you can’t help me, right?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Well I can’t get myself run out of town if I can’t drive.”
“You got a runner there.”
Stone looked at the Ford, turned back to the man and smiled. “I’m borrowing it. I need my car towed and fitted with four new tyres. Or at least four without holes in them.”
“I seem to remember doing that yesterday,” the man said. “Got the car back here and undercover. Got confused this morning, thought they meant some other guy,” the man walked over to Stone. “Gator McClusky.” He introduced himself, holding out his hand. “Sure will cost you though, rubber doubled in price recently.”
“Yeah, I seem to remember you saying,” Stone said, shaking his hand. “Rob Stone.”
“I heard what happened to Maggie,” McClusky said. “I like her, like her dinners. She runs a nice place. I used to go fishing with Peter.”
“Peter drowned while fishing, so she said.”
“No, he disappeared.”
“That would be drowning, wouldn’t it?”
McClusky scoffed. “He didn’t drown. Man swum like a fish. He used to swim the length of that fishing hole in the summer months. There was nothing to crack his head on, no rocks around the shore. Not even head deep in most parts.”
“Bear?”
“No signs. No clothing, no limbs, blood or anything else. Hell, only black bears around here now anyway. Most country folk can see one of those off by waving their hands and shouting right.”
“The guy in the hardware store seemed to think it was real bad bear country out here.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Tried to sell me a handgun,” Stone paused. “He said it was pretty dangerous this time of year.”
“No, black bears are okay. Sort of,” McClusky paused. “Maybe he thought you just needed a gun in these parts.”
Stone shrugged. “So, no bears at the lake. So he drowned then.”
“They say he drove to that lake and he disappeared. I damn near dredged it myself in my little boat. He’s not in there. He didn’t tackle his rod up either.”
“He didn’t even start fishing?”
“Oh, his rod was out, but he didn’t tackle it up,” McClusky shook his head. “The rod was rigged for spinning and the lures were all wrong. You bottom fish there, because it’s an old basin lake with no rivers running out, no feeding rivers either. Just water run-off from the hills, rain and thaw-water. There’s just catfish bought up her
e as eggs on bird’s legs, or some such. No trout, no salmon and certainly no river bass. Just big old catfish that would snap that rig at the first bite. Peter knew that lake, he wouldn’t have tackled that rig.”
Stone glanced around the lot, he noticed a Chevy Nova. It was rusted and down on its front tyres. He looked back at McClusky. “Is that Deborah’s car? From the diner?”
“It is.”
“So what will four tyres and a tow cost me?”
“Thousand bucks.”
“Wow. That is a number,” Stone said.
“Not an easy tow.”
“You know where it is?” Stone asked. McClusky just smiled. “Of course you do. And they’re new tyres, decent make?”
“They’ll be just about legal tread and they’ll fit,” McClusky said.
“You take cards?”
“Yep.”
“Well, double it up to two-thousand and get Deborah’s car fixed, fuelled and road-worthy.”
“Oh, I don’t know…”
“Not many customers around here, by the look of it.”
“Well, oh fuck it,” he said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“How long before you get tyres on my car?”
“I’ll head out now. Have it done and sown up in two hours.”
Stone handed the man his card. “Swipe it and take the funds now.”
“Worried you won’t be around to pay afterwards?” The man smiled, took the card and walked into the garage.
Stone looked around the yard while he waited. He glanced up at the mountains. It was a beautiful day, the sun was bright and the sky had faded to the lightest blue imaginable. Like cornflowers.
Gator McClusky came back, handed him the card.
“That’s it?”
“Just keep pressing enter at the prompts, don’t need pins or signatures,” he smiled. “I’ll get Deborah’s car sorted by tonight. It ain’t no biggy.”
Stone tossed him the keys to his Mustang and smiled. “Good. Now, when it’s fixed I want you to give the Nova keys to Deborah, subtly, at the diner. Just say a friend did it, or say you changed your mind, I don’t care.”
