Paskagankee

by Alan Leverone

  The face framed by her jet-black hair could fairly be described as angelic, with flawless copper skin, a delicate, slightly upturned nose and the most intense green eyes Earl had ever seen. Her mouth was a slash of vivid red as she pursed her lips in concentration, walking slowly through the crowd, clearly searching for someone. Ridge Runner patrons parted before the beautiful young woman like the Red Sea before Moses. She didn’t seem to notice. She was probably used to it.

  She meandered through the bar and the raucous cacophony of drunken voices dimmed, eventually fading away entirely. Even the music seemed to have stopped for the time being. An occasional cough and the shuffling of boots on the dirty floor were the only sounds. Earl wondered who the lucky bastard was that she was looking for and, more importantly, why. He knew pretty much everyone in here, and all of these dim bastards put together didn’t have the class this babe had in her little finger. That much was obvious.

  Earl didn’t care, though. He had a prime view of this chick’s pantiless ass and that was good enough for him. She had made a hard right turn after entering the bar and was moving steadily counterclockwise around the outside of the room, still searching, looking left and right as she walked. Soon she would pass directly in front of Earl’s mesmerized face and shortly after that would be right back at the front door where she started.

  Obviously, the guy she was looking for wasn’t here, which was hard to believe. Earl figured if he was the lucky son of a bitch who had made plans to meet up with this hot piece of ass at the Ridge Runner, he would camp out a couple of days in advance, just to be sure he didn’t miss her. Although, in his case, that wouldn’t have meant doing much of anything different than usual. His waking hours more or less coincided with the Runner’s hours of operation, anyway.

  The girl reached Earl’s rickety table and instead of continuing past as he assumed she would, she took a seat, easing onto the empty chair next to him and fixing him with those curiously green eyes. They were spellbinding, and it took a few seconds for Earl’s brain to process the fact that she had just spoken to him. “Uh . . . ‘scuse me?”

  A knowing smile eased across her face, as if she had this effect on men all the time. Probably she did. “I said hello,” she repeated. “How are you doing tonight?”

  “Just great. Getting better all the time.” It finally occurred to a disbelieving Earl Manning that he was the one she had been searching out, as hard as that was to believe.

  “Buy you a drink?” Earl asked, frantically attempting some basic math in his alcohol-addled brain. He wasn’t sure he had enough cash left to buy anything for this gorgeous specimen, but didn’t really care, either. If he couldn’t pay that asshole Bo Pellerin at closing time he would worry about it then.

  “White wine,” she said, still smiling, her eyes locked onto Earl’s. God, but they were captivating.

  Earl signaled Bo and the bartender approached with a look of incredulous disbelief written all over his face. Earl figured the same look was probably on his own face. “White wine for my friend, please,” he said, wondering if anyone had ever ordered wine before inside the Ridge Runner.

  For just a moment he thought Pellerin was going to make some sort of wise-ass remark. The Ridge Runner’s owner didn’t, though. Instead he turned without a word and walked back behind the bar. Bo grabbed a dusty bottle Earl had never noticed before off one of the mirrored shelves and poured the contents into what Earl guessed was a wine glass. Who the hell knew? Hopefully the damned thing was at least clean, although that seemed unlikely.

  Bo placed the glass in front of the chick and walked away without a word and Earl realized he had no idea what the hell to say next. He wracked his slow-moving brain as panic threatened to overwhelm him. This was the most stunningly beautiful girl he had ever had a shot with. The only other one who even came close was that bitch Sharon Dupont, and that had been a long, long time ago, back when she was still a high school kid, years before she had kicked her drinking habit and become a cop, of all things.

  His mind snapped back to the present, and to the awful knowledge that if he didn’t say something soon, preferably something suave or at the very least semi-coherent, this gorgeous babe was going to think he was mute and maybe mentally deficient, too. The only thing he could think of to say was, “Do you come here often?” which was pointless. For one thing he knew the answer to that particular question, and for another he realized, even in his present state of drunkenness and mounting panic, it was the most clichéd pickup line in the book.

  She saved him.

  “Do you come here often?” she said, and coming from her it sounded like the wittiest, conversation-starter ever. Bo Pellerin dropped the wine bottle down on the bar and walked away, shaking his head as he went. The girl continued gazing at him, smiling softly, acting like he was Jake Freaking Gyllenhall or something, rather than what he was: a twenty-nine year old rail-thin raging alcoholic with bad skin and a balky heart sitting in a dive bar in the middle of God-forsaken nowhere, a rifle shot from the Canadian border.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” he answered, surprising himself by speaking clearly and not slurring his words. He wondered how long he could keep up that little bit of verbal gymnastics. “But I know you don’t; I would definitely have remembered you.” Earl had no idea what the hell was going down here, but he was determined to ride this train all the way to the station, and felt like he was doing a pretty goddamned good job so far, even if all he really was doing was hanging on for dear life and waiting to see what would happen next.

  She sipped her wine and Earl gulped his beer. “I’ve been looking all over for you,” she said, as if they were a couple, as if it was perfectly normal for a model-beautiful young woman to be sitting here in the Ridge Runner chatting with Earl Manning. He was acutely aware that every man in the place—every single one—was watching them like some practical joke was being played and they didn’t want to look away because they were afraid they might miss the punch line. For just a second Earl wondered if that might be the case.

  “Is that right?” he finally ventured. “Well, now that you’ve found me, what are you going to do with me?”

  “Everything.” She smiled suggestively, placing her hand lightly on his arm. Earl thought briefly he might lose it right then and there, and wouldn’t that be hilarious?

  “Wh-whass your name?” he asked, his diction finally betrayed by the combination of nerves and drunkenness. He was a little surprised it had taken this long.

  “Raven,” she said, acting as though she didn’t notice his little slip-up, although it had to have been obvious. The young woman finally dragged her gaze away from Earl’s face and glanced disinterestedly around the bar, only now seeming to realize that they weren’t alone. Earl thought it might be the strangest thing he had ever seen. Of course, this whole bizarre episode would probably qualify.

  Raven leaned over, supporting herself by placing one delicate hand in Earl’s lap, instantly bringing him dangerously close to losing it again. She whispered into his ear, “What do you say we get out of here and get started? I don’t think I can wait much longer.” Her voice was soft and girlish and Earl would have sworn her breath shuddered a little with anticipation. Or maybe that was his.

  “Okay,” he agreed, rising unsteadily to his feet and reaching into his pocket. He pulled out all of his money and tossed it onto the bar, not counting it, not even looking at it. He didn’t care how much was there. If it was more than he owed for this night of drinking then that asshole Pellerin could treat himself to a nice, undeserved tip.

  Raven looped her arm through his and began walking toward the front door, leading Earl through the crowd of disbelieving drinkers. Again they parted at her approach and again she seemed unaware. Earl took the opportunity to slip his left hand into the left rear pocket of her jeans. They were so tight he had to work to slide it in, but he figured it was well worth the effort.

  The rickety wooden screen door slammed closed as they walked into the
gravel parking lot, Raven moving confidently and Earl Manning half-stumbling along behind, hand jammed into her back pocket, feeling like a guy who has just found out he won the lottery even though he didn’t buy a ticket. The buzz of excited conversation swelled behind them and then faded with the closing of the door.

  The darkness became more pronounced as the pair moved away from the dirty lighting of the tavern. Bo Pellerin had once confided in Earl that he didn’t see the need for exterior lighting in the Ridge Runner’s lot—not many women came here and most of the ones who did, well, Bo seemed to feel were better-looking in the dark, anyway. Dudes could damn well find their own way to their vehicles. Plus, floodlights were too damned expensive.

  Most of the time Earl didn’t even notice the darkness as he made his way to his fifteen-year-old Ford pickup. Hell, by closing time he was almost always blind drunk anyway, so what difference did it make? Tonight, though, maybe as a reaction to the strange turn of events, he felt a shiver of fear worm its way into his gut. Anything could be out here. Anything.

  Raven tugged insistently on his arm and, seeming to sense his trepidation, whispered, “Please lover-boy, don’t make me wait. Stop teasing me!” And just like that, Earl Manning forgot all about the darkness.

  The beautiful girl pulled him right past his truck, continuing on to a candy-apple red Porsche parked at the outer edge of the lot next to the massive, looming northern Maine forest. She unlocked the passenger side door with a button on her key fob and dumped Earl into the leather bucket seat, then somehow managed to squeeze in too, falling into his lap and giving him a hard kiss, pressing her body into his.

  Then she was up and gone, moving around the little car and sliding into the driver’s seat with the speed and grace of a feline. “Where are we going?” Earl asked, more out of a desire to make conversation than because he really gave a damn.

  Raven smiled but didn’t immediately respond. She pressed a finger to his lips. “You’ll see soon enough, lover-boy. And I promise, this will be a night you will never forget.” The engine started with a purr and the young woman gunned the Porsche out of the lot, spraying gravel, peppering the vehicles—mostly pickup trucks—clustered outside the bar. The last thing Earl Manning thought before he fell asleep was that this whole strange episode was like some teenager’s wet dream.

  2

  “Help me with him, for crying out loud! He might look like a bag of bones but he’s still heavy!” Max Acton ignored the petulance in Raven’s tone and strolled out the front door of the rambling, two-story Victorian home. He watched with amusement as she crossed in front of the Porsche’s hood and opened the passenger side door of the tiny sports car, grabbing their sleeping target by both shoulders and shaking him awake.

  It had taken months of surveillance and diligent research to narrow the list of potential subjects down to Earl Manning. Paskagankee was a small and isolated town, but even here dozens of men fit the profile Acton was looking for, and selecting the proper target was not a decision to be taken lightly. In the end, though, it had come down to Manning. The loser was relatively young and in apparently decent physical condition, despite years of heavy drinking. He was single, a loner with no wife or girlfriend, no steady job, and no immediate family in the area to raise the alarm when he suddenly vanished.

  The only cause for concern regarding Earl Manning’s suitability as a test subject was his past relationship with a female Paskagankee police officer, a beautiful young woman named Sharon Dupont. The last thing Max Acton needed was some ex-lover cop digging into Manning’s disappearance, unearthing—Max smiled to himself at the pun—things that were best left undisturbed.

  The more research Max conducted, though, the clearer it became that this Dupont bitch would be a non-factor. The relationship between the two, such as it was, had taken place well over a decade before, while the girl was still in high school, and had been based upon a shared passion for alcohol rather than any kind of mutual love or respect. Dupont had gone on to straighten her life out, eventually attending the FBI Academy before returning to Paskagankee to care for her terminally ill father.

  Now, all indications were that Officer Sharon Dupont had become involved with the Paskagankee Chief of Police, Mike McMahon, leaving little doubt she had left her tenuous connection with Earl Manning behind forever. Of course, Max knew that if he was wrong, he would be inviting trouble of the worst sort, but the fact of the matter was that eventual police involvement was inevitable. There was no way to avoid it. Even with a drunken loser like Earl Manning, sooner or later someone would notice he had disappeared.

  The goal was simply to avoid the appearance that anything was amiss for as long as possible, and to leave nothing tying Max Acton to the fallout when the authorities did become involved. Earl Manning seemed to be the subject who would best allow him to accomplish this goal, so Earl Manning it was, despite his long-ago ties to a member of the Paskagankee Police Department.

  In a way, Max was comforted by his discovery of Sharon Dupont’s alcoholic past. He had seen Officer Dupont around town, and her beauty was truly breathtaking. She was perhaps the equal of Raven in the looks department and it was a rare woman who could make that claim. The connection between a pretty go-getter like Sharon Dupont and an alcoholic loser like Earl Manning had initially mystified Max. There was no accounting for taste, though, as the old saying went, and his discovery of Dupont’s alcoholism explained a lot. Addicts like to hang together.

  Max stood back a couple of paces and watched Raven struggle to remove Manning from the Porsche. The subject had been roused from his torpor but still seemed logy and slow. Manning peered around confusedly, clearly attempting to get his bearings but just as clearly unable to do so. Max wasn’t surprised. He had leased a home in one of the most out-of-the-way, obscure areas of an out-of-the-way, obscure village. It was entirely possible, likely even, that Earl Manning had never seen the house or even visited this area despite being a life-long resident of Paskagankee.

  Raven grabbed Manning by the elbow, yanking, pulling the drunk out of the car with surprising strength for such a delicate-looking woman. The drunken man scrabbled for purchase as he exited, trying to get his feet underneath his body, standing too soon and smacking his head against the car’s frame.

  “Come on baby, slow down,” he protested, rubbing one hand vigorously over what was going to be a good-sized bruise on his forehead. “We’ll get started soon enough, don’t you worry, I’m gonna—” He froze when he saw Max in the shadows and began backing up, shrugging out of Raven’s grasp. Only now did he seem to suspect that his anticipated night of passion with the delectable Raven was never going to happen. But now, of course, was much too late for this potentially life-saving insight.

  Max moved forward quickly and flanked Earl on the left, leaving Raven to steady his right elbow, and together they began escorting their guest across the driveway in front of the Porsche and up the walkway toward the front door. “What is this all about?” Earl sputtered, turning his attention to Raven and in the process spraying her with spittle. She grimaced and wiped a palm over her face and didn’t answer.

  He turned to the left. “Who are you?” he asked Max, who didn’t have to wipe any saliva off his face but who didn’t answer, either. They were moving quickly, taking advantage of the surprise factor to hustle their guest into the house. He would be joining them inside now no matter what, that particular die had been cast the moment Manning joined the seductive Raven in the Porsche, but the farther they could move things along before he got truly frightened rather than just angry and confused, the easier and more painless the whole process would be.

  At least for them.

  They hustled their stumbling, complaining guest up the three red brick front steps, through the door into the house and as they did, Max withdrew a heavy plastic bag from the back pocket of his sharply creased dress pants. He moved methodically, taking his time. It would not do to drop the damned thing now that they were so close to completing the f
irst step in the plan.

  Raven continued to shepherd Manning into the living room and Max hung back after pulling the front door closed. With their guest safely inside the house, there was no reason to hurry. His fate was now sealed.

  3

  Earl Manning stepped reluctantly through the front door and into the living room of the old Victorian style home. He supposed when the house was new the room would have been called a parlor—that was what his grandmother would have called it—but as a guy who did his growing up in the 1980’s and 1990’s, it was a living room. The space was wide-open and airy, filled with wicker furniture placed almost but not quite randomly. A Berber carpet graced the middle of the room and an impressive potted palm took up most of the northeast corner. The room seemed casual and lived-in, almost to the point of being staged.

  Under different circumstances Earl might have thought it oddly unsettling, but not tonight. Tonight Earl Manning was suffering the early stages of a monster hangover, and whacking his head on the side of the Porsche when he had climbed out of the car wasn’t helping. Plus—and here was the worst part—Earl had no idea where the hell he was or what the hell he was doing here, although he had pretty much concluded by now that he wasn’t going to get laid by one of the most beautiful, sexy women he had ever seen inside the boundaries of Paskagankee, Maine. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

  In fact, although he didn’t know what was about to happen, Earl guessed it wasn’t going to be good, at least not for him. He reached for his cell phone. It was gone. That traitorous bitch Raven must have appropriated it while he was passed out in the car. Or maybe he had left it at the bar, he couldn’t remember. Dammit, it’s hard to think when you’re halfway between drunk and sober.