Before Dale could respond the door slammed shut and the porch light went dark. Most of the other children made themselves scarce during the confrontation. A few stayed to say their goodbyes before running off to seek out the next diversion. He watched them go with a sad mixture of both pity and envy. The world always looked better through the eyes of the young, when they are totally unaware of the monsters that lay just outside the gate.
His duffel was lying on the ground at his feet. He didn't even remember putting it down. It had been a long twelve hours and he still had one more shift to go before getting two days off. He grabbed the bag with one hand and shook his door key from the ring with the other. He gave the Collins trailer one last glance before stepping into his own.
For a forty year old trailer, his was in very good condition. Much to the delight of the park's owner, he had spent a great amount of his own time and money to make it so. It baffled Teddy Vance as much as anyone why Dale chose to live in what was possibly the worst neighborhood in the small town of Cameron. Locals in town often referred to Creekside as the “Ghetto”. His salary could have easily afforded him half the homes on the market in town, yet he chose to live there. It was a logic based purely on nostalgia, something that few could begin to understand. Oh well, he thought to himself, let them wonder.
After showering off the day’s road dirt and Tassler's aftershave, he fixed a quick meal. A Salisbury steak TV dinner was on the menu for the evening. He was a decent cook by bachelor standards, but rarely took the time to do so. When he was not riding around the county, ignoring his partner's increasingly aggressive mentality, he spent what little his free time he had pursuing his one and only passion.
He had converted the spare bedroom of his old Skyline trailer into darkroom that any amateur photographer would envy. It took a bit of effort to get the room up to snuff. The drafty windows were replaced with Plexiglas in custom made frames, compliments of Stuart Fisher. Stu had become quite the craftsman following his early retirement. The windows were retrofitted with lightproof shutters and, along with the interior door, sealed with foam rubber weather stripping. This prevented the smell of the acetic acid stop bath from permeating the rest of the trailer. Although he did most of his developing at night, he chose to paint the walls and ceiling with a flat black to prevent any reflections from ruining his projects.
It was after midnight by the time he pulled his daily shots from the final rinse and hung them to dry. As he studied the dozens of photos he became increasingly aware of the banging and grunting from the trailer next door. The twenty something couple in the neighboring lot were up to their nightly bump and grind session. Their bedroom, which was less than fifteen feet away, was directly in line with his darkroom. He wondered if they ever considered soundproofing, but doubted that they had the time or energy after their current activity.
He blocked out the distraction and pored over his handiwork, a great shot of a whitetail leaping a rusty woven wire fence and some not so great shots of a hawk in flight. It was hard to get the right angle from the inside of a moving vehicle. The remainder of the photographs were taken during Tassler's unscheduled stop at Virgil Semler's place. The hiderug sign, random vehicles and a partial shot of Virgil himself.
Dale had managed to capture the shot just as Virgil had let Tassler into his house. At first he had feared that the old hermit had seen him. He just knew that Tassler would come back to the cruiser fuming. He had wracked his brain for a response to the verbal firestorm that would surely follow, but when his partner returned to the car he said nothing. In fact, he seemed to be in better spirits than he had all day.
His cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the number displayed on the screen. He frowned and stepped out of the darkroom to answer it.
Chapter 13
Kori barely had enough time to shower and get in a much needed nap before Brenden pounded on his bedroom door. He sat up stiffly and rubbed his neck. Every fiber in his body ached from the work that he had done earlier. Getting out of bed was a slow and agonizing process. He staggered to the door and opened it.
Brenden poked his head inside. He had a large blue backpack slung over his shoulder. From the look of it, it was stuffed full. “Man, who decorated this place? The boy scouts?”
Kori yawned and sat back down on the bed, his old bed. He looked around the room at the artifacts of his previous life, all sitting neatly in place where he had left them years ago. “Yeah it's a little outdated. Dusty, too.”
“Get dressed. We've got somewhere to go.”
“Seriously?” He threw himself down on the pillow and groaned. “Don't you ever sleep?”
“There'll be plenty of time to sleep when we're dead.” Brenden replied. “Besides, it won't be like last night. Just down the road.”
“Just down the road?” Kori asked, suspiciously.
“Yes. And I'll make it worth your while. Trust me.” A car honked outside the house. “That's us. Now hurry up and get dressed.”
Kori pulled a change of clothes from a suitcase. He had not even had a chance to unpack his belongings yet. Brenden did not tell him where they were going so he had no idea how to dress. It didn't matter anyway. All of his clothes were styled basically the same. He was going to stick out like a sore thumb regardless of what he wore.
Brenden was waiting for him in the yard. Together they climbed into the back of a newer model Corolla with Todd behind the wheel. It was a tight fit for the five of them, but Kori was happy just to be riding in a vehicle that did not reek of dope smoke and piss. It was probably not the kind of car that one would use to cave in the doors of parked cars at a gay bar. That was moderately comforting.
“Damn, looking sharp, buddy.” Todd looked back as they settled in. “The Perv's gonna love you.”
“Who?” Kori looked around nervously.
“Don't worry about it. He's just messing with you,” Brenden assured him. He smacked Todd in the back of the head. “Just drive, smart ass.”
Virgil was standing in the doorway when they pulled up, craning his head out as far as he could without actually stepping outside. He looked past them and scanned the area with a pair of bespectacled eyes too small for his face. He flashed a greasy smile as they piled out of the car. When he saw Kori his smile fell away and he took a few steps backwards. He opened his mouth to say something but Brenden cut him off.
“It's okay, Virgil. He's cool.”
Kori crowded closer to his brother at the base of the porch. The others paid them no mind as they walked past and entered the house. Virgil continued to stare at the interloper with suspicion. It was obvious that the guy had not been informed that he would be coming and he did not like it. The feeling was mutual.
“Look, man. I can go wait in the car if this is going to be a problem,” he whispered to Brenden. He hoped like hell that his brother would agree. Something about Virgil's place made him uneasy. If the inside looked anything like the outside did, he wanted no part of it.
“No. Oh, hell no!” Brenden turned around so fast that he nearly knocked Kori down with the heavy backpack. Chest muscles that ached before now awoke into a firestorm of pain. Kori doubled over, gasping and trying not to pass out. Brenden roughly pounded on his back, making the pain worse. “Virgil, this is my brother. The one I was telling you about. Kori, this is Virgil.”
Kori looked up with tear filled eyes and nodded. Virgil looked down over the top of his glasses and frowned. He was wearing a ratty green terry cloth bathrobe and sandals. From Kori's vantage point he could clearly see that he wore nothing underneath.
For some reason the sight of him reminded Kori of a series of educational videos that Clayton had once commissioned to promote the Trinity church. The videos were written by a committee of whacked out TEFL leaders and produced by low rent ISU film students. They featured lousy acting and even worse costumes. Members of the congregation were left with the unsavory task of irritating their friends and neighbors by subjecting them to sc
enes filled with overweight hippies in bathrobes portraying biblical characters. The Jews were all played by their Mexican housekeepers.
Virgil was sporting the green John the Baptist look. At the thought of this, Kori began to giggle uncontrollably between gasps for air.
“Is he having some kind of fit or something?” Virgil stepped out to take a closer look. He peered around Brenden as if he would catch whatever Kori had if he got too close.
“No, he's fine.”
“He don't look fine. Is he epileptic or something?”
“I don't think so.” Brenden laughed and pulled Kori by the arm. They walked up the steps and entered the house. Virgil anxiously surveyed the perimeter one last time before following them in and locking the door behind him.
The others had already made themselves at home. Chris and Todd were practically melting into the couch while Soup sprawled out on the loveseat with his feet hanging over the end. His elbows pointed up in the air as he rested his head on interlaced fingers. He stared up at the slowly turning ceiling fan and suddenly broke into a set of abdominal crunches. With each retraction his heavy work boots extended beyond the arm of the loveseat, narrowly missing the surface.
“You scuff my leather and I'll replace it with your hide!” Virgil snapped.
Soup stopped in mid-stretch and shot him a cold stare. He stayed frozen in position and pumped his biceps up and down a few times before continuing his workout. After a dozen more reps he sat up, out of breath. He mockingly dusted the arm of the loveseat with the side of his hand. “Chill out, Virgil. How's a guy supposed to stay in shape around here without you getting your panties all up in a bunch?”
Kori thought about telling him that there were no panties to be bunched up, but decided it best to keep quiet. He held his breath to suppress another bout of the giggles.
“In shape?” Virgil scoffed. His voice jumped an octave. “Laying off that crap you stuff up your nose would help.”
“Don't start, old man.” Soup involuntarily sniffed deeply. Todd and Chris fidgeted nervously and struggled in vain not to do the same. Within a matter of minutes the three of them were sniffling uncontrollably like welfare children in the waiting room of a free clinic.
“Don't any of you start. Let's just get this counted so we can get out of here,” Brenden snapped. He unhooked the straps of the backpack and dumped the contents on the living room table. Kori sat speechless as the same bags of pills, white powder and weed that he had seen the night before spilled out. There were also several handguns and vials of drugs that he did not remember seeing. Virgil and Todd sorted the motley array into neatly arranged rows.
“Wow.” Virgil said, holding one of the bags of powder up to the light. “Good week.”
“Yeah, the Queen was a good score. Otherwise we would have only done half as good.” Brenden studied the look on Virgil's face, trying to gauge the values by his reaction. He was a hard one to read. “So, what do you think?”
Virgil stayed silent as he fingered the merchandise. He picked up the firearms and gave them a quick look over. He stacked the powder and weed aside and focused his attention to the rest. He read the labels on the vials and made a rough count of the pills through the plastic bags. Staring at the ceiling, he did the math while his lips silently mouthed his calculations.
“I can give you five for the powder, three for the blow and two for the tweak. Another two for the grass.” He looked at Brenden to make sure he was following along and to judge his reaction to the low-ball figure. “These pills are a mixed bag, you know that. Say fifteen hundred for the lot. And a bill a piece for the revolvers. How's that grab you?”
“Mixed bag?” Brenden picked up one of the larger bags of pills. They were white, crudely rounded tablets with pictures of blue smurfs stamped on one side. He shook the bag in Virgil's face. “There are at least two thousand tabs of X in this bag alone. Gotta be worth at least a buck, maybe two apiece.”
Virgil did not appear to be impressed by this. He waved the bag from his face and picked up another one. It was slightly smaller than the first and filled with yellow pills, the same as the pill that was stuck to the bottom of Joe Woodson's pop earlier that morning. He gave the bag a toss to Brenden, who made no effort to catch it. The bag bounced off his thigh and landed at Kori's feet.
“I'm a business man, not a fucking pharmacist. I don't even know what the hell these things are supposed to be.” He lit a cigarette with shaking hands. “How do you suggest that I find out? Go to the drug store and pass out samples?”
Brenden sighed and stared at the bag in silence. He had no clue what the pills were either, but he did know one thing. Virgil was getting nervous. This was either going to work in their favor or the old hermit was going to tighten his purse strings and not pay out shit. He bent pick up the bag but Kori snatched it up and studied the contents.
“Diazepam.”
“Excuse me?” Virgil asked, slightly agitated.
“That's what these are, Diazepam.” Kori shook the bag and bounced it in the palm of his hand. “Same thing as Valium, only a different manufacturer. You know, generic.” He became uncomfortably aware that everyone was staring at him. Brenden had warned him on the way over to keep his mouth shut at Virgil's. He sat the bag back on the table and suddenly wished that he had listened.
Chris spoke up. “Dude, do you mind? We're trying to do some business here.”
“No. Let him talk.” Virgil dismissed the interruption with a wave of his hand. He was now looking at Kori with a new found interest. He still didn't trust him. He was too clean cut to be running with this bunch. He did not fit in and that always presented problems with crews like this. He had seen it happen before. However, the kid had smarts and that could be a useful thing. Useful made money. “Tell me more.”
“What do you want to know?” Kori tried to ignore the cold stare that Chris was giving him, a looked that could only be construed as jealous loathing. The rest of the group was listening intently.
“Do they get you high?”
“Sure they will. Like I said, they're exactly like Valium. They’re just generic.”
“How do you know this?” Virgil asked warily. “You a doctor?” He pointed his thumb at Kori and looked at Brenden. “You didn't tell me your brother was Doogie Howser, M.D.” He laughed at his own joke and slapped Kori on the knee, letting his hand linger for a few uncomfortable seconds. “Seriously, how do you know this?”
“Um... I used to work for a veterinarian. They wrote scripts for that stuff all the time for dogs.”
“Dogs?” Virgil hollered and threw his hands in the air. “You're trying to sell me dog pills?”
Chris smirked and rolled his eyes in disgust.
“They're a crossover drug,” Kori explained. He read the look of uncertainty on everyone's faces and tried to lay it out in terms that they could relate to. “They use a lot of the same drugs for humans and animals. Where do you think PCP came from? Or special K? Trust me, I know. People will buy that stuff and ask for more.”
“Alright!” Virgil conceded, knowing that any home field advantage in the negotiation had fallen apart as soon as the new kid opened his mouth. “I'll give you nine for everything.”
“Twelve,” Brenden countered.
“Ten?”
“Twelve. No less,” Brenden picked up the backpack as if he meant to load the drugs back into it and walk out if Virgil dared to make another counteroffer. He had no intentions of leaving with anything other than cash. Holding the dope was almost as risky as getting it in the first place and having it in the house always put him on edge. The last thing he wanted was to wind up a paranoid recluse like Virgil, but he was not about to let the fat bald bastard just take it for pennies on the dollar either. He would easily resell it for five times the asking price and they both knew it.
“Deal,” Virgil said as if it pained him to do so. “I'll go get the Jacksons.”
It had been long ago agreed upon that twenties were the only acceptable
form of payment. Too many eyebrows were raised at banks and local businesses when one of them made a deposit or paid for a pack of Marlboros with a hundred dollar bill. It also made it easier to split the money on payday.
With the transaction completed, everyone seemed anxious to forgo the small talk and get out of there. Kori came to the realization that he was not the only one who Virgil gave the creeps. Virgil reluctantly handed over the dozen banded stacks of bills and everyone jumped to their feet.
Chris intentionally clipped Kori with his shoulder as he passed by, sending another flurry of pain through his body. “Sorry about that,” he said, sneering. He began to undo the locks on the front door when Virgil spoke up.
“Aren't you forgetting something, little man?” Virgil tapped him on the shoulder with a thin envelope before he could get the last lock undone. Chris took it and started to put it in his pocket. Suddenly his smile widened and he handed the envelope to Kori, who reflexively took it without thinking.
“New guy is the grocery getter now.” He defiantly looked to Brenden. “Only seems right.”
Brenden shouldered the backpack and nodded. “Seems about right. Sorry Bro, looks like you're on grocery detail now.” He pointed to the stacks of pills on the table. “Besides, you and Virge have a few things to talk about later.”
Virgil perked up at the suggestion and winked at Kori. “Yes, we do.” Kori felt hot bile creeping up in the back of his throat and shivered. Virgil did not seem to notice. He just smiled and bounced his hairy eyebrows up and down over the frame of his glasses.
“Later, Virgil.” Brenden called out. On his way past Chris he shoulder-checked him in the back, nearly knocking him down. “Sorry about that.” He turned back and winked at his little brother, who was too creeped out by Virgil to appreciate the gesture.
“Oh, Brenden, one more thing.” Virgil followed him outside and handed him a slip of paper. “This needs to be taken care of tonight.”
Dimebag Bandits Page 8
