A part of Spencer did not wish to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, he was losing it. Dr. McCulloch always said it could get this bad if I didn’t try to keep it in check. “A messy mind makes a messy life,” he had said. It had been just one in a string of useless platitudes.
His fingers moved across the phone’s keypad until he’d pulled up Google Translate. He was able to find a menu that showed all sorts of alphabets. Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Latin. He cycled through them all, looking at samples of them until he landed on Cyrillic, where he saw the weird backwards N and the not-quite-A-looking letter.
Using his finger on the touchscreen, he typed in the letters he saw in his vision: Мир ненавидит нас. He figured he’d get just a bunch of gobbledy-gook. Spencer was surprised when he got the English translation: The world hates us.
With rain starting to fall again and smearing his screen, Spencer read the message again and again. What’re the odds that I came up with Cyrillic letters that just so happened to form a complete, coherent message? Perhaps it had always been there, at the back of his mind, a message someone had given him a long, long time ago, maybe one of the assholes back in the pen. Spencer thought about the fat, grotesque belly he was seeing this tattoo wrapped around. Was it maybe someone from cellhouse A? Somebody he’d half known and his memory of them was just now bubbling to the surface after two beers and a bit of nicotine?
It took a few seconds of pondering to make him suitably bored of the topic. As pensive as he could be, he was also prone to just dropping something whenever an immediate answer didn’t present itself. Dr. McCulloch had always told him that psychopaths showed that tendency for quick boredom and a constant need for stimulation, and warned that it would continue to get him into trouble if he didn’t attempt to control it.
It took a few seconds to get past the befuddled. Then, Spencer recalled what excuse he wanted to use with the Parole Commission and started dialing again.
Two rings was all it took, but it was an automated machine that picked up, telling him to hold for the first available representative. After a few minutes of listening to the soft but ominous musical stylings of Phil Collins with “In the Air Tonight,” someone finally picked up. “U.S. Probation Office, Valdosta,” a woman’s voice said. “How may I direct your call?”
“Yeah, uh, hi. My name’s Wagner. Stewart Wagner,” said Spencer. “And I had a complaint to file against a man I believe to be on parole,” he said. It was a long shot, but many criminals were either on parole or had once been. And the dying punk back on Townsley mentioned serving time with “my boy” Yevgeny. A long shot, but one worth checking out.
“All right. Maybe I can help you. What’s the name?” Spencer could hear long fingernails clicking at keys.
“See, now, that’s the thing.”
“You don’t have a name?” She said it with dismay.
“No. Well, maybe. See, I can’t quite pronounce it. I think it’s Russian or Ukrainian or some shi…sorry, some such.”
“Hm. That could actually help narrow it down some, if you could remember even a bit of his name.”
Spencer sighed. “It’s something like, um, Yevgeny?” he tried. “I’m not sure if that’s a first name or a last name. I think it might be the first, and his last name might be something like Tiddlov, or Tidiv maybe? I dunno.”
“Let me try a few different spellings,” the woman said.
“Thank you, miss. I really appreciate this.” Spencer paused for a moment, taking deep breaths. A sudden nausea had come over him, and he wasn’t sure if it was all the excitement, the burger from Dodson’s Store, his anger at the man with the bear-claw tattoo, or a combination of all three. Part of him knew that the nausea wasn’t his, though. Somebody had sent it to him. Somewhere out there, someone was very, very sick.
“While I’m doing this, Mr. Wagner,” the lady said robotically, “would you mind telling me what this individual did?”
“Oh, certainly! You bet your tukas!” Spencer chuckled, doing his best impersonation of a concerned citizen suffering righteous indignation. “That son of a you-know-what rear-ended me in the middle of the highway while movin’ through Atlanta. He was trucking at—oh, hell, I dunno, eighty, ninety miles an hour?”
“Mm. My goodness.”
“Yeah,” he laughed bitterly. The nausea was starting to lift from his body, returning from whence it came. “That’s what me an’ my wife said. Then I saw the piece of crap talkin’ on a damn cell phone. He didn’t even know he’d rear-ended us. No, I take that back, he had to know, he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. He kept movin’ on, never even slowing down. I sped up—I shouldn’t have, I know, but I did—and I waved him over to the side of the road. It took a minute to get his damn mind off the phone, but when he pulled over we had an exchange on the side o’ the road. He threw the first punch. My wife got out and he slapped her to the ground!”
“Oh, my.”
“It was my own fault, I guess—”
“Well, he was driving dangerously,” she said cautiously. “You had every right to file a complaint. Probably should’ve taken his license plate down and just called the police on him. Not wise to get out of the car and start shouting.”
“I know, I know. I was just…I was about to get into my car when he beat me down. My wife got out and he just…well, he took off and I got inside my car and followed him. Shouldn’t have done that either, I know, but I did. I followed him to a motel he was staying at in Downtown. I got his name. The clerk seemed to know him, said he’d been staying there a few weeks, just gotten outta prison, might be on parole. I dunno. The motel clerk said he’d kicked a pregnant woman in the elevator at his motel a couple weeks before that, threatened to cut the baby outta her.”
“Oh my God.” The woman was truly offended.
“Yeah, so, I figured I’d call you guys, file a formal complaint with any parole officer he has, let ’em know that this fucker’s crazy. Sorry, ma’am, forgive my language. I’m just…what he did to my wife, and what the clerk said he did to that pregnant woman…” When he first made the call, he’d only had the outline of his story. But the colorful details and the extra surprise at the end about the pregnant lady was all improv. Brian, his oldest brother, had told him he ought to go into acting, do some stuff on stage, improvisational comedy. You think fast, bro, he’d said many a time.
“I completely understand,” said the woman. More typing from her end. “Yevgeny, you said? Maybe Yevgeny Tidov?”
“Hey, that sounds about right,” Spencer said. “You got him in your system?”
“I do.”
“White guy, right?” Yevgeny Tidov, whether Russian or Ukrainian, was almost certainly a white man’s name. Spencer would let her fill in the rest.
“Uh, yes. Blonde hair, blue eyes, heavyset, has several body tattoos?”
“Sounds like him.”
“He lives in Downtown Atlanta, too. You said that’s where you encountered him?”
“Yes, ma’am. Is it okay to ask what he went to prison for?” he asked, knowing the answer was yes because these things were a matter of public record for any concerned citizen. If a person was on parole, the average citizen could get them into a lot of trouble. Basically, the parole officer and John and Jane Q. Public owned a parolee’s ass.
“Yes,” she said. “Double armed robbery six years ago.”
“So, I guess he’s a U.S. citizen?”
“Yes, not born here, though. Earned his citizenship a year before he got arrested.”
“You’ve been very helpful, ma’am. Um, could you possibly get me contact information?”
“I’m not allowed to give you his address,” she said, “but I can give you contact information for his parole officer.”
“Yeah. Hey, I just need to report this guy. I’d like to call the parole officer personally. Do you have his officer’s name and number? Any way to get in touch with him?”
Of course she did. “His parole officer’s name is Eugene
Evans.”
“Eugene Evans?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Phone number?” She rattled it off. “Thanks so much. Hey, by any chance, does it say like how often this guy has to visit his parole officer? Or when his last visit was supposed to be? Maybe he missed it. Boy, I’d love to get this guy in bigger trouble than he already is.”
The woman’s voice had a note of humor. “Once a month,” she said. “The fifth of every month. Mr. Tidov has made every single one of his meetings with Mr. Evans. Last update has him working a third-shift job, overnight stock at a Target.”
“Aw, dang it. Well, I had to try. Thanks so much, ma’am. You’ve been a great help.”
“No problem. Make sure to include everything you’ve told me in your report to Mr. Evans.”
“Oh, I will, ma’am. Trust me on that.”
“And try to be more careful next time. You never know whom you’re dealing with,” she added, blind to the irony.
“Heh, yeah. You bet. Thanks again.”
Spencer hung up, and started dialing again at once. Somewhere, a siren was blaring. He was aware of it but did not care. Somehow, he understood that it wasn’t meant for him. On some level, he knew that he was meant for the fat orb of a belly, the one that someone had branded in Cyrillic, proclaiming to anyone who cared The world hates us. He also knew that the passing nausea he’d felt while making the phone call was from some outside source. As insane as all of these things sounded, he knew them to a certainty.
A dog barked from somewhere up the street, past the squatters on the other side of the chain-link fence. A helicopter whup-whup-whupped somewhere close, but not close enough to be a concern to him.
The phone rang six times, and halfway through the seventh someone picked up and the voice of a grizzled old man answered. “Eugene Evans,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Evans? Eugene Evans?”
“That’s what I said.” A not-so-stifled yawn.
“Hi, my name is Stewart Wagner, I just got into contact with the Parole Commission’s office in Valdosta concerning one of your parolees, Yevgeny Tidov.”
“Hm. Yevgeny?” he grunted. He then gave a slight, painful moan. “He done something?”
Spencer laughed. “You could say that.” He then went through the exact same spiel as he had with the woman at the Parole Commission. It took several minutes of repeating himself because this Evans wasn’t a sharp thumbtack. He also seemed to be hard of hearing. An old fellow, but stern-sounding. He demanded to know the details again, and the more he listened, the more he seemed to awaken. Spencer could almost hear him writing all of it down.
Over the line, Evans gave another grunt. “Sorry, I move slowly. Fibromyalgia. It’s a bitch.” Another grunt. “This isn’t like Yevgeny at all. He keeps his nose clean. You’re sure it was Yevgeny? You might be mistaking him…”
“Blonde hair, blue eyes, heavyset, has a tattoo of a red bear, right?” That last part was improvisation, as well, and Spencer caught himself a second too late before adding that little morsel. But the woman at the Parole Commission’s office had said he had a body covered in tattoos and it was a pretty safe bet that the red-bear tattoo would be there because the name certainly sounded Russian and Pat had said these vory v zakone were Russians, so—
“That’s him,” Evans sighed. “Well, I am sorry, Mr. Wagner. I’ll have this checked out immediately. I can tell you that this is most unusual for Mr. Tidov but he’s about to receive a stern lesson.”
Spencer didn’t doubt it. Oftentimes the people selected to be parole officers were judicious sons o’ bitches who enjoyed keeping an eye out for misbehaviors and indiscretions. “Well, that’s good. Is there an address where I can send a formal letter?”
Another grunt of pain. “A what?”
“My father always taught me that if you have a problem with a man, you tell him to his face. An’ if face-to-face won’t suit, then a finely-crafted letter will suffice.” Interesting fact: that was no lie. Spencer’s father actually had granted him that piece of advice.
“Well, it’s certainly not necessary to do that, Mr. Wagner—”
“All I need is a mailing address. P.O. Box will do if that’s the case. I don’t just want him to hear it from you, I want him to hear a personal account of what he did to me, the fear he placed on my wife, all of it. Do you understand? I want him to know.”
“Mr. Wagner…” For a moment, Spencer thought he would get nowhere with this stalwart old watchdog and he might have to resort to another tactic, but then Eugene Evans surprised him. “Sir, do I have your word, one man to another, that you are not seeking personal retribution? Physical retribution?”
“Mr. Evans, I’m five-foot-five and barely a hundred fifty pounds. I don’t have a Napoleon complex, I’m a realist. If I tried anything with this guy I’d have my head caved in probably.”
Evans chuckled. “I dunno. He’s actually not violent. Well, not usually. This is the first I’m hearing of anything like this. Anyways, his address is 42 Clayton Road. After I hang up with you, I’ll be calling him immediately. This kind of behavior is intolerable. I’m going to check on this.”
“Thanks so much, Mr. Evans.”
“All right,” he grunted again, sounding thankful to be done. “Bye-bye.”
“Bye.”
Spencer hung up and used his phone to look up directions to Clayton Road. It was just nine miles away. He found a bus route, and the schedule that the local buses stuck to. Spencer then switched off his phone and started to put it back in his pocket. Then he paused and looked at it. He looked up at the sky, then all around him. He looked at the stacks of lumber and the flattened earth all around him. Then he looked at the phone. He had a feeling…
“The phone,” he said to no one in particular. An image of the Yeti came to him. Then he thought about how much Basil knew, how much he might’ve given the cops. He looked at the phone again, put it between his teeth and bit it, thinking. After a few seconds, he took the phone out of his mouth, and tapped it against his forehead. “Yep, the phone.” He walked around the pile of lumber and hollered over to the squatters by their fire. “Yo! Who wants a free phone?” All three of them looked up, and all three slowly raised their hands. Spencer reared back and flung it at them. “Draw straws for it, bitches!” he laughed.
Spencer left them to decide who got it. He moved through the construction zone, through the trees at the other end and was enveloped.
“Where are they?!” she demanded. Jovita had walked out of the back room where they had been keeping her and slammed her palms down on the front desk, where an officer was busy assisting a man filing a complaint. “Where—are—they?!”
“Ms. Dupré?” a man called.
Jovita ignored him and instead stared bloody daggers at the female officer running the phones on the other side of the desk. “I’m sick o’ this shit! You got me waitin’ back there for three muthafuckin’ hours an’ ain’t nobody sayin’ shit! Where are my babies? Who’s got ’em? Huh? Answer me you nappy-headed bitch! Tell me where they at, an’ I’ll go fuckin’ get—”
“Ms. Dupré?” someone called again.
The officer lady had been on the phone, and now put the phone against her chest to smother it. Jovita stared at her, and the officer stared stoically right back at her. “You tell me, bitch,” she hissed. “You tell me what the fuck’s goin’ on with my babies—”
“Ms. Dupré?”
Hands seized her. She turned to slap the owner of those hands, but was restrained by another set of hands, officers all. Indignant, Jovita shouted at them all, declaring things about their mothers, about their loyalty to their community, about their lack of respect, and about many other things that she couldn’t possibly know about them but somehow believed she was right about it all.
They pulled her over to a chair in the lobby. Other people who had been sitting and waiting patiently to be seen hopped out of their foldout chairs and walked away from her. One of the officers was a black man wi
th a familiar face. “Ms. Dupré? Jovita? It’s me. Sam. You remember me? Sam Wentworth?”
She looked at him. The man was tall, brown-skinned, with a military-style crew cut. He had a square jaw, with eyes and lips that looked like an old friend’s. “Sam?” she said. It took a moment for her to bring the information out of the fog. Her mind was still addled from lack of sleep and lack of meth. “You…you’re Patty Wentworth’s son-in-law, ain’t’choo?”
“That’s me. I’ve got it from here, Tyler,” he told the other officer.
“You sure, Sam?” Tyler said. He was a fat black man with chubby cheeks and fat hands. Iron hands that had seized Jovita and twisted her to her seat.
“Yeah, I got it. Just let me talk to her.”
“I’ll be right over here.” Officer Tyler Whoever-He-Was walked only five paces away and leaned against the front desk. A couple of other officers were coming down a set of stairs and looking about frenetically, obviously responding to the outburst they could hear from upstairs. Officer Tyler waved a hand at them, making a face that said it was nothing, go back to work.
“Sam,” Jovita said, tears still streaming. Her teeth were rattling. The roots hurt with each pulse of her heart. She needed a fix, and soon. “Sam, wh-where are m-my babies?” Tears came unbidden.
“Jovita, we’re looking into—”
“I don’t wanna hear that shit, Sam! Th-that’s all anybody’s been tellin’ me all night—”
“That’s all we can tell you, Jo,” he said, lowering his voice and taking a seat in the foldout chair beside her. “That’s all anybody knows right now, okay? Alright? There’s nothing more that I can tell you. We’ve got a line on a few suspects, we’re tracking them down now. That’s all—”
“Sam, y-y-you can do better than that. Who’re th-these people? The s-s-suspects, I mean.” Jovita could tell she was about to get more rejection. “Sam, I’m they mama!”
Sam sighed. “Jo, I’m sorry, I really can’t tell you that.”
Psycho Save Us Page 22
