by Chuck Logan
They parked the car and got out fast as Morg shook out a ring full of keys, opened the door, and they stepped into the building’s lower level. “Service elevator’s this way,” Morg said. “He’s on six.”
Beeman said, “Now Morg, once we collect him, we need you to scout ahead. Be nice to get him out with nobody seein’.”
Morg bobbled his head, not unlike the armadillo. “Long as we go out the way we come in.”
Beeman turned to Rane. “I got no problem with that. How about you Agent Rane?”
Rane grunted in the affirmative. They walked down a corridor, stopped at an elevator, and Morg pushed the button. As they waited for the lift, Morg ground his teeth. “So how do I get him to open the door?”
“Tell him something’s wrong with the air-conditioning or heat or the sprinkler system. You gotta check all the rooms,” Beeman suggested.
The elevator arrived, the door slid open, and they got on. Beeman pushed 6. Morg’s slack face worked and he muttered under his breath, “air-conditioning, sprinklers and heaters…”
Rane thought of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz leading the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow along the Yellow Brick Road. He stifled a smile. Lions and tigers and bears…
The elevator stopped, they got out, and Beeman asked Morg, “Does one of those keys fix this elevator to run straight to the basement and skip all the floors?”
“Uh-huh.” Morg stepped in, selected a key, and monkeyed around with the control panel. He stepped back out. “All set. It’ll stay here open and shoot straight down when we get back.”
“Good. Soon’s we get in you scoot back here and make sure for us.” Morg nodded and they padded on thick carpet, following him to an anonymous door in a beige corridor full of doors.
Beeman nodded to Morg, stepped back, tensed, bent his knees slightly, and unsnapped the strap on his holster. Morg swallowed audibly at the sound of the strap breaking free. Beeman did not draw the SIG.
Morg knocked on the door, three hard raps. Then he raised his badge to the peephole.
“What?” A muted annoyed question beyond the door.
Beeman prodded Morg in the kidney with a rigid finger. “Security,” Morg yelped. “We gotta check all the air-conditioners on six.”
The voice was closer now to the door. “The what?”
“Air-conditioners, wiring’s acting up. Fire danger. Gotta check all the rooms…”
“Aw shit, okay…”
The deadbolt clicked, then the lock over the keyhole. As the door cracked a fraction, Beeman shoved Morg down the hall, cocked his knee back to his chest, uncoiled, and smashed the sole of his boot just above the doorknob.
Flying open, the door connected with flesh and bone. Rane heard garbled profanity and a cry of pain as Beeman, one hand on the butt of his pistol, lunged into the apartment. Rane rushed right behind him.
Low black-leather couches. A man in a paisley silk robe sprawled against the back of the nearest couch. His chest and splayed legs were deeply tanned. His naked buttocks and groin were pale, hairy dough. As Beeman stood over the prone man, Rane moved through the apartment; kitchenette off the living room, bathroom down a short hall leading to a closed door. The bedroom. He stopped at an oval glass table between the leather couches, saw sprinkles of white powder trickled out from the edge of a glossy magazine, the cover read VIP something, showed smiling people raising wine glasses.
He lifted the magazine and saw three lines of disturbed white powder next to a rolled hundred-dollar bill. A bank of windows with a sliding door opened on a balcony and the river six stories below. An ebony set of samurai swords perched on a display wall rack. The plants were fabric.
And then a girl with straight brown hair opened the bedroom door and stood in the doorway. She wore a matching paisley robe open down the front. Rane sympathized with her, straining so hard to be invisible and not having a clue how to do it.
Rane and Beeman stared at the girl and Rane intuited Beeman’s thoughts: was she sixteen going on forty or a deer in the headlights?
Beeman stepped over dazed Billie Watts and moved closer to the girl. “Don’t move, Billie,” he said firmly, then he faced the girl. “You skippin’ school, honey?”
“Oh shit,” the girl said, staring at the badge and gun on Beeman’s belt. Her chin began to tremble and she shook her head violently. “Teachers’ meeting.”
Encouraged, Beeman said in a calm, reasonable voice, “I’d like to see some ID, young lady.”
“Hey, wait a fuckin’ minute,” Billie Watts protested, lurching up on his elbows. “Renee, you don’t say a word.”
“Do up your robe, Renee,” Beeman said calmly. “Better yet, go on and get dressed.”
As she darted back into the bedroom, Beeman turned on Billie Watts.
“Show me a warrant,” Billie snarled, sitting up and working with his skewed robe.
“A warrant? Way the roads corkscrew in here, I ain’t even sure which state this fuckin’ place is in,” Beeman said as he leaned over and unloaded his cud of tobacco into the fake moss at the bottom of a planter.
The girl came hopping through the doorway in unzipped jeans and a blouse, pulling on a shoe, stuffing her socks and underpants into her purse. “I never done this before, sir, honest,” she pleaded to Beeman.
“I believe you, I do. Just calm down and sit there on the couch.” The girl sat, primly drawing her knees together. “Now how’d you get here?” Beeman asked.
“Drove.”
“Sure you can drive? You’re a bit shook up. How long you been driving?”
“Six months, a little more. I never had a ticket.”
“Aw shit,” Billie Watts muttered.
Beeman ignored him. “Uh-huh. Better show me the keys, I want to make sure you got a way home.”
Her face working, she dug in her purse and held up a jangle of keys. Beeman palmed the key ring quickly and studied a round plastic coin pouch, the kind with a slit in the middle, from a car dealership.
“Buick? That’s a good car,” he said amiably.
Renee nodded, ashen-faced. “Buick LaCrosse, 3.6 liter V6. Daddy’s partial to Buicks…”
“And he buys them at this dealership down 72 in Muscle Shoals, huh?” Beeman asked, turning to Billie. Then he handed the keys back to Renee. “Now I’m letting you go with a warning, you understand?”
She bobbed her head vigorously.
“Okay, now. Go on, git. And you drive carefully, back to Alabama, hear?”
“Yes sir,” Renee blurted, then she gathered her purse, launched off the couch, and hurried from the room.
When they were alone, Billie demanded, “What the hell’s going on here, Beeman? Am I under arrest?”
“Not even close, Billie. Far as I’m concerned this never happened. I just want to have a little chat with no minors present is all,” Beeman said judiciously.
“So talk,” Billie said suspiciously.
“I don’t want to talk here. Get up,” Beeman said.
“Who’s he?” Billie said, looking at Rane.
“I don’t want to talk here, either,” Rane said in a flat Upper Midwestern twang that attracted Billie Watts’s attention.
“I need to get dressed,” Billie said, getting awkwardly to his feet.
“I don’t want you to get dressed,” Beeman said, clamping a hand on Billie’s arm. Rane moved in and gripped his other arm. Keying on Beeman’s lead, Rane helped propel Billie, barefoot and clothed only in the flimsy silk robe, through the door into the hall.
48
WITH MORG SCOUTING THE CORRIDORS AHEAD, they spirited Billie down in the elevator, out the back door, and stuffed him in the caged backseat of Beeman’s car. Rane last saw Morg in the rearview mirror, nervously locking the gate as they drove back up the wooded road. Beeman and Rane stared straight ahead, ignoring Billie’s increasingly anxious questions. Then Beeman spun the steering wheel at an opening in the trees. The Crown Vic crashed to a halt as the trail petered out in thick br
ush.
“Everybody out,” Beeman ordered.
The heat draped down like a wet gray slurry and Rane had the feeling a fast move could start the air to dripping.
“Ow, shit,” Billie cringed, stepping barefoot gingerly on rocks and deadfall as Beeman pushed him down the slope. Off to the right, through the trees, they could see the white seven-storied condominiums on the sluggish river.
Despite the dishrag heat, Billie was hugging the thin robe tight to his chest.
By the time they reached the shore, Billie had tripped and fallen twice; his hands, forearms, and feet were bleeding from minor cuts. Beeman continued to ignore him, looking up and down the river’s edge at the patches of sand, fallen trees, and thick, yellow clumps of grass.
“I ain’t going to lay a hand on you, Billie,” Beeman said absently.
“You’re flirting with kidnapping, you dumb redneck,” Billie fumed.
“Yep. And when’d you start tutoring high school girls on pharmaceuticals and the birds and the bees? And bringing her across state lines to do it? I know where she lives and I got a witness,” Beeman said reasonably, still scanning the shore. Then he turned and faced Billie. Rane hung back, all eyes and ears cranked wide open.
“I suspect you got an idea what this is about. I need some answers about Mitchell Lee; like did he rip on Marcy Leets last night?” Beeman asked patiently.
“Privileged relationship. He’s my client. You know that,” Billie said sullenly.
“Uh-huh. Walk with me,” Beeman said, taking Billie by the arm, slowly leading him through the deadfall and dense grass as Rane fell in behind. “Billie, let’s you and me get outside the legal game and deal some cards. For the sake of conversation let’s put aside the Mississippi Criminal Code. How about I trade you the conspiracy statute for that privileged relationship…”
“Fuck you, Beeman. You’re gonna do jail time on this,” Billie snarled.
They were ambling toward the marina; easy going for Beeman and Rane, agony for Billie and his tender bare feet. Through breaks in the budding foliage Rane could see the hazy sunlight tickle the white hulls of moored powerboats.
“Here’s my question for you, Billie. If I’d been accidentally shot dead last Saturday what would have happened next?” Beeman asked.
Billie Watts stared at Beeman with more contempt than fear. He was recovering from the shock of having his door kicked in. His comfortable world was only four hundred yards away along the riverbank. Billie Watts smirked.
Rane had studied fear on human faces his whole adult life. He was on less sure ground with the nuances of chemical addiction. He suspected the twitchy discomfort on Billie’s florid, tanned face had more to do with irritation at being separated from his drugs and his teenage playmate than fear for his safety.
Beeman clearly understood this and was casting around for a method of dropping the conversation down to a more primal level.
“Walk,” Beeman said, giving Billie’s shoulder a shove, and they continued along the shoreline. Billie hugged his robe around him and picked his steps, grimacing every time his feet sunk into the matted grass.
They had traveled perhaps fifty yards when Beeman stopped and reflexively raised his hand like a point man signaling a halt. Slowly, he smiled.
Rane detected a persistent rustle, close by in the grass. He checked the trees. No wind. Billie merely blinked, probably hearing more noise inside his head than outside.
“They don’t run,” Beeman said absently. “Sometimes they’ll actually chase after you.” He looked around and selected a sturdy dead branch and snapped it off. He turned it in his hands, evaluating it: curved at the end, about five feet long. He took a cautious step into the grass. “I’ve heard stories about them dropping from a tree into a boat to attack you.”
Instinctively, Billie shied back and bumped into Rane, who nudged him forward. Now Beeman was moving in a fluid crouch through the knee-deep grass, the stick extended in one hand. Rane thought of the stance and careful footwork of a saber fencer.
“Uh-huh,” Beeman said. “Caught him moving. Usually they hang out on limbs or rocks near the water. Come here Billie. Take a look.”
Rane shoved Billie forward and they both lurched back, out of reflex, when they saw the snake that was ominously thick along its black middle, tapering at the tail and head. It was coiled in the grass next to a log. The triangular head cocked back, swaying, testing the air. It had intense, elliptical cat’s eyes and the wide-open mouth showing stark white against the sleek black coils.
“How’s the story go,” Beeman mused, figuring angles and distances with his stick. “Eve had questions and the snake give her the scoop on the knowledge of good and evil.”
With deceptive speed, Beeman caught the snake in mid-weave and mashed the stick down. The snake writhed in the grass, pinioned by the heavy stick just behind its head.
Billie had surged back against Rane, who gripped his arms from behind. Rane willed himself calm and hoped to hell Beeman knew what he was doing. That was a cottonmouth water moccasin he was getting into. A big one, almost four feet long, thick as Rane’s forearm around the middle.
“Trick is,” Beeman said slowly, stooping, keeping the pressure on his stick with his left hand, reaching with his right, “getting a hold on them…” His fingers probed right behind the fulcrum, where the stick held the snake’s head immobile. “…Just so.” The black body writhed under Beeman’s extended arm. Each time the thick coils lashed the grass, Billie Watts spasmed back against Rane’s chest. He rose on tiptoe as if to compress his bare feet and make them a smaller target.
Deftly, Beeman dropped the stick and raised his right hand, in which he now held the snake pinched below the base of the head between his thumb and index finger. He gripped the twitching black body firmly in his left.
He rose, turned, and held the squirming snake up with an appraising smile. “Whatcha think? Bet he goes close to fifteen pounds.”
Rane couldn’t see Billie’s face but he could feel the visceral revulsion pulse in Billie’s arms and smell it in the gumdrops of sweat that popped on the back of his neck.
“Jesus, Bee…” Billie groaned, pressing back against Rane.
Beeman took a step forward and turned the snake’s head slowly back and forth. A foot of air separated Billie Watts’s face from the straining white maw, the curved, glistening fangs. The venom. Beeman extended his arms. Six inches.
Rane, taller than Billie, could clearly see the snake’s moist, white-padded mouth. The fear he felt was controlled optical fascination, like switching to a more powerful lens setting. He tightened his grip on Billie Watts, whose breath was coming in deep, shuddering sobs.
Beeman had not shaved this morning, so the shadow of beard added an edge to his spare, tanned face. The easy humor had vacated his brown eyes. He seemed totally at ease with the poisonous snake in his hands.
Rane was getting a palpable sense there were a few open manholes in Kenny Beeman.
“Now, Billie, this is the way I see it,” Beeman said. “I was just doing my job, trying to figure out where the hell Mitchell Lee Nickels disappeared to. So I went out and talked to his wife, who is pissed off at him and so no help there. Marcy’s all beat up and not real talkative. So I decide to check with his lawyer. And I walk in and find you with a nose full of coke and this pink sixteen-year-old pussy that don’t have no skid marks on it at all. Well, you coming from a big powerful Corinth family—and me being just a hired-hand cop and all—naturally I remember my place and back off.
“Then it seems you became distraught and wandered away in your bathrobe, a little addled maybe, from shame about the girl, and maybe guilt about what you’re mixed up in with Dwayne Leets and Mitchell Lee. Or could be you just had too much cocaine for lunch. You got these cuts on your feet and hands and forearms from thrashing through the brush…”
Beeman paused and squeezed the snake harder, causing it to rage in its confinement.
“…and you musta tripped a
nd fell down and that’s when you met Mr. No Shoulders here, who struck you three-four times in the face.”
Rane was hard put to decide who had more hostility in his eyes, Beeman or the snake.
“Oh God,” Billie gasped, going loosey-goosey against Rane. Beeman had moved the snake close enough for Billie to feel its probing reptile breath.
“Probably you make it back to the condos and they get you to medical help, but that could take half an hour,” Beeman continued. “On the other hand, the face is close to the heart and lungs and this hemotoxic venom is some ugly shit…”
The snake’s tongue flicked against Billie’s cheek.
“I’ll get to the bottom of this,” Beeman said. “Just take me longer with you dead in the woods.”
“Okay,” Billie gasped. “Please…”
Beeman moved the snake back a few inches and waited.
Billie sagged, catching his breath. When he raised his eyes, the snake was right there, three-four inches away.
“You talk I’ll take a step back,” Beeman said.
“You got to promise to immunize me,” Billie started.
“Shit, boy, you ain’t hearing me,” Beeman said as he released the snake with his left hand so its body thrashed free. Then he stooped, seized Billie’s bare foot with his left hand, and thrust the snake against it.
Billie screamed and twisted in Rane’s grip.
“You don’t need to be immunized. What you need is to get inoculated. And pretty damn quick,” Beeman said, coming back up and collecting the writhing snake in his left hand.
“Oh Christ, oh Christ,” Billie panted.
“Calm down, Billie, more excited you get the faster that shit pumps through your blood. Now, that’s just your little toe. Want to try for your pecker?” Beeman said in an even voice.
“I don’t know…” Rane ground his teeth, blinking sweat.
“I know,” Beeman said hotly. “I know Paul Edin’s dead and all these fuckers are walking around laughing about it. He better start talking…”
