The Devil Came Calling (Rolson McKane Mystery Book 2)

by T. Braddy

  The View-Master of my misfortune advanced forward, clicking through a cavalcade of images, both real and imagined. A bobbing head. A line of men stretching back to infinity. Bloodied needles. Broken meth pipes. Flesh against flesh. Lawyers. Guns. Money. Brains.

  And, at the center of it, Vanessa.

  Not that she deserved to be scrutinized that way, or that I had any right. She did what she did, and my permission had not been part of that equation. Instead of fighting for our marriage, I had retreated to the shelter of my own insecurities, which had driven her further down her path.

  Her life (and her death) haunted me, not the other way around, and dealing with it was my problem. For her, the struggle had long since come and gone. The biggest lie I could tell myself was that this was somehow about the truth of the suitcase and not some deep dive into the past.

  In the gory exploitation flick that was my brain, Vanessa was changing.

  She became Jess, and then she was suddenly Allison, locked into a state of sexual arousal. Mouth open, eyes closed. Clenched ever-so-slightly in that subtly defensive way women have of protecting themselves. Not a person at all, but a vision - an object spinning in place, rising above the fray, backlit by the horrors I had passively experienced.

  I wanted to get up, tried to get up, but the fantasy-horror held me there, pressing me into the couch until it was finished with me. The faces and bodies and tawdry sex swirled around in the blender of my mind, assimilating into a mess of arms and legs and misshapen faces. Blood seeping through openings framed by the men in masks, who lingered at the periphery. My stomach rumbled and rolled to one side. I was going to be sick.

  Back in Lumber Junction, I had been plagued by an inexplicable connection to the dead, the spirits that roamed freely through the backwoods of my town, but that should have dissipated with my move to Savannah. It had something to do with my alcoholism, I was sure, which had been one reason I’d given it up, but it also was connected to an old man with a penchant for practicing an ancient, magnetic form of voodoo.

  It was all coming back around.

  Allison became Vanessa, and Vanessa became Jess again. The close-eyed concentration of the acts being performed on them taunted me in a way I wasn’t prepared to handle, and then it shifted to something else, something darker and more malevolent.

  Allison’s frenzied countenance transformed into a horrific, Joker-like rictus, the lips stretching beyond the normal constraints of human capacity. She continued grinding against her faceless paramour, unaffected by the ghastly transformation taking place. Her limbs stretched, bent, and snapped.

  It was no longer the sex that transfixed me.

  It was her face.

  Changing, shifting, transforming.

  Allison’s features mixed with Jess’s, and eventually Vanessa’s eyes and nose took over, the flesh ripping away to reveal cold, blue skin underneath. Dead skin. Vanessa was dead, but then again, they all were dead at this point. Cold, lifeless representations of themselves. They were all Vanessa, and Vanessa was dead. In the ground. Rotting. Bug-infested. Nothing more than a collection of memories I could carry around with me. The shell of a human in the casket - a mere housing unit for an absent tenant.

  The decomposition sped up, abomination upon abomination multiplying until I was staring into a vast ocean of skin, hair, blood, and teeth. I recognized a few of the people who appeared. Ronald and Jeffrey and Emmitt and Deuce and...me.

  It was hatred that finally lifted me off the couch and pushed me into the street. Hatred for what I had seen. Hatred for myself and my ex-wife and my parents and the goddamned shit-splat of a town I had grown up in.

  It was like something inside me burst, and suddenly I was up and moving. Wearing jeans and a t-shirt with Chuck Taylors, I sprinted down the street, running until my legs pumped snake venom and my lungs became a bonfire.

  I barreled into the very first liquor store I found, and, sweating copiously, yanked a six-pack of whatever off the shelf, paid the good man behind the counter, and hastened over to the river for a view while I got good and fucked up.

  I sat on a bench overlooking the water, flowing with the gentle ease of a man with no agenda. Leaning back, the beer a satisfying weight on my lap, I tore a can from the plastic rings, savoring the feeling of it in my hand – a can of Coca-Cola doesn’t feel that good or that cold – and then flicked the top open with a satisfying, fizzy pop. I raised it, prepared myself for oblivion, and then stopped.

  Someone was staring at me. My skin prickled up, sending shivers all over my body. I resisted the urge to whip my head around and accuse my admirer. Instead, I looked down into the oval opening of my beer, hoping to see something I hadn’t before.

  Nothing. Just the bubbly amber of my looming downfall staring right back at me, daring me to drink.

  Come on, it said. Just take a–

  “Hey, Rol,” came a voice from behind me.

  Not the one I had expected, being as I had anticipated the kind of voice that would be connected to someone wielding a gun.

  This voice was feminine. It sounded familiar, a little too much like someone I’d known in the Junction way back in the time before my life had veered into a tree.

  I turned to see Yaelis standing there, smiling quizzically at me, her eyes refusing to acknowledge the beer in my hand.

  Without hesitation, without a sense of self-consciousness, I placed the sixteen ounce can at my feet and stood up, tossing the rest of the sixer on the bench.

  “Hey, there, kiddo,” I said. “What are you doing up so early? And out here by yourself?”

  “You’re sweating,” she said, glancing at my stained armpits.

  “I ran here,” I said.

  “In jeans?”

  I looked down. “Guess so,” I said, smiling. “Just needed my morning meditation by the river.”

  “Looks like that’s not all you needed,” she said. Her voice wasn’t sarcastic or judgmental, just observing.

  I nodded, taking her point. “Yeah, guess so.”

  She stared, waiting out the awkwardness.

  “It’s complicated,” I said, and that explanation sounded tinny in my own ears, so I gathered up what truth I could lay on her and continued. “I had a rough night last night. Some old things got dragged out of the basement and nailed to the wall. I suppose I wasn’t ready for them, and they drove me out of the house, led me here.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  I sighed. “I don’t think you’d understand.”

  “I’m not some porcelain angel, you know. I’ve gotten fucked up before.”

  “Y.”

  “I’m a senior in high school,” she said, walking over and leaning against the rail overlooking the river. “I’ve experimented with stuff. Smoked some weed. Taken some pills. The booze, though – I don’t like it.”

  “I didn’t, either, at first.”

  She shrugged. “I could take it or leave it. Big difference between me and my dad. He’s an all-or-nothing guy, all the time, and I’m not.”

  “You’re not even a guy,” I said, smiling, and she smiled back, punching my shoulder.

  “My mom never drank. I think my family back home does, though. Maybe the genes passed me over. Maybe it’s something I’ll really get into once I get to college, but not right now. I like getting high with my friends some. That’s fun. But I don’t do it all the time, and it doesn’t get in the way of my life, you know? My ‘hopes and dreams’ or whatever.”

  “What are your hopes and dreams?”

  She thought about it. “I want to travel, want to explore places I’ve never been. I want to see my family in El Salvador. Dad, he doesn’t make a lot, and he always talks about sending me down there on vacation, et cetera, but it’s never happened. My nana has offered to pay the way, but if my dad can’t do it, they sure as hell can’t. It’s – it’s just something I’ll have to do later, when I’m an adult.”

  “Later comes a lot sooner than you think. The dreams you have as
a kid can become fantasies by the time you reach a certain age. Most people end up being embarrassed by them.”

  She said, “Well, what dreams have you accomplished?”

  “I haven’t,” I said truthfully. “I joined the army after 9/11, and I thought I was serving some dream to fend off terrorists, but even then I was a drunk, and I ended up washing out fairly quickly.”

  “Did you fight in the war? Or the wars, I should say?”

  “Nope. Never left the country. Even back then, I drank too much. It’s like I figured the military would be the place where drinkers went to get their shit – er, their lives – together. It used to be jail or the army, you know. People enlisted to knock all the loose ends into place. Not me.”

  “You can still dream. You can still have things you want to accomplish.”

  “I’m not old, but I’m getting there,” I said.

  “You don’t look it.”

  “But I am. I feel it. If you don’t have a passion, have dreams, pretty soon the muscle that creates them withers up, and even the modest dreams you have become like reflections of another person’s life, in the end. I think that’s what happened to me.”

  “Well, think of something you really want to do, and just start doing it.”

  Find out who is fucking with me and put him in the dirt, I thought. “I think you’re wise beyond your years, Y.”

  “So, you still thinking about drinking those beers?”

  I saw in the corner of my eye a couple of homeless men heading in our direction. “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “Maybe next time. There’s almost always a liquor store open, if I change my mind, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Now, why don’t you run along and do whatever it is you were headed off to do in the first place? I’ve got some thinking I need to get done.”

  She gave me a hug and went off down the street, disappearing into one of the tourist-y knick-knack stores, where they had everything from shot glasses to pecan pralines.

  I left the beer for the homeless guys and made my way to the bar, though not for a drink.

  * * *

  Mickey was perched atop a ladder, changing some lights, when I entered.

  “Big night?” he asked. “You look like you’ve been out with the werewolves.”

  “Maybe I have.”

  He sniffed the air. “And you stink. Jesus. Have you been rolling around at the bottom of the river or something? Christ Almighty. There’s a washcloth in my room. Get that musty-ass smell off of you before you clock in. This is a respectable business.”

  I passed a display of postcards featuring half-naked girls. “I was thinking the same thing.”

  “Fucking respectable, McKane,” he yelled, breaking into his raspy smoker’s cackle.

  I gathered my wits in the back bathroom, pursuing a sense of calm amidst what was turning out to be a damned trying time, personally. Soap and water brought me back to a near-respectable appearance, but the stain of my imagination lingered.

  The main stall was furnished with a stack of paperback books I had suggested for the old man. They were dog-eared from use, which made me smile. He was already three-quarters of the way through L.A. Confidential and seemed not to be slowing down.

  I headed back out and started my shift.

  Two men sauntered in a bit later and took adjacent places at the bar, directly across from me. They were big guys, wore suits. Struck me as pretty serious, so I kept on working.

  “Two brews,” the one on the right said. “Whatever’s on tap is fine.”

  I was alternating between cleaning glasses and slicing lemons. “Not serving yet,” I said, without looking up. “Come back in an hour.”

  A one hundred dollar bill slid into view.

  “This is worth an hour’s time,” he said. “We get a per diem. Boss just forks over the money, doesn’t care where it goes. Trusting bastard.”

  I put aside the lemon I had cut but kept the knife. “We’re not open quite yet. You fellas go take a stroll down the river, have a look-see at the Waving Girl and then hasten on back here. We’ll be up and ready to go then.”

  The one on the left leaned forward. “We already seen that. The girl. Kept wondering what she looked like under that dress, if you catch me.”

  “Mortie, Mortie,” said the one on the right. “That’s rude as fuck, man. We’re outsiders. We can’t go around insulting the locals, now can we? You a local man, or one of them transplants looking to find the good life next to the ocean?”

  “I’m a local guy, of a sort,” I said. I resumed dicing the lemons.

  “We talked about that. Wondered what it’s like to be here year-round, what with all the tourists coming in and out. It’s got to be tough to keep your sense of perspective about you, if things are always changing, moving. That sort of business.”

  I pulled the towel from my shoulder and wiped off my hands. “You get used to it. Just kind of have to treat it like living in a big city. Every day, there’s new people you’ll never see again.”

  The one on the right leaned back, raised his eyebrows. “You don’t seem like a man who knows big city life.”

  “I’ve been all over.”

  “Well, then. Forgive me for my ignorance. I pegged you more for a small-town guy. You’ve got that look about you.”

  “Yeah,” said the one on the left. “He does, doesn’t he?”

  “Your wife like Savannah? Is she a big-town girl, too?”

  I stopped, held the lemon in place. My right hand started quivering.

  “No wife,” I said, nearly dicing my index finger with my knife.

  “Forgive me,” he said, readjusting his tie. “On our morning trek up and down River Street, we happened to see you sitting and talking with a young lady. Figured it might be your significant other. My mistake. I guess she did look a little young.”

  “Real young,” said the other one. “Real pretty and real young. That your daughter, instead?”

  Bile swirled in my stomach. One step too far.

  “That’s none of your goddamned business.” I said it as flatly and evenly as I could manage.

  The one on the left held up his hands in mock surrender. “My fault. My bad. I was just taking a guess, man. Didn’t mean to soggy up your britches. So, you’re not married. I apologize.”

  The one on the right didn’t react. “We don’t mean to offend. I think we’ve been on the road for what seems like six months. The boss has been on our asses to come up with results, make our numbers, and influence our clients to see his vision. It can be quite the stressful situation, and we sometimes take out our frustrations one whoever is around. I, too, have to say I’m sorry.”

  I wanted to keep silent but instead, I said, “It’s nothing.”

  “Good. We’ve made proper amends. Now, how about those two beers? We can even go and sit down at the far end of this establishment. Get out of your hair so’s you can keep cutting lemons.”

  “Like I said. Not open. No chance.”

  Out came another hundred.

  “Fuck it, serve them,” Mickey called from the ladder. His eyes had fixed upon the Ben Franklins on the bar. “I assume they’re travelers of the road, don’t get what time shit opens down here. Am I right?”

  “Right,” said the one on the right. He smiled, regarding me with a triumphant stare. “Here on business, looking for some morning entertainment before our meetings start. Just want to get good and loose so’s we can make the magic happen when it counts.”

  I looked from the men to Mickey, who shrugged and then went about checking a new light. I poured two glasses of the cheapest stuff on tap and scraped the two hundreds off the bar. The money went into an empty register.

  “Far end of the bar is that way.” I nodded in the direction of the entrance.

  The one on the left took a good, healthy swig from his glass, eyes never leaving mine, while the other merely stared. His drink remained untouched on the bar. I went about my own business, unconcerned wit
h the eyes on me.

  “Come on, Mortie,” he said at last. “We can check out the people passing by as we finish these fine drinks our barkeep has provided us.”

  They vacated the seats and went down to the far end and sat on stools facing me, not the outdoors. Light shone through the entrance, turning them into blurry silhouettes. I couldn’t tell if they were still staring or just looking in my general direction. I glanced at Mickey, who shrugged.

  I went to the back to get some ice for the under-bar coolers, and when I came back, lugging a five gallon bucket, one of the guys was sitting in his former seat, right across from where I’d been working. Whenever I got close, I recognized him as the guy on the right. Thinner, neater, more composed and less openly offensive.

  “I just been thinking about how much of a wrong foot we got off on with that last bit of business. Me and Mortie down there, we sometimes get into a pissing contest over attention when we’re around each other. Doesn’t turn out best for anybody, most days, and we have to end up apologizing, like I’m doing now.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “We actually have an ulterior motive for dropping by this establishment. Got some people we need to look up, and they won’t respond to our very clear messages to them. Actually, it’s kind of frustrating.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “One of them has been particularly difficult to track down. Been looking for him for a minute. Guy went AWOL after some pretty big life changes, and now he’s hiding out.”

  “Sounds like a weird business you’re in.”

  “The weirdest.” I didn’t look up, but in my peripheral vision, I saw the predatory grin. My pulse quickened, but I tried not to let it show.

  “Sounds like you haven’t been clear with your outreach so far. Maybe the guy didn’t get the message before.”

  “Oh, but I bet he did.”

  “Well, come back when we have customers.” That way, I can have my pistol ready. “The regulars probably have heard of whoever it is you’re looking for. They get around.”