Exile Hunter

by Preston Fleming

  “Not at all, ma’am” he answered, and wished her a good night.

  * * *

  The following morning, Linder rose before dawn and feasted on Mrs. Unger’s ham and eggs and stand-up-and-cheer coffee before plodding out to Main Street to take his place along the curb. Pickup trucks and SUVs cruised up and down, stopping to negotiate labor rates with men judged suitable for work. He waited ten minutes, then twenty, as the vehicles whisked by without anyone pulling off to the shoulder to speak to him. Then by the dim light of the streetlamps, he noticed a white cargo van approach slowly and stop opposite him. The passenger window was down, so Linder approached.

  At that moment, he noticed a flashing blue light some fifty meters away, and watched with growing unease as an unmarked police cruiser stopped behind the van. A tall sheriff’s deputy dressed in a khaki uniform and a Smokey the Bear hat climbed out of the cruiser and stepped between Linder and the passenger door.

  “You don’t look like one of our regulars, mister,” the deputy drawled. “How about showing me your papers?”

  Linder retrieved Horvath’s Montana residence permit from his trouser pocket and handed it over.

  “You been sick since they took this photo?” the officer noted with a scowl. “It don’t look much like you.”

  “I was on a mining job in Canada and lost a lot of weight,” he replied, keeping his story as close to the truth as he dared.

  “Well, why don’t we just check out your ID back at the station?” the deputy went on, more as a statement than a question. “Hop in. If your papers are good, I’ll have you back here within the hour.”

  Linder had a sinking feeling as the deputy waved the van away and opened the rear door to the police cruiser. He knew that to run would be a big mistake. His only hope was to count on the documents being in order or the government’s verification system being out of order. If God existed, he thought, now might be a very good time for Him to show up.

  Linder stepped toward the cruiser’s open door. But before he reached it, both men were bathed in the headlights of a heavy pickup that pulled up behind the cruiser. An older officer wearing a similar khaki uniform climbed down from the driver’s seat while a fiftyish civilian wearing jeans and a polo shirt approached from the passenger side.

  “There you go again, Eldon,” the civilian, a sturdily built man with a shaven head and two-day’s growth of beard, addressed the deputy in a jocular tone. “Don’t you know how badly we need machine operators in this county? This one here looks like he might actually have what it takes.”

  “Don’t know if he does or not, Larry,” the deputy replied evenly. “That’s your business. Mine is to check out the strangers in town and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

  “That’s all fine and good, deputy, as long as you aren’t being too fussy about who you let in,” the civilian went on. “I’ve met lots of undocumented ranch hands around this town, and you don’t seem to mind that. You wouldn’t be discriminating against factory labor, would you?”

  “Now, Larry, you know we do our level best to be fair to everybody,” the older officer remarked with a steady gaze. “If you want to offer work to this gentleman and are willing to accept whatever I.D. he might have, I suppose we could look the other way.”

  The civilian gave a gentle laugh but rather than respond directly to the sheriff, he addressed Linder.

  “You ever done factory work before, mister?”

  “I did when I was younger,” Linder responded. “Worked an assembly line for truck parts back east.”

  “Are you good with tools?”

  “Any tools you’d find in a mine, I can handle. And I know my way around most car and truck repairs, if that helps,” Linder added.

  “Think you could handle a packaging line?” the civilian asked.

  “I expect so. What’s the pay?”

  “Double minimum wage to start. More if you’re worth it,” the factory owner proposed. “I’d say that beats whatever Eldon here can offer, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Linder smiled and took a deep breath. As unlikely as it seemed, perhaps somebody upstairs was looking out for him, after all.

  “It’s fine by me if it’s okay with these two gentlemen,” Linder answered, nodding toward the two officers. “Lead the way.”

  The two lawmen stepped aside to let Linder take a seat in the rear of the pickup’s extended cab. The older officer drove it only a few blocks before he stopped the truck opposite a late-model SUV and wished Linder and the factory owner good luck.

  As soon as Linder and his prospective employer were aboard the SUV, the man introduced himself as Larry Becker, owner and general manager of a newly privatized nutritional supplement manufacturer. The company had lost money ever since the Regional Economic Administrator of the Utah Security Zone had seized the facility from its former owner, a Mormon bishop accused of aiding and abetting the insurgency. Before coming to Coalville, Becker had owned a feed store chain in North Dakota before striking it rich in the shale oil business. He had been attracted to Utah by the business opportunities created when the President-for-Life forcibly resettled Utah’s practicing Mormons to northern internment camps and seized their property under federal asset forfeiture laws. All were charged with membership in an illegal terrorist organization.

  “How long have you owned the company?” Linder asked at the first opportunity.

  “Bought it from the government last fall,” Becker replied. “My son and I moved up here right after the deal closed. It’s been a pretty wild ride, to tell the truth. We picked up the assets for a song, but it’s turned into a real money pit so far. Jay and I haven’t had a moment’s rest since we got here.”

  “How’s it been looking lately?” Linder inquired, intrigued by Becker’s mixture of opportunism and initiative. Being taken under the wing of an influential and businessman, he thought, might give him just the kind of protection he needed.

  “It’s slowly turning around, but I can’t say it’s been easy,” Becker answered with more enthusiasm than his words would seem to indicate. “The market is absolutely starved for product, and we’ve been buying up raw materials and packaging components from all our former competitors. As long as those companies stay in government hands, we ought to do just fine. For the moment, we’ve practically got a monopoly out here.”

  “What kind of products do you make?” Linder inquired with growing curiosity.

  “Multi-vitamins, mostly. We could tie up our entire capacity with multis now, but we also pound out tons of Vitamin C tablets, B-complex, garlic, and other herbals. When we take on more capacity, we’ll add more formulations.”

  “How do you go about selling them? Do you have your own retail stores?”

  Becker laughed.

  “Are you kidding?” the entrepreneur answered. “We sell to independent reps, and they sell to consumers from the back of a truck. No taxes, no red tape, and it’s an all-cash business. That’s why Jay and I love it so.”

  “And the government doesn’t get in your way, what with martial law and troops on every corner?” Linder pressed.

  “Hell, no,” Larry scoffed. “Out here, as long as you stay out of politics, the military won’t go after you. Besides, the officers rotate so often that they haven’t even figured out who to ask for bribes yet. Man, are these restricted zones great for business, or what?”

  Larry Becker gave a hearty laugh and Linder joined in. Becker seemed to understand how business worked under the Unionist regime and that gave Linder a degree of comfort.

  “You know, I’m beginning to think I might like it out here,” Linder commented with a grin. “Now, what can I do to be useful?”

  * * *

  They drove south on I-80 for fifteen miles to a nondescript industrial park on the outskirts of Park City, where Larry’s SUV pulled up outside a two-story brick-façade building with “Becker Laboratories” painted over the main entrance. Larry led Linder to a side door between two loading docks, dodging a fo
rklift on the way to a cramped office with a picture window that faced the factory floor. Outside the window were a half-dozen packaging lines separated from one another by movable partitions and extending thirty meters or so to the far wall.

  Seated at a desk behind a clutter of work orders, production schedules, and batch records was a gangling, stoop-shouldered man in his early thirties, whose sallow skin, sunken eyes, and deeply receding hairline made him appear a decade older at first. The resemblance between father and son was unmistakable.

  “Jay, this is Tom Horvath,” Larry began. “He just rode in from Montana and I found him on the South Main strip this morning. He has a mining background and says he knows his way around machinery. I thought you might put him to work on a packaging line and see what he can do for us.”

  Jay Becker looked Linder over from head to foot and finished with a penetrating gaze.

  “I like a man with the spark of intelligence in his eyes,” Jay said at last, his face easing into an unanticipated smile. “Leave him to me, Dad. Lord knows, we have plenty to do around here. If he’s good, we’ll find work for him.”

  “Fine, then,” Larry replied with a businesslike nod. “He’s all yours.”

  When Larry closed the door behind him, Jay rose and searched the rack behind the door for a white lab coat in Linder’s size. Then he pulled out a disposable hair net from a cardboard box on the bookshelf and handed it to the new man.

  “We all have to wear these while we’re on the floor. No exceptions. In a few minutes, I’ll call the shift supervisor and have Jose show you around the packaging lines. But first, let’s talk a bit. My dad said you came in from Montana. What line of mining did you do up there?”

  “Hard rock, mainly,” Linder replied. “And some open-pit along the way. Lately a lot of new projects have popped up in Canada.”

  “Whereabouts in Canada, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Yukon, mainly,” Linder answered obligingly. “Some in Alberta, too.”

  “Tar sands?” Jay presumed.

  “Drilling’s not my specialty, but I’ve spent some time there.”

  “Interesting,” Jay observed.

  “How about you?” Linder shot back, sensing from Jay’s demeanor that he, too, might be hiding something. “Have you been up north lately?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t care much for it,” Jay replied distractedly as he searched under his papers for something.“ Now, we don’t bother with a lot of paperwork for day laborers, but if you don’t mind, I need your help to fill out a brief form for our records.”

  Though Jay did his best to make the inquiry seem a routine formality, Linder picked up certain telltale signs in his face that indicated it was not.

  “Name and place of birth?” Jay began.

  “Thomas D. Horvath, born Missoula, Montana, May 10, 1980.”

  “Any college or technical school?”

  “Bachelor’s in Mining Engineering from Montana Tech.”

  “Any special reason why somebody with your background is doing day labor?”

  Linder offered a sheepish look and stared at the floor. He was in full undercover role-playing mode now and sensed that Jay Becker was nobody’s fool.

  “Had a bit of a drinking problem up in Canada, sir,” he confessed. “The long nights got to me after a while. So I thought I’d come down here and see if the sunny weather might help. I’m 58 days clean and sober, and aim to stay that way, one day at a time.”

  “But why not apply to the big state-owned companies where the wages are better?”

  “Because I need work now,” Linder replied. “A man could starve out here waiting for a government work clearance. And if they find a black mark anywhere…”

  “Don’t sweat the clearance. We’ll arrange all that. But, from now on, I’ll expect you to show up on time every day and stay until the work is done. Overtime pay kicks in at eight hours, including lunch and breaks. Miss a day during your first month and you’re out. Am I clear?”

  “You can count on me, sir,” Linder promised.

  “You can knock off the ‘sir’ stuff and call me Jay. The only Mr. Becker around here is my father.” And with that, Jay Becker’s face flashed a friendly welcoming smile.

  * * *

  At the end of the day, Linder drew his wages in cash from the company cashier and rode a jitney bus back to Coalville, his neck and shoulders aching from feeding plastic bottles, caps, labels, and tablets to an automated packaging line that dispensed a hundred tablets into each white plastic bottle, added a cap and safety seal, affixed a label, and dropped the bottles into 24-count cardboard cases.

  The jitney dropped him off on North Main in Coalville, where he stopped at the town’s forlorn state-run pharmacy to buy aspirin, a pen, and some cheap stationery. His next stop was the sandwich shop next door for a bowl of chili, a hamburger, and a beer. The local brew was thin and tasteless but felt heavenly going down. Suddenly Linder had a flashback of drinking Almaza lager at a sidewalk café in Beirut’s Hamra district. For a moment he sensed the sunny warmth he had always associated with that city and wondered if he would ever see Beirut again. Then just as quickly he put the thought aside.

  Upon navigating back to the bungalow on 50th Street, Linder knocked on the front door and found Mrs. Unger waiting for him with an expression considerably more hospitable than the one she had shown him the evening before. The savory aroma of roasted chicken met him the moment he entered.

  “I left you a plate on the kitchen counter with some chicken and potatoes, and there’s fresh coffee in the pot,” she offered.

  Detecting a slight hesitancy in the widow’s voice, Linder flashed her a warm smile.

  “Good thing, too, because I’m starved,” he said truthfully, despite just having eaten. “It’s been a long day and there wasn’t much for lunch.”

  “Tonight supper is on the house,” she explained. “If you’d like breakfast and supper on weekdays, I charge eight dollars a day, which is cheaper than the greasy spoon on Main Street and a lot tastier, if I do say so.”

  Linder grinned as he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and another twenty for rent.

  “Count me in for tomorrow,” he said as he handed her the money.

  Mrs. Unger went ahead and set a place at the kitchen table but left Linder alone to eat. The meal was the best he had tasted since his arrest and he left not a morsel on the plate. After months of starvation rations, his body craved food constantly, and his stomach was slowly enlarging to accommodate his ravenous appetite.

  Upon wishing the landlady a good night and retiring to his room, Linder dropped his purchases on the writing table, undressed, and prepared to shower. When finished, he donned fresh shorts and t-shirt and looked longingly at the bed. But instead of sleeping, he took a seat at the table and composed a letter.

  “Dear April,” he wrote. But no matter how hard he tried, he simply could not imagine his sister’s face and the words would not flow. At last, he tore the paper into tiny bits and flushed them down the toilet. Then he turned out the light, climbed into bed, and fell at once into a deep and dreamless sleep.

  * * *

  The next day, Linder rose at dawn, wolfed down his breakfast, and hurried over to Main Street to catch a jitney to the industrial park. He started the shift on the same packaging line as the day before, but after lunch, Jay assigned him to a line that handled smaller lots. As before, Jose instructed him on how to operate the equipment and then left him alone to master it.

  At the end of the shift, Jose told him to report to Jay’s office before he left the building. Through the window, Linder saw Jay signing papers at his desk. He knocked and entered and, to his surprise, heard Paul Anka’s “Diana” playing from mini speakers in the bookshelf behind Jay’s desk.

  “Man, that song really takes me back,” Linder blurted out, remembering the ballroom dance lessons of his youth. “My dad absolutely loved Paul Anka.”

  “Mine, too,” Jay answered with a candid smile.
“Have a seat.”

  Linder sat in the straight-back meal chair opposite Jay’s desk and waited for the younger man to finish. When Jay raised his head again, the smile was gone.

  “I think it’s time we level with each other,” Jay began. He waited for a reaction but Linder offered none, his professional experience having conditioned him to surprises of this kind.

  “Sure,” Linder replied amiably. “Level away.”

  Jay’s forehead furrowed into a frown as he folded his hands and rested his elbows on the desk.

  “Yesterday you asked me if I’d spent any time in the north and I said I had but didn’t care for it. That much is true,” Jay confessed. “But there’s more to it. I was arrested on suspicion of aiding the insurgency and sentenced to hard labor at a labor camp in Alaska. I worked on a road crew up there for nearly two months before Dad found a way to get me out. Now it’s your turn. What were you doing up there?”

  “Mining, like I said,” Linder replied. “With some logging thrown in.”

  “Okay,” Jay observed. “In what capacity?”

  “Contract employee,” Linder lied.

  “And your real name is Thomas Horvath?”

  “That’s right,” Linder continued. “Why do you ask? Is there a problem with my papers?”

  “No, the documents are good, as far as I can tell,” Jay responded. “It’s just that you are not Horvath. I knew the Tom Horvath those papers belonged to. He was one of the TDY engineers assigned to our camp and he was a worthless, drunken mean-spirited piece of shit. Now, I don’t give a rat’s ass what happened to that Horvath and I truly don’t mind your taking his name. I just want to know who I’m dealing with and whether it makes any sense to keep you on the payroll.”

  “Does your dad know about the other Horvath?” Linder ventured.

  “Of course he does,” Jay replied. “He figured right away you served time in the camps. But, then, Dad has developed a soft spot for national security prisoners. Now, one more time: are you going to level with me or not?”