by Dave Daren
The road we were on started to narrow and the scrawny trees that crew along the steep sides of the hill began to turn into thick oaks and chestnuts. I spotted a pair of deer beneath some pines and a wild turkey roosting on the edge of a rock. It would have been a pleasant ride if we hadn’t nearly plunged over the side a few times and if the Sheriff’s face wasn’t set in a grim expression that even the sunglasses didn’t hide. I could see the silver strip of the river rapidly approaching and I wondered if Anthony would ever learn what had happened to my body.
Chapter 5
The road flattened out so abruptly that the bottom of the cruiser scraped against the hard dirt and sent a puff of dust into the breeze. The Sheriff ignored the protest from the car and gunned the engine as we rounded a sharp curve. There was another sudden dip, and then the hard dirt gave way to a wide, paved road that sloped gently towards the river. On an outcropping stood a single house, a one-story wood structure with a green roof and a porch that stretched along the front and then around the riverside of the building. Fishing poles were stacked against the porch rail and a pair of rubber boots sat by the front door.
“Where are we?” I asked in confusion.
“This place belongs to Tom Baker,” Harris replied. “He just wants to have a little conversation with you.”
“And who is Tom Baker?” I asked.
“The property appraiser for the county,” he said. “He’s held the job for about twenty-nine years now.”
“Okay,” I murmured.
“He’s also the closest thing we have to a town mayor,” the Sheriff added.
“Ah,” I said as Tom Baker’s status began to coalesce in my brain. It would appear that I wasn’t about to be killed off just yet, and that another palm would need some grease.
“Is this Hup?” I asked.
Harris didn’t respond, but simply parked the cruiser half-off the road, across the street from the house. We both climbed slowly from the car, me because I still wasn’t convinced that I really wanted to be here, and the Sheriff, well, because he was the Sheriff and that’s how he walked. A dirt path led from the street to the front door, through the weedy lawn and past a spindly pine tree. I spotted the tailgate of an old truck on the rockside of the house and a flock of white ducks floating in a kiddie pool. I stopped to stare at the ducks for a moment, and the Sheriff stopped as well.
“He was gonna raise them and sell them to restaurants,” the Sheriff explained.
“But?” I prodded.
The Sheriff shrugged and adjusted the frames on his face.
“His grandkids won’t let him,” Harris finally said.
“How many does he have?” I asked as I tried to delay heading into the house. The place had a run down look to it, with peeling paint and a screen door that didn’t hang straight. The windows along the front were all dark, and though heavy drapes kept prying eyes from seeing inside, none of the fabrics matched.
“About twenty or so,” the Sheriff replied as he stepped up onto the porch.
I still stood in the yard while Harris pounded once on the wood door then pulled it open.
“Hup!” the Sheriff called as he peered into the darkness beyond. “I got the city lawyer with me.”
Harris glanced back and waved me up to the porch. I stepped up hesitantly, but the Sheriff held the door open wide and pointed me inside. Like Bam’s Tudor extravaganza, Hup’s front rooms were dim and unlit. I could pick out the shapes of furniture as I stepped across the threshold and picture frames on the walls, but that was about it.
Harris closed the door behind me, then tugged me towards the one bit of light I could see, a ray of sunlight at the end of a short hallway. We walked past a pair of closed doors and an open door to a tidy bathroom, and stepped into a sun-filled kitchen that appeared to serve as a multi-purpose living space.
The kitchen appliances were all gathered into one corner, along with a row of cabinets and an old display cabinet that held a collection of mismatched china. A desk was wedged into the space between the hallway door and the cabinet, and a large dinner table occupied the place of honor in the center of the room. It was loaded down with a high-end laptop, a brand new iPad, the controllers for a gaming console, and a levitating model of the Death Star. The opposite wall was covered with maps of the area above a long, low bookshelf packed to capacity. More rods and reels hung from hooks near the open back door, along with a collection of men’s shoes.
Harris moved past me as I took in the room, and peered through the screen door into what I assumed was a backyard. The Sheriff studied the area for a moment with his arms crossed in front of his chest, then let out a shrill whistle. I heard a dog bark in response, and then a man’s voice.
“Hup!” Harris called again. “I got the lawyer with me.”
There was a response I couldn’t quite hear, and then the Sheriff opened the screen door and used his thumb to point to me and then to the outdoors. I walked as casually as I could towards the back door, still not convinced this was entirely safe. The Sheriff had yet to remove his sunglasses and he had slipped back into his power persona as we’d entered the house.
I stepped onto the porch at the back of the house and realized it was merely a continuation of the porch that wrapped along the one side. There were a handful of plastic chairs with padded cushions strewn across the planks and a plastic bin filled with toys. A wood plank table was pushed against the railing and a pair of heavy knives used to gut fish sat atop it.
“Grab a chair,” Harris instructed as he picked up one in each hand and followed the porch around the corner of the house.
I looked back at the screen door and wondered how far I could make it back up the road before anyone figured out I had left. Of course, I’d still have to call for help, and so I pulled out my phone to check its status. Not that I really needed to even look this low between two rocky hillsides. There was no signal to be found, and my phone only beeped sadly as it searched for something that wasn’t there.
I tucked the phone back into my pocket and picked up a third chair just as a wire-haired pointer appeared from a clump of trees near the river followed by a heavy-set man dressed in faded khakis, a blue Hawaiian shirt, and a straw Panama hat. It was hard to see much detail other than the bristly brown mustache that seemed to cover most of the lower portion of his face.
The dog barked when it saw me and stopped, uncertain if I was friend or foe. The man glanced my way but didn’t hesitate like the dog. He barreled on, and the icy stare he threw me didn’t offer much reassurance. Harris looked positively warm next to him, and so I scurried around the corner with my chair and placed it on the far side of Harris, which meant the menacing Sheriff would be between me and his cohort.
Harris chuckled when he saw where I placed the chair but didn’t offer any comments as I sat down. The dog soon appeared and bounded up to the Sheriff with enthusiasm, then sniffed at me while Harris scratched his ears. The Sheriff reached towards a plastic bowl that had been set on the railing and pulled a dog treat out. The pointer’s eyes lit up at the sight and the tail banged into my knee as the dog turned to accept his treat.
“You’re out early,” the man in the khakis said as he joined us. He sat down in the third chair and pulled the hat from his head. He promptly started to fan himself with the hat though the air by the river was crisp and cool still.
“Someone vandalized Mr. Morgan’s car last night,” the Sheriff replied. “We went to talk to the folks at the commune.”
“Let me guess,” the man replied. “They had no idea what you were talking about.”
The Sheriff nodded but didn’t elaborate.
“Sometimes I think we should just kick the lot of them out,” the man sighed. “But who knows what type of people would show up next. Better the devil you know than the one you don’t.”
The Sheriff nodded again and offered another dog treat to the pointer.
“So, Mr. Morgan,” the man said as he turned to look at me.
His ey
es were ice blue and if they ever held any warmth, it had long ago leached away. Even the laugh lines around his eyes and mouth only made him look angry, and I wondered how the grandkids could stand to be here. On the other hand, the man had spared the ducks at the grandkids behest, so maybe they saw a friendlier face than the one I now confronted.
“Mr. Baker?” I asked, just to be sure.
“Call me Hup,” the man replied though the tone was hardly friendly. “Everyone does.”
“Hup, then,” I agreed.
“My good friend Bam tells me you’re here to close the deal on his land,” Hup mused. “I was very happy to hear that.”
“Just some details to work out,” I noted. “Then some papers to sign. It won’t take long at all.”
Hup nodded and stared out across the river that ran just a few feet below us. It was a soothing sound, almost gentle along this stretch of the river. I could picture a group of Hup’s friends gathered around the rail with their rods, fishing from the edge of the porch while they drank their beers and swapped corny jokes. It would be a great way to spend a weekend, especially if Hup wasn’t there to glare at you.
“Bam’s being all mysterious,” Hup mentioned after we listened to the river for several moments. “Wouldn’t say what your company was up to.”
Harris made a snorting sound but kept his gaze firmly forward and his lips otherwise sealed.
“We plan to make balsamic vinegar,” I replied.
Hup stared at me until I thought I would turn to stone, and then he turned his icy glare on Harris.
“Does he think this is a joke?” Hup demanded.
“As far as I can tell, he’s telling the truth,” the Sheriff said as he finally moved and swatted at a fly that buzzed around his head.
Hup absorbed that for a moment, then turned to look at me again. I could see him weighing his options and how much he really wanted to know about Campania Olio’s plans for the mines.
“Truth be told, son,” Hup finally said, “I don’t really care what you’re doing on the land. You could be running bingo games and fleecing little old ladies out of their social security checks for all I care. The only thing that matters to me is that the town is looked after.”
“Of course,” I acknowledged.
“You take care of the town, and the town will take care of you,” Hup added.
The Sheriff grunted in agreement as he passed another dog treat to the pointer.
“And what does the town need?” I asked. “Money for schools? Or maybe repairs to the roads?”
Hup squinted at me as he tried to decide if I was being sarcastic.
“The one thing about being the property appraiser,” Hup mused, “is that in a small county like ours, you basically control everything. It doesn’t really matter how many documents get signed or how many lawyers you hire, I can always make more demands for soil tests and what not. I can drag things out for years until you finally give up and go back to New York.”
“That’s if you don’t think it will benefit the county,” I said.
“Now, we’ve let some of those rich folks from the cities build their summer homes out here thinking they would hire plenty of local people to look after the place when they weren’t around,” Hup continued. “And they all promised to do exactly that. But our unemployment rate hasn’t budged and when those rich people do come out here, they almost never buy anything from the locals.”
“We’re not building a house,” I insisted. “It’s going to be a production facility, and as I already told Sheriff Harris, we will need to hire locals to help. I don’t know how many people to start, but it will grow as we sell more vinegar.”
“We could use a production facility,” Shifty murmured.
Hup gave the Sheriff a threatening look and Shifty shifted uncomfortably in his chair. When the Sheriff was still again, Hup gave me a long, silent look that left me squirming in my own seat.
“You know, one or two of those fancy houses had some issues after they were built,” Hup noted. “A fire in the basement, broken windows. Heck, one feller even had a flood in an upstairs bathroom. Someone left the water on in the tub. Looked like something out of a movie. What was that movie, Shifty?”
The Sheriff shrugged.
“Anyway, things tend to happen to people who don’t play along,” Hup continued. “But your boss knows about that.”
“Sure,” I said since I couldn’t think of anything else to say that wouldn’t make Hup glare at me again. He certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if I mentioned that my boss was usually the one who made things happen to other people and not the other way around.
“And we wouldn’t want any accidents at the mine,” Hup added. “Mines are dangerous places you know.”
“I’ve heard,” I murmured as I felt a twinge of anger at this two-bit Mafia wanna-be.
Hup must have heard something in my tone because he gave me a more intense stare for a moment, and then actually growled low in his throat. It was feral and primitive sounding, and very effective. The Sheriff’s hand froze on the pointer’s head and the dog responded with a low growl of its own. I found I was locked in place, unable to avoid Hup’s death stare.
“Ya think ya got some sort of lock on tough?” Hup said in a voice that sounded dangerously close to maniacal. “You think I’m terrified of a bunch of goombas from New York? You shits don’t know nothin’ about runnin’ things. And I’ll tell ya right now, if yer boss thinks he’s gonna come in and just do whatever he wants, he’s gonna find himself in a war he’ll wish he’d never started. And the first one I’m gonna kill is you.”
Hup had inched forward as he spoke and he was nearly on top of me when he spat out his last statement. Our eyes were locked on each other, and the man’s gaze was as dead as those I’d seen in Smithtown after the massacre. There wasn’t a speck of human warmth to be seen and I wondered why he hadn’t killed the grandkids as well as the ducks they had saved.
“You can try,” I said in as steady a voice as I could manage though my heart was beating like I’d just run several miles over rough terrain. “But my boss has a much bigger army and plenty of money. If you kill me, or even hurt me as some sort of threat, he’ll send his own guys to destroy you and the rest of your gang, and then he’ll make sure that the town never sees a dime from the mine.”
Hup and Shifty looked at each other for several heartbeats and some sort of silent conversation appeared to take place. Hup finally nodded and turned to study the woods on the other side of the river for a moment.
Truth be told, I had no idea if Anthony would send any of his men if I called up and said Hup was giving me a hard time. He might decide that the mines weren’t worth it, and tell me to come home and forget the whole deal. And while I’d like to believe that my client might seek vengeance for my untimely death, I didn’t know if that would actually happen. But Hup and Shifty didn’t know any of that, and they seemed to believe me when I insisted that Anthony would happily launch a mob war at my request. It was a gratifying moment, and I was starting to appreciate just how handy the Febbo name could be.
“I’d like to see some numbers,” Hup said. “Things like job availability and such. That will help me determine what type of taxes might be imposed on the property during the closing. And, of course, your boss will want to join the hunt club. It’s a great chance to meet and mingle with the locals, and the annual fee is not bad at all. Course, we charge more for people who aren’t local.”
“Taxes and fees,” I noted as my heart rate started to slow.
Hup grinned, a malicious look that belonged on the face of an action movie bad guy, and turned to look at me.
“Taxes,” Hup agreed. “There’s a tax for everything and every moment. How much you pay depends on how much you put back into Folsom before taxes.”
“I need to call my client,” I replied. “I’m sure we could put together some numbers that would meet everyone’s needs, and I know he’ll be interested to hear about this hunt club.”<
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“You do that,” Hup said as he stood up, “because I’d hate to see another out of towner disappear before the deal was done.”
Hup whistled to the pointer and the man and dog walked across the wood planks of the porch and stomped down the steps to the yard. When Hup’s commands to the dog had faded, Harris stood up and signalled me to follow him. We walked back to the car without passing through the house, and slid into the seats without saying a word.
“What was he talking about?” I asked. “What out of towners have disappeared?”
“There was a feller before you who wanted to buy Bam’s mine,” the Sheriff replied. “Came out and looked it over, even made an offer. Said he was gonna turn it into one of these underground shelters.”
“And he disappeared?” I pressed.
“Troopers found his car by the side of the road with a flat tire,” the Sheriff replied. “Looked like he’d picked up a nail somewhere. No one ever saw hide nor hair of the man again.”
“He didn’t make it home?” I asked.
“Troopers called his wife,” the Sheriff said. “She said he wasn’t on the flight he was supposed to be on.”
“Did Hup discuss taxes with him as well?” I asked.
“Reckon he did,” Harris said vaguely.
“And did he agree to pay the taxes?” I pressed.
“Well, he was a stubborn one,” Shifty replied. “Insisted we didn’t have the right to collect any taxes from him. Said he was gonna let everyone from the governor on down know what Hup had proposed.”
I glanced at the Sheriff, but his face was set in stone. That unsettling sense of menace was back, and I looked out the car window at the river that was now far below us. It wouldn’t be hard to lose a person, or a body out here, especially if you knew the area as well as the Sheriff apparently did. But the Sheriff had no idea who or what he was dealing with. I’m sure he was good at intimidating the locals and the well-heeled elite looking for an escape, but he hadn’t dealt with anything like the Febbos before and if I was a betting man, my money would be on Anthony and his loyal army any day. Still, it didn’t hurt to play along, at least until I had a better idea of what Hup was hoping to get out of all this posturing.
