Hellhound On My Trail

by J. D. Rhoades

  “Keller is alive,” Cordell said.

  “I know.”

  “Then you know you screwed the pooch on this one, Riddle. You need to stand down. I won’t even ask for the money back. But this operation is over. You need to disappear.”

  There was a brief pause. Then, “Sorry. That’s not an option.”

  Riddle felt his body go cold. “What did you say?”

  “Keller’s seen my face. I killed someone he cared about. More than one, I think. He’s not going to stand down.”

  “Riddle—”

  “Your problem, Mr. Cordell, is that you don’t understand men like Jack Keller. Or me, for that matter. He’s not going to rest until everyone connected with what happened is in the ground. You know that old line about ‘termination with extreme prejudice’? The words ‘extreme prejudice’ were invented for guys like Jack Keller. One of us is going to disappear, all right, but it’s not going to be me.”

  “He doesn’t know how to find you—”

  Riddle broke in. “Jesus, Cordell, did you even read his file? Finding people is what he does. He’s done it for years. And he never, ever quits. I’m not taking the chance that he’s going to walk up behind me five, six, or ten years from now and put a bullet in me.”

  Cordell’s voice was nearly cracking with hysteria. If Riddle succeeded in murdering Keller, Trammell would release the film. Not only that, he knew about the machinations they’d engaged in against Keller to get it back, not knowing the video he had was not the one they were looking for. The first revelation might destroy Kathryn Shea’s candidacy; the second could send them all to federal prison. “Mr. Riddle, I’m ordering you to stand the fuck down.”

  “Sorry,” Riddle said. “No can do.” He broke the connection.

  Cordell stared at the phone in shock. No one hung up on him. No one. He hit the redial button. The call went immediately to voicemail. The phone was off.

  The Hellhound was off the leash.

  Cordell resisted the temptation to scream and pound his forehead on the steering wheel. There was a way out of this. There had to be. He didn’t know what it was. But he would think of something. Failure was not an option.

  Failure is not an option. He’d told himself that on many occasions. He’d told staffers that on many more. Never in his life had he believed it less.

  KELLER WAS headed east toward Charleston on Highway 17, the Savannah Highway, before he fully came back to himself. His mind had begun registering the old familiar names—Jacksonboro, Parkers Ferry, Osborn—but it wasn’t until he saw the sign for Jericho that he was shocked back into full awareness. Everything since the border had passed as if in a dream, the miles passing in the same kind of numb fog that had comprised so much of his life after the war. He understood on a purely intellectual level that that was something he needed to be concerned about, that losing long stretches of his life like that was a symptom of a problem that might need to be addressed. Someday. But not right away. It had less urgency for him than the desire to get back home.

  Home. He didn’t know why he associated the word with a place where he’d always felt a stranger, an outcast, moving from place to place as his mother obtained and lost one job after another, went from one wrong man to another, until she’d finally despaired—or gotten tired, Keller could never decide which—of hauling him along in her wake and dropped him off with his maternal grandmother.

  That last memory gave him the direction he’d been lacking. He saw the exit he’d been looking for without really knowing it and took it. It was late afternoon, but the slowly growing cloud cover darkened the sky until the dusk seemed to have been moved up on the schedule. The back roads that connected to the main highway led him through the swamps and creeks of the South Carolina Low Country and finally to a small white wooden church hemmed in on three sides by thick green vegetation until it seemed like an outpost in some savage jungle. To one side was a low, rusted iron fence surrounding a tiny graveyard, the stones white and stark in the gathering dimness. Keller stopped the truck and looked at the graveyard. He got out slowly, almost unwillingly, squinting up at the threatening sky. He wasn’t sure why he had come here, but once here, he had to see it through.

  The gate in the fence creaked as he swung it open. It took him a few minutes to find the three graves, side by side. Two names shared a single broad stone, engraved at the top with a pair of angels facing one another, marble heads bowed and wings extended so that they nearly touched. Keller’s grandfather had bought the stone years before either he or his wife had died. At least that was the story his grandmother had told him, with the same tightening around the lips that occurred whenever she mentioned any of the many things the old man had done which she regarded as foolish or extravagant. His inscription was on the far left: DANIEL JACKSON KELLER 1919-1970.

  Keller had never truly known the old man, except through his grandmother’s stories. He had a vague memory of gnarled, rawboned knuckles, the smell of a Marlboro cigarette, kind eyes, yellowed teeth, and the rich smell of whiskey fumes. The tobacco and whiskey had done for his grandpa when Keller was two. The inscription on the right said BEATRICE STONEMAN KELLER, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER, 1922-1991. The woman who’d raised him had died while he was in Iraq, shortly after he’d lost his squad and then his mind. He hadn’t made it back for the funeral.

  The third grave bore a less ornate stone, a plain slab bought by his grandmother that read simply CHRISTINE KELLER 1948-1990. He stood in front of that one for the longest time, trying to feel some emotion. There was nothing there. His mother had been what his grandmother had called “flighty.” She would make plans with her son and break them, or show up then cut the visit short, or sometimes go months without ever calling at all. She was as much given to drink as his grandfather had been, but without the cheery disposition.

  Lucas Berry had told him once that it sounded like Keller’s mother suffered from bipolar disorder, but by that time, all Keller could do was shrug. He’d learned before reaching his teens to put walls around his feelings where his mother was concerned. It was easier not to get hurt that way. He hadn’t even cried when he’d gotten the word that she’d died from mixing alcohol and pain medication. Some said that the death had been a suicide. He’d stood by the grave, building his interior walls higher and stronger as the preacher droned on, and when the funeral was over, he’d turned and walked away. Safe, if not sound.

  Keller had grown tall at an early age, with good looks that his grandmother said he’d gotten from her side of the family. He hadn’t lacked for companionship, but his reserve and the anger that most people could sense just below the surface kept most people at arm’s length. He’d always felt like a stranger in a strange land. On his eighteenth birthday, he’d joined the Army, and his life had changed. There was structure there, and at least some degree of reliability, although what you could mostly rely on was that each day was going to suck in its own particular way. He thrived on it, and the tough physical regimen gave him an outlet for his rage. He learned quickly and rose through the ranks. He’d finally found a place where he felt at home.

  Then had come the desert, and a night where fire had come from the sky and killed the men who’d trusted Sergeant Keller to get them home. No one in the Army would admit the obvious: that an American helicopter crew with bad intel and worse leadership had fucked up and fired on a lost American patrol. They’d turned on him, told him he was crazy. The fact that he’d snapped and begun firing at an American helicopter flying nearby hadn’t helped. They sent him to the loony bin to await being cast into the outer darkness to fend for himself, or to be sent to prison.

  It was there he’d met Lucas Berry, who was the doctor on his ward. Slowly, with infinite patience, he’d gotten Keller to open up, to put himself back together at least to the point where he wasn’t expected to shoot at people randomly. He’d held out some hope that he’d be sent back to duty, to the only true calling he’d ever known. That’s when the Army had cut him loose with a discharge
for “Designated Physical and Mental Conditions.” The final rejection had shattered him.

  In the years after, he’d wandered, secure and wrapped in the numbness, punctuated by episodes of rage, which Lucas had told him were common symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. He thought he’d found some outlet when he’d gotten a job running down bail jumpers. The chase, the takedown, the sheer adrenaline of the hunt had made him feel alive again, and the relationship he’d developed with his boss, Angela, had been the kind of connection he’d not known he’d missed until he’d found it.

  He’d fallen in love with Marie, the police officer he’d met while running down a demented redneck bail jumper named Dewayne Puryear. In that same chase, he’d met his friend Oscar Sanchez, now Angela’s husband. He thought he could make a life with Marie, have friends in Angela and Oscar, live something resembling a human life. But the violence that seemed to dog his life had driven them all away, even as he tried to save them from it. The cure had truly been worse than the disease. Lucas had once observed that it was hard to treat someone for PTSD when they got shot at all the time.

  Lucas. Keller shook his head. He should call the last true friend he had in the world and at least let him know he was alive.

  He trudged back to the truck and got in. Lightning was flashing in the descending sky. He pulled out the prepaid cell phone he’d purchased for cash at a forgotten convenience store somewhere in Alabama and looked at it. It took him a moment to recall the number. He wanted to hear his old friend’s voice more than anything at that moment, but he hesitated with his finger over the dial-pad. He’d brought Hell down on everyone he’d brought into his life. What if whoever was after him was watching Lucas, even tapping his phone? Given what they’d accomplished up to now, it was a pretty good bet they were watching everyone he ever knew. It’s what he would have done when running down a jumper. He couldn’t put another friend at risk.

  He put the phone back in the center console. As he did, he thought of someone who might hide him, at least temporarily. Not a friend. Someone in his debt. Someone he didn’t know if he could totally trust, but he was out of options. He started the truck. As he pulled away, the wind picked up and it started to rain.

  THE BAR was like a thousand other back-road taverns, a crumbling cinderblock structure set back behind a gravel parking lot along a two-lane blacktop that had faded to a cracked gray track between nowhere and nowhere. A pair of neon beer signs—one flickering and sputtering, the other still burning bright—provided the only dim illumination. A faded wooden sign over the doorway said SPANISH MOON. The lot was packed with pickup trucks and beat-up American sedans as Keller pulled in in his commandeered SUV. He didn’t bother to lock the vehicle when he got out. The storms he’d driven through to get to the bar had moved off toward the sea, leaving behind a clinging humidity that made the night feel like a heavy weight everyone carried with them as they moved through it.

  As he approached the door, Keller could feel the eyes on him, people who’d been talking or engaging in drunken clumsy foreplay in the shadows between the vehicles, stopping what they were doing to suss out the new and unfamiliar arrival, like animals at a waterhole noticing an intruder.

  Just inside the door, on a stool under a naked white bulb, sat the doorman. He was, of course, a big man, and painfully stupid. The small and mentally quick didn’t last long doing security in a place like this; their mouths tended to get them in trouble with belligerent drunks and those suffering from an excess of testosterone. No, what was needed to keep order in a place like this was a mountain, a bouncer who not even the most clueless drunk or wannabe badass would take on.

  This one fit the bill perfectly. He wasn’t muscular, but he had the kind of bulk that intimidated. He gave Keller an elaborately nonchalant glance through small piggy eyes as he shifted his weight on the stool, which creaked dangerously beneath him.

  “Private club,” he said to Keller as he strode up. “You ain’t a member.”

  Keller gave him back a tight smile. “You sure?”

  The doorman shifted again, coming up slightly off the stool as if rising to the challenge he sensed in Keller. Keller didn’t move, and the smile never went away. “I’m looking for the Magic Man.”

  Seeing that Keller was going to neither back down nor advance, the mountain settled back down onto the stool. “Magic Man? This ain’t no magic show, buddy. Now fuck off.”

  Keller kept smiling. “Sure. Just tell Karl that Jack Keller wants to see him. About that favor he owes me.” Before the doorman could answer, Keller turned and walked away. “Hey,” the doorman called weakly into the sodden darkness. Keller ignored him. He walked back to the truck and climbed in. Laying his head back on the luxurious headrest of the truck, he settled in for what might be a long wait and remembered the time he’d met and arrested Karl “Magic Man” Zaubermann.

  It had been a pretty routine bust for Karl, an ounce and a half of weed found during the kind of traffic stop a guy on a motorcycle with no leathers, tattoos covering both arms, and long hair could expect from curious cops. His baby mama had contacted Keller’s old employer at H & H Bail Bonds, Angela had written his bond, and he’d gotten out of jail to await trial or plea, depending on a number of things. Then an eager young prosecutor noticed that when you ran the name through the computer as “Carl” Zaubermann with the same birth date and Social Security number, a whole lot of other convictions popped up, enough to indict Karl/Carl on “the bitch”—North Carolina’s Habitual Felon law, which kicked his low-level drug charge into the stratosphere of felony sentencing. Under “the bitch,” someone with three prior strikes on their record could get as much time on the fourth for a crack rock, or for over an ounce of marijuana, as he could for manslaughter.

  Upon being informed of this new and much more serious indictment, Karl Zaubermann did the only logical thing from his perspective: he disappeared. This brought Keller into the picture, since Keller’s boss, Angela, had her company’s name on the bond to secure his appearance. If Zaubermann didn’t show for court, H & H would be out thousands of dollars.

  Keller had done his usual checking, talking to Zaubermann’s known associates, checking out places where he was known to hang out, even checking a new online site called MySpace, where he’d previously discovered more than one bail jumper who’d thought no one but his friends could see the posts that broadcasted his picture and his location to the world. Against all expectations, Zaubermann had been smarter than that.

  Finally, during a visit to Zaubermann’s ex-girlfriend, he’d noticed gift-wrapped packages sitting on the dining room table, along with packages of balloons and other party decorations. A quick check of public records showed that Karl Zaubermann had a son, Kodie, who had a fifth birthday coming up. On the big day, Keller walked up to the festively decorated house just as Zaubermann was exiting a dented but anonymous-looking white van. He recognized Keller right away. He balled his fists and rolled his shoulders to show he was ready to make an issue out of going back, then he’d looked into the house and heard the happy shouting and music. His shoulders sagged and he relaxed his hands. “Not in front of my son, Keller,” he’d said quietly.

  Keller kept his voice even. “I won’t make a problem of this if you don’t, Karl. Just come with me.”

  Zaubermann shook his head. “Look. I know I’m going away. I know it’ll be for a long time. I’m ready to do it. I just want to see my kid one last time. Come on, man, just give me an hour.”

  Keller stopped a few feet away. “Right. And I come back after an hour to find you’re halfway to Mexico.”

  “No, man, I swear it. You want me to beg, Keller? Okay, I’ll beg.” The big man sagged as if he was going to his knees.

  “For Christ’s sake, Karl,” Keller said, embarrassed. “Stand up. Don’t humiliate yourself.”

  Zaubermann straightened up. “I ain’t got no pride left, Keller. You can even come in, keep an eye on me. I’ll say you’re a friend.”

  “You kno
w I’m not.”

  “Yeah, no shit. But just let me do this one thing. I swear, man, I’ll owe you. Big time.”

  Keller was wavering. He knew it was stupid, knew it was a better than even chance that Zaubermann would bolt out the back door as soon as Keller looked away for a moment. But the pain in the man’s eyes was genuine. “You’re going to have a hard time paying back a favor in prison.”

  “I been in before. I know I’ll be out. You never know when you might need a favor. Even from a guy like me.” Zaubermann reached into his pocket. Keller tensed, then relaxed when Zaubermann pulled out a key ring. “Here. Take my keys.”

  Keller sighed and took them from him. “Okay. One hour. But if you try to run, I’m taking you down, cuffing you, and driving you back in my trunk. I don’t care if your son is there.”

  Zaubermann nodded. “Deal. And I mean it, man. I owe you one. Anything you need, you ask for the Magic Man.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Zaubermann introduced Keller as his buddy Jack who’d given him a ride. Zaubermann’s ex-wife, Denise, recognized Keller and was looking daggers at him. The children took no notice. Denise walked over with a cup of punch spooned out of a plastic bowl on the table. He thought for a moment she was going to throw it on him. She had a fake smile pasted on her face as she whispered, “You need to get the fuck out of my house.”

  Keller pitched his voice low. “If I leave, I’m taking Karl with me. I gave him a break to see his kid before I take him in. Don’t make me regret it.”

  Her smile faltered a bit. Keller took the cup of punch, drained it in one gulp, then handed it back. “Thanks.” She didn’t answer, just turned and walked away.

  The next hour felt surreal to Keller. He hung around the fringes of the party, feeling like a ghost, watching the children play and the young mothers gossip. A few of them gave him tentative smiles, but he was too focused on watching Zaubermann to respond. To his credit, Zaubermann didn’t seem to be looking for a way out. He was totally focused on his son, a pale red-haired kid with a loud, braying laugh that would probably get annoying if he kept it to adulthood. He did a lot of laughing with his father, especially when he opened the present marked “from Dad”—a toy Harley Davidson motorcycle. They were having so much fun that Keller let the hour go by.