The Big Ugly

by Jake Hinkson

  * * *

  I stopped at Waffle House for breakfast. I was surprisingly hungry. Waffles, eggs, sausage. Two cups of coffee, three glasses of water. The waitress kept stealing glances at me. At first I assumed it was because I was eating like a pig, but when I was done I went to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror.

  Puffed up and discolored, my face looked like a third grade art project. My nose was purple, my eyes had slight green-ringed bruises, and my lips were as mangled as crushed tomatoes. Blue splotches covered my neck and throat.

  It startled me for a moment, but the longer I stared at my face the less it bothered me. My nose hurt like hell, but I didn't think it was broken. "Beat up," I said in the cold echo of the ladies room, "but not yet beaten."

  I went back to the counter to pay my bill.

  The waitress was an old brunette with hairy arms and big tits. She took my bill and my cash and tried not to stare at me.

  "Rough night," I said.

  She smiled.

  At the counter next to her, a big, cross-eyed guy with a crew cut and Dickies work clothes sipped his coffee. "Had a better night than ole Vin Colfax," he said with a squinty smile.

  "What?"

  He smiled some more.

  "What did you say?" I asked.

  He scratched his stubbly chin. "Colfax. The governor's brother? You hear what happened?"

  The waitress asked, "He get arrested or something? Them politicians are always up to something."

  The old man kept squinting and grinning and said, "Nah … he didn't get arrested. Died."

  The waitress's mouth became a big silent O.

  "He did?" I said.

  "Yep."

  The waitress asked, "Well hell, Gene, what you grinning about? Man died. The hell's so funny 'bout that?"

  Gene slowly sipped his coffee for dramatic effect. "I always root against them type of people."

  The waitress said, "You are an awful man."

  "How'd he die?" I asked.

  "Went off the side of a mountain upstate somewheres. State troopers found him this morning is what I heard on the radio."

  "That's awful," I said.

  Gene twirled the coffee around in his cup. "Eh, I've heard of awfuller."

  "They know anything else?"

  He shrugged. "Check the radio. It's all they're talking about this morning. Local news anyway."

  I went out to my car and searched around on the radio. Gene wasn't lying. At the top of the hour, it was the lead news story. Vinton Colfax, brother to Governor Lou Don Colfax, had been found in his burning car after driving off a road in Searcy County during the early hours of the morning. The governor was deeply upset by the loss of his brother. The Colfax campaign for Senate had been suspended and all public appearances had been postponed while the governor grieved the loss of his brother and helped to settle his estate and make plans for his funeral service. The campaign was expected to resume after the funeral.

  * * *

  Darnell sat in his icebox of an office with his hands laced over his belly, staring at me over his glasses. He wore a different color of sweatshirt—red instead of blue—but his basic look was the same as it had been before. The shotgun stood against the wall behind him.

  When I finished explaining what had happened, he swiveled the chair a bit to regard Jack.

  She leaned against the wall, her arms folded across her chest. She wore a white blouse with gray low-cut slacks. She tapped the fingers of her right hand against her left elbow.

  "How come you didn't tell me about all this mess you was into?"

  She said, "I ain't gonna lie, Darnell. I kept it from you to protect you. I know that wasn't right, but that's what I did."

  "Whatchoo expect from me now?"

  "Nothing. Not a thing. I just wanted you to know what was going on. Figured I owed you that."

  "Where'd you all take Alexis?" he asked.

  "Alexis is gone. We don't know where. Don't want to know where."

  He stared at her.

  "Mm hmm."

  Jack asked me, "Where'd you say they picked you up at?"

  "A couple of miles from my brother's house."

  Darnell turned his attention to me and said, "They ask you about either of us?"

  "No."

  They both stared me.

  "No," I said again. "Really. They only seemed to know about me. They picked me up on my way to …"

  I sat back in my chair.

  "What?" Jack asked.

  "That motherfucker."

  "Who?"

  "Belton."

  * * *

  I caught my parole officer unlocking the door to his office while trying to manage a bag of Chinese takeout. When he got the door open, I rushed him with my shoulder down and knocked him inside. He tripped over his own feet and his food hit the floor and exploded. He picked himself up from a mess of rice and chicken chunks and orange sauce. He seemed mad enough to take a crack at me, but then he saw me leaning against the door with the gun in my hand.

  He wiped a long blond lock out of his face. "What the fuck are you doing?"

  "Why'd you set me up, you piece of shit?"

  "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "Don't play stupid with me."

  He seemed to notice my face for the first time. Then he glanced back at the gun and held up his palms. "Look, I …"

  "What?" I said. "You set me up. You know you did. You called me to get me out of the house."

  "Look, Bennett, give me a break. I didn't have a choice. In this town, if Junius Kluge calls you and tells you to do something, you do it."

  "Kluge put you up to it? He pay you?"

  "No."

  "You're a lying sack of shit, Belton. I know he paid you. Everybody pays you. Me, all your other parolees."

  "You think I'm going to sweat down Junius Kluge?"

  "I think he didn't have to force you to do shit. How much he give you?"

  "Just a little cash. Nothing big."

  "Nothing big to set me up to be beaten and killed."

  Belton yelped, "He never said nothing about that. He just said they wanted to talk some sense into you."

  "And he gave you a little cash. And you took it, like you take it from me and every other broad who gets out of Eastgate."

  "Look," he said, "I got bills. I got a gambling problem. For real. No, listen, for real. I need that money. Now maybe I've been a little hard on you. You don't have to pay me. Okay?"

  "What about all the other parolees under your watch? You still going to sweat those bitches down to pay your bills?"

  For a moment, he looked like he might argue, but then he just lifted his palms. "What do you want me to say? You want me to leave them alone, sure, I'll leave them alone."

  His desk phone started ringing.

  "Answer it," I said.

  He picked it up and stammered, "B-Belton."

  He listened. His eyes jerked up at me. I showed him the little mic clipped to my necklace.

  He hung up.

  "You taped me."

  "Well, there's no actual tape involved, but yeah I recorded you. I recorded you talking about Junius Kluge. I recorded you talking about setting me up to be killed. I recorded you admitting to being a corrupt piece of shit. Lucky for you, though, I'm not working for the cops."

  His expression changed. He'd never taken a good look at me before. I'd just been another parolee. Now that I had him by the balls, I had his whole attention. He asked, "What do you want?"

  "First, take out your wallet."

  "What?"

  "You got Kung Pao in your ears, motherfucker? Take out your wallet."

  He pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

  "Here."

  He tossed it to me and I caught it without breaking eye contact with him. I was pretty happy about that. It was full of cash. I took it all out and shoved it in my pocket. Then I threw the empty wallet back at him.

  "Let's consider that a little compensation for my time and tr
ouble."

  "Okay. Now what?"

  "Now I want you to leave. I want you to quit your job and get in a car and leave town. No more embezzlement. No more blackmail. Starting now, you're former PO Belton."

  He stared at me.

  "You understand," I said.

  "Yes."

  "I swear to God, Belton. I will send this shit to the DA. And I guarantee you that every woman you've taken advantage of would love to tell the world about it. If nothing else, I bet the governor's people would love to know that you've been recorded talking about Junius Kluge."

  I left him there covered in orange sauce to think about his future career options.

  As far as I know, that was the last time anyone in town saw him.

  * * *

  Outside, Jack was waiting for me in her truck. I got in and she pulled away.

  As I unclipped the mic, she said, "It work?"

  I put the mic in the hollow armrest between us. "Yeah. Thank Darnell for me when you give it back to him."

  "I mean the whole thing with Belton. Did it work?"

  "I think so. He knew I wasn't bluffing, the miserable piece of shit."

  We stopped at a traffic light.

  "You nervous?" I asked.

  "Be stupid not to be."

  I watched her think. As I did, for some reason, I thought Effervescence Jackson. Nothing more than that, I just thought her name.

  Her eyes darted at me. "What?"

  "Something I always wondered."

  "What's that?"

  "How'd you get the name Effervescence?"

  "My mama named me. Your mama not name you?"

  "Sure, she named me after my great aunt Eleanor. You got a great aunt Effervescence?"

  "No."

  The light turned green and we crossed the street and headed toward her place.

  She shrugged. "I don't know. Guess I was a happy baby. The name never did me no harm."

  "You were the only person at Eastgate who knew how to spell Effervescence, I'll give you that."

  She smiled. "I guess."

  The sun shone through her windshield, so I flipped down the sun visor. Then, since it was down, I slid open the plastic cover on the mirror. Not much had changed. I still looked like shit.

  "You okay?" she asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You know. What happened last night."

  "Hell no, I'm not okay. But there's nothing I can do about it except deal with shit as it comes up. That's all I know to do."

  "That's all there is to do."

  We passed some women pushing strollers along the river walk.

  "It's like my time in Eastgate. You try to plan the best you can, but all you can really do is handle what's in front of you."

  Jack was quiet for a moment, and I could tell she was thinking about Eastgate.

  "We all knew that deal with Paquita was a set up," she said. "You was always on the up with people. I never thought you whipped her ass."

  I nodded just to show her I was listening, but I didn't have anything to say.

  She asked. "Why didn't you never try and retaliate?"

  "Against who? Paquita Morales?"

  "Yeah. She the one set you up."

  "No. She wasn't. She was just working for Morley. I never blamed Paquita really. She just wanted to see her kid, and Kitty was in a position to swing it for her. If I wanted to hate someone, I got enough hate for Kitty to keep me occupied. Besides, there was no use going to war inside Eastgate over that shit. I needed to lay low and get out, not get into it with the Latinas over Paquita. She avoided me. I avoided her. It was never about her."

  Jack thought about that for a while. I don't know if she agreed with me—she was old school about that kind of thing—but she didn't say anything more about it.

  When we got back to my car, she pulled into her parking lot and we sat there in the truck for a minute.

  "What now?" she said.

  "Now, I contact Junius Kluge."

  "How you want to handle that?"

  "I'll go over to his office and walk in."

  "Where?"

  "The Morgan Building, where I met him before."

  She shook her head. "He just met you at the Morgan. He got his regular office at city hall."

  "City hall?"

  She nodded. "In the back. He got the hook up, Ellie. Don't forget who you dealing with."

  "I won't," I said. "But I'm going to drive down to city hall and walk in and ask to talk to him just the same."

  Jack stared at me. "You is?"

  "Damn straight."

  "You sure that the smart thing to do?"

  "I wouldn't know the smart thing to do if it walked up and kissed me. But I don't see any reason to hide from him. No use trying to do this covertly."

  She twisted her mouth, but I didn't wait for her to say anything. I got out of the truck.

  She got out too and walked around the bed. "Bennett."

  I turned around. "I know," I said, "if something happens, I need to get the fuck out of town and not try to contact you."

  She tapped her keys on the truck. "I was just gonna say, 'Good luck.'"

  "Oh. Thanks."

  "Try not to kill nobody."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I was still wearing the jeans and T-shirt I'd thrown on the night before. I didn't want to look disheveled when I met with Junius Kluge, so I drove over to the sprawling four-story Central Library by the river. With some clothes over my arm, I walked inside, past the metal detectors, and through the lobby.

  I found the women's bathroom on the second floor. It was empty, and I took the large handicap stall at the end.

  There had not been a lot of time the night before to plan for outfit changes, but I had thrown in a pair of black pants and a decent concord-green scoop neck top. I didn't have any shoes, though.

  "Motherfucker," my voice echoed in the bathroom.

  I dug through my jeans for the cash I got from Belton. It was a little roll.

  Three hundred and twenty-five dollars.

  With the other cash I had on me, that brought my net worth up to three hundred and fifty-two dollars.

  Something about that, just the number itself, caught me off guard and I had to stand there beside that public toilet a moment and catch my breath.

  No friends. No family. Just three hundred and fifty-two dollars.

  With a burnt hand I wiped tears out of my busted eyes. I was on the verge of bawling when some broad came into the bathroom, clanged the first stall shut, plopped her butt down and started to take a shit.

  She must have wondered why the lady at the other end of the bathroom was laughing through tears.

  * * *

  Wearing my sneakers, I walked out to the car and drove over to Target to buy some shoes. I grabbed a pair of cheap black flats and took them up front. The girl at the checkout had long glittery nails and heavily powdered acne, and she kept stealing glances at my face.

  "Not as bad as it looks," I told her.

  Embarrassed, she half smiled and handed me my change.

  I switched shoes in the car. Then I drove over to city hall to see what destiny awaited me.

  * * *

  Junius Kluge had a secretary as old as the building itself. In his outer office, she sat at a desk that, I noticed, had no computer. When I walked in, she stopped fussing with some papers, looked up at me in alarm and said, "My lord, dear, what happened to your face?"

  "You should see the other guy."

  She wore a flowery blouse and big glasses, but the nod she threw me was as gangsta as anything I'd seen in Eastgate. "Good for you!"

  "I'd like to see Mr. Kluge."

  "Well, let me see if he can see you." She pushed herself up from the desk. "Let me see."

  She walked to the unmarked door at the end of the office, tapped on the door and walked inside.

  After a moment or two, she returned and waved me over. Holding the door for me, she said, "He's free."

  I thanked
her and walked inside.

  It was a long narrow room with a view of the water. Standing behind a large desk was Junius Kluge. As I walked the length of that long room, he said, "When she got in here, Mrs. Willhide realized that she'd forgotten to ask your name. Very unlike her. She offered to go back to get it, but when she mentioned that the young woman asking to see me had a freshly battered face I told her to send you on in."

  I stopped at one of the chairs in front of his small wooden desk. He motioned me to sit if I wanted. I sat.

  He didn't. He crossed his arms on the back of his chair.

  "What can I do for you, Miss Bennett?"

  I pointed at my face. "First, you can tell me why this happened."

  His lipless mouth settled into a slight overbite. Maybe that was supposed to be a smile. "Why what happened?"

  "Why Vin Colfax kidnapped me last night and tried to beat me to death."

  "I wouldn't know anything about that."

  "No?"

  "No, ma'am. Especially not when I'm talking to someone I don't know, a convicted felon, a fledgling blackmailer, and maybe worse."

  "You weren't so reticent to talk when you called up my parole officer and got him to lure me out."

  "That is a baseless allegation, madam."

  I leaned forward. "I'm not wearing a wire, Mr. Kluge. I'll be honest with you, though. I was wearing one when I talked to Belton. The dumb son of bitch admitted that you had him get me out of the house. You. Not Vin. You."

  "You were wearing a wire for whom?"

  "For me. I'm not talking to any cops, Junius. They don't like me, and I don't like them."

  "I see."

  "So why don't you tell me why I had to kill Vin Colfax last night."

  Kluge had perfected a way of listening without visibly responding to anything. He just stood there for a moment. Then he said, "Vin Colfax was a passionate man."

  "I don't …"

  "He thought he could handle you in his own way."

  "He thought wrong."

  "Yes. I'd say you relieved him of that particular illusion."

  "Well," I said. "Now I'm dealing with you."

  Kluge pulled out his chair and sat down.

  "So you are. Tell me what you want."

  "I want a million dollars."

  I thought that might get a reaction, but his tight, red face just hung there a moment until he opened his mouth enough to say, "And where do you think I can put my hands on a million dollars?"