A Garden of Vipers

by Jack Kerley

  Nautilus wriggled his back against the seat, felt the hard shell of the leather holster in his waistband. The .380 was unbuckled; if he could knock it loose of the holster…He struggled from the cruiser, hands cuffed at his waist.

  Crandell jumped up on the flatbed, pulled Private Security out, slipping under the body, steadying it on his shoulders. He jumped the four feet from the trailer to the ground, his knees bending but not collapsing. Power-lifter strength, Nautilus noted as he stumbled down the ramp to the ground.

  Crandell went to the trough, shouldered the body into the earth. It landed with a thud. He whisked his hands together as if the guy had been dusty.

  “Seven feet deep,” Crandell said. “What happens is I fill in the hole later, dump your car in a big ol’ swamp-hole in the delta, then return the backhoe to Buck’s spread about ten miles down the pike. It’s gonna storm all night….” Crandell raised his eyebrows, waiting for Nautilus to catch his drift.

  “And barns get struck by lightning,” Nautilus said. As if cued by a Hollywood director, a lightning flash lit the barn. Rain dripped through the roof, pooled in the dirt.

  “Old wood, all this hay. It’ll collapse into a big pile, and no one will ever know what’s sitting in the basement, so to speak. I do love a good fire.”

  Nautilus shrugged. “Seems like a waste of a good barn.”

  “The property is owned by the Kincannons, but not used. Not used much, I should say. Sometimes Buck’ll bring someone here.”

  “He have barn dances?”

  “If that’s what you want to call it. He brought a blind girl here a couple weeks ago. I been keeping extra tabs on Buck, and by the time I got here, the lady was about danced out.”

  Nautilus recalled Carson’s story about the blind girl who’d been savaged.

  “Why’d Buck Kincannon take her to the hospital?”

  “He didn’t. I figured her as more trouble dead than alive. Not like she’s gonna make anyone from a lineup. So I washed her up real good and made her somebody else’s problem.”

  Nautilus nodded. He frowned across the floor at the shadowy trench. “My partner down there?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Will I see him tonight? Alive, I mean.”

  Crandell paused as thunder shivered the barn. “That would mean leaving you here by yourself. Even if you’re trussed tight, I can’t take that risk. Come have a seat, Harry. Get comfortable. I’ve made it easier.”

  Nautilus studied the rickety wood chairs Crandell had set beside the trench. They faced one another from a six-foot distance. Crandell’s chair was two steps away; he could head-butt the bastard. Nautilus visualized the moment: roaring, diving, wiping everything from his mind save that his head was a battering ram. He had teeth, too. Use everything. Do a Tyson on Crandell’s ear. Or bite one of his eyes out.

  Harry Nautilus sat.

  Crandell picked up his chair, folded it shut. He walked to the far side of the ditch beside the dirt mound and reopened the chair. He sat, smiling with his teeth.

  “You didn’t really think I was going to sit across from you without a moat, did you, Harry? And by the way, if you’re still a bit dizzy to notice…”

  Crandell reached in his pocket, pulled out Nautilus’s .380, letting it dangle by the trigger guard.

  It’s over, Harry Nautilus realized, listening to the rain drumming the roof of the barn. I’m being written out of the Big Play. He was amazed at how little fear he felt. Only a sense of sorrow that his death would be at the hands of a sociopathic subhuman like Crandell.

  Nautilus had never romanticized dying in the line of duty. He figured it would be nice to eat a grand meal, drink a few ounces of hundred-buck-a-bottle scotch, put on Duke Ellington playing “East St. Louis Toodle-Oo,” then shut his eyes and fly away as the muted horn closes the song.

  And be a hundred and ten years old at the time.

  Nautilus shot a glance into the trench, one of Private Security’s arms flung above his up-looking head and propped against the trench wall like he was trying to backstroke through the earth. Though the night was hot, Nautilus shivered at the thought of his meat rotting into that of a malignant peckerwood.

  But Carson would be in the grave as well, Nautilus suddenly realized. They’d outflank the peckerwood.

  “Jesus, was that a grin?” Crandell asked.

  Nautilus didn’t answer. But had a few questions of his own.

  “My partner saw Carole Ann Hibney at the Shrine Temple, Crandell. What was she doing there?”

  “You mean Mistress Sonia? You’d have to know the Kincannon boys. They’re playful, in their own way. Buck needs an occasional visit to a Mistress Sonia type to level out or something. I don’t pretend to understand. The boys try and keep tabs on one another.”

  “You mean like spying.”

  “It’s a grand family tradition. Nelson found out about Mistress Sonia, paid her a couple thousand to show up at the party.”

  “To do what?”

  Crandell’s eyes danced with glee. “Simply walk silently in front of Buck and pretend to crack a whip. Nelson convinced leather lady it was Buck’s birthday party, and Buck had requested Mistress Sonia do the gig, as an inside joke. Nelson knew it’d about make Buck crap his pants, his mama by his side as Whip Woman walked past.”

  Nautilus felt the bottom drop from his stomach. “Buck didn’t think it was funny, obviously. So he took it out on Carole Ann. Do you have any idea what your employer did to her, Crandell?”

  Crandell shrugged. “This is my last job for the Kincannons. Buck’s getting worse. The wrappings are about to tear loose.”

  “Pity. I’ll bet you’ve made a shitload off the family over the years.”

  “Enough to retire on. I only came back to put a little extra gravy on the taters, so to speak.”

  “Not out of a perverse loyalty? Help in their time of need?”

  Crandell wagged an admonishing finger at Nautilus. “Loyalty is not a word the Kincannons understand. If they were sure they’d never need me again, I’d be dead.”

  “They’d Crandell their Crandell. Where would it stop?”

  “I don’t want to know. That’s why I’m checking out and heading to Rio. Time for me to learn to samba.”

  A cell phone rang from Crandell’s jacket. He slipped it from the pocket of his blazer, looked at the incoming number and winced. He put the phone to his ear.

  “What, Race?”

  Crandell stood and walked to the shadows in the corner of the barn.

  “What the hell are you talking about? How the hell did you get that idea? It’s fucking ridiculous. No, don’t call Nelson. Here’s what you do, open another bottle of scotch, call one of your girlfriends over, relax. What? Racine, calm down, buddy.”

  Crandell flicked the phone off, stuck it back in his pocket. When he returned, he was holding a semiautomatic aimed at Nautilus’s heart. Crandell looked at Nautilus and sighed.

  “Dealing with this family truly is herding cats, Harry. Racine’s drunk and babbling about how I’m fired or something. Typical. I’m sorry to cut our evening short. If you come stand here at the head of the ditch I’ll make it clean, you won’t feel a thing.”

  Nautilus took a deep breath and spat across the trench, his spit falling short, landing on Crandell’s loafers.

  “Game to the end,” Crandell said, cocking the weapon. “I like a man with spirit. But if you don’t get up here, I’m gonna put one through your knee.”

  Nautilus laughed. It was real and full. “You’re a sick and sad little boy, Crandell. I expect I can deal with it.”

  Crandell stared in disbelief. He shook his head and raised the weapon, finger curling around the trigger.

  Three hard reports echoed through the barn.

  Crandell seemed to lift from his feet for a split-second. He staggered three steps backward, slammed into the wall of the utility room, then crumpled to the ground. The weapon tumbled into the ditch.

  Nautilus stared wide-eyed at
the dark. Lightning flashed and he saw a man crouched at the edge of the door. There was a gun in his hand, the muzzle scanning the barn’s interior.

  “Racine?” Nautilus called. “Racine Kincannon?”

  Pace Logan rounded the corner, his service weapon trained on Crandell’s writhing form. He crept to Nautilus.

  “Jesus, Harry. What’d you get yourself into? Who’s that crazy fuck? Who’s Racine?”

  Nautilus sat with his mouth agape, unable to find words. He stood, and his head swam and his knees wobbled. He sat down again. Logan advanced toward the supine Crandell, who was moaning, rocking side to side, the front of his shirt turning to a scarlet swamp.

  Nautilus managed a breathless whisper. “What the hell are you doing here, Pace?”

  “You sounded bad worried when you told me how you were looking for a curly-haired blond guy Shuttles might have met up with.” Logan nodded toward Crandell. “Him?”

  “Him.”

  “It got me started thinking. You know Dominick Purselli was Shuttles’s training officer?”

  Nautilus said, “I tried to talk to Dom a couple days ago. He’s way the hell up in Canada.”

  “Dom Purselli’s a good buddy of mine,” Logan said. “I had his cell number, called, got lucky. I asked had he ever seen the guy you described. Turns out that when Shuttles joined the force, the two of ’em did some stuff together. Shuttles told Purselli he knew a guy came to town now and then, always stayed at this old farm on about thirty acres, would Purselli like to go squirrel hunting there?”

  Crandell’s mouth opened and closed like a dying fish gulping air from the surface. His eyes rolled back in his head. Logan knelt and put a finger against Crandell’s throat, feeling for a pulse.

  “He’s gone. Purselli said when they got there, they announced themselves at the house on the property. It was a blond guy, curly hair, strong-looking, square as an outhouse. A hinky kind of guy, like he didn’t want to be seen, and that’s why Purselli remembered him.”

  Logan stood, holstered his weapon at his side, walked to Nautilus.

  “Purselli said Shuttles drove. Dom couldn’t remember where the farm was. But he’d walked all over it hunting, and described a rectangle of land with a barn about half a mile from the road, a white house on the far side of a windbreak, two decent-sized ponds toward the back of the place, a creek cutting between the ponds.”

  Logan pulled a handcuffs key from inside his jacket. “Guess what happened then, Harry?”

  “I couldn’t begin to guess, Pace.”

  “I remembered Shuttles babbling about this place on the Internet where you saw aerial views of just about anywhere, pictures from a geo-satellite or something. Purselli knew the basic area, low on the delta and east of Chickasaw. I went to the library, got a library lady to help me get on the doggoned Internet, Harry. Me.”

  “You found this place from above?”

  “It was wild, Harry, like I could fly back and forth over the area—go up and down, too—and I just kept looking at all the ponds up there. Then I found a couple ponds with a creek between them, saw the roof of a house and barn a hundred yards apart…”

  Nautilus held up his bound wrists. Logan slipped the key into the cuffs, popped them loose.

  “You did all this in under three hours, Pace?”

  Logan showed a wistful smile and shook his head.

  “I’m almost gone and maybe I’m beginning to figure things out, Harry. Jeez, now there’s an epitaph, right?”

  CHAPTER 50

  Each step toward Kincannon’s house felt like putting my foot into a canister of hornets. Trees averaged every fifty or so feet along my journey, and I made my way from tree to tree, leaning to catch my breath and wipe rain from my eyes. Lightning turned the Kincannon grounds into a series of spectral snapshots.

  With less than a hundred yards to go, I dove to the ground as headlights swept up the drive from the road below, hoping the dark coat kept me invisible on the grass. I watched the lights outline the huge Brahma bull sculpture near the road, continue up the long lane, stop in the circular drive in front of the house.

  A white Audi. My heart stopped.

  It was Dani.

  She hustled out, opening an umbrella, jogging the two dozen steps to the porch. I wanted to yell out her name, scream Get back in the car, drive away!

  Buck Kincannon walked out the door. He moved to Dani with outstretched arms, tried to hold her umbrella for her. She avoided his touch. There was a minute of conversation before Kincannon gestured toward the house. They walked up the steps to the porch, Dani slow, seeming reluctant.

  They went inside.

  I limped, fell, crawled. Lightning slammed a tall longleaf pine a hundred feet away, sending a flaming branch spiraling to the ground like a hobbled comet. But I made it. The huge house had a wraparound porch. I climbed to the side and crouched around the corner. The porch was fifteen feet deep, the front side holding several large wicker chairs and wooden rockers, two tables, a bench like a church pew. Oversize carriage lamps bookended the wide front door, throwing light the color of honey and laying deep shadows behind the furniture.

  “I’m leaving!”

  Dani’s voice. The front door banged open. Dani crossed the wide porch, her arms tight to her chest. She wavered on the top step, arms crossed. Kincannon stepped outside.

  “Please, baby, come back. I’m sorry I grabbed you. I just want you to stay, discuss your future. Come on, baby, don’t hurt me like this.”

  Kincannon was pleading, making kissy sounds, like a little kid. Maybe that was the voice he used with Carole Ann Hibney.

  “I’m not staying, Buck. And when I say not to touch me, I mean it.”

  “Of course you do, DeeDee. I was just hurt by your wanting to leave.”

  “I don’t think it’s working out between us, Buck. That’s what I came to say.”

  Get out, Dani….

  “DeeDee, please, give me a chance. Just stay for dinner.”

  “I can’t, Buck. Don’t keep asking.”

  “I have a surprise for you, DeeDee, why I asked you here tonight. I want to give you Houston. Houston! We’re buying a station there, making major changes. You’ll be lead anchor, start at three hundred grand a year. Houston’s one step from New York, L.A. Finally, the big time…”

  She took a step forward from the edge of the porch. Kincannon held his distance, but kept the pitch going. He’d moved from pitiful child to wheedling businessman, running his full inventory of games.

  “You’re thirty-two years old, DeeDee. Middle age in this biz. You don’t jump now, you’re gonna be chasing two-bit local politicos the rest of your life. You should be on Washington Week in Review, Meet the Press. You’ve got the talent. I can make it happen.”

  Don’t listen to him, Dani, my head screamed. Get away.

  Instead, she turned to face Kincannon.

  “Houston?”

  He held up his hands. “It’s over between us as a couple. I accept that. It’ll be easier, because you’ll be in Houston. But we can still be friends, right? Amigos. Even apart we can work together to make Clarity Broadcasting number one in the country.”

  “I…guess we could do that, Buck.”

  He stood in the door and swept his hand toward the interior of the house, a thousand-watt smile on his face. “Come in and we’ll seal the Houston deal over dinner.”

  She took a step toward Kincannon. Closed her eyes, shook her head. Stepped back.

  “I’ll call tomorrow, Buck. We can talk then.”

  She turned and started toward her car in the circled drive. I let my breath out. When Dani was safe I could slip to the road and flag down help.

  It wasn’t to be.

  Kincannon strode to Dani, grabbed her arm, swung her into the house like she was a rag doll. The door slammed. I heard Dani screaming. A crash of falling furniture. A sound of thunder, like a body driven to the floor.

  Another scream, cut off by a slap. Then all I heard was the beatin
g of my heart and the pounding of the rain. My mind raced through possibilities, found diversion. I wadded up the raincoat, then slid the cane across the porch, a rattling sound.

  “Who’s there?” Kincannon called from inside the house. “Crandell?”

  Footsteps behind the door, tentative. I heard the door open and I edged an eye from behind the chair. Kincannon bent to retrieve the cane, confusion in his eyes.

  “Daddy?” he said, the child’s voice back as his eyes searched the dark beyond the porch. “Daddy, is that you?”

  I leapt from behind the chair and flung the balled raincoat at his face. He flung up his hands, tearing it away just as I dove into his body, howling and raking at his eyes. He shrieked and pushed my face away, kicking. A kick hit my ankle. I howled and my hands fell loose. He stumbled into the house and I tumbled to the floor.

  I crawled through the door on hands and knees. There was no sign of Kincannon, but Dani was on the far side of the room, pushing herself from the floor, blood streaming from her nose and mouth. She saw me. Her hand came to her mouth.

  “Carson?”

  “Come on, Dani! We’ve got to get out of here.”

  I heard Kincannon in another room, raging to himself, cursing and yelling nonsense. It sounded like he was upending furniture. Dani wobbled to her feet, pushing hair from her face, came to me. She bent and I pulled myself to standing, arm encircling her neck.

  “He’s insane, Carson. It’s like something in his head broke.”

  “It’s been bending for years. Let’s get to your car.”

  We were nearly to the door when the shade of a Tiffany floor lamp behind our heads exploded in a thousand pieces. I clutched at Dani and we fell hard.

  Buck Kincannon strode into the room with a shotgun in his hands, racking the slide.

  “It’s PARTY TIME,” he screamed. “No one is going ANYWHERE!” He fired another blast and a curio cabinet beside us dissolved. We scrabbled backward on the floor, Kincannon sweeping the muzzle of the weapon across us, his eyes no longer human.

  Dani and I slithered toward a large desk in the corner of the room. Buck Kincannon fired a shot up the wide staircase, turning a chandelier into a shower of glass.