Lake Charles

by Ed Lynskey

  “Please don’t ruin our good deed.”

  “Thanks for everything. Drive safe in all this smoke.”

  “Did Alicia tell you about our situation?”

  “I got the gist of it, yeah.”

  “Ralph Sizemore is an evil man. Stay sharp.”

  “I survived Iwo Jima, so I’ll know what to do if he comes looking to make trouble.” Her grandfather’s chisel points for eyes told me that he could protect his own.

  “So you’re the one who moved Alicia, and you never saw us tonight.”

  He didn’t probe my motives. “Wilco, roger.”

  They traipsed into the cedar cabin with no glance back at us. I took over at the wheel, and we coasted on gas vapors to the state road, but within minutes, we shambled down Mr. Kuzawa’s hemlock-lined driveway. I moored us twenty paces from his A-frame. He slid out of the cab truck and sluiced the gas from an antique bubblehead pump into my tank.

  The tang to the evergreen sap tingled in my nostrils. I saw his flatbed truck laden with jack pine logs, his next load ready for transporting to the sawmill. Taking care of my dilemma was costing him money. I saw he’d draped the Rebel flag over the flatbed truck’s rear window. When his hand pressed to my shoulder, I saw the two middle fingers were missing. Chainsaw mishap, I guessed.

  “Are you holding up okay?”

  He asked a damn good question. Was I? A low wind moaned through the stand of hemlocks, and I heard a boozy whippoorwill chime from under the shrubbery, and its obedient mate flew out of my narrowing range of sight.

  “Look, we just can’t go on acting like the judge and jury—”

  His shoulder punch interrupted me. “Keep it real. Sizemore’s goons had us in their crosshairs because Herzog had sicced them on us.”

  “Right, he was setting us up. We had to stop him.” The whippoorwills had taken aloft. Any clarity of thought crashed in my tired mind. “Can we chill out and then go on? Edna is still hurting.”

  “I know she is. New dreams?”

  The frustrations piling up tipped over in me. My tone came out harsher than I intended. “I’ve had no new dreams. Just forget what I told you. They’re unreliable. Why I get them is quirky. Stoned, Ashleigh and I went to the motel to screw our asses off. Later I woke up and bumped her naked stiff off me. I panicked and sprinted out to use the phone. The sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, and you know the rest of the sorry ass story.”

  “Don’t lose hope, Brendan, and toss in the towel. A hunch tells me we’re on the homestretch.”

  A spark jumped up in my dull brain. “Do you put our shadow car this afternoon with the sedan I spotted that night in the motel parking lot?”

  “Sure, I’m with you. Sizemore staked out your motel, then sneaked into your room after you fell asleep, and slipped Ashleigh the fatal Mickey Finn.”

  I nodded. “Did they follow us after we left the wayside?”

  “I saw nothing in the mirrors from the second we left it. Sizemore’s goons had peeled off us.”

  “So they didn’t see us let off Alicia.”

  Mr. Kuzawa nodded. “Are you phoning Mama Jo?”

  “I think it’s better not to rile that quiet tiger.”

  “She’s worried sick about you, I’m sure.”

  Why did he always hassle me to call her? Why did he even care? “We talked at the gas station. What’s new to tell her? Herzog tried to double-cross me. Edna is still missing. We’re trying to manhunt a faceless killer?”

  “All right, we’ll recharge and then go find Edna. Maybe you can keep something down this time.”

  “It’s worth a try.” The crushed glass mangling my stomach again gave me reason to wince.

  “Cullen will drive Herzog’s Mercedes at Lake Charles down to the wayside, and help stage his suicide.”

  “Make it convincing,” I said. “Or we get a hot squat on Old Sparky at Riverbend.”

  “Snap out of your funk. The rules of war say spies take a death slug.”

  His line of reasoning didn’t gel in me, but I was too bushed to point out this was no damn war, and he’d no right to play the executioner’s role. “Forget it then,” I said to placate him.

  Pleased, Mr. Kuzawa nodded. “Some dark shit is better left buried.”

  * * *

  Minutes later scrubbing in the shower, I couldn’t wash Lake Charles’ filth off me. Instead, I drew a mental map of my pilgrimage departing Umpire and pushing north to my new haven in Valdez. Would I require a passport to get through the Canadian checkpoints? I’d buy a down-filled parka after I hit Valdez. Next Cobb settled into my thoughts as a deep-seated guilt.

  My Valdez trip was a solo one because he’d died in large part by my recklessness. I visualized the jetliner I’d watched streaking its vapory contrail in the blue dome above Lake Charles. The steep gas prices made it cheaper to fly to Valdez, but then I’d miss the stop-off to tour Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills. Cobb had said it upset the local Native Americans as Uncle Sam did us by erecting the dams and altering our Smoky Mountains.

  When the shower’s hot water ran out to spew down in icy cold torrents, I jumped out from the stall and toweled off. On my trip down the hallway, I paused at the ajar door to Cobb’s old bedroom and peeked inside. He’d taped Edna’s high school graduation portrait to his bureau mirror. They’d never get the second shot to make their marriage work. I clamped off my wistful memories. Right now, my all was to bring Edna home and restore my normal life.

  Mr. Kuzawa said we’d better return to Yellow Snake under the cover of night, and I might rack out on the sofa. Meanwhile he’d keep an eye out for any unfriendlies.

  ***

  Feeling almost human again, I drove us off in my cab truck, the now dark two-laner tracking north to Yellow Snake. Mr. Kuzawa drained one brown pint of straight corn whiskey and cracked the seal on the second pint. His eyes glowed hotter than radioactive lumps. He rarely slept.

  The speedometer needle kissed 80 m.p.h. as we careened by the dark wayside and its starlit cadaver of Herzog. My darkest thoughts dredged up Edna imprisoned in a similar hellhole. Later, we switched off our driving duties, and now riding shotgun I tried to relax. The tires’ rhythmic drone shortening the miles to Yellow Snake lulled me into a fitful sleep.

  The anxiety and dread teeming in my subconscious produced a montage of images, and at first, no recognizable people or coherent places took shape. Soon the colors grew in clarity to set up my next dream. At first, I fidgeted to shake it off, but the film reels clanked behind my eyes as my rumination spun out on its own volition.

  I was sitting propped up against a doubled-over pillow in the motel bed. The TV showed the late night news—turmoil had reigned in Iran since the Shah dying from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had booked. An IRA bomb had killed Lord Mountbatten aboard his posh sailboat in Ireland. Violence bred violence and not just in Tennessee, but violence gorged on a global span.

  On the local news, the camera panned across the tongues of fire encroaching from the wooded ridges and threatening to scorch a home. The newscaster said the homeowner hadn’t insured it. I heard Ashleigh singing in the shower stall (The Devil’s Own had no fret of any competition). I fired up a new Marlboro from my last one smoldering in the ashtray. The dope I’d fetched from her Jaguar lay on the bed table by her pack of Virginia Slims.

  Her shower cut off, and I heard a car engine bark to life. Before I could get up to peep out the window, she flounced out of the bathroom, a towel sheathing her. She walked pigeon-toed, and I noted her calves bulged too thick. She plunked down on the edge of the bed, and her baby shampoo fragrance titillated me.

  “Did you just hear a car pull off?” she asked. “It’s late for the motel guests to be going out.”

  “You just heard an ad on the TV.”

  “I guess so. Can you dig it? I sit polluted and can hold a conversation.” She winked at me from under her wet bangs.

  “Mortifying, isn’t it?” I pointed my finger. “Are those puppies real? I’ve got t
o know.” I lunged, my fingers hooked claws to unknot the bath towel. Her breasts bobbled out like a couple of coconuts. They were real, sure enough. She sprang sideways to elude my grope and, snickering, tied the bath towel back in place.

  “Don’t. Let my hair dry.” Brushing the longer bangs into her eyes, she smiled. “Why did you go stag tonight? Don’t you date a girlfriend?”

  Angry Salem Rojos giving me the heave-ho still smarted. “She doesn’t party. I do. Ergo, any romance between us was doomed to fail.”

  “I see. She’s a tight-ass ice princess.” Ashleigh saw my withering look over her snarky characterization of Salem. “Anyway. Your friend Cobb intrigues me. Tell me more.”

  “What else can I say? His dad fought in the Chosin campaign.”

  She crinkled her nose as the bath towel dislodged again. “Did he kill anybody over there?”

  “Put it this way. Mr. Kuzawa kicked some major butt in the Land of the Morning Calm. Cobb said his dad later did some undercover work for Uncle Sam.”

  “You guys and your guns, yech.” A shiver made her rose-tipped breasts jiggle. “I feel grungy enough to hop into the shower again.”

  “You want a back scrub to go with that?”

  “Need you ask me? First though, skin us a joint.”

  “Ashleigh, your bud is primo.”

  “My dope pimp calls it ‘sinsemilla,’ Spanish for ‘without seeds.’ The female bud is tenfold more potent than the male bud, but then we girls are always that way.”

  “I’ll say. Who’s your dope pimp? Paco? I may need a new source. Stems and seeds chock the homegrown pot I get. It tastes like I’m smoking a shredded croaker sack.”

  “Paco is just a pal like you I met at a show. If I told you my real dealer, I’d have to kill you.” We laughed, mine high-pitched. “It’s safer if I keep that under wraps, at least for now. I’m sure you can dig why I have to protect my source’s confidentiality.”

  “Sure and I adore you girls harboring your dark secrets. The mystery only adds to your allure.” I paused. “Say, what’s your dad’s line of work?”

  “Greed. Ralph is independently wealthy. He inherited our main estate from my grandfather Baxter Sizemore. But Ralph craves dominion over as much as possible, me included if he could swing it. What he fails to grasp is that everything in life comes with a price tag, and my price tag is the steepest of all.”

  “But he sets down no house rules.” My exhaled pot smoke dispersed its fruity, soothing aroma. “That’s pretty cool. Mama Jo can be tough on Edna and me.”

  “For now it’s bearable. You never bring up your father, Brendan. Is he lenient enough to let you get away with murder, so to speak?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Angus made tracks early. From time to time, his postcards arrive postmarked from Valdez.”

  “What’s in Valdez, pray tell?”

  “He worked as a roughneck on the pipeline.”

  “Now Ralph wouldn’t last a day performing manual labor.”

  A punch on the shoulder jarred me alert. It was dark, and it was cold, and the heater circulated cool air. My teeth chattered. We were moving. I saw out the windshield the wisps of ashes from the wood fires curling like snowflakes in the conical beams of our headlights.

  “Update,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  “I told you to forget my dreams.”

  “Update,” he repeated.

  “I had one dream, but nothing was new in it.”

  “Well, I’ve got some news.” Mr. Kuzawa adjusted the rearview mirror by an inch. “A ways back, I leaned over to goose the heater switch. My glance skimmed the rearview mirror, and guess what I saw?”

  The goose bumps prickled down my back. “That sedan is tailing us again?”

  “You got it. I can’t make out the model or color in the dark, but I executed a series of turns, and I couldn’t shake them.”

  “They mean business.”

  “Uh-huh, but then we do, too.”

  “What comes after we hit Yellow Snake?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll lose them, or else they’ll slip up.”

  Slip up ignited an insight. Motive, dummy. “Did we slip up? Why did Herzog shoot himself? We left no note. A lawyer would lay out why he did it.”

  “My agency used to tell us only a third of suicides write a letter. We know Herzog was pinched for cash. He admitted it to the sheriff’s deputies at the library. The locals called him a loon on top of a loner. Loons get stupid, and loners get depressed. The authorities will think that life’s pressures got to him, he cracked up, and he ate his own bullet.”

  “If any witness saw him with us, we’re toast,” I said.

  “Who saw us together? Mrs. Cornwell not wearing her bifocals is blind as a bat. Alicia will stay mum, and she really saw nothing. Niki our server skipped off to Shreveport to hang out. All of us whites look alike to the zipperhead fry cook. The store clerk just blew her cigarette smoke into his face. He stayed in the cab while you and I talked to Mrs. Nelson and Victor.”

  Nodding, I said nothing and felt tapped out. I’d gone over my limit of spies, jails, overdoses, kidnappings, beatings, double crosses, bullets, and, all the furtive glances I’d taken over my shoulder day and night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  They were back. Mr. Kuzawa told me to watch the cab truck mirrors. Our wary tail job gave us an extra cushion, but their persistent high beams never snuffed out. Within the next mile, we galloped up on dogleg curve in the two-laner and a sunken dirt road tracking straight ahead into the deep woods.

  “Give them a taste of their own medicine,” said Mr. Kuzawa.

  The cab truck barreled off the two-laner onto the sunken dirt road, coasted a short distance, and halted in a dirt track skid. After extinguishing the headlights, Mr. Kuzawa worked the column shift into reverse, dumped the clutch, and the cab truck—its rear tires digging—hurtled us backward. At the last second, he cut the wheel and swerved in behind a craggy rock formation. A dust cloud sifted by us. Only when he downshifted to first gear did I catch on. Our pursuers would come up and wonder just which road we’d used.

  Meanwhile the rock formation, one of many, was our concealment, and he nestled us behind it. We hopped out and scaled some twenty feet to reach the rock’s cap. The chilly air smacked my face. My foot balanced on the narrow ledge gave me a commanding vista of the crossroads. My cold fingers clinging to the fissure in the rock ached. The bands of muscles across my lower back tightened.

  After a few minutes, our tail job traipsed along the two-laner, and observing the divergent roads seemed to baffle them. The sedan sledded off the two-laner, came to a crunching halt, and its doors flailed out. Two stickman shadows moved by the front fenders and into the headlights’ triangles of brightness. They left the engine idling. The binoculars I’d had the quick wits to bring up with us magnified the agitation in their postures. I also saw them clicking their flashlights on and off.

  “I told you they’d stop.” Mr. Kuzawa below me was helping to buttress my perch on the rock wall. He whispered up more. “Who are they?”

  “The dark makes it hard to see them.”

  I focused my binocular lenses on the headlights. The shadows cloaked the pair of men until they advanced into the tunnels of brightness. I was able to make out their dark suits over narrow ties and white dress shirts. One man’s coal black pigment contrasted to his partner’s onion white skin.

  “They’re a salt-and-pepper team,” I murmured down to Mr. Kuzawa. “They’re in dark suits, and their boxy car has a whip radio antenna screwed to the trunk. No weapons are in sight.”

  “Dark suits and a boxy car, you say? A whip radio antenna is on the trunk. Aw man, shit.”

  Processing that, I wet my lips. “What do you mean?”

  “Our salt-and-pepper partners ain’t with Sizemore. They’re G-men.”

  His revelation unnerved me. “Feds?”

  “Probably DEA or maybe FBI.”

  “Sh-h-h. They’re heading this way.”

&n
bsp; The white man headed down the hard surface of the two-laner, craning his head as if for a clearer sight angle. His flashlight beam crisscrossed the pavement. Then I panned the binoculars wide right. The black agent, shorter and stockier, halted ten or so paces on the sunken dirt lane we’d taken. His flashlight beam spraying back and forth inspected his front, and I could see our stirred up dust eddying in the shaft to its brightness.

  “Earl, what’s your read?” asked the white man, his abrasive bass amplifying over the dark. “Did they go your way? Or did they stick to the hardtop?”

  “Well, Gil,” said Earl, speaking with a drawl. “I can observe a bit of dust and a fresh skid mark. Their taillights didn’t seem to follow the hardtop’s arc. I say that indicates they forked off this way, but we’ve lost their signal, so that’s no aid.”

  “That’s par for the course in these toolies. Playing the percentages, we’ll stick to the hardtop. There’s no good reason why they’d use the dirt road.”

  “With these squirrely mothers, logic doesn’t seem to fly,” Leaning in to peer, Earl hosed his beam to probe between the shaggy tree trunks. “They’d have their nutty reasons. The dirt road is a local shortcut, maybe.”

  “No sir, we’ll continue on the hardtop.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  Gil’s voice was a bark. “I’m pulling rank on you, Earl. I say we follow the hardtop.”

  “Sure, Gil, whatever. I’m easy about it.”

  Flashlights off, they did an about-face, and their shadows stalked into the headlight’s bright streams again.

  Gil’s sharp look included Earl. “These hillbillies are gun crazies. Take that convenience store robbery.”

  I saw Earl’s curt nod. “Yeah, Christ. The glass and blood splattered all over. The crime scene photos look as if an abortion took place in there.”

  I replayed the store robbery we’d thwarted: taunts, gunshots, and corpses.