Night Road

by Brendan DuBois

  Zach resumed the drive into town. This time, the sign would remain unmolested.

  Besides, he was driving his own vehicle.

  Zach spent about thirty minutes tooling around town, seeing only two new buildings, and a lot of the old buildings that were either empty or had been renewed into something else. Rexall Drugstore into a Family Dollar Store. Shawmut Bank into Citizens Bank. Turner Books & More into an empty storefront.

  But a few places remained the same. One such place was the regional high school. School was in session and he drove by, noting that the damn building still looked like it did years ago. Near the front entrance was a handicapped spot, but when he had gone to school, that space was reserved for Duncan and his brother Cameron. Both rode Harleys once they had turned sixteen, and both called the nearest lot their own. Nobody dared take their space, even on days when they missed school. Cameron was a year older but due to a bout of illness early on in grammar school, he had lost a school season and attended the same classes as Duncan.

  The school was two-story brick and stone, arched walkway out front, lots of exposed metal and stone, looking like its architect had mistakenly thought the 1970s was going to be the height of design and culture. “Death before disco,” Zach muttered as he drove back into town, stopping at the town hall, a place that had remained quite the same for the past two hundred years.

  He parked in front the small white building that looked like a church that had been plopped onto a tiny green lawn without its steeple. The steps were wooden and wide, and as he went through the tall, dark brown doors, he was struck by the scent of old papers and cardboard and ink. It was a familiar scent and he was surprised at how comforting it was.

  Inside the floorboards creaked and he walked past a cork bulletin board with thumb-tacked flyers announcing a Ham & Bean Supper at the American Legion, new hours at the town dump, the hours of the registrar of the checklist, and a lost dog named Scooter. Ahead was a waist-high counter with a square wooden sign hanging announcing Town Clerk, and he was pleased at his luck. It was Nicole Martin, the town clerk when he had left Turner, and town clerk still.

  She was heavyset, brunette, wearing a floral sweater with cat’s eye glasses on a neck chain around her neck, sitting on a high padded stool. She smiled as he approached. “Well I’ll be dipped in … it’s Zachary Morrow, am I right?”

  “That’s right, Nicole,” he said, stepping up, putting his hands on the polished wood counter. “You still embezzling funds from the taxpayers?”

  “Hah,” she said. “I should be so smart. Been a damn long time since I’ve seen your shadow around this place. How have you been?”

  Lacking the time for a lengthy explanation, he said, “I’m doing all right.”

  She pursed her heavily lipsticked lips. “Sorry to hear about your dad.”

  “It is what it is,” he said.

  “Bah,” she said, moving her padded stool closer to the counter. “Always hated that phrase. ‘It is what it is.’ When your dad is stuck in a rest home, his mind gone, feel free to tell me that it sucks.”

  He tapped his fingers on the counter. “Nicole, it is what it is.”

  She took that all right and said, “So, what can I do for this travelin’ boy? Moving back to Turner? Want to register your car? Sign up to vote?”

  He said, “I’m looking for someone I went to high school with. Duncan Crowley. Wondering where I might find him.”

  She nodded. “Sure. Our state’s star baseball pitcher until he got in the car that day with one very nasty drunk Caleb Carleton. He lives in a nice little place up on Old Mill Road—you can tell it’s his place ’cause it don’t have no bathtubs or chickens in the front yard. But you won’t find him there.”

  Zach smiled. “Are we playing twenty questions, Nicole, or are you going to show me some mercy?”

  “Here’s your mercy for the day. He owns the Flight Deck Bar & Grill, up near the Crowdin town line. Most days he’s there about now, either having an early dinner or a late lunch. Go up there, you just might find him. Mind if I ask why you’re looking him up?”

  Zach turned from the counter. “Don’t mind at all if you ask, Nicole.”

  As he walked to the door, she called out to him. “That’s a good one, Zach. Didn’t know if you knew this, but he’s married now, with two kids. Ended up with Karen Delaney. You were sweet on her for a while, weren’t you?”

  Something warm and smooth seemed to roll around in his chest as he went out the door.

  He knew what she had said but he went up Old Mill Road anyway, just for a quick look-see. The road was typical small-town New Hampshire: bumpy paved one lane, no yellow line down the center, drainage ditches on each side, old stone walls and new wire fencing strung along. There were a handful of small farms, two mobile homes with white picket fences bordering them, and as the road rose up, a dark-stained two-story home with a wraparound farmer’s porch and an attached two-car garage. The driveway was empty. He was tempted to turn around in the driveway but decided that would be a dumb move.

  Zach drove up about a half-mile, found a place to change direction in an abandoned family cemetery, and then slowly went back down the road, the house now on the right. Something sweet and sad ached within him as he saw the house, imagined Karen living in there, loving and cooking and laughing and raising her two children, being with Duncan.

  Did she ever think about him? he wondered. Think about those few sweet moments, back in those days of supposed innocence in high school? When the two of them had shared the oldest story in the book, the late-spring romance filled with passion and fumbled kisses and one’s very first physical joining with another? Lord knows he still thought about her, during so many long nights when he had been out there, in supposed harm’s way, serving his country.

  That was then. This was now.

  He sped up and went down the hill.

  Zach spent a few minutes in his parked truck, looking over the Flight Deck Bar & Grill. Originally it had been George Tasker’s place—George having served aboard the USS Enterprise for a number of years—and since his death, it had changed hands a few times. At first it had started out as George’s house, with a number of additions having been built on, and the joint looked like it hadn’t changed much since Zach had left town. The lot was about half full, with a mix of motorcycles, pickup trucks, and some SUVs. The most popular color among the four-wheeled vehicles seemed to be rust or primer.

  He went to one of his duffel bags, unzipped it. Inside was a number of weapons, from something that looked to be a ballpoint pen but which extended into a razor-sharp thin blade when properly pressed, all the way up to his collection of pistols, revolvers, a cut-down Mossberg 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and—just to wrap it up and show a bit of thanks to one’s Israeli allies—a 9mm Uzi submachine gun. Semiautomatic, of course. Didn’t want to be too blatant in dancing around gun control laws.

  Zach pondered his little collection and then zippered it shut. He rummaged around in the other bag and pulled out his gifted cellphone from Tanya Gibbs, pressed the speakerphone button. There was an odd click as it found a dial tone, and after two rings, it was briskly answered.

  “Gibbs.”

  “Tanya, this is your very special agent, Zach Morrow, double-ought nought. I’m ready to meet up with Duncan Crowley, find out what malfeasance he’s up to. See if I can join in the fun.”

  Tanya was quiet for a moment, and she said in disbelief, “I told you to go in quiet and subtle, take your time. I only met with you yesterday!”

  “Don’t you worry about it, ma’am. I know what I’m doing. But I certainly can’t guarantee it’s going to be quiet or subtle. By the by, mind telling me what’s in that shipping container?”

  “Yes, I do mind. Very much.”

  “Is it a dirty bomb? VX gas? What is it?”

  “Even with this encrypted line, I’m not telling you.�
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  “My, you’re certainly not being helpful today.”

  “Listen, Chief Morrow—”

  “You also told me to call in once a day, or that our agreement is finished. You’ll consider this a phone call, won’t you?”

  “Yes, but you can’t—”

  “Then I’ve completed my end of the bargain,” Zach said. “Until tomorrow, ma’am.”

  He switched the phone off, thought about that slim pretty woman, down there in Boston. How she had come into his life and had given him a mission, as crazy as it was. As tiny and as attractive as she was, Zach thought she was the most dangerous woman he had ever met.

  For she was a true believer.

  Zach looked to his own disposable cellphone. Wondered if it was time to make that other call again.

  Later, he thought, as he stepped out of the truck, unarmed, and went up to the Flight Deck.

  He took a booth at the rear, checked the place out. Pool tables, three hi-def televisions hanging from the ceilings, no jukebox running but mixed sounds from the TVs, showing baseball, baseball, and a NASCAR race. On the walls were framed posters and photographs of Navy aircraft and warships. Despite the warning sign outside, four guys inside were wearing dungaree vests with the colors of the Washington County Motorcycle Club, which had been founded by the Crowley brothers. The four bikers stared at Zach as he came in, evaluating, checking him out, and when he just brushed by without a word or a glance, they went back to their pool game.

  The waitress was a smiling teenager with short blond hair, and he ordered a basic cheeseburger with fries, cooked medium rare, with a Budweiser draft. As he waited for his meal, he looked around some more, and there, in the far corner, was Duncan Crowley. He was by himself, reading a newspaper—from this distance, it looked like the Wall Street Journal—and was picking at a salad. Duncan had aged well, with hair short and shoulders bulky. As he sipped his Budweiser, Zach kept on glancing at Duncan. He looked like a quiet guy, minding his own business, maybe an accountant or something. Definitely not some north woods criminal genius waiting to smuggle something over the border that got Homeland Security all up in arms.

  The cheeseburger arrived and he was pleasantly surprised: it was a good size, juicy, hand-made, and one of the best he had ever eaten. He took his time eating and gauged the mood of the place. When he had snuck in here as a teenager and got his first beers years back, the place had seemed livelier. No hi-def TVs dangling, but loud music from the jukebox, people laughing, dancing. Oh, it wasn’t paradise, but there was a sense of expectations, of possibilities, of getting out of school and finding a job at the mills or lumberyards or quarries. Working with your hands, making an adequate living, enough to own a piece of land, build a house, start a family.

  Now? All of the big businesses in the county where someone with drive and strength could start a living were gone. What remained was small shops, welfare, food pantries, and living on the edge, where one bad snowstorm or one unpaid bill would mean disaster. In the pub there was an undercurrent of tension, as everyone seemed to stare at their drinks when the conversation dribbled off, wondering where it had all gone wrong. Decisions made in D.C., wars in the Middle East, trade agreements in Zurich, paper being passed from one financial institution to another in Manhattan … all reverberated down to here, in this dingy pub, where people felt like the stars and planets were aligned against them, and they were probably right.

  He finished his cheeseburger and fries, delicately wiped his fingers and lips. Now it was time to get to work.

  Zach paid his bill, left a twenty-percent tip, and then ordered a pitcher of beer. He slowly worked his way through the pitcher, pouring it into his mug, and when he was sure he wasn’t being watched, he’d open up a space between the wall and the seat cushion, finding a gap in the wood, and dumping most of it down there.

  An hour passed with another pitcher, and then he got up and went to the bathroom at the rear. He was tempted to stop by the grill and thank the chef—a tall, scrawny man with a thin goatee and tattoos up and down both arms—but that would break his concentration. Zach worked his way back to his booth, stumbled, and bumped into one of the bikers just as he was making a shot.

  The pool cue struck the cue ball off center, making it fly off the dingy green felt, clattering to the sawdust-covered floor. The biker, a guy in his thirties, whirled and said, “You stupid fuck, what the hell are you doing?”

  Zach swayed. “Tryin’ to get back to my place, asshole.”

  The biker took his pool cue, bumped the end into Zach’s stomach. “Who you calling an asshole?”

  Zach moved closer. “You feelin’ okay?”

  “Hunh?”

  “I said, you feelin’ okay? Tummy all right? Bathroom habits doin’ fine?”

  The man’s three buddies laughed. He turned to them and laughed as well, and again poked the pool cue into Zach’s stomach. “Jesus, how drunk are you, asshole? Why do you care how I’m feelin’?”

  Zach said, “’Cause I’m about to check out your colon with your pool cue.”

  He moved snap quick, grabbed the pool cue from the guy’s hands, flipped it up under the biker’s chin. He grunted and fell back as Zach whacked him once, twice, and he fell back over more, going to the floor with an oomph! as he hit his back.

  His three buddies moved in quick to back him up, but in the slow-motion focus of being in a fight, Zach knew their disadvantages: they were surprised, they hadn’t trained to work as a group, and in coming at Zach all at once, they were crowding each other out, restricting their own movements.

  While it only took seconds, it seemed to Zach that he was taking his time, going after one, the other, and then the third. The first got the cue across his nose, smashing it, causing him to howl. The second got the butt end of the cue thrust hard against his breastbone in three repeated motions, making him wheeze and bellow. The third was working a hand under his colors, coming out with a revolver—standard Smith & Wesson .38, it looked like—but with the now-bloody end of the pool cue. Zach smashed it from his hand. He yelled in pain, the revolver flew off into a corner as he grabbed his injured hand, and in a whirling motion Zach rapped the man against his kneecaps, collapsing him to the floor.

  Zach wrapped things up quickly by nailing every one of the four bikers with the butt end of the pool cue to their foreheads, and he kicked the first one in the gut, causing him to bend over.

  “Hey, remember I told you I was going to check out your colon with a pool cue?”

  The guy moaned in reply. Zach nailed him in the balls with one more shot.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I lied.”

  Zach stood up, breathing hard, the pool cue slippery in his hands, and found himself looking into the working end of a double-

  barreled shotgun, the barrels cut down, just barely above legal. It was being carried by the cook, who slowly shook his head.

  “Man, you sure move fast, but you can’t move fast forever,” the cook said. “So you better haul ass out of here ’fore the rest of the Washington County boys roll in.”

  Breathing hard, Zach said, “Damn, I thought I was just getting started.”

  The cook motioned with the shotgun. “Out. Now.”

  He looked over the cook’s shoulder and caught Duncan’s eye, gazing over the newspaper. Duncan’s eyes seemed to seize Zach’s look and he called out, “Bob?”

  “Sir?” the cook called back, not moving, keeping the shotgun trained on Zach.

  “It’s all right,” Duncan said. “Send him back here, will you?”

  Another motion of the shotgun. “You heard the man. Go on back there. But leave the pool cue behind.”

  Zach found a napkin, wiped the pool cue clean, put it down on the pool table, and gingerly walked by the four fallen bikers as he made his way over to Duncan Crowley.

  Duncan motioned him to sit, which he did, moving the ch
air around so that his back wasn’t exposed. The four bikers got up slowly, muttering curses, looking over at him. He didn’t flinch from their angry looks. One of them went to the corner of the pub, where he knelt down and picked up his revolver. Time seemed to slow down again, as Zach watched the hand, quickly wondered what the biker would do. But out of the corner of his right eye, Zach saw Duncan raise a hand, and that was that. The revolver went back under the T-shirt and vest, pool cues were picked up, and Zach was aware that people were talking and that his hands hurt.

  Duncan looked at him quizzically. “I know you, don’t I?”

  “You should,” Zach said. “In PE class I once beat your ass three times in a row in wrestling, back in high school.”

  Duncan smiled with enthusiasm. “I’ll be darned. Zach … Morrow? Right? Zach Morrow.” He held out his hand and Zach gave him a hefty shake. Duncan said, “What have you been up to, besides taking on members of the local motorcycle enthusiasts?”

  Zach said, “Right now, it looks like they’re enthused to either shoot me or knife me when I go out in the parking lot.”

  Duncan said, “Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s all taken care of.”

  “Really? I’m impressed.”

  “Don’t have to be,” Duncan said, putting his Wall Street Journal aside. “Sometimes it’s good for those fellows to get kicked down a notch. Otherwise, they get too arrogant, feel like they walk on water and own the joint. Since I own the joint, they play by my rules. Or they’ll have to drive a half hour from here to find another place conducive to their drinking, pool playing, and hell-raising.”

  “You own the joint?” Zach asked. “Seem to remember you could throw the baseball a pretty fair distance back in the day, that you got a scholarship to UNH. How did that work out for you?”