“Oh, damn, I forgot,” he said suddenly. “Your friend Keller called.”
Marie stopped stirring. “What’d he say?”
“Just wanted to talk about the weekend.”
She began stirring again. She felt slightly embarrassed. “Ah,” was all she said. “Well, Shelby invited me over to dinner tomorrow night,” she said. “He said Jack could come, too.” She felt suddenly awkward. If Keller came up for dinner, they’d have the choice of driving back to Wilmington afterwards or having him stay with her. If they did that, it would be the first time for that since her father had moved in.
“Seems like you and this guy Keller are gettin’ pretty serious,” her father said.
She felt herself reddening. “Yeah,” she replied. She looked up. His face was serious.
“Look, kiddo,” he said. “I know you’re a big girl now.” He smiled sadly. “I may not like it, but it’s not like I can do anything about it. But is this guy…” He shook his head.
She tried not to sound defensive. She hated this feeling, the mix of defiance and defensiveness that made her feel sixteen years old again. “I’m fine, Dad,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said, “but there’s more than just you to worry about. You ever thought what kind of a stepfather this guy would make for Ben?”
“Ben likes him,” she said.
“I know he does,” her father said. “He asks me ‘When’s Tough Guy coming to see me?’” Marie had to smile, remembering the nickname Ben had hung on Keller the first time they met. The smile vanished as her father went on. “And you know what I have to tell him? ’I don’t know.’ Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Know when he’s coming to see your son. Do you know when he’s going to be around? Or if he’s going to be around?”
Marie was getting angry. “Do we have to settle my entire life before dinner, Dad?” she snapped. “We’re working through a lot of things. And Ben’s part of that. He’s part of me and part of my life. And if you think I don’t realize that—”
“Okay, okay … ,” her father said, raising his hands. “Sorry. I’m sticking my nose in.” His face softened. “I should tmst you. You never gave me cause to do anything else. I just don’t want you or Ben to get hurt. And I worry that this guy will do it.”
“He’s a good man, Dad,” Marie said. But he’s definitely not staying here tomorrow night, she thought. All she needed was for her father to start grilling Keller like he was grilling her.
“Okay, then,” her father said. “You said it, that’s good enough for me.” They went back to preparing dinner. “You sure you don’t mind keeping Ben?” she said.
“If I go to Wilmington for the rest of the weekend?” “Naah. We’ll make a bachelor weekend of it. I, ahh …” He hesitated.
“What?”
“I thought I might take Ben to Wal-Mart and get him an air rifle. It’s time he started learning some basic safety.”
Marie felt her shoulders tighten. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”
“Bullshit,” he said flatly. “It’s not okay. You get that look on your face every time I mention it. And I’m not going to do it if it’s going to upset you.”
“He’s awfully young,” Marie said softly.
“You were his age when I started teaching you to shoot,” he said.
She laughed. “Yeah, well, my Dad was kinda weird.”
He didn’t laugh back. He walked over to her and grasped her shoulders. “Kid,” he said softly, “it’s not that big a deal whether or not Ben gets an air rifle. But every time I bring it up, it shakes you up. Bad. Worse than it ought to. And I want to know why.”
She looked away from his eyes. “I can’t talk about it, Dad,” she said.
“That bad, huh?” he said. “Worse than what happened to Eddie? Because you can talk about that.” All she could do was nod.
He took her chin in his hand and drew her around to look back at him. “Marie,” he said. “Sometimes a cop crosses the line. Sometimes he does things that only another cop can understand. And it’s important to know that someone understands. You know what I’m saying?”
In her mind’s eye she saw a man standing, framed in the scope of her deer rifle, a cigarette lighter raised above his head. Had he lit it, he would have incinerated himself and everyone around him. She took the slack up on the trigger just like her dad had taught her, felt herself breathe out slow, squeezed, heard the report of the rifle…
She jumped slightly. Her father, startled by the movement, let go of her shoulders. “I’m not ready, Dad,” she said. “I’m just not ready.” She wrapped her arms around him and buried her head in his broad chest. “I’m sorry.”
Her father hugged her tightly. “Okay,” he said. “When you’re ready, then.” He pulled away. “Those chops are gonna burn,” he said.
“Thanks, Dad,” Marie said softly. “Thanks for everything.”
He waved it off. “Least I can do,” he said. “Go get Ben washed up.”
Roy smiled to himself when he heard Stan’s muffled cry of release. The kid was shook up, out of his element. But he was also a homy sixteen-year-old. What Laurel was doing would bind the kid to them. Or at least, it would bind him to Laurel, and Roy could handle her.
He drove the van back down U.S. 74, through the flatlands of Robeson and Columbus Counties, headed for the coast. Laurel stayed in the back with Stan.
Roy thought about what was about to go down. He was about to claim what had been denied him for so long, what other people’s cowardice and deception had taken from him. He thought back to the days when everything had been opening up for him, when everything had seemed in his grasp. He had worked with the stars, and soon, he had known, he’d be one himself. Until the day when it all came crashing down. Because someone else couldn’t admit their own fuckup. Because it was easy to blame Roy. His knuckles turned white on the wheel. Soon, he thought to himself. Soon.
Just before reaching the Cape Fear River bridge, he took one of the exits in the snarl of ramps that sorts traffic to the various coast roads. A narrow two-lane blacktop paralleled the river, headed down toward the town of Southport. A few miles down, he turned down a dirt road toward the river. Laurel rejoined him, clambering over the front seat.
“He all right?” Roy said in a voice too low for their passenger to hear.
She nodded. “It’ll be okay, Roy, I promise,” she said.
“We ain’t pickin’ up every stray that comes along,” he said.
She grinned. “Look who’s talkin’.” He didn’t reply. He turned down a dirt road in the direction of the river. A weathered sign announced COMING SOON, RIVERWOODE. LUXURY HOMESITES FROM. The bottom of the sign where the price range was written had rotted and fallen off.
They bumped and jounced over the deeply rutted road until they came to a thick steel cable strung between two trees. Laurel grabbed a key ring from the glove box and hopped out. As she was undoing the padlock holding the cable, Stan appeared behind the passenger seat, peering out the front window.
“Where are we?” he said. He looked dazed.
“Home sweet home,” Roy said. “For another day or so at least.” Laurel got back in the van. She leaned back to peck Stan on the cheek.
After another quarter mile or so, the road emptied out into a clearing. They were on the bank of the river. Wire grass and stunted bushes struggled up from the sandy soil. A double-wide house trailer sat at one edge of the cleared space. There was a prefabricated metal shed on the other side of the clearing. Roy pulled up next to the trailer. They all got out.
“Wow,” Stan said, “you got a great view here.” He walked through the tall grass toward the riverbank. The Cape Fear River was broad and deep here. Far out on the channel, a massive container ship piled high with brightly colored rectangular boxes glided soundlessly up the river toward the port of Wilmington. Suddenly, Stan tripped. Then he seemed to become taller by a foot as he hopped up on something concealed in the tall grass.
“Hey,” he called back. There’s a concrete slab here. Was somebody, like, building a house?”
Rage flared white-hot behind Roy’s eyes. He opened the back of the van and reached for one of the rifles wrapped up on the floor.
“Roy,” Laurel said. She put her hand on his arm. “Easy, baby. He don’t know.”
Roy rested his hand on the gun for a moment as he throttled his anger back down.
He had been working stunts, taking the falls that the insurance companies weren’t willing to let the more recognizable faces take. The film’s rising young star had been chafing to do more of his own stunts; it was a martial arts movie, after all, and he wanted to show off his skills. But in the cold calculus of moviemaking it was the faceless ones who got to take the real risks.
Roy didn’t mind; he was still young and strong, and the money was great, especially for a farm boy from Duplin County. And he knew that, once he’d paid his dues and made the right connections, he’d be one of the faces on the movie posters. He’d ascend to the heights where it was Dom Perignon and blow jobs from starlets in the backs of limos every night on the way to the next premiere. And his picture in the magazines, every week. That would be the sweetest part. Everyone would know his face. He had the look. He had the talent. And when the bruises he took from being knocked into set walls left him limping and sore, he had the coke and the whiskey to put the pain someplace far away.
Then it had all come down on him. His career had sputtered and died. He had been robbed. And now someone was going to pay while there was still time to collect.
The kid came running up, out of breath. “Man,” he said. “What a great place.”
“Come on in,” Roy said. “We got some things to do before show time.”
They walked to the door of the trailer. Roy turned the key in the lock but only opened the door a couple of inches. He reached inside and loosened the noose of wire wrapped around the doorknob. He slipped it off and over the knob, then opened the door and entered.
The interior of the trailer was dark, all the windows closed, and the blinds pulled down. A straight-backed wooden chair sat across the room facing the door. Bound to the chair with a weave of gray duct tape was a double-barreled shotgun pointing at the door. Roy walked over to the chair, winding the wire around his fist as he went. He unhooked the wire from a hook set in the far wall. The wire led around the hook back in the direction of the door, then was tied to the trigger of the gun. A person who cluelessly pulled the door open without stopping to unhook the wire would yank the wire taut around the hook and trigger, firing the gun and taking the full load of buckshot in the chest.
Roy looked back at Stan standing in the door, his eyes wide as he saw Roy disarming the trap gun. “I don’t like trespassers,” Roy said.
“I guess not,” Stan replied. Roy flipped on a light as Laurel and Stan entered.
Inside, the trailer was cramped and cheaply furnished. A pair of movie posters dominated the space over the ragged sofa. Stan glanced at them. “Hey,” he said, pointing, “I think I saw that one on TV one time. And isn’t the other one the one where that guy got killed filming it?”
It took an effort of pure will for Roy not to pick up the shotgun and blow the kid’s head off to shut his stupid mouth. “Yeah,” he said. “Damn shame.”
“Roy was in them two movies,” Laurel said proudly. “And a bunch of others, too.”
“Wow,” Stan said. “No shit?”
“Yeah,” Roy said. “No shit.” He turned to Laurel. “Fix us something to eat,” he said. “I got some work to do.” She looked for a moment as if she was going to argue about it, but she saw the look in Roy’s eye and closed her mouth. “Okay,” she said.
Roy went down the narrow hall to the bedroom he’d turned into an office. The tiny space was crammed full with a bed, a dresser, and a battered rolltop desk shoved into one corner. On one wall was a pair of cheap bookcases filled with books on filmmaking, texts on acting, and biographies of Hollywood stars. One shelf contained a set of three-ring binders, and it was one of those that Roy took down as he sat at the desk. He called them his “shooting scripts,” and they contained the plans for each of his productions. He had scouted locations, mapped out entrances and exits, even drawn a few cmde storyboards of the scenes he envisioned. Some of those would have to be changed, he thought, as his eyes danced over the crude cartoonish images of mayhem he had drawn. He felt a sudden sharp pain in his head, like an icepick jammed brutally between his eyes. Roy gritted his teeth and rubbed his eyes, willing the pain to go away. After a few moments, it subsided to a dull throb. The headaches were getting closer together and increasing in severity. Laurel hadn’t rushed things by much. It was time to make his move.
As if to reassure himself, he went to the desk and took an envelope out of one of the cubbyholes. He unfolded the paper inside and looked at it again, even though he had the words memorized by now. Inoperable…some experimental procedures…some chance of success… The letter tried hard to be optimistic, considering that it was a death warrant.
For years Roy had held on, knowing that someday, somehow, he was going to make it back. The people who had used him, the people who had shoved him aside, would fall, and he would rise. It was an article of faith with him. Sometimes he imagined walking back onto the set, pausing for a moment in the doorway a all heads turned to look at him, a shadow backlit by the sun outside… the image faded. It wasn’t going to happen now. There wasn’t time.
He considered the advantages that having a third player would give. The kid hadn’t had the rehearsal time that Roy and Laurel had, but he could do some of the grunt work, like driving. That would free up Laurel to take a bigger part in the production. That would make her happy for a while. Until it didn’t matter.
Roy and Laurel had fallen in together because each of them saw their own fury mirrored in the other. Laurel had been Roy’s audience, the perfect sounding board for his vision of revenge. She was the closest thing he’d had to a friend in a long time. But in the end, she was expendable. When this was all over there’d only be one name on the headlines. It was tough, but that was show business.
After dinner, Marie called Keller. He answered on the second ring. “Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself,” she said. “How’re you doing?”
“I’m okay,” he said. “You?”
“Fantastic,” she said. “I’ve got a chance to work a murder case.”
She heard him chuckle at that. She laughed as well. “I know, I know,” she said. “Only a cop would call that luck.”
“So,” he said, “that mean you’re working this weekend?”
“Possibly,” she said. “Shelby--that’s the detective I’d be working with--says he’s going to try to get the overtime authorized. But I kind of have to stay around here. Can you come up?” Before he could answer, she added, “We’ve been invited to dinner with Shelby and his family.”
“We?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You and me. Like a couple.” There was a long pause. “You there?” she said finally.
“Yeah,” he said. Then he laughed. “Dinner with the boss. It sounds so … normal.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“No,” he said, “not bad. Just new for me. I haven’t lived what you’d call a normal life.”
She thought back to her father’s words. “Maybe that’s good,” she said. “New things, I mean.” She paused for a moment. “I miss you, Jack,” she said. “I want to see you.”
Another pause. “I miss you, too,” he said finally. “So yeah. I’ll be there. What time?”
“Dinner’s at six-thirty,” she said. “Pick me up at six?”
“Okay,” he said. I love you, she wanted to say. Instead, she said, “See you then.”
Keller hung up the phone and stared at the wall of his living room for a moment. The walls were blank, the furniture simple, mostly thrown together castoffs. He had been about to tell Marie that he had a jump
er to catch, that he had to work the case. But then Angela’s words had come back to him. Stay with it, she had said, you two are good for each other.
He had been alone so long, he had no idea if he was any good for her or anyone else. He had spent the years since the war in a self-imposed limbo, wrapping himself in his own fury until it hardened into a kind of armor, protection against any kind of pain. It had made him pitiless, remorseless. It had given him the kind of fearlessness that comes with not caring whether he or anyone else lived or died. All of which had made him very good at his job.
Then things had begun to change. First with Angela, then Marie. He had begun to feel again. The armor had begun to crack. For a moment, he felt a stab of fear. He marveled at that for a moment, like a fisherman who had hauled up some prehistoric creature from the depths. It seemed like eons since he had felt fear or doubt. He wondered if it would slow him down, cost him a step or a second of reflex. He wondered if it would get him killed.
“What did it mean when you said ’Like we agreed?’” Stan asked.
He and Laurel were lying in bed together. They were naked. He was on his back, staring, fascinated, at the darkened ceiling. It seemed to ripple and blur under his gaze. After the three of them had eaten, Roy had broken out a Baggie of crystal meth and cut several lines for each of them. Stan had never done meth before. The stuff burned his nostrils fiercely as he snorted up the fat lines. But the rush when it came was a hundred times more intense than the boost he had gotten from the laced joints before. It was like being shot out of a cannon. Stan’s heart felt like a car engine with the pedal jammed to the firewall. His thoughts rushed by him almost faster than he could capture them. In minutes, they were all flying high, Roy and Laurel jabbering about whatever came into their heads. Then Laurel took Stan by the hand and dragged him into the bedroom. He had glanced nervously back at Roy, but the older man had ignored them in favor of cutting out more lines. Once inside, she had giggled like a mischievous child as she yanked his pants down and pushed him back on the bed. The next few minutes had been a blur of images flashing in his head like a strobe as Laurel pulled her own clothes off and straddled him. She rode him hard and fast, gasping and tearing at the front of his shirt with her nails. As he groaned with his oncoming climax, she had leaned down and bit him on his cut lip, hard. He had screamed as he came, the meth rush combining with the pleasure and pain and the taste of blood in his mouth in a mind-shattering explosion.
Good Day In Hell Page 5
