Blackened

by Tim McWhorter

  On the way home, about twenty miles outside of Toledo, a deer crossed the road in front of us. It made it, but only because my father swerved just in time. Our car, however, didn’t fare as well as the deer. Turned out, ditches could play havoc with a car’s ball joints.

  The ironic part was that my mother had spent the week trying to get my father to book a room for after the concert instead of driving back so late. He didn’t want to spend the money, so thanks to his insistence on getting home that night, we ended up staying in a motel anyway. A really bad motel. But it was close enough that we could see it from the side of the freeway. According to the tow truck driver, it was only a ten-minute walk to the auto repair shop where he was taking our car anyway. I don’t remember the name of the place, but we slept in our clothes out of a desire to stay clean, and my father made me swear to never tell my mother how bad it was.

  I never did, but let me just say: that shit hole on the side of the freeway didn’t have anything on the shit hole Arashk was staying in.

  The brick building was a single-story with a wavy roof and dimly lit, pothole-marred parking lot. There looked to be about ten to twelve units making up the long end of the L, with the office and an equally dimly lit vending area creating the short end. None of the vehicles in the parking lot was a white van, and I couldn’t decide if I was disappointed or not. I didn’t know what that meant. Either Arashk wasn’t there, or he hadn’t been the driver.

  One of the conclusions I did come to from across the street was that the place had a real problem with their lights. The bulb in the vending area kept flickering like a giant bug zapper, and the light behind the letter “M” in the neon sign was completely burnt out. There were twice as many unlit porch lights beside the room doors than there were cars in the parking lot. I didn’t know if these lights were burnt out as well, or if they were turned off for a reason. But I had a theory that maybe the people going in and out of the rooms didn’t want to be seen all that well.

  Regardless of whether the lights outside the doors were on or not, the curtains were drawn tight over the windows in every room. Judging by how this place looked, the area it was in and what I’d seen on television, it was safe to say that whatever people were doing inside these rooms, they didn’t want the outside world to bear witness.

  I could only assume Arashk was firmly in that category.

  “Helluva place to call home, huh?”

  “Helluva place to take a date,” I said, shutting off the truck’s headlights. I was just about to kill the engine when I saw a dark form pass behind the truck in my side mirror. Wade must have seen it, too, because he had his hand on his door handle before I could even say anything. Or better yet, stop him.

  “Let’s talk to this guy,” he suggested as he threw open the passenger door.

  With a suddenly empty seat beside me, all I could do at that point was shrug my shoulders and follow his lead.

  Chapter 50

  The old man smelled like piss. Piss and at least two weeks’ worth of body odor. He wore two layers of identical filthy brown jackets and a salt and pepper beard that was yellowed around his mouth. His face was wrinkled like a crumpled piece of paper, and his hair was stringy, long and in need of an oil change. I didn’t know whether we should be talking to him or hosing him down.

  It was Wade who saved me the effort of making the decision.

  “Excuse me, sir. Can we talk to you for a minute?”

  The old man looked Wade up and down with a speculative eye, then turned it on me.

  “What you want?” he asked, putting a hand up to shield his eyes from the floodlight mounted on the corner of the building.

  “Just got a couple questions for ya,” Wade said. “Figure a guy like you probably knows a lot about what goes on around this neighborhood. Specifically, that motel over there.”

  “And by ‘a guy like me’ you mean –”

  The man looked back and forth between us again, then after a moment, gave up expectations for either of us to take the bait.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “Well, we’re looking for a guy who stays over there,” Wade said. “A real bad fella.”

  The old man turned his eyes to the motel across the street with a burnt out “M” in its sign.

  “Ain’t they all?” he asked, nodding his head in the motel’s direction.

  “This guy’s worse than most,” I chimed in, once again receiving the eyeball treatment for my efforts.

  “Step into my office,” the old man said, walking over to a dented, green dumpster sitting conveniently out of the floodlight’s range.

  Wade followed the guy blindly, while I took the time to look up and down the street twice before stepping into the shadow of the building. I hoped it wasn’t the last thing I did. I’d inconveniently left the gun sitting on the seat in the truck.

  “So,” the old man said as he lifted the lid on the dumpster and started sorting through an all-you-can-eat buffet of shit. “What this fella do, got you so intent on findin’ him?”

  “Well, for starters, he put my uncle in the ICU earlier tonight.”

  “For starters?” the old man asked, clearing a large cardboard box out of his way.

  “And maybe some other really bad stuff,” I said. “Really, really bad stuff.”

  The old man was listening, despite the fact he never stopped rifling through the garbage long enough to make eye contact, at least not until that point. He turned around then and looked each of us up and down all over again before speaking.

  “You guys don’t look like cops,” he said. “So, I guess it doesn’t hurt to ask, what’s in it for me?”

  “Maybe a dinner you don’t have to hunt for in the garbage,” Wade said, pulling out his wallet.

  “Hey, now,” said the old man. “You’d be surprised the good meals I’ve pulled out of this dumpster in particular. A place like this, they lure guys in with steak dinners, but then they get distracted pretty fast. Eating that steak becomes the furthest thing from their minds when a naked woman comes up and squeezes their face between her titties.”

  “Maybe,” Wade said, with a nod to the building, “but the place is closed right now, so I’m sure the pickings have been pretty slim lately.”

  The old man hesitated before nodding.

  “Well, there’s that.”

  “So how ’bout you help us out,” Wade pushed, “and if the information’s good, you’ll be having dinner down the street at Dina’s on us.”

  A smile spread across the old man’s face, revealing teeth that had long forgotten what toothpaste even was.

  “I’ve always told my buddy, Reggie, that you can’t find warm chicken pot pies in a dumpster, but you can find ’em at Dina’s. So what do you want to know?”

  Chapter 51

  The old man, whose name we eventually learned was Jakob with a “k”, knew exactly who we were looking for as soon as we described Arashk. Turned out, he was an exact match for one of three men who spent time at the motel on a daily basis. There were several who were regulars and showed up every few days, but according to Jakob, only three who he’d seen practically every day. Besides Arashk, Jakob speculated that one of the other two men was either the owner or manager of the place. The third was likely the on-premises maintenance man, due to the fact that Jakob had seen him around at all hours of the day and night, usually wearing a grey workman’s uniform.

  What I wasn’t prepared for was the fact that the maintenance man’s description so closely resembled Corwin Barnes. The plot thickened at that point, sending my heart rate upward. After that, I kept glancing over my shoulder at the derelict motel, each time half expecting to see Barnes headed this way with his bolo knife. Thankfully, the parking lot remained still as Jakob said he thought Arashk might be the guy’s lover, due to the fact they both seemed to be staying in the same room. While I couldn’t account for them being lovers, I would have taken that over almost any other possible reason for them to be staying in the same room
together. Especially given the fact that Arashk had told Wade he was here as an apprentice.

  Somehow, I doubted he was talking about building maintenance.

  “So how’s that plan coming along?” I asked Wade.

  We were back in the truck, sitting in the dark and staring at the motel room on the far end of the “L.” That was the unit where Jakob told us Arashk was staying. The longer we sat there, the more sense it made. If Arashk was indeed learning the murder and bone trade from Barnes, it was only logical that they would not only be spending a considerable amount of time together, but maintaining a tight knit unit. When you’re involved in what Barnes was involved in, you associated with as few people as possible. At least living people.

  “When you called to talk to Barnes earlier, you said it was Arashk who answered, right? Then he handed it off to Barnes?”

  I said it was, and Wade sat there for another few seconds with his brow creased, his wheels turning. I waited, not wanting to interrupt his train of thought, but it only took a few more seconds for him to voice my own conclusion.

  “Then we have to assume that we may run into both of them when we go in.”

  I took my eyes off Wade and turned them directly on the unit at the end of the building. I’d already entertained the thought, but hearing it said out loud somehow made it more real. The thought that Corwin Barnes might be in the very room I was looking at sent a chill through me. I tried to remain angry to keep my edge for what was to come, but it wasn’t easy the closer we got. Part of me was eager to get on with things and get it over with. But there was still a lingering part of me that feared what Barnes was capable of and was in no hurry to get to it. Since I was currently torn between the two, I let Wade determine the timetable.

  “So my first question is,” he said, reloading bullets one by one into the clip of his gun for the sixth time, “are you still okay with moving forward before getting the cops involved? Because I sure as hell want to. Even knowing that rolling up on one might scare off the other, I almost don’t care now. I just wanna get my hands on at least one of those fuckers before I have to sit back and watch the court proceedings. I want it for Dallas.”

  “Payback sounds pretty good,” I said, trying to act more ambitious about the upcoming confrontation than I felt. I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince. Maybe both of us. “And there’s a shit ton they need to pay for. Especially Barnes.”

  “Well, then,” Wade continued, sliding the gun’s clip back into place, “I think our best play is to go in all quiet like. No guns blazing. We’ll wanna hold the cops off as long as possible. Until we’re ready for them. And that’ll be determined by what we find in there.”

  What we’d find in there. That was the other thing our buddy Jakob had said that made Wade and me both look at each other warily. He’d seen other people, mostly young women, going into that motel room on occasion, but couldn’t remember ever seeing any of them come back out. Not one. Considering there were always so many people coming and going from the other rooms, it struck him as weird that people were only coming to that one. In my mind, Jakob should be thankful that he had no idea what weird was. Because I did, and the thought of what we’d find was chilling the blood in my veins.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Wade asked.

  “Hell, yeah,” I said, concentrating on the things I’d seen a year ago at the church. I thought about Garrett and Becca, mining what happened to them for continued incentive. It was working. The anger inside me had reawakened and my adrenaline was pumping like steam through a locomotive. I was definitely “up for this.”

  And that was a good thing, because the call to action came swiftly.

  Wade had no more than set his handgun back on the dash when something through the windshield caught his attention. He bolted upright like an English Pointer.

  “Holy fuck,” he said. “Isn’t that…”

  I looked up, and just like that, things were set in motion. Across the street, under the flickering light, Arashk was exiting the motel’s vending alcove and was walking toward the far end of the building. Two orange, 5-gallon buckets hung down at his sides, one in each hand. The way they pulled his shoulders down, the buckets looked heavy.

  Wade and I glanced at each other, and at the same time, spoke the word that was on both our minds.

  “Ice!”

  And a whole hell of a lot of it. I cranked the ignition key and threw the transmission into drive. Blood rushed to my head, flushing my cheeks as I hit both the lights and the gas at the same time. The tires spun for a brief second before finally chirping against the asphalt and shooting us forward. The growing acceleration of the Chevy matched that of my adrenaline, and we crossed the empty lot in the span of a heartbeat.

  I barely glanced both ways before jetting into the street, but when I briefly looked to my right, I could see a grin on Wade’s face in the soft blue light from the dashboard. His anticipation was contagious. The front end of the truck popped into the air as we hit the sudden incline leading into the motel’s parking lot.

  Arashk turned just in time to be caught in the headlights. Either he recognized the truck, or the simple fact that a screaming 6,000 pound Chevy 1500 was bearing down on him had been enough to scare the piss out of him, because he dropped the two large buckets and took off running. Glistening cubes of ice scattered across the sidewalk in his wake.

  The truck skidded into an open space, just missing an older model maroon Buick. Either I was too anxious, or I seriously underestimated the speed we’d reached in such a short distance, because I didn’t hit the brakes soon enough. The truck jerked violently as the tires first went up and over the concrete parking block at the head of the space, and then again as it hit the edge of the sidewalk. The ride was a turbulent one, to say the least, and the landing wasn’t much better. When we finally came to a stop, the front end of the truck slumped considerably toward the driver’s side.

  I didn’t know the extent of the damage, and I didn’t care at that moment. Wade was out the door before I could even put the truck in park. As soon as I jammed the lever up, I followed, this time with gun in hand.

  Chapter 52

  Wade was pounding his fists on the door to room 112. I don’t think he thought it would do any good. We'd just missed him with the truck, and it wasn’t like Arashk was suddenly going to open the door for us. Wade just had to get the frustration out from being so close and coming up empty.

  “You believe that shit?” Wade asked, holding his forefinger and thumb about a quarter-inch apart. “That close.”

  I shook my head no because, in fact, I couldn’t believe it. What were the odds? It was the sound of a door creaking open down the corridor that kept me from thinking about it further.

  “What the fuck?” the naked guy holding the pillow over his crotch asked. I could see by the light coming from his room that the top of his head was shiny with sweat, and the comb over he was trying to pull off was currently all over the place. “I’m trying to concentrate here. Only got the room for another forty minutes.”

  “Then stop wasting your time out here, jackoff.” Wade threw his hand in the direction of the guy’s room, basically telling him, in so many words, to get back to whatever he was doing.

  The guy just shook his head and ducked back inside his room, slamming the door closed behind him. I was glad, too, because I was here for one purpose and one purpose only. Getting involved with the locals wasn’t part of the plan, and seeing Arashk running from us had me jacked. My blood pressure would probably register through the roof if checked. I could have fought the devil himself right then and there, and would have kicked his ass. I wasn’t much of a fighter, but then it wouldn’t have been experience driving me.

  It would have been hate.

  “Asshole!” Wade said, pounding on the door to 112 one more time, either for good measure, or to simply let Arashk know we hadn’t forgotten about him.

  “Hey,” Wade said, turning toward me, “why would a guy stayin
g in a motel room need two five-gallon buckets of ice?”

  A million thoughts ran through my mind, but I just shrugged. I didn’t have a clear answer for him that wasn’t speculation. But whatever the ice was for, I was sure it wasn't for making margaritas.

  It was when Wade went over to the window and tried to look inside that I realized I was standing at the door holding the gun out in the open. It was a foreign thing for me to do, yet it felt completely natural. I attributed the feeling to adrenaline as I slid the gun into the waistband of my jeans.

  “Nothin’ to see here,” Wade said.

  “So, now what?” I asked, looking back down the corridor to see if curiosity had brought anyone else out of their rooms.

  “Come on,” he said, after thinking about it for a couple seconds. “Most places like this have bathroom windows on the back side, so I guess we should check out that situation. Besides, I think we’ve drawn enough unwanted attention out here. Stay out here too long and someone’s liable to call the cops on us.”

  My confidence in Wade was still high as I followed him around the corner, but I could tell that coming up on Arashk like that had thrown him off his game. Whatever his plan had been leading up to that point, it was now out the window, and we would be flying by the seat of our pants from that moment on.

  Chapter 53

  No floodlights were mounted on the side of the building, and the structure itself blocked the light from the parking lot. The moonlight helped me see Wade as he felt his way along the wall a couple of feet in front of me, but that was about it. I kept close, trying to maintain a visual on him, all the while thinking to myself that if there was a bathroom window around back, I hoped like hell Arashk wasn’t going to surprise us on his way out. Another part of me hoped like hell that we’d surprise him.

  A strip of grass that needed to be cut and an eight-foot tall chain link fence separated the motel’s property from the backyards behind it. That and a narrow slab of concrete along the length of the building. Unfortunately, the windows along the back wall weren’t the kind that opened and closed. In rows of six stacked five high, the openings were filled with four-inch glass blocks, starting about six feet off the ground. Presumably, there was one for every unit since there were twelve of them spaced every twenty feet or so.