Worm

by Anthony Neil Smith

  So what if it all went to pot? Then what? Hunter hadn’t gotten that far yet, but he was starting to. How about just go in, tell the police what he suspected. Tell them he was the eyewitness. Keep Pauline out of it. Face the consequences. They couldn’t get to him if he was in jail, could they?

  Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve. The three magic words.

  Out ahead of them, the big blank. Sky blended with ground and in-between was mush. But onward, Pauline staring at her GPS map, holding it an inch from her face. Quiet except for the heater. The truck was soundproofed. When the wind rocked them, they didn’t hear it. A weird sensation.

  Hunter lost track of the time. He was only going twenty miles an hour at the fastest. He was drifting left, having to correct ever few minutes. A glance at the dash clock. Seventeen minutes since they’d turned off. And then, “I think this is it.”

  Pauline handed over the phone. The red marker was right behind them.

  “You marked it and kept going?”

  “Oh, hell, yeah. By the time I got here, the truck was parked. He was gone.”

  Shit. “I thought you said—”

  “I never thought I’d be back here, okay? I didn’t know! I was scared! Jesus, Hunter!”

  Hunter stomped the brakes. The truck slid to a stop. He threw it into park and it revved, settled down. He took a deep breath. A deep goddamned breath.

  He reached into the backseat, grabbed his heavy coat from the floorboard, and the spare. He handed the spare to Pauline. “Put this on.”

  She didn’t take it. “I’m not going out there.”

  Hunter dropped it on her lap. “You’re going to have to. I need help.”

  “Fuck you. I said no. All I was supposed to do was help you get here”

  “I could’ve done that with the phone alone.”

  “I wasn’t going to give you my fucking phone, are you crazy? After what you did?”

  He reached back again, a pair of overalls for Pauline, and some small boots, still too big for her, probably. “You don’t have to touch her.”

  “I’m not going.”

  “Pauline—”

  “You can’t make me. You touch me, I’m calling the cops.”

  He shook his head. He opened the driver’s door, got hit in the face with snow. It blew in all over his seat. He stepped out, left the door open while he shrugged into his heavy coat and zipped up. Told Pauline, “I’ve had your back this whole time, you know. I’ve been good to you. I stopped when you told me to stop. So how come the one time I say you’ve got to help me, you kick me in the balls?”

  “I never said I’d help.”

  Hunter stared at her a good long moment, letting the snow fill the cab, thinking up comebacks, but shit, it wasn’t worth it. The curse of the nice guy, right? Bet if he stopped a bullet for her, she still wouldn’t fuck him.

  He slammed the door. If she wanted to stay, fine. He reached into the truck-bed and brushed snow from his tarp. He pulled it away and lifted the shovel and pick ax. Even if the ground was frozen, he figured Mrs. Ferret’s final resting place would still be fresh enough to not give him much trouble. So, pick ax in one hand, shovel in the other, he turned and looked out at the fields. The next part was tricky. He had to think like a murderer.

  No, not like a murderer. Like a coward.

  Tricky indeed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Man camp was crowded, the work stoppage holing up the men, even those who had sworn to go see wrestling but backed out before they passed out. Supposed to be booze free up in here, but it had been that sort of week and the minders would wait until either the work stoppage was over or someone started a fight to enforce “no booze” again. They’d never admit it, but you could hear the glass bottles tinkling in the garbage bags.

  Ferret woke up too early, nauseated, breathed into his pillow until he felt solid again. By then he needed something to make him forget again. The cheap Canadian whiskey would do the job. Foul shit, but effective. Then he remembered he was supposed to call Violet today. Two hours from now. He had sent her a Valentine’s stuffed monkey and some candy and got a text from the mother-in-law giving him permission for a call. Maybe they had softened since Christmas. Jesus, in-laws. After all this, once Dee Dee was back and Violet was with them again, that was going to be weird, having in-laws. They’d probably still blame him, even with the evidence of his innocence walking and talking in front of them.

  He went out and found some coffee, pretty weak since they were having to make so much today and were afraid of running out, and took it back to his room. Poured whiskey into it. Jesus, it was bad and he didn’t remember how he’d gotten the bottle and why he’d picked it out. He never drank whiskey, vodka, tequila, rum, but the evidence was all around that he’d been doing just that, all around and all down in his belly, burping up the shit, burning his airway, having to exhale nice and big to keep from tasting it.

  When the time came, he called and it rang four times. He was pretty sure it would go to voice mail, but then someone picked up. He sure as fuck didn’t expect to hear Lee on the other end. “Finn.”

  “Let me talk to Violet.”

  “Maybe we should talk first.”

  “Let me talk to my daughter.”

  Sigh. “Is this really the best time? It might upset her—”

  “Listen, one call to my lawyer and we’ll have a car full of cops pull up to the house, rip the phone from your hand, and hand it to her. You promised. Put her on.”

  A moment of silence. He thought he heard someone in the background say, “He can’t do that.” Was he on speaker? Someone listening in? Since he didn’t have a fucking lawyer, he hoped not. He didn’t need to be caught in a lie.

  He said it again. “You promised, Lee. Put my daughter on the phone.”

  “There are some ground rules.”

  Ferret gritted his teeth. It might feel good if one exploded. Cracked all the way through. But he let go before it got to that. “Fine.”

  1. Don’t mention her mother.

  2. Don’t ask her if she’d like to see Daddy.

  3. Don’t grill her for information about lawyers, police, etc.

  4. Don’t poison her against her grandparents.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, nodded for each one. “Mm hm. Mm hm. Yeah, yeah, Jesus Christ, just—”

  “No cursing.”

  “Lee—”

  “I’ll get her.”

  It felt like an eternity. Ferret still pinched, eyes closed, giving himself a headache, but it was worth it. But then the phone rustled a bit, like Lee’s hand coming off it, and then there was his little girl’s voice: “Hello?”

  “Sweetie! It’s Daddy. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  “Daddy.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t be there.” Wondering if they’d ding him for that, but no. “Did you get what I sent you? Did you like the presents?”

  “They’re okay.”

  “Are you being a good girl?”

  “I guess. I don’t know.”

  “What have you been up to? Is school okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She had all the excitement of a wet napkin. Ferret knew the deal. It had been a long time, months now. They had been in it together at the start, but now...shit, giving him ground rules when they knew damn well this was a set-up. She didn’t want to talk to her own father. They were making her.

  “What’s wrong, baby? You can tell me.”

  “I miss Mommy. Where’s Mommy? I need my Mommy.”

  Kicked him like a horse.

  *

  Ferret couldn’t remember how the conversation ended. It didn’t go the way he wanted. Too many whispering voices from the background for her to even really talk to him, you know? Once he hung up, he remembered why it had to be whiskey instead of beer, because he kind of liked beer and certainly didn’t want something he still enjoyed blitzing him when the stuff he hated did it much faster.

  He switch
ed from coffee to tea for the same reason, sitting out in the main room, guys shooting shit, echoing, while he stared at a bowl of instant soup too hot to sip, and a cup of hot tea, mostly whiskey, too hot to sip but he did it anyway. He was seriously thinking about heading outside with the last third of his whiskey, walking as far away from camp as he could, and going to sleep in the snow. Shit, if he could’ve driven, he would’ve gotten farther, but he couldn’t drive right now. If he walked, odds were someone would save him before it was too late, and that would be another point against him on the scoreboard.

  Stuff going on around him, blurs and noise. He could make out the cup on the table, the bowl on the table, and the edges of the table. Then there was some guy standing next to him, leaning down, waving his hand in front of Ferret’s face. Then Ferret was on his feet, a vise grip on his arm, stumbling along until he was out the front door.

  *

  The cold air shocked him awake more than he had thought it would. How could he lose himself in the snow if he was this awake? The bumpy road, that didn’t help. He was leaning against the door of a truck, cheek nearly frozen on the window. No heat. He blinked and yawned and got his bearings. It was a red Explorer, old-school. He looked to his left. Gene Handy was driving, staring straight into the snow.

  “We’re heading to town,” he said. “I heard Hardee’s is still open.”

  “Not hungry.” Ferret didn’t remember climbing into the truck. He didn’t remember Gene Handy picking him up. “Take me back. I’m not hungry.”

  “You need something to soak up the whiskey. We’ve got to talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Don’t care.” Gene Handy laughed. “I really don’t. We’re going to. And you’re going to sober up enough to listen.”

  Another serious pothole or something. Ferret’s hand slapped against the glass real good and then he felt the whole world sliding beneath him—wheels squealing on ice—and tried to grab something, anything, to right himself again. The smell of filth and stale soda bottles and burning motor oil hit him, and he caught his arm up in the shoulder belt and hung on for dear life. “Oh god.”

  “Fuckin A.”

  He hung on like that, eyes down on his boots—he didn’t remember putting his boots on—until they slid to a stop in the mostly empty Hardee’s lot, thumped hard against the concrete curb, upped and over with the left front tire. Handy backed up again, another drop for Ferret’s stomach, and threw it into park.

  “Let’s go. It’s nice and warm inside.”

  The walk to the side door felt three times as long as the walk from the camp to its parking lot, but it was really the other way around. Ferret took slow steps, using the Explorer for balance until he ran out of Explorer, then reached out for Gene Handy, already ahead of him. Ferret fell in the middle of the drive-thru lane. Gene Handy came back, lifted him, and helped him the rest of the way.

  Ferret’s hip was throbbing. Handy set him down in a booth right under an air vent, the hot air lulling him back to sleep, before Handy went off to order for them. It didn’t matter what. The grease in the air made Ferret want to lose it all, empty himself onto the floor, but he wasn’t sure why he didn’t or couldn’t and it didn’t matter because Handy was back soon with a bag full of cheapie burgers, a giant order of fries, and what looked like buckets of soda pop.

  “Good with Coke Zero, right? The Sprite is broken, they said.” Gene Handy put the soda in front of Ferret, straw already poked through the lid. Ferret leaned in, took a sip, and didn’t mind it at all. Maybe some sort of miracle cure. He sipped more and more and then the cold hit him and he had to fight through a shitty bout of brain-freeze, heel of his hand pressed against his eye.

  “Fuck!”

  The fat girl assistant manager shouted, “Calm down back there!”

  Gene Handy sat across from Ferret, poured the fries all over the tray, and then handed out the burgers, three apiece. A nice pile of paper-wrapped burgers. Gene Handy was fast, onto his second before Ferret felt solid enough to pick up his first. But it felt good to eat a burger. Like an animal ripping into prey. Felt good. He bit into a fucking pickle, which sucked, but he pulled it out of his mouth, dropped it into the wrapper. Found the rest of them and got rid of them all. He sucked ketchup and mustard off his fingers and took another bite.

  That’s when Gene Handy said, “Now, what are you going to do about this? It’s been long enough.”

  Ferret waited until he had swallowed and taken another long drink before saying, “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

  “You’ve sat on your ass mourning this whole time. But it’s time to get the fuckers who killed your wife.”

  Ferret shook his head. “She’s not...nobody killed her. She’s not dead.”

  A long quiet stretch. His stomach turned to lava. He kept eating. Handy stared him down.

  “She is long dead. You know it, too, and you’re already thinking that if she really wasn’t dead, she wouldn’t be putting you through this.”

  “Someone could have...she could be...”

  “Hostage? Sex slave? Some shit like that? You really believe that?”

  With his mouth full. “Don’t know what to believe.”

  “And you know who did it, too.”

  A face flashed in Ferret’s head. His face soured like he’d bit another pickle. “No, he didn’t. Slow Bear told me. He couldn’t have.”

  “You thought Slow Bear killed her?”

  “No, not...I mean...Hunter. Bad Russell.”

  Gene Handy said, “I ain’t talking about him. You can’t trust a guy like that. You’ve got to, I don’t know, think about it some more. Someone who’s desperate enough, someone who wants to keep you in your place. Like, as soon as she got here, who did you have to stop driving for?”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. He’s never even...” Jesus, Ferret was running out of words, running out of ideas. “Never.”

  “You found that girl. You know that had something to do with him, right?”

  Ferret looked up at Gene Handy. “You didn’t believe me.”

  “I sure as fuck do now.”

  Ferret grabbed some fries, dipped them in ketchup. His hand was shaking so hard, little ketchup drops were flying off. He dropped the fries.

  “Pancrazio took Dee Dee?”

  A shrug. “Makes sense.”

  “That bastard took my wife?”

  “Or someone he told to do it. Either way, it was the only way to crush your spirit enough to keep you in line.”

  Pancrazy wouldn’t fucking kill his wife, would he? Why would Gene Handy say that? “She’s not dead.”

  Gene Handy spread his elbows wide on the table and leaned in. “Prove it, then.”

  Ferret blinked.

  “Prove it. Go back to Pancrazy’s place like I asked you before. See if you can find anything this time.”

  “That was different. That was about him being that war crimes guy.”

  “Which he is. And he’s a killer. Go back, look around, and don’t be a pussy this time.”

  “Really?” Ferret slumped. “Get someone else, man. Jesus.”

  “No, man, this is all down to you. I can’t risk it. I can’t get anyone else involved this late in the game. You stepped in it. You got it all over the nice, clean carpet. You’re the one paying the biggest price now. So get your ass over there and see if I’m lying. Prove it.”

  You know, if there was even a chance Gene Handy was telling him the truth, then why the hell not? Most of what he’d said seemed too good to be true, or too shitty to be true, or something, but then again, the man was consistent. Three burgers consistent.

  *

  Pancrazio wasn’t “essential” personnel that day, so he was home. It looked to Ferret as if he was going to stay home all day, all night, and if so, the whole day was a loss. He’d had to borrow Gene Handy’s Explorer for this, the cops still keeping a watch on his car in the man camp parking lot most likely. How could he explain this to them, him
staking out his boss’s trailer? Again, a point against him. Shit, that’s like two free throws alone.

  The truck had no heat, but if he kept the engine running, the vent would blow some lukewarm air his way. The wipers could barely keep up to clear the snow from the windshield. He was bundled tightly, jacket zipped right over his nose, brim of his cap pulled low, hands balled together and shoved between his thighs. Glanced at the dash. About an eighth of a tank left. He’d need to call it off soon. Going on nine thirty and nothing but a few shadows passing behind windows, very few.

  You can’t give it up that easily. This is a man who never sleeps. If he’s going out, it won’t be for hours yet.

  I can’t wait that long.

  You have to. If he killed—took, took—if he took your wife, you owe it to her.

  I’m going to run out of gas.

  Doesn’t matter.

  I can come back tomorrow.

  Doesn’t matter.

  Shit.

  Quarter-to-ten.

  Ten-oh-five.

  Ten-thirteen.

  Almost touching the “E” on the gas gauge.

  The door to Pancrazio’s trailer opened. His shadow filled the door. Then the light shut off and the man stepped down to the pavement and walked over to his car. He got in. He cranked up. He drove away.

  Ferret pulled his hands from between his legs, each one aching as he uncurled his fingers. Like they’d been locked in concrete. He turned off the truck and looked around as much as he could before the windshield covered over. No idea how long Pancrazio would be gone. He couldn’t leave this time until he found something, anything, anything, to prove Pancrazio needed getting rid of. If he did it, if he’d taken Dee Dee, then it would be a fucking pleasure to make him confess.

  So there would be footprints, at least for a little while. The wind would make them disappear. So it was brighter out that night due to the snow, much more so than the first time he’d done this. Again, no biggie. Who was paying attention? And there sure as hell were not as many cars and trucks and trailers camped out in the parking lot now as there had been in sunnier weather. Up the steps, tried the door. Locked this time. Fuck it, thing was weak as aluminum foil. Didn’t take much to pop the lock—big dent in the door, though—and step inside. He closed the door, turned on the lights and didn’t waste time.