Homefront pb-6

by Chuck Logan

  “I wasn’t gonna sell it. I just needed a little for-”

  “I mean the hot plate, dummy. You’re not thinking too clearly, are you? What the hell were you planning to plug it in to? Power’s been off here for years. Shit, your dad probably shut down the line.”

  Terry puffed nervously, his face twitching in the circle of halogen light. “Last time I was here, I thought…” His voice ended in a tic of nerves that distorted his face.

  “When’s the last time you got high?” Gator asked.

  Terry’s shrug collapsed into a shuddering spasm. “Don’t know. Couple days. Over in Thief River.”

  “Tell me about the last time you were here. You weren’t alone, were you? And you didn’t use a hot plate.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” Terry muttered.

  “We’ll get to that. Now who were you here with?”

  “You gonna let me go?”

  “Depends. One way you can walk outa here. Another way, we call Keith Nygard.”

  At the mention of the sheriff, Terry attempted to concentrate. When he furrowed his brow, it looked like he was herding a scurry of tiny mice under the skin of his cheeks and mouth, struggling to get them corralled in his twitchy eyes. “We had a camp stove, I guess.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Aw shit, man.”

  Gator held up his cell phone. “Works real good, now they built the towers for the summer folks. Got Keith’s number right here in my phone book. All I gotta do is poke my finger. Gimme some names, Terry.”

  “They’re my friends,” Terry sniveled.

  “Pissant little tweaker like you got no friends. All you got is that pipe. Now take your time and think. While you’re thinking ponder about Keith’s jail. Not much to it. I hear it’s kinda grim.” Pause. “I’m waiting.”

  “Danny Halstad and Frank Reed,” Terry said glumly.

  “They local?”

  “Danny’s a senior. Frank graduated last year.”

  “Guess you guys didn’t get the word, huh? This Danny-he bringing shit into the school?”

  “No way. Everybody knows about the people you-” Terry panted, dry swallowing, then gulped, “who burned up.”

  “What about outsiders, say from Beltrami or Red Lake, coming in to these old houses on Z, cooking?”

  Terry violently shook his head.

  “Stand up,” Gator ordered. Terry scrambled to his feet, bent over, rubbing the back of his leg where Gator had laid the pipe. Gator put the light in his face. “Push up your lips so I can see your teeth and gums.”

  “Huh?”

  “Do it.”

  Apprehensively, Terry manipulated his lips, revealing a grimace of teeth.

  “Don’t look too bad, you ain’t that far gone. You could rehab your ass. You ever think of that?”

  “Ah, sure. All the time.” Terry bobbed his head in a comic attempt to placate the dark forceful presence behind the flashlight.

  Lying little shit. “Good. But first let’s get something straight.” Gator sidestepped, stooped, and snatched up the can of paint thinner he’d kicked. He put the flashlight under his arm, twisted the cap, then splashed some of the liquid on Terry’s chest. “I’m gonna keep this can and put your name on it. I catch you stinking up my woods cooking meth, you’re gonna drink this whole half gallon.”

  The stark reek of mineral spirits underscored Gator’s words as he capped the container and lowered it to the floor.

  “I won’t come back, honest to God,” Terry stammered as a glimmer of hope quivered in his dilated pupils.

  “Right. Look, Terry. I’m going to give you some advice. If I was you, I’d get in that Nova and drive straight to Bemidji. You know that big Target store north of town?”

  “Yeah. In the mall. I been there.”

  “To the Sudafed aisle, smerfing for precursor, huh?”

  “Drive to the Target store,” Terry said solemnly, like he could see it shimmering in the darkness.

  “You go in and walk to the back where they keep the electronics. Where they got the big color TVs. Find one of those new flat screen plasma jobs. Easy to carry. If they got it chained down, go to hardware and pocket some bolt cutters…”

  Gator lowered the flashlight so the beam tiled up, revealing the shadowed planes of his face, making it into a stern disembodied mask.

  “…check the price tag. You want one that costs over $500. That’ll put you in felony theft. You grab that set and run for it through the back doors, into the warehouse.”

  “Shit, I’ll never make it.”

  “That’s the whole point. It’s a classic cry for help. Hell, they’ll do a drug screen and stick you in county for six months. Beltrami’s a Holiday Inn compared to Nygard’s dungeon. They got programs, counseling. Get a dentist to check out your teeth. Could turn your life around.”

  Then Gator grabbed Terry’s arm and shoved him toward the floor. Terry panicked at the touch, the downward movement. “Please…”

  “Pick up your shit,” Gator said, not hiding the disgust at this kid’s callowness. “Go on.”

  Terry scrambled on the floor, grabbing at items. His hand hovered near the pipe. Gator’s mashed the heel of his work boot down, crushing it. “How much money you got?” he asked.

  Terry stood up and held out the crumpled bills. Four singles, some change. Gator palmed his wallet, selected a twenty, and handed it to Terry.

  “What’s this?”

  “Gas money. Get some McDonald’s. A malt.”

  “Ah, thanks,” Terry mumbled, staring at the bill.

  Gator took Terry by the arm and walked him to the swaybacked porch. “One last thing.”

  “Sure, anything,” Terry said, antsy, seeing his car just thirty feet away.

  “Say, ‘Who was that masked man,’” Gator said,

  “What?” Terry’s voice cracked wide open with fear, sensing some freaky trick coming just as he was about to get free.

  “C’mon. It’s just words. Say it.”

  Terry swallowed, took a breath, and said, apprehensively, “Who was that masked man.”

  Gator smiled. “Good. Now get the fuck out of here.” He shoved him hard and sent him sprawling off the porch into the snow. “Run, you little shit. Run for your life,” he taunted as he put the light on him.

  Terry scuttled on all fours, gamboling through the snow. Got to his feet, surged for the car, hurled open the door, and jumped behind the wheel.

  Gator watched the kid fishtail the Nova, hell-bent with a twenty in his hot hand, heading for the nearest dealer who’d sell him a chunk of ice. But probably not in Glacier County. The kid would get high and embellish the story. Tell ’em to keep clear of those spooky woods where nobody lived but crazy cousin-killer Gator Bodine. And the wolves.

  And that’s just how Gator wanted it.

  He went back in the house, shone the light at the cook ingredients strewn on the floor. Leave it. Give Keith the names. Plan it so they’re sitting in his office, talking, when Broker goes down.

  That’d work.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Griffin studied the squat gray building just fifty yards away, checked the road, then, seeing no headlights, left cover and jogged leisurely toward the shop. He had no preconceived plan; it all depended on what he found. Freeform. The thing would dictate its own course.

  He went right to the front door, twisted the knob, and went in; knelt, unlaced his boots, stepped out of them, and did a fast walk-through in his socks. The square cement-block building was divided roughly into three rooms. In front, the office took up a partitioned corner and contained a desk and shelves with this open alcove at one end with a bunk and an exposed toilet.

  The office door opened into a machine shop area with a steel lathe, milling machine, metal saw, grinders, and a drill press.

  The second room was the garage. A disassembled rust orange tractor was raised up on blocks and bottle jacks. A tall tool caddy on casters was positioned next to the tractor; lots of drawers, with a
workbench on top. Looking around, he saw a wire-feed Mig welder, welding tanks, an air compressor, and a big Onan diesel generator. Gaskets hung on the wall next to a Halon fire extinguisher. Lots of wood blocks, a few jack stands. What you’d expect to find in a mechanic’s shop.

  Griffin briefly inspected the partitioned storeroom between the garage and the paint room. It contained a paint gun, two protective suits with breather masks connected to filter packs, and buckets of paint. Last, he walked through the paint room. The walls and floor and ceiling were rainbow-mottled with spray from the paint gun, as was the sink and a long worktable with a wide elaborate fume hood that he assumed led up to the blower exhaust fan on the roof.

  He walked up to a small color snapshot taped over the workbench: palm trees, a sand beach, sea blue water, and surf that looked like ocean. He shrugged and walked back through the shop into the office, taking his time now. He noticed two things. There was a pile of rags under the desk and two bowls; one with a residue of milk, the other with cat chow.

  And on the desk, a blue-green pamphlet caught his eye, lying on top of a pile of tractor magazines. Tropics View under a red logo. He opened it and thumbed through. It was a brochure for a puddle-jumper airline that catered to Belize, on the east coast of Mexico.

  He put down the brochure. Nothing in the shop struck him out of the ordinary; the paint room could be dual use. Okay. Teedo said that he’d seen Gator moving boxes and drums with his Bobcat, to the barn.

  Griffin put his boots back on and walked to the barn.

  The hayloft was vacant, so Griffin went to the lower level and pulled open the tall, stout sliding doors. The basement floor was walled in two broad stalls; the one on the right was obviously used as a parking garage for Gator’s truck and was empty except for a battery charger and plastic gallons of wiper fluid and antifreeze.

  The other stall looked more promising. He searched inside the door jam, found an electrical box, and flipped the switch. A chain of four overhead bulbs came on, illuminating a long interior space. A working tractor with a snow bucket and the Bobcat were parked alongside a huge white oblong tank on wheels. “Anhydrous” printed in blue on the side. Stacks of yellow bags; rock salt. A bank of chest-high feed bins made of heavy three-quarter-inch ply lined the entire length of the partition to the right.

  The long basement abutted cattle pens and a lean-to that was open to the fenced pasture. He saw half a dozen heavy green plastic fifty-five-gallon drums arranged in the corner of one of the pens. Inspecting the drums, he found them empty and clean-smelling, like they’d been scrubbed with disinfectant.

  Griffin was running out of places for Gator to hide things. Briefly he considered digging through the tangled tractor graveyard in back of the shop. Then his eyes settled on the row of plywood bins. He walked over and lifted one of the lids. Immediately he stepped back, making a face at the stench. It was heaped with blackened smutty feed corn, garnished with a jumbo decomposing rat sprawled next to green poison pellets. He went down the line, opening the lids. Five in all; another corn, a barley, two oats, all of them years gone to mildew and rot. A remnant of the hobby farm that had been here.

  Griffin thought about it.

  The rest of the place was so shipshape. Why would he have these bins full of rotten feed? Decided to give the bins a closer look. He rapped his knuckle on the side panel; a solid thump. Moved his hand down a foot. This time when he struck the wood with his fist, he got a hollow-sounding bounce.

  Well, well.

  After fiddling with the plywood, he determined that the bins had been constructed with lift-out front panels; the wood screws that appeared to pin them in place had been trimmed back, didn’t go through. Cosmetic.

  Grunting with the effort, he forced the tightly fit panel up and revealed a compartment beneath the false feed tray. It contained a tall cardboard box. He removed the box, opened the flaps. Three round-bottomed glass flasks and a long twin-tubed glass apparatus were carefully packed in wadded newspaper. Tubing, stoppers, and clamps were tucked in crevices between the flasks.

  Gator’s little home chemistry set. Okay.

  Griffin stood up and looked down the row of bins. He didn’t have time to open all five bins. After carefully repacking the box, he put it back in the compartment and forced the panel in place. Then he went to the last bin and swiftly wedged open the front panel. This compartment contained a stash of over-the-counter chemicals, just like he’d read about in his Internet search. Stacked gallon cans of camping fuel, toluene, and paint thinner. A tightly packed box of lithium batteries, cans of Red Devil lye drain opener. A row of red Iso Heet plastic bottles. And a bottle of ether.

  Talk about fire in the hole.

  Griffin surveyed the basement. Now the yellow bags of rock salt piled along the wall behind the anhydrous tank didn’t look so innocent.

  Looking up at the series of overhead lightbulbs, he suddenly smiled. The old cartoonist in him suddenly frolicked in the image. Pop! Caption of the old lightbulb coming on in a thought bubble. It looked to Griffin like Gator’s tidy work ethic had broken down here in the old barn. Because all the volatile chemicals hidden in the bins posed one serious fire hazard. Yes, they did. So.

  Maybe just skip a step, leave Keith out of it. Besides, Keith probably wouldn’t really appreciate the concept of Gator’s karma working itself out, so to speak. It had the added elegance of poetic justice. Seeing’s how Gator made his Robin Hood reputation blowing up a meth lab.

  Well, turnabout is fair play, motherfucker.

  Griffin vaulted up on the bin and unscrewed the lightbulb over the last bin, tossing it in his palms, hot potato, until it cooled; then he inspected it. Like he thought, a lightweight commercial bulb. He screwed it back in, jumped down, and hurried to the door and switched off the light. He needed a rough-service bulb with a more durable filament.

  Then he slipped out the door and checked the road for headlights. Seeing none, he walked back into the pines and melted into the murky forest. Touchy going in the shadowy trees, jogging his way back along his tracks; but he immensely enjoyed every step of the trek back to his Jeep. Doubly enjoyed it because he knew he was coming back.

  When it was really dark.

  An hour and forty-five minutes later, Griffin was back home in his own modest garage workshop, taking three items from a bag he’d just purchased at Tindall’s hardware in town; a package of heavy-duty lightbulbs, a sixty-milliliter vet’s syringe, and a can of starter fluid.

  Griffin opened the bulbs, selected one, placed the metal-threaded nob in his bench vise, and carefully tightened the jaws until the nob was secure. Then he took an electric hand drill, inserted a one-eighth-inch bit, and bored a hole in the metal thread. He repeated the procedure with a second bulb. Two should be enough.

  Then he looked around for something to carry the fluid in, that would be easily accessible to the long syringe needle. He settled on a soup-bowl-sized Tupperware container filled with woodscrews, dumped out the screws, poured in the fluid, and secured the lid with duct tape.

  He tucked the bulbs, syringe, and fluid in his backpack. Then he went into the house, found his small head-mounted flashlight, and replaced the batteries. Going back outside, he paused to look at the patchy clouds drifting past the constellations. The fattening half-moon. Fifty percent illumination. What the hell, now he’d be able to see in the woods.

  Thirty minutes later, the only thing moving on the back roads, Griffin arrived back at the logging road off Z, parked the Jeep, and set off trotting back along his fresh tracks.

  Like he thought. Didn’t need the light. The snow glimmered with faint moonlight, enough to see his tracks. As he moved, he thought about how this escapade had started because Kit Broker got in a fight at school. Messages were sent back and forth by the belligerent families. Now Griffin was adding his own anonymous little communique, and he was going to use a trick that Ray Pryce, the grandfather Kit had never known, taught him in Vietnam. The dormant artist in him loved the family symme
try.

  Breathy with sweat, staying on his earlier tracks, Griffin approached the farm and stalked back along the pine windbreak. Gator’s truck was parked in front of the barn, the chassis an oily yellow in the sodium vapor light on the barn. The farmhouse was blacked out except for the flicker of a TV in two of the first-floor windows.

  Part of the fun, going in while Gator was there, awake.

  Griffin crossed to the side of the barn, away from the yard light, and entered from the rear through the open shed and pens. Once inside, he pulled on the small headlamp and climbed onto the farthest bin from the front door. He took off his pack, and removed the bulbs, syringe, and plastic container of fluid. Then he reached up and unscrewed the lightbulb from the fixture, put it in the pack, and replaced it with one of the drilled bulbs. Snapped on the headlamp. Gingerly, working by the narrow light, he rotated the bulb just until the thread caught, leaving the hole exposed.

  Now for the hard part. He untaped his container and drew a syringe full of fluid. The trick was to insert the needle in the hole and squeeze the fluid into the bottom of the bulb without disturbing the filament, then very carefully screw the bulb back into the socket so the liquid didn’t slosh around, disabling the circuit.

  Which he accomplished, holding his breath, with steady fingers. Then he repeated the operation, replacing and loading the next bulb. When he’d stowed his gear back and put the replaced bulbs in the pack, he switched off the headlamp and hopped to the concrete floor. He judged the danger close distance to the front door and the light switch. Should be enough cushion.

  The next time that light was turned on, the bulbs would explode and spew liquid fire down on the plywood bins, hopefully igniting all the volatile crap in the area. He wanted to give Gator a scare and hopefully burn his stash, not kill the guy.

  Satisfied, Griffin exited the rear of the barn and ran back to the pines. Twenty minutes into the woods, he slowed his pace and allowed himself a cupped cigarette.

  Not quite like night work in the old days. In Vietnam, he would have waited until the lights were off in the house, crept in, and cut Gator’s throat.