Day One

by Bill Cameron

  She was dead too. She could say anything, describe Stuart’s violence, describe her terror. Hiram Spaneker, the man behind the wheel of the Suburban rolling up her driveway, wouldn’t listen, and once he got hold of her, no one else would get the chance.

  November 19 — 7:05 am

  That Crazy Bitch’ll Know Someone

  Son, you and me, we gonna have one helluva party.

  Big Ed was still waiting. Sure, Hiram paid well enough; kept him in booze and bitches, so long as he wasn’t too picky. Big Ed had learned long ago not to order from the top shelf. And three years earlier, when he’d staggered into Westbank delirious with blood loss and fever, Hiram had done right by him. The doctor may have been a veterinarian, but at least the man’s work was sound. Hiram even paid for the electrolarynx—a used, obsolete model—and spread around enough cash to misdirect the investigators from the state police who showed up to ask questions on behalf of the Portland cops. Hiram didn’t like spending good money to fix a fuck-up, but he also knew Big Ed could hurt him if the OSP got hold of him.

  In retrospect, the smart move might have been to sink him in a bog. Big Ed expected exactly that during the long, empty days of recovery, laid up in Hiram’s attic staring at the exposed ceiling joists or watching the flies tick against the dusty window. He knew as well as anyone how easy it was to vanish a body in Givern Valley. But in the end, Hiram’s pleasure in owning a man seemed greater than the satisfaction he might derive from putting Big Ed down like a broke leg mule. His life now carried a second mortgage at an interest rate that’d make a payday lender blush. He spent his days intimidating migrant workers, breaking the occasional thumb, and laying low.

  This little adventure was supposed to be his redemption, the means through which he’d repurchase at least a partial share in himself. Simple enough: enter the house, grab the little boy and his mother, then out the door and gone. The negotiations would be up to Hiram, but the results were a given. Get the kid, get paid, with some respect as bonus.

  No wonder everything went sideways.

  All he could figure was the kid bolted from the back of the car while he helped Hiram into the front. More than likely he was back home with his mother and her fucking gun. Which meant they were genuinely screwed. “She won’t call the cops, no worries about that, so long as we make the grab and go.” So Hiram had insisted. But who knew what would happen now? Maybe she still wouldn’t call the cops, though a whole-grain fairy like the husband might talk her in to it. Even if she didn’t, the element of surprise was shot.

  They abandoned the Accord in the Mount Tabor parking lot, and hobbled together to the Suburban. Hiram’s bleeding had slowed to a seep, but when Big Ed changed the dish towel it was clear the wound was serious. He managed to get it wrapped tight, then helped Hiram into the passenger seat. Moved around to the driver’s side and climbed in.

  When he reached under the seat for the Eagle, Hiram’s tendons rose in his neck. “Just leave the goddamn gun where it is. You have a call to make.”

  He felt a muscle twitch in his cheek as he opened his phone and dialed, tapped in Myra’s room number at the motel phone system prompt. Just when he was sure it would kick into voice mail, she answered, her voice raspy and ravaged. “It isn’t even daylight. What are you calling me for?”

  “I did not think you ever slept.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “We have a problem. Hiram has been hurt.”

  “I told you to be careful.”

  He didn’t want to get into it. “Do you know anyone who can deal with a gunshot wound?”

  “Christ. What the hell happened?”

  “It does not matter.”

  “Is he going to die?”

  “Do you know anyone or not?”

  He heard her light a cigarette, cough. “I know a guy who stitches for some bikers in town. I’ll call you back.” She disconnected before he could respond.

  “What’d she say?”

  “She says she knows someone. She will call back.”

  “You don’t sound happy. Even through that fucking dildo I can hear the gripe in your voice.”

  “She is calling some outlaw biker medic.”

  “So?”

  “You cannot trust a biker, Hiram.”

  “I ain’t gonna trust him. I’m gonna buy him. You know how the hell it works.”

  Ed put his phone and the electrolarynx in the center console and started the Suburban. Whoever Myra called, they’d need to meet up with her. He left the park and wound down to Burnside, then headed west. Hiram sat quiet, only wincing when the street curved through Laurelhurst, and again when Big Ed slowed abruptly for a police car that appeared at a side street. The cop turned east after the Suburban passed.

  “Ed, dammit, call that crazy bitch back. I can’t sit here leaking half the day.” Hiram’s voice was more hiss than clear vocalization. He grabbed the cell phone from the console and tossed it into Ed’s lap. Big Ed couldn’t drive and talk on the phone at the same time, so he tossed the phone back, then stuck the larynx to his throat.

  “I need to find the boy.”

  “Goddamn right you need to find the boy. But you need to get this hole in my leg dealt with too.”

  “She said she will call back.”

  “Today, you think?”

  “I can always take you to a hospital.”

  “Now you think you’re a comedian.”

  A cell phone chirped, the sound muffled.

  “About fucking time she got back to—”

  “It is your phone, Hiram. Not mine.”

  The chirp sounded again and Hiram awkwardly fished into his pocket. “Hello? ... How did you—?” His abrupt silence drew Big Ed’s attention. Hiram listened for a moment, then managed to smile through his pain. “Could be we can work something out. I’ll be in touch. Don’t do nothing stupid.” He closed the phone.

  “What is it? That could not have been Myra.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Big Ed continued down Burnside, waiting Hiram out. The old man was thinking, rarely a rapid process, if sound in the end. As they neared Myra’s motel, a rattletrap hellhole called the Travel-Inn, Hiram whistled softly through his teeth.

  “She called the house. You believe that? Rose gave her my cell.”

  “Who?”

  “You know the fuck who.” Now Hiram was grinning. “The kid’s still out there somewhere. She doesn’t have him. Now if you can do something right for once in your sorry excuse for a life, maybe we can turn this shit around and get what we came for.”

  Three Years, Three Months Before

  Back Door

  Edgar Gillespie.

  A familiar name, if rarely used. Edgar, Eager, Edgar, Ed. Big Ed. Big Ed Gillespie, a name spoken in the same tone used to describe the little man who lived under the basement stairs and crept out at night to spirit away naughty children.

  Eager inspected the driver’s license. Expired, but he didn’t know what to make of that. An address in a town called Westbank. The name seemed vaguely familiar to him, perhaps a place Charm had mentioned during one of her drunken lathers. Down south. But the license was worth only a moment’s attention. The badge, now that was the thing. Charm had never said anything about his old man being a cop.

  What was a cop doing chasing after the girl? What was his old man doing being a cop? Eager moved out of the parking lot onto the sidewalk, edged toward the coffee house. A brief squall swept through, wet his head and back. He didn’t care. Too worried about what his old man, the cop, had in mind for the girl.

  Hand on the throat, girl pinned against the fence. Cops could be assholes same as anyone. Rough bastards too, kick you twice when they didn’t need to kick you at all. But that scene didn’t look like a cop takedown, even a dirty cop takedown. No gear, no cuffs, no radio. No backup. Just muscles and threat.

  Eager peered around the corner of Common Grounds through the front window. Big Ed stood at the counter, fists balled at
his sides. A man faced him from across the counter, his long face grim. Eager knew him, the manager or something, old Asian guy. He sometimes let Eager hang out when it was raining, even if he had no money to buy a drink. A few customers shrinking into their chairs, mouths agape. Big Ed’s shoulders shook as he confronted the fellow. His voice buzzed against the window pane. Eager didn’t see the girl. Hiding in the back maybe. The manager looked like he was standing guard. What he’d do if Big Ed decided to go through him Eager couldn’t guess. Get mushed.

  Maybe Eager couldn’t knock a side of beef the size of Big Ed windmilling into the street, but he knew every block between 39th and 60th, between Belmont and Division like he knew his own scarred knuckles. He’d skated every inch of pavement. Every buckled sidewalk, every cul-de-sac. He could help her get away.

  In the girl’s place, Eager would have skipped the coffee house. Joint like that, too easy to get pinned down. But if he was gonna hide in a shop, and if he did find himself pinned, he’d head for the back door. Here it was a side exit off the kitchen, which opened onto a narrow passage between the coffee house and the parking lot, wide enough for the garbage and recycling bins. At the back end of the passage, a tall cedar fence blocked the way. Far as anyone knew, the only way out was back onto Hawthorne.

  He knew different.

  He grabbed his board and moved down the passage. The door was metal with frosted-glass panes. As he reached for the door knob it turned and the door popped open. The girl stumbled out, Big Ed’s voice chasing after her. She pulled up when she saw him.

  He grinned, pleased to realize she thought like he did, and that fast too. “If you want, I’ll help you get away.”

  She hesitated for only a second. “Please.”

  “Follow me.”

  He led her past the garbage bins to the end of the passage. The cedar fence was weathered and grey. Eager tugged at two of the overlapping vertical boards and they parted, creating a narrow opening. “It’s a squeeze.” She went first, and he followed, passing his skateboard through first. They found themselves in the back corner of a yard, a shaded pocket of quiet. The lawn was patched with moss, toys lay in careless heaps in the overgrown grass. Ivy wet with the morning rain draped over the fence.

  “Is this okay?”

  “Nobody’s around in the daytime, mostly.”

  They followed a narrow concrete walkway alongside the house, picking their way past rusty gardening tools and an old fiberglass truck cap. At the corner of the front yard, the tall privacy fence gave way to rusty chain-link. The house looked east from the end of a short cul-de-sac. A couple of cars were parked in front of houses across the otherwise empty street.

  “Come on.”

  He led her up the cul-de-sac to 44th, then turned north, away from the bustle of Hawthorne. Small single-story houses hugged the sidewalks as they weaved, right turn, left. Most blocks, cars parked up both sides of the street, leaving only a single lane for traffic. It didn’t matter. There was no traffic. The girl followed close beside him, checking back over her shoulder again and again. Within a few blocks, he could tell she was lost, but that was okay. There was no sign of his old man. At last he stopped beneath a gnarled hawthorn tree growing out of the parking strip in front of a yard so overgrown they couldn’t see the house beyond.

  “I think we’re okay now.”

  She leaned against the tree, rubbed her side. Not used to running, he figured. It took her a moment to catch her breath. “Thank you.” She raised her head, put one hand to her face. He stared back at her, eye to eye. “What’s your name?”

  “Eager.”

  “That’s an interesting name.”

  He shrugged. “Technically it’s Edgar, but no one calls me that.” Edgar, Eager, Edgar, Ed. Charm called him Eddie.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Eager.”

  Eager waited, but she didn’t add anything more. He wanted to ask her own name, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t tell him. If Big Ed had been chasing him, he wouldn’t have told his name either. “What’d that dude want anyway?”

  She lowered her head, grasped her upper arms with her hands. “I just needed to get away.”

  “Hey, I hear that. Sometimes you just gotta drop everything and go.”

  She looked at him sharply. He ducked his head. For a moment, he thought she might run off. He tried a smile. “He was pretty scary, wasn’t he?” She blinked at him, then relaxed and offered a thin smile in return.

  “Yes, he was.”

  He wondered if she knew his old man was a cop. Was that why he was chasing her? Had she done something, stolen something? Hurt someone? He wasn’t sure how old she was; not too old though. Young and pretty. Her eyes were soft and brown, and a little sad. For a moment they pulled him in, but then he felt himself blush and he dropped his gaze. Fixed on the “FFA 2000” stitched over the breast on her dark blue jacket.

  “It’s from high school. I don’t know why I still wear it.”

  “What’s it mean?”

  “Future Farmers of America.” She shook her head. “My father made me join.”

  “You live on a farm?”

  “Yes.” She looked away, and her eyes grew troubled. “I used to.”

  “You live in Portland now?”

  “I just got here.”

  “You want me to show you around?”

  She seemed to think for a long time. He watched her look up the street, her eyes darting back and forth. Finally she turned back to him. “Do you know about a statue at the top of Tabor park?”

  “Mount Tabor?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Do you know where it is?”

  He pointed over his shoulder at the tree-clad hilltop visible between a pair of apartment buildings. “That’s Mount Tabor.”

  She followed the line of his gesture. Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve been looking at it all morning.” Her tone was bemused.

  “There’s like a grassy area at the top with trees, and a statue at one end.”

  “The Harvey Scott statue?”

  “I don’t know. I guess. I never looked at it much. Some old guy.”

  “You’ve been up there?”

  “Sure. I take my board up there all the time. There’s some killer turns coming down.”

  She looked up at the park. It wasn’t far. He could take her up there, show her the way to the top. Maybe she’d want the company. He could be like a guide, and maybe she’d want to be friends. She couldn’t be that much older than him, after all. His mom fucked men twenty years older than she was, so Eager could be friends with a girl who got out of high school a few years earlier. Weirder things happened.

  But she had another idea. She gazed at the green Tabor crest, pulled at her lip. “That’s where I’ll find her.” Voice a whisper, a breath shaped like words. “Right there in front of me all along.” She lowered her hand, drew herself up. Her face relaxed.

  “Thank you, Eager. I know the way now.” She bent and kissed him lightly on the cheek, lips soft and warm. A scent hovered around her, a strange musk accented with tea. He felt the blood rush to his face, felt another stirring further down. But she didn’t seem to notice. She smiled, then turned and walked away.

  She left him under the hawthorn tree, his shoulders wet with rain and eyes alight with a fire freshly ignited. He watched her dwindle until all he could see was her dark hair framed in sunlight breaking through the clouds. He gripped his skateboard, knuckles white. A damp breeze tickled his neck. He headed for the fir green hill.

  November 17

  Stargazers Assaulted

  OREGON CITY, OR: An unknown assailant assaulted a couple at the Haggart Observatory on the campus of Clackamas Community College early Saturday.

  According to the couple, they were taking a break from stargazing in their pickup truck at about 2 a.m. when a man wearing a hood or scarf over his head approached the driver’s side. The assailant dragged the two from the truck and proceeded to hit and kick them, though he stopped abruptly when both curled into pr
otective positions. He stole a wallet, purse, cell phone and car keys, then fled toward Beavercreek Road.

  Witnesses differ on the sequence of events, according to Clackamas County Sheriff’s Deputy Elliot Forstenberg. Another stargazer at the observatory suggests the couple may have verbally antagonized the assailant before the assault.

  The keys, cell phone, wallet and purse were later recovered from where the assailant apparently dropped them near the corner of Beavercreek Road and Trails End Highway about a quarter mile from the scene of the assault. Only cash was taken.

  November 19 — 7:17 am

  Balls to the Wall

  Myra never did call. She stood smoking in the parking lot of the Travel-Inn as Big Ed pulled in. The motel behind her was two stories of cinder block and slumping composite siding. A reek of urine hung in the air. Big Ed didn’t know how Myra could sleep in such a joint, but then enough crystal had gone up her nose she probably couldn’t smell urine if you pissed on her head. She looked like she’d been run through a thresher, her face blotchy and gaze dead-eyed, her orange quilted coat tattered and greasy. She wasn’t alone. A bald-headed brute in biker’s leathers waited next to her, fingerless gloves on his hands, ears full of metal, braided beard down to his dick. He loomed over a Harley Super Glide, late model, polished and pearl black.

  Hiram didn’t wait for Big Ed to stop the Suburban before he threw the door open, grimaced as he swung his bloody leg out and rested his foot on the pavement. “You the guy can get my leg fixed up?”

  The smooth head dipped half an inch. “If you got the cash, I am.”

  “Cash ain’t the problem. Time is what I’m short of.”

  “Ain’t far.”