Crow's Landing

by Brad Smith

  “Never mind,” he said to the first girl, and left.

  Hoffman walked out onto the store’s wraparound veranda and stood there, looking at the intersection before him. There were signs, maybe a dozen in all, mounted on posts all around the crossroads, signs with arrows pointed in every direction, indicating the way to this lake or that town or somebody’s hunting camp.

  Not only did Hoffman not know which sign might help him out, he hadn’t even the slightest notion of which direction to take. The only person more ignorant than himself in this regard was the fucking wannabe rap star in the backseat. The man they’d brought along as a guide. Hoffman wondered if he was cursed. Would it have been too much to ask for Yuri to turn up a guy who actually knew where the camp was? Apparently hundreds of inner-city kids had been there, but Yuri managed to choose the muddled mess that was Jay Dee. Just once, Hoffman would have liked something to go exactly as it should. One time, just to see what it felt like.

  When he got back in the car, he regarded his two traveling partners before starting the engine and driving over to the intersection. He stopped and indicated the array of signs, turning toward the backseat.

  “Okay, dimwit,” he said wearily. “Anything there strike a chord?”

  “Watch the name-calling, dog,” Jay Dee said, but he leaned forward and had a look. “Bass Lake!” he exclaimed at once. “That’s it! How come I couldn’t remember that?”

  “An hour ago, you thought it was Stoney Lake,” Hoffman reminded him. “Before that you swore it was Lake Samuel.”

  “It’s Bass Lake, motherfucker, and I’ll even tell you why. All the time we fished there, we never caught no bass. Perches, and pikes and sunfishes but no bass. And we were all the time wondering how that fucking lake got its name. I’m telling you it’s Bass Lake.”

  The sign for Bass Lake had an arrow pointing west, and beneath the arrow it said twenty-one miles. Hoffman glanced at Yuri and Yuri returned the look before turning to Jay Dee in the back seat. He smiled.

  “This is why I bring you along,” he said. “I knew you would remember. Is hard to remember things sometimes from long ago. But always I have faith in you. Now we go to Bass Lake, and you will take us to Pop’s Camp. Yes?”

  “No problem,” Jay Dee said. “Just get me in the area, dog.”

  When they arrived at Bass Lake a half hour later, Jay Dee was just as lost as before. They were parked by a gravel road that ran a couple hundred yards down to the water’s edge and as Jay Dee complained again about how everything had changed since he’d last been there, Hoffman spotted an old man launching an aluminum boat into a shallow creek that emptied into the lake a short distance away.

  They drove over and stopped the man as he was getting into the boat. The old guy wore a red-checked shirt and suspenders and a briar pipe was tucked in the shirt pocket. He looked like a fisherman on a TV show. Whatever he was, he was considerably less confused than Jay Dee. He didn’t hesitate when asked about Pop’s Camp.

  “That’s Bill Chamberlain’s old place,” he said.

  As it turned out, the camp was less than three miles away. After the old man gave them directions, they returned to the main road and headed west along the lakeshore road. From time to time they could see the water through the trees to their right.

  “I told you,” Jay Dee said triumphantly. “I’ll take you straight there now. I know this area, now that I see it. My mind is tight like a fucking snare drum. I don’t forget shit.”

  “Is good job,” Yuri agreed. “You have been good deputy, Jay Dee.” As he spoke he was watching up ahead, where they were approaching a side road that led south into the dense bush, away from the lake. “Pull in here, Mr. Hoffman. I need to make piss.”

  Hoffman looked over irritably. “We’re going to be there in a few minutes.”

  “But I need to make piss now,” Yuri said pleasantly. “Pull in.”

  Hoffman made the turn onto what appeared to be an old logging road, narrow and deeply rutted in places, likely from locals on four-wheelers. The going was so rough that Hoffman grew worried about his car’s undercarriage and he rolled to a stop a hundred yards or so along the lane. Yuri glanced behind them, to the main road they had just left. “Drive a little farther. I am private person in such matters.”

  Shaking his head, Hoffman took his foot from the brake and idled along the bumpy road, while Yuri kept motioning with his hand for him to go further. When they were deep in the bush, about a mile from the main road, Yuri told him to stop.

  “Jay Dee, you must come with me and watch for bears,” Yuri said as he opened the door. “I am not familiar with this animal.” He laughed. “I do not want to get eaten now that we are so close to Pop’s Camp.”

  Hoffman looked in the mirror and saw the uncertainty in Jay Dee’s eyes, and then a shrug of the rounded shoulders. It was an odd request, but since there was nothing ordinary about the Russian, there was nothing out of the ordinary either. Jay Dee got out and Yuri instructed him to walk before him into the thick brush. They were out of Hoffman’s sight for less than a minute when he heard the gunshot. It took twice that long for Yuri to reappear and when he did he was pulling up his zipper. Apparently he really had needed to piss.

  When he climbed back into the passenger seat, he opened the cylinder on the Colt and retrieved the spent casing, slipping it into his shirt pocket. He reached into the Adidas bag and found a fresh .44 cartridge, which he loaded into the revolver. He gave the cylinder a spin and placed the gun on the seat between himself and Hoffman.

  “Jay Dee will not be joining us for the rest of the trip,” he said.

  * * *

  They parked the truck alongside the lake road, a few feet from the entrance that was chained off, and walked in. The closest cottage to Pop’s Camp was a quarter mile farther back and had appeared to be deserted when they drove past. They saw no vehicles in the drive, although there were towels on a clothesline, and a small punt pulled up to a wooden dock along the shore.

  Approaching the main house, Virgil was inclined to believe that they’d made a wasted trip. There was no evidence of anyone on the premises and nothing to suggest that anybody had been there for a long time. Grass and weeds grew up through the gravel of the drive; there were shingles missing from the roof of the house. Virgil spotted the electric meter on the wall, walked over, and saw that it wasn’t turning.

  “Power’s off,” he said.

  “Which means—” Dusty started to say, but then they both heard a sound and she stopped.

  It was a soft thumping noise, coming from the gymnasium beyond the baseball field. The sound got louder as they angled across the overgrown field to the front of the building. There would be a series of thumps and a pause and then it would begin again. The noise grew more familiar the closer they got.

  The windows to the gym, like those to the cabins, were boarded up, but someone had removed the plywood from a couple of them, likely to let in some light. It was easy to assume that the same someone was responsible for the thumping noises from inside.

  Keeping close to the side wall of the building, Virgil approached one of the uncovered windows and looked in. After a moment he gestured for Dusty to come forward.

  Soup was shooting hoops. He was wearing only sneakers and a pair of baggy shorts, and he was using half the court, circling around from the center to either drive the basket for a lay-up, or shooting from three-point range before running in for the rebound. The sweat was rolling off his thin frame and he appeared to be completely focused on his game. For a man on the run, he seemed oblivious to the notion that somebody might be watching him.

  After a moment, Virgil ducked down below the sill and moved to the other side of the window, looking for an entrance. He saw one to the far right, a door that was partly ajar. He pointed it out to Dusty and then she put her hand on his arm, gesturing inside.

  Soup had stopped. Wiping his face with a dirty towel, he walked over to a sagging blue couch along the wall. There was a duffel bag
on the floor beside the couch and he knelt down by the bag and dipped his little finger inside, brought it up twice, once to each nostril. Then he flopped onto the couch on his back.

  Dusty leaned close to Virgil. “That must be some high-quality dope, if Soup’s snorting it,” she said softly. “He always liked the pipe.”

  On the couch, Soup exhaled heavily a couple of times and his eyes closed, his expression nearing rapture.

  At least near enough that he didn’t hear them enter and didn’t hear them cross the hardwood, they were nearly on top of him before he knew they were there. Even then, Dusty had to announce it.

  “Soup, you got any idea how bad you’re fucking up?” she asked.

  Soup’s eyes flew open and he jerked himself to a sitting position and stared at her, his palms out front in a defensive position.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “It’s Dusty, Soup. Get your head out of your ass.”

  It took him a moment to finally recognize her. “Dusty! What you doing here?”

  “Looking for you, dude,” she said. “What are you doing—reliving your glory days?”

  Virgil was hanging back, thinking that Soup might make a run for it and he would have to try to stop him. Soup’s eyes went from Dusty to him, his breath coming in gasps, and then back to Dusty.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. Then something registered in his brain and he looked back at Virgil. “Hey, you the guy, you got your boat stole.”

  “Yeah,” Virgil said.

  “And your arm broke too. That crazy fucking Russian.”

  Dusty knelt down and had a look at the contents of the duffel. Soup was apparently still working on the first packet of coke, which was maybe three-quarters gone. He couldn’t have used all that in a couple of days, she knew. He must have sold some off to finance his trip north. The other packages were still tightly wrapped, untouched. It would take him a hundred years to snort all that blow. Of course, he would never last even if he tried. His heart wouldn’t handle snorting it and his head wouldn’t handle owning it.

  “How’d you guys find me?” Soup demanded.

  “Wasn’t all that hard,” Dusty said, standing up. “And if we could do it, so could anybody else that might be looking for you. Somebody like that crazy fucking Russian. You know?”

  Soup was too wired to appreciate the not so subtle message Dusty was trying to convey. He turned and found a shirt that had gotten stuffed down in the couch cushions and took a moment to put it on, having trouble first with the collar and then with the buttons. His nose was running and he wiped it on the sleeve.

  Virgil had a look around the gym. It appeared to be a regulation court, although right now there was only one basket, the one Soup had been using. There was a stage at the other end, beside the door where they’d just entered, and the backboard and basket there were swung up toward the ceiling on a pivot, clearing the view for an audience. There was a denim jacket on the stage, which Virgil assumed belonged to Soup.

  Also suspended from the ceiling, in front of the stage, was a large section of netting and inside the netting were stored dozens of basketballs, still inflated. The netting was held in place by ropes in a pulley system, tied off at the side wall to the left, opposite the door.

  The gym air was musty and dank, and it retained the faint odors of sweat and athletic gear. Cobwebs gathered in the corners and high on the walls where they met the ceiling. The floor itself was covered in a thin layer of dust, except where Soup had been playing one-on-one with himself. The only ventilation came from the open door by the stage.

  There was a table a few feet from the old couch, with chrome legs and a red top; on the table was a dirty backpack, along with some two-liter bottles of soda and bags of chips and pretzels and licorice. There was a carton of Camels there too, and a disposable lighter alongside a small glass pipe.

  Soup had now managed to button the shirt. “What’s up, Dusty? Why you following me?”

  Dusty indicated the duffel. “We’re following that,” she said. “And we’re taking it with us.”

  “Fuck you are.”

  “It doesn’t belong to you, Soup.”

  “I say it does. I got possession.”

  Virgil glanced at Dusty.

  “You think you’re going to have possession when Hoffman finds you?” she asked. “Because he’s looking hard, Soup. Doesn’t that concern you a little bit?”

  Soup shrugged. “He ain’t gonna find me. Not here.”

  “Are you that fucking high?” Dusty asked. “We just found you.”

  Soup considered this for a moment. “Yeah, but you always been smart, Dusty.”

  “If I was smart, I’d be a hundred miles away,” Dusty said. “Just what were you planning to do?”

  Soup was still twitching inside the shirt, craning his neck and working his shoulders as if it didn’t fit right. “Lay up here a few days, get my shit together. Then I been thinking I might get on down to Philadelphia. I got a bro there, help me move some of this product.”

  Virgil came closer now. It didn’t seem as if Soup was about to make a run for it, and even if he did, it wouldn’t matter, so long as he left the duffel behind. “You call this getting your shit together?” he asked.

  “What the fuck you know?” Soup said. “You best remember I tried to help you, homes. When Hoffman and the cowboy was beating your ass.”

  “I remember,” Virgil said.

  “Who’s the cowboy, Soup?” Dusty asked.

  “Some Russian badass, showed up in the city a couple years ago,” Soup said. “Moves a lot of hydro, some meth, he was hot for this deal. Crazy motherfucker. He more dangerous than fucking Hoffman ever be.”

  “Then do you really want him to find you?” Dusty asked. “Don’t you think you’d be better off coming with us?”

  “I don’t know,” Soup said slowly. It seemed that the gravity of the situation was just now getting through to him. The fact that he had in all likelihood been whacked out of his mind since stealing the coke had probably led to a certain level of denial on his part. He took a deep breath. “Shit. What the fuck am I gonna do?”

  “I wouldn’t advise you to head back to the city,” Dusty said. “You got any money?”

  “Got a few dollars,” he said. “I sold a few grams before I split.”

  Dusty turned to Virgil, as if seeking his opinion. “Probably get a bus in Lake Placid,” he said. He looked at Soup. “You say you got a friend waiting in Philadelphia?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right then,” Dusty said. “You’d better stay gone a long time.” She indicated the backpack. “Get your stuff together. Let’s get out of here.”

  “You not gonna take all that blow, Dusty,” Soup said. Not asking really, but pleading.

  “I am.”

  Soup winced. “I’m gonna need something. Keep me going. I can’t do no bus ride cold turkey.”

  “We’ll buy you a coffee at the station,” Virgil said.

  “That’s fucking cold, man,” Soup said. “I tried to help you.”

  “And we’re trying to help you, Soup,” Dusty said. “Believe it or not.”

  Virgil watched as Soup began to rub his knuckles. The thought of losing all that dope wasn’t sitting well with him.

  “Let’s go,” Dusty said.

  “I only need, like, a pinch to travel on,” Soup whimpered. “That shit pure as snow.”

  Dusty glanced at Virgil, and he knew what she was thinking. If it came down to a choice of Soup traveling with a bad need, or Soup traveling mellowed out, it might be best to go with the second option. He was going to have to get straight when he got to Philadelphia, but first he had to get there. Virgil nodded to Dusty and she turned back to Soup.

  “Take the rest of that,” she said, indicating what was left in the open packet in the duffel. “You’ll be jumping out of the bus window otherwise.”

  Soup knelt down on the floor and gently lifted the packet from the bag, cupping it in both hand
s like it was a baby bird and placing it on the table, where he went to work carefully folding the cellophane up so it wouldn’t spill. For the moment, it was all in the world he cared about, all that he was even aware of.

  Virgil was anxious to get out of there now. There was no telling who had seen them arrive and anybody who did would quite likely assume that they were breaking and entering. Virgil wasn’t looking forward to trying to explain away a couple million dollars in cocaine to any local cops who might show up. When Soup began to pack his clothes and his soda and his snacks into the backpack, Virgil walked over to the stage to retrieve the jacket lying there.

  Dusty bent down to zip the duffel shut and when she did her T-shirt rode up at the back. From across the room Virgil saw the butt of the .38 at the same instant Soup did, but before he could open his mouth, Soup had the gun in his hand.

  “Don’t nobody move!” he shouted. “Nobody move! Get back, y’all!”

  His eyes were wild and his hands shaking as he jerked the barrel of the gun back and forth, from Dusty to Virgil. Dusty, still kneeling, straightened slowly, shaking her head, as if more disappointed than angry.

  “You idiot,” she said.

  “Get back!” he yelled again, and Dusty put her hands out to the side. Virgil remained where he stood, twenty feet away. Soup came forward and grabbed the duffel by the handles.

  “Soup,” Dusty implored him.

  “You be quiet now,” he told her. “I heard enough already. You trying to rip me off for my good shit. I didn’t invite you all here. I don’t want to shoot nobody, Dusty. Please don’t make me shoot nobody. I’m a dangerous man.”

  “Soup, let’s talk about this,” she said.

  “No! No more talk. I got the gun now. I’m in charge now.” He pointed the revolver at Virgil. “Step aside, mister.”

  Virgil moved to his right, and Soup began a wide circle around them both, the duffel in one hand and the revolver in the other. He was halfway to the door when he stopped, thought for a moment, and came back toward them. He pointed the gun at them again, the barrel shaking.

  “What you driving?” he said. “Gimme the keys.”