Dead Wood

by Dan Ames

  I chuckled, but as Anna wasn’t laughing, I quickly stopped.

  By now, we were in the living room. Anna sat on the couch, propped her feet up on the ottoman, grabbed a throw pillow, and hugged it to her chest. I gave her a brief overview of the case.

  “Did you talk to your sister?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And?”

  “She said I should do what I gotta do.”

  This brought an eye roll.

  “Look, it was a freak accident,” I said. “ I’m sure it had very little to do with the case.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t know what to believe right now. I have to keep at it and try to figure out what’s going on.”

  I recognized the look on Anna’s face. It was the expression she wears when she wants to tell me to drop this whole PI thing, that I got out of law enforcement for a reason. That what the world really needs is another fucking accountant. She opened her mouth, and I knew she was going to launch into the speech I’d heard quite a few times.

  Instead she just shrugged her shoulders, indifferent.

  Holy Christ, that was even worse.

  * * *

  •

  * * *

  The next morning I was back in my office, a fresh pot of Peet’s coffee (I was on the mailing program—a fresh bag every month straight from Portland, Oregon) and the telephone. I looked up the number for St. Clair Salvage and dialed the number.

  There was no answer. I left a message, letting him know that I was a private investigator working for Clarence Barre and that I would like to talk to him about Jesse.

  By lunchtime I had finished all of the filing and paperwork I could find around the office and Hornsby still hadn’t called me. I left another message, this time alerting Nevada Hornsby to the fact that he had just won a year’s supply of a new product called Turkey Jerky—all the great taste of jerky with half the fat and calories. Now available in three flavors: ranch, jalapeño and lemon lime! I left my number and urged him to hurry, hurry, hurry!

  By mid-afternoon I had searched the ’net for as much information as I could find on Hornsby. There wasn’t much. Just a very short human-interest story in the Free Press about St. Clair Salvage. Nothing useful that shed any light on Clarence Barre’s enemy number one.

  I looked at the clock. It was now dinnertime, and Hornsby still hadn’t called me. My next message informed him that a distant relative living in Hawaii had died and left him a forty-eight-acre estate on Maui, complete with three swimming pools, a cabana, and a small population of native island girls who ran the property’s private nude beach. All he had to do was call the number (coincidentally, the same one offering a year of Turkey Jerky.)

  I used the other phone, my private line, to call Clarence Barre. He answered on the third ring.

  “Tell me everything you know about Nevada Hornsby.”

  I listened while Clarence laid out what he had. It wasn’t much. Apparently the guy didn’t talk about his past. He was most likely from Michigan. Didn’t have family to speak of. Ran St. Clair Salvage and had been in love with his daughter. Like I said, not much.

  “I think he’s bad. Just a bad, evil person,” Clarence said.

  There Clarence went again with his intuition. Weren’t women supposed to have that? Clarence had more than his share. Maybe he had the stuff I didn’t get.

  I finished with Clarence and checked the clock. Quittin’ time.

  I went home, had dinner, played with the kids, and then just before going to bed, called in to my answering machine. There still wasn’t an answer from the elusive Mr. Hornsby.

  I guess I would have to deliver the jerky in person.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The Spook stood before the full-length mirror in his suite at the Royalton Hotel in New York City. His Fender Telecaster was slung over his shoulder, its cable trailing out behind him to the small Pignose amplifier propped up on the bed. He had the guitar’s distortion on a medium setting, the juice turned to the first pickup. The settings were designed to create a dense, fuzzy sound that was tight enough to sound like a raucous bouncing romp when he pounded down a blues shuffle.

  The Spook put an unlit cigarette in the corner of his mouth and looked at himself in the mirror again. He had just flown in from London via Mexico the night before and looked like an exhausted traveler. He saw a pale man in his late thirties, early forties with scraggly black hair and a thin, pinched, slightly pockmarked face. He had on dirty blue jeans, cowboy boots, a short-sleeved black T-shirt, and a bone necklace.

  On his right ring finger was a large skull ring.

  The Spook had two loves in the world: the first was the ecstasy of a perfectly executed hit. There was really nothing like it in the world. Scoping things out, identifying the target, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Selecting the absolutely most pristine time and place. And then delivering the knockout blow with strength, speed, and deadly aim.

  It was like a beautiful melody to him that ended in a blazing crescendo of blood and violence, capped off by the silent applause of a roaring crowd inside his head.

  His second love was Keith Alvin Richards, lead guitarist for the Rolling Stones. The Human Riff, they called him. The man who constantly carried around five or six new songs in his head. If you stopped him in the street, he’d be in the middle of constructing a new song at that very moment.

  He was the heart and soul of the Stones.

  Granted, Mick had something to do with it. But common wisdom held that Mick was a cold fish.

  They said that while Mick thought it, Keith felt it.

  For the Spook, whose own profession required a detached frostiness, he longed to be like Keith, for his job required him to be Mick. Keith’s riffs spoke to the Spook. The sexy wail of “Honky Tonk Women,” the anthemic call of “Satisfaction.” They all kindled a flame in the Spook’s soul. He could relate to those riffs. To those sudden bursts of inspiration.

  Now, in his hotel room, he slid the fingertips of his left hand slowly up the fretboard of his Fender. The little Pignose amp responded smoothly and quietly. As much as the Spook would have loved to crank it up, it wasn’t the time nor the place.

  In his apartment in London, he had a soundproof studio in which he would sit for hours and play Keith’s riffs, his riffs, over and over again, until he had a welt on his chest from the Fender digging in.

  The thought of his London flat brought back wonderful memories for the Spook. When he had first gone to London almost fifteen years ago, after quietly leaving the CIA and going freelance, he’d immediately set out for Keith’s childhood neighborhood. He was supposed to have been scouting out his target, some ambassador from Libya who his client had deemed it was necessary to terminate.

  Instead, the Spook had gone sightseeing. He had gone down to Corningwall Road. Found the ramshackle little house where Keith had spent his first ten years.

  The Spook had soaked it up. Had imagined young Keith running around, his wicked smile and nasty vibrations welling up inside him. It had been a truly glorious, happy time for the Spook. On his own, free of the rules and regulations the CIA had imposed upon him. A free agent. Gun for hire.

  Now, back in his hotel room, The Spook bowed his head and slipped into the rhythmic chords of “Beast of Burden.”

  As he played, his boots tapped the thick carpet of his hotel room. He lost himself in the beauty of the evocation. In his mind, he was on stage at Wembley. Mick was in front, strutting across the stage. Ronnie was to his right, smiling, strolling. Wyman was in the back, trying not to be noticed. And Charlie was playing with intensity, his face a mask of indifference.

  The Spook’s fingers slid carelessly along the strings. His right hand tamped the strings, creating a playful syncopation.

  What a thing, the Spook thought. To be born to do something. That was the ticket. Keith had been born to write and play music. God had opened his brain and poured in all the ability he could handle.

&
nbsp; The Spook had a born talent. Killing people was his reason for existence. Each and every one had been a virtuoso performance. He knew this instinctively. It wasn’t arrogance or boastfulness. He was the best there was. He knew it. And those who were in the know knew it too.

  In the middle of the song’s bridge, the phone rang, but the Spook kept playing. If it was important, they’d call back.

  Besides, he had an inkling what the phone call was about.

  Or, more accurately, who it was all about.

  He smiled at the thought.

  I’m just waitin’ on a friend.

  The Spook closed his eyes and felt the music in him while his mind raced ahead to the thought of who he would most likely kill next.

  His old friend.

  John Rockne.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My plan was to be like a desperate prostitute: loud, aggressive, and unwilling to take no for an answer. How’s that for a positive self-image?

  Nevada Hornsby clearly wasn’t interested in talking to me. After all, what kind of guy would have no interest in nude native island girls and a year’s supply of Turkey Jerky?

  I pulled up in front of St. Clair Salvage. A quick visual survey showed that Nevada Hornsby’s business was made up of three parts: the factory, the office, and probably out back, the boat.

  I got out of the Taurus and walked over to what I assumed was the factory or the main shop area. It was a relatively narrow, but long, aluminum shed. I peeked in the windows and saw power equipment inside, as well as stacked logs. There were giant fans on each side of the long room, I imagined for sucking sawdust out of the building and blowing it into the air like one long, constant sneeze.

  I walked over to the office area, which looked even less impressive. It was a weather-beaten structure made of old wood—appropriate, at least—with a cedar shake roof, dirty windows, and a beat-up door. You could pay top dollar at Pottery Barn for that distressed wood look. But here, you just wanted to slap a coat of paint on it.

  The door rattled under my knock, but when I listened for an answer, all I heard was the howling of the wind off the lake.

  The soot on the windows smeared under my rubbing, but soon I’d cleared a space small enough for a small glimpse into the place. It looked pretty much vacant. A couple chairs here and there, some cardboard boxes, and pieces of wood. There was a doorway that led somewhere, but I couldn’t see far enough. Maybe the real office was back there.

  I walked around to the rear of the building and saw a long pier that branched off into a T. At the end I saw perhaps the ugliest boat of my life. It was a rusty tub, maybe thirty or forty feet long, with an enclosed cabin and a thin stream of black smoke coming out the back.

  Two men were on the pier, untying the thick ropes, and preparing to cast off.

  I jogged over, jumped onto the dock, and hustled down to the end of the pier. Looking at the water on either side of me, I saw that it was dark brown. Not exactly snorkeling territory here.

  I got the attention of one of the men, a reddish-haired guy with a red flannel shirt, jeans, and a wad of chewing tobacco that distended the entire right side of his face.

  “Nevada Hornsby?” I asked.

  He motioned with his thumb toward the cabin of the boat. It was like a little cubicle that someone had placed in the middle of the boat. It had a little door and little windows that were black with grime.

  In the back of the boat was a giant hook-and-pulley system, I assumed to help haul logs out of the lake. There was other equipment scattered around the deck: blocks and pulleys, hooks, big, odd-shaped pieces of steel. Most of it looked entirely unfamiliar to me. Then again, I majored in criminology not mechanical engineering.

  The man to whom I’d spoken made no move to get Hornsby for me, but merely went to a different part of the ship and began fiddling with some levers.

  I hesitated. The water next to the dock looked cold and unforgiving. I thought briefly of my car, still warm from the heater, a stainless steel coffee mug still half full, nestled in the driver’s side cup holder.

  Life is full of tough decisions.

  I jumped on board.

  I made way across the deck and peeked inside the ship’s cabin. Nevada Hornsby sat at the small Formica table that jutted out from the side of the cabin’s wall.

  He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a thick black sweater, blue jeans, and black boots. His thick, dark hair and beard were neat and smooth. The only sign of age and a hard life were the wrinkles around his eyes.

  There was a knife in his hand, a long, crude thing that he was using to cut an apple. He looked up at me, the deep blue of his eyes seeming to leap from the weathered face and dark hair.

  “Nevada Hornsby?” I asked.

  He looked me up and down, and the look in his eye wasn’t flattering. He seemed to contemplate the knife in hand for a moment. I got the feeling the knife had gutted a lot of fish and that it could do the job on a private investigator just fine. But his expression didn’t come across as anger or violence. It seemed more like . . . weariness.

  “My name is John Rockne,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Jesse Barre.”

  He got to his feet smoothly, and I quickly saw that he was bigger than I’d imagined. At least six feet four inches. His shoulders seemed bigger too. Fuck, he was just plain big.

  I pictured the man who had attacked me at Jesse Barre’s apartment. I suddenly had doubts that it could have been Nevada Hornsby. The guy in front of me was too damn big. If he’d wanted to saw my hand in two, he could have done it. Easily.

  “Who you workin’ for?” he said. He still had the knife in one hand, the apple in the other.

  I sort of scrolled through my typical responses, the ones I’ve spouted maybe a few hundred times in my career. That’s confidential. An interested party, etc. They suddenly seemed like they would sound hollow and flimsy in this man’s presence. So I went with the truth.

  “Clarence Barre.”

  His face registered nothing, but he did give a slight nod. He worked the knife through the apple and popped a chunk into his mouth.

  “I’m leaving in thirty seconds,” he finally said. “You can talk to me when I get back.”

  “How long are you staying out?”

  “Eighteen hours.”

  “Are you sure you don’t have a minute to talk?”

  He shook his head no and stared at me.

  “Randy called in sick,” he said. “More work for me and Rollie.”

  “What if I came along?” I said, thinking eighteen hours was a motherfuck of a long time, but if I had to do it, I would.

  Hornsby nodded as if he’d known all along that was going to be my response. “If you stay, you work,” he said.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I had a feeling the lumber-recovery profession was a pretty dangerous job, probably second only to road construction workers in Cairo.

  Of course, Hornsby could stay out for a lot longer than eighteen hours—days, even weeks—or just motor up to some other harbor in some other town and I’d never see him again. Or at least not for a long time.

  “Ten seconds,” he said. He flipped a few switches and looked back at me.

  “Aren’t we going to talk about my hourly rate?”

  “Zero dollars an hour. Anything else?” He revved the engines for emphasis.

  “Do you have a 401(k)?” I said.

  His response this time was to jam the throttle down. I stumbled backward, knocking his Styrofoam coffee cup off the low shelf next to the table.

  “You better have workers’ comp!” I yelled over the screaming engines.

  I struggled to my feet to say something to him, but he was gone. My eyes were drawn to a picture on the wall that he had been blocking.

  It was old and hung in a cheap frame, but there was no mistaking the woman caught on film.

  It was Jesse Barre.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “The
re she is,” Hornsby said, his voice a dull growl, not quite as deep as the sound of the ship’s engines.

  I looked out through the streaked windshield and saw the second ugliest water vessel known to man.

  This beast looked like a giant concrete block with an angled front and square back. Its surface was virtually empty save for the roughly fifteen-foot crane standing in the middle. It sat on top of the dark greenish-brown water, rocking gently in the three-foot waves, the sky a solid sheet of gray overhead. Not exactly a Norman Rockwell scene.

  Looking back, I couldn’t see any signs of land. We were a long way out.

  It had been nearly an hour since Hornsby’s sudden burst of acceleration had thrown me off my feet. He’d said little more than to tell me we were going out to a barge he used to retrieve sunken lumber. The rest of the ride, he’d ignored my questions.

  Now, Hornsby and his worker, Rollie, lashed the boat up against the barge. A few minutes later, Rollie emerged in a wetsuit. I watched him spit out his giant ball of chewing tobacco. It landed in a little metal pail. He set it against the side of the cabin. Ooh, leftovers.

  Rollie then went over the side into the water while Hornsby jumped between the two vessels and immediately began hauling a chain and rigging harness to the side of the barge. When Rollie reemerged from the water, Hornsby fed him the chain.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I said. After all, he’d given me the big lecture about working.

  “Yeah, keep out of the way,” Hornsby said.

  Right. I could do that.

  So I watched, waiting for the right moment to begin questioning Hornsby about his relationship with Jesse Barre. I was here to get some goddamn answers. I would be pretty pissed if I spent all day on the S.S. Piece of Shit with nothing to show for it but the vague smell of dead carp.

  After a few minutes of feeding the chains into the dark water, Hornsby stopped. He stood there, looking down for several minutes. Finally, after Rollie disappeared back into the olive-green depths, I took my opportunity.