Midnight Haul

by Max Allan Collins

  The truckers.

  The two men he and Boone had seen dumping drums of waste, in Pennsylvania, weeks ago.

  Crane dove head first into the tall skinny guy, gun or no gun, knocking the wind out of him, knocking him down, scrambled over him, got on his feet again, got to the door, but it was closed, and with his hands tied he couldn’t open it, and by the time he thought of trying for a window to fling himself through, the bruiser was on him, grabbing both his elbows behind him and pulling his arms back like chicken wings. The pain was sharp; nearly blacked him out.

  The skinny one got up, recovered the gun, went over to the lamp. Switched it off. Then he walked to the door, opened it, peeked out, looked to the right, to the left, nodded to the bruiser, who kept hold of Crane’s elbows from behind and walked him out into the motel parking lot.

  The motel’s sign was off. There was no one around; it had to be three-thirty or four in the morning. Still, the two men were cautious. They walked him down to the place where the parking lot went around the back end of the building, where they had parked a battered old pick-up truck, with a couple of steel drums in the back, fifty-five-gallon barrels like the ones the waste had been dumped in.

  The skinny one lowered the tailgate and climbed up on the bed of the pick-up. Then the bruiser lifted Crane up to him, like a child from one parent to another, the bruiser’s hands on Crane’s waist, the skinny guy pulling Crane up and in by one arm, which hurt nearly as much as having his elbows yanked back. He felt an involuntary cry come out of him and get caught by the slash of tape across his mouth.

  Then the bruiser climbed up and locked Crane around the waist from behind and lifted him up and set him inside one of the steel drums.

  Crane just stood there, the rim coming up to his rib cage, and looked back at the masked faces of the trucker; for the first time he noticed how cold it was: he was in his T-shirt and jeans and it was fucking cold.

  Then the bruiser started pushing on Crane’s shoulders, shoving him down, and finally Crane got the picture: they wanted him down inside the drum. He resisted for a moment, but it was useless. He crouched within the drum, squeezing himself in, tucking his knees up between the loop of his arms, his hands bound at the wrist by rope, his knuckles scraping the steel of the drum. The steel of its rounded sides seemed to touch him everywhere, in fact, but still he managed to sit, the top of his head six inches or more from the top of the barrel, and he looked up.

  And saw the lid coming down.

  He couldn’t have felt more helpless. The sound of the lid being hammered down wasn’t really loud: they were tapping the lid in place with a pair of hammers, doing it easily, not wanting to attract attention; but he never heard anything louder. He never heard anything that echoed so.

  He stared up at total blackness.

  He sat in total silence.

  No, not total silence: there was his own breathing, a desperate, snorting sound, breathing through his nose. Already the air seemed stale. Already his muscles seemed cramped. Already claustrophobia was closing in.

  Then, another sound: the motor starting up.

  Hearing that sound, any sound, was almost reassuring to him.

  I’m not dead yet, he thought. I may be in a steel coffin, but I’m not dead yet.

  He heard the wheels of the pick-up grind against the gravel of the motel parking lot, then pull onto the street, and the ride began.

  Some of it—the first half hour—was on blacktop. The barrel swayed, on the turns, lifting off its bottom tilting just a bit, but never falling over, thanks to the balance he was providing. He began to feel numb. He began not to breathe so hard. The coldness stopped bothering him. He became almost lulled by the darkness, the blacktop road they were rolling over.

  Then they hit gravel again, and it was bumpy, and a chuckhole sent the drum clanging into the side of the pick-up and he cracked the side of his head and the pain sent some tears down his cheeks, but the pain wasn’t so bad, really. It was something to do.

  Is this what death is like? he wondered. Is it darkness? Is it lack of sensation? Coldness that stops being cold? Pain that stops hurting? Mary Beth, is this death? Boone—is this a coma?

  They were pulling in somewhere, slowing down.

  Stopping.

  Motor still going.

  The door on the rider’s side was opening. Someone was getting out. Footsteps on gravel. A gate opening, metallic sounding. Footsteps on gravel again. Back in the pick-up. Door closing.

  The pick-up was moving again. Slowly, now.

  Then it stopped.

  Both doors opened. Footsteps on hard earth. The tailgate was lowered. He heard one of the men hop up onto the bed of the pick-up.

  And tipped the barrel over. The side of his head slammed into the side of the drum, stunning him, and then they were rolling him, the barrel and him, and the metal of the pick-up bed and the metal of the drum clashed, and he held his neck muscles tight to keep his head from getting banged.

  They rolled him only to the edge of the pick-up, then set him down on the ground, rather gently actually.

  Then they were rolling him again, and he pulled his neck muscles in tight, but Christ, they were rolling him, rolling him, and he was getting dizzy, so dizzy…

  Then he felt himself, and the drum around him, go off the edge of something.

  It wasn’t a long drop. Maybe six feet. The side of him slammed into the side of the barrel, when it landed, but it didn’t hurt him. He didn’t feel it much. The drum seemed to be sitting at an angle, but he couldn’t be sure.

  Then he heard one of the men talking to the other. It was the first time he’d heard them speak, but he couldn’t make out any of what was being said.

  One of the men came down in the hole and straightened the barrel, so that it and Crane were sitting upright. Nice of him.

  A few minutes passed. Silence. A certain calm settled over him, as he sat in his drum, in his fetal position, waiting. Waiting for them to kill him.

  Then he heard it: something dropping on the top of the lid of the barrel, like rain. Then it was heavier, more like hail.

  Dirt.

  They were burying him.

  He tried to scream, but the tape across his mouth wouldn’t let him.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  He didn’t know how long he’d been buried. The truckers would be gone, by now. He was cold. The stale air seemed to cling to him; so did the darkness. He wondered how long he could last. How long before he would suffocate.

  His hands were almost free. He was gradually working one hand down through the knotted loop around his now rope-burned wrists, scraping his knuckles till they bled, which felt good to him, made him feel a little less dead, and then his hands were free and he tore the tape from his lips and began to yell.

  Someone would hear him. Someone had to hear.

  He yelled until his throat was raw, his voice a hoarse whisper, his ears ringing with the sound he’d made that only he’d heard.

  No one would hear him. Who was he kidding? The truckers had obviously dumped him in the country someplace. A landfill, maybe, judging from the sound of the gate that had been opened before the truck drove in to where he’d been dumped. And who would be around at a landfill before dawn, to hear him scream? Nobody. Whoever worked here might come around seven-thirty or eight, but that was hours away; would his air supply last that long? He didn’t suppose this thing was airtight, but then he’d heard them filling the hole around him with dirt, and he knew there was dirt over him: no, he’d suffocate before anybody found him. If they found him. Who was to say he’d ever be found at all? Just something else Kemco had buried and forgotten.

  He pushed at the lid above him. It seemed to give, a little. A very little, but it did give.

  They had hammered that lid down, but maybe he could push up on it and pop the seal, and then maybe he could work the lid off and push it to one side or pull it partially down in with him, and get at the dirt above him, and dig his way out. There couldn’t
be that much dirt over him; he hadn’t dropped that far. A foot or two. He could do it. He could do it.

  He pushed with both hands, fingers spread, putting his shoulders into it. And getting nowhere. Again. Harder. Longer.

  No.

  He sat trying to catch his breath, which wasn’t easy in this recycled air. He felt hot, despite the cold; his muscles started to hurt him again, his back was aching. But that was okay: it was better than numbness, and the numbness especially in his arms, was getting worked out.

  He put his hands above him, flat, and tried to get his leg muscles into it, tried to stand up, in effect; he pushed up with his legs and put the back of his shoulders up against the lid and his hands slid away and he shoved upward with his whole body.

  He kept trying till his body couldn’t do it anymore.

  And when he sat back down, a sob came out of him, which he quickly swallowed. He couldn’t allow himself that: he couldn’t let the situation control him; he had to control the situation. He would rest, and try again.

  He did, and failed.

  He started to cry.

  Then he began pummeling the lid above him with his fists, denting the metal. His knuckles began bleeding again. But he was in so restricted an area, a position, that his fists couldn’t do much damage, either to himself or the lid. The drum he was in ignored his efforts, his tantrum.

  He lowered his head. His shoulders slumped. He sobbed. Loud. Then soft. In some small compartment in his mind, the impartial observer in him sat and recorded it all, seeing it as if from outside, as if this were an experiment he were part of, or perhaps himself conducting, thinking: so this is despair. This is how despair feels. It isn’t just a word.

  He tried to think of what Mary Beth’s face looked like but he couldn’t bring the image into focus; couldn’t exactly remember. He couldn’t find her voice, either. And Boone. He tried to see Boone in his mind not in a coma but couldn’t. He couldn’t. He tried to remember what it was like not to be in this drum. He felt cold. He hugged his arms to himself. His chin touched his chest.

  He slept.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  He woke.

  He was in a hospital: he could smell it around him. He was in a hospital bed. The sheets felt cool. He felt a little groggy. He ached a little. He looked at his hands: they were bandaged.

  “Good morning,” a voice said.

  Crane turned his head slowly and looked at the man seated to his right, near his bed: a guy about thirty with thinning brown hair and gray-tinted glasses; he had on a tan sport jacket with a solid blue tie loose at the neck. He’d been reading a newspaper, waiting for Crane to come around, apparently.

  “What hospital is this?” Crane asked. His tongue felt thick.

  “Princeton General. In Princeton, New Jersey.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Hart. Sidney Hart.”

  Crane heard a moaning sound and glanced to his left: a plastic curtain separated him from the other patient in the room, who sounded old.

  He turned back to his visitor. “You… you’re with the Task Force.”

  “That’s right. Hazardous Waste Task Force. Here. Let me crank you up.” Hart leaned over and hit a switch; the bed hummed and lifted Crane into a sitting position.

  Hart didn’t sit back down. “You want anything? Something to drink?”

  “Uh. Some juice, maybe?”

  Hart rang for the nurse.

  While they waited, Crane asked, “Why aren’t I dead?”

  “Because nobody tried to kill you.”

  “What?”

  “The manager of a landfill a few miles out of Princeton found you in a fifty-five-gallon drum, about seven-thirty this morning. The drum was partially buried in a landfill ditch.”

  “Partially?”

  “The drum was covered with dirt on top, and filled in around the sides, but a good fourth of it was exposed to the air. And there were some nail holes in the side, to make sure you got some of that air. Right out in the open, at a busy dumping area.”

  The nurse came; Hart asked her to bring Crane some juice.

  “I don’t understand,” Crane said.

  Hart sat. “You better tell me about it.”

  Crane did, starting with getting pulled out of bed by the truckers; he didn’t mention baiting Kemco.

  “Somebody was trying to scare you,” Hart said.

  “They tried to kill me.”

  “No. I don’t envy you what you went through; but killing you wasn’t what it was about.”

  “Oh?”

  Hart shrugged. “They took precautions not to be identified, wore ski masks, never spoke. That indicates they expected you to live through it. So does providing you with air, and leaving the barrel where it couldn’t be missed.”

  “You’re not a regular cop. I want to see the regular cops. What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “You asked for me.”

  “I… did?”

  “In a manner of speaking. You were kind of delirious when they brought you in on the ambulance. But you gave them your name, and said ‘hazardous waste’ a couple of times, and that was enough to make them call us, in addition to the cops. I was the one who took the call, and I recognized your name. You’re the one involved with Anne Boone.”

  “Yes. And you’re the Task Force investigator she talked to.”

  “Yes. And I kept track of her.”

  “Then you know where she is now.”

  “In a coma, in a hospital. At Fair View.”

  “They tried to kill her, too.”

  “There’s no proof of that, Crane.”

  “Proof! Jesus! Can’t you see what’s going on? Can’t you fucking see it?”

  “I know what you think is going on. I know you think Kemco’s involved in some kind of cover-up, and that they’re having people killed.”

  “And making it look like suicide.”

  “Maybe you can explain what they had in mind when they faked your suicide, then. Were we supposed to believe you buried yourself in a barrel?”

  “No! No. I… don’t understand it.”

  “If Kemco really was having people killed, they’d have had you killed, too. Not gone to elaborate lengths to scare you off—if Kemco was behind that stunt.”

  “Scare me! Scare me.” He began to laugh. Then he covered his face with a bandaged hand.

  Hart stood and put a hand on Crane’s shoulder and Crane batted it away.

  The nurse came in and gave Crane orange juice and a careful look, Hart a reproving one, left.

  “Crane. If there’s a cover-up, what exactly’s being covered up? Some midnight hauling? Nobody’s going to get killed over that. If Kemco got caught at that, they could weather it.”

  “You don’t know, do you? You really don’t know.”

  “What?”

  “The landfills in Greenwood! The school, the playground, they’re built on landfills that Kemco gave the city, twenty years ago. Supposed to have nothing but harmless shit in it, but you know Kemco.”

  Hart pursed his lips. Then said, simply: “So?”

  “You talked to Boone. You know the statistics: miscarriages, birth defects, illnesses. Maybe the groundwater’s been contaminated. Maybe some foul shit is leaching out of twenty-year-old corroded drums and is in the fucking drinking water.”

  Hart shrugged again. “Possible. Landfills like that are potential hazards, all right, but certainly wouldn’t be anything Kemco would bother trying to cover up. Because you can’t cover up something like that. What you do is ignore it.”

  “You can’t ignore it. It’s your job to look for, what did you call it? Potential hazards?”

  “Crane, you got it all wrong. My job—the job of the Task Force—is to try to bust Kemco and other offenders in the act of illegal dumping. We got truckers who loosen their tank-truck valves and spill contaminants onto the roadsides. We got midnight haulers who steal a truck, load it up with drums, and leave it on a roadside or street. Our job is bustin
g these guys and cleaning up after them. We’ve got today to worry about, Crane. We can’t worry about yesterday. That’s not what we’re paid to do.”

  “Well, who is, then? The EPA?”

  “No. In fact, their unofficial policy is not to seek out hazardous situations.”

  “What? Why the hell not?”

  “Nobody wants to foot the bill, Crane. We’ve had sixty years of waste dumping in this country and that’s about how many billion it would take to clean it all up. Sell that to the public.”

  “That’s bullshit! The longer the wait, the more it’ll cost to clean that shit up!”

  Hart shrugged again. “It’s just not going to happen. Nobody in government can afford to go looking for another Love Canal. It’s too expensive. And there’s plenty of them out there, if you go looking. Officially, there’s around 800 ‘imminent hazard’ dump sites. Unofficially it’s more like thirty times that many.”

  “Jesus. Jesus.”

  “Why don’t you go home, Crane?”

  “No. This… this is just starting.”

  “It’s not starting or stopping. I know what I’m talking about, Crane. This is an ongoing thing. It doesn’t end.”

  “Everything ends.”

  “Go back to Iowa. You can take your cause with you, if you want. Go to Charles City, Iowa. That wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”

  “Charles City?”

  “Familiar with it?”

  “I have an aunt living there.”

  “Charles City. That’s where a small pharmaceuticals manufacturer dumped its wastes for years, into a landfill that for some time’s been leaching out arsenic, benzene and forty or fifty other poisons into the Cedar River. Know it?”

  “My parents have a cottage on the Cedar River.”

  “That’s nice. They’ll have a good view of the water source for eastern Iowa getting contaminated. Nothing much is being done to stop it: that small pharmaceuticals company doesn’t have the fifty million or so it’ll take to fix. You want to help fight this fight? Go home. Fight it there. I’ll work on New Jersey, thanks.”