by Nick Adams
“You’re threatening me?”
“You know anything about history?”
“Of course.”
“Then you should go away. Traditionally people your size have survived by avoiding people my size.”
He stopped smiling. Looked me up and down. Didn’t appear optimistic. Then turned and walked off looking at his smartphone.
I looked back at the bulldog hybrid.
“May I please get by now?” she said.
“Now you’re being polite? That’s funny. Most people try that route first.”
She took a deep breath and sighed heavily. I was waiting for her to snarl and show her teeth.
I stood aside. Made a sarcastic gesture. This way, your majesty. Then I got out my phone and acted like I was recording her. She glared at me and then looked ahead, marching along. Maybe she was out shopping for a new personality. Hopefully she’d find one.
The guy in the nice sweater was standing before a laundromat, watching us both. Watching Miss Bulldog jerk the leash and snap her dog’s neck every five steps. It was a slight improvement from when I’d first seen her. At least now she was trying to hold the leash at a steady length.
I turned and went to my van. Opened the slider and let Frank out. No leash. He greeted me with typical glee. I made him sit. Then shake. Gave him a cookie from my pocket. The guy in the sweater watched the whole scene. I looked at him and he gave me a subtle nod. Like, “Yeah, I see your point now.”
“We’re making a difference,” I told Frank. “One dipshit at a time.”
Frank wagged his tail and panted. I took it to mean that he agreed with me completely, though in reality I admit that Frank doesn’t even know which state he lives in.
We got in the van and I pulled out of the parking spot and went up the street half a mile. Kendra was waiting at the end of a side street. I followed her for a few minutes through a windy subdivision. The houses weren’t large and fancy, but they were well kept. In all it was a nice neighborhood of working class stiffs. Average folks.
Kendra pulled in and parked before a ranch with tan vinyl siding. The yard was decent and the house was small but nice. There was an older Ford Explorer parked up by a single garage bay. It was midnight blue. Almost black.
“Bring Frank in,” she called as I parked and stepped out. “My dad will get a kick out of him.”
I opened the slider and Frank jumped out. After a brief sniffing session he marked a young birch tree in the front yard as his own and then followed us into the house.
My first impression of the place was good. There was nothing super fancy about the interior. But I could tell that they cared about their place. It was neat and clean. It was a home. Nothing like the hellhole I’d ventured into that morning.
We entered into a kitchen area and Kendra set her purse on the counter. Frank rushed into the living room, off to my right, and before I got a look at her father, I heard him say, “Holy smoke, look at the size of you!”
“See,” Kendra smiled. “Told you he’d love him.”
I nodded and followed her into the living room. It was clean and in order. There was decent furniture, tables and lamps. A nice TV mounted on the wall. On the far right there was a brick fireplace with a wooden mantle. On the mantle there were pictures of Kendra at various ages, a small picture of a black lab, and at the end of the row a lone picture of a proud man in fatigues. He was young and rugged and tanned. Holding an M16 as he stared at the camera through sunglasses. He was leaning against a Humvee somewhere in the desert. He had a short-trimmed mustache and there was a very faint hint of a grin in the corner of his mouth. Like he was a boy in a man’s body living a wild adventure.
“Dad, this is Evan,” Kendra said.
He said, “So you’re the mean Ace Ventura I’ve been hearing about.”
I looked from the picture on the mantel to the man addressing me. He was a shadow of the man in the photo. His hair was styled like Clark Kent, but that’s where the similarities ended. This man was gaunt and frail and his hair was thinning. His shoulders and knees and elbows made obvious points beneath his clothing. Almost like a scarecrow without enough stuffing. There were deep creases running from his cheeks to his jawline, like age lines in a much older man’s face. He still had the mustache, but it was longer now and going gray. Wearing faded jeans with a flannel shirt tucked in, he was seated beside a cylindrical oxygen tank with a hose leading to a mask. The mask rested an arm’s length away, hooked to an end table.
All at once I understood the big picture from Kendra’s perspective. Nothing she’d told me could have made it any clearer. Her family was small to begin with. The loss of Simon had severed one third of that small unit. And judging by the looks of her father, she didn’t have many more years before she’d be left with nothing but that picture on the mantle.
“Charles Cole,” he said as he stood slowly and extended his hand.
I stepped over and peeled off my gloves and jammed them in my pocket and wiped my hands on my pants and then shook his hand surely without squeezing too firmly. His knuckles seemed enlarged, like with rheumatism. There was no flesh to soften his palms. I could sense all the bones and tendons individually as they worked to grip my larger hand.
“Evan Warner.”
We let go after our quick shake and I stepped back.
“That was your family’s place on the news last night?” he said.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“You put a stop to it, though. That’s all the fortune anyone will remember.”
“I had help from my buddy here.”
Charles Cole had made fast friends with Frank after being assaulted with good will and tail wags. Now he sat back down and let Frank lean on his leg. He ran his hand through Frank’s mane and across his broad hackles admiringly.
“I wouldn’t want this guy chasing me,” he said. “Stick some tusks on him and he’d look like a woolly mammoth.”
“He’s a big mush,” Kendra said.
“I still wouldn’t want him mad at me.”
“I brought you lunch,” she said next. “Come out to the kitchen and eat. I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”
He looked at me grinning and said, “By lunch I hope you don’t mean another one of those green health smoothies.”
I made a sympathetic face.
“It’s a nice veggie sub,” Kendra said from the kitchen. “I’m meeting you halfway.”
Charles whispered, “She’s got me on some anti-inflammatory diet. Mostly drywall and bitter greens.”
“Brutal,” I returned under my breath.
“Poor kid thinks she’s gonna pull me back from the inevitable with rabbit food.”
I smiled ironically. Didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t blame Kendra for trying. And couldn’t blame him for his doubt.
Charles stood up carefully and took a cane that had been leaning on the end table. I motioned Frank into the kitchen ahead of us. I didn’t want him bumping into Charles. We walked to the kitchen and I waited for him to choose a chair before I took one. It was like watching my grandfather move in his final years. With loss of muscle comes the loss of balance and stability. Followed by the loss of freedom and dignity. A short walk to a neighboring room must be undertaken with frustrating caution in order to prevent a fall and subsequent injury.
Frank went straight to Kendra’s side. She remarked that she wasn’t used to having a dog in the house who could easily rest his chin on the counter while remaining on all fours. She gave him a treat from a jar on the counter. Then a second treat. Then finished pouring water into the coffee maker and turned around to face us and leaned against the counter.
I looked at her and saw what I took to be a hopeful expression. She already knew my stance. I had signed up to find Simon and that’s what I was going to do. But it meant something to her to have her father’s approval. I couldn’t fault her for that. They obviously functioned as a team. She needed him to be on board with me.
But Kendra wasn’t the only one with a
plan.
Once I was seated, I broke the silence by asking about the Ace Ventura comment.
Kendra laughed. “That wasn’t me. I told him you loved dogs. He made up the rest on his own.”
“Guilty,” Charles said, and I could detect the same hint of a grin I’d observed in his picture. I could also hear that he was winded from the short walk.
“I guess it’s not a terribly inaccurate description,” I said.
“She told me you were an intimidating guy who seemed genuinely concerned about Simon. Almost like you took it personally. The rest was just my sense of humor. You need a sense of humor to handle this life. If nothing else, I’ve learned that lesson well.”
“Speaking of humor,” I said. “Kendra tells me you’re a fellow admirer of Bob Wiley.”
He nodded, smiling. “That’s one of my all-time favorites. Bill Murray and Chevy Chase made some great stuff back in the day. Ah, the comedians nowadays just don’t do it for me. Stupid and crude aren’t the same as funny.”
“What about Anchorman?” I asked.
Kendra groaned and made her pretty face ugly, like she smelled a skunk.
“Pretty good,” Charles said. “Will Ferrell’s pretty darn funny. Will and Jim Carey are about the best we have left nowadays.”
“You gotta like Dumb & Dumber.”
“I do, I do.”
“Liar, Liar?”
“Please. One of the best.”
“Do you watch war movies, Evan?” Kendra asked.
“The realistic ones, yeah. Not much of the superhero stuff.”
“Then you guys will have tons to talk about,” she said. “He’ll sit up way past midnight watching war movies and documentaries. I have to send him to bed like a little kid when I get home from work.”
Charles made eye contact with me and I understood without a word the actual reason for his late nights. Kendra was his life. Just as he was her life. No way could he get to sleep in peace until she was home for the night.
“Russel Pond,” he said next. “That’s over on one twenty-seven, headed toward the state fair?”
“That’s it.”
“I know the place but haven’t been over in years. Way back in the day, my father used to take me fishing over there.” He smiled. “Nice spot. But we never did catch any brook trout.”
“You’ll be glad to know we have it stocked now.”
He nodded approvingly.
“It’s actually not a natural pond,” I explained. “It started out as a test quarry, way back. Evidently Mr. Russell found more spring water veins than granite. He moved on to greener pastures, and the pond kept getting bigger with each spring melt. His grandchildren finally sold the land to my parents back in the eighties. They built the campground up slowly over time.”
“About how many acres is that?”
“Almost four hundred.”
Charles whistled. “I wouldn’t want their property taxes.”
“I wouldn’t want to write the check.”
“Must be worth it, though.”
“Yeah,” I confirmed. “It was a risk in the beginning. The first few years were kind of iffy. But now everything’s good. We just have to keep criminal activities to a minimum. That’s bad press.”
Kendra set the three steaming mugs on the table. She set out some sort of organic sweetener and a carton of cream and then took a chair. Frank got comfortable by my feet. No one said it, but the time to address the real issue had arrived.
25
“About those Franklin boys,” Charles began. He used both of his arthritic hands to steady his coffee mug.
“They’ve been dealt with,” I said.
“They sold Simon to some other guy,” Kendra said. “And as it turns out, the buyer is someone Evan knows.”
“Really?”
I nodded.
Charles hesitated. “You said they’ve been dealt with. Dare I ask?”
“There was an accident.”
They both stared at me. Kendra raised her eyebrows, waiting for more.
“One of their fighting dogs turned on them,” I said. “It’s a risky business they’ve been running. Only a matter of time before something happened.”
“So …” Kendra began.
“It got ugly,” I said. “As a result, the Bensons should be out of commission for a while.”
They both stared.
I said, “When they get released from the hospital, hopefully they’ll be charged with felony animal abuse. I found pictures of their little science projects in the basement. Dogs, cats, squirrels. All cut to pieces like amateur autopsies. That’s on top of steeling dogs and fighting them. No telling what else they’re into.”
“Christ,” Charles muttered.
“Sickos,” Kendra chimed.
“Sometimes bad things happen to complete assholes.”
“Most people don’t like their own medicine,” Charles said.
I nodded, said, “Just to be clear, I’m not claiming that what I did was completely right. But I think it had to be done.”
“Right and wrong can get a little hazy in some cases,” Charles said. “That’s the nature of dirty jobs.”
“Someone has to do them. Someone has to clean up the trash.”
No one said anything.
I resumed, “The older brother is a parasitic thug. The younger one is even worse. A serial killer in the making, working his way up to bigger game. It was only a matter of time before he got bold enough to hack up a kid.”
The kitchen was quiet for a long five seconds.
“You know,” Charles said with obvious discomfort, “Franklin’s police isn’t exactly the finest department around. There’s a chance—”
“If those boys don’t get locked up, they’ll have to be dealt with. Simple as that. But that’s not today’s problem.”
Father and daughter looked at each other briefly. Then back at me.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, building momentum. “You’re nice people and I’ll shoot you straight. I don’t seek anyone’s approval. I’m not running for office here. My conscience and my instincts guide me. That’s it. I’ve been accused of being overly aggressive in the past and I’m sure it’ll happen again. Plenty of people like having someone like me around when a kid is being kidnapped. But then there’s always someone that thinks fire should never be fought with fire. That unreasonable people should be painstakingly reasoned with.”
I took a breath. “Bullshit. That’s not how I think or how I operate. I’m not a sheep. I refuse to live like one. And I refuse to stand by while predators rip other people’s lives apart. If there’s shit to deal with, I’d rather get to it and get it over with.”
I paused a beat and asked, “You want Simon back, don’t you?”
They both answered yes at once.
“So I’ll get him tonight. End of story.”
Silence.
I looked at Kendra. “No need for you to get your hands dirty.”
“I don’t doubt you,” she said. “But I don’t want to sit here wondering. I lost him, and I want to help get him back.”
Charles said to his daughter, “I think Mr. Warner has spoken his mind very clearly.”
“Neither of you are listening to me,” she replied. “I’m saying I want to help.”
“I hear you, Kendra,” I said, keeping my voice low and steady, so as not to add fuel to the emotions. “I respect your attitude a lot more than some whiney princess demanding service. But I’m being perfectly straight with you here. Just stay clear until I’ve got Simon. If not for your own sake, do it for your father.”
Charles Cole reached across the table and placed his hand over his daughter’s clenched hands.
“Honey,” he said. “No one is blaming you.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“Our friend here appears to be a no nonsense sort of guy. Obviously he likes to work by himself. We can best help him by stepping aside and letting him handle things his own way. As thanks
, we owe him that much at least.”
I added nothing. Charles had summed it up well enough.
Kendra looked at me for a long moment. I could see her mind racing to regain control of the situation. She had wanted me to set her father at ease about the course of action and obviously she hoped that he’d waver and side with her. I’d stopped a kidnapping. I had a strong physical presence. It would be enough to get him on board with me. Then she could do what she felt compelled to do with a clear conscience.
But it hadn’t worked quite like she’d hoped. He hadn’t sided with her. Now she was outnumbered. Reeling and fighting to regroup and come at me from a different angle.
“You mentioned your cousin,” she said. “Can I at least go and wait with him? That way I can be there when you come back with Simon.”
“It would be best if I left Simon on your doorstep and you forget we ever met. I’m breaking the law here, at a point where it fails to protect those who can’t defend themselves. But it’s still illegal. I’m a believer in the rule of law, so I don’t break it lightly. No need for you to break it with me.”
“But we’re already involved,” Kendra said. “Look, here we are discussing it.”
“Hearsay,” I returned. “Maybe I’ve made everything up. Maybe I’ve done nothing at all and I’m just full of it, right up to my ears. You don’t know me well enough to tell the difference.”
They both stared back at me. I had entered their home on friendly terms and entertained their small talk. As I’ve learned to do over the years, I had adapted my disposition to the situation as quickly and easily as if flipping a switch. Friendly at first. Dead serious when necessary. None of it was act. I meant every word. And they knew it. My firm tone followed by my cold stare drove that point home to them.
“I see,” Charles said quietly.
“Good,” I said, looking from him to his daughter. “If you disapprove of my tactics, find a meaner guy to stop me. Sick the cops on me. See if you get your dog back.”
The room was quiet. Tense.
I drained my coffee and stood up and roused Frank. My work there was done.
“So that’s it?” Kendra said, standing fast.
“Nice meeting you,” I said to Charles.
