The Listener

by Robert McCammon

  Sitting in the car next to Clay Hartley with her mouth full of cotton, her eyes blinded and her hands bound, Nilla tried as hard as she could to focus on speaking to Curtis through her terror. :Curtis, are you there?:

  He didn’t respond. :Curtis? Please answer.: She felt a sob rise up in her throat; the sticky black tape had gone around her head and over both ears and all she could hear at the moment was the roar of her own blood rushing through the veins.

  Then, after what seemed an agonizingly long time…:I’m here, Nilla. You’re soundin’ weak…real far away.:

  :I’m so tired…my head aches something awful. Are you still with my daddy?:

  :Yes. He’s takin’ me back to your house. I’m gonna stay with him ’til you get home.:

  :They’ve put cotton in our mouths and over our eyes. They’ve got us taped up, I can’t see anything. Oh, Curtis…my mama…she’s going to be so worried.:

  :Your daddy told me so. He said he doesn’t know how she’s gonna take this, but he has to tell her as soon as we get there.:

  :I’m about to start crying. I can’t do that…I just can’t. If I start…I don’t know if I can stop. Tell me something good, Curtis…something good so I won’t cry,: she said.

  :Well…I never asked you that question, about what you wanted to be when you grow up. How come you’d like to be a nurse?:

  She had to make herself swallow the sob, and it went down like a lump of coal. :I like studying health,: she sent to him. :It’s my best subject in school.:

  :That’s a fine ambition,: Curtis replied. :Always need good nurses, I suspect. Who knows? Maybe along the way you might decide to be a doctor.:

  :Being a doctor…seems like it would be awful hard to…OH!: she said, with an intensity that caused her head to ache even worse. :The car door slammed! Now…they’re getting in…the engine’s starting. We’re moving again!:

  :All right, Nilla. I’m gonna tell your daddy what’s happenin’. You’re soundin’ kinda weak and I think it’s ’cause you’ve got all this in your head. Just remember…I’m here and your daddy’s here, and he’s told me he’s workin’ on gettin’ those people the money they want, then it’ll all be over and that’ll be real soon.:

  :All right,: she said, and she nodded but again the storm of tears was threatening. :All right, I’ll remember.:

  “What’d you nod your head for?” It was Donnie’s voice, harsh and loud. “I didn’t ask you anythin’. You! Girlie! I’m talkin’ to you!” She felt something hard prod her shoulder and realized it must be the gun’s barrel.

  “She can’t answer,” Ginger said quietly. And added: “Fool.” She was following Pearly in the Ford ahead, as they turned to the right onto the rainswept main road.

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, hell…she nodded like she was…I don’t know…listenin’ to somethin’. Weird.”

  “Stop wavin’ that gat around and sit tight. In about three minutes I want Hartley’s head pushed down. Nobody’ll see the kids. You listen for when I tell you, and do it quick.”

  “Yes, master sergeant ma’am,” Donnie said, and he gave both a salute and a blast of a forced laugh that blew a flying tendril of snot out of his right nostril.

  ****

  In the Ford leading the kidnap parade, Pearly was still burnt up over taking a shellacking from the enraged woman. Sure, he knew he’d given Ludenmere an extra day and that could be a dangerous thing, but the added fifteen thousand meant something…didn’t it?

  “Hell with it,” he said, and watched the community of Kenner come up through the woods.

  They were on Sawmill Road, the main road into town. Other dirt and gravel roads led off to the right going to various cabins and fishing camps. About a half-mile from where they’d pulled off to bind up the kids and Hartley—an act that Ginger had said they needed to do to assert their control over the victims and keep them docile driving through town—was a wooden board on a pole indicating Sandusky Road, and at the end of that would be the fishing pier they’d scouted out as the money-drop location.

  Here and there along Sawmill Road stood rustic cabins, some so rustic they looked as if they’d been uninhabited since the Civil War. Pearly thought that Kenner might be a town with a future, as the sign back there had said, but the future was yet a long ways off. The thick pine and scrub woods gave way to a railroad siding on the left where a few worn-looking boxcars languished waiting to be called to service, followed in a hundred yards by a small gas station, then a cemetery, a white stone church, a few brick or wooden houses, and a business district of about two blocks. A couple of other cars passed and a haywagon was on the road, but other than that Kenner was asleep in the drowsy rain. Pearly passed a cafe, a hardware store, a place with a sign that said Evie’s “Everything” Shoppe, a brick structure that was half-finished and had a wheelbarrow of bricks out front but no workers visible, a squat little building that might have served as the town hall next to a so-called park where grass was as sparse as hair on a bald head, a few more houses and that was Kenner.

  Again the woods closed in. Here and there another road led off to the right, heading to more fishing cabins on the Pontchartrain. Pearly was a little more than a quarter mile from crossing over Jefferson Parish into St. Charles Parish when he slowed at a road marked only by four round and rusted cannonballs piled up and sealed together in the chickweeds. Cannonball Road, they’re gonna name it soon as they get the papers done, the man at the rental office in Metairie had said. Yep, the fishin’ is real good out that way but the swamp’s your nextdoor neighbor so keep your snakestick handy, you go out strollin’.

  We’ll do that, Pearly had told the man, as Ginger and Donnie had waited in the car outside.

  Hope to catch some big fish the next few days, but the point is to scout this area and look for investments. Time seems to be right to put some money down on land up in there.

  Sounds like a plan. Sorry I can’t rent you a cabin with indoor plumbin’ and electricity. Then again…none of ’em’s got any of that. If you’re interested, I got a marina for sale at Boar’s Head Point…took some damage in that last blow we had, but for eight hundred bucks you could clean it up and call y’self an admiral.

  I’ll get back to you on that, Pearly had said, wanting to finish the business of renting the cabin for two dollars a day—cash in advance, three day minimum—and get out of there as fast as possible.

  He took the right turn onto Cannonball Road, drove between pine forest through several mud puddles, and pulled up alongside a cabin with wood so weathered it had turned nearly black and as shiny in the wet as fresh tar. The tin roof looked like it had barely survived a hailstorm of boulders. Weeping willow trees overhung the place and the broken remnants of scraggly pines nearer the lake showed that the last blow had indeed been a whopper. An outhouse stood behind the cabin and a path led over a four-foot-high mound of earth to the fishing pier, which Pearly had already seen had a precarious lean to the left. Beside the pier was a waist-high oak stump where the fish were cleaned, and nearby a firepit to cook up the finnies. The place was a far holler from the Lafayette Hotel and it made the King Louis look like a dreamboat…but they were alone out here in the sticks, and that was all that mattered.

  Ginger pulled up in the Olds. She and Donnie got out and then began the task of herding Hartley and the children out of the car and marching them to the cabin. On the way, Little Jack fell down and Donnie jerked him up by the collar and gave him a shake before shoving him on.

  As he entered the cabin with the bag of groceries, Pearly thought the fishermen who rented this dismal hole either liked punishment or were too cheap to buy a fifteen-cent French Quarter trout. The front room was furnished only with a few wicker chairs, a knife-scarred table and on the floor a worn-out brown throwrug made of coiled rope. In what passed as a kitchen there was a small wood-burning stove, a green formica-topped table and four chairs, some cabinets holding plates, cups and saucers, a tarnished coffee pot and a tray of silverware. The bare-mattressed cot and pillo
w that Donnie had slept on last night was beside a door at the rear of the place, which led to a screened-in porch, a screened door and a couple of wooden steps going down to the yard. Two other rooms were behind closed doors on the right and the left, both of them little more than good-sized closets. In the room on the right was a bunkbed and a small desk. The room on the left had been prepared for the new arrivals. A pair of oil lamps sat on the scarred table, along with a bull’s-eye lantern and a regular flashlight. The windows were curtained with a pattern of sea anchors and leaping marlin, cutting what light there was to a gray haze. The whole place smelled to Pearly like the lake had more than once flooded over the pitiful levee and left its brackish mud between the rough floorboards, which was likely true.

  “Keep movin’,” Ginger said, and pushed Hartley when he stopped. “Donnie, open the door for ’em. Pearly, bring a flashlight in.”

  He put the grocery bag on the table and did as she asked. The room they were being herded into was completely bare except for a wooden bucket in a corner. The single window had been boarded up both inside and outside, the nails sunken deeply so no fingers however desperate and bloody could work them out.

  “Take their blindfolds and gags off,” she told Donnie. “Do it easy, don’t tear anythin’. Pearly, keep that light in their eyes.”

  Donnie tucked the chauffeur’s pistol into his waistband and went about the work, which turned out to be such a mess that after the cotton was removed the wads of tape had to be cut out of their hair with the kitchen knife, a process that made Hartley and the children stand as still as statues and Little Jack’s eyes widen with terror in his mud-streaked face.

  “Leave the wrist-bindin’s on,” Ginger directed when Donnie had finished. Then, to Hartley: “Welcome to your new home for the next couple of nights. It’s not what you’re used to, I’m guessin’, but it’s all we got. If Mr. Ludenmere is a good boy you’ll be out of here soon, and we’re figurin’ he’ll be a real good boy.”

  “It stinks in here even worse than that man’s breath,” said Little Jack, who had regained some of his fire. Nilla nudged him with an elbow to keep his mouth shut, but she knew that was like trying to put a cork in a beehive.

  “It likely won’t smell any sweeter,” Ginger answered, with a soft and heartless smile. “Your bucket over there is what you get. There won’t be much light in here during the day, and none after dark. You’ll sleep on the floor, if you care to sleep. Hartley, you see this door?”

  “I see it,” he said.

  “There’s no lock on it. Now…we didn’t expect you to stay overnight…so…we’re gonna up-end that table and prop it against the door, and any little wiggle we see or skreechy noises we hear, we’re not gonna like.”

  Hartley said, “The children are worth money. You won’t hurt them.”

  “Well, you’re right and wrong about that. We won’t kill ’em, is what you mean to say. Now you…you’re not worth a motherfuckin’ dime, is what I figure. In fact, you’re just dead weight already, aren’t you?”

  Hartley didn’t reply, because he knew how true the woman’s words were.

  Nilla spoke up, though her heart was beating hard and she felt like she might fall down any minute and curl up into a whimpering ball. “Mr. Parr, I thought you were my daddy’s friend.”

  It took him a few seconds to formulate an answer. “Kid, my friends are in your daddy’s wallet, and I want all of ’em I can get. It won’t be too long ’til I’ve got a load of new friends in my pockets. Then it’ll all be over and you can go home.”

  “Sure,” Ginger replied, in a voice that sounded listless. “Like he said.”

  “Put that light on the fucker’s face,” Donnie said, and he reached over to grasp Pearly’s wrist and aim the flashlight’s beam. “Look at how that damn eye shines! Weird…he squints with the good eye but the other one don’t flinch.”

  “We’ve done enough,” said Ginger. “Let’s leave ’em be for now.”

  “Wait…wait. That damn eye gives me the fuckin’ creeps. How am I gonna sleep out there tonight knowin’ this thing is in here?”

  “You’ll just have to tough it out.”

  “Tough it out, my ass. I’m takin’ it.” Donnie drew the pistol from his waistband and took a step toward Hartley. Instantly the chauffeur retreated.

  “Donnie! Come on, I said!”

  “AND I SAID I’M TAKIN’ IT!” the young man bellowed, and when Pearly aimed the light at Donnie he saw a face contorted with hatred and rage, the crimson blood spreading up from the thick neck in an instant to swell the cheeks and lips and put a reddish gleam in the slits of the eyes. “HEAR ME?” he challenged. There seemed to pass a long moment of terrible silence broken only by the harsh rasp of Donnie’s breathing and the patter of new rain on the tin roof. Nilla pressed close against her brother and in her mind spoke not to Curtis but to God, Help us, please help us.

  “All right, Heinz,” Ginger said soothingly, as if she were trying to calm a wild beast. “All right, take it easy. Go ahead and do it, if it’s what you want.”

  “It is.” With those two words he rushed upon Hartley, put the pistol to the side of the man’s head and clasped his free hand to Hartley’s left eyesocket. Hartley shivered, but he did not fight.

  The hand worked and worked, and Pearly found himself keeping the light aimed at the drama because there was a mad sickness to it that fascinated him. It was like watching an ultimate violation, for one man to pluck the eye of another. Hartley gave a gasp, there was a damp sucking sound, and when Donnie’s hand came away the wet red hole in the chauffeur’s face was a ghastly sight…yet to Pearly, it was a show of power over another human being that he could not help but appreciate.

  “Okay, you happy now?” Ginger asked.

  “Sure am.” Donnie’s voice was a little giddy. He opened his fist to let the glass eye shine in the flashlight’s beam. “Thing’s still warm.” He closed his fist around it again, held it up to his ear and shook it as if expecting it to give off a rattle.

  Ginger left the room and Donnie followed with his new prize. Pearly swept his light over the fearful faces of the children and the one-eyed face of Clay Hartley. “Just settle down and don’t cause us any trouble,” he told them. “The quicker this is over, the better.” He backed out of the room and closed the door.

  A single crack of light crept between the boards in the prison room, but that was all the illumination they were going to get. Nilla was aware of Mr. Hartley just standing there motionless, and then she made out that his bound hands came up and the fingers touched gently around the gaping hole where his eye had been.

  “Sorry, children.” His voice was as hoarse as if he’d been shouting for an hour against hurricane winds. “That wasn’t too pleasant, was it?”

  “Did it hurt?” Little Jack asked.

  “Not too much.”

  “I shoulda kicked that man harder.”

  “Listen to me, both of you,” Hartley said sternly. “Do not aggravate these people. Do you know what that word means?”

  “I do,” said Nilla. And for her brother’s benefit she added, “Not to get them riled up.”

  “Correct. We’ll have to stay the night, but we’ll likely get out of here soon. We’ll make do, won’t we?”

  “Yes sir,” both of them replied, Nilla more positively than Little Jack.

  “It’s so dark in here,” Little Jack said. “And I’ve gotta pee somethin’ awful.”

  “Bucket’s in the corner,” Hartley answered. “If you miss it, I don’t think anybody’ll mind.”

  “You mean…I’ve gotta pee in front of my sister?”

  “Yep. Good thing it’s so dark in here, huh?”

  “Oh go on, Little Jack,” said Nilla. “Don’t be a baby about it.”

  “I’ll pee on you if I’ve got a mind to.”

  “Go use the bucket,” Hartley said. “Go on, it’s only about three steps over there.”

  Little Jack went over to it with a grudging step an
d a sigh of resignation.

  Nilla sat down on the floor in the far corner. She leaned back against the wall, closed her eyes and tried to imagine herself sitting in her room at the house, but her imagination wasn’t that refined. :Curtis?: she sent out.

  He came back almost at once. :I’m here.:

  :Where are you?:

  :I’m with your daddy at the house. Never been in a place like this before, ’bout took my breath away. Your daddy’s gone to talk to your mama. Where are you?:

  :In a room in a terrible old cabin. There’s no light in here. That man—Donnie—took Mr. Hartley’s glass eye out. I think he’s crazy. He got so mad his face went red…and the woman called him Heinz. I guess because of the ketchup.:

  Curtis did not reply.

  :You still there?: she asked.

  :Yes. You say she called him Heinz?:

  :Yes.:

  :That’s funny,: Curtis said. :Not in a laughin’ way, but funny.:

  :There’s nothing to laugh about here. I feel like crying but I can’t, not in front of Little Jack.:

  :Do you have any idea where the cabin is?:

  :I don’t know if we’re in Kenner or past it. After they put the cotton and tape over our eyes they drove for what seemed like another fifteen minutes, but we only made the one right turn.:

  :So you must be on the lake side,: he said. :Probably past the town.:

  :Maybe, I don’t—:

  Her concentration was interrupted by a thunderous hammering on the door that caused her to catch her breath and jump so hard she hurt her back against the rough boards.

  “Y’all don’t get too comfortable in there,” Donnie said beyond the door, and he laughed like a gunshot.

  Eighteen.

  Heinz, Curtis thought as he sat in an overstuffed chair in the Ludenmere’s palatial parlor.

  He remembered a young white man who had bumped into him at Union Station and whose face had gone ketchup-red with anger. There had been a woman and another man with him, and the woman had called the angry gent Heinz. The same trio who had kidnapped Nilla and Little Jack? Bad people travelled by train just as well as good people, so—