Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  “I appreciate your telling me. And I hope it’ll be a feather in your cap. You’ve been a blessing where I’m concerned.”

  “Oh, I’m sure they’ll arrange a big press conference and news release and everyone will smoke cigars. White-collar arrest—shows the world justice is blind to money and power. The dope dealers and peckerwoods can’t scream discrimination. The bread and circuses will continue as scheduled.”

  “Well, thank you for everything. You’re the sort of fair and smart person who should be doing this stuff.”

  “Some people think so,” she said.

  “Could I buy you lunch?” he asked. “I’d be honored.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather not.”

  “I understand.” There was no mistaking her message or her words: he was a criminal and she was a prosecutor, and the twain would never meet.

  She pivoted toward her papers and files, then delayed at the gap in the railing. “You realize everything has tentacles, Mr. King. Blowback and spillage. Consequences. That’s the first rule of what I do. See what happens when a husband hits his wife? When a prick like Karl Dillen tries to hijack the system and avoid responsibility? The ripples? See how innocent people can get drowned in the wake? It’s physics, a Newtonian by-product. I hope you’ve learned something, being both a cause and an effect.”

  Joel worked an eight-hour shift at the Station that evening, and when he arrived home to his basement, he undressed and prayed, thanked the Lord for His aid and wisdom. But for some reason this salvation felt superficial and joyless, banal, along the lines of a fast-food hamburger or prostitute’s seduction. There was no milk and honey, no contentment in his soul, no sense that he’d been restored to grace. Despite having put his house in order as divinely instructed, he felt as foreign and rootless as ever.

  On a more mundane level, the conclusion to his travails struck him as too neat and staid, a plodding, anticlimactic slog that withered at the finale rather than erupting. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected—maybe Sa’ad in handcuffs kicking and screaming, maybe Hobbes and Lynette on the national news with the priceless art, maybe his sister happily blubbering over her reward check—but certainly there needed to be more than snippets of information regarding half-baked successes and the suggestion that a wife-beater might, but probably wouldn’t, mend his habits.

  He repeatedly tried praying, beseeched Heaven for relief, and he fell asleep the night after Karl’s trial and dreamt of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, dwelling on the space between the finger of man and the finger of God, an infinitesimal separation that seemed as immense as a continent. Joel dreamed he was standing on the floor of the Sistine Chapel, and he saw the painted Adam convulse, withdraw his hand from the cloud of cherubs and omnipotent prospects of the Lord, and lo and behold if the first man didn’t fall from the ceiling, come hurtling and flailing to the ground, splat.

  Joel continued to wash dishes and spray pots at the Station, and he had bookings every weekend in June, rowed fishermen from seven to five and sipped coffee with Dixon in the mornings. He had a short float the last Sunday in June, was finished by two o’clock, and he and Dixon took Baker to a deep, emerald hole on the Clark Fork, let the child fish with bait and kill two chunky cutthroats. Jack Howard didn’t utter a peep when Joel omitted the thirty extortion dollars from his monthly probation payment and didn’t antagonize him with asinine questions and crude stories, aware as he was of Joel’s connections to the county attorney’s office and his importance in a major FBI case.

  The hen hatched seven chicks, Sophie and Raleigh went camping at Yellowstone and Joel scratched off days on a calendar with a felt marker, circled August fifth in red. Time eventually became satisfying and rewarding, made quintessential because it would soon expire, but he never was completely able to shake the feeling he was missing something critical, sensed that he hadn’t altogether gained the Lord’s favor. He had the Adam nightmare again, and one night he dreamed he was in the Roanoke jail, lying on a cot while Kenny and Watkins Hudson bickered and talked about making moonshine whiskey.

  July Fourth, Joel grilled hot dogs on a hibachi while Raleigh’s son and Baker played with a water hose and pedaled their bikes up and down the drive and raced around the house. Joel wore an apron that said “The Cook Is Always Right,” made vinegary coleslaw from scratch and told Raleigh a funny anecdote about Sophie’s senior prom. Sophie and Raleigh drank too much beer and became giggly and punchy. They watched the moon ascend and teeter on the Bitterroot, like one of those blue yard-ornament spheres on a concrete pedestal, Raleigh suggested, his speech thick, delighted. Sophie told him he wasn’t shit as a poet, and the three of them busted a gut laughing and ended the night with bottle rockets and sparklers.

  The next morning, Detective Hubbard phoned from Virginia and gave Sophie a message for Joel. They’d located Christy, and she was unharmed, so Joel was no longer under suspicion. The hornswoggling with Christy was a loose end of sorts, but Joel couldn’t see where he had any exposure there. It was fortunate for him—another of the Lord’s protections—that she’d skipped with his half of the take, because Sophie didn’t want the money anyway, would never accept it, and now he didn’t have to worry about being arrested for his role in another fraud conspiracy.

  He’d occasionally considered Christy and her betrayal, had been plagued by her face and voice as he was unloading the boat at the Saint Regis put-in or tending to a tub of dirty dishes or following a kingfisher’s balletic arc from tree to river to tree. She came and went at will, always uninvited and unexpected. Early on, after his Roanoke deposition, he’d allowed himself to imagine her arriving in Missoula, a suitcase pregnant with cash banging against her thigh as she lugged it from her car to Sophie’s porch. He’d also sporadically revisited his original sin—even though it should’ve been taboo—recalling his hand inside her shirt and her breast overlapping the lace cup of her bra. He’d been angry with her initially, “pissed off” to use Sophie’s phrase, but he’d finally concluded that she should be compensated somehow, since he’d violated whatever religious impulse she ever had and done little or nothing to expand it. And who could put a price on that?

  twenty-two

  Joel’s client the Saturday after Independence Day was a peculiar duck, a tall, powerful man in cargo shorts and a muscle shirt. Blond crew cut, blue eyes, tattoos, hiking boots and no hat. His brother was scheduled to fish with him but was delayed, the man explained, would meet them at the river if Joel would be kind enough to give him directions so he could convey the route by cell phone. Joel told Dixon the guy was a weirdo, wondered if he’d ever hired Royal Coachman before. Dixon reviewed his reservation list and old logs and didn’t find anything other than a name, a California address and a phone number for the current booking. He offered to send the man on his way, but Joel shrugged and played it off, noted he’d seen worse. Standing beside his boss and selecting flies for the trip, Joel wisecracked that he was himself a legitimate jailbird, scared of nothing, hard-boiled.

  The blond’s name was Joshua, and he answered Joel’s polite questions and asked a number of his own while they drove to the river. Joel had backed the trailer and MacKenzie boat to the edge of the Blackfoot and was winding the winch crank when a car arrived, a red four-door with California plates. From a distance, Joshua’s brother looked much like he did— the same blond crew cut, a forearm tattoo and clunky hiking boots. But the brother was smaller, lacked Joshua’s bulk and stature, and he was dressed in a baggy shirt and long pants, his eyes masked by sunglasses that followed the shape of his head. The brothers spoke, and the newcomer locked his car and started for Joel, by himself.

  He was older, Joel observed. Older than his brother, and his hair was whiter, appeared dyed. He was careful with his feet, hesitated between strides and seemed extra cautious on the slick slope between the last log step and the beginning of the riverbank. Joel shouted good morning over the river’s rushing and pulled a cooler across the gunwale. It was a cinch neither of these men co
uld cast a fly, and that would make for a tiresome day and tangled lines. He checked for life jackets, felt his pockets for leaders and tippet. The brother was at stream level, ten yards removed. “Ready for some fishing?” Joel asked enthusiastically. Most likely not big spenders, but you could never tell. And they’d probably want to use drugs and guzzle beer, fit the profile.

  “Howdy,” the man said. Joshua was still at the car, loafing near the fender, and his posture and crossed arms and lack of fishing interest caused Joel to feel unsettled again.

  “Your brother coming?” Joel asked.

  “Yeah. He’s slow.”

  The man was at the bow of the boat, and Joel recognized him—Lord Jesus, he recognized him—and Joel immediately reached for a paddle, didn’t make any effort to disguise what he was doing or to downplay his alarm.

  “Damn, Joel, is that any way to treat a long-lost friend? Smack him with an oar?”

  It was Edmund, Edmund with new hair and bleached eyebrows and a tattoo and a young man’s glasses and a novel wardrobe, but unmistakably Edmund when he spoke and Joel was able to hear his voice and draw a bead on his features. “You tell me,” Joel said. “Looks pretty appropriate from where I’m standing.” He removed the oar from the boat and held it with the broad end skyward. “Especially with you sneaking up on me. You and Dolph Lundgren there.”

  “I ain’t here lookin’ for trouble, Joel.”

  “No?”

  “No,” Edmund answered. He took off the glasses and hung them at the front of his shirt, stuck one earpiece inside his collar.

  “Why the cloak and dagger?”

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d care to see me,” Edmund said. “And, hell, who knows if the cops are still watching you.”

  “What do you want?” Joel kept the paddle in position. He looked at the boat, trying to calculate how long it would take him to be on the river if Joshua left his post and came toward the water.

  “To talk.”

  “For some reason, I have the feeling Joshua’s not a very gifted conversationalist,” Joel said.

  “Should I have him scram?” Edmund asked.

  “Yes,” Joel answered.

  “He’s harmless as a kitten,” Edmund said. “He really is my brother. My baby brother. Lives in LA and pumps too many weights. He wants to be in action movies.”

  “Well, why don’t you have him action himself on down the highway?”

  “I needed him to make the arrangements and bring you this far, okay? I didn’t much see us gettin’ together any other way.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  Edmund walked to the first step and yelled for Joshua, tossed him the car keys and told him to leave and come back in half an hour. “There you are, my friend,” he said to Joel when he returned. “Anything else I can do?”

  “Take off the shirt and spin in a circle. Toss me the glasses. Take off your pants and underwear and let me have them as well. Shoes too.”

  “Okay. Sure. The pants’ll be a while, what with my bad leg and so forth.”

  “I’m not in a hurry.” Joel rested the large end of the oar on the ground and kept both hands on the knob.

  Edmund undressed and surrendered his clothes to Joel, had to sit in the dirt to remove his trousers, and, while he was working the garment over his prosthesis, he asked Joel how his sister was faring. “She’s fine,” Joel said curtly. Edmund was soon naked, and he seemed surprisingly feeble with his clothes stripped, his usual aura and vitality replaced by two folds of flesh at his belly and a bony, concave chest.

  “I’d always been curious about that,” Joel said.

  “About what? What I’d look like naked?” Edmund laughed, jiggling his stomach and shoulders. He didn’t seem too uncomfortable with his circumstances, acted more impatient than embarrassed. A car motored by on the road above them, and they turned in unison to watch it.

  “Your leg. If you’re truly handicapped.” Joel continued to scan the road, wondering if Joshua had really departed or had just driven around a bend and was lurking in the woods, poised to spring some godawful trap.

  “I wish I wasn’t, but I’m a true gimp, Joel. Yep.”

  “You probably got shot by an angry husband or tried to cheat the wrong mark,” Joel scoffed.

  “Nope. Lost it when I was a little chap, exactly like I told you. Coulda saved it too, if the insurance people would’ve loosened their purse strings.”

  “So that’s not a lie?”

  “True as a mother’s milk. Can I have my pants? Some of me ain’t seen this much sunlight in years. I don’t need to wind up fried and sun-poisoned.”

  Joel searched the clothes and didn’t discover anything unusual. He wadded the britches and threw them to Edmund. “Why are you here?”

  “My shirt? Shoes? Can I have the rest of my clothes?”

  Joel chucked the remainder at Edmund’s feet. “You’ve got one minute, and then I’m going to hop in this boat and be gone.”

  “I wanna know your next move,” Edmund said, buttoning his shirt. “Specifically, what it’ll take to be rid of you? The price.”

  “The price?” Joel leaned on the oar. “Be rid of me how?”

  “You gonna cut my throat like you did Sa’ad’s?” His tone was wounded, can’t-believe-it amazed, like the cocky quick-draws in old westerns who get shot and feel the blood oozing from the bullet hole, discover no one’s invincible. “I’m willin’ to pay.”

  “I’m going to tell the truth, and if the truth cuts your throat, so be it. Why are you so worried anyway? Seems you’ve done a superior job of vanishing.” For some reason, Joel was drawn to look at Edmund’s deformed finger.

  He had regained his pants and shirt but was still shoeless, and his belt and wallet remained on the ground, incongruous among the shoal rocks and fragments of smooth, river-washed wood. “Why’d you do this? All we had to do was keep quiet and circle the wagons, and the cops couldn’t have laid a glove on us.”

  “Kiss my butt, Edmund,” Joel said. “Don’t come dragging here with your doe eyes and tale of woe and misery. I can’t believe you have the . . . the . . . nerve to suggest I’m the one who broke ranks. Claim I’ve wronged you. I know, Edmund. Understand? I had an informative tête-à-tête with your girl Christy.” Joel was growing angry, and he could feel the bile dapple his neck and blacken his spit. He choked the paddle handle, rattled the blade in the stones. “I probably wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you and Sa’ad. I’d be drafting my sermon and looking forward to a picnic with my wife on the parkway this afternoon.”

  “I’m lost, Preacher. I don’t know what I’ve done to tick you off so bad.” A breeze nipped the peak of his hair.

  The denials caused Joel to fume. He armed himself with the oar again, shaking it at Edmund. “You worthless swine. There’s no need to keep lying. She told me.”

  “Told you what?” Edmund asked. He extended his arms and bent his wrists in reverse, a supplicant in search of answers. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I ought to whip the tarnation out of you. First for setting me up and now for bald-face lying to me.” He advanced on Edmund, raised the paddle and slid his hands into a narrower grip.

  “Whoa now. Hold on a minute. Somethin’s terribly confused here.” He retreated a step and dragged each naked foot, one flesh, one plastic, through the dirt and stones, caused two different scrapes. “I’m the one who should be carryin’ a grudge. I’m the one who got left high and dry, traded to the police for a couple years off your penitentiary sentence.” He kept his arms aloft while he spoke.

  “Nothing’s confused except you,” Joel said. A swell of saliva spilled at the corner of his lip, and he blotted it with his palm and sleeve. “You need to go find your brother before I lose my temper.”

  “Tell me why you’re cross, why you’re so damn hot with me. Least you could do that. It’s been buggin’ me to death why you jumped ship.”

  Joel wiped his lips again. “I’m hot, Edmund,
because you pretended to be a friend and then used me like I was crap, and the Lord will have to punish me, yes He will, because seeing you right now I don’t think I can ever forgive you. I’m angry because you cost me my wife and job and church and peace of mind, and because you sent a seventeen-year-old girl to trap me so you and Sa’ad could steal money. That makes you a crook and a pimp, Edmund. A lowlife.”

  “Christy? You mean Christy from Roanoke?” Edmund dropped his arms and contracted his mouth.

  The answer infuriated Joel, enraged him, and he swung the oar, took an energetic, roundhouse cut even though he wasn’t near enough to Edmund for it to connect. “Yeah, Edmund. The same girl you trained and educated and sent after me.”

  “Joel, hey, listen. It ain’t nothing for me one way or the other right now, but I didn’t have nothing to do with you and Christy. You gotta believe me.”

  “She told me, Edmund. Admitted it. Confessed.”

  “Confessed what?” he asked. “Why would I want to get you in trouble with her?”

  “Millions of insurance dollars?” Joel was on the brink of walloping him with the oar, couldn’t help himself.

  “Somethin’s wrong, Joel. She’s lyin’ to you.”

  “Did you send her to Las Vegas? Provide her and another girl airline tickets?”

  “Well, yeah. But that doesn’t tell you nothing.”

  “Mentor her on a few scams, let her cut her teeth with a pro?” Talking helped the rage; he finally felt his anger start to ebb.