Midnight Lullaby

by James D F Hannah

  "He's leaving," he said.

  Walters was part of a crowd of secretaries leaving the building. He looked like a sultan leading a harem. He got into his BMW, pulled out of the lot, and hustled onto the street.

  "Shall we?" I said as I started the engine.

  "Please," Woody said.

  I kept several car lengths between us and Walters before we turned out into traffic and followed Walters.

  Cop shows and movies make tailing someone look easy, that all you need to do is keep a distance and cross your fingers the person you're following doesn't catch on. That's bullshit. Your ideal situation for a tail is multiple anonymous-looking vehicles, picking up and dropping off over time.

  But it was only Woody and me, and we’d opted to take his truck since my Aztek — the vehicle that killed Pontiac — looked like an escape pod from a shitty 1980s sci-fi flick, and Walters might have remembered it from the other morning. Woody’s truck wasn’t inconspicuous: a cherry red 1965 Ford pickup. But there were enough old pickups roaming Parker County, we figured it would blend better than my beast.

  After five minutes cutting through Serenity streets, Walters led out of the city limits onto Route 485, a two-lane county road. This was our worst-case scenario. There was no other traffic and no way to hide.

  A few minutes in, I realized Walters was following a car himself: a later-model green Toyota that had been in the McGinley and Kurt parking lot. Woody and I had been so focused on Walters, we didn't notice the Toyota, and I bet the Toyota was why Walters hadn't noticed us.

  It was just the three of us on Route 485 for 10 minutes. We passed outlets for other small towns and communities, little strips of houses up narrow country roads.

  The local no-tell motel appeared as we turned around a corner. The Jamaica Inn's reputation across four counties was for lax record keeping and a cash-only policy. It was the place to go if you wanted to carve off a slice of afternoon delight. That everyone knew about it so there wasn’t much real secret to it, but that’s how small towns work: hide the secrets in plain sight and hope everyone is too polite to say anything.

  The Toyota pulled into the lot, and Walters pulled in after it.

  We drove another hundred yards, then cut a sharp U-turn and parked on the shoulder across the road from the motel. A well-shaped redhead, all hips and tits and va-va-voom, closed the driver side door on the Toyota and sashayed up an exterior flight of stairs. Walters came out of the motel office, twirling a key on one finger, and met the woman outside a room. They kissed as he unlocked the door and all but fell into the room.

  Walters, it seemed, had moved on from Bobbi Fisher.

  I called Doria on my cell.

  "Hello, doll," she said.

  I smiled and my dick shifted in my boxers. "Hey," I said. "Question for you."

  "Fire away."

  "You got a redhead working at McGinley and Kurt?"

  "Got a few. Why? You bored already?"

  "Hardly." I described the woman Walters was probably using as a human trampoline at that moment.

  "That's Kara Taylor. She's not been with the firm long. Why?"

  "Followed her and Walters to a motel. I'm guessing he's showing her his legal briefs right now."

  "Fuck." The way she said it, it sounded even more profane. There was further movement in my shorts. Goddammit.

  "This a big deal?" I said.

  "I wouldn't call it good. We shouldn't be blowing the bosses, but these girls get plowed more than a Iowa corn field. The best I can hope is she doesn't turn out like Bobbi."

  I told her thanks and hung up. To Woody, I said, "Wanna foster chaos and create mayhem?"

  "More than you could possibly understand."

  I told Woody what I had in mind. We got out of the truck and Woody opened the locked box in the truck bed.

  I suppose I expected tools. Hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, you know the drill. Hey, maybe even a drill. What I saw was a variety of semi-automatic weapons, cases of ammo, canister grenades, some double-bladed axes, and a sledgehammer.

  I looked at Woody, my jaw slack. He stared into the truck box.

  “Under most circumstances I don’t even keep a sledgehammer,” he said, “but I was helping someone in the program—”

  “You have grenades,” I said.

  "I do." The way he said it, the "duh" was almost implicit.

  I heaved a deep breath and reached in and took hold of the sledgehammer. "Let’s do this."

  I carried the sledgehammer as we crossed the road and walked to the motel. Woody had his cell phone out.

  "I can't say this is the best idea I've ever heard of you having," he said as we mounted the stairs to the second floor.

  "You don’t appreciate how bad my ideas can be. This one is 'Operation Overload' in comparison to others I've had."

  The weight of the sledgehammer compounded with my fucked-over knee to make carrying it a trudge up the stairs. Halfway, I stopped and rested against the railing and took a breath. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and my chest felt like it weighed more than the sledgehammer.

  "Need me to take that?" Woody asked.

  I shook my head. The hell that would happen. Pride and common sense were not about to barge their way into this party.

  Outside of Walters' room, I pressed my ear against the door. There was much moaning going on inside.

  Woody pulled a .45 from his hoodie pocket and held it in one hand and his phone in the other. I hoisted the sledgehammer as high as I could. My legs wobbled, and I braced myself.

  "I don't think this was what Steve Jobs had in mind when they came up with camera phones," Woody said.

  "I don't think Jobs did that," I said. "Invented camera phones."

  "Are you sure? I was thinking—"

  "We'll fucking Google it later. I can't hold this thing forever. On the count of three. One ... two ..."

  "Three" did not happen. Gravity seized the sledgehammer and brought it down hard, knocking the door knob off clean. I rammed the head of the sledgehammer into the deadbolt, and it gave way as the door splintered and came loose on the hinges. One more hit and the door flew open and Woody and I stepped into the room.

  Walters was strapped down naked to the bed in four-point restraints, a zippered leather hood over his head. The redhead mounted him, wearing leather gear, a crop in one hand. Walters' chest was covered with a crisscross pattern of raised red welts.

  Both turned and stared at us as we walked in. Woody was firing off pictures with his camera. The woman sucked in air to let out a scream. I let the sledgehammer drop to the floor with a thud and rushed across the room. I took hold of her hand before she could take a swing at me with the crop. I put one hand over her mouth and bought the crop arm behind her back.

  "It's fine,” I said in my softest voice. "We're not here for you. You go, get dressed, and leave, okay? Put your clothes on and walk away and forget this ever happened. Understand?"

  She nodded.

  "Awesome," I said. "But I'm taking the crop from you first."

  She nodded again, and her hand loosened its grip on the crop as I took hold of it.

  "Outstanding." I let go of her.

  She was early 20s, cute in a corn-fed way, with a spray of freckles across her face and a small overbite. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes.

  "Just go on," I said.

  Her clothes were in a pile at the foot of the bed. She threw them on — a sweater and a long skirt — over the leather outfit, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.

  Woody nodded as she walked by. "Drive safe," he said.

  I looked at Walters. The zipper was closed over the mouth in the mask. He wanted to scream, but the noise came out muffled and meaningless.

  Woody shoved the pistol into the back of his jeans. "We've gotta show his face to make these pictures count for anything," he said. He glanced at the door, barely hanging onto the frame. "And I'm sure this ruckus we raised didn't go unnoticed."

  I soaked a washcloth in t
he bathroom sink and brought it back. I reached for the hood zipper and Walters whipped his head away and growled.

  I took a deep breath and climbed onto the bed. I dropped to my knees, pinning Walters’ shoulders to the mattress. The impact sent waves of pain through my body, and I wasn’t real fond of how close my junk was to the head of a man in a zippered hood, but the action caught him off-guard long enough to let me yank the hood off and shove the washcloth in his mouth.

  Walters' eyes were wild and angry, his face flush. I hopped off the bed and Woody stepped over and took fired off about a dozen photos on his phone.

  "Got 'em?" I said.

  Woody nodded. "You wanna pull your dick out, put it next to his face, make it look a little gay?"

  "I think we’ll call this good."

  Woody rolled his shoulders. "Your call, man."

  I sat on the edge of the bed. Walters’ restraints were Velcro straps, and they looked cheap. That was disappointing somehow. You drive the car that Walters drove, dressed the way he dressed, you’d think you’d throw a little extra cash into your kinks. Othertimes, it was just about getting the job done, I guess.

  “This is an interesting look for you,” I said to Walters. "You should try it in court, for shits and giggles."

  Walters strained to move. There was the rip of the Velcro coming loose.

  I patted him on the face. "Just so you know, I'll keep on looking for Bobbi. Send your little Nazi buddies after me again, and those pictures go to any living soul who might ever care. I'll email them to TV stations, other law firms, your wife, your mother, your second grade teacher, the girl you fucked after your senior prom. And if you had anything to do with Bobbi disappearing, I'll bury you. Are we clear?"

  Walters was silent. He couldn't have much, anyway, but you get the point. Instead, he stared at me with furious eyes.

  "Good," I said. "As long as we understand one another."

  Woody and I left the room, and Walters screamed as we walked out the door. A fat middle-aged guy who looked like motel staff came up the stairs and pointed at us.

  "Hey! Hey you!" he said.

  We stopped. "Yeah?" I said.

  He glanced inside Walters’ room, then looked at us with unrestrained boredom. This wasn't the first time he'd seen a half-naked man in restraints.

  "What the fuck happened here?" he said.

  "He needed towels," I said before we walked away.

  16

  The pounding on my front door woke me up the next morning. I’d fallen asleep on the couch, watching a movie I couldn’t remember now. I peeled my eyes open and saw rays of December sunshine cutting slits through the blinds. Izzy's head rested in my lap like a bowling ball. I pushed her off of me and shook my leg around to stir blood flow before going to the door, dragging my foot behind me as sensation returned to it.

  The Parker County sheriff's deputy standing at my door was about six-four, wearing a sheriff's department jacket over a pale blue departmental polo shirt. His thick neck strained the opening on the polo shirt, and his blond hair was shaved close enough to let his scalp to shine in the sunlight. His hands rested on his gun belt. He didn't smile.

  "Henry Malone?" he said.

  “I feel as if there's no right answer for that question.”

  "I'm supposed to bring you in, have you talk to Sheriff Simms."

  "Am I under arrest?"

  "Should you be?"

  The correct answer for that was "yes," but it didn't seem the prudent way to go.

  "Any reason the sheriff wants to talk?" I said.

  “That’s a matter for you and him to talk about, not you and me.”

  I looked at my watch. It was just after eight. "Early in the day, isn't it?"

  "Not really. Lots of folks already at work. I'm working already."

  I stretched and popped things that shouldn't have been popped. "Got an objection if I shower first?"

  "You gonna try to climb out the window or nothing, are you?"

  "You wanna sit on the toilet and watch while I'm in there?"

  "I do not."

  I stepped aside to let him in. He had to angle to get his shoulders through the doorframe.

  "I can make coffee," I said. “You're welcome to help yourself while I wash off my sins."

  Izzy walked into the hallway. The deputy stopped when he saw her. Izzy chose that moment to yawn. It was like staring into the gaping maw of a hippo.

  "Big dog," the deputy said. He hesitated, staying close to the door. "He bite?"

  "No, she doesn't. You may drown from the drool, though. And you're the second person to call her 'he.' Does she not look feminine?"

  The deputy stared at Izzy. "She looks like something parents should pay a quarter so the kids ride at the county fair."

  I started the coffee as the deputy took a seat at the table. Izzy walked over and laid at his feet. He looked at her as if he expected her to rip his throat out.

  "The worst that'll happen is her snoring might rattle your fillings loose," I said as I headed to the bathroom.

  His name was Carl Thompson, and he was the chief deputy and had been since leaving the state police a decade earlier, stationed around Bluefield, in the southern coal field region of West By God. He told me this as we drove to Serenity, to the county courthouse where the sheriff's office was. I sat in the back of the cruiser and listened and watched the road pass by as he drove.

  The Parker County Courthouse was a limestone building dated from 1892, listed on the National Registry of Historical Places, complete with a brass plaque out front that said so. We got there a little after nine, once I'd showered and scraped off two day's worth of beard and we'd each had a cup of coffee. By then, Izzy was sitting next to Thompson, and he was hand-feeding her treats.

  The sheriff's office was on the third floor. Thompson led me in and sat me down in a visitor's chair in front of the desk.

  The HVAC system was working overtime; the office was hotter than an asshole in Hell, and I took off my coat while I waited. Thompson leaned against the wall behind me and remained as wordless as a statue.

  After a half-hour of utter silence, the office door opened, and the sheriff stepped in. Sheriff Matt Simms was younger than I expected: early 40s, a little heavy, dark hair flecked with gray, dressed in a blue denim button-down shirt with a sheriff's department logo where a pocket would have been, tan Dickies and a department-issued .45 in a belt holster. He smiled and shook my hand before sitting down behind his desk.

  "How are we today, Mr. Malone?" he said.

  "I don't know how 'we' are, but I'm sleepy, sore, horny, and curious why the sheriff dragged me to his office on a random Wednesday morning."

  “I could have done without the ‘horny’ part, and it’s Tuesday, Mr. Malone."

  "I'm lousy with dates," I said. "Not that I don’t appreciate getting woken up by Grape Ape back here."

  Simms leaned back in his chair. “I took time to check into you, Mr. Malone. Shame about what happened when you were a trooper. An incident like that, you could have stayed on with the state police, you know.”

  “I got offered something in an office.”

  “Which wasn’t your style.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Simms nodded again. He looked contemplative. Or constipated. Something. I wasn’t sure what. "Did you need to go busting up that motel yesterday?"

  "'Need' and 'want' are sometimes indistinguishable things, Sheriff. What I needed was to have Richard Walters not send people to kick my ass, and that seemed a way to get that point across to him."

  "And you succeeded there, let me tell you, because last night I got a phone call—"

  I buried my face in my hands. "Holy fuck, please say this isn't when you tell me what an important man Walters is, and how he's got sway in the department, because—"

  Thompson’s rough knuckles dug into my neck, and he had a firm grip on my shirt collar, tightening it around my throat.

  "Men don't talk when other men speak," Thomps
on said in a low monotone. "It’s just good manners.”

  I choked against the neck of my shirt. "Sure thing, Quiet Riot," I said with a gasp.

  Simms gestured his chin toward Thompson, and Thompson let me go.

  "Mind if I continue?" Simms said.

  I got some air and rubbed at my neck and pulled at my collar. "I’m sure as hell not going to stop you."

  "Thanks. And no, that's not the case at all. Walters is a prick, and the only weight he pulls is because McGinley and Kurt; they bring a lot of money into the county. No, the phone call I got last night was from my ex-wife, who for reasons I'll never quite fathom, opted to marry Richard Walters."

  Simms stood and walked to the window and pushed it open. A crisp breeze blew into the room. He sat in the window sill, taking up most of the cool air, though some still made its way in toward me.

  "The problem is, I want her happy," Simms said, “and I suppose that being with him makes her happy. So once the motel called us and Carl showed up and found Walters strapped to the bed—and once Carl got done laughing his ass off, I'll add—Walters told Rachel, my ex-wife, that he'd been meeting a client at the motel when you showed up, harassing him. Rachel’s got a huge heart, and that heart takes up blood flow that should go to her brain, I guess, because she believed him, which is why she called me, angry that you're causing him issues where there shouldn't be. To make her happy, I agreed that I'd have a talk with you about the matter."

  "She know about Walters' tendencies to fuck around?"

  "No. Rachel always wants to think the best about people, and I won't spoil that about her."

  "There're pictures of him strapped down to that bed. You getting them, that’s easily arranged.”

  Simms shook his head. “Rachel and I, we separated on not-the-best terms, and that’s my fault. She’s the sort to dig her heels in deeper and try to make things work, regardless of what kind of asshole Walters is.”

  "So since you and he are buddy-buddy, maybe you can tell me if it's conceivable Walters is involved with the National Brotherhood?" I said.