by Chris Bauer
“Guilty,” he said, and tented his eyebrows in mock-embarrassment. “Very.”
After chatting each of them up, a Welcome to Rancor, Howard chorus echoed around the table. Dody suffixed the greeting by relating how the folks of Rancor tried to be “... friendly, and good judges of character, and protective of each other, mind you, once we get to know a person, like we’re getting to know you now.”
A commotion at the bowling alley front entrance. Someone had trouble entering, a guy balancing on one leg while he pulled himself through the vestibule’s double doors, cursing at something attached to the trouser leg of the other. The tables’ occupants craned their necks.
A dog. It yanked at the guy’s jeans, its feet firmly planted and backing up, tugging and growling, trying to pull him back outside. The harder the guy resisted, the more animated the dog got.
Counsel’s dog Tess, Andy realized, here without Counsel. Andy pushed himself up from his chair, called to her. “Tess! Good doggie—”
The dog’s floppy ears perked up, let go of the jeans, and beelined for Andy.
Andy intercepted her short of her arrival, gripped her collar with both hands. Tess calmed then stiffened, then she lunged across the table at Howard, her teeth gnashing. Andy yanked hard at her collar and scolded her.
“Tess, no—”
Tess continued to grumble, eventually relented when Andy guided her away from the table. The dog growled, now pulled at his bowling shoe.
“Andy,” Dody said loud enough to better the background music. “No worries, honey. Check out why she’s upset. We’re fine here. Go.”
Tess was in her harness but wasn’t leashed. As soon as Andy exited the front door of the bowling alley the four-legged rocket bolted away from him, heading around the left corner of the building.
Andy trotted to the corner, caught sight of Tess on a full gallop toward the building’s back corner, a copse of wooded pines beyond it. Exasperated, Andy screamed a command: “About-face!”
An educated guess, or maybe just the tone, but Tess pulled up, spun around, and returned.
Andy patted her head and cooed at her while he listened to the dog’s heavy panting. He pulled her by the collar to his SUV.
“Sit.” Tess complied, no restraint needed, but she kept eyeing the corner of the building, her tongue nearly on the ground.
Andy opened the tailgate, grabbed a windbreaker, slipped on a pair of Nikes. A fingerprint unlocked his handgun case. Out came the gun, then a full bullet clip. The clip went into the SIG Sauer, the SIG went into a small holster, the holster into the crook of his back.
“Let’s go find your mommy.”
53
“Must be a guy thing, not liking me,” Randall said. “Some dogs are like that. Your friend Andy coming back?”
Dody, preoccupied with her phone, nodded in absent agreement. She finished keying a text, stole a glance past Randall, smooth, but not overlooked. “Oh, sorry. What was the question? Andy. Right. Who knows. So you’re a lawyer, are you?”
Randall resisted turning around. “You just got a text from Floyd the bartender, didn’t you? About his daughter, Regina Briscoe. Am I right?”
“Ah, yeah, sure, why not. Regina was my niece; Floyd’s my brother. What’s this about, Howard?”
Randall got into it, laid it out for them, Regina’s sugar daddy in Philly, him gone for years, his will, some of his possessions, and a safe deposit box all getting settled only now. Wrapping things up, “Your brother Floyd said she’s gone now. Drugs. If she had children, the money could go in their direction, via her estate.”
No one spoke, the table silent, absorbing his account of Regina’s Philadelphia existence. In their late-night surroundings came the white noise of intermittent pin concussions from midnight bowlers, and the clink of ice in the glasses of the remaining bar patrons. Randall pushed. “Hello? Dody? Anyone? What, did I get this all wrong?”
No refutation from any of them, only somber acceptance. Iota Jean spoke first.
“She had no children…”
Penny, mouse-quiet until now, said, parroting, “No children. She never married…”
Dody: “Found in her car. An overdose. In Philadelphia.”
“Yes, terrible. In Philly,” Iota Jean said, tsk-tsking. “June fourteenth. Flag Day. Five, six years, I think it’s been, right, Penny?”
“Six years, Iota Jean honey. Six. Years,” Penny said. “Died on her birthday.”
“Her birthday, yes,” Dody added.
“Terrible. So, so terrible. Yes, her birthday. My goodness,” Iota Jean said, shaking her head.
They were done. Save for Sleeping Beauty and the one in the wheelchair, their concerned, expectant, and now silent looks were all aimed at Randall. Show was over; a synchronized, Stepford-like, rehearsed performance.
His turn. “Fine, I get it, it’s a tragedy people want kept quiet. Sorry, but isn’t anyone interested in knowing how much money is involved?”
“No one to give it to, Howard,” Dody said, her answer sharp. “Unless you can get it donated to the coal miners’ widows and orphans fund. And don’t ask Floyd. My brother won’t want it. But out of curiosity—”
“One hundred thirty thousand dollars,” Randall said.
“That’s a lot of money,” Dody said. “Cash?”
“Cash.”
The confused one in the wheelchair unwrapped herself from the bowling trophy and smoothed her skirt with the flat of her hand, her fingers long, beautiful, manicured. “She was never a bowler, but always a hard worker,” she said, her eyes turning down, sad. Her hands stayed busy with her skirt.
“Charlotte, honey,” Dody reached into Charlotte’s lap to take her hand, “no need to get upset. She’s in a better place now.”
“She is sooo pretty, isn’t she?” Charlotte said, continuing undeterred. “Movie-star pretty, even now that she’s older.”
“Charlotte,” Dody said. “Charlie. Please, not now, try to focus…”
One of her lovely hands left Dody’s embrace to point a finger in Dody’s direction. “Now that’s enough, young lady. That is a lot of money. Why shouldn’t she have it, hmm? Hard as she works? That girl works her ass off…”
Dody’s headshake and pay-no-attention-to-her hand gesture was meant to tell Randall that lovely old Charlotte had crossed over, was now mentally out of bounds, with Penny working Charlotte’s hands back into her lap to calm her, redirecting her to the bowling trophy. Randall’s facial expression feigned agreement and disinterest at the outburst, but that was far from the truth.
“Now, where were we?” Dody said. “I know. Last call.”
The server brought another round of shots, a few more beers, and some nuked nachos. In the din, Dody answered her phone, listening intently, everyone else nursing their drinks. Charlotte sipped a lemonade, now engaged in deep conversation with the sleeping Myra.
Dody ended her phone call. “That was my overnight guest, Trevor, my nephew. He was in a little trouble this afternoon and just got home. He’d like his prodigal great aunt to do likewise. So tell you what, Howard, dear,” she said, “why don’t we do this—”
Randall noticed the glances, more like signals, that Dody gave Penny and Iota Jean. Hefty Dody stirred her glass, lowering her eyes to show a demure disinterest in the melting ice.
“The party’s over, here at least,” she said. “We’ll head back to my place. I’ve been told to expect a surprise visitor. Someone you might find interesting, Howard honey. Care to join us?”
Tonight would be it for him. Maybe some torrid sex, then hopefully there’d be a meeting between the two ghosts, each of them dead to the world, and to each other, for fifteen years or more. He’d go for all the marbles, beg to meet her child—their child. His Plan B: a memorable exit should anyone get in his way, this town’s no-crime record sullied up real good.
Multiple murdered women, dead FBI agents, dead drug thugs, and one dead female bounty hunter. Nationally newsworthy.
A loo
se end: the bounty hunter’s dog that almost outted him. Another mistake on his part. He had a chance to do both dogs in the parking lot, long before his trek into the woods. Misplaced morals, at odds with what now might need to turn into a scorched-earth exit.
One last hurrah, trying to stay one step ahead of his terminal disease, coming right up.
“Your place? Sure, I’m game.”
54
The ambulance gave up. At best they might have triangulated my phone signal. That could have put someone here by morning, if I was lucky. At worst, it was now considered a prank call. Down here in the dark, far enough away from the road, with broken bones and bloody rat carcasses, I was in mixed company: my dog Fungo, the dead McQuarters, and a coal miner apparition that wouldn’t quit, still standing guard. I tried digging myself out. My single-hand tosses of loose dirt and stones keep sliding back in, refilling the hole.
Goddamn it. A few seconds faster tucking that gun barrel under Linkletter’s chin and he’d have been executed on the spot, without due process, and I wouldn’t have needed to worry about where he was or what he was doing to Andy and his friends.
I was SOL until daylight, maybe longer. Agent Van Impe would be SOL worse, dead by then if not already, wherever he was, up top or down here. No additional FBI on the scene yet either. And Linkletter…
Andy and his mom and the women bowlers at the bowling alley: these people were defenseless if Linkletter followed through on his threat.
Fungo pulled in close, was warming me, us warming each other, me guessing it was past midnight, dozing in and out, tired, cold, less pain, in shock…
No better time than the present to introduce myself to my coal miner guardian angel.
“Hey,” I called, my voice shaky but with enough strength to be heard. Fungo yawned and whined at the sleep interruption. I waited for an acknowledgment, got nothing. Instead, the helmet light on the apparition in the coal tunnel shifted, lifted slightly to illuminate the rim of the ground collapse I was in, a small section of it directly above us; then the light flicked off. My ghost miner was gone. Without the helmet light the tunnel was gone too, no more than a shallow indentation against a black wall the size of a billboard. Four tall walls of blackness, all reaching up and away from me, with me at bottom, no view from here, why would there be, it was my grave—
… stay awake, I needed to stay awake…
Movement above. The patter of light feet galloping through rustling leaves, then an abrupt stop, debris kicking forward of it, fluttering over the edge of the small section that the miner’s light passed over. A barking dog peered into the pit, then—
Andy’s voice pierced the night air. “Counsel! Counsel! You down there?”
Tess, you brought help…
Some of my cobwebs cleared. A flashlight swept the contents of the cave-in, its beam finding me and my half-buried body and blood-soaked head.
“Jesus…” Andy said.
Good dog, Tess, good dog.
Fire truck. Ambulance. Far as I was concerned I was good to go now that they’d pulled me out of the pit, except Andy tricked me, had the EMTs strap me into a stretcher and give me some great meds before they hauled me up, and now I had no idea how coherent or incoherent I sounded, my awareness alighting on pillows and moonbeams and guardian angels and doggie fur…
… and Linkletter… and lanes… lucky strikes… Juicy Luster…
Rats. Caves. Maurice.
Andy listened to all of it, walking next to me, his hand lightly on my waist as they carried me to the ambulance. What I was able to process: Van Impe was alive, Fungo and Tess were fine. And Andy, too, was ever so fine as I drank him into my delirium, him smiling while he hovered, talking with his friends on his phone, and me adrift in clouds and balloons and cool breezes on a summer day.
55
They climbed into an older Ford sedan, hefty Dody at the wheel, Randall in the front passenger seat, Iota Jean and Penny pouring sloppily into the rear, their drunk schoolgirl-like giggles wafting forward. Randall was eating this up. Hot times ahead.
“It’s not far,” Dody said.
The car was unmistakable. A cop car in a prior life, the windshield-mounted side spotlight the giveaway. “So this is what it feels like to ride in a police car,” Randall said. “Nice. This thing is huge.”
Like his boner would soon be.
They reached the stop sign at the end of the parking lot. A quick tap of the brakes then a wide right turn. Too wide, a fishtailing, cinder-spreading, heavy-footed cop-driver kind of wide. A sweep of the high beams pierced the darkness beyond the shoulder. Something was there, a pair of legs in the weeds, Randall noticed, mostly because he put them there.
They settled into the main road at a high rate of speed, the fog nearly gone. “Being a former cop,” Dody said loud enough to better the road whine, “has its benefits. Some late night partying and no one to give us any shit about it. Good thing, right, honey? Howard?”
Randall stayed quiet. He wasn’t sure if anyone else glimpsed what the misdirected high beams showed on the side of the road. Legs and shoes in the overgrowth, toes down, far off the shoulder but not dragged as far as he’d hoped.
“Howard? Honey?”
He grunted a self-conscious yes, swiveled and draped his arm over his seat to face the women behind him, ostensibly to be playful, but wary of what the car’s lights had just exposed. Iota Jean’s uncovered, crossed legs looked delicious. He flashed his best lecherous smile at her before he sneaked a look out the back window into the darkness left in their wake. Headlights from a passing car illuminated the blacktop behind them. Penny’s head turned, looking behind them as well.
“Anything wrong?” he asked her.
“Looks like there’s some blood back there on the road, next to the shoulder.”
“Just another deer strike,” Dody offered. “That, or a bear. Or wolves. Maybe it was a buck taken down by a wolf pack. Rare around here, but they’re out there. Any bets on that being the Park Service’s report, ladies?”
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Now on foot, they stumbled past the real estate sign on the corner of the property and entered the lobby, Randall and his three horny hostesses. Dody lived here, a conversion on the third floor of what used to be a brewery. Iota Jean said she had a unit in the building too.
Dody got direct, asked if he’d ever done it in handcuffs. The women all snickered.
Ah, no, never, he said.
Like he’d ever let that happen.
When he was through with them, they’d probably never sell another unit in this building. Inside the small lobby, empty at two-thirty in the morning, they entered the elevator. Dody pressed her floor button.
One condo elevator button caught his eye. “A pool in the basement? Nice.”
“It needs to be cleaned,” she said.
Clear pool water turning dark crimson, rippling away from bloodied corpses… My my my, the visual Randall now had of this was exhilarating.
Inside Dody’s condo, they went directly to her bedroom. She tossed a pair of handcuffs onto the bed, her sly grin sloppy, lopsided. Based on their alcohol consumption, Randall surmised they were about as inhibited as corpses.
Dody winked at him. “Maybe we’ll change our minds about the cuffs,” she said.
Fuck no, cunt. He didn’t need no stinkin’ handcuffs, but seeing them on the bed took him out of his game for a moment. He caught himself too late to keep the women from wandering out of the bedroom. Dody was the last to leave, her fat ass cheeks wrestling for continued cohabitation of her stretch pants.
“Be right back, hon,” she said, winking. “Just getting some refreshments for the night ahead.”
So be it. His wood was still seasoning anyway. He guaranteed its perkiness by dry swallowing a Viagra.
They returned with a few six-packs and some Wild Turkey. Dody had a devilish grin, her brassy hair now pulled out of the w
ay, arranged in a ponytail, ready to play. She smelled better, too, as she got closer. How sweet was this, them getting all perfumed up just for him. Now, about that special visitor…
“Anyone else joining us?” he asked.
“I can’t say. Trust me, we’ll be enough for you, lover,” Dody said.
Time to get down to business. Soon as he sucked down another beer. A six-pack sat at the pillow end of the mattress, near the brass bedrail. He reached for a bottle.
The handcuff snapped closed around his wrist, the bottle in his grasp. The second handcuff click was as quick and as smooth as the first. Randall’s arm was now attached to the brass headboard.
“How’s that feel, sweetums?” Dody said. “Oh, come on now, don’t look so upset. We’re still going to have fun.”
He pulled at the metal bedrail, tested its strength, was sure he looked as pissed as he felt. He calmed himself into a fake smile, thought about drawing the one gun he could get at with his free hand, instead decided to play along. But once the sex on their terms was over and they let him out of the cuffs—once he had his hands on Regina again—whoa baby, were they going to suffer for this. Soon as he was back in control.
“So here’s the deal then, Howard. You say you’re looking for a certain someone to get in on this action?”
“Regina Briscoe. I just want to see her. After we’re done here. She doesn’t need join us.” He was seated on the bed, his right arm extended, wrist and headboard connected.
“What if I told you,” Dody said, “Regina is still alive, and living here in Rancor, just isn’t into this kind of… fun anymore? Different name, different life, wants to forget her past…”
“I’d be ecstatic. I… I love her.” A lie. This was still so easy for him. He was so good at this.
“So you say,” Dody said. “So the lawyer thing is all bullshit? You’re the actual sugar daddy with the money, right?”