Lake of Darkness

by Scott Kenemore

  Flip stood opposite her, sizing her up as though they were set to duel—with notepads and pencils instead of swords and bucklers.

  “Officer, why is the Chicago Police Department interested in Edwin R. Nash who once resided at-”

  “I’ve told you what this is about,” Flip said testily, talking over her. “We’re trying to apprehend someone involved in an assault. That is a function of the police department, you will remember. To catch criminals who commit ass-”

  “What, specifically, does Mr. Nash’s being an identical twin have to do with this case?” said Collins, nearly shouting. “How does that figure into the Chicago Police Department’s investigation?”

  A hand came forward—a lithe, long woman’s hand—and fell across the front of the reporter’s notebook.

  “Miss,” Sally Battle said softly, “do you have any children of your own?”

  Janice Collins tugged her notebook away, frowned. . . but then considered the question.

  “I do,” she said. “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. My status as a mother does not negatively impact my ability to do this job. Or any job. If anything, my work is enhanced by the perspective motherhood brings.”

  Sally Battle smiled a strange, sympathetic smile.

  “Oh honey,” she said. “We need to talk.”

  Flip stood beside Tark in front of the Defender building while Sally Battle and Janice Collins took a long walk to the end of the block. Flip looked on intently, as though the two women were deciding his fate. It seemed that Sally was doing the balance of the speaking. Flip could not hear what was being said. Janice had put away her pencil and notepad, however, and Flip counted that a small sign of progress.

  “What’re they talking about?” Tark whispered.

  Flip did not respond. Not because he could not guess, but because he did not want to cast a hex by saying anything aloud.

  Sally and Janice hovered at the corner of the block. The morning wind picked up and blew at their backs, making audible for Flip the tiniest scrap of their conversation. He heard no distinct word or words; only a single syllable came on the wind. But in the syllable, Flip detected powerful emotion in Sally’s voice. The sound of someone close to tears, if not quite there yet. The noise of someone bearing her soul.

  Flip was pleased with himself. He had had this feeling about Sally Battle—that she could get the job done. That she would know, innately, what to say.

  Something told Flip his feeling was about to be proved correct.

  A few moments later, the pair returned. Sally dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief, but her makeup was not disarranged. Before anyone could speak, she flashed Flip the smallest, most secret smile. It was a challenge for him not to smile back.

  Janice Collins kept her notebook in her purse. Flip had put his away also. With weapons sheathed, the pair resumed a palaver.

  “All right then,” Janice said to Flip. “I’ll let you do your thing.”

  “Thank you,” Flip said, as much to Sally as to her. “That’s all we ask.”

  Ed Nash lived in a house with a yard full of maple trees, not far from the Chicago stockyards. The smell of ten thousand hogs waiting to die hung omnipresent in the air. Flip wondered how Janice Collins had stood it, even for a little while. What had to be your life that you lived here, day after day, year after year? Maybe, Flip reasoned, it would be a good place to live—a bargain—if you couldn’t smell. Had only four senses.

  “You think he’s going to be home?” Tark asked. “What time do insurance salesmen go to work?”

  Flip did not respond. He looked over at Sally, who was holding a handkerchief to her face.

  “Sally, can you put that away?” Flip said. “We don’t want to offend the man.”

  “I may have to burn these clothes,” Sally said, placing the handkerchief back inside her purse with great effort. “The air here. Something’s not right about it. It’s literally brown.”

  “That’s dust from the hog lots,” Flip informed her.

  “Maybe,” Sally said, now holding only her gloved hand to her nose. “But it feels like something else too. Something worse.”

  They started up the paved walkway that led to the small, clapboard house. A man immediately came out and stood on the porch. To Flip, who carried no insurance of any kind, he seemed as likely a candidate as any. The man had milky brown skin, thick eyebrows, and powerful looking shoulders. His short hair had been treated with lye and combed to the side. He wore fine, shined shoes, and straight trousers. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to his elbows against the summer heat, but his armpits were already heavy with sweat.

  “Can I help you folks?” he asked brightly. “Y’all friends of Melissa; she lives upstairs. Take the fire escape entrance around the back of the house.”

  “We’re here to see you, Mr. Nash,” Flip said.

  The man straightened up as though a drill sergeant had just said ‘Ten-SHUN.’ It was clear he anticipated a sale. Perhaps he worked out of his home.

  Flip prepared to dash some hopes.

  Flip opened his coat. In the late-morning sun, his badge positively gleamed. The insurance salesman squinted as the reflected light from the star hit him in the face. Then Flip’s coat closed again. Nash warily reopened his eyes.

  “What is it?” Nash asked grimly. “You here about an adjustment gone bad? You take that up with corporate, not me. You call the home office. That’s how it works.”

  Flip reached the foot of the porch, but did not climb it.

  “We heard that you had a man attack you. That’s why we’re here.”

  Nash made an expression as though—for the first time, amid the offal stench that hummed in the air as if alive—he smelled something strange.

  “Attack me?” he said. “What are you talking about? When was I attacked?”

  “Some years ago, as we heard it,” Flip clarified. “Back in oh-five or oh-six, maybe?”

  Nash nodded slowly, but only to show that he was listening. It was clear to Flip the man recalled nothing.

  “We heard that an assailant with a deformity—maybe like a divot in his head?—attacked you in a serious way,” Flip continued.

  Nash’s eyes searched the hazy stockyard horizon, then seemed to hit upon something. He visibly relaxed. His shoulders fell as though the drill sergeant had left the room.

  “You been talkin’ to old Janice Collins, I do declare!” Nash said brightly. “How is she, after all this time?”

  Flip shrugged evasively.

  “Whoever I heard this from. . .” Flip continued, “we think you might have been targeted because you’re an identical twin. We have reason to think someone in the city is doing that now—focusing on identical twins for violence. If we can step inside and talk to you—and you could tell us what you remember—it might help us stop that person.”

  “Am I in any danger?” Nash asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Flip told him. “But may we come in?”

  Nash nodded, turned, and opened up his front door.

  As it happened, Nash did work out of his home. A Continental Illinois Insurance sign hung above the desk in his living room, alongside several framed certifications and corporate awards that almost looked like diplomas. Chairs were arranged for visitors, and they sat around the desk.

  “What can I tell you?” Nash asked, easing with familiarity into his seat.

  “First, describe the attack,” Flip said.

  “Well. . . how much do you know already? I don’t wanna repeat things. Waste your time. What did Janice tell you?”

  Nash leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He scanned the doorway behind Flip.

  Flip wondered if Nash would tell the quickest possible version of the tale, just to get rid of them before paying customers could arrive. Probably, that was exactly what he would do.

  “Assume that I don’t know much, and we’ll go from there,” Flip said sternly. “I’ll let you know when we’ve
heard enough. Don’t leave out any details.”

  Nash smirked to say that if that was what Flip wanted, it was what he would get.

  “This is a while back, so I don’t recall every part of the night. Thing about someone trying to kill you—you forget most of the encounter, except for a few seconds of it. But those few seconds? They stay in front of your brain the whole rest of your life.”

  Flip nodded and said: “People try to kill me all the time. I know just what you mean.”

  Nash nodded back cautiously.

  “So I worked door-to-door then,” the insurance man said. “I came home one evening. It’s winter. Not six yet o’clock, but already dark. Cold, too. So cold. I’m climbing up my front porch, and I suppose that was when he came at me—when I was opening up the door. I figure he planned to bust me in the face right when I undid the lock, then get inside and rob me. But he swung too soon! My keys fell from my hand and the door was still locked tight. I think he used a length of pipe or a bat. I never saw. Anyhow, I fought him back, and I don’t think he expected me to. I spun and tackled him. I used to carry melons on the farm down south, you know? Built up my arms real good. This man was strong, but I was stronger. He ran around the back of the house, right by Janice’s window, then headed off into the trees. I think I must have pulled myself inside my apartment and closed the door. I don’t remember. The next day—yes, that’s when I saw Janice again—I told her what happened and she made me take myself to the hospital. She was concerned for me, Janice was. Insisted I go. A very kind young lady.”

  Flip shifted in his chair.

  “Tell me about the man,” Flip said. “Describe what you saw.”

  “Negro. About my size. I don’t remember much of his face, but I saw the feature you were talking about. I told Janice about that too.

  He had a spot on his head about the size of a golf ball that was plumb gone.”

  “You said it was cold that evening,” Flip observed. “The assailant wasn’t wearing a hat?”

  Nash shook his head.

  “Not that I remember.”

  “How old was he?” Flip asked. “Did he move like an old man or a young man?”

  “I really can’t tell you,” said Nash. “Anything would be a guess. Younger man, I suppose.”

  Flip shifted once more.

  “This isn’t much. Any chance you could draw me a picture of him?”

  Nash frowned regretfully.

  “Naw, I. . . I can’t draw much more than stick men. Never had the talent for it.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?” Flip said sternly. “Did you hear his voice? Did he look like he worked over in the stockyards? Was there blood on his clothes?”

  “Nothing. . . I. . . No, I’m sorry.”

  Flip sighed in frustration and rose from his chair.

  For a moment, Nash seemed to believe the interview might be concluding. He smiled, hopeful he’d be able to receive paying customers soon.

  But instead of departing, Flip began to pace. He strode to the wall where Nash’s certificates hung. He slowed his gait and leaned in close to inspect them, one by one.

  “Do you make it known that you are an identical twin, Mr. Nash?” Flip asked, squinting to examine the small type on a property and casualty licensing document.

  “I don’t keep it a secret,” Nash said. “I’m honest if somebody asks me. But let’s just say I don’t bring it up first.”

  “Why don’t you bring it up?” Flip said, turning suddenly. “No shame in being a twin, is there?”

  Nash winced uneasily.

  “It is if you got a twin like I do,” Nash replied, letting his chin fall to his hands. “It is if you got a twin like my brother Rotney. He. . . He’s a good man, deep down. He tries to be. But when our daddy lost his land and our momma got sick, he didn’t come back from it the way I did. Never recovered. He drinks too much now. Carries on. Spends too much time in the Levee District. Finds all the places you just shouldn’t go. They know him by name at the Bucket of Blood. That alone ought to tell you something.”

  Across the room, Sally Battle clucked disapprovingly.

  The Bucket of Blood was Chicago’s most notorious brothel—a place for derelicts, criminals, and those whose sexual tastes ran to the extreme. (Some said the Bucket took its name from the sadistic, gory acts practiced by the sporting girls within. Other said it merely referred to the soap and water pail used to clean the human blood from the floors each night after fistfights. Near as Flip could tell, both origin stories held a kernel of truth.)

  “What does Rotney do for work?” Flip asked.

  “He was a janitor, last time I heard,” Nash answered. “Works in the basement of a building up in the Loop.”

  “And where does he live?” Flip asked.

  Nash rubbed his chin and thought for a moment.

  “Not far from here,” he said. “Closer to the yards than my place. Deeper inside. I can give you the street address, but it’s not much more than a garage. I don’t like it that he lives that way, but it’s what he seems to choose. He’d rather spend all his money at the Bucket than try to better his lot. Some folks is like that.”

  Nash took a Continental Illinois Insurance envelope from a stack on his desk, turned it over, and wrote an address on the back. He held it out to Flip. The policeman put it in his coat pocket without a second glance.

  “Sounds like your brother runs rough,” Flip said. “Way I heard it, Bucket of Blood is a good place to get into a fight or two. Maybe you don’t walk out of there everybody’s favorite person?”

  “I. . . I see where you’re going with that,” Nash said. “And yes, my brother’s the kind of man who probably has some people who’d like to give him a licking. And yes, could have been that the man with the chunk out of his head was someone Rotney had rubbed the wrong way—and thought I was him. Hell, maybe Rotney’s the guy who gave him the chunk! Who can know? Yes. All right then? Is that what you want me to say? The answer is yes. It might be that’s why that man came after me.”

  Flip looked as though he had finally got what he wanted. He moved away from Nash’s wall of certifications and awards, eventually ambling over to the front door. Sally and Tark realized the policeman really did mean to depart this time, and stood as well.

  “Mr. Nash, you think your brother would be home this time of day, if we wanted to pay him a visit?” Flip asked.

  “If he still has a job, he’ll be at work now,” Nash said. “Quite a bit rests on that ‘if.’ You never know with Rotney.”

  “Thank you,” Flip said. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “You think this man’s gonna come back for me, after all these years?” Nash asked.

  “Actually, I think you’re quite safe,” Flip told him.

  Nash nodded in relief. He scurried to the door and held it open for his departing guests. Flip, Tark, and Sally walked back into the stinking, dusty morning.

  Outside, Sally asked if they were going to the brother’s house.

  Flip said they were.

  It was unbelievable. More than once, Flip stopped to check the address on the back of the envelope in his pocket, just to be sure. That any human could or would choose to live so close to these stinking, fetid rivulets of offal and pigshit was difficult to credit. Was literally astounding. They had thought—from the stench and the brown air—that Ed Nash’s house had been practically within the stockyards. Only now did they realize that, compared to their new destination, it had practically been a suburb.

  Flip wondered if the address might be a penitence. A self-flagellation. One would have to hate oneself, truly, to keep such an address as Rotney Nash.

  “This can’t be right,” Tark said, whispering aloud what they were all thinking. “No person lives here.”

  They walked down the center of a dusty street where the concrete underfoot was permanently covered in a thin powder of pigshit. Fences of barbed wire rose beside other fences of wood. It looked like something out of a war. The fence
s were stained with mud and blood. The cries of the beasts were now distinct. No longer a great hum from a background chorus, Flip heard specific bleats and oinks and humanlike screams. The workingmen visible between the fence slats wore grey and brown colors only, and were covered in pig dust. They stared at the trio of interlopers suspiciously. Observation platforms rose into the air above the individual hog lots. Security lights like the spotlights at the back of theaters stood atop them. At the far end of the street was an endless sea of animal pens. Train tracks crisscrossed this broken maze of fences and shit every hundred yards or so. The permanent structures that stuck up here and there—the few remaining teeth in the mouth of an indigent corpse—looked abandoned and burnt out like after a riot.

  A final time, Flip took the envelope from his pocket and stared hard at the address that had been written.

  Sally Battle carried her handkerchief back at her nose.

  Tark swore and said: “That insurance man was having a laugh at our expense. We ought to go back and box his ears.”

  Flip shook his head no, and made for one of the burnt-out husks.

  It was a squat stone building with a segmented vertical door—the kind of a place a maintenance crew might use to store equipment. It was crumbling and half-destroyed, with holes in the roof. There was a lone workman standing near this grim structure. He was holding a long awl that could be knocked into the brain of a pig to kill it.

  Flip showed his badge and gun. The man smiled to reveal black gums and yellow teeth. Though startling and unpleasant, the smile was real, and the man seemed glad for visitors to break up his workday.

  “We’re looking for Rotney Nash,” Flip said. “He around here?”

  The workman’s shit-and-piss smile grew wider.

  “Rotney. . .” the man croaked. “What he gone and done now? Not dead, issy?”

  “No, he’s not dead,” Flip said. “This is where he lives, correct?”

  “Sometimes Rotney comes around. Pert never during the day though. He comes at night. Sometimes he has a woman with him. She’ll be—they both are—very drunk. No sober woman wants to come to Rotney’s place.”

  The workman nodded to the broken garage beside them.