Worse Angels

by Laird Barron

  “Yeah, buddy. Nothing. She’s super fucking smart, though. Could have waited until after the heat was off to move money to an accomplice.”

  I put a mental pin there.

  “Sean’s mom doesn’t buy the authorized account, but no one ever listens to Cassandras. She turns to you, the resident cop. And . . .”

  “Let’s say, as sands pass through the hourglass, I’m not sanguine either. Two and two comes out five. It smells like shoddy policework at best, a cover-up to protect corporate assets at worst. Read the report and rap with my sister.”

  “Horse, then cart,” I said.

  “You’re trying to figure how the lotto dropped your number.”

  “Some would note that I’m tall, dark, and handsome. Occurred to me I might be a diversity hire.”

  “You’re tall and dark. As it happens, Jonathan Labrador and I are golfing buddies.”

  Screw a lottery number, this was the other hobnail shoe dropping.

  Labrador, another gold-plated member of the billionaire industrialist club and CEO of the obscenely profitable Zircon Corporation. The corporation’s slicker-than-goose-shit media campaigns featured fresh-faced white kids drilling wells in foreign deserts, establishing communication networks to disadvantaged communities, building high-tech infrastructure, and similar propaganda. Maggots wriggled beneath the shiny façade. Zircon and the Redlick Group were peas in a pod—the former wanted to rule the world via high tech, while the latter cleaved to the tradition of owning all the dirt it could acquire.

  Jonathan Labrador was no fan of Isaiah Coleridge. He nursed ill will toward me for several reasons, not the least of which being that an investigation of mine stepped on his toes and led to the death of his estranged brother, the infamous Croatoan. I prayed daily that Labrador knew nothing of my hand in his brother’s death nor my five-fingered withdrawal of one and a half mil from said brother’s nest egg. Possibly worse for our strained relationship was that I menaced his daughter, Delia, during a heated confrontation. Delia Labrador was a force of nature. She and I had since mended fences, kinda-sorta. Alas, Daddy wasn’t sharing the rapport. Then there was her torrid romance with Lionel. Their affair wasn’t popular at the royal court. I imagine the Labradors held me responsible for him as a freeman landholder might be expected to control a manservant or uppity serf.

  Disowned, maniac relatives notwithstanding, rich-as-God patriarchs tend to have paper-thin tolerance for meddling detectives who wave guns and occasionally use them. Now came the heretofore hidden consequences. Nothing is ever over. Especially if the nothing is something unpleasant.

  “You gamed the system as an alleged lawman,” I said. “Became Redlick’s fixer and Labrador’s golfing buddy. Have to admire a man who plays that many angles.”

  “Can’t take full credit—well-connected individuals came courting after Redlick cut me loose. I just had to lie back and enjoy the attention. Wound up consulting for Zircon.”

  “Labrador pumped you for secrets.”

  “Well, duh. I made it pay off without burning any bridges.”

  “Consultation is a refined way of saying, I supplied corporate junkets with hookers and twisted arms of plaintiffs who wouldn’t drop pesky lawsuits.”

  “The Outfit-period Coleridge would approve, I promise. Jonny had an opinion of you and your character. Boy, oh, boy did he ever.”

  “Choice words, presumably,” I said.

  “He described you as . . . I’ll try to be delicate . . . a bully and a thug. Those are your admirable traits. He also indicated that you have huge stones and decidedly situational ethics.”

  “Mom always said a pair of big balls and a lack of ethics would get me through any door. However, I’m skeptical if you’re suggesting Labrador recommended me for a job.”

  “Jon didn’t recommend you for a goddamned thing. Your name dropped in relation to an entirely different matter.”

  I laughed reflexively. Of course, of course, the exec wanted my head on a stake. Adeyemi was proficient in headhunting. It’s pleasantly convenient when interests align.

  “Wild guess . . . Labrador took your temperature about putting a round behind my ear and dumping me in the Barrens. You probably have a spot picked out.”

  “He did ask if I knew anyone reliable,” Adeyemi said. “I’m personally too hot to do business. The SDNY bird-dogging me is a serious pain. My boy was drunk and it was more a casual inquiry. I wouldn’t sweat it.”

  “Okay, I won’t spare it another thought.”

  “All’s well that ends well. My chat with Jon inspired me to check into your bona fides. And here we are, making nice.”

  “Which leaves us with the fact you could’ve engaged numerous heavyweight operators.”

  “Ah, such as Lancing Brothers or the Woolfolk Agency,” Adeyemi said.

  “The obvious choices. Impeccable reputations. By the book. Eminently convenient with offices in New York and Kingston.”

  He nodded over the rim of his rapidly diminishing glass of booze.

  “The firm that employed Sean is a subsidiary of the Redlick Group.”

  “Your long-lost buddies,” I said.

  “Any of them had a role in Sean’s death, or a cover-up, they go on the list.”

  “What about Senator Redlick? According to my math, he vacated the throne not long before your nephew went to his reward.”

  He swallowed his scotch. Let the moment stretch. Doubtful he was deliberating so much as managing the effect.

  “The big man wasn’t involved. He’d recently divested his interest in the corporation. I threw my weight around at the operations level to get my nephew hired. Leaned on a human resource manager with a gambling problem. And the personnel manifest listed Sean as a Pruitt, not an Adeyemi.”

  I stared at him, unblinking.

  “He’s my friend,” Adeyemi said. “One of the few.”

  “Humor me.”

  “Gerry too.”

  “Yeah, what I figured. Any case that comes within a hundred miles of Senator Redlick may as well have a hazardous-to-health warning on the label. And Labrador? How many of his fingers were in the Jeffers Project?”

  “Labrador contributed funds to kick-start the job. Fingers nothing. He owned a double helping of that pie.”

  “Not even one degree of Kevin Bacon,” I said. “I’m going to assume you haven’t shared your speculation with anybody who might be in a position to shut you up permanently.”

  “I’ve mentioned it to my sister. Nobody else.”

  “Which, according to the Law of Best Intentions, I’m racing a clock before news leaks. I hope this isn’t a scheme to settle a score with your old boss.”

  “The fuck you care?” he said. “Settling scores is practically your business motto.”

  “What I mean is, the odds are against me discovering anything new. Neither the cops nor the companies will be eager to reopen a can of worms. They’ll resist.”

  “They resist, they’re hiding something.”

  “Hiding something is a rich person’s default mode,” I said. “Rich and untouchable.”

  “Nobody is untouchable,” he said.

  The problem with rich people and politicians is that even if they’re not guilty of a particular incident or crime, they’re guilty of something. Something that could be exposed via some clod snooping into their affairs.

  “I’d be poking the bear,” I said. “Possibly two bears, counting Zircon. That raises the stakes. Toss a senator into the mix and the stakes amount to the family farm.”

  “Recent history suggests you’re stupid enough to take it on despite the hazards. Or because of the hazards. Did I mention Jon thinks you’re really, really stupid? My kind of endorsement.”

  “I’m extremely impetuous. He’s raw I got the better of him.”

  “Opening bell in a title fight,” he s
aid with a sneer. “Congratulations. You picked a live one for an enemy. Endless resources. Zero compunctions. Pet name basis with top cops. The family passes down its grudges like heirlooms.”

  “Way to sell the job. I accept this case, he’ll be even madder at me.”

  “Maybe a skootch madder. A cunt hair madder. You can handle that, bad boy.”

  I wasn’t so sure. And because I wasn’t sure, I polished off my drink and waited.

  “Impeccable and by the book aren’t what I need,” he said after a while. “RG plays hardball. So does Zircon. You think they might resist an inquiry. That’s an understatement.”

  “What is it you do need, Mr. Adeyemi?”

  “I need a bad news sonofabitch with a gun. Somebody who won’t be intimidated by corporate mercs, who isn’t averse to smashing heads. Somebody who doesn’t mind killing if it comes to that.” He leaned close, clasped my forearm, and grinned. “Because if some fool is responsible for breaking my sister’s heart, I hope it comes to that.”

  Most detectives maintain a list of things they won’t do. Mine is short, so I memorized it. Adeyemi must have read my mail.

  * * *

  ■■■

  I drove home in the gathering dusk, chewing on the pros and cons. Three days later, Adeyemi was cooling his heels in a jail cell awaiting trial. Hell of a lot of difference that it made. He wasn’t done with me by any means.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next day, I went to Meg’s house and picked her and Devlin up.

  She’d been cold with me this past week. A colleague from the library brought her son, Caleb, over to play with Devlin. The boys shared a second-grade class. The kid walked into the hall where Devlin kept a pair of goldfish we’d bought at the state fair. Tossed them on the floor and watched them die, then slipped the corpses back into the tank. No reason for it besides a psychotic thrill. Meg and the other woman were shocked. Devlin didn’t say anything; sat there while the adults gave the little shit the third degree and extracted the whole truth out of him. Caleb had been almost eager to confess. The second the interrogation concluded, Devlin calmly stood and decked the kid. Knocked him flat and gave him a few kicks to grow on. Meg said Devlin’s face was ghost-white and expressionless.

  Caleb killed Mr. and Mrs. Fishy, he said in the aftermath. The bastard had to pay.

  Sweetie, violence is not the right way to deal with problems. Violence is never—

  It was a human reaction, Mom. Let’s ask Isaiah.

  This boomeranged on me in a big way. It was I who taught her son to pop a jab and follow it home with a stiff right. It was I who instructed him in the rudiments of slipping a punch and the importance of mercilessly kicking a foe when he’s down. Suffer no fools and give no quarter. I may have mentioned while watching a Clint Eastwood western that righteous vengeance is a virtue. He’d taken the lessons to heart.

  I’d asked Meg if she was mad at me. Her brittle, icy smile indicated, yep, very mad. Thankfully, the temperature had warmed. Although matters remained unsettled.

  Stone Ridge held an art fair for local vendors and visiting artists. The gallery downstairs from my office featured an exhibition on the Holocaust. Meg and Devlin and I took it in toward the end of our afternoon tour. Black-and-white photography presented by the grandchildren of a war correspondent. One photo captured the pain and anguish of humanity’s dark hour: a bin overflowing with wedding bands confiscated from murdered Jews. A soldier ran his hands through the rings as if plunging them into grain. Death renders the familiar alien. Death makes a mockery of life.

  Devlin had questions. He didn’t fully comprehend the gravity of the exhibition. Sharp, intuitive child, nonetheless. He picked up context clues. Meg did the heavy lifting, explaining how one group of people came to power and used that power for terrible evil. She asked him to recall the mean kids in school, and fish-murderer Caleb shot to the top of the example list, and she briefly, deftly, described the concept of hatred for the mere sake of hatred, hatred based on differences perceived and otherwise, and how that led to the rise of the Nazis and the horrors they perpetrated. I contributed timely nods and grunts. He didn’t say much; there’s never closure in these situations.

  Dinner in North Kingston; an industrial neighborhood within a stone’s throw of the off-ramp. The restaurant was called the Old Aurora Lounge. Came highly recommended by senior gangsters. I could see why. The ambiance whisked the grayer wiseguys back to the era of Jimmy Hoffa and a perpetually befuddled FBI. Brown furniture, greenish carpet, orange walls, and amber drinking glasses. I was told that before smoking in restaurants went by the wayside, the lounge featured ashtrays heavy enough to concuss a moose. Our server’s tag said MARGE. She was old and veiny and could’ve been hunched over a slot machine in Atlantic City. I’ve never tasted that much chlorine in a cup of coffee.

  We enjoyed our meal, relatively speaking. As I went to pay the bill, a man wearing a Caesar haircut and a polo shirt beat me to the counter. He hit on the girl working the register. She blushed, looking everywhere but directly at him.

  I stared at the back of his neck, imagining heat rays. He turned, arranging his wallet.

  “Hey, Romeo,” I said, adding a bit of gravel.

  He paused and looked me over. Quizzical, arrogant, not the least bit intimidated.

  “We met?” he said.

  Every fiber of my being recoiled at the scent of his aftershave, his Eastern drawl. I also detest polo shirts for irrational reasons. Words formed in my mouth, and died there. Isaiah Coleridge of yesteryear followed this guy into the john, or outside, and pulped his smirking face. What did older, wiser, straight-arrow family-man Coleridge do when confronted by a banal little prick? He stepped aside like a grizzly inexplicably ceding the trail to a cur.

  “Have a day.” The dude thrust his hips forward as he sidled past my bemused self. Walking back to a woman and two kids at a table, his gait slackened and he rounded his shoulders. From alpha wolf to neutered beagle in less than five seconds. What other secrets did he keep from his loving wife and children?

  I held Meg’s coat and casually asked if she’d seen him at the library. Possibly I entertained the fantasy of tracking him down and kicking his ass at a more opportune moment.

  “The guy in the polo shirt? Yeah, that’s Dave something-or-other. He and his wife come into the library and check out videos for their kids. Agreeable family. Well, she’s cool and he’s kind of a dweeb, I suppose. Why?”

  “He looks familiar. No worries.” I was worried. Worried I’d jumped over civilized restraint and into abject domestication.

  Apparently, Meg’s psychic antenna was receiving a signal and she gave me side-eye calibrated to dispel any notion I was getting one over on her. She patted my cheek and a don couldn’t have implied greater menace. Her skin transformed in the holiday lights. Red and green and purple. The color spectrum of a holiday mood ring.

  * * *

  ■■■

  We were lying in bed. Sleepy, but not ready for sleep. Enjoying the afterglow. Talk segued to my lingering injuries and persistent nightmares. Also reminiscent of the Bronze Age traditions, she, as women tend to do, took my complaints deadly seriously and magnified the stakes tenfold. She’d long sensed trouble, and now her every sneaking hunch was validated. Woman’s intuition, or she’d missed her calling as a sleuth. Early on in our courtship I’d made the mistake of congratulating myself on slipping something past her, only to realize, to my chagrin, she excelled at holding her fire until I was vulnerable and exposed.

  “You’ve lived a life of consequence-free violence.” She’d lit several candles and the room swam with ceremonial light. Our shadows were the shadows of giants.

  I rotated my stiff shoulder and it crackled.

  “Wouldn’t say it’s been a picnic, exactly. Are you even looking at my face?”

  “Consequence-free, honey. That’s changing. Lionel said it
. The doctors have said it. Your body is saying it. You won’t be able to raise that arm overhead ten, twelve years from now. Won’t be able to run on those knees. Your back is probably shot. That misspent youth is a bill due.”

  She decided it best that I see a specialist.

  I hedged.

  “A specialist.” Sometimes naming a thing robs it of its power. Not this time. “To run even more tests.”

  “It’s what specialists do,” she said.

  “Sleep apnea, MRIs, rectal exam, or what?”

  “Sure, honey. Whatever sweetens the deal.”

  I took a breath to protest.

  “Save it,” she said. “I can finagle a referral to a clinic in New Paltz. A friend of mine runs it. Give you the once-over and then we can decide whether you have a few more years or if we should pick out a nice comfy hospice.”

  “Exactly what kind of clinic? I have a strong suspicion the doorways are strung with beads. Crystals, hemp, rolling clouds of incense, doctors in ceremonial robes . . .”

  “The people at General are missing something. I don’t trust them.”

  That made two of us.

  “All right, dear. Let me give it some consideration.” Still juking and jiving.

  “Your body is a ticking bomb. One of these days there won’t be a one-of-these-days.”

  “The Eternal Footman went to fetch my coat,” I said.

  She snickered.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Taken at face value, the case of Adeyemi’s dead nephew couldn’t get any simpler. Sean Pruitt, glorified loss prevention agent, met his fate on an otherwise routine evening in the depths of the soon-to-be-abandoned Jeffers Large Particle Collider. He suffered catastrophic blunt force trauma as a result of falling in excess of one hundred and eighty feet down Maintenance Shaft 40. One detail missing from the report was any real chart of Pruitt’s final movements. He signed in for his evening shift and at some point in the wee hours cruised out to Shaft 40 and leaped. The wife claimed he suffered depression, although his action took her by surprise. Coworkers were asked perfunctory questions, but no real interviews occurred. Sloppy policework, indicative of clock punchers working backward from a foregone conclusion.