Black Mountain

by Laird Barron

  “The streetlamps were far apart and some had burned out. I glimpsed the pack in a yard across the way. Seven or eight coyotes sniffing in the grass. Then I scuffed the sidewalk, or whatever. The coyotes spotted me and trotted in my direction. Sprinted like Jesse Owens for our back door. Man, could I run. Gotta be why God took my legs. Sky Daddy is a joker.”

  “You should narrate a Rust Belt documentary for National Geographic,” I said.

  “Wanna pop? Got some Faygo in the icebox. All the flavors. Redpop, Root Beer, Creme, Grape, Cotton Candy. All of ’em.”

  “I didn’t want one when Norma asked. Morris Oestryke was your pal in high school. Dazzle me with some insight into the man.” The truth was, my headache had returned, hammer and tongs. I palmed some aspirin and swallowed them dry.

  “We weren’t pals,” he said. “We were teammates. Ever been on a team? No? There’s a difference.”

  “Comrades under fire. I respect that. Family, friends, lovers; nobody is closer than a man who’s walked through hell with you, shoulder to shoulder. Old-timers say Oestryke worked at Valero,” I said. “Did he talk about his job?”

  “Sharp, aren’t you?” Swenson said. “Hang tight.” He disappeared down the hall. I entertained several scenarios should he come back with a weapon. He came back with a high school yearbook instead. “This is us, Class of 1969. We’d just finished a practice. Flattops and farmer’s tans. In pads, I was a god. There’s Morris O.” Morris draped an arm over Swenson’s shoulders in the photo. Both were young and flushed. “Where are those pictures you had?” He accepted Oestryke’s military and company headshots and laid them near the yearbook for comparison, and repeated this with the official class photos. “See? Close, but no cigar.”

  I glanced at him and back to the photos.

  “Okay, what?”

  “It’s not the same person in your pics,” Swenson said. He sounded petulant; a child insisting to an adult that he’d seen a ghost. “Same hair, similar build. Close, yeah. Cheekbones are real close too. Like brothers, or cousins. I rolled around in the mud with Morris for three years. This isn’t him in an Army uniform. Sure as shit isn’t him in the suit.”

  “Interesting. Half of Deering has seen these pics. You’re the first person to claim this isn’t Oestryke. What makes you so sure?”

  “I am positive because I visited the man in 1987.”

  “You command my rapt attention, Mr. Swenson,” I said.

  “Mo didn’t go into Witness Protection when he left Deering. He wasn’t hard to find. I heard through the grapevine he’d settled back east. Called the operator with a number request and there he was, shittin’ in high cotton in a tidy suburb. My wife has relatives near Albany and we were in town for a family reunion. I slipped away and dropped in at the Oestryke residence at suppertime. I didn’t call ahead, just walked up and knocked on the door. This kid answers. I ask for the man of the house. The kid yells for his dad. Mo is sitting twenty feet away on the couch. I get a long, hard look at him. It ain’t Mo. No, it ain’t him.”

  “Who was it, then?” I tried to ignore the blood leaking from under his towel. Ooze gathered into a fat droplet and splatted his sweatshirt.

  “John Doe. What gave me the heebie-jeebies was, the resemblance is uncanny. Actors can change their posture, how they hold their jaw. Some makeup, an accent, and the magical transformation is complete. That’s how it felt—the man on the couch was starring in a reenactment. An actor who’s played a role for so long, he almost believes he’s become this whole other person. He don’t recognize me either. Thank fuckin’ God. If I woulda copped to knowing he wasn’t the real Mo Oestryke, blown his secret, I’d wager my bottom dollar Denis Swenson would’ve vanished from the face of the earth one night soon after.

  “There’s somethin’ in his expression that trips a few alarms, you see. Malice? Evil? I dunno what. You got the same coldness in your eyes. It’s what a deer sees if it comes upon a hunter in the woods. And speakin’ of that . . . one thing I noticed straight off was this poster-sized black-and-white print of a leopard, or a jaguar—one of those jungle cats—draggin’ a baboon by the neck. Didn’t seem like an appropriate piece of art for a family home. Dude was sittin’ directly under the fuckin’ thing, and, I don’t know, it was kinda surreal and creepy, almost posed. I apologized for the mistake, said I was lookin’ for Bill Smith—first bullshit name off the top of my head—and scrammed.”

  “You sound convinced,” I said. His mention of the wildlife photo rang a distant bell. “Me, I’m less convinced. Couldn’t it have been a misunderstanding? A coincidence? Has to be more than one Morris Oestryke in the world. You ran into a doppelgänger. We each have one.”

  Swenson’s eyebrows furrowed as I punched holes in his theory.

  “Doppelgänger? What’s that? The guy followed me. Fucker appeared in my rearview as I got on the freeway. He must’ve been speedin’ because I saw cop lights flash and a cruiser pulled him over. Only reason I spotted him, to be honest. Why would a normal person jump into his car and come after me like that? Answer is, they wouldn’t.”

  His words possessed a screw-you authenticity I couldn’t dismiss. I’m fairly unflappable. Swenson’s account spooked me when I put myself in his shoes.

  “Tell me about Valero,” I said.

  “Mo kept his mouth shut. Valero’s nondisclosure contract was ironclad. I heard rumors. The one I buy is, they tortured small animals to test weapons tech for a defense contractor.”

  “Bioweapons? Electronics? Military R and D covers a lot of territory.”

  “Yeah, man. Laser technology and sonic weapons. Blind the enemy, fuck with his mind, or make his brain hemorrhage out his ears. Nobody knows dick except the pudknockers on the inside. In those days, the woods were darker and the entire property was locked tight as a gnat’s ass behind an electric fence. Valero was part of Deering the way your old drooling cousin Ned in the attic is ‘part’ of the family. Blended right in. Weren’t here even a winter; people drove right past without lookin’.”

  I’d reached the final hours of my heartland tour and couldn’t estimate whether the trip had merited the effort. Surely there was more, some nugget I might tease forth with dogged effort. Isn’t there always? The damp, musty earth of Deering seemed the kind of place to harbor a substratum of rotten secrets.

  Swenson said, “Here’s why them photos don’t match his graduation portrait. Morris Oestryke died in 1969, is my guess. I last saw him a week after graduation. They killed him before he ever got on that bus and headed for basic.”

  “Your theory is that somebody iced Oestryke to assume his identity. Which makes no kind of sense. Who?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. He hung with people inside Valero Tech. Big-cheese types. I told him somethin’ was hinky—rich fucks don’t associate with their inferiors unless there’s something in it for them. They inducted him into their circle. No names. Except I saw him once at Jack Rubie’s—it closed in 2000—hanging with two university-aged guys. My first take? One of them had to be a half brother or a cousin. The resemblance was uncanny. I didn’t give it a lick of thought until twenty years went by and I saw the phony sonofabitch pretending to be my friend.”

  “Did you encounter the Oestryke impostor after that occasion in Albany?” It was the last question I had right then, born of the strangely affecting logo at the back of the furniture warehouse. A screwball.

  “You asking if my friend’s stunt double ever come home to Deering? Creep in through my window one night for a reunion?”

  “Sure. Or slithered down the chimney, whatever.”

  He lowered the towel and grinned as if I’d finally gotten a painfully obvious joke. His teeth were red.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Upon flying home to Rosendale, I went straight to my girl and my dog. Dinner, drinks, and mindless comedy on the tube unkinked the knots my muscles had formed over the past three day
s. It was like crawling from beneath an anvil. I spent the night wrapped in Meg’s arms. Borrowing her warmth helped. We’d grown attuned to our respective moods. I didn’t ask what latest domestic disaster had occurred in my absence and she didn’t ask what had happened during the foray to Michigan.

  The next morning, I booked an appointment with Marion Curtis. I requested an in-person meet to accept the weekly retainer fee. Time had finally come for the dreaded face-to-face. Curtis was, in his words, busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. Since he suspected I had juicy intel for him, he granted me a fifteen-minute audience.

  We rendezvoused at the abandoned YMCA near the river in Poughkeepsie. While the YMCA logo had been removed and much of the sprawling, ancient structure shuttered since the latter aughts, sections remained lighted and in operating order. Somebody somewhere evidently forked over installments to avoid the bulldozers and wrecking balls. Private parties were welcome to rent the facilities—the mob used it as a clubhouse.

  A wiseguy rocking a pompadour buzzed me through the security entrance and said Mr. Curtis awaited in the gymnasium. The wiseguy patted me down. He dropped my gun, knife, and brass knuckles into a plastic container like the type used at airports. He pointed. I followed red LED signs along dim corridors, down short flights of stairs, up short flights of stairs, and from light to darkness and into light again. Easy place to get lost despite the signage. The building was a cavernous maze and I hadn’t thought to bring a spindle of twine.

  Muffled shouts and the harsh squeal of rubber soles on parquet flooring guided me to my destination. I scented the alluring tang of blood and adrenaline before I got there. A dozen rough men gathered near the far free throw line. The busted-nose and cauliflower-ear set. They wore T-shirts and sweats and were divided into teams of red and blue. Some of them leaned forward, hands on knees. One guy lay prone, his arm flung over his head. Nary a basketball in sight.

  I’d seen this exhibition at the “classier” backwaters—a no-holds-barred mixed martial arts format popular in Russia and the former Eastern Bloc countries. Two teams of men faced each other in parallel lines and charged at the whistle in a semi-organized gang rumble. I winced at the barbarity of performing these antics, even with shoes on, on an unyielding surface.

  Blood sport isn’t my bag, although I’ll make an exception for humans.

  Three stern gentlemen in striped shirts and black pants circulated among the fighters, checking for broken bones and concussions. Off to the side, an amateur crew fiddled with a bank of lights and a Panaflex 35mm. The crew bitched and argued and exchanged idle threats. None of them were certain how to operate the circa 1970s camera.

  Curtis reposed in the bleachers, flanked by a trio of no-neck flunkies. Albany boys; otherwise, I would’ve met them before today. He gave me the Come along gesture.

  “Yowza! This ape here to rumble?” One of the thugs appraised me, hand poised near his pistol butt.

  “He’d be the entire blue team,” Curtis said. “Scram, boys.”

  His guards cast reproachful glances as they relocated to another row.

  “You win points for originality.” I sat next to him so we were both staring at the court. “Beats a nightclub, titty bar, racetrack, or warehouse. Or a church. Gangsters love to palaver in a church.”

  “Aquariums and art galleries are cliché too.” Curtis dressed in steel-gray: big, heavy peacoat, unbuttoned, and a fedora pulled low over his eyes. “Should come get a load of this joint next week. I have it on good authority that the White Manitou are playing Aztec basketball.”

  The White Manitou were a major gang; ostensibly, Native American, but in reality multiethnic, and currently engaged in a cold war with the mob. The gang warily ignored my existence—maybe I’d be of use one day. Providing I didn’t step on too many moccasins in the interim.

  “If I catch the guy who bumped Ray and Harry, he could be the star attraction,” I said. “Sacrifice him right there at center court.”

  He set another of those thick envelopes on the bench and nudged it toward me with the back of his hand.

  “Whole lotta dough. I could afford a down payment on a Lexus, what I’m forking over to you. Braces for my godson. Fancy new pistols for the boys here.”

  “A year’s supply of Viagra.”

  “Two years’. Wanda put me in the doghouse, so I’m on half rations. My gut tells me what you’ve learned will be worth every dime.”

  “Uh, let’s not hype this like Geraldo Rivera opening Capone’s vault.”

  The red and blue teams straggled off, stage left. A dozen young men, evenly divided between yellow and green outfits, replaced them. The banter was Slavic.

  “Those morons haven’t a clue how to run that camera.” Curtis clapped loudly to get the crew’s attention. “Hey, jerks! Two minutes and that camera is rolling, or I’ll know why not. I paid these apes to bash each other’s brains in, not stand around with their thumbs up their asses.”

  The techs’ argument escalated. If they kept going, those old boys would be the ones rolling around punching and gouging. Nobody wants Caesar to grow restless on his watch.

  “That’s a classic setup,” I said of the Panaflex. “Where’d you score one of those models?”

  “It fell off a truck.” He braced his arms behind his neck. “You went sniffing around the Bird of Paradise the other night, as I recall. I hope you had a swell evening on the company dime. Harry was like a bad penny around there, wasn’t he?”

  “He and the girls got along famously. Thought I’d ask for their opinions.”

  “Whatcha got for me, Coleridge?”

  “Okay, don’t get mad.”

  I inhaled and dove in headfirst. Potentially mortal enemies surround me, but I was cool and measured. I related precisely what my patron needed to know and nothing more. For example, I detailed what I’d uncovered about the Croatoan, including the distinct possibility he’d murdered the original Morris Oestryke and assumed his identity in 1969.

  Conversely, I elided the existence of my source inside the FBI. Nor did Delia Labrador’s name escape my lips, although I guessed he must be aware she’d been Harry’s paramour. Then again, life is messy and rife with loose ends.

  Did I hedge on Delia’s involvement because of chivalry? Nah; I hadn’t determined the extent of her value. Every instinct warned me to keep Curtis at least slightly in the dark until I got a handle on the situation. A strategy not without risk. Mobsters are touchy dudes. It was not beyond the realm of possibility that an annoyed Curtis could snap his fingers and have me ventilated on the spot. I fervently hoped that his motive for setting me on the trail was sincere.

  “I wish you would’ve told me about Oestryke from the beginning,” I said in conclusion. “Why the runaround?” Offense might unbalance him and prevent him from zeroing in with questions I wasn’t prepared to answer.

  Curtis didn’t gesture to his soldiers to have me dragged away and capped. He smiled wryly, reached into his pocket, and got a cigarette. He lit the cigarette and puffed. Then he turned his head slightly to regard me.

  “My friend, I have an inkling as to why your boss was so eager to boot you outta Alaska. You’re lippy.”

  “Lippy . . . uppity? Tomato . . . tomahto?”

  “Hey! Whoa, there, Coleridge. I didn’t mean anything racial.”

  The camera crew signaled to the refs and the refs organized the brawlers, six on a side. The whistle blew and the men rushed in, swinging. At first, the fighters engaged their opposite number. Head-butting, rabbit punches, dropkicks to the groin—anything seemed to go. The single-combat phase didn’t last long. As soon as somebody fell, the victor assisted his nearest teammate. Then it was two-on-one, and finally a dogpile atop the last fighter on the losing side. I’m uncertain what purpose the refs served, except to blow the whistle after the vanquished were immobilized or unconscious.

  Green
triumphed, more or less.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The Family lives by a set of rules,” Curtis said. “You are well aware of our traditions or you wouldn’t be aboveground. I kid about your Alaska exile. Apollo woulda made you a member, if such were possible.”

  “Mr. Apollo treated me well,” I said. “He saved my life and I’m grateful.”

  “Respect will carry you far. The street taught me that. I started with nothing, knowing nothing. Main thing I learned since becoming a capo? The smart play is, keep everything nice and simple. This Morris Oestryke you investigated? Forget him. He’s a goner. Six feet under. Sleepin’ with the fishes. Dirt nap. Wooden kimono. I wasn’t trying to deceive you—I don’t fuckin’ know who dusted Lee and Anderson. It ain’t the Croatoan. That I can vouch for.”

  I began calculating the implications, reconfiguring my prior theories and suppositions. I made an intuitive leap. Or, perhaps, a hop.

  “You dusted him.”

  He nodded, pleased I was following the bouncing ball.

  “That’s right. Very good. Give the man a Kewpie.”

  “If the Croatoan is dead, who’s doing your associates? Because it feels like payback.”

  “People in this line got our share of enemies.” He puffed his cigarette and assumed the expression of a man rapidly adding numbers and not liking the sum. “Granted, this is damned specific. A copycat. Has to be a copycat in possession of the dirty details. I thought maybe Nic Royal, say they had a fallin’-out, or what have you. Reasonably sure it ain’t him. No motive, and murder ain’t in his résumé. Royal’s a nobody; keeps his nose clean and his mouth shut. It’d be safer to clip the kid, though. I’m all about safety. I decided to wait and see what you think.”

  “I assume ‘wait and see’ means Royal has skipped town since our chat.”