by Aaron Saylor
Rage swirled into Karen’s face. There was no way she could let him go that easily. “So that was nobody?” she roared.
“Yep,” he said over his shoulder.
Karen blew up. “Where do you think you’re going now?” She followed him towards the entrance, but couldn’t beat him there.
Boone went on outside, trying to get away, but she made it onto the porch just as he reached the bottom of the steps. He didn’t turn around. He heard a clatter of yelling and cursing aimed in his general direction, but he didn’t dare turn around. Instead he went straight to his pick–up truck, got in, and drove away without saying another word.
BUSINESS
A tumbledown outbuilding stood behind Elmer Canifax’s house. On the exterior it looked like an old Cajun fishing shack, all grey wood and rust, with mushrooms growing out of the cracks in the walls and waist–high weeds poking out around the cement foundation. Thirty feet by thirty feet of ho–hum rural neglect.
But that was just the outside.
On the inside, Elmer’s shack was a mad scientist’s lab in all its haphazard glory. Crooked shelves were lined with dusty glass beakers, rubber hoses, Bunsen burners, objects from high school chemistry class that no one ever thought they’d use in real life. Sundry items lifted from kitchens and bathrooms in every corner of Seward County, the most common of harmless household items that mixed together with ease for results both delightful and deadly.
Half–empty bottles of rubbing alcohol. Cans of paint thinner, cardboard cylinders filled with drain cleaner.
Enough cough medicine to beat down the Black Plague.
A heap of car batteries, packages of diet pills, cans of Coleman lantern fuel.
Freon jugs, Red Bull energy drink, rock salt by the gallon.
Hypodermic needles.
Light bulbs.
Bottle caps.
Elmer had his special recipes, perfected over many late night cooking sessions. Depending on the occasion – birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Wednesday – he carefully picked from the ingredients at his disposal and conjured the appropriate version of his exquisite meth, up here in the little edifice on the back yard’s edge.
He considered himself something like a chef. A master meth chef. He offered a good product, and the market reacted in accordance. The party kids gave him a few dollars each. Some snorted his creation through empty ink pens, while those that couldn’t handle the snort grabbed a needle–less syringe and shot the candy straight up their asses. Everyone laid around, fucked up on Drano and firestarter. On went their feathery lives.
Boone found Elmer in the shack, sitting on the picnic table amidst a scatter of chemistry equipment, wearing an industrial gas mask. When Boone came in, Elmer held his hands on his knees and looked at the dirty wooden floor, where broken glass and twisted yellow hoses intertwined in an angry mass at his feet.
“Callin’ me like that probably wasn’t the smartest thing you could have done, Elmer,” Boone said as he closed the rickety door behind him.
Elmer lifted his head but didn’t turn to face his visitor. Still, Boone could see the cuts on his face. The injuries glistened fresh, raw. A dark purplish bruise deepened in Elmer’s left jaw, the same jaw that Sheriff Slone ground into the bathroom mirror just a few hours ago.
“You all right, Elmer?” said Boone.
Elmer sat up straighter, made eye contact. “Do I fuckin’ look like I’m all right?”
“Not really,” said Boone.
Elmer climbed down off the table. He stepped around the room, away from Boone, then back towards him, then away again. Eventually he wandered into a far corner, where he found a heavy green tarp covering a pile of old blankets. He stood there, in thought. He crossed his arms at the waist and considered the tarp and the blankets.
Boone waited.
Elmer gave off the clear impression that this pile of blankets was a matter of extreme importance. Some time passed. Boone waited. He wondered if this visit was a complete waste of time, but he also couldn’t escape the nagging idea that something important would be missed if he left. So he waited.
Finally Elmer reached down and slung the tarp aside. He pushed back the blankets and revealed something else underneath: two wooden crates stacked in perfect alignment, each one six feet in length, two feet wide, and two feet high.
Elmer ran his hand over his smooth bald head. “You know, Boone, I been wanting to ask you something for a while now,” he said.
“What about?”
“Just a little somethin’. I don’t mean to get too personal, but hell, I been wonderin’.“
Boone just looked at him.
Elmer pursed his lips, nodded slowly. “Right. Right. So is it true, about you and Ellen Slone?”
“Is what true?”
“That Walt had you kill her ‘cause he was too chicken shit to do it himself.”
A look came across Boone’s face like he’d just drunk a gallon of gasoline. “You heard that?”
“I heard that,” said Elmer.
Boone stared, dead silent. Elmer knew his comment had hit its mark. They stood there, each waiting for the other to say something, neither completely sure what that something might be.
Eventually Elmer waved off the tension and changed the subject. “Come over here, Boone,” he said, as he bent over and pried open the top of the crate with his bare hands. “I got something you want to see.” He found shredded newspaper and bubble wrap covering bags of white rice in the top of the crate, Rapidly he burrowed through it, as Boone obliged his request.
Boone considered that the best course of action might be to just turn around and get the hell out of there. Especially given Elmer’s questions about Ellen Slone. What kind of play was that? Where had it come from? Boone didn’t know and didn’t really want to know.
“I’m gettin’ out of here,” he said, and took a step towards the door.
“Hold on, hold on now,” said Elmer. “I’m sorry. The Ellen comments were too much. I was just playin’. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it no ways. Come over here and look at what I got. Trust me, you want to see it.”
Again Boone hesitated. He couldn’t see how this ended up anything but a fiasco. If Walt found out he’d visited Elmer, there would surely be a lot of questions, and Boone wouldn’t have any answers. Not any that Walt Slone wanted to hear, at least.
“Come on. Come on,” whispered Elmer, motioning with one hand for Boone to join him. “Tell me, you ain’t afraid of ol’ Walt are ya?”
“This has got nothing to do with him,” said Boone, knowing that was a lie. “You’re a world famous shit ass, Elmer. It ain’t really in my best interest to have dealins with you.”
Elmer chuckled. “Whatever.”
Against his better judgment, Boone wandered over to the pile of blankets. When he arrived there, the floor around Elmer was covered with trash and bubble wrap and rice. The crate stood open, the lid swung backward as far as it would go on its hinges.
With deferential silence, the two men gazed upon the contents – the true contents – of the wooden box as if they were peering at the secrets in the fabled Ark of the Covenant.
Ten bags of marijuana.
Four plastic cases, packed full with hundreds of little pills – one case for Lortabs, one for Oxycontin, one for Xanax, one for Vicodin.
Six assault rifles: three AR–15s and three M6A2s. Four 9mm Beretta pistols. Two Remington Model 750 deer rifles. A couple of night vision scopes. Plenty of ammo to go around.
Boone picked one of the AR–15s out of the box. “Do I even want to ask where all this shit came from?” He ran his hand along the smooth barrel.
“Probably not,” said Elmer. Then he snickered. “But I’d imagine you already got a pretty good idea.”
Of course Boone had a pretty good idea where all that shit came from. Better than a good idea – he knew exactly. The two crates no doubt made their way to Sewardville on one of the regular truck runs that carried Walt Slone’s merchandise dow
n from New York, blowing past weigh stations and bribing DOT officials all the way.
These plain white trucks would come off the East Kentucky Parkway and roll out Highway 213, then meet Deputy Rogers in the parking of the Sewardville Methodist Church. Boone wasn’t sure how, but somewhere between the eastern seaboard and the midnight rural rendezvous with Deputy Rogers and his U–haul trucks, these two containers full of drugs and guns went missing, and wonder of wonders, turned up here in Elmer Canifax’s backyard building.
And if there was any place on God’s green Earth that Walt Slone’s merchandise did not belong, it was in Elmer’s shack.
No question, Walt must have missed these two crates. Boone didn’t have a guess why Walt hadn’t raised holy hell to track them down, but he had no doubt that Walt knew they were missing. If something that belonged to Walt Slone went missing, the old man knew about it. Walt Slone didn’t get where he was by not keeping track of his merchandise.
But, on the infinitesimal chance that Walt had failed to notice they were missing, then surely Karen would not have made the same mistake. After all, Walt knew the ledgers but he trusted her with the math. Between father and daughter, it seemed unlikely they could have overlooked all of this, which represented two large piles of cash for them, once everything sold on the local market. And definitely, everything would sell.
“Oh, yeah,” Elmer said on cue. “I hear Walt and them kids of his are a right bit pissed that some of their stuff didn’t make it all the way down South.”
“They’ll find it.” Boone shook his head. “Either they find it, or they’ll find out who took it. One way or the other, I wouldn’t be spendin’ too much time out in public if I was you.”
A few other thoughts went through Boone’s mind, but he didn’t allow them to pass over his tongue. Like: what the fuck are you doing you stupid little fuck? Don’t you fucking understand that you’re sitting here on your own fucking coffins?
Boone saw no point in bringing them up. Elmer knew what he’d done. How could he not know? He knew.
Elmer Canifax had stuck his hand in the Slones’ bank account, the only place where he could actually hurt the old man. That was not an accident. It was the result of a little bravado, some careful planning, probably some blind luck somewhere along the line, and a whole hell of a lot of recklessness. There was a small part of Boone that appreciated Elmer’s pulling it off.
Now he wondered: why exactly would Elmer call him. What did Elmer hope to accomplish by dragging him into this?
“I oughtta leave right now, before you say something that gets us both killed,” said Boone.
“Don’t you want to hear my business proposition?” Elmer answered. Then he paced, and the more he paced, the more he talked. The more he talked, the faster the words flew out of his mouth. “It ain’ no secret, how you and your father–in–law don’t get along so good these days. I figured maybe you might want a chance to strike out on your own.”
“Right,” Boone said without any enthusiasm. “That’s what I want to do. Start up a business with some guns and drugs you stole off Walt’s truck. That would be smart. Why don’t you just shoot me in the head now?”
“Just hear me out.”
“I ain’t hearin’ you out, Elmer.”
Elmer shook his head, rolled his eyes, kept pacing. A minute passed. He went back towards the crates and leaned against them.
“I don’t know, I just figured you might be interested,” he shrugged.
Boone found himself stuck in a void, unsure what to say or what not to say. The idea that Boone might be interested in this scheme hung so far out from reality that no response seemed appropriate.
“You don’t even have to get your hands dirty,” continued Elmer. “Just keep Walt and the sheriff off my back for a couple of weeks, enough time so I can unload all this. I’ll give you half of the money it brings. Then we can all be on our merry little way.”
“Our merry little way.”
Elmer nodded.
“I don’t think so,” said Boone. “Best thing I can tell you is, you need to get all this shit back where it came from before Walt finds out it’s up here. ‘Cause when he finds out, you got some real problems on your hands.”
Those last words shocked the room like hot water on cold glass. The two men stood there for several seconds, waiting to see if that ominous thought would mark the end of their conversation.
It did.
LYING
Boone left Elmer’s and went straight to the Sewardville City Park. He felt sure that as soon as he’d left Walt’s house, Karen would have plucked Samantha off the couch and tore off the hillside in a fit of marital frustration, spiriting her away to the city park before Boone could come back and fulfill the promise he’d made earlier that day. Karen tried to create any little advantage possible, any chance to suggest, Look honey. Daddy runs away, Daddy can’t keep his promises. Mommy will take you wherever you want to go. Who loves you more? Mommy loves you more. He’d learned to think like his wife. Learned to anticipate.
And he’d learned well.
When Boone got to the park, he saw Karen’s black Escalade in the grass, just outside of the entrance. Sheriff Slone’s cruiser sat a few yards away; Boone could see a red white and blue “ELECT WALT SLONE MAYOR” sign stuck in the ground a couple of feet past the police car’s front grill. There were some other vehicles, too – a couple of subcompacts, a small Chevy pickup, a 1992 Cadillac – but he didn’t recognize them as belonging to anyone in particular.
Beyond the entrance, he saw a few people straggling about, but nobody seemed very busy. Then Boone caught a glimpse of Walt stepping into a little octagon–shaped brick building that was at the park’s far end, just a few feet from the asphalt walkway that sidewindered through the grounds.
Less than twenty–four hours from now, the building would house the Orchid Festival’s Chili Competition, which of course led right into the big chili supper, the single biggest social event on the Seward County calendar. Bigger than the county fair, bigger than the demolition derby, bigger even than the Miss Orchid Festival contest. If the Orchid Festival as a whole was Sewardville’s annual crowning achievement, then surely the chili supper was the shining white diamond in the very front of the tiara.
The chili supper marked the one night of the year that folks from even the deepest hollow ventured out for fellowship. Some estimates suggested that seventy percent of the county’s population attended some or all of the supper. The occasion required a hundred twelve–foot cafeteria tables, with the first fifteen or so setup inside the brick building, reserved for the community’s most prominent citizens, and the rest standing in parallel rows that filled up the adjacent grass field.
At the moment, though, the room was bare, save for a few uncovered tables and some folding metal chairs. A stack of the red white and blue “VOTE WALT SLONE FOR MAYOR” signs sat in the corner. Red white and blue – the color of great Americans.
Not far from his signs, Walt stood against one wall, entertaining Samantha with a pink ball about the size of a tangerine, bouncing the sphere off the bricks and just out of the girl’s reach while she yelped with innocent glee. Nearby, John Slone and Karen pulled white tablecloths out of storage boxes.
Boone approached his wife and brother–in–law. “You need some help?” he asked, hoping they would say no.
“Not really,” said Karen. Her eyes stayed fixed on the tablecloth in her hands.
That response didn’t bother Boone; he hadn’t come there to see his wife, anyway. He’d come there for Samantha, and he went to her now.
“Karen mentioned you left the house in a hurry,” said Walt. He caught the ball from Samantha, bounced it back, still not looking up towards his son–in–law. “That true?”
“Yeah,” said Boone.
“Where’d you have to go that was so important?”
“Out.”
“Out?”
“Yeah. Out.”
“What’s that supposed
to mean?”
Boone took a deep breath, let it out slow, hoping he might formulate the magical answer that would both answer Walt and also avoid the issue entirely.
He came up with, “Elmer said he had some money for you. Wanted me to come get it. I reckon the sheriff scared the sh—–“ He looked at Samantha, stopped the curse word. “The sheriff must have scared him to death earlier.”
“You think?” said Walt.
“Probl’y so,” said Boone. “I guess he decided he owed it to you.”
“For what?”
“Don’t ask me. Maybe he’s just trying to buy back your good graces.”
A hacking wind caught in the back of Boone’s throat and his heart quickened. He realized that, in the span of fifteen seconds, he’d just gone down what could end up being one black and awful stretch of road.
He’d lied to Walt Slone.
Boom. Snap. Just like that.
Intended or not, lying to Walt was as dumb a thing as a human being could do, and Boone knew that better than anybody. He’d broken plenty of arms and jaws of people who’d lied to Walt Slone. Despite that, like so many other moments in Boone’s life, this one started without any bad intent and quickly devolved into a complete clusterfuck. The lie slipped out. The lie was out. And now, with the lie out in the open air, he had to be careful to maintain it, to build upon it wherever necessary, or else his world could quickly spin out of grasp and there was no telling where it all might end up.
This was about to become an exercise in improvisation. His brain ripped through potential questions – what if he wants to see the money? What if he calls Elmer himself? – but he figured the answers would come when he needed them.
Suddenly Boone was looking down into the valley, watching people and machines tumble into a pit of fire.
A surprised expression danced across Walt’s brow, and Boone sensed he’d been busted in his lie already.
Walt pushed his tongue around the inside of his upper lip, something he always did when he wasn’t quite sure what to say next. This gave Boone a bare sliver of hope – maybe he wasn’t quite so busted after all.