by Jason Miller
I wasn’t expecting anything fancy, of course. But this was a bad place, a nightmare place, though why I imagined it so was more a matter of feeling than something concrete. The inside was empty except for a foul odor and a damp that sat on the skin like a corpse’s tongue. Every time I turned a corner, I expected to meet something unspeakable coming the other way, a haint with A. Evan’s face maybe. There wasn’t any furniture, no marks in the light dust that had blown in from the nearby fields, no scuffmarks on the wood floors. There weren’t any personal photographs on the walls, no evidence of family history and no nail holes to indicate there had ever been any. There wasn’t a TV or a radio. A computer was out of the question. The only thing to look at were some dirty playing cards, pinned to the plasterboard, probably by Sheldon, judging by the age of the cards. A whole wall of them. The women were done up in corny Wild West apparel—frilly bodices and hoop dresses and a flat mile of gingham, and derringers or six-shooters in their gloved hands—but with their business hanging out. There was a single mattress on the floor in one of the back rooms, now nearly black with age and contamination.
I went out of the house and around back. There was a double cellar door with a stick through the loop handles. There was a rusty padlock on a chain, but the shank was loose. I pulled out the stick and went down the stairs into the dark. The odor I’d detected in the house above now hit me full on, and I nearly retreated. Pushing forward, I stumbled around on the soft earthen floor until I found a pull-string and light. It was a small space and very warm. Someone had dug up most of the floor and pushed the dirt toward the edges of the cellar, so that the middle of the floor was a shallow pit. There weren’t any bodies, but the dirt was full of dried blood and crunched under my feet. Here and there were square postholes, but whatever rig had been there was gone now. I was down in the kill pit maybe four minutes. The smell got to me. It was the smell of death and fear and despair. I found a corner to throw up in. Then I went back up into the light and used my cell to call Jeep.
“What you thought?” he asked as soon as he picked up.
“Dogfighting,” I said by way of confirmation. “The Cleaveses are dogfighters.”
PART TWO
THE SHOW
8.
I HAD SOME DARK MOMENTS TO MYSELF—ANIMAL CRUELTY will do that to a person, or at least most people—then made my way back into Union City. I needed more information, so I spent an hour or so asking around, hitting up the locals, but no one wanted to say anything. Couple guys even acted like they didn’t know who the Cleaveses were, but they weren’t going to win any gold statues anytime soon. Another guy looked into the sky like he’d spotted a UFO and suddenly couldn’t be bothered with any old business here on earth. Finally, I found someone—a gray-headed man who ran the town’s only little grocery market—willing to chat.
“I can’t get anyone else around here to talk to me,” I said. “It’s like they’re all taking amnesia lessons.”
“Oh, they just don’t want to go picking on the Cleaveses,” he said, “get on their bad side. Sheldon’s crazy enough to make a statue of a blind man twitch. A. Evan’s another story entirely. That boy’s so mean, the devil don’t want him. He dies, they’re going to have to find some whole other place to put his soul.”
“You don’t seem so afraid of him.”
“I’m not. Let me tell you something. Couple of years back, this place here wasn’t doing so good. You may find that hard to believe, with that the new Walmart up the road a piece, but it’s the truth. Well, about that time, I started having trouble with my wife. More than trouble, maybe. She run off. So there’s that. But the trouble with the store and the trouble with my wife got me in trouble with my house mortgage, too. Ain’t never had no trouble like that before, but all of a sudden I couldn’t keep up.”
“Lot of that going around these days.”
“What I found out. So I talked to these people on the phone. My bank. I want to keep my house. I like it and it’s mine and I want to keep it. They think they can help me. They put me into some kind of remodification program. I told them I ain’t ever been modified before, so I’m not sure why I need remodified, but they say that’s the way to do it, and that’s what we do. So we start this process, and let me tell you, son, if there’s a paperwork hell, I was in it. I ain’t ever seen anything like it. They got teams of accountants and adjusters to climb in your asshole and hunt around until they find your teeth, and you got to fill out paperwork about the whole deal. Mountains of it. Making matters worse, they were the ones suggested I go through this business in the first place, and then when I agreed to go through it they treated me like a crook, like I was trying to pull some kind of swindle. But went through it I did, two years of pure misery and sleepless nights and paper cuts, and now nothing don’t scare me anymore, not even them Cleaveses. Or maybe I’m just stupid.”
“I doubt it,” I said. “But whatever happened to the house?”
“Lost it. By the time I figured out they were just stringing me along, trying to squeeze a few more payments out of me, it was too late. I lost everything and live with my brother now a few miles up the road. It ain’t the best situation, you might imagine, and I think his wife would just as soon shoot me as look at my smiling face in the morning, but neither of them is that goddamn bank, so I don’t mind it none.”
“Looks like the Cleaves have lit out of their house, too.”
“Oh, they do that sometimes. Probably they’ve gone on a visit up to the Harvels’,” he said.
“The where now?”
“Not the where. The who. Bundy and Arlis Harvel. They’re Sheldon’s cousins. They go there sometimes to visit, sometimes stay a few weeks.”
“Any sense of where these Harvels call home?”
“Not specifically, no,” he said. “Though I think they have a patch west of here, somewhere near Mockingbird Hills.”
In other words, somewhere thataway. You could search for them for three days and come up without anything more than an expanded sense of how big and empty a country this can be.
The old man cleared his throat then and said, “Listen, you mind taking a word of advice?”
“I’ll take it. Long as it doesn’t have anything to do with not chasing down these Cleaveses. I don’t care that they’re dangerous or crazy or what. I already know that. Should have known it the first time I saw them. I don’t care that they live in a haunted house with nothing in it besides dirty playing cards on the walls or that they seem to sleep in the same bed. I guess I don’t want to think too much about that last business. Makes me feel a bit like a failure, too, like I’ve spent all these years studying human nature but still don’t really know anything about it. And I don’t mind about these Harvels, either, though I assume they’re as crazy as the Cleaves, they’ve got the same blood in them. But, dammit, these folks tried to burn down the house my daddy built, and I need to find them.”
The dude smiled a little sheepishly. “Well, actually, my advice was, hot day like this, you might want to grab you something frozen out of the box back there.”
“Something frozen?”
“Got some of them Otter Pops in. Orange and purple and blue. Blue one’s got a Frenchie otter on it in a beret. It’s adorable.”
“Well, I’m a little embarrassed now.”
“I would be, too. It was a pretty good speech, though.”
“Thanks. The Otter Pop sounds okay. Think I might take you up.” I went and got some out of the box and brought them back to the counter. He rang me up and I gave him some money.
“They really burned your house down?” he asked.
“Tried to,” I said, tearing open the blue Frenchie one with my teeth.
“Might want to rethink going after them, then,” he said. “Those people are crazy.”
I FOLLOWED THE OLD GUY’S LEAD AND RODE AROUND MOCKINGBIRD Hills for a while, but it didn’t come to much. I didn’t have an address, and I didn’t know what the Harvels’ house looked like, or the Harvel
s themselves, or whether they drove cars or rode bicycles or Shetland ponies. I stopped at a couple of places along the way, but either no one had heard of them or they wanted me to think they hadn’t. After a while, I gave it up. There was another avenue to follow.
I hated to feel like I was picking on him, but I dropped in at the Twin Pines Sawmill in Frankfurt and looked around until I found Paul Bruzetti on the floor working the jig. I smiled and waved to put him at his ease, but I don’t guess I was all that convincing. He looked like he’d just shit a brick, and when he turned to face me his right thumb went quickly to his mouth.
“Damn near cut it off,” he said.
“That’s be pretty amazing.”
“Amazing? For me to cut off my thumb?” he said. “First my ass, now my thumb. That’s sadistic. You’re a sadistic person.”
“Not amazing for you,” I said. “Amazing for me. But it’d take too long to explain why.”
“Or it could just be that you’re a sadist. I’ll be honest, either way I’m starting to regret that you ever decided to come around again.”
“Me, too, kinda. But look, I’ve had a difficult couple of days. First, I nearly get shot by a racist dognapper, then I get arrested for his murder. And a few days later, someone tries to burn my house down with my kid inside.”
“Someone tried to burn down your house? Your place over there to Indian Vale?”
“That’s right. My place over there to Indian Vale. What that means is, for the next many months, I’m going to be fighting with insurance adjusters and looking at wallpaper samples, and the whole thing makes me mad as hell. So call me sadistic or frazzled or at the end of my rope or just plain ole-ass mean. I don’t care. I think you know these people. I think you know them and like them enough that you’ve chosen your racist redneck pals over your own father. I also think you have information I need, so you’re either going to give it to me or I’m going to feed you through that plane until you come out looking like a bleached carrot stick.”
He about turned the color of a carrot, too. Even a chump and a coward can only be pushed so far. He blew out a spitty breath and shot his chest out like he meant to throw it across the floor and staggered toward me until he we were nearly sharing the same pants.
“That’s a threat. Another threat,” he said. “You keep threatening me, and goddamn it, I’m tired of it. Tired of it up to here. I think I’m going to make you do something about it this time, you redneck Hungarian sonofabitch.”
He tried to make me. He raised up a soft fist and took a swing. I did something about it. I punched him in the forehead. It wasn’t much. It would have torn through a grocery bag, probably, but not a doubled-up grocery bag. But it was enough. Paul’s bulbs went dim and his mouth slack, and he dropped over backward like a wooden box of shovels. A couple of the other workers looked up from their machines at us, and one ran his sleeve across his nose in a curious way, but no one made a move to interfere. I guess Paul wasn’t too popular at work, either.
“You hit me,” he said after a while. He touched his head.
“You kinda asked for it.”
“I guess I kinda did. What did you say you wanted? I’d really like to get you the hell out of here.”
“Black’s name is no good to me yet,” I said, not bothering to mention that Jackson County, which Black called home, was off-limits to me for now. “And him just being a former Dragon don’t get me much of anywhere. I need something more and something more direct.”
“I don’t guess I have to tell you the trouble I could get into over this? That stuff my dad talked about the other day? All true. Every word of it. These people are animals.”
“Your pals.”
“. . . Guy’s name is Tibbs.”
“He have a first name?”
“There is no first name. There’s not even really a last name. Just an alias and a phone number.” He took out his phone and scrolled to a name on his contacts list and showed me the number. “He won’t answer. Just leave a message telling him what you want and wait.”
“He’ll call back?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he’ll do. He does, though, you might wish he hadn’t.”
“Well, we’ll see.”
He said, “Slim, this is it. This is all I’ll do. You can come back in here, tie me to the table saw, but I’m done because what they’d do to me would be worse.”
“That depends.”
“You won’t mention my name.” Not a question.
“I’ll try not to let it slip.”
He started to pitch another of his little fits, but I’d had enough. I’d had enough of him and his foolishness. I turned and walked out of the mill, and for all I know he never dragged himself out of the sawdust.
I went back to the bike to make my call. The recorded message was just long enough for a voice to come on and announce its name. Sure enough: Mr. Tibbs. So far, so good. I waited for the electronic beep and said, “Dennis Reach.” I recited a number into the handset and broke the connection, and as I did a shiver ran down my back like someone was doing the dance macabre on my grave.
9.
I DECIDED FINALLY TO FOLLOW SHERIFF WINCE’S ADVICE. I picked up pizzas on the way home to try to make it up to Anci. She wasn’t speaking to me, unless grunting is speaking. Jeep was snoozing on the sofa. I thanked him and he hurried off to his four-to-twelve. I put the food out and we ate a quiet meal. When we were done, I set about looking for the Harvels. Turns out, they were easier to find than I’d expected. They weren’t listed in the white pages, and I don’t think I’d have been able to bring them up on Anci’s computer except that Arlis had been popped a few years back for exposing himself outside an elementary school and got himself on the state’s sex offender registry, complete with address. I was celebrating with a slice of the leftover pizza when the phone rang.
“You goddamn shithead.”
“Speaking.”
It was Susan. She said, “Slim, do you know how old I am?”
“How old?” I asked. “I don’t know. Ain’t that a question a gentleman isn’t supposed to wonder about?”
“Just answer, will you? It’s not a trap.”
“Okay. Uh, fifty-two?”
A long pause happened on the other end.
Then finally: “Forty-four, Slim. I’m forty-four.”
“That’s what I said. Forty-four. Might have said forty, even. This connection is terrible.”
She said, “Slim, shut up.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sighed and pressed on. “Point is, I’d like to make it to fifty-two. I’d like to make it to a lot more than that. Way things are going with this job, I’m not so sure I will.”
“They called already.”
“They called. Someone name of Tibbs. He wants to meet you.”
“These folks don’t waste time. When and where?”
The address was someplace in Marion near the industrial park. The time was seven in the morning. The haters were early risers.
“He said to remind you to come unarmed,” she said. “Oh, and one more thing, I’m burning this phone. I’ll let you know when I get a new one.”
“That good, huh?”
“Let’s just say I’m sleeping with the lights on tonight. Maybe several nights.” Then she paused for maybe ten seconds and finally said, “Jesus, Slim, don’t get yourself killed.”
I started to say I wouldn’t, but she’d already ended the call. I dialed Jeep Mabry’s number to leave a message.
ANCI WAS STILL IN BED THE NEXT MORNING WHEN I MADE ready to leave, but I’d promised not to sneak off without telling her where I was going. Jeep’s wife was downstairs cooking breakfast.
“Your aunt Opal is here for a visit with you,” I said. “Might want to talk over some of those detective stories even. So try not to sleep the morning away.”
She was groggy-headed, but the change in babysitting personnel to Jeep’s wife got her attention.
“Not Jeep aga
in?”
“He’s tied up for a while.”
“Oh, tears. Now we’ll never finish our puzzle. Where are you off to, anyway?”
“Bran-Wichelle Industrial. A tool and die.”
“Living the high life as always.”
“It’s for a meeting,” I said, “with a notorious character.”
It hurt my feelings a little that she didn’t seem to mind about the notorious character. Instead, she looked thoughtful for a moment, brow furrowed.
She said, “Bran-Wichelle. Why’s that familiar?”
“Well, it’s that big factory over there on 13. We ride past it, time to time.”
“That’s maybe it,” she said, but she didn’t sound so sure.
BRAN-WICHELLE INDUSTRIAL WAS A GRAY AND WHITE ALUMINUM box covering roughly fifteen acres of land outside the town of Marion. There was a guard box outside the twelve-foot-high electric Bran-Wichelle branded fence, but the man in the box waved me through without hesitation or identification. Clearly, my arrival had been foretold. I drove up to the main yard and stopped. I waited in my idling truck until a fat guy with greasy hair and even greasier clothes moseyed over to the driver’s-side window.
“Get out,” he said.
I got out. He and another guy gave me about as thorough a frisk as you can get with your clothes on, separated me from my keys, and drove me up to the main building past a line of morning-shift stragglers dragging their hangovers onto the floor, where the machines were roaring away as though they never slept.
I hoped they wouldn’t want to do the meet inside and risk opening themselves up to me that much. And they didn’t. I was led across the work floor and out the other side to a small, open-air patio between buildings where fat boy and I stood until another door opened and a young man came out.
“That’s far enough,” he said, though I hadn’t moved. He was dressed in a light blue suit with patent leather shoes and sunglasses so big they covered half his face. His hair was chestnut, combed neatly to one side; combined with the glasses and the duds, it made him look a bit like a Jim Jones impersonator. He had one of those Bluetooth things in his right ear and just one hand, his left. The other was a prosthetic, plastic and smooth and white as an apple half. The one-handed man Carol Ray had mentioned, the one whose coke deal she’d blundered into at Classic Country all those years ago. He nodded, and the man at his right disappeared into the building.