Red Dog

by Jason Miller

  “What now?” Jeep asked. Calm.

  “Don’t know. Suppose we could call in the cavalry.”

  “Wince?”

  “No. I don’t want his deputies’ blood on my head.”

  Jeep grunted.

  “Think they’ll shoot at us if we lead Asshole out of here?” he asked after a moment.

  “Fuck you, boy,” Sheldon said.

  “Where’s your son?” I said. “Where’s A. Evan?”

  “Not here,” Sheldon said. “And double fuck you.”

  Jeep said, “Or maybe we could just push him out there. Let him take his own chances.”

  I thought about it.

  “Uh-uh,” I said at last. “We still need the old bastard. To get to his son, for one thing. And as for walking him out of here, I don’t think so. Pretty clear that whoever’s up there wasn’t gunning for us, or at least decided we’re lower-priority targets, but they’ll cut us down to get to him. That’s for damn sure.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “I need a phone,” I said.

  The one on the wall had been vaporized. Probably it wasn’t connected anyway. Mine was in the truck. Snug in the console. Useless. Jeep reached into his coat and brought out a pink cell. I stared at him until he blushed and looked away. A first.

  “It’s Opal’s,” he said.

  Sheldon barked a mean laugh. He didn’t like us and wanted to hurt our feelings. Jeep slung him across the room. He hit the wall with a sick thud and collapsed to the floor. He sat up and smirked at us.

  “Who the fuck are you peckerwoods?”

  I picked a card out of my wallet and started punching the tiny rubber buttons.

  “I’m the guy you and your son tried to kill a week ago, old man. You should have finished the job.”

  “We will.”

  I opened my mouth to say something. But Jeep was quicker. He picked Sheldon up and threw him across the room and into the other wall. Sheldon left a hole in the paneling.

  “I’ve learned something about myself,” Jeep said. “I like beating up racists.”

  I had to ignore that when the other end picked up.

  “Agent Carney, please.”

  It took them a moment to get their shit together at Command Central or wherever, moments that seemed like years. Finally, a voice crackled over the line.

  “Carney.”

  “Hey, friend.”

  “Oh, goddamn. What now?”

  “Nice chatting with you, too, special agent. You guys have a helicopter at your disposal?”

  “What? A helicopter? Of course not.”

  “Dang. How about an armored car?”

  “We have an SUV,” Carter said.

  “Roomy?”

  “What the hell is this about, Slim?”

  “You remember the White Dragons?”

  A long silence.

  “Ticktock, special agent.”

  Sound of Carney clearing his throat.

  “Of course I remember them. What . . .”

  “There’s a pair of them shot dead. In the front yard of the trailer I’m holed up in.”

  “How . . .”

  “And the person or persons who made them dead are likely still in the vicinity.”

  “You’re trapped?”

  “Like a fly in wet shit, special agent. And if you want to hear my story, you’re going to have to come and get me.”

  “Agent Carter will . . .”

  “Pee his pants, I know,” I said. I wondered how long it would take the genius on the hill to start peppering the soft walls of the trailer with bullets. “Mine aren’t too dry right now, either.”

  “Okay, I’ll . . .”

  “Hurry.”

  “Soon as we can,” he said, suddenly back in control of his voice. He’d made his decision. “Where are you?”

  I gave him the address and described the general location of the shooter.

  “And Carney . . .”

  “What?”

  “The house belongs to A. Evan Cleaves.”

  “Sonofa—”

  I hung up on him.

  “Think that was smart, slick?” Jeep asked.

  “Don’t know. Probably not, but it was the only play we had.”

  Jeep didn’t look convinced.

  “What now?” he said.

  “Carney can’t find the two of you here. He does, you and I will go to jail, and shithead here will be whisked far, far away.”

  “True enough. How we going to do this?” Jeep asked, ignoring Sheldon’s snarl. The old man writhed on the ground like a dying wasp. The impulse to crush him with my boot was almost overwhelming.

  “I’ll have to get the truck.”

  “Think they’ll let you?”

  “Don’t know,” I said. My hands were shaking, but my voice was calm. “I am willing to entertain counterproposals.”

  There weren’t any counterproposals. I crawled to the window and peered out, but I didn’t see anything but nothing. It’s possible the sniper was buried, ambush style, beneath a covering of leaves and branches. It was possible he’d gotten tired and gone home. It was also possible I was in line for the British crown.

  “Wish me luck.” I crawled to the door.

  “What’s luck?” Jeep.

  “Die on fire, motherfucker.” Sheldon.

  What a pair.

  The bodies of the Dragons were where they’d fallen. The truck had taken a couple of slugs. The passenger-side window was gone, and the rear bumper had been hit, but it still looked drivable. Anyway, I don’t guess I had much choice.

  Morning was coming on fast now, and in the frail light the shapes of objects seemed sharp. The birds were singing in the loud, clear tone that only first light seems to inspire, and the taste of humidity was heavy in the air. The truck, parked alongside the gravel road in front of the trailer, might have been a million miles away. Getting to it was like swimming through concrete.

  But there weren’t any shots, no subsonic rounds to punch a hole in my belly and head. I opened the door of the truck and climbed in and turned over the engine. Just like I was going to market. I drove as close to the front door of A. Evan’s trailer as I could.

  “You okay?” Jeep asked from the doorway.

  “I feel ten years older,” I said. “But I’m alive. Think you can manage this?”

  Jeep nodded at Sheldon, who lay on the floor, breathing hard and clutching his ribs. Guess Jeep had punished the old guy for the whole die-on-fire remark.

  “Have to tie him up,” he said. “But yeah.”

  I had an idea.

  “Might not be necessary,” I said.

  Sheldon screamed like a kid, but after another moment I managed to stick him with a couple of the dog tranquilizers I’d picked up from Lew and Eve Mandamus. Before you could say Goodnight Moon, the old man had drifted into uneasy dreams.

  “Where to?” Jeep asked, once Sheldon had been deposited not-so-ceremoniously into the bed of the truck.

  “My place. And don’t spare the horses.”

  “Good luck, slick.”

  “Yeah, good . . .”

  A burst of shots erupted from overhead. Maybe the shooter had dozed off, or maybe he’d gone to take a piss. Whichever, he was back now. The Dodge’s rear window exploded. Jeep slammed the door and hauled ass, scattering dust and river rock on his way to the road as bullets peppered my ride with small pits, blew the passenger side mirror off its post, and disappeared the little silver Ram hood ornament. I doubted my insurance would cover it.

  I decided I’d had enough fresh air for the day. I went back inside. I went back in horizontal. I landed hard on the floor and kicked the door closed again. Shots came through the windows and walls. A clock turned back into random numbers. A bullet knocked the derby hat off the skinny half of a Laurel and Hardy lamp set. Now they’d gone too far.

  I wanted to get away from the gun. I went into the back of the house and into Sheldon’s bedroom. There was a glass pipe on a bedside table and
a harness and ball gag in a pile on the floor. I was still looking at it when I heard a whimper down the hall.

  I went toward it. Bathroom with a pocket door. I slid back the panel and there she was, in a ball on the floor. That sixty-five-dollar red dog.

  “Thank God you’re okay,” I said.

  She sniffed my hand and kissed my cheek. I kissed the top of her bony skull. I checked the shaved spot under her collar. The XXXs were gone and new stitches were in their place. Something had been taken out of her.

  “We get to meet some FBI men now,” I said. “I’m sorry. I keep introducing you to turds.”

  Twenty more minutes passed. A half hour. I started to think Special Agent Carney was having a joke on me. Maybe the boys and girls at Command Central were all sharing a laugh at the expense of the luckless redneck, under fire in a shithole mobile home somewhere in the hills of southern Illinois. I guess it was pretty funny, when you thought about it.

  Or maybe not. About that time, the first churning of the air reached my ears from far away, and in another moment the unmistakable sound of a rumbling engine filled the air around A. Evan’s trailer. The ratty curtains flapped in their windowpanes as though their interest had been piqued. I was just getting up the guts to take a peek when two big men in black suits and sunglasses came storming through what remained of the front door, scooped me up, and dropped me and Shelby Ann into the backseat of a waiting Lincoln SUV. Right next to Agent Carney.

  “Drive,” he said. He looked at me. At the dog.

  “That your partner?” he said.

  “You watch too much TV, special agent,” I said.

  “And you don’t watch enough.”

  The Lincoln roared away from the trailer.

  17.

  COMMAND CENTRAL TURNED OUT TO BE THE BIG DAYS INN in Marion. Two rooms, too, so you know it was an important operation. Plus they had that free continental breakfast. Another guy in a dark suit sipped coffee from green Styrofoam and watched the Today show while boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts petrified on a table.

  “This the asshole thought we had a helicopter?” Donut Guy asked, mouth full.

  Carney ignored him. He stripped off his jacket. There were tea-saucer-sized sweat stains beneath his arms.

  “Nervous?” I said.

  “Sit down,” he said. He’d been sullen during the ride over, too. Damp underarms will do that to you.

  I sat on the edge of the bed.

  “At the table,” Carney said, not amused.

  I sat at the table. Shelby Ann curled up at my feet. Carney and one of the men from the Lincoln sat opposite. A tape recorder small enough to fit up a drug dealer’s rectum appeared. We were just about to get started when the door opened again and another man came in. He was an important man, you could tell. He wore his importance like a satin cape. He was sixty or in that neighborhood, dressed in a brown suit and matching fedora. Anyone else would have melted or exploded in that getup, but he was too important for the heat. His eyes were the gray of frozen cathedral stones, and his chin roughly the size and shape of a wall safe. I tried to imagine what you’d have to hit him with to put him down. Aircraft carrier, maybe.

  When he saw me, he stopped in mid-stride. “Special Agent Carney, tell me, is this the slimy stack of backwoods lump meat that has been fucking up my otherwise righteous investigation?”

  Carney cleared his throat. “Uh, yes, Agent Carter.”

  Agent Carter. At long last.

  “And has he been . . . Is that a dog?”

  “Yes, Agent Carter.”

  Carter nodded. It was a dog.

  “Has this person been Mirandized?” he said.

  “I wasn’t clear that we were . . . that we were arresting him, sir.”

  Carter swept off the fedora to reveal a head full of silver hair, pomaded and furiously combed. “We weren’t clear?” he repeated, tasting the words. He made a sour face.

  “No, sir.”

  He turned on me.

  “And what do you think, son? You clear?”

  “On one or two things, Agent Carter.”

  Carter nodded.

  “One or two things,” he repeated. Already, I didn’t like him repeating things. “I’ve been doing some checking on you, son. And I must say more worthless, human beings do not often come. As near as I can tell, you’re little more than a part-time bedroom snooper who has been present at more than one murder and whose known associates include all manner of shady characters, as well as a borderline psychopath named Owen Mabry, also called Jeep, himself present at several mysterious deaths.”

  “I also have an ACLU card,” I said. Donuts chuckled quietly.

  Carter nodded. Add ACLU membership to the list.

  “Tell me, boy, why are you so heavily invested in shitting on my case?”

  “I wasn’t aware that . . .”

  “Bullshit!”

  Everyone in the room nearly jumped out of his seat. Donuts slopped coffee onto his suit pants, then nearly overturned his chair getting to the bathroom sink. Carter ignored him. “Where is A. Evan Cleaves?”

  “No idea.”

  “The Harvels are missing, too. Arlis and Bundy. I don’t suppose you know anything about that, either?”

  “I do not.”

  “How are you going to make a living when I have your license revoked?”

  “I’ll sharpen saws.”

  “Play ball, Slim, or I’ll put you away so long . . .”

  I didn’t say anything. It wasn’t a moment for talking or joking. A full five minutes passed. At last, Carter sighed.

  “They gave you a badge, I hear.”

  I showed it to him.

  He said, “You realize . . .”

  “Yeah, worthless, I know. Everybody keeps telling me. Let me ask you something.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  I ignored him.

  “Does it make you happy? Running around threatening people’s livelihoods like that? Big, tough guy like you ought to know better. I hope you’re ashamed.”

  Carter didn’t look ashamed. He stared at me. I stared at him. Carney stared at the ceiling. Donuts came back and sat in front of the TV. It was the part of the show where the news stops and the celebrity interviews take over. Donuts stared at that.

  “All right. Fuck it, then.” Carter sounded resolved. “What were you doing in Pyramid?”

  “Looking for A. Evan Cleaves,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because he tried to murder me and my daughter. And because he thinks I killed Dennis Reach.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Know who did?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Carter nodded.

  “You’re still good for it, then,” he said. Someone had to hang. Might as well be the unlucky bastard in nearest proximity to the crime, as Lindley had said. Less paperwork that way. “And when I’m through with you, your ticket won’t be worth wiping your ass with.”

  Enough tough-guy talk to fill a hundred crappy novels.

  “Carol Ray Reach,” I said after a moment.

  “Come again?” said Carney.

  “She killed Dennis Reach. Least I think she did.”

  “And how did you come to this conclusion?”

  But that answer would have taken the rest of the day, so I said, “Maybe Carol Ray was trying to bust in on Reach’s dogfighting business.”

  Even Donuts looked at me. Carney whistled again, but cut it short when Carter gave him another of those handsome glances of his.

  “Know about that, do you?” he asked, amused.

  “I suspect it. Carol Ray was married to Reach, but another of her exes is a former Jackson County deputy named J.T. Black. Reach and Black have been tied up in various criminal enterprises together. I think dogfighting was one of them. Top of that, Black’s old man owns a string of underground coal mines.”

  “Holy shit,” Carney mouthed. And goddamn, even Carter looked surprised. “They’re un
derground. They’re in the mines.”

  “Where?” Carter demanded.

  So I gave it up, the time and location of the fight, the people I’d seen there. I held back only one thing for myself: the license plate number I’d memorized the night of the dogfight. Specifically, Pimples’s license plate number.

  “When’s the next one?” Carney asked, getting back to the fight itself.

  “No idea,” I said, but they were too excited to care. Carney snatched a phone and started dialing.

  “And A. Evan Cleaves?” Carter asked.

  “No idea about that, either,” I said.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Is this professional, or are we just making polite chat now?”

  Carter sank back in his seat. He actually looked like a human being and not the law enforcement nightmare he’d been imitating a few moments before.

  “Agent Carney tells me all this started because you were looking for a dog. Anything to that?”

  “For sixty-five bucks.”

  “Is that the dog?”

  “This? No this is a different dog. This is my dog. Not the same dog at all.”

  “Go home, Slim. Stay out of the way. You’ve helped us here today, but playtime is over now. Time to let the pros handle it.”

  “You’ve hired some pros?”

  “You never quit, do you?”

  “One question,” I said, getting up.

  “You can’t seriously think . . .”

  “Why the Cleaveses?”

  “What?”

  “The Cleaveses. From what I’ve seen, there are dozens of locals actively involved in this mess. Former cops among them. What’s your special interest in A. Evan and his daddy?”

  Carter didn’t have an answer for me. He took a phone from his jacket and dialed a number. In a moment, he was engrossed in a conversation, and I might as well have been in another time zone.

  But a non-answer is still revealing. The Cleaveses must have done something none of the other doggers had done, something to attract all that attention. It all got me thinking about what Carol Ray had said before, about how her husband would take a check from anyone, and about the way that ugly sneer crossed her face. But Carol Ray had taken some pretty ugly money her own self. And I got the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking about the Dragons anymore. By the time I’d made it downstairs to the parking lot and realized I didn’t have a ride home, I’d pretty much worked it out.