“There’s no pattern here,” Joe signed.
“Joseph,” the voice continued, “the pattern is not the disguises, the hardware, the methods. The pattern is what you’ll have to do. Kensington could be explained. One can be written off as the random act of some kook. As each of them goes, the pattern emerges.”
“They should see a pattern. That’s good. It gets me what I want,” Joe shot back. “They won’t see me.”
“You know Interpol has a file on you,” the voice replied. “If they have it, Scotland Yard has it.”
“They don’t have my real name and they don’t have a picture.”
“That you know of,” the voice sighed.
“Okay,” Joe said evenly.
There was a tense silence. Joe was dying to clear his throat but he wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“You’re changing hardware?” the voice asked.
“Barrel and ammo, cached by third parties,” Joe said patiently.
Another silence. Joe sat quietly and waited. He knew there was no rushing him and wouldn’t have tried anyway.
“If you go down,” the voice said softly,” I go down, too, in some very real ways.”
“I won’t go down,” Joe said simply. “You should know that…trust that.”
“I hope that,” the voice said quietly. “I really hope that.”
The line went dead and then hissed softly in Joe’s ear. It momentarily reminded him of the wind along his ridge back in Washington, down from Canada, fresh and crisp, whispering secrets in the language of the pines.
Twenty-Two
Aaron Weber was out of the hospital.
Jack and I ate lunch at a large, airy bar and grill called Barney’s Junction, situated at the west end of the bridge leading to Washington Route 20 and the main entrance to his site.
Now that the pace of what we were doing was falling into a rhythm, I was able to drop the blinders a bit and take a look around us.
Kettle Falls, the tiny community straddling Route 395, just west of Colville, now registered as a town, instead of just a speed zone. Neither of us had paid any attention to it—or Barney’s—on the way in, but now I noticed the Meyers Falls Market, an organic food store and antique mall, occupying what appeared to be a renovated feed store or warehouse in the center of town. I got a bag of wonderful pumpkin-spice granola there for quick snacks, while Jack bought several bags of mixed nuts.
“Those nuts are fatty as hell,” I needled him.
“Up yours, granola boy,” he grinned.
Barney’s turned out to be a bit more of a beer joint and hang-out than a grill, but the food was decent and the crowd was chatty and good-natured.
Halfway through my turkey club, I signaled Jack to keep quiet. We both ate in silence and tuned into the adjacent booth.
“…Weber and his buddies outta the hospital in Spokane this morning,” a stocky, bearded guy said. “Dave Carroll seen him gassin’ up at the Chevron. Said he had a bandage acrost his nose looked like a hockey mask. Wearin’ one of them neck collars, too, where that guy messed up his voice box.”
“Now, there’s a goddamn public service, right there,” a small, dark guy with a flat top opined. “Worst thing about that boy was his stupid mouth.”
“No,” a fellow in a Mariners cap, said assertively. “Worst thing is his fuckin’ mean streak. Little bastard run his own mother off. Damn near run his grandpa off, too, ‘cept the old man was even meaner than him.”
“So, where’s he at?” the flat-top asked. “Still out there off 25?”
“Where the hell else would he be?” beard laughed. “Stayin’ with friends?”
That got a laugh and a couple of high fives.
“I wouldn’t have been broke up none if that ol’ boy had just killed him outright,” Mariners cap chuckled. “You know somebody will, sooner or later.”
“Aw, now, Duncan,” beard sighed, “I mean, yeah, he’s a fuckin’ menace an’ all and I’m glad he finally walked into the fan blades, but c’mon…you know what he came from. Just take a look at that God’damn ‘sculpture’ out in front of the house. Wasn’t him that did that. That was his mama. You think the poor kid ever had a chance?”
“I ain’t no fuckin’ social worker, Jimmy,” Duncan observed. “Ain’t important to me how he got that way. What’s important is that he gets his shit outta this area. If he don’t learn from this ass-whippin’ – and he won’t – somebody will shoot him and won’t nobody look too hard for who did it.”
Jack and I were quiet when we got to the car. I drove slowly back toward town until we saw the Chevron up ahead and the turn-off to Route 25 to our right.
On impulse, I swung onto 25 and accelerated under a low railroad bridge, into a corridor of tall pines.
“Weber?” Jack asked mildly.
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“You can’t save him, Tru,” Jack said quietly, staring out the windows. “You took his identity. How can you fix him now?”
“Well,” I sighed, “he’s in dire need of a new identity. I think you’ll agree. I can’t give him one, but maybe I can help him find one.”
“Jesus,” Jack smiled. “You really are a bleeding-heart liberal, aren’t you?”
“Damn straight,” I nodded.
About two miles out the road, we came up on a tiny trailer standing next to a small concrete structure that I knew would be a shower and bathroom. In the mud that passed for a front yard was a newish Chevy Tahoe, caked with mud, parked next to a pen filled with maybe half a dozen dogs who looked far better and cleaner than anything else around them.
Fronting all this was an ancient stump of what must have been a towering pine, possibly 200 feet or more in its time.
The stump was left about 5 feet high and had been carved, with surprising skill, into a hideout tableau on a theme of winged skulls, severed heads, and gargoyles chewing on dead babies.
“Good God,” Jack gasped.
“Mom’s world view,” I noted grimly.
I’ve looked upon considerable blood and death in my time, but nothing I could remember was as hard to look at as the images presented there. They would have been disturbing enough if we hadn’t known the story behind them. As it was, I suddenly felt a terrible, soul-wrenching sadness and an equally powerful urge to burn the thing to the ground and then take 3 or 4 long, hot showers.
I pulled the Cherokee onto a patch of pine needles just inside the driveway and took my Desert Eagle out from under the seat.
Jack looked at the gun and then at me.
“I’m a liberal,” I smiled thinly. “I’m not stupid.”
We walked up Weber’s driveway, keeping to the pine needles and the patchy grass that bordered the deep ruts leading to his Tahoe.
When we got to the trailer, I motioned for Jack to go around the side. I flattened out along the wall, just behind the door’s hinge.
I rapped twice on the trailer’s door with the pistol and waited.
The whole structure shook as Weber stumbled loudly to his door from the far end of the cabin. I figured that to be his bunk and was hoping we had just awakened him.
Instead of the caution I would expect from someone so generally despised by his neighbors, Weber flung the door open and leaned out. I stepped out from behind it and stuck the Desert Eagle’s muzzle into his face.
He froze and cut his eyes toward me. I’ve seen the same expression in the eyes of dogs who’ve been beaten by their owners and I was suddenly ashamed of myself.
This was not a new sensation, by any means, and definitely not enough to make me retract the gun but it did make me more determined to take a stab at helping him avoid the quick and painful death I knew was headed his way.
“Aw, man,” he sighed. “What the fuck do you want, now? It ain’t enough you fucked up my nose and my neck? You here to kill me, now?”
“Get back inside and sit,” I ordered. “We’re gonna see if you really are as dumb as people think. Jack!”
Jack
popped around the corner and followed me into the trailer.
We both stopped, stunned.
The trailer looked as if a maid service had just left. It was tiny but laid out into a seating area, a kitchen and a neatly-made bunk. The floor was clean and a small area rug sat under a teak coffee table in front of an old but well-kept leather sofa. There was a scrupulously tended plant rack by the small windows, just behind a cloth wingback which, impossibly, still wore neat arm covers. A pair of muddy work boots sat in a large Tupperware pan, just beside the rattan mat by the door.
In the kitchen were a neat row of cookbooks and mason jars full of pastas, beans, sugar and flour
Most surprising were the pictures. They were everywhere; framed on ledges, attached to a large corkboard on the back wall. They were all nature scenes—various views of the Columbia Gorge, both down at Vantage and George and around the Kettle Falls Bridge. There were shots of animals, deer, geese, rabbits, owls, fish shimmering in dark shallows, horses watering at the river’s edge.
They were all, except for the larger ones, drugstore prints, most a little curled and without borders.
On the coffee table was a neat stack of magazines. The top was “Photography” and, from the scenes, I was betting they all were.
Weber flopped uncomfortably into the armchair. Jack sat on the sofa, and I stood at the kitchen counter, my elbows on the Formica, gun loose but ready in front of me.
“What’s with the gun?” Weber groaned. “I think we all know by now that you can kick my ass whenever you feel like.”
“I’m cautious,” I replied. “You could have had one.”
He chuckled and leaned back in the chair.
“Does it look like I have one?” he choked, his voice a throaty croak bordering on a whisper.
“I had no way of knowing that,” I said. “According to what we’ve been hearing, you’re not wrapped too tight and your neighbors hate you. In your position, I’d probably have one.”
“Well, I don’t,” he murmured. “What do you want, anyway?”
“Well, first I want some information,” I replied. “After that, we’ll see.”
“What information,” Weber snorted. His hand went quickly to his nose and his eyes watered with the pain. “As you pointed out, ain’t many people around here sharin’ their secrets with me.”
“This is more job-related,” I said.
“I don’t have no job,” he glared. “Maybe you assholes remember how that happened?”
“Son,” I snapped, “It’s time you got some things straight. If you have a brain in your head you’ll listen to this. If not, go back to waiting for one of your neighbors to finally get fed up and plant a couple in your brain-pan. That’s the local consensus, by the way, that somebody’s going to shoot you in the head and nobody’s gonna look too hard to find out who did it. We just overheard that one at Barney’s. You really think that’s a fluke?”
“No,” Weber mumbled, “prolly not.”
“Here it is in a nutshell,” I growled. “You lost your job because you acted like an immature, tin-plated prick, not because I clocked you. This guy, believe it or not, is one of the partners in Mountain Empire and you didn’t even bother to check before you flipped him shit. Then you mouthed off to some guy you didn’t know—a guy who warned you what would happen—and kept on doing it until you wound up in the hospital, jobless and noseless.”
I crossed to the coffee table and sat on the edge, leaning toward him, the gun still in my hand but pointed at the floor.
“You think I’m a tough guy, Aaron?” I asked quietly.
“I reckon so,” he chuckled dryly.
“I’ve gotten my ass kicked probably a dozen times, over the years. I misjudged somebody, pushed things a little too far, and paid for it. The last guy was about 5’4” and looked like a bank teller. He broke my jaw, my nose and three ribs.”
“Son, size is nothing. Muscles are nothing. I whipped your ass because Uncle Sam trained me to do it. Since then, I’ve practiced every day and my work requires that I deal with pretty bad people. I took you because I know more than you do. You know how to be scary and that works with most people… But, sooner or later, you run into that bank teller. Then, you start to think. Wouldn’t it be better to think now, instead of wasting all that time?”
“You think I haven’t thought about it?” Weber said loudly. “Look around you, man. Ain’t this just a fuckin’ palace? See all these friends I got? Wanna see my resume? Hear all about my job offers? This is what my life is, man! I’m a big scary guy. That’s what God gave me, so that’s what I use, ‘cause I don’t have anything else. I ain’t got a high school diploma ‘cause I couldn’t afford to finish school, and I got no hope of doin’ it, now. College? Forget that. I probably had the grades to get in but that all left when my mama did. Think about it? Shit, I don’t think about anything else.”
“Look…” I began.
“You know what I used to do with your paychecks, man?” Weber said to Jack. “I used to do my laundry, polish my shoes, wash the truck, and drive down to Spokane. I mean, I hadn’t ever seen a check that big with my name on it. I had to dream up something to do with the money. So, every Friday night, I’d clean up, pack a bag, drive to Spokane, get a motel room over on Division, and go walking down there around Gonzaga. I’d take a photography book and wear my glasses and eat in them little cafes and listen to the students talkin’ around me. Man, it was like bein’ on Mars or something! They’re talking about…about religion and philosophy and programming computers and economics and writers and movies and bands and girls…stuff that doesn’t exist up here.”
“I’d sit there and listen and drink those fancy microbrewed beers and…and I’d get this warm feeling all over me, like…like, for an hour or so. I was part of something. Something good. Well, different anyway.”
He stopped for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck.
“But, see…I’m not part of that. What I am is a big, scary, mean-ass hayseed from Kettle Falls, Washington. I ain’t never lived a day in my life ‘cept here in this trailer and I reckon I never will. I caught one break in my whole fuckin’ life and that was gettin’ hired at your company. Head of site security, man. Had a uniform, had a desk…hell, I even had business cards.”
He fished one out of his pocket and handed it to me. I watched his eyes linger on the card and saw, for the first time, that he was really just a kid. I suddenly realized that, if I checked his driver’s license, I’d find that he was maybe 19; certainly, no more than 20.
I handed it to Jack and our eyes locked for a second. He took the card and looked at it carefully and then rose and stood by the tiny window, flicking the card absently across his fingers.
“Hell,” Weber said shakily, “you already undressed me in front of the whole town, so what the fuck do I care? Here’s the God’s truth. I’m as scared a motherfucker as there is in this county. Not scared of enemies. Hell, you can stand up and fight with a guy and take your chances. That’s fair. But how do you fight life? I can’t pound on that. You look at the next few years of your life and what can you see?”
“They say a guy my age is s’posed to see a wife and babies and a picket fence and all that ‘Father Knows Best’ shit. You know what I see? This. This trailer, them dogs, drinkin’ too much at Ralph’s and watchin’ stupid movies with them two other turds you beat the shit out of. There ain’t nothing’ else that I can see. I got these big ideas while I was head of security. Well, you guys…”
He looked down at the floor and bit his lip.
“I fucked it up,” he whispered. “So, back to reality, right?”
He leaned back in the chair, drained, his eyes squeezed shut against the pain.
It’s really all about me, isn’t it? I thought bitterly. I joke about it and say it in ironic tones but, push comes to shove, maybe I believe it. I see this big overgrown, overbearing kid and I don’t like his mouth, so I swat the poor knucklehead like a tennis ball, all the way into
a hospital and the eventual ruin of his life.
I don’t usually rise to the bait with bullies and hell raisers. I’ve certainly faced worse than Aaron Weber and managed to keep my cool. In the final analysis, I traded Aaron Weber’s self-worth and maybe his entire future for a total of about 20 seconds of venting my spleen and squeezing my adrenal gland. That was the sum, tangible total of my accomplishments, so far, in Eastern Washington.
What a guy. Think some nice woman wouldn’t want to take home a package like me? I suddenly flashed on my own life and saw a loveless shell of an existence, filled with overwork, fist fights, drinking, rationalizing, and a lame collage of busy-work surrounding the tiny number of worthwhile things I actually do, like working at the theatre and going to Mariners games.
In that moment, I couldn’t have said if that pall of desolation was empathy for Weber, Protestant gilt, or my own rather substantial store of remorse, frustration, and regret rearing up to give me a spiritual wedgie. All I knew was that the downward spiral was a danger zone I had few weapons against and it was either swim, in that second, or drown.
I picked up Weber’s coat without really knowing exactly what I had in mind. I tossed it to him, shoved the gun in my pocket, and looked at Jack.
“Put him back on the payroll?” I asked.
“For the time being,” Jack nodded.
“Hey,” Weber barked. “I don’t want your charity, man.”
“This isn’t charity,” Jack said simply. “You’re gonna earn what you make.”
“Right,” Weber grunted. “I’m suddenly workin’ for the guy who gave me a pubic whuppin’. You want everybody around here to think I’m your bitch, too.”
“That’s your version,” I snapped, “and your problem. You in or not?”
“Doin’ what?” Weber asked warily.
“Doing what he tells you,” Jack growled. “That’s the way it works in business, kid. You follow orders, do the teamwork, and get it done. Besides, it’s another paycheck, at least. Maybe more, depending on you. Correct me if I’m wrong but it’s more than you’ve got going right now, isn’t it?”
Weber stood with his jacket in his hand, breathing hard through his mouth; a big, ungainly kid with a huge empty place inside, and enough smarts to realize that his life wasn’t going to work that way.
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