Call the Devil by His Oldest Name

by Sallie Bissell

  Mary frowned. Now she would have to wait and talk Jane into this in person. Wary, she looked around. It was not the busiest of nights. Three pumps over, a tall, professorial-looking man was gassing up a Miata just like hers. Inside the station, the clerk watched a small television behind the counter. She saw nothing in the scraggly underbrush into which the Mexicans had fled. Nothing out of the ordinary at all ex­cept her—the lone car-less woman making phone calls at the pump.

  She clicked on her phone and dialed the number of Vanderbilt Hospital. The phone started to connect when a flurry of static assailed her ears. She glanced behind her. Another van had just pulled up to the pump, this one white.

  He must be interrupting my signal, she thought, moving a few feet away. Again she waited anxiously for Gabe to answer. How good it would be to hear his voice! She had so much she wanted to say, but as the phone began to ring, she felt a sharp sting on the side of her neck. Assuming it was some gnat or fly, she tried to brush the thing away, but instead, she was suddenly engulfed by a huge wave of weakness, as if every muscle in her body had turned to jelly. The phone slipped from her fingers as her knees collapsed. She dropped to the ground, the left side of her face landing in a shallow puddle of black motor oil. She tried to move both her arms and legs, but her muscles would not respond. Her mind reeled, frantic to regain con­trol of her body, wondering if she’d had some kind of stroke. All at once, two boots appeared in front of her eyes.

  “Hey, Mary,” came the same deep voice who’d called her at the mall. “Glad we could finally get together.”

  She tried to speak, but her tongue would not move. She felt hands patting her down, lifting her purse from her shoulder, then arms hoisting her up, carrying her somewhere. She heard a door slide open, then she smelled a sour, stale odor as she was dropped on what felt like a plastic tarp. Suddenly she saw a face, one eye drooping, greasy, unkempt whiskers covering cheeks and chin.

  “You know, it’s never a good idea to hang around gas stations at night.” Logan’s breath was cloying and intimate on her face. “You never know what kind of trouble you might get into.” Desperately she tried to move, an arm, a leg, an eyelash, but her body would not respond.

  What had he done to her? Why couldn’t she move? She watched, helpless, as Logan withdrew a plastic sandwich bag from his back pocket. Grinning, he opened the little bag and removed a white square of cloth no bigger than a deck of cards. “This won’t hurt a bit, Mary,” he said, and clamped the cloth over her nose.

  She tried to scream, then to hold her breath, but it was impossible. Soon she sucked in a nose­ful of air that smelled like fermenting pears. She held that breath until her eyes began to water, then she had to breathe again. With that breath the world began to spin. Then her third breath came easier, and with her last breath she felt as if she were dreaming, running down an endless hall on legs of air, with Logan’s words reverberating in her ears.

  “Just like I said before, Mary. You’re as dumb a fuck as your dad.”

  Miles to the east, in Nikwase County, Tennessee, Jonathan Walkingstick also dreamed of running. In reality, he was walking, an endless circuit of his cell, ten strides down, four strides across, then repeating the process to the point that he’d driven his cell mate into a frenzy. As Jonathan crossed the top end of the grim little enclosure, Happy Lavalais bolted up on his cot and looked at Jonathan, wild-eyed. “So what is it with you, eh? You gonna walk all night and drive everybody crazy?”

  “Everybody’s only you, Lavalais,” Jonathan replied. “And you’re crazy already.”

  “So? Crazy people need sleep, too,” Lavalais shot back. “Or else they grow crazier.”

  Jonathan snorted. He could tell Lavalais a lot about what drove people crazy, and it sure wasn’t losing your eight hours of sack time. “Roll over, Lavalais. Put that pillow over your face and breathe deep.”

  “Fuck you,” Lavalais muttered, flopping back down on his cot.

  He wasn’t intentionally trying to drive Lavalais nuts. He’d tried to sleep, last night, after Ruth left. Lay down on his cot, pulled the scratchy wool blanket over his shoulders, but every time he closed his eyes all he could see was Lily, in those pictures. The thought of someone stripping her naked and leaving her crying at a gravestone sent such a rage through him that he’d gotten up and started ramming his cot against the cell door. His third blow sent plaster dusting down from the ceiling; his fourth blow turned his cot to kindling; the next blow brought in his old buddies, Deputies Jenkins and Green. A few minutes later his cot was gone and he was lying in the corner, clutching two of the teeth they’d knocked from his jaw.

  His fury, though, had raged on unabated. When he could get up without seeing double, he’d risen to his feet and started to walk. Up one side of the cell, down the other, stepping over Lavalais. Around and around. Every time he stopped, he felt that crazy rage start boiling through his veins all over again, so he’d contin­ued his pacing. Though it got him no closer to Lily, at least it kept him marginally sane.

  It had been twenty-four hours since he’d said goodbye to Ruth. He’d heard nothing from her or the lawyer she was supposed to have called. His only news came from Mrs. McClellan, the lady who brought their meals. She’d said Dula was still working on the case, but had nothing to report. He turned at one corner of the cell and began his miserable march to the other end. Dear God, he wondered. How could everything have gone so wrong?

  His route took him toward Lavalais now, his tread as regular as the beat of a clock. Just as he reached the man’s cot, Lavalais leapt to his feet.

  “I tell you to quit walking, you crazy bastard!” Lavalais screamed, grabbing him by his collar. “You are like an animal in a cage!”

  “Get your hands off me.” Staring into Lavalais’ bloodshot eyes, Jonathan shoved him backward. The angry Jamaican staggered, and fell against his cot. It wobbled, then broke under his weight, making a loud, splintering crash.

  “You son of a bitch! You broke my bed!” Lavalais snarled, picking up one dismembered leg of the cot and swinging it at Jonathan’s shin. When Jonathan kicked it from his hand, Lavalais threw himself at Jonathan’s knees. Both men grappled on the floor, grunting and cursing.

  They fought their way to the middle of the cell before a door opened and lights came on. Jonathan looked up to see Green and Jenkins standing there, grinning.

  “Lookee there,” said Green. “Rolling around like cats in heat. Did Happy try to put it to you, Walkingstick? Or are you missing your little wife and child so much you decided to bugger him?”

  “Fuck you, Green,” called Jonathan as Lavalais landed a painful jab on his broken ribs.

  “Aw, don’t get ugly, Tonto. I was just coming to give you some news about your kid.”

  “You what?” Jonathan looked at the whey faced man.

  “You heard me. We just got a call about her, not twenty minutes ago.”

  “What?” Jonathan disengaged himself from Lavalais, sorry that he’d paced, sorry that he’d broken his cot, sorry that he’d done anything that might keep him from hearing news of Lily. He grasped the bars. “What did you hear?’’

  “Oh, just that they’d found her.” Green leaned against the door jamb and casually examined his manicure. “Down in Atlanta, wasn’t it?” he added, looking at his partner.

  “Yep.” Jenkins nodded in agreement.

  “Is she alright?” asked Jonathan.

  “What was it they said?” Again Green turned to Jenkins for corroboration. “She got adopted. By a couple in Florida.”

  “Adopted?” Jonathan felt as if someone had plunged an ice pick into his gut. He wanted to cry, to scream. How had strangers adopted his Lily?

  “Yeah.” Green gave up looking at his nails and grinned at Jonathan. “The law down there tried to stop her, but they got there just a few minutes too late.” The deputy chuckled. “Your little girl’s gone,Walkingstick. Ne
xt time you see her again, she’ll be wearing bikinis and fucking boys on some beach.”

  “Wait,” Jonathan pleaded, the world spinning crazily as the two switched off the light and started to leave the room. “Those people can’t just adopt a child who already has parents!”

  Green shrugged. “I reckon if they got enough money, Walkingstick, they can pretty much do what they damn well please.”

  Forty-four

  MARY AWOKE FEELING as if she’d been on a three-day drunk. Her head throbbed, her stomach churned, and she longed to do nothing more than drink gallons of cold, fresh water. Though she could not see, she could now move her body and she could feel that the same kind of tape that bound her wrists and ankles also sealed her eyelids shut. As time passed, her senses sharpened, and she became aware of a cold, mountain pine smell, then music. The rockabilly music her father loved. The Everly Brothers singing “Wake Up, Little Susie,” to be exact.

  Suddenly she sensed something else. Move­ment. Fast, then slowing down. The whine of an engine, then a bump as the back of her skull thudded against something hard. Golden spirals of light whorled before her, then everything stopped—the music, the motor, everything but the smell of evergreen trees. She heard the squeaking of leather, then a dif­ferent smell assailed her nose. Something like burned chocolate and strong male sweat. Then that voice.

  “Wake up, little Mary.”

  Every nerve in her body tensed as fingers teased around her temples, then ripped some­ thing from her skin. She opened her eyes to see Stump Logan, risen from the dead.

  “Long time no see, Logan,” Mary croaked.

  He grinned, his scruffy beard and fish-scale eyes reminding her of the mad monk, Rasputin. “You’re a hard girl to get ahold of.”

  “Really? You’ve seen me at the Deckard County Courthouse. Also in my grandmother’s kitchen. Also in Atlanta, at Lenox Mall.”

  He leaned closer. “I mean really get ahold of. Up close and personal.”

  “Well, you pulled it off this time. What did you use?” She looked around to see that she lay in the back of a van. Crumpled candy and fast­ food wrappers littered the floor, and several soiled plastic diapers had been rolled up and crammed under the driver’s seat.

  “I disabled you with this.” He pulled some­ thing that looked like a garage door opener from his pocket. “Then I knocked you out with this.” He held up a plastic sandwich bag containing a square of white gauze.

  “First a Taser,” she said, recognizing the electronic stun gun worn by a few Atlanta cops. “Then chloroform?”

  He gave a modest nod. “An old trick, but effective. Just like me.”

  “Okay. The next question is, why?”

  “I’m taking you to a venue that you seem to have a real affinity for,” he said proudly.

  “And that would be?”

  He chuckled. “A place in the mountains. Deep and dark and hidden away. There’s a funny little spot up there with your name on it, Mary Crow. And that’s where you’re going. The only question now is, do you want to go there asleep or awake?” He held up his chloroform rag.

  “Awake,” she replied, trying to keep from trembling in front of him.

  He returned to the driver’s seat and restarted the engine. They drove along, Logan munching Krispy Kreme doughnuts from a green and white box, and humming a maddening tune that sounded like a polka played on slow speed. As she twisted her wrists against the tape that bound them, she wished she could wrap her hands around Logan’s porcine neck and squeeze the life out of him.

  She struggled to sit up and get a better view out the windshield. She had no idea whether they’d been traveling for hours or days, and all she could see were the beams of his headlights through thick woods. No stars, no streetlights, not even the smallest glimmer from a distant farmhouse. She closed her eyes, fighting tears, then a boiling surge of rage swept through her. If Logan was going to kill her and complete his trifecta on her family, it was going to cost him, and cost him dearly.

  “So what is it with you, Logan? Payback? Are you just pissed because I sent you running off into the mountains, hiding from the Feds?” Getting him talking was an old cop trick that he probably knew better than she did, but it was worth a shot.

  His gaze met hers in the mirror. “Actually, it’s because you’re Jack Bennefield’s kid.”

  Mary frowned. “Why does that make me so special?”

  “Remember when you came back to the mountains and tracked that nutcase who’d abducted your girlfriend?”

  Mary would never forget that October, two years ago, when a pleasant autumn camping trip with her two best friends had turned monstrous, leaving one of them raped and another disfigured, and had nearly cost all of them their lives. “I do.”

  “You fucking amazed me that last day. You walked like Bennefield, laughed like Bennefield—hell, you even climbed into that chopper like Bennefield. But what scared the shit out of me was that you had his determination.”

  “So?”

  He grabbed another donut. “Sugar, that kind of determination is a dangerous thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You want answers to your questions,” he said flatly. “And you won’t stop until you get them.” He swallowed the doughnut in two bites, reached for another. “I know what you’re like. I know you won’t rest until you find out what happened the day your mother died. I want to live the rest of my life without looking over my shoulder, fretting about you.”

  She was amazed at how his words echoed her own, back at the gas station with Ruth. The hunter and the hunted, she thought. Both equally obsessed. “Okay. since you’re going to kill me anyway, tell me about my dad.”

  Logan was so quiet that she feared she’d spooked him, then abruptly he began to speak. “I met Jack Bennefield in boot camp, at Fort Benning. We’d both been drafted. Me because I was too poor to go to college, him because he’d flunked out of Georgia Tech. Not because he wasn’t smart, he just didn’t want to be an engineer. Rock ‘n’ roll was Bennefield’s thing.”

  “Thats alright, Mama,” Mary thought, remembering the wonderful old tape in her father’s bedroom.

  “We went through basic training together. I hated the water; Bennefield swam like a fish. He saved me from drowning once on a night exercise. Pulled me out of the drink, sixty-pound pack and all.

  “A couple of months later, I took him home with me on a three-day pass. We were going squirrel hunting. That’s when the trouble began.”

  “The trouble?”

  He glanced at her in the mirror, his good eye wide with surprise. “Did your mother never tell you this?”

  “No.”

  He veered over to the side of the road. Unbuckling his seat belt, he dug a small photo from his wallet, switched on the overhead light, and held the picture in front of her face.

  It was a faded photo of a teenage couple at a dance. The boy looked gawky, bony wrists protruding from a suit too small, hair combed forward in an ersatz Beatle haircut. The girl stood regal despite her slight stature, smiling and wearing a simple pink gown with a modest wrist corsage. It was easy to distinguish between the lover and the loved; the boy was sorely smitten, the girl was simply attending a dance. Then Mary caught her breath. As she looked closer, she realized that the eyes beneath those Beatle bangs were Logan’s; the girl’s sweet smile belonged to none other than her mother.

  “Senior prom,” Logan told her. “Hartsville High, 1965.”

  She gazed at the photo, stunned. Her mother had talked so little about her old boyfriends that Mary had assumed she didn’t go out much until her father came along. But there Martha stood with young Stump Logan, eyeshadowed and coiffed in the stiff, bouffant style of the day. Mary would have cherished the image, were it not for the boy who stood at her mother’s side.

  “I played first-string quarterback on the football team. Your
mom played me like a short game of stud.”

  “She wouldn’t do that,” said Mary.

  “I was just another patsy in that little game all you gals play. Flirt with a boy, get his attention, make him fall for you. Then spit him out like a wad of old gum when somebody better comes along.”

  “You and my mother were in love?” She spoke haltingly, reluctant to even give the words voice.

  “We were until your father came along,” Logan said bluntly. “Then I made the mistake of bringing my good ol’ Army buddy Jack Bennefield home with me. Took Jack up to Little Jump Off to meet my girl. That’s when he turned my life to shit. Wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it, either.” Logan’s voice grew dreamy as he drifted back in time. “Bennefield walked into the store, Martha looked up from the cash register, and bang! It kicked you like a mule—those two just gawked at each other like there wasn’t anybody else in the world. You know how hard it was to stand there and watch that? And know that they never would have even met if it hadn’t been for me?”

  His mouth turned down in a bitter line. “Until that morning, I would have trusted Jack Bennefield with my life. Ten minutes after we walked into that store, he dragged me out on the porch and said, ‘Say, if you two aren’t engaged, do you mind if I ask her out?’”

  “Why didn’t you just tell him no?” Mary wondered how one simple word might have rewritten all their histories.

  “I thought about it,” Logan whispered. “But I’d seen the look on her face. I could have sent your mother fifty roses a day for the rest of her life. She still would have loved only Bennefield.” Mary squeezed her eyes shut. So the great mystery of her life was as old as the mountains themselves. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl. The third act should have been boy finds girl again, but this one had taken a lethal twist. In this one the spurned boy hunts down and kills everyone who’s aggrieved him.

  “Okay. My father stole your girl. That was wrong. But did you kill him for it? Was it just like Irene Hannah thought?”