by A P Bateman
The bear stepped down the steps and onto the street. He walked cautiously past Stone and stood towering in front of Claude Conrad. “If you don’t mind, Sir, I’ll wait in the truck.”
“Carl?” Conrad looked shocked. “You don’t want to pay this guy back for sucker-punching you?”
“No, Sir.” He looked at Stone briefly, then back at Conrad. “I don’t know what they told you in there, but it was a fair fight. And I don’t want any more of it. I ain’t never hurt so much.” The bear opened the rear door of the Chevy and folded himself somewhat dejectedly inside.
The four men were bathed in a swathe of light, their heads creating shadows on the wall of the bar. The two men towards the rear turned and saw the police cruiser making its way towards them. All four men seemed to hesitate uncertain, and Conrad motioned towards their vehicle with a nod of his head. They started to get inside the customised Ford pick-up, and had the doors closed by the time the big Dodge warbled its way past.
“What are you doing here?”
“I came here to climb. And to walk. Work out some personal stuff.”
“Really?”
“But I have to stay a while.”
“Why?”
“Well, you could say I have car trouble.”
“Is that right?”
“You know it is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, somebody slashed all of my tyres.”
“Call the Triple A.”
“No service. Cell signal’s a bitch.”
“Who are you?”
Stone smiled. “I’m just a guy who can’t be pushed.”
“Everyone can be pushed, Mister Stone.”
“No, some people push back harder.”
“And you do?”
“Trust me, I do.”
“Who are you, really?”
“Are you scared I might be a reporter?”
“Why should I be?”
“Or a private investigator?”
“Why would I be scared?”
“Because you’ve got something to hide. I’m figuring something big.”
“I don’t know what you mean. So who are you?” Conrad asked again.
Stone stared at him coldly, took two steps forward. Conrad recoiled momentarily, then relaxed, regaining some composure. Stone noted with interest that the four guys stayed in the truck. “I’m a guy who came into town and drank some bad coffee and ate a dry Danish. I’m a guy who watched you bully a large man into submission, just by tongue lashing him like he was beneath contempt. I’m a guy who walked over to check that he was okay, and got three brothers real wound up because I had. I’m a guy who had his tyres slashed as a warning. But most of all, I’m a guy who nearly died on a cliff ledge today because somebody cut my rope intending me to fall. And that’s a big problem for whoever did that.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it is. Because whoever did that has something to hide. A secret. And I think it was enough for a reporter to disappear and a private investigator to get killed in a bogus traffic accident. And I’m going to find out what that secret is. And then I’m going to see that it’s put right, and that the person gets what’s coming to them.”
6
Stone had left Claude Conrad outside the bar. He waved casually at the four guys in the Ford pickup as he passed them and crossed over the street. He was pleased that it had not come to a fight with the men outside the bar, but he suspected he had the bear to thank for that. The man’s resolve had been broken and it spoke volumes to the other men. The biggest of them had gone down and had refused the chance for retribution. Even with the advantage of four more bodies to back him up. Maybe even five with their boss. Stone had done his best to paint a vivid picture of their fate should it come down to a fight. Of course, he knew that in a fight nothing was ever certain, and that you could never realistically plan moves two or three strikes ahead. It wasn’t chess, it was more random than that. The fact that these guys didn’t seem to know that meant that Stone knew a little more about them. They were big tough guys, but they were not street smart, nor worldly wise. And they hadn’t trained with the best instructors in the world.
He decided to get a coffee before heading back to the hotel and walked the dark and deserted street towards the eastern end of town. He looked at the houses and shops. There was something old fashioned about the layout of the town, a classic western strip. It would not be difficult to imagine horses tethered outside to hitching posts and rough, sinewy men looking for trouble with six guns on their hips. The sound of a piano coming from the saloon. From what Stone had already seen, this was pure Wild West anyway.
Apart from the hardware store, there was a laundry, a general store which looked like a European chain, although the wording was missing, and a bakery advertising bagels, fresh bread, donuts and cookies baked daily. A barber shop with a red and white pole outside had a half price special running for senior citizens on Wednesdays. In its window Stone could see a large jar of lollipops. He remembered getting one after haircuts in his hometown as a young boy, had assumed the practice would have died out a long time ago.
As for the houses, some were Georgian brownstone, but most were timber framed. A few lights backlit the properties, but it looked like the residents of Abandon took to their beds early. Stone glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. A cup of coffee and a slice of pie with a squirt of cream before heading back to the hotel made sense. He wouldn’t be sleeping much tonight with the thought of his new-found friends out there in the darkness and felt a rush of sugar would help out the adrenalin spike from the earlier confrontation.
The same waitress who had served him this morning sat perched on a barstool at the counter. She looked up and smiled.
“Hi,” Stone smiled. “Are you able to serve me?”
“Of course, honey.”
“You haven’t been told otherwise?”
She smiled. “Well, I have. But nobody’s watching. It will give you a chance to redeem the lousy tip from earlier.”
Stone grinned and stepped up to the counter. The diner was otherwise deserted. He looked at the woman. She was late thirties, early forties. Attractive, but tired looking. She would be, she’d worked from morning through the whole day. She looked a little sad too.
“Tips are usually on a sliding scale. What say we start high and get a bit higher this time around?” he smiled.
“You just want coffee, right?” she grinned. “I’m just too plain exhausted to screw.”
“No… I…”
“Just messing with you!” she laughed. She stepped around the counter and picked up the jug of coffee from the hotplate. “I’ll get you one of these. Unless you’d like a cappuccino?”
“Well, I…”
“Ha! Got you again! No, black or with cream. That’s the way they take it around here. Starbucks aren’t scouting out this town, that’s for sure.”
“You from out of town?”
She nodded. “Out of state. I’m from Seattle. Now that’s the place for good coffee.”
“Tell me about it.” He eyed his cup and took a sip. He’d tasted worse. But he’d made coffee from his own piss once, so it wasn’t saying much. “So how did you wind up in Abandon?”
“Luck,” she said quietly. “Or fate.”
“Good luck?”
She held out her arms, ran her fingertips down each side of her waists as if displaying her uniform. “No. Shitty luck, I guess. I’m not exactly living the dream.”
Stone wanted to ask for pie, but he didn’t want to interrupt. He sipped the coffee, mentally counting. One… two… three… four… five… six…
“I came down from Seattle to look for someone…” There it was. He seldom made it to ten. Remain silent and people will always fill the void. “My son,” she said. “You ever seen programs like Gold Rush or Yukon Gold?”
“Sure. Bits.”
“Well they paint a picture of the last frontier, the last bastion of the American dream. The money’
s in the ground. You’re a millionaire already, you’ve just got to dig it out!” She poured a coffee for herself and took a sip. “It’s kind of addictive to watch because you have a run of the mill job, or punch the clock and these guys give it their all in the hope of hitting it big. Well, my son graduated high school and let’s be honest, Mister…?”
“Call me Rob.”
“Well, let’s be honest, Rob – he was never going to get into college. He thought about the Marines,” she paused when Stone screwed up his face. “What?”
“I’m ex-army. I don’t like language like that,” he smiled.
She grinned. “Well, they all get muddy and bloody, don’t they?”
“Point taken.”
“Well, he was looking at something with a career, but he wasn’t going to run a corporation. So we thought the armed forces…” she paused. “Hey, sorry…”
“No problem. I had a different career before I joined the army. I just felt I had to do some time fighting terrorism. Call me patriotic. Or easily led.”
“Thank you for your service.”
“You can thank me with some pie,” Stone said, and finished the coffee. “Sorry, what’s your name?”
“Deborah,” she said. She took down a large cherry pie and cut two large wedges. She put each slice on a plate, reached under the counter for two forks, and then placed them informally between them. She took a can of spray cream from an under counter chiller unit and loaded the edges of the plates.
Stone poured them both more coffee. “So he went gold prospecting?”
“No, as it turns out. Silver. He heard about a guy reopening a silver mine in the mountains and got all excited. He thought he could come out here and hit it big.”
“And?”
“And that was that. I never heard from him again. I don’t even know if he got here. There’s no cell service for a hundred miles in some directions.”
“What’s his name?”
“John. John Paterson.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Three years.” She looked like she was going to cry, but Stone could tell she was all cried out. Dry from grief and worry. “I was eighteen when I had John. What can I say? Passion, carelessness. I was the cheerleader who scored the quarterback. Small town shit. But from the moment I became pregnant I loved him with all my heart. His dad ran off in my first trimester, I haven’t seen him since before John was born. I called him John after my father. My daddy died when I was just three years old. My mother used to say how much they looked alike. You know, from photographs. She died when John was eleven.”
Stone didn’t know how to respond. He never did. It wasn’t that he was insensitive, it was just that sorry always sounded so insincere. “And you wound up living here?” he asked.
“No. I lost everything looking for him. I lived in a rented home, owned a shitty car, came out here looking for my boy and ran out of money. The car broke down, I couldn’t afford to repair it and had to take some casual work to try and pay for the repairs. It was a shitty Chevy Nova worth nothing to start with. They can barely find the parts these days. I had to leave it with the mechanic at the end of the strip. I couldn’t even afford the exploratory work, let alone the parts and labour. I got behind with the rent back in Seattle, lost the apartment and the landlord sold my stuff to get some recompense. This job came with a room, well a small apartment above so I took it. Days became weeks, weeks became months, and then before I knew it, it’s three years later and I still haven’t got a hope of buying a new car and besides, where do I go? I came here looking for John because it was the last place I knew he was heading to. I don’t want to leave – it would be like giving up on him.”
“And where was this mine?”
“Up in the hills north of here,” she paused. “Your friend Claude Conrad owns it.”
7
Stone didn’t like coincidences. Usually they led to no good. He watched as Deborah poured his third cup of coffee. They had finished their pies and the empty plates sat between them, a few crumbs and a little cream but not much else. He doubted whether the caffeine, sugar and fat would allow him to sleep at all. But he wasn’t particularly in the mood to rest.
Deborah had wiped the counter and a few tables, all that she needed to do was clear the plates and cash up the register. She had admitted that there wasn’t much in the way of takings. The diner thrived when the loggers came down from Big Dave Conrad’s timber business, other than that there were very few people passing through.
“So Claude Conrad still runs the silver mine?”
“No, the silver mine never got going. There was a profitable streak of silver but that was it. It closed up three years ago. A load of miners, or potential miners, came into town looking for work, but it was already closed up by then. Conrad doesn’t remember my John, but I know he came here, I just know it. John wouldn’t have deviated from his plan. He was a little autistic, low down the scale but what it gave him was focus. And a sense of right and wrong. He wasn’t academic, but if he said ‘I’m going to point A and then point B, he wouldn’t have bypassed B and gone to point C. It would be almost impossible for him. He was eighteen when he left and a strong boy, he would have been able to take care of himself as well.” She drained the last of her coffee. “Well, that’s me not sleeping until four o’clock.”
“When do you start work?”
“About seven,” she said somewhat distantly.
“And when do you finish?”
“Are you hitting on me, Rob?”
Stone thought for a moment. She was kind, friendly and pretty. It wouldn’t be the worst thing he’d done recently. In fact, the longer he’d been talking to her the more she appealed to him. “I’m sort of in a relationship, kind of.”
“Sort of? Kind of?” She smiled. “You don’t seem too sure. Doesn’t sound like fireworks.”
“It’s complicated. I work out of Washington DC, she recently took a career once-in-a-lifetime move to New York. I couldn’t get a transfer to New York, but we’ve not really been seeing each other for very long.”
“So you’re out here on the opposite side of the country hoping to work things out?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, don’t take too long, I may get snapped up fast in a place like this!” she laughed and ran a hand through her mane of auburn hair.
“Can I ask you something personal?”
She smiled. “Okay.”
“I think you work here for a lot of hours each day, a lot of shifts each week.” He eyed her carefully, watching her deep brown eyes for her response. “The life you described in Seattle seemed pretty disposable, and you’ve been here three years. You have a small apartment with this job. Why can’t you afford to mend your car, or even buy a cheap used vehicle by now?”
Her eyes flashed, but she regained composure quickly. “Who said I earned a fortune?”
“Well at minimum plus a few tips, I would have thought you’d save up a little bit.”
“Well, we can’t all be high-flying yuppies.”
“I’m not a yuppie,” Stone said. “Nobody’s ever called me that before, but I’ve been called that twice today.”
“Small town.”
“I’m learning,” Stone said. “How well do you know Dave Conrad?”
She seemed to sneer, looked away. When she looked back at him a single tear trickled down her cheek. “Well enough.”
“Was he the one who told you to refuse serving me?”
“Yes.”
“Was he threatening to you?”
“He was, but he doesn’t scare me. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m running on empty. I don’t know pleasure, and I barely feel pain,” she sighed. “John was all I had, and with every day that passes, I’m sure something terrible has happened to him.”
“What did he threaten you with?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Violence?”
�
�Who are you?”
“Just a guy,” Stone said. “What kind of violence. A beating?”
“You don’t know what you’re getting into, Rob. Why don’t you leave?”
“Car trouble. What kind of violence?” he repeated.
“Rape.” She seemed to be relieved having said it.
“Has he done it before?”
“Just go. Please.” She picked up the plates and put them on the service hatch. She wiped the counter and picked up the two empty cups. “Get your car fixed and get out of here while you still can.”
“And what about you?”
“You barely know me. Forget me. Go and see sort of, kind of girl and get that thing all worked out.”
“Someone tried to kill me today.”
“And? They failed. So what? Get out while you can, stay out and don’t come back.” She looked him in the eyes, her own were wet and tears ran down both cheeks, taking mascara with them. “No good will ever come from being here, Rob. This place is evil. It was abandoned once and should have stayed that way.”
8
Stone had got no further with Deborah. She had simply shut down. She cleaned up the few dishes, walked him to the door and once again, told him to leave Abandon. She wasted no time, shutting and locking the door behind him and switching off the lights. Stone watched her walk through the restaurant, a dim security light illuminating her briefly before she disappeared into the kitchen.