by Peter Farris
Sitting next to Crews made Lang nervous when he had no reason to be. She studied the case file, occasionally resting her eyes on the passing landscape, her mind preoccupied with a multitude of theories, possibilities and considerations.
They passed fencerows. A tin-roof town. Rain dotted the windshield.
* * *
Deputy Bower met them in the parking lot across the street from the liquor store.
“Anything?” Lang said.
“Nothing new at Bird Dog,” his deputy said, flicking his cigarette toward a puddle of rainwater. “Just the usual riffraff buying thirty-packs of Schlitz and lotto tickets. If there was a white ex-con who’s mean as hell in the neighborhood, he ain’t been in there.”
Lang cast a weary glance at the parking lot of KB’s Billiards, the asphalt littered with plastic rings and cigarette butts. The place was a dive, a joint popular with locals looking to drink their lunch, and no stranger to fights of the knock-down drag-out variety. Off the Sheriff’s look Deputy Bower walked back to his patrol car, but not before offering Crews a polite tip of the hat.
Lang paused to admire a jet-black Chevy pickup parked out front, a vehicle out of place among the half-dozen beaters and motorcycles. Crews looked back once at the Sheriff, noting the peculiar reservation on his face before they entered the pool hall.
The air was smoky-stale. The cars parked outside seemed to match the appearance of their owners, three of whom racked balls and nursed beers at a nearby table. Any excitement dimmed at the sight of police. There were televisions mounted in two corners above the bar. The volume was muted, replaced by music from a jukebox—some twangy anthem sung by a pop-country princess.
The patrons eyed Lang in his for-the-cameras forest-green polyester uniform, Crews in her GBI windbreaker. No fuss, but Lang sensed their uneasiness.
The bar was front and center in the deceptively large hall. Rows of pool tables on either side. Booths and tables along the walls. Cushioned bar stools. Some of the cocktail tables looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned since the previous night, most of them cluttered with glasses of melted ice and browning limes. Crumpled napkins. OxyContin residue. Mirrored advertisements for whiskey and rum, tobacco, neon beer signs sputtered in the darkness.
A couple of regulars hovered over their drinks. A conversation had been suspended in mid-sentence, their eyes on the Sheriff. Lang was certain there were a couple of potential DUIs, no doubt narcotics and an outstanding warrant or two in the room. It wasn’t important now.
Lang and Crews approached the bartender. Del Slaton poured a cup of coffee and slyly topped it with Evan Williams.
“Where’s Kalamity at today?” Lang said to the bartender.
Del raised coal-colored eyes and smiled. He had about half his teeth.
“Kal’s gone to the Costco. I’m Del.”
The bartender turned to Crews and smiled but didn’t offer his hand.
“Don’t believe I seen you in here before, Del,” Lang said.
“Don’t believe I seen you here this early. Time for a quick one, Sheriff?”
Del smiled again and winked at Crews. Lang felt a cold urge to climb over the bar and pistol-whip him. The drunks seated on stools resumed their conversation, one of them chuckling at the exchange. Del hooked a thumb inside the hammer pocket of his carpenter’s pants, ashed his cigarette on the floor with a quick flick of a forefinger. Crews looked around, uninterested in Del.
“This is Agent Crews,” Lang said curtly. “You heard about the robbery?”
“I did, Sheriff. Folks been talking ’bout it.” His voice had a childish pitch. The disposition of a supreme smart-ass.
Crews smirked and shook her head. Del cradled his cigarette in an ashtray and took to wiping down pint glasses with a dishcloth, stowing them in a plastic crate next to the icebox. He paused to savor another sip of coffee. If Lang had seen Del in there tending bar, he must have been too drunk to remember. Crews leaned in and rested her elbows on the bar.
“I like your pants, Del,” she said. “Carhartt’s?”
“Only brand worth wearin’,” the bartender said.
“You know most of your customers, Del?”
He gave the hall a once-over.
“Regular crowd, I suppose. Last night was purdy busy, but I didn’t see no one stuck out.”
Lang excused himself and walked to the men’s room, passing a man and woman shooting a game of eight ball near the jukebox. Smoke hung over the table. The man smiled and nodded to Lang. The woman ignored him. Lang noticed the wedding ring on her finger but no ring on her companion’s hand. Typical for this place. But Lang couldn’t be judgmental. He had been one of them.
The trim around the bathroom door was chipped, amusingly repaired with hardened bits of chewing gum. Lang turned his head. He saw the two men in the far corner. Big, mean-looking assholes shooting a game of nine ball.
A memory stirred. The place was so familiar to him, telling him stories he didn’t want to hear. Christ Almighty the shame …
… that one waitress was young enough to be your daughter, wadn’t she?
Lang suddenly felt hopeless, emotionally disabled. In the bathroom he washed his hands. He might’ve punched the mirror, if it weren’t already broken.
* * *
If it weren’t for the buzzing neon sign reading Pool Tables and the dingy white KB placard tacked up over a tinted window, Nathan Flock would have driven right by the place. The building had all the charm of a broken ankle. He pulled off the highway and parked next to a Pontiac Fiero that looked as though it had recently been stored at the bottom of a lake.
Inside Lipscomb ordered a pitcher of beer. Then he slid a hundred-dollar bill across the bar to Del.
“And what’s that for?”
“Wondering where the boss is at?” Lipscomb said with a friendly smile.
“Kalamity?” Del said. “She’s taken the day off.”
“Then we’re just looking on how to find her. If we was actually here. Which we wasn’t.”
A few seconds went by. Lipscomb stared at Del with a cool amusement.
“I follow,” Del said.
“You look like a man who understands how to,” Lipscomb said, and jerked a thumb at Flock. “My friend over there said I was to be sure to tell you how good-looking you are. Follow?”
Del folded the hundred-dollar bill twice and nodded bashfully.
“Next pitcher’s on the house.”
* * *
“Pour ’em and rack ’em, peckerwood.”
Flock finished his first glass of beer to Lipscomb’s third as he sized up a cut shot on the six ball. Then Lipscomb murmured something else and Flock looked up at the front door. KB’s was dark save for the cones of light illuminating individual tables. Cigarette smoke drifted like a layer of sea foam. The sudden blast of daylight only magnified the arrival of Lang and Sallie Crews.
“Roll down them sleeves, son,” Lipscomb said.
Flock took the shot on the six and missed. He made a face. Like he really cared. He walked around the table, casually adjusting the sleeves of his mechanic’s shirt. Flock didn’t think the county mountie or the chick agent were scoping them yet. Earlier Lipscomb had told him to keep his tattoos hidden. People remember that kind of shit, he said. The heat in this part of the state is going to be focused to pale blue India ink and yard postures.
Lipscomb clutched the end of his pool cue, covertly sizing up the room, entertaining scenarios. Hope Flock’s man enough, because I’ll kill every damn person in here ’fore I go back inside. Then he leaned over the table and cut the six ball into the side pocket.
The Sheriff and the woman were talking to Del. Flock circled the table, out of turn, while Lipscomb watched the bar without seeming to. At one point Del glanced at them. After years in prison Lipscomb had developed a talent for intimidation, just a subtle look—maybe a twinkle in his eye, a glint like that coming off the razor edge of a hunting knife. He locked eyes for a brief moment with Del, as if wa
iting for the ramifications of a wrong answer to register with the bartender.
“Danny Romanowski was a brother from down near Statesboro,” Lipscomb said out of the side of his mouth, returning his attention to the game. “Usually ran into him in courtroom bullpens. But for a while we shared a cell on North Block at Hays before I eventually raised. Years ago it was. Danny took a score on a bank once. Noticed a chick every Tuesday and Thursday going in for change orders from a burrito joint. Coming out with a burlap sack that looked heavy with green.”
Lipscomb paused. The Sheriff had walked away from the bar. He was four tables from them, eyeing something. The bathroom door? An empty booth?
Flock cradled his cigarette in an ashtray and watched Lipscomb run the cue stick through his fingers a dozen times before attempting his next shot.
Flock practiced a quick draw in his head, thinking of the .357 concealed in a spine holster. Lipscomb was armed, he knew, a piece clipped on his belt. Lipscomb continued his anecdote—hand to his mouth, part habit as a way to deter possible lip-readers. It was a skill many inmates learned in prison, hovering over catwalks and railings, walking the yard. Guard your tongue, Lipscomb always said. The hacks are always watching.
“Now Danny, he was a goofy brother, a gas huffer. Made him fearless … and reckless. So he put on his ‘outfit’ and got good and high before the bank score. Met this girl inside her car. The shock of seeing Danny in drag caused her to pass out. He never even touched her. Then Danny walked into the bank, his blond wig and lipstick smeared like a whore’s. That and a week’s worth of stubble. He walked straight up to the teller with that change order. But Danny wasn’t so smart, see? He saw those hundred-dollar straps and thought he’d scored big … but those straps were for one-dollar bills.
“Was wearing the biggest bra he could find in his momma’s closet. He just scooped that money up inside the bra, stuffing cash up in the shoulders of his dress like the pads on a football player. Finally he lit up out of that bank, but by then the assistant manager had came to in her car and flagged down a cop. When they caught up to Danny he was huffing paint, space brained, feeling up his titties, but there was nothing but George Washingtons for cleavage.”
Flock smiled nervously. He crouched down in the cone of light and blew a shot on the seven ball.
“Never could hit that corner shot myself,” Lang said, stepping into their light, his badge gleaming.
* * *
“I’m learning the kid, but he’s just a touch clumsy.”
“How y’all doing today?” Lang said.
“Just fine, Sheriff,” Lipscomb said, in character. “Just pulled an all-nighter repairing our car after Saturday night.”
“Dirt?”
“Only thing worth racin’ on.”
Lang nodded.
“Pony stock? Limited?”
“Nah, super late-model. Raced over in Rome.”
Lang nodded again. Lipscomb figured he bought it but was irritated by Lang’s knowledgeable line of questioning. The Sheriff knew his shit. But Lipscomb looked the part. He’d been under the hood of Flock’s Chevy. Hands were a little grimy. Even had a Hoosier Racing Tire patch on the breast pocket of his twill shirt. Pure fucking luck he’d pulled it from his duffel to wear that morning. Flock took his shot, looking annoyed as he missed again.
“Say y’all from over Rome way?” Lang said.
“Yeah.”
“Where y’all been racing?”
Lang was leaning against the adjacent pool table. Lipscomb tried to gauge him. Is he really just shooting the shit with us?
“Bulls Gap,” Lipscomb said after a moment’s hesitation.
Lang nodded an acknowledgment, still friendly, grinning as though it were an election year.
“I didn’t see a trailer out front. Just that new Silverado.”
“Left our race car at a buddy’s garage,” Lipscomb answered. “Right front was tore all to hell. You know Frank Dutton?”
“Can’t say I do,” Lang said.
“Good mechanic. We’re looking at four grand to the winner next Saturday night … unless Tim Richmond over there don’t jump the cushion and throw her into the wall.”
Lang laughed, but he was already walking away.
“Enjoy your game,” he said with a curt, not-so-courteous nod.
Flock acknowledged the dig from Lipscomb. Whoops, bud. You know me. Plus the reference to the NASCAR legend seemed to have humored Lang and sold the lie. As did mentioning the cushion of dirt that racers use as a driving line. Flock took a sip of beer and shrugged. Not sure who was buying what.
Moments later they watched Lang and Crews leave. Del looked over and grinned at Flock like he’d just eaten a big bowl of shit. The jukebox kicked in, as if it’d been waiting for the Sheriff to go, Waylon Jennings sang “Anita, You’re Dreaming.”
Lipscomb lit a cigarette. He smoked slowly. A weird ecstasy burned onto his face.
“That there was better than any sex I ever had, son.”
* * *
Lang drove his cruiser slowly along the row of parked vehicles, stopping at Nathan Flock’s Chevy.
“What did you make of those two?” Crews said.
“I’ve learned not to be judgmental about prison tattoos.”
“Want to run the Chevy’s plates?”
“It’s Floyd County. Where they said they was from.” Lang paused, straining to see inside the truck’s cab. “I’d still like to get a look in there,” he said.
“Probable cause?”
“None. Just a bad case of SDLR. Let’s eat.”
Lang pulled out of the parking lot, spraying gravel as the Crown Vic sped down the highway.
* * *
“Mostly locals in there the last few nights, according to that queer bartender,” Crews said, finishing a cheeseburger. “Nobody throwing money around, asking for girls or drugs or gambling heavy … no one bragging about all the jail time they’ve done.”
She sighed. Lang thought it to be the first time he’d seen Crews express frustration. He drove north toward Route 20, a stretch of lonely-looking land with not even a road sign for company. They left the foothills, passing barns and tree farms and the wood-processing plant. An abandoned development with empty lots, a few foreclosed homes, signs from a dozen Realtors. He turned right onto the highway, eventually passing the North Georgia Savings & Loan. Crews turned her head but said nothing. Plastic sealed the broken front doors, police tape crisscrossing the threshold. The bank had hired security guards to patrol the branch until it could reopen, which Lang figured with any corporation that only cared about the bottom line would be sooner rather than later.
Hopefully, they’ll wait for the blood to dry first.
He and Crews were quiet for a while, the police band radio the only sound. The inside of the cruiser smelled of fast food. He cracked a window and lit a cigarette. It didn’t seem to bother her.
“And how about those two graduates of Felony U. shooting pool?” she said.
“They had a nice story.”
“What does ‘SDLR’ stand for?”
“‘Something Don’t Look Right,’” Lang said.
“Seems like you know KB’s pretty well, Sheriff.”
“I used to,” he said. “Not anymore.”
Little else was said, Crews realizing regrettably that her last comment might have been a conversation killer. She worked her mobile instead, pressing for results from the state’s notoriously slow Northeastern Lab.
There was a clapboard church ahead, passionflowers in bloom throughout the small property. Picnickers gathered in a brush arbor. Lang raised his hand in greeting, but no one waved back.
He broke the ice again, wanting to put the sour memory of KB’s behind. Topics mostly professional, but hints of a personal life peppered their conversation. He mentioned his ex-wife. Crews mentioned a separation. Odd hours, bad coffee, lack of sleep.
“The occupational hazards of anyone in law enforcement,” she said.
Sh
e elaborated on the case, speaking of how ruthless and organized prison gangs were. She told him in confidence that more than a dozen other banks in the Southeast had been hit in the past sixteen months. Usually two or three men who had precise knowledge of security features, floor plans and cash delivery schedules. Crews was convinced the heists were being planned in prisons.
Lang tried to focus on what she had to say. He wished the road wouldn’t end.
But the same thoughts kept repeating.
Why me? Why here? And why now?
* * *
Newspapers still covered the windows. Charlie tried to distinguish day from night by watching Hicklin and Hummingbird. She cleaned the kitchen often, even when there was nothing to clean. She’d also taken to organizing little things in the living room. Old magazines, packs of cigarettes, matchbooks. Her rolled-up Baggies filled with crystalline powder. She folded dirty clothes in front of him as if he needed to be taught how.
Charlie figured these activities for morning.
Hummingbird was obsessive. She scrubbed and dried and stacked dishes in a way that suggested guilt or remorse. Then she would shrink to some corner of the cottage, that odor of chemical smoke not far behind.
Hicklin disappeared for hours. Occasionally he opened the front door, appearing with food and ice from risky missions to procure more beer. Charlie was shocked to feel relief when Hicklin returned from these late-night excursions. The air swelling with the sounds of crickets and treehoppers. Chirps. The wind. Thunder. Darkness.
Other times Charlie would close his eyes and listen to the sounds of the cottage. Hicklin exercising. A fourth set of leg lifts. Then crunches. Push-ups.
The sound of a match flaring against the tip of a cigarette. The whine of the filter.
That burnt plastic smell.
The binges of sleep continued.
He had terrible nightmares. One in particular where all of his veins broke free through his skin. Charlie screaming as a branchwork of blue-green twisted from his forearms and sprayed the cottage with blood. Veins near his ankles and feet, in his neck, burrowing through the flesh like earthworms after a sun shower. It was as if his entire vascular system was making a run for it. He’d never had dreams so violent, so vivid. Not before. Not ever.