The Red Zone

by Tim Green

  Kratch twisted his lips to the side in distaste. "I think she's full of shit. We both know that Luther Zorn is guilty She's blowing smoke. They all do that, don't they?" he said distractedly, "they all do."

  "I'll look into the situation with Gill a little more closely," Kratch told the prosecutor. "As I said, I'm sure it's a coincidence, and a fortunate one at that. It helps us nail Zorn."

  When Kratch got out of the state attorney's office, he drove to the next intersection and stopped outside a Wendy's restaurant to use the pay phone. He dialed a pager number and then replaced the phone on its receiver. He leaned against the box, lit a Camel, and crossed his legs, waiting for a return call. A skinny black kid with a sky blue paper Wendy's hat came out of the employee's entrance on the side of the building. He had a quarter already pinched between his adolescent fingers. The kid had big droopy eyes and the hat sat at a funny little angle on his oblong skull.

  " 'Scuse me, mister," the kid said.

  Kratch smiled and exhaled his smoke in the kid's face. "Fuck off."

  The kid licked his lips, then swallowed, glaring at Kratch, who never took his eyes off him. He just put the cigarette to his mouth and sucked in hard, making the ember on the end of his butt flare like a small orange spot of lava amid the dirty gray ash. Seeing that Kratch wasn't about to move, the kid turned and mumbled his way back inside.

  As the heavy brown metal door banged shut, the phone rang.

  "Gill?" Kratch said, snatching the phone to his ear.

  "Yeah."

  "Where the fuck did she go?"

  Gill blew air out of his mouth into the receiver before he spoke to let Kratch know how bad it was. "She's in Canal Point."

  "Canal Point?"

  "Yeah, a couple weeks ago the sheriff there got a call from some nut job about three heads."

  "What do you mean, three heads?" Kratch barked.

  "Three fucking heads, cut off three fucking bodies, and stuck on top of three fucking posts."

  "So?"

  "So, the posts were stuck in the ground outside the fucking cabin."

  "My cabin?" Kratch said incredulously.

  "Yeah," Gill said.

  "That motherfucking son of a bitch! I knew that psycho would fuck this thing up somehow! Three heads! Jesus! Who?"

  "They don't seem to know," Gill said, "but I bet one of them is Charlene King."

  "Damn."

  "It might not be that bad," Gill said, relishing the good news. "This all happened a couple of weeks ago already The state clowns had some major out there doing the investigation. They had all the troops, but apparently they were able to squeeze a confession out of the local dirtbag who found the heads. Then he offed himself in his cell."

  "So, were clear?" Kratch said. "They pinned it on the dirt-bag?"

  "We were clear," Gill said. "Until this little bitch from Texas started snooping around."

  The brown metal door swung open in front of Kratch and out popped a short fat Wendy's manager wearing glasses and a bad toupee. He wiped the mayonnaise from his chubby pink hands onto his apron as he approached the pay phone. The kid peeped his head out from behind the door to watch. Kratch squinted his eyes through the smoke.

  "You know what to do," he told Gill. "Call the wolf."

  "You want me to have him send our friend after her?" Gill said, not wanting to make a mistake of that magnitude if he was misreading the situation.

  "He seems to be offing everyone else," Kratch said, staring down hard at the indignant manager. "What's one more? I gotta go."

  Kratch hung up the phone and stared.

  "Are you finished now?" the manager said.

  "Yeah, but it's broken," Kratch said from one side of his mouth. On the other side, the small remaining roach of his cigarette was clamped tightly between his teeth. Suddenly he gave the phone a violent yank, snapping it right out of the box. He handed the phone to the manager. "You better get it fixed."

  The manager looked down at the frayed dangling wires that stuck out of the phone's metal casing like a colorful party favor.

  "I'm calling the police," the manager said with conviction.

  "I am the police," Kratch said, flipping his badge in the man's face. "Now who you gonna call? Ghostbusters?"

  Kratch slid into his car and started the engine. The manager stood frozen in place with a dumb look on his face, the phone resting in his hand. Kratch rolled down the window with one hand while he placed a pair of mirrored shades on his face with the other. He threw the smoldering roach out onto the pavement.

  "Scary, isn't it?" Kratch said, then drove off.

  Margo had worked the ticket counter for almost two years, but her luck was terrible. Almost everyone else she knew in ticketing had met a celebrity of some kind or another during the past two years. Everyone but her. Several of her friends had seen Burt Reynolds. Almost everyone dealt with at least two or three of the recognizable names from the Marauders. One woman met Ted Kennedy. Not Margo. So, when a tall, good-looking black man with wraparound sunglasses suddenly appeared in front of her at a dead time of night, her heart jumped.

  She pulled up an open first-class one-way ticket to Rio and asked his name, waiting and hoping. The man looked around.

  "Bobby Allen," he said quietly, shoving twelve new one-hundred-dollar bills across the counter.

  Margo's shoulders sagged. She printed the ticket and gave the man his change. He thanked her quietly and left. Margo shook her head. She had been certain he was somebody.

  Around the same time that night, a man fitting the same description drove up to a 7-Eleven store not far from the airport to use the pay phone. The night was pleasantly cool, and the last of the dying insects from the late fall swam lazily in the white fog of the halogen lights that surrounded the parking lot. In front of the store a man in a cowboy hat with a gumball-sized wad of tobacco in his cheek sat idly watching the black man dial from the cab of a light blue pickup truck.

  The man on the phone scanned the area from behind his dark glasses as he waited for someone to pick up on the other end of the line. He watched the cowboy lean forward and expectorate a long polluted stream of tobacco juice into a Styrofoam coffee cup.

  "Yes?" came the voice on the other end of the phone, finally.

  "It's me," he said.

  There was a short pause. "Is everything all right?"

  'Yfes," the man said, watching a young woman emerge from the 7-Eleven lighting a cigarette from a fresh pack she had just purchased. "What do you want?"

  "Madison McCall is getting too close," the voice said.

  The man puckered his lips as if he'd bitten into a pickle after drinking a can of soda.

  "She's the enemy, now?" he asked.

  "She is."

  "Then, that's that. What about the Mexican?"

  "If he's there when you do it, take him out. Don't go to any trouble or added risk, though. He's not a threat."

  "How many more will there be? It wasn't supposed to be this many," he said in a tone devoid of emotion.

  "You agreed to stay in this until it was settled."

  "I know that."

  "One thing more." The voice was suddenly and uncharacteristically anxious. "I want you to leave her head alone. We don't need any more problems than we already have."

  "I have to do this my way," the other man said, surveying the parking lot, his eyes briefly losing and then regaining their focus behind his dark glasses. "Don't tell me how to do it. You sit at a desk and you think you control things. You don't control things. I don't even control things. Things happen the way they do for a reason. No one can help it. No one can stop it."

  "Just try to make them happen in a way that's not so messy."

  "That's my business," the man with the sunglasses responded with unusual rancor.

  "It's all our business now," the voice said, trying to sound authoritative, but unable to completely mask just a hint of timidity in his voice.

  "You told me the cabin was secure," the black man poin
ted out. "You were wrong. You've been wrong about several things . . . and now Madison McCall."

  "The cabin was secure," the voice reminded him. "You were camping out in the fucking woods, for God's sake, with three heads on posts!"

  "I have to go," the man said. "I'll take care of everything."

  He hung up the phone and looked at the cowboy, who quickly averted his eyes. The big black man got into his car and drove off.

  A few seconds later another man in a cowboy hat and boots, wearing Levi's jeans, came out of the store with a twelve-pack of Pabst Blue Rdbbon under his arm. He climbed into the passenger side of the pickup.

  "What took you so long, Clint?" the first cowboy asked.

  "No sticker on the fucking box," Clint explained. "The asshole behind the counter had to go out back and get the price. I don't know what the fuck he was doing back there."

  His friend spit another gob of tobacco into the battered cup and wiped a string of juice from his mustache onto his sleeve. "You know who I just saw? Luther Zorn."

  "The killer linebacker?" Clint said raising his brow. "No shit."

  "I think it was him. He was on that pay phone. He was hiding behind some sunglasses, but I'm pretty sure it was him. Left just before you came out."

  "Fucking asshole cashier," Clint said. He loved Luther Zorn, even if the guy had killed someone.

  Chapter 35

  Madison missed Cody's game. The last direct flight to Dallas pulled away just as she and Chris came racing to the gate from the main terminal. They were forced to catch a later flight to Atlanta and make a connection there for Dallas and then finally Austin. She didnt even get back in time to see the Cougars' opponent falling on the ball to kill the last few seconds of the game and secure their win, not that she would have wanted to. As happy as the community of West Lake Hills had been only a week ago, it was now despondent. It was just like in the NFL, the runner-up was regarded as no better than the lowest team in the league. Only the champions were lauded.

  Chris drove her to her home. Jo-Jo had fallen asleep on the living room couch waiting for her, and Cody was sitting alone in his big leather chair in the semidarkness of his office. An open bottle of beer rested on his knee and two empty ones sat beside him on a lamp table.

  "Hi," he said glumly.

  "Hi, honey," Madison said, kissing him on the lips. "I'm sorry I missed it. I missed my connection. I'm sorry you lost."

  She sat down on his lap, still wearing her suit from the day.

  "That's okay," Cody said, shifting under her weight.

  "Hey," she said, touching the end of his nose with her own and looking into his eyes, "you had a great year."

  "I know," he said. "It's just how you feel when you lose, no matter what the reason, no matter how good things have gone up until that point, losing is losing, and it stinks.

  "Besides," he continued, "I really thought we could win it. I was already psyched up about getting myself that new truck."

  Madison closed her eyes, her forehead still resting against Cody's. Cody had been talking all season about how he would spend his ten-thousand-dollar championship bonus. It started as a joke. His team was so bad not even he thought he could get to the championship. Then, as the season went on, he really started to believe he had a chance of winning it all. Madison never said anything. He knew as well as she did that they could buy him five new trucks.

  "Cody, I'll buy you a new truck," she said, regretting the words as soon as they passed her lips.

  She felt his body stiffen beneath her.

  She opened her eyes and said, "I didn't mean it like that."

  Cody said nothing. He turned his head away and took a long pull on his beer.

  "You just put your money away for you and Jo-Jo," he said, turning his attention back to her. "I'll take care of myself. I can get by with what I've got. I'll get it next year."

  "Cody, please," she said tiredly. "I didn't mean to insult you. I just want you to have what you want. . ."

  "What I want is to move out of this neighborhood," he snapped. "I don't want to have to go through a gate to get home. I don't want to have to live in a place where the only people not driving cars made in Germany besides me are the guys who cut the lawns and clean the pools. I don't want to have my neighbors ask me why I don't play golf or tennis. Shit!

  I don't want my kids growing up in this kind of world, Madison."

  "Kids?" she heard herself say.

  "Yeah, Madison," Cody said, his eyes digging deep into her own. "I want us to have kids. Jo-Jos like my own. You know I feel that way. But I want kids."

  Cody had mentioned wanting a bigger family from time to time, but never like this.

  "We'll have to talk about it, Cody," she said.

  "We are talking about it."

  "I mean, I'll have to think about it."

  "Think, Madison. Think about all those things," he told her, gently moving her off of him and rising to his feet.

  "Can't we talk?" she asked, looking up at him.

  Cody looked out the big glass doors that opened to the backyard where their pool was already covered for the winter and where the tall green shrubs were cut into symmetrical shapes. He could just make out the scene through his own reflection. Beyond the pool and shrubs lay the pond that you had to drive over to reach the seventeenth fairway. The moon shone like a new copper penny and left an electric trail of bronze light that spilled from the tee all the way across the water to the edge of their property.

  "I don't see there being all that much more to say," he said, turning his attention back to his wife. Madison now sat with her stockinged feet curled up under her on the chair to draw the warmth from the spot where he'd been sitting.

  "What do you want me to do?" she asked. "I make good money."

  "Save your money," he told her. "I've said that to you before. I make enough for us to live. Let's get a little house somewhere in a nice neighborhood and let Jo-Jo and hopefully some brothers and sisters grow up like normal kids."

  "There are normal kids here," she protested.

  Cody looked at her quietly "You know what I saw yesterday? Yesterday I pulled into the parking lot at school and Lizzy Shuler, the kid from down the street who's in my third-period class, she pulls up next to me in a new BMW 750. A 750, for God's sake!"

  "Maybe it was her parents' car," Madison suggested.

  "It said 'LIZZYS' on the license plate, Madison. Do you think that's reality? Turn sixteen and get an eighty-thousand-dollar car? The house I grew up in didn't cost half that."

  Madison stood up and put her arms around Cody's waist. Looking up into his eyes she said, "I got a car when I was sixteen. I didn't turn out so bad . . ."

  Cody couldn't help but smile.

  "Let's ride this horse some other time," he said. "Tomorrow, maybe. We both had rough days. How was your day, anyway?"

  Madison shut her eyes briefly. "I almost can't even explain it."

  "Then don't," he whispered, pulling the comb out of her hair, letting it spill down around her shoulders like the crystal runoff from a sudden rain shower in a lush garden. He bent his neck and moved his lips closer to hers until they barely touched.

  "What else have you got in mind?" she murmured.

  "I missed you," Cody whispered. "I missed everything about you."

  They kissed and Cody stood, scooping her up and carrying her upstairs. Madison relaxed in his arms and let him take her. It felt good to be in the arms of a strong man. Like a leaf clinging desperately to the branch of a tree, there was a certain tranquillity in finally letting go and being swept away by tempestuous forces that were simply stronger than she. Cody let her down gently and Madison sank back onto the bed, enjoying its familiarity. She opened her eyes wide, drawing in everything she could from the yellow swatch of light that lit their room from the hall. She removed her clothes unhurriedly, watching her husband as he did the same. When their bodies finally meshed, she felt the heat from his skin warming her like the summer sun emerging fr
om behind a thundercloud.

  Chapter 36

  The sun was down in Florida. The Marauders had played to a tie with the St. Louis Rams, and the game was going into overtime. Luther Zorn sat heaving on the bench. He sucked pure oxygen from a translucent green mask. An extra quarter was hard on any player; for Luther Zorn, it felt like death. He played the first four with such intensity that he typically had only enough juice left to drag himself into the locker room and take a shower, no more. Adding to his fatigue, circumstances had made it hard for Luther to get the rest he required to be at his best. Now, a play-off position was at stake. If the Marauders' won, they would be guaranteed a wild card slot. Arizona, their closest opponent in the wild card hunt, had dropped their third straight, losing to New England earlier in the day.

  Mercifully for Luther, the Marauders won the overtime coin toss. They would get the ball first. The defense would get to rest. Luther tried to draw deep from within himself. When things were at their most difficult, he had always been at his best. But not now. Too much had happened. There were too many distractions. Word of his ongoing psychotherapy had spread like a rampant virus. No one said anything to him, but even the brothers on the team were acting strange. There was a time when he had hoped that all the bad things would go away, but now they were only getting worse. He hadn't gotten much sleep.

  He had a flash of panic. What if everything went wrong? There was no time for these thoughts now; yet, they bumped about in his mind like fat summer flies trapped in a jar. Luther needed some help. He needed to focus on the game.

  "Scotty," he said, waving to the equipment man's son. "Come here, man."

  Scotty pulled up short. Luther was one of a handful of guys on the team who always took care of him. Many of the players, despite their millions of dollars, were stingy bastards. Not Luther. Luther knew what it was like to bust your hump for crumbs. He slipped Scotty a twenty or a fifty at regular intervals just for packing the equipment in his travel bag after a game. So times like now, when he needed a runner or a favor, Luther knew Scotty would come through. Scotty didn't care about whether a guy was supposed to be crazy or a murderer or anything. If you took care of Scotty, he took care of you.