by Barr, Jeff
"But I wondered. God help me, I wondered why she suddenly felt the need to confess." Arneson brought out a cigarette and took a long moment puffing it alight.
"She was using again. Dipping into the pharmacy's stuff, selling a couple scrip pads to buy off the street when she almost got caught stealing from her work. I was worried, but she was a smart girl. Too smart to get hooked again.
"Then I did another one last job for dad. In the course of it, I heard a name. Her name. She was in trouble, after she refused to sell to a local pimp named Dixon. I knew she was in deep, so I went after him.
"Dixon was a big-time dealer in the area; he was to my father what you are to a cockroach. I knew I would have to kill him. Guys like him, they never stopped.
"When I found him, he had the point of a stiletto up the the throat of a four year-old.
"The kid was bawling. I was looking at him, and all I could see was myself. A victim of circumstances. Would this kid grow up to be a decent person? I didn't know—but I wouldn't have placed a dollar on it.
"Dixon was high, and confused. He might have thought I was a cop, or someone he knew. I found out later that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer. Terminal. When I showed up, he went wild. He started raving about how the world was trying to get him, how his every waking moment was plagued by ghosts, and how he was so tired of it. For all I know, it was all true.
"He stuck that little baby right through the throat with his blade. Stuck him, then dropped him on the floor like a bag of garbage.
"He guessed I would go for the kid; but I went for him instead. I got him, and I hurt him. Bad.
"I took one of his eyes, both ears, most of his fingers. I ended up throwing him off the roof. Later on, the cops said they'd never seen a look of fear like that on anyone's face. I could have told them the same about the look on that little kid's face. The horror. The fear, the pain, the terror.
"The kid turned out OK, physically. He never spoke above a whisper, but otherwise, he was OK. On the outside, anyway. He got lucky.
"But what I didn't know was Dixon wasn't the big fish in our local pool. There was another. Jamerson Shook.
"I ended up in the county slam, waiting on arraignment. I had nothing to look forward to but a stretch in the pen. All I wanted to do was do my time and get back to Nic.
"A couple of suits showed up. They told me a story.
"Nicole had been driving to work. I saw her a lot; she was clean at the time, and working hard at it. Going to meetings, all of that. And Shook, that cowardly shitbag, he sent someone after her, just to punish me. He wanted her to hurt, and me to know that she suffered.
"She fought hard. I looked at the files later, and she had killed one of the guys. She took out the eye on another.
"But there were too many. They took her. Took her, tortured her, and killed her. Dumped her in a patch of woods.
"The men in suits offered me a deal. Not a very good one, but better than the alternative. As fucked up as I was about Nic, I would have only ended up bleeding out in a dusty prison-yard, a sharpened toothbrush in my guts.
"So I went to work for the men in suits. The only difference between what I did for them and what I did for my father was this time I didn't pretend I was a good guy. I was just a janitor. Cleaning messes no one else could touch without getting their hands dirty. I traveled, and I saw the country, and I killed men and women. In Texas I killed a preacher who had his own demons. In North Carolina, the son of a connected politician. He liked to mess with kids. The son, I mean, I don't know what the father did. I hope one day to visit him and find that out too. In New York, I cut out the tongue of a crooked guy who knew too much. At least they told me he was crooked. I didn't ask questions.
"In Seattle I caught up with Shook, and I made him pay.
"After that, I was no good for a while. Maas was considered a relatively easy case. Work my way in, help Maas eliminate his competition, then clean up Maas. And everyone involved in the operation."
Silence hung in the air.
"Would you have killed me, too?" Her eyes were still closed.
Arneson lit a cigarette, and the smoke made a circle above his head. He was quiet, until she spoke again.
"Tell me the rest."
"I have this dream. Nightmare, I guess I would call it.
"She's getting ready to pull out of the driveway, and I look out the window and see her coffee cup on the roof. She was always doing stuff like that. I run out to stop her from pulling out of the driveway. We have a laugh. Oh Nic, you'd forget your head if you didn't pin it to your coat, har-de-har. But in the end, in the dream, I let her go.
"Then the police arrive, and their faces are long and yellow. They tell me that my wife, my dear sweet Nicole who snored and made really good spaghetti carbonara and got defensive when she thought I was making fun of her—"
He was quiet another minute, and this time she said nothing. When he spoke again, his voice had regained its firmness.
"She was dead. Nicole died. She got run off the road by a nobody drug addict in a Toyota pickup. Some zero hired by Dixon to make an example of me. She was dead, and so was the baby inside of her."
"I love you," she said.
"I love you," he said. He ran the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes. "And up until a few weeks ago, I would have thought the worst part was this: every time I had that dream, I would get closer and closer to being able to stop her. To warn her. Make her get out of the car.
"But I didn't want her to get out of the car. I didn't want to stop her—I wanted to go with her. To go along for the ride. All the way."
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
Arneson stepped out the front door and stopped. "Shit."
There was Sonch, standing in front of a black SUV pulled up in front of Sugar's casita. Meat-heads in tracksuits stood in a loose semi-circle around the vehicle, each equipped with a pistol that looked like toys in their enormous hands.
"Yo, Arneson. How's it hangin'?" Sonch called.
"About six o'clock, Sonch; how about you?"
"Long and to the left. Can't complain." Sonch scratched one unshaven cheek. "Well, except for this one thing: I got thrown out of my own home town by a guy I thought was my friend. A few towns away, I get pulled over by some dumbshit county cop who's got a bullet sheet with my name and face on it. A bullet sheet that says I killed some little good-for-nothing shit. A little shit named Pedro Rodriguez." Sonch reached behind his back and pulled out police-issue 9mm. "I was real curious about how that came to be, so I had to convince the cop to tell me. It didn't take long." He smiled like a ghoul. "So there's that. Can you believe that shit?"
Arneson squinted at the sky, as if for rain. "Sounds a little far-fetched to me."
Sonch waggled his remaining fingers at Arneson. The bandages were stained black with old blood. "And then Maas sent someone to look for me, and I let him find me, and called up Maas. We hashed things out, and he called me back."
"Great. I'm real glad you two got it worked out. Can we expect wedding bells in the spring?"
"Funny. I'm going to cut off your fucking fingers, then your hands, then your legs," Sonch said. "And before I do the same to your girlfriend, I'm going to have her. It's gonna be real fun. And don't worry, I'll make sure you don't miss a th—"
When the shots rang out, Arneson didn't think. He dove to the left and rolled as fast as he could until he skidded to a stop in the shadow of his Jeep.
Sonch spit curses like a gypsy. The meat-heads scrambled for safety. Arneson looked back at the house.
Sugar stood at the window, lowering a smoking pistol. The glass she had blasted out of the way lay in a sparking fan across the desert landscaping. She dropped from sight just before the return fire began.
Sonch and the goons rained lead down on the casita. The glass of the bay windows shattered. Bullet holes stitched the stucco walls and ripped into the cacti and desert succulents out front. Shots spanged off the Jeep's body. Arneson prayed they wouldn't hit the tires
.
There was a pause, and amazingly, Arneson could hear a phone ringing. Then more, then all of them rang. Even Arneson's phone buzzed in his pocket. Maas had a setup where he could call all his staff from one line; he was doing it now. From the far distance, sirens wailed. Something was going on.
Sugar popped up with Arneson's short-barreled, full-bore riot shotgun. The shotgun roared, and the SUV screamed away, spitting a rooster tail of gravel and dust.
Arneson jumped up and ran into the dust cloud, pulling his knife as he ran. There, laying in a bleeding pile, was Sonch, his white strappy t-shirt soaked through and stuck to his belly where Sugar's bullet had caught him.
Arneson took Sonch's gun from where it had fallen, then bent to examine the wound. "Should have stayed gone, Sonch."
"Fuck that noise. I'd rather die on the road than live in a cage." Sonch coughed miserably, then groaned as a fresh pulse of blood seeped through his shirt.
"Yeah, well. We're getting out of here. I suggest you don't try to follow."
"No problem. Going to stay right here and watch the sky for a bit."
"Alright. See you around, Sonch."
"Fuck you."
Arneson's jeep hit the gates topping fifty miles per hour, and Sugar poked the shotgun out to blast the camera to pieces as they passed. She gave it the finger first.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
They drove into the night, Arneson at the wheel, jacked up on gas station coffee and a handful of amphetamines from his first aid kit. He played public radio jazz on the stereo, tapping his fingers on the wheel.
Modoc national forest is eerie at night; the radio signals bounce like ghostly voices, and the moon hangs like a frozen skull in the night sky. The muffled thrum of the wind overpowered the staccato bursts of the radio, and Arneson snapped it off after a few minutes. They rode in silence for a time. Cold emanated up from the pavement, through the Jeep's flooring. He turned up the heat, and still he was cold.
He thought Sugar was sleeping, until she spoke from the passenger side. "I knew you were hiding something," she said. He lit her a cigarette, but she tamped it out without taking a puff. "I knew it. But you're not a cop."
Now that he was gone, irrevocably removed from Maas and his poisonous aura, he felt strangely refreshed. Like living in a polluted city, not knowing how good it could be to breathe clean air again. He spoke slowly. "No. I'm not cop. I do a lot of different things for different people. Maas was into a lot of stuff. Heavy stuff."
"I didn't figure you were there as a courtesy call." She watched him, her eyes wary. "So what are you?"
"A guy you don't know from a group you've never heard of."
She snorted. "Thanks. Let me guess…you're Batman."
"You don't want to know."
"Try me."
He looked over at her, at the crazy light shining in her eyes, and the crooked quirk of her dare-me smile. He laughed out loud. Suddenly he felt good. Like maybe for once things would turn out OK. "I'll tell you, sometime. I promise. Not now."
"What girl doesn't love a good mystery?" she said, still smiling.
They drove into a town named Mainstake early the next morning.
They pulled into a gas station, and the bell dinged. Arneson tapped the glass face of a pump.
"They are shut off. I need to go in and turn them on. You want to come in with me? No road trip is complete without Funyuns."
"A man of taste." She stretched and smiled sleepily. "It's a deal."
Inside, the overhead fluorescents buzzed monotonously. Arneson cracked a beer before heading behind the counter.
A bell sounded, and three men entered through the back door. All three carried guns: two of them had shotguns slung over their shoulders, and the last a Bushmaster .223. They wore brown coveralls, like you would for oilfield or farm work. Bandannas covered the lower half of their faces.
He touched Sugar's arm, and she stayed where she was, carefully not moving. Arneson moved forward slowly, hands raised to shoulder level. "Hey boys, you must be the welcome wagon. We're on our way up to Junction City, and we're running a bit low on gas. Suppose we could have a little of yours?"
The lead man, cap tipped back on gray-tinged hair, scratched at his belly. "Don't see why not. Your money's as good as any. Just drop it on the counter over there, make sure you leave enough to cover it." He smiled at Sugar, eyes roving over her body. "Name's Stabler. This here's my place, I guess. Where you coming from?"
"Santa Colima. It's getting pretty rough down there, how about here?"
"Not so bad, yet. 'Course, we got our share of them goddamn Skungers, like everywhere else."
A chorus of guffaws and hooting arose from out back of the station, along with the wet roar of some animal. The other men chuckled and filed out of the back door. Sugar was looking at the back, head cocked to one side, like she heard something.
The noise grew in volume as the door opened, and Arneson caught a glimpse of crowd outside. His gut tightened with some intuitive hunch, and he turned to warn Sugar. He didn't know what was coming, but he felt suddenly sure it was nothing good.
"What's going on back there?" Sugar was already walking toward the back door, craning her neck to see. Stabler stepped in front of her, barring the way.
"Sorry, Miss. Private property an' all that. Can't let you go back there."
"You can't? I thought this was your place?" Sugar crossed her arms under her breasts, and Stabler's eyes drifted lower. She smiled. "It sounds like you boys are having fun back there."
Arneson tossed a fifty on the counter. That bad feeling twisted in his gut like a worm.
Stabler grinned and tipped his greasy cap further back another inch. "You could be right." He looked toward the door, and his voice took on a conspiratorial overtone. "You wanna see?"
"You bet I do."
"Well come on then, and get yourself a look." He extended an arm, and together they walked out the back door. Arneson sighed and followed.
The scene out back brought up old memories in Arneson: hot nights in desert cities, folks packed cheek to jowl, sweating and shouting and waving grubby fistfuls of money. They howled like pagans in some forgotten ceremony. The growl and snarl of the combatants, the bloodthirsty roar of the crowd before the kill came down.
"What the fuck?" Arneson heard the anger in Sugar's voice and stepped forward to slide a hand around her bicep.
Inside a swept circle of dirt, fenced by raw wooden posts strung with barbed wire, a huge Mastiff snapped and snarled at a cowering Skunger. Blood dripped into the khaki dust of the pit, turning black as it mixed into older stains. Curds of whitish foam flew from the dog's mouth as it circled.
Red-faced locals surged and milled, screaming into the center of the circle. The place stank of sweat, fear, and hatred. Men in sleeveless flannel shirts and logo-emblazoned caps held tight to hard-looking women with dyed hair and red, chapped faces."Get her, Caesar!"
The dog lunged, catching the Skunger's arm in its gnashing mouth. The Skunger screamed in pain. Long blond ringlets of hair peeked out from the furious growth on the Skunger's head. Her face was completely overgrown, all except for one staring China-blue eye.
"These people are sick," Sugar breathed. She yanked her arm away from Arneson's warning grip.
"Mind your own fuckin' business, bitch," a hard-faced blond woman said. Her tongue, strawberry-pink, darted out to poke at a crusted sore on her lip.
"And what about your business, huh? Who's going to mind your business? You and your sick fucking town."
The Skunger let out a savage cry, one hand groping against the dirt floor of the circle, and coming up with a jagged black piece of basalt. She bashed it into the dog's skull as it bit into her leg. The Skunge writhed and rustled, scrawling parabolas against her flesh, against the dirt, into the dog's mouth.
"Her Daddy did it to her!" the blond hissed. "The little slut asked for it." Now a few onlookers spoke up, murmuring their agreement.
"Pert Donaldson is a low-
life son of a bitch," a fat man dressed head-to-toe in denim growled. He tipped back a sweating can of beer, eyeing them balefully. "He ruint that girl. Look at her now."
"Yes, look at her," Sugar said to the woman. "She's suffering." She turned to the rest of the crowd. "You're all animals! Imagine that's your daughter in there. Would you be cheering then?"
"She is my daughter." It was the hard-faced blond. She peered at Sugar. "You're another one of them, ain't you. The freaks." Several people in the crowd turned to watch them. The place had quieted, and someone yanked the dog out of the ring with a dogcatcher's noose. The Skunger girl lay gasping and bleeding in the dust. The blond leaned forward to peer at Sugar. "Yeah. Yeah, you are. Another damned freakazoid running around loose, pretending to be like a regular person." She turned to shout at the rest of the crowd. "Skungers! More of them, right here!"
Arneson settled back into his fighting stance, keeping his peripheral vision open. Standing in the crowd was like being inside a cane field when a sudden wind comes up: shifting, moving bodies everywhere. No way to back out.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
The crowd closed in. Hateful faces surrounded them like sneering pale balloons. Clenched oil-stained fists, faces red as their wearer's checked flannel jackets. Arneson saw several pistols appear, not pointed toward them yet, but plenty ready.
"Goddamn freaks!"
"You get the hell out of our town!"
"Get these sons-a-bitches and give them—"
A trio of burly types rushed, and Arneson stepped forward to meet them. One dropped with a harsh coughing sound, clutching at his balls. The other stopped short, eyeing his friend, and backed off. He spat a long stream of dark brown tobacco at Arneson's boots, then turned tail and ran when Arneson faked a lunge in his direction. The last guy had taken the time to pick up a rusty pry bar, and it whistled menacingly as he swung it back and forth, advancing on Arneson.