Less Than Human

by Raisor, Gary

  But the memory of the dead kid wouldn't turn loose. He had to do something.

  Maybe Leon could shed some light on who those guys from the pool hail were. John fished a doughnut out of the crushed bag while he dialed the phone.

  Marvin, the assistant manager answered. "Leon's," he said in his high, hoarse voice. The sound of clicking balls came through in the background.

  "Hey Marvin, this is John Warrick."

  "John, damn, everybody was wondering where you went. I got a message from Leon for you. He says you are one crazy son of a bitch stealing from those guys last night. He says he's gonna kick you right in your bony white ass the next time he lays eyes on you."

  "I guess he's really pissed."

  "You got that right." Marvin's voice dropped a notch. "I was in the back. Did Leon really introduce those guys to old Stumpy?"

  "You mean the sawed-off? Yes, he did."

  "They say he cocked both hammers." Marvin sounded almost wistful.

  "These guys were kind of scary," John said.

  "Shit, man, I always miss all the excitement."

  "You'd better be glad you missed it." John kept his voice casual. "I need to talk to Leon. Has he been in today?"

  "No, he ain't. He better be getting his big butt in here real soon. I got some business to take care of over at Lisa's house." His voice lowered again. "I think I might get my balls racked tonight, if you get my drift."

  Somebody laughed in the background. "Rack these balls," a loud voice called out.

  "Rack your own damn balls," Marvin yelled back. "Can't you see I'm on the phone?"

  "Marvin, either one of those guys Leon kicked out last night been in?"

  "No way. Leon said they ain't ever coming in here again." Someone at the pool hall said something and Marvin faded out, then came back on. "Hey look, John, I got to be going. You want I should have Leon give you a ring?"

  "Yeah, he knows where I'm staying. See you 'round, Marvin." John felt the vise that held his head tighten another notch. This had started out as a simple theft and now he was involved with murder. Everything was moving way too fast. He was alone and the night was on its way again. Already shadows where beginning to creep out from the corners of the room. A day had passed and he still couldn't decide what to do about this mess.

  A siren sounded in the distance, a plaintive cry that rose and then died away, leaving him more alone than ever.

  He dialed Leon's house. On the fifth ring he got Leon's answering machine and the gravelly voice came on the line. "If this is the jerkweed who's been calling me about aluminum siding, I'm gonna find you and you're gonna need a can opener to take a shit." A slight pause. "Leave your message at the beep… and have a nice day."

  A slight smile creased John's face and the desire to leave a message was strong, but he fought against it and hung up without saying a word. Leon's bluster didn't scare him any. He couldn't really say why he did it.

  Where was Leon? The big man only went to two places. The grocery or the liquor store.

  "He's fine," John said to himself, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling something had happened to his old friend.

  The man who owned the cue stick was a stone-cold killer, and if he thought Leon had anything to do with its theft.

  John struggled into his jacket, knowing he was going to Leon's house even though it was a very dangerous and stupid thing to do. He tucked the stick under his arm and closed the door behind himself. Before he cleared the lobby, Tommy, the rotund night clerk, called out to him. "John, hold up a sec. I didn't get a chance to tell you, there was two guys here last night looking for you."

  "One of them young?" John asked. The taste of fear brushed the inside of his mouth, drying it instantly.

  "Yeah, the other guy was older. Had on a jacket that looked like he slept in it."

  "They say what they want?"

  "No. They said they was friends of yours. Said they'd come back tonight to see you. The young guy said you had something for him."

  John felt sweat prickle on his forehead. "Thanks, Tommy." He stuck a ten in the chubby hand. "They come back, tell them I checked out this morning. You don't know me. Okay?"

  ''You got it."

  "I mean it, Tommy. Don't mess with these bastards."

  Tommy tucked the ten in his shirt pocket, behind a Snickers that already resided there. "These two gentlemen wouldn't be in the collection business, would they?"

  "You know how it is, Tommy. I got a little behind," John lied with what he hoped was an embarrassed grin. He spread his hands helplessly. "I ran into a little streak of bad luck last week. I just need these guys off my back until a few things come through." John figured it was easier to let Tommy believe what he wanted. And safer too.

  The lie seemed to satisfy Tommy, who waddled back behind the counter and fished out the half-melted Snickers. He took a big bite, smearing chocolate all over his chin. In the fluorescent light it looked like blood.

  The bright sunshine hurt John's eyes after being in the motel, but he didn't mind a bit. He hated the dark, always had. Growing up, he had slept with a night-light on until he was damn near twelve. A quick glance at his watch told him the sun would be setting in about two hours. The drive to Leon's house would take about half of that. Plenty of time before dark.

  But then he hadn't counted on the flat tire.

  John parked a couple of blocks away from Leon's small ranch-style house and walked. The area was lower middle class, sliding downhill fast, but still a few years away from bad. Kids rode by him on their bikes in the gathering darkness. Four high-schoolers were shooting hoops in a driveway, yelling, laughing. The smoky odor of grilling pork chops filled the autumn air.

  Familiar sounds, familiar smells. Almost forgotten. A feeling of melancholy washed over him. This was a piece of his life he had missed out on, and now it had passed him by. He had given his life to the game of pool and it was a cold bitch of a mistress.

  He looked around, trying not to be too obvious in case some of the neighbors were watching. Leon's old red Caddy was gone and all that was left was a bottomless oil stain on the concrete.

  No amount of pounding on Leon's door brought an answer, so John turned and went back to his Jeep. He drove around until he found a phone. Still no Leon at the pool hall.

  This time Marvin had sounded a little pissed and more than a little worried.

  That made two of them.

  Indecision gnawed at John as he idly let his fingers play over the cue stick resting on the Jeep seat beside him. He knew the man who had owned it would kill for it. A shudder passed through him. After what he had seen back in his motel room when he'd held the yellowish stick in his hands, he had no illusions about the man who owned it.

  John parked on a nearby side street and waited for darkness to settle. There were too many nosy neighbors around for him to go breaking into Leon's place in broad daylight. Already he had attracted more attention than was smart by pounding on the door like a crazy man.

  Night came fast this time of the year.

  John had reached two conclusions while waiting.

  First, Leon was still inside the house.

  Second, and more important, if Leon was, he was dead.

  The smart thing, John thought, would be to stay out of this, a quick anonymous call to the police, but hell, he'd never done anything smart in his life. Why should he start now? He was going to have a look around inside the house.

  If his old friend was dead, John figured he was the man responsible for his death.

  For this trip, he pulled tape off one of the Jeep seats, reached inside, and pulled out an old Army .45. A little present left to him by his old man. It was the only thing his old man had left him. The glow from the dash showed it contained three shells.

  The sliding glass door at the back of Leon's house popped off its tracks easy as could be. That made John even more nervous and he was already scared to death. It was too damn easy. There should have been a bar on the door. And where was F
ast Eddie? That mutt would bark at his own shadow.

  John felt as though someone had left the door open.

  A car cruised past, causing him to crouch down on the patio. His knee popped. In the silence it sounded like a shot, and when the car went away he climbed to his feet, feeling old and faintly foolish. His shirt had gone sweaty and now it stuck to his back like a second skin.

  John went through the door, hoping he was wrong about all this; hoping the only kind of dead Leon was was dead drunk.

  Several years had passed since he'd last visited here and in the dark he couldn't tell how much the place had changed. He doubted that it had changed much. Leon liked things to stay the way they were.

  He paused, just standing and listening to the house. An occupied house made different sounds than an empty house. In an empty house all you heard was the whisper of air, the faint hum of appliances running.

  This was an empty house. Or, he amended quickly, a house with nobody alive in it. He pulled out his flashlight and swept it around.

  Still only empty-house sounds.

  The light was enough for him to see he was in the family room. "Jesus, Leon," he whispered, "where the hell are you?"

  An old-style console TV sat in the corner. A small portable TV sat on top and in the darkness the larger TV appeared to have sprouted a head. A tray containing the scattered remnants of a Mexican dinner sat beside a well-worn recliner. The half-eaten burrito was as dry as a dog turd in the July sun, which meant it had been there awhile.

  Everything had that slightly untidy look, like the place belonged to a man who wasn't used to fending for himself. Leon's wife, Darlene, had walked out a few years back. Now Leon ate takeout, drank himself unconscious every night, and did his best to raise a teenaged daughter all by himself.

  To John's right was the kitchen. There were some dishes stacked in the sink, a faucet that dripped. He turned the faucet off. Leon had been deeply hurt at his wife's leaving though he never talked about it much. Once, drunk on tequila, Leon said he would have given her whatever it was she wanted, but he had never been able to figure out what that was.

  "Welcome to the club," John had said that night, and they had toasted in that solemn way that only the very intoxicated can.

  Another right, a few yards down a hallway, and John was standing in Leon's bedroom. It smelled slightly of Aqua Velva and beer, and loneliness. The bed was unmade, Leon's clothes were spread out on the floor, his size thirteen shoes were lying on their sides. For an instant, John had the crazy idea that Leon was in them and had somehow crawled under the bed. But they were just empty shoes.

  Feeling like an intruder, John backed out and peeked in the other bedroom. Posters lined the walls. Shoes, albums, and clothes were a multicolored covering on the floor that obscured any trace of the carpet. Dorinda's room. Leon was trying his best to keep her off the streets and in school. Last night Leon had been talking about Dorinda, said she blamed him for her mother's leaving, said she was going to leave, too. Just as soon as she was old enough.

  Dorinda's bed was made, which meant she hadn't been here last night. That meant she was okay and John felt grateful for that.

  The living room was untouched and he realized Leon was keeping the room exactly the way his wife had left it. Leon had never lost hope that Darlene would come back someday. On the coffee table lay an open scrapbook filled with pictures from the old days. Pictures were dangerous. Their flat, shiny surfaces were like glaring ice that blinded a man to the darker water that ran beneath. The past was a dangerous thing. It looked safe but a man could drown in it.

  The only place John hadn't looked yet was the basement. As he started down the squeaky steps he held on to the thought that maybe Leon was okay. That maybe he wouldn't have to be the one to tell Dorinda that her father was dead.

  Because her father hadn't been too smart about picking his friends.

  The basement was empty and John breathed a sigh of relief. He had been wrong. Then he saw the dark lump lying on the pool table. At first he didn't know what it was and when he did, he didn't believe it was real. As he moved closer, his flashlight catching the golden nails, he knew it was real.

  It was Dorinda's hand holding Fast Eddie's leash. The dead boxer was arranged so that he was pointing at the refrigerator.

  John walked across the room and opened the gleaming white door. The bulb inside popped on, but it was just a feeble glow. Something was blocking the light. John stared at the contents of the refrigerator for a moment before anything registered, and even then, his eyes refused to accept what he saw.

  Leon had been stuffed inside.

  All 327 pounds of him.

  A distant part of John's mind marveled at how they had managed to make Leon fit into such a small space. They must have had to break a lot of bones was all he could think. Leon was holding a jar of pig's feet in his lap and Dorinda's other hand was inside it. Her fingers were grasping the edge of the jar as though she were trying to pull herself out.

  John backed away, until the edge of the pool table jammed him in the spine.

  The refrigerator door, still open, yawned wider, gathered speed, slapped into the wall with a clatter. Absolute silence. The compressor kicked on. Cool air met warm and Leon was wrapped in a shroud of thin, white mist. Leon sat in the too small space, his limbs broken and twisted into impossible angles, and John saw there were trails of ice beneath the large black man's eyes.

  He had been crying.

  "I just wanted to get Amy something for college," John explained to his dead friend in a faintly pleading voice. "A little present. You know how girls like presents." His words faltered. Crushed beneath the weight of his guilt.

  John stared at the ashy gray face. The warmth of the room was melting the ice tracks beneath Leon's eyes. A tear, frozen in place, resumed its trek and trickled down, splashed into the jar of pig's feet. The dead man had become a mourner at his own funeral.

  John touched Leon's cheek, wiped away the wetness with his fingers. Rubbed it on his own face. Felt its coldness. "Those two hustlers acted like they had plenty of money. I didn't think they'd miss a cue stick. I didn't know they were crazy enough to kill." John reached out, fastened one of Leon's pajama buttons before he realized the futility of what he had done. "I didn't know…"

  The corner of something white protruded from Leon's mouth.

  John realized it was a note. He pulled the piece of paper out, saw it was written in blood.

  The note simply said: BRING IT TO CROWDER FLATS.

  Chapter 7

  Crowder Flats, Arizona, between the Fort Apache and Navajo reservations. The Broken R Ranch.

  October 26th.

  Bobby Roberts was launched into the air.

  Launched, there was no other way to describe it. He swapped ends a couple of times while he was up in the air, his arms and legs wind milling wildly. His hat flew off. Drifted away like some ungainly bird. He kept rising, and then he hung in the air for a moment, suspended. Then he came down. On the wrong end.

  Hard.

  Martin Strickland, foreman of the Broken R Ranch, leaned against Bobby's old white Caddy and watched the action in the corral with a big grin on his face. Dust geysered upward, followed by laughter.

  Bobby scrambled for the fence.

  Today was Saturday and the men were mostly just fooling around, watching Bobby try to ride a huge yellow Brahma bull by the name of Desert Storm. Besides raising cattle, the Broken R supplied bucking stock to a lot of rodeos, and Desert Storm was Mr. Roberts's pride and joy. That bull had never been ridden. Today didn't look to be any different.

  A couple of the hands herded the bull back into the chute. Bobby climbed on board once again.

  The gate came open.

  Desert Storm exploded.

  And once again, Bobby went flying into the air, coming down on his back with a heavy thud. This time he was slow in getting up and barely reached the fence ahead of Desert Storm. A few good-natured catcalls greeted his sheepish grin
. He was covered with dust. "Almost had him that time… I think he's afraid of me."

  The bull butted the fence and charged around the corral.

  "Yeah, he looks like he's about ready to beg for mercy," Martin said as Bobby limped over. "You'd better save something for the rodeo Sunday."

  Bobby's pal, Kevin Paine, an amiable twenty-one-year-old who had just started at the ranch, joined them. "You'd better save something for tonight, Bobby," Kevin said, "there might be some ladies at Jake's looking for a ride, too." He nudged Bobby with an elbow. "Course, I heard they're looking for someone who can stay on more than eight seconds…."

  Boyce Gates and Nash Tippins, two older hands, laughed a little uneasily. Bobby had a bad temper. You could never tell when a remark might set him off. Kevin didn't weigh more than 140 pounds with his glasses, saddle, and hat thrown in. Boyce and Nash hoped they could avoid having to break up a fight. They were already in their Saturday-night best, clean shirts and jeans.

  Nash jumped in, diverting Bobby's attention from Kevin. "Shit, last time Bobby made out in that Caddy"—Nash took off his hat just in case Bobby took a swing—"his ass hit the horn, he thought it was the buzzer and bailed off."

  Bobby sure looked like he wanted to take offense at the remarks, but at the moment, he was too out of breath to do more than glare.

  Reaching down and picking up Bobby's hat, Nash handed it to him. He slapped Bobby on the back, causing dust to fly. "Come on, we don't want to keep the ladies waiting."

  Bobby finally smiled and looked over at the foreman. "You coming with us, Mr. Strickland?"

  The tall foreman shook his head no. "You boys go on. I got a little paperwork to take care of before Chester gets back. Besides, someone needs to stay here and look after things." He smiled. "It's about time for Amos Black Eagle to come calling."

  "What's the matter with that old Navajo?" Kevin asked. "He do too much peyote like everyone says?"

  "No," Martin answered, "he just likes to get drunk and chase off a few horses every once in a while. He ain't never done any real harm."

  "I'd have his crazy red ass put in jail if I had my way," Bobby said.