Harlan couldn’t just lie down and let Lewis win the election. He needed to fight the grinning assholes at their own game, so he trampled through the pines and cedars toward the Spanish Manor carrying a stack of yard signs. People like the ones who lived in the neighboring trailer park were his best chance to drum up votes; the town’s well-to-do would all support Lewis. The problem was, to the residents of the Spanish Manor, Harlan was just an asshole with a badge, and even if he could convince them otherwise, apathy was the most common emotion come election day.
He came into view of the trailers and waded through a swath of uncut grass littered with junk. A rusted-through wheelbarrow. A bent spigot. A pile of broken windows. Somebody from New York would have taken a photo and called it art. Then they’d have taken photos of the sunken faces that eyed Harlan warily and claim those faces were some deep comment on the world.
A couple of kids raced ahead of him calling, “Po-po. Po-po.” Harlan pulled the signs tight into his armpit. The gravel roads were filled with driven-over dandelions that refused to die. At the edges dog shit moldered. The dogs themselves scampered between the trailers in packs like wolves, sniffing at trash and one another. Harlan thought he saw a woman smile in his direction and started walking toward her. “Johnny,” she called out. Harlan heard the voice of a man bark in response. “What?” The woman wore a Kentucky-blue sweat suit and her stringy blond hair went every which way. She cocked her head. Harlan turned back to the road and she called out again. “Nothing.”
A coal-colored cat heavy with pregnancy stretched itself on the gravel and yowled. “I wouldn’t walk up on Maude Boone like that,” a voice said from behind him. Harlan turned. A powerfully built man in denim and dusty motorcycle boots came up and loosed a heavy, amber spit at Harlan’s feet.
“What’s that you said?”
“The cat. Somebody wanted to name her Daniel but she puts ’em out like the world’s about to end, so some other fucker came up with the name Maude.”
“Rebecca,” Harlan said.
“What?”
“Daniel Boone. His wife’s name was Rebecca.”
“Who fucking cares?” The man pointed to the signs under Harlan’s arm. “My daughter put one of them in my yard.”
“Is that right?”
“Yep. She must’ve got a handful ’cause I put a knife through it and damned if she didn’t put another one next to it.”
“I guess that means you won’t be voting for me.” Harlan put out his hand to shake. “Harlan Dupee.” The man let Harlan’s hand hang there until he pulled it back. “I’m guessing you’re Mattie’s father.”
“That’s right. Henry Dawson.”
“She’s a good girl. Mattie.”
Dawson kicked the ground and pulled out a back-pocket flask. “Don’t lie. She’s rude and ungrateful.” He twisted the top and had a taste.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“She adores you all of a sudden. Comes around talkin’ Harlan this. Harlan that. Makes a father wonder, you know?” Dawson took a step closer and his boozy breath beat on Harlan like a drunken moth. “Why don’t you go on home?” he said. “Don’t nobody want what you’re selling.” He was tall, an inch taller than Harlan and broader by more. When he knocked the signs from Harlan’s grip, Harlan balled his fist, and Dawson said softly, “Don’t do it.”
They stood like prizefighters sizing each other up before the bell. Dawson stomped one of his black boots on the signs and ground them like a cigarette butt. “I’ll see that my neighbors get these, Sheriff.”
“I appreciate that, Henry.”
Dawson took another pull from his flask. “You should get going,” he said. “That badge won’t do you no good over here.” From behind him, Harlan watched Mattie step out of a slanted trailer holding a brindled mutt. The front yard was littered with spent shotgun shells—bright greens and yellows and reds. Joe-Pye weed grew between them and a vine wrapped itself around the front end of an engineless Chevelle. The split campaign signs stood on lone wobbly legs like ostriches. Mattie kept shock still, but the dog let out a pitiful whine. Dawson didn’t flinch.
Harlan rolled a cigarette. Took his time. Then he turned away. He walked between two trailers among the pokeweed and trash, passed a pile of eggshells and coffee grounds dropped from a kitchen window. He fought the urge to look back at the girl, kept on walking until he reached the river where he found a landing of smooth limestone and breathed deep. He felt weak and cursed himself as he clambered over the rocks upriver toward the docks of what was once the paper mill.
Under the bridge to Ohio, some ambitious tagger had spray-painted a water-lapped pylon with a gigantic phallus and some indecipherable scrawl. A signature for all the world to remember. A truck rumbled across the bridge and a cluster of small stones pitched themselves over the edge and rustled the water. A fish jumped and splashed down before Harlan could sight it. The sun had started to fall—its rays poking over the horizon like in a religious painting, like that moment right before God arrives in all his blinding glory.
Most people would say a river is something made over time, that porous, thirsty rocks slaked themselves on the rains that poured into the valley, and that the more they drank, the more they disappeared, and that before long rock gave way to water and what became Kentucky separated from what became Ohio. Others would say that some god created that river and set it there for purposes only he could divine. But Harlan, he had this image in his head of some giant, crippled god, the heel of his lame foot dragging along as he pulled himself across the earth and carved out waterways. Such a god would be easy to hunt, his path marked by that useless leg—limp like an almost dead thing. Harlan tossed a stone. Then he unzipped his pants and added to the river’s level.
eight
Harlan’s pickup grunted like a pig, coughed once, and then went dead for good, so he trudged to the shed and dug out a bent ten-speed tarnished with rust, and when he couldn’t find an air pump, he stuffed his uniform in a plastic bag wrapped over the handlebars and rode flat tires to the mom-and-pop gas station down the road. The machine only took quarters and a droopy-eyed attendant made him buy something in order to break his five, claimed it was the only way to open the till. Harlan snatched a bag of pills meant to make men last longer, paid, and left them on the counter for the attendant’s use. As he chunked quarters into the machine, he couldn’t help wishing he lived in a time when the world didn’t charge a man for air.
He guided himself gingerly along the shoulderless roads, his long legs pistoning up and down as he gasped shallow breaths. Most drivers gave him room but a couple of punks in a Dodge 1500 buzzed by and called him some less-than-polite names for homosexual. Harlan braked and managed to keep the bike upright on a slope of dirt and rock, but he couldn’t make out the plates as the truck sped away. He felt the fates turning against him. Slashed signs that bore his name, a busted truck, getting run off the road: any one of these by itself might have seemed innocent enough, something born of chance, but put together they made Harlan feel as if he had a target on his back and all the world was taking aim.
When he finally steered into the office, out of breath and huffing, Holly said, “I don’t want to know.”
“I don’t want to say,” Harlan replied before retreating to his office. Lew’s case file was open on his desk. He’d learned more about his former boss than he’d ever wanted to, but it hadn’t helped him solve a thing. He checked his backlog of messages. There were a number from Stuart Simon at the Registrar prattling on about God knows and asking for comment but nothing from Joe O’Malley at the Silver Spoon. Harlan was tired of waiting around. He grabbed the keys to the cruiser, stepped into the lobby, and said, “I’m going to find O’Malley and make him talk.”
Holly looked up from her paperwork as a toilet flushed. A couple of seconds later, Frank came out of the bathroom holding a copy of the Registrar. “What do you need with that punch-drunk horse’s ass?”
Harlan came up with a lie quick. “No
ise complaints,” he said.
Frank tapped the newspaper. “Sounds to me like Joe’s got bigger fish to fry. Says here the state is pulling some environmental protection bullshit and making the Spoon find a new home.”
“What are they protecting?” Holly asked.
“Mussels.” Frank laughed. “Apparently the docks are upriver from a breeding ground for”—he looked at the paper—“endangered bivalves.” He handed the finger-dampened paper to Harlan. “There’s an article about you in here, too.”
Harlan scanned for his name and found an op-ed by Stuart Simon endorsing Lewis Mattock. Simon didn’t have many kind words for him, so Harlan folded the paper and calmly handed it back to Frank. “Did y’all get anything good in Cynthiana?”
“That Mexican was a bad motherfucker. Teardrop tattoo. All scarred along his forearms. He spat on Del when we questioned him and this is after the boys in Cynthiana had worked him over.”
“And?”
“He had an alibi.”
“That you could check?”
“Turns out he was in lockup the day Lew was shot. The guys in Cynthiana let him go because their pen was full and the paperwork for an undocumented is hell.”
“I guess that was a bad decision.”
Frank shrugged.
“It was a good lead, though, Frankie,” Harlan said. “Keep working. If you find the man who killed Lew, you might just become sheriff yourself.”
Holly laughed and Frank turned to her, offended. “What?”
“Cold day in hell,” she said.
Frank waved a fat, dismissive paw at her and lumbered out to his cruiser. After he left, Holly told Harlan that Little Joe had called that morning and said he’d be happy to meet with Harlan on the boat.
“That would have been nice to know before I blabbed in front of Frank.”
Holly slammed her palm down and stapled a stack of papers. “Did you ever stop to think that you and the deputies should be working together?”
“I don’t need them doubting me.”
“I wouldn’t be too tough on them, Harlan. You might not have noticed but they’re working their tails off—checking gun sales, rustling up the suspects you’re too busy to bother with. Even Frank.”
“And you think I should be doing the same?”
“I’m just telling you they’re working hard.”
Harlan promised he’d do a better job letting everyone know they were appreciated just as soon as he had the oppurtunity.
From the road, the Silver Spoon materialized like a relic left over from the century before, but once you reached the parking lot, the illusion faded. The steamship was a recent construction—fiberglass and galvanized iron manufactured in some factory overseas.
Harlan crossed the dock and climbed aboard. A lone girl was tying off black plastic bags she pulled from metal trash cans bolted to the deck. The ship’s railings were eight feet tall to keep people from tossing their empties into the river, or to keep desperate gamblers from ending it all. High above Harlan the red-and-white wheelhouse preened.
He ducked into the stateroom where gaming tables sat around a horseshoe-shaped bar. A handful of employees were setting up for the night. A croupier spun her wheel distractedly and waited for the ball to drop. A dealer flipped hands to an imaginary table. Harlan asked the bartender where he might find Mr. O’Malley and was pointed to a door marked RESTRICTED.
He climbed a circular staircase to the wheelhouse and found Little Joe in the captain’s seat wearing a pressed suit and bolo tie. “Sheriff,” Joe drawled, pivoting in the swivel chair and putting out his hand. “I saw you come aboard.” O’Malley had cauliflower ears and a cloudy eye from years taking jabs to the head. Back in his day he’d been a tough son of a bitch, and eventually he’d earned himself a couple of paychecks as a punching bag for young contenders. After he retired from the ring, Little Joe bought himself some pristine dental work—a full smile of big white chompers—and took the job with the Silver Spoon.
Harlan studied the boat’s control panel. It seemed unnecessarily complicated given a leather-wrapped wheel steered the damn thing. “Nice setup you got here,” he said.
“It’s decent,” Joe replied, flashing those pearly horse teeth. “So tell me what can I do for you.”
“I’m out here to get information about one of your—what do you call them—guests?” Harlan pushed against the steering wheel until it turned. “Suckers?”
“We call them patrons.”
“I’m here to ask about one of your patrons.”
Little Joe leaned forward, returned the steering wheel to its previous position. “Go on.”
“I heard Lew spent time out here and I’d like to know more.”
“Why would I talk about that?”
“I figure it isn’t bad business to help me since I’m in charge now.”
“I don’t necessarily agree,” Little Joe said. “You’re in charge short-term, but I hear long-term may be a different story.”
Harlan took a deep breath. “Even if I lose the election, I’m sheriff until the end of the year. We’ve already asked the state police for extra manpower. Maybe I can have one hang out by the docks and give sobriety tests.”
“We’re a legal business.”
“That doesn’t mean your patrons wouldn’t notice us, drink a little less, make fewer bad decisions.”
“You might have me there.” Little Joe slapped his knee. “I stopped drinking when I left the ring and never once regretted it.” He stood up. “Why don’t you come down to my office and we’ll talk proper.”
O’Malley walked Harlan back through the stateroom, making banter with the employees as he went, led him belowdecks to a keypad-locked room filled with screens for the security cameras and an expensive vault. “This is the operations center,” Joe said. “Aka my second home. At night we have two armed guards protecting me. Or, well, protecting this.” He slapped the vault.
“Impressive.”
“So Lew. What do you want to know?”
“Let’s start with the basics. How often was he here? How much did he lose? Who did he come with? Those sorts of things.”
Little Joe titled his head back and forth like he was amping himself up for a fight and launched into the story. “Lew was a good patron, which means he lost. A lot. And often. It didn’t start out that way. I remember his first night he cleaned up at the craps table. Sometimes that’s the best thing that can happen. Lew won five grand and he was hooked. He kept buying drinks and flirting with the waitresses, giving them hundred-dollar tips and pats on the ass. More than a thousand of his winnings went right back into our pockets. That must’ve been two, three years ago. He started coming out every week or two but he didn’t like people seeing him here, so we invited him to our high-stakes poker games, where most of the patrons are from out of town. Anyway, when Lew ran out of cash, he’d ask me to extend credit. Usually he was good for it, but he started taking on more than he could handle. He was the worst kind of poker player. He had a short attention span and he bet with a chip on his shoulder, like the game was personal.”
“How much did he lose?”
“By the end? Tens of thousands. And pretty consistent.”
“And you kept extending him credit?”
“That wasn’t my decision. The bosses in Huntington told me to keep letting Lew borrow. Maybe they were keeping the peace. Toward the end things soured. Lew started telling me if I didn’t forgive his debt he’d shut us down and make my life a ‘living hell’—his words, not mine. I told him he didn’t have the balls to mess with me and that I wasn’t scared of some small-town sheriff. Same as I told you. But maybe I wasn’t so polite with Lew.”
“He didn’t respond well to politeness?”
“I’ve dealt with tougher men.” Little Joe cast a cloudy eye toward Harlan.
“How was Lew coming up with the cash?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ll tell you this, though. I got tired of dealing with him.
One night he got drunk and threw a punch at me. Can you imagine? My days of throwing punches are over, so I threatened to tell the newspaper about his gambling and complained to the bosses. I was tired of the bullshit. Next day out comes the father of that pretty girl Lew’s son married carrying an envelope of cash. Motherfucker tells me he’d like it if I could keep his friend from losing so much. Like he doesn’t understand what business I’m in.”
“This is Trip Gaines?”
“Yeah. The doctor. Real cool customer. I wouldn’t trust him to take my pulse.”
“How much are we talking?”
“Fifteen G’s at least.”
“In cash?”
“Banded fucking bills.”
“Did Lew mention anything about it?”
“Nope. Next week it was more of the same. I comped Lew a few vodka tonics to loosen him up and watched as he frittered away the coin.” Little Joe cracked his knuckles like he was back in his prime, all pumped-up bravado.
Harlan could understand helping a friend in need, but Trip Gaines’s benevolence went above and beyond. “You ever feel guilty about taking people’s money?” he asked.
“Not my problem.”
“Mabel Mattock might lose her house.”
“If that’s true, I feel for her. Truly, I do. But I didn’t put her house on the line. Lew should have come to me for advice. I put my money in a portfolio and let some business school fucker handle it, live off the dividends. Everyone out here on the river trying to get rich quick should wise up and do the same.”
Harlan stood up and shook O’Malley’s hand, said he could show himself off the boat.
As he walked down the ramp, Harlan caught sight of divers downriver and made his way over to watch them pull mussels from the bottom. “So what’s the story?” he asked a woman in a wet suit.
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