Where the Dead Lay

by David Levien

  The boys seemed to jump all over this description, to eat it up, and Terry saw how it boosted their confidence, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t want them getting comfortable. Not now.

  “You said ‘hump,’ but not a fuckup or an idiot,” Terry said.

  “No. Well, he might’ve been kind of a fuckup—”

  “Or maybe people are a little afraid of him ’cause he’s got nothing to fucking lose.”

  “Maybe.” Bustamante shrugged.

  Now silence, concerned and edgy, fell over the room. It was what Terry wanted, because concern made people careful.

  How the hell could Larry and Vicky even be related? he wondered of his brother-in-law, who was the furthest thing from careful. The dark, swarthy guy was all short and bulbous, while Vicky was blond and still lanky and had been truly lithe when she was young. He’d never seen a brother and sister like them. Vicky said they had the same feet and the same space between the nose and lip, but the hell if Terry could see it.

  “The question is, how did he end up here?” Terry asked the room.

  “We told you,” Charlie spoke for the boys. “Dean was at the girl’s old place, the guy showed up and followed him here—”

  The literal thinking was only going to get them so far. They needed to get philosophical. “I know that. I mean how did he end up here. Why’s he in it?” Terry said. Now Charlie shrugged.

  “Maybe Larry can find something out?” Knute suggested.

  “You sure that’s a good idea?” Bustamante said, sounding as weak as a politician.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it’s a good fucking idea,” Terry barked.

  “Maybe you should cool out for a minute. I mean if Dean hadn’t given me a call, this thing could’ve turned into a real mess.”

  “Fuckin’-A it would’ve,” Terry said. “We’d be mopping out the front now, instead of sitting here.”

  “No, I mean a real mess. The guy was packing—”

  “Find something out, Larry. And you,” Terry turned to Dean, “stay the hell away from the damn girl—”

  “I don’t even know where she is—”

  “Stop looking!” Terry yelled. “If you’d have been focused on business, we wouldn’t have this problem. We gotta get these shakes open now, start some money flowing. You got your people in place?” Terry asked Knute.

  He nodded. “Most of ’em. The rest are getting in place.”

  “Good. We’ve come too far, done too much work to let anything fuck us up.”

  “So what do we do about this asshole Behr?” Kenny asked.

  “Steer clear,” Terry said, “for now. If he shows his face again, we do him up like Lyman Bostock.” There was a moment’s quiet agreement. Even Kenny, the youngest, had heard the story, though it had happened more than a decade before he was born, of the professional baseball player from Gary who got blasted in the head by some psycho with a .410.

  Terry stood. “Call Pam back in. Let’s reopen the place, keep up appearances. Besides, I need a drink.”

  They stood and the meet broke. Bustamante exited first, followed by the boys. Knute hung back and looked to Terry, who spoke quietly. “You’re gonna have to get me back in touch with the guys from Chicago,” he said.

  Knute just nodded.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  He had seen the monster in that man’s pig-iron black eyes. He’d seen it and he couldn’t un-see it, and the man was now in his path and Behr would have to deal with that. Behr pounded on Ezra’s door, and when it swung open, he nearly staggered inside. His car was parked cockeyed, still running, in the lot out front.

  “You all right, Mr. Behr?” Ezra asked after taking one look at him.

  “I didn’t catch the guy,” Behr said, and then sought a place to sit down. Ezra helped him to the plaid sofa, pushing away a pile of newspapers, and Behr told him what had happened.

  “You need some Anacin?” Ezra asked.

  Behr nodded and the older man went off into a kitchenette and returned with the pills and water and a can of frozen orange juice concentrate, which Behr pressed against the base of his skull. Behr swallowed down the pills and used some water on his fingers to clear the blood from his mouth. Then he turned to Ezra. “I won’t be coming back here again. I’ve got to leave you out of this. But I need to know … that cop, the lieutenant who came by when you were assaulted. What’d he look like?”

  “Well,” Ezra said, scratching his chin, “he was a white guy. Medium height. Forties. Mustache.”

  “Ezra, you just described three-quarters of the cops in America.”

  “It wasn’t a mustache like yours. It was longer, black, like one of them cowboy ones.”

  “A handlebar?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Was he stocky?”

  “A bit, yeah.”

  “Was his name Bustamante?”

  “Could’ve been.”

  “Did another cop call him anything?”

  “Just ‘Lieutenant.’”

  Things were colliding in Behr’s head, and he struggled to keep them straight. When Ezra called, he’d come to follow up on someone only tangentially related to Aurelio’s world, and he’d followed it up, and he’d found a connection, albeit tenuous, he thought, to the pea-shake case, and he’d nearly had his head taken off for his trouble.

  “You heard from Flavia Inez lately?” Behr asked. Ezra just shook his head. “Let me ask you something else,” Behr said, “when she left, how’d she get her stuff out of here? Who helped her?”

  “A couple of guys.”

  “Movers?”

  “Not real movers. Some young guys.”

  “Big kids? High school age?” Behr asked, getting an idea.

  “Could’ve been. Since I got old, I can’t tell age too good. But they weren’t professionals.”

  “How are you sure?”

  “They didn’t have the matching T-shirts, or a moving truck. Just one of them little jobs from U-Haul. They made two trips.”

  Behr leaned back on the couch, processing, and switched the can of frozen juice from his head to his bruised and swollen elbow. He felt like he was back in high school algebra solving a formula and he’d just been given the value of X.

  Behr pushed himself to his feet and turned to Ezra. “If that guy comes back, you call me and not the cops. You can’t reach me, you call the Stateys. And you be sure to stay inside.”

  “Damn straight,” Ezra said, his eyes serious and afraid as he nodded. “I ain’t gonna end up floating down by the railroad tracks.”

  Behr just looked at Ezra and nodded, remembering the first time the man had spoken those words, and how they hadn’t meant much to him then.

  Night had come down at the end of a long day, and Terry Cottrell had gotten himself cleaned up and ready to go out and meet some boys down at Brandy’s Show Lounge. He was good and ready to see some fine women do their thing and hear what was happening out in the real world. He’d driven out and had pulled through the gate, stopped, wrapped the chain around the gatepost, and just locked it all up when he saw a pair of headlights bouncing along the long dirt entranceway toward South County Municipal Landfill.

  What the hell? he thought, gonna have to tell ’em there’s no dumping after dark. Cottrell squinted at the coming vehicle, trying to read its make in the black night.

  There was no other traffic at this time of night, but as he reached the fence circling the dumping area, he saw an old Camaro, its lights on, parked just outside of the fence. Terry Cottrell was behind it, in the midst of padlocking the gates for the night when Behr rolled up, almost bumper to bumper with the other car. When it came to information gathering, Behr found he did better staying friendly with people who knew things, doing favors when he could, and just asking. And when he found someone who knew something and asking didn’t work, he’d start demanding. It wasn’t something he’d had to do to a friend lately, but this was where he found himself and so be it. When he’d finished with the lock, Cottrell came around the
front of his car and they stood across from each other in bright glare of the headlights and Behr saw right away that he was not a welcome visitor.

  “This time I talk, you listen and nod,” Behr said.

  “You got me boxed in here,” Cottrell said, seeing his position between the car and the locked gate.

  “Won’t be long. Someone’s been making a run on the pea-shake game city-wide. You knew it when I was here last and it’s what you were trying to tell me with that Trafficante bullshit.”

  A nod. Cottrell knew a guy who knew a dude, Marcus, who crushed beats down at a bar that was in the middle of all the shit. This was a good dude, too. Not hard, but smooth. Cottrell had met him a few times and could see Marcus had a talent for navigating social situations. There wasn’t nobody he couldn’t get on with, but even he was rattled and looking to scatter. Word was, he was waiting for the right time to get his gear out of the bar and drift away.

  “It’s a family.”

  Another nod. Cottrell didn’t know why he was confirming shit for him, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. He just wanted Behr gone.

  “From up Speedway. A bunch of brothers and a father, and maybe an uncle or some other partner.”

  A third nod.

  “The Schlegels.”

  Cottrell didn’t move. Now they were getting into some ground that was dangerous for him, and he wasn’t about to give up this kind of information. But his eyes must have confirmed it, for Behr continued.

  “They’re killing anyone who gets in their way. No one’s talking to the cops, because the Schlegels have the cops.”

  This time Cottrell made sure his eyes remained still and cold. There was nothing more he should tell Behr, and nothing more Behr had the right to ask, but Behr couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Did they take out those P.I.s? You hear anything about that?” he asked.

  “Man, if they told anyone about it, how the fuck would it be me?” Cottrell said. Since his silence wouldn’t put Behr off, he hoped maybe some angry words would. In all the years he’d known Frank Behr, the guy had never come on all hard-core John Law like this, except that first time when Behr had busted him long ago. But it was like a flashback to that time now. Cottrell felt Behr there with his demand for truth, an immovable object in his path.

  “Goddamn it, man, gimme something,” Behr breathed, sick with himself. He knew his actions were crossing someone off a very short list in Cottrell, and he regretted it, but Cottrell’s claim rang like bullshit to him.

  “Or what, you gonna put a beat-down on me?” Cottrell spat back. He turned to get to his car, but Behr stepped in his way.

  “Is it just the cops? What else is there?” he demanded.

  “Fuck you, coming down here asking, get out my grill—”

  “No.”

  Only the car engines sounded between them for a moment. It sounded like Cottrell’s engine was missing every few seconds. They glared into each other’s eyes.

  “A’ight,” Cottrell finally said. “I give you this, you keep it, or else a good dude gets his ass greenlit…” Cottrell flashed on Marcus, full of holes, dumped in a ditch somewhere.

  Behr just nodded.

  “Way I hear it is they got help from up north.”

  “Chicago or Detroit?”

  “Don’t know, but peep’s saying they brought in some outta-state boys.”

  That was it. Behr had it, and had been right about pushing for it, but still he felt ashamed and put a hand on Cottrell’s shoulder. Cottrell knocked it off.

  “Next time we meet, we talk about the Colts or movies or whatever, and that’s it,” Behr said.

  “Hope it ain’t soon,” Cottrell responded. Behr understood. The whole thing had rattled his friend, and Cottrell was not someone who rattled easy, and he sure as hell didn’t like it. The night was still for a moment, the only movement the night bugs scrambling between the headlights. Finally Behr turned and moved back toward his car.

  “You watch that dome of yours,” Cottrell said quietly. But Behr was already in his car and backing down the dirt track on his way out.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Morning had come like an executioner’s call. Dean, unable to sleep, had spent a good part of the night sweating and flopping about in a spinning bed. They’d drunk, the bunch of them, as if it would change all the bad shit that was swirling around them, until it was almost light. And maybe it had, for a minute, but now he had a tub full of Jameson sloshing around in his gut and his head felt like a thunderstorm. Putting a foot on the floor hadn’t helped at all, and despite the patty melt he’d scarfed down at the kitchen table in order to soak up the whiskey, he half felt like he was going to puke out the whole works. He thought about that last hour they’d all spent the night before. They’d doused their concerns for a moment and decided they felt strong. Dad always made them feel that way, especially when he leaned in and whispered that nothing had changed, they were still on track, and Uncle Larry could keep shit locked down on his end. They’d kicked everyone out of the bar at closing time and played poker and kept on drinking. And when they’d gotten home they’d made so much noise, the four of them, that Mom had come out of the bedroom. At first she’d been pissed they’d woken her, but then Dad had started singing “Dixie Chicken” and dancing her around the kitchen until she’d started laughing. Finally, she’d pulled out the frying pan and had started cooking, and they told stories and ate until they all went to pass out. It was like old times, when they were kids, but with whiskey, and for a while their troubles seemed far away.

  Now Dean rose and staggered through the silent house to the kitchen, where he drank from the tap and belched and drank some more. The water momentarily diluted the poison inside him and he wiped a layer of clammy sweat from his face with a dish-towel. Then he turned and saw the greasy frying pan, and the plates scattered across the table, dirty with chunks of meat and sodden bread and smeared with ketchup. He went to the front door, for some fresh air and the morning paper.

  “Bodies Found in Near Northside House ID’d as Father and Son,” screamed the Star’s headline. It was the address of the last pea shake they’d taken down. Dean’s stomach elevator-dropped. He was awash in dread as he read the account of the discovery of the dead boy. A child. It rang in Dean’s head. His hands began to shake and his blood turned to ice. A low moan escaped his belly as the enormity of what they’d done settled on him. He’d killed a kid. Then, from an even deeper place, came a spasm, and a roiling wave of vomit splattered down on the front step from where he’d just picked up the paper.

  THIRTY-SIX

  He stood along the riverbank and listened to the black water rush by below his feet. The better part of a bottle of Maker’s Mark rolled to its own current within him. His life was over—at least life as he knew it—killed by a pain he could not even estimate. He reached to his belt and felt the gun there, hard and unyielding. Its existence mocked him. He gripped its cold handle and lightly touched the trigger, where that precious small finger had somehow found its way. With a brusque fury he yanked the gun free and hurled it into the night with a force that tore things deep in his shoulder. He couldn’t hear the splash for the howl that erupted from within him.

  Darkness lifted like smoke from the water as Behr came back to the present. He had trudged along the muddy bank of the White River for several miles, scanning the shallows with his light, which he now clicked off as dawn had arrived. He hadn’t been this close to the White in years, since that night when it was finally all over for his boy and he’d driven out to fling the 9mm Tim had died by into its waters. Behr had never wanted to see that weapon again, same as the face that stared back at him when he looked in the mirror. He did his best to shake off the memory and continued on.

  Wherever there is money, there is violence. It was a truth. In business the violence is in the boardroom, in illegal business the violence is in the street. Despite the fact that he was hard tired and the left side of his head felt like it had a railroad spike lodged in it, Beh
r knew he had a long night ahead of him. After leaving Cottrell, he went home and worked quickly. He needed a piece of information and some supplies. The information didn’t take him long to obtain now that he knew what he was looking for.

  He found it in the state marriage license database and was able to back it up with an old announcement in a local news archive, and then tax and school records. Bustamante, Victoria, and Bustamante, Lawrence, the police lieutenant, were not married, they were brother and sister. Twenty-three years earlier Victoria had married Terrence Schlegel in a ceremony at Garden of Gethsemane Church in Speedway. They had three sons, Charles, Dean, and Kenneth, twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen years of age, who had attended area schools. Terry Schlegel, the father, was listed by the Alcoholic Beverage Commission as the permittee of the Tip-Over Tap Room. Behr selected “Print” and jotted further notes while the machine whirred to life. Then he’d begun putting together the supplies he needed—a map, flashlight, boots, and a thermos bottle full of coffee. The threat that the man he now knew was Dean Schlegel had made to Ezra was not idle, nor abstract, Behr believed. He marked the map with a highlighter, starting at the southernmost likely point in the area, where railroad tracks touched or intersected the White River. He steeled himself and drove out to the first spot, an area near West Troy Avenue that was fairly industrial in character, and then he started in.