Patience County War (Madeleine Toche Series)

by Soren Petrek

  When he first retired he would sit and stare at her in the kitchen telling her what to do. That lasted a couple of months until she took after him with a broom handle. He was shocked, but got the message. She loved her husband and he had always been a good provider, but she couldn’t have him around all the time. It was just too tiring.

  “I don’t know, Marty, maybe I should call the Sheriff.”

  “Virgil, you do not need to bother Sam.”

  “Well, I’m going to do something about it.”

  “All you are going to do is to get yourself into trouble.”

  With that, Virgil walked out of the house and got into his farm truck and drove out of the yard.

  About two miles over the hill from the Ward’s, two men sat outside of an old storage shed, next to the broken down remains of an old band saw rusting in the sun. The younger one was in his early twenties, big and doughy, peering through greasy ribbons of stringy black hair that fell over his face like a curtain. “How long will it take Doc?” Greasy asked with a fidgety glance towards the shed.

  “Shit boy, what do you want to do, lick the spoon?” the older man said. As he spoke he peered through wire rimmed glasses with heavily sedated eyes. Doc had been involved with illegal drugs for thirty years, with only marginal brushes with the law. This time around he was applying his chemistry skills to the manufacture of methamphetamine, a drug he himself would not use. He knew better from his old hippy days: ‘meth is death.’ It was a fantastic drug for creating slaves, just like Billy the drone next to him. Billy hadn’t learned much since birth and what he did know was usually wrong.

  Doc wasn’t the origin of Billy’s limitations. He was just a cook for an organization that was cashing in on the explosion of methamphetamine use in the rural Midwest. He was paid well, never participated in distribution, and didn’t want to. He learned a long time ago not to ask questions and never to get bigger than the guy above him on the totem pole.

  Billy pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and fired it up, hardly doing anything as a look out for their illegal operation.

  Doc looked at Billy and felt a little bit sorry for him. He was a damn odd looking kid. He had an absent look about him, kind of goofy, compounded by the fact that he had a massively pronounced under bite; hence the unfortunate nickname of Bucket. Doc thought that when the kid had his mouth closed he looked almost like he was wearing the helmet of a suit of armor. Good Christ, I’ve seen it all now, he thought. It didn’t help any that Billy, or Bucket, had been hitting the pipe hard enough that he had started picking at his face. He had dozens of angry pock marks. Doc knew that once a user got to this stage anything could be rattling around in his melon. Doc fingered the electric stun gadget in his pocket, wondering whether it would be of any use at all if Billy got feisty.

  So far, it was still easy to get all the cold medicine that they needed to cook the methamphetamine locally. They even trucked it in from Mexico. As far as Doc knew, it might not be 100% legal to bring packing boxes stuffed with ephedrine tablets across the border, but the beef for capture was a lot less than for bringing in the finished product. The rest of the chemicals needed for cooking were available from most hardware stores or chemical supply companies.

  Just as Doc was contemplating the process he saw an old man in a John Deere hat driving up the road in a pickup truck, plain as day.

  “Now who the hell is this?” he muttered. Everything was going fine and now here comes the nosy neighbor.

  “Billy, you let me do the talking. Don’t do or say anything.” It was hard to tell if Billy got any of that; his vacuous stare didn’t reveal much in the way of recognition.

  Doc stood up and walked over to the truck in a hurry to put the guy’s mind at ease and get rid of him.

  “Morning! Out for a drive?” Doc knew better than to rush these things. A nice neighborly chat usually did the trick. Doc tossed out his hand like a traveling salesman, Virgil didn’t hesitate and returned the handshake, stepping out of his truck.

  “Howdy, name’s Virgil Ward, I’m your neighbor,” Virgil said cordially, with a sideways glance at Billy.

  “Oh don’t mind him. He’s my sister’s kid. Slow you know.” Doc gave Virgil his best conspiratorial look.

  “I’ve got a few of them in my family too. You buy the old place then?”

  “Well, we’re in the process. We have permission to check the place out.” The guy seemed to be buying it, Virgil thought.

  Doc glanced over catching Billy meandering toward the shed where the last batch of meth was drying. Damn kid, now would be a nice time for the stun gun, bet the neighbor would love that, Doc thought ruefully.

  “Billy, now you wait a minute, don’t go in there,” Doc pleaded noticing Virgil was walking over there too. Damn it. What did I do to deserve two idiots in the same day? He thought.

  Just as Billy was opening the door, Virgil got close enough to smell the strong, solvent odor. He wrinkled his nose.

  “Whoa, they must have left some chemicals in there.”

  “Yah, maybe you better not go in there.” Too late, Virgil followed Billy into the building like a lemming and looked around. I might as well have told him, “Go right in.”

  Doc stepped into the shed and found Virgil standing smack dab in front of the work table where their beakers, tubes and hot plates were arranged.

  “Well, what the hell is all this?”

  Doc walked up to him and said, “I don’t know,” pulling the stun gun from his pocket and giving Virgil a zap. Down he went flopping like a fish tossed up on shore.

  “Billy, goddamit! Look what you’ve done!”

  No response, Billy was pawing in a pan of white powder drying over a large hot plate, completely oblivious. Doc marched over and gave Billy the full blast from the stun gun. That got a reaction, he actually turned his head. Oh no, Doc thought, that ain’t good. Billy put some of the powder into a glass pipe, vaporized it, and sucked it into his lungs like a desperate vampire. His face twitched and jerked as he exhaled a giant plume of smoke.

  “You just take a little,” Doc said as Billy pawed around in the pan for another crystal. Christ, he doesn’t even know what I just did to him. Doc shook his head. I’ve got to get somebody else on this job. He glanced down at Virgil and decided that step one was to tie him up. Doc grabbed a roll of duct tape from a shelf and bound Virgil’s hands and feet and smoothed a piece over his mouth.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Billy,” Doc said sarcastically. Apparently the drug had worked its way to Billy’s brain, as there was a spark of recognition.

  “Sure Doc,” Billy mumbled as he ambled over and picked up a shovel.

  Doc watched as the old man on the floor opened his eyes and started to make panicked noises through the tape.

  “No Billy, damn it! Just put him in the back room and keep an eye on him.”

  Doc watched as Billy, the fucking wonder horse, grabbed Virgil by the ankle and dragged him off to a closet at the far end of the room. This was bad. Most people in the middle of nowhere leave their neighbors alone. Doc would now have to make a call he didn’t want to make to his employer, the local representative of a particularly aggressive Mexican gang. Doc had been having his doubts about this particular operation; they’d saddled him with Billy, who liked the product too much, and chose a cooking shed too close to town for comfort. He didn’t think the old guy’s prospects were that good, though.

  Doc sighed as he opened his cell phone and placed the call, “Its Doc. I need to speak to the Patron.”

  Jose Carlos Menendez sat regally in the darkened room in a hotel in downtown St. Louis and held court. He was flanked by an odd assortment of men. Some white, some Hispanic, all trying their best to look tougher than the next guy. Menendez wasn’t ruggedly good looking, handsome or particularly menacing in appearance. He styled himself as a boss or Patron, when in reality he was a nephew of the head of a Mexican Drug cartel safely back on the hacienda in Mexico. He was sent where it was thought he c
ouldn’t do much harm. His job was to make some meth, sell it and funnel the money back to Mexico. Regardless of his faults, he was loyal.

  “Carlos, how are things in Patience County?” Jose asked.

  “You got a call from Doc. Seems a neighbor got nosy and that idiot Billy went into the shed with the guy right behind him,” Carlos sighed. He had been sent by Manny the Farmer to keep an eye on his nephew. This new development was just the latest result of a string of bad decisions Jose had made.

  “Kill him.”

  “Which one?” Carlos said.

  When there wasn’t an immediate response, Carlos had to restrain himself from just taking the idiot over to the window and chucking him out. Any self-respecting St. Louis cop would take one look at the Tony Montana wannabe, bag him, and go for coffee. Who am I to say? Carlos thought. It would be like killing a blind dog anyway. He chuckled to himself and looked over at the mutt Jose kept with him at all times. Dogs do resemble their masters and this pair did in spades. Carlos remembered the ad that Jose had answered in the paper for well-bred hunting dogs. He and Jose had gone to the farm where the man was selling these ‘rare’ hunting machines. Carlos knew enough about dogs to know they were just straight coon hounds, nothing but legs, stomachs and howls. But he chose not to enlighten his ‘Patron’ on that occasion and figured Jose would board the dog somewhere anyway. Nope, the idiot kept his ‘Lion’, as he had named him, at his side day and night. The animal was without question the stupidest dog known to man. Lion would lie around like a wet rag and then suddenly for no apparent reason bark and howl like he’d treed a coon or sensed some invisible intruder. Jose would invariably haul out his gun and wave it around like something was going to get shot. After several discharges and a couple of hotel moves, with ample bribes to hotel managers, Carlos thought if there was any justice in the world, Jose would shoot the king of the jungle and Carlos could bury him in a dumpster. Carlos was the first to admit he wasn’t much of a dog man.

  As if on cue, following his master’s outburst, the dog went into an absolute spasm. It was clearly evidence that animals could be possessed. The dog ran around the room, bit one of the soldiers and held on for dear life. It wasn’t until Carlos tossed the remnants of a sandwich on the floor that peace was restored.

  “Patron, perhaps Lion needs the open country to satisfy his great skill at hunting.”

  “Nonsense, I need him by my side and perhaps he will be a useful tool. I have taught him to ‘sic balls’. He will attack any enemy I choose. We are a team.”

  Way too many gangster movies, sic balls my ass. Carlos wisely kept that thought to himself. That demented, inbred antelope might sniff balls or lick balls, but to teach him to regularly bite any specific target was unlikely.

  Lion, having finished the sandwich flopped down, looking satisfied to resume his usual activity of sleeping, punctuated by growling and farting.

  Hopefully the dog is dreaming of being eaten by a real lion, Carlos considered.

  “I think it best if we don’t leave a trail of bodies. We can just find another location and release the neighbor in a day or so. I can’t imagine an all-out manhunt over a couple of days, so we’ll just move the operation. There’s so much nothing in that county that nobody will find us anyway. We’ll give him a good knock on the head and set him loose,” Carlos suggested.

  Jose looked at him with a well-practiced Clint Eastwood squint, like he didn’t believe what he was being told or was considering it. Instead he was just trying to understand it.

  “He has seen.”

  “Patron, all he has seen is an old hippie and Billy the local junky who looks like a giant rain gauge. We’ll move those two somewhere else.”

  “I will think on it,” Jose said, dismissing the matter from further conversation.

  As long as he doesn’t discuss it with the other half of the ‘team’, Carlos thought.

  Carlos picked up the cell phone and got Doc on the line, “Hold onto the guy, finish as many runs as you can, and call back in two days. We’ll knock him out, pour a little whiskey down his throat and dump him in his car in the next county with a little roofie cocktail.”

  “Good call, boss.”

  “Keep an eye on Billy, I wouldn’t trust him to hold a lantern in my front yard, but he has his uses,” Carlos said not entirely sure of himself.

  Doc turned the phone off and collected the finished product already made. He put enough to keep Billy cognizant into a smaller baggy and hid the rest under a floor board when the boy wonder wasn’t looking. Doc thought the plan for Nosy was a good one. He’d start administering the Rohypnol when he gave the old guy a drink. He wouldn’t remember anything, with a little whiskey on his clothes, a little dirt liberally applied and a condom wrapper in his pocket. No, he’d never say a word.

  Virgil lay in the closet, his mind racing with numerous explanations for his predicament. Unfortunately, none of them even close to accurate. True to his nature, Virgil started at panic and worked his way down from there. Terrorist bomb making was his first choice, although he couldn’t quite figure out what terrorist group would include an old hippie looking guy and that retarded freak. As he was contemplating that, Doc opened the door and pulled off his duct tape gag.

  “I won’t tell anyone about the bombs,” Virgil blurted out as soon as he could get his sticky lips apart.

  “Bombs?” Doc said looking at Virgil, thinking No way, nobody is that naïve. He instantly hit upon a plan. He could use the guy, but that meant he’d have to keep track of two loose cannons. Let’s see where this goes, Doc thought making up his mind.

  “Not bombs, secret work for the US government,” Doc said trying to sound mysterious and spy-like. What the hell? He thought. Sometimes people want to believe so bad they’ll buy anything.

  “You must be undercover then,” Virgil jumped in with both feet, seeing a ray of hope.

  “Deep, deep undercover. I’m a government agent, code named Orange.”

  “I’m a good American; I can keep my mouth shut.”

  Doc smiled and started warming up to the whole idea. Billy won’t have to kill the ninny and he might be useful.

  “You military?” Doc fished.

  “Army.”

  “I could smell it on you. Any combat?”

  “Cook, they wouldn’t let us fight.”

  “Best damn soldiers in the army.”

  “That’s what I always said.”

  “I let you go soldier, and you’re under my command. Could be days, could be weeks with no outside contact.”

  “What about my wife?”

  “What about her? She’s no combatant.”

  Virgil jumped right on that and said, “You’re right, I wouldn’t want to put her in harm’s way.”

  She could probably use the lunatic vacation. It must be annoying to have a brainiac like Virgil underfoot all day. With that thought Doc cut through Virgil’s tape with a box cutter and helped him to his feet.

  “Now, it’s best not to talk to Agent Bucket. He’s like a coiled spring, lost his family to the enemy you know,” Doc said jerking his thumb in Billy’s direction.

  “The enemy?”

  “Japs, Chinks, Ruskis, Gooks, Arabs,”

  Doc noted that Ruskis seemed to engender the most recognition.

  “Yah, them damn Ruskis. But I thought they weren’t commies anymore.” Oh-oh! A glint of knowledge.

  “All one damn hoax to get our guard down, soldier!”

  “Knew it! Knew it! Told the wife, but would she listen? No, said I was an idiot, a nut job!”

  “All straight from the top, the damn top!” Doc yelled.

  Virgil couldn’t help it. He sprang to attention and yelled, “Sir, yes sir!”

  Doc wanted desperately to say, “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living!”, but he figured rank had its privileges and didn’t feel like a self-inflicted demotion.

  Nathan Harper squatted silently in the bushes next to his enormous garden and waited. Somebody was s
tealing vegetables and needed to be caught. He shifted his weight and sat down, alternately peeking into the garden and sharpening his spear. Nathan generally had a sunny disposition but also a seriously demented streak. Sam could swear to that. He was looking forward to scaring the absolute crap out of whomever he caught helping themselves in his garden. His Masai shield and brightly colored clothing would get their attention. He wasn’t going to hurt them, just have a little sport. When he was done, nobody would venture into his garden again without permission.

  As Nathan considered the coming entertainment, he noticed a small movement at the edge of the woods and peered out with a wicked grin on his face. Nathan moved like a wraith through the brush and positioned himself to charge out. Bingo! A second later he was all pumping arms and sprinting feet, screaming at the absolute top of his lungs and waving his spear at the unfortunate trespasser.

  Jimmy Dent peeked out into the big garden. He felt bad about taking vegetables, but he had a bunch of brothers and sisters, mom lived on food stamps, and dad was gone. He looked all around and finally crept forward on his torn up Chuck Taylors. He had a sack to stuff things into and moved out of the protection of the woods.

  “Shiiiit!” Jimmy screamed when he saw the entire Masai nation charging down on him, eyes wild with rage, roaring over the sound of a giant spear crashing against a shield.

  “Kill!” Nathan screamed until he saw it was some kid. In one motion he grabbed the boy by the waist and threw him into the pond right next to the garden.

  “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me!”

  Nathan was trying to remain fierce but the kid’s expression had been too funny. He was laughing and shaking all over. The boy mistook it for a fit and started his own screaming again.

  “Take it easy kid, I’m not going to hurt you,” Nathan said, putting up his hand to calm the kid down as he continued to jiggle with laughter.