The Men I Sent Forward (Baer Creighton Book 6)

by Clayton Lindemuth

“I’ll need two of them hip vessels.”

  “Two?”

  “Two.”

  “Up to you, I guess. But you could have one and fill it twice.”

  “Or I could have two and fill ’em half each, drink both twice and fill ’em four times more. Is all.”

  “What?”

  “And have half as much space left over.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Which’d be dumber’n fuck, as I wanted twice as much to start.”

  “I didn’t mean to aggravate you.”

  “Or, I could fill each once. Like I want. As the fuckin’ customer.”

  “I am a little confus — ”

  “Two.”

  Back at the Eldorado, Stinky Joe shake his head. He don’t even got to say a word.

  “Joe, listen. I’m a man. In the whole hierarchy I’m at the pinnacle. If you was closer you’d know that word. As such, as a man, they’s only one above me, and that’s the Almighty. No government, no king, no general, no woman and no dog.”

  Twist the cap and I don’t even got to inhale but I can taste the Turkey like the soul got taste buds.

  Does the man at the pinnacle remember a promise?

  “Bein’ as how no two people agree on the Almighty, that leaves me at the top, with a silent partner. He whisper in my ear: ‘All the things that’s good, it fall on man to find and defend ’em. And what’s evil, he got to root that out and kill it.’”

  What does that have to do with your promise?

  “Man at the pinnacle intend to break the promise, as it no longer represent the higher good. As is his will and duty.”

  Tip the jug and swallow deep. Feel the sparkle all the way down the pipes. Heat spread across the belly. I close the eyes and let the brain flatten out a bit.

  Let the back ease into the seat.

  Feel the toes tingle like walkin’ in pine needles, then turn to mush and float off.

  I see the men I sent forward in the trees, but the ones in the back is hard to make. Eyes is dim and lookin’ on ’em I don’t feel what I felt afore.

  I don’t feel nothin’.

  But if I felt somethin’ it’d be in the vicinity of work. The way a buck wantin’ roots’ll look at a woman’s hips and sense the word pregnant ain’t about babies so much as the yoke comes with ’em.

  I look at the dark trees, ‘most empty of eyes and the word comes to mind is opportunity.

  One more gurgle of the Wild Turkle.

  “Joe, if you was closer to the apex you wouldn’t misunderestimate, as the former president say… you wouldn’t misunderestimate man’s friendship with the alcohol. You puppydogs is long been called man’s best friend. But I’d wager W’s left nut that man’s other best friend been with him longer.”

  Hit the jug agin. Truth told I like the liquor more’n titties too, as I been a hell of a lot more intimate with it.

  Time to fill a flask. Man at the store put ’em in plastic bags. Fish out the first and unscrew the cap. Blow it clean and blow the flask too. Stuff it ’tween the knees and unscrew the Turkey.

  “Poise, Joseph, is the art — ”

  There’s your woman.

  Up at the motel a Toyota Camry with a dent in the back quarter panel and the left taillight out swing on the road headed at Carbondale.

  Shit! I got Turkey splashed ’bout the thigh and already feel heat in the jewel sack.

  “You keep watch which way she go!”

  Dog roll his eyes.

  I screw a cap with each hand while pushin’ the gas and twistin’ the wheel right across the bottom and out in traffic from the right parking lane. I finish screwin’ the flask first so that hand git the wheel.

  “That right there is pinnacle work. Dog couldn’t do that. Nor a woman.”

  Then why do you love so many of them?

  “Ain’t possible not to, Joe. Just like you.”

  Put on the turn signal and switch the lane — though in ghost mode they won’t see me anyway.

  I hang back and she drive and drive. Couple mile out the road is empty save her and me. I drop way behind and let the woman disappear once or twice around the curves. The end is nigh. No worries this way or that. By and by I catch her single taillight cut a left into a community of houses and trees, each lined up like neither come out the earth natural.

  She disappear and I stomp the gas on a half mile straight. Cadillac hauls ass and just when the nose floats high I aggravate the brake and swing the corner so the tires squeal and Joe got to peel his jowl off the glass.

  But the white Camry’s gone.

  I sit with the gear engaged but keep a foot on the brake and take in the space ’round me. The trees and houses. Once I got a fix, I figure it’ll take half the night, but I bet if I check every turn the next ten mile, and every driveway, I’ll find a white Camry.

  One hour and thirteen minutes.

  Kill the engine. Got a flask in each jacket pocket, Glock in the ass and Smith on the hip. I slip the Glock under the car seat as it never was a favorite.

  Walk up the door and knock.

  Door open a crack and a man’s beard come peering through. He steps back.

  Motel woman let on like she had a run in with a criminal outfit, and somehow that mess of crooks is tied in with Frank Lloyd, and I don’t know why or how it mighta happened, but she said Abe Church found me at the motel laundry. Which don’t make a lick of sense, as Church said he thought I was at the other motel down the road. If what she said is true, Church lie to my face and I didn’t spot it. But if it ain’t true then the woman lie to my face and I didn’t spot that neither.

  I wish Stinky Joe was here at the doorstep with me as this is exactly what I was sayin’. Woman here — and got a man with her — she know wrong been done. He know wrong been done. But someone come along want to make right of it, he need a hammer and chisel to prize out what information’ll let him do his good work. Almost like people ain’t got a single ounce of fight in ’em for what’s right and just.

  That’s what I was sayin’ to Stinky Joe. World needs destroyers. Ain’t pleasant and don’t smell good, but truth is for all man’s bein’ civilized and high thinkin’ it’s the wild that keep him alive, and a man ain’t fit to be civilized without he got a feral strain that’ll never bend to the yoke. Without it he’s nothin’ but a slave. Just like the wolf seeks the weak and old and makes the herd stronger, the destroyer’s the protector. He cut out the rot, ’fore it fester and turn good people bad. No man is good without killin’ what deceit would make him evil.

  Accourse Stinky Joe’d say if it’s only good folk at the pinnacle then shit, you go from the Almighty straight to dogs. I see his point though he warn’t here to make it. Destroyers ain’t good people.

  No, but I suppose they wish for it.

  Ease out Smith.

  Door open ’til the skinny chain stop it. Man’s got long curly face hair like Santa afore the beard go white.

  Santa say, "Are you the man my wife says is going after that son of a bitch Church?"

  "No, I’m goin’ after Frank Lloyd. So far."

  The door close and the chain jiggle and the door goes open. Santa Clause steps back.

  The house’s got no ambient juice. I look behind me to the car and back inside. Step forward and the man close the door behind.

  “You don’t need your gun.”

  “I’ll decide.”

  “Of course, be my guest.” He put his hands together. “That’s not a problem at all.”

  The woman from the motel sit on the sofa with her knees close as they can get. Her face seem kinda puckered but I don’t know if they’s a little Wild Turkification goin’ on — though that error usually go in the woman’s favor. She got a newspaper magazine open on the coffee table, picture of a man and woman lookin’ stone cold pissed.

  Some folks when they look at the wall you know the head’s truly empty and they’s not a single blue spark inside keepin’ shit warm. And other people look at the same wall and the
skin on they faces roll and shift like they got an air pocket needs let out. You want to push the bump to the ear.

  All the turmoil, is the point.

  Woman open her hand, want me to sit next her. "If you’re here for information about Abraham Church, you have to know who he is in his heart.”

  "He doesn’t have a heart,” says her man, Santa. “You want coffee, Mr. — ?"

  Nod. "Black."

  "That’s his coffee not his name,” says the motel woman. “His name is Creighton but he goes by Boone."

  "Baer Creighton," says I.

  "I knew it, but it was hard to tell for sure with you wearing a suit and having that hair cropped so clean." She put her hand on my arm gentle as a mother with a sick child. "Am I — are we — okay trusting you?"

  Her eyes is wet but it ain't fear of me that put the tears there.

  "I don’t know what Abraham Church is mixed up in, but as far as he goes, and Frank Lloyd and all his crew, I'm responsible for you and yours.”

  The man put a coffee mug on the table next my knees and sit on a recliner made half outta duct tape but he don't put his feet out. Elbows on his thighs, one hand tomahawks into the other.

  "Tell me you're going to kill this man."

  “Herman,” the woman say.

  “Lucy.”

  I nod. “Herman, Lucy. What’d Abraham Church do to y’all?”

  The man picks up a photo from the end table with the lamp. Urn behind it. Picture’s got some Mexican kid maybe, a girl like Corazon or Tat with the black eyes and hair. Herman got tears in his eyes and a tremble in his hand.

  The girl’s dead.

  I swallow hard.

  Picture’s a fist in the gut. I see Tat and Corazon and this new girl, and the features blend so I can’t tell which is which. All become one girl with pretty black hair and eyes so lit by hope and love I don’t know how to see ’em defeated and dead. But two of the three blackhair girls in my head is gone and Mags is gone too. Got to look away and comport myself.

  "Who is she?"

  “She is my daughter," Lucy say.

  “She was our daughter,” Herman say.

  I look at him and his brown hair. Look at her and the strawberry blonde.

  “We adopted her when she was four.”

  "You love her,” says I. “I miss a girl was maybe like her. How she pass?

  "Car accident.”

  “She old ’nough to drive?”

  “She was,” Herman say. “Barely old enough. We’d just flown all the way to Arizona to buy the car for her sixteenth birthday. It was a super great deal on a used rental, but only if you go to them, kinda deal.”

  “He went to the auction, there,” Lucy say.

  “Big auction.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “That car is why he killed her,” she say.

  “You can’t prove that,” says Herman.

  “I can prove it. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “I know it makes sense I’m just saying you can’t prove it, and with a man of Creighton’s, uh, qualifications…we shouldn’t say things uh-uh-uh-unless we can prove them.”

  “Fine. We can’t prove anything.”

  No juice other’n Herman stavin’ off his desire to piss himself. At the woman Lucy I say, “You was sayin’.”

  “Gloria had friends. She was a very social girl and her friends, you know… they looked like her.”

  Says I, “Your daughter — Gloria? — was in the car.”

  “Yes, her name was Gloria. They were all out, you know, right after her birthday.”

  “Three days after her birthday.”

  “Thank you, Herman, three days. And that’s why Abraham Church killed them.”

  “Three days?” says I.

  “No, he killed them because they all had brown skin and the license plate was from Arizona.”

  Herman say, “No one would miss them.”

  I think on Tat and Corazon, the business of selling people. Is Lucy sayin’ Abe Church is another Luke Graves?

  “This agin. So how he try to take ’em, and end up killin’ ’em instead?”

  “We don’t know. What? He didn’t try to take them and then kill them instead. He just killed them.”

  Thoughts whirl in my head that don’t compute. People got to be alive — for the most part — afore other people’ll pay to screw ’em.

  “I don’t follow. Is Abraham Church sellin’ kids for sex or not?”

  “What? Oh — no. Not that we know. He kills them for their body parts — ”

  “So he can sell them... the parts.”

  “Yes, thank you, Herman.”

  “Uh.”

  Whole new category of evil. But on inspection all evil ’stills down to stealin’ in one form or another.

  “Why don’t you maybe tell me what you know, and I’ll stop interfering with questions.”

  “We don’t know much. Four beautiful girls disappeared the way I said. Abraham Church runs a funeral home. And Chester A DeChurch runs a body broker business out of Vail, just up the road.”

  “Chester who?”

  “He’s the same man,” Santa say. “Chester A DeChurch is the same man as Abraham Church.”

  The head swim. Water clear up to the pinnacle and Stinky Joe float by on a raft, grinnin’. Baer Creighton appointed to the lofty penultimate perch of civilization and bamboozled by common facts pilin’ up in uncommon ways. Abe got a second name, and I recognize it. And what’s this about… “You said some words I never heard put together. Body broker business?”

  Woman say, “It’s where they sell human bodies. It’s legal — ”

  “But there’s almost no rules — ”

  “Thank you, Herman. It’s very unregulated. And that magazine article — ” she point to the coffee table “ — is what gave me the understanding. There are real businesses out there, Mister Creighton, legitimate businesses, that sell corpses to universities and different places like that. They convince people to donate their bodies to science and then they sell the bodies. It’s a scam the way these people in the magazine story did it. That isn’t what Church is doing.”

  Shake my head no. Wait.

  “He’s killing people too,” says Lucy.

  “Let me say it back. Sellin’ dead people’s legal if you use the right government forms.”

  “But Church isn’t just talking to people and getting the forms signed, like you’re supp — ”

  “He’s killing them. He can’t wait so he kills them and fakes the forms.”

  “Thank you, Herman.”

  “Pardon, and I mean this with all due respect. Herman, no more words. You’re done.”

  “Yes sir, of course. I just keep adding things trying to be helpful.”

  “Herman. Stop talking.”

  “Of course. Whatever you s — ”

  Smith on the table, I put the index finger to the barrel and push ’til the revolver rotates sixty-seven degrees and the bore’s sighted on Herman’s nuts.

  Herman frowns.

  I face his missus. “So he wasn’t tryin’ to take ’em alive? That’s where I’ll be hearin’ some details.”

  “This is all we know. I have a friend that works at the courthouse. You know that place. It’s all one building-area. The sheriff and police and court and everything. They all know each other, right?”

  Nod.

  “I have a friend there and I will not name her — ”

  “Susan. Her name is Susan.”

  “Herman that was wrong,” Lucy say.

  “Complete transparency with Mister Creighton,” Herman says.

  Exhale. Tell myself not to kill Herman, though pointin’ the barrel at his nuts was as good as makin’ a promise, and now I’m welchin’.

  Lucy shake her head and don’t miss a beat. “Please don’t point your firearm at my husband, even if the gun’s only on the table. You’re a good man and you don’t need to make your points that way.”

  She leans across
in front of me and pushes the Smith barrel four more inches so it’ll mortally wound the bottom left corner of her television.

  “Anyway, Susan told me she was talking to one of the police deputies — ”

  “It was a deputy,” says Herman. “There’s no such thing I’ve ever heard of in Colorado — ”

  “Thank you, Herman. Let me please just tell the story? Okay. God, I’m about to cry. Susan told me there were no bodies in the car when it burned. And she also said the accident didn’t start the fire.”

  “Hold up. Herman, keep it shut. Now Miss Lucy, you said the girls was in a car accident. What did Abraham Church have to do with that?”

  “I don’t know exactly — ”

  “Tell me what you guess.”

  Herman got his mouth open. I eyeball him.

  Lucy says, “Well I used to think Church and his people didn’t do anything special. I thought they saw the girls in the car and decided right then. And they took the girls the way men always do. They gang up, tell lies, use guns, whatever. They get Gloria and her friends and then they… do… what… they… did. Excuse me.” She pull a tissue from the box next her leg. “And what they did took time, because harvesting organs is like surgery. I used to think it was unplanned, and the girls just disappeared — but I don’t anymore. Anyway, taking all the body parts from four girls is going to take time. I get clinical like this sometimes, you know? So I can deal with it. They had to get rid of the car right away. I think they burned the car to make it look like an accident, and when they were done taking everything from the girls they could sell, they sewed the bodies back together and burned them.”

  Herman say, “Then they put the burned bodies inside the burned car.”

  “How the police know they was no bodies in the car when it burned?”

  “I hadn’t talked to Susan in a week and all of sudden she sent me a text saying we had to get together for lunch. This was right after Gloria was found in the car, like a couple weeks later. I hadn’t seen Susan since before it all. We’re friends, but not bosom you know?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, at lunch she was like I was with you at the motel. I wanted to talk but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. But she sends me this urgent text and then clams up and doesn’t want to say anything? And I was like come on! You sent me the text. What’s going on? And she gave me a look like I’ll tell you what’s going on, but you really don’t want to know. But then she did. And now I know.”