Worm

by Anthony Neil Smith

  “That’s how he ended up in Jersey.” Slow Bear snapped his fingers. “He called the man’s cousins. I shit you not. Called up the dead man’s distant cousins, pretended to be the dead guy, and they took him in.”

  Ferret was quiet. The other two didn’t keep on. He guessed that was the whole story. “Then who are the Russells? His soldiers?”

  Gene Handy said, “Fuck no. Just a couple of idiots from Oklahoma.”

  Another pause. “You know, this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk. About anything. Ever.”

  Gene Handy leaned back and stretched his arms across the back of the booth, looked off to the side. “Yeah, well.”

  “You could have warned me.”

  “Didn’t we do this already?”

  Slow Bear said, “Dude, listen. You and me? We’re in the same boat. I got in trouble, and this one,” A nod to Gene Handy. “He knew about it. He’s kind of forcing me to help him, the same way we’re forcing you to help us.”

  “So why ain’t you grabbed him already? With the drugs and all, that’s an easy catch.”

  Gene Handy sighed. “Fuck the drugs. I don’t give a shit about the drugs. I’m not a cop. I’m just after the bounty.”

  He pointed at the poster, at some incomprehensible group of numbers. “In American, this comes out to about two hundred grand. It’s still open, I checked. I’m kind of like a big game hunter, but with scum like this. I don’t give a shit about the drugs. What I need to know is if Pancrazio really is Colonel Blagoje. And that’s why I need your help.

  Ferret took a deep breath and coughed on it. Cleared his throat. When he could, he said, “You know, I can’t.”

  Gene Handy didn’t move. Slow Bear laughed a little.

  The Indian said, “You don’t even know what we’re going to ask you yet.”

  “He already doesn’t like me.”

  “He trusts you. You’ve got a truckload of his crank out there.”

  Ferret turned his head, a reflex, then back to Gene Handy. “So there’s no Sons of Silence? There’s no bikers?”

  “No, those are real Sons of Silence. It’s a real thing, and I helped get Pancrazio hooked up with them because I helped some of their guys who were in a jam. I called in a favor.”

  “Then...you’re selling real crank to a war criminal and letting him sell it, even though you don’t want to set him up for the crank.”

  Gene Handy and Slow Bear looked at each other, exchanged twisted lips and shrugs and then Handy said, “I needed a way in, and I knew he was looking for something to keep him from being bored. Seriously, going from murderous soldier to oilman has made him kind of restless. But it hasn’t gotten me close enough to get what I need for sure.”

  Ferret closed his eyes and pressed the heel of his hand into his eyes and shook his head and said, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, my wife, my kids, oh shit, I can’t, I really can’t.”

  “You’ve got a choice here. Help us find out if he’s really Blagoje instead of Pancrazio, and we cut you in for part of the reward. Say no, Slow Bear busts you for the dope in that truck.”

  “I’m going to be sick.”

  Gene Handy let out a noise through his lips like a horse. “We’re going to need another couple rounds of Jamocha shakes.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Hunter didn’t mind people calling him Bad Russell around here. At least it sounded better than the way it was in Oklahoma, where he was just “Russell’s friend” because he was so worthless none of Russell’s other friends ever remembered his real name. And he didn’t have friends of his own besides Russell. That was okay, too, because he knew Russell was solid through and through.

  Russell was the only one who called him Hunter besides his mother.

  Bad Russell suited him fine, better than the names back home, especially on a night like tonight when Pancrazy had given him an honest-to-God mission. That was the word he used. Not like with the girl in the RV. That was a mess. This was a mission.

  He parked on the curb by the school and got out. He walked across the grass and around the bike racks on the side, heading for the propped-open door tended by an overweight bitch dressed up like a cat. Swinging her tail around, greeting kids and parents with “Purrrr-fect!” Which didn’t make no sense. But the kids laughed and the parents called her “Ms. Betty” and when he got to her, he tipped his cap and said, “Ma’am.”

  She stepped in front of him. “Are you a parent?”

  “I’m an uncle. I’m supposed to get my nephew for trick or treating. His momma’s at work.”

  She either didn’t like it or didn’t buy it. “That’s too bad.”

  “It’s hard out there.”

  “What’s your nephew’s name?”

  Hunter almost said the name of the woman he was supposed to be watching for tonight, working a booth while her kid played with gummy worms and fake vampire teeth and candy apples.

  “Josh. You know Josh. Cindy’s boy?”

  More parents were lining up behind them and the fat cat-lady was getting flustered, so she let him in and went back to saying, “Look at you purr-fect little goblins!”

  There was a large commons inside, surrounded by classrooms that led off to darkened hallways with scary signs pointing to them. Strobe lights. Sound-effects on the speakers—cackling, organ music, ghost moans. The commons was ringed with cardboard booths, lots of construction paper cut-outs of bats and spiders and creepy crawlies and a raven. Kids sprinting and shouting, tossing rings, knocking over cans with rubber balls. Look at all this shit! It made Bad Russell smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d even been around kids. He didn’t care much for them day to day, but it looked like they were having fun and he wished he was still small enough to join in with the games and trick or treating, too.

  The kids, all thigh-high or thereabouts, didn’t have to worry about their rig blowing up or a truck rolling over or crushing their hands or legs or heads. This was the sort of happiness you had when that stuff wasn’t a reality for you twelve hours a day.

  Hunter walked along, nodded at parents like he was one of them, pretended to be scared of the kid Draculas and werewolves, bowed at the princesses. All the while keeping a lookout for the woman who most resembled the description Pancrazy had given him. It was hard, because they all had face paint or masks. Some of them had name tags, but he’d gotten a couple of starebacks while trying to make out the Sharpie squiggles. Got a couple or crossed arms from some of the men teachers, what few there were. What? Did Hunter look any different from other oil worker dads here? All were stubbled, or full-bearded like himself. Most wore dirty hats bearing the name of their employer. T-shirts and jeans. So why was he getting the looks and no one else? Could be he was whistling. Yeah, that could always be it. Or it could be the fact that his T-shirt was a Pantera shirt with “Cowboys from Hell” on it and a guy getting punched in the face. But that was appropriate for Halloween, right?

  He stopped by the popcorn machine and bought a bag for fifty cents, kept on walking. He wolfed it down in handfuls, most of it falling to the floor. It dried his whistling up, sure as fuck. Pancrazy had told him she was a good-looking woman if you liked them with a bit of muffin top. And that she had brown hair, kind of shortish. Glasses. And that she sounded like some sort of Daisy Duke with her Alabama accent.

  When he saw someone who had a similar look, he snapped a quick pic on his phone. That also got him a few more stares from the male teachers. Like they didn’t do it themselves, whacking off to their co-workers’ pics or just using their imaginations. Sure, Miss Dee Dee, I’ll stay after to help you grade quizzes. Wink wink.

  He needed to hurry before they threw him out. And by God, they were going to. There was already a freak following him, seven foot tall white man, swear to fuck. Thin as tooth floss. Bad Russell had made the rounds once. He flicked through the pics on the phone quick-like, still walking, nearly knocked down by all the children set loose to run like monkeys. The Raggedy Ann doll teacher, red dots
on her cheeks. The old wizardy-looking one, some Harry Potter bullshit. The Little Pony, too small, but wow. He could always look her up later. It was the Raggedy Ann doll. Pleasantly plump, and that had to be her natural hair, dyed orange for tonight. And the glasses. The glasses made her stand out. Like the rag doll needed glasses. She had fucking button eyes. Buttons don’t see. They just don’t.

  How to do this, then? Hunter couldn’t amble back over there and turn his mean on while she helped little kids figure out the rules to bean bag tossing. That wouldn’t do. But in the middle of the commons was a foldout table with posterboard on front announcing TICKETS. Two old folks sat behind it. Maybe secretaries. Maybe teachers waiting to die. He walked up and asked for enough tickets to play the bean bag toss.

  “Everything is one ticket except the cakewalk. That’s three.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t want a cake.”

  “I mean, for the kids. Who are you with?”

  He mealy-mouthed an answer and pointed off behind and got six tickets for three dollars. Old bitch, calling him out. He didn’t want a cake. And if he did have a kid along, why the hell would she think the kid could have a cake if Dad had said no? Do parents even bother anymore? Do their kids all have bad teeth?

  There was a line of impatient little monsters, stomping their feet and twirling in circles and throwing candy at each other, their costumes looking like they had been wearing them for weeks instead of, probably, about an hour. Hunter crossed his arms and waited. There were two people working the booth—the Raggedy Ann teacher and a girl who must have been a few grades above the little kids. She was dressed like Minnie, and she overdid it with the squealing when the kids made it into the hole with the bag. The sort of shit they were winning was plastic beads and plastic Slinkys and other plastic shit that would break before the night was over.

  He stood off to the side, watching Mrs. Ferret, as he thought of her now, help a kid with untied laces get a good underhand on the next bean bag, but that one went sailing off well behind them all.

  Hunter said, “I’ll get it.” And he did, tossed it back to the missus and settled back into position. The little shit tried one more time—Hunter couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl—and threw the bag straight into the air.

  Mrs. Ferret said, “That was so close. But that was all. Just three.”

  The parents had run out of tickets and the kid starting crying. Just animal noises. Screechy. Screeeeeechy. For fuck’s sake.

  Hunter knelt down beside Mrs. Ferret and the crying kid and held out his tickets. “Here, take these.”

  “No, it’s okay.”

  “I’m not using them. Go on.”

  The kid took the tickets and the parents thanked him, yes, thanked him mightily. Mrs. Ferret went right back to helping this bitchy little kid, even holding the kid’s arm and pretty much making the toss herself this time. Still nowhere near the hole, but it flunked onto the board a tiny bit, so Mrs. Ferret clapped her hands and said “Yea!” like that was the object of the game all along. She told her assistant to give the kid a prize.

  “But he didn’t win! It’s not fair!”

  Mrs. Ferret shook her head. “Sure he won. Didn’t you see? What’s our biggest prize?”

  It was a ball-in-cup game, and the young girl gave it to Mrs. Ferret with an exaggerated sigh. Mrs. Ferret showed the stunned little kid how to play with the prize. But instead he grabbed it and ran off down the middle of the commons swinging it like a mace.

  Hunter laughed. “Give em anything, they’ll go hit something with it.”

  Mrs. Ferret glanced up. “Thank you for the tickets.”

  “No, it’s fine.” She was cute, goddamn it, that mousy mom type. He smiled at her. “Just extras. That’s all.”

  “Who are you with?”

  “Oh, I’m waiting for my niece—” What did he tell the catwoman at the door? Nephew or niece? Jesus. “Her mom’s working.”

  Better not get into an actual discussion with her, but he couldn’t help himself. She stood and took a step back from him. “Thanks.” Mrs. Ferret looked around for more students to play. There were none. “Thank you again.”

  He tipped his hat at her. Real Southern Gentlemen. “Ma’am, it’s been a while since I’ve heard another friendly Southern accent. I’m from Oklahoma. How about yourself?”

  There was that moment of hesitation, like she might lie. But then, no. “Alabama. My husband and I are from Alabama.”

  Husband. Hear that? Husband.

  Bad Russell tipped his hat again. “Sweet home, like the song says. I’ve got to get going now. I see her...yeah, I see she’s ready.”

  Mrs. Ferret smiled and turned to the girl assisting her. And then a young girl in a Brave costume, the mask on top of her head, came running up. “Mom! Mom! Hold this!” She held out a rubber dinosaur. “I won it. Hold it for me, Mom!”

  She knelt in front of the girl and gave her a harsh whisper, her eyes flitting between her daughter and Hunter. His seven-foot shadow had gotten tired of waiting and started to walk closer. Hunter pretended not to notice. Grinned. Next time, sweetie. He went back out and got in his truck, pulled it a little ways down the block. He turned down the volume on the classic rock station and eased back til his eyes were just above the bottom of the window. All he had to do now was follow them home without being seen or heard. Kind of like evil itself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Ferret waited until he was sure Pancrazy was gone for a long while. The Russells had taken the driller out to the Teacher’s Lounge, so Ferret had hours to peek around the RV. He sat in his car and tried to calm down first, his hands still shaking from what happened the night before with Gene Handy and that Indian cop, and then earlier today with Good Russell. Still shaking from Dee Dee telling him about the weird guy at her Halloween booth.

  The RV was a quarter-mile away. This was a park and walk deal. He didn’t want to get caught on the Walmart parking lot cameras, didn’t want Pancrazy’s neighbors to rat him out. Honestly, he didn’t want to do this at all. All he’d been looking for was extra cash, not excitement, not drama, not the bullshit he’d been caught up in a few hours earlier with Good Russell. His knuckles still hurt. He flexed them. He had a little blood on his jeans and he smelled like ammonia. So yes, he would go creep Pancrazy’s RV, hope the fucker kept something incriminating around, but then he would have to tell Gene Handy he couldn’t do this anymore, not if Pancrazy was making him step up and get his hands dirty. He needed both of those motherfuckers off his back.

  A few more deep breaths. If anything, that made him shake worse. But he finally clicked the ignition off and climbed out, shut the door as gently as he could and looked around. It was about eleven at night. Dee Dee thought he was out with Pancrazy, actually. Some beers with the boss. Can’t turn him down too often, right?

  He left his car in the strip mall near the Walmart and made his way down the street. The supercenter looked like a goddamned fortress. Imposing, with a moat of asphalt a quarter-mile wide, if he had to guess. And the back corner here was filled with criss-crossed double and triple-parked cars, trucks, RVs, tow-behind campers, some with no car to tow them. The green Fiesta was still there, still gathering dust, someone tracing “Wash much?” on the back window, and still no phone number. But now that he knew why it was there, it felt haunted. He looked at the ground instead.

  It wasn’t hard to get inside. A few yanks on the flimsy door and pop, there it went. Just like Good Russell had earlier at another trailer. In some ways this shantytown reminded him of what his grandparents had told him about life in their day, when you didn’t have to lock your doors or worry about thieves and murders so much. But Pancrazy had locked his door. It just wasn’t much of a lock, especially for a man stockpiling cash.

  Inside. Shut the door behind him. It was dark and Ferret hadn’t brought a flashlight. Of course he hadn’t. Who would’ve thought? Last time he was here, in daylight, it had been fine. Idiot. Stupid stupid stupid. If he turned on t
he lights, someone would notice. If he waited for his eyes to adjust...still, no. If he opened the blinds, let in moonlight? Better than the other options. Once he’d gotten the blinds twisted open, he realized the money was gone. The stacks and stacks and stacks he’d seen before, all gone. Just some sales-flyers from newspapers, fish sandwich wrappers, crumpled cigarette boxes, and now there was a stationary bike nearly too big for the space. An old one where the front wheel was a giant fan. The sad air conditioner was gone, too, a wooden plank nailed over the hole. Like in his office, space heaters scattered around, blowing dry hot air that made Ferret keep swallowing.

  This joint didn’t make any sense. But then again, that was Pancrazy. Nothing about him made any sense. The driller with his dirty hands and clean hair. His Jersey accent that was, apparently, a complete sham. A killer slumming on an oil field, living in a parking lot, trying to start an empire, but self-destructing as he climbed. He was all contradictions, like Gene Handy and Slow Bear had told him back at Arby’s. He had been hiding out, getting by. For some reason, he figured the oil boom would be a good place to ramp up some sort of evil-doings again.

  Drugs hadn’t been his thing before, so why meth? Maybe because it was easy? Maybe because it gave him a new sort of refugee to lord over? Crankheads. Slaves to the pipe. Willing to do anything for the man who kept them supplied. Women who gave a flying fuck about who did what to their bodies as long as they were being fed crystal.

  Okay, so why was Pancrazy out picking up nurses and bank tellers and middle-aged school teachers at bars? Like, not for the challenge of it, right? Fish, gun, barrel—c’mon, like a national stereotype. Every bar in every town in every state, the same.