Butcher

by Rex Miller

  “That's Emil Shtolz,” she hissed, shaking, shuddering, knowing as she uttered the words aloud she'd just seen evil up close. She'd seen the man her dad had been chasing. She knew at that instant her father was gone. “Take me to the police, Ray."

  “Huh?"

  “Please. Let's go.” She was dead serious. He looked at her to make sure she wasn't putting him on.

  “Hey, Sharon. You kidding me?” He was smiling.

  “Please.” The word leaked out so angrily, between her pretty clenched teeth, that he just sighed and started the truck.

  “I know you're really under a lot of stress, babe, so—” He could feel her fear and frustrated anger so he let it drop, but he knew what a big mistake she was making. He went into the city administration building with her but let her do her thing with Jimmie alone.

  He felt sorry for her. Within a few seconds he could see a familiar look on Randall's face and pretty soon the chief's loud laughter could be heard through the glass. Not long after, she slammed out of there and he was following her, saying in a placating tone, “—and I'll have more'n thirty candles on my next birthday cake, Sharon, and he delivered me. Doc's been here all his life.” Chuckling. “I promise you he's all right."

  “He hasn't been here all his life. He has a foreign accent, he's a Nazi in hiding, and he probably killed Alma Purdy and my father, goddammit!” The door cracked like a gunshot when she hit it.

  “She's under a lot of stress, Jimmie,” Meara said to the smiling cop.

  “Yeah, I know that, Ray. Just try to keep her in the motel, though, will ya? She's in no state of mind to be out talking to folks."

  “Okay."

  “Catch ya later,” Randall said, pleasantly.

  “Right.” Meara went out the door. Sharon was standing beside the truck, so mad she didn't know what to do. She saw Ray and got in and slammed the door. They rode back to the motel in silence.

  “Do you think I'm a moron?” she shouted the moment they pulled into the parking lot, slamming the truck door again and running toward the motel room.

  “No, I don't,” he said, staying with her so she couldn't slam the door on him. She whirled.

  “I don't mean only you. I mean all of you. I know that's the Nazi bastard Shtolz and I know he's done something to Dad. I know you think he walks on water and so on, but I promise you I know what I'm talking about.” She turned and started throwing things around, scattering papers as she looked for something. He wished he could give her pills to calm her down. “That voice—I know that accent. He's a German. That's a German accent. Very polished, very continental and all. But—no wonder nobody's caught him. You think he's the bloody Pope around here!"

  “Hey, don't get pissed at me. I didn't do anything."

  “Look at this,” she said, having found one of the circulars.

  “Yeah?"

  “Shit, don't you see. That could easily be Shtolz. God almightly I don't believe this."

  Ray picked up the piece of paper and looked at it. “That could easily be Shtolz? That is Shtolz, Sharon. What are you saying?"

  “I mean Royal, goddammit hell shit, Royal Royal DOCTOR ROYAL AHHH Royal AWWWW—” into a wail of sobbing, gasping, pure, unadulterated rage. He tried to hold her and she jerked away, stomping into the bathroom and slamming the door so hard that a man in the adjacent room, a visiting salesman out of Allen, Texas, thought for a second that a car had crashed through the wall.

  Meara stood there looking stupid, shaking his head, thinking what a way he had with women, then went out the door to take care of business.

  By the time he returned to the motel the woman who opened the door was a calmer Sharon Kamen. She'd pulled herself together.

  “Come on in, Ray,” she said, a bit sheepishly. “I just got—weirded out."

  “I understand,” he said, going in and sitting down on the edge of one of the chairs.

  “Upset over Dad. Sorry I took it out on you."

  “No big deal."

  “Over and done with,” she said, sitting down in the other sling chair. There was a small, laminated-plastic-top table, two cultures, and half a generation—maybe eight hundred miles—between them, and Meara felt chilled, and wanted desperately to aid her in some way. To be of value.

  “I wish I could help you, babe."

  “I know you do,” she said, and reached for his hand, lightly touching hers against the back of his. “You're a honeybun. You've been a big help. A big help.” She seemed crestfallen.

  “Listen, how'd you like to go for a boat ride? Just to get your mind off things for a while?"

  “Thanks.” She shook her head. “I just think I want to be by myself, Ray. You mind?"

  “No, of course not.” He got up and she was at the door with him. “I'm going on in, so, if you want or need me for anything, let me give you a number."

  She said fine, got a pen, and wrote down the number at his friend's house.

  “That's Pee Wee Kimbro. His place is at Mark Forks, where the water begins. If you need me just tell Pee Wee or Betty, all right? They'll come get me."

  “Thanks,” she said, and turned her face up for a kiss, but when he kissed her she didn't put anything into it. He didn't care and kissed her again, trying to inject all the promise there was into the kiss. He told her he'd see her tomorrow and left.

  The second she heard his pickup growl out of the motel parking lot she was back in the bathroom with the book. Sharon knew now that whatever got done she would have to do alone. Nobody would believe her. She had to force Emil Shtolz into action. When her rage subsided again and a ray of logic penetrated the anger, she realized how unwise it was to confront him by herself, but as her father had been drawn to the clinic alone, so she now felt committed to pursuing him. What were her options? Neither the local cops nor Ray would give her the benefit of the doubt.

  She thought about the words Young's Pharmacy on what had presumably been a package containing prescription medicines, shipped to her father from St. Louis. A pile of junk mail and a package bearing a St. Louis USPS rubber stamp: Opened and Remailed By Bulk Shipping Center, the drugstore name visible underneath. It had originally been sent from Bayou City.

  She held the book, a diary or journal in German. Two hundred pages. Small: four by six inches. Three quarters of an inch thick. Faded, soiled green leather. Brass metal corners and a brass lock, which was unlocked.

  An ornate eagle with spread wings, seated atop a circular emblem with a swastika on it, was stamped in gold. Below the Nazi symbol, deeply stamped in Germanic black letters: NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHE DEUTSCHE ARBEITERPARTEI, and in large, flowing letters in embossed gold—

  L E B E N S B O R N

  She leafed through a few pages of writing, recognizing the word Geheim. She could make out isolated phrases here and there but she cursed her inability to read the journal as her father could have. It apparently was the diary of the missing woman, something she'd managed to ship to Sharon's father before they both disappeared. This had ended up in the hands of the bulk shippers, whoever they were, in St. Louis. Perhaps it had come open in transit. This explained the delay in its being forwarded.

  She tried to think. The title meant something like life force or love force: born of love, born of life, fountain of the newborn? Living birth? She tried to force a plausible translation, her frustration mounting. Whom could she show this to?

  There was a number she had once written down in her directory at home. A mysterious phone number that her father had been so serious about—someone who was to be called only by him, and only in emergency situations. He'd made vague allusions at the time, implying the guy was maybe Mossad, and it had frightened Sharon. She wished she had the number now.

  She felt zombie-like. It was as if she were in some limbo world where life hung suspended. She could move, talk, see, react, do things, but her actions affected nothing. The real world spun on as she playacted out her inconsequential moves ... a chess game with an invisible, intangible player. If she on
ly had the balls to do what her dad would have done under similar circumstances. She wished she hadn't been so quick to condemn his old-fashioned ways. Sometimes the old ways were the only ways. The German phrase he'd once taught her, verdrängte schuld, repressed guilt, came back to taunt her.

  The anger and frustration welled up inside and she snatched at the slim Bayou City-East Prairie-Charleston phone directory and began flipping through pages to the Rs. There the bastard was—twice:

  ROYAL, Solomon D.O., Royal Clinic, and the number. Below that, Residence 709 West Vine and the phone number. She dialed furiously, then remembered she had to call the operator first, and dialed nine.

  “Desk?"

  “Please dial a number for me, a local call.” She gave the home phone. She'd tell that son of a bitch she knew who he was. She was on his trail. Make the bastard sweat.

  The line was ringing. She knew it was a recording even before she heard the voice say, “I am away from the telephone right now. If this is a medical emergency, please call the following numbers—” Probably something he put on the phone in the evenings so he wouldn't be bothered. She'd bother his Nazi ass, all right.

  She knew she could find West Vine easily. And just as certainly she knew Royal had done something to her dad. He'd pay in spades.

  First things first. She got the lady back on the telephone and said, “I have something I want given to Mr. Meara. I was wondering, could I ask you to hold a package for him?"

  “Sure,” she said.

  Sharon thanked her and asked for the number Ray had given her. She'd decided how she'd proceed, just in those fleeting seconds of coming to terms with her own repressed guilt.

  “Yea-lo,” a woman's voice sang out on the other end of the line.

  “Hello. Is this the Pee Wee Kimbro residence?"

  “Yes?” the woman answered suspiciously.

  “Is Pee Wee there?"

  “Yes,” she said, almost grudgingly.

  “May I speak with him please?"

  “Who's this?"

  “My name's Sharon Kamen.” Nothing. “I'm a friend of Raymond Meara."

  “Oh! Ray's friend. Why didn't you say so, Sharon. I'm sorry, we don't like some of these sales pitches that you get now from strangers."

  “Sure. Me either. I wanted to tell Pee Wee something."

  “Sharon, Pee Wee done left already. He said he was havin’ trouble with the trailer so he's gone on down to the water to wait for Ray."

  “You think Ray might come by there first?"

  “He might."

  “If he does, would you tell him something, and this is real important, Mrs. Kimbro. There's a package I want him to do something about. It's at the motel office.” She sensed the message would be so confused by the time he got it there'd be no point in trying to explain further. She'd put a note in about getting it translated and so forth. “Please tell Ray the package is waiting for him at the motel office, will you?"

  The woman repeated the message back and Sharon thanked her.

  54

  Although Chaingang had body parts that could be described as merely larger than normal, his torso, arms, and legs were so big that sometimes, when he was at his heaviest weight, he at first resembled a Macy's float that had broken loose from its tethers. A killer blimp with legs the size of giant tree trunks could hardly stuff its parts into off-the-rack clothing. The beast had a twenty-six-inch neck, for example, and his upper biceps, if flexed, would simply rip the seams from any sleeve of a standard work shirt, however extra stout.

  At the time he was first heading east across Missouri, he'd changed to his driving clothes, a white T-shirt size XXXXXL, size fifty-eight fatigue pants, and 15EEEEE work boots.

  The duffel and weapons case were filled with ordnance, ammo, a torn-down piece, claymore mines, det gear, Tupperware-housed emergency edibles, and the staples of daily living, his bush tarp, poncho, fighting Bowie, a small tool shop, a mobile triage, all his survival equipment that permitted him to rove as a one-man gang, the whole nine yards from toilet paper to Tabasco sauce. There were some spare socks, shorts, odds and ends, but he tended to operate with few changes of clothing.

  The stuff he was wearing had reached its limit. His clothes were about to fall off him and, even after a cold sponge bath perched on the muddy edge of a swollen creek bed, he was so rank he was even grossing out his own olfactory senses. He had to get clean and get pretty.

  It was time to find one of the special outlets that catered to the superhumongous. He pulled off to the side of the road and found a pair of small directories chained to an old-time pay telephone. His flawless gyro was once again operational and he deduced that a big man's clothier was within driving distance.

  He got back in the vehicle, which was irritating him more and more by the mile, and continued on, a posted sign warning him as he approached a bridge, Over 36 Tons 15MPH. It was hard to read.

  He felt himself growing more pissed by the second. He slobbered on his fingers and savagely wiped them across the encrusted lid of his bad eye. After some hard wiping the eye reluctantly opened. His vision was hazy but at least he could see better. Oh, yes, someone would pay for all this shit. He gritted his shark fangs and kept driving. Over the next slight hill, as if to further goad him, he drove into water. A solid sheet of water covered the highway completely.

  Anyone else would have turned around. He didn't pause for a heartbeat, simply gripped the old pickup's steering wheel in a tight ten o'clock, eased up slightly on the gas pedal, and aimed her into the blue. Somehow his compass kept him on the unfamiliar road and in a couple of minutes he drove out of it. A mile later he came to another stream but it was faster-moving and obviously deeper. What the fuck, he thought, and roared into it full tilt, the truck smoking as if it were on fire.

  Water shot from the prow of the pickup in two high and rather disconcerting wings. No way was he going to make it. Should he go back? No, he decided. Quickly as he could, wedged under a steering wheel by his massive gut and Detroit's midget draftsmen, he managed to wiggle out of his combat booties and socks, which he placed on the passenger seat. His timing was unerring: within a few seconds the high water drowned out the engine. It was a good fifty yards to the other side. He wrapped the shotgun and weapons case in the huge bush tarp, jammed that and his boots into the top of the massive duffel, retrieved some duct tape from the bag as an afterthought, and taped the edge of the bush tarp as tight around the outside top of the whole container as he could, smashing the driver's side door open.

  It was all he could do to muscle the door back enough to get out in the moving water and he got two shocks, first when the cold water hit groin level with an icy slap, and second when he grabbed the towering load and stepped out into the water. The force of the current nearly took him off his feet.

  Tall, stout trees of various types, ages, and sizes grew nearby in the road ditches, but nothing short of the threat of drowning could have induced him to try to unwrap the taped bush tarp and balance a stolen Remington and the weapons case while he rummaged for his big blade. He decided to improvise. He worked the previously owned shotgun out, racked shells into the water, and used the empty weapon as a makeshift cane, the duffel and weapons case slung over his shoulder. With a fireplug-thick arm curled around his gear, one hand helping to steady his bulk, he began to negotiate the swift-moving water with dainty little steps, his bare feet on the pavement, an ox yoked to an elongated duffel bag.

  He made it out of the water and sat on his stuff, exhausted from the effort, rubbing the muscles in his powerful legs. A lesser man would have had to swim toward the nearest down-current bank, but Chaingang's legs were used to routinely lifting and moving a quarterton load and they stood up under the challenge.

  When he'd rested for a bit he dried his feet, put on socks and boots, pitched the Remington, and began humping down the road in his rather comical waddling, limping gait. An eternity later he was at the Bayou City shopping mall.

  Porky's Big Fashions occupie
d a boxcar-like space between a video store and an empty storefront, and when he squinted his good eye, the sign looked like Porky Pig Fatshits to him. Even the signage was poking at him, conspiring to enrage the clownish bear. They would pay dearly, all of them. He spat, belched expansively, a mighty halitotic regurgitation that fouled the air around him, adjusted both his load and his package, and waddled toward Porky's, cutting wet farts.

  What must the store owner and his clerk have thought when this ... thing blew into their sanctum sanctorum? The manager-owner, young Ryan Sneeden, was back in his office and Mrs. Schecter was at the cash register working on receipts. Wynton Marsalis's “The Very Thought of You” and central heat whooshed at roughly equal decibel levels. Suddenly there was a loud slam as a huge, incredibly dirty person blundered through the doors.

  “May I help you?” Mrs. Schecter asked in the frosty tone she reserved for people who came in looking to use the bathroom and so on. No response. The thing was lumbering through the store, seemingly oblivious to her, touching the garments as he moved by the clothing racks, leaving his scent everywhere. He was like a steer or bull or something, an animal that had wandered in off the street. A rank stench, not of sewers, but an equally sulfurous and deadly toxicity of unthinkable body odor assaulted her patrician nose. “Are you looking for something?"

  He pulled apparel off racks. Anything that looked big enough. He was trying things on before she could stop him. This monstrosity of a blubber gut in a filthy T-shirt with ... was that blood on it?

  Ryan Sneeden sensed, perhaps smelled, something foul and came out blinking, a curly headed little boy of a young man in his mid twenties, a big fake stewardess smile in place. “Hi. How you doing today?” Neither he nor Mrs. Schecter had ever seen a creature such as this in the store, nor had they been ignored in so rude a manner. Sneeden found it quite distasteful and went back in his office, shutting and locking the door.

  The intruder had a pair of bib overalls that looked like about a size fifty-eight. A pair of XXXXXL jeans that appeared to be about six feet across the ass. T-shirts. A belt made from the entire length of a large dead cow. He plopped them up on the counter, frightening Mrs. Schecter half to death. She didn't know whether to ask would there be anything else, would it be cash or charge, or please go away and permit me to inhale. The beastly stink was quite unbearable up close.