by Ben Rehder
I had a pretty good idea now who Cecil Lynch had phoned.
The men stepped into a pool of light, and I saw that the little guy was around forty, with one of those pissed-off faces, like he’d eaten something that disagreed with him and never gotten over it. Down-turned mouth, sunken cheeks and bleary eyes with dark circles under them. He wore a loose black golf shirt and smudged tattoos on his skinny forearms. His dark hair was Brylcreemed into the kind of high-rise, labor-intensive pompadour you don’t see much anymore. The glinting steel brace around his left calf attached to a black oxford with a built-up sole.
His partner was a few inches taller than me and probably went three hundred pounds. He seemed assembled from large slabs, as if someone had animated a pile of rocks. His thick arms hung at his sides, weighed down by massive hands. Each of his blunt fingers looked as big around as my wrist. His head was a round boulder topped by a gray bristle of lichen-like hair.
The thing that got me, though, was a growth on his right cheek. Some kind of a flat wen, the size of a silver dollar. In the center, a warty thing poked out, so it looked like he had a large brown nipple on his cheek. I couldn’t help but stare.
“The hell you looking at?” he rumbled.
“Take it easy, Hubert,” the smaller guy said.
“I’m not talking to you, Wayne. I’m talkin’ to this asshole here.”
“I, um—”
“You staring at something? You got something you want to say?”
“Not me. I was just leaving. That’s my truck.”
“We know that.” Wayne had a way of talking out of the side of his mouth that made me want to look past his shoulder. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
I was very careful to keep my eyes fixed on the smaller guy.
“You’re Eric Newlin, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“You saw that wreck here tonight.”
“That’s right. But I’ve already told the police everythin—”
“You think we’re cops?” This seemed to amuse Wayne. He looked up at his partner. “He thinks we’re cops.”
Hubert glared at me. I did not stare at his face nipple.
“Not exactly,” I said. “I meant I already told the police about that wreck, and frankly, I’m tired of talking about it.”
“He’s tired of talking about it,” Wayne said to Hubert. “He talked to the cops and now he’s tired.”
I frowned at him. “What are you, my interpreter?”
Wham! Something hit the side of my head, so powerful and quick, I didn’t see it coming. I found myself sitting on the asphalt, my head loose on my neck.
“Don’t talk back.” Hubert towered over me. “And don’t stare.”
I closed my eyes, but that only made me dizzier. I blinked them open again and focused on Wayne as he said, “You need to come with us.”
“What?”
“Get up.”
I gathered my wits enough to say, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Hit him again, Hubert.”
Everything went black.
Chapter 7
I groaned as I came to, and someone said, “Just hold still.”
Wayne’s voice.
I was lying on my side in the back of a speeding van. The floor was covered in shag carpet that reeked of motor oil and beer. It did little to cushion the bumps as we rocketed over potholes.
I wrenched my aching head around so I could see the front of the van, where the bucket seats were occupied by Hubert, a shadowy hulk behind the wheel, and Wayne, who pointed a revolver at me.
“What the hell is this?” I spouted as I raised up on one elbow. “Where are you taking me?”
“Didn’t I say hold still?” Wayne said. “That goes double for your mouth. Shut up and this’ll be over before you know it.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Were these yahoos planning to kill me? I hadn’t done anything to them, had never seen them before. All I’d done was witness a car wreck. A strange one, sure, but I didn’t—
Then it hit me. These guys must’ve been in that black Dodge. They’d somehow caused that crash, and now they were getting rid of the only witness.
“Hey, fellas, I don’t know what you think I saw, but you don’t have to—”
“What part of ‘shut up’ do you not understand?”
I shut up.
Hubert’s broad shoulders jiggled, like he was suppressing laughter. That made my blood boil, but what could I do? Not like I could make a grab for the door and leap out into the night. We must’ve been going sixty miles an hour.
The van had no side windows. I peered out the windshield, trying to get my bearings, but could see only hilly highway illuminated by the headlights, the occasional oak reaching its leafy boughs over the road. Out in the country, but I couldn’t tell where.
Redding is an urban oasis of ninety thousand souls plopped down in California’s version of the Ozarks. Go ten miles out of town in any direction, and you get the itchy feeling the woods are full of banjo-plucking goobers with bunkers full of automatic weapons and military rations and Geiger counters and videotapes of Bigfoot.
Goobers like these two in the front seats.
Hubert hit the brakes. I sat up, looking for the handle to the side door, but Wayne clicked back the hammer on the revolver, and I remembered to keep still.
The van bumped onto a narrow dirt road and rattled over washboard ruts, which made me nervous about that cocked hammer.
“Almost there,” Wayne said.
“Where?”
“The boss wants a word with you.”
I peered out the windshield at the impenetrable tangle of buckbrush and manzanita that crowded the road. What the hell kind of “boss” would live out here in the woods?
Hubert slowed as the van skidded over a rise. In a clearing below, a rambling house spilled light out its many windows. It had a pitched roof with deep, shadowy eaves and a screened-in front porch. Cars and trucks were parked in the dirt near a white propane tank shaped like a cigar. The abrupt silhouettes of sheds and barns stood out against the dark forest. Dogs were penned up somewhere, barking and baying.
We stopped by the front steps. Wayne kept the gun on me while Hubert got out and slid open the side door of the matte-black van. He grasped my arm in one of his meaty paws and dragged me out. I barely kept my feet under me as he marched me up the steps, Wayne on our heels.
Someone was yelling in the house. A woman, screechy and mad. Sounded enough like Darlene to make me cringe.
Hubert dragged me across the screened-in porch and into a large living room. The square room had a hardwood floor under an oval rug and a stone fireplace under an elk head with huge antlers. Glassy-eyed hunting trophies decorated all the paneled walls, along with paintings of ducks in flight. Weathered leather armchairs sat in a circle around a coffee table fashioned of lacquered pine slabs. The place reeked of cigarette smoke and stale sweat and testosterone.
To my left stood a blond woman in her twenties, her hands on her slim hips, her fox-featured face flushed with anger. She was dressed in shorts and a man’s plaid shirt with the sleeves sliced away. The shirt tails were tied under her ample breasts, exposing a tanned, toned midriff. She looked like Daisy Mae or Daisy Duke or some other daisy. But madder than hell.
The object of her wrath was an average-sized man sitting in a chair facing the door. He wore faded jeans, cowboy boots and a blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His tanned forearms were peppered with scars and ropy with muscle. His black hair was salted with gray, and he wore it slicked straight back from a square forehead. But the most striking thing was his thick mustache. The left side was mostly black, with just a few flecks of gray, but the right half was stark white. A remarkable mustache, but Hubert had taught me a lesson about staring. I looked away, back to the ferocious blonde, who shrieked at the mustached man: “You are a ridiculous shitbag, and I refuse to have anything more to do with you!”
She stomped past Hubert and Wayne and me. The man with the mustache stayed calmly in his chair, one leg crossed over the other. I opened my mouth to say something, but he held up a finger.
“Wait for it.”
Wham! The screen door banged shut.
He smiled and said, “That woman does love to slam a door.”
An engine cranked up outside and tires growled, throwing gravel.
“Boss,” Wayne said behind me, “Melanie’s taking off in your blue truck. Want me to stop her?”
“Let her go. She’ll come back when she’s cooled off.”
Hubert shoved me forward a couple of steps, a retriever presenting his master with a dead duck. The boss let the smile slip off his face.
“You must be Eric Newlin,” he said. “The boys phoned me about you. Take a seat.”
Hubert roughly threw me into the armchair across from the boss, who sized me up while I straightened my clothes and pushed my hair back from my sweaty forehead.
“You know who I am?” he asked finally.
“No. But I know I don’t like the way I was brought here. This is kidnapping and—”
Something heavy slammed down on top of my head. My vision went blurry.
“Stop that, Hubert,” the boss said. “No need to hurt him. Long as he behaves himself.”
He waited until I focused my eyes before he said, “My name’s Rydell Vance. Do you know that name?”
I knew better than to mouth off again. I shook my head.
“Just as well,” he said. “You and me, we don’t have much in common. Probably never see each other again, if this conversation goes right.”
Nothing would’ve made me happier, but I didn’t say so.
“I understand you were the only person to witness the unfortunate demise of Butch Gentry tonight,” he said. “Is that right?”
“So I’m told.”
His brow creased. “Did you see that wreck or not?”
“Yes, sir, I saw it. I meant, as far as I know, I am the only witness.”
His fingers did a little dance of impatience on the arms of the chair. “Tell me what you saw.”
I did, omitting any mention of the black Dodge. When I was done, he loosed a low whistle.
“Went right over your head?”
“Missed me by inches.”
“You’re lucky to be alive.”
“I thought so, too. Until these two showed up and slapped me around. Now I’m not so sure.”
Rydell Vance cocked his head to the side. Amusement flickered in his dark eyes.
“You’re still better off,” he said. “Alive is always better than dead. Trust me on that.”
I swallowed, but said nothing. He waited a second, then said, “That’s the whole story?”
“That’s it.”
“And that’s what you told the cops.”
“Word for word.”
“Hmm.” He pondered that a moment. “You didn’t see any other cars?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
Hubert shifted behind me. I flinched, but Rydell shot a look over my head and the blow didn’t come.
“And that’s what you told the police,” he said again.
I nodded, not wanting to risk another whack.
Rydell slapped his thighs with his hands, which made me jump.
“Well, then,” he said, “I guess we don’t have any problem with you. I apologize if the boys were rough. I told them to ask you to come visit me, but I guess they did a little more than ask. I’m sure you understand.”
I understood plenty, including the fact that I’d better play along if I wanted to leave this hillbilly hideaway in one piece.
“Sure,” I said. “A simple mistake.”
“That’s right. No hard feelings?”
I shook my head.
“Atta boy.” He smoothed his two-toned mustache. “Knew you’d see it my way. You seem like a smart fella.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I sat still.
“A smart fella like you doesn’t look for trouble.” Ice crept into his tone. “A smart fella knows when to keep his mouth shut. You go right on being smart, and I bet you live to a ripe old age.”
He plucked a red pack of Winstons out of his shirt pocket, shook one out, and lit it with well-practiced motions. He blew smoke out the corner of his mouth. Pointed the cigarette at me as he said, “Hubert will drive you back into town, and we’ll pretend none of this ever happened. All right?”
“Sure.”
“Go on then.”
I got to my feet, Hubert breathing down my neck, and walked out the front door. I glanced back as I crossed the screened-in porch. Rydell Vance still watched me from within his halo of smoke.
Chapter 8
Hubert drove me to The Busted Nut in silence. I rode up front, but made a point of not looking at him. That nipple was on the cheek facing me, and I didn’t want to get caught staring.
The ride gave me a better idea of where Rydell Vance’s place was located. After we reached the paved road, I saw a sign that said we were on Highway 299, which runs northeast through woodland communities like Bella Vista, Ingot and Round Mountain. Rydell’s place had seemed isolated, but we’d only been eight or nine miles out of Redding, and I soon saw city lights up ahead.
Hubert hunched over the steering wheel, his nose nearly touching the flat windshield of the old Econoline van. When we stopped at an intersection, I thought about making a run for it, but he no longer seemed interested in hurting me. Dropping me off was just another chore.
After we bounced into the Nut’s parking lot, he wrestled the van to a stop near my truck and said, “Get out.”
Didn’t have to say it twice. I jumped out, and the van bounded into the street and disappeared.
The parking lot was nearly empty. Late for drinking on a Tuesday, even at the Nut. I briefly entertained the notion of going inside for a quick snort to settle my nerves, but shook that idea right out of my head. Nothing but trouble at this place for me tonight.
I wearily climbed into my pickup, cranked the engine and headed for home. My head was so busy with Rydell Vance and cocked revolvers and flying Corvettes, I paid no attention to the ten-minute drive. My hands and eyes and feet managed steep, crooked Quartz Hill Road on their own.
I snapped to attention as I steered into my driveway. The lights were off. Maybe Darlene had gone to bed. I cut the headlights and coasted to a stop.
I tiptoed to the front door. Inside, I stepped out of my loafers so I could pad around silently. I eased across the dark living room and poured myself a drink and stood there, sipping and deciding what to do next.
No way would I take a chance on waking Darlene. Let sleeping bitches lie.
I pulled out my shirttail and slumped onto the nearest sofa, yawning, my eyes watering.
What a fucked-up night. I wondered whether I should tell Darlene about my meeting with Rydell Vance. She probably wouldn’t believe me. She’d think I was making excuses to cover up late-night carousing. Or, she’d want me to go to the cops, and I had no proof I’d been kidnapped. I’d have to tell them what Rydell, Wayne and Hubert wanted with me. I’d have to explain why I failed to mention the black Dodge. I could only imagine Chief Drake’s reaction.
Ah, well, it was over now. Maybe I could pretend tonight never happened. Keep it to myself. Maybe I could keep my mouth shut – for a change.
I set my glass on the floor and lay back on the sofa and conked out.
Chapter 9
Sunbeams slanted through the living room windows when I awoke. My face was bathed in warm sweat. I sat up too fast and found a piercing headache waiting for me. I sat still, eyes closed. The pain settled to a rhythmic thudding, like a car with a flat tire. This was more than a hangover’s familiar pressure at the temples. Felt like my skull was cracked. I ran my hands through my damp hair, feeling for lumps, finding only a couple of tender places on my scalp.
/> I stifled a groan as I wrenched to my feet. My back felt stiff and my hips creaked. Fucking sofa, lousy for sleeping. Even Darlene’s furniture had it in for me.
I went down the hall and peeked in the bedroom. No Darlene. The rumpled bed looked inviting, but I was already late for work.
She wasn’t in the spare bedroom she used as a home gym, full of expensive machines where she spent countless hours perspiring in front of a full-length mirror. No note on the kitchen counter (and no fresh coffee, either). I went through the kitchen to the garage and peeked in there. Her sporty Lexus – another gift from Daddy – was gone.
Good. I didn’t have time for another confrontation.
I went into the bathroom and ate aspirin and brushed my teeth and threw water on my face. My eyes were bloodshot and I had a carpet burn on my cheek. My hair stuck up all over. I slicked it down with water, but it rose again, and I opted for a baseball cap that said “Honeydew Construction” on the front. Everything I owned was stamped with my father-in-law’s name. I should’ve had “Property of Bart Honeydew” tattooed on my forehead.
I put on a fresh shirt and tie, and brushed off my wrinkled khakis. Then I hustled through the living room and stepped into my shoes.
My keys had fallen out of my pocket during the night, and it took a minute of rifling through couch cushions before I turned them up. Then I went out into the much-too-bright sunshine, climbed into my truck and roared off to work.
I stopped for a drive-thru coffee on the way, and it was well after ten before I reached the office.
Honeydew Construction occupied a one-story building on Redwood Avenue, halfway across town from The Busted Nut. The building had the same tan stucco, pale carpet and brown shingles that decorated so many Honeydew homes. Bart was a strong believer in buying in bulk. If the whole city took on a boring suburban sameness, too bad.
I hurried into the air-conditioned building – Christ, it was nearly a hundred degrees outside already – and blew by the reception desk. The hall took me past the open door of Bart’s office, but I made a point of not looking in. Whistling past the graveyard.