“Fuck freaked. Let’s go with angry.”
“I didn’t do it. They knew already. I led them along, thinking there might be money in it, ya? That’s me. I’m not crazy, Billy.”
I floated an arc around him, checking the doors to the front room and the hall, everything else in the trailer dark and cold except for the kerosene lamp beside Vis on the counter. When close enough I picked up his rifle, a .22, and pulled back the bolt, emptied the chamber. “You thought this would protect you?”
“It’s all I’ve got.”
I tossed it to the ground. “What happened to the Glock?”
Shrugged. “Pawned it. Pawning a lot these days. I was going to tell you soon as I had the goods.”
“What are you pouring out over there?”
“Ammonia. Just…stuff.”
That explained the piss stink. I didn’t want to ask about the dead animals.
If he was shutting down this lab, this particular one and not the others, this must have been where Trigger and Spaceman were killed. Could be it was the only lab the Asians knew about.
“Business on the skids?”
“Please stop pointing the gun at me. Please.” Chattering teeth.
“How could they know about me unless you told them? I don’t get it. They’re all over my people, my friends. Better tell me something that makes more sense.”
“But I swear, I thought you might already—” His eyes flicked over my shoulder. Shit. I hadn’t heard a thing.
I mean, was he psyching me out? Trying to distract me? Should I turn around?
I had no time because a second later, I was lashed across the back by pure steel.
My whole body tightened and I spun on my heel. The girl was swinging back the dog chain for another shot. Aimed for my face. Saw the gun at the last second, tried to switch. I held up my arm and the chain snapped on the skin and wrapped over, the loop on the end thumping my skull.
She pulled back. The chain raked. She said, “Grab him, will ya?”
No arms from behind. Vis wasn’t as stupid as I thought.
My arm throbbed but I lifted the gun and was going to fire, I swear, but she got her aim right. The chain split the skin across my hand and I dropped the gun. No way to hold on when it felt like that, like a goddamned buzzsaw. Fell on my ass and cradled the bleeding hand even though my inner voice screamed Gun gun gun gun gun!
She moved for it first. I reached out and came up short. She kicked my arm and lifted the revolver in both hands, finally lifting it enough that she’d blow my foot off with a lucky shot.
I slackened, took a deep breath. “Okay, okay, take it easy. I wasn’t going to hurt him. No one’s going to hurt you. We’re all going to be just fine.”
“Shut up, asshole! Stay right there, don’t fucking move!” All TV talk. I got a good look finally. She wore filthy tennis shoes and long thermal underwear. A thick Columbia jacket over that. I guessed nothing beneath. She had a thick neck. Her face was pitted with acne and scars. Brown wiry hair. She’d been in the back bedroom.
“Baby, come help me,” she said. “We need to kill him.”
Vis groaned, crossed his arms. He stepped over beside her, took a weak glance at me, then shook his head. “Haley, how many times do I got to tell you? You can’t shoot the police.”
*
Haley kept the gun on me while Vis tied my hands and feet with a nasty god-knows-what-stained sheet he tore into strips. I should have exerted a little more intimidation--walk over, take my gun, tell the girl she shouldn’t play with dangerous toys. After Vis cocked the hammer and told her the trigger would be easier to squeeze that way, I kept my mouth shut. I’d seen accidents happen from much less stress.
I was tied tight, but had held my hands together in a way that gave me a little wiggle room. I started working on the knot as soon as Vis shoved me against the wall and down to the floor.
“What are you doing?” I whispered to him.
“Don’t talk, all right? I don’t want her tweaking any more than she already is. It’s just for show.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“I told you to shut up.” He wiped his face, shook his head all agitated. The girl was pointing the gun at the floor, the weight of it defeating her.
“Why can’t I shoot him? He knows our names and everything.”
I spoke up. “Who? What? I can forget everything, look the other way. Ask your man. I’m good at that.”
She glanced over.
“Yeah, he’s solid, babe.”
“So if that’s the deal, then why was he pointing that gun at you?”
Vis was fidgety. “You know, those guys. Those guys. They stepped out of bounds. I don’t understand it.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“Can’t you shut up?”
“Where are you going to go? You have money?”
Haley lifted the gun another few inches but gave up and let it slide. She said, “Course we do. Still some left. Baby, there’s some money, you said.”
He lifted his shoulders, pinched them, made a cramped face. “Some.”
“What money?” I said.
“They gave me money. Listen, it’s easy. They don’t want to deal with you. All this stuff happening to you? Just a warning. Scare you away from their operation.”
“Fucking warning? Didn’t you see them kill Trigger and Spaceman? Ian puts you right there.”
“They shouldn’t have followed him. It’s business, that’s all. A rough business.”
I got loud. “They murdered Drew’s whole band! She’s the only one survived.”
Vis paled. Haley’s eyes grew wide. She said, “Elvis Antichrist?”
“God. Damn.”
Haley’s tears ran black from her mascara. “No, that’s…no.”
Vis said, “Um, the guitar player is Haley’s brother.”
He wrapped her tight in his arms while she cried and babbled, saying it wasn’t true and she needed to call him and I was lying. Vis knew better. I had assumed he knew about the band. If not that, what else did these bastards have in store for me?
“I need your info, man. I can help you both if you’ll give me the guns to bring them down.”
Haley broke away and got her strength back. The gun up. The barrel in my face. She stood over me and I nearly pissed my pants.
“You! It’s all because of you!”
“I didn’t—”
“Fuckin’ cop thinks he’s one of us, but he’s not! And you killed my brother!”
“I loved your brother! All of them! Their biggest fan.”
“No, liar! You’re a liar!”
The finger on the trigger was moving. She was going to do it. All the meth in her system clouding her judgement, the sleeplessness and the paranoia and the grief and the power of the gun—
I shouted “Vis! Jesus!”
He grabbed her arms and pushed them to the left just as the muzzle flashed, detonated, and I threw all my weight to the right. One painful note rang in my skull. Hurt to breathe. Opened my eyes again. Vis gripped Haley in a bear hug. She was screaming, but I couldn’t hear it. She squirmed and fought. He held fast. My gun was on the ground.
The slug had ripped open the wall a couple of feet above where my head had been. I took another deep breath. My jaw ached.
Vis was telling me something. I heard muffled words, no sense to any of them. Noise is all. A minute later he lifted Haley under his wing and grabbed one kerosene lamp, extinguished the other. Said something else to me, but I only caught “Sorry…if you…but I can’t. I have to think about myself.”
“What?”
“Good luck. I’m sorry.”
He left with Haley still bawling and weak-legged. They went out the front, left me in darkness, the smell of ammonia and deer rot making me gag, stinging my eyes. I admit it—I was scared. Worked one wrist out of the rag, desperate to get the hell out of these woods. No telling what tweakers and fucking loons would soon be breaking in looking for a p
lace to sleep. They’d strip me bare, shoot me without any of Haley’s hesitation. Maybe even cook my meat if things were that bad out here. I struggled while listening to the Probe come to life, rev a few times, and then take off too fast down the dirt road. I hoped he wouldn’t slash my tires or set the truck on fire.
My hands freed, I worked on the knot around my ankles, much tighter than the wrists. The cold was getting to me. I hadn’t shook like that since I’d kicked cigarettes cold turkey. Fumbled, couldn’t loosen the rag. Tore a fingernail trying to wedge it into the knot. Useless. I searched for something sharp, or a stick, or anything. That’s when footsteps echoed on the stepladder outside and then thumped across the front room. They were coming. I had five bullets left now.
I reached for the gun, had to stretch out for it, footsteps closer. Once it was in my hand I swung around just as the steps stopped and I felt someone staring down at me. I aimed at a familiar tall black man. Rome, head of security at Jackpot Harvest.
He was aiming back, a chrome automatic.
“Well, well,” he said. “And here I thought I was going to find you dead.”
THIRTEEN
Rome cut me loose with his pocketknife. I relaxed, felt suddenly very tired. Still too much to do before I could sleep.
“Were you following me?”
“Perfect hiking weather. Cold as my ex-wife and black as my skin.”
I’d only ever seen him dressed to the nines at the casino. Here he was decked out in black jeans, black jacket, Timberlands, also black. He knew a thing or two about blending in.
“I would say thanks, but since I’m a little pissed that you didn’t catch those bitches and didn’t rush in when you heard the shot—”
“Again, thought you’d already be dead. If I hadn’t heard the conversation, I would’ve probably killed you myself the way things have been heading.”
“What things? What have I ever done to you?”
He stood from his crouch, held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me up. Knees aching. The big bad-ass going soft. I shoved my gun into my waistband and crossed my arms. Waiting.
He said, “How about I take you home? Pretend this was a dream.”
Shook my head. “Not going to happen.”
He sighed through his nose and tapped his gun barrel against his forehead before slipping it back into a shoulder holster. Yeah, that was a surprise. People with shoulder holsters usually don’t play well with others, especially me.
“Some sort of fed, right?” I said. “DEA?”
He started laughing, strong and long. I smiled but couldn’t join in. I didn’t get the joke.
“You’re not going to tell me? Would you like me to arrest you for trespassing or something?”
He laid a hand on my shoulder, wiped away the water in his eyes with the other hand. “Damn, you’re a hillbilly. You seen that movie In the Heat of the Night? Poitier and that other guy…damn I forgot his name.”
“The fat white guy?”
“Yeah, but he was a big star, too. He was in Oklahoma. Anyway, you’ve seen it?”
“I like that movie.”
In his best Poitier, Rome said, “ ‘They call me Mis-tah Tibbs!’ “ Another burst of laughter.
“What about it?”
Rome squeezed my shoulder. “That’s pretty much this right here, except I’m smarter than Sidney and you’re not stupid enough to call me ‘boy’.”
I shrugged his hand off and turned for the back door. “I’m not your fucking punchline, so you’d better get your ass far away before I stop being gracious, boy.”
He pointed a finger in my face. “I knew it! I knew you were going to do that. Son of a bitch, you’re predictable as Old Faithful. Look, come with me for a minute. I want to show you something.”
“I don’t have time.”
“Yeah, you do. You’re not going to find any Asian gangsters out in these woods tonight, and you’re not going to find that little runt Ian and his hippie girlfriend either. But if you come with me, I’ll show you what you can find.”
I was stunned. Guy I thought was a simple security guard at a shitty casino in the cornfields knew the whole score. Or thought he did.
*
We passed my truck. The tires were fine. Tweakers too lit to think of details like that. Real life ain’t like TV. Once we made the asphalt, I saw the same black Suburban I’d nearly sideswiped when I started searching earlier in the day.
“Didn’t I nearly—?”
“That was me.” He led me around back, clicked a button on his keychain to open the tailgate. Inside was an Igloo cooler. “Take a look.”
Things were moving too fast for me to step back and think things through. I didn’t need what happened next, though. I really didn’t.
Slid the top to the side. Resting on a bed of ice was a wet, dead, blonde girl’s head. I stumbled, fell, kicked myself up again and made a noise like a burned baby. “Th’ fuck? What? How did you? Fuck!”
He replaced the lid and said, “I didn’t know what you were doing. Soon as I fished it out, I couldn’t believe it. This was Heather’s roommate, right?”
I nodded, numb.
“So at first it looks like all my fears were confirmed. You definitely had something to do with what these cats were involved in. Either as the clean-up crew or the killer himself, I wasn’t able to tell. But something.”
“No, that’s not it. You’ve got it all—”
“Easy, man. I got that now. Nothing sinister. It ain’t right, you more worried about covering your own ass than letting the law do its job, but from what I heard later, and then what you just said to the dealer in there, you’re clear on the serious stuff.”
Since I’d basically admitted to being in on Vis’s operation, I had to ask, “What do you mean by serious?”
Rome fingered his chin for a few seconds, showed his teeth. He loved his job, whatever it was. Then, “You haven’t looked up that brand on Ian’s ass yet, have you?”
“How did you know?”
“About the brand or you not looking it up? Doesn’t matter. I’m all psychic and shit. It’ll make sense in a minute.” Rome reached into the Suburban again, pulled out a briefcase. He clicked it open and searched through papers until he picked one. A computer database entry, it looked like. A lot of foreign writing on it, not Asian characters. Most of those looked alike, right? This was familiar in a different way. Stuff I’d seen on the news. At the top was the same symbol I’d seen on Ian’s ass. A moon. One of those foreign characters, kind of like an “F” but not quite.
“That’s the one,” I said. “So this writing here?”
“Arabic.”
“These guys are Asian.”
More teeth, more gums. Cheshire Cat Rome. “Keep going. Asia’s also got Afghanistan, Pakistan, Other-stans, you know. It’s got India, huge Muslim population there. Down into the Philippines, Malaysia—”
I stopped him. “They’re into meth now? In the midwest?”
Rome bobbed his head. “That’s the crazy part. We didn’t think so, but here they are. Not very good at being gangsters, either, so we know they’re not some Chinese mafia.”
“Then what do you think they’re doing?”
“Wrong question. First ask me who they are.”
“Fine, good, who are they?”
Soon as he said it, I had to ask that he say it again, make sure it wasn’t a bad dream. Too bad. I was awake and the wind was cold and the ache in my knees spread to all my other joints.
What Rome had said, who these guys were: “What we’ve got here are some Islamic terrorists, via Southeast Asia.”
*
We sat in the cab of the Suburban with the heater thawing our skin while I let this sink in. Terrorists on the prairie. Made no sense.
“I could understand The Cities. But here?”
“Not all that strange. Who’d suspect a few Orientals coming into a small town to be up to no good? Over there, you’re right. Closer scrutiny. In Yellow Medicine
County, they’re just looking for work.”
“Or dealing crystal meth.”
Rome scrunched his face. “Yeah. They need the money because they‘re not part of a larger organization. This is the grassroots stuff, a mixed-bag. Some Asians, Saudis, Pakistanis, maybe even a few Turks. They’re really bad at it, though. We think they want to do some smaller ops, like blowing up post offices, dumping anthrax in reservoirs. Know what that would get them?”
He watched me like he thought I had an answer.
“I’m just as confused as you are.”
“I’m starting to get that. But I’m not confused. You caught our eye, but it looks like we suspected you of the wrong thing.”
“Who’s we and our anyway? What are you?”
Rome reached into his breast pocket, pulled out an official-looking leather thingie, spread it and let me take a look. One card ID’ed him as “Franklin D. Rome” of Immigration and Naturalization Services. The second card, same name, issued by the Department of Homeland Security.
“Motherfucker,” I said.
“No. That’s Bin Laden. I’m a good guy.”
He explained: small groups, mixed race memberships, looking to gain attention from the big boys, which in turn would give them money and status.
The heat passed over us in waves, and I felt nauseous and uncomfortable in my skin. I rubbed my palm on my clammy forehead.
Rome grabbed a peppermint from the ashtray, handed it over. “Helps with stomach shit and dead bodies. A miracle candy.”
I sucked on the mint a while. There wasn’t much to say. I replayed everything in my head and wondered how these guys decided I was worth terrorizing. My friends, my loved ones. I hoped not my family down South. I’d have to give Ginny a call and check in.
“Don’t get too freaked out, man,” Rome said. “Truth is these people are all over, in places you don’t expect. The ones you think are a hundred percent guilty turn out to be regular folks, no ties to anything crazy. Then out of nowhere—” he thundered his hands together “—somebody we dismissed as pure snow tries to blow up a school.”
“That’s a bit much.”
“No, really. You don’t hear about half the sons of bitches we stop. That’d get the whole country panicked.”
Yellow Medicine Page 10