One cozied up to Kyrellis, claiming he was eager to invest in hybrid flowers. Kyrellis wasn’t stupid. He knew that his rose business was simply an opportunity to convert drug and gun money into something more legitimate. All he got in exchange for the loan was a first name and a post-office box in North Portland, where he was to send his payments.
But orders had continued their steady decline, despite the infusion of cash, and now there were only a handful of retail stores that still considered Kyrellis their primary supplier. The situation had caused his blood pressure to skyrocket. He admitted, as he trimmed the bushes, that he simply didn’t know how to turn things around. He hated the sales aspect.
His doorbell rang, and he paused. It was early. He smiled to himself; she was anxious.
Kyrellis smoothed his hair back on his way to the door, glad that he’d been up early and showered. It was good that she’d come at this hour. He liked a freshly scrubbed girl and had planned on suggesting a bath first.
He opened the door, unable to hide his smile.
“Victor Kyrellis,” said the man standing on the porch.
Kyrellis searched the visitor’s face for recognition. He was tall, but the overriding trait was that he was solid. He wore a light cotton pullover that tightly contoured his pronounced muscles. He held his arms at his sides and his shoulders taut, in a hypervigilant manner. He flashed a smile, though not a friendly one and, against his black skin, the man’s teeth seemed dazzling white. A rhinestone was embedded in his front tooth. Kyrellis couldn’t see the gun, but he knew the man carried one.
“Do I know you?” Kyrellis asked.
“No, but you know the man I work for.” He twisted a ragged white rose between his fingers, torn violently from the bush Kyrellis had set on the front porch that very morning for Silvie. The gray Oregon winter could be so depressing. He’d thought the flowers would guide her to him.
Kyrellis’s gut twisted. “I’ll have the money within the month.”
“Why don’t you invite me in?”
“No, I don’t think I will.” The two eyed each other, and Kyrellis wished he had taken the same precaution this time that he had with Carl Abernathy. But his guns were in the cabinet, except for the single handgun he kept on the table next to his bed. “I have a line on a large sum. A month. Just give me a month.”
“And what happens in a month if you don’t have the money, Victor?”
“I will,” he asserted. “It’s just been a little dry this fall. But, like I said, I have a line.”
“You said that the last time. Wasn’t this note due a month ago?”
“I … no, I didn’t say that. I didn’t have a line on anything then. It was just hard luck. But things have changed. I just need a little time.”
“Maybe. But he’d like some collateral this time. Just in case.”
“Like what?”
“Well, how about we take a look at that gun collection.”
“Oh, come on. Not that.”
The man stared balefully at Kyrellis. “It could be much worse, and I think you know that.”
“Please. Just a month.”
“Even if I agree, I still need collateral.”
Kyrellis closed his eyes. His guns were second only to his roses. He stood aside to let the man in.
“Wait here,” he said in the living room. “I’ll bring them out.” He left the man and went to a small bedroom off the hallway, cursing under his breath. The room was lined on three walls with glass cabinets that showcased his numerous and rare specimens. Every time he came in here, though, he was reminded that he’d sold the very best gun that had ever passed through his hands: Albert Darling’s Winchester rifle. The money was more important at the time, and for once he’d kept a cool head and sold it. But he never forgave himself for being in a situation where he had to let it go. And now … he would never again see whatever gun—or, worse, guns—he handed over today. This wasn’t so much collateral as interest, and he knew it.
Kyrellis selected carefully, making sure the gun he chose was something he had a chance of replacing. A Smith shotgun, Eagle Grade, in fair condition. Not too rare. Not too expensive. But when he presented it to the man in his living room the man examined it carefully, set it on the coffee table, and asked what else he had. They repeated the ritual until there were five guns of graduating rarity and value, from the Smith to a Hammond Grant military automatic pistol in pristine condition, laid out between them.
“I’ll take them all,” the man announced, and stood to collect them.
Kyrellis wasn’t surprised, and he watched with a sinking heart as the man went to his car and returned with a long blue duffel bag and began to seal them away. As the last gun disappeared from sight, a black pickup pulled into the driveway. They both peered out. Kyrellis realized it was Silvie.
“Expecting someone?” the man said.
Kyrellis didn’t answer. He watched as she sat in the truck. Certainly she’d seen them both. Then she slowly backed out, turned around, and left.
“Guess it wasn’t too important,” the man said, returning to his task.
Kyrellis wanted to take up one of the guns he’d just handed over and shoot the man dead. His arrogance. The way he strutted around as if he were the man with the bucks. If he were half the gun expert he fancied himself, he would understand that Kyrellis had much better guns in his collection. Some worth up to thirty thousand dollars. This dolt was a fool to imagine he had any value to the one who had sent him.
“What’s your name?” Kyrellis asked.
The man slid the duffel over his shoulder and stared at Kyrellis. He stepped closer and riveted his fist into Kyrellis’s soft belly, doubling him over, making his mind go absolutely white. Kyrellis fell to his knees and fought for breath, dull pain blossoming through his center. He was sure he would vomit.
“I’ll be back for the money in two weeks,” the man said calmly. “Did you hear me, Victor? Two weeks.”
At the auction barn, Hershel and Stuart spent the morning loading out sold merchandise to waiting pickup trucks, scrutinizing receipts, and marking items COLLECTED.
“Check those out,” Stuart said, whistling to himself. He’d been commenting on the female customers’ anatomy for the past few hours, but Hershel ignored him. “C’mon, boss, you couldn’t have hit your head that hard—not to notice those.”
“Just bring up the next load, will you, Stuart.”
“Guess you’re not interested since that new piece showed up, huh?” Stuart started back into the warehouse, but Hershel, in two quick steps, blocked his path. Stuart laughed tensely, stepping left and then right, trying to get around Hershel.
“I’m not just after her for some pussy.”
Stuart stood back and looked at the ground. “Sorry, boss. Didn’t mean nothing by it. You’re just different now.”
“I know it. Not a goddamn second goes by that I don’t know I’m different.” Hershel moved aside and let Stuart pass. Why the hell was he telling this man anything? Why can’t a man be different?
There was a lull in traffic, and the place fell momentarily quiet. Hershel looked around at the items yet to be collected. Wednesday was old business, nothing fresh or interesting. He was forced to keep regular hours on this day because people had to arrange for transportation and help moving things. But it had all been sold, he’d collected the money, and this was just a day of cleanup.
“You can go,” he said to Stuart. “I can manage the rest.”
“No, I’ll stay another hour or two. If you don’t mind.” He glanced at Hershel for permission. “Cost of gas these days is killing me. Almost not worth driving out here if I don’t get in at least six hours.”
“Fine with me.” Hershel tried to conjure up where Stuart lived. He drew a blank, then wondered if it was an unknown or a forgotten. He must have known at some point. He realized that he was staring at Stuart as he puzzled it out, and walked away, heading for the concession stand to get a soda.
A middle-a
ged Mexican woman peered in through the open door, looking out of place and unsure. “Hello?” she called.
“C’mon in,” he hollered. “Can I help you?”
As she neared, he recognized her as the woman from the migrant camp.
“My name is Yolanda,” she said, holding up the business card he’d given her. “I met you before? You came to my house?”
“Yes, I remember.”
She glanced around the large, nearly empty warehouse at the assortment of used items that were now stacked into neat piles, and winced. “Is Carl here?”
Hershel frowned. “No, I haven’t seen him in three days.”
She let out a wail that stunned him.
“What’s wrong?”
She tipped her head back and howled again, then spoke rapidly in Spanish.
“Please,” Hershel said, guiding her into his office. “Sit. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She went on in rapid Spanish, her voice pitched high and mournful.
“What is upsetting you?”
“I think it is him,” she said, tears catching in her throat. “I think it is Carl.”
“Who?”
“The body they took from the river.”
Carl’s bruised face and swollen jaw came to mind. The way he had limped around the day before he disappeared. Hershel had forgotten to mention that to the woman on the phone this morning.
“What body?”
“This morning they take a body out of the river. By Campo Rojo. A fisherman found it. I am fear that it is Carlos.” She took a breath, her tears beyond control. “He tells me he is here.”
Hershel shook his head, and Yolanda put her face in her hands and cried.
24
The new soft-soled shoes were rubbery under Silvie’s feet. She’d driven down back roads, heading west from Kyrellis’s place, into green valleys of farmland rimmed by low hills blue beneath the winter sky. She marveled at the way Oregon seemed to segregate its cities from its agriculture with abrupt, hard lines. A last row of close-in houses with tiny yards butted against an expanse of fallow strawberry fields. Hemmed in and cramped, as if they’d run out of room, when in fact all the space one could possibly want lay there for the taking. Driving the winding, narrow roads with names like Rood Bridge and Bald Peak, she’d find herself suddenly in the middle of a nameless community, and then, with as little warning, back into the open of a hay field or a dormant orchard. Nothing like the meandering businesses and homes, strung together like cheap beads, that contoured the highways between Wyoming and this odd, damp place. At last she found a sign directing her to Hillsboro. There she discovered a strip mall with a Payless shoe store. The sneakers would do for a while. As she navigated her way along the unfamiliar roads, trying to find Scholls again, she considered trying Kyrellis once more. It hadn’t bothered her to find that he had company, but she knew the reprieve was only temporary. By the time she’d turned around and pulled onto the road again, she was already searching for another opportunity. She told herself that the task ahead was not important; it was the end goal that mattered. As she considered Kyrellis’s demand, it was curse or cry. She cursed Jacob. And she pushed away a nagging doubt about Hershel. Had he shared information with Kyrellis? If she couldn’t trust Hershel, she couldn’t trust anyone, and while that might well be true, she needed the protection and shelter he provided. She would use him if necessary.
As she came up on Scholls Ferry Road, very near where she’d first met Hershel, instead of turning right onto the familiar road to the auction barn, she went straight, deciding that now was as good a time as any to negotiate the return of the photos.
Hershel had tried to persuade Yolanda to stay until he could give her a ride home, but she refused and walked down Scholls Ferry still crying and speaking Spanish in mournful tones.
Stuart had joined him at the front door, watching the sad little woman stumble away. He looked thoughtfully at Hershel and said, “I think she’s in love with him.”
“Does seem to be more there than meets the eye.”
“Nice knockers,” Stuart added, then gritted his teeth at his own remark.
“You’re such an asshole.”
“Oh, come on.” Stuart shrugged and walked out to greet a customer who had pulled in and backed his truck up to the front of the building. A sheriff’s patrol pulled in a minute later, and Hershel turned from the customer to meet the officer. He’d been half expecting this visit, since he’d called in a missing person on the same day that a body was found in the river—according to Yolanda, anyway. The grim coincidence hollowed out his center.
“This your place?” The officer started talking before he reached the door.
“It is. I’m Hershel Swift.”
“Your missing Abernathy the same one that lived at Campo Rojo?”
“Yeah. The last time I saw him, he was beat up pretty bad. His face was a mess, but he didn’t say what happened.”
“We’ve got that information. A passerby filed a report about a fight on the highway near the camp. We know Abernathy was involved, but the others were gone by the time the sheriff arrived, and no one at the camp would talk.”
Hershel couldn’t think of anything else he might add. “A woman from camp … she came by and said someone found a body.”
“Yeah.” The officer seemed reluctant to share information, pausing and looking out across the orchard. “We’re still investigating.”
“Was it him?”
He turned in the direction of Campo Rojo. “It was a male.”
“When will you know for sure?”
“That’ll be difficult. It’s missing its head.”
Hershel seemed unable to fully comprehend this information. Why would someone do that to Carl? He was such an easygoing man. Friendly to everyone. “Must be someone else,” he said. “Nobody hated Carl Abernathy enough to kill him and … and do that.”
“Immigration did a sweep of the camp after the fight. It’s possible that this was retaliation.”
“Retaliation?”
The officer handed Hershel a card. “Call me if he shows up, or if you hear anything you think would help us identify the body from the river.”
Carl dead? He shoved the card into his back pocket. No one could want Carl Abernathy dead. Barely anyone knew that he was alive.
After a few wrong turns, Kyrellis’s greenhouses appeared, then his driveway. Silvie’s stomach tightened. She sat in the truck for a few minutes. The house appeared dark, no sign that he was home. She slid out and approached, pausing to touch the potted rosebush in full bloom on the front step. She bent to smell the flowers so out of place in the winter cold, and they brought Jacob to mind. A strange braid of longing and loathing twisted through her—a familiar confusion. She didn’t know whether to curse him or beg his forgiveness. She pressed the doorbell and listened to the faint chime inside the house. After a moment Kyrellis appeared, looking pale, with his hair matted up on one side as if he’d been sleeping. He carried a pistol.
“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said, looking at the gun, then setting it down on a low table in the entryway.
“You invited me.”
“Yes, but when you left earlier I assumed …” He stepped aside and motioned her in.
“I wasn’t going to come inside while you had company.” She was greeted by the smell of vomit. She turned and studied him.
“I’m not feeling well,” he said somewhat indignantly.
“I’ll come back another time, then. It’s getting late, anyway. Hershel will be wondering.”
“I suppose that’s best.”
“Let’s just understand each other, though. What do I have to do to get my things back?”
He rubbed his hair and sighed. “Let’s walk. I need some fresh air. I’ll show you my garden.”
“And you’ll tell me the exact terms of this agreement.” The force in her voice surprised her.
“Do you like roses?”
“They aren’t my favorite.”
>
“That’s a shame. A woman who doesn’t like roses,” he said silkily. “You must be one of a kind.” He led her through the kitchen to a back patio, which was covered with blooming bushes in a rainbow of colors. “I raise the finest floribundas in Oregon.” He fondled a striking yellow flower. “This is called Southampton. And this”—he pointed to an apricot-colored rose—“is Chanelle.” He let his eyes travel the length of her frame. “What woman doesn’t love a rose?”
“They’re nice, but they’re just flowers.”
He snorted in disgust. “Nice? You’ll never see finer. Come see the greenhouse. I’m propagating a new variety.”
She followed him out into the gray afternoon, searching for something to say. “My mother’s roses always had bugs on them.”
“Yes, there are ones that prey on new buds, snatching away their potential. You can kill the predator, but the flowers are ruined.” He turned his eyes on her, and she flushed. Her cheeks were burning.
“What do you do about them?”
“The right poison will take care of any predator.”
He was reverent about touching the petals of his roses. He whispered the names as they passed. “Sweet Promise. Virgo. Gentle Touch. Meteor.” The bushes were lush and popping with buds where he kept them in the greenhouses. But the buildings were coated in green algae, and the plastic fabric was torn. Weeds sprouted through the gravel at their feet, and the long tables where he did his potting were angled downward in rot, as if the earth were pulling them into itself.
“How do they grow like this in the winter?”
Kyrellis lifted a bottle from a nearby table and handed it to Silvie. She unscrewed the cap and held it to her nose, but he yanked it back and resealed it. “It’s several times more potent in liquid form and absorbs quickly. It can kill you, too, Silvie, not just bugs and fungus. You wouldn’t want to get that on your skin. Goes right through. And you don’t feel a thing.” Then he laughed, and it sounded almost jolly.
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