Pretty Like an Ugly Girl (Baer Creighton Book 3)

by Clayton Lindemuth

  “Maybe the kid got lucky. Turned the tables?”

  “Maybe.”

  “How’d you identify the kid?”

  “Like I said. This investigation is way bigger than you know. It goes all the way to D.C., and from there, only higher.”

  “And me. Point of the spear.”

  “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Maggie left and Gordon Emerson watched her, marveling how her shape somehow communicated through her winter clothes.

  He wondered why she wasn’t strutting on a runway, or half naked on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

  He wondered what Wayman would do to her when he found out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Noon. Bunch a bullshit. No one doing nothing. Freeze my balls white up here. Who in the house? Who ain’t? Man said they’d take the kids to Salt Lake after he bury his boy. Mebbe he clear out yesterday. House empty.

  If they’s a wife down there and she don’t want a pop knot on her head, she shoulda cleared out.

  Them clouds up north over the hill keep rolling in. Got lightning with no boom. Suspect in short order I’s ’bout to get wet, and telling the honest truth, don’t make sense me—saving the fucking world—oughtta be cold and wet, while them kid traffickers is dry in the log mansion.

  Do a couple knee bends and damn near topple over. Get myself aright with a sapling and bend at the waist, limber like to poke standin’ up.

  Them clouds cover the sky now. Sun blacked out, look like nightfall. No traffic on the road, so I figger to come in from the garage side, they won’t be no windows. Get up agin the house unseen.

  I restring the tarp and Joe build a nest with my sleeping bag under it. No time to trench it, and no place around but slope, so too much rain just mean the bag get wet. All goes good, they be no need for a three day reconnoiter. I march on Flagstaff tonight.

  “You stay put, Joe. Y’hear?”

  You mind that blackhair girl. She didn’t treat you right, and you’s too stupid to see it cause you pressed your arm up on her titties.

  “That’s a lie—and I won’t be lectured on morals by a animal licks his nuts.”

  You’d lick yours if you could reach them. You mind covering me with that flap there?

  “Well, shit. Is all. Here. That good?”

  I march off.

  “And I would fuckin’ not.”

  I climb the hill straight up, thinking the wood and dark’ll give me cover. They’d have to look out the back windows at a wicked angle to see this direction, and mebbe the glass would distort. Plus I got the cammies on, so long as I go slow I hope to cause no alarm.

  First rain water on my bare neck. Drop hit fat, heavy and cold, then join the shiver rolling down my back. Shoulda never let Mae chop off my hair. Nothing good ever come from short hair men.

  Rain fall here and there, not quite committed to the storm.

  Huff and puff and once I get a good way up the hill, turn west and cut behind the house. Hundred yards I got a gap in the cover and take a spot under a pine. Draw binocular to eye and scope the house, top, bottom, left and right. Got the big windows upstairs—house look like a church. Deck got the gas grill, open to the kitchen with the big patio doors. Driveway feed to the garage on the far end and who know what on the close. No motion in the house. Basement windows—no lights.

  I watch the whole morning, and no Mrs. Graves drove off. Mebbe she in bed, crying her baby boy shot in the face.

  Head west another hundred yard, then downhill, slow, mind wandering. What Stinky Joe said on that young girl—me being soft on account her sex ... She ain’t pretty. But accourse he right.

  But being aware the sex don’t gotta make a man horned up. Suppose to work the other way. Man got a code, he see them young girls sex as the jewel in the castle. It’s there. Accourse he know it there! He’s a man, shit’s sake. He know it there! But he’d ruther put his back to the wall, draw the sword and die to keep it pristine. Not climb the wall and have at it like some animal.

  But in an age of vandalism and marauding deviants, ready to steal what they see, don’t matter if its pennies or puss, the bad man’ll take what he got no business taking. Accourse I noticed her titties on my arm. Accourse. But I ain’t no pervert.

  And I wouldn’t lick my nuts, neither.

  Bottom the hill, I got to find the route to the house. They’s no cover, no trees, shrubs, nothing. So I watch and see the road and driveway’s empty, then walk upright like I own the joint. Get up the back wall of the garage, then follow ’long to the deck. Creep slow. Duck below the kitchen window. Push on glass doors and they’s locked. Gotta think on that. Not sure now’s the time to bust glass.

  Back the way I come, to the garage. Around the corner, up front the house.

  Garage door open, just like that. Just sit open. Wait a minute for sound. None. Draw Smith from the hip and ease through. Four bays. Got the Cadillac Escalade in cow milk white. Got the red corvette. The RAM truck in black. And an open bay where I suppose they hide the meat truck with the kids.

  Duck inside agin the wall where they’s cover behind vehicles, case someone come. Look at tools on the walls, shelf with drill and Sawzall, got the grinder and a big ass vice like to hold a giant man’s head. Three hundred Craftsman wrenches on the peg-board wall.

  In back is a wire cage, like for security. Got it padlocked. Behind is hard to see on account the shit on the racks, but appears they’s a stairway.

  Since these boys troubled theyselves to hide it, make a fella wonder what down there.

  Hold the padlock, give it a tug. Solid. Look about the tool benchtop but they’s no keys laying ’round. But they’s a coffee can with screws and bolts and nuts, and tin snips on the wall.

  Mebbe, but that tin prolly too thick.

  They’s a garbage by the door. Inside, empty Coke can.

  Cut the top and bottom off the can, then up the middle the tube, lay the metal out flat. Then snip a rectangle, two-inch-long, one inch tall, and a half moon tongue at the bottom. Cut another like the first. Take a metal file Luke Graves left handy on the benchtop, and run the cut tin over it so no barbs hang up.

  Next with the pliers I fold over the one-inch side so it’s half that. Add a little strength.

  Lessee. Luke Graves got drill bits in plastic holder. Take it to the padlock and eyeball the diameter. Look like three-eighths. Back at the table, I put the bit in the jaws and clamp down on the spiral blade. It’ll bust the shit out his sharp, but all this work go the way I want, only drilling Luke Graves’ll do is behind bars, ass up with another man working the tool.

  Or I kill him.

  One.

  Press the tin agin the shaft and bend it. With the general shape where I want, loose the vice and stick the half-moon in so it clamps too. Now it’s in place, I work it with pliers, press, release, press, till the shape is right close to perfect ’round the drill bit.

  Get the second tin the same and leave the bit in the vice for a memento. Fuck with his wife and Luke Graves’ll be pissed. But a man keeps three hundred wrenches in lines on the pegboard, you fuck with his tools, he likely lose his mind.

  Last I spot a grease gun with a knob at the tip; I daub it on the tin half-moons, inside and out.

  Slip each tin over the padlock shaft and push the half-moon tongue down in the hole. Gotta jigger it ’cause the tension, but the grease help it slide in. Rotate the tin and the half-moon displace the bearings inside. Pull, and the padlock open.

  I drag open the wire cage door, careful the scrape sound. Don’t know where in the house the missus is, but I suspect this hidey hole might have some kids in it.

  They got all manner cardboard boxes on the shelves; one look to have white uniforms like you see in the butcher shop. At the end the cage you turn the corner and double back and like I thought it’s a downstairs, and at the bottom another damn padlock.

  Go back and fetch my shims. Same brand lock. Got it open in no time. Silent. Draw Smith off the hip and twist the door knob.
Ease it a crack. Dim light inside. Push open a little more.

  Silent.

  Swing it all the way and raise Smith to say hello, but the room is empty. Just a row of mattresses agin the wall. Blankets in a pile. A sink. Toilet. Like a big prison cell.

  I leave the door open and the light on.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Open the unlocked door from garage to house. Step into a thin room with wash and dry machine stacked. Pretty table for folding clothes. Smell like perfume chemicals. I ease the door shut behind me and see framed words on the wall next the garage.

  Our Father,

  Who art in Heaven,

  Hallowed be Thy name;

  Thy Kingdom come,

  Thy will be done

  On earth as it is in Heaven.

  Give us this day our daily bread;

  And forgive us our trespasses

  As we forgive those

  Who trespass against us;

  And lead us not into temptation,

  But deliver us from evil.

  Amen.

  I think on them words and how I don’t forgive and it dooms me.

  I think on them words and the house they in.

  In the laundry room.

  “Who are you?”

  Woman voice got the confidence comes with a firearm. I turn, easy. Gun belt bonk the wash machine. She fifty something. Pretty, like in high school she was queen. Married right and had the money to keep the face tight. But today’s dark clouds and storm fill the shadows dark, the lines bold. The red underneath from a mess of tears is maroon, and the cheeks is flushed and salty from a recent cry.

  “I come about the kids.”

  “What?”

  “You live here?”

  “Get out.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll shoot you.”

  Little red glow in the eye, mebbe not enough to stake my life on it. Trickle of juice on forearms.

  “You ever shoot a man before?”

  “Yes.”

  Hot red. Liar.

  I walk in the kitchen, slow. Hands up. “I need a glass water. Maybe some cheddar cheese if you got any. Cabbage. Been out the wood two week and some Mexican girl stole all my camp. These illegals come through and ain’t nothing but thieves and liars and cheats. Test a Christian man’s patience, but I let her off with it. Didn’t even try to hunt the heathen Papist down. Stole my food and everything. That was two day ago. Miss, you mind not pointing that thing at me?”

  She’s a good jump away but no need to jump. Her eyes turn uncertain.

  “I saw your Lord’s prayer there on the wall. Prayer answered, I come across good, kind, Christian folk. Miss, ain’t no need to keep that gun on me. Where you keep the water glass?”

  She nod to a cabinet over the sink. Outside window, clouds is rolled in so black and rain picked up, deck is soaked. Up on the hill Stinky Joe liable wet by now, even under the tarp.

  Open the cabinet and grab a glass. See Mrs. Graves’s reflection in the window. She look to the side and the gun shift off me. I swing the glass at her head with the base heading first like a glass bullet. Bounces her skull, shatters on the wall. She step back like I pegged her temple with a ball peen. I got Smith up and friendly, wants to say hello.

  “Put the gun down, Mrs. Graves. You ain’t shot a man, and I shot twenty in the last week. Well, I only shot mebbe five. The rest was other means. But they dead just same.”

  She don’t move.

  “Drop the pistol to the floor. Don’t bend down. Don’t do shit but what I say. Drop it.”

  She don’t move. Wonder if that glass bust her brain.

  I step at her and she stay still. Take the pistol out her hand.

  She face me. Eyes go narrow. See the blood veins in the white. The shine of fresh salt. She say, “You’re the one who shot Cephus.”

  “Howdy.”

  She smacks me good, open hand.

  I cinch the hair at back her head and steer her to the other room. “Need some information. Soon’s I get it, be on my way.”

  Twist her ’round, ass in front a rocking chair. Drop her in it.

  “What information?”

  “That meat truck. Where it go?”

  “Why?”

  “Where’s the meat truck go?”

  Sparks on my arms.

  “We deliver meat with it. It’s refrigerated. We have butcher shops all over Arizona. We—”

  Smith tell her shut up and think.

  “Yer boys picked up a load Mexican kids two day ago. Shot one a couple mile down the road. Then another got free when I shot your boy in the face. Where’s the meat truck takin’ the rest the blackhairs?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “You got a lot of money in that pretty face. I could beat it with metal for ten minute and not kill you.”

  “Salt Lake City.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a restaurant. A nightclub. My husband owns it with my son. I don’t have anything to do with any of it. They’re all planning for the revolution. They’re nuts. I’ve been trapped here for twenty years. I can’t get out. I can’t do anything about it. They just do whatever they want to make money, and it’s all okay because soon the race wars will leave us on top. We’ve got an arsenal in the basement. We’ve got booby traps all over the mountain, and a hideaway dug in with enough provisions for five years. Oh Christ I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Whole time she talkin’, I got the juice flowing, and her eyes glow like the last two coals.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know your book too good, but they’s a part about feeding the poor, ain’t they? Or you just read the part about stonin’ babies at the river?”

  “What?”

  “Say the name. What’s the joint in Salt Lake City?”

  “The Butcher Shop. It’s restaurant on one side and nightclub on the other. That’s where everything happens. They bring them through. It’s just transportation. They’ll be there a couple days and then ship them to other places, where they can find jobs. Some of them are being connected with their families.”

  “Yeah? How that work?”

  “Some of the men come up here for work, and when they get enough money, send back for their kids.”

  “You think that’s what your man do? You think?”

  She nod, then adds vigor. Glow red. More she nods more juice I get. She fulla shit and know it. Queen of the log cabin castle.

  “Let’s be clear on one thing. Nevermind the rest yer bullshit. That place you say. Meat Shop?”

  “The Butcher Shop.”

  No red.

  “Good.”

  I could end her torment and bust in her skull. Make the world better by one. But she just look the other way, never pull the trigger.

  “You’s goin’ to the garage basement, where you keep the blackhairs. Grab whatever food you need for a week.”

  “What?”

  Outside the rain come down something fierce. Any don’t run off’ll be solid ice tonight. And maybe snow start coming in on top. By now, the bag’s wet and I’ll be walkin’ in ice and be iced over too. Got the stove, and two day food. Pick up supplies while I’s here?

  “I’m not going in that prison cell. I didn’t do anything and you can shoot me now if you think you can make me.”

  Uh-huh. Got the Lord’s prayer on the wall, but just now while she talked her face was ugly like scrunched up asshole.

  “How long your man been saving these kids from Latin America?”

  “I don’t know. At least five years. Ten.”

  “Every month?”

  “Sometimes more.”

  Kids in the hundreds. She live off their suffering, but don’t make ’em suffer. She eat filet off their suffering, but don’t make ’em suffer. Drive the milk white caddy and put on her princess white gloves.

  I bring Smith to her head. Blast lights the room orange, and it’s Halloween a split second, black, orange, blood all over the white carpet and furniture.


  I look at what I done and blink it clear. Remember the last twenty second. I’da let her live, but she just went on like before.

  Evil won’t change. So no fuckin mercy.

  That’s Baer Creighton’s law.

  Any man or woman bring evil on a kid, real evil, I shoot him. Someday someone’ll bring me low, and I’ll be at the other end the barrel. I know it. But till then, I don’t tolerate the evil. I don’t turn away the evil. I shoot it in the fucking head.

  That ain’t by God, and I know it.

  It’s by Baer.

  Woman didn’t kid. Downstairs is a fortress. Tile floors. Six gun safes next a cement block wall. Wouldn’t mind a peek inside. Pull each wheel and they’s locked. Got an entire wall of shelves made of two by fours and ply. Coolers, plastic cases. Read the labels. Dehydrated veggies. Dehydrated meat. Whole bottom shelf, twenty feet long, is plastic water bottles.

  Another shelf got a good section a books. Advanced Mantrapping Techniques. Another on building bombs from household chemicals. Escape and evasion. What you can eat in the woods. Must be fifty books. Accourse, got the Holy Bible.

  Find an OD green wool blanket and swipe it for Joe. Waterproof sack. They’s a bin with clothes. Grab a wool set of long undies; strip down and step in em quick. ’Bout does it.

  Upstairs, find the liquor cabinet. Open up. Johnnie Walker Blue Label. Can’t be too bad. I swipe it. Got a bottle of Crown Royal XR. Don’t know ’bout that. Them Canadians. Ah, hell. Beggars ain’t choosers.

  Pack ’em in Joe’s wool blanket. Check on Mrs. Graves. Still dead. Outside the rain come down sideways. Soon’s I step out the door I be soaked. Head back the garage, sack on my shoulder. I wait a break in the storm but none comes.

  Set out in the cold rain with another body behind me.

  Climbing the hill, I think on what she said ’bout them having a cave or fortress up here somewheres hid. And traps. Don’t seem civil, traps in the wood. ’Cept I did it to Cory Smiley and it worked real nice. A fella might say one less asshole in the world don’t matter, but it sure did to Corey Smiley.