Chapter 5: The Talk With Lincoln
In bed the next morning, Frederick's disquiet afforded him no peace. He tried to remember when he'd arrived in Thibodaux but it was all a blur. He did know the sun hadn't been up, but as far as the rest…it was all shaky. His stomach growled. He tried to roll over and will himself back to sleep but the ceaseless gears ground on and on.
He had a week.
One week to get the plane ready; one week to attempt to figure out just what the hell he'd gotten himself into. He was taking the freak with him. That was the hay-maker, boy, that above everything else because he still didn't know exactly why he’d gone for it. It just seemed impossibly stupid, amateur.
He rolled over onto his back and opened his eyes. Watched the slow-moving fan going nowhere. Glad now he'd draped the blinds in the room with the heavy, black blanket he’d found in the closet.
Still, there was another element in his mind (a strange, lethal agent that hunkered down in the deepest corner), that welcomed Samuel's presence on the trip. Did he have a death wish?
He squirmed under the sheets, his skin now surprisingly clammy. He didn't know whether to get up or throw up. For some unknown reason he'd agreed to something he'd never even considered before. What a fuck deal.
In the shadows of his mind he tried to find reason. Something back there in his mind seemed intent on fucking things up. Look at his life, what a joke. Pillar to post, job to job. Vietnam never far back in his thoughts.
He remembered the job he'd had after Angola. Of course, he'd looked all over for work but nobody wanted anything to do with a fresh ex-con. No one had been concerned that he’d been a vet, was still haunted by the things that pursued him night after night. Nobody gave a fuck that memories could lead a man to the gates of madness again and again. Nobody cared.
Finally he'd gone to a man who'd known his parents for years, a last-ditch effort. And the man had given him a job, assembling incinerators. Huge industrial incinerators.
He'd taken it although he'd never been good with heights. And though it sounded ironic, it wasn’t, at least to him. In a plane you were encapsulated, set apart from the elements. There was a firm floor underfoot even if it sometimes pitched and rolled. It tricked the mind just enough.
However, working steel with a crane, a boom poised above your head as a three-hundred pound 'head-ache ball' swayed gently overhead, well, that my friend, was a completely different story. He could still remember the freezing mornings (in his memories it was always cold), pulling up to the site; staring at the skeleton of I-beams stretching fifty or sixty feet into the sky, and knowing that today would be the day you hung by your ass and fingernails up there. And not just for a moment, no sir, that would take all the fun out of it. A full day's work waited up there amid the swinging boom and tautly-pulled cable. Reaching and pulling, bolting and cutting.
For some inexplicable reason he'd always sought out these unnerving tasks. When he'd noticed a few gray hairs in his beard early on he'd not been surprised. The faster one lived, the faster one died.
“Goddammit!” Frederick said.
He finally sat up in bed, threw the covers back in exasperation. Reached over and switched on the table lamp, squinting in the half-light at the clock by the bedside. 11:44. He hadn't been down long. The black sheet around the window was fully edged by sunlight. He swung his feet around to the cold floor.
His pants were folded on the chair, his wallet still tucked inside. That’s where his phone was. Frederick got up and dialed Lincoln’s number.
On the sixteenth ring it was answered by a familiar voice. "Who the fuck is it?" this voice asked.
Frederick breathed a deep sigh and feel back on the bed with the phone to his ear. "It's Freddy, you fucker. Where are you?"
He heard a disgruntled fumbling on the other end, then a length of steady silence, and finally, what sounded like gargling. He waited patiently.
Then, "Freddy? That you?"
Frederick rolled his eyes. "It's me," he said.
There was another long pause. Frederick could practically hear the cogs and gears turning. "What the fuck are you doin wakin me up?"
"Fuck you," Frederick said. "I've been trying to get ahold of you for the past week. You don't answer your goddamn phone anymore?"
“I doan do a muthafuckin thing I don’t wanna," the junkie replied. "You're lucky I'm talkin to your sorry ass right now...waking me up like this, you muthafucka."
“Well, I gotta talk to you."
"'Bout what?"
"These fucking Franklin brothers."
"Okay. What?"
Frederick held the phone away from his ear and shook his head. Put the phone back. "Nothing good. What’s the deal?"
"Shit, you met 'em. They're a creepy, fuckin bunch but they got money. What about it?"
“It's just really one of them--"
"Samuel?" Lincoln said immediately.
"You bet. I talked to Jimmy and--"
"Jimmy?" Lincoln said mystified, incredulous. "Jesus Christ! Why’d you go to that idiot?"
"Because he was the only one I could fucking find," Frederick said, placing particular emphasis on the last three words. "Right after I met with them and their personal fucking pit-bull. Jimmy was the only one I could run down..." and he trailed off, waiting for Lincoln to say something. He didn’t. "What's this about the whores?"
"Whores?"
"The fucking hookers and the pimp, man. Jimmy said Samuel'd been sent away back when as a mental defective. Iced a coupla whores and their pimp. You ain’t ever heard this?"
"I think maybe you oughta forget the whole fuckin thing, is what I think." Then a pause and another sound like strangled gargling. “But you’re in, ain’t ya?" he said.
"Uh huh."
"Okay, so I don’t get it? I known ya a long time and ain’t never heard ya like this. Maybe I shouldn’a told you anything but I thought you could handle these goons. They scarin you or something?"
"Fuck you. I just want the story. I’m taking Samuel with me on the fucking run."
"What! You pullin my dick?"
"No chance. I'm telling you straight up. I took the job and Samuel's in."
The laugh was much smaller this time, less amusing. "My God, Freddy. You got those two keepin you up at night and you let the head fuckin goon sign on anyway..." He whistled. "I never understand what makes you tick, son."
"So what’s the story?" he pressed.
"Word is he likes to cut people, women mostly. I guess that's a point in your favor."
"So far, that’s nothing Jimmy hasn’t already told me," Frederick replied.
"Yeah, that Jimmy's a smart sonofabitch. Bet he told you 'bout the animals too."
"Yeah."
"Well that ain’t all. Supposedly the ole man's got a pole up his ass about something too. Cut up his wife's face when the Franklins, your Franklins, were kids. Jimmy din't mention that did 'e?"
"No. But neither did you."
"Hey, what am I? Your fucking mother? Story has it William wasn't around at the time, out with a nanny or whatever it is those rich-bitches keep around. But ole Sam was. From what I've heard the ole man has a mean streak from here ta fucking Chicago. Sliced her up good, but don't nobody know why. It don't matter now ‘cause she's been AWOL for years."
"Jackson?"
"Nah, Pineville. The nut house near Alexandria."
"Jimmy didn't--"
"Fuck Jimmy. You called me, din't you?"
"So Samuel saw his dad carving on his mother..."
"Supposedly. A real fucked up crew, pad’na. Jackson's probably where Sam did his stint. I doubt they'd send 'em both to the same fuckin place."
"So…we got a cutter."
"Look Freddy. All this shit's just word on the street. But here it is on the whores and the pimp. Two mutilated hookers and a dead guy.” Frederick heard him snorting and coughing. When he continued his voice was darker. "The rest of this shit’s probably more legend than truth. I would
n't even be tellin you now, but you went ahead and booked passage with the sonofabitch. I swear ta’ God." He paused for a moment, as if gathering his scattered thoughts. "Stories say he cut the pimp's head off, got the brain out some way, stuffed it full a rags and piano wire for some goddamn reason. The whores were worse. And here I am listening to a song and dance about you asking him to come along? Christ, things can’t get any more fucking crazy.”
"Yeah, can you believe it?" Neither said anything else for a moment, but then Frederick said, "But they seem to think real high of you, motherfucker.” Lincoln grunted noncommittally on the other end. Frederick grit his teeth, said, “You know I won't pull out, don't you?"
"Yeah. I known you too long. I also know you’re crazier than that sonofabitch ever thought about being."
"Let's hope so," Frederick said and hung up.