Bad Man

  There were only a few cars at the Finer Diner, but the parking lot was small enough that it almost always looked full. Even before Ben had come close to the front door, his stomach was rumbling at the smell of bacon and waffles.

  The place was old but clean, and the food was dynamite. All of it. Everything was cooked in lard, butter if you wanted to go light. By the looks of it, the branding hadn’t been updated in fifty years, but there wasn’t really a need. It was called the Finer Diner only when the owners were in earshot. Everywhere else, it was called Grits and Shits.

  Both the waitress and cook knew Duchaine by name, and he greeted them in return as he led Ben to the loneliest booth. Both men ordered without picking up a menu.

  “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Duchaine’s brow furrowed. He took a cautious sip from his cup, then lowered the steaming mug of coffee back to the table. “That a birthday cake for Eric?” he asked, gesturing to the dome on the bench next to Ben. “That something your family does every year?”

  “Yessir.”

  “It bother them any? You workin at that place?”

  “No. It’s just a store, and we need the money.”

  “How is it for you? Bein there. You like it?”

  “Lieutenant, I’m real sorry. I just really don’t feel like talkin this mornin.”

  “This ain’t no big talk. Just a chat. Just askin if you like your job is all.”

  Ben sighed. “What’s there to like? It’s stockin shelves.”

  “Job’s a job.” Duchaine nodded. He ran his fingers over the ragged burn on his left forearm. “What about your coworkers? You get along with them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You guys friends and everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about you and Marty? Y’all ever fight about anything?”

  “Nosir,” Ben replied, then added, “Maybe work stuff.”

  Duchaine nodded, then took another sip of his coffee. Ben did the same.

  “Ya know, I talked to Frank. He’s worked there longer than you, right? Him and Marty have worked together for a long time.”

  “They was on the crew before me, yeah.”

  “Before that, even.” Duchaine’s voice pitched. “They was bag boys at the same time. ‘Best friends’ is the way Frank put it.”

  “Okay,” Ben said, shrugging.

  “Real broken up about everything. Nice guy. Anyway, he told me that you and Marty did fight sometimes. More than sometimes. Nothing physical. No, nothin like that. Just yellin. And see, Frank said it wasn’t about work.”

  Ben shrugged again.

  “What’d you guys fight about?”

  The waitress arrived at the table and divvied up the plates. Ben had ordered more food than he now knew he’d be able to eat. He picked at it with his fork, then took a small bite of his grits.

  “What’s it matter what we fought about?”

  Duchaine chewed on his eggs, then swallowed. “It’s just a question. Just tryin to get a sense of things. You know that place has been open for almost as long as where we’re sittin, and there’s never been an accident like that? See, you tell me that you and Marty didn’t fight. Frank says you did. You say that the wire just popped. But when I talked to Frank, he said that you said you were distracted. That it was your fault…

  “I’m wonderin if Marty was the one who said he seen your brother.”

  “Wait.” Ben put down his fork and ran the heel of his hand against his bad thigh. “You think I did this on purpose?”

  Duchaine pushed the runny yolk of his eggs around with a piece of toast, then ferried it to his mouth. “No. But I’m glad you can see why I might be inclined to think something like that. You couldn’t’ve made that wire snap on purpose. That I think was an accident in the most technical sense.

  “But you didn’t stop holdin that button. Marty said to stop. Frank said to stop. But you didn’t. Why was that?”

  “That’s not how it happened.” Ben reached into his pocket.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Shoot, if someone was playin games with me like what it seems like Marty was with you—”

  The plates rattled as Ben slammed his hand down on the table. “Marty wasn’t the one playin with me.” Ben lifted his hand so Duchaine could see what was underneath it, could see the flyer and its markings.

  “Someone put this in my locker. I been hangin these up all over town and someone tore a whole mess of ’em down. Drew…whatever the fuck that is right on Eric’s face and put it in my locker. I don’t believe for one second that Marty did that. I wouldn’t never hurt him.

  “You know Palmer tried to fire me because he found out who I was? That he’s got tapes in his office? Got one from the day it all happened—the day Eric went missing.”

  “I know,” Duchaine said. He lifted his coffee cup and took a sip. “I’ve seen it. So did the judge who wrote the search warrant for the Prewitt place.”

  “This tape is different. And he has it. Why would he keep something like that?”

  “A record of somethin major that happened? I dunno, Ben. I think maybe a better question is why would he get rid of it? Look, I believe you. In spite of it all, I do. I think that you really do think you wouldn’t hurt your friend, that you believe that so much it feels true…

  “Now,” Duchaine continued, tapping the flyer with his index and middle fingers, “I know that some bad things have happened to you. But you put anyone through what you been through, and you’d have to look for someone to come to a different conclusion. Marty says that he seen your brother after five years. And then all this.” He tapped the flyer again. “Am I leavin anything out? You’re a smart guy, and you tell me you don’t think for one second that Marty did this?

  “You know anything about him? About that family of his?” Duchaine opened his eyes wide and huffed with exaggeration. “Listen to me. I’m not putting any of this into any kind of report. I don’t work for that store, and I don’t particularly like Bill. You can buy as many Christmas toys for poor kids as you please, but that don’t mean you ain’t a sumbitch for the rest of the year.

  “I ain’t tryin to trap you, alright? We’re just talkin. I’m not gonna ask you how you know about what’s in Bill Palmer’s office. I don’t care. But this is Bob Prewitt all over again.”

  “I didn’t do nothin wrong by Bob Prewitt.”

  Duchaine leaned back in the booth, slumping in frustrated defeat. “In what honest interpretation of what you did to that man could you say that you did right by him? By that boy of his? In what possible world do you come out of what happened smelling like a rose?”

  “He asked to take Eric to the bathroom two times. That ain’t polite. That’s something else, and you know it. You didn’t see. You didn’t see the way he looked at my brother.”

  “And what else did you see that day, Ben?” Duchaine let the question go unanswered. “Now look, I don’t think that you were tryin to kill Marty—”

  “Jesus Christ. If I’d’ve known that you asked me to come here—”

  “Okay, now hold on. That’s the second time you’ve said that. You asked me to meet with you. You called me and said you wanted to talk.”

  “I wouldn’t’ve picked this place. I got no way of getting here.”

  “I picked the place, but you asked to talk to me. Now listen, if there’s any chance at all that some part of you hurt Marty on purpose…”

  Ben rubbed his head with both palms. “Someone did this on purpose,” Ben snapped, jabbing the symbol with his fingers. “Why don’t you look into this?”

  “I don’t need to,” Duchaine said, finishing his toast. “I already know exactly what this is.”

  Heat flared in Ben’s face. He waited with an expectant look, then spoke when Duchaine refused. “You gonna tell me then?”

>   “Supposing I did. Supposing that this really did mean something. What possible good would it do to tell you, Ben?”

  Ben scoffed in annoyance. “Sounds to me like you don’t know shit about any of this.”

  “I know that this ain’t no mystery to no one but you. It’s a game, Ben.” Duchaine’s tone was casual. “A joke. You keep doing these things, keep workin at that store, keep stompin around town with your ire up like this, and I worry that things are gonna get a whole lot worse than what happened to that friend of yours. In fact, I know it. Because I know you.

  “But what I’m mostly interested in right this very second,” the man added, “is how your phone number managed to find its way onto this flyer.”

  Ben snatched the piece of paper back, folded it, and jammed it into his pocket. “Ya know,” he said, “the first time I met you, my daddy asked you about cases like Eric’s, about if you always found the kid, and you said yes. Then you said, ‘Nearly every time.’ ” Ben dug some cash out of his pocket and tossed it on the table. “I remember that because you slipped that word in there like it didn’t make much difference. But there’s fifteen kids up on that board. Fifteen of ’em. How’s that for ‘nearly’? I hope that this ain’t how you treat all those families. That you’re different with them.”

  “I reckon it’s you who’s different, son.” Duchaine leaned in with a low voice. “Because you killed somebody.”

  31

  It was a long walk home. Ben’s uneven steps made it difficult to carry the cake. He tried to focus on his walking, to not get too frustrated or emotional. One tilt too far in either direction and the icing would smack against the side of the container.

  “Supposing I did…” He did. He knew what the markings meant, and the asshole wouldn’t say. Every word out of the man’s mouth was an effort to torment Ben. That’s what the whole chat had been about. To get under Ben’s skin. To shrug off responsibility for anything at all. No, not just that. To place it all squarely on Ben. That had been an interrogation, Ben realized. Duchaine had accused him of things. “We’re just talkin,” the man had said. Goddamnit.

  Ben hadn’t said anything, had he? Admitted that he’d been distracted? Or that there was a very persuasive part of him that had already pictured Marty doing the very things Duchaine had suggested? As he walked, Ben tried to recall everything that had been said. The conversation seemed to unfold differently each time he played it back, but Ben knew that he hadn’t tried to kill Marty. He hadn’t tried to kill anyone.

  Strange as it was, what gnawed at Ben the most was Duchaine’s claim that it had been Ben who’d asked for the meeting. Ben remembered making the call; he remembered that very clearly now. But he couldn’t recall who’d asked to see whom.

  “What a fucking asshole!” Ben shouted to himself as he limped along the road. “How’d you get that scar? Pushing someone back into a burning building, you lazy f—”

  Ben’s leg buckled, and he lurched sideways. It was everything he could do to keep from falling, but he managed to catch himself. Not that it mattered. He’d felt the dull thud in his hands. The once smooth chocolate icing was smeared all along the inside of the plastic dome. Ben’s jaw clenched, and before he had any sense of what he was doing, he smashed the container on the asphalt, sending the cake bursting over the road.

  Ben placed his hands on top of his head and took deep, heavy breaths. He made fists in his cropped hair and tried to calm himself by pulling.

  Good. Fine. This would be the year he would finally say something to his parents. That he’d bought a cake and smashed it—smashed it because it was grotesque. No. Maybe just that he hadn’t bought a cake because there was nothing to celebrate. That might still be too much. But something. He would say something, and then they would respond. And it would go back and forth until it became a conversation.

  By the time he reached his porch, Ben could practically feel the words on his tongue. But when his father asked where the cake was, what came out of his mouth was that he’d forgotten and he’d get it tomorrow.

  Ben slept for a few hours, then left for work.

  Every night Ben had to pass by Marty’s neighborhood on his way to the store, and he fought with himself over whether he should knock on Darlene’s door. Ben had worked sixty hours the past week. With overtime pay, that was quite a chunk of change. Whether it made sense or not, Ben couldn’t help but feel that some of that money belonged to Marty. Go right on up there then, Ben thought. Hand Darlene some cash. She’ll forgive you for sure!

  It was too late in the evening to even consider now, though. It pained Ben to admit he felt relieved.

  Ben walked into the store and waved at Chelsea.

  “Didn’t think you was gonna make it,” she said, glancing at the wall clock.

  “Yeah,” Ben replied, looking at his watch, “timed it wrong. Gotta walk slower if I want a night off, I guess.”

  She smiled and pushed her magazine to the side. “Listen, I wanted to say that I was sorry to hear about your brother.”

  Ben nodded.

  “That’s an awful thing, and I wanted to say that I think it’s real brave of you to be workin here like you are.”

  “I dunno about brave. I—”

  “Don’t argue a compliment, Ben.”

  He smiled and rubbed the side of his face like it might hide the fact that it was a little red. “Thank you,” he said, pulling his shirt away from his stomach.

  “And if you ever wanted to…talk about it. Or just talk…” She let the words hang.

  “I’m okay,” Ben said. “But thank you. That’s real nice.”

  “Okay,” Chelsea said.

  Ben wished Chelsea a good night. He wasn’t sure how it had happened—who had said what to whom—but sometime after Ben emerged as the only stocker left, the reason Palmer had tried to fire him became common knowledge. It was hard not to see the irony in it. People were apparently whispering about Ben and Eric thanks to the mighty efforts of Bill Palmer to prevent that very thing.

  He didn’t like the pity in people’s eyes when they looked at him—but at least, for Eric’s sake, they were looking.

  Ben had asked everyone he knew if they recognized the moonchild. Someone had told him to go to the library, as if there were a book called Symbols with every glyph known to man. The library did have internet, but it wasn’t all that clear how that was supposed to help.

  For all Ben knew, the shape could be the logo for an old brand of fabric softener. But then why the hell was it on the baler?

  Chelsea’s voice crackled over the intercom and Ben met her up front. She handed him the key to the doors, and he locked them behind her. He stood at the glass, watching her get into her car, watching her until she was safely out of the parking lot. It really was nice of her to offer to listen, Ben thought. She didn’t have to do that.

  Turning back toward the aisles, Ben tried to remember where he had been in his thoughts and in his job. Not that it mattered; he’d find his way back to both places inevitably. The phone in Customer Service rang. “Sorry, we’re closed,” Ben said to himself, walking toward the aisles.

  It was only recently that Ben had come to enjoy block nights. Of course, they were preferable to throwing an entire truck by himself, but it was more than that. Now Ben appreciated their quiet monotony. It was as close as he could get to sleeping without having to worry about where he might end up or what his mind might show him.

  From the time the store closed, Ben had six hours to himself. He could think if he wanted to, but he was so tired all the time, it was easier to let his mind drift. There were a few times when he practically blacked out, when he remembered clocking in and nothing more—until suddenly the sun was up and he was surprised to see that the store was finished.

  But tonight, for whatever reason, the relief was not forthcoming.

  He still had to get Eric a
cake. He’d have to buy the ingredients this time so Beverly wouldn’t ask what had happened to the one she’d given him. He’d have to sit at the table with his parents and light the candles and—

  Across the store, the phone in the pharmacy chimed.

  “Fuck this,” Ben muttered, and left the aisle.

  The baler sat in a cold slumber, like an unconscious Titan. Ben wrapped his hand around the dozens of bale wires and pulled them from their PVC quiver. He laid them on the floor, spreading them out with his foot, and grunted as he sat down crisscross in front of the new metal rug.

  With his right hand, Ben grabbed one wire by its loop. He pinched the shaft with his other hand and then pulled the loop end away from his body. It took four pulls to feel the entire length of the wire, four pulls to make sure there were no cuts.

  What would the plan have been? Ben considered the question as he fed another wire through his fingers. Sabotage one of the wires so that it would snap? It was hard to say if Palmer would do something like that, hard to imagine him hatching such a scheme. If the idea had been to hurt Ben, why? He’d already been fired at that point. And obviously, there was no guarantee of who would be in the wire’s path. The only people who could have guessed that were Ben, Frank, and Marty.

  Still, the wire could have popped at any point. It could have popped on the truck, long after it had been hauled away from the store. And that was the other thing: the wire had popped. If it had been cut, then it probably would have failed much more quickly and without incident, like a paper clip that had been bent too many times.

  So what? A single wire had been sabotaged somehow so that it failed at just the right time and in just the right way?

  Ben fed wire after wire through his fingers, checking some more than once, and growing increasingly irritated with Duchaine’s smug dismissal of everything Ben had said. The fact that Duchaine had suggested things about Marty that Ben had already suspected made him feel queasy. He didn’t want to think like Duchaine. Had Marty known that Frank had found Stampie?