“What in hell are you doing here?”
“Well, howdy to you too,” Booger said.
“Again. What in hell are you doing here?” I said.
“Drinking a beer. Right before you came in I was scratching my nuts, and about an hour ago I was watching a cooking show with some hot lady on it cooking Italian food. I’d like to bend her over her pasta, I’m telling you right now. She had legs just like I like ’em. Feet on one end, poontang on the other. Come to think of it, I don’t even give a shit if she has feet. Let’s see, what else. I think before the cooking show I took a dump. By the way, your toilet has a slow flush. I think they got some Chinaman on the other side of the world using a hand pump.”
“What are you doing here, Booger? Why did you pick my lock? And why in hell did you get that tattoo?”
“I couldn’t get in. It was locked. So I had to pick it. It was easy, by the way. You ought to get some other kind of lock, something a little more serious than government work. The tat. I got that as a homage to what matters in life…Hey, how you doing, buddy?”
“Right now, I’m a little busy.”
Booger looked hurt. “Man, you don’t sound glad to see me.”
Actually, in spite of myself, I was very glad to see him. “It’s not that, Booger. I’ve been a little busy with something. How you doing, man? Glad to see you. How did you get here?”
“After a misunderstanding in Oklahoma, I drove here, and since I had my car’s papers with me, I sold it to a gentleman down on a lot on the outskirts of town, and then I took a taxi to the store where I bought some provisions, and then I took the taxi here. Want a beer?”
“It’s my house. I should be offering you something.”
“Hey,” he said, and held up the beer, “said I got provisions. Help yourself.”
“I’m just going to have bottled coffee.”
“Who the hell bottles coffee, Cason?”
“Starbucks.”
“That’s sissy shit. Whoever heard of drinking cold coffee out of a fucking bottle?”
“It’s happening everywhere,” I said, making my way to the fridge. “You should get out more. They even have soft drinks in cans now.”
I opened the refrigerator. It was stocked thick with beer, two or three different kinds. I found the bottled coffee behind some tall green bottles and got one and went back to the living room, or that part of my apartment that passed for one, sat down in a chair and looked at Booger. My eyes had adjusted to the darkened room. He had a cut on his forehead and some bruises on his face.
“What happened to you?” I said. “You get caught up in machinery?”
“I got caught up in four guys in Tulsa,” he said. “They wanted me to pay for some skank they managed who didn’t know how to give a blow job. Way she worked, you’d have thought she was sucking a rock through a straw. Didn’t do a man any good at all. I didn’t want to pay. These gentlemen, her pimp and some bouncers, had different ideas.”
“How did that work out?”
“I got cut across the head with a knife, and I got hit a lot because all of them, except the one with the knife, had blackjacks. But what I can report is that three of them are a little broken up, and one of them can now put his leg over his head with no real effort. He might even be able to remove it and swing it around. And I suppose, right now, a whore who can’t blow a dick is looking for a new pimp to walk her around. And I have a new knife.”
“How bad did you hurt the pimp?”
“He’s not hurting now. So, after that, I needed a place to go and have a little R&R. But don’t worry, they don’t know who I am. I gave them Runt’s name when I signed on there for business.”
I smiled. “No you didn’t.”
“Of course not. I gave them yours.”
“You are funny.”
“Let’s just say if they’re looking for someone, his name is Delbert Littleball. I had it on one of my false licenses, so it’s the one I showed them. These days, just to get your ashes carried, you got to have identification so they don’t think some Arab has flown all the way over here to blow up some random whore with a bomb in a rubber.”
“How long you been here?”
“Not real long. I got here it was raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock, so I let myself in. I slept a bit on the couch. By the way, I also played on your computer. Looked at porn, just the free stuff, and I found where you had a big old fat file on a chick named Caroline who was so good-looking I thought my left nut was going to go in orbit around my johnson.”
“You looked at my personal stuff?”
“Hey, it wasn’t coded or anything. All I had to do was turn it on and it came up on the menu, along with other stuff. I looked at everything there. Say, you get back with that Gabby girl?”
“No.”
“Good. You don’t need her. By the way, all those notes you got on Caroline, this business you got going, it’s interesting.”
“It is at that.”
“Reporting is more fun than I thought. I thought you just mostly typed up shit, but you get into some action, don’t you?”
“Booger, you ought not to have been in my business like that.”
“I was bored, and after a while all the porno starts to look alike. I can’t tell who’s got the dick and who’s got the tits. So, I got to playing. You got lots of notes, bro. I read them all. Those kids got killed, I read your article on that, all your articles in fact. I liked most of them. I even read about the town on the Internet. This little place is hopping. All that racial shit going on. Best way to keep yourself sane on matters like that is to hate everyone straight across the board, except your bros of course. Way I see it, humanity is like a hungry, parasitic dog without a home, crossing the highway, back and forth. Sooner or later to be hit by a car.”
“What about your sisters?”
“Women I know aren’t my sisters and I wouldn’t trust them to hold five dollars for me while I went to the toilet. I’ll tell you something, though: all this stuff going down, black preacher and white preacher, could be some action in the old town that night. Or is it midday?”
“Midday. Look, Booger—”
“Hey, man. Almost forgot something. In all that rain, a mailman showed up. Can you believe that? Rain and sleet and all that shit, and this guy meant it. Actually, though, he wasn’t a government employee. He was FedEx or UPS or one of those things. Another kind of mailman. He had a package for you.”
“A package?”
“What are you, a fucking parrot? Yeah, a package.”
“I wasn’t expecting anything.”
“It’s on the kitchen counter.”
I went into the kitchen and got it. The handwriting on the front didn’t look like any handwriting I had seen before. There was an address on the front, one that indicated who had mailed the package to me. I recognized it immediately. It was Jimmy’s address.
I got out my pocketknife and slit the package open and eased out the contents. There was a letter and a photograph. I looked at the photograph and caught my breath.
“What is it, bro?” Booger said.
I turned back toward the living room and sat down in my chair again and looked at the photograph some more. It was of three women. I recognized one of them right off. It was Tabitha. She wasn’t looking so good. She was stretched out on a board like those photos of Old West villains shot and displayed for the crowd and she didn’t appear to have any insides, just a skull and a skin hanging off of that. Next to her, on another slab, was another woman. The face was withered and the eyes were gone and her body was in the same condition. Next to her was another withered body with long blond hair, and her lower body was partially covered by a blanket, or some kind of cloth. The only one I really recognized was Tabitha, and that was because she was the freshest. Above each of the women was a little cardboard sign. The signs read, left to right: TABITHA. RONNIE. CAROLINE.
At the foot of the photograph there was a longer cardboard sign that read BETRAYERS.
Booger said, “What, man?”
When I didn’t answer, he came over and stood by my chair and looked down at what I was looking at. I put the photograph on the coffee table and Booger picked it up and looked at it while I opened the letter to read.
SO, YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT GIVES? HERE’S WHAT GIVES. GO TO THESE ADDRESSES AND TAKE A LOOK. YOU’LL FIND WHAT YOU NEED TO FIND. ONE AND TWO. THREE SORT OF CAME APART AND IS NO MORE. THEY BETRAYED THE CAUSE AND THEY PAID. WHITE POWER WEARS MANY HATS. ADDRESS ONE, NOTICE THE PATH. ADDRESS TWO, SEEK THE TOWER. COME AFTER SIX TODAY. NO POLICE. POLICE COME, BAD THINGS COULD HAPPEN.
The addresses were listed, two of them. I knew generally where one of them was, and I had a town map in my car to find the other. What made me nervous was the package was supposed to have come from Jimmy’s address. Probably mailed from a UPS store. They wanted me to know they knew all about him and where he lived. I was glad he was out of town. I looked at the date on the envelope. Today. I looked at my watch. Nearly six.
Booger said, “You know what? This photo ain’t right.”
I was up and moving. “No, it isn’t. I’m going to check something.”
I called Jimmy on my cell. It seemed like an hour before he answered, but he picked up on the third ring.
“Cason,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Not much. You’re out of town, right?”
“Oh yeah. Didn’t you get my message?”
“Double-checking.”
“We’re out at the lake. Outside watching the sun start to dip. Trixie is lying in a lawn chair, looking good in a two-piece, reading a book, and I’m sitting here drinking a big old Pepsi-Cola and can’t wait till bedtime so I can show Trixie all my manly tricks. Mom and Dad are in the house. Mom brought today’s newspaper. Dad is reading a book.”
“Don’t say any more, and don’t answer any calls that don’t come from my number, and then be sure it’s me before you start talking too much.”
Jimmy was silent for a while. I got the idea he was moving to another location, away from Trixie. “Something coming down?”
“I don’t think it’s anything, really.”
“You’re lying to me, Cason. I’m the good liar, not you.”
“It’s anything, you’ll be the first to know.”
“I don’t believe that either. You may not be safe. You ought to join us here.”
“I got a friend with me.”
“A woman?”
“An old war buddy. Nobody you know. I’m safe.”
“I don’t know what to say, Cason, except I don’t want to come back there. I may never want to come back there.”
“I don’t want you to. At least not now. I’ll keep you informed. Just wanted to check in.”
“I feel like such a chickenshit.”
“You’re fine. Just stay there.”
Jimmy had a few more things to say, but I was hardly listening. I hung up the phone and went to the closet and got the holster that went with the .38 and strapped it on my belt and put the .38 in it and pulled my shirt out and over it.
“Hey, man,” Booger said, “hold your goddamn water till I get my pants on. Me and Mr. Lucky are going with you.”
Mr. Lucky was Booger’s .45. It was one of his small circle of friends.
36
The first address was a vacant lot in an area I knew, and behind the lot were some woods, and about two acres on either side of the lot were also woods, and beyond that, on both sides were houses. There was nothing to see that meant anything to me. I parked at the curb and Booger and I sat there and looked around. Night had fallen and the wind had picked up and there was a hint of more rain in the air.
Booger said, “You think you’re being fucked with?”
“One way or another,” I said. “Thing is, I wasn’t supposed to bring you.”
“It said no police. I’m not the police. Someone sends you a picture of dead women and says meet them in the dark, you ought to have someone friendly with you. This way, you got me and Mr. Lucky.”
I got out of the car and Booger got out on the other side. I said, “I figure they want me to work for it. They said to look for the path.”
“There it is,” Booger said.
He was pointing at a little trail that rolled across the lot and down amongst the clutch of trees at the back. The moonlight made the path look like a twisty, silver ribbon.
“Could be an ambush,” Booger said. “Like I was saying, you don’t want to come here with nothing besides that .38 and a hopeful feeling. Tell you what, bro. I’m going to kind of fade off to the side here, and come along on the right, and you go down the path. You got business you don’t like, you get to cracking that peashooter, or yelling out, and me and Mr. Lucky will come running and barking and calling your name.”
“Good enough,” I said.
“I hope it is somebody,” Booger said.
“Don’t hope too hard. You might shoot someone hasn’t got anything to do with anything.”
“Everybody has something to do with something in my book,” Booger said.
“I mean it, Booger.”
Booger looked at me and smiled. That smile told me a lot. It told me he didn’t really give a damn about what I had to say, but he would humor me. Up to a point.
The wind was blowing hard when I got on the path and started down it toward the wood line. I looked up to find Booger, but he was already gone. He was in his element. Stalk and destroy.
As I went along, the trail dipped down a hill and into the trees, and I could hear water running. The trees on either side of the trail were wind-whipped, and as they blew they tossed shadows along the trail. As I walked, the trail grew more narrow and the shadows grew longer and thicker. Pretty soon there was nothing but the dark. I had a flashlight in the car, but like an idiot I hadn’t thought to bring it. Booger, he could see in the dark like a cat, so he wouldn’t be bothered. Me, I wasn’t that good.
I went on down and felt my way along with my feet, going slow, and then I heard something, movement in the bushes. I crouched and wondered if it was Booger. I almost called out his name, but held my breath instead. I felt as if at any moment the winged Oz monkeys would appear and grab me and flap me off into the night.
I made sure I had control of my breathing, waited and listened. I didn’t hear anything. I stood up and started moving again, and as I went the trail opened and dropped down through the woods. I jumped over a narrow creek and kept walking until the woods split open and there was another clearing. I could see something in the clearing ahead. It was dead center of the clearing and it wasn’t moving.
Then something did move. Something came out of the shadows up ahead and went across quick.
A shape. A man most likely, and not Booger. I’d know Booger’s tank-broad shape anywhere. This was a leaner, lankier shape that moved like his bones were rubber. The moon had flashed on his shaved skull and I got a glimpse of what looked like a giant spider on the back of his neck—the hand tattoo the kids had told me about.
Stitch, the Geek.
I got the .38 out and eased onward, keeping an eye peeled on where I had seen the shape disappear into the woods. I went to where the shape had gone, moved as quickly as I could down a trail that was half my width. I took a few limb slaps in the face as I went. I heard something ahead of me, a cracking sound, and I went after it, moving pretty quick, and then I didn’t hear anything. I stopped. I decided I didn’t want to keep going. The brush was thick and it was dark and the shape was definitely in there. He could be anywhere, and all he had to do was be quiet and still and wait on me.
I took a deep breath, backed about twenty feet down the trail, then turned, and there he was. I just got a glimpse of that strange face, that misshapen, shaved skull. Before I could bring the .38 up, he hit me so hard I didn’t remember falling to the ground, didn’t even feel it at first. I tried to roll over, but he kicked me in the side. I tried to lift the .38, but realized I didn’t have it anymore.
I he
ard Booger yell, and then I heard him crashing down the trail. There was a fleeting glimpse of pants legs, and then one more kick in the ribs, and then Stitch was gone.
I got on my knees and felt around and found the .38. I heard Booger calling again. I got up and staggered back down the trail and out to the larger path. I looked at the thing in the clearing again. I moved on down there, and didn’t hear anything again, and didn’t see anything, except for that thing in the clearing. As I grew closer, I saw that it was human-shaped and it seemed to be squatting, as if it had paused to take a bathroom break.
I had some idea what it was, but I went over there as quietly as I could, holding my side where Stitch had kicked me. My jaw was starting to ache from the punch.
The moonlight was spilling over the squatting thing. It was a woman and the woman was nude and her skin was leathery-looking, like there had been some kind of preservation attempted, taxidermy perhaps, or maybe she had just been stored in salt. The face was wrinkled and old-looking, but I knew the person wasn’t old. I could recognize her even though I realized now her bones were gone and there was nothing but her skin and skull there. The skin was stretched over some kind of frame in the general shape of a human form squatting. The body was nude, and the woman’s breasts had been stuffed with something that made them knotty-looking, and the squat was such that her ass was touching the ground; it too appeared to be stuffed with something. The hair on the woman’s head was red but there were patches of it missing. She looked worse than she looked in the photos, except now the framework gave her shape. The tattoos on her skin just looked like scars.
There was a dark line on the forehead, and I found myself reaching out to touch it. It was a cut line, and it went all the way across. I got hold of her hair and gently lifted it and the top of the skull came right off, leaving a lower line of hair hanging around the bottom part of the skull. Inside, the skull was hollowed out and there was a fat envelope nestled at the bottom. I took a deep breath and took it out with my other hand, put the top of the skull back in place.
I heard a noise, turned, dropped the envelope, squatted, pointed the .38. It was Booger. He was walking toward me, the .45 down by his side.