Nick's Trip

  “I’ll be back in a minute, Billy.”

  I rose with difficulty and shook the dizziness from my head. At the bar I took a thick white diner mug from a stack and poured some coffee from the fullest pot heating on the Bunn-O-Matic. I had a sip standing there, then walked around the U of the bar to the kitchen’s entrance.

  Inside, Russel was standing over a large grill. On one side of the grill a dozen hand-packed burgers precooked slowly on the breakfast-level heat. Russel poured some grease from a coffee pot onto the other side. It spread into a pool the size of a dinner plate and began to sizzle.

  “How’s it going?” I said.

  “It’s goin’,” he said without looking up. Russel took a thick black-handled knife from the rack and cut two slices from a wax-papered block of scrapple. He laid the scrapple carefully into the grease, then turned to face me.

  Russel’s hair was cut in a modified fade. His eyes were baby-round and olive green. Two black moles dotted the brown skin of his left cheek.

  “I’m Nick Stefanos.” I walked across the brick-colored tiles and shook his hand. His grip was tentative.

  “I know your name,” he said, and grinned slightly. “But I would have recognized you anyway. You’re wearin’ the same tired shit you had on last night.”

  “Didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He faced the grill again and turned the scrapple. I walked over to the opposite wall and leaned my back against a stainless-steel refrigerator. The kitchen was warm, and Russel had opened the back door. Some sun fell in through the wood-framed screen. Through the screen I watched a large black cat lick her kittens clean on a concrete porch. Beyond that, on a worn patch of brown grass, a three-legged German shepherd slept. I had a deep swig of coffee and lit a cigarette. The smoke of my exhale hovered and shimmered in the oblong wedge of sun.

  “I’m looking for April Goodrich,” I said.

  “Hendricks told me.”

  “Can you help me?”

  Russel used a spatula to retrieve the scrapple from the grill. He slid the scrapple onto a plate that he had lined with paper towels to absorb the grease. Then he broke two eggs using one hand, and another two after that. Russel carefully pushed the spatula around the white edges of the eggs.

  “Depends on what you want to know,” he said.

  “Was she here?

  He nodded. “She was down here.”

  “When?”

  “About a week ago, I guess.”

  “When exactly?”

  Russel thought it over, the spatula pointed upward like a barometer. “Middle of the week, about then.”

  “In this place?” I dragged on my cigarette and let the smoke drift.

  “She doesn’t come here,” he said. “On the other side of the bridge, at Polanski’s.”

  “Doin’ what?”

  “Drinkin’ Jamaican rum,” Russel said, chuckling. “Like she always do.”

  “Who with?”

  His smile faded. “Tommy Crane.”

  “How’d they look?”

  “Drunk. Crane had two beers in front of him and April was all over him.”

  “Why doesn’t she do her drinking in the Pony Point? Avoiding you, Russel?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “That was a long time ago. She’s forgotten all about me, man.”

  “What about you?”

  “Like I say, that was a long time ago.”

  “You still in love with her?”

  Russel turned the eggs without breaking the yoke, then leaned his wide ass against the cutting board that fronted the grill. He crossed his arms and looked me over. “You ask a lot of questions, man.”

  “It’s my job to ask questions.”

  He sighed and looked toward the wall. “I can’t say if I was in love with her. I don’t know. It’s easy to confuse being in love with just lovin’ the memory of a certain time. A certain time in your life, I mean. When anything’s possible, all the shit’s out in front of you. Before the world gets real, beats you down.”

  “Pretty philosophical.”

  “That’s me. Two years at Howard, and that’s what I got. Goethe, Sartre. Existentialism and the Absurd—the last class I took before I booked. Absurd is right. None of that shit had a goddamn thing to do with what’s reality.”

  I looked at Russel’s apron and then into his intelligent eyes. “What are you doing down here?”

  He chuckled. “How’s D.C.?”

  “You know how it is.”

  “Where you live?”

  “Shepherd Park.”

  “Uptown.”

  “Uptown, and east of the park.”

  “Yeah, I know how it is, all right. Rough two years I spent up there—for a country boy. In D.C. I wasn’t nothin’ but a ’bama.” Russel relaxed his shoulders. “So that’s what I’m doing here. I like this place. I like to walk at night, and I like to fish and I like to hunt. And I like my animals, man.” He glanced out the screen door. “My cats and my dogs.”

  “You seen April since that night at Polanski’s?”

  “Uh-uh,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Why’s she hooked up with Tommy Crane?”

  “April likes the wheel, and Crane’s holdin’ serious weight. That boy’s damn near a legend.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Russel said, “If Crane had any more dick, he’d be wearin’ three shoes. You follow now?”

  I had a last drag and pitched the rest of my cigarette out through the gap in the screen door and into a mound of dirt. Russel lifted the eggs off the grill and dropped them onto two plates. He added the scrapple and some buttered toast from a stack, then placed both plates on the platform of the reach-through.

  “Your breakfast is up, man.”

  “Thanks for the information.”

  “You got honest eyes. I didn’t talk for you, though. And I sure didn’t talk for that gray husband of hers. If April’s runnin’ from him, then I wish her luck. But her hangin’ with Tommy Crane can only come to bad.”

  “I’m going out to his place now, to talk to him.”

  “Then you take care,” Russel said. “’Cause that’s one crazy motherfucker.”

  BREAKFAST WORKED. I HAD two more cups of coffee, then voided my rotten bowels in the men’s room and washed up. When I walked out, Billy, who still looked somewhat ashen, took my place in the sole stall. I made a go-cup of coffee at the bar, thanked Wanda, and stepped out into the parking lot for some clean air.

  Hendricks was sitting in his unmarked Ford, the powerful engine idling. He stepped out of the white car without cutting the ignition and strode slowly in my direction. He was in his brown uniform now, though his general appearance hadn’t changed. He had looked exactly the same the night before—like a cop.

  “So,” he said, hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of his slacks. “How you feelin’ today?”

  “Better now. Thanks.”

  “Nothin’ a good breakfast can’t cure, right?”

  “Russel’s a good cook.”

  “Best in this part of the county.”

  I glanced at the .357 Smith & Wesson that was holstered on his hip. The lacquered walnut stock gleamed in the sun. “I see you favor the four-inch barrel.”

  Hendricks frowned with interest. “Now, how you know that, Stefanos?”

  “My grandfather was an S & W man. So I heard enough trivia over the years for some to stick. Your gun’s squared on the butt—and they only square it on the four-inch. Smith and Wesson rounds the butt on the three-inch barrel.”

  “That’s right.” Hendricks patted the holster. “It’s not that the barrel size makes a damn bit of difference to me. But it makes a hell of a better… impression if you have to draw it.”

  “You have to much, down here?”

  “It happens,” he said. “But I can’t say I favor this one at all. Fact is, the son of a bitch sights low. Much as I try to correct, I hit a full foot higher than I aim.”
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  “Aim low, then.”

  “Thanks for the big-city tip.” Hendricks winked, looked over my shoulder, and smiled with satisfaction as he followed Billy’s labored trek from the door to the Maxima. I heard the engine start behind my back.

  “I better get going,” I said.

  “Where to?”

  “See if Tommy Crane’s around. He was drinking with April at Polanski’s a week ago. Maybe he can tell me where she went.”

  Hendricks said, “You don’t want to be messing with that guy, if you can help it.”

  “Russel said the same.”

  “Well, he knows. Crane nearly beat the life outta Russel one night at Rock Point, for nothing at all. I was doing a routine drive-by and ran right up on it. By that time Russel was on the ground spittin’ blood and froth, and Crane was still kickin’ in his ribs.”

  “I’ll watch myself.”

  “I’m not kidding,” Hendricks said.

  “I’m not either,” I said. “This is just a job to me. And I don’t want to die.”

  BILLY AND I CROSSED the bridge over the channel and turned left onto 257, then followed the highway for two or three miles. At a steepled church Billy turned right and drove back southeast toward the Wicomico. The road was narrow, though smoothly paved. Billy slowed at a gravel road on the left that broke into a thick forest of oak. He was turning in when I told him to cut the engine. Billy parked on the gravel road.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “Crane live back in there?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How do you know? You been here before?”

  “Long time ago, when me and April were first coming down here. She introduced me; I didn’t know there was anything between them.” Billy looked me over. “What’s wrong with you, man?”

  “I don’t want any surprises, that’s all. I want everything up front before I talk to this guy.” I cracked my window and stared straight ahead. “Joey DiGeordano told me that April took the money on Monday last. You say she took off on Wednesday. What happened in between?”

  Billy glanced at his lap and brushed air off his leg. “We celebrated.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

  “Tell me everything you did between the time she glommed the cash and the time she left you.”

  Billy sighed with annoyance. “All right. The night she came home with it, we stayed in. We paced a lot, didn’t sleep much. The next day I worked and April stayed home. That night—Tuesday night—we went out. We were getting a little nervous then—about having all that cash, about when DiGeordano’s boys were going to get around to come looking for it. And we planned to leave town the next day, cool our heels, whatever. Fact is, we didn’t have a plan.” Billy paused as he cracked his own window. Some sweat had appeared on his forehead. “Anyway, like I say, we went out. To a movie.”

  “What’d you see?”

  “I don’t know, some bogus action flick at the Laurel Ten. You know, the new one, with the guy’s got a ponytail.”

  “What about after that?”

  “We went out for a few.”

  “Where?”

  Billy thought it over and waved a hand in my direction. “I can’t remember the name, a chain joint. One of those phony Irish names, they have drinks comin’ out of machines. Right in front of Laurel Mall. O’Tooligan’s, MacManley’s, some shit like that.”

  “April get drunk?”

  “She always gets drunk.”

  “She get drunk enough to give you any idea she was going to split?”

  “She was drunk enough. But no, she didn’t say a word.”

  “And she left the next day.”

  “That’s right. I went to work, and when I came home she was gone.”

  “No note, right? I mean, that computerized Dear John you told me about, that was all bullshit, right, Billy?”

  Billy narrowed his eyes. “I apologized already, last night. You’ve busted my balls enough, don’t you think? I’ve got nothing else to tell you.”

  “All right,” I said, pointing down the road. “Let’s go see Crane.”

  FIFTEEN

  TOMMY CRANE’S COTTAGE was in a half-acre clearing about a quarter-mile through the woods. Fifty yards from the house was a cinder-block structure larger than the cottage. We parked the Maxima beside a red F-150 truck on a plot of hard sand under a single oak that stood next to the cottage.

  I pointed to the cinder-block structure. “What’s that?”

  “Pig compound. He houses and feeds them in there. Slaughters ’em in there as well, from what I can remember.”

  I thought things over. “Crane probably won’t let me in his house, if he’s got something to hide. At the very least, maybe I can get in to use his bathroom. If he does let me in, I’m going to need as much time as I can in there alone, to look around. Do your best and keep him occupied, even if it’s only for a few minutes. You’ll know when to do it. But for now, just stay in the car, okay? I don’t need any distractions up front.”

  “It’s all you now, man. Go on.”

  I climbed out of the car and pushed Maybelle’s head back in—she was trying to slide out with me—before closing the door. A fat sound, the movement of animals, came from the direction of the compound. The air felt colder as I passed beneath the naked branches of the oak. The branches cast shadows like black arthritic arms on the hard earth.

  I stepped up onto a wooden porch whose planks were painted gray. There was a screen door and after that a solid one. I pulled open the screen door and knocked on the other.

  The door unlocked quickly, and Tommy Crane stood before me. He was wearing a blue chamois shirt over a thermal undershirt, and loose-fitting jeans. Over the shirt was a black down vest that bulged on the left side of his chest. On the side of his hip a knife was secured in a thin brown-leather sheath. The knife’s handle was wrapped tightly with black electricians’s tape. The long blade of the knife took up the balance of the sheath. The sheath ran halfway down Crane’s thigh.

  “Yes?” Crane said. The voice was controlled and uncomfortably gentle—for a man his height and weight, it didn’t fit. His tan hands were long and densely veined, and his rawboned wrists filled and stretched the cuffs of the chamois shirt. The wrists had the thickness and mass of redwood.

  “My name’s Nick Stefanos.”

  “That supposed to mean something to me?” Crane squinted and scratched his black beard. A wire-thin scar veed deeply into the right side of the beard.

  “I work for Billy Goodrich,” I said, turning my head briefly in the direction of the Maxima. Crane looked toward the car and saw Billy in the driver’s seat, then looked back at me. There was lack of interest and mild annoyance in his thin black eyes. I shifted my feet to simulate discomfort as I handed him my card. “Mind if I come in?”

  He gave the card a contemptuous glance. “For what?”

  “I’m looking for April Goodrich. I understand she was down here and she was with you.”

  “She was down here,” he said, and as he said it he stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. Crane ran one hand through his thick black hair and pulled the bulk of it back behind his ears. Then he hitched up his jeans and puffed out his broad chest. “You want to talk to me, come on, but make it quick. I got work to do, and plenty of it.”

  Crane skipped the steps, jumped down off the porch, and landed walking, taking long strides toward the pig compound. I looked quickly at Billy. Billy shrugged, and I followed Crane.

  I trailed him to a wood gate, where we butted through and stepped into a small grassy area enclosed by a barbed-wire fence. The wire was wrapped and tied at six-foot intervals to knotted wood posts driven deeply into the earth. We continued toward the cinder-block structure to an opening cut to accommodate an average-sized man. The structure was topped unevenly by a corrugated tin roof laid over asbestos sheeting. A thin periscopic chimney rose out of the roof, and gray smoke drifted out t
hrough the chimney. The wheezy animal sounds grew heavier as we approached the gate that was hinged to the opening.

  Crane pushed on the gate and strode in, lowering his head to clear the top-frame of the entrance. I followed him into a dark, concrete-floored area of roughly eight hundred square feet. The entire structure was elevated to provide for a concrete feeding trough that ran around the sty and was accessible from the outside. On the left wall two farrowing pens were lit and warmed by infrared lamps, and in those pens two sows lay on their sides. Several piglets suckled the sows’ teats from behind a set of steel rails. On the right wall were sleeping compartments where slats of timber had been cross-nailed inches above the cold concrete. In the rear of the sty a copper circular trough was mounted on a brick base. A fire burned in the center of the base and the putrid steam that rose from the liquid boiling in the trough entered a hole that led through the chimney. Next to the cooker was an iron drinking trough. Next to that a black hose lay dripping and coiled on the concrete. On the wall behind the troughs several butchering knives rested in the hooks of a punchboard. Beside the punchboard was an exit, exactly the size of the opening through which we had entered. The ropes of a pulley dangled from the rafters, above it all.

  Crane kept walking. He lowered his head once more and stepped outside through the rear opening. I followed. Now we were in another fenced enclosure with twice the area of the yard in front. Bales of hay were lined end-to-end around the bottom of this fence, and a few dozen pigs and weaners of varying litters were lying on their sides on the worn grass, butted up against the hay. It was colder in the yard than it had been in the sty, but the sun was bright and the air was bracing and clean.

  Some of the pigs had risen at the arrival of Crane, and they began to move about the yard. They alternately snorted and squealed. A white pig larger than the others moved slowly in our direction. The rest remained against the bales. I nodded toward them. “They like the feel of that hay?”

  “Not really,” Crane said. “Pigs like the sunshine, but they hate the wind. Hate it damn near worse than they hate anything. So they come outside for the sun and get behind the bales. Now one of those sows—that one over there”—Crane pointed to a large Middle White in the corner of the yard—“she’s lyin’ back because she senses it’s her time to die. I haven’t fed her for twenty-four hours, for the reason of the mess the killin’ makes if there’s food in her belly, and that just adds to her confusion. But she knows, boy. She knows.”