Butch Karp: Absolute Rage Part 20

"Yes. Come here, Gog." The dog came down the trail and stood by Marlene. She flung the magnet into the water again, telling herself it would be the last one.

"What're y'doin'?" the boy asked after the magnet came back with a piece of auto chrome.

"Looking for something. Want to help?"

"It ain't there."

"What isn't there?"

"What all you're lookin' fer. It ain't there."

"How do you know what I'm looking for, and how do you know it isn't there?"

"He says," said the boy confidently. " He says, tell her she ain't gonna find nothing in that river. He says to take you up the holler and he'll tell you who killed them and how it was done."

Marlene felt the thrill sweat pop out on her forehead and her lip. "Who are you?"

"Darl."

"Darl? Okay, Darl, you got a last name?"

"I cain't say. You come on with me now. He said." Darl turned and walked up the bank. At the top he stopped and made a beckoning gesture. Marlene gathered up her magnet and line and tromped out of the waders. At the truck, she parked Gog in the back and let the boy into the pa.s.senger seat. When she was in herself, she asked, "Where to?"

"Just straight." He pointed. It was full dusk now; she turned on her lights.

They drove north on the highway, which flanked the river and the railroad tracks that st.i.tched the valley. The boy said nothing and ignored Marlene's conversational gambits until: "Turn right here."

She turned onto a county road, whose number she didn't catch, and after a mile or so, the boy turned her right again onto dirt and gravel. It was now quite dark. Every so often, the boy would say "Right up ahead" or "Go left," and she would hump the truck, in four-wheel drive, up some primitive track. Branches whipped against the windshield. The truck rolled and heaved like a small craft in a seaway, its headlight beams sometimes pointing to the heavens.

"Are we almost there yet?" she asked finally.

"It ain't fur now."

She checked her watch. They had been driving for about ninety minutes, and she had no idea where she was, except that it was somewhere on Belo k.n.o.b, the northern edge of it. After more driving, once along what seemed to be a rocky creekbed, the boy said, "Slow down here. Turn right."

She looked at him. His face seemed to glow in the dash lights, in a way that ordinary flesh should not. "Turn where? There's no road."

"There is. Just go through them bushes."

She hit the gas and wrestled the wheel around. Branches made shrieking sounds on the metal. It was a track at least, a steep tunnel through rank overgrowth. Then they were clear, and she felt on her cheek the changed air that meant open s.p.a.ce. The high beams cast out across a small mowing, the gra.s.ses chest-high, and the edge of a structure.

"That's it," said the boy. "You can shut your lights off now."

She did so, and the engine, too. The sound of crickets and the faint breeze in the gra.s.ses. A nightbird called. As her vision adjusted, she saw a dim light ahead, a window in a small building. She walked toward it, following the boy.

It was a farmhouse, long disused. Tall gra.s.s grew through the sun-bleached steps. There was no door. The boy made an odd gesture, like a headwaiter motioning toward a table. She entered and found that a sheet had been hung from a low ceiling, behind which there was a kerosene lantern, the only source of light. She could make out the silhouette of a seated man.

"Sit down," said a low voice, an old man's voice, rough and rumbling.

A stool had been placed in the center of the floor. She sat.

"I got me a gun here, so don't go a-gettin' no ideas about coming round this cloth. You understand?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Never you mind that. I know what I'm talkin' about though, so listen good. I reckon you know that slow Welch boy didn't do those Heeneys."

"Of course he didn't."

"You'd like to know who did do it though."

"Yes, I would."

"It was Earl Cade, and Bo Cade, and Wayne Cade, and George Floyd. They done it on orders from Lester Weames, on account of that union business. Red Heeney was going to get an investigation of the union goin' and Lester couldn't stand that. So he had to go."

"How do you know this?"

"I know what happens on Belo k.n.o.b."

"Well, good for you, but so what? I don't know who you are, or where you got your information. Why should I believe you?"

"They was paid, warn't they? Cades'll kill for fun, but this wasn't no fun killin'. They was paid cash money, ten thousand dollars. Earl was boastin' on it. How'd he get that fancy truck of his? No Cade ever could keep a secret."

"But you're not a Cade." Marlene's thoughts went back to the barbecue supper with the Heeneys, back to things Rose had said, things Poole had let slip. The boy's not telling his surname. "You're a Jonson, aren't you? What's your name?"

He ignored this. "Listen. They cain't touch him, the law's no good around here. But you're from away. That's why I'm tellin' you. You check the money, Weames's money, you'll see."

"What about the pistol? The boy said you might know where the pistol is."

"Well, they didn't throw it down a mine. You look around them all, it'll turn up. Now, that's all I got to say."

The shadow moved, growing large, then shrinking as the man approached the lamp. Marlene heard a clink and a hiss of breath. The room went dark, leaving Marlene blinking at the ghostly afterimage of a white rectangle that shrank into nothing. She stood up, knocking over the stool, and fumbled in her pocket for her keys. She pressed the stud on the tiny key-chain light and the room glowed in its beam. No one was behind the sheet. A back door swung loose on a single hinge. She listened for footfalls or the sound of a car engine, but heard nothing more than the eternal crickets and the wind in the gra.s.s.

Through this gra.s.s she walked then, guided by her light. She found the truck, let the dog into the shotgun seat, slipped behind the wheel, and thought, idly rubbing the dog's ears to improve concentration. The hidden man had seemed to know what he was talking about. At the very least he had confirmed her suspicions. The question was going to be how to prove it in court. Not my department anymore; wait for Butch, and then what? Offer it up and depart? Probably. How did they know I'd be at that bridge? Somebody told them. Who knew? Poole and Dan. Couldn't be Dan, had to be Poole. Ask him, but not now. Now, should she continue her string of stupid moves and try to find her way off this mountain on steep, unmarked trails in the pitch dark, or should she just sit here with her dog and wait for morning light? She put the question to the dog and got the sensible answer she expected.

All of them were packed into the black Ford Explorer: Lucy, the twins, Tran, and two young Vietnamese men, part of a shifting crew that Lucy had started to call privately the Lost Boys. Freddy Phat drove. Where were they going? A surprise, said Tran. They drove briefly on the highway and then turned off into what looked like an extensive industrial district, a reminder of Bridgeport's glory days as the national machine shop and instrument maker. Most of the factories were vacant, their yards weed-grown, their windows staring, gla.s.sless. They stopped before a chained gate in a long chain-link fence around what seemed to be a large, derelict industrial property. One of the boys jumped out and unlocked the chain.

"What is this place, Uncle?" Lucy asked.

"It is a cement plant. I own it."

"I thought you were in the restaurant business."

"Yes, but one must diversify." He used the English word. "Or so I have read. Besides, you know, I am a gangster, and all gangsters must have a cement plant."

"Are we going to observe you constructing a concrete canoe for a squealer?"

"Of course not. Such an event would not be suitable for your brothers. No, we are going to shoot."

The property was extensive. They pa.s.sed a row of gray, peak-roofed buildings equipped with silos and smokestacks and came to a huge sandpit. A crude plywood table was at the lip of the pit and an old wooden swivel chair. Out in the pit against a mound of sand some twenty-five yards away stood a structure of two-by-fours like a giant easel. The Lost Boys got out of the SUV with a brown duffel bag and laid it clanking on the table. Then they went into the pit and stapled a number of silhouette targets to the two-by-four frame.

Freddy Phat lined up the weapons on the table, with stacks of clips and magazines, like cakes at a bake sale. There was an AK-47 a.s.sault rifle, a Skorpion submachine gun, a Beretta 9mm pistol, and a Colt .45 Gold Cup. Everyone put earplugs in. The two Lost Boys fired first, then Freddy Phat. Tran sat in the swivel chair and made comments in Vietnamese, mostly to do with not wasting ammunition, firing shorter bursts, keeping control. He did not seem all that concerned with the marksmanship of his staff. The twins and Lucy stood back and watched. The Lost Boys stopped firing and replaced all the shredded targets.

Then it was the twins' turn. Lucy watched Tran showing Zak how to fire the Beretta, placing his feet, arranging his hands on the weapon. Tran's horrible scarred hands against the smooth flesh of the boy's hand. She recalled Tran teaching her to shoot in the same way, when they were in the city. She was younger then than the boys were now, and mad for shooting.

Tran took Zak through all the weapons, crouching behind him supporting his arms when necessary. Zak's face was shining with joy. Then Giancarlo, just the pistol and the Skorpion, and then he said he had a headache and withdrew.

Tran turned to Lucy with an inquiring look. "No, thank you, Uncle, not today."

"You used to enjoy it so much."

"Yes. But now I don't think it's good for me to shoot, especially not at man targets. I can't not think about what the bullets are meant to do, to people's bodies. It makes me too sad."

He nodded and looked sad himself.

"But aren't you going to shoot?" she asked.

In answer he removed a small weapon from his jacket pocket.

"Oh, you still have the Stechkin," she said.

"Yes. You remember you were always plaguing me to let you fire it, and I would not. Would you like to now?"

"I don't think so," she answered, smiling. "I missed my chance, I think."

He turned toward the firing line, hefting the little weapon.

Zak asked, "What is that? Another pistol?"

"Yes, but a machine pistol. It's very rare. Most people can't shoot one very well."

"But he can."

"Yes," Lucy said. "Tran does most things very well."

Tran shot. In an instant the center of the target vanished into flapping rags.

After the shooting party, they all went to one of Tran's restaurants and in a private room had stuffed squid and garlic quails. Lucy was glad the boys had been trained from an early age to eat everything, and they did not disgrace her in the American fashion by demanding hamburger. After the meal they returned to Tran's house, where their host and his minions departed for their regular evening round of inspection, collection, and terrorization. Lucy took her brothers, who were hyped and restless, on a walk through the parklike neighborhood. They found a playground, a basketball court, and three kids of around fourteen playing horse in the fading light. Did they want to have a game, Lucy asked them, and after some nervous hesitation, they agreed. They had expected a walkover, a girl and two little kids, but the Karps had been playing b-ball together for a long time, and Lucy was as good a player as you were likely to find outside of a top-flight college team. Zak was an excellent shot and aggressive even against kids twice his weight, although he shot whenever he had the ball. Giancarlo was a born point guard and had inherited from his father an almost preternatural sense of what everyone on the court was likely to do next. They played until they couldn't see anymore, winning two, losing one.

Later, as Lucy tucked them into their sleeping bags in the guest room, Zak said, "This was the best day of my whole life."

"I'm glad you liked it," said his sister. "What about you, GC?"

Giancarlo and Lucy exchanged a look. "Oh, definitely the best day, superterrific," lied Giancarlo out of love for his brother. Only Lucy knew how much he disliked shooting.

She mooched around the house for a while after that, made herself some tea, smoked a cigarette in the garden. Then she went into the house and, like the good girl she was, called her mom.

But was not surprised, nor disappointed, when Dan Heeney answered the phone.

"Oh, I was thinking about you," she said.

"Really?" This was actually the first time that a girl had said that to him. "How come?"

"I was out with the boys and a bunch of gangsters shooting machine guns today and I thought, 'Oh, I'll probably talk to Dan when I call Mom tonight and he'll ask me what I was doing and I'll say that, and he'll say, "No, really." ' "

"You're making this up." He laughed.

"Yeah, or, 'You're making this up.' No, really . My strange life. What's hopping in McCullensburg?"

"Oh, well, I don't know where to start. There's so much to do. We caught B.B. King's concert at Amos's roadhouse and brothel. Pavarotti's at the VFW hall. Most nights I just drop in at Rosie's to check out the wits and glitterati who a.s.semble there nightly-Woody, Jay, Leo. It's like People magazine."

She laughed. "I mean really. "

"Oh, really? I'm studying matrix algebra and astrophysics. Working on my world-famous pyramid of Iron City beer cans. Waiting for this d.a.m.n thing to resolve."

"My dad'll fix it."

"Yeah, that's what my dad thought," Dan snapped bitterly, "and look what it got him."

Lucy thought that between the two dads, hers struck her as the more competent fixer. She let the thought pa.s.s, but the mere mention of the case strummed the ever-tuned strings of responsibility in her, and she said, "Well, it'll work out somehow. Is my mom there?"

"No, as a matter of fact, she's out."

"Out? Where is she? It's pretty late."

"Oh, you know-McCullensburg, the city that never sleeps. I don't know where she is exactly. She had some whacked-out idea about using a big magnet to troll the river for the murder weapon. She thought she'd figured out exactly where it is. I thought it was kind of dumb, myself."

"It probably was. She can go off on an idea sometimes. That's how she lost her eye, you know."

"I didn't. What happened?"

"This was before they got married. She started obsessing about my dad's ex. She thought they were getting back together. Then she found an envelope addressed to him, from the city where the ex was living, and she opened it to see whether anything was really going on, and it was a letter bomb, meant for my dad, from this maniac. The funny thing was, she was the DA's expert on letter bombs at the time."

"Weird. She's sort of a strange woman, if you don't mind me saying so."

"Not at all. Which makes it odd that she has such perfectly normal children. Look, I'd like to chat more, but I hear my host is arriving. Would you do me a favor? Have her call me when she gets in-it doesn't matter how late it is. Okay?" She gave him the house number.

"Sure. Fine. By the way, you said you'd work on us getting together this summer. Any progress?"

"I promised my dad I would stay away until they catch the bad guys. Because of the twins."

"Uh-huh. Well, I guess it's going to have to be back at school."

"Oh, I don't know," said Lucy, "two Karps on the case, those guys're doomed."

Midnight. Lucy sat cross-legged on a cushion in the plain finished bas.e.m.e.nt of Tran's house, using yenhok needles to prepare a pill of black Chinese opium for her host, who was reclining on a couch. She manipulated the tarry ma.s.s over the blue flame from a bra.s.s alcohol lamp, shaping and heating it all the way through, as he had taught her. It was curiously relaxing work. The lamp provided the room's only light.

She placed the pill in a long, carved pipe, bra.s.s-bound bone with an amber mouthpiece, and handed it to him. He took two long sucks from it and fell back against a cushion.