The Best American Mystery Stories Part 31

"Paul, you're in a bad way, but you're going to make it."

"I'm hurt," I agreed.

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body," the old guy said. "Learned that in the service."

I was silent.

The old guy indicated the empty bed. Next to it was a table full of surgical tools, bright and shiny stainless steel. I saw the raw rows of teeth of what I took to be a bone saw.

"There was a cop in that bed five hours ago," the old guy said. "Had some emergency operation, right there on the spot."

"Really," I listened. The bed was freshly made with clean white sheets pulled back and a white pillow. It looked as if n.o.body had ever been in that bed, ever.

The old guy kept going. "He had gray hair and didn't want to tell me he'd been a cop, when he first came in. I introduced myself and he didn't say anything, really, so then I heard the nurse taking insurance information from him and when she left I said 'Insurance? That must be nice,' and he said 'Well I earned it.' I said 'What did you used to do?,' tryin' to be friendly, get a little conversation going while I'm waitin' to kick off and he didn't answer, so I said it louder, 'Hey, what do you do?' and he says 'Private security,' and that put me onto it, right there."

"Really," I said.

"I said to him 'That's a job they give off-duty cops. You a cop?' and he mumbled some s.h.i.t about being an MP in the service and coming out and getting a job as a radio patrol car officer years ago, in Jersey, and then coming up here and being a uniformed cop up here for thirty years. "

"Sounds personal," I said. "On your end."

The old guy didn't let up. "Don't give me that c.r.a.p, that you like cops. Come in here beat the h.e.l.l up like you are and tell me you haven't been around." He moved to one side of the bed. "When I came out of the service, I got a job making parts on an a.s.sembly line. I got in a couple sc.r.a.pes, more than I should have, but I worked there till I retired and I'm lucky I got a pension. The collection agency still calls all the time from when I was in the hospital four years ago. And don't tell me somebody didn't take a tire iron to you. I know what I'm talking about."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. "This was a work accident."

The old guy raised himself up on one elbow and looked over at me. "I've been around," the old man said. "You look like you've been around."

"Sure," I said. To shut him up.

"Don't kid yourself," the old guy said. "You're always all the men you've ever been." He quieted down as a nurse came in to check on him. She fed him some pills and water and left. The old guy pointed at the surgical tools on the metal table by the empty bed.

"Think those tools are sterile?" he asked.

"That's what they tell me," I said.

"You can't sterilize the inside. Those tools remember where they've been. Saving a life one day, killing someone the next," he said. "Those tools are playing a little game with the doctors. The doctors think they control the tools, but it's the other way around."

"OK," I said.

"The cop started to have some type of fit and they all came in and rushed around him and put up a movable curtain, but there was a s.p.a.ce between the curtain panels. Right through that s.p.a.ce I watched that saw and it bit too deep and I knew it as soon as it happened and I knew he was getting it back, getting done to him what he did to somebody."

The drugs the nurse had given him must have relaxed him too much to make him a good roommate anymore.

"Hey," he said. "If I asked you a question, would you tell the truth?"

"Sure," I lied again.

He stretched his neck up toward the dark, blank TV mounted from the ceiling in the corner of the room. He lowered his voice. "Whenever I'm in the hospital, I see a man in a black suit with a hat on, inside the TV, when it ain't on. He's looking out at me." The old guy paused. "Do you ever see that?"

"Yes," I said, to help him. "Sometimes."

"Bull," the old guy spit. "If you saw something like that, you'd s.h.i.t the bed."

Two nurses and a doctor came into the room and began wheeling him out the next morning. I thought he was asleep, but as he pa.s.sed my bed, his eyes were open.

"Watch yourself," he said to me. "They don't save everybody here."

After sixty-five days, I was allowed to leave the hospital. The doctor saw me during morning rounds and signed off on my discharge paperwork. One of the blond nurses I'd flirted with stood next to me and whispered in my ear. Goodbye Mister Whoever-you-are. They'd seen enough loggers float in, the facility being so close to the Adirondacks. Sixty-five days without a visitor and no phone in my room, no calls, Paul Wagner wasn't going to be paying any hospital bill or following up with occupational therapy. The insurance cards I vaguely referred to would never arrive and I'd sell the pain pills to my buddies, if I could make it through the day on a shot or two of straight hard booze. Paul Wagner died the minute I hit the exit door.

My truck sat in the parking lot with tiny deltas of mud near the tires, left there as the rain flowed into the lot's sunken storm drain. A layer of dirt and fine grit covered the windows. Dirty rain, over the largest forest in the Northeast. People talked about whole lakes being ruined, far to the north, but you hear a lot of things in the woods. The toughest trick in the mountains and valleys was telling where the shot came from, what was the echo and what was the original report, what was reaching your ears and eyes. The shape of the land gave birth to lies of sound and the same was true with people. The shape of their lives led them to lie. Sometimes they had no choice. That's what I told myself about being Paul Wagner for sixty-five days.

The truck started on the third try. It stuttered. The brakes were stiff, they groaned and creaked a little. I jammed it in gear and left. The foot-long ceramic spike that had caused some of the damage to my right arm and head after my saw hit it rolled around on the pa.s.senger's-side floor. I was on a job and spotted a chance to make some extra money with a stand of straight maple, fifty yards off a landing site. Seven thousand dollars covered in bark and leaves. It was coming down. I ran the metal detector over the trees and nothing showed on the meter, so after the crew left, I took a saw to the lead tree in the group. Two things happened at once. The chain snapped and the saw kicked out of the cut with so much force, it broke my arm and slammed into my head, digging deep into my helmet as the chain shot one last revolution through the orange plastic housing, like a deadly silver ribbon, flashing and slicing its way to my bones. My Kevlar pants finally stopped it, but I was on the ground, bleeding.

Someone had been protecting those trees. There are only two reasons to spike trees. If you're an environmental whacko, who doesn't realize that loggers need to eat, too. Or to protect something you own that's valuable. I doubt they were protecting the trees against me specifically, just people like me. Because in the world of the woods, there are a lot of people like me, who steal good timber and once it's on the ground, it's long past late.

The landowner and his son pulled up in a king cab rig and the old man must have puzzled out what happened right away. He grabbed a ten-pound rubber mallet out of the lock-box on the truck and hit me in the head and spine like I've never been hit before. I went unconscious from the pain and woke up in the hospital. The doctors thought a tree had fallen on me, that's what the two guys who brought me in said. They left my truck in the parking lot. A broken eardrum and severely bruised spine with a possible cracked disk was thanks to that mallet. At least they left me my truck. As I drove out of the parking lot, I reached under my seat. The old forty-five I kept there was gone.

I drove around the reservoirs, south, into my own territory. The western edge of Catskill Park, the Pepacton Reservoir. Mostly Department of Environmental Protection cops, state police. If something serious happened, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the BCI, handled it. They were the detectives of the state police. No local law. Once in a while, a Sheriff s patrol. When I got behind a long yellow school bus, with kids giving me the finger through the back emergency exit window, I realized it must be the first week of September.

My rented cabin smelled. Bad. It was chilly, because the temperature had been dropping at night and I hadn't been there to light the fire. Ladybugs cl.u.s.tered on the ceiling, trying to stay warm. Two months of bills sat in the mailbox, some of them soaking wet. The phone was cut off. Before I went on the job that day, I'd meant to pay the bill. I always meant to pay all my bills, but I never did.

It looked like a good time to start skimming timber. In my honest life, I was a timber appraiser and a good one. I gave people prices based on all the usual formulas. Felling and bucking, skidding cost, making sure all the wood was merchantable, all the current stumpage rates on standing timber. Landowners needed that information for tax purposes, to make a buy or sell decision, for due-diligence valuation. Any number of reasons. I loved the job, being out in the woods, working. Weather never bothered me.

But when I was short money, truth and honesty rested outside of me. My relationship with money was more important, like most people. I would skim. Skimming timber is a nonteachable skill. In the course of evaluating standing timber, I would mark a few trees - prime trees, like tiger maple, or northern white ash - and cut them, the day before the big crew moved in. It meant working alone with a fast saw, no hangers, nothing stuck or tipped or f.u.c.ked. Straight trees on the ground, limbed up and ready to go, and my buddy Dave would come in with his cherry picker and load up, maybe twenty trunks depending on the size. Off he'd go. Usually to Maine, where we knew a specialty furniture maker who always bought from us. Always no questions asked, always cash. You didn't want to skim too much, because people noticed and you couldn't truck it out. Most timber companies know that appraisers make a little extra money on the side and n.o.body kicks too much. Most timber companies hand out cash themselves, to appraisers. The difference between a hundred thousand dollar appraisal on a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars worth of wood is usually worth a thousand dollars to the timber companies. A low appraisal gives them leeway. In case some trees aren't straight enough for high-grade lumber, or if gas prices go up, or if weather begins to eat paydays for the crew. There was more than one way to skim and all of it was dangerous, lying work.

I drove to a gas station, picked up a calling card, and went to the payphone. I started calling all the big outfits I'd ever worked for. There was no work right now and I think a couple of them were skeptical that I was even calling. I put in a call to Molly Johnson at Hayes. I made it a point to know these people and had even taken her out to dinner once when I was in Canada and treated her to a Tim Horton's after. She seemed glad to hear from me.

"John, I'll tell you. You're welcome to this guy. I'll note it on the file that you're the one doing the work. But it has to be done right. He's got a couple friends up here and he's a big deal, know what I mean?"

"Sure," I said. I strained to hear her as trucks pulled into the gas station. "Molly, I appreciate it."

She paused, then went on. "They haven't a.s.signed a supervisor to this project yet, we haven't even officially taken it, but I'm sure it'll go through. We're just waiting on the appraisal. We're actually holding his check," she said. "So do a good job, because there will be people up here who will listen if he yells."

"Thanks for the heads up," I said, and wrote the name and number she gave me on a slip of paper. Theodore Morrison. He had called Hayes to have his land in upstate New York logged off, but Hayes didn't operate that way. They liked to have an independent appraisal, in case the landowner changed his mind midway through the cut. I'd seen it happen. Change of heart, mixed feelings, a broken business deal. Half the trees were gone, and it was impossible to get an accounting from the sawmills. The appraisal was a smart thing. It was supposed to keep everybody honest, but the added layer just allowed for more skim. I called the Manhattan number Molly had given me and a secretary answered.

"This is John Thorn calling, is Mister Morrison available?"

"One moment, please. What's this regarding?"

"His upstate acreage," I said. "Logging it. I'm calling from Hayes-Canada."

"One moment," she repeated.

Morrison got on the line. He sounded like an older man with some kick left in him. "Mister Thorn, you're with Hayes?"

"John's fine," I said, "and no. I'm the independent. Molly Johnson at Hayes told me you were hiring an independent appraisal of standing timber in order to complete a clear-cut job and that I should call you. I work independent, call around every week or so, to see what jobs are available."

"Where are you located?" he asked. In his background, in the concrete woods of Manhattan, a faint siren moved closer, then further, then gone.

"Northwest of Roscoe, outside of the Catskill Park area. Do you know where that is?"

"I can find it on a map, I'm sure. Listen, what kind of credentials do you have and how fast can you get on this thing?"

It started to look good for me. "You can call Hayes, if you like, and get hold of Tom West, he's a supervisor up there and has seen my work and my clients. "

"OK," Morrison said. "I'll do that." He paused. "How fast?"

The necessity of speed always works on the side of the skim, never against it. "What's the parcel and what are you doing?"

"Almost five hundred acres, and I've got two offers on the table right now, one from a condo developer and one from a lawyer in Albany with Indian connections, who wants to build a casino when that new legislation pa.s.ses."

"And you want to sell the timber rights off first?"

"That's it. I haven't been up to the property in twenty years, my wife and I used to go camping up there years ago, but she enjoys warmer weather now, so it's Florida and the beach. Twenty-five years, I bet. We even put in a foundation. Never did anything with it. Taxes are all paid and I used to have a local guy look it over, a guy named Nolan, who I originally bought it from. But he's pa.s.sed on."

I considered. "I can go get the survey map today, if you had it done local."

"The map is at Menden's, do you know them? Are you going to bill me or do I need to have a check sent to you?"

I was in the driver's seat now. "Wire transfer me two thousand dollars, I'll give the routing numbers to your secretary. I don't take checks anymore, they take too long to clear." I waited and controlled the pace. "I know where Menden's is, fine. I'll get the map."

He knew he was a pa.s.senger. "Fine. Just get in there and get it done. I'll put you back on with Karen."

"Nice to do business with you, Mister Morrison."

"It is nice to do business with me," he made himself laugh. The secretary was on the line and I gave her the bank instructions and numbers. I drove to Menden's office, twenty miles to get the maps, and then pulled into my bank. I told the head teller I was waiting for a transfer and I sat there. She came out from behind her desk an hour and a half later to tell me I was two thousand dollars richer. In the skim, checks are no good. You can't put a stop payment on a wire transfer. And you can't get it back, either. I withdrew all but two hundred of it and when I got home, sat and figured my bills. Three hundred was left when I got done paying. I was trying to live low. I was lucky. I went to sleep and dreamed of the site. Tried hard to dream myself up some tiger maple, a whole straight stand of them. My arms and legs hurt from the accident and beating and that night my back seized once. The pain pills helped, with a chaser. It wasn't going to be easy cutting trees.

The next day on my way to the site, I stopped and phoned Dave, my cherry picker man. He was home.

"Hey," I said.

"s.h.i.t," he said. "Saint Peter hand you the phone or what?"

"I got hurt and ended up in the hospital." He didn't say anything. "Look," I went on. "I've got a job."

"It will have to be within the next three days," he said. "Where is it?"

I told him.

"I've driven past that for years, used to be posted under the name Nolan. I've been up there hunting."

"That's the spot," I said.

"Park your truck where I can see it from the road," he said. "If I can't see your truck, I'll figure it's off."

"That's good," I said.

"See you then," he said as he hung up.

"See you then," I said to n.o.body.

Part of working in the woods means being able to see things and knowing how those things will impact the operation later. What soil will give way after a rain and heavy tonnage load of logs, bogging down equipment. I pulled my truck up an old dirt path, so I could pull it back down within sight of the road when I was ready for Dave. I took a can of red marking paint and drew myself a landing site on a slight hill and started to look the place over. Within ten minutes of walking, I'd found what I was looking for. Some of the best maple I'd seen in years. At least twenty of them, all straight up to the sky like G.o.d meant them to be. I tied some yellow area tape around them, then some orange, and when I got done walking the site, at least a couple of them were coming down today. I kept walking and making notes in my weatherproof book. It was always strange to me, to be doing an honest appraisal and keeping an eye out for trees to steal. I crossed a small stream and started up a rocky hill that had more timber behind it. This was a great spot and why Morrison wanted to sell was beyond me. It was funny that I hadn't seen any deer yet, but I figured they must be deeper in the woods. I got to the top of the rocks and it looked like there was a trail ahead of me.

The man leaning against one of the trees held a rifle. It was a stainless steel, wood-grip lever action, with a short barrel. He wore a black work jacket.

"I'm up here on a timber appraisal," I said. "For Morrison. He said anybody who knew Nolan was OK with him." I tossed in the only local name I knew.

The man nodded. "Come here," he said.

I didn't move.

"Come here or I'll shoot you and leave you there," he said. I walked toward him and we started down the trail together, with me in front. As we went forward, I heard noise. I'd heard the same noise once before, in a logging camp in Quebec. Dog fights.

There was an old barn, half falling down, and a bunch of guys standing on an old concrete foundation, looking down in. I could hear the dogs ripping into each other, low growls, yelps, then a sound like strips of Velcro being pulled apart. Bodies. .h.i.tting the concrete walls. And the sc.r.a.ping of claws on the concrete slab floor. They had a long handler's stick set up and it looked like they yoked the dogs into a crate and then used pulleys to haul it up to the rim of the foundation. n.o.body went into the pit except the dogs. That was the fight area.

A couple of the guys standing around were state cops, I sort of recognized them. A DEP cop stood right there in his uniform, giving his bet money to a man behind a makeshift desk in the barn. My escort with the rifle took me over to a fat guy sitting on a stool near the barn entrance. There was an old car there, a Plymouth Barracuda, light blue, and as I walked past, a pit bull slammed with everything he had against the window trying to get at me. I jumped back a few steps and the fat guy laughed at me. I looked at the chrome fish emblem on the car and thought about how barracuda are supposed to have rows of sharp teeth and the chrome brought me back to the surgical tools from the hospital. Fear made my mouth taste like hot metal.

"Christ," I said.

"He's in the car," Fatman said. "He ain't gonna hurt you."

"What's his name?" I asked.

"What's his name?" Fatman said. "What are you, five years old? Want to name your doggy? His name is bite the living s.h.i.t out of anything that moves. He's a fighting dog, what the f.u.c.k does he need a name for? He'll be dead in a month." He coughed. "Call him Barracuda."

"I found him walking through the woods," my escort said, pointing the rifle at me.

Fatman shook his head. "What the f.u.c.k do you need a name for?" he asked, p.i.s.sed, looking around. "Do you know anybody here, can you help yourself out of this? This is a serious f.u.c.king hole you're in."

I looked around. A guy with a ball cap on, near the foundation, I swore I had gone fishing with his brother years and years ago. I think the guy had just got out of prison. I pointed at the guy. "I used to go fishing with Russell Work and I think that's his brother Jimmy over there, the big quiet guy with the baseball hat on straight." Men were handing him money, so his dog must have just won the fight. They were starting to load the dog from the Barracuda into a crate, two big guys with the full-length leather gloves and another guy with a neck harness made from a belt wrench. The dog looked to be around a hundred pounds of pure black and white muscle. Once they had him in the crate, they lowered him into the pit.

Fatman yelled, "Hey Jimmy come here."

The guy I thought was Jimmy Work walked over to us.

"Know him?" asked Fatman.

His brother Russell and I had driven through a snowstorm once to visit Jimmy up in Dannemora. I think after he got out, he'd done more time somewhere. He was at least ten years older than me and I hadn't seen Russell in over five years. He looked at me hard. The scars on my face and the way I held myself after the accident and the beating. I must have looked totally different. His mind tried to place me.

"John," he said. "You're John, but I can't get your last name." He turned to Fatman. "He's OK. Friend of my brother's."

I started to breathe again. "How is Russell?" I asked.

Jimmy Work was already walking back to the dog pit. "Pa.s.sed on," he said over his shoulder. My guard walked into the woods as sweat rolled down my ribs under my T-shirt. I sat on a plastic milk crate for a minute to cool down. It happened then.

The DEP cop shoved Jimmy Work over the edge of the concrete pit. I heard Jimmy hit the floor and the dog was on him. I got to the edge of the pit and the dog already had hold of his leg, clamped on, and had bit Jimmy in two spots on the arm. He was bleeding and the floor of the pit was covered in s.h.i.t and blood and it smelled. Somebody shot the dog, and we all hit the deck, the ricochet buzzed out of the pit through the woods, sizzling through the leaves. Two guys jumped into the pit and cut the dog off Jimmy, they had to practically skin the thing to get at the jaw and get that loose. Blood was everywhere. The f.u.c.king DEP cop was next to me.

"Saw man," he said. "He just got hurt in logging accident and you and I are taking him to the hospital."