Almost Midnight (10 page)

Lloyd’s wife, Frankie, was there most days, too. A big, eager-to-please woman, Frankie had married Lloyd in 1947, right after her seventeenth birthday. Over the years she’d gained a reputation, especially where her marriage was concerned, for patience and loyalty. Lloyd hadn’t always been the most compliant or reliable of husbands, but no one could recall Frankie complaining, at least not in public. The farm, which was shaping up as a nice weekend getaway for the entire family, may have been a reward of sorts for her long endurance.

Darrell was happy for the work but he could have done without Lloyd’s snide attitude. His gloating over hiring him on the cheap, never missing a chance to put him in his place, made Darrell bristle inside. One day Travis Clark, a guy Darrell liked and respected, came by. Lloyd brought him over to where Darrell was working on some chicken pens, chortling about how he was paying Darrell four bucks an hour, a buck less than Travis had paid him for a job a few months earlier, saying it just loud enough for Darrell to overhear.

At the end of the second week Lloyd dropped by Darrell’s place uninvited and took a good look around. He liked what he saw: just one entry road, the shed out back, lots of privacy—the place definitely had possibilities.

“You want to make some money?” Lloyd said. “I’m talking big money, like you never even dreamed of.”

Darrell pulled up a chair, having a pretty good idea of what was coming, and Lloyd laid out the deal. He’d set up a crank lab in the shed behind the house and the two of them would work it together. For the first little while Lloyd would take care of the actual cooking, but as soon as Darrell proved his mettle Lloyd would teach him the tricks of the trade and Darrell could go into business for himself. And there was no limit to how much money he could be pulling in.

Darrell didn’t need much convincing. He’d been broke or just barely scraping by for years now and lately he’d been feeling the pressure even more than usual. He was behind in his child support and Joyce, who’d recently moved back to the area and taken charge of their three kids, was threatening to turn up the legal heat. And then there was Mary. He knew that Mary wasn’t accustomed, day after day, to running practically on empty. He wanted to fix her up with the kind of lifestyle she deserved.

Darrell wasn’t kidding himself. He knew it was more than just the money. He felt flattered that the big man had singled him out. He felt privileged—and grateful. Sure he’d had his problems with Lloyd, but that was all water under the bridge now. Everybody knew Lloyd was the golden goose. He could make you rich, and he could also do wonders for your self-esteem. To be chosen by Lloyd—it wasn’t just the opportunity of a lifetime; it was a badge of outlaw distinction.

So Lloyd set up shop in the shed behind Darrell’s house and the two of them went to work. Just a couple of weeks into the deal, however, it was starting to look like a serious mistake. Mary certainly thought so: she’d been opposed from the start to Darrell teaming with Lloyd and nothing she’d seen so far had caused her to change her mind. It was partly the drugs, the last thing she wanted Darrell getting involved with, but a lot of it was Lloyd himself. It wasn’t anything in particular he’d said or done but the guy somehow frightened her, unnerved her. He seemed to ooze lascivious menace. The way he looked at her when he came around, like he was staking his claim—
Later, baby, later, just wait and see
. The guy
was obviously bad news. She told Darrell to break it off before he got in any deeper.

Darrell knew he shouldn’t take Mary’s concerns lightly. He’d heard the stories about Lloyd, his penchant for pretty young women, turning them into crank whores so they’d do his bidding. And now he remembered something else, rumors from long ago about Lloyd actually raping two of his own daughters. Like a lot of other people, he’d discounted the rumors at the time. But now Mary—his very own sweet Mary—was claiming to feel threatened by the guy. Chances were it wasn’t just her imagination.

There was something else bothering Darrell, frustrating him no end. It was two weeks into the deal now, and Lloyd still hadn’t given any indication of delivering on his promise. Teaching him the tricks of the trade? Turning him on to the recipe for crank so he could go freelance and start raking in the money himself? Forget about it. Two weeks in and he was still nothing more than a glorified gopher, helping Lloyd out, running errands for him, standing in as the butt of his putdowns. He’d tried bringing the subject up once or twice but Lloyd had just mumbled him off.

“I don’t know if he’s ever going to come through,” Darrell told Mary. “It’s like he just wants to keep the apple in front of my face.”

There were additional tensions also, mostly of the you’d-have-to-be-there variety. Lloyd owned a beautiful Jack Russell terrier that he knew Darrell really liked. He offered the dog to Darrell as a gift but never quite got around to turning it over. It was always, “Not now, maybe later.” Power tripping, Darrell thought, stringing him along, just another way of showing who was boss. Then one night, a week or so before Christmas, Darrell and Mary were awakened by the sounds of someone creeping around outside. They weren’t able to pin it on him for sure, but they both assumed it had to be Lloyd. Lloyd the pervert—skulking about for cheap thrills.

But they kept at it, Darrell and Lloyd, two strong-headed outlaws not accustomed to budging an inch: Darrell stewing over whether he’d ever get his big break; Lloyd probably not caring one way or another.

Part II

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HE DAY AFTER
Christmas of 1987, Lloyd dropped by Darrell’s house with some meth, a special confection he said he’d cooked up for Darrell as a present. It was strange stuff, pink and gummy, and wickedly acrid. Darrell and Mary had never seen or smelled anything like it. After Lloyd left, Darrell dipped right in. It was too gummy to snort so he peeled off a big piece and stuck it inside his bottom lip next to his teeth. That way he knew it would work fast—get right into his system.

Darrell had already been up two straight nights cranking. He prided himself on having a high level of tolerance for meth, never showing the effects, never losing control. But this new stuff—it hit him in the chest like an iron fist. Before long he was pacing, back and forth, back and forth,
can’t stop, can’t stop now
, his heart thumping,
fast and loud, fast, fast, fast and heavy, feeling like it was going to implode at any second and rip him to bits. Several hours of this, exhausted, feeling like he was dying, Darrell stretched out with his back on the floor and lay there the rest of the night, not moving, his eyes sealed shut, babbling, talking who-knows-what. Mary sat on the couch crying, scared and confused, with no idea what she was supposed to do. She tried prying his eyes open a few times but she couldn’t bring him back. Darrell lay there moaning and jabbering, flickering in and out of reality. He heard Mary crying and he thought she might leave him. He was lying there weak and helpless. Mary didn’t need this action. There was nothing stopping her from throwing her things together and going back home to her folks in Branson. He didn’t want her to leave, he desperately hoped she wouldn’t, but there was nothing stopping her. It might be the only good move she had left.

Sometime the next day Darrell opened his eyes and asked Mary to help him. “Please help me,” he pleaded. “Please do something.” She got him to his feet and took him outside and loaded him into her ’80 Dodge. She considered taking him to the hospital in Branson but decided against it. It was too risky. It might spark an investigation into his dealings with Lloyd. She decided to take him to Lloyd’s house near Shell Knob instead. She hated the thought of taking him down there and having to ask Lloyd for help, but she figured she had no choice. Surely Lloyd, of all people, would know how to deal with someone overdosing on bad crank.

They made it to Lloyd’s just as he was leaving for the cockfights. He took them to a trailer out back and stood there by the door, looking at Darrell, looking at Mary,
really
looking at Mary, checking her out good. He told them to stay put. When he got home later, at two or three in the morning, he’d see how Darrell was doing and then drive with Mary to Darrell’s house to pick up the crank that was waiting for him. “Does she know where it’s hidden?” he asked Darrell, like Mary wasn’t capable of speaking for herself. “Yeah, she knows,” Darrell said.

Mary didn’t like the looks of the situation. She’d never trusted Lloyd, she’d always expected the worst of him, and now she felt
completely spooked with him standing there, so smug, so sure of himself, eyeballing her and Darrell. Darrell liked it even less. He was still sick, weak, and woozy, but he saw Lloyd dialing in on Mary and he knew they wouldn’t be staying. There was no way they were going to stay and wait for Lloyd to finish off whatever he’d started.

Not long after Lloyd left, Mary put Darrell back into the Dodge and they headed for Reeds Spring. They talked about it along the way, driving east on Route 86 and up Route 13 past Lampe and Kimberling City. Now everything was taking shape. The bad meth, the tainted meth—whatever it was—hadn’t been an accident. Lloyd was out to get Darrell. He wanted to hurt him, punish him, maybe even kill him. Both Mary and Darrell were certain of this. And Darrell was certain of something else besides: Lloyd was after Mary. He’d probably been after Mary since he first saw her. He was waiting for his chance—no, not just waiting, he was plotting it out, planning on getting her by herself so he could rape her, get her wired, turn her into his own little crank whore. And he could do it, too. No doubt about it—if they gave him half a chance, Lloyd could pull it off. In Stone County, Lloyd could get away with just about anything. In Stone County, Lloyd Lawrence was boss.

By the time they got back to Reeds Spring, Darrell and Mary had decided to break and run. If they stayed in Stone County, anywhere in the vicinity, they’d be sitting ducks. They loaded the car with clothes, guns, and traveling gear and put Mary’s dogs in the backseat. Darrell went out to the shed and grabbed four pounds of powdered meth that Lloyd had lovingly wrapped in eight clear plastic bags. This was finished product, the stuff that Darrell had helped Lloyd cook the previous week or two. He reckoned it had to be worth at least fifty grand on the street—maybe twice that much. For good measure he grabbed two sixteen-ounce Pepsi and two sixteen-ounce Mountain Dew bottles containing P2P, the brown liquid substance that’s used in the manufacture of meth. Somewhere down the line, maybe, he’d be able to sell this stuff and kiss the life of poverty goodbye. He shoved everything into a backpack and tossed it in the car.

Darrell was buzzing now, still disoriented but no longer feeling
like he’d swallowed a live grenade. It was time to move. He didn’t want to leave by his front road, in case Lloyd and some of his boys were keeping watch, so he had Mary drive the Dodge through the brush out back while he walked ahead clearing a path for it with his machete. Once they hit pavement they made their way over to Keystone Ridge Road, the old fire tower road up by Reeds Spring Junction. They drove down it a short stretch, and then Darrell walked into the woods and hid the backpack with Lloyd’s drugs in the crook of a tree. The stuff was too hot to handle. He’d come back for it later.

It was dark now. They were running but they still didn’t know exactly where to. They only had fifty bucks in cash and the gas gauge was near empty. Needing someplace where they could cool off and get their bearings, maybe catch a little sleep, they made their way up U.S. 160 and over to Ponce de Leon, a crestfallen little town once famous locally for its medicinal springs. They spent the night in Ponce, the Dodge parked out of sight beside an old barn.

The next morning Mary couldn’t believe it. Darrell had taken some of that bad gummy crank with him, and it looked like he’d been into it again. He was flying, sky-high. The damn stuff had almost killed him yet he couldn’t keep his snout out of the trough. Crazy—just too crazy.

The next couple of days were nothing but crazy. Darrell was confused and manic. He had them running around in circles. He wanted to cross over into Arkansas but he picked a dirt road down by the state line south of Hollister that had gotten muddied by the early-winter rains. He had to jack the car up and push it forward a dozen times or more before they finally got back onto a paved road. Giving up on Arkansas, they headed north and west with the idea of hitting Kansas and then working their way across to Colorado. They hit Kansas but then Darrell insisted on turning around and going back to Missouri so he could deal with Lloyd. Why wait for Lloyd to come after them, he argued. This would just be playing into Lloyd’s hands. Get the jump on him now and settle things once and for all.

Mary tried talking him out of it. It would be foolish going after
Lloyd, she insisted. They had to forget about Lloyd right now and flee the area, try to get something positive started with their own life. Somewhere around Springfield she finally got through to him and they headed west again.

But Darrell, still sampling that bad crank, couldn’t get Lloyd out of his head. The more he played it through, the angrier he got. Lloyd had figured him for a patsy, a flunky, someone he could count on to hang around and take his crap and do his dirty work. But Lloyd had figured it wrong. Maybe Joe Dean and Leonard Joe and two dozen other local guys were content doing Lloyd’s bidding, but not him, no way, not Darrell Mease. Darrell Mease wasn’t anyone’s patsy. He wouldn’t be played for a fool, he wouldn’t be intimidated—not by Lloyd, not by anyone. Lloyd had started this deal and no doubt thought he was going to finish it, too. Well, that remained to be seen. Darrell Mease would have something to say about that.

So back they went into Ozark country, so Darrell could take care of business with Lloyd. Mary, beside herself with frustration now, succeeded in talking him out of it yet again, and they swung west through Missouri one last time and stopped at a truck stop outside of Joplin where Darrell could grab a shower and maybe straighten himself out. By this time he knew he’d better straighten out. Mary hadn’t given him an ultimatum, that wasn’t her style, but the way she stood and looked at him in that truck stop left no room for doubt. She’d put up with enough nonsense.