Hellbox (Nameless Detective) (2 page)

“You shut up, Verriker. You shut up—”

But Verriker didn’t shut up. He was on his feet, moving around, grinning all over his face, playing it up to the crowd. Said, “Matter of fact, if we rounded up all the assholes in the state and put ’em in that valley I was talking about, I bet somebody’d nominate you for mayor. And I bet you’d win, hands down. Pete Balfour, the first mayor of Asshole Valley.”

Brought the house down again. It made Balfour want to puke, the way they all hooted and high-fived and hooted some more. Looking at him and laughing
at
him the whole time. Made him so hot, he was afraid he’d pop a blood vessel if he didn’t get out of there quick.

Must’ve looked to Verriker and the rest like he was running away, tail between his legs like a kicked dog. He could hear them laughing even after he was out the door. All the way home, he heard the laughter and Verriker calling him an asshole, hanging that mayor tag on him.

He didn’t sleep much that night. Still felt lousy in the morning. But he had work to do, a repair job on the restrooms and concession booths at the fairgrounds—a good deal because he’d factored a gimmick into his bid to the county where he’d buy some cheap-grade lumber that’d pass for high-grade, make himself another couple of grand. So he went out on the job, and the half-wit kid he’d hired to help out on this one, and Tarboe, the faggot fairgrounds director, were both standing there grinning. The faggot said, “Good morning, Your Honor,” and the kid laughed fit to be tied. That was how fast word got around in a small town like Six Pines. He snapped at them to knock that crap off, it wasn’t funny, and they saw he meant business and left him alone. So did Eladio Perez, his regular helper. The old Mex did his work and kept his mouth shut, about the only one Balfour knew who did. But all day long, he caught the kid hiding a smirk and knew just what he was thinking. He could almost hear it going round and round inside the half-wit’s head like it was going round and round inside his own.

Pete Balfour, mayor of Asshole Valley.

He knew he was in for a bad time for a while, but he didn’t figure on how bad. It was like a wildfire, the way the bad joke spread around town, the valley, probably the whole damn county. Everybody out there getting their funny bones tickled at his expense. The fat slob at the store where he did his grocery shopping. Harry Logan at Harry’s House of Guns, a guy who’d always been decent to him. Luke Penny at the Shell station. Others who’d been in the Buckhorn that night. First thing Tony Lucchesi said to him was, “Well, if it isn’t Hizzoner.” And Frank Ramsey, all smirk and smart-ass with “You got your political platform worked out yet, Pete?” And one more that was even harder to take. Charlotte, his cow of an ex-wife, so fat now her ass looked like the back end of a bus, standing in front of City Hall where she worked and making
ha-ha
noises with all her chins jiggling.

He did all he could to avoid Verriker, but that didn’t stop the bugger from telling and retelling the story to anybody who’d listen. Keeping it alive. Keeping the knife stuck in him right up to the hilt, so the hoo-ha didn’t go away after a few days the way he expected it would. No, it got worse. Seemed like everywhere he went, everybody he come in contact with—grins, giggles, stares, pointing fingers. Kids, even. Some snotnose couldn’t of been more than ten, giving him a look that said plain as day, “Hey, there’s the dude got elected mayor of the assholes.”

Goddamn people! Didn’t they know how much a name like that could
hurt
? Calling somebody an asshole to his face was bad enough, but saying he was the biggest asshole around, leader of the pack, making a big joke out of him and never letting him have any peace, that was the worst you could do to anybody. It sliced deep into a man, carved out chunks of his insides. Made him half crazy.

It got so bad he couldn’t stand to go out of the house. Just holed up except when he was working, and some days, he could hardly make himself drive over to the job site. The half-wit kid kept looking at him smarmy all the time, hiding a grin and laughing with his eyes. He’d of fired the dumb-ass quick if he hadn’t needed him to get the work done. Tarboe was just as bad. Started ragging on him about not getting the grandstand and concession repairs finished in time for the big Independence Day celebration, yap, yap, yap. Dressing him down with half his mouth, laughing at him out the other half.

Balfour had plenty of time to think, holed up in his house, nothing to do but drink too much whiskey and stare at the TV. He didn’t even have any interest in looking at the porn sites on his computer anymore. More he thought, the madder he got. He shouldn’t have to take this kind of crap. What’d he do to deserve it? Nothing. Bad enough he had one cross to bear, his butt-ugly looks, but this new one weighed twice as heavy, and hurt a lot more because it wasn’t true, he wasn’t what they were all saying he was. No way. He was just a guy trying to get along the best he could, same as everybody else. None of this was his fault.

He
couldn’t
keep on taking the abuse. He had to do something about it, pay Verriker back for making him a laughingstock.

Yeah—payback.

Question was, what kind?

1

Kerry was sitting at the table on the long front porch, drinking coffee and taking in the view, when I came out in my robe and slippers. It was only a little after nine Sunday morning, another cloudless, end-of-June day; the temperature was already in the seventies, though it would probably get up near ninety by midafternoon. Usually I don’t deal well with heat, but somehow hot days in the mountains don’t seem quite as bothersome.

“’Morning,” she said as I sat down. “I wondered how long you were going to stay in bed. Sleep well?”

“Yup. Must be the mountain air.” I snuffled up a deep breath of it, yawned, and sniffed in some more. The resinous pine smell was sharp and clean; you could smell the gathering heat, too, a pleasantly dusty summer odor. I grinned at her and added, “Among other things.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How long have you been up?”

“Oh, an hour or so. Nice out here.”

“Nice,” I agreed. I helped myself to coffee from the pot she’d brewed and brought out on a tray.

“You really do like this place?”

“Yup. So far, so good.”

“Me, too. I wish Emily had been able to come with us. We don’t want to take the plunge without her seeing the place first.”

“
If
we take the plunge. I still think the owners are asking too much.”

“Sam Budlong said they’d take less.”

“But not a lot less. At least, that was the impression I got.”

“If the Murrays want to sell badly enough, they’ll be reasonable. It’s been on the market a long time.”

“So we don’t need to rush.”

“No, but if the rest of this little vacation goes well, and if Emily likes the property as much as we do and we can negotiate an affordable price, there’s no reason to keep looking, is there? Frankly, I’ve grown a little tired of the hunt.”

So had I, patience not being one of my long suits. Off and on over the past three months, we’d spent weekends in different areas within a few hours’ driving distance from San Francisco—Lake County, the north coast along Highway 1, Big Basin and Santa Cruz, Penn Valley—and looked at maybe a score of properties, none of which had come close to our ideal second home. Emily had been with us before, but she was away all of this week: Her school glee club had been invited to take part in a state-sponsored summer music festival in Southern California. Singing was her first love and career goal.

It had been one of Kerry’s ad agency clients who’d suggested we consider Green Valley, in the Sierra foothills northeast of Placerville: quiet, scenic, remote enough for solitude, but still reasonably close to Highway 50, and a relatively easy three-hour drive from the city. So we’d come up, looked around, and liked what we saw enough to contact a real estate agent in the valley town of Six Pines. I’d been skeptical when Sam Budlong said, “I think I have just the place you’re looking for,” but once he showed it to us, my skepticism went away pretty fast.

The house—cabin, really—wasn’t such-a-much. Built thirty-some years back of redwood with fieldstone trim and fireplace—holding up, but in need of repairs here and there. Six smallish rooms, including a bathroom with chattery plumbing. No garage, the only outbuilding a combination storage and woodshed on the south side, but that was a minor drawback. The location was the real selling point. The place sat on a grassy knoll, pine woods on three sides, a couple of gnarled old apple trees at the rear; and in front, a mostly unobstructed view of the valley, sections of the Rubicon River that ran through it, and forested hills and snow-topped mountain peaks along the western horizon. You had a sense of rural isolation, yet it was only three miles to Six Pines. There were other homes scattered along Ridge Hill Road, a narrow secondary artery that wound along the hillside below, but none of them were visible from here. Live in a city all your life as I had, with neighbors piled up all around, some of them separated from you by nothing more than walls and areaways, and hundreds of yards of open space on all sides were pure luxury.

Another plus was that there was plenty to do in the region. Trout fishing in the Rubicon and dozens of mountain streams that threaded the valley and the hills and mountains surrounding it. Hiking. Hunting, if you were into blood sports, which we weren’t. A variety of local activities that included a gala (the real estate agent’s word) Fourth of July celebration. And Placerville, Auburn, the Amador County wine country were all day-trip close.

The only thing that gave me pause, aside from the selling price the owners were asking, was that Green Valley was less than fifty miles from the isolated section of the Gold Country where I’d been held captive, chained to a cabin wall by an ex-convict bent on revenge, for three hellish months several years back. For some time after the ordeal ended, I was unable to venture into the Sierra foothills; just thinking about it would bring on flashbacks and cold sweats. Gradually, the residual fear and loathing had worn off, but I still couldn’t and wouldn’t travel anywhere near the area north of Murphys. Fifty miles, though … a long way from Deer Run, too far for me to let it be a factor in the decision-making process.

Neither Kerry nor I was willing to commit to buying the property without spending some time there to get the feel of the area, make certain it was right for us. It had been up for sale long enough so that the Murrays, who lived in Sacramento, were willing to rent it to us for a few days, with the rental fee to be deducted from the purchase price if we made an acceptable offer. So instead of going back home after a two-night stay, as we’d originally planned, we’d decided to take advantage of the rental deal. The timing for an extended getaway couldn’t have been better: neither of us had any pressing business this week. Brief vacation for us while Emily was away enjoying hers.

I finished my coffee, refilled my cup and Kerry’s. She said, “What do you want to do today? Explore a little or just relax?”

“Both. Relax first, though. Maybe go back to bed for a while.”

“Didn’t you get enough sleep?”

“I wasn’t thinking about sleeping.”

She laughed. “You look like a demented old lecher when you do that.”

“Do what?”

“Waggle your eyebrows that way.”

“‘Lecher,’ maybe, but not so old. And I refute ‘demented.’”

“Wasn’t last night enough for you?”

“Hah,” I said.

“People our age aren’t supposed to have such active sex lives.”

“Hah.”

“What’s got you so revved up this morning anyhow?”

“The mountain air, and the way your hair shines in the sunlight.”

“My God,” she said with mock awe, “where did
that
come from?”

“Part of my new seduction package.” I did some more eyebrow waggling. “So what do you say, sweet thing? Want to go play our song again on that saggy old mattress in there?”

“Sweet thing. Oh, brother.”

“Best offer you’ll get all day. Better take advantage.”

“Are you sure you’ll be up to it again so soon?”

“Double hah,” I said. “I’m Italian, remember?”

“How could I forget?”

I stood, stretched, waggled my eyebrows again, and held out my hand.

“If this is the effect Green Valley is having on you,” Kerry said, “maybe we ought to rethink buying this place.” But she got right up and twined her fingers in mine and let me lead her off to the bedroom.

*   *   *

While Kerry took her turn showering and dressing, I headed out to the deck again. On the way, my cell phone cut loose with its burbling summons, barely audible inside my jacket where I’d hung it on the peg inside the door. I’d almost forgotten I had the thing with me; had definitely forgotten it was still turned on. Cell phones don’t always work in mountainous country, but this was not one of those satellite dead zones. I almost wished it was until I got the cell out and checked the caller’s name on the screen. Tamara. Oh, Lord, I thought, not some sort of emergency. But it wasn’t.

“I didn’t think you’d pick up,” she said. “Just wanted to leave a callback message for you. Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

“You might have if you’d called half an hour ago,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Question on the Western Maritime fraud case you handled. I’m trying to get caught up on our billing.”

“Haven’t you heard? Sunday’s supposed to be a day of rest.”

“Yeah, sure. Like Saturday night’s supposed to be boogie time.”

“Meaning yours wasn’t?”

“Not hardly. Two glasses of wine, a bad rental flick, and in bed by eleven. All by my lonesome.”

Not good, I thought. She was drifting back into the semi-reclusive, workaholic shell that she’d closed herself into after her longtime cellist boyfriend, Horace, moved back east and then dumped her for a second violinist in the Philadelphia Philharmonic. A brief hookup with a man who called himself Lucas Zeller had brought her out of it for a while, until he turned out to be a con man and worse; the none-too-pleasant events that followed had taught her some hard lessons. She still hadn’t quite recovered from the damage to her self-confidence and self-esteem. Still wasn’t ready to put her trust in anybody she didn’t already know and know well, particularly a member of the male sex. Caution and skepticism were healthy attitudes up to a point, but not if she let them make her a social outcast. She had a great deal to offer any man with the sense and sensitivity to treat her right. What she needed to do was put herself in a position to find him, and be willing to let him into her life when she did.