Lake Charles (6 page)

“True but you’ve gone straight.” He passed me a Marlboro, an inferior substitute. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a theory. Actually it’s based on the rumors I heard from my old dealer.”

“What’s your theory?”

“I believe local pot growers use Lake Charles.”

A bit stunned, I processed it. “Pot? That’s a little out there.”

“Is it?” He paused. “If I made deals, I’d grow my herbs here. Check out the unbeatable assets. There’s access to the state road. Who makes this scene anymore? No narcs, that’s for sure. The jungle we just hacked our way through camouflages the plants in the meadows. The lake irrigates the plants because they hoover up the water. All in all, Lake Charles makes for an A-1 set up.”

“Why didn’t we run across any plots?”

“Because we just got started at looking.”

A fear unnerved me. “Did these pot growers capture her?”

“My thought, too,” he said. “But they farm the plots in the dryer areas, and I doubt if she’d leave the shore at night.”

“Our bass boats will better our luck tomorrow.”

“You know it. Like us, she’s just hunkered down until first light.”

We lounged back on the blankets, the campfire toasting our toes. Under the extreme circumstances, I felt released from my promise to her. “She favors you two getting back together.”

“I figured as much, but let’s not get into it.”

“Cool by me.”

The blankets stored in my tool chest had a brake fluid odor. I rolled over to roast my other body half. The ground played our firm mattress, and Mama Jo’s quack osteopath would approve of it. The night insects’ jazz serenaded us. I hopped up and peeled back my blanket, scraped away the peanut flashbulbs and bottle caps, and then flopped down with a satisfied grunt.

“More comfy now?”

“Since I quit smoking pot, yeah, I am.”

“Bravo for you, dude. I know that a few users see the blue devils until the detox finally takes hold.”

“Not me,” I said, reminded of my Ashleigh dreams. “You remember my Uncle Ozzie, right?”

“Vaguely. He was sort of tetched in the head, wasn’t he?”

“Sort of. Mama Jo says he heard and saw things nobody else did. He admitted as much the one time when I asked him.”

“Was he a soothsayer who saw into the future?”

“We only talked for a few minutes.”

“But you aren’t like him, not by a long stretch. Otherwise Moccasin Bend had better hustle out and truss you in a straitjacket.”

“Even he never turned that daffy.”

“Shit, I’m just messing with you. Pops knew your Uncle Ozzie. They worked in timber and knocked back a few drinks together.”

“Yeah, so Uncle Ozzie also told me.”

“If you get bounced into the rubber room, we’re still cool.”

“I appreciate it.”

He sprang up and went over to my cab truck. I heard him in his tackle box, rattling lures, rummaging through shit, and just generally aggravating me.

“Where are they?”

“Yo, keep it down.” I re-crossed my ankles. This near, the fire blasted my hide, so I backed up a couple feet and stretched out again on the blanket.

He gave a coyote’s yip and clomped back to me. His tossed object glanced off my ribs.

“Ouch.” I rubbed the sore spot. “What’s this?”

“Your own .44 Bulldog. Being a big paranoid psycho, I strap a pair.”

Palming the cold steel handgun set off an eerie association in me. David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz had favored a five-shot .44 Bulldog to carry out his sick thrill kills. We pressmen pored over the newspapers, and the Son of Sam was a big story. Well, screw Berkowitz and screw his demon-talking dog Sam. Clutching the .44, I felt safer. After sitting up, I thumb-cocked the knurly hammer and fingered the slick trigger.

“Don’t leave home without one,” I said.

“Believe it.” Cobb hulked into the circle of firelight.

A grim insight struck me. “Cobb, is this fire smart? Your inquisitive pot farmers might spot it and come snooping.”

“That’s the idea because now we’re ready for them.”

After notching his balls, he rested in a crouch a few steps from the fire. The flames entranced his gaze. We had Lake Charles at our rear and faced into any oncoming menace. Despite the tension, I felt bored when he began talking shop.

“Big Tiny crowed the pressmen’s union is back.”

“He doesn’t know shit from shinola. The union is done with us in their fold.”

“That strike hit ages ago. Time has moved on, and the union wants us. I’d pay to get a union card. It means higher salary, medical insurance, and more vacation. What’s there not to like?”

“I agree,” I said. “But the union won’t risk another go with us.”

“We’re damaged goods, eh?” He brought over a few broken planks, fed the fire, and flumped down next to me. “Not for nothing, but why is Mama Jo so damn hard on me?”

My shrug came fast. “She’s hard on me, too.”

“No, this feels personal like I did something bad to her.”

“I can’t speak for her. She’s complicated.”

“Why didn’t she ever remarry?”

“Maybe for the same reason your old man never did.”

“Once is enough, right. Does your old man ever call you?”

“He mails me postcards.”

“That’s it? Postcards? What does he scribble on them?”

“Just Mama Jo’s address,” I replied and added, “He’s a man of few words.”

“It’s more like a man of no words.” Cobb laughed at his glibness. Self-conscious at how I’d grown up fatherless and he hadn’t, I grunted. He gave me a disarming grin. “Pops’ history is filled with intrigue.”

“Wasn’t he a leatherneck kicking ass in Korea?”

“Part of the Frozen Chosin, sure he was, but then later he also spied for Uncle Sam.” Cobb deflected my next question by posing his first. “Why did you get Herzog for your lawyer?”

“He’s the cheapest in the book. Before you say anything, I’ve wrestled with my own doubts about him, too.” My fleeting thought wondered how he kept his rates down. Incompetence? Laziness? Stupidity?

“He showed he can hold his own in court.”

“He did get me bail,” I said, with a memory of his projected scouting trip to Lake Charles.

Before I could touch on it, Cobb asked, “Hey, what happened in Yellow Snake? I never did hear it all.”

“I’m not up for giving a blow-by-blow account.”

More tossed on planks sheeted up the red-orange embers into the dark sky. He stretched out on the blanket. “The gist will do. No hurry either since we’re pulling an all-nighter here.”

“Always. ‘What’s up with this reefer?’ I asked this goateed dude sucking on an ice hookah. They called him Goat. ‘One toke and you’ll talk to the devils.’ He bleated through his adenoids. I didn’t like him, but I did a hit. ‘Go slower on that,’ he advised me. ‘Or it’ll blow off your balls.’”

“Not to rush you, but can you skip over to the motel room?”

Nodding, I saw the stark images inside it replay. Ashleigh’s dead eyes didn’t glitter. A taut smile barbed her mouth corners. Lying there shocked in the bed, I saw her purple gown she left draped over the mini-fridge. The Devil’s Own guitar riffs still reverberated through my skull, and I quaked to howl out my lungs like some rabid, wild beast.

“Well, Brendan …”

“Our motel room felt cramped. Musty. I remember shambling out into the humid night to use the coin phone. I dropped my first dime, lost it in the gravel. Mrs. Cornwell drowsing in her office didn’t hear me curse. My call patched through, I sucked in a gulp of air, and I told the sheriff’s dispatcher that the girl was stone dead. It was then I realized I was in deep shit.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I thought you said you woke up lying next to a naked corpse.”

“Exactly. She’d been dead for hours, and I’d snoozed right through it. Creepy as all get out.”

“Hey, I’d have fucked the corpse. Life is about trying new experiences.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Maybe not. Then what happened?”

“Well, dawn was just a shout away. When I pulled up the sheet over her face, the nickel bag slid out and landed on the floor. I knew I had to get rid of her dope. The bath drain sprang to mind. So I went in there, cleared the hairball from the drain, and stuffed in the dope. The running shower was supposed to destroy the evidence.”

He spat again into the fire. “Dumb fuck move.”

“And how. Busted on a reefer possession was the least of my worries. I was in a hairy jam. She was dead, but I knew I was no killer. The car doors thudded shut, and I flinched in my skin. No sirens had shrieked up, but I knew it was almost finished. My heartbeat pounded like the fist on my door.

“I jerked up from our bed, hurried over to the door, and squinted through the peephole. The two sheriff’s deputies had drawn their 9 mils. ‘Open up!’ one yelled in at me. While grabbing the doorknob, I heard the damn shower gurgling, and I glanced back. The drain clogged with the reefer had backed up, and the water spilled out from the bathroom door. Shit, I’d—”