Red Dog (20 page)

“And Carney . . .”

“What?”

“The house belongs to A. Evan Cleaves.”

“Sonofa—”

I hung up on him.

“Think that was smart, slick?” Jeep asked.

“Don't know. Probably not, but it was the only play we had.”

Jeep didn't look convinced.

“What now?” he said.

“Carney can't find the two of you here. He does, you and I will go to jail, and shithead here will be whisked far, far away.”

“True enough. How we going to do this?” Jeep asked, ignoring Sheldon's snarl. The old man writhed on the ground like a dying wasp. The impulse to crush him with my boot was almost overwhelming.

“I'll have to get the truck.”

“Think they'll let you?”

“Don't know,” I said. My hands were shaking, but my voice was calm. “I am willing to entertain counterproposals.”

There weren't any counterproposals. I crawled to the window and peered out, but I didn't see anything but nothing. It's possible the sniper was buried, ambush style, beneath a covering of leaves and branches. It was possible he'd gotten tired and gone home. It was also possible I was in line for the British crown.

“Wish me luck.” I crawled to the door.

“What's luck?” Jeep.

“Die on fire, motherfucker.” Sheldon.

What a pair.

The bodies of the Dragons were where they'd fallen. The truck had taken a couple of slugs. The passenger-side window was gone, and the rear bumper had been hit, but it still looked drivable. Anyway, I don't guess I had much choice.

Morning was coming on fast now, and in the frail light the shapes of objects seemed sharp. The birds were singing in the loud, clear tone that only first light seems to inspire, and the taste of humidity was heavy in the air. The truck, parked alongside the gravel road in front of the trailer, might have been a million miles away. Getting to it was like swimming through concrete.

But there weren't any shots, no subsonic rounds to punch a hole in my belly and head. I opened the door of the truck and climbed in and turned over the engine. Just like I was going to market. I drove as close to the front door of A. Evan's trailer as I could.

“You okay?” Jeep asked from the doorway.

“I feel ten years older,” I said. “But I'm alive. Think you can manage this?”

Jeep nodded at Sheldon, who lay on the floor, breathing hard and clutching his ribs. Guess Jeep had punished the old guy for the whole die-on-fire remark.

“Have to tie him up,” he said. “But yeah.”

I had an idea.

“Might not be necessary,” I said.

Sheldon screamed like a kid, but after another moment I managed to stick him with a couple of the dog tranquilizers I'd picked up from Lew and Eve Mandamus. Before you could say
Goodnight Moon
, the old man had drifted into uneasy dreams.

“Where to?” Jeep asked, once Sheldon had been deposited not-so-ceremoniously into the bed of the truck.

“My place. And don't spare the horses.”

“Good luck, slick.”

“Yeah, good . . .”

A burst of shots erupted from overhead. Maybe the shooter had dozed off, or maybe he'd gone to take a piss. Whichever, he was back now. The Dodge's rear window exploded. Jeep slammed the door and hauled ass, scattering dust and river rock on his way to the road as bullets peppered my ride with small pits, blew the passenger side mirror off its post, and disappeared the little silver Ram hood ornament. I doubted my insurance would cover it.

I decided I'd had enough fresh air for the day. I went back inside. I went back in horizontal. I landed hard on the floor and kicked the door closed again. Shots came through the windows and walls. A clock turned back into random numbers. A bullet knocked the derby hat off the skinny half of a Laurel and Hardy lamp set. Now they'd gone too far.

I wanted to get away from the gun. I went into the back of the house and into Sheldon's bedroom. There was a glass
pipe on a bedside table and a harness and ball gag in a pile on the floor. I was still looking at it when I heard a whimper down the hall.

I went toward it. Bathroom with a pocket door. I slid back the panel and there she was, in a ball on the floor. That sixty-five-dollar red dog.

“Thank God you're okay,” I said.

She sniffed my hand and kissed my cheek. I kissed the top of her bony skull. I checked the shaved spot under her collar. The XXXs were gone and new stitches were in their place. Something had been taken out of her.

“We get to meet some FBI men now,” I said. “I'm sorry. I keep introducing you to turds.”

Twenty more minutes passed. A half hour. I started to think Special Agent Carney was having a joke on me. Maybe the boys and girls at Command Central were all sharing a laugh at the expense of the luckless redneck, under fire in a shithole mobile home somewhere in the hills of southern Illinois. I guess it was pretty funny, when you thought about it.

Or maybe not. About that time, the first churning of the air reached my ears from far away, and in another moment the unmistakable sound of a rumbling engine filled the air around A. Evan's trailer. The ratty curtains flapped in their windowpanes as though their interest had been piqued. I was just getting up the guts to take a peek when two big men in black suits and sunglasses came storming through what remained of the front door, scooped me up, and dropped me and Shelby Ann into the backseat of a waiting Lincoln SUV. Right next to Agent Carney.

“Drive,” he said. He looked at me. At the dog.

“That your partner?” he said.

“You watch too much TV, special agent,” I said.

“And you don't watch enough.”

The Lincoln roared away from the trailer.

C
OMMAND
C
ENTRAL TURNED OUT TO BE THE BIG
D
AYS
I
NN
in Marion. Two rooms, too, so you know it was an important operation. Plus they had that free continental breakfast. Another guy in a dark suit sipped coffee from green Styrofoam and watched the
Today
show while boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts petrified on a table.

“This the asshole thought we had a helicopter?” Donut Guy asked, mouth full.

Carney ignored him. He stripped off his jacket. There were tea-saucer-sized sweat stains beneath his arms.

“Nervous?” I said.

“Sit down,” he said. He'd been sullen during the ride over, too. Damp underarms will do that to you.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

“At the table,” Carney said, not amused.

I sat at the table. Shelby Ann curled up at my feet. Carney and one of the men from the Lincoln sat opposite. A tape recorder small enough to fit up a drug dealer's rectum appeared. We were just about to get started when the door opened again and another man came in. He was an import
ant man, you could tell. He wore his importance like a satin cape. He was sixty or in that neighborhood, dressed in a brown suit and matching fedora. Anyone else would have melted or exploded in that getup, but he was too important for the heat. His eyes were the gray of frozen cathedral stones, and his chin roughly the size and shape of a wall safe. I tried to imagine what you'd have to hit him with to put him down. Aircraft carrier, maybe.

When he saw me, he stopped in mid-stride. “Special Agent Carney, tell me, is this the slimy stack of backwoods lump meat that has been fucking up my otherwise righteous investigation?”

Carney cleared his throat. “Uh, yes, Agent Carter.”

Agent Carter. At long last.

“And has he been . . . Is that a dog?”

“Yes, Agent Carter.”

Carter nodded. It was a dog.

“Has this person been Mirandized?” he said.

“I wasn't clear that we were . . . that we were arresting him, sir.”

Carter swept off the fedora to reveal a head full of silver hair, pomaded and furiously combed. “We weren't clear?” he repeated, tasting the words. He made a sour face.

“No, sir.”

He turned on me.

“And what do you think, son? You clear?”

“On one or two things, Agent Carter.”

Carter nodded.

“One or two things,” he repeated. Already, I didn't like
him repeating things. “I've been doing some checking on you, son. And I must say more worthless, human beings do not often come. As near as I can tell, you're little more than a part-time bedroom snooper who has been present at more than one murder and whose known associates include all manner of shady characters, as well as a borderline psychopath named Owen Mabry, also called Jeep, himself present at several mysterious deaths.”

“I also have an ACLU card,” I said. Donuts chuckled quietly.

Carter nodded. Add ACLU membership to the list.

“Tell me, boy, why are you so heavily invested in shitting on my case?”

“I wasn't aware that . . .”

“Bullshit!”

Everyone in the room nearly jumped out of his seat. Donuts slopped coffee onto his suit pants, then nearly overturned his chair getting to the bathroom sink. Carter ignored him. “Where is A. Evan Cleaves?”

“No idea.”

“The Harvels are missing, too. Arlis and Bundy. I don't suppose you know anything about that, either?”

“I do not.”

“How are you going to make a living when I have your license revoked?”

“I'll sharpen saws.”

“Play ball, Slim, or I'll put you away so long . . .”

I didn't say anything. It wasn't a moment for talking or joking. A full five minutes passed. At last, Carter sighed.

“They gave you a badge, I hear.”

I showed it to him.

He said, “You realize . . .”

“Yeah, worthless, I know. Everybody keeps telling me. Let me ask you something.”

“You're kidding?”

I ignored him.

“Does it make you happy? Running around threatening people's livelihoods like that? Big, tough guy like you ought to know better. I hope you're ashamed.”

Carter didn't look ashamed. He stared at me. I stared at him. Carney stared at the ceiling. Donuts came back and sat in front of the TV. It was the part of the show where the news stops and the celebrity interviews take over. Donuts stared at that.

“All right. Fuck it, then.” Carter sounded resolved. “What were you doing in Pyramid?”

“Looking for A. Evan Cleaves,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because he tried to murder me and my daughter. And because he thinks I killed Dennis Reach.”

“But you didn't?”

“Nope.”

“Know who did?”

“Not exactly.”

Carter nodded.

“You're still good for it, then,” he said. Someone had to hang. Might as well be the unlucky bastard in nearest proximity to the crime, as Lindley had said. Less paperwork that
way. “And when I'm through with you, your ticket won't be worth wiping your ass with.”

Enough tough-guy talk to fill a hundred crappy novels.

“Carol Ray Reach,” I said after a moment.

“Come again?” said Carney.

“She killed Dennis Reach. Least I think she did.”

“And how did you come to this conclusion?”

But that answer would have taken the rest of the day, so I said, “Maybe Carol Ray was trying to bust in on Reach's dogfighting business.”

Even Donuts looked at me. Carney whistled again, but cut it short when Carter gave him another of those handsome glances of his.

“Know about that, do you?” he asked, amused.

“I suspect it. Carol Ray was married to Reach, but another of her exes is a former Jackson County deputy named J.T. Black. Reach and Black have been tied up in various criminal enterprises together. I think dogfighting was one of them. Top of that, Black's old man owns a string of underground coal mines.”

“Holy shit,” Carney mouthed. And goddamn, even Carter looked surprised. “They're underground. They're in the mines.”

“Where?” Carter demanded.

So I gave it up, the time and location of the fight, the people I'd seen there. I held back only one thing for myself: the license plate number I'd memorized the night of the dogfight. Specifically, Pimples's license plate number.

“When's the next one?” Carney asked, getting back to the fight itself.

“No idea,” I said, but they were too excited to care. Carney snatched a phone and started dialing.

“And A. Evan Cleaves?” Carter asked.

“No idea about that, either,” I said.

“What happened to your face?”

“Is this professional, or are we just making polite chat now?”

Carter sank back in his seat. He actually looked like a human being and not the law enforcement nightmare he'd been imitating a few moments before.

“Agent Carney tells me all this started because you were looking for a dog. Anything to that?”

“For sixty-five bucks.”

“Is that the dog?”

“This? No this is a different dog. This is my dog. Not the same dog at all.”

“Go home, Slim. Stay out of the way. You've helped us here today, but playtime is over now. Time to let the pros handle it.”

“You've hired some pros?”

“You never quit, do you?”

“One question,” I said, getting up.

“You can't seriously think . . .”

“Why the Cleaveses?”

“What?”

“The Cleaveses. From what I've seen, there are dozens
of locals actively involved in this mess. Former cops among them. What's your special interest in A. Evan and his daddy?”

Carter didn't have an answer for me. He took a phone from his jacket and dialed a number. In a moment, he was engrossed in a conversation, and I might as well have been in another time zone.

But a non-answer is still revealing. The Cleaveses must have done something none of the other doggers had done, something to attract all that attention. It all got me thinking about what Carol Ray had said before, about how her husband would take a check from anyone, and about the way that ugly sneer crossed her face. But Carol Ray had taken some pretty ugly money her own self. And I got the distinct feeling she wasn't talking about the Dragons anymore. By the time I'd made it downstairs to the parking lot and realized I didn't have a ride home, I'd pretty much worked it out.

Dennis Reach: FBI snitch.

I
COULDN
'
T CALL HOME AND ASK FOR A RIDE, SO PHONED MY
lawyer in Marion, and in a stroke of luck, either good or extraordinarily bad, he was both available and willing to play chauffeur. An hour later I'd put Command Central and the special agents behind me. For good, I hoped. My lawyer wasn't in a chatting mood. Instead, he sipped a can of Coors and listened to some pop-psychology call-in program on the radio. He appeared to have slept in his suit—more than one night, maybe—and even with those big sunglasses on
his face I could see the black and purple bruises beneath his eyes. We'd made it all the way to Murphysboro before he started talking.

“My wife hits me, you know?”

“Pardon?”

“My wife.” He thumbed his nose with a hand he kept on the steering wheel. “You know?”

“I'm sorry, son, but I didn't even know you were married.”

“She gets drunk.”

“Yeah?”

“By which I mean, she gets drunk, then gets drunk on top of that. Then things get wild.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“You hit back?” I asked.

He took his eyes off the road long enough to look offended. “She's a woman.”

“Just asking,” I said. “I don't suppose you've got another of those beers?”

He pointed to the glove box, but there was only one left, and it was warm as the inside of a mitten. I put it back and closed the door.

“Have you called the cops?” I asked after another moment.

The boy shook his head.

“Still love her,” he muttered. “Pretty good joke, huh?”

We were quiet the rest of the way home. I guess everybody has a problem.

E
VERYBODY, THAT IS, EXCEPT
J
EEP
M
ABRY.
W
HEN MY SAD-SACK
lawyer dropped me off, Jeep was sitting on my front porch, shoes off, cooler full of beer, with one of my cats sleeping in his lap.

“My name come up?” he asked as an opener.

“Now that you mention it.”

“Let me guess. Murderer?”

“Close.” I sat beside him and took a beer from the mini-cooler. “Borderline psychopath, I think it was. And how do you plead?”

“Define borderline.”

Hell's bells.

“Where's Sheldon?” I asked, rather than pursue the topic further.

“Bound and gagged. In the bathtub. I hit him with a few more of those tranqs, too.”

“You put him in the bathtub?”

“You rather he be in your bed?”

I didn't want him in my bed.

“Bathtub's not full, is it?”

“Now, that is an idea.”

Sheldon just about ate his gag when he saw me standing in the doorway. Guess he figured the chickens were coming home to roost at long last. Guess he was right.

“Now listen up, shithead,” I said. I knelt by the tub, slipped his gag down over his chin, and turned the cold water on full blast. “Since I met you and that rat's-ass kid of yours, I've been knocked every which way but loose. And now it's your turn.”

“Princess phones and red-hot pussy!”

I turned off the tap. I looked at Jeep.

“Did he just say what I think he said?”

“Sounded like it.”

“Exactly how many of those tranqs did you give this motherfucker, man?”

Jeep reflected.

“Don't know, exactly. Enough to make him stop kicking me in the head. Think I overdid it?”

Sheldon belched. The smell was like someone had blown up a pharmacy.

“Maybe a little. I have no idea what that shit will do to a person. Asshole's probably running from wild dogs.”

Jeep nodded.

“Hope he is. What now?”

“First, breakfast,” I said, trying to be practical. Really, I was wondering how many years in the pokey were lying, semiconscious, in my bathtub. Time I got out, Anci would probably be drawing Social Security. “Then Carol Ray.”

“Think she'll be easier on a full belly?”

I didn't give him an answer. I didn't have one anyway.